HH BVPS Mahārāja: Right, so because the ācārya lives on, as we saw Prabhupāda explaining before, within the instructions of the ācārya. And so, by that then, in that way the ācārya is there through his instructions and everything is carrying on. But as Śrīla Prabhupāda pointed out, the disciples weren’t caring so much for that. They would be getting distracted by the external aspects of the facilities afforded to Kṛṣṇa consciousness and maintaining those, as opposed to that those are there for the purpose of being engaged in devotional activities. And because of that then the preaching was not going so well, or not at all. And so then, if that, if as Lord Caitanya, if He would come again as the instructions of the spiritual master and everyone would take that up, then everything would go nicely, right?
So we have the same principle, that since it is paramparā, it is coming down. Lord Caitanya, He did like this, then Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, then Śrīla Prabhupāda, then we see is that then all this will go very nicely. We stick to the instructions and that, then everything will go forward nicely. But if we make up our own idea and all that, we say, ‘Oh, it’s Kali-yuga, we can’t do these things, how… Oh, you could do those before, you can’t do them now,’ that kind of bewilderment then, you know, that’s age-old. That’s as the saying ‘as old as the hills,’ that kind of illusion. So the point is is, no. The instructions are eternal. The principles are eternal. If one uses the intelligence, how to make things… That’s what’s already explained. Bhaktisiddhānta used his intelligence how to catch everybody. Lord Caitanya used. He delivered love of Godhead in its natural form as the saṅkīrtana, but the pāṣaṇḍīs, then they… All those others, they weren’t becoming, so He found methods to go to them, preach to them, go out and somehow or another catch them. So like that, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, he introduced it. And so, in the same way Śrīla Prabhupāda gave us so many avenues by which we can catch the fallen conditioned souls. Because we have the temples, we have restaurants, we have āśramas, we have farms, we have communities, we have festivals, we have Ratha-yātrās, book distribution, Harināma, you know, all these different things, these are all avenues by which we can go out and catch people and bring people to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. They bring people to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and so these, Prabhupāda already gave us all these avenues. We can say as, ‘Oh they don’t apply anymore,’ but that is only our illusion. That is only our ignorance. Because these things, they always apply. In Lord Caitanya’s time there were temples, now there is temples. You will see, after five thousand years there will still be temples. Ten thousand years, there will be temples.
The point is is, these things always work. So we can’t doubt the processes that we have. We might try to present them in a very nice way and all that, like a very inspiring, you could say, Harināma program, Indradyumna Mahārāja used to do in France. Is that the devotees would dress up as as Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda, or Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa and all that, and then they would have flags and festoons and all this, and they go out on the street. So everyone would dress nicely and that, and so it was it was like a pageant and people appreciated it that something is going on. Like that, he would do a similar thing in Poland. He used to do these dramas where they have these big kind-of masks, these different personalities. So he would have devotees dress up with a mask and have a whole out there, make dramas out on the road. You know, just you add, embellish, make it attractive and all this kind of thing. But the idea as, ‘Oh, no, you can’t do these things anymore,’ that’s just, that’s foolishness. I remember seeing the… Yeah, it’s just…
So there is always this idea that whatever we are at, we are at the pinnacle and everything before this doesn’t work. But actually it still works. You know, people still live in houses that are 100, 200, 500 years old. People still read books that are a thousand years old. People still do stuff. They are still speaking a language, that’s also old. So all these things aren’t different. I mean, they don’t change. Why? Because it’s Kṛṣṇa’s energy. And Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa’s energy are eternal. There may be variety, the modes may adjust, but the laws governing the material energy doesn’t change. So that means we can always follow the ācārya’s instructions. We just have to be intelligent to apply it. But the principle has to be attained, right? If we want to make some adjustment in detail, we still have to get the principle. Like that, okay.
Comments