View source for The question was why a sinful man commits sinful activities although he has full knowledge of the after result by knowing it from authority and by seeing it personally. A thief commits theft repeatedly and is imprisoned repeatedly

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[[Category:Question]]
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[[Category:Sinful Activities]]
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<h2>Correspondence</h2>
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<h3>1970 Correspondence</h3>
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The question was why a sinful man commits sinful activities although he has full knowledge of the after result by knowing it from authority and by seeing it personally. A thief commits theft repeatedly and is imprisoned repeatedly, and he has full knowledge of it—then what is the cause of his putting himself into miserable condition of prison life?.
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[[Vanisource:700607 - Letter to Dr. R. N. Vyasa written from Los Angeles|700607 - Letter to Dr. R. N. Vyasa written from Los Angeles]]
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June 07, 1970

Dr. R. N. Vyasa
Indore

Dear Sriman Vyasji,

Please accept my greetings and blessings of Lord Krishna, I beg to thank you for your kind letter dated 26th May, 1970.

In the Srimad-Bhagavatam there is a question asked by Pariksit Maharaja to Sukdeva Goswami on the sinful activities of the human society. As a learned professor you will understand it very easily why a man is addicted to sinful activities. A person knows in two ways the after effects of sinful activities. Just like a criminal has heard from lawyers that a thief is punished for his criminal activities and he has seen also that a thief is arrested by the police and put into jail. Generally our experience is gathered by hearing and by seeing personally.

The question was why a sinful man commits sinful activities although he has full knowledge of the after result by knowing it from authority and by seeing it personally. A thief commits theft repeatedly and is imprisoned repeatedly, and he has full knowledge of it—then what is the cause of his putting himself into miserable condition of prison life?

The cause is diagnosed by Vedic Acaryas as the papa bija or the seed of sinful activities. This papa bija remains dormant within our heart in three stages—dormant, seedling and fructified. This chain of different stages of our papa bija is the cause of repeated birth and death transmigration in different species of life.

Actually this is the cause of suffering of the living entities. There are many processes for delivering the living entity from this life of entanglement. Generally it is summarized in the process of meditation, performances of great sacrifices and worshiping the Lord in the temple. But in this Age of Kali Yuga nobody can meditate perfectly, neither they have sufficient resources for performing great sacrifices, neither they have tendency to attend spiritual services in the temple, churches, or mosques or any such sanctuaries. Therefore, in the Brhad Naradiya Puranam it is stated that none of these three principles of spiritual upliftment is possible to perform in this Age of Kali. Therefore, the only possible means of spiritual realization is chanting the Holy Name of God or Krishna or Rama. Lord Caitanya propagated this formula of spiritual realization 500 years ago; and by His grace now it is introduced in the Western world, and practically we are experiencing that it is effective.

The Krishna Consciousness movement is being popularized here by three principles: by temple worship, by sending Sankirtana Party for chanting in the streets and by distribution of small booklets. Although we have got many voluminous books like Srimad-Bhagavatam, Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Nectar of Devotion, Krsna, etc., they are selling less from our different centers, So immediately we cannot think of publishing your Srimad-Bhagavatam for two reasons: 1) that we are dealing with the general mass of people, and 2) we talk with high level scholars only occasionally. Recently we had a correspondence with Dr. J. F. Staal, Professor of Philosophy and of South Asian Languages, University of California, Berkeley, and the small pamphlet is sent to you per separate Air Mail in this connection.

So if you send me some of the specimens of important portions of your writings for publication in our magazine "Back to Godhead," that is possible for the present.

Thanking you once more for your kind letter.

Yours very sincerely,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

ACBS:db
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