1749: The Ritual Trap | Krishna & Real Devotion

0:00We're talking about the rules and regulations. And this is yet again, Habakkabat Dharma, this idea of worshiping Bhagavan or the Supreme Lord is more powerful than all the rules and regulations in the Vedas and how love of God is the goal. The rules are meant to serve love of God, not the other way around. The rules are meant to bring us to this point. And here was the very, very obvious example of these Vedic Brahmins, these great theologians, these Vedic pundits who knew all the appropriate prayers, all the appropriate rituals, all the appropriate cleanliness, I gotta say cleanliness because let's face it, if you're a mom with little kids at home, you're not that clean, that's just part of being a mom. And these Vedic and these wives of the Brahmins, they had kids, they were in the household, they weren't the sophisticated class of or educated class,

1:03their husbands were, yet they were the ones who got the mercy. And this is considered the highest rung of the latter, not that you're a Sanskrit pundit, you know, it's nice, if you're studying the stuff, it's nice to learn Sanskrit, but it's not the goal. The goal is pure bhakti. Om nao, bhagavate, vasudevaya. Om nao, bhagavate, vasudevaya. Om nao, bhagavate, vasudevaya. Om nao, bhagavate, vasudevaya. Life from Super Soul Farm, this is Wisdom of the Sage, this is a bhakti yoga podcast with your host, Raghunath, and Pranpraya today. This tube is traveling, so I'm gonna post a show myself today with Pranpraya's help. Welcome to the show, it's Thursday, March 26th, 2026.

2:04This is episode 1749. Happy Ram Navamy, the ninth day of the month of Chaitra. It is Ram's appearance day today. Congratulations. It's a big day in India. Ram is big in India, right? We're just in Rishikesh. Ram has a significant role to play in Rishikesh. And yeah, how are you, Pranpraya? I'm well, thanks. I do have to leave a little early today. You gotta leave it, everyone's just, I just have my advantage. My advantage is she's are coming up here. I had a nice day in New York City yesterday. Yeah, you got to see your mom. Yeah. She looks great. She looks great. She's just, she's just like a little traditional now. I mean, she remembers me, but she's convinced I have another brother that goes to India with me. Interesting. I know, it's like, but you know what? She's not angry or bitter or she's just happy. Yeah, she doesn't seem to get upset at all. I feel like sometimes when people have dementia, they get like,

3:04especially in the mornings and evenings of her, they get upset. Like they can get like, kind of worked up and freaked out. Yeah, worked up the other day. She thought she was going to die. And it sort of wreaked out my family. But yesterday she was happy. She's convinced she's at her mother's house. It's probably comforting. Yeah. Right now. She's convinced that her mother's house. She has nothing bad to say. She has only good things to say. And there are a couple of old grouches there too. Yeah, you were telling me about one. Oh, but as soon as I came in, this was interesting. She has like, you know, full on helpers. And this, the helper, the helper was speaking to me. And she was saying, oh, yeah, she had a hard accent to understand. She said, yeah, they're building a Monday. I was like, what would you say? Oh, they're building a big Monday. I was like, it sounds like you're saying Monday. Yes, yes, a Monday. I was like, oh, wait, you're Indian. She's like, yes, yes. Wow. And so basically she said she was visiting the Swami Narayan temple.

4:07She pulled out some kunti malas, some Tulsi beads. I was like, this is great. I said, okay, then you're going to need this. This is Ganges water. And I sprayed some on the helper's head. And I sprayed some on my mom's. I go, every day, you're going to spray this on her. She's like, okay. So it's like, you're at this point of like, what can you do? You know, if I become a better devotee, she will benefit from. The degree that I become pure at heart, she will make benefit to the degree. I stay in Maya. She will not make benefit. But yeah, special people. Any announcements, miss? I do have some announcements. Our sage group registration is open. And starting tomorrow morning, you can register for a second sage group. If you'd like, go to wisdom of the sage group. Some people real, that sounds crazy. Like, wait a second. You're already doing a sage group. They double up. They want to double up on sage groups. They want that company because it keeps the consciousness high.

5:07Yeah. Less time for Maya. Yeah. Less time for Maya. More time for just meeting people on your spiritual path. And I know a lot of people who double, who, who double it. Yeah. Yeah. Also, you're doing a class for Happy Jack at Harvard Divinity School at 9 a.m. today. He's 9 a.m. It's our six pillars. Yeah. It's a little, a little hint of the book to come. Maybe I'll read from the book. I'm not sure. But I'm looking forward to that. Please join. Please join us. Represent wisdom of the sage is there. Yeah. I told my mother. Unfortunately, I told, I was like, yeah, it seems like Harvard Divinity School wants me to give a little report on my new book. She's like, you're kidding. But, you know, she is not fully in a right mind to fully appreciate what I sort of white lie. I was like, they might ask me to become an adjunct professor. I'm not positive. But it looks like it's going in that direction.

6:08We'll see. Let's see. Let's see about that. Yeah. Um, also our show next week will be Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday at 6 30 a.m. Eastern time. Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. Okay. Yeah. Because it was traveling back to New York on Monday. And I want to say, uh, me, I'm giving class in Newport, Rhode Island, looking forward to see Lori Pag in the chief. I think it's out there. I think that class has sold out, but there's a class in Boston on Sunday at Union yoga. So if you want to do yoga, that, but that, that one has sold out, but Union yoga in Boston. Yoga Union. Yoga Union. I'm sorry. Yoga Union. And that's right. Truthfully, it's not far from the temple. Oh, wow. It's right around the corner from the temple. Yeah. It's in back there. Yeah. So if you're interested, come see us. Oh, come see me. Um, any other announcements? Uh, you'll be doing something in a latch of Florida. Oh, I'm doing a latch of Florida on the fourth. So if you're in that area, we're going to have a set song in the evening, free of charge outside.

7:13Wait, is it on the. Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah, a rec center and they have a beautiful outdoor area. So I'm looking forward to seeing all our people in Florida then. Um, and we never say it on the show anymore. And Kostuba will never say it, but I'm going to say it, especially because Kostuba is out here. If you like what we're doing and you get something significant from this podcast, leave a monthly contribution. They shouldn't be going down, but they go down. It goes down. It's gone down. And so, um, that's the way we make this thing happen is a monthly contribution. If you, first I want to say, thank you very much for those. There are people that contribute. There's people that contribute a lot a month because they feel like, you know what? I do this a lot. I get into it a lot. And, you know, it's interesting. We tend to spend money sometimes on things that mean the least to us to our heart. Um, but sometimes just out of whatever, I'm not getting around to it. So if it does mean something to you, give a contribution.

8:14We really appreciate it. It helps this show happen. And that is all. Um, and I do want to mention something about Lord Ram today. So this is a big holiday in India. Big holiday for all of us. If Ram touched our heart, this is the, you know, we're in the Navarratri. Rot means like nighttime. And so this is like the nine nights of the divine mother. And that happens. It happens like four times a year actually. Did you know that? But the two big ones are happened in the spring time, the month of Chaitra, and the Shahred month. Um, and usually when we're in India, the Navarratri happens as well. And those are the nine days to worship the different facets of the divine mother. And the tenth day in the autumn time is when Ram comes back to Ayodhya. And that's a special day. And then the, uh, tenth day or the, I'm sorry, or the ninth day here is the, is the birth of Lord Ram.

9:18So India's having a party today because the appearance of Lord Ram. And his father is a little back. His father was, what's his name? Do you know without looking? Dostorath. Boom. Prana Priya. So King Dostorath, he ruled Ayodhya. Now, Ayodhya was a holy place, even way, way, way before King Dostorath. Um, and he had his greatest sorrow, which, which was, he had no air to the throne. And he had three queens. Can you name the three queens? That looking. Koshalya. Hakei. Sumitra. Boom. Good job. So Koshalya was Ram's mother. So he had no children, no air to the throne. And in that desperation, he performed a ritual called, Putra. Kameshti. That is, you want a kid? You can't get a kid. You perform the special Yuga sacrifice, religious ritual. Whatever you want to call it, to be get a son. So from the sacred fire, a divine being emerged.

10:22That's what I really, I would really like to see. We've seen lots of fire sacrifices. I would like to see a divine being. But that divine being had this. They call it Paisam, which is sort of like a sweet rice, rice pudding, and he told Dasrath, this is a gift from the gods. You should offer it to your wives. So he offered it to Koshalya. She received, I think, half of it. Kakei. The second and Sumitra received the remainder. I think it was like the half. And then they split up the other half. And I think that's how it worked. And on the ninth day of the bright fortnight, right? The bright fortnight, the full moon, I'm sorry. The lunar month is broken into the dark, half, and the light half. The part where it's getting darker, right? So that's called the Krishna Paksha. Krishna means black. So it goes, the first part of the month it gets, it's the Krishna Paksha, then it's the bright one. The moon is getting brighter. So Lord Ram was born on that ninth month of the bright,

11:23of the bright moon, right? And yeah. And then Bart was also very shortly born to Kakei. And then Lakshman and Satyugna are twins. Not many people know that. Lakshman and Satyugna, they're the twins. And Satyugna was always following Bart around. And Lakshman was always following Ram around. So that's how it works. And we're good with every other announcement before we get into the Shri Mahabharata. I think we're good. You know, also, I was curious, you know, people go through these things with their family. I was just thinking because I was with my mom yesterday. And it was such like a, you know, it's like this all situation where you have to tell your mom, it's almost like what it must be like if you're gay coming out of the closet, you know, to tell your family, hey, mom, I'm gay or something like that. But it's sort of like, mom, I'm a Harry Christian of mom. I'm a, you know, it's like this, like you have to confront.

12:24And you never know what the reaction is going to be, especially if they have some religious tradition or they just not interreligion or they think you're lost your mind. So it just brought up all these memories. Although I will say over the years, my mom just got, my mom got used to it. But if anybody's got an interesting story about telling their mom, you can just let me know now, I'll be curious to unmute you. You know, maybe we should do, am I doing anything tonight? Maybe we should do a sweet baby rom tonight. Do some rom lila. Yeah, I think that works. All right, let's do it later tonight. All right, so tonight we're going to do sweet baby rom. What time do you want to do that? Let's do it at eight o'clock. Okay. Eight o'clock. All right, that was for you, Dana Kay. That's strong desire. All right, let's get into the bog with Tom today. We're in a beautiful spot. What's happening with our dog outside? Is he losing his mind? Is he trapped in the stairs?

13:24How do you just trapped in the stairs? But I just checked and he's not there. I'll go outside and invent. Okay. I've got an old mother and I've got an old dog. And they're both a little, they're both a little out of it. And I'm going to be out of it soon. I might even be out of it now and not even realize it. Like, my mother doesn't think she's out of it. Right? I'm out of it right now. And only front free of nose. Host you, I think definitely thinks I'm out of it. All right. Sure. The Ryan. I'm the musketeer. I'm chaivin erotimum. Did him. Sataswatinya. Sataswatinya. Sataswatinya. Sataswatinya. Before we start in the shoe, my bog with Tom. Which is our very means of conquest. One should offer respectful obeisances to the Supreme Lord. Untenined to Ryan and Rishi the Super Most human being. Untenined to our Swati, the Goddess of learning and Ashrela vyasadev, the author. Nasta praishev baadrassu lecham bhagavat savaya. Bhagavatiya tamaslo-ke bhaktya bhavatiya nishtiki. By regular tenets and classes in the Bhagatam,

14:24and by rendering service to the puri devotees, all of this troublesome the heart will become eradicated and loving service to the Supreme Lord. Who is praised with tarjnathal songs will be established as an Revocable Facts. Oh, magana tamadaan, this is a being. I was born in the darkness of ignorance. My teachers are opening my eyes with the torchlight of knowledge. I offer my basinses at their lotus feet reading from the Shumad-Bhagavatam Kanto 10, chapter 23, text 26. So we're in the most very famous story that the wives of the Brahmins were Christian of blesses and the wives of the Brahmins. And again, it's one of these stories that I really need to hear in a regular basis because I am not such a rules and regulations guy. And we mentioned this word yesterday, niam agraha. Niam agraha, I like to say, yeah, this is a bunch of niam agraha. When I see people so wrapped up in rules

15:30that they forget, hey, you're not even being nice to people, man, you're wrapped up in all these religious codes and rules. But you can't, like, it's like your heart is shut down. So that's what I say. But there's a flip side of that for me, which is, well, you can't just blow off all the rules and just say, well, God is in my heart. I just feel God. No, there's got to be some type of balance. And I love the fact that those two guardrails are set up because the car can go off the road on the left side and the right side. So niam agraha means also rejecting all the rules and just acting whimsically. And maybe that's where I would go. I'd go to the other side. It's very easy sometimes to be overly critical because there's so many rules in Vedic culture. And that's why I do appreciate Prabhupad because even though maybe a lot of us coming to this seems like, well, there's a lot of rules here. Can't do that. Can't do this.

16:32Remember, Christian never forget him, chant, chant, japa, sing, bodja, do poojas. Can't we just go to church on Sunday and call today? No, no, you can't. There's like a 24-7 thing, this boxy thing. We don't want, we don't want an hour of your time on Sunday. We want your very life, we want every breath you breathe. Actually, we don't want it. There is no we. There's no collective we. There is God. God wants us to reclaim our divinity. And that's why Krishna will come after you. Did you know that? Krishna, if you're not listening to this podcast, there's every chance that Krishna has already sunk the fish hook in your heart. And the reason why we're not running to Krishna is because we're like a fish that bit onto that fish hook. Seeing that worm, we're thinking, okay, I just got a free worm and we're just running with it. And the fish finally exhausts

17:32himself and just weakens and then goes to Krishna and then goes to the fishermen. In the same way, we might have had a taste for Krishna. Sometimes you get a taste just go into a kirtan and people can't explain why they're in tears. Sometimes you go to a temple or someone does some kind gesture like in my book. I tell the story of Hari Bajjana. I was in a bad mood and he offers me some prashad. He has me sit down. Just gives not even a fancy prashad gives me some spice chickpeas. He sits down and offers me a kind way and then has me lay down on my side. And I was like, it's moments like that where bhakti touches your heart. Devotee hospitality is really like that it's another level. You don't experience it. I don't think otherwise in the material world. Okay. I'm free. Have you had devotee hospitality before that really touched your heart? So much. I mean that devotee that we ran into at the temple when we were in India last time who invited us to our home and gave us like a feast for dinner. I mean we took

18:36over her afternoon. She must have got had to go out. Where was that on our last days and go over it on? Oh yeah. Radikun. She lived at Radikun, the Italian devotee. Yeah. It's equivalent of just meeting someone for a moment and then deciding to invite them to your house and cook them a huge elaborate feast. You don't even know them. We met them in passing. Yeah. And she like said, oh yeah, I love serving devotees. If you ever want to come to my house for prashad and we're like, well, actually we're going to be in Radikun. We're actually about tonight at five. We're doing nothing for dinner. But like, you know, I was like, prana, is it appropriate to call her? I know she did invite us. I said to hope. But yeah, but and it wasn't like it wasn't like, okay, I threw these tater tots in the oven. Here you go. It was like she cooks a meal. I fall on multi-course meal. Yeah. A meal that if most of us have gotten like if for Americans who made you a meal like that, you'd be like, that was the best meal I've ever had. Something like that.

19:40Yeah. Yeah. And it happens like that all the time. And it's that devotee hospitality. It's a great. It's a great. If anybody wants to share a devotee hospitality. Anyway, that is one of those things that it touches your heart and that you don't forget that. You know, anything else you can think of prana. You're you put that you put that scarf down. There's a lot of instances. I mean, honestly, even Madorika, when we stayed down in Alachua, the family who was Rocco, you know, it was just like she dropped her life to like make full proper meals for us. And every time she, you know, like she had her son move out of his bedrooms so we could stay there. Yeah. It's just and you know, not like like with just such a cheerful attitude of like, it's my great pleasure to serve the devotees. You know, and that's it too is like the attitude behind it. Like part of it is like, you know, the prasad that you're eating. It's, you know, but it's also like the attitude behind all, I mean, you know, as a chef, I know all the labor that goes into making, you know,

20:43a meal like that with so many different subgees and so many different things and having to go to the market, get your groceries. But it's also the attitude behind that of like, oh, no, I feel grateful to be able to serve the devotees. It's such a different attitude. And I say that that it's from the strong idea of a T.T. Narayan meaning at any, the T.T. is the specific time, the T.T. means at any old time, the guests can just, someone just knocks on your door and you treat them like they're Narayan, like they're Lord Vishnu. And it's a very, very special thing. Also the time we went to Naseek. I mean, I just have so many examples of this, but when we went to Naseek and there was a woman who called me to coordinate our prasad. And she was just like, oh, I just want to be sure you're happy. I heard Rago is a special diet. What does he like to eat? Should we make rotis? Should we make millet rotis? You know, like wanted to make sure we were so happy with it. And then she said, I'm so sorry. I won't get to meet you. I'm not, I'm not in town. I'm out of town right now for business. And it's like, but she was so happy to like be involved in

21:46coordinating your prasad. It's just, yeah, meeting on the Chandra study was visiting Montreal and a devotee gave us their house. He doesn't even know us. Yeah, this type of thing. So if we've, if we come in contact with the community of devotees, we see that attitude they have in serving prasad or we hear a kirton. And we see even just to see devotees dance. Someone told me that they saw devotees dance in the street and they say, this is what spiritual life should be like. And it just sank in their heart. That was when they were like a kid. And then they grew up and they thought, I want to be like these people. Sometimes just hearing a pastime, sometimes you're just confused about life. And someone lays some Vedic wisdom on you and you're like, that makes sense. That makes sense. That is sort of like the key that unlocks the mystery of life. What you just said right there. That makes sense. So anyway, all those little things are things that Krishna actually sends. Krishna actually sends

22:52those things. But he chooses certain people to do them for us. And they act as these vatma production of gurus, these people that touch our hearts. And then we get hooked. And even though it's a wonderful thing, wonderful hospitality, wonderful kirton, wonderful dancing, wonderful, wonderful philosophy, wonderful flower garland. Sometimes people give you a flower garland. And it's just a lot of people have never had a flower garland before. And they're just like, what? This is like the nice flower garland people. And they're like, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in the world. And it just like blows their mind. And from that, it's like, they feel like this is great. But I've got a whole other world. And guess what? The whole of their world is truly exhausting. Material life is exhausting. Because a lot of times people don't have that high vibe. Now, I know when we do pilgrimage, when we do teacher training, we try to cultivate that mood of bhakti. And we let go of bad habits.

23:57A lot of us come in there with bad habits. I have a lot of bad habits. And then what happens over the time is, you know, you stay there. I'm pilgrimage for a while. And the vibe is getting higher and higher and higher and higher and higher and higher. And you're like, this is so sweet. We have such sweet relationships. We practice those six pillars. And then we're singing all the time. We have very little downtime. We're in holy places with holy people and holy rivers, holy temples. And then all of a sudden, we go back home. And we're back in the minutia material existence. And we get to this point, what just happened to me? Where was I? How do I incorporate this? And people are just like, I think it's really hard for people to come home. I think it's very, very hard for people to come home. And that integration, it's almost like we need a course in integration. Because that gets tough. But then we start thinking, you know, okay, well, that was an experience. I guess that's not life. And we get into life.

25:00And we start to do the things we like in life. And sometimes those things in life and life are not meant for us anymore. Like we've outgrown them. And they might become, I used to think this was fun. I used to think that was fun. I used to love this. And we have this longing in the heart for, I remember Bhakti. I want Bhakti. And you know what? If we get that taste and never go back to it, that's enough to, that's enough to save us for lifetimes. Because that taste stays in the heart for lifetimes. That being said, why waste our life? You know, if we get that taste, Christian attempts us, Krishna is now baning us and telling us to come further and further and we get, it gets so sweet. And that's why I think these sage groups are filling up. And that's why they become so popular because people like, I need this in my life. You know, people go, people spend time going to therapists. I've been a therapist. I've been, but, but, or marriage

26:06counselors, best thing you could do, I think, for your marriage or for your, or for your mental health, join a sage group. They're free people. They are free. And I've been to therapists sometimes, where they have such an exact time, where you, the therapy ends. And then all of a sudden, it's sort of like, goodbye. And sometimes they even get you to this point of like, I was on the brink of what's it called? Just a catharsis. Break through a catharsis. And they're like, times over the 50 minutes is over. Goodbye. And you're like, leave in tears or something like that. Not the area yet. No, these, these are people that are, it's not by the clock. It's not by money. It's, it's just by love and support. That's why 12 step groups are so good for you. You know, the, the sponsor of a 12 step group, they're just there for you 24, 7 because they feel like, that's how I give back. That's how I give back. This is part of my recovery. That's why we're always highly recommending the, uh, bacteria recovery group. I know our YTTs, um, they started like,

27:10I think there's two different sage groups that meet weekly after, yeah, after they left GV this year in January, because they were like, ah, we don't want to go back to the material world and forget all this, you know, we want to stay connected with each other. And so, um, I think Ryan and John Renee lead up a couple, a couple weekly meetings. And that's why a lot of times when people say, where do you want to retire or things like that? To me, now, I only want to go where there's devotees because as I get older, I let, look, don't get me wrong. I love beautiful places. I love tropical places. I love warm places. As I get older, my joints hurt a little bit more. Um, but truthfully, it means nothing unless the devotees are close to me, devotee, especially, and it's not just devotees, it's devotees that resonate with your heart. Like we have a very, I really love our wisdom of the sage's family. And um, I feel like I can relate to these people. You're not going to relate to every devotee out there. That's understandable. We're all different people. But, um, in general, I will say this tribe we have is quite wonderful. And, um, when you get

28:14to this point of, this is a key phrase, keep this on your, in your vocabulary. Material exhaustion. When you get to a place of material exhaustion, that's when your spiritual life starts. The sun of your spiritual life starts to arise. We have to be convinced in our heart. There is nothing out in the world that will satisfy my heart. There's nothing to purchase. There's no place. There's no, um, there's no getaway. There, even there's no being. There is just, I just want Krishna in my life. And that is a beautiful, a beautiful addiction. You know, we want to become addicted to the association with devotees, association with the holy name, association with these Krishna's pastimes. And, um, yeah, it doesn't make sense in the sense like how I grew up with religion. I grew up with religion where you do it almost dutifully. You show up on church day.

29:19And, um, maybe you have a church outing or something like that. Or we had a, you know, boy scouts. I was a boy scout and I was sort of tied to church somehow. I don't know how. But, um, but that being said, it was like, um, this is it's not enforced in one sense. It's authentic part of the heart to just want to wander into the temple. Like when I lived in the Los Angeles community of devotees, I lived across the street and we just go to that temple like multiple times a day just to check in with the Lord. Okay. Um, anything else we'll share? That's good. Now, but I do feel like I want to give a shout out to road raging govinda Priya on the topic of devotee hospitality because there's some other people who have really like gone out of their way. I mean, the first time we went there, we'd never met them before. And we're like, I don't know. They invited us to Croatia. And I've always wanted to go to Croatia. You know, remember that? And

30:24yes. Yes. Yes. They have done so much for us. Yeah. Thank you. They're another perfect example. Um, how about Henry? Henry, Henry let a band of Brahmacharis live in his house. He took care as for six weeks as we wrote the attaining the supreme record. And he hosted Yomona, the dayby and Dina Tarenu, while he was hosting them at the same time. So this is devotee hospitality is quite lovely. And if you ask Henry about the people that he chauffeur around at various points, I mean, it's like, you know, so many great souls. So it's that taste that people give to us, right? So he gave us a taste, right? And govinda Priya has given us a taste. And then we want to do that back. We want to give that back. And it becomes such a wonderful thing, rather than what can I get from the world? How can I take the inside? It's interesting, because it seems like to be a winner in the world, I need to find people to serve me. I want a

31:26servant. I want a driver. I want a chef. I want to I want to I want all these things for people to serve me. And it's the opposite. How can I become the beta, the greatest servant? And I get very intimidated because I don't realize how damn selfish I am until I go to India and hang out with Rana Swamy's disciples. And they have such a service attitude. I was like, oh my god, you guys, you're making me look really bad. That whole TV is such an inspiring place. That's why part of going to part of going to pilgrimage is not really just to see a monument. It's to see how devotees live and treat other people. You get a high from being served like, wow, it's not just like, wow, food. It is, wow, sacred food, cook with love for no good reason. It's not a payment thing for no good reason. And then it leaves an impression on you.

32:26That's what we hope. That's the transference that happens. It's very powerful. So we did all our prayers. Now we're going to get into the stream of Bhagavad-gita. So this in Bhakti is what I love. We're talking about the rules and regulations. And this is yet again, Habagavat Dharma, this idea of worshiping Bhagavan or the Supreme Lord is more powerful than all the rules and regulations in the Vedas. And how love of God is the goal, the rules are meant to serve love of God. Not the other way, not the other way around. The rules are meant to bring us to this point. And here we is the very, very obvious example of these Vedic Brahmins, these great theologians, these Vedic pundits who knew all the appropriate prayers, all the appropriate rituals, all the appropriate cleanliness. I got to say cleanliness because let's face it. If you're a mom with little kids at home, you're not that clean. That's just part of being a mom. And these Vedic and these

33:30wives of the Brahmins, they had kids. They were in the household. They weren't this sophisticated class or educated class. Their husbands were. Yet they were the ones who got the mercy. And this is considered the highest rung of the latter. Not that you're a Sanskrit pundit. You know, it's nice. If you're studying this stuff, it's nice to learn Sanskrit. But it's not the goal. The goal is pure bhakti. Okay, so here's text 26. Certainly expert personalities who can see their own true interest, render unmotivated, uninterrupted devotional service directly unto me, for I am most dear to the soul. So this is Krishna speaking, right? This is Krishna speaking. And these are these two factors, which we hear in the first candle, second chapter, unmotivated, a hajjikeya partiata,

34:34unmotivated, uninterrupted. Now you will notice, if you go to a lot of us, don't live in a temple, maybe some of us have lived in a temple. But if you really want to experience pure joy, when there's a festival at a local temple or a Rathiyachara, and I remember my first day, I went to a Rathiyachara and I wasn't full on, opted in, Harry, Krishna. Or maybe I was just beginning. I had to wake up super early to help out with the Rathiyachara cart. And then I had to do something. Basically, it was like all day long bhakti. And there was no amount of money. If I put this on a job description, here's what you're going to do. You're going to have to do the ABC date. It's not going to stop. And they said, well, what am I going to get for lunch? When do I get a lunch break? There is no lunch break. You might get some food. And it seems like there is no job description that would make me say, I'll sign up for that job. This seems like a good job.

35:39Is there a pension or is there no? There's nothing. And then they finally say, well, here's the job. All right. Well, what do I get paid for it? Absolutely nothing. It's like, who's signed up for that? But we've seen again and again and again. Here at the farm, people sign up for Savo weekends. Our Savo weekends are like the most popular things that people do. And what is it? We're just doing just like manual labor. And it's some of the most joyful events we have is because there's no expectation, except how can I be part of something bigger? And so my first raw theater was like that. And I remember going up to a senior devotee and saying, I am so happy. How do I keep this happiness? And he said this unmotivated, uninterrupted, pure devotional service. There's no motivation to do it, except you just want to serve. And it's uninterrupted. There was no break during the course of the day. And if you really want to experience the bliss of the soul, this is what it

36:40takes. Now, of course, you got to balance yourself. I don't want to say, okay, you know, I want everybody to just give up everything. Just we got to balance ourselves. But in the name of being balanced, don't cheat yourself out of unmotivated uninterrupted Savo. And even if you're at home alone, there's a lot of downtime when we're home. You've got to bring your kids to school or you've got to bring your kids to soccer. Make that time to fill your, your devotional service doesn't mean you're just raking leaves. Also, hearing Christmas pastimes is also devotional service, right? Offering incense is also devotional service. Cooking prashad for your family is devotional service. But it's not just like I'm cooking for my kids or the, I'm cooking for the Lord. And I'm distributing to the devotees. So you can make your home rituals, pure devotional service. But sometimes when we're, when we're neophytes, it's helpful to see it within the temple confines like this is the deity. These are the devotees. It's sort of, it's sort of, it makes it a little bit more clear.

37:41I think I'm losing. Did I lose your proud of prayer? You got to go, don't you? Are you going to set me up for the six pillars or how does that work? Is there a link to that? It's in my email. Okay. Yeah. Why don't you text it? Why don't you put it on the chat board? Is that possible? Okay. I should, and also, Prana Priya, how do they, how do they sign up for Sweet Baby Krishna tonight? How did that happen? I posted the link on Zoom, but if not in under Chandra, it could send it out or post it on our platform. Wisdom in the sages.com people will find it there. How am I supposed to do anything with you, Ghan? I was going to be gone and you were like, oh, it's okay. I'll do the show. I'm just like a child flapping around. Someone better tell me when the show ends. I'll just keep going. Okay. Thank you. It is only by contact with the self that one's vital breath, intelligence, mind, friends, body, spouse, children, wealth, and so on,

38:47are dear. Therefore, what object can possibly be more dear than one's own self? You should thus return to the sacrificial arena because your husbands, the learn of Brahmins, are householders and need your assistance to finish their respective duties. That's okay. Respective sacrifices. Text 29. The wives of the Brahmins replied, oh, almighty one. Please do not speak such cruel words. Rather, you should fulfill your promise that you should always reciprocate with your devotees in kind. Now that we have attained your lotus feet, we simply wish to remain here in the forest, so we may carry upon our heads the garlands of Tulsi leaves that fall from your lotus feet. We are ready to give up all material relationships. Now this is very interesting. This is exactly

39:49what we were saying. What happens when people go on pilgrimage? People do teach your training. You get such a high. You start to realize two different things. One is the way we set up pilgrimage. The way I've set it up over the years is we say, okay, here's the rules. We practice these six pillars and then we add hearing and chanting to our life and then we add holy places, holy things, holy rituals, holy people, holy rivers, holy temples and it's almost like you slowly turn up the heat. We give up bad habits like criticism, fault-finding, taking offense. We relinquish. We share our feelings. We ask for forgiveness. Next thing you know, it becomes like this, this rapid boil. We feel like this is so nice. It's nice warm jacuzzi of joy we're in. Just made that jacuzzi of joy. Like a nice warm bath or something, a bubble bath and ecstasy here. We like it so much. We start, why would I want to go back into the

40:58cold world, right? Why would I want to leave this warm bath and go out into the cold world? And we don't even, we just start to think, well, maybe this is the world. Maybe this is just, this is what the world is like. None of the world's very cold. The world is finding fault. The world does get bitter. The world does get mastered. The world does get self-centered and we don't like that. And so now that you've got finally attained Krishna, how am I supposed to go back to that world? This is what these ladies are saying. They're like, even my own family members. My husband's a priest and I don't even want to go back to him. Yeah, we get that. This is what Bhakti does. It raises the bar so high that we're going to search out people like a lot of you people are in sage groups. We're going to search out people that we don't even know. And we're going to show up on our A game. And we're going to try to be there for them and hear what they're going through. Share what we're going through. Hold space for those people. And we create the sacred Sangha, the sacred community.

42:02Very, very powerful. And of course, we're juxtaposed against the Asat Sangha. The Sangha of Asat, where we come and talk about the temporary things of life. Did you see what's happened in the news? Oh, that's unfair. Oh, these guys are really unfair. Oh, this is really cool. Our tribe is better than them, right? And we go back and forth with this. Let's face it, the Asat Sangha is better. It's filled with rage and anger and enemies. What a better way to see life like, okay, we're all different. What do we have in common? Let's go to something, something eternal. For example, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, we all are getting our heart broken. We're all falling in love. We're all getting some money. We're all losing some money, right? We're all getting older. We're all getting disease. We're all getting sick. We're all getting old and dying. We're all

43:05maybe having children, right? So whether, no matter what status of life you are, no matter what political party you're in life, what are those eternal things that we can connect on? Let go of those temporary things. And what are the eternal things we can connect in? And that's the beauty of a spiritual community is we can connect on these things and experience empathy and love and encouragement on the highest level, not for the temporary level. A temporary level is temporary. And whatever happens on the temporary level, it's going to be over and it's not going to be fixed. Your material problems will not be fixed. And if they do get fixed, imagine if all our material problems get fixed within our lifetime, guess what? As soon as we all die, they'll kick in again because that's the nature of the material world. It changes seasonally. It changes seasonally. But eternal, eternal, eternal, eternal joy, that can be found now. And that can

44:14always be, this can always be, we can we worship Brahmin today and we can worship Brahmin eternally in our old age and in our childhood. Okay. The wives of the Brahmin's replied, oh, Almighty one, please do not speak. Oh, I just read that one text 29, text 30. Our husbands, our fathers, our sons, our brothers, our other relatives and friends will no longer even take us back. And how could anyone else be willing to give a shelter? Therefore, since we have thrown ourselves at your lotus feet and have no other destination, please, O chastiser of our enemies, grant our desire. This is a commentary by Vishwanachakra Bhattitakur. He says, from the very youth, the Brahminas wives had heard about Lord Krishna's beauty, his qualities and sweetness from the women folk of Vrndavana. And also from the flower ladies, the battle nutsellers and others, consequently they always felt

45:20ecstatic love for Krishna and were indifferent to their household duties. This is such a beautiful concept. Sometimes we meet devotees who are so wrapped up in love for Krishna that they come, you know, in the very beginning of the podcast, you should search out this podcast. His name is Dravidah. Dravidah lives in San Diego. He's a prop at a site. He's a very, very older Brahmachari, probably in the 70s now, late 70s. But I wanted to get him on the podcast because he's so obsessed with Krishna and Krishna's stories and Krishna's poetry glorifying Krishna. And when you meet him, the first thing he'll share with you is, oh, have you heard this about Krishna? And a whip off some beautiful Sanskrit poetry about Krishna. And when you fall in love with Krishna, you just want to share Krishna's beauty. Now here it says that the battle nutsellers and the flower ladies

46:22and the Vrndavana women folk, they're obsessed with the beauty of how wonderful Krishna is. And then when you hear that, you start to fall in love. We want to be attracted to people who are in love with Krishna. And when that becomes the main focus of your life, you start to give that to other people. It starts to bleed out of who you are and you start to attract more and more people to Krishna. We want to be like that. We don't want to have a life with a material life sprinkled with Krishna consciousness. We want to have a Krishna conscious life and just like a little bit of Maya in there just because we're still in a material world. But we want the main course to be, we want to be devotees of Krishna. When people come in contact with us, they feel like, wow, I'm with Timothy Tucker and Sweet Lady Kate. Now I feel Krishna conscious. I'm with Greg DeGaiseu. I'm with Richard happy Kirtan. I'm with Dan Murphy. Now I feel Krishna conscious. We

47:23want people when they come in contact with us, we want to be able to lift them up. We don't want our material side to come out when they walk away from us. We don't want when people come towards us. We start finding fault with people. We start criticizing people. We start talking politics with people. We don't want that to come off. We want something very, very high to offer them. The best thing we could do for our friends or our community or our loved ones or our children is have very, very high spiritual consciousness. I'm going to continue with this purport because it's inspiring me. Their husbands seeing them as deviant, doubted them and avoided dealing with them as far as possible. So they've been Krishna conscious for a long time and they never even saw Krishna. Now the wives of the Brahmins were ready to formally reject their families and neighbors. And out of great agitation, they were crying and placing their heads upon Lord Krishna's lotus feet

48:30offering obeisances. In this way, with choking voices, they spoke the above verse. They begged that Lord Krishna to be still upon them, the benediction that he be their only destination, that he, the chastisers of enemies, subdued all their enemies, those difficulties obstructing them from attaining the Lord. The wives of the Brahmins simply wanted to serve Lord Krishna and this is pure Krishna consciousness and ecstatic love of Godhead. Now I think it's safe to say that family is such a big important part of Vedic tradition, duties in family, Dharma of your family. And here it is saying, if you read the Bhagavad Gita, most people and most Hindus will say, you know, what is the goal of the Bhagavad Gita? They will say, well, do your Dharma. Right? Arjuna had to do his Dharma and they'll, you'll hear this word thrown around, even in the yoga community, they'll say, a Dharma talk. I'll give a Dharma talk. What to do?

49:35What are my duties in this world? And interestingly enough, what is this verse all about? Getting rid of your Dharma, stopping your Dharma, giving up this attachment to your family? What is the most adarmic thing you could think of? Right? So here you have this most abhorrent thing in Vedic teachings, giving up your Dharma. But what is going on? Who are they giving up their Dharma? They actually have such a taste for Krishna that they're going to follow the conclusion of the Bhagavad Gita, which is Sarva Dharma and put it, yeah, this is a great verse to memorize, verse 1866, give up all varieties of Dharma, all varieties, all varieties of Dharma and just surrender to me. Right? I will relieve you from all sinful activities. Right? I will,

50:43I will, I will take care of you. Krishna says, Sarva Dhamman parayagya mam ekam saranam rajah, mam tam sarva pa baby, moksha yashyami rasucha ha. I will give up, I will take away all your sinful actions, just trust me on this one. Krishna says, just trust me on this one. Sometimes for Krishna, you can also walk away from your Dharma. What has crazy does that sound? But this is bhakti. Now I'm not encouraging anybody to walk away from their duties in life. A matter of fact, there's a tendency in our impure state to feel like, you know what, my material duties are problematic. I'm going to just walk away from them and just surrender to Krishna. Very often that's a type of laziness and very often people can use that as an excuse because a lot of our duties in this world purify us. There's a sacrifice we make in this world

51:46to purify us so we can actually get to Krishna. Sometimes Krishna puts us in a very uncomfortable situation in our material life and it and and and still if we can continue with our spiritual sadhana and are showing up on a regular basis, that will feel like, okay, I'm doing my duties but I'm sort of doing time, I love that phrase, doing time in the material world to purify my heart, to purify myself. And it happens. And then when we do get to this time, we feel like, you know what, I've done my time and now Krishna, Krishna, not just you, Krishna enters your mind and your heart. That's what that's that's the promise Krishna gives us. Krishna will be with us at the time of death. Okay, let me see if I can get one more in here. I don't even have takeaways today without

52:46Pranapriya. Am I supposed to? Okay, Krishna says, the Supreme Personality of God has said, rest assured ladies, your husbands will not be a nimicle towards you nor will your father's brother's sons and other relatives or the general populace. I will personally advise them of the situation. Indeed, even the demigods will express their approval. And this, you know, it's interesting in my own personal life. When I got into Bhakti, it was sort of like hard for my family to swallow. It was hard for them to be like, what are you doing? You know, this is not this is not how we're religious. This is weird. This is a cult. This is foreign. But as we become more and more, a Bhakti yogi, what does it bring out in us? It brings out our best qualities. And over time, people say, oh, this is actually my brother, my sister, my daughter, you know,

53:49my spouse, they're just good people. And then they start to flip it and they start to ask us questions. You can never tell very often. And I try to make this a rule. I try not to give unsolicited advice. And that's a big one. I try not to, I try not to preach. Call me a heretic. I don't like to preach unless people want to hear the whole Bhakti movement is based on hearing in a submissive mood. I want to hear. So I'm going to inquire. You know, right now, please tell me, Henry, please tell me, Scott Alton, please tell me, what is this thing that you're into? Now, when I ask with all sincerity, I find it weird. I thought God was wrong. But you're saying God is Krishna. And I humbly approached you. It's like I'm opening the door and inviting Bhakti into my life. But if I'm just saying here, listen to this, let me tell you about

54:51God. Immediately people put the wall up. So I don't like to give unsolicited advice. It makes people recoil and it makes people like, what are you trying to do? Control me, manipulate me, et cetera. Sometimes it might work, but it's oftentimes not appreciated. But if you can change your habits, if you can change your heart, if you can change your behavior and how you treat other people and how you treat yourself, people will search you out. What is it that Clifford Dean has, that Sarah Ditto has, that Martin has? I want to be like them. I want to be like them. How can that happen? That is the potency of Krishna consciousness. And then they will start to actually respect you. They start to become, they start in like like that verse that Kostuba said yesterday, like Thomas Aquinas didn't say that. Whatever he said or not, I'm taking full credit for that statement. Preach and sometimes speak. Meaning your preaching isn't your speaking. Your preaching is

55:56your living. Maybe you said, I'm just going to take whatever you said, I'm taking that quote as mine. Ragnoth Capo. Anyway, that's it. I will say this wonderful people, that try to fight. I will say this that I have done a course. And I don't know when I'm going to put that course up, but waiting for my assistant to come back. But I have a course called, deconstructing the nectar of instruction. It's a study course. It was done very nicely. And it's like a short core. It's like 20 classes, but they're all short. They're between like eight and 25 minutes a day. And you can read through the nectar of instruction, which is a great beginner's guide overview of the Jeeva entering spiritual life till the pinnacle of spiritual life. So it's

56:58a good intro course. And I feel like it's a great way to look just like if I say, okay, we're going to drive to California from New York. What does it look like? And I said, okay, here's California, here's Florida. Look at the whole map, right? You don't even have to have a specific map. You just have like a maybe a cartoon map of the United States. And you see, here's the line we're going to take, we're going to cross through St. Louis, we're going to cross over the Grand Canyon, and we're going to end up in LA. It's sort of like that. It takes you through the journey of the spiritual life. And I think I'm going to ask for some donation because St. Louis is always like, you're going to just put this on the free chat. I go, no, I got to charge for something. But I don't like, I like to do things for a reasonable price. So people can do it. It'll be something reasonable. And if you're completely broke, I'll give it to you. You know, I'm trying to like find this balance of like, I've got to support myself. Yet I want to, you know, I want to be a devotee full time. And this is, and I don't have any other, what talent. So that's what I'm doing. So that being said,

57:59there are no takeaways today. But there is this song. Thanks everybody for joining us. I hope I see some people embossed in this weekend. Can everybody hear the music? I don't have Pran Priya here. There's no music is there. Come on, Prana. Can't leave me like this. I am actually playing the music right now. No one hears the music, huh? Nothing. All right, everybody.