20040118 || Bhagavad-gītā Class (7.14) || Mumbai, India #JayapatakaSwamiArchives

Foreign Vedanta Swami Nova Path this divine energy of mind consisting of the three modes of material nature is difficult to overcome, but those who have surrendered unto Me can easily cross beyond it. Purport by His Divine grace Siddha Isabhati Vedanta Swami Bharupa the supreme Personality of Godhead has innumerable energies and all these energies are divine. Although the living entities are part of his energies and are therefore divine due to contact with material energy, their original superior power is covered. Being thus covered by material energy, one cannot possibly overcome its influence. As previously stated, both the material and spiritual natures being emanations from the supreme Personality of Godhead, are eternal. The living entities belong to the eternal superior nature of the Lord, but due to contamination by the inferior nature of matter, their illusion is also eternal. The conditioned soul is therefore called Mithyabhadha or eternally conditioned. No one can trace out the history of his being, of his becoming conditioned at a certain date in material history. Consequently, his release from the clutches of material nature is very difficult, even though that material nature is an inferior energy, because material energy is ultimately conducted by the supreme will which the living entity cannot overcome. Inferior material nature is defined herein as divine nature due to its divine connection and movement by the Divine will being conducted by divine will. Material nature, although inferior, acts so wonderfully in the construction and destruction of the cosmic manifestation. The Vedas confirm this as Maya Prakrit Vidyan Mahivaram Translation Although Maya illusion is false or temporary, the background of Maya is the Supreme Magician, the personality of Godhead who is Maheshwara, the Supreme Controller. Sweta Swatara Upanishad chapter 4, verse 10. Another meaning of guna is rope. It is to be understood that the conditioned soul is tightly tied by the ropes of illusion. A man bound by the hands and feet cannot free himself. He must be held by a person who is unbound. Because the bound cannot help the bound, the rescuer must be liberated. Therefore, only Lord Ka or His bona fide representative, the spiritual Master, can release the conditioned soul. Without such superior help, one cannot be freed from the bondage of material nature. Devotional service or Ka consciousness can help one gain such release. Krishna, being the Lord of illusory energy, can order this insurmountable energy to release the conditioned soul. He orders this release out of his causeless mercy on the conditioned soul and out of his paternal affection for the living entity who is originally a beloved son of the Lord. Therefore, surrender unto the lotus feet of the Lord is the only means to get free from the clutches of the stringent material nature. The words Maam Eva are also significant. Ma means unto Ka or Vishnu only and not Brahma or Shiva. Although Brahma and Shiva are greatly elevated and are almost on the level of Vishnu, it is not possible for such incarnations of Rajoguna, passion and Tamo Guna ignorance to release the conditioned soul from the clutches of Maya. In other words, both Brahma and Shiva are also under the influence of Maya. Only Vishnu is the master of Maya. Therefore he alone can give release to the conditioned soul. The Veda Sveta Swata Upanishad 3, 8 confirmed this in the phrase Tam Eva Vidhitva or freedom is possible only by understanding Ka. Even Lord Shiva affirms that liberation can be achieved only by the mercy of Vishnu. Lord Shiva says Mukti Pradha Sarvesam Vishnu Eva na Samsaya. There is no doubt that Vishnu is the deliverer of liberation to everyone. Thus ends the Bhagavidanta Swami translation of purport chapter 7, text 14 Bhagavad Gita as it is in a chapter entitled Knowledge of the Absolute. The translation again is this divine energy of mind consisting of the three modes of material nature is difficult to overcome. But those who have surrendered unto Me can easily cross beyond. So by nature we are bound in the material worlds. And if we just think that by some adjustment by own efforts, without any help from Guru or Krishna, we will get out of material illusion was very, very difficult. When we surrender to Ka and then by his mercy we easily cross over the ocean of ill. This is the secret method of how to get out of the material bondage. We're here because we been avoiding Ka. So we ended up here in this material world. And now if we surrender to Ka and accept him as our Lord and protector, he casts us all within the world very easily. There's many verses like this in different scriptures. Here Krishna himself is stating we are actually the living force in our body. It's called the para Prakriti or superior energy. But because of this material illusion, instead of understanding we're the living force in the body, we think we are the body. And that misidentification is a constant throughout the entire universe to different degrees. Everywhere in the universe, the living entities all think that there is body. The more highly spiritual they are, the more they realize that they're the living force that's in the body. And the more animalistic they are, the more they think that they're simply the body. Probably in your day to day activities you meet a Few people who think that they're the body. And we want to free people from that misconception. Actual civilization, spiritualized civilization means that we understand that we are the eternal spirit. So we act as an embodied spirit. We do things for a higher purpose. So instead of just serving the bodily needs as the end purpose, rather we serve the bodily needs as a means. Because without the body we're not going to be able also to achieve our spiritual realization as a means to achieve spiritual success. And today everyone will be requested to perform some sacrifice. I don't know if you're prepared to perform this sacrifice to engage your senses in the service of Ka. At the end of this lecture there will be a feast served and you'll be requested to engage your tongue in teeth of digestive system and serving Krishna's Prasad. How many of you are prepared to do that sacrifice? I always worry there for a while that actually the whole devotional service is a big festival. When we hear things like sacrifice and penances and we think, oh, this is really difficult, I can't do all that. Many times people tell me, especially in India or even here in the west, oh, you're such a sacrifice, you're living in India, it's very austere. I remember I wrote to Srila Prabhupada one time when I said, Srila Prabhupada, you've asked me to stay here in Mayapur and to become Indian citizen. I like Mayapur so much. Is it wrong that we like to do what our guru asks us? I was feeling guilty. Maybe I had to suffer. I had to do something. I was liking the holy dove, the beautiful deities, the Radha Matas, the Ganges. So I was feeling guilty then. It was so wonderful and maybe I had to do something like more suffering, like self imposed inconvenience or something. The prophet said, well, if you happen to like to do what the guru asks you, you're fortunate. That's a good blessing. Somewhere sometimes he would ask me to do things seem pretty tough to do. But in general I find the holy Dhams are so wonderful. Very happy to be given the opportunity to serve the daam. Next year I go ABDA 5 18. I'm going to spend more time in my preaching areas. So who had more intense opportunity to serve the band? Because our temple of Vedic Planetarium which Sri Prabhupada wanted to be built and which he laid the foundation stone for, we'd like to make some steps forward in that program. I don't know how long, but scratching makes A few steps forward and the first step this year is installation of the Panchata Tua De. We need everyone's blessings and prayers rather for the coming of the Lord. I was just present at New Zealand temple opening for eight was 14 years. I think they were 18, I forget they were working on building this temple. And just last Saturday yesterday the deities were taken in a beautiful procession from the old temple to the new temple. And surprisingly or maybe coincidentally the name of the deities there, Radha Girodhari and the name of the baby is here rather Girard Hariya. I was just thinking maybe if Lajinayam Prabhu is kind enough and one of we're fortunate enough to see in the future the new temple here in San Diego. I hope I'll be in that procession. Give us your blessings, Maharaj. Well, after the ceremony yesterday, today it was like a long Sunday because I left there at 6 o' clock Sunday and I reached LA at 11 on Sunday. So thanks to the international date line and the mayor of the place, he said that we are in our community, we are open community, we believe, we respect and we want different cultures and different beliefs. And we're very proud to have the Hare Ka temple here in our city which I don't know, I don't often hear that from mayors for many people especially that was a member of the prime minister out of the country. Otherwise he would have come, we'd have another ceremony for him in March. But definitely we should all pray because this room is already packed up. And it was amazing that the old temple room in that temple was packed and now they have a new temple with much bigger room and it's already packed. There were thousands of people that came on the Orango day and they had gravel road between the old temple to the new temple, 800 meters, they had 100 acres land there. It's a little bit outside the city and so it was very dusty driving with all the Kairos. So the Sydney temple president offered to give $2,500 donation. And then one lady who had visited temples in India, an Indian lady, Mrs. M.A. mantrula, she said she would also like to give a donation because she was in spite of seeing even Bangalore temple which is very beautiful. But she felt the beauty and the spirit of this temple. She found it to be more inspiring for her. So the president or the. It's not exactly the president but the director of the development he thought she was going to maybe also contribute 2,000 or something. She said no, she said 70,000 for the road. I want to give the whole 70,000. So he came up with the thing. I was going to ask for pledges, but it's everybody. But it's already been built, but we still have the parking lot. So it's like that. You try to do something for Krishna and somehow things happen. So I think it's wonderful that you want to develop a facility here and everybody should get behind that. Meager blessings or prayers have any value, I'd certainly be happy to offer. Because Prabhupada's dream was that we have places dedicated to the pastimes of Ka. I mean, not too far from here you have a place dedicated to a mouse's activities and a duck's activities. Why not a place dedicated to the Supreme Lord's transcendental activities? By whose activities? When we hear about them, when we meditate on them, when we become. How to say this, we actually identify with them. That we would like to be part of those activities. That is like a magnet that draws us out of this material world. We're here kind of a no exit situation where the doors are open. We could leave any time. We're here because we're tied down by chains or ropes. As it said. Ravunas are like ropes. We're tied down by so many different kinds of attachments. The Prabhupada tells us. I don't know if it was Prabhupada at this point. Somebody. I thought it was Prabhupada mentioned that in England there are. The priest was trying to explain what is hell like. And it wasn't, you know, it was to a bunch of coal miners. And he said, well, it's hot and it's humid, so that's why we work every day. Miners. So there's no newspapers. Oh, that's hell. I think maybe it wasn't from Ropent, of course, he said, but we get so much attached to different. It was problem. My subtle body is somewhere between Auckland and here, so fully confident about everything. If I'm not, I definitely won't. I will qualify whatever I say, 100%. And that's what we have to do when we sit down. The seed is only telling you the truth and nothing but the truth. So we get attached to so many different things and that brings us back into the material world. But even if we can develop somewhat of an attachment to Ka, that will draw us back to the spiritual world. So how do we get that attachment? That's why when we come to the temple, we see the deities, we chant hare Ka, the names of the Lord. We hear about the Lord's glories. We associate with devotees who are more advanced than we are. Everyone is son or daughter, spiritual child of the Supreme Lord. And we're all meant to serve him. When we develop that desire to serve the Lord and that happens by actually it's our nature, it doesn't happen. Like Prabhupada said, you don't have to work to teach a child how to speak or walk very hard because it's something that's natural for them. You just have to spend speak to them or you have to walk. Maybe the legs are strong enough, hold them a little bit. They naturally know how to walk. Or even I've seen pictures of little babies, they throw them in the water and they know how to swim. So knowing how to serve Ka is something that's really our nature. It's not a foreign thing that we have to artificially impose. It's something that we can do very naturally because that's our eternal nature to serve the Lord. But just for out of practice, we haven't been doing it. We've been serving instead our senses of all matter. And we've been getting bound up by artificial attachments. And when I was. My mother was very bold and she came to India twice now to visit the holy dam. And she met Srila Prabhupada. I requested my father to come to India, but he said, no, I'm an American. I have to see all the 50 states of America. Then only I can think about going abroad. And I was just thinking, what does it matter whether you see all the states or not? But if you could see the holy Dham where Krishna's pastimes were there, then obviously you'd get spiritual benefit beyond calculation. Maybe there are some hidden pastimes here in Americas. It's because we identify. This is my body. I'm born in this country, so this is my country. The country is worshipable. We have all these kind of conceptions. When Prabhupada first came here to the west, he shattered those. He said, you're not an American and I'm not an Indian. And we're not Chinese or Russian or Soviet either, those of you who are. So what do you mean I'm not an American? It's like fighting words. No, you're not the body. Your body may be American, but you're not the body. And I may be an Indian body, but I'm not Indian because in the sense that I'm not the body. So Prabhupada Shocked everybody by telling them a whole higher vision of life. And in spite of his great message, we've not been able to broadcast that effectively enough to everybody. So most people in the world still think that in a very sectarian way, either as different sectarian religions or as sectarian in the sense of nationality or race. And most of the wars are being fought because of tribal divisions or national divisions or racial divisions, sometimes superficial sectarian religious considerations. Tamils versus the similes, Was it the Tutsi? Tutsus versus the Hutus? I know in Africa there was Somalia, Somalia, Somalian tribal for the Palestinians and the Israelis. If we had this spiritual consciousness that we're not the body, the whole vision would be different. The whole world is divided because we're still in this animalistic level of identifying with our bodies. And Prabhupada said the whole world is on fire because of a basic lack of spiritual vision. So every one of you can make a huge change in the world just by spreading the spiritual vision to the people around you. And every verse here of the Bhagavad Gita is filled with spiritual force, spiritual value, spiritual potency. So last time I was here, I told the verse from the eighth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita and the glories of the eighth chapter shall tell you the glories of the seventh chapter. I didn't tell you one before, but here how many were there? Anybody else want to hear the glories of the seventh? Yes. From the Padma Puran where Parvati asked Lord Shiva chapter by chapter, what's the glories of each chapter? So then I thought I told this one here because I do. There was a rich man. He was really one of the richest people in the country. Ministers and the governmental people were coming to see him. It's kind of interesting. I was just in Chennai, which is formerly known as Madras in South India. One of my disciples is the official staff doctor for six prisons. So she started a prison meditation program where prisoners can come and chain Hare ka. They can also do other type of meditations. They have a daily hare ka program. Three days a week. They have a one hour satsang. So they invited me to go there. And then after that programs, some of the prisoners came to see me. This particular prison, they were under trial, so they were not yet convicted. And one man came to see me and said he was the sixth largest taxpayer in India, but due to some financial problems, now he's under trial in the prison. And so he said that he takes it as Krishna's mercy that he's in the prison because he said, before, I used to give as a life member. He never read the books, but now he says he's chanting 16 rounds to 32 rounds a day. And he's got lots of realizations. We hope he gets out. That's the nice service for Krishna. Well, this person, he was one of the richest people of his country, wherever that was thousands of years ago. But he didn't have these kind of realizations. He was just material. He didn't give donations to anyone except maybe a few token donations if it was good for some, making more money, some influence or something. And he had all kinds of money. In those days, the banking system wasn't so developed and he didn't trust the banks so much. So he used to bury his money somewhere in a hidden place. So he was a real miser. In other words, he had four sons. One day he was traveling with one or two of his sons and he suddenly had a heart attack, a stroke or something. He couldn't speak. He couldn't tell him where he hid the money. He died. So they had the swag here. They just had, you know, the petty cash. They didn't have the real millions and millions and tens of millions of gold coins that he had buried somewhere. So they were all kind of lamenting. There wasn't much they could do. They performed all the religious rites and everything. Then after while he died, then the Yamaduttas came again because he hadn't done anything spiritual or anything really, even charitable. He had burned up his good kindness. And now he was being taken to the court of karmic justice. Yamaraj is the judge there. So he was taken and they read out, you know, this person, he's just been a miser, and he's been not doing anything for anybody else and was very attached to his money. Buried his money, gave his whole life a resume. So then Yamura said, well, with a life like that, since you're so attached to your money, I'm going to give you a special opportunity. You can become a snake, a deadly cobra snake, and you can live in a hole next to your money. You can guard it so you can be so attached to your money, you can be close to it for the rest of your life. So there he is, living in a hole as a snake, and he still remembers his previous life, so he can be attached to his money. Maybe he had some sukriti there we don't know about. And after about a year or so, probably a Couple of years, he appeared in a dream to all of his four sons. He told them that I am born as a snake, guarding the treasure that I have buried. If you help me to get out of this curse, I'll give you all the blood. So each one woke up and was shocked. They thought it couldn't be possible. Our father, the richest man, famous, great person, great business magnate. How can you become a snake? It's impossible. But when they talked with each other and they all realized they all had the same dream, then they knew, okay, it must be true. So they had a little get together. And the oldest son, he was thinking, you know, how can I get the money? I like to get it all. He didn't really have any idea. So he just said, just give some lip service. Yeah, yeah. This is pretty bad thing. The second brother, he was like really emotional. I can never believe this had happened. It was like just, you know, just, you know, nothing. Just pure emotion, no sentiment, nothing practical. The third brother, he was like really sincerely caring. We should do something. He says he wants our help. I mean, whatever. He's our father. Can. We should do stuff. What can we do? He was really genuinely thinking to do something for the father. The fourth son, the brother, he was a real clever guy. He said he remembered. I saw my father go out in this forest. I think I know where he buried the money. If I could just get one day in my hand, I can probably steal it all and cheat my brothers. So then he was actually what our third brother said. He's saying the right thing. We should really do something for our father. Let's all think about it for one day and meet here tomorrow and come up with a conclusion, what we can do. So they thought, okay, let's do that. So they get one day now. Okay, now. This one day, that midnight, he woke up his wife. Let's get. I know where my father buried my money. I never knew. I'm pretty sure this is. Let's go. Took the hoe and the shovel. They went out into the night, into the forest. And they started to dig. I'll kill you. I'm going to bite you. You want to make the same mistake I did? You want to steal the money and become a snake? No, father, no, no. I just looking for you. I didn't know how to find you. I didn't want the money. Please don't bite me. I love. I just came here to find you. How I can help you. You said we should help you. You wanted the money. No, no, really. Then just tell Me? How can I help you? Alright, you go back and tell your brothers to perform a srat. But we performed srat. We went to Gaia. This srat, bro, I want a special shrat. The next death anniversary you perform the srat and we have one Vaishnava devotee. Read the seventh chapter of Bhagavad Gita and offer the results for my spiritual benefit that will save me from this curse. So the next the death anniversary they had for the normal srat ceremonies. But then they also had a devotee reading seventh chapter Bhagavad Gita, all the verses and then taking the water in his hand, pronounced the Arpanam mantra, dedicating the benefit of that chanting to the deceased soul of the father. The soul of the deceased father. Souls don't deceive, sir. So no sooner they do that the father was liberated from his snake body. He came, he appeared before them in a subtle form. But he was carrying all the money, distributed it in a spiritual form. It was liberated, now distributed it to all the four brothers. But he gave him a lecture. Don't waste your life. Use this money for building a temple, for feeding Krishna prasadam to the hungry, for doing some spiritual activities. Don't just waste it all on your maintenance. You live comfortably but you distribute. Do some spiritual activities and read the seventh chapter Bhagavad Gita and chant the holy names in this way. See like otherwise, don't be like me. Don't just spend your money to get a snake, some animal birth or something. Because this is being animalistic in your life. So the older brothers, what a shocking thing. You know, you see your father come as a snake and liberated and then he's telling you. So they took it very seriously and all of them had a change of heart. And so they used their wealth for spiritual purposes. At least majority percentage. It's always a good lecture to give before fundraisers. I'm not doing fundraising. It's important really that we use our energy for ka. If you don't have any money, we can come and clean the temple, help distribute the prasada, clean up after the feast. There's always need for people to come and clean up. And when the temple president told me, anybody who comes after the feast and comes up to me, can I help you? Can I need help cleaning anything? He says, wow, this person is definitely a candidate for liberation. Can somebody just shows a little enthusiasm and also possible future leader. Anyone who has a little desire to serve, this is not only the only cleaning someone can offer to do Web pages or whatever you know how to do for ka, Drive people that live in some countries, not everybody has a car like America. So then you find some devotees that drive the people who don't have cars to and from the temple for the Sunday feast. Things like that, all kinds of little services. So when we do service for Ka, when we read like Bhagavad Gita, we develop our attachment for Krishna. By the way, what's my time? I get it my duty to say usually around 7:30. But if you want to go a little longer, okay, just kind of wind it up. Yeah, no marsh, no problem. We're grateful. But you have been mentioning the feast. So it's in the back of people's minds. So the whole process of devotional service will develop our spiritual force and our spiritual attachment to Ka. So how many of you regularly chant Hare Ka daily? How many of you chant daily? So because it's recommended, if we can even chant just every day, even 108 times, that adds up to 625,000 names of Ka or more. If you count just a General Rough calculation, 16 rounds a day, which is what the initiated devotees chant, is 10 million per year. So if you do eight rounds a day, that would be 5 million. And if you do four, so it all adds up. It's like recurring deposit. And the more you chant or the more that you read or the more that you do any of these personally starts to reorient your whole vision about life so that you naturally get a deeper spiritual understanding. It happens in a very organic, natural way where original spiritual vision is invoked and awakened. And what that means, because the original spiritual consciousness is Sat Chitananda, eternal blissful knowledge. We start to understand things we didn't understand before. We start to be steady and see things from an eternal point of view rather than just a temporary. So then the different aberrations and problems that happen in life, if you're looking from an eternal perspective, you can tolerate things a little easier. The ups and downs kind of start to average themselves out a little more easily, although we still experience all those things, but we can somehow tolerate them a little easier. And then what happens? We get Anandam, we get transcendental bliss. How many of you like to be transcendentally happy? Always. So I'm very happy to see so many people here to just small number of Sunday feasts in San Diego. Everyone was a very wonderful group of devotees here, wonderful congregation. As I just mentioned that this year we're having the installation for the Panchatatra Just before coming here I went down to sea because they were supposed to leave for Mayapur on 25th December and they hadn't left. So I figured I'd better go and see what's happening. So now they're going on the 26th. They just decided to do the finishing work in South India at the workshop rather than in Mayapur. And they say that they're going to keep on schedule. Krishna keeps us anxiety. Paradidis look, the Bimba. These are the reflections. Of course, once they're installed, the real personality of Ka Chaitanya and his associates will come out. But the reflections are looking very attractive. And since Prabhupada wanted that these deities be installed, so we're taking this really Srila Prabhupada who's installing the deities and reading them and we're just acting as via medias. But still all the devotees can take this opportunity to also pray and desire. Because it's by the desire of the devotees. Add that to Prabhupada's desire, which is is so super strong. But still, you know, and our desire to Panchatatma, Prabhunt, Dvaita Ganaha, Shivas manifest in their life size form so that we can serve them. So with that I request everyone to chant Panchita to Mantu who would like the Lord to come. Shivas, thank you for watching our videos. Be sure to subscribe to our channel. We publish new videos every day and don't forget to like and share our channel.