June 3 1976 LA room conversations
Rāmeśvara: Kṛṣṇa knows everything in the past, and everything in the future.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: So when Kṛṣṇa…. Kṛṣṇa knows that I will misuse my independence, but still He gives me independence.
Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa’s mercy.
Rāmeśvara: Even though it is bad for me.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: You say Kṛṣṇa knows you are going to misuse your independence.
Rāmeśvara: Because He knows everything in the past and everything in the future. So He must…. Kṛṣṇa is all-knowing.
Prabhupāda: This present, future, means, just like a father knows the…, how the child is. Now if the child changes, and touches the fire, Kṛṣṇa knows it will burn. He knew when the child did not touch the fire, his future. And when he touched the fire, Kṛṣṇa knew the result. So He always knows. His position is to know the future. He’s always…. Now you are changing, what is the future due to your little independence?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So can you actually say that Kṛṣṇa knows you’ll misuse your independence? He knows if you misuse your independence what will happen, but can it be actually said that...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: …he knows you will definitely misuse…
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: …you can use your independence properly, it’s up to you.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: But then that limits Kṛṣṇa. If you say that Kṛṣṇa did not know when I will misuse my indep…. or if I will…
Prabhupāda: No, no. That means you do not know what is the independence. You can, you can change your position at any time. That is your independence.
Rāmeśvara: But doesn’t Kṛṣṇa know if I will do it?
Prabhupāda: Yes, because you are independent. That is the meaning.
Rāmeśvara: Marginal.
Prabhupāda: What will the…. That will depend on…. And the result He knows. Just as a lawyer knows that he has done this, criminal, he’ll be punished like this. So His position to know the future is always there. Either in this condition or other condition.
Rāmeśvara: But the lawyer doesn’t…
Prabhupāda: Why Kṛṣṇa? Everyone knows. Suppose you have got this body; next body he’s a dog. I can say you’ll bark.
Rāmeśvara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: What you’ll do? That’s all. What to speak of Kṛṣṇa; I can say.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That was Satsvarūpa’s question, Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s question.
Prabhupāda: No, this is the answer. Kṛṣṇa’s position is always the same. He knows past, present and future.
Rāmeśvara: This is Karandhara’s problem, this point of philosophy. He cannot understand it. His argument is that he is having so much trouble due to his sense attraction. And Kṛṣṇa gave him the sense attraction, or Kṛṣṇa gave him senses; now he is having trouble controlling his senses. But he argues that Kṛṣṇa knows everything, so Kṛṣṇa knew that he would have trouble controlling his senses; therefore why did Kṛṣṇa give him senses?
Prabhupāda: That is nonsense.
Rāmeśvara: He says Kṛṣṇa is playing games.
Prabhupāda: I have given you charge of this BBT, millions of dollars you are dealing, but it is not for your misuse. As soon as you misuse, that is your responsibility.
Rāmeśvara: Yes, but he says but still, you’ll know that I’m going to misuse it.
Prabhupāda: No. That Kṛṣṇa knows, when something charge is given. But because you are independent, I know that “Rāmeśvara is very good boy; let him be in charge.” But you can misuse at any moment, because you have got independence. You can misuse at any moment. At that time your position is different. That is this Karandhara’s, he was in this position, but as soon as he misused it, immediately, Kṛṣṇa changed his position.
Rāmeśvara: He’s so foolish, he blames…
Prabhupāda: That is our foolishness, that we cannot understand. That is our foolishness. How you can understand Kṛṣṇa’s activities?
Rāmeśvara: That’s the only answer.
Prabhupāda: What Kṛṣṇa is doing…. You are little independent, but He is fully independent. He knows everything. His independence is not under condition; your independence is under condition. If you misuse your independence, you’ll suffer.
Rāmeśvara: His argument is that “I should never be allowed to misuse my independence.”
Hari-śauri: There’s no question of independence then.
Rāmeśvara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: That is not independence. Independence means you can use properly or improperly.
Rāmeśvara: He cannot understand that.
Prabhupāda: He wants to become a machine.
Rāmeśvara: Yes, he’d rather be a machine and be in Kṛṣṇa’s service.
Prabhupāda: No, no, machine we are, but still there is independence. That means you are not absolutely independently, relatively. The state, you say we are American-independent. But that does not mean you can do whatever you like. As soon as you misuse, you are arrested, punished. Even the president is not independent. As soon as he misused his power, drag him, “Come out.” What to speak of you.
Hari-śauri: That’s like an impersonalist. He doesn’t want any individual existence.
Prabhupāda: And he does not agree to be guided by the supreme controller. He does not agree that He is supreme controller. “I am everything.” Therefore they are called mūḍhas, māyayāpahṛta-jñānāḥ [Bg. 7.15]. Mūḍha. He’s being controlled. As soon as there is some toothache, he goes to the doctor. And he says “I am God.” He’s becoming old, and he says that “I am God.” Why you are becoming old? God is always young.
Rāmeśvara: He has another argument. He says that he’s in the grip of māyā.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: So even though he wants to go back to Godhead, he cannot be freed from the influence of māyā. Māyā is keeping him.
Prabhupāda: Unless you are fully surrender, sarva-dharmān parityajya [Bg. 18.66], you cannot do it. Māyā will not leave you.
Rāmeśvara: But in order to fully surrender, you have to be free from māyā.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Māyā will keep you freed when you fully surrender. If you surrender to your wife and many women, māyā will not give you.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He’s thinking freedom without Kṛṣṇa.
Rāmeśvara: He says that māyā keeps making him full of material desires.
Prabhupāda: Yes, māyā must keep you, must keep you, must keep you because you are not surrendering fully.
Rāmeśvara: Then he says that “As long as I have all these material urges, I cannot control them. The māyā is insurmountable.”
Prabhupāda: No. Māyā is not…. What māyā is? Punishing, that’s all.
Hari-śauri: The desire is ours; it’s simply either Kṛṣṇa or māyā.
Prabhupāda: Therefore you have to rectify your desires. That is bhakti.
Rāmeśvara: By chanting.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: How do you…. But then he says, “How do you develop the strength to keep chanting even when māyā is making you so attracted?”
Prabhupāda: That means your chanting is not pure. That is called aparādha. You are thinking that “I am chanting, I am purified,” and finding out another woman, illicit sex. Then how you can be purified?
Hari-śauri: One argument a lot of them use is that, er,…
Prabhupāda: No. It is prohibited, aparādha. If you chant with aparādha, offenses, then how you can be pure?
Hari-śauri: The process is to follow some rules and regulations, but they say, “How do you get the strength to follow the rules and regulations?”
Prabhupāda: That is not your business, that is Kṛṣṇa’s business. You follow Kṛṣṇa. If you cheat Kṛṣṇa, then you’ll be cheated. That’s all. Kṛṣṇa does not cheat you, but you create a situation to cheat yourself, and māyā will make an arrangement so that you are cheated. This is māyā’s business.
Hari-śauri: So it’s a question of honesty.
Prabhupāda: Yes. You promise no illicit sex, no, before God, before spiritual master, before fire, and you play hypocrisy. So māyā is not seeing that? How you can avoid? māyā is always there. Yac cakṣur eṣa savitā sakala-grahāṇām. You cannot escape the eyes of God in so many different agencies. And still He is personally sitting within your hearts. How you can escape? You may pretend to be a very great devotee, but the Person, Supreme, He is within yourself, He’s seeing everything. No cheating with Him. Nāmno balād yasya hi pāpa-buddhiḥ. “Oh, I am chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, so even I do something wrong, it will be adjusted.” Adjusted, when you are sincere, by chance you have done something. That can be adjusted. But not intentionally. As soon as there is intentional cheating, that you’ll have to suffer the effect.
SB 1.2.17-śṛṇvatāṁ sva-kathāḥ kṛṣṇaḥ puṇya-śravaṇa-kīrtanaḥ hṛdy antaḥ stho hy abhadrāṇi
vidhunoti suhṛt satām
TRANSLATION-Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Personality of Godhead, who is the Paramātmā [Supersoul] in everyone’s heart and the benefactor of the truthful devotee, cleanses desire for material enjoyment from the heart of the devotee who has developed the urge to hear His messages, which are in themselves virtuous when properly heard and chanted.
PURPORT-Messages of the Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa are nondifferent from Him. Whenever, therefore, offenseless hearing and glorification of God are undertaken, it is to be understood that Lord Kṛṣṇa is present there in the form of transcendental sound, which is as powerful as the Lord personally. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, in His Śikṣāṣṭaka, declares clearly that the holy name of the Lord has all the potencies of the Lord and that He has endowed His innumerable names with the same potency. There is no rigid fixture of time, and anyone can chant the holy name with attention and reverence at his convenience. The Lord is so kind to us that He can be present before us personally in the form of transcendental sound, but unfortunately we have no taste for hearing and glorifying the Lord’s name and activities. We have already discussed developing a taste for hearing and chanting the holy sound. It is done through the medium of service to the pure devotee of the Lord.
The Lord is reciprocally respondent to His devotees. When He sees that a devotee is completely sincere in getting admittance to the transcendental service of the Lord and has thus become eager to hear about Him, the Lord acts from within the devotee in such a way that the devotee may easily go back to Him. The Lord is more anxious to take us back into His kingdom than we can desire. Most of us do not desire at all to go back to Godhead. Only a very few men want to go back to Godhead. But anyone who desires to go back to Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa helps in all respects.
One cannot enter into the kingdom of God unless one is perfectly cleared of all sins. The material sins are products of our desires to lord it over material nature. It is very difficult to get rid of such desires. Women and wealth are very difficult problems for the devotee making progress on the path back to Godhead. Many stalwarts in the devotional line fell victim to these allurements and thus retreated from the path of liberation. But when one is helped by the Lord Himself, the whole process becomes as easy as anything by the divine grace of the Lord.
To become restless in the contact of women and wealth is not an astonishment, because every living being is associated with such things from remote time, practically immemorial, and it takes time to recover from this foreign nature. But if one is engaged in hearing the glories of the Lord, gradually he realizes his real position. By the grace of God such a devotee gets sufficient strength to defend himself from the state of disturbances, and gradually all disturbing elements are eliminated from his mind.
Some Conclusions-The above conversation was mostly about how the soul is given independence by God,but due to our misuse, we become our own worst enemy due to our material desires. These desires can be purified as explained in the verse from SB which states that Krsna who is the benefactor of the truthful devotee, and because He resides within our hearts, can purify us of all material contamination-if we want that to be so. And all this is accomplished thru the medium of service to the Lords pure devotee.
Hare Krsna
damaghosa das
►760802r3.par Conversations .And they can make hundreds of devotees. In this way we can expand. Are you realizing that there is no civilization? Actually civilization we are introducing. Except Aryan civilization, Vedic civilization, there is no civilization–animal society. What do you think? Are you convinced about it?
►770527rc.vrn Conversations … Don’t bother about big, big buildings. It is not required. Useless waste of time. Produce. Make the whole field green. See that. Then whole economic question solved. Then you eat … is beneficial. Even the stool is beneficial. Therefore I am asking so much here and…, “Farm, farm, farm, farm…” That is not my program–Krsna’s program. Annad bhavanti bhutani. Produce greenness everywhere, everywhere. Vrndavana. It is not this motorcar civilization.
►740525mw.rom Conversations- Prabhupada: Yes, that was Gandhi’s philosophy, village organization. These people, they are attracting villagers to work in the factory, and they are exploiting them…. our philosophy. Make your life successful. By becoming Krsna conscious, you become free from all these troubles of material condition. This is our education. Don’t be after these motorcars, television, and all nonsense things, sporting, wine, women. Don’t be after these. Simply eat sufficiently, keep your health nicely, chant Hare Krsna, realize Krsna, and go back to home This is our philosophy…
canning zucchinis drying tomatoes
cleaning some potatoes for storage the hoop house is full of peppers