Radhanath Swami explains this material world is a place of happiness and distress. This happiness and distress of the material world are due to duality which is the nature. Happiness is inseparable from distress. Therefore, intelligence, according to Krishna in Geeta, is not to aspire for happiness in this world because everything in this world is temporary. Just like for instance, in the hot season, cold water brings pleasure, but in winter season, that same water, just because it is cold brings about very distress.
Tonight so many people are sitting at home watching the cricket tournament. Let us examine what is cricket, the biggest craze in the country of India. Saintly persons, that befits most profound in the philosophical scriptures, the Vedas, with the most profound culture, all based on spiritual awakening. India is the spiritual heart of the planet, Earth. It is here in this great land that so many of the principle avatars have descended. Lord Sri Ram appeared in Ayodhya, Lord Sri Krishna appeared in Mathura, Brindavan, Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu the yuga avatar of this age of Kali appeared in Sri Navadweep Dham. It is from India that spiritual knowledge is meant to spread through out the world. And people come to this land of India, mainly for this purpose. We see so many foreign people are coming to India, to understand the goal of life. But unfortunately, the people of India are taking so many of the materialistic ways of the west and attaching themselves to that. I believe cricket was imported from British or something. Anyways, the opportunity to hear and chant the glories of the Lord, is available and all of you can so wonderfully executed a great sense of detachment and renunciation of renouncing watching the cricket game for coming this evening to hear and chant about the glories of Sanatana Dharma. And you all will receive great benefits. But they are playing these sporting events, the result is a score. That’s what they are playing for and that’s what everyone is waiting for, the final Score will give the idea of victory and defeat, pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness. When we are speaking of happiness, which has no end, the happiness of the soul and through the sporting events, half the people of the spectators are happy and half are totally distressed to the extent that people commit suicide. People spend sleepless nights, if their team is lost. The more the team wins, the more painful it is when the team loses.
Prahlad Maharaj explained, if you want to be happy in this world, stop trying to find happiness in all of these temporary material situations. Look for happiness, where happiness is really to be found. We are not these material bodies. We are the eternal souls. We are part and parcel of the Supreme soul or Krishna and our real happiness is to reconnect with our original source or Krishna. That is the purpose and the aim of this human life. Whoever we may be, Krishna has created the Varna-ashram system, in such a way, that all classes of human society can work together harmoniously for one common cause and factually there is only one common cause that can actually harmonize human society and that is service to God, devotion to God, because every other cause creates conflicts, the cause of trying to increase your business. The more your business increases, the more your competitors will be distressed. They will hate you. They will envy you. In sporting events, the more you win, the more people envy and hate you because they lose. In family life, the wealthier you become, the more necessities you need. We have seen people, the more you have, the more you have to work and struggle just to preserve and maintain all that you have and constantly worrying and anxiety about everything you may lose. And the more you have, the more people will envy you. And in the name of nationalism, we may build our nation, but it further divides us from other nations. In the name of humanitarianism, we are so proud about our human nature. But in the world today, we are exploiting the innocent trees, innocent animals. In this way, every attempt for peace and happiness was only creating more dissention. The Krishna explains in Geeta,
Bhoktaram yajna-tapasam
Sarva-loka-mahesvaram
Suhrdam sarva-bhutanam
Jnatva mam santim rcchati
Srila Prabhupad called this peace formula. It is very simple. If we simply all agree to be reality, to be truth, then we are not the temporary bodies, we are not Indians or Pakistanis playing each other again a tournament. We are not Indians or Pakistanis playing each other in the battle field. Nor we men or women nor we from the high caste or low caste nor we are Americans or Russians or Europeans or Africans. All of these designations create a fever of material attachment which cause anxiety to the heart and cause dissention amongst human beings. We must understand what is truth?
Nasato vidyate bhavo
Nabhavo vidyate satah
Ubhayor api drsto ntas
Tv anayos tattva-darsibhih
that we are eternally part of God. The body with all of its designations, all we claim to the misconception of I and mine is illusionary. It is our temporary residence. It’s meant for a purpose. This body and everything created by God in this world are meant for a purpose. But even in our biggest educational institutions, there is no information given of what is the purpose of our existence and everything that is created around us. We work and we struggle so hard to maintain our family. What is the purpose of this family life? And every day we are getting older. We are coming closer to the inevitable fact of death. We are not even trying to perceive what our purpose in life is. The purpose of life is to understand earlier according to the realization of the truth. Krishna explains what truth is, that we are all part of Him. We are the eternal soul. It is animating and giving life to this temporary body and the nature of the soul is to love God and to serve God. It is the natural function of the part to serve and harmony with the whole of Krishna. There are certain classes of philosophers, they are called mayavadis. They do not believe in the individual nature of the soul. They become so frustrated with the material life, even through the various yoga systems of karma kanda and Raja kanda. They are worshipping so many demigods to try to get improvements in our material life. Ultimately they are frustrated, because all the benefits of the demigods are temporary and ultimately we have to suffer. And similarly people try so hard to make so many arrangements in this world, to leave the pain and increase their happiness. They are frustrated. So people want to annihilate their individual existence. They declare that the ultimate goal of life is to merge into brahman. In the conception of brahman is one big homogeneous impersonal void, no personality, no activity, no qualities. Everything of this world and even the soul itself they claim is an illusion.
Dear acharyas, what Supreme personality of Godhead, what kapila deva is saying is the soul is real and God is real and we are part as the sun ray is the part of the sun. And this world is also real. We must understand what the purpose of soul to perceive reality is, that is, everything in this world is meant to utilize in God’s service. We can not deny anything that can be utilized in God’s service. This microphone is made of metal. People think it is a material object. But when we are speaking the glories of the Lord, when we are serving the Lord through the medium of this object, it is its proper position. It is reality. Its manifestation may be temporary. But its purpose is eternal. And similarly our family life, your wife, your husband, your children, your grand children, and your grand parents everyone will die and you will die. Before death, if you are fortunate enough you will grow old and become useless physically. So people will say that the family life is an illusion, that when the family makes the purpose of their relationships, the sharing of hearts in the purpose of self realization and devotion to God and actually that family is reality, a spiritual reality and its purpose is supporting and providing the means of highest truth. And your occupation whatever it may be, if you learn to utilize it in the service of the Lord with the purpose of purifying your heart under the direction of a proper spiritual master, then your very occupation is meant for the fulfillment of life. Bhakti yoga has taught in Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam and the essence of all scriptures is meant to teach the human society how to orient every aspect of our life to achieve the highest purpose. What is that highest purpose? to reconnect our consciousness to Krishna. Krishna is God. Krishna is the absolute truth. Krishna is the fountain head of all incarnations. Even Lord Brahman,
Advaitam achyutam anadim anata-rupam
In Brahma-Samhita he explains that everything is coming from that one supreme absolute truth.
Govindam adi-purusam tam aham bhajami
And he worships Krishna as that supreme ultimate truth. Yoga means simply to reconnect our consciousness with the original source, to live according to our nature and that is the service of God. We are trying to find satisfaction by replacing that natural ecstasy which the heart is longing for with the temporary experiences of this world. But Krishna is so merciful. He descends into this world just to attract our hearts away from temporary manifestations of illusion.
Yada yada hi dharmasya
Glanir bhavati bharata
Abhyurtthanam adharmasya
Tadatmanam srjamy aham
Krishna descends again and again in so many forms to perform so many wonderful activities to attract our mind to real love, to real peace and real ecstasy, ananda. Krishna performed so many wonderful pastimes. We know the stories of how Krishna killed so many daemons, asuras.
Radhanath Swami on Krishna kills Kamsa –
When Krishna was in Mathura, Kamsa arranged a wrestling tournament and in that wrestling tournament, the two most powerful champion wrestles in the whole world Chanura and Mushtika were to fight against Krishna and Balaram. They were huge. They were like mountains in their physical structure. They had gigantic muscles. They even had mystic powers where they could defeat thousands of elephants at a time. Krishna and balaram coming from Brindavan they did not work out or train. They were coward boys. They were hardly twelve and half years old at that time. Kamsa the greatest of all the asuras of the day is presiding as sometimes the prime minister or president preside the sporting events today. It is a wonderful contest. They were grunting and groaning. At one moment they would throw Krishna down and at another moment Krishna would throw them down. Everyone in the audience were in rapt attention. The followers of Kamsa, wanted Chanura and Mustika to win. They would make victory cries whenever Krishna falls to the ground. All of the daemons were groaning ‘Hurray, Hurray’. This is a sporting match, very exciting. Krishna makes it exciting. Ultimately, they just took these daemons and beat them with their fist and threw them to the ground and they were dead. The devotees became very happy. Kamsa became very upset. So, he declared that all of the relatives of Krishna should be arrested and put in the jail and Krishna, Balaram to be killed. So, Krishna jumped up and took him by the hair and threw him to the ground and punched him with his fist and Kamsa was dead. So, this is very heroic and sporting event, very exciting.
By hearing these pastimes, we become completely cleansed of all material miseries; we become completely cleansed of all anxieties by hearing these wonderful narrations and exciting narrations of Sri Krishna and His teachings. We find the ultimate satisfaction and to fulfill the true purpose of life and our souls and hearts are longing and hungry to hear these stories. But society today is propagating the cricket match, propagating football, baseball in other countries, political elections, news papers, so many things are occupying our minds and what is the result? only anxiety. People watch these things and they are in anxiety the whole time. And this is what they called happiness. Being in fear and frustration is happiness. We see here in Bombay, the hoardings on the roads, advertising cinema, which is one of the biggest industries in the city and any rational intelligent when he sees these big hoardings, all you see is people with blood all over their face, people with guns and with knives and when people go to these cinemas, they are scared, they are fearful and they are with anxiety. This is called happiness in this material world. But that same propensity is utilized to hear and chant the glories of the Lord we can actually get billions and millions of times more excitement, more bliss and at the same time become purified rather than contaminated. Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who is Krishna himself descended in this world in this age of Kali yuga, how to find the real joy amongst one another, real excitement, real pleasure through hearing the holy names of the Lord and through the congregational chanting of the holy names
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu took sanyas and renounced everything, just to bring us, the most fallen, materialistic people in this age of kali, quarrel and hypocrisy, the holy name of God.
Depend completely on Krishna by Radhanath Swami –
Afterwards he was travelling from Navadweep dham to Jagannath Puri and on the way Lord Chaitanya turned towards his devotees. Please understand whatever the Lord does in his lila is an instruction that we should listen very very carefully for our benefit. He turned to his devotees headed by Lord Nityananda Prabhu and he said, ‘Have you brought anything with you for our maintenance, any food, any money?’ They turned to Lord and said, ‘My Lord, we will not bring anything without your permission. Whatever we do must have your blessings. We have brought nothing. Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is very happy. He said, ‘In this way, we will learn to completely depend on Krishna, because ultimately everything is provided by the will of Krishna. It is not because of our material arrangements’. He said just like food. Even the poorest person somehow or other gets food and eat, if it is Krishna’s will. If it is not Krishna’s will he will not. But even the prince, even though he is surrounded by so much opulence and so much money, if it is not Krishna’s will, he can not eat food. Sometimes the prince he was insulted and he was in so much of anxiety and he becomes so angry, he says, ‘I can not eat’. Sometimes the prince living in big palace, making so many nice arrangements for material enjoyment, he has a disease, he is suffering, he can not even take a drop of water, he can not eat a morsel of food because of that disease. If there is Krishna’s will, despite of all your attempts, you will not be able to eat even one morsel of food. Everything ultimately is depending on the will of Krishna. But in this society today, we have become so dependent on so many artificial mean that we have forgotten that Krishna is the source. If it does not rain, we will all starve rich or poor. If the sun does not shine, we will all die with in a second whoever we may be. We are being maintained by God every moment. To recognize that and be grateful to Krishna for that is Krishna Consciousness, that is the nature of the soul and it is the source of real happiness.
Ramchandra Kant’s devotion towards Lord Chaitanya by Radhanath Swami –
As Lord Chaitanya was travelling he came upon once village, Chaturbhog. In this village the governor, Ram Chandra Kant, was very wealthy man and very much would enjoy his wealth for the process of self gratification but at the same time he was a very good devotee of Lord. When Lord sees a person to be a sincere devotee, he will somehow help that person to overcome his material attachements. So, Ramchandra Kant, when he saw Lord Chaitanya, he came and offered his respectful obeisance at his lotus feet. Meanwhile Lord Chaitanya was so anxious to see Lord Jagannath in Puri. He was weeping and crying, saying, ‘Oh Jagannath, when will that moment be mine, when I will surrender my life to you, when I will see your beautiful form’. Ramchandra Kant, in the mood of a servant, he said, ‘My Lord, can I help you in any way?’ Lord Chaitanya said, ‘Who are you?’ Now generally, in India or in the any place in the world, if you are in a big position, if someone asks who you are, then you will say your name and I have done MA from IIT, I have a PhD from so and so university. I am having business; I am making so many crores of money everyday. We always like to tell how good we are and how big we are. He was a very happy governor. Lord Chaitanya said, who are you and his reply was, ‘My Lord, I am a very fallen soul. I am the servant of your servants’. Actually it is our eternal and true identity, the servant of the servant of the Lord. The Lord was satisfied that he was the servant of the servants. Ramchandra Kant said, ‘How can I serve you?’ Lord Chaitanya told, ‘I want to go to Jagannath Puri’. Ramchandra said, ‘I will help you. But it is very difficult. Because there are so many enemies and so many armies in fact the king has put his soldiers and so many traps and spears and tridents through out the roads and if you travel through these roads, you will be taxed. You will be arrested, you will be put in prison and you will be beaten. Everyone who goes these roads are beaten, exploited, robbed. But my Lord, it s really very dangerous and I am willing to risk my life to put you in some secret passage way by which you can go to Puri through this disctict. So very quietly he took the Lord and risked his life for the service of the Lord. They came to one place where they have to cross River Ganges. Ramchandrakant said, ‘When you cross this Ganges, you will be in safe area. But it is a long way’. He put him on the boat and Lord Chaitanya Maha Prabhu very pleasingly embraced him. In reciprocation for his willing to risk everything in the Lord’s service, Lord embraced him and he became free from all material attachments, simply by that service, he became completely perfect in the love of God, the ultimate liberation. Similarly, when we are willing to take risks to serve the Lord, there is the prize of detachment from material life. It is not by going to Himalayas and by fasting from food and water, it is not simply by giving up our families and living as sanyasis, through that process we can never become detached from the material life, but when we please the lord by our humble service, through his mercy we become completely detached. That detachment takes place because we become so much attached to the ecstasy of his loving service.
Never leave the Holy names in any situation in life
When they got on the ferry, the boat, Lord Chaitanya told Mukunda, start kirtan. Mukunda began to chant the holy names of the Lord.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
And the boat man became very disturbed. The boat man said, ‘Do not chant. Stop chanting’. Mukunda stopped chanting. The boat man said, ‘On the bank of this river, a man eating tigers are there, if we disturb them or awake them, they will come and they will eat us. And in waters man eating crocodiles are all around. If we cross their attention, they will come and eat us. Not only that, in the jungle area, there are so many thieves and dacoits and if we anyway call to their attention, they will beat us and they will rob us and they definitely kill us. So when we go on the boat, we must be very absolutely silent’. The devotees were silent. Lord Chaitanya said, ‘wherever my devotees are sincerely following my order by chanting the holy names of Krishna, the Sudarshan Chakra of the Lord is there in front of them, above them and on the both sides to protect them. You must have faith in this. Loudly chant the holy names and Mukund and all devotees very loudly, fearless by the instruction of Lord began to change the holy names,
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
In every situation in this world we are in fear and anxiety. Look at the politicians; they spend so much money, so much of their lives, so much risk, just to achieve a high position. When they are in the high position whether its president or king or prime minister they are constantly in total anxiety that they will lose it. They will say something or do something or someone else will say something or do something which will turn public against them. There are all body guards all over to protect them. In the wealthiest city in the world, New York, Beverly hills, you would have heard about them. Everyone has so many security devices around them, around their homes, because they are constantly fearful that somebody will try to disturb them, rob them and kill them. So, no matter what our situation, everyone is in fear and anxiety in this world. But Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has taught us through this wonderful pass time, even if there are dangerous man eating tigers surrounding us and waters and crocodiles, thieves and dacoits and rogues, the devotees will have no fear, no anxiety, because whether there is life or death, it doesn’t matter. We experience the greatest pleasure and we achieve the ultimate purpose, if we simply keep our mind fixed. In that unity with God, through the chanting of His Holy names,
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
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