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You cannot trace out the history when you have fallen down. That is impossible. But our position is marginal. At any moment, we can fall down. That tendency is there

Expressions researched:
"you cannot trace out the history when you have fallen down. That is impossible. But our position is marginal. At any moment, we can fall down. That tendency is there"

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Lectures

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Because we are part and parcel of God and because we are now in the material world, it is to be understood that we have fallen down. But you cannot trace out the history when you have fallen down. That is impossible. But our position is marginal. At any moment, we can fall down. That tendency is there. Therefore we are called marginal.


Lecture on BG 2.62-72 -- Los Angeles, December 19, 1968:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Or first of all, his. Yes.

Devotee: It is said that once you achieve the Godhead, once you go back to Kṛṣṇa, that you don't fall down. But it is also said that we come from there originally. If we came from there, how did we fall if we were already there?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like this example that personalities like Brahmā and Śiva, they also sometimes become victims of māyā. So our, I mean to say, potency of falling down is always there, potency. And because we are part and parcel of God and because we are now in the material world, it is to be understood that we have fallen down. But you cannot trace out the history when you have fallen down. That is impossible. But our position is marginal. At any moment, we can fall down. That tendency is there. Therefore we are called marginal. But one... Just like it is very simple to understand. Everyone is prone to fall diseased. Is it not? Now when you are diseased, there is no necessity of finding out the history when you became diseased. You are diseased, make your treatment, that's all. Similarly, we are in the material condition of life. Just go on treating it, and as soon as you are cured, be careful not to fall down again. But there is chance of falling down, again becoming diseased. Not that because you once become cured, there is no chance of becoming diseased again. There is chance. Therefore we shall be very much careful. Yes.

Devotee: In the Bhagavad-gītā it says on page 41(?) that Brahmā is the second spiritual master. I thought that all spiritual masters live forever; but Brahmā doesn't live forever.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We live forever. By change of body we do not die. You live forever, I live forever. Death means we change this body, that's all. Just like you change your dress. When you change your dress, it does not mean that you die. Similarly change of this body does not mean actually death. Or to appear in a different body does not mean actually birth. There is no birth and death of the living entity, but the change of body is taking place in our material condition. That is taken as birth and death. Actually there is no birth and death. Yes?

Madhudviṣa: Prabhupāda, for one who worships Lord Buddha, is there a planet for him to go to? For one who worships Lord Buddha in the bhakta-gaṇa(?), they say, or some way, some kind of devotional service rendered towards Lord Buddha, is there a planet for him to go to which Lord Buddha presides over or...

Prabhupāda: Yes. There is a neutral stage. That is not planet. That is the marginal position between the spiritual world and the material world. But one has to come down again. Unless one enters into the spiritual sky and takes his situation in some of the spiritual planet... Just like you fly in the sky. Unless you get some planet, you'll have to come down again. You cannot fly all the days in the sky. That is not possible. That is neutral stage. Neither in other planet, nor in this planet, flying. How long you shall fly? You have to take some shelter. But if you have no shelter in the higher planets or higher situation, then you shall have to come down. So... The same example can be repeated. Suppose if you go in the outer space... Just like the sputnik men, they go sometime. People think, "Oh, where he has gone, so high, so high." But he has not gone anywhere. He's coming down again. So it is false clapping, "Oh, he has gone so high, so high." What is the use of going so high? You are coming down next moment. Because you have no power to enter into another planet. So what your machine, this sputnik or these planes, will help you? You have to come down again. Rather, you shall fall down in some Atlantic Ocean, or Pacific Ocean, and somebody will go and pick you up. You see? This is your position. So voidism means to fly in the sky and be puffed up, "I have come so high, I have come so high, so high." (laughs) That foolish man does not know how long he'll keep in that high position. You see? He will come down. This is māyā's attraction. He'll have to come down.