The law of karma describes the universe as an interconnected network in which every action causes a reaction to occur in the future. Material scientists understand the gross manifestation of this law in the form of physics, however, they have no idea of the workings of the same law on a more subtle platform.
The effects of karma are not limited to individuals, collective karma effects towns, countries and ultimately the whole planet.
Chance and Karma
The law of karma eliminates the concept of random activities within the universe. It states that everything we experience, either pleasant or unpleasant, occurs as a result of our actions in the past, in this life or in previous lives. We get what we deserve and there is very little we can do about it. For this reason transcendentalists are unattached to the happiness and distress of this material world knowing that such temporary things are inevitable reactions to the activities they have performed in the past. Such transcendentalists fix their consciousness on higher things and thus remain undisturbed in any situation.
Karma as Nature's Police Force
Karma polices the laws of nature. Nature has given universal laws which are applicable in all places and at all times. Every civilized society has some moral or religious codes presenting these universal laws in a way relevant to them. We have the freedom to choose to follow the regulative principals of the particular society we belong to or to act outside these principles.
If we choose to follow the regulative principles the result is "good karma and we reap the benefits in the future, however, if we choose to neglect the principles "bad karma" is the result and we suffer.
At the present moment practically the whole world has given up following regulative principles and is heading down the hedonistic path. As this path is detrimental to spiritual progress mother nature is responding by providing many conditions which cause us to suffer such as irregular rainfall, earthquakes, killer diseases, and so on.
After suffering in many ways we will gradually come to the point of understanding it is not possible to be happy by exploiting the material energy and we will instead turn to spiritual life.
The Earth is Conscious
This earth planet is not a lump of dead rock as many scientists would like us to believe. We have a body, the ants have a body, the earth planet is a body and the entire universe is a body. The common factor in all bodies is they are pervaded by consciousness. The earth, therefore, is in a position to react to our attempts to exploit her resources for our sense gratification.
It is only possible to experience a peaceful, comfortable life with a pleasant climate, regular rainfall, abundant food production and freedom from natural disasters if we act in accordance with the laws of nature.
Every society has some information on these laws in the form of moral and religious instructions. These principles are universal and the current problems on earth; environmental, social and economic, have been caused as a result of the people of the world ignoring these universal laws of nature.
Scientific Advancement Can't Change Karma
The underlying motivation of the technological explosion has been to improve material facilities and thus create a better world where people are happier. However, unknown to the scientists, the amount of happiness and distress experienced by each person is a result of karma, or the reactions from activities performed in this and previous lifetimes.
At birth everyone has an allotted amount of happiness and distress which they are destined to experience during their lives. This quota of happiness and distress is fixed and cannot be changed by any material advancement. If the scientists eliminate one cause of suffering mother nature will find another way to inflict the suffering.
We have reached the point in the Western countries where most people can see that despite much advanced technology and scientific knowledge we are no happier than our parents or grandparents were.
Actually, because of the dramatic increase of rape, incest, murder, violent crime, theft, stress and child abuse we are generally in a state of great anxiety which is not at all conducive to happiness or peace of mind.
The Assumption We Can Improve the Quality of Our Lives is False
It is not possible to increase the amount of pleasure we experience by exploiting the resources of the planet. We get what we deserve as a result of our past karma. One person, who has good karma, may not work very hard and still live a very comfortable life, while someone else, despite working very, very hard might find it difficult to collect even enough money to buy food.
The amount of pleasure and suffering in our life is fixed. It is decided according to our activities in
the past and cannot be changed.
A person interested in spiritual life is advised not to be attached to always being in a comfortable position and not to be distressed when put into a difficult position. A self-realized soul knows these things are temporary and they will, in time, pass.
(His Divine GraceA.C. Bhaktivedanta SwamiPrabhupada)
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Troubles encountered in Your service
Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura has instructed his followers:
"Troubles encountered in Your service shall be the cause of great happiness, for in Your devotional service joy and sorrow are equally great riches. Both destroy the misery of ignorance."
(Saranagati 8.4)
"Troubles encountered in Your service shall be the cause of great happiness, for in Your devotional service joy and sorrow are equally great riches. Both destroy the misery of ignorance."
(Saranagati 8.4)
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Serving the Perfect Master
During a lecture given in September 1968 in Seattle, Washington, Śrīla Prabhupāda says, “Can anybody in this meeting say that he’s not the servant of anybody or anything? No, because our constitutional position is to serve.” Then he proposes an idea new to most of his listeners: “If you agree to serve God, gradually you will realize that God is also serving you.” Śrīla Prabhupāda goes on to explain how by pleasing God the soul can enjoy unlimited happiness.
In this material world, everyone is trying to search out happiness and get relief from misery. There are three kinds of miseries caused by our material condition: ādhyātmika, ādhibhautika, and ādhidaivika. Ādhyātmika miseries are those caused by the body and mind themselves. For example, when there is some dis-arrangement of the different functions of metabolism within the body, we get a fever or some pain. Another kind of ādhyātmika misery is caused by the mind. Suppose I lose someone who is dear to me. Then my mind will be disturbed. This is also suffering. So diseases of the body or mental disturbances are ādhyātmika miseries.
Then there are ādhibhautika miseries, sufferings caused by other living entities. For example, human beings are sending millions of poor animals to the slaughterhouse daily. The animals cannot express themselves, but they are undergoing great suffering. And we also suffer miseries caused by other living entities.
Finally, there are ādhidaivika miseries, those caused by higher authorities. There may be famine, earthquake, flood, pestilence—so many things. These are ādhidaivika sufferings.
So we are always suffering one or more of these miseries. This material nature is constituted in such a way that we have to suffer; it is God’s law. And we are trying to relieve the suffering by patchwork remedies. Everyone is trying to get relief from suffering; that is a fact. The whole struggle for existence is aimed at getting out of suffering.
There are various kinds of remedies that we use to try to relieve our suffering. One remedy is offered by the modern scientists, one by the philosophers, another by the atheists, another by the theists, another by the fruitive workers. There are so many ideas. But according to the philosophy of God consciousness, you can get free of all your sufferings if you simply change your consciousness to God consciousness. That’s all.
All our sufferings are due to ignorance. We have forgotten that we are eternal servants of God. There is a nice Bengali verse that explains this point:
kṛṣṇa-bahirmukha haiyā bhoga-vāñchā karenikaṭa-stha māyā tāre jāpatiyā dhare
As soon as our original God consciousness becomes polluted with the consciousness of material enjoyment—the idea that I want to lord it over the resources of matter—our troubles begin. Immediately we fall into māyā, illusion. Everyone in the material world is thinking, “I can enjoy this world to my best capacity.” From the tiny ant up to the highest living creature, Brahmā, everyone is trying to become a lord. In your country many politicians are canvassing to become the president. Why? They want to become some kind of lord. This is illusion.
In the God consciousness movement our mentality is just the opposite. We are trying to become the servant of the servant of the servant of the servant of God (gopī-bhartuḥ pada-kamalayor dāsa-dāsānudāsaḥ). Instead of wanting to become a lord, we want to become the servant of God.
Now, people may say this is a slave mentality: “Why should I become a slave? I shall become the master.” But they do not know that this consciousness—“I shall become the master”—is the cause of all their suffering. This has to be understood. In the name of becoming master of this material world, we have become the servants of our senses.
We cannot avoid serving. Every one of us sitting in this meeting is a servant. These boys and girls who have taken to Kṛṣṇa consciousness have agreed to become servants of God. So their problem is solved. But others are thinking, “Why should I become a servant of God? I shall become the master.” Actually, no one can become the master. And if someone tries to become the master, he simply becomes the servant of his senses. That’s all. He becomes the servant of his lust, the servant of his avarice, the servant of his anger—the servant of so many things.
In a higher stage, one becomes the servant of humanity, the servant of society, the servant of his country. But the actual purpose is to become the master. That is the disease. The candidates for the presidency are presenting their different manifestos: “I shall serve the country very nicely. Please give me your vote.” But their real idea is somehow or other to become the master of the country. This is illusion.
So, we should understand this important point of philosophy: Constitutionally we are servants. Nobody can say, “I am free; I am the master.” If someone thinks like that, he’s in illusion. Can anybody in this meeting say that he’s not the servant of anybody or anything? No, because our constitutional position is to serve.
We may serve god, or we may serve our senses. But the difficulty is that by serving our senses we simply increase our misery. For the time being you may satisfy yourself by taking some intoxicant. And under the spell of the intoxicant you may think that you are nobody’s servant, that you are free. But this idea is artificial. As soon as the hallucination is gone, again you see that you are a servant.
So we are being forced to serve, but we don’t wish to serve. What is the adjustment? God consciousness. If you become the servant of Kṛṣṇa, your aspiration to become the master is immediately achieved. For example, here we see a picture of Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna. [Śrīla Prabhupāda points to a painting of Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna on the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra.] Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Lord; Arjuna is a human being. But Arjuna loves Kṛṣṇa as a friend, and in response to Arjuna’s friendly love Kṛṣṇa has become his chariot driver, his servant. Similarly, if we become reinstated in our transcendental loving relationship with Kṛṣṇa, our aspiration for mastership will be fulfilled. If you agree to serve Kṛṣṇa, gradually you will see that Kṛṣṇa is also serving you. This is a question of realization.
So, if we want to get free of the service of this material world, the service of our senses, then we must direct our service toward God. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī quotes a nice verse in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu concerning the service of the senses: kāmādīnāṁ kati na katidhā pālitā durnideśā. Here a devotee is saying to God that he has served his senses for a very long time (kāmādīnāṁ kati na katidhā). Kāma means “lust.” He says, “By the dictation of my lust I have done what I should not have done.” When someone is a slave, he’s forced to do things he does not wish to do. He’s forced. So, here the devotee is admitting that under the dictation of his lust he has done sinful things.
Then someone may say to the devotee: “All right, you have served your senses. But now you are done serving them. Now everything is all right.” But the difficulty is this: teṣāṁ jātā mayi na karuṇā na trapā nopaśāntiḥ. The devotee says, “I have served my senses so much, but I find they are not satisfied. That is my difficulty. My senses are not satisfied, nor am I satisfied, nor are my senses kind enough to give me relief, to give me pension from their service. That is my position. I had hoped that by serving my senses for many years they would have been satisfied. But no, they’re not. They are still dictating to me.”
Here I may disclose something one of my students told me: In old age his mother is going to marry. And somebody else complained that his grandmother has also married. Just see: Fifty years old, seventy-five years old, and the senses are still so strong that they’re dictating, “Yes, you must marry.” Try to understand how strong the senses are. It is not simply young men who are servants of their senses. One may be seventy-five years old, eighty years old, or even at the point of death—still one is the servant of the senses. The senses are never satisfied.
So this is the material situation. We are servants of our senses, but by serving our senses we are not satisfied, nor are our senses satisfied, nor are they merciful to us. There is chaos!
The best thing, therefore, is to become a servant of God. In Bhagavad-gītā [18.66] Kṛṣṇa says,
sarva-dharmān parityajyamām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vrajaahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyomokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
You have served your senses in so many lives, life after life, in 8,400,000 species. The birds are serving their senses, the beasts are serving their senses, the human beings, the demigods—everyone within this material world is after sense gratification. “So,” Kṛṣṇa says, “just surrender unto Me. Just agree to serve Me, and I will take charge of you. You will be free from the dictation of your senses.”
Because of the dictation of the senses, we are committing sinful activities life after life. Therefore we are in different grades of bodies. Don’t think that every one of you is of the same standard. No. According to one’s activities, one gets a certain type of body. And these different types of bodies afford one different grades of sense gratification. There is sense gratification in the hog’s life also, but it is of a very low grade. The hog is so sensual that it does not hesitate to have sex with its mother, its sister, or its daughter. Even in human society there are people who don’t care whether they have sex with their mother or sister. The senses are so strong.
So, we should try to understand that serving the dictations of our senses is the cause of all our misery. The threefold miseries that we are suffering—the miseries we are trying to get free of—are due to this dictation of the senses. But if we become attracted to serving God, we will no longer be forced to follow the dictation of our senses. One name for God is Madana-mohana, “He who conquers Cupid, or lust.” If you transfer your love from your senses to Kṛṣṇa, you will be free from all misery. Immediately.
So this endeavor to be the master—“I am the lord of all I survey”—should be given up. Every one of us is constitutionally a servant. Now we are serving our senses, but we should direct this service to God. And when you serve God, gradually God reveals Himself to you as you become sincere. Then the reciprocation of service between God and you will be so nice. You can love Him as a friend or as a master or as a lover—there are so many ways to love God.
So, you should try to love Kṛṣṇa, and you will see how much you are satisfied. There is no other way to become fully satisfied. Earning great amounts of money will never give you satisfaction. I once knew a gentleman in Calcutta who was earning six thousand dollars a month. He committed suicide. Why? That money could not give him satisfaction. He was trying to have something else.
So my humble request to you all is that you try to understand this sublime benediction of life, God consciousness. Simply by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa you will gradually develop a transcendental loving attitude for God, and as soon as you begin to love God, all your troubles will be eradicated and you will feel complete satisfaction.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions?
Question: When we engage the material energy in the service of God, what happens to it? Does it become spiritualized?
Śrīla Prabhupāda: When a copper wire is in touch with electricity, it is no longer copper; it is electricity. Similarly, when you apply your energy to the service of God, it is no longer material energy; it is spiritual energy. So as soon as you engage yourself in the service of God, you become free from the dictates of the material energy. Kṛṣṇa states that in the Bhagavad-gītā[14.26]:
māṁ ca yo ’vyabhicāreṇabhakti-yogena sevatesa guṇān samatītyaitānbrahma-bhūyāya kalpate
“Anyone who seriously engages in My service immediately becomes transcendental to the material qualities and comes to the platform of Brahman, or spirit.”
So, when you apply your energy in the service of God, do not think that it remains material. Everything used in God’s service is spiritual. For example, each day we distribute fruit prasādam [fruit that has been offered to Kṛṣṇa]. Now, one may ask, “Why is this fruit different from ordinary fruit? It has been purchased at the market like any other fruit. We also eat fruit at home. What is the difference?” No. Because we offer the fruit to God, it immediately becomes spiritual. The result? Just go on eating kṛṣṇa-prasādam, and you will see how you are making progress in God consciousness.
Here is another example. If you drink a large quantity of milk, there may be some disorder in your bowels. If you go to a physician (at least, if you go to an Āyur-vedic physician), he’ll offer you a medical preparation made with yogurt. And that yogurt with a little medicine in it will cure you. Now, yogurt is nothing but milk transformed. So, your disease was caused by milk, and it is also cured by milk. How is that? Because you are taking the medicine under the direction of a qualified physician. Similarly, if you engage the material energy in the service of Godunder the direction of a bona fide spiritual master, that same material energy which has been the cause of your bondage will bring you to the transcendental stage beyond all misery.
Question: How can you make everything so simple to understand?
Śrīla Prabhupāda: Because the whole philosophy is so simple. God is great. You are not great. Don’t claim that you are God. Don’t claim that there is no God. God is infinite, and you are infinitesimal. Then what is your position? You have to serve God, Kṛṣṇa. This is simple truth. The rebellious attitude against God is māyā, illusion. Anyone who is declaring that he is God, that you are God, that there is no God, that God is dead—he is under the spell of māyā.
When a man is haunted by a ghost, he speaks all kinds of nonsense. Similarly, when a person is haunted by māyā, he says, “God is dead. I am God. Why are you searching for God? There are so many Gods loitering in the street.” People who speak like this are all ghostly haunted, deranged.
So you have to cure them by vibrating the transcendental sound of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. This is the cure. Simply let them hear, and gradually they will be cured. When a man is sleeping very soundly, you can cry out beside his ear and he’ll awaken. So the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra can awaken the sleeping human society. The Vedas say, uttiṣṭhata jāgrata prāpya varān nibodhata: “O human being, please get up! Don’t sleep any more. You have the opportunity of a human body. Utilize it. Get yourself out of the clutches of māyā.” This is the declaration of the Vedas. So continue to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Awaken your countrymen from illusion, and help them get relief from their miseries.
[from: The Journey of Self - Discovery CH3, by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder Acarya for ISKCON]
In this material world, everyone is trying to search out happiness and get relief from misery. There are three kinds of miseries caused by our material condition: ādhyātmika, ādhibhautika, and ādhidaivika. Ādhyātmika miseries are those caused by the body and mind themselves. For example, when there is some dis-arrangement of the different functions of metabolism within the body, we get a fever or some pain. Another kind of ādhyātmika misery is caused by the mind. Suppose I lose someone who is dear to me. Then my mind will be disturbed. This is also suffering. So diseases of the body or mental disturbances are ādhyātmika miseries.
Then there are ādhibhautika miseries, sufferings caused by other living entities. For example, human beings are sending millions of poor animals to the slaughterhouse daily. The animals cannot express themselves, but they are undergoing great suffering. And we also suffer miseries caused by other living entities.
Finally, there are ādhidaivika miseries, those caused by higher authorities. There may be famine, earthquake, flood, pestilence—so many things. These are ādhidaivika sufferings.
So we are always suffering one or more of these miseries. This material nature is constituted in such a way that we have to suffer; it is God’s law. And we are trying to relieve the suffering by patchwork remedies. Everyone is trying to get relief from suffering; that is a fact. The whole struggle for existence is aimed at getting out of suffering.
There are various kinds of remedies that we use to try to relieve our suffering. One remedy is offered by the modern scientists, one by the philosophers, another by the atheists, another by the theists, another by the fruitive workers. There are so many ideas. But according to the philosophy of God consciousness, you can get free of all your sufferings if you simply change your consciousness to God consciousness. That’s all.
All our sufferings are due to ignorance. We have forgotten that we are eternal servants of God. There is a nice Bengali verse that explains this point:
kṛṣṇa-bahirmukha haiyā bhoga-vāñchā karenikaṭa-stha māyā tāre jāpatiyā dhare
As soon as our original God consciousness becomes polluted with the consciousness of material enjoyment—the idea that I want to lord it over the resources of matter—our troubles begin. Immediately we fall into māyā, illusion. Everyone in the material world is thinking, “I can enjoy this world to my best capacity.” From the tiny ant up to the highest living creature, Brahmā, everyone is trying to become a lord. In your country many politicians are canvassing to become the president. Why? They want to become some kind of lord. This is illusion.
In the God consciousness movement our mentality is just the opposite. We are trying to become the servant of the servant of the servant of the servant of God (gopī-bhartuḥ pada-kamalayor dāsa-dāsānudāsaḥ). Instead of wanting to become a lord, we want to become the servant of God.
Now, people may say this is a slave mentality: “Why should I become a slave? I shall become the master.” But they do not know that this consciousness—“I shall become the master”—is the cause of all their suffering. This has to be understood. In the name of becoming master of this material world, we have become the servants of our senses.
We cannot avoid serving. Every one of us sitting in this meeting is a servant. These boys and girls who have taken to Kṛṣṇa consciousness have agreed to become servants of God. So their problem is solved. But others are thinking, “Why should I become a servant of God? I shall become the master.” Actually, no one can become the master. And if someone tries to become the master, he simply becomes the servant of his senses. That’s all. He becomes the servant of his lust, the servant of his avarice, the servant of his anger—the servant of so many things.
In a higher stage, one becomes the servant of humanity, the servant of society, the servant of his country. But the actual purpose is to become the master. That is the disease. The candidates for the presidency are presenting their different manifestos: “I shall serve the country very nicely. Please give me your vote.” But their real idea is somehow or other to become the master of the country. This is illusion.
So, we should understand this important point of philosophy: Constitutionally we are servants. Nobody can say, “I am free; I am the master.” If someone thinks like that, he’s in illusion. Can anybody in this meeting say that he’s not the servant of anybody or anything? No, because our constitutional position is to serve.
We may serve god, or we may serve our senses. But the difficulty is that by serving our senses we simply increase our misery. For the time being you may satisfy yourself by taking some intoxicant. And under the spell of the intoxicant you may think that you are nobody’s servant, that you are free. But this idea is artificial. As soon as the hallucination is gone, again you see that you are a servant.
So we are being forced to serve, but we don’t wish to serve. What is the adjustment? God consciousness. If you become the servant of Kṛṣṇa, your aspiration to become the master is immediately achieved. For example, here we see a picture of Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna. [Śrīla Prabhupāda points to a painting of Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna on the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra.] Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Lord; Arjuna is a human being. But Arjuna loves Kṛṣṇa as a friend, and in response to Arjuna’s friendly love Kṛṣṇa has become his chariot driver, his servant. Similarly, if we become reinstated in our transcendental loving relationship with Kṛṣṇa, our aspiration for mastership will be fulfilled. If you agree to serve Kṛṣṇa, gradually you will see that Kṛṣṇa is also serving you. This is a question of realization.
So, if we want to get free of the service of this material world, the service of our senses, then we must direct our service toward God. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī quotes a nice verse in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu concerning the service of the senses: kāmādīnāṁ kati na katidhā pālitā durnideśā. Here a devotee is saying to God that he has served his senses for a very long time (kāmādīnāṁ kati na katidhā). Kāma means “lust.” He says, “By the dictation of my lust I have done what I should not have done.” When someone is a slave, he’s forced to do things he does not wish to do. He’s forced. So, here the devotee is admitting that under the dictation of his lust he has done sinful things.
Then someone may say to the devotee: “All right, you have served your senses. But now you are done serving them. Now everything is all right.” But the difficulty is this: teṣāṁ jātā mayi na karuṇā na trapā nopaśāntiḥ. The devotee says, “I have served my senses so much, but I find they are not satisfied. That is my difficulty. My senses are not satisfied, nor am I satisfied, nor are my senses kind enough to give me relief, to give me pension from their service. That is my position. I had hoped that by serving my senses for many years they would have been satisfied. But no, they’re not. They are still dictating to me.”
Here I may disclose something one of my students told me: In old age his mother is going to marry. And somebody else complained that his grandmother has also married. Just see: Fifty years old, seventy-five years old, and the senses are still so strong that they’re dictating, “Yes, you must marry.” Try to understand how strong the senses are. It is not simply young men who are servants of their senses. One may be seventy-five years old, eighty years old, or even at the point of death—still one is the servant of the senses. The senses are never satisfied.
So this is the material situation. We are servants of our senses, but by serving our senses we are not satisfied, nor are our senses satisfied, nor are they merciful to us. There is chaos!
The best thing, therefore, is to become a servant of God. In Bhagavad-gītā [18.66] Kṛṣṇa says,
sarva-dharmān parityajyamām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vrajaahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyomokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
You have served your senses in so many lives, life after life, in 8,400,000 species. The birds are serving their senses, the beasts are serving their senses, the human beings, the demigods—everyone within this material world is after sense gratification. “So,” Kṛṣṇa says, “just surrender unto Me. Just agree to serve Me, and I will take charge of you. You will be free from the dictation of your senses.”
Because of the dictation of the senses, we are committing sinful activities life after life. Therefore we are in different grades of bodies. Don’t think that every one of you is of the same standard. No. According to one’s activities, one gets a certain type of body. And these different types of bodies afford one different grades of sense gratification. There is sense gratification in the hog’s life also, but it is of a very low grade. The hog is so sensual that it does not hesitate to have sex with its mother, its sister, or its daughter. Even in human society there are people who don’t care whether they have sex with their mother or sister. The senses are so strong.
So, we should try to understand that serving the dictations of our senses is the cause of all our misery. The threefold miseries that we are suffering—the miseries we are trying to get free of—are due to this dictation of the senses. But if we become attracted to serving God, we will no longer be forced to follow the dictation of our senses. One name for God is Madana-mohana, “He who conquers Cupid, or lust.” If you transfer your love from your senses to Kṛṣṇa, you will be free from all misery. Immediately.
So this endeavor to be the master—“I am the lord of all I survey”—should be given up. Every one of us is constitutionally a servant. Now we are serving our senses, but we should direct this service to God. And when you serve God, gradually God reveals Himself to you as you become sincere. Then the reciprocation of service between God and you will be so nice. You can love Him as a friend or as a master or as a lover—there are so many ways to love God.
So, you should try to love Kṛṣṇa, and you will see how much you are satisfied. There is no other way to become fully satisfied. Earning great amounts of money will never give you satisfaction. I once knew a gentleman in Calcutta who was earning six thousand dollars a month. He committed suicide. Why? That money could not give him satisfaction. He was trying to have something else.
So my humble request to you all is that you try to understand this sublime benediction of life, God consciousness. Simply by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa you will gradually develop a transcendental loving attitude for God, and as soon as you begin to love God, all your troubles will be eradicated and you will feel complete satisfaction.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions?
Question: When we engage the material energy in the service of God, what happens to it? Does it become spiritualized?
Śrīla Prabhupāda: When a copper wire is in touch with electricity, it is no longer copper; it is electricity. Similarly, when you apply your energy to the service of God, it is no longer material energy; it is spiritual energy. So as soon as you engage yourself in the service of God, you become free from the dictates of the material energy. Kṛṣṇa states that in the Bhagavad-gītā[14.26]:
māṁ ca yo ’vyabhicāreṇabhakti-yogena sevatesa guṇān samatītyaitānbrahma-bhūyāya kalpate
“Anyone who seriously engages in My service immediately becomes transcendental to the material qualities and comes to the platform of Brahman, or spirit.”
So, when you apply your energy in the service of God, do not think that it remains material. Everything used in God’s service is spiritual. For example, each day we distribute fruit prasādam [fruit that has been offered to Kṛṣṇa]. Now, one may ask, “Why is this fruit different from ordinary fruit? It has been purchased at the market like any other fruit. We also eat fruit at home. What is the difference?” No. Because we offer the fruit to God, it immediately becomes spiritual. The result? Just go on eating kṛṣṇa-prasādam, and you will see how you are making progress in God consciousness.
Here is another example. If you drink a large quantity of milk, there may be some disorder in your bowels. If you go to a physician (at least, if you go to an Āyur-vedic physician), he’ll offer you a medical preparation made with yogurt. And that yogurt with a little medicine in it will cure you. Now, yogurt is nothing but milk transformed. So, your disease was caused by milk, and it is also cured by milk. How is that? Because you are taking the medicine under the direction of a qualified physician. Similarly, if you engage the material energy in the service of Godunder the direction of a bona fide spiritual master, that same material energy which has been the cause of your bondage will bring you to the transcendental stage beyond all misery.
Question: How can you make everything so simple to understand?
Śrīla Prabhupāda: Because the whole philosophy is so simple. God is great. You are not great. Don’t claim that you are God. Don’t claim that there is no God. God is infinite, and you are infinitesimal. Then what is your position? You have to serve God, Kṛṣṇa. This is simple truth. The rebellious attitude against God is māyā, illusion. Anyone who is declaring that he is God, that you are God, that there is no God, that God is dead—he is under the spell of māyā.
When a man is haunted by a ghost, he speaks all kinds of nonsense. Similarly, when a person is haunted by māyā, he says, “God is dead. I am God. Why are you searching for God? There are so many Gods loitering in the street.” People who speak like this are all ghostly haunted, deranged.
So you have to cure them by vibrating the transcendental sound of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. This is the cure. Simply let them hear, and gradually they will be cured. When a man is sleeping very soundly, you can cry out beside his ear and he’ll awaken. So the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra can awaken the sleeping human society. The Vedas say, uttiṣṭhata jāgrata prāpya varān nibodhata: “O human being, please get up! Don’t sleep any more. You have the opportunity of a human body. Utilize it. Get yourself out of the clutches of māyā.” This is the declaration of the Vedas. So continue to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Awaken your countrymen from illusion, and help them get relief from their miseries.
[from: The Journey of Self - Discovery CH3, by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder Acarya for ISKCON]
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