Drawing on the lives of Kardama Muni and Devahuti, this lecture discusses the Vedic stages of life and the importance of gradual renunciation centered on Krishna consciousness. The speaker explains that while formal sannyasa is highly challenging and generally restricted in Kali-yuga, internal detachment and active devotional service remain vital for everyone. Ultimately, whether one is a householder or a renunciant, all roles should serve the supreme goal of practicing and spreading the chanting of the holy name.
āsmād abhipretsya jagat-pateḥ pradhānān tvayāvatīrṇān utāpta-kāmaḥ parivrājya-padavīm āsthito 'haṁ cariṣye tvāṁ hṛdi yuñjan viśokaḥ
So today I have something to ask from you who are the Lord of all living entities. Since I have now been liberated by you from my debts to my father, and since all my desires are fulfilled, I wish to accept the order of an itinerant mendicant. Renouncing this family life, I wish to wander about free from lamentation, thinking always of you in my heart.
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ
So we see these stories about Devahūti and Kardama Muni. They show an example of family life, or rather of these stages of life, actually.
Kardama Muni started with tapasya and he ended with tapasya. But here we see that this is, like, his desire. He asks for permission to be released from his material duties, and he also points out that he has fulfilled his duties. He is free from his debt to his ancestors. So he has—this is, after all, the beginning of the universe, and at that time it is extremely important that all living beings get bodies to be born in, so we have these prajāpatis who expand, multiplying the population.
So it has been there. It begins with a period of tapasya, of renunciation, of self-control. Then he is offered Devahūti, who knows about him and has a desire to share gṛhastha life with him, and he can also see that this is a partner who can share his attitude towards life. Then they have a honeymoon, a honeymoon called Durga. They don't just go on, like, a weekend or a week with a charter somewhere, but if you have mystic powers, you have them. Kardama Muni manifests a flying palace. Devahūti, she doesn't go to a spa, like, but a thousand maidservants come and take care of her so that she is, like, bathed, made up, and dressed to perfection.
And then when they have finished with that part—that part is nothing to be ashamed of either, like. It is a part of life, it is a natural part. If you are married, you are married. If you meet the person you are supposed to be married to, then you start by... in my generation it was very common that men married because they perhaps realized they couldn't manage to be brahmacārīs, and so they were simply forced to marry, and then it was like, it started on the wrong foot, in a way. I don't think we see that nowadays. People who are, they are married because they want to be married. They live in the gṛhastha-āśrama because that is where they feel stable, as a stable foundation for their Krishna consciousness. In the same way, brahmacārya—that life is also a stable foundation for Krishna consciousness because it is so uncomplicated. You don't have to look for a job, you don't have to pay bills, you don't have to, like, keep doing things; instead, you have your service, you have your sādhana, you have your association. And that is a fantastic asset. Now we have revived brahmacārīs even in Sweden, we are grateful for that because it is very, very necessary. Gṛhastha life is also quite necessary. And then it is also necessary to know that it is not something that lasts forever, but rather you wrap things up. That doesn't mean everyone takes sannyāsa. It is said somewhere in the scriptures that there are four things forbidden in Kali-yuga. One is cow and horse sacrifices, yajña, where you sacrifice an animal in the fire. And we think, like, what kind of Old Testament ways are these? But it was apparently, like, a step in the yajña to see that these brāhmaṇas were qualified, that their mantras really brought about that when we sacrificed this animal, it returned in a new, young body. No one is harmed by it, like. It isn't that it ended with a meatball feast, but it was a part of the yajña. We must not do that in Kali-yuga because those brāhmaṇas who have those qualifications no longer exist.
Taking sannyāsa is also not recommended, because the majority of the population is not qualified, but as Prabhupāda points out, taking sannyāsa, leaving one's family responsibilities, does not mean that you go and get a new family or that you do something else crazy—transcendental fraud in the name of sannyāsa, embarrassing, embarrassing transcendental fraud. So then it is better not to take sannyāsa. You don't need to, like, make a show of your renunciation, but you can quietly and peacefully stop the more sense-gratifying activities and endeavors.
I think that in a year or so, two, one and a half years maybe, when I no longer have any debts, then I can stop having an income, and then we can say that this is a gradual transition to the vānaprastha stage, where you still live. Like, you don't move into the brahmacārya-āśrama again because you are an adult, you have adult children and so on, but you wrap things up, you focus on what is most important. So the varṇāśrama steps are not foreign and artificial. They are in principle what you see around us as well, only they lack—when I usually talk about it, we talk about daivi-varṇāśrama, as spiritual varṇāśrama.
And then we talk about asuric-varṇāśrama, which is when you have these roles but the goal is not Krishna consciousness. The goal is something else, and then it becomes, like, what we see today that has solidified into the caste system in India, which Prabhupāda criticized as soon as he got the opportunity. He didn't criticize it as much as māyāvāda, of course, or our scientists who in some way dismantle the idea of God in the consciousness of the ordinary person. They get a bigger share of the blame. But the caste system, it is not—he says, Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gītā, guṇa-karma. You get your position in these four varṇas because of your qualities and your actions, not janma-karma. Guṇa-karma. So varṇāśrama is good because it gives a structure and a foundation so that life doesn't become so complicated and Krishna consciousness doesn't become so far away, and we go through our natural stages and then we land in renunciation. But we cannot take sannyāsa, sannyāsa is proud that he's always thinking of Krishna within himself. If you cannot constantly see Krishna within yourself, you should not take sannyāsa. If you have anxiety—I can speak Swedish, I promise—if you worry about how things will go for you: What will I eat today? Then you should not wander as a free sannyāsī. In ISKCON it looks a bit different because whichever temple you come to, you are met with reverence and respect and everything just rains down on you. But a sannyāsī should, like, not count on that.
You shouldn't take sannyāsa like, "Okay, I didn't get a job, so I might as well take sannyāsa so I'll be maintained by ISKCON." That's, like, not the idea behind sannyāsa. The idea behind sannyāsa is that when you have that—when you can go out and see Krishna everywhere, but trust that Krishna will take care of you, and if He doesn't take care of you materially, you trust that this is also for your benefit, that it is an advantage. Otherwise, you shouldn't take sannyāsa. And that—Prabhupāda brings up, he doesn't talk about sannyāsa in that situation, but he talks about brahmacārya and gṛhastha when we have the king of elephants, Gajendra. Gajendra, he has ended up in a precarious situation. He is out bathing with all the female elephants, and I think this is a heavenly planet. He is the king of the elephants, and they are having a great time. But in this lake or river there lives a crocodile, which bites him in the foot. And he tries to get free, and on land that is not a problem, because an elephant is stronger than a crocodile. But in the water, the crocodile is in its element, and the elephant is not in its element. So this struggle continues for, like, hundreds of years. Puranic time, the time concepts of the heavenly planets are a bit foreign to us. But it was very, very long anyway. And what happens then is that the elephant loses more and more of his strength. The crocodile is on his home turf; he loses nothing. And finally, this elephant—who hasn't always been an elephant, because he is an eternal spirit soul, just like the rest of us—realizes, and memories return from a previous life where he apparently offered sacrifices, so he begins to offer prayers to Vishnu. He picks up a lotus flower from the lake with his trunk and offers it to Vishnu because he knows that Vishnu is everywhere. Somehow, Vishnu is there. And Vishnu comes and saves him, and they all lived happily ever after, I was about to say. It probably wasn't quite like that. But, and Prabhupāda points out in the purport that we who are struggling to re-establish our spiritual Krishna consciousness, we are already in a foreign environment, we are in the material world. But then we shouldn't have some kind of—then we should be very realistic and have an honest view of ourselves. We should have a bit of self-knowledge, self-insight. So we should place ourselves, be in the place where we are strongest. And for many, that is to live a brahmacārī life without any external responsibilities. You have your service and you have your sādhana, and that is all, like. You are not entangled in a lot of duties and debts and possessions at all; you are there, you do your service. Fantastic, if you have that temperament. And if you have another temperament that feels like, "Yes, but I want to be secure, I want to have my security, I want my family, I want my..."—as a gṛhastha's duty is to give charity, but you cannot give anything if you don't have anything. So a gṛhastha gathers a little like that, within the framework of their karma, so they have a stable situation, and then they feel secure in that, and then they can more easily serve Krishna. So that is sort of a bit of what it is about. And then, of course, even if you don't have this natural, renounced temperament, it is extremely healthy to spend some years in the brahmacārya-āśrama, a brahmacārī-āśrama, and get, on one hand, this trust that Krishna takes care of you, and on the other hand, this time and mental space to fully engage in Krishna's service. You study, you have a fixed sādhana. You have a service that is more direct. A gṛhastha can also have service, but often it is a bit more indirect. You go to work all day. All day.
Now I am going to do something that no one wants to hear—talk about a dream. I dreamed once—I used to work at Riksteatern with IT support. In the dream it wasn't Riksteatern, but it was like Riksteatern, and it was in the break room, and I was talking to a woman who was the artistic director for something, one thing or another. And she was Danish, and she asked me, "But how is it then?" I said, "Okay," so I said, "It's like this: Get up, go to work, work, work, eat lunch. The same thing happens tomorrow. That's not a life, that's slavery." And then I woke up, completely surprised that I had quoted Ebba Grön in my dream. But material life is a bit like that. Get up, go to work, work, work, eat lunch. And to some extent it is necessary, to some extent it is healthy, but it is definitely not forever, and it is definitely healthy when you start to feel that, "Yes, okay, now I've done this. I can handle this." And then you move on to the next renounced stage.
Sannyāsa is a very serious vow, it is for life, it is not for everyone. Sometimes people say everyone should take sannyāsa, sometimes people say, as mentioned, no one should take sannyāsa—in this age it is forbidden. So how have we landed where we are then? Is it everyone, or is it no one? And as usual when we have these kinds of contradictions, they aren't actually contradictions, but rather seeing things from slightly different points of view. We should all get out of our material bonds, but we should do it in a healthy way, in a way that helps.
Prabhupāda, when he was here, he knew he was here for a limited time. He came to America, he was 69 years old when he landed in America. I know my sister is not the least bit interested in spiritual life or religion or anything. She has a certain respect for me doing it, but when I started, she thought I was crazy, so she stopped—we had no contact for a while. Then I came home some Christmas or birthday and had brought a little present. I had taken—we are from Gothenburg, so I had taken one of those Liseberg rabbits, which looks like a hare. I guessed she could tolerate a dig anyway. And so I gave it to her, "Here is a Hare Krishna for you." Then I realized I still had a bit of distance, still a bit of humor, maybe I was a bit normal after all. And then I gave her this little Prabhupāda book. And when she read it she said, "Yes, you have to respect what he has done. What he did, that was very special. I mean, it wasn't normal. No one can do this." He had, like, no capital, he had no advertising agency, he had, like, no contacts. He came there because it was his spiritual master's instruction. His spiritual master had told him that if you spread this Krishna consciousness to an English-speaking world, it would—it is going to be good for you, it is going to be good for them.
And he said, most of my godbrothers, they targeted England. But somehow he was always sure that it was to America he should go. And that was also a special chapter in world history, the mid-60s, the youth adrift, like. Then when the devotees came to England, these three couples who came to spread it, it was a completely different atmosphere, like. Of course it was still, like, the 60s, still a bit of hippie times. But England was much more conservative and stiff, and it was much harder to move people. But in America, the youth were just floating around. And they could also float into the Swami's storefront.
And it was apparently known in LSD circles that it is a good place to come down. It is a good place to land when you have been on an LSD trip—then you should go there and, like, return to solid ground during a kīrtana or a class. So it was perhaps a very strange clientele, but many of them were very serious too. That's just how it is, we are in the material world, we are human beings. We realize somewhere in our hearts that something is missing, there is a void. We begin to ask what it is, what can we do, maybe we even pray to God even though we don't know who He is.
And then Krishna gives us a way in, like. And what people started reading at that time, they started trying to read Indian mysticism, philosophy, and so on. And very large parts of what came to the West were, like, impersonal. And very large parts of this hippie philosophy were very ignorant, like. "Dropout, we should..." And the Vedic scriptures back up this idea that we are in the mode of passion—normally human life is the mode of passion. With, yes, it can pull a bit to one direction or the other, but like this: we strive, we desire, we struggle, we get ulcers. We get envious of neighbors who have a better car or something like that. That's typically human life. And then you want to, what do you say, "dropout", leave this.
But the thing is, when we have some knowledge of this Vedic wisdom, we know that leaving rajoguṇa can go two ways, like. We want to elevate ourselves to the mode of goodness, but the risk is that we just fall down into tamoguṇa, which you can see in the hippie movement with all the free drugs and all the free sex, like—it didn't go equally well for everyone there, so. But some had this serious endeavor to find an alternative to materialistic life and came into contact with Prabhupāda. Which is absolutely fantastic. Actually. Everything is absolutely fantastic when you think about it, the more you think about it. So here Prabhupāda goes into two kinds of devotees, goṣṭhy-ānandīs and ātmānandīs, he writes here. Sometimes they are called bhajan-ānandīs. Here it says ātmānandī, self-satisfied. Bhajan-ānandī is, the heart focused on Krishna, while a goṣṭhy-ānandī is more generous. And that is more in our line, it lies in our tradition, in our mission, in Caitanya's branch of this tree, of which Prabhupāda's movement is one—well, nowadays you would have to say it is definitely the most significant branch, the Krishna movement. There we follow Caitanya's instructions, Caitanya's way of doing things. And he had different stages of life himself as well. First he was a cute little child, incredibly charming and just as tricky as Krishna, playing little mind tricks. Some thieves came along, who had noticed that this child had a lot of beautiful gold jewelry. So they thought, "Him—him we'll take." And they pick—they manage to lure him away, pick him up on their shoulders and let him come along, and they think that in a secluded spot we will take all his gold jewelry. But somehow he bewilders them, because he has access to all the illusory energy, acting under Krishna's order. So somehow they go a long, long round and land right in front of his door again, and realize that this is something fishy. So he would have been kidnapped and robbed and possibly beaten to death, what do I know. It ended up being just a nice little outing. Sometimes he cried and screamed, and you know when small children cry and scream, you can't think of anything else. It goes straight to the heart. And all the ladies, who of course loved this sweet little child more than anything else, tried to calm him down again, and rocked him and sang to him. And they realized when they sang Hare Krishna, then he became quiet and lay there laughing and babbling happily again. So that was what they did. So that was sankīrtana on a baby level, like. Let us get them to sing Hare Krishna.
Then he educated himself, became a teacher in a grammar school, which probably is a fairly unadvanced part of the education system from what I understand. That's where children typically start and youth start. And then he was a bit puffed up and a bit proud of his knowledge, and walked around challenging people on the street. People hid; they didn't want to be challenged by Nimāi, because he argued so incredibly competently that whatever they said, he made them understand that it was wrong. Then he turned the argument around and disproved himself. And I don't remember which of these classmates said, "This Nimāi... the vaiṣṇavas in the village just looked at him and said, 'This Nimāi, he is so smart, and he is so beautiful, and he is so intelligent—if only he were a devotee!'"
Then his father passed away and he traveled to Gayā to do those rites that you do in connection with a death in the family. And there something happened, there he manifested his sankīrtana movement again. He came into contact with Īśvara Purī, whom he took—even Krishna Himself shows by His example that this is how you do it, you take initiation from a spiritual master. And he came back and wanted only to talk about Krishna. When he taught grammar, he only talked about Krishna, everything was only about Krishna. And then it didn't take long before his mother got him to marry. His first wife passed away. She got him to marry once more. And then when he was 24 years old, he took sannyāsa.
And this was very special, because Krishna Himself, Krishna is not weighed down by enjoying life, like. He is the supreme enjoyer. In Krishna-līlā, he has first all the gopī girls, then he has 16,000 wives plus—16,108 wives, families. Each wife has 10 children, like, each child has 10 children of their own, 100 grandchildren; there comes 16,000, a huge amount of family life, incredible amounts of family life.
Krishna is not weighed down by this. Krishna has the capacity to enjoy all relationships with everyone in the spiritual world. He has the capacity to expand as Paramātmā and sit in our hearts and accompany us, like. I remember that was one of my doubts when it came to religion before I came into contact with the Krishna movement. Religious people seemed to say that if in this quick, short life you don't manage to find Jesus and believe in him, then it's like eternal damnation. I think that feels—it doesn't feel fair, actually. It doesn't seem reasonable. But it's not like that. It's not like that at all. And what if you don't find Jesus, then? What if you are born in another part of the world and have never heard of Jesus, or you are born 100 years earlier and have never heard of Jesus? How does that work? Then you have no chance of getting this connection. Because Jesus mediates this connection, like, to God. But no, that connection—the Supersoul sits in our hearts. And as soon as He sees any hint that we have an interest, He guides us into contact where we can begin our spiritual life. So that's why people ask sometimes, "Why is it that all religions say they are right and everyone else is wrong?" But we don't say that. We just say that we are grateful that we should base our spiritual life on the Bhagavatam and not on the Bible. It is very difficult to base one's spiritual life on the Bible, because it is very difficult to understand, actually. Reading the Old Testament and trying to understand what is what there. Jesus is a bit less complicated, but on the other hand, he is very clear with his bhakti perspective. But the philosophy is not developed in the same way. I've said it before, but I had a little episode when I worked in a prison. There were a couple of guys there who became Buddhists, and so they wanted to hear if they had their meditation. "Can't you tell us a bit about your meditation?" So I did a little Krishna program there. I asked for permission, I put on a sari and tilaka, and I sang Hare Krishna, and I told them a bit about, yes, like a school program, like different points, and then when I mentioned karma and reincarnation... and then this little guy raised his hand—he was so nice and funny, so I hope things went well for him, I have no idea. I tried to give him a Bhagavad-gītā, I don't remember if I succeeded.
He said, he said at one point—he looked like a little criminal, like in a grey hoodie and, like, like that, but he still said, "If you had met me before I got spiritual enlightenment, you wouldn't have recognized me." But it wasn't because he was boasting, but because of those terms he had learned. And then he said, "Yes, but Buddhism has a lot in common in lifestyle," so. "The only thing missing is God then." So, but then he raised his hand and said, "Yes, but that solves the whole problem of theodicy." And that is a big problem for people who try to be religious but don't understand how an almighty and good God can allow all this suffering. How can there be so much suffering if God is good and almighty? It's because we can't really behave. But if you have this short perspective that it is one life, which is also very random... I had another person who somehow asked me that question. She came from a Christian background and they say we are eternal. But if one is eternal, then it must go both ways. So she found—she found, I am very famous, I have a YouTube—a YouTube channel that has been dormant for five or six years, and there are usually about 20 to 50 viewers on each episode. She had somehow googled this idea that eternity must go both ways. That was a point I had at some time—eternity goes both ways. It is not that we are born and here eternity begins, but eternity has always—we have always existed. We have done things that have led up to this life. So we have built up a certain karma for ourselves, which we cannot blame God for, so. And God balanced it in such a way that all of us—the incredible amount of living beings in this universe and all universes—He manages to connect our karma. If you think about, if you have a school, you have a director of studies who has, like, all the classrooms and all the subjects and all the teachers and all the students. You have to make this fit together, and that's not always so easy, like. Some have to have lunch at half past ten because otherwise it doesn't work, so. The Supersoul, He combines all of us, all our karma and all our, like, desires on the level of our karma, and makes the whole thing hang together. In other words, ensuring that we begin to search for the conspicuous problem of the material world, that Krishna is not in the center. And when we start to get this feeling—it is also a question we got from someone, "How can people be born deformed?" was someone who asked me. And so, yes, I mean, it's not fair, like—we don't want to be like that, that when someone suffers we say, "It's just your karma. Shut up." It is a suffering, it is for real, it is a situation one is in, or one's child. But the big philosophical picture is still that we have gone through life after life after life, we have done one thing, we have done another. And if we were to take some of our, like, world-famous demons, if someone like Hitler is born and has some problems from birth, no one would think that was unfair because he has caused so much suffering in this world, then. So sometimes it is that, raw karma, and sometimes it is also suffering. Sometimes it is like when you have started to approach Krishna, you can't quite let go of your material bonds and so on, so sometimes Krishna takes away the enjoyable part of material existence, so you are struck by some existential speculation, or it happens—you get real problems, actually, so that you can do nothing other than reach out to Krishna. And sometimes, as we see the Pāṇḍava brothers, they didn't have a completely uncomplicated and unproblematic life either. Their uncle tried to set fire to them as children, like. I mean, that is pretty, pretty harsh. And for their sake, it was that Krishna wanted to glorify them. "Just look at My devotees—through all these shifts of life, like, through all of these, they were always firmly bound to My lotus feet." And we still talk about them; there are not many people who lived 5,000 years ago whom we even know existed. The Pāṇḍava brothers are glorified every day.
So Caitanya took sannyāsa not because he was very tired of the material world, but from a preaching perspective. He saw that when he went out and spread Krishna consciousness and when he sang the name of Hare Krishna and when he went out and had this namahaṭṭa, people in general were drawn to this, took up Krishna's name, followed. They gave it up—with a natural, simple heart it was very easy for them to surrender. But this puffed-up class of students and māyāvādī-sannyāsīs, they had nothing to spare for sentimental vaiṣṇavas, like. So then he took sannyāsa because then there is a kind of respect built into the culture, that everyone will pay obeisances, everyone will, like, at least that step of respect will be there, and then it will be easier for them to accept Krishna consciousness. So it's not that we should all take sannyāsa tomorrow because that doesn't work on the Swedes, but, like, we should be transparent, we should have order in our finances, we should treat people respectfully—not because the culture says we should do it, but so as not to make it harder for people to take up Krishna consciousness.
And Prabhupāda established a group of sannyāsīs and he was then explicitly aware that it might not succeed in all cases, but if he didn't establish the sannyāsa-āśrama before he passed away... And as said, he started as a 69-year-old, he was there for 12 years, it wasn't a long time. All the devotees were there for a shorter time than 12 years. I know now we had a devotee at Alvik, I asked him, "Why are you always in class, like?" "No, but I'm just a younger devotee." "But how long have you been here?" "15 years." So none of Prabhupāda's disciples had been here for 15 years when he was here, like. So he had to put things in place, and he was aware that not everything would succeed. Sometimes they asked him, "Who will succeed you? Will you appoint a successor?" He said, "No, but I have established the GBC, it is like a board, it's a group, so that if one or another doesn't manage to stay in their Krishna consciousness, someone will." They asked, "Who will become a spiritual master after you?" "All my disciples, all my disciples can become spiritual masters." "Even the women?" a reporter asked. "Yes," said Prabhupāda, "but not so many." And then they sit and debate, "How should we make sure that there aren't so many?" But I don't think we need to worry, because there are not so many who take on this role of giving their whole life to giving others Krishna consciousness. And not everyone has this level of spiritual, spiritual level, realization, which automatically inspires a spiritual seeker and draws them to them.
So Caitanya took sannyāsa, Prabhupāda took sannyāsa. Not everyone will take sannyāsa, nor is there any need, but here we see in this little compressed life of Devahūti and Kardama Muni we have the whole, whole, whole chain, like, the whole, whole—what do you say, the whole range, all the steps in our life. We can learn from it, but what we should learn most of all is that Krishna is in the center. That here we have Kapila Muni appearing to spread Krishna consciousness in the form of sāṅkhya. Sāṅkhya—the word sāṅkhya means to count, from what I understand. And so it is an analytical way into Krishna consciousness. But it is Krishna consciousness it is about, because there is, like, no reason for an avatāra to do anything else. Sometimes Krishna preaches—it is called bridge preaching when these, as mentioned, we mentioned these things that are not allowed in Kali-yuga, to sacrifice cows and horses in yajña, that is not allowed. What happened was that the brāhmaṇas had lost their śakti, their power. These animals did not resurrect in a new, young life; instead they lay there dead, and then it was just as well to eat them. And so meat-eating somehow entered and diluted the spiritual principles. And then Buddha came and said to people, "Don't care about the Vedas." Don't care about the Vedas, just follow me—I will be mystical, and you will live rightly. And then came Śaṅkarācārya, who was—an incarnation of Buddha is one of our avatāras, but from what I understand, he is a śaktyāveśa-avatāra. He was given Krishna's power to make a specific imprint on the culture for the people. And then came an incarnation of Śiva, Śaṅkarācārya, and established monism, but according to them, Buddhism is... Prabhupāda came to—what do you say...
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
We offer our respect to the follower of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Mahārāja, Gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe, he spreads Caitanya's message, nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi. Nirviśeṣa, everything is one or everything is nothing. Buddhism says everything is nothing, ultimately the soul does not exist either, we are just an illusion to believe we exist. It cannot be understood, we don't need to understand Buddhism. So, and then people who were drawn to this, so Śaṅkara came and said, "It is not that everything is nothing, everything is one." It becomes basically the same thing, but it is under the Vedas—we accept the Vedas. And then it became possible for an intelligent discussion to go further to: if we read the Vedas properly, we can see it is not impersonal, there is—Krishna exists, Vishnu exists, God exists, we exist, the souls exist, all of this exists because we have accepted the Vedas as authority.
And now Caitanya is here and picks us up, we who have fallen between, like this Vedic net that picks us up with different methods in different ages. Meditation, Satya-yuga, yajñas in Tretā-yuga, Deity worship—is it which? Dvāpara-yuga. I don't mix them up, that's good. Now it is, now it is Kali-yuga. We don't have the focus and life span for meditation, we don't have the wealth for yajñas, and we don't have the brahminical temperament either, nor the economy for real Deity worship—everything continues a little bit, but the main, main path is harināma.
harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā
It is really the only way in this age, but it is not a bad way, we have nothing to complain about, there is nothing missing, we have everything. And we follow this, even if we don't take sannyāsa, it is still... next year I will take—I sat in the evening and thought, "Exactly this, these are good points, but I didn't write them down." This goṣṭhy-ānandī direction that we have in the Krishna movement, it permeates everything. It is good to keep in mind when you sometimes get into these, like, what should we say, slightly petty discussions.
Do we have to wear Vaiṣṇava clothes to be devotees? Can you not be Krishna conscious without wearing a dhoti or sari? Of course you can be Krishna conscious without wearing a dhoti or sari. The Krishna consciousness is not depending on any material circumstance at all. But for our own protection it is good to always dress as a devotee because we're not going to go out and do nonsense when everybody can see that we are representing the Vaiṣṇavas. And for the preaching angle, the preaching attitude. If we go out, nobody will see us. If we go out wearing, looking like this, people will come up to us and say, "Hey, you're a Hare Krishna. I met some other Hare Krishna." Or they may not even come up to us, but in their mind they will be thinking Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. You know, I I spent some time in London when I was very young and I was going to send a postcard home and I was looking through the different like funny postcards. There was one funny postcard where you could, I did, and then you could make a cross for, and then one of them was, last week I joined the Hare Krishnas. You know, it's such a big part of popular culture, people just say Krishna automatically, and that is harināma. That is maybe just shadow of the holy name. But it's also without offenses, so it will have an effect. So when we put on our tilaka and our saris when we go out to buy our fruits, that is a small part of preaching, but it is connected. So that is also with sannyāsa. Well, it's good to, for purification, to give up all material attachment at the end of life. But it's also very good for preaching. And we want to give Krishna, we don't want to be misers and keep Krishna and lock him up. We want to give him to everybody. And we can do it in the big ways, we can do it in the small ways, but it's good to remember that is the main thing actually, if we can serve that in some small respect. Okay, I switched over because I don't think you speak Swedish. Do you speak Swedish? No, no. Hare Krishna. Okay, I was not planning to speak so long, but I spoke for quite extra long time. Are there maybe some comments or questions?
I was thinking this, could you remind us four things that are forbidden in Kali-yuga?
Yeah, if you count horse and horse and cow sacrifices as two separate, then it's five. But that's like one. Taking sannyāsa is forbidden. Marry, marrying when your husband dies, to marry his brother to continue the family life, that is forbidden.
And there was another one, I can't remember it. I can't remember it. I looked it up. I actually looked it up. There was one more. I don't remember it. I should have written it down. Next time I will write everything down. Does anybody know? Madhupuri, do you know?
Google it.
Okay. Yes. Śrī Google-uvāca. Google is okay, AI is not okay. The other day we had somebody giving class which was more or less reading straight out of AI. It was a very disturbing experience. So we can use these, we can use these tools, but we have to make sure that we are on top of them so we can, did you find it?
No.
He's not listening to us. We are looking for the four forbidden things in Kali-yuga, and we have the animal yajña, we have the sannyās, we have the marrying the brother, but the fourth one we thought maybe you remember.
I'm listening but with 300 milliseconds delay, so.
Ah, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, we can find out.
I thought about going on in Vaiṣṇava clothes and feel like I've done it. For a year or two or something, and in conclusion I saw that I'm scaring people also. For example, in shops. So, and they are confused. So, yeah, there might be for sure some people who get a positive effect, but in conclusion, I ended it because I didn't want to scare people. I wasn't scary, I was beautiful, I know. People said, 'No, you are beautiful'.
Yeah, yeah.
But many of them were also scared. Like for example, in a shop, seller. So, how to deal, how to find that?
I I think if it if it if you feel that it is too uncomfortable of a situation, it's not an absolute instruction as such. But, it's not going to do them any harm, because Prabhupāda would say that sometimes when they see us on harināma, the first thing they do is they laugh at us, because we're ridiculous. Then they get afraid and angry with us, but then the next stage is they will have to accept us because we have a deep philosophy underneath it. So, I would say, in general, it's not going to do them any harm. And maybe they get a little confused at at at this stage, and then they go home and maybe they Google it and maybe they find out more. So, so I I wouldn't say you do any harm. But if you feel uncomfortable with it, I mean I'm not going to say you have to do it either. I just noticed like I went out, I go to work and I used to wear not saris directly because it was takes a little longer in the morning, but I would wear long skirts. Now at work I have to wear working pants with many pockets and one of those silly polo t-shirts with a with a little collar, and I kind of hate it. But I went out once, we were having a Jayesh and Bhaktinela were getting married, and I wanted to frame a picture of Prabhupāda to give them as a gift, so I went to one of those frame framing shops. And she is, 'Oh', and I said, 'It's for a, we have a wedding, it's on the Hare Krishna'. 'Oh, I had a friend she got married in Hare Krishna'.
Which she hadn't thought about for many years. And then I went to get my car checked out, because once a year you have to take the car in to check it and I still had my sari and my tilaka on. And then one of the other guys sitting there waiting for his car said, 'Oh, I'm working at the local newspaper. We went out to you and we made a a reportage about Hare Krishna'. And, and it's like, you know, it's not that it made them a pure devotee in the mo- moment, but at least it made them remember and be aware that this Krishna thing is something that exists. And as I said, some some cultures you can't do it, they will, they will put you in prison or they will beat you up, and some, like, like sensitive devotees will feel burdened by this how to say, sticking out like a sore thumb, like people will notice you, and, and it's not something that you have to do. But we used to, when we used to, we didn't have any other clothes. That's what we had. Then we went on sankīrtana, we used to change our clothes so that we could kind of sneak up on people so they wouldn't run away immediately. But nowadays I hear that they sometimes go out in their regular clothes, they sell the same amount of books. And, was it one of Bhaktivinoda's dreams that in the future like the High Court judge will sit on his, in his position with neck beads and tilaka? You know, so we will become a more normal element of human society, and as far as I see it, cannot do any harm, but at the same time if it makes you feel uncomfortable, or if you're in a specific situation that I am not aware of, then, you know, you you use your own judgment, but but even if they react a little bit, maybe it's good.
Maybe it's good that they react a little bit.
Maybe it's some sort of impact.
I don't think so. I don't think so.
Because even in Australia, this is kind of funny. The devotees used to go out on sankīrtana and harināma, and the police would take them and put them in jail. Immediately. And then they wrote to Prabhupāda, 'So, what should we do?' And then, you know, in some places they would say, 'Oh you know, try to hide it a little bit'. But I don't know if, if, I I could mix up things, because obviously I wasn't there, it's stuff that I have read about. That the police, they started to wear karmic clothes, as we say, regular street clothes. And then the police got the instruction to, 'Well, you can find them. Just look at their shining faces'.
Because the devotee on sankīrtana, he does, he will not look the same. He will have a blissful face. And they still put them in jail. And they asked Prabhupāda, 'What shall we do?' And Prabhupāda said, 'Continue, continue'. And what happened was, people in general got upset. 'You know, these guys, they are just, they are just being religious. They are just singing'. And they had to change that. They stopped putting them in jail, and it had a good, it looked like, you know, I mean, in the Soviet Union it was different. The people did not have, even if the people in general would have been upset, nobody would have cared about that, you know. They would have, so they, you have to be a little underground. Some of the Arabic countries you have to be a little underground. China you have to be a little underground. But, but in general, in general, it's help- it's helpful for them to have considered. Like, nowadays, you know, it used to be, 'I'm a Hare Krishna' and people would say, 'Okay'. Now I say, you know, 'Where does your name, I go to work, I have, my name is Labangalatika' and people, 'Where does your name is from?' 'Oh, it's a Hare Krishna name'. 'Aha, what is that?' They haven't even heard about us.
It's so weird, you know. It used to be everybody knew about us. Now they haven't even heard about us. So so, you know, if it doesn't inconvenience you, it's not going to do them any harm.
It's my conviction.
Is that okay? Is that okay? Yeah.
Hare Krishna. Welcome. Okay, so so I guess we're a little over the time. Anything, anything else, or we go on with our day?
I was thinking when you spoke about sannyās and in some places Prabhupāda says everyone should take sannyās and then there is this prescription that no one should take sannyās. But in the Gītā, when Krishna talks about sannyās, both in the fourth chapter and in the fifth chapter and in the sixth chapter, it's like he talks about sannyās not just in terms of the āśrama, but in the... Maybe we could read those verses. I think it's 5.2 or 5.3.
Very good, thank you.
Yeah, that's true. Because because the outer form of sannyāsa or that personal vow of sannyāsa which you cannot break, that is also, you take a vow and you don't follow it, that is also a risk you take. That is kind of scary.
And the personal, this is 5.2.
Yeah, but I'm not really sure exactly which...
No, yeah, Arjuna is asking. Yeah, he has the same question, actually.
sannyāsaṁ karmaṇāṁ kṛṣṇa punar yogaṁ ca śaṁsasi yac chreya etayor ekaṁ tan me brūhi suniścitam
Please tell me. Arjuna said, "O Krishna, first of all you ask me to renounce work, and then again you recommend work with devotion. Now will you kindly tell me definitely which of the two is more beneficial?" And then Krishna says,
śrī-bhagavān uvāca sannyāsaḥ karma-yogaś ca niḥśreyasa-karāv ubhau tayos tu karma-sannyāsāt karma-yogo viśiṣyate
"The Personality of Godhead replied, 'The renunciation of work and work in devotion are both good for liberation; but of the two, work in devotional service is better than the renunciation of work.'"
And there is a few more. I think it's...
Yeah.
jñeyaḥ sa nitya-sannyāsī yo na dveṣṭi na kāṅkṣati nirdvando hi mahā-bāho sukhaṁ bandhāt pramucyate
"One who neither hates nor desires the fruits of his activities is known to be always renounced. Such a person, free from all dualities, easily overcomes material bondage and is completely liberated, O mighty-armed Arjuna."
So that principle is there, what is more beneficial, it's not the outside thing really.
sāṅkhya-yogau pṛthag bālāḥ pravadanti na paṇḍitāḥ ekam apy āsthitaḥ samyag ubhayor vindate phalam
"Only the ignorant speak of devotional service as being different from the analytical study of the material world. Those who are actually learned say that he who applies himself well to one of these paths achieves the result of both."
And...
sannyāsas tu mahā-bāho duḥkham āptum ayogataḥ yoga-yukto munir brahma na-cireṇādhigacchati
"Merely renouncing all activity yet not engaging in the devotional service of the Lord cannot make one happy. But a thoughtful person engaged in devotional service can achieve the Supreme without delay."
yoga-yukto viśuddhātmā vijitātmā jitendriyaḥ sarva-bhūtātma-bhūtātmā kurvann api na lipyate
"One who works in devotion, who is a pure soul and who controls his mind and senses, is dear to everyone and everyone is dear to him. Though always working, such a man is never entangled."
Excuse me, Mātājī. Tomorrow's verses is dealing quite extensively with sannyās. So we can probably get into it more in detail.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah. So there are like the two things: the renunciation in the heart, and the formal acceptance of sannyāsa, and the devotional service is the most important, but as a society we have to have some sannyāsīs. Because that is one of the āśramas, and that is a strength for the preaching mission. And everyone's not going to take sannyāsa, but those who take sannyāsa, they should stay sannyāsīs.
Like that. Um, yeah. I suppose we continue tomorrow. Thank you so much. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.