It is not idol worship, nonsensical. It is worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead personally. But one has to learn the art and the science about it. Therefore we are opening all over the world different centers

Expressions researched:
"It is not idol worship, nonsensical. It is worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead personally. But one has to learn the art and the science about it. Therefore we are opening all over the world different centers"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

By seeing only, by sitting only, by hearing only, they'll come. This is the chance. It is not idol worship, nonsensical. It is worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead personally. But one has to learn the art and the science about it. Therefore we are opening all over the world different centers so that these go-kharas can take advantage of this movement.

Lecture on BG 13.26 -- Bombay, October 25, 1973:

Go means cow, and kharaḥ means ass. Anyone who is in this bodily concept of life—"I am this," "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am brahmiṇ," "I am śūdra," "I am fat," "I am thin," "I am white," "I am black," "I am male," "I am female," so many bodily concept of life—the śāstra says all of them are no better than the cows and the asses. Sa eva go-kharaḥ. Yasyātma-buddhiḥ. This body is a bag made of tri-dhātu: kapha, pitta, vāyu, or a bag of flesh and blood and bones. I am not this. Ahaṁ brahmāsmi, "I am spirit soul." That is knowledge. But people have no such knowledge. Therefore they are called, according to śāstra, go-kharaḥ. Go means cow, animal, and kharaḥ means ass. Sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape.

So generally people, at least at the modern age, they do not know. They have no information, big, big professor. I have several times written . . . I mean to say, repeatedly spoken to you that one professor Kotovsky in Moscow, he says . . . he is a big man of Indology, and he said, "Swāmījī, after this body is annihilated, there is nothing. Everything is finished." This is their knowledge. Go-kharaḥ, all go-kharaḥ. We take immediately that here is another go-kharaḥ, cow or ass, although he is posing himself as a big professor of Indology. Go-kharaḥ. And the Bhagavad-gītā also says anye, "all common men," or one who does not know. Anye tu evam ajānantaḥ. They do not know what is this body, what is the occupier of the body, what is the puruṣa, what is the uttama-puruṣa, or the puruṣottama, or what is the field of activities, what is this prakṛti, nature, how it is working. They do not know anything. Sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13).

So for the go-kharas, these two-handed and . . . two hands, two legs, go-kharas, for them this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is being pushed on, so that the go-kharas may kindly come and hear Bhagavad-gītā and see how the Deity is being worshiped, how Kṛṣṇa is recognized as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. By seeing only, by sitting only, by hearing only, they'll come. This is the chance. It is not idol worship, nonsensical. It is worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead personally. But one has to learn the art and the science about it. Therefore we are opening all over the world different centers so that these go-kharas can take advantage of this movement. Otherwise why in this old age . . .? What is the use of fighting with Mr. Nair and take this land? Because we are anxious to open centers; people, the go-khara people, may come and take advantage of it. That is our mission. We don't want that they remain go-kharas and lose the chance of this human body.

Our mission is very big, the best welfare work. Other welfare activities, they keep them as go-khara and promises all sorts of big, big promises. No, we do not say. Our mission is to enlighten him, that he is not this body, he is spirit soul. There is Supersoul; both the soul and the Supersoul living in this body. The Supersoul is observing and the living entity is working. According to his work, he is getting the result, a different type of body. In this way, repeatedly he is taking birth and repeatedly he is dying. So one has to stop this repetition of birth and death. That is the perfection of life. That is the perfection. But they do not know how to stop this repetition, neither they do know that death can be avoided.

In the śāstra says, gurur na sa syāt sva-jano na sa syāt pitā na sa syāt (SB 5.5.18). In this way, na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyum. A guru should not become a guru, a father should not become a father, a mother should not become a mother, nobody should become relatives, kinsmen, if one cannot save his son, his disciple, his friend from the imminent danger of birth and death. The society should be like that. Everyone should be eager to save his friend, to save his son, to save his disciple from the imminent danger of birth and death. But they have no . . . (indistinct) . . . neither they do know how to stop it, neither they are interested. But that is the real problem, how to stop. Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9).