Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means we are teaching people how to get out of this entanglement of birth, death, old age and disease and become as good as God. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. It is very scientific movement, authoritative movement. So not only it is authoritative, it is accepted by millions and thousands. At least in India there are many. And in the Western countries also, they are also accepting because it is scientific. They are not fools and rascals. So our request is that you don't take this movement as something sentimental, religious faith. No. It is a very scientific, educational movement. Take advantage of it. That is our request. You can understand this movement by reading so many books. We have got about two dozen books like this. But we have got another alternative method which is very simple and easy. You chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. If you chant this mantra, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare, gradually everything will be clear.
Educational movement
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Lectures
So don't waste your time bothering about this so-called happiness and distress. Better engage your valuable time to understand what is the goal of life, why there are so many problems, why you have to struggle for existence. This is your business... This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, that we are inducing people to understand the problem. It is not a sectarian movement or so-called religious movement. It is not a religion. It is educational cultural movement. Every man has to understand the goal of life.
General Lectures
This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement will be efficient for everyone if he studies impartially. Otherwise, how in the Western world the Americans—they are not foolish people, all these young men; they are qualified, educated—they're accepting this movement very seriously? I have got many branches almost in every city in America now. Similarly, in Europe. Why not here? Simply I invite all the intelligent class of men to understand. Take one of our books. We have given not only one Bhagavad-gītā... (indistinct) means (indistinct). Anyone can take part (indistinct) illiterate, literate, rich, poor—anyone. But if anyone is proud of his education, let him come and study our books, understand this philosophy, and I'm sure he'll find (indistinct) satisfying. Don't take it as something sentimental, religious (indistinct). It is a scientific, educational movement. Take it in that (indistinct), and you'll be profited.
So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is educational movement. It is not a religious sentiment; it is a science. And as we have got our books also. You have seen. There is demonstration of the book. We have got already twenty books of four hundred pages each, and we are going on, writing more books. Everything will be finished in eighty books. So if you want to know through science and philosophy, we have got our books. You can read. And even if you read the complete set, it will take your whole life to finish it. But if you cannot read or if you do not want to waste your time by such reading... It is not wasting; it is actually utilizing. But if you think so, then our request is that you simply chant the holy name of God.
Conversations and Morning Walks
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: All this economic development means, they're meant for this bodily comforts. Any department of knowledge at the present moment, they're simply aiming at giving some artificial comfort to this body. But these rascals, they do not care to know that however I keep this body comfortably, I'll have to give it up. And after giving up this body, what is my next position, they do not know. They do not know. This is darkness. This is darkness. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is an educational movement to give enlightenment to the people at large, to understand the values of life. Not to live like animals, eating, sleeping, sex life and dying. This is animal life. This is the best humanitarian welfare activities: to make people understand scientifically what he is, what is God, what is our relationship with God. So the Bhagavad-gītā is the preliminary study of this science. So this should be presented very scientifically.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes, it is cultural movement, educational movement. It is not so-called religious movement. Religious movement is sentiment. Generally religion is taken as a kind of faith, but it is not a kind of faith. In.... I think, in South America that Indian man was asking that "It is the Hindu faith?"
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Oh, in South Africa. He was asking, "Is this Hindu faith?" "This cult or that cult."
Prabhupāda: So just see. He was Hindu gentleman, belonging to the Arya-samaj. So three times he said, "Is it Hindu faith?" And what do you mean by Hindu faith? When Kṛṣṇa said, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), is it meant for the Hindus that a child becomes..., a baby becomes a child, a child becomes a boy, a boy becomes a young man, a young man becomes an old man, and the old man dies, changes this body? Is it meant for the Hindus? The Mohammedans do not become old men or young men?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The Christians don't become old men?
Prabhupāda: So such fools there are that Bhagavad-gītā is speaking, tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13)—"It is meant for the Hindus." Just see. Such fools there are.
Prabhupāda: Our point is there are hundreds and millions of obstacles. If they are, I mean to say, summarized, they become birth, death, old age and disease. This is my point. There are hundred and thousands of obstacles, but if you take all of them and make a summary, then it comes four—birth, death, old age and disease.
Rāmeśvara: He wants to know, Śrīla Prabhupāda, if these are the obstacles, how do we Kṛṣṇa conscious people deal with these obstacles or eliminate these obstacles?
Prabhupāda: Yes, that we are doing by Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
Richard: How?
Prabhupāda: Because if we try to understand Kṛṣṇa, simply by understanding Him, I am going to get a life which will be free of all obstacles.
Richard: And how do you do that?
Prabhupāda: That you see what we are doing.
Richard: By living this type of life?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Richard: Well, what about the people who don't live here at the āśrama, people who live, if you want to call it, the outside world, ah...
Prabhupāda: They are not getting the opportunity. We are giving the opportunity. You come here and live here.
Richard: This is the only way?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Richard: Living in an āśrama.
Prabhupāda: Not living..., to take the philosophy. Follow the policy or process; then your life is successful.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Just like our householders, they have their apartments, but they're always associated with Kṛṣṇa's service.
Richard: Right.
Prabhupāda: Just like we are writing so many books to give them enlightenment. This is the process. It is an educational movement, how to overcome these obstacles. That is the sum and substance.
Kathy Kerr: Do you consider that going..., your movement then is basically more of an educational movement than a religious movement.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Educational. It is religious, but it is not a man-made religious. Our idea.... I have already explained that our idea of religion means that like the sugar, it must be sweet. It is not that in Europe sugar is not sweet, in India it is sweet. Sugar, wherever it is, it is sweet. Similarly, the soul, the spirit soul is the same everywhere. So he, the spirit soul, is now embodied within this material body, and he is suffering on account of this material body. So we are teaching everyone how to get out of this material body and stay in his original, spiritual body. This is our real movement. This is another way..., another name is liberation. We are suffering within this body. Our suffering means on account of this body. So if there is such science how to continue our life without changing body, that science we are teaching. It is purely educational.
Janice Johnson: What does the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement offer that other religions do not?
Prabhupāda: I say it is not... Don't compare with religion. It is a educational movement. One should understand his spiritual identity.
Prabhupāda: The whole basic principle is this, that people should understand, as I was explaining this morning, the sat and asat. So at the present moment we are living in the way that is asat. But there is another life, sat. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is an educational movement to raise a person from the asat platform to the sat. Under illusion they are, what is called, amock? They (laughs) have gone amock. So it is a humble attempt to stop their, this suicidal policy. They are practically committing suicide. They do not know what is the value of life and how they are spoiling it, this valuable life. Bahir-artha-māninaḥ. Durāśayā ye bahir-artha-māninaḥ. They are trying to adjust things by the arrangement of external energy. That is not possible. Whatever adjustment they are making, so many big, big leaders, politicians, they came. Napoleon, Hitler, Gandhi, this, that, by the waves of material nature everything is driven away. In that way there is no possibility of adjustment. It is not... Kathacaturamanam mali mali javanam(?) How many, caturānana. Caturānana means Brahmā. They come and go, come and go. And there is no permanent life, it is all asat. So they should come to the sat platform, that is perfect. The more you remain strong in your spiritual life, then more it will be impressed, it will act. And if it actually is not spiritual life but theatrical performance, then it will not help.
Prabhupāda: Everyone will die. You prepare or not prepare, you'll die. It doesn't matter whether you are prepared or not. Death must be there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Sure as death."
Rāmeśvara: Our philosophy, as Prabhupāda said in the beginning, is that spiritually there is no end. There is no such thing as death for the soul, self-realized soul. There is simply death of the body.
Prabhupāda: These things are discussed. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). Find out this verse. It is an educational movement, it is not a religious movement, sentiment. One requires to be educated; then he is completely on the spiritual platform.
Prabhupāda: Yes, so final, that unless you are spiritually realized, you do not know what is the final end. The final end is that we are part and parcel of God. Somehow or other we are in contact with this material atmosphere. So our final aim is to go back to home, back to Godhead. Unless we know this and we practice how to return back again to Godhead, then we have to remain within this material world, transmigrating from one body to another. Therefore the human intelligence is meant for understanding the spiritual identity and the goal of life and act accordingly. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. It is an educational movement to enlighten the people from gross ignorance to the highest enlightenment of spiritual understanding.
Prabhupāda: This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means that we are presenting Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Every religion has conception of God, but no religious system in this world has got any clear conception of God. But in this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement it is not actually a so-called religious movement, but it is an educational movement to give information to the human society about God, that "Here is God." You are searching after God, and somebody, in disappointment saying that "God is dead." God is neither dead, nor it is fictitious, but it is factual, and here is this God, Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam (SB 1.3.28). This is the verdict of the Vedic literature.
The varṇāśrama-dharma, brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, this is plan just to teach the whole society how to perform yajña. Varṇāśramācāra-vatā. Therefore this is the beginning of human civilization. Varṇāśrama. How to return back. Just like Bali Mahārāja. Bali Mahārāja achieved, obtained, throughout the universe all the property, and he again returned to Vāmana. That was his success of life. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is an educational movement to teach people how one should voluntarily return the property of the Lord to the Lord. That is called yajña. Yajñārthāt karmaṇo 'nyatra loko 'yaṁ karma-bandhanaḥ (BG 3.9). So people actually suffering. Not only... This material life means suffering. We may say that we are very happy, but that is not the fact. Tri-tāpa, three kinds of miserable condition of life are there always, adhyātmika, adhibhautika, adhidaivika. But we are accustomed to suffering, and we say suffering is happiness. That is called māyā. Actually, material life is... This body, as soon as we get this body, it means suffering.
| Page Title: | Educational movement |
| Compiler: | Archana |
| Created: | 18 of Dec, 2008 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=4, Con=10, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 14 |