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How is bad and good the same thing, Srila Prabhupada?

Expressions researched:
"How is bad and good the same thing, Srila Prabhupada"

Conversations and Morning Walks

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Just like we are walking on this street. Sometimes we say, "This is very good." And sometimes, "It is very bad." But the street is the same. So how it is good and bad? This is simply mental speculation.
Morning Walk -- January 9, 1974, Los Angeles:

Prajāpati: Jaya. Your lecture this morning was brilliant, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Your logic could defeat anybody. (Prabhupāda chuckles) The theological rascals, though, they will not accept any authority except their own mind. They are such nonsense.

Prabhupāda: That is called mano-dharmī. In Sanskrit it is called mano-dharmī, mental speculators.

Prajāpati: It's a disease, actually.

Prabhupāda: And therefore, mental speculators, they have been condemned. Manorathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ (SB 5.18.12). Because they carry on, or they are carried by the chariot of mind, manorathena. Manorathena asati. Manoratha, when you drive on the chariot of mind, you cannot get any fixed idea. Because mind is flickering. Saṅkalpa-vikalpa. Mind's business is "Accept this, and again reject it." So all these speculators are doing. Somebody is putting forward some theory, and after some years he will himself reject or somebody else will reject. So manorathena, by mental speculation, you remain on the material platform. You cannot get any spiritual idea. Therefore harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇāḥ. Anyone who is not in the spiritual platform... Spiritual platform means to be a devotee of the Lord. The Māyāvādīs, because they are not devotees of the Lord, they are not on the spiritual platform. They are on the material platform. They are speculating, spirit—"something negation of matter." That's all. That is mental speculation. It is bad. "Good means negation of bad." They are thinking like that. They do not know, in this material world, bad and good are both the same thing. Because it is matter. That they do not know. They think, "This is bad, this is good." But they do not know, materially conceived anything, good or bad, they are the same thing. That they do not know.

dvaite bhadrābhadra-jñāna, saba—manodharma

ei bhāla, ei manda—ei saba bhrama

Dvaite means this external energy of Kṛṣṇa. There everything is infected.

Bahulāśva: How is bad and good the same thing, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Just like we are walking on this street. Sometimes we say, "This is very good." And sometimes, "It is very bad." But the street is the same. So how it is good and bad? This is simply mental speculation.

Bahulāśva: Sense perception?

Prabhupāda: Eh? Mental speculation. When it is dry... So dryness also, sometimes it is, "Oh, it is very dry, bad." And again, say dry, we shall say, "Oh, today is very good." It is simply mental speculation.

Devotee: It is like wet stool and dry stool. It is still stool.

Prabhupāda: Eh? Yes. (Chuckles) Yes, that is the example. The dry part of the stool, they say, "Oh, this part is very nice." He forgets that, after all, it is stool. So what is the dry or moist? Just like they are making scientific advancement. But the death is there. So what is the use of your advancement or no advancement? One who has not advanced in science, he'll also die. And you'll also die, advanced. Then what is the good? You cannot protect yourself from death. Then what is the meaning of this "good"? "This is good. This is advancement, and this is not advancement."

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But the distinction, the good and bad...

Prabhupāda: That is your distinction. You have made such distinction.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I think that depends on the consciousness of the individual.

Prabhupāda: Relativity, relativity, law of Relativity. What is, what is food for one is death for other, the same thing. So how you can say the food is good or bad? Is it not? "One man's food, another man's poison." So how you can distinguish this is food or poison? One man will say, "No, it is food." Another man will say, "It is poison." So how you'll distinguish? So this good and bad is simply mental speculation. Because it is in the material platform, there is nothing good. Everything is bad. Otherwise why Kṛṣṇa said, sarva-dharmān parityajya (BG 18.66). In the name of "dharma," so many rascaldom is going on. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, sarva-dharmān parityajya. It is not dharma. And Bhāgavata says, dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo 'tra: (SB 1.1.2) "This cheating type of religious system is rejected from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam." All so-called religions, they're simply cheating. Cheating. Dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavaḥ. Kaitavaḥ means cheating. Everything is cheating. They say, "We are advancing." What you are advancing? The problem, birth-death, is there. So what is the meaning of your advancement? Dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo 'tra paramo nirmatsarāṇām (SB 1.1.2).

Prajāpati: This is the only means, then, to get off that manorathena.

Prabhupāda: Manorathena, yes. Manorathena means if you remain on that platform, then you have to reject again. Just they are doing, the so-called scientists, philosophers. They are putting forward some theory, and after some time they reject it. So if you remain on the mental platform, then this business of accepting and rejecting will go on. You'll never come to a conclusion. Therefore one has to rise to the spiritual platform. That is nityaḥ śāśvato 'yam, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). That is eternal, everlasting.

Prajāpati: Not a theory.

Prabhupāda: No. Yes.

Umāpati: They just constantly speculate on the material nature.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Umāpati: They speculate on the material nature.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Umāpati: And they can never be spiritual.

Prabhupāda: No, no.

Umāpati: Just always material.

Prabhupāda: Number of zeroes never make one. It is zero. You add thousands of zeroes, one after another, the value will be zero. Not one.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But there is a theory, Śrīla Prabhupāda... Not theory. It's a fact, that if some number is raised to the power zero, that becomes one. In mathematics.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But I am speaking that you combine millions of zeroes. That will never become one. That I am speaking. Zero is zero. Zero plus zero equal to zero. Zero minus zero equal to zero. Zero multiplied zero, zero. Zero divided by zero, zero. That's all. Where you get...? And by the side of zero, if you bring one, eko brahma, immediately it will become ten. And add another zero, immediately hundred, ten times increased. That one must be there, one God. Then zero increases value. Similarly, this material world is zero, but if there is Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then it is valuable. Then it is valuable.

Prajāpati: But that manorathena, the chariot of the mind, that is never valuable.

Prabhupāda: No, it has no value.

Prajāpati: The whole western...

Prabhupāda: Manorathena asati dhāvato bahiḥ. By mental speculation, you will remain on this asati, in this temporary field. Asat means "which will not exist." Anything in this material world, you take, that will not exist. Anywhere man can say. The skyscraper building is constructed, but everyone knows that it will not exist. Some day it will fall down. Everyone knows. It will never exist. That is explained by Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā, that "If you think that by combination of matter, life has come, so life was not there before the combination. And this combination will dismantle. So life, there will be no more life. So why these three period you are lamenting? There is life." Because according to this theory—"The combination of matter makes life"—so before combination there was no life, and the combination dismantled, there is no life. So beginning and end no life. Why you are lamenting in the middle? Very good reasoning. Just see. Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja says, māyā-sukhāya bharam udvahato vimūḍhān (SB 7.9.43). Māyā-sukhāya, that illusory, illusory happiness. Māyā-sukhāya. And for that reason, they are making huge, gorgeous arrangement and working day and night, which will be zero. It has begun from zero and it will end into zero. In the middle they are busy. Just see. Therefore vimūḍhān.

Page Title:How is bad and good the same thing, Srila Prabhupada?
Compiler:MadhuGopaldas, Rishab
Created:13 of Jun, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=1, Let=0
No. of Quotes:1