Bhagavat Katha Day 7
Hare Krishna Utsav
31-12-2023

A very warm welcome to you all. I want to welcome you today and so please accept my welcome! Shouts of Haribol! You’re most welcome. I am thinking that just as I am welcoming you all now, one day in the near future, may you have the same welcome in Vaikuntha Dham! Shouts of Haribol.

You have put this turban on me. so finally Tukaram Maharaja went back to his own village. And the village that he comes from is all of our’s village also. That is because Vaikuntha or Vrindavan and now they say Pandharpur also is our home. Also Bhu Vaikuntha in this Iskcon is eternal.

We have to become qualified to go to Bhu Vaikuntha that is here, in Iskcon, by performing our devotional service and taking darshan of Vitthal. We are all children lord Vitthal and he is waiting for us all to go to him as he stands with one hand on his waist. At least it looks like that, and this picture that you are seeing of the lord here, just like this, the Lord in Vaikuntha and in Gokula is we waiting for us.

So please come and let us go back to the lord. Political issues will only take us as far as Delhi or Mumbai, but the devotees and great saints like Tukaram Maharaj and Srila Prabhupada ki jai! Like Srila Prabhupada and many other Acharya’s, what is their campaign? ‘Come with us back to godhead, to Vaikunatha.’ Are you welcoming this idea?

Are you ready? Enough is enough now, this is too much and Vaikunatha is our actual village and Vaikunatha is our motherland, our fatherland. Because our real father and mother are Vitthoba, lord Vitthal.

He is the mother and he is the father and he is the lord. He is everything. He is the all in all, Srila Prabhupada says. Panduranga is all in all. He is our everything and so wherever he is staying in his abode, that abode, that village is also ours. When Gokarana was speaking Katha for Dhundhukari, at the end of the Katha many planes came from Vaikunatha.

In those planes there were air hosts -there is no mention of air hostesses, but air hosts were there. Whoever in the audience had listened to the narrations of Krishna with faith and attention like in Samadhi, and with their mind, those who had taken the narrations in their minds, they were all invited to board the planes.

The lord himself had also come and he invited Gokarana personally and the other hosts told all of them to board the plane which they did. They fastened their belts, engines started and they took off. Vaikuntha dham ki jai! That is the same thing which happened three hundred and seventy four years ago in Dehu. A plane came and Tukaram maharaja left on that plane.

Also, as he left, he demonstrated how to leave this world. This demonstration has also been given by the lord next door. Because Dehu village is in the city of Pune, and no Air India or China Airways or this one or that one like British Airways could do this. So when the planes were taking off, Tukaram Maharaja sat down and reached Vaikunatha.

And as he left, he was telling everybody who was there, ‘you come there soon,’ and ‘you come there also. That’s why what do you have to do now? You have to chant with your mouth, Rama Krishna Hari. Or

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

Is it ready now? Yes or no, where is the PPT? Where is the team? Okay so go ahead. First light, could you display? This presentation is called Vasudeava kutumbakam, this is the name I have given it. Our culture or you can say Bhagavad dharma, the principles of devotional service, this teaches us simple living and what is it? High thinking. This is what we want to do, simple living and high thinking.

Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah
Sarve Santu Niraamayaah
Sarve Bhadraanni Pashyantu
Maa Kashcid Duhkha Bhaag Bhavet
Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih

Translation
May All be Happy,
May All be Free from Illness.
May All See what is Auspicious,
May no one Suffer.
Om Peace, Peace, Peace

This is also high thinking, that all be happy and free from illness and so on, everything in relation to these things. Hari Hari.

ekam sastram devaki putra gitam
eko devo devaki putra eva
eko mantras tasya namani yani
karmapy ekam tasya devasya seva
(gita-mahatmya 7)

In this present day, people are very much eager to have one scripture, one God, one religion, and one occupation. Therefore, ekam sastram devaki putra gitam: let there be one scripture only, one common scripture for the whole world, Bhagavad-gita. eko devo devaki putra eva: let there be one God for the whole world, Sri Krishna. eko mantras tasya namani: and one hymn, one mantra, one prayer — the chanting of His Name: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. karmapy ekam tasya devasya seva: and let there be one work only — the service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

The messages of the Bhagavad Gita the also are written in such a way that all these thoughts are that we want to persue and presented here with the title vasudhaivam kutumbakam. So lets start as we dont have much time. In Maharashtra we say vasudhaivam Kutumbakam as it is said that the whole world is my home. It is one world, one family.

From the Sastric view of the Vedas, this theme or way of thinking is also correct. Srila Prabhupada was asked once, Srila Prabhupada ki jai! The Iskcon founder Acharya, he was asked, ‘why have you come to foreign countries?’ Prabhupada answered, ‘I want to change the way the world thinks.’ And what is that change? For people to have a Vedic view.

‘I have come so people can have this change of thought.’ vasudhaivam Kutumbakam is the same saying of the Vedas.

Ayam nijah paro veti gananaa laghucetasaam . udaaracaritaanaam tu vasudhaiva kutumbakam.
(Hitopanisad)

This whole world is a creation of Krishna and every living entity is His family member. In other words, this whole world is just one family and all the living entities are brothers, sisters, fathers or mothers of each other.

Not that ‘these persons are mine but these people are outsiders.’ Those people who thinking is like this, their thinking and their feelings are laghu chetana is low thinking. They think, ‘these people are mine and others are outsiders.’ This is of dual thinking, but those who are great persons have high thinking. They are merciful and therefore their thoughts are always ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.’

Vasudha is this Earth and so as many people there are on this Earth, they are my family. We are all children of the one God. The head of the family is God and we are all part of his family. This means that as many people there are on this planet, they are all part of this one family. There are all brothers and sisters and so whoever thinks in such a way has high thinking. And the supreme Lord is also thinking in this way, the common brotherhood.

So when one that’s not have this thinking, there is fighting, quarrels and wars. This is the symptom of Kaliyuga. There was one war in 1914 which was the world war and anyway there are many other wars. These things have now become daily affairs by enviousness and thinking of ‘me you, me you. You get out of here!’

The second world war lasted from 1939 till 1945 and this is one thing. In Kaliyuga there is the prominence of low thinking which comes from the modes of ignorance and passion which makes one think and act in a certain way and there are fights over differences. Mahabharata.

dhrtarastra uvaca
dharma ksetre kuru ksetre
samaveta yuyutsavah
mamakah pandavas caiva
kim akurvata sanjaya
(Bhagavad Gita 1.1)

Translation
Dhrtarastra said: O Sanjaya, after my sons and the sons of Pandu assembled in the place of pilgrimage at Kuruksetra, desiring to fight, what did they do?

Was Mahabharata not a world war? In Mahabharata there were eighteen Akshauhini divisions of armies involved and all the countries in the world were there. Some were on the Kaurava’s side and some on the Pandavas side, but they were all involved. So there was no doubt that it was a world war which happened before three thousand and sixty seven years BC Christ.

That means that the world wars that occurred are quite recent in comparison, and the world wars one and two are there but what about the Mahabharata war? That means the first world war is actually the second world war and the second world war is the third world war. So this is a big problem and what to speak of Mahabharata? That is history and in this world there are two prominent historical events.

One is Ramayana and the other is Mahabharata whose author is Srila Vyasadeva and the author of Ramayana is Valmiki. So the historical events are called ‘Itihasa.’ Iti means it and Hasa means it happened. So Itihasa means ‘so It happened.’ What was the possibility that the British would come, the Christians would come? And in the past, the British have said that whatever has been described, this is all Hindu mythology.

This means they are saying it is all imaginary, and gradually we Indians also got brainwashed and we also started to say ‘it’s mythology.’ We all started repeating what they had said and so this has to be stopped. Hare Krishna. What else can be said? So the western people are saying this but the Indians are no better in saying this is mythology.

Srila Prabhupada used to call them frogs, frogs in the well. One frog came near the Pacific Ocean and so another frog asked him, how big is that well that you visited? So the frog who asked the question took his tummy out and asked ‘ is it this big?’ The frog answered ‘no no, it’s bigger.’ so then the frog asked is it this big, how about this big?’

‘no, no bigger, bigger,’ came the reply. As he continue to bring his stomach out, his stomach ripped into two pieces. How would a frog who lived in the well, understand the depth and width of the Pacific Ocean? In Kaliyuga, there are many people like this, especially in the western countries. And here in India there are also people who are trying to imitate them.

These people are like that that Dr frog in the well. I was in Los Angeles California and the people there were having a celebration. So I asked one of the people there, ‘how old is your Los Angeles?’ He answered ‘our Los Angeles is a very OLD city.’ By longing out the word old, he wanted to make me understand just how old the city Los Angeles was.

He said ‘it is very old.’ So I asked him, ‘how OLD is Los Angeles?’ He replied ‘two hundred years old.’ How old? So to his understanding, two hundred years was very old. Jai Sri Rama! So the Rams has just come back to Ayodhya, we understand that he was here for one million years.

paritranaya sadhunam
vinasaya ca duskrtam
dharma-samsthapanarthaya
sambhavami yuge yuge
Bhagavad gita 4.8)

Translation
In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I advent Myself millennium after millennium.

How old is Ayodhya? It is at least 10 million years old. Ayodhya dham ki jai! This history must be fixed and so in terms of history, they have got it wrong. In Christian theology they are saying that the works world was only in existence for around four thousand years before Christ. God created this world in seven days and after the world was made in seven days, the Supreme Lord took rest.

This is why the whole world takes rest on Sunday, and the reasoning is it is because God also took rest on that day. ‘ because, to rest ,let us also do the same.’ This was a perfect excuse to have a holiday. So actually they have no clue as to how old this world is, and who is its creator. Who is the operator who is the destroyer?
They say there was a big bang and the world was created.

There are so many talks like this. Previously a living g entity in the form of a cell was called amiba. So they have no clue that first it was Vitthoba, not amiba who created this world. Then from the Lord Brahma was born and he is the one who creates the whole world, and his life is of one hundred years. I cannot get into all this, but Brahma’s one day is, well one thousand Mahayugas are twelve hours of Brahma. Then another one thousandis his day and night.

Kaliyuga is four hundred and thirty two thousand years and double that it Dwaparyuga, three times more is Tretayuga and four times more is Satyayuga. When you put these four cycles of Yuga’s together there is one Mahayuga. After one thousand Yuga cycles like this, it will be the end of Brahma’s one day and night. What’s more, 360 of these days and nights make 1 of Brahma’s years, and he lives for a full 100 of these years. So Brahmas’s one lifetime is the same as one breath of Maha Vishnu.

And you can see here right? With the out coming breath of Maha Vishnu, so many universes are coming out of his body. Anandakoti Brahma Nayak Krishna Kahnaiya Lal ki Jai! When the lord inhales, those universes again, go back in to him. And how many times this the Lord breathe in and out? He’s constantly breathing in and exhaling out. Therefore, the universes are coming in and out many, many times.
Therefore, the lord says that he is this span of time, kalo ’smi.

Sri bhagavan uvaca
kalo ’smi loka ksaya krt pravrddho
lokan samahartum iha pravrttah
rte ’pi tvam na bhavisyanti sarve
ye ’vasthitah praty anikesu yodhah
(Bhagavad gita 11.32)

Translation
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: Time I am, the great destroyer of the worlds, and I have come here to destroy all people. With the exception of you [the P???avas], all the soldiers here on both sides will be slain

Krishna has given us instruction which is in the sastras, vedas, puranas and Bhagavad gita. And of course Bhagavad gita, Srimad Bhagavatam and the Puranas are non different from the Vedas. The lord has called them the king of all knowledge.

raja vidya raja guhyam
pavitram idam uttamam
pratyaksavagamam dharmyam
su sukham kartum avyayam
(Bhagavad gita 9.2)

Translation
This knowledge is the king of education, the most secret of all secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct perception of the self by realization, it is the perfection of religion. It is everlasting, and it is joyfully performed

This is transcendental knowledge, although the world is running after material knowledge. It is expert knowledge for those who are foolish and it is also study of the consciousness. We can only learn these things from the Bhagavad gita.

sarvasya caham hrdi sannivisto
mattah smrtir jnanam apohanam ca
vedais ca sarvair aham eva vedyo
vedanta krd veda vid eva caham
(Bhagavad gita 15.15)

Translation
I am seated in everyone’s heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas am I to be known; indeed I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.

So other religions which have come gradually, they have been made and they all have their own religious books. Those religions have one or maybe two books like the Bible or the Quran and in western countries they say that theirs is the book of religion. Their one book is there but what do we have? We have a library of religion. We have many books, a whole storehouse of books.

In 1202 AD there were these people who we are showing you now, but actually we should not even be looking upon their face. The middle east Muslims have come and they have caused a fire on actual religion, and there thinking is that ‘when our Quran is there, what need is there for any other religion? These Hindu’s are outsiders, so let us kill them.’ This is their low thinking.

They came and they put fire in Nalanda Viswavidyalaya amd for four months the whole place was burning. Many branches of the Vedas have no end, there is Srutis, Smritis, Puranas and much more. They tries to burn all these books. These books are the greatest in mankind and they were established seven hundred years before Christ where eleven hundred scholars from all over the world came to study all different subjects of the Vedas.

At one point, everybody understood that Bharat, India is the spiritual master of all the other countries. Bharat Mata ki Jai! All the intellectuals from all over the world, we gather in India for their higher studies. They used to read Vedas there, just like now there is higher education overseas, and it is possible that you have also sent your son or daughter to another country. But that is not higher but lower education because higher educated means to study Bhagavad gita, Srimad Bhagavatam and the Vedas and Puranas. This is transcendental knowledge but in Kaliyuga everything turns upside down and this is also a symptom of Kali.

We are in darkness because Kali means darkness and what sort of darkness? The darkness of ignorance.

Krsna surya sama; maya haya andhakara
yahan Krsna, tahan nahi mayara adhikara
(Chaitanya Charitamrita Madhya 22.31)

Translation
Krsna is compared to sunshine, and maya is compared to darkness. Wherever there is sunshine, there cannot be darkness. As soon as one takes to Krsna consciousness, the darkness of illusion (the influence of the external energy) will immediately vanish

At one time this Bharat, spiritual master of all other countries, bha means light and rata means to advise, and this is how we should understand the name of the country. Bhaskar is another name of the sun as he gives light to the eyes and so in this way we understand that Krishna is the original Bhaskar, the original light.

Bahu koti candra jini vafana ujjvala.

bahu koti candra jini’ vadana ujjvala
gala dese bana mala kore jhalamala

Translation
The brilliance of Lord Caitanya’s face conquers millions upon millions of moons, and the garland of forest flowers around His neck shines

The resplendent face of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, shines with light and this light is also the light of knowledge. India our sastras and there is no question if you and us and we think ‘oh we are Indians and you are westerners, you are foreigners and we are the nationals.’ No, this thinking is not good but it is going on in Kaliyuga and then we start to speak like this also.

So here, the knowledge that the supreme lord has given.. well, Bharat is not the India that we call now. No that is not Bharat because Bharat means the whole of Earth. King Parikshit and King Yuddhishtir have been called the Kings of Earth in the Vedic literatures. Krishna also calls Arjuna ‘He Bharata’ in the Bhagavad gita.

So every single person used to be called a Bharatian in those day, a citizen of Bharat. This is the problem in Kaliyuga because Kaliyuga breaks everything apart and makes divisions in the world. So Bhagavad gita and Srimad Bhagavatam is not only for Hindu’s. Krishna does not give his instructions in the Bhagavad gita and say ‘for Hindus only.’ Sarvasya caham hrdi sannivisto, the lord is saying that he is seated in everyone’s heart.

He did not then say ‘oh no, no, this only a place for the Indians and the Hindus.’ This includes all living entities and the lord is saying this. It isnt for just Hindu, Muslim, Christian and this or that one. This sort of talk has only started about one and a half thousand years ago. Before then, the whole world was one and these Vedas, Sastras, Puranas and Vedas were for every human being.

And of course books of religion are
for everybody just like in chemistry. We know that H2O is one part hydrogen and one part oxygen, and that is always the truth. Then there is Catalysis and what will happen with this? There will be water production. So this formula is the same, the one written in the Sastra. Just like science cannot be American science, English Science or European science.

Science is Science. So the problem is just this, idam sastram pramanam te. Krishna says Bhagavad gita is the original science, along with Srimad bhagavatam, Vedas and Puranas. Sastra means Science and Science is for everybody, not that only Hindu’s or Muslims. If they have science in their religious books like the Quran then that scripture is also for the whole world this means that that book is for all of the living entities in the world.

And throughout the whole world only Bhagavad gita and Srimad bhagavatam.. anyway what can we say? Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada is the founder acharya and he has translated Bhagavad gita and Srimad bhagavatam in around one hundred languages and the people of those countries are reading the books and also distributing them. Millions of books of Bhagavad gita and Srimad bhagavatam are being distributed all over the world right now!

We just had Gita jayanti on Moksada Ekadasi recently and the followers of Iskcon, who are around one million all over the world, all of them, just like Tukaram Maharaja has said,

gita bhagwat kariti shravan, akhand chintan vithobache.

Translation
Where there is unceasing reading of Bhagavat Geeta, Srimad bhagavatam and contemplation of Lord Vitthal

This is what the International society of Krishna consciousness is doing and this is just the beginning. So much more os going to happen. And in regards to Iskcon India, in this month, we are going to distribute seven million books. This is just in India so if you consider in Europe, inAmerica, in Australia, in Russia because this is an international society so our followers are all Vaishnava’s or Gaudiya Vaishnava’s. They are all preachers of this dharma and they are all preaching the holy name.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

We are constantly chanting in Kirtan, along with Mrdanga and kartals and that is why people call us all over the world, ‘oh these are Hare Krishna people, they are Hare Krishna people.’ This Hare Kirtan has become so famous all over the world and we have dhoti and kurta (bottom and top) for gentlemen and Saris for ladies. Then of course their is Tilak, Tulasi neck beads and Sikha (tail on head for men).

We are embarrassed to put on Tilak and when is our turn to bow to the Lord and pay obeisances, we look around to see if somebody is looking at us or not. That is why we quickly hit the floor with our head and then get back up again very quickly. ‘ I look at him he’s not scientific minded, he is old-fashioned. In our Vedas they do not know what is there. They are not only a few mantras for Arati and a few Slokas but they also include space science, astronomy, agriculture, mechanics, textiles and architecture, practice with weapons, Ayurveda, geography, you name it.

There is also solar energy, communications and knowledge of flying a plane. Logistics is also there and I’m just reading a small list here. All these subject matters are in the Vedas snd Puranas. The scientists have only come about some five hundred years ago but before this, all science was in Sanskrit and the lord was the creator of all the sciences. All this knowledge has always been around and therefore it is called Apaurusheya, not made or written by man.

What is the time? Okay. Lets go forward faster. Hindi Chini bhai bhai. In 1962, were you there then? Who was around in 1962? Do you not have hands, nobody is not putting their hand up. Okay, so some of you were there, and at that time there was a war between India and Pakistan, no not Pakistan, it was China. We were small school children then and we were being taught to chant, ‘Hindi Chini bhai bhai.’

Because India and China, both friendly countries, and so we wanted that we stop fighting and so should they. Vasudeva Kutumbakam is the high thinking and we are all bhai bhai, brothers. So I would also chant these slogans. But I was young and I was a villager, and so I did not understand what this meant, Hindu Chini bhai bhai.

I would chant this slogan, but I was thinking that Hindi was the language and Chini means sugar in Hindi. Then there was bhai bhai. So I was thinking how can this be possible? The language is Hindi and the sugar, Chini. How can these be brothers? So I was thinking, what are they actually meaning by this and what are they saying? Then I grew older and understood that Hindi means the people of Hindustan, and Chini means the people of China.

I still could not understand what it meant by these being brothers. Two people can be brothers, but how can all the people of two countries be brothers? If two people have a common father, then they can be brothers, but here i was thinking who is the common father of so many people of two different countries? Is it Modi or someone? Is it the president, is he the common father of China and Hindustan?

It still was not making any sense, but when I became older and when I met his divine grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada ki Jai! When I reached the shelter of his lotus feet and when I heard from him, the Bhagavad gita, I began to understand. Krishna says ‘I am the seed giving father of all living entities, I am the common father.’

So that made sense, so not only a Hindi and Chini brothers, but all others like the Russians and the Ukrainians, they are what? They are brothers as are the Russians and Americans. This is a fact and this on the strength of this fact we can establish brotherhood of mankind. Then it will be awareness Vasudeva Kutumbakam which is a fact anyway and then we can expect peace.

Okay so it’s that ready now? You were making a copy? In New York, there is the headquarters of the United Nations. When Srila Prabhupada used to go through New York, in 1955 or 1966, he used to see that the flags of all the nations were increasing. Another flag and yet another flag. What kind of United Nations is this? This is disunited Nations not United Nations. United Nations means just one flag.’

They say God made the country and man made the town. Made made the concrete jungle. We can see how beautiful God’s world is, fresh air and clean water, it is pure. So then a question has been asked what did Man do? So God has made this most beautiful world, and what has man done? Man has made a mess. The mess that we see in this world.

Man has polluted the air and the water, this pollution, and that pollution. Food pollution and the most dangerous pollution is that of the mind and thoughts. That is why Srila Prabhupada Prabhupada held his last public lecture in Mumbai 1977. After this Prabhupada went back to godhead in the same year. In that last lecture he gave, there was a great big tent built and many people gathered to hear him and I was also there.

Srila Prabhupada started by saying ‘the modern civilisation is a total failure.’ That was the topic of the lecture. And actually it cannot be called civilisation because we are uncivilised. The people of Kaliyuga are asabhya, uncivilised. Civilised means sabhya but we are uncivilised asabhya. We are gentleman in name only but actually we are very rough, we are rough-ians.

The modern civilisation is a total failure, and so Srila Prabhupada gave the talk a sub title, Krishna consciousness is the only solution. Otherwise, everything else is a failure, and so Krishna consciousness is the only solution. The chief minister of that time, SB Chavan, was there to inaugurate that session near cross maidan. This was the place where Srila Prabhupada gave the lecture and in this world there are two types of economics.

You’re all thinking ‘what how can there be two types of economics?’ One type is an agrarian economy, as they call it in English and the other one is industrial economy. Economy based upon Farming, Agriculture, dairy farming and it is said in the gita that agriculture, dairy farming, and commerce are the natural works for those with the qualities of Vaishyas.

This includes the land and the cow and the ball, these entail industrial economy in according to the Vedas, this agrarian economy is the right economy. But the western world has introduced industrial economy and the world is seeing the consequences of this and actually the world is suffering because of this. Now it time to awake and so we will show you some samples. Yes could you Haribol?

It is finished? Where have the bulls gone? When i go back to my village in Aravade, I used to see in the years gone by that all the farmers would decorate their cows and bulls along with the carts and there would be such nice competition with so much enthusiasm, ‘ I will decorate the best carts and bull.’ In each house. We would see bulls cows and milk, but now we have the bulls gone? All we see are tractors and we do not know what has happened to the bulls. Maybe they are.. What can be said?

They are sending them to the slaughter houses. Go mata ki Jai! Agrarian economy used to mean milk, earth, crops, cows and bulls. People want everything fresh. Fresh air, fresh water, fresh vegetables but what is going on now? Chemical fertilisers and this and that. Back in my village, they used to be around seven cows and bulls and in the villages everybody used to stay healthy at all times.

In my village and maybe yours as well. Are any of you from the village? Did anyone take birth in a village? Oh okay more than half, in fact about seventy percent of you. In the village there is a population of three to four thousand people and a doctor would cycle to the village every Wednesday just to see if there were any sick people that needed medical treatment.

And they were many times when the poor doctor could not find any sick people to treat, they were all healthy by being active and they were so hard-working, they would sweat naturally. And everything was fresh, including their thoughts, which would be positive. Good thoughts. The slowly the time came where everything was spoiled and the industrial civilisation came to ruin everything. Tractors and factories and chemical fertilisation, and this and that. There was the radio and cinema and then finally the internet.

So then they created the dispensary. The doctor would come, and they opened a small hospital, people came to the opening and there was a medical officer who cut the ribbon to open the hospital. Then people clapped in celebration, ‘we also have a hospital in our village! So people must think before they move forward, as they say. They must think twice.

So can you see here, the boomerang effect, that how this industrial economy is breaking everything down? The modern man is falling, this is what is going on day and night. We are being defeated and we want to fight back with our defence mechanisms. So many pollutions came, water pollution, noise pollution, soil pollution and noise pollution. There is radioactive pollution and then there is mind pollution of course.

It is said clearly in the chapter of the gita that if you get attached to your senses by exploiting its objects, one will become lusty. Lust lust lust, or sin sin sin. One becomes helpless to perform these things. Tukaram Maharaja has said, we are awaking the sin and lust through our attachment and association with the senses and their objects.

And when lust is not satisfied, and indeed, it is never satisfied, then what happens? Anger arises. And we have seen the effects of anger in our own homes, or in the villages. One state is fighting with another state, one country is fighting with another country, one religion is fighting another. We are always becoming angry and we are always allured to becoming angry and when we do so, intelligence has lost.

We are then destroyed, we do not become enlightened but rather we are destroyed. This technology in this modern civilisation and this and that, industry, we’re going to the moon, by all these things, we are becoming characterless. But if we meditate upon the lord rather than on our own senses, then what will happen? Our would love will awaken and then when we serve the lord in love, the lord has promised in the gita that he will give us the intelligence to attain him.

But for one who wants to enjoy the senses, lord gives the wrong type of intelligence. For one who meditates upon the lord, and who has engaged in his service, the lord gives the right type of intelligence, ‘so he can come to me, he can come to Vaikuntha.’ This type of intelligence is used here so that one can use it in. Vaikuntha also. But the wrong intelligence leads one to hell. The lord has told us that lust, greed and anger are like three gates.

We want to go to Vaikuntha. Vaikuntha dham ki Jai. Bhu Vaikuntha ki Jai. Pandharpura dham ki Jai. Sri Sri Vitthal Rukmini ki Jai! The are so many problems like global warming, which we have caused. We have caused harm to the land on which we walk, the land on which we were born, mother Earth. We have made her temperature high, and we continue to do so.

When the mother is not healthy, how can we as the children that she maintains remain healthy? We are cutting the forests, deforestation. This is happening everywhere and then they set up the factories and they said industries. We have the Amazon in South America upon this earth, this is the forest . There is an Amazon river also, and then there is this Amazon forest.

There is the understanding that the air we breathe upon this Earth, the oxygen that we are breathing, twenty percent of this oxygen that the people breathe comes from the forest. and we are cutting down this very forest. What will happen? Our throats are going to suffocate without oxygen because we are destroying the source of our life air. What to speak of the killing of animals and this meat eating is causing a big problem.

This includes India, you may not know but we are filling big boats and sending meat to the Middle East and in exchange they are giving us Patrol. ‘can you take this meat and an exchange you give us Petrol.’ Bharat is exporting meat including, what can we say? We should not even speak it but they are exporting beef also and as we are talking now, thousands if not millions of cows are being slaughtered in our country and then we expect peace.

Twenty or twenty five years ago, there was a discussion in Parliament in regard to the slaughter houses in India. They were saying that the blades used to kill the animals were not sharp enough. This means that to cut the animal was taking longer and so the animal was feeling much pain for a long time. ‘The animals are feeling a lot of pain so what to do?’

This discussion was going on and so you will be surprised, but do you know what decision the parliament took? ‘We have to modernise our slaughter houses and we should get blades from Ireland so that we can quickly cut the animals and they will not feel pain.’ This is the mercy which was shown by the members of Parliament. They had mercy, but actually is this mercy? No, this is cruelness.

India’s parliament were thinking ‘we have to be modern, so slaughterhouses.. The animals are saying ‘we are living entities, I am mot meat. I am also a soul, i am not a piece of meat. Exploitation of material resources is going on and the consequences to these actions by the means of coronavirus and there are many other ways.

Disease’s are increasing and I’m sure you remember when the coronavirus was strong, there was lockdown, remember lockdown? We were are all locked down and before coronavirus, hear this illustration because it is very funny. Before coronavirus the animals were locked up in cages or in the zoo and we would go to see them.

And the animals were locked behind the bars but when coronavirus came our roles changed. We were locked down behind the bars and the animals were enjoying this sight, they were laughing and heading a good time. That’s why they say that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. We are also becoming enjoyers to a greater extent throughout the world, but we are not taking into consideration that this sort of enjoyment brings about disease.

You enjoy, enjoy and then suffer, this is called the law of Karma. All the commercials are made to tempt us into shopping and so much more, what can be said? There used to be small shops in the past, but now everything has become big, big stores and huge shopping centres. Slowly super bazaars and hyper bazaars are opening. From this enjoyment, there comes about disease and America has become the most sick nation in the world.

America is the land of opportunity, and it is the greatest country of enjoyment, therefore, the number one sick country must be America. They always want to become number one in everything, so therefore they have also become number one in being the most sick nation in the world. We have become greedy beyond our need. Mahatma Gandhi also said, ‘need is fine but not greed, that isn’t needed.’

It’s fine to use what you need as necessity, but when you become greedy to stock more and more and get more and more, this is not good. There is some stock, this one that one, and we want to keep getting more and more keeping it all together. This is not necessary, this is greed and there are consequences to this greediness. They did a survey about high living low thinking, this is happening now.

Not simple living, high thinking, the opposite of that is happening now. There’s low thinking or no thinking. People walk around with a T-shirt on which has a thumbs up, and it means just do it. You don’t have to think, just do it. Think of what you have done afterwards but just do it. This is low thinking, so if all of ours and everybody else’s living standard becomes like America’s thinking, if all the people of the world and all the countries start thinking like America, the resources of the whole Earth will not be enough for us.

How many Earths will we then be needing? Five Earths, which is never going to happen so in the meantime we will all keep fighting between ourselves. Russians and Ukrainians are brothers, so Mayapur dham is Iskcons headquarters just like New York is the headquarters of America. Mayapur is the birth place of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and it is just like Vrindanvan and we are making Mayapur our headquarters.

The war between Ukraine and Russia but they were Hare Krishna devotees in Ukraine and there are Hare devotees in Russia, but they do not fight between themselves. Everyone else is fighting but when we become devotees of Krishna and devotees of Rama, when we become devotees, we do not fight because we have the feeling Vasudeva Kutumbakam. So the Russians and Ukrainians are also brothers and this brotherhood between all nations is possible if we come to take shelter of the supreme lord and if we accept the lord as our father.

Vasudeva Kutumbakam is certainly possible. So Hari Hari, I will stop now. Thank you to all of you that you came, and you sat patiently listening to the talk. You weren’t sleeping were you? Thank you.