In the pastimes of Lord Caitanya, Kṛṣṇa is manifested in five different features, known as the pañca-tattva, to whom Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja offers his obeisances in the fourteenth verse of the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Kṛṣṇa and His associates appear as devotees of the Supreme Lord in the form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu, Śrī Advaitācārya, Śrī Gadādhara Prabhu and Śrīvāsa Prabhu. In all cases, Caitanya Mahāprabhu is the source of energy for all His devotees. Since this is the case, if we take shelter of Caitanya Mahāprabhu for the successful execution of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we are sure to make progress. In a devotional song, Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura sings, "My dear Lord Caitanya, please have mercy upon me. There is no one who is as merciful as You. My plea is most urgent because Your mission is to deliver all fallen souls, and no one is more fallen than I. Therefore I beg priority.
Priority
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 3
In terms of a labor of love and its returns, the bhaktas, or devotees of the Lord, always have priority over persons who are addicted to the association of jñānīs, or impersonalists, and yogīs, or mystics. The word apare (others) is very significant in this connection. "Others" refers to the jñānīs and the yogīs, whose only hope is to merge into the existence of the impersonal brahma-jyotir. Although their destination is not so important in comparison to the destination of the devotees, the labor of the nondevotees is far greater than that of the bhaktas.
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta
CC Preface and Introduction
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
So this bhāva, the ecstatic stage of devotional service, one has to reach. That is the perfection, or that, the priority stage of love of Godhead.
So these things are recommended. Kṛṣṇa is personally explaining. Why should we not take advantage of these things? Why we are neglecting? It is suicidal. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is personally instructing how to become Kṛṣṇa conscious, how to become perfect in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and then, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma (BG 4.9), then you can go back to home, back to Godhead. Why we should not take advantage of this opportunity? This is not very good. We should take advantage. We have got this human form of body. We have got intelligence. And the statement and explanation is being given by the Supreme Personality of Godhead personally. Why we should not take advantage? This is suicidal policy. Thank you very much.
Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures
Prabhupāda: That is not recommended in the Vedic śāstra (laughter). Especially Śaṅkarācārya, he would not accept anyone unless he accepts sannyāsa. He never accepts anybody.
Acyutānanda: "There are many religious movements, how does Kṛṣṇa consciousness take priority?"
Prabhupāda: Because it is Kṛṣṇa's movement. He is the topmost. Mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti dhanañjaya (BG 7.7). Kṛṣṇa says, "There is no more superior truth than Me." Therefore Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the supreme truth. There is no more superior truth than Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Acyutānanda: "When a person dies, his soul will take another body? Then why is the population today increasing?"
Prabhupāda: Because they are blocked-up, bottle-necked. They are not going back to home, back to Godhead. Therefore it is crowded. (laughter)
Acyutānanda: "Why does Kṛṣṇa allow us to commit mistakes and later punishes us?"
Prabhupāda: That is His mercy. You want to do something bad, Kṛṣṇa says, "Don't do it," but if you want to do it at your risk, Kṛṣṇa allows, "All right, do it, and suffer yourself." Kṛṣṇa says, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). He does not say anything. But if you want to do something else, do it at your risk. That's all right. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.
So he was engaged in maintaining the family. Everyone is engaged like that. Cats and dogs also do that. It is not very extraordinary thing. Sometimes they say, "It is my duty." Yes, it is duty, but the prime duty is to solve the real problems: how to stop mṛtyu, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi (BG 13.9). That we forget. Minor duties we take priority. That is the present situation. They do not know that there is life after death, and according to our karma, we are getting the next life. This morning we were discussing, Kṛṣṇa is always ready. Automatically it is going on. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). As you desire according to the contamination of different modes of material nature, immediately the body's ready. Immediately after death.
Philosophy Discussions
Hayagrīva: For Kant, the true religion is the divine ethical state. He is..., he was fond of quoting the Christian Bible. When Christ was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall they say, 'Lo here' or 'Lo there,' for behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Now Kant footnotes this passage by saying, "Here a kingdom of God is represented not according to a particular covenant, but moral, knowable through assisted reason." So again he insists on the priority of God within, on the priority of ethical action and the freedom to accept ethical action. And this is epitomized in his famous line, "The starry sky above and the moral law within." The starry sky above is the abode of God, is very far away, but the moral law within is very close. Thus he emphasizes that the kingdom of God is within you.
Prabhupāda: Yes. If one is actually aware of God and His instructions, then the kingdom of God is within himself.
Hayagrīva: The Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone—that is one of his last books—he condemns prayer as an inner formal service to God, because God does not need information regarding the inner disposition of the person offering prayers. In other words, God does not need formal prayer to know what man needs. Such a prayer would be, "Give us this day our daily bread." However, Kant believes that it is good to teach children to pray so that in their early years they may accustom themselves to a life pleasing to God. So that prayer might add their...
Prabhupāda: That is religion: how to please God. That is not only restricted among the children, but authorized(?) to the children's father. One must know how to please God. That is real religion.
Śyāmasundara: He calls this concern is the symptoms of..., characteristics of existence, and he says that this existence has priority...
Prabhupāda: Yes. That we also say. Because I want to exist, therefore my concern means the struggle for existence. I am struggling, how to exist.
Śyāmasundara: But he says that this existence has priority over the essence. In other words, only when we get beyond...
Prabhupāda: What is that essence?
Śyāmasundara: This is what the man, a man has to choose-find out his essence. But first there is existence, before that search...
Prabhupāda: But the existence, therefore we say that your real problem is unless you know what is your position, then there cannot be any tangible program. If I know that I exist eternally, then my real concern should be how to check all these concerns so that I may live eternally without any concern. My question will be: "I am existing eternally. Why there should be concerns?" I must live and exist eternally without any concern. Why there have to be so many concerns? I do not want. Suppose the death. I know I shall death, but I do not know; I do not want to die. That is my concern. That my concern should be how I can live without death. That is real intelligent concern. There is death. I know I will die, but I do not wish to die. That is also fact. Suppose you are... If I take a sword and want to kill you, you know that you will die, why don't you accept, "All right, kill me. I'll have to die, so kill me"? Why you protest? Why you protest? Why you fly away? Why you (indistinct) defend? You know you shall die.
Conversations and Morning Walks
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: There is no then. Don't talk nonsense. If you are so much addicted to sleeping, you simply chant sixteen rounds and whole day sleep. But don't take food also. (laughter) Don't get up taking prasādam. "Now I have to honor prasādam. Let me eat sumptuous, then again sleep more."
Devotee: Is there some order of priority in service then? I mean, sixteen rounds is more important than anything else. And then following that, there's something else.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. If you cannot do anything else, you simply chant sixteen rounds, take prasādam, and sleep. (laughter) It is special prerogative for you. There is no then. This is, this is order for you.
Devotee: In a situation where there's a choice between say chanting and reading. Is chanting a better activity than reading?
Prabhupāda: Yes, chanting and reading is the same thing.
Devotee: But is one better than the other?
Prabhupāda: No better. That I explained. It is absolute. Either you chant or read, the same thing. But you have to fulfill the sixteen rounds. That's it. All right.
Prabhupāda: No. Side by side. Just like what world you can look after? Tell me, what is the particular way you want to look after?
Dr. Singh: Well, I mean that with Kṛṣṇa first (indistinct), so what is the first priority?
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Dr. Singh: First priority is to try...(break)...function.
Prabhupāda: What do you mean by this first priority? That I want to know from you.
Dr. Singh: No, you were talking, Swamiji, about the unification of the world.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The world is going on. We simply say that you take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness and you will be happy. Happy in this life, happy in the next life. So you are going on in this way. "In this way" means either out of the four classes. You may name in a different way. I say brāhmaṇa class, you say intelligent class. Do you agree that in the world there is an intelligent class of men?
Dr. Singh: Yes, but they can also work.
Prabhupāda: Everyone is working.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: No, I mean to say, where is that education in the university to prepare the student for the next life?
Mother: Oh, but he must fit it in.
Jesuit Priest: All the Catholic Universities all over the world are doing it. That's our main purpose, is to teach the young man and the young girl the success in this world, but above all,...
Prabhupāda: Then the next question...
Jesuit Priest: ...is the success in the next, which means union with God for eternity. That's top priority. And following Christ's words, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God," then all the other things are of very minor importance. It's closeness to God and return to be one with the Beatific Vision in heaven. That's the top priority, that's our aim in education, and that's what Michael was taught when he was at Sunnyhurst. And that he does well and gets a degree, yes, very good thing. He could be a doctor or an architect or a leader in commerce, what have you, of which all of which are essential for the well-being of the world. This time last year I was dead. I was picked up as unconscious in the corridor, and the doctors said that I had experienced... I was as near death as makes no difference. Well, if it hadn't been for the skill of the man that...
Prabhupāda: So...
Jesuit Priest: ...looked after me, I wouldn't be here this afternoon.
Prabhupāda: So next life, how it will be ascertained? What kind of body I am going to next life?
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: These are faulty, fault-finding. It is no good. Everyone. Kṛṣṇa did not say for Indian or American. For everyone. But at the present moment Indians are misled that they have been, I mean to say, induced to think that if they become like American or Western people they will be happy. That is misleading.
Vāsughoṣa: I was telling them that in America the big thing is they want to raise the standard of living, but then those people who had raised the standard of living, they are also killing themselves. But they don't want to listen. Actually in Nepal I was reading every day in the paper the king was saying that "Our goal is economic development. That is the top priority. Number-one priority is economic development."
Prabhupāda: Who? Which king?
Vāsughoṣa: King of Nepal, King Birendra. He's the only Hindu king in the world. He has so many... He is embarking on so many programs of economic development in his country.
Prabhupāda: Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). They have been described as "chewing the chewed." They have no eyes to see that Europe and America, they have developed so much economically, but what is the peace there? They're jumping quietly. You see? (laughter) They are going to chew the same thing, chewing the chewed.
Passerby: Haribol!
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Dhṛṣṭaketu: Does a person have to experience enough frustration to give up this process of...
Prabhupāda: Frustration, that already said, that everyone is frustrated.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: No, vegetable, vegetable has got life.
Mr. Dixon: Yes. What I'm asking is that because animals have a higher priority in life than vegetables?
Prabhupāda: No question of priority. Our philosophy is that we are servant of God. So God will eat, and whatever remnants of foodstuff He'll left, that we shall take. So in the Bhagavad-gītā... You find out this verse. Patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati (BG 9.26). Just like you have come here. So if I want to offer you something for eatable, it is my duty to ask you, "Mr. Nixon, which foodstuff you'll like to eat?" So you dictate, "I like this very much." Then, if I offer you that foodstuff, then you become pleased. So we have called Kṛṣṇa in this temple, so we are waiting, what foodstuff He wants to eat? So He said that...
Guru-kṛpā: "If one offer me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalam. He is asking very simple thing which everyone can offer. Just like a little leaf, patram, a little flower, puṣpam, a little fruit, and little liquid, either water or ghee, er, milk. So we offer that. We make different varieties with these ingredients, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyam (BG 9.26), and after Kṛṣṇa's eating, we take it. We are servant; we take the remnants of foodstuff left by Kṛṣṇa. We are neither vegetarian nor nonvegetarian. We are prasād-ian. We don't care for vegetable or not vegetable, because either you kill a cow or kill a vegetable, the sinful action is there. And according to nature's law, it is said that "The animals which has no hand, that is the food for the animals with hands." We are also animals with hands. We human being, we are also animal with hands, and they are animals—no hand but four legs. And there are animals which has no leg, that is vegetable. Apadāni catuṣ-padām. These animals which has no leg, they are food for the animals with four leg. Just like cow eats grass, the goat eats grass. So eating vegetable, there is no credit. Then the goats and the cows are more credit, have more credit, because they don't touch anything except vegetable. So we are not preaching to become goats and cows. No. We are preaching that you become servant of Kṛṣṇa.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Maybe they have to pay off a loan on the temple. All the devotees are well aware that Prabhupāda's books have first priority. Everyone knows it. The consciousness is very (indistinct) It's not a consciousness of giving.
Hari-sauri: Prabhupāda's point is that if you see fault with the method of implementing the spiritual master's instructions, you'll fail to follow the instructions.
Prabhupāda: No the point is not that they have not done any wrong. Don't think like that. But my point, that is, my instruction is sell books.
Bhūrijana: I understand. In other words if you think they're doing it wrong, you do it better. If you see the wrong thing... But do it. Make sure you do it, but do it without the wrong thing.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Bhūrijana: I feel that this is...
Prabhupāda: Besides that, if you do not take to Deity worship, then you shall remain unclean. That's a fact.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "15) Foreign temples will receive records for approximately 75 cents, while North American temples will pay one dollars. All profits made by the BBT for records will go to ISKCON Food Relief. Prices may increase if the costs rise. 16) Harikeśa Mahārāja will take responsibility to prepare the Māyāpur brochure. 17) The BBT Trustees for each division are responsible for setting priorities in each division." That means printing priorities. "18) The US BBT will experiment with importation of books from India as soon as..."
Prabhupāda: What happened to that book, Dialectic Spiritualism?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Spiritual Dialectics?
Prabhupāda: Yes, Dialectic Spiritualism.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Dialectical Spiritualism. I think Harikeśa was working on that, wasn't he, when he was here...
Prabhupāda: No, no, it is finished. It was being edited by...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, okay, well, I'll write and ask.
Prabhupāda: ...Hayagrīva. But he is doing nothing and taking money.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, they stopped his salary now. "18) The US BBT will experiment with importation of books from India as soon as practical. Gopāla Kṛṣṇa will make further efforts to increase the quality."
Prabhupāda: Yes, quality must be there. It is not yet standard. Unless quality is improved, it cannot be exported and spoil the market.
Correspondence
1971 Correspondence
For printing of course the priority is Bhagavad-gita. But the $20,000. given by the book fund for BTG should be replaced first of all. That is priority. You can go on depositing in the checking a/c no. 308161625, Bank of America, Pico-La Cienega Branch. All BTG collections and any book fund collections should be deposited so that you are able to repay at the rate of $5,000 per month. Any book distribution collections over and above that may be used for printing of the books, and as you see fit.
So far I know, the press is not competent to take outside work, as I know it by their past dealings. 10% per printing costs for maintenance needs, that was the arrangement, but if the maintenance costs have to be taken up by the book fund, that will be a white elephant problem.
1973 Correspondence
Today is Tuesday so I hope that the court case will be heard. The judge has intelligently asked Mrs. Nair to whom she will hand over the land. She has denied us and is considering Chhaganlal, but if the judge takes seriously that the land must be given to one of us, that will be a great success. Chhaganlal must insist on the contract price, 7 lacs and if we give him 3-4 lacs more profit, that will be a very excellent arrangement between Chhaganlal and ourselves. It appears he is friendly to us and if out of religious sentiment he delivers to us the land it will be very good for him. I think no need asking specific action on our behalf, on the other hand please try and get the land at Grand Paridi through the help of Karatikeya Mahadevia or Mr. Ramchand Chabria. They told me about this land for Temple and I think both of them can secure it, either freehold or cost price. The gentleman Mr. Thirani was met 2-3 times on planes or in airports and is eager to construct a temple for us immediately. So this is an opportunity given by Krishna and if possible we can construct both a city Temple as well as one at Juhu. If possible to construct in the city location then that should be given more priority. You may reply this letter to L.A. I hope you have taken possession of the new apartment at Juhu and are doing the needful.
1976 Correspondence
The Rs. 11-membership is imagination. What is that membership card? And how will you regularly collect such a small sum from the members? It will engage so much money just to collect this. In any case, this is to be discussed with the GBC. Don't discuss anything new haphazardly. I have no experience of the idea. So far I know, retail business is not good in comparison to wholesale business. The Hyderabad Deity is already installed. Simply they are moving Them to their new temple. The installation ceremony (bathing ceremony) can be at noon. Then again there can be the regular Janmastami function at midnight. Concerning my going to Madras, Delhi, etc. there is first priority engagement contemplated with Mr. Bajaj's group in Poona. Giriraja can consult with Mr. Bajaj and get date fixed up then you can make the program. I have no objection however to the pandal in Madras.
So many standing orders are being taken out but they are not being executed. Why? I have written to Gargamuni Maharaja to gradually repay the BBT for the books that they are getting but you must immediately supply them books to supply their orders. They can gradually repay.
1977 Correspondence
As you probably know, our society is facing a very serious courtcase in Germany. It is understand that if we have difficulty in this courtcase, we may not get further chance to print our German books. Whatever German books you have lying with you ready for printing should be immediately printed. This work should be given priority as our society's well-being there depends upon it.
| Page Title: | Priority |
| Compiler: | Rishab, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 14 of Apr, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=1, CC=1, OB=0, Lec=5, Con=7, Let=4 |
| No. of Quotes: | 18 |