Dear devotees, please accept my blessings.

We are very content to be here this morning. As summer comes, so does the winter, and then summer again, but it is all the same, the only thing that does not change is what we put in the hands of Lord Krishna. Well, the material world is also in the hands of Lord Krishna, which means that the duality is also created by Krishna; I think He did it to make us tired, because Krishna could have created a planet where life lasts for 100 000 years, on the celestial planets it is like that, but such a long life in the illusion is very hard to tolerate.

A packet of difficulties

In reality, all this experience of the earthly existence has the purpose to awake within us an intense longing for to go to the spiritual world. But here of course, to accomplish as much as we can, accomplish as a good devotee so that Krishna gives His mercy, in the development of a spiritual community there are each day new challenges. These challenges really help us to grow spiritually. If each day would be easy the same, we would not be able to grow, and therefore Lord Krishna very mercifully often sends us a packet of difficulties.

The Bhagavatam says: "The devotee see the difficulties as a fragment of his heavy karma so that he can come closer to Krishna". One comes closer to Krishna when one actually passes tests. Sometimes one has to be very humble to overcome the difficulty, especially after a fall. Now, those who are very intelligent, extremely intelligent, become very humble before the fall, and so they do not have to fall. This is the system.

The first kind of pride

There are different kinds of prides that attack a devotee. The first one is when he does no longer chant Hare Krishna and no longer listens to classes. This is very serious. It is the indication that his mind is bad. The conferences from Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita is a delight for the devotees. What if you do not feel happy to go to the class? What has happened? What worm of Maya is it that has settled in your brain, that you do not rejoice in Bhagavad Gita anymore, the word of God? Don't you rejoice in listening to the beautiful stories of the Supreme Personality of Godhead from the pages of Srimad Bhagavatam? It cannot be!!! What's happened? All our live spins around these books and their comments. Srimad Bhagavatam is the comment of Vedanta Sutra and of the Upanishads, and Caitanya Cariamrta is the postgraduate study after the studies of Bhagavatam; very elevated and very confidential.

The same argument is the same reason

The significant and the commentaries of the great acaryas are expansions of Veda that come to us with tenderness to awake in us a reciprocation to the call from the transcendental dedication. Oh Govinda, Oh Kesava, beautiful Lord with long hair! Be careful with this material world. You invite them to come to your abode where you take care of you cows and protects the brahmanic principles, where you invite the soul to be a playful cowherd in Vrindavana and shows the pastimes and always absorbed in the madhurya sweetness.

Some person objected to this: "I cannot worship this Lord Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead", and they asked him why. Because he comes like a cowherd boy, taking care of cows in Vrindavan, this cannot be the supreme Lord. Later they asked a devotee: "Why do you worship Krishna?" He replied: " It is because he comes like a cowherd boy in Vrindavan and shows us these pastimes, His tenderness is unique and exclusive." As you see, the same argument is the same reason, but one was discouraged an the other was happy. How is this possible? It is because Sri Krishna has this marvellous form to conquer the hearts of the devotees, and if someone does not have the inclination towards this, then Krishna puts a circle around his pastimes that is not possible to penetrate for the sceptics. They cannot enter, even though they see it from outside and it seems very funny and interesting. No, they are not permitted.

When a Vaisnava touches your heart

The change or the transformation of a devotee, or rather, the change of consciousness of a non-devotee to a devotee is very mystic. What happens there is virtually inexplicable. Like the one who previously did not believe in anything, like me for example, suddenly came to believe that the Supreme Lord lays down in the causal ocean and that from his navel comes a lotus flower. And from this flower comes the first-born son Brahma, who after that receives the charge to become the creator of the 14 planet systems, and after this one says Haribol...!!!

But do you believe in this? Do you believe that there is a Lord Visnu in each universe that from his navel comes a lotus flower, and that when he became furious Lord Siva came out from his forehead? These things one can only perceive when one has been touched by the divine mercy, and it is infinitely covered by the invitation of the lord., the cause of all causes. Of course, in the same way a Christian, because he believes in God, can believe that that God made the world in seven days, and also can have the same phenomenology. How can one believe this? However, the transformation that happens in a person who becomes a Vaisnava, is a mystic transformation, and it has something to do with a Vaisnava touching your heart.

How does one know when one has found a spiritual master?

This is when it appears in you heart the desire to become a pure devotee of the Lord in this life. This is the precise moment and place that indicates that the mercy has come to your life, to your heart. And how can one have faith in a particular spiritual master or two spiritual masters? How can one put one's faith in some individual and that this individual can be a transcendental medium of the will of the Supreme Lord, communicating directly and personally to me? All these transformations happen by grace, not by logic.

Actually, we see that the transformation that Lord Krishna allows in our life of faith, has a very desirable effect, because as soon as this faith is manifested in a person, he is accompanied by the desire to become a first class human being.

Krishna only wants your heart

From this side we can clearly identify that the manifestation of such a faith is very welcome, even like this, the spiritual faith is something from the field where all rights are reserved for the Lord. There is no way that I can convince a young intelligent sceptic from the university that Krishna is the supreme authority. I can experience my faith, I can impart what I have received, but I cannot defeat him in such a way that he just has to surrender. Although the Vedas give plenty of arguments for the assimilation, for the understanding of spirituality, but in no moment Krishna wants to defeat anyone intellectually. Krishna only wants the heart, and for the heart, one has to make a jump in faith, it is a jump into the unknown, a jump to the promised refuge without any negotiated securities. It is not that someone says for instance: "Uy, I will go to the centre of Santiago, but what dangerous things can happen on the way, many things can happen! Well, I will go if they send me a pansar car, so that I can be secure and nobody can bother me on the way".

A leap into the arms of the Infinite

Then, when one wishes to approach the Supreme Lord, one has to make a leap towards the infinite, into the embrace of the infinite, a jump of faith. For this the Vedas come to help us and inspire us to make this leap, because it has to be done. One has to put oneself unconditionally to the disposition of the indefinite. Krishna can give this faith to you and He gives it with great pleasure. You just have to long for it, to have a tangible relationship with God, and the relationship is to accompany the many hard demands like the loving unselfish devotional service.

Unselfish service

The Vedic culture since school teaches unselfishness in acts. Not here. The only thing one can say is relatively unselfish, is when the government call the youngsters to military service. And this is a topic apart from this, because it is said that the military service is where one will risk his life, and they say to you: "You are a citizen of the country and you have to give this service, it is not voluntary." So it is not voluntary, and even with that, they try to incite. You can know the world in the marine world, you can know the technology in the armada, you can make a carrier with help of it, or rather, they try to stimulate you with different motivations. But Bhakti yoga in the Vedic culture, starts with loving devotional service, spontaneous and from there unselfish.

The world of faith

But how is such a thing possible? Where does it come from? It only appears in the world of faith. In other words, in the Vedic culture the faith is managed as fundament. There the student's faith in a teacher is not difficult to find. In fact, the children have a faith in their parents and teachers, and the faith is an absolute fundament. Without faith one cannot eat, because one has to believe that there is no faith in the food. Without faith you cannot walk, because you need faith that the ground in front of you will carry your body; there exist slipperiness and moving lands, you step wrong and… chiao. This is the problem in this life, and we have to stand up against it.

The fundament of a true yogi

So the loving devotional service, the unselfish service, is a fundament for a true yogi and it is the fundament in spiritual education. In the gurukulas the children learned to surrender to the will of the Guru. The guru sent them to collect donations, the system to maintain the school was donations. It was not a system of an education ministry like in Colombia that finance the salaries of the teachers with the income from liquor and tobacco, and naturally, encourage the people to make their students quite addicted to tobacco and alcohol so the salaries keep coming. No, in the Vedic culture the schools were maintained by the students who spent a part of the day, walking from door to door, with the message of the spiritual master and asking for a collaboration of money or things for the school. This process made them become beggars, beggars of love, not shameful beggars. Not beggars that beg in order to finance their vices, like we see today, beggars everywhere.

Beggars for love

The pilgrim monk is a well-wisher for the humanity and the student in the school, when he goes out to ask for donations for the school of his spiritual master, it is in no way abusive. But he is reminding society of their obligation to facilitate a good education for the children. These children came back to school after some hours, and gave all what they had received to their spiritual master in the Gurukula and did not keep with any commission. They were not commissioners of donations. No, they were unselfish brahmacarys dedicated to support and encourage people to give a donation to the school. And if the school had excessive incomes to what they needed to maintain the school, the brahmanas immediately made great festivals and practiced charity to the needy. An ashram in Krishna consciousness is practically a reflection of this situation in the Gurukula, only that our children are already bigger, and the system for smaller children is already gone.

The duty of a monk in Krishna consciousness

One who wishes to be a spiritual monk, has to enter an Ashram and practice this and collect for the cause that is the cause of God, therefore it is unselfish. The devotee dedicates to help in the most different fields, designed by the spiritual master; dedicated to how to spread the blessings of the divine messages for humanity through literature, music, theatre, reunions, spiritual retreats and a lot of things. This is our task.

Guru, sastra and sadhu - guardians of the purity

The spiritual master, in whom the student has faith to hold on to with enthusiasm, is a connexion that practically is guarded under the concept of Guru, Sastra and Sadhu. In other words, the Vedas never say that anyone who says that "I am master", really is a master, or that anyone who says that "I have a school", is a genuine master. The Vedic system, like every system, had a vigilance, and that was the Sadhus. The Sadhus always are connected to see where there is a positive development.

The final purpose of Gurukula

The spiritual masters, through the disciplic succession, trained new teachers for the Gurukulas continuously. What is the pleasure in going to the university to study medicine, if you never will become a doctor, if you never will become a person who will help others with the knowledge that you have obtained? It would be horrible, if you have learned something unnecessarily, because the purpose of to go to the university to study medicine, is to produce doctors. In the same way, the purpose of a Gurukula is to produce Gurus. Imagine, if not, why then is it called Gurukula? Father gurus, mother gurus, teacher gurus, leader gurus of the society, gurus in all meanings of the word, because Guru means Spiritual Master. The father is a natural spiritual master of his children and for his wife to guide her well, and the wife of course, to not feel bad here, is the protector and the spiritual guide of the husband as well.

Worship the Truth only

What we learn in the Vedic culture is to adore only the truth above all. If something is a lie, it is already disqualified. The only thing that we appreciate is that we have to be submissive to the truth, and this submission to the truth is tested, examined each moment. We shouldn't consider it so easy to follow the truth in all circumstances. It is something very elevated; it is something for people who are very resolute and very developed. Truth is a very important gift, and this gift was given to us by our dear spiritual master Srila Prabhupada.

The truth comes through the genuine criterion

The Guru, the Sadhus and the scriptures, the Sastras, everything that I speak here, can be proved with verses from the scriptures; it is not my own speculation. The Sastras are the books of the truth, and the entire world can analyze them, examine them and make conclusions from them. The truth comes from the genuine criterion, and if I do not have a genuine criterion, then how can I distinguish between a lie and a truth? The common sense is a gift from God, the capacity of evaluation is another gift of God, and the doubt is another gift from God. All of this were given to us to have a genuine criterion, because what are we doing without genuine criterion? We would be like zombies, plants, robots… no, Krishna would not like that.

One who doubts about the truth has really gone astray

A brahmana is such a developed person who has a criterion for everything. They are the authority of the substance of the essence, and therefore they can be advisers in all the human society. This is the reason why the Gurukula produces gurus. So in this way you who are in the Gurukula have to become gurus, but one who thinks that he is a guru is a kangaroo, this is very delicate. If this gets this idea and says: "Ay, yes, I have already graduated in the Gurukula, now I will be a guru" and starts to jump over his Guru, then he will lose everything, and the only thing remaining will be the discrepancy of the things.

One clearly has to know that the truth is the truth, and always is the truth, and guarantee of the truth is the very truth. One who doubts about the truth has really gone astray and we will see it. He will fall by his own force.

Always your well-wisher,
Swami B.A. Paramadvaiti
Santiago - Chile