KI 25_19_Coming Closer To Srila Prabhupada

KI 25_20_All Desires Fulfilled

KI 25_21_Teach Me To Sing

Deities are known for their intimate connection with their devotees, and the secret in life was given by one of my godbrothers, who used to live in Govardhan. He lived and passed in Govardhana. His name is Gopīparāṇdhana Prabhu. He had stayed where we were, right next to where we were this morning for breakfast. He lived just down the road from there, in a little house with his wife and child and a couple of cows. He was a great scholar, a linguistic scholar. He helped to translate many of Prabhupāda’s books, including the 10th, 11th, and 12th Cantos. Also, he was the great expert who was able to bring the Bṛhat Bhāgavatamṛta to light in a perfect way, praised by the greatest scholar of Gaudiya Vaishnavism at the time in the academic world Joseph T. O’Connell who said, "Nobody else in the world could have done that." That was the great Gopīparāṇdhana Prabhu.

And he said once, something that I’ve always kept with me and that anyone can live by for great success in life, and I would like to tell you.He said, "It’s not what you know that counts, it’s who you know and what you are." So we learned this lesson from Śrīla Kavirāja Gosvāmī, from Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, to find the pure devotees and follow in their footsteps. Even if we feel unqualified, even if we are unqualified, we become qualified. Kalpante ye 'nu tān iha—in this world, from whatever position we’re in now, even Sūta Gosvāmī says in the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam (SB 1.2.25):

bhejire munayo ’thāgre
bhagavantam adhokṣajam
sattvaṁ viśuddhaṁ kṣemāya
kalpante ye ’nu tān iha

Which means that previously, all the great saints worshipped the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is beyond the three modes of material nature. Anyone who follows in their footsteps and tries to emulate what they have done according to their capacity becomes eligible for the same result that they attained. So we come here begging for the mercy of Śrīla Mādhavendra Purī, thinking of how he carried wood in his hands for the Lord. And we can remember that he’s considered the most celebrated of all Vaiṣṇavas in our sampradāya, as he set the stage for Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu to come and teach the emotional love for Kṛṣṇa, which had not been taught ever before.
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It's Who You Know and What You Are That Counts | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Govinda Kund | 21 Oct 2025

When distributing books and asking donations for something other than that related to the book, one may become nauseous after some time, because there's no challenge to that, and it's also kind of off-point. We are not begging for money. We don't need their money. And I, I personally feel that it's best to be ultra-straightforward with people, and when you are, then you have more potency. I like to tell people, 'We don't need the money. It's for you to give. It's your penance. It's your tapasya to give something so you can read the book; otherwise, you won't be able to understand it.' That's so stark, and sort of the last thing they expected. Because with beggars, they're always trying to make up some excuse why it's a good idea and why we really need the money. And then they're in the power position to give or not give. But when you tell them, 'I don't need your money. This is for you to donate so you can get the sukriti in order to understand the book. Otherwise, you won't be able to understand it.' I like that better.

Years ago, I heard about this devotee in Russia who gave everyone complete free will. He would tell people, 'You know, you can give for the book or not give for the book, and I'm still going to give it to you.' And he really meant it. He didn't do it as a technique, and then he gave them freedom to do it, so they're using their free will to give or not give, not trying to trick him, or say, 'Oh, it's for starving babies or something like that.' Who are you won't give for a baby? When he gave them free will like that, he said it was amazing how much spiritual power he experienced. He said, 'Some people didn't give, but then other people gave way more.' And then I started doing it myself, it's a much more exhilarating experience.
(excerpt from the discussion)
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#62.2  Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Instructs Sanatana Gosvami-1 | Govardhana Readings | 12 Oct 2025

Cc Madhya 20.57-123
https://vedabase.io/en/library/cc/madhya/20/advanced-view/
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A sinful person goes to a holy place of pilgrimage to be purified. In a holy place, there are many saintly people and temples of Lord Viṣṇu; however, the holy place becomes infected with the sins of many visitors. When an advanced devotee goes to a holy place, he counteracts all the sins of the pilgrims. Therefore Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira addressed Vidura in this way.
Since an advanced devotee carries Lord Viṣṇu within his heart, he is a moving temple and a moving Viṣṇu. An advanced devotee does not need to go to holy places, for wherever he stays is a holy place. In this connection, Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura states, tīrtha-yātrā pariśrama, kevala manera bhrama: visiting holy places is simply another type of bewilderment. Since an advanced devotee does not need to go to a holy place, why does he go? The answer is that he goes simply to purify the place.
(Cc Madhya 20.57 purport)

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#63 Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Instructs Sanatana Gosvami-2 | Govardhana Readings | 13 Oct 2025

Cc Madhya 20.124-191
https://vedabase.io/en/library/cc/madhya/20/advanced-view/
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Even if one has taste, it may be difficult to find an environment in which we are uninterrupted. So it's by design that we come all the way out here and sequester ourselves so that we can get, I like: Ekachakra Prāṇa said, "we get into flow. You can do so much when you're in the flow. And that's what yajñas are like: you arrange it just so that there are no interruptions whatsoever, so you can go deeply within the chanting of sixteen rounds, or the reading and things like that.

This morning at the ICC meeting, Guru Prasād Swāmi gave a talk. And during his talk, he was just trying to rally all the leaders that were there. He said in rare occasions only he would look at his phone in the morning. But the general rule is he doesn't turn on his phone until after the morning program. He was urging devotees to get into deep flow and absorption in the sādhanā.
(excerpt from discussion)

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#64 | Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Instructs Sanatana Gosvami-3 | Govardhana Readings | 13 Oct 2025

Cc Madhya 20.189-273
https://vedabase.io/en/library/cc/madhya/20/advanced-view/
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If Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta is giving a class, it's a no brainer. You want to stay and listen and yeah, and that's the more mature response. If you have the choice to go here, there, and everywhere, or be there for the hearing and chanting with your spiritual master, it's a more mature thing to stay and just hear and chant. 

But you know, it's hard because there are so many devotional activities: śravaṇa, kīrtana, Viṣṇu-smaraṇam, pāda-sevanam, arcanaṁ, vandanaṁ, dasyam, sakhyam... it's hard to fit them all in and keep up with everything. Don't you find that? There are so many choices and so many places to be, so many festivals to go. I didn't go to the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Kṛṣṇa Balarāma temple. They were like "where were you? How come you didn't come?" I was like, "Well, I was in another place at that time that I had to be also." How can you be everywhere at the same time?

So we have this conundrum that Kṛṣṇa has given us so much option for bliss that we can barely take it all in. Even if you try for billions of lifetimes, you'll never be able to keep up. Even if you just tried to visit all the temples in India, you wouldn't make it in a hundred lifetimes, not in a thousand lifetimes—even the ones in Vṛndāvana practically, what to speak of all over India. The whole place is a big tīrtha. It's called Puṇya-bhūmi.

But now the whole world is like that, too, because you can go anywhere. I went to Scotland and drove way out there in the country. What is that? Karuṇā Bhavan. I had never been there before. It was ten years ago, we drove up there, and I walked in, all jet-lagged, and I looked in the temple, and Gaura Nitāi were there. The first Gaura Nitāi I ever met in San Francisco! Same Deities somehow traveled across the ocean and went to Karuṇā Bhavan. It was a multi-deity trade or something, I don't know. I was like, "What are you doing here?" They were like, "What are you doing here?"

So it never ends. I mean, that's why devotional service is bliss, because the variety, combinations, and permutations of hearing, chanting and seeing Deities, never come to the end of it.

(excerpt from the discussion)

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#65 | Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Instructs Sanatana Gosvami-4 | Govardhana Readings | 13 Oct 2025

There is a section in the Third Canto of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, in which Vidura asked some questions to Uddhava. And Uddhava, before he can answer, has to pull himself away from the spiritual world. He is standing on this earth, but he has to pull himself away consciously from the spiritual world to be able to answer Vidura. This is something that the ācāryas note: that when one becomes perfect in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, although we may be walking on this earthly planet, still, our consciousness is fully engaged in Kṛṣṇa's pastimes in the spiritual world.

So this was Uddhava, who is very, very dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa, who carried the message for Kṛṣṇa, who discovered the greatest devotees and commemorated it by his prayers that he wrote glorifying the gopīs of Vṛndāvana. And here we are, Uddhava Kuṇḍa. We can also pray that somehow or other, we can get the dust of the feet of the great devotees.

When we were driving in the rickshaw, somehow we took a shortcut. We drove across a dusty road, and I could hear that Sudhīr Mādhava was joking in the front seat about how we were getting a rajo-'bhiṣekam. Do you know what that is? It's a dust bath. And that's my final point: what is most recommended for advancement in devotional service?

rahūgaṇaitat tapasā na yāti
na cejyayā nirvapaṇād gṛhād vā

This comes from the story in Fifth Canto with Mahārāja Rahūgaṇa and Jaḍa Bharata (SB 5.12.12), who says that you can't make advancement in this world by simply performing severe austerities. Some Yogīs, they sit in cold water up to their neck, or they sit around hot fire in the summertime, or they decide not to eat for long periods of time—whatever austerity somebody takes up, he said, "This is not how you make spiritual advancement." He says, "Until you get the rajo-'bhiṣeka, the dust bath from the feet of a pure devotee, that's when you make advancement."

On a very practical level, this means to take up some service in the guru-pranāli-paramparā, become the servant of the servant of the servant of the servant. This is the method by which we can go back home, back to Godhead, following the mood of Śrī Uddhava: that let me be insignificant in service, not be insignificant, but to feel insignificant, and then become significant by taking the dust from the feet of the great devotees, meaning that I absorb myself in their mood and method for practicing Kṛṣṇa consciousness and spreading it all over the world.
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Lessons From The Life of Sri Uddhava | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Kartik Immersion Retreat | 21 Oct 2025

Cc Madhya 20.274-335
https://vedabase.io/en/library/cc/madhya/20/advanced-view/
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In the Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa says, 'Whatever nature you have, you should engage that as a meditation on Kṛṣṇa and to work for Kṛṣṇa.' And the more you're able to—as Prabhupāda the other day used the word—dovetail, your propensity for Kṛṣṇa's service, then the less affected you will be by the modes of material nature from your work.

Because it's proven in the Fifth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā, where Kṛṣṇa says (BG 5.18):

brahmaṇy ādhāya karmāṇi
saṅgaṁ tyaktvā karoti yaḥ
lipyate na sa pāpena
padma-patram ivāmbhasā

That when you are doing your work, whatever nature you have, but sangam˙ tyaktvaˉkaroti yaḥ-- you divorce yourself from, you don't have a saṅga with the result; you are offering it to the Supreme as you're doing it. Lipyate means to get some of the pollen that gets smeared; it means to be smeared by the material nature—like how to walk through without getting smeared? lipyate na sa papena --what do you get smeared with? Pāpa. But you don't get that if internally you develop the idea that whatever I'm using my body for, just like Lord Brahmā in the mode of passion was using his body to create the universe. He said, if you transfer internally your desires, that you're doing it for Kṛṣṇa—sangam˙ tyaktvaˉkaroti yaḥ- all the work is for Kṛṣṇa, then 'lipyate na sa papena,'  you don't get that after-effect.

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#66 | Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Instructs Sanatana Gosvami-5 | Govardhana Readings | 14 Oct 2025

Part 17 of Srila Prabhupada's series of classes on the Nectar of Devotion given in Vrindavan, India.

A transcript of the class can be read here: https://goo.gl/Y3AfCf.

1972 Original Audio

Nectar of Devotion Part 17 - November 10, 1972 - Vrindavan

His Divine Grace, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977) is widely regarded as the worlds pre-eminent exponent of the teachings and practices of bhakti-yoga to the Western world. He is the Founder-Acharya (spiritual master) of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a world-wide movement dedicated to the philosophy and practice of Krishna Consciousness.

The Prabhupada Podcast offers an easy way for listeners to hear Srila Prabhupada's classes on a daily basis. As a project of the Bhaktivedanta Archives, the recordings offered in the Prabhupada Podcast are the newly available raw audio files of Srila Prabhupada's discourses.

For more information on ISKCON and Srila Prabhupada, please visit www.iskcon.org.

For more information on the Bhaktivedanta Archives, please visit www.prabhupada.com.

Nectar of Devotion Part 17 - November 10, 1972 - Vrindavan

PrabhupadaPodcast