Live From Sri Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir!
Date: March 2nd, 2011
Topic: Dhruva Maharaja Goes Back To Godhead
Verse: 4. 12. 25
Speaker: HG Badrinarayan Prabhu
sudurjayam visnu-padam jitam tvaya
yat surayo 'prapya vicaksate parama
tistha tac candra-divakaradayo
graharksa-tarah pariyanti daksinam
TRANSLATION: To achieve Visnuloka is very difficult, but by your austerity you have conquered. Even the great rsis and demigods cannot achieve this position. Simply to see the supreme abode [the Visnu planet], the sun and moon and all the other planets, stars, lunar mansions and solar systems are circumambulating it. Now please come; you are welcome to go there.
PURPORT: Even in this material world the so-called scientists, philosophers and mental speculators strive to merge into the spiritual sky, but they can never go there. But a devotee, by executing devotional service, not only realizes what the spiritual world actually is, but factually goes there to live an eternal life of bliss and knowledge. The Krishna consciousness movement is so potent that by adopting these principles of life and developing love of God one can very easily go back home, back to Godhead.Here the practical example is the case of Dhruva Maharaja. While the scientist and philosopher go to the moon but are disappointed in their attempts to stay there and live, the devotee makes an easy journey to other planets and ultimately goes back to Godhead. Devotees have no interest in seeing other planets, but while going back to Godhead, they see all of them as passing phases, just as one who is going to a distant place passes through many small stations. [End of Srila Prabhupada's purport to SB 4.12.26]
HG Badrinarayan Prabhu: So let me ask you a question: If I want to draw a straight line free hand, I have a point here and I want to draw a point here and I want to do it free hand, no marker, no ruler, nothing like that, what is the best way to draw a straight line free hand? You look at where you are going. If you look along the way you will waver but if you know where you are going it is much easier, if you know the destination. I was actually going somewhere and lost my mind just like that.
If you have a box, you have a pile of sand and you have large rocks - box; sand and lots of rocks. No we know as a i that the rocks and the sand will fit just exactly in the box. What do I put in the box first? The sand or the rocks? [Audience answer - rock.] Why? If I put the sand in first then the rocks might fit but if I put the rocks in first the sand will form around it. You follow.
Atatho brahma-jijnasa [Vedanta-sutra] Human form of life is meant for questions about Brahman. The human form of life is meant to sort into two piles - sat; asat. That which is permanent, that which is eternal, that which is true in the absolute sense and that which is ephemeral. And once we know what is permanent, what is eternal and what is true then we can sort everything else out. Everything will then fall into its natural and proper place.
We are meant to become detached from this world. You've ever seen kids on a ring step. I don't know if we have them in India. You go from one ring to another and they go in a circle like this. They have bars and you go from one bar to another. Bhagavatam gives the example that you don't pick up one foot until you know that one foot is going to be settled. You can't really let go of something if we are in that position unless we have certainty of something else. Knowing that beyond in this world there is paravyoma, there is the spiritual world.
I was on a walk with Srila Prabhupada. He was walking and chanting quietly. All of a sudden he stopped, put his cane down, sized us up and said, "I know you are all atheists but there really is Krishna." [Laughter] Right on he kept walking. So we have to become detached from this world. We all have so many important things to do. There are so many things that we are attached to that are important. Somebody told me there is a saying that, 'the graveyard is full of indispensible men.' You follow? Indispensible! I thought I was an exception to all men are mortal.
Suppose I give you a hundred dollars. It is fine with the GBC. It is worth something. That is something tangible. Thank you. Actually outside of me theGBC are very hard working sincere, saintly devotees. I know that because they tolerate me. Oh you are feeling quiet happy. So you see Naresh and you say, "Naresh Prabhu, Badri just gave me a hundred dollars." Naresh Prabhu says, "That is funny. He gave me a thousand." [Laughter] and you asked all your friends. I gave everybody else a thousand. At one moment you are thinking, "Great." And as soon as you find out I gave everyone else a thousand, if you are renounced, detached person I can understand but if in ordinary mentality you would go, "What's with this? How irradical. How do I tick him off?"
So it is all relative. This world, Srila Prabhupada said the demigods will not come and pass urine on this place. [Laughter] Malati Mataji was saying that she was on a walk with Srila Prabhupada and they heard a big roar. "What is that?" And she explained that there is a machine that comes and dumps all the trash into a big truck. Prabhupada said that whole material world should go with it! [Laughter]
If we know the higher thing we can put this world in place. Tamal Krishna Maharaj told me this personally. He had been appointed by Srila Prabhupada as a temple commander of New Dvaraka in 1969 or 1968. It was the largest temple in Iskcon and it had maybe thirty five or forty devotees. It was a big temple. Ravindra Svarup Prabhu said if you were twenty, twenty five, thirty years old you were a senior elderly sage. Ravindra Svarup Prabhu said if you looked back in history you would wonder what were they thinking.
Prabhupada wasn't only the only pure devotee with us at that time. He was probably the only adult with us but Tamal Krishna Maharaj told me this. He had been appointed by Prabhupada as the temple commander, and he was feeling, "I have this powerful position. I may become puffed up. Just like Lord Brahma was praying not to become puffed up." He said, "How do I become free from the parties that come with this powerful position?"
Prabhupada said, "You just think like this: with every exhale of Maha Visnu unlimited universes, like grains of the sand come out. And He simply inhales and it is all drawn in. Simply in one exhale and one inhale. And you think that in every exhale there is one bubble. In that bubble there is the universe. In that universe there are so many planets. There are so many planets. On each planet there are so many continents, one every continent so many countries. In every country so many states, in every state so many cities, in every city so many streets, in every street so many buildings and in one of those buildings there is Tamal Krishna Maharaj thinking, 'I am very important.'" [Laughter] Tamal told me that so I can quote it. So it is simply a matter of keeping things in perspective. And if we know that perspective, that this is not my real home. This is a temporary place and my real home is the spiritual world. Then from that we can develop a sense of detachment.
I was reading the prayers of Bhismadev, instructions of Bhismadev. This is way of track but it is kind of funny. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said that if all the books (we are not into book burning) but if all the books of the world were lost and only the Bhagavatam remained nothing will be lost. Everything is in there. Bhismadev says how to get free from anger. One learns to forgive. Another thing is how to become free from unlawful desires? Stop plan making. Don't make plans! If you think about it, it is said that in Kali yuga people are lazy, unlucky, misguided and above all always disturbed.
That disturbance in the mind and a large portion of it is the anger after frustration or the Rudra principle. We are all making so many plans. I can speak for myself, so many plans how I am going to enjoy and inevitably they are frustrated we become angry, we become disturbed. Actually a bird flies in the sky according to its ability so I know that my duty here is to tell some jokes and some stories and try to connect then. So anyway in that line Bhakti Purushottama Maharaj told me a story. We are going to tell three genie stories if we have time.
There was a man and somehow he stumbled across a genie and tripped over something, follows it off, low and behold, "Yes master? Whatever you wish is I will fulfill." And then the genie said under his breath unheard by the man, "And whatever you get your neighbor will get twice as much." So the man said, "I want to have a beautiful palatial building as my house." Poof! He got a beautiful house. And he goes outside to show all of his friends his nice position and low and behold his neighbor's house is twice as full. He got a two storey but his neighbor got four storeys. So he said to the genie, "Give me an eight storey." Poof! He got an eight storey. Next door the guy got a sixteen storey. He said, "What?!!! Give me a brand new Mercedes." Poof! He has got it. He goes outside to show his neighbor. His neighbor has got a solid gold Rolls Royce.
He figures out what is going on and he is still at it. He says, "Let me be blind in one eye."[Laughter] Sure enough his neighbor was blind in both eyes. So even though he is losing just to have some up on someone else this becomes happiness. This material world means happiness in others distress. It is not enough to succeed but you have to see others fail. Then you got the full material package. So this feverish plan making! People are trying to become comfortable in this material world without knowing what the ultimate goal is, that there is a transcendental spiritual world beyond this.
The University of San Diego, California, it is one of the top Arts/Science schools in the world. Forget IFT. MIT i. One of the fields is life extension sciences. The professor, I think he got a noble prize for all his developments in medicine. Here's an idea. You can live in this body until a hundred and twenty or hundred and forty years. You just have to eat right, do right and exercise daily. And he is working on it or was I should say! [Laughter] I think you know where this is going. He was sixty years old and he had the full strength of a forty five year old. So many different things! He was out for his morning jog at the peak time and he was hit by a bus and killed.
There was a devotee, I won't mention his name. He wanted two wives. Everybody said, "You don't have two wives!" Prabhupada's example is there. Prabhupada said you can't take care of one wife properly. Two wives are odd! Somehow he persisted. He got two wives. The two wives fell in love with each other and left his with the kids and ran off together! [Laughter] True story!
There was a farmer - this is Prabhupada's storey, the other one was life story. There was a farmer and he was working hard in the fields and he finally gets some grain. He takes it to the market and he sees the merchant. The merchant is sitting with a nice fan and he has got some nice nimbu pani. He has got a happy life. Then he sits on a abacus, counting balanced like that. So the farmer thinks, "If only I could become a merchant! I work so hard. It must be a grain merchant."
The grain merchant is working hard. He is minding his shop and the king's tax collector comes and takes half on his money." He thinks, "Gee! I am working so hard and the king comes and takes half my money. He just is just sitting on the throne with dancing girls and so many things. I would like to become a king. Let me become the king."
Now the king is sitting on the throne and all the pounding politics and the diplomacy and this and that! He looks out of his window and he sees the farmer in the peaceful sun working in the field in fresh air and things and he thinks, "If only I could become a farmer!" [Laughter] So this is the nature, typical nature of plan making in this material world.
Prahlad Maharaj says that distress comes unsought. Anyone here seeks out pain outside the sadists; any one here seeks out pain? I was walking the other day in the San Diego temple room, I was in a hurry. I was born four days early and my mother says I have been in a hurry since. So I apologize. It is my nature. So I was in a hurry and I caught my little toe of the corner of Prabhupada's vyasana. I have never awakened in the morning and been overwhelmed, "Oh my toe, my toe please titillate me." I don't get much juice out of my little toe. That is my personal experience. And yet it had unlimited misery. It really hurt. It swelled up. It has unlimited potential for pain. If you get an infection it can totally kill you.
So let's wait on hand outs, potential for pleasure and potential for pain. And if you analyze the whole world is like that. And if you want it from the rest of Bhagavatam we can just take an inventory, one by one how you are suffering right now. [Laughter] I am serious and that is only going on in the mental plane. Dwelling on the mental plane one of us can fill the rest of the hour. [Laughter] So that is the nature of this place and frankly it is the great vision, Vaisnava vision because when we understand the nature of this thing, "Aaaaag!!! What is this?!!What is the use of the whole thing? Let me become detached." That detachment eventually overtime matures into daya-bhak. One feels surrendered, whatever the Lord wants. Prabhupada said, "You think you are sitting on the floor. I am sitting on the hand of Krishna" I am going to get myself in trouble here more than I already am in.
Astrology has its place. Astrology is a bona fide Vedic science. The question is finding a good astrologer. But I heard Prabhupada say calculating the date for yajnas and samskaras. Fine! When I was the temple president I used to call three astrologers for calculating the charts for the marriage and practically every time one astrologer would say, "Made in heaven." The other astrologer would say, "Oh but lived in hell." [Laughter] And the other would say, "Nahhhh! i" I swear to you that was the general pattern if you call three astrologers.
Prabhupada said it destroys the childlike innocence of bhakti. By that I mean whatever it is, whatever fill in the blank, that destroys the childlike innocence of bhakti. You see these children come to the temple especially from South India, the little kids. The mother says, "Bow down here. Stand over here.' And the kid is just like a zombie. Whatever the mother tells them to do the kid does. Surrendered! You ever saw a mother dressing a kid, putting the socks, jacket and hat. The kid is just like, "Whatever!"[Laughter] He is surrendered because he knows, "My parent just wants the best for me. So let me just surrender."
What is all this plan making? What is this material world? Let me just surrender to what Krishna wants. Let me execute the plan of Krishna. That peaceful state in the beginning of childhood, when one comes to the stage of selfless surrender again this word daya-bhak. It means the rightful inheritor. One of the symptoms of surrender is that one becomes a rightful heir. Krishna becomes purchased by that.
It is said that once one has that realization, it is said that Dhruva Maharaja conquered Visnuloka by austerity. There are many different types of austerity but for the sake of our discussion today Prabhupada said that our austerity is to tolerate each other, frankly. Prabhupada said the measure of your love for me will be that you can co operate, if you co-operate together. Prabhupada wrote to a GBC man that was complaining and probably rightfully so about some temple president. Prabhupada had these wonderful one-liners!
Like they asked Prabhupada "Is the world flat?" He said, "He said everywhere I walk it is!" [Laughter] They asked Prabhupada, "Why is the death rate so high in India?" He said, "It is the same everywhere one hundred percent." [Laughter] So similarly Prabhupada wrote a PS to his letter. The devotee was perhaps rightly so complaining about this one temple president. Prabhupada wrote PS with his own hand, "I ask that you tolerate him just like I tolerate you." [Laughter]
For us to tolerate it is more or less allowed but you know Prabhupada is reaching down from Goloka Vrindavan in the deepest mud of Kali yuga and pulling us out. So if we calculate how much Srila Prabhupada, the senior Vaisnavas, the previous acaryas, they crossed over the river but they left the boat for us. If we think how much of mercy we will be receiving what is there to tolerate some short coming. You can't ask what you are not willing to give. If we are not willing to give, if we are not willing to tolerate - Co-operation at least in my mind is you agree with me but that is not the only meaning of co-operation. And I am thinking of the time factor.
Prabhupada talks about great rsis and great sages, how they can't even touch the Visnuloka planet. The fact of the matter is we know (and hopefully if wehave time maybe one story) and we have conviction in the words of the Bhagavatam these materialists really do not know what they are talking about. It is one of the biggest bluffs going! It was Hitler's 'propagandaism', i He said you just have to tell a lie and if you tell a lie loud enough and long enough people will believe it. But don't tell a little lie. A little lie, they will pick apart but if you tell a big lie they will think, "They will never lie about that!" [Laughter] The big lie is that we are this body, that this material world is our all in all, it is all going on by chance although it contradicts all of our intuitive experience and intelligence. "Oh, they all say therefore it must be true."
I wanted to share just for fun, we don't have time to go into it but these are some newspaper headings - again a bird flies in the sky according to itsability so I am supposed to tell stories so here we go. These are from the great Puranas of truth in the material world! [Laughter] They are from the LA Times, New York Times, London Times. They must be true. This one says: 'Mars Probe Ventures Near Planet' - This was the one were Europe and America were working together and they shot the thing literally hundreds and millions of dollars. We can build twenty to thirty Mayapur temples with just one little probe. Europe and USA were working together and they sent the thing off, "Beep, beep, beep, beep."[Laughter] "Uh? Go on!" They traced the whole thing back. This is true. The American scientists were working in inches and yards and the Europeans were in meters! Whoooops! 'Estimated age of the Universe Changes As Knowledge Expands' [Laughter] my father once told me that the art of diplomacy is the ability to tell someone to go to hell and they look forward to the trip! [Laughter] It is all in how you word it! 'Estimated age of the Universe Changes as Knowledge Expands' This means we don't know what the hell is going on! That is what it actually means!
'Stellar Walker Puzzles Scientists'; 'Evidence of New Form of Matter Found In True Stars.' My son used to make models. Now he is an adult. You put together a model. It is supposed to be a car that moves and everything. He put the whole thing together and the car didn't move. And he would look over; there were five or six parts he had forgotten to add. "Oh that might have something to do with it."
If the whole universe is figured out by the law of physics, there is no room for God, there is no room for miracles or there is no room for spiritual energy, we are all better off on earth. It is all operating by the laws of physics. We can explain! But then what is this? All of a sudden the whole looks like a part that you didn't know about. That means that all of your laws are all suspect, all of your conclusions are suspect! That is what this means. The number of stars are usually uncounted. We are almost done.[Laughter]
'Scientists Are Astounded By Cosmic Explosion.'; 'Probe of Jupiter Jolts Science" 'Nearby Stars Don't Behave As They Should' [Laughter] 'Mysterious Force Pulling Universe Apart.' 'Space Telescope Fails Five Days After Launch.' How much of that would you catch if it all doesn't work? 'Costly Rocket Failed to Mount' 'Last Type Rocket Failure Brings Total of Three In One Year' And it cost them three billion dollars! They are like children that have a lot of money and are simply gambling it away, they are lighting it on fire and feeding us cow manure. (Glad I got that of my chest.) The point is why do we put our faith in these things?
Suppose I am Christopher Columbus ant and I am sent out by the queen for exploration. This Rodrigo de Galvan Bastidas, I don't know if you remember Rodrigo de Galvan Bastidas, Spanish or ... He crossed the isthmus. Between North America and South America there in Central America there is a small isthmus there. He crossed it. When he came to the Pacific Ocean he touched the ocean with the Spanish flag and said, "All the waters touched by this flag are now claimed by the Queen of Spain!" It was a big shock to the Chinese and Japanese. [Laughter]
So Christopher Columbus ant steps out to survey new lands. He is climbing up and over me. I am bragging on in Bhagavatam class. He returns to the queen. That's a big lot of his journey. And vast lands, forest, mountains, hills all uninhabited! You follow? He is climbing on me but his range of sense perception is so limited he can't see me. We claim, us scientist, materialist, reductionists their i as a given as an axiomatic given of truth everything openly supported to my sensory mental perception, intellectual perception. Why?
Suppose I go and meet Gopal Prabhu and we are going to meet in the corner of the main street intersection downtown Calcutta at 3pm on such and such day. And being a very responsible Vaisnava he is there half an hour earlier. I also show up same time. In fact I am half hour early, (could happen) at the same place. I don't see him. He doesn't see me. We meet the next day. I say, "Prabhu I am sure you were busy doing something but what happened?" He says, "With all due respects Prabhu I was there but where you?"
On the two dimensional plane it is fine. But suppose there is a building on that corner and suppose all of a sudden he was on the first floor and I was on the third floor. As soon as we add the other third dimension of height,length and breadth we were in the same spot. You had another dimension. We are completely independent. We don't even experience each other. If we accept as the materialists also accept, what to speak of the Bhagavatam that we live in a multi dimensional universe then the whole thing becomes mystical. Prabhupada said that the world material world is lying on the mystical potency of the Supreme. So with their limited plane of calculation they will never understand.
It says here a bit to come closer and closer you have heard it said here that they have come to take him. You are welcome to go. The whole theme of the Bhagavatam if you were to summarize it is Krishna delivering His devotees. Lila after lila, historical event we say, after historical event of Krishna in inconceivable ways delivering His devotees. Krishna is bhakta-vatsala. He is leaning favorably - when Prabhupada came to Detroit he saw Radha-Kunjabihari and Radha-Kunjabihari Isvara he looks like He is going to put His head on Radharani's shoulder. He is really leaning. Prabhupada said, "Aaaahhh! Bhakta-vatsala. Krishna is leaning favorably towards His devotees."
He is karuna -sindhu, an ocean of mercy. Prabhu told me in a darsan that if you take one step towards Krishna, Krishna will take ten to you. This Madoff guy that made off with everybody's money what was his rate of return? If I offered you one to twenty rate of return it is inconceivable! It is too good to be true. Krishna is offering a thousand rate of return, thousand percent. One step!
The simple point I am trying to make is that what is this material world?! And on the other side we have Krishna, the spiritual world we have all the great saints and sages. Common, just come this way. And what do we have to do to become detached from this world? Stop with our plan making.
The real thing is they came to him. If we just do the needful Prabhupada said, "You will not find Krishna in the bushes of Vrindavana." Dhruva Maharaja is a manager. I am not saying that you should all be managers. I am saying whatever you are doing to put your shoulder to the wheel of the sankirtana mission. That will capture the attention of Krishna. That will earn you the mercy. It says you earn the mercy. And they came to him. You don't have to chase after it.
I was in the shower the other day. A devotee got up on a milk crate, pounded on the window, "Badri, can I talk to you?" I said, "Prabhu I am in the shower." The devotee said, "Oh I don't mind." [Laughter] The idea that I had a personal life or dignity - that went out the window! To manage in Iskcon, to co-operate together.
Prabhupada said in the spiritual world you can string the garlands. If you are doing something else and you want them strung they will string themselves. Prabhupada said the sweet rice will cook itself and tell you when it is done. But in the material world it is almost the opposite. You get the material nature, tag A and tag B and stay there. It takes all of our human exertion.
So to co-operate in this world, push material matter, to do something for Krishna, this is the secret for capturing the mercy of Krishna. This is the secret for having the Visnuduttas come and take us back home, back to Godhead. It is not so hard. The Dieties, just now this kirtan will be here. What is there not to love? Now we are done with this class. Chant. Hopefully I said something useful and worthwhile, you heard something about Krishna then we go and take a fantastic feast.
My father retired at Seventy six years old. Big black-tie dinner. Everybody was wearing tuxedos, two hundred and fifty people. It was a big deal. He was speaking. He said, "I started working at twelve years old. I had a paper run. I have worked all my life. Now I am retiring at seventy six years old but my youngest son is smarter than me. He is a devotee." I am there dressed in devotee clothes. He says, "You know why? He retired at seventeen and a half. He joined the hare Krishna movement." [Laughter and applause] If you think about it we work hard for Krishna. We should work with full exertion.
There was a study done in America and they found what motivates people in the world. It was done by Harvard business review. Again a Purana of truth materially! Curiously enough they found out that after a certain point,after somebody gets their house, they get their health care taken care of, they are putting aside some money for their kids more money doesn't motivate them. And really the perks, the Executive washroom executive elevator, that is not what really motivates them. What motivates people is being appreciated and the feeling that they are doing something that matters, something that will last or something that works.
We here in the Hare Krishna Movement we are delivering conditioned souls. We are saving the planet. You could not do a more important thing than being inthe Hare Krishna Movement and deliver the sankirtan mission. So chanting, dancing and feasting and the most important work - what's there not to love? But the mind! I will give you an example, Prabhupada's example.
You are at someone's house at a home program and they cook green coconut katchoris Very tasty! Bengali specialty! If you eat too many green coconut katchoris they cause indigestion. So you have one. The mind says, "Have another." All right youi"I want this beastly thing to stop badgering me. I will have another." The mind says, "When was the last time you saw coconut katchoris? How often?" When you are eating you should take certain number. You should take three." Well so long as you have taken three. You throw caution to the wind - four. "My dear mind whatever you say. I just want you happy." When you wake up in the middle of the night, four hours later with a horrible stomach ache that same mind says, "You idiot! Why did you eat so many?"
I was travelling with a nice saintly devotee. We were travelling in a van doing book distribution. We were up for mangal arati and it kind of just looks like he has been slapped silly all night long. I said, "Prabhu, what happened?" He said, "I could sleep at all last night." I said, "Why/" He said, "The window was open. It was so cold." I said, "Well why didn't you shut it?" He said, "I was too tired to get up." [Laughter] So he tossed and turned all night rather than five minutes at the window. We are laughing but at least I know for myself this is my constant existence. He has just been cold because a servant of the mind.
This is Prabhupada story. A man encountered a genie and the genie said, "What is your wish O Master?" and for you lawyers out there you can't wish for unlimited wishes. You only got one wish. The man was blind, poverty stricken and with no children. And he only has one wish. What to do? You know what he wished for, according to Prabhupada? He wished to see his children from the roof of his palace. [Laughter] Follow? To see his children from the roof of his palace!
If you just become a devotee, just surrender to Krishna, just serve the sankirtan mission, just somehow or the other push the sankirtana mission forward. That one act and everything will be accomplished. Just as the Visnuduttas came for Dhruva Maharaja they will come for us. I do want to say this.I was in Los Angeles in 1970. Srila Prabhupada was speaking. I will give the details if we have time. Instead of Bhagavatam class Prabhupada was teaching us the mantras of Sri Isopanisad. om purnam adah purnam idam [Iso Invocation] Prabhupada would come to the temple room and greet the deities. The temple room was where the museum is now in Los Angeles. Prabhupada would come and sit on his vyasasana, we would offer obeisances and before we even came up Prabhupada's oceanic voice would be rolling out with the invocation of Sri Isopanisad. Just one of those golden moments!
This particular time we offered obeisances, no om purnam adah purnam idam. It wasn't coming. We looked and Prabhupada was sitting very straight up on the vyasasana and then we noticed that flowing from his eyes were tears - pouring from his eyes as he was looking at the little deities. We just had little deities in those days. And then we saw Srila Prabhupada physically take a breath and you could see he suppressed, pushed it all down, got it out of his way and then began chanting om purnam adah purnam idam.
That ecstasy which came spontaneously was an intrusion, was in the way of his service to his spiritual master and to his students. That ecstasy was adisturbance. He pushed it down to get on with his business of serving the society, serving his spiritual master. That is a maha-bhagavata. That is someone who is fully surcharged with the mercy of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.So chasing after it is one thing, but if we simply put our shoulders to the wheel of the sankirtana movement. We have to study and we have to chant, I am not saying give that up but it is a descending and not an ascending process.
One thing, (I am going to end on time by Krishna's grace,) there is a man (and the reason why I am telling this is that we believe so many fantastic stories. You talk to the materialists. They believe in parallel universes, grey matter, black matter or dot stars - they go on and on and on! You think we believe fantastic stories tap into the theoretical physics. It will blow your mind what they believe.)
As a faith builder in the Bhagavat view that there is Visnuloka, there are the Visnuduttas. This is not our real home. To buy into that whole view, Mr Prakash is South Indian. This is a true story. He lives in San Diego. He is a nice man. His wife is aspiring to take initiation from Jayapataka Maharaj. He is more of a smarta-brhamana. He is a nice man. And coming from a South Indian brahmana family he is reserved. He is not an emotional person.
He had a cerebral thrombosis. Blood vessel blew in his brain. The rushed him to hospital. They almost lost him four times. Somehow or the other he survived. Major operation! He was in a come through the whole thing. His wife said, "Can you please come say something." I had known the family for many years so I said, "I will come."
He looked at me. He had that gray green ghostly color in I have seen my fare share of people about to go and he really looked it. I thought, "Good luck." I did not say it. [Laughter] Don't chastise me. We chatted from Bhagavad-gita. I quoted some slokas. "You now Prakash just remember Krishna. Don't worry, just surrender to Krishna" So once a week I would stop by and see him.
Five to six weeks went by and his wife called me, "He is out of the coma. He has recovered. They have taken the tube out but he will not speak. He wantsto see you." So I went to see him. He was lying on his bed obviously drained from this whole experience. He sees me, sits up on his bed and says (the relatives were there, the doctors were there) he sits up and he says, "Badri, four times they came." The doctor chimes in, "Yes. You almost lost it four times in the operating theatre." Mr. Prakash says, "No. Four times they came.' His dear relatives said, "Oh we came to see him. We thought he was in emergency care. They moved you to this room Four times it took us to find you." "No, no." Mr Praskash said, "Four times they came."
So I thought, trying to be a devotee I thought maybe it must be the Visnuduttas. I said, "The Visnuduttas?" He said, "No. No. The bad people! The bad people!" I said, "Oh, you mean the Yamaduttas?' He was nodding his head. Everybody looked up. The relatives, the doctors, "What do these two know at this point?" he said, "Four times they came. Every time they came I told them, 'Take me or leave me I am depending on Krishna.' They went away. Then again they came back and again I told them, 'Take me or leave me. I am depending on Krishna.' Forth time they came I said, 'why are you bothering me? I have told you the same thing.' Then the good people came and when the bad people saw the good people they said, 'Oh, we cannot touch him now.' And they went away."
And Mr. Prakash came out of his comma. At that point you could hear a pin drop in the room. Prakash reaches out, grabs me by my arms and said, "Before I did not believe." He said, "Now one hundred percent!" [Haribol - Applause] There are so many stories like that. It is actually a fact. Now I could end there or tell one other joke. Because I said I will I would and I will end after this. And the point of this joke is plan making. You cannot become happy in this material world.
Prabhupada said if you try to wash coal what will happen? Get the beast ingredients, the best soap and this and that, fantastic brush, scrub for weeks, the coal will always be black because that is its intrinsic and inherent nature. This material world is temporary and it is full of miseries and it is certified by its creator, Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita. You want o get the owner's manual for this material world, read Bhagavad-gita. And what does it say? Temporary and full of misery! "Oh no, no! I have a better idea." I don't think so. Please don't take offence ladies. This is a ijoke. Ladies can substitute husband instead of wife and it would work just fine. So don't stone me on the way out. It works for everybody.
A man was walking down the beach stubs his toe sticks something, (I can tell. It is after the class. It is a little informal now) He dusts it off. It is a lamp. A genie comes out and says, "O Master whatever one wish you have I will fulfill." The man said, I am living in California. All my family lives in Hawaii. I got o fly them over here; I got to fly over there. It is so expensive. Can you just make a bridge from California to Hawaii?"
The Genie says, "Come on I am a genie. You know how hard that is. Give me a break. Ask for something else." So he said, "My wife and I don't get along so well." He said, "Can you tell me how to keep my wife happy?" The genie said, "When do you want that bridge by?" [Laughter] So that point is that we cannot be happy in this material world. Just surrender to Krishna and put our shoulder behind the wheel of the sankirtana mission. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. [Applause] And now we all get to go take Prasad. What is there not to love about the Hare Krishna movement? [Haribol]
