So this chapter is called "The Glories of Devotional Service", which I thought was kind of interesting because we glorify Kṛṣṇa, we glorify the Supreme Lord, we glorify His activities, His pastimes, His beauty, His form, His relationships, His qualities, everything about Him is glorified. So why do we glorify devotional service? Because without devotional service, we don't have any access. We cannot know anything about Kṛṣṇa. He's naturally glorified. He's in the spiritual world, He's surrounded by His devotees, like unlimited devotees. It is said that the material world is—there's no limit to the material world and there's no limit to the spiritual world, but the material world is a quarter.
So some of us were foolish enough to not appreciate that transcendental existence of service in the spiritual world, so Kṛṣṇa gave us some facility, we can come here. And here also, I think—I think Papa was saying that when we read the Bhāgavatam, almost all of it, I mean, actually all of it is happening here in the material world. And then the Tenth Canto is Kṛṣṇa's direct pastimes, but even that is what was manifested in this world because we are here and bhakti is not a utopia. It is not some impossible dream of something unachievable or—sometimes religions are like that. In this world, we just have to obey, and then when we die we can go to heaven and everything will be fine. But as long as we are here, it's a little—it's a little dry, it's a little tough. But bhakti is immediately available here. But not from our own speculation. It's interesting like sometimes, quite often, we hear that we like something spiritual, but we have a thing against organized religion. But if nobody took the trouble to organize, like if we just thought we're going to sit around and be happy and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and nobody was running the BBT, and nobody was going out on saṅkīrtana, and—and we come for the morning program, and we have the full range of devotees, like when the kīrtana starts, some of us can hardly stand still, and some of us can hardly stand up. But we're all here, we're all in the kīrtana, we're all in the program. But if nobody was running the temple, if nobody was organizing the temple and paying the bills, and making a schedule, then we couldn't just come together and just chant and dance. So there has to be some organization. But without knowledge, if it's just organization, because that is also a tendency. We come here and we have an institution, and we have certain rules, and the rules are very important. And that is like—one of the ten offenses is niyama-āgraha, either to give up the rules to be whimsical, or to just hold on to some rules for their own sake. But we have to have some understanding of what are we doing here. And what we are doing is we are connecting with Kṛṣṇa. And how do we connect with Kṛṣṇa? That is with devotional service. And without devotional service, there is no such connection.
So devotional service is very glorious, because it's our only hope while we are here, and then when we are purified and realized and connected in service to Kṛṣṇa, and even going back to the spiritual world, then devotional service is our whole activity, it's our whole existence actually. So it's very glorious. And Prabhupāda here is speaking about how the Lord is giving this for the benefit of the human race. Because the Vedas—the Vedas are vast. They are, I mean, you can barely even understand how vast they are, and to study them and learn them, and first to learn the Sanskrit, one life is probably maybe not even enough. So Kṛṣṇa is very kind to us. He has given us the main thing. Bhāgavatam is described as the ripened fruit. There's a nice verse. Like the tree of Vedic knowledge, the ripened fruit is the Bhāgavatam. So the tree is very big, but the fruit is kind of like the point. We have nice trees here, we have the cherry trees here, they are very beautiful, but they make some flowers, but we never see really many of the—there are very few fruits. I think the birds take them, and maybe the kids take a few, and then they're gone. So we have that ripened fruit, the whole essence of all the knowledge.
So the Vedas is very big, and sometimes we get into this whole cultural thing, and we get so much because it's a little difficult, it's a little complex to understand varṇāśrama. Some people think it's very simple: put some cows on the land, and put the women in the kitchen, bam, we have varṇāśrama. We really don't. Varṇāśrama is like—it's quite amazing actually, because we look—we look at the running society nowadays, we have political parties, and then we have the political parties on the right who are saying, "Whoever has money should be able to keep them and not pay too much in taxes, and then we have a lot of police, nobody steals." And the left kind of says, "No, no, it should be shared and those who are weaker in society should be taken care of." And then it's like one or the other. But the varṇāśrama, we do everything.
The kṣatriyas are running society, and they have some power and they have some, like, they have the authority to protect against attackers and against criminality on the inside. But they also have the duty to listen to the brāhmaṇas and the duty to take care of people. That is their main duty. I mean, they have to live in some opulence. The brāhmaṇas, they have no opulence at all because they are protecting their purity, so they can never be dependent on anyone else, but they are—they are heard because they have knowledge and they have purity and they can give direction.
And then the vaiśyas are there because if we can't eat, then everything else goes out the window. We have to eat. But it has to be regulated, because the tendency of the vaiśyas is to make some profit. And then the easy profit in the Kali-yuga, we see that in the criminal system, when certain classes of society are not really welcomed into the regular society. I worked in prisons, and then you have the addicts, they cannot live a regulated life, and they cannot even live a legal life. They are in and out of prisons, they cannot help it. But then we have the class that are maybe coming from a different country, not being allowed into society, so they make some business, but illegal business, drugs, those kind of things, they are also in the prisons.
So a kṣatriya has the duty to engage everybody. Everybody is busy with whatever is their natural proclivity. And then vaiśyas are supposed to protect the cows and grow food, and they can make some business. And then the śūdras is a little mystical because they are everyone else. They are those who are taking service, who are not kind of—they cannot maintain their own structure, they are dependent on someone else's structure. Brāhmaṇa is not dependent on anyone, they worship Kṛṣṇa, they study the scriptures, they accept gifts, there's another word—charity, they accept charity. The kṣatriyas are running the country, so they are setting up the structures. And the vaiśyas, they set up some kind of business empire or this farmland. And sometimes devotees are wondering, Prabhupāda said family can live just from some cow, but how can you do that? To run a farm is really expensive. Yes, that's because it's Kali-yuga. First you have to buy the land. In a Vedic society, you don't buy land. The king has the land, and whoever can use it, they get what they can use. They don't have to spend a lot of money to have that land. So then life becomes a little more simple. So śūdras are often classified as workers, but they're like everyone else. They are dentists and secretaries and artists, because they are dependent on someone else's structure, but within that they do nice service. Everyone can do nice service and then everyone benefits each other, and there's not a fight between the right and the left because everything's included. So the Vedas give this system for a—we can have a good life.
Vedic knowledge offers a program for good living conditions and gradual elevation to the platform of goodness. And then in the mode of goodness, because wherever you are in such an organized society, your service counts, and the direction is towards Kṛṣṇa. This is Kali-yuga, so we don't have that society. We cannot sit back and think we will naturally gradually be elevated. And Kṛṣṇa knows that, so Kṛṣṇa here He comes as Kapila to give knowledge. Sāṅkhya is the analytical study of knowledge. The word sāṅkhya, I heard, means counting. So we count the elements, we understand how things work. And Prabhupāda speaks—no, not here. The funny thing is Prabhupāda's sound files. The whole beginning of this chapter, Prabhupāda is giving class on text one, two, three, all the way down, and there he speaks about this impostor Sāṅkhya compounder, the impostor Kapila. So we say Devahūti-putra Kapila, that's the—that's the real Kapila. Someone else can come and call themselves Kapila, and they can discuss some analysis of the material world, but if it doesn't lead to devotional service, it's quite pointless. If it doesn't lead to knowledge about Kṛṣṇa, it is meaningless, because that's what it says here: mode of goodness, some knowledge, some 'aham brahmāsmi'. I mean, it's kind of more elevated than what we see in general, but it doesn't—it doesn't come to the point. Because realization, "aham brahmāsmi", is like saying, "Oh, who are you? I'm a human being." Of course you are, we're all human beings. But who are you? You are this particular person, you are that particular person. So if we're saying we're all Brahman, that's fine, but what does it mean? It means we're spirit souls, it means we're servants of Kṛṣṇa. And what does that mean if you don't know Kṛṣṇa? We have to know Kṛṣṇa.
So Kṛṣṇa comes here, He keeps coming here as an incarnation. And of course, He doesn't just—He doesn't just do one thing, it's not that He has a job to come here so that we can know Him. He does that because He loves us. And He sees without knowing Him, we are lost. And without knowing Him, we cannot know ourselves, because what are we, disconnected from Kṛṣṇa? We are in illusion, because disconnection from Kṛṣṇa is an illusion. We can never really be disconnected from Him, but somehow we wanted that. So we are here, and we are covered, and I mean we—I shouldn't say we because I'm in the assembly of the great devotees who are connected to Kṛṣṇa. But we look at people in general, and it is quite—a quite common condition, forgetfulness of Kṛṣṇa is quite common.
So therefore Kṛṣṇa comes. Here He comes as Kapila. We know He came as Kṛṣṇa just 5,000 years ago. 5,000 years ago is quite some time in our perspective, but it's still almost within history, it's almost recorded. And then Lord Caitanya came, and that's just like last week, you know? Read Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and everything is there. We must read Caitanya-caritāmṛta because that's— Bhagavad-gītā, if we know our Bhagavad-gītā, we will never be confused, all the knowledge, all the philosophy, like that. But then in Bhāgavatam, we get to know it more in a personal way. We see devotees in all these situations that gives us understanding from different angles and all the way up to the Tenth Canto. Then there's the Ninth Canto. And I once asked a question: "Why in the Ninth Canto, why is it so weird?" And the devotees looked at me, "What kind of a question is that?" But I got the answer that the Ninth Canto is there to burn away any impurities before we can see Kṛṣṇa. Pañca-tattva is here, and Kṛṣṇa is in the Bhāgavatam, and when we have all this understanding gradually, gradually, and then the Ninth Canto takes away anything else extra, then we can hear about Kṛṣṇa, because Kṛṣṇa came here. As Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa comes here as Kapila. Kṛṣṇa comes here to establish the knowledge and the process and the fact. So He does some pastimes, He's having His own līlā, He's having His own fun in so many ways. But He's also reaching out to us. Like we were hearing yesterday, Kṛṣṇa is actually in everyone's heart. Everyone's heart. We go out there and count all the trees and count all the grass and count all the ants, Kṛṣṇa is in the heart. And in each and every one of us. But in general, He's there as the permitter and the observer, witness and permitter, because as Supersoul, He doesn't interact personally. But as soon as the devotee takes one step to Kṛṣṇa, then Kṛṣṇa takes ten steps to him, or her.
So I was thinking here, because Kṛṣṇa appears, then of course there is this verse that Prabhupāda keeps quoting very much, very much Prabhupāda quotes this verse, text nine of the fourth chapter of Bhagavad-gītā. It's called Transcendental Knowledge:
janma karma ca me divyam
evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ
tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma
naiti mām eti so 'rjuna
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 that's quite an amazing statement. We hear about Kṛṣṇa, and we're not—we're not doing like a Māyāvādī spin in our mind, like, "Oh, this is just some symbolic." Sometimes they say the Pāṇḍavas are symbols of the five senses. I don't even know what sense that would make. It's not that one of them is sight and one of them is hearing. They are individuals connected to Kṛṣṇa in service and connected in this special līlā where Kṛṣṇa is showing us things, and connected in this relationship, in friendship. And if we can know that. And what does it mean to know? Sometimes we hear to know is to fully realize, but to actually know and accept that this is transcendental, this is not of the material world. Like when we come to Vṛndāvana the first time, it's a little bit of a shock, a cultural shock. It's a little dirty, it's a little loud, it's a little intense. So that they say that the holy dhāma is always pure, it's always spiritual, but it has a covering. And without devotion, one cannot see through that covering. And sometimes devotees get very upset.
And I've heard that Prabhupāda said we're not supposed to associate directly with the Vrajavāsīs because they have their own relationship to Kṛṣṇa, and it may confuse us. For some, it will confuse them in the way that we will be critical and we will commit offenses, for some it will confuse us in the way that we will become sahajiyās and just kind of play around, like we have had so many apa-sampradāyas that were having these ideas. But we can know Kṛṣṇa is there, Kṛṣṇa's pastimes are there. And if we can know that very strongly, then we can have that attachment that we don't want anything else. Because that's also what it says, at the moment of death, whatever our consciousness is at that time, that will take us to our next place. So if our consciousness is in just pure surrender and remembrance of Kṛṣṇa. And I have never had those experiences, but I have heard of devotees who have been kind of gone, kind of almost dead, and somehow not able to think of anything, but then somehow Kṛṣṇa comes and grabs them. We were hearing that the holy name came, or some remembrance came, and we heard of one devotee who was kind of disconnected from the devotees and he was in the hospital, and in his last moment, he just kind of looked up and said, "Oh Prabhupāda, you came?"
So—so we—and that's also in the Īśopaniṣad, like the prayer is there, "If I have ever done something, if I may not remember You, but please Kṛṣṇa, please You remember me." So that is our Kṛṣṇa. And then we hear about this process, there's another verse that I thought was connected also, Bhagavad-gītā is wonderful, it has so many verses, and I forget more verses than I remember, but they are all there, we can all come back to them and connect to them. There is a verse, two, in chapter nine, the most confidential knowledge:
rāja-vidyā rāja-guhyaṁ
pavitram idam uttamam
pratyakṣāvagamaṁ dharmyaṁ
susukhaṁ kartum avyayam
This knowledge is the king of education, the most secret of all secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct perception of the self by realization, it is the perfection of religion. It is everlasting, and it is joyfully performed.
So once someone is deeply in the devotional service, everything is happy. But why, why do we call it a secret? The devotees are all going out and screaming from the rooftops, trying to sell books, trying to have harināma, how is it a secret? Because if we don't want to know, we won't understand it. There has to be a desire in the heart to understand, to come closer to Kṛṣṇa, because otherwise this discovering is Kṛṣṇa's gift. We meet so many—I know when I joined, I was like, "Okay, this is it. Now we found this perfection." Like, this is a knowledge, this is the activities, this is the association. And I went home and told my friends and they just looked at me like, "Ah, okay." I was so surprised, I just thought because we didn't know about it, we didn't take the Kṛṣṇa consciousness so serious, we knew about it, they were not interested at all. And then there is needs some some purification.
That's also like our process is so fantastic, because we hear about the Vedas, there is a lot of atonement and purification and all of this, but bhakti is such that we don't do a separate process in order to come to the point where we can do bhakti, because bhakti is the purification—purificatory process in itself. But it's not just that, because sometimes we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, you purify the heart, you purify the mind, you purify everything, and we do that. But of course, when a person already is purified, then chanting the holy name is directly coming to Kṛṣṇa, so the process will be the same, but depending on our kind of level, we will experience it differently. So we have to have the desire, there has to be some purification, because we cannot see Kṛṣṇa without. And then we need some mercy.
Because bhakti is given by someone who has bhakti. So then Kṛṣṇa appears, but then the disciplic succession comes after, so we have that connection, because devotional service is not an abstract thing that happens in a vacuum. Devotional service is—there has to be bhakti, there has to be the bhakta, and there has to be Bhagavān. I think we read that just the other week, because otherwise it has no meaning. So we learn these things, and we hear these things, and then, yeah, we are so fortunate. Lord Caitanya came, Pañca-tattva came. It's funny, sometimes we hear devotees, they go to India and they visit the villages and they come back and they say, "Oh, that is the spiritual culture, we can just imitate that." Advaita Ācārya appeared before Lord Caitanya, and he's an incarnation of Mahā-Viṣṇu Himself. He looked around and said, "This place, it's so fallen. People are doing the Vedic things, but they are doing it from a material perspective. It's not devotion. And there is no hope for them except if You will appear personally." So he was worshipping Kṛṣṇa, he had his śālagrāma and he was worshipping with water and tulasī leaves, and loud cries. "Kṛṣṇa, You have to come." And Lord Caitanya came, Lord Nityānanda came. They came separately, they are brothers, but they came separately. But they came and they started this saṅkīrtana movement, the saṅkīrtana mission. And Prabhupāda took this branch of their original saṅkīrtana mission to us here in the West, and it's continuing.
Yes, because just the Vedic structure and knowledge itself, it's not enough. And in this Kali-yuga, we don't really have the qualifications to do a very gradual process. But by Lord Caitanya's mercy, and by Prabhupāda's mercy, we get that connection. So, yes, Lord Caitanya is the closest one to us and He's the most merciful incarnation, and He's the one we take shelter of the most. But all the incarnations have the same point of coming here so that we can connect to them, to give this knowledge so we are not confused, to give their presence so we know what direction our bhakti is going in. Also, yes, in the society, Prabhupāda—we listened to this class from Prabhupāda, and there he focuses a lot about this is given in the human society. But what is human society? Human society means regulated. Otherwise, it's kind of like talking animals on two legs. And people get very offended, or some don't, actually. Some are saying that we are just mammals, what's the problem, we can just eat and sleep.
The thing is, we have another ability. We can have—we have, first, we have some intelligence, and we have some ability to connect in spiritual life. So in that society, somebody has to have the knowledge. So that's the brāhmaṇas and the vaiṣṇavas, and so we, on one hand, are very fortunate that we have been given this gift. We are able to take up bhakti-yoga, and we are able to connect to Kṛṣṇa, not in some abstract, philosophical, just some idea. Like, I'm thinking about that sometimes. Before I met the devotees, I was trying to kind of look at religions, and, I mean, there, Prabhupāda is not criticizing our religions, and there are sincere devotees within the different religions, but I didn't meet those. I met those who kind of—they didn't have any knowledge, and it was just a lot of rules and regulation, or—or it was, "No, we just love Jesus, we don't have any rules." Niyama-āgraha all over. And I didn't meet anyone who could give that connection. So—so the devotees have to be here. We have to be a little organized. Sometimes we say, "Oh, we don't like organized religion." You can come and join us. We are often very disorganized. But ultimately, there is a core of organization. We have temples, we have BBT, we have saṅkīrtana, we have sādhana, we have the morning program. And we are fortunate because that gift has been given to us so that we can be very steadily connected to Kṛṣṇa in this life and become perfect in this life. But also, it is also our duty to share it, to cooperate nicely and to give it to others because that is Lord Caitanya's mode, that was Prabhupāda's, all activities, traveling and preaching and connecting. And as soon as there were some devotees in one place, He would send them to some other place to open more centers, to reach out more. So we have this. We are very fortunate. And also, that fortune gives us a bit of a burden of responsibility to hand it over. And, yeah, I had some thoughts. One could—Bhāgavatam is fantastic. One could take all kinds of details and expand them unlimitedly, but we're not doing that. We're having Bhāgavatam in this slot because that's the part of the day, and we hear and read together. And I'm hoping that maybe there will be some comments and questions so we can hear some more perspective, because that's the wonderful thing, you know, it's not that somebody's just lecturing, but we are here together, reading and hearing and sharing the perspectives of the devotees. Any—anything, questions, comments? Saṅkīrtana realizations?
And you said that about, "aham brahmāsmi", "I'm spirit," you know? That's just so general. It's difficult to—it's like saying, you gave the example, "I'm a human being." Once, I was going to ask what you would answer to this: once I was in saṅkīrtana, I like asking people, "Who are you?" And they generally say their name. And I say, "But if you change your name, are you the same person or will you be a new person?" They say, "I'll be the same." So, "You're not your name. So who are you?" And I try to, you know, go a little bit below the surface. And often they say, "I'm a human being." If you say, "No, you're not a human being," because actually, ultimately they're not a human being, they're a spirit soul. How do you explain that to someone when they say—
The thing is, philosophical knowledge, the person has to have some basic—you know, like, you go to school, and when you go like in the later classes, you start to study equations. But if you go to somebody in the first class, they barely know the numbers, so they're not going to grasp an equation. So it depends on the person. We can talk about reincarnation, and a lot of people find it very fascinating. Because, and then you see those—like sometimes in the newspapers, they have this little survey, they ask five people, "You know, if you were born again, what would you like to be?" And they say, "I would like to be a cat, because then I could sleep a lot," or, "I would like to be a bird and I could fly a lot."
But, you know, they say that, they say that. The thing is, we have a consciousness, and sometimes in our dreams, we are not the same person. I—nobody wants to hear your dreams, but when I was little, I once had a dream, we were like in a tribe of—we looked like monkeys, but we were like insects because we had exoskeletons, and we were walking around the path and swinging in the grasses. Then I was not a human, but I still had consciousness and awareness and personality. I don't know if that's a good example. But bringing in—then maybe the next question is, what does it mean? What is a human being? It's somebody who has consciousness, who has individuality, who has desires. So what does it mean to be a human being? Maybe that's the next direction to go, because if you don't—if you're not aware of reincarnation, it will be a little weird if you die and take birth again, and you're not a human being, will you be the same person? Maybe that's a little too abstract.
But—but if you're not—I mean if you're from—if you meet someone who is of such a culture, you can go there. But what does it mean to be a human being? It means to be aware, to have consciousness. And all the other living entities, they are also spirit souls. But they don't have the capacity—everybody who has animals says, "Oh my dog is so smart. He always knows when I'm sad." Yeah, he always knows when you're sad, but, you know, can you discuss the latest news with him? Does he have an opinion on the war in Iraq?
Probably not. Even that material intelligence is not there. Other things, emotional intelligence, they have a lot. Intuition what to do and how to survive, they have probably more than us. Like, dogs have better smell than us, birds have better eyesight than us, these things, yes. But that intelligence, and even higher, the spiritual intelligence, they don't have that. And we have the capacity for that. And if we don't use that, we are wasting our human life. But I don't know how much of that you can get on the street. But maybe that, what is the consciousness, what is the individuality? Because we're all human beings, but we're not the same human being, you know? If I—if I hit Lakṣmaṇa, you're not going to feel pain, well maybe para-duḥkha-duḥkhī, but not the physical pain, you will not feel. I'm not going to hit Lakṣmaṇa. It was a stupid example. So—so that's the thing on the street also.
On the street on saṅkīrtana, it's quite amazing sometimes, because one—in one sense, we get these questions that we don't know what to do with, so we go back and we read. And then when we find the answer again, we know it much deeper than if we just read it in the book, isn't it? And then sometimes we find ourselves saying things that we didn't even know that we knew, because Supersoul steps in when our knowledge is not enough, then Supersoul steps in. Yeah, but reincarnation is a good topic. So, I don't know, what did you say?
I don't remember, it happened many times. I remember different things. A little bit thinking of how to—
Yeah, but here Prabhupāda in this purport, he speaks a lot about human beings. And in this class that he gives in Bombay, he goes into it also. "Are we human beings? Are we even human beings?" What but I think that's maybe—people will not appreciate that. What is the difference? But we can have some knowledge. We have—I mean also, sac-cid-ānanda is there, but to a covered extent. We are—we are alive, we are—we are existing, and we have some awareness, and we have a capacity for happiness.
Although we don't always know how to realize it. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to have to find a saṅkīrtana party so I can be back there again and not—
You should go out.
I should go out. Like in a year when I when when—and I don't have to work again all the time, I should go out. Absolutely.
And also, the thing is, like when we see devotees, like who are absorbed, because that's the nice thing with the organization, like if you're on your own, and you go up and you chant a little bit, and you know, maybe your parents gave you some breakfast, and then maybe you, I don't know, go out and have a swim. But if you create the team and you have a group and you have some schedule, and then you inspire each other to have a good schedule and a good sādhana, and then you will have some śakti, you know, you will have some potency. It will not all just go out and the whole day is over. So—so, yeah, Prabhupāda gave us that, and we just have to keep it. Keep it. Do you have anything to add?
I guess if I—if I were to meet anyone who says they say "I'm a human being," then I would say, "Oh, that means you have extra intelligence. You can understand this book."
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. They say so many funny things. I met one man in Södertälje, and I said, "So we go out, we go out with a book today. We're bringing out the book today." And he says, "But I have one book."
And then the next one who came, he was not Swedish, he was from Chile, and I said, "I just spoke to this Swedish guy and he has one book. So he thinks one book is enough." And then this guy from Chile was laughing, and then he bought the book, because he felt like it's not enough to have one book, you can have more books.
And I think we have also, and sometimes when I call on saṅkīrtana like that, people have, "Oh, no, I have enough books and I don't read," and something like that. Sometimes I try, at least with—
They don't want to read.
No.
I hear, and then it's a little difficult.
I think—I think if you have some form of invitation cards with some kind of address to a place where they can hear, and then maybe next time. Because also saṅkīrtana, like when Prabhupāda came, he didn't start by having—he wasn't doing the dig-vijaya route, that he sat down with the most learned person and—and, how to say, defeated him, because you cannot defeat people philosophically if they are not open. So there is harināma, there is prasādam, and then gradually, gradually.
And saṅkīrtana is—is also like it's magic like that because I also heard that some devotees say book distribution isn't so relevant because people don't read anymore, and temple life isn't so relevant because nobody wants to join. The thing is, if we go out, and if we have saṅkīrtana parties on the road, or if we have saṅkīrtana devotees on the street, then Kṛṣṇa knows that. And even in our biggest time, we had like, you know, we had maybe a hundred devotees active in Sweden, but they—we didn't have a hundred devotees a day joining. So Sweden now, we have 10 million people here. It's not a very big country. You're from—from the Netherlands, how many people you have there?
18 million.
18 million, yeah. So within that 10 million or 18 million, if you go on saṅkīrtana, you can meet ten people. And if you are there sincerely, Kṛṣṇa will send those ten people. And if we are out saṅkīrtana, and if we have an active temple community, then out of those 10 million or 18 million, maybe not the person that you find and you want to convince is going to join, but Kṛṣṇa can see that we are here, and He will send those people.
And then the books will be forever. Who told the story? Somebody told this story. Like, he was distributing books and then some guy, he really wanted a book, but he didn't want to pay for it, because he was so poor. And he could feel this, "He's not sincere, he's just wants to get something from me." And then he said, I don't remember, but he had an uncommon name, let's say Gregory, I don't know if it's uncommon. He said, "So can you write a dedication to Gregory?" And then later somebody came to the temple and said, "I was so desperate, I was so sad, I was so hopeless, and I was just praying for a sign. And then I found like, you know, on the street or in the garbage, I found a book, and it said, 'To Gregory.' And his name was Gregory." So he came to the temple, you know? I mean, we don't see all the miracles because they go out and they happen somewhere else, but then we hear about some of them. And it's—it's kind of enough to keep us convinced.
And even when we go out, I hear that sometimes it's difficult. I remember when I went on saṅkīrtana, I am not a very ambitious person, so it never bothered me so much when my results were low. And I'm not afraid of people, so it wasn't—I never found it very hard, but I also wasn't very good. But some people find it very hard. But then when you go there, it's—it's so special, because if you're in here, we're all dependent on Kṛṣṇa. I mean, there wouldn't be a ground to stand out without Kṛṣṇa, there wouldn't be air, there wouldn't be water, we wouldn't have anything to cook, we wouldn't have any fire to cook with without Kṛṣṇa, but it's easy to forget, because, "I go to the shop and buy the vegetables, and I turn on the stove," you know? But on saṅkīrtana, you cannot convince anyone, you cannot force anyone to take a book. And then you are really there with Kṛṣṇa. And the more you are able to really be there with Kṛṣṇa, the more of a blissful experience it is.
And that is one thing, because we don't want to just be rules and regulation and purification for our own sake. But the thing is, that part can also really be connected in service, because when we go out and serve Kṛṣṇa on saṅkīrtana, or even in the temple, if we have taken care of working also on our own purity, then we will be more potent. Then we will be able to connect more to them. Because we saw Prabhupāda, we see some devotees, they just come in the room and we're just happy. And people just came. You know, I mean we cannot even understand it. He was 70 years old, he had like a budget of 50 rupees, which he couldn't even change, exchange, in America in those days. And he had a box of books. And who can start a movement under those conditions, you know? No—no management department, no financial department, no—no advertisement department, it was just Prabhupāda. But—but everything happened on his purities and on Kṛṣṇa's desire and on his adherence, adherence to his spiritual master's instructions.
So we have all that magic, and then the only problem will be the anartha-nivṛtti face, which can be a little dry. Sometimes it's a little dry. Sometimes we don't connect, but then we just have to kind of, how to say, grab ourselves by the scruff of our neck and—and put ourselves in a place where there is connection, because that connection is here. Kapila is coming, Lord—Lord Caitanya is coming, the devotees are coming in that line, and since—especially since we—like we had one—one week, one of the devotees was giving a class more or less directly from AI, and it was very painful, because he had looked up Kapila, and he had looked up Sāṅkhya, and he had—he was saying the difference between Sāṅkhya and devotional service. And I said, "No. No." We have to—we can use Google and I—I don't use AI, I've never tried it because it seems very frustrating to me. But I'm sure it can be used if you hone it inside of the knowledge you already have, but you have to check it. Like—like, I don't remember verses, and then I Google them and then I find them, but I'm not asking Google, "What is the meaning of life?", you know? We can use all those things, but we have to have something first. And we have that. We have Lord Caitanya, we have Prabhupāda, and we have the association of devotees.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Hari, Hari, Hare Kṛṣṇa.