Prabhupada says, ‘It’s like someone is shaving with a straight edge razor, and they’re a little careless, they can easily cut themselves’.

So spiritual life is like a razor’s edge: just that takes little bit of bodily identification. a little bit of mental concoction and we can get off the track, and the harvest won’t get back home in this life , maybe in a future life we will get a chance, nothing is lost.

But we want to bring the harvest back home in this life time; this is the special chance that Lord Caitanya is giving us…that we can bring home the harvest in this lifetime.

Prabhupada promised: “Chant your Sixteen Rounds, follow the Four Principles, engage in service to Guru and Krsna your whole life, you will go back to Godhead…That’s the yajna to bring the harvest home.” 

Every step we take towards the Lord, Srila Prabhupada used to say, He takes ten steps towards us. The Lord is much more eager that we return to Him than we are eager to return!

So therefore He is known as maya moyam, or kripa moya, kripa pracura, karuna pracura. These are repeated in various bhajans, mantras, commentaries.

Now how do we take advantage of that mercy? When someone is very merciful, isn’t is foolish not to take the opportunity of that mercy?

Mercy means, a person wants to help us, we need the help! So who will not take the help? Why should be be proud, “I don’t need any help”…Actually we need it! Without the help we are hopeless case.

And the Lord is willing to extend the help to us. Simply we have to take it!

Especially Sri Sri Nitai Gaur.. they are giving out their mercy without even considering whether we deserve it or not. Simply IF WE WANT IT WE CAN GET IT!

“Due to having an Untrained Mind, a neophyte devotee may not realize that
‘Association of Devotees’ is an essential aspect of Krishna Consciousness
that should NOT be neglected if one wants to become a pure devotee of the
Lord.

Just as a sea-going vessel needs some reference points such as Radio
Transmission, Stars, or the Sun, in order to chart its course across the
ocean, a devotee needs the ‘Association of Devotees of Lord Krishna’ to
cross the ocean of repeated birth and death and to achieve pure love of God.

“In the material world, if we want favors from a political leader, we must carry the favor of those surrounding him.

Achieving the favor of the Lord’s dear ones is also the easiest way to achieve the favor of the Lord, the perfection of life.

There is no one dearer to the Lord than His eternal consort, Srimati Radharani. Radharani is so dear, Her love is so confidential, that greatly learned rishis and munis sometimes hesitate even to mention Her Name. Her Name is so confidential and sacred that they fear they might offend It by using It inappropriately.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada intimates that participating in the glorious sankirtana movement of Caitanya Mahaprabhu is an intimate service to Srimati Radharani, a service She greatly appreciates.”

Srila Prabhupada said, ‘The Secret of Success is to please the previous acharyas.’

So he said that as all the previous acharyas were trying to develop Mayapur, so he was also developing Mayapur and this was his secret message to everyone. He said he was especially grateful to all the devotees who were helping him to develop Mayapur dham.

He said that the secret of success is to please the previous acharyas.

Ofcourse another thing…Mayapur is one of the ways to please them. You know if you distribute the spiritual literature, the Brihat Mrdanga, then we’re pleasing Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, so then we also are pleasing the previous acharyas, and, so we are trying to expand the congregational development around the world. This is very pleasing to Bhaktivinod Thakur, who started the Namahatta…he actually revived the Namahatta program, that was started by Lord Nithyananda Prabhu. So by doing congregational development you also are pleasing the previous acharyas, also pleasing Srila Prabhupada.

For Indira to be acclaimed as a performer of a hundred Aswamedha Yajnas and to become very famous, he had to do a lot. But Yudhistira with only three Aswamedha Yajnas, he was so famous that it was said Yudhistira is famous as Indira. So it’s a very special feature.

You get automatically fame by rendering pure devotion to the Lord…even without asking. Devotee doesn’t hanker for fame. He doesn’t serve the Lord because he wants to get fame. But the Lord wants to see His devotee get glorified!

Srila Prabhupada never promoted himself. He could have called it the Bhaktivedanta movement, instead of the Krishna Conscious movement. Just like you have you know…this Gurudev movement, and this…all the mission they usually name after the Guru, charismatic Guru movement.. then after ‘this baba…’that mama’…’that ma’…whatever (laughter).

But Prabhupada, he made this International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Hare Krishna Movement, Krishna Consciousness Movement. He didn’t make it a personality cult. Still somehow or the other, because of his service, we want to glorify Prabhupada, we want to make him famous, because we appreciate that he did everything, he’s a real pure devotee and therefore he should…his fame should be spread over the three worlds!

There is a system that we are promoting in the Congregational Development Ministry called the “Vamana Approach”. Vamanadev, He took 3 steps, right? One, two, three; and that third step was on Bali’s head. So we also have three steps:

1. One is to make contact with devotees, with new people, with friends and interested people.

2. Then to cultivate them, to invite them into your home, invite them to the temple, and somehow cultivate them that they become interested in Krishna Consciousness.

3. And finally when they’re fully interested and cultivated, then they become committed devotees.

So this is the three step program, Vamanadev, you remember Him!

The Lord is like, if you want to meet the Prime Minister, if you just go to Delhi, doesn’t mean you can meet the Prime Minister. Lot of security…lot of difficulty to meet the Prime Minister. But if you know a friend of the Prime Minister, he can say, ‘Come with me..I’ll bring you’. Then it’s easy.

So the Guru is a confidential servant of the servant of the servant…he can can take to his Guru, will take to his Guru and like this it goes to Krishna.

So those people who are very proud, they say they don’t want to go through a Guru, they find very difficult time.

Prabhupada explains in his Vyasa-Puja address in 1972(74?), that just like in our country when there was British rule, there was a Viceroy, a king’s representative, so naturally when the Viceroy used to go to some meeting, many people used to present valuable jewels just to honor him. But the law was that the Viceroy could not touch a single jewel or contribution; it was going to the royal treasury. The Viceroy should accept all contributions on behalf of the king, all of which go to the king.

Similarly, on this day, Vyasa-Puja day, whatever honor, contribution and feeling is being offered to the spiritual master goes from downward to upward. It is, again, as we have received the knowledge from upward, similarly this respect also goes from downward to the upward. This is the process.

So the spiritual master is the teacher of the student. He has to teach the student how to send back his respect and contribution to God. In other words, whatever worship is being offered the guru accepts on behalf of Vyasadeva, on behalf of the previous acaryas, and offers this worship to them.

Srila Prabhupada explains that when a tiger deals with it’s own cubs, it picks them up with its mouth just like you see the cat lift up the kitten. But that lifting with the mouth is filled with motherly affection moving them from one place to the other, but when the tiger jumps on the prey whether it’s a deer, zebra or whatever, it might be that it bites them with its mouth. But that is totally a different bite. So the law of Karma is like the tiger on the prey, like the cat on the mouse.

But when you take shelter of Krishna then what appears to be Karma is actually Krishna personally taking charge of the devotee. It is like the cat or the tiger taking the cub, the kid, by the mouth, simply for purification, for our remembrance.

So whether we want to be under the care of Krishna or under the care of the illusory energy and the stringent lat of Karma, that’s up to us to decide. When we are under the care of Krishna and we do devotional service, we feel very blissful. We just have to be a little careful. We have to go on learning and trying to practice responsibly, remaining humble. We have to be aware of what mistakes we are making and try to correct them, because we are responsible for them.

This world is designed in such a way that people become unhappy. Just like if you go in a casino, it’s designed that..the Casino wins, you lose. Some temporary…sometimes somebody wins, but overall, only the casino wins (laughter). That’s why they are doing it as a business.

So this world is called as ‘Dukhalaya’, it’s a place of suffering, but everybody is hoping to be happy. But not always it is successful. Usually we are not.

But the secret is, if you are serving the Lord you will be always happy, because He is the owner of the whole material world. When you are serving Him, you become transcendental to the laws of this material world.

We are mainly suffering because we are doing sins. We are harming others, we are harming ourselves, so we get the reactions. But when we are serving the Lord, we become free of sins…so naturally we become happy. So this is the secret.

Some intellectuals, they are against religion because they say that ‘Religion is creating so many problems in the world. Look at, the Jews are fighting the Muslims, the Protestants are fighting the Catholics, the Hindus are fighting against the Muslims. So it’s religion which is the fault.’

But we can see it very clearly from this verse, it is designations which are causing the divisions in this world, it is designations which are causing the prejudice in this world, it is designations which is causing all the problems in the world!

And the way to transcend these designations is only through God consciousness, through self-realization, to realize the science of the Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam.

Aham Brahmasmi, we are not the body, we are of the transcendental realm, ‘jivera svarupa hoi nithya Krishna das’! We are the eternal servitor of Krishna..we are not this body!

When Srila Prabhupada went to the western countries he preached, ‘You are not Americans, you are not Chinese, you are not Russians, you are not Indian…we are not this body. We are eternal servitors of Krishna, we are pure spirit souls.’

This is the way to create the united world. In the Vedas it says, ‘Vasudeva Kutumbakam’! One Universal family under Vasudeva, under Krishna!

‘Kutumbakam’ means family. We are all one brotherhood, we are all one family under Vasudeva. Under Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is the way to have the universal consciousness, the universal brotherhood that people are discussing.

They say the Lord’s mercy is coming down like the sunlight, and the Guru’s mercy is like the lake, and our spiritual life is like the lotus. The lotus is floating on the water, and getting the sunlight…then everything goes very nice.

You need the Lord’s mercy, otherwise the lotus doesn’t open. But we needs the Guru’s mercy, if there’s no water, then the lotus is just in the sunlight without any water, it will dry out.

So we need the mercy of the Lord and we need the mercy of His devotee. It says, by Krishna’s mercy one gets Guru, and by Guru’s mercy one gets Krishna.

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Disciple has to use the intelligence, what I should do, what the Guru wants me to do. Then one can properly serve.

I was thinking today after seeing the temple of Vedanta Deshikar, how he served so nicely the Guru Parampara and Ramanujacharya, he did over a hundred works he wrote and did so much preaching, how he trained so many people. He brought Ranganath back to Srirangam, he did so much for the spiritual master.

So actually this is our duty, we should try to do something, to serve the Guru.

We actually go to the Guru, initially we get some help from the Guru, just like we get help from the parents. But in the end we are supposed to do something for the Guru, try to carry on his service, and expand it. We want to please the Guru and do something for his pleasure.

So I was thinking, not done very much yet for my spiritual master. Actually to do something wonderful, need lots of help, want to see many people awaken to Krishna Consciousness. So for that I need lots of help. Who wants to help me?!! Haribol!! Nandri!

Like this if each of you tell others about Krishna, in that way, Krishna Consciousness can spread very quickly.

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