WORKING FOR KRISHNA - PART2
…constant anxiety … this is the nature of material existence. So material existence is pretty horrible, we are seeing so many illustrations, how people are amongst each other are just using each other for their own selfish purposes and when there is no more use of someone then throw him away. He’s useless just throw him away, there’s no further profit, either we can not gain anything from him, we can not get any money, we can not use his body for sex anymore, we can not use him to enhance our prestige, he is good for nothing. A good for nothing is someone who can’t give you anything… for that is the material relationship, very exploitive.
So therefore only this Krishna consciousness is the only type of relationship which is free from selfishness in its pure form of course. In mixed devotional service there is some selfishness mixed in but in principle devotional service, we are teaching a philosophy which is down on any form of selfishness it is not part of devotional life.
Therefore when we speak of being in Krishna consciousness then we should understand that we are not in Krishna consciousness, that we are maybe in the reflection of Krishna Consciousness. Many times it is explained to us that we are chanting not the pure name of Krishna, which is non different to Krishna, but only nama abhasa, the dim refection of the holy name…..so to expand on this concept means that actually we are not..it is not possible to be in Krishna Consciousness. At this point we are just in the stage of reflection of Krishna consciousness. Some of the great qualities and glories of real Krishna Consciousness are manifesting in our present level of practice but you wouldn’t really call it Krishna Consciousness because genuine Krishna consciousness is the platform of the spiritual sky, so really what we are doing is we are not actual Krishna conscious we are trying to cultivate Krishna consciousness , that is actually the reality of what we are doing. So looking upon it like that, that makes a little difference, we don’t have to think well now that we have come to Krishna consciousness, you know,.. I meet these people all the time, who are very nice..our friends in the congregation, some are the are not following all the principle and say “ About four years ago I came to Krishna consciousness( one year ago whatever) and…”
“Well , wait a minute. That’s not Krishna consciousness, you’re not even following the regulative principles” so the temple devotee might think with a kind of tolerant benevolent smile, benevolently the temple devotee looks upon on such a person “That’s not really Krishna consciousness” thinking “Yes we have the Krishna consciousness.”
But the reality is that the temple devotees don’t have Krishna consciousness either inspite of following four regulative principles and detailed regulations of Krishna Consciousness, they simply have the reflection of Krishna consciousness and no more, and are simply on the path of cultivating Krishna consciousness. So this is a different mood and that mood is more important because that mood is like I have got to work on it. I have to constantly work on it to increase my Krishna Consciousness. So I have to make sacrifice it says….sanskrit…it is specifically this sacrifice which is the conncetion to Krishna which gives…..sanskrit….because spiritual life begins with…..sanskrit… first the connection with Krishna and Krishna consciousness is made and that is the beginning of spiritual life and that is further developed and made more and more firm. In the case of the neophyte devotee the connection is very weak and he is in doubt and he can be convinced to give up Krishna consciousness, we have seen some many people have come through this door they set here for some time, they follow the morning programme, so many, many many people have sat in this room and for a while they are coming everyday, coming everyday but then somehow or other they are drifted away, they were not fixed , they were not convinced, that this was really going to make them happy, they were interested of course, it was interesting, but they always kept an eye open for so many other things,…maybe there is something, something good in the city so they thought well you never know, I don’t mind this Krishna consciousness , to this temple this Hare Krishna Temple, I like the prasadam, I like the music , I like the devotees, these are good people , even their talks they are kind of interesting at times, and I don’t mind it at all…. But gradually …sanskrit…one ‘s connection with Krishna goes deeper, goes deep yes this is it, yes this is the real thing….How am I going to do it? How am I going to get into it in a more serious way? The most serious way is to develop a submissive attitude. A submissive attitude is very alien to our culture, it ‘s as if it comes from another planet, right….Submissive….it even sounds like horrible, doesn’t it? To be submissive, right, and especially in our western culture …submissive is a dirty word and of western countries there is in Europe one particular small little country that has historically refused catergorically refused to be submissive to it’s neighbours, who have always tried to swallow up this country or as Prithu Prabhu likes to joke with me is “well Maharaja, after all Holland is just a province” and go like never. never . so like no matter how many years…. never, never be part of that particular…
So that spirit of not being submissive is deeply engrained in our Karma, of course there are other people in Europe who have it also….. It’s very interesting if you go round in Europe, that you see that the consciousness has got stuck in the past and like when you go to Belgium, regularly people dress up in middle aged costumes and still when you go to Belgium the streets have the middle aged street tiles and you are driving in the carts just like the middle ages ..because the people are attached to those things. It’s not just that Belgiums don’t have enough money to make the real roads, they do but they don’t want to give it up, so they are attached to the middle ages, they love the middle ages… the French they like to present themselves as those that have invented democracy , right “We have invented democracy” I have spoken to many people in France and this is “One of our glories!”….the subway on the wall still has a beautiful painting of the French revolution in Pari….in this way we see how the past is being kept alive, people identify with particular moods, so the mood of complete obstinancy is very much in our natural anthem, our natural anthem is showing ….our struggle and I will somehow or other come out victorious , so this is deeply engrained in the genes of this particular body which we take our birth…..
so I went through out this whole exercise to prove that submissiveness is difficult and it is not just you’re individual problem, it’s not just something well, it’s just me….I can’t really be submissive, it’s just not my nature…what can I do?
NO it’s not just not your nature..it’s not everybody’s not anybody’s nature, but still……You have to be submissive in spiritual life….contd tomo
