Just managerially you become Guru, you don't have to have any spiritual qualification. Just by being the temple president then you are automatically Guru. That's all, this is just politics.

Kali-rāja knows: you break down restriction, you break down relationships. You break down relationships, people can't work together. People can't work together, you cannot have saṅkīrtana.

It is true, we just chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, but what does that mean? How do we apply that as a conditioned soul? That we have to understand. We do chant, that is our main focus, yes. But since we are not satisfied with that, therefore there are other processes.

For Kṛṣṇa, spending time with the devotees - that is what is important. Just getting things done, He is already doing that as Paramātmā, and He is not with the devotees, that's why it is considered a lower level.

Just as you can overeat, oversleep, overindulge in sex, you can overindulge in fearing. So conspiracy theories are overindulgence in fear.

You have to speak on the principle and make the principle presented in a way that someone can appreciate it. Relative means material. Absolute means it is real today, it was real before, it would be real in the future.

This philosophy of 'We are Westerners and so we can't follow all this Indian culture' - extremely dangerous apasampradāya, extremely dangerous. Because it makes one think that my upādi, defining myself as a Westerner, is a valuable element in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

You talk about that there is this particular little group of people, they are controlling the whole planet. But no one is that powerful. Yudhiṣṭhira could control the whole planet. Who is that pious?

If it is accepted that Kṛṣṇa made the nature, not us, then it just makes it so much easier. You figure out what you do, and then you know where your strengths are and your weaknesses are. And then others also know.

We are just being asked to do what they do in the spiritual world. For them, because of their attachment to Kṛṣṇa that particular form and situation is manifest, while for us that has come because of our conditioned mentality. But the principle is the same.