Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my father, Edward Jacobs,
for his help and encouragement, without which the
publication of this book would not be possible.

Readers interested in the subject matter of this book
are invited by ISKCON of North Carolina to visit or cor
respond with its secretary.

Iskcon of N.C.
Rt. 6 Box 701
Hillsborough, N.C. 27278

Editorial consultants: Maharudra dasa(Jeff Long),
Gopiparanadhana dasa, Steve Jacobson
Content editing: Krishna-Priya devi dasi
Proofreading. Jarnuna devi dasi
Cover design: Mayapriya devi dasi
Color photography: Frances R. Stroh
Cover painting and photograph of Srila Prabhupada
reprinted with permission of
The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

First Printing, 1987

0 1987 Iskcon of North Carolina, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

ENCOUNTERS:

A Higher Dimension in Consciousness

Conversations on the Subject Matter of
Transcendental Knowledge

Bir Krishna Swami

ISKCON OF NORTH CAROLINA

Contents:
Introduction
1. Comparative Scriptures
2. Krishna, the Source of All Beauty
3. Personalism

4. The Law of Karma
5. Thou Shalt Not Kill
6. Chanting
7. Devotional Service
8. Faith and Surrender
9. The Spiritual Master

10. Preaching is the Essence
Srila Prabhupada
The Author

Introduction
This short book is the humble attempt of the author to encourage the reader to delve more deeply into the philosophy of Krishna consciousness as presented in the books of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the author’s spiritual master.
When Srila Prabhupada was present on this planet, he often instructed his disciples that the knowledge contained in his books was all that one needed to reach the perfection of life, Krishna consciousness. He gave me the instruction that I should never be satisfied until his books were present in each and every home.
His desire to place his books in every home is evidence of his great compassion for all living entities, for his books deal only with the subject matter of pure devotional service and the method to obtain it. This differentiates his books from mundane literature which is written only for the author’s personal aggrandizement.
Srila Prabhupada stated that religion without philosophy is simply sentiment, and philosophy without religion is mental speculation. In his books spirituality is explained philosophically as well as devotionally.
Srila Prabhupada’s books present religion in a philosophically consistent manner, so that one who reads them develops faith in the Lord based upon a mature understanding of Him and His energies.
Before coming to Krishna consciousness, I had been looking for logically consistent answers to the basic questions of life; “Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going at the time of death?”
I was an avid reader, perhaps reading one large book each day during my college years. I read books on all of the world’s major religions, philosophical schools, and political persuasions, but none satisfied my hankering for scientific answers to the above-mentioned questions.
Finally I came across some of Srila Prabhupada’s books and began to read them. After a short time, I was convinced that I had found what I was looking for, and after much introspection, decided to dedicate my life to the mission of expounding the teachings found in Srila Prabhupada’s books.
It is stated in the Vedic literature, “Religious principles can only be given by God.” Srila Prabhupada did not invent anything new in his books. He simply presented the message of Krishna purely. He was not like the countless theologians who give their own interpretation of God’s words, but he has let God speak for Himself. Srila Prabhupada is the perfectly pure, transparent via medium between God and His parts and parcels.
My desire is to be the eternal servant of Srila Prabhupada. I am praying that this book will have the potency to convince others to approach him through his books.

Bir Krishna Swami
September 13,1987

Comparative Scriptures

The following conversations are between Bir Krishna Swami, and various monks of the Benedictine order. The conversations took place in a monastery in Northern California.
The abbreviation “BKS” is used for Bir Krishna Swami,
and the abbreviation “BP” is used for Brother Paul.

Monk: What is Hare Krishna? Who is Hare Krishna? Is He God?
BKS: Krishna is a name of God. The word Krishna
means all-attractive. Hare means the potency of God,
which directs His servitors or devotees. God has many
names, not just Krishna; He is also called Allah, Jehovah,
and Yahweh. Each name refers to an aspect of the same
person, and the name Krishna means that God is all-at
tractive.
Monk: So Hare Krishna means “praise the Lord?”
BKS: Yes, it is a prayer praising the Lord and begging
Him to allow us to serve Him.
Monk: And how does Christianity fit in with what A.C.
Bhaktivedanta Swami preached?
BKS: Very nicely. If we examine the essence of what
Krishna consciousness teaches and what Christianity
teaches, we will see there is no conflict.
BP: No conflict?
BKS: There may be conflict with what some theologians
think about Christianity, but there is no conflict with Lord
Jesus’ words; his instructions.
BP: If the Vedas are presenting the truth and our tradition is also teaching the truth, there should be no contradiction between them.
BKS: Yes, God makes adjustments so that His message will be understood, according to time, place, and circumstance.
BP: There are many aspects of our tradition that reflect the Vedic teachings.
BKS: You mentioned that in your order the understanding of many rules and regulations has been lost.
BP: Yes.
BKS: If your order was previously vegetarian, why did it change? If a law was true in the past, it must also be true now.
BP: In some early church scriptures, reincarnation was accepted.
BKS: If it was true then, it must also be true now.
BP: Truth does not change. God is immutable. Some modern theologians will accept reincarnation as long as one does not deny the resurrection.
BKS: Resurrection is not in the material body. Your material body does not come up out of the grave. Whatever form you have in this life is not your eternal form. People mistakenly identify themselves with the particular nationality or race their body belongs to. They foolishly think, “I will always be an American,” and so on. For one to become God conscious, he must give up all these temporary designations.
Lord Jesus never rejected the concept of reincarnation, since as the son of God he was well aware of the reality of karma and reincarnation. He could not directly teach about such things to the masses however, due to their inability, to comprehend higher philosophical truths. We find that none of the arguments given to Christians against their accepting reincarnation come from Jesus directly. They come from theologians’ speculations.
Many Christians in the early days of the Church accepted reincarnation but were later censured by the Church. Origen was one of these. If we examine Church history, we find that texts were changed to fit prevailing ideologies. There were various mundane reasons for these changes, of which I am sure you are aware.
We can’t go back to Godhead in this material body, and
in any case, who but the grossest materialist would want
such a thing? If we propose the eternal life of our present
body in the kingdom of God, we have to accept many ab
surdities that could never occur in God’s kingdom. Is
there a Chinese neighborhood in the kingdom of God, or
is everyone a white Anglo-Saxon there? Is there a Jewish
ghetto? Do they have hospitals?
This body is a bad bargain, but to become God?con
scious we need to make the best use of a bad bargain by
using it to serve God. We should never fall into the con
sciousness of considering our material body to be our self
or an eternal part of our self. Jesus nowhere says this or
even implies it.
The Vedas advocate care for the poor and suffering, but
not just care for their external symptoms, which arecaused by
previous actions in this world.. The Vedas advise curing the cause of
the disease, namely envy of God. That envious mentality towards
God is the reason for our coming to this world.
We should concentrate on spiritual purification, cleansing the heart by engaging in activities conducive for purification and avoiding activities that are harmful. Just as when one wishes to remain physically clean, he has to be cautious about where he goes and what he touches, so if one wants to progress on tie path of purification, he has to carefully choose his association and activities.
BP: What about original sin?
BKS: The Vedas discuss original sin. We were originally with God in the spiritual world, but then we desired to emulate God and be ourselves the center of everything.. In the spiritual world, the kingdom of God, as the Vedas describe, God is the center of everything. Everyone there works for His pleasure, and there is no room for anyone with a separatist mentality. If someone there develops a separatist mentality, he is, let us say thrown down into this material world.
BP: Jesus said, “Be ye perfect as your father in heaven is also perfect.” So he expected us not to sin. Yet he also said that we can not be perfect. How do you reconcile this apparent contradiction?
BKS: Man can become perfectly sinless, but he can never come to the same level of perfection as God. We will never become omniscient and omnipotent, because we are finite and God is infinite.
To become sinless, we need God’s help. Krishna states in the Bhagavad-gita (7.14) that although His material energy is otherwise impossible to overcome, one can cross beyond it with His help. Independently, we can not become sinless, but with God’s help anything can be accomplished.
BP: If God is all merciful and loving, He is not going to damn someone to hell for eternity. Brother Joseph disagrees. He says we have free choice. We make the choice to act sinfully, therefore we must accept eternal damnation.
BKS: But what if we later regret our choice?
BP: Repentance?
Brother Joseph: But you won’t, because you wanted that.
You won’t want to change.
BKS: Why not? If you are frying in hell, you’ll want to
change. If we accept that God is all?loving and merciful,
then the only purpose for hell would be to rectify
someone’s sinful mentality. God does not take pleasure
seeing someone suffer. In this world, people often punish ,
out of vengeance. A merciful person punishes someone
to rectify him. Jesus Christ saved prostitutes and all types
of fallen souls. This is his glory; he saved the most fallen.
We can see how often theological doctrine errs because
it does not come from God but from a social and
philosophical milieu. The Vedic literature informs us that
the only perfect way to acquire knowledge is by the des
cending process, or in other words, accepting God Him
self as the only unquestionable source of knowledge. We
reject the opinions of those who use God’s words as a
vehicle for their own beliefs. The test of a bona fide
spiritual master is not his own vivid imagination, but his
transparency, his ability to let God’s words shine through
him.
Monk: Then you are saying that if we went back to the
Bible, which is the Christian’s revealed scripture descend?
ing…
BKS: Then our understanding would be perfect.
Speculation on the Bible may not be perfect, but Christ’s
teachings are.
Monk: But not all descending literatures agree.
BKS: Where don’t they agree?
Monk: They all have different ideas of God and what He
is like.
BKS: There are different aspects of God, but they do not
conflict. In one case God may be presented as very jealous, as in the Old Testament, and in other cases His loving, intimate side may be presented. Any person has different sides to his personality.
God has many names, as does everyone. A judge is called “your Honor” when he is in court, and at home his wife uses his first name or a nickname. In our interpersonal relationships the names we use reflect a particular understanding of a person which is usually a true but limited understanding. God has unlimited facets to His personality, and each name of God deals with one or a number of His personal aspects. Krishna consciousness deals with the complete understanding of God in all of His aspects.
Monk: All revealed scriptures are not the same.
BKS: They describe the same truth from different angles of vision. Each scripture focuses on presenting God appropriately for a particular time, place, and circumstance. The Vedas, however, are universally applicable.
Monk: Can you explain that further?
BKS: There may be some difference in approach, ac?, cording to time, place, and circumstance, but there is no contradiction in essential knowledge. All scriptures teach that God is great and that we must follow His laws.
Monk: The difference arises when you get into the method of reaching the Supreme Being.
BKS: There may be various adjustments, but in every scripture the method is love of God. There may be variations in what we would call preliminary injunctions. The Bible has the Ten Commandments and the Vedas have the four regulative principles and other commandments, but as far as the method of reaching God, in any scripture it is always love of God. “You shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” Specifics may differ, but the overall goal is the same.
Gary: I wonder what God’s purpose was in creating so many scriptures. It has certainly caused a lot of confusion.
BKS: People are on different levels of spiritual advancewent and have different mentalities. Prabhupada once characterized Krishna consciousness as the postgraduate study of God. It doesn’t negate or contradict the undergraduate study of God. For example, in a college there may be both postgraduate and undergraduate mathematics classes. One and one is two even in the postgraduate class, but in the postgraduate class more information is given. Vedic knowledge agrees with everything in the Bible, yet includes more. A Krishna conscious devotee does not convert from his previous faith. He strengthens it. .
BP: It’s like building on?
BKS: It’s a building on rather than a conversion. It’s an awakening to something you already are, just as when, in the morning you wake up and remember who you are, even though you may have completely forgotten your identity while sleeping. To become Krishna conscious means to remember who you are.
BP: You said in your letter, “To be a devotee of Krishna does not mean renouncing or giving up one’s present religious affiliation.” This reminded me of what I read in Srila Prabhupada’s “Elevation to Krishna Consceousness: ‘ Let me read it to you: “The best system of religion is that which best trains us to surrender unto the Supreme Lord. This is the basic principle underlying the Bhagavad?gita. We can select our own religion and be Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, or whatever, as long as we know the real purpose of religion. Indeed, Srimad Bhagavatarn does not recommend that we give up our present religion, but it does hint at the purpose of religion. That. which teaches us best how to love the Supreme Lord is the best religion.”
Krishna consciousness certainly adds a new dimension to my life, which I’m very pleased and excited about. Two truths can not conflict; if they do, then one of them is not true. I do feel free to seek the truth. I am not afraid of what I may find. God is truth!
If the Christian faith can accept a trinity-God then who can rule out that God may choose to reveal Himself in other forms and yet be but one God? I have come to realize that there is so much about Krishna consciousness I don’t know. It is a lifetime of learning, and that is not long enough. When Krishna entered my life, my first thought was, “Who is He?” He was strange and foreign, yet, I admit, attractive. I later came to accept Him as God.
BKS: Your becoming Krishna conscious doesn’t require giving up your present religious practices. There is no contradiction between the Christian philosophy and the philosophy of Krishna consciousness. As you pointed out, your order was originally vegetarian, but with the passage of time meat-eating was allowed.
Your involvement in Krishna consciousness should enable you to deepen your level of appreciation of the liturgy. It should increase your devotion to the saints. The more we understand about God, the more service we can render. There is no need to feel that Krishna consciousness and your present worship are at odds.
Brother Joseph: If we are quiet and we ask God enough He will come out from within us.
BKS: Yes, but many times we think that we are receiving instruction from God, when in reality what we hear is only the voice of our fertile imagination, conditioned by our world view.
Monk: It is so easy to say, just love God and everybody else.
BKS: Yes, but you have to know Him before you can love Him.
Monk: All you really have to know about God is that He is the Supreme Being. He is everything that is.
BKS: But that doesn’t make Him very lovable. You should know His personal characteristics.
Monk: We speak of inspired scriptures. The Spirit gives you your own slant on them for what you need.
BKS: That is very dangerous. Can you distinguish between the voice of the Spirit??God in the heart?? and your own fertile imagination? Most people cannot. According to the Vedas, all conditioned souls have four defects: the cheating propensity, the tendency to make mistakes, imperfect senses, and the tendency to be illusioned. So there is every chance that your own scriptural interpretation will be faulty. We are presenting the Vedic literatures with the original Sanskrit, transliteration, and word?by?word translations so that one can see how the translation of the verse was arrived at. A serious student should study the scriptures in this way.
We know who compiled the Vedic literatures. They are presented very scientifically. Previously, I had read so many other literatures, but what impressed me about the Vedas was their scientific presentation. “Who am I, where have I come from, and where am I going at the time of death? Who, exactly, is God?” The Vedas answer these questions in detail.

KRISHNA, THE SOURCE
OF ALL BEAUTY
BP: I have always appreciated the beauty of nature and have found that it reminds me of God. If nature is the external energy of Krishna, is He also present in nature?
BKS: He sustains nature.
BP: So material nature is like the rays of the sun; it emanates from Him as the sunshine emanates from the sun.
BKS: Right. Prabhupada gives that example. BP: So nature is not directly Krishna?
BKS: In one sense we can say that nature is Krishna, much the same way as we can say the sun rays are the sun. But, nature is also different from Krishna, as the sun rays have their identity apart from the sun globe.
BP: I read in the Bhagavad?gita that the soul is “part and parcel” of Krishna. Is nature the same?
BKS: The word “part?and?parcel” signifies that something has an individual identity but is also part of a greater whole. A gear may be part of a machine, but in one sense it also has a separate identity. This is the meaning of “part?and?parcel.” The material energy is not personally Krishna; it is Krishna’s external potency. In that sense, it’s Krishna, whereas the soul or real self is “part?and?parcel” of God.
BP: So if I contemplate nature, it’s not God?
BKS: You have to see how God is in everything. You have to see the person from whom nature is coming. All the aspects of nature are present within their source, God. Truly appreciating the beauty of nature, therefore means to understand that the person from whom all such beauty is coming is more beautiful than even nature herself.
BP: It would have to be so.
BKS: When one sees the form of Krishna he loses all taste for everything else. Even a beautiful sunset or sunrise pales in comparison. The beauty found in nature is insignificant in comparison to God’s beauty.
BP: Does a devotee look at nature and say, “Krishna is much more beautiful than this?”
BKS: He may say that, or he may feel, “Oh, Krishna is so wonderful! He has so much power.” He sees Krishna in nature. One who has appreciated the beauty of Krishna is not awed by any beauty in this world. In his book Life Comes from Life, Srila Prabhupada states, “We can only see apart of God’s opulence-this material nature–which is only a partial exhibition of God’s potencies. So, if in the inferior, material energy there are so many wonderful things, just imagine how much more important and how much more wonderful things are in the spiritual world.” BP: Pantheists worship the creation rather than the person God.
BKS: That’s the problem with the pantheists. They see the energy but not the energetic.
Krishna is called Bhagavan, which means He who has all opulences. The opulences possessed by God include fame, beauty, riches, power, intelligence, and renunciation. If one has some portion or percentage of any of these six opulences, he is considered somewhat attractive. Krishna is unlimitedly attractive because He possesses these opulences in full.
BP: What do you mean when you say renunciation is an opulence? How is it an opulence?
BKS: People are attracted to renunciation because a renounced person appears independent.
BP: It’s perverted in a human being. Krishna alone is absolutely independent.
BKS: Yes. God is described in Sanskrit as svarat which means independent. God doesn’t need anyone or anything else to be satisfied. People like to feel independent, “I don’t need anyone. I’m strong. I’m a self-made man,” but only God is truly independent.
BP: All this pretending for false ego.
BKS: Whatever beauty or knowledge one possesses comes from Krishna. How renounced can one really be when he’s always dependent, on others? Ultimately we are eternally dependent on Krishna and His energies.
As soon as we contact Krishna, all material desires quickly fade into the background. One great spiritual master stated in this regard, “My dear friend, if you at all desire to enjoy society, friendship, and love, do not go to see Govinda [Krishnal] Of course, this statement was meant ironically. The author was saying that if one approaches Krishna and perceives His attractive qualities, he will no longer have any taste for the material world.
BP: In the past I have looked upon Christ as the Personality of Godhead. But that’s not true. He is the son of God. The section in Nectar of Devotion that describes the qualities of Krishna is helping me understand Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It’s easy for me to accept Krishna as God. Of course I might be called a heretic by other monks, but I don’t believe that you can limit God. God is limitless. He can choose to reveal Himself in many different ways. Srila Prabhupada says at one . point that the desire for Krishna, the longing for Him, is within the soul. I am experiencing this.

Personalism

BP: I was speaking with one brother about the Personality of Godhead and he said, “Well, how can He have personality?” I told him that since all personalities come from God, He must Himself have all characteristics of personality; otherwise He wouldn’t be God.
BKS: Yes. God is He from whom everything is coming. If something comes from me, I must possess it. If I give someone ten dollars, obviously I must have at least ten dollars.
So if personalities are present among God’s energies,
God must also have a personality. The Vedas explain that
God has both personal and impersonal features. His per
sonal aspect is higher than the impersonal; the supreme
aspect of God is His personality, not His impersonal ener
gies, and understanding this personal feature is the very
foundation of God consciousness. One cannot love God
in a true sense unless one is a personalist.
There are two. main schools of Vedanta philosophy–the
Monist school and the Vaisnava school. The monists con
sider everything to be God. In one sense they are atheis
tic. Their philosophy seems to be theistic, but when we
consider the gist of their doctrine, we find that they do not
believe in a personal Supreme.
The Monists believe, together with the Vaisnavas, that
we are not the body, but the soul within the body. But they
further believe that self-realization means to merge into
the existence of God, to lose one’s individual identity
rather than establish one’s personal relationship with
God. .I’m sure you know many Christians with similar
beliefs. BP: Yes, those things are there in the Christian faith. Many also have an impersonal belief, which is pantheistic. The Krishna conscious philosophy gives one a better perspective of things.
BKS: If the highest understanding is that God is not a person, why should anyone do anything? If I’m not a person and God is not a person, does it matter if I am religious or not religious? Only if God is a person, is there any purpose to religious activities. .
People assume an impersonaIistic viewpoint to justify their sense gratification. But a real impersonalist engages in severe austerities; he wouldn’t deal with ordinary people if he honestly wanted to realize the impersonal Brahman. People who take up an impersonal philosophy such as: “Everything is one”, “Everything is alright”, or “Whatever you do is okay”, are doing so because they want to enjoy their senses.
People in general are not very serious about philosophy. If they have a philosophy they don’t follow it or else they adjust it to fit their lifestyle. They are not acharyas, bonafide spiritual masters. An acharya practices what he preaches. Even theologians usually adjust their speculation to enjoy subtle material gratification; “Maybe God is like this. Maybe God is like that. What do you think?”
People want two types of sense gratification??gross and subtle. In order to achieve God one has to give up his desire for both of these things. An aspiring transcendentalist must become void of all desire for enjoying the subtle mind and enjoying the gross body and the senses, in order to achieve Krishna. He must desire instead to please Krishna’s senses.
The speculation of the impersonalists is blasphemy. Srila Prabhupada said that it is like saying that God is deaf, dumb, blind, and lame. It is an insult to God. Impersonalists are envious of God, and that is their original sin–envy of God.
Brother Joseph: I read one book by Father Shaw, and it v is just riddled with the conclusion that God is beyond everything. It states that sannyasis are such holy men that they don’t even have to pray. They are beyond prayer, beyond work, and beyond everything.
BKS: Yes, those are the impersonalists. These books generally explain Christianity in an impersonal way too, although Jesus was certainly not teaching an impersonal
` philosophy. He definitely taught about God as a person: In India the impersonalists address each other as God; which is simply a subtle type of ego gratification. And they call this material gratification religion. They have not ex
perienced spiritual variety, so they think that all variety is; ,
bad.
Brother Joseph: I wonder why Father Shaw took the
impersonalistic viewpoint.
BKS: Just about everybody does today, because they are
afraid of a personal reality. All personality and variety
they have experienced in this world has been fraught with
imperfection, so they conclude that therefore there can,
be no variety or personality in the Absolute. This is the
result of their frustration. Prabhupada describes it as vir
tual suicide.
In the Bhagavad gita, (Gita 14.27), God says that the impersonal comes from Him: “The impersonal Brahman, the impersonal energy, comes from Me,” not the other
way around.
Another shortcoming of impersonalism is that it is very dry. Impersonalists can engage in austerities for some time, but eventually they fall down; they may imaginethemselves liberated, but because they have neither a higher taste nor higher activities, they come back down to the material plane. Whether they are in the West or in the East, we find philosophers and theologians coming under one of two labels–personalist or impersonalist.
BP: Even some of the greatest mystics were impersonalists.
BKS: But many of them were personalists.
BP: Thanks to the knowledge of Krishna consciousness that I’ve acquired, I can now discriminate between them.
BKS: We devotees don’t designate someone according to his religion. We don’t consider someone just as Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, or Jewish. To us, the important distinction is whether he is an impersonalist or a true theist. If you are a Christian, but you espouse an impersonalist philosophy, we will consider you impersonalist rather than as a Christian. We will recognize you as a theist only if you espouse that God is a person and that developing one’s personal relationship with Him is the highest goal of life.
BP: In the Christian tradition they limit God to His word, in the sense that outside of the Bible He doesn’t exist.
BKS: Yes, that is a problem.
BP: We discuss that frequently. But that does not take away the fact that His word is Him.
BKS: Yes, His word is Him. God is manifest as His word, and in other ways, too.
BP: God is much bigger to me than a book. I respect His word as Him, but the Krishna consciousness movement has expanded my knowledge of God. It has given me something that the Bible hasn’t given me. It’s added to it.
BKS: God is everything in as much as everything comes from Him. He has unlimited aspects to His personality.
The Bhagavad-gita describes the universal form of God,
by which God shows that He is everything, that everyone
and everything emanates from Him. It is a terrifying form
of God. _
Even a billion books wouldn’t be enough to describe God fully. The expansion of God known as Anantadeva is constantly engaged in describing God’s glories, yet He can never reach their end. God is expanding unlimitedly at every moment. God cannot Himself measure His own glories.
BP: Yes, I see what you mean.
BKS: It is very dangerous to claim that God is beyond form. God has form, but His is a spiritual form, not a material one. The prayer we offer to Srila Prabhupada states that Prabhupada came to the Western countries, which are filled with voidism and impersonalism, to preach the message of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, as taught by Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual master. This is a very important part of Prabhupada’s mission.
We don’t advocate that people should leave their own tradition. One should simply understand how God is a person and act in accordance with God’s instructions; then he will be a perfect Christian or whatever he may be. Prabhupada taught that Krishna consciousness is not sectarian. It’s not a question of Indian tradition vs. Western tradition, but of personalism vs. impersonalism. Some Christians are personalists, and some are impersonalists.
BP: And some of them don’t even know what they are.
BKS: Well; they don’t know the distinction because they
never studied the Vedic philosophy. This is the point–to bring everyone to the personal platform. God is a person, and we each have a personal relationship with Him, an intimate relationship in the spiritual realm. Every other
living entity is actually God’s child. If we love the Father, we should love His children.
BP: What is the difference between God and the Holy Spirit?
BKS? There is no difference between God and His Spirit. God’s body is not material, nor does He take a material body when He descends to this world to enact His pastimes. Those who say that God takes a material body or has a material body are described in the Gita (9.11) as fools. God appears in His original transcendental body, which is not constructed of the material elements but rather of eternity, knowledge, and bliss.
All energy belongs to God. From that viewpoint, all energy is spiritual. Of course, there are real differences between spirit and matter, although God has the ability to transform one into the other. Prabhupada compared this ability with the ability of an electrician, who is able to transform electricity into either heat or cold.
BP: It is amazing how anyone can deny that. They are denying God’s power. They say God is all powerful but on the other hand they say that God couldn’t do that. It’s natural and reasonable that He can do anything.
BKS: God can incarnate and appear in many different. ways; and He may empower His devotees to appear in varieties of ways. For example, I have observed that the saints are present in the icons you have in your chapel. Even though an icon, or what we would call deity, is constructed of wood or some other material substance, God can certainly manifest Himself or any great saint through it.
BP: You are self-realized and can experience the spirit in our icons. There are many people of our own who don’t have that realization.

THE LAW OF KARMA

BP: In this life, a person may begin the process of Krishna consciousness yet not surrender completely to Krishna. Could it be because of the karmic reactions of a previous life that he can’t give himself totally?
BKS: No, karma is the law of action and reaction. It has jurisdiction only in material affairs. A man’s surrender to God is a matter of free will. It’s not a matter of karma. Karma cannot interfere with spiritual pursuits, because as soon as one chants the names of God he becomes free of all past karma.
Sometimes a devotee may receive a token reaction from his past sinful karma. But that reaction is given out by God Himself. It is not done through the mechanism of karma. For those who have not taken shelter of God on the other hand, everything that happens to them is due to karma, acting under the jurisdiction. of God. Just as a mundane government has laws which are enforced by the police, God has laws of correct conduct which are enforced by His agents. One may sometimes escape the purview of mundane authorities, but it is impossible to be outside the vision and jurisdiction of the Supreme Lord. He is present in each and every atom of creation. It is said that not a blade of grass moves without.the knowledge of the Lord.
God takes direct interest in His devotees in this world and guides them back to Himself. He protects them and provides whatever they lack. A devotee of the Lord never suffers anxiety, just as there is no anxiety for a child in the hands of its parents. If one takes up the spiritual path of Krishna consciousness, Krishna personally takes charge of that person. Krishna frees the aspiring devotee from his past karma.
There is an interesting verse in the Bhagavad?gita which says that the material nature causes a living being’s actions and reactions, whereas the living entity himself is the cause of his suffering and enjoyment. The material energy functions in a mechanical way, but the living entities ?decide which way that mechanism goes. For example, you can’t blame a gun for shooting someone. If an accused person goes to court and says; “Well, I didn’t shoot anyone; it was the gun that did it,” his excuse will not be accepted. That person is the one who set the chain of events in action; he is the one who pulled tie trigger. In the same way we may say, ” I didn’t cause my suffering. I’m blind, but how can you blame me? It was because of my DNA and my RNA, my genes.” That may be true in a limited sense, but ultimately we are to blame. We did something to incur the wrath of God, so to speak. Thus we undergo karmic reactions. Karma is an immutable law, but we are responsible for how it affects us. We’re to blame for all the problems in this world??the wars, the suffering, and our own lack of devotion.
BP: If we are exposed to Krishna consciousness and drawn to it, could this be because of karmic reactions from previous lives?
BKS: Our decision to become Krishna conscious is based upon our free will, not on our previous karma. When one desires to know God, Krishna sends His representative, the spiritual master. God gives one the spiritual master, and the spiritual master gives one God.
Almost all the Western adherents of Krishna consciousness had a tremendous amount of bad karma before beginning to practice devotional service. They had eaten uncountable steaks; uncountable cows were killed to satisfy their taste buds. According to the Vedas, the karmic reaction for killing or eating a cow is that one has to take birth as a cow and be slaughtered as many times as there are hairs on the cow that was eaten.
But because the devotees desired to know about Krishna, Krishna gave them a spiritual master. By their following the spiritual master’s instructions, their kanna has been eradicated. There is no material obstacle to becoming Krishna conscious or coming in contact with Krishna consciousness. It all depends upon one’s desire.
BP: So persons who look and walk away, or who look and can’t respond, don’t desire.
BKS: Yes, they don’t desire. Prabhupada once told his disciples, “If you desire, you can be Krishna conscious in a second.” We shouldn’t blame our lack of devotion on karma.
There are certain impediments to advancement such as offenses committed against Krishna’s devotees. If one offends someone like Srila Prabhupada either verbally or physically, one’s spiritual life might be held up for a number of lives.
BP: What will happen if one does not become fully Krishna conscious in this lifetime?
BKS: Arjuna asked that question of Krishna in the Gita, and Krishna replied that such a devotee either takes birth in the heavenly planets and then comes back to earth in a rich family in which he gets the opportunity to return to Krishna consciousness, or else he takes birth directly in a family of Krishna conscious transcendentalists. In either
case, there is no loss for him, whereas for a materialist everything is lost at death. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
BP: What if someone says that he is not strong enough to
follow Krishna consciousness?
BKS: That just means he doesn’t want to follow. This is the point: people, don’t want to become Krishna conscious, so they make many excuses. They say, “I have a lot of desires. I have a lot of karma:”
One should not blame something external for his inability to take up Krishna consciousness. One’s own self is to blame. Even if you don’t desire Krishna, you can desire to desire Him. Then you can pray to Krishna to increase that desire to desire Krishna. Even if one can’t bring this desire into the forefront of his consciousness, he can pray, “Help tee, Krishna. I’m completely bewildered.” Then Krishna will help. Everyone is in their position because of their own exercise of free will. We shouldn’t blame God.
BP: One?thing that is difficult for me is realizing I’m not this body. As a Christian monk coming to Krishna consciousness, I truly believe in the concept, but I find that realization involves more than just belief. Often, when I’m sick, I’ll think, “I’m not sick; this body is sick.” But it takes me a while to remember. I don’t always remember. BKS: What you are speaking about is the distinction between book learning and realized knowledge. Since we have cultivated our bodily attachment for many lifetimes, it’s easier to say, “I’m not this body” than to act on that platform.
Someone may ask, “Why am I still suffering in this body? Why do I still feel pain? I know that I am not this body.” At the same time as this person says this, he still desires to enjoy his body. To get rid of the suffering of this material body we have to give up our desire to enjoy it. And the way to do this is by giving up our envy of God.The way to give up envy of God, however, is by hearing = about Him. This is described in Srimad-Bhagavatam, that if one hears regularly about Krishna?? His qualities, name, form, and pastimes–then one naturally becomes attracted to Krishna, and all the dirty things in one’s heart become cleansed away. At that time, the devotee becomes free from attachment to his body.
It’s not that we need to separately endeavor to become free from bodily attachment. We may understand that we’re not this body intellectually, but we will not become detached until we love God. Illusion is like a cloud. It has to be lifted, and we can’t lift it by our own effort. Krishna says in the Tenth Chapter of Bhagavad-gita that when He is pleased with one, He dissipates that person’s illusion and gives spiritual intelligence. We shouldn’t demand spiritual realization from Krishna. As Prabhupada said, we should deserve first. Deserving means to demonstrate to God, internally as well as externally, that we want to serve Him.
Even if one is free from bodily attachment, he still has to function with his body. His relationship with the material body is just like a person’s relationship with his car. The owner knows that he is not his car, yet he still cares for it. Similarly a Krishna conscious devotee doesn’t neglect his material body because he knows that his body belongs to God. Krishna describes that neglect of the body’s health or torturing it in any way is demoniac.
“Those who undergo severe austerities and penances not recommended in the scriptures, performing them out of pride and egotism, who are impelled by lust and attachment; who are foolish and who torture the material elements of the body as well as the Supersoul dwelling within, are to be known as demons,” (Bg. 17.5?6). The body is
meant to be used to serve God. We take care of the body as a temple of God.
BP: Can you explain the Gita’s comparison of the body to a chariot?
BKS: In this analogy the chariot is the body, the horses are the five senses, the reins are the mind, the driver is the intelligence, and the passenger is the soul. The soul (passenger) has to make the intelligence (driver) control the mind (reins), which in turn controls the senses (horses). One who is Krishna conscious knows that he is different .from the body. Let’s say you .get hurt. Someone lacking Krishna conscious knowledge will just say, “I’m hurt.” But a Krishna conscious devotee, even if he is not fully realized, will say, “It’s just my body that’s hurt. It’s. not me.” He is able to make that distinction.
A devotee can say no to the urges of his senses and mind, whereas one who is not self?realized does not have that ability because he is unaware of any reality higher than the mind and the senses. A true spiritualist can turn the senses off and on at will, as Krishna states in Bhagavad?gita. “One who is able to withdraw his senses from sense objects, as the tortoise draws his limbs within the shell, is firmly fixed in perfect knowledge” (Bg. 2.58).
BP: Why would a great devotee be subjected to difficulties such as disease?
BKS: We see many great saints in both the Western and the Vedic tradition who were subjected to physical difficulties, not only disease but also harassment from other people. God puts His devotees in distressful conditions so that they will not forget Him and will be convinced of the miseries of this world. Srila Prabhupada used to quote one nice statement of Krishna’s from the Vedic literatures, “When I feel especially mercifully disposed towards someone, I gradually take away all his material possessions. His friends and relatives then reject the povertystricken and most wretched fellow.” Have you read Srila Prabhupada’s biography?
Guest: No.
BKS: Prabhupada could have been a very successful pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor in India, but Krishna arranged that his whole business fell to pieces so that he would be freed to carry out his spiritual master’s orders to preach in the West.
There are other instances described in the Vedic literatures of Krishna giving difficulties to His devotees. There was one famous devotee, Queen Kunti. She was put in a very distressful condition when her husband died and she was left to take care of her sons alone. Members of the Kuru dynasty tried to kill her sons by numerous means, and still she prayed to Krishna, “Keep these miseries coming so that I will always remember you; thus I won’t have to again accept birth and death in this material world.” Krishna does whatever is best for His devotees. One may say that Krishna is sometimes cruel, but we can’t accuse a father of being cruel when he punishes his son for his own good. One may perceive things in a shortsighted way, that God is cruel to His devotees, but in the long: term whatever happens to a devotee is for his benefit; it is so that he learns from it and becomes very serious about spiritual life.
Brother Joseph: One thing ignored in our society is death. People never talk about it. They talk about everything else. When they get old, they talk about retirement benefits and all the fun they are having learning new trades. How silly!
BKS: They should take the gradual diminishing of their bodily powers as a natural warning from God that it is time to prepare themselves for death.
Krishna states in the Gita (8.6) that one’s state of consciousness at the time of death determines his next body. If one is thinking of his pet dog for example, he will take a dog’s body in his next life. It is very important for us to cultivate consciousness of Krishna throughout this life, so that we. will think of Him at the time of death, and therefore return to Him.
One who has faith in God can face death. If one is still entangled with worldly duties at, that time, it will be difficult to fix one’s consciousness on God.
The greatest loss is to take a body in the lower species and lose for many births the opportunity that having a human body affords. The Vedas explain that only in a human body can the soul pursue spiritual enlightenment. Most living entities don’t have this good fortune. We may seem to be the only living entities in this room, but that is not true, since there are millions and billions of microscopic entities floating in the air. Humans are a minority even in this room.
One has to use the opportunity of this human body properly or else run the risk of losing it. In your monastery, if you are given something by your superior but don’t use it properly, he may take it away. When God, acting through karma, gives someone a human body but that person misuses it to be like an animal, why should he be allowed to continue as a human in his next life? Animals are fully equipped to eat and sleep, mate; and defend. Technology, religion, and psychology should not be meant for encouraging eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. They should be used for transcendental realization.BP: I did not think that I could ever accept reincarnation, but now I see it is the only answer to so many so-called mysteries.
BKS: Yes, utilizing your knowledge of the principles of karma coupled with the principle of reincarnation, you can answer questions you get from lay people such as, “Why does Johnny have polio? What did he do wrong?” I’m sure that priests get these types of questions all the time but are unable to answer them.
BP: Oh, yes.
BKS: We can answer that little Johnny isn’t actually a little boy. You just think that he is your son. There is a nice story in the Bhagavatam about one little boy who was the son of a king. This king had been unable to have a son, and after praying to have a son for a long time he finally did.
Shortly after, however, the infant son died and the king became completely grief?stricken. Everyone in the palace was crying, and in the midst of this dramatic scene the great sage Narada Muni arrived. By his mystic power Narada Muni, brought the boy back to life. But when the father addressed him, “Oh my son!” the son replied, “Which father are you?” In other words, he had so many different fathers in his countless previous births, that, his relationship to this particular father was not particularly significant. It was only transitory.
Spiritually speaking, transitory objects are considered unreal. Krishna states in the Bhagavad?gita that those things which are temporary are unreal and those things which are permanent are real. Therefore we have to see beyond the material body. Not to see beyond the body is simply gross ignorance.
BP: It’s frightening when you think of what’s going on in our country and the karma that is due.
BKS: Prabhupada said that we have so many wars because of cow killing. This is an example of country?wide and world?wide karma.
BP: Abortion also.
BKS: Millions of unborn infants killed in the womb. There must be some reaction. America is really digging it’s grave right now, not only with cow killing.
BP: We read about an eight-month old child who was killed by a doctor.
BKS: Prabhupada explained the karmic reaction for abortion as having to enter the womb of a mother but not see the light of the day, in other words, to be aborted. As you sow, you shall reap; it all conies back. We want people to learn what are actions against the laws of God, and what are actions in accordance with the laws of God. People should learn this, so that society can be peaceful.
BP: People talk about the coming atomic war.
BKS: It is inevitable because of all the impious activities. This country is accruing bad karma at an unprecedented rate. Krishna is going to come in the form of death.
BP: Will those of us who have surrendered to God be free from the karma of the country that we are living in?
BKS: Yes.
BP: Then we won’t have anything to worry about?
BKS: Surrender means to follow what God says.
BP: Do the Vedas advocate capital punishment?
KS: Yes. If someone commits murder, his karmic reaction is to be killed, either now or in the future. So by the state executing a convicted murderer, the murderer is freed from his future reaction. People object to capital punishment because they think that when the body stops functioning a person ceases to exist.

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

BP: Our original monastic rule states that we shouldn’t eat meat. We were told that the reason we don’t follow this rule today is because we are living in a colder climate arid we need to eat meat for body heat.
BKS: When was the original rule written?
BP: In 480.
BKS: That was right after the Bible was compiled
BP: Shortly after.
Brother Joseph: There were other rules that were also written earlier.
BP: St. Benedict, our founder and authority, based his rules on the monastic fathers.
BKS: The Trappist rule is similar.
BP: We follow the same rules as the Trappists. Many things were changed though, over the years, and vegetarianism was one of them.
Brother Joseph: All of the monastic orders were originally vegetarian, but they gradually changed over time. Later, monks were prohibited from eating meat during Lent as well as on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Finally, the monks were told that a vegetarian diet was not practical because we were no longer living in the warmer Mediterranean climates.
BP: The early fathers said that meat should not be eaten, because by eating meat one loses compassion. They said that it makes one angry and passionate.
. BKS: Srila Prabhupada said the same thing.
BP: I have always sensed that cows are sacred. Unfortunately, here at the monastery we are killing cows instead of protecting them. I think much about this. Does onepartake in karma for cow killing even though not directly involved in the slaughter? BKS: All living entities are “part?and?parcel” of Krishna, as He states in the Gita (15.7). He also says that to have spiritual vision means to see the spiritual equality of all living entities (Bg 5.18).
The cow and bull have a special place in Vedic culture. We accept the cow as our mother because she freely and trustingly supplies milk, the miracle food which helps us develop finer brain tissues. The bull does its work of plowing the fields. Nowadays people are concerned with ecology and with developing non-polluting technologies. Well, Krishna has already developed this in the bull. He doesn’t pollute the air or water, doesn’t drain the scarce resources of this planet, ‘and is self-reproducing. Of course, it requires a lot more labor to plow with a bull, but this is how Krishna intended us to farm.
Concerning your question about karma and cow-killing,, Srila Prabhupada described that not only those who directly kill the cow share in the bad karma, but also those who transport it or its meat, eat it, buy it, sell it, or even condone these activities are culpable. In a murder case, the law may hold several people culpable, not only the immediate killer but also his accomplices.
It’s illegal to kill a dog in the United States, but barbecuing a cow is “respectable.” Our feelings for animals tends to be based on how particular animals please us. People don’t have true compassion even for dogs, but because dogs please them by being obsequious, they imagine their attraction is love.
BP: After chanting Hare Krishna, reading the Bhagavad?gita and listening to the lecture tapes you sent me, by the grace of Lord Krishna, I will never again, under any circumstances, eat meat, fish, or eggs. My eyes have been opened to what a madness it is to indulge in eating these things.
BKS: The four regulative principles of spiritual life–no meat, fish, or eggs, no gambling, no illicit sex, and no intoxication–are preliminary or sub-religious principles. Religion means to glorify God and to serve Him without selfish motivation. But in order to do this, one must first be free from sin. So these four regulative principles are meant to bring one to the human platform, from which one can begin to serve God.
You should offer your food to God before eating it. During the cooking, no one should taste the preparation. When it is finished, you should put the pot or container before pictures of Krishna and Srila Prabhupada and chant the Hare Krishna mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. Then you should pray,”My dear Lord Krishna, please accept this offering.” After this you can partake of the remnants. This is a very simple procedure, and if you follow it, Krishna will accept the offering and you will not be eating ordinary food, but prasadam, God’s mercy.
BP: Brother Joseph was profoundly impressed by your last visit, and he has thanked me several times for allowing him to join us. He was inspired by your presence. We are still discussing the conversation. The next day he served the leftover prasadam to the whole community. Everyone enjoyed it. It was a real benediction to our community.
BKS: Anyone who partakes of prasadam is purified. After the food is offered to Krishna it is completely spiritual. Krishna states in the Gita (9.27) that all we eat, all we offer, and all we give away should be done as an offering to Him. Every moment of a sincere devotee’s life should
be lived with this in mind. This is real renunciation and real austerity. If we eat food, even vegetarian food, without offering first to God, then, as Krishna says in the Gita (3.13), we are eating sin. But if we offer our food first to Krishna, we become free from sin.
Even eating vegetables involves some sacrifice of life. Of course, there is no comparison between the violence used in killing a cow and the peaceful action of cutting a stalk of wheat, but offering food to Krishna alleviates us from even the comparatively small amount of karma accrued from eating vegetables. Apart from these spiritual reasons for following the Krishna conscious diet, it is also better for one’s health to abstain from eating meat, fish, and eggs. These reasons are of course secondary to the primary necessity of obedience to God’s laws.

CHANTING

BKS: So you are chanting sixteen rounds of the Hare Krishna mantra now?
BP: Yes, I’m so pleased because I want to do it for Krishna.
BKS: Lord Caitanya says that the chanting of the holy names of God cleanses the heart. A conditioned soul’s heart is compared to a dirty mirror. If you have a dirty mirror, you will be unable to see your reflection clearly. The dust, the dirt, covering our hearts has been accumulating for many lifetimes in this material world. At night people have so many dreams, many of which arise from impressions of past lives. For example, we may dream that we are flying through the sky like a bird.
Chanting God’s holy names is the most effective means in this age to cleanse the heart. It is Krishna who actually does the cleansing. Because our contamination is so extensive, we don’t have the ability, the strength, to cleanse the heart ourselves. Krishna, however, does.
It is important to have the proper attitude while chanting. Srila Prabhupada said that we should chant like a child crying out for his mother. Because when we are chanting we are in direct contact with Krishna, the chanting has to be seen as a personal exchange with God and not as a mere ritual. I’m sure there are many rituals in the monastery, and after engaging in them for some time, one may have a tendency to perform them unconsciously.
BP: Sure, you do it by rote. Sometimes you aren’t even aware of what you are doing.
BKS: You do it by rote, and your mind is a million miles away.BP: It is a great danger to forget the purpose of spiritual activities.
BKS: That may also happen with chanting Krishna’s names. If one is not careful, he may develop a ritualistic consciousness and his mud will wander while chanting. That is an offense. It hurts us because Krishna is not pleased.
SP: It world be the same as if we were having a conversation and I ignored you while you were speaking.
BKS: I would be insulted. I used to read while my mother was talking to me, and she’d say, “Look at me while I’m speaking to you!” It’s the same with Krishna; if we’re not listening carefully to His name, He will get upset.
BP: He wants us to be attentive.
BKS: Yes, Krishna is a person. He is personally present in His names, which is an amazing thing when you think about it. Everyone has the ability to associate with Him by chanting His names.
BP: Every morning, before chanting, I read the eight prayers that
Lord Caitanya wrote describing chanting of
the holy names. They are beautiful.
BKS: Reading these prayers of Lord Caitanya helps one
get into the right mood for chanting the Hare Krishna
mantra, because they remind one how important it is to
have the right attitude while chanting.
BP: Are there offenses in chanting?
BKS: There are ten offenses. If we avoid these offenses,
our chanting will be more effective. These offenses are
personal offenses to Krishna. When we recognize that by
chanting we’re coming directly in contact with Krishna, it
will become obvious what attitude is right and what at
titude is wrong. If we approach the chanting as a mere
ritual, we will not be able to discriminate between right and wrong attitudes. Chanting the Hare Krishna mantra should not be equated with reciting some material sound vibration.
There is one verse in the Vedic literatures which says, “The name of Krishna is completely spiritual, complete and pure. It is eternally liberated and non?different from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna.” (Padma Purana). Srila Prabhupada said, “When you chant, Krishna is dancing on the tip of your tongue.”
One should not chant mechanically. If one understands that God is personally present in His holy names, there
will be no chance of committing offenses. Offenses come when we forget that God and His holy names are nondifferent.
BP: To come to that realization one has to be very spiritually advanced. Isn’t that true?
BKS: That will come later. First one should accept the process of chanting with his intelligence. If we accept the Vedic conclusion concerning the status of Krishna’s name, even though we may not have realized it perfectly, we will be able to act on the platform of perfection.
This chanting is not some religious formulary or ritual. It is not a means to achieve, a separate end; rather, the chanting is both the means and the end. Upon attaining the perfectional stage one may give up many ritualistic activities, but the holy names of God are to be chanted whether one is contaminated or purified. Whether he is in the material world or in the spiritual world, a devotee of God chants His holy names. One never progresses beyond the holy names, since one can never go beyond God’s words, God’s names, and God’s personal forms.
In one sense God is unknowable, in that He is unknowable to our present material senses. But He can make Himself known through His holy name and His activities, which can be understood by His mercy. In the spiritual realm the perfect devotees of God are eternally engaged in chanting His names, hearing His pastimes, talking
about Him, and serving Him personally.
In His eight prayers, Lord Caitanya teaches us, “One
can chant the holy names of the Lord constantly when one
is more humble than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, devoid of all
desire for false prestige, and ready to give all respects to others.” The substance of
perfection is to be chanting the holy names of God twenty?four hours a day.
Devotees of Krishna train their minds to be always absorbed in Krishna’s holy
names so that at the time of, death they will remember Him, and thereby return to
Him.
Lord Caitanya described that the chanting of Hare Krishna cultivates the
growing creeper of devotion in the heart. This creeper has to be cultivated
carefully, just as one takes care of a plant. A gardener has to take the weeds out,
keep people from stepping on his plants, and regularly water them. In chanting
Hare Krishna, the weeds are desires separate from the service of the Lord. A
devotee has to carefully nurture his creeper of devotion, because it is a very
delicate plant. If one fails to do this, it will not yield it’s fruits of pure love of
Krishna.
When the devotional creeper grows unimpeded, it ul
timately pierces the outer covering of the material
universe and reaches the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krishna.
BP: When I chant, I realize that Krishna can be with me
anywhere. When I go out in a car, or work, I chant softly
to myself. I can associate with Krishna even under these
various circumstances. We have the Jesus prayer in our
tradition, but unfortunately very few follow it.
BKS: We can chant the holy names of God in any situation, and He will be personally there to guide, protect, and maintain us in our service to Him. There are no hard and fast rules for chanting God’s holy names, but one should be careful to avoid offenses in order to reach the perfection of chanting–pure love of God. The list of offenses to be avoided can be found in Srila Prabhupada’s The Nectar of Devotion. There are three stages in chanting the Hare Krishna mantra: the offensive stage, the clearing stage, and the stage of chanting in pure love of Godhead. We should not be satisfied with offensive chanting, but should strive to eliminate all offenses.
There is no material hindrance to the performance of devotional service. We can chant anywhere. The Vedas say that the names of God are completely spiritual, and within them are the Lord’s pastimes, form, and spiritual abode. Anyone who chants the names of Krishna associates directly with Krishna.
Try to practice chanting the Hare Krishna mantra all day. You don’t need the beads to chant during the day. While walking or working you can chant; you can chant in any situation. If you do this you will never be separated from Krishna or the devotees. Of course, you may have to chant softly or silently when in the company of others.
God has invested all of His potencies in His names. The Hare Krishna mantra means, “My dear Lord Krishna, please let me serve You.” It is a prayer to the Lord for devotional service, and by reciting this prayer one makes personal contact with Him. On the relative, or dualistic, platform of ordinary life, there is a difference between .a person and his name. On the absolute platform, however, there is nn distinction hetween the Lord and His name.

DEVOTIONAL SERVICE

BP: In our tradition the emphasis is on prayer and work.
BKS: That is also the Vedic conception of karma yoga
and bhakti-yoga; re-establishing our connection with God
through work and devotion. Yoga doesn’t mean just
physical exercise; it means connection with God.
According to the Vedas, yoga practice has two prelimi
nary aspects; restrictions and positive injunctions.
Everyone in this world is in a spiritually sick condition
in that he is in illusion, taking something as real which is
unreal. Everyone thinks his body and things connected
with his body are substantial and are perpetually con
nected with himself. But time takes all these things away.
Material illusion is thus like a disease that has to be over
come by observing certain restrictions
If you have a disease, you have to restrict your diet; if
you have diabetes for example, you have to avoid sugar.
So to overcome the disease of illusion, we should follow
the following restrictions: no meat, fish, or eggs, no in
toxication, no illicit sex, and no gambling.
These are the preliminary principles of God conscious? I
ness, or the regulative principles. They are what. we call
sub?religious principles. Once these preliminaries are es
tablished, ‘ real religion begins with practical service to
.God and the chanting of God’s names.
BP: Is regulation stressed in the temples?
BKS: Yes, temple life is regulated. Regulation is recom
mended in the Bhagavad gita as a means of controlling the
senses. One of the first principles of yoga is that one
should withdraw his senses from material sense objects,
similar to what you do here. Here in the monastery, you restrain yourself from doing things that you were previously in the habit of doing.
In other words, you sacrifice lower desires for higher desires. For this purpose, the Bhagavad?gita recommends, one should regulate his eating, sleeping, and worship. “There is no possibility of one’s becoming a yogi, O Arjuna, if one eats too much or eats too little, sleeps too much or does not sleep enough” (Bg. 6.16).
BP: St. Benedict was the father of moderation. When people come here, they ask us about the different rituals we perform and we explain that to relate to God totally, the body must be employed in His service. We need to subjugate the body to the spirit.
BKS: That is right. In the beginning there is what we call “devotional service in practice.”
BP: In the Bhagavad?gita Krishna states that He is the ritual. What does that mean?
BKS: There are two ways to understand that. One is that r a devotee shouldn’t get so involved in rituals that he forgets the purpose of them, and the other is that he shouldn’t neglect the rituals since they are nondifferent from God Himself.
Srila Rupa Goswami, in his Nectar of Instruction, cautions us to avoid blind attachment to rituals. Religion means to re?establish one’s relationship with the Supreme Lord. Whatever pleases God should be accepted, and whatever displeases Him should be rejected. God is a person; He has His likes and dislikes, although His desires are not material as ours are. Therefore we need to find out what God wants, and then to act to satisfy His desires.
Srila Prabhupada told us not to judge a religion on the basis of its external formalities. Rather the criterion should be whether its adherents are developing love of God. The Srimad?Bhagavatam (1.2.8) states, “Even if one performs all of the rituals perfectly, if he is not developing attraction for God, his endeavors should be considered a waste of time.” Attraction to God is not a nebulous concept; it is manifest in a practical way by one’s
desire to hear about God, speak about God, and serve God. And concomitant with this attraction for God, one needs to develop detachment from those things not related to His service. When one blindly follows ritual, one
develops an impersonal attitude towards God.
BP: We look at our prayers as obligations, but the love of God that goes into our prayers is not even considered.
BKS: If one is inattentive in his praying, God is not much pleased and consequently there is little spiritual enlightenment. For the same reason it is offensive to perform .religious rituals for the sake of material health or material wealth. Srila Prabhupada said, “Religion without philosophy is sentimental.” In our temples, the
wi hout philosophy is sentimental.” In our temples the
devotees have a class in the Bhagavatam every day. We have to remember the reason for our activities, and in order to remember we should regularly hear from the revealed scriptures.
BP: Is one held responsible for sinful thoughts in the mind?
BKS: In this modern age, known in the Vedic tradition as Kali-yuga, there is the special dispensation that we do not get karmic reactions for sinful thoughts. In other ages, if one even thought of a sinful activity, he would be implicated. Notwithstanding this dispensation, however, we should control the mind by exercising higher intelligence.
As one’s mind starts contemplating illicit activities, desire to engage in, them grows stronger and soon becomes uncontrollable. Mental activity goes through three stages: thinking, feeling, and willing. First one thinks, then he starts to feel bodily symptoms of desire, and then he acts.
Therefore, the mind has to be stopped from sinful activity at the initial stage of thinking.
To conquer the mind is one of the first steps in spiritual life. The mind is conquered by higher intelligence, intelligence guided by the revealed scriptures. Krishna con= scious intelligence is defined as sacrificing temporary satisfaction for the spiritual goal of love of God.
BP: I find that in reading the books of the Krishna consciousness movement I experience an awakening.
BKS: Yes, the knowledge is innate. Our business is to simply remember this knowledge. Everyone is a devotee of Krishna, but most have forgotten this. Preachers of Krishna consciousness have the duty of awakening this knowledge in others’ hearts. It is like a doctor’s work in bringing a patient out of a coma.
The regulated practice of sadhana?bhakti (bhakti yoga)
is the standard method for reviving one’s original God
consciousness. I say original because God consciousness
or Krishna consciousness is innate in our hearts. When
one is sleeping at night, one forgets his actual identity, and
in the same way the materially conditioned soul forgets
his relationship with God due to being covered by the il
lusory potency of the Lord. The chanting of the Lord’s
names has the power to reawaken the materially condi
tioned soul to his original consciousness.
BP: How does the association that we have affect our Krishna consciousness?
BKS: There are two ways in which we associate with other persons, namely by giving and taking. According to the Vedic literatures, we should give our association to those who are less advanced spiritually and take association from those who are more advanced. Mere physical proximity does not guarantee that one is actually associating with the devotees of God. Many times I have seen someone living in a temple who nonetheless maintained a separatist mentality and therefore was not actually associating either with the devotees or Krishna.
While performing service under the direction of the spiritual master, there is no question of separation from the spiritual master. Srila Prabhupada conducted his mission in the West after his spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, left this world, yet Prabhupada was never separated from his guru.
The most important association is hearing. When we hear from someone submissively, we imbibe that person’s qualities. It is therefore of utmost importance to hear from devotees of the Lord. If we engage in hearing from materialistically inclined men, we will be affected by material qualities. But if we hear from pure devotees, we will have the qualities of pure devotional service implanted within our hearts.
Thus we should learn to discriminate between devotees and non-devotees. The special quality that distinguishes a devotee is the devotee’s desire to glorify the Lord twenty?four hours a day, as compared to a non?devotee’s avoiding the glorification of the Lord and acting for selfish motives. In the Gita (9.14), Krishna describes the devotee, “Always chanting My glories, endeavoring with great determination, bowing down before Me, these great souls perpetually worship Me with devotion.”
“Hearing with faith” means accepting without a doubt whatever Krishna or the pure devotee says. By such hearing one gains immediate realization.
Knowledge has two aspects jnana and vijnana. Jnana means the knowledge itself and vijnana means the realization of that knowledge. To give a concrete example, if I tell you “Brother Paul, you are not your body,” you will certainly be able to understand this statement intellectually and perhaps be able to repeat verbatim my words. That is jnana. But if you hear perfectly, you will actually become detached from the body and from its pains and pleasures. That is vijnana, or realization.
In addition to hearing from devotees, we should avoid
mundane talk, which in Sanskrit is technically called
prajalpa. In his Nectar of Instruction, Srila Rupa Goswami
cites this prajalpa as a cause for falling down from devo
tional service. Other causes are overeating, excessive en
deavor for mundane purposes, following rules ritualisti
cally, failing to follow appropriate rules, associating with
persons who do not glorify God, and being greedy for
material things.
You are learning a lesson in Krishna consciousness that t most devotees do not .learn for many years–how to take shelter of Krishna through sound. This is a requirement for one who wants to become a bona fide sannyasi or. t . renunciant. A sannyasi has to be ready to go wherever Krishna may send him. Oftentimes, he is alone, so to remain fearless, he has to learn to associate with Krishna through sound.
BP: Does a devotee of Krishna renounce this material world?
BKS: Lord Caitanya taught that one should be renounced by using everything for Krishna. If I say I want to use this world for Krishna, I am actually renouncing it, because I renounce even the concept of possibly using this world for my own pleasure. Krishna says in the Gita (9.26?27), “Whatever you do, .whatever you eat, whatever charity you offer, should be done as an offering to Me. This way you will be freed from all reactions to your karma.”
A devotee’s renunciation does not come from a negative attitude toward material activities and thoughts, but rather from a positive attraction to Krishna. A pure devotee has so much fun serving and glorifying God that he fords it impossible to think of anything material. This is described in the Gita (2.59), “The embodied soul may be restricted from sense enjoyment, though the taste for sense objects remains. But ceasing such engagements by experiencing a higher taste, he is fixed in consciousness.”
Everyone is hankering for a deep loving relationship, and that is why people establish families, buy cars, love dogs, etc. But trying to satisfy one’s loving propensity in these ways is futile. Love of Krishna, on the other hand, is infinitely satisfying. Just as a young boy falls in love with a young girl, the devotee falls in love with the Lord and finds himself unable to forget the Lord at any time.
BP: The other day I was regretting that I was not able to
finish my college education. Then I read, “This
Bhagavad-gita is the science of Krishna consciousness,
and in order to understand Krishna, we must be fortunate
enough to associate with a person who is simply in pure
Krishna consciousness. We cannot understand
Bhagavad-gita simply by acquiring an M.A., Ph.D., or
whatever. Bhagavad-gita is a transcendental science, and
it requires different senses in order to be understood.
Our senses must be purified by the rendering of service,
not by the acquiring of academic degrees. There are
many Ph.D.’s, many scholars, who cannot understand Krishna…
“Thus Krishna is realized by the grace of Krishna or by the grace of a Krishna conscious person who has realized Krishna by the grace of Krishna. We cannot understand Him through academic knowledge. We can only understand Krishna by acquiring the grace of Krishna. Once we acquire His grace, we can see Him, talk with Him??do whatever we desire. It is not that Krishna is void. He is a person, a Supreme Person, and we can have a relationship with Him…” This really encouraged me, gave me hope and set me at ease regarding my lack of education.
BKS: There is a Vedic term, sastra-chaksus, which means literally “to see through the eyes of scripture (sastra).” That is to say, our vision should be perfectly dovetailed with the vision of Krishna, because His vision is perfect. If we can do this, our vision will also become absolute, no longer subject to its previous imperfections. And in order “to see through the eyes of scripture” one must become well-versed in the scriptures.
Conditioned souls have the cheating tendency, the tendency to make mistakes, imperfect senses, and the tendency to be illusioned. The Vedic literatures and the pure devotees of the Lord, on the other hand, do not have these tendencies. Therefore they can be trusted implicitly. So the more that we hear from Krishna and Krishna’s representative, the clearer our vision will become.
BP: I am feeling anxiety that I am not able to engage fully in Krishna’s service in the association of devotees.
BKS: The anxiety you are experiencing on account of your desire to serve Krishna is a good sign. According to Srila Rupa Goswami in his Nectar of Instruction, intense hankering for Krishna and His service is essential in reaching the perfection of pure devotional service.

FAITH AND SURRENDER

BP: What is the relationship between faith and surrender?
BKS: One without the other is incomplete. People may say that they have faith in God and they may even claim that this faith alone, without works, will let them obtain the kingdom of God. But one who believes in God yet ` does not surrender to Him is still sinful. The example may
be given of a criminal who certainly has faith that the . government exists and has certain powers, but still is locked in prison because of his illegal activities. In the Vedic scriptures we find many accounts of demons who believed in the existence of God but still fought against Him.
Surrender without faith is also incomplete. By brute force one can make another do his bidding, but devotion will not be there. Similarly, although Krishna could force the living entities to serve Him, there would then be no question of love, because love must involve a voluntary choice.
“Faith” is defined by Krishnadas Kaviraja Goswami in the Caitanya?caritamrta (Madhya 22.62), wherein he states: “By rendering transcendental loving service to Krishna, one automatically performs all subsidiary activities.” As Srila Prabhupada explains in relation to this verse, we have many debts and obligations, to our country, family, and so on. But if we have faith in Krishna, we will understand that just by serving Him all other obligations are taken care of.
The Vedas differentiate between sub?religious and religious principles. Sub?religious principles are religious in the sense that they bring one to the point of being able to perform actual religious activities. They are the foundation of the building, not the building itself. Actual religion is doing what God wants.
To meditate upon pleasing God is the substance of religion; other principles are there just to bring people to the human platform. For example, in this monastery I wouldn’t tell the monks to follow the Ten Commandments. It would be an insult, wouldn’t it? If you’re a monk in the monastery, you’re not going to be killing, committing adultery, or dishonoring your father and mother. These are just sub?religious principles, whereas here, you are supposed to be developing love of God. One comes to this point of surrendered faith by the process of hearing about Krishna from authorized persons.
BP: I often think how I want to surrender to Krishna. In our monastic life, the vow of obedience is similar. With obedience is freedom. But one can be obedient in external action and rebel internally.
BKS: You are correct that surrender leads to freedom in devotional service. Most people in this world feel that they are free because they follow no authority. In reality, however, they have accepted the authority of their senses and mind. The senses and mind?make very bad masters, and under their control one is unable to express his true desires; the desires of the soul to love God. By following a spiritual authority, one becomes free from the whims of the senses and mind; thus one becomes able to develop his relationship with Krishna. Devotees realize that by following the Krishna conscious rules and regulations their individuality will manifest. The rules and regulations of Krishna consciousness are called “regulative practices of freedom.” BP: What is the relationship between the faith of a devotee and intelligence?
BKS: The faith a devotee has in Krishna is not blind. Everyone has to have faith in something–in himself, in someone, or something else, or in some general worldview. Just to live, we have to have faith. It is a constituent part of our nature. Faith is the key to Krishna consciousness, but it is not attained by an artificial process of mental adjustment. It is the result of executing mature devotional service.
Krishna explains this in the Ninth Chapter of the Gita (9.2), where He states, “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.”
The key words in this verse as far as our discussion of faith is concerned are, “because it gives direct perception of the self by realization.” That is, one on the platform of mature Krishna consciousness can directly see, taste, touch, hear, and smell Krishna. That direct experience of Krishna’s nature -solidifies our faith.
The more we progress in Krishna consciousness, the more Krishna reveals Himself to us. Krishna says in the Fourth Chapter of the Gita (4.11), “As all surrender unto Me, I reward them accordingly. Everyone follows my path in all respects, O son of Prtha.” Our relationship with Krishna is reciprocal, in that our spiritual realization is dependent upon our degree of surrender to Him. A devotee’s faith is realized faith. You are experiencing Krishna consciousness, and your acceptance of Krishna consciousness was not a result of indoctrination, whereas your acceptance of yourself as an American or anything else was dependent upon the conditioning of the society in which you were brought up. .
You are experiencing reciprocation with Krishna, and that’s why you are attracted to Krishna consciousness. There is no other reason for it. Your parents never mentioned the name Krishna to you.
BP: In fact, twenty years ago I would have been very hesitant to investigate Krishna consciousness.
BKS: That is the proof that Krishna conscious faith is not blind. You make one step towards Krishna, and He reciprocates many times over. If a man works for a company, he has faith that he will be paid. This is not blind faith, because he has experience of being paid in the past. In the same way, the faith that a devotee of Krishna has is not blind. He has experienced reciprocation in the past and that reciprocation has increased as he’s increased his devotion.
We should not become despondent when we fail to achieve quick results from the process of Krishna consciousness. We should push on, rather, with great enthusiasm and dependence upon Krishna. In material consciousness our mind accepts and rejects things based upon what it thinks will be more pleasing. In Krishna consciousness, however, we should accept and.reject things based upon what is more pleasing to Krishna.

THE SPIRITUAL MASTER

BP: I read in Srila Prabhupada’s books that you must take initiation from a bona fide spiritual master to make progress in Krishna consciousness.
BKS: Initiation is the formal acceptance of .a spiritual master, in which one vows to follow the regulative principles of Krishna consciousness–no gambling, no illicit sex, no eating meat, fish, or eggs, and no intoxication–and to chant at least sixteen rounds of the Hare Krishna mantra daily. This initiation should be taken seriously by the initiate and the spiritual master.
The spiritual master assumes the karma of the initiate and makes the commitment to guide his disciple back to the spiritual world, the kingdom of God. Therefore the spiritual master must be fully realized in Krishna Consciousness. He must be an acharya, that is, one who teaches not only with words but also by example. The relationship between the disciple and spiritual master is eternal. I suggest that you read more about this matter in Srila Prabhupada’s books.
By the mercy of Krishna one gets a bona fide spiritual master, and by the mercy of the bona fide spiritual master one becomes Krishna conscious. The mercy of the spiritual master and the mercy of Krishna are nondifferent. The spiritual master is simply the transparent via medium through which the mercy of Krishna is received.
Initiation is not the goal of spiritual life, but rather the foundation upon which one builds his devotional service. There is no place for complacency in devotional service.
BP: There has to be some spiritual authority. There are many different translations of the Bible. BKS: That is why we have a disciplic succession, from master to disciple in an unbroken chain. The disciplic chain can be compared to the harvesting of mangoes. In India they harvest mangoes from the trees by handing them down carefully from one person to another.
BP: So they don’t get bruised.
BKS: They don’t just throw them down.
BP: What disciplic succession is the Krishna consciousness movement connected to?
BKS: We are members of the Vaisnava disciplic succession known as the Brahma disciplic succession, which originated with Lord Krishna’s teaching the spiritual science to Lord Brahma, the first created being in this universe. All disciplic successions ultimately come from Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Since all religion must come from God, religious principles can only be made by God Himself, not by theologians or anyone else.
The problem with many traditions is that their philosophies are created by theologians or philosophers who interpret the original text in their own way, not accepting the direct, literal meaning of the Bible or the Vedas. Gradually, many sects with divergent philosophies evolved by this type of behavior.
BP: How does the spiritual master represent the disciplic succession?
BKS: He has to be perfectly transparent. This means that he must be completely devoted to God and present exactly what he has heard from his own spiritual master–no more, no less.
The spiritual master is compared to a postman. He delivers the letter, but he doesn’t open it or write on it. If the spiritual master presents his own opinion, the disciplic succession would be broken. We see the outside through a glass window, but still the experience is direct. How good a window is depends on how transparent the glass is. Similarly, how good a spiritual master is, depends on how transparent he is.
BP: Is there a need for a living spiritual master?
BKS: Yes. The spiritual master ascertains the psycho
physical nature of his disciple and prescribes spiritual
duties for him. Since each person is an individual, there cannot be
one prescription for everyone.
In a hospital, everyone is sick. They are trying to get well, but they are approaching the state of wellness from varying situations. The patients have various diseases and various ramifications of the same diseases; therefore each individual receives a different prescription. The spiritual master prescribes specific Krishna conscious duties for the disciple so that the disciple can be relieved of material contamination.

PREACHING IS THE
ESSENCE

BP: In the Bhagavad-gita it is stated that the yogi, devotee, goes into solitude. for prayer, and yet I have also read where Srila Prabhupada states that in this age of Kali solitude is not recommended. In our tradition, solitude is stressed; one must be filled with God while being alone.
BKS: Solitude is characterized in the Bhagavad-gita as “detachment from the general mass of people.” Absolute solitude is not recommended. You monks refrain from interacting with society, while you are encouraged to associate with your spiritual brothers.
There is a verse in the Nectar of Instruction that says, “Offering gifts in charity, accepting charitable gifts, revealing one’s mind in confidence, inquiring confidentially, accepting prasadam (sanctified food), and offering prasadam are the six symptoms of love shared by one devotee and another:” This describes the different types of favorable interactions between devotees.
BP: Yes. I understand there are different kinds of solitude.
BKS: Bad association must be avoided, as it creates the danger of falling down from spiritual life. Lord Caitanya was asked about the characteristics of a devotee, and he answered, “A devotee avoids the association of those who are not devotees:”
In the Caitanya?caritamrta it is stated that a person who does not try to help others is to be pitied. All of our Hare Krishna temples are thus managed with preaching in mind. Everyone in the temples goes out to distribute books, visit colleges, meet people, and make contacts,. or else assist the front-line soldiers.
The Krishna conscious man is not hard?hearted, but his compassion is directed towards the soul rather than toward the soul’s temporary vehicle, the body.
Srila Prabhupada told a nice story to illustrate the importance of focusing one’s compassion on the soul: Once
there was lady who kept a bird in a cage. Unfortunately,
she was so wrapped up in her determination to keep the
cage polished and clean that she neglected the bird inside
the cage, and the bird ultimately died. In this story, the
cage represents the body, and the bird represents the soul.
No matter how much attention we give the body, our ef
forts to be helpful will ultimately fail if we neglect the soul.
Krishna states in the Bhagavad?gita (18.68?69), “For one
who explains this supreme secret to the devotees, pure
devotional service is guaranteed, and at the end he will
come back to Me. There is no servant in this world more
dear to Me than he, nor will there ever be one more dear.”
A devotee’s compassion to help others get out of suffering is the driving force of his life. This compassion, together with the devotee’s desire to fulfill the desires of the Lord eradicates from his heart all self?centeredness, including even the desire for his own liberation.
The intention of a Krishna conscious person is not simply to become God?conscious himself, but to make the whole world God-conscious. At present, the activities of the population in general are against the laws of God. People are killing helpless creatures (animals and even fetuses) without cause. They are engaged in all sorts of abominable sexual activities. As the Gita (16.7) states, “Those who are demoniac do not know what is to be done and what is not to be done. Neither cleanliness nor proper behavior nor truth is found in them.”
The Vedic literatures declare that the appropriate method of self-realization in this age is sankirtana, public preaching and glorification of God. One who is religious will be compassionate. We are not interested in getting relief from anxiety, or being in a peaceful condition; that is called mukti or liberation. Unfortunately, we find this liberation to be the central aim of many religious traditions. The Vedic literatures also call liberation a material desire, because it is self?centered.
To be completely pure means, that whatever God wants, we will do. A devotee is even willing to go to hell for God. In the Caitanya-caritamrta, there is a story of a devotee named Vasudeva Datta, who prayed to Krishna, “You can keep me here in this material world and let me suffer forever. But please just liberate everybody else; take them all. Let me take all of their sins on my shoulders.”
The Bhagavatam similarly describes that a topmost devotee of Krishna is not worried about going to hell, whereas other religionists, those who are inclined toward salvation, are indeed worried about going to hell.
If one in an impure state tries to preach about God, his preaching will not be effective. One should become an acharya, a devotee who is pure in his own life and speaks nicely about God. One who speaks without acting nicely is a hypocrite.
Prabhupada said that in preaching, purity is the force. We should present Krishna consciousness in a logical fashion, but purity is required to effect a change in someone’s heart.

His Divine Grace

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada appeared
in this world in 1896 in Calcutta, India. He first met his spiritual master,
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami, in Calcutta in 1922. At their
first meeting, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur requested Srila
Prabhupada to broadcast Vedic knowledge through the English Lan
guage. In the years that followed, Srila Prabhupada started Back to
Godhead, an English fortnightly magazine–edited it, typed the
manuscripts, and oversaw all aspects of its publication. Once begun, the
magazine never stopped; it is now being continued by his disciples in
the West and is published in over thirty languages.

In 1950, at the age of fifty-four, Srila Prabhupada retired from mar
ried life, adopting the vanaprastha(retired) order to devote more time
to his studies and writing. He accepted the renounced order of life (sannyasa) in 1959. At the medieval Radha-Damodara temple Srila Prabhupada began work on his life’s masterpiece: a multivolume transla
tion of and commentary on the eighteen- thousand-verse Srimad
Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana).

Srila Prabhupada came to the United States in 1965 to fulfill the mis
sion of his spiritual master. Subsequently, His Divine Grace wrote
more than sixty volumes of authorized translations and summary
studies of the philosophical and religious classics of India.

In 1965, when he first arrived by freighter in New York City, Srila
Prabhupada was practically penniless. It was after almost a year of great
difficulty that he established the International Society for Krishna Con
sciousness in July of 1966. Before his passing away on November 14,
1977, he guided the Society and saw it grow to a worldwide confedera
tion of more than one hundred temples, schools, institutes, and farm communities.

Srila Prabhupada’s most significant contribution, however, is his books. Highly
respected by the academic community for their authoritativeness, depth, and clarity, they are
used as standard textbooks in numerous college courses. His writings have been translated
into more than fifty languages. The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, established in 1972 to publish
the works of His Divine Grace, has thus become the world’s largest publisher of books in the
field of Indian religion and philosophy.

The Author

Bir Krishna Swami is one of the spiritual leaders of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. He has the unique status of being among the first Western-born members of the authorized chain of disciplic succession descending from the Supreme Lord Krishna. In modern times, the most essential task of Krishna conscious spiritual masters is to publish the Vedic scriptures of ancient India and distribute them throughout the world. Bir Krishna Swami has made this mission his life and soul.
Bir Krishna Swami spent his childhood in Long Island, New York. As an academically gifted student at Northwestern University, he began reading the Vedic literatures translated by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Founder?Acharya of the Krishna consciousness movement. Impressed by Srila Prabhupada’s scholarship and saintliness, Bir Krishna Swami became a member of the Krishna conscious community in Gainesville, Florida in 1971. Shortly thereafter, he was initiated as Srila Prabhupada’s disciple.
From the beginning, Bir Krishna Swami distinguished himself by his oratorical skills, his spiritual dedication, and his devotion to studying the writings of his spiritual master, through which he aquired a deep knowledge of the process of Krishna consciousness.
In 1972 he began traveling throughout the United States distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books and lecturing at colleges and universities. This continued until 1974, when Bir Krishna Swami became directly involved in the publication of Srila Prabhupada’s books in English and Spanish. He also spoke widely in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean on the science of Krishna consciousness.
In early 1978 Bir Krishna Swami entered the renounced order of life(sannyasa) in Lima, Peru. In 1982 he came to North Carolina and opened its first permanent Krishna conscious center.
Select Bibliography
Dasa, Adiraja, The Hero Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking (Paris, The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1984). Prabhupada, A C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, Bhagavad?gita As It Is (Los Angeles, Collier?Macmillan, 1972). ?Caitanya Caritamrta 17 vols., (Los Angeles, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1975). ?Srimad?Bhagavalam, 30 vols., (New York/Los Angeles, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1972?80). ?The Nectar of Devotion (Los Angeles, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1970). ?The Nectar of Instruction (Los Angeles, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust,1972). Flown, Steve, Food for the Spirit, (New York, Bala Books, 1987). Vedic Contemporary Library Series, The Higher Taste (Los Angeles, The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1983).

An Invitation
You are invited to attend our weekly open house which is held every Sunday. There are discussions on mantra meditation, karma, reincarnation, and the other topics dealt with in this book. A free sumptuous vegetarian dinner will be served. The program begins at 5:00. P.M. Call for information.
Iskcon of North Carolina
P.O. Box 897
Hillsborough, N.C. 27278
(919) 7326492
Directions:
Get off exit #164 of Interstate &5. Go south 1/4 mile. Turn
right on Oakdale. When Oakdale ends turn left and then turn
Get off exit #164 of Interstate &5. Go south 1/4 mile. Turn
ght on Oak fight on the next street. You are on Oakdale again. Follow
0Oak?dale until it ends. Turn right on Dimmocks Mill Rd. Continue on Dimmocks Mill Rd. 1/3 of a mile after Gimmicks
Mill Rd. goes over Interstate 85 you will .see a geodesic dome
(ISKCON) on your left. You are now at ISKCON. Call for information.

Readers interested in the subject matter of this book are invited to correspond with the author: Bir Krishna Swami, bkgoswami@compuserve.com (bkgoswami@earthlink.net)