Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev.
On the occasion of Sri Vyasa puja of our spiritual master H H Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaj, we would like to transcribe a beautiful lecture that Maharaj gave in Boston, Australia on 23rd May 1997.
1. Glorify the All-glorious and become Glorious: Our vedic culture always forces us to chant Krishna's names first before we discuss anything about Krishna because Lord is all-pervading - Vasudev, Vasudev means He is everywhere. These names you know, they have definite connotations. Yashoda you know, Krishna's mother's name is Yashoda. And Nandana means one who gives pleasure to the mother. Nanda means anand. Wherever He goes, it is nandana. He goes to Nanda, he also becomes Nandana. Wherever He goes, He always distributes the pleasure. This is the quality of Krishna. And the another meaning is very nicely described in the pages of Srimad Bhagavatam - yaśaḥ dadāti iti yaśodā, means, you become glorious as soon as you come to Yashoda or Krishna. yasha means glory. Frankly speaking we are very ordinary souls, there is no difference between ordinary persons and us. But because we are connected to Krishna who is full glory, so we also become glorious, we become extra-ordinary. Ordinary people don't perform the devotional service. They don't know anything. They are just running after the sense gratificatory activities. And to some extent we have controlled it. Because we have controlled and diverted our attention to the transcendental Supreme Lord, so that's why we become glorious.
As soon as you go after the supreme glorious person, then you also become glorious. That is the duty of yashoda, because yaśaḥ dadāti iti yaśodā. dadāti means give. yaśaḥ means glory. It means the living entity who gives glory. Because Yashoda is very near to Krishna always. She is always attached to Krishna, what is He doing, where is He... like that. Because she is attached to Krishna, she can impart the glories to the devotees. As soon as we become glorious, we become very pleased. When somebody glorifies you, you become very pleased. This glorious activities has got to be spread everywhere, because living entities are suffering without the glorious activities. As soon as you discuss the glorious activities of Krishna, the glory spreads in your existence also. And as soon as your existence is full of glories, then you become very happy. There is no other way to be happy. We are trying so many ways, we accumulate so many things to be happy, but we become more and more distressed instead of becoming happy. duḥkhauṣadhaṁ tad api duḥkham atad-dhiyāhaṁ. atad-dhiyāhaṁ means we are very proud of our inventions etc. We take so much credit but we are completely in darkness. For eg., We don't want to walk. So in order to avoid this misery, we have found out cars. But you know car is a big misery. Have you seen the car garages any time? They are completely dark, black. And the people who work on the cars, the mechanics, they have to take the nut and bolts, work hard day and night and they don't see the sunshine at all. As it is, there is no sunshine here. And again whatever little sunshine is there, they cannot utilize it. We sit in car and think we are happy, but we do not know how much misery we are creating. Have you seen the car factory anytime? We may have some white collar job and we are happy. But these people have to struggle in the car factories very much you know! Particularly, the assembly lines, we have been to the Ford factory and they call it assembly line. People have to work day and night.
The thing is, under the name of advancement, we create so much misery. Prahlad Maharaj says duḥkhauṣadhaṁ. auṣadhaṁ means remedy for the misery. But the remedy for the misery is more horrible than the misery itself. It is better to walk. If you walk, then you won't have to go to the doctor. You will always be very slim. The meaning of vraja is to walk. You go to Vrindavan and you see everybody is walking. In India still you find something suitable to walk. Here everything they want expensive. The houses are miles apart. This complex is very good, but to come to this complex, Oh God, its a laborious task. Without car you cannot do it. If you have to walk to your work from here, you can go only alternate days (laughter). So it becomes impossible. The vedic civilization is that everything was on a walking distance. There was no need for petrol or car anytime. We didn't have to depend upon any of those things. Now the houses are so big in America, if you have to go to the swimming pool, you have to use electric cars in the house. They can't walk in the house. One corner they stay and the other corner is the swimming pool. I told them that, "In order to go to the toilet also you will need a car." (laughter). This is really ridiculous. To reduce this, we must come to Yashoda always. Because she is the one who makes our life glorious. And Krishna is totally glorious. It is one of the aiśvarya-yaśaḥ, ie., fame. He is all-famous. You know, we go to Krishna temple, nobody introduces to us, "This is Krishna". He is self-introductory. As soon as we go, we bow down immediately. This is how the deities are maintained very nicely in our temples and everyone is attracted.
Krishna willing, we will see the remaining wonderful points from this transcendental lecture in the subsequent offering.
Thank you very much.
Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev,
Kalacakra Krsna das.
Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved.