Devotee: How does the devotee go about practicing this Kṛṣṇa consciousness when he's asleep?
Prabhupāda: Yes, Sleep means your gross senses are stopped, but your mind works. Therefore you dream. So if you practice your mind to be engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, in dream also you'll see that you are preparing prasādam. "I am going to sell Back to Godhead." (chuckles) That's all. Sometimes some nights when I feel hungry, I dream that I'm eating Kṛṣṇa prasādam very sumptuous. (laughing)
Devotee: Oh, haribol! (laughing)
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Somebody is supplying me nice paraṭā and I am eating. (laughs) But, being hungry, oh, my hunger is not satisfied. I'm eating, eating, till the dream is end. So if you practice, this is the technique. We have to practice in this way, that when all functions of this body will be stopped at the time of death, oh, we shall remember some way or other, Kṛṣṇa. Then successful. Immediately successful. That is the technique. Therefore Kulaśekhara is praying,
- kṛṣṇa tvadīya-pada-paṅkaja-pañjarāntam
- adyaiva viśatu me mānasa-rāja-haṁsaḥ
- prāṇa-prayāṇa-samaye kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ
- kaṇṭhāvarodhana-vidhau smaraṇaṁ kutas te
- (MM 33)
The devotee, a great devotee, King Kulaśekhara. He has a nice book, Mukunda-mālā-stotra. I began translating, commenting, this line in Vṛndāvana. So the first verse is he's comparing his mind with the swan. I think you have seen, Jayānanda, when we were walking in Seattle in that park, in a lake the swan were diving near the lotus. You have seen? Yes. That is the practice. The swan takes pleasure where there is, I mean to say, what is called, lotus or lily, lilies. There's a stem. They dive and they entangle their long neck with the... That is their sporting. So Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet, we call, lotus feet. So he says that "My mind may be entangled with the stem of Your lotus feet just like the swan. Immediately. I can do that now because I am in healthy state. Otherwise at the time of death, kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ, when mucus, bile, everything will be disordered, and my throat will be choked up, I will not be able to speak or chant. So why shall I wait for that time? Now I am fit. Let my mind be absorbed with Your thought and let me die." That is the technique. That our mind should be always absorbed in Kṛṣṇa thought. So if by Kṛṣṇa's grace, at the time of that last moment of quitting this body, when every function of the body will be disordered we can remember Kṛṣṇa, then our life is successful. So we have to practice this. This, everything, whatever we are doing, it is practicing for the last moment. There is a Bengali proverb, bhajana kara sādhana kara matte janle haya.(?) How you are advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that will be tested at the time of your death. The examination will be at that time. So if that technique becomes perfect, then our life is perfect. At once you are transferred to the Kṛṣṇaloka.