The devotee overcomes the whole material world

Satsvarupa Dasa: Chanting without beads wasn't as nice, and so I would think of my red japa beads which were hanging up in my apartment and hanker to return to them. As the morning got late, my hunger would increase and that was a sign that it would not be long before lunch hour when I would be able to get out and go to see the Swami. There was always at least one important question on my mind which I wanted to ask him or a realization that I wished to share with him. One time I went and told the Swami, when I'm in the office I can feel the miseries you talked about, birth, death, disease, and old age, and I can actually feel that I'm overcoming them. Swamiji liked that and said, "Yes, but almost no one knows this. They put these problems aside and yet everyone is being forced to die and grow old and be born again. For a devotee, these things are easily overcome. One great Vaishnava, Prabhodananda Sarasvati said that for him, the whole material world is blissful. Visvam purna-sukhayate. And a devotee can control his senses easily, even though it is difficult for a great yogi. So the devotee overcomes the whole material world."