A young hippy asked Srila Prabhupada, "If our purpose is to go back toGodhead, why is Maya so strong?" Without the slightest hesitation SrilaPrabhupada profoundly and poetically answered, "Because your purpose is notstrong."In other words Maya, the Lord's illusory energy, only has power over us tothe extent that we are not determined to go back to home, back to Godhead.If we are determined to become fully Krishna conscious and not take birthhere again in this material world, the material energy will be powerless todo anything to stop us from achieving our goal.So instead of being weak in our determination, we must become powerful inour determination. How to do that? Srila Prabhupada taught us thatover-indulgence in sense-gratification, especially sex life, makes us weakin our determination. This is why one of the most important regulativeprinciples followed by a Krishna conscious person is "No illicit sex life."By limiting our sexual activities only to procreation we gain a great powerof determination that makes us solidly fixed on the transcendental platform.The great example of a devotee so fixed is Srila Haridas Thakur. He wasengaged in chanting 300,000 names of God daily in a secluded hut. This wasabout 500 years ago in India. The Muslim political leaders were not happy tosee that a converted former Muslim had now become recognized as a greatVaisnava saint. So they conspired to ruin his reputation by sending abeautiful prostitute to seduce him in the dead of night. The prostituteundressed herself before the sage and begged him for sexual intercourse. Hetactfully told the lady that first he had to finish his chanting and hewould then satisfy her desire. So he chanted all night without fulfillingher desire on the plea of not having finished his chanting. He thenapologized telling her to come again on the 2nd night, that he would thensatisfy her. The same thing happened on the 2nd night because he still hadnot completed his chanting. This time he assured her that if she came againon the 3rd night he would definitely fulfill her desire. On the third nightthe prostitute had become so purified by hearing the constant chanting ofthe Hare Krishna mantra from the lips of Haridas Thakur that in great shameshe fell at his feet and begged forgiveness by having tried to pollute him.In this way by the great determination of Haridas Thakur to remain firmlyfixed in his vows of chanting, he was able to withstand the attack of thematerial energy in the form of the prostitute.Even if we are not so strong in our determination to chant 300,000 names ofGod daily and spend three nights all alone with a naked beautiful youngprostitute without falling down, at least we can we chant 16 rounds dailyand strictly follow the four regulative principles:1. No illicit sex2. No intoxication3. No meat eating4. No gamblingThis will give us sufficient strong to remain fixed solidly in Krishnaconsciousness 24 hours daily and become fully qualified for going back tohome, back to Godhead at the time of death.
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