The Great Soul Who Walked Among Us
…Someone
asked, “What is the Krsna conscious person’s attitude towards others?”
Srila Prabhupada replied, “He sees everyone as part and parcel of Krsna.
The Krsna conscious person thinks, ‘They are suffering from not knowing
Krsna, so let me bring them to Krsna.’ This is the highest service.
Everyone is suffering, so to act in Krsna consciousness is the highest
service. After all, they are suffering on account of detachment from
Krsna.”
The Great Soul Who Walked Among Us
Excerpted from Back to Godhead Magazine
Vol. 13, 1-2, 1978
“Consider
this example: when the sun is in the sky, there is no question of
darkness. Similarly, when the Hare Krsna mantra is vibrating on your
tongue and you are hearing attentively, then your consciousness becomes
Krsna consciousness, or clear consciousness, and there is no question of
maya, or hazy consciousness. Just as when light and darkness come
together the darkness cannot stand before the light, maya cannot remain
in the presence of Krsna.
“In
Bhagavad-gita, Krsna says to offer Him at least a leaf or a flower. It
is not that Krsna needs a flower or leaf. He is full. He does not need
you. But He wants you to come to Him in love. Therefore Krsna says,
‘Just stop all your nonsense and surrender to Me.’ “
“People are
thinking that if they get a car and an apartment, everything will be all
right. But the problems are still there. Still they must undergo death,
old age, and disease—so how is everything taken care of? They are
thinking in terms of this spot life. They do not know that they are
eternal. There are so many kinds of bodies, and they don’t know which
kind they will have to take in their next life. But if they take to
Krsna consciousness, all problems are solved.”
Once, Srila
Prabhupada commented on some big buildings being torn down: “They are
torn down and rebuilt—so many strong buildings. There is no pleasure in
it either way. Either in building them or tearing them down, nobody is
happy. It is like with a small child: he is happy to get a toy and then
is happy to break it—but there is no real happiness. Or just like a boy
and girl: they come together in union, and then they separate, divorce.
There is no real happiness either in the union or in the separation.
Real happiness is in union with Krsna and separation from maya
[illusion].”
“Nobody knows what love is. As soon as you say
‘love,’ there must be a person. We have no experience of impersonal
love. Everybody talks big words about ‘universal love’ and
‘brotherhood’—simply word jugglery—but no one has personal realization.
Love means giving! I give something, and you give something in return.
It is not that you can give Krsna just a flower and leaf and keep one
hundred dollars for yourself. If you do that, He won’t love you in
exchange; He is very clever. But if you give everything to Krsna, then
He will give you intelligence by which to come back to Him.”
“People
think it wonderful that Krsna had sixteen thousand wives. For an
ordinary man to have sixteen wives is very difficult. But God is
omnipotent. Why sixteen thousand wives? He could have had sixteen
million or sixteen billion wives. But fools say that it is all
imagination that He could have had sixteen thousand wives. As Krsna says
in Bhagavad-gita, ‘Fools and rascals deride My human form.’ He is
inconceivable. They have no idea of the spiritual. They try to think of
Krsna materially, but He is inconceivable. So they say that He doesn’t
exist, that He is impersonal. They say that the sky is greater than
Krsna because it is not limited by form. But they do not know that
millions of skies are within the mouth of Krsna! They think it is all
imagination, but He is simply inconceivable. You have to accept this.
Krsna says, ‘All the universes are held up by one quarter of My energy.’
Fools and rascals do not know what even one universe is, and yet Krsna
is upholding countless universes with one quarter of His energy. Just
imagine what three quarters of His energy is. Even though Lord Siva and
Lord Brahma have meditated on Krsna for thousands of years, still they
do not know Him.”
“Even if men go to the moon, they won’t have
attained perfection. Anywhere you go in the material world, you have to
come back to birth and death. On any planet, you’ll find the four
principles of material suffering—birth, death, disease, and old age. The
period of my life may be very long, but after leaving this body I may
be pushed into the womb of a mother on the moon planet and come out
there. Wherever there is birth, there is death—and in between there is
disease and old age. But I am a spirit soul: I have nothing to do with
these miseries. “The present life is meant for preparation, and you can
prepare to go to any planet you desire. But if you go to the Krsna
planet, you haven’t got to come back. So why not prepare to go to the
Krsna planet?”
“The spirit soul is eternal—the oldest—but he is
always fresh. For instance, although I am the oldest man here and you
are all young, I have the same propensities as you. The body hampers my
real happiness. Therefore, our problem is how to get out of taking one
body after another. Krsna gives the solution. ‘If you go to My planet,’
Krsna says, ‘you will not come back again. You will get eternal life,
full of knowledge, and you will enjoy with Me. Here is real information
about the highest perfection of the living entity. It is not a bluff,
nor is it artificial.”
“The name Krsna and Krsna Himself are
identical, on the spiritual platform, everything is identical. In this
material world you may talk on the telephone with someone a thousand
miles away. You are hearing his voice, but you cannot derive the full
benefit of being with the person himself. But with spiritual sound there
is no such difference. You immediately make contact. In spiritual life
there is no use thinking of something void—simply struggling for it and
wasting your time. Krsna consciousness is tangible. Why not contact
Krsna? He is so nice and beautiful. He is accepted as the Supreme
Personality of Godhead by saintly persons, great scholars, and they have
achieved success.”
“The more you make advancement in Krsna
consciousness, the more you will see Krsna everywhere—on the bank of the
river, on the streets, trees and lamp posts, and everywhere else. The
more you see like that, the more you know you are making tangible
advancement in Krsna consciousness. Actually, there is nothing but Krsna
all around us. This is explained in the Gita. He is the taste of water,
the light of the moon, the fragrance of the flower, the light of the
sun, the sound in the sky, the power of the strong, and so on. So one
who is actually making progress in Krsna consciousness can see Krsna
everywhere. At every stage of life, who can avoid the sunlight, the
moonlight, the fragrance of the flower, the taste of water? But one has
to learn that Krsna is in all these varieties of existence. Without
Krsna there is nothing. It is simply by the influence of maya that we
forget the relationship of Krsna with everything that be.”
“There
are two things you may want to ask about a flower—how this flower is
being produced by the energy of Krsna, and how you can create a flower
the way He does. The first thing is to appreciate Krsna’s energy—that He
can produce a flower—and the second is’ ‘How shall I get yogic power so
that as soon as I attempt, I can produce a similar flower?’
“In
Benares there was a yogi who could just take a plate and you’d find a
rasagulla, a sweetmeat. Because of this power, many scholars said, ‘Oh,
he is a great yogi—he can manufacture a rasagulla.’ People are
captivated by magic—so foolish. What is its worth? One rasagulla, four
cents. And another, again four cents. Don’t be allured by a magician. He
can play so many tricks, but that is not perfection. Just try to revive
your eternal relationship with Krsna. What magic can anyone show before
God?”
“Cleanse the mind and intelligence, and the body is
automatically cleansed. The hatha-yoga system is for those who have a
gross bodily concept of the self. Krsna says to Arjuna, ‘You are
grieving for those for whom you shouldn’t grieve—the living and the
dead.’ This is the first ‘slap’ by Krsna in the Second Chapter of
Bhagavad-gita. When Arjuna surrendered, Krsna at once gave him a verbal
slap—’You are nonsense.’ A spiritual master can do that. They were
talking as friends, but then Arjuna surrendered: ‘You just teach me.’
This is only in the Second Chapter, yet this principle is at once
established. See how much of the book is left.
“Krsna says that
the wise man doesn’t care for the material body. But hatha-yoga mainly
concentrates on the body. By bodily exercise one wants to have Krsna’s
love! If this were possible, all wrestlers and sportsmen would have
achieved Krsna’s love.
“The preliminary stage is to make the body
suitable for elevating one’s consciousness. We in Krsna consciousness
keep the body clean, just as we keep a coat clean, but we don’t think we
are the coat. The mind is the controller of the senses. Therefore, Lord
Caitanya’s program of chanting begins with the cleansing of the mind,
and this takes care of the cleansing of the body. Otherwise, where is
the time? Separately, it takes a long time to make the body fit and
perfect to receive Knowledge. That is why it is said that only a
high-class intellectual can accept Krsna consciousness. After many
births, one surrenders—but why not surrender at once and become a wise
man? If someone is offering me a million dollars, why should I say, ‘No,
thank you—I’ll earn it myself, ten dollars at a time’?”
“Krsna is
very kind, but He is especially kind to His sincere devotees. Krsna is
always with us, within our hearts, and He is always ready to give us
directions. But because everyone is independent, Krsna responds
according to our mentality. If one voluntarily cooperates with Krsna’s
desire, Krsna responds to one’s call very eagerly. Krsna descends to
teach us Bhagavad-gita, begging our cooperation, and anyone who
cooperates with Him is blessed.”
“If you really want Krsna, you
will realize Him quickly. But most people want maya on the plea of
wanting Krsna. Somebody goes to Krsna and asks, ‘Please supply me this
maya.’ People go to church and pray, ‘Please give us our daily bread.’
They aren’t asking for God—they’re asking for bread, for maya. But even
if I want maya, it is better that I ask Krsna for it. One day my
relationship with Krsna will be so nice that I will forget maya and want
Krsna.
“So if you have a desire for maya, you should still take
to Krsna consciousness. Just like Dhruva Maharaja: he wanted to worship
Krsna with the desire to achieve the kingdom of his father. Of course,
when he finally saw Krsna he said, ‘I don’t want anything but You.’ But
Krsna is so kind: ‘You came to Me for this purpose—come on, take it.’
Dhruva said, ‘No,’ but Krsna told him, ‘No, take it. You will enjoy
it—but then you’ll leave it behind, and I assure you that you’ll come to
Me.’ Without separate desires, Krsna consciousness is very nice, but
even with desires, one should come forward to Krsna. One’s other desires
will be fulfilled. If one follows some path besides Krsna
consciousness, one’s separate desires may be fulfilled, but he won’t get
Krsna.”
Someone asked, “What is the Krsna conscious person’s
attitude towards others?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “He sees everyone as
part and parcel of Krsna. The Krsna conscious person thinks, ‘They are
suffering from not knowing Krsna, so let me bring them to Krsna.’ This
is the highest service. Everyone is suffering, so to act in Krsna
consciousness is the highest service. After all, they are suffering on
account of detachment from Krsna.”
“Krsna consciousness never
becomes old, it is fresh eternally. Do you know of any book five
thousand years old that reads as fresh as Bhagavad-gita? Live in
spiritual understanding and you’ll never become faded.”
“Don’t try
to do something artificial. Krsna does not say, ‘Come to Me after being
qualified by studying Vedanta No. He says, ‘Come as you are—simply
surrender.’ And you should say, ‘Krsna, I surrender to You.’ Krsna makes
no condition. He doesn’t say, ‘Yes, you can surrender if you have
undergone courses in gymnastics and Vedanta and have gotten your M.A.’
This is all nonsense. Simply surrender. The more you surrender, the more
you advance. If you are not sincerely surrendered, you are missing the
point. I have told you the secret, now make your choice. Krsna is
guiding everyone.”
“We want unlimited life, unlimited pleasure,
unlimited knowledge—but this is not possible in conditional life.
Liberation from the material condition is recommended. If you want to
get free from the material clutches, the first prescription is that you
should go to a mahatma. Mahatma means one whose heart and mind and life
are expanded. Bhagavad-gita recommends seva—you have to approach a
person who knows the science of how to get out of the clutches of
material life, and then you have to surrender fully to him.
“Surrender
does not mean that you don’t question, that you simply have to take
everything blindly. After explaining the Bhagavad-gita to Arjuna, Krsna
said, ‘My dear Arjuna, I have now explained the most secret knowledge.
Consider what I have said, and then do whatever you like.’ The spiritual
master—whether he is the representative of Krsna or is Krsna
Himself—does not force. Force has no effect: even a child, if forced,
won’t act.
“With a cool head we have to approach a person who
knows the science. Find a person you can surrender to. Don’t surrender
to one who’s not an authority. And if you approach a real authority,
don’t think, ‘Oh, let me accept this spiritual master—so many people
have accepted him.’ Try to understand the science nicely. If you think
the man teaching you is a real authority, surrender to him. Try and
understand with all reason and argument. You’ll find something sublime.”
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