O'Grady: So you don't find it possible to achieve any absolute condition in our time?
Prabhupāda: No. In the material world it is not possible. This is the world of duality. Therefore so many different varieties of unity is suggested, but they are all failure. Just like when we were students in 1917, so there was League of Nations. And after that again there was war. (chuckles)
O'Grady: (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: And then, now they have manufactured United Nations. But for the last twenty years or more than that, they are endeavoring to be united, but when I go New York, I see flags are increasing, no united, disunity. You see? And war is going on. Therefore, on this material platform this so-called unity is impossible. Unity is possible only on the spiritual platform.
- vidyā-vinaya-sampanne
- brāhmaṇe gavi hastini
- śuni caiva śva-pāke ca
- paṇḍitaḥ sama-darśinaḥ
- (BG 5.18)
O'Grady: I'm not saying it's possible to achieve it. I'm not even thinking it's possible. I'm not even saying that I think it's desirable to achieve happiness in this life, in this world. Because I have a feeling, an intuition that...
Prabhupāda: No, there is possibility—when the consciousness is purified. That we are preaching, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Now, so long the consciousness is polluted, if I think that "I am Irishman," "I am Englishman," "I am Indian," "I am white," "I am black..."
O'Grady: Christian.
Prabhupāda: "I am Christian," "I am Hindu," they are all contaminated. There is no possibility of unity in the contact of this world.
O'Grady: That's very... I'll accept that.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
O'Grady: But supposing you think that you are neither an Irishman nor an Englishman or American, nor Christian, nor a Jew nor anything...
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is negation. Then you must say also what you are.
O'Grady: I am a mortal human being, a member of the animal kingdom.
Prabhupāda: No human being is immortal.
O'Grady: Mortal, mortal, mortal.
Prabhupāda: Mortal.
O'Grady: That which dies, rots and is forgotten.
Prabhupāda: That is some conception, mortality. Mortal? Mortality is not absolutism. So long you are mortal, you are not on the absolute platform because you are actually immortal. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, na jāyate na mriyate vā kadācit. Find out. Na jāyate na mriyate vā kadācit.
O'Grady: But is there anything wrong with accepting the fact that you are mortal, you die, you rot and you become nothing?
Prabhupāda: No. That is the polluted conception. Actually you are immortal; you do not die. That is your position. Read this verse.
Nitāi:
- na jāyate mriyate va kadācin
- nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ
- ajo nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ purāṇo
- na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre
- (BG 2.20)
"For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain."
Prabhupāda: That is it. That is the position of the soul. So when there is mortality, that is not perfect stage. And when he attains the stage of again immortality... Because actually he is immortal.
O'Grady: Actuality is immortal.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
O'Grady: Hm, not bad. Because actuality has to do with effect.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The actuality is immortal. He never takes birth...
O'Grady: Never takes bath?
Yogeśvara: Birth.
O'Grady: Oh, never takes birth, true. But immortality, I mean, actuality, of course, has to do with the actuality of the situation that we have right now, with you sitting there and we, as friends, sitting with you and engaging in gentle conversation.
Prabhupāda: Actually... Just like you are sitting in a different dress; I am sitting in a different dress. So the dress does not affect our actuality. We are human being. Similarly, the conception of body—"I am Irishman, I am Englishman, I am Hindu, I am Muslim, I am Christian,"—these are different dresses. So one has to become free from these designations.
O'Grady: Accepted.
Prabhupāda: So when one is free from the designations, then he becomes purified.
- sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ
- tat-paratvena nirmalam
- hṛṣīkeṇa hṛṣīkeśa
- sevanaṁ bhaktir ucyate
- (CC Madhya 19.170)
So when we become purified, our senses are purified, and when the purified senses are engaged in the service of the master of the senses, that is perfect life. That is nonduality, absolute.
Bhagavān: That can be experienced in the present.
Prabhupāda: Yes, by Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And practically, you are coming from different groups-Americans, Indians, Africans—but you don't think yourself as American or Indian or African.
O'Grady: But the system insists that you do.
Bhagavān: The world as it is, the society, the materialistic society, puts these bodily demands...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. The materialistic society means duality.
O'Grady: But that's unavoidable.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
O'Grady: Because of your physical existence...
Prabhupāda: Unavoidable, yes...
O'Grady: And your personal spiritualism as well.
Prabhupāda: But it can be avoided in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Just like the leaf of lily. It is in the water but it does not touches the water.
O'Grady: I didn't catch that last expression, no.
Bhagavān: Lily leaf.
Yogeśvara: To show how we can live in this world but still be transcendental.
Bhagavān: There's a lily leaf that sits on the water and even though it sits on the water it doesn't get wet.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Bhagavān: Prabhupāda is explaining we can be in this world...
O'Grady: But I don't think you can explain situations in one realm, in one area, in the terminology of situations in another one. Because if you put this element and this element together, you get salt. Now, if human nature was the same with that element in that person and that element in that person, you should also get salt. So if you've got fifty million elements and fifty million elements here you should get a mountain of salt.
Atreya Ṛṣi: If you can try to understand this example.
O'Grady: Oh, I can, understand.
Prabhupāda: What is that, salt? Salt example was... Explain.
Yogeśvara: What was your point?
O'Grady: I'm saying its difficult to argue about one kind of situation in terms of another kind of situation when the nature of the problem or the nature of the result is different.
Prabhupāda: No, the kinds or varieties may remain, but sometimes the varieties help. Just like if you bring varieties of flower in a vase, it becomes very beautiful, but they are all flowers. So you have to become flowers. So even in varieties there is unity of beauty.
O'Grady: Yes, I accept that, of course.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So that is... (break)