Prabhupada used to say, "Know your destiny, create your character, and then preach."

Talk with Gurukulis

What I am going to say, most of you have heard it before. You know Krishna consciousness as well as I know it and you know it far better than common people who have never had any connection to Krishna in any way. You probably know it better than me, because you are younger and you were born into a situation where everything was already there. It's like being born into a rich family, the Rockefellers, the Birlas, the family of Bill Gates—everything is there. We didn't have that kind of environment when we were born. We were born into karmi families, smoking, drinking, eating meat. That is how we grew up. In that sense, all of you are very extra special people because you inherited a great culture, a great philosophy and a great lineage. It was there from the beginning. Therefore, you have a great responsibility. Responsibility means "able to respond". You have to be able to respond to that. Irresponsibility means unable to respond. Sometimes we see a boy or a girl born in a very wealthy family, but they just take the advantage and squander the facility. They become drunkards or drug addicts. They know that there is nothing to worry about because their father is rich. Krishna conscious birth means to inherit that environment where Krishna philosophy, Krishna food, Krishna art, Krishna people, Krishna temples—it's all there. It is not just a cliché that we've all heard. It is actually a fact that being born in that circumstance indicates a tremendous good fortune. Just being born into a good, fortunate environment is not enough. You have to take advantage of it. Just like some children are born in a doctor's family; it doesn't mean that they are doctors. It means they have a good chance of becoming doctors.

According to your birth, you get some advantage and disadvantage. Prabhupada used to say that American people have all kinds of advantages. They have nice bodily features. They have enough money. They have good food. The climate is nice. Their country is economically very powerful. They have all these advantages, but they have one disadvantage: they have no connection to Krishna. Therefore, whatever assets they have inherited, they are just squandering them away, so it becomes the source of misfortune. They become addicted to vices like drinking or drugs or womanizing or stealing. It is not because they need to steal, but just because they're bored. It is like that Winona Ryder, she is shoplifting. She could buy the whole store, but because her life is devoid of Krishna, she is bored. Therefore, for enjoyment, she does something like steal. Even Princess Diana, although she was born in an extremely opulent family, extraordinarily beautiful, so beautiful that he whole world was enchanted and hypnotized by her beauty, but her life was miserable. Why? Because there was no Krishna. The more one gets material advantages: wealth, good parentage, good education, physical beauty, the more one is actually burdened because these same opulences, the things the whole world is clammering for. People want to go to America because they think they can get all these facilities and enjoy, but Americans have all these things and they are miserable.

The reason is that if you have more material necessities than needed, they create the opposite effect. They create misery. Prabhupada sometimes compared material needs, eating, sleeping, mating and defending, to salt. You need a little salt with your meal; otherwise, it tastes bland. But it has to be just the right amount. If it is a little more, the whole preparation becomes spoiled. So if we have too much money, too much food, too much sex, too much sleeping, we create misery. When we eat too much, what happens? We get fat or we simply get sick. When we sleep too much, we become dull, lethargic. When we create too much power, military defense... (like now, America is flexing its muscles everywhere and pushing third world countries around), you become puffed up. The reaction is, you will be destroyed because there is always someone stronger than you. If you have more sex than necessary, you get incurable diseases or you die a violent death. These are not imaginary things. These are factual. If you indulge in any of these four things more than you need, you suffer. If you have less than you need, you suffer. You have to take only what you need.

You are the Gurukula generation, and you have not only all the material needs in abundance, more than you could possibly use, but on top of that, you have Krishna in your life through your parents or some other means. Somehow or other, you are in the orbit of Krishna. If you do not use your material facilities to teach people Krishna, you will suffer. That is your responsibility. That is your fate. Prabhupada used to say, "Know your destiny, create your character, and then preach." You have to know that you were born in these families and these countries for a purpose. Whether you like it or not, you have a purpose. You may think, "Hey, I didn't want to be born here." I remember, I used to say that to my parents. I wasn't born in a Krishna family, but they expected so many things. I would become angry because I didn't want to submit to their authority. I can imagine that some of you are also saying, "Hey, back off, I didn't ask for this. This is your thing." Actually, your freedom of choice is only between two options: You can submit: "Okay, this is my lot in life. I am a Krishna devotee, and my business is to behave like a Krishna devotee and show others how to." Or you can say, "No, I am going to do anything and everything." These are your only choices. Prabhupada said, "Two choices only, a right choice and a wrong choice. Then there is no choice, no choice is a wrong choice." Your freedom consists of accepting your destiny or rebelling against it. You definitely have to make a choice. I was talking to a young boy yesterday and he was trying to make a choice whether to marry or stay a brahmachari. I asked him what he was going to do and he said, "Well, I think maybe I'll try to remain brahmachari." I said, "I'll try" means like a thief saying, "I'll try not to steal. If there's nothing around, I won't steal, but if there's something worth it, I'll take it." That kind of answer is ambivalent. It is indecisive. That's the no-choice answer.

According to the choice a person makes, there is a "con+sequence". A consecutive sequence of events takes place until he is eventually apprehended and the reaction comes. For this decision, there is a consequence. We have to know. We have to think about what the consequence is.

I have my own kids and of course, I want them to be devotees, but I also know that they're not like my car or my harmonium; they can do whatever they want to do. You're in the same situation. I wanted to speak today not to convince you to be devotees, but to talk about the environment we live in, the environment you were born into and I'm getting ready to leave. I had a heart attack in July. That means I've got to go soon, but you'll be here for a long time, another forty-fifty years. It is in your hands. It is only in the hands of people like yourselves to reformat the world as you see it today. You can either say, "Hey, who cares?" or you can see that you have a responsibility. You were born with the responsibility to teach people about the purpose of life. In order to do that, you yourselves have to demonstrate it by your own behavior. Otherwise, people won't take you seriously. Just as mother and father say, "Don't drink," but they themselves drink. It doesn't mean anything. Vichar, Achar, prachar: vichar means deliberation. Achar means behave according to your deliberation, and prachar means teach. You can change the whole world. In fact, you are the leaders of the whole world. But sometimes the leaders abandon their responsibility.

Prabhupada was one person, one single old person. In the last ten years of his life, when he was seventy, he came to America and rounded up some wild, wayward street hippie people and he gave them the basic ideas. They, with their newfound enthusiasm, managed to set something in motion that has become a world-wide network of devotees in every country. There is nothing in history that compares to it. We take it for granted because we were born into it, but if we take some contrast, for example, IBM or any big corporation, even they do not have the facilities or the influence that Prabhupada's teachings have had on the world. Even now, every day, we read about Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The whole world is terrified of Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, but even that is insignificant compared to Prabhupada's followers. Unlike the terrorists, we are spreading love. Love of Krishna, love of Prabhupada, conquering people's hearts and minds and problems by teaching them how to love Krishna.

This is the only thing missing. People have to wake up and see that this planet does not belong to them. It does not belong to Al Qaeda. It does not belong to America. It does not belong to the Communists or the Christians or the Jews or the Palestinians. It belongs to Krishna. That is the only thing missing. People have to realize that nothing belongs to them; it all belongs to Krishna.

Our only business is to be oriented in that consciousness that "I belong to Krishna. Therefore, I have nothing to worry about because my Father is rich, my Father is beautiful, my Father is powerful, my Father is wise." Krishna says, "I am seated in everyone's heart. From me alone comes remembrance and forgetfulness." We are all the children of Krishna. That's not just "Oh, Jesus loves you." It's not like that. Krishna is as real as this harmonium or this megaphone or as we are, sitting here. Krishna is a fact. Krishna has spoken, left His own calling card in the shape of the Bhagavad Gita. He is saying, "Here, just surrender to me and I will protect you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear." In His book, He says, "I provide what they need and I protect what they have. In that proportion that someone surrenders unto Me, I reveal Myself to him."

You have such a headstart in connecting to Krishna. You are actually born in the Krishna family, in the Krishna orbit. Therefore, it becomes, by birth, your responsibility to teach other people. If you don't, the situation on this planet will become so unbearably hellish that our lives will become like animals. We will live like animals, killing and devouring one another.

It is not a difficult thing to tell someone about Krishna. People are being told everyday on television, radio, magazines what to do—"Buy this, buy that," "Come here, go there," "Vote for him, vote for them." You have every responsibility to get out there and advertise Krishna. You are actually like an advertising agent. Every devotee is an agent of Krishna. The Communists send agents. The Al Qaeda have agents in sleeper cells to set bombs and terrify people. Everyone is trying to lord over the whole environment. The devotee is also trying to do that, not by terror, but by his own affection. He is trying to bring people to this simple thing: everything belongs to Krishna and your business is to go back to Krishna. We have nothing to do here, we are wasting our time. John Lennon, he did colossal things with his music, but some lunatic came and shot him. He was a very intelligent, very beautiful, very beloved personality, but in an instant, he was extinguished. There are so many examples. You can see, just coming up that road to Calcutta, there were a dozen times when you were nearly killed just on that road. It is not a browbeating. The fact is, the whole world is in your hands. If Prabhupada, one person, can do so much, if he can transform the world from going to hell to going to heaven, then if every devotee, young or old, black or white, man or woman, if everyone takes it seriously, the world will be transformed. There is no doubt about it. It is not a pipe dream. It is not some ideological fantasy. Prabhupada demonstrated it himself: an old man in the 1960's... when everyone was taking drugs, having sex, indulging themselves to the max, he put a check on that. Everyone came to see him—John Lennon, Alan Ginsberg, Indira Gandhi. Why? He was an old man who wasn't dressed in the hip way, wasn't dressed properly. Why did they come to see him? He brought the missing link. Scientists talk about the missing link. This is the missing link. It is not some egg buried in a jungle. It is Krishna. You are not children, you are now young men and women. You have all intelligence, strength and resources available to you, but you have to make up your mind about what you are going to do. Are you going to keep drifting, take it casually, lightly or are you going to focus your energy, your intelligence, your determination and broadcast this mission?

Just see how dedicated these Al Qaeda people are. They think that just by killing people, they are going to go to heaven, by performing this "service". They are also service oriented. They also have devotional service, but it has a slightly different color. They are just so angry and frustrated that they feel there is no hope; therefore, they might as well give up their lives in an instant in order to make a difference, in order to strike a little terror into the hearts of those they perceive to be the enemy. We also have an enemy. The enemy is Maya. Our enemy is our own self. "For one who has learned to control his mind, it is the best of friends, and for one who has failed to control the mind, it is the worst enemy." I am my own worst enemy, and I am my very best friend. That is the preliminary step to being effective: you have to master your own self. Prabhupada gave us the process. That is the sum and substance of the Bhagavad Gita: how to learn to control your mind. You cannot control others. Just like you know your parents can't control you, because everyone is free to do whatever they choose to do. You can control yourself. That controlling process starts with chanting Hare Krishna, but there are other things we know. Just like a musician has to learn how to control the instrument. A sports player has to learn how to control the ball. A race car driver has to learn how to control his automobile. An artist has to learn how to control the brush or the pencil. A devotee has to learn how to control himself. I am saying this because I know some of the Gurukula kids in Berkley, and one thing I have noticed is that they have not learned to take that part of devotional life seriously. I may be mistaken, but I think there is a notion amongst the devotees that they are devotees because their parents are devotees or because they go to Mayapur or Vrindavan or the temple sometimes or because they have deities in the house. No, actually, to be a devotee means to practice the devotional principles. It is called sadhana. It is not peculiar to us to practice controlling ourselves. A surgeon, if he wants to be proficient, he has to practice controlling his hands. The devotee is unique because he learns to control himself. If you can control yourself, you can actually control other people not by force, but by knowledge and by your devotional mood, your compassion towards them.

I heard the other day that President Putin from Russia was invited to a function and when they sat down, they put wine in front of him. He said, "No, no." When they asked, "Why not?" He said, "Because I'm a Hare Krishna!" Of course, he was joking, but it indicates that even in the highest circles of government in a place like Russia, he has been exposed to Krishna consciousness in some way. He has read about it, and it has gone through his brain. He has concluded that this is something far out. Joking about something is preliminary to taking it seriously. It is not a wild, fantastic dream that people in the highest circles of government could take up Krishna Consciousness. It is very plausible. In fact, in the early days of the movement, Steve Jobs used to come to the temple in Oregon. He would sleep on the floor, take prasadam, chant Hare Krishna. That means that in his previous life, he had some connection with Krishna, but it has never been cultivated so that it could become fruitful.

I came to Krishna consciousness in 1967. There were fifteen devotees on the planet, Prabhupada devotees. I am an old man now, whether I like it or not. In a few years, most of the devotees I grew up with will be gone. Like in a family business, when the father gets old and dies, if the sons and daughters don't take it up, the business will disintegrate. It will either go bankrupt or it has to be sold out to some outside party. So the whole estate is waiting for you, the Gurukula generation. You have to want to do it. No one is going to hand it over to you blindly. You have to have some ambition. You have to feel, "Yeah, I want to play a role in the destiny of this world on behalf of Prabhupada, Lord Chaitanya, Lord Krishna. That's what I want to do." It has to be a very deliberate, conscious decision. It is not going to happen if you just remain laissez-faire. It will happen when you decide, "Yes, this is my destiny. I am going to do this. I am going to put my energy, my resources into this. I want to be a leader."

You should want to be leaders because you are leaders. Why are you leaders? Because you are all related to the Supreme Leader. Krishna says: ishvarah parama krishna... or bhoktaram yajña-tapasam sarva-loka-maheshvaram. "All the planets belong to me. All the planets in the universe are my property, and all the living beings on those planets are my servants and I am everyone's friend." You should want to be a leader because if you're not a leader, you're going to be a follower. And who are you going to follow? If you are not going to follow Prabhupada, if you're not going to follow Krishna, if you are not going to follow Lord Chaitanya, then who are you going to follow? Some meathead, some knucklehead who is completely absorbed in the bodily concept like a cat or a dog? No, you don't want to follow them, but you do have to follow someone. You can't be without a leader. So you have to choose: Am I going to follow Krishna, and on his behalf, become a leader, or am I going to follow some blind leader and fall into a ditch with him? In the '60s, so many young Americans were sent to Vietnam by someone sitting in the White House who had probably never been there. They lost their lives or lost their limbs, some lost their mind or lost their health. You can't avoid following somebody. You have to follow. Your destiny is in your own hands. You are the master of your own fortune or misfortune. If you don't make a choice, you are just like animals that are herded. Just like a little boy with a stick can herd a hundred cows anywhere he wants. So if you are going to have a cow-like disposition where this little sense gratification—nice looking boy, nice looking girl, indulging here, indulging there, going to the movies, having a drink, having drugs—then you're going to be herded like cows to the slaughterhouse. You are going to waste the great opportunity that has been handed to you.

It is not by accident that you are born in a Krishna family. It means that you've all been connected to Krishna. In this life, you have to go further. Within the next twenty years, we are going to see the most cataclysmic changes on this earth, in government, in finance. America is losing its position in the world. Its opulence, its money, its power—it will all evaporate. The British Empire was finished within five years after World War II by one guy, Hitler. He decided that "These British people won't let me sell my goods; I have to destroy them," and he did. The British Empire was destroyed. Prabhupada said, "Now it has no more importance." America, also, is squandering away its opportunity to become a world leader by indulging in every kind of sense gratification. The latest thing is gay marriages in San Francisco. It is such an absurdity. China is making itself ready to rule over the whole world. Of course, we are in China too, preaching Krishna consciousness. In fact, I was in China in '95. At that time, with the help of someone from Singapore, I met one of the top finance ministers in Xiamen. His wife was the most popular folk singer in China. They were both very young and nice looking.

You can't have both [sense gratification and Krishna consciousness]. When Prabhupada was advocating no drugs, no illicit sex, because LSD was the biggest thing, he was asked, "Swami, you keep telling everyone to give up LSD, but have you tried it?" Prabhupada said, "No, but all my followers have given it up, so why should I try it?" He had something more than LSD. That was one of the come-ons: "Stay High Forever". That attracted some of us, "Stay high forever, what is that? Yeah, I want to be high." It actually is "stay high forever." So it's possible. A guy like me... I couldn't read and write when I came to Krishna consciousness. I read and wrote like a seven-year-old because I hated school. I couldn't bear going to school. But I ended up speaking to the faculty at Harvard University. I thought it was so ironic that I couldn't stop myself from telling them that "I am an illiterate dropout and you are standing here listening to me." This is the power of Krishna consciousness. Someone like me could speak to the faculty of Harvard University. I taught at Berkley University. I'm not trying to brag, but my point is that you are so far ahead of where we were. I was twenty-five or twenty-six when I joined Prabhupada in '67. I had indulged in everything that you could think of— and some things you couldn't think of. Without Krishna consciousness, I was nothing, zero, but you have it. You already have the fruit of your parents who are already devotees, and this is the result. The few years they have spent have produced Mayapur, Vrindavan, Bombay, Jagannath Puri, temples all over America and Russia. No one ever thought of Krishna consciousness in Russia. It was out of the question. What America could not achieve through all of their bombs and military, the devotees achieved by chanting Hare Krishna. It is because of the devotees' presence in these countries that these political obstacles and barriers have fallen down.

You have to follow these principles. You have to chant the Holy Name of the Lord. And you have to learn this philosophy so that no matter who, from what field, whether he is a mathematician, a trucker driver or a Mafia boss, no matter who he is, you can respond to him and check him and convince him of Krishna consciousness. I have a friend in Philadelphia. His wife's father was the head of the Mafia in Philadelphia for years, and her brother was a hit man who has spent the last seventeen years in prison for murder. My friend started preaching to him and sending him books. He called me two months ago and he was weeping. He said, "My brother-in-law has finally got it. He's chanting. He's reading Teachings of Lord Chaitanya. I can't believe it." Just a week before I came here, he told me that there are a lot of Columbians in the prison for heavy cocaine smuggling, drugs and murder. He has all these cocaine guys chanting Hare Krishna and wanting to know more about Krishna consciousness. So it is not imaginary, it is absolutely real. But it does depend upon you. It takes a devotee to make a devotee. Just like, in wood, there is fire, but the fire won't come out unless fire touches it. That is where you come in. You come in with the fire and whoever you touch, they will come on fire. Anybody can be a devotee. President Bush could be a devotee. It is not impossible. It is not imaginary. It is not a cliché. I'm not saying it just to jack you up. It is a fact, but it will not happen automatically because Lord Chaitanya predicted it. It will happen if you say, "Hey, I want to be like that. I want to be someone who can touch someone and set them on fire." And you can be. If I and your parents and all of this first generation can be, you can be. Generally, the young people think of their parents as, "Yeah, I heard about that. We know." You can do better. Do better. Make your parents proud. They love you now, but they need that. They're going to be old. They'll die. Before they die, show them that the business is in good hands. Take over the business. Hare Krishna.