Pure devotional service means engaging all the senses of the body in the service of the Lord. At the present moment, our senses are all designated because the body is designated. Consequently we think that this body belongs to a particular society or a particular country or a particular family. In this way the body is bound by so many designations. Similarly, the senses belong to the body, and when the body is subject to such designations, the senses are also. Thus the senses engage themselves on behalf of family, society, nation and so on. When they are so engaged, they cannot cultivate Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The senses must be purified, and this is possible when one purely understands that he belongs to Kṛṣṇa and that his life belongs to Kṛṣṇa. The devotee should see his identity as an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa. In this way one can engage his senses in the service of the Lord. Such engagement is called pure devotional service.
Nation (CC and Other Books)
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta
CC Adi-lila
There were even invitations from Muslim houses to Hindu houses and from Hindu houses to Muslim houses. Both the Hindus and the Muslims accepted the invitations to go to one another's houses to attend ceremonial functions. Even until fifty or sixty years ago, the relationship between Hindus and Muslims was very friendly, and there were no disturbances. We do not find any Hindu-Muslim riots in the history of India, even during the days of the Muslims' rule over the country. Conflict between Hindus and Muslims was created by polluted politicians, especially foreign rulers, and thus the situation gradually became so degraded that India was divided into Hindustan and Pakistan. Fortunately, the remedy to unite not only the Hindus and Muslims but all communities and all nations can still be implemented by the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement on the strong basic platform of love of Godhead.
CC Madhya-lila
The Deity in the temple is not material—He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself. Similarly, considering the spiritual master an ordinary human being (guruṣu nara-matiḥ) is also an impediment. Nor should one consider a Vaiṣṇava a member of a particular caste or nation. Nor should a Vaiṣṇava be considered material. Caraṇāmṛta should not be considered ordinary drinking water, and the holy name of the Lord should not be considered an ordinary sound vibration. Nor should one look on Lord Kṛṣṇa as an ordinary human being, for He is the origin of all viṣṇu-tattvas; nor should one regard the Supreme Lord as a demigod. Intermingling the spiritual with the material causes one to look on transcendence as material and the mundane as spiritual. This is all due to a poor fund of knowledge. One should not consider Lord Viṣṇu and things related to Him as being different. All this is offensive.
""For a person devoid of devotional service, birth in a great family or nation, knowledge of the revealed scriptures, performance of austerities and penance, and chanting of Vedic mantras are all like ornaments on a dead body. Such ornaments simply serve the concocted pleasures of the general populace.""
One should not be jealous of members of other castes or nations. It is not that only Indians or brāhmaṇas can become Vaiṣṇavas. Anyone can become a Vaiṣṇava. Therefore one should recognize that the bhakti cult must be spread all over the world. That is real adveṣṭā. Moreover, the word maitra, "friendly," indicates that one who is able to preach the bhakti cult all over the world should be equally friendly to everyone. These two and the following six verses were spoken by Śrī Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā
In the Vedic civilization, meat-eaters are advised to kill an animal for the goddess Kālī or a similar demigod. This is in order not to give the animal unnecessary pain, as slaughterhouses do. In the bali-dāna sacrifice to a demigod, it is recommended to cut the throat of an animal with one slice. This should be done on a dark-moon night, and the painful noises expressed by the animal at the time of being slaughtered are not to be heard by anyone. There are also many other restrictions. Slaughter is allowed only once a month, and the killer of the animal has to suffer similar pains in his next life. At the present moment, so-called civilized men do not sacrifice animals to a deity in a religious or ritualistic way. They openly kill animals daily by the thousands for no purpose other than the satisfaction of the tongue. Because of this the entire world is suffering in so many ways. Politicians are unnecessarily declaring war, and according to the stringent laws of material nature, massacres are taking place between nations.
The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is not based upon bodily designations. It is a transcendental movement on the platform of spiritual understanding. If the people of the world understood that the basic principle of life is spiritual identification, they would understand that the business of the spirit soul is to serve the Supreme Spirit, Kṛṣṇa. As Lord Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā (15.7), mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ: "The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts." All living entities in different life forms are sons of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore they are all meant to serve Kṛṣṇa, the original supreme father. If this philosophy is accepted, the failure of the United Nations to unite all nations will be sufficiently compensated all over the world by a great Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Teachings of Lord Caitanya
In the Vedas, the four primary subjects mentioned above are prescribed in a regulative way so that there will not be undue competition for sense gratification. However, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is transcendental to all the sense gratifying activities of the material world. It is a pure transcendental literature, understandable by the devotees of the Lord who are above competition in sense gratification. In the material world there is keen competition between animals, men, communities and even nations in an attempt to gratify the senses, but the devotees of the Lord are above all this. Devotees have no need to compete with materialists because they are on the path back to Godhead, back home where everything is eternal, full and blissful. Such transcendentalists are a hundred percent nonenvious and are therefore pure in heart. Because everyone in the material world is envious, there is competition. The devotees of the Lord are not only free from all material envy, but they are also kind to everyone in an attempt to establish a competitionless society with God in the center.
Nectar of Devotion
In the primary stage a child loves his parents, then his brothers and sisters, and as he daily grows up he begins to love his family, society, community, country, nation, or even the whole human society. But the loving propensity is not satisfied even by loving all human society; that loving propensity remains imperfectly fulfilled until we know who is the supreme beloved. Our love can be fully satisfied only when it is reposed in Kṛṣṇa. This theme is the sum and substance of The Nectar of Devotion, which teaches us how to love Kṛṣṇa in five different transcendental mellows.
Our loving propensity expands just as a vibration of light or air expands, but we do not know where it ends. The Nectar of Devotion teaches us the science of loving every one of the living entities perfectly by the easy method of loving Kṛṣṇa. We have failed to create peace and harmony in human society, even by such great attempts as the United Nations, because we do not know the right method. The method is very simple, but one has to understand it with a cool head. The Nectar of Devotion teaches all men how to perform the simple and natural method of loving Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If we learn how to love Kṛṣṇa, then it is very easy to immediately and simultaneously love every living being.
As far as material necessities are concerned, the human civilization at the present moment is very much advanced in living comfortably, but still we are not happy, because we are missing the point. The material comforts of life alone are not sufficient to make us happy. The vivid example is America: the richest nation of the world, having all facilities for material comfort, is producing a class of men completely confused and frustrated in life. I am appealing herewith to such confused men to learn the art of devotional service as directed in The Nectar of Devotion, and I am sure that the fire of material existence burning within their hearts will be immediately extinguished. The root cause of our dissatisfaction is that our dormant loving propensity has not been fulfilled despite our great advancement in the materialistic way of life.
Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has given a definition of auspiciousness. He says that actual auspiciousness means welfare activities for all the people of the world. At the present moment groups of people are engaged in welfare activities in terms of society, community or nation. There is even an attempt in the form of the United Nations for world-help activity. But due to the shortcomings of limited national activities, such a general mass welfare program for the whole world is not practically possible. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, however, is so nice that it can render the highest benefit to the entire human race. Everyone can be attracted by this movement, and everyone can feel the result. Therefore, Rūpa Gosvāmī and other learned scholars agree that a broad propaganda program for the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement of devotional service all over the world is the highest humanitarian welfare activity.
Nectar of Instruction
If the members of human society actually want peace of mind, tranquillity and friendly relations between men and nations, they must follow the Kṛṣṇa conscious system of religion, by which they can develop their dormant love for Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As soon as people do so, their minds will immediately be filled with peace and tranquillity.
Easy Journey to Other Planets
We believe that no nation on earth can describe socialism as well as the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Living beings other than humans can be treated as brothers and children only when one has a full conception of the creator and the actual constitution of the living being.
Man's desire to be deathless is realized only in the spiritual world. As stated at the beginning of this essay, a desire for eternal life is a sign of dormant spiritual life. The aim of human civilization should be targeted to that end. It is possible for every human being to transfer himself to that spiritual realm by the process of bhakti-yoga, as described herein. It is a great science, and India has produced many scientific literatures by which the perfection of life may be realized.
Krsna, The Supreme Personality of Godhead
Vasudeva continued to say that the maintenance of religious principles, economic development and the satisfactory execution of meeting the demands of the senses depend on cooperation among relatives, nations and all humanity. Therefore, it is everyone's duty to see that his fellow citizens and the cows are not put into difficulty. One should see to the peace and comfort of his fellow man and the animals. The development of religious principles, economic development and sense gratification can then be achieved without difficulty. Vasudeva expressed his sorrow due to not being able to give protection to his own sons born of Devakī. He was thinking that religious principles, economic development and the satisfaction of his senses were therefore all lost.
Akrūra further advised Dhṛtarāṣṭra, "In this material world, no one can remain an eternal companion to another. Only by chance do we assemble together in a family, society, community or nation, but at the end, because every one of us has to give up the body, we must be separated. One should not, therefore, be unnecessarily affectionate toward family members." Dhṛtarāṣṭra's affection was also unlawful and did not show much intelligence. In plain words, Akrūra hinted to Dhṛtarāṣṭra that his staunch family affection was due to his gross ignorance of fact or his blindness to moral principles. Although we appear combined together in a family, society or nation, each of us has an individual destiny. Everyone takes birth according to individual past work; therefore everyone must individually enjoy or suffer the result of his own karma. There is no possibility of improving one's destiny by cooperative living. Sometimes it happens that one's father accumulates wealth by illegal ways, and the son takes away the money, although it is hard-earned by the father, just as a small fish in the ocean eats the material body of a large, old fish. One ultimately cannot accumulate wealth illegally for the gratification of his family, society, community or nation.
This is the disease of political power. As soon as a king becomes rich in material opulences, he wants to dominate other nations by military aggression. Similarly, mercantile men want to monopolize a certain type of business and control other mercantile groups. Impelled by false prestige and infatuated by material opulences, human society, instead of striving for Kṛṣṇa consciousness, creates havoc and disrupts peaceful living. Thus men forget the real purpose of life: to attain the favor of Lord Viṣṇu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
The personified Vedas continued: "Dear Lord, it is therefore our conclusion that all living entities are attracted by Your material energy, and only due to their mistakenly identifying themselves as products of the material nature are they transmigrating from one kind of body to another in forgetfulness of their eternal relationship with You. Because of ignorance, these living entities misidentify themselves in different species of life, and especially when elevated to the human form of life, they identify with a particular class of men, or a particular nation or race or so-called religion, forgetting their real identity as eternal servants of Your Lordship. Due to this faulty conception of life, they are undergoing repeated birth and death. Out of many millions of them, if one becomes intelligent enough by associating with pure devotees, he comes to the understanding of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and comes out of the jurisdiction of the material misconception."
Nārada-pañcarātra it is therefore explained, sarvopādhi-vinirmuktam (CC Madhya 19.170), which means "being freed from all designations." Works performed for family, society, community, nation or humanity are all designated: "I belong to this society," "I belong to this community," "I belong to this nation," "I belong to this species of life." Such identities are all merely designations. When by the grace of the Lord a devotee is freed from all designations, his devotional service is actually naiṣkarmya. Jñānīs are very much attracted by the position of naiṣkarmya, in which one's activities no longer have any material effect. The devotee's activities are freed from material effects, and so they are no longer in the category of karma-phalam, or fruitive activities.
Renunciation is not as important as enhancing one's attachment to Kṛṣṇa. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is especially meant for this purpose. We are preaching the principle that it does not matter whether a man is a sannyāsī or gṛhastha (householder). One simply has to increase his attachment for Kṛṣṇa, and then his life is successful. Following in the footsteps of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, one can live with his family members or within the society or nation, not for the purpose of indulging in sense gratification but to realize Kṛṣṇa by advancing in attachment for Him. There are four principles of elevation from conditioned life to the life of liberation, which are technically known as dharma, artha, kāma and mokṣa (religion, economic development, sense gratification and liberation). If one lives a family life following in the footsteps of Lord Kṛṣṇa's family members, one can achieve all four of these principles of success simultaneously by making Kṛṣṇa the center of all activities.
Renunciation Through Wisdom
The endeavors human beings have made to establish a close and harmonious relationship with one another have culminated in the United Nations. This organization is based on the concept of the family unit. The gradual expansion of the family unit to a large community, to a village, to a state, to a country, and finally to a continent has given the clue for the formation of the United Nations. The thing to be noted, however, is its center. What is the central attraction? If the process of expansion were reversed, we would end up with the human body as the basic unit. The senses are of prime importance in the body; more important than the senses is the mind, then intelligence, and finally the false ego. And more important than the false ego is the real self, a pure spiritual being that is part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, Viṣṇu. Therefore the conclusion is that the fountainhead of everything is Lord Viṣṇu. For this reason Prahlāda Mahārāja said,
Persons who are strongly entrapped by the consciousness of enjoying material life, and who have therefore accepted as their leader or guru a similar blind man attached to external sense objects, cannot understand that the goal of life is to return home, back to Godhead, and engage in the service of Lord Viṣṇu.
The confidential truth about what constitutes good action is almost impenetrable. Some hold that good action consists of executing one's social responsibilities. This is what common men generally understand by good action. But a few verses after the ones quoted above, Lord Kṛṣṇa uses the phrase brahma-karma to describe good action, and the word brahma points to Brahman. Therefore some say work done on the platform of Brahman is good action. Others say that good action includes works beneficial for the self, the society, the nation, and humanity at large. When a person acts with such lofty intentions, he is surely known as a good man. Indeed, his actions are certainly noble compared with those of persons with warped mentalities. This kind of action is not buddhi-yoga, however, because such philanthropic works can at best replace one set of people's mundane desires with a new set, but they can never completely root out these unwanted desires from within the heart. Philanthropic activities cannot prepare us for unalloyed devotional service, which is uncontaminated by empirical knowledge and fruitive action.
Message of Godhead
It is therefore necessary at the present moment to understand something about absolute knowledge if we want to bring the human race back to sanity. Thus intelligent persons or leaders of men should not devote their energies only for worldly betterment in the matter of eating, sleeping, defending, and gratifying the material senses. Leaders who think a hungry man or woman has no use for God and religion should be told emphatically that no man or woman in the world is not hungry—and that it is precisely the hungry man or woman who has to understand the meaning of God and religion now, more than ever.
In this connection, we would like to quote the substance of a speech delivered by Śrī Radhakrishnan (former president of India) at a recent meeting of UNESCO in Paris. He said that when a nation proudly turns away from God and concentrates on worldly success and prosperity, it meets its doom. What is essential today is not so much the rehabilitation of schools and libraries or shops and factories but the rehabilitation of man; we must re-create man if we are to create a new world community.
Fraternity in human society develops gradually—from love for self to love for family; from love for family to love for community; from love for community to love for nation; and from love for nation to love for the international community. And in this gradual process, there is always a center of attraction that helps our love progress and develop from one stage to another. We do not know, however, that in that constant struggle for fraternal development, the center of attraction is neither the family nor the community nor the nation, nor even the international community, but the all-pervading Godhead, Viṣṇu. This ignorance is due to the material curtain, the illusory energy of the Absolute Truth. The great devotee Prahlāda Mahārāja confirms that people in general do not know that their ultimate center of attraction is Viṣṇu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And in the Viṣṇu category, Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the supreme attraction.
Light of the Bhagavata
In this age of a godless civilization, the sages of world-recognized religious sects who believe in God must come out of their secluded places and preach the science of God, the Supreme Will, to the people in general. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and the members of the other sects that have convincing faith in the authority of God must not sit idly now and silently watch the rapid growth of a godless civilization. There is the supreme will of God, and no nation or society can live in peace and prosperity without acceptance of this vital truth.
At night in the rainy season the moving clouds reflecting the moonlight make the moon appear to be moving. This is called illusion. The spirit soul, or the living being, is the root of all the activities of the material body, but because of illusion the spirit soul remains covered by the gross and subtle material bodies. Thus covered, the conditioned soul identifies with the material body and becomes subject to the sense of false ego.
This false ego obliges a living being to consider his material body to be his self, the offspring of the body to be his children, and the land of the birth of the body to be an object of worship. Thus the living being's conception of nationalism is another type of ignorance. Because of ignorance, a living being identifies himself with the land of his birth and moves with the misconceptions of national ideas. In fact, however, a living being does not belong to any nation or species of life. He has nothing to do with the body, as the moon has nothing to do with the moving clouds.
Sri Isopanisad
No one wants to die: everyone wants to live as long as he can drag on. This tendency is visible not only individually but also collectively in the community, society and nation. There is a hard struggle for life by all kinds of living entities, and the Vedas say that this is quite natural. The living being is eternal by nature, but due to his bondage in material existence he has to change his body over and over. This process is called transmigration of the soul or karma-bandhana, bondage by one's work. The living entity has to work for his livelihood because that is the law of material nature, and if he does not act according to his prescribed duties, he transgresses the law of nature and binds himself more and more to the cycle of birth and death in the many species of life.
Factually, no one has to do anything more than render devotional service to the Lord. However, in the lower stages of life one cannot immediately adopt the activities of devotional service, nor can one completely stop fruitive work. A conditioned soul is accustomed to working for sense gratification—for his own selfish interest, immediate or extended. An ordinary man works for his own sense enjoyment, and when this principle of sense enjoyment is extended to include his society, nation or humanity in general, it assumes various attractive names such as altruism, socialism, communism, nationalism and humanitarianism. These "isms" are certainly very attractive forms of karma-bandhana (karmic bondage), but the Vedic instruction of Śrī Īśopaniṣad is that if one actually wants to live for any of the above "isms," he should make them God-centered. There is no harm in becoming a family man, or an altruist, a socialist, a communist, a nationalist or a humanitarian, provided that one executes his activities in relation with īśāvāsya, the God-centered conception.
If the individual living being were equal to the Supreme Lord both qualitatively and quantitatively, there would be no question of his being under the influence of the material energy. In the previous mantras it has already been discussed that no living being—not even the powerful demigods—can surpass the Supreme Being in any respect. Therefore ekatvam does not mean that a living being is equal in all respects to the Supreme Lord. It does, however, indicate that in a broader sense there is one interest, just as in a family the interest of all members is one, or in a nation the national interest is one, although there are many different individual citizens. Since the living entities are all members of the same supreme family, their interest and that of the Supreme Being are not different. Every living being is the son of the Supreme Being. As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.5), all living creatures throughout the universe—including birds, reptiles, ants, aquatics, trees and so on—are emanations of the marginal potency of the Supreme Lord. Therefore all of them belong to the family of the Supreme Being. There is no clash of interest.
There are innumerable suns and innumerable planetary systems also. As infinitesimal parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord, we small creatures are trying to dominate these unlimited planets. Thus we take repeated birth and death and are generally frustrated by old age and disease. The span of human life is scheduled for about a hundred years, although it is gradually decreasing to twenty or thirty years. Thanks to the culture of nescience, befooled men have created their own nations within these planets in order to grasp sense enjoyment more effectively for these few years. Such foolish people draw up various plans to render national demarcations perfectly, a task that is totally impossible. Yet for this purpose each and every nation has become a source of anxiety for others. More than fifty percent of a nation's energy is devoted to defense measures and thus spoiled. No one cares for the cultivation of real knowledge, yet people are falsely proud of being advanced in both material and spiritual knowledge.
| Page Title: | Nation (CC and Other Books) |
| Compiler: | Mayapur, UmaI |
| Created: | 12 of Oct, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=6, OB=23, Lec=0, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 29 |