Some slokas from today’s lecture:
Śrīla Saraswatī Ṭhākur understood everything about the position of the conditioned souls. He presented these teachings of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam and Śrīla Rūpa Goswāmī Prabhu in a very condensed form to make the essential nature of transcendental service very clear to us. He wrote,
śrī hari-sevāya yāhā anukūla,
viṣaya baliyā tyāge haya bhula
‘āsakti-rahita’, ‘sambandha-sahita’,
viṣaya-samūha sakali ‘mādhava’“
If any apparently material thing or desire can be connected with the Lord through devotion, or is favourable to His service, then it is a mistaken illusion to think it is mundane or useless, and renounce it. We must live without attachment to anything and connect everything to the Lord, feeling that the Lord is the actual proprietor of everything and we are His servitors.”
(excerpt from Revealed Truth)
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uttiṣṭhata, jāgrata,
prāpya varān nibodhata
kṣurasya dhārā niśitā duratyayā
durgaṁ pathas tat kavayo vadanti
(Kaṭha-upaniṣad: 1.3.14)
Please wake up and try to understand the boon that you now have in this human form of life. The path of spiritual realization is very difficult; it is sharp like a razor’s edge. That is the opinion of learned transcendental scholars.—Śrī Kaṭha Upaniṣada
āyur harati vai puṁsām
udyann astaṁ ca yann asau
tasyarte yat-kṣaṇo nīta
uttama-śloka-vārtayā
Both by rising and by setting, the sun decreases the duration of life of everyone, except one who utilizes the time by discussing topics of the all-good Personality of Godhead.
(Śrī Bhāgavata)
dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo ’tra paramo nirmatsarāṇāṁ satāṁ
vedyaṁ vāstavam atra vastu śivadaṁ tāpa-trayonmūlanam
śrīmad-bhāgavate mahā-muni-kṛte kiṁ vā parair īśvaraḥ
sadyo hṛdy avarudhyate ’tra kṛtibhiḥ śuśrūṣubhis tat-kṣaṇāt
(Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1.1.2)
Kaitavo means cheating. There is no cheating in the religion given in Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. Once, Śrīla A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Mahārāj told me I was “cheating my stomach”. When I was staying with him in Kolkata, I used to study Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā from him in the morning. Sometimes, he would ask me if I had taken breakfast, and whenever I would answer, “Yes”, he would say, “What did you have?” If I would answer, “Muḍi (puffed rice)”, he would say, “Oh, you are simply cheating your stomach!”Religion can also cheat us. My “stomach” may be “full” of some religious conception, but it is being cheated! It is possible that religion can fully exist in our body but in a cheating way. It may be possible that we are being cheated of the real substance.
(Religion of the Heart)