Indian man: Today I saw an article in the straight weekly, heading was, "Envy-our national character.")
Indian man (1): I think the article they got in a straight weekly mag . . . (indistinct) . . . envy our national character. You know, there's envy, a lot of envy. If you are successful, or somebody is successful, everybody becomes jealous.
Prabhupāda: So that we explain every day. This material life means to become jealous. That is material life. Material life means you are jealous of me, I am jealous of you.
Indian man (1): (Hindi: He is jealous of the fact that you have done so much preaching of Hindu dharma. They say that you have destroyed the Hindu dharma because they are jealous.)
Prabhupāda: Who speaks like that?
Indian man: Whoever they are. Nowadays people have made religion into business.Wherever we go they speak that you have destroyed indian religion.
Prabhupāda:There is only one dharma. . . dharmaṁ tu sākṣad bhagavat-praṇītam (SB 6.3.19): "Religion is given by God." (Hindi: There is no other religion. Whatever is given by god, that is religion. What god says.) Sarva-dharmān parityajya, mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). So this is religion. (Hindi: To surrender at lotus feet of Lord. We are giving religion, opportunity to surrender at the lotus feet of Lord. Others are not religion.) They are not religion. They are cheating. Bhāgavata says, dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo 'tra (SB 1.1.2): "The cheating type of religion is kicked out." So we are following the same principle. We are kicking out all these cheating type of religion.
It is explained any religion which does not recognize or do not understand the principles of religion, so that is cheating religion. Why religion?
- Sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo
- yato bhaktir adhokṣaje
- (SB 1.2.6)
This is religion. That is first-class religion, which teaches bhakti, yato bhaktir adhokṣaje, to the Supreme, which is beyond our perception. Akṣaja. Akṣaja means within material perception. Beginning from "a" to "kṣa," whatever experience we have got . . . or akṣa means eyes, senses.
So within sense perception, whatever is there . . . God is beyond sense perception. Therefore God's name is Adhokṣaja. Yato bhaktir adhokṣaje. That is first-class religion. Otherwise, there are so many religions, pseudo religions. They have been described in the Bhāgavata as kaitava. And Śrīdhara Svāmī gives his comments on this kaitava: chala-dharma. Chala-dharma means cheating. And he says particularly, mokṣa-vāñchāpi nirastam. That desire of merging into the Brahman effulgence, that is called mokṣa. dharma-artha-kāma-mokṣa (SB 4.8.41, CC Ādi 1.90).