nāhaṁ vasāmi vaikuṇṭhe
na yogi-hṛdaye ravau
mad-bhaktā yatra gāyanti
tatra tiṣṭhāmi nārada
“I do not live in Vaikuṇṭha, in the hearts of the yogīs, or inside the sun. Rather, My dear Nārada, I am present wherever My devotees sing about Me.” (Padma Purāṇa, Uttara-khaṇḍa 92.21–22)
I live there where my devotees sing my glory. Singing means they sing, dance and play on musical instruments; God definitely lives there. At the evening sankirtan, 100’s of devotees dance; then God definitely lives there.
Therefore when Rādhikantji, our manager said that there was an order of the district magistrate that the Rāsa Kuñja building be broken; then I said, “It can not be broken because here arādhāna, the worship of God is performed, sin is not committed, the girls dance here. These girls are worshippers of God, they dance for Kṛṣṇa.”
Girls who dance for the world are prostitutes, a marriage party is going and the girls and boys are dancing; that dancing is materialistic, but here along with dance is contact with God. When there is a contact connection with God, then God comes. He says, mad-bhaktā yatra gāyanti tatra tiṣṭhāmi nārada; “At this present time where my devotees sing and dance, there I live don’t go away, I live there.”
60 years ago when I came to Braja then there was a saint; he was a Bengali mahatma, he was very emotional (very absorbed), when we sang everyday, in the association of devotees, he used to sit there in one place; one day in my mind the desire came that the song was finished, but every day he used to continue to sit there alone, I thought, “What is he doing?” Then I approached him, he was a gentle mahatma, and asked, “Bābā the song is finished, but why are you sitting here?” In Bengali he would reply, “You don’t know, whatever the Brajabāsīs sang here went to the sky, it is not destroyed, I am listening to this sound which is returning back.” Even up to now I am remembering this. He said that, “That the song is returning back.”
That means what the Brajabāsīs have sung has created emotions, which are immortal for a faithful person, for God is always present.
In the śloka of the Śrīmad Bhāgavat Parīkṣitji says in 2.8.4:
śṛṇvataḥ śraddhayā nityaṁ
gṛṇataś ca sva-ceṣṭitam
kālena nātidīrgheṇa
bhagavān viśate hṛdi
Persons who hear Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam regularly and are always taking the matter very seriously will have the Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa manifested in their hearts within a short time.
By faith God comes; Rupa Gosvāmī says: ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅga, a person who has no faith even while sitting in the kirtan sleeps, while sitting in the lecture sleeps, because he is not relishing. A person who is enjoying kirtan and kathā, who has some realization of some nectar, for him God will come, and God is present.
Therefore, I say there are many girls who are sick, they say, “We can not dance continuously for one hour.” Then I said, “Don’t dance, you just go there and watch the devotees, and listen to the kirtan and you will get the same fruit the dancers are attaining.”
Faith gives everything; Parīkṣit spoke this the SB 2.8.4. If you make the effort to sing and dance, not much time is required; God will definately enter your heart, because these are the words of Śrīmad Bhāgavat. And what does God do by entering the heart?
SB 2.8.5
praviṣṭaḥ karṇa-randhreṇa
svānāṁ bhāva-saroruham
dhunoti śamalaṁ kṛṣṇaḥ
salilasya yathāśarat
The sound incarnation of Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Soul [i.e. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam], enters into the heart of a self-realized devotee, sits on the lotus flower of his loving relationship, and thus cleanses the dust of material association, such as lust, anger and hankering. Thus it acts like autumnal rains upon pools of muddy water.
Through the ears God arrives, through the holes in the ears God enters the heart and entering where does He go? He just goes to the heart. In the ‘lotus of emotion,’ God enters, and slowly, slowly, God Himself removes the contamination of heart, lust, anger, greed, and delusion; God himself destroys that.
Only Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa does all this, as during the autumn period, in the four months of the rainy season, at this time the water becomes polluted and when Kārtika month arrives there is purification.
As the water is spontaneously purified by air, by sunlight, at this time, the pollution of the mind is erdicated. In the same way, the devotee regularly listens to the tale of Kṛṣṇa, every day; this does not mean for only one day or two days, and one thinks.“Now Kṛṣṇa has come to my heart, and my contamination is destroyed”; such is not the case. A faithful person listens to the tale of God regularly.
At our Maangar, thousands of people came, lived here, but had no interest in relation to satsaṅga, and went away. Why they had no interest was because they had no faith. They thought, “Yes I have already listened to these same points already; it is just being mentioned again and again.” So there has to be faith.
Gosvāmī Tulsidasji has said in the Rāmāyaṇa, Bala-khāṇḍa , doha 38:
ye shraddhe sambal fahit nahi santan kar sāth
tir kar mānas agam ati nahi santan kar sāth
Without faith you can never attain God. Only through faith is there support and association of saints, which in theory awards salvation. Weight comes in your lecture, however if there is no faith, then you cannot obtain the association of saints; a faithful person takes shelter of satsaṅga. If there is no faith then there will be no association of saints, for one may read the Rāmāyaṇa everyday, but the Rāmāyaṇa will not manifest in their lives; it is beyond them.
A person who has no interest in God, for them there is nothing, therefore Parīkṣitji said, “If someone listens to the pastimes of God and by his body acts; then very soon God enters the heart and destroys the contamination of his heart.”
This contamination originates from time immemorial. It does not belong to the present circumstances. In each species we are consumed by lust and anger; in each species there is greed, these evils do not just belong to the present time; they have been our associates since time immemorial.
It is not that presently we are just suffering from lust, but we have also passed through previous species, whether as demigod, animal, dog or female dog, or as a rat, killing and fighting for female rat or a fly absorbed in the female fly. This contamination originates since time immemorial; it does not belong to one birth. This contamination comes from infinite births, which God Himself destroys as shown in the Śrīmad Bhāgavat 2.8.4. Then in 2.8.5 there is the benefit of taking shelter of satsaṅga and listening to His kathā.
And through faithful kirtan; then your activity of faith attracts God and will help your approach the kingdom of God, back to Godhead:
SB 3.5.46
pānena te deva kathā-sudhāyāḥ
pravṛddha-bhaktyā viśadāśayā ye
vairāgya-sāraṁ pratilabhya bodhaṁ
yathāñjasānvīyur akuṇṭha-dhiṣṇyam
O Lord, persons who, because of their serious attitude, attain the stage of enlightened devotional service achieve the complete meaning of renunciation and knowledge and attain the Vaikuṇṭhaloka in the spiritual sky simply by drinking the nectar of Your topics.
When a man becomes immersed in God’s tales, there is such nectar; then if you drink this nectar you will become immortal.
With regard to this, once upon a time, I was severely chastised by my spiritual master. When I was quite new to Braja, his kathā lectures were taking place in Raman Reti, Vṛndāvana, and I went to listen to his discourses; in the morning he would go for a morning walk and I would follow him.
Once he was coming down the stairs, at that time I had the habit of reading the newspaper, and I said to him, “Just see the newspaper headlines.” My spiritual master saw this and he went away, I also followed him, but he did not speak to me. Then I understood that I have made a mistake. He was not talking to me.
Then I asked him, “Bābā are you angry? Have I made some mistake?” He said, “No mistake, first you should read newspaper, why have you come so soon? First you should read the newspaper then you should come. Why have you come here so soon?” So then I knew that I had made a blunder. Then he said, “Which world do you want to go to? What do you have to do with this materialistic world? You have to go to the kingdom of God. So stop reading and listening to materialistic things.”