If you take one palmful of water out of it, the Ganges is not in loss. And again, if you offer a palmful of water on the Ganges, the Ganges does not gain anything. But utilizing the Ganges water and offering to the Ganges, you become a devotee of Ganges. Similarly, the offering to Lord... What you have got? Your body, it is also given by God. Your intelligence, it is given by God. The facility of work, it is given by God. Everything is given by God. Now, what do we work? Now, suppose I am writing books. All right. In which you are writing? On paper. All right, who has given you paper? Now, you make philosophical study. "Well, paper I purchased from the market." Market, how does it supply paper? "It is manufactured in mills." Oh, it is manufactured in mills. Where they get the raw materials? "Oh, from the wood." How the wood is produced? Oh, then you come to the God. You cannot produce the wood. You simply bring wood from the forest and get it to chemically purified and make a plaster, and the paper is made. So no raw material you can manufacture. Raw material has to be taken from God's stock. Now, if the raw material is taken from God's stock, then how the paper becomes yours? This is God consciousness. Everything we'll find that nothing is our. We simply... The economists also say that we cannot manufacture anything; we can simply transform from one form to another. That's all. We can give our labor only.
Raw materials
Bhagavad-gita As It Is
BG Chapters 1 - 6
In charge of the various necessities of life, the demigods, being satisfied by the performance of yajña (sacrifice), will supply all necessities to you. But he who enjoys such gifts without offering them to the demigods in return is certainly a thief.
The demigods are authorized supplying agents on behalf of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Viṣṇu. Therefore, they must be satisfied by the performance of prescribed yajñas. In the Vedas, there are different kinds of yajñas prescribed for different kinds of demigods, but all are ultimately offered to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. For one who cannot understand what the Personality of Godhead is, sacrifice to the demigods is recommended. According to the different material qualities of the persons concerned, different types of yajñas are recommended in the Vedas. Worship of different demigods is also on the same basis—namely, according to different qualities. For example, the meat-eaters are recommended to worship the goddess Kālī, the ghastly form of material nature, and before the goddess the sacrifice of animals is recommended. But for those who are in the mode of goodness, the transcendental worship of Viṣṇu is recommended. But ultimately all yajñas are meant for gradual promotion to the transcendental position. For ordinary men, at least five yajñas, known as pañca-mahā-yajña, are necessary.
One should know, however, that all the necessities of life that the human society requires are supplied by the demigod agents of the Lord. No one can manufacture anything. Take, for example, all the eatables of human society. These eatables include grains, fruits, vegetables, milk, sugar, etc., for the persons in the mode of goodness, and also eatables for the nonvegetarians, like meats, none of which can be manufactured by men. Then again, take for example heat, light, water, air, etc., which are also necessities of life—none of them can be manufactured by the human society. Without the Supreme Lord, there can be no profuse sunlight, moonlight, rainfall, breeze, etc., without which no one can live. Obviously, our life is dependent on supplies from the Lord. Even for our manufacturing enterprises, we require so many raw materials like metal, sulphur, mercury, manganese, and so many essentials—all of which are supplied by the agents of the Lord, with the purpose that we should make proper use of them to keep ourselves fit and healthy for the purpose of self-realization, leading to the ultimate goal of life, namely, liberation from the material struggle for existence. This aim of life is attained by performance of yajñas. If we forget the purpose of human life and simply take supplies from the agents of the Lord for sense gratification and become more and more entangled in material existence, which is not the purpose of creation, certainly we become thieves, and therefore we are punished by the laws of material nature. A society of thieves can never be happy, because they have no aim in life. The gross materialist thieves have no ultimate goal of life. They are simply directed to sense gratification; nor do they have knowledge of how to perform yajñas. Lord Caitanya, however, inaugurated the easiest performance of yajña, namely the saṅkīrtana-yajña, which can be performed by anyone in the world who accepts the principles of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 2
Material activities are caused by the mahat—tattva's being agitated. At first there is transformation of the modes of goodness and passion, and later—due to the mode of ignorance-matter, its knowledge, and different activities of material knowledge come into play.
Material creations of every description are more or less due to the development of the mode of passion (rajas). The mahat-tattva is the principle of material creation, and when it is agitated by the will of the Supreme at first the modes of passion and goodness are prominent, and afterwards the mode of passion, being generated in due course by material activities of different varieties, becomes prominent, and the living entities are thus involved more and more in ignorance. Brahmā is the representation of the mode of passion, and Viṣṇu is the representation of the mode of goodness, while the mode of ignorance is represented by Lord Śiva, the father of material activities. Material nature is called the mother, and the initiator for materialistic life is the father, Lord Śiva. All material creation by the living entities is therefore initiated by the mode of passion. With the advancement of the duration of life in a particular millennium, the different modes act by gradual development. In the age of Kali (when the mode of passion is most prominent) material activities of different varieties, in the name of advancement of human civilization, take place, and the living entities become more and more involved in forgetting their real identity—the spiritual nature. By a slight cultivation of the mode of goodness, a glimpse of spiritual nature is perceived, but due to the prominence of the mode of passion, the mode of goodness becomes adulterated. Therefore one cannot transcend the limits of the material modes, and therefore realization of the Lord, who is always transcendental to the modes of material nature, becomes very difficult for the living entities, even though prominently situated in the mode of goodness through cultivation of the various methods. In other words, the gross matters are adhibhūtam, their maintenance is adhidaivam, and the initiator of material activities is called adhyātmam. In the material world these three principles act as prominent features, namely as raw material, its regular supplies, and its use in different varieties of material creations for sense enjoyment by the bewildered entities.
The self-centered materialistic ego, thus being transformed into three features, becomes known as the modes of goodness, passion and ignorance in three divisions, namely the powers that evolve matter, knowledge of material creations, and the intelligence that guides such materialistic activities. Nārada, you are quite competent to understand this.
Materialistic ego, or the sense of identification with matter, is grossly self-centered, devoid of clear knowledge of the existence of God. And this self-centered egoism of the materialistic living entities is the cause of their being conditioned by the other paraphernalia and continuing their bondage of material existence. In the Bhagavad-gītā this self-centered egoism is very nicely explained in the Seventh Chapter (BG verses 24 through 27). The self-centered impersonalist, without a clear conception of the Personality of Godhead, concludes in his own way that the Personality of Godhead takes a material shape from His original impersonal spiritual existence for a particular mission. And this misleading conception of the Supreme Lord by the self-centered impersonalist continues, even though he is seen to be very interested in the Vedic literatures such as the Brahma-sūtras and other highly intellectual sources of knowledge. This ignorance of the personal feature of the Lord is due simply to ignorance of the mixture of different modes. The impersonalist thus cannot conceive of the Lord's eternal spiritual form of eternal knowledge, bliss and existence. The reason is that the Lord reserves the right of not exposing Himself to the nondevotee who, even after a thorough study of literature like the Bhagavad-gītā, remains an impersonalist simply by obstinacy. This obstinacy is due to the action of yogamāyā, a personal energy of the Lord that acts like an aide-de-camp by covering the vision of the obstinate impersonalist. Such a bewildered human being is described as mūḍha, or grossly ignorant, because he is unable to understand the transcendental form of the Lord as being unborn and unchangeable. If the Lord takes a form or material shape from His original impersonal feature, then it means that He is born and changeable from impersonal to personal. But He is not changeable. Nor does He ever take a new birth like a conditioned soul. The conditioned soul may take a form birth after birth due to his conditional existence in matter, but the self-centered impersonalists, by their gross ignorance, accept the Lord as one of them because of self-centered egoism, even after so-called advancement of knowledge in the Vedānta. The Lord, being situated in the heart of every individual living entity, knows very well the tendency of such conditioned souls in terms of past, present and future, but the bewildered conditioned soul hardly can know Him in His eternal form. By the will of the Lord, therefore, the impersonalist, even after knowing the Brahman and Paramātmā features of the Lord, remains ignorant of His eternal personal feature as ever-existent Nārāyaṇa, transcendental to all material creation.
The cause of such gross ignorance is constant engagement by the materialistic man in the matter of artificially increasing material demands. To realize the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one has to purify the materialistic senses by devotional service. The mode of goodness, or the brahminical culture recommended in the Vedic literatures, is helpful to such spiritual realization, and thus the jñāna-śakti stage of the conditioned soul is comparatively better than the other two stages, namely dravya-śakti and kriyā-śakti. The whole material civilization is manifested by a huge accumulation of materials, or, in other words, raw materials for industrial purposes, and the industrial enterprises (kriyā-śakti) are all due to gross ignorance of spiritual life. In order to rectify this great anomaly of materialistic civilization, based on the principles of dravya-śakti and kriyā-śakti, one has to adopt the process of devotional service of the Lord by adoption of the principles of karma-yoga, mentioned in the Bhagavad-gītā (BG 9.27) as follows:
- yat karoṣi yad aśnāsi
- yaj juhoṣi dadāsi yat
- yat tapasyasi kaunteya
- tat kuruṣva mad-arpaṇam
"O son of Kuntī, all that you do, all that you eat, all that you offer and give away, as well as all austerities that you may perform, should be done as an offering unto Me."
SB Canto 7
Without the Supreme Lord, there can be no profuse sunlight, moonlight, rainfall or breeze, without which no one can live. Obviously, our life is dependent on supplies from the Lord. Even for our manufacturing enterprises, we require so many raw materials like metal, sulphur, mercury, manganese and so many essentials—all of which are supplied by the agents of the Lord, with the purpose that we should make proper use of them to keep ourselves fit and healthy for the purpose of self-realization, leading to the ultimate goal of life, namely, liberation from the material struggle for existence. This aim of life is attained by performance of yajñas. If we forget the purpose of human life and simply take supplies from the agents of the Lord for sense gratification and become more and more entangled in material existence, which is not the purpose of creation, certainly we become thieves, and therefore we are punished by the laws of material nature. A society of thieves can never be happy, for they have no aim in life. The gross materialist thieves have no ultimate goal of life. They are simply directed to sense gratification; nor do they have knowledge of how to perform yajñas. Lord Caitanya, however, inaugurated the easiest performance of yajña, namely the saṅkīrtana-yajña, which can be performed by anyone in the world who accepts the principles of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
Every country has state religion. Even Pakistan, it has divided. It is now a part of India. But they have also their state religion. But unfortunately India has no state religion. That means deliberately they are trying to disconnect with God relation, godly relation. But in the same India... You just read the history, five thousand years before, how much profusely the nature was supplying. In the morning we are studying that portion. Mr. Paul was reading that portion, that how much nature was giving. So nature can give you anything. After all, it is the nature that supplies your necessities, not the industry. Industry simply transformed in a different way, and a certain class make profit out of it. Industry does not mean really economic improvement. Real economic improvement means what you produce from the land. That requires God help. Without raw materials, even your industry cannot go on. Just like I have cited the example of paper. Nowadays paper is made from wood. Now, if there is no sufficient... Now you have got in your America sufficient wood, so you can make, produce paper in large quantity. But suppose the woods are finished. Then industry will be finished.
Just like we are protecting cows. We cannot kill for the skin, but these asuras, they are killing thousands and thousands of cows for getting the skin, only for the skin. So if you are interested in the skin, if you are interested in the flesh, so at least wait for the time the animal will die. There is no doubt about it. So at least let him, let her die natural death. Why you should kill? You can take at that time the skin, the bone, the hoof. Whatever you like, you can take, the flesh. So in India there is a class. They are called cāmāra. They are called opposite, muci. Śuci and muci. The first class is śuci, brāhmaṇa, and the last class is the muci. The last class men, muci, they... As soon as your animal is dead you give them information. They will come. They'll take the animal. They will get the skin for nothing. So they'll tan it and make shoes for selling. So they will get the raw materials free of charges, so they can make shoes. Tanning with oil and keeping it in the sunshine, the skin becomes soft and durable, and then you can prepare shoes. A class of men, muci. So there was no problem. And the bones you gather together and keep in a place. In due course of time it will become very good fertilization. And they can eat the flesh also. Only the cobbler class, the muci class, they eat this cow's flesh after taking the dead animal. So after killing, everyone eats, so why not wait for the natural death and eat it?
Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures
Just like I have several times told you that Kṛṣṇa says, parjanyād anna-sambhavaḥ. No. Annād bhavanti bhūtāni (BG 3.14). Bhavanti means you flourish, you become healthy. Your mind becomes sound. Your brain becomes sound. If you eat properly, naturally... Just like the stomach must be satisfied. If the stomach is satisfied, you get the energy immediately. Different energy is produced, different secretion is produced, and one secretion is sent to the heart, one secretion... That is medical science. And then it is turned into blood, and there are different veins, they are distributed all over the... This big machine is going on, big factory; simply you have to give the raw materials to the factory, and things will come out.
Philosophy Discussions
Prabhupāda: Perfect knowledge is you take Bhagavad-gītā. Kṛṣṇa says, mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ: (BG 9.10) "under My superintendence." And that is our practical experience. When I manufacture this table, the raw materials, matter, is there, but it has not automatically become table. I have made it by instrument, by my brain. Similarly, this cosmic manifestation has not come out automatically; it is the brain of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore He is the creator. That is nature. Nature is instrumental. Just like the potter: his wheel is going around and the clay is making a pot, but the original cause is the potter. He has given force to the wheel. After the wheel is running, then so many pots are coming out. So nature... Foolish people are seeing that the wheel is moving. They do not see that behind the movement of the wheel there is a potter who has given force. So there is no question of nature. Everything is God, Kṛṣṇa. This is imperfect vision, that the wheel is moving without any direction. So this kind of knowledge is imperfect. Real knowledge is, as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, you take it from Bhagavad-gītā that mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ: (BG 9.10) "Under My direction the material energy is working." So the wonderful working of the material nature is not perfect observation. Behind the wonderful work of the material nature there is Kṛṣṇa, God.
Conversations and Morning Walks
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Bernard Manischewitz: He dies his own natural death?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Because the higher class, they keep cows, they maintain, but after all, the animal will die. So when the animal dies, they call for this cobbler class, and he takes away the dead cows. So he gets out the skin, hooves, bones and flesh, they eat, and this skin is tanned by them, and they prepare shoes. So they get their raw material without any price.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Sati rite.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That "Later on, after the death of husband in some places the wife was forced to go to the fire, so the Britishers stopped it. And they introduced railway for going to the pilgrims and so many, and they constructed bridges to make easy to go from one country to another." And people took it very seriously, that British government is very nice. And they were publishing in outside country that "India is uncivilized. We are making them civilized. And as soon as they are civilized, then we hand over the charge to them. That is our noble mission." And they were exploiting. All raw materials was being taken away and the necessities of India, especially cloth, was being supplied. And the local weavers, their hands cut off. So many thing they, tainting… And everything bad. Just like Jawaharlal Nehru. He became a first-class victim.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Why did the British build all so many railroads?
Prabhupāda: For drawing raw materials from villages and bring it to the Calcutta, Bombay port and export to their country because their country does not produce anything. They’re starving. Still England, London, is maintained by importing goods from Africa, India, here, there. They have no food there. They can grow some potato, maybe… Potato only, That was the reason of expanding their empire. They had no food at home, England. They were manufacturing cotton cloth. That cotton was not grown in their country. It was brought from Egypt. They manipulated things in such a way. In America also they wanted to do that, but Americans, just understanding, separated, George Washington. In America I have heard that each family was to maintain a British soldier. You know that?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No, I didn’t know that.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Oh, I think about 1928, long ago, because about twenty years ago there was centenary, hundred years. So the local produce was not exported. Everything was cheap in the village because you have to consume. Whatever is produced in the village you have to consume. And these Britishers, they introduced railway and drew everything in the village to the town. And they would not sell in the village because they would get good price in the city. Otherwise in the village, everything was very cheap, very, very cheap-milk, vegetables, rice, dāl, everything. And the Britishers, they had no food. They have got only the potato. In England what they produce? No food. So everything was exported. Their policy was to supply manufactured goods and take raw materials from India. So they supplied cotton goods. They saw that all Indians are using cotton cloth. Iron they introduced. They introduced railway line, all iron, the carriage, the wheel, the road. Everything was... In this way they became prosperous. And the Indian people, they saw... They were educated because they are fond of going to pilgrimage by walking. They would go... Suppose from here, Navadvīpa, one has to go to Vṛndāvana. He would make his will, because he does not know whether he'll come back or not. Long distance, thousand miles, you have to go by, on leg. They used to go. So they were advertised that "No. Now you'll have not to walk. The Company, they're making very easy going railway." So they received it, "Oh! (Hindi)" (laughs) But their idea was to draw all the raw materials from villages and send it to England.
Correspondence
1972 Correspondence
In answer to your questions, the red incarnation who appeared in the Treta-yuga is Yajnapati. Lord Mohammed is accepted by us as Saktyavesa Avatar, but we do not recognize the Bahai faith. Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu appears once in the day of Brahma or whenever He is required to come. So far attending pujas at the houses of the Hindus there we can go and hold our kirtana but we should not take prasadam there. We can accept raw materials and take them to our temple but we should not accept any prasadam prepared by them. However, if they insist then we can take fruits and milk and offer them to Krishna. Cocoa and chocolate are not to be taken as they are intoxicants.
1974 Correspondence
Regarding Macmillan, for our missionary work, we want to distribute more books and at a lower price. If they want to increase the price, then terminate the agreement. You must see the contract—if they can increase the price whimsically. Consult with lawyers if the agreement can be terminated. If we can print the Bhagavad-Gita at a lower cost, why they are insisting to print themselves at a higher cost? We can give them a press who can print at a lower cost so why they are insisting to print at a higher cost? Macmillan cannot increase the price unless their raw materials are costly. But we can help them to print it at a lower cost, so why they won't agree?
| Page Title: | Raw materials |
| Compiler: | Sahadeva, Serene |
| Created: | 04 of Nov, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=1, SB=3, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=5, Con=4, Let=2 |
| No. of Quotes: | 15 |