Saṅkīrtana Meeting with His Holiness Krishna Kshetra Swami

oṃ ajñāna-timirāndhasya…

śrī-caitanya-mano-’bhīṣṭaṃ…

jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya…

hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa…

So, after the two previous august speakers it's a challenge to say anything significant. Bṛhadbhānu Prabhu asked me to say something about determination, enthusiasm and spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness in summertime. [laughter]

So, one thought occurred to me in that regard: because everybody is very much in the enjoying spirit in the summer and, as Astaratha Prabhu mentioned, devotees are very jolly. So devotees, when they are preaching, they are also in a jolly spirit, encouraging everyone to also be genuinely jolly. And I was thinking, the basis of this is their very fundamental respect for those whom they are preaching to.

It's one thing to think that someone is very unqualified and by my inconceivable mercy I am somehow raising him up. Such an attitude is one of condescending. The preaching that comes from such an attitude is not going to be as effective as one would want it to be, because the person will feel, “I am being talked down to. I am being considered inferior.”

A devotee, being humble, feels genuine appreciation for those whom he is speaking to. He feels that what is really unfortunate is that here is a conditioned soul with so much potential to serve Kṛṣṇa and he is wasting it on māyā. And how is he wasting it? He is wasting it by so many material activities.

Śrīla Prabhupāda very much expressed this so many times in his preaching — that people are wasting their intelligence. They are simply wasting their energy, their intelligence — everything which Kṛṣṇa has given them. What are they doing with it? They are wasting it. So he was actually feeling like that: people have so much potential to serve Kṛṣṇa.

And I think this is one point among so many points which we can consider to make our preaching, especially in the summertime, effective. We are doing preaching in so many ways: we are distributing books, we are distributing prasādam, we are collecting lakṣmī in different ways — all of these things have to do with evoking from people some energy which we want them to direct to Kṛṣṇa.

So, in the summertime there is a special challenge, because people seem to be more than ever caught by the hooks of māyā; they seem more than ever to have their noses in the ring of the mahā-māyā energy. It seems that they are being pulled even more strongly than ever — that's one side of it. And the other side of it is that as they are being so pulled by māyā, if we are not very strong in our… if we are not very clear in our understanding of what we are doing when we approach such people, then it may happen that as we see them being pulled with the ring of māyā in their nose, we may start thinking, “Yeah, actually, that's a pretty good way to go. Maybe I should also go that way.”

We may particularly become a little bewildered, a little confused, because in the summertime, unfortunately, in this Age of Kali, people tend to wear less clothing, isn't it? It's warm and they think, “OK, time to let loose. Let it all be exposed.” So we have to be very clear in our minds about what we are doing; we have to be very clear in our minds about what those exposed bodies actually are — namely piles of so many nasty things, which are nicely packaged, but inside…

As Suhotra Mahārāja put it, they go out on the beach, they stretch out for the sun to catch the rays, and thus they become “stool pakorās.” Perhaps a little bit graphic, but it makes a point. So we should keep that in mind.

And another point in that connection is: what is it behind this desire that they have to, you know, kind of expose themselves? They want attention. Poor conditioned souls are all lonely and they feel that they need more attention.

Now, the fact is, as they are walking down the street, there are ten million other people also walking down the street. They are thinking, “Everyone is looking at me,” but actually, there are ten million other people that no one is looking at. So if you can be the person who shows appreciation for that lost soul who wants attention, you can actually affect that person's heart.

Not that you become attracted to their outward appearance, but if you can be attracted, in a sense, to their inner identity — attracted to the fact that they are spirit soul, part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, and actually they want to be attracted to Kṛṣṇa — so, with that idea, then you can go on being determined and being enthusiastic even in the summertime.

Another aspect of summertime is that it gets hot. Now, in Sanskrit there is the word tapaḥ. Tapaḥ means “heat.” And from that there is tapasya — we perform activities which generate heat. That means that you do austerity and from this austerity, just like when you flex some muscle it generates heat in the muscles. So by engaging in this austerity of distributing Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the time when it is hot, then certainly this is particularly appreciated by Kṛṣṇa. And one makes double advancement, or one can make additional advancement, just by accepting that austerity.

Of course, here in Europe it doesn't really get that hot — not like in India, not like in South America in January. So that's another point to consider.

I wanted to go back to the point Satsvarūpa Mahārāja was making about compassion. In this compilation of Śrīla Prabhupāda's statements about preaching, Preaching Is the Essence, there is one section called “Preaching is based on compassion.”

Prabhupāda writes in the Antya-līlā of Cc.:

“One who identifies himself as a follower of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu should feel like Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who said, iha-sabara kon mate ha-ibe niṣṭāra: ‘How will all these yavanas be delivered?’ Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was always anxious to deliver the fallen souls because their fallen condition gave Him great unhappiness. That is the platform on which one can propagate the mission of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.”

So Prabhupāda is saying here, “One who identifies himself as a follower of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu should feel like Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.” So the first step is that we identify ourselves as followers of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. And for that it's very helpful that we pray to Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. We pray to Lord Caitanya and also to Lord Nityānanda that, “My dear Lord Caitanya, please let me be one of Your followers. Let me not forget, as I am going on from hour to hour, day to day, distributing Your mercy, let me remember that I am Your servant. And let me also acquire that mood that You have. You are feeling some unhappiness for conditioned souls. So let me also, at least to some small extent, let me also feel that.” And then by that prayer Lord Caitanya will certainly help.

Then, a final thing I was thinking about regarding jolliness. I just read — one or two days ago, and I can't remember where; it must have been a Saṅkīrtana Newsletter — many of you must know the story of one devotee. As it so often happens, when a devotee has difficulty distributing for some time, he may reach a point of almost desperation in his desire to please guru and Kṛṣṇa. And then Kṛṣṇa will give some inspiration.

So in this particular example of that, one devotee went… At the end of the day he decided to go door to door, and he had two books: one was dark brown color and the other was white color. So he went to the first door and he said, “I have a bar of chocolate for you, and I also have some whipped cream.” So the person said, “Oh, OK.” (Huh? That was you?) So he was, you know, in a jolly mood: “I have some chocolate and some whipped cream for you.”

So he was doing it as a kind of a joke, but the person kind of caught on: “Oh yes, chocolate and whipped cream — why not?” So he appreciated the mood and he could relate on that platform; he took the books. In this way he actually distributed very many books.

And a year later he went back to that same place and knocked on those same doors; he wanted to see what now the effect was. (From Astaratha Prabhu we heard that one has to be responsible in preaching, so we may think, “Well, this sounds a little irresponsible, just talking about chocolate and whipped cream.”) So he went back and he was knocking on doors and people were opening and responding very positively, “Oh, here is the one with the chocolate and whipped cream.”

And he went to one door and the person, before he said anything, the person remembered from one year before. He said, “Oh! The chocolate man is here!” And that person had not taken both; he had taken just the brown book. So he said, “I got the chocolate, now I want the whipped cream.” So I thought that was very nice… Anyway.

Actually summertime is a good time to preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness because people are, on the one hand, in enjoying mood, but also they can be more open, more easy-going, they can sometimes be more relaxed, isn't it? So you have to kind of tune into their mood without being affected by their māyā and give them the highest pleasure.

All right, any comments or points? Yes.

Devotee: I thought of another incarnation of Kṛṣṇa who is kicking, as occurred to me afterwards; this Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is kicking out all pseudo-religion. So maybe you could speak a little bit about that?

Krishna Kshetra Swami: Yes,

dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo ’tra paramo nirmatsarāṇāṁ satāṁ
vedyam vāstavam atra vastu śivadaṁ tāpa-trayonmūlanam
śrīmad-bhāgavate mahā-muni-kṛte kiṁ vā parair īśvaraḥ
sadyo hṛdy avarudhyate ’tra kṛtibhiḥ śuśrūṣubhis tat-kṣaṇāt.

You like that verse? Śrīmad-Bhāgavate mahā-muni-kṛte kiṁ vā parair: it says, “What need is there for anything else? Bhāgavatam includes everything.”

Actually, we should be confident of this point — that aside from the fact that Bhāgavatam is the best of literature, we have the best translation of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Did you know that?

Just a couple of weeks ago I was in Gītā-nāgarī and I met Hṛdayānanda Goswami, who is presently studying at Harvard University. You've heard of Harvard University? Yeah, it's like Oxford in England, yeah, Cambridge. So he is working on his doctor degree there in Sanskrit and Indology. And some time ago there was a symposium, a kind of conference on Sanskrit, and he was invited to give a talk. So he spoke on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. His subject was that the best of all translations of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is that of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. [laughter]

So, the various speeches in that symposium are now being compiled, including his speech; it's now being compiled and published by Harvard University in a series of books which is a very famous and very prestigious series of books called the Harvard Oriental Series. There is one professor in Chicago who's been trying to get a book published by the Harvard Oriental Series for many years, and it's not happening, at least not yet. But Hṛdayānanda Mahārāja is getting his article in this one book in this famous series which is simply glorifying Prabhupāda's Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. [Jaya!]

So the scholars, when they read such statements which are in the Harvard Oriental Series, they think, “Must be serious, must be something true.” So it really would be the time to go around to the colleges again with Prabhupāda's books.

Another point is that, knowing that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is sufficient in and of itself and at the same time having the proper mood of respecting those that we are preaching to, we should also have respect for what they consider to be authoritative. Now here in Germany most people — although nobody bothers to read it anymore — most people have some kind of a sentiment for the Bible.

It is explained by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura that one of the ten offenses in chanting the holy name is to blaspheme Vedic literature or literature in pursuit of Vedic literature. So that means we should also have appreciation for something like the Bible, which is pursuing, it's trying, you know… maybe it gets a little muddled and confused, but it's in that direction of Vedic literature, because it describes the supremacy of God…

(I want my blanket! Oh yes, the world is such a miserable place…) OK. Yes.

Indulekha d.d.: About the compassion, isn't it that the mode of compassion is little bit [indistinct] — how much more happy we are than the person to whom we feel compassionate?

Krishna Kshetra Swami: Whether we are more happy than the person that we are supposed to be compassionate to? In other words, if somebody out there seems to be really enjoying and you're feeling miserable, how can you be compassionate to them?

Well, one point is, you have to see that they are apparently enjoying, but how long will that enjoyment last? And you may be apparently not so happy because it's tough being out there and people are insulting you and so on. But your happiness is a much deeper happiness than theirs is. It has a lot more substance than their happiness…

(Up, coming back. It's amazing, that's what she wanted! Just have to make it temperate, and then everything will be there.)

So, you have to — if you want to compare… But the devotee shouldn't feel envious of someone else's happiness. Rather, as Śrīla Prabhupāda sometimes would say, commenting about someone who is very wealthy or in some way successful, he would say, “Oh, he deserves it. He deserves it; he has performed good karma, pious activities, so he deserves it.”

So if someone is materially happy, a devotee is not envious of that, but he is not forgetful that that person's happiness is endangered — it can be lost at any moment, can be finished. Yes.

Devotee: But to me it seems there is no point to preach to such a person, because it's said, if one is not in such a good condition like… or if people are not willing to listen to good instructions, there is no value to preach to them.

Krishna Kshetra Swami: Yeah, that's another consideration. That's a matter of who is receptive and who is not. For that the devotee always has to have his sensibilities out, you know — he is constantly kind of judging, “Is there going to be some result here or not? Is somebody receptive in some way or not?”

Devotee: There is a story in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam of Aṅgirā Ṛṣi and Nārada preaching to Citraketu, I think, and he couldn't preach in the first attempt. Sometimes one has to wait.

Krishna Kshetra Swami: Yeah, right. That is there also. We can always offer our — however brief it may be — we can offer our association. And that is always an important point — however little the result may be sometimes, just offer some association by offering a book, by offering an invitation, by offering prasādam — that will have its effect. However much a person can take, that much we are ready to give. OK. Yes.

Devotee: About the summertime. On the streets, is there any special preparation one needs before going — chanting and reading, or…?

Krishna Kshetra Swami: To prepare for going on the street in the summer?

Devotee: …because anyway, let us say, going on saṅkīrtana, because sometimes we are thinking, “I will not be affected,” but the fact is that we will be affected by māyā.

Krishna Kshetra Swami: Well, it might be that one requires more frequent rejuvenation by some, you know, a brief pause for some reading or some chanting. It might be that, “OK, the māyā is thick out there, so it's going to have to be every… whatever, one hour or every two hours that I stop for a few minutes and pull out a book and read a page or two pages.” Whatever is necessary to keep the pace going. Whatever is necessary to keep the pace going.

We always use that example of the long-distance runner. You may, in the summertime, be able to keep going all day for one day, or two days, or five days, or six days, or two weeks, and then all of a sudden you are out — you're down and out, you're finished. Because the little worms of māyā have eaten their way under your skin and now they are chewing at your heart.

So, rather than do that apparently heroic sprint, it may be better to do an apparently less heroic long-distance run which may involve apparently slowing down sometimes. But the slowing down should not be such a slowdown that, you know, that's another opportunity for māyā to grab you, sweep you away. In that pause — in that “pausa,” that you stop for some time — it should be active also, by either reading or chanting or both.

Devotee: Could you also speak about Lord Caitanya, because this service is so… one is taking risk actually. And Lord Caitanya is also protecting in this aspect? Protecting the heart of the devotee or protecting the…?

Krishna Kshetra Swami: Well, I think that's brought out kind of indirectly by this quote that we mentioned: “One who identifies himself as a follower of Lord Caitanya.” So, when we say “being protected by Lord Caitanya,” it means that we are identifying ourselves as a follower of Lord Caitanya. So when one has that identification, then one will naturally be protected by Lord Caitanya.

And that identification has to be there hour after hour. One has to think, “There is not just me all alone out here. There is the whole disciplic succession behind me, and they are all cheering me on.” They are saying, “Wow, look at that devotee, he is out there! Even in the midst of all of that māyā in Munich or Passau, or wherever. Indeed, it is amazing!” And they will be calling attention to various demigods, “Just see this devotee! He is out there despite so many troubles.”

So if you remember like that — “I'm not here alone; Lord Caitanya is here with all His associates.” Just like if you are… We used to do book distribution together with harināma, back in the old days! Back in the old days we used to do it with kīrtana. You could always hear the kīrtana somewhere was going up and down the street, wasn't it? And, you know, there was no problem remembering that you were part of Lord Caitanya's mission.

Devotee: Sometimes when I really suffer on the street, then I thought, “So I am suffering here, I have to get rid of my material desires. But at least all these karmīs, if I give them a book, then they have to also give up their sense gratification.” So, what kind of… [indistinct]

Krishna Kshetra Swami: Yeah, that's a nice point. You are actually being humble in that way, thinking, “I am not free from material desires; they are not free from material desires. What is the difference between me and them? The difference is that I know that I have material desires and have to make some endeavor to get rid of them. They don't know that. So if I make an endeavor to get them to know that, by giving them these books, then I will also certainly benefit, get blessings of Lord Caitanya and thus get free from material desires.”

Devotee: Is this not what is called Schadenfreude in Deutsch? To take pleasure when you see pain or other thing.

Krishna Kshetra Swami: Maliciousness. Ah, is it malicious to catch somebody — it's the example of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī — as they are playing with a kite on the roof (in India the roofs are all flat), as they are playing with a kite going toward the edge about to fall off — is it malicious if you catch that person and stop him from falling over, and say, “Hey, what are you doing? You are about to fall over.” Is that malicious? They might get angry, “What are you doing, I am flying my kite!”

OK. Jaya.

Śrīla Prabhupāda ki jaya!

Transcendental book distribution ki jaya!

Transcendental prasādam ki jaya!

Transcendental everything-else distribution ki jaya!

Devotee: Summertime season preaching ki jaya!