So we have gathered here, this is basically called ista-gosti. Gost means sound, ista means the worshippable lord of our heart. I didn’t plan any lecture. If you have any questions on any topic related to sambandha or abhideya or prayojana of Krsna consciousness you can ask.
(The question is) When we were in Russia we used to fast and now we have come to Vrndavan, so someone said we don’t have to fast.
The brajwasi pandas have a phrase – tapeswari rajeswari narakeswari – naraka-iswari. This life - tapeswari, so much austerity. And when you do austerity you get tapa balam, then you get tapa phal, you get the fruit of your austerity. Next life, or this life, you are tapeswari, you are controlling all the austerities. Next life you become a big king, rajeswari. Then you enjoy women, and so many things. And then you engage in so many sins, then you become a lord of hell, narak. tapeswari rajeswari narakeswari. Naraka – you become a lord of hell, a lord of austerities.
So when I was in Russia, I did so many austerities, I was tapeswari and by those austerities, I came to Vrndavan. Now I am rajeswari, in Vrndavan. Now I just enjoy – no more austerities.
This is completely wrong. First of all, what are we doing? We are loving Krsna and we are loving Radharani. And in our expression of our love for Radha and Krsna we are trying to please Them. Everything we do in the name of devotion, which is love, everything we do in the name of love, is for the pleasure of the beloved. We are doing it to please Radha and Krsna. Whether we are living in Russia, or Greece or India… any activities we are doing in devotion are simply to give pleasure to Radha and Krsna.
When we perform ekadasi in Russia we give one time pleasure to Radha and Krsna. When we perform ekadasi vrata in Vrndavan we give a thousand times the pleasure to Radha and Krsna. Because everything done in Vrndavan is a 1,000 times increased, a 1,000 times benefit.
So by performing ekadasi vrata in Vrndavan you give thousands of times more pleasure to Radha and Krsna than if you do ekadasi vrata in Russia.
Second point, the gopis, the sadhana siddha gopis, they became perfect in their sadhana, they did vaidhi sadhana, raganuga sadhana, they came to bhava, avastha, then they realized their swarup siddhi and they left this world and they took birth in Bhauma Vrndavan as gopis in Krsna's lila.
Now these sadhakas, they were devotees like us. They became perfect, now they are gopis. Krsna is there, Radha is there, they are the gopis. These sadhana siddha gopis, it can be you or I or anyone, when we become perfect, they went to Radharani. They said, “Radharani, we want to please Krsna. We want to know how we can bring pleasure to Krsna, how Krsna can become pleased with us and we will get an opportunity to serve Him. What can we do to please Krsna, to get His favor?”
So then what did Radharani say to those sadhaka siddha gopis? She said, “You perform ekadasi vrata!”
Someone said, “I came to Vrndavan and someone said Radharani is not pleased if we do ekadasi vrata” That’s the question, right?
So I am saying, in Bhauma Vrndavan, when you have saksad darshan of Radharani and ask Radharani how to please Krsna She will tell you, “You perform ekadasi vrata in Bhauma Vrndavan, that will please Me and Krsna.” This is what Radharani said. Where did She say it? Garga samhita. Garga muni is telling in Garga samhita.

Chant. Chant. Chant. Can’t. Can’t. Can’t.
We should always chant. Because I have no power. How do I get power? Well, you lift weights. And then you will get strength. If you are chanting with offenses… but we have to start somewhere, we start that way then we become strong and no more offenses. There is no other way. In kali-yuga, there is no other way for perfection but chanting. We have to chant.
Wake, asleep, in ignorance, in passion, in goodness, with offenses, without offenses, with sins or no sins – just chant the holy name. Somehow or other, chant! And Krsna will do the rest. Somehow or other, just chant and Krsna will do the rest. He will arrange everything.

Someone asks a question) The question is – “How to overcome pratistha?”

Don’t take a leadership position. Always be an assistant to the leader. And that’s the philosophy of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. The leader is Radharani.
Gopi bhartu pada kamalyor, dasa dasanu dasa
The only leader is Gopinath, He is the bhartu. So just think … the devotee always thinks, I am a servant of the servant of the servant. The leader is my guru, I am simply assisting. I am not preaching, my guru is preaching, but I am assisting him in preaching. I am not distributing books, my guru is distributing books, I am assisting him. It his energy, it is his action. I am simply the instrument of his will.
I am not the instrument and I am not the wielder of the instrument, I just simply following his will.

ratista is due to ignorance. When one forgets Krsna and one forgets his actual identity and his actual position then he thinks, “I am the doer.” He thinks, “I have done something.”

The ability comes from Krsna, the strength comes from Krsna, the memory comes from Krsna, the intelligence comes from Krsna. So it’s Krsna's intelligence, Krsna's ability… Krsna is doing it. If Krsna used me to do something glorious, who is glory is it? Mine or His? It’s His! The pratista belongs to Him! He did it. Krsna did it.
Someone builds a house and you say, whose house is it? It is always my house, I built it. Then the person says, “Oh, did you create the earth? The bricks in this house are made of earth and water. Did you create the earth?” “No.” “The mitti, the clay?” “No.” “Did you create the water, which mixed with that earth?” “No.” “Did you create the fire in the brick kiln? Did you create the fire which heated those bricks?” “No.” “Then?” Who is the creator? God’s the creator!
Like Srila Prabhupada said, the scientist discovers something, he uses Krsna's intelligence, he uses Krsna's brain, Krsna's intelligence and he discovers something then he says, “Tts my principle, its my theory, I did it.” But really the credit goes to Krsna.
It is a very interesting comparison between desire to work very hard... You want to work very hard as a devotee to bring glories to Krsna. And the desire to work very hard as a devotee to bring glories to ourself. When we want glories for ourself, that is our pratista. But the desire to establish the pratista of Krsna, to increase and enhance the fame of Krsna or my guru, that’s really bhakti - working hard for them. If I get recognition or not, it’s ok. But let him be recognized, let him be glorified.
A devotee who is working for Krsna, or serving Krsna with the desire for personal pratista, if he does something very glorious or wonderful for Krsna but he doesn’t get glorified, then he will get despondent. He will become unhappy, and dejected. Oh, I did this big thing, but I didn’t get any glorification. So that’s one level.
Because Krsna tests the devotee. When the devotee is working hard, He is always arranging things. Ok you are going to work very hard and do some very big service. And I am going to make sure that you don’t get any recognition. And then you are going to think, wait a minute! I did this big, big service, and I didn’t get any recognition, because Krsna wants to recognize you as a devotee. He wants to see that you genuinely have love and the awakening of bhakti in your heart.
So this is a blessing of Krsna. Oh, look, I did this thing. Hey, forget it. No one is recognizing. So Krsna is trying to separate. Hey, don’t be material. Be a devotee. Even Krsna is telling the gopis, “You work so hard to please Me. I can’t repay you. You just be happy with working hard for Me.” And they say, “Ok, alright.”

What happens when Krsna uses you to accomplish something and He gives you credit. Then we have to see what happens. (laughs) We have a phrase in English – It’s is not what happens to you that counts. It’s how you respond to what happens to you. That’s what counts.
So 2 devotees get recognition. They both do something grand and they both get recognition. And one devotee responds to that recognition by jumping up and down, “Oh, I am number one! Number one!! I am number one! Did you know I won! I got the prize! I am number one!” (laughs) and he is really, like, flying on the wings of his ego. That is one response.

Another devotee is recognized as number one for some accomplishment and he responds in a different way. He immediately disappears somewhere. And he goes to some lonely place and he starts crying his heart out to Krsna. “Krsna, what are You doing? Are You trying to destroy my devotion? You are trying to give me these things of this world to deviate me from Your remembrance? You are trying to reward me somehow here? Are You testing me? Let me tell You something Krsna, I don’t want anything from this world. I only want the dust of Your feet, life after life.”
When Madhavendra Puri was given a bartan of kheer from Gopinath, the pujari came in the middle of the night to the town underneath one tree, where he was staying in the middle of the town. He gave Madhavendra Puri this one matka, one clay-pot of kheer. Madhavendra Puri immediately took that kheer. He broke the clay pot in pieces; put it in his bag and he ran away from town. And he went 50 kms away.
So the next day the pujari was telling everyone and the word became – “Oh Madhavendra Puri, Madhavendra Puri, Madhavendra Puri!” and everyone said, “Oh, where is he, I want to meet him, I want to see him, I want to get his blessings.” And they couldn’t find him…
So Madhavendra Puri responded to recognition by running away somewhere. Reminds me when we go on Braj yatra, some of us, we go visiting Nandagram, Barsana… you know, the yatra. And many of the pandas, the brahamanas of the different temples like Nandagram, they hear that there is somebody named Mahanidhi Swami and he is something famous in this small little ISKCON Vrndavan.
So they want to catch him and get some big money from him. But they don’t know what he looks like. So when we go on yatra, we are going up the stairs and the panda is saying – “Mahanidhi Swami, Mahanidhi Swami”. And one guy, he looks at me and says, “Mahanidhi Swami?”
I said, “No. No. he is down there!” and I point towards some other brahmacari. So then he goes to him, “Oh, Mahanidhi Swami, give me some…”
So it is very good to avoid pratista. Kamini kanak pratista - these are undesirable. Kamini kanak pratista – kamini means women, or enjoyable object, woman for man, man for woman. So yes, we will take 10,000 kamini offer to Krsna. We will take 10 million rubles, offer to Krsna. All kinds of pratista… yes, yes, jagad guru, maha mandaleswar, sastra siromani, caturvedi, ok everything ok, for Krsna.
So Kamini kanak pratista for me – then narak, we go to hell. Kamini kanak pratista for Krsna, then everything becomes glorious.
Krsna's lila in Vrndavan, here and there is called nara-lila. Which means it is very much human-like. But in our siddhanta, our tattva and lila, tattva-vicar, rasa-vicar, there is something common, something different.
So Krsna's lila is nara, there are aspects of Krsna's lila which are common to, very similar to the material world and human lilas, but there are many aspects of Krsna's lilas which are completely different and completely opposite of what we have experienced in our human lilas or activities in this world.
We see in our world that the mother represents the most intensity of parental love. That’s expressed through the means of the mother. She carries the baby in her womb for 9 or 10 months, she feeds the baby with her breasts for 3 or 5 years, she is 24 hours a day with the baby, caring, feeding, protecting, chastising, educating… all these things. All these activities, these expression of parental love, through all these multifarious services are all done by the mother.
In this world the children appear to be and they are more attached to the mother and the same, there in Krsna's lila, Krsna and Balaram, they are more attached to their mothers and they spend more time with their mothers and have more interaction with their mothers and their fathers.
And the acaryas say that of all the types of parental affection that come to be found in the relationships of Bhagavan with his parents, Kausalya and Dasaratha, with King Ramachandra and Laxman, Bharata, Satrugna. Krsna and Yasoda and Nanda, the exemplars, the perfect expressions or the highest expression of parental love is found in Mother Yasoda and Nanda Maharaj. They are the perfection of form of God’s mother and father. And of the 2, Mother Yasoda has more intense affection and more intense attachment than Nanda Maharaj.
But nevertheless, the affection that the cowherd men, the fathers have for their children in the spiritual world – that is where there is something different. It is common that mothers and children are closely related. But the difference is that fathers of this world cannot compare at all with the fathers in the spiritual world.
The intensity of Vasudev’s love for his children or Nanda Maharaj’s love for his children is inconceivable. They are the highest forms of love. But still Yasoda is a little bit more. But Nanda Maharaj and all the cowherd men – they intensely love their children. They intensely love them. So that can’t be compared to any fathers of this world. Most fathers could care less.
This only reflection. It is not like Krsna's having human-like pastimes. Krsna is having His pastimes. And our’s are nara-lila. We are imitating Krsna's pastimes. It is not that Krsna is imitating human pastimes. We say, this is Krsna's nara-lila, Nara-hari. Krsna is having human-like pastimes. No. we are having God-like pastimes.
We, as human beings, as naras, we are having God-like pastimes. We are having activities or whatever, not really pastimes, we are having pastimes in imitation. That is the real nara-lila, or the real human lila is there. Man is made in the image of God.
So we have children, He has children. We have mother’s more intense love, He has… so the original is there. The original is Krsna. This is only a facsimile or replica or imitation.
What is the definition of old? This discussion went on between Hiranyakasipu and Prahlad Maharaj. Hiranyakasipu said, “Prahlad, you are young. You are 5 years old, you should enjoy!” so then Prahlad Maharaj said, “Father, you are old. I am also old.” Because, what is the definition of old? Old means close to death. This is the meaning of old.
We say, oh he is an old man, he is about to die. He is 99 years old, oh he is about to die. But this man, he is 25, he has a long life. Then he gets on his motor-cycle, woooh, then truck comes, poink! So old means close to death. Sometimes people have black hair and they also die. Nice teeth, nice smile, and goli…poink, ksh! Ho gaya! Hari bol.
(Someone asks a question) The question is about what is an offense and what isn’t an offense. As far as I can understand.
Because the same action may be done by one and it can be an offense and it can be by another person and not be an offense. The activity becomes an offense depending on your attitude and your own bhava.



Where are you operating from? What is the position of your consciousness? And what is the position of your heart behind your activities? If your heart is filled with love, filled with care, filled with compassion for the other person, then whatever you may do in relation to that other person is loving, is caring, is compassionate. There is no question of everything you do may be offensive.



Example, the mother’s heart is filled with love, compassion and care for her child. Sometimes she feeds him and sings to him. Sometimes she gives him a good slap… thoom… slaps or pulls his ear. “Hey, why did you spit on your grandfather? What is this – spitting on your grandfather!” “No but he has this funny beard you know. I don’t like…” (Everyone laughs) thoom… so you get slapped and you go to your room and no ice-cream for you.



So that means the mother is an aparadhi? Mata-aparadha? The mad mother offense? So if we are acting towards another devotee with vengeance or envy or false ego or the desire to control or to diminish or to insult or belittle, then that is offensive. Because our heart, there is something wrong with our heart. So whatever we express with that wrong heart that will become offensive in the eyes of God and that devotee also.