Organised religion. Quantity of disciples. What distinguishes a Vaisnava

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Any questions from anyone?
Audience: Recently, I met a friend who was a Buddhist for like eight years and now she lost her faith and we talked and she was saying that her question was how real teacher can have so many disciples? She said she’s got disappointed in organized religion. I couldn’t find an answer.

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Yeah, well, there are formal aspects and things that are substantial. So, Śrīla Guru Mahārāj he would very often frame things in this way: form and substance. And this a theme, it’s an axiomatic truth, it’s a universal theme. Form and substance. When it’s applied to religion or any other things, but religion, he would say things like: Religious institution is formed to promote the particular ideal. The whole idea is that we’ll promote a particular level of theism or particular ideal. If in time it becomes absent that ideal, then it’s a shell of what is was meant to be. And this happens necessarily. We shouldn’t be afraid to identify this. When I was first reading the Bhagavad-gītā as a teenager and I came to the forth chapter, …

imaṁ vivasvate yogaṁ
proktavān aham avyayam
vivasvān manave prāha
manur ikṣvākave ’bravīt

evaṁ paramparā-prāptam
imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ
sa kāleneha mahatā
yogo naṣṭaḥ paran-tapa
(Bhagavad-gītā: 4.1-2)

So, what I found of peculiar interest, where is that, here He is Kṛṣṇa is recognizing that in time, due to the influence of time, the original spiritual substance may become modified beyond recognition. It may become so distorted, modified is a word, distortion, perverted, many different words could be applied to this. But what it was originally as Bhaktivinod Ṭhākur says in his Bhagavat, “The truth is inevitably converted into error. This is also dealt within the eleventh canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and what I mean by making these references, I didn’t find it discouraging, I found it encouraging, that this was being acknowledged and recognized, as opposed to saying, “Oh, this could never happen”.

That would make me suspicious, but here from the beginning it was being acknowledged, he is saying, “Why am I speaking this again to Arjun? What is was long ago, it became modified beyond recognition. Or another way of putting it, religion has deteriorated into irreligion, if you want to use religious terms. Or Bhaktivinod’s more broad, encompassing: the Truth has been converted into error. So, even secular thinkers they recognize this, sometimes in the literary world, literary philosophical linguistics they use the word “cant” means, it’s not like the word “can not”, cant here means almost like “chant”, in means “mindless repetition of formula”. When something descends to the point where it becomes the mindless repetition of formula… Guru Mahārāj himself in one of his original sutras said, “The repetition of sensation is not experience”.

Then we go like, “Why are we chanting?” [laugh]. Over and over again. We’ll factor this in, “The repetition of sensation is not experience”. Simple by saying the same thing over and over again weather it’s some mantra or concept, an idea, a prayer, whatever it is. He said it’s not experience. It’s not necessarily experience, he also heard in his childhood,

And you might think it’s odd to inject this at this point but Vedic aphorism it says, “It’s not as important to understand as to go on hearing.” Isn’t it another contradiction of what you’ve just said? Not necessarily. Depends on what type of hearing that is,

There is also a faithful type of hearing, of repeated hearing faithfully, that’s not mindless repetition. So, but still, we have to go beyond guard against complacency, where something can descend into cant, can descend into formula, or platitude. At the same time we’ll remember whatever platitudes, clichés sayings they are, they are what they are because there was a time when they were meaningful and substantial.

What it points to is that we need something living, beyond the mechanics of it all, we need something living and vital. And Kṛṣṇa’s parting instructions to Uddhava in the eleventh canto of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, it’s also mentioned there. Along the lines of kalau naṣṭa-dṛśām eṣa (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 1.3.43) the same kind of thing, I forget the exact words in Sanskrit. But there two things are mentioned significantly, which are pāramparyeṇa and prakṛti-vaichitryād (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 11.14.8). And what this means is: when there is a dissemination of spiritual knowledge as in this case Brahma, and his sons and disciples. [Is that us? It’s a bird, the bird of agreement, this is an exotic place no doubt].

So, he is speaking this Truth, whatever you wanna call it, giving the mantra, the concept, the idea, the notion, and Guru Mahārāj says prakṛti-vaichitra, means, according to the nature or the tendency of the receivers it undergoes some modification. Then they in term represent that to another group, who hear what they’re saying according to their nature and tendency it undergoes some modification, and in this way it’s possible that they can get so far away from what it was originally that the truth is converted into error. [So, that’s really a bird, okay. Anyway, that, turn that bird off, because this bird is engaged in the mindless repetition of formula].

But another bird we revere, Śuk, it is like Śukadev Goswāmī, the Śuk, the parrot, we’re told that when it tastes the fruit, the fruit becomes sweeter, so, now we can go on the opposite direction,

Mentioned, and this is a prayojana-tattva śloka of Bhāgavatam, because, we have sambandha, janmādy asya yataḥ (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 1.1.1), abhidheya, dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo ’tra paramo nirmatsarāṇāṁ satāṁ (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 1.1.2).The prayojana-tattva śloka where the goal, the target, the fruit, nigama-kalpa-taror galitaṁ phalaṁ, Vedas as the tree produce the flower – Vedanta, from which the fruit – Vedanta, śruti sāram, vedanta sāram, the ‘crème de la crème’ of all the spiritual sound and substance, manifested in the form and expression of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, culminating in the divine Pastimes of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, the Vraja-gopīs and Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvan.

But here it is śuka-mukhād amṛta-drava-saṁyutam. Vyās is saying, “After this was tasted by Śukadev, it didn’t become tasteless, it didn’t, it wasn’t like when someone sucks out all the flavor, the juice from something, chewing the chewed like a piece of gum, that’s lost all of its sweetness, because someone chewed everything out of it, and what’s left it’s just some tasteless vial, pulp. No, we’re saying that here something miraculous is taking place. By Śukadev’s tasting this nectarine substance it becomes enhanced, it becomes even more tasteful. That’s also possible, and that’s there we set our target. If that possibility should pick the imagination, when someone delivers something tasteful, you relish that tasteful substance, and it becomes even more tasteful. Is there something like that? And that is another approach to this and actually that’s an answer to this question. When Śrīla Guru Mahārāj deals with this also, in Bhaktivinoda-viraha daśakam,

śrī-gaurānumataṁ svarūp-viditaṁ rūpāgrajenādṛtaṁ
rūpādyaiḥ pariveśitaṁ raghu-gaṇair āsvāditaṁ sevitam
(Śrīmad Bhaktivinoda-viraha daśakam: 9)

As Gurudev likes to say, “What is Mahāprabhu’s tasting matter, that is full known to Swarūp Dāmodar, “mahāprabhur dvitīya kalevar” (Chaitanya-charitāmṛta: Madhya 11.76), Mahāprabhu the second, Mahāprabhu’s other self, swarūp bhāṇḍār, mahabhava, kṛṣṇa-prema bhāṇḍār – the storehouse of this sort of divine nectarine treasure, but it’s worshipped by Sanātan Goswāmī and extended by Rūpa Goswāmī and his followers, “rūpādyaiḥ pariveśitaṁ raghu-gaṇair āsvāditaṁ sevitam…” Raghunāth dās Goswāmī and  Kṛṣṇadas Kavirāj Goswāmī they’re tasting this what came from Swarūp Dāmodar, worshipped by Sanātan, extended by Rūpa. They’re tasting that substance and it’s becoming enhanced in the process, that’s what we’re interested in, something living, dynamic, that has possibility for growth and development.

And Śrīla Guru Mahārāj on the guru-disciple side of things said, his preference was to in a small circle deal with higher subject matters, so you can say a few disciples following the advice of Rūpa Goswāmī, where he says, “Don’t have many disciples, read many books, don’t read many books, have many followers, and open many temples, maṭhs, centres”. So, Śrīla Guru Mahārāj, acquainted with that teaching of Rūpa, we know he could always present everything very tactfully, gently, so he said to Śrīla Saraswatī Ṭhākur, “What is someone was to say that we’re violating that principle by initiating so many disciples, establishing so many centers, particularly?”. And he said, Saraswatī Ṭhākur’s response was very simple, in a phrase, in a sentence he dealt with it, he said, “According to one’s capacity”. And Guru Mahārāj’s own example was, he said, “One man, like a general in the army, he’s controlling a million soldiers and he has free time on his hands. Another man has a wife and a child and can’t find a moment to himself”. So, it’s according to individual capacity.

But whenever this issue came to Śrīla Guru Mahārāj, he gave one example too in the time of Gauḍia Maṭh. They were on the Vraja-maṇḍala parikramā with so many pilgrims. And there’s logistics involved and making arrangements for everybody, where they’ll stay, the cooking, the lodging, etc. And at some point cause they’ll stay in one of the holy places, then you have to advance party, move the group there, the logistics broke down, and then there was descent amongst the pilgrims. And that news of their descent came to the ear of Saraswatī Ṭhākur and he deputed Bhakti Hṛdoy Bon Mahārāj to calm them. And Śrīla Guru Mahārāj said, Bon Mahārāj told them, “You didn’t come to us, enjoying with us because we have some superior system of management.” As one devotee with regard to some of the modern day manifestations of the Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement, he said, “No one can accuse us of being organized religion”. [laugh]. It’s like ‘disorganized religion’.

So, they didn’t come to us because we have superior system of management, people skills and all of these things, but they were attracted by the dignity of the conception and on the basis of your affinity for that you please don’t mind that, tolerate the lack of organization, the disorganization. Śrīla Guru Mahārāj mentioned on his own regard, now when we go to India, we see so many beautiful temples. But when Śrīla Guru Mahārāj joined they didn’t have any in Gauḍia Maṭh, they were in the process of building things, he said, “I was not attracted by the architecture, but by the dignity of the conception of Śrīla Saraswatī Ṭhākur”. And then later it evolved into a grand expensive institution organization. So, we’re looking for spiritual substance, not a particular system of dissemination. Yes, it is advised by no less than Rūpa Goswāmī, to have a few disciples, not to read so many books just for the sake of impressing the audience, trying to understand the essence.

Bhaktivinod Ṭhākur said, “baḍa bahi and sarva grāhi”, baḍa grāhi means like an ass, a beast of burden, he can carry so much, he said, “Carrying the weight of having read so many books without understanding the essence the gist of what was to be extracted from there and that type of scholarship is a burden”. And if a devotee by the purpose in reading many books was to impress the audience then the transaction will be something less than genuinely spiritual. Like Gaura Kiśor dās Bābājī Mahārāj we hear that, when he was an Avadhut, “bhaktāvadhūta mūrttaye”, means beyond rules, regulations, appearing almost as a mad urchin, but revered by people nonetheless as being substantial saint, Vaiṣṇava.

So, one man who made his living reading the Bhāgavatam, a professional reciter, wanted to read before Gaura Kiśor dās Bābājī Mahārāj, Bābājī Mahārāj tried to avoid somehow, he couldn’t avoid this situation, and afterwards people were asking him for his impressions, and he said, “Get some cow dung and some cow urine and cleanse this place”. And everyone was shocked, because they’re familiar with the statements in the Bhāgavatam itself, it says, “Wherever the Bhāgavatam is spoken, the speaker is purified, the listener is purified, who asked the question, everyone, the very place itself is purified. And Bābājī Mahārāj is saying at the conclusion of this Bhāgavatam recitation to get the cow dung and cow urine which is the Vedic system for purifying, that which has become contaminated. So, everyone was puzzled and bewildered.

They said, “But Bābājī Mahārāj we’ve just heard the Bhāgavatam”, he said, “You’ve heard Bhāgavatam? All I heard was “money, money, money…”. So, the man literary spoke the contents of the pages of the Bhāgavatam but it was a shell for someone substantial like Gaura Kiśor dās Bābājī Mahārāj there, it was absent divine substance, there’s no spiritual current running through the words. And therefore not purifying, but contaminating. So, it brings us back to original concept. What qualifies the transaction as being spiritual… Form vs. Substance.

So, from a Kṛṣṇa Conscious perspective there’s to be the will of Kṛṣṇa on the background to distribute Himself.

nāyam ātmā pravachanena labhyo
na medhayā na bahunā śrutena
yam evaiṣa vṛṇute tena labhyas
tasyaiṣa ātmā vivṛṇute tanūṁ svām
(Kaṭha Upaniṣad: 1.2.23)

Famous verse from the Upaniṣads. “nāyam ātmā pravachanena”, “pravachan”, means talking, lecturing, preaching, “na medhayā” means intelligence, “bahunā” – having heard so much, back to Rūpa Goswāmī, not just hearing extensively to expend of repertoire of impressing a relatively naïve or unexperienced audience, “bahunā śrutena”, that says he revels himself to whom he chooses, through whom he chooses. In some instances that  maybe one or few. Narottam Ṭhākur’s guru, Lokanāth Goswāmī, vowed not to take any disciple, but by the devotion, affection, sincerity of Narottam Ṭhākur, he was accepted. So, Lokanāth Goswāmī has one disciple. Narottam Ṭhākur preached extensively around India, sometimes we hear he had a hundred thousand disciples.

Gaura Kiśor das Bābājī Mahārāj not making any disciples, but one exception – Śrīla Saraswatī Ṭhākur. So, Gaura Kiśor das Bābājī Mahārāj’s one disciple, Saraswatī Ṭhākur thousands, back to his premise, according to capacity.
So, we can’t avoid becoming acquainted with spiritual substance, so that we can recognize whether it’s coming in an apparently narrow channel or something very wide and broad. That’s not a concern, narrow or broad, but what is the quality of that substance.

Any other question?

One of Śrīla Guru Mahārāj’s examples is about Gaṅgā. What is the Gaṅgā? It’s the current. And he gives the common understanding. And we know, we were just in India, you go to one place, “Is this the Gaṅgā?” And they’ll say, “Oh…” and they will give another name or it’s another river or there’s a particular place where they meet, the confluence of the Gaṅgā, the Jalāṅgi, the Saraswatī, Jamunā. So, they’ll say, “When the current of another river enters the current of the Gaṅgā, it’s Gaṅgā, when the current of the Gaṅgā leaves that current and enters the current of another river, it’s no longer Gaṅgā. So, the common understanding, “Then what is Gaṅgā?” It’s the undercurrent, the current, so we’re looking for that divine current, wherever it’s flowing, it is a current that is vital to our existence spiritual and otherwise.

rādhe vṛndāvanādhīśe
karuṇāmṛta-vāhini

Gopāl Bhaṭṭa Goswāmī says, this divine current that is flowing, from Srīmatī Rādhārāṇī, vṛndāvan, rādhe vṛndāvanādhīśe karuṇāmṛa-vāhini… Sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ (Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.2.234), current of service. All these lights, we have so many lights here, everything can look very impressive, but you take away the electric current, it’s only shell of what is meant to be, it’s not realizing its potential, the potential of all these lights to give illumination, but without electrical current there is no illumination,

That current is beyond the senses, the mind and an intellect, spiritual current, sevā. And when they’re connected to the source and infused with that current, then there is illumination – svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ.

Small light, big light, voltage. Śrīla Guru Mahārāj pointed it out, “We may vibrate the Name of Kṛṣṇa, others may vibrate the Name Kṛṣṇa, but when Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī vibrates the Name Kṛṣṇa, what type of voltage is in that current?” So, revealed in the beginning of Charitāmṛta there’s Kṛṣṇa saying, “What is her position? When she is cursing me that curse is sweater than the sound of the Vedas personified in their extraordinary glorification. They’re telling how wonderful and glorious Kṛṣṇa is, divine, and Kṛṣṇa’s reveling, expressing it so candidly, when Rādhārāṇī is cursing me that’s sweater than the sound of Vedas and it steals my mind away form the reverential hymns of the Vedas.

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Is this a question?
Audience: Yes.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Speak up for the sake of our listeners.

Question: He is asking, about this topic form and substance, if we see some person and it’s just a person, but if it’s Vaiṣnav, what’s the most important quality of Vaiṣnav, that differs him from others?

Goswāmī Mahārāj: That’s a very good question. What distinguishes the Vaiṣṇava? What come first to my mind, as Śrīla Guru Mahārāj’s saying, “We can recognize a Vaiṣṇava as someone who’s got recognition from a Vaiṣṇava”. So just as Śrīla Guru Mahārāj in his Bhaktivinod-viraha-daśakam, not that his disciples are praising that as they are, but because someone won’t be judged according to the loving angle of vision of the disciple, but Saraswatī Ṭhākur is recognizing in him the current of Bhaktivinod Ṭhākur, the current of Rūpa Goswāmī, so, that’s an unparalleled level of recognition from the most substantial source. Otherwise the Bhāgavatam comes to mind,

Perhaps, in the fifth canto of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam Śrīla Prabhupād liked to quote this verse. It says, that we see devotees, yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñchanā, that they’re, they have no interest in the mundane. That’s one aspect. Sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ, and we see divine like qualities manifesting in them. Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā, it says when someone’s being a materialist, however developed they may seem to be and good qualities, mahad-guṇā. Manorathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ, they’re on the mental platform. Manoratha, means the chariot of the mind. So, their good qualities are located in the mental plane, whereas we could say, this qualification is more of a substantial nature, and the reverse we can consider in the case of Vaiṣṇava.

But Vaiṣṇavas are distinguished as those who are wholly giving over to Sādhu, Śastra, Guru and Vaiṣṇava. To their guru they’re totally observed in service and association through remembrance of the lotus feet of their guru. And extending that connection to others, they’re not self-promoting. We say: kanak, kāminī, pratiṣṭhā. They understand, kanak – lakṣmī, money, Lakṣmī is meant for Nārāyaṇ. Kāminī – ladies, for Kṛṣṇa. Pratishtha – name and fame, for guru.

These are some things that we may consider. Twenty-four… twenty-six qualities are mentioned, maybe found in Charitāmṛtam, according Rūpa Goswāmī’s Bhakti-rasāmṛita sindhu. But you know that’s a list, what are you gonna do? Go with the list and start checking of what you see in the list? When I say ‘you’, I mean ‘you’ plural one. So, who can? Who is serving, who is wholly given over to guru and the service of the lotus feet of guru, can infuse that feeling in others within us, we’ll be awaken to servicing prospect, serving potential.

Because if we’re looking for stereotype, we may be mislead sometimes we’re told that Vaiṣṇava is you know strong as a thunderbolt and soft as a rose. Śrīla Guru Mahārāj said of Saraswatī Ṭhākur, he had the sweetness of Vṛndāvan within and it could only be detected within, whereas externally he appeared in the form of the devastator. He’s saying so from external point of view like a thunderbolt but internally – like a rose.

So, if we’re looking for some stereotype as told in the sixties when Mahaṛṣi Māheś was very popular because the Beatles went to him, and other movie stars, so, he had his fifteen minutes of fame on television in America, and whenever they would show him he would always be dressed in flowing robes and holding a flower and laughing, so big long beard, flowing robes, holding flowers, and giggling [laugh]. And talking about transcendental meditation. Something inside of me made me realize that he was the fool on the hill [laugh], which is the song written about him, “Fool on the Hill”. That was Paul McCartney is ultimate impression of him, the “Fool on the Hill”, John Lennon wrote another song about him called “Sexy Sadie”. So, in other words he fits the stereotype of what the guru is, but the more they got to know him and interact with him, one said, “He is a fool on the hill”, another said, “Sexy Sadie”.

And something about him his flower twirling wrapped me the wrong way [laugh]. Whereas when I went into the Haight-Ashbury Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa temple of Śrīla Prabhupad and there was this picture of Prabhupad and it’s a very famous picture, black and white, taken by Gurudās Prabhu, where Prabhupad sitting with his japa-mālā, taking Kṛṣṇa-nām, and he looks so brave. And when I saw this picture, somehow I felt, he is experiencing something very deep. We could say, well, this is a superficial type of analysis… Yes, it is, talking about stereotypes. But in time I came to know by being his disciple, follower, interacting with him, that what I perceived initially was true, substantial.

Bhaktyā sañjātayā bhaktyā, by interacting with the Vaiṣṇava, the Kṛṣṇa Conception should appear in our hearts, in a substantial and meaningful way. Āchinoti yaḥ śāstrārhaḥ, āchārya is one who extracts the meaning of the scripture. Because there are so many books, so many scriptures, so many statements, how to harmonize all of them? How to extract from them something that’s meaningful and relevant to our lives at present? But by interacting with substantial devotees the tendency to feel some affection toward Kṛṣṇa will awaken within us. Bhajanīya sarva-sad-guṇa-viśiṣṭa, and subsequently to offer ourselves in service. We hear that Vaiṣṇavas, “kṛpāmbudhir yaḥ para-duḥkha-dukhī…” their suffering is observing the suffering of others, that bothers them, that disturbs them. So, they want, “na cha tasmān manuṣyeṣu, kaśchin me priya-kṛttamaḥ…” (Bhagavad-gītā: 18.69) They want to take Kṛṣṇa conception to as many others as possible. Because they know that all suffering is based in, the root is forgetfulness of one’s relationships with Kṛṣṇa, whatever the causes locally, the ultimate cause of all suffering is forgetfulness of one’s relationships with Kṛṣṇa.

Bhayaṁ dvitīyābhiniveśataḥ syād (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 11.2.37) [It is another bird? We should’ve invited them all. Oh, that’s a lizard. They do that? Oh, I didn’t hear that one. The tik-tiki or another lizard, oh, big ones like iguanas, or what kind of lizards are they? Really? So, we have tik-tikis going, and another one (imitating the sounds of lizards). Good! We hope we’re telling the truth]. But really interacting with the Vaiṣṇava will awaken the tendency within us to appreciate Kṛṣṇa. Yes?

Audience: (question in Russian).

There was a conversation today, they were discussing a group of people who is taking the knowledge of Vedas and also Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, but they’re using it to show people how to come to healthy way of life, for perspective, he said, there were two opinions, one who’s telling, that this group of people who bringing this knowledge, is some kind of wholesome for society because still they’re bringing the knowledge from Vedas, but the other opinion, that these people they are just diverting people from the right perspective, form the right way. So…

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Well, we know the Bhāgavatam we mention these three ślokas in the beginning. So, I told about the third one, but in the second position is abhideya-tattva śloka, dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo ’tra paramo nirmatsarāṇāṁ satāṁ (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 1.1.2). So, it says, dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo, saying here “religion”, and it means Vedic religion, all of these good things that the Vedas say about how to live your life, being in the mode of goodness, how to gradually elevate yourself from the mode of ignorance to passion, to goodness etc. It’s saying, here it’s being told, Nārada comes and chastises Vyās and said, “You’re doing a disservice to people, because you’re giving them a way, where they think that they can live in this world and be healthy. So, they never gonna give it up, why should they? So, even though that’s not what you meant, you meant to take them to something beyond all of these, higher, more refined, liberating, etc. You’re giving them a program, where they can stay bound perpetually in the name of following Vedavyās and religious prescription.

So, on the one hand, it’s like Guru Mahārāj sometimes would frame it in this way: absolute consideration, relative consideration. We can say from relative position it has some value. Yes, if you reconfigure your life in such a way like becoming a vegetarian, a practice of yoga, this stuff, whatever it might be, and if you reconfigure your life in the line with Vedic concepts and principles, then you could establish yourself in the position that’s most conducive to spiritual realization, but we find that very often that’s not true, ironically. So, sometimes the most difficult people for us to preach to are vegetarians and people who practice yoga. You would think, “No, they should be the people...”. But they’re not. Why? Because they think they already got it, because it’s not just about being a vegetarian and being healthy. And it’s oxymoronic to speak of being healthy in the world of mortality.

So, yeah, we are not knocking health, everybody wants to be healthy, but let’s face  it – everybody is not. And only that, everybody is going to die. Just by the seductive allure of the carrot, of technology and science. They’re promising eternal life to people, which they say is the one of the foolish assertions of religious people, talking about eternal life. So on the one hand, they are mocking this as being the target of foolish people. And then what are they saying, what do they promising? Eternal life. Same thing. So, that’s because,  the serious part of it, is we all have to deal with mortality.

So, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (Bhagavad Gītā: 13.9). Kṛṣṇa says, this is the darśan of this world, duḥkh, this type of suffering, associated with birth, death, old age and disease. These things. Even if you can be healthy. You know what’s gonna kill you? Is getting older. It’s interesting, it’s in the same list with birth, death, and disease. “Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi,” between disease and death, they put age, and it goes like, “Why are they putting it on the same sequence as these things?” Because, it’s hard…, everyone in this room, but the exception of me, is young. I mean look, last thing I remember I was nineteen, and then suddenly I was fifty-nine. [laugh]. I don’t know what happened. Like, I celebrated my nineteenth birthday and then it was fifty-nine. So, and it’s more painful for someone who in, “janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrībhir, edhamāna-madaḥ pumān,” (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 1.8.26) someone who’s famous in the world, or beautiful, for them it’s extremely painful.

The super models of the world, the famous Hollywood actresses, because for a short time they can busy the archetype of beauty, charm and sweetness. But it’s so short lived. You know, the average model, like a model’s old by the time they are twenty-four. Maybe it’s like seventeen to twenty-four. You know the girl of twenty-four – she is getting pretty old now. She is twenty-four years old... [laugh]. She has had her day. As the poet Nash, wrote in “A Litany in Time of Plague”, “Beauty is but a flower, Which wrinkles will devour, Brightness falls from the air, Queens have died young and fair”.

So, trying to maintain an illusory representation of oneself is painful and self-defeating. And taking things from the Vedas whether it’s yoga or other kind of things and disseminating them to people so that in their desperation to delay the effects of aging and impending mortality, to give them some false hope, that they can live here happily indefinitely is a type of deception, so, there is some deception there. People like to cherry-pick the Vedas and eastern though, the parts they like, and the parts that are the least likely to be jarring or offend others. So, it’s a type of deception.

As, we know from our exposure to teaching and Vedic literature, that there’s this balance there, in Bhāgavad-gītā, and the theme of mortality is ever present. With the healthy understanding of that, not a morbid obsession, but a healthy recognition of its inevitability, gives focus to your life, your activities, it helps one to organize one’s time. Steve Jobbs said, that finding out he was dying was very liberating to him, because he knew, “I have a limited amount of time, this is what I want to do in that time.” So, that’s a Vedic concept, is understanding the inevitability of mortality, living in the mortal world. Momento mori. Reminders, death reminders. It’s every day in a news,

ahany ahani bhūtāni
gachchhantīha yamālayam
śeṣāḥ sthāvaram ichchhanti
kim āścharyam atah param
(Mahābhārata: Vana-parva, 313.116)

We see it every single day. If we were to go to the home page of any news paper or magazine, news magazines, in the world, this is the news… Every day you’ll see there, there will be someone famous who’s died or someone who’s not famous who died, some sort of mortal tragedy. This is the news every single day. So, for us to live in the denial that will somehow be examined, it won’t happen to us… And repeatedly we hear the people, when someone in a little small town somewhere, whether it’s in France, America or Russia, it doesn’t matter… And there’s some tragedy, some tragic violent death sometimes and often including children, and when they interview the people of that town, they’re saying, “Nothing like that ever happens here”. You can always count on that, and about the man, who did all of these, “He was quiet and kept to himself”. In a town where nothing like this ever happens. But in the town where “nothing-like-this-ever-happens”, it happens. And I am always suspicious of two types of people. People, who smile all the time and people, who are too quiet [laugh].

That’s my own personal, I mean that’s not in the Vedas [laugh]. Maybe we’ll find some book. So, they said not a more, but obsession, “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, we’re all gonna die”, not like that. But a healthy recognition of its inevitability and that will help us organize our time. We’ll realize, if I spend this much time sleeping, this much time engaged in bodily maintenance, if you factor it in, you’ll realize you have a limited amount of time to devote into internal culture, unless you’re so good at internal culture, that even if you’re sleeping or doing bodily maintenance, that’s also liberated activities, which is possible for someone highly evolved spiritually. But at least we can understand we have limited amount of time for internal development, for internal culture.

Audience: Very short question. He was listening to lecture and there was some discussion between Śrīdhar Mahārāj, Sagar Mahārāj and you about some kind of place that Śrīdhar Mahārāj was going to buy, or he was willing to buy. It was discovered by Bhaktivinod Ṭhākur, this was the place of Mahāprabhu’s appearance, and Śrīdhar Mahārāj wanted to built lighthouse there.
Goswamī Mahārāj: No, Saraswatī Ṭhākur wanted to put a lighthouse there.
Audience: And what happened to this place?
Goswamī Mahārāj: We don’t know [laugh]. I can just think of Guru Mahārāj saying, “Designed and destined”. If it’s the will of Mahāprabhu, then it becomes apparent, manifest, recognized, designated, and that will happen, and otherwise not.

Hare Kṛṣṇa