Sermon

Expressions researched:
"sermon" |"sermoning" |"sermons"

General Lectures

Lecture -- Visakhapatnam, February 18, 1972:

Nobody can become greater than God or equal to God. Therefore, God's another name is asamaurdhva, that is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. Nobody can be equal with God, nobody can be greater than God. Everyone must be... Ekale īśvara kṛṣṇa āra saba bhṛtya (CC Adi 5.142), that is the statement in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. God is only one, Kṛṣṇa, and everyone is servant. Of course, God's servant and God, there is little difference. Because sometimes servant has got greater power than God, that is different thing. But actually nobody can be greater than God, nobody can be equal to God.

So the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, we are not manufacturing anything. We simply place it that here is Kṛṣṇa, you are searching after God.

When I first went to America, they were speaking that God is dead. Even church, in the church, the priest in the church, they were sermoning that God is dead. But when I began chanting in the Tompkinson Square alone underneath a tree, Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa, these boys and girls began to assemble. So next day there was a big publicity in a paper with my picture and all this crowd that they say that "We thought God is dead, but here we see the Swamiji has brought God again in his kīrtana, in his chanting." They admitted. The New York published in all their papers. So God cannot be dead. Not that everyone can be God. God is one, and that is Kṛṣṇa.

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Radio Interview -- March 12, 1968, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: Yes, generally we chant this mahāmantra, Hare Kṛṣṇa, and then we deliver speeches from Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and then there are questions, we answer, and in that way the audience and the disciples they become enlightened and they advance.

Interviewer: But there's no sermon as we would know in other churches?

Prabhupāda: That is, you can call sermon, because there is prayer song and there is, I mean to say, recitation from scriptures...

Interviewer: Well, you have six chapters, so evidently you cannot be everywhere at once. Who is in charge of a temple when you're not here?

Prabhupāda: The students are being trained. The students, they also speak the same thing. There is nothing new. I also speak from the Bhagavad-gītā and the students also speak from the Bhagavad-gītā. The Bhagavad-gītā is the same in all the centers. But it may be because I have little more experience I can explain them a little more nicely. And the students, they also explain according to their experience. But the principle is the same.

Interviewer: Caller, you're on the air on KGO with the Swami.

Caller (woman): Ah, yeah. I'm not involved with it, but I'm curious. I'm wondering if there's any similarity between meditation and hypnosis? In other words, the hypnotic state?

Interviewer: Or is meditation self-hypnosis? Is that what you're asking?

Room Conversation -- October 27, 1968, Montreal, With First Devotees Going to London On Evening of Their Departure:

Prabhupāda: Annapūrṇa is always present wherever I go. (laughing) She is very nice, that she wants to follow me. This morning I was asking her that "After your marriage where you want to stay?" and she said, "Wherever you stay, I stay." "And I am traveling. Then you are married. You must have a place to settle." Anyway, in that church they charged us for meeting, but we collected very nicely. We collected more than hundred dollars. Yes. A very nice meeting.

Janārdana: How many people were there?

Prabhupāda: More than hundred, because we collected hundred dollars, and utmost, they have paid one dollar.

Janārdana: The summer season is very slow in Montreal. The churches cut down their sermon program. The synagogues don't having sermons in the summer very often. So that's why we haven't had so many engagements. But in the month of September things begin to pick up faster. The coldest time of the year is the busiest time of the year here actually. The real busy season is January and February.

Prabhupāda: Yes. I was speaking to Gaurasundara that Janārdana speaks, "The winter season is the busiest season," and you said, "It is dull season"? (chuckles)

Janārdana: January and February are the busiest, and they are the coldest months too.

Prabhupāda: Very busy?

Janārdana: Yes.

Prabhupāda: How you are feeling, Śāradīyā? Nice?

Śāradīyā: I'm fine.

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation Including Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.1-34 Recitation & Explanation -- April 1, 1969, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: Thank you very much. Naraṁ caiva narottamam devīṁ sarasvatīṁ. Sarasvatī, the goddess of learning. And Vyāsam, and then Vyāsadeva, who is the master of Vedic literature. One after another. This is... Vyāsaṁ tato jayaṁ udīrayet. Then he is... He was questioned by the audience that what is the most important religion in this age? That was their question. There are many types of religious principles. So what is the best one for this age? So he is replying that question. Munayaḥ sādhu pṛṣṭo 'haṁ bhavadbhir loka-maṇgalam (SB 1.2.5). "You have put very nice question, because you have put the question that 'What is the best religion for the people of this age?' " Yat-kṛtaḥ kṛṣṇa-sampraśno yenātmā suprasīdati. "And you have, you are very much anxious to understand the activities of Lord Kṛṣṇa. It is very nice. By this discussion everyone will become actually peaceful and satisfied." So the answer, "What is the best religious principle?" He is answering. Sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhokṣaje (SB 1.2.6). "My dear brāhmaṇas..." in that meeting all the audience were great learned sages and brāhmaṇas. So he is addressing them. That is the best form of religion which performing one becomes elevated to devotional service of the Lord. Not religious formalities. One has to test by the result. Phalena paricīyate. You are Christian, I am Hindu, or he is Mohammedan. That's all right. You are very good, I am very good, he is very good. But what is the result of your following religion? Have you attained love of God? Simply I go the church, I go to temple, and I do all kinds of nonsense, I have no love for God, I have love for my māyā and I go simply..., that is useless. Religious principle means... It doesn't matter whether you are Hindu or Christian or Muslim or anything. It doesn't matter. Just see Bhāgavata. Sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo (SB 1.2.6). That sort of religion is nice, best, by which you can develop love of Godhead. It doesn't mention that "This religion is best, that religion is best." That religion is best which helps someone, the religionist, to develop love of God, Godhead. If you put to test all kinds of religion in this formula of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, you'll understand which religion is best. You haven't got to ask anybody. Simply by testing how much one has developed love of Godhead. How much one has learned to love Kṛṣṇa or God. If, following any type of religion, if you get this result, then you have performed your religious principle very nicely. This is the answer. And what kind of love? Ahaitukī, without any cause. "Oh, I love God because I want something from Him." Generally, as they love God, distress, they want something. "My dear Lord, I am very unhappy. Please help me." That is also good. That is not bad. That is accepted in Bhagavad-gītā. But that is not pure love. Pure love means there is no reason. "Why I am loving Kṛṣṇa? Oh, there is no reason. I love Kṛṣṇa. I want Kṛṣṇa." This is love. Just like Caitanya Mahāprabhu says... You have got this translation in my first book, that, that Advaita has quoted that śloka in his sermon.(?)

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with French Journalist and UNESCO Worker -- August 10, 1973, Paris:

Dr. Inger: It's difficult to answer it.

Prabhupāda: This is going on.

Dr. Inger: When I asked a group of priests at a meeting which was to celebrate the anniversary of a leading Catholic thinker, I.R. Shadder(?), I just asked him about the Sermon on the Mount, referring to similarities between the teachings of Sermon on the Mount and Hindu thought. He says, "You see, but the point is this, that the Sermon on the Mount is not meant for everybody. It is only meant for a very few. And therefore most of us, including the present company," he said, "cannot use it in everyday life." I said, "Do you mean it is only meant for monks?" He hesitated but said, "If you like, yes." But I said, "I imagined that this was meant for everyone and that anyone could follow it." And he said, "Well, it is too dangerous a teaching to give to everyone."

Prabhupāda: Just see. And therefore I say, "Cheater and cheated." Yes. Similarly, scientists also. Recently in Los Angeles, California University, one professor, a big scientist came. He's a Nobel Prize owner. He described, gave lecture. He has written one book, on which he has got Nobel Prize, Evolution of Chemicals. He wants to prove by chemical, combination of chemical, life has come into existence. That is his theory, like Darwin's theory, that life is from matter or chemical. So after hearing the lecture, there is a professor also, a student, yes. He is also Doctor of Chemistry. He is my disciple. He inquired that "If I give you all these chemicals, whether you can produce life?" At that time he said, "That I cannot say." Just see. He is proposing that "From these chemicals, life has begun," and when he is questioned whether by supplying these chemicals he can produce a life, he said, "That I cannot say." This is going on. Then what is the... Then, if you cannot say, then why you are saying that from these chemicals life has come? So when they are caught up for practical purposes, they'll deny. And they are passing on as philosopher, as scientist, priest, and these things. Just see. (someone comes in) What is that?

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Catholic Cardinal and Secretary to the Pope -- May 24, 1974, Rome:

Monsignor Verrozano: Yes.

Dhanañjaya: That was our festival. The Bhāgavata-dharma discourses.

Bhagavān: We had a festival program in India. We've had one in Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, and for one week, and Srila Prabhupāda has spoken many times every night there. There's been thousands of people, ten thousand people.

Monsignor Verrozano: Yes, yes. And just last year about the 20th of January, it was this week of festivals also, this conscience of preaching sermons, many manifestations. Many people attended, and I too visited this, yes, also.

Prabhupāda: In Calcutta also we had such functions. About thirty thousand people were coming in Bombay.

Monsignor Verrozano: Could you be so kind to say to us something about your movement which is spread in the world.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Our movement is that, that is first-class religious system which teaches how to love God. This is the sum and substance of our movement. There is a Sanskrit statement in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam,

sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo

yato bhaktir adhokṣaje

ahaituky apratihatā

yayātmā suprasīdati

(SB 1.2.6)

If you want to be happy, then you must take to the superior type of religious system which teaches the followers how to love God without any motive, and which is never checked by any material condition. God's name is given here as Adhokṣaja. Adhokṣaja means beyond experimental knowledge. God has got many name according to different situation, and one of the name, for the materialistic person, adhokṣaja. Akṣaja means experimental knowledge. Akṣa means eyes or senses. Beyond sense perception. So we cannot speculate about God, but we can understand about God from authorities.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- September 30, 1975, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: Even Christianity considers His ākāra—"God has form."

Prabhupāda: No, Mohammed also has got... Caitanya Mahāprabhu argued in Koran. He proved there is kṛṣṇa-bhakti. He proved with the Pathans. Yes.

Dr. Patel: Otherwise the Christianity is just our way, I mean, absolutely Vaisnavism. It has been wrongly preached and wrongly initiated in India. That is why it has fallen to disrepute. Otherwise Christianity is just Vaiṣṇava-dharma. Nothing else, to my mind, the way I have studied, I mean the New Testament and all the Christian, all the things. Now, the sermon of Christ is nothing but the preaching of Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: I never criticized. I simply said that positive side, God consciousness.

Dr. Patel: Christ himself was drunk with God consciousness totally.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Dr. Patel: Christ himself was drunk with God consciousness in toto, absolute.... There cannot be a higher bhakta than that. It is said that Jesus Christ learned all these things in India. It might be a fact?

Passerby: (Hindi)

Dr. Patel: And he daily bhakta. (?) He came for pūjā, for guru. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...devatā bhaktāḥ, te 'pi mām eva kaunteya yajanty avidhi-purvakam. They give examples, as the gopīs worshiped Kātyāyanī. But that is not avidhi. They went to Kātyāyanī for getting the favor of Kṛṣṇa. They prayed to mother Kātyāyanī, "Please be favorable to us so that Kṛṣṇa may be pleased upon us." Others go to beg from Kātyāyanī some material benefits, but the gopīs, they did not ask for any material benefit. And therefore that is vidhi.

Morning Walk -- November 20, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: We are Kṛṣṇian, and they are Christian. There is similarity.

Dr. Patel: Nomenclature. Christ was really a bhāgavata, I mean, in a true sense.

Prabhupāda: Anyone who accepts God, he is bhāgavata.

Dr. Patel: Christ, sir, really taught absolutely bhāgavata-dharma. The way... All his sayings, the New Testament and his Sermon on Mount, all is absolutely Bhāgavata. I have studied it very, in great detail and compared the two myself. So Christ was the greatest Hindu, to tell the truth. But as those people in the Middle East were heathens and absolutely junglis, they crucified him. Had he been here he would have been a big saint and avatāra.

Prabhupāda: Recent history is that he did not die. He came to Kashmir.

Dr. Patel: Came to Kashmir. There is a tomb in Kashmir. I read some literature about it. His resurrection... They say that they smuggled him out of that cave. It is possible. When he was on the cross, he...

Prabhupāda: No, even by yoga system...

Dr. Patel: He must have gone in a trance.

Prabhupāda: He lived by trance.

Dr. Patel: He was a great devotee. There is no doubt about it.

Prabhupāda: By trance.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: So he has not returned with the key?

Hari-śauri: Who? Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa?

Prabhupāda: Hmm. Still more?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. "After the sermon, more chanting. Now it really becomes frantic, and even compelling. Many curious first-time visitors begin to take up the mahāmantra chant. The hard-core group at the shrine seems to be completely carried away. The terrazo floor literally vibrates. Gradually the crowd begins to thin. Other things are happening in the center. On the third floor there is a traditional Vedic play in costume, acted with enthusiasm." (sound of kīrtana)

Hari-śauri: It's going downstairs somewhere, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Ādi-keśava: They're getting everybody together to go out on saṅkīrtana party.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It says here, "On the second floor there is a store which attracts many visitors who want to buy Indian costumes, jewelry and the movement's books. Prasādam is served in the basement restaurant. Visitors eat at tables in the same area where monks had breakfast on the floor. The prasādam features Hindu dishes served in the compartments of plasticized paper mess trays." Then it goes on. Now there's another article about you. Why are they holding a kīrtana now?

Ādi-keśava: They're getting a kīrtana party together to go out on hari-nāma down at Times Square (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: Hmm. What does he say?

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- February 18, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: The religion is only this Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Hari-śauri: The Christians know that if our movement spreads, they are finished.

Prabhupāda: They are already finished. You showed me that... Already finished.

Satsvarūpa: Jayatīrtha sent a cartoon from Punch Magazine. Big, big church, and the priest in the pulpit, and there's only lady there, and in the sermon he's saying, "Mrs. Bennett, you have to give more in the collection." She's the only one there. He said, "I think you will enjoy this, Prabhupāda. It shows the position of churches in the West."

Prabhupāda: Yes. I have seen London. So many hundreds of churches are closed.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, we're buying all the churches.

Prabhupāda: All churches are closed.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Just see. They call a meeting of five hundred rabbis, all of the leading rabbis, and the Jewish leaders in the whole USA, just to deal with this question of "The cults taking our children."

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Us? Au...?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. We're the main cult.

Prabhupāda: Then? This is a verse. They do not know what is the aim of life.

Hari-śauri: "Neither cleanliness nor proper behavior nor truth is found in them." All liars and cheats.

Prabhupāda: This is demon.

1967 Correspondence

Letter to Pradyumna -- Calcutta 17 October, 1967:

The last attack of maya upon the conditioned souls is impersonalism. There are 4 stages of attack of maya; viz.: 1) stage is that a man wants to be a protagonist of religion, 2) is that man neglects religiosity and tries to improve his economic development, 3) is to be protagonist of sense enjoyment & when a man is frustrated in all the above mentioned stages he comes to, 4) which is impersonalism, and thinks himself one with the Supreme. This last attack is very serious and fatal. Kirtanananda has very recently developed the 4th stage malady on account of his negligence & disobedience to his spiritual master. Sometimes a foolish patient when he is out of feverish attack by the grace of the physician, thinks that he is cured and does not take precaution against relapse. Kirtanananda's position is like that. Because he helped the society in starting the Montreal center I thought he is now able to start other branches & when he asked me to give him sannyasa I agreed taking the opportunity of his presence in Vrndavana. Simply by his Sannyas dress he thought himself as cured of all material diseases & all mistakes but under the influence of maya, he thought himself a liberated patient, just as the foolish patient thinks himself cured from the disease. Under the spell of maya, he deliberately disobeyed me by not going to London & consequently his disease has relapsed. Now in N.Y. he has began to dictate nonsense in my name—such as giving up robes, flags etc. Instead of opening new centers he has began to deliver his nonsense sermons amongst his God-brothers which are all against our principles. For the present he should simply chant Hare Krishna & cease to deliver lectures because he has not understood the whole philosophy very nicely.

1969 Correspondence

Letter to Satsvarupa -- Tittenhurst House, England 31 October, 1969:

I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated October 28, 1969 with enclosures. The pamphlet sermon is not unfavorable. It is indirectly favorable because in that pamphlet the writer has admitted that the Christian church is waning and people are seeking after some new type of religion. That he has admitted. He says "Suppose the Christian church is waning, suppose even that in 10 years it will have gone out of existence. What then?" So these Christian priest are already feeling the pulse of their religious principles, and they are not very much hopeful. He writes another place that a woman being asked by her friend why she was not coming to church, the woman replied, "Oh, we don't go to church anymore." So far as we are concerned, he has admitted that the boy whom he spoke with was soft-spoken and polite. He seemed intelligent and had obviously been well brought up. In another place he says "What interested me most however was that here was a boy who was obviously religiously inclined. He was trying to find God and was trying to help other people find God, and he had taken up his post in front of a Christian church to preach Krsna." Don't you think that indirectly he is feeling the effect of our preaching work and his whole pamphlet is written as if he is afraid of the Krsna cult, which is spreading like wildfire? So we shall not be at all discouraged by such writings. Rather we should take the real fact that people are actually hankering after the real type of religion.

Letter to Satsvarupa -- Tittenhurst House, England 31 October, 1969:

Similarly, if we are full with Krishna vitality, then wherever we go the audience will be impregnated with Krishna Consciousness. Now some of our leading boys, like you, Brahmananda, Tamala, etc. you should be very careful to train your other junior Godbrothers to the right type of preacher, keeping full faith in Krishna and the Spiritual Master, and executing the routine works of chanting and following the regulations. That will make you all great preachers, and wherever you go you will come out victorious.

Now coming to some other points discussed in the Cathedral Sermons pamphlet, we may take notice of the writer's statement which may help us in understanding the real position of Christian religion. In one of the statements he says the Bishop Dean, the former Executive Officer of the Anglican Communion, said to the general Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada last month that he gives the church as it exists today ten more years of life. The reason the church was dying he said was because it had become irrelevant. This means that the church people no more can convince the advanced, educated men of the present day. In another place he says in discussing the Ten Commandments of the Bible about the sanctity of (human life). Instead of exactly quoting the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," he replaces by his own words "Thou shalt do no murder". But he does not know how his own words reflect to the then society wherein Lord Jesus Christ was preaching. To say to his audience, "Thou shalt do no murder" means they were very much accustomed to commit murder. So what is the position of that society where the members are accustomed to commit murder, and what class of preaching can be made to such persons? As we see in another religious principle there is instruction that henceforward you shall not co-habit with your mother. So we have to judge such societies where there are murderers and those having sex life with their mothers, what kind of men they are. In the Bhagavad-gita the religious principles are divided into three categories: in the modes of goodness, passion and ignorance. Generally, all so-called principles are in the modes of passion and ignorance.