So, now what happens if you really believe that? How will you behave?
The second part of the verse is: Therefore, the wise, who perfectly know this, engage in my devotional service, and worship me with all their hearts. Easy, huh? Easy, he's giving us everything.
And so, what the wise do is they give their hearts to him, and they offer, they take the same things others do, and give to Kṛṣṇa. And that's what he's saying. If you are intelligent, if you're wise, then you will offer your heart to Kṛṣṇa. And everything else, too.
Well, that might take a while. It's a gradual process, so don't worry. There are different options.
And so, what do we What does Kṛṣṇa ask for in Gītā? He says:
patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyam
That is a leaf, a flower, fruit, and water. And so, that's not too hard to get water. We can give water to him.
Oh, Haribol. I have a friend up here.
Yes, microphone, is that better? Okay.
So, yes, water, you can afford it. Water, some fruit, a flower, maybe flowers are expensive unless you have a garden, and a leaf. Tulasi is the best.
So, in this world, every leaf, every flower, every herb, every plant, every tree, has a purpose. It has a purpose. There is a form of the Lord, universal form, and everything in this world, in this universe, is part of that form of Kṛṣṇa.
And the herbs are the hairs on his body, and the clouds are the hairs on his head, and the ocean is his abdomen. So, what does that mean if you swim in the ocean, then you will be able to cure all your diseases of the abdomen? Because you're uniting with the universe.
And the veins of his body are the rivers. So, if you swim in the rivers, you can cure your nervous diseases. It's very good for the nerves, to swim in the rivers.
So, 5000 years ago, there was a king named Yudhiṣṭhira, and he got everything from the hills, the mountains, and the earth. The earth gave everything because he was a Kṛṣṇa conscious king. Do you know that they all paid their taxes? The rivers paid their taxes: water. The trees gave fruits and flowers. Just like people had to pay their taxes, so everything had to pay their taxes to the Kṛṣṇa conscious king. The mountains would give minerals, and the ocean would give jewels, pearls.
And so, yes, everything has In nature, has a purpose. It has a purpose.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, one time he was giving example. When he was young, and this was 1931 or '32, he had a severe toothache. He went to the dentist, and nobody could help him, the remedy, nothing worked. So, his servant took him to the jungle, and there was an Ayurvedic doctor who knew all of the herbs, all of the plants. And he just put some plants on his face, in his tooth, and pain was gone.
So, according to Ayurvedic medicine, if you apply certain herbs, then all the germs will come out from your mouth. Isn't that interesting? So, you have to study, find out how to do that.
But can nature be controlled? Actually, when Prabhupāda was born, he was born in 1896. And there was a huge plague in the city when he was a child. So, what they did, they organized Harināma Saṅkīrtana. And they went door to door, Christians, Muslims, everybody joined, and the plague was stopped. Just by sound, sound vibration.
So, yes, if we are Kṛṣṇa conscious, then the whole universe will help us and serve us. Just like in our body, it's like a small universe, and we have many cells in our body. And if we are healthy, then the cells will be happy. If the cells start fighting, then we get sick.
So, that's what's happening in the universe today. The cells are fighting. We are all cells of the big universal body. And so many cells are fighting, there's wars, and so therefore, the universe is not happy. There's earthquakes, there's flooding, there's so many things because people are fighting.
So, what do we have to do? We have to offer everything to the Lord. And if we do that, then we will get peace. Peace formula is there in Bhagavad-gītā, that bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ sarva-loka-maheśvaram suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ. That if you know I'm the owner of everything, the Lord of all sacrifices, you should give it to me, and I'm your best friend. Do you know you have a best friend? And he's in your heart, we talked about that last week. Because he'll give you everything.
But we must be grateful. We must be grateful to the earth for giving us all these things, and all the gifts. All of us have special gifts given to us, special abilities that we can use in Kṛṣṇa's service.
And so, you might ask the question, well, why should we give things to Kṛṣṇa? Of course, yes, they're his. But if they're his, he doesn't need them. Why should we give them? He's not hungry, he's not poor, he doesn't need our opulence, he doesn't need our food. So, why should we give? It's just one thing that we are holding back, and that is our love.
So, if we give him What is love? Then you will be very happy.
I had this experience when my son Govinda was five months old. Little baby. No, he was a big baby actually. I had to give him grains when he was four months instead of six months old. So, five months old, he was eating his porridge. So, I would take the spoon, and put it in the porridge, and stick it in his mouth. And one fine day, he took the spoon out of my hand, and stuck it in the porridge, and he put it in my mouth. "So, oh, he loves me. He's so sweet."
And so, yes, when we give to Kṛṣṇa, it's like that. We're his children, and if we give something, then he feels, "Oh, my child loves me." And that will help us to join him in the spiritual world.
Yes, so, in the old days, when Śrīla Prabhupāda, my Guru, was here, then we had different saṅkīrtana parties travelling. For months, they would live in their van, and they would travel from city to city, selling Prabhupāda's books. So, ladies did it, men also did it, and one of the ladies, they told me that they would go to a big supermarket, and they would just offer the whole supermarket to Kṛṣṇa. So, whatever, except beef, fish, and eggs. And then whatever is in the supermarket, they could eat. It's all prasādam. Because they didn't have time to cook, and it was really hard to be on the road for months, and they were out for months before they would come to a temple.
And so, this was just this is love, this is love of Kṛṣṇa.
So, the devotee gives whatever he has to Kṛṣṇa. There's a story about one of Kṛṣṇa's gurukula friends. He went to school with, he was a brāhmaṇa, but he had no money. After they left the school, this brāhmaṇa was living near Kṛṣṇa, near Dvārakā, but he was so poor. So poor. He had just a house with holes in it, and the rain would come in, and his clothes were full of He wore rags actually.
So, his wife said, "No, no, you have to go and ask Kṛṣṇa. He will help you."
And so, he really didn't want to go, but his wife forced him. And okay, he said, "What can we offer?" They didn't have anything in their house. So, they went next door, and they begged some little broken rice, they were also poor people. So, he brought that, he tied it in his cādara.
And when he came to Dvārakā to see Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa said, "What have you brought for me?" He was too embarrassed to give it to him, but Kṛṣṇa grabbed it, and he ate it.
And he wanted to take another bite, but his wife Rukmiṇī, who is Lakṣmī-devī, she said, "Please, no more, no more. You had enough now. If if you take another bite, I have to become his servant." Because he loved he was eating, love that bite so much. He loved it, he got the love, he was tasting the love in it.
And just like in when there was before, there was a battle, the big battle of Kurukṣetra. Gītā talks about that, is before the battle. And Kṛṣṇa went to visit on a peace mission to stop the war. So, he went to the Kurus. They were, they just, they insulted the wife of the Pāṇḍavas, they did so many, they took away the kingdom, so many things, and that's why the war had to happen, but Kṛṣṇa tried to stop it.
But before that, he went to visit. They offered him, "Oh, we'll give you a big feast." And this was the enemy of the Pāṇḍavas. And he said, "No, no, I cannot eat your food."
But then, he went to the other one who was not a king, Vidura. And Vidura, he was in so such ecstasy, he was peeling banana, he was throwing away the banana and giving the peels to Kṛṣṇa because he was in too much, sometimes devotees do that, too.
I know one of my godbrothers, he was in Vṛndāvana, and Prabhupāda was sitting under a tamāla tree, and he was fanning Prabhupāda, but he was jumping up and down in the kīrtana, and the peacock fan got stuck in the tree. So, sometimes these things happen, we get too excited, but then we don't know what we forget what we're doing. And so, yes, it was like that. So, Kṛṣṇa enjoyed the banana peels instead of the big feast.
So, yes, so Kṛṣṇa said everybody should give something to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. There's a verse in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, "Four things we can give: we can give our prāṇa, our life; we can give our artha, our wealth; we can give our dhiyā, intelligence; and we can give our vācā, or words."
So, of course, first he says, give your life, give your prāṇa. But you may say, "Oh, no, no, that's too much. I have my family, I have my job, no, no, I can do that."
All right. Next is artha. You can give some donation. Okay, you may say, "Well, you know, I don't have any money." There are people like, they don't have any money. So, that's okay.
Next thing is intelligence. And you can help to organize things, and organize the serving. You might think, "Well, I'm I'm not so smart. I don't have that."
One more thing left: vācā, words. You can give your words. You can chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, you can tell somebody to chant, you can sell a book, or read a book out loud, too. That's good, that will help.
So, yes, so the preacher, he sees everyone parts of Kṛṣṇa, but nobody's offering themselves in service. So, he preaches, he teaches to help everyone become servant of Kṛṣṇa. My spiritual master, Śrīla Prabhupāda, engaged all of us, some were rich, some were poor. Some of us had nothing to give, but others did some material things.
I know there was one devotee, he was the leader of a band, musicians. And so, when he joined the temple, he gave all the instruments to the temple, and the rest of his members of the band didn't have any instruments anymore. Anyway, but...
And so, then yes, to print Nectar of Devotion, Brahmānanda gave his life savings which was like $5,000. And so, when he joined, and then he gave the check for $5,000 to Śrīla Prabhupāda. And he asked, "Can I have those books? The Bhāgavatam sets, three books, First Canto." And Prabhupāda said, "That will be extra."
So, that was hard because he didn't have a job then. Before that, he had a job.
So, Prabhupāda was like that. He always pushed us. He pushed us. I was a musician. I sold my cello to pay the rent for Boston Temple when I was there.
And so, yeah, but we should offer out of friendship. Just like there are six loving exchanges between devotees. You offer gifts, and you accept gifts. You offer prasādam, you accept prasādam. You inquire confidentially, you reveal your mind, and you get the answers. These are six symptoms of love, shared by one devotee and another.
But in the very early days, 1966, in a lecture on these verses, 9.24, 26, Prabhupāda said, "You have to do these six with Kṛṣṇa, too." Give him a gift, accept a gift. Give him food, accept prasādam. Reveal your mind. And then, yes, and then he will he will help you.
When I first joined, 1970, we were, all of us, 65 devotees in the temple had to make a queue, a line, and we had to go in front of the deities and give our report. "What did I do this week for you? And what problems did I have?" And then, and then we would pray, "Please help me to serve you, serve you better."
And we would see that that he would help us solve our problems actually. And prayer is like that. You might have a request, you might have a problem, and it's like talking, and then he will help you, he will answer your prayer.
So, we have to practice how to love Kṛṣṇa.
So, Śrīla Prabhupāda gave example. "Yeah, okay, I have to get up early to go to maṅgala-ārati, please Kṛṣṇa." And Prabhupāda says, "You you don't like to, but you think, 'Well, I have to.' And so, that's the beginning."
"And then, I have to chant 16 rounds on my beads." Prabhupāda said, "You may be lazy, you may not want to do it, but if you want to love Kṛṣṇa, then you must do it."
And so, this is the beginning, we have duties, it's like it's not exactly love. So, just like girls and boys, if you if you want to please a girl, you give a gift, you give food, or a boy, also, and so and then you reveal your mind. So, this is this is happening nowadays.
And so, there's two attitudes: one is the devotee, we are personalists, and there is the impersonalists. So, we want to be servant of God, and the impersonalists, they want to be God.
Just like before I met the devotees, I was I was searching, I was guru shopping actually. And I tried all different gurus that were available, and there was lots in Boston, 1970, full of gurus.
So, one guru told me, "Okay, morning and night, 10 minutes, you chant this mantra." Oh, she paid, paid for the mantra, we had to pay. It was $35, 50 years ago, now I think it must be like $200 or something for that mantra.
Anyway, yeah, and then, "Do whatever you like, and in six months, you will become God." So, "Okay, I'll give it a try." I tried, didn't work.
So, then I went to the devotees first day, I asked, "What is your process?" They said, "You chant, you dance, you eat."
I said, "Okay, if I chant, dance, eat, what will happen to me?" And they said, "You will see God." I said, "Yeah, I want to see God, I don't want to be God."
It's a lot of trouble if you try to be God. You really can't control the sun and the moon and all that.
And so, yes. Oh, so, one time Prabhupāda came to London, and he came to the airport, there were a lot of reporters. And as soon as they saw Prabhupāda, all the devotees hit the ground. And the reporter was looking, "What's going on here?"
And so, then, first question to Prabhupāda, "Do you think you are God?"
And so, then Prabhupāda said, "Spiritual master should be given all respect as God, but if he thinks he is God, then he is dog." So, the reporters couldn't couldn't defeat him, no way, no way.
So, yes, so the impersonalists, they do severe austerities, they don't eat nice food, but the devotee, he enjoys wonderful prasādam, and you'll you'll get a taste of that after a while. After this class will finish soon, and then kīrtana, and then prasādam.
So, now we don't have Rādhā-Rāṇī here. Well, actually we do have Lord Caitanya, and we do have Nityānanda. So, if you look under the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya, you will find a sacrificial altar, might actually Nityānanda's lotus feet, not sure about Caitanya's. But I do believe he has it also because he has both Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet.
So, a sacrificial altar means you do a sacrifice. So, what is that sacrifice? Just like if we offer our minds in sacrifice to their feet, we can stimulate universal nourishment that affects all creation. So, we meditate on their feet, and Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa's feet, the whole universe will be nourished.
And that's that's what happens when we go out for Harināma, book distribution. When we chant, when we talk about the books, then the whole universe gets we we cure the disease of the universe, and we can each each one of us can do it. We can think about Kṛṣṇa, we can chant.
And so, yes. Another meaning of this sacrificial altar is that everything you see in this world is Kṛṣṇa, part of his universal form. And when you take it, and when you offer it to him, the offering is Rādhārāṇī, who is his best lover, best devotee. So, when you offer something to Kṛṣṇa, then you bring Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa together.
And the best way of course is to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa Mahāmantra, which is what we were doing, and we will do again, so you don't forget. Yes, we have to remember to chant.
So, 5,000 years ago, some sages in Naimiṣāraṇya, they were trying to do a thousand-year fire sacrifice. Can you imagine? I mean, just one hour or two hours is enough, and they're going to do it for a thousand years and put stuff in the fire.
So, they were trying, but it wasn't working. At the same time, this sacrifice of sacrifice was going on, Sūta was speaking about Kṛṣṇa.
So, their realization was that, "You know, we we did many mistakes in this fire, and only black smoke is coming in, no fire, and our bodies became black from the smoke." "But we are very happy to hear the nectar of the nectar of the lotus feet which you are speaking."
So, that's the real sacrifice for this age, not fire. I mean, we do fire sacrifices for marriage, for initiation, but the real sacrifice is to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa Mahāmantra.
So, I will stop here if you have any questions or comments, you can ask. At this point, we have about 4 minutes left. Any questions?
I see somebody way back there. Yes.
[Unclear section at 22:31...] I can't hear, can you stand up? Are you on the microphone? Can you repeat? Yes, yes.
The sacrifice, the altar of sacrifice, yes. It is on Rādhārāṇī's feet, also Nitāi's, and probably also Lord Caitanya's. But not Kṛṣṇa's. Because they are going to sacrifice to him. We're going to We're going to give everything to Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa doesn't have it. Rādhārāṇī has it, and I believe Nitāi and Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya has all the marks of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, and even more.
Yes, so, question? Yes.
When you when I met Śrīla Prabhupāda. When you when I met Śrīla Prabhupāda.
What did I Well, for the first time in my life, I found out where I belong. I didn't belong anywhere.
When I was 10 years old, I was looking at the kids in my classroom in America, and I said, "I'm not one of them. I'm not American. Maybe I'm from another country, or maybe I'm from another planet. But one thing I know is I'm not one of them."
And I went to scout camp, and in school they said, "These are all the careers," I didn't like any of the careers. So, I chose to be a musician, which was not on the list. Anyway, yeah, I never belonged.
And then when I met Śrīla Prabhupāda, I was following him at the airport, and I thought, "Wow, this is where I belong, I can follow him the rest of my life." And I felt very secure, very protected, and like, "Finally, I'm home. This is home now. This is where I belong."
Okay, yes.
[Unclear question 24:39...] War, yes. Yeah, big wars going on, yes, yes. Yes, always.
Well, again, the peace formula is there. If they would recognize the Father, then they would see we're all brothers.
And that was what Prabhupāda, he was preaching to the communists. "Okay, you you want to give everything to the government, but okay, we have the same philosophy. We say, 'Yes, give everything to Kṛṣṇa.' You you just have a different leader than we do." That's all.
"You have Lenin, or whoever it was," I think he was Lenin or Stalin. "We have Kṛṣṇa." "So, we have the same philosophy, but as the leader is different, so our leader can take you to peace."
The others were not, they were killing so many people, these leaders.
So, first thing we have to accept everyone is Kṛṣṇa is our Father, we're all brothers. So, why should brothers fight?
And the second thing is Harināma Saṅkīrtana can unite everyone. Just like Ukraine and Russia, we have devotees in Russia, we have devotees in Ukraine, and they can be united in Harināma. Harināma Saṅkīrtana, it's the only thing because anything material will not change the consciousness. It will not help. Material things don't help. They make a treaty, they break it the next day. You know, it's it's not working.
So, then we have to go to a higher level of energy, spiritual energy. Spiritual energy can control the material, just like when Arjuna was on the battlefield, he was he was outnumbered. The other side had all the soldiers, so many. But he had Kṛṣṇa. And so, therefore, he won the battle.
So, spiritual energy, it's more powerful than material. So, when you're having problem with material energy, then you have to go to the spiritual energy. And that will help you. Yeah.
Uh-huh.
In this world, we live with different people, different culture, and different food habits.
And different food habits.
Food habits, yeah, like, we believe different things. Now, in order to coexist, how do we live together, how do we tolerate, how do we share?
How do we tolerate, how do we live together? Yes, that's a good question. Different cultures, different food habits.
But you see, our our movement is like the United Nations, except United Nations doesn't work. They're getting more disunited.
So, we have the same prayers in Sanskrit and Bengali. It doesn't matter if you're Russian, Ukrainian, American, same prayers we have. We're united.
In that way, only you can unite on the spiritual level. Because we're all spiritual beings. On the material level, we'll always be different. You can't really You have to go up to the spiritual level where we are all equal and the same.
The bodies are all different, the cultures are all different, the food are all different, but spiritually, we're all the same.
So, that's a higher higher level of of knowledge. Gītā says, "If you see the soul in everyone equally, but if you see different bodies, you're in the mode of passion. If you see equally, you're in the goodness."
So, we have to go up to the spiritual level, and the way to do that in this quarrelsome age is to chant the holy name of Kṛṣṇa. And it's the same for everybody.
Yeah, Prabhupāda said, "Even a dog can take part in this chanting." We have seen dogs who have taken part in the chanting actually. They commonly "Ooooh," and then they dance. Even the deer dance in when I was with Kṛṣṇa Island. So, they have wild deer, but they have they have become domesticated. And one time I was there for maṅgala-ārati, the mother and the baby were there, and the baby was jumping with the with the kīrtana.
Yeah, it's yes. The peacocks come for class and for kīrtana. Yeah, we have peacocks, we have deer, and yes. We can unite even the animals, with prasādam and chanting.
Okay, I have to stop now. It's time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mother Harāṇi.
And so, yeah, now we'll be singing more, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. And if we, everyone will be sitting down then and we can sing and chant and, and afterwards, we will be feasting, eating prasādam. That's good.
So, please also I just wanted to mention sometimes it's a bit difficult, but when we sing the kīrtana, there's one person leading the kīrtana, and everyone listens at that time. And then afterwards, when he has sung one mantra, then we all respond together. So, it's a call-and-response practice, this kīrtana.
So, if you try to follow. Thank you. So, now we'll sing the kīrtana. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Please come. Please come forward so that we may make space on the back. Everyone sits closer to the deity. Just one. Yeah, yeah, you can do. Where is the old...
[chanting: Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare. Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare.]
Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Let's start the class. Today we will read from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, First Canto, Chapter 15, Verse 32. Let's chant together the prayers.