kāmaḿ prayāhi jahi viśravaso 'vamehaḿ
trailokya-rāvaṇam avāpnuhi vīra patnīm
badhnīhi setum iha te yaśaso vitatyai
gāyanti dig-vijayino yam upetya bhūpāḥ
 
Translation
 
My Lord, You may use my water as You like. Indeed, You may cross it and go to the abode of Rāvaṇa, who is the great source of disturbance and crying for the three worlds. He is the son of Viśravā, but is condemned like urine. Please go kill him and thus regain Your wife, Sītādevī. O great hero, although my water presents no impediment to Your going to Lańkā, please construct a bridge over it to spread Your transcendental fame. Upon seeing this wonderfully uncommon deed of Your Lordship, all the great heroes and kings in the future will glorify You.
 
PURPORT
It is said that a son and urine emanate from the same source — the genitals. When a son is a devotee or a great learned person, the seminal discharge for begetting a son is successful, but if the son is unqualified and brings no glory to his family, he is no better than urine. Here Rāvaṇa is compared to urine because he was a cause of disturbances to the three worlds. Thus the ocean personified wanted him killed by Lord Rāmacandra.
One feature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord Rāmacandra is omnipotence. The Lord can act without regard to material impediments or inconveniences, but to prove that He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and was not merely advertised as Godhead or elected by popular vote, He constructed a wonderful bridge over the ocean. Nowadays it has become fashionable to create some artificial God who performs no uncommon activities; a little magic will bewilder a foolish person into selecting an artificial God because he does not understand how powerful God is. Lord Rāmacandra, however, constructed a bridge over the water with stone by making the stone float. This is proof of God's uncommonly wonderful power. Why should someone be accepted as God without displaying extraordinary potency by doing something never to be done by any common man? We accept Lord Rāmacandra as the Supreme Personality of Godhead because He constructed this bridge, and we accept Lord Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead because He lifted Govardhana Hill when He was only seven years old. We should not accept any rascal as God or an incarnation of God, for God displays special features in His various activities. Therefore, the Lord Himself says in Bhagavad-gītā (4.9):
janma karma ca me divyam
evaḿ yo vetti tattvataḥ
tyaktvā dehaḿ punar janma
naiti mām eti so 'rjuna
"One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna." The activities of the Lord are not common; they are all transcendentally wonderful and not able to be performed by any other living being. The symptoms of the Lord's activities are all mentioned in the śāstras, and after one understands them one can accept the Lord as He is.
 
Lord Ramachandra, we are reading has approached the ocean. In order to attain Sri Lanka there were over 100 yojanas or 800 miles of ocean. Ramchandraji and his army of monkey soldiers are standing at the very holy place of Sri Rameshwaram and Lord Ram it is explained here by Sukadev Goswami he decided to fast for 3 days to perform this tapasya in order to get the approval, or in order to receive the sanction of the ocean to build this great bridge across. The Lord is very merciful. Is there a need for the Lord to get the sanction of the ocean, the predominating deity of the ocean when the ocean belongs to him? Krsna says in the Gita sarvaloka maheçvaram. Everything is his property, therefore, he can do whatever he likes with anything and ultimately he does but in the process for our benefit, for our purification he gives us an opportunity to use everything in his loving service. He gives us an opportunity to offer whatever we have for his pleasure but if we are not willing to do that, if we ignore his request to surrender everything to him, if we neglect his appeal in Bhagvad Gita 9.27
 
yat karoṣi yad aśnāsi
yaj juhoṣi dadāsi yat
yat tapasyasi kaunteya
tat kuruṣva mad-arpaṇam
 
To utilize everything as an offering to me then ultimately he takes everything away by force in due course of time anyway and in the process in order to teach us he creates the punishment of the three fold miseries of material existence.  
 
So what is taking place here at the ocean is very symbolic to life of every conditioned soul. Lord Ram is coming to the ocean requesting “I want to build bridge I want to utilize your ocean for my purposes come and give me permission if you do you will be glorified, you will be my eternal servant if you don’t I will just throw you”. There is a choice he is giving everyone of us. Is it not? He comes through Bhagvat Gita not only through our Bhagvat Gita but through every scripture of the world and he says ”you are free, you are independent everything is mine I give to you on a loan use it for my service, you will be glorified forever, you will attain eternal pleasure, if you don’t you will be destroyed.” Ah! We are all in the same exact position as ocean personified, however, big or small we may be.
 
Now like most of us the ocean personified neglected the appeal of the Lord. Obviously the ocean personified had better things to do. So many of us, we hear the word of our Spiritual Master, God is speaking through him the sadhu is nothing more than the mouth piece of God himself – Bhagwan. Krsna says (B.G. 18.66): sarva-dharmān parityajya. Surrender everything to me and the bonafide acarya he is simply repeating the same thing. Who is a bonafide acarya that person who tells you “Surrender everything to Krsna”. So Krsna is speaking through Guru, he is speaking through Sadhu, he is speaking through Sastras “Surrender everything to me” but we have so many excuses as the ocean did, maybe we don’t have time, maybe after all the personification of the ocean has a lot of responsibilities. You may think that how do I have time to surrender everything to Krsna; I have a family I have 3 children. But all the fish in the ocean are the children of the ocean. You know how many children he has? He has to provide for billions. Well, I own a house; I have to pay the rent. The ocean takes care of the entire ocean he has a lot of responsibilities, you cannot even imagine. Can you imagine being in charge of the entire ocean and all living entities within the ocean. Ah! You think your business is big? So obviously he was making so many excuses. Ram has done to him what he is doing to all of us. He glanced upon the ocean with anger and upon glancing upon the ocean, the entire ocean from the inside to the outside became so agitated and disturbed that all the aquatics started coming to the surface. They did not know what to do they felt they were going to be devastated. The ocean realized that Krsna is all powerful. Lord Sri Ramchandra is all powerful and therefore, he came out with folded palms and surrendered everything “My dear Lord” and he began to chant his glories. 
 
That is our position when we do not surrender everything to the Supreme Personality of Godhead what takes place? The ocean of our mind becomes agitated and all the fish of material desires start coming to the surface and disturbing us like anything and these agitations take the form of insatiable lust and greed and anger and pride and illusion, envy. They torment us, disturb us. Why? Because we are not willing to co-operate with the plan of God if we co-operate with the plan of God the ocean of our consciousness will be very peaceful, and we will remain very peaceful forever. Then the agitation of old age, disease and death and then another birth struggling in the womb of the mother so much disturbance.   Why? Because the glance of anger is upon us, because we are not willing to offer our natural reciprocation of love with God so we may ask why is Lord Ramchandra so apparently cruel to all of us, why doesn’t he tell us surrender but if we do not surrender he lets us just live a normal life, a happy life because he loves us, because he will not abandon us. 
 
We are like fish out of water in this material world, our nature is to love God and to serve God and to recognize that everything is the property of God. Now the father of the ocean if he sees one of his children is on the beach he knows that, that child will never really be happy there so he will do anything to bring that fish back into his abode. Similarly, a father if he sees that his child is genuinely going wrong he is living in such a way that he is not going to reap the real fruits of his purpose of life then he will punish that child that punishment is the act of his love. You see if Krsna would just allow us to do our own thing in this world and be peaceful he would be abandoning us, he would be abandoning us through illusion, abandoning us through material energy. Now an ordinary father in this world if he is a rascal he will abandon his child just because the child does not co-operate but a good father will never abandon the child no matter what. He will be always be doing whatever is required to bring that child back but ultimately he never interferes with the independence of the child. Punishment does not interfere with our independence it’s just meant to wake us up, to try to teach us a lesson, to utilize our independence for its proper purpose. 
 
So, therefore, Lord Sri Ramchandra punished the ocean by creating havoc, disturbance in the ocean’s life hoping that this ocean will come to its senses and surrender and that is just what the Lord does to each and every one of us birth after birth after birth. The time of death is havoc and sometime by his causeless mercy he creates havoc before death. Correct? This is all to bring us to the point of the ocean personified. Ultimately he came with folded palms and he began to glorify the Lord with love. It is not that he came vengefully and said “O.K. my Lord, you defeated me I’ll let you do whatever you want but it is not what I want, but I have no choice”. Ocean personified was intelligent he understood that the punishment that he just endure the embarrassment of all the subjects seeing him being completely defeated in the face of Ramchandra he understood that it was the loving mercy of his own father. Therefore, he took it as such he sobered up, he woke up he was enlightened by the circumstances, he was enlightened by the great tragedy that came upon him by the humiliation and he came forward with folded palms. But he didn’t just glorify the Lord with so many empty words, he glorified with words of love but then he showed the sincerity of those words by his actions, he didn’t just say “Jai Ramchandra, Jai Prabhu” and then go on with his negligence. Ah! What he did is he said “Jai Ramchandra, I am your eternal servant let us build this bridge across the ocean, I am yours from this day on I am your property”. 
 
To glorify the Spiritual Master and to glorify the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the same thing Säksäd-dharitvena samasta-sästrair uktas tathä.  Because the Spiritual Master is simply the representative of God so when we glorify our Spiritual Master then we glorify Krsna with words of praise the sincerity of that glorification is manifested to the degree we are willing to accept the instruction as our life and soul and this is just what the ocean did. His instruction was help me build this bridge across you and let these rocks these big stones float and the ocean said “Alright my Lord, you are Almighty, you are all glorious, you want to kill Ravana I will help you kill Ravana that is my eternal service to you, let us build this bridge together. Whatever way I can help you desire that these rocks float they will float. Your wish is my command”. This is glorification, glorification through one’s life’s actions. 
 
In this way ocean personified learned the hard way but he learned which is much better than most of us. We are learning the hard way but we are still not learning, we are still not surrendering, we still have something that is more important. Such a beautiful prayer “You may use my water as you like”. 
 
Let us say that the water of the ocean symbolizes in our own life our consciousness, our consciousness not only but all of our property because ocean personified the ocean is his property it was his body, his mind, his words, his everything. This is surrender when with all sincerity and willing to make our word good when we say to the Lord “My Lord you may use my water as you like, indeed, you may cross it and go to the abode of Ravana who is the great source of disturbance and crying for the 3 worlds”. Ah! such a wonderful example which pertains very, very specifically to the devotees of the Krsna consciousness movement. He wants Ram to use his water to use all of his property in any way he likes, to destroy the demoniac influence of Ravana who is the cause of great disturbance and crying for the 3 worlds
 
So, similarly, Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu seeing that in this age of Kali Yuga there is much demoniac influence causing great disturbance and crying. Ravana represents ignorance, the greatest demon is ignorance. It is due to ignorance, what is that ignorance that I am this material body, that I am the enjoyer we are forgetting our relationship with Krsna as his eternal servant, we are forgetting the means to him which is devotional service. We see Ravana caused fear because he was spreading ignorance. So similarly, the demon of ignorance is all pervading in this age of Kali Yuga and Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu he has asked all of us (Cc. Madhya 7.128)
 
    yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa           
āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra' ei deśa
 
On my command let me use your consciousness, your body, your mind, your words, your wealth, your everything to alleviate the crying, the anxiety and the disturbance of all living beings due to the demon of ignorance. Let us together slay this great ignorance this is the mission of preaching. A preacher tries to help the Lord to utilize everything that he has in the Lord’s service to slay the demon of ignorance which is causing so much grief and suffering within the hearts of all living beings and what is the way? It is through the chanting of the Holy name therefore; Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has taught that the bridge to cross over the ocean of ignorance is the association of saintly persons who are constantly reminding us to never forget the Holy name of Krsna. Each of the stones by the arrangement of Lord Ram would float only because the name of Ram was upon it. In crossing over the ocean of birth and death which is the means of destroying the Ravana like demon of ignorance at every step we must remember God’s name that is the great symbol of this story. The name of God is the shelter, the name of God is the bridge which can take us across the ocean of birth and death but if you forget the name at any step you will sink Ah! If there was one rock without the name it will sink and if you stepped on that rock you will sink with it (S.B. 10.14.58) padaḿ padaḿ yad vipadāḿ na teṣām. Every step there is danger in this world therefore at every step we should remember the Holy name and through the bridge of God’s Holy name we could cross this ocean of ignorance. By the grace of our Gurudeva and by the Grace of Sriman Mahaprabhu this great demon of Ravana who is residing within our hearts in the form of ignorance will be slayed and what is the result? 
The conclusion is the perfection of our life because we can simply be eternally the instrument to assist the pleasurable pastimes of Sita and Ram. Sita is the Goddess of fortune her energy is everything that exist.   By not trying to exploit Sita for our own sense enjoyment but by simply assisting the beautiful loving pastimes of Sita and Ram that is the Supreme goal of our life, that is the Supreme happiness of the Soul. Therefore let us know for certain that we have 2 alternatives – to accept the instruction of the Lord to understand the consequences if we do not accept the will of God and to willfully, and joyfully as ocean personified has done offer everything in the loving service of the Lord, offer everything in the loving service of our Spiritual Master in this most merciful mission of building the bridge of the Holy name for all living beings to take shelter and cross the ocean of ignorance. Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. Thank you very much. Is there any questions?
 
Devotee: (0:30:15.1 to 0:30:30.9) not audible.
 
Maharaj: If the Spiritual Master or if Krsna desires your suggestions then that is your service. After all when you surrender you surrender your body, your mind, your words everything, your intelligence. If God gives you intelligence he wants you to offer it all in his loving service. So whatever good ideas we have what is our creative expression of devotional service to offer those good ideas in the service of the Lord. But ultimately ‘thy, will not my will, will be done’ means you can accept my suggestions or reject them as you like I am surrendered. But part of my service is I have to give you everything and I have this intelligence and this is the way I am thinking. How can I best serve you best? Ah! At all times at every moment I am thinking like this can I best serve you like this? If he says “no” immediately we reject this idea if he says “yes” he tells you to stop thinking just do exactly as he says then you do but if he tells you to use your good intelligence to serve the best way you can that is devotional service. Often times the Spiritual Master tells us like this “I want this job done how it’s done you use your good intelligence”. But we are not attached to whether the Lord accepts or rejects our proposals. We are only attached to offering the best we have of our body, of our mind, of our words. Any other questions?
Devotee: (0:32:49.6 to 0:33:37.8) not audible
 
Maharaj: If you are sincerely trying the best you can, Krsna will protect you. (B.G. 9.30)
 
api cet su-durācāro
bhajate mām ananya-bhāk
sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ
samyag vyavasito hi saḥ
 
Krsna says that if one is my devotee even if he commits the most abdominal activity, if his desire is rightly situated he is to be considered saintly. Why? Because Krsna explains in the next verse that very quickly I make him righteous once again. (B.G. 9.31)
 
kaunteya pratijānīhi
na me bhaktaḥ praṇaśyati
 
This is the verse where Krsna says “Declare it boldly Arjuna, my devotee will never perish”. Specifically in this verse he is saying declare it boldly Arjuna my devotee will never perish. He is speaking of a devotee who falls for sometime but who is sincere, who is rightly situated in his desire but who momentarily or temporarily becomes overcome due to previous conditionings. Krsna says “I very soon will make him righteous. How? He might smash you very hard or he may just bring you back again gracefully into the association of devotees. How he does it that is for him, he is the Supreme perfect expert at everything. But if our desire is sincere then even if these difficulties or the state of forgetfulness may come due to previous conditionings into our life it is Krsna’s word that he will bring you back, he will protect you. 
 
Thank you very much. Hare Krsna