Life Begins From Cleanliness

(Compiled from notes on lectures of H. H. Mahavishnu Goswami)

The following is a transcription of a lecture given by our spiritual master HH Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaja on 2008-12-10 in Shree Shree Radha-NeelMadhav dham, Rajkot. Maharaja was explaining the following verse from shastras.

sukhasya duhkhasya na kopi daataa / paro dadaati iti kubuddhir eshaa
puraa krtam karma sadaiva bhujyate / dehin kvacin nistara yat tvayaa krtam
“No one is the cause for our happiness and distress. Only a foolish person thinks that the miseries are given by others. We always enjoy happiness or distress based on our previous karma. So as long as one is embodied, he has to patiently tolerate the results of his past karma and by this way he can get rid of it.”

We are enjoying or always suffering from our own previous karma. 'puraakrtam karma sadhaiva bhujyate - dehin kvacin nistara tvayaa krtam' - Better keep quiet and tolerate whatever hard time Krishna is giving you because of your reactions of karma and get rid of those karma. There is nobody responsible for our happiness or misery. We are tolerating. We are experiencing happiness or misery as per our karmic reactions. Once we are in a difficulty, we blame our stars - I have shani - I have mangal this and that. The individual himself or herself is the impediment for himself or herself. Nobody is the reason. Really if we deeply think, we are at mistake. Bhagavatam says - if there is any difficulty blame yourself - so that the matter ends. But we don't blame ourselves. So blaming and counter-blaming goes on. Everyone should blame himself or herself. This is very clear. That is why material difficulties linger on. They never end for us. Our life is fully distressed.

There is no cleanliness. It starts with C. Because we are not clean, our relationships are not clean. Our behaviour is not clean, our mind is not clean. Our things are not well arranged. Everything becomes unclean and may be if Krishna is not merciful we may suffer from diseases. Unclean body is already there. Unclean body becomes more diseased when the mind is unclean. First mind goes bad and then the body. Apart from this we cannot stop the signs of old age. So cleanliness helps us all the way - This is the first requisite for all our life - both material and spiritual. That restaurant guy who comes here - Lord's hotel manager - that guy's business is prospering so nicely. His restaurant has only one quality - that cleanliness is there. I don't know about the quality of the food there. But the hotel is immaculately clean. You can see your face in his restaurant's floor tiles. So clean. So as I told you, people like cleanliness. They don't do cleaning themselves - but like cleanliness (laughter). But laziness stops this quality. Because we are not clean, our life is also not disciplined.

When cleanliness is absent, discipline is completely absent. Regulated life is completely absent. Cleanliness will definitely help you to have discipline in your life. Because you are happy to see your things nicely arranged, you know what you need, what you don't need. What to buy, what not to buy. If haphazard things are there, then you buy this and that and again add some scrap to whatever dump you have. This is ridiculous. Discipline is completely absent - There is C for Cleanliness and D for discipline. Because we are not clean, we are not disciplined and there is no education - E.

You became doctor because you were clean, disciplined parents took care of you - and so you were able to take a medical degree. Otherwise, education will be completely absent. We are not clean. There is no guidance and we don't want to take guidance.So much arrogance is there. Since C and D are missing E is absent. Education is absent. Till mother is alive she always works very hard to clean. We always tell our mother, "Mother, how nice you have cleaned?", but we never helped her any time. But mothers are bound to go away and you are bound to grow up. You will go for work here and there. So then we are tested. If C (Cleanliness) is absent D (discipline) is bankrupt and E (Education) is not there - then F is For, G is For God...Education For God - that is completely gone for us. We don't know at all. Srila Prabhupada is the only saint who has found out the correct diagnosis of our miseries. Because we are bereft of God we are suffering. God - He gave a nice name Krishna. When they were forming the society in America - he said our society is known as International Society for Krishna Consciousness. So his disciples said - Krishna is "Hindu God". So better we keep International Society for God Consciousness. He said, "No - Krishna" (laughter) "Krishna is not sectarian word", he said. - To that extent, this God's eduation is important. Now whoever tells International Society for Krishna Consciousness, atleast they utter the word once.

This is how material education is absent - what to ask about God's education? We are completely heading for bankrupt life. Result is not seen, but experienced. Again and again you have to take the material body. You have not used your human form properly. So again and again you have to take material bodies. You are forced to be born,"bhutvaa bhutvaa praniyate bhutvaa" and bodies means; we are in human form at the moment and to have the human form again - there are 8 million 400 thousand bodies inbetween. We don't know the danger. This is very high. 'svalpam apyasya dharmasya traayate mahato bhayaat' - Very little beginning we make, traayate means protect. This dharma protects us from great fear. We cannot experience death. Horribly we are scared of death. We are afraid to talk about death and we try to avoid talks about death. These things we never contemplate seriously and that is why our life is not organised. And wherever we stay we are the cause of chaos. Our life is chaotic and then how can we help others? In addition to that, city life is hellish and in top of that we go to foreign countries. Their life is completely different. We may not get adjusted to it. Again if we get adjusted, our own inebrieties are there. So we may not be able to succeed. But once we are gone, then its very difficult to come back. There was one Indian High Commissioner. He was a Gujarati. He was always telling that when we leave India, that time it was a honorable thing to go to London - because nobody went. His relatives garlanded him - 12 garlands! He showed me the photo. Now that he was garlanded he could not go back. Actually there was no place to stay for him. No prasadam, he had to work in the restaurant. But he writes letter from there saying he is very happy. Krishna alone knows that he is sad, standing near the dish washer and washing vessels. Please avoid these unnecessary situations and be very frank in your situations so that we may not cheat anybody. When C is absent, cleaning is absent - again another C is there - Cheating is there. Unclean habit - That is cheating - Because we are not clean, we cheat. It goes without saying.

These things only disappear with pure conscious cleaning - You should not even do bhakti - Bhakti comes afterwards. First Pure Conscious cleaning . I don't know how much more to insist this. Try to remember this. Somehow or the other we find out something so that we do not forget these things. If we remember CDEFG (Cleanliness Discipline Education For God) you are fully fixed in your front. CDEFG - Very easy to remember. What to speak of devotional service, everywhere we are dirty. Our whole consciousness is polluted. We don't even know what we are doing. Our mind is not clean. Our Atma writes very nicely (HG Atmaprasad Krishna Prabhu from Minneapolis) writes very nicely in his poem -

If our room is clean
then our mind is clean;
If our mind is clean, we can do anything.
If our room is dirty, then so are we;
If we are dirty, then we are not happy.

Our school children here - (Sri Prahlad International School) in Rajkot sing very nicely.

So mind must be completely clean. But its impossible. We are surrounded by so many worries. Artficial relationships cannot continue for long. Clean relationships we don't have. Clean relationships are gifts from Krishna. That is why parents and children hardly they forget each other. That relationship is very clean. Parents don't achieve anything from us. So svaartha is completely absent. When Selfishness is absent - then relationships are pure. After all, all the other relationships are dependent on selfishness. That is why there is fighting, quarrel, divorces etc. As soon as our selfish interest is affected, we flare up. Everything goes wrong if we don't care for C. Whatever relationship we have with Krishna, Krishna being our source, kind father does not want anything from us. But only wants us to go back to Him. Its a clean relationship - Next replica is our parents relationship. Father sometimes behave roughly. But mother never does. In Gujarati there is saying which means - mother is happy to see the son coming back, but wife wants to see what he has brought.These are selfish relationships. If relationships are clean - that is the beginning of devotional service. Clean relationship between us and Krishna. If you only remember this CDEFG your life is successful. CDEFG - Is it very difficult to understand? That is what is insisted in the whole of Bhagavatam.

These scriptures are not in the sky. They are very much intimately connected with day to day life. Unless the way we deal with things in our day to day life is not changed, what is the use? Outward show is quite alright. Tilak is there; dhoti is there; japamala is there - but what is inside? Nothing. Outward show cannot continue. Mahabharat show cannot continue for more than 3 hours. After 3 hours, each one of us are our ownselves. How long can it continue? But we are very expert in showing up what we are actually not - but one fine day we are revealed. Hypocrisy cannot take us anywhere. Hypocrisy is known as "dambh" in Sanskrit. Hypocrisy should be avoided. At any cost - hypocrisy must be avoided.

There was one solicitor. He had passed LLB degree and was trying to practice. His office was well decorated and equipped with phone etc. Once a man came to his office. So he wanted to impress the man and as if he had received the phone, he started speaking - "Oh Vajpayee - Prime Minister...That legal case ..Don't worry I will take care. Please don't hesitate. Anytime give me a call". Similarly he made two such fake calls and later being satisfied with the show he has made, he asked the man in his office, the reason why he had come. That man replied that he was the technician who had come to connect his phone.(laughter)

We may show - eventually we will be cheated. Why do we want to show? What is there to show and to whom do we want to show? There was one disciple in Australia - when I went there I was staying with him. I told him - "You go to your shop - you are your boss. So you should put on dhoti." He said - "No Maharaja - its out of etiquette". I told him, "Nothing is out of etiquette (laughter). Your mind is out of etiquette. May be on week days you are wearing suits. Atleast on Sundays you should try." So one Sunday, he put on his dhoti and kurta and went to the shop. He was very eagerly looking if someone is looking at him. Evening when he came home, I asked him - "What happened? Are you comfortable in dhoti-kurta?" He replied that to his surprise, nobody looked at him. We only look at our self. People around are so busy in their own activities. They don't have time to look at us. But we only look at ourselves. Unnecessarily we are afraid. These things are so easy to understand - but somehow difficult to realize.

These things are the beginning. If the beginning is not proper how we will reach the destination? We are all in our homes...selfish interests, hypocrisy are all the by-lanes. We should at least come to the highway to reach the destination and should not get stuck in the by-lanes. The other day we were reading the story about the demon selling out various kinds of instruments - the costliest instrument being "Depression". That is the by lane. Envy, anger these are all by-lanes. So many people are angry with themselves and commit suicide. Prabhupada has saved us from these. So let us follow the process he has laid for us. A little beginning will help us. A grain of devotion is better than tonnes of faithlessness. 'svalpam apyasya dharmasya traayate mahato bhayaat’'. We should first mould our life and then we can propagate. Somebody sees our life - by seeing they will take the lessons. Very easy to speak these things but when it comes to change our behaviour – that is the test.

Our behaviour is so obnoxious. Because these inebrities are present, the process does not work. Then we blame the process. Prabhupada has given very nice process. But because of our inebrities, it does not reciprocate and we beat about the bush. And because of this dirty life, we have this very bad tendency - to grab freely. For eg - This table is very nice. So I like to take it. I ask Vaishnavseva Prabhu - "Please - I like to have this table." He says - "No Maharaja - This table belongs to temple. So it should be here." So if I don't trust his words and disobey him, I steal the table. But after stealing I have to hide it somewhere. I can't take it everywhere - because its very heavy and so I keep it in some other's house. Prabhupada says – “the thing which we steal will not accompany us everywhere, but the results of theft - that will definitely come with us.” We don't have faith in karma theory at all.

yathaa dhenu sahasreshu / vatso gaccati maataram
tathaa yaccha krtam karma / kartaaram anugacchati


"Just like how in the midst of thousands of cows, a calf finds its mother accurately, similarly, the reactions of one's past actions, hit the doer without fail."

Whatever karma we do, anywhere we take birth, in whatever species we are in the next life, that reaction of karma - will hit us without fail - just like the calf finding its mother among thousands of cows.

Why should we add more karmas? We should think. Unknowlingly we accumulate so many karmas. While I am walking unknowingly I kill so many living entities. That way I accumulate karma. So knowingly, why to add more? (Brahma Samhita verse 5.54) karmapi nirdhahati kintu ca bhakti-bhajam - That very Personality of Godhead destroys the fruitive karma of one engaged in devotional service.'' - That is the power of devotional service. That is why we should divert the attention to the process given by Prabhupada.

Unclean habits forces us to grab. Dhritarashtra - was a very pure devotee. But he couldn't see. Naturally a father is inclined to sons. He could not see that his son was full of adharma. Only Vidura could see. When Duryodhana was born, he did not even cry. He was making sounds like a donkey. Vidura said that he should be killed as this was an inauspicious sign. But Dhritarashtra was angry - "My son is only 1 day old. How can he destroy the family?" But eventually it so happened. Many times our sentimental behaviour doesn't work. Only Krishna's desire and decision works. Krishna wanted Duryodhana that way and so it was like that. One man with unclean habits - He wanted to banish Pandavas by hook or crook. He did it. But eventually in the battle field, the karma caught him again - he was lying like a helpless man in the battle-field with broken thighs. How long will it take for Krishna to finish us off? He gives us a loose ring – and we think we are clever.

There are unlimited things and ways we need to be clean. Everywhere we should be guided by clean consciousness - Krishna consciousness. If you don't understand, Prabhupada's books are there Bhagavad-gita, Srimad Bhagavatam and so many other small books - Please relish these things. That granthraj offering - "Krishna's Flute Makes Gopis Dance" - all the 26 good qualities are there in this acronym. Try to find something easy to remember like that and keep your consciousness clean. Srila Prabhupada has said - 16 rounds is must - That is purifying force. So please follow.

Chant,

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna

Krishna Krishna

Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama

Rama Rama

Hare Hare

and be happy.