THE PRABHUPADA CONNECTION
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Physician, Heal Thyself
(Srila Prabhupada preaching at Conway Hall, London, 1969)

"So this injunction is received, as Caitanya Mahāprabhu says that, 'First of all make your life perfect. Don't try to preach without becoming yourself perfect.' The nonsense thing is going on in this world that so-called preachers, they have not perfected their life, but they have become preacher. They have not already perfected their life, and they have become preacher. Therefore they are bringing so many nonsense thing and misleading persons, Vedāntists and Vedānta Society, yogīs, this or that. But they are not themselves perfect.
So Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that, 'Before becoming preacher, before endeavoring yourself to do good to others, you just perfect yourself.' 'Physician, heal thyself.' Physician, you are yourself diseased. How you can become a physician? People will, at once, will be detracted: 'Oh, this doctor, this medical man, he's suffering from fever, and he's treating my fever.' So there will be no, I mean to say, effect.

So Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, or His spiritual master says that, kṛṣṇa-nāma upadeśi' tāra' sarva-jana (CC Adi 7.92): 'First of all You have perfected Yourself by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. You have come to the perfectional stage. Now You have got the symptoms of emotion. Now You can preach Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.' Yes.

    eta bali' eka śloka śikhāila more
    bhāgavatera sāra ei-bale vāre vāre
    (CC Adi 7.93)

Now Caitanya Mahāprabhu says that 'My spiritual master, after instructing Me in this way, he has taught Me one very nice verse from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata.' What is that?

    evaṁ vrataḥ sva-priya-nāma-kīrtyā
    jātānurāgo druta-citta uccaiḥ
    hasaty atho roditi rauti gāyaty
    unmādavan nṛtyati loka-bāhyaḥ
    (CC Adi 7.94)

When one becomes actually devoted to Kṛṣṇa consciousness and takes pleasure by chanting his object of love, druta-citta uccaiḥ, his mind becomes perturbed by such chanting. And then hasaty, hasaty, he laughs; atho roditi, sometime cries, roditi; and rauti, and, by seeing him, others also cry; roditi, rauti; gāyati, and chants very loudly; unmādavan nṛtyati, and dances like a madman, nṛtyati; loka-bāhyaḥ, and he doesn't care that 'Somebody is looking upon me just like I am madman.' He doesn't care for them. This is the perfectional stage of chanting.

    ei tāṅra vākye āmi dṛḍha viśvāsa dhari'
    nirantara kṛṣṇa-nāma saṅkīrtana kari
    (CC Adi 7.95)

Now Caitanya Mahāprabhu concludes... because you might always remember that He is speaking to Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī. So He said that 'With full faith in the words of My spiritual master, I chant this Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, and I have no other business.' Nirantara kari. Because He was... he raised the question of Vedānta, studying Vedānta, so He is answering,

'This is My position. I am just following the instruction of My spiritual master. In the beginning, he taught Me like this. He instructed Me like this. Then I followed. I have developed these symptoms. Then again I approached My spiritual master. He confirmed the same thing. Therefore My business is to follow his instruction, and therefore I am always chanting and dancing.' "

(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, San Francisco, February 10, 1966)

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