680823 - Letter to Unknown written from Montreal

Letters by Date, 1968

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

August 23, 1968

Brahman realization is considered catastrophic in the sense if one does not make further progress to Krishna Consciousness. The less intelligent class of men give more stress on the Brahman realization and they take it as final, so this conclusion is a catastrophe. Because one has to make further progress for Paramatma realization, and further progress for God realization. If one finalizes everything by Brahman realization, certainly that is a catastrophe.

Yes, without cleaning the mind, nobody can advance in spiritual understanding. And the chanting of Hare Krishna is the cleansing process of the mind. That is our motto.

When one realized the Personality of Godhead, he automatically realizes the impersonal Brahman. When you understand what is the sun planet, automatically you understand what is the sunshine. Understanding of the sunshine does not include understanding of the sun planet. So impersonal realization is always imperfect, whereas personal realization is always complete and perfect.

Yes, the point is that we should not eat more than required. Eating, sleeping, mating, all these are material demands; the more we minimize, then that is good, but not at the risk of health. Because we have to work for Krishna, so we must maintain our health nicely. But we should not eat more than is required for maintaining body and soul together. That is the principle. It does not mean, however, that if one's body requires more food for maintaining it, that he should imitate someone who requires less food. The real point is that eating is for maintaining the body, not for luxury or for satisfying the demands of the tongue. Yes, you are right in saying that in the beginning of devotional service that one can only see Krishna in the Deity and the prasadam that is offered to Him. But, anyway, if anyone has the tendency to eat more, then let him eat more prasadam, than any nonsense, but eating more is not encouraged. But it is not that if I want more food that, artificially, I shall eat less. Yes, green dahl, yellow dahl, it does not matter, they are both o.k.

Those who are agitated in the mind, they will hear neither Krishna Conscious philosophy nor Christian philosophy. So to make the mind smoother, you should chant Hare Krishna nicely, not to do it by changing the philosophical topics. The chanting will work. When there is no possibility of talking philosophy, we should simply chant, nothing more. Don't talk anything. That will help both the singer and the audience. Your little speech is very nice. Caitanya Mahaprabhu also said there is millions of Names of God, and one can chant any one of them he prefers. We chant Hare Krishna because Lord Caitanya also chanted Hare Krishna. We recommend to chant any Name of God, but we prefer to chant the Holy Name of God, Krishna, following the Footprints of Lord Caitanya.

The ignorant people they do not understand either Christian philosophy or Hindu philosophy. If somebody makes distinction between Hindu or Christian philosophy, he is not a philosopher. He can not say the sun is the Indian sun because it shines in India, or it's the American sun because it shines in America. But actually the sun is the same sun. Similarly, God is the same either for Hindus or Christians; one who does not understand it does not understand God. The Christian philosophy says God is great, we say how God is great. Simply to know that God is great is not perfection, but to know how He is great is perfect knowledge. Bhagavad-gita explains how God is