Even father will be enemy, what to speak of others. If you become Krsna conscious, the whole world will be your enemy. You must be prepared for that. So therefore you require tapasya. Tapasya means voluntarily agree to suffer

Expressions researched:
"Even father will be enemy, what to speak of others. If you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, the whole world will be your enemy. You must be prepared for that" |"So therefore you require tapasya. Tapasya. Tapasya means voluntarily agree to suffer"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Even father will be enemy, what to speak of others. If you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, the whole world will be your enemy. You must be prepared for that. So therefore you require tapasya. Tapasya means voluntarily agree to suffer. That is called tapasya. Voluntarily. Suffering is there, but why not suffer for Kṛṣṇa?

Lecture on BG 4.10 -- Vrndavana, August 2, 1974:

Prahlāda Mahārāja was being chastised by his father, five years old, but he did not know how to protest. He was suffering and chanting, "Hare Kṛṣṇa," "Nārāyaṇa." What can be done? What can be done? He was completely dependent on his father. And father had no mercy. The only fault was he, Kṛṣṇa . . . turned Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is the fault. And he was being punished. He was punished, punished. This is the world. Even father will be enemy, what to speak of others. If you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, the whole world will be your enemy. You must be prepared for that.

So therefore you require tapasya. Tapasya. Tapasya means voluntarily agree to suffer. That is called tapasya. Voluntarily. Suffering is there, but why not suffer for Kṛṣṇa? Everyone is unhappy. Everyone is in suffering condition. Who is not suffering? Everyone is suffering. Tri-tāpa-yatana. Adhyātmika, adhibhautika, adhidaivika. Three kinds of sufferings are always going on. Why you are running fan? Because suffering; there is heat. So where is no suffering? This is called adhidaivika, the scorching heat, scorching, I mean, severe cold. There must be always. We are suffering now due to scorching heat, and when the . . . we are thinking, "If it is become cooler . . ." And when it is cool, then also we suffering. Then we think, "If there is some heat." When there is winter, we are hankering after heat, and when there is summer, we are hankering after cooling.

So this is going on. We cannot be happy. First of all we must know that. There is no question of happiness here. We are simply hankering, "If it would have been very nicely cool." And when it is cool, then you'll think, "If it had been nicely hot . . ." The same thing. Carvita-carvaṇānām. Carvita-carvaṇānām means chewing the chewed. We have tasted heat and cold both, but we are desiring, "If it would have been like this, if it had been like that, if it . . ." But never come to the conclusion that either heat or cool, we have to suffer. Mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya. That is explained by Kṛṣṇa. So long you have got this, this material skin, then this heat and cold you'll have to suffer. Mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ (BG 2.14). The śīta, the summer, the winter, or the summer season, neither of them are sources of happiness. But you are thinking like that. "If it would have been like this, if it would have been like this."

Therefore kāṅkṣa, akāṅkṣa. So if you become transcendentally situated, brahma-bhūta, there will be no more akāṅkṣa. There will be no more hankering either for this or that, because he knows . . . that is called jñāna. So after jñāna . . . that is required. Jñāna, in the human form of life, this knowledge is required. The animals cannot have jñāna. The human beings can have jñāna. This is knowledge that, "So long I'll possess this material body, I'll have to suffer. I'll have to suffer." Unless you come to this conclusion, there is no progress. If we remain attached to these bodily pains and pleasure . . . of course, nobody wants pains, but for pleasure you take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Of course, gradually you'll come to knowledge.

That is not our aim. Our aim is that the pains and pleasure, so-called pleasure—actually pain—this will continue so long we have got this body. Therefore we have to practice tapasya, penance. Simple thing, no illicit sex, no meat-eating, no gambling, no intoxication. This is tapasya, voluntarily accepting . . . those who are practiced to all these bad habits, so they will feel some pain, but you accept that pain. Then this pain will be over, this material pain. Just like sometimes for curing some disease the doctor says that injection or surgical operation. That is painful, but to cure the disease we should accept that thing. Similarly, if you want to become free from this material body, then you should accept, accept this pain. This is not pain; it is simply imagination. Actually, it is pleasure.