Mātājī: How do you check if you are really surrendered?

HH BVPS Mahārāja: How to check if you are really surrendered? Well, first would be to see if what one is doing is according to Guru, sādhu and Śāstra, that is always there. Then see the body, the mind, the words, those all also connect. So maybe the body is doing, but the mind and words are not, or the words are but the body and mind is not. You know, like this. So we have to see that all of them are there. But we start someplace and then from there, even though the others may not be there, we don't throw out what is good, that is an important thing. It is ignorance where you throw out. You know what I am saying? We have, it is two methods. You have white at one end, you have black at the other, and we have various shades of gray in the middle, that is one system. Another system is you have white and then you have black. Right?

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Mātājī: Can you give an example?

HH BVPS Mahārāja: Can we give an example? Okay. One example is is that, okay, maybe there is some flaw in it, but it works, or there is something I can still gain from it. The other is, if there is a flaw in it, it is useless, it is thrown out. So generally... How you say? You will find different people are more accommodating, therefore they see these shades of gray, and people who are not accommodating, they see black and white. 

Mātājī: So Prabhupāda could see anything...

HH BVPS Mahārāja: So Prabhupāda could see anything anywhere. He is going to San Francisco, he is arriving there, he is met by 50 long-haired, dirty West Coast, you know, Haight-Ashbury hippies, right? So they like chanting; they see, they understand that I am not this body, by theory; they understand that to please Kṛṣṇa is the goal of life, and that's it. The rest of the time they are smoking dope, having sex, doing whatever they do, they never take their baths, you know, they are just perfect, typical West Coast dirty hippies. But Prabhupāda doesn't go, "Oh, a bunch of dirty hippies, what can we do?" No, he sees that they have caught this aspect of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, therefore then he cultivates. That is why he could do it and his Godbrothers couldn't.

Mātājī: So we should deal with ourselves like this?

HH BVPS Mahārāja: Shall we deal with ourselves? Shall we deal with ourselves like this? Yes, but it has to be understood how that works. In other words, where there is fault that has to be removed, what is good that should be cultivated, but we should never think that the position that we are at now is fine, that is where the weakness comes. If we deal like that with others then we are generally more kind and outgoing in that. If we deal like that with ourselves, we generally got complacent because... So then the point is is, you have to... There is complacency and then there is ignorance, depression. So both are a problem because both mean no activity. So technically they are both ignorance, just one is positive ignorance, one is negative ignorance. So the point is is, one has to see is that whatever is the position, you start there and you know where you are trying to go, so therefore you make a plan to connect the two.

Prabhu: Exactly right...

HH BVPS Mahārāja: Yeah, yeah, and then you move through. Whatever whatever stage they are at, you move through. So the same way with oneself, whatever stage you are at you move through. It is not that we are okay, others need work, no, we need just as much work. But if you berate yourself for past failures you won't progress. So there has got to be, something is wrong it is recognized that it is wrong. So either we don't recognize it, "No, no, it is fine," and maintain our ego, or, "Oh, no, I can't do anything... Oh this, oh that," and then you can't do anything either. So the point is is, okay, we did that wrong, now how to improve it? What was good about it, keep that; what was not good, correct that and move forward. So that is the mode of goodness, so you are actually dealing with what is happening now. The past, you learn from it, but you don't live in it; and the future you don't live in either; you know where you are going but you don't live there. One can say, "No, Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the future!" No, Kṛṣṇa consciousness is present. Does that make some sense?