The Real Activity

So our first business is that if we want to stop this repetition of birth and death—and sometimes we are very happy, sometimes we are very unhappy, sometimes we are in fearfulness, sometimes in so many other calamities—then our first business is that we shall stop all these material desires. Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam [Brs. 1.1.11]. To stop means... The desire cannot be stopped. Because we are living entities, life, we are not dead stone, that desires will be stopped. No. Desires are to be purified. Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam [Cc. Madhya 19.170]. Desires to purified... Everyone is working under some impure consciousness, just like nationalism: "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am Englishman," "I am German." This desire is polluted, because I am spirit soul, part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. What is the benefit, my identifying with America or India or...? This is called purification of the desire. Everyone is working under national, and they are fighting with one another because the desire is impure.
So the problem, the whole problem of the material world, can be solved only when we purify our desires. Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam, ānukūlyena kṛṣṇā [Cc. Madhya 19.167]. Ānukūla, what Kṛṣṇa says. Kṛṣṇa is not dead. Therefore ānukūlyena. What Kṛṣṇa says, we have to do that. Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna to fight. So we have to meet the situation as Kṛṣṇa desired by. Sometimes He may say, "You sit down." So we have to carry out only. The Kṛṣṇa is not dead. He can give us varieties of order, and our position is that we shall simply carry out the order. That is life. Otherwise we are under the clutches of māyā, or material nature. Prakteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ. We are thinking that "I am the lord of everything." That is not the fact. The fact is that we have to work under somebody. That is our real position. Jīvera 'svarūpa' haya nitya kṛṣṇa dāsa [Cc. Madhya 20.108-109]. We are workers. We are not enjoyer. But unfortunately we are trying to take the position of enjoyer. That is māyā. That is māyā. And if we agree to work under the direction of Kṛṣṇa, then our original life is revived. That is wanted. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means that we are trying to educate people to change the consciousness. We have got so many desires under different consciousness. So one desire, that "I am eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa," this is called mukti, as soon as Kṛṣṇa says, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja [Bg. 18.66]. This is mukti. If we give up all other desires and agree to accept Kṛṣṇa's desires, that mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja, "You surrender unto Me," that is mukti; that is liberation. Otherwise, under the influence of these twenty-four elements and the material nature and the three guṇas, infection, dhatte anusaṁsṛtiṁ puṁsi harṣa-śoka-bhayārtidām, you go on changing any body. The subject matter is very difficult, but we have to learn it from śāstra what is our position. Otherwise, to realize these things, it is not very easy. But if we accept the direction of the śāstra, that this is our position We cannot know what is my disease, but if I go to a doctor, physician, he can feel the pulse and he can recommend, "This is your disease. You do like this."
So if we want to avoid the tiresome, troublesome, miserable condition of this material world, then we have to accept the direction given in the śāstras. But we are so dull, we cannot even understand what is the miserable condition of our life. [break] ...dead stone life or animal life. The animal cannot understand. But there is possibility. Sometimes when the miserable condition is very acute, we feel: "How to get out of it?" That is intelligence. But if we take the direction of the śāstras-sādhu guru śāstra vākya; guru mukha padma vākya, cittete kariyā aikya, āra nā kariya mane āśā **, then there is possibility of getting out of these clutches, entanglement, and become free again and go back to home, back to Godhead.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.1.51
—
Detroit, August 4, 1975

hare krsna, david and everyone!
i was just listening this. srila prabhupada is here explaining pretty much what we discussed in the center the last time you were here because he's alive and he can hear us. Karmis are people who are in the enjoyer mode of thinking. They foolishly think that they're the doers of activities, which are in actuality performed by nature. For example, you go shopping and you choose different items like apples, juice, yogurt or whatever and you think youre independent in your choices. The fact is that your choices are triggered by desires developed according to association you are associating with. . If you watch Tv, you will develop desire to have things you see on TV and the advertisment agencies study this very carefully. That association as you david said is given to us according to our karma from previous life and in this way it is a vicious cycle.
So this so-called supreme independence is illusion. Due to their false ego of being the doer and therefore the enjoyer of the result of work, the karmis perform action which binds them. The root of karma is this. Not that any activity is karma. So Prabhupada says here that the karmis are foolish because they are getting again and again implicated in karma and thus suffer in material bodies.
A little bit more advanced is the jnani. That's an intelligent person who by analysis is able to distinguish himself from the body. Many impersonalists are jnanis for example. They check the desire cuz they know this will give me another body, which i dont want. So they get liberated from the body, but they are still not free. This is a paradox. He gets free from the body, but he's not free. and why? Because the soul is sat cit ananda -full of eternity, knowledge and blissfulness. The blissfulness portion is the driving force to fulfill our desires in the material sense. So although you might artificially check your material desires, you can never check the blissfulness portion as it is your eternal nature to seek pleasure. And because they have never learned how to derive pleasure from serving Krsna, their eternal pleasure seeking will bring them back to the material world, where they again have to experience desires for matter, although they know it's nonsense. Just imagine what a bummer it must be!
So Krsna says give up nonsense desires, but take up Me. In other words desire for Krsna. Water the root and you as one of the branches of the tree will be nourished automatically. Now, Prabhupada says an interesting thing:

"Now, mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja: "Come to Me, under Me." This is required. Ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu. Mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. That is not varietyless, that "I surrender unto You; then business finished."

Mam ekam saranam vraja is from the Gita 18.66 verse and it means: "simply surrender unto Me" This is where Krsna asks Arjuna to give up all material desires and simply desire for Krsna. Prabhupada however says that this surrender is not varietyless. It is not a material thing this surrender, but it is full of varieties. "He can give us varieties of order" -Prabhupada says. In other words, it doesn't really matter what the activity is. you might be an artist, or a monk, but the point is that you should carry out the order of Krsna to do it. It's not that i will do it because i want to help Krsna. No. that's another variation of the doer mentality. You have to do it because Krsna wants you to do it. So theoretically, imagine Krsna would somehow or other told Arjuna not to fight in the end. If Arjuna did not fight, it would be ok. That would be Krsna consciousness. And if Arjuna would argue with Krsna and told him the whole Bhagavadgita, in other words he would explain to Krsna exactly what Krsna explained to him about how by killing, the soul is not killed, how it is the duty of the ksatrya, and so on and so on, then he wouldn't be in Krsna consciousness. Just imagine, he would simply repeat to Krsna the whole Gita as he heard it from him no addition, no change, still it would not be the Bhagavadgita.
So that's why Prabhupada says we have to purify the desire. Not give up, but he uses a very nice word: purify the desire. you can purify it in such a way that you simply trace out the origin of that desire. Why am i choosing to buy yogurt? Becuz of ad in the paper. Who made the paper? Krsna...or something like that. Ultimately Krsna is said to be the cause of all causes : sarva karna karanam Lord Brahma says this in the Brahma samhita. So when you understand that Krsna is the ultimate cause of that desire, then it's like you understand yourself to be only an instrument. And this consciousness of being simply an instrument is directly connected with how much you are surrendering the result of that desire to Krsna. For example if you offer the yogurt to Krsna, you know? like prasadam, then more and more you will be able to give up the doer consciousness.
The last portion of the quote deals with a very important aspect of the whole process and that is we have to consult the sastra to know how to dedicate the results to Krsna. as Prabhupada says surrender doesnt mean I surrender that's it. My buisness is finished. It is full of varieties. In other words, the question of how to serve Krsna can never be answered, because just as Krsna, it is unlimited. You can never offer Krsna a perfect meal, but that's the fun, that is the pleasure, because while we eternally try to improve in our service to Krsna, we will encounter unlimited number of varieties of successes and failures and variety is mother of enjoyment. So it's fun basically. And becuz my mind is limited, my experience is limited, it's not why should we look into the Gita, or read something what Prabhupada says about offering prasadam, it's about why not know more and more and more and more so we can offer Krsna more and more and more? So this is a nice class by Srila Prabhupada I find.

your servant purujit dasa