710703 - Lecture Initiation - Los Angeles

Lectures by Date, 1971

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

710703IN-LOS_ANGELES - July 03, 1971 - 21:05 Minutes

Prabhupāda: Govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi. Ādi, ādi means "beginning." Everything has got a beginning. In the Vedānta-sūtra, the Absolute Truth is described as the beginning of everything—substance—and then different categories. So that origin, original source of everything, Absolute Truth, He is puruṣaṁ. Puruṣaṁ means person. He is not imperson.

Govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ. How the beginning can be impersonal? That is the way; consider. Just like ordinarily everyone's family—you, your father—you are a person, your father is a person, his father is also person, his father is also person. So where you get imperson? If you go on researching, is there any history of any family where the beginning was imperson?

Is there any history? Any royal family . . . of course, ordinary family there is no history; but there are many royal families, there is a history. So in the history suppose one royal family, so is there any instance that the beginning was impersonal? Hmm? What is your answer? Then the beginning of everything, as the Vedānta-sūtra says: What is Absolute Truth? Athāto brahma jijñāsā: now this human form of life is meant for inquiring about the Absolute Truth. Not driving down to animal life, as it is now, it has become a fashion to become animal. Huh? That natural life, people are gliding so low.

Just like Nārada Muni. He is a great saintly person, and he is never angry, but when he was passing through the way of heavenly planets there he saw that some of the boys of Kuvera, with other girls, they are swimming naked. Nārada Muni happened to be passing through that way. So they were drunkards also. So when Nārada Muni was passing, the girls took care; they immediately covered their body, and . . . but the boys, they were so drunkard that they could not take care of their bodies, they remained naked. So such a great saintly person, he became angry—huh?—that "You have lost all your sense; you are naked."

All right, he'll stand up a tree, naked for so many years, cursed. That is yamala-arjuna. You have, you know the story of yamala-arjuna, the picture is there. The saintly curse is also benediction. These yamala-arjunas, these two brothers, they become two trees. Yamala means "twin," and arjuna tree. So they remain standing there for hundreds of years, but because Nārada Muni cursed them, they had the opportunity to see Kṛṣṇa eye to eye. This is one side, but another side is that to become naked means the trees are naked, the animals are naked—does it mean the human being should be naked? Then what is the advancement of civilization? No. Naked . . . to remain naked is animal life. A human being must be well dressed. That is human civilization.

So because they are degrading to the animal life, they cannot understand what is the Absolute Truth, what is the beginning. Therefore their brain cannot accommodate all these things, understanding the Absolute Truth. The human society has become so degraded. This life is a chance. Nature, by the evolutionary process, nature gives one chance. But you . . . you may come out of the clutches, of her clutches. Nature is . . . material energy is catching you very tightly; she does not allow you to go away. But still she gives one chance—the human form of body. This . . . in this form of life you can get away from these clutches, from this repetition of birth and life . . . birth and death. So now if you like you can get out.

I do not know whether you have got such practice. In India there are . . . there is a bird, he is kept in a cage, and the man sometimes lets the bird come out of the cage. But he walks with the man, and again when he pats he comes within the cage. (makes sound patting his desk with hand) He does not take the opportunity that, "Now I have given a little freedom, let me fly away." No. It comes again to the cage. So similarly, the material nature gives us the opportunity: this human form of life we have got freedom. The freedom is just like an animal in the slaughterhouse.

If you can push one animal, all the animals will go. Veriyal-hasa. This is called, Hindi, veriyal-hasa. They have no sense that, "This is slaughterhouse, and the first one has entered, so why we shall enter?" That is animal. They . . . although it is slaughterhouse . . . why slaughterhouse?

If you kill one animal before another animal, the other animal will think that, "I am saved. I am saved. The . . . that animal is being killed, this man will not kill me." He is saved. Just like we also think, so many of our relatives or friends are dying, but I am thinking "I shall not die." This is the most wonderful thing.

Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja inquired . . . not Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja; Dharmarāja inquired from Yudhiṣṭhira, "What is the most wonderful thing in this world?" He replied:

ahany ahani lokāni

gacchanti yama-mandiram

(Mahābhārata, Vana-parva 313.116)

"Every moment thousands of living entities are going in the hands of cruel death," śeṣāḥ sthāvaram icchanti, "but those who have not died, still they are thinking, "I shall not die. I am permanent settlement." " Kim āścaryam ataḥ param: "What is more wonderful than this thing?" Everyone knows that death is sure. He still, he sees his friends dying, his father dying, mother dying, brothers dying, but he is thinking, "Oh, I shall live now very long time."

This is the nature. But another side is that he wants to live, because actually he does not die. He, by nature he is eternal, therefore he does not like to die, or he remembers his eternity. So we are eternal, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). It is described in the Bhagavad-gītā that we do not die.

Even after the disillusion of this body we change to another body, we accept another body. Just like when you give up old dress, garment, and accept another garment, similarly, according to the price we pay, if we can give good price then we can purchase new dress from a very nice shop. But if we cannot pay nicely, then you have to purchase some second-hand, third-hand dress. Just like we are in practice, similarly, this dress is offered according to the price we pay. Karma.

If you act nicely, that you can get a body in a very rich man's family, or you can get a body in the dog's family. That will depend on my work, or the price I pay. This is nature's law. But either I get a king's body in the royal family or I get the body in the dog's family, the process of birth and death is there. It is not that when a king dies he very . . . dies very comfortably. No. Neither a dog dies very comfortably. The pangs of death equal to the king or to the dog. But temporarily, sometimes we get the king's body, sometimes a dog's body.

So those who are intelligent, they will see the pangs of birth and death, not the king's body, not the dog's body. Disease is disease, not that if a king is diseased he is not suffering. When there is disease, a king will suffer, a dog will suffer. So this is our disease, because naturally we are spirit soul, but somehow or other we have come in contact with the material nature and getting repeatedly different types of body. Therefore our main business is how to get out of this disease, and that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

If you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, then you get out of it. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma, mām eti (BG 4.9), Kṛṣṇa says. Janma karma. If you simply try to understand. Kṛṣṇa consciousness means to understand Kṛṣṇa, what is Kṛṣṇa. That is brahma jijñāsā, enquiring about Kṛṣṇa and understanding Kṛṣṇa. And Kṛṣṇa says, "If anyone understands Me, then he gets out of this disease of repeatedly taking birth and death, or changing the body." That is our main business in the human form of life.

So the proposition was the ādi-puruṣa . . . (indistinct) . . . we are part and parcel. Just like we have got material father, originally Kṛṣṇa is everyone's father, all living entities. So if we are person—either I am cat or dog or man or demigod, it doesn’t matter—but if I am person, how the original father can be imperson? Māyāvādī philosophers, they say that God is imperson. How you can accept that God is imperson? No. God is person.

Put your arguments how you can say that God is imperson. Huh? Ādi-puruṣaṁ. I am puruṣa, I am a person. Puruṣa means "person." My father is person, his father is person, his father is person . . . go on, if we have history—where do you find that some of your forefather was imperson? How to get this history? Where is the evidence? Therefore the original father, or God, is person.

Govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ. Ādi, ādi means original. Then if He is a person, how He is God? Because He has no father, that is it. End of father. Ādi-puruṣaṁ. Anādir ādir govindaḥ (Bs 5.1). Everyone has got father—his father, his father—but when you come to a person who has no more father, that is God. Govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ.

īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ

sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ

anādir ādir govindaḥ

sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam

(Brahma-saṁhitā 5.1)

Anādir: He has no ādi, He has no origin. He is the origin. So to find out God, it is not difficult. This is the definition: that you go on searching—my father, his father, his father, his father, you go on—when you come to a point when no more father, He is everything, that is God.

Is there any question in this regard? Very simple formula, who is God. But God cannot be imperson. God cannot be imperson. How He can, if He is the father, original father? So within our experience we find my father, your father, his father—all person. So how the original father can be imperson? Huh? Is there any question? Yes?

Devotee: . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Material representation. They . . . therefore Kṛṣṇa has called them mūḍhā. (laughter) Mūḍhā means fools, rascals. Avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā (BG 9.11). This very word has been used. Because they are rascals, less intelligent, no knowledge, therefore they think like that. Mūḍhā, the exact meaning of mūḍhā is "rascal," "fool."

So according to the definition given in the Bhagavad-gītā, all, everyone who thinks of God as imperson, they are all mūḍhās, rascals and fools. So we haven't got to consult the rascals and fools; we have to consult the greatest learned: Kṛṣṇa. As Kṛṣṇa says, we have to accept, not the rascals and the fools. (break) (end)