Prabhupāda: After His father's death it is the custom amongst the Hindus to offer oblations at Gayā. There is a temple, Viṣṇu temple. They offer prasādam. This is a Hindu custom. And with that prasādam the forefathers and the father is offered. So He went to perform that ceremony and by chance He met Īśvara Purī and He was initiated by Īśvara Purī. And after coming back from Gayā, He became very much emotional for Kṛṣṇa, and sometimes people thought that He has become crazy. So His mother treated with some oil. But learned devotees, they said that He has got devotional emotion. So His initiation was in Gayā, when He went to perform that ceremony. So you can show the Gayā temple or some temple. And He's offering oblations, He's meeting His spiritual master, he's initiating. In this way you can make it two, three scenes. And He became emotional chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa after initiation.
Emotion (Conversations)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: No, no. He took sannyāsa by previous arrangement. One day He went away from home, accompanied by Murāri and Lord Nityānanda, and went to Katwa. There was one Māyāvādī sannyāsī, Keśava Bhāratī, and He took sannyāsa from him. And then He was, in emotion He was going to Vṛndāvana, but He was misled by Nityānanda, and He was brought to the home of Advaita, and Advaita arranged to bring His mother to see Him for the last. So His mother and many people from Nabadwip came to Sant... Advaita's house was in Santipur. So there was, for a few days, Caitanya Mahāprabhu stayed there, and saṅkīrtana and prasāda distribution was going on. And His mother feeling, feeling very well... But Caitanya Mahāprabhu saw that "My mother is not allowing Me to go. That is not good." So He requested, "Mother, I have taken sannyāsī. If I go on feasting like this with mother, what people will say? So you give Me permission to go." So mother said, "Yes, my dear boy. You have taken sannyāsī. But anyway You are happy. That is my happiness. But my only request is that You make Your headquarters at Jagannātha Purī. Because people from Nabadwip generally go there, so I shall get at least Your news. That is my last desire." So Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, "Yes.
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Revatīnandana: Number three, no gambling. And number four, no illicit sex life. That means no sex life whatsoever outside of marriage. And in marriage, sex life is to beget children and raise them to love God. So we follow these four principles very strictly. In this way we purify our lives and then we can develop spiritual emotion of love of God.
Guest (2): Uh, let's look at the... I quite see these four principles. I wonder if one could look at it slightly from a positive side. You said no animal killing, slaughter and no intoxicants.
Revatīnandana: These are four "nos."
Guest (2): Yes. Fine. Fine. Let's look at the "yes's." What exactly can you eat?
Revatīnandana: We can eat anything: fruit, vegetables, milk products, grains, sugar, nuts, all kinds of vegetable foodstuffs.
Guest (2): Broadly speaking, anything that comes out of the earth.
Revatīnandana: Yes. And we can eat it after it's been offered to the Lord with love and devotion. This we call prasādam or Kṛṣṇa's mercy.
Prabhupāda: Actually, any foodstuff is Kṛṣṇa's mercy. Any foodstuff is Kṛṣṇa's, God's mercy. Just like grain. You cannot manufacture grain. It is by God's mercy you get it.
Prabhupāda: Just like these flowers. These flowers the devotees are bringing to their spiritual master, to God. They are not enjoying. Ordinary man, if he gets a flower, he'll put it in the pocket. How... You see? That is the difference of God consciousness. The flower is the same, but use is different.
Guest (2): What's your view, if I may ask, on, for emotion in, of, an ideal, a Christian ideal and so on through the media. Will you use television and radio to condemn things like racial intolerance and the Vietnam War? Do you believe that you should become involved in these things? Could you issue a statement and say that the movement condemns so and so? Do you believe getting into anything in the world spectrum to comment on things?
Revatīnandana: Do you follow the question, Śrīla Prabhupāda? His question is do we concern ourselves with particular problems in the world, there's the war in Vietnam, there's racial discrimination? Do we make statements to condemn this war or to condemn that discrimination?
Prabhupāda: No. Thing is that there are so many problems. Our proposition is, when you become God conscious, then all problems automatically solved. We don't take the problems. We take the... Just like disease. There are many symptoms. A man is suffering from a particular disease. He has a headache, he has this pain, this pain, that pain.
Śyāmasundara: This replacement by science of religion has proven inadequate also in the twentieth century because how can it satisfy ultimately the questions?
Dr. Weir: In the same way, how can you satisfy a person's lack of emotional content in his job by giving him more money? Half of the trouble starts with the jobs, is they have no emotive content now because there's no rapport between them and their boss. They have practically no intellectual interest because they've a routine job in a factory. And you know they are really deprived in a sad way.
Mensa Member: Then what worries lots of people about lots of religions is the (indistinct) for example of pointing a finger at the (indistinct) choosing the finger with the (indistinct)
Dr. Weir: One of the difficulties, and I think this is true when I was saying simple people, using that in a broader sense, some people cannot get anything at all unless they have a little picture. You know, it helps them; not like the dear old lady who found...
Prabhupāda: That we give, the picture. Here is God.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: So therefore we are trying to engage the mind in Kṛṣṇa. Sa vai manaḥ kṛṣṇa-padāravindayor vacāṁsi vaikuṇṭha-guṇānuvarṇane (SB 9.4.18). Mind has to be engaged on the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, and talk, only glorifying Kṛṣṇa. Then things will come out nice.
Buddhist Monk (1): But many people are acting more on emotions and feelings than on their mind. (Sanskrit or Pali:) Mano manas mano is disappearing with many people except to make some money.
Prabhupāda: Every... Everything has two sides, black side and bright side. We are interested with the bright side. Black side we can point out, but anyone who is sincere, he'll take the bright side. Sajjano guṇam icchanti doṣam icchanti pāmaraḥ. There are guṇa and doṣa, fault and good qualities. So those who are sajjana, they take the good qualities, give up the bad qualities. Then there, gradually things will come out. But if we accept God, "God is all-good," then all good qualities automatically manifest. Yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ (SB 5.18.12). All good qualities manifest. If you remain with the fire, you become warm. The quality is acquired. If you remain in the sunshine, you become warm. Because sun is warm. So you acquire the quality. So if we remain always with Kṛṣṇa, then we acquire the qualities of Kṛṣṇa. So God is all-good. Therefore I become good, by association with God. It is very simple reasoning. Yes. God is all-good. So if you remain always with God, then you become good. The same example: if you remain with fire, you become warm, the quality of the fire.
Prabhupāda: No, apart from religion. Religion may be sentiment or some emotion. That is another thing.
Dr. Inger: Yes.
Prabhupāda: But we can ask what is this cosmic manifestation, what is the purpose of this, who created, how it is created. Are they not scientific?
Dr. Inger: Yes. Now this is another problem. Everything of a philosophical kind, they call it science, human sciences, natural sciences, moral sciences. They think that is a fault(?) to satisfy scientific spirit. I think from that point of view, they allow big conferences to be held where a particular theme is taken, different people come. So the organization encourages, stimulates activities proposed, submitted and finally passed in resolutions by different commissions and different countries. And then it's held. And at that particular time, some people come and speak. So they have had... But they haven't... Mostly these meetings have been held and... Very few have been held here, except when they celebrated the tintinary(?) of Aurobindo, last year. Or when they celebrated the centenary of, another centenary of Ramakrishna. Like that. But not always.
Prabhupāda: Not Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: But they do not know what is that goodness. They have no knowledge what is the standard of goodness. Somebody is cutting the throat; he's also good. And somebody is very sober; he is also good. So what is the standard of goodness?
Karandhara: That's what they argue about, write books on. Mostly they make vague references and emotional pleas for goodness and honesty.
Prabhupāda: No, what is that honesty and what is that goodness? They must give some definition.
Prajāpati: You've summed it up very nicely, Śrīla Prabhupāda, when you call them just jugglers of words.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Where is scientist? Svarūpa Dāmodara?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Here Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: So, what is the standard of goodness according to your scientific view?
Hṛdayānanda: They say, "Just don't... If someone does what he likes and doesn't hurt anyone else, that's good."
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Bali Mardana: ...so they become very sturdy to bear the suffering.
Yaśodānandana: Emotionless.
Prabhupāda: So one who can suffer without any protest, he's first-class man.
Bali Mardana: (laughs) Yeah.
Prabhupāda: That means they do not know how to stop suffering.
Bali Mardana: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: The... Here is one class, they're trying to become very strong to tolerate suffering, and other philosophies, they're making everything zero. There is no question of not suffering, but making zero. No suffering, nor neither suffering. Suffering or not..., both of them abolished, dismissed. This philosopher is... "This suffering cannot be dismissed. Therefore you be strong to tolerate it." Other philosophers they say, "There is suffering, so make it zero." But both of them have no information that there is real life where there is no suffering. Still there is life. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. There is life, but no suffering.
Bali Mardana: They're like owls.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (pause)
O'Grady: Well, a lot of young people that we meet in our teaching profession, we don't try to teach them any kind of didactic salvation. But we do try to direct them towards an awareness of what is best and what is most good for them and what is most spiritually nourishing in the world about them, in so far as the system allows us. And I speak of my friend Michael and we here. And the one condition or emotional state—because very frequently the students are not mature enough to be in a spiritual condition, they are in a emotional condition rather than a spiritual one—what we are faced with, is the basic question of "Who am I?" "What is it all about?" "Why am I here?" "Why should I be here"? "Who are you, and who the hell are you to tell me what to think or what to read or what not to read? Why should I read Shakespeare? Or why should I read Saint Augustine? Or why should I listen to Mozart? I prefer Bob Dylan," and these kind of questions which seem to emanate from a very disillusioned state of mind, an insecurity, an uncertainty, and a lack of credibility in the total structure of things as they are. And so we're frequently faced with not just directly having to answer these questions, as I said didactically answering them by saying in a catechismic sort of way: "Who am I?" "You are..." "What am I doing here?" "You are doing this here," which one can do, of course, also.
Prabhupāda: So...
Prabhupāda: The cats and dogs, everyone? The same? (German)
Pṛthu: (break) ...different from cats and dogs in as much as he has something spiritual in himself, and she says if this spiritual is more emotions and so on.
Prabhupāda: So what is that difference? (German)
Pṛthu: Cats and dogs are animals, and they don't have, animals, they don't have any spiritual life. They live more after instincts.
Prabhupāda: So if the man and animal is working for the same purpose... Just like man is eating, and the animal is also eating. A man is sleeping, and the animal is also sleeping. The man is also having sexual intercourse, and the animal also doing that. And man is also fearful of his enemy, and the animal also fearful of enemies. So if the platform of activities are the same, why the difference is there? (break)
Pṛthu: She says that the difference is that the men does all these activities with his mind and...
Prabhupāda: But the activity is the same, eating. Where is the difference between these activities or that activities? (German)
Prabhupāda: Hmm, no. Practically, we have very little suffering from disease. The devotees... We are spending so much money, but we don't spend for doctors' bill. You see?
Reverend Powell: Well, normal doctors, but now, we explain to our patients that the doctor normally works with the physical level, and the psychiatrist works with the emotional mental level, but the church works with the spiritual level. And just as Jesus...
Prabhupāda: Spiritual level means to cure his material disease.
Reverend Powell: Yes.
Prabhupāda: The material disease is birth, death, old age and disease.
Reverend Powell: I'm sorry. I don't quite follow that.
Satsvarūpa: He said the real disease is the material condition in which we have to suffer birth, death, disease and old age.
Reverend Powell: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So these things can be overcome by Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: I am not wanting. I am simply distributing the transcendental knowledge.
Professor: Will not transcendence be an illusion too?
Prabhupāda: No, no, there is proof. It is not emotion. What you say, you have no proof, but what I say I have got proof. What you say, you become your own authority. But what I say, I have got greater authority. Just like two lawyers speaking before the court—the lawyer who gives quotation from the authority, he gains the case.
Professor: Do you have any evidence?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Professor: Would you tell us your experiences in that field?
Prabhupāda: Yes, that, of course, it will take time for you to understand. Because unless you are lawyer, you cannot understand while the other lawyer is giving quotation. But the court will accept.
Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He still wants to go on with the same question he asked before: If we are content just to purify ourselves or if we also want to help the society.
Prabhupāda: No, you do not know what is self. How you will purify? You do not know what is self. Can you say what is self?
Prabhupāda: Hmm? She says "He."
Carol: ...not be governed by them.
Prabhupāda: She says "He," but He is impersonal. (laughter)
Carol: Yes. (laughs) It's the intellect and the emotion.
Prabhupāda: How vague ideas. And they are passing on philosophy. "He" contradicts. You say "He." And again He is impersonal.
Carol: At the emotional level it's a very personal...
Prabhupāda: Why should you emotional? You are a philosopher. You should talk very nicely.
Carol: Talk?
Amogha: He said, why be emotional? You are a philosopher, so talk very nicely.
Carol: Oh. (surprised) I don't philosophize.
Amogha: What she just said was that He is impersonal, but He incorporates personal features?
Carol: If God is in everything, then the personal attributes must be part of Him, it, whatever.
Amogha: She says personal attributes are part of God.
Prabhupāda: Why not express it? You can express it. If whatever is within your heart, if you cannot express, then you are not perfect. You must express what is within your heart very clearly. Not that I have got something within my heart and I cannot express. That means my knowledge is imperfect.
Carol: So often our understanding moves sort of separately the emotional, the heart.
Prabhupāda: Emotion is not required for scientific knowledge. Emotion is not. Useless. It must be factual. Emotion is no use. Emotion is useful in high, ecstatic love. Not for scientific study of something you require emotion. No.
Carol: In the bhakti way of doing things, this emotion and love are very closely entwined, aren't they?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is higher stage. Not in the beginning. In the beginning devotion means I should be devoted to you. Why should I be devoted to you unless you are worthy? Just like Kṛṣṇa says, "You surrender unto Me." So unless I understand that Kṛṣṇa is worth for my surrendering, He is worthy, why shall I surrender to Kṛṣṇa? If I demand, immediately you have come, that you surrender. Would you like to do that?
Carol: To surrender?
Prabhupāda: If I ask you that you surrender. I am meeting you for the first time. Would you like to surrender?
Carol: Yes.
Prabhupāda: No, unless you are fully aware of my abilities, qualities, why should you surrender? (indistinct) So, before surrendering, one has to study the person where he is going to surrender. Then he surrenders. That is real surrender. And blindly surrender, that will not stay. So, our first business is to surrender to God; therefore we must know what is God. Then you must surrender. And, the emotion is good. That means you are advanced. If you understand that God is giving us everything. So, that emotion is very good. If one from the very beginning becomes emotional, "Oh, God is so kind. God is so great, that He is giving us everything, our necessities. I must serve Him." This emotion is very good. But for ordinary man, this emotion does not come. He wants to study what is God. Then when he fully understands, "Oh, God is so great." Then that emotion is very nice. That is genuine emotion. Otherwise emotion is sentiment. That will not stay. That will not endure. It is temporary.
Carol: Would the intellect be helpful in knowing God?
Prabhupāda: Mind of a devotee is upon Kṛṣṇa. So what they will understand, that mind is in Kṛṣṇa? What they will understand?
Harikeśa: So according to different transcendental emotions, the mind will be agitated or calm or...?
Prabhupāda: It is not mind. It is spirit soul. You also do not understand.
Harikeśa: That's a fact.
Prabhupāda: Spiritual platform is different. But the spiritual activities expressed through mind, through body, through intelligence. That's it.
Harikeśa: Yes. So that will bewilder them, this expression.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Harikeśa: This expression through the..., it will bewilder them.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Indian man: They have taken up social work, isn't it? Everybody. Swamijī, I am now reminded. A few weeks back I was invited to Raj Bhavan. I went as an invitee of an invitee. And that Madhuben Shah(?) began to wax eloquent because he happened to be the president of the world union. And they said, "Oh, we want to integrate the entire world, and the emotion and gradation, all those things." And they invited the views of Aryans, of twenty-five persons. All spoke. I did not speak. I kept quiet. Somebody said, "Here is a person who really knows." I said, "I am sick of this talk.... (break) And why should we have another organization for the same purpose?" Then I said, "But anyhow, I don't know. If Kṛṣṇa..." Nowadays I use that...
Prabhupāda: (break) There is Theosophical Society?
Yaśodānandana: Yes, all over the world, international.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...started from here?
Indian man: It was started. Madras center and there in America.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...come from the other side. (break) ...registering this association, some friend suggested, "Why don't you make it 'God consciousness'?" And "No, 'Kṛṣṇa conscious.' If I bring God consciousness, they will bring so many gods."
Hari-śauri: He did that, (laughing) you did that in South India as well.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I think that...
Prabhupāda: No, no, when I come into emotion, I cannot check to speak the truth. But actually it is the fact. I cannot give any credit to these rascals (laughs) who are running at high speed, big, big car.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: What did we read? There was an article about Mars today.
Hari-śauri: Oh. Nonsense.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The scientists, again...
Hari-śauri: They were speculating about.... They sent this spaceship to Mars, and they were speculating that maybe now the so-called smog that covers the surface of the planet, it could be fog. It could be made of ice and water particles. So now they..., so they were speculating like that. And then they said they were going to land the spaceship in a valley at a certain point that is four miles deep and that may..., it may have been filled with water fifty thousand years ago, and it could have fossils in it from the type of life that existed there, if it existed.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Fifty thousand years ago. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Scientist rascal. How ludicrous. Simply "maybe," "if it was" and "it will be."
Prabhupāda: So where is your home?
Dr. Sukla: It's in Benares, Kāśī. So there were some books by Vivekananda, and he is emotionally against Vivekananda, so that's a little too much perhaps. So he brought those books so that I can read them, I was curious. And he said, "When you are through, give it to your cook." (laughter) That's the only functional use of those books.
Prabhupāda: For burning it in the fire?
Dr. Sukla: Yes, he said so that we can make our capatis, to have some use of those things. And Kṛṣṇa, of course, there's hardly a village in India where, whether knowingly or unknowingly, people are not aware what is Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: In India they know, everyone. They observe Janmāṣṭamī.
Dr. Sukla: Kṛṣṇa paraṁ bhajami. In India everybody knows Kṛṣṇa, even the illiterate person, but nobody knows Vivekananda. Only a few people, they started a Vedanta Society. Of course Veda is a very serious literature, it's not just anybody can get into that, it's a very, it's a disciplic...
George Harrison: When my mother died I had to send my sister and father out of the room, because they were getting emotional, and I just chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: She chanted.
George Harrison: I did.
Prabhupāda: Oh, very nice, so she could hear?
George Harrison: I don't know, I don't know, she was in like a coma or something. It was the only thing I could think of.
Prabhupāda: When it happened?
George Harrison: In 1970. It was the only thing I could think of that may be of value, you know.
Prabhupāda: Anyway, if she has heard Hare Kṛṣṇa, she'll get the benefit. Either she chants or somebody chanting, if she hears, śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam, both the same thing. Little chance. Svalpam apy asya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt. So let us practice in such a way that at the time of death we may remember. That is success. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9). So you are reading Kṛṣṇa repeatedly? Kṛṣṇa book you are reading repeatedly?
Prabhupāda: Yes. When there is something wrong, you just consult the original literature, not any literature issued by a bogus man.
Mike Robinson: Can you explain to me, then, the place of feeling in your religion. The place of emotions.
Prabhupāda: Our feeling is that we are dealing with the genuine thing, that's all.
Mike Robinson: And can..., if we can go on with that. Everybody seems to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa a lot of times during the day.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the easiest process to become purified, especially given in this age. Because people are so dull that they cannot understand spiritual understanding very easily. So in order to purify him, this chanting is especially offered, that if he chants Hare Kṛṣṇa, then his brain becomes purified to understand spiritual things.
Mike Robinson: You say it's the simplest one. Are there presumably other chants that maybe you yourself use?
Prabhupāda: I don't think there is any other chanting. This is the only chanting. Where is other chanting? You can manufacture so many, but this is the only, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Yes.
Prabhupāda: They say that there is a tissue in the brain, they disturb with this religious idea. They say like that. And if that tissue is operated then there will be no more religion. They can do that. With a brain operation he'll forget willfully. These rascal, so-called scientists, they can do anything.
Jagadīśa: There are some psychiatrists who are on our side though. So if we can rally their support... The whole thing is so emotional and based on this strong appeal by the scientists and leaders to avoid religion because of the distraction from sense gratification, that all of the charges against us are completely baseless. There's no foundation. And if we just carefully and with calculation expose all of their nonsense accusations, it will be a great victory. Especially now it has become such a national issue that the leaders of society have to become involved, otherwise they'll become implicated. They have to come out and say whether they support the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
Prabhupāda: But they're supporting.
Jagadīśa: They must support it. Actually, I'm sure that they're astonished to find out how intelligent all the devotees are. The devotees are the most intelligent people.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa yei bhaje sei baḍa catura. Then, what other letters.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Nobody knows who is his father.
Indian man: I want to understand, Guruji, that the saksaska, is it a sort of emotional belief or it is a concrete...
Prabhupāda: No emotional. It is fact. Concrete.
Indian man: Concrete reality.
Prabhupāda: Yes. If your mother says, "Here is your father," that's all right. You don't require any other. And that is paramparā. Mother knows how you were created by your father. So she is the ultimate evidence. That's all. You cannot speculate. If you disbelieve your mother, then there is no question of understanding your father.
Indian man: We all have at certain moments of devotion some sort of feelings when we feel we are very much near the God. But that concrete reality, to attain that, the only way is jñāna, upāsanā.
Prabhupāda: Yes, this is jñāna. But the jñāna must be received through the right source. Jñāna is not speculation. The modern rascals, they create jñāna by speculation. That is not jñāna. That is ajñāna. The same example. If you don't receive jñāna from your mother, there is no jñāna of father.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Dr. Sharma: Well, the heart transplants actually have been given up everywhere except one place, that's in Stanford Medical Center. And they are doing it because they are the one who initially started it, so they are emotionally stable about it. But actually I have gone and seen there, and they do it... The people are, you know, the recipient patient is very unhappy after the heart transplant. He's very restless, and he has nightmares and he is extremely unhappy.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Has Dr. Barnard of South Africa stopped it now?
Dr. Sharma: Well, he has stopped after doing nine, but Stanford people, they have done about almost over a hundred, and they can keep somebody alive another six months or a year or at the most two years. But the man, the man's existence is very miserable. He has to take so many drugs, and he is bloated like a balloon, and he cannot even do the simple duties like taking walks or going to bathroom. He has to be very careful. If he just slips, it will develop the fracture of his ventricle, and that's all. It is very, very unnatural, and I don't think they can solve this problem at all. It is just man's struggle (for) life.(?) And I know they are saying they will do only in people with proper insurance because the hospital bill is $70,000 for a heart transplant.
Prabhupāda: All rascals, they...
| Page Title: | Emotion (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Mayapur, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 22 of Sep, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=25, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 25 |