Question: Many girls in our group are chanting 16 rounds and reading Bhagavad-gītā, vegetarians and attending regular classes,and are aspiring to take initiation from you, Gurudeva! But when it comes to śikṣā papers, they get stuck in the 8 rounds paper, because it has no onion and garlic. Most of the girls want to leave onion and garlic because of staying with parents and pressure that they get from them; they are not able to leave. Gurudeva, what can we do under such situations?

Jayapataka Swami: This is a big problem in India that although people are vegetarian, they eat onion and garlic. Actually, the onion and garlic, we can’t offer to any – what to speak of Viṣṇu – even Śiva or Durgā, anyone. Because, the śāstra says that...

Question: All the devotees from the spiritual world, Yaśoda, Nanda Mahārāja, etc. were nitya-siddhās who appeared in Gaura-līlā, but Śrīvāsa had a wife and children in Gaura-līlā, how do we understand this?

Jayapataka Swami: Śacī-mātā came in Gaura-līlā, she is non-different from Devakī or Yaśoda. So similarly,Śrīvāsa’s wife was Mālinī, and she was a great devotee of Lord Nityānanda. So, what’s difficult to understand this? that sometimes the Lord’s devotees come in...

Question: When praying for our spiritual master, we are desperate to have their association and when we pray for their stay here, we cannot really say, from the heart, the phrase ‘if Kṛṣṇa desires’ because that means we are okay to accept, even if the Lord desires otherwise, is it due to my deep rooted bodily concept of life? Please help me to be sincere in my prayers.

Jayapataka Swami: Anyway, whatever Kṛṣṇa wants will happen,and we don’t want to use our devotion to Kṛṣṇa, as some kind of business deal. I will do worship to You; You satisfy what I want. If Kṛṣṇa wants something, even if it is not what we want, we accept it that...

Question: Are insects and animals that die during kīrtana get liberation from material bondage? and what could be the destination of a mosquito after being killed by a devotee, while chanting the holy name, and what could be the reaction to the devotee?

Jayapataka Swami: Well, Śrīla Prabhupāda would scold the devotees in Calcutta, for placing a dark blue velvet curtain, which attracted many mosquitoes, and then devotees would kill the mosquitoes. Śrīla Prabhupāda would say, you are attracting them and then killing...