Prabhupada 0219 - Give up This Nonsense Idea of Becoming Master
Lecture on SB 7.9.24 -- Mayapur, March 2, 1976
As a medical man, why should you make difference that 'This disease is better than that disease'? Disease is disease." Actually that is the fact. You say that "We are suffering from malaria. It is better than to suffer from syphilis." No. Disease is disease. Similarly, either Brahmā or the ant, the disease is how to become master. This is the disease. Therefore, to cure this disease, Kṛṣṇa comes to cure this disease, to say plainly, "Rascal, you are not master; you are servant. Surrender unto Me." This is the cure of disease. If one agrees that "No more," āra nāre bapa (?), "No more trying for becoming master," that is the cure of disease.
Therefore Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, as Prahlāda Mahārāja says, nija bhṛtya-pārśvam: (SB 7.9.24) "Engage me as the servant of Your servant." The same thing Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, gopī-bhartur pada-kamalayor dāsa-dāsa-anudāsaḥ. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means we have to give up this nonsense idea of becoming master. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We have to learn how to become servant. Not only servant, servant of the servant, servant of the... That is cure (CC Madhya 13.80). Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja said, "So I have understood all this nonsense of becoming master. My father also tried to become master. So this knowledge, now I am perfect. There is no use of becoming master. Better, if You kindly want to give me some benediction, kindly make me the servant of Your servant." This is benediction. So one who has learned to become the servant of Kṛṣṇa's servant, he is perfect. Therefore Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, tṛṇād api sunīcena taror api sahiṣṇunā. A servant has to tolerate. Tolerate. Servant, sometimes master orders so many things, so he becomes disturbed. But still, he has to execute and tolerate. That is perfection. Here in India still, when a person goes to marry, so his... This is a custom. His mothers ask the bridegroom, "My dear son, where you are going?" He replies, "Mother, I am going to bring one maidservant for you." This is the system. "Mother, I am going to bring one maidservant for you." That means "My wife, your daughter-in-law, will serve you as your maidservant." This is Vedic civilization.
When Kṛṣṇa with His sixteen thousand wives went to Hastināpura, so Draupadī... It is natural between woman and woman, they talk about their husband. That is natural. So Draupadī was inquiring from each and every wife of Kṛṣṇa. Not all of them. It is impossible, sixteen thousand. At least the principal queens, beginning from... What is the end called?(?) Rukmiṇī, yes. So every one of them were describing their marriage ceremony, that "My..." Rukmiṇī explained that "My father wanted to hand over me to Kṛṣṇa, but my elder brother, he did not agree. He wanted to get me married with Śiśupala. So I did not like this idea. I wrote Kṛṣṇa a private letter, that 'I have dedicated my life to You, but this is the situation. Please come and kidnap me.' So in this way Kṛṣṇa kidnapped me and made me His maidservant." The queen's daughter, king's daughter... Everyone of them were king's daughter. They were not ordinary person daughter. But they wanted to become maidservant of Kṛṣṇa. This is the idea, to become servant and to become maidservant. This is ideal of human civilization. The every woman should try to become maidservant of her husband, and every man should try to become the hundred times servant of Kṛṣṇa. This is Indian civilization, not that "Husband and wife, we are equal rights." That, in Europe, America, the movement is going on, "Equal rights." That is not Vedic civilization. Vedic civilization is the husband should be a sincere servant of Kṛṣṇa, and the wife should be a sincere maidservant of the husband.