From: Cleanse The Temple Of Your Heart | ISV | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 20 May 2023

https://youtu.be/0ie_LSauz_8?si=2QLYbxPJ0muji5d8

Time where answer starts in video: 1 hr 6 mins

In an old house, have you ever seen a shower that has two handles? One's for hot, one's for cold. Actually, even if it has the one lever, you still have to find where it is. You have to go back and forth.
So there's this adjustment that goes on to try to find the right temperature, and at every age there is some sense of how to present Kṛṣṇa consciousness in a certain way. Look at Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. The difference between Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, and then Prabhupāda, and the milieu at that time. What was the zeitgeist that they were dealing with in order to—and the backdrop that is—in which they were presenting Kṛṣṇa consciousness?

Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, at his time, the British were fully in control of India still. And during the time of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta, it was a time when there was upheaval, revolution, and coming into Śrīla Prabhupāda’s—our Śrīla Prabhupāda’s—time, there's, you know, full-on Gandhism and things like that. The mentality of people was different at various times. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s teachings are a lot more universal. He has more of a universal presentation. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura was very laser-focused on overcoming certain types of philosophy that were prevalent at the time.

And Śrīla Prabhupāda, when he came to America, he was thinking about how to position himself in the West. He writes in a purport that men and women grow up together in this culture. In India, not so much. I mean, nowadays it's different. If you go to Bombay or Delhi, it's like Western. But even in the time of Prabhupāda, it was very different. There was a lot more separation between men and women. And here he comes as a sannyāsī to America. So then he says, what should I do?

And he preserved the sense of natural habitat for people. He had boys and girls, men and women, together in the kīrtans, doing this and that and preaching. And he writes about that in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta—that he's getting criticized by people from India, his Godbrothers and so forth, saying like, what kind of sannyāsī are you? In fact, Prabhupāda was performing marriage ceremonies. That's unheard of. No sannyāsī in the history of the sannyāsa tradition that we know of doing marriage ceremonies.

So he writes about it in the 18th chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā [18.5], where Kṛṣṇa says, "yajña-dāna-tapaḥ"—not to give these things up just out of a sense of, like, I'm renounced. They're all to be engaged. So Prabhupāda says, ‘just like I’m a sannyāsī, but I'm engaging people in the marriage ceremony’. So how is that? It’s because of what Kṛṣṇa says right here—don’t give up these processes that are good for everybody, but use them in relationship to helping people advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

You'll notice, for instance, in the second canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam [SB 2.2.35]. Prabhupāda writes in his purport about the Supersoul within the heart—Paramātmā, we call it, right?

So he calls—what does he call the Paramātmā there? Super Spirit. He called it Super Spirit. And you'll notice, when Rādhikā Rāman Prabhu was here, he pointed out various phrases that Prabhupāda would use, like "devotional service." It’s very pointed towards—it’s not just meditation, it’s actually a cultivation. He was finding his way throughout all his writings to present in such a way that the audience he was teaching to could be receptive to it. So he would take various words and present them in a certain way.

Now, there’s always an adjustment that devotees take to, and as an example, we had this program we started, and we were doing it at Hānsā Priyā’s house for a long time. We called it Kṛṣṇa Life. We had people over. We put it out on Meetup.com. And we didn’t know who was coming. There were people who weren’t that interested in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, didn’t know what it was—they were just interested in yoga, meditation, and so forth. At least that’s what we thought. So we were very reticent about presenting directly, and we were holding back on everything—sort of roundabout explanations.

And then all of a sudden, the people who were coming—some of them, especially who were coming on a regular basis—became more insistent, like, tell us the real thing. What are you holding back from us? In fact, two of them ended up finding the temple and were like, we know where your temple is. We got some beads now, you know?

And so, any person who is out in any field that is, you know, teaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness, has to turn the knobs and find—where is that sweet spot? Where is it? We can’t ultimately shy away, because if you just bridge all the time and say this, that—then when are they actually going to cross the bridge and get to the other side, right?

What we’ve noticed, like in Bhakti Community—every week we have a video. We don’t know who’s there. Some people can be brand new and usually are, and some people have been around for a few years. So then we have one about Deity worship. And when we first put it up, we were thinking, like, what's going to happen now? So in the video, there's pictures of the Deities in Māyāpur being bathed with honey and yogurt—like that. And we're sitting there watching the video, watching everyone's faces, like, what are they going to do now?

And we were so surprised that afterwards, in the conversation, they were going, ‘that was amazing. Like, I’ve never seen that before’. There was kind of an opening in their hearts for the fact that Kṛṣṇa was a person. And we became joyful, that wow, you know, we can actually cross the bridge and get to the other side.

Now, there are people that, you know, may cut it too sharply, and they’ll come into an audience and they give such a straightforward presentation based on a principle, which is that—straightforward or die. And then the audience becomes possibly put off—they don’t come back the next time. Of course, they may also find the needle in the haystack by doing that.

In the purport. 1.4.1, Prabhupāda says, “In a meeting of learned men, when there are congratulations or addresses for the speaker, the qualifications of the congratulator should be as follows: he must be a leader of the house and an elderly man. He must be vastly learned also. Śaunaka Ṛṣi had all these qualifications, and thus he stood up to congratulate Śrī Sūta Gosvāmī when he expressed his desire to present Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam exactly as he heard it from Śukadeva Gosvāmī and also realized it personally.”

Here’s your answer—personal realization does not mean that one should, out of vanity, attempt to show one’s own learning by trying to surpass the previous ācārya. He must have full confidence in the previous ācārya, and at the same time, he must realize the subject matter so nicely that he can present the matter for the particular circumstances in a suitable manner.

In italics, Prabhupāda did this when he was first writing up to the first few cantos. He put italicized sentences for emphasis. “The original purpose of the text must be maintained. No obscure meaning should be screwed out of it. Yet it should be presented in an interesting manner for the understanding of the audience. This is called realization.”

So it’s an art. It’s kind of a science, but more of an art. So you have to know what you’re doing. You know, if you’ve been around a while, like if you’re distributing books, right? And you go up to people, you fine-tune your presentation. Pretty soon you find it. Here’s my zone where I can present and people will really appreciate it, and it’s still straightforward.

And others who become more expert and they have more effulgence—they may just go straightforward, “Hare Kṛṣṇa. This is Hare Kṛṣṇa, and this is Hare Kṛṣṇa, and that’s Hare Kṛṣṇa, and please hand over your whole life. Just come with us.” And then they come home, and they’re like, “I came with him because he said come with me, and he’s effulgent.”

So it’s an art. And some people, you know, they’re maestros, and they’re like, “Wow, how did you do that?” It’s like, “I don’t know, I just did it.” So that’s the answer to that conundrum. That’s universal. Every preacher is always thinking, like, is that too much? Too little?

You’re in a room full of devotees—you know, Amarendra Prabhu, I was just with him because I stayed at Ādi Gadādhara’s house—a whole bunch of really exalted devotees out here in Atlanta. It’s an amazing place. And so I’m staying at Ādi Gadādhara Prabhu’s place, and Amarendra Prabhu and his wife Swastikā, they live in the same house. And so he was telling me about—he was talking on a Janmāṣṭamī, and then some brand new guests came. And like, he’s an expert preacher. But then, like, what do you do?

The temple president said, “Just preach to the devotees. Don’t worry about any new people.” But then new people are coming, and it’s like, yeah, but how do I present to them at the same time? That’s hard. Your brain has to expand. It has to have more neurons within it—it’s like, to handle all that—to be able to present like that.

That’s the art of preaching. And it’s what is so celebrated about somebody who can do that.

So Prabhupāda did it. He went everywhere, and he maintained this balance. Some people said, “You’re so conservative.” Prabhupāda would say, “Oh, you don’t know. I’m the most liberal person on the planet, just in the way I’m presenting.” And Prabhupāda knew what the essential parts were. For instance, with all these rituals and stuff—his weddings were about five minutes. You can read them in the database—it’s five minutes. Exchange garlands, make a vow, OK, you’re married. Good luck. And as far as yajñas go, Satsvarūpa Mahārāja told about how he was performing one of these fire ceremonies for Prabhupāda, and he was really stressed out, like, how should I say it? What should I do? Which version should I do? Because so many ideas—everyone has about, “No, don't do that,” “You need a cat in the basket over here,”—so all these things. And then he went to Prabhupāda and said, “Prabhupāda, I'm really confused. What should I do? Should it be like this, like that? Prabhupāda said two words. He leaned over and he said, “Short cut.” Because that's not the important thing there.

And he did it too, with the installation of Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma in 1975. He wrote in his purport afterward: “The main installation was my American and European disciples having kīrtana. I didn't need all these brāhmaṇas coming in here and throwing stuff all over the room,” he said. “But if I didn't have them come, nobody would have accepted that this was a bona fide temple. Because you got to throw stuff over your shoulder and like, hit somebody to make sure the whole place is purified,” right?

So not to belittle all the rituals there and one should follow what Kṛṣṇa says in the śāstra and the Pañcarātra. But I'm just saying, one has to remember the essence. And that was Prabhupāda's expertise: keeping the main thing the main thing. So the main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing. And then when you preach, it can be effective as well as.

From : 2020 05 17 Applied Bhagavad gita - Caitanya-caritamrta - Preface - HG Vaisesika Dasa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlh8OsZfDso&t=866s

Time where answer starts in video: 48 minutes

Sambandh means relationship. It means that we have a relationship with Kṛṣṇa in five different varieties. There is śānta-rasa, which means this kind of passive appreciation. Actually Caitanya Mahāprabhu really started with dāsya-rasa wherein there's an impetus to serve the Lord and do service for Him. Then there's the relationship of being a friend. There are varieties of friends that Kṛṣṇa has. Like Arjuna is a city friend and then there are friends in Vṛndāvana. Some of the friends are more intimate with Kṛṣṇa. The more intimate friends Kṛṣṇa has are the ones who wrestle with Him and they think that they're equal or even better than Kṛṣṇa.

And then there's parental affection, headed by mother Yaśodā. The best of all the devotees in parental rasa are mother Yaśodā and Mahārāja Nanda. And those who are attracted by this and have this proclivity towards this rasa, when fully developed, they follow in the footsteps of devotees like Nanda and Yaśodā in their mood of worshipping Kṛṣṇa. They see Him as a dependent child. Mother Yaśodā is always running after Kṛṣṇa when He leaves in the morning to make sure He got His lunch. Just like you see in this world. You know how your mother treated you and was always nurturing and so forth. You can have that relationship with Kṛṣṇa.

And then there's the relationship of a lover that contains all the other rasa, and it's the most engrossing. The ujjvala-rasa is the topmost rasa, most effulgent in qualities, and that is a rasa that some devotees are attracted to. And no matter what rasa one is, what relationship one has with Kṛṣṇa, it's perfect. They're all perfect. There's none that are lacking. In each one of them, the devotee feels like this is the best. And also, at the same time, appreciates the others and glorifies the others and also recognizes which ones are more perfect and most perfect.

And Sambandh-jñāna means starting off with understanding what Kṛṣṇa taught Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gītā, which is that Arjuna, you're not your body. You're a spiritual soul. Caitanya Mahāprabhu in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta starts off answering the question of Rūpa Gosvāmī, “Who am I?” That's where you start in Sambandh-jñāna. Who am I, where did I come from? And then He tells him:

jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya — kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’

 kṛṣṇera ‘taṭasthā-śakti’ ‘bhedābheda-prakāśa’

 (CC Madhya 20.108)

He tells him that you are an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa, and that you're also part of the energy of the Lord. This is Sambandha—knowing your relationship, what category of energy you're in. Kṛṣṇera taṭasthā-śakti, taṭasthā-śakti of Kṛṣṇa. Bhedābheda-prakāśa. And so you know you're a part of Kṛṣṇa. Then like “Who am I?”:

keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya

 śatāṁśa-sadṛśātmakaḥ

 jīvaḥ sūkṣma-svarūpo ’yaṁ

 saṅkhyātīto hi cit-kaṇaḥ

 (CC Madhya 19.140)

You're smaller than 1/10,000 the size of the tip of a hair. You're cit-kaṇaḥ, you're a particle of eternal consciousness. And then He describes the Lord as three energies. He goes on to say:

viṣṇu-śaktiḥ parā proktā

 kṣetra-jñākhyā tathā parā

 avidyā-karma-saṁjñānyā

 tṛtīyā śaktir iṣyate

 (CC Madhya 8.153)

There are three major categories of energy, and your relationship Kṛṣṇa says is taṭasthā—that you can either be engaged and get caught by the material sense gratification and māyā, or you can transfer yourself to the spiritual world. So, these are the preliminary teachings of Sambandh-jñāna.

I started with the more advanced understanding that we actually have an eternal personal relationship with Kṛṣṇa, and we're meant to awaken that. And simultaneously it also means to understand asaṅgo hy ayaṁ puruṣaḥ. You don't have any relationship with the material world, really. You're a foreigner here. This is not your place. Does that make you feel better? I mean, if you think that this place is messed up—what's going on?—it's because we don't belong here. This is not our thing. We don't like this kind of sideways dealings all the time. Everything, you know, is getting turned over on its head. We want to live in an eternal atmosphere. That's śuddha-sattva—that's pure goodness, not rajas or tamas. Like sand in sweet rice. And now not just a little sand—somebody put a whole handful. So no happiness here. That's Sambandh-jñāna.

So you have to hear that regularly. To understand:

paras tasmāt tu bhāvo ’nyo

 ’vyakto ’vyaktāt sanātanaḥ

 yaḥ sa sarveṣu bhūteṣu

 naśyatsu na vinaśyati

 (BG 8.20)

You should know, when this material world gets destroyed, the spiritual world isn't touched.

I was driving past the Comfort Inn with my godbrother the other day, and I was just thinking like, “Yeah, Comfort Inn.” If they put “Discomfort Inn,” no one's gonna want to stay there. Bad branding. Discomfort Inn. Kṛṣṇa deems the material world duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15). It's a Discomfort Inn. Welcome. You want to stay here? I don't think so. That's Sambandh-jñāna.

And then He says, there's another world that you're part of, that doesn't get destroyed. It doesn't get COVID-19. So, you know, that's Sambandh-jñāna. You have to keep hearing about it because māyā is very, very convincing, and will try to convince you, “Greg, you stay here, make money, you know, be happy, get a beautiful girl.” But it all turns sour eventually.

The material world is not our place. We don't like it. We'd like the spiritual world. We like Kṛṣṇa, and He's our friend. So that's Sambandh-jñāna. You have to hear that. And then when you hear that, you really lean into chanting. As a matter of fact, I recommend reading a little Bhagavad-gītā before you do your rounds. Because it will supercharge your rounds—to get that kind of Sambandh-jñāna before you chant.

From : 2013-10-05 ISV Developing a Non Critical Attitude - HG Vaisesika Prabhu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu_bDiLKae4&t=1410s

Time where answer starts in video: 23 mins

prabhu kahe, — “yāṅra mukhe śuni eka-bāra kṛṣṇa-nāma, sei pūjya, — śreṣṭha sabākāra” [CC Madhya 15.106]. Prabhu, the Lord says. If one time I hear from the mouth of a person Hare Kṛṣṇa, then this person is worshipable. He is the best amongst men anywhere. Rūpa Gosvāmī says in 5th verse of Nectar of Instruction, kṛṣṇeti yasya giri taṁ manasādriyeta. If the person is uttering Hare Kṛṣṇa, then in your mind you should offer respect to such a person. In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Devahūti says:

aho bata śva-paco ’to garīyān

 yaj-jihvāgre vartate nāma tubhyam

 tepus tapas te juhuvuḥ sasnur āryā

 brahmānūcur nāma gṛṇanti ye te

 [SB 3.33.7]

How wonderful, she says, that if a person on the tip of their tongue says Hare Kṛṣṇa. They don't have to do it all the time. It is considered that they have done all kinds of austerities, gone to holy places and attained all brāhmaṇical qualification because they have said Hare Kṛṣṇa. Sei pūjya. This person becomes worshipable. Someone who is uttering this innocently, or even derisively:

tvaṁ anādarād api manaṅg udiritaṁ

 nikhilogra-tāpa-pāṭalim vilumpasi

 (Rūpa Gosvāmī, Śrī Nāmaṣṭakam, verse 2)

Their sinful reactions will be obliterated. They will be saved. We have an example of Ajāmila, who just by uttering the name of Nārāyaṇa, was brought back to Godhead. The holy name will save you. The Holy Name is everything.

From: Redirect Your Natural Affection to Kṛṣṇa | | HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa | ISV | 15 Sep 2024

https://youtu.be/BkHaf3Mj3tY?si=dBnMg7_8U3bCnxSL

Time where answer starts in video: 46 mins

Don’t try to preach to your siblings, Mom or Dad or your cousins. Unless they approach you very sincerely. Then also be careful. There is sibling rivalry. It's naturally built in. They want to show each other. I went back to school to get a degree at SF state university. My mother predicted that my brother who had gone to UC Berkeley, but quit midway, will go back and finish before I did. And sure enough that’s what happened. He finished his degree before I did. He could not stand to see me reach the crossline before him. 

Parents tell you what to do, not the other way. Most parents, siblings have the sense, ‘keep it to yourself’. That’s one of the best things you can do. Recently, a devotee had gone on a ‘study abroad’ program with students who had no idea of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. They all had to live in a common place. First, she was really nervous about it, and would go into the balcony to chant her rounds. But soon her friends picked up on it. They would ask her, ‘ did you finish your rounds’ and,’ you can’t eat here. This is not what you eat’. That’s what happens when you go on practising Kṛṣṇa consciousness and don’t stop for the sake of someone else. If you don’t try to pontificate and tell everyone how it is, you don’t get a backlash. At some point they will come and ask you. Sometimes, it happens late in life, when something changes for people, and they recognize that you are a gentle enough soul, and you have been gentle enough to not push it on them, then they often come asking you for it. But wait till that time.

From: Book Distribution Taught Me All I Needed to Know | SB 7.9.46 | HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa | ISV | 11 May 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SSwGsPOu-w&t=26s

Time where answer starts in video: 20 mins

Oṁ ajñāna means that I come into this world without any knowledge. Timirāndhasya means I am in the darkness of ignorance. Jñānāñjana-śalākayā. There's a way in which someone has gone to a medical doctor and they've cured my blindness. Somebody who is blind and then they can see for the first time, or someone hears for the first time. You can see that suddenly their countenances change and they are amazed that sounds or vision is coming in. So, there's a sense in this prayer that I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I didn't know anything and then I went to the doctor and he did a little operation and suddenly I can see and hear and understand the purpose of life. Cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ. Therefore, he says, ‘I offer my respects to this person.’ How much gratitude do we have? I can still remember times when I went to the many doctors, and each said,’ we don't know what's wrong. We can't fix it.’ Or they misdiagnosed it. Then finally I met some old guy who was about to retire, and he said, ‘I know what it is, and I can fix it.’ I said, ‘no you can't; nobody else could’. He said, ‘I know this’, and then it was fixed. I always remember that person. What to speak of somebody saves us from the darkness of material nature. In the Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī talks about the vartma-pradarśaka-guru. Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura in his exalted writings offers his obeisances first to Cintāmaṇi, who was his girlfriend, who said, ‘hey wake up. Why don't you become a devotee? You're so devoted to this love affair we're having. If you just transfer that to Kṛṣṇa you'd actually be happy.’ Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura thanked her for changing his life. So, even as a Paramahaṁsa, he's offering his respects to his girlfriend saying thanks for bringing him to this point.

Then of course there are those who are giving ongoing help. There's a way in which even as we practice devotional service we need to rectify ourselves at various intervals. Maybe every five minutes. To have someone who's sincerely practicing devotional service, and who has realization that we can go and say, ‘what do I do now’. And the person can reassure us, give us some track to be on, help us understand something that we misunderstand, and then we're clear again to go on. These kinds of guides who are giving us instruction are so important to remember and to offer our respects to. Then there's the guru who we follow and then we receive the Mantra from. Who for us represents the sampradāya. Of course, even the śikṣā gurus represent the sampradāya, but there's a dīkṣā guru, where we see the epitome of following the guru and when we can give our heart there and take shelter, we offer our respects in that way. This is very important because in empiric investigation when we're trying to use our senses to understand the environment we use the double blind study, we use controlled experiments. So, controlled study means you have to have something to control. You control for this control for that to some degree because we're consciousness and we're looking at matter which is inert to some degree we can control it although imperfectly. There's a Heisenberg effect when you look at something as soon as you start studying it changes its stature a little bit. It's hard to nail down anything. We can control matter evidenced by the ways in which we develop technologies through which we are able to mess things up in the world quite a bit [sarcasm]. For example, you can create a little box that you can carry around and distract yourself all day long. But when it comes to investigating consciousness, you can't measure it. There's no tool that you use in physics that by which you measure consciousness. Similarly, the ways in which we can understand the Supreme is different. It's a different kind of experiment. We open ourselves through humility to what is being passed down to us and it's based on the premise that the Supreme wants to reveal Himself to us. If the infinite wants to reveal Himself to the infinitesimal that's His prerogative but we have to be open to it. So, these prayers we say before we go into discussion, we're saying I am entering this not as a controller, I am open to receive. As they say in Japan, ‘Itadakimas’. It means ‘to receive’. Life of a devotee is Itadakimas. Let me receive grace, let me be in a humble position of service to receive. That’s the idea behind saying the Guru Praṇāṁ.

From: Association With Devotees Is The Key To Perfection In Life | SB 1.18.13 | ISV | 16 Apr 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjaTXPwRlSE

Time where answer starts in video: 12 mins

If we give food to hungry people, does it solve their problems? Does it solve the hunger problem when we feed the people? How do you serve poor people? If we give them money, does it solve their problem? If I give a job to someone who has no hope in life, does it make them happy?

 Actually you know food is coming naturally. There are birds in my backyard and my father gave me a bird feeder before he passed away. So, I kept it in the garage for a long time and I figured maybe I'll fill it up. So, I put Niger seeds in there because I like finches. So, they came and had a party when they figured out where the bird feeder was. Then I went away to Vṛndāvan for five weeks and when I came back they didn't notice that the feeder was gone. They weren't sitting around moping and thinking, ‘where'd that guy go? He was feeding us and now he's gone. What a cruel person.’ All around I discovered that the trees also have little seeds in them and the finches kept their little party going. When I put up my water fountain they come and they have a little pool party there too. Then they go eat some more in the trees. Everybody's suffering in the material world but those finches have no want of food from me.

In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śrīla Nārada Muni says, ‘tasyaiva hetoḥ prayateta kovido na labhyate yad bhramatām upary adhaḥ tal labhyate duḥkhavad anyataḥ sukhaṁ kālena sarvatra gabhīra-raṁhasā [SB 1.5.18]. The kinds of things that we get as material facility comes to us kālena sarvatra gabhīra-raṁhasā. It's very deep gambhīra. How it is that some people get something and other people get less? Some people get more, some people get less. Of course even people that get more material facilities aren't necessarily happy. Sometimes they're less happy, as you pointed out. Sometimes poor people are happier because they have hope that someday they will get some material facility. There are numerous studies of celebrities who have gotten everything and then become morose and dysfunctional. They can't keep a solid relationship. They try jumping from one relationship to the another because their conception of life is that if I have material facility I'll be happy and once they get full material facility and they gorge themselves on it they're still not happy. So, they figure maybe it's over here or it's over there. This is the problem as Nārada Muni says. Therefore he says the way to help people is to give them spiritual knowledge and an environment through which they can develop themselves to come above the modes of material nature. There's no problem in the world that can be solved on a material level. If I give food to somebody and I walk away, they're going to be in the same situation they were when I fed them an hour ago.

In Kolkata there was a situation where the government had made housing for the homeless people on the street. This was around 1972 and then 90% of the homeless people sublet their apartments and they went back and lived on the street because they were used to it. When Prabhupāda saw this situation he said, ‘just see. This is their inclination which is our svabhāva, it's our nature because we've accumulated various modes and therefore we want to live in a certain way. We're compelled to live that way. Now, he looked at the Americans who were walking with him and said, ‘you're in Kolkata but you live like Americans because that's your karma. If you go to Iceland, you will still live like an American.’ So, the problem isn't that people lack food or a job but the problem is people lack alignment with their nature as servants of Kṛṣṇa.

So, the way to help people actually is to give them association with the bhāgavat. Bhāgavat means the transcendental sound vibration of Kṛṣṇa's name. Of course we can feed people, but we give them prasādam. That comes along with association. And best of all association is with those who are already either fully above the modes of material nature or who are in progress of making advancement to rise above the modes of material nature because of their association with devotees. And who no longer have optimism about organizing their lives in such a way that they can be happy in the material world. Nārada Muni confirms and he's our ācārya and teacher, that don't try for material happiness through adjustment of your environment but do try to make spiritual advancement and that is a universal principle. So, this verse holds that the most valuable thing that you can get is to have spiritual association.

So, the International Society for Kṛṣṇa Consciousness creates such environments. Not just in the temple atmosphere, but we also distribute knowledge so that people can develop themselves at home. It's better to actually teach a person how to become Kṛṣṇa conscious and there are many that have. There are examples given in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. For instance, Mṛgāri was a hunter who grew up in a family in which his father, who was also a hunter, taught him that he should not kill them all the way, just half kill them. Can you imagine such a poor little animal like deer and the father thinks it's a good idea to half kill them and that he enjoys watching them writhe in pain. Mṛgāri grew up in that environment that was the mode of nature that he grew up in because we carry over from our past lives and therefore he learned the same occupation hunting with a bow and also half killing animals. Nārada Muni, while walking in the forest noticed the animals writhing in pain. Then he came to Mṛgāri. Nārada Muni befriended Mṛgāri and taught him the process of how to become transcendental to modes of nature. Mṛgāri then had an epiphany, and asked, ‘what should I do? What should my first step be?’. Nārada Muni told him to break the bow. Nārada Muni also assured him that he will not be bereft of material facilities.

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī talks about how philanthropy ends up being counter productive. When we do something to help someone, we give them means to be more entangled in the material world. So, there is a very defined way in which one actually helps people and that is Bhāgavata-saṅgī.

From: Kṛṣṇa Katha - H.G Vaisesika Dasa | 2021-03-26 | ISKCON of Silicon Valley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBgW_VEbYuA&t=7546s

Time where answer starts in video: 2 hrs 5 mins

Instead of saying how can I have more faith in Kṛṣṇa, ask this question, how can Kṛṣṇa have more faith in me? It's a relationship. So why is it that Kṛṣṇa has to prove Himself to us constantly? Why not just say; Okay, I'm going to be the one that proves myself to Kṛṣṇa. And if you just do that, and change the role, then you'll be happy immediately. And you'll go about your day thinking “I'm going to show Kṛṣṇa that I'm worth His time and His glance”. Don't try to see Kṛṣṇa, but try to work in such a way that Kṛṣṇa will want to see you. And if you just flip that one switch then you'll be happy. And Kṛṣṇa will reveal Himself in ways that you won't even want to speak about because no one's going to believe you. You just keep it to yourself and just keep feeding that energy that you get from Kṛṣṇa revealing Himself to you in amazing ways. Just keep it in your own heart and say, “Kṛṣṇa, I know, you're there for me. And I want to prove myself to you because, for so long, I've been the runt of the litter.” I'm that little puppy that nobody wants. They come by and go, “not that one”. I got left out of the litter because I'm just a little runt spiritually. And I'm the mercy case.

You take this perspective that I'm going to serve Kṛṣṇa. And that's all there is to it. And everything else will be revealed from that point.

From: 2022 07 17 Ypsilanti - Post Initiation Ceremony Talks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQJo1uUF7mM&t=806s

Time where answer starts in video: 48 mins

When one feels overwhelmed by the feeling that I am not doing enough it's important to take stock of what you already have and what you're already doing now. Fortunately there's much of that described in the śāstra. For instance in the 11th chapter of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Did you know when Kṛṣṇa is talking to Śrī Uddhava, He mentions the 8 million 400 000 species of life and He said that out of all of them the humans are the best [SB 11.7.22]. He said, ‘I like them the best’. So, cheer up. Kṛṣṇa likes you. If you're a human, you can be like, ‘hey I am human. Kṛṣṇa likes me! You can start there.

Then consider the fact that the basics that you're doing, Kṛṣṇa says in the Gītā [BG 7.3],

 manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu

 kaścid yatati siddhaye

 yatatām api siddhānāṁ

 kaścin māṁ vetti tattvataḥ

It's very very rare that anybody takes to spiritual practice at all. ‘They are preoccupied with other things’, He said. ‘And of those who do, very few actually have a clear idea of Bhagavān; of worshiping Me as the Supreme’. Most people have very amorphous ideas of spiritual practice. So, if you've come to that point, you are in rarified company and territory. If you take stock of that, it really helps. Also consider the fact that what you've done in this one lifetime already to come to this point and the service that you're maintaining, maintaining your vows, doing your rounds, it's enough if you just do that and just survive.

In fact, there's a section of the Bhāgavatam that I go to and I remember frequently because I feel overwhelmed also. There are so many things to consider and often think, ‘I am not doing enough. I have to catch up.’

In the verse SB 10.14.8 — tat te ’nukampāṁ su-samīkṣamāṇo bhuñjāna evātma-kṛtaṁ vipākam — the speaker of the verse Brahmā says that if you live your life in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and accept everything as Kṛṣṇa’s mercy whatever comes, then you'll inherit the kingdom of God just by having that attitude. Then the great Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam commentator Śrīdhara Svāmī from days of yore, says that what's the duty of the son of a very wealthy man? What's the singular duty? Stay alive. All you have to do is stay alive. If you're an heir then your duty is to stay alive because and survive your father.

We're all sons of the Supreme and if you just stay in this mood that I am a humble servant of the Lord even if you're the one who's left out of the roll call. No one really notices you but you're always there doing your duty, even at the most basic level he says if you stay alive like that you'll inherit the kingdom of God.

So, when you feel overwhelmed and you think like not enough day left at the end of all my duties and things that I wanted to do and maybe I am not doing enough, just remember what the Bee Gees said all those years ago. Staying alive. They were quoting that verse. Just remember to stay alive somehow or other. And we can do that.

Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura said, ‘don't try to be a great devotee, just try to be a good devotee. No heroics needed. If you just maintain the very basic things, it's far and above what anybody else is doing anywhere in the universe. Kṛṣṇa already likes you as a human, what to speak of if you're a devotee.

From: Srimad Bhagavatam 10.15.25 - Replacing Material Energy to Spiritual Energy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVrXrSsfaeY

Time where answer starts in video: 36 mins

Your sevā will save you. Sevā is not ordinary. If we get any kind of sevā, it's coming from Kṛṣṇa, and we should hold on to it like a rope because that rope will pull us back to Godhead, and no matter what else happens in your life, whatever kind of phases you go through in your life, if you hold on to your sevā, then you'll be saved. Kṛṣṇa will pull you back to Godhead by that rope.

 And the direct order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is a manifestation of His internal potency, and it is by that particular potency that one comes to see the Lord face to face [SB 2.9.34]. That's a verbatim statement from Śrīla Prabhupāda's purport in the Second Canto, the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So, when we get a direct order from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, or the order comes through the representative of the Lord, and we take that, we have the rope that will pull us back to Godhead so we can see the Lord face to face.

By serving the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, with great vigor and using all our senses. There can be trouble in the youthful years because the senses are very strong and there's a way in which they can override the intelligence and convince one that, I really will live forever. I am invincible and so on. I was thinking how my book distribution service was so engaging. It has all kinds of excitement because you go out and face all kinds of circumstances and all kinds of people that have the oddest kinds of excuses and interesting stories and so forth. And it's always a challenge. And then, of course, there's the feeling of accomplishment and competition and so forth.

It's a real activity, and so are all the other services we do in devotional service. And engaging all our senses in those services gives us a way to move through the different phases of our life with some real engagement. You have to have some real engagement. It can't just be theoretical, because ultimately we have to have engagement for the senses. So, with service also you can always become more expert. Can anyone say they've perfected their service and you can't do any more? That's the point at which you'd probably quit and go do something else if you think like that.

Akiñcana Kṛṣṇa Prabhu, who I have been learning mṛdaṅga from, told me that his mṛdaṅga teacher told him that, once you think you're done, you're done. With mṛdaṅga, or with anything else, you have to always remain hungry and humble, and think, how can I make it better? How can I increase it? So, what I'm saying is, it's important to have engagement for the senses and service. It gives the senses something to do that is transcendental and which gives taste also. Śuśrūṣoḥ śraddadhānasya vāsudeva-kathā-ruciḥ syān mahat-sevayā viprāḥ puṇya-tīrtha-niṣevaṇāt [SB 1.2.16]. When you work hard to serve the mahātmas, then they give you some mercy, and they give you a little ruci to hear and chant, and then the two things complement each other. Work hard in your service and take advantage of whatever taste you have to hear and chant as much as possible. Those two things go well together.

From: Srimad Bhagavatam 10.15.25 - Replacing Material Energy to Spiritual Energy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVrXrSsfaeY

Time where answer starts in video: 36 mins

Not everyone will appreciate it. There has to be some kind of sukṛti in the heart to appreciate Bhāgavatam or Bhagavad-gītā. Sometimes we show a book to someone and they already have that kind of inclination, and so they'll immediately say, ‘Oh yes, I've been looking for this or so.’ And other people, they have no idea what you're talking about, and so they can't appreciate it right away. But, saṅkīrtan, the samyak kīrtan, we're not trying for each person, we're not expecting each person to be on the same level, but we have to become expert at finding out the ways and means to engage everyone as fully and appropriately as possible. īśvare tad-adhīneṣu bāliśeṣu dviṣatsu ca prema-maitrī-kṛpopekṣā yaḥ karoti sa madhyamaḥ [SB 11.2.46]. The preacher has to categorize people and see some people are innocent and for the innocent, he gives as much mercy as possible. For the devotees, he makes appropriate kinds of friendships. Gives his love to the Supreme Lord, and for those who are envious, he neglects them for their own good because. If he tries to engage them, more vehemently, they simply resist and maybe become even more offensive and so forth.

And, it's regarding the idea about Prabhupāda's books and the specific language and how they appeal to various kinds of people in different cultures. My experience is that, it's not just an isolated incident that somebody gets a book somewhere. Of course it can be someone might get a book somewhere and then begin reading it and and get inspired by it, or not, as the case may be, but the point is that then they seek sādhu-saṅga. And the sādhu-saṅga has to be there also, so people can come and get a complete experience of what people are like who are reading and practicing what's in the book. I mean, that's the process described by the ācāryas. ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅgo [CC Madhya 23.14–15]. In the beginning there's faith and if a person doesn't have any faith, it's because they don't have any sukṛti, bhakti-unmukhī sukṛti. They haven't come in contact with anybody yet. Caitanya Mahāprabhu told Sanātana Gosvāmī that the living entities are like logs floating down an endless river, and they never stop until somehow or other they get good fortune. And one of those logs then comes up on the dry land.

And so, similarly, when we're preaching, we're looking to engage everyone in the proper way and if somebody doesn't yet have sukṛti, the devotee is looking for a way to give them an opportunity to start their devotional service. Prabhupāda tells a story of the brahmacārī going door to door begging alms for the temple and at one house, there the couple is having an argument. And they're in an agitated mood. So, when the brahmacārī comes to the door and asks for alms. When the brahmacārī came to the door the woman in the house said, give him some ashes, tell him to go away.

So the man took some ashes from the stove, threw it in the begging bowl, and said, ‘Now get out of here. There's your donation’. So the brahmacārī went back to the āśrama and went to the pūjārī and said, ‘take these ashes very carefully and use them to polish the Deities' paraphernalia.’ So, the pūjārī carefully every day took out some of the ashes and polished the paraphernalia. And then later the brahmacārī was wandering around doing bhikṣu and then he came to the door again. He forgot which neighborhood he was in, but then the same couple opened the door and they saw him and they fell at his feet and they said, ‘please forgive us. We beg for your mercy. We would like to take this path of devotional service’. And Prabhupāda says, ‘from one pinch of ashes, back home, back to Godhead.’ So there's a way that devotees are always thinking like that.

Devotees are always thinking like that. We have a principle; the penny principle. During our Christmas marathon a couple of years ago, there was a devotee named Bhakta Kumār. He was going door to door distributing Bhagavad-gītās. I had told everyone, “All the Gītās must go! Don’t hold back—get them out there as quickly as possible, to as many people as possible. Don’t worry about how much you get, just make sure they get the book.”

Now, we also follow a principle: if someone gives something in return, it qualifies them to read the book. Incidentally, don’t let me forget where I’m at in the story—but remember, Kṛṣṇa says in the Gītā not to preach to the faithless or the non-austere. And yet we meet all kinds of people who are neither austere nor devoted. That’s why we ask for a donation—because giving is a kind of austerity. We know it’s an austerity because when we ask, we see their faces and how hard they try to get out of it. But even a little donation shows some devotion.

So Bhakta Kumār approaches this one door. A man opens it, not interested in the Gītā. But Bhakta Kumār insists, “No, take it. Just give something.” The man says, “Well… how much?” Bhakta Kumār replies, “Just give a penny.”

So the man says okay and starts searching through his drawer for a single penny. His wife sees him and asks, “What are you looking for?” He says, “A penny.” She says, “What do you want a penny for?” He replies, “Some guy gave me a book and asked for a donation. He said I could give a penny, so I’m giving a penny.”

She says, “Let me see that book.” She flips through it and says, “This is worth way more than a penny. You’re not giving him a penny.” She makes him go back and give fifty dollars instead.

Bhakta Kumār comes running down the hallway, saying, “Guess what happened—I asked for a penny and got fifty dollars!”

So we call this the penny principle because it works in spiritual life. Kṛṣṇa says, sv-alpam apy asya dharmasya [BG 2.40] that even if it starts with a little sv-alpam, little tiny, tiny bit, it always grows into something more. If it starts, then it grows.

And that's the principle we're looking for when we go out to preach. Let's just get people started some way or another. I tell the devotees our goal isn't to sell the book. It's just to engage everyone as completely and as appropriately as possible, and to engage ourselves also. And, Kṛṣṇa helps. He helps the whole process. So, we do the best we can with what we have, and the best thing we have, are these books that Prabhupāda gave us. We noticed that they missed the mark with some people [they didn't take up bhakti right away] because they're not ready to hear it yet. But then there's a way in which it sits for five years, ten years, twenty years, and all of a sudden they go, ‘oh, no, I've missed twenty years’. And now I just started reading it. And, you know, we have to also give people as much support as possible. So when somebody gets a book, and they have that faith that starts to sprout in their heart, we have to have complete ways to fan the spark and also nourish their bhakti.

Most people's experience of what's in Prabhupāda's books and their faith in it comes from association with devotees. You ask about certain parts of Prabhupāda's books that might offend certain people in certain cultures. So, my experience has been that if they know the devotee who's connected to the book, if they read that part of the book, they relate it to the devotee and they'll come to the devotee and say ‘what about this?’. And then you explain it to them and they'll say, ‘alright I trust you.’ So, I can digest it because I trust you. I see that you're actually a product of the book. They see that.

So those things, it's a complete program. It's all those things have to be in place. To raise a child, you need all kinds of support from all different angles. And a whole village raises a child. Hillary Clinton wrote a book called It Takes a Village. It means that, to raise one child, it takes all kinds of support from all the relatives. So similarly, for one soul to come out of darkness, requires everyone working together to help him.

From: Stepping Out: Demystifying Death -1 | The Dual Purpose of Creation | HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa | 15 Jan 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhfD5B9UWTw&t=2542s

Time where answer starts in video: 40 mins

You could make it endless. There's lemon and there's lime. Then you could say lemon lime, but that's not enough. When I was a kid, there was strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla. And I remember when Baskin Robbins came out. How many flavors were there? Thirty one flavors. Let's keep going back and try them all. But after we get through thirty one , that's not enough. So then you have to combine them. Why don't you combine key lime pie with peanut butter. And then throw in some butterscotch.So in that way, combinations and permutations can go on and on. 

But in logic, you know, you can say, why isn't a square a circle? That’s an absurd question. It doesn't really mean anything. And so, similarly, why is the material world not the spiritual world? Because it isn't. There are categories of energy. There's a reasonableness to the categories. There's spiritual entities that go with the spiritual world and there's a purpose for the material world which is to exhaust or at least give full opportunity for living entities to try and enjoy here, but it's a futile idea. But why isn't this the material world, the spiritual world, because it's not? 

From: Kṛṣṇa Knows Everything, You Don't | SB 2.10.9 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Prabhupadadesh | 10 June 2025

https://youtu.be/oz7bV90ycaU?si=_jupW5nEKW82htrd

Time where answer starts in video: 32 mins

It's not abstract. Here is a specific example. In a prison there are prison guards and then there are the prisoners. The prison guards have their livelihood watching the prisoners. They're making sure they don't get out and they might bring their food and hand it to them. But if there were no prisoners to take care of there wouldn't be a prison and they wouldn't be employed. So, there's this symbiotic relationship in that way that they're employed to oversee the workings of our senses to help us enact our karmas and so forth. That's why people who do astrology try to figure out which demigod is going to harass us next or whatever kind of stretch we're going to have you know based on who's in the cell block that day.

From: How to Be a Happy Human | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 13 Aug 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k0ETQL-2c4&t=3509s

Time where answer starts in video: 58 minutes

Well, you just go on with your service. It's inevitable that at some point or another you'll be misunderstood in this world — it's kind of natural. And I know it could be hurtful, because when your intention is sincere and somebody misunderstands it, then it can feel really hurtful.

 So it's a good reminder, when we talk to people, that we never try to assume what their intentions are — because that's the real pain point in everyone's heart: the feeling that "they did it for the wrong reason" or something like that. But on another side, when your intention is sincere, then you can't be harmed by anybody else because you have integrity. And when you do something and it's misunderstood, Kṛṣṇa knows why you did it. And that's something you can always take shelter of and remember — that Kṛṣṇa knows what my heart is.

I'll give you an example. Akrūra was asked to go to Vṛndāvan and pick up Kṛṣṇa on a chariot and bring Him back to Mathurā. Do you know why he was supposed to do that? Because Kaṁsa had a plan — he wanted to kill Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. So that's not a very good job, right?

Meanwhile, he's a pure devotee of Kṛṣṇa, and he was on the chariot going there to Vṛndāvan, and all the while he was offering prayers. And in one of his prayers he says, "This doesn’t really look good externally, because after all I’m on a dastardly mission — going there to pick up Kṛṣṇa and bring Him back to Mathurā. And what am I doing that for? I’m a devotee!" He said, "But my intention is just to see Kṛṣṇa, because He's going to put His hand on my head and give me blessings, and I’ll be able to bow down to Him." That’s all he was thinking about. He said, "It may look bad externally."

So external features or interactions don’t affect us as much when we know we’re good for it. And oftentimes people will then realize later — when you go on with your service — that you actually did have a high-minded intention. And they may even recant if you wait long enough. Strange things like that happen.

From: Stepping Out: Demystifying Death -2 | Journey Beyond Death | HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa | 22 Jan 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FirZtnS4fTw&t=9s

Time where answer starts in video: 1 hr 7 min

Have you ever seen somebody who had an arrogant attitude or was fully invested in materialistic activities change and become a devotee? Just say yes. It's happened a lot of times. So, that's how you should see people; as for their potential. No matter where they are now. There are all kinds of stories. One was Haridās Prabhu, who was a a professional thief. When he saw a picture of Prabhupada, he saw an expensive watch on his wrist. Someone had given Prabhupāda, but he never kept these things very long. Sometimes people give like an expensive watch and a couple days later somebody else would be wearing it because Prabhupāda didn't hang on to stuff. But the thief saw that Prabhupāda was wearing a watch and he thought I'll go join that group and somehow I'm going to steal that watch. He sat in enough classes trying to act like he fit in and then he said ‘I'm just going to be a devotee’, and he surrendered. 

yaṁ krodha-kāma-sahaja-praṇayādi-bhīti-

vātsalya-moha-guru-gaurava-sevya-bhāvaiḥ

sañcintya tasya sadṛśīṁ tanum āpur ete

govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi 

[Śrī Brahma-saṁhitā 5.55]

Brahmā says people approach Kṛṣṇa out of lust, anger and natural friendly love. All different types of ways and they become purified. So, humility means that actually I should look at myself. Make it your religion to examine your own faults. Don't worry about the other ones. They'll get rectified in due course of time. Best thing is to offer them compassion and an opportunity to become purified. They don't mean it. They're nice living entities. They'd rather be pure devotees but they forgot so we're supposed to remind him. Recently I was talking to a doctor. The doctor had talked to a patient and the patient was not in his right mind and he became ornery towards the doctor even though the doctor's trying to help him became ornery. We noted in the doctor that he wasn't disturbed because it's happened to him millions of times. He approached a patient and the patient became ornery. Here's the guy trying to save you and you are screaming, ‘get out of here’. Is the doctor disturbed? No. Because the doctor knows that he's not in his right mind. So, devotees see others like that. They're not in their right mind. So, those who are inimical, the śāstra says you don't have to mix up with them immediately but you should definitely maintain sadācāra, says Jīva Gosvāmī. You should have the mentality that they should be saved somehow. Somehow we have to figure out how to help them.

From: Stepping Out: Demystifying Death -4: Fully Depend on Kṛṣṇa | HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa | 12 Feb 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUE1Id-HflU

Time where answer starts in video: 1 hr 10 mins

It's like software. All your senses have software behind them. It's not the nose that smells, it's the software interface where you're able to enjoy a certain scent. That's called tan-mātra. So, there are forces in the universe that can be harnessed. That's how Kṛṣṇa explains in the 11th canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. That's how yogis develop mystic powers. It's explained in there if you all want to try it. So there's a mediational process through which you focus your attention solely on a certain element or actually the software behind the element and by doing that and becoming absorbed in it you connect with it and you're able to utilize it. So, yogis have these various powers that they can exhibit. Even recently when the British were in India there were yogis around who could do these fantastical kinds of feats such as being buried in a box under the ground. They are left there for a week and then come dug up and the box is opened. It was double sealed if somebody thought somebody's cheating here. Then they come out and the yogi's there because he has harnessed a certain power in the universe through his yogic process through which you didn't have to breathe for a while. The prāṇa was internalized. I don't know how to do it actually so I'm not going to get into the details. It just happens. There's a technology behind it. So, Brahmā, he's a highly empowered being and he uses the software that's already there to energize the various parts of the universe. They are like seeds. How does a seed work? It's a miracle. How do you get a tree from such a small seed? Krsna says bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ (Bhagavad-gītā As It Is 7.10). If you want to know where I am, look in the seed. If you want to look at power, look at a seed and just admire. It's a good engineering feat. So, Brahmā is throwing seeds out in the form of mantras that are extended from the kind of powers vested in him.

From: Be Fixed In The Process of Bhakti, Consistency is King | SB 4.8.59-60 HG Vaisesika Dasa | 21 Jun 25

https://youtu.be/5935A5_iAHQ?si=b7-dcqHg5fCVhvTU

Time where answer starts in video: 1 hr. 

Find something you can follow steadily. Get in a program, where you can be consistent over time. Consistency is king in devotional practice. And once you have achieved consistency at a certain level of practice (whether it is in attending temple or performing a home program), then move to the next level of practice. That’s Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s advice in Caitanya Siksamṛta. If you try to run up the ladder too fast, you will fall. If you are too timid, and you don’t put your foot on the rung, you will not move forward. Once you are confident on the rung, then move forward. Don't make a livelihood by not being advanced. Genuinely advance and be humble. Appreciate the fact that you have unlimited steps you can take and move up. That's the excitement of life in devotional service. 

Soaking in sadhu sanga, May 26 2023

https://youtu.be/WLN_oq-FYOs?si=Y_D84oZ2llNH4axU

Time where answer starts in video: 49 mins

The main principle is exposure. The more we expose ourselves to the sound vibration of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam the more we become purified. And that means that you have to be innovative at different times. You may have different techniques for doing that. Some of the ways that I do it is that I stay studying the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Right now, I'm taking the Bhaktivedanta [degree]. I am almost done with it. And how do I do it? I squeeze it in wherever I can. Because I'm studying for bhaktivedanta [degree], which right now I'm in its sixth canto through the 12th, I have to study for all the tests and I have to study to write the papers and things like that. So, that keeps me in the game. Keep my head in the game. 

The other is that I read a certain number of pages every day. I take this vow that I'll complete this many pages every day and to that end I created for myself a system. I counted all the pages in the Srimad-bhāgavatam and then I realized that if I commit myself to a certain number of pages every day that I'll be able to finish the Bhāgavatam at a predictable time. I can say when I'm going to finish the Bhagāvatam because I know how many pages I'm reading a day and then because it became I made a little spreadsheet that described how you can do that for every one of Prabhupāda’s books. Then I made it into an app. You can figure out how many pages I have to read every day. Like by reading eight pages a day you'll finish the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in five years. You can say what date you'll finish it on then you can have a festival at your house. Be in a process like that every day. ‘I got to do my pages’. That keeps you on track. That really helps. Another thing that I do that really helps me a lot is every kārtika I take off. I don't do anything else. We go to Govardhana hill. We have a room there. and we invite others who are interested in exclusively hearing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam for five hours a day to come there and stay in the ashram and that's our main thing. We just hear. So, we have two and a half hours in the morning and two and a half hours at night and we'll read a full Canto or two cantos during that time and it's just exclusive hearing and dedicating a time during the day, time during the year. You set aside some time and keep on track and keep exposed to the Srimad-bhagavatam.

If you hear from speakers of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that you especially appreciate the way they're presenting and you can line those up on your smartphone. Just hear while you're doing other things. Like this morning when I was getting ready for the day I was listening to a couple of lectures. I was listening to Pabhupāda lecture first thing in the morning and then I was listening to another Godbrother who goes into great length at explaining what all the Sanskrit meanings are in particular verses and things like that. So you can get lined up and then be on that track to always be hearing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in the car and so forth. So, there's a few ideas Prabhupada once said devotional services according to one's taste and everyone has a different way of doing things. It's not a stereotype. That's why I said the main principle is exposure. Whatever way you feel best getting exposure just try to get more exposure. You know how there's a little part of your smartphone that tells you how much screen time you used every week? You should make an app of how much Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam time we had and you can measure it by percentage. So, whatever way you do it if you heard a class you can log it in, if you read something or whatever you know that goes into your composite and at the end of the day end of the week it's like ‘your Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam was up 13 this week’. No wonder I feel better right now. If you feel really depressed, then check your app. You're like ‘I was down 20 percent from last week’.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam solves all problems. Reading Prabhupāda’s purports is necessary to be sane. There's only insanity in the world nowadays. It's Kali-Yuga. The gloves are off. It's total ignorance fighting ignorance everywhere and unless you hear Prabhupāda’s purports every day you'll go insane I promise. So, you have to have a diet of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, hearing the verses and Prabhupāda’s purports. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam solves all problems.

https://youtu.be/x46hmBQ2d2E?si=ThbTNaqL6Bmcqf3W

Time where answer starts in video: 49 mins

First of all I know what you mean by physical. But Kṛṣṇa is not physical in another way. So description of how when Kṛṣṇa left Vṛndāvana he's there manifest in his bhāva form. In fact you'll find in this chapter 13 Kṛṣṇa when he meets Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī is explaining why he was away for so long. He says, ‘by the grace of Lord Nārāyaṇa I came back there every day and Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī would think, ‘oh I'm just hallucinating’. He said, ‘no that wasn't a hallucination. I was coming there every day. That's what it means when Prabhupāda describes in the Kṛṣṇa Book that he was manifest there in his bhāva form.

Of course we're never separated from Kṛṣṇa. We hear the Upaniṣadic wisdom,

tad ejati tan naijati

 tad dūre tad v antike

 tad antar asya sarvasya

 tad u sarvasyāsya bāhyataḥ

 [Śrī Īśopaniṣad, Mantra 5]

Kṛṣṇa is far away but very near as well. The only time we're separated from Kṛṣṇa is by our own consciousness. So, because the devotees here were so intensely thinking of Kṛṣṇa. Really there was no separation from Kṛṣṇa. But the separation and the meeting as Gaur Govind Mahārāj explains in his book Embankments of Separation. They create this tension so that when the devotees are apparently away from Kṛṣṇa their desire to be with him is so intense that they experience this spiritual pleasure which is described by Kavirāj Goswāmī. Imagine being bitten by the most poisonous serpent combined at the same time with having nectar poured on you. Severe bite of the serpent with nectar being poured on your head at the same time. It sounds to the outside world like some kind of madness. That's what the highest level of ecstasy in Kṛṣṇa consciousness looks like.

And in practical terms, Kṛṣṇa explained that he wanted to divert any of the demoniac forces away from Vṛndāvana. If he went back there, it would draw attention to Vṛndāvana. He had killed most of the demons. He explained that to Śrīmat Rādhārāṇī at Kurukṣetra. He said there are a few more. Of course Dantavakra was the last one who showed up at the gates of Vṛndāvana and Kṛṣṇa immediately transferred himself there when he killed Dantavakra. He then entered Vṛndāvana again after that time.

Other ācāryas explain one of the reasons Kṛṣṇa apparently stayed away from Vṛndāvana for so long was to demonstrate the love of the gopīs. There's a sonnet by Shakespeare in which he talks about what true love means. It means it doesn't break under any circumstances. The realization of that comes in the pastime of Vṛndāvana when Kṛṣṇa is separated for over a hundred years and there's no fatigue, like, ‘okay well we don't love him anymore we give up’.

Now at Kurukṣetra when Kṛṣṇa meets the gopīs again he gives similar instructions that he gave to them through Uddhava in Vṛndāvana which were, ‘meditate on me’. I'm in every atom. I'm all-pervading. And the gopīs answered him sarcastically. This is also insider information from our ācārya because you find it in the Bhāgavatam. First of all Kṛṣṇa makes some excuse. He said well, according to Lord Nārāyaṇa because of the circumstances in the world we can only do what we're able to do. The gopīs say, "Yeah, but the thing is you are Nārāyaṇa." So, what are you talking about?

Kṛṣṇa then gives the verse:

mayi bhaktir hi bhūtānām

 amṛtatvāya kalpate

 diṣṭyā yad āsīn mat-sneho

 bhavatīnāṁ mad-āpanaḥ

 [SB 10.82.44]

He says, "But you've achieved such a level of devotional service never been seen before. But anyone who has this, they're so fortunate that they're beyond comparison to any other kind of practice and your life has become completely fortunate." He also indicates ‘anyone who also followed that same mood which is the basic tenet of Lord Caitanya's movement, which is to follow in the footsteps of the residents of Vṛndāvana’. Then the gopīs give this other iconic verse which is near the very end of chapter 82:

āhuś ca te nalina-nābha padāravindaṁ

 yogeśvarair hṛdi vicintyam agādha-bodhaiḥ

 saṁsāra-kūpa-patitottaraṇāvalambaṁ

 gehaṁ juṣām api manasy udiyāt sadā naḥ

 [SB 10.82.48]

They're saying, ‘well anyway we're just simple householders what do we know? All this knowledge is for yogis and you tell it to them.’ But externally if someone reads the Bhāgavatam they'll say, ‘oh yeah they're just having a conversation’. But Viśvanāth Cakravartī Ṭhākur says it’s sarcastic anger. Sarcastic back to Kṛṣṇa. ‘You already told us before that there's nobody like us anywhere and now you're telling us to be like the yogis, be like the jñānīs, everything's going to be fine. We're just attached householders.’

Poetically Viśvanāth Cakravartī Ṭhākur says that the instructions Kṛṣṇa is giving them in Kurukṣetra—they are saying, ‘it is like sunshine. It's burning us. We don't want sunshine. We want moonshine.’ And what does that mean? Kṛṣṇa has a moonlike face and we want the moon rays coming from your beautiful face. We don't care about meditation. We try to forget you Kṛṣṇa. We've tried so many times to forget you. We can't even forget you. And if we ever meditate on you, we swoon so much that we can't maintain any composure in our meditation. So we don't care about any of these things. We just want to see your lotus face. Forget meditation, forget philosophy.

And that's Vṛndāvana. And so Kṛṣṇa stayed away for many reasons. He always accomplishes many purposes from whatever he does. One of them was to exhibit to the world the greatness of Vṛndāvana. Everything points back to Vṛndāvana-dhāma. But we can't enter the dhāma without Caitanya Mahāprabhu. That's the greatest benediction and mystery of Kali-yuga.

kaliṁ sabhājayanty āryā

 guṇa-jñāḥ sāra-bhāginaḥ

 yatra saṅkīrtanenaiva

 sarva-svārtho ’bhilabhyate

 [SB 11.5.36]

The people who really know what's going, are reading the śāstra. They understand that Kali-yuga is the best age because although it's a dark age, but by worshiping Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in a saṅkīrtana movement you can enter into this level of understanding of Kṛṣṇa by the mercy of Śrī Caitanya.

Twelve Goal Setting Tips To Get Direction | HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa | Global Youth Retreat | 31 Dec 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLcU7UrXj74&t=2572s

TIme where answer starts in video: 40 mins

The way I approach it is to break it down in the smallest possible fragment that I can do. There's a science in Japan called ikiagi. There's a psychologist who wrote a book about it and he practices it with patience. So he tells a story. There was a woman that he was counseling and she was about 400 lb overweight and if he had told her you have to start running on treadmill or working out or something like that she just wouldn't have been able to do it at the time psychologically or physically so he told her cuz her problem was she sat and watched TV all day and ate. So, he said every time a commercial comes on then just stand up and then you can sit back down again and she thought that was a high hill for her to climb actually. So then she tried it and she stepped up every time a commercial came on the television and then when she was able to accomplish that he said now this week when you stand up just sort of walk in place during the commercial. She was really proud of herself that she was able to do that. After some time she came to the point of doing that and he got her step by step in these really tiny little vows that she would make to start walking around the block. You can kind of intuit the way the story is going to go. She had more and more momentum. So, what I do when it seems overwhelming is I break it down into something smaller and do what I can with what I have right then and if it's so small that it seems absurd that anybody could do that, that's a good place for it to be. In fact when I teach book distribution seminars one of the things people come for the part where I'm training inside the temple I say now we're all going to go out together and I started noticing that there would be 50 people there for the learning part and then when it was time to go out the door, I was asking, ‘where did everybody go?’ I found out that their mom called them and needed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So, they had to go home and it would take them all day to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for their mom and so what I started doing was saying, ‘we're not going out to distribute books’, and people look at me like, ‘no we are’ and I say ‘no I don't want you to distribute books. You can't do book distribution. We're just going out the door, that's all we're going to do and when we get to the place that we've assigned for ourselves all we're going to do is one thing and that is touch the pavement with our foot and once you do that you're done for the day’. Everybody knows this right that we do this. In fact there are communities that still send me pictures wherein they touch the pavement. The whole group was standing there with their feet on the pavement. I say anything you do after that that's extra not required, no performance necessary and I find that when you lower the bar. So, it's on the ground and people look at it and say, ‘well anybody could do that’. That's a good place for it to be and so in our lives when we're trying to move forward with something if we manage our expectations of ourselves and give ourselves a way just to step forward it can be so encouraging because then you feel, ‘okay I'm moving I might as well take another step too’. This is too easy. Give me a little more’. I noticed also that in the beginning sometimes those simple things after a while the devotees want more challenge. Prabhupāda wrote to Karandhar, when he told him about managing an organization that he said you should always create a fresh challenge so that the devotees will want to rise up and meet it. At ISKCON of Silicon Valley, for years we gradually developed goals at first they were so tiny that when we look back we think how was it even so small but we celebrated every event like I remember Malini Devi Dāsi, who's the co-sankirtan leader there, had distributed one book and she called me up. It was 9:00 at night. I was just going for a walk and she said I sold the book and we stood there for 5 minutes celebrating that she had sold the book and that's how it went. Now I mean the goal for ISKCON of Silicon Valley for the last couple months was to sell 78,000 Bhagavad Gitās in a few months. How did they get there? Just a little bit at a time. Little increases making a fresh challenge for the next level and then pretty soon you're at a much higher level. Birds fly in the sky as high as they're able but the sky is unlimited so when can you say I'm at my level? We do it so we can keep increasing our capacity and that capacity can always be increased. The quality, the way we do our devotional service, the way we interact with others, it can always be refined and that's what makes life interesting.

Act in a Way That Kṛishna Can Trust You | SB 1.2.21 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 05 Jul 2025

(379) Act in a Way That Kṛishna Can Trust You | SB 1.2.21 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 05 Jul 2025 - YouTube

Time where the answer starts in video: 37 mins

Trust Kṛṣṇa. His timing is impeccable. Dale Carnegie mentions in his book that imagine yourself in the worst possible scenario. Then ask yourself if you are still okay. We have an idea that I need something in a certain way, and when we lose it, and we come down from our sense of loss, we might look around and feel better than we were earlier.

ŚB and BG start with the end in mind. Get ready for death now. Kṛṣṇa says the material world is a lost cause. Manage your expectations. Expectations are the mother of disappointment.

Embrace that philosophy of Kṛṣṇa—that this world is a lost cause. You may even be more effective at work because you have a more realistic view of how to interact with this world. Doing our due diligence doesn't mean we become slovenly in our lifestyle or in the way that we deal with our resources. We do the best we can. We're methodical but dispassionate as we interact with everything we have in our life.

And remember Alexander the Great, who left us this beautiful imagery. Alexander, upon his death, had ordered that he be taken in his coffin with his hands outside the coffin and the best of doctors from his kingdom would carry the coffin. For all our wealth that we may accumulate—and mostly psychological because we look at a little spreadsheet and say, ‘Oh yeah, numbers up or numbers down.’ We suffer when it goes down. When it goes up, we feel a little spring in our step. We think, "Now I'm protected from any of the onslaughts of material nature." But the gold is all left behind. And finally, his hands are empty. We come into the world naked. Prabhupāda says we leave it naked.

So, if we can adopt some of that understanding and then also trust that Kṛṣṇa's timing is impeccable. What's more, He’s our well-wisher. And even if we don't have that implicit trust, at least try it on for size for a while and say, ‘I'm going to try to think like a transcendentalist in this situation. Even if I don't fully believe it, I'm going to say, okay, I'm going to act like I'm a transcendentalist.’ And you don't have to act like that, but you do try to embrace these perspectives because they're the perspectives Kṛṣṇa gives us in śāstra, and say, ‘Thank you, Kṛṣṇa. I can see You're giving me more opportunity to serve You, and this is how You've arranged it.’ So that can be helpful.

Gurū Mā: I know from myself that it's an attitude change. If we think Kṛṣṇa is only reciprocating with us when we're getting what we ask for, or when we're given nice things or feel like we're really taken care of... I realize that Kṛṣṇa is reciprocating with me even when I don't think I am getting what I want, when things become more difficult. And so, it's kind of just an attitude change.

And oftentimes in the midst of whatever it is you're going through, you can't see what Kṛṣṇa's plan is. And then you go through it and you can see, ‘Oh, Kṛṣṇa really took care of me. It's really good I didn't get what I wanted.’ So, I've had that experience. Of course, we have so many stories—just the prayers of Queen Kuntī and the Pāṇḍavas—when they went through so much, everything taken away from them. They still had Kṛṣṇa, and they knew they still had Kṛṣṇa. That's how He was reciprocating with them. He's always reciprocating with us.

Act in a Way That Kṛishna Can Trust You | SB 1.2.21 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 05 Jul 2025

(379) Act in a Way That Kṛishna Can Trust You | SB 1.2.21 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 05 Jul 2025 - YouTube

Time where the answer starts in video: 49 mins

Kṛṣṇa gives ways in which we can appreciate him and see our relationship with him right now. We need not worry about that which we don't comprehend yet. And it's okay to act according to the position you're in right now. Kṛṣṇa tells that to Uddhava in 11th canto of Bhagavatam. Sve sve ’dhikāre yā niṣṭhā sa guṇaḥ parikīrtitaḥ viparyayas tu doṣaḥ syād ubhayor eṣa niścayaḥ [SB 11.21.2] which means that it's a fixed principle that you should always act from the position that you're in right now. And as an example in the Bhagavad Gita, Kṛṣṇa talks puṇyo gandhaḥ pṛthivyāṁ ca [BG 7.9]. He says I'm the fragrance of the earth. If you smell the fragrance of the earth and isn't it delightful the first rain and you smell that and if you think ‘oh Kṛṣṇa is so kind like he gave this fragrance’. Puṇyo gandhaḥ pṛthivyāṁ ca tejaś cāsmi vibhāvasau jīvanaṁ sarva-bhūteṣu tapaś cāsmi tapasviṣu [BG 7.9]. He's the life of all living beings. You can feel your own vitality that you're alive, and you can appreciate that you're alive and then think ‘okay that's Kṛṣṇa. He's keeping me alive’. Or personal qualities of Kṛṣṇa that we can appreciate right now. In the eight chapter of Gita, Kṛṣṇa talks about remembering him. Tasmāt sarveṣu kāleṣu mām anusmara yudhya ca mayy arpita-mano-buddhir mām evaiṣyasy asaṁśayaḥ [BG 8.7]. He says if you remember me throughout your lifetime. You practice this. Abhyāsa-yoga-yuktena cetasā nānya-gāminā paramaṁ puruṣaṁ divyaṁ yāti pārthānucintayan [BG 8.8]. He says then at the time you leave this world you will remember me. So, what is the way to meditate on him? There is a list. What is the list? Kaviṁ purāṇam anuśāsitāram aṇor aṇīyāṁsam anusmared yaḥ sarvasya dhātāram acintya-rūpam āditya-varṇaṁ tamasaḥ parastāt [BG 8.8]. I'm the one who knows everything and that also means he knows you and if you think of it well who really knows me in this world. Nobody knows me and then Kṛṣṇa says ‘I know you and I'm there for you all the time’. If you meditate on him, that's your relationship now and it's such an overwhelmingly positive experience to know that somebody knows you as you are beyond the mask that you wear. Because it's hard to tell anybody else in this world. I'm not really like this. I'm like something else. It's embarrassing. But Kṛṣṇa already knows me. So, it's like developing your relationship with what Kṛṣṇa offers us right now. ‘Here it's okay, everything's fine, I'm right here, right now in the smell of the earth, taste of water and I know you’. So, if you go into any aspect of Kṛṣṇa you'll feel satisfied and yes it does deepen from there eternally. The relationships we have in the material world may come and go or they may ebb and flow.  So, wherever you are now is fine because it's yes, it'll increase, but there's not a point at which it becomes static. You don't need to speculate. You just have to be engaged. And if you're engaged and you're happy because Kṛṣṇa is reciprocating in your heart, happy is happy. Just be happy and be engaged in devotional service.

Guru Maharaj; 09/20/2023 VDA Disciple Whatsapp Group

It does pain the heart when we accidentally harm another living being. So, it is natural for you to feel regretful about this. Regarding your confusion about what to do, here is some guidance. 

The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says that in the material world, we live at the cost of others: jivo jivasya jivanam. This is the rule. What's more, even those who practice non-violence naturally kill other living beings. If you wear cotton clothes, for instance, it's likely that many gerbils, who congregate in cotton fields, were killed when the cotton was collected. The Vedas say that by drinking water, by cooking, by walking, by breathing, etc., we unwittingly kill living beings. Therefore, say the Vedas, we should perform yajña, activities that counteract the bad results of our inevitable killing. As you will read in the following purport from SB 9.16.23, the recommended yajna in this age is saṅkīrtana. 

Srila Prabhupadā writes: "As stated in Bhagavad-gītā (3.9), yajñārthāt karmaṇo ’nyatra loko ’yaṁ karma-bandhanaḥ: 'Work done as a sacrifice for Viṣṇu has to be performed; otherwise work binds one to this material world.' Karma-bandhanaḥ refers to the repeated acceptance of one material body after another. The whole problem of life is this repetition of birth and death. Therefore one is advised to work to perform yajña meant for satisfying Lord Viṣṇu. Although Lord Paraśurāma was an incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he had to account for sinful activities. Anyone in this material world, however careful he may be, must commit some sinful activities, even though he does not want to. For example, one may trample many small ants and other insects while walking on the street and kill many living beings unknowingly. Therefore the Vedic principle of pañca-yajña, five kinds of recommended sacrifice, is compulsory. In this Age of Kali, however, there is a great concession given to people in general. Yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyair yajanti hi sumedhasaḥ: we may worship Lord Caitanya, the hidden incarnation of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa-varṇaṁ tviṣākṛṣṇam: although He is Kṛṣṇa Himself, He always chants Hare Kṛṣṇa and preaches Kṛṣṇa consciousness. One is recommended to worship this incarnation by chanting, the saṅkīrtana-yajña. The performance of saṅkīrtana-yajña is a special concession for human society to save people from being affected by known or unknown sinful activities. We are surrounded by unlimited sins, and therefore it is compulsory that one take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness and chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra."

Guru Maharaj; 09/29/2023 VDA Disciple Whatsapp Group

In his instructions to Sri Uddhava at SB 11.19.17, Kṛṣṇa recommends that we study the nature of the material world to see that it is temporary. From this observation, we can cultivate a sense of detachment. 

"From the four types of evidence — Vedic knowledge, direct experience, traditional wisdom and logical induction — one can understand the temporary, insubstantial situation of the material world, by which one becomes detached from the duality of this world."

In the SB 7.15.22, Nārada tells Vasudeva: "By making plans with determination, one should give up lusty desires for sense gratification. Similarly, by giving up envy one should conquer anger, by discussing the disadvantages of accumulating wealth one should give up greed, and by discussing the truth one should give up fear."

It's most important, however, to develop affection for Kṛṣṇa's devotees. By serving in the association of devotees, our hearts soften and we become naturally attracted to, and then attached to seeing Kṛṣṇa and serving Him. SB 3.25.25: "In the association of pure devotees, discussion of the pastimes and activities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is very pleasing and satisfying to the ear and the heart. By cultivating such knowledge one gradually becomes advanced on the path of liberation, and thereafter he is freed, and his attraction becomes fixed. Then real devotion and devotional service begin."

Absorbed in such service: sweeping the temple floor, dancing before the Deity, serving prasadam, hearing Kṛṣṇa Katha in an assembly of devotees, our material desires diminish. SB 3.25.33: "Bhakti, devotional service, dissolves the subtle body of the living entity without separate effort, just as fire in the stomach digests all that we eat."

2014-03-08 Reading Caitanya caritamrta Adi 5.36 to 5.54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSLgED_A33k&t=7535s

Time where the answer starts in the video: 2 hr 5 mins. 

It is not insignificant because the impersonalist are doing it at the expense of the personal form of God. It is not as if they are saying that there is an impersonal and personal form of God. They are saying that there is no personal form of God. That's when acaryas take an exception because that's when people are misled into atheism and materialism. That's the only recourse for one who has no clear conception who God is. Because unless you have spiritual variety and activities within spiritual variety you necessarily have to engage in material varieties and then you're lost in the material world. So, Śaṅkarācārya has purposefully misinterpreted the shastras in such a way. It is like covered atheism. In that way it will mislead people. 

māyāvādam asac-chāstraṁ pracchannaṁ bauddham ucyate mayaiva vihitaṁ devi kalau brāhmaṇa-mūrtinā [Padma Purāṇa, Uttara-khaṇḍa (25.7)]. Lord Śiva informed goddess Durgā, the superintendent of the material world, ‘In the Age of Kali I take the form of a brāhmaṇa and explain the Vedas through false scriptures in an atheistic way, similar to Buddhist philosophy.’ That's cause for alarm amongst the acaryas. They specifically give clear explanations to refute all the details of these misinterpretations by the various philosophers who exclude the personality of godhead from their interpretations of the vedas. There are these six philosophies of India which you'll find also threads of those available in the world. They were like different departments in a university explaining the same thing but then through the corruption in the age of kali they became deviant to the original explanation. Vyāsadeva in his vedanta sutra has therefore refuted by logic and scriptural authority the various deviations of these various darshans like the karma mimamsa and the Patañjali's yoga sutra and the Vaiśeṣika, philosophy of Kannada. It's important to hear and understand all these things, especially the one’s Prabhupāda painstakingly presented in his books. And also for representing Kṛṣṇa consciousness to others. You may be surprised how much it will not only just fortify you in your enthusiasm to present the supreme personality of godhead to others. The acaryas have gone to great lengths to refute these things and that there are logical arguments even if you don't assimilate all of them has a strengthening effect on your own consciousness and therefore Kaviraj Goswami said siddhānta baliyā citte nā kara alasa ihā ha-ite kṛṣṇe lāge sudṛḍha mānasa [CC Ādi 2.117]. Don’t be aloof or lazy when it comes to going through the siddhanta and hearing all these different points. As you hear them your mind will become strengthened. 

2014-03-08 Reading Caitanya caritamrta Adi 5.36 to 5.54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSLgED_A33k&t=7535s

Time where the answer starts in the video: 2 hr 15 mins. 

It's free will. Everyone has their choice and if they're gonna be free will, there has to be choice. So, if they want to have bewilderment, Kṛṣṇa's gotta execute and provide that bewilderment

for them. So, if they want other paths besides the direct path of bhakti, Kṛṣṇa will arrange for those and also empower people. In fact it is mentioned in the commentary in the sixth canto the Śrīmad–Bhāgavatam Viśvanāth Cakravartī Ṭhākur says that not all devotees in one lifetime or in this same lifetime come to the perfectional stage of chanting. They achieve it just after they leave the body and Kṛṣṇa arranges for that because he doesn't want to bewilder or discourage people who have taken to other indirect paths as their desire and so forth. At the same time Kṛṣṇa achieves many purposes or achieves many ends by performing one activity. So, there may be many other things going on at the same time. As He's giving an alternative path He's also giving the remedy in the form of the teachings of the ācāryas and so many other ways so that people can come to the perfect stage.

There's a lot going on at the same time. Anyone who's been a manager knows that solutions are not just black and white there are many shades of gray and nowadays because of computers there are millions of different shades of colors and so forth. When you're dealing with living entities who are all independent and have free will they have minute independence. They have their own preferences and predilections because of previous lives and so forth. Imagine if you just deal with a small family with two kids and they have different ideas about what they want to do during the day and during their life. How hard that is to manage one living entity, two living entities, three…families of seven. Kṛṣṇa is managing unlimited living entities so they're all going in different directions. They all want different things. So, now he has to make all these arrangements and only he can do that. Nityo ’nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām eko bahūnāṁ yo vidadhāti kāmān [Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13]. He is supplying the living entities not just food but also according to all their desires. Whatever myriad desires they have He's fulfilling them simultaneously and all they all intersect with others and the karma is also perfectly executed. You can't fathom those kinds of things. Managers know that there are certain ways that you have to sometimes present one thing in order to get a different result. Politicians know this too. There's all kinds of ways that throughout history there have been campaigns meant to bring about an ultimate result that began with obfuscation of the complete truth to start with.

2014-03-08 Reading Caitanya caritamrta Adi 5.36 to 5.54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSLgED_A33k&t=7535s

Time where the answer starts in the video: 2 hr 22 mins. 

It is the criticism of a person who takes a mathematics class and then they walk to the other wing of the building one day during lunch break and they walk by the trigonometry class, where they are drawing arrows on the board and the person says, ‘that's stupid. They don't even know anything about mathematics. Just arrows and circles. It's crazy. So, similarly for somebody with a preliminary understanding of what is religion, the sophistication of the philosophy of the vedas which we're hearing about the detail that the ācāryas go into and which the śāstra presents and there are explanations can be mind boggling. There's a thesis, antithesis and synthesis and all these things are are going on in such a way that we can ultimately come to to the truth which for our sake is condensed, especially in this age, into the bhagavad-gītā and bhāgavatam. Kṛṣṇa says, vedānta-kṛd veda-vid eva cāham [BG 15.15]. ‘I am the goal of all these things’. Then it comes down to just chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Of course that's fine. You can just do that, if you can just do that it's fine also but who's just chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. There's also according to Ṭhākur Haridās, an importance in having along with one's initiation into the chanting of the holy name one should have sambandha-jñān. There's the dīkṣā and then there's the śikṣā and that is both necessary. It looks like you say which is more important: planting the seed or watering the seed. They're equally important, the dīkṣā and śikṣā. Sometimes people say, ‘well you're in a śikṣā-paramparā therefore no need for dīkṣā. Just śikṣā all the time. But they don't understand the context. At the time of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta there were members of Nityānanda Prabhu's own family they were just saying all you need is dīkṣā, and it has to be in our family otherwise you're nothing. Therefore at that particular time in history they stress the śikṣā in order to counteract that and another time there may be necessity to point out, ‘no you have to have dīkṣā also’. So, not only various religious traditions that don't have perspective, also within our own tradition there are people even who consider themselves followers of Prabhupāda who don't take a perspective that allows them to present anything else but fanaticism. That's not helpful. What's helpful is getting you know the entire perspective, understanding why we're doing certain things and that requires hearing and understanding over time. Then one's inspired as Kṛṣṇadās Kavirāj Gosvāmī says to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa because one has a very clear and distinct understanding. You get a sudṛḍha-manaḥ [CC Ādi 2.117]. The mind is fixed. It says that there is nothing else but chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. If you think if the mind thinks there's something else to do it'll go do that but if if you're convinced by your intelligence there's nothing else to do but chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa it fulfills everything and Kṛṣṇa is everything and you've just heard these chapters. It all contributes to that sudṛḍha-manaḥ [CC Ādi 2.117] and one's able to perform devotional service in an unwavering way. It's a rare thing actually for somebody to come to this position of niṣṭhā, of no hesitation in their devotional practice, no doubts. They're free to simply perform devotional service. Tac chraddadhānā munayo jñāna-vairāgya-yuktayā paśyanty ātmani cātmānaṁ bhaktyā śruta-gṛhītayā [SB 1.2.12]. It must be done thoughtfully, says Sūta Gosvāmī. It has to be done by thoughtful people and they have to be fortified with jñān and vairāgya which come from hearing the vedānta-śruti very carefully.

2014-03-08 Reading Caitanya caritamrta Adi 5.36 to 5.54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSLgED_A33k&t=7535s

Time where the answer starts in the video: 2 hr 29 mins. 

People, whatever age they may be, are never misled when they are sincere. Kṛṣṇa is looking out for every living entity. He is there within the heart and monitoring the situation. There is so much about ISKCON on the internet, but still devotees go over and still stick with it, but some get bewildered and get caught and say that they can't do it. It’s because they have a certain momentum from their previous life based on their previous practices. Living entities at all ages are being guided by Kṛṣṇa from within the heart. It's not just that they are vulnerable to everything. It's based on their psycho physiological nature and their spiritual credit which they have attained in their previous birth. It's not that everyone is simply exposed to all these things and there's no antidote and there's no remedy. That's completely available too. Also with bewilderment there is also a remedy, enlightenment is provided. That's completely available.  Sometimes people become misled very easily because of their state of heart. They want to be misled based on their predilection and other people aren't. Jīva is not left unprotected. If he wants Kṛṣṇa, he gets Him.

2014-06-28 LA SB 8.7.10 - HG Vaisesika Dasa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PynMsCewrc

Time where the answer starts in the video: 31 mins.

I don't know that there's a constant fight against science and scripture. There may be different approaches to getting one's information in the world. Science means to know how you come to know something. So the devotees accept the authority, a perfect eyewitness who can tell you what's going on from a superior source. They consider this śruti hearing from a perfect source to be the way to get knowledge. Science relies mostly on investigation using limited senses. So there's a way in which when we are dealing with situations in which we hear, for instance, that the Gaṅgā's water is pure. This is true. But at the same time if you go to the Gaṅgā and you see that there were some chemicals released from an industrial plant upstream, why be foolhardy and simply drink the water. Even sādhus they strain the water and so forth. They don't simply declare that oh it must be pure because the śāstra said it's pure. Prabhupāda does mention that devotees when they see bubbles, foam and mud they go into the water and they push it out of the way and they simply take their bath and they remain healthy. But if you have some other information that there's been some poison in the water. For instance the Yamunā lake was poisoned at one time by Kāliya. I mean Yamunā is always pure but at one time Kāliya went into the lake and he poisoned everything and then the devotees who came and drank from it died and Kṛṣṇa had to revive them. Discretion is the better part of valor. You have to discriminate and use your common sense as well.

How To Use Something Temporary To Gain The Eternal | HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa | 23 Mar 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OT0Yj21OAg&t=3608s

Time where the answer starts in the video: 1 hr.

Those who are truly simple-hearted are pure in heart; it means that Kṛṣṇa is there in their heart and Kṛṣṇa is directing their intelligence. So, simple does not mean that you're without intelligence nor are you without protection from Kṛṣṇa himself. This goes to the real goal of life which is to give up trying to aggrandize oneself or put oneself in a position of enjoyment. Prahlad Maharaj himself said that the moment you start thinking about how to please yourself, that's when you start suffering and feeling misery. But if you engage in devotional service then you'll naturally feel happy and aligned and for those who are feeling confused morose can at any time just engage in service to Kṛṣṇa. 

Twelve Goal Setting Tips To Get Direction | HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa | Global Youth Retreat | 31 Dec 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLcU7UrXj74&t=2572s

TIme where answer starts in video: 1 hr 10 mins

What I find is that when I fall off from a goal that it's always there waiting for me when I want to come back and I find also when I fail in doing it and then I'm able to come back to it again then I develop a little more insight into how how to stick with it or how to adjust it so that I can do it. Oftentimes we move forward in fits and starts. It's not always a neat process. Prabhupāda gave this little anecdote once. There was this Indian man who liked Prabhupāda and he had gone to Gauḍīya Maṭh for Janmāṣṭamī and they were criticizing Prabhupāda. Some of his Godbrothers made it their profession to criticize everything Prabhupāda did. A newspaper article had come out about how the devotees had gotten in some trouble in Japan and some of them were asked to leave and so during Janmāṣṭamī he brought it out to show the audience that see A. C. Bhaktivedānta Swami’s people are like black sheep he said and they got kicked out of Japan. So, this man was really disturbed and he came back to Prabhupāda and said, ‘this Godbrother was criticizing you to the audience on Janmāṣṭamī and he brought out this article about getting kicked out of Japan.’ One of the devotees there who was on the Japan project said, ‘but Prabhupāda, it's not true. We didn't really get kicked out’. Prabhupāda said that it is all right. He said, ‘once there was a man and he was talking to this other man and he said I've just lost 10,000 and the other man said to him well you're lucky because I didn't even have 10,000 to lose. So, Prabhupāda said, ‘he is criticizing that we got kicked out of Japan. At least we were there to get kicked out.’ So, what if you get knocked off your thing? At least you made a stand and if you keep making a stand you'll find that as Prabhupāda writes in The Light of the Bhāgavat [Text 43]. There's a beautiful purport there where he says failure may not be detrimental. It may become the pillar to success and in the Bhagavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa says there's never any failure for somebody who's sincere. For somebody who actually sincerely tries you can never fail. So, if you're trying to advance in devotional service and you're trying to organize your life in such a way that all the pieces work so you can represent the sampradāya and be there even the failures Kṛṣṇa will find ways. They're like fodder, compost. All the stuff you throw away if you put it in a box. So, all the times we fail, it's compost. You put it in a box and a nutrient rich experience comes out, which you can use in other places. Otherwise we just give into fatalism that I can't do anything. But you can. And there are step by step ways to do it and Kṛṣṇa helps you.

2013-08-05 LA SB 7.11.17 Accepting Occupational Duties

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEfkN1W8sr4&t=2708s

TIme where answer starts in video: 40 mins

Not only do we have to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa but we also have to carefully avoid the 10 offenses against the holy name. One may go on chanting for millions of years but if he or she is not careful about avoiding the offenses to the holy name then one's progress will be curtailed. So, this is one of the prime causes for failing in devotional service. There are also six items mentioned by Rūpa Gosvāmī, which were meant to observe, to catalog and to follow. Atyāhāraḥ prayāsaś ca prajalpo niyamāgrahaḥ jana-saṅgaś ca laulyaṁ ca ṣaḍbhir bhaktir vinaśyati [Nectar of Instruction verse 2]. Bhakti is destroyed by these six things. Atyāhāraḥ which means over-collecting, over-eating. Prayāsa which means over-endeavor which comes from over-collecting. You have to live a simple life and if you don't then you'll have to work really hard to maintain what you have. All the material desires that you have. And then you don't have any time for bhakti. When you don't take time for bhakti you get affected by the three modes of material nature. Prajalpa, the tongue is our rudder and as we use our tongue we'll go in that direction. Ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ [Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā 17.136]. You can't understand Kṛṣṇa through your blunt material senses but if you engage your tongue strictly in His service then He'll reveal Himself. But if you speak prajalpa, which means you use the tongue to gossip, especially if you vilify devotees, then you're going down fast because Kṛṣṇa says in the Ninth Canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that the devotees are My heart and I am in their heart and He doesn't tolerate the blasphemy of devotees, so we should very carefully avoid criticizing devotees and/or hearing criticism. We should also take only Kṛṣṇa prasādam.

Niyamāgrahaḥ means accepting the rules and regulations only for the sake of following them without knowing why we're doing it. Just taking by momentum the process and not becoming vitally concerned with how it's making us advance. Or neglecting the rules and regulations which is the anatomy of a fall-down. When I begin to think that because I'm liberated. I am liberated because I'm in ISKCON or I'm liberated because I'm initiated. I'm liberated because I just finished my 16 rounds or any other reason. Therefore I can do what… you can fill in the blank. I can skip this, I can do that. This is how Māyā sneaks in. So, I have to rededicate myself every day because I'm not the same person. The person I was at night I'm not the same person when I wake up in the morning. Everything gets jumbled up.

So, one practical thing is to line up all your devotional items at night before you go to sleep. Clean your house, clean your room, make sure everything's spotless. My father, before we'd go on vacation every Easter to Mexico, he'd make the family clean the whole house spotless. And I always said as a kid, ‘why do we have to clean the house? We're not going to be here?’ He said, ‘wait till you get back. You'll appreciate it.’ I remember coming back after eight or nine days and thinking about who cleaned the house and what smart, nice person cleaned the house. So, clean your room. Put everything in order and I recommend also take all the śāstra that you're going to read the next day and put it in a stack. Say you've got your Gītā, you've got your Bhāgavatam, put it, line it up and then take your bead bag, nicely fold it up. Put it on top and then have everything lined up for the morning. So, when you wake up you're your best friend from the night before. If you have a strong morning program, you cover the basics and you're conscious, you're aware, you're present for your practice and you can get one tiny mustard seed of inspiration from your japa. It can change your whole life. One good japa session can take you back to Godhead. One mantra, where you actually lean in. I saw somebody on the airplane the other day had a book called ‘Lean In’ and I thought that's good for devotional service. Lean into it. Lean in and take the japa session. Don't go away without getting at least one mustard seed of inspiration. Otherwise niyamāgrahaḥ. You're just doing it for doing it. Be there, get it, and you always win with basics, with the fundamentals.

I was walking near my house. There's this Washington Park that I walk by and sometimes they are practicing baseball. So, I always like to watch to see what the coach is saying because I love coaching and the idea of how coaches organize teams and get their team ready for the game. So I heard the coach yelling at his team, ‘muscle memory gentlemen, muscle memory’. That really stuck in my mind. The muscle memory means if you do something over and over again you get accustomed to it and you do it consciously then you become unconsciously competent and it becomes part of your being. Māṁ ca yo ’vyabhicāreṇa bhakti-yogena sevate sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate [BG 14.26]. By constantly performing devotional service and not falling down one rises above the three modes of material nature and comes to the level of Brahman.

The other thing he said to his team, ‘baseball 101 not 102’ and he was saying take the basics and learn the basics perfectly. Don't try to move on to all kinds of higher subjects, get something from the Bhagavad-gītā. Who knows the Bhagavad-gītā? Not many people read the Bhagavad-gītā. Not many people who have the Bhagavad-gītā read it. We ask, ‘did you enter into it, did you get one śloka out of it, did you live by it, did you find one śloka that said be satisfied?’ This is the austerity of the mind. Satisfaction. Have you practiced that—to be actually satisfied? Did you practice being equipoised, that you're not disturbed by happiness or distress? Practice these basics and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa as if there's no tomorrow—there probably isn't. Steve Jobs used to say that ‘you should live every day as if it was your last day because one day you'll be right’ and we should chant like that also and feel like that if we take the basics every morning.

The other part of the basics is that you have to read Prabhupāda’s books. Prabhupāda personally told me this in a darśan in 1973 in San Francisco. We were a saṅkīrtana party and San Francisco was doing big and our temple president was explaining to Śrīla Prabhupāda how big we were doing and Prabhupāda looked at us and he said, ‘you must also read my books’. In Caitanya-caritāmṛta he says ‘if my students don't read all my books every single one of them’, and he lists them, ‘they will go back to eating and sleeping and fall back down into material life’. If every morning you read 40 pages of the Bhāgavatam—take two hours to read Bhāgavatam—and Nectar of Devotion, you have to know what the science of devotional service is, you'll be fortified by association with Prabhupāda. You can associate with him through the pages of his books, but you have to have it because if you don't, Kali-yuga is so pernicious and there's so much distraction it'll enter in and gradually it'll eat away at the practice of devotional service and then the fall-down.

So vigilance, and Prabhupāda says one must be careful. I started looking at this—what does it mean to be careful? Another point is that you must not think ‘I am liberated’. Don't think you're liberated and Prabhupāda says this: if one thinks ‘I am liberated therefore I can associate with attractive women unrestrictedly’ you'll fall down. Don't think like that. The specific qualification of a pure devotee is thinking ‘I could fall down at any minute’. And Prahlāda Mahārāja in his prayers to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva says that ‘I'm not afraid of Your sharp pinching teeth or Your high wedge-like ears or Your roaring which is scaring away everyone in the universe and making the demigods back up. What I'm afraid of is Your Viṣṇu-māyā because if I make a wrong step I can fall back down again into that cycle and who knows when I'll come back out again’. Such an impending fear must be there in the heart of the devotee—to take shelter over and over again of the basics of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

What basics? Prabhupāda gave us so much. If you just take, if I just take the basic supplements that Prabhupāda gave us—the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa very carefully, making that the centerpiece of my entire practice, and the reading of his books, especially Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam—then we become very strong. Once a devotee came and complained to Prabhupāda and said, ‘but Prabhupāda, Māyā is so strong’, and Prabhupāda said, ‘Māyā is not so strong, you're so weak’. And then he said, if you keep a proper diet, exercise, a good outlook in life and so forth you won't fall sick—you'll be fortified. So similarly he said if you keep a very strong spiritual regimen then you won't also fall victim to Māyā.

So what to do? Individually we have to become strong. And in paramedic school they teach ‘a dead paramedic can't save anyone’. I know that because SatiDev Prabhu is a paramedic and he told me the first day when they went in to learn about how to save other people on the street and wherever else they had fallen, they said ‘a dead paramedic can't save anyone’. So first you have to make sure you're saved. And when you're on the airplane and they make the announcement in the case of a crash landing they say the airbags are going to come down—put yours on first before you attend to your child.

So this is a letter Prabhupāda wrote Jayananda Prabhu. I don't know what Jayananda Prabhu asked, but Prabhupāda wrote back and said it's the same old thing: Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, be very careful, but go back to fundamentals. They're actually the most exciting part of any discipline. That mṛdaṅga—if you take tere keṭa which is simple mṛdaṅga practice beat and you do it six hours a day then miraculously you'll be able to do other things. So we should be careful, we should take the basics, and don't think that I'm liberated. And then we should also form associations with devotees in a very intimate way so that everyone has an opportunity to hear and chant. That's the crying need of the day. We may build so many buildings but unless there's hearing and chanting going on within those buildings, they'll crumble. And people, Prabhupāda said, they'll see the deity worship sooner or later as a great burden. ‘My spiritual master has hung a great weight around my neck and now I have to carry that’, because they don't see the deity anymore—they just see a stone. Unless somebody, unless we hear and chant and organize our family at home and whatever neighborhood I live in around this principle of hearing and chanting—this is the genesis of all advancement in devotional service. And we have to remember that it's not based on how much money we make or how many other marks we can make. The main point is that we have to keep the vibration pure and we have to keep the vibration going.

Like Urja-svāta Prabhu used to say—he was one of the champions of the early bhakta movement where they made hundreds of bhaktas—and he used to say the secret is you got to lift up the kīrtan. If the kīrtan’s lifted up in the temple then everyone becomes happy. So if the kīrtans are going in… There is a devotee in Japan, Naganātana Prabhu, he told me his history coming to devotional service. He said, ‘I was suffering so much and coming to Kṛṣṇa consciousness was an arduous decision because I had my family and it was really hard to break away.’ And he said, ‘but the kīrtans—at the time Gurukṛpā was there, Guru Swāmī—and they were having these gigantic nāgar saṅkīrtans that would make your hair stand on end. The devotees were so enthusiastic and they were so devoted to the chanting of the holy name.’ And he said, ‘those kīrtans saved my life. They saved my devotional life. They changed me. They made me come to devotional service and take it up seriously.’ One of the basic points: the kīrtan has to be lifted up. We should plan ahead how to make the kīrtan ecstatic and expose everyone to that system. 

We always win with the basics.

2013-04-03 ISV Ending Spiritual Poverty

https://youtu.be/bPkDkdEc8Ww?si=yGtrG2fx1O0QyM03

Time where the answer starts in the video: 1hr 20 min

Kṛṣṇa is a person. He does have senses and he is with us all the time. In other words it's not that Kṛṣṇa is not fully manifest all the time. He is. It's just because I can't see him because of my own ignorance. I don't recognize my relationship with him. Kṛṣṇa says in the Gita that when that ignorance is cleared away, then my relationship is revived. It's like when the sun lights up everything in the daytime I can see clearly. So, Kṛṣṇa is there but because of my ignorance I can't see him and when I adjust my approach in life towards him and towards others and my relationship with the world, it changes. Then gradually he reveals himself to the devotees. 

ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi

na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ

sevonmukhe hi jihvādau

svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ 

[CC Madhya 17.136]

When one changes the way one uses one's senses, especially starting with the tongue and one uses the tongue in the service of Kṛṣṇa, then Kṛṣṇa reveals himself to the devotee. How does he reveal himself to the devotee? In various ways. We heard in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, how first of all, Kṛṣṇadas Kaviraj Goswami offers his obeisances to his spiritual Masters. 

vande gurūn īśa-bhaktān

īśam īśāvatārakān

tat-prakāśāṁś ca tac-chaktīḥ

Kṛṣṇa-caitanya-saṁjñakam 

[CC Adi 1.34]

He says vande gurun and he says that I offer my obeisances to my guru. Uddhava says in his prayers to Lord Kṛṣṇa that no one can offer or have enough gratitude and offer enough appreciation to you because you appear internally as the chaitya guru to guide me and externally you appear as the spiritual master or spiritual Masters to guide me. Once when the devotees were going to the beach to swim and they came back and they were feeling a little guilty and they told Prabhupāda, ‘we feel a little guilty we're going to the beach. How can this be Kṛṣṇa consciousness’. Prabhupāda said Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad Gita that he is the light of the sun and the moon. Kṛṣṇa is the ocean. How could you be in Maya? How could you not think of Kṛṣṇa? Kṛṣṇa's there with us all the time. He's never inattentive to us. He's our digestion. Kṛṣṇa says in the 15th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, ahaṁ vaiśvānaro bhūtvā [BG 15.14], that I'm the digestion force. We can feel gratitude that Kṛṣṇa is digesting the food. 

Then he says that 

kaviṁ purāṇam anuśāsitāram

aṇor aṇīyāṁsam anusmared yaḥ

sarvasya dhātāram acintya-rūpam

āditya-varṇaṁ tamasaḥ parastāt 

[BG 8.9]

Kavim; he's the original philosopher. He is the wisest of all and he's the oldest. Anuśāsitāram - 

He is the supreme controller. Aṇor aṇīyāṁsam anusmared yaḥ. He is larger than the largest and smaller than the smallest. Sarvasya dhātāram. He's the maintainer of everything. In the surrender process it is very important that devotees consider Kṛṣṇa their protector. They don't take protection from anywhere else. And also maintenance. They consider Kṛṣṇa is the only one maintaining me and they test that. We take risks in devotional service and as we take risks and we surrender in the surrender process, we start to feel Kṛṣṇa's presence that he's actually maintaining and protecting me in all ways. Prabhupāda describes in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta how there's a competition between Kṛṣṇa and the devotee. The devotee who's surrendering to Kṛṣṇa is thinking of more and more ways to surrender and more and more ways to serve Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa is thinking more and more ways to serve his devotee and to support his devotee in wonderful ways and this becomes a very intimate relationship and in the beginning one may experience Kṛṣṇa's presence so indirectly but as the relationship grows the devotee can see Kṛṣṇa everywhere and within everything and becomes fully dependent on Kṛṣṇa and is never separated from him and at any minute. 

Premāñjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilocanena

santaḥ sadaiva hṛdayeṣu vilokayanti

yaṁ śyāmasundaram acintya-guṇa-svarūpaṁ

govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

[Brahma-saṁhitā 5.38]

When a person actually has this full love then Kṛṣṇa can't hide himself. Those who love Kṛṣṇa so intensely, they actually practically control Kṛṣṇa because of the intensity of their love so much so that he's practically forced to reveal himself to these devotees.

In the beginning we hear Kṛṣṇa, before we see Kṛṣṇa. Prabhupāda mentions in one of the purports in Caitanya-caritāmṛta that one who chants Hare Kṛṣṇa without offenses, begins to hear the mahamantra as a unique sound like nothing he or she have heard before. This is the beginning of hearing Kṛṣṇa. We will experience Kṛṣṇa in our sincerity to chant. Its self effulgent knowledge, not something foreign to us. Nitya-siddha kṛṣṇa-prema 'sādhya' kabhu naya [CC Madhya 22.107]. Original love for Kṛṣṇa is there in the heart. As the mist of ignorance is cleared we experience the relationship in many different ways. 

2020 11 18 Srila Prabhupada the Pre eminent Siksa Guru   

https://youtu.be/bLh3rVww72o?si=bpRWtUCF2ST1SOG_

Time where the answer starts in the video: 36 mins. 

There are numerous ways to do that. A part of being connected to the parampara really means to be open to following the acharya and to working cooperatively. It requires that sense of sincerity and then we tune in through Srila Prabhupāda's books. They are encyclopedic and he says many things. People often get the impression that Prabhupāda is like this, he is like that. Read through the whole thing and get the full spectrum of the way Prabhupāda thinks and his moods and so forth. Then of course we hear from devotees who fortunately are still walking the earth who sat with Prabhupāda, who heard him say things about certain topics. When we want to know something we ask somebody who was there. Call Srutākirti, and ask, ‘what did Prabhupāda say about this?’. In a comprehensive way we're meant to try to triangulate and understand what is the intention of the acarya and and if we cooperate with that understanding (and that's our mood you know cooperate under the acarya) then we can get great traction in our own spiritual lives and in spreading of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

2020 06 17 Sri Caitanya Caritamrita Adi Lila 1.92

https://youtu.be/a0xayKr_fUQ?si=VJz4kmjn2VwDMPNs

Time where the answer starts in the video: 54 mins

Absolute truth is the complete whole and that from whom everything else emanates and He's the cause of all causes. That's what the absolute truth means. What does it mean when Kṛṣṇa says there's no truth superior to me? It means that everything is Kṛṣṇa and everything is within Kṛṣṇa and therefore there is nothing beyond Kṛṣṇa and there's no truth superior to him. In other words the ultimate is the transcendental body of Kṛṣṇa the transcendental personality of Kṛṣṇa. That's the ultimate truth and there's not something else. For instance, some commentators on the Bhagavad-gita like Dr. Radha Kṛṣṇa wrote in his commentary that when Kṛṣṇa says man-mana bhava mad-bhakto think of me. He doesn't mean think of me, he means think of the impersonal brahman within Kṛṣṇa. So, people think that there's something beyond Kṛṣṇa. So, Jiva Goswami refutes this idea by proving that Kṛṣṇa is multi-dimensional. He's in all places at all times. As Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gita that this is his mystic opulence that he also maintains his individual personality even though he expands Himself into everything else He still has His personal form.

2020 06 17 Sri Caitanya Caritamrita Adi Lila 1.92

https://youtu.be/a0xayKr_fUQ?si=VJz4kmjn2VwDMPNs

Time where the answer starts in the video: 58 min

One way to understand is that it's like a child who wants to pick up a heavyweight and his father's standing behind him. So, then the child goes to pick up, let's say a barbell, and he can't lift it. He doesn't have the capacity to do that but his father's standing behind him and when the child goes to pick up the barbell then the father actually grabs it and lifts it up and the child's thinking, ‘oh I'm so strong I lifted this up.’ But it's actually the father's strength.

na hi kaścit kṣaṇam api 

jātu tiṣṭhaty akarma-kṛt 

kāryate hy avaśaḥ karma 

sarvaḥ prakṛti-jair guṇaiḥ 

[BG 3.5]

We're always active and we have desire and ambition and so forth. But we're not independent and fulfilling that. So, through the three modes of material nature those who have material desires, the Supersoul arranges for whatever desires the living entity has to be fulfilled.

asau guṇamayair bhāvair 

bhūta-sūkṣmendriyātmabhiḥ 

sva-nirmiteṣu nirviṣṭo 

bhuṅkte bhūteṣu tad-guṇān 

[SB 1.2.33]

There's a way in which Bhāgavatam describes how this Supersoul is there within the heart and fulfills the desires of the living entities according to their desire and also what they deserve. The living entity is ultimately responsible, says the Bhagavad-gītā. In the Bhagavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa describes how he gives two verses.

prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni 

guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ 

ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā 

kartāham iti manyate 

[BG 3.27]

The living entity who thinks that he's the doer is very foolish. He doesn't understand that he's being facilitated. And then Kṛṣṇa says

tattva-vit tu mahā-bāho 

guṇa-karma-vibhāgayoḥ 

guṇā guṇeṣu vartanta 

iti matvā na sajjate 

[BG 3.28]

If someone understands how these things are working he becomes a knower of the truth. He sees how everything he's doing is being facilitated by higher powers. You are correct that he has volition. Otherwise the Vedas wouldn't have any meaning. The Vedas are saying that to the living entity that you should come out of this illusion that you're in. And therefore the soul can do that with some assistance from the Śāstra and from the pure devotee to come out of entanglement in the material nature as he has the volition to do that. Especially when there's some intervention. In the Gītā Kṛṣṇa says ultimately I'm not responsible.

nādatte kasyacit pāpaṁ 

na caiva sukṛtaṁ vibhuḥ 

ajñānenāvṛtaṁ jñānaṁ 

tena muhyanti jantavaḥ 

[BG 5.15]

I don't create the sinful reactions of the living entities. The living entity does that for himself because of his interaction with material nature. So, the living entity is an agent for change ultimately and he can come out of the material nature with the assistance of Śāstra and the pure devotee and then become free from the modes of material nature and while he's in it, it's his mess, it's his karma. It's not God’s. It's the living entity entangled in it. But it's from time immemorial. So, it's really hard to really understand the origin of it because it's called anādi or beginningless and Prabhupāda describes it as being from time immemorial.

Whatsapp message - VDA disciple group, Oct 16 2025 

Definitely don’t whisper. Voice experts say whispering strains the voice even more. Until your voice heals you should be very careful. You can use your beads and say the mantrā in your mind.

The Later Pastimes of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu-3 | Govardhan Readings#3 | 29 Sep 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSHRuZECJlw&t=2597s

Time where the answer starts in the video: 43 mins

Prabhupāda encouraged everyone to write. The main forum for writing during Prabhupāda's time, since Prabhupāda was writing all the books, was the Back to Godhead magazine. He wanted devotees to make articles for that. He emphasized, and all that's there in the record—that writing is a way of consolidating your realizations. If you write essays or books, then you have to do deep research, and you also become very acquainted with it, and you become more articulate in teaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Because, as you know well, when you write, you have to refine the way you present it, and then it becomes refined in your mind also. What Prabhupāda said about it was that finding ways to present Kṛṣṇa consciousness in a modern context, he said that you have to be expert to do that. That's one thing he said. To give an anecdote, Prabhupāda encouraged Svarūpa Dāmodara Mahārāja to write a science book, which he did. He wrote a book called 'The Scientific Basis of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.' And Prabhupāda appreciated that a lot, and he touted that book, and his disciple who had written it, so he was encouraging about that. 

One should approach writing thinking that I am writing for self purification, and not to become famous. 

Ten Principles to Develop Determination | HG Vaisesika Dasa | GEV | 30 Oct 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0HBdYNYrRY

Time where the answer starts in the video: 02 mins

Decisions are hard to make because we don't have enough information. Sometimes I'll be working on revising a paragraph and I'll come to a sentence and I just can't get it to fit. I can't get it to work one way or another. Fortunately, I've had good editors throughout my life and then they say to me, just remove the sentence and get on with your life. And what a relief that is. You just use the most invaluable tool ever invented by man, and that is the undo button or the delete. So, one way that we may have a hard time making a decision about something is we don't have enough information. So, if someone brings you a conundrum, a problem to solve, a decision to make, and you're not sure, it's likely that you don't have enough information. So ask for more. What does it mean? What are the implications? One way to do this is to make a list.

What are the pros and cons of this decision that I'm going to make? Benjamin Franklin, famous for his wit and his progressiveness in life and his ideas that he presented for many people to follow, said the simplest way is to draw a line down the middle of a paper and one side put pros, the other one put cons. And just list them all because then you're engaged in a more clear thought process. Things don't always come ready made. So get more information. Then list the pros and cons. Then set a deadline for making the decision because justice delayed is justice denied and a decision delayed is a decision not made. So once you set something on the calendar and you say by this date or by today or in 10 minutes I'm going to make the decision. Then there is forced efficiency which means that you have a sense of I have to act and that's important in making decision because if you got all the information you possibly could you listed the pros and cons then you set the time and you made the decision well you did the best you could and if happens to be mistaken you can always correct it later. And once you decide, commit to your choice. Don't equivocate and go back and forth. Just stick with it. That's about making a strong decision. And that's important for developing determination is you have to decide you're going to do something. Kṛṣṇa gives an offer. He says surrender to me. I'll protect you.

sarva-dharmān parityajya

mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja

ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo

mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ [Bg 18.66]

Don't worry. Don't hesitate. Don't give it another thought. And then you could possibly decide. Just say I've decided I'm going to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. So you have to make a firm commitment. Say I'm doing this. In initiation vows, people are astounded to watch that somebody's actually going to sit down and make a public proclamation that they're going to follow certain vows and that they're making a commitment. That's necessary. Make a commitment. People are also astounded by that. You mean you're really going to do this? What's the alternative? Just stay uncommitted and float. If you want to get anywhere in life, if you want to buy a house or a car or get a pet or not get a pet, you have to make a decision. And that's very important. So, commit to your choice.

You have to have an emotional why. Why am I doing this? That's what drives the world. And let me give you some examples of those who had an emotional why in a devotional context. And we call this attitude. You have to have an attitude. Attitude is the mindset you have that drives you in a certain direction. And in the nectar of instruction, Srila Prabhupāda writes in essence that when it comes to devotional service and advancement in devotional service, attitude is everything. (For details of the five attitudes, please refer to class titled ‘5 Attitudes that invite Bhakti | ISV | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 23 July 2022’, ‘https://youtu.be/idnIceB56kM?si=ZmrNnTN17PhGmCO2)

So, you got to have an attitude. It can't be nondescript or maybe I'm on a National Geographic vacation this lifetime. No, it's got to be an all powerful mood that leads to honing one's determination. So it becomes so powerful that it's called dṛḍha-vratāḥ that you make this solemn vow and it's your only goal in life is to go back home back to godhead. 

One more prerequisite for determination and that is to abandon mistaken unchangeability. That's an invented phrase. It's also called cognitive bias. In other words, I have a certain mindset and I'm determined to keep it. I won't change it. And the mindset that one might develop is as follows. That I am where I am. I'm stuck and there's really no way I can change it. I can't improve. If you've ever approached something in that mood and you said, "Well, it's not possible for me." Then the next thing that you would do is make a long list of excuses why you can't do it. So, there's an antidote to that and that is to assume that it can be done. And the vedanta sutra says that you have to assume that you can come to the highest position of spiritual life. Why do you have to assume that? Because the śāstra are talking to whom? They're talking to me, right? And what do they say? They say come to the highest position. Emancipate yourself from the material world, but more importantly develop kṛṣṇa-prema. Someone may say, "Yeah, but to do that I have to go past anartha-nivṛttiḥ. To do that, I have to come to ruchi. To do that, I have to come to āsakti." And who can do that? It's rarely achieved. Well, Srila Vyāsadeva says you have to assume that you can do it because the shastra said you can do it and unless you have that it's very hard to be determined because then you'll say well everybody else can do it but not me. Six Gosvamis can do it or there's only one pure devotee Prabhupāda, and everyone else has no possibility. So, mistaken unchangeability means I can't change. That's a mistake. Cognitive bias thinking I'm stuck the way I am. I can't improve. I can't make steps to improve myself.

Kṛṣṇa Katha - H.G Vaisesika Dasa | 2021-03-26 | ISKCON of Silicon Valley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBgW_VEbYuA

Time where the answer starts in the video: 2 hrs 05 mins

I have a suggestion. You can try this as homework. Just try flipping that and instead of saying ‘how can I have more faith in Kṛṣṇa’, ask this question ‘how can Kṛṣṇa have more faith in me. It's a relationship. So, why is it that Kṛṣṇa has to prove himself to us constantly. Why not just say ‘okay, I'm going to be the one who proves myself to Kṛṣṇa’. Then I'm for real. If you just do that and change the role then you'll be happy immediately and you'll go about your day thinking ‘I'm going to show Kṛṣṇa that I'm worth His time and His glance’. So don't try to see Kṛṣṇa but try to work in such a way that Kṛṣṇa will want to see you. If you just flip that one switch, then you'll be happy and Kṛṣṇa will reveal himself in ways that you won't even want to speak about because no one's going to believe you and you just keep it to yourself and just keep feeding that energy that you get from Kṛṣṇa revealing himself to you in amazing ways to the most intimate devotees you know or just keep it in your own heart and say, ‘Kṛṣṇa I know you're there for me and I want to prove myself to you because for so long I have been the runt of the litter. I'm that little puppy that nobody wants. They come by and go, ‘not that one’. I got left out of the litter because I'm just a little runt spiritually and I'm the mercy case. If you do that and you try to please Kṛṣṇa 

ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi

na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ

sevonmukhe hi jihvādau

svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ 

[CC Madhya 17.136]

You take this perspective that I'm going to serve Kṛṣṇa and that's all there is to it and everything else will be revealed from that point.

Put Down Your Mask | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 28 Sep 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kswytJr69R4

Time where the answer starts in the video: 1hr 22 mins

One of the main points of non-violent communication is that you don't assume that you know the person's intention. This really goes to the heart of aggravating people when you assume that you know why they said something that, what their intention was behind it. So one of the tenets of non-violent communication is really to state it as you are making your case to the person, ‘you may not have intended to do this. I know you didn't intend to do it or I'm not judging whether you intended to do it or not but this is how it made me feel. This was the effect that it had, even though I'm sure you didn't intend to do this. If you ask somebody a question you say willing or able. If you say, ‘are you able to do this’, they can say yes. But if they say, ‘are you willing to do it’, it starts getting a little contentious. Willing and able; these two ideas of what's your intention behind it. Another point I bring out from this verse is that what the purport [of BG 17.15] says, ‘One should not speak in such a way as to agitate the minds of others. Of course, when a teacher speaks, he can speak the truth for the instruction of his students, but such a teacher should not speak to those who are not his students if he will agitate their minds.’ This goes to this point I made earlier about discrimination. You have to see that there are different classes of people you're talking to. For the madhyama-adhikārī you have to be careful. If somebody didn't sign up for your program and you try to instruct them, they will be like, ‘what are you talking about I didn't sign up for this’. So, you have to see that it is appropriate to bring up to people. You may have to wait sometimes. There's times to speak and there's times to hold back and it's not like in the name of authenticity at every moment you have to say, ‘well I have to speak my truth. It's like that's just the way.

Kṛṣṇa is The Best Resource | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 15 Nov 2025

https://youtu.be/MiMptXo5aT4?si=JJ8NZTrOR4l-yT-A

Time where the answer starts in the video: 28 min

Prabhupāda gives an example of his own child, who was rambunctious and during a hot day when the fan was going on the table and Prabhupāda was having a discussion with a friend and his little son was causing a ruckus trying to climb up and touch the fan, and Prabhupāda as his father kept blocking him from coming up. And then his friend said, "Well, why don't you turn it down and then let him touch it and find out for himself?" And they did that and he wasn't injured or hurt, but he did get a sense for why he shouldn't climb up there himself. In the Shrimat Bhagwatam we find in chapter 87 of the 10th canto, the second verse. It says that the Lord has created the universe for two purposes because we are living beings as we're a special energy. We're amphibious. We can live in either place. [In the translation to SB 10.87.2] Śukadeva Gosvamī said: The Supreme Lord manifested the material intelligence, senses, mind and vital air of the living entities so that they could indulge their desires for sense gratification, take repeated births to engage in fruitive activities, become elevated in future lives and ultimately attain liberation. So, we have the opportunity to live in the material or spiritual environment and Kṛṣṇa gives facility for either one. His ultimate goal for the living entity is that the living entity be happy after all we're part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa and our nature is to be blissfully engaged in service to the Lord. So it's a kind of a didactic process. The material world it's meant to teach us and it's a very liberal kind of educational system which is the best kind because Kṛṣṇa wants us to make a choice by our free will. Realize that we have free will and not retreat from it because that's another tendency. There's a book called Escape from Freedom which makes compelling argument for the fact that people in general are afraid of freedom and once they get it they have this sense of insecurity. So, then they gravitate towards authoritarianism and other ways in which they could give up their free choice. They choose to give up their free will. And so there's that environment in the material world. Kṛṣṇa gives the opportunity for us to come to knowledge. He provides all knowledge from within the heart and externally through vyasadev and so forth. But he wants us to make our own choice. When I go out to distribute books, I always find it intriguing how free will works. And I'm more interested in presenting Kṛṣṇa consciousness to people, especially we have an object for them to take and decide upon (a book) by their own free will. It's a much more edifying experience when someone you present, I present and then they make their own choice rather than bamboozling them into taking it through psychological coercion. So Kṛṣṇa doesn't try to coerce us. He gives us knowledge and allows us to make a free choice. And in that lies the very purpose of the dichotomy which is when you (come to knowledge) and freely choose to serve Kṛṣṇa. It comes by your own volition, which we have, and we have to discover it and not be afraid of it and we have to use it to surrender to Kṛṣṇa and serve him and from that, there's this very deep relationship that is utterly completely fulfilling because ye bhajanti tu māṁ bhaktyā mayi te teṣu cāpy aham [BG 9.29]. Kṛṣṇa says when you decide that you you just want me by your own volition then I embrace you so completely and fully but you have to come to it ourselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiMptXo5aT4

Time where the answer starts in the video: 55 mins

Coming to such a feeling may require going through some experiences in this world that are trying. We become purified by fire-like experiences. It's like gold is purified by fire. So one of the elements and the didactic part of the material world is that we undergo loss, gain, suffering, sometimes apparent happiness and so forth. And if we are observant as we go through our lives about who is actually taking care of us, we can step by step come to a conclusion that it's all Kṛṣṇa taking care of us.

yasmin yato yarhi yena ca yasya yasmād

 yasmai yathā yad uta yas tv aparaḥ paro vā

 bhāvaḥ karoti vikaroti pṛthak svabhāvaḥ

 sañcoditas tad akhilaṁ bhavataḥ svarūpam [SB 7.9.20]

which is basically Prahlāda Mahārāja's way of saying that I've analyzed everything. I've seen through my father, through this whole experience I've been through with Hiraṇyakaśipu my father, that you're behind everything. I mean the way it came out, he could understand that everything is Kṛṣṇa. And so you have to live your life with an awareness of trying to find that.

I can give an anecdote from my own life which is just outliving my parents. It's a visceral experience having and losing parents. Even people who have bad relationships with their parents, if one of them passes, it's a very trying time because they're really tied into our identity in this world, and they raise us in a certain context, and that was because of momentum from a previous life that we're accustomed to fit into a particular family. So it's really part of our identity, and so losing a parent is very difficult.

However, because of my context of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, although I found it emotionally traumatizing in a way — in fact, when my mother died, I remember taking a walk around the neighborhood and already some news had spread that my mother had passed. So somebody was driving by as I was going for a walk, and they rolled down their window, and they asked me how I was. And I honestly said I felt like I got beat up. I felt like people had put a sack over my head and just beat me to a pulp. That's how I felt. And I was analyzing it: Why do I feel like that?

The conclusion I came to is that psychically my subtle body, my psychological body — there was an umbilical cord connected to my mother. Although it's cut at birth, the gross physical one, there's still the subtle one. Everything's tied into that. But as I continued to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, what arose was a realization that my mother and my father were Kṛṣṇa's representatives. In one way I was thinking they were Kṛṣṇa. They're just Kṛṣṇa. They put a mask on somebody else and here's Kṛṣṇa, “but here's — that's your mama,” but that's actually Kṛṣṇa.

And one of the ways that I had that realization was I read in the Bhagavad-gītā where Prabhupāda said if you realize the love of your mother and then you think of that times 10 million, that's Kṛṣṇa. So then I thought, okay, that was my little taste of unconditional love from Kṛṣṇa coming through my mother.

And so in all instances in our life, as we continue the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness throughout our life and cultivate that perspective, it becomes in-grown — the way we see the world, the way we interact with others and so forth — and the way we realize Kṛṣṇa's protection. We see oftentimes in retrospect. There's a video that I saw on, where else but YouTube, of this guy walking down the street. He was very stern and he's very matter-of-fact, and he keeps bumping people or pushing people out of the way, and they're like, “Hey, what?” And then you'll notice that he pushed somebody two seconds before they got hit by a car, or somebody else — there was an anvil probably falling from the sky, and you know, the other one was pushed through. What it seems like is you're getting slammed. But when you play out your life and you look at it in retrospect, you go like, “Oh, I see the protection.”

But that takes some cultivation to see Kṛṣṇa's hand in everything. And when we have that, we're seeing reality because Kṛṣṇa is protecting us at every minute. Even though the material world is endlessly mutable and whatever material situation we have now is going to change, that's part of His protection, to give us clarity. In the Bhagavad-gītā from the very beginning we just have to listen a little more carefully.

For instance, which part of the material universe is suffering — from Brahmaloka to Pātālaloka — did you not get? I'm like, “Yeah, yeah, right. Except for my neighborhood and my family and so forth, or my material body is going to do fine.” Not necessarily true. In fact, categorically untrue. And Kṛṣṇa gives us other categorical philosophical points to consider as we interact with the material world, and that's the idea of

vidyāṁ cāvidyāṁ ca yas

 tad vedobhayaṁ saha

 avidyayā mṛtyuṁ tīrtvā

 vidyayāmṛtam aśnute

 Śrī Īśopaniṣad, Mantra 11

You have to be observant. As you're cultivating spiritual knowledge, you're supposed to see how things are turning out ultimately, and that can lead you to a complete dependence on Kṛṣṇa because that's true and you'll come to realize in due course of time.

We never want to be glib about such answers because people really do suffer in this world. We all do. And when we're confronted with annihilation or the threat of being deprived of something, it really can seem dire and we may be overwhelmed.

Another example I'll give is a realization I had during the Loma Prieta earthquake here in California, Bay Area, circa 1989. We weren't so much affected except for if you watch the news, you figure the whole Bay Area is finished, and lots of people from other places called and said, “Are you okay?” It's like, “Yeah, a couple things fell off our shelves,” but freeways did break, the Bay Bridge did have a section that fell out of it and so forth.

But then I was thinking afterwards because there are so many rigid structures that we've built, and we expect them to stay there. We do build things with an idea of permanence, which is, from a geological point of view, not so wise. I mean, I was thinking after Loma Prieta earthquake where things caved in and everyone freaked out: if we lived in a teepee, we barely would have noticed. I mean, the water would have sloshed around, but a teepee is a little flexible.

If we're rigidly connected to the idea that I'm going to permanently stay here and that I'm this body, somehow or other by following the latest longevity advice we'll definitely live to 101 — because that's prominent now, right? Yeah, it's prominent — I'll be caught by surprise.

So Kṛṣṇa gives us the Gītā as a memo so we're not caught by surprise. You know, it's like: don’t invest everything in the material world. Jesus said it too. Don't build your foundation on sand. This is a sand foundation you have. It's not going to hold. Doesn't mean you become neurotic or antisocial. It just means you build that awareness into your consciousness as you go through life.

The Lord Reciprocates With Everyone | HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa | GYR | GEV | 25 Dec 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9P1EOSBUs4

Time where the answer starts in the video: 24 mins

I was a brahmacārī for 13 years and very happily engaged in brahmacarya life. I've now been a gṛhastha for 38 years and very happily so and I found lessons in both those to be profound. That's because each situation we go into in life when we're not fooling around. So, varṇāśrama means no fooling around. You're under authority. You do things for Kṛṣṇa, even if you don't do them perfectly. You're doing them to the best of your ability with what you have right now or who you are right now, what stage of life you're in right now and you take permission from Kṛṣṇa through authorities to enter into whatever stage of life you need to be in. That includes brahmacārī life. That includes gṛhastha āśrama. That includes vānaprastha and it includes complete renunciation. All these are acknowledgments by Kṛṣṇa that at particular phases in our life, and everyone's different, unique it's not stereotype, we need a way to live our life. Jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā [SB 1.2.10]. Jīvasya means you should have vitality and I felt it myself in brahmacārī āśrama. I felt great vitality because it was the specific time in my life when I needed to have that full permission just to be engaged in service all day long. My psychophysiological nature changed, and that happens, and I decided to enter into gṛhastha āśrama when I was 29. I did so under permission and with care. I didn't fool around and fall in love. No fooling around. And because of that in the gṛhastha āśrama I have not felt any impediment. Rather on the contrary I've found that I had a kind of shelter and authorized permission to live in a way that I've needed to over the last few decades. To be balanced. Jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā. So, that I can inquire and that is inquiry about the absolute truth. If you're suited for a particular āśrama and you try to go for another āśrama out of a sense of I'm going to beat the system. Good luck and Kṛṣṇa doesn't even recommend it in the Bhāgavatam. He says to Uddhava sve sve ’dhikāre yā niṣṭhā sa guṇaḥ parikīrtitaḥ [SB 11.21.2]. You should act according to what you need, according to what you are and what makes you balanced in life so that you can go and inquire. Adhikārī. What's your adhikārī at a particular time. He says sa guṇaḥ parikīrtitaḥ. He says good for you for doing that. That's what he's actually saying to Uddhava. Then he said viparyayas tu doṣaḥ syād. The opposite is a fault. If you think that I'll artificially try to live in a way to show that I'm more spiritually advanced than I actually am and he says that's a doṣaḥ. It's a fault. It means you're not going to succeed in trying to be something you're not. 

Prabhupāda, in the Eighth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, in the section of Gajendra, describes how Gajendra was an elephant and he was a very powerful land animal and the crocodile was a water animal. When Gajendra got out of his element and was in the water and was attacked by a crocodile which he could have easily beaten on the land, but couldn't beat him in the water and he almost died. Prabhupāda uses that to describe how each one of us has to be in a natural condition of life for us to go on with vitality and inquire about the absolute truth.

So, any glorification of any āśrama means it's a glorification and appreciation by the person who's in that āśrama, who's suited to be in that āśrama. You can make the same statements about the gṛhastha āśrama, as Prabhupāda does. He says, first of all, that most of Mahāprabhu’s intimate associates, nitya-siddhas, were gṛhasthas. You don't find that in Śaṅkarācārya’s system. Unless you've taken sannyāsa, and given up the world then you are not qualified. You have no standing in spiritual life. But because bhakti is so complete and it includes what I said before, a way of interacting with the world in which you're never affected by it because you're doing everything for Kṛṣṇa, including raising children.

The Lord Reciprocates With Everyone | HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa | GYR | GEV | 25 Dec 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9P1EOSBUs4

Time where the answer starts in the video: 31 mins

Madana-mohana means that Kṛṣṇa helps us to transfer from material lust to prema, meaning to transfer away, and He is named in that way for a reason. Madana in the material world is Cupid, who affects everyone. He shoots his arrow, and that leads to consequences, for which one becomes more entangled in the material world.

Gopīnātha (prayojana) is the highest conception of that love, in which He is the Lord of the gopīs. That is the context of the highest form of consciousness, which is invoked by the process of bhakti, especially hearing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, when we hear:

bhaktiṁ parāṁ bhagavati pratilabhya kāmaṁ 

hṛd-rogam āśv apahinoty acireṇa dhīraḥ

 (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.33.39)

Śukadeva Gosvāmī says that when one is able to appreciate Gopīnātha, that is, the activities of Kṛṣṇa with the gopīs in Vṛndāvana, then it also says hṛd-rogam āśv apahinoty acireṇa dhīraḥ—very quickly one loses the desire for the material world and would not see anything else.

Then abhideya—Govinda. Govinda means that we have senses. Go means senses; it also means cow, and Govinda engages our senses. Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ  tat-paratvena nirmalam (Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya 19.170). There is a way in which Govinda—He is also the Lord of our senses. So, when we engage in devotional service, we are practically using our senses, and Kṛṣṇa is there for us at every stage of life.

Madana-mohana attracts us away from the material world.

Govinda engages our senses.

Gopīnātha treats us to a glimpse into the highest level of love in the spiritual world.

ei tina ṭhākura gauḍīyāke kariyāchena ātmasāt  

e tinera caraṇa vandoṅ, tine mora nātha

(Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi 1.19). 

These are the Lords of the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas. So, we have a very clear path, and it is relishable at every step.

Selfless Service Unleashes an Ocean of Krishna's Mercy | SB 7.10.16 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 28 Oct 25

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuzR8LvNWo

Time where the answer starts in the video: 1 hr 2 mins

Set a stellar example. Give unconditional love. Give priority to your kids. The best investment anybody can make in a Kṛṣṇa conscious movement is in kids. And then as they're growing up, make sure they have an environment where they're with other kids who are doing devotional things. And as they come into their teenage years, the main mantra is they succeed when they see peers doing great in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So any environment you can make where their peers and also empower kids so they have upward mobility so they have services where they have a stake in the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, they have something they can do and organize as they come into their teen years especially so they feel like they own it. And those are principles that have worked in our community. We are noticing that kids when they're together with other kids, especially in their teens, they emulate what the others do. And if they're with young people that are doing great in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they aspire for that, too. We noticed a trend around the world where a lot of teenagers gather for doing kīrtana and if they're good at it then that in many places that's it. They say, ‘we do kīrtana, this is our thing, this is our brand.’ Just rebrand the whole thing and if you have a place where you can rebrand and just say, yeah kids are great at kīrtana, but also add ślokas, reading and japa and service and book distribution five things and say this is the new brand. They can take that brand as well as they can just the brand of just kīrtana. Why limit? Give them an opportunity to do all these services and those other kinds of services are so naturally inspiring to the soul.

vāsudeve bhagavati

 bhakti-yogaḥ prayojitaḥ

 janayaty āśu vairāgyaṁ

 jñānaṁ ca yad ahaitukam

 [SB 1.2.7]

They come into full knowledge by having that facility. So, work hard to develop systems where young people can be with other young people and they can do all of the devotional activities which they're perfectly willing to do when they're led to that plethora of devotional activities.

The Path to Success is Marked by Many Comebacks | HG Vaisesika Dasa & HG Nirakula Dasi | 16 Jun 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9ClkeBEEZg

Time where the answer starts in the video: 27 mins

One lesson is that such occurrences are inevitable in the material world as described in the śāstra and Prabhupāda as mentioned many times. In the bamboo forest there's ways in which the wind moves the dry bamboo in such a way it causes friction and then a fire starts. And such flare-ups have been there since time immemorial. Even in earlier ages that weren't noted as ages of quarrel like Kali-yuga (specifically noted as a time when people are contentious).

For instance, when Hiraṇyakaśipu appeared, there was an alarm set off that there was some yogī who was doing such severe austerities that fire was coming out of his head and the nature of it, because it was a very intense tapasya, was disturbing the resonance of the gated community of the higher planets, who then sent Brahmā to take care of the situation. There Prabhupāda uses the word upheaval. There always is upheavals in the material world. He talks about how when he was on the Jaladūta it could be very calm and clear and then an hour later there'd be a huge storm that is life-threatening, and these kinds of geopolitical situations arise due to the nature of the material world.

Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā:

icchā-dveṣa-samutthena

dvandva-mohena bhārata

sarva-bhūtāni sammohaṁ

sarge yānti paran-tapa (BG 7.27)

that because people are affected by the lower modes of material nature, they have icchā, a desire to conquer the world and or at least conquer their side of the neighborhood or the playground. And they have dveṣa, an aversion for other people who seem different from them.

And this is the observation of Bhūmi in the Eleventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam or maybe it's in the Twelfth. Bhūmi, who is earth personified, is witnessing various rulers who come into the world and they claim portions of the earth and then they spill blood. They fight for it and spill blood for it. And then she says when they've conquered some land then they say that's not enough. I want the water too—meaning the ocean. And she says it's ludicrous because from her perspective they're only here for a few minutes. They come into the world frothing at the mouth trying to take over and control something that they're going to lose in a few minutes anyway.

From geological time, 75, 85, 90 years is just a flash—what to speak of an eternity. But it's caused by the churning of the lower modes of material nature that pits one person against another, sometimes friends against friends or family members against family members.

Even in a family, sometimes when the patriarch or matriarch passes from the family, there's infighting over a few dollars that were left behind. So it's quite natural. So, from a higher perspective of the Bhāgavatam, we can understand that these things are always going to go on.

We also know that when Prabhupāda was a young person, he was engaged in the Gandhian movement because there was a disgust amongst the populace with the occupation of the British in India who had stolen resources, interrupted commerce, and they were frankly engaged in thievery—what to speak of domination of the population. And Gandhī came to oust the British and Prabhupāda was part of that movement when he met Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura at Ultā Ḍāṅgā Junction Road. He came at the behest of one of his friends.

He said, “This is a different sādhū.” Prabhupāda had met enough sādhus in his life who had disappointed him. He thought it's just another one. His friend said, “No, this one's different.” And when he went there and he met Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta, he was immediately impressed with his stature.

Prabhupāda had argued with him because Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī said, “You're young and educated. Why don't you please help spread Lord Caitanya's movement around the world?” Prabhupāda had argued that how will anyone listen to us when we're occupied by the British? First we have to fix that political problem.

Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī said, “First of all it's not fixable because there are laws of unintended consequences. You fix one thing and it causes another problem.”

yasmāt priyāpriya-viyoga-saṁyoga-janma-

 śokāgninā sakala-yoniṣu dahyamānaḥ

 duḥkhauṣadhaṁ tad api duḥkham atad-dhiyāhaṁ

 bhūman bhramāmi vada me tava dāsya-yogam  (SB 7.9.17)

Prahlāda Mahārāja said in his prayers to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva: duḥkhauṣadhaṁ. When you take medicine for duḥkha, whatever is bothering you about the world that we live in, tad api duḥkham atad-dhiyāhaṁ—the remedy becomes worse than the disease itself.

And often in political situations, because people have mixed motives anyway for whatever they do, it causes a worse problem or there is some unintended consequence that leads to more that has to be fixed, and it lends to an endless string of unfixable circumstances.

So Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī told him there's no time to waste in spreading Lord Caitanya's movement, and he also made the point that it supersedes trying to fix the various conflicts that are going on in the world at any given time.

Oftentimes we think, “Oh, it used to be peaceful.” For instance, it was peaceful in America, right? No, I was there. I'm almost 70. I remember kindergarten—President Kennedy getting shot. I remember going home and thinking, “I don't like this. I don't like this whole arrangement.” If the president can get shot, then what's the use of the various celebrations of this achievement, that achievement? If it all ends like that, what's the use of it?

That's why Kṛṣṇa consciousness appealed to me so much later in my life because it addresses the root of the problem. So how to think of it? That's the overarching way to think about what goes on in the world.

Of course, we have compassion because people are suffering, and the strife and conflict that arises because of human interaction is certainly distressing to devotees. And the panacea ultimately is to establish the standard of Kṛṣṇa consciousness so people can take advantage of it.

As Prabhupāda said in Chicago in 1975, he came there and there was a newspaper article on the front page from the Chicago Tribune. It said, “Crime—why and what to do.” It was a crime wave in Chicago, which is probably still going on. I mean, it comes in waves. It's a crime wave. And so, you fix it and it comes back. Why is it coming back?

Prabhupāda said, “Why? We can answer why.” It's because of this phenomenon of an impure heart—people who aren't Kṛṣṇa conscious. So, Prabhupāda had met with the police chief in Chicago and he asked him to give us a building there. And he said, “And then you give us a building and you give us the criminals, and we'll give them a program of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and we'll help to uplift them.”

Much of the penal system nowadays is punitive—go there to get punished. Some countries don't have that. But there's a way in which anybody can be reformed. So, one way to think about how to deal with it is from the root, and that is to help to establish the standard of Kṛṣṇa consciousness so people can take advantage of it.

That's the view of our ācāryas in general. In this age, people don't have any philosophy. So, if there is some system where people can come and reform themselves, help themselves, and help others—that is important.