Shiva Bhagavatam, 4th Canto, Chapter 28, Text Number 11.

Tampurim Krishnam Daddhaha Tampurim Krishnam Bhattupriya Chikirshaya

Brata Pradhara Pratipasthita Pratapradvara

tadaha tam-purim krishnam tattupriyatsakirshaya

to that prim city, Krishnam wholesale, brought to his brother Priyakshakishya

Translation in purple by his divine grace, Sheila Prabhupada.

Under the circumstances, the elder brother of Yavana Raj, known as Vajvara, set fire to the city to please a younger brother whose other name is clear itself.

According to the Vedic system, a dead body is set on fire, but before death there is another fire or fever which is called Vajara or Vishnu Jwara.

Medical science verifies that when one's temperature is raised to 107 degrees, a man immediately dies.

This fajara or higher fever at the last stage of life places the living in the midst of the blazing fire.

Vandeham Sri Guru Sri Tathapada Kamalam Sri Guru Vaishnavam Shchap Sri Rupam Sagrajatam Sahagana Raghunitam Vitam Tam Sajeevam Sadayitam Sabudhutam Parijana Saitam Krishna Chaitanya Devam Sri Radha Krishna Padam Saganavadita Sri Vishakhan Vitaam Chau Nama Om Vishnu Padaya Krishna Prechtaaya Bhutale So who wants to be burned in a fire?

Actually sometimes they actually, people actually burn people alive.

They burn them in the fire to burn them alive.

And we see in the Vedic culture, when the funeral fire of the husband, the wife would voluntarily jump into the fire to join her husband.

So these fires are there, the fire of 107 degrees, and then The body is burned in the fire, cremated.

Like when you're working in the kitchen, you can burn your finger, it's not very fun.

Burning is very painful, very painful to burn.

So this material world is a world of pain.

So what do we gain by remaining in this world of pain?

We just go on suffering birth after birth after birth.

In every species of life we have to get old, we get sick and we die.

We are so much overwhelmed by false propaganda, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

But there is no enjoyment here to be had.

Dukkhali and Mishasvatam, it's a temporary place full of miseries.

We have to get out of this tendency to want to enjoy our senses.

This is the madness that we have here in the material world.

Even though these senses are not really us, they're just coverings of the self, still we bathe our whole life in gratifying these senses.

The more I can gratify my senses, the more unsuccessful.

The senses are screaming, give me, give me, give me, give me, give me.

We have to learn how to rise beyond the senses.

But there is another enchantment, that is from Madan Mohan, the enchanter of Cupid.

We are going to be enchanted by Madan or by Madan Mohan.

You are going to be enchanted either way, but you have a choice by who you want to be enchanted.

So we have to carefully study then what's the difference.

What is the pros and cons of being attracted by Madan and being attracted by Madan Mohan?

Well, Madan gives us instant gratification.

So then mother and mother, they made some austerity in the beginning, but then we enjoy it very much in the end.

Just like we can see the example, somebody wants to make money.

So They're sitting there in high school and they're thinking, well, I have some friends who dropped out and are making money.

I don't have any money, so I'm just going to drop out of high school, get a job down at the gas station.

And that way I can save some money and buy a car and enjoy them.

So the student who drops out offers an instant gratification.

The student thinks, no, let me stay in this school here, get my high school diploma, get a college degree, get a nice high paying job.

Take some time, I had to do some austerities to get to it, but in the long run I'll be better off.

There's some austerities in the beginning, no illicit sex, no meeting, no intoxication, no gambling.

Eternal life full of bliss and knowledge?

For those who don't do the austerities, they get to enjoy, well, I can have meat eating, illicit sex, intoxication, and gambling, I don't have to worry about chanting on those beads.

But the result is they go down to the animal kingdom.

They suffer like anything in the animal kingdom.

So we study the present khand, we see that those who are chanted by Mata, they get some in and things out.

They get the nekta in the beginning and poison in the end.

But those who want to serve Mata and Ma, they may get what's called poison in the beginning but nexia in the end.

Of course it's not really that poisonous, but it seems like poisonous.

So I'm not getting up early in the morning, I'm used to sleeping in, but now I have to rise up early, the alarm goes off and I go, oh my god, to get up this early.

But if 1 does the austerities, even though it may seem like poison, what is next to the beginning and poison in the end, what is poison beginning and next to the end, and what's next to the beginning and poison in the end.

So the real question, the real point is that we have to use our intelligence.

We have to intelligently analyze what's in my long-term benefit.

Is the instant gratification, which is fleeting, it comes.

I get it now that it's finished in a few minutes.

There's instant gratification or long-term gratification.

So he's letting very carefully and intelligently decide what his bets are for me.

Instead of being carried away by the dictates of the mind.

We've many times explained the senses, the horses are the senses, the mind is the brain, the intelligence is the driver and the soul is the passenger.

Now if you listen to the senses take control, you see the driver thinks, well I'd rather not bother with all this driving, let me just toss the brains in the air and let the horses do what they want.

Maybe the horses will take you off a cliff.

Instead of throwing the mind to the wind, the senses to the wind, and let them go wherever they want to go, which means destruction or great danger.

If 1 thinks, no, let me take control of the brain.

Let me bring the mind, the senses, the brain and the senses under control, the mind and the senses under control.

So I can actually go to a very proper situation, a very proper destination, a very vulnerable destination.

Bacha vegam manasakro davegam jiva vegam mudara pasta vegam These are different pushings.

It's like when you have to go to the toilet, you run to the toilet, so there's also pushings of the mind, the words, anger, tongue, belly, and genitals saying, give me, give me, give me, give me, give me.

They're pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing.

I've been serving you long enough, my dear mind, my tongue, belly, and genitals.

Through 8, 300, 000 species, I've very faithfully given you whatever you wanted.

So I've heard from the sages, there's something better than this.

See, the scientists can't tell us this, the scientists are also under the control of

We hear from the great sages who are enlightened spiritual beings who are living on the transcendental platform.

Padvedi padipatena paddhis poshtenena seva yadu paddhaksha tithi gyanam gyanenatthat padarshanam.

We hear from the buddha-like spiritual masters who render service to them and then the result is we actually can transcend all this hellish nightmare of sense gratification.

Actually it's interesting to point out, Happiness and the mode of goodness is poison in the beginning and nectar in the end.

That's nectar in the beginning and nectar in the end.

For the mercy of Guru and Garanga, even the austerities of practicing Krishna consciousness, they're not really poisonous.

Instead of eating some nonsense, or sinful food, I can take bishadam, which is even more delicious.

So in Krishna consciousness, it's not even poisonous in the beginning, it's put in nectar in the beginning and put nectar in the end.

So who is that fool who won't be able to take up Krishna consciousness?

You see so many people, they're in contact with our movement, They hear lectures, they take the shahada, and they dance in the kirtan, dance and sing and dance in the kirtan, but still they're carried away.

They're carried away by the Maudhid nation.

Manushanam sahasreshu, kushten jatati siddhaye, yatatam mati siddhvanam kushten, ne mati tat pakaha.

And a thousand among them, 1 may endeavor for perfection, and if a thousand is endeavor for perfection, not even 1 knows me in truth.

And those who do stay, how many actually make it?

Christian hymn, I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in.

The saints, the great sadhus are actually entering into the spiritual world, so I want to be with them.

I want to tag along with those great sages when they attain the Goloka Vandava and I want to be following their footsteps.

So you have to choose who you want to follow.

The intelligence decides who do I want to follow.

The enlightened sages who are entering the spiritual world are those who are experts at gratifying their senses here in the material world.

So we get the intelligence by hearing, hearing, hearing, hearing, from the scriptures, from the part of our spiritual masters, and this way by hearing we get intelligence.

See, right now we have the hardest peer, I mean to say the consciousness of the living entity is actually pure but it is covered by lust, anger, great madness, illusion and envy.

It is like there is maybe a mirror you see.

The mirror can give a pure reflection, but because of the dirt, it's not giving a pure reflection now.

So we have to cleanse the mirror of the heart by hearing, hearing, hearing from scripture and the Bonavide spiritual masters.

By hearing, hearing, hearing, hearing, we become cleansed.

We all hear from the materialists, we become more and more contaminated.

We hear from the materialists that cover the mirabar.

So we don't hear from the materialists, we hear from the sadhus, the saintly persons, the pure devotees of Krishna.

We hear from them, and that cleanses away the dirt.

All the lusts, anger, greed, madness, illusion, envy are cleared away.

So again, we have full facility here in ISKCON Prabhupada.

There's so many lectures recorded, morning walks, so many classes, interviews, so many things we can hear.

There's so much facility to hear from Sri Vipa and from those who are purely presenting the teachings of Sri Vipa in the Bhagavatam classes and other classes and programs.

We hear from those who are purely presenting the teachings of Prabhupada without twisting the words, without subtracting or adding anything.

Those who are purely following Srila Prabhupada, they're preaching also as a potency.

Actually, it's all Krishna's potency coming down to the Deciplice Exception.

1 should follow the path chocked down by the previous Acharyas.

As we've many times given the example, there's a dense forest and you're lost in the forest, but how to get out?

Because there's some betrayal that's being laid by the great saintly person, how to get out of the forest, we'd be a fool to keep wandering around in the forest looking for some sense gratification.

If we just all that pathway chalked out by the greater Acharyas, then our spiritual perfection is guaranteed.

You don't have to be lost anymore wandering here and there, how can I be happy, how can I be free, how can I have this and that and this and that?

Just try to get back to being who you really are by following the great sage.

The Vaishnava Acharya is a blessing by chalking out this pathway to get out of this quagmire.

So who is that person who does not want to follow these great sages?

Actually it's very rare to find even 1 person willing to follow the great sages.

There is so much misguided by false propaganda.

Enjoy this, enjoy that, smoke this, drink that.

So we have to instead follow the propaganda of the great sages, these classes, the books.

By doing this all the dirt on the mirror of the heart can be gradually climbed away.

We can actually reach the point of seeing Krishna face to face, Thapa explains.

Thapa emphasizes the point of Bhagavatam class in Los Angeles.

So we have to become very, very serious now to have no consciousness yet for Krishna consciousness.

Every other consciousness has been kicked out.

Krishna consciousness in every time and every place and every situation.

Whether I'm at home, whether I'm at work, whether I'm at the temple of work, whether I'm with relatives, with strangers, it doesn't matter.

In any situation, I must be Krishna conscious.

Whether I'm happy, whether I'm unhappy, it doesn't matter.

Whether I'm blissing out or I'm miserable, it's like anything in every case.

Let my lips be filled with Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

Not difficult, but we may get difficult by all our mental concoctions.

It's very simple, but we make it difficult by our mental concoctions.

The mind says this, I want this, I want that.

But we've been serving the mind thankfully for millions of long times.

It's gotten us in this, kept us caught up in this quagmire.

So the serving of the mind, to the Manasabha, we need the Papasabha, serving the Supreme 1.

Forget this Manasabha, now we go to the Papasabha, Trishnasabha, Gurusabha, Vaishnavasabha.

So we have to take that serving propensity and put it where we actually get the results.

So the water leaves and branches on the tree, we have to water the root.

So the trying to get nutrition by squeezing the rice in my fingers, I have to give it, put it in the mouth so it goes down to the belly.

It's a matter of proper management you see.

But if we keep mismanaging our energy, trying to get temporary pleasure from this place, in that place, from this place, in that place.

We're just going to torture ourselves more and more and more and more and more.

So we have to see the amazing qualities of Krishna.

Somebody wrote me that they thought Krishna was selfish, but actually they were very offensive.

Very offensive email I got from somebody.

Just like a woman would want to keep a man under her control even though she's helpless and wants to keep that man under her control.

Even though she's not interested in that relationship, she wants to keep him in that relationship.

And he was saying, Krishna is also the same very offensive thing.

But actually I explained to him, even though Krishna is the center of all enjoyment, Krishna gets the greatest pleasure by serving his devotees.

Just like Krishna driving the chariot of Arjuna, or he is carrying the slippers for Nandamayaraj, he takes more pleasure in serving his devotees than the husband of the devotees serve him.

I Just like the example of Prime Minister Gladstone, the big Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

So a very important gentleman came in and had an appointment with him.

So he peeked through the door, what's Prime Minister Gladstone up to?

He's holding me up at this appointment and he was down on his all fours crawling around and his grandson was on his back, giddy up, giddy up.

He's got more pleasure being the horse for his grandson.

He'd be the big, big Prime Minister of the British Empire.

He owns the Supreme Lord that he manifests in the Vaikuntha realm, but in Goloka he likes to be under his devotees.

You're forbidden to enter this place and the gopis are enforcing it.

Sorry, Radharani said you can't come here.

So Krishna takes great pleasure in actually being ordered around by Radharani and the gopis and carrying a coward boy on his shoulders.

He takes great pleasure in being subordinate to this.

Krishna is an amazing personality, the source of all existence.

So we have to get back to that loving relationship with Krishna.

The sole purpose of enjoying loving relationship with us.

Sometimes he is making himself subordinate to us.

But as neophyte devotees we can't expect that we have to take him with all our reverence.

We can't jump to some intimate relationship.

You must have jumped to some intimate relationship with Krishna.

No, we have to approach Him simply with awe and reverence.

Bowing down and being humble, He's so loud.

Servant of the servant, the servant of Krishna.

In the perfection of Satan, we can have so many varieties of relationships.

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