Bhakti Vikasa Swami's Blog, page 12

Srila Prabhupada instructs how to have sex

You have to make it public, that “I am going to have garbhadhana-samskara.” It is not a secret thing. It is a ceremony. And then, when she is pregnant, no more sex. No more sex means so long the child is there, ten months, and unless the child is grown up at least six months, no sex. That means once you have sex and then abstain for sixteen months. You know what is that dharma? So who is such a foolish man that for once having sex and then abstaining…? Therefore those who could not abstain, they used to keep many wives.

Room Conversation – May 8, 1977, Rishikesh

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Devotees cannot be called back to materialistic activities

At the moment, devotees in the Western countries are being attracted by Krsna consciousness and becoming uninterested in materialistic activities, and therefore people are trying to oppose this movement. But they cannot possibly check this movement or stop the activities of the devotees in Europe and America by their artificial impositions. Here the words srotranjalir upasprsya indicate that simply by hearing the transcendental activities of the Lord the devotees become so pure that they are immediately immune to the contamination of materialistic fruitive activities. Anyabhilasita-sunyam [Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu 1.1.11] Materialistic activities are unnecessary for the soul, and therefore the devotees are freed from such activities. The devotees are situated in liberation (brahma-bhuyaya kalpate [Bg. 14.26]), and therefore they cannot be called back to their material homes and materialistic activities.

Srila Prabhupada SB 9.24.62, purport

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Killing the demoniac mentality

Whenever God incarnates He has two missions, as stated in the Bhagavad-gita. There Krsna says, “Whenever I appear, My mission is to deliver the pious devotees and to annihilate the demons.” When Krsna appeared, He had to kill many demons. If we see a picture of Visnu we will notice that He has a conchshell, lotus flower, club, and disc. These last two items are meant for killing demons. Within this world there are two classes of men-the demons and the devotees. The devotees are called demigods; they are almost like God because they have godly qualities. Those who are devotees are called godly persons, and those who are nondevotees, atheists, are called demons. So Krsna, or God, comes with two missions: to give protection to the devotees and to destroy the demons. In this age Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s mission is also like that: to deliver the devotees and annihilate the nondevotees, the demons. But in this age He has a different weapon. That weapon is not a club or disc or lethal weapon-His weapon is the sankirtana movement. He killed the demoniac mentality of the people by introducing the sankirtana movement. That is the specific significance of Lord Caitanya. In this age people are already killing themselves. They have discovered atomic weapons with which to kill themselves, so there is no need for God to kill them. But He appeared to kill their demoniac mentality. That is possible by this Krsna consciousness movement.

From The Science of Self-Realization by Srila Prabhupada

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Less advanced, less suffering

In your country, nice city, New York City, but every moment there is fire – dung-dung-dung-dung-dung-dung-dung-dung. Why? Very nice city, big city, big roads, big…, but there is suffering. Who wants this fire? But government has to make arrangement for fire brigade, and because it is great nation, very prosperous nation, there is very constantly, very frequently, there is fire. Frequently. You won’t find such fire in India, at least. We have no such experience that every moment there is fire brigade. Is it not? I am exaggerating? Huh? You see. We have got so many cities in India, but we don’t have such arrangement that constantly, twenty-four hours, dung-dung-dung-dung-dung-dung-dung-dung-dung-dung. At least we haven’t got. Less suffering, because we are not so advanced. The more materially you become advanced, the more suffering. Daivi hy esa gunamayi mama maya [Bg. 7.14]. These rascals, they do not know.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.7.22 – September 18, 1976, Vrndavana

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Eternally a servant of Krishna

Your next question is if Visala Das will be your name eternally. As I have told you in San Francisco, Visala means Krishna, the Greatest, and Das means the servant of. So eternally you are the servant of visal, or Krishna, and thus you are always Visala Das. Krishna has so many different names because He is unlimited in all respects, and you are Krishna’s eternal servant. What your name will be eternally is not a very important subject at the present moment, but it is sufficient for you to know that you are always the servant of Visala, Krishna.

From Srila Prabhupada’s letter to Visala – 16 June, 1969

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Srila Prabhupada’s first Rathayatra

Just this morning when Srila Prabhupada arose from bed, He spoke to me about how He had held Rathayatra early in His childhood. He recounted as follows: “When I was five or six years old, any carpenter I saw I would ask him why don’t you make a Rathayatra cart for me. ’Yes, why not,’ they would say. I would have my father take me to the carpenter shop, but none of them would make it. One old lady saw me crying on the street because I could not have the Rathayatra cart built. She asked my father why is he crying and my father explained because he wants a Rathayatra cart but no carpenter is making it. I have got one, said the old lady, and my father purchased it from her. He bought oil paint for me and I painted. I was also preparing fireworks for the occasion. I saw little books how to do it. My father gave me anything I wanted and thus put my mother into anxiety. And I was very persistent. All day friends and children would help me and I was never lazy. From my birth I was never lazy neither dull. Neither was I ever defeated by anyone. Whatever I would order to my parents or friends must be obeyed. Krishna has given me always leadership. How I a poor Indian, have leadership of the Europeans and Americans? And amongst the authors of the world I am also the leader.”

From a letter by  Tamala Krsna Goswami to God-brothers and God-sisters of New Dvaraka-dhama

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Lord Caitanya’s trick

Seeing that the Mayavadis and others were fleeing, Lord Caitanya thought: I wanted everyone to be immersed in this inundation of love of Godhead, but some of them have escaped. Therefore I shall devise a trick to drown them also.

Here is an important point. Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu wanted to invent a way to capture the Mayavadis and others who did not take interest in the Krsna consciousness movement. This is the symptom of an acarya. An acarya who comes for the service of the Lord cannot be expected to conform to a stereotype, for he must find the ways and means by which Krsna consciousness may be spread. Sometimes jealous persons criticize the Krsna consciousness movement because it engages equally both boys and girls in distributing love of Godhead…. However, since both the boys and girls are being trained to become preachers, those girls are not ordinary girls but are as good as their brothers who are preaching Krsna consciousness. Therefore, to engage both boys and girls in fully transcendental activities is a policy intended to spread the Krsna consciousness movement. These jealous fools who criticize the intermingling of boys and girls will simply have to be satisfied with their own foolishness because they cannot think of how to spread Krsna consciousness by adopting ways and means which are favorable for this purpose. Their stereotyped methods will never help spread Krsna consciousness. Therefore, what we are doing is perfect by the grace of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, for it is He who proposed to invent a way to capture those who strayed from Krsna consciousness.

Srila Prabhupada; Cc. Adi 7.32 text & purport

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How parampara works

TEXT: When someone heard the chanting of the holy name from the mouth of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and someone else heard this chanting from that second person, and someone again heard this chanting from the third person, everyone in all countries became a Vaisnava through such disciplic succession. Thus everyone chanted the holy name of Krsna and Hari, and they danced, cried and smiled.

PURPORT: The transcendental power or potency of the Hare Krsna maha-mantra is herein explained. First, the holy name is vibrated by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. When someone hears from Him directly, he is purified. When another person hears from that person, he also is purified. In this way the purification process is advanced among pure devotees. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and no one can claim His potency. Nonetheless, if one is a pure devotee, hundreds and thousands of men can be purified by his vibration. This potency is within every living being, provided he chants the Hare Krsna maha-mantra offenselessly and without material motives. When a pure devotee chants offenselessly, another person will become a Vaisnava, and from him another Vaisnava will emerge. This is the parampara system.

Srila Prabhupada; Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Madhya-lila 17.48-49

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The sacrifice for Kali-yuga

The sacrificial fire kindled by the sages of Naimisaranya was certainly full of smoke and doubts because of so many flaws. The first flaw is that there is an acute scarcity of expert brahmanas able to carry out such performances successfully in this Age of Kali. Any discrepancy in such sacrifices spoils the whole show, and the result is uncertain, like agricultural enterprises. The good result of tilling the paddy field depends on providential rain, and therefore the result is uncertain. Similarly, performance of any kind of sacrifice in this Age of Kali is also uncertain. Unscrupulous greedy brahmanas of the Age of Kali induce the innocent public to such uncertain sacrificial shows without disclosing the scriptural injunction that in the Age of Kali there is no fruitful sacrificial performance but the sacrifice of the congregational chanting of the holy name of the Lord.

Srila Prabhupada Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.18.12 purport

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Bad money

Ramesvara: There was one question I had, Srila Prabhupada. You have written in the Third Volume of the First Canto [ SB 1.17.39] different instructions for the Age of Kali, how there’ll be compulsory marriage and so on and so on. And you mentioned about the gold standard, that this is very bad, this artificial standard of monetary exchange.

Prabhupada: Oh, yes. It is very bad.

Ramesvara: In the future this is something that we should try to correct.

Prabhupada: You should introduce coin, real money.

Hari-sauri: Real gold coins. No paper.

Prabhupada: Anyone has got money… It is fact. And what is this nonsense, keeping some paper and thinking he has got money? How cheating it is going on, from government’s side. And therefore artificial inflation. You can print, so the price is increased. Because you haven’t got to pay him real money, you print and pay him, and he will ask, “Give me this money. Then I’ll supply.” “All right, take.” You print and pay.

Ramesvara: It’s definitely a means that the government has for controlling. Because they can withdraw money, pull it back out of circulation by increasing the interest the banks give, or they can get more money in…

Prabhupada: Anything done artificially.

Ramesvara: They control the amount of interest on loans. It’s all standardized from what they call the Federal Reserve system. This was introduced during the Depression by the bankers.

Prabhupada: Whatever they do, when you receive money in the paper it has no value. Bad money. It is bad money. It is not good money. If you introduce real metal coin, then there will be no inflation.

January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara, Room Conversation

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