The Gift of Knowledge.

The real gift of saintly persons is that they disseminate knowledge. That knowledge cuts to pieces the network of illusion by which we identify with the material body and material world, which in fact are causing all our suffering. Such knowledge is found in books like Bhagavad-gita, the essence of the Vedic literature of India, which was spoken by Lord Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, thousands of years ago and is still being read and studied today by scholars all over the world. Lord Krsna's statements are not dogmatic; they can be considered through reason and logic, and if we hear them carefully they will shed much light on how to become free from suffering.

In Bhagavad-gita, Krsna enlightens His disciple Arjuna, who is bewildered because he is thinking in the bodily concept of the self. Krsna tells him that the real person is eternal: "As the embodied soul continually passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change…For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain." (Bg. 2.13, 20)

According to the teachings of Bhagavad-gita, we are originally eternal, blissful and full of knowledge as servitors of God. But because we have misused our free will by trying to supersede God, who is the supreme enjoyer, by the supreme will we have been sent to this material world to try to enact our desires. How we have associated with the material nature since time immemorial, transmigrating from one body to another according to our work and desire, forms a very complicated history. But more important than tracing out our long history of sense gratification is the chance that now, in the human form of life, we can become free and return to our original blissful nature. To become free from the suffering of material life, one has to see himself as different from the body and disassociate himself from this material world. Therefore Lord Krsna said: "When a man gives up all varieties of sense desire that arise from mental concoction, and when his mind finds satisfaction in the self alone, then he is said to be in pure transcendental consciousness… The embodied soul may be restricted from sense enjoyment, though the taste for sense objects remains. But, ceasing such engagements by experiencing a higher taste, He is fixed in consciousness." (Bg. 2.55, 59)

To realize one's self as a spiritual soul and to find one's relationship with the Supreme Spirit, God, formerly one had to practice difficult methods of yoga and meditation involving severe austerities, strict physical and mental discipline, and complete abstinence from sex life. Today these methods are hardly possible, for people are short-lived, little interested in spirituality, and always disturbed by the agitations of civilized life. Consequently for this age the scriptures have prescribed a special method of benediction so that even people accustomed to a materialistic life can discover their spiritually ecstatic loving relationship with God. That method, delivered in Bengal, India, five hundred years ago by Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, is the chanting of the Hare Krsna mantra: Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. By chanting this mantra, which consists of names of the Supreme Lord, one can cleanse the mirror of his mind and lose all the misgivings that have arisen within him due to bodily life. The evidence that the chanting works is shown in the lives of the devotees of the Hare Krsna movement, whose activities are shown in this magazine. By virtue of the transcendental cleansing effect of chanting Hare Krsna, young, intelligent, educated men and women all over the world are experiencing spiritual happiness that comes from beyond the mind and senses. Of course, one has to taste it for himself before he can declare, "This is superior," but the evidence from the lives of these devotees is very convincing. A few years ago, they had never heard of brahma-saukhyam or Hare Krsna, and they were addicted to all sorts of intoxication and sexual indulgence in their search for pleasure and happiness. But now they have easily renounced the most advertised material pleasures with the feeling of "good riddance to rubbish." They have turned their senses toward a higher engagement-serving the senses of the Supreme Lord