View source for Smaranam. Not so much thinking of God's activities as just being really in His presence and open to receive love and to be active. Do you know what I mean?

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[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1975]]
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<div id="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="section" sec_index="5" parent="compilation" text="Conversations and Morning Walks"><h2>Conversations and Morning Walks</h2>
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<div id="1975_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="sub_section" sec_index="8" parent="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" text="1975 Conversations and Morning Walks"><h3>1975 Conversations and Morning Walks</h3>
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<div id="RoomConversationwithJesuitMay191975Melbourne_0" class="quote" parent="1975_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="81" link="Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne" link_text="Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne">
<div class="heading">Well, but bhakti is activity. Bhakti is not passive. Active. Just like hearing. It is activity. Similarly glorifying, this is activity. Smaraṇam, remembering, memorizing, that is activity.
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne|Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Jesuit: And do you have a, what I may call a training in contemplation, in which you get...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is smaraṇam. Memorizing. Thinking of God's activities.</p>
<p>Jesuit: And, er, now in mysticism, Christian mysticism, Western mysticism, we have, say, the seven castles of St. Theresa of Avila, and we have a process of contemplation which we call infused, which God gives. Ordinary prayer, which anybody is able to make. Theresa would speak about the three castles, the first three castles.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Three castle?</p>
<p>Jesuit: Mm. In her book, Interior Mansions. But the real mystic prayer, well, is not given to everybody. Do you have... Do these men get trained in mystic prayer, contemplation?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Mystic prayer means to think of God's activities. So that is smaraṇam.</p>
<p>Jesuit: Smaraṇam. Not so much thinking of them as just being really in His presence and open to receive love and to be active. Do you know what I mean?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Well, but bhakti is activity. Bhakti is not passive. Active. Just like hearing. It is activity. Similarly glorifying, this is activity. Smaraṇam, remembering, memorizing, that is activity.</p>
<p>Jesuit: That is true. I see that. I think I sort of see a higher form of activity, where the senses really have taken over...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Sense means activity.</p>
<p>Jesuit: Intuition. Something higher than...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Sense, when you use your sense, just like śravaṇam, hearing. So you use your sense. So this is activity.</p>
<p>Jesuit: I see that. I understand that.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: You engage your ear. That means activity. I glorify, I speak, I engage my tongue in glorifying. That is activity. But as soon as there is sense activity, that is activity.</p>
<p>Jesuit: Hmm. But to get that real stillness and quiet in which...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No. Bhakti is not stillness. That is neutrality. Stillness means you stop your material activity. That is stillness. But your material activities, when you stop it, that is stillness.</p>
<p>Jesuit: What is neutrality then?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is neutrality, that neither spiritual nor material-on the marginal stage. It is called simply realizing how God is great. That is neutrality. But real devotion begins when one understands that "God is so great, I am rendering my service to this world uselessly. Why not render service to God?" That is called dāsyam, beginning of active devotion. We are active in the material world. It is useless. Simply wasting time and making one entangled in repetition of birth and death. Material activities. This is called pravṛtti-mārga. Pravṛtti-mārga means sense enjoyment. And for sense enjoyment we have to accept so many different types of bodies, 8,400,000. Everyone is busy in sense enjoyment. The tiger is busy, the hog is busy, the dog is busy. The man also, if he becomes busy like tigers and hogs and dog, then he's going to become again the same species of life.</p>
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