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One must always be on guard

(H H Kadamba Kanana Swami, 9th February 2012, Leicester, England) Lecture: SB 1.2.19
There are stories that people in New York keep crocodiles as a pet, and when they grow up, then they put them in the New York sewers! And there are crocodiles living there underground in the New York city – there are stories like that, because it might be true, since when you keep a crocodile as a pet…………it's one thing when it is a little crocodile………….but as the crocodile grows up and the teeth are growing, then there is a problem, because there is no such thing as taming a croc! Never ever can you trust a croc…a croc is always a croc and can bite at any moment and there goes a leg, a hand or other more important parts.

So crocodiles are treacherous…. they stand for being treacherous and being totally untrustworthy. So it is very interesting that the material energy is depicted like a crocodile, I find, since that is basically what we are dealing with. The material energy cannot be trusted. One cannot think:

'I have it under control, no problem. I have now arranged material circumstances in such a way that you know I do not have to worry about it.. no problem at all….. I'm safe.'

No, one must always be on guard in the material world. That is basically the injunction of the scriptures:

'padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ na teṣām,' (SB 10.14.58)

Danger at every step:

'sv-alpam apy asya dharmasya
trāyate mahato bhayāt,' (BG 2.40)

The greatest danger is that we may then fall down in the material world. Srila Prabhupada made that point. He said that:

'The biggest problem is that you are not sufficiently afraid of maya!'

So that is why I'm emphasising the point. So a devotee must be careful!

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