... so it's more that we have, everyone speaks Swedish. It's just like a, like a 3D movie, but better.
So, here Kapiladeva comes back to a point that, as Prabhupāda says here: "This point is stressed everywhere again and again." But many people find it difficult to accept this, that God is a person, perhaps out of habit, and also because they understand the concept of a person as something limiting.
Our—the reason we are limited is not because we are persons, but because we are very small. Kṛṣṇa is a person, but He is not small like us; He is, like, almighty. These three aspects spoken of here, Bhagavān, Paramātmā, Brahman, Bhagavān, Paramātmā—there is a Bhāgavatam verse, a very early verse, I think it's in the second chapter of the first canto somewhere: vadanti tat tattva-vidas tattvaṁ yaj jñānam advayam brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate and, it means that, "this, this..." I should have brought it with me. Does anyone know the translation off the top of their head?
"They call this non-dual substance Brahman, Paramātmā and Bhagavān."
Yes, "this non-dual substance", so it is not that sometimes one realizes Brahman, sometimes one realizes Paramātmā, sometimes one realizes Bhagavān, but it is Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is Kṛṣṇa. But if one does not—if one sees Him from a distance, one only sees Brahman. And some are satisfied with that. And we have brahman-vādīs, we have those yogis who search for Paramātmā, and we have devotees who seek God, the Supreme Personality.
Prabhupāda takes every opportunity to criticize the māyāvādīs. Not all impersonalist followers are māyāvādīs. You only become a māyāvādī when you say: "We have realized Brahman, we understand Brahman, and those who engage in worshiping this Kṛṣṇa, they are the ones who have not understood everything, how everything is one." Then, then you commit an offense. So if in your yoga and meditation you realize Brahman, that is quite impressive in itself, like.
Paramātmā even more so. And it is in the fifth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā, which talks about the different yoga methods, and still says that when one has reached the highest realization in these yoga processes, then the next step is to take up bhakti, to turn to Kṛṣṇa as the supreme person.
So, we don't have time in Kali-yuga to spend several hundred years meditating. We won't live that long. And if we know that when we reach perfection in this process, the next step is to start serving Kṛṣṇa, then there is no reason to spend time on it. We have a process, we have a wonderful process, which is, as Prabhupāda says: "Simple for the simple." It is a simple process. It does not necessarily mean it is easy. Because we have to—the greatest obstacle of all in spiritual realization is about ahaṅkāra. That is the first element.
We—we speak of eight elements, five gross and three subtle—physical, subtle. And then our modern brains think that is a strange way to talk about elements, because we know there are so many, oxygen and nitrogen and hydrogen and several hundred. But—but it is just another, another way of categorizing. Earth, water, air, fire and air... ether.
Min— intelligence... mind, intelligence and false ego. These are, like, the things that... Air is, like, not just what we breathe, but air is a force, that which makes things move. Inside the body, the life air moves, which enables us to live, digest food, all of that. But ahaṅkāra, it is so subtle that you can't even put your finger on it. Intelligence and ego—intelligence and mind might not be something you can directly measure and weigh physically either, but you can still understand how they function.
But the false ego, Prabhupāda speaks of it as a knot. And a knot in the heart, a knot that ties together the spiritual and material energy.
For Kṛṣṇa, it's like no problem. Sometimes they say: "Why do you worship a statue?" But for Kṛṣṇa, there is no problem in manifesting Himself in His—His own element and being present. And we have followed the scriptures, made a form described in the scriptures, called upon Kṛṣṇa to accept this form, and there is no difficulty for Kṛṣṇa to accept this form. So that we, who have not realized Him, can—can worship Him and serve Him in a very close and personal way.
And sometimes when we speak of personal and impersonal, it's like: "Yes, but we are so impersonal, we are, like, we aren't nice to each other and don't say good morning." And of course that is good, good, good too, but ultimately, personalist philosophy means that we understand that God is a person, that we don't get stuck somewhere along the way, or commit offenses when we cannot understand. It's like these—what can you, what can you call them—these born-again atheists who sometimes write articles saying that in the past, when people knew nothing, they had to resort to a personal God to get some meaning in life or to make people do what they said, and they used it as a means of power. But now, of course, when we have invented—we can build bridges that don't break, and elevators, and the internet, and one thing after another, now we don't need God anymore.
Well, speak for yourself. It is still a fact that, ultimately, the soul is incomplete without contact with Kṛṣṇa.
And it can take a while before you understand that, because this material world, we usually compare it to a—to an arti- what, what is it called, to a—to a difficulty?
Virtual reality.
Virtual reality, what would I do without you? Like, it is visible, it exists, we can do things, but ultimately, like, if you sit absorbed in something on your screen—or I haven't, I haven't even tried one of those virtual realities, but then, like, you turn around and it follows you, like. In any case, you have to take that thing off and go eat somewhere or go hang out with your family or something. It's like, it's not real. And the material world is ultimately a bit of the same thing, but it is like a... multi-user environment. We meet other living beings, we are real. It—people usually say that the material world is like a dream, but it is Mahā-Viṣṇu's dream, so it is a very special dream. We are here, we exist, we have relationships with each other. That is not the problem. We have activities, we have plans, that is not the problem. The problem is that we think we are tied to this material world, that this knot, it is so small that you can't even see it. What people—people talk, somewhere there is a verse where Kṛṣṇa says, I think it's the Bhagavad-gītā, otaṁ protaṁ, that He is both the warp and the weft of the fabric. So when you see a cloth, you don't really think about the fact that it consists of two—two threads, like. Now it is a cloth. So this world, all of this is Kṛṣṇa energy bound together in such a mystical, magical way that it is hard to see beyond it. So then we need...
What was that word?
otaṁ protaṁ.
ota-protaṁ.
ota-protaṁ, okay. Thank you. ota-protaṁ.
So Kṛṣṇa is in both parts, Kṛṣṇa is everything. So the gross elements, they are His separated energies, He says. We, the living entities, are also His energy, but we are individuals, we are eternal. Eternity does not start somewhere after death; eternity has always existed. We have always been the persons we are. Now I became so curious, you showed up today, right? You arrived...
The day before yesterday.
The day before yesterday, yes. Is it your first time here?
Yes, it is.
I hope you have a pleasant experience of Alnarp Folk High School.
Thank you, it's really great to be here.
We—we created at some point, what—what is it called, these vision and mission statements, and our vision statement is that Alnarp is a community that is a living example of Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings. And what we are trying to do, we are trying to live by this in practice, so that it's not just, like, a fantastic philosophy. So you can read these books over and over again, and—and you get a deeper understanding, while at the same time they are cohesive. Most philosophies or worldviews fail somewhere, like. Many of these utopias people have speak of a fantastic utopian society, but there is really no practical way to get there, and the attempts that have been made, like—they tried to create communism in the Soviet Union. They did—did not get there; they thought, we have to start with socialism where the state decides, but the idea is that the small groups should, like, manage on their own and there shouldn't be any injustices, there shouldn't be any problems, but they didn't, like—they didn't really have enough backing to realize this. We have kibbutzim in Israel where people believed—I don't know how they work now, there are a few left, but it was a big movement—where people believed, like, that we should all be equal, so therefore all the children should live in something like an orphanage, because then they would all get the same upbringing. That is completely absurd. You need that close contact with parents. You can't just—you try, you do one thing here trying to make it work, you do one thing there trying to make it work, but if you don't have the whole picture, where we see how this true community, it—it arises when Kṛṣṇa is in the center. If Kṛṣṇa is not in the center, there will always be things that clash, that—that pull apart, that—that cause friction. And even when we try to have Kṛṣṇa in the center, there is friction anyway because we are different, we have different conditioning, we have different cultures. We are drawn to Prabhupāda's books, but we understand them from different angles, like. But because Kṛṣṇa is God, it is not just a process, it is not just a philosophy, but it is Kṛṣṇa's personal hand that He extends to us. So it's not just about us being strong enough to take this hand, but Kṛṣṇa's hand is strong enough to—to resolve everything. But we must have some understanding, and we must have some practice. So this thing about stumbling, Prabhupāda, he—he usually gets, has quite a lot of, like—I don't know if he thinks it's funny, but in any case, he thinks it is completely absurd that people can take this verse—I'll look it up so that I don't stumble on the words again, 9.34, where Kṛṣṇa says:
man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru mām evaiṣyasi yuktvaivam ātmānaṁ mat-parāyaṇah
So He says "I" and "Me" and... six times in this verse. A four-line verse, He says "I" or "Me" six times. "Engage your mind always in thinking of Me," ...yes, that makes it so much easier when you can see Kṛṣṇa's form, "become My devotee, offer obeisances to Me and worship Me. Being completely absorbed in Me, surely you will come to Me." And Prabhupāda says that there are then people who interpret this verse as: "Yes, but it is not to Kṛṣṇa we should surrender, it's to the unborn within Kṛṣṇa." But why doesn't He say that then? Kṛṣṇa knows what He is talking about. Like, we don't need to interpret it, that is the most indirect way we can achieve it. We can believe that when Kṛṣṇa says this, He means it. There is a verse a bit earlier, which... I looked it up at some point, because I listen so much to Prabhupāda's audio, audio files when I wash the dishes and things like that, so I noticed, this verse—don't we hear it almost all the time: janma karma ca me divyam evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti so ’rjuna. So I Googled it a bit. The verse Prabhupāda quotes the most is the Hare Kṛṣṇa maha-mantra: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. Number two is īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ anādir ādir govindaḥ sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam. Kṛṣṇa is the supreme controller, He is the cause of all causes, He is sac-cid-ānanda, He is eternal, full of knowledge and bliss, and He is always a person. That is from Brahma-saṁhitā. And number three is this one, it's this one: "One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna." So it's not like Brahman took a body and performed activities to make us get a little closer to Brahman. His—His birth, His appearance, janma is written there, "appearance" is how we translate it when it comes to Kṛṣṇa, His manifestation, and His activities, they are of a transcendental nature. They are not material; there is nothing material about Kṛṣṇa. And if you understand that, you do not need to be reborn in this—in this world, but you attain Kṛṣṇa's eternal abode.
So, the personal aspect comes back all the time. And, and it is very easy to think that the mystical and the elevated and the deepest knowledge should be somewhat, like, incomprehensible. But—but why, really? It—it is very intuitive. I think very many have experienced it, that you have a lot of vague questions and thoughts and existential ponderings, and then you meet Kṛṣṇa and everything falls into place. And this philosophy is very deep. You notice it when—you, also when you listen a lot to Prabhupāda, he is in various discussions with different people who come from a Vedic background, or religious background, or all kinds of backgrounds. So, his—Prabhupāda's knowledge, like, never ends. Just as if you were, I don't know, yes, if you were a math—highest levels of math, what is it called, a Nobel Prize mathematician, you wouldn't, like, get confused by some other mathematical concept. But if someone comes and discusses urban planning, you don't have much, like, to offer. But—but this knowledge of Kṛṣṇa, which, which ultimately you can accept as a very simple child-like faith: "Kṛṣṇa is God." There is—there is this description of, it was when Caitanya was traveling, he came to some village where there was a brahmana who couldn't read. He was illiterate. But he sat and read the Bhagavad-gītā anyway. Over and over again he sat and read the Bhagavad-gītā, but he couldn't read. Sometimes they say he held it upside down, but he wasn't stupid, he could see which way the letters were, like. But—but he couldn't read the letters. And he sat with his Bhagavad-gītā and cried. And people made fun of him, laughed at him. And Lord Caitanya asked him what—what—what his thing was there. "Yes, my spiritual master has told me that I should read the Bhagavad-gītā." "Yes, but you can't read, as we understand." "No, but I look at this picture of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, becoming Arjuna's chariot driver to take care of His devotee. And I can't help it, but I—I—I get so moved by—by this, like." So he followed his spiritual master's instruction, and he approached Kṛṣṇa, and he was so, so, so, like, moved by Kṛṣṇa's presence in His relationship with the devotee, that he, like, he couldn't hold back his tears. So, so that it can be a rather simple child-like faith. You don't have to complicate it, but if you are complicated, if you have a complicated nature, if you have a philosophical disposition, then you can dig deeper and deeper and deeper. And there are no contradictions. There is nothing you can't bring up and ask about, at least not within the tattva-sphere, tattva-knowledge. Then we have rasa-relationships. Then it becomes—it can be, it's a bit strange, like, when we hear a story about Rādhārāṇī running after a bumblebee; first she scolds the bumblebee and then she runs after and tries to appease this bumblebee. What is happening? Like, what is happening? But then that is, like, love—we can also discuss that objectively, that it's nothing strange, but we cannot intellectually speculate our way to the expressions of love. But we can see that there is no—there is still no contradiction. Everything exists—why does everything exist? Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, everything is His energies. In the spiritual world we have a very harmonious existence, because there we don't have this... What happens here, ahaṅkāra not only connects us with the material world, but we try to put ourselves in the center. And, and it's not so strange, we see things from our own—our own point of view. Either you do it in a very gross egoistic way, trying to get personal advantages, but most of the time it is still that you—you understand things from your point of view. We sit here in Sweden, a small peaceful country where we haven't had war in 500—I don't know how long. We have no wars. 200. We—we are, like, the oldest in Europe, I think, to not have been subjected to any wars. And we think: "Yes, but they are going on over there in Israel, they should just do like us and sit down and discuss things reasonably, and they would just solve it." And we can, like, not understand how deep these ingrained natures are, like, "me and mine," and "this has been threatened," and "this is my identity," and therefore I must, what do I know, fight a lot or cheat a little, or be a bit... In the spiritual world, people are also individuals, and there are—certain things also occur... I read some of these little verses, like, how—how the gopī girls, they always worship Rādhārāṇī, and—and they always have a conflict with Candrāvalī, because she has—she has, those are the other sides. Rādhārāṇī has left-wing gopīs, they are always a bit like... There is some story that Rādhārāṇī sometimes gets so angry with Kṛṣṇa that she pinches His ear. The others are very submissive, they serve dutifully, and there is a little conflict there, but that conflict means nothing. It is just a way to—to enhance the taste of the whole—whole relationship. So those are not the things we need to worry about. We also don't need to worry about some devotees thinking deity worship is the most important, and others thinking saṅkīrtana is the most important, because Prabhupāda has said both: "Deity worship is the most important. Book distribution is the most important." It's, like, no problem. So, so therefore, we approach Kṛṣṇa, we focus on Kṛṣṇa, and how do we do this? By taking—taking instructions from a devotee, by serving Kṛṣṇa through a devotee. Because otherwise, it is very easy to sit there with a lot of good ideas, but that is not how Kṛṣṇa... Like, when you serve someone, to please them, you want to know what it is they want. So we learn to know Kṛṣṇa through the devotees. There is—I've said it before, I don't remember, it was some such Prabhupāda-līlā, when Prabhupāda was in the beginning, when he was in New York, he was in San Francisco, America was overflowing with lost hippies on the drift, and they came there and heard that the best thing you have, you should offer to Kṛṣṇa, so they came with their old baby blanket. Because it was something they had a sentimental memory of, and wanted to give to Kṛṣṇa. And it was, of course, very nice that they wanted to surrender it to Kṛṣṇa, but what are we going to do with their old blanket? What is Kṛṣṇa going to do with it? When we offer something to Kṛṣṇa, we offer something new and fresh and nice and so on. So—so we learn from Kṛṣṇa. And to begin with, the details are not super-super important. We learn to sing Kṛṣṇa's names, we learn to come together with devotees and sing Kṛṣṇa's names, and the rest usually falls into place over time. And sometimes you come to a point where you get a little stuck, and then maybe you have certain doubts, and then it is super-super good to bring them up, you ask—you ask others so that you don't sit there, like, convincing yourself that everything is hopeless because you can't untie this knot yourself. So, so that is our Kṛṣṇa. There was also a word I thought of, guhyam, "in your heart", guhya in the heart. You—you could take these verses and hold seminars all week long, really, because there is so much. That is also something Kṛṣṇa says, "the king of knowledge, the king of secrets." So—so something that is in the heart is a bit hidden, it is a bit concealed. And bhakti is also described as a secret. How is it a secret? We go out on the streets and shout: "Here, here we are! Bhakti! Here is Kṛṣṇa!" The thing is that if you don't want to understand Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa will let you forget it. It's really fascinating. I remember when I came into contact with the temple, and I came home to my friends with whom we used to sit up at night and speculate, like, about life and everything, the world, and I said: "But here it is! Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa." And they, like, they just looked at me, and I was so surprised. But there must be some kind of desire from within us as well to be able to receive Kṛṣṇa. But by us not starting by holding... We have somewhere in Caitanya-caritāmṛta this travelling Digvijayī, he traveled around debating based on the Vedic scriptures. And because he had a close relationship with Sarasvatī, the goddess of learning, he defeated everyone. When you—when you debate in the Vedas, you must be intelligent yourself, but you must also know the Vedic scriptures, you must be able to apply them at any moment. So when he came to Navadvīpa, the people in the town said: "Yes, it would be embarrassing if we lost too, let's make it so that we send Nimāi forward first." Because if he loses to a young child—a young, young guy—then we can start over and find one of the elders. But it turned out that he couldn't defeat Nimāi Paṇḍita in debate. And then he went home and prayed to his Sarasvatī, like, "how could this happen, have you abandoned me?" And—and she explained to him, I don't remember if it was in a dream or a revelation, but in any case she explained to him: "Yes, but I am also a servant of Nimāi, I cannot defeat Him in debate either." So—so he came back and surrendered. Where am I going with this? I don't remember. But okay, if you meet—if you meet resistance on this level from people who are deeply versed in philosophical discussions, the arguments are here too, even if we personally don't have them readily available. But we start, we study the Bhagavad-gītā, we go deeper into the Bhāgavatam, and everything is there. And when we chant our rounds of Hare Kṛṣṇa, and when we perform service, and when we associate with the devotees, then—then... That was what I wanted to say, this secret. Our hearts will be purified. And with Lord Caitanya and Śrīla Prabhupāda having this Harināma-saṅkīrtana. We go out and sing Hare Kṛṣṇa, we go out and distribute prasādam, we go out and distribute books. And every time a person comes in contact, a little bit with Kṛṣṇa, a little bit with Kṛṣṇa, this—this covering around the heart is loosened a bit so that the soul can, like, peek out and see: "Right, wasn't it—wasn't it like this?" Wasn't it like this? So we have this—we have this gift of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And we just try to understand it better and better from different perspectives and deeper and deeper, and we apply it to ourselves, we apply it in service to Kṛṣṇa via the devotees, and we apply it by trying to pass it on, as far as we—as far as we can reach. "And this perfection is the perfection of life." So. Yes, that was about as far as I get with this verse. Hopefully there can be some question or comment. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
- Hare Kṛṣṇa.
- I have a small thought that I am drawn to, a small interesting detail in Bhagavad-gītā, and that is when Kṛṣṇa speaks of the first steps, karma-yoga, jñāna-yoga, and so on. One should offer one's fruits and one should work in another devotion, then He always speaks of Himself in the third person. He speaks of the supreme lord. Which is interesting, because when He then takes that verse you mentioned, then he is close to Kṛṣṇa and talks about, in 18.66 when He says sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. Then He is very close to Kṛṣṇa. Then He speaks of Himself in the first person. That is an interesting tendency throughout the whole Bhagavad-gītā. When you approach Him gradually and with mixed material motives and so, Kṛṣṇa says the supreme lord and, and so on. But then when bhakti enters more and more, then it is "me" and then it is "I".
- Okay.
- What we read in 9.4, here He also says divyam, here He also talks about me, mām eti so ’rjuna. So that is perhaps especially when He talks about these yoga methods then. Yes. But, but Bhagavad-gītā gives us the basics and as—as you say, it is a bit interesting. Because questions and answers are such an essential part of—of our scriptures too. If Arjuna had just said to Kṛṣṇa: "Why should I do this?" and then Kṛṣṇa had just said: "Just do it, because I say so." Or if Mahārāja Parīkṣit had asked: "What is a person, what should one do with life and especially in the face of death?" and he had just received the answer: "Yes, but just chant Hare Kṛṣṇa." Then we wouldn't have these books; instead, it becomes a discussion, it goes back and forth, it comes from all different perspectives and so on. And now we might not have Kṛṣṇa present to answer all questions about all the little details in this complicated modern world, but we definitely have the basics from—from Bhagavad-gītā, and as you say, we understand these yoga methods, but we gradually understand more and more about Kṛṣṇa personally. Jaya. Anyone... yes.
- There is another verse that expounds further on that if you look at 18.62, which is the last verse He speaks before He says, now I have done it, now I have given you this knowledge and now you get to think about it, and then do as you wish. In 62 He says: "O scion of Bharata, surrender unto Him utterly. By His grace you will attain transcendental peace, and the supreme and eternal abode." There He talks...
- Yes.
- ...in the last verse about "That", and then He says these two famous verses at the end.
- Yes. And 61 then, īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ. "The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone's heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the wanderings..." So it is that "Him" He turns to, continues with in 62 there. Yes. Yes, but Sanskrit is exciting, and they say that Sanskrit is, like, so subtle that if you start as a young child, you can learn Sanskrit maybe in twelve years, or so. And—and that is also something we see when—sometimes you see ISKCON devotees who start studying Sanskrit, and then they come back and suddenly they understand this better than Prabhupāda. And so they roll themselves right out of the whole Kṛṣṇa movement because they are so smart, like. We had—I think you had to ask him to move—we had one such person who suddenly sat there and knew better than Prabhupāda because now he suddenly knew Sanskrit. But Sanskrit is a bit subtle. Sanskrit—it is good to read the verses and the translations so that you get, like, some grip and feeling for these words. But there are times when Prabhupāda has translated a verse in a way that might not have been, like, standard, and then someone who knew Sanskrit met Prabhupāda and understood that, well, he apparently—he saw a little further, he didn't make a mistake, he didn't simplify it just to make a bhakti point, like, but he just saw a little further how Sanskrit actually functioned. But luckily, luckily, we have them in English and also in Swedish and, and most other languages so we...
- Yes, it is a bit like a beautiful flower that gradually opens over time, the more you read. And another very interesting and fascinating aspect is how Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna address each other with different names: Bharata, Parantapa, Kaunteya, and Madhusūdana, and so on. So these names are not coincidental. In the beginning, you think, why are there so many different names? But they have a very strong connection to the actual context. When, for example, Arjuna is in—in an agitated state of mind, he addresses Kṛṣṇa as Madhusūdana. It was He who killed the demon Madhu, the demons of doubt, so then, like, he places an expectation on Kṛṣṇa, "I have doubts, but you can, like..." And then Kṛṣṇa says: "Yes, but you who are the winner of wealth, and you who are the strong-armed and brave," like, "why should you..." So it is roughly like saying: "Yes, okay, IT guy, you who know everything about IT support. My computer has crashed," and like, then he answers like to a computer-...
- Yes.
- ...not to someone who is dealing with some trivial things and so on. So it is a wonderful dialogue they have just by addressing each other with different names.
- Yes. It is also really so that you, you, you don't get tired of it, like. You read the Bhagavad-gītā once more, and then you find a small new angle and then you find a little more depth and then you find something else that you perhaps didn't think of the first time. So it is good to learn it, meaning if you learn the basics of the Bhagavad-gītā then you never need to be confused again for the rest of your life. But even when you have a certain grip on these basics, you can continue to read it forever without getting tired. Fantastic book, Bhagavad-gītā. Fantastic book. And then we continue with the Bhāgavatam, because the Bhagavad-gītā, like, we still have people who comment: "It is not to Kṛṣṇa, but it is to the unborn within Kṛṣṇa." Because there is a certain possibility, given that the Bhagavad-gītā is primarily philosophical. There is a certain possibility to interpret it in such a way. But with the Bhāgavatam, that is not possible. Nobody has made an attempt to make a māyāvāda interpretation of the Bhāgavatam, because there Kṛṣṇa runs around and acts on every page, like, and you can't explain it away; you come to a point where it is no longer meaningful to explain it away. And then we have the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and I have said this before, but now we have some people who perhaps haven't heard it before, we usually hear that we should start by studying the Bhagavad-gītā, when we understand, like, the basics of the Bhagavad-gītā we go on and read the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and when we have integrated the Bhāgavatam we can read the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, which is the book that describes Lord Caitanya's activities in a deeply philosophical way so that you can't believe it was just someone going around dancing in the villages, but you really understand that this is Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead—so you should read that after the Bhāgavatam. But, I recommend that you cheat. I recommend that you start approaching the Caitanya-caritāmṛta before you are finished. Prabhupāda did that; Prabhupāda took a break in translating the Bhāgavatam to make sure he completed the Caitanya-caritāmṛta before he passed away. And Caitanya-caritāmṛta, here we hear about Kapiladeva, he lived somewhere in, in the beginning of Brahmā's life, like. That is millions of years ago. We hear about Kṛṣṇa who was here 5,000 years ago. In Caitanya-caritāmṛta we follow Lord Caitanya, who is our most recent incarnation of Kṛṣṇa, like His daily life. Sometimes Prabhupāda says: "Yes, that's right, this place, it is located if you take the train to this station and then you take a rickshaw five kilometers north, then you reach it," like. We are practically there. So coming so close to Lord Caitanya when we try to practice following Lord Caitanya's, like, line of bhakti, it—it—it creates a—it's not just theory anymore, but it—it is a personal relationship. So you are allowed to do that, you are allowed to read a little Caitanya-caritāmṛta before you have finished the entire Bhāgavatam. But you don't drop... you don't think: "Okay, Bhagavad-gītā, that is for beginners, we don't need to read that." Of course we can read the Bhagavad-gītā, we return to our Bhagavad-gītā, Bhagavad-gītā is wonderful. But then it is also completely wonderful that Prabhupāda has opened, like, opened the window all the way to—to Kṛṣṇaloka and to Lord Caitanya. And as a devotee, it is usually—people usually say that a devotee worships Kṛṣṇa, their iṣṭa-deva, the—the aspect, the form of Kṛṣṇa that one is attracted to, and then you go to Him when—when you achieve your full, pure devotion after you leave the body. But, we have been told that—that Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas who follow Lord Caitanya, we don't have to choose between Kṛṣṇa and Lord Caitanya. We can be with both of them. So Kṛṣṇa is completely unlimited, but we are not as limited as we think, the soul is a bit more than what we expect.
Hare Kṛṣṇa.