Nama Retreat. Q&A

Namo Om Vishnu Padaya, Krishna Prashtaya Bhutale, Shri Matai Bhakti Vidanta Swami Niti Namive, Namaste Sarasvati Devi, Gauravani Pracarine, Nirvishesa Sunyavadi Paschatyade Satarine, Vanchakalpataro Vescha Kripasindubya Vaca, Patitanam Bhavanebhyo Vaishnavibhyo Namo Namaha, Jai Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhunitananda, Shri Advaita Gadadhar Shri Vasadi Gaur Bhaktavrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Hare Hare I told you that I wanted to make a couple of important announcements and I will do it in the beginning before I forget it the most important announcement which I wanted to make is that the beautiful presentations which I showed you, the author of this beautiful presentation is Nam Sankirtan Prabhu and Lalana Devydasi. They spent three sleepless nights. For you it's just Haribol and for them it's long hours of hard work. So I'm very grateful and I I'm sure that these presentations have greatly enhanced my amateur attempts to speak. Thank you. Okay. And of course, Brother Pramod Prabhu, as I said, he was the inspiration behind this retreat. He continues to inspire me. somehow rather not only him some other people as well brahmacharis those brahmacharis who came from Pune from Hyderabad from Ujjayi it's very very grateful to all of you and yeah but of course those people who came from from London, they went much longer way. And it's also a big inspiration to see how people are coming from Bangalore also. Anyway, thank you very much all. If this retreat was of any use for you, then it's the credit of Radha Pramod Prabhu and Nam Sankirtan Prabhu and GRC. Thank you. Hare Krishna. OK, so we'll answer questions, whatever questions we will be able to answer. Yes, sure. Radha Pramod Prabhu suggests that if I will not be able to answer all the questions, we can have Zoom continuation, Zoom retreat. There is a special Zoom retreat center. We meet in this Zoom retreat center. So, the question, Maharaj mentioned that bhakti starts from the stage of nishta, before that it is shadow of bhakti. We also heard that bhakti starts only after sharanagati. When can a person be called a devotee? Is it at the stage of the sadda when he got faith in this process or at the stage of bhajana kriya, when he has started practicing sharanagati seriously or at the stage of nishta? So the question is when somebody can be called a devotee. I think it very much depends on the generosity of the heart of one who is calling him. You can call him as a devotee in the very beginning, not from. But the idea is that Bhakti Vinodakura explains it in Bhakti Tattva Viveka. he says that before the stage of Nishtha, one is Bhakta Praya. He is almost a devotee. And because the language is such that we can amid certain things, we can call somebody a devotee, meaning that he is almost a devotee. So Bhakta Praya is okay. He is Bhakti in Praya. But the Bhakti starts in the Nishtha stage where you are completely dedicated. Because why? The reason is very important. Śrīla Vīśvāna Čakravāti Thakur explains in Madhuri Kadambini the stages of destruction of the false identity. According to the stages of spiritual development on this ladder of bhakti starting with śrada, sadhu-sangha, bhajana-kriya, narta-nivrīti and then niṣṭa and then rūṣṭa. so in this till the stage of nishta the material identification is very very strong you already started the process of bhakti and therefore you can be legitimately called bhakti but because your practice is weak it's not working so quickly and therefore the material ego is still very strong. On the stage of nishta, there is more or less equilibrium between your material identification and spiritual identification. And only on the stage of ruchi, when the spiritual taste becomes very pronounced, very thick, then spiritual identification becomes stronger than material identification. So that's how it works according to the level of the destruction of material ego, material identity. It starts, it really starts because in Shraddha still you're very much identifying yourself as the body, but when Anarta Nivriti starts then this process really takes place. And of course, I mean, we all product of Srila Prabhupada's generous heart. He was very generous. Therefore, he called all my disciples are pure devotees. So, you are not only devotees, you are all pure devotees. No doubt about it. If you follow Srila Prabhupada, no problem. He said, you know, you stop eating meat Anarthi nivritti is complete. You are smiling during kirtan, ruchi is there, no problem. Shri Ruta Vaswamy's definition of utram bakti or shiddha bakti, anyabla shidram, does not hold from nishta or shiddha itself. Does it hold from nishta or shiddha? Are we called practitioners of pure devotional service from the stage of Shredda or from the stage of Nisra? See, it depends again very much on what you mean purity. If you have faith in the ideal of pure devotional service, then in one sense you are practicing pure devotional service because this is your ideal. You're far from this ideal still, but because this is your ideal, because this is your goal, then you can be called a pure devotee, no problem. Because you don't have any other, I mean, at least on a conscious level, you try not to have other goals. You're just consciously, you're striving to achieve this ideal of pure devotional service. Of course, you have so many other things, but you try to connect it with your main goal. But there is a difference, as somebody put it, I liked the way how he put it, there is a difference between what one believes and what one believes to believe. you know I may believe to believe in the ideal of pure devotional service it doesn't mean that I believe in pure devotional service I just believe to believe I just I think that I believe in pure devotional service but in reality deep down in the heart I have some other ideas which I may not be even conscious about but consciously I believe in the ideal of pure devotion service. When it comes to action, there are some contaminations, but in the process of practice, all these contaminations will be removed and ultimately you will be pure devotees. So it's like calling, Vishwan Chakravata Thakur, he gives another explanation of this, Similar explanation, another metaphor to understand this. He says that what you call yagya. Yagya is the moment when everyone sits and the priest starts pouring ghee in it. No, but yagya started way before, when he collected all these materials, ingredients, where he was thinking, the planning. So it's Yagya. In the same way, Bhakti, when does it start? Does it start when you already love Krishna or when you are in the preparation stage? It's already started in the preparation stage. So in this sense, it's also Bhakti. Once a person comes in the association of devotees, takes to the practice of Krishna conscious and starts with some amount of Shraddha, such a person is maintained by Krishna or his karma. When, when, whom does Krishna maintain personally? Krishna maintains personally even little ends. There is a beautiful story how once Krishna was laid in Dvaraka. And Satyabhama Devi, who had a very feisty and fiery temperament, she was not happy. Krishna came really late at home, and Satyabhama started making some sin to him. And Krishna, he didn't want to get into trouble, so he explained himself. He said, my dear, I came so late because I have to feed everyone. And she became really, I mean, she was not happy with this explanation. How is that my husband is feeding everyone? So next morning when she was doing cosmetics in front of a mirror, she took a special box, jewel box, with steel. and she saw some ant inside this box and she thought, okay, let me see how Krishna is feeding everyone and she locked the ant into this box without any food and smiled to her reflection and the same evening Krishna was even later than the evening before and she again started complaining why you're coming so late and he said my dear what can I do I have to feed everyone see I'm very busy I have to feed everyone including the ant in your tilak book and And she was quite embarrassed by this statement. She went and she opened the box and she saw that some rice which fell from her tillage there or whatever, some little rice was there and the ant was happily eating this rice. So, see, we should not make this distinction. When we are talking about Sharanagati, that Krishna is maintaining everyone, we have to understand the general principle. Whether it's karma or not, when Krishna says, And when he says, yoga kshem of aham yaham, I personally make the provision for those people who serve me, he definitely means those devotees who are completely dedicated to him. But besides these people, he made an arrangement for everyone to have whatever is necessary. And when they're surrendering to him, We should not too much distinguish between karma and his personal provision, his personal help, because karma is also his personal help. Ultimately, he is a person. And he is taking care of everyone. He is taking care of everyone. So, we should not distinguish so much. we should have faith that Krishna is Krishna knows what I need and if he doesn't give something it basically means that I don't need it it will be a hard pill to swallow because I think I need it but then I have to preach to oneself that Krishna knows better what I need and what I don't need so if something doesn't come in a natural way. So, it's not my problem. It's Krishna's problem. As a woman, I have these emotions of Sharnagati for my husband. How do I redirect these emotions towards Krishna? Material relationships are good because they give us some idea what does it mean to enter into relationship with Krishna. So it's a good starting point. At least you have the experience of these emotions. And if you think deeply how the reality works, you will understand that your husband is also maintained by somebody. And this somebody is Krishna. You know, you may have emotions towards the husband but, you know, the husband has to be maintained and if you think that the boss and the job maintains the husband, you can think who maintains the boss and so on and so forth. Ultimately you will come to Krishna and you will be greatly relieved. You don't need to experience these emotions to anyone else. It's just a question of understanding, philosophical understanding and trying to really redirect this to the proper source. Because when we direct these emotions towards somebody else who is not... Of course, husband, according to Vedic scriptures, is the representative of Krishna. So it's legitimate for him to accept these emotions if he really feels or identifies himself as the servant of the Lord, then he can accept these emotions. And you're right, and he's right, and he will not really hold it to himself he will give it further and ultimately give it to Krishna so there is nothing wrong with it as such but only if husband thinks that he is the servant of Krishna if husband doesn't think that he is the servant of Krishna and you worship him as the representative of Krishna that will be detrimental for you and that will be detrimental for him because he will become very proud and ultimately you will be frustrated in this attempt. So if you are directing these emotions to somebody who is the true representative of Krishna, who really represents, who doesn't want to appropriate these emotions for himself, then there is nothing wrong with it. Ultimately he will redirect your emotions. You don't even have to try to do it yourself. Just experience this emotion towards the husband. If the husband is honest, he will not enjoy these emotions. He will give it to Krishna and you all be happy. So that's another angle of this question. We have heard that suffering of devotees come either from Krishna or as a result of their offenses. But till what stage does a person get suffering from their past karma? Is it before Shraddha or Sharanagati or Nishta? There is this beautiful verse from Brahma's Tuti in the 10th kent of Srimad Bhagavatam Tate nu kampam susamikshamana Bunjana evatmakritam vipakam Where Lord Brahma says that the one who sings that Bunjana evatma Tate nu kampam susamikshamana somebody who has this very clear vision that whatever he experiences, Bhunjana, Eva Atmakritam Vipakam, is the result, Vipakam, of Atmakritam, of my own actions, of my own karma. If I have this very clear vision, then, and at the same time, that I'm experiencing the result of my karma, but at the same time, Krishna is mitigating these results, and therefore I'm worshipping his lotus feet. Then Lord Brahma says, Mukti Padasa Daya Bhak, such a person is eligible for liberation. Basically, the idea here is that whatever is happening with me is the result of my karma. I don't blame anyone. But at the same time, I understand that I'm the only one who is responsible for everything which is happening with me. But at the same time, I also understand that Krishna is involved in the whole process. What is his involvement? His involvement is that he mitigates the suffering, he, or he sees that I get the proper, it's an appropriate time because karma is blind and Krishna is not blind karma can come at any moment but if you dedicated yourself to Krishna then Krishna will see how your karma will manifest in your life and he will help you to derive the proper lessons from this so from the very beginning we have to understand everything is my karma but also Krishna is taking part in the whole process. You are mentioning it, Premagivartha mentions that when a person chants with false ego, then it is not the holy name, but the name Aksha. And it is like anchor. But getting rid of the false ego is the gradual process. So for a person with false ego, will holy name not purify and help the person, if he is praying and sincerely trying to take shelter of Holy Name, will Holy Name not be... I explained this process this morning. Maybe the question was asked before this morning session where I was reading the elaborate quote from Bhaktivinoda Takur from Jaiva Dharma where he says, even if somebody is very offensive and he chants the holy name, every now and then he will chant the holy name purely. Despite the presence of the false ego, he still will be able to pronounce the holy name purely if he tries, despite the persistent presence of the ego. And this will create Sukriti, and this Sukriti will bring somebody in association of pure devotees and in the close association with pure devotees, very quickly the notion of the pure name comes. So definitely the name helps in any stage. So we should not be afraid. It's just a question of trying and accumulating the particular type of Sukriti which will manifest its fruit a little later. So, in any case we should chant. How can we break through the vicious cycle of material emotions on our liver? For example, I am from Ukraine and I have been having anxiety and depression for so many years now. I want to break through these conditions. Again, I explained this this morning, that we have so much negative content in our mind. And because this content, this burden of this content, of these negative emotions and everything else, is very persistent. It's very heavy stuff. but you know when we step out of this content and when we try to distinguish between the content of our consciousness and us, the conscious agent then the magic influence of the content at least will be weakened you know you just look at this from the outside Yes, it's there. All these emotions are there. But they belong to me. They are next to me. But that's not me. Like in Sanskrit and also in Hindi, I don't know how it is in other Indian languages, but it's also in Russian, partially. In English, the verb have is very important. I have, you know, you use it in perfect form. I have done this, or I have seen this, have, have, have, have. In Sanskrit there is no verb have. It doesn't exist at all. When you want to say in Sanskrit that I have something, you just say, something is near to me. because you cannot have anything. You are what you are and whatever is your possession is just next to you. Apkepas. It's just, it's not yours. It's next to me. So when we have this concept that all these things which I have, these negative emotions and everything else, it's not mine, it's not me, it's close to me. Perhaps too close, but still it's not mine. Then you will be able to free. And the example which I gave this morning is that, you know, so much was there in the past. So much traumas, so much tragedies, so much pain. You know, where is it now? And most of it doesn't influence us, really. Most of it is just some, you know, some... You know, every one of us had some nightmares. Is it important now? You know, it's not important. And every one of us had so many problems in past lives. Do we remember this? We don't remember. You know, we may remember something, sometimes people remember their past lives, if the lives were really heavy. But again, I, the experiencer, is different from my experience. And if I understand it very clearly, then I will be able to break through this. Then I will not be the slave of these experiences. I will be relatively free from this experience. I understand that it's easy to say, it's more difficult to do, but if we practice it again and again and again, I'm different from it, I'm not the same, I'm not this, then it may not be that difficult. How can we fix our goals? Sometimes mind focuses on form, sometimes on name, Most of the time, distracted. Again, how can we what? Fix our goal. Sometimes mind focuses on form, sometimes on name. Most of the time, distraction. This is what is changing. There are different gradations of a goal. If you really have strong goal in the front, in the upfront of your consciousness, you will not forget about it. Like somebody wants to pass an exam. You know, it's a very typical example in India because the exams are so heavy here. You know, for at least one month before the exam, you have uninterrupted meditation on the goal, I want to pass the exam. And you go to the temple and you pray to the deity, My dear Lord Krishna, please help me to pass the exam. And I'll give you 50 rupees, no problem. And see, that's the point. Emotions have this ability to make our meditation stable. If the meditation is not coupled with emotion, if it's not really supported by emotions, then it's flickering. you know, it's just, yes, I meditate a little bit but then the mind goes here and there when I said about the goal when we have very strong desire I do want to achieve this goal I do want to pass this exam I do want to have certain marks with it you know, this strong desire is an emotional energy which makes your meditation very thick so that's why I said that unless you learn how to you know how to reproduce the emotions of Sharanagati then the meditation will not be strong enough and then you will be distracted because what I want to say is that when you say this is goal and I think about goal for 10 seconds my analysis of this, my diagnosis of this, it's not your goal. You just think it's your goal, but in reality it's not your goal. If it was your goal, you would think about this day and night. Day and night. At the time of death when the settled body moves on, does ego change or remains the same? Do we develop new ego with the new body? It would be pretty strange if the ego didn't change. You know, you have a new nice body and it happened to be the body of an opposite sex. And of course this is how all these transgender or whatever, homosexuals appear. it does change according to the body but it may maintain the traces of the previous identity and see, this is the unfortunate state of affairs in Kali Yuga in Kali Yuga everything is mixed in the previous these yugas, when people were born, the whole culture was to very strongly establish their identity according to the present body. And it's very important to function normally, to be healthy personality. So, everything from the very upbringing was to ensure that somebody has very strong, proper identity, according to the body. But because Kali Yuga is, everything is mixed up, you're born with this half-baked ego, and then you're born in a very strange mixed family, and perhaps you had, like they call in America. in America. In America, you cannot call somebody as a husband and as a mother and father. There is no mother and father in America. There is parent number one and parent number two. Because it's politically incorrect to call somebody mother because the mother may be, you know, he or whatever it is. It's just kind of Yuga stuff. And because of this, you know, you don't have a strong identity. You become very weak, psychologically weak. It's very difficult for such people. I mean, I'm not joking. It's actually a tragedy that this understanding how important it is to have strongly established identity according to body and understand what is the role according to my body in the society. So previously the culture would help people to adjust to the new body completely. Unfortunately, present culture doesn't help with this so strongly. There is no understanding of what it means to play the role according to gender. and this and that. And therefore, people have difficulties. They have split personalities. They have all these strange ideas. And ultimately, they suffer. So ideally, yes, you get the new body and you forget about the old body and you develop the ego which is in harmony with this new body. But in some cases nowadays, it may not be that. What is absolute surrender means? Does Karpan Nidoša Pahata Subha indicate the starting of this absolute surrender or only that is Sarva Dharma Parikhida stage is considered absolute surrender? When Arjuna in the beginning says, I am your disciple and I am surrendered to you completely. In the next verse he says, I surrender to you completely, but I'm not going to fight. That's initial surrender. I surrender to you completely, but don't ask me to do something which I don't want. That's the only condition which I have. Otherwise, I surrender. But at the end of Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna says, whatever you will tell, I will do. So that's the whole Bhagavad Gita is the space of surrender. From initial surrender, which is conditional surrender, which is not complete surrender, which is, you know, like, but it's a good starting point till the complete surrender when he says that I'm going to serve you by my mind, by my words and my kaya, my body. So don't worry, you know, start somewhere. The question in Russian is, is it possible to say that the whole life of Bhaktivinoda Thakur is the example of this gradual surrender and to achieve the same status we have to go through the same path to go through all different paths as Bhaktivinoda Thakur describes in his biography. No. Bhaktivinoda Thakur has his life. And for somebody who is immensely gifted, usually the life is also more difficult. It's so difficult. Krishna will only give you, you know, Krishna will give you such tests and obstacles which you will be able to overcome. He knows that you are not Bhaktivinoda Thakur, despite of your dreams and imagination. It's funny, I was passing by this little building just in front of GRC and it is written there, New Dreams, as an advertisement. I don't know what they will teach there. New knowledge, new skills and new dreams. So anyway, Bhakti Vinodakur has his life and we have our life. And Krishna gives us whatever we need, don't worry, He will give us whatever we need to become pure devotees. And if we take it gratefully, then the medicine will work. So, Bhaktivinoda Takur has his life, we have our life. How one is supposed to be in saintly person's association, if usually sadhus have their own bhajans, sadhana time, are busy with preaching, traveling, writing, acceptance, and also hundreds of other devotees want their association also? Ah, yeah, that's a famous question. You? You asked this question. Association means attachment. Srila Prabhupada associated with his Guru Maharaj just for a few... he said maybe all together five days in a whole life. But because he was so touched he always felt his presence in his life. And you may be spending years and years and years in saintly association and nothing will change in your life. Because you're not attached to this association. So it's not a question of the amount of time you spent with a particular person. It's a question of how attached you are to these precious moments which you spend with them. And how cherished you are in these moments and how conscious you are about these moments. You may be in some close physical proximity, but in your mind you will be somewhere in New York. And it will not be sadhu sangha. It will be New York Sangha. It will be completely different. It's a question of where you are in the mind. If you are in saintly association, the prerequisite of it is to be present. And then you will get the complete benefit. And besides that, the emphasis when I was talking about the association, I was not talking about the amount of time, but I was talking about, this is directly answering Rajendra Kumar's Prabhu question, I was talking about the surrender which we should undergo. it's not a question again of physical proximity or time spent together but the extent how we surrender to this particular person and we may not be in his physical presence but at the same time we feel that I surrender to him he is very dear to me and I will not do anything which will cause him pain or displeasure then you are surrendered so you need a particular person to surrender to to experience these feelings so again it's not a question of time you may have so many hundreds of followers and devotees still you can be very surrendered to him and obtain the full benefit of his influence upon your personality Are we ever the doers? If I nag someone, is it me nagging someone or Krishna nagging someone through us? Or when I am doing bad things, is it also not me who is doing it? It really depends what you think and what is your mentality when you're doing this. If you're doing this with this full convention, I am the doer, then you're responsible, you're the doer. And you will be responsible for the consequences. And if you have this very strongly established within your heart, understanding I'm not the doer, first of all, you will not nag. Because, you know, if you have this consciousness, I'm not the doer, why should you nag? Why should you do nonsense? You will still act, but you will act in according with the will of Krishna. All these things, I'm doing some nonsense or I'm nagging, and then I say, when it's convenient for me, then I say, no, no, I'm not the doer, you know. I'm not responsible for this. There is this famous story about one gardener, a pundit, who had a beautiful garden. And then the cow entered the garden and he became so angry and the cow started eating his rare, you know, plants which he planted and he threw the stone and he killed the cow. And he became very afraid, but then after a few days the Yamaduttas came to take him, because he committed this great sin. And when Yamaduttas came he said, no, no, it's not me, it's my hand. I'm not the doer, I was not doing this. Why are you taking me? And because Yamaduttas were not very experienced in Vedanta philosophy, they didn't know what to answer. And they went to Yamaraj and they said, my dear master, we want to take this guy and he gives us some bewildering philosophy and doesn't want to come with us and we don't know what to do. And Yamaraj said, come with me, I will show you what to do. And Yamaraj takes the garb of an old Brahmana and he comes to the garden and this man is sitting there and he starts glorifying this garden. Oh, such a beautiful garden, such a beautiful garden. And he says, yes, yes, it's a very beautiful garden. This plant, where is this plant? This plant is, I take it from there and you grew this plant. Yes, I grew this plant. And oh, how beautiful. You did this. Yes, you did this. And yes, I did this. I did this. And who killed the cow? What I mean to say, you know, be consistent. If you are not the doer, be not the doer all the time. Not only when it is convenient for you. But if you are only not the doer when it is convenient, then you know, you are still responsible for everything. It's just a pretext. So, if you're consistent, then you will not do nonsense. Mother, when you say that the soul wants to imitate, what do you exactly mean? All that the soul can do is desire. Yeah. Srila Prabhupada explains this in the purport of Bhagavad Gita, the verse 15 of the 15th chapter when the soul, the only thing which soul can do is imitate. No, sorry, desire. The soul emanates the energy of desire. And the soul wants to enjoy. And Krishna gives the soul beautiful virtual reality in which the soul, spiritual by nature, can enjoy matter, which is not possible. You know, somebody who is spiritual cannot really relate to matter. It's even a big mystery how we can see the matter. It's a very ingenious and difficult mechanism how Krishna, you know, provided us with the perception of the matter. Because we are different of nature. So we want to enjoy matter. that's the desire which is which the soul emanates and Krishna says, okay, because you want it we attract the material body and the mechanism with the material mind and material citta and material buddhi and then this subtle matter starts dancing in you know, by interacting with the gross matter and we are inside this system and we see the dance of this subtle matter our chita is dancing you know, these waves are there and that waves are there and we look at that and we see, oh how beautiful oh yeah, yeah, yeah so we can only desire because of our desire Krishna provides us with this mechanism and this mechanism gives us the opportunity to enjoy something which we cannot enjoy by the way of imitating this, by the way of identifying with this. So, you know, we can only desire, but Krishna also gives us the opportunity to identify with matter and in this way experience something which we want to experience. May we take one last question? Okay. We have many questions. In spite of knowing all mechanisms of how we are stuck, why we don't want to get out of it and we want to see we see it's impossible to fight our urges. You know where the word impossible is coming from? It's just a question of not understanding this. You're knowing theoretically for you it's just a little intellectual toy. Little intellectual play. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But when it comes to reality still you maintain the same value system which you had before and that's why it's difficult for you to fight the urges. But if you really understand this, if you understand the futility, the utter futility of the attempts to become happy by material means, through material experiences, then the urges will not be so persistent and so strong. It's just because we have the hope, we still have the hope, we maintain the hope. We hope that I will become happy. You know, yes, all this, you know, orange rope people, they say that it's not possible, but you know. Let me try nevertheless. You know, we still have the hope, lingering hope. I have the hope that I will become happy. You know, yes, everyone else failed. There is 7 billion, how many billion? 7 billion or 6 billion, 900 million, 900,000, 90... what is this? 999 people on the source who are not happy by material standards. But there is one. It happened to be me and I will be happy. Everyone else failed. Did you see any, you know, happy person in this world if he is not Radhanath Swami? Or somebody like him. Everyone else is miserable. Everyone else is just, you know, undergoing some problems, sad, and has all these mixed feelings. So it's just this lingering hope, and you are trying to hold for this hope. the moment when you lose the hope, you will become happy. There is a little Chinese story. I like this story very much, so that will be the final cherry on the cake. You know, there was an old man in the village, old Chinese man. He was really old. And he was really, really miserable. He was so miserable, so much so that everyone of his neighbors forget his real name and they all call him by nickname Miserable One. He was always unhappy and always angry and always nagging and doing all kinds of stuff. And at one point the news spread all over the village that the old Miserable Man became happy. The whole village came to see this miracle because they've never seen him happy. And they came and they asked, you know, can we ask you one question? How is that you're happy today? He said, because my whole life I was hoping to become happy and I lived a long life and ultimately today I understood that I will not become happy and immediately I became happy. because the hope to become happy disappeared and I don't have the problem anymore. And that's exactly what Prahlad Maharaj says in the seventh kanto of Srimad Bhagavatam. He says, it's very easy to become happy. Just give up the hope to become happy and you will become happy at this very moment. So that's it, you know. Your urges are only persistent. as long as you maintain this futile hope to become happy. But I really hope that you will become happy by chanting the holy name, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. And when Prabhupada says, chant and be happy. I think many people don't understand the real meaning of these words. Because usually people think, Prabhupada says, if you chant, you will be happy. And they started chanting and they're not becoming happy. And they're chanting more and they're not becoming happy. And they're becoming more and more frustrated. And they're chanting more and frustration grows and there is no happiness. And Prabhupada says, chant and be happy, he means you chant and be happy. It's an order. It's not a prerequisite of happiness. You chant and be happy. What's the problem? Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Chant and be happy.