Not knowing (Lect., Conv. and Letters)

Expressions researched:
"not knowing"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Lecture on BG 2.1-10 and Talk -- Los Angeles, November 25, 1968:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Nor do we know which is better, conquering them or being conquered by them. The sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, whom if we killed we should not care to live, are now standing before us on this battlefield (BG 2.6)." Purport. "Arjuna became perplexed in this connection, not knowing whether he should execute the fighting with the risk of committing unnecessarily violence, although it is the duty of the kṣatriyas, or whether he should not and prefer instead to live by begging, because if he did not conquer the enemy, begging would be the only means left for his living. There was no certainty of victory because either side might emerge victorious."

Prabhupāda: These are his causes of perplexities, how he was thinking, that has been tried to be explained.

Lecture on BG 6.25-29 -- Los Angeles, February 18, 1969:

Why we are welcoming these children? Because he is part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. You are giving them chance to, as much as possible, to take part in the kīrtana, to taste the prasāda. That child who comes, imitates like this, oh, don't think that it is growing in vain. Something done in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, knowing or not knowing it will have it's effect. These children who are bowing down or trying to vibrate "Kṛṣṇa" or clap. These things are being accumulated in bank account of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Just like if the child touches this fire, it will act. It will not excuse the child, that, "Oh, he is child, he does not know." The fire will act. Similarly if Kṛṣṇa is the supreme spirit, a child who may take part in it, Kṛṣṇa will act. You may know it do not know it. It doesn't matter. Because Kṛṣṇa is there. So it is so nice. Therefore every living being should be given chance. These boys are inviting outsider, "Come on," this love feast. What is the idea? The idea, let them come, take little prasāda and it will act someday in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It will act. So that is their propaganda.

Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures

Lecture on SB 7.7.30-31 -- Mombassa, September 12, 1971:

There is a process. The process is simply to understand Kṛṣṇa. Janma karma me divyam yo janati tattvataḥ, not knowing superficially, "Oh, Kṛṣṇa is a historical person. Some five thousand years ago, He took birth as the son of Devakī," like that. Everyone knows—at least every Indian knows—and they observe Kṛṣṇa's birthday. That is beginning. But Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Absolute Truth, He is the origin of everything, He is the cause of all causes, that is not known. That one has to know. The brahmajyoti, impersonal jyoti is bodily effulgence. The brahmajyoti is resting on Kṛṣṇa. Brahmaṇo aham pratiṣṭha, Kṛṣṇa says. Just like the illumination in this room, prakāśa, is resting on this bulb. Although the illuminating light is spread all over this room, that is not original. The original is the bulb. Similarly, and from the śāstra we find, yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam, tad brahma niṣkalam anantam aśeṣa-bhūtaṁ (Bs. 5.40). That brahma ananta aśeṣa-bhūtam, unlimited. Yasya prabhā. This brahmajyoti is only effulgence of Kṛṣṇa.

Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Lectures

Lecture on CC Adi-lila 7.1 -- Atlanta, March 1, 1975:

"A person in the conditional stage of material existence is in an atmosphere of helplessness. But the conditioned soul, under the illusion of māyā or the external energy, thinks that he is completely protected by his country, society, friendship and love, not knowing that at the time of death none of these can save him." This is called māyā. But he does not believe. Under the illusion of māyā, he does not also believe that what is the meaning of saving. Saving. Saving means saving oneself from this repetition, cycle of birth and death. That is real saving. But they do not know. (reading:) "The laws of material nature are so strong that none of our material possessions can save us from the cruel hands of death." Everyone knows it. And that is our real problem. Who is not afraid of death? Everyone is afraid of death. Why? Because any living entity, he is not meant for dying. He is eternal; therefore birth, death, old age and disease, these things are botheration for him. Because he is eternal, he does not take birth, na jāyate, and one who does not take birth, he has no death also, na mriyate kadācit. This is our actual position. Therefore we are afraid of death. That is our natural inclination.

Philosophy Discussions

Philosophy Discussion on Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz:

Prabhupāda: No. Whatever he may say, we cannot accept that there are two types of truth. That is not possible.

Śyāmasundara: He calls this type of truth conditional truth.

Prabhupāda: The conditional truth is the untruth.

Śyāmasundara: Just like if I saw by my senses some snow that was red.

Prabhupāda: That is due to your defect of seeing a condition and not knowing the condition.

Śyāmasundara: But I can explain by sufficient reasons why that snow is red.

Prabhupāda: Just like a living entity is trying to become master—"I am the monarch of all I survey." That is untruth. The truth is that he is eternal servant. You cannot say that because one is trying to be imitation God, that that is another truth. You cannot say that. That is māyā. There cannot be a second God. God is one. That is truth, absolute truth. Our point is that we do not accept this proposition, that there are two types of truth. That is not at all acceptable. Truth is one.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Educationists -- July 11, 1973, London:

Guest (1): No, I came as a Christian, not knowing anything. I still don't know really anything.

Prabhupāda: Our movement is to revive God consciousness. Just like a man is sleeping, and he has got some engagement, say, in the morning, at six o'clock. But still he's sleeping. So somebody is trying to awake him. "Get up, get up! You have got this engagement. You have..." Our movement is like that. The human society is sleeping. So we are just trying to awake them: "Get up. Get up. You have got this engagement." That is our business. It is not our manufactured business, but it is stated in the Vedic literature, uttiṣṭha jāgratā prāpta-varān nibodhata. "Now you be awakened." "Now" means "You have got this human form of life. You can now be awakened." In animal form of life there is no possibility. Therefore, in the human form of life, one should be awakened to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, or God consciousness. And if he sleeps, then he loses his business. This is our mission, to awaken him. And when a man sleeps, how he can awaken him? Simply by vibration of sound. The sleeping man can be awakened simply by this process, allowing the sound to enter the ear. By no other process. He's sleeping. If you show him a stick, "If you don't get up, I shall strike you," that will not be effective. Because sleeping. If you say... So many things... There are other senses. There will be no action. But only through the ear, if you cry, "Please get up! Please get up! Now your time," that will act. So our process is that, to force him to hear. Then he'll be awakened, by hearing. Therefore Vedic literature is called śruti. Śruti means it has to be received by hearing. You may be uneducated. It doesn't matter. If you simply hear from the right source, you get right knowledge. There is no need of education. Simply by hearing.

Room Conversation -- September 19, 1973, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Generally, people understand Kṛṣṇa that "He appeared as a great personality, son of Vasudeva. At Mathurā, He was born. And He acted very gorgeously in the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra, and so on, so on." This is also knowing. But this is not knowing factually that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. When one understands Kṛṣṇa, the original source of everything, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1), which Kṛṣṇa explains, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat: (BG 7.7) "There is no superior authority beyond Me." Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ: (BG 10.8) "I am the origin of all." When one understands Kṛṣṇa like that... The Māyāvādī philosophers, they think that "I am also Kṛṣṇa, I am also Kṛṣṇa." But people who follow, they do not ask him that "If you are Kṛṣṇa, you show something as Kṛṣṇa showed. Kṛṣṇa lifted the Govardhana Hill when He was seven years old. And you are seventy years old. What you have done like that?" (laughs) So everyone wants to become Kṛṣṇa, but he cannot manifest Kṛṣṇa's pastimes. Kṛṣṇa showed the virāṭ-rūpa to Arjuna. What you have got? So this is Māyāvāda. Mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat (BG 7.7).

Morning Walk -- December 16, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Oh, there was big meeting of the prisoners. Kīrtana, everything, yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So by lacking the understanding, they say that God is not merciful. The sufferers. People, who are suffering, but by not knowing that it is the mercy of the Lord, we complain that God is not merciful. But he is impartial.

Prabhupāda: No, God is merciful, but this fool does not know because he is ignorant. The same thing, mother says. One child, she is feeding very sumptuously. Other one, "Oh, don't take it. You go away." Does it mean the mother is merciful to one child and not to the other? The child does not know it, he cries, "Why shall I not...? Why I shall not eat? Why I shall not eat?" So these foolish questions will be stopped as soon as one becomes God conscious.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Guest (1): There are a number of projects and there are a number of disciplines in which people work. Mine is experimental nutrition.

Prabhupāda: So you are also believing that life comes from matter? (laughter)

Guest (1): No, I don't think we think in those directions at all. We simply just conduct experiments, not knowing what they will lead to and try to describe whatever we see under the microscope. (indistinct) chemical matters that we use.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But I think you have assumed that Darwin's theory or theory of evolution is already there and even to study something intermediate, higher levels, evolution is all right but...

Prabhupāda: Basic means evolution.

Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: (laughs) I have my doubts. How can we know that he is not knowing or knowing? It is our conjecture that he is not knowing.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Śāstra says. You conjecture, but we don't conjecture. We simply repeat what is said in the śāstra. Śāstra-cakṣuṣāt. "Your eyes should be the śāstra, not conjecture." Śāstra says, kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya. He has become a dog on account of his infection with certain type of material qualities. That is our eyes. We don't conjecture anything. It is naturally may be inquired that "Why one living entity has got this body of a dog and why one living entity has got the body of King Indra?" The śāstra-cakṣuṣāt: kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya. Śāstra says, Kṛṣṇa says. So it is, reason is, that he has infected the certain type of material modes of nature; therefore he has got. It is very easy. As you, medical man, you know how the disease has come, you have infected the disease. It is that.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 14, 1976, Mayapur:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: We live in the material world, and we don't perceive who it actually belongs to, like living in a house, not knowing who the owner is. So is this sense of ignorance due to sinful activities?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Suppose if I go to America and if you do not know what is the political constitution of America, how the country is being managed, that is my foolishness. I must know that in America there is a president, the government is like this, the law is like this. Then I am intelligent. And if I do not know anything, if I think everything is automatically going on, then I am foolish rascal. They think like that, "Everything is going on, nature." They cannot explain what is the nature. Even this flower growing, the tree is growing; foolish people say, "This is nature," but intelligent person knows what is the law behind it, acting. That is intelligence and foolish. Nothing can happen. These big, big so-called scientists, they are talking of accidents. That is another rascal. Accidents, why? Why accident? This flower is not growing in this tree, and this flower is not growing in this tree by accident. Why it is not happening? Accidents means that. There is no law. Something happen without any law. That is accident. But we are generally seeing that this flower never grows in this tree and this flower never grows in this tree.

Morning Walk -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Satsvarūpa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, I think Bhakta Gene wants to know if you recognize that there are any great devotees in that Christian tradition. Do we recognize that any of those Christian saints were great devotees? Did they develop love of God? Or what's the comparison?

Prabhupāda: I do not know, I have not studied Christianity. But if anyone has developed love, that is perfection. So there is not question of my knowing or not knowing. If actually one has developed love for God, he's perfect. That's all.

Bhakta Gene: This is what prompted me to ask my first question, Your Grace. What has brought me here has been my search...

Prabhupāda: No, it is God's desire that you are sincere, you have come. Now utilize the association and the opportunity, your life will be successful. We have got enough books to convince you about this science. So you read it.

Evening Darsana -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Guest (3): Your Grace, may I ask a question? Before I asked about a man not knowing what his duty was, and you spoke of the highest duty of giving up all to Kṛṣṇa and becoming detached from the fruits of your action. But suppose the question is What shall I become—a shopkeeper, a teacher, a carpenter?

Prabhupāda: In any condition, you can surrender yourself to Kṛṣṇa. Svakarmaṇā tam abhyarcya.

Guest (3): Yes, but it sounds like it doesn't matter what I do as long as I dedicate my action to Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Therefore you require spiritual master to guide you.

Guest (3): So I cannot know myself.

Prabhupāda: That is not possible.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 31, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Hari-śauri: That may be good advice for a Vaiṣṇava, but what about all the thousands of people who are suffering and not knowing the cause?

Prabhupāda: Therefore they are rascals! Vaiṣṇava is the only intelligent. Therefore we say rascals, bokā. Therefore their general name is bokā. They do not know things, how it is going on by superior management. Bokā.

Yogeśvara: But we do protest the nonsense of the rascal politicians.

Prabhupāda: You can do it, but you do not know what is the cause and why one is suffering, why... These laws you do not know. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi (BG 3.27). The prakṛti is doing. You are thinking, "Oh, I can do something." Ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā. You are rascal. By false prestige you are thinking that you are so great you can do something beyond God's arrangement. So that is your rascaldom.

Hari-śauri: Then why do we bother to preach? Why not just sit and do our bhajana?

Prabhupāda: We preach that "Submit to God." That's all. That is my all preaching. We don't say that you protest against the arrangement of God." We don't say. We simply say, "Whatever arrangement God has made, you submit." That's all.

1968 Correspondence

Letter to Jadurani -- Montreal 9 July, 1968:

Brahma came to Krishna because he has very exalted idea about Krishna, and he was doubtful how his Lord could come into the material world and become a cowherd boy. This incidence is known as Brahma Bemohan lila, or the pastime of bewildering Brahma. In the beginning of Srimad-Bhagavatam, it is stated that great personalities like Brahma become bewildered in the understanding of the Absolute Truth. So sometimes such pastimes are manifested by the Lord in order to teach the so-called mental speculators. Even Arjuna was bewildered, although he was His constant companion. Arjuna also was talking from the material view point of standing. All this bewilderment of great devotees are created by the Lord, for 2 purposes: one purpose, is that even great personalities like Brahma and Arjuna sometimes become bewildered, and therefore, unless they present themselves in such position of bewilderment, the common men do not have the chance to understand Krishna. If Brahma would not have posed himself as not knowing the whole truth, then some truths about the transcendental position of Krishna would not have been explained. Besides that, we cannot calculate even one day's duration of the life of Brahma. So, Krishna appears only once in a day of Brahma, and that takes a rotation of unlimited trillions of solar years. So some incidences take place in one day, and other incidents take place in another day.

1971 Correspondence

Letter to Kirtika (Judith Cornell) -- Calcutta 21 May, 1971:

The gopis are so much engaged in the transcendental loving service of Radha and Krishna that they are condemning the creator, Lord Brahma for not knowing how to make perfect eyes. They were disturbed that when blinking their eyes, they could not see Krishna. So that is perfection in Krishna Consciousness; to be so much engaged in Krishna's loving service that you cannot bear separation from that service, not even for a moment. So somehow or other always be engaged. And if there is nothing else, you can always sit down and chant Hare Krishna Mantra. 16 rounds daily is the minimal requirement, but you should chant Hare Krishna as much as possible. And follow all the regulative principles strictly. Read all our books, attend classes and go for street Sankirtana. In this way be engaged in Krishna's business 24 hours and you will be happy and in the end you will go back home, back to Godhead.