“Although God has no parents as He is eternal and is the father of everyone, yet He can agree to become someone’s child – have a little baby form and a devotee to serve Him as a parent. As a parent, the parents think that they are bigger than the child.

The parents always want to protect the child. Even though Krishna is the Supreme protector of everyone. His parents always think, “I have to protect Krishna. If I don’t protect Krishna, some danger will befall Krishna.”

So the parents actually become greater than God in that relationship – Krishna comes with the shoes of His father on His head and serves His parents. He is Supremely independent. He likes that sometimes His devotee is in a superior position.”

“The actual consciousness that one needs to achieve is nirmama and nishkinchana , to have nothing. Having nothing can be achieved by a grihastha if he accepts everything as Krishna’s.

Bhaktivinod Thakura prayed,”Manasa deho geho, jo kichu mora, arpilo tua pade Nanda Kishore“, “My mind, my body, my household, whatever normally one would consider their’s, whatever it may be, I am simply offering at your Lotus Feet, Nanda Kishore. Everything is Yours.”

If someone takes up their service in that attitude, then grihastha life will not be a big impediment. But if one is very attached to his family life, and thinks, “This is all mine, and I will give a little bit to Krishna,” then it is difficult for him to get a taste of the nectar of Krishna consciousness.”

Everything is Krishna’s and He has given me this service and I should do something to serve Him. Everything is His,” – if they have this proper attitude, it will not be an impediment. It is very important to develop this proper attitude. So, in the varnashrama system one should first be trained to be a brahmachari, learn vairagya vidya, and apply these things practically when he enters grihastha life.”

“One time Prabhupada was sitting with his hand on his head and he was saying, “You don’t know what it is like to run a world-wide spiritual movement. You don’t know.” The inference, with the way that he was holding his head, was that it was a big headache.

Prabhupada was so concerned that we all stay together, that we all work together, that we all cooperate to spread the Krsna conscious movement. We have many, many devotees now and it’s important that the devotees get cared for, and feel cared for.

So part of the function to care for the devotees, is through the diksa guru. He is the manifestation of the Madana Mohana vigraha, the sambanda vigraha. There’s also the help of the many different instructing spiritual masters, or siksa gurus, who is a representative of Govindaji, the abidheya vigraha. The goal of life is Radha-Gopinatha.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

“We want that people should be successful in their life and they get back to Krishna in the end of life. It used to be that people would live until they are old and renounce and take sannyasa, leave their bodies and go back to Godhead. But right now, there is no guarantee how long someone is going to live. I mean, the people in the world tower didn’t know that they are going to leave their body in the next minute or the people in the hijack aircraft. So many things are happening now.

So we don’t know how long we have to live. We have to also practice Krishna consciousness and not leave it.

We have to go on chanting through our brahmacari, grihasta, vanaprastha and all the ashramas at anytime. Not only because we want to be Krishna conscious when we die and go back to Krishna but also so that we also know that this is the greatest happiness and this gives us peace and equilibrium.”

“Prabhupada really wanted us to be dedicated to carrying out his mission. We can be inspired how he carried out the mission of his spiritual master for us to carry out our mission which is Prabhupada’s mission, to carry out the mission of our Founder-acarya. And we know that all the subsequent generations of devotees–some of Prabhupada’s grand-disciples are members of our GBC–we’re already an endangered species, we’re going to eventually be in extinction, all the direct initiated disciples of Srila Prabhupada.

So we need to create this culture, our spiritual corporate culture. We are dedicated to carrying out the order of Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, that’s the spiritual culture we are implementing.

If everybody maintains that–we know that his culture also is to ‘fulfill the desires of the previous acaryas’–then we’re completely linked up with the guru-parampara. That’s means we get the full empowerment and the full energy coming down from Krsna to the guru-parampara, to all of us.

That’s what empowers ISKCON, our connection. Krsna consciousness, Prabhupada repeatedly said, can’t be spread simply by some material adjustment. It has to be done by being empowered.”

“When we offer our services to Krishna’s devotee, Krishna is more pleased. He does not forget us. How can we serve Krishna directly? If we are given an opportunity to be in the Krishna’s pastime or Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastime, then we can serve him directly. But to get that blessing, we must serve the devotee now.

Prabhupada explains that by serving in Krishna Consciousness in this life, then in the next life you can take birth in some universe where Lord Krishna’s or Lord Chaitanya’s pastimes are going on  and you can become involved in those pastimes. But the purpose is to serve Krishna through his pure devotees.”

“Lord Caitanya said that though Lord Krishna’s pastimes are not physically present now, we could serve Krishna in separation. That is actually perfection in devotion – when we serve Krishna in separation.

Similarly while the spiritual master is present, it is an opportunity to try to learn as much about devotional service, so that you can take advantage because when the spiritual master is not physically present, you have to serve in separation.

So the ideal thing is to learn as much as we can when we have the opportunity.”

“The material world and its relationships are a reflection of God’s own Spiritual world and its spiritual relationships. He made man in His image and He made the material relationships as a type of reflection so that they can feel that if they want to become like God, it gives them opportunities to have apparently similar kinds of activities.

But in fact they are like the shadow, and Krishna’s activities are the original and pure. These are not real relationships. These are a play, a kind of toy dolls, which are given to people in the material world, so that they think, “Okay, I have my own world, I have my own Samsara, my own creation. This is my family, I have created my children, I have created my business”, and “my whatever” that they are able to create.

They can become a Brahma and create the whole universe; and ultimately see that everything is Krishna’s energy. When they surrender to Krishna – that is pure devotional service. Pure devotional service means to do that is pleasing to Krishna.”

“The Lord (Caitanya Mahaprabhu) asked everyone to chant… Hari… Hari… Hari… Hari…

In the Skanda Purana, it mentions that if you chant the two syllables Ha… Ri… Ha… Ri… Ha… Ri… Hari… Hari… Hari… Hari…, then the Lord will steal away from you!… We all still look worried?… You know what he’ll steel from you??? You want to know?

If you chanted HARI… he’ll steel away from you all your SUFFERINGS! All your Contamination! That looks alright?

Someone comes steels your garbage do you mind? (laughter…) Someone steels your car or something…

HARI will steel away from you all your contamination and suffering from us.”

“The Lord instructs that one has to become fully Krishna conscious to discharge duties as if in a military discipline. Such an injunction may make things a little difficult; nevertheless duties must be carried out, with dependence on Krishna, because that is the constitutional position of the living entity.

The living entity cannot be happy independent of the cooperation of the Supreme Lord because the eternal constitutional position of the living entity is to become subordinate to the desires of the Lord.

His Divine Grace Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is not stating this simply for the non-devotees of Krishna lost in material bondage, but also for the devotees of Krishna.

A devotee of Krishna should not avoid practical works in devotional service. Rather, a devotee is always busy in practical services in Krishna Consciousness. A devotee performs even ‘ordinary’ work in full consciousness of his dependence on the Lord, and in accordance with the instructions of the spiritual master. This is the Yoga of the Supreme Person.”

“Today the whole world is centered on the bodily conception of life. In fact, such a concept is glorified. Krishna criticized Arjuna for being overly attached, and encouraged him to perform his duty and fight the battle for a religious cause. But now people are encouraged from childhood to be in bodily consciousness.

Bodily consciousness is so strongly forced into people that hardly any religion is able to train their followers in real spiritual understanding. Even the religions are rooted in a bodily conception of life. This body is going to perish, from dust to dust, still all attention is given to this body. Whether in the field of sociology, religion, or politics, everything centers on the body. Beyond lip service, there is no real discussion of the soul. This is the present state of affairs. ”

“Lord Chaitanya said that if you want to develop Love for Godhead, you must know “Vaishnava Etiquette” – How to behave with Vaishnavas. That is more important. If we don’t know how to deal properly with Vaishnavas then we commit offenses and eventually we won’t be able to go very close to Krishna … So it is very important to know how deal with, behave with each other properly respecting.

Most of the weeds of devotional service are also dealing with behavior, Kutinaati – diplomatic behavior; play some political situation with someone. Jivahimsa – treating someone very aggressively to harm a person emotionally or physically. So lots of obstacles in our devotional service are there because of bad behavior.

In other case Krishna bhajana means normally practicing with properly dealing with vaishnavas and say that you are going to save a vaishnava who is being attacked by beast or wild animal then if we die trying to save a devotee then we go back to Godhead. Devotees are so dear that they are worth dying for. So if somebody is worth dying for then why would we offend or deal improperly with such a person.”

“Devotee: Sometimes from normal work schedule we get involved in special occasions like marriage of a close relation, projects, work deadlines, preparations for festivals. At this time our SADHANA like chanting, Bhagavad Gita & Srimad Bhagavatam reading is affected. How can we make good, this lapse in Sadhana?

HH Jayapataka Swami: When I was building Mayapur project, Prabhupada had us work from 6 in the morning to 12 midnight. Double shift. But I had to be overseeing both the shifts. So there was no time to regularly go to Mangalarati and what to speak of read books and things..! So I asked Prabhupada, and he said, “Well, at least you should try to do a Guru puja everyday and chant your japa“. Offering our obeisances to our Guru, it is important. And at least try to chant. Sometime if you fall behind in the chanting, you can carry it over, but that’s not a very good habit. Because you get more and more indebted.”

“People work so hard to build up a family and keep it united. But even if one successfully keeps the family together for the entire life, and even if there are some selfless friends and relatives who stay in spite of all life’s difficulties, how long can they stay?

Eventually the time factor takes everyone away. Then where do all the friends and relatives go? They have left life and have gone to another new birth in another location.

This is the understanding that has been achieved in this verse, and it has the effect of freeing one from lamenting for one’s departed dear ones, and getting on with developing real loving relationships that will never end. The love and affection in this world is not for the actual person, but only for the superficial bodily covering.

Since Lord Krishna is the eternal Truth, LOVE for Lord Krishna is REAL. We never have to lose that love as in material life. Since the individual soul is eternal and Lord Krishna is eternal, the love between the individual spirit soul and the Supreme Spirit is eternal. It continues life after life and never ends. To achieve love of Godhead is actually the greatest achievement of life.”

“In the Caitanya Caritamrita, it is mentioned that three things can help us advance in Krishna Consciousness very quickly:

1. The Dust of the Lotus Feet of the Devotees.
2. The Water which has washed the feet of the Devotees.
3. The remnants of their Prasadam.

In India since sannyasis’ bodies should not be touched by everyone and not at all by women, the wooden shoes of the sannyasi are often kept for disciples to touch. Ladies could also get dust from the Gurus feet from his shoes without actually touching the body of the spiritual master.

Even today we get the dust from Srila Prabhupada’s lotus feet from His Divine Grace’s shoe remnants.”

“In the modern world, Absolute Truth is kind of swept under the rug probably because it’s something, which you can’t know by experimentation very easily; primarily because it is not accessible by normal empiric investigation.

But in the Indian tradition, the Vedic tradition, the great seers, the great Yogis would research Absolute Truth through various forms of Yoga. Yoga means to link. So someone uses the mystic yoga process whereby through breathing exercises, through meditation, through introspection, they would be able to come in touch with the original source of all energy. They can realize their own spiritual, dynamic force.

The Bhagavad Gita clearly explains that the body dies and the body goes through these changes. It’s like a little child is there, but in ten years from now it will become a young person. Then in 25 years, it will become an adult. So the body, from baby to child, then to youth, middle age and old age goes through so many changes, but the person remains the same.

Krishna (The Supreme Personality of Godhead) explained in the Bhagavad Gita that we go through many changes in the body, but the soul, the self is non-different. When the body perishes and becomes uninhabitable, the living force simply transfers to a new birth. At the time of conception it enters into the womb of the mother through the sperm of the male and then conception begins when the two eggs combine. Science has been able to observe this.”

“To get vaccination from the sense gratification is to absorb in transcendental ecstasy. To do that we need to have a strong desire. In a few days, months, years, if you are determined and if somehow you could convince Lord Nithyananda, “I don’t have any other desire but to get back to You. You should please give me that little drop of mercy.”

For Lord Nithyananda prabhu is very merciful. He doesn’t see whether a person is qualified or not qualified. He is very liberal in giving that mercy. If someone has a desire for the mercy, then Lord Nithyananda is known to give. So it is very promising if we put our faith in Lord Nithyananda. If we put our aspirations at His Lotus Feet for that mercy, and if we get that, after that it is smooth sailing. Material happiness seem very insignificant.

All we need to do is avoid association with materialists, who bring us into a clouded condition where we forget our spiritual perspective and start acting mechanically on the material platform. We have to avoid that type of situation, continue engaging in devotional service with that little drop of nectar. That is what all devotees pray for. ‘Kripa bindu Diya’- Give me that drop of mercy – that drop of mercy, which is the mercy of Lord Nithyananda.

“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.

“Everybody wants pleasure, this whole world is pleasure seeking. But pleasure comes on different levels. There is physical pleasures, mental pleasures and spiritual pleasures.

If somebody is mentally pleased, they feel physically content also. If somebody is spiritually pleased, they feel mentally and physically..things are open.

For instance, if somebody is not mentally pleased even if you give them a nice meal but they are very sad because a loved one is sick, they’re not going to enjoy the meal. So the physical pleasure will not replace the mental agony they are felling because of worry for the well being of some relative.

So generally I go for a walk on the Durban beach front and there’s a lot of people trying to sell pleasure. But the pleasure they’re trying to provide is something for the tongue, something for the touch, something for the ear, something for the eye…superficial pleasure.

We are simultaneously trying to provide pleasure on all the levels. We also have food for the tongue, but it’s also food for the soul. We also have certain cultural programs… dance, drama, music and more..

So these things are pleasing to see, at the same time they are spiritually gratifying because the topic is about KRISHNA! “

“ Sometimes the people, they’re hankering to get famous. This is a very big thing in the world. Football players, cricket players, movie stars. Of course when you get very high fame, there is also a burden.

Just like George Harrison, because he is famous, someone tried to kill him. If you are very famous people will like to kill you, because then they become famous for killing a famous person. Now, to get that… your name put on the news cast as the killer of a big person…many crazies are willing to do anything. So it is very dangerous to be famous nowadays.

George Harrison agreed to come to Mayapur, so he said, “Don’t tell anybody that I’m coming”. Then when he was there he was saying that, big harassment, all the time people tell where they are. So when he went to Bangkok, he had the secretary sign the hotel and everything. If he signs then they’ll recognize the name. But somebody spotted him and then all of a sudden at his door there were like ten charities asking please do a benefit for an orphanage, please do this, do that. So, those are innocent things but then you don’t get any peace. Queen of England or any important person. Sometimes, people they just crawl into the house just to get famous.

So being famous in Kali Yuga goes both ways.”

“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 missions, usually they name after the Guru. Charismatic Guru movement. Then after…this baba, that mama, that ma…whatever.

But Prabhupada, he named it the 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 he did everything,  he was a REAL pure devotee. And therefore his fame should be spread over the three worlds!”