Maya like an intrusive train passenger

Thursday 26/04/07

Notes from Ramanuja prabhu’s class: “Prabhupada said maya is just like the smiling Indian passenger on the third class train. The train is already packed and you are one of seven passengers sitting on a bench of five seats. Then a smiling Indian man comes to you and simply by his glance one can understand he is asking for you to move up so he can sit down. At the beginning, you are determined not to let anyone else sit, because there is no more space. But he keeps smiling, and you feel compassion, especially when there are passengers hanging outside the door and sitting in the toilets. So you budge up slightly to let him sit in a tiny corner of the bench. Before you know it he invites his whole family to sit with him, and soon you are without a seat! In the same way, we allow maya to creep in a little bit by our carelessness and before we know it, maya takes over our mind, and we fall down from spiritual life.”

11am – SB Reading notes (3.30.25 purport): “In the last great war, people in concentration camps sometimes ate their own stool, so there is no wonder that in the abode of Yamaraja, one who had a very enjoyable life eating others’ flesh has to eat his own flesh.”

Friday 27/04/07

Shrimad Bhagavatam Reading notes (3.30.28 purport): “In the Vedic civilization sex life is allowed only in a restricted way; it is for the married couple and only for begetting children. But when sex life is indulges in for sense gratification illegally and illicitly, both the man and the woman await severe punishment in this world or after death. In this world also they are punished by virulent diseases like syphilis and gonorrhea, and in the next life, as we see in this passage, they are put into different kinds of hellish conditions to suffer. In Bhagavad-gita, Chapter 1, illicit sex life is also very much condemned and it is said that one who produces children by illicit sex life is sent to hell.”