I am servant of somebody. If he does not pay me salary, I give up his service. I am friend of somebody. If my intention is not fulfilled, then I give up that friendship. My love with a boy or with a girl is there, but as soon as there is some discrepancy, there is divorce. So here everything is perverted and with so many faulty ideas. But this, this very thing is there in the kingdom of God, in relationship with God, Kṛṣṇa. And there everything is eternal. By becoming servant of God, you'll eternally enjoy, same as master. By becoming a friend of God, you enjoy eternal friendship. By becoming father or mother of God, you enjoy the parental affection between father and son. And by becoming lover of God, you become eternally happy.
So unless you hear about these things, then how you can be intensified to go to God? Just like when I hear about some country, that "This country is like this, and there is such-and-such happiness and such-and-such enjoyment," then we think of making a tourist list to go there. Therefore to go back to home, back to Godhead, unless we hear about Him, how we can be inclined? Therefore God comes, Kṛṣṇa comes. He manifests His pastimes in Vṛndāvana, how He's dealing with friends, how dealing with servant, mother, father, lover, so that we may be inclined to go back to home, back to Godhead. This is God's mercy. Therefore executing religious principle means the result must be to develop our propensity to hear about God. Notpādayed ratim.
This rati, rati means just like rati is called sexual appetite. The Gosvāmīs, they have described rati, how rati is explained, (indistinct Sanskrit). Just like young boy and young girl, they meet together. Immediately their sex impulse become agitated. It hasn't got to be taught them. Naturally. Naturally, he wants to talk or she wants to talk. So this is called rati, spontaneous attraction. This is called . . . it has not to be taught; spontaneous. So as soon as there is spontaneous attraction to hear about God, that will mean that we are attaining perfection in religion. So if you are going on as a hackneyed program to the church, to the temple or to the mosque, but there is no spontaneous attraction for hearing about God, then it is simply labor, simply waste of time. That's all. That is explained here:
- dharmaḥ svanuṣṭhitaḥ puṁsāṁ
- viṣvaksena-kathāsu yaḥ
- notpādayed ratiṁ yadi
- śrama eva hi kevalam
- (SB 1.2.8)
So to come to this platform of spontaneous attraction, you have to execute some other formulas. What is that? That as you are coming here with some faith, śraddhā, or respect, "Here is a temple," so you should come. You should come regularly. Why? Ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅga (CC Madhya 22.83). If you come regularly, then these boys and girls who are engaged in the worship of Kṛṣṇa, or who are developing the life of devotee, practicing under the direction of their spiritual master, they are called sādhu. Sādhu means those who are acting very pious.
So those who are acting for Kṛṣṇa, they're automatically pious, because God is pure, and those who are acting for God, they're pious. Each and every activities in this temple are pious activities. Therefore they are pious. Ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅga. And as soon as you associate with the pious devotees, naturally there will be inclination to act like them: "Why not act like them?" Actually that is happening. They are dressing like this or they're keeping their body like this. They're chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra in the bag. They're worshiping. They're reading. Why not become like them?
So ādau śraddhā, first with respectful tendency to come in this center, then to make association with them. And then next stage is to become like them. Then he approaches the spiritual master, "Kindly initiate me," bhajana-kriyā. And as soon as you take to this bhajana-kriyā, to devotional service, anartha-nivṛttiḥ syāt. Anartha, some unwanted things which you have practiced. What is that? Illicit sex. Or if you want sex, why don't you marry and live respectfully, husband and wife? Why illicit sex? This is unwanted. But we are practiced.