Bhakti Vikasa Swami's Blog, page 8

Hitler’s misunderstanding of “Aryan”

Human being means when he’s civilized, cultured, then he’s human being. If he’s not civilized, if he’s not cultured, simply having two hands, he’s animal.

So that culture begins, civilized, in the Aryan families. Therefore they are called Aryans, “advanced.” Aryan means advanced. People want to group themselves in the Aryan family. Just like Hitler, he declared himself only, “The Germans are only Aryans, and Jews are not Aryans,” like that. You can manufacture. But real Aryan means one who is advanced in spiritual consciousness. He is Aryan. Not a class of men. Aryan means he’s advanced in spiritual consciousness. The Aryan civilization is so eulogized because in
the Aryan civilization there was Vedic culture. That is Aryan.

Srila Prabhupada; Lecture on SB 1.15.25-26 – Los Angeles, December 4, 1973

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Why sell the books?

Carol Jarvis: If you want your thoughts to be passed on to other people, why do you sell the books and make money out of them?

Prabhupada: Otherwise you’ll not read it. If I give you free, then you’ll think, “Ah, this is something nonsense. They are giving free.”

Carol Jarvis: Not necessarily give them free, but perhaps sell them for a price that pays for the cost of producing them.

Prabhupada: So when they pay for it… When they pay for it, they will try to see, “What these books are saying? Let me see.” And if you get free, then you may keep it in your rack for hundreds of years. So that is not the… But after all, we have to print these books, so who will pay for that? We have no money.

Room Conversation & TV Interview with Mike Barron and Carol Jarvis – April 20, 1976, Melbourne

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ara na kariha mane asa

Finally, we came to Bombay and Prabhupada happened to be there, and there was one life member who knew me from before and was donating some property in Hyderabad. Prabhupada very much needed somebody to manage the temple in Hyderabad. I was enjoying my sannyasa, traveling and preaching; I even had plans now to go to the West and go temple to temple. So when I went to see Prabhupada, he said, “So Sridhar Maharaja, you will go to Hyderabad to be the president there.” I said, “But, Prabhupada, I was just planning to go traveling and preaching.” Prabhupada didn’t say anything; he just looked at me. Then afterwards I felt very bad that Prabhupada had asked me to do something and I refused. So the next day I went back and said, “Prabhupada, should I go to Hyderabad?” He said, “Yes, you go.”

Told by ISKCON’s Sridhara Swami from “The Jolly Swami” by Adbhuta Hari Dasa

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Srila Prabhupada wants everyone to love God

We want to see that everyone is becoming a perfect lover of God. This is our definition of God. It may be, due to circumstantial changes in the country, the Muslim religion may be little different from Hindu religion so far the ritualistic ceremonies are concerned, but actually we want to see whether you have advanced in the matter of loving God. Not that “Superficially I am very advanced in religion, but I do not know how to love.” This is the test.

Ceremony Lecture, Aug. 18, 1974

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Solution to the economic problem

Cow is especially recommended in the Bhagavad-gita, krsi-go-raksya vanijyam vaisya-karma svabhava-jam.  [Bg 18.44]: “Farming, cow protection and business are the natural work for the vaisyas…] That you must produce enough food grains by agriculture and give protection to the cows. That means if you have got enough food grains to eat and if you have got enough milk to get fatty substance, then your whole economic question is solved. Annad bhavanti bhutani. [From Bg. 3.14 :”All living bodies subsist on food grains, which are produced from rains. Rains are produced by performance of yajna {sacrifice}, and yajna is born of prescribed duties.] If you get sufficient food there is no question of agitation. Everyone is satisfied. Animal and man. So you must produce. That is recommendation in the Bhagavad-gita.

Srila Prabhupada, Chandigarh, October 16, 1976 – Press Interview

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Taking shelter of so-called incarnations, gods, cheaters and bluffers

SB 5.14.29, Translation
The personal weapon used by Lord Krsna, the disc, is called hari-cakra, the disc of Hari. This cakra is the wheel of time. It expands from the beginning of the atoms up to the time of Brahma’s death, and it controls all activities. It is always revolving and spending the lives of the living entities, from Lord Brahma down to an insignificant blade of grass. Thus one changes from infancy, to childhood, to youth and maturity, and thus one approaches the end of life. It is impossible to check this wheel of time. This wheel is very exacting because it is the personal weapon of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Sometimes the conditioned soul, fearing the approach of death, wants to worship someone who can save him from imminent danger. Yet he does not care for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose weapon is the indefatigable time factor. The conditioned soul instead takes shelter of a man-made god described in unauthorized scriptures. Such gods are like buzzards, vultures, herons and crows. Vedic scriptures do not refer to them. Imminent death is like the attack of a lion, and neither vultures, buzzards, crows nor herons can save one from such an attack. One who takes shelter of unauthorized man-made gods cannot be saved from the clutches of death.

PURPORT
It is stated: harim vina mrtim na taranti. No one can save himself from the cruel hands of death without being favored by Hari, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In Bhagavad-gita it is stated, mam eva ye prapadyante mayam etam taranti te: [Bg. 7.14] whoever fully surrenders unto Krsna can be saved from the cruel hands of material nature. The conditioned soul, however, sometimes wants to take shelter of a demigod, man-made god, pseudo incarnation or bogus svami or yogi. All these cheaters claim to follow religious principles, and all this has become very popular in this age of Kali. There are many pasandis who, without referring to the sastras, pose themselves as incarnations, and foolish people follow them. Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, has left behind Him. Not referring to these authorized scriptures, rascals take shelter of man-made scriptures and try to compete with Lord Krsna. That is the greatest difficulty one encounters when trying to promote spiritual consciousness in human society. The Krsna consciousness movement is trying its best to bring people back to Krsna consciousness in its pure form, but the pasandis and atheists, who are cheaters, are so numerous that sometimes we become perplexed and wonder how to push this movement forward. In any case, we cannot accept the unauthorized ways of so-called incarnations, gods, cheaters and bluffers, who are described here as crows, vultures, buzzards and herons.

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The importance of children care

I am simply surprised that you want to give up your child to some other persons, even they are also devotees. For you, child-worship is more important than deity-worship. If you cannot spend time with him, then stop the duties of pujari. At least you must take good care of your son until he is four years old, and if after that time you are unable any more to take care of him then I shall take care. These children are given to us by Krishna, they are Vaisnavas and we must be very careful to protect them. These are not ordinary children, they are Vaikuntha children, and we are very fortunate we can give them chance to advance further in Krishna Consciousness. That is very great responsibility, do not neglect it or be confused. Your duty is very clear.

Srila Prabhupada; letter to Arundhati, July 30, 1972

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Offensive chanting

bahu janma kare yadi sravana, kirtana
tabu ta’ na paya krsna-pade prema-dhana

“If one is infested with the ten offenses in the chanting of the Hare Krsna maha-mantra, despite his endeavor to chant the holy name for many births, he will not get the love of Godhead which is the ultimate goal of this chanting.”

Srila Prabhupada’s translation of Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Adi-lila 8.16

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ISKCON is spreading in pursuit of the will of the previous acaryas

It was the desire of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu that His cult be spread all over the world. Therefore there is a great necessity for many, many disciples of the branches of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s disciplic succession. His cult should be spread not only in a few villages, or in Bengal, or in India, but all over the world.

Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu wanted devotees all over the world, and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura and Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura confirmed this. It is in pursuit of their will that the ISKCON movement is spreading all over the world. Genuine devotees of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu must take pride in the spread of the Krsna consciousness movement.

From Srila Prabhupada’s purport to Cc Adi 10.160

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Bhakta Visvareta recalls being with Srila Prabhupada

One time Srila Prabhupada he told me that I came into his garden. He told me, he told me to sit down right next to him and he gave me a handful of cookies and he said, “you sit here and don’t move. If you go and play then you are not going to be allowed to come again.” He said “do you hear that boy crying? That’s because he’s playing too much,” then I said “okay.” So I was sitting there, then the grass was long in the garden and then Prabhupada was there and there was so many long pieces of grass. So I turned and I picked a piece of grass, one long piece of grass. Then Prabhupada said “they should mow this grass down, it’s so long.” And then he turned to me and he said “what do you think?” I said, I said I think I said “yeah I think they should mow it down because otherwise it will just make people play with it and then rip it up and then come back. Then I picked up another piece of grass, a long piece of grass and I said “and you are Romaharsana and I am Balarama and I am going to kill you.” And then I went and threw the piece of grass at him. And Prabhupada put up his hand you know like in the picture it shows. Romaharsana is up like that, so he put up his hand and I said “you are just trying to copy the picture of Romaharsana in the Krsna book.” And he said “how do you know so much about Krsna book?” And I said “because every night my mother reads Krsna book to me.” Prabhupada said “that is very nice, it is good for the young boys to hear about Krsna book because then it sticks in your memory, you’ll never forget because just like a you can teach a young child to speak a language very fluently from a young age but once he gets older then it is harder. So in the same way these children they should be trained in the philosophy of Krsna book and Srimad-Bhagavatam and in that way they will always remember and with them for the rest of their lives.”

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