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From: krpamaya_gauranga@hotmail.com
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:00:16 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [srilaprabhupadanectar] Remembering Srila Prabhupada -
Various instructions
To: rememberingsrilaprabhupada@yahoogroups.com
Various instructions
Since Prabhupada's visit to New Zealand in 1973, Tusta Krsna Swami had
left ISKCON and was heading up his own group outside the jurisdiction
of the local temple. Adamant that he would neither move back in the
temple nor work co-operatively with ISKCON, he had given up the
sannyasa dress and grown his hair.
However, Tusta Krsna had recently arrived in Melbourne and had visited
Prabhupada a couple of times. Srila Prabhupada had expressed his
appreciation for Tusta Krsna's service, especially his time spent in
Bombay and his opening of the Auckland centre. Prabhupada had been
kind and encouraging to him, gently coaxing him to again take up the
role, and dress, of a sannyasi.
In the evening, Tusta Krsna again visited. He had been making genuine
attempts to take Prabhupada's instructions to heart and had cut his
hair short. Prabhupada appreciated Tusta's attempts but didn't let up
in his preaching to bring Tusta back to full spiritual health. Tusta
Krsna sat with a few other devotees as Prabhupada spoke about the need
for following rules and regulations.
Spiritual purity and strength, he explained, were the results of
surrendering to the order of the spiritual master. If one did not
surrender, and did not strictly adhere to the rules and regulations,
then the chanting would take a long time to bring him to the
perfectional stage. Prabhupada recommended that although in all
circumstances the chanting should continue, proper conditions should
also be there. He gave an example: If one ignited a fire from dry
wood, the fire would blaze immediately. If the wood was moist,
however, it would only produce troublesome smoke.
"So pure devotional service is the flame. All other things are smoke.
You must get the flame. Otherwise your business will not get done. So,
naturally, we fan when there is smoke, phat-phat-phat. As soon as
flame comes, there is no smoke. So again fan it, let the flame come.
Then everything will be all right. Otherwise be satisfied with the
smoke. You are cooking with smoke for three hundred years." The
devotees laughed at the humourous exchange.
Srila Prabhupada proceeded to tell an amusing story.
"People are generally inquisitive to see some yogic magic, so one day
a rich man approached a yogi and asked him: 'What have you learned
about yogic perfection?' The yogi replied that he could, in the
severest winter season, dip himself into the water at night and
practise his yoga. The rich man asked him how long he could remain in
the water and he answered, 'All night'.
"The rich man said to the yogi, 'If you can remain in the water
overnight in the severest cold, then I shall give you such and such
presentation'. So the yogi agreed and he did it, and in the morning
when the rich man came back, (either he had no money or he did not
want to honour the agreement), he declined to pay the yogi. The rich
man said to his one adviser, 'What shall I do?' His adviser agreed,
'No, no sir. You cannot give the money.' The rich man asked why, and
his adviser answered that the yogi had actually warmed himself from a
lamp on the roof of a temple some distance away from the lake."
Prabhupada explained that in India, during the Karttika month, one of
the Vaisnava principles is to mount one akasa-pradipa on the top of
the temple. A bamboo tripod is placed on top of the temple roof and on
the top of the tripod is a lamp.
At this point, Prabhupada explained, the rich man and his adviser told
the yogi that he was not eligible to claim his prize because he had
used the heat of the lamp to tolerate the cold, even though it was
three miles away. "The yogi was a poor man," said Srila Prabhupada,
"so what can be said?" Prabhupada continued his story.
"The rich man had a second servant. So the yogi appealed to him, 'See,
I took so much trouble and he [the rich man] did not pay me anything.'
The servant of the man told the yogi: 'So don't worry. I shall see
that you are paid.'
"Next morning, the second servant was asked by the rich man to
accompany him on an important business mission. The rich man had
already advised the servant that he should be ready to go at ten. So
at nine o'clock, a question came from the rich man via a message as to
whether the servant was ready. The servant sent a message back to the
rich man, 'No, just now I am cooking. Then I shall finish my cooking,
take my meals and then we shall go.'
"After some time, another messenger came and inquired, but the answer
was still the same, 'I am cooking and the cooking is not yet done.'
More time passed. Eventually the rich man himself came in a very angry
mood. 'So why are you making me late? Why did you not come?' The
servant answered: 'I am just cooking. As soon as my rice is finished,
I will take and then come."
"The rich man was furious: 'Where are you cooking?'
'Here,' answered the servant, indicating a pot of rice on top of three
tall bamboos with a fire a very large distance from the pot. 'What
kind of cooking is this?' the rich man asked. The servant answered,
'No, there is heat. It is going on'."
The devotees laughed along with Srila Prabhupada. "The rich man was
very angry: 'How have you done this? Such nonsense!' The servant
answered, 'No, if the temperature from the lamp on the roof of the
temple could protect that man who was in the water all night, why
won't it be cooking my rice?'"
Prabhupada summed up the story: "Then the rich man could understand
that this is the reply. So that man [the yogi] was paid. So this kind
of progress, cooking, three miles above a pot on a little fire, it
will not act. There must be proper adjustment of cooking. Then you can
cook food and eat. A little smoke or a little fire, and three miles
away the cooking pot -- in this way cooking is a useless attempt. One
must be serious to cook. There is a method how to cook. If you don't
adopt that method and you cook in your whimsical way, you will never
be able to eat. If you say 'I shall cook in my way', and if you adopt
that process, will it help? Na sa siddhim avapnoti na sukham na param
gatim."
It was clear that the story was particularly directed to Tusta Krsna
Swami. The man "cooking with smoke three miles away from the pot"
could not expect to enjoy a meal in the near future. Similarly,
Prabhupada was clearly reminding Tusta Krsna Swami that if he chanted
without following the standard rules and regulations, then the result,
the ultimate goal of the chanting, pure love of God, would be a long
time coming.
- From "The Great Transcendental Adventure" by HG Kurma Prabhu
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Dinesh
Blog:http://dinesh-krsna.blogspot.com
[srilaprabhupadanectar] Remembering Srila Prabhupada - Various instructions
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