Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.9.2–3

Prabhupāda: ...his association, or its association with the different types of..., modes of material nature, sattva-guṅa, rajo-guṅa, tamo-guṅa. So you mix it, then that it becomes eighty-one. Three multiplied by three, nine, and again, nine multiplied by nine, it becomes eighty-one. So there are 8,400,000 forms on account of this mixture. That's all. So the mixture is possible, and according to the mixture, they have got different consciousness. According to the body, they have got different consciousness.

A man, highly intellectual brāhmaṅa, he is, "Oh, I am greater than everyone. I am so wise. I am so pure. I am brāhmaṅa." So he has got a different conception. And similarly, the hog, because he has got a different form, it has that "Oh, stool is so nice. Let me eat it." It is very [easy] to understand. According to the association with the modes of material nature, we are getting different types of body. And according to different types of body, we are developing different types of consciousness. Is it very difficult to understand?

But when we transcend this bodily concept of life, then we come to the one standard consciousness. That is Kṛṣṅa consciousness. That is Kṛṣṅa consciousness. Try to understand. If there is any difficulty, ask. It is very important. Why there are different consciousness? Everyone could take up this Kṛṣṅa consciousness. But they cannot take it, because they have got bodily concept of life. And body means association with the modes of material nature in a different way. Try to understand. Is there any question on this point? Say it clearly. If you have understood, explain. It is very important point.

Ramamāṅo guṅeṣ..., guṅeṣv asyā, guṅeṣu asya mamāham iti manyate. According to the body, the hog is claiming, "Oh, this stool is mine. You cannot take." He is thinking. Just like the other day in Hong Kong, we saw that one woman was collecting some nasty food from the garbage because he [she] is thinking, "This sort of food is my food." Mamāham. He [she] has got a certain type of body.

Therefore Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura says, nānā yoni brāhmaṅa kare, karma-kāṅḍa jñāna-kāṅḍa sakale viṣera bhāṅḍa [Prema-bhakti-candrikā]. Those who are taking to the karmīs' life or jñānīs' life... Even jñānīs' life... Jñānīs' life means higher type of forms of body. Just like where so long... Here the jñānīs have got a very nice body, brahminical body, pure, cleansed and beautiful, knowledge. The higher development, they can go still up, Maharloka, Janaloka, Tapoloka, Satyaloka, Siddhaloka, Brahmaloka. Ūrdhvaṁ gacchanti sattva-sthā [Bg 14.18].

[Those situated in the mode of goodness gradually go upward to the higher planets; those in the mode of passion live on the earthly planets; and those in the mode of ignorance go down to the hellish worlds.]

The more you are in sattva-guṅa, you get higher level of living in higher planetary system. Ūrdhvaṁ gacchanti sattva-sthā.

Those who are on the modes of goodness of material nature, they go higher and higher, higher and higher. But Kṛṣṅa says, ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino 'rjuna [Bg 8.16]:

[From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kuntī, never takes birth again.]

even if you go to the Brahmaloka, that is also not security that you get rid of the four principles of material life, birth, death, old age and disease. Ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino 'rjuna. Again coming down. Āruhya kṛcchreṅa para... Even if you go to the impersonal Brahman effulgence, from there also, you have to come back. Āruhya kṛcchreṅa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adhaḥ [SB 10.2.32].

[[Someone may say that aside from devotees, who always seek shelter at the Lord's lotus feet, there are those who are not devotees but who have accepted different processes for attaining salvation. What happens to them? In answer to this question, Lord Brahmā and the other demigods said:] O lotus-eyed Lord, although nondevotees who accept severe austerities and penances to achieve the highest position may think themselves liberated, their intelligence is impure. They fall down from their position of imagined superiority because they have no regard for Your lotus feet.]

So, madhya-dhāma gatvā punar janma na... But anyone who reaches...

The jīva, another reason of falling down... There is sometimes question, "How one who lived in association with Kṛṣṅa, how he fell down?" Generally, those who are living with Kṛṣṅa or Vaikuṅṭha, they never fall down. But those who are in the effulgence of Kṛṣṅa, in the impersonal Brahman, they fall down, because it is the propensity of the living entity to enjoy. But one cannot enjoy; there is no ānanda.

Those who are merging in the Brahman effulgence, they are getting the department of eternity. The Brahman is sac-cid-ānanda. So they are simply accepting sad-aṁśa. Sad-aṁśa means only eternity. Just like if you are asked to sit down in a place eternally, no, it will be impossible. You must desire a change, variety, because we are living entity, living being. So therefore our Vaiṣṅava philosophy has varieties of enjoyment.

This Māyāvādī philosophy, they are thinking of Brahman, "Ahaṁ brahmāsmi, ahaṁ brahmāsmi. I have become Nārāyaṅa." So how long they will think like that? Therefore they fall down. Artificially he is Brahman, that's all right. Everyone is Brahman. But simply thinking, "I am Brahman, I am Brahman..." Suppose you are rich man. So if you simply think, "I am rich man, I am rich man, I am rich man," will that give you pleasure?

You must act like a rich man. If I am rich man, I must have a very nice motorcar, I must have very nice society, friendship, love, building. Then that will give me pleasure. And if I have got millions of dollars' bank balance and if I think, "Oh, I am so rich man, I am so rich man, I am so rich man," that will not give you pleasure. Is it not practical? Try to understand. Will any rich man, if he thinks simply that "I am rich man, I am rich man," will he be happy in that way? Rather, a poor man who has got variegated life, he is happy.

Even Kṛṣṅa, who is the Supreme Lord—He has nothing to do—He also sometimes thinks that "I must fight with somebody. I must play. I must become subordinate to somebody." Therefore He comes. He becomes subordinate to Nanda-Yaśodā. That is pleasure. He becomes chastised. He fights with the demon. Some of the demons, they are devotees. Just like if I want to take massage, I find out my masseurs from my devotees with all strength. You see? I cannot go outside. Similarly, janmādy asya yataḥ [SB 1.1.1]. The fighting spirit is there in Kṛṣṅa also. So when He wants to fight, in the Vaikuṅṭha there is no possibility of fight. Nobody will be able to fight. Nobody will agree to fight. So there is no fighting.

Fighting means must be inimical propensity. Unless you think, "I am your enemy," and I think, "You are my enemy," the fighting is not going on. If I think, "I am fighting with my friend," it will be false fighting. Fighting must be between two strong enemies. Therefore sometimes Jaya-Vijaya come. The question is that why the living entity falls down. It is not falls down. Just like Jaya-Vijaya came just to satisfy his master.

His master desired fighting, so some of His servant went to the material world and became great enemy, like Hiraṅyakaśipu, Rāvaṅa. For killing Rāvaṅa, Rāma is coming. Well, Rāvaṅa could not be killed without Rāma. If Rāma desired, millions of Rāvaṅas could be killed in one second. And why He is coming to..., personally to fight with him? Just to satisfy a pleasure pastime, that "I shall fight." That is variety.

Brahman, Brahman does not mean no variety. Varieties. There is fighting. Just like Kṛṣṅa was taking pleasure when His devotee Bhisma was piercing Him with arrows. Actually He was taking pleasure. So Viśvanātha Cakravartī has given this example, that this can be realized by this example, that when a lover kisses the opposite lover, even sometimes kissing there is blood come out, still, it is pleasing. In that kissing process even blood comes out, still, it is pleasure. The lover does not complain. It is very suitable example given by Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura. So when Kṛṣṅa enjoys with His devotee, the fighting with piercing Kṛṣṅa's body, that is being enjoyed by Kṛṣṅa. I think I have explained this in Bhāgavata.

So impersonal, without any variety, nobody can live. No live... Even Kṛṣṅa, the Supreme Lord, He can also say. He wants variety. So this variety of forms... Because they want variety of enjoyment, therefore they have got different forms of body according to the association. So Māyāvādī philosophers, when they come to know that this is māyā's place, so therefore they want to make it variety-less, formless. This is their theory.

So, but that is not the solution. This is māyā. This form or no form, this is māyā. When we develop our real, spiritual form and enjoy in company and association of the Supreme Lord varieties, just like Vṛndāvana, variety... In Vṛndāvana the cows, the trees, the water, they are also spiritual. Some devotee wants to serve Kṛṣṅa becoming a cow. Some devotee wants to serve Kṛṣṅa becoming a bird, becoming a monkey, and somebody is serving as gopī or as cowherd boy, as father, as mother. But they are all spiritually.

Ānanda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhiḥ. They are all expansion. Just like when Brahmā took away all the friends and cows of Kṛṣṅa, immediately expanded Himself in the same way. So all the cows and all the cowherd boys, in every case, they were all expansion of Kṛṣṅa, pleasure potency. Ānanda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhis tābhir ya eva nija-rūpatayā kalābhiḥ [Bs 5.37].

[I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, residing in His own realm, Goloka, with Rādhā, resembling His own spiritual figure, the embodiment of the ecstatic potency possessed of the sixty-four artistic activities, in the company of Her confidantes [sakhīs], embodiments of the extensions of Her bodily form, permeated and vitalized by His ever-blissful spiritual rasa.]

Nija-rūpa.

So the varieties are there also, but here the variety is māyā. Māyayā bahu-rūpayā. The same example: the mirage. It appears like water, but that is not real water. Similarly here, māyayā, because it is false, they appear like that varieties, but they are false. Māyayā bahu-rūpaya. Ramante. This ramante, this pleasure, is material pleasure because guṅeṣu. Ramamāṅa guṅeṣu asyā. They are trying to take pleasure in the material modes of nature. Mamāham iti manyate. What is that?

Devotee: Mamāham iti manyate.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So these varieties, they have created a sense of personal property, mama, "mine." Therefore they are fighting: "Oh, this is our country, Japanese country. This is this country. You have come here. Show me your visa," immigration. So māyayā, by māyā. Why you ask for visa? It is your property? No. They are thinking, "It is my property. It is my property." Just like in Australia and other countries, colonization. They usurped others' property, and now they are thinking, "It is our property." You see? Before their usurping, the property was there. So before their usurping, when the property was there, whose property it is?

So we come here with different forms and claim something, "This is my property." Another man claims, "It is my property." Actually this is māyā, false. Everything Kṛṣṅa's property. Īśāvasyam idaṁ sarvam [Īśo mantra 1].

[Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord. One should therefore accept only those things necessary for himself, which are set aside as his quota, and one should not accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong.]

"Oh, this is..." But māyā, they have created this false idea, "It is my property. It is my property." Mamāham iti manyate.

The same thing explained in Bhagavad-gītā: ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā [Bg 3.27]: by false ego they have become befooled.

[The bewildered spirit soul, under the influence of the three modes of material nature, thinks himself to be the doer of activities, which are in actuality carried out by nature.]

Kartāham iti manyate. Kartā. Kartā means the proprietor, or the master. He is not actually master, but under the influence of different modes of material nature he is feeling, "I am master. I am enjoyer. I am bhokta." This is the trouble.

What is the next verse?

Pradyumna:

yarhi vāva mahimni sve parasmin kāla-māyayoḥ rameta gata-sammohas tyaktvodāste tadobhayam [SB 2.9.3]

Prabhupāda: Word-by-word.

Pradyumna: Yarhi... [break]

Prabhupāda: "I am now amongst the members of Kṛṣṅa conscious devotees. I am one of the devotees, and because I have taken this association, and because I am working under their direction, Kṛṣṅa must be pleased, and He must give me protection. Therefore, I should not reserve anymore anything. Let me fully surrender." No reservation; fully surrendered. [break]

Our business is we want to sell books not to make money. Now, if you simply take it formally... Hayagrīva has taken the formality: we have to keep some cows; never mind we have to take payment from others. That is not cow protection. Cow protection means just like Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He is tending the cows. He is going, taking the cows personally from His royal palace, going to the forest whole day, working there. Is it not, cowherds boy? And taken some little fruit, mother, whatever mother has given. They are playing that.

So this is cow protection. Not that "Somebody will give money and we shall keep some third-class cows and feed there, and become cow protector." We must tend the cows very nicely so that they will give us sufficient milk. And with that milk we shall live. "No, because we are giving protection to cow, you send money for the cows and the cow protector, and earn money there and give us money. We shall eat nicely and sleep." As soon as this practice is going on, then next will be, "Give me some LSD. Give me something else." This will go on. We don't want that.

Similarly, the GBC member means they will see that in every temple these books are very thoroughly being read and discussed and understood, and applied in practical life. That is wanted. Not to see the vouchers only, "How many books you have sold, and how many books are in the stock?" That is secondary. You may keep vouchers... If one is engaged in Kṛṣṅa's service, there is no need of voucher. That is... Everyone is doing his best. That's all.

So we have to see that things are going on very nicely. So in that way the GBC members should divide some zones and see very nicely that things are going on, that they are chanting sixteen rounds, and temple management is doing according to the routine work, and the books are being thoroughly discussed, being read, understood practically. These things are required. Now, suppose you go to sell some book, and if somebody says, "You have read this book? Can you explain this verse?" then what you will say? You will say, "No. It is for you. It is not for me. I have to take money from you, that's all." Is that very nice answer?

Devotee: No, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Then? "We have written this book for your reading, not for our reading. We are..., simply collect money, that's all."

Sudāmā: Śrīla Prabhupāda? If, while in the process of the studying of the book, there is some disagreement, one...

Prabhupāda: What disagreement? Everything is explained there. Why there shall be disagreement?

Sudāmā: Well, if there is no understanding, but still, the question, there is a question presented, then...

Prabhupāda: Then without understanding... Or understanding... What is the difficulty? Everything is explained there. So what is the difficulty of disagreement? Everything, word-to-word meaning is there. Translation is there. Purport is there. Where is the difficulty?

Sudāmā: The point is, then, to practically apply. Then you will understand.

Prabhupāda: Practical application means that this "I" and "mine," it is all misconception. Everything belongs to Kṛṣṅa. I am His servant. When I say "I," "I" means "I am servant of Kṛṣṅa." And if I say "my," "mine," Kṛṣṅa is mine. I am Kṛṣṅa's; Kṛṣṅa is mine. That is perfect "I" and "mine." And all "I am Brahman, I am God, I am the Supreme, I am moving the stars"—just like these rascals, they think like that—that is rascaldom.

There are so many rascals, they think like that, meditate, "I am the Supreme. I am moving the star. I am moving the sun. It is being controlled by me." That is their meditation. That is explained there. That is their meditation. Is it not? Does not somebody meditate like that? They do not take actual, whether actually he is able to move the sun and moon, but foolishly thinking like that. They are taught that "If you simply think like that, then one day you will become." Just how impractical proposition.

Our proposition, that we also think about Kṛṣṅa's pastime in order to enter into Kṛṣṅa con..., but not to become Kṛṣṅa, but to be allowed into the eternal pastimes of Kṛṣṅa, nitya-līlā-praviṣṭha. Our thinking... We are thinking of Kṛṣṅa's pastimes, sadā tad-bhāva-bhāvitaḥ [Bg 8.6],

[Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail.]

not to become Kṛṣṅa, even not to become the cowherd boy. Our is always we want to become the servant of the cowherd boy.

Those who are thinking of becoming gopī—the maidservant of another gopī, that is our proposition. If I think that "I shall become Mother Yaśodā," that is also Māyāvāda. That is also Māyāvāda, exactly like that, if one thinks that "I shall become Kṛṣṅa." Our only proposition is how to be engaged in the service of Kṛṣṅa. That is explained.

So if there is difficulty, we should discuss among ourselves and clear it. But there must be thorough discussion and understanding. And the president of the center, he should be able to answer the questions of other members. If he is unable, then he should ask the local general secretary. Then, at last, it should come to me. Not that all the questions are going to me directly, and "We are simply busy, vouchers and reports."

So these things should be very carefully noted. The president means he must be very expert. He should be... Secretaries, they should be all expert in reading. This is our main business: to study, to know things. Otherwise, what is this? Now, that this boy is asking question means he should have asked question to the senior members. What is your next question?

Devotee: The question is, Prabhupāda, that if there is question, or not understanding in the course of a class, if the proper answer cannot be given, if one sincerely approaches you within the heart, then you will give understanding?

Prabhupāda: I have given understanding already in my book. That I am explaining. Why these books are being written? Just to explain things very nicely. They are already there. You try to understand. If you cannot understand, then you... [break] ...has not made the thing clear. But you are unable to understand. So in that case you have to cleanse yourself. Ceto-darpaṅa-mārjanam [Cc Antya 20.12]. Both things.

[Let there be all victory for the chanting of the holy name of Lord Kṛṣṅa, which can cleanse the mirror of the heart and stop the miseries of the blazing fire of material existence. That chanting is the waxing moon that spreads the white lotus of good fortune for all living entities. It is the life and soul of all education. The chanting of the holy name of Kṛṣṅa expands the blissful ocean of transcendental life. It gives a cooling effect to everyone and enables one to taste full nectar at every step.]

You must be able to understand, and the instructor should be able to make you understand, both of them. Just like Śukadeva Gosvāmī and Parīkṣit Mahārāja, Arjuna and Kṛṣṅa. One answer, and he's answered, but the answer is not understandable by us. But Arjuna is understanding. Śukadeva Gosvāmī is understanding. Just like this is a question, attempt.

Bali-mardana: Śukadeva Gosvāmī and Parīkṣit?

Prabhupāda: Yes. So sometimes we cannot understand due to our incapable. But things are already there. So by discussing, by repeated trying to understand and being cleansed of heart, everything will be done. Tad viddhi praṅipātena paripraśnena sevayā [Bg 4.34].

[Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth.]

The two things are there, seva and praṅipāt: surrender, at the same time, some service. Sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ [Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.2.234].

[No one can understand the transcendental nature of the name, form, quality and pastimes of Śrī Kṛṣṅa through his materially contaminated senses. Only when one becomes spiritually saturated by transcendental service to the Lord are the transcendental name, form, quality and pastimes of the Lord revealed to him.]

If one is inclined to give service, then automatically things become understood. This is science like that.

yasya deve parā bhaktir yathā-deve tathā gurau tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ prakāśante mahātmanaḥ [Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.23]

[Unto those great souls who have implicit faith in both the Lord and the spiritual master, all the imports of Vedic knowledge are automatically revealed.]

This spiritual science cannot be understood simply by academic knowledge or by challenge. The sevā-vṛtti, the service attitude, must be there. Otherwise it will never be understood. Yasya deve parā bhaktir yathā-deve tathā gurau. These are the Vedic injunction.

Hmm. So let us...

[break] Each and every śloka should be very, very scrutinizingly understood. That should be the first business in the temples—of all these books. We have got so many books. Simply if we make arrangement for selling, not for understanding, then it will be simply materialistic. Both things must go on.

Go on. [kīrtana] [end]