Srimad Bhagavatam, 4th Canon, Chapter 22, Text 37, Tadasya testavagnagnih mahamdhaivadurjaya titakshaya dharisriva dhar ebha vishtato jnanam Translation in Purpose, by His Divine Grace, Srila Prabhupada.

Maharaja Prithvi was so strong and powerful that no 1 could disobey his orders any more than 1 could conquer fire itself.

He was so strong he was compared to Indra, the king of heaven, whose power is insuperable.

On the other hand, Maharaja Krishna was also as tolerant as the earth and in fulfilling various desires of human society.

It is the duty of a king to give protection to the citizens and to fulfill their desires.

At the same time the citizens must obey the laws of the state.

Maharaj Kripa maintained all the standards of good government and he was so invincible that no 1 could disobey his orders any more than a person could stop heat and light emanating from a fire.

He was so strong and powerful that he was compared to the king of heaven, Indra.

In this age modern scientists have been experimenting with nuclear weapons.

In the former age they used to release bramastras but all these bramastras and nuclear weapons are insignificant compared to the thunderbolt of the King of Heaven.

When Indra releases a thunder boat, even the biggest hills and mountains crack.

On the other hand, Maharaja Krsna was as tolerant as the earth itself and he fulfilled all the desires of the creation, except the torrents of rain from the sky.

Without rainfall it is not possible to fulfill one's various desires on this planet.

As stated in Bhagavad Gita, Parajanjananda Sambhavaha.

Food grains are produced only because rain falls from the sky and without rain no 1 on the earth can be satisfied.

Consequently, an unlimited distribution of mercy is compared to the water falling from the clouds.

Maharaja Prithvi distributed his mercy incessantly much like rainfall.

In other words, Maharaja Prithvi was softer than a rose flower and harder than a thunderbolt.

This is the qualities of Maharaja Prithvi.

So unfortunately nowadays Our leaders don't have the power nor do they have the mercy of Maharaja Pratyek.

Therefore there are so many horrible things going on with the sanctions of the government, abortions, cow slaughter, all these things are going on with the government sanctions.

The real solution I described in thought for the day to day is we have to educate the people in general in the values of Krishna consciousness.

So unless the people are enshrined to be Krishna conscious, we are going to get rascals to vote, and they are going to vote for rascals, big rascals.

So if we want to actually have good government we have to make the people Krishna conscious.

We have to make the general population Krishna conscious, otherwise we are not going to have good leaders.

So how do we make them Krishna conscious?

We have to be ourselves Krishna conscious.

Like Rupa Goswami said, vatsa vegam manasakrodha vegam etan vetam yo visaheta tirat sabha mahimam So that is what we have to do, my dear devotees.

We have to control the beginning of our mind, the sixth sense.

Robert was asking me how is the mind a sense?

You don't perceive directly with your mind, you can see with your eyes, you can hear with your ears.

Well the mind can manufacture its own thoughts and remember previous experiences that you had, that you sensed with your senses.

You can even invent new things, new fantasies.

So the mind can also experience these things.

It's like your senses can experience, the mind can also experience.

So the first pushing or begging, given by the Guru Goswami, is the mind.

We have a tendency to have our mind wander in the realm of sense enjoyment, contemplating sense enjoyment in various ways, remembering sense enjoyment, conveying sense enjoyment, contemplating sense enjoyment.

So we have to realize that actually better than sense enjoyment is Krishna consciousness.

Just think about it, consider it philosophically.

We said Many times you are seeing through your eyes, your eyes seeing.

Are you hearing through your ears or is your ears hearing?

We can study by simple psychological analysis, we can understand the self and the senses, 2 different things.

So satisfying the senses is not actually satisfying you.

It's like the example Guru Maharaj gave last night in the home program on Hutto, you can polish the cage, if you don't feed the bird within you will die.

So material sense gratification is simply polishing the cage.

That's all it's doing, polish the cage very nicely.

Give the cage all nice facilities, look very beautiful, be very nicely decorated, nice hanging nicely, well cleaned, no tarnish, kindly, very nicely polished cage.

Oh, I forgot to feed that poor bird, you see he's dead in the bottom of the cage.

So the most important thing is you feed the bird nicely.

The second thing is you keep the cage looking nice.

So this we have to understand, this we have to prioritize.

That's not a vacation is there, you have to keep the body fit for serving the Lord, but that's always secondary.

The primary thing is to bring your mind back to Krishna.

Yato yato nishtalati manas chanchalam asatavam, atah patah nayanya atah atmanirvah samyajyat.

And wherever the mind wanders, it is flickering, unsteady in nature, 1 must only withdraw it and bring it back under control of the self.

When you find your mind running off into sense gratification, say, OK, mind, now come back.

You have to understand, my dear mind, your first business is to be absorbing Krishna consciousness.

Bhaja hu re mana, sri nanda nanda na, abhaya charanada vindu.

My dear mind, please now engage yourself in the devotional service of the divine Satya Nanda Maharaj.

Our mind must think, well, devotional service later on, now let me enjoy thinking about this, thinking about that, let me enjoy a little bit, and then later on we'll think about devotional service.

But I can guarantee you if you pamper your mind in that way, letting it have some sense enjoyment, it's going to keep you entangled more and more and more in the cycle of birth and death.

You have to say, oh, my mind, this gets serious now.

My dear mind, you are all in business now to be absorbed in Krishna consciousness.

You may have a desire to think about this type of sense gratification or that type of sense gratification.

You may have the desire, but let me educate you, my dear mind, that those sort of contemplations will cause you to suffer perpetually in the cycle of birth and death.

So my dear mind, kindly understand you now to bring your mind back to devotional service, back to Krishna.

And then you can actually become liberated from all anxiety.

Our anxieties are due to misidentification of this body.

This body goes through birth, death, old age and disease.

So any way that you misidentify or think yourself to be this material body, that is your cause of misery.

So don't think that by gratifying the sense of your body you can become happy.

Again, as follows the indication, not feeding the birds.

You may give yourself very nice sense enjoyment, nice food, nice sleeping, nice sex life.

You may give yourself so much facility for sense enjoyment, but you haven't taken care of the soul within, the bird within is trying to die because you haven't fed the bird.

So our first business is Krishna consciousness.

Then we can have some sense of gratification.

You use sex in service of Krishna, having some children.

But the primary thing is to be fixed in Krishna consciousness.

I must remember my 1 truly own business is always remembering Krishna and never forgetting him.

Krishna's Smaranam is my duty at every minute.

If I'm forgetting him, I have to notice, I have to be analytical, I have to analyze myself.

This thought I'm having right now is a good for Krishna consciousness, it's it bad for my Krishna consciousness?

We have to always be introspective, analyzing our mental patterns.

Is this thought in my mind good for my Krishna consciousness?

If it is, keep going my dear mind, you are in good shape, you are on the right track.

But if you are thinking about something that is detrimental for your Krishna consciousness, you have to say, okay mind, stop it right now, bring yourself back, bring yourself back, bring yourself back.

Previously before he became a great saint, he was a Brahmin, an aristocratic Brahmin, but he was very attractive and prostitute girlfriend.

Indian girlfriend is having a list, they are all called prostitutes, whether professional prostitutes or just some loose girl, they are called prostitutes in Vedic culture.

So he was very attached to having sex with this loose girl named Chintamani.

So he was very attached to having sexual enjoyment with Chintamani.

And 1 night it was raining like anything.

And so he went to the river separating, it was very high, so he grabbed on to, I forget what he grabbed on to to get across the river, some kind of a disgusting thing or dangerous thing.

He grabbed onto that to get across the river.

There was a wall around the house and the gate was locked.

She couldn't hear him knocking on the gate because the rain and thunder was so loud.

So then he decided to crawl over the wall and grab it.

He thought it was a vine, but it was a snake.

He grabbed a hold of a snake and he got over the wall.

She was a very Krishna conscious girl actually, even though she was engaged in these loose activities.

She said, Oh my dear Bivamangala, you are so much attached to having sex enjoyment with this body of mine.

Why if you only had such attachment for Krishna, your life would be successful.

I've been running after having sex enjoyment with this girl, but actually, if I just had that much attachment for Krishna as I do for sex enjoyment, that would be the perfection of my life.

Yes, yes, I will go to Vrindavan, I will become renunciate of Vrindavan.

So he was on his way to Vrindavan, but from his previous bad habit, you know, of looking after women, when can I, oh there is a beautiful woman, can I have sex with her, and I enjoy this woman, bad habit you see?

He had that habit, He trained himself for so long to be a lusting man, lusting after women, seeing how he could enjoy their bodies.

So, there was some very chaste woman actually.

She was very beautiful, very, very beautiful woman.

His decision to go to Vrindavan, they renounced it.

His lust overcame his intelligence and he followed this woman, being lusty.

Let me follow her home and see if I can enjoy her there.

He saw this little rich and catty Brahmin and he said, well, how can I serve this great Brahmin and person?

And he said, well, can I have sex with your wife?

He was a little surprised, but he said, let me satisfy the desire.

So he went to the bedroom, the wife was there, unwilling to have sex with him, and he was totally all excited, all yes, and then he realized, Oh my God, what have I done?

I was on my way to Vrindavan and I renounced everything.

He said, Madhiji, Madhiji, can you please give me your hairpin?

He took everybody and poked out his eyes.

He said, never again I will be carried away by lust for a woman.

Somehow with his blindness he made it to Vrindavan and he got there and he was so absorbed in Krishna consciousness that Krishna had personally come to him actually.

He became a great, great creator of everything.

So we have to learn this example of Vibhamanda-tattva.

Even if we are carried away by lusty desires, we have to learn that if I just had that much attachment for Krishna, then you're for the sense enjoyment.

If I just had that intensity of a desire for Krishna consciousness, how successful would I be?

So we have to take that tendency for sense enjoyment, that desire, I must gratify my senses.

As Prabhupada explains in the Krishna book, lust means a desire for sense enjoyment and love also means sense enjoyment, but not for my senses, but for the senses of Krishna.

So there is nothing wrong with sense enjoyment if you think, how can I get enjoyment of Krishna's senses?

Instead of trying to enjoy my senses, how can I get enjoyment of Krishna's senses?

So the whole Bhagavad Gita is there to explain that, how do you enjoy the senses of Krishna.

Tatram pushpam palam tayam yo me bhagya-payasthati taddham bhakti-bhakti-pavisnavam atayas asnami prayatah manaham.

If 1 offers me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit of water, I will accept it.

So we like to eat, we need eating, it's enjoyable, no doubt it gratifies our senses.

But we have to do it in such a way that it gratifies the senses of Krishna.

So we offer our food first to the Lord and let him enjoy and then if he leaves us some remnants, he is kind enough to leave us some remnants that he is eating and he always does, he is very kind.

Because if he takes it all away that is a special mercy also.

He puts it on the plate and it is all gone.

Krishna, that is a very special blessing.

I have never seen that happen in my life, but that would be a very special blessing.

If Krishna ate it all, there was nothing left.

He takes it, he eats it, he puts it back on the plate.

He leaves it there so we can actually get his mercy, his remnant.

So in this way we have to train ourselves how to always satisfy Krishna.

So We want to be powerful persons, don't we?

But if we engage in sense enjoyment, we lose our power.

The more we engage in sense enjoyment of our own senses, the more we lose our power, our potency.

But if you engage in serving the satisfied and the satisfied.

Krishna, just like Prithvamana, became so powerful.

Says he was compared to the end of the king of heaven.

So we gain strength, we gain power, and also we become very tolerant, very saintly.

A tolerant person can accept all offenses against himself.

He doesn't think he is going to be attacked.

Or you are more offensive than me, I will be more offensive than you.

He takes offense as a great blessing actually.

So in this way 1 becomes very very tolerant.

Of course if 1 offends a devotee, if 1 offends another devotee, the devotee is not tolerant.

How dare you offend a Vaishnavi, he becomes very angry.

You offend the holy name, you offend the devotee, the devotional, the devotee is very very angry.

You have come to, you have made an offensive against the Lord's prashadam, against the holy name, against the devotional, so 1 becomes very strong angered, very powerful strong angered, it is just such a rascal.

I have been rambling on for a while here, see if anybody has any questions yet.

Maybe it is because Jeremiah is not speaking.

Actually as I said before, it is a very, very rare thing.

Even among those people who come to Krishna consciousness, manuṣya-nāma-sahasra iṣu kaśin yatati siddhaye yatatam api siddhanam kaśin and mati-tattvataḥ Out of thousands among men, 1 may endeavor for perfection.

And out of a thousand who achieve perfection, not even 1 knows me in truth.

So that perfection means to come to the level of I am spirit, I have a realization, I am understandable and servile.

Krishna, they have become perfect, almost perfect.

They have proper realization of who they are, what their duty is.

I remember I got initiated in Austin, 3 of us got initiated in that ceremony and the other 2 were gone.

Somehow I'm holding on by the mercy of Guru, Krishna and Vaishnava.

So it's very rare, it's very rare when somebody comes to this movement.

I'm going to get extinct with this movement through the whole life and become qualified to go back to home, back to Godhead.

So my dear devotees who are listening today, now you've come to Krishna consciousness.

You've gotten a great opportunity to come to Krishna consciousness.

Now understand it's a very, it's like a razor's edge.

Walking in this pathway is a very dangerous thing, a little slip and you can be finished.

The razor's edge is a very dangerous thing.

You have to be very careful when you are dealing with a razor because you can easily cut yourself and even kill yourself if you cut in the wrong place.

You need to be very, very conscious and very careful.

You don't become diverted by the material energy, you become offensive towards the vibration of it, become lazy and follow the regulated principles, these things can kill you.

So we have some questions rolling in now, let's see what we got.

Due to past conditioning the mind is impure.

I feel weak, is it possible to chant 100% clean at 100% if 1 endeavors with responsibility and control.

Yes, it is certainly possible to become a pure devotee, It is possible, but we have to understand sometimes it's easy, it's easy going, sometimes it becomes very difficult.

Sometimes I'm doing very nicely, I'm in alignment, I'm going on my practice very nicely, but sometimes the previous dirt comes up, my previous sinful activities, that dirt comes up, my mind becomes fascinated by my previous sinful activities.

So that pollution can come and if 1 is not careful, those dirts come up from previous sinful activities and when 1 is not careful, 1 will go back to those sinful activities.

So when these sinful activities come up, remembrance of previous sinful activities come up, 1 should not be attracted by them, but should cut them off.

Previously there was a king enjoying so much sex pleasure with the palace maidens.

The kings would have harems and they could enjoy sex life with the harems freely.

So he became a great Vaishnava, a renounced person.

Besides the memory of the sex pleasure of those beautiful girls in the palace come up.

He said, My lips are curved with this taste.

I am engaged in the transmittal loving service of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna sometimes these memories come up, my lips curve with this taste and I spit it up.

Some of these previous contaminations and these thoughts and previous sinful activities come up again to bewilder us and attract us.

You are not welcome in my heart, get out of here.

You are not welcome, get out of here you rascal thug.

So in this way we are very determined like a little sparrow determined to drive the ocean even though it seems impossible sometimes we have so much dirt, so many sense and God like desires swimming around our hearts like an ocean of them.

We are determined now I am going to get rid of this dirt, I am going to get out of my heart, I am going to become a pure devotee, I am going to go through all of them, I am I must become the pure devotee, I've taken a vow to follow these principles, I must follow them even if my mind is attracted to break them, I must follow these principles, I must follow these principles, I'm determined, determined, determined, and keep pushing, pushing, pushing, every time the mind goes away, bring it back, bring it back, bring it back.

If we have that determination we can become a pure devotee.

We have to be determined, we have to battle it out sometimes with all these sinful desires circling around the heart.

We have to be very, very determined, I must become now the pure devotee of Krishna.

Why should I try to enjoy sense gratification which is simply miserably?

It forces my identifying with this mature body.

It brings me back to thinking, I am this body, my enjoyment is to satisfy the senses of this body.

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SB 04.22.57 Our Primary Duty is to be fixed in Krishna Consciousness 2023-08-06 Austin.mp3