But what about these brahmanas sacrificing animals? Well, let’s make it very clear that brahmanas who were doing that, were meant to revive the animal, by the dint of their power of chanting the mantra. In these kinds of sacrifices (which were sacrifices aimed in attaining the heavenly planets) then the animal could be sacrificed, and the brahmanas by chanting the mantra would bring that animal back to life, and it would either: get rejuvenated, or sometimes get the human form of life!

There is a purāṇic history referring to a lady who was a wife of a brahmana, who was expecting, and at that time it is said that, when the ladies are expecting and they get a particular craving for something, then they have to eat that particular thing. The Vedic literature says:

‘If one doesn’t give into that craving then one will have a child that will always drool.’

So, okay, they must give into these cravings. So during this sacrifice, there was a sacrifice of a cow (even cows were being sacrificed!) and when she smelt the flesh, she got that craving, and stole a small piece, and walked away with it. She was about to eat it, when the brahmana who was chanting the mantra had suddenly revived that cow. To his surprise, there was a piece missing, and meanwhile she noticed that, that piece in her hand was coming to life. So she threw it on the earth, and that became, onions, garlic, mushrooms and carrots! Ever since I heard that story I didn’t like carrots anymore. Anyway Prabhupada ate them, so I still eat them, but they don’t taste the same.

So these purāṇic histories are interesting. It is said:

‘aśvamedhaṁ gavālambhaṁ
sannyāsaṁ pala-paitṛkam
devareṇa sutotpattiṁ
kalau pañca vivarjayet’ (SB.5.7.5)

So in this age of kali, five activities are forbidden, and they are: The ‘aśvamedhaṁ’ – the horse sacrifice; ‘gavālambhaṁ’ – the cow sacrifice. Also there was a practise in the Vedic culture that if a man was not fertile (somehow or other by not producing a child in his marriage) then his brother could impregnate the wife, on his behalf – that in the kali-yuga is also forbidden. ‘Pala-paitṛkam’ – the offering of oblations of flesh to the forefathers, and finally sannyāsa is also forbidden in the age of kali.

Of course, we have Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu who took, sannyāsa and He also had sannyāsi followers. And we have Srila Prahbupada who was a sannyāsi and wrote in the 3rd canto of the Srimad Bhagvatam – ‘The narration of Kardama Muni.’ As Kardama Muni, and who was about to renounce and take sannyāsa, Srila Prabhupada was explaining that:

‘Yes sannyāsa can be taken but only by those who are serving Krishna, since only by those who are getting fulfilment. Not by those who take impersonalist sannyas, because the impersonalists basically say, ‘ This world is an illusion,’ but at the same time his mind says, ’But it looks really good.’

It’s a very beautiful illusion. An illusion with blue eyes and with little golden stars. So that is the difficulty – the illusion that looks very good, and therefore the impersonalist sannyāsa or a renunciants are always in danger…. very much in danger!

I gave the example of pride – when suddenly someone loses everything and is humble:

‘Alright Krishna wants me to develop humility.’

Or someone may experience anger and how it is getting out of hand. I myself had an experience as a kid, which stayed with me for my whole life. There was a boy at school who said:

‘What do you think of this joke.’

And he pokes his a finger in my eye! Well I got angry beyond myself. I got so angry that I kind of twisted his arms and smacked him against the wall. I was really in a destruction mode, and he broke his arm! He started to scream really loud. I ran and all the kids ran after me, but I out ran them all. I ran very fast, and shook them off. Later, when I returned back to school in the afternoon, and the head teacher was there and I was the criminal. I thought it was not fair because the guy had poked me in the eye, but he broke his arm!

What a drama, first at school and then at home my father was saying:

‘The insurance policy is going up!’

To make it worse in the same week, I kicked the football through the main glass window! One month later, there was some road works and the pumps, pipes and planks were there. I was there showing my brother a flying bicycle trick, when this old lady decided to come out on the walkway of our house and she also broke her arm! So it was a total disaster. It’s like in a span of two – three months it was a big disaster, which stayed with me for the whole life. I controlled anger after that. Watch out with anger! I also didn’t do any more flying bicycle rides….I never did one again.

So we do learn certain things in life, which help us to control the qualities that arise from the modes of material nature, and that is sufficient. So rather then looking at:

‘What is the cause? Why do I have this anger? Maybe in my last life I already had this anger problem. If I go back to the last life then I will solve it!’

Well, okay, probably in the last life you had an anger problem, and you did not solved it. So are you going to solve it now or what? Or are you going to wait until the next life again? It’s time to solve it now! Do not wait until it gets out of hand, just solve it now! So anger is meant to be controlled So in this way, we learn through circumstances, but Prabhupada points out:

‘Better learn through hearing!’

That is the first part of the approach – to learn from hearing. One who is less intelligent has to learn through experience- one who has no brain at all, that even after experiencing it, one still doesn’t learn………………so we are suppose to learn from hearing and through experience, and most of us learn from the combination of these two.

I must admit that in my life also in many cases learning by the circumstances and the scriptures give the purport. Often times the scriptures gave the purport to the lesson I learnt from the circumstances! But a very wise person can immediately just learn from the scriptures. Krishna may still give us confirmation after that! So we understand that, yes you have to be humble, and Krishna will give us real life situations where we are forced to be humble. To reconfirm yes, you really have to be humble, since Krishna will test us!

‘What’s He trying to teach me?’

All right and things happen. Sometimes things go wrong, and especially when this happens, we tend to be reflective:

‘Why is thing happening to me? And what am I to learn from this?’

There is no point in going back to previous lives, and trying to find out:

‘What was I? What did I do in my previous life? And maybe I should go under hypnosis.’

Bir Krishna Maharaja did this with a group of devotees in Germany. There were some brahmacaris there, and he told them:

‘You might be surprised that in your last life you were a female!’

And then he said:

‘Look at your feet!’

And this one brahmacari looks at his feet and he had red shoes on and said:

‘Oh my God!’

And then he remembered the whole life, in a female body with the children and the entire family……the whole story came back and all the frustration and hope…..and why it didn’t work out…..the kids didn’t become what they wanted them to become and so on. So what’s behind that life, and behind that life…….and behind that life….and behind all the other lives – there is not end to it. So digging in previous lives is not what is required. It’s just that all these lives have culminated in a quality….we have developed a quality, because of certain behaviour from a previous life, we may for an example developed a quality of pride, and then Krishna (to teach us) may create circumstance to cut down that pride! First you rise to glory and then suddenly ‘bang!’ it’s all gone!

So in this way one has to simply look at the quality:

‘What is Krishna trying to teach me here?’

So crocodiles are treacherous…. they stand for being treacherous and being totally untrustworthy. So it is very interesting that the material energy is depicted like a crocodile, I find, since that is basically what we are dealing with. The material energy cannot be trusted. One cannot think:

‘I have it under control, no problem. I have now arranged material circumstances in such a way that you know I do not have to worry about it.. no problem at all….. I’m safe.’

No, one must always be on guard in the material world. That is basically the injunction of the scriptures:

‘padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ na teṣām,’ (SB 10.14.58)

Danger at every step:

‘sv-alpam apy asya dharmasya
trāyate mahato bhayāt,’ (BG 2.40)

The greatest danger is that we may then fall down in the material world. Srila Prabhupada made that point. He said that:

‘The biggest problem is that you are not sufficiently afraid of maya!’

So that is why I’m emphasising the point. So a devotee must be careful!

I grew up in the Netherlands where it is sort of a place where a few activities are going on, which are not really found in all the scriptures….or not recommended at least! Sometimes they are mentioned as a path to the gateway to hell, but they are not really the recommended activities.

Then again, you get kids in your school who say:

‘Come on…….come on, don’t be a square! You try this?’

And they try to convince you to take drugs! At that point someone might think:

‘Yeah well…..I guess….yes!’

Whereas anybody with a little bit of intelligence can appreciate that these things are bringing only misery! So the modes of ignorance surround us. There are traces of the modes of ignorance within us. At an early age we are being influenced before we can even fully make informed decisions….mature decisions. We are already influenced by our environment!

Our true identity remains hidden underneath all these layers of material conditioning. That true identity is not something we cannot access at the present. We have no idea who we really are in the spiritual world. What our eternal identity truly is, since it is hard to say. For that matter a truck driver who is covered with tattoos might be a gopi in the spiritual world! It’s possible, and the ballerina could be a cowherd boy in the spiritual world. Our current situation is not necessarily the same! It’s hard to say….a gorilla may not be a gorilla in the spiritual world.

So therefore in our current condition in devotional service, we are not taking our material desires so seriously. We are observing them and judging them:

‘Are these going to get me into trouble ? Or not? If they are not going to get me into too much trouble, then alright maybe, I’ll pursue them. But if they’ll get me into trouble, no then I will definitely have to give them up.’

That is the practice of devotional service, one has to have that willingness to say:

‘Some of my desires I will forego.’

We cannot trace out how long we have been in the material world. Life after life, we are changing bodies – that is to say we are changing the gross bodies but the mind (or the subtle body which is made up of mind, intelligence and false ego) is travelling with us life after life as long as we are taking bodies into the material world. Therefore, the impressions of so many lifetimes are stored in our consciousness, but by the arrangement of the Supreme Lord we have forgotten these previous lives. But all the memories of the previous lives are stored within the sub-consciousness, and subconsciously they are influencing us….. so many lives. Therefore a cute little child is not just totally innocent, because there is a whole history there that my not just be manifested yet, but it will come out after a little while. And then you think:

‘Well how is it possible that my little darling is doing such a thing?’

But your little darling has already done these things in unlimited previous lives. So in this way we are very much influenced by the three modes of material nature, which spread out over many, many lifetimes.

Srila Prabhupada is mentioning that we should associate with the mode of goodness. He doesn’t say that we should be in the mode of goodness, since he says that we should associate in the mode of goodness, which I think is an interesting point. I guess if someone says:

‘You must be in the mode of goodness.’

Then we are all trying:

‘Goodness….goodness. How am I ever going to be in the mode of goodness? It’s so not easy!’

Just by determination and endeavour we cannot really change our heart. But by associating with the mode of goodness, then one gradually develops the qualities of goodness. However, here in the Srimad Bhagavatam, the transcendental process of devotional service is described. It is said that:

‘By devotional service, automatically the influence of ignorance and passion disappears. Then eventually one becomes fixed in goodness and even in pure goodness!’

Unalloyed goodness – known as ‘viśuddha-sattva’ – transcendental goodness. Meanwhile we are in the process of purification and the influences of the lower nature are still there. And due to the influence of the modes of lower nature, some bad habits may still be there……………………..Because we were already afflicted with sinful behaviour from previous lives the tendency is there once again. And then when we are in an environment where such association is there then the inclination to act in a sinful way is very strong!

Only by constantly taking shelter are we protected. One should not underestimate the power of the illusory energy- it is very, very strong and very powerful. If we leave a gap then Maya will enter. And we say, ‘ya it’s okay, nothing happened, nothing will happen. I watched the movies and I’m still okay’- okay for today but what we didn’t understand is the seed principle. The seed principle is described in Madhya lila, chapter 19, where Caitanya Mahaprabhu is instructing Rupa Gosvami. He is explaining that the bhakti lata, the seed of devotional service, is there and it also described the unwanted seeds and creepers that come up and try to strangle the bhakti creeper. So what we are doing is, we may take in many seeds and, ‘these seeds are not affecting me. I’m totally unaffected by these things, even if there are some scenes in the movie that are not suitable but they don’t affect me…’ No, no. That is not a fact. They are creating seeds in the consciousness, which will later manifest…

When the atheists are coming up and looking for arguments to prove that God doesn’t exist, and they are just trying to find the arguments. It’s a difficult thing, since coming up with arguments is not so simple…you have to think about coming up with arguments. I have to rack my brain for coming up with some arguments. So that is how it is, since you do not just think about it.

So the atheists are thinking and thinking and trying to come up with arguments to deny the existence of God. And then again, suddenly:

‘Idea! Idea…. that’s a good one! That’s a great argument, that God doesn’t exist.’

But, where did he get the argument? And it suddenly popped up in his brain. So who gave it to him? Krishna. So Krishna gave him the argument to help him forget Krishna! That’s what it is. So if we want to forget Krishna, then Krishna will help us! So the whole world is covered over. Long ago they wanted to forget God:

‘We don’t need Him anymore. We used to, but now we don’t need Him anymore because we have our machines, technology and we don’t need to pray anymore.’

But we used to, when people were helpless with the forces of nature. Other then that, just look at the wind the other day, and with the rain. Just turn on the speed of those window wipers, and keep on driving. It doesn’t really affect our life anymore. Previously if you lived very simple then (and when the roof is shaking in the wind) and then everybody would get down on their knees and pray:

‘Oh Lord…. oh Lord please let the roof stay on our house!’

All our modern machines and so on…. we don’t pray anymore. People used to pray for rain, but now you turn on the pump. Just turn on the pump to start irrigation – it’s ridiculous. If it’s really bad then we see the clouds. We go up in the plane and throw all the chemicals into the clouds, and then it will rain…. no problem, we can make it rain very easily.

I heard that when the Chernobyl explosion had happened, that there was this huge radioactive cloud and it was heading towards Moscow. The Russian army came with planes and they seared those clouds and the rain came down, long before it reached Moscow! Such things are going on:

‘So why do we need God for? We can take care of ourselves!’

Says the jiva, but that is illusion. We understand since how long does it last? So any devotee can see through that. We can see now that we depend on Krishna very much so. Without Krishna we cannot be successful:

‘tatra śrīr vijayo bhūtir,’ (Bg 18.78)

With Krishna there will be good fortune and there will be victory, without any doubt, and that is Krishna the Supreme Lord. Like Arjuna who won the battle of, Kurukṣetra. Although he was not the most powerful warrior – but he won! He was powerful undoubtedly, but still others were more powerful but he defeated them with the help of Krishna. So we can also do this, and we certainly have to use our own ability with the help of Krishna. With the help of Krishna then only can one be successful in life and attain perfect happiness!

‘oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya’,

So these are the opening words of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The word ‘Oṁ’ is the all inclusive – every aspect of the lord is included in ‘Oṁ’ – all His unlimited energies, His personal form and His expansions are all included. The word ‘Bhagavate’ is very important because it is referring to ‘Bhagavan’ – the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We are focusing on the Supreme Personality of Godhead, that is the focus of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and therefore, it is not interested in any other topics. Vedic literature is very vast, very extensive and it is offering many instructions about many aspects of life.

However, Bhagavad-Gita is explaining that a portion of the Vedas deals with the three modes of material nature, and within that portion of the Vedas that deals with the three modes of material nature is not of interest in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam because the purpose of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, is to give that transcendental knowledge which transports us back to the spiritual world – to the eternal realm.

There is plenty of Vedic knowledge, which improves the conditions of our life here in this world, and some of that knowledge may be of use to us, but it is not essential just like Āyur-veda that is absolutely useful because sometimes we need to keep a reasonable health. Otherwise, how can we apply ourselves to spiritual practices? It is very difficult when the health is not good and at the same time we are not so interested in Āyur-veda, then it is a secondary thing. So we use it and Prabhupada was very practical, sometimes he would use Āyur-veda or otherwise something allopathic. As Prabhupada said, ‘Whatever works’. But of course, the modern pharmaceutical industry is not our friend and well wisher, they have an agenda to make lots of money from us. And you take your pills, and the plan is that after you will take few more pills – so from one pill come many pills. One can think like that and that is called business!

So, Āyur-veda in many ways is friendlier and where it can be used then let’s use it. But when there is acute thing (well you know it may not always be a solution) then we may need to go to the hospital. So we are not sold to Āyur-veda but we are sold to Bhakti – the service of Bhagavan. So ‘Bhagavate’ is very nice word because it refers to several things. So the word ‘Bhagavan’ can be broken up in three syllables. There are various meanings as we can see in the word. ‘Bhaga’- means auspicious so it brings auspiciousness and ‘van’ means that it possesses qualities of auspiciousness, and that is one meaning of the word ‘Bhagavan’. But there is another meaning which I will give you now and I like it even more:

‘bhajanīya guna viśiṣṭa’ – Which means – He who is irresistible, you have to worship Him! So that is the definition of Bhagavan and it is very wonderful that Lord Krishna is like that, Krishna is naturally attractive therefore:

‘oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya’