Personalist (Conversations)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: God is the equivalent of īśvara. Īśvara means controller.
Allen Ginsberg: Then the Jews, which were my background, had a prohibition...
Prabhupāda: Jehovah.
Allen Ginsberg: They had Jehovah, but they had a prohibition of pronouncing the highest names. 'Cause they felt that God was imageless, and therefore should not be pronounced or painted. My background is I guess what would be impersonalist.
Hayagrīva: The Jews are personalist.
Allen Ginsberg: Well, what are they? Impersonalists or personalists?
Lady: Impersonalists. They believe in just the Absolute. That's all.
Prabhupāda: That was the difference in Jesus Christ. He was a personalist.1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Śaṅkarācārya. They all accept Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam [SB 1.3.28]. They accept it. So how can you defy all these ācāryas and you become better than them? That is nonsense.
Reporter: But all these ācāryas interpret in different, different ways.
Prabhupāda: No. No.
Reporter: No?
Prabhupāda: On the principle, they never... Just like Śaṅkarācārya and Rāmānujācārya. He's impersonalist, personalist, but both of them accept Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. You'll find from their notes, comments on Bhagavad-gītā. Śaṅkarācārya, although he is impersonalist, he says nārāyaṇaḥ paraḥ avyaktāt: Nārāyaṇa is beyond this cosmic manifestation; He's transcendental. That means he says He's person. Nārāyaṇa, as soon as Nārāyaṇa, the Personality of Godhead. So we have nothing to touch in the spiritual understanding. He's talking of the material understanding. His philosophy, he started the philosophy, brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā.1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: ...impersonalist or personalist. Who is better? That is explained, that personalists are better posted than the impersonalists. Gatir duḥk..., avyaktā hi gatir duḥkhaṁ dehavadbhir avāpyate.
Mr. Sar: Yes.
Prabhupāda: They simply suffer, that's all. It is already explained. The impersonalists, they cannot concentrate their mind upon the Supreme, and simply hodgepodge. Therefore they suffer.Prabhupāda: Material energy, yes. And the living entities, they are also energy, spiritual energy. Two energies. Two energies means just like fire. Fire has got two energies, heat and light. Similarly, the whole creation is combination of Kṛṣṇa's energy. Therefore everything is Kṛṣṇa. Is it not? Yes. Just like you take milk. From milk you prepare so many milk preparations. You prepare yogurt, you prepare ghee, you prepare rasagullā, you prepare burfi and so many others. But therefore, actually, all of them are milk. This is... Under different combination only. In the milk, if you put some sour thing, it becomes yogurt. But it is milk. And that sour thing also, which is put into the milk, that is also Kṛṣṇa. [break] Why He is originally person, try to understand. And all these energies are imperson. Just like I am a person, you are a person. But when I... My temperature is imperson. Is it not? I have got temperature, if you put thermometer. That is imperson. So person is the origin, and the impersonal temperature is the energy.
Italian Man (1): I see, yes, yes. And the difference between the impersonalist, I mean, and the personalist is that the impersonalist does not believe...
Prabhupāda: No, no, believe... You don't believe or not believe, it doesn't matter. We are explaining science. If somebody says, "No, there is no temperature," that is foolishness. There is temperature. How can you say there is no temperature? There is temperature. Even you go to the water, there is temperature. Everywhere. Because the elements are all there, bhūmir āpo analo vāyu... The beginning is the ākāśa, ether. The ether is in the air, the air is in the fire, the fire is in the water, and the earth is in the water. This is this way. And in the earth you will find everything. You will find air, ether, water, fire, everything. And the final state, it is ether only, originally. So suppose I am breathing. It is ethereal. But so many things are coming. If I am contaminated, by touching my breathing, you will be contaminated, and it will come out as disease.Professor Durckheim: The Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa center in Geneva, for instance, has there any connection with you, the Swami Nityabowa-badananda? (?)
Haṁsadūta: No.
Professor Durckheim: No, no connection.
Prabhupāda: They are all impersonalists. The whole world is impersonalist. Perhaps we are only the personalists.
Professor Durckheim: You know that the Christian theologian, they think the main difference between them and Eastern religions altogether is that the Christian are personalists and Eastern tradition is not personalist. This is the whole...
Prabhupāda: Misconception, yes. The majority of Indian population, they are personalists. Yes, majority. Either they worship God or demigod, but they are personalists. Recently the Māyāvādī philosophers, they have poisoned, the impersonalism, calamity. God is person. It is... In the Veda it is said, nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). There are millions of persons. We are all persons. And God is the chief person. Just like in modern democracy, there is no monarch. But ultimately they have to select one president. Without person, there cannot be government. Why they do not remain without a president? Let it... Government, everything is government, impersonal. Why they select a president?
Professor Durckheim: Yes. One who takes lead, yes, sure.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So if for a small government, three bighās of land, you require a personal governor, and such a huge government, millions and millions of universes, how the governor, the Supreme Person, supreme executive, shall not be a person? What is the reason? Actually, at the present moment, people have given up to understand the science of God. That is the defect. They are thinking everything here. Here is advertisement, "Everything here. Come on. Here is a bottle. Here is the pack (peg?). Come on." Everything here. That is the defect. And we are preaching, "Everything is not there." "Everything is lost there," we are preaching. No intoxication. And the material world is preaching, "Everything is there." This is the difference. We are preaching, "Everything is here in Kṛṣṇa, in God." We have... There is a tendency here. Just see. They want to worship Deity. Even on the street side there is such thing. The tendency is to worship Deity, person. I have seen in Rome. In many small lanes, they have got this, yes. Personal worship.1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Impersonalists, they do not accept personal feature. Means they fall down again.
Madhudviṣa: That means there must be a lot of impersonalists.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Madhudviṣa: It seems there would be a lot of impersonalists.
Prabhupāda: No, more than them, there are personalists. They are in Vaikuṇṭhaloka.Prabhupāda: Yes. Śaṅkarācārya's theory is the ultimate, the Absolute Truth is impersonal. And one can imagine a personal form for the benefit of the worshiper.
Prof. Hopkins: But there are some worshipers of Śiva who would be personalists.
Prabhupāda: No.
Prof. Hopkins: You would deny that.
Prabhupāda: They are all impersonalists. They are pañcopāsana. Pañcopāsana means the ultimate, Absolute Truth is impersonal and Śaṅkarācārya recommended that you cannot worship the impersonal, so you conceive a personal form. So that he recommended five: the sun-god, Lord Śiva, Durgā, and Gaṇeśa, and? What else? And Viṣṇu.
Prof. Hopkins: Viṣṇu. Pañca (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: But after you are per..., become, you are perfect, then you merge into the impersonal. That is Śaṅkara.1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes. All the ācāryas established hundreds and thousands of temples. So I am establishing all over the world. What did in India I am doing all over the world. Now just see how they are...
Indian man: Each ācārya differed in interpretation of religion and approach to it. You diff... Śaṅkara and Vallabha say...
Prabhupāda: There are two sections, the impersonalist and the personalist. The personalists are the Vaiṣṇavas, and the impersonalists are the Māyāvādīs. So far the spiritual life is concerned, there is no difference. There is no difference. Just like Śaṅkara. Śaṅkarācārya said that brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā. The spiritual life is reality. And this is nonreality. But we say that this is duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam [Bg. 8.15]. Kṛṣṇa said. We are follower of Kṛṣṇa. "This is a place of suffering. And if you come to Me then your suffering ends." So this world is condemned either by Śaṅkarācārya, or others, everyone. But the modern rascals, they have taken this world as everything. Therefore they are in ignorance. Do you follow? They have taken this world, this life of fifty years or sixty years, at most hundred years, as reality. These rascals have no knowledge that we have life after annihilation of this body. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ [Bg. 2.13]. Who knows it? Bring big, big men, big, big politician.Page Title: | Personalist (Conversations) |
Compiler: | Sharmila, Archana |
Created: | 18 of Dec, 2008 |
Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=9, Let=0 |
No. of Quotes: | 9 |