The specialty of Purushottama month
Sri Madhan-Madhuri Kunja Ashram, Vilnius
Hari-katha by Sripad Vasanta Prabhu
2018-05-23
Once in 32 months: opportunity to advance in bhakti
Today I want to talk about Purushottama month, which started some time ago. This is a very special month, because it only comes every thirty-two months in order to balance our solar and lunar calendars. Some time ago this month was considered impure. All brahmanas were saying that this month doesn’t belong to the regular cycle of the earth, therefore this month is impure. Therefore the month of Purushottama went to see Krishna and he asked, “What is my position in the cosmic play? Everybody is saying that I am impure, I am nothing, so I am kindly coming to you and begging, please reveal to me who am I and what I am supposed to do here in this world”.
At that moment Krishna saw his mood and blessed him, “Oh Purushottama, you have been so humble, therefore even if everybody is saying that you are worthless, that you have no benefit (it is because all the other months have material qualities, they are involved in karma-kanda, which means that every month is strictly involved in karmic activities in this world), even thought everybody is criticizing you and calling you the worst, you have one good quality: you didn’t lose your faith in me. You came so humbly with the request, and you are not defining yourself like the other months. You came to ask Me, the supreme Lord, about who you are, so I give you My mercy: I myself will come as the month of Purushottama.” In this way Krishna gave a boon to Purushottama. He said, “From now on during this month everybody should consider that in this month I Myself descend on Earth.” This is how this month became very auspicious. It only comes almost every three years, and it is very auspicious and good for advancement in bhakti.
Srila Gurudeva was explaining that during this month we must be conscious of our bhajana and of our life. We have attained the human body which is not easy to get, so we must value it. Most of the time we don’t value the opportunities that we have, we don’t value what we have and always want something else, something more. Gurudeva was explaining that the root cause of this behavior is that actually we have no humbleness in our heart, we always want more. Therefore the month of Purushottama is giving us the example. He is not coming to Krishna and saying, “Hey, Krishna, why are You giving me this fallen position?” What he says is, ‘Who am I? Please give me my identity. I don’t know anything, I also don’t want anything. I exist, you gave me the position of month of Purushottama and everybody considers me impure, but I don’t want to be defined by what other people are saying. I want to be defined by my relationship with you, and this is enough for me. If you define me who am I, then it doesn’t matter what the other people say, because the Supreme Lord has supreme word. So, if you want me to be impure and low, then please tell me what is my job and I will perform it, or if you want to tell me that I am something different, then please tell and I will perform this duty, this service.”
When you come to Sri Guru, you should come with humbleness and sincerity
We can learn a lot from the example of holy masters, because the holy master is not defined. Everybody is trying to define themselves, “Who am I in this world?”, and everybody is trying to define a model or material personality, “I know one successful person, so I will model my life according to him, because he made many millions or has success or successful family”. We are trying to model ourselves according to this model, but a Vaishnava is never looking to model himself towards somebody who is not devoted.
In our Guru-parampara we learn that all Vaishnavas are modeling themselves by taking the guidance of Sri Guru. They are telling, “Gurudeva, before my material name was different, but now I have come and surrendered at your lotus feet. Therefore you please define, please tell me who am I”. At the time when harinama comes, you receive the spiritual name, which means your service and duty. What you will notice is that Gurudeva will give you the service in a relationship to Srimati Radhika and a service in a relationship to Sri Krishna, or a service in a relationship to Pancha-tattva, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Nityananda Prabhu, Gadadhara Pandita, Gaura-lila and etc., and your temporary identity will not remain there any more. If you are humble, you surrender to Guru and you tell, “Gurudeva, I don’t know anything about life”. On the other hand, if you are proud, you will come and tell Gurudeva, “Oh Gurudeva, I am very advanced, I have crossed Muslim religion, Christianity, path of yoga and jnana, therefore I am the best of the best of the yogis. This is why I have come to you. I have realized that you are the most valuable spiritual ‘player’ in India and I want to be your disciple, please give me a name so that everybody could recognize how great I am”. So if the person is sincere and humble, he understands that, when he comes to Gurudeva, he actually doesn’t know anything and that he is here to learn and value the teachings and the mercy of Sri Guru.
Don’t ‘use’ the kirtana, prasadam and mercy – serve Them
Why is the mercy of Sri Guru not enough for us? Because we have no value for the mercy of sadhu. We are thinking, “Kirtana is just for enjoying, somebody is singing mantras, so I will go there to sing those mantras and by singing I will gain some happiness and sweetness”, but the devotee does not see it like that. Gurudeva was explaining, “Don’t enjoy kirtana, you must learn to serve kirtana, serve Kirtana Prabhu, He will come personally. It is not that one can ‘make’ kirtana. Kirtana exists, kirtana is the divine potency of the Supreme Lord Gauranga, He is the spiritual potency of Gauranga Mahaprabhu, and he manifests in the hearts of Vaishnavas, he is dancing there. Kirtana Prabhu, Nama Prabhu is doing the job, he is doing his service to supreme Lord. When Nama Prabhu wants to come, He comes. Sometimes He comes very happy, sometimes he is very silent, sometimes He is very joyful and sometimes he will make you weep…
Whenever we refer to anyone or anything we use people, we use kirtana, we use prasadam, but Vaishnavas are not like his. Everything they do is in relationship, because they can see the spirit that manifests. This is independent potency of Supreme Lord, which is only responding to the sincerity of prayers of the devotees. The Deities have manifested. Who manifested Them? Krishna Himself. Who manifested the kirtan? Kirtan Prabhu comes by the mercy of Srila Gurudeva. Where do They reside? In the heart of Vaisnavas.
In this way we can understand what is our position. When we are new, mostly we are trying to get the Guru’s attention, “Gurudeva, look at me, I’m a great singer, a great cook, I’m chanting 64 rounds, look at me, look at me”, or if by mercy of Guru any realization comes into my heart, I immediately go and talk to as many people as I can about what I saw in my bhajana. Why? Because I am using bhajana for my own aggrandizement, and it’s actually an anartha that is rooted very deeply within my heart.
Your relationship with Krishna is the most intimate thing… It’s between you and Him! So if He’s kindly giving you any realization, dream or drop of nectar in your bhajana, this is for you alone, until your guru tells otherwise. One day he will come and tell, “Now you go and preach, you can share”. That time by the order of your Guru you can share these things. But until then we have no value for intimacy in our lives. We want to publish everything, especially in this age. We want everybody to see what I’ve done… But this is not intimate.
Srila Gurudeva has said that when you have any realization, because Nama Prabhu, Bhakti- devi or Gurudeva have given you mercy, it is like a camphor. It has a tendency to evaporate. If you protect the camphor and put in into the lamp, it will give some light. But if you open the camphor lamp, it will all immediately evaporate and vanish. When you conceal the lamp, it burns for a long time. The same is with the realizations in bhajana: they should not be shared, because it is like opening the camphor, and then everything goes away very quickly… If you conceal your heart and keep your moods hidden, then this remains only for your Beloved. You should keep it at the core of your heart. You can reveal it only to your Guru to ask for the guidance, what is the meaning of this.
Everything comes to the amount of value that we give to everything what is coming to us, but the problem is that we usually don’t value, especially in our times when so many things are available. Everything is industrialized these days, so we can exploit the Earth in a very easy way. You go to the Internet and you can get almost anything. We tend to exploit the Earth, resources, others, and this tendency makes our heart demoniac. Also, when Vaishnava comes, we have the tendency to exploit the mercy of Guru and Vaishnavas for our own pleasure.
I am always connected to all the Guru-parampara
The first thing that Purushottama month teaches us is the right way to approach the Supreme Lord. “ Oh Bhagavan, I am nothing, everybody is hating me, teasing me, telling me that I am bad… I don’t think I am bad. If you want me to be bad, then I will be bad. Please tell me what is your definition, what is my spiritual name, what duty I will perform in this world?”. Then Krishna is telling, “Your duty is to serve Me and I myself will come. I see that among all the months that are there, you are the only one that asks me if you can serve Me and what is your duty”. Purushottama was saying to Krishna, “I don’t want anybody else to define me, I don’t want to define myself, I want you to define me – who am I? What is my service?” When Krishna granted Purushottama month his service, He said, “You are going to come once every three years, and during that time I will give all my mercy through you”. At that time Purushottama month was satisfied. He payed his obeisances and understood, “Now I have service, this is enough for me”. The spirit that God puts in your heart is not perishable. This spirit lives within you and your duty is cultivate that spirit to the utmost beauty that you can. Gurudeva knows when he gives you a name, because He is connected to all the Guru- parampara.
Somebody once asked me, “Why when I see you in one environment, you are very light- hearted, and when the class comes, very different mood comes?” I explained, “Because I am never alone, it is not only that I am serving my Gurudeva, I am also serving His Gurudeva, I am serving the Gurudeva of His Gurudeva, so all Guru-parampara is present.” Vaishnavism is not a lonely thing. The moment you come to Guru-parampara, it means that you have a spiritual family and everyone is there: Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, Nityananda Prabhu, Rupa Goswami, Gurudeva, Param Gurudeva – they all are present. We are looking with these material eyes and we only see little clay figures (murtis of Vaishnavas), but a real Vaishnava understands that the presence of Vaishnavas is there. If hearts of Vaishnavas are sincere, then during the kirtana Harinama Prabhu will give mercy and the joy will come into their hearts, they will feel so happy, they will dance.
We don’t invent the Truth – it already exists, we serve the Truth
When you compare your life how it was before you came to Guru and Vaishnavas, and after… Probably you have never been so happy, you are singing, you are dancing… But don’t think that you yourself are generating this. Harinama Prabhu comes, he sits in your heart and you will recognize the divine holy spirit.
In Christianity they say that, when the holy spirit descends, it stands like a flame on tops of heads of sincere devotees. Harinama Prabhu is also like that, but He is not standing on the head – he comes into the hearts of the Vaishnavas. If a Vaishnava is sincere, his kirtana will spread. What is the potency of kirtana? One person is singing, and by that he is automatically touching the hearts of everyone. Vaishnavism is not independent. Purushottama is not saying, “I will be holy”, but he is praying to the Supreme Lord, “Please give me some holy service, then I will be holy”.
We must understand that the truth is not something that we invent. Truth exists. We don’t master the truth, we do not conquer it, because the truth exists, it is perfect, magnanimous and it is already there. Satya Devi (the Goddeess of Truth) exists, and it is the potency of the Lord. The truth lives in the heart of the Lord, so we serve the truth. We don’t conquer it, we don’t master it, we learn to serve the truth. Love is not something that you create, love is the divine potency, it is Prema-bhakti, Vrinda-devi, Bhakti-devi, Anandamayi Srimati Radhika, hladini- shakti, Hare... We are not creating Hare, Hare already exists, we are trying to ask for Her mercy, “May the divine potency of the Lord flows through my mouth, through my heart, through my consciousness”. We are not inventing Srimati Radhika, Radhika exists, we are trying to connect to Srimati Radhika. We are not trying to conquer Srimati Radhika, we are trying to serve Srimati Radhika. We don’t invent ananda, we do not merge into ananda, we try to humbly pray for the opportunity to serve ananda – this is the speciality of Vaishnavas. We do not think that we are ananda, we always pray that, “Please give me the infinite mercy of serving your divine potency.”
If I come to a person and I try to tell him, “I have heard that you are quite successful in the work that you are doing, but I will try to be better, more powerful than you”, then there will be competition and we will never be friends. But if I know that the person has good qualities, then I can come and humbly say, “I have heard that you are a good person, I am interested in doing the type of service that you are doing, is there any service for me nearby you?” He will smile and say, “Of course, you can come and serve”, and we will always be friends. So the attitude is very important. Purushottama month says, “I don’t want to be great, I don’t want to be sinful, I just want to be what You want me to be’. At that moment immediately the Lord Krishna became very pleased and said, “Finally somebody has brain here. I will give you the biggest blessing that during Purushottama month I will come Myself and give supreme mercy all around the world.” So in this month Lord Himself incarnates, His holy spirit comes to the Earth… Gurudeva has said that one of the first things that you are going to notice in Purushottama month is that all your dreams come true, anything you think of immediately becomes true, it manifests. So many gifts are there, because Lord’s spirit is here, He is granting boons to everybody to be happy.
The great mercy of Purushottama month
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was always in a mood of devotee, but He displayed one pastime when for two days He came into the mood of Bhagavan, He remembered He is God, so He was granting boons to everybody. The word spread so everybody was talking, “Mahaprabhu is in the mood of Bhagavan, so let’s come”, and everybody would come with their families to ask boons, and Mahaprabhu was just granting boons to everybody. Not in Purushottama month Krishna is also granting boons. He descended on Earth and now,by the causeless mercy of Guru and Gauranga we have the opportunity to have the knowledge and the awareness of this.
Some people think that when they are young, other things have more value than bhajana and association of Guru and Vaishnavas. This is because we don’t know how to value the mercy of Guru and Vaishnavas. Now we are receiving the knowledge about Purushottama month, so it is important to value it, understand that it’s the time when the heavens are open, and the Lord descends upon the whole Earth and He grants boons to everybody. But if you are not connected to Vaishnavas then you are in tamas, you are covered by ignorance. So during this special time Vaishnavas are singing and dancing and celebrating the presence of the Lord. If you have done some bhajana, you will realize that what Gurudeva is telling you is truth and it is good for you. At that moment you will understand that your life is really blessed, because you are conscious. Most of our lives, until we come to Guru and Vaishnavas, we live like a donkey following the illusive carrot, tied on the head on the stick. This is ignorance. We think that by following the carrot we are going to become happy… But now Gurudeva is giving us opportunities to perform bhajana.
Gurudeva was always explaining that we have to learn to value things. When prasadam comes, we don’t eat prasadam, we need to learn to serve prasadam, learn to see the presence of the holy spirit in the plate of food that is offered to you. Gurudeva himself with love has cooked it in the holy dhama and offered it to Krishna, so how is this plate of food not holy? But still I want to use it. I want to convert into into material thing to make it for my own enjoyment. Prasadam Prabhu is not a thing. Prasadam Prabhu is a person, and a person is conscious, he feels, relates, he has consciousness. Who doesn’t want to be treated with love, affection, respect, who doesn’t want to be seen? So why cannot we see the divine spirit in the offering that Guru gives us? Because we have no value for things.
Don’t miss the value of association with Guru and Vaishnavas
Gurudeva, Prabhuji are speaking on the Internet, Guru Darshana is distributed, but some people still have no time for it. It’s so hard to read Guru Darshana, but they have time for other healing methods, they go to different shamans. Why can’t you just read Guru Darshana and perform harinama, kirtana? What will liberate you from suffering if you can’t doharinama? It is because we miss the value of the association of Guru and Vaishnavas. We think this is for granted, that we will always going to be near Guru and Vaishnavas in our lives. But the experience has taught us that not necessarily it will be like this. We have a certain time when we are with them, and then you better remember the lessons that you havelearned from them, because it may be that it will be your time to serve and what you are going to have in your heart is those beautiful memories, spiritual samskaras, that you had in your time with Guru, who is all the time fully conscious of the divine reality. It means that when Purushottama comes, Guru understands that Krishna Himself has come to this world, so He intensifies his labour of trying to establish His relationship with Krishna.
Why do we come to Guru and Vaishnavas? Because we want to be better, happier, get out of our karmic problems? So we are using Vaishnavas. “Gurudeva, please clean my dirty toilet, you should do it because you are my guru, this is why I have come, it will be honor for you to clean my toilet”, but why should Gurudeva clean your karmic toilet, why don’t you clean it yourself? Well, Gurudeva is doing this, but in exchange He says, “Please chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. I will do the hard work and clean you, no problem”. And actually after some years you will realize that Gurudeva did everything, and you were just watching the movie, Gurudeva did the heavy lift and the only thing that you had to do was a little bit of service and chant harinama for your own benefit.
But some people still can’t do it, they think, “I will chant later, when I am old and have time, but you should still clean my toilet, because this is why I came”. So we are trying to use Guru and Vaishnavas, because we don’t value them, we are used to see everything as a thing and that is very painful. If everybody saw you like a thing, like an object of pleasure, how would you feel? If nobody loved you and would just used you, what would be the feeling? So is it the right way to have a relationship to use people? And this is the natural tendency in us, the biggest anartha we have in this Kali-yuga.
The moment when we stop using others and start serving others, the right attitude will come in our hearts. We will understand that Srila Bhakti Narayana Goswami Maharaja or Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada are trying to help me, and my heart will feel like serving them, because they are nice and treat me like a human being. Then beautiful feeling comes into the heart. What is that? Love. We may think, “What is this feeling that I have in my heart, it feels so weird, I can’t control it..”? It is love, which appeared in your heart. It is love, it is service tendency…
But some people still say, “No, I am young, this time is for me”, and even if that flame is burning they try to put it of by saying, “No, please don’t control me.” Bhakti-devi, Purushottama Prabhu are knocking on your door, but you reject them and go to shamans instead. It is nonsense. You think you can stop yourself from falling in love with Srila Gurudeva? Impossible – he is eternal, self-realized, shining.
Master class of art of making God happy
Once one boy was talking to me about religion and proving the truth, but I told him that we don’t need to prove anything. The sun is already bright and that’s the fact, it is shining and it was shining before you were born, it will continue shining after you leave your body. Sun is bright, happy and it will always give light to everyone – that’s the nature of the sun. If I don’t believe that the sun is hot and bright, or that the sun exists even behind the clouds, that’s my problem.
We come to Guru and Vaishnavas and say, “Gurudeva, I want to stop suffering, and your job is to make me happy”, but is it true? It is important to understand that Gurudeva is always busy serving his Guru, but if you come to him, he will help you. What is the first thing that Gurudeva is going to do? He is going to take away all the clouds, so that you could see the sun. Then you will think, “Oh God, what is that bright thing?”. That’s the sun. “What am I supposed to feel?” Just feel, it is warm, it is bright, it makes you smile, you feel good… But we still have bad tendencies and anarthas, “Now I will use the sun for my own enjoyment”. But did you really come here for that?
When we come to Guru and Vaishnavas, we are supposed to understand the reality which is the truth. What is the truth? We are here to serve Krishna and to give Him happiness, because it is really nice to be able to make God happy. On the Internet we can find master classes in singing or any other areas. If you want to do something very nicely, you ask the master and he will give you master class. Imagine that there is a master class for the soul, where you are going to reach the highest possible level that you can in expertise of anything. So you go to the master of art of making God happy, because once you can do it, you got everything, that is the goal. But we think that God is supposed to make us happy, that the world was created for me to use, exploit, for me to be happy, so I use God’s creation and don’t even thank Him, I live like the world is scientific, God is nothing, He doesn’t exist. This is the disease of the heart, because we don’t want to remember. When Guru and Vaishnavas come and kindly want to give us mercy, we don’t wantto remember…
So it is Purushottama month which is very good for you and if you chant harinama then very quickly you can advance. When the Lord is present He never comes alone so wherever Krishna goes, wherever Krishna is present, He has an entire parikara so Baladeva Prabhu, Srimati Radharami, Bhakti Devi, Yoga Maya Devi, Vrinda Devi – everyone will come. So you can use that chance to be serving constantly during Purushottama month then Bhakti Devi will give mercy to you, she will say, ‘You are serving nicely, then I call you, I will liberate you from all the suffering and I will give you the opportunity to do your bhajan’. If all the material nonsense stopped today would you be able to just sit down and do bhajan? If you got a life when you have to do nothing – not go to school, not work, not do anything and the only thing that you have to do is bhajan – would you take the opportunity of that holy life? Because if you do not – whose fault is it? Am I using my life for bhajan? Because if I am using my life for bhajan that means that I am serving the life that God has given me otherwise again I will believe that my body is mine, my mind is mine, everything is for my enjoyment but Vaishnava is not thinking like this, Vaishnava is thinking how can I serve? Everything is for me to be able to perform my service to Krishna.
What is a true friendship?
When devotee advances, he becomes conscious and aware of the power of Sri Guru. At the beginning we need faith. When they say in India that you have ‘no brain’, it means you have no awareness, you are asleep, you can’t realize. It means that Gurudeva is telling you something and you doubt. Gurudeva is saying, “It is Purushottama, Krishna is present”, but we doubt him and ask what should we do. Gurudeva is saying, “Chant, listen to hari-katha, do service, perform arati, puja, intensify your devotional practice”. In this way you will be fulfilling the number one instruction of Bhagavad-gita:
man-manā bhava mad-bhakto
mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru
mām evaiṣyasi satyaṁ te
pratijāne priyo ’si me
Bhagavad-gita 18.65
“Always think of Me, become My devotee, worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend.“
It is very simple, but we don’t want to remember. I think that I am going to find my happiness somewhere else and that my Guru will help me accomplish that, but it will not happen: Gurudeva is only going to do bhajana, this is the only purpose of him in your life. If Gurudeva doesn’t do bhajana with you, who will?
What is the meaning of true friendship? The true friend is a person who helps you to perform bhajana, who protects your bhajana. Sometimes other people may help you so much with your karmic suffering, taking the ‘ghosts’ away and etc., but if you keep exploiting the world, you will get new ones. Vaishnava will come ant chastie us, “Why are you going here and there? Do your bhajana”, but we get angry. We think, “He doesn’t know anything, why is he telling me to chant the holy name?” He is telling to chant for your own benefit, for you to realize your connection with God, and that is what is going to make you happy.
Guru and Vaishnavas are so kind and merciful, that they keep coming and reminding us, organizing programs for us, feeding us, giving sadhu-sanga, beautiful literature and commentaries, so that we can remember. If we choose not to remember by the power of our free will, it is because we do not value things. This is why guru-nistha and the mercy of Guru is so important. Guru is going to melt your heart and, if you served in your past life, you will understand that this person, Sri Guru, has been nice to you. But we go to some coaches, who are charging us with hundreds of euros to make us happy, we spend a few days with them, and then we don’t see them forever.
But Vaishavas will be in every day of your life, until you die. Premananda Prabhuji shows up every day, he is cooking for you, giving hari-katha, organizing kirtana, and the only thing you have to do is perform bhajana. But still some people think that going to India is like a vacation, that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came exclusively to save me, Gurudeva came because of me. “Look at me, look at me”, but Gurudeva has hundreds of other children, so I have to do my part, and my part is to do bhajana.
So the true friend is a person who encourages you, helps you and does nothing else with you but bhajana – that is the real friend, the person who gives you the power and believes that you can do bhajana. That’s the real friend, and any other types of friendship are useless. Some people say, “Come to me, I will clean you from the karma of your ancestors”, but if you want to do it without maha-mantra – good luck. Karma comes from attachment and negative association, unconscious mindset. Therefore some people go to shamans, because they can’t see what they have done themselves.
If you don’t take the mercy of Guru and Vaishnavas, how will you become qualified?
Do you want to break your karma? Why don’t you pray to the Supreme Lord with maha- mantra? One famous kirtaniya told me that, whiletravelling around the world, somebody said that he saw how, while chanting the maha-mantra, all his ancestors were being freed from their bad karma. This means maha-mantra is so powerful that it doesn’t work just in this present life or present moment, but it can liberate your ancestors, twenty generations behind – this is the power of maha-mantra. Chaitanya Maharabhu has said:
harer nāma harer nāma
harer nāmaiva kevalam
kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva
nāsty eva gatir anyathā
CC Ādi 17.21
“In this Age of Kali there is no other way, no other way, no other way for self-realization than chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name of Lord Hari.“
This is the method to liberate yourself from any misconceptions, and the person who is going to liberate you with the power of His bhajana, is your Guru.
Purushottama month is holy, therefore try to wake up in the morning and perceive what is going on. You will understand that it is a very magical and blessed time, things are happening. Usually you can see co much tension or burning fire of material existence in the dair, but during Purushottama month there are so many blessings, and the only thing that you have to do is to accept the blessings.
The more we grow nearby Guru and Vaishnavas, the more we start realizing who really is my friend in life. Then we realize that my only friend is Gurudeva, because he is the only who is really concerned about my bhajana. The only person in the world who is going to tell me the truth is the Vaishnava. But we challenge Vaishnavas.. Also we think that we are not qualified and we have to wait, but how are we going to get qualified if we don’t take the mercy of Guru and Vaishnavas? You yourself are going to become qualified? How possible? The only way to become qualified is to take mercy, serve and chant. Vaishnavas are teaching us by their own example.
The presence of Gurudeva in our life is primordial, because He reminds us of the presence of love, and only the love that we develop for Guru can change our hearts, otherwise we will always try to cheat, enjoy, exploit. At some point you will realize that Gurudeva has done so much for me, so I am not here to cheat that person. Until then your mind will be like a snake, trying to find ways in which to cheat for your own enjoyment. But when you understand that, “No, I will not cheat the Vaishnava, I will not hurt him, I will become a good person, because that Vaishnava has given me so much mercy”, then you have a chance to change, because that pure feeling has come into your heart.
So this is why Gurudeva is present, and he is never going to give up. The pure devotee is unbreakable, you can try to get their heart and make them crooked, but they will never get corrupted. So my number one message for you is please, follow the footsteps of Srila Gurudeva, try to read his biography, try to act in a way that he acted. The perfect example that will fulfill your heart you will find at the lotus feet of a self-realied master, that has given his life for the happiness of God. So the purpose of life is to make God happy and you can do it, it is your potency, this is what you are created for, it is your potential. Who can teach us how to make God happy? This happens only by the presence and mercy of Sri Guru.
Every morning, when you wake up, offer pranams
So during the Purushottama month, when you wake up, try to realize how much mercy has come into your life and humbly pray, ofer pranam. Gurudeva would say that you should always pray:
gurave gauracandrāya rādhikāyai tadālaye
kṛṣṇāya kṛṣṇa-bhaktāya tad-bhaktāya namo namaḥ
“I offer my obeisances time and again unto Śrī Guru, Śrī Gauracandra, Śrīmatī Rādhikā, Her associates and Her dhāma, Śrī Vrndāvana, and unto Śrī Krsna, His devotees and the devotees of His devotees.“
Humbly give pranam in the morning for Gurudeva and for the mercy that he has given by praying, “This day is blessed for me, I will try to serve, I will appreciate your mercy”. And if you start your day with this mood, it will be so different, because then in your heart you have love for Guru and Vaishnavas, then you can do anything. But, if you have doubts and no respect for Guru and Vaishnavas, then what can you achieve in this life? Nothing, because you are self-centered. But at the moment when love comes for Guru and Vaishnavas into your heart, you will understand who is God and why He lives in Vrindavana.
Try to understand the value of a pure devotee in your life in this Kali-yuga, we are granted that mercy. When I look back, I can’t believe that I touched Gurudeva’s feet, I listened to His holy words, we went on parikrama with him, hundreds of times He gave us hari-katha, hundreds of times we did kirtaan… He was so merciful and this is the joy of our hearts, do not take it for granted. I though that Gurudeva will always be in a physical presence, and then I realized that is only for a short period of time compared with what is here to come. But he lives in my heart and every morning I give pranam to Gurudeva, I am grateful and I ask myself how can I serve his mission today? He has been so merciful that ge has granted the service of taking care of people.
We must realize that the mercy to be in the association of Vaishnavas is such a beautiful thing. Don’t throw away the instructions that they give you. The games they play with us are for a purpose, they know the purpose of the game. When Vaishnava looks at you, he sees you from the perspective of eternity, of sambandha.
We are looking at Gurudeva and trying to understand what we can get from him. You should change that attitude and try to realize that goodness and love have come into my life, accept, engage in the process, chant, cook some prasadam, offer it to the Deities, meditate on Krishna, look at Him, He is beautiful, never alone. What happens inside of the heart is according to how much attention we are paying – stop paying attention to your problems, and pay attention to the Reality. Your problems are not going to go away, they are just going to become bigger, if you pay attention to them.
If you look at the amount of energy that you waste while thinking about your problems… In this time you could be doing bhajana and thinking of reality, living in a beautiful place and paradise. Instead of, “I am so worried, I am so worried, I am so worried”, you should think, “Love, love, love, love Krishna, love Krishna”. Krishna will be happy, and you will go to the beautiful place called Vrindavana. So please, take shelter and try to remember the mercy of Guru and Vaishnavas in your life. Also, try to remember that God is very kind, He is very merciful.
