Prabhupada, New York, April 27, 1966: […] Now, if we are sons of God, then we are very rich man’s son. Then why should we suffer? We should not have suffered. But some way or other, by material contact, we are suffering.
We are suffering. Now, this suffering, we have become so much accustomed to sufferings that we have taken it granted that these sufferings are nonmaterial. “Let us enjoy this material life. This suffering…”
They don’t care for suffering. You see? They want this material enjoyment, which is the cause of their bondage. It is cause of bondage. So they do not want… Just like there are some prisoners who do not like to get out of the prison life.
They think it is better to remain in the prison because, “I have no responsibility. If I go outside the prison, oh, I will have to search out some work. Oh, that is botheration. Let me remain here.”
Or even after the termination of the prison life, when he comes out, he commits again some criminal act so that he may be put again into the jail. He has been accustomed. Similarly, he does not take seriously the miseries of prison life. He is so accustomed that he does not take. That is ignorance.
That is ignorance. Similarly, those who are in this material world under the shackles of material modes of nature, they have completely forgotten that we have got a spiritual life which is full of freedom, full of knowledge, full of bliss, and we can become exactly almost like God.
These things they have forgotten. They think that, “If, from the C-class prisoner’s life, I can become an A-class prisoner…” Just like in the prison life there are some classes, A-class prisoner, B-class prisoner, C-class prisoner, similarly, our endeavor is going on in this material life to become A-class prisoner.
The program is not for getting out of the prison life, but we want to become A-class prisoner. That is ignorance. That is ignorance.
So here the Lord says that,
yada samharate cayam kurmo ’nganiva sarvasah indriyanindriyarthebhyas tasya prajna pratisthita
[Bg. 9.58]
And what are the shackles of this prison life? The shackles of prison life… Just like in ordinary prison, prisoner… Of course, I do not know what is the case here of prison life, but I have seen. Sometimes in New Delhi I was invited to give some good lessons to the prisoners.
So I have seen so many prisoners. They were shackled with iron chains, iron chains. So we are also chained up here, and what is that chain? That is our sense enjoyment. Yes. We are chained in this material world by sense enjoyment.
Dear Prabhus, agtsp, thank you to give to the world the chance to hear the pure devotee of the Lord by posting wonderful spiritual articles daily. I can’t live without the nitya bhagavata, eternal association of all the prabhupadanugas because their service is directly empowered by SRILA PRABHUPADA.
Actually this week is a good week to make wealth in the paravyoma spiritual sky through SRI JANMASTAMI, NANDOTSVA and then SRI EKADASI DEVI.
Fortunately all of us are steadily mking progress by cleansing our
hearts.
SRI JANMASTAMI is increasing our devotion, yaj jnatva na punar moham evam yasyasi pandava yena bhutani asesani draksyasy atmany atho mayi, BG 4.35: “Having obtained real knowledge from a self-realized soul, you will never fall again into such illusion, for by this knowledge you will see that all living beings are but part of the Supreme, or, in other words, that they are Mine.”
When we get knowledge by self-realized souls we never fall in illusion anymore because due to bona fide knowledge we can understand that everyone is part and parcel of SRI KRSNA.
This material world is a prison house and the daily nitya bhagavata sevaya with all the sincere prabhupadanugas sat sanga around the globe is the way out. We should never lose the centre point of our spiritual business by focusing all our energies on the vani seva of our beloved acharya HDG ACBSP. He gave us all this nectar of the madhava tithi therefore our first duty is to repay HIM by keeping serving HIM until the last breath. How can we leave HIS service if we really love HIM?
We should not willingly do anything wrong. But due to our past habit, if we do something wrong, that we should not be discouraged, but stick to the principle, then gradually we’ll be cleansed. That’s why i say everyone should associate daily with Prabhupada katha and by sharing spiritual realizations we get by reading, chanting and serving SRILA PRABHUPADA who IS the only diksa guru in charge to deliver all the fallen souls of this age.
Don’t seek for help from another prisoner to get out from this jail of the material world!
Make sure to connect with Prabhupada at this most auspicious day of SRI KRSNA JANMASTAMI,
thank you for your sat-sanga and blessing!
agtys ys acsd,
haribol