Real world

Expressions researched:
"real world"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Real life is: "Don't stay in this temporary world but go to the real world, paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyo 'vyakto 'vyaktāt sanātanaḥ (BG 8.20). You'll find all these things in Bhagavad-gītā.

Lecture on BG 4.9 -- Bombay, March 29, 1974:

Carvaka Muni says that you take loan from your friends if you have no money and eat as much as possible ghee. Ṛṇaṁ kṛtvā ghṛtaṁ pibet yāvaj jīvet sukhaṁ jīvet. And so long you live, you live by gratifying your senses. Here sukham means sense gratification.

But according to Vedic civilization, sukham ātyantikaṁ yat tad atīndriyam grāhyam (BG 6.21). What is the actual happiness? That is beyond your senses. Not sense gratification. But because we are materially absorbed, we think indriyāṇi parāṇy āhur (BG 3.42). Indriya. the senses, always all. To satisfy the senses that is sukh. That is happiness. And those who are a little disgusted with sense gratification, indriyāṇi parāṇy āhur indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ (BG 3.42). They are mental speculators. They write poetries and utopian theories, "This philosophy, that philosophy." In this way they satisfy the mind. But that is also not happiness. Mental happiness. Mano-rathena asato dhāvato bahiḥ. If you become satisfied by mental happiness, then you'll have to come down again. Asato. Asato mā sad-gamaḥ. Real life is: "Don't stay in this temporary world but go to the real world, paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyo 'vyakto 'vyaktāt sanātanaḥ (BG 8.20). You'll find all these things in Bhagavad-gītā. So either on the bodily plane or on the mental plane you cannot be happy. That is not possible. But if you want to be happy then you have to come to the spiritual platform and engage in spiritual activities, sukham ātyantikaṁ yat tad atīndriyam grāhyam (BG 6.21). Atīndriya means above the material platform of sensual and mental activities.

So this world is temporary shadow. That is accepted. But there is the real world which has no destruction. This world is destructive. It will be dissolved.

Lecture on BG 4.9-11 -- New York, July 25, 1966:

Similarly, we say that this world is false, or shadow. The shadow, without being the reality, how there can be possibility of shadow? If there is no reality of my hand, how the shadow of the hand can be there? So this world is temporary shadow. That is accepted. But there is the real world which has no destruction. This world is destructive. It will be dissolved. Just like our body is temporary, but it will be dissolved. Anything material that has got a birth, a stay for some time, a byproduct, a growth, a dwindling, and then vanish. That is the nature, anything. Just like this body. It was born from the mother's womb at a certain time, and it is staying for some time. It is staying for some time, and the body has got some byproducts, like children. We have got some children, the byproducts. Then it is dwindling. Just like I am getting older. Anyone, everyone, we are getting older. And at the last, it will vanish. Similarly, the whole material world, it has a time of its appearance, it grows, it makes so many varieties of byproducts, it dwindles and again vanishes.

Avatāra means one who comes... The real world is avataraṇa descending. Avatāra means who comes from a higher sphere, higher planet.

Lecture on BG 7.1 -- Los Angeles, December 2, 1968:

Avatāra is incarnation. Avatāra means incarnation. Incarnation, in your dictionary, is "accepting some body"? Is that...? But avatāra... Of course, there are different grades of avatāra. Avatāra means one who comes... The real world is avataraṇa descending. Avatāra means who comes from a higher sphere, higher planet. They are not living entities of this world, this material world. They come from spiritual world. They are called avatāra. So these avatāra grades are different. There are śaktyāveśāvatāra, guṇāvatāra, līlāvatāra, yugāvatāra, so many. So avatāra means one who comes directly from the spiritual world. And incarnation, of course, this avatāra is translated with the word incarnation, but I think real meaning of incarnation means "who accepts a body." Is it not? So that incarnation, everyone accepts a material body. But avatāra, there are avatāra of Viṣṇu and avatāra of devotees also. There are different grades of avatāra. You'll read it in the Teachings of Lord Caitanya, which is coming out.

Philosophy Discussions

By speculation, the real world for them is negation of this world. That is voidism. I am experiencing everything here material, so this material thinking and other material thinking induces him to conclude that it must be opposite.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Prabhupāda: Yes. He cannot be satisfied. He is seeking Kṛṣṇa.

Śyāmasundara: Yes. So he says that the real world or the ultimate reality becomes a reconstruction of the mind by speculationists; that they take the contents of this world and reproduce it into what they believe to be the real world.

Prabhupāda: By speculation, the real world for them is negation of this world. That is voidism. I am experiencing everything here material, so this material thinking and other material thinking induces him to conclude that it must be opposite. It must be opposite. This is material. So spiritual means not this form, or formless, or void. So that is also material thinking. Just the opposite number.

Śyāmasundara: He is still proceeding in his method. He comes to some good conclusions. He is trying to understand what makes men's minds work. He says that "Thus this real world becomes an ideal construction in the mind of man."

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

It is reflection of the real world. Reflection is real for the time being. This world is also dream, for the time being.

Room Conversation -- March 25, 1968, San Francisco:

Devotee: Swamiji, is the dream world the real world?

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is reflection of the real world. Reflection is real for the time being. This world is also dream, for the time being. Because this body is not permanent, so it is also a dream. A dream for 100 years or 50 years or 70 years, but that dream is 50 minutes. At night we see the dream for 50 minutes, and this dream is 50 years. That's all. It is a question of time. It is also dream. But dream is reality... So long we see it and enjoy it, that is reality. Just like a man in dream he's crying. It is dream. But the effect is there. Reaction is there. In that sense, dream is reality. Reality, temporary reality, flickering reality. Otherwise, it is reality.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

No, they, what they are saying, "real world," that is unreal.

Room Conversation -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Dr. Wolf: Śrīla Prabhupāda, may I venture very humbly to this opportunity of saying something I've experienced so much with people, that they would say, "Oh yes, we are ready to respect the spiritual values, but we live in this real world, in this material world and so we would rather not have the spiritual values interfere with it, settle everything in the material sense."

Prabhupāda: No, they, what they are saying, "real world," that is unreal.

The real world is the spiritual world, and here it is simply a reflection, but we are taking this is real world, and spiritual, there is no spiritual.

Morning Walk -- December 23, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That is called māyā. (everyone laughs) The light is here, but it appears light is there. This is called māyā. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa! Jaya. The real world is the spiritual world, and here it is simply a reflection, but we are taking this is real world, and spiritual, there is no spiritual. Yathā bhāsaḥ tathā tamo. So Śaṅkarācārya said that this world is false, jagan mithya. So, but brahma satyam, he gave the same information. But we are taking this jagat satyam, and there is no spiritual world. This is the defect. Just like.... (aside:) That's all right. ...the mirage, the foolish animal goes after the water in the desert, but there is no water. He is bewildered. But that does not means there is no water anywhere else. There is water, but this mirage water is false.

Vyāsadeva offers his respect to the real truth, satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi, where there is no mirage, there is no false world; real world. And Kṛṣṇa gives the same information.

Morning Walk -- December 23, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Vyāsadeva offers his respect to the real truth, satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi, where there is no mirage, there is no false world; real world. And Kṛṣṇa gives the same information: yad gatvā na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṁ mama (BG 15.6). "That is My real abode, where if you go you don't come back. And so long you are in this material world, bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19), you accept one body, suffer or enjoy, there is no enjoyment, suffering, and again accept another body; tathā dehāntara praptir." This is going on. Therefore they do not understand when you speak of the other world. But if you speak of this world, that "I'll make you happy in this world," thousands and millions will follow you. And as soon as you say that "I shall make you happy in the next world," "These are all nonsense, crazy fellow!"

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

That is your real world, but you do not know what is reality. Your real world is this body. But this body is not real.

Morning Walk -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No. Not only twenty-four hours, twenty-six hours.

Rāmeśvara: That is their charge, that it is too extreme. They say we isolate the devotees from the real world. We don't let them read newspapers, we don't let them...

Prabhupāda: That is your real world, but you do not know what is reality. Your real world is this body. But this body is not real. That, you rascal, you cannot understand. Your reality is this body, but body not real.