“Everybody goes to the West seeking happiness. But when His Divine Grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada went to the West, he told everybody that you are not happy, for all these reasons. He wasn’t fooled by the presentations of so called happiness. He was seeing reality – what actually was the real situation.

Just like then first Srila Prabhupada arrived in Boston and went for a two hour walk he was outside the New York Harbour and wrote that poem, a prayer preaching Bhagavata Dharma in America. He asked Krishna, “Why do you bring be to this ugrasthana – this hellish place where everybody thinks that they are happy but are actually suffering and are proud of their suffering. It is causing them bondage in the material world, bondage to birth and death.” So Srila Prabhupada was the shelter that the people needed.

In this world today you need shelter of a bonafide spiritual master, you need shelter of the Guru Parampara. The disciplic succession is the link between Krishna and the conditioned souls.”

“ Nobody can move independently on their own strength. One little thing goes wrong with the body and that is the beginning of your suffering. We are depending on the mercy of Krishna! Better for us to engage in devotional service. Those who are engaged in material activity are cheated by Maya. It always in the end turns out to be sour. Nothing turns out as planned. We think we are infallible, although we are not.

People may say that there is no God but the fact is that they are not able to move properly on their own strength. They should therefore depend on Madan Mohan and surrender to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the beginning of our spiritual life, we must worship Madan Mohan so that He may help us nullify our sense gratification.”

“When we come to Krishna Consciousness, we have to also become responsible for what we do. If we are a little careful, Krishna will certainly protect us and then if we are careful about making mistakes and ask for forgiveness and avoid repeating in the future, then it is very easy to overcome any mistakes and get back home, Back to Godhead, and get purely Krishna Conscious.

But if we become careless, become impersonal or sahajiya, we just start offending Krishna, offending the Vaishnavas, it’s a dangerous thing. When we come before the deity, we should say that I am a soul surrendered unto you, we pray for our protection from offenses, from our ignorance and the power of the illusory energy.

Srila Prabhupada said that when we do Guru Puja everyday, we beg forgiveness from the Guru for all the offenses we make so that we can continue to make progress. We can’t even count how many offenses we make in a day. But we have to try to become more and more aware of them. If we don’t try to avoid them, then we are responsible.”

“ When we take the vow of marriage, especially in front of a fire sacrifice, it is supposed to be that, the husband and wife take a vow to serve Krishna and to serve Guru. Husband sees the wife as the property of Radha and Krishna, given by Radha and Krishna for him to protect, the property of Prajapathi Vishnu to bear his children and whom he should protect and give Krishna Conscious guidance. Not his property but the property of Krishna. But that Krishna has given her to him for a life companion to help him in his Krishna Consciousness.

Similarly the wife sees that ‘Krishna has given me a husband who is supposed to guide me and protect me as the representative of Krishna and I am supposed to serve Krishna through the husband and give a proper Krishna Conscious association. It is my responsibility to be a positive Krishna Conscious influence to my husband and to my children. Ultimately I belong to Krishna and the husband is supposed to represent Krishna. When the husband becomes mad then I have to take shelter of father.

So these vows are taken with the idea that since we want to, we do some sense gratification, but we want to regulate it and we want to become more Krishna Conscious and go back to Godhead. Now that we see how we can enjoy as much sense gratification as we can with in this useful years of our life. But rather how we can control our senses and how we can become more Krishna Conscious.”

“ Nowadays the word ‘Avatara‘ has become very cheap in some parts of India. Although Krishna had said in the Bhagavad Gita, yada yada hi dharmasya – glanir bhavati bharata . . . sambhavami yuge yuge” – He will come in every yuga, we see that in India there are about a few dozens of avataras.

Instead of coming once in a yuga, once in a millennium, once in a century, once in a decade or a year, they are coming in every hour, every minute, every second. NEW AVATARAS!!! Of course these are not real avataras.

Practically speaking, the people in the West might not think about this phenomenon so much, but we have been quite surprised as to how many avatars are running around in India today, with no credentials at all, but still presenting them to be avatara. If they have some deformity of the body, they might not declare themselves to be avatara, but if they have a little mystic power or magical ability, they can be an avatara.

Actually the criteria for accepting an avatara are based on 3 things.
1.    The first is the prediction of the Vedas, for Vedas predict the real incarnation.
2.    The second is the extraordinary quality of the person: they should match up with the prediction in the Vedas.
3.    The third is that they will do things, which are extraordinary which normally no one can do.

The third criteria is something all these avatara try to do, They do something extraordinary and claim themselves to be an avatara.”

“As we are going back to the spiritual planet, we may happen to go by a visual tour. Sometimes the yogis want to see how the universe looks like, so go round and see a few planets on the way back to Godhead. But if there is danger, we get stuck up.

If we think, ‘Oh! These mystic powers are very nice, I like to have those!’ All Right! Next you are found in Siddhaloka. If we think that all these gardens are very nice, then we take birth in the heavenly planets.

If you go through all the different planets, but your actual desire is, ‘There is no Krishna here, where is Krishna??? I don’t see Krishna amongst the yogis, I don’t see Krishna here in the heavenly planets, I don’t see Krishna here in Sivaloka, certainly I don’t see Krishna here in the Brahmajyoti, where is Krishna? Oh! Here is Vaikuntaloka, where is Krishna, where are the cowheard boys, where is Mother Yashoda? Where is Lord Chaitanya and His sankirtan party? There is Narada muni here. Here it is very formal with Lord Narayana, the four Kumaras. But where is Gopala??? And where is Gauranga??‘

If we have that type of desire, if we are already in that Svarupa Upalabdhi, where we are directly identified as a servant of Krishna in His Gopala form, Radha Madhava form, or of Lord Chaitanya, then that takes us back to Goloka Vrindavan.

Anywhere along the way, if we are attracted to the material world, to Karma Kanda, Jnana Kanda, to the majestic aspect of the spiritual world, or just merging in the Brahma Jyoti, wherever it may be, we get STUCK UP there!”

“Actually Krishna is neutral. He is reciprocating with different people according to their particular way of approaching. So when is approaching inimically, the Lord is inimical. When one is approaching devotionally, and is friendly, the Lord is very friendly and very merciful. So actually He is Neutral!

Prahlada being a little boy, and naturally simple and straight forward, said to Hiranyakashipu, “Why are you calling the Supreme Lord enemy, He has made me attracted to Him, He has given me devotion to Him, just like an iron rod is attracted to a magnet.”

So if we want to be attracted to Krishna, it’s actually Krishna who is attracting us. He is the all attractive and this is the easiest way of going back home, back to Godhead, to be attracted to Krishna.

What are the means of getting attracted to Krishna? Yes, the mercy of Krishna. He is the one who attracts.”

“In the Spiritual World everybody goes up by pleasing Krishna. And who can please Krishna more, they go up faster. Rather if you can help someone to go up by you pushing  someone else up, Krishna will bring you up. You will go up automatically.

In the material world everyone is trying to pull down others and get up a little bit and in spiritual life we are trying to push everyone up. If we can help others go up, we also go up.

The Guru is trying to bring up his disciples and the disciples are trying to act properly and not pull down the Guru, to contribute some service for the Guru. Devotees are trying to help other devotees. There is no limit to Krishna’s mercy. You don’t have to fight for it like that. Rather the more you can show good qualities of helping other Vaishnavas and serving, the more Krishna will give you His mercy.”

“No matter what impediments there may be, you have to chant Hare Krishna. Maya, the material nature and the material modes may give someone so many imagined reasons why not to chant. But none of them are real. It’s all illusion. No matter what, we have to chant. It’s the only hope. By chanting and remembering Krishna at the end of the life then we go back to Krishna’s nature.

Sometimes there maybe some personality clash. Some authority might not deal in a way we consider to be totally fair, so that you can get a mental idea, reason, excuse to take ground. “Send somebody in Krishna Consciousness to deal with me fairly – I will chant Hare Krishna.”

Or someone’s wife may not treat one properly or one’s husband may not treat one properly or the weather may not be very good or there may be some stomach ache or any number of things that might happen – some disease or old age, or whatever it might be, someone hits you with a shoe, no matter what, we should simply realize that whatever is happening in this material world, there is no use of becoming preoccupied with that and forget about Krishna. That will be the trick of Maya.