apam upasthe mayi navy avasthitah

praja bhavan adya riraksisuh kila

sa vira-murtih samabhud dhara-dharo

yo mam payasy ugra-saro jighamsasi

apam – of the water; upasthe – situated on the surface; mayi – in me; navi – in a boat; avasthitah – standing; prajah – living entities; bhavan – Yourself; adya– now; riraksisuh – desiring to protect; kila – indeed; sah – He; vira-murtih – in the form of a great hero; samabhut – became; dhara-dharah – the protector of the planet earth; yah – one who; mam – me; payasi – for the sake of milk; ugra-sarah – with sharpened arrows; jighamsasi – You desire to kill.

Sankarshan Das: Is that the laundry room making noise? Something else.

Local Devotee:Gurumata is doing something.

Sankarshan Das: Okay. Translation and Purport by His Divine Grace, Srila Prabhupada.

Translation: My dear Lord, in this way you once protected me by rescuing me from the water, and consequently Your name has been famous as Dharadhara, He who holds the planet earth. Yet at the present moment in the form of a great hero, You are about to kill me with sharpened arrows. I am, however, just like a boat on the water, keeping everything afloat.

Purport: The Lord is known as Dharadhara, meaning “He who keeps the planet earth on His tusks as the boar incarnation.” Thus, the planet earth in the shape of a cow is clouding, is accounting the contradictory acts of the Lord. Although He once saved the earth, He now wants to upset the earth, which is like a boat on the water. No one can understand the activities of the Lord. Due to a poor fund of knowledge, human beings sometimes think the Lord's activities contradictory.  (End of Purport)

Vande ham sri-guroh sri-yuta-pada-kamalam sri-gurun vaishnavams ca sri-rupam sagrajatam saha-gana-raghunathanvitam tam sa jivam sadvaitam savadhutam parijana–sahitam krishna-caitanya-devam sri-radha-krishna-padan saha-gana-lalita-sri-visakhanvitams ca

nama om vishnu-padaya krishna-preshthaya bhu-tale

srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine

namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracarine

nirvisesha-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine

mukam karoti vacalam

pangum langhayate girim

yat-kripa tam aham vande

sri-gurum dina-taranam

Sankarshan Das: So, as Prabhupada says here, sometimes, human beings sometimes think the Lord's activities are contradictory. This means the Lord never contradicts Himself. Thou may appear to be contradictory. The planet earth appears to be contradictory. We have to understand that even though it may appear the Lord is acting in a contradicting way, He is not contradicting. We have to see how the Lord is. In other words, what is the non-contradicting nature of the Lord? Let's go deep in understanding what is the non-contradictory nature. That is His mercy. Krishna is unlimitedly merciful. That's why we have to learn how to be equipoised, seeing everything as the blessings of the Lord. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, the auspicious, the inauspicious, actually everything that is coming is the unlimited mercy of Krishna upon us. He simply wants to get us back in our original identity in the spiritual world. Everything that is happening here is for that purpose. So, we should not think why is Krishna doing this to me? I didn't deserve this. Why is Krishna? You should never find fault with Krishna that He is not treating you properly. You have to have that transcendental vision of all I have seen, the loving mercy of Krishna. Krishna actually is very kind. His whole purpose is to get us back to the abode. That's why He says in the Gita,

paritranaya sadhunam

vinasaya ca duskrtam

dharma-samsthapanarthaya

sambhavami yuge yuge,

to liberate the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to re-establish the principles of religion, I Myself appear millennium after millennium. Actually, even if paritranaya sadhunam vinasaya ca duskrtam it's equal mercy. Even in the annihilate miscreants when He kills the demons, they get liberated also. So, Krishna is giving unlimited mercy to everyone. So, we have to learn then to become actually happy and situated in our natural constitutional position, our original pure nature, we have to learn how to reciprocate with Krishna. Krishna is giving us unlimited love every minute, now we have to learn how to give love back to Krishna. So, you think, Krishna is a myth, Hindu myth. There is no God. The atheists say there is no God. It just came out of a big bang. How ridiculous is that, a big bang? We've many times given the example, you can't expect to get something, some nice beautiful creation out of an explosion. I mean it's ridiculous. Has an explosion ever caused some nice beautiful thing? Can explosions break things down? Just like the Russians, they fired some rockets into the Ukraine. They took a beautiful apartment building and turned it into ashes, it was really devastated, the apartment building. When that rocket hit the army building it exploded and it completely blew the apartment building to bits, just a bunch of rubble laying there on the ground. All the people are dead. So, explosions don't create order, they break down order. This atheistic idea is ridiculous. We have to use some common sense to understand what is the actual basis of reality. Just like you see some beautiful painting, a beautiful work of art, what do you think? Well, who's the artist who made this beautiful painting? Do you think it just came out of somebody threw some paint and just phew, some paint fell on the canvas and a beautiful painting? No. Who is the artist who made this nice painting? So, an intelligent person will say, who is the supreme artist who has made this beautiful creation? That's the intelligent way to look at it. Who is that supreme artist who has made all these beautiful things, who has made the lotus flower, the peacock, beautiful peacock feathers, all these beautiful things. There must be some designer behind this whole thing. Let me find out who is that designer. So, the whole process of Krishna consciousness means how to get back to the knowledge of that Supreme Person and from that knowledge some love comes. The more you can understand Krishna the more you will naturally love Krishna. Just like the Bhagavad Gita says,

vita-raga-bhaya-krodha

man-maya mam upasritah

bahavo jnana-tapasa

puta mad-bhavam agatah,

being freed from the attachment, fear and anger, being fully absorbed in Me, taking refuge in Me, many, many persons in the past became purified by knowledge of Me and they all attained transcendental love for Me. So that's why we study these books. That's why we have these books. That's why Prabhupada gave us these books. So, my purpose is to love God, what do I need to read books for? But actually, these books, this knowledge, these lectures are very important. The study of this knowledge is very important because the more you know God, the more you are going to love Him. The more you know the science of how to awaken your love for Him the more you can actually do that. Because right now we are fools and rascals. We are bewildered by the material nature, isn't it? I don't mean we are bewildered by the material nature. Pretty bad sometimes that we go through. Because we are so bewildered. So, Krishna understands we are bewildered and that's why He comes and speaks the whole Bhagavad Gita. That's why He comes and gives us this transcendental knowledge. Here is the way you get out of your deluded condition. Here is the way you get out of your suffering condition. We explained yesterday that ninth verse in the tenth canto. So

samasrita ye pada-pallava-plavam

mahat-padam punya-yaso murareh

bhavambudhir vatsa-padam param padam

padam padam yad vipatam na tesam,

one who takes shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord who is the shelter of the causing manifestation and the same as being the killer of the mura demon, this vast, insurmountable ocean of material existence, never stopping like anything in the world. One become reduced to the amount of water in the hoof of a calf, that much. So, we can easily cross beyond it. So now we can get out of this world of misery, this horrible anxiety we go through, we get out of this world of misery and no longer being a slave of that world, padam padam yad vipatam na tesam there are danger at every step. It's really a pity these poor karmis, they are totally lost. Instead of actually getting out of this world of dangers, it is really pathetic because they have gone through this process of transmigration, they come all by the human form. In the human form they are meant for self-realization. athato brahma jijnasa. Now you have got this human form that is meant for self-realization. What are they doing? Sense gratification. It is a pity, it is actually a crying shame that they have come to this human form and instead of using it for self-realization, they are using it for sense gratification which means they go back down to become hogs and dogs and monkeys and orangutans and germs and they go back down to suffer again. So, in this Krishna consciousness movement our mission is to save these people in the order of Lord Caitanya.

yare dekha, tare kaha ‘Krsna’-upadesa

amara ajnaya guru hana tara ei desa, whomever you meet instruct them in the teachings of Krishna. In this way, on My order you become guru and you deliver the people of this world. So, this, Lord Caitanya is full of compassion. Our great Vaishnava acharya, Srila Prabhupada, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, Gaura Kishore Das Babaji, Bhakti Vinod Thakur, Jagannatha Das Babaji, all the Narottam Das Thakur, Madhavacharya, all these great acharyas are full of compassion. They understand that we are in a suffering condition. They want to save us. So, we should take advantage of the mercy of these great acharyas. Spiritual master also, he is a representative of these acharyas. Spiritual master has mercy and love. He wants to save the disciples. He wants to save the whole world actually. Spiritual master wants to save the whole world. So, we should take advantage of the mercy of Guru, Krishna and the Vaishnavas who are acting as representatives of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We should take advantage of their association. Why should we cheat ourselves and remain caught up in the cycle of birth and death, suffer? Do you enjoy suffer? Is suffering a lot of fun? No, it's horrible. Why is it bad? You say, well it's natural to suffer. Well, wait a minute. If it was natural, then why is it so unpleasant? Actually, suffering is unnatural. The natural conditions of the soul, sat-cit-ananda vigraha. That's the natural position of the soul. Eternity, knowledge and bliss is the natural position. Instead of sat-cid-ananda-vigraha is asat-anir-ananda.Temporality, ignorance and misery. That's what we are relegating ourselves to by remaining on this platform of serving our senses instead of serving Guru and Krishna. So, we should take advantage of this knowledge, sastra caksus.It's like when your eyes go bad you get glasses, that's how you can see properly. So, ours are bad right now, we've been deluded, we've been misguided by this so-called human society, I thought they were humans, so-called humans, they're not actually humans, they're actually lower than animals. The animals are acting according to their nature. But the human beings are actually more, they are less than animals. Because they are not acting according to their nature. The dog is doing his dog thing. It's like he spoke to you according to the laws of nature. The monkey, the pig, the bird, they are all acting completely in harmony with nature. But the human beings, they're acting out of harmony with nature. Just like now the earth is becoming more polluted, the water is polluted, the air is polluted, who's polluting it? The animals? No, it's the human beings who are screwing up the whole situation. The human beings are the ones who are out of sync, they are not in harmony with the Supreme. So now we have to revolutionize our consciousness and revolutionize the world. That's our duty. Be Krishna conscious and make the world Krishna conscious. That's the duty Prabhupada has given us. So how do we do that? Well, we have to, it all begins with our japa, doesn't it? We have to chant qualitative rounds. If we just chant it and get over with it, okay, let me get over with it quickly. We have to take this japa as the most serious thing I do every day. The quality of my japa will determine the quality of my consciousness. So, I take this japa as the most important thing to purify my consciousness, to get tune in to Krishna. It's like, you know, you can, on a high, they have these stereo radios where they have the tuning knob and the fine-tuning knob. FM, they tune in the FM music broadcast. There is the tuning knob and the fine-tuning knob. How do you refine that tuning? So, you get the stereo balance perfectly. So, we have to fine tune our consciousness. In japa, that's where we do the fine tuning. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. Every syllable is very important. Hear and chant every syllable distinctly. That's the instruction Prabhupada has given us. So, we have to take that very seriously. Let me fine tune my consciousness, connect with Krishna, to tune in to Krishna fully. Let me totally Krishnalise my consciousness. Get all the lust, the anger, the greed, the madness, the illusion, this lust, that's the very tendency we have.

kama esa krodha esa

rajo-guna-samudbhavah

mahasano maha-papma

viddhy enam iha vairinam,

it is lust only our dream. Born of contact with the material mode of passion and later turned into wrath to the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world. Therefore, Prabhupada told us, no illicit sex. He said, be as a married couple, avoid sex as much as possible. It's only for procreation, not for recreation. So, this tendency to lusty, to gratify our material senses, we have to minimize it as much as possible. Eating and sleeping is whatever is required to keep healthy, not for sense enjoyment. We have to learn how to regulate our senses. So instead of putting our consciousness into sense gratification, we put it into Krishna, connecting with Krishna. That Supreme Personality of Godhead is all powerful, all beautiful, power beauty, all renounced, all wealthy, all famous and all wise. An amazing person standing on the bank of Keshi ghat and playing the fifth note on His flute to attract the gopis to come and dance rasa dance with Him. An amazing person. Can you imagine that amazing person? We had a chance to actually connect with Him, become re-associated with Him. Just imagine. Instead of wandering in the cycle of birth and death, worrying about passports, driver's licenses, insurance policies, all this stuff you have to worry about, income tax, working a job, getting out in traffic, risking your life on the freeway every day, driving up and down the freeway. People are killed every day on these freeways. So, what, such a hassle being, actually, it's being as well as a royal hassle actually. But we have to see the bright side. We should not be depressed by being in this material world. They say there is a saying, see every cloud as a silver lining. We have to see the bright side of it. So, what's the bright side of our present situation? Well, all the atrocious nature of this civilization we're living in right now is actually a blessing. To remind that, that this is not my actual home. This is not my home. This place with a padam padam yad vipatam na tesam, the place where there is a danger at every step is not my actual home. I want to be in a place where there is no danger, no anxieties, no fears. Here we have, even for mangalarati, we have the door locked. And we have to check in the doorbell room to make sure it is actually the devotee that is doing it, not some demon coming to rob us or kill us. Even when we lock the door, even right before mangalarati we had the door locked. Because there are people, somebody could just walk in with a gun and say, ok, like that happened in Miami. During milk prasadam two bandits with a rifle and a pistol, they came in to rob us. During milk prasadam can you imagine? So, this material world is a very dangerous place. Even in the temples, we have to be very careful, keep the doors locked, they do come in to rob us or to murder us. So, but see the bright side. This is all Krishna's mercy to help us realize my actual home is in the spiritual world with Krishna, Radharani and the gopis. Or one can be in the Vaikuntha realms too, in one of the Vishnus, whatever our nature is. That's where we are meant to go. Of course, in the spiritual world you have full freedom. If you are in a Vaikuntha planet, you want to go to Goloka, you can go. You are not allowed to go to Goloka Vrindavan, you have to stay in one of the Vaikuntha planets. No, if your nature is to serve in Goloka, you desire to go to Goloka, there is full freedom in the spiritual world. Although there is an unlimited, there is an infinite number of spiritual universes, infinite number of Vishnus. So, some people have a nature to serve a Vishnu, one of the Vaikuntha planets, that is their nature. But Lord Caitanya, especially, Lord Caitanya's mood is the mood of Radharani. He is Krishna in the mood of Radharani. So following Lord Caitanya our nature is to go to Goloka. Following the footsteps of Lord Caitanya. That is the mood of Radharani. he rādhe vraja-devīke ca lalite he nanda-sūno kutaḥ. Worshipping Srimati Radharani.

So, do we have any questions? I got one here on the internet. Let me take yours. Yes.

Local devotee:Gurudev, you mentioned that how we have to take precautions like shutting the door, driving carefully, locking even our car doors. And at the same time, we are to think that everything that's happening is the mercy of Krishna. It seems a bit like I'm taking precautions as if I'm trying to prevent something from happening. But at the same time, I'm taking everything as the mercy of Krishna, then why am I trying to prevent something from happening?

Sankarshan Das:  Yeah, wallet in my side pocket you know Why do we, when we travel, why do we not just have our wallet, our passport in some side pocket or here, put my passport and my wallet right here, you know. I'm walking to and from the airport, why not, why not, why have it inside a money belt, inside, hidden inside my dothi or inside my, I have a vest with a special, you know, lock, a special inside pocket that can't be picked up very easily. Why do all this? Why take all these precautions? Well, Krishna is giving you the intelligence to protect yourself from these things is also with mercy. That's Krishna's mercy also. But in spite of all precautions if something happens, and we also think that is Krishna's mercy. Why not drive on the left side? Here in America, we drive on the right. Why not drive on the left side? It's Krishna's mercy. If I have an accident, it will be Krishna's mercy. If I have a collision, it will be Krishna's mercy. See, is that a very intelligent thing? No, it is Krishna's mercy to use your intelligence how to keep yourself in a safe position. It is much more complicated. It doesn't matter how much you may try to make arrangements to protect yourself, eventually death is going to come. No matter what you do, birth, death, old age and diseases, you're born, you get sick, you get old and you die. You can't stop them; it's going to happen. Even if you live to be 120, some people live to be 120, even in this kali-yuga, some people live very old, because that was their karma, but still they had to take it as Krishna's mercy and at the same time take our intelligence to protect ourselves from the dangers of Krishna's mercy. We have a question here on the internet. Let's see what we got here from Sadhu bhusana.

Sadhu Bhusana: Though Krishna can act in a way which may seem duplicitous, but that is not allowed for His devotee.

Sankarshan Das: Krishna never acts in a way that is duplicitous. That's what Mayavadis separate from personalism. Krishna says, krodhah parusyam eva ca Krishna declares conceit, anger and harshness is belonging to those of the material nature. There is no duplicity in Krishna. He is not a cheater and a rascal. There is no cheating in the Bhagavad Gita. The scriptures are giving us the factual knowledge of how we can become liberated from this material nature. So, there is no duplicity in Krishna.

Anything else? Yes.

Local Devotee: Gurudev, since we say that everything that exists comes from Krishna, then it must exist within Him in pure original form. So, wouldn't it be that duplicity would also happen with Krishna for it to exist here in pure form?

Sankarshan Das: Everything comes from Krishna. Everything comes in Krishna. Everything is there in Krishna. Is there an example of Krishna being duplicitous? In His pastime.

Local Devotee: He is stealing the butter, counting, counting everything.

Sankarshan Das: Yeah, there is transcendental duplicity. In terms of His teaching, in His Lila there may be transcendental duplicity. To give pleasure, it's like in Krishna, to give pleasure to His devotee. But in terms of, I'm just trying to think, maybe there's some examples from His pastimes. But stealing the butter, certainly I think is that's a duplicity, I think. But it's transcendental duplicity. But His teachings are completely straightforward, He is not cheating in His teachings. Actually, all His so-called duplicitous dealings with His devotees are actually transcendental ecstasy to relish His transcendental pastimes.

See we have now come in, let's see.

Devotee: We read about Yama raj punishments and life in hell after death, I understand it's because of individual's karma, but why does it have to be so harsh and unpleasant?

Sankarshan Das: It's all there, but there's nothing unnecessarily harsh or unpleasant. Everything is there perfectly designed to free us from our sinful reactions and to bring us back to Krishna. The laws of karma are perfectly fair. There is nothing excessive in the laws of karma. The Bible says, as you sow, so you reap. Whatever you do, you are going to get an equal reaction. There are no excessive reactions.

Sharada Devi Dasi:Krishna is giving unlimited mercy to all and one has to reciprocate. Every second counts in reciprocating that. But most of the time, when inspecting this, it becomes cloudy to see whether one is working for Krishna or sense gratification.

Sankarshan Das:That's why the spiritual master is there, that's why the advanced devotees are there, to make, to help us stay on track. Sometimes we think we are engaging in devotional service but actually we are engaging in sense gratification. So, the older devotees, the spiritual master there, all Prabhupada's books, we can study Prabhupada's books and understand what is proper and what is improper. We may think we are doing something properly but actually it is improper because we are ignorant. So that is why we are meant to be trained by those who are more advanced than us in Krishna consciousness to know what is proper and what is improper in devotional service.

Lila Manjari: Spiritual master wants to save the world, some may be able to reciprocate with Him by personally serving Him in a menial way, but how can everyone reciprocate in the same way irrespective of material barriers.

Sankarshan Das: So, the, everyone can, Srila Prabhupada's mission is to save the world, so everybody can, by buying a book, by giving a donation to support this movement, everybody can contribute, everybody can help. The pauper, if he even gives a penny to help this movement, the pauper gives a penny, every little bit helps. So, everybody should do whatever they can to help Prabhupada's world of living mission. So, Vishnurata

Vishnurata: While striving to go back, if a devotee takes birth again in the material world, so does that mean he was a doubting soul?

Sankarshan Das: It means he was not completely free from the desire to enjoy separately from the Lord. He still had some tendency to enjoy separately from the Lord, so-called enjoyment. That's why Krishna said, ok, you want to enjoy it separately? ok, go and try it again. Hopefully you will be convinced to not desire that anymore. So, Paramahamsa.

Paramahamsa:  Seeing contradiction in activities of the Lord when developed envy in one's heart towards Him.

Sankarshan Das:stealing the butter, become envious and see Krishna is not merely stealing the butter, but similarly and a lila because actually Krishna is bhoktaram yajna-tapasam, one can see that Krishna is the owner of everything and the enjoyer of everything. See that's proper vision. Actually, it's only so-called stealing because Krishna can steal anything. It's so-called contradictory behavior but actually Krishna owns everything. How can He steal? Which is already His property. He's playing the role of a little child. But actually, He is the Supreme Lord of all that exists and all that butter out there belongs to Him. He is not really stealing the butter. It is just a pastime.

So, we will go ahead and stop here. We thank everybody for tuning in.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. 

Srila Prabhupada ki Jai.