Prabhupāda: Well, first of all you try to understand Kṛṣṇa, what He says. Then, if you are dutiful, then you can say who is the other dutiful. Kṛṣṇa says, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). If you come to that stage of life, then you are dutiful. Otherwise, if you create your duties as monkey, that is not duty. (pause) Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Indian man (2): (indistinct lengthy question)
Prabhupāda: So, our endeavor should be not to be implicated by the material modes of nature, never mind what is the percentage. This material world is always mixed up—some goodness, some passion, some ignorance. Here you cannot possess the material quality in full, cent percent purity. No. That is not possible. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. One quality is overlapping the other quality. Our business is how to become transcendental to all these qualities, not to be touched by any of the qualities of material nature. That is our business. That should be our aim. Nirguṇa. That is called nirguṇa: no more contaminated by the material qualities. That is called nirguṇa.
And that is very simple thing. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā,
- māṁ ca avyabhicāreṇa
- bhakti-yogena yah sevate
- sa guṇān samatītyaitān
- brahma-bhūyāya kalpate
- (BG 14.26)
Māṁ ca avyabhicāreṇa bhakti-yogena yah sevate. If one accepts this bhakti-yoga process,
- śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ
- smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam
- arcanaṁ vandanaṁ dāsyaṁ
- sakhyam ātma-nivedanam
- (SB 7.5.23)
These are the different nine items of bhakti-yoga. If you take all of them or some of them or at least one of them, you become transcendental to all these material qualities. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān. All these material qualities one can transcend and remain in the Brahman platform, brahma-bhūyāya kalpate. Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati (BG 18.54). This is the process. It is not that we shall possess this quality certain percentage, that quality certain percentage. No. Above all qualities. That should be the aim of life. Then we shall be in the Brahman platform, or in the spiritual platform, and then our life will be successful. Otherwise, struggle for existence, bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). We take one type of body according to the contamination of material modes of nature, we suffer or enjoy, then again we die, again we accept another body. In this way it continues, and we remain entangled in this material world.