(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 11 September 2016, Durban, South Africa, Sunday Feast Lecture)
Living in a temple is nice – it is simultaneously the material world and the spiritual world. I compare temple life to a blanket. I travel a lot and have different blankets all the time and sometimes, the blanket is too long, too short, too thick or too warm. So in the same way, the external feature of the temple may also look like that. There may be many things about it which we do not like – people, facilities, food and so on… But that is all insignificant, all temporary and will change. BUT in the temple, there are people who chant and practice spiritual life seriously and we need that! We need devotees for kirtan and for discussion about scripture – this is actually the essence of temple life and not the external features. One must learn to not get distracted by the external features and other obnoxious things; we must learn to tolerate. Everything can cause anxiety when were separated from Krsna. If nothing goes wrong we think of what CAN go wrong. The opposite is required: Let it go! We are not the controller. We try to keep a certain area in control but we cannot control the world!
*Notes taken my Nimai during the lecture