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Infinite (Conv. and Letters)

Conversations and Morning Walks

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Television Interview -- July 29, 1971, Gainesville:

Interviewer: As confirmed by all the Vedic scriptures and by the great sages in the disciplic succession, He has a body made of eternity, bliss, and all knowledge. God has infinite forms and expansions. But of all His forms, His original form, His transcendental form, is as a cowherd boy. A form which He reveals only to His most confidential devotees. So go the teachings of Kṛṣṇa as laid down in the Vedic literature. And of the sages in the disciplic succession, which I mentioned, one is our guest for this conversation today. He is His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, foremost teacher in the West of the Kṛṣṇa philosophy, which, moreover, he teaches not only by word, but by example. He came to this country in 1965 on orders of his spiritual master. As a Kṛṣṇa disciple, he is the present human exponent of a line of succession going back five hundred years to the appearance in India of Lord Caitanya, and beyond that, to a time five thousand years ago when Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself was on this planet and His words were recorded. Welcome, sir. What is Kṛṣṇa consciousness?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṛṣṇa consciousness means that every living being, part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa has got many expansion. That is called personal expansion and separated expansion. So separated expansions we are, we living entities. But although we are very intimately connected with Kṛṣṇa, somehow or other we are now separated by contact of material nature. So we have practically forgotten that we are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Actually that is the fact. And because... Just like a rich man's son. Somehow or other, he has forgotten his father, and he's loitering in the street as a poor man. But actually that is not his position. He has forgotten simply. So our, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means we are trying to invoke that original consciousness that he's part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa.

Interview -- July 29, 1971, Gainesville:

Interviewer: All right. (aside to associate:) You're going to cue me, right? (addressing audience:) Lord Kṛṣṇa is the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as confirmed by all the Vedic scriptures and by the great sages in disciplic succession. He has a body made of eternity, bliss and all knowledge. God has infinite forms and expansions, but of all His forms, His original form, His transcendental form, is as a cowherd boy, a form which He reveals only to His most confidential devotees. So go the teachings of Kṛṣṇa as laid down in the Vedic literature. And of the sages in the disciplic succession, which I mentioned, one is our guest for this conversation today. He is His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, founder of the International Society for Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, foremost teacher in the West of the Kṛṣṇa philosophy, which, moreover, he teaches not only by word but by example. He came to this country in 1965, on orders of his spiritual master. As a Kṛṣṇa disciple he is the present human exponent of a line of succession going back five hundred years to the appearance in India of Lord Caitanya, and beyond that to a time five thousand years ago, when Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself was on this planet and His words were recorded. Welcome, sir. What..., what is Kṛṣṇa consciousness?

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness means that every living being, part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa has got many expansions. That is called personal expansion and separated expansion. So separated expansions we are, we living entities.

Room Conversation with Dr. Weir of the Mensa Society -- September 5, 1971, London:

Dr. Weir: Ah, but that brings you, Swami, straight away into the problem of the infinite regress. It (indistinct) get smaller and smaller. But you know you might just as well stop at the beginning...

Śyāmasundara: ...I am the smallest of the small.

Prabhupāda: That is stated in the Veda. (Sanskrit verse) God is greater than the greatest and smaller than the smallest.

Dr. Weir: You're using materialist words, Swami. You're using materialist words, greater and smaller.

Prabhupāda: What you meant spiritual?

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk Conversation -- September 28, 1972, Los Angeles:

Jayatīrtha: They think that that which they can't perceive they can understand by mathematical laws and physical laws. They just discovered about the laws.

Prabhupāda: But there are so many laws, infinitum. The divisions, (indistinct) infinitum.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually, all physical laws are discovered by mathematics. Beyond our imagination.

Prabhupāda: Just like in our childhood we were thinking a gramophone machine, how it can speak without a man? There must be a man within.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Sridhara Maharaja -- June 27, 1973, Navadvipa:

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: Enjoying mood. That is the basis of this. And mood of renunciation. That is a vapor state. That is nothing only. And the real life is the life of self-dedication and service. And the service not of any part. Or service not for any part which is like me, but for the whole, for the Divinity. As Kṛṣṇa says in Gītā,

athavā bahunaitena
kiṁ jñātena tavārjuna
viṣṭabhyāham idaṁ kṛtsnam
ekāṁśena sthito jagat
(BG 10.42)

Who lies, whose bed is infinite. Śeṣāśrita, Ananta. Infinite gathered together. And though He seems to, to have a figure, but figure that, that sort of figure which can contain many, many number of infinite of our conception. Kṛṣṇa is a figure talking with Arjuna, a limited figure, but Viśvarūpa emerged from Him. How? A big Viśvarūpa emerged from a limited figure? So such limited figure, that is God. Vṛndāvana. Vṛndāvana has been described as only sixty..., say...

Prabhupāda: Eighty-four miles.

Conversation with Sridhara Maharaja -- June 27, 1973, Navadvipa:

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: ...thirty-two miles. But Paravyoma, which is to be understood as Vaikuṇṭha, means infinite, many of the paravyomas is accommodated there within that thirty-two miles area. Square miles area, or something like that. That, we must be conversant with that sort of understanding. Any number of length of rope coming, but only two fingers less. Only two fingers less. Another big rope added. Again that two fingers less. This is all categorical principles. We have to be acquainted with. Then we shall go to read Bhāgavatam or to... (Bengali)

Prabhupāda: Drive the flies.

Room Conversation with Mister Popworth and E. F. Schumacher -- July 26, 1973, London:

Popworth: I wonder if I could put the point which Dr. Schumacher has made somewhat more forcefully if possible. I am surprised that in the exchange the point he made was not taken and answered. What is at issue is that in your beliefs you are saying it is wrong to kill an animal. It is possible, I don't say this to justify the killing of animals. But it is possible for an animal to be killed by a man in a way that involves far less suffering to the animal than it would die in its natural state. But what seems to be such an infinitely greater evil, an infinitely greater crime against the natural order is, for example, to take one chicken and put it in a cage the size of a shoe box, and then add more two more chickens to it, and then keep them there for the whole of their short natural life, unnatural life. But it seems to me, and, I think, to Dr. Schumacher, that this is an abomination of the spirit far greater than the mere killing of animals. But if it... It seems to be an insult against creation to treat the animal life in this manner. And yet, you do not appear to be shocked by it as you are shocked by the mere fact of killing.

Prabhupāda: It is more shocking than killing?

Room Conversation with Dr. Christian Hauser, Psychiatrist -- September 10, 1973, Stockholm:

Dr. Hauser: Infinity.

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) Bhāgavata verse, janmādy asya (SB 1.1.1), asya janmādi (indistinct) concise word but volumes of meanings. Volumes. Each word is like that. Vidyā bhāgavata-vali(?). Therefore one's learning is complete when he reads Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Otherwise he remains imperfect, in spite of all learning. Janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1), from where? Now the creation of this cosmic world, from where? But you do not know from where. This is explained in Bhāgavatam. Paraṁ satyaṁ dhīmahi. That is actually true. In this way simply if you analyze one verse, you'll find each word is full of volumes of meaning. Janmādy asya yataḥ, anvayāt (SB 1.1.1). Like the creation, anvayāt, directly and indirectly, itarataś cārtheṣu, in the matter of understanding, abhijñaḥ. Abhijñaḥ means completely cognizant. That is the Absolute Truth.

Room Conversation with Banker -- September 21, 1973, Bombay:

Banker: According to the scientific finds of Dr. Alexander Leaf of Harvard Medical School, it is impossible to lengthen life infinitely, physically, because the cell is not capable of regenerating itself more than fifty times.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that we admit. But we are not material. We are spiritual. That is...

Banker: Correct. You are not talking about the physical.

Prabhupāda: Ah. Physical is my outward dress. Just like your coat, if it becomes old enough, there is no more possibility to use it. You have to throw it away. You have to take another coat. Similarly, physically, I am spirit soul. When my physical body is old enough, useless, then I will have to give it up.

Morning Walk -- December 4, 1973, Los Angeles:

Yaśomatīnandana: They are so foolish that they have accepted an entity called infinity for the material purposes, from mathematics and everything, and they know that they are limited, but they will not accept that that can be a living entity which is infinite. They can accept that there's a new number called infinity, but they can't understand that there can be a living entity which is infinite too.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That number is matter. Living entity is always superior. So if in the inferior quality, matter, it is possible, how much it is possible in the superior quality.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- April 11, 1974, Bombay:

Italian Man (1): Kṛṣṇa, being at the same time infinite expansion of energy and also being form, a person.

Prabhupāda: Yes, person. Originally He is person.

Italian Man (1): In the heart, you know.

Prabhupāda: That is another expansion of Kṛṣṇa. Localized.

Italian Man (1): Oh, I see.

Prabhupāda: Just like the sun or the moon. There is the sun-god or the moon-god within the planet. That is the original. And then the sun globe, it is localized. And then the sunshine and the moonshine. Hare Kṛṣṇa (Hindi) (aside:) (break) ...what is impersonal and personal. What is that? Repeat it, what I have said.

Room Conversation with Roger Maria leading writer of communist literature -- June 12, 1974, Paris:

Pṛthu Putra: He says the religions that come from India are infinitely richer than the religion we know in the West. And we cannot see only one aspect. He says there is so many faces in Indian religions.

Prabhupāda: Yes. In... The idea of philosophy and religion, that is originated from India. There is no doubt about it. And that original idea of philosophy is practically demonstrated by Kṛṣṇa. The ideal original ideal of religion and philosophy is preached by Kṛṣṇa. And all the ācāryas followed that.

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

Professor Durckheim: Well, now I question you. You see, talking about eternity, there are two meanings or concepts at the same time. The one is that the finite life is going on infinitely, infinity, millions of years. That is one way to think about eternity.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Professor Durckheim: But there is another one.

Prabhupāda: Eternity means, we say, no beginning no end. That is eternity.

Room Conversation -- June 28, 1974, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: And when that future will come? Past, present and future. The future will become past also. Just like tomorrow, 29th June, this is future. Now, day after tomorrow, it will be past. (laughter) So if you are talking of future, but where is the history... In the history the future is past. This is common sense. So therefore they have discovered this nonsense ad infinitum that future will never come. And still, they will set aside the business to some future and take the credit. Yes. "In future we shall be able to do it." And that future will never come. And still, they will take the credit. (laughter) Just see. Therefore mūḍha. This is the explanation of mūḍha. It is just like somebody offered you a post-dated check, and then he wants to clear his debt. Suppose I am debtor by hundreds of dollars to you. I give you a post-dated check, and still I say, "Now I am clear of your debt."

Reporters Interview -- June 29, 1974, Melbourne:

Guest (3): ...it's like the human finite form merging with the infinite, and then it acquires the powers of infinite...

Prabhupāda: Mixes means... Just like, the example is given: just like a green bird enters into a tree which is also green. So if... To my eyes it appears that the bird is mixed up, but actually that is not fact. Suppose an aeroplane, you see aeroplane is going on. Then, after some time you see there is no aeroplane. It is the same sky. It has mixed up. It has not mixed up. Your eyes are defective. It appears like mixed up. But it cannot mix up. The airplane is keeping its identity.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- February 23, 1975, Caracas:

Vīrabāhu: There was this great scientist. His name is Nernst. He said that everything was infinite. That the universe, everything, was eternal, that this universe was eternal. So he got very mad, very vexed because another scientist was telling him, this was, a young scientist was proving that the universe has a time, a specific time, and it will finish.

Prabhupāda: No, no, that does not require a great scientist. Anything in this material world which has got a beginning, it has got end. We can experience from our body. The body has got a beginning; therefore it must have an end. Anything which has beginning, there must be end. This is our experience. You take anything material. This tree, it has got a beginning; it has got end.

Room Conversation with Yoga Student -- March 14, 1975, Iran:

Young man: Ānanda means bliss, infinite happiness.

Prabhupāda: Infinite. But what is the platform of that ānanda, material or spiritual?

Young man: Of course, ānanda means very much spiritual aspect.

Prabhupāda: But if somebody wants to derive ānanda by sense pleasure, is that spiritual?

Young man: Our practices has...

Prabhupāda: Tantra means they want to derive pleasure through the senses. So is that spiritual?

Morning Walk -- March 15, 1975, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Then God is the greatest and we are infinite, finite, limited, we are not greatest.

Guest: Yes.

Prabhupāda: And our business is to serve Him. What is that?

Guest: Our business is to serve Him? Precisely it was said last night...

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Guest: Our business is to satisfy. There is a tradition, there is a body of forty traditions, which are called the sacred traditions. One of which says, these are the words of God as enunciated through Mohammed, one of them saying that the more you strive towards Me...

Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Yes, their soul is part and parcel...

Jesuit: I can't understand that because the supreme soul, God, the deity, is infinite.

Prabhupāda: Yes, infinite, just like your, I'll let you know, just like the ocean and the drop of ocean.

Jesuit: But even the... No, no, I can't say that either, the ocean is not infinite, the ocean is not...

Prabhupāda: It is a comparison, a drop of water... He is infinite, God is infinite, we are finite.

Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:

Jesuit: We are finite, God is infinite, therefore we cannot, added together, make up God.

Prabhupāda: No. I don't say that. I don't say that. That finite and infinite, they... Finite is there, only "in" is not there. That is lacking. They, individual soul, (indistinct) we are not infinite.

Jesuit: No, of course.

Prabhupāda: But God is infinite, and I am finite. So the finite portion is common. The "in" is more in God, infinite. So similarly I am giving the example, just like a drop of ocean water, it contains the same chemical, you find salty, and the whole ocean also salty, but the ocean is big salt and this drop is a small particle. The salt is there.

Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:

Jesuit: But I can't accept the example because the little drops of water which have salt and so on, all together coalesce to form the huge ocean but the ocean is still finite. It is not infinite. But you and I are finite...

Prabhupāda: That is already explained.

Jesuit: If we coalesce together, then that how many of us that there are...

Prabhupāda: No, I'm not comparing that combined together that we shall be equal to God. I don't say that.

Jesuit: I didn't follow you then.

Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: I don't (indistinct) some men here, or the whole universal souls combined together, still they are finite. They're not infinite. Yes, multi-billions of zeroes cannot make one. So I don't say that, but the quality is there very minutely.

Jesuit: Imitation of the divine powers.

Prabhupāda: Not imitation, actually we have got. Just like, another example, gold and a particle of gold, a small fragmentary, that will be called gold, but not the gold equal to the mine.

Jesuit: No.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 26, 1976, Delhi:

Dr. Kapoor: Sir, even that has been measured by measuring instrument. I think it is.... You can describe it. But it is smaller part, infinite smallest part of an atom.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it has been measured out. How the measurement is stated? It doesn't.... When the statement is there about the measurement of the soul, it was done. Otherwise how it is described in the śāstra? (break—walk)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The last few days, as guests have been coming to greet you, practically everyone who you've had a conversation with has brought up this question, What is good and what is bad, what is sinful activity?

Prabhupāda: Hm? What?

Morning Walk -- May 15, 1976, Honolulu:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The argument is given that God is infinitely great.

Prabhupāda: Then don't discuss. Sleep. If you cannot understand God's logic and God's philosophy, then don't discuss. Stop discuss.

Rādhāvallabha: Jewish people say that you can't chant the name of God because it is too sacred.

Prabhupāda: Yes, too sacred, that's.... Actually that's a fact. And those who are too sinful, they cannot chant. (break) ...these ten kinds of offenses.

Room Conversation -- July 7, 1976, Baltimore:

Prabhupāda: But still you cannot do in the final. That is not possible. Because you are finite. You are not infinite. Your knowledge is limited. You can do something up to some extent.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: They agree, they all agree,

Prabhupāda: They are giving bluff: "Yes we shall produce life. Wait for millions of years, wait for millions." This is nonsense. Who will wait for millions of years and see your scientific discovery?

Morning Walk -- December 5, 1976, Hyderabad:

Guest (2): No, one thing, if you say Goloka is infinite we should be existing within Gokula. How is it that we are without Gokula?

Prabhupāda: Yes, we are within Kṛṣṇa; therefore you are within Gokula.

Guest (2): Kṛṣṇa is within us.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And Kṛṣṇa is without. That is Kṛṣṇa, antar bahiḥ. Antar bahiḥ. Kuntī says in her prayers that "Kṛṣṇa, You are antar bahiḥ. Still, people cannot understand. You are... Without, You are existing, and within, You are..." Still, they are so rascal, they cannot understand. Antar bahiḥ. Kṛṣṇa is without, Kṛṣṇa is within, but they cannot see. That is their misfortune.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 4, 1977, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: He has said Puruṣottama is svarūpa. It cannot be a... Anything which is infinite cannot be grasped by finite senses. That's what he said.

Prabhupāda: This is going on. But disciples say that Aurobindo is more than... This is their knowledge.

Girirāja: That means he's failed as a guru. He hasn't...

Prabhupāda: He could not give them right knowledge. Phalena paricīyate. The paricīya is to be understood by the result. The disciple is the result. If they are so fool, then what is the guru?

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Yes, like you, as you are talking with me, I am talking with you.

Guest (1): Sir, He is not infinite.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That you have to understand, that although He is person, He is infinite. That you have to understand. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā.

Guest (2): Sir, in Bhagavad-gītā...

Prabhupāda: He! One man. If you argue in that way, many people, then there will be no answer. You should know the etiquette. How can I answer so many person at a time? So this infinite is explained, infiniteness. Kṛṣṇa says, māyā tatam idaṁ sarvam: "I am infinitely everywhere." māyā tatam idaṁ sarvaṁ jagad avyakta-mūrtina (BG 9.4). Just like here in this room, do you think there is no government in this room? Do you think there is no government within this room?

Room Conversation With Bharadvaja -- October 16, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes, everything is generated from His energy. He is original cause of two energies, material and spiritual. Therefore He is the original cause.

Bharadvāja: In the second part we're also showing that the Lord, out of His infinite kindness and mercy, has created the material world so that the living entities can be corrected.

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is a chance to come to understanding.

Correspondence

1947 to 1965 Correspondence

Letter to Raja Mohendra Pratap -- Cawnpore 13 July, 1947:

8) One should therefore surrender unto Him if one wants to know Him as He is and that is the real process to approach the Infinite by the infinitesimals.

9) Sri Krishna is easily available by the religion of love i.e. by love and service as conceived by the damsels of Vraja who had practically no education whatsoever and much less any claim for high class birth right.

10) The highest service that can be rendered to the mankind is, therefore, to preach the philosophy and religion of Bhagavad-gita for all the times, all the places and all the people.

1969 Correspondence

Letter to Gajendra -- Los Angeles 20 July, 1969:

In material life everyone is thinking that I am so wonderful, I am so expert, but actually the living entity is an insignificant spark of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna. So when we see we are becoming aware of our infinitesimal nature, then we begin to also understand something of how infinitely great Krishna is. One cannot be falsely puffed up and still expect to make progress in spiritual life. Rather one must learn to accept his constitutional position of Krishna's tiny servant. Then Krishna is pleased to reveal Himself to such devotee, and the devotee becomes more and more perfect in rendering transcendental service to the Lord.

1970 Correspondence

Letter to Hayagriva -- Calcutta 26 September, 1970:

Some analyst or priest or lover may widen the consciousness from this to that, but only Krishna is without limit and therefore can widen the consciousness infinitely. That is the difference. The material world has varieties of this and that, this thing more than that thing, but only Krishna is without limit, and if we desire ananda, bliss unending, we must go to Krishna.

6) Hare Krishna cannot be compared to any sexual cry because the sexual cry is a call for some partner to come satisfy the caller's desire. That means it is sense gratification. When we chant H.K. we are calling to Krishna to please let us serve You. So on the spiritual platform it is the service that is desired, but on the material it is sense gratification that is sought. The rest of the points I think you can cover nicely.

Page Title:Infinite (Conv. and Letters)
Compiler:Mayapur, RupaManjari
Created:07 of Oct, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=29, Let=3
No. of Quotes:32