Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṛṣṇa consciousness means that every living being, part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa has got many expansion. That is called personal expansion and separated expansion. So separated expansions we are, we living entities. But although we are very intimately connected with Kṛṣṇa, somehow or other we are now separated by contact of material nature. So we have practically forgotten that we are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Actually that is the fact. And because... Just like a rich man's son. Somehow or other, he has forgotten his father, and he's loitering in the street as a poor man. But actually that is not his position. He has forgotten simply. So our, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means we are trying to invoke that original consciousness that he's part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Why he should remain in this material world and suffer the threefold miseries? So we want to revive that original consciousness. The original consciousness is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Just like a man born of a lord's family, his title should be the lord's family. But unfortunately, forgetting his own home, he is accepting some menial title. So our whole Vedic literature is meant for that purpose, to revive his original consciousness.
Invoke (Conv. and Letters)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes. This is, this is essential for advancing in spiritual consciousness. Just like kindergarten system, the children are given some wooden, I mean, some plans to form some A, B and C like that, (indistinct). So this not like, exactly like the (indistinct) system. This system is introduced by great ācāryas, authorities. So we have to follow. In the beginning we have no love for Kṛṣṇa, so this process will help how to invoke his love for Kṛṣṇa. This is standard process.
Mohsin Hassan: This is the Vedic philosophy of the ritual.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness means that every living being, part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa has got many expansions. That is called personal expansion and separated expansion. So separated expansions we are, we living entities. But although we are very intimately connected with Kṛṣṇa, somehow or other we are now separated by contact of material nature. So we have practically forgotten that we are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Actually, that is a fact. And because he forgets, just like a rich man's son, somehow or other he has forgotten his father, and he's loitering in the streets a poor man. But actually that is not his position. He has forgotten simply. So our, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means we are trying to invoke that original consciousness that he is part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Why he should remain in this material world and suffer the threefold miseries?
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Human life is meant for achieving that stage, Kṛṣṇa prema, love of Kṛṣṇa. Then life is successful.
- sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo
- yato bhaktir adhokṣaje
- ahaituky apratihatā
- yayātmā suprasīdati
- (SB 1.2.6)
That is wanted. Therefore this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is meant for invoking the dormant love for Kṛṣṇa that is there in everyone. Just like four or five years ago these boys, they did not know what is Kṛṣṇa. And now their countrymen is surprised: "How these boys are after Kṛṣṇa, mad after Kṛṣṇa?" That means love of Kṛṣṇa was there. It has simply be invoked. In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta,
- nitya-siddha kṛṣṇa prema 'sādhya' kabhu naya
- śravaṇādi-śuddha-citte karaye udaya
- (Cc. madhya 22.107)
The Kṛṣṇa prema, love of Kṛṣṇa, is within everyone. That love is being expressed in so many ways. Actually that is love for Kṛṣṇa. So when one invokes that love in proper condition, then he loves Kṛṣṇa and loves everyone. Here the so-called love is for some purpose.
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes. You have to organize all... There are many Vaiṣṇavas. Eh? In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, satataṁ kīrtayanto mām (BG 9.14). One has to chant "Kṛṣṇa" always. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu: kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ (CC Adi 17.31). And this rascal is saying "nuisance." So it is not possible to invoke an agitation against this? What right he has got to say nuisance? He could have spoken in a sweet language that "The bhajana may be very good for the devotees, but it creates disturbance to the others. Therefore we cannot allow." I say like that. But they cannot still stop bhajana. But he has remarked the bhajana: "Nuisance." This very word will kill him if you make proper agitation.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda? Sometimes we find a dilemma in preaching, in the sense that if we preach very vigorously we invoke the attention of the authorities. That is to say, if we were to preach a little less vigorously, there might be less objection, but then again there would be the less benefit because we would not be preaching as vigorously. It's very hard to know sometimes just how forcefully to preach.
Prabhupāda: No, we are not to satisfy the authorities. We have to satisfy Kṛṣṇa. Just like Arjuna. He wanted to satisfy his family members, but Kṛṣṇa did not like that. Then He preached him Bhagavad-gītā, and then Arjuna agreed, "Yes." Kariṣye vacanaṁ tava (BG 18.73). So it is the duty of the devotee to satisfy Kṛṣṇa, not the public.
Bhakti-caru: Charan Singh (Hindi) "Ninety murders in one district. 'There was a constitutional breakdown in the states,' he said. The chief minister of Maratha states had admitted to him that his government's reach was no longer running the way it had done earlier. He was receiving many complaints from the U.P., Rajasthan, and Haryana. Fifty murders have been committed in one district in Bihar in one week. Mr. Charan Singh's statement, which was preceded by the (indistinct) meeting earlier in the morning, led to a spate of questions. He was asked whether he was going counter to the spirit of the federal structure which permitted different ruling parties and centers and states, whether the ruling party M.P. would be asked to resign if a state..., if the states they came from turned down his party government and whether the central government would not invoke the power of an article which stated by the Constitution despite capitalism in the Janata party election manifesto."
Prabhupāda: So what is this yoga? (laughs) Sanjay Gandhi's yoga, just see. A rogue, devil, he is practicing yoga. His mother was practicing also yoga, the same.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Few years ago there was a German physicist Schroedinger(?). He wrote a book called What is Life? And he said life could be understood just like physics. Then this Freeman Dyson(?)... He's a very renowned scientist in Princeton University. He gave a lecture in our university at Emory about few months ago. He was speaking about cosmic manifestations of the universe. And I asked a question about this Schroedinger's(?) approach, saying that Schroedinger is a very well known and Nobel Prize-winning physicist. He stated that life could be understood in terms of physics and chemistry. I asked him, "What do you think about this approach?" His answer was "Schroedinger did not know at that time that the physics of modern science, especially quantum physics, cannot be explained without invoking consciousness." That means life is a different entity than normal physics and chemistry. So they are starting to realize, at least to some extent, that life could be completely different process than was planned about few years ago.
Prabhupāda: So on the whole, they have not come to the platform to know about life. That's all right.
Correspondence
1967 Correspondence
What is done in the past to advertise us is already done. Now we should work solidly to attention of important men, and try to make them understand that this movement is the most authorized scientific agitation to invoke man's dormant Krishna Consciousness. I completely support your idea about the preaching method. We are not lacking in philosophy—by the grace of Krishna we have got ample stock to answer anybody's intricate philosophical questions. There is no necessity of stopping questioners by dogmatic statements as it was done in the beginning. I have every hope in you because you are educated and have understood the philosophy completely. You should try to get another newspaper article out explaining the real scientific position of our movement.
They have got their office in San Francisco at #601 California Street. You can see the manager there and try to get free or concessional freight service for our temple goods. The only thing is that you have to impress upon them that Krishna Consciousness is an international organization for invoking man's dormant spiritual life. You can show him our other literatures, records and activities to convince him in this regard. You can also inform them that on the other side (Calcutta to New York) the Scindia Steam Navigation Co. has already given us facilities. We have also arranged for incense supply with a nice factory in Calcutta. I am carrying with me some varieties of samples. On the whole I have fixed up the carrying co., the musical co., the incense supply co., the cloth supply co., and all other things which you might require from India. You have no difficulty in getting things and you can chalk out your own program. Hope you are well.
1968 Correspondence
This is not possible. This ecstasy doesn't depend on the intelligence or non-intelligence; it is spontaneous response, without any cause. If one is fortunate to have such ecstasy, it is to be understood that his life is successful. We do not advocate any sectarian religion. We are concerned to invoke our dormant love for God. Any method that helps us in reaching such platform is welcome, but we find practically that by chanting Hare Krishna, many students have come to the platform of ecstasy. But we have hardly found anyone to come to that stage simply by following the religious rituals; that is the difference. So, Krishna Consciousness is meant for the most intelligent class of men.
And the best process or the easiest process, in this age especially, is to chant the Holy name of God. From this definition of religion as we find in the Srimad-Bhagavatam, the criterion test of religion is how it helps people to develop his dormant Love of God, which is not artificially invoked, but it is aroused from within by bona fide association of devotees and hearing about God.
The human form of life is specially meant for this purpose, namely, to invoke the dormant Love of God, because better development of consciousness is found in the human body. Animal propensities for sense gratification equally found both in man and animals. But the special significance of human life is to achieve Love of God as the prime perfection of life.
We are a non-sectarian society, and our members include people from Christian, Jewish and Moslem as well as Hindu faiths. The aim of ISKCON is not to found a new religious sect, but to invoke the living entity's dormant love of God, and thus provide the human society of all faiths with a common platform of clear theistic knowledge and practice. Members of ISKCON may retain their own respective religious faiths, as ISKCON is meant to establish a clear, practical common formulation of the common ideal of all theists, and to defeat the unnecessary dogmatic wranglings that now divide and invalidate the theistic camp. This common ideal of theism is to develop love of God.
We are following in the footsteps of Lord Caitanya to invoke the dormant love of Godhead. The sum and substance of this teaching is that the living entity is eternally the subordinate servant of God, but unfortunately, being sophisticated by illusion, everyone in the human society is trying to predominate over others without accepting the Supreme Predominator. A case in point is the recent Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.
1969 Correspondence
And the easiest process for this age is to chant the Holy Names of God. From this definition of religion as we find in the Srimad-Bhagavatam, the criterion test of religion is how it helps people to develop their dormant Love of God. This love is not artificially invoked, but it is aroused by association with devotees of the Lord and by hearing from the authorized scriptures.
The human form of life is especially meant for this purpose of reviving our God consciousness because the better development of consciousness is found only in the human body. Animal propensities are found both in animal life and human life, and unfortunately, people are nowadays more concerned with the principles of sense gratification, or the animalistic part of life.
Then our mission will be successful. Actually at the present moment, never mind if one is Christian, Jew, or Moslem, most people are Godless and don't care for God. They simply take an official stand, but actually, from the depth of their heart they have no idea what is God. So we have to invoke the dormant understanding of God-consciousness; that is the principle of Krishna Consciousness Movement.
I do not know how a Christian can violate this important commandment of the Bible, "Thou shalt not kill." So in this way, if we want to criticize we can, but it will simply increase our enemies. Better let us try to invoke the dormant transcendental emotion by chanting and dancing.
You try to understand this philosophy more seriously, and as you are able try to write articles on this subject matter without being inclined to compromise with any other religious faith. I shall write you again from Hawaii. In the meantime you can let me know if you have got the manuscript from Rayarama, and reply to this letter to the Hawaii address: ISKCON, 4 Leilani Building, 1649 Kapialani Boulevard, Honolulu, Hawaii. Enclosed is a page of poems by Bhaktivinode Thakura to be translated into French and printed in your magazine. I hope this will meet you in good health.
1970 Correspondence
What value have these material riches got? But when it is engaged in Krishna's service, it is spiritualized.
Regarding your question where is the Gayatri mantra in the first verse of Srimad-Bhagavatam, I have explained in my purport to the first verse that the Gayatri mantra "Dhimahi" is purposely invoked by Srila Vyasadeva. This explanation is given on page 53, and in the verse, the mantra concludes the sloka param satyam dhimahi.
| Page Title: | Invoke (Conv. and Letters) |
| Compiler: | Mayapur, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 08 of Oct, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=8, Let=10 |
| No. of Quotes: | 18 |