Chant the holy name, there is no other way

Sri Madhan-Madhuri Kunja Ashram, Vilnius
Hari-katha by Sripad Vasanta Prabhu
2018-05-05

What do we store in our hearts?

Today I want to speak about several things which are important for the first stages of bhakti. First, always remember Siksastakam where it is said that we must listen to the chanting of the holy name, because the holy name cleanses the mirror of the heart:

ceto-darpana-marjanam bhava-mahadavagni-nirvapanam
sreya-kairava-candrika-vitaranam vidyavadhu-jivanam
anandambudhi-vardhanam prati-padam purnamrtasvadanam
sarvatma-snapanam param vijayate sri-krsna-sankirtanam

(Sri Siksastaka, verse 1)

“Let there be supreme victory for the chanting of the holy name of Sri Krishna alone, which cleanses the mirror of the heart and completely extinguishes the blazing forest fire of material existence. Sri-krsna- sankirtana diffuses the soothing moon rays of spiritual ecstasy (bhava) that cause the living entity’s white lotus of good fortune to bloom. The holy name is the life and soul of transcendental knowledge, which is here compared to a wife. It continuously expands the ocean of transcendental bliss, enabling one to taste complete nectar at every step. The holy name of Sri Krishna thoroughly cleanses and cools the self, one’s nature and one’s determination, as well as the body, both internally and externally.”

There are several items that we store in our hearts and they are not always pure. First of all, there are impressions from our past lives. Past life impressions mean that we carry samskaras in our hearts. We have core believes, for example that in order to attain happiness we must do one or another thing related to our body, subtle body or our mind. Also, we believe that in order to attain happiness we must renounce everything, including God – these are the misconceptions of the mind. According to these ideas of happiness we create our lives.

The second item that we store in our hearts is desires. Desire for happiness, as well as for subtle enjoyment, sense enjoyment, or desire for knowledge in order to gain power or to gain mukti (liberation from suffering)… According to our desires we are generating the body that we have. In human life we can see that everybody is not the same – some people are white, some not white, some people are short, some are tall, some are men, some are women, and this is according to their desires, because we believe that by attaining this body and by performing the activities of this body or by following our mind we will attain happiness. This is misconception, an idea that is not based on the absolute truth.

This is why we need spiritual master in the beginning of our paths. We have to chant and have faith in the instructions of the authorities, because they have realizations, they have cleared all misconceptions and mistaken philosophy for themselves, so they have passed through all these levels.

In our current level it is said that we are like in the cloud of illusion, so in the beginning it’s likely that we will not see the truth. In the beginning stages of bhakti you may hear about chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra and some attraction may come in your heart, but understanding will take some time to render its effects, because so many years, so many lifetimes we have been under the cloud of illusion… You can very easily understand this in Lithuania – during the winter there are so many clouds and it does not mean that the sun is not there, it is just covered by the clouds.

Nature of the soul: to love God and give joy to Him

Actually all the time we are having faith in someone. The faith that we have in Sri Guru will automatically help us attain some understanding and realization about the process of chanting maha-mantra. You have heard many times people saying that they have doubts – they have doubts, because there are no samskaras (past impressions) in their hearts, and this means that in past lives their performance of positive devotional activities was not done. Therefore the person may be good or developed in his mind, but if the pious activities are not done, then the samskaras are not there, therefore the platform for the understanding of what is service and what is love is not build.

Neutrality can be reached through the mind, so there is a philosophical understanding why neutrality is good, and why reaching the state of ‘zero’ consciousness may be peaceful. We have experienced that when we are not thinking too much or we are not acting too much, a state of peace is attainable. But if you want to love and servive, it’s possible only by rendering service. Furthermore, we have dissociated our minds and our core beliefs from the primal belief of the universe, which is that Krishna is supremely joyous to receive our service. He is so happy to receive our love and our service, and this is actually the only thing that He wants from us, but our idea of happiness from millions upon millions of lifetimes has been dissociated from that, and in our core we do not believe that our purpose is to make Krishna happy.

We believe that we can attain happiness in other ways, therefore we generate desires that may be selfish, temporary and our core belief is that ‘by making myself happy I will internally become happy, and I will be in harmony with the universe’, but actually this is not the nature of the soul. As the acharyas have explained, the nature of the soul is to give joy to Krishna, because this is the highest attainment. Is anything else possible? Yes, but is it the highest attainment? Will it satisfy the soul? No, because the nature of the soul is to love God. It is like trying to teach a dolphin to fly. It is not the nature of the dolphin to fly. Therefore can the dolphin learn? Maybe he may try, but will it satisfy him? No, because this is not his nature.

Remember that the goal of life is not success or personal fulfillment, because it is selfish. The goal of life is to produce ananda for Krishna, to satisfy Krishna – so it is not my satisfaction, but satisfaction of God. This is what Gaudiya Vaishnava philosophy and Vedas are teaching us.

Learning the language of the soul takes a while

Since millions of lifetimes I have not performed pious activities, I have not respected sadhus, I have not created positive samskaras of service, inclined towards pleasing Krishna… Therefore all those things don’t make any sense to me. Anyhow there are holy people who mercifully and kindly come to the planet to remind me that what is the right way. When I meet the sadhu, basically I have two choices. I can either understand that I have no brain and accept his guidance, or I can challenge the sadhu. Sadhus come to give mercy, they have reached self-realization. In Bhagavad-gita (4.34) it is said:

tad viddhi praṇipātena
paripraśnena sevayā
upadekṣyanti te jñānaṁ
jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ

“Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realised souls can impart knowledge unto you because they have seen the truth.”

If somebody has not realized the truth, he will have doubts. We all have so many doubts because of this reason, bu Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has left us the spiritual ‘map’, called Sri Siksastakam. It is a perfect map, guiding towards self-realization, and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu doesn’t start the map by saying, “You will not have doubts”. He starts by saying, “The mirror of your heart is really dirty”. It means that the mirror is covered with dust, therefore even if it has the capacity to reflect, you will not be able to see yourself, because it is covered. So it is said that by simply chanting the holy name dust from the heart is removed.

Why is it important to engage in following Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu? Because His name is Mahaprabhu, which means ‘a great teacher’. If we do not follow a great teacher, how can we expect to pass the exam? The exam is eternal, it’s about self-realization, about giving ananda, satisfaction, to Krishna – this is the exam, but we don’t understand it, because we have so many wrong core believes and selfish desires that are based on our own temporary happiness, success and etc. Also, there is lack of pious activities, so it will be very difficult for us to understand what the sadhu is speaking about, because I have no reference. Imagine that instead of speaking in English right now I would speak in Spanish – It would be difficult for you to understand, because I would speak in a different language than yours, but if you engage in the process and little by little you will learn Spanish, then you will be able to understand what I am trying to say.

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu understood that not all of us will learn Sanskrit, so He said, ”You don’t need to understand all the Sanskrit, try to learn only three words: Hare, Krishna and Rama”. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu simplified the process to the utmost. He said, “Simply repeat this mahamantra, collection of those three words, and the mirror of your heart will be cleansed”. This means that you will start to see the nature of your soul and you will remember that at the center of everything is not you or something else, but at the center of everything it is Krishna. Then eventually by your faith and association with Vaishnavas you will achieve realization.

How long does it take? It takes a while even if you have faith. Imagine trying to learn the language of the soul. How long does it take to learn a mundane language? How about reaching master in the language, being able to write and read poetry in a foreign language? It takes some time even if it is just a mundane language. Now image having to deprogramme yourself from all the languages that you have ever spoken and reprogramme yourself into pure language. Mahaprabhu simplified the language and the process by saing, “Remember three main things: the goal is to reach Krishna. He is at the center of everything, everything is for Him, He is the Supreme Person. He is God and you belong to Him.”

Self-realization: God is not to serve me, I am to serve God

Hare referts to the the internal potency of God’s heart. Remember that God loves and love means relationship. God is always with His internal potency Srimati Radhika. Rama means ‘the ectasy of God’. What happens when the soul unites with God? God become Rama, very happy and supremely blissful, no longer Krishna, He does not remember that He is God. So remember these three things and then your madness will be healed. How do we do this? By engaging in devotional service, while humbly and submissively praying, “For many lives I have not done any devotional service, for many lives I have been lost in material world, therefore please cast your mercy upon me”.

At some point in the life of sadhaka comes the moment when he realizes that selfishness has actually taken him away from his nitya-dharma (eternal constitutional nature), from the purpose why he exists. This is called pride, and pride is the biggest impediment for bhakti. Sri Guru or even Krishna may be in front of us by the causeless mercy of Gauranga Mahaprabhu, but if we act in pride, we will dissociate ourselves from the mercy of Sri Guru. We will prefer to listen to our own minds instead of listening to the heart of Sri Guru… And how can it be the best option? If you look at life that you have lived and the amount of suffering that your mind has caused you, and where it has taken you, you will see that it has caused you nothing but loneliness, struggle, pride… Still we would rather listen to our minds and loneliness instead of surrendering to the lotus feet of Guru.

When I asked Premananda Prabhu, “Why are you writing Sri Guru Darshana?” (the biography of his Gurudeva Srila Narayana Goswami Maharaja), he said, “Because this is everything. Without the help of Guru how will you realize anything? This world is made of complete madness, which means that we do the same thing again and again and again, then we get the same result everytime and still believe that if I do it again and again, I will get a different result. This is called madness. People are following those ideas, but they all are misconceptions. Try to clear yourself from these misconceptions and follow the pure devotee. If you follow his life and footsteps, you will advance very easily”. But we rather put our faith elsewhere. So Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s first instruction is, “You must chant the holy name”.

But I want God to be my servant. I will use the holy name for producing happiness in myself, but nothing could be further from the reality of self-realization than that. God is not my servant, I am His servant. My purpose is not that God will serve me, my purpose is to serve God. The moment when we make that very simple switch, self-realization will start coming, because we will realize, “Why have I been so far away? What was I doing? Why am I so lonely? Why I don’t believe in good people? Why do I doubt in mercy of good people?”. How can you know that people are good? They have a good will towards you, they are helping you. How Vaishnavas are helping? They speak the highest truth, which is that they remind us Hare, Krishna and Rama. For everybody who would ask Gurudeva what to do with their lives, He would say, “Chant the mahamantra”. This is the highest truth.

“I came to save your soul, not your body”

Sri Guru always reminds us:

om ajnana-timirandhasya
jnananjana-salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena
tasmai sri gurave namah

“I am blinded by the darkness of ignorance, but sri guru has mercifully opened my eyes, anointing them with the salve of divine knowledge. I offer pranama to that sri gurudeva.”

So how long does it take to realize that you have been putting your faith in the wrong place, which is in people who can’t take you to self-realization? Or in people who can’t take you to Krishna? Or in your own mind, which will take you only God knows where?

Well, it takes a while. In my personal case, when I went to India, I had already read Bhagavad-gita and I had so much faith in Gurudeva and Srila Prabhupada, therefore I didn’t go through the stage of doubts. What happened is that I went through the stage of negativity. I couldn’t understand why, instead of feeding the poor people of Africa, Gurudeva was making big festivals in the temples, full of flowers. I have been trained as a Christian and I had idea that in order to please God you should feed the children in Africa or distribute food to the poor, which is called charity. But why would that please God if there is no hungry people in Vrindavana? But we don’t have a point of reference, because we don’t live in the divine reality and we don’t understand that this world is temporary anyway, it will be destroyed and the children of Africa are suffering the results of their karma.

So I had this question in my mind and I was very disturbed. It was the appearance day of Bhaktsiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada, and Gurudeva organized that the whole temple would be covered in flowers. I came in the morning to sit in front of Srila Gurudeva and in my mind I was questioning, “Why are you wasting so much money for flowers, while the children in Africa are dying because of hunger?”. By the divine arrangement I sat down just in front of Gurudeva, and when he came out of His room to give hari-katha, He looked directly at me and told me, “You must understand that I have not come to save your body or your mind, I have come to save your soul”. And then He carried on with the class and He made it very clear – He did not came to save my body or the body of anybody else, He did not came to save my mind or the mind of anybody else.

But we don’t have this understanding of what divine reality is, therefore we challenge saintly people. Gurudeva doesn’t live in the temporary material reality, Gurudeva lives in the eternal reality, He lives in Vrindavana. Decorating everything in flowers is his everyday duty to please Krishna. Imagine the place where there is no suffering – such place is called Vaikuntha, it is the spiritual world. What would be the suffering in the spiritual world? Why would God want that in His divine reality? Why would He want people to be hungry? Why would He want people to be killing each other? Why would He permit that type of reality in His reality? It doesn’t make sense, because in His reality it is not that crazy.

So how does that happen? How do we come to believe that this is the way to live life? To live lonely? To exploit others? To sin? How do we come to believe that this is going to give happiness? To have more than others? Why lifetime after lifetime we come to live with people who don’t care for us? That’s how we come to the states that we come. Therefore Premananda Prabhu prays at the feet of all sincere sadhakas that, “Don’t follow anybody else, follow Srila Gurudeva”.

Pray for the association of Vaishnavas from the beginning of life

One day somebody asked, “Srila Gurudeva, how long will it take for me to reach the highest goal if I chant sincerely 16 rounds daily? Will I go to Goloka Vrindavana?”. Gurudeva just very kindly laughed and said it doesn’t work like this. 16 rounds in this life is not actually so much. Imagine, it takes you like 1-1,5 hours to chant, and then the rest of the day you are listening to other ‘mantras’ of your mind. “Don’t listen to Gurudeva, don’t listen to Gurudeva…” If I can only chant one round everyday and the rest of my day I am listening to my mind – what will be the result? I will fall into madness, because I will eventually start believing it. I will believe that there is no love, that Vaishnavas are lying, that I should go and enjoy…

I must always remember reality and associate my mind and will power with it. Therefore Gurudeva said that it doesn’t work like that. He said that if you are sincere in this life, you will gain faith in Vaishnavas, and because of this faith at the end of your life you will have desire that in your next life, wherever you go, you will pray for the association of Vaishnavas. Therefore anybody, who has at least a little bit of faith in Gurudeva, is praying, “Krishna, whatever you do to me lifetime after lifetime, please kindly bestow upon me the mercy of sadhu-sanga from the beginning of my life, so that I may not fall into madness”.

Here we have the example of Prahlada Maharaja. He was the son of the greatest demon in the history Hiranyakashipu. Hiranyakashipu did austerities for ten thousands years and he got some benedictions from the Lord Brahma. He had such power that nobody could kill him. Even Shiva was afraid of him and was praying for Lord Krishna to come, because the situation was really bad. Hiranyakashipu had the son – Prahlada Maharaja, who was a Vaishnava – his presence has changed the story of the entire universe. Simply by listening hari-katha spoken by the pure devotee from the womb of his own mother, Prahlada

Maharaja got the power to change history and defeat the greatest demon in history. He did it by the power of his faith, which was unmovable – nistha.

Chant: this is the only way to defeat the ‘ninja’ of maya

We are now living in Kali Yuga, the age of madness. How to save people who are completely mad? You give them the most powerful medicine, because otherwise there is no other way. Mahaprabhu said:

harer nāma harer nāma
harer nāmaiva kevalam
kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva
nāsty eva gatir anyathā

“In this Age of Kali there is no other means, no other means, no other means for self-realization than chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name of Lord Hari.”

He repeated three times that there is no other means. If you are in the stage where you have never tasted honey, and somebody tells you that honey is very sweet, but you are trying to taste honey by reading, for millions of lifetimes you will be trapped in misconceptions. Your mind will never become convinced. Gurudeva used to say that only by reading you are licking the jar of honey from outside, and the only thing that will happen is that you will loose your faith. But if we chant the holy name, we will taste the sweet nectar, because by that Krishna’s pastimes and remembering His sweetness will awaken in our hearts. By chanting I will understand that my soul is very sweet, I shouldn’t be in the world that is cold or full of suffering; I should be in the world full of ananda, love and bliss.

If you were God and you had all the power, all the consciousness, all the intelligence and all the beauty of the universe – what kind of world would you create? Think about it. What would you do with the rest of eternity if you were God? Would you create a world that is miserable? Why would He do that? Does it make sense that He lives in the world where there is only love and appreciation, and that is where He wants to be? Where everything is in harmony? Where He can be sweet to others? Do you want to live the rest of eternity in sweetness and love? This is what Gurudeva is trying to remind us.

How to get out of the darkness? We have to endeavor. Gurudeva has said many times, “I am like a mother monkey, I can take you anywhere, but you must hang on me, otherwise you will fall. I will take you everywhere, but you must hang on. And this is the power of your will.” Can Vaishnavas force you and make you follow? No, because you have your free will. God gave you free will. Are Vaishnavas attached to you? No, they are not. Do they want to help you? Yes, because everybody wants to be happy. Are they attached to this idea? No, they are not, because you have your free will. But do they want to help you, can they help you? Absolutely yes, but you must have faith, you must believe. In the beginning stages you must follow the process.

You came to live in an ashram, so imagine that it’s like learning to be ‘ninja’. You must practice karate, if you want to defeat maya – the most sophisticated of illusion ever created, which was created by Krishna to keep you here until you give up you selfishness. You want to defeat maya? Practise karate. You can’t learn playing musical instrument without practicing. How much do you have to practice? You have to do it again and again and again, until it becomes your natural habit.

When I tell you that music is beautiful, you may say, “I don’t need music”. I am suggesting you to practice, because you will feel good when you can play your own songs. But if you don’t want to practice, who can help you? Wherever you are going, whatever discipline you are engaging in – if you want to learn anything, you must engage in the process and follow instructions of the teacher, especially if you are going to face the ‘ninja’ of maya.

The glories of spiritual master

Spiritual master will tell you very simple instructions, because he wants to help you. Does he need to help you? No, he doesn’t need to help you. That’s why we call it ‘the causeless mercy of the spiritual master’. Like the student who wants to learn karate comes to master and says that somebody is beating him in his life, therefore he wants to learn to defeat himself, same way we come to Guru and Vaishnavas and say, “I have not managed to be happy in my life, I am confused, I have no friends, I don’t know where I am going, I don’t know what to do, I am greedy, lusty, angry… Please help me!”

So the master agrees to help you. In the beginning he awakens faith in you. Spiritual master will always try to be friendly to you and explain things in a way that you could understand. He will give you chances for your own benefit, for your own advancement. So imagine, Srila Gurudeva comes and says, “Okay, don’t worry about the ninja, I will kick him out. You just chant your rounds and eat prasadam”. But I can’t even do that? Why should I chant? Because the Guru says so. He is taking care of the ninja, He puts you in the bubble of mercy. It is like the material world stops and Gurudeva stops all the fire bullets coming towards your side. I see it everyday in my work – I’m an astrologer and I see how karma is coming to people, but it doesn’t hit them.

So if Gurudeva puts us in the bubble of his mercy, why can’t we engage in chanting the holy name? He is giving us chance to realize. Can Gurudeva chant for us? He will do it in kirtana, but can He chant to quiet the incessant demon of our minds? He can’t. Therefore He comes to set the example. What will you see Gurudeva doing all the time? He is chanting the holy name. Wherever Gurudeva went – either he was in the plane, or in the car, or giving darshana and etc. – he was always chanting the holy name. Did Gurudeva need to chant the holy name all the time? No need. But this is his mercy for us. He hasrealized Krishna, He is always thinking of Krishna all the time.

Spiritual master is somebody who has a black belt in karate of defeating maya. Maya Devi is not controlling him. She can’t break his determination to chant the holy name or break the divine reality within Him. Bhakti is like being engaded in the discipline where you have to learn karate and appreciate your opportunity. Do you really think that crossing over the material world is going to be easy? No. It is only by the mercy of Sri Guru, who says, “Ke jabi ke jabi re bhai” – the boat is coming, who will cross over this ocean of material suffering? Gurudeva is at the head of the boat. Gurudeva says, “Don’t swim with the sharks, don’t jump into the water, don’t drink salty water”, but people don’t listen. We do all sorts of things that Gurudeva says do not do. Gurudeva tells, “Just sit here, eat prasadam and chant until we get there”.

How can you conquer the ocean of illusion if you don’t follow the most simple instruction, which is chant the holy name? And whose choice is it? Is it Gurudeva’s choice or is it my choice? You have to take the choice and you have to take the determination to walk the path. And iff you just started, try to give yourself at least a little opportunity to walk for a couple of years with determination, “Do or die I will experience, I will try”.

It is the path of sweetness

Try to be humble and engage in the process. If you go to school, how many years you should attend it to learn the whole programme? And then how many years you should work for somebody who really doesn’t care about you? How many years you need to become an expert programmer? Or a doctor? Ten years. So why do we believe that in order to become a doctor you need ten years, but when we are trying to heal our soul we can’t give even six months? This is madness. Why is it happening? Because we don’t really desire, we don’t want to engage, we don’t really want to become self-realized…

If we really want to become self-realized, we must understand that there is a process and we are lucky. Otherwise good luck trying to realize God by yourself in Kali Yuga – it’s not possible even if you chant, you will never understand by your own… I have seen many times how very religious people were chanting for many years, but finally they were only screaming and trying to control others. Why? Because only vaidhi-bhakti has come,raganuga-bhakti was not awakened.

The divine sentiments of the self-realized spiritual master can only come from being in contact with somebody who lives in the divine reality. This is called a pure devotee. So even if you chant, but didn’t take shelter of the lotus feet of Gurudeva and you are not praying to him – good luck with your life. You can defeat the ‘ninja’, but where will you go after? Once you are free from illusion, from samsara, from desire – where will you go?

Gurudeva would say many times, he would laugh, “Right now you are thinking that you are advanced so much, because you are sannyasis, but if Krishna would appear if front of you right now, you would all give dandavat pranamas to Him and that would not please Krishna. Why? Krishna wants a laddu, but nobody understands it”. You can’t see because your heart is not soft. Your heart is so proud. But the pure devotee understands that it is not about defeating the ninja. Yes, it is necessary, but it is not about that. It is about what you do after. Are you using your power trying to be great as ninjas? This is what happens to many people… But it is not about that. It is about being soft-hearted, kind and simple, and being able to enter Vrindavana. How do we enter Vrindavana? Only with love, service, purity, humanity, intimacy, kindness and simplicity at its topmost degree, but more than everything – through the relationship.

How do we establish a beautiful relationship? We have to practice. It is the path of sweetness. You think that karate is difficult? Try Vaishnavism, where you have to take nothing for yourself, where your life is an eternal sacrifice. Not for one life, not for two lives – it’s an eternal sacrifice, when you sacrifice yourself for the pleasure of another. When not only for a second in the day you think about yourself. Who can do it? Not to think about himself for one day? We can’t, but Gurudeva can do this, therefore He deserves our attention and respect.

Also, before we were swimming in the ocean of material life and we had been in the water for so long. But then the boat came and devotees picked us up to the boat and took us to the dry land. We had no idea what the dry land looks like, because we’ve been swimming there for millions of lifetimes. Gurudeva is telling, “I am going to take you to the dry land where there is no water, where you can put your feet on the ground, but you have to believe me.” Meanwhile you get there, He sits you down, sings you love songs, heals you and gives you prasadam.

When you get to the dry land for the first time, you don’t know what to do with yourself, so you crawl, you doubt and you think, “I made it to the dry land, I must be enlightened, I am not like those losers who are in the water!” But then Gurudeva tells, “No, you just got there, now we are going to walk, we are going to go on parikrama, I am going to show you around”. First He sits you down, and He will encourage you to make a sand castle and have a little bit fun, play with the water, have prasadam. This is the stage when you are at the beach before going to the jungle and seriously engage in service.

So, if you don’t believe in God right now, try to see that His kindness is something very real that you can feel, and try to see the beautiful place that you are in. Stick your hand in the jar and taste the honey, because you are not going to find anything better. It is beautiful to be with friends, to be with beautiful people who sing, to be with people who are interested if you ate or not, to be in a clean environment with happy people that are positive and believe in God. So how can it get better? I just forever want more of it. Try to appreciate it and feel it with your heart. Do not try to absorb Vaishnava philosophy with your mind, feel it with your heart, this is beautiful.

Gurudeva gives all the facilities

Do we really want to realize who God is? Ask yourself why did you come? Are we here because we want to enjoy? Are we here because we want psychological or philosophical ‘massage’? Are we here because we are lost? What a waste of time. How long does it take us to be convinced that Srila Gurudeva is right, that Srila Prabhupada is right, that they are trying to help us… Why don’t we follow? We spend so much time thinking and playing ping-pong with ourselves, “Will I trust or not?”. Trust, engage.

If I come to the basketball coach, he would ask, “Do you want to play basketball?”. If I don’t know if I love basketball or I want to be a basketball player – why am I here? Even basketball players are more clear. How many of Lithuanian basketball players made it to the level of NBA? Premananda Prabhu plays in the NBA of spirituality. Who wants to go there? Practise. He plays all day long.

It is very easy, because Gurudeva is so kind, He facilitates us, but if we don’t do our homework, how will we ever advance? How will we realize and how will we ever become humble? The most important thing is to become humble. If you are not humble, you are going to be playing ping-pong with your mind. Gurudeva has to come to us and beg, “Please, stay in the ashram. I have arranged the ashram for you. There is prasadam, arati three times a day, you will be in sadhu sanga – please stay in the ashram”. And what do we think? “Oh, your ashram is not enough for me, I don’t have enough of personal space here”.

But if somebody has attained humility, he will wake up in the morning and will understand that, “Oh, Gurudeva is doing all that for me. Why is he doing that? Why is He taking His time to pay attention to me? Why is He doing that?” This is called friendship, this is called help. It is called causeless mercy. What is the cause? It is causeless! Does it mean that it is according to your karma? No. Is it according to your past actions? No. Is it according to what? One thing – your prayers, sincerity and desire.

Gurudeva wants to give you the mercy. Just see, everything is arranged for you: books came, kirtan comes, prasadam comes, Gurudeva’s murti is coming… But the most important thing is the association of the Vaishnavas. It all came, but still it’s not enough for me?And after all of this some people say, “I do not know if I like basketball”. I should practice millions of lifetimes in order for the ball to fall in the basket, but we respect sports more than bhakti… Why don’t we have the mind-frame that, “In this life I am devotee and this is the main thing that I am doing”? If you ask the NBA player, “Who are you?” he would tell, “I am a basketball player”. And if they would ask you the same question, what would you say? “Oh well I do not know”. I am shy to say that I am the Vaishnava. I do not want people to know that I am Hare Krishna. Where are you? I am devotee. I am the servant of Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja, that is what I do in my life. And what else do you do? Nonsense.

But really, who am I? I am the servant of Mahaprabhu, that is my identity. That is the number one core idea that I should have in my heart – I am the servant of Mahaprabhu. Is it easy to serve Mahaprabhu? Who can do it twenty-four hours a day? Because it is the path of yoga, you have to ‘have’ bhakti for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and if you noticed, Gurudeva has arranged everything for you that you can just sit down and chant, everything else is facilitated. You need to work? Work comes easily. Sustenance also easily comes, so that you can do one thing. Therefore practice, engage and be serious about your opportunity. It is not cheap. Krishna is not cheap, it will take you a while.

Therefore when Gurudeva was asked if chanting 16 rounds and faith in the pure Vaishnava will help person attain Mahaprabhu, Krishna and go to Goloka Vrindavana, he said that no. Next life you will be born in Vaishnava family and, if you engage properly again, you will eventually become detached and develop guru-nistha – unbreakable faith in Sri Guru. After that you will only want to serve your Guru for the whole life, and then anartha-nivritti will come, when your heart will be cleansed from all the junk. After that you will attain bhava and prema. How many lifetimes is it going to take? It will take a while, but if you compare 2-3 or 10 lifes to the eternity that we have spent in maya, this is nothing, and you already are on your way.

So imagine this – you are going to meet Mahaprabhu! Do you think meeting Mahaprabhu is like a cheap ticket? Try to meet Donald Trump or Michael Jordan, if you think they are important. It is not easy to meet any of those personalities. So try to meet Mahaprabhu, the most magnificent incarnation of the Lord, and try to spend some time with Him. Do you think you are going to get the ticket so easily? Mahaprabhu will test you – do you really want bhakti? This lila is a divine lila. Do you think that meeting Krishna is going to be easy? To get the ticket to meet the Lord of the universe, the sweetest incarnation of God? To get the ticket to go inside of Krishna’s personal house, His personal heart? It’s hard to meet even mundane personalities, so what to speak about meeting God? Therefore please engage and remember – so much mercy is there, but you must chant and have faith.

My negativity will never break Gurudeva

I was in India, when I woke up one day and felt so angry. It was hot, I didn’t have my personal space, because the little room I lived in was nearby the toilet, so it was never quiet there… It was summer, and I was sharing my room with another guy who had really big and heavy body. The room didn’t smell good, I had a lot of service, so I was getting deeply negative. I started to think, “Oh, now I could be in my own country watching soccer, I could be in Mexico and have time of my life… Why am I here in this little room?” I was getting so negative up to the point when I didn’t want to wake up for mangalarati or go anywhere.

Meanwhile Gurudeva was traveling around the world, He visited many countries. During that tour, when I was getting negative, He visited sixteen countries at the age of 81-82. When He got back to India, the first day He didn’t say, “I am going to rest”. No. The first day He arrived from sixteen countries we had a big festival. I was standing there with my negativity looking at Srila Gurudeva, who was shining and so kind. Everybody was coming to Him and He was just kindly blessing everybody, giving attention and energy to everybody. He was so peaceful, so kind, so centered.

I understood that no matter what I did, I was never going to break him with my negativity. I did not have even one percent chance to defeat Gurudeva with my negativity and I realized that this man is never going to stop, He will continue giving mercy and He will never stop, He will never fail even one principle… I realized He was perfect and that was His nature, He was not trying to get there, He was already there, and I realized that there was nothing that my negativity could do. It was only the waste of my time, which simply gave me terrible experience. That day I understood that my negativity is not taking me anywhere. I am already there, I am in India. He is right there, He is a pure devotee. I should stop wasting my energy and just surrender.

My life was much easier from that point. I understood I was never going to break Him. No matter how heavy I could be, no matter how negative I could be, no matter how much I questioning would be, I was never going to brake Him, so I surrendered and my life was easier from then. Was it hard? Yes, everyday in India is hard, sometimes you think you going to become crazy. Is it worth it? Yes. I am not afraid anymore, I am not afraid to die. I know I am eternal. I do not have doubts because I wake up in the morning and I know exactly where I am going and what I am doing. I know who is my boss.

So for who do you work? For your mind? Where are you going? You do’t know? I know that for the rest of my life I will be serving Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja. I will be serving Gurudeva this life, next life and the life after. That is called eternity. Surrender to your Guru: “My life is yours for the rest of eternity”. That’s it. Therefore chant. How much should I chant? You should chant for the rest of eternity, if you want to meet God. Don’t think that this is a theoretical process. Krishna is a very real person.

So think about it in this way – do you really want to meet God? Do you really want to see Him for the rest of your days, for the rest of your life, serve Him and joke with Him, be with Him? It is available, it is possible. Do you want that? Do you want to meet Radharani? Do you want to spend time with Radharani? Is it possible in this life? I don’t care, it is up to Gurudeva. What is my job? To do what Gurudeva told me, therefore I am chanting, serving, reading His books, respecting Vaishnavas, I am engaged, I take prasadam and I try to be nice to people that are interested, I am trying to help them…