Radhanath Swami on How to Die

If one truly wants to understand how to live a perfect life one must follow the footsteps of the great souls. The great souls, through every word and action, not only teach us how to live but also how to die. Is anyone in this world excluded from either of the two? Lord Krishna says in Bhagavad-Gita - for one who has been born, death is certain and for one who has died, birth is certain.

In colleges students attend classes, attend seminars and read several books but if they fail in their final exam they have to start all over again. They cannot graduate to the next level. Similarly, everything we do in life culminates in how we perform in the final exam, and how we perform in the final exam is dependent on how we prepare ourselves during the course. This human life is a course and we are all in a school. The purpose of this course is to learn – How do we graduate from this world. When we graduate, we no longer have to go back to the school. Similarly, when we graduate from this material conception of life, we will return to the spiritual world.

Radhanath Swami on The Right Situation

If God wants to protect us, no one can harm us, and if God wants to harm us, no one can protect us. Not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of the Lord. He is orchestrating every moment in such a way that is a favorable opportunity for all of us to make spiritual advancement and we must recognize that. In good or bad times, honor or dishonor, pleasure or pain, help or defeat, we should know that God is putting us in just the right situation to help us surrender to Him.

Radhanath Swami on Spiritual Practice

We all have so many sinful desires within our hearts — lust, anger, envy, greed, pride, illusion, so many desires to want to enjoy the resources of material existence which are all meant for the pleasure of God, so much false ego, so much self-centered mental thinking. Saintly persons, on the other hand, always think of the welfare of others. They are only concerned with giving God's Holy Names to others regardless of how they are treated themselves. They don’t mind bodily discomforts, poverty or persecution; they only think about how to give love of God to others. But we, the conditioned souls, in every condition, think, “What’s good for me? I want to see something that gives pleasure to my eyes. I want to hear something that gives pleasure to my ears, my nose, my mouth, my flesh. And what about my false ego? I have to situate myself where I am properly respected.” Even when we are engaged in devotional service, these desires are often prominent. So somehow or other we have to churn our hearts to remove all of these sinful propensities. That is the process of regulative principles of devotional practice.

Radhanath Swami on Why We Need Love

The basis of happiness is relationship. What makes relationships satisfying is love. People work for their children because they are looking for love. It is the most fundamental need of every living being. If you do not have love in your life, your life is superficial and quite meaningless. If you have love in your life, it really does not matter whether you have anything or not. If you have love then everything will be satisfied.

Happiness is something of the heart. But the real happiness is within, not without. We see some of the most successful people committing suicide. The most successful people are cruel, greedy and envious because they do not have love. Why is it that the fundamental need of every living being is to love and be loved? Why is everyone longing for that? Because it is our nature. The soul is part of God. Our original constitutional position is to love God and to be loved by God.

Radhanath Swami on Spiritual Inheritance

Be an accountant, doctor, lawyer or anything, but don’t be motivated by greed, egoism, lust, envy, anger and pride. Be motivated by your own inherent nature, as an instrument of God’s compassion. Therefore in spiritual life, higher or lower is not how much you can accomplish; higher or lower is the purity of your motivation, the spirit of your compassion and love. That is what God sees from within our hearts. In this way, the path of devotional service is equally open for everyone and anyone without discrimination. It is our natural, spiritual inheritance to love God and experience the unlimited pleasure of that love and express that in everything we do.

Radhanath Swami on The Right to Live

According to the laws of karma, whatever we do must come back to us. If we cause harm to another human being, we will suffer that harm, we cannot escape that. factually, every living entity is a child of God. the Vedic literatures teach that even the most insignificant animals have the right to live in the pursuit of happiness, just as human beings do. By interfering with their pursuit of happiness or by causing them unnecessary pain, we become responsible and liable to accept the same reaction upon ourselves.

Radhanath Swami on A Building that Transforms Hearts

You will feel the same if you go into a restaurant or a church or a mosque or a temple, unless you have sincerity. It is the quality that is important. You have to actually be sincere. Otherwise, it is not just a question of what we feel. It’s a question of how it transforms your life. You could feel the same going into a cinema. It is not just a matter of feeling. It’s a question of how it is illuminating you and bringing you to higher states of consciousness and higher states of living. That is what is all-important. So wherever you actually find the association, the teachings and the inspiration that really purify your life and to live with integrity, in a spirit of service - that’s where you will find the deepest experience of God. It’s not just which building you go into.