HH KKS: We must first of all guard ourselves from the onset and Bharata Maharaja could have let the deer go and drown in the Ghandaki river and would not have been at fault either…right..he would have also been acting on a wise spiritual platform. If it would have been an ordinary river it would have been less auspicious but maybe if he would have prayed for that predicament of that deer maybe that would have also been sufficient… how much can we be involved in material relief work? that is a big question and we must be careful, we must be very careful in being involved in these things and Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvati Thakur stresses the point that we have no time for flood relief, for earthquake relief or this relief or that relief, drought relief and simply we are too much preoccupied with Harinama Sankirtana which is the ultimate relief. Still Bhaktivinoda Thakura points out that if a person is suffering from starvation or acute poverty then a Vaishnava may also give in charity and that is not to be given up even by saintly persons, Bhagavad gita is stating; however that charity can not be only for the material body …it must subsequently also be for the spiritual advancement. Bharata Maharaja could have certainly given prasadam to the deer.
We can certainly distribute prasadam…in my previous visit as I was on my way to Africa and I also came through Chowpatti, I remember that on that occasion the topic came on prasadam distribution and food for life and whether food for life was in itself an adequate facility and we pointed out that without the chanting of the Hare Krishna Mahamantra , food for life was not adequate because ultimately in this age the process is Harer Nama Harer Nama Harer Namaiva Kevalam: that all devotional service must be followed and proceeded by chanting of the Holy Name, Jiva Goswami points out in his Bhakti Sandarba , because that is the Yuga Dharama and that is the only means of attaining the spiritual world. Therefore we must in this age always preach Hari Nama Sankirtan. But then in the course of Harinama Sankirtana we can ecstatically pull little deers out of the river ….and if a deer would be in difficulty in front of us, generally speaking a Vaishnava would make arrangements for that deer to save it’s life ..but could not get too much entangled in maintaining the deer..a little maybe …but not that much.So Bharata’s position remains complex, it remains complex ..he fell down and he became especially entangled in the material energy so therefore entanglement in the material energy must be avoided as much as possible (More in part4)
