View source for Unless you are situated in the quality of goodness, you cannot be promoted to the higher platform

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[[Category:Unless One Is Situated]]
[[Category:Quality of Goodness]]
[[Category:You Cannot]]
[[Category:Cannot Be]]
[[Category:Promotion]]
[[Category:Higher Planets]]
[[Category:Platform]]
[[Category:Pages Needing Audio - SHARMISTHA]]
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<h2>Lectures</h2>
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<h3>General Lectures</h3>
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If we eat things which are in goodness . . . they are prescribed in the Vedic literature that wheat, rice, sugar, milk product, vegetables, fruits, these things are in goodness. So if you want to increase your quality of goodness, that is required for God realization. Unless you are situated in the quality of goodness, you cannot be promoted to the higher platform.
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[[Vanisource:690507 - Lecture at Harvard University Divinity School Cambridge - Boston|690507 - Lecture at Harvard University Divinity School Cambridge - Boston]]
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Prabhupāda: Well, proper names cannot be translated. You know that. Suppose if your name is John, and if I come from India I cannot translate into Indian language. I have to speak "John." You see? Just like people say: "Swami Bhaktivedanta." Is there any translation, "Bhaktivedanta Swami"? Proper noun is never translated. That everyone knows.

But the meaning can be translated. So we have got translation of the meaning, what is this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra means. But so far chanting is concerned, that if I call you, you are American boy, Mr. John, so I'll have to call you Mr. John. I cannot translate into Sanskrit and call you.

Yes?

Student (8): How important is your diet?

Prabhupāda: Oh, that is a very important thing. If you read Dr. George Bernard Shaw's book, You Are What You Eat, you see. So if you eat like human being, then you can increase your qualities of human being. If you eat like cats and dogs, you increase the quality of cats and dogs. That's all. So we must have discrimination what to eat.

That is there in the human world. Eating is there, but everything eatable. Even stool is eatable by a certain kind of animal, but that does not mean that stool has to be eaten by human being. Human being must have discretion what kind of food will be just suitable for my health, for my intelligence, for my brain. So these things are prescribed.

If we eat things which are in goodness . . . they are prescribed in the Vedic literature that wheat, rice, sugar, milk product, vegetables, fruits, these things are in goodness. So if you want to increase your quality of goodness, that is required for God realization. Unless you are situated in the quality of goodness, you cannot be promoted to the higher platform.

So your eating should be arranged within this group: rice, wheat, sugar, milk product, vegetables and fruits. In your country you have got enough nice grains, nice fruits, enough supply of milk, butter. So there is no question of accepting any other food. You can accept foodstuff within this group and become healthy and good brain, good conscience. You can engage yourself in God consciousness. That is possible.

So therefore, "Discrimination is the best part of valor." We should discriminate what kind of food we should eat. We cannot eat anything and everything. That discrimination must be there.

Yes?

Student (8): Would it not be better if intellectual . . . (indistinct) . . . and would it not be better for them to leave the father and devote their status, instead, to the Lord?

Prabhupāda: Of course, in the beginning I said that there is no question of changing your position. In whatever position you are, either you are a student or a lawyer or something else, you can chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and realize yourself. We don't recommend that you change your position. That is not our recommendation.

But if you can (be) fully devoted in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that is very nice. But don't do it whimsically. There will be a mature platform when you can do that. Just like I was a family man, I was living with my family. I have got my wife, sons, daughters, grandchildren. So in this old age I left them. So I'm not in difficulty, although I am alone. I came in your country alone. That's a long history.

So that dependence on God, when you actually develop, then you can give up everything, depend only on God. But don't do it by whimsically. No. That will not do. You stay in your position, realize yourself, then time will come when God will dictate you, "You can do . . . become free from all obligation."

So please join with us in the kīrtana.
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