Shackles (Conversations)

Expressions researched:
"shackle" |"shackled" |"shackles"

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Bajaj and Bhusan -- September 11, 1972, Arlington, Texas, At Their Home:

Prabhupāda: Good bondage, but it is bondage, after all. If you are prisoner, first-class prisoner or third-class prisoner, you are prisoner.

Guest (2): But doesn't bondage give the incentive to live?

Prabhupāda: No, bondage gives bondage. If you do not know how to get out of the bondage, then you will be more and more in bondage.

Guest (2): But if you don't have any bondage, then...

Prabhupāda: No, everyone is in bondage.

Guest (2): No, I mean, suppose idealistically...

Prabhupāda: What idealistic?

Guest (2): Hypothetical case that...

Prabhupāda: No, nothing hypothetical. Your bondage... Bondage means that birth, death, old age and disease. This is bondage. We are all living entities, part and parcel of God. We are spirit soul. So this is not our business, birth, death, old age and disease. So bondage means so long you'll get this material body you are under this bondage: birth, death, old age, and disease. Because you are very rich man, getting good salary, it does not mean that you will not die, or disease will not attack you. This is bondage. First of all try to understand what is bondage. Bondage and freedom. Bondage means to be subjected to the condition of this material body. That is called bondage. The body may be elephant's body or tiger's body or Brahmā's body or ant's body, but that is bondage. Because as soon as you get a material body you are under this bondage of birth, death, old age and disease. So your problem is how to get out of this bondage, not that to accept the bondage—just like I am bound up by iron shackles—"Let me be bound up by golden shackles." So that is bondage. The people do not know. They are satisfied when they are bound up with golden shackles. That is called ignorance. He feels satisfied when he is locked up with golden shackles. That is called ignorance.

Guest (2): Nonmaterial bondage.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Bondage means material. In spiritual life there is no bondage.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Anna Conan Doyle, daughter-in-law of famous author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- August 10, 1973, Paris:

Prabhupāda: That doesn't matter. Just like surgical operation is going on. He's unconscious. That is another thing. By some method, he's unconscious. But the pain is there. The pain is there. The pain is not felt. Just like animals. They, they are in painful condition, but because they are animal, they do not feel it. On the horseback, you are driving horseback, like this, like this. It is painful, but because he's animal he cannot protect himself. It is very painful. Suppose if a chain is shackled on your mouth, and I constantly push like this...? Is it not painful? The horse is controlled by the mouth...

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- April 7, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Demons are known as sura-dviṣām, sura-dviṣām, those who are envious of the demigods, sura-dvisa. Sammohāya sura-dviṣām (SB 1.3.24). This word is used in the Bhāgavata: "just to cheat the demons," sammohāya sura-dviṣām. (break) That is the instruction of Nārada. You see? Then?

Girirāja: "Within the prison, shackled in iron chains, Vasudeva and Devakī gave birth to a male child year after year. Kaṁsa, thinking each of the babies to be the incarnation of Viṣṇu, killed them one after another."

Morning Walk -- April 10, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. The conclusion is that Kṛṣṇa being the reservoir of all pleasure, so the pleasure of fighting is there. So He can exhibit anywhere. (break) That is the understanding of Kṛṣṇa. As soon as we limit Kṛṣṇa like one of us, or little bigger than me, then I become doctor frog. (aside:) Don't come near. Why don't you tell them? (break)

Girirāja: "...Vasudeva attempted to take His son from the delivery room, and exactly at that time, a daughter was born of Nanda and Yaśodā. She was Yogamāyā, the internal potency of the Lord. By the influence of His internal potency, Yogamāyā, all the residents of Kaṁsa's palace, especially the doorkeepers, were overwhelmed with deep sleep and all the palace doors opened although they were barred and shackled with iron chains. The night was very dark, but as soon as Vasudeva took Kṛṣṇa on His lap and went out, he could see everything just as in the sunlight." (break)

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Hṛdayānanda:

mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke

jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ

manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi

prakṛti-sthāni karṣati

(BG 15.7)

"The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal, fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind." Purport. "In this verse the identity of the living being is clearly given. The living entity is a fragmental part and parcel of the Supreme Lord-eternally. It is not that he assumes individuality in his conditional life and in his liberated state becomes one with the Supreme Lord. He is eternally fragmented. It is clearly said, sanātana. According to the Vedic version, the Supreme Lord manifests and expands Himself in innumerable expansions, of which the primary expansions are called Viṣṇu-tattva, and the secondary expansions are called the living entities. In other words, the Viṣṇu-tattva is the personal expansion, and the living entities are separated expansions. By His personal expansion, He is manifested in various forms like Lord Rāma, Nṛsiṁha-deva, Viṣṇumūrti and all the predominating Deities in the Vaikuṇṭha planets. The separated expansions, the living entities, are eternally servitors. The personal expansions of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the individual identities of the Godhead, are always present. Similarly, the separated expansions of living entities have their identities. As fragmental parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord, the living entities have also fragmental qualities, of which independence is one. Every living entity has an individual soul, his personal individuality and a minute form of independence. By misuse of that independence, one becomes a conditioned soul, and by proper use of independence he is always liberated. In either case, he is qualitatively eternal, as the Supreme Lord is. In his liberated state he is freed from this material condition, and he is under the engagement of transcendental service unto the Lord; in his conditioned life he is dominated by the material modes of nature, and he forgets the transcendental loving service of the Lord. As a result, he has to struggle very hard to maintain his existence in the material world. The living entities, not only the human beings and the cats and dogs, but even the greater controllers of the material world—Brahmā, Lord Śiva, and even Viṣṇu—are all parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord. They are all eternal, not temporary manifestations. The word karṣati (struggling or gappling hard) is very significant. The conditioned soul is bound up, as though shackled by iron chains. He is bound up by the false ego, and the mind is the chief agent which is driving him in this material existence. When the mind is in the mode of goodness, his activities are good."

Prabhupāda: Manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni karṣati (BG 15.7). The struggle for existence—this word is used also among the philosophers. This is struggle. He is creating something by the mind, manaḥ, and the senses are engaged according to the dictation of the mind. Manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi. In this way, prakṛti-sthāni, within this material world, he's living a life of struggle for existence. Prakṛti-sthāni karṣati. Karṣati means with hardship he's pulling on. Just like an animal yoked with cart, bull, with hardship he's pulling on, but he cannot get out of it. And if he slacks, immediately there is whip, he has to go. Therefore this word is used, karṣati. He doesn't like this, but he has to do it. Struggle for existence, survival of the fittest. (someone enters) Hare Kṛṣṇa. The man may come.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation about Harijanas -- April 10, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: They do not know why I am in downtrodden condition. The answer is there. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22).

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Says, "They desire freedom from the age-old shackles of superstition..."

Prabhupāda: Where is the shackle? Age-old shackles. Where is the shackle?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There is nothing keeping them down but their own inability.

Prabhupāda: You are keeping yourself in shackle. If you want to be educated, there was... Dr. Ambedekhar, he belonged to the harijana. How he became a law member? Where is the shackle?

Bhakti-caru: Even (indistinct) is there.

Prabhupāda: Where is the shackle?