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)