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Srila Prabhupada tell's the eternally blissful pastime of the Mother of Krishna, Yosoda-Mayi, who chastised her son, God himself, for eating dirt, and a transcendental surprise. So Krsna, He is born of a ksatriya father. He is not born, but He appeared as the son. God is never born. Unborn. Therefore the Mayavadi philosophers, they mistake to know Krsna. They think that Krsna is born, then how He can be God? But actually, Krsna was not born from the womb of His mother. He appeared in four hands before His mother, and the mother was afraid that "My brother Kamsa, was awaiting to kill God, and now God is here in four hands. Immediately he'll kill." The mother forgets that "My son, if He's God, how He can be killed?" But the mother's affection is always like that. Just like Krsna, when He was going to attack a demon as a boy, Yasoda-ma, mother Yasoda, would ask her husband Nanda Maharaja, "Why do you allow this boy to go out? Why don't you lock Him?" So that is mother's affection. The mother, Yasoda mother, she does not know that Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Then her motherly affection will be checked. Therefore she was, by yoga-maya, she was always covered. Although Krsna playing child just like a common child, at the same time showing that He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He was eating clay. Some friends complained to mother Yasoda that, "You gave Him nice foodstuff, and He is eating clay." So mother called Him: "Oh, Krsna, You are eating clay?" Krsna said, "No, mother. They're all liars." (laughter) "Oh, Your elder brother Balarama is also saying." "Oh, He is angry upon Me. He is angry upon Me; therefore He is also speaking lie." Then the boys still stressed, "No, mother. He has eaten clay. We have seen." So mother said, "All right. Open Your mouth. I'll see." So Krsna opened His mouth, and she saw the whole material cosmic manifestation. Not only Yasoda, thousands of Yasoda and thousands of planets, sun, moons, and everything saw. Mother's thought, "Must be something jugglery. All right. Forget. Don't do it again."

There are so many criminals nowadays. But we know that only 0.1% of the whole population is currently in jail, which logically means that the others are not criminals. But that might not be the case. Who is a criminal? One who is committing a crime. But actually everybody is a criminal. We are using the property of Krishna for our purposes. We stole Krishna´s property; isn´t that a crime? Are those belongings really ours? Just because I bought it it is considered to be ours? Those who are selling things also stole them from nature; namely the materials, and made a products out of it. People cannot control their senses and are committing crimes at every step. Why? Because they cannot control their tongues! One persons says, “you cut down those trees, load them in the truck and then you go there and build a house.” It all started with sound vibration. There is an idea at the beginning. And that idea is in form of sound because you hear a voice telling you, “it would be nice to do this and this.” And then you order people what to do, or you follow that inner voice, which is, by the way, the Supersoul, Krishna Himself, inspiring you what to do and how to do certain things. But He is doing so ONLY because YOU had that desire by your free will. And whatever the mind hears it repeats. “Go and make that wooden house.” So you decide to do so. That is the power of the tongue. If we don´t tame our tongue it will dictate to us what to say and what to eat. Because the tongue is vibrating and tasting, those are its functions. By simple words, big world wars have been started, animals are being killed and so much trouble has been done due to our untamed tongues. And the solution? Well, can you put your tongue into jail? No. Or put a lock on you mouth? No. You cannot restrict you senses from inputs. The soul is naturally active, he needs action; everything is active. Can you simply lay down and do nothing? How is it possible? You are alive, you breath, you exist. Even the process of dying is activity. You want to stop existing? That is another activity. And who wants to die in the first place? You see? So in the same way, the tongue is the part of your body so it needs some inputs. The soul originally has legs, hands, eyes and a tongue. The body is simply the reflection. In the spiritual world we, as the soul with a form, all serve Lord Krishna. And because we were put into this jail, this body, we follow the same principle that we want to serve. So give the body Krishna prasadam instead, an offered food to Krishna under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master, and he will tell you what Krishna wants and how Krishna wants it. And then when you taste prasadam, Krishna is Himself on your tongue - Krishna is not different from prasadam. And chant Hare Krishna, because tongue needs to vibrate. Instead of vibrating irrelevant sounds you can chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. In this way, the greatest criminal will become your good friend, because it helps you to chant and taste prasadam. Thus the mind, instead of building a wooden house over and over again, can instead chant Hare Krishna Hare Krishna... Thus the mind becomes fixed and pacified thanks to contact with Lord Krishna in the form of His Holy Name. Now the tongue as your good friend can liberate you. So don´t put him into jail or put a lock on your mouth, but train your tongue by chanting and tasting prasadam and come back to Lord Krishna.

The Vedas are the worlds most ancient scripture, and they give complete knowledge of the absolute truth, all things material and spiritual. However, they are frequently misinterpreted. The correct way to understand Vedic Literature is explained below by Srila Prabhupada in his purports to the Caitanya-Caritamrta. The Vedic literature is to be considered a source of real knowledge, but if one does not take it as it is, one will be misled. For example, the Bhagavad-gita is an important Vedic literature that has been taught for many years, but because it was commented upon by unscrupulous rascals, people derived no benefit from it, and no one came to the conclusion of Krsna consciousness. Since the purport of the Bhagavad-gita is now being presented as it is, however, within four or five short years thousands of people all over the world have become Krsna conscious. That is the difference between direct and indirect explanations of the Vedic literature. Therefore Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, mukhya-vrttye sei artha parama mahattva: ”To teach the Vedic literature according to its direct meaning, without false commentary, is glorious.” Unfortunately, Sri Sankaracarya, by the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, compromised between atheism and theism in order to cheat the atheists and bring them to theism, and to do so he gave up the direct method of Vedic knowledge and tried to present a meaning which is indirect. It is with this purpose that he wrote his Sariraka-bhasya commentary on the Vedanta-sutra. One should not, therefore, attribute very much importance to the Sariraka-bhasya. In order to understand Vedanta philosophy, one must study Srimad-Bhagavatam, which begins with the words om namo bhagavate vasudevaya, janmady asya yato ’nvayad itaratas carthesv abhijnah sva-rat: ”I offer my obeisances unto Lord Sri Krsna, son of Vasudeva, who is the Supreme all-pervading Personality of Godhead. I meditate upon Him, the transcendent reality, who is the primeval cause of all causes, from whom all manifested universes arise, in whom they dwell and by whom they are destroyed. I meditate upon that eternally effulgent Lord, who is directly and indirectly conscious of all manifestations and yet is fully independent.” (SB 1.1.1) Srimad-Bhagavatam is the real commentary on the Vedanta-sutra. Unfortunately, if one is attracted to Sri Sankaracarya’s commentary, Sariraka-bhasya, his spiritual life is doomed.

Srila Prabhupada explains in a nutshell the cause of inflation in our modern society and offers a solution. Are we ready to apply it? Gold-standard currency is based on falsehood because the currency is not on a par with the reserved gold. The basic principle is falsity because currency notes are issued in value beyond that of the actual reserved gold. This artificial inflation of currency by the authorities encourages prostitution of the state economy. The price of commodities becomes artificially inflated because of bad money, or artificial currency notes. Bad money drives away good money. Instead of paper currency, actual gold coins should be used for exchange, and this will stop the prostitution of gold. Gold ornaments for women may be allowed by control, not by quality but by quantity. This will discourage lust, envy and enmity. When there is actual gold currency in the form of coins, the influence of gold in producing falsity, prostitution, etc., will automatically cease. There will be no need of an anticorruption ministry for another term of prostitution and falsity of purpose. (SB 1.17.39 purport)

The Vedas say, "Wake up! Wake up! Realize the importance of the human form of life!" Let's forget these temporary things and move on to the real thing. If you're not familiar with the corona virus, I don't know which planet you've been living on for the past several months but this virus has become a big deal across the global front. Countries are shutting down their borders, setting curfews, enforcing fines and patrolling the streets. Grocery stores are emptied as soon as they are filled and people are panicked, stowed away in their various residencies. The world is on lock-down. It's so much hassle, stress and anxiety over a little piece of genome wrapped in a protein. We have, however, a far bigger, more worrying and deadlier disease accompanying us as we speak, and it's fever is ever increasing. That disease is called the skin disease. Not a skin disease, the skin disease. The sickness of our perception that we think, "I'm white","I'm Black","I'm American","I'm a Muslim" or "I'm a father." The illness of thinking that we are the body. That disease is far more dangerous and infects incomparably more people than this little nonsense corona. The disease of the skin pushes one man to hate another based on the outwardly appearance while ignoring the soul within. Krishna, the Supreme lord and source of all wisdom, says in his Bhagavad-gita: dehino 'smin yatha dehe kaumaram yauvanam jara tatha dehantara-praptir dhiras tatra na muhyati The body and it's subsequent identities pertaining to the land of birth, religious upbringing and familial ties are all subject to change along with the material elements of the body, so what is the use of identifying with them? They come and go, and all that ever remains is the conscious observer within the material tabernacle, yet it is that part of our existence we unfailingly neglect. If mankind can realize his position as a spiritual particle of the supreme lord, the inebrities of material differences in skin color, religious identification and the land of birth will become redundant. When man learns to see that what he actually is, the unchanging eternally spiritual consciousness within the body, he will see clearly that every man is his fellow man, without artificially trying for such vision on the platform of the body, which consequently results in his killing of the cow and similar animals while claiming universal brotherhood. This disease of the outward layers keeps man thinking that, "He is my enemy" to everyone who differs ever so slightly in tone of the flesh. The cause of so much conflict and strife is due to a poor fund of knowledge concerning the identify of the living entity. When he understands that he is the part and parcel of the complete whole, the supreme person, Sri Krsna, then he will realize that all other creatures are also part and parcels of the whole. The real interest is not to consider the differences of the body, and therefore serve the false object of service, the body, but to use that body in the blissful service of the complete whole, much like a finger is in it's healthy state, along with all other parts of the body, when it serves the whole body.

At sunset the snakes become powerful, thieves are encouraged, ghosts become active, the lotus becomes disfigured and the cakravaki laments. What is a ghost? The glorious Brahma next evolved from his sloth the ghosts and fiends, but he closed his eyes when he saw them stand naked with their hair scattered. Ghosts and mischievous hobgoblins are also the creation of Brahma; they are not false. All of them are meant for putting the conditioned soul into various miseries. They are understood to be the creation of Brahma under the direction of the Supreme Lord. According to Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, the breathing dead body is a ghost. When a man dies, he is called dead, but when he again appears in a subtle form not visible to our present vision and yet acts, such a dead body is called a ghost. Ghosts are always very bad elements, always creating a fearful situation for others. Those who are very sinful and attached to their family, house, village or country do not receive a gross body made of material elements but remain in a subtle body, composed of mind, ego and intelligence. Those who live in such subtle bodies are called ghosts. One becomes a ghost when the subtle body acts without the help of the instrumental gross body. The followers of Lord Siva are generally unclean. They are not even very hygienic; they do not take baths regularly, they wear long hair, and they smoke ganja. Persons of such irregular habits are counted amongst the ghosts. How does someone become a ghost? Ghosts are bereft of a physical body because of their grievously sinful acts, such as suicide. The last resort of the ghostly characters in human society is to take shelter of suicide, either material or spiritual. Material suicide causes loss of the physical body, and spiritual suicide causes loss of the individual identity. People try to avoid the results of their sinful activities by killing themselves, but this is not possible. Suicide is just another sin. Therefore those who commit suicide become ghosts. A confused, frustrated man cannot get relief by committing suicide because suicide will simply lead him to take birth in the lower species of life or to remain a ghost, unable to attain a gross material body. Because Krsna has given you, or maya has given, maya has given under the direction of Krsna, a certain type of body for enjoying for a certain span of life, you cannot finish it. If you disregard it, then, if you commit suicide, the result will be that you will not be allowed to accept another material body. You will have to remain in that subtle body. That is ghost. Ghostly life means one who has misused this life, this body, and by his whims he has killed this body. He becomes a ghost. That means he will have to suffer for so many day, then he'll get another material body. The disease of insanity or being haunted by ghosts takes place in an unclean state of existence. Here it is clearly stated that when a man is fast asleep and saliva flows from his mouth and he remains unclean, ghosts then take advantage of his unclean state and haunt his body. In other words, those who drool while sleeping are considered unclean and are subject to be haunted by ghosts or to go insane. Because of his desire to enjoy the material world, the living entity is dressed with the material gross and subtle bodies. Thus he is given a chance to enjoy the senses. The senses are therefore the instruments for enjoying the material world; consequently the senses have been described as friends. Sometimes, because of too much sinful activity, the living entity does not get a material gross body, but hovers on the subtle platform. This is called ghostly life. Because of his not possessing a gross body, he creates a great deal of trouble in his subtle body. Thus the presence of a ghost is horrible for those who are living in the gross body. Sometimes in the present body the living entity feels that many of his desires and imaginations are not fulfilled. Those who are overly attracted to their life situation are forced to remain in a ghostly body and are not allowed to accept another gross body. Even in the body of a ghost, they create disturbances for neighbors and relatives. Sometimes we become ghost. If we become too much attached, we cannot leave. Therefore too much opulent apartment, opulent life, is not very good for spiritual advancement because we get too much attached to it. He got enough money and he was too much attached to the palace. The whole money he acquired, he constructed that house. Now after death, due to his too much attachment to that house, he is living there as a ghost. Sometimes the living entity is forced to give up his body and enter another one according to the judgment of Yamaraja. It is difficult, however, for the conditioned soul to enter another body unless the present dead body is annihilated through cremation or some other means. The living being has attachment for the present body and does not want to enter another, and thus in the interim he remains a ghost. What do ghosts do? We have heard of people's being haunted by ghosts. Having no gross material body, a ghost seeks shelter of a gross body to stay in and haunt. By birth as a ghost one gets the mystic perfection of disappearing and entering into the bodies of others. Not exactly enters, but he catches the body. But because the ghost has no gross body—he has got his subtle body: mind, intelligence, and ego—you cannot see him, how he has attacked that body. You cannot see the body of mind, intelligence. You know I have got my mind; I know you have got your mind. But you do not see my mind; I do not see your mind. So ghost is within the subtle body: mind, intelligence and ego. So with that subtle body, he attacks the man, but you cannot see. He does not enter into him. The enter is the soul within the body. Therefore sometimes ghost is walking in the room. We cannot see him. But he takes away something. We see that the thing is going away. Because you cannot see his gross body. Ghosts sometimes manifest a body and sometimes they do not. And because he hasn't got gross body, he can move very swiftly. Now he is here; he can go ten miles away immediately. But there is ghost. The word eka-pada, "one-legged," refers to ghosts, for it is said that ghosts walk on one leg. They especially attack women. They're ghostly haunted; therefore a male ghost haunts over woman, woman ghost haunts over man. Sometimes a ghost attacks a man. Because he has no material body, he wants to act through other's body. There is eating in the subtle body also. The ghosts also, they eat, but the method is different. So the man who is attacked, he forgets himself, and he speaks and walks according to the dictation of the ghost. The Vedas say that once a man becomes crazy, or haunted by ghosts, he speaks all kinds of nonsense. Just like a person, when he's ghostly haunted, he calls his father by ill names, but he cannot recognize even his father. A man may be haunted by the ghost of a snake or a tiger. Different kinds of Ghosts. In the material world, when one is not covered by the gross body but subtle body, they are called ghosts or pramathas. Those who are good, not harmful, they are called pramathas. And those who are harmful... As in this material world there are good men and bad men, similarly, amongst the persons who has no this gross body, they are sometimes called ghosts and sometimes they are called pramatha. So without brain, without head, when the body moves it is ghost. So it is ghostly civilization. All ghosts. There is a kind of ghost, perhaps you know, that without head. If a man is chopped of his head, and if he has got attraction, then he becomes a ghost without head. So at the present moment, all these so-called educated civilized men are ghosts without head. Mother Yasoda was firmly convinced that she should protect her child from different kinds of evil spirits, ghosts and denizens of inferno—namely Bhutas, Pretas, Pramathas, Guhyakas, Pisacas, Vetalas, Dakinis, Yatudhanis, Kusmandas, Yaksas, Raksasas and Vinayakas, along with witches like Kotara, Revati, Jyestha and Putana, as well as the Matrkas, Unmadas and similar other evil spirits, who cause persons to forget their own existence and give trouble to the life airs and the senses. Sometimes they appear in dreams and cause much perturbation; sometimes they appear as old women and suck the blood of small children. Out of all kinds of ghosts, the ghost of the name Brahma-raksasas are very powerful. A brahmana transferred to the species of ghostly life becomes a Brahma-raksasa. What to do about them. Before the sunrise even takes place, the light of dawn destroys the fear of the dangers of the night, such as disturbances by thieves, ghosts and Raksasas. Ghosts and evil spirits cannot remain where there is chanting of the holy name of God. The best way to remove them is to chant Hare Krishna very loudly and have jubilant kirtana until they leave. In England, in Mr. John Lennon's house there was one ghost. But as soon as the devotees began chanting very loudly, he went away immediately. It is said that wherever the chanting of the holy name of Krsna is done, even negligently, all bad elements—witches, ghosts and dangerous calamities—immediately disappear. Thus Mother Yasoda chanted different names of Visnu to protect child Krsna’s different bodily parts. The great saints and devotees of the Lord are in the list of His paraphernalia, and thus as soon as a saintly devotee is present, the ghostly sins are at once vanquished. That is the verdict of all Vedic literatures. One is recommended, therefore, to associate only with saintly devotees so that worldly demons and ghosts cannot exert their sinister influence. If one is habituated to taking the prasada of Lord Visnu, there is no chance of his becoming a ghost or anything lower than a human being. Dakini and Sankhini are two companions of Lord Siva and his wife who are supposed to be extremely inauspicious, having been born of ghostly life. It is believed that such inauspicious living creatures cannot go near a nima tree.

This is an early memory by a disciple from a book "Miracle on 2nd Avenue". Please keep in mind that many early devotees did not have a full understanding of Srila Prabhupada's transcendental nature, thus their descriptions of Srila Prabhupada must be taken with a pinch of salt. We can still imagine how glorious Srila Prabhupada was in his bold preaching to the lowest of the society. It was a warm cloudless evening in late March when six of us set out to the Psychedelic Shop with the Swami. The smell of marijuana and incense wafted through the warm air. On weekend evenings Haight Street had acquired a perpetual background soundtrack of guitars, bells, bongos, recorders, flutes, seaweed horns and rock music that pounded from storefronts and handheld blasters. Many were smoking pot and hashish or were drinking Olympia beer out of brown stubbies, sharing Gallo wine or swigging Johnny Walker out of big bottles in brown paper sacks. Others with packs and sleeping bags on their backs strummed on guitars, singing as they walked. Dozens of boys and girls and same-sex couples walked past holding hands or arm in arm. Some embraced and kissed, leaning against storefront windows. Cross-dressers lounged in doorways. People wearing flowers and feathers in their hair set up stalls against the building walls and decorated the sidewalk with multi-colored chalk drawings while they sat waiting for customers. It was like a hippy flea-market, a bizarre open-air psychedelic mall. I walked in silence next to the Swami, while Shyamasundar trailed behind with four of the new San Francisco devotees: Chidananda, Sankarshana, Lilavati and Gaurasundara. It was seven o'clock. I thought the whole scene before us must appear very decadent to the Swami, and I didn't know what to say about it to him. Finally, I said, "It's a beautiful night." The Swami scrutinized the street sellers, looked at passing smokers and bongo players, people with painted faces and wild, brightly colored costumes. He appeared to smell the air, taking in the burning odor of marijuana and the sharp putrid stench of alcohol, which was tempered by the fragrance of roses and carnations. He turned, smiling, and said, "Everything is beautiful." I was surprised because I thought the Swami would perceive this streetscape as being debauched and disgusting. But as we walked in companionable silence, I realized that the Swami actually liked to be surrounded by people; after all, he had grown up in India, one of the most densely populated countries in the world. More than this, though, I thought that the Swami perceived Krishna in this place. Many of these people were genuine seekers, eager for knowledge, ripe and ready for Krishna consciousness. I remembered the Swami saying earlier in his San Francisco visit that hippies embraced detachment, and that that was their qualification. There was no good or bad from the pure angle of vision–everything and everyone in every part of creation was Krishna's energy, and because the Swami was in touch with that energy, he saw this beauty. The people were beautiful because they were all potential devotees. Everything was beautiful because everything was connected to Krishna. His remark was more an instruction than a casual comment. I realized the vast difference between him and the young Bauls we had met the previous week. The Bengalis were really a group of performers who were playing the Eastern spirituality card as a way of coming to America and becoming famous. To the American public they were as unusual as our swami was, but I didn't think they were driven by a desire to present genuine Vaishnava philosophy. I suddenly realized how America's current interest in spirituality left people wide open to be exploited by those offering some flavor of Eastern culture with a personal motive attached–be that fame, power or wealth. I knew from my own observation of our swami that he was not after any of these things; he was driven by a desire to fulfill the wishes of his spiritual master, and I felt immensely grateful to have found him in the great mystical melting pot that was America's alternative culture. The Swami was still smiling as we reached the Psychedelic Shop. Ron and Jay greeted our little group with folded palms at the front door. "Hey, man!" Ron said to me. "How ya doin', Ron?" I said. "Well, we finally made it." "Yeah," Jay said. "Swami Bhaktivedanta! We thought you were never going to come." He held out his hand and the Swami shook it. "We got the meditation room ready. There's people waiting for you." "Oh. You are having meditation?" the Swami asked. "Every day," Jay said. "Every night. Saturday night especially. Full of people. They're waiting for you–really! It's great you came." "What time does the program start?" I asked. "It started already," Ron said. "But this is the real beginning, now that the Swami's here." "Come on in," Jay said. "We'll show you into the meditation room." The small store was crowded with people. There were a few couples smooching in the corner and a group of young teenage boys watching the smooching couples while pretending to check out the boxes of roach clips, pipes and Riz-la papers that were spread out on the counter. Beside the counter sat a table filled with sculptures and trinkets–candle holders, beaded lamps and crystal balls filled with raindrop-shaped granules and white snowflakes. "The meditation room is at the back," Jay said, ushering us through the crowd. The Swami and I filed past a gaunt woman with knee-length hair who blew a perfect ring of marijuana smoke as she stared at us. The meditation room was constructed of four India-patterned bedspreads hung at right angles to form four walls at the back of the store. Ron pulled back one of the walls. Through the thick smoke I could see five people sitting erect in lotus posture with their eyes closed, two young women who were lying on their backs passed out cold, and two huge black men lying on their sides puffing on large pipes of hash. The two men were both bearded and had scars on their faces, arms and hands. "Just go in and start," Jay said. "They've been waiting for you." I thought this was something of a misnomer. The people in this quasi-opium den didn't look like they were waiting for anyone. But we went in and sat cross-legged on the stain-pocked carpet, the Swami in the middle and the rest of us on either side of him. Those who were conscious looked at us hazily through half-closed eyes. The smoke was overwhelmingly strong, but the unmistakable stench of unwashed bodies remained like the active ingredient of some kind of obscene perfume. The meditators' clothes all looked unwashed, their hands and feet grimy, their hair greasy. I looked upward, trying to avoid eye contact, and saw the shop's black ceiling above us. The Swami took out his hand cymbals and began to chant. "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare." He chanted for half an hour and everyone who was awake in the meditation room responded. The sound of the chanting drew more people into the meditation room, and soon the small space was packed. At the end of the chant the devotees bowed down on the floor while the Swami said prayers in Sanskrit. No one else bowed down. I noticed cigarette burns in the carpet as I sat up. "This movement is very important for all classes of men to follow," the Swami began saying. "If you see another human being as American, Indian, black, white, male or female, this is skin disease. There are eight million four hundred thousand forms of life. In this human form, we have great responsibility. We have to inform others that there is no permanent situation here. We must experience old age and disease. No one can say, ‘I'm young man; I'll not become old man.' No. It is impossible to say. "Just like I am conscious throughout my body. If you pinch any part of my body, then I feel. That is my consciousness. So consciousness is spread, all over my body." Ron came in and sat down, smiling at the Swami. "This is explained in Bhagavad-gita. That consciousness which is spread all over this body, that is eternal. But this body is perishable, but that consciousness is imperishable, eternal. And that consciousness, or the soul, is transmigrating from one body to another. Just like we are changing dress. I may have this dress. You may have another dress. I may exchange your dress with me. So this changing of dress is going on every moment. "Medical science also says that every second we are changing blood corpuscles, and therefore change in the body is going on. So you say or I say that ‘body is growing,' but in the Vedic language it is said that ‘body is changing.' Just like a child is born so small from the mother's womb, and it changes body every second. Then he becomes a young child or a boy, then young man, then old man like me, and so on. In this way, this changing, body changing, is going on. And the final change is called death. Death means ... Just like the too much old garments cannot be used; similarly, this body is the garment of the soul. When it can no longer be used, we have to accept another body. This is called transmigration of the soul." I couldn't believe the Swami was continuing to speak in this setting. Around us, most of the people had either passed out or were sleeping. Only a few–those who had been awake to begin with–remained sitting erect. One of the black guys also listened from his reclining position. "Human life is not in large quantity. Out of that there are very few Aryan families. The Aryan family–the Indo-European family, they are also Aryan–they are very few." Hearing the word "Aryan," I immediately was on alert. Being Jewish, I'd grown up around those who had either been affected or were from families affected by Hitler's desire to establish a "pure" superior race. I knew that "Aryan" was a widely used Sanskrit word, but I'd never heard the Swami use it before in a public lecture. I quickly looked at the black guys; one of them looked suddenly more attentive. "The Europeans, they belong to the Indo-European group. The Americans, they also come from Europe. So this group of human society is very few. The Vedanta says, ‘now you have got developed human form of life, civilized life, you have got nice arrangement for your comfortable life.' Especially in America, you have got all material comforts. You have got cars; you have got good road, nice food, nice building, nice dress, nice feature of your body. Everything God has given you very nice. The Vedanta advises, ‘Now you talk about the inquiry of the Supreme.'" The black man stared at the Swami motionless. I couldn't really tell if he was processing what the Swami was saying. Perhaps they were too high to grasp his points, or maybe they accepted that identification of the body was a false identification from the spiritual perspective, or maybe they understood that Hitler had misapplied the Vedic terminology. What I did know for certain was that San Francisco was full of black supremacists and that many of them took Hitler's Aryan philosophy personally; and why wouldn't they when he supposedly considered everyone who was not blond and blue-eyed to be inferior? The Swami concluded his talk and the audience applauded. We stood up to leave. "So, you want to come again next Saturday?" Ron asked. "Well, we'll be here on Tuesday to give you some more posters for the store, so I'll let you know then," I said. I didn't think this was really the kind of place we would want to visit regularly. "OK," Ron said. "Thanks for coming, Swami. You were great!" The Swami nodded and I shook hands with Ron. As we started to walk back to the temple, I looked over my shoulder to make sure the scarred men weren't following us. They looked like Dickensian convicts to me, and I was anxious that they might try to pick a fight once we were out of the laid-back atmosphere of the store. "I was worried they were going to start a riot in there," I said to the Swami. I glanced over my shoulder again. No one was following us. "What is ‘riot'?" he asked. "It's like mass violence. Like the Hindu-Muslim riots in Calcutta," I said. "Oh, yes," he said. "I am knowing this word. Why you think this?" "Lots of people get upset about the word ‘Aryan.' Especially black people and Jewish people." "Oh? And why is that?" he asked. "Well, because of Hitler," I said. "Adolf Hitler believed that the German people were a superior race and he called them Aryans. He killed Jews and Gypsies–anyone who wasn't pure German–because they were different." "Oh," he said, looking straight ahead. "I am knowing about this. But not about word ‘Aryan.' Hitler used this word?" "Yes." We walked a couple more blocks in silence, observing the swarms of people enjoying the warm evening on Haight Street. Then, as we neared the temple, he looked at me out of the corner of his eye and smiled. "It's a beautiful night," he said.

Srila Prabhupada advises a confused disciple in a letter about the use of drugs. You have asked about "chemical changes of consciousness'' or drugs, and if these may ever be utilized in Krishna's service. To change consciousness, therefore the Spiritual Master is there. Do not do anything whimsically, like taking these drugs, that will ruin everything. Because you are imperfect you require help from the Perfect, and anything material like drugs is imperfect, so do not be distracted by contemplating in this way. This chemical is intoxicant, it will not help, it will send you to hell. So if you have received initiation, then you have got the instruction no intoxication. So why do you ask this? That means that you have still addiction to these intoxicants. It was said, and you promised, no intoxication, so why do you think of this? (Letter to: Visvambhara — Ahmedabad 14 December, 1972)

Funny exchange between Srila Prabhupada and his early disciples about the famous so-called guru from the 60’s. Harikesa: Once they gave the Maharishi four big pills of LSD. Prabhupada: Who? Harikesa: His disciples gave him, Maharishi, four big pills of LSD. Pusta Krsna: Maharishi? Harikesa: Yes. And he just stood there and said nothing happened. So everybody said, "This is proof that he's already there." Prabhupada: Huh? Harikesa: Because he just stood there and said, "Nothing is happening to me," everybody has figured that he is already there. Prabhupada: "There" means where? Harikesa: At the ultimate. Prabhupada: Hell. [laughter] (Morning Walk – October 20, 1975, Johannesburg)

This is a short excerpt from an e-book “Proof of the Vedas” by Purujit Dasa available to the BLISS Patreon members free of charge. The book gives arguments to prove the validity of Vedic method of acquiring transcendental knowledge. Although our senses are imperfect, the sense of hearing is better than the others, because through hearing we can acquire knowledge. Srila Prabhupada says: “So knowledge means not to see but to hear. Therefore it is called sruti, susruma. Knowledge has to be received through the ear, not by the eyes. Not by the eyes. This is not recommended. Nobody says, "I want to see knowledge," no: "I want to hear knowledge." Therefore it is called çruti, and knowledge is received through the ear, aural reception. Why not with eyes and other senses? That is also very important to know. Suppose you are sleeping. Then all your senses are also sleeping. But the ear does not sleep. You have got practical experience. When a man is sleeping and somebody is coming to kill him, so what do you say? You cry, "Mr. such and such, wake up! Wake up! There is danger. There is..." Then he can... Otherwise, all the senses are there, but only the ear will help you. The eyes are there, hands are there, legs are there, everything is there—nothing of this limbs of your, part of your body, will help you. Simply your ear will help you when you are in danger. Therefore here it is said, susruma: "We have received knowledge through the ears, not with the eyes." Those rascals says, "I want to see practically." He cannot see. That is not possible. The modern defect is that they do not hear. The so-called scientists, philosophers, they do not hear. They simply want to see, want to touch, want to smell, want to lick up. That is not knowledge. So they are all failure. They do not hear. But the process is here, as it is said, susruma: "We have received knowledge by hearing from the authority." That is perfect knowledge. That is perfect knowledge.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.1.40 -- San Francisco, July 21, 1975) Everyone has tasted salt in his life. If we hear “salt” –immediately we recall the experience of tasting it. We have become accustomed to relate the word “salt” to the substance of salt and we can be licking, seeing, touching, or smelling salt and thus have an experience of salt, but unless we hear from someone that it is indeed “salt”, we cannot communicate our experience of salt to anyone. We might have the experience of salt, but so long we do not hear from a superior authority that the white substance we are tasting is salt, we do not have knowledge of salt. Srila Prabhupada explains: Prabhupada: So what is that experience? Tell me what is that experience? Priest: That God is beyond all our experience. Prabhupada: Then what is your experience? You have no experience. If it is beyond your experience, then you have no experience. Priest: Personally, of course, but... Prabhupada: Then you cannot explain. You cannot, because you have no experience. Priest: But if you know what you can't explain... Prabhupada: No, no, if you can't explain means you do not know. Priest: You don't think an illusion (indistinct) relationship. Prabhupada: No, no, not illusion. If you cannot explain, that means you do not know. If you know, you must explain. That is knowing, that is knowledge. (Room Conversation with Christian Priest -- June 9, 1974, Paris) I can create my own unique word for salt. Someone else can then come along and makeup his own word to name salt as well. We can all make up our own words and bark at each other with our own uniquely created languages on and on without actually ever understanding what the others say, but that’s not knowledge. That is simply animalism. When we speak of words they only have a meaning when they can be communicated to someone else besides ourselves. Therefore knowledge can acquired only through hearing.

This is a short memory about Srila Prabhupada by Hayagriva Dasa. You may also hear it in a documentary about Srila Prabhupada of the name Happiness on the 21st Second Avenue by CBS. After the last kirtana, I went up to Srila Prabhupada and began to question him. "Have you ever heard of LSD?" I asked. "No," he said. "It's a psychedelic drug that comes like a pill, and if you take it you can get religious ecstasies. Do you think that that can help my spiritual life?" "You don't need to take anything for your spiritual life," he told me. "Your spiritual life is already here." I agreed with him immediately, though I would have never agreed with anyone else who would have said such a thing. I agreed mainly because he seemed so absolutely positive that there was no question of not agreeing. "Yes, my spiritual life is here," I thought to myself. I knew that he was in a state of exalted consciousness, and I was hoping that somehow he could teach the process to me.

This is an article by Subaldas as published in the BTG magazine in 1968 issue #22 on the topic of drugs and their influence on spiritual life. Nature and scientific laboratories alike produce a vast supply of chemicals which are capable of altering man's consciousness. The average "straight" American adult consumes three to five of these mind-altering drugs in the course of each day, and they therefore play an important part in determining the structure of contemporary society. Some social groups, for example, function in coffee consciousness, others in beer consciousness, and still others in psychedelic consciousness. Basically, contemporary society is divided into two. One group, comprised mainly of the middle-aged, uses such drugs as alcohol, cigarettes and tranquilizers, while the younger generation has more generally adopted marijuana, LSD, mescaline, and various other psychedelics. The older drug users generally prefer "depressants," drugs which tend to limit and decrease consciousness; and, according to their standard of morality, the use of such drugs is perfectly acceptable. Doctors, lawyers, clergymen, politicians, teachers -- all the supposedly respectable leaders of society set the example, and the masses follow along with them. Until recently, this social group seemed to be so firmly established, along with its social mores, that it represented the only "sane," "realistic" and "respectable" members in our modern civilization. However, during the past few years a psychedelic revolution has been taking place. The world's youth has turned to a group of drugs which tend to expand consciousness rather than limit it, and which produce a stimulating rather than sedative effect. As may be expected, this new type of drug produces a whole new social outlook, which is directly challenging the established social order. The establishment, in turn, is fighting back in an effort to keep from being toppled over. In a lecture before the American Psychological Symposium, one of the foremost spokesmen for the new drug movements, William S. Burroughs, said: "Alcohol is a sedative drug similar in action to barbiturates. Yet because of purely verbal associations we do not think of alcohol as being a drug because it is our national drug." This statement is supported by the fact that 93 million adult American citizens drink, and six million of them are confirmed alcoholics. The per capita consumption of alcoholic beverages in the U. S. today is approximately 24 gallons per year. Establishment people are quick to point out the dangers, real or imagined, of drugs like LSD and marijuana, while at the same time ignoring the dangers of alcohol. Yet every year drinking takes a toll of 25 thousand lives on the American highway and causes a million injuries. What's more, the most common example of psychosis in connection with drugs is not caused by LSD or marijuana, but is the permanent breakdown caused by excessive use of alcohol, which accounts for no fewer than 20% of the patients in U. S. mental hospitals. Furthermore, facts show that 50% of our prison population committed its crimes while drunk. Thus, while there is a direct connection between alcohol and crime, there is so far no evidence that psychedelic drugs have similar effects. Smoke From The Bottomless Pit In 1604, James I, King of England, tagged smoking, "a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fumes thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." Today some 60 million Americans smoke millions of pounds of tobacco every year at a cost of about $9 billion. Tobacco is taken primarily, of course, in the form of cigarettes (528 billion consumed each year), which are supplemented by pipe tobacco, cigars, snuff and chewing tobacco. In spite of an anti-smoking campaign in the U. S. in recent years -- a result of quite conclusive evidence linking cigarette smoking to a variety of diseases -- there has been little progress made in stopping the habit. This is largely due to the fact that all of $232 million were spent on television advertisements alone last year, not to mention various other media, in order to promote smoking. Caffeine is another very popular intoxicant. Americans consume coffee at the rate of seventeen pounds per year for every man, woman and child in the nation. This amounts to millions of pounds of pure caffeine. In addition, sedatives, stimulants and tranquilizers are used by about 20 million Americans, most of whom are members of the upper and middle classes, and most over thirty. The Nature Of Narcotic Drugs In order to see this subject more clearly, we should consider anything which is more than the basic requirement for maintaining a healthy body to be a narcotic drug. Of course, this would include baseball, television, chewing gum, and quite a good deal more that we tend to think of as harmless if not actually beneficial. But our radical definition of narcotics must be evaluated from the spiritual rather than the material point of view. Generally speaking, Americans have been trained to think of "narcotic" as meaning "addictive." The dictionary definition, however, classifies as narcotic anything which, in small doses, causes relief or stimulation, but which in excess results in stupefaction, indolence, lethargy, coma or convulsions. Narcotic drugs are therefore necessarily associated with the abnormal and unhealthy condition of the body. They are used either to relieve pain, which is itself abnormal, or to create an abnormal state of consciousness in an otherwise healthy organism. But the very meanings of such terms as "normal" and "healthy" must now come into question. For, according to the scriptural sources which offer the science of spiritual self realization to us, our true and original identity is that of pure spirit soul. It is the spiritual platform of awareness that is, therefore, the "normal" and "healthy" state for the living being. By the terms of such a transcendental definition of self, we who exist in the material world, under the material conception of life, are conditioned spirit souls, drugged by the body itself, and thus made to forget who we are. At some point we start identifying with the body and its desires, and thus we become more and more intoxicated by material Nature as we try satisfying the demands of the senses. So, quite factually; we are all drugged. People of advanced intelligence ordinarily try regaining their original unconditioned consciousness, and, according to those who have succeeded, this is a state of unalloyed ecstasy, in which there is no need for any kind of intoxication. The great mystics, incarnations, sages and religious leaders throughout the ages have never used drugs in their spiritual undertakings, nor advocated their adherents taking them. However, today's young have turned to such chemicals for spiritual awakening. They have grown up in a materially prosperous and secure society, which has been unable all the same to satisfy them. The young have looked upon the pleasures of their parents' generation and its whole social structure as dry and empty, and have searched elsewhere for fulfillment. And they have discovered psychedelic drugs. Psychedelics (literally, "mind-manifesting") are not new. They have been known for centuries. Peyote and "magic" mushrooms were used by the American Indians since before the time of Columbus, and there is even mention of a beverage called soma in the ancient Vedic civilization of India, whose antiquity can hardly be calculated. Both young and old are now, as they have been always, looking for pleasure. They are going about it in different ways, with varying means, varying outlooks, and varying results -- but the basic principle of pleasure beyond the ordinary or "normal" confines of bodily material existence remains constant. What's more, this constant pleasure principle holds true not only for humanity. In Robert S. de Ropp's famous book, "Drugs and the Mind," he describes some experiments which have been conducted using rats with electrodes embedded in the pleasure and pain areas of the brain. This involves the use of an arrangement called a Skinner box, and Dr. James Olds has described the results of these experiments as follows: Electrical stimulation in some of the regions of the hypothalamus actually appeared to be far more rewarding to the animals than an ordinary satisfier such as food. For example, hungry rats ran faster to reach an electric stimulator than they did to reach the food. Indeed, a hungry animal often ignored available food in favor of the pleasure of stimulating itself electrically. Some rats with electrodes in these places stimulated their brains more than 2,000 times per hour for 24 consecutive hours! Transcendent Ecstasy According to the great Vedic writings, human life is meant not simply to find mechanical ways of stimulating various areas of the brain (which is itself only an instrument of consciousness), but is meant for reaching the ultimate spiritual ecstasy, which is transcendental to all material conditions. An example of such spiritual ecstasy and its transcendence over material conditions is found in the life of the great saint, Haridas Thakur. Haridas was sentenced by the governor of his province to be whipped in all 24 streets of the town until dead. He was given this cruel punishment because he was himself a Moslem, but had taken up the practice of chanting the Holy Names of the Lord: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare. Both the Moslem priests and the caste brahmins were jealous of him, and looked upon him as a renegade from his own sect. Two brutelike men were given the job of whipping him, and they beat him severely in all the ordained 24 streets. Haridas, during all this, went on with his chanting, and experienced great ecstasy. He was completely oblivious to any physical suffering because his consciousness was fixed on the spiritual platform, which is far beyond the physical, and is unaffected by it. In the end, he went on to continue his work of chanting in devotional service, and the attempt to destroy him failed. According to great saints such as Haridas Thakur, real pleasure is not to be found in the whole of this material creation. In comparison with spiritual bliss, all that we know here is suffering. Our situation is compared to that of a man stranded in the middle of the ocean, swimming very hard to keep from being dragged under by the big waves. He naturally thinks of how much he is suffering. Then, when the waves calm down and he doesn't have to struggle so hard, he may think he's enjoying. Actually, of course, this is not enjoyment . It is simply a less intense form of suffering, since he is still stranded in the middle of the ocean. The Quest For Ecstasy Many users of psychedelic drugs are, without question, sincerely looking for a way to get out of this ocean of material misery. They want to make a permanent solution to all their problems. And this, after all, is the primary occupation of the human being, as is declared in all the great scriptures of the world. Human life is not meant for working hard in factories, going to meaningless baseball games, or dumbly watching a television screen. It is meant for finding out such things as who you are, what the purpose of your life is, what God is, and what your relationahip with God is. Human life begins to reach fulfillment only when this stage of inquiry is attained. Few enough know what questions to ask in order to get the ultimate answers. According to the Vedic sources, until a person starts looking for the answers which will make a final solution to all the problems of life such as birth, death, disease and old age -- he is actually no better than an animal. Man and the animals have four principles in common -- eating, sleeping, mating and defending. The thing that is uniquely man's, however, and which differentiates him from the animals, is his highly developed consciousness. Before attaining the human form of life, the spirit soul passes through birth in eight million other species. As it progresses through the stages of evolution, its consciousness and intelligence grow. And, in the civilized human form of life the final stage of evolution is arrived at. This great achievement should surely not be wasted on mere animalistic sense enjoyment, but should be used for final and ecstatic spiritual realization. The modern forms of Judaeo-Christian faith in the West have failed to satisfy youth's desire for direct communion with God. Therefore, many of the young have turned to drugs as the key to spiritual awareness. Most members of the psychedelic movement do consider it religious, and a number of groups have incorporated as churches. One thing is certain -- the movement is large and ever-growing . There is no lack of people looking for pleasure through drugs and willing to experiment in their quest. Authorities estimate that over ten million Americans have used marijuana, peyote, and LSD. Most of these are in the high school and college age groups. According to United Nations statistics, in 1951 there were 200 million marijuana users throughout the world -- a number equal to the entire population of the U.S.A. Yet marijuana has only really become popular in the 'Sixties, and what astronomical figures represent the 1969 usage can only at this point be guessed. The great souls whose teachings form the basis of the world's authoritative religions have always maintained that the body is a source of pain and suffering. The Bhagavad Gita, one of the most important books on the science of ecstasy, describes the soul as Sat-chit-ananda, a form which is eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss. Somehow or other we in the material world have fallen into Maya, illusion, and are accepting something which is false in place of reality The body is not the true identity of the living being, but we foolishly accept it as ourselves. Therefore, when the body is hungry we think we are hungry, and when the body is in pain we think we are in pain. This is the material concept of life. When we break with the false ego, the interknitting junction between spirit and matter, then we are liberated from the threefold miseries -- miseries caused by the body and the mind, by other living entities, and by natural phenomena. Drugs such as LSD may sometimes help to break this false identification with the body, but the chemically-induced state of "ego loss" does not last for very long. Such at least is the program for a "trip" outlined in "The Psychedelic Experience," a classic "manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead" by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert, three of the early leaders of the psychedelic movement. Furthermore, the process of ego loss does not necessarily lead one to positive knowledge of who or what he really is. Some therefore identify with the mind, which is the subtle material body, and others think they are God, while still others think that they are nothing -- Void. Most cannot see beyond the interplay of cells, molecules, atoms, DNA, and the nervous system, because it is precisely the material senses, and not the spiritual, which are affected by drugs. It is a popular theory in the psychedelic movement that everything is merely an extension of the body, mind, or nervous system. "It's all one" is the common phrase. Actually, this is true. Everything is one in the sense that everything emanates from one source, Krishna, and it is His energy which is acting in various ways, according to His direction. However, although everything is one, we find within this one infinite amounts of variegatedness and individuality. We are all individual spiritual living entities, scattered throughout the material creation. Constitutionally we are parts and parcels of Krishna, the Supreme Whole. We therefore have the same qualities as Krishna, but we possess them in very minute quantities, while He possesses them in full. Now, complete bliss is one of Krishna's qualities. He is known as the Reservoirof all pleasure, and by establishing contact with Him through service the living entity can regain his own natural state of bliss. This ecstasy is eternal. When achieved, there is no coming down again to the material platform of existence. Such a state of supreme consciousness is not available through artificial means. In The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that He can only be reached through devotion. The recommended method for reviving this natural, forgotten attitude of devotion to Krishna is to chant His Names: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. This mantra, when properly chanted, immediately raises one to the spiritual plafform, and puts the living entity in direct touch with the Supreme Lord. Krishna is a Person, but He is present everywhere. Just as there is fire potentially present in wood, so Krishna is suffused throughout His creation. We simply have to know how to find Him. It's really very simple. When we call His Name, He comes. Psychedelic Leadership On a successful LSD trip a person may think he has reached the Godhead. Sometimes, as is detailed in the Book of the Dead, a person will reach the "Clear Light," which is described in the Vedic texts as Krishna's glowing bodily effulgence, called the "Brahmajyoti." This effulgence permeates the whole spiritual sky, just as the sunshine permeates this whole universe. Realization -- that is, direct perceptual experience -- of the Clear Light is devoid of all variegatedness, however, and such a state of consciousness is therefore very unnatural for a living being who is eternally individual and who is accustomed to varieties for enjoyment. A person can remain in the Clear Light for short periods of time, but then he must come down again to the material platform in order to experience the varieties required for full enjoyment. In this sense, of course, the Clear Light itself becomes no more than a "variety," a change from ordinary consciousness. It is a "high," but not a final, unending or supreme state of ecstasy. The only way to remain permanently fixed on the spiritual plane is through realization of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Through this realization we can experience spiritual variegatedness, which is said to be far beyond any impersonal realization of the Godhead. In order to achieve this topmost realization, it is necessary to have the guidance of a spiritual master who is a bona fide representative of Krishna. The psychedelic movement does not have such leaders qualified in the devotional line. Quite the contrary, these members of the psychedelic movement have, in the final analysis, practically nothing to offer mankind. They themselves have to continue taking drugs in order to feel any ecstasy. Their state of bliss is, after all, a temporary intoxication which one has to pay money for. How spiritual can it be? True spiritual ecstasy is both eternal and free to everyone. Dr. Sidney Cohen, another major figure in the drug movement, has suggested that religious experience may one day be redefined as "a dyssynchromy of the reticular formation of the brain." This is the rather peculiar direction in which scientists are heading. They conduct experiments involving psychedelic drugs, and then they try fitting the results to suit their needs. Because a drug may allow someone to experience something different from "normal" consciousness, the scientists conclude that the experience is, in the first place, due entirely to the drug, and, in the second, that it is equivalent to the religious ecstasies of the mystics and saints. In his book, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," William James took note of exactly this point when he wrote: "Medical materialism finishes up Saint Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic." In this way scientists with an atheistic bias have tried to rule out the existence of a transcendent God Who exists beyond all material concepts, by holding the very evidence of direct confrontation with God to be no more than a chemical aberration within the body -- in other words, an hallucination. Even the argument against the validity of drug experiences can be questioned. As one thinker has pointed out, simply because we see something through a window doesn't mean the window caused the view. Similarly, psychedelic drugs may often open a window in the mind to let us see what is already there. However, it is only through Krishna's Grace that one can actually have full knowledge of what lies outside that window. And He may choose to reveal Himself or not, without reference to drugs or the laws of Nahure. Timothy Leary, self-styled "high priest" of the psychedelic movement, has written: "a final comment about the disciplined yoga of psychedelic drugs. They are not shortcuts: they do not simplify. They answer no questions; they solve no problems." What value they can have, then, aside from the pleasure-giving potency present in such other narcotics as tobacco and alcohol, must come into question. On the other hand, the standard system of devotional service is the shortest and simplest method for reaching God. It does answer all questions and solve all problems. Ecstasy And The Law Legislation will never be successful in stopping people from using drugs, because there is a basic human need for pleasure. The pleasure derived from drugs, quite apparently, is greater than most people's fear of the law. Whether people are running to or from reality is not important for the law to consider. The important thing is that people are looking for pleasure. Whether it be through beer, pot, coffee, LSD, baseball or television, the basic need is the same. To condemn one form of intoxication and not another is mere hypocrisy. Millions of dollars are spent every year to induce people to drink liquor and smoke cigarettes, while millions are spent elsewhere to stop people from using psychedelics. Both pursuits could well be abandoned for the general benefit of mankind. With the insight which transcendental devotional service to God provides, it is possible to create a far wiser and more effective system of law than now exists -- one which could actually solve (imagine it!) the problems of our day. Such laws should be designed to curb the desire within the people for using drugs, rather than simply to repress and prohibit their actions. Instead of legislating negatively, there should be positive legislation to encourage the propagation of Krishna or God consciousness. Krishna Consciousness, devotional service, burns out the desire to use any kind of drug because it provides everyone with the natural and unbounded ecstasy of love of God. Everything and anything that falls short of this endeavor may be found lumped together in the teachings of the Vedas under a single heading: ignorance.