750207 - Lecture BG 16.11-12 - Honolulu

Lectures by Date, 1975

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

 Listen to a 'Nectar Drop' created from this lecture

750207BG-HONOLULU - February 07, 1975 - 43:26 Minutes

Nitāi: Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. (devotees repeat) Chapter Sixteen, text 11 and 12. (leads chanting of verses, etc.)

cintām aparimeyāṁ ca

pralayāntām upāśritāḥ

kāmopabhoga-paramā

etāvad iti niścitāḥ

āśā-pāśa-śatair baddhāḥ

kāma-krodha-parāyaṇāḥ

īhante kāma-bhogārtham

anyāyenārtha-sañcayān

(BG 16.11)

(break) (03:25)

"They believe that to gratify the senses unto the end of life is the prime necessity of human civilization. Thus there is no end to their anxiety. Being bound by hundreds and thousands of desires, by lust and anger, they secure money by illegal means for sense gratification."

Prabhupāda:

cintām aparimeyāṁ ca

pralayāntām upāśritāḥ

kāmopabhoga-paramā

etāvad iti niścitāḥ

āśā-pāśa-śatair baddhāḥ

kāma-krodha-parāyaṇāḥ

īhante kāma-bhogārtham

anyāyenārtha-sañcayān

(BG 16.11)

So sometimes people say, the modern age . . . modern age and past time or future, past, present and future, the real principles of life, they are the same. It does not change. Millions of years ago, the past and present and future as they were, at the present moment also, the same past, present and future are there. So there is no question of modern age or past age; the nature's law is the same. Millions of years ago the sun was rising early in the morning, and it is rising early in the morning at present moment also. There is no change. Millions of years ago all living entities were interested in eating, sleeping, mating and defending; the same thing is going on. There is no change.

So Kṛṣṇa spoke all these words five thousand years ago. Apart from taking account of millions of years, because nature's law is the same, so even in those days, five thousand years ago, you'll find the demonic people as they are now. These words about the demons . . . there were demons like Rāvaṇa and Hiraṇyakaśipu, Kaṁsa. So many demons there were, historical demons. But their process of life was the same as the modern demons. There is no change. Therefore śāstra means it is for all the time, not that śāstra was meant in the past for something else, and now something else. That is not the fact. That is, means, śāstra, that it does not change. The time, place and atmosphere, according to that, everything is the same.

Now, formerly . . . it is said, anyāyenārtha-sañcayān, to secure money by black market, anyāyena. Nyāya means legal, and anyāya means illegal. So anyāyenārtha-sañcayān, the practice was there also at that time. It may be small scale, but the same thing is going on at the present moment which is known as black market. Black market means anyāyenārtha-sañcayān, getting money by unfair means. That is called anyāyena artha-sañcayān. Anyāya means illegal; nyāya means legal. So these demons who are very much eager to accumulate money by black market, they are cintām aparimeyām, immeasurable anxiety. Anything you do in the material world, there will be cintā, anxiety.

Just like in our this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, the movement, all the activities, they are not material. They're all spiritual. But still, because it is being enacted in the material world, we have also so much anxiety because we are in the material world, although that anxiety also bhakti. That is nothing else. That is not material. When we are anxious how to protect a property, how to push on this movement, how people will take it, what line of action we shall take, this is also anxiety, but that anxiety is for Kṛṣṇa. Therefore it is bhakti.

Anxiety . . . even in Vṛndāvana there is anxiety. Rādhārāṇī is in anxiety that "Kṛṣṇa is not here. How Kṛṣṇa will come?" The gopīs are also in anxiety. gopīs are so in anxiety that about them it is said that when Kṛṣṇa used to go to the forest for tending the cows, so gopīs were thinking at home that "Kṛṣṇa's feet is so soft that we hesitate to take His feet on our breast, but He is now walking in the forest, and there were so many stones and pricks, and they are giving pain to the Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet." And thinking like this, they fainted. This is gopī. Kṛṣṇa is out of the village, and they are at home, and they are thinking of Kṛṣṇa and they fainted. This is also anxiety, so much anxiety that fainted. But that is for Kṛṣṇa. Therefore gopīs are exalted. Ramya kecid upāsanā vraja-vadhu-varga vīrya kalpita. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He recommends, "There is no better type of worshiping Kṛṣṇa than it was planned by the gopīs." So there is also anxiety. So anxiety is spiritual anxiety and material anxiety. Spiritual anxiety means you are advancing in spiritual life, and material anxiety means you are going downhill. So cintām aparimeyāṁ ca.

But we are speaking of the demons, materialistic person. Demon means materialistic person, who are simply busy for these temporary bodily comforts. They do not know anything else. The body is material. Therefore all these activities for comforts of the body . . . that is demon, more or less. So cintā . . . the demons, they are anxiety. Everyone has anxiety, but their anxiety, aparimeyām. Just like ordinary man, he has got some anxiety: "How to maintain my family? How to get some money to maintain family?" like that. But the demons, they are immeasurable, unlimited. You'll find big, big businessmen, they have got very, very long project, "How to do this? How to do this? How to increase this factory? How to make it world-renowned?" and so on, so on, so on. There is no limit of anxiety. Cintām aparimeyāṁ ca.

Unlimited means they have no idea of future life. They do not believe, mostly, at the present moment. Formerly they used to believe, even these asuras. Kaṁsa was a great asura, but still, he was thinking of future life. When he was informed that his sister's son, eighth son, will kill him, so he was trying to kill his sister: "Because sister is the source of the nephew coming, so better finish the sister." So still he was thinking, "What people will say, I shall kill my sister?" So they were also thinking of future. But at the present moment the asuras are so advanced that they don't think of future life also. Don't think. Therefore pralayantam. Pralayantam means annihilation. Sadā tad-bhāva-bhāvitaḥ (BG 8.6). The result is at the same time . . . because at the time of death, yaṁ yaṁ bhāvaṁ smaran loke tyajaty ante kalevaram (BG 8.6).

Pralayantam means at the time of death, when we give up this body. Upāśritāḥ. Then we get a similar body next life. That is, I mean to say, arranged by the nature's law. Nature has nothing to do. It will automatically follow. Just like you infect some disease, nature's law is that you must suffer from that disease. Nobody has got to do anything. The law is so . . . nature's law is like that. If you take more food than you can digest . . . (child crying) (aside) Where is that child? . . . then immediately there will be dysentery. This is nature's law. If you take more than you can digest, then immediately there will be indigestion, means you cannot assimilate so much food. That is nature's law. If you touch fire, either you touch or your innocent child touch, the fire will burn it. Fire will not consider that "Here is a child. Let me excuse." No, it will burn. This is nature's law. Similarly, the thoughts which you are maintaining during your lifetime, if that thought becomes prominent—naturally it becomes—at the time of death, then you are going to get a similar body. If you are thinking like a demon, then you get the demon's body next life. And if you are thinking like a devotee, then you get your next life back to home, back to Godhead. This is nature's law. Therefore, if you practice instead of thinking like the demons, how to gratify senses . . . that is the demonic thought. They are concerned with this body. If you think of Kṛṣṇa, how to serve Him, that is your perfection of life, because you'll think at the time of death of Kṛṣṇa. Ante nārāyaṇa-smṛtiḥ (SB 2.1.6). That is the perfection of life. Ante, at the time of death, if you remember Kṛṣṇa, then your life is successful. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9).

So we have to do like that, not like the asuras, or demons. Thinking must be there, but if you think of this body—how to keep it very comfortably, how to enjoy senses, how to have more money, how to have more men or women, how to see naked dance, how to do, how to this, how to this—then you are demon. And at the time of death, naturally we shall think of. Then I get again demonic life or animal life or tree life. There are so many different forms of life that is in our presence. Before us there are so many examples. If you get a life of a tree, naked . . . tree is naked. He's not ashamed to remain naked. And for ten thousand years you stand up.

Wherefrom this life comes? It requires thought. Why the world is not full of one kind of forms of life? Why there are different types of life? Because different desires and nature's law. Nature's law, there is no excuse, the same thing, that if a child even touches fire, nature is not very merciful; it will burn. Similarly, at the time of death we have to think very rightly. That is required. That is human life. You have to train yourself in such a way that at the time of death you think of Kṛṣṇa.

Therefore Kṛṣṇa advises, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto. Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65), mām evaiṣyasi asaṁśayam. Asaṁśayam, "without any doubt." If you want to go back to home, back to Godhead, which is known as Kṛṣṇaloka, Vaikuṇṭhaloka . . . Vaikuṇṭhaloka means . . . kuṇṭha means this anxiety, and vaikuṇṭha . . . vigata-kuṇṭha. Vigata means without. There is no more any anxiety. That is Vaikuṇṭhaloka, spiritual world. Material world is kuṇṭha. Kuṇṭha means anxiety, full of anxiety, and Vaikuṇṭha means there is no anxiety; everything is freedom, sac-cid-ānanda. Vaikuṇṭha life means sac-cid-ānanda. Kṛṣṇa's body is sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1). Not only Kṛṣṇa's body; anyone who lives in the spiritual world, his body is spiritual body, and spiritual body means sat, cit, ānanda. Sat means eternal. Spiritual body never annihilates. The material body annihilates. Every one of us, we have got now material body. It will annihilate. But in the spiritual world, when you have got spiritual body, it does not annihilate. Eternal. Eternal life. And cit means knowledge. So in this material body we have no knowledge. Even if we have got . . . now imperfect knowledge, limited knowledge. But in the spiritual life you have got full knowledge. That is spiritual life.

And ānanda. Here is no ānanda. In this material world . . . ānanda means pleasure, bliss. But here it is not possible. First of all, you have to die. You may manufacture some so-called ānanda, but you'll die. Now, suppose we are dancing here, and if we understand that immediately death will take place, then we shall not be able to enjoy the dancing. Immediately the anxiety will come. So here, ānanda, there is no ānanda. Why there is ānanda? This body is subjected to so many miserable condition of life. We become hungry, we become thirsty, there is death, there is fearfulness, there is enemy—so many things. If you study analytically that this body is simply meant for suffering, so where is ānanda? There is no ānanda; there is no complete knowledge; there is no eternity. Therefore it is called material. Just the opposite is spiritual life. Just opposite. There is no death—eternity. So civilization means that the process by which we can transfer ourself from this nonpermanent life to permanent life, life of ignorance to life of knowledge, life of suffering to life of enjoyment. That is spiritual life.

So everyone, every human being, should be intelligent, that "This is my position, so what is the use of living like a demon? Here is Kṛṣṇa. He says that 'You just become My devotee. You just think of Me.' " Man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ. "Always think of Me," man-manāḥ, and mad-bhaktaḥ, "My devotee," mad-yājī, "worship Me," māṁ namaskuru, "offer obeisances unto Me. If you follow this principle, then," mām evaiṣyasi, "you come to Me." So why not sacrifice one life for Kṛṣṇa consciousness? So far the bodily enjoyment, especially sex enjoyment, we had in dog's life, cat's life, in beast life. So if by restricting this kind of sex life, little organized, if I can get back to home, back to Godhead and solve all the problems of life, is it not the decision of the intelligent man?

Why should I give me away to the animal life? Viṣayaḥ khalu sarvataḥ syāt. Viṣaya means the four necessities of material life. That is called viṣaya. Viṣaya, four nece . . . what are the four necessities? That so long we have got this material body, we have to eat. We cannot starve. That is not possible. So similarly, we have to take rest, sleeping; and similarly, we have to enjoy or give satisfaction to our senses; and similarly, we have to defend. This is called viṣaya. So śāstra says that this . . . viṣayaḥ khalu sarvataḥ syāt (SB 11.9.29): "In any form of life you'll get full facilities for the bodily necessities of life. Full facilities." Just see the birds and bees. They have no anxiety for maintaining the body or fulfilling the necessities of life. Early in the morning they are not anxious. They, dawn, and they chirp and they fly to somewhere, in any tree, and the fruit is there. A little fruit, that is sufficient. And that is eating. And sleeping? Any tree, they'll sit down on the top and sleep. So eating, sleeping . . . And mating? The other sex is born along with the bird. At least two eggs are there, one male, one female. So he has no anxiety for sex, he has no anxiety for eating, he has no anxiety for sleeping, and defense everyone knows. All birds, beast, knows how to defend himself. The birds on the ground, eating something, as soon as it sees some danger, immediately go up. That is his defense.

So śāstra says, therefore, that "These four necessities of life you'll get, any form of life. Any insignificant form or very important form, it doesn't matter. You'll get all . . . this is arranged." You have no anxiety for that. Kṛṣṇa has given you. Just like even if you are put into the jail life, prison life, for these things government has arranged already. In the jail life there is eating, sleeping, arrangement. So for these things we should not be very much anxious. That is human life. Simply he has to see intelligently things, how things are going on.

There are 8,400,000 forms of life. Out of that, the human forms in different status, 400,000. And eight millions, they are lower animals—birds, beast, aquatics, insects, serpents, so many. They're eight millions. The number of . . . you can see the number of human being. The other being . . . just like even a small ant. From your room thousands of small ants will come out. But in that room, as human being, you cannot live more than two, three. That is the nature's way. You'll find so many sparrows, so many other birds, beast, even elephants. So they are getting their food, they are getting their sleeping accommodation, they have facility for sex life and they know how to defend. So human life is also meant for like that, simply for eating, sleeping, mating and defending?

But the modern civilization has gone down so low that they are very much anxious. Therefore it is said, cintām aparimeyāṁ ca—"How to arrange for eating? How to arrange for sleeping? Not only for me, but for my son, for my grandson, for my great-grandson . . ." Cintām aparimeyām. Then why you are so much in anxiety? Who is your son? Who is your grandson or great-grandson? We . . . by chance we have come together, and after death, like football, it will be shooted to somewhere we do not know. Who can say, "My father is there" or "My grandfather is there"? It is the example given: just like some straw. They mix together in the waves, and again by the waves they are thrown here and there, no more assembling. So the material life is that. Material life . . . by chance, we have come in a family or in a nation or in a community, but this will be . . . after some years it will be broken, and everybody will be thrown in the laws of nature—we do not know where—according to his karma. Now I am father, he is son, but after death my son may become demigod, I may become a dog. Then where is my relationship? Everything is broken. And here I may keep my, keep the photo of my father, and father may be rotting somewhere as a dog.

You cannot avoid these laws of material nature. This is called māyā. Actually we are busy with something which is not permanent—a temporary arrangement by the laws of nature. Therefore those who are too much full of anxiety for all these things, they are called demons. Cintām aparimeyāṁ ca. Your cintā will not act. You may think for the safety or satisfaction, but that does not mean we should neglect our duty. But as far as possible we should be detached. It is not that because all these are temporary arrangement, we should not be unfaithful to our family member, to our children, to our wife. As duty, we should take care, but we should not be simply absorbed in such thoughts. Our other business is how to become fit for going back to home, back to Godhead. That is our real business. This is temporary business, because we have got some bodily relation, so as duty . . .

Therefore Rūpa Gosvāmī, the example, when he wanted to retire from family life, he gave fifty percent to Kṛṣṇa. He was very rich man. After retirement he brought one full load of boat, golden coins. Just imagine the value. Now what is the price of gold coin now? I think there is no gold coin at the present moment. It is all finished. Now it is paper coins. (chuckles) This is going on. But even five hundred years ago or four hundred years ago there were gol . . . not four hundred years ago; in our childhood, we have seen gold mohur, guinea. They were used in practical use. And silver coins, gold coins, we saw. But now it is, everything, paper. So we are so advanced that there is no more gold and silver.

So anyway, cintām aparimeyāṁ ca, that should be transferred to kṛṣṇa-cintā. Satataṁ kīrtayanto māṁ yatantaś ca dṛḍha-vratāḥ (BG 9.14). If you always be busy in glorifying or chanting the holy name of the Lord, then your cintā, anxiety, is transferred. By same cintā . . . Cintā will go on; you cannot stop it. Mind you cannot stop thinking even for a moment, either you shall think of this material life or you shall think of Kṛṣṇa. So the Kṛṣṇa consciousness means instead of thinking of this material life, you think of Kṛṣṇa. Thinking is not to be stopped. That is not possible. You cannot stop thinking even for a moment. Simply you have to practice. Instead of thinking these material things, you think of Kṛṣṇa. That is wanted.

That Kṛṣṇa advises: man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī mām namas . . .. man-manāḥ . . . if you think of Kṛṣṇa always, then naturally you become devotee of Kṛṣṇa. Man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ. And mad-yājī, and if you actually become devotee of Kṛṣṇa, then you shall worship Kṛṣṇa. And if you actually worship Kṛṣṇa, then you must offer obeisances to Kṛṣṇa. Therefore Kṛṣṇa advises four things: man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). Then what will be the result? Mām evaiṣyasi. Simply by practicing these four things. It does not require any M.A., Ph.D., degree. Simply you have to agree, "Yes, I shall think of Kṛṣṇa, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa." You have to agree. That's all. That is required. Then gradually you become bhakta. Gradually you worship, and gradually you offer obeisances, surrender. That one, that is wanted by Kṛṣṇa, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66).

So it does not require any high education, high birth or great riches or to become very beautiful. Nothing required. Beautiful or not beautiful, everyone can become Kṛṣṇa conscious. There is no impediment. Educated or not educated, it doesn't matter. Rich or poor, it doesn't matter. Ahaituky apratihatā. The devotional service, bhakti-yoga, is without any cause and without impediment. Ahaituky apratihatā. And if we attain that stage, then yayātmā suprasīdati: then ātmā, the soul, will be fully satisfied. So it does not require much education, much wealth. From any status of life one can practice this, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65), these four things only.

So we who are propaganding, making propaganda for this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement . . . it is not very difficult. And it is not meant for any particular class of men or community or country. It is meant for all living entities, if he can. And where is the difficulty? So it may be difficult in other forms of life, but in the human form of life it is not at all difficult. So we should fully utilize this human form of life in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and the process is always thinking of Kṛṣṇa. Instead of thinking women and money, if we . . . that is much more difficult also. The māyā is so strong that as soon as I am sitting in a solitary place, then I'll think of money and women. Therefore we should live always in assembly and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and save ourself from the danger of material falldown.

Thank you very much.

Devotees: Jaya Prabhupāda. (end)