Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.66.18-19
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Вриндаван · 2024
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Recitation of Srimad-Bhagavatam verses
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya, bhagavate vāsudevāya, oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya, oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Nārāyaṇaṁ namaskṛtya naraṁ caiva narottamaṁ, devīṁ sarasvatīṁ vyāsaṁ, tato jayam udīrayet. naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā, abhadreṣu, nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā. Bhagavaty uttama-śloke, bhaktir bhavati naiṣṭhikī.
and 19. 66 Pondraka the false vasudeva verses 18 and 19 Yodhanam tat rathavāji-kuñjaraiḥ, Karoshtarihi, uh Arinavakanditaha, Arinavakita, Babho chitam,
modavaham, manasvinam, akridam, sepateheva ubanam Ayodhanam Tadrathavaji kun jarayodanam tatradhava jikun jara. Dvipatkaro Strair Ariva Arinavakhandita. Dvipat Karo stair Arinava Kanditah, dhamo babhūvôcitam moda-
Babhochitam modavahamasvinam, bhava Akridanam Buttapate rivolban, buttapatriam, Akridanam Buttapatri Volbanam, Ayodhanam, tadradava ji kundara, dadava jamikara, dvipat-karoṣṭraiḥ śara-rināvakhaṇḍitāyām,
babuchitam davahamasvinam.
Description of the gruesome battlefield
Akridanam Buttapateri Bobanam Akridanam Buttapateri
Buddha Ayodhanam Battlefield Tat Vet Ratha with the chariots Vaji Horses, Kunjara, elephants, Dvipat, Two-legged, humans, Kara, Mules ustrahi and camels arina by his disc avakanditai Cut to pieces. Babho shown. Chitam spread mod pleasure vahambring manasvinamasvin to the vice agridanam The playground Bhutta Patehe The Lord of Ghostly Spirits Lord Shiva iva, as if, ulbaṇam, ulbaṇam,
Horrible Translation the battlefield strewn with the dismembered chariots, horses, elephants, humans, mules and camels that had been cut to pieces by the Lord's disc's weapon shone
like the gruesome playground of Lord Bhutta Pati, giving pleasure to the vice. Purport.
Srila Prabhupada describes this scene as follows: All the devastated battlefield appeared like the dancing place of Lord Shiva at the time of dissolution of the world, the warriors who were on the side of Krishna were very much encouraged by seeing this.
They fought with great strength. Text number nineteen. Athaha pondra kam shore bho bho pondrakayat bhavan dutavatya na mamaha tanya astranite translation. Lord Krishna then addressed Pondraka.
My dear Pondraka, the very weapons you spoke of through your messenger, I now release into you. Purport. Srila Prabhupada writes as follows in Krishna. At this time Lord Krishna told Paundraka.
Paundraka, you requested me to give up my symbols of Lord Vishnu, specifically my disc. Now I will give it to you. Be careful.
You falsely declared yourself to be Vasudeva, imitating myself, therefore no one is a greater fool than you.
From this statement of Krishna, it is clear that any rascal who advertises himself as God is the greatest fool in
the human society, Śrīla Prabhupāda ki jaya! Namaḥ Viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale, śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine. Namaste sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī- प्रचारिणे, nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe. vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaḥ ca kṛpā-sindhyabhya eva ca, patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ. divya-bhāva-vibhāvino mahā-...
Jaya Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Prabhū Nityānanda, Śrī Advaita Gadādhara, Śrīvāsādi Gaura-bhakta-vṛnda, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. Hare.
Yamtak Pravishima Vachima Mamprasuctam Sanjae Vaya takila shakti darakswadamayam Svastu Vishwasia Calah Prasi da Tambyan Duda Nisham Mithudja
Paundraka's foolish claims of divinity
Ma nascha Bad So we reading one of the most humorous chapters of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, where the false Vāsudeva Paundraka is claiming to be God and he will ripe the results of his false claims.
It's very interesting that in Harivamsa Purana there are more details to this story. It is explained in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that Pondraka became proud because of the flatterers around him.
The flatterers around him used to say to him, You're the greatest, you're the best, you are Vāsudeva himself, and ultimately he believed it himself.
It's a very important dynamic because usually the followers make the leader. The foolish followers make the foolish leader even more foolish than he is.
But in Harivamsa Purana there are interesting details to this story how the pride completely deprives someone of his intelligence. Here, Srila Prabhupada says that he is the greatest fool by quoting Krishna himself.
But in Harivamsa Purana, it is said that Pondraka, being convinced that he is God Himself. Being absolutely convinced that He is Vāsudeva, he called all his kings who are under him, the little kings whom he was ruling.
And he made an order, very strong order. From now on, every man has to call me Vāsudeva. And if somebody will fail to call me Vāsudeva, if somebody will fail to call me the Supreme Lord with all my insignia,
every time you would pronounce my name, you have to call this is Vāsudeva with his chakra and with his mace and with his conch and with his Padma.
So he made it very official and he said, anyone uh who will fail to call me properly with all my titles, he will be punished and I will extract extra taxes from him and put him in prison.
And then uh which is even more uh interesting Then Nārada Muni decided to visit this fool. Nārada Muni wanted to check, is it real that there is somebody who is claiming to be God in the presence of God Himself?
So Nārada Muni came to visit Pondraka. And Pondraka, of course, very politely received him.
And then he started saying, My dear Nārada Muni, I know you're traveling everywhere. So why don't you travel on my behalf and tell everyone that I am God? So he wanted to employ even Narada Muni to glorify himself.
It's actually a very interesting dynamic because nowadays there are plenty of similar fools who are claiming to be God or demigod or whatever great personality they want to claim to be, and they usually order to they are followers to call them accordingly and then they use the mass media to proclaim their glory.
So in the case of Paundraka, he wanted to use Nārada Muni as the original mass media representative. He specifically said traveling everywhere, so who is better than you to proclaim my glory?
Of course, Nārada Muni said, You're a fool, I'm not going to do this, but it will be very interesting when you fight with Krishna himself, and then I will see what's going to happen.
And of course, Paundraka, being excited by this prospect, he decided to challenge Krishna and the story is explained here in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. He sent his messenger, and the messenger told the message.
It is explained again in Viṣṇu Purāṇa and Harivaṃśa Purāṇa that messenger was a brāhmaṇa and brāhmaṇa was also very foolish. He came on behalf of his foolish ruler and he started
challenging Krishna and ultimately read the message that you should give up all your signs of Vāsudeva, give up your discs, give up your chakra and mace and padma. And Krishna said, Oh, of course, I will give it up.
But let me deliver all this insignia to Paundraka personally. That's my only condition. I will definitely give it to him, no problem. But I want to do it personally.
Spiritual master refutes false pretenders
Krishna is very personal in his approach to all these people.
So he is telling this and it's very important, there is very interesting but uh important detail uh in the story which is described in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that Balarāma, who is the original spiritual master, was away from Dvārakā at that time.
And this Paundraka, he decided to attack Dvārakā at the time when Balarāma was absent, uh, because he thought it's an opportune moment and Krishna would be weaker without Balaram.
And I have a good chance to finish my contestant, my rival. And of course the significance of this story, very important significance of this important story is that in the
absence of spiritual master, this kind of fools start to attack Krishna? Actually, the indication The implied meaning of this
little detail, very important implied meaning of this detail, is that it's the prime duty of a spiritual master to completely dismantle the false ideas that somebody else besides God is God.
And that's exactly what Srila Prabhupada was doing. He knew he understood that this is the prime duty of the spiritual master to completely destroy all these false ideas.
Because all these fools and rascals, as Srila Prabhupada very lovingly called them on a numerous occasions, they can only proliferate if there is no strong preaching.
If there is no strong opposition against these false claims of these fools and rascals. And therefore, Srila Prabhupada took special pleasure to call them fools and rascals.
He practically enjoyed calling them fools and rascals again because he knew that these people who claim to be God are destroying the chances of people to surrender to real God.
They're destroying the chances of people to experience something real and that's why Prabhupada was speaking so strongly against them.
And of course in his praṇāma mantra he proudly says, Nirviśeṣa śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe, he says that this servant of Lord Chaitanya is protecting Western countries and not only Western countries nowadays,
Eastern countries, Western countries, the whole world is Nirviśeṣa śūnyavāda infested by these false ideas that, uh, everyone is God.
Srila Prabhupada defeats Mayavadi philosophy
I am God, your God, we're all God, and we can do whatever we like. Actually, Srila Prabhupada was making fun of these people.
Śināji, the devotee, great devotee of our movement, he tells the story how he was the follower of Chinmayananda. And he said when he met Srila Prabhupada, he would always tell Srila Prabhupada,
yeah, Nṛsiṁha, Kṛṣṇa, Rāma, they are okay, they are avatāras, but greater than them is Brahman. And they all are coming there from Brahman, and Brahman is the highest. And Prabhupada said, Who taught you this nonsense?
Where do you come from? Where is this nonsense? He said, Chinmayananda, he is my guru.
And Prabhupada said, this was the first challenge towards Chinmayananda. He said, he's your guru, and he claims he is God, but he has grey hair and he doesn't look young. Ask your guru why he doesn't look young.
If he is the controller of the material nature, why is he getting a cold? And Śināji went to his guru and said, you know, if you're the controller of this nature, why are you getting a cold?
And Chin Mayananda said, because otherwise people will not respect me. So I'm getting grey hairs so that people would respect me.
Chinmayananda went back to Śrīla Prabhupāda and said he's saying that you know otherwise people would not respect him. Śrīla Prabhupāda said, it's a nonsense.
Ask him next time when you meet him if he is the seed giving father of all the living entities. Krishna says that he is the seed-giving father.
Please check it out if he is the seed-giving father of all the living entities. Of course, you know, that failed.
And ultimately Chinmayananda just said Śrīla Prabhupāda came uh met with him and said please call Chinmayananda for a debate with me and she's not just what will be the point of your debate, what you're going to discuss in the debate.
And Prabhupāda said, the point of our debate will be whether Chinmaya Nanda will be able to hold to pick up the Govardhana hill and hold it for seven days. That will be the point of our debate.
So that's debate on this point. And of course ultimately Chinmayananda had to admit that Chinmayananda didn't want to debate on this point. He admitted the defeat. So the point here is that this is the duty of a
spiritual master to destroy these false philosophies because as Prabhupāda says in one very important letter this philosophy is the fourth stage of a disease.
Śrīla Prabhupāda gives a very beautiful description of the problems of a human being and he says that the problem of rebellious human beings who live in this earth are fourfold,
and these fourfold problems according to the extent of the gravity of the problem, takes the form of the disease of this independent existence, and according to the gravity of this problem, the fourth stage is the most deadly one.
Basically, Śrīla Prabhupāda he compares this disease of independent mentality. I'm independent on God. I can do whatever you like. I can establish any norms, whatever I like. I'm you know completely, totally independent.
And he said there are four stages of this disease. It's really amazing how Śrīla Prabhupāda practically turns upside down all the dogmas of the accepted so-called Hinduism.
Because by saying that there are four stages of this disease of independence, he means, believe it or not, he means Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha.
These four great Purushartas which are proclaimed all over Vedas and which are proclaimed by all the teachers, Śrīla Prabhupāda says this is the four stages of disease.
The first stage of disease, he says, he he formulates it little slightly differently, but he explains how even Dharma is a disease.
You may be shocked by hearing this because according to all the accepted teachings of the Vedas, Dharma is the greatest, you know proclaim of the
the Vedas and Vedic scriptures, Śrīla Prabhupāda says that sometimes the least manifestation of this disease of independence of God is that you proclaim to be overly religious, to be zealous of religion as opposed to God.
There is a very subtle problem here when we very strictly follow Dharma like it was of course uh indicated in uh in the story of Maharaja Yudhishthira when he was really hesitant uh to say that Ashvatthama was dead on the order of Krishna.
When we put Dharma over God. That's the problem. Sometimes people they become very religious, too much religious, so much religious that they put dharma over God Himself. I am more religious than God.
I'm more uh whatever it is, whatever manifestation it is, and uh this is uh this very subtle manifestation of disease and therefore Prabhupada says that the first stage of this disease is to be too religious.
Without understanding the essence of religion, because in religion, in the real religion, Krishna says, Sarva Dharman Parityja Mamekam Sara Nam Rajya. Just give up all the dharmas. Surrender unto me.
Dharmas are subsidiary to me. Dharmas are derivative to me. Don't put dharmas over me. So that's the first stage of disease.
And then Prabhupada says then the next stage of disease, by being overly religious, fanatically religious, you ultimately give up religion and start uh chasing money. That's what we are uh what we have.
Uh we can see this dynamic in the human history. Uh Perhaps America, the greatest nation of the world, is the best example of this dynamic. America started off as a very religious country.
It's still, to a greater extent, a very religious country. Not of course New York and California, but besides New York and California, everything else is pretty religious.
But the result of improperly understood religion, the purpose of religion is artha, and then ultimately because you pursue artha uh then you forget about religion itself. And that's exactly what happened with America.
You know, it started off as a very religious country, as a country of religious rebels.
The country uh the majority of uh population were those people who were persecuted because of their sincere pursuit of religion, who emigrated to America from Europe.
But ultimately, you know, in God we trust, uh as it is said in dollar, but uh ultimately they only trust in dollar, not in God like the The joke about this is that in God we trust everyone else pays cash.
You know so ultimately the ultimate trust, the ultimate faith is invested into artha. And therefore Prabhupada says Artha is the second stage of disease.
You start off as being very religious, but uh inadvertently subconsciously, you think that religion is to make you prosperous in this world.
And then, of course, when you become prosperous, you enjoy to the fullest extent and karma comes. But then he says that the deadliest disease, that the deadliest extent of this disease of independence is moksha.
And how moksha, which is again supposedly the most glorious achievement of a human being, the fourth Purusharta, the fourth, the highest goal of all, how it is the fourth stage of disease, Prabhupada says, then ultimately in this progression, being frustrated in your attempts to become happy even by excessive sense gratification, ultimately you decide to become happy by proclaiming yourself to be God.
I am God. I'm the Supreme.
So and uh Prabhupada says he actually he writes this letter uh uh in uh connection with one of his disciples who was his first sannyāsī disciple and then ultimately started preaching Mayyavat philosophy. And he said, he has the fourth stage of disease. He contracted this deadly disease and ultimately nothing good will happen and we all know what happened. Nothing good unfortunately happened.
Prabhupada was right. So we have to be very clear how this progression goes. That we may start as being very, very religious. By putting dharma over God, By putting dharma over love of God.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself came and he says, Prema Pumartamahan. He basically rejected all the four other goals. He said, the only real goal of the human endeavors, the only real goal is prema.
And if you forget about prema, if the prema is being overshadowed or eclipsed by other goals, even if it's the goal of Dharma, as glorious as it is, as pure as it is, if it's if it even slightly eclipses the real goal of human endeavors, which is love of God, then the disease will progress until it reaches the fourth stage. And we know the fourth stage is incurable.
The fourth stage of cancer is incurable. It is already in your bones. So this is how it goes, and we have to really see this progression or understand this unfortunate development.
Sometimes we can see it when devotees they come to Krishna consciousness movement inspired by the preaching of Srila Prabhupada, but then somehow or other they start deviating this direction or that direction.
And basically there are only two directions in which we can deviate. One is karma, and karma basically means karma-kanda, which means dharma, which means putting dharma over love of God.
And another one is of course Mayavad or jnana, when we again say that moksha or liberation from the sufferings is higher than God.
Importance of humility and guidance
So the only proper path is the path of love. And therefore it is said in Katha Upanishad that the path of, the proper path is like the razor blade. It's very narrow. It's really narrow.
Sometimes inspired by Srila Prabhupada's preaching where he says it's the royal road to God. You know, we forget that this royal road, it starts like royal road,
but then ultimately it becomes like razor's edge. The further we go, the more dangerous it becomes because the deviations
becomes more and more plausible, more and more possible due to different problems which we have and subtlety of these problems. In the beginning we are dealing with very gross problems and it's easy to deal with the gross problems.
But the further we come towards the path of love, the more dangerous it may become. And therefore, it is very important to have the guidance of spiritual master all the time.
Sometimes people very foolishly say that we don't need the guidance. But the guidance has to be there. The guidance has to be there all the way. Otherwise, uh there is a very great chance to go this direction
or that direction. I'll ultimately deviate from this narrow path of spiritual life. It's not by mistake that Katha Upaniṣad proclaims this. Uttiṣṭha jāgrata prāpya varān nibodhata. Please get up. Rise up, O human being.
You get this awake to the boon, to the blessings which you are entitled to. Every human being is entitled to achieve love of God. So Katha Upaniṣad says, yes. But then he says uh what is this?
Uttiṣṭha jāgrata prāpya varān nibodhata, durgatpathaṃ tat kavayo vadanti, uh the great sages they say that uh this path is very difficult. This path is very difficult, and it's like the razor's edge.
And of course, Prabhupāda many times to encourage us, the beginners on this spiritual path, he would say that this is a very easy path. And yes, it's a good preaching in the beginning, but then we
have to understand that in this easy path to God there are some dangers and problems which we will have to overcome. And one of the problems is of course this internal pride. Why do we need spiritual master?
Because the presence of spiritual master in our life can help us to remain humble. Whereas without the spiritual master it's very easy to imagine ourselves or to fantasize ourselves that we know everything ourselves.
The surprises are there.
The false ego is the most dangerous element of our body, it is said that you know you can cut some of your lungs and the lungs will regenerate, you can cut some of your liver, the liver will grow back.
The false ego, you can cut false ego 99.9 percent and only uh 0.1% of false ego remains and then after some time it's 100% back.
So the false ego is the most, how you say it is capable to regenerate or how you say this in proper English, I don't know. It's the most it's the most vital organ in our being. And therefore, no matter how much you cut it,
little ego remains, and because little ego remains, in the proper condition, in the opportune conditions, the false ego will grow up. So, the most important point of achieving love of God is humility.
It is explained very beautifully in Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta that Dhainya, the internal feeling that I'm fallen. Internal feeling that I need protection.
That I need always need the shelter of Krishna and spiritual master and great Vaishnavas, this internal feeling of doing ya is basically synonymous to Brahma. And they are into interdependent relationship when the dhña
becomes great, the prema grows proportionately, and when prema grows proportionately, the dhonya grows proportionately.
As soon as we catch ourselves by thinking how great we are, by you know by thinking ourselves to be great preachers or great teachers or great book distributors or great Kirtaniyas or great pujaris or great whatever
we are we immediately have to think, now I'm fallen. This is the fall down. The moment this idea comes, the moment the shadow of this idea comes means uh we are going away from Krishna.
Means this disease of independence is spreading. The metastasis is the dangerous disease which we all have. The disease that I I don't need anyone. I'm God myself. This disease is spreading.
And therefore, society of devotees is so important. Srila Prabhupada created this society and this society is a difficult society to be. Why? Because spiritual life is difficult.
It's a very difficult society there's always somebody who will cut you down, you know, but uh ultimately it's good.
Once Bhakti Rasamrita Swami Maharaj told me a story, there was one Goswami from traditional background here in Vrindavan and he started he had very good relationship with Bhakti Rasamrita Maharaj when Bhakti Rasamrita Maharaj was the temple president here in Vṛndāvana.
And he would come to him and say, can I take sannyāsa in this Kṛṣṇa? Can I take sannyāsa? I'm I'm already in my last stage of my life. I want to take sannyāsa in ISKCON.
And Bhakti Rasamrita Swami Maharaj was very surprised by this offer, and he said, Don't you know ISKCON? ISKCON has its problems. He said, Oh yeah, I know ISKCON very well. I know ISKCON very well. ISKCON has its problem.
Everyone else also has its problems. I know Vrindavan very well. I know this scene very well. But what is good in this, in this, you can never grow too much.
Somebody will always cut you down. So that's why I want to take sannyāsa. So that was his logic and that was a good logic.
So ultimately, that's the point, as Śrīla Prabhupāda says in this little purport that he, you know, when we imagine ourselves, no matter how no matter whom we imagine ourselves.
And we sometimes we always imagine ourselves somehow. We always have some sort of image of ourself.
At the moment we imagine ourselves, uh, it may not necessarily be God. Somebody, you may be a little more humble and not imagine yourself as God but you may imagine yourself as a great guru, great this, or great that.
At this moment you're deviating from the path. And the problems are awaiting for you.
And that's why it's important to have spiritual guides all the time, it's important to have the society of devotees, and it's important to remain in glorious ISKCON mission where Śrīla Prabhupāda established a certain culture which is sometimes a little rough but ultimately very beneficial for our spiritual health.
Questions on guidance and ego
Thank you very much, Hare Krishna. We have a couple of minutes for questions. Yes, Mahārāja. Okay. Um you you ended very nicely there. We started that we always need guidance.
And we used the example about Śrīla Prabhupāda's books. All the guidance I need is there. It was obvious in 1977 after Śrīla Prabhupāda left. The guidance wasn't there, so many things happened.
So Prabhupāda's disciples, where do they get their guidance? So one has to get guidance from the spiritual master. And you made it very personal. One has to be able to be chastised, instructed.
So for the last 40 years, where do Śrīla Prabhupāda's disciples get their personal guidance? I think you are in a better position to answer this question than myself. Yes,
but you you're the one that stated that, so I'm asking you the question. I wouldn't say those things How do we get that guidance?
Śrīla Prabhupāda himself gave a very important example when he said at least on two occasions once when the conductor on the train told him Swamiji why you're printing this magazines, people will read magazines and throw them out. You should write the books.
And then when the doctor in San Francisco came and said, you're just praying and praying and praying, you should walk more.
And on these two occasions, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, my spiritual master spoke through these people. Somehow rather he recognized in half drunk doctor in San Francisco the words of voice of his spiritual master and then the instruction which the conductor in the train gave to him again, the voice of his spiritual master.
I guess the answer to this question: Is that if the meditation to the instructions of the spiritual master are very deep, then we can hear the voice of our spiritual master in the worlds of other people who brought us or in the events of our life.
So I guess that's the secret by deeply meditating on the orders of the spiritual master and you're the best example of this uh deep meditation uh then we can recognize how the spiritual master manifests himself because spiritual master is the principle.
He is a person but he's also a principle and this principle Guru Tattva can speak through other people. So that's my best answer to this difficult question. It probably is a similar question.
So you mentioned very clearly that the remotee has to always be instructed by the spiritual master to be humble. Otherwise, you put a master be attention Yeah, that's my starting point.
Paundraka became Paundraka because his disciples told him that he is Vāsudeva, not Paundraka.
So the only point is that see uh we should very clearly understand that my constitutional position is that uh jīvera svarūpa haya kṛṣṇa nitya-dāsa. I'm always a servant. That's my constitutional position.
Incidentally, for some period of time, I may play some roles. But if the role becomes my identity, I'm in trouble.
We may play role of a guru, we may play role of a father, role of a king, temple president. It's temporary roles, but when the role of the temporary role which we are playing becomes our identity, it means we are in trouble.
So no matter which role I play, I have to understand my real identity. I am Dasa Dasa Anu Dasa. I am the servant. Like Śrīla Prabhupāda, he was teaching this by calling his disciples as his spiritual masters.
You're representatives of my spiritual master. The spiritual master have to see, has to see his disciples as the representatives of his guru and basically his gurus. That's how you should see.
Yes, temporarily, yes, sometimes I have to chastise them or sometimes I have to give the instruction, but ultimately it's a role. It's not my identity.
So uh we have to be reminded again and again and again and of course scriptures are abundant in uh saying that uh you know what is our real nature. Otherwise, if Guru becomes our false ego, that's the problem.
If I falsely claim I am a guru and I I try to become guru for everyone, not for some limited number of foolish people who think I am a guru, then then it's a problem. I'm I'm dāsa, I'm dāsa-dānudāsa.
I I remember there was one devotee in Russia. Uh and he would always when he called somebody, he would say, I am such and such Prabhu. Please call me Prabhu.
And when you when somebody calls you Prabhu very soon you will expect that somebody will call you Mahaprabhu. I'm not Prabhu. I'm Dasa.
No matter how other call me, others may call me Prabhu, that's their problem. That's not my problem. My identity is I am Dasa. Other may call me Guru. My identity, I am Dasa, I'm not Guru. I I don't think I'm guru.
I'm playing a role of guru, that's fine. But I'm not a guru. I don't know, it's dharma should answer this difficult question.
Thank you for aas, whether we go to east or west, any part of the world we go, it's not India. India is supposed to be a spiritual country. So whether we come to India or America, just everywhere we found rascals, rogues, pretenders, any part of the world with priests, they are all like that.
But uh in the first place, how comes? In presence of the Supreme Lord, a pretender comes towards himself that he is God until he was claiming actually, until these arms were completely severed. Please highlight us.
See that's again that's the illustration of how dangerous this idea is, how dangerous our mind is. He was completely convinced that he is God Himself.
By the way, it's written in in Harivamsu Puran that his father was also Vasudeva, therefore, when he was claiming that he's Vasudeva, he was he was thinking that he was right.
But the the point is that even in presence of God, you can imagine yourself to be God. Māyāvādīs do this, they know the scriptures, they know Bhagavad-gītā and still they think it is.
So it's just the illustration how we should never trust our mind because our mind is always there to tell how great we are. And uh and we are little innocent soul always ready to believe our mind.
But without mercy of the Lord even a blade of grass doesn't move. And he is sitting in everybody's heart as caitya-guru. And he is inspiring us from within. Still he didn't come down and sing the Lord.
Well uh the blade of grass doesn't move, but we are not the blade of grass. We don't consider ourselves as a blade of grass, therefore we move independently on God.
So as soon as we consider ourselves a blade of grass we will not move without without God. But any other understanding of oneself will make us move in the wrong direction. Thank you very much.
I just very not humbly would like to say that my first book came out in English, so if somebody would be would be interested, these books are available here. Thank you. Swami Maharaj.