30 TEACHINGS OF QUEEN KUNTI
‘*A person who acts in the service of Krsna with his body, mind, intelli-
gence, and words is a liberated person, even within the material world.”’
One should come to understand, ‘‘My senses are meant to serve the
master of the senses, HrsikesSa.’> The master of the senses is sitting
within everyone’s heart. In the Bhagavad-gitd (15.15) the Lord says, sar-
vasya caham hrdi sannivisto: ‘‘I am seated in everyone’s heart.’” Mattah

" smrtir jAanam apohanam ca: ‘‘And from Me come remembrance, knowl-
edge, and forgetfulness.”

Krsna is so merciful that if we want to use our senses in a certain way,
He will give us the chance to do so. The senses are not ours; they are
Krsna’s, but Krsna gives us the opportunity to use them according to our
desires. For example, each of us has a tongue, and suppose we want to
eat stool. We may say, ‘‘Krsna, I want to taste stool,’ and Krsna will say,
‘Yes, take this body of a hog and eat stool.’’ The master is present—
Krsna. He will give us an appropriate body and remind us, ‘‘My dear liv-
ing entity, you wanted to eat stool. Now you have the proper body in
which to do so.”’ Similarly, if one wants to become a demigod, Krsna will
give one a chance to do that also. There are 8,400,000 forms of life, and if
one wants to engage one’s senses in a particular type of body, Krsna will
give one the chance: ‘‘Come on. Here is the body you want. Take it.”’ But
eventually one will become exasperated by using one’s senses.
Ultimately one will become senseless. Therefore Krsna says, sarva-dhar-
man parityajya mam ekam Saranam vraja: ‘‘Don’t act like this. Your
senses are meant for serving Me. You are misusing your senses and are
therefore being entrapped in different types of bodies. Therefore, to get
relief from this tedious business of accepting one body and then giving it
up to accept another and again another in continued material existence,
just give up this process of sense gratification and surrender unto Me.
Then you will be saved.’’ This is Krsna consciousness.

At the present moment, our senses are contaminated. I am thinking,
‘Tam American, so my senses should be used for the service of my
country, my society, my nation.’’ Or else I am thinking, ‘‘I am Indian,
and my senses are Indian senses, and therefore they should be used for
India.’’ In ignorance, one does not know that the senses belong to Krsna.
Instead, one thinks that one has American senses, Indian senses, or
African senses. This is called maya, illusion. In material life, the senses
are covered by designations such as ‘‘American,” ‘“‘Indian,’’ and
‘*African,’’ but when our senses are no longer contaminated by all these
designations (sarvopadhi-vinirmuktam) , bhakti begins.

To think ‘‘I am an American. Why shall I take to Krsna consciousness
