DISTRACTION - MAYA'S POTENCY

(jaya) sri-krsna-caitanya prabhu nityananda

sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrnda

     I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of my spiritual masters.

     The worst thing a devotee can do is to offend another devotee…immediately fallout of good grace. And by finding fault with a devotee that eventually spreads to finding fault with the spiritual master and that is not a good place to be!…find fault with the spiritual master. And it starts with finding fault with the devotees.

     It’s not an easy one and it's something that pretty much everyone has to deal with to one degree or another. Just don't like somebody and they're right there where you are. And you just don't like them. The sound of their voice, things they say, everything. It just irritates and distracts and …forget Krishna.

     And then you start to obsess on this distraction. You become trapped by it. You forget Krishna. That spreads to the spiritual master…start to find fault with spiritual master also. And then that person's position is... without that connection with a representative of the Lord…just cut loose and floating around until they can make another connection at some point either with that person that spiritual master or Krishna will send somebody else.

     So it's not any easy one....(laughter)… but it is a big one for devotional life… very, very stubborn about these things. It's a bad habit actually, just a bad habit... find fault with somebody, very bad habit.

     So we’ll work on it. It’s not going to be overnight. ...(laughter)…It's a gradual process of cutting back. To be able to identify it, you're well on your way to uprooting it. So the identification is going on – the process of identifying the problem. The problem is distraction... allowing myself to be distracted and to focus on something, someone, other than Krishna.

     Now if you have a spiritual master you have to be able to put full faith in that person... that they are your connection with God. You have to be able to put full faith there. If you can't put full faith there move on. So it's a little bit of a test right now... whether I can put full faith in this spiritual master or have I gone as far as I can go with this person and maybe there's someone else that I can put full faith in.

It's a good one.

     For now just let me read from the Bhagavatam.

     All glories to Srila Prabhupada.