Question: How to be completely subservient to guru’s instructions in spite of day to day obstacles and be 100% inspired.

Jayapataka Swami: These ‘how to’ questions are very, what to say, very bewildering. How to be Krsna conscious? How to eat prasadam? With your mouth! How to follow the order of the guru? We do it by following the orders of the guru! It is like a woman saying how to be chaste? Don’t be unchaste. Stick and stay loyal to your husband and don’t go to other men. How to follow the order of the guru and be 100% blissful? If you follow the order of the guru, you will be a 100% blissful!! So sometimes I wonder what to say when someone asks ‘How to?’ Because what is the problem? How to be Krsna conscious? How to follow the order of the guru? How to be Krsna conscious-you follow the order of the guru. How to follow the order of the guru? You be Krsna conscious!Ha! Ha! So it is like a circle of questions. I am trying to understand what is the difficulty in following the order of the guru? Difficulty is if you have bad association, they will say don’t follow the order of the guru, drink whisky. We are your friends, we want to drink together. So how do you follow the order of the guru – by not associating with bad people. How do you avoid associating with bad people? Associate with good people! Bad people don’t like good people! How do you associate with good people? How to? How to? How to? By figuring it out who is good and who is bad, and associating with the good!  Those who like a satvic lifestyle and those who are devotees are good association. Those who are non-devotees, atheists, those who are addicted to breaking principles, they are bad association. So we try to associate with the good people and then it helps us to follow the orders of the guru. Then they say what if your spouse is not Krsna conscious? How do you follow the order of the guru? Obviously, marrying a non Krsna conscious spouse makes things a little complicated. Therefore, we recommend you marry a devotee. Also check that your expectations are similar. In Bhagavatam it says ‘yata guna tata ruci.’ If you see that they have the same taste and the same qualities, compatible taste and qualities. Kardama muni was a sage and the daughter of Manu was a ksatriya. So normally a brahmana doesn’t marry a ksatriya, but this girl was very Krsna conscious. And Kardama muni wanted to get married. So he accepted Devahuti, who was the daughter of Manu, and it was austere for her, because she was used to living in a palace and Kardama muni lived in the forest in a hermitage. By using his mystic powers, he created a city that flew in the sky. These things are described in the third canto of Srimad Bhagavatam. So in this way he explains what grihasta life was. But then he made a prenuptial agreement that once he gave a son to his wife, he would take sannyas. But she had nine daughters, and he wanted to take sannyas. But she said you, promised me a son, you gave me nine daughters. So then he gave her a son, and that son was Kapiladeva, Kapila muni. Not Kapildev the cricket star of India. Kapila muni, the avatar of Krsna. So like this then she got the opportunity, to be the mother of the incarnation of Godhead. So miraculous things like this happen if one tries to serve Krsna. So Kapila muni became like the guru for His mother. He instructed on the principles of yoga. Bhakti yoga and sankya yoga. So like this it is very interesting, so that is why we recommend people read Srimad Bhagavatam. Because there are many people in many circumstances, how do you follow the order of the guru, they have shown it and how to be Krsna conscious, they show that! So that is why we recommend people read the Srimad Bhagavatam. But people say they are too busy, they read magazines, other magazines – not BTG. I go in the plane they are reading Femina or Filmfare, other magazine I think about movie stars. There are all kinds of magazines, political magazines, cinema stars, but why they cannot read the Bhagavatam? Bhagavatam shows how great the devotees, grihastas, brahmanas, ksatriyas, vaisyas, sudras, they all engaged in devotional service. So thank you very much.
17-JULY-2019 CHENNAI, INDIA