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Preaching is super easy!

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Mayapur, November 2011) Lecture – Caitanya-caritamrta part 6

If one wants to distribute Krishna Consciousness then it is not propaganda. The communists were into propaganda. I lived here in Bengal and saw communist books in the bookstores, which were all over Bengal for propaganda. You can see that there was communism in Bengal, which is all a propaganda machine. But Krishna Consciousness can never be a propaganda machine. We must be the embodiedment of the books!

If we are the only movement that distribute books – yes then those books will make them into devotees…..but we will drop on the way beside ourselves, then we ourselves will become the casualty. That is not the idea, since we have to do it ourselves, because we have to live it! And that of course, is very important. It is not that we have to live it by being strict followers. Although, we should be strict followers, but that is not what we are talking about. We have to taste it!

Srila Prabhupada once said that:

"Preaching is very easy. Just show people how happy you are!"

It's easy isn't it? It's super easy!

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We all fly our own plane

(Kadamba Kanana Maharaja, 28 Dec 2011, Pretoria, SA) One can think about a 100 problems in life which make it very difficult for us to practice this Krsna consciousness. Everyone can write down 100 special difficulties- 'why I have an extra problem in being a devotee…'- like health, relationships with other people (family relationships, marriage relationships, work relationships- where there's a whole field of problems! So in all these areas we can list our problems- then the government problems…it doesn't end! And all these are giving us good reasons why it's extra difficult for us to be a devotee and everyone feels like that. Everyone feels that, 'it's especially difficult for me. It is easier for others but my circumstance is that it's especially difficult for me.' Everyone feels that. It is funny but we always feel that we are the one who somehow or other has it more difficult for us. But that's not a fact. Everyone has the mercy and should think, 'what will I do with it?' We all fly our own plane and we all have this individual responsibility to take advantage of this mercy.

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Our suffering

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Dec 2011, Sasolburg, Johannesburg, South Africa)

When we are taking up a spiritual path, then we also have a tendency to suffer. Spiritual people also go through so many things, but their aim is not to contribute towards that suffering, and not to cause suffering to any other living beings. Those are their objectives.

As I have explained earlier, that in this world, we are all experiencing some degrees of suffering, because the fundamental nature of life also has suffering within it – ageing, disease, death…just to name a few fundamental things, which have nothing to do with externally created things.

Nature also has a lot of cruelty intent. In the animal kingdom one animal attacks another and so on and they are not free from suffering. So suffering is there in this world. Spirituality means that we are not aiming to add to this suffering, because isn't a word like 'salvation' found in all religious traditions? To relieve people from the suffering, is the objective and we are not going to contribute towards suffering. Then we say, that whatever suffering we are going through, then that is through previous choices and activities. So it is said that the living being came to this world in the first place, because he turned away from God!

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Freedom from what?

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Dec 2011, Sasolburg, Johannesburg, South Africa)

In religious tradition we find many values that are restricting interactions between men and women. Or restricting foodstuffs, consummation of alcohol, drugs – all of these things are governed by religious tradition. But there is logic to it, because there are also problems with these things. This is what we see, that when these things are becoming very prominent, then it gets into a huge mess! I mean if one's own son becomes severely addicted to drugs, then you cannot even have him in your house anymore, since he will steal everything that is there. That is what will happen and everyone knows that it gets like that. What to speak of all the violence and other things that are relating to something more socially accepted, such as alcohol!

So many spiritual traditions in the world are either forbidding or restricting these things, because they obviously bring problems in life! So there are regulative principles. The Vedic scriptures – the Bhagavad-Gita (which is one of the Vedic scriptures) is saying that it is introducing the regulative principles of freedom. All these regulations that are there, are not actually meant to suffocate people. A lot of people from all over the world have turned away from religion because they were tired from all these narrow suffocating ideas, and they just want to be natural:

'I just want to be natural!'

That tendency is there in the modern world…it's everywhere. It doesn't matter whether it is in Bombay…New York… Johannesburg…Paris or London, since it's all the same thing. The churches, temples and other religious buildings are empty due to people wanting to be free and natural. That is fine, but the Bhagavad-Gita is saying that these restrictions are the regulative principles of freedom. Freedom from what? Doesn't look very free at all! Not allowed to do anything. Not allowed to drink or smoke…………….. With so many restrictions, how can we call that the regulative principles of freedom? Yes they are called the regulative principles of freedom, because they set us free from suffering – that is the essence of it!

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A Movement For The Most Fallen!

(Kadamba Kanana Maharaja, 29 December 2011, Munich, Germany)

We should know that Lord Caitanya's movement is not to reclaim those who are in pure goodness.  It is not the movement to reclaim those who are fully self-realized and never under the influence of the 3 modes of material nature, who are never ever attracted to enjoying the senses.
No, the movement of Lord Caitanya is particularly to reclaim those who are most fallen!

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