Appointment with Krishna 5/12

(Compiled from notes on lectures of H. H. Mahavishnu Goswami)

During his recent visit to Abu Dhabi our beloved Guru Maharaja was extremely appreciative of the two rhymes composed by His Grace Atma Prasad Prabhu and taught to the children of Prahlad International School in Rajkot. Maharaja made all of us recite the rhymes many times here. Maharaja insisted that it is our duty to pass on the eternal culture to our children. It is not very easy in this age, but we can win, if we persist.

In the English alphabets, C, D, E, F and G come in sequence. We can remember the following things essential for our life very easily:

C- Cleanliness
D – Disciplined life
E – Education
F – For
G – God

In the rhyme, ‘Maharaj, Maharaj, please hear us’, the following stanza talks about cleanliness:
If our room is clean, then our mind is clean
If our mind is clean, we can do anything;
If our room is dirty, then so are we
And if we are dirty, we’re not happy;

Cleanliness:
Cleanliness is essential in any field. Unless we maintain clean accounts of all our income and expenditure, the expenditure may be more than the income. Then we have to suffer. This quality of cleanliness is very essential for the students. Cleanliness includes proper organization of things. We should keep the things back from wherever we took them. Dirt always creates trouble. Just like the clothes are torn by dirt, our lives are also torn by dirt. If everybody is clean, there will be auspiciousness everywhere. Hence cleanliness should be given priority in our lives. The only way to come out of the modes is to be immaculately well organized in our material life. Otherwise, our spiritual progress is also destroyed. We all know the famous saying ‘Chant and be Happy’. Maharaja has given us another slogan ‘Arrange and be Happy’. Unless we arrange our material things properly, we cannot move forward an inch spiritually.


Disciplined life:
Clean people are disciplined. We should respect our parents, we should not talk back and we have to believe in God. Just to keep faith in Krishna is very very difficult in this age. All the inventions are threatening our existence, particularly our spiritual existence. We should always remember that we are all condemned to death. By making us remember this essential fact, Srila Prabhupada cuts our desires from the root. If we just mow the grass, the grass will grow again and again. Hence we have to uproot it. We should not put our mind in all the other things. Unless the life is disciplined, nothing can go smooth. While we are on the road, traffic discipline is forced on us. Otherwise there will be only chaos.

We complicate our life, without realizing that we are completely under the control of time. The second stanza of the rhyme says,

Wasting time is the greatest crime
Because wasted time means a wasted mind
So best use your time when you’re in your prime
And your whole life will be sublime;

Srimati Kunti devi prays in Srimad Bhagavatam 1.8.28
manye tvaam kaalam isaanam
anaadi-nidhanam vibhum
samam carantam sarvatra
bhutaanaam yan mithah kalih

"My Lord, I consider Your Lordship to be eternal time, the Supreme controller, without beginning and end, the all-pervasive one. In distributing Your mercy, You are equal to everyone. The dissensions between living entities are due to social intercourse."

Maharaja said that Krishna is time and this is the pillar of philosophy. Krishna is ‘samam carantam’- Whether it is Hitler or Newton or Birla, Krishna in the form of time makes no distinction. Yamaraja just carries out the orders of the Lord and he has no ears to hear our pleas.

In Srimad Bhagvatam 6.3.29, Yamaraja gives the list of people who are punishable by him.

jihvaa na vakti bhagavad-guna-naamadheyam
cetas ca na smarati tac-caranaaravindam
krsnaaya no namati yac-chira ekadaapi
taan aanayadhvam asato 'krta-visnu-krtyaan

"My dear servants, please bring to me only those sinful persons who do not use their tongues to chant the holy names and qualities of Krishna, whose hearts do not remember the lotus feet of Krishna even once, and whose heads do not bow down even once before Lord Krishna. Send me those who do not perform their duties toward Vishnu, which are the only duties in human life. Please bring me all such fools and rascals."

Our time is limited and we should not be wasting our time. We have to peacefully chant our 16 maalas of the Maha Mantra and then our mind has to be filled with verses from Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad gita. Only a clean and disciplined life can make us understand the knowledge of God. Thus Education for God is possible by Cleanliness and Disciplined life.

Maharaja said that we do not want anything but devotional service. Devotional service is the monopoly of the soul, which is really in trouble because of the coming and going of the material bodies. We have to catch Him and in chanting we can catch Krishna. That is the appointment with Krishna and don’t miss that appointment.

Chant,

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna

Krishna Krishna

Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama

Rama Rama

Hare Hare

and be happy.