Prabhupāda: Similarly, another, another instance is there. Just like conchshell. Conchshell is the bone of an animal. So according to Vedic instruction, if you touch the bone of an animal, you become impure. You have to take bath. You become impure. But this conchshell is kept in the deity room because it's accepted as pure by the Vedas. So my point is that we accept Vedic laws in such a way, without argument, accept because it is stated in the Vedas, and that is the principle followed by scholars. If you can substantiate your statement by quoting from the Vedas, then it is accepted. You do not require to substantiate in other ways if you prove by Vedic quotation. Śruti-pramāṇa. It is called śruti-pramāṇa. There are different kinds of pramāṇa, evidences. Just like in the legal court if you can give quotation from the law books, your statement is accepted, similarly, all statements which you give, if they are supported by śruti-pramāṇa... I think you know. The Vedas are known as Śrutis.
Deity room (Conversations)
Expressions researched:
"Deities' room"
|"Deities, washing the room"
|"Deity room"
|"Deity worship room"
|"Deity's room"
|"room above the Deity"
|"room for the deities"
|"sanctified room of our family deity"
Conversations and Morning Walks
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Revatīnandana: Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to get a license for using it for defending the property.
Śyāmasundara: Except that...
Revatīnandana: We could put an alarm system in if we put jewels in the Deity room.
Harry: Oh yes, yes, put an alarm in, yes.
Śyāmasundara: This is England, after all, a civilized country.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Revatīnandana: Even in London, we haven't had need of..., haven't had much trouble.
Harry: Well, no, but you see...
Prabhupāda: In America also, I have seen...
Prabhupāda: No. Material enjoyment, you enjoy, but not like cats and dogs. You enjoy material life like human being. That is our proposal. Not like cats and dogs. Is it not enjoyment when you sit down in the Deity room and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and read philosophy? It is not enjoyment?
Nalinīkaṇṭha: Yes, it is very nice.
Prabhupāda: So this is human enjoyment. And to go to the brothel and drink and fight and talk all nonsense, is that enjoyment?
Nalinīkaṇṭha: No.
Prabhupāda: That is cats' and dogs' enjoyment. We must enjoy like human being. Enjoyment is not denied. Why should we deny?
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Any engagement, any engagement for Kṛṣṇa, he is Vaiṣṇava. If he is under the guidance of his spiritual master and doing the business according to the direction, he is Vaiṣṇava. He is above all these.
Pañcadraviḍa: A śūdra, if he is working, he cannot take brāhmaṇa initiation, but he can take hari-nāma, is that it?
Prabhupāda: Just like sometimes our men, my devotee, they wash the cupboard. Does it mean he is a methar(?)? No. He can go to the Deity room also. He is not a methar(?) or sweeper. But sometimes we do that. So devotee is above all these consideration. But because there is management, they should appear as brāhmaṇa, as śūdra, as kṣatriya, like that.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: That depends on the particular man, what kind of flavor he wants. That is another thing. But there are different varieties of incense. Generally we use rose flavor, sandalwood flavor. We offer to the Deity room to keep the atmosphere very favorable. Originally in India it was dhūpa. They used to put in the fire some flavored hulls, and it was very nice. That has been transferred into now stick incense.
Mr. Dixon: The stricture on the eating of meat, does that derive from the fact that animals have their lives which are accorded...
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: (laughing) All concoction. That is not explanation. This is nice explanation, that in this season the sun goes faster and in this season the sun goes slower. That is quite understandable. Just like you are walking. Sometimes you walk slow, sometimes you walk fast. That is possible. (pause) So you can convert the down room, one of the down room as reception, like this. This should be Deity room.
Hari-śauri: They'd have to section that big room off, though, to make a Deity room there. It would considerably reduce the size of that room.
Prabhupāda: Which room?
Hari-śauri: This big room upstairs? I was just looking because you mentioned it. But then they'd have to put a section for the Deities, so the actual temple space left would be very small.
Prabhupāda: No, it is bigger hall than the down.
Prabhupāda: I think...
Mādhavānanda: Well, his point is right also that the Deity, actually the space the Deities take up on the altar is the same exact..., it's actually the same length, but it seems smaller because of the Deity room being excluded in the top portion. But if we section off a space for the Deities, then it would be considerably smaller.
Prabhupāda: You take length and breadth of both. Then we shall.
Mādhavānanda: All right.
Hari-śauri: The advantage downstairs is that they already have the archway section there also in the room behind, but there's not so much facility upstairs.
Prabhupāda: That we can make. (long pause) I think this part of the year is very nice, June-July? No. June-July...?
Mādhavānanda: Govardhana was the president. If the lawyer knows you do not know, then he will take advantage. (break) He measured the two rooms, and the lecture hall length is forty-seven feet and twenty-seven feet wide. And the temple room length from the back to the altar, not including the Deities room, altar, is fifty feet.
Prabhupāda: Smaller.
Mādhavānanda: No, actually larger.
Hari-śauri: Three feet bigger. That's without a Deity room also.
Mādhavānanda: It's larger. And the width of the temple room is twenty-eight. So if we were to put in the altar in the top room, it would also take ten feet. So that would make thirty-five feet as compared to fifty feet downstairs. So because we don't have that extra space of the temple room, the downstairs actually is bigger. The only difficulty is because there is an upstairs walk we have to walk above the Deity. But if we put a nice domes there it might look very nice also, and then not walk up there. But the space is bigger.
Prabhupāda: I thought this space was bigger.
Prabhupāda: To enter that temple you have to go through here?
Kīrtanānanda: To enter the Deity room you go through the kitchen.
Prabhupāda: No, generally people will go from this side to see the Deity?
Kīrtanānanda: No, they will see just from out here.
Prabhupāda: All these walls closed, there is no window.
Kīrtanānanda: There is no window.
Prabhupāda: Only one window.
Kīrtanānanda: Four windows on the up.
Prabhupāda: Ventilation.
Kīrtanānanda: Ventilation?
Prabhupāda: No ventilation.
Prabhupāda: Our only business is how to establish Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is the only business. Our quarrel with our men: Why this temple is not clean? Why there is no flower in the Deity room? This is our fight. We have no other cause of fight. And why should we show magic? But these inquiries are going on—it is good—these rascals will be exposed.
Hari-śauri: Hm. The people are so confused because they don't know...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hari-śauri: What's bona fide and what is not now.
Prabhupāda: Neither they want. They are becoming skeptic.
Hari-śauri: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Not in the, early in the morning?
Yaśodānandana: In the early morning I take some of the boys in the Deity room between 5:30 and six the boys and the Deities.
Prabhupāda: Deity means temple.
Jagadīśa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Deity? What do you mean, "the Deity room"?
Yaśodānandana: Within the Deity room, when they are bathing the Deities, we are offering the prayers to the Deities, the Brahma-saṁhitā and Īśopaniṣad.
Prabhupāda: Why? Why? Deity room? Within the Deity room there is no need of chanting. Who told you this? There is no need. Eh? Within the Deity room? You told?
Pradyumna: No.
Prabhupāda: Then?
Pradyumna: Sometimes you... I thought you said, for installation or at other times when the Deity is being bathed, to chant Brahma-saṁhitā prayers.
Prabhupāda: No. Within the Deity room there is no business. No business.
Jagadīśa: When we hear the chanting, that's where it's coming from in the morning.
Prabhupāda: Oh. They can chant outside, yes. The Deity bathing or whatever, dressing, may go on. You can chant not within the Deity room. That you can do outside. Then when their reading, writing begins?
Jagadīśa: That begins at 10:15, after prasādam. They take prasādam at 9:30, and then at 10:15 their English class begins.
Prabhupāda: Just after taking prasādam?
Prabhupāda: No, no. The darśana opens at five.
Jagadīśa: No, when you come into the temple room, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Your darśana.
Prabhupāda: No, no, my darśana is different. Public darśana. When the Deity room is open?
Bhagatji: At five o'clock in the evening.
Prabhupāda: That's it. Why do you say six?
Jagadīśa: Uh, I meant that when the darśana period for yourself was at six.
Prabhupāda: No, it should be 5:30.
Jagadīśa: 5:30.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: That is different. That was...
Gurukṛpa: They're in Calcutta.
Prabhupāda: In my Los Angeles room there is Deity room?
Hari-śauri: Gaura-Nitāi.
Prabhupāda: No. There is siṁhāsana, now there is a picture, London Deity. Formerly the small Deity was there.
Hari-śauri: In Los Angeles.
Prabhupāda: My personal room.
Hari-śauri: They have some Gaura-Nitāi Deity there now.
Prabhupāda: Gaura-Nitāi is there, but in the siṁhāsana...
Prabhupāda: You open the door and close. And keep open. Why it is... (break) They will close the closet, and I'll open the door. Close it and go on, open and go on, throne, this... (Hindi) Very well. (break) There is a agent preparing the stolen papers.(?) That now...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Every time I go to the marketplace... (break)
Prabhupāda: And well done, to the next fair(?). What I have got? In the Deity room silver stand, silver lamp, silver plate. I do not find this. (break) ...is known there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. Seems like more varieties of living entities take birth in Bhāratavarṣa than anywhere else. I don't find... So many different kinds of bugs are there. Here every day a new bug comes out, new type of bug.
Prabhupāda: Not new. You see new. They are all existing.
Prabhupāda: No, you can do it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: 'Cause they're very beautiful.
Prabhupāda: The bone of animal is the conchshell, and that is used in Deity room. It is... The conchshell is nothing but bone of an animal.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Right. He says that he has a plan. "We want to inlay the thrones for the new temple with beautiful shells if it is permitted."
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He's says he's trying to increase the book distribution by arranging a big door-to-door program.
Prabhupāda: That is my earnest desire. Fulfill it.
Prabhupāda: Delhi temple is going on nice?
Bhāgavatāśraya: Oh, yes. We are redecorating everything inside. We've painted to about four feet off the ground with some gloss paint and then nice distemper. And I've spent, oh, a lot of money, around two thousand rupees on the whole temple. Temple room, Deity room, kitchens, everything, we're painting it all. And now Bhakti-caitanya Swami, he will have his office there. BBT office will be in Delhi. It is very good arrangement.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Maybe I should show you the pictures first. I've brought your glasses. These are the photographs, Śrīla Prabhupāda, of the Deities to be installed in Fiji. He's sending to you for your approval. First, this is Śrī-Śrī-Guru-Gaurāṅga in day dress.
Prabhupāda: First class. Just like life.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Phew. Yeah.
Prabhupāda: So who is looking after now?
Bharadvāja: Now? Ādi-deva.
Prabhupāda: The room, formerly Deity room, this is now complete?
Bharadvāja: Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: What has been done there?
Bharadvāja: It has been made into a museum, complete museum. There is twelve different exhibits. And the first exhibit is exhibit of Your Divine Grace writing books at Rādhā-Dāmodara temple, introduction. The next exhibit is Kṛṣṇa-Arjuna on the battlefield, and Kṛṣṇa begins to explain dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13) to Arjuna. And the third exhibit is showing changing bodies, showing how the body is changing but the soul remains the same. The fourth exhibit shows the chariot of the body—the five horses, the five senses.
Prabhupāda: The arrangement is nice.
Gaura-govinda: It requires a little modification. We made some constructions there for brahmacārīs. There is one Deity room, that is pakka house, and one more... (break) (whispering) ...Anantadeva and Dr. Śyāmasundara.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, I've been writing them.
Gaura-govinda: Yes, they have written letters to Prabhupāda. (whispering)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You can talk out loud. You can talk now. You said Anantadeva and Śyāmasundara dāsa Brahmacārī, they were dealing with the pāṇḍās.
Gaura-govinda: Pāṇḍās. So recently Śyāmasundara Brahmacārī wrote me a letter to come to make Bhāgavata if I went there. He made proposal that we start nirjok sevā(?) there at the Jagannātha temple, Anantadeva's proposal.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Nirjok sevā? What is that?
| Page Title: | Deity room (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 07 of Sep, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=19, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 19 |