(I offer my respects to Rādhārāṇī, whose bodily complexion is like molten gold and who is the Queen of Vṛndāvana. You are the daughter of King Vṛṣabhānu, and You are very dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa.)
Bodily (Lectures, BG)
Expressions researched:
"bodily"
Notes from the compiler:
VedaBase query: bodily not "bodily comfort*" not "bodily concept*" not "bodily platform*" not "bodily feature*" not "bodily necess*"
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
Lecture on BG Introduction -- New York, February 19-20, 1966:
The Lord is the original creator. He is the creator of Brahmā, He is the creator... That is also explained. He is the creator of Brahmā. In the 11th Chapter the Lord is addressed as prapitāmaha (BG 11.39) because Brahmā is addressed as pitāmaha, the grandfather, but He is the creator of the grandfather also. So nobody should claim to be the proprietor of anything, but he must accept things which are set aside by the Lord as his quota of maintenance. Now, there are many examples how we have to utilize the allotment of the Lord. That is also explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. Arjuna, he decided in the beginning that he should not fight. That was his own contemplation. Arjuna said to the Lord that it was not possible for him to enjoy the kingdom after killing his own kinsmen. And that point of view was due to his conception of the body. Because he was thinking that the body was himself and the bodily relatives, his brothers, his nephews, his father-in-law or his grandfather, they were expansion of his body, and he was thinking in that way to satisfy his bodily demands. And the whole thing was spoken by the Lord just to change the view. And he agreed to work under the direction of the Lord. And he said, kariṣye vacanaṁ tava (BG 18.73).
Lecture on BG 1.1 -- London, July 7, 1973:
So the general regulation is that woman should remain under the protection of husband, er, father, husband and children. Just like these Pāṇḍus, their mother, Kuntī, she was very, very qualified lady. But still, after the death of her husband, she always remained with the sons. The sons are going to the forest; the mother is also going. Also the wife is also going, Draupadī. This was the... So two parties... Dhṛtarāṣṭra was the eldest son, but he was blind, bodily defect. Therefore he was not awarded the throne. His next brother, Pāṇḍu, he was offered the throne, but he died very early age, a young man. When these Pāṇḍus, the five sons, Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja, at at that time not Mahārāja, Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhīma, Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadeva, they were very small children, so they were taken care of by Dhṛtarāṣṭra and other elderly family... Bhīṣmadeva. He was the grandfather of the Pāṇḍavas. He was the elder uncle of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. Bhīṣma was elder brother of Dhṛtarāṣṭra's father. He was so old. But he was... Actually, the kingdom belonged to Bhīṣma, but he remained a brahmacārī, he did not marry. There was no issue of Bhīṣmadeva. Therefore his nephews, Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Pāṇḍu, they were inheritor.
Lecture on BG 1.2-3 -- London, July 9, 1973:
Paśyaitāṁ pāṇḍu-putrāṇām ācārya: (BG 1.3) "My dear teacher, just see how many military soldiers are standing there on behalf of the Pāṇḍavas, and they have been arranged by your disciple, who is meant for killing you. So just remember." That means "You become more strong that this boy and the other party may not kill you." But Duryodhana does not know that the death does not depend on military strength or bodily strength. When death will come, nobody can check. Death is God. When Kṛṣṇa desires that "This man should be killed now," or "He must die now," nobody can check. Rākhe kṛṣṇa mare ke mare kṛṣṇa rākhe ke. If Kṛṣṇa desires to kill somebody, nobody can give him protection, no power. And if He wants to save somebody, nobody can kill him. This is Kṛṣṇa's protection.
Lecture on BG 1.10 -- London, July 12, 1973:
Although they were kṣatriyas, still... Kṣatriyas are meant for representing the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Actually, Kṛṣṇa is the proprietor. Sarva-loka-maheśvaram. Sarva-loka-maheśvaram, suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati (BG 5.29). So He is the proprietor. Sarva-loka. Sarva-loka means all the planets, all the universes. Because they are created by Kṛṣṇa, by Kṛṣṇa's bodily effulgence, brahma-jyotir. So they are created by Kṛṣṇa's. Just like from the sunshine these planets are created, similarly from brahma-jyotir, innumerable universes are created.
- yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-
- koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam
- tad brahma niṣkalam anantam aśeṣa-bhūtaṁ
- govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
- (Bs. 5.40)
So it is all creation of Kṛṣṇa. Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate (BG 10.8). Everything has come out from Kṛṣṇa's body, external, therefore He is the proprietor. If I have created something, then I am the proprietor. It is very easy to understand. In the Vedas also, it is said eko nārāyaṇa āsīt: "Before the creation only there was Nārāyaṇa."
Lecture on BG 1.28-29 -- London, July 22, 1973:
As these things, these symptoms, different transformations of bodily constitution, appear in times of danger, similarly such symptoms appear in times of spiritual bliss. That is called aṣṭa-sāttvika-vikāra (CC Antya 14.99), eight kinds of transformation of the body. So there is so many reserve energies within our body. They become manifest in due course of time when the mind and intelligence work in different ways. This is the study, how things appear. It is appearing from intelligence, mind. The soul is there and the intelligence and mind creating the situation of the bodily symptoms. Therefore body or the senses are not all. The modern education, they think this body is everything. No. Real study is body means the senses. Indriyāṇi parāṇy āhuḥ. On gross vision we see this body. Indriyāṇi parāṇy āhur indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ (BG 3.42). But the bodily symptoms are acting because the mind is there. And mind is working because the intelligence is there. And the intelligence is working because the soul is there. (aside:) You can stand.
So this is the process. The basic principle is the soul. The soul is acting through intelligence, and the intelligence is acting through mind, and the mind is expressed through the senses. This is the position. So as my mind is absorbed in something, some subject matter, my bodily symptoms also will work, or the senses will work according to that mind. Therefore for spiritual advancement also, you have to train your mind. Sa vai manaḥ kṛṣṇa-padāravindayor vacāṁsi vaikuṇṭha-guṇānuvarṇane (SB 9.4.18).
Lecture on BG 1.28-29 -- London, July 22, 1973:
This body, why we have got this body, material body? Because we have forgotten Kṛṣṇa and we wanted to lord it over the material nature. This is our position. Therefore, according to our different desires, we have got different bodies. Here we are sitting, say fifty or hundred men. Nobody's body will tally with other's body. Face and everything, different. Because every one of us has got different desires. Therefore their facial expression, bodily construction, everything is made according to the mind. So at the time of death also, the constitution of mind will transfer me to another, different type of body. The mind will carry the soul. These are all explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. Yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante kalevaram (BG 8.6). So if you train up your mind, that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Always remembering Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare. Then it may be possible that at the time of death you remember Kṛṣṇa and your life is successful. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9). Immediately you are transferred to Kṛṣṇaloka. This is training.
Lecture on BG 1.28-29 -- London, July 22, 1973:
So my mind, which may be compared with rāja-haṁsa, let it be entangled now, immediately. Otherwise I do not know." Prāṇa-prayāṇa-samaye kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ. "When everything bodily function will be mixed up, kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ, 'ghan ghan,' there will be some sound, how I will be able to remembering your lotus feet? So let me die immediately, immediately. Now I am quite fit. Otherwise I may not be able." This is the point. The mind should be kept in healthy condition. Saṁjña. Therefore one who dies with full sense remembering Kṛṣṇa, oh, he is successful. In Bengali it is said, bhajana kara sādhana kara mūrti yāṅre haya. (?) You may be very great devotee. That's all right. But it will be tested at the time of your death, how you remember Kṛṣṇa. That will be the test examination. At the time of death, if we forget, if we become parrotlike... Just like parrot, he chants also, "Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa." But when the cat catches the neck, "Kanh! Kanh! Kanh!" No more Kṛṣṇa. No more Kṛṣṇa. So artificial practice will not help us. Then "Khan, khan." That kapha-pitta-vātaiḥ, kaṇṭhāvarodhana-vidhau smaraṇaṁ kutas te (MM 33).
Lecture on BG 1.36 -- London, July 26, 1973:
So I have given them chance. But actually I am the father. The material nature is the mother." Just like we have got experience, the father injects the living entity in the womb of the mother. And the mother, by her blood, develops the body of the child. Similarly, all these living entities, 8,400,000 species, the... Bījo 'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām (Bg 7.10). The father is Kṛṣṇa. He has given the seed in the womb of this material nature. And the material nature has given the body. Somebody has got the body of fish, somebody has got the body of tree, plant, somebody has got insect, reptile, somebody bird, sometimes beasts, somebody human being, somebody demigod. But all these materials have been supplied by the mother. It is very easy to understand. Just like the child grows, the mother supplies the bodily ingredients. Caitanya Mahāprabhu therefore... This is very scientific. When He took sannyāsa and the mother came... Advaita Prabhu arranged to see for the last time her son. Because a sannyāsī is no more coming home. So at that time, mother became overwhelmed: "Such beautiful body. He has nice hair. Now it is shaven." So she became very much overwhelmed and was crying. So Caitanya Mahāprabhu immediately fell down on her lotus feet and He said, "My dear mother, this body is yours. My dear mother, this body is yours.
Lecture on BG 2.1 -- Ahmedabad, December 7, 1972:
Kṛṣṇa is described here as Madhusūdana, the killer of the demon Madhu. Madhu-kaiṭabha-ari. So Arjuna was attacked by a demon of forgetting his duty, being too much afflicted by bodily relationship. This is our position. In this material world, we are so much attached to this bodily relationship that it is to be considered just like we are ghostly haunted. In a poetry, Prema-vivarta, it is said that piśācī pāile yena mati-cchanna haya, māyā-grasta jīvera haya se bhāva udaya. Māyā-grasta jīva. Māyā-grasta. Māyā means illusion, hallucination. So we are, in this material world, we are all illusioned. Illusioned means accepting something as fact which is not. Something... Just like in dream we see sometimes I am attacked with a tiger; my head is being cut off. So many things. So actually there is no tiger, my head is not being cut off, but still, I am crying: "Oh, here is a tiger, here is a tiger!" So our attachment for this world is like that. It is illusion. I am thinking that "Without me, everything will be spoiled. My presence is required." And so on, so on. Just like sometimes our political leaders.
Lecture on BG 2.1 -- Ahmedabad, December 7, 1972:
We have got our ideas of richness. I may be rich, but you are richer than me. Somebody is richer than you. Somebody is richer than another, another, another. You go, make proceed. When you find out the final richest person, that is Bhagavān. Aiśvaryasya sama... Samagrasya. All riches. Not that partial. One may have one thousand, another man, one lakh, one man, one crore, but nobody can say that "I have got all the monies." No, that is not possible. But Bhagavān has all the monies. Aiśvaryasya samagrasya vīryasya. Similarly, strength, bodily strength or power. Aiśvaryasya samagrasya vīryasya yaśasaḥ. And similarly, reputation. We are also reputed. But nobody can be reputed than Kṛṣṇa. Just like five thousand years ago He spoke this Bhagavad-gītā, and He's so reputed that Kṛṣṇa spoke Bhagavad-gītā and still it is running on. Not only in India, but we are traveling all over the world. There are so many editions of Bhagavad-gītā. So He's so reputed. So aiśvaryasya samagrasya vīryasya yaśasaḥ śriyaḥ (Viṣṇu Purāṇa 6.5.47). And beautiful. The most beautiful. Kṛṣṇa, most attractive. Yaśasaḥ śri..., jñāna, knowledge, the book of knowledge which He has given, this Bhagavad-gītā, there is no comparison.
Lecture on BG 2.1-5 -- Germany, June 16, 1974:
So spiritual understanding means first of all to know what is spirit. If you do not know what is spirit, then where is spiritual understanding? People are too much engrossed with the body. That is called materialism. But when you understand what is spirit and you act accordingly, that is called spiritualism. So Arjuna was hesitating to fight with the other party because he had bodily relationship with them. So between Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa there was discussion, but that was friendly discussion. Therefore, when Arjuna understood that simply friendly discussion could not solve the problem, he became His disciple. Kṛṣṇa... Arjuna surrendered to Kṛṣṇa, śiṣyas te 'ham śādhi māṁ prapannam: (BG 2.7) "My dear Kṛṣṇa, so long we are talking as friend. Now I become Your regular disciple. Kindly save me by instruction. What I have to do?" Therefore, when this stage was arrived, Kṛṣṇa is advising Arjuna as follows: śrī-bhagavān uvāca. Now, it is said here... Who is saying to Arjuna? The author or the recorder of Bhagavad-gītā... Bhagavad-gītā was spoken by Kṛṣṇa. It was a discussion between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna, and it was recorded by Vyāsadeva, and later on it became a book. Just like when we speak it is recorded and later on it is published as a book. Therefore in this book it is said, bhagavān uvāca. Vyāsadeva is the writer. He does not say that, "I speak." He says, bhagavān uvāca, means "The Supreme Personality of Godhead said."
Lecture on BG 2.7-11 -- New York, March 2, 1966:
We should not forget that we are always under suffering. There are three kinds of sufferings. I don't say about this economic problem or... That is also another suffering. But according to Vedic knowledge—or it is a fact—there are three kinds of suffering. One kind of suffering belonging to the body and the mind... Now, suppose I am getting some headache. Now I am feeling very warm, I am feeling very cold, and so many bodily sufferings there are. Similarly, we have got sufferings of the mind. My mind is not well today. I have been... Somebody has called me something. So I am suffering. Or I have lost something or some friend, so many things. So sufferings of the body and mind, and then sufferings by the nature, nature. This is called adhidaivika, which we have to control. In every suffering we have no control, especially... Suppose there is heavy snowfall. The whole New York City is flooded with the snow, and we are all put into inconvenience.
Lecture on BG 2.9 -- Auckland, February 21, 1973:
He said that paṇḍitāḥ, those one who is learned, he does not lament on this lump of matter. Actually, if you soberly analyze this body, what is this body? Actually, it is lump of matter. It is a combination of bone and blood, flesh, urine, stool, nails and hairs. Otherwise what you can find in it? Do you mean to say by combining these ingredients, bones and flesh and urine and stool, you can manufacture a very learned scholar? Is there any science that you can manu... Ingredients... If the bodily ingredients is the man, you take this. In a dead body you take all these ingredients, again manufacture a similar man. But that is not possible. That is not possible. So this is our ignorance. Therefore Kṛṣṇa said that "You are lamenting on a thing which is not at all subject matter. It is a dead matter. It was dead matter, and it will remain dead matter." Just like this apartment. I am living in this apartment; you are living in this apartment. I am not this apartment. When I vacate, when you vacate this apartment, the apartment remains.
Lecture on BG 2.11 -- New York, March 4, 1966:
So why one should cry for this body? Therefore Kṛṣṇa says that "A learned man does not lament over this body." The whole question, that a soul is different from this body, the whole question is solved in one verse. You see? Gatāsūn agatāsūṁś ca nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ (BG 2.11). "One who is actually learned, he does not, he has no concern of this body. He's concerned with the activities of the soul. So you are speaking of so many things that 'If these, my friends, die, the, I mean to say, their wives will become widow.' These are all... According to the bodily relation, you are speaking. And you are posing yourself just like a very learned man, but you are a fool number one because your whole conception is on the body. Your whole conception of argument with Me was on the body, but you are, you are posing himself just as if you are very learned man." So anyone who has got conception, the identification of this body, he's not a learned man. He's a fool. He may be, in the calculation of academic education, he may be B.A., M.A., Ph.D., DAC, or something like, doctors and..., but if he has got his identification with this body, he's not a learned man according to Bhagavad-gītā. Not only according, according to whole Vedic literature. This is the first instruction. This is the... If we want to make progress towards spiritual advancement of knowledge, this preliminary knowledge we must have, that "I am not this body. I am not this body."
Lecture on BG 2.11 -- New York, March 4, 1966:
Now, the Bhāgavata says that yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke: (SB 10.84.13) "If anyone, he's identified with this body made of water, air and fire..." And yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke. This is a body made of three things. Now... And sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu: "And if one thinks the issues, the by-products of this body as his own kinsmen..." Just like my children, my wife, my relatives, my father, my mother, my brother, my nation, my society—everything is due to this bodily relation. And there are thousands of women loitering in the street of New York, and suppose I have got some ma..., bodily connection with you, I call you my wife. And because I have got bodily relation with you, all the children produced by you, they are my children. You see? So whole thing is... The basic principle is wrong, that "I am this body." Now, from the expansion of the body, the whole thing, the whole thing is false. Because I am not this body, so my expansion of body is also not I am. But whole world is going on on this false impression. The whole world is going on. The fight, the fighting between one nation and another nation—because due to this body.
Lecture on BG 2.11 -- New York, March 4, 1966:
"Oh, we are Indian." "We are Pakistani." "We are Vietnamese." "We are Americans." "We are German." The fighting, so much fighting is going on. The land, for the land. So land, land has become worshipable, so worshipable that one is sacrificed his valuable life for that land. You see? But the land is so dear, why? This body has become grown up from this land. So that is also there, the bodily connection.
So yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu bhauma-ijya-dhīḥ (SB 10.84.13). In the land... They have no meaning for God. Now, the Russian philosophy, they have no meaning for God, but they have every meaning for their land, for the land. So land has been identified as worshipable, and they're prepared to sacrifice anything for the land. So yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke: "One who is identified with this body and one who thinks the bodily offshoots as his own men, and the land from which the body has grown as worshipable," yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile.
Lecture on BG 2.11 -- Edinburgh, July 16, 1972:
So therefore I am a spirit soul. I am part and parcel of God. Ahaṁ brahmāsmi. This is the Vedic education. Try to understand that you do not belong to this material world. You belong to the spiritual world. You are part and parcel of God. Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ (BG 15.7). In the Bhagavad-gītā, God says that "All living entities are My part and parcels." Manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni karṣati (BG 15.7). He's undergoing a great struggle for life under the impression, under the bodily impression that he is this body, but this kind of impression or understanding is animal civilization. Because the animals are also eating, sleeping, having sex intercourse, and defending in their own way. So if we also, human being, if we are engaged with all these business, namely eating, sleeping, sex intercourse, and defending, then we are not better than the animals. The special prerogative of the human being is to understand "What I am? I am this body or something else?" Actually, I am not this body. I have given you so many examples. I am spirit soul. But at the present moment every one of us is busy on this understanding that I am this body. Nobody is working on the understanding that he is not body, he's spirit soul. Therefore try to understand this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. We are trying to educate every man without any distinction.
Lecture on BG 2.11 -- Mauritius, October 1, 1975:
So the problem was that Arjuna was not willing to fight, considering his family members as not to be killed. Nobody, of course, should like to kill his family members, so that was natural. But this family relationship or national relationship, community relationship, this is due to this body. I accept somebody as my brother because he has got the body from the same father from whom I have got this body. But the body is by-product of the father's body. So this bodily relationship is material. Material means outward, external. It is not real relationship. The father is a soul, I am soul, my brother is a soul, so we are related on the spiritual platform in relationship with God because soul is not matter. Our material father is... Material father means we see the material body. We do not see the soul of the father, neither the father sees the soul of the son. Everyone under illusion we are simply seeing the body and accepting as kinsman. So this illusion was to be removed by Kṛṣṇa, and therefore He said, aśocyān anvaśocas tvam (BG 2.11). "You are lamenting over the body. Oh, it is very regrettable. You are lamenting." Aśocyān anvaśocaḥ. What is this body? It is simply lump of matter. As soon as the soul is out of this body, what is the value of this lump of matter? It will be thrown in the street, and somebody will kick on the face. Nobody will care.
Lecture on BG 2.11 -- Mauritius, October 1, 1975:
This is real education, that "You are thinking on terms of the body; therefore it is not very important subject matter." Real subject matter—what will happen to the soul—that is real, important. But whole world, they do not know what is the important platform. All rascals, they are concerned with this body. That is not wonderful; that is natural. Even if we know, still, if there is some bodily pain we become very much disturbed. But we should know, always remember, that "I am not this body." The same example, that I have got a very nice car, Rolls Royce car, I have got attachment, that is all right, but we should know always that "I am not this Rolls Royce car. I am different from it." This is knowledge. "I may have some attachment for my car. That is natural. I have paid for it. I like it. But in spite of all these consideration I am not the Rolls Royce car. The Rolls Royce car is a lump of matter. I am using it." Similarly, we should always remember that "I am using this material body for my transaction, different transaction, but I am not this material body." But a devotee, he uses this material body, utilizes it properly. Just like we are also going by aeroplane, by motorcar, but we have no concern with the... I have come to your country by aeroplane not to see your country. I have come for Kṛṣṇa's business: to see if I can induce you to Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Lecture on BG 2.12 -- New York, March 9, 1966:
So we have already discussed. This is same point is being discussed nicely in Bhagavad-gītā, that we are not this body. Our material identification is wrong. So we have come to that point, come to that stage, you see, that I am not this body. And because I am not this body, therefore I have no connection with this world—because my connection with this world is due to my body, is due to my body. I consider one woman my wife because I have got bodily connection. I, I consider somebody my son because bodily connection. I consider this town, this country my country because my body has grown up from this land. So in this way, as soon as one become free from the conception of identification of this body, he becomes a liberated soul. Therefore you'll find in Bhagavad-gītā in the later chapters that as soon as one emerges out from this conception, he is prasannātmā: "Oh, I have no responsibility. I have no responsibility." Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati (BG 18.54). As soon as he is liberated... Just like a man freed from the attack of fever or any disease, when he's recovered, he finds himself happy: "Oh, now my disease is now gone. I am happy." Similarly, as soon as we come to the spiritual understanding of our existence, then our life will be joyful. That is a sign.
Lecture on BG 2.12 -- New York, March 9, 1966:
That does not mean, because you have got a different body, therefore you are not a living being. Or because I have got a different body from you, I am not a living being. So body... Because a living soul is not the body, he might have different body. That doesn't matter; that doesn't matter. Why should we consider, identify with the body? The whole question is there. The body, you'll find your body is different from animal body. Animal is different from human body. Or the so many difference of body. But the four principles of bodily wants, āhāra... Āhāra means requiring some foodstuff, and nidrā, sleeping, and fearing and mating. These four principles you'll find in the birds, in the animals, in the human beings, or even the devatās, or gods, or everywhere you'll find, these four principles. The only difference between the animal and higher, developed consciousness living being is that they are God conscious. They accept the Supreme Lord. That makes the difference between lower animals and others.
Lecture on BG 2.12 -- Hyderabad, December 12, 1976:
Similarly, the impersonal feature, brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate (SB 1.2.11), Absolute Truth... The imperson is a feature of God, aṅga-jyoti. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi (Bs. 5.40). It is the bodily rays, impersonal Brahman. But God is person. Here He said that na tu eva aham. Aham means "I am person," jātu, "at any time," nāsam, "we are not annihilated." Na tu, na tvam: "You are also not annihilated." Because Arjuna is jīva, and Kṛṣṇa is God, so both of them are existing, part and parcel. Just like this sunshine. What is the sunshine? It is very small atomic particles of shining material. This is sunshine, combined together. Similarly, we are also a small particle of the rays, bodily rays of God. We are living entities, very minute particle. Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ jīva-loke sanātanaḥ (BG 15.7). So we are also individual, and God is also individual person. "And all the kings, all the soldiers assembled, they are also individual." So this individuality is never lost. Kṛṣṇa says that "At present we are individuals, and in the past we are individuals." Then one may say, "In the future we may become one, amalgamated," as the Māyāvādī philosopher says that as soon as we become liberated, we become one with the Absolute. No, that is not fact.
Lecture on BG 2.13 -- New York, March 11, 1966:
So many things. This is arrangement. Now, in this planet we have got this body which is where earth is very prominent. Similarly, in other planets, other planets, somewhere water is very prominent, somewhere fire is very prominent. In the sun planet, the bodies there... There are also living entities, but their body is so made that it is fiery. They can exist in the fire. They can exist in the fire. Similarly, Varuṇaloka, in the Venus, all these planets, they have got different types of body. Just like here you can experience that in the water the aquatics, they have got a different type of body. For years and years together there are aquatic animals, they are within the water. They are very comfortable. But the moment you'll drag it to the land, it dies. Similarly, you are very comfortable on the land, but the moment you are put into the water, you die. Because your body, bodily construction is different, his body, the bodily construction different, the bird's bodily... The bird, heavy bird, it can fly, but it is God's made flying instrument. But your man-made instrument, it crashes, crashes. You see? Because artificial.
Lecture on BG 2.13 -- Hyderabad, November 19, 1972:
Actually, who is jñānī, who is paṇḍita, he will not see: "Here is an Indian. Here is an American. Here is an Hindu. Here is a Muslim," or "Here is a cat. Here is a dog." No Because he will see not the outward bodily identification. Just like while I am talking with you, because your dress is white, and because my dress is saffron colored, it does not mean that we are different. Simply on the ground of dress, if we think we are different, then that is ajñāna. Nobody does so. When a gentleman talks with another gentleman, none of them consider that "I am this dress." Similarly, if I consider about, about my identification on the ground of this dress, then am I not ajñānī? Yes, I am ajñānī. I do not know my identification.
Lecture on BG 2.13 -- London, August 19, 1973:
So dhīras tatra na muhyati. It is very simple thing. Suppose a young man, a boy, changes his body, bodily symptoms. Just like a boy has no mustaches or beard, but all of a sudden the hairs grow. Does he cry, "Oh, why I am growing hair? Why I am growing?" Because that is the necessary change of body. Why he should be perplexed, "Why my body is changing?" Similarly, my body is changing, this body to another body, I am dying. Why shall I be perplexed? The intelligence is that "What kind of body I am going to get?" That is intelligence. Otherwise why one should be perplexed? Dehāntara-prāptiḥ.
Lecture on BG 2.13 -- Germany, June 18, 1974:
Therefore I say repeatedly... I am saying again that you Western people, Western boys, Western girls, or Western people, you are given very good chance by nature. Therefore, once upon a time the whole European people were dominating all over the world because they're very intelligent. So they have got good intelligence, good resources, good, nice body, beautiful body. Everything is very good. But don't spoil it; utilize it for understanding further good. Don't spoil it simply behaving like cats and dogs. That is our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means that you are misled and simply bodily conscious of life. Therefore fight. Germany's fighting Englishman. Englishman is fighting in France. France is fighting. Why this fighting? If you know that "I am not this body. I am spirit soul. Why I am falsely identifying myself with the land?" "I am, I am, I am a German because I am born in this land of Germany." That is also false. No land is Germany or France or England. Land is land. You have falsely named it: "This is Germany." What is the Germany? Say, two hundred years or three hundred years, there was no Germany. Just like America. There was no America. The land was there, but the name was not there. So you have, some Europeans, they have colonized. They accept: "It is America. It is..." So this is all designation.
Lecture on BG 2.13-17 -- Los Angeles, November 29, 1968:
So far the constitution of the spirit is concerned, it is eternal. That is accepted by all philosophers, personalists and impersonalists. The only difference is that the impersonalist says that after liberation, after getting freed from this bodily contamination, the spirit soul mixes with the Supreme Soul, all-pervading, without any individual existence. Just like the same example, that the small sky within the pitcher. When the pitcher is broken, the small sky within the pitcher mixes with the big sky. The Vaiṣṇava philosopher says that the small sky is individual. It mixes with the big sky, but it keeps its individuality. The example is given in this connection: just like a green bird entering a green tree. So when the bird enters the tree, nobody can find out where is the bird because the leaves of the tree are green and the bird is also green. Nobody can trace out. But that does not mean the bird has lost its individuality. The individuality is there. Just like you see one airplane is flying in the air, and when it goes too far, it appears that it has disappeared. It seems to us that there is no more that airplane. It has mixed with the sky.
Lecture on BG 2.14 -- London, August 20, 1973:
This is very important verse. In the previous verse it has been described, dehino 'smin yathā dehe (BG 2.13). Actually we living entities, we are within the body. The bodily pains and pleasure are not the pains and pleasure of the soul within. It is simply abhiniveśa. It is called abhiniveśa, absorption or misidentify. The example I have given many times. Just like you are sitting in a nice motorcar; another man is sitting on a rickshaw. I have seen in India. So the rickshaw has come in front of the nice motorcar, and the driver is asking that man who is drawing the rickshaw, "You rickshaw!" Means he is thinking, he is sitting in a nice motorcar, so he has become a motor, and the man who is drawing the rickshaw, he has become rickshaw. This is the position. Actually the man who is drawing the rickshaw, he is also human being. And the man who is sitting in a nice Rolls Royce car, he is also human being. But the rascal, because he is sitting on a Rolls Royce car, he is thinking, "I am a Rolls Royce, and he is rickshaw." This is material conception of life, that according to the body, we are becoming designated, not as the soul. Just try to understand this very good example. Because that poor fellow is drawing rickshaw, he has been taken as rickshaw. And because I am sitting in a Rolls Royce car, I am thinking, "I am Rolls Royce."
Lecture on BG 2.14 -- London, August 20, 1973:
Therefore the problem is how to get out of this bodily entanglement. I am spirit soul. Somehow or other, I have fallen in this entanglement of bodily transformation. There, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says, anādi karama-phale, pori' bhavārṇava-jale, toribāre nā dekhi upāy: "Somehow or other I have fallen in this ocean of birth and death. I do not know how to get out of it." Just like if you are thrown into the ocean, however expert swimmer you may be, that is not your comfortable life. You have to swim all along, otherwise immediately drown. Similarly, as soon as you get yourself in this material world, you have to struggle for existence. You have to. If you want to stop this struggle for existence, then you must get out of this material existence. That is the problem of life. Anādi karama-phale, pori' bhavārṇava-jale, toribāre nā dekhi upāy. Therefore Caitanya Mahāprabhu teaches us, ayi nanda-tanuja patitaṁ kiṅkaraṁ māṁ viṣame bhavāmbudhau: "My dear Lord, Nanda-tanuja, son of Nanda Mahārāja, Kṛṣṇa, I am Your eternal servant. Somehow or other, I am now fallen in this material ocean." Ayi nanda-tanuja patitaṁ kiṅkaraṁ māṁ viṣame bhavāmbudhau. Viṣame: "Very ferocious danger, ocean of this material existence, I am fallen.
Lecture on BG 2.14 -- Germany, June 21, 1974:
You are changing different bodies. By finishing the body, you are not finished. You are not finished. We can understand with little thinking that in this body I am..., even in this life. At night I get another body. I dream. I dream there is tiger. I go to the forest, and there is a tiger, and it is coming to kill me. Then I am crying, and actually I am crying. Or, in other way, I have gone to some beloved, man and woman. We are embracing, but the bodily action is going on. Otherwise why I am crying? And why there is discharge of semina? So people do not know that I am leaving this gross body, but I am entering into subtle body. Subtle body is there, not question of inside. We are packed up. Just like this body is packed up with shirt and coat, so the coat is the gross body, and the shirt is the subtle body. So when this gross body is resting, the subtle body is working. The subtle body is there. The foolish men, they cannot understand that "I am compact in some body, either subtle body or gross body." One who is too sinful, very much sinful, he does not get the gross body. He remains in the subtle body, and that is called ghost. You have heard. Some of you might have seen. There is ghost. Ghost means he doesn't get. He is so sinful that he is condemned to remain in the subtle body. He does not get the gross body. Therefore, according to Vedic system, there is śrāddha ceremony. If the father or relative has not gotten the gross body, by that ceremony he is allowed to accept a gross body. That is the Vedic system.
Lecture on BG 2.14 -- Mexico, February 14, 1975:
Prabhupāda: Actually spiritual consciousness keeps the body fit. Just like in the body the spirit soul is there and the consciousness is also there, maybe polluted, but as soon as the spirit soul gives up this body, the body immediately begins to decompose. So the decomposition of the body is checked by the spiritual presence. So if you become advanced in spiritual consciousness there is no question of suffering from bodily disease.
Girl devotee: (translates Spanish) (break) ...along with the spirit soul can be realized?
Prabhupāda: Yes, by your present position. You can simply take the information that the dimension of the spirit soul is one ten-thousandth part of the tip of your hair. Very small particle, that is spirit soul. The dimension is given. You have got your hair. You can just imagine only; you cannot measure. And you divide the top of your hair into ten thousand parts, and that one part is the measurement of the spirit soul. That small particle is so powerful. Just imagine what is spiritual power. It is less than the atom. Therefore it is described in the Vedic lit..., aṇor aṇīyān mahato mahīyān: "The spirit is greater than the greatest, and the smaller than the smallest."
Lecture on BG 2.15 -- London, August 21, 1973:
So one who has practiced to become dhīra, not to become disturbed by the sensuous or bodily sensations, he's supposed to be kalpate, he's supposed to be, to become immortal at the end. And the Bhāgavata says also that you do not become a spiritual master, you do not become a father, you do not become a mother, you do not become a friend, a relative, in this way, if you cannot make your subordinate immortal. Pitā na sa syāt, gurur na sa syāt, gurur na sa syāt, jananī na sā syāt pitā na sa syāt. In this way, there is a list. You become father of hundreds of children. That's all right. No restriction. You beget children. But you must make your children immortal. That is the injunction. You have become guru. That's all right, Guruji Mahārāja. That's all right. But make your disciples immortal. Otherwise, don't, don't cheat others. Cheaters. Illicit father, illicit mother. As we say, illicit sex. Similarly illicit father, illicit mother. Who is illicit father, illicit mother? Who cannot make his children immortal. That is the aim of human life. How to become immortal. How... Not to become, we are immortal. Just like a person, he's diseased, attacked by fever.
Lecture on BG 2.16 -- Mexico City, February 16, 1975:
So if you want to stop the danger of death, then you have to understand what is that Absolute Truth. Just like I have given already the example of sunshine. If you come to the sunshine, there is no darkness. But if you keep yourself within closed door, do not like to see the sunshine, that is your own choice. So everyone should try to come to the light. That is Vedic injunction, tamaso mā jyotir gamaya, means "Do not remain in darkness, come to the light." Light means knowledge, and darkness means ignorance. So every one of us now in the ignorance that we do not know "What I am." Everyone is in darkness in the concept of body. Ask anyone what you are. He will say, "I am this body. I am Mr. Such and such." "I am Indian." "I am American." This is all bodily description. And we have already discussed. This body is temporary, but I, the spirit soul, I am permanent. I have already experienced that I had my childhood body, I had my babyhood body, I had my boyhood body, youthhood body, I know it, but the bodies are no more existing, but I am existing. So therefore I am permanent, and the body is nonpermanent. Therefore it is said, nāsato vidyate bhāvaḥ: "Permanency is not there in the body." Nābhāvo vidyate sataḥ: "And there is no annihilation of the permanent or the eternal."
Lecture on BG 2.17 -- (with Spanish translator) -- Mexico, February 17, 1975:
So we have to study this very intelligently. Then we'll understand that what is soul, what is the business of the soul, why the soul is entrapped in this bodily, material body, why there are so many varieties, body. This is a great science, and that science is explained in this Bhagavad-gītā. Actually, at the present moment there is no education, because education means to understand my identity. The so-called education which is going on, that is called art. Of course, they also say, "B.A., M.A., Bachelor of Art, Master of Art." It is just learning an art only; it is not education. Just like an electrical electrician. He knows the art how to put the negative and positive wire and bring electricity. That is an art. But that electrician does not know what is the science of understanding soul. The modern education, they are simply giving lessons on some art, generally known as technology. So by that advancement of knowledge we can construct high skyscraper building, nice motorcar, nice airplane, nice machine. That is art. But we do not know what is going to happen next life, my soul. That we do not.
Lecture on BG 2.18 -- London, August 24, 1973:
So, immeasurable. You cannot measure what is the soul, but the soul is there, and the body is perishable. "If you, even if you do not fight, you save the bodies of your grandfather and teacher and others as you are so much overwhelmed, so they are perishable. Antavanta means today or tomorrow. Suppose your grandfather is already old. So you do not kill him just now or, say, after one year or six months, he may die because he's already old. These are the arguments put forward. The main point is Kṛṣṇa wants Arjuna that he must fight. He must, he must not deviate from his duty as a kṣatriya. He should not be overwhelmed by the bodily destruction. Therefore He is giving instruction: "The body is different from the soul. So don't think that the soul will be killed. You stand up and fight." This is the instruction.
Lecture on BG 2.19 -- London, August 25, 1973:
So this dog's philosophy will not help you, that "I have got this body, and how to enjoy the bodily sex life." This is dog philosophy. A dog knows all these things. Your philosophy should be how to refrain from sex life. That is knowledge. Tapo divyam (SB 5.5.1). Tapasya. This human life is meant for tapasya, to refrain from sense gratification. That is knowledge. Not that how to enjoy sex life or sense gratification. This is known to cats and dogs without any education, without any philosophy. The philosophy, pravṛttiḥ eṣaṁ bhūtānāṁ nivṛtes tu mahā-phalam.(?) Pravṛtti, every living entity has got this pravṛtti, means propensity. What is that? Sense enjoyment. Loke vyavāya 'miṣa mada-sevā nityas tu jantuḥ.(?) Jantuḥ means living being. Nitya, always, he has got the propensity, vyavāya āmiṣa mada-sevā. Vyavāya. Vyavāya means sex life and āmiṣa means meat-eating. Vyavāya āmiṣa, mada-sevā, and intoxication. These are natural instincts of all living entities, even amongst the ants these propensities are there. Those who have studied... The ants are very much fond of being intoxicated. Therefore, they find out sweet, sugar. Sweet is intoxication. Perhaps you know, all. The liquor is made from sugar. Sugar is fermented with acid, sulphuric acid, and then it is distilled. That is liquor.
Lecture on BG 2.20-25 -- Seattle, October 14, 1968:
Viṣṇujana: "Similarly there is no other source of understanding the soul except by studying the Vedas. In other words the soul is inconceivable to human experimental knowledge. The soul is conscious and consciousness. That also is the statement of the Vedas and we have to accept that. Unlike the bodily changes there is no change for the soul. As eternally unchangeable, he remains atomic always in comparison to the infinite Supreme Soul."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Unchangeable means... The Māyāvāda theory is that "Now I am finite. I shall become infinite." That's wrong. How you can be? Eternal. Eternally infinite. You'll eternally remain infinite. You cannot be equal with God, the infinite. That is not possible. You'll have to remain as subordinate.
Lecture on BG 2.23 -- Hyderabad, November 27, 1972:
Just like we can experience practically. When there is no sunshine in Western countries, when there is snow, all the leaves of the tree immediately falls down. It is called fall, the season. It remains only wood, piece of wood only. Again, when there is spring season, the sunshine is available, all at a time, they become green. So as the sunshine is working in this material world, similarly the ultimate bodily rays of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the origin of all creation. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi (Bs. 5.40). On account of the Brahman effulgence, millions and millions of brahmāṇḍas, or universes, are coming out.
- yasyaika-niśvasita-kālam athāvalambya
- jīvanti loma-vilajā jagad-aṇḍa-nāthāḥ
- viṣṇur mahān sa iha yasya kalā-viśeṣo
- govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
- (Bs. 5.48)
So here, this beginning of spiritual understanding, that spirit, the Supreme Spirit, cannot be cut into pieces. Nainaṁ chindanti śastrāṇi nainaṁ dahati pāvakaḥ. Now try to understand. We are thinking, the modern scientists, they are thinking that there cannot be any life in the sun globe. No. There is life. We get information from Vedic literature that there is life. There are also human beings like us. But they're made of fire. That's all.
Lecture on BG 2.25 -- London, August 28, 1973:
So our actual business is to become brahma-bhūtaḥ. So who can become? That is explained already. Kṛṣṇa has already explained that, what is that verse? Yaṁ hi na vyathayanty ete. Vyathayanti, does not give pain. Material, material burden, that is always troublesome. Even this body. This is also another burden. We have to carry it. So when one is not disturbed by this bodily pain and pleasure... There is no pleasure, simply pain. Here, pleasure means a little absence of pain. Just like you have got a boil here. What is called? Boil? Phoṛā? So it is always painful. And by some medical application, when the pain is little relieved, you think that "Now it is happiness." But the boil is there. How you can be happy? So here, actually there is no happiness, but we think we have discovered so many counteraction. Just like there is disease. We have discovered medicine. We have discovered medical college. Manufacturing, big, big physician, M.D., a pharmacist(?) But that does not you'll live. No, you'll have to die, sir. So the boil is there. A little application of temporary medicine, it may... Therefore there is no happiness at all in this material world. Therefore Kṛṣṇa said that, "Why you are feeling happy? You have to die, after all, which is not your business. You are eternal, but still you have to accept death." Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9). This is your real problem.
Lecture on BG 2.26 -- Los Angeles, December 6, 1968:
The modern theories, they are exactly like that. They want to... Yes, our Kārttikeya was telling that the boys, the young boys and girls, they put forward this theory that "Our parents have made the position of the world so unsafe. So we do not know when we shall, our this body will be finished. So better to enjoy this bodily sense gratification as far as possible quickly." Is not that theory you were telling me? Huh? Is it a fact they are thinking like that? Oh, now, see this nonsense. Now supposing there is soul... And why not suppose? Because experimentally you have not proved that by chemical combination you can produce such moving things.
Lecture on BG 2.26 -- Los Angeles, December 6, 1968:
So māyā cannot stand before Kṛṣṇa. Māyā stands behind Kṛṣṇa. So if you put always Kṛṣṇa or if you are always Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then māyā cannot touch you. Kṛṣṇa sūrya-sama māyā haya andhakāra, yāhāṅ kṛṣṇa tāhāṅ nāhi māyāra adhikāra. So Vyāsadeva, in clear consciousness, in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he saw Kṛṣṇa and this māyā. And what is this māyā? That is said, yayā sammohito jīva. That māyā which has enchanted all these conditioned souls. Yayā sammohito jīva ātmānam anarthaṁ manute (SB 1.7.5). Considering himself that "I am material product." I am coming to this point. Those who are thinking that "I am a material product," they're completely in darkness of māyā. Yayā, manute anarthaṁ tat-kṛtaṁ ca abhipadyate. And identifying himself with this body, they are acting in bodily consciousness and increasing their problems of life and conditional life in material existence. Horrible condition. Therefore Vyāsadeva says, anarthopaśamaṁ sākṣād bhakti-yogam adhokṣaje (SB 1.7.6). Anartha, this anartha, this misconception of life, if you want to discard this misconception of life, that "I am this body," and you act according to that consciousness and suffer... This is your disease.
Lecture on BG 2.26 -- Los Angeles, December 6, 1968:
Yes. Tell them that "You are all rascals." (laughter) "You just come and learn here from us. Then you say what is God. You have no knowledge." Just like somebody says that the sunlight, the dazzling sunlight. Clear sun planet is there. And because they cannot enter even into the moon planet, how they can enter in the sun planet? If they enter sun planet, they will find that there is a person whose bodily effulgence is this sunlight. Similarly the original person, Kṛṣṇa, has got His effulgence. We get information from Brahma-saṁhitā, yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi (Bs. 5.40). Just like the sun-god is diffusing the effulgence of his bodily light in this universe, in one universe. Similarly the original person, He is diffusing that light. So those who are less intelligent, they simply can see that light; therefore they say light. But in the Vedic literature there is information that you have to search out the Supreme Person penetrating the light. In the Īśopaniṣad it says, "My dear Lord, please wind up this effulgent light so that I can see Your face actually." That is stated in the Vedic literature. So originally the Absolute Supreme Truth is a person. If you want proof from Vedas, there is proof. Bhagavad-gītā is proof. Why should we accept a third-class man who is speaking something against? Is that man greater than Kṛṣṇa? Then why shall I talk about him? He's not important even ordinary man. We shall treat all these persons less intelligent, foolish. They have no perfect knowledge of the Absolute Truth. What do you think?
Lecture on BG 2.28 -- London, August 30, 1973:
In the Bhāgavata also it is stated: yayā sammohito jīva ātmānaṁ tri-guṇātmakaṁ manute anartham (SB 1.7.5). So because I have accepted this body which is made of either of the three modes of material nature, and identifying, therefore I have created so many anartha. Anartha means unwanted things. Tat-kṛtaṁ cābhipadyate. And after creating in bodily relationships so many unwanted things, I am absorbed in thought, that "I am, I belong to such and such nation. Therefore I have got my duty to do this, do that for the nation, or to the society, or to the family, or to my personal self, or to my wife, my children." This is, according to Vedic conception, this is illusion. Ahaṁ mameti (SB 5.5.8). Janasya moho 'yam. Moha means illusion. I am creating illusory circumstances and becoming entangled. This is my position. But my real objective is how to get out of this illusion and come to my original consciousness, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and then I get back. Kṛṣṇa consciousness means spiritual body. As soon as I act on the basis of my spiritual body, that is called liberation. That is wanted. Then I live blissfully in eternal life of knowledge. That is my problem.
Lecture on BG 2.40 - London, September 13, 1973:
Now here it is said, tyaktvā sva-dharmam. This is material division. The spiritual is different. So far... I am combination of matter and spirit; so far my body is concerned, there is division. But when I come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, it is not like that. That is simply for everyone. Either he's externally a brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra, American, Indian, black, white, it doesn't matter. That is bodily. When you come to the spiritual platform, that is one. Because spirit is one.
- vidyā-vinaya-sampanne
- brāhmaṇe gavi hastini
- śuni caiva śva-pāke ca
- paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ
- (BG 5.18)
There is..., in the spiritual platform we are one. Then the business is also one—to serve Kṛṣṇa; that is spiritual.
Lecture on BG Lecture Excerpts 2.44-45, 2.58 -- New York, March 25, 1966:
We have already discussed. I am not this body, and I am pure consciousness. Some way or other, I am encaged with this bodily dress, but I am not this body. I am pure consciousness. Now, if we actually want happiness or independence, then we have to remain in our pure consciousness position. Suppose if I do not belong to certain association or certain company, then I have to keep aloof from that company. So Lord Kṛṣṇa says that bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānām (BG 2.44). Those who are too much attached with bodily pleasure, bodily enjoyment, and tayāpahṛta-cetasām. Apahṛta-cetasām means those who are illusioned. Because bodily pleasure is not my pleasure. My pleasure is different because I am not this body. Just like a man in a feverish condition or in feverish delirium, speaking something. That is not his normal speaking. That is due to the delirious condition. So to bring him to the normal condition, the physician treats him to get out of that delirious condition. So similarly, our position is: because we have got..., some way or other, we have been entangled with this material body; therefore our conception of happiness is just like a man in the delirious condition.
Lecture on BG Lecture Excerpts 2.44-45, 2.58 -- New York, March 25, 1966:
Now, we have discussed all these points. Now, Kṛṣṇa says that if our whole misery... The whole philosophy is that our whole misery is due to this bodily contact. Bodily contact. We feel miseries, distress or happiness at the present stage. It is due to this body. We have already discussed that... Take, for example, the water. Water, in summertime it is very pleasant, and wintertime, oh, it is very distressful. We are afraid. Even a drop of cold water, we are afraid of. Without hot water, we cannot take our bath. Now, water as it is, it is water constitutionally, chemically or whatever it may be, but it is due to the bodily touch of the water we sometimes feel pleasure and sometimes feel distress. Therefore all our feelings of distress and happiness is due to this body. Is due to the body. Body under certain condition, mind under certain condition, feels happiness and feel distress. So therefore, We are actually hankering after happiness because the soul's constitution is happiness. Soul's constitution is happiness. Anyone who is brought up in a very nice family with all comfortable conditions, as he feels distress in a different condition, similarly, the soul is the part and parcel of the Supreme Being.
Lecture on BG Lecture Excerpts 2.44-45, 2.58 -- New York, March 25, 1966:
Now, as soon as we are convinced that "I am not this body. I am consciousness. I am pure soul. So I have to get free from this entanglement," then I will have to make arrangement for that. Simply theoretically knowing will not do. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says that bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānām: (BG 2.44) "Those who are too much attached with these bodily pleasures, and by that conception, one who is illusioned, that person cannot fix up in his identification with the soul." So that is the critical point. That is the critical point, that if we indulge in our bodily pleasure, that pleasure is flickering. That pleasure is flickering. We cannot enjoy. Bodily pleasure we cannot enjoy. That is an intoxication, something like intoxication. That is not pleasure, actual pleasure. Actual pleasure is of the soul, not of this body. So we have to guide our life, we have to mold our life in such a way that we must not be diverted by the so-called bodily pleasures. And if we are diverted by the bodily pleasure, then we cannot be fixed up in our identification with the soul. This is clear.
Lecture on BG Lecture Excerpts 2.44-45, 2.58 -- New York, March 25, 1966:
Actually, they are book of knowledge, undoubtedly. There is no doubt about it. But what are these book of knowledge, religious scripture? Religious scripture means they are meant for training you to that conception of life that you are pure soul, nothing more. They restrict your bodily activities under certain conditions, under certain conditions. That is called morality. Just like your Bible has got ten commandments. Ten commandments. What is that commandments? To regulate your life. Because without regulation you cannot... Because we have to control the body to reach to the highest perfection. So if we don't follow any regulative principles, how we can make our life perfect? So that regulative principle may be a little, little different from my country to your country or my Veda to your Bible, but that does not matter. That is made according to the time, condition and the mentality of the population. But there is the regulative control. Regulative control. A human society is not considered civilized unless, unless and until the members of the society are put into some regulative control. The whole state, your American state or any state, the citizens are controlled by regulative principle. Without regulative principle, you cannot make the progressive march of the state or the people or the citizens.
Lecture on BG Lecture Excerpts 2.44-45, 2.58 -- New York, March 25, 1966:
Just imagine in your previous lives you had been a great man of knowledge, but in this life, since your childhood, you had to go to school, college, and acquire knowledge. The knowledge which you had in your previous lives is now forgotten. Therefore we are seeking eternal knowledge, but that eternity of knowledge is not possible with this temporary body. We have to understand that thing. Bhogaiśvarya. We are enjoying, we want to enjoy life, but the instrument of enjoyment is not proper. We are thinking of enjoying through this body. But bodily enjoyment is not my enjoyment. It is artificial. So if you want to stick up to this artificial enjoyment of life, then you cannot enjoy or you cannot be elevated to your real constitutional position of eternal enjoyment. Therefore Lord Kṛṣṇa says, bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānāṁ tayā apahṛta-cetasām. Apahṛta-cetasām, one whose mind and intelligence has been misled by this false enjoyment, false enjoyment, for him, the working on the pure consciousness platform, vyavasāyātmikā buddhiḥ, that "I am not this body"... We are talking of this, that "I am not this body. I am pure consciousness. I am pure soul."
Lecture on BG Lecture Excerpts 2.44-45, 2.58 -- New York, March 25, 1966:
Similarly, we have to... Our, the present life is diseased condition, so if we want to cure this disease of repeated birth and death, then we have to restrict, restrict our bodily enjoyment, because we cannot enjoy. It is simply so-called enjoyment. Actually, we cannot enjoy this diseased condition of this body. Enjoyment, real enjoyment means that is nonstopping, nonstop. There is a verse in Mahābhārata. Ramante yoginaḥ anante (CC Madhya 9.29). Yoginaḥ, those who are yogis or spiritualists. Yogis means spiritualists. The general meaning of yogi is spiritualist, those who are endeavoring to emancipate from this material condition of life and try to elevate to the spiritual platform, he is called yogi. Now, those yogis are different types, but the method or process of spiritual realization may be different. Your process or my process may be a little different, but that does not hamper. The thing is that your aim is also spiritual realization. Just like generally there are three classes of spiritualists. The jñānīs, the yogis and the bhaktas. Jñānī means those who are trying to realize spiritual self through speculation of metaphysics and philosophy.
Lecture on BG Lecture Excerpts 2.44-45, 2.58 -- New York, March 25, 1966:
The thing is that your aim is also spiritual realization. Just like generally there are three classes of spiritualists. The jñānīs, the yogis and the bhaktas. Jñānī means those who are trying to realize spiritual self through speculation of metaphysics and philosophy. They are called jñānīs. And yogis—those who are trying to realize spiritual self by meditation and controlling the senses. Yoga indriya-saṁyama. This haṭha-yoga meditation means that our senses are engaged in varieties of work, so by that haṭha-yoga gymnastic, the process, the mind is concentrated into the Paramātmā, Supersoul. That means those who are too much bodily addicted, for them, this haṭha-yoga process is good, recommended. So yogi, the jñānī and the yogi and the bhakta. Bhakta means devotees, devotees, spiritual realization. The objective of spiritual goal is realized in three different phases: Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān. Brahman is impersonal conception of the Supreme. So these jñānīs, those who are proceeding through philosophical speculation and metaphysical analysis, they attain up to the impersonal Brahman. Those who are meditating by yogic process, they attain to the Paramātmā feature, or Supersoul. And those who are devotees, they attain the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Lecture on BG Lecture Excerpts 2.44-45, 2.58 -- New York, March 25, 1966:
So Paramātmā, Supersoul, is the reflection or partial representation of the sun. So this is Paramātmā experience. And Brahman experience is just like the sunshine. Sunshine. Sunshine is all-pervading. Everywhere sunshine is there, but still, sunshine is not important. Important is the sun globe. Similarly, Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, when one realizes His effulgent bodily rays, that is Brahman conception. When one realizes His reflection in everybody, īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe 'rjuna (BG 18.61). God is every, in everyone's heart. Just like the reflection of the sun in a pot. So we are just like pots, and God's reflection is in our heart. This is material example. But God's reflection and God, there is no difference. God's bodily rays and God, there is no difference, advaya-jñāna, that they are not in the duality or relative world. They are in the absolute world. So there is no difference between God, Brahman, and Paramātmā. Any feature of realization will lead the person to spiritual life. But comparatively, the first realization is Brahman and the higher realization is Paramātmā, and the ultimate realization is Bhagavān.
Lecture on BG 2.46-47 -- New York, March 28, 1966:
. A lower animal, he has also got the consciousness. He has got also a soul. But unfortunately he hasn't got the facility, the bodily facility or developed intelligence by which he can understand that, what he is. So that is the difference between animal and human being. So in the human society, if they do not care to understand this factual position of his soul or consciousness, then he is no better than the animal. Yes. That is the Vedic version.
- āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithunaṁ ca
- sāmānyam etat paśubhir narāṇām
- dharmo hi teṣām adhiko viśeṣo
- dharmeṇa hīnaḥ paśubhiḥ samānaḥ
The āhāra... Āhāra means eating, nidrā means sleeping, and bhaya, bhaya means fearing, and maithuna, maithuna means sexual intercourse. So these four things, four principles of life, there is in the animal kingdom and in the human kingdom. But the human kingdom, the human body is distinct from the animal body in the respect, in this respect, that in human society there is religion. Religion. Generally we understand as religion.
Lecture on BG 2.48-49 -- New York, April 1, 1966:
So when you get your spiritual body, you may not be as powerful as God, but almost near to God. You get seventy-eight percent. You get seventy-eight percent of the whole power. That is a calculation by the great sages. They have calculated that a living entity can attain to the perfection of seventy-eight percent. Now, in our present material condition we have no spiritual power at all. We are always encumbered and conditioned by material forces. You see? So therefore one who does not utilize this body for perfection, for liberation, he is called kṛpaṇa. Kṛpaṇa. This is stated here. Kṛpaṇāḥ phala-hetavaḥ. Kṛpaṇāḥ phala-hetavaḥ. That kṛpaṇa, that means miserly person who does not utilize this human form of life for better profit. Then he wants that "Oh, I have done so much. I must get the profit. I must get it." What profit you get? For the bodily enjoyment? For sense enjoyment? Oh, sacrifice it. Sacrifice it. You know that there is a word, yajña, sacrifice. Sacrifice means—it is a common word—that you dedicate, you dedicate your life for the service of the Lord, this life. You'll not be sufferer. What is there, suffering? Now just the prescription or the formula I have just cited before you that your householder life... Now, you are doing everything. You are earning money; you are getting from the store; you are cooking. Everything... Nothing is stopped. Simply change your mentality, that everything is being done for God. It is not at all difficult. Simply we have to adopt it. We have to adopt it. So kṛpaṇāḥ phala-hetavaḥ. Now, if you think, "Oh, why...? I am earning for my palatable dishes.
Lecture on BG 2.51-55 -- New York, April 12, 1966:
So here we should always understand that if we sincerely and seriously take up the message of the Bhagavad-gītā as it is, without any, I mean to say, adulteration... Sometimes it is adulterated by... Because Bhagavad-gītā is a very authoritative book, and it is popular all over the world, sometimes people take advantage of this book and present their own theory in an adulterated way. Not to speak of others... I may tell you frankly that even in our country, the greatest, I mean to, saintly politician, Mahatma Gandhi, he propounded a philosophy of nonviolence. Perhaps you know, every one of you, that he propounded nonviolence, and he wanted to prove nonviolence from Bhagavad-gītā. He has got an annotation of Bhagavad-gītā, and he has tried to prove that Bhagavad-gītā, there is proof, nonviolence. But actually, Bhagavad-gītā is being spoken in the battlefield, where everyone is prepared to start violence. Simply for a moment, when Arjuna was disturbed in his mind, that "How can I fight with my relatives and friends and sons and grandsons and so, so many things?" Bodily relations. And the Bhagavad-gītā was spoken. So that is a practical thing that Bhagavad-gītā was practically spoken to induce Arjuna to adopt violence. Now, Mahatma Gandhi, his philosophy was nonviolence. How could he prove that Bhagavad-gītā gives evidence of nonviolence? No. Therefore, anyone, Mahatma Gandhi or anyone, who has got his own ulterior motive, to prove it from the topics of Bhagavad-gītā, he must adulterate it. But that is not the process of reading Bhagavad-gītā. Bhagavad-gītā, how to read Bhagavad-gītā, that is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. When we come to the Fourth Chapter, we'll know. So anyway, apart from the process of... But rest assured, we are speaking here of the Bhagavad-gītā as it is. We are not going to add, add in it something for fulfilling our own philosophy, our own points of view.
Lecture on BG 2.51-55 -- New York, April 12, 1966:
Now here Lord Kṛṣṇa says that if you want to get rid of this entanglement of... What is that entanglement? Now, janma-bandha, janma-bandha. Oh, it is a great entanglement. People do not take it very seriously. Birth. Birth means, as soon as birth... Only the one word has been used here, janma. Janma means birth. Birth means other things. Birth means death. Birth means old age. Birth means disease. Whenever there is birth, the other things are corollaries. They'll follow. Your birth means... A son is born. Oh, you are very glad, "I have got a son." But if you study philosophically, no, birth is not. He is not born. Death is born. Because the growing of the child means he is dying. It is dying. The dying process. The very day, the very moment the child is born, the dying process begins. So we do not know that it is not birth. It is death. This is called māyā. This is called illusion, that death is born and we are jolly that there is birth of a child. This is called māyā. So everything, from the beginning of our birth, we are illusioned, illusioned. And that illusion is so strong that it is very, very difficult to get out of it. Whole thing is illusion. The birth is illusion. This body is an illusion. And the bodily relationship, the country is illusion. The father is illusion. The mother is an illusion. The wife is illusion. The childrens are illusion. Everything illusion. Everything illusion. And we are compact in that illusion.
Lecture on BG 2.55-58 -- New York, April 15, 1966:
Now, so, so long we have got our, this material body... We have several times discussed this point, that all our miseries, distresses, are due to this body. There are three kinds of distresses—adhyātmika, adhibhautika, and adhidaivika: distresses due to this body and mind; distresses due to the other living entities; and distresses which is beyond our power, distresses, natural distresses, adhidaivika, distresses offered by the supernatural power. So three kinds of distresses we are suffering always. There is no, I mean to say, rescue either from the three, or at least from one or two. There is always... It is going on. So one who is situated in this pure consciousness platform, his symptoms will be like this, that duḥkheṣv anudvigna-manāḥ: "He is not disturbed by all these three kinds of miseries," miseries pertaining to the body and the mind, miseries due to other living entities, and miseries due to the natural disturbances, natural disturbance. Now, nature's disturbance: all of a sudden, there is flood; all of a sudden, there is heavy snowfall; all of a sudden, there is famine; all of a sudden, there is so many things which we have no control. We have no control. This is called supernatural disturbances. And disturbances offered by other living entities. We are living in the society with many other living entities, both man and animal, and there is possibility of miseries due to other living entities' behavior upon me. And besides that, due to my this bodily construction, either I have some mental agony or some bodily agony, or so many things.
Lecture on BG 2.55-58 -- New York, April 15, 1966:
So that praising, that praising... Sometimes we are offered some, I mean to say, decoration, some degrees of praises from institutions. These are the signs of our happiness. But one who is situated in pure consciousness, he's neither disturbed by all those distresses, neither he is actually happy by all these designative offerings. You see? Because he knows that these designation... Suppose I have passed my M.A. examination, and in the, in the university, in the convocation meeting, I get the degree and people applauses me; but if one is situated in consciousness, he will understand, "What is this degree? This degree is due to my this body. As soon as this body finishes, all these degree will finish. Because, if it is a fact that vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22), if I have to take another body after leaving this body, then everything in bodily connection will finish as soon as I give up this body and take up another body. That is my position." Therefore, one who is convinced, one who knows actually that "I am not this body; I am pure consciousness," so these degrees... Or some good, palatable foodstuff. I have been offered by some friend. I am eating. "Oh," I am thinking, "oḥ, how happy I am!" But what is that happiness? That happiness is due to my tongue only, but I am not this tongue. So these things are, will appear, one who is purely consciousness. You see? But that, that does not mean that I shall not eat or I shall not associate in the society. No. I shall be. Everything I shall be, but I must always know that "I am aloof from this. My position is that I am subordinate to the Supreme Consciousness, and I, I have to act in that position."
Lecture on BG 2.55-58 -- New York, April 15, 1966:
ecause I am thinking that "My body is Indian, and here, there is another body whose body is also Indian. Oh, let me have some talks with him." This is affection. Similarly, all our affection. There are thousands and millions of women loitering in the street, but there is one woman, oh, with whom I am very much intimately connected because I have got bodily relation. Leaving aside all the women, I call one particular one, "Oh, he's my, she's my wife." Or the wife says, "She's my husband." Why? This bodily relation. So this bodily... One who does not identify with this body, therefore his bodily affection also diminishes. His bodily affection also diminishes.
Now, the stage of sannyāsa, just like we have adopted, this is a practical example how much one has been able to become free from bodily affection. This is a chance. This is a chance given. Just like at home I have my wife, I have my children, I have my grandchildren, everyone, I have my daughters and everyone, but somehow or other, I have thought that "What is this relation?" Therefore I have been able to live aloof from these bodily rela..., relatives. And actually, in this old age, one should desire to live within the family with wife, with children and there are so many comforts. But no. This should be... The development of one's consciousness is that he should voluntarily, voluntarily try to, I mean to say, become free from this affection. Why? This affection is not bad, but this affection will lead me again to have another body. My whole process is that how to get out of this bodily relation, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi (BG 13.9). The whole human activities should be concentrated to get rid of this bodily, material bodily connection. Then I shall be happy really. Real happiness, real freedom. That is real freedom. For want of this spiritual knowledge, we do not know how much free we are.
Lecture on BG 2.55-58 -- New York, April 15, 1966:
So we should be very clever to understand about the spiritual life. We should not be dragged to this material conception of life due to this false affection. This bodily affection is false affection. Because the body will not exist. Suppose I and my wife, or my children, we are all very happy. Paśyann api na paśyati. Teṣāṁ nidhanaṁ pramattaḥ paśyann api na paśyati. It is said in the Bhāgavata that... Now, for example, suppose if you are preparing very nice thing, a nice, very nice house. All right. If somebody asks you, "Well, sir, why you are building such nice house?" Now, if you answer, "Yes, just to set fire in it," so what the people will think? "What a fool he is, that he is building such a nice house, and at the end he'll set fire in it? Then why you are taking so much trouble, sir?" "No. Yes." This is called... Actually our position is like this. Actually our position is like this because the whole life I am working so hard because of maintaining this temporary body of myself, my son, my daughter, my father, my mother. So setting fire. At the end the setting fire. Setting fire I am speaking specially because after death, as you put it into graveyard, in India, accord, in Hindus, they set fire. They set fire to the dead body.
Lecture on BG 2.55-58 -- New York, April 15, 1966:
Now, here, here the sense, the senses... In the fighting we require to use our senses. Now, when the senses were withdrawn, when the senses... Sense satisfaction... Arjuna's statement that "I shall not fight," that was his sense satisfaction. Because he was thinking in bodily relation, therefore that sort of thinking, that "I shall not fight," this mental state was his sense's satisfaction. But here, when he agreed to fight, that was not his sense satisfaction. That was the satisfaction of the Lord. Therefore we have to purify our senses, not to use it for my satisfaction, but to use it for the satisfaction of the Supreme. That's all. That is. That is our perfection. You are not devoid of the senses. Not that after being situated in spiritual consciousness your senses become null and void. No. Senses cannot be null and void because life means senses. Without senses there is no life. But the, this is the process of purification of the senses. That's all.
Lecture on BG 2.58-59 -- New York, April 27, 1966:
So we have to practice. We have to practice it in our everything. Because for so long we are in this material body, we have got so many material demands. We cannot stop the activities of the body. That is not possible. By force, if I stop all the activities of my body, that is not possible. That is not possible. The bodily activities will go on, but the bodily activities will be so performed that I'll not be bound up by the reaction. And that is called devotional service. That is called
- vāsudeve bhagavati
- bhakti-yogaḥ prayojitaḥ
- janayaty āśu vairāgyaṁ
- jñānaṁ ca yad ahaitukam
- (SB 1.2.7)
Just, for example, that we are eating. Eating is necessary. So long my body is there, eating is necessary. So in the Bhagavad-gītā it says,
- yajñārthāt karmaṇo 'nyatra
- loko 'yaṁ karma-bandhanaḥ
- yajña-śiṣṭāśinaḥ santo
- mucyante sarva-kilbiṣaiḥ
- (BG 3.9)
that one who performs sacrifice... Sacrifice means to please the Supreme Lord. That is the sacrifice, meaning of sacrifice. Otherwise sacrifice has no meaning. Sacrifice means... Suppose you have got one thousand dollars in your pocket. Now you sacrifice it. You spend it for some good cause. "Oh, this man has sacrificed one hundred dollars." But that sort of sacrifice is also cause of your bondage.
Lecture on BG 2.59-69 -- New York, April 29, 1966:
This verse we were discussing last Friday. The subject matter is that we are trying to transfer our activities from the material platform to the spiritual platform. That is the whole idea. So material platform, as I have already explained to you several times, material platform means viṣayāḥ, viṣayḥ. Viṣayāḥ means four things: āhāra, nidrā, bhaya, maithuna—eating, sleeping and defending and mating. These are called viṣayāḥ. The materialistic way of life means these four things: eating, sleeping, defending and mating—sense gratification. But if we want to go to the spiritual platform, then these bodily demands, at least for the present, we have to regulate. We cannot enjoy material life without any restriction and at the same time, we can stand on the spiritual platform. That is the whole thing. The difficult problem is that: we want to be spiritualists by speculation only. That is the whole tendency. People are much interested in philosophical speculation without any practical life. In the modern world it is said, yaśo 'rthe dharma-yajanam. This is the symptom of this age. Yaśaḥ arthe. I want to associate with some organization, spiritual, just for the sake of name: "Oh, I am attached to that, such big organization." But, so far my life is concerned, it is as it is. As it is. I have seen that... I don't wish to name that particular... In some yoga institute, I have seen the members, they come.
Lecture on BG 2.59-69 -- New York, April 29, 1966:
So the whole program is there. So viṣayā vinivartante. Still, even the yoga system... The yoga system, by mechanical process, concentrating the mind and dragging the mind from other engagement, that is also forceful. That is also forceful. Because by some artificial means... Because first thing is that "I am not this body." Still, I am trying to control my senses by some bodily activities. Therefore it is... Some way or other, it is artificial. And as I have... Last day I cited one example that a great yogi just like Viśvāmitra, he practiced yoga and he rose to the highest platform, but still, he failed to control his senses. He came in contact with Menakā, a society woman of the heaven, and Śakuntalā was born. So here Bhagavad-gītā says that viṣayā vinivartante nirāhārasya dehinaḥ. There are some rules and regulation for drying up our sensual activities, artificially drying up. Just like "You are not to eat more than once.
Lecture on BG 2.62-72 -- Los Angeles, December 19, 1968:
Our position is, we are constituted of this body. Body means the senses and the controller of the senses or the, what is called, driver, driver of the senses, is the mind. And mind is conducted, thinking, feeling, and willing, the psychology, the science of psychology, that is being conducted under intelligence. And above the intelligence, I am sitting. I am a spirit soul. So how we become victim of this māyā, that is described here, that from anger, delusion arises, and from delusion, bewilderment of memory. Bewilderment memory. I have forgotten completely that I am not this body, I am spirit soul, ahaṁ brahmāsmi; I am part and parcel of the Supreme Brahman, spirit, absolute whole. That I have forgotten. And when memory is bewildered, and as soon as I forget that I am spirit soul, I identify myself with this material world, illusion. Intelligence is lost. I should have used my intelligence to conduct the activities of the mind—thinking, feeling and willing—and because my mind is not controlled, my senses are not controlled, therefore I am fallen. This is the analysis of the whole bodily construction.
Lecture on BG 2.62-72 -- Los Angeles, December 19, 1968:
Yes. Now, one whose sense are restrained... This human life is meant for restraining the senses. Tapaḥ. This is called tapasya, penance. Suppose I am habituated to some type of sense gratification. Now, I take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. My spiritual master or the scripture says, "Don't do this." So in the beginning, I may feel some inconvenience, but if you can tolerate that, that is tapasya. That is tapasya. Tapasya means I am feeling some inconvenience, bodily, but I am tolerating. That is called tapasya. And this human form of life is meant for that tapasya. Not that because my senses are demanding this satisfaction, I shall immediately offer. No. I shall train myself in such a way that my senses may demand, "My dear sir, give me this facility," I will say, "No. You cannot have." This is called gosvāmī or svāmī. At the present moment, everyone, we are, we have made our svāmī or master the senses, and when you actually become the master of the senses, then you are svāmī or gosvāmī. That is the significance of svāmī and gosvāmī. It is not the dress. One who has controlling power, one who is not dictated by the senses, one who is not servant of the senses. My tongue is dictating, "Please take me to that restaurant and eat sticks."
Lecture on BG 3.13-16 -- New York, May 23, 1966:
So the common factor of animal life and human life is these four principles of bodily demands, namely that we require to eat, and we require to sleep, we require some defensive measures for protecting ourself from the enemies, and we require some extent of sense gratification. That is the needs of my body. They are not the needs of my self as I am, spirit soul.
Now, if I want to get rid of this bodily encagement or the threefold miseries of material existence, then I must put myself under treatment. Just like a diseased man goes to a physician for treatment to get out of, get relief from the sufferings of the disease, similarly, our material existence consisting of threefold miseries and birth, death, old age, and diseases... If we are actually conscious for our happiness, we must make a permanent solution of these miseries. That is the mission of human life. So for making that mission fulfilled, we have got developed consciousness than the animals. That developed consciousness should not be misused only for the animal propensities of life. That is the whole thing.
Lecture on BG 3.13-16 -- New York, May 23, 1966:
There is God. The only example—several times I have cited—that existence of God can be perceived with very simple... What is that? Just like you can perceive your existence in this body by the consciousness... You have got consciousness. That point we have discussed several times. That consciousness is the symptom of your existence in this body. So long that consciousness is there, this bodily function is going on very nicely.
Now, you are eating. You do not know how your foodstuff is going to the stomach, how it is being transformed into different kinds of secretion, how it is being transferred from the stomach to the heart, how that secretion becoming red, and that red blood is again circulated from the brain to the toe. These nice machinery work is going on within your body. This physiological condition is present in your body. You are taking your foodstuff. The necessary juice, vitamins, are taken by the stomach. It is distributed, and the exhaustion of your body is supplemented, and the unnecessary things evacuated by stool, urine. The nice thing is going on. Now, as soon as this consciousness is stopped, will this function go any more? No. You will find the same brain is there; the same heart is there; the same stomach is there by dissection of the body. You will see the same veins. Everything is there complete. But only thing is wanting—that consciousness.
Lecture on BG 3.17-20 -- New York, May 27, 1966:
Now, for maintenance of your body you have to do something. That's all right. But you don't be attached to that work. You are simply to... Because you have got this body, you have to maintain it so that the body and soul can be maintained and you have to perform this spiritual realization just to keep the body nicely, not neglecting the body. But become detached from the bodily attachment. You just try to... Yuktāhāra. Yuktāhāra means to take food is not forbidden, but you have to take food only just to maintain your body, not for, I mean to say, taste of your palate or tongue. That should be practiced. You should live... You should eat to live. You should not live to eat. That should be your life principle.
Tasmād asaktaḥ, tasmād asaktaḥ satatam. Asakta: "Don't be attached." Kāryaṁ karma samācara: "Do your duty, as duty, as you are duty bound. But don't be attached to that work. Because you should always know that your real work is self-realization." Asakto hy ācaran karma param āpnoti puruṣaḥ: "And if you practice like that, then the same perfection of life you will attain." Don't be attached to your work. Don't be attached, unattached. Nirbandhaḥ kṛṣṇa-sambandhe yuktaṁ vairāgyam ucyate. Anāsaktasya viṣayān yathārham upayuñjataḥ. The same advice is given in several places, that "Work, but do not work with attachment. Just to make the best use of a bad bargain, that's all. You go on working like that."
Lecture on BG 3.18-30 -- Los Angeles, December 30, 1968:
With him there is no consideration that the mechanism of the body is produced by material nature or that material nature is under the supervision of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. A materialistic person has no knowledge that ultimately he is under the control of Kṛṣṇa. The person in false ego takes all credit for doing everything independently, and that is the symptom of his nescience. He does not know that this gross and subtle body is the creation of material nature under the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and as such his bodily and mental activities should be engaged in the service of Kṛṣṇa in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He does not know that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is known as Hṛṣīkeśa or the master of all senses. But due to his long misuse of his senses he is factually bewildered by the false ego and that is the cause of his forgetfulness of his eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa."
Lecture on BG 3.18-30 -- Los Angeles, December 30, 1968:
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "One has to act on the order of the master. One should not expect any fruitive results. The cashier may count millions of dollars for his employer, but he does not claim a cent out of the great amount of money. Similarly one has to take it for granted that nothing in the world belongs to any individual person, but everything belongs to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is the real purport of Kṛṣṇa saying, 'Unto Me.' And when one acts in such Kṛṣṇa consciousness, certainly he does not claim proprietorship over anything. So this consciousness is called nirmama, or 'nothing is mine.' And if there is any reluctance to execute such a stern order, which is without consideration of so-called kinsmen in the bodily relationship, that reluctance should be thrown off. In this way one may become without feverish mentality or lethargy. Everyone according to his quality and position has a particular type of work to discharge and all such duties may be discharged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness as described above. That will lead one to the path of liberation."
Prabhupāda: Thank you. That's all.
Lecture on BG 4.1 and Review -- New York, July 13, 1966:
In the first chapter the situation is created... Just like we are ordinarily entangled in family affairs. Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke (SB 10.84.13). The bondage of accepting this material body as myself, and the extension of bodily relation is accepted as my kinsmen and the land in which the body is got, that land is supposed to be worshipable. These are analytical study of our material existence. Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu bhauma ijya-dhīḥ. Bhauma ijya-dhīḥ (SB 10.84.13). We have taken up the land as worshipable, the land of birth, which is, I mean to say, extended in the form of nationalism. This is material bondage.
Lecture on BG 4.1 -- Delhi, November 10, 1971:
Just like brāhmaṇa is considered to be the brain. A man may be very healthy body, but the, if the brain is cracked, this body will not help. Everything is spoiled. So at the present moment there is no brain, there is no brāhmaṇa, neither there is kṣatriya, simply śūdras and vaiśyas, mostly śūdras. So, as in your body there are divisions, the brain division, the arm division, the belly division, and the leg division, similarly the human society must be divided like the scientific divisions. A section of people must be very intelligent class of men, brāhmaṇa. A section of people may be very strong, kṣatriyas, politicians, fighters. A section of people must be producers, the vaiśyas, and a section of people must be śūdras, or the legs. Just as compared with your body. The full body means, the head, the arms, the belly and the legs. If you say that there is, there is no need of head, is that very bodily sound? It is dead body. It is dead body. So, our propaganda is that we want to make a section of people brāhmaṇa. Brāhmaṇa means one who knows Brahman. That is the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. And we are all Brahman, you, me, everyone, because we are part and parcel of the Supreme Brahman. Ahaṁ brahmāsmi, this is the philosophy, that I am not this matter, I am Brahman. This knowledge required.
Lecture on BG 4.7 -- Montreal, June 13, 1968:
Then Śaṅkarācārya came and he preached this almost Buddhism. The Buddha, Lord Buddha preached that there is no God, there is no soul. This body is combination of matter and if we dissolve this material combination then there is no more perception of misery or happiness. That is nirvāṇa. That is his philosophy. But later on, Lord, I mean to say, Ācārya Śaṅkara, he appeared and he preached that brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā. This bodily combination is temporary, or mithyā. He said flatly that it is false. False means... Of course, Vaiṣṇava philosophy, they say temporary. Temporary or false you can take on the same category. But Śaṅkarācārya said that brahma satyam. That spirit soul, Brahman, that is reality, and this external feature of the Brahman, or the body, that is false.
Lecture on BG 4.7 -- Bombay, March 27, 1974:
This is bhakti definition. When one becomes freed from all designation. "I am American." This is designation. "I am Indian." This is designation. "I am brāhmaṇa." This is designation. "I am kṣatriya." This is designation. So one has to become free from all designation. This designation is bodily. I am not this body. Ahaṁ brahmāsmi. I am spirit soul. Therefore when one understands that "I am not this body, I am spirit soul, I am part and parcel of the Supreme," that is self-realization.
Lecture on BG 4.7-9 -- New York, July 22, 1966:
So every moment we are having a new body. And that is a medical science truth. Medical science, it is... We are having new body at every moment. Similarly, when we take another body, oh, a person who knows things as they are, they are not bewildered. Dhīras tatra na muhyati. Dhīra means who is conscious of this bodily change, who knows things as they are, he's not, I mean to, bewildered. He's not, he's, he's steady, "Oh, he has changed his body. That's all." A person who does not know, he's crying. He..., "Oh, my son is gone. My son is gone. My son is gone." But if he's, I mean to say, in the consciousness, he knows, "Oh, my son has simply changed body." That's all. Just immediately, exactly, "My son, when he was little baby... Now he has grown up to be a boy." So the father and the parents do not lament, "Oh, where my, that son gone, that small baby gone?"
Lecture on BG 4.7-9 -- New York, July 22, 1966:
Now, here Kṛṣṇa says that one who knows the Kṛṣṇa's transcendental birth and activities in truth, he gets free from this entanglement. He at once gets free from this entanglement. Now, here the word tattvataḥ is very important. This tattvataḥ is the science of Kṛṣṇa. Tattvataḥ, "in truth." Simply by knowing by historical facts that Kṛṣṇa is born in such and such date in such and such place in such and such family... He did such and such activities. No. One has to learn them in tattvataḥ, in truth. Then he becomes free from this bodily entanglement. (door slams) How it is closed?
Now, how that tattvataḥ, in truth, the Kṛṣṇa science, how one can understand? Kṛṣṇa science, that is explained in the Eighteenth Chapter, how Kṛṣṇa science can be understood. Kṛṣṇa science can be understood by this devotional service. You'll find this verse, that bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ (BG 18.55). Yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ. The truth of Kṛṣṇa science can be understood by become, by becoming a devotee, or a person of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. One who is Kṛṣṇa conscious, the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he can simply understand what is this science of Kṛṣṇa; others cannot. Now, it is very clearly stated, bhaktyā mām abhijānāti. Bhaktyā means Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the science of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti: "One can understand Me very clearly by the process of that devotional service, or Kṛṣṇa consciousness."
Lecture on BG 4.9 -- Bombay, March 29, 1974:
Indriya. the senses, always all. To satisfy the senses that is sukh. That is happiness. And those who are a little disgusted with sense gratification, indriyāṇi parāṇy āhur indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ (BG 3.42). They are mental speculators. They write poetries and utopian theories, "This philosophy, that philosophy." In this way they satisfy the mind. But that is also not happiness. Mental happiness. Mano-rathena asato dhāvato bahiḥ. If you become satisfied by mental happiness, then you'll have to come down again. Asato. Asato mā sad-gamaḥ. Real life is: "Don't stay in this temporary world but go to the real world, paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyo 'vyakto 'vyaktāt sanātanaḥ (BG 8.20). You'll find all these things in Bhagavad-gītā. So either on the bodily plane or on the mental plane you cannot be happy. That is not possible. But if you want to be happy then you have to come to the spiritual platform and engage in spiritual activities, sukham ātyantikaṁ yat tad atīndriyam grāhyam (BG 6.21). Atīndriya means above the material platform of sensual and mental activities.
Lecture on BG 4.10 -- Bombay, March 30, 1974:
It doesn't matter if he has got some bodily faults. He's accustomed in a different atmosphere. Even though he has got some habituated faults. But if his only qualification is firmly fixed up in devotional service to Kṛṣṇa, he's sādhu. Sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ (BG 9.30). Kṛṣṇa says. Sādhavaḥ sādhu-bhūṣaṇāḥ. Sādhavaḥ sādhu-bhūṣaṇāḥ. Titikṣava. Sādhu is titikṣava. He has to tolerate so many things, criticism, opposing elements.
Because sādhu cannot sit down idly. Bhajate mām ananya-bhāk. He is engaged fully in Kṛṣṇa's service. So Kṛṣṇa's service is not sitting idly. Kṛṣṇa wants to spread the philosophy of Bhagavad-gītā everywhere. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā.
Lecture on BG 4.10 -- Vrndavana, August 2, 1974:
If we remain attached to these bodily pains and pleasures... Of course, nobody wants pains, but for pleasure you take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Of course, gradually you'll come to knowledge. That is not our aim. Our aim is that the pains and pleasure; so-called pleasure—actually pain—this will continue so long we have got this body.
Lecture on BG 4.11 -- Bombay, March 31, 1974:
What is this Brahman? Just like the sunshine is situated on the sun globe. Sunshine, although it is very big, it is covering the whole universe, but it is coming from the sun globe. So similarly, the Brahman effulgence may be very, very great, but it is coming as the bodily effulgence of Kṛṣṇa. That we get information from Brahma-saṁhitā:
- yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-
- koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam
- tad brahma niṣkalam anantam aśeṣa-bhūtaṁ
- govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
- (Bs. 5.40)
So actually, either you try to realize impersonal Brahman, or by yogic process, the localized Paramātmā, or directly you want to realize the Supreme Personality of Godhead, they are all the same. All the same. But this differentiation is due to my angle of vision. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham (BG 4.11). If you want to realize only the Brahman effulgence, all right, you can do that. Or if you want to realize Paramātmā by yogic principle, by meditation, all right, Kṛṣṇa says, it is also all right. And if you want to realize the Supreme Personality of Godhead in directly contact with Him, directly playing with Him as cowherds boy, directly dancing with Him like the gopīs, directly treating Him as your son like Yaśodā-mātā, you can do also.
Lecture on BG 4.11-12 -- New York, July 28, 1966:
One goes to the worship of demigods because one is persuaded for a particular purpose. Just like one who wants to be very healthy man or to be free from all diseases, he worships the sun-god. Or one who wants to have a beautiful wife or becomes himself a very beautiful human, he worships the devī Umā.
But one who is convinced, one who is convinced that "I am not this body..." This is the thing, "I am not this body." The material wants means bodily demands. Then he does not go to all these demigods. He takes at once shelter of the Supreme Lord. Jñānavān. Jñānavān, who has understood the problems of life. Jñānavān. Jñāna means who has understood the spiritual nature of the living being, he is called jñānavān. So jñānavān. Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān māṁ prapadyate (BG 7.19). One who has become really learned, even after many, many births, and knows that "I am not this body; I am spirit. My nature, my advancement, my happiness, is depending on the advancement of my spiritual life," such a person only can take shelter of Kṛṣṇa and perfectly.
Lecture on BG 4.11-12 -- New York, July 28, 1966:
So as you find even in this planet there are different species of life, different species of human kind and they have got different standards of living, similarly, in the higher planets there are also living entities just like us. They are also like men, but their position is different. Their bodily constitution is different. Their living standard is different.
But in spite of different being, they are subjected to the material laws, the birth, death, old age and disease. They are not free from that. Nobody is free. Within this universe, anyone, either human being or demigod or animal or anyone, they are subjected to these four principles of miseries: birth, death, and old age and disease. So when you get out of this material world, then you get free from this. Their duration of life may be greater than your duration of life, but death is sure.
Lecture on BG 4.13 -- Johannesburg, October 19, 1975:
Why so? Now, because we are part and parcel of God. Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ jīva-loke sanātanaḥ (BG 15.7). We are part and parcel of God. The example is: just like this finger is the part and parcel of my body, so the strength of the finger is not as big as the whole body strength. It is very easily understood. The bodily strength is different from the finger's strength. The finger is also part and parcel of this body. If I say... If you ask, "What is this?" if I say, "It is my body," so there is no mistake. It is part of the body. But it is not the whole body. The whole body is different. Therefore God and the living entity, they are the same quality, but quantity different.
So in the Vedas the description is there about God and ourselves. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām eko yo bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). What is God? God means He is the chief, nitya, chief. Nitya means eternal. Nityānām. There are millions and millions, unlimited. Nityānām, this is plural number. That we are, living entity. We are also nitya. We are also eternal and God is also eternal. But He is the chief eternal. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām. He is also living entity, we are also living entities, but He is the chief living entity.
Lecture on BG 4.14-19 -- New York, August 3, 1966:
That is the... That is the mission of human life. But we do not know that. We do not know that. And because we do not know that, we engage ourself with so many work which is concerned with the bodily or material conception of life. So mat-karma-kṛt. So one has to do what Kṛṣṇa desires. Just like Arjuna did. Kṛṣṇa desired that he should fight. Arjuna did not like to fight, but because Kṛṣṇa desired, he accepted to fight. This is Kṛṣṇa's work. That we have to select.
Now, what is the work at the present moment for us, Kṛṣṇa's work? Kṛṣṇa is not present now to dictate that "This is My work." Just like Arjuna was fortunate enough. He was personally present before Arjuna. Lord Kṛṣṇa was personally present, and He was directing. But that does not mean that we have no direction. We have direction. We have direction. In the Bhagavad-gītā you'll find that anyone who preaches the gospel of Bhagavad-gītā to the people of the world, he is the most dear, the dearest person in the world to Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa accepts him, the dearest person. So therefore our duty is to preach the principles of this Bhagavad-gītā, to make people Kṛṣṇa conscious. People are suffering for want of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Therefore each and every one of us should be engaged in the preaching work of Kṛṣṇa consciousness for the benefit of the whole world.
Lord Caitanya, whose picture you see in the front of our this store, Lord Caitanya very nicely preached this philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Lecture on BG 4.22 -- Bombay, April 11, 1974:
What is the distinction between the animal body and the human body? Biologically.... Here is our friend Mr. Ghosh. He knows very well. There is no difference biologically between human body.... Medical students in the biological department, they study from the frogs, from guinea pigs, the human constitution of the body. There is no difference. But what is the difference? Not this bodily construction, but development of consciousness. That is the difference. So if we do not develop.... That is the opportunity, human life. In human life there is the opportunity to develop Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Lecture on BG 5.3-7 -- New York, August 26, 1966:
He says that viṣaya... Viṣaya means enjoyable things. In the material world, what we want to enjoy, that is called viṣaya. So anāsaktasya viṣayān. So far we have got this body, we have to accept not for sense gratification, but for maintenance. So anāsaktasya, without being attached, we may accept the necessities of our bodily requirements, yathārham, as far as possible, as much as I want for maintaining the body and soul together. In this way, if we live, but everything dedicated to the Supreme Lord, that is the highest standard of renounced. And another, other side he explains that, that the things... Phalgu-vairāgyaṁ kathyate. Nirbandhaḥ. The idea is... I exactly forgot the verse, but it is stated like this, that a person who is trying to renounce this world without knowing that everything can be engaged in the service of the Lord, and he's renouncing, he is..., his renunciation is not first-grade. His renunciation is not first-grade.
Lecture on BG 5.22-29 -- New York, August 31, 1966:
Happiness which is derived by touch senses, saṁsparśajā... Saṁsparśajāḥ means happiness, so-called happiness derived by touch senses. Ye hi saṁsparśajā bhogāḥ, enjoyment. Duḥkha-yonaya eva te. Lord Kṛṣṇa says that this is not real happiness. Anything, any happiness derived out of touch sensation, that is not real happiness. Rather, that is the gate for various miseries. The whole Vedic scripture describes that happiness derived of sense perception out of the body, that is not real happiness. If we are to enjoy real happiness, then we have to transcend these bodily pleasures. Happiness is there because I am spirit soul. Actually I am full of pleasure, but because my sense of happiness is being manifested through this matter, therefore we are being frustrated in deriving real pleasure. So those who are in the, advanced in spiritual life, they are called yogis. Yoginaḥ. Ramante yoginaḥ anante (CC Madhya 9.29). Those who are spiritualists, they also enjoy. But they enjoy in the real happiness which has no end. Any happiness which is ended at a certain point, that is not happiness. That is, rather, source of distress. Ādy-antavantaḥ kaunteya na teṣu ramate budhaḥ. Budhaḥ means who is learned. A learned person does not enjoy such flickering or transient happiness which is derived by sense touching.
Lecture on BG 6.2-5 -- Los Angeles, February 14, 1969:
Yes. There are two stages. One who is practicing yoga to reach to the perfectional platform and one who has attained the perfectional platform. So, so long one is not on the perfectional platform, just trying to do, at that time there are so many works. That āsana system, yama, niyama. So generally in your country there are so many yoga societies. They display this āsana system. How to sit down, different postures. That helps. But that is the process simply to get onto the real platform. They are simply means. Real yoga system perfection is different from those bodily gymnastic process. There are two stages. One stage is trying to reach the perfectional platform, and another stage is one who has reached the perfectional platform. Go on.
Lecture on BG 6.4-12 -- New York, September 4, 1966:
So mind has nothing to do. Mind, simply training of the mind required. And how the mind is trained up? It is by good association. Good association, our mind is trained up. Saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ. Kāma means desire. Desire is the function of the mind. And saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ. And according to the association, my mind desires like that. So we have to make good association if we want to make our mind as my friend, if I want to make my mind as my friend, then I have to associate with sādhu. Tasmāt satsu sajyeta buddhimān. Buddhimān means intelligent person. He must associate with satsu. Satsu means those who are trying for self-realization. They are called sat. Sat and asat. Asat means who are trying for the temporary things. Matter is temporary. My body is temporary. So if I simply engage myself for bodily pleasures, sense gratification, then I am engaging myself to temporary things. But if I engage myself for self-realization, the permanent thing, then I am engaging myself to the sat, or to the permanent. Tasmāt satsu sajyeta buddhimān. "Anyone who is intelligent, he should associate with persons who are trying to elevate themselves for self-realization." That is called sat-saṅga, good association.
Lecture on BG 6.11-21 -- New York, September 7, 1966:
By prosecuting the process of yoga in such a way, the sitting place, the, I mean to say, bodily requisition, brahmacārī, celibacy, secluded place, and sitting straight, and looking on the uppermost part of the nose. These are the sitting process. And mind should be concentrated on Viṣṇu. This is the meditation process. Evaṁ sadātmānaṁ yogī niyata-mānasaḥ. Niyata-mānasaḥ means "one who has thus controlled his mind." The whole process is, yogic process is simply to control the mind. Yoga indriya-saṁyamya. Not only mind, but all the senses, all the senses, they should be under control. And controlling the senses, the mind should be engaged in Viṣṇu within. Viṣṇu we have got, Paramātmā, the Supersoul, Viṣṇu, and we have to concentrate in that way. Then śāntiṁ nirvāṇa-paramām mat-saṁsthām adhigacchati. Then he becomes peaceful after extinguishing this material life. The material life is just like fire. It has been compared with the forest fire. As the forest fire automatically takes place, nobody goes to set fire, similarly, in this material world, even if you try to live very peacefully and without quarreling with any other man, the place is such nuisance that you'll not be able to live in peace anywhere, anywhere within this universe. That is the process.
Lecture on BG 6.13-15 -- Los Angeles, February 16, 1969:
So these rascals they do not come to sense that "I am permanent. Why I am after nonpermanent." If I am always busy for comforts of this body, but I know that this body, today or tomorrow or a hundred years after will be finished and so far I am concerned, I am spirit soul, I have no birth, I have no death. Then what is my function? It is the bodily function, so, far I am doing, these material activities. Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja said asad-grahāt. Just see how nice. They are anxious, they are full of anxiety because they have captured something nonpermanent. Their whole activities are targetted to capture something nonpermanent. Therefore they are always full of anxieties. Any person, any living entity, man, beast or animal or birds, always anxious. This is material disease. So if you are always full of anxiety, where there is question of peace? You go, I go in the street, I say, "Beware of dog." They are living in a very nice house, but full of anxieties. Somebody may not come. Let there be dog. You see? "Beware of dog." "No trespassers."
Lecture on BG 6.16-24 -- Los Angeles, February 17, 1969:
Now, this determination can be actually practiced or can be actually attained by one who does not indulge in sex life. His determination is strong. Therefore in the beginning it was said, that "without sex life," the determination. Or controlled sex life. If you indulge in sex life then this determination will not come. Flickering determination. You see. Therefore sex life should be controlled or given up. If it is possible to give up altogether, if not, controlled. Then you'll get determination. Because after all this determination is bodily affair. So these are the methods how to get determination.
Lecture on BG 6.25-29 -- Los Angeles, February 18, 1969:
Sometimes in dense darkness we cannot see ourself also. That you have experienced. So I cannot see my body in dense darkness. Although body is with me, I am the body or I am whatever I am, I cannot see myself. That you have got experience. So if you are in the sunshine, sunlight, then you see the sun as well as yourself. Is it not? Therefore to see the self means first of all see the Supreme Self. The Supreme Self is Kṛṣṇa. In the Vedas it is said, Kaṭhopaniṣad, nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). The Supreme Self is the chief eternal of all eternals. He is the chief living being of all living beings. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means to fix up in self. To, the same example. If you fix up your mind in Kṛṣṇa, then you can fix up your mind in everything. The same example again, if you take care of your stomach, then you take care of all the bodily limbs. If your stomach is supplied nice nutritious food, the stomach is cleared of all disturbances then you keep good health. So if you pour water in the root of the tree, then you take care of all the branches, leaves, flowers, twigs, everything, automatically.
Lecture on BG 6.35-45 -- Los Angeles, February 20, 1969:
Now, before coming to the point of self-realization, one must take it granted—that is the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā, that he is not this body. That the living entity is not this material body but that he is different from it and his happiness is in eternal life. This life is not eternal. The perfection of yoga system means to get eternal life, blissful life and full of knowledge. That is perfection. So we have to execute any yoga system with that aim. Not that I attend some yoga class to reduce fat or to keep my body very fit for sense gratification. This is not the end of yoga system. But people are taught like that. "Oh, if you practice this yoga system." That you can do if you undergo any exercise process your body will be kept fit. There are so many system of bodily exercise, the system, this weight-lifting system, there are many sporting system, they also keep body very fit. They can digest foodstuff very nicely, they reduce fat. For this purpose there is no need of practicing yoga. The real purpose is here; that to realize that I am not this body. I want eternal happiness, I want complete knowledge, I want eternal life also. That is the ultimate end of yoga system. Go on.
Lecture on BG 6.46-47 -- Los Angeles, February 21, 1969:
Yes. That is natural. If I am part and parcel of God my duty is to serve. This example I have given you many times. Just like this finger is the part and parcel of my body. So what is the duty of this finger? The duty of the finger is to serve the whole body, that's all. If I am feeling something itching, immediately finger is working. If I want to see, the eyes immediately work. If I want to go the legs immediately take me. So as this bodily part and part, limbs, are helping me, the whole thing, and I am eating, and the stomach, I am eating only. Similarly God is meant for simply receiving service from all other parts. Not to serve. The service, if the limbs of the body serves the whole body, the energy automatically comes to the parts of the body. Similarly if we serve Kṛṣṇa, we get all our necessities, energy, automatically. Yathā taror mūla-niṣecanena (SB 4.31.14). The example, just like pouring water on the root of the tree, the energy is immediately supplied to the leaves, to the twigs, to the branches, to everywhere immediately. Similarly simply by serving Kṛṣṇa or God you supply all other parts, you serve all other parts. There is no question of serving differently. The ... everything automatically comes.
Lecture on BG 7.1 -- Los Angeles, March 12, 1970:
So body is not eternal, but actually every materialistic person is engaged in the bodily activities. He is acting as American. Why? Because his body is American. He is acting as Indian. Why? Because his body is Indian. He is acting as husband because his body is male. He is acting as wife because the body is female. You take all activities—it is due to this body. But if the soul is eternal, then one should seek: "Then what is my eternal activities? The body is not eternal, therefore these activities also not eternal. Then what is my real activity, eternal activity?" That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness, bhakti.
Lecture on BG 7.1 -- Gainesville, July 29, 1971 University of Florida:
Therefore śāstra says that human life is not meant only for these four principles of life, bodily demands. There is another thing. That another thing is brahma-jijñāsā. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. A human being should be inquisitive to learn what is Absolute Truth. So that education is lacking. Therefore without this brahma-jijñāsā education, brahma jānātīti brāhmaṇaḥ. According to Vedic civilization, a brāhmaṇa is learned. Paṇḍita. A brāhmaṇa is called paṇḍita because brāhmaṇa means one who knows Brahman. Brahma jānātīti brāhmaṇaḥ. Therefore he is called paṇḍita. In India the brāhmaṇa is addressed as paṇḍita. Paṇḍita means a brāhmaṇa is expected to know Brahman; therefore he is brāhmaṇa. Not by birth. Brahma jānāti. Janmanā jāyate śūdraḥ. By birth everyone is śūdra, fourth-class man.
Lecture on BG 7.1 -- Auckland, April 15, 1972:
So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means we are presenting the Bhagavad-gītā as it is. That's all. We have no difficulty. We have no difficulty because Kṛṣṇa is accepted as authority, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, by all the ācāryas, not only formerly, like Vyāsadeva, Nārada, Asita, Devala, many, many big, big stalwart... Vyāsadeva everyone knows. Vyāsadeva is the original writer of Vedic knowledge, Vedavyāsa. He accepts Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. His disciple Nārada accepts, the Supreme Personality of..., Vyāsadeva's guru, Nārada. Nārada's guru, Brahmā, he accepts, īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1). Govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi **. So Govinda is person. This impersonal Brahman, nirākāra, that is His personal effulgence, bodily effulgence. Just like the sun. You can understand. The sun planet is localized, and within the sun planet, there is sun-god. His name is also mentioned in the Bhagavad-gītā, Vivasvān.
Lecture on BG 7.1 -- Bombay, January 13, 1973:
Eko 'py asau racayitum. Just like this body has developed. How it has developed? Because the spirit soul is there. The spirit soul is injected by the semina of the father, and it is put within the womb of the mother. And then the two secretions develops into small body, like a pea, and that develops, gradually. When the development is complete, on the seventh month, the child moves. His sense, consciousness, comes. He's in the dreaming condition then. In the beginning, he's unconscious. Suṣupti. Then dreaming condition. He returns to his consciousness. And then he wants to come out. And then, in due course of time, at the end of ten months, the child comes out. This is the process of bodily construction, material bodily construction. Karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa jantur deha upapattaye (SB 3.31.1). This is the beginning of body. So a dead child, coming out, does not grow because the soul is not there.
Lecture on BG 7.1 -- Calcutta, January 27, 1973:
We are reciting from Bhagavad-gītā, Seventh Chapter. The yoga system is called attachment for Kṛṣṇa, or kṛṣṇa-yoga. Yoga means connecting, link, and if we always keep ourself connecting link with Kṛṣṇa, then we become the topmost yogi. There are many kinds of yogis. Generally the yogis, they think of the Supreme Personality of Godhead always within the heart. Dhyānāvasthita-tad-gatena manasā paśyanti 'yaṁ yoginaḥ (SB 12.13.1). This is the yogis' business. Yogi's business does not mean simply have some gymnastic or bodily exercise and keep the body fit for sense enjoyment. That is not the purpose of yoga. Yoga means connecting. We are now, or we are now disconnected. Or it is not disconnected. We are now forgotten our intimate relationship with God. We cannot be disconnected. That is not possible. Because we are part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, there cannot be disconnection. Just like father and son. The son may go out of home, forget his father and mother for many years, but the connection between the son and the father and the mother is never disconnected. That is not possible. As soon as the son comes home, although the son was absent for many, many years, the father receives him, the mother receives him with affection. And immediately the paternal relationship, affection, immediately established.
Lecture on BG 7.1 -- London, March 9, 1975:
Just like Arjuna did. He was conscious... In the beginning of the fight he was conscious of his relatives, of his family, means bodily. But when he understood Bhagavad-gītā from Kṛṣṇa, he said, "Yes," kariṣye vacanaṁ tava (BG 18.73). In the beginning he denied to fight, but when he understood Bhagavad-gītā, he agreed, "Yes, I shall fight." Kariṣye vacanaṁ tava. "I am now full conscious." Naṣṭo mohaḥ: "This attachment, bodily attachment, is now finished. Kṛṣṇa, it is now finished." Naṣṭo mohaḥ smṛtir labdhā. Because we forgot, I have already said that we are forgetful. This is our another nature. "Now my forgetfulness is gone," tvat-prasādāt, "by Your mercy. You have taught me Bhagavad-gītā, so by Your mercy my two things—that bodily attachment and misconception of life—is now gone. Now I know that I am Your servant. I am Your eternal servant, and it is my duty to carry out Your order. Therefore I agree." Kariṣye vacanaṁ tava (BG 18.73). "I shall now execute. You want me to fight, no consideration of my relatives or family. I shall fight with them." This is the conclusion of Arjuna.
Lecture on BG 7.1 -- Durban, October 9, 1975:
So that Kṛṣṇa consciousness achievement, how it can be obtained is being explained by Kṛṣṇa Himself. Therefore it is said, śrī bhagavān uvāca: "The Supreme Personality..." Bhagavān means He does not cheat you. Others, they will give you instruction and cheat you, because anyone who is not liberated, he has got four defects of his life: he commits mistake, he is illusioned, he cheats and his senses are imperfect. This is called conditioned soul, everyone. Even big, big men, big, big leaders, they commit so many mistakes. And so far illusion is concerned, everyone is illusioned because I am not this body, but everyone is thinking, "I am this body." This is called illusion. Dehātma-buddhi. "I am not this body. I am spirit soul." Ahaṁ brahmāsmi. But I am thinking, "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am South African," "I am black," "I am white," "I am fat," "I am thin." This is bodily. This is called illusion. And we invent our ideologies by mental speculation, without having perfect knowledge. We are accustomed to say, "I think." But "I think"? What I am? All my senses are imperfect. I commit mistake, I am illusioned, and when I say, "I think," what is the use of my thinking? This is cheating. This is cheating.
Lecture on BG 7.1-2 -- Bombay, March 28, 1971:
(I offer my respects to Rādhārāṇī, whose bodily complexion is like molten gold and who is the Queen of Vṛndāvana. You are the daughter of King Vṛṣabhānu, and You are very dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa.)
Lecture on BG 7.1-3 -- London, August 4, 1971:
Perfection of human consciousness is there when one understands that "I am not this body. I am spirit soul." Ahaṁ brahmāsmi. That is perfection. But if you study scrutinizingly so many men, every one is bodily conscious. In Moscow I was speaking with a great professor, Kotovsky. He's in charge of Indology department of the government. He said... Although I defeated him in argument, he said that "After finishing this body, everything is finished." Just see. No. The spiritual knowledge begins when one is perfectly aware that "After finishing this body, I am not finished." That is perfection. Not that those who are in this concept of life, that with the finishing of this body everything is finished. That is nonsense. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). Kṛṣṇa teaches. Na jāyate na mriyate vā kadācin..., nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ purāṇo na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). "This ātmā is never born and he never dies." Na jāyate mriyate vā. Nitya, eternal; śāśvata, ever-existing, śāśvata. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre. "Don't think that because the body is finished, therefore he is finished. No." In another place Kṛṣṇa says, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13).
Lecture on BG 7.1-3 -- Stockholm, September 10, 1973:
Guest: ...spiritual thinking can be used to cure bodily sickness?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is not very difficult to understand. Just like a living man and a dead man. Living man means the body is carrying the spirit soul, and dead man means the body is there, but there is no spirit soul. But as soon as the body is dead or the spirit soul is out of it, immediately it begins to decompose. The same body, as long as carrying the soul, there is no such thing. Therefore if you keep your body spiritualized, then there is no question of decomposition or diseases. Another example: just like if you take an iron rod and put into the fire, it becomes warm, warmer, and at the end, it becomes red-hot. When it is red-hot, it is no more iron rod, but it is fire. You touch that iron rod, red-hot, anyplace, it will burn. Similarly, if you make your body spiritualized by Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then there is no question of disease.
Lecture on BG 7.4 -- Vrndavana, August 10, 1974:
So gradually, by understanding the teachings of Bhagavad-gītā and practicing it in life, we shall very easily understand the ātma-tattvam. That is the real business of human life. Unfortunately, we are not interested in the matter of understanding ātma-tattvam. Śrotavyādīni rājendra nṛṇāṁ santi sahasraśaḥ (SB 2.1.2). Śukadeva Gosvāmī says, "My dear King..." He was speaking to Mahārāja Parīkṣit that "For ordinary men there are many subject matter of hearing." Śrotavyādīni. Śrotavya means the subject matter for hearing. So Śukadeva Gosvāmī says, "For the ordinary man..." Who is that ordinary man? Apaśyatām ātma-tattvam (SB 2.1.2). Apaśyatām, one who has no interest to see what he is. Everyone is under this contemplation that he is this body and his bodily interest is the prime interest. But nobody sees the ātma-tattvam. Therefore Śukadeva Gosvāmī says, śrotavyādīni rājendra nṛṇāṁ santi sahasraśaḥ (SB 2.1.2). We have got so many books, so many newspapers, so many magazines. We hear and read. But we are not interested in hearing Bhagavad-gītā or Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, where ātma-tattvam, the science of soul, is described.
Lecture on BG 7.5 -- Nairobi, November 1, 1975:
So there are many evidences in the Vedic literature that the spiritual energy is different from the material energy. And if you understand spiritual energy, then you can understand what is God, because spiritual energy is the sample of God. Sample of God. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā that mamaivāṁśaḥ. Here it is said, jīva-bhūta. What is the jīva-bhūta? He is jīva-bhūta, the living entity. Mama eva aṁśa: "They are My part and parcel, minute particle of Me." Just like father and the son. Son is part of the father bodily, not spiritually. Spiritually he is part of Kṛṣṇa, and materially he is part of the body of the father. So we are not talking of the material. That is going on, of course, but this understanding, Bhagavad-gītā, is completely spiritual understanding.
Lecture on BG 7.6 -- Hyderabad, December 11, 1976:
So this change is going on of the external body, not of the spirit soul. The spirit soul is individual, Kṛṣṇa is individual, and it continues. Every one of us, we were individual in the past, we are individual at the present moment, and we shall continue to be individual in future. But when we are covered by this material body, this individuality becomes differentiated. Otherwise, even though individual—we are spirit soul—we are one, spirit soul. And without any material contamination, our relationship is permanent. Kṛṣṇa is the origin, master, prabhu, and we are emanation from Kṛṣṇa, servants. So and this relationship continues. Then there is no impediment on account of this bodily covering. Hṛṣīkeṇa hṛṣīkeśa-sevanaṁ bhaktir ucyate (CC Madhya 19.170). When we are not contaminated by the body, we remain pure. With that senses, when we serve Kṛṣṇa, that is our liberation. That is called bhakti.
Lecture on BG 7.7 -- Bombay, April 1, 1971:
(I offer my respects to Rādhārāṇī, whose bodily complexion is like molten gold and who is the Queen of Vṛndāvana. You are the daughter of King Vṛṣabhānu, and You are very dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa.)
Lecture on BG 7.7 -- Bombay, April 1, 1971:
It is not at all difficult to see Kṛṣṇa. Why do you say, "Can you show me God?" Why you are not seeing God? Here is God. So Kṛṣṇa says, raso 'ham apsu kaunteya prabhāsmi śaśi-sūryayoḥ (BG 7.8). So who has not seen the sunshine? Who has not seen the moonshine? Simply to understand, one has to understand that what is this sunshine? The sunshine is the reflection of Kṛṣṇa's bodily effulgence. Just like what is this moonshine? This is reflection of the sunshine. Similarly, the sun is also reflection of the brahma-jyotir. And what is the brahma-jyotir? Brahmajyoti is Kṛṣṇa's bodily effulgence. Then why do you say that you have not seen Kṛṣṇa? There are many other instances. Kṛṣṇa is giving some of them. If you study, if you meditate upon them, then you will see Kṛṣṇa gradually. He will be revealed. He'll be present immediately. It is all revelation. Not that by your eyes you can see. But if you follow the prescription, the direction, you will see Kṛṣṇa daily, always, twenty-four hours.
Lecture on BG 7.7 -- Bombay, February 22, 1974:
So as the sun is the supreme cause of this material world, similarly the supreme cause of... There are many millions of universes and millions of suns. They are all caused by the supreme energy of Kṛṣṇa, bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ and apareyam itas tu viddhi me prakṛtiṁ parām (BG 7.4). Two prakṛtis, parā-prakṛti and aparā-prakṛti. So the Vedānta-sūtra, that janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1), the original source of everything, Brahman, that is Kṛṣṇa. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat (BG 7.7). Brahman is not supreme. Then Kṛṣṇa would have said not... "Brahman is the Supreme." But He says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat. Brahman is the bodily effulgence of Kṛṣṇa. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi (Bs. 5.40). Brahman is not the supreme cause. Brahmaṇo 'haṁ pratiṣṭhā. Brahman is existing on Kṛṣṇa. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, Kṛṣṇa has the right to say, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat: "There is no more superior cause." And in the Brahma-saṁhitā, Lord Brahmā also says, sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam (Bs. 5.1).
Lecture on BG 7.7 -- Vrndavana, August 13, 1974:
On account of that effulgence from the Goloka Vṛndāvana, there are innumerable spiritual and material planets. The spiritual planets are called Vaikuṇṭhalokas, and in the material sphere there are so many planets—Sun, Moon, Venus, Earth, so many, millions and millions... They are all resting on that effulgence, Brahman effulgence. Yasya prabhā. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi (Bs. 5.40). Tad brahma niṣkalam anantam aśeṣa-bhūtaṁ govindam. The brahma-jyotir is the rays of, the bodily rays of Kṛṣṇa. So everything is resting... We have got experience that these material planetary systems, they are resting on the sunshine. The scientist knows it. On account of the heat of the sunshine, all the planetary systems or the globes, they are moving, going around. It is not stopped. There is a small apparatus—I have seen in America—that as soon as you give heat, within that, I mean to say, glass, the one is glow, it is rotating... (end)
Lecture on BG 7.9 -- Vrndavana, August 15, 1974:
Tapasya means to undergo voluntarily some inconveniences of this body. Because we are accustomed to enjoy bodily senses, and tapasya means voluntarily to give up the idea of sense gratification. That is tapasya. Tapasya. Just like Ekādaśī. Ekādaśī, one day fasting, fortnight. That is also tapasya. Or fasting in some other auspicious day. That tapasya is good, even for health, and what to speak of advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So we should accept this tapasya. The upavāsa. There are many prescribed days for fasting. We should observe. And the preliminary tapasya, no illicit sex, no gambling, no intoxication, no..., no meat-eating... There may be some inconvenience, those who were accustomed to this practice, but we'll have to accept. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyet sattvam (SB 5.5.1). If we want to purify our existence... At the present moment our existence is not purified, impure. Therefore we are suffering. Just like when one's physiological condition becomes infected, he suffers from fever and other symptoms of disease, similarly, we are suffering in this material world on account of this material body. If we want really happiness, then we must accept tapasya. Tapasya is required. Without tapasya, if you think that very easily... Or "Without tapasya, I can get it simply by imagination," then you become sahajiyā, to take things very easily. No. Tapasya.
Lecture on BG 7.9-10 -- Bombay, February 24, 1974:
So Kṛṣṇa is giving us intelligence that "If you do not go to the temple or do not hear to the ācārya, you can at least try to understand My presence when you see a flower or smell a flower." Is that very difficult job? Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so nice. Even drinking water, even by seeing the sunshine, even by seeing the moonshine, or, if you are a Vedic scholar, by chanting om, praṇavaḥ sarva-vedeṣu, or even by hearing the sound vibration, or by seeing a flower, or smelling a flower, something brilliant... Just like the sun is brilliant, the moon is brilliant. Tejaś cāsmi. So wherefrom this brilliance comes? The brilliance is imitation, reflection of the bodily brilliance of Kṛṣṇa. That is stated in the Brahma-sūtra, Brahma-saṁhitā: yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi (Bs. 5.40). Then why we should disbelieve? We can see eye-to-eye that the sun is so brilliant. It is a material product only. But wherefrom the sun has come, so brilliant? Yac cakṣur eṣa savitā sakala-grahāṇāṁ rājā samasta-mūrti, samasta-sura-mūrtir aśeṣa-tejāḥ. The brilliance and the temperature is unlimited. So wherefrom the brilliance comes? You can calculate yourself, that "The sun is composition of these chemicals, this material...," but why don't you produce? Why don't you produce an imitation sun so that you'll save so much money for electricity? At night you can get one sun in Bombay city. (laughs) (laughter)
Lecture on BG 7.16 -- Bombay, April 7, 1971:
Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, catur-vidhā bhajante māṁ sukṛtino 'rjuna. Sukṛti. Sukṛti means those who are living pious life, and these are the basic principles of living pious life; no illicit sex life... Sex life is required, but there is already in the śāstra a license: "You can have sex life with your religiously married wife. Not otherwise." Actually, married sex life is not required, but it is just like license. The same thing, that there is no necessity of drinking wine, but those who are habituated, those who want to drink, for them, government opens, under so many restrictions, a liquor shop. The śāstra also gives us this license. The Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana, they were ideal saintly persons. About them it is said, nidrāhāra-vihārakādi-vijitau **. They conquered over the necessities of this body, which is called viṣaya. Conquering over sleeping, conquering over sex life, and conquering over eating, these things are required. Pious life means gradually decreasing the unnecessary bodily demands. That is pious life. That is the sum and substance. Because Kṛṣṇa says here that catur-vidhā bhajante māṁ sukṛtinaḥ: "Those who are living pious life." And those who are not living pious lives, they are called duṣkṛtina, sinful life.
Lecture on BG 7.28-8.6 -- New York, October 23, 1966:
"Because at the time of death, my dear Kṛṣṇa, I do not know what will be my position, because at that time all the functions of my body will be stopped and naturally there will be a block in my throat of the coughs..." At the time of death... One who has seen a dying man, he'll see there is cough in this kaṇṭha, in this throat, in the channel, throat. So he prays, at the time of death, kaṇṭhāvarodhana-vidhau kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ: "By the derangement of the bodily function, when kapha will choke up my throat, then how I shall be able to chant? Because I am now healthy. I am now chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, but at that time, how I shall be able to chant? So therefore, while I am chanting now in good health, please let me die immediately so that I can die chanting." Yes. That is the prayer. But, er, because that is the ultimate examination.
Lecture on BG 8.5 -- New York, October 26, 1966:
So mad-bhāva, mad-bhāva means the nature, Kṛṣṇa's nature. You keep your individuality, but you get Kṛṣṇa's nature. And what is Kṛṣṇa's nature? Kṛṣṇa's nature is always blissful. Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). Always joyful. So you get a body of joyful, full of knowledge, and eternal. Not that you become Kṛṣṇa. You get exactly the same bodily constitution as Kṛṣṇa has got. That is sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1). As we are, even at the present moment, we are particle Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is vibhu, the whole. We are aṇu, we are small. Similarly, as now we have got this material body, if we pass our life in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we get our spiritual body, which is not different from the soul. A clear example: just like a man put into the water is raised from the water and placed in the land. So in the land he is happy. Similarly, because we are spirit soul, we are in a very unfavorable condition of this material world. As soon as we perfect ourself in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we get into the spiritual platform or body or atmosphere.
Lecture on BG 9.1 -- Melbourne, April 19, 1976:
Actually this Bhagavad-gītā is described by Vyāsadeva. So Vyāsadeva recorded it, writing. Otherwise it was being received through hearing. Before this Kali-yuga Vyāsadeva, he kept all Vedic literature in writing. Before that, there was no book. The knowledge was received through the ear, aural reception, śruti. Therefore it is called śruti. Śruti means the knowledge which is received by hearing. And the memory was very sharp. In those days, five thousand years ago, any man... Not any man, but the intelligent class of men... They were called brāhmaṇas. They used to receive knowledge from guru by hearing. They could memorize everything, once heard. In the Kali-yuga the memory is being reduced. The duration of life is being reduced. Peoples' mercifulness is being reduced. This is the symptom of Kali-yuga. Bodily strength—reduced.
Lecture on BG 9.1 -- Melbourne, April 19, 1976:
This has been decided. Nṛpa-nirṇītam. It is already considered and decided. So any part... Suppose Bhagavān means the supreme rich. Supreme Being means everything supreme. In richness He is supreme. In bodily strength He is supreme. His knowledge is supreme. In beauty He is supreme. In renunciation He is supreme. That is the description, definition of God, that He must be supreme in every respect. Therefore He is called Supreme Being in the dictionary. Nobody can be rival to Him. Asamaurdhva. Asama means equal. Nobody is equal to Him. If I become equal to Him, how He can become Supreme? If there is rivalry between the Supreme, then there is not meaning of Supreme. Supreme means there is no rivalry. He is the Supreme, means nobody is greater than Him; nobody is equal to Him; everyone is under Him. That is called Supreme. Asamaurdhva. Nobody can be sama. Sama means equal. If I am God, and another competitor God, you are also God, then neither I am God nor I am God. There cannot be any competition. That is called Supreme. So Arjuna is to that position. He does not challenge Kṛṣṇa that "There is another Supreme Being than Yourself." There cannot be. But sometimes we foolishly challenge. That is our foolishness. But God is always Supreme. So therefore this is the qualification of understanding confidential knowledge about God. Anasūyave. Pravakṣyāmy anasūyave.
Lecture on BG 9.2 -- Calcutta, March 8, 1972:
So Kṛṣṇa spoke this Bhagavad-gītā first to sun-god. So when asked, Kṛṣṇa spoke in this word to Arjuna. Arjuna is a person, and Kṛṣṇa is also person, nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). Similarly, Kṛṣṇa spoke to sun-god; he is also a person, but that person should go... I may say, sun-god, his bodily rays is the sunshine, and in the sunshine the whole material world exists. Similarly, there is real sunshine, which is called brahma-jyotir, that is coming out of the body of Kṛṣṇa. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi (Bs. 5.40). So this impersonal brahma, sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma, that is Kṛṣṇa's personal rays. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says here, mayā tatam idaṁ sarvam. Sarvam. Idaṁ sarvam. Sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma. Because it is Kṛṣṇa's bodily rays, therefore in that sense you can take anything as brahma, sarva khalv idam, because nothing is different from Kṛṣṇa. Idaṁ hi viśvaṁ bhagavān ivetaro. The whole creation is also bhagavān, but it is as appears as different. It appears as different. So this is explained here, mayā tatam idaṁ sarvaṁ jagad avyakta-mūrtinā-mat-sthāni sarva-bhūtāni (BG 9.4). "Everything is resting on Me." Just like in the sunshine. On the sunshine all these material planets are resting. Similarly, everything, these universes are resting on Kṛṣṇa's bodily shine, brahma-jyotir. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi (Bs. 5.40).
Lecture on BG 9.2-5 -- New York, November 23, 1966:
Of course, if you do not like, if you think, "This is Hindu system. We won't accept. We are Christian," all right, you go to church, sing there. You have got also songs of Bible. You can sing very nicely.
So smaraṇaṁ vandanam. So there is no difference between this process and that process. Simply we are teaching that "Become God conscious." God is neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Christian. He's God. And we are also not Hindu or Muslim or Christian. This is our bodily designation. We are all pure, part and parcel of the Supreme. As God is pure, so we are also pure. So we have fallen in this turmoil of this material ocean, and there is tossing of the waves. So we are suffering. We don't identify with the tossing of the waves because I have nothing to do with this tossing. I simply pray, "Kṛṣṇa, please pick me up from these tossing waves. Some way or other, I am fallen here."
Lecture on BG 9.4 -- Melbourne, April 22, 1976:
The example is given just like the sunshine. What is the sunshine? The sunshine is illumination and the heat also, heat and light, sunshine. Now if you go to the sun planet, then what is there? Heat and light. And if you enter into the sun planet and see the person, the supreme personality within the sun... There is a supreme person. We do not know, but we understand from Bhagavad-gītā that Kṛṣṇa says, imaṁ vivasvate yogaṁ proktavān aham avyayam (BG 4.1). He talked with the sun-god, so there is sun-god. There is god, or the president, you may say, president of the planet. And if the president is there, the government is there. There are living entities. In everywhere there are living entities. Don't think that you are simply here in this planet, and there is no living entity. It is wrong conception, foolish conception. So the president of the sun planet, He is the original person from where this sunshine and heat is coming. He is the person. And the population there, they are made so that their bodily effulgence is the heat and light, and that is being manifested in the sun globe.
Lecture on BG 9.4 -- Melbourne, April 23, 1976:
Similarly, the supreme sun is Kṛṣṇa. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi (Bs. 5.40). He has got... Just like the sun has shining, similarly—try to understand—God has got His effulgence, bodily shining. That is called brahma-jyotir. When the brahma-jyotir is there innumerable universes are generated. Therefore he is cause of all creation. It doesn't require to manufacture each and every universe. He is so powerful that in His effulgence, in His shining, innumerable universes are created. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam (Bs. 5.40). In each universe there are many millions and millions of stars and planets.
Lecture on BG 9.11 -- Calcutta, June 30, 1973:
So to become purified, one must be purified of this material existence. Then he can understand what is God. Then he can serve God. With these material senses it is not possible to serve God. That is not possible. Ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ (CC Madhya 17.136). These indriyas, the present indriyas, contaminated by material existence... You cannot understand by simply hearing about God. Therefore you have to purify yourself. Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam (CC Madhya 19.170). This is the definition given by Nārada Muni, how one can become a devotee, how one can be engaged in the devotional service of the Lord. This is the formula. What is that? Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktam, first condition: One has to give up all designation. "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am brāhmaṇa," "I am śūdra," "I am this," "I am that." These are all designations of the body, but we are not this body. So if we can give up this bodily designation, that is called sarvopādhi-vinirmuktam (CC Madhya 19.170). Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam. Then one has to become purified on the standard of devotional service.
Lecture on BG 9.11-14 -- New York, November 27, 1966:
As we have discussed many times, God has got many energies. Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). There are unlimited energies, different varieties of energy. Out of that, those who are in the knowledge, they have divided the whole energy into three divisions. What is that? Material energy, spiritual energy and marginal energy. This material energy, you are seeing. And the spiritual energy, now we have no knowledge. But the marginal energy, something spirit, something matter, that we are, we living entities. I am... As I am, I am spirit. But I am mixed up with this matter. Therefore I am marginal energy, between spirit and matter. I am combination of spirit and matter. As soon as I am spirit, I am away from this matter, this bodily matter. "Dust thou art; dust thou beist." Yes. So those who are mahātmā, they have take shelter of the spiritual energy. Of course, for God, every energy is His energy. Therefore He has no distinction what is spirit and what is matter. But for me, because I am in marginal energy, I have to make distinction that "This is spirit; this is matter."
Lecture on BG 9.23-24 -- New York, December 10, 1966:
And one who is not in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he has no good qualification at all. Why? Mano-rathenāsati dhāva... Because he is hovering over the mental plane. He has no more any touch with the spiritual plane. So long we are on the material plane, or gross bodily plane, or subtle mental plane, oh, we have to suffer. We have to go to the spiritual platform, and that spiritual platform is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We have to change the consciousness from material platform, from mental platform, from intellectual platform, to the platform of Kṛṣṇa. That is our program, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So if we become fully Kṛṣṇa conscious, there is no chance of falling down. If we do not become then there is always chance of falling down, down, down, down, down. Thank you very much. (end)
Lecture on BG 10.1 -- New York, December 27, 1966:
So richness has got attraction. You cannot deny it. Of course, for Kṛṣṇa, we can do anything. We have no restriction. For Kṛṣṇa's service, we can do everything. So anyway, richness, if a man is very rich, wealthy, he attracts.
That is the... These are the six opulences which at... which attract. Then if a man is very strong, he's also, he also attracts. Bala. A strong man, either by influence, or by his bodily strength, he attracts. If there is a strong man, many woman is attracted. So strength is also another feature of attraction.
Wealth, strength, and then fame. If a man is very famous, just take any famous man of the world, if he comes in this room, oh, thousands of people will come here. When Gandhi was alive I read one news from the newspaper in India that in some Italian city, there was great crowd, innumerable people gathered in the station. And nobody could understand why these people are assembled here. So when they are asked, they replied that, "We have heard that Gandhi is coming here." Mahatma Gandhi, perhaps you heard his name. He was very famous man, politician. So actually the news they are published that one, there was one Mr. Glandi. So he was coming. And people misunderstood as Gandhi. So my point is that a famous man also attracts. These things are attraction, richness, wealth, and strength, and famous, fame.
Lecture on BG 13.1-2 -- Bombay, December 29, 1972:
At the fag end of life, we are disappointed, we are frustrated. Brdhya kala aula saba sukha pāgala.(?) When we cannot again, no more, we can enjoy with our senses, then we become very much depressed. Old men. You'll find old men, those who are not spiritually inclined, they're very morose. Morose because they cannot use anymore the senses. They sometimes take medicine. But how it can be done? So drdhya kala aula.(?) So we are under this illusion. This is called māyā. We should understand that we are not this body. We are not this body. Our bodily enjoyment, sense gratification, that is illusion. In another place in the Bhagavad-gītā you'll find, it is said: sukham ātyantikaṁ yat tat atīndriyaṁ grāhyam. Find out that verse. Sukham ātyantikaṁ yat tad atīndriyaṁ grāhyam. We are trying to enjoy life with these material senses, but that is illusion, that is temporary. Temporary and illusion. Real enjoyment is with our spiritual senses.
Lecture on BG 13.1-2 -- Bombay, December 29, 1972:
And Kṛṣṇa Himself, as Caitanya Mahāprabhu says: pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi grāma. "As many villages and towns are there, sarvatra pracāra haibe mora nāma, that My name will be celebrated in every village, every town." So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is not a crippled movement. It is very broad movement, claiming all living entities to come to Kṛṣṇa, back to home, back to Godhead. Therefore we should not be bodily conscious. Kṛṣṇa, here says: the body is not I am this body. Idaṁ śarīraṁ kṣetram. It is a field of activities. Kṣetram. Field of activities. Just like one who is bodily conscious, he undergoes many severe exercises. So body becomes very stout and strong and he's happy. He's happy. Because he thinks: "I am this body."
Lecture on BG 13.1-2 -- Bombay, September 25, 1973:
But people have become so irresponsible that they do not know what kind of body he's going to get next life. He's blind. Therefore this knowledge is required, how I'm getting this body, how I can get better body or lower body. This is knowledge, not that how to eat, how to sleep, and how to have sex life. This is not knowledge there in the animals. Āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithunaṁ ca. Where to find out one's food, where to sleep, how to have sex life, how to defend, these animals also, they know how to do it. So if we devote our time only for these four principles of bodily wants, then we are not better than the cats and dogs.
The real knowledge is to know "What I am, what is this body, why I am suffering. I want to be happy but why sufferings are there, always some kind of suffering is always there." These are the questions. But people have become so foolish they do not inquire how to make solution of these sufferings, how to make solution of the problems of life. They are blindly being led.
Lecture on BG 13.1-3 -- Durban, October 13, 1975:
A small insect, a full-stop-like size, it has also the same anatomical, physiological structure of the body and the same way, jumping and enjoying. You might have seen. So there is no difference between the bodily construction. Everyone has got heart and everything, complete. But according to the desire and karma we are getting different types of body.
This is called material existence. So long we shall desire to enjoy this material world, God will give us facility to possess a similar body so that we can satisfy our desires. Therefore He is situated, witness. Anumantā upadraṣṭā. He is overseer. And without His sanction you cannot act, we cannot act. Therefore His name is anumantā; He gives sanction: "All right, you want to do it? Do it as you like."
Lecture on BG 13.1-3 -- Durban, October 13, 1975:
So this is jñāna, knowledge. We must know what is the constitution of this body, who is the occupier of the body, who is the supreme occupier of this body, how they are acting, how the bodily changes are taking place and how we are suffering in this... I say purposefully, "suffering," because in the material world there is no enjoyment. It is illusion. It is only suffering. Only suffering. Duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15). This place is duḥkhālayam, simply for suffering. And if you say, "Never mind it is. I shall stay here and continue like this," then it is aśāśvatam. That also will not be allowed. You cannot stay. You have to change the position. This is material condition of life.
Lecture on BG 13.2 -- Melbourne, April 4, 1972:
Arjuna was hesitating to fight: "How can I kill my nephew, my brother, my grandfather," and so on so on. So Kṛṣṇa was instructing him that "It is your duty. As a kṣatriya, when there is battle, you should fight. You should not deviate from your duty." That was... The conversation was going on. But Arjuna was thinking only in terms of this body. "He is my grandfather. He is my brother. He is my countryman. He is my this." Why? Because they have got some bodily relation.
You are thinking one boy here, because he is Australian, you are thinking more intimate relationship with him, and because I am Indian, you may not think more, in such intimacy. Because the bodily connection is there. But Kṛṣṇa said that "This is not very intelligent knowledge." Gatāsūn agatāsūṁś ca. A person who does not lament for this body, he is actually learned. Gatāsūn agatāsūṁś ca nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ (BG 2.11). Paṇḍita means learned scholar. So either this body is in living condition or it is in dead condition, a paṇḍita, a learned scholar, one who knows things as they are, he does not take care of this body. Not take care actually, he does not think very seriously about this body. That was the answer given by... Because this body is after all, a lump of matter. Actually, so long the soul is there, it is moving. It is growing or changing bodies or so many importance is there due to... Therefore, unless we come to this understanding, that "I am not this body. I am spirit soul," ahaṁ brahmāsmi, there is lack of knowledge. That is being instructed by Kṛṣṇa.
Lecture on BG 13.3 -- Bombay, December 30, 1972:
Similarly Govinda is located in His planet which is known as Goloka Vṛndāvana. And from there, His bodily rays are being distributed. Sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma. That is Brahman, impersonal Brahman. This impersonal Brahman is the bodily effulgence, rays of Kṛṣṇa.
- yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-
- koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam
- tad brahma niṣkalam anantam aśeṣa-bhūtaṁ
- govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
- (Bs. 5.40)
We do not know actually what is Kṛṣṇa's potency. Paraṁ bhāvam ajānantaḥ. Avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam, paraṁ bhāvam ajānantaḥ (BG 9.11). People, mūḍhas, without knowing Kṛṣṇa's potencies, how He is working, how His potencies are working... Parasya brahmaṇaḥ śaktis tathedam akhilaṁ jagat. Tathedam akhilaṁ jagat. In the Viṣṇu Purāṇa it is said: parasya brahmaṇaḥ śaktiḥ.
Lecture on BG 13.3 -- Paris, August 11, 1973:
Similarly this body is one identity and I am another identity. So knowledge means when we can understand that it is "my body," not "I body." Not this nonsense. Nobody says, "I body." Everyone says "my body." This is knowledge. But these rascals, these rascals of modern age, they are saying "I body." "I am this body." What you are? "I am this body." What is your interest? "Now anything which is interested with my body." He's not "I body," still he's interested with everything with this bodily relation. There are thousands of girls, women, but a particular woman with whom I have got my bodily relation, that is my wife. That is mine. And combination, the child comes out, "my child." In this way, "my house," "my property," "my body," "my relative," "my friend," "my brother," "my nation," my, my, my, my. But the rascal does not understand that the beginning of "my" philosophy has begun from this body, which I am not.
Lecture on BG 13.3 -- Paris, August 11, 1973:
Similarly, as I am very small, smaller than the atom, and I am living within this body and my body is working so nicely. My brain is working so nicely. Similarly, Kṛṣṇa is also, according to our conception, Kṛṣṇa is person, individual, but He has got a very gigantic body. This is the material world, material expression. That is expressed in the next verse: kṣetra-jñaṁ cāpi māṁ viddhi. I am also kṣetrajñam. As you are knower of your body, the bodily pains and pleasure you know, I know. I do not know your bodily pains and pleasures. Neither you know my bodily pains and pleasure. But Kṛṣṇa says that kṣetrajña, kṣetra-jñaṁ cāpi māṁ viddhi: "I am also kṣetrajñam," means "I also know the field."
So how He knows? Sarva-kṣetreṣu bhārata. Sarva-kṣetreṣu. He is within every body. He knows what is the ant is doing. He knows what Brahmā is doing. He knows what you are doing. He knows what I am doing. Vedāhaṁ samatītāni (BG 7.26). Kṛṣṇa says in another place, "I know everything." Just like, it is very easy to understand. Just like, you know everything—not everything—at least eighty percent you know what is going on in your body. You do not know everything.
Lecture on BG 13.4 -- Miami, February 27, 1975:
You will find even an ant. He has got all the propensities, just like human being. You can study how they are struggling, how they have organized their society, how they are eating, how they are sleeping, how they are begetting children. Everything is there in every life. The four principles of bodily demands, namely eating. sleeping, sex and defense, you will find in the insect, smallest insect, like full stop. I sometimes see at night. They wander on the page of the book, very small. But they have got all the propensities. All the propensities. You can study. Anyone, minute study, you can see. So these things are there everywhere, even to the ant or even to the elephant or to the demigod or any Brahmā or in everything. That's all. That is clear.
So when we get by evolutionary process, come to this human form of life by God's grace, nature's mercy, we can understand what is what. Therefore Kṛṣṇa is explaining to Arjuna, a human being, not to a cat and dog. Therefore He says, tat kṣetram, "That body," how it has become varieties, what is the ingredients. The ingredients are the same. This material body, the ingredients are the four primary gross elements, means earth, water, air, fire and ether or sky, the mind, intelligence and ego. This is the composition of this body. And beyond this composition, I am there, soul. Indriyāṇi parāṇy āhuḥ.
Lecture on BG 13.6-7 -- Montreal, October 25, 1968:
Now, this tṛṇād api sunīcena, one may think, "Oh, it is artificial to think that I am smaller than the grass in the street." But actually, it is not artificial. It is actually the fact. Why? From the Padma Purāṇa, Vedic literature, we understand that the form of the soul is one ten-thousandth part of the upper portion of the hair. Now how much small we are, just we can imagine only. There is no instrument to divide the upper portion of the hair into ten thousand parts. And just to take one part as the magnitude of the soul, that is not... Actually, we are very small. That small particle of soul is within the ant and within the elephant. It is a bodily expansion only that we are, we appear..., the elephant appears to be the biggest animal, and the ant or the germ appears to be the smallest. But actually, these are bodily expansions. The soul as it is is really smaller than the grass or straw on the street.
Lecture on BG 13.8-12 -- Bombay, October 2, 1973:
Our propaganda is not for the East and the West, but our fight is with the ignorance of the people because at the present moment people are kept in ignorance, in foolishness, that he is this body, bodily identification. But still, there is difference between East and West. In the West, I have talked with big, big professors, learned scholars. They have no idea of next life.
I talked with Professor Kotovsky in Moscow. He said, "Swamiji, after annihilation of this body, everything is finished." They have no idea that there is soul. And in India even the poorest man, he knows that, "There is next life. I existed in the past, and I will exist in the future." This Vedic conclusion is known even to the poorest man, illiterate man. That is, of course, the difference between East and West.
Lecture on BG 13.13 -- Bombay, October 6, 1973:
The real pains and pleasure: that the living entity who has accepted this material body, he has to continue these pains and pleasure. That is explained in the Bhagavad, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi (BG 13.9). So you there is no science to give relief from janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi. How can expect relief? It is temporary relief. So Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, we should not be disturbed by the temporary pains and pleasure.
- mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya
- śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ
- āgamāpāyino 'nityās
- tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata
- (BG 2.14)
We should not be disturbed by these so-called bodily pains and pleasure. We can try, we can get as much... But this is not our business. Our business is how to get out of these clutches of birth and death. That is real business. That they do not know. Because they have no knowledge. All fools and rascals, they are busy for the temporary pains and pleasure. That's all.
Lecture on BG 13.18 -- Bombay, October 12, 1973:
In the material world we have got experience that sunshine, jyoti, prakāśa... But wherefrom the sunshine comes? Sunshine is also a reflection of another jyoti, or illumination. That illumination is called brahma-jyotir. And wherefrom that brahma-jyotir emanates? That emanates from Kṛṣṇa. Just like the sunshine is emanation from the sun globe, and the sun globe is fiery, illuminated, on account of the persons within the sun globe. They have got some bodily rays. That rays is emanating from their body. Therefore the whole sun planet looks like fiery planet. And from there the illumination comes, and it is reflecting on the moon, and the moon is illuminating the whole dark night. This is called pūrṇimā. So one is borrowing the illumination from the other. But there is the supreme source of illumination. That is Kṛṣṇa.
That is confirmed in the Brahma-saṁhitā: yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi (Bs. 5.40). Yasya prabhā, the bodily rays of Kṛṣṇa, being illuminated... In that illumination, which is called brahma-jyotir, there are innumerable Vaikuṇṭha planets. The Vaikuṇṭha are self-illuminated. Therefore in the spiritual world there is no darkness. Tamasaḥ param. Therefore is said here that taj jyotis tamasaḥ param ucyate: "That spiritual world is beyond this material world." This material world is called tamaḥ. Tamaḥ means darkness. Just like this night, it is darkness. Why it is darkness? By nature it is dark. Simply by the sunshine, moonshine, electricity, we keep it brightened for some time. Otherwise, by nature it is darkness.
Lecture on BG 13.18 -- Bombay, October 12, 1973:
Therefore here it is said, jyotiṣām api taj jyotiḥ, param. There are different kinds of illumination, sunshine, moonshine, electricity, fire. But that jyoti which is directly emanating from Kṛṣṇa's body, that is the real jyoti. So on account of Kṛṣṇa's bodily rays, the whole creation is coming out. That is Kṛṣṇa's inconceivable power, brahma-jyotir. Janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). Athāto brahma jijñāsā. In the Vedānta-sūtra, you have to inquire about that paraṁ jyoti, brahma-jyotir. And from that paraṁ jyoti, everything is coming out. Just like from the sunshine.
What is this material world? This material world is resting on the sunshine. Because the sunshine is there, therefore all the planets are rotating. There is a small machine. You'll find it. As soon as it is heated, within that machine the balls begin to rotate. Similarly, the certain temperature of the sunshine, the whole planetary system is rotating on the orbit, on account of the sunshine. This is scientifically true. And because there is sunshine, there is vegetation, there is water, there is rainfall, and from the rainfall, there is agricultural products.
Lecture on BG 13.18 -- Bombay, October 12, 1973:
So this sunshine is reflection of the brahma-jyotir. Yasya prabhā prabhavataḥ (Bs. 5.40). When the bodily rays, shining rays, of Kṛṣṇa is there, then all these universes are generated. The universes are also generated. In another place, yasyaika-niśvasita-kālam athāvalambya jīvanti loma-vilajā jagad-aṇḍa-nāthāḥ (Bs. 5.48). Jagad-aṇḍa-nāthāḥ means... Jagad-aṇḍa means universe. Each universe has a principle living being. That is Lord Brahmā. So there are many innumerable Brahmās also, innumerable Śivas, innumerable suns, innumerable moons, because there are innumerable universes. And each and every universe, there are innumerable planets. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi (Bs. 5.40). Vasudhā means this planet.
Lecture on BG 13.18 -- Bombay, October 12, 1973:
So the same tattva, in truth, not superficially, if you understand Kṛṣṇa, then tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). After giving up this body, you'll not have to accept another material body. That is saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gatāḥ. That is highest perfection of life. If you don't accept anymore the material form of body...
There are eight million four hundred thousand species of body. Any type of body we accept, it is troublesome. It is miserable. Mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ (BG 2.14). The bodily pains and pleasures are perceivable, mātrā-sparśa, because we have got this material skin, mātrā, and when it is touched, in touch with the influence of this material world, mātrā-sparśāḥ, you become subject of pains and pleasures.
Lecture on BG 13.19 -- Bombay, October 13, 1973:
How can you avoid? If you simply say that "Let there be all heads," that cannot. Or "Let there be simply legs." That is cannot that cannot be. There must be the heads, the legs, the hands, the belly. Similarly, the whole society should be divided into that way and they should work cooperatively. The central point. Just like this head, leg, hands, they are working cooperatively for the benefit of this body, whole body. Actually for the benefit of this belly. Because we are all working now for eating without eating we cannot live. Then it is after sleeping, then mating the, then defending. First there must be arrangement for eating. So, practically the stomach is the king in this bodily arrangement, the stomach.
Lecture on BG 1322 -- Hyderabad, August 17, 1976:
Don't be satisfied with the present bodily situation, that you are very happily situated. That's not the fact. You have to change this position. You have to accept another body and you do not know what kind of body you have to accept. It will be given by prakṛti. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu (BG 13.22). So don't be irresponsible to your life. Be responsible and be prepared for the next life and act accordingly, as the direction is there in the Bhagavad-gītā, and prove that you are human being. The animal cannot do. If you do not do it, then you remain an animal. The animal has no capacity to understand Vedic knowledge or the Bhagavad-gītā. And even though we have got the intelligence if do not utilize it to understand the instruction in the Bhagavad-gītā and Vedic knowledge, then purposefully we keep ourself within the category of animals.
Lecture on BG 16.2-7 -- Bombay, April 8, 1971:
So he is remarking that "These boys who are playing with Kṛṣṇa, they are not ordinary boys because they are playing with... Itthaṁ brahma-sukhānubhūtyā. Itthaṁ satāṁ brahma-sukhānubhūtyā. "They are playing with the Absolute Truth who is realized by the great sages as the impersonal Brahman." There are different features of the Absolute Truth: impersonal Brahman, localized Paramātmā, and Personality of Godhead. So those who are attached to impersonal Brahman... Śukadeva Gosvāmī says that these boys who are playing with Kṛṣṇa... Kṛṣṇa is brahma-sukhānubhūtyā, the origin of brahma-sukha. It is also stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, brahmaṇaḥ ahaṁ pratiṣṭhā: "The Brahman, the impersonal Brahman, is situated on Me." Because Brahman is the bodily effulgence of Kṛṣṇa. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭiḥ (Bs. 5.40). Therefore Śukadeva Gosvāmī says that "These boys, they are not ordinary boys. They are playing with the Supreme Brahman."
Lecture on BG 16.6 -- Hawaii, February 2, 1975:
Daiva means generally viṣṇu-bhakta. Viṣṇu means the Supreme Lord who is all-pervasive. Everywhere He is present. Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Lord, He is Viṣṇu also in His Paramātmā feature. Kṛṣṇa has got three features. Brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate (SB 1.2.11). Kṛṣṇa, the Absolute Truth, He is known in three features or three angle of visions. One is Brahman, all-pervasive Brahman. Sarvedam akhilaṁ jagat. So Brahman means His effulgence, bodily rays. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi (Bs. 5.40). His prabhā, His bodily rays... You may ask, "What is that bodily rays?" You can see every day. Everyone has got bodily rays according to his quality. You see the sun, the bodily rays, the sunshine. There is sun-god within the sun globe whose name is Vivasvān.
Lecture on BG 16.6 -- Hawaii, February 2, 1975:
Evaṁ paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ (BG 4.2). So exactly like that. Here sun is an insignificant part, creation, of the Lord. And the sun has got so much effulgence, bodily rays, that it is illuminating and heating the whole universe. You cannot deny it. This is the position of the sun. And there are millions and trillions of suns, each one sometimes bigger than this sun. This is the smallest sun. There are bigger, bigger suns. So we can understand what is the bodily rays. There is no difficulty. That bodily rays of Kṛṣṇa is called Brahman. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-koṭiṣu vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam, tad brahma: (Bs. 5.40) "That is Brahman, that prabhā."
So similarly, Kṛṣṇa is present in everyone's heart, localized. This is impersonal expansion. Just like sunshine is impersonal expansion of the sun rays, so similarly, Brahman effulgence is the impersonal expansion of Kṛṣṇa's bodily rays.
Lecture on BG 16.6 -- South Africa, October 18, 1975:
So Kṛṣṇa is the origin of everything. So in the śāstra it is described just like my front portion and my back portion. So the back portion is also my bodily part, and the front portion is also my bodily part. So asuric propensities and irreligious things, they are just like Kṛṣṇa's back portion, darkness, that this darkness, material energy, is called mama māyā. The material energy is keeping everyone in darkness. But Kṛṣṇa says, daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā (BG 7.14). So this... The darkness is another side of the light. Because there is light there is darkness. Darkness there is no independently. You can understand darkness because there is light. So light and darkness, they are simultaneously there, and everything is janmādy asya yataḥ; (SB 1.1.1) everything's source is Kṛṣṇa.
Lecture on BG 16.10 -- Hawaii, February 6, 1975:
We have discussed very elaborately. Anyone who has got intelligence, he can understand that "I am not this body. Within this body there is a living force, and without that living force the body is useless, lump of matter. That's all. So long the spirit soul is there, I am Mr. such and such, I am Mr. this, I am Mr. that." (child coughing) (aside:) So this child should be... But as soon as the spirit soul is away, that Mr. lying on the floor, if somebody kicks on his face, he does not protest. "Mr." finished. But the fools still take care of that bodily "Mr," not the soul "Mr." Without the soul, it is nothing but a lump of matter.
Lecture on BG 16.11-12 -- Hawaii, February 7, 1975:
So everyone, every human being, should be intelligent that "This is my position, so what is the use of living like a demon? Here is Kṛṣṇa. He says that 'You just become My devotee. You just think of Me.' " Man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ. "Always think of Me," man-manāḥ, and mad-bhaktaḥ, "My devotee," mad-yājī, "worship Me," māṁ namaskuru, "offer obeisances unto Me. If you follow this principle, then," mām evaiṣyasi, "you come to Me." So why not sacrifice one life for Kṛṣṇa consciousness? So far the bodily enjoyment, especially sex enjoyment, we had in dog's life, cat's life, in beast life. So if by restricting this kind of sex life, little organized, if I can get back to home, back to Godhead and solve all the problems of life, is it not the decision of the intelligent man?
Lecture on BG 16.11-12 -- Hawaii, February 7, 1975:
You cannot avoid these laws of material nature. This is called māyā. Actually we are busy with something which is not permanent, a temporary arrangement by the laws of nature. Therefore those who are too much full of anxiety for all these things, they are called demons. Cintām aparimeyāṁ ca. Your cintām will not act. You may think for the safety or satisfaction, but that does not mean we should neglect our duty. But as far as possible, we should be detached. It is not that because all these are temporary arrangement, we should be unfaithful to our family members, to our children, to our wife. As duty, we should take care, but we should not be simply absorbed in such thoughts. Our other business is how to become fit for going back to home, back to Godhead. That is our real business. This is temporary business because we have got some bodily relation, so as duty...
Therefore Rūpa Gosvāmī, the example, when he wanted to retire from family life, he gave 50% to Kṛṣṇa. He was very rich man. After retirement he brought one full load of boat, golden coins. Just imagine the value. What is the price of gold coin now? I think there is no gold coin at the present moment. It is all finished. Now it is paper coins. (chuckles) This is going on. But even five hundred years ago or four hundred years ago there were gol... Not four hundred years ago, in our childhood, we have seen gold mohor, guinea. They were used in practical use. And silver coins, gold coins, we saw. But now it is, everything, paper. So we are so advanced that there is no more gold and silver.
Lecture on BG 16.13-15 -- Hawaii, February 8, 1975:
Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, yajñārthe karmaṇo 'nyatra, karma-bandhanaḥ: "You work for performing sacrifice, performing sacrifice." Sacrifice, yajña... Yajña means to satisfy the Supreme. That is sacrifice. I sacrifice my own convenience. I take all kinds of troubles... There is no trouble. It is pleasure, just like the mother takes all kinds of trouble for the little child, but she does not think that is trouble. That is pleasure. When you do something out of love, that is pleasure. That is not trouble. So in the transcendental platform, devotional service, anything you do, that is pleasure. That is not trouble. Just like you are dancing here. Actually, bodily, there is some trouble because you are perspiring, but you are not feeling the trouble; you are feeling pleasure. Otherwise how you can dance? This is the transcendental platform. So the demons are bound up by material desires, and the devotees-apparently there is desire, but there is no bondage. This is the difference. There is no bondage. Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam (CC Madhya 19.170).
Lecture on BG 18.41 -- Stockholm, September 7, 1973:
If you want classless society, actually pure, without any contamination of these material modes of nature, then this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is the prime movement. That is the definition of Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam, hṛṣīkeṇa (CC Madhya 19.170), ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā (CC Madhya 19.167). Bhakti, devotional service, first-class devotional service can be achieved when one is freed from all designations. So long one feels designated that "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am Englishmen," "I am German," "I am black," "I am white," and, no. You have to feel yourself. Not feeling, practically, training that I am spirit soul, I am eternal part and parcel of the Supreme Lord. When you come to this position, this is called sarvopādhi-vinirmuktam (CC Madhya 19.170). Freed from all designation. These are, the bodily identification is designation.
Lecture on BG 18.41 -- Stockholm, September 7, 1973:
Just like in this body, the head, the arms, the belly and the legs, they are cooperating for the proper upkeep of the bodily health. Similarly, if we actually want the human society should be organized, then the intelligent class of men, the administrative class of men, the mercantile class of men, and the worker class of men, they should cooperate for understanding Kṛṣṇa, or God. Then there will be harmony in the human society. Without God consciousness, everyone will think "I am very important, others are not important. I should be given only protection, not others." No. As soon as you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, as soon as you become brahma-bhūtaḥ, then you'll see samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu. Samaḥ, samaḥ means equality to all kinds of living entities. Not only human being.
| Page Title: | Bodily (Lectures, BG) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, Mayapur |
| Created: | 04 of Dec, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=158, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 158 |