Super Ultra Fantastic Like You Never Had It Before!

Jayadvaita Swami

We have two kinds of needs, material and spiritual. I can't deny that I have basic material needs, like eating for example. 'Well I'm spiritually realised I don't eat anymore', um...No, you need eating, sleeping. Can't really do without it. Mating. Another basic human need. And defending, we need to defend ourselves from time to time. We need to have some security. The animals do these things: they sleep, they mate, they defend. Humans beings do these things, and they're necessary. But they are not everything.
"What's your goal in life?"
"Well, to eat, to sleep, to have sex, and, defend myself."
Oh great that's really fantastic!


Yeah! Every dog does that! Are we no better than dogs? Two legged dogs. So, fine, They need to do what we need to do.
But that's not our purpose. Not that 'Why, am I living to eat? Why, am I living to sleep? Why, am I living to fight? Why, am I living for sex?'
No, those things should be, as much as needed. But we try to pump them up, you know: Eating! Eating! New experiences in Eating! Super ultra fantastic like you never had it before! Eating. And what is it? It's what the dog does. The dog is as happy eating his little bone as you are in your top of the world restaurant. At the end of the meal he's eaten you've eaten, he goes to sleep you go to sleep, he's happy you're happy. It's the same for all of us.

The fantastic ultra super-nothing-like-it-newest-greatest, never before experienced sex life that the human being has is the same as the sexual experience of the mosquito. They get sexual satisfaction, we get sexual satisfaction. Now you're looking like 'uh no, really?' Yes really! It's the same. There's nothing qualitatively different, about what the animal gets out of it, and what we get from it. It's the same thing. You know it really is. We like to think that there's something, you know, categorically different. It's not. It's not, it's the same thing. But human society, pumps it up it - tries to make it something that's going to just turn your life into permanent euphoria, and the result is...........disappointment. Because it can never match the expectation. If the expectation is just, heaven! When the reality sets in we're going to be disappointed! That's the, you know, the sorry truth about love in the material world. Well sex in the material world.
It's built up to be like nothing else under the sun, and really it's the same old thing. Which again is not to say, you know, stop it, but, to try to, fix our happiness on that, is going to result in a big let down in the end.

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

Not Complete, Not Satisfying....Limited!

There's the material world and there's the physical disappointment.
You know we wanted, we didn't get it!
Or we wanted it, we got it and we lost it!
So there's that disappointment.
And there's, yeah, a deeper psychological or spiritual disappointment.
'I got it but I felt empty' or 'I have it all but I feel empty' right?'
The biggest richest, most educated whatever, they feel something's not complete!
Something's not satisfying!........... The physical, there's a limit on how much happiness can you get out of one little sense. It's limited!

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

Let's Talk About You

Audience: If everyone tries to achieve spiritual happiness then they're not going to get married. The human race is going to go back down....

Jayadvaita Swami: If everyone tries for spiritual happiness, then nobody's going to get married and that's the end of the world....

Audience: And there's no children being made...

Jayadvaita Swami: Of course everybody's trying to move things in that direction, knock down the population so, you know, let's try it for fifty or hundred years! Try it the other way let's do this!

But I doubt that there's serious endanger of seeing that happen, that everyone goes stark raving spiritual and that's the end of marriage!
You know it's kind of like everyone's going to get rich: It's just not going to happen. That won't happen. But it is just as well, not everyone's going to be a PHD candidate. Not everyone's going to do so many things. Not everyone's going to be a philanthropist. But let's not talk about everyone, let's talk about, you. Let's talk about me, let's talk about us. You know what the whole world does we can leave till later. But you! Is it a sensible proposition for you to invest your energy in investigating or even pursuing spiritual happiness? That is really the question before us.

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

The Temporary Thing

Jayadvaita Swami

Live for the moment or seize the day and then get what you can out of it now,

You can take that approach......But
if there's something higher while you're busy seizing the temporary thing, you're losing the better thing.
The person who gives up the eternal for the temporary, loses both! He loses the eternal because he gave it up, and he loses the temporary, because it's temporary! And the person who gives up the temporary for the eternal does not lose anything! Because the temporary he gave up he's going to lose anyway and the eternal's permanent!

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

SB 4.1.57 - By the Glance of the Lord

During the month of kartika in Vrindavan Jayadvaita Swami gave a short but powerful class with complementing questions and answers. One of the questions was "Why is there still religion when we have modern science?". Maharaja answered quickly and forcefully and gave 4 reasons:

• Birth, disease, old age and death
• What is the purpose of life?
• Why we suffer in this material world?
• Who am i?

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Higher Purpose, Higher Taste

Jaydvaita Swami:
I'm not saying you know, somehow or other, if the chocolate tastes good put a rubber band around your tongue or something because you know you just did the wrong thing. No. There's a natural pleasure that comes from, well Bhagavad Gita analyses it by saying the contact with the senses with their objects: that I see something nice, my fingers touch something nice, you hear something nice, contact of the senses, with, an object, of the sense. That results in a certain amount of pleasure. Okay. We don't say deny it, pretend it's not there. But just accept what it is. It's really kinda small time. It's not the ultimate thing that a human being lives for when he's living for the truth,........It's not the be all and end all.
It's just, that's business as usual. Like here you're coming to university, everyday you're eating. Now is this why you have come? Okay, you get a certain amount of satisfaction when you eat maybe the foods good, you're happy about that, But you have a higher purpose here. ..... we're talking about there's a higher taste. When you get the higher thing, automatically you just come, you lose interest in the lower thing. It's not that someone has to drag you away kicking and screaming you just say 'I found something better!'

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

"Do you Want To get Old?" No! "Diseased?" No! "Dead?" No!

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

We're all connected. we all belong to....we're all parts of the Supreme. And now we're acting as if we're disconnected, and that disconnectedness is causing us untold difficulties.

What is that difficulty? No one wants to get old, we're all going get old. Some of us are already well into it, some of us are so far away, but everyone has to get old but no one wants to. Everyone has to get diseased and no one wants it. No one wants to die, and everyone's forced to. And birth also is something that we have to accept. Without argument. And that's also painful. These are all, unnatural for us, therefore we don't like them.

If you asked me 'Do I want to get old?'
“No I don't want to get old!”

'Diseased?'
“No!”

“Dead?'
“No”

Why not?



Why don't we say “Well it's great you know, I'm looking forward to the experience ?” .........Because it's unnatural to us!
Even a cockroach, you try to step on him and he runs away.
Why? He wants to live forever. He doesn't want to die.

In our present situation we're in an unnatural condition, because we have separated ourselves from that Supreme Reality. On the platform of reality, there's permanence, there's knowledge, hence, therefore we are looking for knowledge.
We want knowledge, we want more knowledge, because it's natural for us to have knowledge. But in the material situation our knowledge is blocked, our knowledge is confused, and in our natural state we'll have clear knowledge.
Knowledge, existence, permanent existence, and joyfulness.

If we advertise “Do you know we are having a program this evening and you'll all be unhappy”
You wouldn't be here! We are looking for happiness. Why? Because it's natural.
But we're trying to get happiness by owning something and, you know what it's like to own something, as soon as you own it, it starts becoming less valuable, Hm? And then you lose it, or it breaks, or it's no longer what you wanted. The whole material world is like that, it does not satisfy, because we are spiritual beings, by nature, and no amount of matter is going to satisfy a spiritual being.

It just will not work!

So it's another kind of an illusion to think that this is mine, this is mine and I can hold onto it and it will make me happy. The whole world is trying to do that and failing. It does not work. Fullstop. And even the poorest man will be happy if he has inner realisation of who he is, what his relationship is with the Supreme, how to act in that relationship…..He will be happy!

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

While you are young ....Go For It!

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

There's an interesting history in one of the Puranas about a child named Prahlada. He was spiritually advanced from his childhood. He met a great sage and became an enlightened little boy.
He was trying to get his friends on board, saying: 'Come on! Let's do something! Let's chant Hare Krishna, let's hear something about spiritual advancement.'
The kids said: 'Come on! You know we’re five years old, let us play. And when later in old age you know, when we're grandparents we will do this stuff.'

He said: 'You better do it now!'



'Why?'
'Okay, you're going to spend say, ten years, fifteen years of your life as kids, and you're going to be kicking balls around and doing all that kind of thing. Then you're going to hit middle age, and then it's: you see a girl you think she's nice, and there's all of that kind of, interaction.”

So you're busy with that, for another few years and then you get married, and then you're working hard to support your family. See to your home and your relatives, your job and all of that. And then you're old, and by this time you're fagged out. You know, where's your spiritual realisation, if you're leaving it until then: you're too busy now because your kids, you're too busy later because you're chasing boys and girls around, you're busy after that because you're working and supporting your family. And then at the end, you don't even know when the end is going to be. Now you think you're going to live to seventy and you're cut off at forty, or twenty!

Apart from that he said to them: 'Okay you got 24 hours a day, subtract ten or twelve because you’re asleep during that time. So you just cut your life in half.”
You're going to live a hundred years really there's only fifty of real time! Your spiritual time is less.
So he said, 'Now, when you're young, and you have the time .....Go for it now!”

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

Highest Point Of Service

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

I don't mean to say that everybody's just a shameless hedonist. You know that as soon as we pile out of this room we're all going to be going looking for the nearest club and doing whatever it is that, turns our senses on. I don't mean to say that. Some of us get our, our pleasure from doing some altruistic work. Some of us from doing some political work, some of us from doing some, all sorts of things……Generally: we don't work however unless we're paid. As much as I say I love my work, if you don't pay me I won't be there Monday morning.


So I work because there's something that I want to get, which I think is going to, in some way maybe make my life happier. Or let’s say that I'm really an altruist I'm just working selflessly, for The Red Cross….. Now I'm no longer just working for my own interests, I've extended, let's say I'm not such an altruist but I'm working for first just for me, then I get married, now I'm working for, you know me and my wife, and some children, so, it's not just me. I've extended my area of interest, I'm interested in making others happy. Let's say I go beyond that now I want to work for my country. I want to work for mankind. So in fact the broader you go, the higher you are. The more exalted your life is. But it's still within the realm of limitation. I care about mankind but I, chomp on the animals, for example. Or I love my country and I stomp on the country next door. Or I love my family and I compete with ten other families. So my altruism or my, yeah my altruism, is still within the conditions kind of a state.

If you extend it further, if you extend it to the ultimate point, where your goal is of service, It's not just to serve yourself, not just to serve your family, not just to serve your country. Not just to serve mankind, but to serve the Ultimate, to serve the Supreme. ……You've come to the highest point of service. And when you are there, you’re automatically going to be serving, everyone.

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

The Material World Is Constitutionally Unrewarding

We're trying to enthuse material things with joy. You know we talk it up and say, this is the best!! You know... Party!!! or the best club! Or the best, whatever it is! And we talk it up and kind of psych ourselves into “This is really going to be something!'
But at the end it's really not, what it's talked up to be. Therefore we are disappointed. We're disappointed. The material world is constitutionally like that.
We're thinking it's just that we can configure it, 'I got the configuration wrong', you know, 'I got the girl with the blue eyes instead of the brown eyes.'
You know 'I'm not the kind of person who's meant to be with blue eyed girls' and you know just the 'whole thing is wrong, and you know if it were only Suzy instead of Jane, everything would be different!'
But it's not like that.
Configure it this way, configure it that way, configure it a third way, any way you configure it the material world is constitutionally unrewarding!

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

Little Crumbs Of Happiness

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

AUDIENCE: If within the material world you, it makes you happy to go a club and dance for a few hours, why is that wrong?

JAYADVAITA SWAMI: What's wrong? Well, here's the problem! That, first of all, the Bhagavad Gita says (Sanskrit), okay, what is this happiness. First thing is that the happiness is not really happiness. What do I mean now? I go to a club, I dance, first of all I'm out of how many pounds, it cost me something, second of all okay I have to go there and drink, that means I've clouded up my mind is that really something that is in my best interests? To cloud up my mind? And then I meet people and I engage with them in some sort of interactions, when their minds are cloudy and my minds are cloudy? My mind is cloudy? Where does that go?

AUDIENCE: Who says that drinking and dancing within a club go together?


JAYADVAITA SWAMI: Okay we just go to the club and dance, alright it's a teetotallers club, we go there and we drink fruit juice and we dance. Alright and we go, we have a good time and it's lovely. Um, first thing is: it may not be so lovely actually. That I'm again telling myself that I'm having a good time, it's so great, I got this really nice boy, and he was so, he was just like nobody else, he was so nice to me and da da da da da da, and, it's great except later it's not so great! Because then he finds another girl and he says you know 'Get lost!' or he says, 'You're the girl for me' and then 'I'm pregnant' and then you know 'I can kill the kid' or have it. Either way it's a problem. Or we get married and we live happily ever after for five or seven years!

So it's supposed to be great but it's not always what it's chalked up to be. But let's say it is great. It's really good, but then it has a beginning and an end. So then now I have do something else. I went to the club, I danced, it was really nice, and now what, now I'm bored. Huh ?
So what, okay, we're going to look forward to going to the club again next week, and, so on.....It's little crumbs of happiness! The crumbs are finally taken away. This happiness that I'm getting by the dancing in this sense, it's all based on the body. Hm? You can't dance without the body. It's all preceding from the body, I see this, I touch that, I hear this. And the body itself is not a stable platform for happiness. It's not a stable source for happiness.

I'm trying to get happiness from the body, I'm thinking in fact that I am the body! If you ask who am I, I say 'Why I'm an American' or 'I'm British' or 'I'm Smith' or 'I'm Jones' or 'I'm Young' or 'I'm Old' or I am this or I am that. I'm thinking in terms of this body. As if the body were myself. Which it's not! So I'm getting happiness for this body and it's senses as if it was giving happiness to me, but because I'm not this body, feeding the body what it wants still leaves me hungry. You have your car, and you fill it with petrol, and now you don't have to eat right? No. Because you are not your car, you're just driving it around, driving it around, driving it around many times. Feeding the car doesn't feed you.

So doing whatever it is to satisfy the senses still leaves the living being himself dissatisfied. Otherwise you know you live in Britain, I live in America, you know, super advanced countries, whatever you want, order it on the internet and it's on your desk the next day: What do you want, name a material thing, you can have it.....Third world country where you might have to be deprived of something. Basically in Britain if you want it you can have it. So in Britain everyone's walking around um, jubilant? The faces are all smiles? Everyone is in untold ecstasy, throughout the day? and if not why not? Because we have all this stuff, you want a girl the girls are all there, you want a boy the boys are all there, if you are a boy and you want a boy the boys are all there!!! Whatever you want it's there. Fames, there all there. Do anything, sure why not, it's all there. Okay so where's the equation going wrong? If it's all available we should be the happiest people in the world, and you know, go out on the street, do your own inventory and tell me how it looks. Are they all really jolly jolly jolly out there? Why not?

So our proposition is, because the living being himself is starving. The petrol is being put into the car and the driver is hungry!

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

Activities With Spiritual Purpose

It doesn't mean that all I do is sit and chant and meditate, and I don't eat, I don't talk to anyone, I don't work, I don't function, I enter into some sort of o-zone and I'm never seen again.
It's practical. I realise my relationship with the Supreme or with Krishna, and in that relationship I see everything else.
If I'm married I see, that marriage means that, there's two of us, for spiritual advancement. It's not just a mutual sense gratification society of two. But it has now a spiritual connection, and if there's children then there's more people to make spiritual progress. If there's something I'm doing in the world, suppose I was making some money the money can be used in Krishna's service. If I have a microphone I could use it........ Anything! So it doesn't mean dropping activities because activity is illusion. But it means infusing all of our activities with spiritual purpose!

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

“Temporarily Mine” means it's not actually mine!

AUDIENCE: ... you bought it with your money, so it is your property isn't it?

JAYADVAITA SWAMI: Really? You know I buy a car with my money and then it's my car? Then someone else buys it from me then it's his car, then it goes to the next person then it's his car. So temporarily you can say it's mine, but “temporarily mine” means it's not actually mine. It only means it's in my hands for some time. Like I say “My money, I have £5 this is my mine,” But five minutes ago it was not mine and when I spend it again it's not mine. So my claim “This is my money,” is not a substantial claim. And even while it's in my hands it's not mine. It's not actually my property. In the Bhagavad Gita we hear from Krishna that: “It's My property!' Krishna says: “Whatever there is, is my energy.”
As the sunlight is the energy of the sun, everything is ultimately the energy of the Supreme.

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

Three Features Of The Lord

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

IMMENSE VARIETY
Prabhupada had very definite teachings to give that were also contrary to what was going around. What was generally going around is that when we talk about Supreme or an Absolute or an Ultimate Truth we mean something which is ultimately beyond form, beyond names, beyond qualities, beyond description, beyond thinking, beyond anything. Something essentially impersonal and homogeneous. That was the one, the great light, the unspeakable truth, that's the general discourse. And he challenged that. His essential challenge was that in the world around you, you have variety. Here we have black people, we have white people, we have tan people, we have tall people, we have short people, we have fat ones, and thin ones, and middle sized ones, we have very smart people, we have very stupid people, sorry to say but it's true we have, all sorts of varieties! We have yellow, we have green......, name a variety we have it. Now by what process does this immense variety precede from something which has no form, no qualities, by definition no variety whatsoever.............. If that 'It' has no variety, no differentiation, no anything there, where do you get variety here? Hm? If it's not in the warehouse how did it get to the shop!?


IMPERSONAL ENTITY
So his (Prabhupada) presentation was that the Absolute Truth is not an unadulterated impersonal entity. And that it could be understood properly in 3 features. What are those 3 features? The first is, the first is: that impersonal entity. That great unspeakable unreal, indescribable truth. Beyond all limits, beyond all names and forms and qualities. That's the first, that's a preliminary realisation, there's some great something. There's something greater than us that we can't describe. Which is everywhere, which is all pervading, and which we don't really understand.

SUPERSOUL
There's a second, angle of vision, on that same Supreme Truth. And that is that the Supreme Entity is also within your heart. When you are looking for knowledge, when you are looking for understanding, even when you are not looking for knowledge or understanding there's some source of inspiration, some source of guidance within each one of us. Which is coming from beyond us. It's coming from beyond us. That, can be called in Sanskrit, it's called Paramatma in English you can say Supersoul. But it's the form of the Absolute within one's self that one perceives as one traces one’s own thoughts and says 'Where am I getting this from?' Hm? 'Where am I getting this from?' That Supersoul is within me, within you equally, within all living beings.

PERSONALITY OF GODHEAD
And, the third, perspective on the Absolute, gives us the picture of a personality of Godhead. That is to say that: I'm a person you're a person, each one of us is personal, and when we come to that understanding of Absolute Truth we again meet a person. But not a person of this material world. Rather the Supreme Unlimited Person. Well, a person means not that's a limit, you're placing a definition which is by nature limited. No. It's a person whose discreet, specific, by definition beyond any limitations. I have a form that means I'm limited. I'm here in London, I'm not in Johannesburg. But when we speak of unlimited form, that unlimited form can be here can be there can be in the next place and still not lose form. Something like the sun, which can be in Johannesburg and London and New York and lots of other places. It can be on my head your head on the next man's head. And it doesn't make it something abstract or something with no qualities or no form, and so on. So these 3 aspects, are actually one. That is the Supreme. Supreme, you can't have 2 or 7 or 3 Supremes. But the Supreme can be realised progressively from different angles of vision.

SUNSHINE, SUN, SUNGOD
Again something like the sun. You wake up in the morning you look out your window and you see the light everywhere and you say the sun is here. And that's true. That if you were to look up then you'd see a very specific planet and you'd say well that's the sun. But it's not that a matter of argument that a person thought the sun what was coming in his window is wrong, and I'm right I see the planet. It's simply two angles of vision on the same reality. And if you could go to the sun then you might find that the sun was inhabited and that there was a president of the sun, a sun God, in charge of the sun, and you could meet him and talk to him about everything that's going on in the sun. So he's also the sun. But again, there's no difference between any of the 3 features.

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

Human Being Acts Like Any Damn Thing

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

AUDIENCE: I just wondered for example for a mosquito, if in their life, they was like injecting malaria into people, and like, causing loads of suffering to the whole conscious or something. How would that mosquito get further up the scale of consciousness, and eventually, go back to Godhead?

JAYADVAITA SWAMI: Okay that's a good question. For the lower creatures, they are always acting exactly as they are supposed to do. It's the business of the mosquito to suck your blood and give you malaria sometimes. That's what mosquito's do. You never see mosquito's, stealing oranges or something like that. The mosquito acts always exactly like a mosquito. The cow acts exactly like a cow. The birds exactly like a bird. And the human being like any damn thing!!! He acts like a dog, like a mosquito, blood sucking tax men!!!


So the animals are the lower creatures. They have no karma they just automatically do what they supposed to do. But the human being having greater choice. Goes up or down. So it's not, you know I might not get what I want or, it might not make me happy, but there's like further ....dimensions to this. Then when this one lifetime has finished, then what? You know it's like, you're here in university it’s not like whether or not you have a good time in university, whether or not you feel fulfilled, whether it’s a question of, did you get the grades that you need so that you can get the job or, um, the career that you had in mind afterwards? It's not just what happens within these three or four years..... there's a future. And the intelligent person plans for the future, well I'm thinking about education, well I'm saving for my retirement. But then we don't go beyond that, because we're only thinking in terms of the body, we're not thinking in terms of our spiritual identity.... We don't look at well, what's the larger picture? So our suggestion is looking at that larger picture and not neglecting it. Really looking into it and saying well you know it matters! It matters! It may be there it may not be there, but it matters! It matters more than anything else matters.

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

Without self-discipline there is no spiritual progress

AUDIENCE: Can you say a little more about Prabhupada and the 60's? Can you say a little more? Was he an American or an Indian...?




JAYADAVAITA SWAMI: Yes I can say a little more about him thank you. No he was not American he was from India from West Bengal, to be precise from Calcutta, to be more precise. And his teachings were quite different from what was being popularly taught. At the time America, mid 1960's was full of gurus, full of swamis, full of, all sorts of spiritual things. There was um, right around that time was the hey-day of, chant, a secret mantra 15 minutes in the morning and then 15 minutes in the evening and then pay $25 and you meditate. There were all sorts of things. Spiritual and the general trend of it was a sort of what we might now call a new-age discourse, we talk about the oneness of all beings, we talk about finding yourself in the flow of greater reality you know we find this kind of vague, everything was kind of 'be one with everything else!' and, 'whatever you are doing it's the same as everything else' because really we think it's everything and everything is nothing so nothing is everything you know, it goes on (CROWD LAUGHS).



And then our spiritual teacher was very definite. He was particularly clear on certain points of practice, and certain points of understanding. First point of practice was: “Without self-discipline there is no spiritual progress”. If someone is telling you that, 'you know, whatever you are doing just continue doing that, whatever you like to smoke, whatever you like to drink, whatever you like to do, where your senses take you that's all fine. Just subscribe to whatever idea it is or whatever little practice you add on...' He's cheating you blindly. That's trash. Just as if someone says that university means 'you just come and have a nice time and you don't have to study and you don't have to take any tests' It's out of the question. If you wanna get education there's sacrifice, there's discipline. So spiritual progress also, or, inner progress means there has to be some self discipline. It must mean that.

Even in sports if you want to make progress you have to follow some discipline and maybe you'll give up smoking so you can compete and, you know all of, there must be discipline otherwise you don't go anywhere. So our spiritual master was very clear about that. He, quite contrary to the going with the flow of the 1960s he was anti-flow. He insisted that his students give up any form of intoxicants, which were of course for many people the way for spiritual progress. And he said forget it. No intoxication, not even coffee or tea. You're already intoxicated enough, you've no need to take anything more. Hmm? No gambling. No non-vegetarian food. If you want to make spiritual progress and you kill your fellow creatures at the same time or pay someone else to do it you're not gonna make a whole lot of progress. And no unrestricted sex. Which well, what do you mean no unrestricted? No. He was against just mix and match and un-mix again and match again. He said no if you want to make spiritual progress there must be self discipline. So whatever our initial impression of that, it meant it means he's serious. You know we're not kidding around here. We're talking about a serious process for making spiritual advancement. And I maybe prepared to do all of these things, I may not be prepared to do all these things, I may have questions about whether and why if and how. But it means we are talking serious stuff now, we are no longer in the realm of 'well really, just be yourself, and whatever you are...' that's out.

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

Experience the presence of Krishna

AUDIENCE: So if I wanted to become Hare Krishna, what would I have to do? What kind of, you said do not do intoxicating myself and what else did I have to do?

JAYADVAITA SWAMI: Positively, we recommend this chanting. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. It's a transcendental vibration, we don't charge for it, it's not a secret. But if, when you chant, you'll experience purification in part. Not that cash in and in five minutes my heart is just been through the laundry, but you go on chanting and you'll experience how your heart becomes, free from anxieties, free from so much many misconceptions, joyful, because you are coming in touch with Krishna.



What does it mean coming in touch with Krishna? When we say the Supreme. Krishna means that ultimate Supreme, and the nature of the Ultimate is there's no difference between the Supreme and His Name. You and I are different from our names, or the thing and the substance, the thing and it's name are different. If you chant coca-cola coca-cola coca-cola you're still thirsty. But on the absolute platform vibration and substance are equal. The name and the thing, have no duality.
So by chanting, you experience the presence of Krishna it's not something theoretical, it's something experiential. So even, someone may not be prepared to follow the, harsh rules that might be involved, but by chanting the heart becomes purified. One gets a higher taste, and then the things that were so difficult become very easy. That's practical experience.

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

Even My Body Is On Loan

AUDIENCE: What does it mean to you to be a monk and to renounce everything material?

JAYADVAITA SWAMI: What does it mean to be a monk and to renounce everything material? What does it mean to renounce it? You probably saw that I sat down and put this thing which must cost at least 50 or 80 pounds over here, and it looks very material. It's made of material stuff, it costs material money, so how am I renounced everything material? Our understanding is that first of all nothing actually belongs to us. This is not my property. The elements of which it's fashioned were here before I came. When I leave the scene they'll still be here. For some time I say this is mine, this is my recorder, this is my house, this is my money, this is my family, this is my this, this is my that, my country. But it's here before I come, it's here after I go, so in what sense is it mine? It's not mine actually, there's a higher proprietor to whom it belongs, and I'm borrowing this stuff.
Even my body is on loan. The stuff of which the body is made is not actually my property. I can't command it actually, and be thoroughly in charge of it. It's on loan. Just as your apartment is on loan. So renunciation means not that I give something up because it's not mine to begin with. But it means that I recognise the actual proprietor, and I use it for that Supreme Proprietor of everything.

(Jayadvaita Swami 10/2007)

The Vision Of The Demoniac ( by HH JAS)

They have a materialistic outlook: “There is no God, everything is just going on by nature’s own interactions, everything is unreal, everything is just a dream, it is whatever you imagine it to be. We make our own reality. There is no ultimate basis to anything. It is all whatever you think. I believe in this, you believe in that, whatever you believe in, whatever works for you, whatever works for me works for me, there is no ultimate reality, no absolute.” Everything is just up in the air
No, acknowledging, that finally there is the Supreme Personality of Godhead who is the owner of everything and the rightful enjoyer of everything.
Rather: “We own everything, everything belongs to us and the smaller the us group gets the better. They can all belong to me, very good, otherwise if I have to share it with few others, ok ..... We will monopolise it for our family or our state or our company, our cooperation, at the cost of others. It is all competitive, let us enjoy at your expense, at the expense of other human beings, at the expense of the land, at the expense of the water, at the expense at the air, at the expense of the animals...rip up everything for our own enjoyment. The purpose out of life is to get most out of life.”




Do you hear that from people: “What’s your goal?” “Make the most out of life”
Getting most out of life means getting most out of you!. “Whatever I can do to get the most out of you. This cheating or that cheating, that violence, this scheme or that scheme , the end justifies the means and we are doing for your benefit.”

(JAS Maharaja briefly talks about Iraq)

In the name of “Better world and world peace, world freedom, world democracy, world something or other, world order, in the name of something, security, peace and security....whatever it is we will do something good for you , don’t worry.”
The real story is “My sense gratification at your expense.”
“We are protecting the world from terrorism, we are protecting the world against economic collapse, we are protecting the world against this, protecting the world against that.”

Meanwhile the real story is (at your expense) enjoying sense gratification. And for that “We will do anything, we can do anything as long as we get away with it.”
The extent to which this demoniac mentality runs is beyond belief practically. Appalingly vicious, appalingly well organised. We have the idea of demoniac people as some sort of wild crazed people with bandanas and daggers between their teeth, hand grenades in their underwear!

My picture of the demoniac is a little different , of course they can wear bandanas and all of that, they can also wear pinstripe suits: Bankers, politicians and lawyers they could be exceedingly cultured, exceedingly sophisticated, exceedingly educated, polite, well spoken, thoughtful articulate and .....vicious!
Absolutely, they can be nice guys, friendly and big warm smiles but totally vicious because the goal of life is sense gratification one way or another. This is their vision.


(Jayadvaita Swami, B.G 16.9 Stockhom 21/09/2009)

HH Jayadvaita Swami's visit to Stockholm

Hare Krishna,

HH Jayadvaita Swami was visiting Stockholm recently.
You can download lectures if you click here, than go to mp3 archive/ Jayadvaita Swami, there you will find 3 new Srimad Bhagavatam lectures and one Bhagavad Gita lecture.

Jayadvaita Swami @ Pandava Sena England - 11 sep 2009

Jayadvaita Swami gave a nice class about the material nature and our hapiness of this world. Check it out here : Watch video


Cannot click the link?
http://www.filmworkstudios.co.uk/KCPAGES/page3/East_Jamming_HH_JAS_11-09-09.html

Pursuit of Happiness - JAS

Jayadvaita Swami speaks in East London on the pursuit of real happiness with the youth of ISKCON Pandava Sena. Click on this link for video:

http://www.filmworkstudios.co.uk/KCPAGES/page3/East_Jamming_HH_JAS_11-09-09.html

Knowledge for the sake of Knowledge?

(HH JAS 10/2007)

Lady Speaks: Burton Russel said that knowledge is this one possession we have which is never ending, it’s like a river you can take, take it as much as want, and everybody can and there’s so much of it and it won’t complete.... so this contradicts what you say ’knowledge should be proactive or should be...’ I think Burton Russel was thinking of terms of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.

HH JAS Speaks: I’m not sure that we are in contradiction although I’m sure Burton Russel and I would differ on all sorts of things. But by knowledge I don’t mean that now you’ve got it and it’s in a box, you know, how many square metres it takes up and put a little package in it and send it to your own address and post and you’re done...that’s not at all what I have in mind. Knowledge should expand, knowledge should be ongoing, knowledge should be progeressive, knowledge should lead to more knowledge and that should still lead to further knowledge....but there is such a thing as knowledge for knowledge's sake with no purpose: where I know how big this is, I know how much it costs, I know so many things and ultimately I don’t know what in the world I am doing with that, with that information, I am just being processed, I’m been given information, I take the information...I spit it back and I have knowledge at the end I have certified I have knowledge. But do I have a clear understanding of deeper issues...No, do they matter...maybe No ...you know, at the end of my education, deeper issues don’t matter, what matters is getting hired by a good company, and that matters more than the issues I haven’t even addressed or brought up, I’ve not even thought about, even as a professor! That’s my point. Thank you very much

Knowledge Without Ultimate Purpose...illusion!

(HH JAS 10/2007)
My main work is in publishing. I do editorial work in spiritual publishing. I met my spiritual teacher in 1968 in New York city .... I was about your age, maybe some of you are little older, I was eighteen at that time , i’m a little older now! I spent some time after leaving high school (American system) at the university , pretty good university, and i saw that students were there for four reasons .
One reason at the time, it was 1960s, was to avoid the Vietnam draft, which was quite a good reason for being at university!
The other reason was that some were very career orientated and wanted to make their mark in the job market.
Third group had left high school and weren’t ready to go in the job market and mummy and daddy were going to pay for them for four years to be in this park with nice people, beautiful girls and boys...and they could have a bit of leisure for four years and just turn in a few test papers and have a good time!
And the fourth group was there because they were looking for knowledge and it seemed to me at the time that that was the group that was being the most cheated!
Because in my experience, if you asked a professor , you know, who are you and why are you here and what is the purpose of your life , why are we here in these universities , what is the ultimate point of it all ....their answers would be..dull! They wouldn’t have answers of that at depth. They could tell you what their scholarly enterprise was, they could tell you so many other things, but in terms of delivering meaning , ultimate meaning, it just wasn’t there and what is knowledge if it is disconnected from ultimate purpose......really it is illusion.
Knowledge without purpose, knowledge without deeper understanding of the most basic questions (who we are, what our life is for) is not knowledge. That thought I had at the time and that is why I left the university community and by good fortune, some time later I came across my spiritual teacher, His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, long name. I found on the contrary that if you asked him any questions he had very definite answers and he had a very definite train of thought ....... and that’s where my interest began and that’s where i still am.
Youth asks: How did you meet him?
I met him actually by joining his society, he had a small storefront in New York city. He had left New York and had gone to India for some time and it was in his absence that I met his student s in New York and then when he came back two months later ...I met him.

Can You Throw Away The Biscuit?!

Question by Youth: What do you mean by higher taste?

(HH JAS 10/2007) :
Well just like if you had a little biscuit in your hand and you were hungry and I said throw the biscuit away. You’ll say: "Wait a second that is my biscuit and I’m hungry, I’m not going to throw it away. Get lost!"
But if i come to you with a big plate of whatever your favourite food is, fancy delicious and everything and I say I’ll give you all of this but you have to throw away the biscuit...would you do that?
Yeah sure because there was a higher taste there. There is taste of the biscuit but there is more taste in the fifty other varieties of well prepared things. So there is a taste to material enjoyment, there’s a taste to a cigarette, I smoke it and there’s a taste. There is a taste to whatever, name something in the material world there is a taste to it. But the taste is not very satisfying. It’s advertised as satisfying! They advertise that you smoke this cigarette and it’s so smooth, it’s so satisfying, but it’s a lie! And more than that it is destructive, harmful, humm, so for the sake of satisfaction we are getting some little little taste..which is not satisfying: you smoke one , you throw it away, you then pick up the next one and we are harming ourselves at the same time.
So higher taste means beyond the taste of these temporary things which are no.1 temporary and no.2 unrewarding and no.3 even troublesome! When we come to the spiritual platform there’s a taste which is free from trouble, which is natural and which is permenent and which is constitutionally joyful.

Vedic Culture. Man is Polite, Woman is Shy

Devotee's question: As you were saying Brahmacharya’s are trained to ignore the women does that also exclude being polite.

HH JAS: No...if you are separate then you don’t meet, If you have to pass through a narrow hallway do you have to be polite? It certainly includes being polite, but politeness in Western culture and politeness in Vedic culture are different.
In Western culture a young man and a young woman pass each other in the hall and he says good morning and she says good morning and who knows what’s going on, his mind is going her mind is going and that’s polite, if you don’t say good morning do a little smile and go through a little more body language then you’re a creep! In Vedic culture it's different a man and a women are passing and they make way for one other and that’s politeness. Generally the women are trained to be very shy, so a man is coming by the

woman stands by the side and becomes a little inconspicuous and the man passes by...and that way she maintains her chastity: There’s no interaction, there’s no somebody’s going after somebody or making time with somebody and therefore she becomes very respectable. It doesn’t mean she’s ...shrinking into the shadows and insignificant. It means she’s so high class that you can't mix with her. Just like a really high class woman you can’t really get close to her because she’s high class. Low class woman anyone can mix with, but a high class woman is a little unapproachable, even in Western society if a woman is really high class you can’t just walk up to her and say excuse me lady "da...da...da...da" She’s aristocratic she’s a little distant from ordinary men, of course then she goes out at the night she’s drinking and partying and whatever else! But at least on the street it's like that. In the Vedic culture it’s so respectable...Prabhupada said: :My mother would not go next door to accept an invitation except if she was in a palanquin covered with four men, nobody could see, even the sun couldn’t see her"...That’s high class, still to this day you go to Vrindavan and some men are passing by and the ladies are covering their faces because they’re shy so there are different signs of culture.
Now in the Western society a woman is considered cultured if she knows finance and she’s aggressive as a hawk...but in Vedic culture a woman is high class if she’s very shy. It’s a sign of good breeding, a sign of culture a sign of respectability and such a woman no respectable man will approach. Prabhupada gave the example that he and some men were standing by a doorway and some sweeper lady was there, a sweeper woman means a low class woman, sweeping where everybody is walking, but she had to get through that doorway so she was standing there, apart, and three or four friends, aristocratic, Prabhupada came from an aristocratic family, a high class family, so three or four gentlemen are standing there, and this woman was standing to the side and they could understand that she has to go through therefore they all had to move...by her behavior they had to move. That’s Vedic culture...shyness.

. EXCERPTS FROM: HOPES AND HORRORS OF HOUSEHOLDER LIFE
– SWAMI JAYADVAITA 1992 - PART 4)

Men and Women Together- Pressure Cooker!

HH JAS: In the Vedic civilization the men are out working someplace and the women are doing their business together. That’s very nice, they have their own society, they don’t always have to think about men...men...men. They're brought together at different times when its appropriate: so that’s Vedic culture, previously the house was divided into two sections there was an outside section and an inside section. The outside section, the men stayed and he did his business and received guests, business associates or whatever and in the inner quarters the women were there, they were separate.

Devotee Speaks: It’s still widespread in Arab society in Israel also.

HH JAS: In any civilized culture you’ll find this, ancient Arab culture the middle eastern countries, even countries we think of being savage. They’re more advanced as the so called civilized western first world countries on this point. The women are with the women the men are with the men and their doing their business and their more peaceful.
I went into some office of a big magazine in New York they have like 30 typewriters and little desks the men are sitting at some of them and the women are sitting at others of them and it’s like a pressure cooker! The men have their ties on, got their coats on and they got there Cologne on and they're powerful and their doing things and the women are dressed to kill!...and their minds are like...if you could draw a graph of it!...(laughter) Nobody can be peaceful in that place, so peaceful mind means separation of men and women as far as possible.
Prabhupad said one time, many times actually, that man is good and woman is good; man and woman together are not good, that is my philosophy he said. Man is good, Woman is good; man and woman together is not good.

. EXCERPTS FROM: HOPES AND HORRORS OF HOUSEHOLDER LIFE
– SWAMI JAYADVAITA 1992 - PART 4)