 Green application point

 red warnings
 blue Facts
 Those who are distressed by fear of death approach God.
 In this wonderful chapter of Srimad Bhagvatam it appears to be a very ordinary day in
Vrindavan. Of course ordinary days in Vrindavan are extra-ordinary. Nothing is
ordinary for a devotee of the Lord. Every moment in our life is an extra ordinary
display of Krishna’s divine mercy upon us. We should never see anything in this
world to be ordinary.
 We should know everything that is happening, orchestrated by the divine mercy and
loving sentiments of Krishna. And everything that is happening everywhere, the
movement of every molecule and atom, the movement of every blade of grass, is
happening by the all loving supreme mystical power of Lord Sri Krishna. Therefore,
a devotee knows that nothing is simply ordinary. Even if you are sitting in an empty
room, you should know that every atomic particle in the wall or in the floor is
vigorously moving about by the divine arrangement of Sri Krishna. And beyond this
little room is a country, a planet, a universe, a creation; beyond that spiritual world.
All things are coming together in such a way for a specific purpose which is aimed at
every one of us to gradually bring us back to our eternal loving relationship with
Krishna.
 Therefore, to a devotee every moment of life is the most exciting, wonderful and
adventure, whatever he is doing, whether he is driving in his car, sitting, or going to
sleep; whether he is studying, whether he is preaching or cooking; whether one is
doing puja. A devotee is always looking to understand the divinity of the supreme
mercy of Krishna in everything, at every time.
 For a materialistic person, if his senses and mine are not completely captivated by
some sense objects, person becomes very bored with life. Due to that boredom
human society is creating so many artificial ways of trying to excite the senses.
 People spend billions of dollars on, what they call, special affects for various movies
and television shows, just to excite people’s minds, because they know people like
their minds to be excited. Why? Because people by nature in this world are bored to
death, they hate life. This is fact. Everyone is like that – on the bodily concept of
life. What we find through advertising people are simply trying to exploit our
boredom and make big profits over exciting our senses, our mind.
 In the west, I guess in east too (I don’t see the movies here, I don’t see them in the
west either, but I see the advertisements everywhere here in Bombay), everywhere
you go, gruesome looking movie advertisement (cinema). In practically every scene
you see is either sex or violence. See some half-necked woman, blood or violence.
And then the name of the movie is some name of the god. I don’t know what it has to
do it with woman who has been beat up, stabbed. In this way the horror movies, the
violent movies, the movies that have tremendous amount of sexual activity - these are
the more popular. Why? Because people are so bored with life. They are just
looking for some excitement and they cannot really find it in their own life. So they
do like this. They just completely forget everything and their mind and senses become
completely compassionately involved in all this passion, violent, fear, lust. And some
people they become so crazy, communalism, violence, simply because of some
religious principles. Just because people are so bored, they just want some action in
their lives. Let us burn, lets us destroy, let us kill, let us riot. It is a fact. It really has
nothing to do with philosophy. It has to do with frustration. Because usually they just
take it on their own people who has nothing to do with the philosophy.
 And what is gambling? Gambling is simply another vent because we are bored with
life, we are frustrated, we see no excitement, we see no flavor or beauty in life, so we
have to somehow or other get our senses and mind, just completely worried whether I
am going to win or lose. And this worry brings action and excitement, vitality to
consider this fun pleasurable. All gambling means the process of increasing your
worry. You just worry like anything. But at least there is some activity in worrying,
some excitement. So we see in this world which is …………. Of how people are so
perverted, just trying to find some meaning, some excitement and some action in their
lives. But a devotee understands ‘simple living and high thinking’. The more you
understand Krishna, the more you realize, there is complete wonderful display beyond
what any man can produce with all of his special affects taking place right before our
eyes at every moment by the will of Krishna. A devotee can just look at a flower and
this can bring such excitement, such vitality to his life – O how Krishna has made so
soft, so beautiful, how it is grown, how it is scent, this is wonderful. And Krishna has
come to play His wonderful pastimes. And a devotee simply by remembering His
lila, is full of such love and devotion to Krishna. By hearing Krishna’s pastimes, by
chanting His names. In this mood of Krishna Consciousness, by just seeing the world
a devotee is completely satisfied. He is at the edge of his seat at every moment just
witnessing the beauty, the glory and the supreme opulence of God before him.
 A Krishna Conscious person can simply look at the sky and find more pleasure, more
excitement, more invigoration than these karmi people seeing all these blood stained
violent movies. It is a fact.
 Srila Prabhupada once said that the sky is situated within the brahma joyti. The
Brahma Jyoti is manifesting from the body of Krishna. it is the rays coming from the
body of Krishna. He said, because the sky is emanating from the body of Krishna that
is why the sky is blue. Scientists may have their theory but this is the truth behind
why the sky is blue. Because after all it is very mystical. Air is clear. Air is
completely transparent. Do we ever see blue air? But the sky, when it is not polluted
by all exhaust fumes, if you look at the sky it is deep dark blue. The most beautiful
blue that no paint and no man can ever imitate. How the sky is blue when everywhere
is air, and air is clear. This is Krishna, such a magician. Therefore everything a
devotee looks upon, he just sees the wonderful, exciting artwork of Sri Krishna. and
just remembers the beauty and the wonder of Krishna behind it, just as Srila Prabhu
said during one morning walk along the Venice Beach at the Pacific ocean in
California, “beautiful sun-rise, do you think this art is beautiful, you should see the
Artist who has painted it”. At another time devotees were looking at the sky, it was
night, and they were just wondering, so many millions of planets, so many millions of
stars and were asking Prabhupada, “are they starts, are they planets, how far are they,
what extent can we perceive the stars and universe”? And Prabhupada gave a very
simple reply. Prabhupada said “they are as if Krishna has painted them on the sky”.
It is actually a very profound answer which includes all truths. Here is simply
krishna’s Lila. For us, we cannot fathom with our big big sophisticated telescope and
computers, we cannot fathom even one star. But for Krishna it is just like a little
painting. Just like sometimes Anjali (Hirdyanand’s daughter), she makes little
paintings and offers them to me, and we think how nice, she has made nice painting.
But for Krishna the whole universal creation which is so unfathomable to our mind, it
is just a simple as Anjali has painted on the little piece of paper, He paints the whole
sky and all the planetary systems and all the solar galaxies, all the universes and
everything else. But when a devotee sees this light just by looking at the sky in the
day or in the night, he is simply struck with wonder and laughs, his heart overflows
 with love – Krishna You are wonder. Whatever You provide it is just a wonder.
Anything a devotee sees, anything he hears, anything he smells, all of his senses are
simply totally enlivened and excited to experience Krishna. This is Krishna
Consciousness.
 If we are bored, if we are not finding ecstasy, excitement and adventure at every
moment, that means we are not Krishna Conscious. That means we are still material
conscious. It means we are forgetful of Krishna. It means we still have to go to all
these artificial devices just to forget the boredom, the frustration of the bodily concept
of life. It is a fact.
 So long we are in this state, a devotee wants to purify his senses by always engaging
in the loving service of the Lord, by worshiping the Deity, by having wonderful
sankirtan with so many wonderful devotees, by hearing the glories of the Lord in
Srimad Bhagvatam, by engaging in the service of the Lord, whether it be cooking for
the Deities, or cleaning the children’s toilet. A devotee simply feels such bliss, such
love just by keeping his senses always with Krishna in His service. Nothing is
ordinary.
 Srila Rupa Goswami has said that the Krishna conscious devotee is very attentive and
careful even to executive the most seemingly ordinary activities of life. Nothing is
routine for a devotee. Everything is a new exciting adventure. Even when we rise in
the morning to brush our teeth, you may think ‘O’ I am brushing my teeth again, I do
this every morning, so what. I brush my teeth nicely, I never have to see Muralidhar’s
face in his lila as a dentist. But actually even such an ordinary activity is wonderful,
blissful, it is sweet nectar. Why? Like the Gopis whatever they were doing, this is for
Krishna. Devotee, he is thinking, ‘O’ these teeth, they are for Krishna. Everything is
for Krishna. For Krishna I will be clean, for Krishna I will remove all of these things
that are not very pleasing. It is all for Krishna. It is seva. It is an act of surrender. In
that consciousness I am doing this to please my Gurudev because he wants. In this
consciousness the fact is, you can attain to perfection of life by brushing your teeth.
What to speak everything else that we are doing for Krishna in His service and our
guru’s mission in this world.
 So here we find the cowherd boys and the cows, just like an ordinary day, they are
just taking the cows to the pastures. They do this every day. And the cowherd boys
they are simply playing all wonderful games for the pleasure of Krishna. Having so
much fun. There is never a boring moment in Krishna consciousness. We never see
the Brijwasis ever bored. They are either dancing, or singing, or playing or they are
just running away from terrible demons or they are crying in separation. They are
always busy for Krishna. It is Krishna’s representatives, spiritual master’s service to
keep us busy for Krishna somehow or other. That is Vrindavan.
 Here we find calves, cows, they have been allured by fresh grasses. Just see, how
devotees get themselves in difficulties. They become allured by even the ordinary
sense objects of this world. Just like in your daily activities you are not expecting
anything to happen, but the objects of the senses are always trying to just take you
away from Krishna – just try this, just taste this, just see this, just smell this, just feel
this. The sense objects are always like grass – taste me, touch me. And in this way
we, little by little, get distracted from Krishna’s herd. So these sense objects in the
form of blades of grass which are the ultimate pleasure for cows as grass, they were
just taking them further and further and deeper and deeper into the forest. They were
just thinking, it is alright, no problem, we will enjoy.
 Similarly, we are all part of Krishna’s herd of cows, we are all His devotees, we all
His associates. But the grasses of material life are always trying, little by little, in
 most innocent and unsuspicious way, just trying to – just try this, just feel this, just
taste this, just read this. And so unsuspectingly we are just very nice. So the cowherd
boys, Lord Sri Krishna and Balarama they found cows, they are gone. They started
looking. But here we find how expert the cowherd boys were. They were very
scientific in herding the cows, very intelligent.
 The greatest science is common sense.We were speaking to someone the other day
saying, “the greatest philosophy in life is simple common sense”. We can come up
with all these big big elaborate explanations with all gigantic words to philosophically
explain everything. Srila Prabhupada said,” it is common sense that can explain
everything”. And all this philosophy is, somehow or other, just like you have a thorn
in your leg and you take another thorn to get it out. All this big philosophy which is
so complicated is all just to captivate our complicated minds, just to bring it back to
the point of this common sense. You are Krishna’s servant, just surrender.
 So the cowherd boys, they simply look on the ground and they saw the grass that had
been eaten, and they realized the cows had been here. They were just following
wherever grass was less size because they knew the cows have eaten the grass. They
were following the trail of the grass that was eaten by cows and by the twigs that were
broken. Because wherever they saw the twigs were broken, they knew the cows
stepped on these twigs, we are on the right direction. So they came closer and closer
and closer. And the poor little cows, they were so far away from the cowherd boys,
because eating the grass they just forgot everything about cowherd boys. By the time
they realized, they did not know where they were, they were completely lost. They
had no idea how to come back. They became terribly afraid. A devotee is terribly
afraid to be away from Krishna even for a moment. We should be afraid like
anything that maya may take us away from Krishna.
 So then they started to call out. And Krishna started calling out the cows by their
names personally. And all the cowherd boys calling by their names. The cows heard
Krishna’s voice they became so happy, they began to dance. They were dancing and
running together they came back to Krishna and the cowherd boys. And there was
wonderful reunion between the cows and the cowherd boys. They were all so happy
together again and then they started going along the path back to Nandgaon, their
home, the place of Nanda and Yashoda. Then what happened is this, all of a sudden,
there was massive raging forest fire. This was not an ordinary forest fire. It is
described that the flames of this fire were being kindled by the wind. The strong
winds were making the fire grow bigger and bigger and bigger and soon it was
surrounding them on all sides. And it explains that the tongues of these fires were
their flames. What is the nature of the tongue? Tongue wants to eat something. So
the tongues of these flames were just coming at the cows and the cowherd boys and
all creatures as if they just want to swallow them, eat them, kill them. So they were in
most dangerous predicament.
 So in this condition of life the cows and the cowherd boys, they just turned to Krishna
and they turned to Balarama. And Krishna Balarama, they did not say this but it is
obvious that this is their consciousness, we have been playing with You, we have
been wrestling with You, we have been jumping upon You, sometimes we defeat You
in sports, but now that this fire is all around, we are in a helpless state, not even
massive rains could help us with the amount of time we have to live. No fire-
brigades, our parents they are not anywhere close by. We are completely alone. All
we have is You. Krishna, Balarama, we know Your great power. We know that You
can save us, no one else, nothing else. It is a fact “samsara-davanala-lidha lika”, this
material world is like a forest fire. At any moment, even on the most ordinary day
 when we are doing our most ordinary activity, all of a sudden massive fire can break
nuisance in our lives, and we are in the most desperate, helpless condition, and all we
have is Krishna. We see, it happens every day.
 It is explained by the great Acaryas that generally no body likes the forest fire. But
just by the nature of the wind and the bamboos there is rubbing sparks and the fire
begins. But similarly with no intention, with all good motivations, completely beyond
our control, sometimes terrible, gruesome fire just break out in our life. But the fact
is, this whole world is a forest fire. The tongues of the flames of this forest fire are
time which are consuming all of us bringing us closer to our death.
 So in this condition the cowherd boys and cows they turned to Krishna, please we
take shelter of Your louts feet. And Krishna in such a simple innocent childish way
He said, “all right, everyone close your eyes”. Like a game the children play ‘all right
everyone close your eyes’. So the cowherd boys and the cows, they just accepted
whatever Krishna wanted. Now if you are surrounded by these flames and
everything like this, you will probably not want to close your eyes because something
might commit you and destroy you. When you are in dangerous position that is the
time to keep your eyes open to protect yourself as far as possible. But Krishna said,
“just close your eyes”. Why did He tell them to close their eyes? There are some
more explanations. One is: for them it was a terrible crises, it was life or death. But
for Krishna, it was just another playful game, it is His lila, no problem. Let us make a
game out of it, close your eyes. Another reason is this and this is very important; He
wanted them to prove that they had complete faith in Him. What we would say ‘blind
faith’. When you close your eyes you are blind as long as your eyes are close. If you
want to know what a blind experiences, you just close your eyes. You are factually
blind when your eyes are close. So we talk about blind faith, that means faith beyond
our understanding.
 Faith in the simple knowledge and realization that God is good, that He is all
merciful, He will protect me. In the most dangerous predicament when flames were
coming at them, the time when you need to see and protect yourself most, Krishna
said “close your eyes”. When you close your eyes you are in a helpless condition.
You can do nothing for yourself with your eyes closed. In other words they were
accepting the position that Krishna I am cent percent, in toto, I am yours. Now You
do whatever you want, we don’t know what is going to happen anymore. And
because of this blind complete faith in Krishna, they proved the highest level of
Krishna consciousness. And of course as we have explained another reason that
Krishna wanted them to close their eyes is because sometime earlier at Brahmanda
Ghat, He ate little bit of clay and Balarama and all cowherd boys came to mother
Yashoda: we saw Krishna ate clay, He ate dirt today. Mother Yashoda; ‘O’ people
are complaining that He is stealing butter, people are complaining He stealing sweet
meat and yoghurt and now He is eating dirt. She said, “Krishna, I have so much
yoghurt and butter, sweet meats and everything in the house, why are You eating dirt,
You get sick? He said, no, no I have not eaten dirt, they are lying. Krishna said
“Balarama is a liar and His friends are also liar. In the Bhagvatam He directly tells
that. But actually this lying is in the lila to increase krishna’s pleasure. And actually
whether they lied or not we don’t even know who is the liar. In either case we know
this is a sweet loving lila. The only intention was for the pleasure of the beloved. So
Krishna was in lot of trouble with mother Yashoda, and she looked in His mouth and
in order to get her to forget the idea that He ate dirt, He had to show her the entire
material cosmos manifestation which she saw in His beautiful little mouth. Krishna
was thinking, if they have worried mother Yashoda by saying how I ate a little dirt
 and she was so much concerned about my health. What is she going to think if they
tell her that I ate an entire forest fire. So therefore, let them close their eyes, and they
won’t know how this fire disappears. They have no evidence that I ate it. So in this
way He wanted to protect mother Yashoda from any extra worries, He did it like this,
He told them to close eyes.
 But in every sense, we find that whatever Krishna does is simply for the ultimate
pleasure, satisfaction, protection and guidance of His devotees. And a devotee who
hears these pastimes submissively, will have complete faith, absolute faith that
Krishna is our only shelter in this great fire of material existence.

Qn : This material life, karmis which we are talking about, they go to the movies,
they do gambling, and they enjoy from that. But after certain time they get frustrated,
they want something new out of it. But for the same thing, when we come into
spiritual life, because we are at a very neophyte angle, we regularly hear Bhagvatam
class, we chant the holy name, but we have one fear in our mind that the way karmis
are getting frustrated after some time and it can happen in spiritual life also.
 Ans: It definitely will happen like that unless we are very attentive and enthusiastic.
What you put into spiritual life is what you get out of it. The tendency, after some
years we become very familiar, ‘O’ I have been doing this, then we start doing less
tapsya. That means we stop trying. We stop putting our heart and energy into it.
Generally a new devotee is very inclined to tapsya. He wants to work hard, he wants
to give up things, he wants Krishna. But after we have these things for sometime;
Bhagvatam class, in the beginning I wanted to hear it every day. But then after a
while we think, I need an extra sleep today or it is not very important or it is a long
distance. In this way we become familiar and stop putting effort, we stop putting
endeavor, we stop looking for Krishna in devotional service. We stop being
enthusiastic and then a vicious cycle takes place. Because you are not putting life and
enthusiasm into your service, Krishna is not going to reciprocate by giving you any
excitement in your devotional service, by giving you any taste in your devotional
service. Because you are dealing with it materially, Krishna will reveal Himself
through devotional service, materially. That means we are stopping the tapsya of
trying to surrender our service. But if you are trying to surrender your service and
you are enthusiastic to do the tapsya, doing it for krishna’s sake not because I like it,
not because it is enjoyable, but I am doing a tapsya for surrender for Krishna’s
pleasure. If you do that, the taste the nectar, the excitement, the realization,
everything in Krishna consciousness will become sweeter and sweeter and more
exciting and wonderful every day. So it is the negligence of our conditioned nature
which doesn’t want to surrender and doesn’t want to do tapsya, which creates this
whole syndrome of boredom even in devotional service. Tapsya means, even if I am
bored, it am going to do it for Krishna, I am going to be enthusiastic for Krishna. No
matter what, I will come every day and listen as much as I can, why? Because this is
want Krishna wants from me. If you perform that tapsya, you will never lose your
taste for Krishna, it will ever be increasing. So we have to be very careful. Just like
the example often given; this material world is like a river flowing to the ocean of
birth and death, and in order to reach Krishna you have to swim upstream. It is a
struggle. And if you are not struggling what is going to happen. You are going to go
down-stream. Struggling to be Krishna conscious you …….. go down. That is the
means of attaining Krishna consciousness.
Qn : Maharaja, when we talk about tapsya……………
 Ans. You must accept guidance. The fact is you do not know. The Neophyte devote
does not know what is over-endeavoring, you must accept guidance. Because
sometimes in our excitement we engage in a particular type of austerity that cannot
endeavor. And ultimately because we are still basically conditioned souls, if we put
ourselves in situations beyond our capacity to endeavor, our mind our senses become
very disturbed, bewildered, confused and it is a great determent to our spiritual life.
If a devotee is not getting enough sleep, he cannot think properly, he cannot control
his intelligence, anxieties, just become completely overwhelming. If a devotee does
not eat enough, he becomes so weak, he cannot do his proper service. Therefore
Krishna says “this path is not for one who eats too much or eats too little; sleeps too
much or too little. The supreme tapsya is to take exactly what we require to do the
optimum performance in our devotional service, no more no less. More is sense
gratification, less is foolishness. So we need guidance. We have to get enough sleep
so that we can sit and listen to Bhagvatam class nicely, chant our rounds nicely, and
do our service nicely. But if we sleep too much, we are wasting our life and being
consumed by the mode of ignorance – very delicate. And if we eat too little, we
become weak, sometimes diseased, we cannot do our service properly, we cannot
think properly. And if we eat too much then we want to go to sleep also. But simply
spending our day trying to digest food and our tongue becomes uncontrolled, just
allowing us to do what it wants. You have to control all the senses on all sides by the
intelligence Krishna says. So we have to organize our life in such a way that
minimum sense gratification, maximum service but in such a way that we can
endeavor month after month, year after year, throughout our life. Not something that
somehow or other I will do it but within two weeks I will be on my deathbed. Within
two weeks I will be so much in anxiety, naturally you are killing your spiritual life if
you over endeavor. We have to be very enthusiastic to perform our tapsya in an
intelligent way. What we do is, whatever our bodily maintenance is we take care of it
according to the needs and the tapsya means; every given moment beyond that we are
struggling to do more for Krishna.

Q. How do we distinguish between spiritual happiness and material happiness like

when we are dancing in kirtan etc., how should we distinguish
 Ans. When you don’t feel like dancing, If you dance for Krishna; and when you do
feel like dancing, you dance for Krishna that is spiritual. If you do it only when you
feel like it and you don’t do it because you don’t feel like it, that is material. But if
you do it any way because that is what Krishna likes then it is spiritual. Don’t be
afraid of enjoying kirtan. Krishna loves to see His devotees enjoying kirtan. That is
His pleasure to see you blissfully dancing together. Your happiness is His happiness.
Even if you don’t enjoy it, you are situated only on doing it for His pleasure. We are
not for or against enjoying the devotional service. We do our service as enthusiastic
as we can. We serve the vaisnavas in such a way we can, that Krishna gives us divine
pleasure, we just go on with our service in that mood. If He gives us divine pain we
just go on with our service in that mood.
 “matra-sparas tu kaunteya
 Sitosna-sukha-dukha-dah
 Agamapayino ‘anityas
 Tams titiksasva bharta”
The devotee just goes on with his service and tolerates happiness, distress; pleasure
and pain; honor and dishonor, he goes on with his service with great enthusiasm for
 Krishna. Spiritual is when we are doing it for Krishna; material is when we are doing
it for our own selfish purposes, for the selfish purpose of others.

Qn. Prabhupada is saying in one of the question answer session that if you don’t get
time to read Bhagvatam then you cut down your sleep and read Bhagvatam and then
you go to sleep. Do you think this will improve our spiritual life.
 Ans. What is the whole purpose of sleep. The whole purpose of sleep is to get
enough rest to hear Bhagvatam nicely. We are not sleeping for sleep sake, we are
sleeping focr Krishna’s sake. If we are not hearing Bhagvatam no matter what we
have to cut down sleep. Sleep is to perform devotional service properly. But if we
are not hearing Bhagvatam with attention then we cannot perform devotional service
properly. So you must hear.

Qn. We have seen that many of people have taken over endeavor in the past and you
said that we only require guidance, so when Srila Prabhbupada was here it was not
sometimes possible for people to take guidance ……….
 Ans. First of all don’t think that not to endeavor means to become lazy, you have to
be enthusiastic, you have to surrender, you have to struggle, you have to push
yourself. No doubt you have to push yourself and allow others to push you. But we
have to do with our intelligence. When we say don’t over endeavor doesn’t mean –
that is not just license to become very comfortable. No, you have to push, you have to
struggle, you have to be swimming upstream, you must be running uphill. You have
to push yourself and you have to allow others to push you, but you have to do it with
intelligence. Maya wants you to be lazy, but Maya also want you to go so high that
you are going to burn out like a fire cracker. ……………………………. Over
endeavor is like being a fire cracker and under endeavor is like being dead without
doing anything. But you have to struggle, you have to work, you have to push, you
have to surrender, you have to do it with good intelligence. But the way you are
pushing, the way you are surrendering will have longevity………. As far as you are
accepting guidance………………….. If you are sincere, you are hearing the tapes,
reading the books of great acaryas, of the great devotees, you will receive so much
guidance from them. Practically all your questions will be answered. What to speak
of all the devotees who are present, who have so much experience.
 Do not have guidance means you are insincere, you are not looking forward. Just like
when Srila Prabhupada left this world so many devotees said, “who is going to guide
us now”. No body is going to guide us then how can we surrender, how can we push,
how can we be enthusiastic. So they just decided, we should just live a comfortable
life and chant Hare Krishna. They ended up just going down and down into the ocean
of material life. But those who were sincere, they said Prabhupada is not here but he
is in his books giving guidance, I will find it there. He is within his senior disciples, I
will find it there. Devotees who kept looking, kept finding guidance in the
representatives of the guru, the vaisnavas, in the words of the guru, such devotees are
just going up, up, up, higher and higher and higher, struggling more and more in their
lives. So this is a question of our sincerity. Very sincerely you can justify anything
for this reason or that reason. If you are sincere ‘where there is a will there is a way’.
We want to be inspired, we want transcendental guidance, if we want it Kricshna will
give it. If we do not want it, Krishna will ……..

Qn. You are giving so much emphasis on the Bhagvatam class, now this is the
problem of all the devotees who come for the Bhagvatam class, you said that we
 should get sufficient sleep so that we can hear Bhagvatam class nicely. On the other
hand, many of the devotees just to get more and more association, they try to attend
more and more evening program of yours. Because they attend evening programs,
they do not get sufficient sleep, they cannot come for Bhagwatam class or they cannot
fully concentrate on the Bhagwatam class. So what exactly should we do ? Should e
attend the evening program or not?
 Answer:- Find a house close to the temple and you can attend both. You are
…………. You cannot do that. It is a practical question. The time that you have
is not because of evening programme or morning programme, the time that you
are sitting in trains for four hours every day. You move close to the temple then
those four hours you can go to so many programmes and you have nice sleep.
Does that answer your question? You should know how much sleep you need.
Generally a devotee needs 6 hours of sleep. Somehow or other we should fit it
in. But we should be enthusiastic to hear about the sastra, we should be
enthusiastic for sadhu satsang. And somehow or the other these other things,
we should make ends meet with our eating and sleeping and bodily
maintenance. You have to somehow make ends meet. We should not ……… our
devotional service, not vice-a-versa. That is enthusiasm. Do you know that
Prabhupada’s definition of enthusiasm is – to endeavor with intelligence. We
should all memorize that. Rupa Goswami says “enthusiasm and patience are the
most important ingredients in surrender, the definition of enthusiasm is to
endeavor with intelligence.
