Jaḍa Bharata himself, who indeed had a fear of the material energy. This fear of the material energy, is described in the Bhagavad Gita,

‘sv-alpam apy asya dharmasya
trāyate mahato bhayāt’ (Bg2.40)

It is described as the greatest type of fear, and the greatest danger – to basically fall back down into the material world. There maybe so many dangers considered, but this is the one danger – that a devotee must be really alert of. Sometime ago I was contemplating on the world, and so many times I have been in traffic…..and suddenly an ambulance appeared with flashing lights….and all the cars sort of squeeze to the side as the ambulance flies by. Because it is a matter of life and death! A matter of life and death – that’s like a crucial point. The crucial point in this world (in the view of the materialist) is the matter of life and death. But the truth of the matter is that it’s not at all the crucial point.

To Srila Prabhupada, death means that you are going to sleep for seven months, and then you wake up again….in the long term to resume your activity. Or Prabhupada would say to Dr Durckheim in Germany:

“The body is just made of dead matter. It was never alive in the first place! Where is the question of death? It is the soul that is alive…the soul that cannot be destroyed.

‘nainaṁ chindanti śastrāṇi’ (Bg2.23)

And it is the soul that moves that dead matter around in some way and it makes it act as though it was alive. But it is as dead as can be, all along.”

It’s a fact, that actually fear of death (and at the matter of life and death) is the essential crux of life, then it gets really serious – well that is not serious at all! But falling back down into the material energy, is when it gets very serious! Because then it is a matter of unlimited birth in the material world!

Devotee: In Fiji, when the temple opened in Sigatoka, just over the fence, maybe four or five metres away from a house that was owned by a big businessman. When the temple’s kirtans got going, he’d get very disturbed. So he started a court case to have the temple closed down and move out of the residential area. So the battle at the court was going on for a few months. One day his Christian friend said:

“Let’s go to a lecture by the Hare Krishnas. I want to find out what their philosophy is, because people are always telling me that the Hare Krishnas know the answers to everything. So let’s go!”

So this businessman went with his friend, and Tamal Krishna Maharaja was lecturing. So he put up his hand and asked a question, and Tamal Krishna Maharaja said:

“Come and see me tomorrow at the temple.”

So he came the next day, and was very patient and well behaved. He waited for a long time and finally got to see him, and after asking him the question, Tamal Krishna Maharaja said:

“Oh, I know who you are. You’re our next door neighbour, who is making a court case against us.”

He said:

“Yes, that’s right”

So Tamal Krishna Maharaja said:

“I have a challenge for you. You take these beads and everyday chant sixteen rounds, for three months, and at the end of three months, if you are not feeling differently about the action, then we will move the temple, and it will be closed down. You have my word for it. Otherwise you have to withdraw the case.”

So the businessman was thinking and said:

“Three months is not very long. I will make it six months.”

So for six months he was chanting sixteen rounds. He was doing it secretly and would creep out of the house, jump over the fence and go to the maṅgala-ārati, and chant the sixteen rounds. His family didn’t know anything about this. At the end of the six months they were all surprised that he withdrew the court case. And he became the vice temple president! He was called Nityananda Chandra Das and is now the temple president of Dallas!

So if anyone has a story, then please tell us. I have one also. There was a hells angel, who was the king of hells angels. His name was Peter and he had a big motorbike. He wore a German army helmet and underneath it his face was covered with a black cloth with two holes for the eyes with red rings around it. The letter ‘Jack’, with ‘Lord to spare’ were on his back. He was a huge big guy, and somehow or other met the devotees (as they were travelling on sankirtan) and they gave him some cheese sabji. And he like the cheese sabji…boy did he like the cheese sabji.

After that they came past a few times in the area and each time they met him, he said:

“Cheese sabji!!”

So they had to cook cheese subhji for him. One day we heard a sound in Amsterdam, and it was a motorbike coming into the street. It was incredibly fast and terribly loud, which stopped in front of our door. When the door was opened, there was this hells angel in a German helmet, with everything on, including the black mask, and he said:

“Cheese sabji!!”

And we understood! We didn’t know who he was, but we gave him cheese sabji. So from that time on he sort of became a devotee, but he stayed as a hells angel. So one time we were on harinama and he was sort of following behind. We were going across the street, and were just crossing the street, when there was a car there (the driver in that car was really aggressive) which was trying to drive into us! Out of nowhere, suddenly this hells angel flies into the sky and with his big metal boots he walked over there towards the car, by making noises….’crack…crack…. crack’ and jumped up on the other side and gave that guy a look, who became totally quiet – that was devotional service!

It wasn’t that long but later he died. But I will always remember Peter for having done that devotional service.

In South Africa one of our leading devotees, who was the head of the BBT. He used to be a Christian activist. He used to go around, putting brochures in people’s hand. When he saw the devotees he thought:

“ Let me go and save those guys!”

So he went to the harinama party, and stood there with this brochure and was trying to give it to someone, but everyone was involved in the kirtan, and therefore no one was taking it. Until finally one of them said:

“Oh, we’ve only to take that? Okay I will take it”.

And he walked away.

“I saved him! I saved him!”

But when he got home, he was thinking:

“They looked really happy, did those guys!”

And it impressed him so much that he actually went to the temple and became a devotee, and now he is a big leader in South Africa!

1st Devotee: I know a Prabhu who used to be a roller skater in Denmark, and had an attitude, within the roller skaters and the skateboarders’ environment. Every time he saw the harinama party come by, then he would throw things at them, such as food, rocks and whatever he could find. And he is now living here in Mayapur!

2nd Devotee: There was a lawyer named Mahaprabhu, who lived in Chowpatty, and had joined the movement around in 1978. He was a gṛhastha and had another job. For some reason or other, he was involved in a case, and someone wanted him killed. So that person had hired a hit man, to go and kill Mahaprabhu. So this hit man came to the Chowpatty temple to kill Mahaprabhu. He came to the temple and found the devotees to be so overwhelmingly friendly and nice that he too became a devotee!

Our objective is to purify ourselves.  If we are developing a little bit of humility… humility doesn’t mean that we walk around all day long saying:
“I am so fallen!”
“How fallen am I?”
“Boy, O boy, I am fallen! I am sinful! I am terribly fallen!”

That’s not where humility ends.  That’s a step on the way.  But the next step is, ‘Therefore, I need purification.’  So if one is humble, the next step is to look for purification.  And that is our next step – to look for purification.

One who is not humble will not be able to surrender to all the demands required for purification.  So if we are serious about purification, we must make a real endeavor.

Srila Prabhupada was bringing out the ‘Back of Godhead’ magazine, and later in 1965 he gave the ‘Back to Godhead’ magazine to Rayarama and Harigriya. And what they did with it was: A poem about Narada Muni being a transcendental space man. There was also a poem of Blake. From Harigriya’s point of view, Blake was very spiritual. But from a vaisnava’s point of view, Blake is lost….he was lost. Of course, Blake was a seeker and wrote many poems about seeking for God, but still we would not put Blake in ‘Back to Godhead’ today.

But Prabhupada let them do it. So that was quite something, because this is the magazine that he had to fight for. He had to fight for it in the war. He gave his blood sweat and tears to get it going, and then what are they doing with it? Very few people they would have given a lot of endeavour for something, and would be able to give it to some other, and be completely detached about it………….. and let them deal with it. The tendency would be:

“Do you what I went through in the war for this magazine? Do you realise what difficulties I had to get this paper and what are you making out of it?”

No, Prabhupada, allowed them do it, and now there is a mature magazine made by his disciples, and that is the result of letting them do it! Otherwise, there would have never been a mature magazine. So that is an example of how Prabhupada empowered, by just simply allowing empowerment. Of course, empowerment is not only to be understood in terms of the definition, but that in a mundane world to empowerment is given – which means you let another person take responsibility, but you also give him some tools, or some insights by which he can perform that particular task.

So that definition certainly applies, where empowerment in the vaisnava movement means that you give people the opportunity and you give them some tools, and some knowledge to act. But of course, it also goes further in a sense that in empowerment there is almost no limit! In the ‘Nectar of Devotion’ book it is mentioned that the Lord can empower the devotee as much as Himself, as He so desires. So there is no limit as to how much the person can become empowered!

On his way he stopped in Cologne to attend the Sunday feast there. He once again rocked the crowd with amazing and powerful bhajanas and gave a nice lecture describing how material nature is not able to satisfy us but how actual satisfaction is only found in Krsna.

After the program he drove straight to Belgium and in the late evening arrived in Radhadesh. There he was teaching a one week course on the Caitanya Caritamrita for the college students and he also was giving the Bhagavatam classes on some days (you can find these classes on the Radhadesh homepage).

Now Maharaja will take a one week break to continue with his writing of books until next weekend where he is going to take part in the yearly Radhadesh Mellows, a weekend full of ecstatic Bhajanas.

Enfoy the pictures!

If you cannot view the slide show, please visit flickr!

The suffering of human society cannot be counteracted by material plans. The only way suffering cannot be mitigated is by Krishna Consciousness! So it may be a little bewildering, but I have one example:

Remember the days(at least for those who are grey, old and bold) of when suitcases had no wheels! And you had to carry them in your hands, and you carry them in one hand until your fingers bent, and you couldn’t stretch it anymore. Then you carried it on the other hand, and had to walk one hundred metres. If you were very serious then you carry it on the shoulder. If you had been to India then you would even carry it on the head. Seriously when I came back from India I was proudly carrying the suitcase on my head! In Africa they carry suitcases on their heads.

So the result of karma (when it gets out of hand) is like one of those suitcases which are really heavy, and your fingers are all bent and then you just move it to another place…. and you keep on moving it to another place. In that way by trying to solve problems that have arisen by our material actions, then we are simply moving the problem somewhere else!