Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then everything comes. Now suppose personally, myself, we are challenging, we are calling them by names, "rascal," but I am not a scientist. I never studied astronomy, astrology, or anything. But why I am telling? What power I have got? But I am challenging on the words of a superior answer. I am confident that the words spoken by Vyāsadeva or Kṛṣṇa, that is perfect. Therefore they are rascals, because their statement do not corroborate. In other words, we can understand. That is our advantage. Bhakti-yogena. If you practice bhakti-yoga, yasya deve parā bhaktir yathā deve tathā gurau (ŚU 6.23), if one is, one has unflinching faith in the Supreme Personality of Godhead and his spiritual master, yathā-deve... Deve means the Supreme Lord, and guru, and guru also, the spiritual master. A person who has got unflinching faith in these two personalities-guru and Kṛṣṇa—then the facility will be that all the revealed scriptures will be manifest automatically, even though he is not, not very learned. The purport of the whole knowledge will be revealed from within, because Kṛṣṇa is within, and the spiritual master is without, so both of them will help.
Revealed scripture (Conversations)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It says, "Any activities sanctioned in the revealed scriptures and aiming at the satisfaction of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are accepted by saintly teachers as the regulative principles of devotional service. If somebody regularly executes such service unto the Personality of Godhead under the direction of a bona fide spiritual master, then gradually he rises to the platform of serving in pure love of God."
Prabhupāda: That nonviolence. Kṛṣṇa is number one violent. (chuckles) Number one. There is no limit of His violence. Just see.
Yadubara: Don't you have... In the material world, sometimes you have to stand up for what you think is right and sometimes use violence?
Prabhupāda: Only satisfaction of Kṛṣṇa is right. All wrong. If Kṛṣṇa is satisfied, that is right. Otherwise everything wrong.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...how do you know that guru is qualified, spiritual master is qualified? Then I said everything is written in the śāstras, so we have to follow according to the injunctions written in the śāstras. So all the qualifications of a pure devotee, of a bona fide guru, is written there. Just like you are a professor of physics in the university. Before you came, you had some qualification, degree of doctors. And then there is a committee to decide you whether you are qualified for the post. So it is selected by a committee of members and then they interview and then they find out your qualifications. If they find that you are qualified for the post, so you are selected as a professor. It's like that in the spiritual field also. There are revealed scriptures and there everything is written what will be the qualification of a guru and then how to choose a bona fide one. So everything is written, you should follow the injunctions of the revealed scriptures accordingly.
Prabhupāda: Committee is his spiritual master, he orders that you do this.
Jayatīrtha: The test is to see how much one is actually following the orders of his spiritual master.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: Listening to another so-called guru, everywhere we go, especially in Los Angeles, they always talk of other gurus. They always talk of spiritual knowledge, but they don't find out what the real test is.
Prabhupāda: What is your answer?
Rāmeśvara: So we show them our books and say that these are the real scriptures, real quality. The (indistinct) have to be the quality of the spiritual knowledge.
Prabhupāda: How do you explain? You are realized or not? (indistinct)
Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda, when you say that this is the knowledge that's been realized...
Prabhupāda: What is that? Why don't you explain? (indistinct) That means they do not know.
Devotee (2): One who is developing in spiritual life is becoming detached from material things. These persons who are following other gurus are attached to material things. They're still smoking, having sex life, drinking.
Jayatīrtha: It's difficult to (indistinct) detached to material things. One should be attached to Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: That attachment will become. That is the special (indistinct). You cannot be completely detached. If you be detachment from something, you must be attached to something. Otherwise you have no perception(?). So you should be detached from matter and attached to Kṛṣṇa.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Student (1): I don't follow at all...
Prabhupāda: Then you'll never be able to follow.
Revatīnandana: Now, just see, the revealed scriptures...
Prabhupāda: No, no revealed scripture... Just like why do you accept the queen as the supreme? Why?
Students: We don't.
Prabhupāda: Oh, then, then you are not very sane.
Prabhupāda: But everyone can say, "I am God." Then how you'll understand? If Guru Mahārāja says, I can say also. He can say. Then go on studying who is God. The same question: Everyone says, "I am your father," "I am your father," "I am your father," but whom you have to believe? You have to believe only mother.
Student (1): Okay, well who's the mother in this case?
Revatīnandana: The śāstra, revealed scriptures. They give information about the father.
Prabhupāda: śāstra-cakṣuṣā.
Student (1): What about the Bible? That'll tell me something else, altogether.
Revatīnandana: No, it won't. It will tell you almost identical information. If you go in the Bible, it will say, "God is your father." Father means he is sufficient to beget a son. Now, if God is a void, how can a son come out from a void? But if God is a person, then he can have son.
Prabhupāda: We have no such experience.
Prabhupāda: (laughing) That is very good quality. Oh, Jayādvaita has written like that?
Candanācārya: No, he was telling me that it was in one śāstra.
Prabhupāda: No, it is very intelligent. Yes. Just like guru does not accept, although he is worshiped like Kṛṣṇa, he never accepts that "I am Kṛṣṇa." That is our paramparā system. Śiṣya has to accept guru as Kṛṣṇa, but guru will never accept that he is Kṛṣṇa. This is our relationship. Sākṣād-dharitvena samasta-śāstraiḥ. Samasta-śāstraiḥ, all revealed scripture.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: This is the unique quality of Vaiṣṇava.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Nowhere we can find these things.
Candanācārya: One time, Śrīla Prabhupāda, you said, "I will go to hell," but none of your disciples accepted that.
Prajāpati: Actually, coming to this country, this is hell.
Prabhupāda: No, I am not in hell. I am with the devotees, so how can I say I am in hell? (break) Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura says, tāṅdera caraṇa sevi bhakta-sane vās: "My duty is to serve my guru and live with the devotees." That is Kṛṣṇa's grace. "My mission is to serve my guru, but live with the devotees."
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Even in summer it is not possible.
Girirāja: (reading:) "...cannot safely walk a city street or sleep without fear of burglars and the government has fallen far short of the actual standard of a legitimate administration." (break)
Prabhupāda: We are criticizing strongly in our paper. (break) ...command a position. If you manufacture government like that, it will never be capable.
Girirāja: "But it's said in all authentic, revealed scriptures, wherein it is declared that the purpose of civilized human life is to live together in peace and harmony so that everyone can advance progressively in spiritual life." (break)
Prabhupāda: ...purpose of life. But they do not know what is the purpose of life. They have taken the idea of cats and dogs, simply sense gratification. Now, where, how there will be good government. (break) ...all leniency to the Mohammedans to get vote. That's a fact. (break) Mahābhārata, anywhere, or Rāmāyaṇa, you'll never find a woman is elected on the topmost post.
Prabhupāda: The soul is transmigrating, evolution. But when we get this human form of body, our main business is to inquire about God. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. Now, if somebody inquires what is God, the immediate reply is, God is the source, original source of everything. Janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). So the human form of life is meant for understanding God, and according to our philosophy, if human body is not utilized for understanding God, then it is misused. If we simply spoil our life like the animals, eating, sleeping, sex life and defending, then the human life is spoiled like animals. The real necessity of human life is to understand God. Not only to understand God superficially, but to understand our eternal relationship with Him, and then prayojana, the ultimate goal of life, is to go back to home, back to Godhead. That is ultimate goal. And if you simply try to understand God, as we get it from the revealed scriptures, then after giving up this body, tyaktvā dehaṁ... Deham means this body. After this death... There are many deaths in many bodies, but after this death, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9), he does not enter again into the material body. In his original spiritual body he goes back to home, back to Godhead. So this is sum and substance of our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, and we have got many Vedic literatures about it, especially the Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Prabhupāda: We have got forty centers in America.
Dr. Harrap: Forty.
Prabhupāda: Forty, four zero, yes.
Dr. Harrap: Your knowledge of Sanskrit, this is one of your basic interests.
Prabhupāda: No, not Sanskrit, but knowledge we have received by disciplic succession from my Guru Mahārāja, from my spiritual master. Sanskrit is the language but mostly we derive knowledge from Vedic revealed scriptures. And this is also one of them, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. This is the ripened fruit of Vedic knowledge.
Dr. Harrap: And you're interpreting this in terms of modern day living to a large extent in some of your writings, and, of course, some of your disciples writings, as in this book.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guest (2): Could we cover one more subject, sir, before we close, or do you have some...
Guest (1): I would like to ask about the writings and where they came from and so on, but you go first.
Guest (2): You should read the book. I have a very good friend, a brāhmaṇa friend in the Indian Atomic Energy Commission. How do you view the development of the potential for nuclear explosions in India?
Prabhupāda: Yes, from the revealed scripture we can understand from... You have got the first part of Bhāgavatam?
Cāru: Yes, right here.
Prabhupāda: The Aśvatthāmā released the brahmāstra?
Satsvarūpa: That's in three I think.
Prabhupāda: Similar nuclear weapon was there. It was called brahmāstra. So when this brahmāstra was released by one Aśvatthāmā, the same symptom of nuclear weapon... Kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa mahā bāho. That is...
Satsvarūpa: We don't have that volume.
Prabhupāda: Why you are lacking? You have got enough books. I inquired from you in the morning. You said, "Yes, we have got enough stock."
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: His second question is, "Considering that the Bible describes Jesus as the savior of the people of God, not only of Israel but of every man's sins, does it not minimize his actual position to say that he is simply an avatāra, and does it not contradict the teachings of the Bible...?" First of all he says isn't that minimizing him to say that he's an avatāra?
Prabhupāda: We accept him as avatāra, śaktyāveśa-avatāra, empowered incarnation of God. That we accept.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. He says, "Like any other revealed scripture, the Bible's teachings are absolute, but are they to be understood literally or symbolically, and are they applicable for all men?"
Prabhupāda: Literally, not symbolically.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He says, "What is the actual meaning of the sacrifice of the cross, Jesus dying on the cross?"
Prabhupāda: It has no meaning. The people were so rascal that they attempted to kill him. Because he was speaking of God. So we can understand the pollution of the then society, how intelligent they were. He had to deal with such rascals that he was speaking about God and the result is that they wanted to kill him first. He preached, "Thou shalt not kill," and they killed him first. This is their intelligence. Now people are advanced. Those doctrines, they are not (indistinct). That's all. The answer.
| Page Title: | Revealed scripture (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti |
| Created: | 11 of Mar, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=11, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 11 |