Shortest route to get 'Mercy of Spiritual Master' | Rus-Split | 8.9.92 | Śrīla Gopāl Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī

Thousands of years ago, the sages in Namaśvaranya were concerned about the welfare of civilization, so they instructed Śrīla Gosvāmī for guidance. 500 years ago, the Gosvāmīs were worried about saving civilization, so they compiled the Vāsuvādika literature. So this is the nature of a Vaiṣṇava. He's always worried about the benefit of others. So Prabhupāda also, one of the great Vaiṣṇava ācāryas in the guru-paramparā, he was very concerned about saving humanity. Therefore he gave us this important mission of sankirtana-yajña. As I told you all earlier, today we're going to talk of 3 things: Vāmandaev, Jīvagosvāmī, and this coming sankirtana marathon. So every devotee in this Kṛṣṇa conscious movement knows the duty of a Vaiṣṇava. Vaishnava is paradukha duki, means when he sees others in distress, he becomes distressed. So Caitanya Mahāprabhu, as we know, Caitanya Mahāprabhu was a special mercy incarnation who appeared to present a sublime method to reclaim the conditioned souls. Therefore, Caitanya Mahāprabhu gave his associates the instruction, jāri dakota he kāho kriṣṇa vadeś, whoever you see, please talk to him about Kṛṣṇa. So that is why all the spiritual masters in the line of disciplic succession have emphasized this activity of sankirtana-yajña. Of course, till very recently, when technology was expanded, book printing became possible. 500 years ago, we didn't have the opportunity for book distribution because there were no printing presses at that time. So 500 years ago, Lord Caitanya told Lord Nityānanda and his associates "Go house to house and preach." And while going house to house and preach, you all know the famous story how Nityānanda was attacked by Jagāya and Mādhāi. But still Lord Nityānanda, even though he was attacked, he still went on preaching, humbly begging Jagāya and Mādhāi, "Please, you may attack me, but please take to the chanting of the holy names." So when Jagāya and Mādhāi saw this humble attitude of Nityānanda, They were thinking, we have beaten this man, blood is coming out, still he's begging us, please chant, chant, chant. Surely this man must be a great sage. And their heart began to melt. So the Goswamis compiled vast amount of Vedic literature, but unfortunately that Vedic literature could not be distributed in mass because there were no printing presses 500 years ago. Printing presses were introduced only about 200 years ago. Therefore, Caitanya Mahāprabhu left the instruction: "Preach!" But He didn't say: "Distribute books." Therefore, in the Bhāgavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa says: "Yā idaṁ parmaṁ guyaṁ." "The dearest devotee is one who preaches My glories." But Kṛṣṇa doesn't talk about distributing books specifically. But Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī ṭhākura and ṭhākura Bhakti Vinod took advantage of the progress of technology, industrialization, And they started this program of book distribution. The first book distribution attempt, samkirtan attempt through book distribution, was launched by Thakura Bhakti Vinod. And tomorrow it is going to be his appearance day. What did Thakura Bhakti Vinod do? He printed— he wrote these books. He wrote a book on the life of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and then he had it printed by letterpress. And when that book was printed, he sent it to universities all over the world. We know this from real experience because in 1966-67, when the Hare Kṛṣṇa temple was opened in Montreal, Canada, our devotees went to the library at McGill University, and there they found the book that was sent by Thakura Bhaktinoda in 1896. From 1896 to 1966, the book was lying in McGill University library. But our vraja-sam-devotees saw that book in the library That book was lost from the library. So Thakura Bhaktinoda was the founder of this book distribution process. And then Bhaktisiddhānta Sādhana also encouraged his disciples to go and do book distribution. They would return home after distributing just few copies of books with few copics, and Bhaktisiddhānta Sādhana would be very happy. And Bhaktisiddhānta Sādhana Thakura told Prabhupāda, When you have money, print books and distribute books. So Prabhupada, when he came to the West— actually, even before Prabhupada came to the West, when he was all alone in India, he was writing the books, printing the books, and personally distributing the books. Prabhupada would personally go house to house. He would go to restaurants, just like now your devotees are going to shops and selling sets of books. So Prabhupada will go to restaurants and distribute his Back to Godhead magazine. Just imagine, just see Prabhupāda had to translate the books, then go and collect donations to print the books. Then he would have to go to the paper dealer and buy the paper. Then he would go to the printer to get the books printed. Then he would get them bound. And then he would take them in his hand and, at the age of 70 years, go and distribute them all alone. And then with the money that Prabhupāda would get, he would print the books again. Prabhupāda was personally writing letters to libraries, government leaders, inducing them to take these books. And he was regularly traveling from Vrindavan to Delhi. These days when our devotees travel Vrindavan to Delhi, most of them go by car, machine. Now Kṛṣṇa has given a lot of opulence to ISKCON. But Prabhupāda would travel by third class by train carrying the books with him for distribution. And even on a hot day, one day he was distributing on a very hot day in Connaught Place, which is like downtown Delhi. And Prabhupada faint— he fainted. He had a sunstroke. He became unconscious. Then some people came, sprinkled water on his— Prabhupada's head. Then he came back to consciousness. And as soon as he came back to consciousness, he again started distributing his Back to Godhead magazine. So Prabhupada was determined to distribute these books himself. And, and even after the worldwide Krishna Consciousness movement was established, Prabhupada did not stop book distribution. Whenever big people would come to meet him, even in India, He would always try and induce them to take a Bhagavatam set. I can assure you that once this whole Srimad Bhagavatam is translated in Russian, in your country you will just be thousands of Bhagavatam sets. Right now your devotees are making sets, one book from here, one book from there, and grouping them together into bundles of 7 or 10 or 11, isn't it? But when you have the whole Bhagavatam ready and we present it properly, thousands of sets will be sold every day in this country. So we saw that Prabhupada would induce everyone who came to see him to buy a set or to buy some book. So Prabhupada, as we all know, encouraged book distribution to the maximum. In the Sankirtana newsletter that I took from Yamraj today, there is a, there's a letter that they have quoted that Prabhupada wrote in 1972. I'll just read 2 or 3 lines from this letter to you. I'm very glad to hear all the good news, especially that you want to sell books more and more. That is the best preaching work. Each book sold means there's some practical effect of preaching. This— there is some tangible progress. So try to sell books, as many as possible, in your country. So Prabhupada encouraged book distribution in his letters, darshans, purports, instructions, because books are the medium through which you can destroy the illusion of society. Vaishnava is not worried just about his own liberation. He is not selfish. He is worried about everybody's welfare. He wants to share his fortune with everyone. Vaishnava is happy because he is rightly situated and he has understood the goal of life. So he wants others also to become happy. Therefore, Vaishnava is called ghostanandi devotee. There are two categories of devotees, bhajanandhi and ghostanandi. Bhajananandi means you only want to chant Hare Krishna, only you're worried about your own liberation. When your devotees go to Vrindavan, you will see there many bhajanandandis. Many people in Vrindavan are only doing bhajans. You saw some yamaraja in Vrindavan. But ghostanandi is one who does bhajan and who wants to make others do bhajan also. Prabhupada left Vrindavan at the age of 70 to travel to the Western world to give them the opportunity to do bhajan. He could easily have stayed on in Vṛndāvana and continued his personal bhajan. He had a very nice place to live, Rādhā-Dāmdava Temple. Incidentally, this Rādhā-Dāmdava Temple was made by the inspiration of Jīvā Gosvāmī. Samādhis of these great Gosvāmīs is there in Rādhā-Dāmdava. But Prabhupāda was worried about everybody's welfare. So Prabhupāda encouraged us to do book distribution, because through these books illusion can be destroyed. And I have described to your devotees many times the difficulties under which Prabhupada translated these books. Even when Prabhupada was sick, even when he could not move, even when he was just whispering, he did not stop his translation work. Because Prabhupada said these books will be read for the next 10,000 years. For the next 10,000 years, Prabhupada said, people will get guidance from these books. And after 10,000 years, there'll be no religion left on the planet. So if any devotee doesn't like doing book distribution, he should just say, I only have to do this for 10,000 more years, then I don't have to do it. Because after 10,000 years there is going to be no Dharma. But at least for the next 10,000 years, no devotee can take leave from the sankirtan process. And what is the sankirtan process? Chant Hare Krishna and make others chant Hare Krishna. In the absence of spiritual knowledge, everybody is chanting so many mundane names. So through the medium of book distribution, you have to convince them about The value of chanting Hare Krishna. So in your country, everybody has a strong fever. Most of the devotees have a strong fever for book distribution. So I must congratulate the Moscow devotees for having been number 1st in the world for the first 6 months of book distribution this year. So we should give the Moscow sankirtana devotees a big hand. Because Prabhupada encouraged spiritual competition. Spiritual competition goes on even in the spiritual world. Amongst the gopis, even amongst Radharani and Chandrawali. That is, when Lalita sees Vishaka is doing so much service, she says, I must do more than Vishaka. And then Vishaka says, I must do more than Lalita. And they encourage each other by the— through the spiritual competition. Similarly, there's competition between Radharani and Chandrawali. Chandrawali says, Radharani is doing so much service to Krishna, I must do more. And then Radharani sees that Chandrawali has increased her service, and then Radharani says, no, I must do more to attract Krishna. So in the end, Radharani always wins. So even amongst Vaishnavas, there is spiritual competition. One temple sees other temple is doing so many books, now we must defeat them. I will tell you a secret because I think I'm a double agent. I know there's one temple that is planning on defeating Moscow in this month's Prabhupada marathon in December. We, we had a big meeting in India recently to discuss, um, the plans for Prabhupada marathon in December, and the Bombay Temple, Brindavan Temple leaders were telling me, we must defeat Moscow this year. So I'm also the GBC of Bombay and Moscow, Brindavan. So I said, very good. But I told them it won't be easy. So I know Bombay Temple has made a plan because they want to come number one in the December marathon in December. Last year it was Moscow was number one, St. Peter, and Bombay was number two. Last year Bombay was number two in the marathon, in the marathon. So the devotees felt very bad. They said, how did we get defeated by Moscow? So this year they have made some secret plans how to defeat Moscow. But Krishna says, one who is honored, to him dishonor is worse than death. So Moscow Temple has been— so Moscow Temple has been honored in that it was number one in the world last year. So it cannot be number 2 this year. So all your devotees will have to work very hard if you want Moscow to be number 1. That means every devotee will have to see how can I help expand book distribution. I know in last year's marathon, the full-time sankirtan devotees participated, the temple devotees had other services participated, but also hundreds of friends of Krishna come to the temple, they also participated. Because in your country there is not enough room in the ashrams for all the devotees to live, so many have to live at home. So all devotees will have to enthusiastically participate in the sankirtan process. If you want to give a lot of books, then keep your Shishigoni Mandir or mosque right on the top. These books can destroy the illusion. Vasudeva Datta was a very great Vaishnava devotee. He approached Chaitanya Mahaprabhu one day and said, My dear Lord, I want to ask you a small favor. First you promise me that you will grant this favor. So Lord Caitanya said, okay, what is it? Tell me. First promise me you will grant it, only then I'll tell you. So what did Vasudeva Datta ask? Please take all the conditional souls back to Godhead and let me suffer the sinful reaction due to them. So Caitanya Mahāprabhu was very pleased by this mood of Vasudeva Datta. Similarly, Caitanya Mahāprabhu one day went to meet Haridas Thakura. Caitanya Mahāprabhu told Haridas, Haridas, please tell me how will these yāvanas be saved? Yāvana in Mleccha is one who is completely disrespectful of Vedic culture. So Haridas said, my dear Lord, please do not worry. Ha Ram, Ha Ram, balikāye nama bahase. By taking to the chanting of the holy name, all these yāvanas will be saved. So it now Caitanya Mahāprabhu's order is that we have to give Krishna consciousness to everyone. It is upon us to make everyone chant Hare Krishna, and this is possible through the medium of book distribution. Chaitanya Mahāprabhu has said, panam vijayate Śrī Kṛṣṇa-saṁkṛtanaṁ. Chaitanya Mahāprabhu has guaranteed that if you make the effort, you will be successful. Vijayate means victory. So you're guaranteed to succeed. You just have to make the effort. Kṛṣṇa says in Gītā, those who worship Me with devotion, I make up what they lack and I preserve what they have. And this ability to distribute book comes from purity. That is why Prabhupada said preaching is the essence, books are the basis, but purity is the force. So sometimes devotees say, oh, I've never done book distribution, I'm so shy to talk to people. So as long as you are on the bodily platform, you're thinking about, am I shy, am I outgoing type, in— inward type? But to, to be a preacher of the Lord, you have to be on the spiritual platform and not the bodily platform. Bodily platform means slushat uma. I am listening to the mind, I'm listening to the senses, I'm feeling the heat, I'm feeling the cold, I'm worried about being honored and dishonored. So these are the symptoms of one who is on the bodily platform. Just like yesterday night we were discussing the 14th chapter and Arjuna said, what are the symptoms of one who is transcendental to the three modes? And then Krishna gave the symptoms of one who is transcendental to the three modes. So your question can be, what are the symptoms of one who wants to develop a taste for sankirtan? So first symptom is he doesn't listen to the mind, doesn't identify with the body, doesn't identify with the senses. Then what does he identify with? The instructions of the spiritual master Prabhupada, Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. And because he's identifying with these instructions, that's the only guiding spirit He's not thinking where it is hot, where it is cold, where there's going to be pleasant situation, where it's going to be unpleasant. He just think, how can I carry out this order? And how do you get the strength to carry out the order? By following the process of sadhana bhakti. Follow the process of sadhana bhakti sincerely and you will get full strength. All shortcomings will be destroyed just by the sincere chanting of the holy names of Krishna. And as you chant Hare Krishna Read the Bhagavatam, follow the process of sadhana-bhakti, you get the mercy of Guru and Krishna. And what does that mercy mean? You become determined to push on Krishna consciousness. So sometimes devotees wonder, how is that devotee doing so many books, 100 books, but I can't even do 10 books? Those devotees, they had faith in the instructions of Guru, they've taken it seriously, they're trying to follow the path, therefore they're successful. But Krishna is so kind, that he just sees your effort. So even if you cannot distribute a lot of books, but if you're just ready to make the effort, Krishna will be pleased. Just like when Lord Rama was preparing to invade Sri Lanka to bring Sita back, Hanuman was helping the Lord by throwing big, big stones in the Indian Ocean. And there was a spider over there that was just trying to clear the water, but it could only do little bit of service. So Hanuman told the spider, get out of the way! Lord Rāma chastised Hanumān. He said, no, let a spider also do its share of the work. So we encourage everyone to take part in this activity of preaching the Lord's mercy through the medium of book distribution. Some of you may be like Hanumān and some may be like the spider, but Lord Caitanya will appreciate all of you if you make the effort. So everyone must make an effort and earn the mercy of the spiritual master Prasāda RAVAL and the whole panambara and Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Prabhupada said in his last days, as long as book distribution goes on, I will never die. If you want your countrymen to meet Prabhupada, if you want them to understand what Prabhupada said, then give them these books. And when you give them these books, then Prabhupada directly begins to talk to them, and you become the agent in presenting Prabhupada. So you get the agent's commission from the Lord because you become an instrument in bringing the conditioned soul back to the Lord. The Lord recognizes all His devotees, but the one He recognizes the most is one who has preached His glories. So please absorb yourself in this transcendental activity of book distribution. This is not some material endeavor to make some money.

I just want to speak for a few minutes about sankirtan also, because today is my last Bhagavatam class. I'm going to be leaving this afternoon. And without Sankirtan, nothing is completed. Just like the soul maintains the body, Sankirtan maintains this Krishna conscious movement. Without dusha, what do they say? The living entity is dead, isn't it? So similarly, without preaching, the living entity is dead.

So you see so many big, big churches in your city of Moscow and all over your country and all over the world.

You see big, big temples in India. But is there any preaching going on in these place?

No, no preaching.

So without preaching, Prabhupada said, we are dead, our devotee is dead. Therefore, even when the Vedas was spoken thousands of years ago, this emphasis of preaching was there. The Bhagavad-gītā was spoken 5,000 years ago only in Kurukshetra, but actually it was spoken even earlier to the sun god Vivasvan. And even in the Bhagavad-gītā we find the emphasis is on preaching. Because in the 18th chapter when Krishna is summarizing the Bhagavad-gītā, He says, "The dearest devotee is one who preaches My glories." And in the Śrīmad-bhāgavatam, which was compiled by Śukadeva Gosvāmī, again we see that there are many verses in the Bhāgavatam. I can list to you all the verses in the Bhāgavatam that explain the importance of preaching. Actually, one verse I quoted in the class today from Nārada-muni speaking to the prajñitas, dayāya saraḥ pradēṣu santuṣṭhayena kena vā. A devotee must show mercy to all entities. So the true manifestation of mercy is giving people knowledge by which they can stop the process of birth and death. We're not interested in giving false mercy. The materialist concept of mercy is give them some more dosage of sense enjoyment. Therefore you have in America, if a drunkard is going and begging for money to buy beer, Americans very willingly give him. And people open up educational institutions and give knowledge by which they can all forget God.

And people open up charitable hospitals so that they can become—

they can recover from the disease and again resume sense enjoyment. And when a man can't have sense enjoyment, what do they say in material language?

Poor man, he's sick.

Poor man. So our definition of poor is different. Our definition of poor man is not one who has less dinghy, is not one who is, uh, um, who doesn't get— is one who is forgetting God. Like in Sanskrit, there are two words, sanat and anāt. Sanat means one who has parents. Anāt means one who is an orphan. So from a material angle, the one whose father and mother dead, only he is called an anāt. And one who has mother and father, he's called sanat. But Bhāgavatam says differently.

Bhāgavatam says one who doesn't accept Krishna as the cause of all causes, he's an orphan, anāt.

So virtually the whole society is full of anātas. They don't accept God as the cause of all causes. So we have to make them aware that God is the cause of all causes. And what is the principal medium? Book distribution. As we've said many times, Prabhupāda has given us many weapons by which we can destroy illusion. He gave us the weapon of book distribution, Hare Nāma, prasāda distribution. Just like yesterday, we were at the— we did the program at our new café in Leningrad. This is the second café there in that city. And 300 people are eating prasad every day. So that's also another weapon. One weapon which goes a long way is the weapon of book distribution. When you eat prasad, only one man gets the benefit. Because you can't put prasad in the stomach and then take it out and transfer to another stomach. Mose na? Yeah. But when you distribute a book, you— not only one person who buys the book will read it, but 10, 15, 20 people can read it. And they can read the book at any time. Prabhupada said these books can explode at any time. It's like a bomb that you plant and can— you never know when it's going to blow. The other bomb blasts are destructive, but this bomb blast is constructive. So therefore Prabhupada wanted us to push book distribution.

So there's no end to the, to the limit of book—

there's no limit to where book distribution can expand. Just like in mundane language they say sky is the limit. So sky is the limit for book distribution. Till everybody has a book in his house, a devotee cannot be satisfied. Not just one book, but gradually all the books. And as they read these books, they gain more and more knowledge about Kṛṣṇa. And this book distribution program becomes successful by the endeavors of the devotee. Nothing happens without the effort of the devotee. Kṛṣṇa could easily have made Arjuna victorious, but did He do that? No. He told Arjuna, you fight. So Krishna wants the devotees to work for Him. Otherwise, by Lord Caitanya's desire, Krishna consciousness could have spread automatically. But He wanted His devotees to endeavor. Therefore He sent Lord Nityananda from village to village, house to house. Therefore He sent all His devotees to go and preach. Therefore He traveled and preached and left an instruction for all of us. Jare dakatai hekau kṛṣṇa updeś. Whoever you see, tell him about Krishna. So if we tell a person, if we stop every man on the street and tell him one word about Krishna, there's a good chance he'll forget after for a few minutes. But if you give him a book, then there's a good chance he won't forget. He'll be able to see the pictures of Krishna, Prabhupada. Plus, since he spent the money to buy the book, he'll actually read it. He's not going to spend 200 rubles and then not read the book. If you give the books away free, some people read it, some don't read it. But when they buy a book, they always read it. So as we distribute these books, we save the face of society. So we want to request all the devotees to please understand that this book distribution activity is our most important activity. Prabhupada said, "ISKCON is my body and book distribution is the heart." So you may have a good-looking body, but if you don't have a healthy heart, the good-looking body can do nothing. So similarly, you may have big, big buildings, but if you don't have preaching, then it's a sick body. So we should all help expand this book distribution so that more and more people can read these books. He has a full— but also those who live at home, those who are engaged in other professions, they can also play a supportive role to help expand book distribution. If you want to get the mercy of the spiritual master Prabhupada, Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and Lord Sri Krishna, this is the shortest route.

If you can touch your nose directly, why should you put your hand around your head to touch your nose?

So you have a short route available, the route to get the mercy.

Because when the Lord sees his devotees canvassing on his behalf, he's very pleased.

So we should all position ourselves as preachers of the Lord and please the Lord by endeavoring to distribute his book. And every time you distribute a book to one person, you have saved somebody from going to hell. Otherwise, everyone's headed for hell except those who, by the grace of the Vaishnavas, get saved. So all you—

Vaishnava is always paradukha duki.

He's always is concerned about everyone's ultimate welfare. So please endeavor, help expand book distribution, and become glorious in the eyes of the parampara, and this will satisfy you completely. Hare Krishna.

Can we, can we say while preaching like that, please take these books, they will save you from going to hell, or it is an offense? Is it an offense?

Well, don't say save you from going to hell in the opening statement.

You may say that in the middle of the conversation, but don't let that be the opening line.

You may scare them away.

And how is it better to construct this discussion, this dialogue, to build this dialogue?

Well, start off on a positive note. Here's a book that can answer all your problems, or here's a book that will give you permanent happiness, answer all your questions. You can consult some of the devotees who do full-time sankirtan. They can tell you better lines than I can. Prasad Raaval.

Somebody says that if, say, I am preaching to a person and that person, he doesn't come to Kṛṣṇa finally, then I will go to hell. Is it correct?

Whoever told you doesn't know the philosophy. You attempt to preach and you will get the benefit.

You do your duty, rest is in Kṛṣṇa's hand.

In order to successfully meditate upon Kṛṣṇa, one should have, so like, a memory when you can remember just pictures? One should have a type of memory when you can remember the pictures, just to store pictures in one's mind.

How can you develop this?

You can develop memory by getting rid of the rubbish that is there in your brain. Just like if this glass is full of water, you can't add milk in it.

So right now the mind is full of rubbish.

So get rid of the material rubbish. Then you'll have space for spiritual storage. So please expand Lord Caitanya's sankirtan movement.

How many of you in this audience are ready to commit yourself to book distribution?

If not full-time, at least part-time.

Okay, make sure you keep it.

Don't forget it, okay? You said this in front of Prabhupada, in front of Gauranatha Deities, in front of all the Vaishnavas. They were all witness to it, so don't change your mind.

Hare Krishna. Lama Lama Ale Ale.