(Srila Prabhupada preaching at Conway Hall, London, 1969)
"Śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam, this is our main business. Śravaṇam. If you don't hear, what you will do? You will do simply sense gratification. That's all. So this is difficulty, that we are not very much interested in hearing. And that is the main business. Our bhakti begins: śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ (SB 7.5.23). We have to hear and we have to speak. But if we are not interested in hearing and speak, then it will be the same… simply formula. That's all. And gradually it will be stopped. Unless there is life of śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam, these big, big building, temples, will become burden. So if we are..., if we want to create burden for future, then we may give up this hearing and chanting and sleep very nicely. It will be burden. Galagraha. Not śrī-vigraha, but galagraha. Galagraha. Śrī-vigraha means worshipable Deity. So if we give up this śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ, then it will be thought that 'Our Guru Mahārāja has given a burden in the neck, galagraha.' This is the danger. So we must be very much alert in śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam. Otherwise, all this labor will be futile. This building will be only the nest, nest for the doves and the pigeons. That is the danger. That is being done. Nobody is interested. Such, such things...
Now, who is..., who can understand Kṛṣṇa? There are so many impediments. One side, there is curtain of māyā; another side, everyone is a rascal and fool; and another side, Kṛṣṇa is beyond your sense perception. This is the position. How much one must be alert. Then one can understand. Just like the Gosvāmīs. Is Kṛṣṇa so easy thing to be understood? But there is process. So if we do not adopt the process, then how we can understand Kṛṣṇa? These are so many difficult things. One side, one thing is the māyā is checking. Māyā is trying to put stumbling block for your advancement of spiritual life. Māyā-javanikācchannam. And the other side, we are all fools and rascals. And the, again, Kṛṣṇa is adhokṣaja, beyond the range of sense perception. This is the position. So unless we become very serious to understand Kṛṣṇa, it is very, very difficult to understand Kṛṣṇa."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, Mayapur, September 29, 1974)
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