KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS – THE NEXT HIGHER LEVEL BG 02-14 – 1 NOVEMBER 2005, ATLANTA, USA

transcribed by HG Jayaraseswari mataji )



JPS_BG_02-14_-_Krishna_Consciousness_-_the_next_higher_level_-_01-11-05_Atlanta-USA.mp3

HH JAYAPATAKA SWAMI GURU MAHARAJ:

KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS – THE NEXT HIGHER LEVEL BG 02-14 – 1 NOVEMBER 2005, ATLANTA, USA



Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Narayanam Namaskrityam Naram chaiva Narottamam

Devim sarasvatim vyaasam tatho jayam udirayeth



Mookam karoti vaachalam

panghum langhayate girim,

Yat kripa tamaham vande

Sri gurum dina taarinam

Paramananada Madhavam,

Sri Caitanya Ishwaram



Hari hi om tatsat!



Matrasparshas to kaunteya sitoshna sukha dukha dha

Aagama paayino nityaas taams titikshashva bharata.



Translation by HDG AC Bhaktivdenta Swami Prabhupad!

Oh son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress and their disappearance in due course are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer season. They arise from sense perception of scion of Bharata and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.

Purport by Srila Prabhupad: Jai Srila Prabhupad!



In the proper discharge of duty, one has to learn to tolerate nonpermanent appearances and disappearances of happiness and distress. According to Vedic injunction, one has to take his bath early in the morning even during the month of Magha (January/February).



( Guru Maharaj added here: Here in America you have heated homes, usually the water is heated. But this includes like going to Kumbha Mela in the month of Magha and the Triveni - Ganga, Yamuna Saraswati being not heated. We went there this year when the temperature was like 3 C which is like 39-40 deg F. We went down to the river and river water was quite cold. ).

It is very cold at that time, but in spite of that a man who abides by the religious principles does not hesitate to take his batch. Similarly, a woman does not hesitate to cook in the kitchen in the months of May and June, the hottest part of the summer season. One has to execute his duty in spite of climatic inconveniences. Similarly, to fight is the religious principle of the ksatriyas, and although one has to fight with some friend or relative, one should not deviate from his prescribed duty. One has to follow the prescribed rules and regulations of religious principles in order to rise up to the platform of knowledge, because by knowledge and devotion only can one liberate himself from the clutches of maya (illusion).



The two different names of address given to Arjuna are also significant. To address him as Kaunteya signifies his great blood relations from his mother’s side; and to address him as Bharata signifies his greatness from his father’s side. From both sides he is supposed to have a great heritage. A great heritage brings responsibility in the matter of proper discharge of duties; therefore, he cannot avoid fighting.



Thus ends the purport to the BG As It Is in the Chapter two Text 14 entitled Contents of the Bhagavad Gita Summarized.



Arjuna was in a state of probably what would today be considered as of depression. He did not see any happiness ahead of him by fighting. Therefore he did not want to fight. But he did not feel right about it either because his occupation - he was the general and chief of the army and they were all assembled to fight so it was a contradiction. So then he asked Krishna to please emulate him what he should do, to become his guru his spiritual master. So then Krishna admonished him and told him that he was talking like a very learned person about peace and about so many things but actually no learned person would speak to him your words. So indirectly He called him foolish. And then after that Krishna is explaining, what should be Arjuna’s duty. So this is a very pivotal verse. He is also discussing between the differences between the body and soul but this particular verse is about the nature of the material world. If we get depressed or unhappy because of our distressful situation and we therefore decide to be a coward and not to do our duty that is a very weak thing to do and if we want to get back to Krishna ultimately we have to do our duty, the things based on what is pleasing to Krishna when we don’t do that ultimately although we may do it for some immediate apparent happiness, that happiness is also very fluctuating. So we may have happiness for a little while then it goes away also. So ultimately we should make decisions based on what is good for our Krishna consciousness the right thing to do in relation to dharma, our religious principles. So there are some higher principles that are to be considered here more than just a temporary happiness and distress that you may see coming or maybe experience.



Somebody may get an inheritance and think now I have enough money I don’t need to chant Hare Krishna anymore, I was chanting because I was in distress, now I have money so I can enjoy. After some time they spend all their money and then they are suffering again. On the other hand we have someone like Vipra Sudama. He was very poor but he always performed his religious duties. He never wavered in his duties. His wife was saying you are the friend of Krishna who is the richest person in existence. Why don’t you go and ask him to give us some money because we are so poor. It is not good that a friend of Krishna is so poor. So the husband was preaching to his wife it does not matter. But the wife kept pushing him to go. So then he thought any way it would be good to go to Krishna maybe it will be a break but especially because he was going to meet Krishna. He took some chira with him. He did not have anything with him to give Krishna so begged some flat rice from his neighbor and went see Krishna.



When he arrived at Dwaraka all the doors were opening for him as though he was a well known ambassador coming to see the ruler and this was his first visit to Dwaraka and he was amazed to see him, Oh, Vipra Sudama, come in, Krishna is waiting for you! So he finally gets thru all the different security doors right into the inner sanctum of Krishna and Krishna greets His friend and although they were god brothers but now Krishna is playing the leela the pastime that as if He is a Kshatriya and Vipra Sudama is a Brahmana, so He wants to offer His friend a royal reception, a brahminical reception. He bathes his feet and Rukmini is fanning him and they are talking about the old time in gurukul together.



What happened was one time when they were in gurukul gathering wood when they were young boys, they were gathering wood and were caught in a storm and they took shelter under a tree in the rain storm and the guru, Sandipani Muni was very worried because they did not come back with the other boys. So he went out looking for them with torches. Finally they found them and brought them back. So they had all these intimate pastimes when they were together and remember everything. Krishna was so happy to see his old friend and was having loving exchange of memories, nostalgia and friendship. When He saw that there was something tied to his dhoti to give to Krishna. Why don’t you give me what you brought? Vipra Sudama said No No, I did not bring anything. This is not good enough for you. Krishna said what do you mean, not good enough for Me? Whatever My devotee brings is good enough for Me. But Krishna is living in this fabulous palace and columns are studded with diamonds, different gems and everything is so opulent so what is a bunch of flat rice begged from his neighbor. He was very embarrassed to give this to Krishna when Krishna can have the best of anything He wants, why should I give this to Him? Krishna was insisting and said no, no whatever you brought Me, whatever My devotee brings is very dear to Me.



So then Krishna practically opened up the knot and took out the flat rice and took a bite and then another bite. He was going to take a third bite when Lakshmi, Rukmini devi stopped him. Don’t take three bites, you will put me in big difficulty. Because whatever Krishna does it starts from His devotee, then He reciprocates and gives blessings accordingly. She was saying that since he has begged, he did not have anything of his own, he had to beg, he is giving from beyond his resources, so by taking once from him he should get super opulence from the world, twice should be like equal to Krishna and three times should be exactly equal that He has given more than his capacity so then she should give more than Krishna’s capacity to give so that is not possible because there is nothing beyond Krishna. So if Krishna takes three times then she does not know how to reciprocate with that. So she said to Krishna give me a break. I don’t know how to bless him! I have already given him two times and if take three times then there will be a problem.



You know when Vipra Sudama went back home he did not see his cottage any more. He saw in place was a big palace and a beautiful woman and a maid servant came to greet him. And he thought, who is this? and his wife was not skinny any more as she had enough food now. “See what Krishna gave us. Thank you for asking.” He said, “ I did not ask”.



He could not get himself to ask because how could he ask? He was just there to see his friend. He was very happy with the love and affection that Krishna gave him. He never asked Krsna anything. His relationship was on a loving level. Although he did not ask but Krishna decided and gave him so many blessings. When he got all these material facilities, he was tolerant when he was poor and he was tolerant when he was rich. He did not say, Okay now I am rich I can forget Krishna– no! He said Krishna has given me all these facilities and so he used them in Krishna’s service. Let me worship Krishna in this nice palace and establish a nice temple home and worship and preach.



So that is what it means to be equal in happiness and distress. In difficult time we do not give up our devotional service, we stick to it and in good times we also do not give up our devotional service, now it is okay and I will make hay while the sun shines kind of attitude and I will enjoy life now and worry about death later. But if we know that death can come at any time, someone who has always been engaged in Krishna’s service 12 months a year, 365 days, does not matter whether there is life or death doesn’t matter, all are auspicious, because everything is in Krishna consciousness.

So the devotees, they always remain moderate, in distress or when they are in opulence. They are moderate in their existence and keep Krishna as their top priority in their life. Now in the world we ..were you know . things were a little bit looking difficult economically, but not that bad but like now there is war and so many people who are senselessly killed in terrorist attacks. This could make somebody very much down or depressed about the whole future of things. Whether there is some difficulty or there is something good we need to do our duties, we need to do our proper Krishna conscious thing.



I was thinking about the present war in relation to the Vedic culture and it does say that if somebody can defend from arson against an attacker, an aggressor and in the Bhagavatam - …Dhruva’s court one of the devotees of the Lord, his brother was killed by a yaksha. He demanded that the yaksha …Later the battle got out of control that some higher personality had to intervene and say that it was getting too much. But they never criticized that he had initially attacked, they criticized that what was happening was becoming like a whole interplanetary war between yaksha and earth planet because one person was killed. Ultimately the person who did that, the responsible people should be punished but not like the whole yaksha race should be annihilated because a yaksha did a crime. ….So I was thinking of that.



Since that’s what the authorities are ..at least they are saying that is what they are trying to do is to focus on the perpetrators and their supporters which would seem to be according to the courts that Dhruva was following when he was rightly situated the thing escalated out of control and started to really involve many innocent people then it was getting too far. But if the focus is somewhere what seems to be in the court of Manu and example of great devotees to take such steps. Whether this is the right thing or not … it is not against religious principles to do such things.



What would we do if you were in the government in a Krishna conscious government under the circumstances ? ….. Is it correct and then you of course think well it is quite a heavy situation. So what you find from the Mahabharata in all the difficult situations the Pandavas were put into Yudhishtira always made decisions based on religious principles and the Pandavas were always based on what was the right thing to do and what was beneficial for the greatest truth and proper and which was for the good. On the other hand we had Duryodhana who always would decide what was immediately better for his own selfish interest. He was expert manager and a good leader, he was an able politician, he was a deft cheater, manipulator, but he was considered to be a demon because he would go to any end to achieve his own interest. Sometime he would do some things which would happen to be good happen to be a religious principle he would do it. But if it happened to be against the religious principle but was good for him then he would do it too. Maybe all things being equal he would do something religious but if it was not in his interest he would not hesitate to sacrifice the religious principle. He thought that the Pandavas were weak because they followed the religious principles. They would not lie, they would not cheat they would not harm innocent people while he would not hesitate to do those things. So that is why it became a classic battle between good and evil.



Sometimes evil is very subtle evil, kind of looks good from certain perspective. If you are in the mode of passion, some people think that even evil is good. What is really important in our own daily lives when we make our decisions we should consider what is the correct thing or what will be pleasing to guru and Krishna – what the sadhu sastra and guru’s reaction will be under the circumstances, we try to do as best as we can, maybe some details we are not able to do everything perfectly all the time and Prabhupada he got .. the GBC to resolve this and this year in the resolution brought this to light to formulate some principles where devotees should not get depressed or lose their enthusiasm if they are not able to follow something exactly perfectly but they should still maintain their endeavours to come up to the higher standards of Krishna consciousness. Some things may be detailed but some things may be very nature.


Even the time when someday considers what’s the right thing to do it is a very big step, so many people do not think about it right or wrong, whatever appears to be in their interest is there. So because of that the world is facing so many… other people have adharma, apadharma, they have irreligion, they have covered religion, they have……………. Religion, they have different kinds of appearic religious principles which are actually misinterpretations and this takes people away from religion. Because sometimes in the name of religion people do so many bad things. But it is like saying there are some doctors who are quacks, who are not practicing medicine properly, therefore we should give up medicine. Does not make any sense. Even if there are some doctors who are doing malpractices does not mean every doctor is doing malpractice and the whole science of medicine should be given up. Rather we should weed out the bad doctors and facilitate the good doctors to do their service. So religion is like that, originally in the Vedic times the kings had a duty that to maintain that, people followed whatever the religion was.



Prabhupada was talking about that what to do if Krishna consciousness was in the government with different religions would KC be tolerant. And Prabhupad was saying that Krishna conscious government would not enforce that … we would rather facilitate that people practice their own religion but what to do if the government should enforce that anybody preaching a particular religion should practice what they preach. If somebody is preaching Christianity they should be preaching according to the Christian scriptures and not in the name of Christianity they are preaching something which is against the Bible. Or someone is preaching from the Vedas and claiming to be an avatar or something which is not condoned by the Vedas to say that you are incarnation of God.



Prabhupada cited how Bhakti Vinod Thakur, how he had taken steps to disclose the Phalgu baba, the bhogi yogi who claimed to be an avatar of Krishna. There are so many bhogi incarnations, always one or two around in India especially. Three years ago when I was in Northern Orissa there was one who was claiming to be an incarnation of Jagannath in the flesh of Krishna. He had people come and take darshan and then he would close the temple doors and then come back after about an hour and the whole temple will be filled with mahaprasad which would be distributed to the people. They said that he would meditate and because he did not go to Jagannath, the whole Jagannath prasadam would come. And because he was also Krishna he would dance with their wives as Krishna used to dance with the gopis.



Some husbands were not happy about this and they got the police on him. Some police inspector was investigating and found smoke coming from the ground about 100 m away from the temple in the forest. So it was not very usual like there was cooking going on dal, sabzi, rice, etc. Next time when he did this meditation, the door was raised and they found a trap door on the floor under the carpet of the temple floor. There was a tunnel to an underground kitchen and they are cooking up the Jagannath bhoga the so called Jagannath prasad and putting it in the temple. So he took all the villagers who were hoodwinked by the guy, that he was a bonafide incarnation of Lord Jagannath and provided them hot mahaprasad even though he was 200 miles away from Jagannath Puri.



When they saw how he was cheating them and misusing their wives they said, “ Just give him to us for two hours and we will take care of him”. He had lot of hair. They pulled out his hair one by one.



So, in South India there is someone who claims to be Kalki avatar, came a little early. Kalki expected about 427,000 years from now! Like this so many people are claiming so many things and different people accept. So Krishna consciousness is trying to project the teachings of Krishna as it is. Lord Caitanya came to give everybody the opportunity to practice Krishna consciousness, practicising Krishna bhakti and chanting Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. The mantra achieved all success in their spiritual lives in this age of Kali.



This came from them 25th anniversary Ratha yatra in Mexico and it was very well attended. In the 25th anniversary of Krishna Consciousness in Lima, Peru and this was also a very nice festival. And annual festival in Russia about 3000 devotees attended there. There was an Indian. I was in touch with the devotee’s there to check if he was alright. It seems wherever people are practicing Krishna consciousness it is working very well. I mentioned earlier of the festival in Russia where the young people came to attend and were chanting for about 5-6 hours. The next day a couple came to see me and told me that they have never felt happier in their entire life. But they wanted to know what was it they were singing.



So this chanting of Hare Krishna even if someone does not know what it is, it still works. Once in Hyderabad in South India one man came up to me and said: “Every religious sect have blind faith, blind faith, this is true of any religion without any faith it will still work”. This is a post office. This is India you know. People are always asking philosophical questions. Never happened in an American post office. But I was thinking, wow what a question! But I remember I said, no, there is a process, even if you chant without faith the names of God, even if you don’t know what it means it still works. Just like Ratnakar he was chanting murder! Murder! Murder! Kill kill kill in Sanskrit which was Mara! Mara! Mara! Chanting a word which, he was a murderer, he was a robber. When you chant it in sequence mara mara mara it becomes Rama Rama Rama. Chanting Rama even when he was thinking something else it still worked. So the chanting like Prabhupada said it is like fire when you put your hand in the fire whether you believe it or not you get affected, somebody does chant somehow with an open mind if they just chant they will feel some difference from the chanting. So I hope that the devotees here they know about the chanting. If you know about chanting take advantage of chanting. If we know and we don’t chant then that is a very great failure on our part to take this opportunity to perfect our human form of life.



I don’t know if you want to see some slides …. It should not take too long! If you want …

I can answer questions until then…

Very nice let us have the question

(Question not audible)

Reasonable question. It is like a science if you are talking about water in different countries somebody says H2O or whatever the quality, you get information, some call it aqua, some call it water, some jal, pani, thani, they are talking about the same thing. So what is the definition? If the definition in Krishna consciousness of the Supreme Personality of Godhead of God is basically the same as in Christianity, they are talking about the same person.

We are saying that Krishna is the original person He is like the origin of everything, from Him everything is coming, He pervades through everything and He revealed that. My mum she is a Christian she chants Hare Krishna but she is also very active in the church and she read this verse 21 – 25 of Chapter 5, verse 21 maybe that is the number that comes to mind but I have to look it up. And He is telling his apostles don’t think you are my only followers, I have many flags of different kinds in many parts of the world and you are one of them but you are not the only one. There are other flags. And when she wrote she said from the USA to Krishna consciousness you are the other flag.



I just saw yesterday somebody had a poster of Jesus wearing a big tilak. Somebody said that if Jesus were on this planet He would be a Hare Krishna! I was attracted to Krishna consciousness you know from Buddhism because with my Christian background I was a Buddhist and I also heard that they asked what about the Kingdom of God … you cannot understand what I am telling you about this world, how will you understand about the Kingdom of my Father? But how much he revealed… whatever is in the Bible could be a lot more than he revealed. So you find that there he invites everybody to love God and here … Lord Caitanya taught how to love God by chanting His holy names by engaging our bodies and minds and souls in His service. Prabhupada said that to be Krishna consciousness you don’t have to give up Christianity, you don’t have to give up Islam, you don’t have to give the basic beliefs of any religion. This is like postgraduate study. It takes you to the next higher level.



This religion existed before Christianity - called Sanatan Dharma has no beginning no end, has always been and the scriptures it was written, according to our calculations 5000 years ago according to the even most negative anthropologists 3500, so it is much older than Christianity. But the point is what Krishna consciousness is that it explains that it is handed down revealed by God. It was His incarnation, Vyasadev who wrote it down. So it is not that somebody just made it up.



Everywhere they accept Krishna. Krishna is accepted as God by all Hindus. Similarly Rama, Narayana. They may have different ways or different traditions how they worship them. But they have Krishna’s appearance day as a national holiday in the federal government of India as the appearance of Lord Rama. It is not that He is not respected by everybody and these holidays like Holi, Janamasthami, and the biggest holiday Deepawali when Lord Rama came back to Ayodhya are the biggest holidays in India. So Rama is one of the incarnations of Krishna. So Krishna is universally accepted but the process we follow as far as chanting the names of Krishna the process is generally respected by everyone but they may not practice it the way we do.



Lord Caitanya taught how to perform pure devotion. But once people do religious work for pious results, just like in any religion for the fear of God more than love of God. So Lord Caitanya taught that we should love God. For most people - like Jesus did – but most people kind of do religion because if we do religion we get good material situation. But what Lord Caitanya taught was we have to tolerate the material situation in religion because you want to please God. So it is a higher perspective. So that higher perspective not everybody accepts straight away, some people do. That is something that we had to explain. I lived in India and met Christian Indians and I had plenty of preaching to do to them. I see there a lot of them here! They accept - all Indians are here because they accept Krishna. When we have our big festivals we also open our doors to people from different ethnic backgrounds. We do not only restrict it to Indians. We have Nepalis also. In Nepal they also worship Krishna and Janamashtami is a big festival.



The scientific technology and religion - I think some scientists think it is and that is what they complain that it is not a religion. It is a science empirical science. It is .. what they call epistemology to get the knowledge by experimentation but by definition it can never give you the absolute truth. Say that somebody sees ten million swans and they are always white. So they have come with the swan hypothesis. The swan theory like the Darwin theory. All swans are white. They have somebody comes across a black swan, in Germany they have black swans. So then that theory is out of the window because one black swan, the whole theory is out. It is all based on what they are observing. You may observe just like they don’t know which letter has…..which it does not. … they may have to experiment and find a new thing – so empirical scientific studies can never give you 100% surety. Before they put medicines in the market in America they test extensively maybe 10,000 to 50,000 people are tested. Finally they put them in the market and then after 10 years they withdraw it because they find that it causes epilepsy, etc. Water, many more people cook it then they find the problems that did not come up when they did in smaller test tubes.



So science is like that . You test with something and come up with some idea and you are not sure so ultimately for the religion to be valid it has to be revealed by God. Because He is beyond its effect. So just like the scientists when they say there is no God, or no life and that life comes from some chemicals but they cannot to produce life from a chemical. We can put the DNA, all the things together and you can shake them up with electricity but still light does not come because in the Vedas say that light is an antimaterial spiritual particle which is consciousness and that comes only under certain circumstances. Without the light being there you may have all the chemicals. So we have the living force in the body and without it the body is dead. The Christians call the soul, the Vedas call atma. I have a nun who is a disciple. I told her to chant the names of God so she was chanting Yesu Christo, and then after a while she thought it was like chanting chant Hare Krishna, so why not chant Hare Krishna and she started chanting Hare Krishna then she realized that whatever she was feeling by chanting Hail Mary or Yesu Christo she felt the same way by chanting Hare Krishna. Actually Hare Krishna was more strong. Then she started reading the Bhagavad Gita and everything. Finally she ….. she still believes in Jesus and is very faithful to Jesus but believes that the father is Krishna.. She has taken initiation and chants Hare Krishna. I don’t want to reveal her name because I don’t want to create a controversy.



In Bolivia, there is a priest who is my disciple. He is a priest in the Catholic church and is a Hare Krishna. I think in the future there will be much more influx of people from different religions into Krishna Consciousness.