Aim of life | Story of King Chitraketu | Rus-Split | 27 Dec 1988 | Srila Gopal Krishna Goswami

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Ram, Hare Ram, Ram, Ram, Hare, Hare. So today I will relate to all of you the story of a king whose name was Chitraketu. Have you all heard the story of Chitraketu before?

So King Chitraketu was the king of this planet. He had many wives, thousands.

Of course, these days you're not allowed to have more than one wife. Only in Muslim country they can have four wives.

Anyway, in the Vedic days, but They were able to maintain all these wives also. King Chitraketu was very handsome and he was also very rich, but in spite of being so handsome and rich, one day a great sage by the name of Angiramuni was passing by his palace. The sage said, "King, my dear king, you're so handsome, rich, you have so many wives, but still you're always unhappy." What is the reason?

The king said, "I don't have any children." Especially for the king to not have a child, it is very painful because if he doesn't have a child, the dynasty will end.

"I bless you and you will have a son. That son will give you happiness and that son will also give you pain." So at that time, King Chitraketu could not understand.

How?

How a son that he has been waiting for can ever give him pain? Similarly, we are all searching for happiness and we even engage in sense gratification, but we do not realize that this sense gratification will be very bitter in the end. So when the sage told him that he will have a family, he was very happy. The king was happy and he did not even think about that this happiness will also give him pain later on. A little later, one of the queens of the king gave birth to a very beautiful boy, and naturally the king was very happy. He distributed thousands of cows in charity, and the king started spending all his time with the queen and the child, and the other co-wives of the king were all being neglected now. Amongst women, envy develops very fast.

This is—

they became very envious of this wife of King Chitraketu because the king was completely ignoring them and spending all his time. So the other wives, co-wives of the king, had a meeting and they were discussing now what to do with the king because he's completely ignoring them. So they decided that on the first birthday anniversary of the child, they will poison the child because they were very envious that the king was ignoring them.

So according to their plan, on the first anniversary, the child was poisoned.

When the king found out that his son, who he was so fond of, has been killed, he became like a madman. He began rolling on the ground, and it appeared to him that everything that he was living for is now gone.

So the king and his wife were very, very unhappy.

The great Tejangira Muni was also, was again passing by from that palace, and he said, "Let me go and see how my disciple, the king, is doing." And when he came inside, he saw that the king was crying. He said, "Why are you crying?" The last time I came, you were so happy. And the king said, "My son has died." The king said, "According to the laws of nature, the son cannot die before the father. How can he die before me?" So by the power of the great sage Angira Muni, the dead son was brought back to life. Then the great sage told his young son, that your parents are crying and you should not leave before your father leaves his body. So you should go back to your parents.

But the child replied, which parents are you talking about?

I've had so many parents, so you want me to go back to all of them? And then the saint said, your father is crying because you have left him. And he said, my father did not even know me till a year ago. He has only come to know Me in the last one year. So why is he crying?

And then that boy, the son, explained the philosophy of Bhagavad-dharma to his father and mother.

He explained that, "Why are you attached to My body? Everything in the material world can be destroyed at any time. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is said, 'padam padam yāsvi-padam nā teśyām.'" So you can never predict when the end will come. Therefore the Vedic shastras say that one should always be ready. So the child also explained that this body is perishable, but the soul is eternal. Na jayete mriyete vā kadācem. It is only the body which is a combination of different gross and subtle elements which takes birth and eventually dies. The body goes through 6 stages of transformation.

Priyā-bhrasavānya.

Then it grows, then it maintains itself, then it produces by-products, and finally it disappears. So He explained, the son explained to the father that, "Why are you so attached to my body? This body will take birth and it will eventually get destroyed.

The same attachment that you have for me, you should transfer it to Kṛṣṇa." So then when the parents heard this teaching from the son, then they understood that they should not be attached to anybody. And then the father and the mother, they left for meditation, for service to Krishna. So the son became the master of the parents.

So the moral of the story is that anything that gives you happiness today will also give you pain tomorrow.

Today's joy becomes tomorrow's tears. So the spiritualist, he does not get attached to temporary material objects, but he deepens his relationship with the Lord because this is the only relationship that is permanent.

Of course, it is not easy to give up these bodily attachments. We realize that just repeating by, by telling you the story, you will not give up all your attachments in one second. But we have to become like the lotus flower. The lotus flower is in water, but it doesn't touch the water.

The mouth of the cat for the kitten, the mouth of the cat for the kitten is a source of shelter.

Have you seen the cat carrying the baby by the mouth? The kitten has no fear in the mouth of the mother.

But that same mouth of the cat for the mouse, it's the fear of death. When the mouse sees the cat coming, it says, "Now I'm finished." And when the kitten sees the mouth of the cat, it says, "Now I'm protected." So the devotee uses the material world to serve Kṛṣṇa. Therefore he's always protected by the Lord. And the materialist is like the mouse. This material energy eats the materialist.

In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, with the rising of the sun every morning, Even in your country, the sun rises every morning. Of course, in winter it may be rising a little late, but it rises. And in the evening, the sun will also set.

In winter, the sun sets early, and in summer it sets later. So the Bhagavad Gita says, with the rising and setting of the sun, the duration of life of everyone is being reduced except those who have given their life to the Lord. So every morning when the sun rises, it is giving the materialist a notice, "Mr. Alex, there's one day less left in your life." But Mr. Alex doesn't understand the significance of the rising and setting of the sun. He thinks that the scientists promised him last year that very soon he will not have to die. He thinks that people are already transplanting hearts now, so very soon man will become deathless. You know, America is a crazy country.

All the crazy things of the world can be found in America. Of course, there are good devotees there, but the American public is crazy. There is one company in America that tells the people that then after you die, we will keep your body in a cold storage room, just like when you keep something in the refrigerator, it doesn't get spoiled. So this company says, "We will keep your body in the cold storage room." and when the doctors find a solution to the disease you do die from, then you can be operated and you come back to life. So many people were signing up for that.

So actually, our materialistic friends have more faith in the materialist than the spiritualist.

In English, there is a saying, birds of the same feather flock together.

So that is why the materialists flock together One fool is praising the activity of the other fool, and that is why the spiritualist gets blocked together. In 1965, Prabhupada gave a lecture in New York in which he said there are two types of people in society. Whether it is India, Russia, America, England, Japan, China, this principle holds true for everyone. One consists of those who believe in the Lord These are known as asuras, and the other are those who don't believe in the Lord, and they are known as the asuras. So the asuras are thinking, "Look at those crazy Hare Krishna people.

They are wasting their youth.

They are wasting their youth. They are burden on society, and they are useless people, weak-minded." And the devotees are thinking, "Look at those crazy materialists. They are not taking advantage of the human body, and they are just repeating what they have repeated a million times." So devotees are thinking materialists are crazy, materialists are thinking devotees are crazy. So who's crazy? This is a very famous article that Prabhupada published, "Who is Crazy?" So how do we reach a conclusion who is crazy? Just like I may— this morning I was going in a taxi to the hotel and I asked the driver, "What is the maximum speed you're allowed to drive in the road city?" He said 65 kilometers per hour. Somebody may say, "No, no, no, the speed should be 90 kilometers." And somebody else may say, "No, no, no, it should be 100." So how will you decide what is the right answer? By seeing what the government law says, because the government is the authority for making the laws. So we can decide who is crazy by seeing the laws of the supreme government. Just like in your country, you have different republics. So the republics have power.. But the federal government in Moscow has more power. This is in every country, this principle. But above the federal government, there is the supreme government of Kṛṣṇa. So we have to see what the supreme government says. The Supreme Lord says, one who takes advaṇa, one who engages in bhakti, is most intelligent amongst men. And one who is misusing his intelligence are like the animals. How they are like the animals, we will discuss in the evening, this Prasad RAVAL. So the conclusion is that because the living entity is eternal and this human body is obtained with great struggle, this body must be used to serve the Lord. And one who is serving— servant of the Lord is the best citizen of his country. He serves the country, the society, the family, and himself. So this is the perfection of human life. And those who are wasting their human life in sense gratification, they do not understand that they may not get a human birth for millions and millions of years. For eating meat, eating cow's meat only once, they have to take their birth equal to the number of hairs in the cow's body. So anyone in here who's a farmer, farmer, farmer, has anyone counted how many hairs in the cow?

More than 100,000.

So you can eat the cow's flesh once, but As long as you're willing to pay the price. So if you eat cow's milk, cow's meat 365 days a year, then you multiply that by, let's say you live for 70 years. So you multiply 365 days a year.

If we eat milk?

No, meat, meat.

Sorry, meat. If you eat meat once, you have to take your birth 100,000 times as a cow and be slaughtered. So if you eat meat 365 times in a year, so you multiply 100,000 by 365, then you multiply that by number of years that you live. This is only the punishment for one sin. This is only the punishment for one type of sin.

Then there is going to be punishment for illicit sex, intoxication, gambling.

So by the time you finish paying up all your old bills, So it will be zero. So who is crazy now? One who sacrifices sense enjoyment for a few years or one who engages in sense enjoyment? Hare Krishna.

Hare Krishna.

Hare Krishna.

Hare Krishna.

In the evening I'm going to tell you the price of the punishment for illicit sex. If you tell this to the karmis on the road, they'll shoot you. But this is what the Bhagavatam says. Okay, I can take one or two questions, then I'll preach. Prasadam, if they have prasadam, if they know, they know.

I can take one or two questions.

No questions?

If one thinks of Kṛṣṇa at the time of death, he goes to Kṛṣṇa-loka immediately, or he have to get through some purification processes?

Correct. It's a nonstop flight. It's called Vaikuntha Airlines, not Aeroflot. Not Air India, non-stop Moscow-Vaikunta Loka. I said, I explained the whole story in detail in Lennenga to the devotees about Arjuna. Yeah, because Arjuna had not completely died, he was only unconscious. He was unconscious, but even in the unconscious state, he heard the conversation between the Vishnu Dutas and the Yama Dutas, and when he realized his mistake, he decided to purify himself. But Jat Bharata, King Bharata, when he died, he was thinking of the deer. So next life he became a deer. In the Vedas it is said, "Ante Narayana Smriti." "Ante" means end, "Narayana" means Krishna, "Smriti" means to remember. So the real test of your life is how you die. So somebody may say, "Okay, now I will fool around, but I know the technique by which, at the moment of death, I will think of Krishna." But at the moment of death, you will not be able to think of Krishna if you have not thought of for all your life. It is just like for the Olympics, the Russian athletes. If somebody doesn't train for the Olympics and he thinks, "I will run straight in the Olympics and win the gold medal," is that possible? The Russian athletes, they practice all year, year. And then when they go to the Olympics, they win the medal. All over the world, Russian, American, Indian, same principle for everyone.

Can you explain the subject of material attachment for guru?

Attachment for guru is never material, it is always spiritual. Because the guru is not the material personality, hopefully.

How you explain the destiny and birth?

Destiny and birth?

Yeah.

Everyone is born with it. This is the last question.

After that, your wa proche should be kept for the evening. So everyone who is born, he is born with his quota of happiness and distress. So, but based on your previous karma. Otherwise, how can you explain that a 10-day-old child dies? Or how can you explain that a child is born blind or deaf? Whatever our destiny may be, just like Prabhupāda said, when you clap in front of the Deity, then all these lines in the hand go away. The lines are still there because when you surrender to Kṛṣṇa, then He changes your destiny. Just like if I in India become very friendly with Rajiv Gandhi, then my destiny will also change. I may be a poor man, then I will also become big man. So once you become friendly with the biggest of all big men. In your country, have you heard of Rockefeller and the rich millionaires of the world?

Okay.

Anyways, if you become friendly with the biggest of the big men, then that big man will protect you. So now it is time for Prasad.

Now there's a 3-hour interval. In the cinema halls in Russia, they ring the bell at interval time.

In Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we chant, dance, and eat. We don't even work and Kṛṣṇa sends us everything. Prabhupāda used to say that when he bought the big church in Los Angeles in 1969, we have a very beautiful church that is now a temple in Los Angeles. The Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa murtis are called Rukmini Dwarkadeva. Our temples bought so many big, big vans and buses and cars. So all the neighbors were saying, "Where are the Hare Krishnas getting all the money from?" But Krishna, the devotees of Krishna work hard and Krishna provides the means. So Prabhupada went to the West only with ₹40. ₹40 is what, like 40 rubles? ₹40 is 2 rubles. And with 2 rubles he opened 300 centers all over the world. So there must be some magic in Krishna. Actually we are friends of everyone, we wish everyone well. We don't want to disturb anyone. We want to be peaceful citizens of every country wherever we are. We want to follow the laws of the state and in our private life glorify the Supreme Lord. We don't interfere in the affairs of other people or the society. And we respect the laws of the state and work within the laws. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. I just said this so people know what is fun. Stands for. We are not a bunch of hippies with no goals in mind. We are not a bunch of hippies with no goal. Prabhupāda used to say we are happy. Well, I promise them by next time I'll have many more Russian words in my vocabulary. Somebody in Leningrad is sending me a course book on how to learn Russian for foreigners. Okay, Hare Krishna.