Prabhupāda: You'll be happy. Your position is to take up because you are on the top of the material happiness. Now you take it. You be saved. Otherwise this frustration is coming. That will come. Just like C.R. Das. He, out of that frustration, he gave up everything. He sacrificed his life for political. And what is the value of that sacrifice? You may become a great man of your country in the estimation of your people, but not in the estimation of Kṛṣṇa. You may become a great man in the estimation of your country, but in others' estimation, your enemy, "Oh, this man is dead. Now our enemy is finished. That's nice." So another side there is imperfection. Not everybody is satisfied by your service. But if you serve Kṛṣṇa, everybody is satisfied. If you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and dance, nobody will be dissatisfied. At least they will say, "Ah..." Just like in the paper, "The boys are very nice." You see? You have seen. Instead of not very sympathetic, they have remarked this, "Oh, these boys are very nice."
Great man (Conversations)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: There are different translations. Therefore I have given this edition, Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. There are interpretations. In many translations they have got interpretations. Not only in other parts of the world, but in our own country also. Just like Mahatma Gandhi. He was a great man. He has also interpreted. But the point is interpretation where required. Now, here is a fountain pen box. Everyone knows this is a fountain pen box. But if I say, "No, this is something else." That is my interpretation. Is that very nice thing? (Chuckling) Similarly, interpretation is required when things are not understood clearly. If everybody can understand this box is a fountain pen box, where is the necessity of interpretation? This is the first thing. So Bhagavad-gītā is so clear. It is just like sunlight. Sunlight does not require any other lamp.
1970 Conversations and Morning Walks
Haṁsadūta: Canakya Pandit... I have see that book, and he says in his book that if a crow sits on a high (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Yes. If you make a crow... The crow generally sits on the roof of the house, but that does not mean he has become a great man. "How great I am, a very beautiful bird."
Revatīnandana: The symbol of the Democrat party in America is the ass.
Prabhupāda: Everywhere. As soon as you...
Revatīnandana: Their symbol is an ass. They have a symbol.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Because they are asses.
Revatīnandana: The Republican party is elephant and the Democratic party is ass, a donkey.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Pradyumna: "Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps, and whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues."
Prabhupāda: Yes. So therefore we are trying to make men like you interested. (Prabhupāda laughs)
Lord Brockway: Yes. Yes and no. I've lived in public life for sixty years. I've been in Parliament. I'm now in the House of Lords. But I don't regard myself as a great man in any sense at all.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Of course, there are degrees, but...
Lord Brockway: And I've never wanted to be in a gov...
Prabhupāda: No great man wants to become great. But because he's great, God helps him to become great.
Jesuit Priest: Oh, I agree. Certainly our, the great, in the western church, all the translations of the Gospels and the Old and New Testament is done by, for the most part, by men who were saints, and, in other words, it wasn't merely their knowledge of the language, but their incredible closeness to God, in everyone of them, Garems(?) and Augustine and all the great men...
Revatīnandana: The most recent translation accepted by the Church of England, in England, was done by Oxford scholars. Saintly men? I know some of them. I don't think they're actually saintly men.
Jesuit Priest: Well, I wouldn't know anything about that.
Revatīnandana: Well, it's the modern... It's accepted by the Church of England and most other Protestant churches in England. It's the new English Bible.
Jesuit Priest: Yes.
Revatīnandana: And it's recommended by all these churches for their followers to read. And it's translated by scholars, Oxford scholars.
Jesuit Priest: Yes. I see. I take your point, that you can have a translation which is purely academic and a translation which is not merely academic, but has a, sort of a spiritual experience behind it.
Revatīnandana: Um-huh.
Jesuit Priest: In fact, I can say, by... I'm a Catholic priest, and by and large, I think our men, who are to, doing the translations are pretty, like, good chaps anyhow.
Revatīnandana: Hmh. So if, if the translators and the knowledge are adequate, then why is it, as Mrs. Christie just pointed out that so many young people are interested instead in false religious experience of LSD?
Jesuit Priest: Well, I wouldn't know. Because, I would say, because there's some kind of inadequacy in their lives. There's something missing, and that, the thing which is missing, is what we in the Catholic Church call the life of grace, the supernatural. Somehow, something's gone wrong somewhere. And so, they, lots of the young people today...
Prabhupāda: That, that I was trying to explain, that nobody can understand God and God's conception, being sinful.
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Dr. Patel: Great politician. He was a humanist also.
Prabhupāda: Yes, but he left. "This is no good." I must take to yoga practice.
Dr. Patel: No man can become like an Aurobindo again. Very great man. A politician, a saint, and what not. And a great rushi. He is a rushi. I consider him as a rushi.
Prabhupāda: Who?
Dr. Patel: Aurobindo.
Prabhupāda: Rushi?
Dr. Patel: A modern rushi.
Prabhupāda: What is that rushi?
Hṛdayānanda: So Prabhupāda, in this varṇāśrama college, is it true that there will be no need, for example, for teaching material history and mathematics and...?
Prabhupāda: No, there is no need. History, we simply read Mahābhārata, history of the great men, Pāṇḍavas, how they were fighting for the good cause, how they were reigning. That history. Not this rascal history. If you study that history millions of years, what is that history and what you'll learn from that history? You learn history of the really great men, how they worked, how they ruled. That is a... You study history of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira.
Hṛdayānanda: Mahābhārata.
Prabhupāda: Study the history of Mahārāja Parīkṣit. That is required. Not that simply chronological record, all nonsense, and big, big books, and making research. Why should you waste your time in that way?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Puruṣa means the enjoyer, and prakṛti means the enjoyed.
Bhagavān: Can you understand English?
M. Lallier: No. (Devotee translates)
M. Lallier: I learned before that puruṣa means the great man.
Yogeśvara: He says he also learned somewhere that puruṣa can refer to any great man or great person.
Prabhupāda: So in the material world everyone thinks that he's very great person. That is the disease. Everyone thinks that "I am the great." This is called māyā.
M. Lallier: Yes, I... Yes, Yes.
Prabhupāda: Therefore, the living entity is called puruṣa, and that puruṣa wants to enjoy the prakṛti.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa:
- yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas
- tat tad evetaro janaḥ
- sa yat pramāṇaṁ kurute
- lokas tad anuvartate
- (BG 3.21)
Translation, "Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues."
Pṛthu Putra: (French) (pause)
Yogeśvara: When we were at your meeting a few weeks ago, there was, we felt very encouraged because there was very nice interest in how it was that these young western boys and girls had been able to take to this form of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. (French)
Lady (1): (French)
Yogeśvara: Last night, at the conference hall, this lady heard your lecture about how the soul reincarnates in different kinds of bodies. So she wants to know how is this possible because in the West, our understanding is that the animal forms do not possess a soul.
Prabhupāda: How does..., she can prove that she does not, it does not possess a soul.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Scientists' role, not only scientists, scientists, philosopher, politician—everyone should endeavor that "Wherefrom we got these propensities? Where is the origin?" That is described in the Vedānta-sūtra: athāto brahma jijñāsā. I am a scientist. I am thinking of myself very great man, but I do not think that "Who is that great scientist under whose order the sun, moon, the sea, ocean, everything is working very properly?" I am thinking of that water is created by hydrogen, oxygen, but I do not inquire, "Wherefrom such hugh quantity of hydrogen, oxygen came, so that there is big oceans and seas, water?" That I don't enquire. So I am so foolish scientist. I am theorizing. I am theorizing that life has come from matter, chemical composition, but as soon as I ask that "I give you the chemical. You create," he says, "That I cannot do." This is going on. But our business is, we Kṛṣṇa conscious, that we see that you scientists, you are trying to create a living being, but I glorify the Supreme who has already created millions and millions of living beings. I give you credit that... I cannot give you credit unless you create. But still, as you are thinking that you will be able in future, that's good... But what credit you will have?
Guest (1): Yes. I have heard it.
Guest (2): Ramana Maharshi, (?) has...
Guest (1): Ramana Maharshi was a great man.
Prabhupāda: Rāmānuja bhāṣya is a fact.
Guest (1): Ramana Maharshi?
Prabhupāda: Ramana Maharshi? No, he did not.
Guest (1): The Ramana Maharshi is actually a... Read Bhagavad-gītā. He requested you, "You should always read it."
Prabhupāda: "Always read it," but he never preached about Kṛṣṇa.
Guest (1): Eh?
Yogi Bhajan: You have to provide the opportunity for those who will not have the chance to meet you to meet you. Those who have no opportunity to listen to you to listen to you. Those who have not seen you to see you. And I think that has its value. I never... I would never have gone to meet Sant Kirpal Singh. He came. And there the idea of this Unity of Man Conference was framed. And I left all the way to India, and I asked him one thing which I loved in him. He said, "Well, I am going to die next year. You take over," and I said, "Forget it, that's not my job. I'm not going to take over anything from anybody. I have to do what I have to do." Then he said, "Well, this is the idea. Would you try to be second with me in this time?" I said, "All right, I'll do that." And in the end I almost was convinced that he is a great man. And he asked me, he said, "You don't believe in anybody except God. Human forms are very... I understand you, I know you," because he knows me from very childhood. But I asked him one thing. I said, "I have never seen a saint on whom saints believe. They all have their own territories and whole thing." You know.
Prabhupāda: Nāsau munir yasya mataṁ na bhinnam: "He is not a muni if he does not disagree with another muni."
Prabhupāda: Na satyaṁ teṣu vidyate. This is the whole population. They do not know... There are big, big nation, big, big philosopher, big, big scientists and all very big, but what kind of life they should live, they do not know. What is the accurate destination of our life, that they do not know. And all humbug, big, big scientist, philosopher, theologist, and so on, so on, politician, sociologist, welfare. But real thing, they are rascal. They do not know which way we have to go. So what is the use of these big, big words? They do not know which way to go. Suppose we are walking. If we go to the this side without knowing that "This is water; we should not go," then what is the use? That is their defect. Pravṛttiṁ ca nivṛttiṁ ca na vidur āsurāḥ janā. Na śaucaṁ nāpi cācāro (BG 16.7). (chuckles) Śaucam, cleanliness, they do not know, neither behavior. Nāpi cācāro. Jagad āhur anīśvaram; (BG 16.8) "Oh, there is no God. It has come out out of the sand." This is the whole population. Jagad ahur anīśvaram (BG 16.8). Which way we shall go? (break) Therefore we require vigorous propaganda to make these fools to understand what is the real aim of life. That should be our propaganda. Idam adya mayā labdham imaṁ prāpsye punar dhanam. They have simply calculated, "Now today the bank balance is now three millions dollars, and tomorrow it will be four million." Simply, they say. Idaṁ prāpsye punar dhanam. And everyone is proud, "Who is greater than me? Who can understand more than me? I am very great man." Āḍhyo mām abhi...
Prabhupāda: Otherwise you cannot preach. If you call a rascal a rascal, immediately your preaching will be stopped. So you have to say that "You are the greatest intelligent man, sādhu, most honored. The only request is that you forget what you have learned. That's all. And take this." In this way preaching practical. Otherwise it is not possible. Everyone is thinking he is the most exalted personality, scientist, philosopher, great man. That is material disease. Actually he is being kicked every moment by the urges of the senses, and he is thinking he is very great man. Go-dāsa. Go means senses. He is always, I mean, curbed down by the sense urges, and he is thinking, "independent." Independent means servant of the senses. This is going on. So you have to understand the real position of the world, and if you want to preach, then you have to (be) humbler than the tree, humbler than the grass, tolerant than the tree and... We know everyone is rascal; still, you have to give him honor. Then it will be possible to say something. Otherwise it is very difficult.
Prabhupāda: Then you are rascal.
Akṣayānanda: But in the Bhagavad-gītā it says, yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas (BG 3.21). Whatever the great men do, you must follow in their footsteps.
Prabhupāda: Yes. By their instruction, not by their activities. You should follow the instruction, not the activities. Has Kṛṣṇa said anything that "You also act rāsa-līlā like Me?" Has said?
Akṣayānanda: Never.
Prabhupāda: Then how you can? These rascals, these Māyāvādīs, they play rāsa-līlā. (break) ...ācarati śreṣṭhas means that śreṣṭha is ordinary person, but not Bhagavān. Bhagavān can act any way. And still, Bhagavān has never instructed you that "You imitate Me in raising the Govardhana Hill." Has He said like that, that "You also raise the Govardhana Hill like Me"? (break) ...orders man-manā bhava mad-bhakto ṁad-yājī mām. That is for you. Always think of Him. Always become His devotee. Worship Him. Offer your obeisances. That's all. That is for you. Yasodamayi was asking Kṛṣṇa, "My dear Kṛṣṇa, can you bring the slipper of Your father?" He could not. He was a small child. Still, with great difficulty He could raise that. But the person who can raise the Govardhana Hill, He was feeling difficulty to raise the slipper? Why? If at that time He becomes like Govardhana, Giridhārī, then the līlā between father and son will be damaged. He plays just like a child.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: They told?
Sudāmā: Yes. Mr. Ogata and Mr. Kugimoto said, "Somehow by his... He is such a great man, His Divine Grace, somehow we accepted." They were surprised. Remember when he went?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They were mystified by you, Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: When I was coming back from America at that time, I came via Japan for this purpose. At that time you were in charge.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Your dealings with them were very memorable.
Prabhupāda: They said, "How we agreed?" (laughs) They were surprised.
Sudāmā: And whenever I would see the president... That one meeting you had with him... Whenever I would see the president after that, he would always ask me, "How is His Divine Grace? How is he feeling and where is he?"
Prabhupāda: I challenged him, "You are Buddhist." "Yes." "You are eating meat?" "Yes." "What is this?" (laughs) That was my first talking with him.
Hari-śauri:
- yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas
- tat tad evetaro janaḥ
- sa yat pramāṇaṁ kurute
- lokas tad anuvartate
"Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues."
Prabhupāda: Purport?
Hari-śauri: Purport. "People in general always require a leader who can teach the public by practical behavior. A leader cannot teach the public to stop smoking if he himself smokes. Lord Caitanya said that a teacher should behave properly even before he begins teaching. One who teaches in that way is called ācārya, or the ideal teacher. Therefore, a teacher must follow the principles of śāstra, scripture, to reach the common man. The teacher cannot manufacture rules against the principles of revealed scriptures. The revealed scriptures, like Manu-saṁhitā and others, are considered the standard books to be followed by human society. Thus the leader's teaching should be based on the principles of the standard rules as they are practiced by the great teachers.
Prabhupāda: That's all. And they think the four-wheel race is advancement of civilization. But the Vedic civilization is different. Tasyaiva hetoḥ prayateta kovido na labhyate yad bhramatām upary adhaḥ (SB 1.5.18). Then one can say that "Then we shall do nothing?" Yes, practically it is said, "Do nothing." Whatever is obtainable by you or destiny, you'll get it wherever you are. Take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You'll get it. "How I, shall I get it?" Now, kālena sarvatra gabhīra-raṁhasā. By the arrangement of eternal time, everything is available. The example is given that you do not want something distressful. As it comes upon you, similarly, even if you do not want, the happiness for which you are destined, it will come. Now, Prahlāda Mahārāja says, na tat-prayāsaḥ kartavyam. You should not waste your energy for material happiness. Because you cannot get material happiness more than what you are destined to have. That is not possible. "How shall I believe..." Because you get something distressful condition although you do not want. Who wants? In our country Mahatma Gandhi was killed by his own countrymen. Who did want it? Or why did it come? He was great man, he was protected by so many and.... Still, he was to be killed. Destiny. He was killed. Who can protect you? "So if the distressed condition come compulsory upon me, the other condition, the opposite number, also will come. Why shall I waste my time for this rectification? Let me utilize my energy for Kṛṣṇa consciousness." That is intelligence. You cannot check your destiny. Their question is...
Prabhupāda: What is the proof? Just like this Ramakrishna, he was an illiterate priest, and at the time of his death he said to Vivekananda, that I am Kṛṣṇa, I am Lord Rāma, and he accepted. He accepted. (Hindi conversation) Let him create one motorcar. Why he's asking, "Please sir, give me car." That's all. He is such a great man; bogus. People are foolish persons, they are deviated by these bogus rascals. That is going on. (Hindi conversation) Ṣaḍ-aiśvarya-pūrṇam. (Hindi conversation)
Mr. Malhotra: Then he is servant, always servant?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Nityānām, nityo nityānāṁ cetanaḥ... (Hindi) Jīvera svarūpa haya nitya-kṛṣṇa-dāsa (Cc. Madhya 20.108-109). (Hindi) That is his foolishness. And foolish person will accept. Kṛṣṇa says mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti dhanañjaya (BG 7.7). Therefore He shall remain the Supreme always. We have to refer to the Vedic śāstras. Na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate. This is description of Bhagavān. That He has nothing to do, na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate. (Hindi) (Explains in Hindi that Kṛṣṇa does not need or show any magic, when He was just a child He killed Pūtanā. Not that by meditation He became God. Bhagavān is always Bhagavān.) Either he is three months old or three years old or three hundred years old. Na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate na tat-samaś cābhyadhikaś ca dṛśyate, nobody can be equal or greater than Him. If someone is equal to Him then how He is Bhagavān?
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: No. Because they have not studied Kṛṣṇa, they misunderstand in that way. You are fond of woman. Kṛṣṇa comes to show you that in the Vaikuṇṭha, Goloka Vṛndāvana, there is woman, but not in this way. Originally there is. That is pure. So it requires education. You are not educated; you cannot talk. Now sex..., even in our material experience we find that by sex many great men has been found. So how you can accuse sex? You are talking. We should say, "You are a product of sex. So how do you say that sex is bad?"
Rāmeśvara: They say that when one man has many different women, then that is immoral.
Prabhupāda: No, first of all answer. Suppose you are a big man, but you are product of sex. Are you born differently or through sex? What is the answer?
Prabhupāda: You rascal, you have nothing to do. You sleep. Napoleon used to sleep for one hour, two hour. He was such a busy man. So they are so busy in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they have no time to sleep. Every great man does not sleep very much. The lazy men... (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. (Hindi) Acchā. Sleeping is simply waste of time. So this is... If he does not sleep more, it is a sign of greatness.
Rāmeśvara: But they have got these crazy fools in the name of psychologists. And these psychologists...
Prabhupāda: We have got our psychologists.
Prabhupāda: And in France it is very... In France you have got.
Pṛthu-putra: In France, yes. All the prostitution going on around the temple.
Ādi-keśava: You see even old, old men going to these clubs.
Hari-śauri: If you can still have sex when you're seventy-five, then you're a great man. Glorified.
Prabhupāda: Just see. This is their civilization. In Paris there are so many clubs. The old men, they first of all pay fifty dollars to enter into the club. Then he selects which vagina he will lick up. Then another payment. I know that. (aside:) No, he can be asked to sit down there.
Hari-śauri: To sit in the room.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) (break) ...these and some great man, not that they think bad. And if somebody checks me, how great enemy he is.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The natural tendency of the people here is to be God conscious, but the government is artificially checking. Whether this new government will be any different?
Prabhupāda: No. The same fools, rascals.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So we have to be very strong in our center here in Bombay.
Prabhupāda: We are for everyone. We are not for any nation, any particular person.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Our preaching has to be so strong, it will counteract the government's preaching, the movies and all these other Kali-yuga things.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. All influences.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I wanted to know how... Last night were you having any difficulty? Feeling any difficulty?
Prabhupāda: No.
Prabhupāda: I have got tendency to cheat, so people unnecessarily poses himself as very big man even by ideas that you will consider him very great man, although I am nothing. So many gurus, they are doing that. Our business that we want to speak what Kṛṣṇa has said. If Kṛṣṇa has cheated, then we are cheater. Otherwise honest. If Kṛṣṇa is honest, we are honest. If Kṛṣṇa is cheater, so our position is safe. Yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṇa-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Other gurus, they are manufacturing how to cheat. That is the difference. We are not speaking anything new. So if Kṛṣṇa has originally cheated you, then I am cheater.
Prabhupāda: No, it is a fact. When Subhas Bapu... He was always pleading, "Gandhiji, these people are not to go by your nonviolence, and we have to take to violence." Gandhi would say, "I will not fight. Sva-rājya." Then Subash went outside India. Somehow or other, he organized. And when the Britishers saw that "The military force, they are joining national movement. Now it is no hope..." Because the Gurkhas and the Sikhs and other military races, they were cooperating with the Britishers, therefore they were maintaining. They could not bring soldiers from their country. And when they saw, "The soldiers are joining Subhas," they left. "Now independence." This is a fact. Otherwise Gandhi he was patting, "Mahatmaji, you are such a great man."
Prabhupāda: Nature. Nature's way.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. Time factor. They cannot defeat the time factor. They want to make an old man a young man, without spiritual qualities. Only Kṛṣṇa can do that. What a rascal! I saw on the front page... There was one Muslim leader. He died. But he's being lauded as a great humanitarian welfare worker. And he gave one statement. He ended, "I have been an atheist, and I will die an atheist." He said, "Burn my body. Do not let it be at any ceremony. No plaque, nothing." He was against the Muslim making the women keep their heads covered, and it said he was a great worker for humanitarian rights. (Prabhupāda chuckles) Just like they praised that Dr. Ambhetkar for burning the Manu-smṛti. Manu-saṁhitā was burned, and he's praised, "A great man." It is coming to the time now when if a man is God conscious, he's considered the enemy of the people, and if he's an atheist, then he's praised for being humanitarian. Therefore they don't recognize you, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're tremendous. Here is a letter from the member of the advisory board of the Sāhitya Academy. You know what that is Śrīla Prabhupāda? Sāhitya Academy? I think it's a literary academy. " 'No earthly writer today can match the vast outpouring of pure verse which our ancient sages, particularly the great Vyāsadeva, have left to the world. Motivated by a deep desire to give moral, cultural, and educational upliftment to all people irrespective of caste, creed or nationality, they have taught us the higher values of life through the medium of historical narrations, biographies, the lives of great men, and simple instructive stories. The unlimited wealth which they have left behind in the Devanāgarī script is sheer ecstasy to read for the poet, the student and the common man.
Correspondence
1970 Correspondence
I am especially pleased to note your fresh enthusiasm after your recent visit to the States, and also your statement that there is renewed determination and fresh enthusiasm in all of the temples you have visited. That is very encouraging to me, and if the GBC continues to work in this way there will be no difficulty in the future.
Your proposals for increasing our popularity and familiarity among influential circles in the U.S. is very good. You may know that when I was in L.A. I especially wanted to use the new temple to attract some influential persons to our movement, but nothing much was done in that regard. Now if you can do something, that is more important than coming to India immediately. Lord Krishna says in B.G. that what great men do the common man will follow. So if we want actually to be successful we must convince the influential men of your country, then everything will follow automatically.
1971 Correspondence
The Russian people as a growing nation and having a good feeling upon India's culture may take advantage of this treasure house of transcendental literatures, not only for the benefit of the Russian people but for the whole world. Whatever is done by a great nation or a great man is followed by ordinary persons, so it is my mission to distribute the treasure house of India's transcendental knowledge to the whole world, and your cooperation in this connection will be a great asset. You wanted to see the manuscripts of my lectures, therefore I am sending herewith an Introduction, the lectures and if you so desire I shall be glad to send essays on these subjects:
This is a revolutionary thought. But we have seen that the practical outcome of so much hippies, one after another. What is the use of their skyscraper buildings if their sons will not maintain them? The old system of gurukula should be revived as the perfect example of a system designed to produce great men, sober and responsible leaders, who know what is the real welfare of the citizens. Just as in former days, all big big personalities were trained in this way. Now you have got the responsibility to inject this idea in your country. Please do it with a cool head, and very soon we shall see the practical benefit for your countrymen.
1975 Correspondence
So after ten years of struggle, in 1965 I went to USA, and by the grace of Krishna it has become successful all over Europe, America, Canada, and Australia. As it is stated in the Bhagavad-gita; yad yad acarati sresthas, tad tad evetaro janah, sa yat paramanam kurute, lokas tad anuvartate (BG 3.21). "Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues.". Your donation to this movement and your becoming the Patron Member is a very great thing, and it will ensure others who will also follow in your footsteps. So I am very much grateful to you.
1976 Correspondence
"Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues." (Bhagavad-gita, 3.21)
It is the Vedic system that after 50 years of life one has to take to Vanaprastha, then take to Sannyasa.
It will be a great pleasure to meet you again, and if possible please join us as soon as possible.
| Page Title: | Great man (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 21 of Jun, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=28, Let=5 |
| No. of Quotes: | 33 |