SB  8.7.1

sri-suka uvaca

te naga-rajam amantrya

phala-bhagena vasukim

pariviya girau tasmin

netram abdhim mudanvitah

arebhire sura yatta

amritarthe kurudvaha

TRANSLATION

Sukadeva Gosvami said: O best of the Kurus, Maharaja Parikshit, the demigods and demons summoned Vasuki, king of the serpents, requesting him to come and promising to give him a share of the nectar. They coiled Vasuki around Mandara Mountain as a churning rope, and with great pleasure they endeavored to produce nectar by churning the ocean of milk.SB

SB 8.7.2

harih purastaj jagrihe

purvam devas tato ‘bhavan

TRANSLATION

The Personality of Godhead, Ajita, grasped the front portion of the snake, and then the demigods followed.

SB 8.7.3

tan naicchan daitya-patayo

maha-purusha-ceshtitam

na grihnimo vayam puccham

aher angam amangalam

svadhyaya-sruta-sampannah

prakhyata janma-karmabhih

TRANSLATION

The leaders of the demons thought it unwise to hold the tail, the inauspicious portion of the snake. Instead, they wanted to hold the front, which had been taken by the Personality of Godhead and the demigods, because that portion was auspicious and glorious. Thus the demons, on the plea that they were all highly advanced students of Vedic knowledge and were all famous for their birth and activities, protested that they wanted to hold the front of the snake.

PURPORT

The demons thought that the front of the snake was auspicious and that catching hold of that portion would be more chivalrous. Moreover, Daityas must always do the opposite of the demigods. That is their nature. We have actually seen this in relation to our Krishna consciousness movement. We are advocating cow protection and encouraging people to drink more milk and eat palatable preparations made of milk, but the demons, just to protest such proposals, are claiming that they are advanced in scientific knowledge, as described here by the words svadhyaya-sruta-sampannah. They say that according to their scientific way, they have discovered that milk is dangerous and that the beef obtained by killing cows is very nutritious. This difference of opinion will always continue. Indeed, it has existed since days of yore. Millions of years ago, there was the same competition. The demons, as a result of their so-called Vedic study, preferred to hold the side of the snake near the mouth. The Supreme Personality of Godhead thought it wise to catch hold of the dangerous part of the snake and allow the demons to hold the tail, which was not dangerous, but because of a competitive desire, the demons thought it wise to hold the snake near the mouth. If the demigods were going to drink poison, the demons would resolve, “Why should we not share the poison and die gloriously by drinking it?”

In regard to the words svadhyaya-sruta-sampannah prakhyata janma-karmabhih, another question may be raised.

If one is actually educated in Vedic knowledge, is famous for performing prescribed activities and has been born in a great aristocratic family, why should he be called a demon? The answer is that one may be highly educated and may have been born in an aristocratic family, but if he is godless, if he does not listen to the instructions of God, then he is a demon.

There are many examples in history of men like Hiranyakasipu, Ravana and Kamsa who were well educated, who were born in aristocratic families and who were very powerful and chivalrous in fighting, but who, because of deriding the Supreme Personality of Godhead, were called Rakshasas, or demons. One may be very well educated, but if he has no sense of Krishna consciousness, no obedience to the Supreme Lord, he is a demon. That is described by the Lord Himself in Bhagavad-Gita (7.15):

na mam dushkritino mudhah

prapadyante naradhamah

mayayapahrita-jnana

asuram bhavam asritah

“Those miscreants who are grossly foolish, lowest among mankind, whose knowledge is stolen by illusion, and who partake of the atheistic nature of demons, do not surrender unto Me.” Asuram bhavam refers to not accepting the existence of God or the transcendental instructions of the Personality of Godhead. Bhagavad-Gita clearly consists of transcendental instructions imparted directly by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But asuras, instead of accepting these instructions directly, make commentaries according to their own whimsical ways and mislead everyone, without profit even for themselves. One should therefore be very careful of demoniac, godless persons. According to the words of Lord Krishna, even if a godless demon is very well educated, he must be considered a mudha, naradhama and mayayapahrita jnana.

SB 8.7.4

iti tushnim sthitan daityan

vilokya purushottamah

smayamano visrijyagram

puccham jagraha samarah

TRANSLATION

Thus the demons remained silent, opposing the desire of the demigods. Seeing the demons and understanding their motive, the Personality of Godhead smiled. Without discussion, He immediately accepted their proposal by grasping the tail of the snake, and the demigods followed Him.

Our state of consciousness

The world here is compared to mirror. Everything we see around us is a reflection of our state of consciousness. Everyone sees the world through different eyes. “One man food is another man poison”. If one is envious in heart, one will see every living being as being envious. One will see how everyone must be also motivated by envy just like himself. And therefore such a person cannot trust the heart of anyone. IF one’s heart has been accumulated by volumes of lust and desires, and he sees that everyone must be motivated similarly and if one has a very good and pure heart, it is very difficult for such a person to see anything bad in anyone else. In his innocence he is naturally seeing that everyone must be like this. In the extreme case, is the heart of maha bhagavat, where such a person sees that everyone is serving Krsna better than him . So we must understand that everything we see is not necessary how it is, but it is it is according to our particular consciousness. Srila Prabhupada used to give example that if you are wearing yellow coloured glasses, everything you see is yellow, if you are wearing red coloured or rose coloured glasses everything you see is rose coloured. If you are wearing green coloured glass everything you see appears to be green. So the reality has nothing to do with any of these shades or colours. They are simply a reflection of what is within our own heart.

So here we find the demons how they are suspicious because they are always crooked because they are always motivated by sense gratification because they are willing to cheat, to lie, to steal for their sense gratification they are willing for the purpose of satisfying number one or oneself they have no craving they have no morality. Therefore they are thinking that everyone must be like them. Here we find Ajita the Supreme Personality of Godhead who is

“Suhrdam sarva bhutanam”

Who is the best well wishing friend of everyone. He is so kind to enter the arena of this great churning of the ocean of milk for the purpose of preserving what the demigods and demons have and caring what they lack.

Snake and human being’s enviousness

We see the front portion of snake is very very dangerous. Is anyone afraid of the tail of a serpent? What can the tail do to you? But the front portion is very very vicious, with its sharp fangs with its bifurcated tongue and it is very very strongly poisonous venom. The front portion of the snake is the most deadly off all creatures on earth. Besides human beings there is no creature on earth that kills more innocent beings than the serpent. In India I once saw a study by the National geographic, it said the largest single cause of death in India was snakebites and in many other countries in south East Asia this is also true. Snakes are very very dangerous because they are envious by nature. Any other animal will never kill unnecessarily, a lion, a tiger, they are not so dangerous because they will only kill if they genuinely feel that their lives are threatened to defend themselves or if they are hungry, the purpose of survival they had no other alternative. Otherwise they never kill, they are peaceful. But the snake simply because they are envious, they will strike even when there is no danger, even when they are not hungry they will just strike for the sake of causing pain and death to another. Because there is only one other creature so envious as the snake and that is the human being who has an envious mind. He will also without any reason save and except, satisfy his envy engage in violent activity. So the snake and the envious human beings are the two most vicious creatures on earth.

Krsna is the well wishers of all

So the Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Ajita, knowing that this was a very very important function to churn the ocean of milk and knowing how dangerous the head of snake was, with its sharp teeth and poison, He assumed the position of holding that very head Himself, just to relieve others of the danger. So He was actually the well wisher and the friend but as I say, an envious person feels that everyone else must also be motivated by envy, a greedy person sees that every one else also must be motivated by greed, a doubtful person feels that every one else also must have doubt, so they were thinking that why the Supreme Lord is taking the head of the snake, the demigods are on that side, that means the head is better than the tail. We want what you have because we know you will accept that position if it is detrimental to us. You are only accepting that position because you know that, that will be the cause of our defeat. It is because after all we would only take a position if it meant your defeat. Therefore you can take a position if it is meant for our defeat. Therefore they revolted, we will not have any part of this unless you give us the head, and because we know the head is more advantageous otherwise you would not accept it.

The world of cheaters

So here the Supreme Personality of Godhead is actually acting in such a way to protect them but they do not trust him. They are thinking that He is a cheater. If you are a cheater, you think everyone is a cheater and in this world basically everyone is a cheater. Bhakti Siddhanta Thakur said this is the world of the cheaters and the cheated. He gives example of how the world works and how the world is going on and the example is, sometimes the people think that if my daughter marries a sadhu then she will produce very very auspicious offspring and our family dynasty will go on a very very wonderful manner. So, therefore when the sadhus come to the house the father arranges the beautiful daughter to serve him such a way that he will never want to live in and he will want to marry the daughter and in this way he will have a first class sadhu as the son in law. So, in another words they are trying to cheat the innocent sadhus but the sadhus the low class man, who are crooks and criminals and who are of the lower birth, they know that this is the plan. So they will disguise themselves as the sadhus and go to the very highly aristocratic peoples’ houses and the young girl, thinking him as sadhu, will treat him very nicely and they will say yes yes, I will off course marry you and I will give you blessings. And this way Therefore the family gets a crooked, criminal and low class man as the son in law. This is an example of how this world is the world of cheaters and cheated and because everyone is essentially cheating and trying to exploit us for sense gratification, people become very distrustful. Who can you really trust in this world, whom can you reveal your mind to without being cheated, who can you put your faith in without being cheated. Our friends, generally they are friends because they are enjoying some sense gratification by our association. Therefore they are simply exploiting us for what they can get out of us. Our family members are generally the same way. When a father can no longer provide for the family, so often, the family wants to do nothing with him and simply criticize him. One son is a rascal and is not fulfilling this rascal by the calculation of family. He is not fulfilling what their conception of sense gratification is then they are no longer kind to that son or daughter and the people around us the whole society they are simply politician and so forth they simply want our support for their sense gratification. How many are actually concerned with the people. Practically none of  this is the world where everyone is simply trying to cheat us because everyone is motivated by satisfying themselves their own senses, their own mind. Everyone is after their own prestige. And if you get in the way you are discarded. Everyone is naturally motivated for themselves for my family for my nation. Therefore trust is one of the most difficult and rare commodities within the entire world.

Faith in words of Spiritual Master & Krsna

Real trust to actually mean be able to put your faith and your hope and the motivations of another so our guru Maharaj A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, he used to again and again and again explain to us, that if you want to make proper spiritual advancement you simply have to accept within your heart that the Spiritual Master has not come to cheat you. Everyone else has come to cheat you even so called people in the mode of goodness who are very pious who are concerned for your physical and condition by pampering so much and showing so much concern for your physical and mental condition, they are simply perpetuating your bodily concept of life. In that they are cheating you, the opposite of realization of eternal self. This is the worst type of people in this world. How many people really care about your body and mind. Most people care about their body and mind. They care for you as long as it satisfying them. But in the mode of goodness somebody may actually be concerned about your body and your mind, your welfare but by this, they are cheating you of the opportunity of self-realization because perpetuating your bodily conception of life by putting your conception there. So factually everyone but a genuine sadhu is a cheater. Because the truth is as we have read this morning we are part of Krsna. We are in Him and is honest as one who present the truth. If one is not presenting the truth whatever his motivations may be, even if he is a very very rare soul, he is not selfishly motivated, still he is cheating you because he is presenting to you a type of sympathy, which is based on our life, on our illusion that is I am this body. The truth is that we are all part and parcel of God.  I Therefore only one who is trying through selfless compassion to elevate our consciousness to that conception, that person is a man of truth and therefore that person is actually qualified to be trusted. He is a real friend

Krsna and His Representative are the real friends

“Suhrdam sarva bhutanam”

Krsna is the supreme friend and one who is representing Krsna; he can be trusted because he is the representative of our true friend. So the demons are thinking that Krsna Ajita He must be thinking just like us. Therefore they rejected the whole idea of taking heart unless they could take what the demigods had. If we simply have faith that our spiritual Master has not come to cheat us but he has come to give us out of compassion truth and life then with that trust and with that faith we can advance, we can prosper in our spirituality. Without that faith, without that trust it is very very difficult. Therefore it is said

yasya deve para bhaktir

yatha deve tatha gurau

tasyaite kathita hy arthah

prakasante mahatmanah

One who has implicit faith in Guru and Krsna all revealed knowledge of the Vedas is revealed to us from within our heart. Without faith in Guru and without faith in God and the scriptures, however much we study, however much we become scholarly in scriptural knowledge, however many austerities we may perform, the real truth will never be revealed from within our heart. Faith is the most important building block and the foundation of our spiritual advancement. It is said in the testament that faith can build can move mountains. In the business of cleaning our hearts, in the business of moving mountains and mountains and mountains of impurities outside from our lives, there are mountains of pride and envy and lust and greed within us and all those mountains must be moved out. It is only through faith that it is possible. Faith comes by hearing. Therefore sravanam is the first and most important of the nine processes of devotional service. There are nine processes, sravanam kirtanam, smaranam, vandanam, pad sevanam, dasyam, pujanam, sakhi jana, atma nivedana, but unless one has faith in the other eight processes then it will have very little effect. Therefore unless one is sufficiently hearing from the proper sources, one cannot perform any of the nine processes of devotional service because if you are chanting, if you are remembering, if you are offering pooja, if you are offering these services without faith, it will have little effect. Therefore the basis of our spiritual life is to hear from sadhus, the words of god, the words of scriptures and by regularly hearing that faith awakens in our hearts.

How Does Faith Awaken?

It begins when we have to lose faith in ourselves. This is the completely opposite conception of the materialistic psychologist and materialistic psychiatrist. They are very much concerned that people have a balanced and stable mind by having a high faith in his esteem for their own position for their own integrity. We find in Bhagavad-Gita, if for his own esteem his own opinion he was not qualified to hear the word of God. Krsna simply said silently listen to Him and on and on and on. It wasn’t until Arjuna came to that critical state where he lost all faith in himself. He lost all faith in all his high learning and all his capabilities, he was trembling, he was pale white, his mouth was dry, he was shedding tears. To use your pride is very painful. It is just the physical manifestation of what when a person looses all pride in himself , in that condition he was able to open his heart with all humility and enquire submissively. Krsna you please instruct me, I will do what you want. And it was at that time that he could hear and through hearing from Krsna, real faith awakened within his heart and by that faith Arjuna was able to do what nobody else could do, because he had faith in the words of Krsna and he may have faith that if I simply execute the desire of Krsna then everything will be auspicious. He was able to conquer the entire kuru dynasty. We see that if the Spiritual Master asks us to do something, we have to have all faith that if I execute with all faith it will be all auspicious. Thinking that may be I should not do this, may this is not the correct thing after all according to my logical study of what is best for me or what is best for the world, it doesn’t make sense. So therefore how can I put my heart in doing something like this? I will do something else. I will do it so slowly that sooner or later my SM will understand the truth and will change his mind and will not be of so much effect or that bad effect before too much damage is done. A devotee who has real faith, faith beyond material reason, such a person can be empowered by God. Srila Prabhupada would so often emphasize that in SB, it is said the moon is more far away than the sun and of course so many devotees; they cannot tolerate hearing all this.

According to all scriptures, researches the sun is much farther than the moon. Now factually according to the Vedas in the Surya Siddhanta it is said that the Sun is farther than the moon. In the SB it is said that the moon is farther than the sun. They are both perfectly correct. From the point of view of measuring in terms of latitude, the sun is farther. From the point of view of longitude the moon is farther. It depends on what perspective you are looking at it. It is like if the earth is here, the sun is here, the moon is here, if you are looking from this point of view the sun is farther if you are looking from this point of view the moon is farther. So Sukhdev Goswami is not seeing the way we see. He is seeing from the point of God who is seeing from above. He is seeing from a completely different perspective then we are. So when Sukhdev Goswami says like this, so many devotees are saying what is going on here.  How can we accept the scriptures, all of our textbooks, all of our scientists, they are saying something different. So devotees were leaving on this basis. Now Srila Prabhupada had do it is say just forget it but now every opportunity he can, in dozens and dozens of purport, where there is no need, by any practical consideration, he keeps reminding us that the moon is farther. Why did he do that? What is it really to do it one has to do becoming Krsna conscious? At one point devotees were complaining but Prabhupada said what difference does it make whether the moon is farther or sun is farther. The problem of life is not that. The problem of life is birth old age disease death. Can the scientist solve that problem but the sadhus and scriptures can. So that is the real problem. Why did he emphasize this? That the greatest impediment in spiritual advancement is to put more faith in the speculative reasoning of our own sense perception and in the sense perception of others over the words of God, the words of scriptures. We see through our ear, we do not see through eyes.

We see through the authority of God’s words because Gods words are speaking of the absolute truth but out sense perception our mental and sensual perception of this world is all based on our limited conditioned experience of an illusion that we are conditioned to consider truth since time immemorial. So what faith can you have in anything you think or see?

How to killed the greatest demon is doubt

So therefore the first principle of knowledge is to, you have to, you have to loose all your faith in yourself and as soon as you loose all your faith in yourself then you can have complete faith in the word of God. When I say loosing faith in yourself means loosing faith in sense perception of what is reality. After all you so knowledgeable to understand, what is truth why are we in such illusion. Why are we suffering so much in this world? We will solve our problems. Therefore a devotee of the lord has faith that the scriptures were not written to cheat us. The scriptures were written by God to enlighten us and to liberate us for our sufferings and the words of bonafide sadhu who are representing the scriptures, who are the embodiment of the scriptures, they have not come to cheat us. They have simply come to give give give give us liberation from all the problems, all the sufferings, all the turmoil of life and if we have this faith, then when we can open our hearts to accept mercy of God, but if you do not have faith then you cannot fully open your heart, you cannot accept the mercy of the lord. So doubt is a demon.

Arjuna declares in Bhagavad-Gita that the greatest demon is doubt. Krsna himself said in Gita that for the doubting soul there can be no happiness in this world or in the next and Arjuna approaches Krsna as Madhusudana. Krsna you are the killer of greatest demon, where the greatest demon is doubt in my heart is the demon of doubt. Please kill the demon of doubt and through his words Krsna killed the demon of doubt. Similarly through the words of Krsna are coming down, through disciplic succession through the mouth of great saints, they have potency to kill the demon of our heart. As long as we are haunted by this demon of doubt, we cannot open the doors to our heart to allow Krsna to come in, to allow His mercy to enter. Doubt is like a watchdog in our heart and whenever the mercy of Krsna is coming through the words of Guru, sadhu and shastra, this demon of doubt is always barking, bauh bauh bauh, chasing it away and when we hear in our heart the barking of this demoniac dog of doubt, so we have to allow Krsna to kill this demon of doubt. Only then can our door open to receive the mercy of God.

So here we see how the demons their best friend and well-wisher, they are doubting Him because they are thinking Krsna must be like us. We are only considering what is best for ourselves at the cost of anyone’s life Therefore everyone must be like this. A suspicious person is even suspicious of the most compassionate and loving person. Bhakti Siddhanta Thakur used to say, I only see faults in other because I am honey combed one hundred thousand faults within my heart. Sisupal also find fault in Krsna. He could not stop chanting the faults of Krsna because he was so full of faults even in the most purest form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he can see reflection of his own fault within his own mind. So therefore we should not (Jai Sri Gopinath) should not fall prey to this great trap of maya.

The three gate which lead to hell

We should know that whatever false we see in others are due the false within ourselves. If we are pure we sill see purity in others. If we are divine we will see the divinity in others but if we are envious we will see enmity in others. If we are greedy we will see greed in others. Lord Jesus said before pointing the little speck in another person’s eye you should take it out from your own eyes. When we all are anxious to point out the fault in others but no one is right just one of the faults within himself and factually the only faults are within ourselves.

“vidya-vinaya-sampanne brahmane gavi hastini

suni caiva sva-pake ca panditah sama-darsinah.”

If you learn how to see God within your own heart, you will see God within heart of everyone, but before you see God within your heart you must give lust anger and greed, then you will simply see lust anger greed in everyone’s heart.

Krsna says in Gita

“Kamah  Krodhas tatha lobhas”

That there are three gates that lead to hell, lust anger and greed and every sane man must give these up for it leads to how to see God within your own heart. Whenever we find faults in others, whenever we doubt the pure words of the great souls we are simply degrading our own souls. Therefore these anarthas, these bad qualities must be given up. We have to want to give them up.

Krsna is Supreme Protector and everything

Everything is based on our desire. We have to look the good in others, we have to look and pray for faith in Guru and Krsna. We have to accept those things, which are favourable for the development of our faith in God and his representatives, and we have to reject anything, which is unfavourable for the development of faith, and trust in Krsna and His representative. Material propaganda will always create distrust. Therefore sadhu satsanga, the association of saintly persons who are constantly glorifying the Names, the pastimes of Supreme Personality of Godhead that is most important because by hearing from them, faith and trust is awaken within our heart and the demoniac tendencies are destroyed but by association, by hearing from the propaganda of such demoniac persons, when we speak of demoniac, we are speaking of Godless persons, persons who have no faith and trust, persons who are always suspicious because who are always on its base, their motivations are always selfishly motivated , they are on the bodily concept of life which is a lie which is a illusion. We must avoid submissively hearing from such sources. We must accept the position as an austerity of being servant of the servant. As an austerity we have to stop serving our own mind and our own senses and their dictations and we must accept the divine words of higher authorities.

Through this process we gradually cultivate faith. We gradually destroy the demon of doubt. Yesterday one person had a great crisis in his life and this person was very much depressed. So the immediate thing we try to do is find some material solution to pacify our mind and our heart and find some material solution to make everything right. As everyone is telling us to do but that is not a solution but even if you solve the immediate problem what is the guarantee that tomorrow worst crisis will not come. At the time of death is the worst crisis imaginable and you are simply day by day approaching that crisis and what other crisis come I between, you do not your life will simply be one big crisis in the end and so many other crisis in between so material arrangements never solve the problem but if you have faith that if I surrender to Krsna He will protect me. If you have faith that Krsna is the Supreme Controller, He is the Supreme Protector and everything He does is perfect, if you have faith that if I turn to Krsna with humility then He will do whatever is required to make my life all auspicious however my mind and sense is, it is all auspicious. If I am sincerely and truly wanting to be His servant and the servant of the servant of His servant. If you want to be the servant, the servant of his servant, if you have the faith that what anxiety you should be in, you should be guaranteed that the supreme goal of life is …. in the end

man mana bhava mad bhakto

mad yaji mam namakuru

mam evaisyasi satyam te

pratijane priyo si me

Krsna says in Gita always think of me, worship me and offer your homage to me. In this way Krsna says you will come to me without fail, I promise you this. You are my friend; god has promised we will come to Him without fail. If we simply endeavor to always think of Him, to become His devotee, to offer homage unto Him, why should we doubt the word of God? As long as we know that we are humbly trying to follow the words of Krsna and Guru, whatever the crisis is, whatever the magnitude of our sufferings may be, we have infinite hope because we are sure, we are certainly that god’s promise will always be fulfilled.

How Anxiety comes in our life’s

Srila Prabhupada used to tell us so many times, have faith in Krsna; surrender to Krsna there is no need for anxiety. Anxiety comes when there is lack of faith, where there is faith. Faith is like the sun, the darkness of all these negative elements of material existence cannot remain. So let us put aside our faith in the illusory perceptions of our own mind and sense of the mind and senses of other and let us put our faith in those who are purely and continuously repeating the words of God as it that is coming down through disciplic succession. Let us chant the Holy Names with this faith and destroy the anarthas and unwanted conditionings within our heart then we will see the good within all. When Krsna or His representative comes to help us let us faith and trust that they are our well-wisher. If we simply have faith Prabhupada is our ever well-wisher then there will be no impediments in our spiritual progress. And we are in the future verses tomorrow or next day we will be reading what the result is of the demons doubt in the motivation of Krsna. Krsna was trying to help them, they did not trust but the result of their distrust would be is a fantastic wonderful story that we will be reading tomorrow and a great lesson is to be learnt.

Questions and Answers

Q1.

Answer: By hearing from the right source, by hearing from God, hearing from scriptures through the lips of great soul. If we hear regularly

nasta prayesv abhadresu

nityam bhagavata sevaya

bhagavaty uttama sloke

bhaktir bhavati naisthiki

But we have to hear with a desire to hear. We have to hear like a hungry man taking his meal not like a sleepy man . If you are sleeping during class, you are not hearing anything. If we are anxious to hear, anxious to digest every drop and every word that is coming, Krsna will reveal Himself as you approach Him. These words are non different than him. They are transcendental sound vibrations. And simply by hearing submissively with faithful heart these words, your faith will grow. But you when talk about faith we substantiate it by the results what that does mean? That means your faith is still based on sense perception that is why generally great souls will not perform miracles because the foolish and non intelligent people they have faith in someone who can perform miracles so called miracles that means their sense perception is that this person can do something extraordinary.

Now it is very difficult for such a person’s faith to grow after a certain point because it will require some evidence based on sense perception to confirm whatever he has faith in him and ultimately God cannot be perceived through sense perception so therefore generally except on rare occasions real acharyas they do not perform miracles but they preach the truth because if they can convince the follower to have faith in the word of god, then there is no limitation to how your faith can grow but if the faith is based on some miracle our faith will always be limited to how much you can perceive through your sense perception. You will always need confirmation through your sense perception. Therefore Lord Jesus performed so many miracles because he was preaching to the class of people who were so lowly and materialistic but when he came to one town and he spoke they required no miracles. He said these people are more intelligent. They simply accepted the word of god without all this physical science. So depending on the physical science of their results will lead to a great impediment because ultimately the realization of god is beyond any physical science and beyond any result. Then you can perceive with your senses it is not?

atah sri krsna naamadi

na bhaved grahyam indriyaih

sevonmukhe hi jihvadau

svayam eva sphuraty adah

You can never perceive god with your physical mind and senses only when your mind and sense has completely become purified and spiritualized through devotees services then you perceive the Lord. Therefore the highest, the highest quality of faith is based on hearing, is developed by hearing not by physical results or physical science. So we should very very attentively with a submissive heart approach to the word of god and those who are representing the words of god and those scriptures, which are representing the word of god.

Is there any other question?

Shyamananda you are convinced.

Srila Prabhupada, I remember one time, the leaders of ISKCON were all together, then Srila Prabhupada look to all of them, each one of them individually , this is years and years ago. This is in 1972. He looked at everyone and said are you convinced. Are you convinced that Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, that by surrendering to him that everything will be obtained . Are you convinced? He said with such intensity that you could not enlighten when everyone is just looking and they couldn’t say yes they couldn’t say no and he just look piercingly to each and every devotee and he would look in the eyes and soul and he would just ask  ” Are you convinced”? Then nobody could say yes or no. They were afraid to say no and they could not honestly say yes and then Srila Prabhupada said that if we are simply convinced with the amount of devotees we have right now we can take over the world in 18 days and establish Krsna Consciousness as a supreme rule and order of the earth. But because you are not convinced of the words of your Guru, therefore you cannot be empowered. Conviction faith is the foundation of our spiritual life. When a great soul piercingly asks you, you cannot lie. All you can or you must reveal the truth of your heart that we must be convinced that conviction comes by hearing daily but the submissive and eager heart and by rendering service you have to practice what you hear. The realization of that conviction takes place when you hear submissively and apply it in your life.

Thank you very much

Hare Krishna