The demons do not know when or where to renounce, nor do they know when or where to accept or receive. When diagnosing a patient, one has to properly judge this accepting and rejecting principle. So, in order to cure the demoniac mentality in human society, which causes the Rāvaṇa syndrome of trying to steal Sītā-devī, it is essential that the demoniac nature be transformed. For any treatment, two important factors are that the patient be in clean surroundings and that his medicine and food be administered punctually. Similarly, to transform the demoniac mentality, people have to be clean, disciplined, and truthful. This end is not served by advocating the theory of yata mat, tata path—that "there are as many ways to salvation as there are opinions"—for in this way one confuses and deceives the populace. By bringing the clean and the unclean, the disciplined and undisciplined, the truthful and the untruthful onto the same level, one will find it impossible to cure or even treat any patient.
Diagnose
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Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 1
Although, great sage, you have very broadly described the four principles beginning with religious performances, you have not described to such an extent the glories of the Supreme Personality, Vāsudeva.
The prompt diagnosis of Śrī Nārada is at once declared. The root cause of the despondency of Vyāsadeva was his deliberate avoidance of glorifying the Lord in his various editions of the Purāṇas. He has certainly, as a matter of course, given descriptions of the glories of the Lord (Śrī Kṛṣṇa) but not as many as given to religiosity, economic development, sense gratification and salvation. These four items are by far inferior to engagement in the devotional service of the Lord. Śrī Vyāsadeva, as the authorized scholar, knew very well this difference. And still instead of giving more importance to the better type of engagement, namely, devotional service to the Lord, he had more or less improperly used his valuable time, and thus he was despondent. From this it is clearly indicated that no one can be pleased substantially without being engaged in the devotional service of the Lord. In the Bhagavad-gītā this fact is clearly mentioned.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the summum bonum remedy for suffering humanity in the clutches of māyā. Śrīla Vyāsadeva therefore first of all diagnosed the actual disease of the conditioned souls, i.e., their being illusioned by the external energy. He also saw the perfect Supreme Being, from whom illusory energy is far removed, though He saw both the diseased conditioned souls and also the cause of the disease. And the remedial measures are suggested in the next verse. Both the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the living beings are undoubtedly qualitatively one, but the Lord is the controller of the illusory energy, whereas the living entity is controlled by the illusory energy. Thus the Lord and the living beings are simultaneously one and different. Another point is distinct herein: that eternal relation between the Lord and the living being is transcendental, otherwise the Lord would not have taken the trouble to reclaim the conditioned souls from the clutches of māyā. In the same way, the living entity is also required to revive his natural love and affection for the Lord, and that is the highest perfection of the living entity. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam treats the conditioned soul with an aim to that goal of life.
SB Canto 6
Therefore, before one's next death comes, as long as one's body is strong enough, one should quickly adopt the process of atonement according to śāstra; otherwise one's time will be lost, and the reactions of his sins will increase. As an expert physician diagnoses and treats a disease according to its gravity, one should undergo atonement according to the severity of one's sins.
The dharma-śāstras like the Manu-saṁhitā prescribe that a man who has committed murder should be hanged and his own life sacrificed in atonement. Previously this system was followed all over the world, but since people are becoming atheists, they are stopping capital punishment. This is not wise. Herein it is said that a physician who knows how to diagnose a disease prescribes medicine accordingly. If the disease is very serious, the medicine must be strong. The weight of a murderer's sin is very great, and therefore according to Manu-saṁhitā a murderer must be killed. By killing a murderer the government shows mercy to him because if a murderer is not killed in this life, he will be killed and forced to suffer many times in future lives. Since people do not know about the next life and the intricate workings of nature, they manufacture their own laws, but they should properly consult the established injunctions of the śāstras and act accordingly. In India even today the Hindu community often takes advice from expert scholars regarding how to counteract sinful activities. In Christianity also there is a process of confession and atonement. Therefore atonement is required, and atonement must be undergone according to the gravity of one's sinful acts.
Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Renunciation Through Wisdom
The general populace simply follows the dictates and decisions of the leaders, who are bereft of any spiritual realization. Therefore it is advised that the leaders of society should act responsibly. The easy path to prosperity opens up when these leaders intelligently put into practice the precepts of karma-yoga. Without first becoming adept at curing one's own disease, why try to treat many patients? This is unreasonable. First a leader has to adopt the principles of karma-yoga in his own life; then he has to diagnose the disease of the people; then the medicine is to be prescribed and the proper diet given. Simply to offer the suffering people a sense-gratificatory cure that titillates their senses—this is not going to make them healthy. Rather, this will spread the disease further, and at one stage the doctor himself will be infected and finally die from it.
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
The whole material life is nothing but servant of sense. Servant of sense. The whole... People are working whole day hard. So the Bhāgavata, Bhāgavata has diagnosed why they are so much enthusiastic in working so hard. Now, yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham (SB 7.9.45). The only impetus is that they will have some sex enjoyment. That's all. That is the end of all activities. The whole world is... Not only in human being. You'll find in the kingdom of the birds, in the beasts, that everyone is working, everyone is busy. Why? To end it into the sex life. That means in the this material conception of life everyone has become the servant of the senses.
Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures
One should be inquisitive to understand, "What is my constitutional position?" Then it is perfect life. Otherwise it is crazy life. We may try to live by so much hard struggle of life, but we cannot exist. We can exist only when we understand "What I am." This is diagnosis. If I know that what is my actual need, if I know what is my actual position, if I know that wherefrom I have come and where I have to go, all these informations, if we are fully informed, that is perfection of life. Otherwise it is simply defeat, whatever we may do here.
So in the material world you are trying to be free of anxiety. That is not possible. That is not... Therefore it is required, ātma-darśanam. Jñānam ātma-darśanam. Jñānaṁ niḥśreyasārthāya puruṣasya ātma-darśanam. First of all you know what is your position. Just like when one man is diseased. The physician first of all diagnose that what is the disease; then he gives medicine. Similarly, first of all you ascertain what is your constitutional position. You try to understand. That is the beginning everywhere. That is Vedic literature.
There is no necessity of making research how we fell in this material contamination or envelopment. But we should be intelligent enough to understand that we are fallen now. That is... How we fell—you can trace out the history, but it is very difficult because anādi karama-phale, nobody can ascertain. Just like when a man is diseased he goes to doctor. So when he goes to the doctor, the doctor gives him medicine according to the symptoms and the diagnosis. There is no necessity of find out the history, how he fell diseased. There is history, but that is not possible to trace out.
Formerly, even our childhood days, we have seen in Calcutta, there is a special quarter of the bhaṭṭācārya brāhmaṇas. The bhaṭṭācārya brāhmaṇas' business is that if you have committed some sinful act, you should immediately go and consult the bhattācārya: "What is the process of prāyaścitta?" Just like you go in case of disease, consult a physician, and take his prescription and diagnosis, similarly, that was the Vedic system.
For thousands of years the Hindu society is so fallen. Therefore so many Mohammedans have increased here. They are not imported. In this way the Hindu population, they have been forced to accept Mohammedan religion. You see? By the Mohammedans. Just like Aurangzeb. He imposed one tax for the Hindus. So all the poor men class, to avoid the tax they became Mohammedans. And there was so much punishment by the Hindus. And so he became a Mohammedan, so-called Mohammedan, by the diagnosis of the bhaṭṭācārya. So this kind of prāyaścitta was current during the fallen days of the Vedic society.
"Sir, what is the value of this atonement? If people continue to act sinfully, then what is the use of this kind of prāyaścitta?" This is a very intelligent question. Suppose a man suffering from venereal disease goes to a doctor and he prescribes some medicine and gives him some diagnosis that "You should live in this way, in that way." But after the disease is cured, immediately if he commits the same sinful act, then what is the value of the treatment? The same thing, just like nāmnād balād yasya hi pāpa-buddhiḥ. In every society this is going on.
For our next life. Śukadeva Gosvāmī advises according to our Vedic principle, before death there is a ceremony which is called prāyaścitta or atonement. He advises that when a diseased man goes to a physician, the physician, after diagnosing the disease, he gives the suitable medicine. If the disease is very serious, sometimes very expensive medicine is recommended.
Just like a physician diagnoses the disease by the symptoms of the disease, similarly, we have to accept one as brāhmaṇa by the symptoms of his behavior, not by birth. It is not said in the Bhagavad-gītā or any śāstra. That is going on in India at the present moment. By birthright one is claiming "I am brāhmaṇa," "I am kṣatriya." That is the cause of falldown of India's civilization. Without any qualities they are claiming, and it is passing on. Here, in every śāstra, the Nārada-pañcarātra, Bhāgavata, Bhagavad-gītā, everywhere... It is said, yasya yal lakṣaṇaṁ proktam. Yasya: the varṇasya, of the varṇa, of the class, there are symptoms.
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Lectures
So living entities, they are not meant for being poverty-stricken because they are part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, the supreme proprietor. Therefore he has, by his birthright, to enjoy the God's property. That is the law. But under spell of illusion, we have forgotten our relationship with the supreme father; therefore we are suffering. This is the diagnosis. Now we have to find out how to go home, back to go, back to home, back to Godhead. That should be the mission of human life.
Arrival Addresses and Talks
The United Nations is formed, but they could not find any solution of the problems of life because the basic principle they are losing; they do not know. Every one of them is thinking on the bodily platform: "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am German," and "I am Englishman," like that. Therefore there is no solution because the basic principle is wrong. Unless we understand what is the wrong on the active principle of the body, the problems cannot be solved, just like if you cannot diagnose the disease, simply by symptomatic treatment you cannot make the man healthy. That is not possible.
General Lectures
Prabhupāda: You say that "I do not want to bow down." Is it not?
Young man: That's basically true, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Why?
Young man: Because I don't feel like I'm inferior to...
Prabhupāda: That is the disease. You have diagnosed your own disease. That is the disease of materialism. Everyone is thinking that "I want to be master. I don't wish to bow down myself." Everyone is thinking, not only yourself.
Prabhupāda: You cannot declare that "I am free. I am not subordinate." If you are wishing that "I don't wish to be subordinate, don't wish to bow down," that is your disease.
Young man: What do you want me to... What...
Prabhupāda: No, first of all try to understand your disease. Then we shall diagnose your medicine.
So how it is possible for the present-day people, which was refused by Arjuna five thousand years ago? It is not possible. The yoga system is accepted in the Vedic literature, that is a standard practice for self-realization. But the diagnosis of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that kṛte yad dhyāyato viṣṇum (SB 12.3.52), "The yoga system of meditation was possible to be practiced in the Golden Age, or in the Satya-yuga," but not in this age. Then how self-realization is possible? That is said, kalau tad dhari-kīrtanāt: "Simply by chanting this Hare Kṛṣṇa." It doesn't require a secluded place, a sanctified place, or so many rules and regulations. Anywhere you can chant. While you are walking on the street, you can chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. You are in meditation.
Philosophy Discussions
Prabhupāda: Caitanya Mahāprabhu is acting as guru, and He's asking everyone, jīv jāgo jīv jāgo. Therefore the conclusion should be that in order to come to the real position of our life, we must approach a guru, a person who knows what is what.
Śyāmasundara: So that person can see us for what we are, more than we can see ourselves.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like here is a physician, he knows simply by feeling his pulse beating, he can understand what is his position. And he gives medicine according to that. Āyur-vedic system is very nice. One has to learn how this pulse is beating, then immediately diagnosis is there, medicine is given.
Prabhupāda: Caṇḍālas, the dog eaters, the hog-eaters. In India they are sweeper class. Mlecchas (?). (indistinct). She comes from that family. Now (indistinct).
Śyāmasundara: Anyway, all property, all money, capital, communications, transport everything should be brought into central, centralize, centralized in the hands of the state.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So, what profit will be (indistinct), the member in the central, they will exploit, just like Krushchev was doing, and he was (indistinct). So, our diagnosis is that tendency is there. Unless you reform that tendency, these things will be bogus. Now Russia, just according to Marx theory, they are doing that, but (indistinct) utilize it.
Conversations and Morning Walks
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: I think I have cited this example many times, that a foolish patient thinks that increase of fever is very nice. Fever, so what should be the ideal? Fever should decrease. But those who are less intelligent, they think, "Yes, it must increase." (chuckles) There is a drama in Bengali that in a house a doctor came to diagnose. There were two patients, the housewife and the maidservant. So doctor said, "The maidservant's fever is 105, so there is some anxiety. I give some medicine. And the, that landlady, she has no fever practically, 99, so there is no anxiety." But the landlady became angry, that "This doctor is useless. I am the landlady. I have got 99, and my maidservant 105. And maidservant should have 98. I should have 110!" (laughter) This is the mentality. The modern civilization is trying to increase the degree of fever to 110 degrees.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: If one becomes expert in which way the pulse beating is going on... They have got example. Just like some birds jump over like this. Some bird goes like this. So they have got example how the pulse is beating, jumping or easily going. So the symptoms, if one can study, he becomes physician, first-class. Immediately. Because as soon as he can study the pulse, how it is beating, in which way... That is, that requires little experience. Then immediately the formula is that if the pulse is beating in this way, then these symptoms will be there. And he will ask the patient...
Brahmānanda: To confirm the symptoms.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Confirm the symptoms. If he says: "Yes," then immediately diagnosis is there. And as soon as diagnosis is there, the medicine is there. Simple method.
Prabhupāda: So the physician first of all studies the pulses, and he remembers the symptoms, and he corroborates, asking the patient, "Do you feel like this? Do you feel like this? Do you do this, like this?" If it is corroborated, then his diagnosis is given: "He has got this disease."
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Āyurvedic treatment it is called nidāna, nidāna, or diagnosis. First of all, before treating a patient you first of all diagnose what is the disease. Then you can give the proper medicine. But these people do not know how to diagnose. The diagnosis is that they must realize the Supreme. That is the disease. Because they have forgotten the Supreme, they are suffering. The symptoms are different. But they are treating only for the symptoms, not for the root cause. And this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is trying to treat the patient from the root cause. They have forgotten God. Let them remember God.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He feels that there are different philosophies and different methods...
Prabhupāda: That's all right. There are different medical men and difficult diagnoses, but the urgent case is: cure the driver, and then car will go on nicely. Unfortunately, modern civilization, they do not know what is the driver. And how he will keep him sane? He does not know what is the driver? He thinks the car is automatically going on.
Prabhupāda: When I found that in India no intelligent boys were coming, then I decided, "Let me go to America."
Paramahaṁsa: Still, even after you went to America and brought back so many European and American disciples, still the Indians are so slow to come and join.
Prabhupāda: Because they have been... The disease is very chronic. They are not opulent. That diagnosis already given. They have become poverty-stricken. So daridra-doṣa guṇa naśe. Although they are born in India, they have got many qualification, due to this poverty-stricken position, they... Their first business is how to... Because they have got family attachment, so they cannot sacrifice.
Prabhupāda: Brāhmaṇa's qualification is there—śama, dama, titikṣa, ārjavam and jñānam, vijñānam, āstikyam, brahma-karma... (BG 18.42). Everything is there, the symptoms. So you are doing business, the occupation of the vaiśyas or śūdras, and how you are claiming to become brāhmaṇa? The... Who is a brāhmaṇa, that symptoms is there in the śāstra. And not only the symptoms, Nārada Muni has said, "If these symptoms are found elsewhere, then he should be accepted according to the symptom." There is no question of birth. Yasya hi yaḻ lakṣanām proktaṁ varṇābhivyanjakaṁ yady anyātrāpi dṛṣyeta tat tenaiva viniriset. This is Nārada's vision. So it is the symptom. Just like a doctor, medical man. He diagnoses according to the symptom. He finds out the cause. So symptom is required, not that a man has become diseased or healthy by birth. No. By birth he is born. Then again, when he develops certain types of symptom, so one has to take him in that way. That is śāstra.
Prabhupāda: I cannot say why I have got this fever. You can... By analysis, you can say. So therefore śāstra-cakṣuṣāt. Śāstra says, "You analyze his blood, and if these symptoms are there, therefore this disease is there." That is śāstra, not conjecture. You don't diagnose by simply imagining. No. That is not scientific treatment. You analyze blood, stool and this, and find out what is the germ. Then you analyze. And in the śāstra the symptoms are there, analytical, that "This kind of disease, the symptoms will be this, this, this, this." That is śāstra, not conjecture. Kāraṇa guṇa-saṅgo 'sya, very nicely explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, that "This rascal has infected this body on account of his particular connection with the modes of material nature."
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: I think this leg swelling is gone.
Hari-śauri: Yes. It only came when we were in Iran because of the altitude. Then, as soon as we left, it went away again. That doctor in New York, he said it was because when your blood pressure goes up, then it's difficult for the heart to pump. So then fluid forms in the leg because of the bad blood circulation.
Prabhupāda: That was his diagnosis.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Rāmeśvara: I'm thinking that by selling all these books, gradually hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people will want us to give them some advice. They'll want to elect Kṛṣṇa conscious leaders. They'll want us to guide the society. So it will require great intelligence...
Prabhupāda: First of all, we have to know where he is. Then we can give. What is his position? Then we can give him. Just like diagnosis. You have to see what is the disease. Then we give medicine.
Prabhupāda: Gandhi diagnosed the disease rightly, that "The Britishers are here on account of our cooperation. Without this cooperation, they'll go away." That's a fact. So his noncooperation movement was... It was a good trick, but actually he did not succeed. And this movement succeeded. That "Now he's organizing Indian soldiers for national movement. There is no chance."
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Sometimes they only depend on machines, these medical doctors. That's why he's mentioning about x-ray. Through these machines you cannot tell the correct diagnosis.
Prabhupāda: I have got many experiences in my family life. One servant, Kashiram.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Kashiram.
Prabhupāda: Yes his name was Kashiram. So he was howling, howling. So we took him to the hospital, and so many student doctors surrounded. They diagnosed something, strangulation or something like that.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Strangulation.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Then they were prepared to surgical operation. Then another experienced doctor came. He said, "Let us wait today." So he was kept in the hospital, and we came back. That Kashiram... Another friend, servant of the neighborhood, and so he said, "Bābājī, he has drunk this."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He got a little drunk.
Prabhupāda: So I said, "Don't delay. So many doctors..." And next morning he came back and said, "The doctor said, 'You are all right, you can go.' "
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He was just drunk from liquor.
Correspondence
1969 Correspondence
The pamphlet is very nicely done, and you have diagnosed the disease very well, increasing the material temperature to 107 degrees and calling death immediately. I think by the Grace of Krishna you are getting good inspiration from within as Krishna is giving you good wisdom.
1970 Correspondence
The question was why a sinful man commits sinful activities although he has full knowledge of the after result by knowing it from authority and by seeing it personally. A thief commits theft repeatedly and is imprisoned repeatedly, and he has full knowledge of it—then what is the cause of his putting himself into miserable condition of prison life?
The cause is diagnosed by Vedic Acaryas as the papa bija or the seed of sinful activities. This papa bija remains dormant within our heart in three stages—dormant, seedling and fructified. This chain of different stages of our papa bija is the cause of repeated birth and death transmigration in different species of life.
When I was in Calcutta, many Naxalite and Communist youths used to see me. They were arguing with me, but I defeated them smilingly. They left after offering me their respects. I think they can also be reformed provided we diagnose and administer the proper medicine for them. I am not very much hopeless about Calcutta situation or even if there is some risk we should try to reform them and if we are successful, the people of India will hail us to great estimation and adoration and that will give us good impetus for pushing on our Movement, Krsna Consciousness.
We have diagnosed the disease and the medicine is Hari Sankirtana and the diet is Krsna Prasadam. With our own place we can dispense these to the young boys and they will be easily cured. They have already shown their willingness to cooperate when I was in Calcutta last and I am sure of this plan to curb their misguided and frustrated activities.
| Page Title: | Diagnose |
| Compiler: | MadhuGopaldas, Priya |
| Created: | 14 of Mar, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=3, CC=0, OB=2, Lec=16, Con=12, Let=4 |
| No. of Quotes: | 37 |