om namoh bhagavate vasudevaya
om namoh bhagavate vasudevaya

[00:18] (… gyanino gyana yagyena … gyana vigraham)

In pursuit of spiritual knowledge, some persons renounce all material activities and having thus become peaceful, perform the sacrifice of philosophic investigation to worship You, the original form of all knowledge. And yet others, those whose intelligence is pure follow the injunctions of Vaishnav scriptures, promulgated by You, absorbing their minds and thoughts of You, they worship You as one Supreme Lord manifesting in multiple forms. There are still others who worship You, Supreme Lord in the form of Lord Shiva. They follow the path described by him and interpret it in various ways by many teachers. But all these people, my Lord, even those who have turned their attention away from You are worshipping other deities are actually worshipping You alone, embodiment of all the demigods. As rivers born from the mountains and filled by the rain, flow from all sides into the sea, so do all these paths in the end reach You, oh my Master.

Goodness, passion and ignorance, the qualities of Your material nature, entangle all conditioned living beings from Brahma down to the non-moving creatures. I offer my obeisances to You, who are the Supreme Soul of all living beings, witness every one’s consciousness with unbiased vision. The current of Your material modes produced by the force of ignorance flow strongly amongst the living beings, who assume identities as demigods, humans and animals.

We are reading, tonight, the prayers of Akrura, as he is approaching Vrindavan Dham. This is a wonderful story of how a devotee of the Lord, can see Krishna’s hand in every situation of life and utilize every circumstance as a positive opportunity to glorify the Lord and serve the Lord. Akrura was the beloved uncle of Sri Krishna and Balaramji and his heart was unmotivated, free of any material contamination, free of pride and envy, he was a pure devotee of Lord. And yet he was called by Kamsa, who was the most wicked, most powerful demon, whose only business, is some how or the other destroy Krishna. Recently, Kamsa had just found out that the eight son of Devaki and Vasudev, who he was hunting for so many years, and so many, sending so many Asuras to try to find and kill, he found out that this eight son was non other than Krishna, who was living in the house of Nanda Maharaj. So Kamsa, he made it quite clear to Akrura that this child must die, by hook or crook with all my powers, with all my armies, with all my mystic weapons, I am going to kill this child. I want you to go to Vridavana because He trusts you, He knows that you are the loving uncle. If you invite Him to come to Mathura on my behalf for this wrestling match and to see the beauty of Mathura and to see the sacrificial bow, then He will come.

Now, Akrura knew, if he didn’t accept Kamsa’s humble request, then Kamsa would probably murder him. Ha. This is the way of people who are too much materialistic and envious. He was speaking very politely to Akrura. He was praising him. And he was humbly requesting him to do this. But Akrura know that material diplomatic relations is trying to get the good side of me. But if I don’t accept it, he will murder me, he will kill me, he really doesn’t believe in anything he is saying. We find this in material world today. Therefore, it is explained in the sastra, unless one is learned to control his mind and senses, such a person cannot be trusted. Thus to friend today can be your worst enemy tomorrow, if circumstances change.

So Akrura was very wise. So he was thinking ‘alright, if I don’t go, I will die. And if I do go, even though, I am a messenger of this terrible, wicked demon, who has the worst possible motivations from my trip, some how or other some thing very auspicious will come of it. I will go, I will have the wonderful darshan of Krishna and Balaram, I will be able to see the beautiful land of Vrindavan Dham. Ha. I will be so happy to see all the Vrijavasis and I will become, my whole life will become completely successful and purified by bathing in the dust from lotus feet of Lord Shyam Sundar. And besides that, if I bring Him back to Mathura, what can Kamsa do to Krishna. He is the Supreme absolute truth, he is the Personality of Godhead. I will be only assisting His mission. So, on his way to Vrindivan, Akrura is simply meditating on the mercy of Sri Krishna in offering these wonderful prayers.

And our Guru Maharaj, Srila Prabhupad has told us often that if we actually want to enter into Vrindavan, we must follow in the footsteps of Akrura. Vrindavan is not a place that can be seen by our material eyes. Vrindavan can only be seen by our heart and it is seen only when Krishna reveals His mercy to us. When He feels that we are suitable recipients to have the darshan of the Holy Dham. Many people, they go to Vrindavan, and because they go in material consciousness trying to perceive it with their gross senses, they are very disappointed. Ha. I remember, when I was living in Vrindavan in 1971, I was visiting one very, very great Acharya, one of the devotees of the Gowdiya Math, and he was explaining a story, how he was corresponding with one scholar from Germany, who was actually becoming a devotee. And he decided that he would come to Vrindavan to come to this man’s institute to study, to study the Bhagavatam, the Gita, the Vaishnav sastras. So, he took an airplane, all the way from ha, Frankfurt to Delhi, he took the train all the way from Delhi to Mathura. He got into a taxi from Mathura and he was driving to Vrindavan and he was just reaching the outskirts of Vrindavan, there was a herd of beautiful white cows, who we consider to be very auspicious. And as the cows were walking, naturally they were purifying the atmosphere by dung falling behind them, ha, you know the cow dung, and it was splashing this way, that way and usually there is a little boy who picks it up and puts it on his head on a basket and takes it home. Anyways, he saw dung on the streets. In Germany, you don’t see such big, what you call it, such big paddy’s of cow dung on street. So, he was thinking, my God this is most unsanitary terrible place. He told the taxi, turn around, how can I go to this place. And he went back to Mathura and he was right back in the train to Delhi and went right back to the airport and the same day, he flew back to Germany. Ha. He came, he actually entered into Vrindavan. And what did he see? He just saw unsanitary conditions. And factually, there are many unsanitary conditions. But even if everything was perfectly nice, people would go with material vision and say, oh, such wonderful trees, such wonderful clean river, it’s a wonderful place to enjoy. Ha. In this way, Vrindavan is only seen by one who Krishna reveals through that person’s heart when he is receptive, when he is humble, when he is in prayerful mood.

So, Akrura, while he was on his chariot from Mathura to Vrindavan, the whole time, he was simply enraptured in expectation of the darshan of Sri Krishna. Srila Rupa Goswami explained that the price of Krishna is the greed to want Krishna and only Krishna. In the Bhakti Rasamruta Sindhu Rupa Goswami uses the Sanskrit term manobiram. manobiram means, when a man is attached to a woman, he is so infatuated by this woman, he cannot get her out of his mind for a second. He is always longing to be with her, longing to talk to her, longing to see her, longing to do something for her. This is a material attachment. Rupa Goswami said when we have that type of greed for Krishna, then Krishna will reveal Himself to us. But unfortunately, we have that type of greed for everything but Krishna. That is our problem. When we just put Krishna in the front, in the centre, the difference between the impersonal school of transcendental life and the school of Bhakti is, those who are following the advaita system, they want to empty their heart, empty their mind of all desires. They want to make their mind a blank slate. And in that blankness, there is no disturbance, there is no anxieties, because if there is nothing there, what will you be anxiety about. Ha. And therefore, we are liberated from all the desires, of all longings, of all hankering.

Krishna says in Gita (brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāńkṣati samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu mad-bhaktiḿ labhate parām) [BG 18.54] that this world is a place of socati and akankshati. It is not a place of longing to attain something you don’t have and then lamenting when you lose it. That’s all. No one is satisfied in this world. We are thinking, if only I have this, I’ll be satisfied. It’s maya’s trick and some how or other it may take years of hard endeavour, manipulation and work and when we get it and what do we find, that something else we need. For something more we want. And then we strive for that and then we realize that there is something else we need. socati, just hankering, longing, aspiring like a mirage in the desert. When you are starving in the desert for water and you appearing water, you just running all your hopes are in that water and then you reach to it and you pick it up and you are thinking, ha, at last my thirst will be quenched. And all you get is a handful, mouthful of sand, hot, dry sand, which only serves the purpose of making your thirst increase. But then you see at a distance, there is another mirage, there is another reservoir of water and you start, however weak you may be, somehow you have to get there and you reach it and another mouthful of sand. But in the future, there is another mirage and what all we are thinking, if I can only reach the next one, I’ll be satisfied. (puna punascharva charvananam) [15:25] Prahlad Maharaj said, this material world is just based on the principle of just chewing what’s been chewed and not being satisfied picking it up again, not being satisfied, picking it up again and always aspiring to chase up to this mirage. Then people chase after this mirage their entire life, more and more money, the more money you have the more you need. The greatest illusion of maya is that we are thinking if we have this much money, then I’ll be satisfied. So, when you have that much, you need that much more to maintain what you already have. Ha. Krishna says in Gita, it’s like putting, it’s like putting fuel on fire. There is no satiation. And then finally we grow to be old people and we have aspired for anything, we have big estate, nice cars, nice prestige, good business, chased after this mirage, our whole life through, we are still not satisfied.

Govinda Das prayed (he dana yovana, he dana yovana, putra pari jana … kamala dala jiva .. tala mala bhaja .. ) [16:45] that my whole life I have struggled, I have strived, I have toiled fruitlessly and now I’m an old man, I have all these things but I still have an empty heart and I’m still frustrated. I’ve been chasing after mirages, my whole life. But at the end of life we have one solace. Although I worked so hard and found no satiation to my longings and desires atleast I could leave this mirage behind for my children. So that they can aspire all their life chasing this mirage and they can build it up and build it up and build it up and then their own solace in their life is before they die, I haven’t found any truth, I haven’t found any real satisfaction and real peace but my solace is this that I could leave this behind, this mirage behind for my children so that they can be in the same illusion as me, they can chase after their life and they will hand it down to their children and their children and their children. And this is considered according to material calculations the ultimate success in life. Ha.

We should be concerned in leaving behind something with real substance with truth. But in material life it is not possible. Srila Prabhupad used to say that material all our qualifications are so many zeros and at the end of all, working so hard to produce so many hundreds and thousands of zeros at the end of our life, all we have is a big zero. But if you put one in front of those zeros, they all increase in value and that one is Krishna. If we put Krishna first in our life, then what ever else we have in our life, whether it be intelligence, skills, wealth, prestige, it only increases the capacity by which we can serve the Lord and satisfy the Lord.

So, Akrura, ha, is explaining like this that in this world we are hankering, hankering, hankering, hankering and then, and then if we lose what we have, we lament, we lament, we lament and ultimately we lose everything. dhukhalayam asasvatam. The temporary nature of this world is everything is lost today or tomorrow.

Rupa Goswami explains that although the impersonalists, when they attain the brahma bhuta stage, they hanker for nothing nor lament for nothing. But the Bhaktas, they want to hanker, they want to long for Krishna. They want to be greedy for Krishna. They want to aspire for Krishna. This is Akrura’s consciousness. He is going to Vrindavan not oh, what ever comes, it’s alright. He is going to Vrindavan thinking that I will see Krishna. It’s only a matter of hours till the beautiful lotus feet Krishna would be upon my head. Till I can behold His beautiful form, till I conserve His divine feet, till I can serve His devotees with my life and my soul. This is love. In the advaitic school of philosophy, there may be peace and there may be freedom from all misery, there is no love. Only in the school of Bhakti, do we find the true essence of pure love, eternal reciprocation with the beloved Lord of all of creation, Sri Krishna.

So although Akrura is considered best among Paramahamsas, how much his mind is simply fixed in the thought of Krishna. (man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māḿ namaskuru mām evaiṣyasi satyaḿ te pratijāne priyo 'si me) [BG 18.65] Krishna says, always think of Me, become My devotee. Worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. in this way you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My dear friend. Ha. And Krishna consciousness means to learn simply to put God, Bhagavan, Sri Krishna as the object, as the goal of what ever we do. (vyavasayatmaka budhi eka ha kuru nandana) [22:15] This determination must be there, what ever we may be.

We have Vrindavan Maharaj, he is a sanyasi, Devamrita Prabhu, he is a brahmachari, we have Sri Govinda Hridayananda Mahaprabhu, they are grihastas. But really, there is no difference in their life. Because, what ever they do, their goal, their purpose is Krishna, to satisfy Krishna, to serve Krishna, to serve His devotees. Arjuna, he was so fortunate that through him, Krishna instructed to the whole world of the practical application of spiritual life. (yat karoṣi yad aśnāsi yaj juhoṣi dadāsi yat yat tapasyasi kaunteya tat kuruṣva mad-arpaṇam) [BG 9.27] All that you do, all that eat, all that you offer and give away should be done as an offering of love to Me. Ha. And this is a such a sublime and merciful process that everyone is included, if we simply have the desire. (patraḿ puṣpaḿ phalaḿ toyaḿ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati tad ahaḿ bhakty-upahṛtam aśnāmi prayatātmanaḥ) [BG 9.26] If you are a poor man, uneducated, if you just offer Krishna a leaf, any one can find a leaf from a tree and offer it with devotion and Krishna will accept it and your life is perfect. Ofcourse, if you are a wealthy man, if you offer a leaf from a tree and you keep everything else for yourself, it will not have the same effect. Krishna does not see how much we give, Krishna sees how much we hold back. Ha.

In the Bible, there is a story where one old lady, she gave the most insignificant, like a paisa, the most, the most lowest denomination of the currency. She gave that. She was living in the street. She had nothing and she gave that on the altar of God. Jesus said, she is better than all of you other people because she gave everything she has. She risked everything. She has nothing now. She gave everything to God. You are keeping so much for yourselves. So the standard according to the acharyas, no pain no gain. Ha. What ever we are doing if there is no pain involved, there is not much gain. If we are doing our sadhana, we are chanting Holy Names, if we are not really struggling to concentrate and there is no pain in doing it that means we are not doing it hard. It is not just a form of entertainment. If we are giving our time, if we want to do good work in the service of God, oh, I just don’t have time. But if you make a sacrifice of time and it hurts, and it hurts your material life, then you are actually making advancement. If it does not hurt, then that means there is not much accomplishment. If you are giving in charity, if we are just giving, there is no, we are not, we don’t have to sacrifice something else for what we are giving. There is not some pain in it. It is not just the luxury. Oh I have some much so I’ll give give this much, it does not make any difference anyway. Right? That’s nice, you get some pious credits, you get some spiritual punya. But real advancement comes when it hurts. When I’m going to give enough so that I have to give up something in order to do it. There is some pain there, then Krishna starts taking it seriously. Ha, very nice, he is actually making a sacrifice for Me. Ha. This is spirituality. Krishna does not need money. Krishna doesn’t need wealth. But Krishna, he wants our love and without sacrifice, where is the question of love? We can understand, we have to go. But if you want to develop it beyond what you already are it begins when there is pain, it begins when you push yourselves beyond what’s comfortable. Then you actually begin to grow. Ha. And then studies, so many of you are students. You know, you really start learning your subject matter when it hurts to study, when it is a sacrifice. Ha. So in the same way, when we approach God, what ever we are doing, we should make it a sacrifice. God does not see how much we are giving. He is seeing, He is seeing how much we are giving but also He has one eye looking at what we are holding back. So, does that mean we should give everything? Yes, it does. Does that means, we should hold back nothing? Exactly. Hari Bol. But how to do that? That is the science. It doesn’t mean that we just become beggars like Radhanath Swami. Useless people have not much to give, not much to hold back. So they become like this. But, it means that what ever we may have, if we make Krishna the centre. Just like right now we are sitting in a beautiful home, Dr. Desai’s home. Ha. Not Jeev Prabhu. It’s simple, but it’s nice. It has air conditioning, has nice pictures. People with peacock fans. Nice Dieties of Lord Krishna. But everything in this house is Krishna. Can you see anything mundane? There is Prabhupad, Narayan, there is Srinathji. Ha. Everything is just directing our minds to Krishna. There is a beautiful temple. The whole family rises every single morning to have mangal arati. Every single morning they have Tulsi Puja, every morning they have Bhagavatam class and yet people, how do they have time for this? [30:12]... Prabhu, how many, he has tens and thousands of employees, he is travelling all over the world, his son is doing the same thing. His children, even through their studies, not a day they miss the mangal arati, they would chant 16 rounds, two hours of japa every day. How is it possible? And yet they are still maintaining such a nice house and their business is growing so much and the mother Maithili, she is basically over seeing and organizing every one’s lives. Ha. She is at our temple practically every day, she is making so many wonderful arrangements for every body and such a house is this, the whole family is simply doing everything for Krishna and in so many opportunities they invite all of us to come to their home, to hear the message of Krishna, to have the kirtan of Krishna’s Name. Ha. What does that mean? You don’t think that there is pain for them to host all of us tonight? They have to cook so much, they have to clean so much, ha, they have to tolerate us, specially when I talk too much, and they have to stay all night. It is a sacrifice. Therefore, everything they have, actually they are giving to Krishna.

Hridayananda, he has even a bigger house. What does that mean, bigger house means he could, he could invite more people like this, which he does, when ever his parents are out of town. Some times even when they are in town.

And also beautiful temple, every room, every house there is Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, children are raised to be Krishna conscious. This family, every child is an initiated devotee dedicating their lives, every member of the family and the mother, [32:42].. Prabhu’s mother, ha, see, she is sitting in her house, ha, every morning, so many hours, she is worshipping the Lord, inviting devotees. In this way, not holding back, giving everything, doesn’t necessarily mean being a beggar in the street. It means working hard for what ever we have we utilize it in Krishna’s service. We don’t use it like, simply for our own greedy selfish purposes. And unless there are examples in life, we never take this principle seriously.

You see, we read, last night we were discussing about Maharaj Ambarish. He was the king of the entire planet earth and yet although living in wonderful palace with all his children and his wife and so many servants, everything was for Krishna.

Sudama Vipra, such a wonderful example we learn from him. He was a poor Brahman. He was so poor that he didn’t even have food to eat. He and his wife were so thin that their bones were coming out of their body. They only had one set of clothes each, which were dirty and torn. They lived in a thatched hut which is not even liveable by human standards. So one day, his wife, she, she herself was satisfied under these conditions. But she couldn’t tolerate seeing her husband having to live such a, such a uncomfortable life. So she told Sudama, why don’t you go, Krishna is your old friend. You went to school with Him at the gurukul of Sandipani Muni. We know that Krishna is always very favourable towards His friends. Why don’t you go, He is the husband of goddess of fortune. Just ask Him for some basic necessities so that we could live a little comfortable. So at least we can have some food and have some clothes, and have a house that is, a house, ha. Sudama never wanted to go. Because he was thinking how could I ask Krishna for anything. He is my master. I am His servant. The servant doesn’t ask something for the master except the service. How could I ask for material things from Krishna? It broke his heart, the thought of it. But his wife is so much concerned for him that again and again she requested. So because he has soft heart, he said, alright, I will go. Kind of like Akrura. The same mood. That although it’s a mission that I don’t like, I’ll make some thing good out of it. I’ll get to have the beautiful darshan of Lord Sri Krishna. But I have to bring Him something. He said, you know, when ever we go to the temple to visit God and it is a vedic system, when ever we go to meet even a saintly person, we should always bring some sort of gift of love. So I have to bring something to Krishna. And she looked in the house and they was absolutely nothing in the house to give. So, she went out and begged and got some chipped rice, two palmfulls and put it in an old piece of cloth and tied it and said, this is all we have.

So, when he went to Dvaraka as he was approaching the beautiful palace of Lord Sri Krishna, Krishna saw him coming. He was sitting on the bed of Rukmini, the supreme goddess of fortune and Krishna got up from His bed and ran to the door to greet Sudama and began to embrace him with such love. Sudama was seeing this beautiful palace and all these beautiful maid servants and servants and Rukmini was there and the people of the palace, they couldn’t believe it. Here is Krishna, embracing with such affection, with tears in His eyes, this poor skinny little dirty Brahman. Who is he? Why is it? And Krishna took Sudama and put him on His own throne and began to wash his lotus feet with His own hands. And then Krishna drank the water of the foot wash of Sudama Vipra. And mean while, Rukmini with a chamara fan was offering seva to Sudama Vipra. And then Krishna offered aarati with incense with ghee lamp, with flowers, offered him beautiful garlands, then offered him wonderful, wonderful food stuffs. And after all this, they began to talk. They began to remember how they lived together at their guru’s ashram. How they served their guru with such love and such devotion. Here is Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the cause of all causes, the proprietor of everything and the master of all living entities and one day, his guru’s wife told Him that we want to perform a yagya, we need some wood, go to the forest and collect wood. Ha. So Krishna with Sudama, they went to the forest to collect wood, such a menial service. Krishna wanted to show that however exalted we may be by earthly calculations, when we come before our spiritual master, we only have one possession. When we come before our guru dev, we are no longer a big politician, we no longer are a king, we no longer are a big business man, we no longer are a big scholar, we are no longer a famous celebrity. When we come before gurudev, we are a menial servant, menial servant. We have no other identity. Even when Krishna comes before His guru, He is no longer God. He is just a menial servant. Ha. Let me collect wood. Ha. What type of person you ask to collect wood from the forest? So, He and Sudama went out in the forest and they were trying to collect the wood. Krishna was telling Sudama that by pleasing our guru, our life becomes perfect. There is nothing else required. And then all of a sudden clouds started forming in the sky. And torrential rain started coming down. And it was dark and they became lost and they didn’t know which way was which. How is it that Krishna, who is in the heart of every living being, who knows past, present and future, how is He lost in a forest? Ha. Because, this is the almighty, omnipotence of Krishna. If Krishna can do anything, He could also get lost. Isn’t that logical. If he can’t get lost, it means there is something which He can’t do. And then He wouldn’t be God. Because God is the person who can do anything. So Krishna wanted to show His supreme power to do anything so He got lost, to show that He could get lost. He was lost. Atleast, He played this lila.

And they were, ha, they were trembling, it was so cold and so rainy, they couldn’t find their way home and the whole night passed. And the next day, gurudev sent all of his disciples to search out Krishna and Sudama. And they were calling their names and finally the guru himself came running when he found that, heard that Krishna was found, came running to the forest personally come and embraced Him. And the gurudev, Sandipani Muni said, oh, I am so grateful to You. Just see such sacrifice and austerity You performed, just to please me. Therefore, I give You all my blessings. I give You my blessings that You will, hmm, find all greatness and prosperity in Your life and You will always be merciful to Your devotees, some nice blessing like that and Krishna was remembering to Sudama Vipra the blessings of his guru and then He said, this is the perfection of life. When we perform the sacrifice for the sake of our gurudev and we receive his blessings that is the perfection by which we can achieve the highest joy of life. So, they were talking like this. And they talked so many wonderful recollections of their childhood together and ultimately, ha, it was time to go and Krishna asked Sudama, did you bring Me some gift? Krishna knew (vedāhaḿ samatītāni vartamānāni cārjuna bhaviṣyāṇi ca bhūtāni māḿ tu veda na kaścana) [BG 7.26] Krishna says in Gita, I know everything, past, present and future, I am in the heart of every living being and I know every one’s desires, everyone’s thoughts. This verse makes us very sober, the fact is that Krishna knows every thought, every word and every act in our life. Ha. So, He said, Sudama, give me your gift. And Sudama was looking around. My God, such a beautiful palace with such a beautiful queen, with such a luxurious food, how can I give Him this old stale chipped rice, which is’nt even fit for a beggar. He said, no Krishna, I didn’t bring anything, honest. Krishna says, I know you brought, give Me. No, no, I did not. So Krishna saw this old piece of cloth hanging and He personally just took it. And He opened it and He took one morsel and ate it. And He was about to take more, but Rukmini said, that’s enough my Lord. By taking one morsel, you have already made this devotee’s life perfect. All good fortune will be upon him because You have accepted his service. This is a fact. The perfection of our life is simply when Krishna is willing to accept our service. This is the humility that the devotee should have. What ever we offer, we should not think I am so greatful for what I am offering but we should think Krishna is so great that He has accepted it. Ha. Because, false pride ruins everything. What ever we do for Krishna, we should not think, oh, just see the world, what I have done. I have, I have arranged for this, I have built this, I have done this, ha. We should think, no, what ever I have done, what is it to Krishna. What does He need? What ever we are doing, we are doing for Krishna and does He need our money? Does He need our intelligence? Does He need our human energy? He is self sufficient and complete. The greatness is that He has accepted it. The greatness is not what we have done but what He has done, by accepting it. And if it is offered with sincerity, humility and devotion, only then will He truly accept it.

So, Rukmini said, because You have accepted Sudama’s offering, his life is perfect. He will have all prosperity, materially, spiritually, everything. Ha. So Sudama, he said good bye to Krishna. Krishna said good bye to Sudama. And as he was walking home, he was thinking, such a wonderful darshan I had, how loving and merciful Krishna is, that He embraced. And out from his palace came his wife and she was decorated with all nice silkened garments, beautiful jewellery, beautiful perfumed hair, ha, and she came out and she offered her obeisances. She bowed down before her husband and they looked at each other and they looked all around and they both knew that it was Krishna’s mercy, it was Krishna’s love. They were so speech less that they couldn’t even say a word to each other. They just silently walked into the house, a wonderful castle and she brought him to his room, which was so beautiful and so wonderful and he simply thanked Krishna, not Krishna that You given me this, but Krishna you given me so much I can serve You with. And they lived their whole life, living in this beautiful palace. But they were not slightest bit attached to any thing except using it for Krishna’s service. In this way, they had the same disposition they did when they were very poor people. Krishna says, akiñcana-gocaram, that you can only approach Him if you are in an impoverished condition. This does not mean materially impoverished, it means poverty of the heart. It means nothing is mine. Poverty means, you don’t have anything. Right? Krishna says, sarva-loka-maheśvaram, bhoktāraḿ yajña-tapasāḿ sarva-loka-maheśvaram, everything is Krishna’s. So, even Sudama Vipra, he felt the same poverished, impoverished condition, living in the palace as he did when he had nothing. Why, because he knew, nothing is mine, everything belongs to God, everything is meant to be used for His service. He is giving me these things to use them for His service. I’ll accept them and use them for His service, for His glorification. In this way, he was never entangled. He lived a peaceful, joyful, blissful, spiritual life through out his years and at the end of his life, he went back home back to Godhead. That is real renunciation. He was greedy for Krishna, he was greedy for service for Krishna. And therefore Sudama Vipra, his house became Vrindavan dham. Ha.

Tonight, this house has become Vrindavan dham. Why, because everyone has come here, anxious to hear about Krishna, anxious to chant the names of Krishna. Where ever that consciousness is, that is Vrindavan. And we wanted to make the whole world Vrindavan dham. We want to make our home Vrindavan dham, we want to make our work Vrindavan dham, we want to make our whole life for Krishna.

So Akrura, he was entering Vrindavan in such a mood of service, of humility, of longing to serve the Lord, to see the Lord. In this way, when he entered Vraj bhumi, he could see the true Vrindavan before his eyes.

Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur, we were discussing this in your house if you remember, that great, great devotee, he offered a beautiful prayer and a song where he said, when I come home from my work, and enter my house, I see my house every night transformed into Goloka Vrindavan. He had a nice house, why, because all the children, the wife, everyone was engaged in serving Krishna, everyone was engaged in using everything for Krishna, everything in the house was meant to remind them of Krishna. To utilize the house as a service to the Lord, as a service to the devotees of the lord, this is the greatest service, to utilize our God given facilities to help enlighten other people and bring them closer to God. If they did not have a home like this, we could not be sitting here. This is a great service they are offering. Of course, I don’t know what a great service it is to their neighbours, of course it is whether they know it or not, ha, we are enjoying, hopefully they are enjoying also. But actually the whole world is becoming purified, when devotees come together, united in their hearts, to exchange their realizations and their feelings in the service of Krishna. This is the perfection of our life. Simply to make Krishna, his pleasure, his service the goal, what ever we do. Thank you very much. Is there any questions? If there are any questions, we can try to answer. Yes. Speak loudly please.

In order to accumulate more wealth and try to use it for the service or Krishna, we may try to duplicitous in the sense, we may think that we are offering to Krishna but at the same time we may have some sense gratification also. How do you really see that what ever we are offering is the offering really to Krishna… offering.. [52:55]

First of all, we have to be honest. Second of all, we require spiritual guidance to make things very clear. That is why we need to association of good Sadhu, to help us to understand merely how to be a honest devotee of the Lord. Hmm. Begins by having good sadhana, by chanting the holy names every day regularly, by hearing the Bhagavatam, the scriptures regularly, by associating with devotees regularly, by giving up sinful activities such as illicit sex, intoxication, meat eating, gambling. If we follow these principles and have good association with saintly people, then Krishna gives us proper understanding. It’s not difficult to understand. If we a have good spiritual foundation in our life, everything will become simple and clear. Hmm. It’s just like, if you don’t know anything about medicine, then the slightest question becomes very bewildering. But if you have a very good base of understanding about medicine, then any question that comes, you can naturally understand, understand the answer because of your proper training. Right? If you have proper spiritual training in our life and proper spiritual disciplines, in our life, then all of these questions are automatically, hmm, answered. Becomes just common sense, when we are using something for our sense gratification and when we are actually using it for the service of the Lord. Hmm. Of course, when we use it for the service of the Lord, that is the ultimate sense gratification. Your senses will be supremely satisfied when you do it for Krishna. People go to these crazy disco clubs to dance and sing. Ha. We are coming here today to dance and sing. Who do you think enjoys more? Ha. Who is having better sense gratification? We are. There is no comparison. It’s not that Krishna consciousness means no sense gratification. It means everything is for the pleasure of Krishna. We are not trying to enjoy separate from Krishna. We are simply trying to use our senses (hrishikena hrishikesha sevanam bhaktiruchyate)we are using our senses in service of Krishna and by doing this the senses experience the ultimate pleasure and satisfaction. Our guru maharaj used to say, you want sense gratification, we are trying to train you how to really enjoy sense gratification, spiritual sense gratification. Ha.

Any other questions? Yes.
[56:50]
There are several realizations, so called .. business of going through goodness in spiritual life but this movement means in that sense right from the beginning it is very clear that there is no .. everything, surrendering everything, keeping Krishna in the centre, right from the beginning, and that is not very popular. Now, you may say that what we do is correct. Is there any practical way expecially when the people who come .. association with the movement, many of them get quite .. that even though they say that they continue what they are saying Krishna in the centre it means that .. control.. even though .. we think .. naturally [57:51]

First of all, ha, we are thinking we have to renounce our, our power to control, but factually we do not have any power to control, it’s an illusion. Krishna is ultimately controlling everything. We are always under His control, 100%, eternally. Either through material energy or spiritual energy, but they are both under His control. Ha. So, it’s an illusion. Now, as far as coming to the realization, what we put into, what we get out. It may be a gradual process. In fact Krishna consciousness is a gradual process. We should take one step at a time. We shouldn’t jump. We should take one step and make that step firm and then take the next step and then make that step firm and take a next step and make that step firm. The idea is to that we should keep progressing forward. We shouldn’t be going back. But we should know what the goal is and we should always be striving for that goal.

Any other questions?

Maharaj, what is the significance of Krishna washing Sudama’s feet and then drinking that water.

The significance is that Krishna is always obliged to the love of His devotees. Krishna is sub-ordinate to the love of His devotees. Krishna worships the feet of His devotees. That is the nature of the reciprocation of love. Hmm. Some people, the advaita philosophers, they want to be God. But the devotees, God washes their feet. Ha. That is the power of love.

Srila Prabhupad ki jai.
Thank you very much.