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Identity (Conversations)

Conversations and Morning Walks

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Radio Interview -- March 12, 1968, San Francisco:

Gargamuni: Yes. Also, what is our true identity?

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Gargamuni: What is our true identity?

Prabhupāda: Actual identity?

Gargamuni: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Actual identity is that you are spirit soul. And this material body is your covering. Just like dress. Just like when you dress, the real body is there. Similarly, we are within this material body. So we are taking more care for the dress and not for the body actually. But when a body is dead we can understand that there is something missing. That missing thing is the soul. In the modern educational field there is no department of knowledge to understand that what is that missing part. There are so many theories, but they are not practical. Therefore we have to understand the soul and its constitution from authoritative scriptures like Bhagavad-gītā. Then we can understand our identity actually. And in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is said that persons who are identifying themselves with this material body, they are not actually human beings. They are counted amongst the asses and cows. So that is ignorance or illusion.

Radio Interview -- March 12, 1968, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: No, your question is what I am? So this what I am, you can search yourself by your mental speculation, that is one way. Another way to understand your position, from higher authority. So we take this process. We understand what I am from higher authority, Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa says that He is God, and He says, "All these living entities are My part and parcels." So we are component parts of the Supreme Lord. Therefore as the component part of machine is to cooperate with the full machine, so our duty is to cooperate with the Supreme Lord. That is our identity.

Interviewer: Thank you, caller.

Caller: Thank you.

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation With John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison -- September 11, 1969, London, At Tittenhurst:

George Harrison: Yeah, but we had a misunderstanding before about the translation of the Sanskrit Gītā into English, and I was saying that there's many versions, and I think we thought you were trying to say that your version, your translation, was the only authority and that the other translations... But we didn't really have understanding as to the identity of Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. If you believe Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Lord, if that is your version, then you have to see who are much addicted to Kṛṣṇa directly. For argument's sake. That these people are twenty-four hours chanting Kṛṣṇa, and another person who has no, not a single word Kṛṣṇa, how he can become devotee of Kṛṣṇa? How he can become representative of Kṛṣṇa, who does not utter even the name of Kṛṣṇa? If Kṛṣṇa is authority accepted, therefore who are directly addicted to Kṛṣṇa, they are authorities.

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 17, 1971, Allahabad:

Prabhupāda: Yes. And that sacred thread is the certificate that he has accepted a spiritual master. That is our Vedic system, identity, thread, sacred thread. So the upana... The saṁskāra is called upanayana-saṁskāra. Upanayana means he has gone near the spiritual master. Therefore he is now dvija, second birth. When a person goes to the spiritual master, that is his second birth because he is born foolish. Take birth by the combination of father, mother—that is material birth—that is a birth of ignorance, just like animals. The animals also take their birth in that way. There is no different process, the sex life. So what is the difference between animal and man? Therefore, upanayana, dvija.

Discussion with Indians -- January 18, 1971, Allahabad:

Guest (1): You lose your identity.

Prabhupāda: Yes. First of all you have to find out a person where you can surrender. Then you can ask and you can seek knowledge. Otherwise there is no... Simply waste of time. Why should you waste your time? Why shall I waste my time? Are you surrendered to me? If you are not surrendered to me...

Guest (2): I, I...

Prabhupāda: No, no. Stop this. Just try to understand. If you are not surrendered to me you have no right to ask me anything.

Discussion with Indians -- January 18, 1971, Allahabad:

Guest (5): ...if each and every person has an individual identity of (indistinct) soul above the body consciousness and unless you treat him as equal, there is little...

Prabhupāda: No, nobody... You cannot say... Even though they are equal, you can see equal but they are not equal. They are not equal. There are three guṇas, and in the Bhagavad-gītā that is analyzed, that "These persons are in the sattva-guṇa, these persons are in the rajo-guṇa, these persons are in..."

Guest (5): That is not personality of the ātmā, but the ātmā is everybody's soul.

Prabhupāda: That's all... First of all we have...

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Talk with Bob Cohen -- February 27-29, 1972, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: No, earth... Earth has no separate existence without Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa says, "It's my energy." You cannot separate the energy and the energetic. It is not possible. You cannot separate heat from fire. But fire is different from the heat. And heat is different from the fire. You are taking heat, that does not mean you are touching fire. Fire, in spite of expanding heat, it keeps its identity. Similarly, Kṛṣṇa by His different energies creating everything, He remains Kṛṣṇa. The Māyāvādī philosophers, they think, "If Kṛṣṇa is everything, then Kṛṣṇa's separate identity is not there." That is material thinking. Just like drinking this milk, so little, little, when I finish, there is no more milk. It has gone to my belly.

Room Conversation with Kenneth Keating, U.S. Ambassador to India -- October 14, 1972, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: After death, they're lying piles of dead body. No more Hindu and Muslim. It is simply lump of matter. But because they got a type of body, a type of mental situation, consciousness, they fought with one another, and then after death, no more claiming "Hindu" and "Muslim." This is called illusion. "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am Hindu," "I am Muslim," "I am this," "I am that"—these are all designation. Really what I am? I am pure soul, part and parcel of God. That is my identity. So people should be taught this science. As soon as one understands his constitutional position, his actual situation, then he says, "Oh, I am not this. I was struggling so hard under some misidentification."

Ambassador: Is there a movement to get this philosophy or science propagated in the colleges?

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation With Three College Students -- July 11, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Yoga means connection. As soon as you study Kṛṣṇa in this way, you make your connection with Kṛṣṇa. That is perfection of yoga. Yoga means connection, the Sanskrit word yoga. And the opposite word is viyoga, disconnection. Yoga-viyoga. So yoga means, real yoga means, to connect your relationship, your identity, with Kṛṣṇa. That is called yoga. So take little prasādam. Come on.

Revatīnandana: Take some little sweet.

Student (2): Thank you.

Prabhupāda: Come on.

Student (2): I can't.

Room Conversation with Father Tanner and other guests -- July 11, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: That, that is another thing. First of all I must know what is my identity.

Father Tanner: But my identity is made up of so many... It's not one thing.

Prabhupāda: But that one... First of all one. Just like we say that "My identity is that I am eternal servant of God." This is my identity.

Father Tanner: Well, this is the inner being, but then it finds expression in me...

Room Conversation with Father Tanner and other guests -- July 11, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: But that one... First of all one. Just like we say that "My identity is that I am eternal servant of God." This is my identity.

Father Tanner: Well, this is the inner being, but then it finds expression in me...

Prabhupāda: Now, as servant of God, I may have many activities. But my identity is that I am eternal servant of God. This is our identity. So if I love myself, because I am eternal servant of God, therefore, if I actually I love myself, I must always engage myself in the service of the Lord. This is love.

Father Tanner: But there must, in your self, there must be times when you're angry, times when you're...

Prabhupāda: I can become angry for God.

Room Conversation with Father Tanner and other guests -- July 11, 1973, London:

Father Tanner: Hm, but I think what Susan was saying is that our personality...

Prabhupāda: No, no. I'm... First of all, if you keep your identity fixed-up, even if you become angry, it is not bad.

Father Tanner: No. But you can become it... what, you know, we are saying is...

Prabhupāda: Suppose just like I tell you that a dog is your servant. It is standing on the door. Some thief is coming. If the dog becomes angry, "Baw! Gaw! Gow!" so that, to become angry is not bad for the dog...

Father Tanner: No.

Room Conversation with Rosicrucians -- August 13, 1973, Paris:

Yogeśvara: He would tell you his name, Mr. Belfiore. (break)

Guru-gaurāṅga: ...that forms his identity is Maurice Belfiore, but the interior, that reality, is different. (break) If we all join up here now in silence and we enter into ourselves and create one person, then we will know who we are from that silence.

Prabhupāda: But how it is possible to become silent?

Yogeśvara: ...many, many births and deaths.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. That's all right. That's all right. Now talk (break)

Yogeśvara: ...privilege for him to be here amongst us.

Room Conversation with French Nun -- August 13, 1973, Paris:

Yogeśvara: She's asking... This is a French nun, and she wishes to know whether for us Christ is the son of God or is He God Himself or what is the identity of Lord Jesus Christ?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Jesus Christ says that he's son of God. That's all right. We accept.

Yogeśvara: (translates French throughout) (break)

Prabhupāda: ...ordinary son. And he's powerful son.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 31, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes, so now the study, first study, begins from material point of view: Wherefrom the sky came? How the sky came into existence? First of all sky. Then, from sky, there is sound. Then, from sound there is air. From air, there is... Along with these creations... the sky creation means the air creation also, the reception of the sound. So in this way it is all described in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam very nicely, how creation took place. Then, ultimately, we come to the land, where all the qualities of other elements are there. There is sound. There is touch. There is vision. There is smell. Everything is there. So... And the subtle matters. Mind, citta, intelligence, then buddh... intelligence. Then false ego. This is... At the present moment, everyone is thinking in the bodily concept of life: "I am American." "I am Indian." "I am brāhmaṇa." "I am kṣatriya." This is false ego. He's not, neither of them. Because he's spirit soul, a different identity.

Morning Walk -- March 31, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Jñānī means one who can defend by knowledge Kṛṣṇa's identity. That is jñānī.

Mr. Sar: Or he's āsthitaḥ...

Dr. Patel: "Perpetually welded with Me."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mr. Sar: Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān māṁ prapadyate (BG 7.19). (laughter)

Prabhupāda: And the so-called jñānavān, they'll take many, many, many births.

Morning Walk -- March 31, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That is Māyāvāda. Yes. That is Māyāvāda, impersonalism. They don't accept the person. That... "Because Vāsudeva has expanded Himself in so many ways, therefore the identity of Vāsudeva is finished."

Dr. Patel: It cannot be exactly. Pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇam adhaḥ.. (Īśopaniṣad, Invocation).

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But because they are fools, they cannot understand.

Mr. Sar: Celo. Celo. You are a fool; so you don't understand. (laughter)

Dr. Patel: No. Don't call me a fool. I'll hit him.

Morning Walk -- April 11, 1974, Bombay:

Italian Man (1): Because they don't like to identify themselves with animals. Because if they admit that animals have a soul, then they have to identity, means they are afraid of identifying with animals. They feel they are superior to animals. We are superior to animals, indeed, but...

Prabhupāda: That is by intelligence. We are superior to animals by superior intelligence, not by... Just like a human child. His father is superior than the child because the father has got superior intelligence, not that the child has no soul. The child talks so many nonsense things, but we take it, "After all, it is child." Nobody cares whether it is symmetrical or not, because his intelligence is not developed. So even the animals have no developed intelligence, that does not mean it has no soul. Yes. The evolution of different types of body means evolution of intelligence.

Room Conversation with Prof. Regamay, Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Lausanne -- June 4, 1974, Geneva:

Yogeśvara: He says that Buddha's philosophy did not admit a spiritual personal identity to the living being, that Buddhist philosophy was that we are simply this combination of chemicals.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is all right.

Prof. Regamay: Chemical, psychical, but no continuous, no ātman.

Prabhupāda: That is śūnyavādī. We say also.

Prof. Regamay: So they are... I think it's... I must say that when comparing different religions, I see that for instance, what I find here...

Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Karandhara: It's just merely meant to be an illustration, not that you're supposed to compare everything all the way around. The body is also material; the nail is also material. The point is that that which is not sensed spiritually by the true identity of the soul, that which is experienced outwardly by the material body and the senses, that is matter. But the basic element, or the basic consciousness is spiritual, and that's eternal. Whereas the sensation from outward, like what I see today and taste today, that is temporary, but the taster, the seer, he is eternal, the self. (French)

Prabhupāda: As soon as that spirit soul will be off from this body, this part of the body also will be without any sensation. Therefore the distinction of sensation and no sensation is due to the presence of the spirit soul.

Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany:

Dr. P. J. Saher: But I live my identity with the body.

Prabhupāda: With the body. But the body is false, false in this sense, that you are not this body. You are simply... Just like I am occupying this apartment, but I am not this apartment. I am different from this apartment. This is understanding. So if you take interest of the apartment and you forget yourself, that is false. (German) If I simply decorate this body, apartment, and I don't eat myself, then what is the... This is false attempt, that we are trying... This is called. In the Bhāgavata it is said that aprāṇasya hi dehasya mandanaṁ loka-rañjanam. Now, this body, just you or I, everyone, we are nicely dressed. But if the life is gone from the body, if you dress the body, is that very good intelligence? You have understood?

Reporters Interview -- June 29, 1974, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Mixes means... Just like, the example is given: just like a green bird enters into a tree which is also green. So if... To my eyes it appears that the bird is mixed up, but actually that is not fact. Suppose an aeroplane, you see aeroplane is going on. Then, after some time you see there is no aeroplane. It is the same sky. It has mixed up. It has not mixed up. Your eyes are defective. It appears like mixed up. But it cannot mix up. The airplane is keeping its identity. The bird is keeping its identity.

Guest (2): Is the human soul then limited or unlimited?

Prabhupāda: Limited.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Woman Sanskrit Professor -- February 13, 1975, Mexico:

Professor: No, but the point is the identity between ātmān and...

Prabhupāda: Yes, I am ātmā. You are ātmā. Ātmā.

Professor: ...the ātman of the world, let's say, absolute...

Prabhupāda: Yes. The ātmā and Paramātmā, Paramātmā. As I was speaking, nityo nityānām. We are all nityas, eternal, but there is one chief nitya. Just like leader. Everywhere we go, we have got a leader. Now, this, your Mexico state, there is a president. You cannot avoid it. In your college there is principal. There must be a leader. Similarly, the whole thing taken together, there must be one leader. You have to speak from experience that in your physical department or in your religious department there is a chief, leader, professor.

Room Conversation with Woman Sanskrit Professor -- February 13, 1975, Mexico:

Professor: Yes, but we could say that since the Upaniṣads and later, all things have been sustaining the thing which you have just said a moment ago, that there exists an identity between ātman and Brahmān.

Prabhupāda: Identity is there. That, therefore, I have already said, nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānṁ. Both of them are identical so far nitya is concerned or cetana is concerned, but one is dependent, and other is maintainer. That is difference. Both of them are truth. Both of them truth. You are truth; I am truth. You are living; I am living, existing. This is truth. This is truth, but you are professor and I am something else. That is temporary. But so far you are, as living being, and I am, as living being, that is truth. But your dress and my dress, that is temporary. So we have to understand like that. In this material world we are mixed up with temporary and eternal. The living entity is eternal, but his body is temporary.

Room Conversation with Metaphysics Society -- February 21, 1975, Caracas:

Prabhupāda: So God is great. He says, "I am." He is great "I am." And I say, "I am." I am small "I am." Therefore this "I am" and that "I am" is different. This "I am," when I say, "I am," and God says, "I am," this "I am" and this "I am" is different. So not always I am the same. So far I am concerned, my identity, your identity is concerned, that is all right, one. But you "I am" and I "I am" not, different. The soul as soul, it is all right. But as particle, as whole, they are different. Yes, that is to be understood. God says, "I am," means "I am the whole." And I say, "I am"—"I am the particle." So therefore we should understand that when I say, "I am," and God says, "I am," they are different. (break) Your consciousness, your identification, my identification, my consciousness is different. And because we are different, therefore we are considering what is the ultimate goal. So in spite of difference, you can say "I am," I can say, "I am," He can say, "I am," but that does not mean there is no difference.

Room Conversation with Yoga Student -- March 14, 1975, Iran:

Young man: If one does not lose one's identity when one is returned to the Godhead, what is the nature of the relationship?

Prabhupāda: Servant. God is supreme, we are all subordinate. God is maintaining us just like father maintains. So it is the duty of the son to be obedient to the father, to act according to his order. Then everything is perfect. At the present moment on account of this bodily concept of life every one of us thinking nationality and duty of nation, duty of the community, duty of the family, so many duties. But actually we, being spiritual, our only duty is to serve God. We are serving; everyone is serving. That is our constitutional position, to serve.

Morning Walk -- April 2, 1975, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Māyāvādīs means they are speaking that "Everything is māyā; Kṛṣṇa is also māyā." And impersonalist means they are thinking that "To merge into the Brahman effulgence is better than to keep our personal identity."

Satsvarūpa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, this Professor Dimmock was going to arrange a Vaiṣṇava conference at which we were going to attend. You yourself was going to be invited with many professors, but I received a report from one of the professors that when they tried to contact other professors, none of them wanted to come because they said, more or less, that we are like fanatics and we wouldn't actually discuss things in a philosophic way, that we would just use the conference to proselytize. So in this way, they're rejecting us from...

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore it is said, bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānāṁ tayāpahṛta-cetasām (BG 2.44). "Those who have lost their identity, being captivated by bhoga and aiśvarya, they cannot understand." Bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānām. Māyā-sukhāya bharam udvahataḥ. For slight, so-called happiness they are making big, big problems (projects?). Māyā... bharam. Bharam means big, big problems. (projects?). And sometimes they put forward their whim (?) for the next generation. Now, if Darwin's theory accepted, the monkeys never thought of the next generation, so how you have got this consciousness(?)? Why you are thinking of your next generation? What is the argument? The monkey cannot think that Mr. Nixon will come, become president of this or that, U.S.A.

Morning Walk -- June 25, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes. And Śaṅkarācārya's... Not Śaṅkarācārya. His followers have interpreted, "Because God has become all-pervading, then where is God person? He is finished." But they do not see the sun, that although the sun is all-pervading, still, he is maintaining his identity.

Dr. Judah: Yes. That's the bhedābheda philosophy.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Bhedābheda philosophy, that is actual philosophy. Acintya-bhedābheda.

Dr. Judah: God is both one and dual.

Conversation with Professor Hopkins -- July 13, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prof. Hopkins: The failure is a failure to go beyond, to realize beyond that level of identity, that there is a Lord, who is...

Prabhupāda: Māyāvādī philosophy is defective. They say if everything is God then where is the Lord's separate existence. That is their defect. That is materialist theory. If you take a big paper and make it into small pieces and throw it away, then the big paper is lost. (laughs) The Māyāvādī thinks like that, that if everything is Brahman, Brahman is distributed, then where is..., why you call the Supreme Lord? They think that Brahman being distributed, He is finished. This is Māyāvādī. He does not know the potency of God. And that is stated in Upaniṣad. Īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam.

Morning Walk -- July 14, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: They are separate identity.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But it looks like, though, in the material body the one cannot exist without another. They look like interdependent.

Prabhupāda: That may be, but still, they are individuals.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: When the jīva in the heart dies, then all the other cells in the body also have to die.

Prabhupāda: No.

Morning Walk -- July 14, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: It looks like. That is another thing. Asaṅgo 'yaṁ puruṣaḥ. The Vedic injunction is" "The puruṣa, the soul, is never complicated or mixed up with this." Because just like oil and water, it never mixes. The oil keeps its separate identity in water.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. But if you put in a body, though they cannot be mixed, but they can stay together. Like in a chemical laboratory we take a test tube. In the test tube I can mix two solutions like, for example, mercury and water and oil. They will not mix, but they will stay in the same test tube. But a man who knows about the art of separating those three mixtures can do it very nicely.

Morning Walk -- July 16, 1975, San Francisco:

Dharmādhyakṣa: ...singing and dancing are great stimulants to self-realization. And he says but he doesn't know why, but he said that perhaps if we study the glands more carefully, we will find out why singing and dancing stimulates identity. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...parvato muākam aprasavat: "Himalaya will give birth children." So many people gathered, "Must be very gigantic." But they saw only rats are coming. (break)

Bahulāśva: ...is from this school, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Where is Yadubara?

Morning Walk -- September 13, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: That's all right. What is the standard?

Dhṛṣṭaketu: When I merge, when I lose my identity, when I don't...

Prabhupāda: That means you forget. You forget everything. Then how you will be liberated? Whatever little consciousness was there, that is finished. Then how you become liberated? Whatever you had, that is also finished. Eh? Then how you become liberated?

Harikeśa: But what we are forgetting is just illusion anyway.

Morning Walk -- November 19, 1975, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: To go beyond intellect for a body conscious ego, the ego must dissolve and find itself to be a jīva, and then he travels further up to find his own identity and his own relation with God. Before, I mean, mind is one, you cannot go beyond it. That is what my conjecture. I may be wrong for all that.

Prabhupāda: No, no. One has to go beyond the mind, but one, those who are stuck up with the mind, they are useless. So the Western philosophers, they are stuck up with the mind. That is the defect. (break) ...bhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā mano-rathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ. Manorathena, mental concoction, asataḥ. Western philosophers, they take the mind as the soul. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. Hm?

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 3, 1976, Nellore:

Prabhupāda: So why they are thinking independently?

Keśavalāl Trivedi: Unless we have got the identity, correct identity, we cannot be independent.

Prabhupāda: What is this?

Mahāmṣa: This is keys for the lock, Prabhupāda. It fell down.

Prabhupāda: I think somebody has left.

Keśavalāl Trivedi: Yes, there is lock and chain.

Mahāmṣa: This way, Prabhupāda.

Morning Walk -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Identity.

Makhanlāl: Identity? (break) Brahman realization for the devotee in the beginning is just that he realizes his constitutional position as servant of Kṛṣṇa?

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is next. First of all, that "I am not this body." That is Brahman realization.

Makhanlāl: So we may only be partially situated in that realization in our present level of devotional service.

Room Conversation -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No. Chapter Three. "In this chapter the author has fully discussed the reason for the descent of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, after displaying His pastimes as Lord Kṛṣṇa, thought it wise to make His advent in the form of a devotee to explain personally the transcendental mellow reciprocations of service and love between Himself and His servants, friends, parents and fiancees. According to the Vedic literature, the foremost occupational duty for humanity in this age of Kali is nāma-saṅkīrtana, or congregational chanting of the holy name of the Lord. The incarnation for this age especially preaches this process, but only Kṛṣṇa Himself can explain the confidential loving service performed in the four principal varieties of loving affairs between the Supreme Lord and His devotees. Lord Kṛṣṇa therefore personally appeared, with His plenary portions, as Lord Caitanya. As stated in this chapter, only for that purpose did Lord Kṛṣṇa appear personally in Navadvīpa in the form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja has herein presented much authentic evidence from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and other scriptures to substantiate the identity of..."

Prabhupāda: You are reading Caitanya Mahāprabhu. About Nityānanda, see the contents? No, in the beginning. Chapter where is contents. Nityānanda-tattva.

Interview with Newsday Newspaper -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: No, this is for spiritual realization. If you chant, then, gradually, you realize yourself that you are a spiritual being; you are not this body. Then his spiritual life begins. Actually human life is meant for spiritual realization, and if one does not spiritually realize his identity, then he remains an animal. That is the difference between animal and man. Man is supposed to be spiritually realized.

Interviewer: How is that spiritual dimension realized?

Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: First of all try to understand the car is moving with the help of the driver. So the driver and the car they are always different identity. So when the car is dead, the driver do not work with the car, but the driver is important within the car or without the car.

Bali-mardana: In other words, the soul is important with this body or without this body. But the body without the soul is simply fertilizer, like you said, it's dead, useless. So our mission is to educate people about the driver, about the soul within the body.

Prabhupāda: And people are generally working on the body.

Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just try to understand. That we have already explained. The driver and the car are two different identities, is it not?

Interviewer: Yes.

Prabhupāda: The driver can exist without the car and the car without the driver has no value.

Interviewer: Well, in that sense...

Prabhupāda: So why don't you understand first of all this?

Interview with Trans-India Magazine -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: "This country" means wherever you are living—it doesn't matter whether in India or America or anywhere else—you just deliver them. So to become guru means to save a person from the conditional life of matter. So long you become a materialistic person, that means you are under condition of material nature. So you have to get your freedom from the laws of material nature. That is your perfect life. But people in the Western countries, they do not know much of this freedom. India knew it, or some of Indians, they know it. But at the present moment they, being conquered or influenced by the Western culture, they are also losing their identity. Therefore my Guru Mahārāja ordered me to do something about the spiritual life in the Western countries. On account of this I came here.

Press Interview at Muthilal Rao's House -- August 17, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: That is the most important part. If you do not know what you are, then you are talking like a nonsense. If you have lost your identity, then what is your education?

Interviewer (4): No, but we should realize the politicians...

Prabhupāda: It is not a question of politician or economics. It is general education, that you must know your identity, what you are. Then knowledge...

Interviewer (4): I am living under the system, and that system is...

Prabhupāda: But if the system is wrong, then you are living wrongly. You are misled.

Garden Conversation -- October 14, 1976, Chandigarh:

Prabhupāda: Brahma-bhūta (SB 4.30.20) means first of all you understand your identity. You are now identifying yourself as Indian, or as brāhmaṇa, or as kṣatriya, or white, or black, and so many things.

Indian man (4): My first identification is my own body.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is ajñāna. So long you are identifying with the body, you are no better than the animal. So we are doing that. We are fighting. "I am Indian. You are Englishman. You are this. You are that. You are..." Simply we are fighting, like cats and dogs, they fight. So that is ajñāna. How you can be prasannātmā?

Room Conversation with Life Member, Mr. Malhotra -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Mr. Malhotra: So what if the drop submerges in ocean, then the identity of drop vanishes.

Prabhupāda: No.

Mr. Malhotra: Drop, when drop submerges with the ocean...

Prabhupāda: I will give you practical example. Just like you take red water, colored water. So put into the sea, does this mean that sea becomes red? That little spot may be for the time being. Besides that, merging, this is the philosophy of the Māyāvādīs. Actually that is superficial. Just like a bird, green bird, enters into the green tree. You see that bird is vanished. Because the tree is green and the bird is green, you do not know the separate identification. But the bird is there, separate identification. It is not the bird has become zero. A airplane goes to the sky, after some time you don't find the airplane. That doesn't mean the airplane has no more identity, separate. It is separate.

Room Conversation with Life Member, Mr. Malhotra -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Mr. Malhotra: As long as I continue my identity that "I am so and so, I am this body," or "I am a person, or ātmā seated in this body, or dwelling in this body," when I dislodge my body from ātmā, then what is the position?

Prabhupāda: You are different from the body. You are different from the body. You are soul. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). The body is temporary, you are eternal. Nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). You are nityaḥ śāśvata. You are never killed even after the destruction of the body. That should... That is real understanding, that I am not this body. After annihilation of this body, I shall continue. Tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13). You should know that you are eternal part and parcel of God.

Room Conversation with Life Member, Mr. Malhotra -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Mr. Malhotra: But this is all right. As long as I maintain my identity...

Prabhupāda: You have to... If you foolishly think that you have become one, that is your foolishness. Yes. That is foolish thinking.

Mr. Malhotra: If I submerge myself with the entire...

Prabhupāda: Merge means you do not disagree. That is merge. Do not disagree. Just like when Arjuna was disagreeing, that is his condition, that is his conditioned identity, and when he agreed, "Yes, kariṣye vacanaṁ tava (BG 18.73),"that is identity of oneness.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Rāmeśvara: They describe the light. "It was beautiful and it was so bright, so radiant, but it did not hurt my eyes. It is not any kind of light you can describe on earth. I actually did not see a person within the light, yet it has a special identity. It definitely does. It was asking questions. It is a light of perfect understanding..."

Prabhupāda: The light is the rays. The person is there.

Rāmeśvara: Yes. They just could not see.

Prabhupāda: (aside:) Who is he?

Room Conversation -- February 17, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So you have to prove.

Ādi-keśava: They complain of loss of identity, but actually that loss of identity, they don't know who they are.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Ādi-keśava: So what can they lose?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Ādi-keśava: So we'll challenge them like that, "What is this loss of identity? You don't have anything to lose."

Room Conversation -- February 17, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: "Who are you? What is your identification? That you do not know. Rather, we are teaching that identifying yourself with this body, you have lost your identity. That is brain. (pause) If you say 'beyond our intelligence,' that means you have no brain. And we can explain. Therefore we have got brain. (pause) You have so many technical insti..." That I challenged in the M.T. (M.I.T.), that "Where is your..., that technology that when a dead man is stopped, you can replace life by technology? Where is that department?" They could not answer. Technology means the car has stopped. Go to the expert. He will repair it and do the needful. Again you will run on. That is technology. And where is that technology?

Room Conversation -- February 17, 1977, Mayapura:

Ādi-keśava: But we can say that... Their accusation is that one loses identity. They say we are brainwashing, lose our identity.

Prabhupāda: Then you do not know what is your identity.

Ādi-keśava: So they don't know that identity.

Prabhupāda: You are falsely identifying with this body. You do not know. Therefore you have no brain or intelligence.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What would you have us identify with? How would you have us identify?

Room Conversation -- February 17, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Identify that the thing which has gone out of this body, that is your identity.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What is that?

Prabhupāda: That is that soul.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Nobody can see the soul.

Prabhupāda: That does not mean there is no thing. At night, suppose if you, at night you don't find any light, you can understand that there is no light. Otherwise at night this is darkness. If there is somebody, there would have been light.

Room Conversation -- February 17, 1977, Mayapura:

Ādi-keśava: We can say that, to the common people, "These persons who are saying that you're being brainwashed, 'You are losing your identity,' they are cheating you, because actually you don't know what your identity is. You have no identity, and they're telling you that you already know."

Prabhupāda: And therefore I say "You have no brain. Where is the question of brainwash?"

Hari-śauri: Yes. They say, "Think for yourself," but they don't know what themselves are. They don't know "Who am I," so how can they think for themselves?

Room Conversation -- February 17, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: That you have to prove, that "You have no brain, no intelligence. Therefore you are finding out completely different. On which platform we are speaking, you do not know. So that platform, first of all you have to distinguish—it is matter or spirit? Then spiritual. You have no idea what is spirit, and where is spiritual platform. Therefore Kṛṣṇa begins from this point, that the spirit is within, not this body. That is your identity."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That has to be stressed.

Room Conversation with Ratan Singh Rajda (Member of Parliament) -- March 27, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: They have no faith. That is the difficulty. They talk of God, talk of religion, but they do not know what is God, what is religion. That is going on. You may be or I may be. We do not know what is the identity of the living entity. Then where is the question of religion?

Mr. Rajda: No, in the last rulers, most of them were Communists, but they said that religion is opium. They say religion is opium. They didn't believe in religion at all.

Room Conversation Meeting with Dr. Sharma (from Russia) -- April 17, 1977, Bombay:

Guest: No. Mother is trusted to take the father. Identity of father is known through the mother, not through any other method.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He says that even the best genecists in the world who are teaching genetics, they cannot actually determine who is the father based on genetics. The only actual thing is the mother's saying.

Dr. Sharma: Faith.

Prabhupāda: That, we give the example.

Talk About Varnasrama, S.B. 2.1.1-5 -- June 28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: 'Cause they think that the body is the identity, not the soul.

Prabhupāda: Soul, they do not know what is. There is soul, and there is activity of the soul, soul is the fundamental basis—these rascals, they do not know. Apaśyatām ātma-tattvam (SB 2.1.2). They do not know ātma-tattvam. Gṛheṣu gṛha-medhinām. Śrotavyādīni rājendra nṛṇāṁ santi sahasraśaḥ (SB 2.1.2). They are increasing thousands and thousands of demands. Why? Apaśyatām ātma-tattvam (SB 2.1.2). They do not see. They do not know what is happiness. Therefore their center is gṛheṣu gṛha-medhinām.

Discussion about Bhu-mandala -- July 5, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Why you are trying to adjust Pacific Ocean? Pacific Ocean, any ocean, it is just like kūpa-maṇḍūka. It is very big for you, but you are a very teeny identity. Take the universe. What is the Pacific? Is it not a drop. There are so many Pacific Oceans floating in the sky. Everything is acintya. Yasyaika-niśvasita-kālam athāvalambya jīvanti loma-vilajā jagad-aṇḍa-nāthāḥ (Bs. 5.48). This is acintya. So acintyāḥ khalu ye bhāvā na tāṁs tarkeṇa yojayet. You cannot make an experiment or see it. Take some information from the authority and be satisfied. With your limited knowledge, if you want to bring it to experiment, that is not possible. That is not possible.

Room Conversation With Son (Vrindavan De) -- July 5, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: I rejected immediately. What is this nonsense? Why shall I refer to it? "Probably." Finished, one word. Tāvac ca śobhate mūrkho yāvat kiñcin na bhāṣate:(?) "A mūrkha, a rascal, is beautiful so long he does not speak. As soon as he speaks, we understand where he is." Bas. Just like you're cooking rice. You take one rice and press it. If it is not soft, oh, whole rice is not. If it is not soft, it is not yet cooked. Similarly, one word will give his identity. As soon as he says "Probably," finished. Why shall I take trouble?

Room Conversation during lunchtime -- July 8, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say, "Well, actually you're concealing your identity."

Prabhupāda: That is my liking. You cannot dictate. I'm not pickpocketing you. What is the objection?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say, "Well, why don't you tell people who you actually are? Why don't you say you're a Hare Kṛṣṇa?"

Prabhupāda: No, that is my desire. You cannot dictate.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, you're asking me for your money.

Room Conversation -- October 28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Should I bring them? The certificates are with the bank, but we have the counterfoil identity slips.

Prabhupāda: So give him. Let him go away.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Just now?

Prabhupāda: I said now.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: All right.

Prabhupāda: (Bengali)

Vrindavan De: (Bengali)

Room Conversation -- October 28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So, then I've also informed them in the letter that the proprietor of the company—and I mentioned your name—that we have given you the counterfoil identity slips and also that we have given you the receipt for the safe custody. These certificates were kept in safe custody, so we're giving you the receipt, because it says that in order for these... Of course the bank can do everything, but you can deliver these identity slips and the safe custody receipt to the bank.

Vrindavan De: To my banker?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, not to your banker. To Prabhupāda's bank, the Bank of Baroda. Then I also mentioned that I am enclosing a copy of the power of attorney, that "Prabhupāda has been ill so he has difficulty in signing and he has duly empowered the following two persons." And that power of attorney will also be sent to them. So I'm also going to write a letter to Chandra requesting him to give Vrindavan help, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: So he will carry all these letters.

Page Title:Identity (Conversations)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, RupaManjari
Created:04 of Dec, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=62, Let=0
No. of Quotes:62