"A person whose body and mind have been accepted by the Lord is privileged to approach Him with offerings of food and drink. The Lord is pleased to accept food offered by such persons. By His acceptance, the food is spiritualized in the same way that the body and mind are spiritualized by dedication to the Lord. This dedication of all food to the Lord is true renunciation of all material foodstuffs.
I was recently in Canada, here's a couple of stories for your pleasure.
When distributing in Vancouver recently, I approached a man with his teenage son and his eleven-year-old daughter. As I was showing him the Bhagavad-gita he said to me, "Jehovah’s Witness?"
"No, Hare Krsna."
"Oh, Hare Krsna."
After showing the book to them I said, "We just ask for a donation for it." The little girl then grabbed the book and said, "Father, I want this book."
Hare Krishna. This is a link to a news clip about a program for putting Gitas in motels across America. We have some motel owners doing this in San Diego and Southern California and they say guests really like it. They often ask "I am only part way through. Can I take this home with me?"
Check out the clip. It is short and very enlivening.
Karilam Sannyasi Haya Gelo Vilasi
A sannyasi once returned from a speaking engagement and declared, "I delivered a superb speech that was much appreciated, so I shouldn't take ordinary rice prasada. Cook puris for me." When Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati heard of this he became disappointed and said, karilam sannyasi haya gelo vilasi: "I made them renunciants, but they became voluptuaries" - a ditty he often repeated in his later years. He often stated that several of his sannyasis were giving lectures simply to acquire prestige.
Some time ago I sent an attached file which presented some references indicating the importance given by Srila Prabhupada to co-operation.
Please find quoted below one of Srila Prabhupada's most famous statements on cooperation, letter to Kirtanananda, Oct 18,73. I am sure you are aware of it, but it is great to see it again and often.
Now this displeasing of godbrothers has already begun and gives me too much agitation in my mind. Our Gaudiya Math people fought with one another after the demise of Guru Maharaja but my disciples have already begun fighting even in my presence. So I am greatly concerned about it.
Following in the footprints of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu:
On Altruism
"The thousands of karmis who have opened innumerable hospitals, old age homes, centers for the poor, and schools, and the thousands of jnanis who have undergone meditation and severe austerities, are insignificant compared to a single kanistha-adhikari Vaishnava once ringing the bell before the Lord's deity. This is not sectarianism, but plain truth. Atheists are wholly incapable of realizing this; thus they become either direct or indirect blasphemers of devotional service, or adherents to the doctrine of harmonistic all-inclusiveness.
"Krsna-bhakti is the only way to deracinate miseries from the world. You are working only for the good of the body and treating the symptoms, not the original disease. Your patchwork schemes of various social, economic, and political ideologies are like blowing on a boil, which gives but a momentary
and false sense of assuagement. The real cure is to lance the boil and squeeze out the pus. Similarly, the pus of material attachment must be excised by the sharp words of the expert devotee, the only genuine well-wisher of human society."
- Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, Excerpt from Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Vaibhava titled 'Blowing on a Boil'
[Deracinate = to terminate at that root]
[Assuagement = calming, soothing, mollifying]
"Drashta (the seer) and drishya (the seen) - are we drashta or drishya? Whatever I have to say, my whole message is based on proper comprehension of this truth. But how few people have really understood this drig-drishya-vichara!"
Showering tears, Srila Sarasvati Thakura repeatedly spoke thus to Sripada Sundarananda Vidyavinoda while Sundarananda was preparing materials for Sarasvati Thakura's biography.
The topic of drashta and drishya is discussed in Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam, and other shastras, but Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati clarified and stressed the point perhaps more than any previous acharya:
