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Speed (Lectures)

Lectures

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Lecture on BG Introduction -- New York, February 19-20, 1966:

She is acting under the direction of the Supreme Lord. Mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram (BG 9.10). "This material nature is working under My direction," mayādhyakṣeṇa, "under My superintendence." So we, we are mistaken. When we see wonderful things happening in the cosmic nature, we should know that behind these wonderful manifestations, there is a controller. Nothing can be manifested without being controlled. It is childish to, not to consider about the controller. Just like a very nice motor car with very good speed and very good engineering arrangement is running on the street. A child may think that "How this motor car is running without the help of any horse or any pulling agent?" But a sane man or an elderly person, he knows that in spite of all engineering arrangements in the motor car, without the driver it cannot move.

Lecture on BG 1.24-25 -- London, July 20, 1973:

So you cannot go even in the moon planet. How you can go to that spiritual planet penetrating the material coverings coming to the spiritual effulgence, Brahman, and after all these universes, then...? Therefore it is said, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyaḥ (Bs. 5.34). Koṭi-śata-vatsara, millions of years, if you go with your sputnik with full force... Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. Not this sputnik, but make your planes of mind speed. This is material speed. What is this speed? A few thousands, twenty thousand, fifty thousand. But do you know mind speed? You are sitting here, and immediately, within a second, you can go to India. This is mind speed. Immediately. So panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara sampragamyo vāyor athāpi (Bs. 5.34). By the air speed or mind speed. Vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām. And driven by great scientists, muni-puṅgava. Puṅgava means very expert, nara-puṅgava. So big, big scientists, expert scientists, if they can discover airplane which is running on mind speed or air speed... They are not, they cannot go by the air speed. They fly on the air, but not with the air speed. So in this way, still, avicintya-tattve, after going many, many millions of years in that speed, still you will find, "Oh, Goloka Vṛndāvana is far, far away." This is the position.

Lecture on BG 2.11 -- Mauritius, October 1, 1975:

Even the big sun planet, it is also working under certain direction. Yac cakṣur eṣa savitā sakala-grahāṇām. Without sunrise nobody can see, not only in this planet, in other planets also, sakala-grahāṇām. So this sun planet is so important... Day and night, year and millions of years—everything is being calculated on the solar system. So this powerful planet is described as the eyes of everyone. Without sunshine nobody can see. Yac cakṣur eṣa savitā sakala-grahāṇāṁ rājā. It is to be considered as the king of all planets, rājā, sakala-grahāṇām. All the planets, they are moving, rotating on the heat of the sun, heat and light, and they are working on the light of the sun. Sun is so important. Everything is described in the Vedic literature. So that sun also—working under somebody's direction. Yasyājñayā bhramati sambhṛta-kāla-cakraḥ. The sun is rotating in the orbit at the speed of sixteen thousand miles per second by the order of somebody. That is Govinda. Yasyājñayā bhramati sambhṛta-kāla-cakro govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi **.

Lecture on BG 2.15 -- Hyderabad, November 21, 1972:

Sixty thousand? No, no. More than that sixty... So many people die of motor accidents. So some of our students, a few months ago, they died of motor accident. The motor accident dying in America is not very astonishment. Because the motors are, I mean to say, running at the speed of seventy miles, eighty miles, ninety miles, and not only one motorcar, one after another, hundreds. And if one is little slow, immediately: (imitates crashing sound) tarak taka tak. (laughter)

Lecture on BG 2.15 -- London, August 21, 1973:

So Prahlāda Mahārāja said "People do not know the aim of life." The aim of life is here, amṛtatva, as good as Kṛṣṇa, as good as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Blissful, full of knowledge and eternal. That is the aim of life. But people do not know. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum (SB 7.5.31). Viṣṇu means the Supreme Lord who is eternal, full of bliss and full of knowledge. So our aim should be how to approach Viṣṇu. Then we get the same power, same eternity, same blissfulness. Just like a motorcar is running at the speed of sixty miles, and if a cyclist someway or other catches the motorcar, he can also go at the speed of sixty miles. Sometimes boys do that. Similarly, you approach Kṛṣṇa. You approach Viṣṇu. You get all the powers because you become under protection. Protection of the... That... Tulasī dāsa has said that in the ocean, the waves of the ocean, if you put one elephant very powerful, very strong, the elephant will be washed away by the waves. But a small fish, a teeny fish, it is swimming against the waves. They take pleasure. The fish, when the waves are coming this way, the fish go in that way. Now see. You put against the waves an elephant. It will be washed away. Why elephant? Any strong thing you give. Even big, big ships, oh, it will be washed away. But a small fish, it doesn't care the waves; it goes against the waves. Why? It has taken the shelter. It has taken the shelter of the ocean. Similarly, all power belongs to Kṛṣṇa. Yatra yogeśvaraḥ hariḥ. But if anyone takes shelter of Kṛṣṇa, he becomes as powerful as Kṛṣṇa. This is the process.

Lecture on BG 2.25 -- London, August 28, 1973:

Those who are spiritually advanced by yogic mystic power, they can also move anywhere he likes. Aṇimā, laghimā siddhi. There are still yogis in India who early in the morning takes bath in four dhāmas: Hardwar, Jagannātha Purī, Rāmeśvaram, and Dvārakā. There are still yogis. Within one hour, they'll take bath in four places. Sarva-gataḥ, the speed. They'll sit down in one place and by yogic process within few minutes will get up and dip in here, in this water. Suppose in London you dip, take your dip in the Thames River, and when you get up you see in Calcutta Ganges. There is yogic process like that. Sarva-gataḥ. So the spirit soul has got so much freedom, sarva-gataḥ, anywhere he likes he can go. But this impediment is this body which is checking our freedom. So if you get rid of this material body and be situated in spiritual body... Just like Nārada Muni, he can move anywhere, he's moving, his business is moving. Sometimes he's going to Vaikuṇṭhaloka or sometimes coming to this material loka. He has got spiritual body, he's free to move anywhere, spaceman. They are trying to travel in the space by machine. There is no necessity of machine. Yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61). The machine is made of māyā. But you have got your own power. That is very speedy. So it is being checked. Therefore one should be very much careful how to get the soul out of this encagement of this material body. That should be our first concern. But those who are simply concerned with this body, they are no better than the animals, cows and asses. Sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13).

Lecture on BG 2.46-47 -- New York, March 28, 1966:

You could produce great, complicated machinery, but you cannot produce the machine driver. The machine can be produced, but machine driver cannot be produced. And without machine driver, all machines are useless. All machines are useless. A child may see in the street, oh, how a nice motorcar is passing with so much speed. He is struck with wonder that "Without any horse how the motorcar is going on?" I mean those who have no experience how machine works. Just like in India... Of course, I heard this story from my professor when I was a student of logic in my I.A. class. And this example was given by my professor, Dr. Purnachandra Sena. I still remember that when first railway was started from Howrah to Burdwan, about sixty-four miles, during British period, say, about two hundred years before, now the cultivators on both sides of the line, they were seeing the railway engine going with wonder: "Oh!" So somebody... This story was cited in connection with chapter of hypothesis. In logic there is a chapter of hypothesis. So somebody suggested that "There must be horse within the engine. Otherwise it cannot go." Because they have got experience that without horse nothing can be pulled on. It is horseless, so the hypothesis was that "There must be horses within the engine. Otherwise it cannot go." So similarly, the machine, the machine, however wonderful it may be, so if not horse, at least if there is no driver it cannot move. It cannot move.

Lecture on BG 2.48-49 -- New York, April 1, 1966:

Now, if we work even in that arrangement, yoga-sthaḥ, being situated in my spiritual plane, then that will reach to the spiritual sky by enlargement of the circle, enlargement of the circle. I can do work here. You will find in the Bhagavad-gītā that the Lord says that patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati: (BG 9.26) "Anyone who offers in devotion patraṁ puṣpam, a little flower, a little, small leaf, a little water, I accept them. Because it is offered to Me in devotion, therefore I accept them. I take them in My hand." But people may ask question that "Where is the hand? Where is the hand of God?" He says that "I take." "I take" means "I take it in my hand." Without hand there is no question of taking. Therefore Vedic hymn says that apāṇi-pādo javano grahītā: "The Lord has no legs, no hands, but still, He can walk more than the speed of the air, more than the speed of the mind, and He can accept whatever we offer. But He has no hand; He has no leg." So this means that He has no hand, He has no leg, like our limited measured hand or leg. He can stretch His hand anywhere. And similarly, He can stretch, He can hear, from anywhere. That is the prerogative of the Supreme Lord.

Lecture on BG 2.51-55 -- New York, April 12, 1966:

So this is the whole process. So that sort of business which will lead us to the position when we shall be dovetailed, we shall be dovetailed with the supreme consciousness... Just like this morning I was giving an example. Just like one motorcar is passing on in sixty miles' speed, and a cyclist also going on. If the cyclist catches the motorcar, he can also proceed with the same speed, sixty miles' speed, without even pedalling. Similarly, if we can join our consciousness with the supreme consciousness, then our whole life becomes successful. That is the point. Now, how to join it? The religion. The whole worldly religious process is the same, I mean to say, experimental or formulas or rituals so that one may become dovetailed with the supreme consciousness. Every religion. But if we become attracted by the rituals only or formulas, and quarrel on that point that, "Oh, my Bible says like this," or I say, "No, my Vedas says like this," and the Muslim, Musselman, says that "No, my Koran says like this. Your is not right," then we become attached to the rituals only. We forget, we forget the right point. The right point is... The whole process is how to dovetail, how to dovetail myself with the supreme consciousness. Going to the church, it is not a formality, but real thing is to elevate myself gradually, to dovetail myself to the supreme consciousness of God. That is the real formula.

Lecture on BG 3.27 -- Melbourne, June 27, 1974:

So here it is said, puruṣa. "I am puruṣa. I am enjoying." So puruṣa prakṛti-sthaḥ. So long he is in this material body, he bhuṅkte. Bhuṅkte means enjoys. Not enjoyment. We think we are enjoying, but we are suffering actually. And because we cannot understand what is suffering... Suffering there is. Sometimes we come to understand. But we are accepting this suffering as enjoying. A man is working very hard, very hard, whole day. He is... This is not enjoyment. You have got a car, but you are running at 70 miles speed, going to your business, and there you are earning hundred and thousands of dollars. So you are thinking that you are enjoying. But this labor is suffering—you forget. And in order to forget this suffering, then I take to wine, take to this, take to that, to forget the suffering.

Lecture on BG 4.1 -- Delhi, November 10, 1971:

So, you can imagine great, the great, this universe, the sky, millions and millions of miles spreading. The scientists say that to go the topmost planet of this universe, it will take forty thousands of years in the light year speed. But you can see there are so many planets. Just like you are trying to go to the moon planet, similarly there are other planets, but you cannot go. It is so big, beyond your reach. This is one universe, but there are innumerable universes. As you see that within this planet there are innu..., within this universe there numberless planets, you cannot count even. So similarly, there are innumerable universes, and all these universes together is within God. So the conception of God cannot be attained by our mental speculation. It is not possible. If you speculate what is God, you cannot understand.

Lecture on BG 4.4 -- Bombay, March 24, 1974:

Just like you go by airplane. This is air speed. There is another speed. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo, vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām. There is another speed, mind speed. We have experience of the light speed, of the air speed, but we do not know what is the mind speed. Mind speed is so strong that within a second you can go many millions of miles. Within a second. And you can understand, if the mind speed is so strong, how much the speed of spirit is so strong. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9). If you become fully conversant with Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the result will be, tyaktvā deham, just giving up this body, just immediately after death.... Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti (BG 4.9).

Lecture on BG 4.8 -- Montreal, June 14, 1968:

Adānta-gobhiḥ: "And the main disease is uncontrolled senses." Adānta. Adānta means uncontrolled, unbridled senses. Because the senses, being unbridled, they will not allow you to understand in cool head what is the problem. Adānta-gobhir viśatāṁ tamisram. Just like if you are sitting on a car where the horses are unbridled and it is running on in great speed without your control, you do not know where, when you will be in danger. You will be in danger. You are already in danger because the horses are unbridled. It is pulling you anywhere it likes. Similarly, our horses—the senses are called horses—it is being controlled. Viśatāṁ tamisram. It is going to the darkest region of hellish condition.

Lecture on BG 7.1 -- Ahmedabad, December 13, 1972:

Others may go on speculating for years and years. It is not possible to understand. And similarly, in the Brahma-saṁhitā, another Vedic literature, it is said, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām (Bs. 5.34). Muni-puṅgavānām, great saintly persons, sages, if they travel for millions of years... Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. Koṭi, again multiplied by hundreds and hundreds. Vāyor athāpi, on the airplane of air. Not this metal airplane, but actually air airplane or by the airplane of mind. Mind speed, we know. Mind can run within a second many thousands of miles, immediately. Suppose I am sitting here. So I have got my apartment in Los Angeles, ten thousand miles away. I can immediately go... This is called mind-speed. So with the mind speed, with the velocity of air, if one runs on, to find out the Kṛṣṇa planet, or Kṛṣṇa, still, avicintya-tattva, still, it is inconceivable tattva.

Lecture on BG 7.1 -- Calcutta, January 27, 1973:

If you want to know Kṛṣṇa or God by the speculative process, not only for one year, two years... Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi. Not mental speculation, but on the aeroplane running on the speed of vāyu, or air, or mind, the speed of mind, still, by traversing many crores of years, you cannot reach. Still it, it remains avicintya, inconceivable. But if you take to the process of this kṛṣṇa-yoga, or bhakti-yoga, then you can become aware of Kṛṣṇa very easily. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ (BG 18.55). To understand Kṛṣṇa superficially, that is not sufficient. That is also good, but you must have tattvataḥ, what is Kṛṣṇa actually. That knowledge can be achieved—bhaktyā, by this kṛṣṇa-yoga.

Lecture on BG 7.2 -- Nairobi, October 28, 1975:

Prabhupāda: When my Guru Mahārāja ordered me. This is the guru-paramparā.

Indian: Did it...

Prabhupāda: Try to understand. Don't go very speedily. A guru can become guru when he's ordered by his guru. That's all. Otherwise nobody can become guru.

Indian woman 2: (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Śādhi māṁ prapannam. "I am surrendered to You. Whatever You say, I shall carry out." That's all.

Indian man: When did he tell you to...?

Prabhupāda: What is the business, when did he tell me? And why shall I disclose to you? It is so very insignificant thing that I have to explain to you?

Indian man: No, I am just curious when...

Prabhupāda: You should be curious within your limit. You should know that one can become guru when he is ordered by his guru, this much.

Lecture on BG 8.14-15 -- New York, November 16, 1966:

Now, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyaḥ. By the ascending process, if anyone makes progress with the speed of mind and speed of air... You, you know the speed of mind, how it is powerful. You are sitting here, and you can think of thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away immediately. Just see the speed of mind. Similarly, the velocity of air is very thousands of miles in a second, velocity of air. So the example is given here that if anyone traverses on the path of ascending process with the velocity of mind and air... Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vat... And if he makes progress not only for one day, two days, three days, one month—koṭi-śata-vatsara, millions and millions of years, if he goes in that speed... Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manasaḥ (Bs. 5.34). Vāyu. Vāyu means air. By the airplane or sputnik, or by the speed of the mind, if he makes progress... Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām. And not very ordinary man, but muni-puṅgava. Muni-puṅgava means the highest thoughtful. Puṅgava means the greatest, and a muni means thoughtful, thinker. If he goes on for millions of years in the speed of mind and speed of air, still, he will find still not knowable, not knowable. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām, so 'py asti yat prapada-sīmny avicintya-tattve (Bs. 5.34). Still the subject matter remains inconceivable, inconceivable, not definite.

Lecture on BG 8.15-20 -- New York, November 17, 1966:

So after nine years I'll have to change this body. Sure. There is nobody can, by scientific process, can stay here. No. That is not allowed. You have to change your body. This is called punar āvartinaḥ, changing... Just like you change your old dress, similarly, you have to change your old body, again enter into another new body. So this is called punar āvartinaḥ. So Kṛṣṇa says that "If you enter in this material world, if you enter even to the highest planet..." What to speak of this moon planet... Moon planet is just our neighbor. Your modern scientists have calculated that if we want to go to the highest planet, it will take—this same speed of sputnik, twenty thousand miles per hour—still, it will take forty thousands of years to reach the highest planet. That is the scientific view.

Lecture on BG 9.11-14 -- New York, November 27, 1966:

Govinda, the Supreme Lord, who is so vast that you cannot reach Him by your mental speculation... Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. Koṭi means ten million, and koṭi-śata-vatsara, similarly, millions and millions of years, with the speed of air and with the speed of mind, if you proceed to speculate, to understand the Supreme, oh, that is not possible. That is not possible. So many speculators at the present moment or in the past, speculating, speculating, speculating. They never reach the point, never reach the point. There is not a single instance that they have reached the point.

Lecture on BG 13.8-12 -- Bombay, October 2, 1973:

Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. Not only one year, two years, three years or forty thousand years. Koṭi-śata-vatsara. Koṭi, you know, one hundred times lakhs makes koṭi and again multiply it by hundred. Koṭi-śata-vatsara. And the speed. What is the speed of that aeroplane? Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi. Aeroplane. Vāyur manasaḥ. And with the speed of mind. Airplane running with the speed of mind. You know what is the speed of mind. You are sitting here, and within a second your mind can go some ten thousand miles away, within a second. So even with that speed and running on, koti-sata-vatsara, you cannot go to the spiritual planet. This is the position. So 'py asti yat prapada-sīmny-avicintya-tattve. So in that way you cannot go.

Lecture on BG 13.16 -- Bombay, October 10, 1973:

Now this sun globe, it is very powerful planet within this universe. Therefore it is called the king of all planets. Yac cakṣur eṣa savitā. Savitā means the sun planet. Sakala-grahāṇāṁ rājā samasta-sura-mūrtir aśeṣa-tejāḥ. Unlimited power, aśeṣa-tejāḥ. But still, this sun planet is also moving in its orbit. The sun planet has got its orbit. All planets, they have got their orbit. Yasyājñayā bhramati sambhṛta-kāla-cakraḥ. Kāla-cakraḥ. It is moving like that, sixteen thousand miles per second, the speed of sun planet. Everything is described in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Lecture on BG 13.16 -- Bombay, October 10, 1973:

Dūrastham. Now, you cannot calculate where this abode of God is there. Dūrastham. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. If you go with your plane with the speed of mind, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi (Bs. 5.34), by airplane, vāyu-ratha... This vāyu airplane is mentioned in the Brahma-saṁhitā. Vāyor athāpi manasaḥ, and with the speed of mind. Muni-puṅgavānām, discovered by great scientists, still, avicintya-tattve, it is so far away. Avicintya-tattve. Therefore it is called dūrastham.

Lecture on BG 16.6 -- Hawaii, February 2, 1975:

So if you qualify yourself by the divine qualities, then what is the benefit? Daivī sampad vimokṣāya. Mokṣa. Mokṣa mean liberation. So if you cultivate divine qualities, then you are fit for being liberated. What is liberation? Liberation from repeating birth and death. That is our real suffering. The modern, rascal civilization, they do not know actually what is the end of suffering. They do not know. There is no education. There is no science. They are thinking that "Here this small span of life, say, fifty years, sixty years, hundred years, utmost, if we get a nice wife, a nice apartment and nice motor car, running with seventy miles speed, and a nice whiskey bottle..." That is his perfection. But that is not vimokṣāya. Real vimokṣa, liberation, means no more birth, death, old age and disease. That is vimokṣa. But they do not know even.

Lecture on BG 16.6 -- Hawaii, February 2, 1975:

They do not know even that there is birth after death. Such a foolish civilization. Although we are experiencing every moment birth and death... Birth and death every moment, it is going on so finely. It is Kṛṣṇa's arrangement. Just like this world, this earthly planet, is moving at the rate of one thousand miles per hour. Such a gigantic body, it is also moving. Every, all planets are moving. Even the sun is moving. But we cannot perceive. You ride on a best airplane—there are so many disturbances, sound, moving, sometimes table is (trembling?) moving. But this planet also moving more speedily than the airplane, but you do not perceive. This is Kṛṣṇa's manufacture, perfectly. Pūrṇam idam. This is called pūrṇam idam, everything perfect. Pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate, pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam eva avaśiṣyate (Īśo Invocation). Because He is so perfect, we do not perceive. But it is moving.

Lecture on BG 16.8 -- Tokyo, January 28, 1975:

So this is called jagat. Everything is going on. But it is going in such a way... Just like these cars are moving with high speed, but they are very careful to pass within the lane. Otherwise there will be collision. Similarly, all these planets, they have got their own speed for rotating, and there are hundreds and thousands and millions. They are rotating, but there is no collision. Now, how it is made? Who has made this lane? A car is moving in sixty miles, seventy miles speed, but they are ordered just to remain within the lane, the marking line. Who has made it? The police department, the government. So how can you say there is no control? We have to... This is called upamā, analogy, the points of similarity. Analogy means the points of similarity. Then you can conclude some idea.

Lecture on BG 16.8 -- Tokyo, January 28, 1975:

Now, as we see in the street that the cars are moving in high speed but they are within the orbit, within the line, demarcation of line, white line or yellow line, so there is some brain, there is some management, everything is there, Similarly, all these planets, they are rotating with high speed. Just like this planet. It is rotating 25,000 miles in twelve hours. Is it not? The circumference of this earth is 25,000 miles and... Yes, day and night, twenty-four hours. Almost one thousand miles per hour it is... Now the car is moving seventy miles per hours. It appears very with good speed running. But the earth is running at one thousand miles per hour, but we cannot understand. The arrangement is so nice. The perfection that it is... We cannot understand it. It is practical. We see the morning, day, coming. That means earth is moving. When the aeroplane moves also, there are so many jerking, those sound. They're all imperfect. But here you see that such perfect arrangement, it is moving one thousand miles per hour, and there is no jerking. There is nothing of the sort.

Lecture on BG 16.13-15 -- Hawaii, February 8, 1975:

But that is not possible. Desire must be there. Because I am living there, living being, I must have desires. That is the symptom. A stone has no desire, but a living being, however small, insignificant ant, it has got desire. The insignificant ant gets information that in the other corner of the room, which is one hundred miles for the ant... Because the world is relative, relative world, so this length of the room, from this corner to the other corner, for an ant it is hundred miles, yes, because the world is relative according to the size, atomic size, the distance. Now we have got speedy aeroplane. The distance has reduced. Distance from Honolulu to India, if you go by land it will be ten thousand miles, but... It is ten thousand miles, but the speedy aeroplane has reduced. So relatively... Everything is relative. This is called relative world. Dar... What is...? Professor Einstein, he has proved the law of relativity. So the ant, he has to go, to pick up one grain of sugar, by going hundred miles in his capacity, but it will go. That is desire. You have got experience. You put little sugar here. You don't invite ants, but they'll come. They'll come. They'll get immediately information. Just like from Europe many people came in America-gold rush desire. So desire must be there. The ant has desire; Lord Brahmā has desire; I have got desire; you have got desire. This is artificial, to make desireless. That is not possible.

Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures

Lecture on SB 1.1.1 -- Caracas, February 20, 1975:

A dog is also searching after food; a hog is also searching after food; a bird is also searching after food; a man is also searching after food. Now, in the broad road so many cars are going in seventy mile speed. What is their research? "Where is food? Where is money?" Ask anybody who is very busy in driving car in seventy miles speed that "What is your business?" He will answer that "I have got to take money from there. I have to do this business." That is also money. This will be the answer. They have no other answer. And if you ask him, "What you will do with your money?" then he will say, "I shall live in a very nice apartment, I shall eat very nice foodstuff, I shall have to enjoy very good sex life and I will have to defend myself." But the Bhāgavata says, or the supreme authority says, "No, this is not your business. Because you are human being... This business is also there in the animal life. Therefore your business is tattva-jijñāsā, jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā. When you are developed animal... Now you are also animal because you don't enquire about the Absolute Truth. But you are developed, so now your business is to enquire about the origin of everything." Your business is not to increase the problem of the four necessities of life. By this karma or unnecessary activities you are increasing simply problems.

Lecture on SB 1.1.1 -- Caracas, February 21, 1975:

One who has attained yogic perfection, he can become... You lock up anywhere, and he will come out. This is yoga-siddhi, not that a yogi is locked up and he cannot come out. That is simply gymnastic. So yoga-siddhi. The yoga-siddhi you can get when you become perfect yogi. Mahimā also. You can float in the air. That is called laghimā. Now the aeroplane is going in the air very good speed, but when you get yoga-siddhi your speed becomes... You become very light. You can go anywhere in a moment. It is speedier than the mind. Just like mind—you are sitting here, and your paternal home may be ten thousand miles away, but by mind you can go immediately. This is mental speed. You cannot take your body immediately there, but you can take your mind there immediately. So why it is possible? Because mind is finer than this gross body. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, indriyāṇi parāṇy āhur indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ, manasas tu parā buddhiḥ (BG 3.42). The finer, finer, finer. Just like this gross body. This gross body means senses. The finer than this is the mind.

Lecture on SB 1.2.7 -- Delhi, November 13, 1973:

We have got experience of flying by the airplane. It goes five hundred, six hundred, thousand miles per hour. But here it is said panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi. On the airplane of the speed of air or on the speed of mind... You can understand the speed of mind. You are sitting here; immediately you can go to London, ten thousand miles away. The speed of mind you can understand. So here it is... Even on the speed of mind, not this one-thousand-mile speed or five-hundred-mile speed. On the speed of mind. The speed of mind means within second it can go millions of miles. That is the speed of mind. So it is said, panthās tu... And with that speed, if you go on, koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyaḥ, for many millions of years to find out where is God, it is impossible. You cannot. You cannot. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām (Bs. 5.34). And by whom? Muni-puṅga, great, great saintly persons. So still, avicintya-tattve, still, it remains avicintya-tattva. You cannot understand. Nāyam ātmā pravacanena labhyaḥ. In the Vedas it is said, "Simply by argument, speculation, you cannot understand." You have to understand God from God or from His representative. Otherwise it is not possible. This is the process.

Lecture on SB 1.2.8 -- Bombay, December 26, 1972:

Every one of us will know it. Padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadām (SB 10.14.58). Those who are living in Bombay city, they know it very well. When you pass through the road in taxi-cab or motorcar, so much congested, and at any moment there may be some danger, padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadām. In America also, the cars are running in seventy-mile speed, and if one car collides with another, immediately four, five cars-disaster. So actually you are living in such a condition. Pādaṁ padaṁ yad vipadām. Every moment there is danger. It is not very peaceful living at the present moment. We are running, we are flying in the sky, we are... We do not say that this should be stopped, neither it can be stopped, but you do everything in Kṛṣṇa consciousness so that even danger takes place, ante nārāyaṇa-smṛtiḥ (SB 2.1.6), you can at least remember Kṛṣṇa at the time of death. Then your life is successful. Yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran loke tyajaty ante kalevaram (BG 8.6), Kṛṣṇa says. Yaṁ yaṁ vāpi. At the time of death our remembrance to a certain thing gives me next body. If I think like a dog, then I become next life a dog, and if I think like a god, then I, next life I become god. That is the test at the time of death.

Lecture on SB 1.2.9 -- New Vrindaban, September 7, 1972:

So He hasn't got to do anything. Na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate. He has no duty. He hasn't got to go to office, fifty miles off, with a motorcar, running at seventy miles speed, and there is some accident, finished. He hasn't got to do like that, although He runs quicker than anyone. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that,

patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ
yo me bhaktyā prayacchati
tad ahaṁ bhakty-upahṛtam
aśnāmi prayatātmanaḥ
(BG 9.26)

So Kṛṣṇa is situated in the spiritual world, goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūtaḥ (Bs. 5.37). But we are trying to offer Him some foodstuff, as far as possible with devotion and faith; Kṛṣṇa is eating, although He's far away. So this is God's position. At least, He hasn't got to work, He hasn't got to take the trouble to come. He's already here, although goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūtaḥ, although He's in the Goloka. It is not that Kṛṣṇa has gone somewhere, taken incarnation, therefore Goloka is vacant. No. In Goloka also, He's there, and He's everywhere. Aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara-stham (Bs. 5.35). So this is God.

Lecture on SB 1.2.22 -- Vrndavana, November 2, 1972:

So the spirit soul is still more subtle. And the speed of spirit soul is very, very great. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9). Tyaktvā deham. "Just after giving up this body, he immediately comes to Me in the spiritual world." These are the Vedic statement. You can try to understand. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti: (BG 4.9) we accept another body immediately after death. It is said just like go forward, when the first step, you find it is secure, you take up the second step. Similarly, as soon as the next body is arranged by superior arrangement, we give up this body and enter into another gross body. Immediately. Immediately we are transferred to a mother's womb for manufacturing another gross body. This is the law.

Lecture on SB 1.2.22 -- Vrndavana, November 2, 1972:

So here Kṛṣṇa says, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). If the living entity does not enter into another gross body, then where does he go? So Kṛṣṇa says, mām eti. "He comes to Me." Now just imagine what is the speed of spirit soul, just after leaving this body after death, he immediately goes to Goloka Vṛndāvana, or at least where Kṛṣṇa is there. Mām eti. Kṛṣṇa's nitya-līlā, that has been described in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, how Kṛṣṇa's nitya-līlā is going on. Kṛṣṇa is present in a bhauma-līlā in one of the universes every time. The Lord Caitanya has given the example as the movement of the sun. The sun is moving, and the twenty-four hours into sixty minutes, into sixty seconds... The... All these time changes are there, every time. Just like our sunrise was, say, at six-thirty, or six. This six thirty, passed here, but somewhere else it is now six-thirty. Again when it will pass six-thirty there, in somewhere else there will be six-thirty. Similarly Kṛṣṇa is passing from one universe to another, and when He's visible in this universe, we find Kṛṣṇa's appearance.

Lecture on SB 1.2.24 -- Vrndavana, November 4, 1972:

But this is due to wrong direction of civilization. They do not know what is the aim of civilization. The aim of civilization is to understand Viṣṇu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But they're missing the point. They're thinking motor tire civilization, very nice road and running motorcar in seventy, eighty miles speed, that is civilization. Not to understand Viṣṇu. That is the difference between materialism and spiritualism.

Lecture on SB 1.3.1-3 -- San Francisco, March 28, 1968:

So everything, whatever we have got, Kṛṣṇa has also got that thing. But in Kṛṣṇa it is in perfection; in us, in our conditional state of life, it is imperfect. So if we dovetail ourselves with Kṛṣṇa, then our..., all these propensities become perfect. The same example as I have given repeatedly, that a car is running at seventy-mile speed, a cyclist catches the car, he also runs in seventy-miles speed, although the cycle hasn't got such speed. Similarly, although we are minute particle of God, if we dovetail ourselves with the consciousness of God, or Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then we become equally spirit. This is the technique.

Lecture on SB 1.3.15 -- Los Angeles, September 20, 1972:

We are calculating the years, the time also relative. That is the latest theory of the scientists, law of relativity. My hundred years and Brahmā's hundred years and an ant's hundred years, a germ's hundred years, they are not the same. Similarly time calculation, if you go in the upper planetary system, that time calculation is different. Just like in modern age, the sputnik age, they are flying sputnik. The first sputnik flight, they circumambulated this earth three times in one twenty-five hour and minutes. And they saw that there is night and day. Here in this planet our night and day experience is twenty-four hours. But as soon as you leave this planet, you fly in a different speed, there is three times night and day in one hour and minutes. So similarly everyone lives hundred years, but that hundred years are all relative. An ant's hundred years and man's hundred years is not the same. Similarly, a man's hundred years and a demigod's hundred years not the same. In different planetary system the time is... Similarly, if you go still up and up, the time is relative.

Lecture on SB 1.5.12-13 -- New Vrindaban, June 11, 1969:

So if such thoughtful speculators go on speculating about understanding God... How? Vāyor athāpi manasaḥ. In the speed of, in the velocity of air and mind. Not sputnik. A sputnik can run... Your mechanical can run, say, eighteen thousand miles per hour, but the air, that can run still more quicker. And the mind can run still more quicker. So here it is recommended that if one is seated not on the ordinary airplane, but the airplane of air... The yogis can do that. The yogis know how to rise on the aeroplane of air, and they can immediately transfer to any planet. Vāyoḥ. Vāyor athāpi. There were... There were planes made of air. Here... Just like now we have manufactured the planes, iron or aluminium, but there are planes of air, and similarly, there are planes of mind. You see?

So that, these are explained in the Brahma-saṁhitā. Vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām. And manufactured by greatest, stalwart thinker, or scientist. And going in this speed for many, many thousands of years. Still, you cannot reach where is Kṛṣṇaloka.

Lecture on SB 1.7.18 -- Vrndavana, September 15, 1976:

Pradyumna:

tam āpatantaṁ sa vilakṣya dūrāt
kumāra-hodvigna-manā rathena
parādravat prāṇa-parīpsur urvyāṁ
yāvad-gamaṁ rudra-bhayād yathā kaḥ
(SB 1.7.18)

"Aśvatthāmā, the murderer of the princes, seeing from a great distance Arjuna coming at him with great speed, fled in his chariot, panic stricken, just to save his life, as Brahmā fled in fear from Śiva."

Prabhupāda:

tam āpatantaṁ sa vilakṣya dūrāt
kumāra-hodvigna-manā rathena
parādravat prāṇa-parīpsur urvyāṁ
yāvad-gamaṁ rudra-bhayād yathā kaḥ
(SB 1.7.18)

So here is one reference that Lord Brahmā was pursued by Lord Śiva when Brahmā was running after his beautiful daughter. So similarly, here, Aśvatthāmā, he knew that Arjuna is coming to kill him, so he was running very swiftly. Āpatantaṁ sa vilakṣya dūrāt. From distant place, when he saw that Arjuna was coming... So dehātma-buddhi. This is the distinction between person in bodily concept of life and person who is liberated from the bodily concept of life. So when Durvāsā Muni cursed or wanted to kill... What is the king? Ambarīṣa Mahārāja. So Ambarīṣa Mahārāja was a devotee. Unnecessarily he was harassed by Durvāsā Muni, but because Ambarīṣa Mahārāja was a pure devotee, advanced, he was not afraid of being killed. He was not afraid. There are many instances. Just like Prahlāda Mahārāja. He was attempted to be killed by his father so many times, but he was never afraid. Although he was five-years-old boy, but he was not afraid.

Lecture on SB 1.8.31 -- Los Angeles, April 23, 1973:

Therefore in the Brahma-saṁhitā it is said: panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyaḥ (Bs. 5.34). Panthās... Koṭi-śata-vatsara. The space is unlimited. Now you take your plane or sputnik or capsule... So many things they have invented. So you go on. Now go on for how many hours or days or years? No. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. For millions of years, koṭi-śata-vatsara, go on with your speed. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyaḥ. And how I shall go? Now on the plane which is running on the velocity of the air. Not this velocity, not this speed, 500 miles or 1000 miles per hour. No. What is the speed of air?

Lecture on SB 1.8.31 -- Los Angeles, April 23, 1973:

96 miles per second. These are mentioned in the Vedic literature that if you go by this speed, air, 96 miles per second... So just imagine what is the speed of air. So panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi (Bs. 5.34). On the plane which is running on the speed of air. That speed, and for millions of years. Then again it is suggested not only on the speed of air but also on the speed of mind.

The mind you can, everyone, we know, what is the speed of mind. Even one ten-thousandth part of a second, you can go millions of miles. The speed of mind. It is so speedy. You are sitting here, and suppose you have seen something which is millions of miles, miles away, you can immediately, your mind can go immediately. So these two examples are given. Just see how much scientific they were. These rascals says that there was no advanced mind or advanced scientists. Then wherefrom these words are coming? The speed of air, the speed of mind. Unless they had some experiment, some knowledge. Why, how these books are written?

Lecture on SB 1.8.31 -- Los Angeles, April 23, 1973:

So panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manasaḥ (Bs. 5.34). And how the speed, speedy planes are manufactured? Muni-puṅgavānām. By the greatest scientists and greatest thoughtful men. By, manufactured by them. So is that perfection? No. So 'pyasti yat prapada-sīmny avicintya-tattve. Still you shall remain in inconceivable understanding what is this creation. Still, if you are so advanced that you can run on on this speed and if you are greatest scientist and thoughtful philosopher, still you'll remain in the same condition, unknown. Still.

Lecture on SB 2.1.1-5 -- Melbourne, June 26, 1974:

So moving, unmoving. And we exist past, present, future. And there is biggest, bigger than the biggest, the whole universe. Although you have got airships, you cannot go, neither others. So many machines have been discovered, but go and see the... They cannot go even to the moon planet, what to speak of others. Therefore it is very big for us. When we speak of universe we cannot think of. They simply calculate, the scientists, by light year, and this year, that year, the speed. But we cannot approach even in this material world, and what to speak of Kṛṣṇa? Kṛṣṇa is in the spiritual world. We cannot calculate the length and breadth of this material world. Our knowledge is so imperfect and meager, and what we can understand of the spiritual world? The material world is a manifestation of Kṛṣṇa's one-fourth energy. And the three-fourths' energy is manifested in the spiritual world. This is the understanding of Kṛṣṇa.

Lecture on SB 2.1.2 -- Paris, June 11, 1974:

Take this whole universe, apart from other universe, this universe. This is also home because we're living here. And we are changing, from this place to that place. Suppose I have come from India. From Bombay, I have come to Paris. This is all within the home, within the universe, or within this planet. So we see people are very busy. Seventy miles speed, they're driving car. But within the Paris, within the Paris, they may go seventy miles, eighty miles, but they cannot go beyond. That, our one countryman, Rabindranath Tagore... So perhaps you heard his name. He was a big poet. So when he was in London, so he saw that people are very, walking very fast. So he remarked that "These people are walking very fast. But there is a very small country. They'll fall down on the sea." You see?

Lecture on SB 2.3.11-12 -- Los Angeles, May 29, 1972:

Similarly, ātma-prasāda uta yatra guṇeṣv asaṅgaḥ. Asaṅgaḥ, no more connection with this material nature. But I have my connection with Kṛṣṇa. It may be little, very. I may be very minute, but that, I mean to say, connection is very valuable. I have given many times this example that a car running at a speed of 60 miles, and a cycle is running at the rate of 10 miles, but as soon as the cyclist catches the car, the cyclist also runs in the 60 miles. So similarly, instead of trying to satisfy our senses independently, if we join with Kṛṣṇa in His rāsa dance, as cowherd boys, gopīs, we join with Kṛṣṇa, then you get the same pleasure as Kṛṣṇa. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Don't try to enjoy independently. Just like here, in this temple. Every one of us trying to enjoy life in connection with Kṛṣṇa. As soon as we are disconnected with Kṛṣṇa consciousness, this kind of foodstuff or this kind of living, simple living, will not satisfy you. You'll be tossed by the waves of material nature.

Lecture on SB 2.3.19 -- Los Angeles, June 15, 1972:

They take risk, so much risk, for earning money and sense enjoyment. The thief, the burglars, they risk their life. They go to steal to a man's house, and it is known that as soon as he is known, "He has come," the man, the proprietor of the house, may immediately shoot him. That risk he takes. So not only the burglar and thieves, every one of us. It is stated padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadām (SB 10.14.58). In every step there is danger. Every step. We are running our motorcars very fast, seventy miles, one hundred miles speed, but any moment there can be great danger. So actually there cannot be any peace in material life. That is not possible. Samāśritā ye pada-pallava-plavam. We have to take therefore shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord. If we want to be happy, if we want to be peaceful, then this is the only way.

Lecture on SB 2.9.4-8 -- Tokyo, April 23, 1972:

Just like when the first sputnik traveled round the world. In one hour, twenty-five minutes, this whole world was circum(am)bulated. So actually it takes so many hours if you circumambulate the whole world, 25,000 miles. Even by plane it will take day and night. What is the speed of aeroplane?

Lecture on SB 2.9.4-8 -- Tokyo, April 23, 1972:

So one thousand miles, two hours. So 25,000 miles it will take fifty hours. But by other arrangement, it was circum(am)bulated one hour, twenty-five minutes. So, similarly, by other arrangement it can be done in one minute, in one second. It is a question of arranging. It is, therefore, all relative. Everything is relative. You cannot walk... The ant cannot walk. Therefore it should be like this, it should be like that, according to my convenience. No, relative. You have got greater power, greater speed than... My speed, your speed, may (be) different. Therefore what is one hundred years for me, it may be one second for you. It is relative, all relative truth. In your calculation it is one hundred years. In my calculation it is one second. Therefore Brahmā's duration of life is described in the Bhagavad-gītā, sahasra-yuga-paryantam ahar yad brahmaṇo viduḥ (BG 8.17). Brahmaṇe, Here also divyam. Sahasrābdam. Now divyaṁ sahasrābdam. Brahmā's one day, one twelve hours, daytime, we cannot calculate. Our, according to our calculation it is... Sahasra-yuga. Sahasra-yuga. Yuga. Yugas means these Satya, Tretā, Dvāpara, Kali. That means forty three hundred thousands of years. And thousand times, forty three hundred thousands of years, that makes Brahmā's one day of twelve hours.

Lecture on SB 2.9.4-8 -- Tokyo, April 23, 1972:

So rascals will say these are all imagination. Not imagination. Because relative truth. Your speed, your power... Just like an ant. An ant lives, say, for few hours. That is also his hundred years. A germ lives for few seconds. That is also his hundred years. So this hundred years, they are relative. One hundred years calculation your, one hundred years of the demigods or one hundred years calculation of the ant, they are not the same. According to the body, according to the power, the calculation is there. Time is unlimited. Time is unlimited, but according to my body, a certain duration of period, I say it is hundred years, when we make our history. So therefore it is said, divyaṁ sahasra. One may not miscalculate, that sahasra, one hundred. No, śata is hundred. Śata is hundred. It is sahasra, means thousand. Divyaṁ sahasrābdam.

Lecture on SB 2.9.10 -- Tokyo, April 26, 1972:

We get all information. Is there any doubt? So why should we take so much trouble? Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, take information, be prepared, and at the time of death, think of Kṛṣṇa. Immediately transferred within a second. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9). Within a second, transferred. Because spirit soul is finer than the mind. So mind can be transferred immediately within a second millions of miles away. So how much speed is there for spirit soul, you can imagine. Mind, you can immediately... You are sitting here. Immediately you can transfer mind, Bombay. You are seeing. The kīrtana is going on. It is practical. Manaso vāyuḥ. Vāyu, the velocity of the air, and finer than the... Because air is gross matter and mind is subtle matter, so the speed of mind is far greater than the velocity of air. Air, the velocity of air is two thousand miles or per... Two hundred miles, like that?

Lecture on SB 2.9.10 -- Tokyo, April 26, 1972:

Śyāmasundara: Speed of light. It goes, I think...

Prabhupāda: Not speed of... Sound. You say "Kṛṣṇa." This word, immediately within a second, seven times. And therefore we quickly capture. We have got a machine. So therefore it is still speedy, sound. Sound is sky. So subtler than the sound is the mind. Then you can imagine how much speedy is mind, how many millions of miles you can go. And subtler than the mind is soul. So just imagine how quickly the soul can be transferred to the other world, other planet. You can transfer by yogic principle. So it is said, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9). The most subtler. And in the spiritual world that is completely spiritual. There is no tinge or contamination of anything of this material embarrassment. Ahaituky apratihatā. Then, what is...?

Lecture on SB 2.9.11-15 -- Tokyo, April 28, 1972:

Yes. It will take forty thousands of years with the speed of 18,000 miles per hour. No, or... Some estimation. Anyway, forty thousands of years. So who is going to live for forty thousand years to see and go and see and come back? They cannot go even to the moon planet, theorizing. How they can go? But this is fact. If you have got power, you go and see. But they cannot go a few miles, and they are proud that "We have known everything. We know everything." This is their foolishness. Our knowledge is so imperfect; still, we are proud of our knowledge: "Oh, I have known everything. I know everything. I am God. I am God." So, and foolish like that... Just like a foolish child, he is declaring himself, "I am God," and there are so many followers: "Oh, he is God, he is God." That's it. They do not know what is God. At least we know what is God in this sense, that our God, when... Actually He is God. Therefore, at the age of seven years, He lifted a big mountain on the finger. So we accept this God. When He was young man He married sixteen thousand wives. These are the unique instances. And why shall I accept a cheap God who cannot provide even one wife? We are not... Because he cannot provide it, he does not marry. So this kind of God we don't accept.

Lecture on SB 3.25.21 -- Bombay, November 21, 1974:

So we are actually tied up. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī (BG 7.14). Therefore it is called guṇa. Guṇa means rope. We are tied up. We are not free. Just like we are trying to go to the moon planet so many years, but because we are not free, still we have not been successful to go there. So there are so many planets within this material world, we can go. We have got now machine, very speedy machine, but why we cannot go? Because you are conditioned. You cannot go by your whims. You must be qualified to go to certain planets. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā:

yānti deva-vratā devān
pitṟn yānti pitṛ-vratāḥ
bhūtāni yānti bhūtejyā
yānti mad-yājino 'pi mām
(BG 9.25)

So if you want to go, you must qualify yourself. Otherwise it is not so easy. Just like if you want to go to America, you must have qualification. You must have your visa, you must have your passport, you must have the... So many things—if you want to be immigration or if you want to go as a visitor.

Lecture on SB 3.26.27 -- Bombay, January 4, 1975:

"My dear Kṛṣṇa, I think the mind is very, very restless." Cañcalaṁ hi manaḥ kṛṣṇa. Pramāthi: "as madman." As madman is always restless... "And very strong. I want to control the mind, but it does not come under control. So this is the position. Therefore, You are asking me to control the mind..." Tasya ahaṁ nigrahaṁ manye vāyor iva suduṣkaram: "I think it is more difficult than controlling the wind." Suppose there is very strong wind, and if you want to stop it, you see, it is not possible. There is cyclone. Similarly, Arjuna has compared the mind with the speed of cyclone. How it is to be controlled? So completely denied. But Kṛṣṇa said, just to encourage Arjuna, that he should not be disappointed because he could not control the mind. But still, because his mind was always engaged in the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, he is the best of all the yogis.

Lecture on SB 3.26.27 -- Bombay, January 4, 1975:

So it is a concoction, to finish the individuality. It is called spiritual suicide. Just like if a man becomes disappointed and he cuts his own throat or hangs him, some way or other, eats some poison, to finish, does it mean that he is finished? Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). He is rascal. He does not know. By finishing this body he is finished—no, that is not possible. The result is, because he violated the rules of nature, he becomes a ghost. That is his life. One who commits suicide, he becomes a ghost. Ghost means he does not get this material body. He remains in the subtle body, mind, intelligence. Therefore ghost can go because he is in the mind. Mind speed is very strong. If you have got this material body, you cannot go immediately hundred miles off. But if you are in the mental body, you can go immediately, thousand miles immediately, within a second. So the ghost, they can play something wonderful because... But they are not happy because they have no gross body. They want to enjoy. He's materialist. He has committed suicide for some material want. So he is want of material..., fulfilling material desire. He could not fulfill in this body; therefore commits suicide, but the desire is there. The desire is there, and he cannot fulfill it. He becomes perplexed. Therefore the ghost create disturbance sometimes.

Lecture on SB 5.5.1-2 -- London (Tittenhurst), September 13, 1969:

Now, not only in your country, but also in all other countries at the present moment, everyone is trying to make economic development. What is that economic development you have got very good idea: industrialization, high standard of living and so many other things. But the end is sense gratification. The purpose of economic development... It is wonderful for us. We are Indian. When we see... When I was in Los Angeles, there is a freeway. So eight lines of cars running in seventy miles speed this way, and eight miles of lines running cars on the opposite side. And unfortunately one day we had one car which was running at thirty-five miles only, and our Gaurasundara was driving. (chuckling) Immediately he was arrested by the police. Not exactly arrested—stopped. That means you cannot run your car in this way, thirty-five miles speed. So now from impartial point of view, if we study why people are running in this way and that way... What is the ultimate goal? If we calculate very in cool head, the ultimate goal is sense gratification. That's all.

Lecture on SB 5.5.1-8 -- Stockholm, September 8, 1973:

You have got now airplane. That's nice. But you cannot reach even the material planets. So if you want to go to the spiritual planet, then you can make an airplane which has speed of the mind. Or the speed of the air. Those who are physicists, they know what is the speed of air, what is the speed of light. So above this speed, the speed of mind. Those who are physicists, they know how speedy is air and light. The mind is still more speedy. You have got experience. Now you are sitting here. Immediate, within a second, you can go to America, USA, India, immediately. You can go to your home. You can see things—with mind, of course; the mind speed. So the Brahma-saṁhitā says that even if you can manufacture one airplane which has the speed of the mind, which has the speed of the air—panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyaḥ—and with that speed you go on for many millions of years, still you will not find where is Goloka Vṛndāvana. Still, you'll not find. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām (Bs. 5.34). It is not that the previous ācāryas and others, they did not know what is airplane, what is speed, how to run.

Lecture on SB 5.5.1-8 -- Stockholm, September 8, 1973:

Don't think foolishly, as if they have manufactured. It is nothing, not even third-, not even fourth-class, tenth-class. There were so nice airplanes. Now here is the suggestion that you can manufacture an airplane which can run on the speed of mind. Now here is a suggestion—do it. You can manufacture an airplane which may run at the speed of the air. They are thinking that at the speed of the light, if we can manufacture one airplane, still, it will take forty thousands of years to reach the topmost planet. They're thinking, if it is possible.

Lecture on SB 5.5.19 -- Vrndavana, November 7, 1976:

Avicintya or durvibhāvyam, the same thing. Even if you try to understand God or want to go to God, vāyor athāpi, by your airplane at the speed of the mind, not ordinary speed... Mind's speed you can imagine. You are sitting here, and fifteen thousand miles away, New York, you can immediately see your room there. This is mind's speed. Immediately within a second. Just imagine how much the mind is speedy. Mind is subtle. Everyone, you have got mind, I have got mind, but I cannot see your mind; you cannot see my mind. Subtle. This is a material thing. Bhūmir āpo'nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano, mano (BG 7.4). The sky, ether, we cannot see but we can perceive. When you press the sky like this, (claps) there is sound. You can understand, "Here is sky." But mind you cannot see, still subtle.

Lecture on SB 5.5.35 -- Vrndavana, November 22, 1976:

Pradyumna:

iti nānā-yoga-caryācaraṇo bhagavān kaivalya-patir ṛṣabho 'virata-parama-mahānandānubhava ātmani sarveṣāṁ bhūtānām ātma-bhūte bhagavati vāsudeva ātmano 'vyavadhānānanta-rodara-bhāvena siddha-samastārtha-paripūrṇo yogaiśvaryāṇi vaihāyasa-mano-javāntardhāna-parakāya-praveṣa-dūra-grahaṇādīni yadṛcchayopagatāni nāñjasā nṛpa hṛdayenābhyanandat

(SB 5.5.35)

"Translation: O King Parīkṣit, just to show all the yogis the mystic process, Lord Ṛṣabhadeva, the partial expansion of Lord Kṛṣṇa, performed wonderful activities. Actually He was the master of liberation and was fully absorbed in transcendental bliss, which increased a thousandfold. Lord Kṛṣṇa, Vāsudeva, the son of Vasudeva, is the original source of Lord Ṛṣabhadeva. There is no difference in Their constitution, and consequently Lord Ṛṣabhadeva awakened the loving symptoms of crying, laughing and shivering. He was always absorbed in transcendental love. Due to this, all mystic powers automatically approached Him, such as the ability to travel in outer space at the speed of mind, to appear and disappear, to enter the bodies of others, and to see things far, far away. Although He could do all this, He did not exercise these powers."

Prabhupāda: Iti nānā-yoga-caryācaraṇo bhagavān. So Bhagavān's another name is mahat-pada. Mahat-pada means whatever wonderful things are there, that is resting at His lotus feet. Samāśritā ye pada-pallava-plavaṁ mahat-padaṁ puṇya-yaśo murāreḥ. Samāśritā, if you take shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, bhagavān, kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam: (SB 1.3.28) Kṛṣṇa is the origin of all manifestation of Bhagavān, Viṣṇu-tattva. Kṛṣṇa is the origin of Viṣṇu-tattva. Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ (BG 10.8). Viṣṇu-tattva is also originated from Kṛṣṇa. Govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi **. He's the ādi-puruṣa. And Kṛṣṇa was accepted in the Bhagavad-gītā, puruṣam ādyam. Paraṁ brahma paraṁ dhāma (BG 10.12). So everything is there in Kṛṣṇa. Samāśritā ye pada-pallava-plavaṁ mahat-padaṁ puṇya-yaśo murāreḥ. All this manifestation of cosmic creation, that is from the mahat-tattva. That mahat-tattva is resting within the dust of the lotus feet of mahat-padaṁ puṇya-yaśo murāreḥ.

Lecture on SB 6.1.1 -- Melbourne, May 21, 1975:

Woman: If we are all liberated in the end, and if we all reach Godhead, why is it necessary... (break)

Madhudvīṣa: ...reach Godhead in the end, why do we have to speed up the process? Why not we just let things take their natural course of events if everyone's going back to Godhead ultimately?

Prabhupāda: Hmm. That is a good suggestion, but you rot for the time being. Suppose you are going somewhere, walking, and somebody gives you opportunity, "Come in my car," why don't you take advantage of it? You are... You will reach the destination by walking in six thousand years, (laughter) but if you get the opportunity... In your country there is good. There is staircase and there is elevator. So if you want to go, that "I shall go by the staircase and reach the upstair at the end of the day when office will be finished," (laughter) then you can do that. But if you are intelligent, you shall take the advantage of the elevator. Within a minute you go there. That is intelligence. "I am going. I shall reach at the end of the day when every office will be closed. Then I will come down again." If you see that, that you can do—not very good intelligence. That is not intelligence. We have to take the speediest process. That is intelligence.

Lecture on SB 6.1.6 -- Los Angeles, January 3, 1970:

So if one understands that we are small particles of the Supreme Lord and our business is to dovetail our consciousness with His consciousness, that is perfect Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But it is not very easy also at the same time. To immediately accept that "My consciousness may be dovetailed with Kṛṣṇa's consciousness," then I become almost like Kṛṣṇa. The example I have given here in this class many times, that a car, motorcar, is running at seventy miles speed, but if a cyclist catches the motorcar, he can also run on the same speed. So although the cyclist is small... Similarly, although we are small particle... Just like in the fire, these sparks, the particle sparks, we can see they are very small in comparison to the fire, but when the fire and the sparks are together, everything is beautiful. Everything is beautiful. The sparks also looks very beautiful, and the fire also looks very beautiful. So God has become many. Eko bahu syāma. Why? Because as it is stated in the Vedānta-sūtra, ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). He is by nature ānandamaya, joyful. (end)

Lecture on SB 6.1.15 -- New York, August 1, 1971:

Simply how to manufacture something for sense gratification. After all, it is sense gratification. You may discover... The other day somebody was telling me in Los Angeles that they have discovered an aeroplane which can run on very, I mean, speedily. But there is danger. As soon as the aeroplane will run on, there may be many windows here in the city, they'll dismantle. So we are trying to create something for sense gratification. At the same time, side by side, we are creating so much inconvenience. In this way, our time is being wasted. Action and reaction. Action and reaction. There must be some reaction. Whatever you do, there must be reaction. And that reaction you'll be entangled. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā: yajñārthāt karmaṇo 'nyatra loko 'yaṁ karma-bandhanaḥ (BG 3.9). Either you do good work or bad work, if it is for sense gratification, then you'll be entangled. But yajñārthe karma, if you do for kṛṣṇa-yajña, then you are free. So this process, recommended by Śukadeva Gosvāmī—kevala-bhakta—take to devotional service, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and everything, all other things will be automatically adjusted.

Lecture on SB 6.1.23 -- Chicago, July 7, 1975:

Of course, I have several times... They have never gone, but anyway... You can go to the moon planet. How you can go, the description is there. So moon planet is not vacant. That is counted amongst the heavenly planets. If anyone can go there, he can live there for ten thousands of years. Ten thousand of years means according to the demigods' years. Their duration and our duration is: our one day, our six months, their one day. That is admitted by scientists that you go higher, the relative time is different. Just like when the Russians first of all sent that sputnik, in one hour, twenty-five minutes, they surrounded all over the world. Now it is relative. You have got a speedy vehicle. So generally, the 25,000 miles, this earth, it takes long, long time, even you go by aeroplane But when you have got a better machine, it is finished within one hour, twenty-five minutes. So as you go higher, higher, the time duration becomes different. This is called relativity. We hear from the Bhagavad-gītā the duration of life of Brahmā, sahasra-yuga-paryantam ahar yad brahmaṇo viduḥ (BG 8.17). Our some millions of years is equal to twelve hours of Brahmā.

Lecture on SB 6.1.31 -- San Francisco, July 16, 1975:

For many millions of years running in the speed of mind and air, not this aeroplane speed... Aeroplane speed is, utmost, five hundred, six hundred miles. But you just imagine the mind's speed. Ten thousand miles away your mind can go immediately at a place where you have been. Mind is so speedy. Vāyu, air, is speedy undoubtedly, but mind is still speedier. So even if you try to understand with the..., panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi (Bs. 5.34), in aeroplane or via manasa, aeroplane with the... Aeroplane has got different speed, but even if you go with the mind's speed and time, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara, hundreds and millions of years, still, you will not be able to understand what is Kṛṣṇa, what is God, if you speculate. But if you are a devotee then you can see twenty-four hours Kṛṣṇa. That is the difference. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyaḥ.

Lecture on SB 6.1.44 -- Los Angeles, July 25, 1975:

They will go by walking. That is their principle. But we are not following that principle. We are preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness... Suppose if I have to come to your country, and if I say, "I will go by walking." (laughter) Then my life will be finished (laughter) before preaching. We are intelligent. Now we have got this aeroplane. Take advantage of and go in three hours to America, speedy. That is our policy. Therefore sometimes people criticize us that we are accepting all material things; still, we are condemning material civilization. They accuse us. But they do not know that we do not distinguish matter and spirit. Anything which is used for Kṛṣṇa, that is spirit. This house, if you use for making a club, dancing club, that is material. And if this house is used for chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra and dancing, that is spiritual. That is the difference, because actually everything is emanation from the supreme spirit soul, Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa says bhūmir āpo 'nalaḥ vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca, apareyam. What you say material, that is also expansion of the energy of Kṛṣṇa. So actually it is not material. But when you use it for other purposes than Kṛṣṇa, that is material. You should know this philosophy very nicely.

Lecture on SB 6.1.45 -- Laguna Beach, July 26, 1975:

So in the previous verse we have discussed, dehavān na hy akarma-kṛt. Anyone who has got this material body, he has to work. Everyone has to work. In the spiritual body also you have to work. In the material body also you have to work. Because the working principle is the soul—soul is living force—so he is busy. Living body means there is movement. There is work. He cannot sit idly. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, "Not even for a moment one can be idle." That is the symptom of living being. So this working is going on according to the particular body. The dog is also running, and a man is also running. But a man thinks he is very much civilized because he is running on motorcar. Both of them are running, but a man has got a particular type of body by which he can prepare a vehicle or cycle, and he can run on. He is thinking that "I am running in greater speed than the dog; therefore I am civilized. This is the modern mentality. He does not know that what is the difference between running on fifty miles speed or five miles speed or five thousand miles speed or five millions miles of speed. The space is unlimited. Whatever speed you discover, it is still insufficient. Still insufficient.

Lecture on SB 6.1.45 -- Laguna Beach, July 26, 1975:

So this is not life, that "Because I can run in more speed than the dog, therefore I am civilized."

panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo
vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānāṁ
so 'py asti yat-prapada-sīmny avicintya-tattve
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
(Bs. 5.34)

Our speed... What for speed? Because we want to go to certain destination, that is his speed. So the real destination is Govinda, Viṣṇu. And na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇu. They are running in different speed, but they do not know what is the destination. Our one big poet in our country, Rabindranath Tagore, he wrote an article—I read it—when he was in London. So in your country, western countries, the motorcars and the..., they run in high speed. So Rabindranath Tagore, he was poet. He was thinking that "These Englishmen's country is so small, and they are running on so great speed they will fall in the ocean." He remarked like that. Why they are running so fast? So similarly, we are running so fast for going to hell. This is our position, because we do not know what is the destination. If I do not know what is the destination and try to drive my car in full speed, then what will be the result? The result will be disaster. We must know why we are running. Running means just like the river is running in great tide, flowing, but the destination is the sea. When the river comes to the sea, then its destination gone.

Lecture on SB 6.1.46 -- San Diego, July 27, 1975:

I think Professor Einstein has got this knowledge, relativity, Law of Relativity. Everything is... My one moment and Brahmā's one moment, different. My one moment, the ant's one moment is different, according to my body. But time is unlimited, eternal. But according to my body, it is past, present and future. An ant's past, present, future and my past, present, future—different. My past, present, future and Brahmā's past, present, future—different. It is the relative. Just like by speed we are calculating this whole world is twenty-five thousand miles. But it has been proved by the, what is that? Weapon for going to the space? Sputnik, sputnik. He rounded over the world—one hour, twenty-five minutes. That is experience, relative. If you increase your speed, then the round about time decreases. Similarly, if by yoga system you increase your speed, then you can travel all over the universe as Durvāsā Muni said. Durvāsā Muni, he crossed over this universe and went to the Vaikuṇṭhaloka. It took only one year. This is relative. It took one years only. And you cannot go in so many years.

Lecture on SB 6.3.12-15 -- Gorakhpur, February 9, 1971:

Actually in the higher planet our six months is equal to their one day. Just like when the sputniks were thrown in the outer space, they circulated the whole world in one hour, twenty-five minutes. One hour, twenty-five was all. They circulated three times within one hours, twenty-five minutes. Such a speed. Now actually, in our calculation the whole world can be circumambulated in twenty-four hours. But that is reduced to one hour, twenty-five. That is admitted by Einstein. This is called relative, relativity, according to the speed. Just like when you travel by airplane from here to London it takes, say, about nine hours. That is relative, relative to the force. Similarly, everything is relative. We are thinking that Brahmā's duration of life is so great, but it is also hundred years. But it is... You will understand very nicely. You can explain. According to our calculation they are immortal. Just like according to calculation of the pataṅga, our life is immortal. You see. They will calculate, "Oh, these human beings are immortal." But none of them are immortal. So we call them immortal, the demigods. Amareśāḥ.

Lecture on SB 6.3.20-23 -- Gorakhpur, February 14, 1971:

We cannot understand God or religion by our mental speculation even by the speed of mind, manasa. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. And the speculation continues by, continues to hundreds and hundreds of years. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. Śata means hundred, and koṭi means ten million. So ten million into hundred—unlimited time. If you go on speculating, by speculation, panthās tu koṭi, still, your conception of God or religion will remain incomplete. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi (Bs. 5.34). By airplane, with the speed of the mind... There are different airplanes, and they have got different speeds. Now, if you manufacture an airplane which runs with the speed of the mind... You know the speed of the mind. Within a second, you can travel millions of miles. So an airplane running on, on that speed, and thinking for millions of years, still, you cannot approach the abode of Kṛṣṇa or understand Kṛṣṇa. Only you can understand by His mercy. Only by the mercy of... Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti (BG 18.55). Just like Kṛṣṇa is voluntarily offering Arjuna to understand Bhagavad-gītā. He's not going to canvass anyone. "Arjuna, you understand it. You'll be able to understand because you are My devotee."

Lecture on SB 7.5.30 -- London, September 9, 1971:

But the human society, it is also stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, human beings, they are born of the quality of passion. There are three qualities in the material world: goodness, passion and ignorance. Therefore they love to work very hard. And that very hard working is considered as happiness. That propensity of hard working... Just like in London you will see: everyone is engaged in hard working from the morning. You will see. All the buses and trucks, they are going with great speed, and people are going to the working office or factory. From morning til late night they are hard working, and it is called advancement of civilization. So some of them are frustrated. They don't want it. They don't want it. It will be frustration. Frustration. After all, it is hard work. Just like the hogs, they are working hard day and night for finding out "Where is stool, where is stool." That is their business. Therefore in one sense, this kind of civilization is hogs' and dogs' civilization. It is not human civilization. Human civilization means he must be sober. He should be inquisitive. A human being should be inquisitive to know "Who I am? Why I am put into this condition to work very hard to get a few breads only? Why I am this uncomfortable situation? Wherefrom I have come? Where I have to go?" These are inquiries. These inquiries are called brahma-jijñāsā. The Vedānta-sūtra begins, athāto brahma jijñāsā: "A human being should be inquisitive to know these things: 'Who I am? Wherefrom I have come? Where I have to go? Why I am put into this uncomfortable position?' "

Lecture on SB 7.6.20-23 -- Washington D.C., July 3, 1976:

So in this way, if we study through the śāstra, everything is there. If you want to find out the Absolute Truth, how? Śāstra cakṣuṣāt. Through the śāstras, through the Vedic knowledge, you'll find the Absolute Truth. If we actually accept that Veda means knowledge... Vetthi veda vida jñāne. Veda means knowledge, jñāna. So Veda-anta, the last, last phase of knowledge. The last phase of knowledge is the Absolute Truth. You have to go up to that. So that Absolute Truth, if you go on speculating, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo (Bs. 5.34), that will not be possible. Śata-vatsara-sampragamyo, by hundreds and hundreds of years, if you go on with speed... What is that speed? Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi. Airplane, vāyor athāpi. And what is the speed? Vāyor athāpi, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso. By the speed of air and mind. Mind is very speedy. You are sitting here, you can immediately remember ten thousand miles away, it is so speedy. So even by the mind's speed you cannot, by going over the space, koṭi-śata-vatsara, many millions of years still it remains unknown. So this is not the way to understand the Absolute truth, but if we accept the Vedic process, avaroha panthā, when the knowledge comes from the Absolute Truth, then it is possible.

Lecture on SB 7.9.8 -- Seattle, October 21, 1968:

So how can you compare with these airplanes? Can the airplanes... Airplanes means vāyu. Vāyu means air. These are all in Sanskrit language in the scriptures. These are not very new things. You see? Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor atha (Bs. 5.34). Vāyu means air, and ratha means plane, airplane. So either by the airplane... Airplane is not so speedy. The jet planes are running at the rate of five hundred miles or one thousand miles per hour, but my mental plane can run fifteen thousand miles per second. You see? And just understand then the spirit, how much speedy the spirit should be. Because here, matter, there are matter: earth, water, fire... Then air. Air is very fine. Earth is crude. Water is crude. Then earth, water, fire. Fire is still finer, but crude. But still finer, air, and still finer, ether and still finer, mind, and still finer, soul. You see? So just imagine if mind is so strong that it can transfer itself from here to fifteen thousand miles in a second, how much speedy and powerful is the soul.

Lecture on SB 7.9.8 -- Seattle, October 21, 1968:

So these yogis, they come to the platform of the mental plane, speedy. The yogis can transfer. There are many yogis still, in India, that early in the morning they travel about four thousand miles within half an hour and take bath in four different pilgrimages within half an hour. Yes. So yogic powers are so... What yogis we have seen? Siddhaḥ, that is siddhaḥ. The demigods, siddhaḥ... There are persons; it is not story. So Prahlāda Mahārāja says that "These demigods, these great saintly persons, these siddhas, how they have become so powerful?" Sattvaikatāna: being situated in the material modes of goodness. If you put yourself, keep yourself in the modes of goodness, then you get more and more your spiritual power. And if you keep yourself in the modes of ignorance and passion, then you cannot make progress.

Lecture on SB 7.9.8 -- Hawaii, March 21, 1969:

So this materialistic way of life is not human life. It is less than animal life. Animal also does not work so hard. You see? And the people are engaged, wherever you go, the very big highways. What is called? Freeways. Four lines of motor cars running this way and four lines of motor cars running this way at the speed of seventy miles, and everyone is busy. You see? And they take, "It is a very good civilization." And if you shortcut your hard labor, sit down and discuss what is the Absolute Truth, what is the philosophy of life, "They are nonsense." You see? And if you work day and night, hard labor, and to get that energy, inject some medicine or some tranquilizer and this and that... You see? This is the..., going on. So actually, this is not life. This is cats' and dogs' life. That is the verdict of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛ-loke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye: (SB 5.5.1) "This life, human form of life, is not meant for working so hard just like animals." Then? "This kind of engagement is for the dogs and hogs." The hogs also, they work the whole day and night and have some sex pleasure. They are happy.

Lecture on SB 7.9.14 -- Mayapur, February 21, 1976:

So people do not understand. Therefore they are called mūḍhas. They are simply making arrangement how to become happy. It is not possible to become happy here. That's a fact. But still they are. Therefore they are called mūḍhas, rascals. Which will never be possible, and they are trying for that. You see, whole world is trying to be happy. They are discovering so many technological arts, but they are dying. They cannot. They have invented horseless carriage, having very, I mean to say, speedy carriages, but there are so many dangers. Every moment the life can go, the motor accident. It is happening in the Western country. So whatever you do for the advancement of material civilization, you are one side increasing more danger. If you did not discover these aeroplane and motorcar, then death would not have been so easier. You could live at least for some days.

Lecture on SB 7.9.21 -- Mayapur, February 28, 1976:

They're thinking within the mind this, that, this, that, this, that. Muni-puṅgavānām. Puṅgava. Puṅgava means very expert mental speculator. Even they think like that for many, many years... Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. Koṭi means hundred lakhs, and again multiplied by sata, sata, unlimited. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo (Bs. 5.34). And the speed? Vāyor athāpi manaso, speed of the air and the mind. Still, avicintya-tattve: they cannot understand what is God. Ask any scientist, any physicist, any mathematician. Just like recently one rascal—he is doctor—he has said that "Sītā was sister of Rāma, and Rāma was this and that." So speculator. He has become bigger than the ācāryas, and because he has got little doctorate title, he's thinking that he has become very, very big. This is going on. This is called māyā manaḥ. Māyā is so strong that she is bewildering even so-called doctorates, deletes(?) and others. All rascals. Māyayāpahṛta-jñānā. Therefore Bhagavad-gītā says, māyayāpahṛta-jñānā. Although they have got these university degrees, but they are rascals. Why? Māyayapahṛta-jñānā. Their knowledge has been taken away by māyā.

Lecture on SB 7.9.22 -- Mayapur, February 29, 1976:

Very, very, I mean to say, great task she is performing, that immediately the cloud comes. Now it is so bright. Within a second a very big, dark cloud may come and cause devastation immediately. That is possible. These are the wonderful activities of Māyā. But still, she is under the control of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We see this sun so big, fourteen hundred thousand times bigger than this earth, and you see morning, how quickly it gets up, like this, immediately. The speed is sixteen thousand miles per second. So how it is being happenend? Yasyājñayā bhramati saṁbhṛta-kāla-cakro govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajā... It is being done under the order of Govinda. So therefore He's vibhu. He is great. But we do not know how great He is. Therefore we foolishly accept some pretender, some fraud, as God. We do not know what is the meaning of God. But it is going on. We are fools. Andhā yathāndair upanīyamānās. We are blind, and another blind man lead us: "I am God. You are God. Everyone is God." But God is not like that.

Lecture on SB 7.9.23 -- Mayapur, March 1, 1976:

So Prahlāda Mahārāja, although a child only, but because he is devotee, he experienced. He's experienced that "My father was so strong that even the denizens of heavenly planets, Indra, Candra, Varuṇa and others, they are all afraid of Hiraṇyakaśipu. If by austerity, penance, he got so much power that even the chiefs of the higher planetary system, they were afraid of..." Vijṛmbhita-bhrū. "Hiraṇyakaśipu will stare his eyes and move his eyebrow. The other demigods, they'll be afraid, such powerful." Ye asmat pituḥ. Ye, the chiefs of the higher planetary system, they have got very long duration of life. In the higher planetary system, everyone has got hundred years maximum period of life, but as I was explaining, everything is relative. The ant's hundred years of life is not equal to my hundred years of life. It is relative. Similarly, the demigods' hundred years of life is not equal to our hundred years of life. Everything relative—speed. Just like when the sputniks... In the beginning the sput, sputniks were in the outer space. Generally, to go around the world, it takes twenty-five hours. But because the speed was greater, so the sputnik surrounded the whole world in one hour, twenty-five minutes.

Lecture on SB 7.9.34 -- Mayapur, March 12, 1976:

By mental speculation, mental speed, you cannot reach the spiritual world. Mental speed is very strong. Everyone, we have got experience—you are sitting here. Immediately, within a second, you can go to our London temple by the mental speed. So even by the mental speed for many, many years, if we run over the space, still, we cannot reach the spiritual world. That is not possible.

Nectar of Devotion Lectures

The Nectar of Devotion -- Bombay, December 27, 1972:

Similarly, one may think that "I have become liberated," but actually he's not liberated. Liberated is he who is engaged in the service of the Lord. He's liberated. Nobody's liberated. Ye 'nye 'ravindākṣa vimukta-māninas tvayy asta-bhāvād aviśuddha-buddhayaḥ (SB 10.2.32). Just like they are going to the Moon planet. They have got very high speed sputniks. Simply riding on, boarding on high-speed sputnik does not mean he has gone to the moon planet. Actually he has to go there and live there. Then it is successful. But what they are doing? They are going and coming back. They are going and coming back. Similarly, āruhya kṛcchṛeṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanti adhaḥ (SB 10.2.32). If you have to stay in the higher status of life, brahma anubhūti, then you'll have to come back again. Āruhya kṛcchreṇa. Kṛcchreṇa means by practicing severe austerities, penances, one may go up to the Brahman effulgence, paraṁ padam. That is called paraṁ padam. But because there is no stay... Just like in the sky. You may go with high speed, but if you cannot stay in some planet, you'll have to come back again. Similarly, āruhya kñcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ, patanti adhaḥ anādṛta-yuṣmad-aṅghrayaḥ. Because they cannot get shelter under the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, they have to come down again to these material activities. And we have seen practically, so many big, big sannyāsīs, they give up this material world, take sannyāsa to understand Brahman, but because they could not understand Brahman, they again come to open hospital and schools. That is their business. Āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanti adhaḥ (SB 10.2.32).

The Nectar of Devotion -- Vrndavana, October 20, 1972:

Rocket, rocket. You have not very nice rocket running at the speed of eighteen thousand miles or twenty-five thousand miles per hour. But you may go. If you don't take, if you don't get shelter in some planet... Just as they're going in the moon planet, but do not get shelter and come back, similarly, supposing they are getting shelter, but that shelter is not very secure. They again come back. So without shelter, how long you can fly in the sky? The sky is unlimited. You can fly on your sputnik or capsules, but if you don't get the shelter in some planet, then again you come back to your place. So this is... The same example is given in the Bhāgavata: āruhya kṛcchreṇa, with great scientific method you can go up. But if you don't get a shelter, then you come back again on this planet. Similarly, the nondevotees, the impersonalists, they undergo severe penances and austerities undoubtedly, and they rise up to the brahma-jyotir... Āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adhaḥ (SB 10.2.32). From there, he again falls down. Same example. Why? Anādhṛta-yuṣmad-aṅghrayaḥ. Because they did not care for the shelter under the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, therefore they have to come back again to this material world.

The Nectar of Devotion -- Vrndavana, October 27, 1972:

Our philosophy is go back to home, back to Godhead. Not in the spiritual sky. Paravyoma. Spiritual sky, there is chance of falling down. Why chance? It is sure. Those who are merging into the Brahman effulgence, the śāstra says that they again fall down. Āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adhaḥ (SB 10.2.32). Āruhya kṛcchreṇa. They, jñānīs, they undergo severe austerities, penances to merge into the existence of impersonal Brahman. But they fall down again. They fall down again because they have no shelter. Anādhṛta-yuṣmad-aṅghrayaḥ. As, as in this sky, there are many planets. You can go with high speed to the Moon planet or Venus planet. But if you have no shelter to stay there, you come back again on this earthly planet, that is practically experienced, similarly you may merge into the Brahman effulgence. Just like our plane goes very high and, at a certain point, we see it is invisible, merged. Actually, it is not merged. Our eyes cannot see any more. They take it as merge.

The Nectar of Devotion -- Vrndavana, November 10, 1972:

Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, he sings, jaḍa-vidyā saba māyāra vaibhava. This advancement of material education means advancement of the snares of the illusory energy of Kṛṣṇa. Māyāra vaibhava. Because we are already enamored by the glimmer of this material world. Just like the insects are attracted by the fire. They, with great force, enter into the fire without knowing that he's going to die. His forceful entrance into the fire means his sure death. Actually, we are seeing, especially in the Western countries, this motorcar civilization, when we run on on the motorcar, especially with high speed, it is always we think that any moment danger can take place. (aside:) You remember, you were driving your father's car, eighty miles. So I asked you, "Don't go so fast." So the materialistic way of life is that. We create some so-called comforts of life for temporary enjoyment, but at the same time, we take the risk of so many dangerous condition. In the śāstra it is said that this place is padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadām (SB 10.14.58). In every step there is danger.

Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Lectures

Lecture on CC Adi-lila 1.9 -- Mayapur, April 2, 1975:

You can go on observing, one after another, by many, many years, many, many years. Just like if you start your jet plane from here to see where is the original cause, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara, and go on for many, many millions of years with the speed of mind, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampra... Koṭi-śata-vatsara... Millions and millions of years. And panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi. These airplanes, vāyu-ratha... Vāyu-ratha means airplane. There is airplanes. There are different speeds. What is the speed? The speed is mental speed. Now their speed, say, eighteen thousand miles per hour. But if there is question of mental speed, it is more speedier than the vāyu speed. We have got experience. Many thousand miles, by your mind, you can reach within a second. So with the mental speed, airplane, if you start today and go for many millions of years, still it will be not possible to find out wherefrom the explosion is coming. That's it.

Lecture on CC Adi-lila 3.87-88 -- New York, December 27, 1966:

That is the thing. Kṛṣṇa says, "You surrender." You surrender. That will make you happy. There is no question, "All right. Let me research, make research whether by surrendering to Kṛṣṇa I shall be happy." Go on. You can. If you want, you can go on researching. But you will never be successful to... Even in the Brahma-saṁhitā it is stated, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyaḥ (Bs. 5.34) If you make research in a speed, and the speed is stated, koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām... Just like if you want to cover a path which is very long, and how you measure its length? Now, by research. What is that research? Now, you go on by force. What is that force? The force of mind and force of velocity of the wind, velocity of the wind and velocity of the mind. And you push on in that way for ten millions or more than years in that way, still, you will find avicintya: you have not reached the goal. Research. If you make your research in such a speed and for many millions of years, still, avicintya-tattva, still it will be inconceivable.

Lecture on CC Madhya-lila 6.149-50 -- Gorakhpur, February 13, 1971:

"And although the Vedic mantra says that 'The Absolute Truth has no legs, no hands,' still, it confirms that 'He can accept whatever you offer, and He can walk more speedily than anyone.' Then He walks; at the same time, He has no legs. And He accepts your offering; He has no hands." What does it mean? Apparently it is contradictory. If He has no leg, then how He can walk more speedily than anyone? These are Vedic mantras. "Nobody can capture Him, He is walking so speedily." But if He has no leg, how He is walking? But that, Caitanya Mahāprabhu explains that varje prākṛta pāṇi-caraṇa: "This means that the Supreme Personality of Godhead has no material body."

Sri Isopanisad Lectures

Sri Isopanisad, Mantra 1 -- Los Angeles, May 2, 1970:

So two energies are working in this material world: the spiritual energy and the material energy. The material energy means these eight kinds of material elements. Bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ: (BG 7.4) earth, water, fire, air, sky, mind, intelligence, and ego. These are all material. And similarly, finer, finer, finer, finer, and grosser, grosser, grosser. Just like water is finer than the earth, then fire is finer than the water, then air is finer than the fire, then sky, or ether, is finer than the air. Similarly, intelligence is finer than the ether, or mind is finer than the ether. The mind... You know, I have given several times example: the speed of mind. Many thousands of miles within a second you can go. So the finer it becomes, it is powerful. Similarly, ultimately, when you come to the spiritual part, finer, from which everything is emanating, oh, that is very powerful. That spiritual energy. That is given in the Bhagavad-gītā. What is that spiritual energy? That spiritual energy is this living entity. Apareyam itas tu viddhi me prakṛtiṁ parā (BG 7.5). Kṛṣṇa says, "These are material energies.

Sri Isopanisad, Mantra 11 -- Los Angeles, May 16, 1970:

Similarly, in some book he has written 100,000's of verses, not less than 20,000, 25,000 verses. And each verse is so full of meaning that one has to learn it throughout his whole life. This is Vedic culture. There is no comparison of knowledge, not only in spiritual knowledge, in other department also—in astronomy, in mathematics. It is not that in the olden age there were no aeroplanes. We get so many information from Purāṇas. Their aeroplane was so strong and so, I mean to say, speedy, they could easily reach other planets. Arjuna went to the heavenly planet. So material knowledge, advancement, is not that there was no advancement of material knowledge in the Vedic age. It was there, but they did not take much care of it. They were interested for spiritual knowledge. It is not that material knowledge was not there. It was there. The opulence... That opulence you cannot compare now. Gold, jewels, full—every city, every individual person, and what to speak of kings and rich men. So avidyā and vidyā. So one should know side by side what is vidyā and what is avidyā.

Festival Lectures

Janmastami Lord Sri Krsna's Appearance Day -- Montreal, August 16, 1968:

The Brahma-saṁhitā said that if one starts on the chariot of air and makes progress on the speed of mind, still one cannot understand what is God. Vedeṣu durlabham adurlabham ātma-bhaktau (Bs. 5.33). He cannot be understood simply by studying Vedas. Traiguṇya viṣayā vedaḥ nistraiguṇyo bhavārjuna. One has to transcend the position of Vedas also. Then one can understand what is God or what is Kṛṣṇa.

Radhastami, Srimati Radharani's Appearance Day -- London, August 29, 1971:

So what is your scientific improvement? But there is possibility. Ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokān. You can go. The material scientists' calculation is that if one goes forward for forty thousands of years in the light speed, light-year speed, then one can approach the topmost planet of this material world. So at least in the modern scientific calculation, it is impossible. But one can go; there is process. That we have tried to explain in our small booklet Easy Journey to Other Planets. By yogic process one can go any planet he likes. That is the yogic perfection. When a yogi becomes perfect, he can go to any planet he likes, and the yoga practice goes on, unless the yogi thinks himself that he has made himself perfect to travel to any planet he likes. That is perfection of yoga practice.

His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Prabhupada's Appearance Day, Evening -- Gorakhpur, February 15, 1971:

So far material comforts, oh, there is no conception in India how they are materially comfortable. Their roads, their cars, their machines... You cannot imagine how American roads are there. There are freeways. In America, there are freeways: without any stoppage you can run your car in seventy mile speed, and four cars going up and four cars going down. And road just like velvet. (laughter) Our roads... So there is no comparison of their materially advancement. So I always... When I run in some freeway... These boys run our cars. And you'll be very pleased that in each and every temple we have got at least four cars, nice. Especially one car for me and two cars for carrying them for saṅkīrtana movement. Very good arrangement. Better than any temple in India. If you go sometimes... I request you to go. But one condition: that you have to become Life Member. (laughter) But if you go, will be very much pleased in our temples. And this Dr. Rao... Perhaps you know, he is a professor in your Gorakhpur University. He was a research scholar, atomic research scholar. His wife is sitting here. So he's still. So he was very much captivated with the temple worship, and there he became my disciple.

Sri Sri Radha Gokulananda Deity Installation -- London, August 21, 1973:

Just like if you come to the sunshine, energy of sun, you immediately touch the sun globe. Is it not? Because the beams are coming from the sun globe so as soon as you touch the sunshine, sunbeam, you touch the sun immediately. And there are yogis who can reach the sun planet through the beams of sun. Because the spirit soul is very, very small. Smaller than the atom. Keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya śatadhā kalpitasya ca (CC Madhya 19.140). And the spirit soul can go everywhere. And it is, the speed of spirit soul is greater than the mind. You have got experience of the speed of the mind. In a second you can go many thousands of miles. Mind. Suppose you are sitting here, those who are Indians, immediately, within a second, one can reach Calcutta, Bombay. Immediately, without even, less than a second's time. The mind's speed, you can imagine. And finer than the mind is the spirit soul. So how much speedy is the spirit soul, that we have to know from the śāstras. Śāstra yonitvāt. Everything.

Arrival Addresses and Talks

Arrival Address -- London, July 7, 1973:

Govinda, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyaḥ. Those who are searching after God... Those who are not searching, they are useless. Those who are searching, jñānī, jijñāsu, so they are searching after God, but if they try to approach God, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara, by... Just like airplane. I have come here within twelve hours, from Calcutta to London. So not this airplane, but panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampra..., vāyor athāpi. Vāyu. If... This airplane is floating on the air, but if the air becomes airplane itself or the mind becomes... You know the speed of mind. You can go on the mind millions of miles within a second. That science has not yet discovered, how to go in the speed of mind. The yogis know. The perfect yogis, they can travel on the speed of mind. That is also material science. So even on the speed of mind, or on the speed of the velocity of the air, if you try to go to approach God, find out where is God... And the time? Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. Not one day, two day, or one hour, two hour, but many millions of years, koṭi-śata-vatsara. Koṭi-śata-vatsara, with the speed of mind or air velocity, if you go to find out God, still, avicintya-tattva, inconceivable, inconceivable.

Arrival Speech -- New Vrindaban, June 21, 1976:

Therefore śāstra says tasyaiva hetoḥ prayeteta kovido na labhyate yad bhramatām upary adhaḥ. In every life you have tried to get very nice food, nice shelter, nice sex life. That is going on. But when you have got this human form of life, if you try for the same purpose and waste your time, thinking yourself advanced in civilization, because a dog is running on the street with four legs and you are running with greater speed with four wheels, that does not mean you have improved. You are still dog. You must remember that. You are not even human being. Because the, in the form of human being your business is to understand Kṛṣṇa. That is your business. If you don't try to understand Kṛṣṇa and simply improve your method of running better than the dog, that is not civilization. This is our presentation. Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means presenting a new life of civilization, how to become a servant of Kṛṣṇa.

Initiation Lectures

Initiation Lecture -- New York, July 28, 1971:

The sky is so vast. This is material sky. We cannot even travel all over the sky. The modern scientist says that you go to the end of the sky cover, it will take forty thousands of years by the light year. This sky is only insignificant portion of the whole sky. You have no information of the whole sky. Nobody has information, the unlimited. The balance sky is spiritual sky. So if you have got any plane which is running on the speed of mind and air... You know the speed of mind, it can run millions of miles in a second. So, if you have got any airplane which runs on the speed of mind, panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso, either on the plane of air speed or even the mind speed, and you go on with that mind speed, koṭi-śata-vatsara, not only forty thousand years, but millions and hundreds of millions of years, and not forty thousand years, koṭi-śata... Koṭi means ten million. Koṭi, hundred millions koṭi means. One lakh equal to..., ten lakh is equal to one million. Ten millions, koṭi, and multiply by hundreds. For that period, if you go on with the speed of mind, still you'll find, avacintya-tattva, inconceivable. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām. And that plane made of not ordinary man. Muni-puṅga, highest learned, I mean to say, scientist, philosopher.

Initiation Lecture -- New York, July 28, 1971:

Avacintya means beyond our conception. Even though you are able to go in high speed, and for so many years, still Kṛṣṇa remains avacintya-tattva. Nobody can find out where is Kṛṣṇa's abode, Goloka Vṛndāvana. Therefore, the Māyāvādīs, in desperate frustration, they say that Kṛṣṇa is impersonal, because they want to approach Kṛṣṇa by mundane activities, by mental exercise, mental gymnastic. Kṛṣṇa is not available in that way. Kṛṣṇa is available only to His devotees. Kṛṣṇa is the property of His devotee.

General Lectures

Lecture at a School -- Montreal, June 11, 1968:

So this all-pervading consciousness, or Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we are preaching, consciousness, all-pervading consciousness, universal consciousness. So our consciousness, when it is dovetailed with universal consciousness, them our consciousness also becomes universal consciousness. What is that? I will give you one example. Just like a motorcar is running at hundred miles speed, and you are running on your cycle at ten miles speed. But if you catch that motorcar, you will also run in hundred miles speed. Although your capacity of bicycle is only ten miles speed, you also run at hundred miles speed. So unless we dovetail our activities with the supreme consciousness, or God consciousness, there cannot be equality, fraternity, or universality as we are hankering after. It is not possible. You can go on crying in the wilderness for universal fraternity, friendship, equality, but if you keep your individuality, individual consciousness, selfish consciousness, there is no possibility of peace or tranquillity in the world. Therefore people are very much anxious at the present moment for peace and tranquillity over the world, but they do not know how that peace can be attained. Peace can be attained. The formula is there in the Bhagavad-gītā. Bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ sarva-loka-maheśvaram (BG 5.29). You can attain peace only when you understand that God is the proprietor of everything.

Lecture -- Seattle, September 30, 1968:

A yogi, if he has got perfection, if he desires something, that "I want this," immediately it is there. This is called satya-saṅkalpa. In this way, there are many examples. That is greatness. What I... Just like the modern scientists, they are trying to fly some space machine in the good speed so that they can go to the moon planet. So many scientists of America, Russia, and other countries, they are trying. But they cannot. Their sputnik is coming back. But just see God's power. Millions of planets are floating just like swabs. This is greatness. So any nonsense, if he says that "I am God," he's a rascal. God is great. You cannot compare yourself with God. There is no comparison. But the rascaldom is going on. "Everyone is God. I am God, you are God"—then he's dog. You show the power of God, then you say. First deserve, then desire. What power we have got? We're always dependent. So God is great, and we are dependent on God. Therefore natural conclusion is that we have to serve God. This is the whole comment.(?) Serving means with love. Unless... Now just like these boys, my disciples, they are serving me. Whatever I say, they are immediately executing. Why? I am an Indian, I am a foreigner. Two or three years ago I was not known to them, nor they were known to me. Why they are doing that? Because it is love. Serving means developing love. So unless you develop your love for God you cannot serve Him.

Lecture -- Seattle, October 9, 1968:

So Brahma-saṁhitā says in spite of the sun's so many, I mean to say, high qualification, it is moving under the order of Govinda. Yasyājñayā bhramati sambhṛta-kāla-cakro. It has got its own orbit, it is moving, kāla-cakro. Kāla-cakro means limited. Nobody is unlimited. Just like we are also moving within the time limit, kāla-cakra. So the planet, this planet is moving, other planet is moving. Similarly, the sun planet is moving. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, I think if I am not mistaken, the speed of the sun is sixteen thousand miles per second, but it is moving. Sixteen thousand miles per second it is moving. So Brahma-saṁhitā gives us this information. Yac-cakṣur eṣa savitā. Savitā means the sun planet. Yac-cakṣur eṣa. This savitā, the sun, is considered to be the eyes, one of the eyes of the Lord. In His universal form the sun is considered to be one of the eyes of the Lord, and the moon is also another eye. Take it figuratively or universal form of the Lord, but you cannot escape the seeing power of Govinda. He is seeing always. There are so many witnesses according to Vedic literature. So we cannot do anything hiding from the eyes of the Lord. He is seeing. He is witness. And that is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā: upadraṣṭā anumantā. Upadraṣṭā. Upadraṣṭā means overseer. Overseer.

Lecture -- Seattle, October 11, 1968:

This consciousness formula is very simple to understand. Anyone can understand. Just like this body, so long the soul is there within this body, there is consciousness. Just like so long the sun is visible, there is heat and sunlight. Similarly, so long the soul is there within this body, we have got this consciousness. And as soon as the soul is gone from this body, there is no consciousness. So... But this consciousness, my consciousness, your consciousness is limited within this body. I cannot feel what pain and pleasure is within your body, neither you can feel. Therefore your consciousness is individual, my consciousness is individual. But there is another consciousness, which is all-pervading. That consciousness is able to understand your feelings, my feelings, and everyone's feelings. The same example: The sun is located in one place, but five thousand miles away, you ask your friend where is sun, he will reply that "He is on my head." Similarly, you will say. Any direction. But the sun is one, but he is all-pervading. This is crude example. Similarly, the Kṛṣṇa consciousness means when you dovetail your consciousness with the supreme consciousness, then your life becomes perfect. Just like a motorcar is being driven at fifty miles speed, but a cyclist is going at ten miles speed. But if he catches the motorcar, he'll also have the fifty miles speed immediately. So the superconsciousness or Kṛṣṇa consciousness is all-pervading. If you dovetail your consciousness, then you get universal feeling. Otherwise it is not possible. The same example. So that is being explained.

Lecture -- Hawaii, March 23, 1969:

The original condition of living being is part and parcel of the Supreme Lord. As such, the part and parcel is meant for rendering service to the whole. Just like this finger is part and parcel of my body. The finger is expected to give service to the whole body. When I am feeling itching, my finger is helping it. When I want to pick up something, my finger is helping. Similarly, any part of my body... When I want to go out, my leg is walking. When I want, I want to see something, my eyes are helping. So in this way you can understand what we mean by part and parcel. Take materially also, any machine. The part and parcel... Just like here is a machine, tape recorder. There are different parts. One part is required to give, adjust speed; one part is required how to move, how to start, how to stop, how to increase. So different parts. Similarly, we are living entities, and the Lord is also a living entity. And we are originally created to help the Lord. He does not require... Because He's complete. But just to give a crude example, as the part and parcel required: now, suppose this finger is not giving me service. It is diseased. So sometimes doctors advise that "You have to amputate this finger, otherwise it will affect the whole body." Similarly, we living entities, being part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, when we rebel, that is our diseased condition. We, when we don't want to render service to the Lord, that is a state which is called demonic state.

Lecture -- Hawaii, March 23, 1969:

When they work, they have to work so hard, they go at six o'clock to the working and comes again at six o'clock, all day, tired. They lost all vitality, all sense. Is that successful life, simply for one morsel of food, working so hard? And unless one works so hard, he cannot eat. We have created a civilization that one must earn thousands of dollars, then he can live like a gentleman. Is that successful life? And for earning that thousands of dollars he has to work so hard, just like animal, beast. No. That is not successful life. Successful life is that, that we should make our bodily necessities of life as far as required, not more than that. I want to eat something. God has given sufficient food. You grow. You live anywhere. You grow foodstuff. You grow grains. You grow fruits. You grow vegetables. Keep cows. Take milk. You can live anywhere. You haven't got to go fifty miles off with a car to attend your office at six o'clock with velocity of hundred miles' speed. Is that successful life, do you think? So where is successful life? We are proposing successful life.

Lecture -- Hawaii, March 23, 1969:

Next life, what is, whether cat or dog or animal or this or that, he does not know. He's in the darkness. Adānta-gobhir viśatāṁ tamisraṁ punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). The same repetition of same foolishness and uncontrolled senses, he does not know where he is going. Just like unbridled horses. The man does not know "Where the horses are dragging me, either in the hell or heaven? I do not know." But the horses are not controlled, under his con..., simply running, high speed. That these motorcars are running this way and that way. They do not know whether they will reach their destination. Any, at any point, they may be striking each other and finished. This is not successful life. Successful life means one should have peaceful life, with great hope, future hope, without any disturbance. What is successful life? Even a man is not secure. He does not know when he goes to his office whether his household things are taken away by some thief. You see? Where is success? Successful life means he must feel secure that the government is taking care of everything. That is successful life. He has no cares and anxieties. He's simply developing his spiritual life. That is successful life.

Lecture -- New York, April 16, 1969:

Now, in the moon planet we understand the duration of life is ten thousands of years according to our calculation. Scientifically, everything is relative. Just like nowadays, formerly, to come to your country it would take two months from India on the surface. And now the airplane is there, we come within one day, within fifteen hours or twenty hours. So everything is relative. Just like the sputnik. The sputnik surrounded, circumambulated the earth in one hour, twenty-five minutes, three times. That means by the sputnik speed, the three days... To circumambulate the earth three times means three day and night. That means according to our calculation, seventy-two hours. That seventy-two hours was finished in one hour and twenty-five minutes. How? Because the thing is relative. If you accelerate your speed, the whole thing becomes relative. So what is seventy-two hours on this planet, just above this planet, say about a few thousand miles up it becomes one hour twenty-five minutes. Similarly, when we speak of that in other planet the life is ten thousand years, that ten thousand years is in our calculation on this planet.

Lecture -- London, September 26, 1969:

That is clearly stated in Bhagavad-gītā. Brahman realization is not rejected, but if you do not go further, do not make further progress, then it is useless waste of time. Exactly like that: if you cannot go further, make arrangements how to live... You go with great speed in the space, but if you cannot stay in any other planet, then you come back again here. That's a fact. Similarly, you go, you realize Brahman—that's very nice—but if you cannot stay in the Brahman realization and again come to this bodily realization, bodily platform, then what is the use? Why you have taken so much trouble? Just after meditation, if you come again and you take to these, all these nonsense habits again, then what is the use? You must stay.

Pandal Lecture at Cross Maidan -- Bombay, March 26, 1971:

Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyaḥ. (microphone goes out) Just like in the material science they are trying to go to the moon planet or other planets also by certain standard of speed in the sputnik. (aside:) It is not working? (microphone comes back on) They are finding it difficult even to go to the moon planet, which is the nearest planet to the earth. And there are innumerable other planets. And the modern scientists calculate that the highest planet, if we want to go there, it will take the sputnik speed, which is running eighteen thousand miles per hour, in that speed if we go forty thousands of years, we can reach the highest planetary system within this material world. But so far the kingdom of God, which is called Vaikuṇṭhaloka, or sanātana-dhāma..., as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nya 'vyakta 'vyaktāt sanātanaḥ (BG 8.20). That is sanātana-dhāma.

Lecture -- Paris, June 26, 1971:

Anyway, a sane man, an intelligent man, does not like to enter in any one of the material planets, because wherever we go in the material planet the four condition, or miserable condition of miserable existence, are there. The four miserable conditions of materialistic way of life is birth, death, old age, and disease. So from the Bhagavad-gītā we understand that even if we enter into the Brahmaloka, the highest planetary system of this universe, the four principles of miserable condition—birth, death, old age and disease—are there. We learn from Bhagavad-gītā that one daytime duration is millions of years of our calculation. That's a fact. So, but even though the highest planetary system, Brahmaloka, which the scientists say it will take forty thousands of years to go there with the sputnik speed, but who is going there, traveling in the space forty thousands of years? But from the Vedic literature we can understand that any one of the planets we can enter, provided we prepare for that purpose.

Lecture -- Nellore, January 4, 1976:

If you get shelter in moon planet or any other planet, then you will be able to stay. Otherwise, come back again. They are coming back. They are going... It is well advertised they are going to the moon planet. Then why they are coming back? Why you should come back? So the idea is that simply in the Brahman, impersonal stage... Just like sky, nirviśeṣa. You can go eighteen miles, eighteen thousand miles speed, but if you don't get a shelter, then you'll have to come back again. This is the risk. So you must get shelter. So the Bhāgavata therefore advises that āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adho anādṛta-yuṣmad-aṅghrayaḥ (SB 10.2.32). You can go very high in the sky, but if you don't get any shelter in any other planet... So similarly, you can make your spiritual progress understanding of Brahman, but if you do not get any shelter at the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, then you'll fall down. That is a fact. We have seen many sannyāsīs. They give up this material world, that brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā. Then, after some years, he comes down again this mithyā jagat to open schools and hospitals.

Philosophy Discussions

Philosophy Discussion on Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz:

Prabhupāda: That is another nonsense. The soul desires something, and to fulfill that desire he gets a certain type of body; therefore soul is the cause of manufacturing a type of body.

Śyāmasundara: He likens the soul and the body to two synchronized clocks, both going at the same speed but separate.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The soul is separate from the body, but the body is going or the body is being manifested on account of the soul's desire. Just like a young child desires how he will become a youth. He sees the youthful energy, gradually he develops or changes his body to a youthful body.

Śyāmasundara: Then is the body really affecting the soul? Does the body really have a causal influence on the soul?

Prabhupāda: No. The soul is unaffected by the body, but the body is helping the soul to fulfill its desires. Just as I am taking the help of this microphone to serve my purpose, but microphone is not influencing me. It is not that microphone is willing that I shall dictate. It is not like that.

Philosophy Discussion on Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz:

Śyāmasundara: The common point is that they say the same time. They have the same time.

Prabhupāda: But the same time, gradually one clock goes slow and the other clock goes fast. This analogy is not perfect. Similar point. Analogy means there must be a majority of similar points. Similar point is lacking because the one clock is moving, you'll start the other one moving, and one may go slow or one may go at higher speed.

Śyāmasundara: I think it's like this, that the monad of the body desires a body like this, and the monad of the soul desires to inhabit a body like this. But they are separate entities, body and soul, and they work independently of each other.

Prabhupāda: It is not exactly the way it is. It says in the Vedic śāstras that the soul is the master of the body. Therefore how can you say that the body is working independently? This body, I am now liking to place my hand here, so I am desiring and the hand is there, not that all of a sudden my hand, by not desiring, it is coming...

Śyāmasundara: He would say the act of your desiring and the act of the hand coming are simultaneous but they are separate.

Prabhupāda: Jugglery of words. It has no meaning.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Prabhupāda: That is misleading. Nobody can ascertain in that way. That is not possible. In the śāstras it is said that panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamya. He is thinking he is a man living for fifty or sixty or a hundred years. But if somebody is there, just like modern, these sputnik scientists, they say that if one can go forty thousands of years at the speed of light, he can approach the topmost planet. So śāstra says even one goes forty thousands of years, still you won't find where is Kṛṣṇa, where is Kṛṣṇa's abode. Not only at the speed of light, but he says the speed of mind and air. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām: (Bs. 5.34) still, the subject matter which is beyond my senses will remain the same, beyond my senses. This material attempt will not help. Never. There is another verse that adhane gopī chindan vidhena ataḥ pudedevo padamjadayan (?): "Dear Lord, a devotee who has got a little grace from your lotus feet, padamjadaya (?), he can understand You. Others, they may speculate for millions of years. Still it is not possible." Just like Kṛṣṇa says that manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu: (BG 7.3) "Out of many millions of people, one is interested to make his life successful, and out of millions of successful..." Successful means one who understands that I am not this body.

Philosophy Discussion on Hegel:

Śyāmasundara: Just like Albert Einstein, he thought about this theory...

Prabhupāda: Because he's Albert Einstein, he's not perfect.

Śyāmasundara: No, but he was able to conceptualize that the speed of light squared times the mass equals the energy of an object. And then he was able to experiment in the laboratory and actually find out that it was true. But no one told him that formula. He found it out through process of idealizing, ideas.

Prabhupāda: That is another thing. That is, he is studying science. He is a scientist. You cannot say but he's scientist. He, just like the same you are seeing the mountain from a distance, you are seer. Now the more you make progress you see it is green, then more progress, "Oh, it is (indistinct)." The seer, because he is scientist, he is searching so he is making progress but all of a sudden a layman cannot see like that.

Philosophy Discussion on Charles Darwin:

Śyāmasundara: That because of the orbits, different orbits of the planets cause weightlessness.

Karandhara: Centrifugal force.

Prabhupāda: Centrifugal.

Śyāmasundara: When planets go around the sun they go in such a speed, that there is no mass.

Prabhupāda: So, but who has set on the speed? How the speed is going on? That is not explained. But we have got our explanation. Kṛṣṇa says that "I enter into each and every universe and planet, and I keep them floating." That is understandable. Just like we have, in our childhood we used to, I mean to say, fly paper balloon by forcing into it some camphor smoke. Did you do it? We did this in our childhood. Such a big paper balloon, and then you take camphor, so much, and we struck up and burn it, and camphor is burning, it is producing too much—what is called—black smoke; and it becomes big, big smoke, it goes, very nice. So if the camphor smoke entered into the paper balloon can fly it, then God cannot fly all the universes by entering into it?

Philosophy Discussion on Charles Darwin:

Śyāmasundara: That's a relative measurement.

Prabhupāda: So the sunshine is existing always the same. It is relatively understood by others. Otherwise sun is fixed up in his position and is shining all over the world.

Śyāmasundara: The speed of light is constant also, it is said.

Prabhupāda: Yes. It does not change as it reaches. When it may reach, it is already there.

Śyāmasundara: It takes one particle of sunlight eight minutes to travel from the sun to here.

Prabhupāda: That may be, but the sun's...

Svarūpa Dāmodara: This constant can be taken (indistinct) astronomy (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: Anyway, the sunbeam, the sunshine, is always (indistinct). How it is constantly coming? Just like heat and the fire. The heat is always coming out of the fire, always.

Philosophy Discussion on William James:

Śyāmasundara: He sees in our human conduct that we have the choice to make certain decisions, certain...

Prabhupāda: Decision means because you are imperfect, human beings are imperfect, so their machine, these motorcars, there are so many accidents, so many killing. But because God is so perfect, although all the planets are rotating in their speed, just like this earth is rotating... What is the speed? At least in twenty-four hours it is completing 25,000 miles. That means its speed is about 1000 miles at least. And similarly, other planets are also moving, similarly. And the sun planet is moving at 16,000 miles per minute or second, calculated. But all these planets are moving in this way, so much speed, but they are not colliding. The perfect arrangement is there, and they are floating. How it is possible? This is accidental? Do you think this is accidental?

Śyāmasundara: Well, he says it like this, that there are alternative courses of action. For every possibility there are several other possibilities. So that for instance a man can make a decision, a choice, to take different, alternative way. So he says that nature works in that way also.

Prabhupāda: No. Nature is not working that way. Nature is working very perfectly. We can see. Just after... So perfect that the astronomers, they are calculating that on such and such date there will be an eclipse, and it will be seen in India; it will not be seen in Europe; and exactly at this time the eclipse will begin. So how they are calculating unless there is a rigid law? How it is possible? They are calculating mathematically. The general matter that two plus two is always four, not that by accident it becomes five. That is not possible. So the nature's law is working in that way. Otherwise how one year before you can calculate this solar eclipse and lunar eclipse so rightly? And they can say that from this country it will be seen, and from this country it will be not seen. That means the position of the sun, moon and everything, of the latitude and longitude, everything is so nicely done that you can make calculations very perfectly. How you can say accident? There is no accident.

Philosophy Discussion on Jean-Paul Sartre:

Śyāmasundara: And they say I'm responsible for my actions, but it's a very irresponsible position because it doesn't take into consideration other people, or supposing he would have killed other people too.

Prabhupāda: So that is animal decision. That is not human decision. Human decision that there is signboard, "Speed Limit 35." If he doesn't care, he is not a human being, he is animal. A human being, he will take care, "Why shall I drive 100?"

Śyāmasundara: This philosophy gives rise to so much freedom.

Prabhupāda: This philosophy has given rise to these hippies.

Śyāmasundara: Hippies, yes.

Prabhupāda: So they are without any responsibility. Whatever he likes, he can do. So that is animal. There is no question of human civilization or human beings.

Philosophy Discussion on Socrates:
Prabhupāda: These materialistic persons, they have got many things to hear, śrotavyādīni, huge, big, big volumes of newspaper, so many rascal information. Why they have got so many engagement? Apaśyatām ātma-tattvam: (SB 2.1.2) because they do not know what is self-realization. Gṛheṣu gṛha-medhinām. They think that to live in this family life surrounded by wife, children, friends, this is life. So better use this newspaper and talk all nonsense and waste time. Their engagement is nidrayā. At night they sleep or enjoy sex, nidrayā hriyate naktaṁ vyavāyena, and in daytime they hanker after money, runs the motorcar head-break speed, neck-break speed.
Philosophy Discussion on Socrates:

Hayagrīva: Breakneck.

Prabhupāda: Breakneck. And then what is the business? Searching out some means of food, exactly like the hog, he is loitering here and there, "Where is stool? Where is stool? Where is stool?" And this is going on in the polished way as civilization. There is so much risk, as running these cars so many people are dying. There is record, it is very dangerous. At least I feel as soon as I go to the street, it is dangerous. The motorcar are running so speedy, and what is the business? The business is where to find out food. So therefore it is condemned that this kind of civilization is hoggish civilization. This hog is running after, "Where is stool? Where is stool? Where is stool?" And you are running in a car. The same. Purpose is the same: "Where is stool?" Purpose is the same. Therefore this is not advancement of civilization. Advancement of civilization is, as Kṛṣṇa advises, that you require food, so produce food grain. Remain wherever you are. You can produce food grain anywhere, a little labor. And keep cows, go-rakṣya, kṛṣi-go-rakṣya vāṇijyaṁ vaiśya-karma svabhāva-jam (BG 18.44). Solve your problem like... Produce your food wherever you are there. Till little, little labor, and you will get your whole year's food. And distribute the food to the animal, cow, and eat yourself. The cow will eat the refuse. You take the rice, and the skin you give to the cow. From dahl you take the grain, and the skin you give to the... And fruit, you take the fruit, and the skin you give to the cow, and he will give you milk. So why should you kill him? Milk is the miraculous food; therefore Kṛṣṇa says kṛṣi-go-rakṣya vāṇijyaṁ vaiśya (BG 18.44). Give protection to the cow, take milk from it, and eat food grains—your food problem is solved. Where is food problem? Why should you invent such civilization always full of anxieties, running the car here and there, and fight with other nation, and economic development? What is this civilization? Therefore we require to take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness to become happy every way-economically, philosophically, religiously, culturally, everything. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Conversations and Morning Walks

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- April 27, 1969, Boston:

Haṁsadūta: What are they called?

Prabhupāda: It costs not much with single... (Someone turns on tape of chanting) Oh, the... Middle. Middle. What is this? Tune? Tune? No, what is called?

Satsvarūpa: Speed.

Prabhupāda: Speed. Yes. That's all right. Oh, so many things. This is the rest of...

Haṁsadūta: Conchshell.

Prabhupāda: Is it broken?

Haṁsadūta: A little bit. What is this for, Swamiji?

Prabhupāda: This pancapātra.

Haṁsadūta: What do you put in there? Ghee?

Prabhupāda: No. Water. Ācamana. And what is this?

Himāvatī: Look inside.

Prabhupāda: Jagannātha?

Himāvatī: Yes. (end)

Page Title:Speed (Lectures)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, Mayapur
Created:24 of Mar, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=120, Con=1, Let=0
No. of Quotes:121