Radhanatha Swami's Class in Mayapur
By Vipramukhya Swami

CHAKRA (Mayapur, India) - February 9, 2001: His Holiness Radhanatha Swami gave class in Mayapur this morning. He spoke from Srimad-Bhagavatam 7th Canto, Chapter 15, Text 35.

The GBC meetings are well under way now; so most of the GBC members are here as well as GBC Deputies and devotees from around the world taking courses with the MIHE. The front of the temple room during class looks like a forest with so many sannyasa dandas reaching up into the air.

Maharaja began by thanking the devotees for giving him an opportunity to render service by speaking something he has heard from Srila Prabhupada.

"When Srila Prabhupada first came to the Western world," he said, "he wrote that the nature of the soul is full of bliss, however in the conditioned stage of material existence, people are seeking pleasure through their senses. This is called lust."

He went on to explain that if lusty propensities are redirected toward Krishna, they become purified and reawaken our dormant love for Krishna.

When Srila Prabhupada first came to the West he saw it was a generation of people trying to gratify their senses. "Yet, Srila Prabhupada convinced these people that if you want real people you must serve Krishna," Maharaja said.

Simply it is a type of insanity to think we can ever be happy by enjoying the senses with their objects. At the same time, he said it is because the senses are pleasure seeking that we can't stop them from searching for pleasure. He quoted the Gita where Krishna says that one should cease such engagements by experiencing a higher taste. "When we experience that higher taste then we are no longer concerned with the pleasures of this world."

People undergo great endeavor to control their senses, he said, but the senses are so impetuous and strong that they drag away the intelligence. But Krishna says that one who concentrates on Krishna can control the senses. We must forcibly restrain our senses from sense gratification and at the same time fix our consciousness upon Krishna.

When we fix our consciousness on Krishna then we obtain the mercy of Krishna. Then it is possible to obtain the mercy of Krishna. A devotee simply depends on the mercy of Krishna, he said.

He also said that great yogis can fall down because they are not dependent upon the mercy of the Lord.

"If our consciousness is absorbed in Krishna then He will always protect us," Radhanatha Maharaja said. "In any other process, karma kanda, jnanan karma, we may try to control the senses, even to the point of obtaining mukti, but again we must fall down after some time if we are not experiencing the higher taste of the service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead."

Maharaja continued, "If we are not pleasing Krishna and the devotees, then whatever means we are doing to try to fix our minds on Krishna will simply not work."

He said that whether we are cooks, pujaris, managers, we are all just trying to serve the Lord, and if we serve Him in that attitude then our minds will be fixed on Krishna. We should fix our minds on Krishna in such a way that He is satisfied.

"Srila Prabhupada gave us the perfect process by which we can realize Krishna as the Reservoir of Pleasure. As we fix our consciousness in that way then we can never fall down. The only possibility of falling down comes when we are not trying to please Krishna," he said.

© CHAKRA 10 February 2001

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