By B.A. Paramadvaiti Swami - http://www.vrindavan.org

The theme of this chat is the great importance of association with ideal people that are more advanced than ourselves. Let us carefully analyze who is a Sadhu. A Sadhu is a soul that is very dedicated to spiritual life. A Sadhu also has to be more advanced than oneself, because if this is not the case he can’t give you the pure faith in his words. And faith is not blind. It is based on the example that he gives you and on what you find alleviating in his words. The Guru is the natural Sadhu. But besides him we are looking for many Sadhus. Like the food is growing, it is necessary for us to grow spiritually. But one important thing one has to know is that the Sadhu not only has to be wise. He also has to be humble. He has to admire the form in which the Holy Name comes to you. If he doesn’t appreciate this, if he doesn’t appreciate your transformation from a materialist to an aspiring Vaisnava, your love and gratefulness to your Guru, than he’s not capable of increasing your love for Krishna. This is a vital detail. Besides that, your compassion and generosity for the others will grow.

I have to recommend you an amazing movie that they showed me yesterday. It is called ‘Osmosis Jones’. It’s about a meat eating father and his vegetarian daughter. In the end the father almost dies from eating too many unhealthy things, but he gets saved by the love of his daughter and he finally becomes a vegetarian. In this movie there’s also a scene with devotees chanting the Holy Name, which takes place in the body of the father. And like within the body of the father, there was a war in the soul; the natural defenses against the virus and bad bacteria’s. How surprising what is coming from the movies lately. The message from Srila Prabhupada is beginning to penetrate Hollywood. Even TIME-magazine came with an article announcing that it would be better if everybody became a vegetarian. We should collect this material to show in our cultural centers, restaurants, etc. Like the movie “Chicken Run”: how fantastic it is that our children become aware of this fact. So, their parents are not the only ones who care about the animals.

It might be difficult sometimes, to practice spiritual life, but when a Sadhu appears everything turns out to be easy and happy. And it’s the duty of everyone of us to become Sadhus. To be able to give this effect to others. A true searcher for Sadhu Sanga becomes a Sadhu himself. Isn't it nice? Really, it is a simple process. But without Sadhus it doesn't work. And they are the ones who want to surrender to God. The Sadhu does NOT confide in his own capacities. He is depending on mercy. He is searching the help from above. He doesn’t think that his job, physically, mentally or intellectually, would be perfectly attainable by himself. This is contrary to what the impersonalists and others that talk about self sufficiency, say. Atheists and impersonalists have nothing else but their own capacity and they encourage themselves that by this capacity they can reach perfection, love etc. But in reality, they go on feeling sad, because without the help of God there’s not even food or water or air. They’re just left with the transcendental illumination. The ego to want to save yourself is dangerous and it results in taking distance from the Sadhus.

Of course in this material world there are many false persons who present themselves as if they were Sadhus. Therefore we first have to find out if such a Sadhu has his Sadhu parampara and if he is surrendered to it. Real Sadhus have no interest in accumulating money, or to enjoy beautiful women nor do they want to become famous or have a lot of followers. These are safe criteria. Only such a real Sadhu can connect to Divinity and a common cause of benefit. The modern preachers of self sufficiency say: ‘Be here now’, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’. This is all illusion, self indoctrinated pride, false hope. The real spiritual message is quite different: ‘You’re an eternal soul and you have the nice task to learn spiritual love. You can go to the spiritual world, and become an instrument for God's love. You can receive his mercy every moment and you can help to distribute this mercy. You can take refuge from the Lord in every moment. If you chant His Holy Name from the bottom of your heart, He’s already there. If you cry for Him like a child desperately cries for his mother for not seeing her, the Lord will not take much time to manifest Himself and calm the heart’. This is the happy conviction of a devotee and it’s the pure truth. Only Krishna has given us everything and He has done this through mother nature. No philosopher, speculator or scientist has managed to give us something as substantial as water or a papaya. Mind your own business -surrender. In this way Srila Sridhara Maharaj was instructing us.

If this medium existed and I could have had the chance to associate with Srila Prabhupada or Srila Sridhara Maharaja, I think I would have fainted over the keyboard. Chatting is a way to be close and gives you the chance to ask questions, both privately (after the main chat) as well as in the main chat. Istagosti means to discuss important topics on how to serve our Lord, amongst those who really care. And with an international Sanyasi advisor board, you surely can’t complain. This Sadhu Sanga via the internet is a new divine reality. We just have to know how to take advantage of it. You see, some people also go to the Bhagavatam class and just fall asleep. Or people go to see a Sadhu, but they only care to get some blessings from him for some ordinary material purpose. Later they can’t even tell what that Sadhu Sanga actually was. Sadhu Sanga is a very holy transformation of our conditioned consciousness into the awareness of spiritual love and the protection that it’s being maintained. It’s a chance that we’re given to change for the good. That transformation is our only hope and the only real benefit of this human existence. We are here to find out the truth about the reason why we’re here.

This human existence is a great opportunity. Not the opportunity to get all the different sensual sensations that this material duality has to offer. And also not to simply claim proprietorship over things we will surely loose after a short while. We are not here to fall in love with some other conditioned soul, only to discover that their love did not meet our expectation, neither could our love satisfy them. I have seen that even partners who due to their religious mood stay together and care jointly for their children, always lament the lack of comprehension from their partner. Only complaining and feeling frustrated can be found in the attempt to fill the gap of loneliness in relation to another conditioned soul. Resume: We are here to learn how to serve and how to love. We have to learn how to put the Supreme Lord, Sri Krishna in the center of our life. We have to learn through suffering that our egoism is a sick condition. It stinks to be selfish and it’s even worse if you give pain to others. Come on my friends, it’s about time to change. That is if you agree that it’s time to look for Sadhu Sanga. How can it be the goal of life to find a nice companion if there are only complications coming from that?

The goal of life is to learn how to love and how to have universal love for all. Impersonalists will speak a lot about universal love, but they can’t accept that there really is someone higher than themselves. Someone who sees us and maintains us with personal love and attention. Someone who looks after our needs and doesn’t want to impose Himself on us. Someone who has divine pure consciousness beyond our limitations. The impersonalists can’t conceive of such a great person, since they are smart enough to realize that if they accept Him, they will have to become His excellent devotees. That will finish their selfish pursuit of mundane pleasures. That is why they relent. An atheist is a selfish person fearing the possibility of competition. So many words, so many books, just to say it once again; ‘I am the center of all. There exists nobody more important than me. Meditation and prayer is just to calm the mind and to get into some good vibrations. There’s nobody who could really help us. There’s no divine consciousness that has conceived of this creation, for a higher wonderful purpose. I prefer to believe in Darwin’s monkeys or the grapefruit size ball that exploded into the entire variety’. But to accept Sri Krishna, like Arjuna did, to humbly present their doubts and to investigate the sacred Vedic Tradition, this is what they neglect. You see, even the fact that human culture arose from India is not enough reason for them to study beyond the Greek culture and the bones they find. The alphabet comes from India. The decimal system comes from India. The musical notes come from India. Hippocrates, the father of western medicine studied Ayurveda in India. The laws of our modern world come via the roman laws, who found the Manu Samhita in Chipre. Still they are so arrogant and megalomaniac that they ignore all these hints. There are more hints. Sankrit is the mother of our languages. Hoelderlin said the light comes from the East. Others like Friedrich Rueckert were enchanted by Vedic thought. But western industrial thinking, in the mood of maximum exploitation of the natural and human resources, created this modern free market structure, which ruins our whole planet. And the Sadhus are described as losers by these materialists. This is the amazing situation in this world. And we are here to do something about it. Thanks to our real top of the line Sadhu, Srila Patita Pavana Jagad Guru Swami Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada