"... After about an hour we returned to the temple for guru-puja and
Srimad-Bhagavatam class. The verse described how Kardama Muni kept his
mind fixed on Lord Visnu, and in his short talk Srila Prabhupada gave
a few good examples of how one can do one's work and still remain
thinking of Krsna. "In South India there is a class of professional
dancer. They take a big jug on the head and without any ring, it is
kept as it is. The head is shaved, but they are so practiced to keep
the balance that the pot does not fall down. It remains exactly. This
is an art — they will dance, and the pot on the head will never fall
down, keeping the balance.


"So by practice it is possible. There are many professional vendors,
they keep their basket on the head and taking a child, going and
canvassing, 'We have got this fruit.' It never falls down. They are
keeping the balance. So this is a crude example that everything can be
done by practice. There is another example Rupa Gosvami gives, that a
woman who has got an extra lover besides the husband. So she's always
thinking of that lover although she's busy with household affairs.
That means if you want somebody very seriously, you can think of him
always, twenty-four hours, in spite of your being engaged in so many
duties. It is possible. So we have to practice this Krsna
consciousness."

He told us that although in the spiritual world we do not have to work
to maintain our existence, here in the material world we do, yet still
we have to become Krsna conscious. His words were pertinent because as
soon as he finished his lecture Atreya Rsi, Dayananda and the others
would be going out to engage in seemingly mundane jobs. So he cited
another example to encourage them that what they are doing is actually
spiritual. "Because a devotee has nothing to do with material things.
Even if he works for maintenance of the body, that is not material.
Just like Bhaktivinoda Thakura who was magistrate. But it is not for a
magistrate to write so many books — siddhanta-purnam. So he was in a
different transcendental platform. So that is possible. The mind may
be absorbed in Krsna's thought, satatam kirtayanto mam, tusyanti ca
ramanti ca. That is possible by practice."

- From "A Transcendental Diary Vol 4" by HG Hari Sauri Prabhu