His Divine Grace clarifies that we cannot be devoid of desires. Based on whether we want to satisfy our own senses or whether we want to satisfy Krishna's senses we can understand whether our desires are spiritual or material.

If transcendental education is absent, then whichever ashram we are in, we will create havoc. Because we are not following the ashram. Cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ. It is coming from the Supreme Absolute Truth. But our position is that we want to carry out different whims with our minds.

While reading Srimad Bhagavatam, we find that the prayers and instructions of Lord Brahmaji are always directed towards the glorification of the Supreme Lord. We should cultivate the habit of chanting those prayers that Lord Brahma chanted and follow in his footsteps.

There is no other order from the spiritual master except to perform the sincere devotional service. So if you don’t perform the sincere devotional service then that is disobedience to the spiritual master and the parampara.

The greatest fall in our spiritual life is when we become proud of doing devotional service. We learn this important lesson from Lord Brahma that when we are occupied in the service of the Lord and His servants, we stay humble and focus our time, thoughts and energy on how to perform the service to please Them to the best of our ability. An antidote to pride is a humble and grateful heart demonstrated by Lord Brahma.

Presently our heart is filled up with hundreds and millions of desires which is arising every second of our existence and this completely blocks our heart from filling it up with Krishna's names and pastimes. We may worship the Lord in such a pompous way but the inner motive is something different and therefore Krishna is not at all pleased and does not occupy our heart at all.

Dear Prabhujis and Matajis,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev.

In the Padma Purana, Lord Siva tells Parvati:

ārādhanānāṁ sarveṣāṁ viṣṇor ārādhanaṁ param
tasmāt parataraṁ devi tadīyānāṁ samarcanam

O Devi, Of all forms of worship, Vishnu worship is the highest. But higher than that is the worship of (tadiya) all the things belonging to Vishnu.

When we do all our occupational activities meticulously as a service to Krishna, then it will act as a provocative agent for the rebellious mind and force its attraction towards Krishna katha. The mind has been provoking us for millions of lifetimes to perform activities only for sense gratification. Let us now for a change, provoke the mind into listening to the message of Krishna and serve Him.

The idea is that because God and His knowledge are both unlimited, as soon as God is cognizant of some of His energies, He perceives that He has still more energies. In this way, both His energies and His knowledge increase. Because both of them are unlimited, there is no end to the energies and no end to the knowledge with which to understand the energies.

Our spiritual life also runs on these two most important tracks - sacrifice and surrender. Sacrifice our desire for enjoyment and surrender to the instructions of our spiritual master and superiors.

Accept that this world is a difficult place and tolerate the difficulties. Do not dream that this world is a heavenly place and then become smashed by all the difficulties. Then you lose the courage.'

That is the best way to live life because you expect the worst and when you have expected the worst, anything that happens which is not that worse, it is a big bonus and we become very peaceful.

The attitude of a demon will be to lament and the attitude of a devotee will be to become sober and rejoice and not be sorry. So in difficult times please remember Krishna. Do not become sorry for yourself. Blame yourself.

As we progress in our Krishna consciousness, we have to inevitably face many obstacles and challenges in our path of devotional service. As a sadhaka, we often times feel morose and hopeless in such conditions. Srimad Bhagavatam provides an invigorating source of hope and light for sincere devotees. 

Maharaj says that future is an imagination. Past is over. The only thing that we have with us is the present. So how much urgency we must put now on devotional service because the word 'now' has become past again. 

Therefore it is very important for us to chant the Hare Krishna mahamantra under all circumstances for it is the only saving grace in this age of Kali. If we are chanting in a prayerful mood and chanting prayers to the Holy Name to be merciful upon us, then we are extending and opening our hearts to receive the Lord's mercy and protection. 

We must see His hand, particularly in matters of this nature when we are hurt. We should remember Krishna and not get angry with the devotee. Not fire that devotee and hurt him but rather just walk away from the situation and become peaceful.

Somehow or other due to our previous pious works in devotional service, we have come to this point. Now it is our duty to regulate our life, according to the instructions of the scriptures. If you do that, your life will be successful.

If your chanting is clear and sincere then you become fixed. Then there is no waiting period, then you will not leave it. But I am making the point that those who chant haphazardly for ten years, even then you cannot get fixed because you don't know if chanting is good or not, whether material activities are good or spiritual activities are good.

Don't worry about the world. It is going to go on. The mind will always find some reasons to work in the night. But the thing is night time is not for working. At night time if you keep awake, then your blood burns and your blood is completely destroyed.

Also to become the master of the mind, we need to have the clarity that material activities are temporary and are source of miseries and any activity we perform other than devotional service is complete waste. 

Once you have read something, you have to ponder over it the whole day and then you come to the right conclusion and right behavior. If you do this and do devotional activities, then it is very easy to control your senses. The main devotional activity is to engage your senses in these activities "shravanam, kirtanam and vishnu smaranam".

Because we are very attached to money, there is no endeavour in remembering it. We very easily remember. And it is not you, me, him or her. Everybody, all living entities they remember, unless they are intoxicated or mad or just like that.

The point is if you associate with bad ideas, eventually you do the bad karma. If you stop the bad ideas, there is no question of doing the bad karmas. So many ideas come and go in our mind, you know, daily, every second, so many ideas, good and bad, they come and go

Ramayana, which narrates the wonderful pastimes of Lord Ramachandra, is an elixir that can take one on the righteous path and award pure love for God.

To the extent we react to the external situations, to that extent, we know how much devotional service we are performing. Those who are really performing devotional service, Krishna gives them the intelligence to know that they can feel hurt but not feel sorry.

For one who is really fixed in devotional service, when he is hurt by anything or anyone, he does not feel sorry for himself because when one performs devotional service, automatically two things come to him: causeless knowledge and detachment.

Maharaj said, because we cannot recognize the greatness of the devotees and we think everyone is as bad as us, we have mortgaged our intelligence because we have lost the good sense to understand that everyone is an exalted devotee and the best example of a great devotee showing us the practical lesson is actually Vidura.

One should not desire to own or enjoy something without having the capacity to obtain it. We should be satisfied with whatever comes of its own accord and should not crave for more and more.

Desiring for anything does not mean that we are envious, but desiring for something 'because another person posesses it' will make us envious. Whenever and wherever there is competition there is always the concomitant factors - pride and envy.

When you do a menial service to purify your heart, people may call you "show off"; Do it anyway. The beauty of devotional service is that even if we had been doing some service for "show off", when we sincerely pray to Guru and Krishna and keep continuing with that service, then that service itself will purify us.