Go to Vanipedia | Go to Vanisource | Go to Vanimedia


Vaniquotes - the compiled essence of Vedic knowledge


Imprisoned (Conversations)

Conversations and Morning Walks

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- July 4, 1972, New York:

Ātreya Ṛṣi: If he commits suicide, if somebody commits suicide, that is also preset?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Not preset. That you can do, because you have got little independence. It is not natural to commit suicide. It is unnatural. So, because we have got independence, we can go from nature to unnature, and we shall be prepared for that. Just like a prisoner cannot go out of the prisonhouse naturally, but somehow or other he arranges to jump over the wall and goes away. Then he becomes again criminal, for farther (indistinct). Naturally, the prisoners cannot go out of the prisonhouse. Somehow or other, he manages to go out. That means he becomes again criminal. He will be again arrested, and his term of imprisonment will be increased, or he will be punished more. So naturally we cannot violate the destiny, but if we do it, then we suffer(?). But our destiny can be changed by Kṛṣṇa when we are Kṛṣṇa conscious. That we do not do, but Kṛṣṇa will do. Kṛṣṇa says, ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi: (BG 18.66) "I shall give you protection." So that change takes place for my protection by Kṛṣṇa.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- April 17, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: So you will have them, all the photos from here also. (break)

Prabhupāda: Anardhena nyāya-rahitam: "If you have no money, then you'll never get justice." Dalmia, he was imprisoned for two years.

Dr. Patel: He was never in the jail. I know.

Prabhupāda: He was in the Delhi Hospital. (break) I am speaking so loudly real thing. Here you cannot. Immediately you'll be in the black book. (break)

Girirāja: "...must go unpunished. This is itself the business of criminal and lawless men who have no knowledge what it means to protect the citizens under their charge." (break)

Room Conversation -- May 20, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes, Śyāmasundara, "Oh, I have to..." He spent money for that. I thought "It is hellish." (laughter) Always covered with snow, I could not get out. Two days I was imprisoned in that hotel room. But people go there.

Yamunā: For health.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Yamunā: For their health.

Prabhupāda: What is the health there? But one wonderful I saw from there. Down 10,000 feet, (indistinct) hill.

Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: Yes. It doesn't matter whether it is Christianity or Hinduism or Muslim or... Knowledge is knowledge. Wherever knowledge is available, you must pick up. So knowledge... Now let us explain, that knowledge has no color. Knowledge is knowledge. It doesn't matter whether Christianism or Hinduism or Mohammedan. Now, this is a knowledge, that every living entity is imprisoned within this body. This knowledge is equally good for Hindus, Muslim, Christian or everyone. There is no question of Christianism or Hinduism. The soul is imprisoned within this body, and the problem is birth, death, old age and disease on account of this body. But we want to live eternally, we want full knowledge; we want full blissfulness. To attain that goal of life, we must get out of this body. This is the process. (German) (break)

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- July 14, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: Now let me finish. You will never be able to understand if you jump over like that. Let one thing be understood.

Devotee (4): So he admits he's conditioned, but still, there's no free will. He says, "Yeah, so I'm in the prison. I'm imprisoned. I'm conditioned."

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. Free will... Just like a man commits theft by his free will. But when he is put into jail, then no more free will. He has to act according to the jail superintendent. But his beginning of jail life is free will. Nobody asked him that "You go to jail." But why he has come? He knows also that "When I am put into jail, I will lose all my freedom." He knows that. Still, he comes. Why does he come? He knows that. That is called ajñāna. Mūḍha. That is called mūḍha. He knows; still, he does.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Not automatically. You are man. If you develop a dog's mentality, the Yamarāja puts you in the dog's body. And then you again develop, come to the man's body. That means your term of imprisonment finished. You become again man. Now again decide. And again if you become a dog's mentality, again go. This is going on.

Rādhāvallabha: The different varieties of suffering within the animal species are due to the different varieties of sinful activities in the human life?

Prabhupāda: Yes. And they, then they automatically come. Just as your term of imprisonment, by day's gone, it is finished, again you are free. Similarly, by natural development from dogs or cockroaches or from this or that, there is a process of development.

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, what is the value for the living entity to automatically pass through all these different species? Does he get any knowledge?

Prabhupāda: To, to finish his life of imprisonment.

Rāmeśvara: How is it benefiting him?

Prabhupāda: He's corrected. Benefit is he's corrected. After undergoing so many species of life, he is corrected and again he is brought to the human form of life, civilized form of life. Let him make his choice. If he again makes his choice, go down to become a stool worm. Go! That is nature's.... Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi-guṇa, according to qualities he has taken. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā: (BG 3.27)

Conversation with Clergymen -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Scheverman: It's an intellectual approach. I think our approach would be, we would be concerned with a person-to-person assistance. That is the way, our way, that Jesus has taught us. He said, "Feed the hungry and harbor the harborless and visit the imprisoned."

Prabhupāda: Yes. If you have got enough food grains.... Just like in our headquarter in Bengal, we are giving food daily, at least one thousand men.

Scheverman: So you are feeding the hungry at your headquarters in (sic:) London. You do utilize then the direct approach as well.

Room Conversation -- October 31, 1976, Vrndavana:

Hari-śauri: Hm. "They effected through devious means to have 2 members of the New York Hare Kṛṣṇa centers to be arrested. Therein lies the infection(?) of the injustice. To compound it, a judge and a grand jury agreed with their charges of unlawful imprisonment and brainwashing, a charge which is unheard of to my knowledge in civil legal proceedings, and ordered the devotees to be jailed. As a citizen I am appalled by the over-reaction, the lack of understanding, and the hate that finds wrongdoing, not only by the people that make the charges but by the court as well."

Haṁsadūta: He says the same thing.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Girirāja: Today we just got a new package from New York from this boy. And some of the parents were charging that we were kidnapping and mentally imprisoning their children by making them devotees. Because from their point of view their children were lost to our movement. So...

Prabhupāda: He's a lost child. His father and mother came to me and mother was crying. I said, "So take your son." And the son will not go. (laughter)

Dr. Patel: You are washing away their brains.

Prabhupāda: (laughing) So they are charging like that. What is the new charge? Huh?

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: The business is the same—āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithunam—based on this maithuna, sex life. So you'll find the fly is doing the same thing, and the dog is doing the same thing, and the human being is also doing the same thing, and the king of heaven, he is doing the same thing. The business is the same. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). Only the body is different. But they are thinking that "If in the body of Indra, I can have sex with Śacīdevi, that is advancement." He does not think that the sex life with Śacīdevī or the street dog, it is same. There is no difference. And that is jāgarti. That is awakened. There is one word. Where it is, I don't remember. Maithunam agaram ajñāḥ. This is.... This material life is a term of imprisonment of imprisonment in sex. Just like imprisonment means you are detained in a place allotted by the government, you cannot go out. So here, this material world, the imprisonment is the sex. You cannot go out.

Discussion on Deprogrammers -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Rāmeśvara: "There are two legal cases in progress at this time that we must support—one in New York and one in Los Angeles. In New York the two ISKCON leaders have been indicted by the Queens County Grand Jury for unlawful imprisonment and attempted grand larceny. In Los Angeles, ISKCON and Madonna Slavin have accused her family of kidnapping, and charges of unlawful imprisonment have been entered against the mother and several other members of the Slavin family and two friends." These two friends are the professional deprogrammers. Then it says, "As in nearly all of these cases, the media will greatly influence the outcome. Do not underestimate the power of the media. We therefore must tell our story..."

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa's already become media.

Room Conversation -- February 16, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: No... Even Hare Kṛṣṇa people. Nāviviktāsano bhavet, mātrā svasrā duhitrā vā (SB 9.19.17). It is strictly forbidden: "You should not sit alone even with your mother, sister or daughter, what to speak of wife." Balavān indriya-grāmo vidvāṁsam api karṣati: "The senses are so strong, even learned persons, advanced, they also become victimized." Balavān indriya-grāmaḥ. Balavān means very strong. When the... It is forbidden even with mother, sister or..., and daughter. That is the only capturing instrument in the material world. Maithunyam agāra, prison house of sex, this material world. It is a prison house, but locked up by sex. The ordinary prison house, they are locked up by guards, and here the locking process is sex. Maithunyam agāra. The words are selected in Bhāgavata. They are thinking free. (laughs) They are imprisoned, locked up. And everyone falsely thinking, "I am free. Our nation is free. I am free." What nonsense free? You are locked up already.

Room Conversation with Adi-kesava Swami -- February 19, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is worst. Because I am spirit soul, I am now imprisoned with this material body. It is my unnatural state, and I am eternal, and because I have accepted this material body I have to undergo birth, death, old age and disease. So that is my effort, how to get out of this material body and remain in my original spiritual identity. That is our whole propaganda. We think material atmosphere is our imprisonment, suffering. Material body means suffering. Otherwise I am eternal, blissful, full with knowledge. That is my position. But because I have been impact... (aside:) Again you have the same disease. Attention, you attend, draw there. Don't do that. Very bad habit. Immediately you sit down, you do it. You cannot check it. So actually this is our punishment. This is māyā.

Room Conversation with Adi-kesava Swami -- February 19, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So we want to be very faithful to our master, so you may come against us. We don't mind. Jesus Christ was crucified. He didn't mind. So if you are unnecessarily prosecuting us, we don't mind. We must go on with our duty. We cannot give it up. That's all. It is not possible. What to..., you are prosecuting? If you kill us, we shall not. We have taken this daṇḍa. This is our determination. You cannot stop us. That's it. "Because we know this is the only welfare activity to the human society. You make talk, madmen. We don't care for it. To be imprisoned with this material body—the greatest suffering... You are trying to mitigate suffering, temporary, this way and that, but you do not know how." That you can show from the Bhagavad... Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānu... (BG 13.9).

Room Conversations -- February 20, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. You can get this light on.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Washington, March 18th. The Hare Kṛṣṇa movement was called a 'bona fide religion' yesterday by the New York high-court justice who threw out two charges against the officials of the movement of 'illegal imprisonment' and 'attempted extortion.' A charge had been preferred by an angry parent that his son, as well as another disciple, had been held by the movement illegally and that they had been brainwashed. 'The entire and basic issue before the court,' said the Justice in dismissing the charges, 'is whether or not the two alleged victims in this case and the defendants will be allowed to practice the religion of their choice, and this must be answered with a resounding affirmative.' Said Mr. Justice John J. Lee, 'The Hare Kṛṣṇa movement is a bona fide religion with roots in India that go back thousands of years.

Morning Conversation -- April 11, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, objectionable... The rākṣasas... Just like Kṛṣṇa was there within the womb of Devakī. Kaṁsa imprisoned. So the brilliance of the body of Devakī could not be seen by others, because imprisoned. So if Kṛṣṇa comes from the womb of Devakī, and He will come, similarly if by your endeavor Kṛṣṇa comes in this movement, then these Kaṁsas will be destroyed. He will kill. That day will come when we shall take all the political posts. That is Kṛṣṇa's mission. That is battle of Kurukṣetra. "Take it from Duryodhana. Give it to Yudhiṣṭhira, Arjuna." If you go on steadily, that will be... And all these demons, Kaṁsa, Bakāsura, Aghāsura, sakala incarnations, swamis, yogis... They are Aghāsura and Bakāsura. Just like Kṛṣṇa had to kill so many asuras, disturbing element.

Morning Talk -- April 25, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Now the... We can see practically how the system of civilization is bad, that this Indira Gandhi, rākṣasī, she became exalted in the topmost rank, and she thought... A person who is equally good or more than her, he was imprisoned. Then how the system is bad, that a rogue comes to the topmost post and a good man is put into the prison? Is not the system defective? Imperfect? Some way or other, you can become very important, and the actually important man you can cut down.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Envious system.

Prabhupāda: Animal.

Room Conversation with Vrindavan De -- July 6, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Imprisonment.

Prabhupāda: Solve this problem. And don't be poverty-stricken. That's all. That is happiness. There is no need of... So we, the members of Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, we are living hundred times happily than anyone else, hundred times. They cannot dream. They are envious. In Los Angeles the neighborhood men, they're envious, that "These people, these devotees, they do not do anything, and they are living so comfortably—so many cars, nice palace, nice food." They inquire. They do not know.

Page Title:Imprisoned (Conversations)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, RupaManjari
Created:03 of Dec, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=19, Let=0
No. of Quotes:19