Get rid of Maya's Attack | Rus-Split | 17 Jun 1989 | Srila Gopal Krishna Goswami

Benefit without even knowing they're getting benefit. So what do you all want to hear? Does anyone have any proposal? I'll take on very simple issues so everyone can understand. One question, the first question that we must know is, why should we take to spiritual life? Since you are living in Maya's kingdom, every moment this question is being asked. 'Should I stay on the spiritual life or should I go back to material life?' This is a very big question because everyone we meet, everyone we talk to, everyone we work with, they all have a different mentality. So in order to protect yourself from this, you have to be well equipped. Just like when the army goes into a battle, it must be well prepared. Otherwise it will not be able to win the war. So you have to be prepared how to tolerate the attacks from Maya. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, devi-śakṛṇa-māyī-māmā-māyā-dūrāteyā, that this material energy of mind is very difficult to overcome. So Maya is not weak. Maya is very strong. Especially since all of you are young, Maya is very strong, especially when you're young. So you may say now, "So what are you saying, we should not take to spiritual life?" So you may say, "Oh, then how can we take to spiritual life if Maya is so strong?" Fortunately, though Maya is strong, it is weaker than Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is stronger than Maya. What is the meaning of Maya? Many of you who are coming here new, they may want to know, "What is this Maya? Every time we go to a lecture, we hear the word Maya, Maya, Maya." Is Maya a big demon? Actually, you'll be surprised to hear that Maya is the pure devotee of Krishna. Then you may say that why is Maya tricking us into all these dirty activities? Maya is doing a great job, such a good job that no one can beat her. We came to the material world in the first place because we had a desire to enjoy like the Lord. So since we had this desire to enjoy like the Supreme Lord, This material world was created for us. Now in the material world, we constantly have the choice. Either we can take to the path of renunciation or we can take to the path of sense enjoyment. Just like Brahmaji, when he first created the universe, first he created the principles of ignorance. What are these principles of ignorance? One is identification with the body. Identification with the body means You identify with the senses, and when you think the body is a real self, then whatever the body wants, you must provide. When the eyes say, give me something beautiful to see, you must take the eyes to something beautiful. When the tongue says, give me that thing to eat, you must give it without, without any hesitation. So first was the principle of bodily identification. Another aspect of ignorance is The fear of death. However brave a man may be, but everybody is scared of death. Even a general in the army who tells his soldiers, "Go on and shoot," is scared of death when it comes to his life. When it comes to his whole life, his own survival, the general wants to run. Even the leader of the country who will tell the citizens, "Make sacrifices," himself is scared of death. Whether you're in India or America or England or Russia, Everyone is scared of death, isn't it? Therefore, even in old age, whether you're Russian or Indian or American, you tell the doctor, 'Please, please extend my life.' Then another is identification, thinking that he's the lord of everything he surveys. Another aspect of ignorance is that you think that I have this property, I have this house, my, my, my. So I am the proprietor. Of course, in Soviet Union this is not such a big problem because everything belongs to the state, nothing belongs to the individual. But generally that problem is there. Everyone thinks, "I'm the proprietor of everything." So Brahmaji, after creating these principles of ignorance, then He created the principles of knowledge. One aspect of principle of knowledge is the principle of tapasya. So tapasya means you voluntarily renounce sense gratification for something higher. That is for self-realization. You voluntarily give up sense gratification. Another aspect of, another aspect of knowledge is the principle of yoga. Another, as yoga doesn't mean doing hatha bodily exercises, but yoga means learning the science to meditate on the Lord. Another aspect of knowledge is the principle of renunciation. That is, uh, You renounce things for achieving a higher goal. So the point is, the living entity— Brahmaji created both ignorance and knowledge. So the living entity is given the choice. Either he can take to the path of ignorance or he can take to the path of knowledge. If he takes to the path of knowledge, he gets one result. If he takes the path of ignorance, he gets another result. Just like in the Soviet Union, if you follow the laws of the government,, then you get one result, and that result is you can move around freely without any problem. And if you don't follow the laws of the government, then you get another result— you live in the prison. So similarly, when you follow the laws of God, you become free from the cycle of birth and death and go back to God. And if you do disobey the laws of God, the prison house is the womb of the mother. You go on from one womb to another womb, from one species to another species, where you experience nothing but misery. So Krishna says, my Maya is very strong. But if you surrender to Me, then Maya will become easy. So you may find material life very sweet. After all, when you take the material life, you get instant pleasure. But in spiritual life, but in spiritual life, the pleasure may not be very instant. Sometimes your mind may say, "Who has seen Krishna? Who has seen God? Who knows? It is all maybe a fairy tale. Has anyone ever told you that there's life after death?" What everyone says may be true, the life ends with the end of this body. And even if there is God, God created this universe for our enjoyment. So the mind will take you through all these statements that we made. So in order to be in a position to defeat these arguments, you must remember that the mind is like an expert lawyer. Yeah, the mind, the Om, is the best advocate. Whatever you want to think, it will give you arguments. If you want to take your spiritual life, it will give you arguments. And if you want get spiritual life, it will also give you arguments. If you want to fall in Maya, it will give you 100 arguments why you're falling in Maya. It's not Maya really. So you have to make your intelligence very sharp. I don't know about your country, but at least in many other countries, the parents train up the child. If somebody meets you on the way and gives you a chocolate, don't take the chocolate from him. You train up the child. Okay, this is your address, this is your phone number, don't sit in somebody else's car. So similarly, you have to train up your mind how it should not take shelter of sense enjoyment. But to train up the mind, you need— you have to take the medicine. If you take the medicine, then you will recover from the disease. But if you don't take the medicine, then how can you recover? You can't go and just lie down in the hospital and tell the doctor, "I won't take the medicine, still cure me." So you have to take the medicine. One medicine is chanting the Hare Krishna mantra. The Hare Krishna mantra is not a creation of Swami Prabhupada or the Hare Krishna movement. The Hare Krishna mantra is the oldest mantra known to mankind. There is no mantra older than this. These man— the word mantra is a Sanskrit word. So the word mantra is a Sanskrit word. It means that which can give you peace of mind. So one person gets his peace of mind by drinking the vodka. Another man gets his peace of mind by taking cocaine drugs. Another man gets his peace of mind by going to sleep. Another man gets his peace of mind by doing something else that is sinful. And another man gets his peace of mind by glorifying God. So by drinking, meat, and other sinful activities, you cannot get peace of mind. That pleasure is very temporary and short-term, just like But how many millions of bottles of vodka people have drunk in Russia? But are you saying that all the Russians are satisfied now? So we have all engaged in illicit sex, drinking, meat eating, gambling millions of times. Still the senses are saying, "Sorry, I want more." It's just like when you scratch, when you have an itching sensation, a scratching, itching skin disease. The more you scratch, the more you feel like scratching. When you have a skin disease, even if you scratch for 2 hours, it is not enough. You feel like scratching more and more and more. Is that right, doctor? So this is exactly that same what sense gratification is. It is always bolshai, bolshai, bolshai. You always want more and more and more. So we have to understand that by engaging in sinful activities, the senses will not be happy. The great sages have all told in the Vedas that you cannot be happy by sense gratification. Just like you have been told that if you jump from this building floor, by the time you reach down, your bone will be broken into pieces. So you're not going to jump to make sure whether you're going to kill yourself or not. Just through the hearing process, you know if you take a liquid known as poison, you will die. So you're not going to drink poison to see whether you'll really die or no. You know that if you touch your hand on the bulb upstairs, you'll get a shock. So you're not going to touch over there to see whether you're getting a shock or no. So just like by hearing Prasad RAVAL's, you know that these things are wrong. Similarly, by hearing from the great sages, you know that sense enjoyment is wrong. The great sages who have compiled the Vedas, they have no reason to cheat you. The spiritual master has no reason to cheat you. But everybody else has a right to, has a reason to cheat you. Of course, in your country you don't have so much advertisements, I think, isn't it? You don't have much. But in the Western countries, in India, everywhere there is billboard or advertisement. So everywhere people are saying, "Try this brand of whiskey and you will become happy." They will advertise Camel cigarette with a young boy and girl, and everybody will think, "If I buy Camel cigarette, I will also get a young girl like that on the billboard." So this is the advertising theory. Try this product and you will be like the man who is advertising the product. The politicians at election time, they tell you, "Give me the vote and I'll give you all these, this quota of sense enjoyment." But you know that they are not going to give you. They won't even see you till the next election again. So basically everybody is trying to cheat everyone. Don't think that cheaters exist just in your country. They exist everywhere. The boy and girl get married in front of the priest. They take vows that they will never be separated. And 4 out of 5 marriages end up in divorce. The parents bring up the child, and when the child— children are grown up, they leave home. It's just like the bird flies out of the cage when the wings are developed. So the point is, a man comes alone and goes alone. Your country may have the best missiles, and you may have all the relatives on your side, and you may have all the bank balance. Still, you will have to go alone. So the great sages have said Now we have got this human life, so use this human life for spiritual purposes. So I was explaining the, the medicine. So one, the principal medicine is the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra. Krishna and Rama are the names of the Lord. Hare is an address to the energy of the Lord. So by chanting the Hare Krishna mantra, one is able to develop love of God. But just like the child cries for the mother, this is our cry for the Supreme Father and Supreme Mother. So when we chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, we are praying to the Lord to please protect us and give us engagement. When there is dust on the mirror, then you cannot see your face in the mirror. But when the dust is taken away, then you can see yourself in the mirror. So, bah, this dust of illusion is removed by the chanting of the mantra. So by chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, One is able to get attached to Krishna. Just like when a child says, "Mother, mother, mother," the mother gets attached to the child. Because the child is always crying for the mother, the mother knows the child is dependent upon me, so I must protect the child. The older children don't cry, "Mother, mother, mother," so the mother is not so worried. So Krishna says, "Those who are dependent upon me, I protect them." And those who don't depend upon him, naturally He can't protect them. So first thing we do in our defense against Maya is chanting. Another thing is we abstain from sinful activities. We don't take meat, fish, and eggs. You can live without animal fat very easily. Scientists have also discovered and established that meat eating, eggs, and fish are cause of many types of cancer. Both from a spiritual angle it is bad and material angle it is bad. And financial angle. So eating flesh is the second grossest type of sin. The biggest sin mankind can commit is when you kill another human being, either outside the womb or inside the womb. Your country, Russia, has the highest rate of abortion in the world. I had read those figures, but I've forgotten them now. But this is— abortion is very, very sinful. It is just like declaring war on an innocent child. Another thing we don't do is take any intoxication. Why? Because intoxication again is artificial. It is not necessary for our survival. In America, the government is spending billions of dollars in trying to prevent drug abuse, but we don't have to spend $1 to get our devotees to give up drugs. Because when they discover this higher taste of Krishna consciousness, they automatically give up inferior taste. Then we don't gamble. When we say gamble, I don't mean buying lottery tickets, but I mean gambling with horses or cards and all that. Generally, wherever there is gambling, there is liquor and meat and women. And we advise people to abstain from illicit sex. This so-called Western concept of free love and having relationships without marriage is equal to what the animals do. Animals don't have a system of marriage, but human society does. And Krishna explains that the purpose of sex life is to produce only God-conscious children. So the point is, by avoiding sinful activities and chanting the names of God, one's vision becomes pure. Just like when you have cataract, you cannot see, but when the cataract operation is done, then you can see clearly. So due to our intoxication with maya, we cannot see who we are. Then we say, "Offer your food to God." And why? When we offer our food to God, it becomes prasad. Prasad means the mercy of the Lord. By eating the mercy of the Lord, the brain tissues of your body get purified. Just like when you take vitamins, you become strong. So when you take prasad, your brain tissues get purified, and then you can understand who you are. Like when you're drunk, you don't really know who you are, but when the effect of vodka goes away, then you know who you are. So the thing is Uh, with spiritual association, you begin to know who you are. So material happiness, material life may give you some happiness, but it is very temporary. Just like at one time there was a great personality by the name of Lenin. He was followed blindly by the whole country, but today he's gone. Only his name remains. There was a great personality known as Mahatma Gandhi, but he's gone. I'm sure in Russia you had so many big movie stars who have come and gone. You must have had so many philosophers, intellectuals, sportsmen. One day they were so big, today nobody even talks about them. So this is a symptom of material happiness. It is very, very temporary. One is happiness in the mode of goodness. The symptom of mode of goodness happiness is in the beginning it is, it is painful like poison, but in the end it becomes sweet. And it wakes you up to Self-Realization. So it is poison, it is painful or like poison in the beginning because in the beginning you have to follow these rules and regulations. And when you have to follow the rules and regulations, naturally in the beginning you will protest. Even when the mother tells the child, "Stop sucking your thumb," the child will protest in the beginning. So the mind will protest when the Guru says, "No sense gratification." But in the long run, this is good for you. And happiness in the mode of passion, which in the beginning may give you happiness, but in the end it will make you cry. And then there's happiness in the mode of ignorance, which from beginning to end is nothing but ignorance. Just like sleeping too much. Sometimes people go to sleep on Friday, get up on Monday, and they sleep for 12, 12 hours in a day. So you have your choice. You can get happiness in goodness, passion, or ignorance. Whatever price you pay, that is what you will get. Bible says, "As you sow, you shall reap." So obviously all of you have decided to pay the price. That is why all of you are here. But Maya is very strong. When Maya sees that you are trying to serve Krishna, it will try to make sure that you don't serve Krishna. So even when it comes to spiritual life, Maya will tell you, "Come back to me. Come on, don't leave me so soon." Maya will say, "I can't live without you." The parents will say, "I can't live without you." The children will say, "We can't live I can't live without you. And your friends will say, I can't live without you. So Maya will try to test you whether you're ready to give up Maya for a higher cause or no. Maya does a very good job because Maya will make sure that you cannot enjoy in the material world for long. You may have a very beautiful body today, but that beautiful body will not be there tomorrow. So that is material life. All fame, glory, wealth is only for a short time. President Kennedy was such a famous man, but in fraction of a second he was finished. So this is material life. Therefore, tempted by the temporary material life, but take something that will give you a higher happiness. So this is why we take this spiritual life, because it offers us something permanent. The child, when he's young, he wants to play all the time, but the parents force the child to study, because by without studying, the child, that is If the child, if he doesn't study, then in future he won't get a good job. So similarly, we have to force ourselves for something which is for a higher goal. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare. Hare. I just want to talk about book distribution a little bit. I spoke in the afternoon, you were not here. I told them. Prabhupāda emphasized book distribution to be the most important activity in ISKCON. Because when you distribute these books, you're letting Prabhupāda and the whole parampara preach. So preaching is the essence. Preaching is our most important work. So by distributing these books, we are letting the whole disciplic succession go into the house of everyone. These books are so powerful that even if somebody touches these books, he can get a human birth again. So people are used to reading so much of bogus propaganda books. Since thousands of years, so many volumes of books have been written, but these books have failed to bring about peace on Earth because there's a spiritual vacuum. Because there's a spiritual vacuum. So that spiritual vacuum can be filled by this transcendental literature. So by distributing these books, we're giving people a chance to open them and wake up, change their lives. One thing is your country has the highest rate of literacy in the world. And your country has the highest readership rate in the world. Do you know that, all of you? So in your country, there is a natural tendency to read. So when you give these books, you're giving everyone a chance to carry Prabhupada into their house. Just like when you plant a bomb, at any, any time the bomb will explode and destroy everything. So these books are like spiritual bombs. At any time they can explode and destroy your material desires. So, there's so many stories of book distribution actually which I can't list at the moment. But every devotee should take part in this activity of book distribution. I was very encouraged to hear that in your country people are paying 25 rubles to buy a book. So that is wonderful. So if all of your enthusiasm— and I also heard which is very good that there's always a shortage of books. So that means that as many books are produced are going out. So all of you should take part in this book distribution activity. This is the highest benediction for humanity at large. Param vajayate Śrī Kṛṣṇa-saṁkīrtanam. That means ultimately there will be victory of this saṁkīrtana process. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa. I think I've given you all enough philosophy for today. So now what we will do, we will do 5 minutes of japa. Because the whole goal of whatever lecture we give is to bring you to the point of doing japa. Okay? You don't have mala? Niyet? No mala. Those who don't have mala can chant fingers. Okay, just chant. Such loud spiritual energies. This spiritual energy will purify all of Russia. Chanting regularly. Chant every day. We have a supply of beads in Moscow. You don't have enough beads? I can send you beads from India. How many people don't have beads? But can't you get beads and make them? When I was initiated in 1968 in Montreal, I remember I bought Czechoslovakian beads in one hippie store in Montreal. Czechoslovakian beads and made them in Chamala. So I'm sure you can buy in the market some Czechoslovakian or Russian rosaries. Chanting on beads helps in the concentration.