Family Life with Krishna

Goswami Maharaj: So, is there any questions from anyone? Dandavat. Yes.
Question: I wanted to ask a question, Maharaj. Maybe, it’s not so important or out of topic somehow, but what is the role of family in life for Krishna and how to compound it and how should it be appropriate?

Well, this is at the heart of Krishna conception, actually. Sometimes Srila Saraswati Thakur, according to Guru Maharaj, would make some comparisons between Christianity, as it’s generally understood , and Krishna consciousness. He talked about the fatherhood of Godhead and the sonhood of Godhead. So there’s this, generally saying, Judaic or Christian idea that God is the father. He is always seen in the father position and somewhat remote figure. Maybe, even stern. Where The Old Testament says, “Obey Me, lest I smite you from the face of the Earth.”  You better be obedient or the wrath of God will be upon you.

And we know [that] the Sistine Chapel in all its glory [is] still a stereotypical conception, anthropomorphic in the sense. We’ve been told [that] God is the oldest, so He must be a very old man with a big long beard, because He is the oldest living being. These kind of things. And still, He is in the father position. Then later they have Jesus. I’m not gonna going to Christian theology, but, by contrast, in Krishna conception rather than being a remote figure, overseer, permiter, bread supplier, He is in the centre of all these activities.

So, of all the relationships that we can conceive: shanta (passive), dasya (servitorship), sakya (friendship), vatsalya (familial love),  the conjugal love—He’s at the centre of all of these possible relationships.

That centre [is] ‘akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrti’. Rupa Goswami in describing Krishna in the Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu says, “He is the nectarine rasa, source of all rasa, all possible loving exchanges. The full spectral range of possibility of any type of loving affectional exchange—He can reciprocate that. The one supreme entity can reciprocate the hankering of every soul in existence, of everyone in the world.” There is a brief saying of Srimati Radharani that Srila Guru Maharaj would quote sometimes, “prati aṅga lāge kā̐de prati aṅga mora”—which says, every atom of my soul’s [is] hankering for a particular counterpart. Not just I am hankering for my counterpart, but every atom of my soul is hankering for this counterpart.

That is Krishna, that is the meaning of the Absolute. Whereas here one person can not truly fully reciprocate these ideal aspirations. For after all, what we aspire for is the ideal, when we imagine, envision our counterpart. It’s sometimes even expressed that way. People will say, “Write your ideal criteria of who you envision to be your soul mate.” And they [say] “Well, it’ll be someone who is like this, they look like that, their eyes might be like this...” They are caring some ideal inside themselves about who that might be or what they might be like.

But what I mean to suggest here is to equate the ideal with the very Absolute Personality of Godhead, that really—if we search that ideal to its extreme, if we could refine our search criteria to the infinite degree, it will lead us to the infinite source of all love, beauty, charm, sweetness and all possible relationships.

It’s interesting that devotees-novices, neophytes, visiting Srila Guru Maharaj’s Math, those who maybe have been initiated for a year or two, or a few, they sometimes express things about what they liked about Krishna consciousness in a very almost naive, child-like simplicity. Cause after all, from the spiritual point of view, they are babies. But they sometimes said things that captured the heart of Srila Guru Maharaj. They may have melted his heart.

So, more than a few times he told of one meeting at the Math where Srila Swami Maharaj, Prabhupad had sent his disciples, perhaps, for the Appearance Day of their Guru Maharaj, Srila Saraswati Thakur—some such occasion. He’s sent his disciples to Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. And different people were asked to speak and one lady spoke. And what she spoke left a lasting impression upon Srila Guru Maharaj.

In expressing her appreciation for Krishna consciousness, she said, “We are being given the opportunity to have a family life with Krishna. That’s what I like. It’s that opportunity is before us—we can have family life with God himself. That possibility, that prospect inspires me, I’m thrilled at the potential of that sort of prospect.” So, maybe, that lady was not a philosopher, someone who could quote Vedic literature extensively, but what she expressed touched the heart of Srila Guru Maharaj. And it really goes to the core of Krishna conception, that really— that’s what we want. We want to have a loving relationship with Krishna.

When the Vraja-gopis met with Krishna in Kurukshetra after one hundred years of separation, they expressed their hearts’ feeling. Imagine that these divine ladies, they so much love Krishna, the magnitude of their love is so great that they are upset that the creator Brahma made eyes that blink, because for that nanosecond or whatever that proper fragment of time is they say, “For that moment we don’t see Krishna.” So, in fact, they are cursing Brahma and saying, “You are the creator and you don’t know how to create the eyes properly.”

These are some teenage girls, posing as teenage girls. As Guru Maharaj sometimes said of them, “Half-civilized jungle girls are the Vraja-gopis. But they are cursing the creator Brahma for not making eyes properly, cause they blink and for that moment they don’t see Krishna. It gives us a hint of the type of love and affection that is in their hearts.

In another place Srimati Radharani, said, “I wish I had eyes like a fish—non-blinking fish eyes—then I could behold the beauty and drink the beauty of Krishna constantly.”

And that’s how they describe it: they are drinking the beauty of Krishna’s form and it’s entering their heart and stealing all of their senses. The sound of Krishna’s Name enters their hearts, steals all of their senses. The form of Krishna, the beauty of Krishna, the fragrance of Krishna—all of these things somehow enter their hearts, rendering them [so that] their senses [become] inoperable.

And sometimes their senses start to compete with one another. If the ears are hearing the flute and the nose is smelling the fragrance sometimes the eyes leave them and the eyes run to Krishna, if that’s possible. And apparently it’s possible in that plane. Everyone will say, “Oh, that’s the Vraja-gopis, we expect that from them.” But that’s their particular mood. The cowherd boys want to play with Krishna—their best friend, their brother. The little older gopis look upon Krishna as affectionate child, as do their husbands.

So, it’s family life with Krishna at the centre. For devotees, devotee families, life will be a happy one if Krishna is at the centre of everything. And this is something very extraordinary, but they will see one another eternal servitors of Krishna. Superficially [they are] husband, wife, child, daughter, son—these things [are] undeniable and there. But on the deeper [level] with the devotional eye awakened, they are able to see that, “Who is my child? He is a superior devotee than I. My child has more devotion to Krishna than I do.” That’s possible. The husband of the wife, the wife of the husband – they can see their servitor identity.

Bhakti Vinod Thakur says in on of his songs: when this sort of genuine vision is awakened then caring for that family and other necessities is also Krishna-bhakti, devotion. As you’re serving devotees. We want it to be real. All these things are predicated. Sometimes Srila Guru Maharaj presented many things, he would say, “I suppose, you want to know, how far is it real? How far is it true? We could say anything, we can make any statement, we can take any statement from the scriptures and apply it to anything, but how far is it true? How far is it real? That we want to know. But the possibility gives us some optimism, encouragement, and inspiration.

So, we hear some extraordinary examples of devotee, family devotees. We told the other day of Achyutananda, the young son of Advaita Acharya, five years old, chastising his father for saying that Mahaprabhu has a Guru. Advaita Acharya is taken to be Mahavishnu or Sadashiva, [but] five-year old boy [is] chastising him, “Father, what nonsense you’re telling that someone’s Mahaprabhu’s Guru! He is the source of you and everyone else.”

And Brahma after stealing Krishna’s cows, and cowherd boys was begging forgiveness from Krishna. St one point he said, “You are my father, Narayan.” Because he is Atmabhu, he springs from the lotus navel of Garbodakasayi Vishnu. And Krishna asks, “How can I be your father? You are so old and I am so young.” And then Brahma makes his case. So, it’s true. In Bhagavad-gita it’s said,

pitāham asya jagato
mātā dhātā pitāmahaḥ
[vedyaṁ pavirtam oṁkāra]
ṛk sāma yajur eva cha
(Bhagavad-gītā: 9.17)

So that’s true. Mahabrabhu asked one of his devotees, Raghupati Upadhyaya, “According to you, what’s the best spiritual conception?” And Raghupati Upadhyaya is a raga-marg bhakta of the highest order, so he didn’t quote any scriptures, but his own writings, his own compositions. This is when Mahaprabhu pressed Ramananda to go further: dive deep in the reality—dive deepest in the reality, Ramananda said, “I can’t quote scripture any more, I have something more to say; I don’t know if you want to hear it, but that’s something I’ve written.” And [in the] similar [way] Mahaprabhu said, “What do you think is the best? What do you say?

śrutim apare smṛtim itare
bhāratam anye bhajantu bhava-bhītāḥ
aham iha nandaṁ vande
yasyālinde paraṁ brahma
(Śrī Chaitanya-charitāmṛta: Madhya, 19.96)

It says, “You know, there are the srutis—the Vedas, what is heard, what is to be known, original spiritual sound, the original scriptures of the World. So, srutis give some idea. We later hear in the Bhagavatam: “śrutibhir vimṛgyām,” (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 10.47.61)Udhava said, “What the srutis are just pointing to, these girls, these teenage ‘half-civilized stupid jungle girls’ in Vrindavan have got Krishna wrapped around their finger, because of the love and affection that is in their hearts. They own the copyright and trademark to Krishna. I just want to be a creeper, blade of grass in the soil of Vrindavan, [so that] when those girls are serving Krishna in various ways some of the dust from their lotus feet will come upon my head, thereby consecrating my existence.

Anyway, he said: smriti gives another corollaries [to the Vedic] scriptures and says like what the mother, the sister — sruti. One is like mother, wife, sister—something like that and, says, “Yes! Listen to your mother.” Anyway, it’s in all these different things there. The Mahabharata—great writing, Bhagavat-gita placed in the centre of that necklace.

I’m just remembering Gurudev quoting the sloka in London that he liked a lot. Gita in relation to Mahabharata. He says: bhāva-bhāvitaḥ—the whole idea of what you could get from the Vedas, the Puranas, the Mahabharata is how to get free from the world.

Saraswati Thakur once said, “What is disturbing us at present is what we call ‘The World’.” So they’ve all got some plans, some program for that. And we think, with all respect, “aham iha nandaṁ vande yasyālinde paraṁ brahma,”—all these scriptures are trying to find some way to connect with the Infinite, with the Absolute, the Original Supreme Lord, the Supreme Reality, the Supreme Absolute Truth, but Nanda Maharaj has Him crawling in his courtyard as a child. What did he do? I have some idea what all these books say, you can do or should do under certain circumstances, but what did Nanda Maharaj do to have Krishna crawling as a toddler in his courtyard? That I’d like to know.

Mahaprabhu liked this very much. He said, “Do you have any more? Could you say some more? Could this be discussed? Could you take it to the next level? Is there is something deeper, higher, more refined that you could say?” Ramananda Ray said, “Oh, amm...”

And Gurudev liked his sloka very much,
kaṁ prati kathayitum īśe
samprati ko vā pratītim āyātu
go-pati-tanayā-kuñje
gopa-vadhūṭī-viṭaṁ brahma
(Chaitanya-charitāmṛta: Madhya, 19.98)

Where Raghupati Upadhyaya is saying, “Oh, who could I tell this to? And if I could find someone who was qualified to hear it, would they believe me? But that Supreme Absolute Truth, the Supreme Reality, the Original Source of everything, God—what is He doing?—He is hunting these gopi girls in the kunja in Vrindavan. [He is] hunting their love and affection. Who can I tell this to? That this is what God is really like. And if I could find somebody, won’t they just think I’m crazy? Are they gonna believe that? It sounds crazy. It doesn’t sound like we normally hear from Scriptures, from spiritual people, from research scholars, from scientists. But this is the truth.” That’s what He’s doing: He is so charmed by their self-giving, their love and affection. Their whole lives, their whole purpose of existing is for Him. That’s why gopis make themselves look nice. That’s why the devotees make themselves look nice—it’s for Krishna. We think, “Oh, this body belongs to Krishna, so [it] looks nice for Krishna, for the pleasure of Guru and Gauranga Radha-Govinda.

But Srila Guru Maharaj said, interpreting this: here we find that
Raghupati Upadhyaya is saying [that] there is no one qualified to hear and, even if there were, who would believe him? But the hint is that—now that You have come, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, everyone is going to hear this and they’ll believe it, too. And that’s why we can discuss this now. Then Mahaprabhu said, “Anything more? Did you write any more? Do you have another one? I want to know: what do you consider to be the supreme abode? And what do you consider to be the supreme age or form of Krishna? And what do you consider to be the highest rasa with Krishna?” And what did he say?

śyāmam eva paraṁ rūpaṁ
purī madhu-purī varā
vayaḥ kaiśorakaṁ dhyeyam
ādya eva paro rasaḥ
(Śrī Chaitanya-charitāmṛta: Madhya, 19.106)

“The supreme abode is Mathura, within Mathura is Vrindavan, Radha-kunda. The supreme age is Kishor when Krishna is in His teenage period, where He is expressing youth to its zenith. And the supreme rasa (adi-rasa) is madhura-rasa.”

So, Achyutananda chastises Advaita Acharya. Srivas Thakur’s son, a little boy [who was] staying on the theme of these little boys, died during the kirtan and all the ladies were wailing in another room. And when Srivas Thakur found out what the problem was, [that his] son has died, [that time] Mahaprabhu was in the next room, having ecstatic kirtan with his devotees. And he said, “I understand that that’s very upsetting, but Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is in the next room in divine ecstasy in his kirtan and I don’t want anything to disturb him.”

His son had died. We can say, “Oh, how callous!” Is he callous? Or is there something else that play here? Later, when Mahaprabhu heard this, some hours went by, the kirtan descend above and when he found out that his son had died, he thought, “Where we gonna find someone like this? He wouldn’t tell me that his son died, didn’t want to disturb my ecstatic mood.” He said, “Where is that boy?” And they took Mahaprabhu to the boy, all the ladies were crying. And Mahaprabhu said, “Gopal!” And he opened his eyes [and said], “Yes, my Lord! Is there some service I can do? It is by your order and desire that I’ve come to this world and to this family. And I’m doing some particular seva, but I think, now the time for that has finished. Is there some other service you require from your eternal servitor?” [laughing] That’s the kind of family life we want.

We know, Raghunandan Thakur is the son of Mukunda, the physician, and that as a physician he had to go on health calls. So, his boy who was six or seven years old, is not accustomed to doing deity seva, but father told, “You’ll offer the bhog, the deity’s lunch today.” And the father went on a health call.

The time came, Raghunandan approached the deity, brought the bhog, put it before the deity and said, “My dear Lord Krishna, please—bon appetite!” But Krishna [left the plate untouched]. And [Raghunandan] went, Please [eat]! Is there something wrong?” He’s started to become upset [within] his heart. Mahaprabhu asked Mukunda once, “In your family who is the father and who is he son? Are you the father or it’s Raghunandan? Who is the father there? And, knowing Mahaprabhu’s mind, Mukunda said of his son, Raghunandan [that] he is the father in this family. Why? Because he possesses superior devotion to [Mahaprabhu’s] lotus feet. So, Mahaprabhu was happy to hear that.

So here, what others were doing as ritual or formula practice, Ragunandan—a raga-marg bhakta—has no rule or regulation [that] can obstruct the flow of love in his heart. He is almost threatening the Deity, “Now you take prasadam!” Like parents would say, “I want to see you eating.” [laughing] He told, “I want to see you eating,” and the Deity’s heart is melted by being in the presence of such devotion. Now the Infinite has come under the control of the finite and now all rules are off—it’s raga-bhakti.

So the Deity conceive started eating and Raghunandan told, “I’ll be back in a few minutes, let me know if you need anything.”

Then Mukunda comes home. And he is after a hard day’s work. He’d like to take some prasadam. He asked the boy, “Do you have some of the prasad?” And Raghunandan [said], “No, it’s all gone. Krishna ate everything.” And Mukunda said, “Usually the Deities leave something... Usually, in fact, we offer everything to them and, mysteriously, wonderfully, there is all this prasadam.” “Not today! Deity ate everything, didn’t leave anything.” Mukunda was perplexed and said, “Show me this type of offering style you have. We will make some more. You’ll show me how you do this.” And the two of them go before the Deity. The Deity is [showing serious face]. So, the father is thinking, “Do you think I’m such a fool and I’ll believe this?” He leaves and Ragunandan [starts] pleading with the Deity, the Deity is eating.

He’s [saying], “Father! Come! Look!” Then the father comes back and he sees: this Deity there has one laddu in His hand, He is like caught in the act. The Infinite is caught in the act. And he sees the laddu in the Deity’s hand. Who’ll believe this?

Mahaprabhu told Ramananda, “āmi—eka bātula, tumi—dvitīya,” (Śrī Chaitanya-charitāmṛta: Madhya, 8.291) I am the first crazy and you are the second. Nice to meet you.

So, [there was] one grihastha, family man, in the Gaudiya Math, Professor Sanyal perhaps. We know: Guru Maharaj has praised Saraswati Thakur in his song Pranamami Sada Prabhupāda-Padam, “yati-rāja-gaṇaiḥ parisevya-padaṁ,” the Yati-Rāja, the King of the sannyasis.
And when we see the pictures of Saraswati Thakur, we are immediately grave. He exudes the greatest magnitude of gravity. Gravitas. The Yati-Rāja.

And this Professor Sanyal’s conception was: everything is for the Vaishnava. He told Guru Maharaj once, “If I go to read Bhagavatam on my own, it may be karma, it may be jnana, it may be vikarma. But if I read under the guidance  of a Vaishnava,then it may be devotion.” He would not do anything unless it was the order of the Vaishnava, because we believe the will of Krishna’s expressed through the Vaishnavas.

[Once] all the devotees were waiting on the train station platform to go on some preaching engagement. The train came, everybody got on, [but] they saw Professor Sanyal standing alone. No Vaishnava told him to get on the train. So someone said, “Professor Babu, get on the train!” Then he got on the train. Because it was the order of the Vaishnava.[laughing] We are not saying everyone should be like that.

Once, this devotee, my dear friend—Madhura Dyuti Prabhu [and myself] were in Agra, boarding a bus to catch a narrow-gauge train to go to Jaipur. And this is India. There is like forty legitimate seats on the bus and a hundred and twenty people getting on. And he keeps going, “Oh, after you. Oh, after you...” After he did ‘after you’ to around thirty people, I said, “Madhura Dyuti, Get on the bus!”

So, anyway, that Professor Sanyal, when he had a little baby girl [he went to show her to] Saraswati Thakur, [like usually] people come and show you their babies. He came and put the baby girl on the lap of Saraswati Thakur. And Saraswati Thakur was holding this little new born baby girl and Professor Sanyal said, “She belongs to you, she is your property.” And Saraswati Thakur said, “Then I want you to put her in your care.” [laughing] But he gave the baby. And I think that lady’s name is Mira. She is in England. She was put on the lap of Saraswati Thakur and [her father] said, “She is yours, she belongs to you.”

So, we need to know what the truth is. And then we can measure, assess, aspire from there. So the real grihastha or we say grihastha ashram, real Krishna conscious family life is an ashram which means a spiritually progressive place where there are spiritually progressive activities, there is a spiritual substance at the centre of everything. And we know in the case of Srila Gurudev, Srila Govinda Maharaj, how many grihastha disciples were so dear to him. And how much they sacrificed themselves and their families, and their children for his service.

Gurudev told [that] when he was a brahmachari, some advanced grihastha couple would come to stay with Guru Maharaj in some particular place that they were given a room and Guru Maharaj gave Govinda Maharaj, who was Gaurendu Brahmachari at the time, to be their servitor. He slept in a hallway to attend to their every need. On the order of his Guru, Srila Sridhar Maharaj, Gaurendu Brahmachari waited hand and foot upon those grihasthas, because of their degree of dedication.

As Guru Maharaj once said regarding to the saffron dress and white dress, this dress, that dress... He said, “We are not interested in degree of dress, we are interested in degree of dedication.”

And we can say: one of the sterling qualities of the Vraja-gopis is that arya-patha—they’ve given up their families in pursuit of Krishna conception and they were not detached by nature: they have husbands, children, family, all these things, but they are willing to sacrifice everything for the service of Krishna. That is why they are so exalted. They have families. They have husbands, children, everything, but they’re willing to sacrifice everything for the least service to Krishna.

And we’re told: that’s not an easy thing to do. We understand something about attachment in this world and family attachment, which has the strongest pull. So, those Vraja-gopis, who can not tolerate the separation for the blink of an eye, when they met Krishna, the magnitude of their loving intensity is such that when the rasa-lila was performed, Krishna summoned and gave Yogamaya the signal, observing three particular things: the time, place and activities, that millions of nights assembled to become one.

So Brahma-ratri,

sahasra-yuga-paryantam
ahar yad brahmaṇo viduḥ
(Bhagavad-gītā: 8.17)

A thousand yugas is a night of Brahma, means four billion three hundred million years. So, [at the time of] the rasa-lila Krishna employs the extension and contraction of time and space in His pastimes. That one night lasted four billion three hundred million years. But for the gopis, whose love is so great, hankering [is] so intense, it was like the blink of an eye. So, union of the highest type: four billion three hundred million years was the blink of an eye. And separation (the blink of an eye) was like four billion three hundred million years.

Those gopis after a hundred years of separation, the magnitude inconceivable to us, again meet Krishna in Kurukshetra and He is there in the dress of a King, surrounded by so much royal paraphernalia and entourage. And they are simple village girls. Then, after all, the protocol of meeting takes place, then, finally, they get a chance to see Krishna after one hundred years of separation and they say,

āhuś cha te nalina-nābha padāravindaṁ
yogeśvarair hṛdi vichintyam agādha-bodhaiḥ
saṁsāra-kūpa-patitottaraṇāvalambaṁ
gehaṁ juṣām api manasy udiyāt sadā naḥ
(Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 10.82.48)

They tell Krishna, “Once, long ago, You sent us some message through Uddhava to try and relieve the separation we are feeling in our hearts and You recommended that we take up yoga.” And we hear that yoga is very popular. “But we are not yogis, we are family people, we are fallen householders. We are totally absorbed in family life! How are we going to do yoga? And what, we are going to become the yogi and learn how to meditate on you? We can’t stop thinking about you! What are you, joking? We didn’t think it was funny. You know, we can’t stop thinking about you for a moment. Our eyes are leaving our bodies in search of Your divine form. We can not stop thinking about You and You say [that] we should take up yoga and learn to meditate...”

“That was supposed to be a joke from You to us. We didn’t think [that] it was so funny.” I mean, it seems kind of humorous, but they didn’t think that it was funny. And they said, “Don’t You understand who we are and what we want? We are family people and we want family life with You. That’s what we want. Not this yoga, meditation, some kind of spirituality... That’s not what we’re interested in. You know our hearts, what we are really interested in. And we won’t accept anything less than that. And we don’t like Your cloth—the King outfit. Where is Your flute? This is what happens to people: they leave their home town and their friends behind, go to the city. Now You have the new cloth, new outfit, no flute, surrounded by lokaranya instead of vrindaranya. Now it’slokaranya—forest full of people, chariots, and noise...”

“And what [do] we want? We want You—Shyama’s gopa-rupa: in Your cowherd dress, playing Your flute on the banks of the Yamuna like we used to play before. That’s what we want.” That’s the Ratha-yatra where they’re taking Krishna. [It’s the] same idea: to take Krishna back to Vrindavan. He is also feeling separation from them. Jagannath is the ecstatic form of Krishna feeling separation from Radharani and Vraja-gopis in Vrindavan: His arms have entered His body, eyes’ve become large, He’s stoned, can not move. They put Him on the chariot and carry Him there. How pleased He will be with anyone who assists in that divine parade.

So, Krishna says in response to them,

mayi bhaktir hi bhūtānām
amṛtatvāya kalpate
diṣṭyā yad āsīn mat-sneho
bhavatīnāṁ mad-āpanaḥ
(Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 10.82.44)

He said, “Everyone’s trying to connect with me: karmis in fear of impending karmic reaction, jnanis, yogis—everyone, everybody wants Krishna, but they want me to serve their lower purpose. But if they do get me somehow or other, they think they’ve hit the lottery—they are so happy what good fortune they have.
But I consider it My good fortune that I’m the object of the love and affection that is in your hearts. That’s my good fortune. And that I can’t possibly reciprocate: it’s so high, it’s so wonderful. I can’t do anything other than give myself to you. There’s nothing, not a second thing I could give that would be commensurate to the level of love and affection, and devotion you have in your hearts, so I am yours, you own me.”

And Guru Maharaj said [that] at that point Radharani told, “We can go. He is ours, He belongs to us. We knew it all along, but we just needed to check.

So, we have a short time here,

saṁsāre ’smin kṣaṇārdho ’pi
sat-saṅgaḥ śevadhir nṛṇām
(Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 11.2.30)

To come in connection with the jewel of human life, the treasure of human existence is to get the association of genuine devotees, achyuta-gotra—those who are the family of Krishna, we want their connection. If we are so fortunate, bhagyavan jiva brahmanda bhramite—wondering throughout the universe to come in connection with them and their agents, then we’ve got the treasure, that can be got from the human existence.

So, as Bhakti Vinod Thakur says, “gṛhe thāko, vane thāko, sadā ‘hari’ bole’ ḍāko,” (Śrī Nāma: 2). Narottam Thakur [says], “gṛhe vā vanete thāke, ‘hā gaurāṅga’ bo’le ḍāke,” (Sāvaraṇa-Śrī-Gaura-mahimā: 4). They are saying: whether you are in a family life or not in a family life, you need to hear about Krishna, Guru, Gauranga, glorify Gauranga Mahaprabhu, get connection with their devotees and then your life will be perfect. And if you are in family life—your family life will be perfect.

Hare Krishna