In the midst of... (Conversations)

Expressions researched:
"from the midst of" |"in the midst of" |"into the midst of" |"midst"

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk at Stow Lake -- March 27, 1968, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: Manifestation of Kṛṣṇa in five expansions. Kṛṣṇa can expand Himself. Not only Kṛṣṇa, even a perfect yogi he can also expand. Not as many as Kṛṣṇa. But a perfect yogi, from the scriptures we can understand that a perfect yogi can expand himself up to eight, up to nine forms. There was one Saubhari Muni. The Saubhari Muni he used to perform yoga practice within water. There were many sages who used to practice. Somebody within water. Somebody surrounding fire and in the midst. That means voluntarily putting the body into trouble, and at the same time executing yoga practice. They were so much advanced that in spite of all material trouble they would be able to execute spiritual duties. Saubhari Muni was sexually agitated within the water by the fishes. So he came out of the water, and the neighboring king, I forgot the name, he went there and demanded the king that "I want to marry your daughter. So give me your daughter." The king thought... (laughs) He was so ugly because he was within the water. So all body was, what is called?

Syamasundara: Distorted?

Devotee (1): Water-logged, yeah. The skin gets water-logged?

Prabhupāda: No, not that. There are some kind of weeds within the water.

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation and Interview with Ian Polsen -- July 31, 1972, London:

Prabhupāda: The, our present conditional life is rebellious. We have rebelled against the authority of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Lord. It is very simple thing. Just like a person, a citizen, if he becomes rebellious, then he is arrested and put into custody, and his life becomes conditioned, he has no freedom. Similarly, as soon aw we are rebellious to the authority of the Supreme Lord, we are captured by māyā—that is also an energy of Kṛṣṇa—and we become conditioned. So this is our position. So in this conditional life we can never be happy, that's a fact. So we have to transcend this conditional life and again become engaged in our constitutional position. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Now our consciousness is polluted. We are thinking different way. Just like a madman thinks that..., sometimes he says, "I am the king." He stands sometimes in the midst of the road: "Stop, I order you!" Does he not? Madman. (laughs) Nobody cares for him, but he says, thinks like that. Similarly, under the spell of this illusory energy, we are thinking differently. Somebody, I am thinking "I am Indian," you are thinking "Englishman," he is thinking "American." I am thinking "I am proprietor of this," I am thinking "I am the master of this." So many ways. These things are all madman's proposition, that's all. So this madness can go when we actually surrender to Kṛṣṇa. Then we can understand things as they are. So we are training our students in that way. If anyone is serious, then he can make his life successful, even during this span of life. So I'm very glad that you have got this attitude. So it is very simple thing.

Morning Walk Conversation -- September 28, 1972, Los Angeles:

Jayatīrtha: It's quarter to seven, thirteen minutes to seven. The advancement of material science really means to complicate the problems of life.

Prabhupāda: That's all, increasing the problem. They have to dig out petroleum oil from the midst of the ocean. Is it easy job?

Jayatīrtha: No.

Prabhupāda: But they will do it because they have got motorcars, they must find out petrol.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's why they are called development of new departments of knowledge. With the rise of necessity, they develop new departments of searching out the unknown.

Prabhupāda: What is the use of this development? It will be problem after all. What is the use of such knowledge?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They fail to see that point.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- June 12, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Yes. They're all demigods, these pictures?

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Demi-animals.

Prabhupāda: This is, I think, Adam and Eve, in the midst, middle? There must be some sense in the picture.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Yes, there is.

Paramahaṁsa: People are believing that at the end of life, there's just death. So why worry about anything else? Therefore we should just enjoy right now.

Prabhupāda: That is the difference between you and animal. The animal is in the slaughterhouse. He's not worried. But why you are worried. Suppose if you are brought in the slaughterhouse, and if you know that you'll be slaughtered, are you not worried? An animal is not worried. He's eating grass. That's all. So that is the difference between animal and man. If you are not worried, then you are animal. That's all.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- October 6, 1975, Durban:

Prabhupāda: Lakhani. This is Indian building.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: These are life members.

Prabhupāda: Lakhani.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: P. V. Lakhani. He was there last night.

Prabhupāda: So they are improving in the midst of obstacles, eh? The Indians?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: They are not given good facilities. Still, they are improving. (break) ...is there in your stock?

Harikeśa: Chewra is.

Prabhupāda: Chewra is there.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Chewra also we can purchase.

Harikeśa: Yesterday that puffed rice was Rice Krispies, cereal.

Prabhupāda: That was nice.

Morning Walk -- December 12, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: The fire is the same. There is fire. Fire is the same. In the life the fire is not different.

Harikeśa: No, what I mean to say in the example, that the people are there and the fire is also there...

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Harikeśa: So, in a...

Prabhupāda: Exactly the same way. In the factory there is big fire and there are workers also.

Harikeśa: But the life is the workers not the fire.

Prabhupāda: No. I mean to say, in the midst of fire, the living entity can live. That is my argument.

Akṣayānanda: But they can't jump in the fire and live. They will die.

Prabhupāda: No. That is material body. Spiritual... In the Bhagavad-gītā there is, (it says that) it does not burn into fire, in the fire. Adāhyaḥ, adāhyaḥ. So living entity is never burnt. Even if he's in the fire. So he may have a body of fire but he does not burn.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 9, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...purify the whole atmosphere. (break) ...world we are all condemned. Still, Kṛṣṇa has given so many facilities. There is a Bengali proverb. Bondhīr astekur bhaga.(?) Ast kur(?) means the place of garbage. If a aristocrat asks that "You have to live in my garbage place," "Oh, that is also better." Similarly, Kṛṣṇa.... This is garbage. This material world is garbage. Still, we live so comfortably. Now just imagine what is His dhāma. It is the garbage tank. Still so nice. And just think what is His real place, Goloka Vṛndāvana. (break)

Jayapatāka: ...gave us a very good record, very clean.

Prabhupāda: Purest in the world.

Jayapatāka: Officially, he said, the government is very eager to always keep an eye on your activities, but so far, you have not had any bad record. Therefore the government is favorable.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Otherwise, how Indira Gandhi could see me? Even in the midst of crisis she gave me time. She has got very impression. She said that "I have all faith in you, but because I am afraid of the these Americans..."

Jayapatāka: We understand how important it is to keep all our dealings in the open.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, yes, very, very careful.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Downtown. This is First Avenue here, at about ll6th Street, where we are now.

Prabhupāda: Our building is on the Fifty-fourth?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Fifty-fifth Street. Just near Broadway, one block from Broadway.

Prabhupāda: Broadway is important place.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very important. Our building is right in the midst of the theater, restaurant and entertainment section of the city.

Prabhupāda: In New York I feel little homely because first I came here, I was loitering on the street here and there. From 1965 September, to '67 July, continually I stayed in New York.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Yogi Amrit Desai of Kripalu Ashram (PA USA) -- January 2, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Letter of credit you can get.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, I hope they give it.

Prabhupāda: Bank of America will give.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: What, Śrīla Prabhupāda? (break)

Prabhupāda: (referring to Kumbhamela?) When I was in midst of the crowd, the crowd was so big that I was afraid: "If there is any rush, this child will be finished." Because if there is little rush, you cannot go back; you cannot go forward.

Hari-śauri: Yes, if you go in a crowd.

Prabhupāda: It is very dangerous. And if there is some force, you become suffocated. So still, people were going slowly. By grace of Kṛṣṇa nothing happened. But same thing happened later years when Jawaharlal Nehru was present. So many people crashed and fallen in the river Yamunā and died.

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Hari-śauri: Seems only the Indian scholars have got that vision, though. Only the Indian scholars have appreciated that these books have a chance for saving the whole humanity.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And that is our mission. We want to save.

Rāmeśvara: Here. "The set edition of the Bhāgavata series we hope will serve as a boon to the English-knowing world for its abiding values and ennobling thoughts of spiritual perspective to give the correct lead to mankind in the midst of sickening contemporary problems."

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is our mission. Who has written that?

Gargamuni: That's Dr. Krishna Gopal Gosvāmī.

Rāmeśvara: Head of the Department of Sanskrit at Calcutta University.

Prabhupāda: He has got good experience because university students they have become so rascal. In the university they don't care for professors, teachers. Don't care.

Discussion about Bhu-mandala -- July 5, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Bhāgavatam, one portion may not be exactly like... Just like if you are in the midst of the petal, you cannot understand it is petal. You see it is flat. You have shown in the map, there is a point so many miles. So that petal, middle portion, you can take it flat. It is not flat. It is curved. Whatever conception you make, that is defective. Rascals. First of all you have to understand this. So don't make it like this, like this, like this, like... Whatever it is said, that is all right. Therefore Kṛṣṇa said aśraddadhānāḥ. No faith. Faithless. We have challenged, by chemical combination make a small egg, sparrow's egg, and produce.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They can't do anything.

Prabhupāda: Then what is the value of your experiment? And still they are saying. This one point will kill them. Why do they not take this challenge? Huh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're rascals. There's no other answer. Only a rascal will go on maintaining that we can create life and they never have.

Prabhupāda: And they are getting Nobel Prize. Just see. Such rascals. And we say on the authority of Bhagavad-gītā, apareyam. This is inferior and that is superior. So how you can make superior with inferior ingredients?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Impossible. Without the superior touch the inferior cannot have any life.

Prabhupāda: That's a fact. They're seeing every moment.