Don’t Make a Joint Mess of our ISKCON Temples!

If you make a joint mess, if you go and collect something and then eat and sleep, then everything will be… Therefore I do not want to keep separate. The temple worship means there will be regulative principles, that you will have to rise early in the morning, you have to attend class, kīrtana… These things, as soon as you give up all these things—zero. Then it will be like karmīs, as they are, hard labor, collecting money and enjoying senses. That’s all.

So that is the pitfall everywhere. In the church, temple, as soon as they get some nice income, then in the name of “priest,” “sādhu,” “sannyāsī,” they do the same thing. Therefore Gosvāmīs, they left everything. That is the danger of viṣaya, viṣaya touch. Viṣaya chāḍiyā se rase majiyā (Śrī Śrī Gaura-Nityānander Dayā 2). As soon as we give up this śravaṇam-kīrtanam, then it becomes viṣaya. Viṣaya means materialism. There is no spiritualism. Kṣurasya dhārā. Kṣurasya dhārā. Kṣura means sharpened razor. If you are careful, you cleanse very nicely. If you are not careful, immediately blood. Immediately.

So the spiritual life is like that. As soon as you become little inattentive, immediately māyā captures, “Yes, come on.” Then everything failure. We have got the tendency to enjoy sense. So senses are strong. As soon as there is opportunity, the senses will take advantage immediately. Then your whole business finished, Choṭa Haridāsa, and rejected by Mahāprabhu, “Get out.” Even associate of Caitanya Mahāprabhu failed, personal associate. So there is chance of falling down even from the personal association of God. Jaya-Vijaya, they had to become demons.

So these are the… If we do not follow strictly our regulative principles, routine work, then the whole scheme will be failure. Then, instead of Christianity it will be “churchianity.” You know this word “churchianity”? You know? Yes. Everywhere this churchianity is going on. And the real aim is how to enjoy sense, under different cover. That is going on all over the world. Therefore it has come to that Rajneesh. Ramakrishna Mission, Rajneesh Mission. Vivekananda has given, preached, “Yes. Yata mata tata patha”; Rajneesh also, a mata. They have got also followers. Everyone can manufacture his own way of religion.

So sense enjoyment, there is free field. This material world means sense enjoyment. But spiritual life means no sense enjoyment. Tapasya. Tapo divyam. Sense enjoyment is there even in the hogs. Then where is the difference between man and hog? The man means the more he has denied sense enjoyment, he is advanced. Otherwise the spirit of sense enjoyment there is in the hogs. That is the difference. Nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye (SB 5.5.1). These ordinary men, they are working so hard, but what is their aim? The aim is sense enjoyment. So keeping the point, sense enjoyment, in view, there is no difference between hogs and human being. Because they are also working day and night, hogs.

A particular animal has been mentioned in the śāstra. Nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke. This ayaṁ deho nṛloke, in the human society, is not meant for working so hard simply for sense enjoyment, because this spirit is visible even in the hogs. Then what it is meant…? Tapaḥ. Tapasā brahmacaryeṇa (SB 6.1.13). That is the point. Śamena, damena, satya-śaucābhyām. Everything is there. And there are different types of sense enjoyment: rūpa, rasa, gandha, śabda, sparśa, six kinds. And each sense, there is an object of sense enjoyment. There is eyes, “Oh, beautiful woman,” sense enjoyment. Maithunam, sex life, there are eight kinds of sex. If one thinks within the mind about sex enjoyment, that is also sex.

So anyway, that is the danger, keeping a separate department for money collecting. Then it will turn: “Collect money, eat nicely and sleep nicely.” And to live in the temple, at least one is forced to rise early in the morning, take bath, to have darśana. They’ll get regulated life. Therefore this temple worship is needed, because we are so impure. So at least, in temple, by following the regulative principles, we can keep ourself pure. Otherwise, simply chanting is sufficient. There is no need of constructing big, big temple. But we are so impure… That is Jīva Gosvāmī’s recommendation, that as soon as we give up this temple worship method, regulative principle, then we become, in the dress of so-called, we become victim of māyā. Veśopajīvaka. They are working and doing some business, and then our dress will be a means of business. This will be also another material business.