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I was on a train once, in India.
There was a wife, her husband, and their child.
[A Loving Eye Conceals Defects]
The wife looks like a Bollywood actress,
she’s like world-class beauty.
But this is India, the land of arranged marriages,
her husband, and I’m not saying this as a criticism,
but just as a statement and as a fact, was hideously ugly—
not just unattractive.
Like acid had been thrown all over his face.
Worse than the phantom of the opera. Hideous, like
if you accidentally saw his face, you’d go, “Oh, God.”
That type of … I’m not talking about someone who’s just not attractive,
not like that; something had obviously happened,
some kind of a chemical accident.
So his face was melted, ugly, hideous, right?
His wife looks like a Bollywood actress.
And I saw, I was stunned, because the little child was like
looking with this love and affection at her father,
and the father’s beaming love and affection towards the child,
and the wife is beaming love and affection towards her husband and her child,
as if to say— they’re saying like,
“We are so fortunate, we have this loving family situation.
Aren’t we fortunate people?
Are there more fortunate people than us in the world?”
That was their mood.
And that reminded me of Guru Mahārāj saying,
“Love can accommodate everything,
it conceals whatever looks unsightly,
what has a flaw, what’s ugly.” What’s a … how do you say …
what’s the word for a bad behavioral trait?
Anyway I can’t speak properly right now—
you know, a character flaw, whatever.
So he’s saying, “When the finite is trying to approach the Infinite, how is that going to work?
How is that even possible?”
He’s saying, “Through love and affection.”
That’s how the smallest can connect to the greatest.
This is why he says, “Love, beauty over power.”
The greatest power in the world,
the greatest force in the world, is not power,
but beauty, love, charm, and sweetness,
which is personified in Kṛṣṇa conception.
That’s beauty, love.
We just spoke something of the beauty, love, and charm, of Rāmachandra,
but somewhat constricted by the position of being a king
and governing and all that.
Whereas in Kṛṣṇa conception the full expression
of love and sweetness is unleashed and
expressed to the extreme.
So that’s why we’re approaching Kṛṣṇa.