Source of maintenance is transcendence - Supreme Absolute Truth. Income we may arrange. But with all the heavy income, all the exhaustive income, people die. That is our experience.
We are chanting. Why ? Because we are transforming ourselves into nice devotee life. So far we are animals. We didn't care for suffering of anybody. How can we eat when other living entities are suffering?
"Krishna will not neglect any living entity. And if you are chanting, if you are worshiping, if you are glorifying Him through His names or if you are working for Him, then definitely He will look after you. His attention will be on you.
Those who cannot tolerate the difficulties of others, they are called as saadhavo praayasho janaah. Those people are sadhus. Why can't we behave like sadhus, saintly people?
Every time we see grain of wheat or chappati in front of us, we remember Krishna. The vegetables, grains, herbs, medicinal plants are all nourished by the moon-shine. Moon shine is nothing else, but the reflection of Krishna's effulgence which is known as brahma-jyoti.
In the material world, when we surrender to someone, we lose our independence, our freedom of words and deeds. But when we surrender to Supreme Lord and His devotees, we become free from all material entanglements.
Generally we think that ashram means a place of hermitage. But Srila Prabhupada reveals to us a beautiful meaning for this word. In Srimad Bhagavatam verse 1.7.2, while describing the place wherein Srila Vyasadev compiled Srimad Bhagavatam, Suta Goswami says
In this material world, there is a normal tendency that we remember people as long as we get opportunity to see/hear from them. But when people move to different cities or countries, we lose touch with them. So there is a proverb in English which says, "Out of sight is out of mind."
Increase of material opulence is always a danger for we easily become prone to anarthas like pride and anger. We even tend to falsely think that we are more powerful than the Lord and so dare to question the authority or power of Lord, using our tiny brains
While going through the word-to-word meaning and the translation of this verse, we can see how Srila Prabhupada has nicely explained the word 'janataagha' - janataa means 'people in general' and agha means sins.
One of the important reason for my devotional service especially chanting and reading getting into boredom is because it becomes dull and stagnant at times.
Our beloved spiritual master HH Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaj while giving a class on the above verse insisted on how important it is to be chaste in devotional service.
"Before it gets too late, before you face another death in this species of existence, you must come to your senses. And as soon as you try to come to your senses you must try to follow the instructions of the scriptures.
Our Prabhupad always mentions one commandment from Bible, "Thou shall not kill." If you want to be a real Christian, you should shun from killing. That is, you should never touch meat.
In this Bible copy also, the same thing is repeated. I will read you something about water and air and there is the same in our Bhagavad Gita also. God recites the same thing.
"Materially we are paupers, we don't have any material assets, but what do we lack? Have you seen our Radhadesh temple? Does any richest man have a palace like that? Though we don't have anything, we are staying in palace.
"Now we are in the class, listening to Bhagavad Gita. So we are in goodness. If you go to earn money, then you are in passion. You have to work hard, you have to drive the car, do some hard work, that is passion.
This (running after our senses) is the greatest pit fall. Unless we conquer these things (our senses, including the mind), it is impossible. It is impossible to go ahead on the spiritual, anti material particle.
That evening there was a rainy storm near the ashram and in the ashram there were so many huts. Jaimini was staying in one nice hut and it was raining like cats and dogs.
The scriptures can never be wrong as it is compiled by the Lord Himself. Vyaas Bhagavan, the author of Srimad Bhagavatam, was dictating Srimad Bhagavatam and his scribe was Ganpathy, Ganesh deity with the elephant head.
One day, we may have the palace to stay and the next day, we may be under the tree. It does not matter so far as we are able to continue our transmission, spiritual transmission.
If we want to see the Supreme Lord, we have to get rid of the three modes and it is very nicely shown in the purport by Srila Prabhupad. These modes are part of our material existence.
"The three modes are the impediments and this verse 7.13 from Bhagavad Gita gives us the full idea. Even the translation is very nice. It is just one sentence. Please remember this translation.
The material paraphernalia with all these three modes of material nature, if it is troublesome to us, then we must be sane enough to think that there must be some anti material thing which should please us.
We may have very good wives, but the wives do not really please us for a long time. In the beginning it is alright, "I love you, you love me." It is for 8 days only (laughter).
The three modes of material nature, that is, ignorance, passion and goodness, they all drag us to the material platform whereas we are not meant for the material platform.
Maharaj has been talking about the general rule that our life span decreases with the passing of each day and also the exception to this rule. Of course, we cannot escape old age and death, as long as we are in this material world.
But He says in the second line that there is one exception to this and it is tasyarte yat-kshano niita uttama-shloka-vaartayaa. rte means that there is exception to this rule.
There are three modes of material nature He says. Either we are in goodness; now, at the moment, we are in the mode of goodness, hearing about the Supreme God.
"Now you should completely give up all attachment to your personal friends and relatives and fix your mind on Me. Thus being always conscious of Me, you should observe all things with equal vision and wander throughout the earth."
The word sankalpa is worth meditating. 'kalpa' means strong desire and 'sat' refers to the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna. So when we have a strong desire to please Krishna, it is called sankalpa.