The Protestant Approach
The Protestant culture is totally devastating to any sense of authority, because that’s the first thing they go after: any authority, śāstra, Prabhupāda, previous authorities, varnāśrama.
The Protestant culture is totally devastating to any sense of authority, because that’s the first thing they go after: any authority, śāstra, Prabhupāda, previous authorities, varnāśrama.
You have to make distinction that you specifically like Kṛṣṇa and His devotees in Vraja better than anything else. They are people, you want to be with them.
The body is also to be maintained properly to use in Kṛṣṇa’s service. Keeping it warm – that is the austerity. It is very easy to just get up in the morning and walk out without your warm clothes on, it is more difficult to put them all on.
Kṛṣṇa, Who, being God, could eat anything, He has chosen these particular things to eat because out of all the different tastes they are the most developed and refined. So it is a nice direction to go towards. But I would say more important is to learn how to cook.
A little knowledge is dangerous. So you have to have enough knowledge, then you stop being dangerous.
Why should we have study of the sastras? Why should we have organized classes in which people then study this knowledge and get degrees? To get degrees, to increase our prestige, make outside people think that we are educated. But that is not the purpose. The purpose is to develop devotion.