Tragedy

Expressions researched:
"tragedies" |"tragedy" |"tragic" |"tragical"

SB Cantos 10.14 to 12 (Translations Only)

SB 10.57.9, Translation:

When Lord Kṛṣṇa and Lord Balarāma heard this news, O King, They exclaimed, "Alas! This is the greatest tragedy for Us! "Thus imitating the ways of human society, They lamented, Their eyes brimming with tears.

SB 10.89.25, Translation:

The wise brāhmaṇa suffered the same tragedy with his second and third child. Each time, he left the body of his dead son at the King's door and sang the same song of lamentation.

General Lectures

Evening Lecture -- Bhuvanesvara, January 23, 1977:

What is that? Simply think of Kṛṣṇa. But if from the very beginning you want to understand the meaning of Kṛṣṇa—"Kṛṣṇa is nirākāra. He has no hand, He has no leg"—then how you'll think of Kṛṣṇa? You have to give up all this nonsense idea. Then wherever you live, you will be perfect by Kṛṣṇa consciousness. (break) ...Kali-yuga the special advantage is that people cannot become very much advanced in spiritual life, but for Kali-yuga there is a special concession. Kalau nāsty nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā. Harer nāma harer nāma harer nāma iva kevalam (CC Adi 17.21). And Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also, it is confirmed, kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya mukta-saṅga paraṁ vrajet (SB 12.3.51). So you remain gṛhastha. It is now difficult to give up gṛhastha life. But don't be merged into this black hole. Don't make black hole tragedy. Be alive, take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and you'll be happy. So there is no distinction in Kṛṣṇa-bhajana whether one is a gṛhastha or a sannyāsī. He must take the science. Then he will be all right.

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- London, August 10, 1971:

Prabhupāda: And we'll pay gradually to the bank. Then we can immediately...

Mr. Arnold: You see, the tragedy is, my lord, they haven't got one account in this temple in my bank.

Śyāmasundara: Then why don't we go and take an account in his bank?

Dhanañjaya: Mr. Arnold's in the Midland Bank.

Prabhupāda: So why not open all the accounts there? Or ask the present bank that we are proposing this. Otherwise Midland Bank is a famous bank, it is nice bank.

Mr. Arnold: Well I suggest that they, they should go to the National Westminster and tell them that you'll want this loan for...

Prabhupāda: But they agreed, National Westminster.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- April 3, 1975, Mayapur:

Satsvarūpa: One man wrote a book about our movement, Hare Kṛṣṇa, and he said one tragedy of this movement is that if a young boy or girl takes to this movement and later decides to try the material world again, he will have ruined his chances for a career, (laughter) and it'll be too late for him.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Trivikrama: That's a fact.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Nehābhikrama-nāśo 'sti... (BG 2.40).

Prabhupāda: Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye: (BG 7.3) "Out of many millions of people, one may become interested about what is the perfection of life." They do not want. "And out of such millions of persons," yatatām api siddhānām (BG 7.3), "who was trying for perfection of life, out of many millions of them, one can understand Me, Kṛṣṇa." māyā is so strong. Manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye.

Room Conversation with Professor Olivier -- October 10, 1975, Durban:

Prof. Olivier: And especially the youth at university, as I have always indicated and I tell them every year that they’ve got to experiment with the spirit to the same extent that they experiment in their laboratories with pieces of animal tissues or grass or what it is that they’ve got to analyze. But the real tragedy is that we have wandered away so far from the spirit and from the spiritual laboratory...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Prof. Olivier: ...that we don’t know where to start. I was telling them the other day that when the Americans sent their first man to the moon, they had a laboratory of about four thousand men at the controls. The one was doing this and the other one was doing that, but this was a huge human laboratory.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- April 9, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Same thing. Yes.

Akṣayānanda: Tragedy.

Prabhupāda: Tragedy, yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Last year, when Governor Reddy was here, you were talking with him how "Let there simply be the government's position to check and see that everyone is following their particular religion."

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is government's position.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So how would, for example, the government.... In a perfect society, how would the government check to see that the brāhmaṇas are actually practicing, and how would...?

Prabhupāda: There is.... The brāhmaṇa... This is brāhmaṇa. This formula is there. Satya śamo damas titikṣā ārjava. So you have to see whether he is possessing this quality. Or train them. Have brahminical school, what I am willing to do. That is required absolutely. There must be a class of men, perfect brāhmaṇa. Otherwise society will be ruined.

Room Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Richard: No, no, I'm getting to it. Ah, if you had died before you had come to the United States, would that have been a tragedy?

Rāmeśvara: Yes, that would have been a big tragedy for all of us. That is premature. That's the example Prabhupāda is giving. If a man wants to educate his sons, but he dies before they can be educated, then, to him, that is a premature death. So therefore he does not want that. In fact he's afraid: "Please, I don't want to die before I see my sons educated." So that is a fear of death.

Prabhupāda: Therefore death is an obstacle. That is the point.

Rāmeśvara: An obstacle to the goals of his life.

Prabhupāda: One who has no responsibility, that is another thing. But a responsible man wants to finish the responsibility, and if death comes before that, that's an obstacle.

Room Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That is not actual fact. Drinking, nobody can be happy by drinking. That is not possible.

Richard: Okay, okay. You said in the purport that tragedies of life—I'm paraphrasing—tragedies of life such as death of even a close relative are mere incidental occurrences. Is...? But you said earlier that death to you was anything but a mere incidental occurrence, that it was the...

Prabhupāda: No, we are not irresponsible to the death. Death, although we have to meet death, we are making provision that after death we become happy. Happy, of course, for us, even in living condition or dead condition, there is happiness, but it will take time to understand. But taking superficially, death is not very pleasing, so after death, that is mentioned in the Bha.... Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma (BG 4.9), we do not get again a material body. This is final. The material body is the cause of pains and pleasure. So if you don't get the material body, if you remain in your spiritual body, that is real enjoyment.

Conversation with Prof. Saligram and Dr. Sukla -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: For Kṛṣṇa, yes. So that is bhakti-yoga. Yat karoṣi kuruṣva tad mad-arpaṇam. That is bhakti. Karma-yoga means bhakti. That is the difficulty, that these Māyāvādīs, they have killed India's Vedic civilization. Now India is atheist. Very tragic position.

Dr. Sukla: What are your plans for India?

Prabhupāda: We are pushing this Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is being appreciated. It will take some time. Because so much mischievous activities have been done by the Māyāvādīs, to counteract, it will take some time. They are simply mischievous. Caitanya Mahāprabhu has rejected them. Māyāvādī bhāṣya sunile haya sarva-nāśa (CC Madhya 6.169). If one takes the Māyāvādī version of the śāstras, then his spiritual life is finished. He becomes atheist. His spiritual life is finished. Now what is the contribution? You talked about Vivekananda, what is his contribution?

Morning Walk -- December 25, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: You cannot get here now brāhmaṇas. They have learned how to eat meat, how to drink, how to have illicit sex. They are finished.

Guest (1): No more brāhmaṇas. You are right. That's tragedy. That's a fact.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Guest (2): Some of them must be non-greedy, not greedy, eh?

Prabhupāda: There are many good men. It is not that simply brāhmaṇas have gone to hell, but everyone has gone.

Guest (1): (indistinct) has failed.

Prabhupāda: Kalau śūdra-sambhavaḥ. (Hindi) Śamo damas titikṣā ārjavam, jñānaṁ vijñānam āstikyaṁ brahma-karma... (BG 18.42). (Hindi) Nobody's... (Hindi)

Guest (1): No, the other day I was with Natalia in Japan, and he also said the same thing, that we have no training for the leaders. And because there is no proper leadership, everything comes to a zero. You have to train a man or a woman for a particular work. That is not being done in India.

Guest (2): British did it.

Guest (1): They made their servants quite all right.

Prabhupāda: They wanted for graft, to manipulate their empire. They wanted some subordinate hands. They never wanted to give real education.

1969 Correspondence

Letter to Brahmananda -- The Macmillan Company A SUBSIDIARY OF CROWELL COLLIER AND MACMILLAN, INC. 866 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022 March 19, 1969:

Shortly before his tragic and recent death Father Merton asked us to assign copyright for his "appreciation" to him in order to clear the way for a possible and future edition of his uniform collected works and essays. We promised to do so.

I would appreciate it very much if you would have Swami sign both assignment copies, with you as witness, and return them to us. This does not detract in any substantial way from the Swami's copyright and is, I think, a generous gesture made to the memory of Thomas Merton.

1972 Correspondence

Letter to Dayananda -- Los Angeles 20 May, 1972:

I shall be very glad to see Lord Jagannatha dancing in His new dress when I come to London sometime in July. So you can immediately fix up a date for my coming there, along with my three assistants and you can send return airline tickets. It is certainly a great tragedy that there are no books in London Center so Kesava was not able to display his great talent for distributing them. But I have heard from him that you are all very enthusiastic to distribute books so when I come there I shall give you some hints how to do it. One thing is, when I come there I do not like to stay in any hotel. I shall stay in my room above the temple on the first floor.

I have just heard from Malati that our Digvijaya and Pritha devi are presently staying with the devotees in Vrindaban in India. So we must take every precaution to prevent our devotees from slackening and falling away.