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1008 Ways to Remember Srila Prabhupada
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| One day Srila Prabhupada was talking about his life as a gentleman householder in Calcutta. He described the various types of rice, eaten by different types of people, saying that the aristocratic class preferred the long-grain basmati rice and the servant-class preferred the short grained, cheaper type of rice. Basmati was new to us and Srila Prabhupada was expressing his appreciation of it. Srila Prabhupada said: "They like according to their nature", he explained, 'everyone has taste according to his nature. If you give a tiger milk he will not take. He desires blood to drink. That is his nature". Srila Prabhupada began to talk about his own experiences. When he was a householder he had a few servants, as was the custom in colonial and post-colonial India. "Because we were eating a very fine quality Basmati rice, which is long-grained and very flavorful, so I wanted to give the best rice to my servants also. I wanted to offer them the best prasadam and care, as it is said that even though one pays his servants, still one becomes indebted to them as they are rendering so much service". Accepting service is such a serious thing, he explained, as it can be very much implicating.
| | "So for some time the servants were eating this very nice Basmati rice". Then, one day, Srila Prabhupada described, one servant came to me very humbly and requested 'Sir, you are very kind and respectable and I have no complaints in your service. I am very satisfied serving here in your household but only one thing, sir, this rice which you are giving us to eat, is very difficult for us to eat. We are not accustomed. Is it possible we may have to eat that short grain variety". Srila Prabhupada burst into smiles, chuckling and shaking his head from side to side, eyebrows raised, his eyes half-closed he said; "Just see, I am giving him first class rice, but he is unable to tolerate. He desires third class rice, cheaper quality because his taste is for that. These are the modes of nature, such a subtle thing. So I gave them as they wanted". Srila Prabhupada gave such a profound explanation of the modes of nature. It takes it out of the books and into our lives. We can look around everywhere and see how people have tastes according to their modes of nature in food, music, environment, everything, and we can also see how by association with pure devotees and devotional service it changes; our tastes, our preferences become more refined and more sattvic. Srila Prabhupada also gave a cautionary statement about accepting service from others, how entangling it can be and thus how important it is to reciprocate, to give them some prasada, some Krsna conscious blessing and opportunity for that will help prevent us from becoming entangled in the karmic cycle of receiving service. Thank you, Srila Prabhupada for giving us your service so that we may become purified and our tastes will change from the desire to serve dogs to the desire to serve God. You used to comment that 'dog' was "God' spelled backward and it indicates the backward mood of the modern civilization. Rather than worshipping God, they worship and serve the dogs. Dogs are seen as the repository of the lower modes of lust, anger, and greed and unbridled senses. Dogs are the symbol of degradation. Though they themselves have the good quality of faithfulness, the problem arises when one replaces God-seva with dog-seva. Thank you, Srila Prabhupada for teaching us the difference between serving the dog and serving God and for purifying our consciousness so that our modes of nature slowly change and we develop a taste for serving Krsna. Thank you, Srila Prabhupada, we are eternally indebted to you.
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