Portland, Guardians, and Seva.mp3 (30 minutes, 13.7 MB)

An excerpt from the class:

I would rather rely on Janardan Maharaj’s mind than my own mind to make a decision. When we start listening to our own mind then we start to see that we’re making decisions based on our own experiences and so we want to get in connection with those who have a higher experience and those people are the higher vaishnavas. They are there to help us and guide us in our spiritual life. Why are they there? It says in the Prapanna Jivanamrita that Krishna is our protector–our guardian–so we have to accept that He is sending guardians to help us…. We are not alone; we are protected in our spiritual life through the mercy of Gurudev. He is protecting us and he is giving us guidance through the vaishnavas. We are all very lucky, but we have to have some effort on our side. We have to go out of our way to try to find excuses to do service and we have to do it in a proper manner.

Don’t worry; we’re going to make mistakes along the way and that’s what learning is all about. That’s what life is all about, but we have to try to learn from those mistakes.  The definition of insanity is that you do the same action over and over and expect a different result every time… We have to continually try to adjust ourselves. Guru Maharaj said that proper religion is changing misconception into proper conception. That is what our religion is: to adjust ourselves always to seeing what the center is. Gurudev is giving us so much affection and so much mercy, and we have to take advantage of that. He’s giving us a treasure of Krishna Consciousness and when we don’t take advantage of it we are wasting it.

…Who knows when they are going to die? I could die tonight (I hope not) but we have to try to take advantage of everything. Like Prahlad Maharaj said. He was trying to preach to his classmates and they said “Oh Krishna Consciousness spiritual life that’s for later in life” Prahlad said first your a child, student, then married, then you have to work, then you become and old man. You’re wasting your entire life. You have to not come up with so many excuses and take advantage of Krishna Consciousness now. This is a six year old boy saying this.” I’m ready now to deal with this Krishna Consciousness” We can see that Gurudev has shown us examples and we’re seeing other examples of devotees in different stages of their lives serving. For me a normal thing for myself and my peers is “Once I graduate” or “Once I get his job then I’ll be able to help.” We’re always waiting for something else and then we can do some service. But we have some opportunity in our lives to do some service now. It might not be the capacity that we want but we have to try and do what we can with what’s given to us and we are very fortunate because we’re in the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math that mercy is flowing left and right. Gurudev is giving it to us and as he said about that verse of Prapanna Jivanamrita that Gaur-Nitai are intoxicated on Krsna prem and they are sometimes taking this Krishna prem and droplets are coming to the ground. I’m collecting that and putting it on a platter and offering it to my disciples. anyone that takes that i am worshiping them. They’re distributing and that Krishna prem is going around left and right an that mercy is so strong so we have to try to take advantage of it right now.

…We’re very fortunate to have the association of Srila Govinda Maharaj he’s giving us so much nourishment and os much affection and you can feel it through is devotees. Srila Janardan Maharaj is giving so much affection and so many other devotees… We’re fortunate to be here now and we have to take advantage of what we have. What service are we doing. We have to sit down and think “How much time do I waste watching TV and doing this other stuff.” Not that this stuff is bad but are we doing some service too? What service are we doing? We don’t have to sit and nitpick and degrade everything we’re doing but we have to try to see “Am I making some excuses to do some service too?” We can start with that and once we get some responsible service we can try and think “How can I increase this service? What can I do more?” That’s what we have to try to do: always try to be positive and progressive in our spiritual life.