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Haribol! The general religious hindus observe or worship Ganesh before doing any activity because he removes all obstacles. The Sri Vaisnavas worship Vishwakshena, and our Gaudiya vaisnavas, we worship the Guru. It says that the Guru, all the great demigods are represented by the Guru.  So Ganesh and Lord Nrsingadev, they are all in the Guru.

Guru should have the attitude of the servitor of the Lord. And because he is very dear to the Lord, therefore he, the Lord gives mercy to the Guru. So therefore the Guru is respected as non-different from Krishna. He is identical. I remember one time one devotee said to Prabhupada, "Prabhupada you know everything so I don't have to tell you". Srila Prabhupada replied, "I'm not the Supersoul. I don't know everything". So therefore we know that Prabhupada was very dear to Krishna, but he was not the personality of Godhead.

In the Bhaktivedanta Hospital, in Meera Road, there was one story of how a man was in the ICU. He had various magazines of spiritual organizations, so the spiritual care department asked him, 'Oh you are so interested in the spiritual, are you? You have all these magazines'. He said "Yes, but I have one doubt. Every book says there is God. There is a group that also say, there is not. So my doubt is Who is really God?" Now that doubt is answered by A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He says that he is not God, but the servitor of God. In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna said He is God. He said everything comes from Him. Aham Sarvasya Prabhavo.

"Really! Really! That man said... really! There is something called Bhagavad Gita.. really!.. Wow! Now my doubts are removed. I know who is really God.. Bhagavan Krishna! Haribol!" So this doubt is all over in India.

There are different Gurus who claim to be God. There is one next to our Rajamandary temple. He claimed to be Kalki Avatar. He is known as Satyagopinath Das Abhigyas. So some devotees can see him. It says in Bhagavatam how He comes at the end of Kali Yuga. That's about a 400 thousand years from now. Aren't you a little early? Well he said, "Ok I'm not Kalki Avatar, but I AM avatar. Just call me 'Om Avatar' and if you give me 10,000 Rupees I will give you one blessing. And if you give me a lac and a half, I will give such an intense blessing for four days you will be out of your senses". We call all these heroes in the west, Pushers. He would give you a drug that would knock you out for a few days.

So they attended the namahatta wherein the food they serve is Krishna prasadam. So they give the family Guru, Kula Guru, Krishna Prasad. The Kula Guru says, "What is this? What is this food?? Prasad...It's known as Prasad. I'm a Guru, I'm a spiritual master." The guru said, "Give me some food! Give me some decent food. Don't give me this vegetarian food... give me fish! I want to eat fish! These fishes are expensive and you should offer your spiritual master something really good!"

Lord Caitanya, He came with Lord Nithyananda. They were going to Shantipur and some sadhu said, "See my deities". So They saw that he had some Krishna deity. So the devotees said, "Please stay back and honor some Prasad" He gave some fruit to Gaur & Nitai and then he said, "Please sit down and take the food". He said, "Please stay for lunch, I will give you a very nice Prasad. Fish!". Lord Caitanya said, "You eat fish???" He said, "It's the fruit of the water".  He jumped up and jumped into the Ganges and took all Their clothes off! So like that we know that Gaur and Nitai, they only take saatvik Prasad. So we know that the Guru is the devotee of the Lord, therefore he is very dear to the Lord and the Lord's mercy are stemmed from the Guru.

So Krishna is so kind that He wants to give His mercy out. He comes, as He said in the Gita "Sambhavami Yuge Yuge". He comes at every age just to give His devotees His blessings. Once in a day of Brahma, in the Vishnu form, Krishna comes. Sometime after Lord Caitanya comes. So Lord Caitanya gives all mercy which is not given before. He gives out Krishna Prema. He doesn't think who's qualified and who's not qualified. He gives out to everybody, who ever wants it! Who all want Lord Caitaya's mercy?".. Haribol!

So we missed Him by 500 years, but His mercy is still there. And that was given now by His Divine Grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, and he requested His followers to also give out that mercy. So infact this is the first duty Prabhupada gave us. So Prabhupada is very merciful, and at the same time, he personally one time called me. Then, as a person, I could recommend people for first initiation, and be a little lenient. But for the second BE VERY STRICT. So he said that for second initiation, people should be a little more learned. I was present in Prabhupada's room here in Mayapur. Some person, Prabhupada disciple, he said, "I would like to get second initiation! I want to get brahman initiation". So Prabhupada said, "What is Brahman?" He couldn't answer. "You want to be a Brahmin? You have no idea what is Brahman? Out! Out!". So I saw how Prabhupada, was a bit hard to get second (initiation).

So here, it's become some kind of a fashion. Everybody wants second (initiation). It's not needed to go back to Godhead. If you want it, take Bhakti Sastri from the Mayapur institute. That's the test. But you should somehow know the basic knowledge. Otherwise, you will just commit offense to the deities. Krishna wants to give all His mercy. Lord Caitanya, Nithyananda, they want to give their mercy. So do they give it directly? Or they give through their Guru-Parampara.

The day the Guru appears is known as the Vyasa Puja. He is the representative of Krishna and all the acaryas. The scriptures say that he is the one representing Krishna and all the devas. So I remember we had a guest in the lotus building. We had a VIP guest. Somebody allowed him. He's a famous singer. His name is "George Harrison". So he was with the Beatles. So he learnt many things. But he saw my picture in the altar and he asked me, "How do you still have a picture over there?" What a surprising question? I said humbly, "All the great acaryas are there. I see myself very little." So the Guru, according to this verse, needs to have a service attitude. And because of their service attitude, that person is very dear to Krishna. So Krishna sees how the disciples are serving their Guru. And accordingly Krishna gives all His mercy.

Today also is known as Kamada Ekadasi. Krishna says, "This Ekadasi is very special. All your desires can be satisfied." There were two gandharvas, Lalita and Lalit. They were husband and wife. They were very attracted to each other. So the husband was singing in a king's court. And at that time he was thinking about his wife. And he got stuck in his song. So one of the courtiers complained to the king that this gandharva is just thinking of his wife and therefore he is offensive. And Raja Pundarik became red with anger. His eyes turned red. I curse you. You, who were supposed to be singing for the king at this point of time, you have transgressed your duties and therefore I'm cursing you to become a rakshasa, a man-eater, a cannibal.

And then from being a beautiful gandharva, he turned into an ugly cannibal. I will not give all the detailed descriptions... so he was going through the forest. Then his wife Lalita followed him. "My husband due to his sinful action is suffering like anything." She met a very saintly sage. His name was Shringi. This lady asked Shringi as to how she can help her husband. The sage said, "You see the upcoming ekadasi that's about to take place is called Kamada Ekadasi. On that Ekadasi if you follow the vows strictly and if you have a mind to offer all the pious merits you have to your husband, then your desires will get fulfilled."

Then Lalita performed this Kamada Ekadasi. She had gone back to the rishi. She said, "I have performed the Ekadasi and followed all the rules. I desire that my husband will become freed from this difficult situation and also the merits that I have earned from this ekadasi go to him!." Then immediately, right in front of her, this cannibal, he turned into his original form as gandharva and became free from the curse. Then a flower airplane came and both of them returned to the heavenly planets.

We don't want to go to hell. We want to serve Krishna. So those who observe ekadasi today can pray to do service to Krishna, or whatever desire you have. Hopefully those are spiritual desires.

I approached Prabhupada and said, "I want to serve you life after life." He said, "Why? You want me to come back?" I thought I said the right thing. Then I thought, "Ok I want to serve you Even life after life". That means if I don't go back to the spiritual world, then I want to serve Prabhupada here. So somebody will say, "Gurudev I want to serve you life after life".. but don't make me come back! If it's Prabhupada's desire then. But I want to add the word 'Even' Life after Life, according to Krishna's desire.

We asked Prabhupada, "How can we please you? How can we serve you?" So he said, "Be happy... be happy in Krishna consciousness and make others happy." So we want everyone to lead a healthy, and real taste for chanting...

Sri Krishna Caitanya Prabhu Nithyananda
Sri Advaita Gadhadhara Srivas Adi Gaura Bhakta Vrinda

So like that, everybody like chanting this mantra. They should be happy and you should enforce others to take up this chanting. So sometimes people ask the Guru, "Please give me some instruction". In my case Prabhupada gave me dozens of instructions... so many instructions. I will talk about it later, but I need help! How to fulfill all these instructions? So anyway now its late, and I'll speak on this later. I'll talk just on this slot. So but I will speak on my personal realizations at 12:15.

So we are very blessed that Prabhupada and his followers have given us this Bhagavatam and we are very blessed that BBT has published it. When Srinivas acharya went to see Gadhadhar das, he would read the Bhagavatam and it was washed up with his tears. So it was not legible. All of you also when you read Srimad Bhagavatam, and you are washing the Bhagavatam pages with your tears. If this happens frequently then BBT will publish waterproof pages. Haribol!