Satsvarūpa:
- māṁ ca yo 'vyabhicāreṇa
- bhakti-yogena sevate
- sa guṇān samatītyaitān
- brahma-bhūyāya kalpate
- (BG 14.26)
Translation: "One who engages in full devotional service, who does not fall down in any circumstance, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman."
Prabhupāda: This is our process.
Professor Durckheim: A long way to get there.
Prabhupāda: And the process is going on. The chanting the holy name of Kṛṣṇa, by this process they fully realize that the master, the Supreme Being, and engages himself always. These European, American boy, they are all educated. Not . . . in your country, of course, the young men . . .
Professor Durckheim: They are educated too.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So they are always engaged in devotional service. So unless there is some realization, how they can engage their time in this way? (break) "You are human being. You can eat. I have given you fruits. I have given you vegetables. I have given you food grains. I have given you milk, very nutritious, palatable, containing all vitamin A, B, C, D. And why should you kill animals? Why should we give trouble to the others?" This is self-realization, that "Here is another self. The same active principle is working there. The body is different. Why shall I kill him?" So they have realized it. Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu. Equal vision to all living entities that the self, that active principle, is working in the fish, in the insect, within the tree, within the plant, within the animals, within the birds and within me. This is self-realization. That active principle is soul, and the soul is migrating from one body to another as you are migrating from childhood to babyhood, babyhood to boyhood, boyhood to youthhood. So the soul is the same, the body is different. The body is material and the soul is spiritual. When one comes to this understanding, that is self-realization.
Professor Durckheim: Well, may I put a question, Master? On the way there should be progress, inner progress. How to realize that there is a progress? I would say one thing is very important. There are three sufferings in the world of mankind: fear of annihilation, despair if you are taken by something which is absurd, and loneliness, if you are alone. These three sufferings in the world for the natural being. I realize that you make a decisive step on your inner way when you feel life in the very moment when you have to die, when you feel the great meaning in the very moment when you are just having despair, and when you feel the great love of the person God exactly while you are lonely in the world. And I have realized that we are now in a very decisive moment in the Western world because for the first time in the history of mankind, the Western people, in Europe and the States, start to take seriously certain experiences, inner experiences, where this truth is revealed. In all times, as far as I see, the great condition of the East, they knew about those experiences where death loses its terrifying character and becomes the threshold to some bigger life. And I always see with also my disciples, as soon as they learn to go through some kind of death, they awake on a new level. So I will say if people are in my place and after a week they still sleep very well, then I have made a mistake. About that sleep, just to realize something in overcoming their usual needs, their usual fears, their usual habits, in order to touch inwardly another level, and then suddenly they realize there is some quite different principle at work as they see usually in their natural mind.