In this lecture Gopal Krishna Goswami expounds on Bhagavad‑gītā 2.51, explaining how offering the results of all material work to Krishna frees the soul from karmic bondage and the endless cycle of birth and death. He illustrates the futility of material independence by recounting personal observations of suffering in hospitals and by comparing human attempts to control nature with the ultimate dependence on the Supreme Lord. The talk then moves to practical devotional service: the importance of chanting the holy names of Krishna, the stages of chanting, the need to purify one’s chanting by avoiding offenses, and the observance of regulative principles to control the senses. Goswami answers audience questions on theological topics such as Balaram’s knowledge of Krishna’s supremacy, the worship of the three principal deities of Vṛndāvana, the concept of partial versus full expansion of Krishna, Narada’s role in hastening Krishna’s appearance, and how to approach seekers who are reluctant to chant. Throughout, the tone is instructional and devotional, with a compassionate, persuasive sentiment encouraging listeners to adopt Krishna‑centric devotion as the only reliable path to lasting bliss.
phalamp yakhtwamanee sheenaaah! Jana banda vinirmaaptahaanuushanaaah! Om Jnana Timandasya Jnananjanah Shalakya, Jaksheer Milton Jnanatas, Mai Shri Gurave Namaha. Karma Jam Buddhi Yukta Hi Palam Tyakta Manishina, Jnana Bandhav Veneer Mukta Padam Gachand Anamayam. So Kṛṣṇa is saying in this second chapter, in this verse, how the living entity can become free from the results of the work in the material world. All work that you do in the material world makes you responsible for the bondage. When work is done and the results are not offered to the Lord, then one, one becomes liable for the reaction. It is just like if you earn some money and you don't pay income tax, then you become liable for punishment. So similarly, if you don't offer the results of your work to the Lord, then you become liable for punishment. Sometimes people say, "Why should I take your devotional service? I'm doing no wrong. I harm nobody. I mind my own business. So what wrong am I doing?" Are there people in Russia who say like this? In India and all, you meet many people. They will say, "I'm doing no wrong." What's the mistake? Come in the front. So these people do not understand that if they don't offer the fruits of the labor to Kṛṣṇa, then they become liable for— So we must offer the results of our labor to Kṛṣṇa. Otherwise one takes on the sinful reaction. So Bhagavad-gītā is teaching us how we must offer the fruits of our work to Kṛṣṇa. The cycle of birth and death is a very painful process. About a month ago, I had gone to visit a friend of mine in a hospital in Toronto, Canada, and I was surprised to see the extent of the suffering that was there in the hospital. One man was lying in coma unconscious since 14 years. Another man was in coma for 2 years, and so many other people were there with so many other different types of suffering. So in spite of what scientists are saying, scientists are busy telling us that they have conquered most of the diseases. Diseases are still going on. I'm sure if you visit the hospitals in the Soviet Union, you will still find a lot of misery over there also. So miseries of life are there for everyone. So Krishna is saying, get rid of this birth, death, disease, old age. Dukhalayam ashashatam. This means misery and everything is temporary. So nobody can deny that there is nothing but misery in life, and further that everything is temporary. So if you understand that everything is temporary and there's misery, then what is the point in getting attached to these things? So therefore, great sages have said one must engage in devotional service. We must understand that if we do not engage in service to God, We'll be forced to engage in service to some other entity. People are very proud of their so-called independence. So if you are independent, then stop yourself from dying. Nobody wants to die, still they have to die. Okay, if they want— okay, if you are independent, then don't get disease, stop disease. If you are independent, stop white hair from coming on your hair. And if you are independent, then when your wife is going to give birth to a baby, make sure the baby comes out crying— comes out laughing. If the baby comes out laughing, huh? Is that what he said? So you cannot make sure that your baby comes out laughing. You cannot make sure that you will not get disease. You cannot make sure that you will not get old. You cannot make sure that you will not die. So where is your independence? You cannot control your mind from not bothering you. When the mind sees something beautiful, it gets attracted towards it. When the mind sees that there's a new product in the market, then it says, "Come on, go and buy it." When the mind hears that one of your relatives or has died, then the mind begins to cry, and when the mind cries, then you also cry. So if you are independent, stop the mind from troubling you. And if you are independent, stop all the other living entities troubling you. Even if you are Mr. Rockefeller, when you go, the mosquitoes will come and try to bite you. The mosquito will not say, "Oh, here's a millionaire, so I should not touch him." And if you're sleeping on a bed, And the, the, the bug is going to bite you. The bug won't say, "Oh, this man is Mr. Cassius Clay." Then even if you are independent, you still have to face the problems of so-called material nature. When nature does not want to cooperate with you, there's nothing you can do. You may have all the military strength at your command, but you will be paralyzed. When nature does not want to give you rain, doesn't matter how many nuclear weapons and missiles you have, rain will not fall. And when nature doesn't give you rain, you cannot have crop production. Doesn't matter how many chemicals and fertilizers you may have. You may have the best chemicals and fertilizers, but they will only produce as long as rain comes. And rain is provided by Mr. God, by the great God. So you must understand that the Almighty Lord is the source of everything. Therefore, the devotee offers the results of his labor to the Supreme Lord. And by this process one becomes free from the cycle of birth and death. We begin our devotional service to the Lord by the process of chanting the holy names of the Lord. How— the question is, how do you practically execute devotional service? So devotional service begins with the tongue. With the tongue we start chanting the names of the Lord. With this tongue, we— by taking the names of the Lord, we associate with the Lord because there's no difference between the Lord and His holy names. In the material world, there's a difference between the person and his name. Just like if you say, "Water, water, water." So just by saying the word "water," your thirst will not go away. And if you say, "Food, food, food," your hunger, hunger will not go away. When you say, "Ruble, rubble, rubble," the rubble will not fill your pocket. But when you say, "Krishna, Krishna, Krishna," the Lord actually is present. Because the holy names of the Lord are non-different from the Lord. But the names of Krishna are non-different from Krishna. Therefore, when you say the word Krishna, Krishna is actually present over there. So we begin devotional service with our tongue. With our tongue, we glorify the Supreme Lord. And when Krishna sees that we are calling to Him for help, then Krishna begins to help us. They say in the English language, and I'm sure you have a slogan in Russian also, "God helps those, those who help themselves." So if we are endeavoring to cry to Krishna for help, then Kṛṣṇa will come to your rescue. Just like, you see, the mother has a baby and the mother keeps the baby few yards away, but the moment the baby starts crying, the mother runs to the baby. But when the baby is not crying, the mother lets the baby be alone. So when we cry for Kṛṣṇa by chanting His holy name, then Kṛṣṇa runs towards you. So if you don't cry to Kṛṣṇa for help, then you'll be on your own. But if you cry to Kṛṣṇa for help, then Kṛṣṇa will come and help you. So the point is that we must cry to Kṛṣṇa for help, then Kṛṣṇa will reciprocate. Now there are different stages of chanting the holy names of the Lord. The first stage of chanting the holy name is the stage when you chant and you commit offenses at the same time. The next stage of chanting is when you chant and you make— and you minimize your offenses. So, last time when I was here, I had explained to you the 10 offences. Do you remember that discussion or everything is forgotten? Anyway, so the point is we must purify our chanting because the more we purify our chanting, the more powerful it will be. Along with the process of chanting, we also follow regulative principles. We follow regulative principles because by avoiding sinful activities we can become pure. We cannot understand the purest person. We can only understand the purest person if we also become pure. So when you have to struggle with the mind and the 6 senses in order to become pure, when you are feeling the inconvenience because your intelligence is telling you, "Don't engage in sense gratification," you must understand that the end result is going to be blissful and happy. So when you, if you, when you have to restrict your senses from sense enjoyment, The intelligence saying, "Please don't engage in sense gratification because you have a higher goal to achieve." You should assure yourself that the result of this self-control is going to be higher happiness later on. You get what you pay for. So if you pay by withholding sense gratification, then you will get a very nice product. And the nice product is going to be a happy, blissful life. It is very unfortunate that people think that happy blissful life will come only by wealth or sex or drugs or drinking and so on. But real bliss will come by devotional service. So the great sages are telling us in this verse that by engaging in devotional service to the Supreme Lord, can one become free from the miseries of birth and death. Therefore, again and again, the Vedas are leading to the same point. Please use this human life for the purpose of self-realization. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Stop at this point and take on questions for 15-20 minutes. Some stories of Lord Caitanya. Well, maybe tomorrow I'll do stories. Today I'll answer. One story about Lord Caitanya is— actually, Lord Caitanya appeared to bring us all closer to Kṛṣṇa. Sometimes a teacher may hold the hand of the student and tell the student how to write A, B, C, D, but that does not mean that the teacher has become the student. Similarly, Caitanya Mahāprabhu appeared in the form of a devotee. So normally when our young babies cry, but Lord Caitanya would stop crying when the neighboring woman would come and start chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. So He was— so by this He gave us the message that the purpose of His appearance is just to make people chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. It's just to make people chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. And there's so many other stories. I'll tell you some more. Is it possible for devotees, I know that some of them do this, to chant some extra rounds for relatives or somebody else? Maybe husbands or somebody else. So one thing is, if somebody becomes a pure devotee, then all his relatives automatically benefit. Just like I know in many countries when one man becomes a minister or some important man, then all his relatives also become rich. So when one becomes a devotee, his relatives or ex-husband, everyone, they also get the spiritual benefit. Everyone gets some benefit. So if you chant extra rounds, there's no harm, because the more you chant, the more pure you will become.
Does Krishna's brother Balaram, does he know that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead?
Yes, Balaram knows that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. When Balaram would see that the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana were worried that Kṛṣṇa may get swallowed by the demon, he would just laugh on the sly. The others did not know, but Balaram knew.
About the worship of Govinda, Gopinātha and Mādhana-mohana. Meaning? He wants to know some things about worshiping.
Worshiping Govinda, Gopinātha and Mādhana-mohana?
Yeah.
What do you mean?
Three main Deities in Vṛndāvana.
Yes, but these are just different deities named after different pastimes of the Lord, but the worship standard is the same. Kṛṣṇa has many names, Madana-Mohana, Gopī-nātha and so on. So these are different deities known by different names.
Three, he says about the three main deities of Vṛndāvana.
Three main deities of Vṛndāvana, yes. So these are all about the different pastimes of the Lord. Different names of the Lord. Okay, more questions? What is the partial expansion of Kṛṣṇa? Full expansion is when Kṛṣṇa is personally present with all the potencies. Then any portion is when there's— partial expansion is when the incarnation has partial opulences.
Why did Nārada Muni, knowing that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, had approved Prūma? Had disclosed his plan to Kamsa? No.
No.
Why did he prohibited some of his actions? To Kṛṣṇa. Why?
What? Well, Nārada Muni wanted Kṛṣṇa to appear fast.
Yes.
So he went, he told Kamsa that to be careful, the child is going to kill you. So Kamsa, he created that fear in the mind of Kamsa so that Krishna's appearance could be expedited.
What was the point of telling Krishna his action, his future actions, when he knew that Krishna knows everything?
Gargamuni, Anyway, it says, the point is, Kṛṣṇa, when He appears, He appears as an ordinary entity. He doesn't appear and say, "I'm God." Just like Kṛṣṇa also accepts a spiritual master. Actually, Kṛṣṇa is the original spiritual master. Kṛṣṇa is the original spiritual master, but still to show the example, He also accepts a guru. Okay, so So tomorrow—
Sometimes he meets people who are somewhat interested in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but they don't want to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Should he tell them to chant and the result, and tell them that the result will come later, or just leave them alone?
Tell them to just chant. Tell them to just chant, whatever the reason may be.
Yeah, even if the people, they don't want, should we convince them? Even if they don't want to chant, little bit and little bit.
Yes, we must try to convince them. Just like the child doesn't want to take the medicine, but the mother tries to convince the child to take the medicine. This is our duty as preacher to convince others to take to God consciousness.
Today he forgot, he has forgotten, and he drank more than 3 drops of water, just a little more. So Should he consider his karishi ruined or what?
It's okay, no worry. So should we do japa? So tomorrow, sannyāsa is here?
He's gone. He's over there.
He's there? Yeah. We'll start the program at 12 o'clock, is that okay? And we'll just go on till the evening then. And tomorrow I'll discuss 26 qualities of a devotee. In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, because previously I described to you 6 āśtaka, the 10 offenses. So now I'll do the 26 qualities of a devotee. I'll also give you, I'll also give you at least 3 nice stories of Lord Caitanya. I'll tell you 2 or 3 stories every day. My program, as many days, as many days as you say. I have a visa for 1 year. Okay, wait, should we do a little japa together, Marina?
