Nirvana and Buddha's philosophy (Conv. and Letters)

Expressions researched:
"Buddha" |"Buddhist" |"nirvana"

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Dr. Weir of the Mensa Society -- September 5, 1971, London:

Śyāmasundara: The Buddhist thinks that everyone is God.

Prabhupāda: In Buddhist theory there is no acceptance of God. There is simply to diminish, or to nullify the sense of pains and pleasures. That is called nirvāṇa.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk At Cheviot Hills Golf Course -- May 13, 1973, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They are saying that the material body started from elements, the chemical elements.

Prabhupāda: That we admit also. That we also admit. But on what basis?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: And when the spirit soul, when the living entity reaches the human platform, then again goes back to the...

Prabhupāda: Do the rascals believe in the living entity?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, they don't say living entity. Bodies.

Prabhupāda: Then?

Paramahaṁsa: Something akin to Buddhism.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.

Paramahaṁsa: The Buddhists also say that the body is like a house. You put the house together, you put the body together with chemicals. And when the bodies die, just like you take the house apart, all the wood, and then there is no more house... no more soul, no more life.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is called nirvāṇa. And with the chemicals you can build another house. Buddhists they do not give any information of the soul. That is Buddhism.

Room Conversation with Two Buddhist Monks -- July 12, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: ...dehaṁ punar janma naiti. Such person, those who are fully absorbed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, such person, after giving up this body, does not accept any more material body. He goes back to Kṛṣṇa. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti (BG 4.9). "He comes to Me." So you cannot go to Kṛṣṇa unless you have your spiritual body. Because the spiritual world and Kṛṣṇa, they are all spiritual. So you cannot enter into fire unless you are fire. So you have to revive your spiritual body, spiritual consciousness. Then, after giving up this body, you enter the spiritual world. So Lord Buddha did not speak anything about the spiritual world, but his philosophy said that "Dismantle this material existence." Nirvāṇa. Nobody has preached that "You become happy here," either Lord Buddha or Lord Christ or Kṛṣṇa or anybody, Śaṅkara. Nobody. But modern materialistic people, they are thinking that "We can become happy by adjustment of our material condition." That is not possible.

Room Conversation -- September 18, 1973, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Janma karma me divyaṁ yo jānāti tattvataḥ. Tattvataḥ, if you can understand, then your business is done. Then tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). Then, after giving up this body, you are not going to accept any more this material body. My problem is acceptance of this material body. That is my problem. Because these pains and pleasure, feeling of pains and pleasure, is due to my this body. Therefore Buddha philosophy is nirvāṇa, "Make this body zero." That is his philosophy. Nirvāṇa. Because people are bothered due to these pains and pleasures. Here everything is painful. But we take something pain, as pleasure.

Guest (1): Something, some devotees want the body again and again for doing service also.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Guest (1): Some devotees want the body again and again...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Devotee... Because people want perfection. But their perfection is to serve Kṛṣṇa. Their perfection is not to stop this body. But the... Anyone who knows Kṛṣṇa, he's not living in this material world. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate (BG 14.26). Anyone who's engaged in Kṛṣṇa's service, he's transcendental to these material qualities.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- March 16, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa means, I have already explained, this is the people take, those who know Sanskrit, nirvāṇa means extinguished. Now, you may have different meaning.

Guest: Right. Words change meaning as time goes on.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Guest: Words, I mean their root may be one thing, but then as time goes on the, uh, word doesn't remain, uh, the same as used by uh...

Prabhupāda: Anyway, you can give your own meaning. What do you mean by nirvāṇa.

Guest: Nirvāṇa is identifying your, uh, ah, passion desires with the innate Buddha principles, in this system.

Prabhupāda: The life symptoms?

Guest: Hm?

Prabhupāda: Symptoms of life?

Guest: In this system.

Prabhupāda: System? What is that system?

Guest: The, uh, Mahayana Buddhism.

Prabhupāda: Oh. So what is that practically?

Guest: The practical result?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Guest: The practical result is, uh.... I don't see it as being far different from Kṛṣṇa consciousness, though the approach may be different.

Prabhupāda: What Kṛṣṇa consciousness is stress is always thinking of Kṛṣṇa, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). It is directly always thinking of Kṛṣṇa.

Guest: So that is...

Prabhupāda: To offer obeisances to Kṛṣṇa, to worship Kṛṣṇa, to become devotee of Kṛṣṇa, this is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Guest: Buddha is Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Guest: Buddha is Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Buddha is Kṛṣṇa, that I know, but the...

Guest: So that if you...

Prabhupāda: ...those who Buddhist, they do not know. They do not know. We know, but they do not know. Neither they agree to believe.

Guest: So that if you're aware of Buddha, then you're aware...

Prabhupāda: But you should talk from the platform of Buddha. We know the secrecy. Our, our understanding of Buddha, that he is incarnation of Kṛṣṇa. But the Buddhists, they do not believe.

Morning Walk -- June 9, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: They'll make a program: "Thoughtlessness." That lady was...

Bhagavān: To become thoughtless.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because they are disgusted with this material thought, therefore they want to make it zero. But that is not possible. You must think of something. But they have no spiritual idea. They do not know what is spiritual thinking. They think that "Make it zero. These thoughts, let us make it zero." Just like a diseased man, suffering for, from the very beginning of his life... Then, if somebody suggests that "When you'll be cured, you'll very nicely eat, nicely walk and nicely think," so he's coming to the stage of diseased condition, "Again thinking? Again eating? Again lying down on bed? Then what is the difference? No, no. It must be zero: no eating, no sleeping, no bedding, nothing." He's thinking like that. Because he has got bad experience of his diseased condition, he thinks, "Again if there is eating, again if there is walking, then how it can be cured?" He cannot think of. These rascals, because they have no idea what is spiritual thinking, they want to make this thinking zero only. That's all. Śūnyavādī. They are called Śūnyavādī, nirvāṇa, Buddhist philosophy. "Your body is subjected to pains and pleasure; so dismantle this body." This is Buddha philosophy. "Make it zero. There will be no more pains and pleasure." "You have got some trouble in the eyes? Pluck it out." He does not know how to cure it. He simply knows, "Pluck it out." This is their philosophy.

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

Prabhupāda: So Absolute Truth is realized in three aspect. Brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate (SB 1.2.11). Some realize the Absolute Truth as impersonal Brahman, others realize the Absolute Truth as localized Paramātmā, situated in everyone's heart, and the final realization is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So we are cultivating the Supreme Personality of Godhead Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam (SB 1.3.28). So which aspect you are cultivating, the Paramātmā or the impersonal Brahman or the Personality of Godhead?

Professor Durckheim: You can't help cultivate all three in the long run.

Prabhupāda: No, all three are one. But it is the angle of vision only. Just like a mountain—somebody from distant place looking, hazy clouds, something. The mountain is the same, but from long distance one realizes as hazy cloud. Little more nearer, they realize something green. And if somebody goes in the mountain, he realizes the mountain and the animals and the residential place, everything. The objective is the same, but the angle of vision different. So in India or everywhere, some realizing the Absolute Truth as impersonal, without any variegatedness.

Professor Durckheim: As Buddhists do.

Prabhupāda: Buddhists, they, I think, they... Yes, you are right, impersonal. But their philosophy is to stop all kinds of realization, nirvāṇa. Realization they do not want. They want to stop realization, to become zero. Is it not that?

Professor Durckheim: To become? I didn't understand.

Prabhupāda: Zero.

Professor Durckheim: Zero, yes. Well, zero from the point of view of the alter ego, but this zero is everything from the outside. From the point of view of the natural ego it's zero, but once you touch it, it's the plenitude, everything. But it's beyond something and everything, as far as I understand it.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is beyond. That beyond is realized, as I explained to you, in different angle of vision. Some, impersonal, without any variety, and some, localized Paramātmā, and some, the Supreme Being. As you are sitting, I am sitting, we are talking, so the Absolute Truth is a person, Supreme Person, Supreme Being, and we approach Him, talk with Him, sit with Him, play with Him. That is Kṛṣṇa realization. First of all, negation of the material varieties, then impersonal realization, then localized realization, then personal realization. Just like a diseased man. First of all cure, then healthy activities. A diseased man has got activities. He also eats, he also sleeps, he also evacuates, but all troublesome. Therefore, being disgusted, he wanted to make everything zero. But if he hears that again sleeping, again eating, again evacuating is healthy life, he thinks it is something like his diseased condition. But healthy life is different from diseased life. So some philosophers, they are trying to negate this diseased condition only, without any realization of healthy life. So I think Buddha philosophy is called nirvāṇa, negation of this diseased condition of life, pains and pleasure. Am I right or wrong?

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- May 17, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: And that Burmese said, "We don't believe in God." And you don't believe in God. You don't... Why you believe Lord Buddha? He is God.

Amogha: Then he said, "But there is no God mentioned in Buddhism. There is nirvāṇa."

Prabhupāda: That's all right, but you worship Buddha. Why?

Amogha: Because he spoke about nirvāṇa. In Burma many people are Buddhist. They say they are Buddhist.

Prabhupāda: Till now, 2,600 years past from the Buddhist community, from other groups and Arabia, very big religionist or philosophers has come. They are all in darkness. It was for the time being. The Buddhist religion was for the time.

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1975, Honolulu:

Siddha-svarūpa: See, the materialist is seeing that everyone is agitated, so the goal in their life is cessation of that agitation. They want to merge or cease their existence. They want to go into nothingness. So...

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is their...

Siddha-svarūpa: ...this is what they're looking for. The transcendental meditator goes in so that the gauge doesn't make any motion. But a rock, if you put that same gauge on a rock it also doesn't make motion. Does that mean the rock is spiritual or that he's more advanced than someone else?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Siddha-svarūpa: You see? They're saying that perfection is no motion. They're saying that perfection is inactivity. So they already have in their mind what they think is perfect, and then they're going to see if this method helps a person to achieve calmness or whatever they're calling perfection.

Prabhupāda: That is that Buddha philosophy, nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa, stop all activities. Buddha philosophy.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Roof Conversation -- January 5, 1977, Bombay:

Devotee (1): If a human being can try repeatedly, showing kāma, krodha, lobha, moha... He keeps on trying to get over it...

Prabhupāda: That is negative side.

Devotee (1): ...and again keeps on trying...

Prabhupāda: That is negative side. First of all... Just like mauna... (break) Why maunam? There is no need of maunam. You have to chant. Kīrtanīyaḥ sadā. So there is negative side and positive side. One who has no information of the positive side, they simply take the negative side. Brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā. Jagan mithyā is all right, but where is that brahma satyam? That brahma satyam is here, when you are fully engaged in serving. Brahma satyam does not mean I simply make negative this, and there is no engagement. That brahma satyam will not endure. You'll fall down, because you are active. If you have no engagement, then you fall down again. Just like a child, he is engaged in playing always, but engage him in studying. If he gets little interest, then automatically he gives up playing. But if you simply stop playing, then he will become mad, because activity is there. These Māyāvādī philosophers, they do not know this. They simply take the negative thing—this material engagement, zero, Buddha philosophy, nirvāṇa. And that nirvāṇa is another word, nirviśeṣa. That will not help us. There must be varieties and there must be positive life, and that is bhakti. So without bhakti you cannot stop your nonsense activities.

Room Conversation -- October 3, 1977, Vrndavana:

Haṁsadūta: I once heard that when some devotees wanted to buy a church in America you suggested that they should keep the altar and next put Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and give simultaneous lecture from Bible and from Bhagavad-gītā. I was thinking that in Shree Lanka, if it would be all right to have a deity of Lord Buddha and speak simultaneously on the Dharmapatha(?) and also Bhagavad-gītā, showing how Bhagavad-gītā is beyond the stage of nirvāṇa. Is that a good idea, Prabhupāda, or not?

Prabhupāda: Good idea, provided you can present properly.

Haṁsadūta: Because Buddhists come and they ask, "If Lord Buddha was an incarnation of Viṣṇu, then why he did not teach about God? Why did he not teach about the soul?" So I always explain to them it's like teachings ABC's and teaching advanced literature. He was teaching ABC. That was required. He did not go into higher subject matter.

Prabhupāda: First of all the Buddha wanted to make them sinless, "Don't kill." And you are not following that even. His business was to stop sinful life. In sinful life one cannot understand God as He is.

Haṁsadūta: Once Lord Buddha, they say, was sitting under a bo tree, and a leaf fell down. He picked it up and he said, "The knowledge I am giving you is like this leaf compared to the tree of knowledge." So I always quote that. They appreciate that, "Oh, yes," that beyond nirvāṇa there is brahma-nirvāṇa, and beyond that there is Paramātmā, and above that there is Bhagavān.

Prabhupāda: Nirvāṇa means sarva-dharmān parityajya (BG 18.66). That is nirvāṇa. Kṛṣṇa said, sarva-dharmān parityaj... Parityajya means giving up, and that is nirvāṇa. It requires expert presentation.

1968 Correspondence

Letter to Janardana -- Los Angeles 21 January, 1968:

The marginal position of voidness between Brahmajyoti and the material world manifestation is the destination of the Buddhist philosophers. Therefore the voidness philosophy is worse than Impersonalist philosophy. This voidness philosophy is simply nirvana, or absence of material manifestation, but actually it is a material stand whereas Impersonalist monism is transcendental to material manifestation and voidness. Therefore the conception of Brahmajyoti is advanced realization than conception of nirvana. Nobody can be satisfied in void or Impersonalist philosophy; they are against the nature of the spirit soul. We understand from Vedanta philosophy that the spirit soul is by nature joyful. There is no joy in voidness or Impersonalism and because such imperfect philosophers do not know of the association of Krishna which is full of bliss and knowledge, they will fall down repeatedly into voidness and Impersonalism with the result that they cannot stay there and they fall down to the material atmosphere. In Bhagavad-gita it is said by the Lord that these people, void and Impersonalist philosophers, are in great trouble. If they are fortunate enough to meet a pure devotee of Krishna and if they are sincere in their search for the absolute truth, they will find Krishna Consciousness as the last resort of their philosophical researches. Try to help these bewildered philosophers by presentation of your nice Krishna Consciousness thesis which you have prepared, and I am sure Krishna will help you in all respects. Simply your sincerity of service is required and He will dictate from within you how to make your thesis. It will be a great service to the humanity, especially to the Western world.