True desirelessness means desiring only Krishna's service; desire itself cannot and should not be eliminated from spiritual life.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Morning Walk — January 11, 1974, Los Angeles 740111MW-LOS ANGELES [24:19 Minutes] Walk_740111MW-LOS ANGELES Nitāi: January 11th, 1974. Morning walk. [break] Satsvarūpa: ...by reading the books, he'd understood that we should become completely desireless. So he wanted more explanation.
And in the car coming out Śrīla Prabhupāda just explained that our desire can't go away, because that's the symptom of the living entity. We have to have some desire. But real desirelessness means that you have no more material desire. Material desire, someone is always desiring from God, "Give me this, give me this." But when we become purified, then our desire is for "Kṛṣṇa, please take me.
Please take me. Whatever service I can render, please accept it." But when one has not enough information, then he desires... His idea of desirelessness is to become like a dead stone; simply to... Because desire causes suffering and it's bad, material desire, therefore let me simply stop it and become...
That will be desireless. But that is not..., that state is not possible because our symptom is of life is to have desire. So we answer him in this way: to become purified and simply serve Kṛṣṇa all the time. Not that we stop any activities.
Prabhupāda was saying he is working day and night. So you cannot become absorbed in nothing. In order to become purely desireless, you have to have some activity that will always... There is a place, there is a plane of spiritual desire, spiritual activity.
So there's... [pause] Prabhupāda: What do you have to say about this? Do you understand, desireless and desireful? Satsvarūpa: People some... Pseudo transcendentalists, they sometimes criticize us like that.
They say, "Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees, you're just too active." They're think that we're fruitive, always running around, always trying to sell books, always very active. That's because they don't understand that desirelessness. They talk like that, and then they'll smoke a cigarette the next moment as they criticize us. They say, "You should not have to do anything if you're transcendental.