The lecture emphasizes that true happiness and liberation from the material world come from practicing nitya-dharma, the eternal spiritual path of devotional service to the Supreme Lord. Rather than focusing on temporary material pursuits that end at death, individuals are encouraged to prioritize self-realization, chanting, and serving God. Additionally, the speaker highlights the vital importance of preserving Vedic culture and raising children with spiritual values to protect them from worldly distractions.
oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā
cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ
mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
Very welcome to our Sunday program.
And I'm happy to see many pious Indians here. This is, I would say, our culture. And I always believe that I used to be a Indian in my past life because I get very well along, I have many many Indian friends. Unfortunately, I must have made some mistake, so I took my birth in Sweden this lifetime. But let's see.
For us, the realities of life are very much real. In the West, people have a hard time relating to the serious aspects of life, like loss, like death. We were having this yajña today for the benefit of a departed soul. So, this is natural. We know that this is not the final destination or the end. As a matter of fact, early this morning, I got the news that a friend of mine for many, many years just left his body. So, these things are happening to us every day.
And there is a concrete way to liberate oneself from the calamities of this world. Cuz not everything in this world is happiness, right? There is some bad things going too. Okay.
And we call that dharma. Everybody knows the word dharma from the Bhagavad-gītā. Dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre samavetā yuyutsavaḥ. The words of Sañjaya, the secretary of Dhṛtarāṣṭra.
So, the famous verse that we all know, yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati bhārata abhyutthānam adharmasya tadātmānaṁ sṛjāmy aham. Whenever and wherever there is a decline, glānir, of dharma, and there is a increase of adharma, irreligion, at that point, I, Śrī Bhagavān says, will descend.
And He will do three things. First of all, paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ. He takes care of the pious, of the righteous people, He protects them. These are His devotees, these are His friends. vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām. Those who try to destroy the world, that cause a lot of suffering to other human beings, suffering to animals, suffering and disaster, He will destroy them. And dharma-saṁsthāpanārthāya, He will reestablish dharma. Just like He was talking the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna because this knowledge rāja-vidyā rāja-guhyaṁ, the topmost knowledge, Veda, was lost.
So, this is actually the most valuable thing to know, more valuable than gold and jewels and money on the bank, is to have knowledge of life.
So, there is the story of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He came to give this knowledge to us. In 1965, he traveled over the ocean, and came to America, and for 11 or 12 years, he was traveling the world, freely giving out this knowledge, the topmost secret, it's called. So, once in London, he was interviewed by a female reporter who was a bit challenging. She said, "Why you come here to England with your foreign religion? We already have our religion. We have our churches. We have our Bible. So, why you come here?"
And he is the most witty and intelligent individual. So, he was just telling peacefully, "My dear lady, for many generations, you, the British, came to my country, and were robbing us for everything. The Kohinoor diamond, and so many things you took, and you put them in the British Museum or whatever. But you forgot the most valuable thing that India has to offer the world, and that is the Vedic culture and the Vedic knowledge, that speaks of life, of real life. So, because you forgot it, now I have come to give it to you for free." Śrīla Prabhupāda kī jaya! And this lady journalist, no more to say, no more to say.
What does this knowledge say actually? Says, first of all, number one, you are not this body. Every time we take our birth in this world, we get a new body. Sometimes as a devatā in the svarga-lokas, sometimes as a plant or an animal, and sometimes, very rarely, we get the human form of life. Why I say rarely? Because in the human form of life, we have a sense of intelligence that enables us to judge our activities, what is right and wrong. An animal doesn't do that. Animal is interested in finding food, finding some nice mate, fighting and defending, and sleeping. Of course, many people are on that level, but those of us who has some little knowledge, we know for sure that the human form of life is so much more valuable than to simply waste it on animalistic activities, right?
So, to follow dharma means to follow a path back to a situation where we are real. We are real spirit individuals. In the Vaikuṇṭha, in Goloka Vṛndāvana, there are no material bodies. There are no sinful activities or suffering or crazy things going on. Everybody in the spiritual world, he is himself. You are yourself. You are self-realized. We understand we are eternal spirit soul, fully conscious, and full of happiness. And to reach that condition again, our true nature, we need to follow dharma. We need to be a righteous person.
Some dharma is simply to become a good person in this world and be ethical, moral, justice like this. We don't even have to believe in God, we just try to be a good person. That will give you some extra bonus, some extra sukṛti, because it's a stepping stone to reach higher.
So, what we are talking about, dharma are two kinds. One kind is called the temporary dharma, how to become a good husband, a good son, a good wife, a good brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra, all material designations. But in each of these roles, we can do good, and we can do good to the world, and we can do good to one another. Now, these are different. If you are a man, you have different dharma than if you take birth as a woman, we have the strī-dharma, we have the other. So, next life, I can have a woman's body, or, you know, you can have a man's body, and then your dharma will change, right?
So, one of the great saints, the father and guru of the guru of Śrīla Prabhupāda, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, he speaks very strongly about these two different dharmas. One is the temporary one, which he actually calls mundane, because temporary dharma is basically to create a comfortable situation for us in this life, in this body. While we have the eternal dharma, that which is pertaining to us, the spiritual beings, that always existed, exists now, and will exist in the future. That is called the nitya-dharma. And the nitya-dharma is the same as vaiṣṇava-dharma. The dharma when you are a devotee or bhakta to Śrī Bhagavān, Kṛṣṇa, Rāma, Nṛsiṁhadeva, Varāha, all these Viṣṇu-tattvas, right? Because Kṛṣṇa will appear in a form that is most appealing to you.
So, while some people, which Kṛṣṇa kind of calls less intelligent, but not in a derogatory way, but some people pray to God or to gods, like Lord Śiva, Brahmā, Durgā, Gaṇeśa, etc., for material benefit, to make my life now more profitable. We pray to Gaṇeśa to make good business, we pray to Lord Śiva maybe so I can buy myself a Tesla or something, anything that has to do with this body. However, the news are, at the moment of death, everything will be taken away from you. All the possessions, all the TV, all the money in the bank, your mobile phone will be gone. We know how distressed we are when we lose our mobile phone. So, at the moment of death, we will lose not only the mobile phone, but all the rest—our house, our family members, wife, husband, brother, sister, sons, and daughters, everything will be gone. We are even going to lose this body, this lump of material, bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca, ahaṅkāra.
So, that's going to be a challenge. But we don't lose ourselves. And the comforting thing is, when you follow your nitya-dharma, your real, you come, you see the Supreme Personality of Godhead, you chant His names in kīrtana, you do the essence without any motives, that brings about the highest benefit. And in the second chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa says:
nehābhikrama-nāśo 'sti pratyavāyo na vidyate
svalpam apy asya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt
In this endeavor, in yoga... when yoga means you try to connect to the Supreme Person, right? Yoga doesn't only mean all these postures people do, very popular in West, breathing exercises, you know, and all that. No, that's helps to control the body and the mind, but real yoga—yoginām api sarveṣāṁ—the best yogi is one who surrenders unto Śrī Bhagavān and become a loving servant, just like to a friend or parent like that.
So, in this endeavor, in yoga, there is no loss, there is no diminution, you see. Because yoga has to do with you, the eternal soul, who you are, not only this lifetime, but throughout every single lifetime, you are the same inside. So, that's yoga. If you do one percent in this lifetime, next lifetime you start from two percent. But if you make billions and trillions, next lifetime you may not have anything at all, that be taken by your relatives or by the tax department or whatever like that.
So, dharma is very important. There are so many ways to perform this dharma, which Kṛṣṇa describes in the Bhagavad-gītā. Ultimately, at the very end of the Gītā, Kṛṣṇa says, sarva-dharmān parityajya... give up all the dharma. What? Should we become nāstika, atheists, no dharma? No, that's not what Kṛṣṇa means. When you reach a certain platform, you give up all this ritualistic, ceremonial, yeah, dharma, and simply take Kṛṣṇa close to your heart and fall into His arms. That's what He means. mā śucaḥ, just fall into My arms, to Me, surrender. I will protect you personally.
So, that is the goal. Beginning, we have etiquette, we may approach the Lord great awe and reverence, you know, in Christian and Islam, they also approach the Lord a lot in fear, yeah, afraid of the wrath of the anger. Of course, somebody like Hiraṇyakaśipu and Kaṁsa, they could be afraid of Bhagavān's anger, that's justified. But to start the relationship with fear may not be the best way. We start by giving. We start by serving, by praising, glorifying, by chanting His names, by giving donations, giving of your time. This is the way how to regain the lost relationship with the Supreme Person.
Now, many people, they understand that spirituality means there is happiness, there is morality, there is total satisfaction. So, they want that. But they may become impersonalists because they want the kingdom of Rāma but without Rāma. They want to have Lakṣmī, but without Nārāyaṇa. That doesn't work. Lakṣmī and Nārāyaṇa are totally together, eternally. Sītā-Rāma, totally together. You can't separate one. Rāvaṇa tried to separate Sītā from Rāma, and then you saw what happened—total destruction, complete destruction. So, we shouldn't foolishly think that here in this world we can create the kingdom of God without God. It's because of the presence, the very presence of Śrī Bhagavān, who is the source, fountainhead of all auspiciousness, that everything becomes joyful and full of bliss. You take Bhagavān out of the equation, what is left? Nothing. Maybe His māyā-devī, the separated energy. And think people may be very cultivated into science, very polished and like this, but if there is no God, it's useless! Completely useless without God.
So, if you want to be on the winning team, you surrender to God. You tell Him, "I'm sorry, my dear Lord, all these years, I've been such a fool. I thought I could create my own big fortune, I thought I could imitate You by getting beauty, knowledge, wealth, strength, influence. But I realized, I'm nobody. I'm just Your servant. Please, tell me, what should I do?"
I know, for example, many of us, I mean, our Indians particularly, you leave India, you come to the West looking for some bright future. And I tell you, many become very disappointed because, apart from maybe a good job and a good money, by the way you may send most of it to your relatives in India so you can't really enjoy much here, but apart from that, it's not much happening. Like in Sweden, I spoke to an Indian couple yesterday, they said it's very hard to talk to Swedish people, they're just like, "hm, you know." You go to India, "Ah! Come on, come in! Come, have some prasādam, you know, come stay for dinner." It's completely different. And what to speak about the food.
Have you seen Swedish food? You have a lump of, you know, piece of a dead animal, and some potato and some whatever, and they call that food. I grew up with that food for almost 20 years. And then I went to India, and, "Wow! This is how food looks like." Colors, different fragrances, taste, texture, crispy and then soft, and all the sweets, rabri and rasgulla and halva and sweet samosas and, ay-ay-ay, my favorite is jalebi, because you get sweet and fat and crispy at the same time.
So, I was totally—this is—and then I realized food is not just something you put in your mouth to get this machine going. I've been reading on Facebook, some so-called clever young man wrote that, "Oh, we waste so much time eating. Can't the scientists invent a pill, I just take one pill a day, and that's all the nourishment I need, so much time I can save so I don't have to..." I mean, one of the greatest joys in life is to sit down and eat with friends, for long, eat different things. They didn't understand that. It's a way of exchanging love. Mother cooks for her child, thinking, "Oh, I hope my son or daughter will be strong, and I hope they will grow up and they'll be healthy and," you know, that's the extra spice they put, it's called love, it's called bhakti, right?
So, eating and taking... dadāti pratigṛhṇāti bhuṅkte bhojayate caiva. Giving food, accepting food, it's one of the ways that devotees exchange love and affection. So, we, in the movement, we... like in India, you go, you get a little prasādam, some from the Brahmin priest, small thing, you know, like quarter of a rasgulla, that's the custom in India. When you come to ISKCON, you get a whole big plate until you can hardly move. So, this was invented by Prabhupada's Western disciples. And he thought, "Well, this is a very good idea. We should have a love feast every Sunday. We invite." And therefore, they call this is a kitchen religion, kitchen, because magic happens in the kitchen. Today's feast will be cooked by one of our young friends here, the brother of Ramai, Laksman, Laksman-priya, yeah, very good cook. He also used to grow vegetable and cook from them. So, this is very sumptuous. And Prabhupada used to enjoy, you know, he saw his, also fellow Indians that used to get this little tiny piece of a rasgulla or something, halva, barfi. And now they're sitting with a big plate, and Prabhupada's like, "Give more, give more, give more, you know, gulab jamuns, give more." This is love. And this is how you think, when you cook for your family, especially the ladies know that, you really feel, "This is, hope they will enjoy, hope they will be happy," and doing this out of love. He spent hours and hours rolling chapatis or frying samosas, just to please the husband, please the children, please mother-in-law, you know, everybody, yeah?
So, we do that for Kṛṣṇa, we do that for Bhagavān. We cook, and then we offer to Śrī Śrī Pañca-tattva on the altar, hope they will be pleased. "Oh, this is a favorite, we know He likes śāk, yeah, this is plum chutney, yeah, everything is there." So, whatever you do, Kṛṣṇa says this in the Bhagavad-gītā, yat karoṣi yad aśnāsi yaj juhoṣi dadāsi yat... whatever you give away, whatever you do, whatever sacrifice you perform, do it for Me.
So, when you do this for Śrī Bhagavān, it is just like you water the root of a big tree, the big tree of the worlds. You can try and water every leaf single, but that doesn't really bring about much. When you water the tree, everybody gets nourishment, including ourselves, right?
You know, like in India, I learned eating by my hand, the right one, not the left, okay. So, and I had my son, I brought him there in 1995, a small boy. So, he used to have his own plate and a spoon, we were staying in Śrīdhāma Māyāpur. So, we came down there and they started to serve out on palm leaves, you know, they're going. And then he noted, "Oh, I don't have my spoon." And then—but then he noticed everybody was eating with their hands. So, he was happy, "Yes!" and he would eat, eat, eat, both hands. But you know, he was—he was just five years old, plus a Westerner, so we forgive him like this.
So, if this hand was to say, "Oh, good food, I will try to eat." Very nice, me. I can't swallow. I eat some more. Still can't swallow. That doesn't work if the hand tries to eat alone. Fiasco. What does the hand do? Takes the food, brings it to the mouth. And it goes in, and it goes to the stomach, and from there nourishment goes to the whole body.
So, when we come to this world and we try, "Yeah, I'm going to be happy, I'm going to make a career, I'm going to go to school, be PhD and start my own company, make so much money, I will get three Teslas and a 50-inch color TV and, yeah, you know," fiasco, doesn't work, it's like trying to eat yourself. It's explained in the Gītā, it may feel like nectar in the beginning, "Oh, I got some money, oh, I got a beautiful girlfriend, I got this, I got that, and I can travel here and," but in the end, you know, it's poison, that's what Kṛṣṇa says. This is the happiness in the mode of passion, when you strive, when you work hard.
In the spiritual world, everybody is automatically happy. You don't have to do anything really, you are just happy because you're completely connected to the Supreme Lord. In the material world, because of the disconnection, everybody has to work hard, oh, have to go to Södertälje and work at Scania, stress, and so many—and when I come home, "Oh!"—you know, this—it comes with a price. And for a little blade of grass, a little bit of sukha, which is gone the next day. You have to work so hard.
So, we have a hard situation in this world. We have to take our birth, no fun. We have to get sick, no fun. We have to grow old, absolutely no fun. And then we have to die. janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi. And we get pains from the body and the mind, we get pain from other living beings, and we get pain from the natural forces, like the weather and so forth. So, this, we don't really feel at home here, do we? We try, and we try, and we try, and then we, "What did I do with my life?" I'm 72 years old, and thinking, "Oh my God, that went quick. What—what did I do?"
So, this is where we're going to end up, unless you want to live forever, and then you just chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, you'll be happy. Serve Śrī Bhagavān, it's so simple. And just by coming here and participating every Sunday, you can even stay a little longer and help the devotees clean a bit, and, you know, do some extra sevā, it thousand times more rewarding than anything one can do in the material world. Because you are yourself. You don't suffer from this identity crisis, forgetting that you are a spirit soul, and then just as a—as a theater actor, you put on a dress and you go out on the stage, and for a limited time, I'm this, I'm that, I'm Swedish, I'm Indian, I'm a man, I'm a woman, I'm a dog, I'm a cucumber, I'm a whatever. This is temporary. aśāśvatam, Kṛṣṇa says. And because it's temporary, it's duḥkhālayam, it's full of misery, because whatever we manage to get, will be taken away from us, unfortunately.
So, a devotee is a bit detached to this. He doesn't reject it, but he tries to engage everything in the glorious service of Śrī Bhagavān, you know. If you get a little extra money, yes, now can use that for Kṛṣṇa. If we get a little extra time, now I can do some sevā. You know, if you get some extra energy, now I can do some work, you know, it's fantastic, very simple formula, yeah?
So, instead of this troublesome dharma described in the karma-kāṇḍa version in the Vedas, that tells you to do this, to do that, and this, you know, to work hard and to get some little fruits, we just, sarva-dharmān parityajya, just surrender to Śrī Bhagavān, and perform your nitya-dharma, not as this body, but as the soul. And then you just use the body, just like I use a car and I drive here and there to do something. I don't think I am the car. The car is some exoskeleton. I'm the driver, I'm sitting in the heart, you know? Kṛṣṇa says that, yantrārūḍhāni māyayā. Yantra means machine. We are sitting in this machine, maybe young, old, beautiful, ugly, whatever, still a machine, and we drive around and navigate in this world, right?
So, to find back to our true happiness, we have to come back to yourself, your true identity, kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa. And you have to understand what is the best thing to do. You know, how shall I engage myself? Just watch TV, that's pretty useless, you know. No, we do sevā. We read Śāstra, we gain enlightenment, we serve Bhagavān, devotees, we chant Harināma saṅkīrtana. That's the real juice for the spirit soul, yeah?
So, I'm so happy to see you coming here, especially those of you who are parents who have small children, you give a good example already from the early age, how to come, see the Deity, pay full and complete attention to the Deity, we don't chat or gibber-jabber. When Kṛṣṇa is on the altar, He is the center of focus. And that's very nice, and that's what you teach your children. So, this is very commendable. Because I know many Indian families, they realize too late, we come to the West, we have children, and then they're put in Western school with Western association, and whatever was left of the glorious Vedic culture is poof, out the window, and being replaced by horrible things I don't even want to talk about, which is signifying the Western culture, complete loose relationship between boys and girls and things they see on the internet, and things they drink and smoke, and, oh, this is the price. I know many, many Indian families, kind of say, "Wow, this was not good for the children to come here."
Anyway, we have some good news because we are thinking of creating a little oasis for the young ones here in Almvik, where you can send your sons or daughters coming for weekend gurukula, or for Kṛṣṇa camp, or different kinds of activities. We've done that before, and I tell you, they love it. Because one thing with Indians, if they are old or if they are young, you scrape the surface a little bit, and you find a devotee, you find a Vaiṣṇava under that. A little bit of materialism on the surface, but that goes away very quickly. Just chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and you feel at home in your heart and in your soul, yeah?
I will end exactly here. If anyone would like to ask a question or comment, we are available. It makes me very, very happy to see you all here today. It's very good.
Thank you, Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Happiness, su-sukhaṁ kartum avyayam, it's... Yes. Okay.
I see parents here made a very intelligent choice to let their young ones have regular association with Vaiṣṇavas and develop all the glorious qualities of devotees. So... Looking forward.
Śrīla Prabhupāda kī jaya! Śrī Śrī Pañca-tattva kī jaya!