As soon as you try to disobey the Supreme person, in other words the shastras, then you are thrown out. Thrown out means you are left at the mercy of illusory energy and then all miseries are there. In this position, with Krishna, with shastras, the miseries are also very nice. We are attached to Krishna, so we ignore the miseries
The families which don't have the traditions, they cannot be together for a long time. There are so many Kali yuga forces working on them. Kali yuga cannot touch a person who is sober enough to understand his own position and go to the shaastras. Shaastras is non-different from Krishna and if there is Krishna, Kali cannot stand. But there is always possibility that as soon as you forget shaastra or Krishna, means Kali yuga is waiting.
"It is also by good fortune that I am seeing you. Having obtained this opportunity, I feel as if I have taken birth again. Even though one is present in this world, to meet with intimate friends and dear relatives in this material world is extremely difficult."
And all the time, almost 99% of the time, as soon as the jiva comes in front of us, we see with critical eyes - This has got to be avoided. In shastras again they have said that as soon as there is discriminatory vision, we discriminate by vision, then we suffer. Krishna stands in front of you in the form of cruel death. This is the result of discrimination.
And that is why we must come to the pages of Bhagavad Gita and let Bhagavad Gita rule our life and then life has some meaning. Otherwise it is all miserable.
As soon as you are free, you must come to the shaastras. Being non-different from Krishna, Krishna is always present with us in the form of Bhagavad Gita.
nihsvaase nahi vishwaasa - That is shaastras. Shaastra - shaasan - that which rules the society is known as shaastras. Shaastra is ruling over us. The ruling is that nihsvaase nahi vishwaasa. This is shaastra. And it is correct. Nobody can refute.
Bhagavad Gita directs our life. But when you don't follow, then the reverse is true. That is, you are not living entity. But you are living bhut-ghosts.
He is seen and realized through the transcendental sound of the Vedas. Similarly, the Bhagavad-Gita is the sound representation of the Lord, and there is no difference in identity. The conclusion is that the Lord can be seen and heard by persistent chanting of the transcendental sound."
And because you are not joyful, you are harming your health. And you are harming any other living entity who is coming in contact with you. That is the drastic effect of not coming to brahma bhuta stage.
"If a devotee once utters the holy name of the Lord, or if it penetrates his mind or enters his ear, which is the channel of aural reception, that holy name will certainly deliver him from material bondage, whether vibrated properly or improperly, with correct or incorrect grammar, or properly joined or vibrated in separate parts. O brahmana, the potency of the holy name is therefore certainly great."
It does not matter whether the people whom we invite join the program or not but Krishna is more pleased with the attempt rather than the result. Jatayu in his attempts to protect Mother Sita from Ravana, lost his life. Infact he could not save Sita from Ravana.
[Lord Krishna said:] "Tell the wives of the brahmanas that I have come here with Lord Sankarshana. They will certainly give you all the food you want, for they are most affectionate toward Me and, indeed, with their intelligence reside in Me alone."
When a devotee is grateful and humble, Lord's mercy comes in the form of encouragement to perform more bhakti. Nobody encourages us more than Krishna, Srila Prabhupada and our spiritual master. In material life, we may appear as failure for others. But as long as we are under shelter of Krishna, we never fail.
We always think that when we are in Krishna consciousness, the family must be nice, health must be nice but how are we going to persevere in devotional service if everything is nice? If everything is nice, there is no perseverance.
Maharaj said that the moment we come to devotional service, we have to work very very hard because we follow in the parampara of Brahmaji who worked very hard. The other point Maharaj said is that we must be prepared to be alone. We must not forget that at the end of our life, when we are going to die, no matter how many people surround us, we are still alone. We shall have to flap the wings alone.
Maharaj says the villain sometimes is not the person who criticises us, but the villain is the person who brought the message to us, because he wants to provoke us.
Srila Prabhupada gives a wonderful purport, mentioning about the characteristics of the devotees involved in this pastime of Srimad Bhagavatam. His Divine Grace says in the purport to the above verse, "When a man or woman is afflicted by the lust of sex desire, it is to be understood as sinful contamination. Kashyapa was engaged in his spiritual activities, but he did not have sufficient strength to refuse his wife, who was thus afflicted.
Dirty things should not be there at all, only devotional service. When they come together, they should think about these things. And they should plan how to propagate. samsaarinaam karunayaaha puraana guhyam - be merciful to the suffering mass
If you are suffering from cold, the body suffers, you don't suffer. This is devotional service. We have such as sublime way at our disposal, and kaudi na lage daam, there is no expense.
We are unnecessarily blamed that we are statue worshipers. Statue and idol is same. We are accused that we are idol worshipers. But I'll tell you one thing. Statue worship and Deity worship are different. We have may be, Mahatma Gandhi statue in India or there is Churchill's statue in England in the Parliament square, and thousands of cars are moving around giving fumes all the time.
Here in Grand canyon, also there are three mountains which are named as Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. In Hawaii, there is a mountain like hill in the middle, and it divides the island. So on one side is the eastern community. It is like Vedic community. There is no electricity there.
Then Aryans must have entered Angladesh, the England, then might have crossed over and saw the beautiful island in front of them. So they thought that that island is very beautiful and so should be our island. So it is known as Arya-land, Ireland
So this struggle should be seriously continued and never stopped. In Bhagavad Gita verse 9.14 Lord Krishna says, satatam kirtayanto maam yatantash ca drdha vrataah - With full determination regularly you have to struggle, but this struggle is more tolerable and pleasing, than other material struggles. ye bahut aasaan hai [This is very easy]. But the thing is, because we have to reduce our sense gratification, that's why we feel the difficulty. Otherwise not difficult. It comes on the way of sense gratification.
And time and again the deities have proved that They have removed all the obstacles. These things are very correct. So the purport is if we really sincerely allow Krishna in our lives, everything will be completely clear, this is the purport.
The occupant of that land gave us lot of suffering. We were there only for three days in that building, and the municipality came with the lock and key. Municipal people, said, "You owe two and half lakhs of rupees." I said, "We have been here only for three days.