WORKING FOR KRISHNA (Last Part) Part7
PRABHUPADA AND THE MOVEMENT Part1
You might fix each other and that’s one way, but it’s not meant to be dealt with like that.
So how do we deal with things? With humility. By first of all not presenting ourrself as such a great authority. If you see something like a devotee doing something wrong that needs to be corrected – if you think the general standard of Krishna consciousness is not being followed, but privately peacefully telling him and if you feel the response is not good or if you know that person is really senior to you, then you should not personally deal with it but approach a senior devotee and let him deal with it – then it is easy to accept. Another thing also is that: for example it says pay obeisances with both hand and knees on the floor, properly, not one hand so if you see someone who is doing it with one hand and if you can see it you can immediately jump off the little railing and go, “Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! You are doing it wrong! Yes, your hand is also supposed to be on the ground!”
You are right, that the hand should be on the ground, but obviously if you jump on somebody while he is doing something wrong, which isn’t immediately causing a crisis but still it’s wrong – if you jump on him he really can’t accept it in the moment itself that he is doing it wrong, so therefore the wrongdoings of people, if we can let them get away for the moment itself and if we can discuss it later in the mode of goodness, instead of trying to deal with all the problems in the mode of passion, but if we can do it in the mode of goodness and nicely sit down and discuss it, well actually it would be nice if we improve the standards in the temple, and have a peaceful talk about it, then you might find the results of encouraging people to follow standards are lot better and another question to ask is – are you following all the standards?
Soon as you see someone doesn’t follow all the standards you ask yourself, ‘Am I following all the standards? I’m not. It’s not so easy, trying to come up to the standards, it’s a struggle!
One definition of surrender means to follow all the rules and regulations. So are you surrendered? Am I surrendered? Who is surrendered? So who is the first one to speak, to correct all the others?
(Question is raised (inaudible) and Maharaja replies)
You can find them in the Nectar of Devotion and you can find them again in the Caitanya Caritamrita, in the Madhya lila. chapter nineteen untill twenty five, in the detailed explanation of Caitanya Mahaprabhu to Sanatana Gosvami of 64 qualities.
PRABHUPADA AND THE MOVEMENT – Part 1
When Prabhupada was in New Vrindavana it was a milestone. It was the first big big event that ever took place, everyone came and although New Vrindavana was completely not ready, so many devotees, somehow or other they arranged it – they were cooking outside in an improvised field kitchen, devotees were sleeping everywhere, in cars, in tents and some were in sleeping bags whatever, under the stars, and everyone was in good spirits because Prabhupada was there and wherever Prabhupada that was a major major thing. Wherever Prabhupada was that was the centre of the universe; wherever he was, that was the most important place on the entire planet… On the farm there was an internal road, and this road was winding and curving over rocks and hills and there were just full of pot holes, it wasn’t what you would really call a road, it was a track, and the devotees used to call it the Aghasura road. So they took Prabhupada down the Aghasura road, but because it was difficult for him, they thought of having a palanquin, so they arranged a palanquin and carried Prabhupada on a palanquin and it was just about getting dark, so the devotees were carrying torches and it looked like something definitely not from this world, definitely not from this age, here was this group of people walking with torches and carrying Prabhupada and it was such an ecstatic event. One devotee had this great desire to come closer to Prabhupada and pushed through the crowd and came right next to Prabhupada only to realise that you can not come closer to Prabhupada by being right next to Prabhupada, that still they were worlds apart.
So it is a fact, one can not just simply understand who is Prabhupada. So many devotees had the good fortune of associating with Srila Prabhupada and they will tell us stories about Srila Prabhupada, but did they understand Srila Prabhupada? And to what extent? So what to speak of nowadays, nowadays it is like ‘Prabhupada said’ is always a good one, but who knows what he really said? So we have to really know more about him.
There are many things we can know about Srila Prabhupada, because Srila Prabhupada did not just display extraordinary transcendental activities, he did not just show by his behaviour that he was completely full of love for Krishna, that he showed. But can we now understand what love for Krishna really means?
But Prabhupada also showed us what to do and told us what to do and those things are very clear. Prabhupada began to introduce spiritual standards. Prabhupada never made it out to be that he was an independent teacher – that was not his agenda. Prabhupada clearly was very faithfully repeating, just repeating whatever he had heard from the previous acharyas. He was not in any way making any changes or alterations, that was his unique quality: no changes, no personal additions and that’s what makes Prabhupada very reliable, beyond a doubt. Never was he pointing at himself, never did he advertise my opinion, he said as soon as someone says my opinion, ‘rubbish…rascal!….mental speculation!’ He would reject that…’my opinion..my idea….’ No. Prabhuupada said, whatever you say you must be able to support it by quotes from the scriptures. So who is Srila Prabhupada? In one sense we can not understand; in one sense Prabhupada’s mission goes way past our imagination, who can understand his vision?
