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Laws of karma (Conversations)

Conversations and Morning Walks

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Radio Interview -- March 12, 1968, San Francisco:

Interviewer: Okay. Karma, is this a part of your religion?

Prabhupāda: Yes, karma. Karma means work, fruitive work. As you work, as you sow...

Caller: I'll take my answer on the air please, okay?

Interviewer: Go ahead, Swami. She's just going to listen to your answer on the radio. Go ahead with your description of karma.

Prabhupāda: Karma means fruitive work. Just like you are laboring for some wages. You get your wages. Similarly, this material world our work is rewarded. Good work is rewarded with good benefit and bad work is punished. This is the law of karma.

Interviewer: And the other question is "Do you feel God is good?"

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Interviewer: We are out of time, we want to thank you very much for...

Prabhupāda: God is good, yes, certainly. (devotees laugh)

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation With David Lawrence -- July 12, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Ah, na patiḥ. And one should not become husband also. Because husband is supposed to be instructor to the wife. Husband is the guardian of the wife. So he's responsible for her spiritual advancement. As much as the father is responsible for the spiritual advancement of his child, the spiritual master is responsible... Anyone who is claiming to be superior, he should be responsible for the inferior's spiritual advancement of life. So the conclusion is that they should not claim to become such and such unless they are able to save the subordinate from the imminent danger of death. Because death is there so long one is not spiritually advanced. As soon as one is spiritually advanced, he goes to the spiritual world, transferred. Mad-yājino 'pi yānti mām (BG 9.25). Spiritually advancement means to be transferred to the spiritual world. So this is the main business of the father, of the husband, of the spiritual master, of the king, of the guardian, of kinsmen. Everyone should be alert: "Whether I am helping my subordinate in the spiritual advancement of life." Because that will save him from the repetition of birth and death. And otherwise, what benefit you can do? If he's under the laws of karma, if he's going to become a cat or dog in next life, what help you have given to him? If he's under the laws of karma, then your help is no use. Your help is no use.

Room Conversation With David Lawrence -- July 12, 1973, London:

David Lawrence: It's a tremendous responsibility.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Tremendous responsibility. So everyone should be responsible to save his subordinate from the laws of karma. So laws of karma can be broken. Karmāṇi nirdahati ca bhakti-bhājām (Bs. 5.54). One who has taken to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, bhakti, devo..., bhakti-yoga, he's no longer under the laws of karma. And that is also... Take Bhagavad-gītā.

Room Conversation with Dr. Arnold Toynbee, Famous Historian, at his home or office -- July 22, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: By bhakti. Karmāṇi nirdahati kintu ca bhakti-bhājam (Bs. 5.54). That is stated in the śāstras. The karma can be counteracted only by bhakti-bhājam, devotional service. Otherwise it is not. Therefore our duty is only to endeavor for advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, not to bother with other things, economic development. Because they are under the karma laws. So whatever happiness and distress under karma I am destined to suffer or enjoy, that will come automatically. So you haven't got to try for it. But if you, if we do not try for development of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then we are wasting time. So far our other things are concerned, that will come and go according to karma.

Room Conversation with Dr. Arnold Toynbee, Famous Historian, at his home or office -- July 22, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: That means it proves less intelligence.

Dr. Arnold Toynbee: Yes.

Prabhupāda: If they do not know the law of karma and the transmigration of the soul, change of body, that means no intellectual...

Dr. Arnold Toynbee: Yes, yes, yes. (pause)

Prabhupāda: So let us...

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- September 13, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No, freedom, if I have got already, why shall I pay? I have already paid. Why you're inducing? I am already enjoying. Why you are inducing me to work hard? I have paid for it. By my karma in my previous life I have already paid for that; therefore I am enjoying.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They don't believe in the law of karma.

Prabhupāda: Therefore they are rascals. Rascal. This is a rascal civilization. Rascal civilization: one side, they say contraceptive; another side, they will encourage woman to marry three times a week. This is their civilization. If you want stop population why you are inducing "Indulge in sex life"? Stop sex life—brahmacārī. Everything is contradictory. And it is all sense gratification, based on sense gratification.

Morning Walk -- November 10, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. If the mind is not controlled by intelligence, then it will disturb. Then the senses will be disturbed, agitated. Then you are bound up by karma. Unrestricted sense gratification means karma-bandhana, bound up by the laws of karma. And bound up by the laws of karma means repetition of birth and death in different species. Karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa jantor dehopapatti (SB 3.31.1). Different bodies means resultant action of karma. So if you want to save yourself from this resultant action of karma, then the first thing is to control the mind. That is yoga system, to control the mind. But one who has got intelligence, he takes to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and the mind is automatically controlled. Yogīnām api sarveṣāṁ mad-gatāntarātmanā (BG 6.47).

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 14, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: But this is the duty of everyone. One should not.... That is enjoined in the.... Gurur na sa syāt: "One should not become a guru if he cannot do that." Otherwise he is cheating. Why he should become guru? Why he should accept service from so many people if he cannot rightly direct them? Then he becomes bound up by the karma laws. If I take one paisa from you without any service, I have to pay you four paisa.

Mahāṁśa: In the spiritual world the living entity is full of knowledge, so does he...

Morning Walk -- March 14, 1976, Mayapur:

Acyutānanda: If a man says, "I am giving you this donation because it is a spiritual organization," but if the money is misused, does that man benefit?

Prabhupāda: If money is misused, then both of them become implicated. If it is not used for Kṛṣṇa, then both of them becomes under the laws of karma.

Acyutānanda: But that man is sincere.

Prabhupāda: Well, this word sincere, there is no meaning unless he is a devotee. Ei bala ei manda sab mano dharma: "These are all mental concoction." There is no meaning. "This man is good. This man is sincere. This man is bad. This man is..." They are all mental concoction. Only good is he who is Kṛṣṇa conscious. Others all rascals.

Morning Walk -- March 25, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: "I believe," "In my opinion." He's a rascal, and he is giving his opinion.

Cyavana: Prabhupāda, are the laws of karma written?

Prabhupāda: Laws of karma is you touch fire, your finger will be burned. This is laws of karma. You cannot avoid it.

Cyavana: They are so complicated, though. Are they actually written?

Prabhupāda: That is another.... This is the law of karma. If you do something which is forbidden, then you suffer. This is laws of karma. Or you enjoy. Both good and bad. That is laws of karma. Either you take the result good or the bad.

Morning Walk -- March 25, 1976, Delhi:

Ātreya Ṛṣi: To a devotee it is very clear, the laws of karma. He sees how that God, Kṛṣṇa, is just.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Devotee means tattva-darśī. He has seen the real truth. Devotee means who follows Kṛṣṇa. So Kṛṣṇa is giving the real truth. If you take, then you are devotee. If you don't take, you are nondevotee.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: What is the role of mercy if one takes or doesn't take?

Prabhupāda: Mercy means.... Suppose you are a devotee. Unknowingly or by some bad habit you have done something wrong. That is excused. But if you intentionally do, that "I am devotee; Kṛṣṇa will excuse me," then you are rascal.

Morning Walk -- May 26, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be. Supposing it is good. But he does not think "How I shall live in this way and next time I may be cats and dogs and cockroaches. What I'm doing for them?" Therefore they will evade: "No, no. There is no next life." Because it is horrible for them.

Devotee (2): Most of the karmīs think that if you believe in the law of karma, it applies to you, but if you do not believe...

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Devotee (2): Most of them think that if you believe in the law of karma, it applies to you.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Sadāpūta: We are also thinking that this inspiration illustrated the modes of nature and the law of karma to some extent, because like the mathematician had to struggle very painfully for a very long time without getting his result, and then he got it, so that seemed more like the mode of passion and like that. But Mozart apparently just got these things without having to struggle for them, as though that was his past karma or something. Next slide. This is a summary of the basic kind of argument we wanted to make. The picture on the left, those ovals represent states of matter, configurations of matter, and they go from simple, toward the bottom, like just a chemical solution, up towards more complex as you go up, like living bodies of different kinds. The theory of evolution is sort of indicated in the left-hand one. According to that theory, you have very simple natural laws, and you start out with simple physical states, but somehow these natural laws produce a progressive increase in order, as indicated by those arrows going up. But actually we want to argue that simple natural laws don't have the power to do that, and that the situation on the right is what would happen if you just had simple natural laws, namely they would keep shoving things around on a simple level but never produce anything complex. The next slide, though, indicates that if you had natural laws with a high order of complexity, then they could manifest physical situations with a high order of complexity also, depending on how much was built into the laws. So we wanted to, in these two examples, indicate a higher and higher order of natural laws. So what we wanted to do was then combine these two things together, on the one hand that consciousness is not a physical phenomenon, and on the other hand, that in order to get...

Prabhupāda: This is physical, but subtle.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 27, 1977, Puri:

Prabhupāda: Everyone is working, false lord, who is working. Therefore he is under the laws of karma. He does not know. He does not know what is the goal of life, what to do. Nobody knows. He has to take direction.

Gargamuni: People are taking the authority of the scientists more than the creator.

Prabhupāda: What is this scientist? The scientists are rascals. These are the proofs. They are trying to go to the moon planet, but they do not know what is this. So many stars are hanging on my head. What are they? They cannot give any perfect information. They do not know. Two things they do not know. What is the meaning of science, real two things. One thing, how life come into existence, and how this planetary system is existing. They do not know. What is value of their science? There are so many things they do not know.

Room Conversation -- January 31, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: We have an example in our article about this, about the laws of karma and the living entities. So we use this pig.(?) So we say that...

Prabhupāda: Laws of karma is simply change of body, deha upapatti, the same process, to put the same eatable from iron pot to golden pot or from golden pot to another pot. This is law of karma. But the taste is not changed. The bitter taste is there, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi. That these rascals, they do not understand. The Einstein, he gave so many improvement of life, but he is dying. He's tasting the same bitterness as a dog is tasting. Therefore we do not give any position better than the dog. Why you are dying? Why you cannot change this taste? Stop this. Then you are scientist.

Page Title:Laws of karma (Conversations)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, RupaManjari
Created:11 of Dec, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=15, Let=0
No. of Quotes:15