Peacock (Lectures)

Expressions researched:
"peacock" |"peacock's" |"peacocks"

Notes from the compiler: VedaBase query: Peacock or Peacocks or peacock's not "peacock feather*" not "plumes of the peacock" not "peacock plumes"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Lecture on BG 2.11 -- London, August 17, 1973:

Everywhere these three qualities are working. Just like there are some good trees. Good trees means which are producing nice fruits and flowers. They are good trees. And there are trees, no fruit, no flower, very long standing. No use. No useful purpose. I've seen in Los Angeles, big, big palm trees, very long, but there is no fruit. In India there are palm trees like that, they bear fruit, very nice fruit, tal. Very sweet fruit. So any tree which does not give us nice fruit or nice flower, that is sinful. Amongst the trees also there are pious trees, there are sinful trees, amongst the animals also there are pious animals, sinful animals. Just like dog and the cow. Cow is pious animal and the dog is sinful animal. So natures, amongst the birds, this crow is sinful bird. And the ducks, white swan, they are pious bird. The peacocks. So similarly in the human society also, there are pious men and sinful men. Those who are pious they have got different position. Janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrī.... (SB 1.8.26) Pious man means born in very good family, rich family. Janma, aiśvarya, aiśvarya means riches, opulence. Janma, first-class aristocratic family, brāhmaṇa family. Janmaiśvarya-śruta, educated, highly educated; śrī, beautiful. These are the signs of pious life. And similarly just the opposite, ugly, no education, born in poor family or low grade family, poor. These are the things.

Lecture on BG 2.12 -- London, August 18, 1973:

Pebbles, big. Small. Sand, sand. Yes. So you can eat that. When there is no rain... That is also eatable. The peacocks, they eat. The pigeons, they eat. Yes, the, they can eat. You have seen? They're eating. So everything is there eatable. So there is no question of overpopulation. Overpopulation is already there, anantyāya kalpate. They why do you call overpopulation? When there is already fire, why do you say there will be fire? It is already there. So, but, the restriction, eko bahūnāṁ yo vidadhāti kāmān. That eka, that eka, Kṛṣṇa, He orders. He does not order actually. Just like, not every time the police has to be ordered by the superior authority to punish the criminal. They know how to punish. So the nature knows how to punish these criminals. Therefore, the scientists are finding now shortage of petrol, shortage of this, shortage... What to do? What to do? This is the position. Otherwise, there is no question of overpopulation. The supply is restricted. That is the problem. Eko yo bahūnām. Because He supplies all the necessities, the supply will be restricted. As we become more and more sinful and without Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they will be put into difficulties, they will be dying within the womb, they will be killed, within the womb, there will be war, there will be pestilence, there will be famine, there will be earthquake. In so many ways, we have to die. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). Again, take birth, this business will go on. And ultimately, when the whole universe is annihilated, then again we take shelter in the body of Mahā-Viṣṇu and live for, in that way, without any body, for many millions of years. Again, there is creation, and then again given chance. "All right, take another chance. Be Kṛṣṇa conscious."

Lecture on BG 7.1 -- Upsala University Stockholm, September 8, 1973:

"My dear Arjuna, if you increase your attachment for Me, that is the beginning." And that is the end. That is beginning, and that is end. It is not that beginning is something... Spiritual means it is nothing beginning, nothing end. The beginning and the end, the same thing. If you increase your attachment for Kṛṣṇa... Because, at the present moment, in our material conditional life, we have no attachment for Kṛṣṇa. We have got attachment for non-Kṛṣṇa. So you have to transfer that attachment to Kṛṣṇa. Attachment is there; simply you have to transfer the object of attachment. So here it is said: mayy āsakta-manāḥ pārtha yogaṁ yuñjan mad-āśrayaḥ. This is yoga. This is meditation. If you are fond of meditation, then you meditate upon Kṛṣṇa, on the form of Kṛṣṇa, playing flute, bluish color, having a peacock on His head. The description is there. Barhāvataṁsam asitāmbuda-sundarāṅgam.

Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures

Lecture on SB 3.25.29 -- Bombay, November 29, 1974:

Veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣam (Bs. 5.30). Don't think that Kṛṣṇa figure is the imagination of some artist or painter. No, no. These are the description in the Vedas. Veṇuṁ kvaṇantam, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda, is playing on His flute. Veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣam (Bs. 5.30). And His eyes are like the petals of lotus flower. Veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣaṁ barhāvataṁsam. There is a feather of peacock, asitāmbuda-sundarāṅgam, His complexion is like black cloud but very, very beautiful. Veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣaṁ barhāvataṁsam asitāmbuda-sundarāṅgam, kandarpa-koṭi-kamanīya. He is so beautiful that more attractive than many, many hundreds and thousands of Cupid. Kandarpa-koṭi-kamanīya-viśeṣa-śobhaṁ govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam aham bhajāmi (Bs. 5.30). This is the Govinda's description. There are so many descriptions.

Lecture on SB 6.1.1-4 -- Melbourne, May 20, 1975:

Madhudviṣa: The question is that whether the eternal form of the spirit soul is a human form or is it...

Prabhupāda: Yes, human form. God is also human form. "Man is made after the shape of God." I think there is in the Bible. Is it not? So God is also like human form. Here you see Kṛṣṇa, two hands, two legs.

Hari-śauri: How do we understand, then, that there are peacocks and flowers and trees in the spiritual world? Are these not eternal forms?

Prabhupāda: Yes. They are more covered. Just like if you cover your body with blanket, the hands and legs are invisible. But you are not the blanket. So the trees and plants, they are more covered. They are not in full manifestation. The human form is the full manifestation of the soul.

Hari-śauri: They are covered in the spiritual world?

Madhudviṣa: He is asking if they were actually covered in the spiritual world as well.

Prabhupāda: Not in the spiritual world. There that is voluntary. Some devotee wants to serve Kṛṣṇa as flower; they become flower there. If I want that "As a flower I shall lie down at the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa," he becomes flower, voluntarily. And he can change his..., from flower to human body. That is spiritual life. There is no restriction. If some devotee wants to serve Kṛṣṇa as cow, he serves Kṛṣṇa as cow, as calf, as flower, as plant, as water, as ground, field, or as father, as mother, as friend, as beloved, anything. Ye yathā mām prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham (BG 4.11). That is Kṛṣṇa's all-powerfulness, spiritual life.

Lecture on SB 7.7.32-35 -- San Francisco, March 17, 1967, (incomplete lecture):

Just like if you place, if you pour some water on the ground, you will see where there is down level, it will at once go to that side. Without any arrangement, you simply pour the water, and it will go down where the level is down, just like the rivers are flowing to the sea level. Similarly, a highly developed Kṛṣṇa conscious person, at once he will hear about something of Kṛṣṇa, he will be in ecstasy. Just like Caitanya Mahāprabhu. There was a devotee of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. His name was Murāri Gupta. He was physician to the then Nawab, Muslim Nawab. Now, they were sitting. The Nawab was going some hunting excursion or something like that, but he was Nawab's physician. He was to accompany him. So they were sitting on the back of the elephant. In the meantime that Murāri Gupta saw one peacock, and as soon as he saw the peacock, the feather, he at once remembered Kṛṣṇa and at once fainted and fall down. This is called ālambana. This is called ālambana. Ālambana means anything to the context, immediately he remembers his Lord and becomes ecstatic. This is the first-class stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So there are many instances. Caitanya Mahāprabhu showed this manifestation in His life. We shall discuss. We are discussing now in the morning class.

So Prahlāda Mahārāja says, yadā atiharṣotpulakāśru-gadgadam. He became so glad that he is faltering in speaking. Caitanya Mahāprabhu, when He was dancing in Jagannātha Purī during car festival and was singing, He could not utter "Jagannātha." He was uttering, "Jaga-aga-aaa-aaa..." Like that. He was faltering, faltering. These signs are that. They become at once transferred to the spiritual atmosphere and platform. These are very higher stage. Yadā graha-grasta iva kvacid dhasaty ākrandate dhyāyati vandate janam. Just like one man is haunted by ghost. He shows different caricatures. Sometimes he laughs; sometimes he cries; sometimes he is falldown; sometimes he touches your feet. These are the symptoms.

Lecture on SB 7.9.9 -- Montreal, July 4, 1968:

In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta it is said that "Kṛṣṇa consciousness is eternally existing in every human being, every living entity." Not only human being. You have seen the one picture that a calf, how he is loving Kṛṣṇa by licking His body. You have seen it. So even in the calf, even in the animal, even in the bird, even in the beast. We have described all these things in our Teachings of Lord Caitanya, that when Kṛṣṇa was present in Vṛndāvana, how the cranes, how the cuckoos, how the peacocks, how the walks(?), how the flowers, how the creepers were loving Him. How they were loving Kṛṣṇa. So it is not a thing that we have to teach. Simply by good association, by reference, it comes out. It is called suptotthita-nyāya. Just like a man sleeping at night, he forgets everything, where he is lying on and what he is doing and which family does he belong to, which country does he belong to, what is his occupation. Everything he forgets. Sleeping means forgetfulness. But as soon as he is awakened, he remembers everything. Everything. "Oh, I have to go to office. I have to do this thing. I have to meet such and such person." Everything. Similarly, Kṛṣṇa consciousness is sleeping in everyone's heart. He is hankering. He is hankering after how to love Kṛṣṇa, but he is being checked up. The māyā is checking him: "Don't try to love Kṛṣṇa. If you love Kṛṣṇa, then you will forget all these material activities." Māyā is speaking.