Strain (Lectures)

Expressions researched:
"strain" |"strained" |"strainer" |"straining" |"strains"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Just like a man diseased, he eats something, sometimes say, "Oh, doctor, I am feeling some headache." "Oh, all right, take some, this pill." Just like I see advertisement, "Oh, you are feeling strain? Take this pill." "You are feeling this? Oh, take this pill."

Lecture on BG 4.19 -- New York, August 5, 1966:

Prabhupāda: No, you do not think that... Of course, when you are Kṛṣṇa conscious, when you are not in this material world, then there is no question of war also. My point is that war is not only the only disturbing principle. There are many other disturbing principles. So we have to make a wholesale solution of all principles. That is the point.

Kīrtanānanda: War is only a symptom.

Prabhupāda: Yes. War is also one of the... Just like a man diseased, he eats something, sometimes say, "Oh, doctor, I am feeling some headache." "Oh, all right, take some, this pill." Just like I see advertisement, "Oh, you are feeling strain? Take this pill." "You are feeling this? Oh, take this pill." Just like Post Office. Just like Post Office. All letters should be given to the post box, and it will go in different places. So doctor is prescribing like that. But a real doctor he'll see what is the disease there. And if that disease is cured, then he'll have no headache, no leg, pain leg, no, nothing of the sort.

Everyone should try his best, but he should be satisfied with the result which comes without very much strain.

Lecture on BG 4.22 -- Bombay, April 11, 1974:

One man is trying with a little capital to do some business, and within few years he becomes very multi-millionaire. And one man is trying to elevate himself to a prosperous condition, but he cannot get even sufficient food. Why? Pūrva-janmarjitaṁ vidyā pūrva-janma.(?) One boy is passing examination, standing first-class. Another man, boy, is failing. Everyone is trying. Everyone should try his best, but he should be satisfied with the result which comes without any very much strain, yadṛcchā-lābha. Yadṛcchā-lābha-santuṣṭaḥ. That is lacking in the present civilization. Not only at the present moment, because Kṛṣṇa was speaking five thousand years ago. And before that, He spoke Bhagavad-gītā millions and trillions of years ago to the sun-god. This is the way of material civilization or material conditioned life, competition.

Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures

It is very easy, bhakti-yoga. It is not at all difficult. You haven't got to strain your body as in other haṭha-yoga practice you have to very undergo hardship, to sit in a particular posture, in a particular place.

Lecture on SB 5.5.33 -- Vrndavana, November 20, 1976:

Sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ. If you make it a promise that "I shall not talk anything except Kṛṣṇa's message," and if you promise that "I shall not take anything which is not offered to Kṛṣṇa," these two things, this prasādam and chanting, will make you perfect to understand Kṛṣṇa. In another place Kṛṣṇa says, mayy āsakta-manāḥ pārtha yogaṁ yuñjan mad-āśrayaḥ. This is yoga, bhakti-yoga. How easy it is. There are so many yogas, but if you practice bhakti-yoga you become first-class yogi.

yoginām api sarveṣāṁ

mad-gatenāntarātmanā

śraddhāvān bhajate yo māṁ

sa me yuktatamo mataḥ

(BG 6.47)

So it is very easy, bhakti-yoga. It is not at all difficult. You haven't got to strain your body as in other haṭha-yoga practice you have to very undergo hardship, to sit in a particular posture, in a particular place. These things are stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. Not that you become yogi in a fashionable city as you'll find nowadays, yoga-āśrama signboard in a fashionable house, and you show some gymnastic, you become a yogi and get some money. Not that. This is bhakti-yoga, begins from jihva. Exercise your jihva, tongue; then you become a perfect yogi.

In India there is a river, in that river gold particles, in the water gold particles can be found. Gold particles. Many poor men they whole day work and strain the water in different way and get some little gold, still. So, by the symptoms, by the symptoms the expert gold miner finds out that here is gold, gold mine.

Lecture on SB 7.7.19-20 -- Bombay, March 18, 1971:

Devotee: (indistinct) the scriptures and the śāstras we get pure.

Prabhupāda: He has feeling. That is (indistinct). Anubhava ananta svarupa, parameśvara. That is the (indistinct). You can feel His presence, that is being explained here. (reads Sanskrit commentary) It is very simple. Prahlāda Mahārāja is saying that as the expert gold miner, when he sees there are gold particles in the field, naturally he concludes.... Still, in India there is a river, in that river gold particles, in the water gold particles can be found. Gold particles. Many poor men they whole day work and strain the water in different way and get some little gold, still. So, by the symptoms, by the symptoms the expert gold miner finds out that here is gold, gold mine. Because within the soil, or with the soil you find some gold particles. That is the way, here it is said. Similarly, one can find out Kṛṣṇa by the symptoms, the characteristics, of this world. That is common sense. Just in everything there is a controller. There is a life. Just like in my body, I am controlling this body, and there is living force, living symptoms.

The process of the yoga system is the same system as you strain water and find out gold.

Lecture on SB 7.7.19-20 -- Bombay, March 18, 1971:

So, as the poor man goes to the river side and by straining the water by—they have a specific process, they find out some gold—similarly, a person kṣetreṣu deheṣu ātma adhyātma-vid brahma-gatiṁ labheta (?). This meditation means thinking very deeply what I am, what I am. And the process of the yoga system is the same system as you strain water and find out gold. Similarly, if you follow the yoga system, dhyāna, dhāraṇa, āsana, prāṇāyāma—that is mechanical—then you will find that "I am the spirit soul and there is Supreme Soul, Kṛṣṇa." That is possible. That is really perfection of yoga practice. Not that simply pressing the nose, no. Actually perfection of yogic meditation is to understand the self; the soul is there and the Supersoul is there. The process is there.

They keep it for some years, and when it is decomposed, the juice is coming, they strain the juice and keep it in bottle. That is called naphi. And when there is some festival, they give little, little, and people enjoy it.

Lecture on SB 7.9.22 -- Mayapur, February 29, 1976:

A Vaiṣṇava's concern is... He sees everything. Just like any common man can understand what kind of birth. Nānā yoni bhraman kare, kadarya bhakṣaṇa kare. Very peculiar arrangement of the māyā. We see sometimes in the airplane, even Indian, they're eating the intestine of the hog, enjoying. That is enjoying. There is a preparation called naphi in Burma. That preparation is made... Every householder has a big jug at the door, and any animal dies, he puts it in that. It is... The bad smell is so strong, if one opens, that whole neighborhood will be polluted, bad smell. So they keep it for some years, and when it is decomposed, the juice is coming, they strain the juice and keep it in bottle. That is called naphi. And when there is some festival, they give little, little, and people enjoy it. So, nānā yoni bhraman kare, kadarya bhakṣaṇa kare. When my Guru Mahārāja was alive, we had one temple, one of his, in Burma, in Rangoon. So when they were making puris with nice ghee, all the inhabitants will come, "Oh! What you are doing? What you are doing? (laughter) What you are doing? Intolerable. It is..." The flavor of ghee was intolerable, and the flavor of naphi is tolerable.

Nectar of Devotion Lectures

I think you are straining.

The Nectar of Devotion -- Vrndavana, October 16, 1972:

Prabhupāda: My Guru Mahārāja, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāja, he used to advise us to read Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. Everyone, after initiation. At least, he advised me. So this Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu is very important as study book for the Vaiṣṇavas. It is the science of devotional service. And people are, in Western countries, taking interest. In the Temple University, it has become a textbook in the religious class. There are sixty students who are regularly studying the Bhakti, Nectar of Devotion published by us. And gradually it is being introduced in other colleges and schools. I think you are straining.

Gurudāsa: The candle is coming.

Prabhupāda: Coming. Hm. So we can stop. Acyutānanda, you can have kīrtana.

Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Lectures

If you create some center of our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, how much strain you have to exert to maintain the standard, status quo.

Lecture on CC Adi-lila 1.11 -- Mayapur, April 4, 1975:

And the same Viṣṇu, Kṣīrabdhiśāyī Viṣṇu, is maintaining not only these universal affair, but also He is entering in each and every living being's heart, even within the atom. This is the expansion of Viṣṇu-tattva, Viṣṇu-tattva within this material world. So just imagine. For creating and maintaining, sustaining, the whole material world is a network of Viṣṇu's activities, and some rascal says, "There was chunk, and there was creation." This creation is so easy? And maintain them, hold the creation? If you create some center of our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, how much strain you have to exert to maintain the standard, status quo. Similarly, there are so many universes created, maintained. And there is another phase, annihilation. That is the process of material creation. We have got experience. Anything material is created is... The beginning, there is a date, and it is maintained for sometimes, then it is annihilated. Anything you take—this body, your body, my body—it is created a certain date, and it is maintained for a certain number of years, and again it is annihilated. This is material world.