So Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to place before you our views on saṅkīrtana movement all over the world.
This saṅkīrtana movement, don't take it as a religious movement. As you generally understand in the Western country, the word religion is used as "a kind of faith." Faith you can change. Today you are Christian; tomorrow you can become Hindu. But religion cannot be changed. What we mean by the exact word, Sanskrit word, corresponding to religion is dharma, d-h-a-r-m-a.
That dharma is different thing from the word religion. Religion is generally understood as a kind of faith, but dharma is not like that. Dharma you cannot change. Just like water. Water is liquid. You cannot make it solid. If water becomes solid, then it is not in the natural state. If you can . . . you can say the water becomes sometimes solid by less temperature under certain condition. But the tendency of water is to become liquid again. Water cannot stand solid for good.
This is called dharma, religion. Or, say, take it for example, a stone. Stone is solid. Stone cannot be liquid. If by chemical process you make stone liquid sometimes, as you transform stone to glass, that liquidness of stone is temporary. Similarly, the solidity of water is also temporary.
So similarly, our religion, the dharma . . . try to understand the word dharma. Dharma is a permanent occupation of a certain thing. Just like sugar. Sugar is sweet. You cannot make sugar as salty. Or pepper is pungent, hot. You cannot make it sweet. So try to understand the word dharma, that it cannot be changed.
Similarly, we living entities, we have got a dharma, or religion. That we cannot change. What is that? A living entity is servant. We are all living entities, but we are all servants at the same time. Is anyone here who can say that, "I am not servant of anyone"? No. That is not possible. Everyone is servant. Everyone is servant. That is the definition given by Lord Caitanya, jīvera svarūpa haya nitya kṛṣṇa dāsa (Cc. Madhya 20.108-109): "A living entity is eternally servant of God." That cannot be changed.