Whether you are making progress in Krsna consciousness you have to test yourself, whether you are decreasing your material desires. That's all

Expressions researched:
"Whether you are making progress in Kṛṣṇa consciousness you have to test yourself, whether you are decreasing your material desires. That's all"

Lectures

Initiation Lectures

Whether you are making progress in Kṛṣṇa consciousness you have to test yourself, whether you are decreasing your material desires. That's all. Because in the perfect stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness there is no more material desires.

690110 - Lecture Initiation - Los Angeles:

If by chanting you see that your love for Kṛṣṇa is increasing and your love for matter and material enjoyment is decreasing, then you must know that you are progressing. If, by the result of chanting, you are increasing your material hankering, that is not progress. Then that is an offense. One should know that, "Now I am chanting with offense. I have to rectify it." You have to test whether you are increasing your love of God, Kṛṣṇa. Then you should know that you are in progress.

Two things cannot go. Just like hunger and eating cannot go together. If you are actually eating, then hunger must be subsided, if you are actually eating. Similarly, if you are actually making spiritual progress, then the result will be that your material hankering will decrease, not that you are being cured, and the temperature is increasing. No. If you are actually being cured, the temperature must decrease.

If you are in feverish condition, you are taking medicine, then the fever must decrease. This material hankering is a kind of disease. It is never satisfied. But people are hankering more, more, more, more, more . . . that means temperature is increasing. And when the temperature is 107 degree, finish life. That's all.

So this material civilization has come to the degree of atomic heat, you see. Now everyone has got this atomic energy, and it is going to be finished. So that kind of advancement is not needed. Actually bhaktiḥ pareśānubhavo viraktir anyatra syāt (SB 11.2.42). The test . . .

Whether you are making progress in Kṛṣṇa consciousness you have to test yourself, whether you are decreasing your material desires. That's all. Because in the perfect stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness there is no more material desires. Svāmin kṛtārtho 'smi varaṁ na yāce (CC Madhya 22.42):

"I have no more any demand. I am fully satisfied." Kṛṣṇa-bhakta niṣkāma ataeva śānta (CC Madhya 19.149).

If you want śānti, peacefulness, then you have to become completely Kṛṣṇa conscious—kṛṣṇa-bhakta niṣkāma—because he has no more demand.

And bhukti-mukti-siddhi-kāmī sakali aśānta. And those who are karmīs, trying to elevate material position, they are all disturbed. And mukti, those who are hankering after liberation, he is also disturbed. And siddhi, those who are yogīs hankering after some material perfection, mystic perfection, he is also disturbed. He is simply thinking, "How I shall be so light that I can fly in the sky." Yes. What you are? There are . . . so many flies are flying in the sky. (laughter) What you gain by that? But the nonsense will see, "Oh, I am now, from the ground I am now three feet high." Three feet high? A small bird is a hundred feet high. What is that?

These are all nonsense. Don't be after all this nonsense. Bhukti-mukti-siddhi-kāmī. Bhukti means these ordinary worker, whole day working like ass, taking a morsel of food or no food even, but working hard. Always motorcar is going this way, that way, that way, that way, and that way, that way . . . they are karmīs. And those who are disgusted with karma—"Now I shall meditate. I shall become God." You see? The same disease, aśānti. And siddhi-kāmī, mystic power: "I shall be light. I shall be great. Whatever I shall want, immediately . . ." The yogīs can do that.