Bhakti Vikasa Swami's Blog, page 3

A tree is cut; Srila Prabhupada’s response

In this place you [Srila Prabhupada] manifested your divine anger when the devotees foolishly cut down very large and beautiful tree that had been standing in the courtyard. It had been one of the real opulences of the temple. The heavy winds of a Texas storm had knocked it over so that it was leaning on the roof of the prasadam hall at about a sixty degree angle. The devotees, thinking it would eventually come down through the roof, had taken an electric saw and dismantled it limb by limb. You scolded the devotees, saying, “This is your brute Western mentality: if something is wrong, immediately kill it.” The dent where the tree hit the building is still visible in the metal on the edge of the roof above the prasadam hall.

From Dallas Vyasa-puja offering 1990

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Ravana’s advice

(Told by ISKCON’s Sridhara Swami)

Finally, he called me and said, “So you want to take sannyasa?” “Yes, Prabhupada.” “So would you like to wait till Mayapur next year and . . .” I had learned a phrase for preaching to businessmen. Lord Rama, when he shot an arrow and Ravana was dying . . . Ravana was a brahmana, interestingly, a big demon but a brahmana. So to get advice from a dying man is usually a good thing, but to get advice from a dying brahmana is very auspicious. So Lord Rama sent his brother Laksmana to take advice from Ravana. Ravana was lying down, dying. And Ravana explained to him: “In my life I had an opportunity to build a staircase to heaven, but I didn’t complete that work. I thought, ‘maybe sometime later; let me see some auspicious date, not now.’ ” And he said, “That was a good work, but I avoided it.” And he said, “When it came to stealing mother Sita, that I didn’t put off; I did it very quickly without thinking.” So he said, “My advice is that when it is a good thing, do it immediately, and if it is a bad work, then put it off, or think about it.” So the expression is subhasya sighram. If someone said, “Well, let me think; I’ll give a donation later maybe,” I would tell that story, subhasya sighram. So when Prabhupada asked me about putting off sannyasa, I just said, “Srila Prabhupada, subhasya sighram.” (laughter)

From “The Jolly Swami” by Adbhuta Hari Dasa

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Driving children to the homosex dance

Gurukrpa: They feel that if you are inhibited in your sex life — if you only choose women — then you are not progressive. You must become liberated from these moral or, they call it, “hang-up” feeling. “This is not correct.” Now they drive their children to the homosex dance, the parents, and let the boy out, and he goes into the homosex dance. Only men allowed. They take them there.

Prabhupada: Accha?

Gurukrpa: Yes. In Los Angeles. They have only for boys, young men, age seventeen, sixteen, eighteen, nine… Their parents take them, and they let them out of the car, and they pick them up later on in the night.

Prabhupada: Advancement.

Gurukrpa: Yes. Advancement of the pig.

Prabhupada: It is horrible to hear even.

Convesation, 27 Jan 1977

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Rascal gurus claiming to be God

There are many rascal gurus who give their own opinion, but we can challenge any rascal. A rascal guru may say, “I am God,” or, “We are all God.” That is all right, but we should find out from the dictionary what the meaning of “God” is. Generally, a dictionary will tell us that the word “God” indicates the Supreme Being. Thus we may ask such a guru, “Are you the Supreme Being?” If he cannot understand this, then we should give the meaning of “supreme.” Any dictionary will inform us that supreme means “the greatest authority.” We may then ask, “Are you the greatest authority?” Such a rascal guru, even though proclaiming himself to be God, cannot answer such a question. God is the Supreme Being and the highest authority. No one is equal to Him or greater than Him. Yet there are many guru-gods, many rascals who claim to be the Supreme. Such rascals cannot help us escape the darkness of material existence. They cannot illumine our darkness with the torchlight of spiritual knowledge.

From The Science of Self-Realization by Srila Prabhupada

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Radharani, Durga, and us

Radharani and Durga, both are prakrtis of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but one prakrti is meant for controlling this material world, and the other prakrti is meant for blessing the spiritual world.

We living entities also belong to the spiritual prakrti, we are expansion of spiritual prakrti. Just like Srimati Radharani is always engaged in the service of the Lord, anaradhyate. Aradhyate, it is Radharani. Radharani, the name has come from the word aradhyate. Aradhana. Aradhana means worshiping. So everyone is meant, beginning from Radharani and her expansion, Laksmi, in Vaikuntha, laksmi-sahasra-sata-sambhrama-sevyamanam govindam adi-purusam tam aham bhajami [Bs. 5.29]…

Here we worship mother Laksmiji, goddess of fortune, to receive some favor. But in the Vaikuntha world there are many hundred thousands of Laksmi, laksmi-sahasra-sata, and they are sambhrama-sevyamanam: with great respect, they are engaged in serving the Supreme Lord. So we being expansion of the spiritual Laksmi, or Radharani, our duty is to serve Radharani, and through Radharani to serve Krsna. This is the Krsna consciousness movement. We are missing this point, that instead of learning from Radharani how to serve Krsna, we are being controlled by the another prakrti, material energy, Durga, with weapons in her ten hands.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on 16 Dec 1975

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A ticket back to Godhead

One should try to purchase a ticket to go back home, back to Godhead. The price of such a ticket is one’s intense desire for it, which is not easily awakened, even if one continuously performs pious activities for thousands of lives. All mundane relationships are sure to be broken in the course of time, but once one establishes a relationship with the Personality of Godhead in a particular rasa, it is never to be broken, even after the annihilation of the material world.

From Srila Prabhupada’s purport to Cc Adi 1.56

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Master and dog are the same

Sri Krishna Kapoor was a big mill owner. He had a big car, and he took Prabhupada to the beach every morning. Mr. Kapoor’s dog, a big black German Shepherd, sat right beside Prabhupada in the back seat. Mr. Kapoor thought it was completely OK. He used to walk on the beach with his dog, and he would strut down the beach with his chest out, and his dog would be on a leash also strutting with his chest out. Prabhupada said, “Just see; they’re the same, master and dog.” (laughter)

Told by ISKCON’s Sridhara Swami from “The Jolly Swami” by Adbhuta Hari Dasa

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Krsna plays the flute backward

Acyutananda Swami was standing next to Prabhupada that night in the Calcutta temple. “Prabhupada,” he said, “someone put Krsna’s flute in backward.” Prabhupada looked. It was backward. “Krsna is all-powerful” he said, turning to Acyutananda Swami. “He can play from the back end also.”

from Srila Prabhupada lilamrta

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Message for the leaders of ISKCON

This [book distribution] is our most important work. All the leaders should tax their brains for increasing the sales of our books. I have always said that if we simply rely on book distribution all our needs will be met.

From Srila Prabhupada’s letter to Rupanuga; 11 January 1976

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Grhasta-brahmacari

A brahmacari is good for living a life of celibacy, but a person who can live a life of celibacy in the presence of a beautiful and obliging wife is more than a brahmacari. Of course anyone who is stuck up with only one wife is also called brahmacari. You will set a very good example if both of you agree not to have sense gratification anymore and still you remain as husband and wife together. This is possible, however, only if both of you are fixed up in Krishna Consciousness activities. I thank you very much for your sincere endeavor to do this activity.

From Srila Prabhupada’s letter to Hansadutta, January 12,1969

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