
Becoming Krishna conscious.
Srila Prabhupada thoroughly explains the simple technique of becoming KC. This is so relevant for all householders:
āSo our life should be so formed that in our every activity there will be God consciousness. That is the technique of yoga-sthaįø„. You havenāt got to separately being seated in meditation as yoga, generally as we understand. Now, how much you can devote your time to meditation? Suppose one hour in the morning or one hour in the evening you can devote. But if you mold your life in such a way that always, twenty-four hours, you are in meditation, that is the platform of yoga-sthaįø„ kuru karmÄį¹i. I am earning for the Supreme Lord. Then, when I earn, I bring things for cooking, I am thinking, “Oh, this thing will be cooked for Lord.ā Now, your wife cooks, and she is also very clean because it is being cooked for Lord Kį¹į¹£į¹a. You see? Now, as far as I am concerned here, I also cook myself my food and offer to Kį¹į¹£į¹a, and therefore I ask my friends that unless it is offered to Kį¹į¹£į¹a, you please do not take it. You see? Sometimes I see that in your country, while cooking, they taste. They taste. But I request them that donāt taste before the cooking is finished. After cooking is finished and when it is offered to the Deity, then you take as much as you like, as much as you like. So that means there is God consciousness, that āThis thing is being cooked for the Lord.ā The cooking will go on. If you donāt think of God, you require cooking because you want to eat. The cooking is there in the program. But if you think that this cooking is done for God, then your God consciousness is there. The cooking you cannot avoid. As a householder you have to cook for yourself, you have to cook for your children, you have to cook for somebody else or for your own self. Just like I am cooking. I have no here family or children, but I am cooking for myself. So cooking you cannot stop. But if you cook with the understanding that āThis foodstuff is being cooked for the Lord. The Lord may be offered first; then we shall take,ā this is God consciousness. This is God consciousness. But is it very difficult thing? Anyone can accept this. Anyone can do it. It is not⦠Because your cooking business is not stopped. Simply the mode of thinking has to be changed. Thatās all. A small technique, that āI am earning for God. I am cooking for God. I am eating also for God. I am eating also for God.ā How is that eating you areā¦? āNow, because my body is dedicated to the service of the Lord, if I donāt eat sufficiently to keep my body fit, then how can I work?ā So your eating is also God consciousness. Your sleeping is also God consciousness. So that is the way. We have to mold our lifeās activities. Now, when I think that āI have to keep this body fit for working for God,ā so then that is not, I mean to⦠That is not bodily conception of life. Just like when you think that āMy car has to be kept very nicely so that I can take nice work for it,ā then you are not identified with your car; you simply want to take some service of the car. Similarly, if you think that āThis body is required for acting, for working on behalf of the Supreme Lord; therefore I must keep the body fit to work,ā so that is not your identification with the body. But if I use this body for sense gratification and therefore I make my body stout and strong to enjoy sense enjoyment, that is the cause of my bondage.ā
Lecture given on Bg 2.48-49; April 1st 1966
