740418 - Morning Walk - Bombay

Morning Walks by Date, 1974

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

740418MW-BOMBAY - April 18, 1974 - 15:36 Minutes

Prabhupāda: . . . cetasā nānya-gāminā. One has to practice. (break) It will take some time.

(break) . . . yuktena cetasā nānya-gāminā. One has to practice. That means his determination is not yet fixed up. Because he is very rich, he is thinking that, "This is all right." That is another defect of becoming very much rich. Bhogaiśvarya prasaktānāṁ tayā upahṛta-cetasām (BG 2.44): "Those who are too much attached to this material enjoyment and . . . by which his consciousness is bewildered . . ." All these defects are there because he is too much attached to material enjoyment. (break) Why don't you give him dress if he has no dress? This is not good. You have not marked it?

Girirāja: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Then what is this? He's . . . give him dress.

Girirāja: (indistinct aside) (break)

Prabhupāda: Give him lesson how to make tilaka. He has come to your shelter. You teach him. (break) Just like a diseased person, if he is a little careless, he is not very strict in following the . . . it will take some time. It is exactly like that. He, because of his material opulences, he thinks that "Oh, where is the disease? This is all right. I am happy." That is the defect. We have to reduce. That is called tapasya. Not that, "Because my tongue is asking me to eat something, therefore I must eat." Not that. That is the difference between ordinary man and gosvāmī. Gosvāmī means one who has conquered over the dictation of the senses. My sense dictates to do something, but when I am able to dictate the sense, "No, you cannot do it," that is called gosvāmī.

(aside) Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break)

Dr. Patel: . . . maybe an African or Indian?

Prabhupāda: No, Indian.

Dr. Patel: African, after all. Americans must be first . . . (indistinct) . . . some politically conscious Africans.

Prabhupāda: We have got about ten African devotees now in our Nairobi branch.

(break) . . . attached to material sense enjoyment. Such person cannot take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

(break) . . . avoid the dictation of the senses. But when a man is able to dictate the senses, then he is gosvāmī.

Dr. Patel: That is . . .?

Prabhupāda: Gosvāmī.

Dr. Patel: "One who is lord of go, senses."

Prabhupāda: Yes, senses. In that stage he cannot give up. Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartante. When one sees that, "This is better quality than the other," then he takes. Unless . . . because superficially . . . suppose for becoming Vaiṣṇava he has to undergo so many austerities. So ordinary man cannot find out that this is better life than that. So when he understands, "This service is not good. To serve Kṛṣṇa is good," then he can give up the service of māyā. Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (BG 2.59). Just like an ordinary servant, he is serving in your house, but if he gets some more salary in other's house, he gives it up. That is required. Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate.

Girirāja: (reading from Kṛṣṇa book) "This māyā, or illusory struggle for existence, is immediately stopped. Lord Brahmā, who has full control over the goddess of learning and who is considered to be the best authority in Vedic knowledge, was thus perplexed, being unable to understand the extraordinary power manifested in the Supreme Personality of Godhead." (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . muhyanti yat sūrayaḥ. Tene brahma hṛdā ādi-kavaye muhyanti yat sūrayaḥ (SB 1.1.1). (break) . . . said that unless one comes to understand the inconceivable power of God, there is no meaning of God.

Dr. Patel: It is impossible to conceive God.

Prabhupāda: No, no, inconceivable power of God. God is in your presence.

Dr. Patel: No, no, but His personal power is inconceivable. Nobody understands His power. Power is . . . (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . understand the inconceivable power of God. (break) First of all he has to come to the sattva-guṇa. Sthitaḥ sattve prasīdati.

tato rājas-tamo-bhāvāḥ

kāma-lobhādayaś ca ye

ceta etair anāvidhaṁ

sthitaḥ sattve prasīdati

(SB 1.2.19)

When one becomes free from the rajo-guṇa and tamo-guṇa, the symptom is . . . rajo-guṇa and tamo-guṇa means lust and greediness. So when this rajo-guṇa and tamo-guṇa is absent, then the sattva-guṇa becomes prominent. Every guṇa is there. Tato rajas-tamo-bhavaḥ kama-lobhadayas ca ye, ceta etair . . . the consciousness does not become infected by the resultant action of tamo-guṇa and rajo-guṇa. Then the only sattva-guṇa remains. So when one is situated in sattva-guṇa, sthitaḥ sattve prasīdati, then he becomes jubilant, prasīdati. That is brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā (BG 18.54). So one has to overcome the jurisdiction of rajo-guṇa and tamo-guṇa. At the present moment the whole world is covered mostly by tamo-guṇa and little by rajo-guṇa.

Dr. Patel: Americans have more by rajo-guṇa. They are creating and creating and creating.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: We are by more tamas. They are indolent, don't want to work. (break)

Prabhupāda: Everyone makes this mistake . . . (indistinct) . . . so as he is accepting, as Arjuna accepted, this is paramparā acceptance. (break)

Girirāja: ". . . the material luminaries, Your transcendental effulgence is identical with brahma-jyotir.' " (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . advised, and all the ācāryas advised, Caitanya Mahāprabhu's advised. Why should we go somewhere else? Take shelter of His lotus feet. That's all. Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekam (BG 18.66). This is right conclusion. Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān māṁ prapadyate (BG 7.19). (break) . . . mahātmā, immediately by surrendering to Kṛṣṇa. Immediately. (break) A child, if he is informed, "God is everywhere," he will never understand what is God. He knows that God is there, that this God consciousness is there. So what is the use of educating him, "Oh, God is everywhere. You don't require to go to temple"? This is nonsense. It is kaniṣṭha-adhikārī. He must know, "Here is God." He goes there, offer respect. All the children come. (break) . . . a man, military man like Arjuna.

Dr. Patel: Yes. Can he be a general?

Prabhupāda: Mr. Sar.

Mr. Sar: Arjuna, yes.

Dr. Patel: Arjuna was a very, very great general, the most ideal general of representing the real culture of this country.

Prabhupāda: That is wanted. It doesn't matter. Nanda Mahārāja, a vaiśya. Arjuna is a kṣatriya. And there are many śūdras also. So what is that goat-caṇḍāla. He was a caṇḍāla. But everyone has got the right to become a devotee. That is wanted. (break) . . . tanu-vāṅ-manobhiḥ (SB 10.14.3). Remain in your place, but giving aural reception to the Kṛṣṇa message, you become a devotee. That is our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. We don't ask anybody to change. We want to make him transcendental. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate (BG 14.26). (break) Brahma-stuta śruti-kārayan. Now, in the brahma-stuta, śruti-kārayan, brahma-stute, yaṁ brahma, beginning . . . so that is yaṁ brahma. Then simply if you recite, yaṁ brahma . . . you must know who is that yam. And that is being explained by Kṛṣṇa. Here is that yam, Kṛṣṇa.

Dr. Patel: Vasudeva, bolo.

Child: (chants verse in Sanskrit)

Prabhupāda: Devakī ānandam.

Dr. Patel: Kṛṣṇaṁ vande jagat guru.

Prabhupāda: Yaṁ brahma-varuṇendra-rudraḥ stunvanti divyaiḥ stavaiḥ (SB 12.13.1). Sometimes the impersonalists argue, "If nobody has seen Him, then where is His form?" But here is. Brahmā, yaṁ brahma. Here is Brahmā is praying. So why you say nobody has seen? Brahmā has seen. Therefore he is offering.

Dr. Patel: Bolo asitagirā samaṁsyāt. He'll recite half a dozen.

Prabhupāda: That's right. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Child: (chants more Sanskrit verses)

Prabhupāda: Idhar toh kuch prasad hai nahi. Tameva mata bolo. (There is no prasāda here to give. Recite Tvameva mata.)

Child: (chants more verses)

Prabhupāda: Isko arth bhi bata dena. (Tell him the verses meaning also.)

Dr. Patel: He wants to study Sanskrit from now, when I read all those books. But his father has put him directly in English medium. It becomes very difficult. I have to take him out and now he can read Sanskrit. You can read.

Prabhupāda: English medium, Sanskrit.

Dr. Patel: English medium, the intelligence gets baffled, because it is not a mother language.

Prabhupāda: Aurobindo Ghosh studied English from the very beginning.

Dr. Patel: But he was extremely clever. He studied then Gujarati, not even Bengali. After he came from England . . .

Prabhupāda: He came to Gujarati. No. He came to Baroda.

Dr. Patel: Then he studied Gujarati, but he did not know Bengali at all. And then he came . . . (break) annam brahma vyajanat, what is that? (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . annam brahma vyajant (Taittirīya Upaniṣad 3.2) From our childhood, if there was a rice grain on the floor, my father and my mother would ask me, "Take it and touch it on your head."

Dr. Patel: Yes. We were advised not to tread on the grains. (break)

Prabhupāda: Because by chance, if the grain is struck with the leg, she asked, "Take it and touch it on the head."

Dr. Patel: That is the culture . . . (indistinct) . . . culture.

Prabhupāda: Means from the very beginning he understands anna-brahma.

Dr. Patel: Even it is not spoken, you practice it.

Prabhupāda: Yes, practice it. According to Vedic culture, the higher class, in every home there is nārāyaṇa-śilā for worship, especially of the brāhmins.

Dr. Patel: In our homes we have all these small such temples, small chapels. All of us, our homes have got one room specially for Kṛṣṇa mūrti and . . . (indistinct) . . . for pūjā only. (break)

Prabhupāda: We say ṭhākura-ghara. Ṭhākura-ghara. That ṭhākura-ghara must be there, not only simply a lavatory. There must be one ṭhākura-ghara.

Dr. Patel: In all our homes. (end)