PLEASE NOTE, *THIS DOCUMENT IS AT DRAFT (NOT PERFECT) STAGE. IT IS RECOMMENDED TO READ WITH GM’S VIDEO IN BACKGROUND. *
Mukham karoti vacalam pangum langayate girim
Yat kripa tam aham vande sri gurum dina tarinam
Paramananda Madhavam Sri Caitanya Isvaram
Israeli, Indian, Chinese. So there will be always fight because people are body conscious. If everybody would see that they are children of Krsna, and they have given them all these upadis, false identification, then will there be a peaceful world? We have the Olympics where the country is competing against the others. So actually, Prabhupada called Mayapur the United Nations of the Spiritual World! Haribol! Here about 150 years ago, Srila Bhakti Vinoda Thakura predicted that people from America, UK, Europe, Russia, they will come to Mayapur and do the Navadvip parikrama and they would meet their Arya bratha, Indian brothers, they would embrace each other and say Jai Sacinandana! Jai Sacinandana! Gauranga! Gauranga! Gauranga! Gauranga! Gauranga! Gauranga! So we are very fortunate that this has in our lifetime come true! That people in parikrama parties we have Bengali party, Hindi party, International party which included Chinese and various countries and then they have the Russian party and Hindi party. Next year we will have a south India, the Tamil party! We are going to have idlis and dosas and tamarind rice! Ha! Anyway, so we have these parties coming together and chanting Jai Sacinandana Gaura Hari. So the vision of Srila Bhakti Vinoda Thakura has now become a fact. So these are the pastimes of Sri Caitanya manifesting today. You are part of Lord Caitanya’s pastimes. You can also change so many people. If you are able to liberate even one person, your 14 generations get free ticket to back to Godhead. So we thank Radhey Shyam prabhu and his associates, for bringing you to Mayapur Dhama, and we hope that you enjoy your stay, get spiritual energy, then go back to where you come from and keep spreading Krsna consciousness. Haribol! I understand that you are still fasting and so I don’t want to hold up your dinner.
Are there any questions collected?
Question: Hare Krsna maharaj: How you are having so much pain and all the things and you are continuously persuading and spreading the Krsna consciousness movement?
Guru maharaj: I have some physical challenges. A stroke, a kidney failure, liver, but those give some obstacles. But chanting and preaching gives unlimited spiritual bliss! Anander seema noi, anander seema noi, niraananda dure jai. So there is no limit to the spiritual bliss, and if I didn’t have that then, living would be very difficult. But with this spiritual bliss, it is very blissful! So I want you to also have this spiritual bliss. You don’t have the physical challenges, I do. When I was a young person, I could also wrestle, swim, chant, dance. Now it is difficult! But I am trying! I do my physiotherapy, but every day I do some preaching. I am live on Mayapur.tv and also Facebook and give class in the evening. So thousands of people attend it. Today I told I will be here giving class. So you are all broadcasted worldwide, you are all famous! Another question.
Question: Hare Krsna maharaj. Please share your striking moments with Srila Prabhupada and something about the Tamil community preaching program?
Guru maharaj: I have tried different paths – yoga, Buddhism, different paths, Christianity, mystical Judaism, but I wanted to find a teacher who practiced what he preached. So then somehow I was led to Prabhupada, and he was a someone that I could see, believed what he preached. Normally they walk the talk, he walked the walk, he talked the talk. Any way. He practiced what he preached. I told him that I wanted to go to India to find a guru. But he said I will teach you here, and will send you to India later. So I stayed with him two years in Canada. And then my father, he was in America, I thought he would be very happy I was a devotee, I was following the strict rules of no intoxication, no meat eating, but my father was very angry. He said I will disown you and I will turn your name into the draft to serve the army and you will die in Vietnam. I asked Prabhupada what should I do? He told me join Krsna’s army. Haribol! Ha! So I joined Krsna’s army and did not fight the American wars. I fought to help people become Krsna conscious. So I didn’t do so much for my community, because I came here to India and you are all my community! But recently, my father he said he was sorry that after all father is a father, son is a son. And my mother came to Mayapur twice. She said she had a religious experience in the Ganges. She put in her will, that some of her ashes should be put in the Ganges. And I brought my two sisters here. And they like India a lot. They started chanting a little bit So I am trying, but they are not top priority! I try to help them as much as I can, and they have children also. But I don’t want to impose myself on them. To the extent that they are interested, I try to give them information. Does that answer your question? Haribol!
Question: Hare Krsna maharaj. I am a student. I have a doubt. In today’s lecture you said that if we pray to Krsna we can do miracles, and you also said that, I forgot that point. My question is: How can we change the way others think? Like in college there can be so much opposition sometimes and if we have to change the way they think – they think very differently in the wrong direction – one or two many become devotees, not everybody, so how can we do that?
Guru maharaj: When they asked Srila Prabhupada, what was his mission, he said I just want to change the way people think! And rightly he said, that may be the most difficult thing! But knowledge can do that. If people understand that they are not the body, they are eternal, then naturally they can change the way they are thinking. So we are giving knowledge. Srila Prabhupada said we are not doing conversion, we do convincing. And people all over the world, they get convinced by Bhagavad-gita, by Srimad Bhagavatam. So in this way, gradually more and more people get convinced. You have to become expert in presenting the philosophy. What is the purpose of life? And people if they are convinced, they naturally change. But some people maybe come first and some come later. I had a family, the mother, the son, the daughters, everybody was a devotee. Except the father. He was dead against! He didn’t chant and he was against! He was later diagnosed with cancer. One day he saw some hairy, black individuals with leather ropes, walk through his wall. Oh, no! no! Not now! And they disappeared. Then he asked his wife, do you have the beads, give me Tulasi neck beads, and the japa beads. Bhagavad-gita, read me Bhagavad-gita. So who were those people with ropes who walked through his wall? … Suddenly changed to become a devotee. ..Some people may come later but some came sooner. But we have to try. And then … audio break.
Haribol!
Transcribed by Jayaraseshwari devi dasi
28 May 2019