Why is Maya so strong?

A young hippy asked Srila Prabhupada, "If our purpose is to go back to Godhead, why is Maya so strong?" Without the slightest hesitation Srila Prabhupada profoundly and poetically answered, "Because your purpose is not strong."

In other words Maya, the Lord's illusory energy, only has power over us to the extent that we are not determined to go back to home, back to Godhead. If we are determined to become fully Krishna conscious and not take birth here again in this material world, the material energy will be powerless to do anything to stop us from achieving our goal.

So instead of being weak in our determination, we must become powerful in our determination. How to do that? Srila Prabhupada taught us that over-indulgence in sense-gratification, especially sex life, makes us weak in our determination. This is why one of the most important regulative principles followed by a Krishna conscious person is "No illicit sex life." By limiting our sexual activities only to procreation we gain a great power of determination that makes us solidly fixed on the transcendental platform.

The great example of a devotee so fixed is Srila Haridas Thakur. He was engaged in chanting 300,000 names of God daily in a secluded hut. This was about 500 years ago in India. The Muslim political leaders were not happy to see that a converted former Muslim had now become recognized as a great Vaisnava saint. So they conspired to ruin his reputation by sending a beautiful prostitute to seduce him in the dead of night. The prostitute undressed herself before the sage and begged him for sexual intercourse. He tactfully told the lady that first he had to finish his chanting and he would then satisfy her desire. So he chanted all night without fulfilling her desire on the plea of not having finished his chanting. He then apologized telling her to come again on the 2nd night, that he would then satisfy her. The same thing happened on the 2nd night because he still had not completed his chanting. This time he assured her that if she came again on the 3rd night he would definitely fulfill her desire. On the third night the prostitute had become so purified by hearing the constant chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra from the lips of Haridas Thakur that in great shame she fell at his feet and begged forgiveness by having tried to pollute him. In this way by the great determination of Haridas Thakur to remain firmly fixed in his vows of chanting, he was able to withstand the attack of the material energy in the form of the prostitute.

Even if we are not so strong in our determination to chant 300,000 names of God daily and spend three nights all alone with a naked beautiful young prostitute without falling down, at least we can we chant 16 rounds daily and strictly follow the four regulative principles:

1. No illicit sex
2. No intoxication
3. No meat eating
4. No gambling

This will give us sufficient strong to remain fixed solidly in Krishna consciousness 24 hours daily and become fully qualified for going back to home, back to Godhead at the time of death.