Then now life is completely different. I am still in the material world; I haven’t left. I am still in this body. I still have to deal with all things but now everything is different because I am in a different consciousness. Our consciousness is what we really are because the consciousness is the symptom of the soul. Consciousness comes from the soul. There is no such thing as consciousness coming from matter; matter is unconscious. That is why when the soul leaves the body at death, the consciousness goes with it; there is no consciousness in a dead body.
When I come to my natural consciousness, which is that I am the spirit soul eternally subordinate to the Supreme Soul, I am conscious of the Supreme Soul and I am conscious that my eternal activity is to be pleasing to the Supreme Soul with my life. That is pure natural consciousness. I am still in the material world perhaps, in the material body, but life is now spiritual, my activities are spiritual. Activities are a reflection of the soul’s presence. It is a reflection of our consciousness. So when we hear the word ‘God consciousness’, ‘Krishna consciousness’, that is what it means, my consciousness is now pure. And now I know who I am, what I am supposed to do and I want to do it. I find my pleasure in spiritual life, in hearing and chanting God’s Names, offering things to God, telling other people about this truth, helping living entities that need help like I needed help and was helped by my spiritual master. I want to bring others to my spiritual master so he can help them as well.
If there is a good doctor and you go to him and he helps you, what do you want to do? You want to tell other people about him. “Oh, you should go see him. Do you have a bad back?” I have just met a doctor, an amazing back doctor. (laughs) He really helped my back. When I go to his clinic, there are all kinds of people there and they all want to tell me how much he helped them. (laughs) “Oh, he did this. My back was so bad!” And then they want to tell me about other people. “This woman came, she was paralyzed. She was in a wheelchair; they brought her in here in a wheelchair. After his series of treatments she walked out of here carrying her luggage.” And on and on it goes. Many of them were there because someone who had been helped by this doctor told them to go to see him. So it is natural, isn’t it?
So you go to your friends who have the problems you have – everybody has got the same problems – and you just tell them, “You know, this really helped me, it was amazing, my life is so different now! And it is real, it is not just some imagination.” And maybe they are interested, “Wow! Maybe I will…” So you really help them and this is also giving you great pleasure.
What we do is actually move more and more to our natural condition of spiritual pleasure for the soul. Everything we do in connection with our service to Krishna gives us pleasure. So life becomes better and better and the relationship with our spiritual master and Krishna becomes stronger and stronger.