The son of Purukutsa was Trasaddasyu, whose son was Anaraṇya. Anaraṇya's son was Haryaśva, Haryaśva's son was Prāruṇa, Prāruṇa's son was Tribandhana, and Tribandhana's son was Satyavrata, also known as Triśaṅku. When Triśaṅku kidnapped the daughter of a brāhmaṇa, his father cursed him for this sinful act, and Triśaṅku became a caṇḍāla, worse than a śūdra. Later, by the influence of Viśvāmitra, he was brought to the heavenly planets, but by the influence of the demigods he fell back downward. He was stopped in his fall, however, by the influence of Viśvāmitra. The son of Triśaṅku was Hariścandra. Hariścandra once performed a Rājasūya-yajña, but Viśvāmitra cunningly took all of Hariścandra's possessions as a dakṣiṇa contribution and chastised Hariścandra in various ways.
Worse than...
Bhagavad-gita As It Is
BG Chapters 1 - 6
People will always speak of your infamy, and for a respectable person, dishonor is worse than death.
Both as friend and philosopher to Arjuna, Lord Kṛṣṇa now gives His final judgment regarding Arjuna's refusal to fight. The Lord says, "Arjuna, if you leave the battlefield before the battle even begins, people will call you a coward. And if you think that people may call you bad names but that you will save your life by fleeing the battlefield, then My advice is that you'd do better to die in the battle. For a respectable man like you, ill fame is worse than death. So, you should not flee for fear of your life; better to die in the battle. That will save you from the ill fame of misusing My friendship and from losing your prestige in society." So, the final judgment of the Lord was for Arjuna to die in the battle and not withdraw.
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 1
According to religious principles, stool, urine, wash water, etc., must be left at a long distance. Attached bathrooms, urinals, etc. may be very convenient amenities of modern civilization, but they are ordered to be situated at a distance from residential quarters. That very example is cited herein in relation to the kingly order for those who are progressively marching back to Godhead. Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that to be in intimate touch with dollars-and-cents men, or the kingly order, is worse than suicide for one who desires to go back to Godhead. In other words, the transcendentalists do not generally associate with men who are too enamored by the external beauty of God's creation.
SB Canto 2
Lord Caitanya was very strict in advising His followers in this matter of celibacy. One of His personal attendants, Choṭa Haridāsa, was severely punished by Lord Caitanya because of his failure to observe the vow of celibacy. For a transcendentalist, therefore, who at all wants to be promoted to the kingdom beyond material miseries, it is worse than suicide to deliberately indulge in sex life, especially in the renounced order of life. Sex life in the renounced order of life is the most perverted form of religious life, and such a misguided person can only be saved if, by chance, he meets a pure devotee.
SB Canto 3
It is clearly stated herein that a pure devotee does not desire ekatva, oneness with the Supreme Lord, as desired by the impersonalists, the mental speculators and the meditators. To become one with the Supreme Lord is beyond the dream of a pure devotee. Sometimes he may accept promotion to the Vaikuṇṭha planets to serve the Lord there, but he will never accept merging into the Brahman effulgence, which he considers worse than hellish. Such ekatva, or merging into the effulgence of the Supreme Lord, is called kaivalya, but the happiness derived from kaivalya is considered by the pure devotee to be hellish. The devotee is so fond of rendering service to the Supreme Lord that the five kinds of liberation are not important to him. If one is engaged in pure transcendental loving service to the Lord, it is understood that he has already achieved the five kinds of liberation.
SB Canto 4
For a woman, both the husband and the father are equally worshipable. The husband is the protector of a woman during her youthful life, whereas the father is her protector during her childhood. Thus both are worshipable, but especially the father because he is the giver of the body. Lord Śiva reminded Satī, "Your father is undoubtedly worshipable, even more than I am, but take care, for although he is the giver of your body, he may also be the taker of your body because when you see your father, because of your association with me, he may insult you. An insult from a relative is worse than death, especially when one is well situated."
The karmīs do not practice brahmacarya, vānaprastha or sannyāsa life, for they are very much interested in gṛhastha life. In other words, a human being is very much materially inclined. Indeed, all living entities are materially inclined. They prefer gṛhastha life because there is a concession for sex. The karmīs think the other statuses of life are worse than animal life, for animals also have sex, whereas the brahmacārī, vānaprastha and sannyāsī completely give up sex. The karmīs, therefore, abhor these orders of spiritual life.
SB Canto 7
The most important point in this verse is that although saintly persons never desire the killing of any living entity, they take pleasure in the killing of envious living entities like snakes and scorpions. Hiraṇyakaśipu was killed because he was worse than a snake or a scorpion, and therefore everyone was happy. Now there was no need for the Lord to be angry. The devotees can always remember the form of Nṛsiṁhadeva when they are in danger, and therefore the appearance of Nṛsiṁhadeva was not at all inauspicious. The Lord's appearance is always worshipable and auspicious for all sane persons and devotees.
SB Canto 9
Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Renunciation Through Wisdom
Lord Viṣṇu's impersonal aspect is known as Brahman. So when the jīva soul, a product of Lord Viṣṇu's superior, spiritual energy, attains sāyujya-mukti, or liberation by merging with Brahman, it is not at all surprising. The energetic principle always enjoys the prerogative of enfolding within itself His own energy, but that does not destroy the energy's eternal individuality. The impersonalists, desiring to merge with Brahman and knowing that it is feasible, still experience intense suffering in their effort to reach brahmānanda, "the bliss of Brahman." The Lord's devotees consider the pleasures of such liberation worse than hell. The impersonalists, in trying to destroy the illusion inherent in material forms, do away with even the eternal spiritual forms. That is indeed very foolish.
Mukunda-mala-stotra (mantras 1 to 6 only)
Pure devotees like King Kulaśekhara are particularly careful to avoid a process that will end in their becoming one with the existence of the Lord, a state known as advandva, nonduality. This is simply spiritual suicide. Out of the five kinds of salvation, advandva is the most abominable for a devotee. A pure devotee denounces such oneness with the Lord as worse than going to hell.
Lectures
Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures
Guest (7): Swamiji, are the Hindus essentially vegetarian in the sense of the Seventh Day Adventist...
Prabhupāda: Not necessarily all Hindus are vegetarian. Not necessarily. There are many Hindus who are worse than others. So it is not that because one is Hindu or one is Indian, he's vegetarian. No. But generally Hindu culture is based on this Vedic civilization. So those who are strictly following, they're following the rules and regulations. So any other questions? Yes, you can ask. We are very glad to discuss all this. This should be discussed.
Philosophy Discussions
Prabhupāda: Yes, ruination. Yes. Because he is taking all the sins. Tax means it is sinfully earned, and he's taking the money.
Śyāmasundara: So he gets it worse than anyone.
Prabhupāda: Yes, he'll be the worst sufferer, in this life and next life. These things I have discussed in Mahārāja Prthu's. You cannot, if you keep the, just like I am accepting disciples so I am taking responsibility of the sinful reactions. So similarly a king levying taxes, that means that he will take the share, the sinful or pious life of the citizens. Therefore if he keeps the citizens pious life, then he will be profited and citizens will be profited. Otherwise he will go to hell and the citizens will go to hell. Andhā yathāndair upanīyamānā. One blind man leading another blind man. So this is nice philosophy, that this is not the right philosophy, that the state head, the president or the king or whatever his name is, he is the representative of God. Therefore his duty is to train the citizens to become God conscious, pious, without any sinful life. But these big, big state head, just like in our country, Dr. Radhakrishnan is supposed to be a very great philosopher, and what he was doing? He was sanctioning to keep slaughterhouse. So he is philosopher and he had no sense that "I am the state head. I am sanctioning slaughterhouse. And I am passing as a philosopher."
Conversations and Morning Walks
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Why you are dressing yourself? Why don't you wander like animal, naked?
Marilyn: No. But animals still have their own communities, and they only take what they need to eat, and they only eat when they need to eat.
Prabhupāda: Now the philosophy is how to become animals? This is the philosophy nowadays?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Today's people sometimes, Prabhupāda, she's thinking, are worse than animal.
Prabhupāda: Yes. If their philosophy is to become animal then they must be worse than animal, because actually they are not animal.
Marilyn: (laughs) That's what I mean.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: That's right.
Prabhupāda: If the ultimate goal is to become animal, so that is artificial. So a human being desiring to become animal must be worse than animal, because animal has got some...
Marilyn: Has got some...
Prabhupāda: ...routine work.
Prabhupāda: Just like cats and dogs. They have sexual desire in certain period of the year. But a man, although he is trying to be animal, but he has no restriction. He has sexual desire anytime. Therefore he is worse than animal.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Man eats and kills everything.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So therefore, if a man wants to become animal, he becomes worse than animal. A tiger, a tiger eats meat and he has got equipments in his body, what is called, nails, teeth, immediately pounce upon any animal and kills and eats. But a man cannot do that, but his teeth is different, he has no nails; therefore he has to kill animal in different way, by slaughterhouse. So he is worse than animal. You kill one animal for your eating purpose, that is one thing, but if you keep slaughterhouse for business, then you are more (indistinct). Therefore for a human being to try to become animal is worse than the animals, because... Just like you are now grown up. If you imitate that "I want to become child, so I enter anyone's house," the law will not allow you. And if you say that "My philosophy is to become a child; therefore I enter this man's house," the law will say, "All right, first of all you'll be punished." (laughter) You cannot say that. Because you are grown up you cannot act as a child. Similarly, because you are human being, if you act as an animal you'll be responsible for your acts. And you'll be punished if you do something wrong. You cannot say, "No, I have made my philosophy to become a child." That may be your personal philosophy, but law will not allow you. Ignorance is no excuse. (long pause) It has become a philosophy now to become like animals.
Prabhupāda: All the ācāryas, Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya, Viṣṇu Svāmī, Lord Caitanya, all of them become nullified and this rascal comes forward to defy all the ācāryas and push some new theory. Just see. This is going on. (Sanskrit) In the Varāha Purāṇa it is stated that some of the rākṣasas, they will take advantage of Kali-yuga and take birth in brāhmaṇa families, so he is one of them, this rākṣasa. And now he is suffering for that. Greatest calamity, you see? And according to Vedic injunction, the king if he levies tax from the subjects who are sinful, then he has to partake of the sinful action and he'll have to suffer. So, this rascal became the president of India, it is the position of king and on the (indistinct) of him he supported the slaughterhouses and levied taxes and he took high salary, enjoyed it. Now he is suffering the effect, sinful effect. Now in his living condition he has lost his brain. He, practically dead but living condition, it is very precarious condition. One is living actually but his brain is not acting, worse than a madman. So, this is the result of the rākṣasa statement.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Karandhara: Well, they say, "God hasn't given us everything because we are not able to live forever here."
Prabhupāda: Why? That means God is controller. You are controlled. You admit this.
Yaśomatīnandana: If these people are allowed to live forever then they will make this place more than a hell, worse than hell.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (laughs) God has given them everything actually, to live peacefully and try to understand God, but that they will not do. They will do something to try to forget God. That is their aim.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Bali-mardana: Their condition is worse than the animals. Prabhupāda: They have been described as dvīpada-paśuḥ, animals but with special difference: the animals, ordinary animals, they have got four legs, and they have got two legs. Dvīpada paśuḥ. Everything is there. And the Vedic civilization is no "Keep out," but even the enemy comes at your home, you receive him as very good friend. Gṛhaṁ satram api prāptam. "At your home, even your enemy comes, you should receive him in such a way," viśvastam akūto bhayam, "he will forget that you are enemy. He will be so confident, that 'I have come to a friend's house.' " This is Vedic civilization. And the Western civilization: "Beware of dog. Keep out." And actually they fire if you enter. And there is law that if he fires, you cannot stop. Trespassing.
Tripurāri: Just like you have charmed all of us, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Prabhupāda: Well, I am not going to imitate Caitanya Mahāprabhu. (laughs) I have come to New York, not to the jungle. (laughter) Sudāmā: New York is worse than jungle. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It is called an asphalt jungle. Prabhupāda: After all, they are human being. Therefore we have collected some nice souls. (break) If you can go to the jungle, that is no hindrance, but let us take the opportunity of the civilized nations, preach them. Yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhaḥ (BG 3.21). They are leading the whole civilization. If they are convinced, it will be great benefit to the human race. (break) Also my Guru Mahārāja said that "You go to the western country." If he had said that "You go to the jungle," I would have gone.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: ...that their educational system has failed. Therefore they...
Prabhupāda: Yes. They should close the universities and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So by birth they want to make better men. They can't make them by culture.
Prabhupāda: No, culture... They adopt real culture. What do they know about culture? They're killing their own children in the womb, and they're cultured? Worse than the animals. The animals do not do that. These rascals, they are cultured? So wretched and fallen, and they are claiming to be cultured.
Harikeśa: So you can't culture a superior man unless you are one yourself.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Harikeśa: It's not possible to culture a superior man unless you are one yourself.
Prabhupāda: Yes. First of all be yourself a cultured man, a gentleman. You are worse than animals. What animals cannot do, you are doing. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...man is defined by Cāṇakya Paṇḍit.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Dr. Patel: That Gāthā (Zoroastrim Scriptures) is practically sixty percent Sanskrit language.
Prabhupāda: Gāthā?
Dr. Patel: Gāthā. They have got a.... These Zoroastins read Gāthā just like Bhagavad-gītā. I have read it. I could understand very easily because it's Sanskrit dialect language. One professor has come from United States. He is staying here in a school of Parsis, and I am the doctor of that school. He said that this is completely Vedic religion. He has studied the Vedic philosophy also. He is teaching theology in some university of United States. He stays here in this.... (break) ...worse than, I think, most...
Prabhupāda: But it is democracy. Because we are sinful, we have made a sinful government. It is democracy. Formerly the personal monarchy.... There is no monarchy. It is democracy.
Dr. Patel: It is demon-cracy.
Prabhupāda: Demoncracy, yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very strict.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. "You have fallen down? You must commit suicide. No more My association."
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is that the same as in the Bhagavad-gītā where Kṛṣṇa says, "For one who is honored, dishonor is worse than death"?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is another thing. Caitanya Mahāprabhu personally taught this. To be victimized by māyā is possi.... There is possibility.... Just like Jaya and Vijaya. They were gatekeepers in the Vaikuṇṭha. They also fell down, Hiraṇyakaśipu. So this falldown, there is possibility in any moment because we are very small. We can be captivated by māyā at any moment. Therefore we shall be very, very careful. And if you fall down, then punishment is you make suicide. That's all. Then next life we shall see.
Guru dāsa: God gives what everyone wants.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guru dāsa: If they desire that, they get that.
Prabhupāda: :You wanted this punishment; therefore you get it.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: People are thinking that the punishment is something worse than this, that "This is very nice. We can live here and be happy, and the punishment is in hell."
Prabhupāda: No, no.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "Here we live happily."
Prabhupāda: That.... No, no. That is the nature of the living being, that he is happy by nature because he is part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1). So ānanda is nature, but he is finding, trying to find out nature in sinful life. Therefore he is being punished. That he does not know.
Reporter (2): When you visited the Soviet Union, Swamiji, did you find the atmosphere worse than it is in Western countries, say? Are the people...
Prabhupāda: Everywhere the people are very good, but the leaders are bad.
Reporter (2): Did you meet any of them? No.
Prabhupāda: Yes. I talked with one of the best leaders, Professor Kotovsky. He is the professor of Indology. I talked with him. I have studied. The people are generally very good.
Reporter (2): But did you hold any meetings or anything?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Reporter (2): Were they receptive to what you...
Prabhupāda: Yes. I was invited by Professor Kotovsky to talk. On my way to Europe I stayed there. So I have studied the people. They are very good, as our Indian people, innocent masses, they are also like that. But they are being sophisticated by their new philosophy, communism, artificial thing. But they are not happy. They are being forced to accept a philosophy. People are.... I have seen from their face. They look unhappy.
Jackie Vaughn: Each year we say, "This year is worse than any year in the history."
Prabhupāda: See, this is the experienced government officer's statement. Therefore the word is used, duratyayā. What is the meaning of duratyayā?
Hari-śauri: Very difficult to overcome.
Jackie Vaughn: I submit I contribute to that delinquency. I help them, every day, trying to find answers, always of a temporary nature.
Prabhupāda: So you kindly give little attention to this movement. It will solve all the problems. You have read some of our books? No.
Jackie Vaughn: Yes.
Prabhupāda: We have all answers to the problems in the Bhagavad-gītā, but who is hearing us? The problems and the solutions, they are all mentioned. They are given very nicely. But we do not take it. We create our own solution, imperfect solution.
Jagadīśa: You've explained this to me a number of times, and I think I'm beginning to understand.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Knowledge is spiritual knowledge. Tattva-jñānārtha-darśanam. Now, of course, social conditions have changed. There are so many factories, and they require technical knowledge. But we are not going to the factories. That is sure and certain. Neither we are going to start any factory. That is not our business. Our factory at most, cut cut, hut hut, that's all. We don't want to start factory or Ford factory and make a hell out of life, the hell.
Hari-śauri: I used to work in a steel works. It's worse than hell.
Prabhupāda: It is more than hell. There is no life. I have been in Tata steel iron factory. I saw it is a hell. One melting pot just like a skyscraper building.
Devotee (3): Śrīla Prabhupāda? Is it possible for people in the most animalistic conditions of life such as the Eskimos, who need meat to survive—is it possible for these people to become purified?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Kirāta-hūṇāndhra-pulinda-pulkaśā ābhīra-śumbhā yavanāḥ khasādayaḥ, śudhyanti (SB 2.4.18). By the guidance of the spiritual master.
Devotee (4): You've already proved that, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (laughter)
Devotee (4): We're worse than Eskimos.
Devotee (3): Śrīla Prabhupāda? (indistinct) What about the verse in the Bhāgavatam that says if a devotee falls down that he's not to be considered as the fruitive workers or the karmīs, etcetera.
Prabhupāda: Falls down means again when he revives, he'll begin from that point, where he fell down. (break) ...it is to be understood that polluted.
Satsvarūpa: That's also sinful reaction.
Prabhupāda: Polluted means sinful.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: That job... They will be very soon jobless. Don't worry. (laughs) They will come. They will be obliged to come. Now they have got job, but as the days are advancing in Kali-yuga, they'll be jobless.
Hari-śauri: So we can expect that material conditions are going to become very much worse than this.
Prabhupāda: They may come or not. We don't care for it. Let us establish an ideal society.
Gurukṛpa: Bombay was worse than nothing. (laughter) It'd been better if there was nothing in Bombay.
Prabhupāda: No, you are rich man's sons, Americans. We are poor Indians. My father was not a rich man, but your father, all are rich man's father, rich man.
Gurukṛpa: You are the father. You are a rich man. We have nothing.
Prabhupāda: No, I may be rich man's father, (laughter) but my father was not rich man. (laughs) I may be called rich man's father.
Bhāgavata: It is due to you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that we have... Any opulence that has come, it has come by your grace.
Prabhupāda: Not... Kṛṣṇa's. They were surprised that we are spending twelve lakhs of rupees, India.(?) That's a fact.
Gurukṛpā: Then they accuse us of being fanatical.
Prabhupāda: You are also fanatical. Why do you believe Lenin? You are fanatical in our eyes. You are worse than fanatical because we have got great other authorities—they believe Kṛṣṇa is God. You have created a section recently, but we have got evidences from thousands and thousands of years ago, authorities believing Kṛṣṇa. Our literatures are very old. Your literature recently made.
Gargamuni: Sometimes, though, they may agree philosophically about Kṛṣṇa, but then they will bring in Kṛṣṇa's controversial personal life. They always do this.
Prabhupāda: Personal life?
Gargamuni: They bring in about, always about the gopīs and Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: You said this Trivedi is worse than him?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Devotee: Prabhupāda, I've seen his treatment. He's the...
Prabhupāda: (indistinct)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He says that he is very rough, this Trivedi. He'll be taken away. This is just temporary. Immediately they got rid of Gupta because they knew that we were very much dissatisfied. And Trivedi is just a temporary replacement for Gupta. As soon as the man is sent from Delhi, then this Trivedi will be taken away.
Prabhupāda: So they're going to send a ma...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Oh, yes. They said that they'd be sending him this coming week. I mean they're quite serious about this. The fact that they have transferred Gupta within twenty-four hours shows that they're quite serious in wanting to please us. The man said it: "We want to please you."
Correspondence
1968 Correspondence
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.
1975 Correspondence
You must follow the principles that I have given at all times, under all circumstances. Without these four principles, there is no spiritual life. Even it may be very difficult you must follow. You should reject anything or anyone who advises you to break these principles. Association with such persons is worse than poison.
| Page Title: | Worse than... |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, Serene |
| Created: | 09 of Jun, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=2, SB=7, CC=0, OB=3, Lec=2, Con=19, Let=2 |
| No. of Quotes: | 35 |