Imitation (Lectures)

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Introduction to Gitopanisad (Earliest Recording of Srila Prabhupada in the Bhaktivedanta Archives):

We are also trying to control. We are just trying to control over the nature. In the present days you are trying to control over the space. You are trying to float imitation planets. So this tendency of controlling or creating is there because partially we have got that controlling tendency. But we should know that this tendency is not sufficient. We have the tendency of controlling over the material nature, lording it over the material nature, but we are not the supreme controller.

Lecture on BG 1.13-14 -- London, July 14, 1973:

Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme enjoyer. We are trying to become imitation Kṛṣṇa. Just like so many rascals, they declare that "God, I am God." That is the last snare, Māyāvāda. First of all we try to become enjoyer like the head of the family man or a minister or this and that, so many. Everyone is trying to become head, enjoyer. And at last, being baffled in every respect, he wants to become God.

Lecture on BG 1.15 -- London, July 15, 1973:

Everyone wants to become God, imitator. Imitation. Therefore they say, "Why Kṛṣṇa shall be alone God? I am God." You are God. That's all right. But you are not the Supreme God. Why you forget that? You may be a God at home of your wife, but when you go to your office, you are not god; your master is god. He directs you to do something; you have to do it.

Lecture on BG 2.24 -- Hyderabad, November 28, 1972:

Everyone is trying to become Kṛṣṇa, enjoyer. So there is fight. Always. You are becoming, trying to becoming Kṛṣṇa. I am trying to become Kṛṣṇa. As there are so many incarnations of God nowadays—every lane, every street. So we are all imitation Kṛṣṇa. And there is fight. That is asanātana-dharma. That is not sanātana.

Lecture on BG 2.51-55 -- New York, April 12, 1966:

So the idea is that imitation God, there may be so many. Nowadays it has become a fashion. Not in your country; at least in India, it has become a fashion, that everyone is coming out and he declares himself, "I am God. I am God." As if the God has become a very cheap thing, and it can be had in the market, wherever you go. You see? That is not the thing. God is not so cheap thing.