“What is the proof that we are doubting? We are inattentive in our chanting. If we actually believe that Krishna is there in His holy names, would we be inattentive?”

-Bir Krishna das Goswami

(from a lecture “Doubts” - Suva, Sept.30, 2009)

“One who is on the platform of the mind sometimes exhibits good qualities and sometimes exhibits bad qualities. You can not predict how he is going to act. That is the difference between someone who is firmly fixed in bhajana kriya and one who is not fixed in bhajana kriya. One who is not firmly fixed is unpredictable - sometimes he is going to be in a bad mood and sometimes he is going to be in a good mood, sometimes he is going to wake up on the wrong side of the bed and sometimes he is going to wake up on the right side of the bed. If one is actually fixed on the platform of bhajana kriya, he is steady. Because, even if he feels like being a monster some morning, he at least acts properly. He does not always act the way he feels, he acts the way he knows he should act.”

-Bir Krishna das Goswami

(from a lecture on Srimad Bhagvatam 3.7.41, Helsinki, July 11, 2005)

Who is that Girl with Krishna? 

When people see a picture like the one you see here, they often ask, “Who is that girl with Krishna?” The answer is that She is Srimati Radharani, Krishna’s pleasure potency. The devotees of the Krishna consciousness movement humbly try to glorify Srimati Radharani because by her mercy one can advance wonderfully in Krishna consciousness.

What is the Pleasure Potency

Everyone naturally wants to enjoy, yet no one is fully independent in finding enjoyment. To satisfy our desires, we need the association of others. We use the expression “to enjoy oneself,” but we enjoy ourselves most in good company. Indeed, most people would find prolonged solitude practically unbearable.

Krishna, however, the Supreme Lord, being the source of everything, is fully independent. He is independent in His existence, His knowledge and His pleasure, for everything rests upon Him, as pearls are strung on a thread.

Krishna, therefore, needs no one. Since in one sense He is everything, no one exists outside of Him. Consequently, when Krishna wants to enjoy, He expands the potency or energy within Himself that gives him enjoyment. This potency is a person. Her name is Srimati Radharani.

Radharani is not a different person from Krishna, or, rather, she is both one with and different from Him. How could two people be one person or one person be two? A simple example will illustrate how this is so. The sun cannot exist without the sunshine, nor the sunshine without the sun. We say, “the sun is in my room”—even though the sun itself is ninety-three million miles away—because the sun appears in the form of its energy. Therefore the energy (the sunshine) and the energetic (the sun) are simultaneously one and different. Similarly, Radha and Krishna are simultaneously one and different. Krishna, the self-effulgent Lord, is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and Srimati Radharani is His supreme pleasure energy. Together They constitute the complete Absolute Truth.

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“If you want to become equal, you have to be detached. If you are attached to this world for the satisfaction of the senses, for the satisfaction of the mind, you can not be equal. You will always have friends and enemies. How to become detached? The way to become detached is by having a life that is separate from this external life and that is the internal life in Krishna consciousness. By chanting… of course there are different stages of this internal life. Ultimately it means to perceive the pastimes of the Supreme Lord, to take part in Krishna’s pastimes internally… if we develop that internal life, then the external things will not not bother us.”

-Bir Krishna das Goswami

(From a lecture, New Zealand, April 8th, 2012)

“If one wants to remain steady in Krishna consciousness, he has to be situated properly according to his psychophysical nature. Like the elephant - he was not situated properly in the water and therefore he was weak. He was not able to fight properly. The crocodile was situated properly in the water, therefore he was strong. In the same way we also have to fight illusion or maya. In order to do that year after year after year we have to be situated in a proper varna and asrama.”

-Bir Krishna das Goswami

(From the lecture on Gajendra Moksana, Serbia, Sept. 2003)

"The most painful thing, more painful than having the knife stuck in your heart, is to have someone who you may love or care for or be concerned about and they just say something really heavy, like, “I hate you!” One really has to see Krishna behind that. In this world friends will become enemies and enemies will become friends and if you are really just trying to exploit the relationship by enjoying the other person, you are going to get very disturbed." -

Bir Krishna das Goswami

(From a lecture, SB 5.5.30, April 2, 2012, Suva, Fiji) 

At my Harinama initiation… I am looking away from the fire sacrifice, and taking darshan of the sweet, merciful gaze Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Golokananda.