We have been taught by our Guru Maharaja, twenty-four hours engagement with Krsna. So maya has no scope to enter in our mind. She always remains aloof: "Oh, here is fire. I cannot touch"

Expressions researched:
"Oh, here is fire. I cannot touch" |"we have been taught by our Guru Mahārāja, twenty-four hours' engagement with Kṛṣṇa. So māyā has no scope to enter in our mind. She always remains aloof"

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

That we have been taught by our Guru Mahārāja, twenty-four hours engagement with Kṛṣṇa. So māyā has no scope to enter in our mind. She always remains aloof: "Oh, here is fire. I cannot touch."

Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 13, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:

Prabhupāda: What is called, lunatic, compact in thought. (chuckles) So Kṛṣṇa lover is also another kind of lunatic or poet. You see?

Allen Ginsberg: Except that it would mean concentrating all my consciousness on the one single image of Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Not image.

Allen Ginsberg: Or the one single thought or name or feeling or awareness.

Prabhupāda: That we have got varieties of duties. Just like we are. You have seen all these boys. They are always engaged. Always engaged. Similarly, everywhere they are always engaged in Kṛṣṇa. We want extra time to work for Kṛṣṇa. The twenty-four hours is not sufficient for us. Yes. Then we shall see that we are sleeping, wasting time. Gosvāmīs, they used to sleep for one half-hour only. That also sometimes forgot.

Allen Ginsberg: To dream.

Prabhupāda: No. They were always engaged. Volumes of books they have written. When there is no writing—chanting, dancing, talking, and like that; engaged in Kṛṣṇa always. That we have been taught by our Guru Mahārāja, twenty-four hours' engagement with Kṛṣṇa. So māyā has no scope to enter in our mind. She always remains aloof: "Oh, here is fire. I cannot touch." Bhakti mukulitāñ . . . Bhaktis tvayi sthiratarā yadi bhagavan syād daivena phalati divya-kiśora-mūrtiḥ, muktir mukulitāñjaliḥ sevate 'smān (Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta 107).

Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura, a great devotee, he executed devotional service for seven hundred years. He lived for seven hundred years in Vṛndāvana. That picture you have seen, Sūradāsa? Yes.

Allen Ginsberg: Sūradāsa, the poet.

Prabhupāda: Yes. He is known as Sūradāsa.

Allen Ginsberg: Teacher of Tulasī Dāsa, or student of Tulasī Dāsa.

Prabhupāda: He may be different. But Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura, he was also blind. He made himself blind. You know the story of Bilvamaṅgala?