Dear Devotees , PAMHO! AGTSP! AGTGM!

In the Amsterdam GM is not staying in the temple, because
it is too small, too crowded nd too noisy for him.
He stays in one flat nearby the temple, just 2 min. by
walk. He reads and rests a lot now. Surprisingly, his
appetite has rapidly increased. Sometimes I have to cook
three times a day for him: in the morning he takes just few
capaties, then full lunch and every evening I prepare
pasta, which he likes very much.

The first class GM gave here was the Sunday Feast Lecture
on August 8. He spoke on CcAdi 4.15-16.
He made the point about the difference between mundane
religion, which is very much concerned about
"good & evil" of this world, and KC. They have the idea
that God is just the doorkeeper at the heaven's door
who judges who is eligible to enter there and who should be
send to the lake of fire for eternity as a punishment
for his sins. But still, thier main concern are the human
activities, either in this life or next.

On the contrary, the center of transcendental religion is
Krsna. The atraction to Krsna is natural for the living
entity, but now it is perverted
as natural attraction for the opposite sex. Therefore one
is identifying with so many upadhis, or false designations.
And raga-bhakti is meant to help us to get rid of these
upadhis. Then he explained the whole process of bhakti in
brief. He quoted SP saying that everyone has potentionally
"transcendental TV" in his heart, where he can see Krsna's
pastimes always. He also said that all of us have a role
to play in Krsna's pastimes. But now we are "out of practice"
from love of Krsna.

Then there was a interesting question from Ekalavya P.
about the Lord as the doorkeeper of Bali Maharaj. GM narrated
the whole story from SB and he has also spiced it with some
facts from Ramayana, which I have never heard before. Very
interesting!

The second question was "what it means that when the audience
is attentive and asks questions, that the reciter is even more
inspired to speak?" GM replied that it is natural,
because when the reciter sees the audience's interest,
he himself is even more inspired by this.
And he also showed us what it means practically. Today the
Q&A session was very nice, but the next day,when
he spoke from BG 4.19 it was different. The basis theme of
the class was how to free oneself from the karma.
Krsna answers "do your duty for Me." GM explained many nice
points. However, when the questions came, one guest
asked something about the Christian's conception of this.
GM answered brilliantly, giving a brief history of Chr.
ideology, and showing the guest that he (GM) knows even more
than he. But then some old lady (who came in late
anyway) began to proudly announce something like "Jesus
came to save Krsna from karma". GM just interrupted her
by asking: "Why don't you give your own class? Why don't
you site here (on the vyasasan)?" When the lady continued
to bubble out her nonsense, GM just disgustedly said: "OK, I
am going to stop here. SP ki jay!" and in 15 seconds he was
out of the temple going to his place.

ys Vidyagati das