Column (Lect, Conv. & Letters)

Expressions researched:
"column" |"columned" |"columns"

Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures

Lecture on SB 1.2.10 -- Bombay, December 28, 1972:

So those who are anxious to understand the Absolute Truth by dint of imperfect knowledge, this is right conclusion. If your senses are imperfect, whatever your knowledge may be, that is imperfect, because you are gathering knowledge from..., by imperfect senses. You know the story of studying..., blind man studying an elephant. So blind man is going, somebody is catching the leg. So they, "Oh, elephant is just like a pillar, a column." And somebody is studying the tail, somebody is studying the trunk. So different knowledge, because they have no eyes. And one who sees the elephant as it is, he can understand that elephant is neither column, nor a trunk, nor this; he is a complete body. Similarly, those who are trying to understand the Absolute Truth by dint of blind knowledge, they come to the understanding of impersonal Brahman, brahmeti. That is also truth, just like you touch the elephant, a blind man touching the elephant, but because he hasn't got eyes he is concluding that elephant is like, just like a column. But he has touched. Similarly, either the impersonalist or the yogi or the bhakta, they have come to the Absolute Truth; therefore it is called advaya-jñāna.

Lecture on SB 1.3.18 -- Los Angeles, September 23, 1972:

This Narasiṁha incarnation came out of a column. Hiraṇyakaśipu was so angry talking with his son. He saw that his son is very strongly Kṛṣṇa conscious; he could not induce him to forget Kṛṣṇa. So he was very angry. So he was ready to kill him with his sword. At that time Prahlāda Mahārāja, the little boy, five years old, he was just looking at the column in the hall. So his father marked it and immediately asked, "Do you think your God is there in the column?" He said, "Yes, my father." Immediately he broke the column, and Nṛsiṁha came out.

Lecture on SB 1.8.19 -- Chicago, July 5, 1974 :

One who does not know what is God, and what is his relationship with God, he is a mūḍha. In so many places, there are so many śāstras you will find this word mūḍha. Here it is said, na lakṣyase mūḍha. Mūḍha-dṛśa, whose sense perception is just like blind man. A blind man is given a elephant, an elephant. Now, "Mr. Blind Man, just understand what is this." So, he is blind, he simply, I mean to say, moves his hand over the leg. "Sir, it is a column. It is a big column." So blind man, he cannot see; he thought that elephant is big column. So anyone who is speculating about God, he is the blind man studying the elephant, like that.