The Perfect Devotee
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devotees today. I have a cold, so I said I shouldn't go in the water. Some felt I should because it is the Ganges, and some said I shouldn't because I have a cold, and we were talking, and I don't understand. Do we get sick because of our bad actions in the past?
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  Yes, that's a fact.
BOB:  But when one . . .
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  Any kind of distress we suffer is due to our impious activities in the past.
BOB:  But when someone is removed from karmic influence . . .
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  Yes?
BOB:  . . . does he still get sick?
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  No. Even if he gets sick, that is very temporary. For instance, this fan is moving. If you disconnect the electric power, then the fan will move for a moment. That movement is not due to the electric current. That is force—what is it called, physically, this force?
ŚYĀMASUNDARA:  Momentum.
ŚRĪLA PRAB' UPĀDA:  Momentum. But as soon as it stops, no more movement. Similarly, even if a devotee who has surrendered to Kṛṣṇa is suffering from material consequences, that is temporary. Therefore, a devotee does not take any material miseries as miseries. He takes them as Kṛṣṇa's, God's, mercy.
BOB:  A perfected soul, a devotee, a pure devotee . . .
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  A perfected soul is one who engages twenty-four hours a day in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is perfection. That is a transcendental position. Perfection means to engage in one's original consciousness. That is