RC JOH 1975-10-21 Border Between Matter & Spirit
ANNOUNCER: The following is a room conversation,
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda,
recorded on October 21st, 1975, in Durban, South Africa.
GUEST: The questions in order is… The first one is,
“Within Vedic culture, what is meant by bhakti-yoga?”
- The second one… Shall we take it in… PRABHUPĀDA: Yes.
You just learn it first of all.
Vedic culture is that we are living entities.
Some way or other, we have fallen in this material world
and encaged in this body or other body.
So material world means the spirit soul is
wandering throughout the universe under material conditions.
And the Vedic knowledge is to get him out of this material condition
and take him again to the spiritual world.
This is Vedic knowledge.
And bhakti…
Bhakti-yoga is the direct method.
There are many methods recommended.
Karma, jñāna, yoga, and at last bhakti.
They are different steps of the same staircase going upwards,
and bhakti-yoga is the topmost level.
- And bhakti is a devotional surrender. - Yes; yes.
Spiritual world means there the Supreme Lord is supreme.
Nobody else.
And all others, they are engaged in His service.
This is spiritual world.
Here, in the material world, everyone is trying to be master.
In the spiritual world there is no such attempt.
They know the master is only God and all others, they are servants.
That is the difference between material world and spiritual…
I think that covers that.
Second question.
We were talking about that in this documentary, “In Search of Truth.”
Do you think there is any other way to actually realize God in truth and…
God can be realized through bhakti, surrender.
Otherwise even it is realized, it is partial: Not complete.
Well, that answers that.
Bhakti… Just like I have got some official servant,
and I have got very confidential servant.
So, to my confidential servant everything is disclosed.
He knows everything.
But official servant, he may not know everything.
Therefore bhakti is the confidential part of understanding God.
Otherwise they understand vaguely, impartially… Not sufficiently.
In the Bhagavad- gītā there is a verse:
mayy āsakta-manāḥ pārtha yogaṁ yuñjan mad-āśrayaḥ
asaṁśayaṁ samagraṁ māṁ… [Bg. 7.1]
You can quote it.
That is the first śloka of the Seventh Chapter.
PUSTA KṚṢṆA: Sri bhagavān uvāca
mayy āsakta-manāḥ pārtha yogaṁ yuñjan mad-āśrayaḥ
asaṁśayaṁ samagraṁ māṁ yathā jñāsyasi tac chṛṇu [Bg. 7.1]
“Now hear, O son of Prtha, Arjuna, how by practicing yoga in full consciousness of Me,
with mind attached to Me, you can know Me in full, free from doubt.”
- That answers it. - Can I have that…
- Chapter… - Bhagavad-gītā, Seventh Chapter, first text; seven, one.
Prabhupāda, I believe that answers all the questions I went through before that.
- We’d just like to say it’s been very nice to meet you. - Thank you very much.
We’re both, in our own way, trying to find truth ourselves.
Āsam [?] These two words are very important.
Asaṁśayaṁ: “without any doubt.”
Everyone, every religion, they have no doubtless understanding of God.
Everyone has some doubt.
Neither complete.
That is only in bhakti-yoga.
We’re just discovering veils of ignorance; we’re trying to…
Any religious system, ask them, “What do you understand by God?”
They will not be able to explain, because that is not complete, not doubtless.
Therefore these two words have been used, asaṁśayaṁ samagram.
Our reading has only drawn forth a lot of conflicting answers so far.
We’ve been reading into Hindu philosophies,
and most of the answers conflict with each other.
So which book you are reading?
Well, we’ve been just reading mainly biographies by swamis and yogis,
Aurobindo and Resynthesis of…
They have no realization.
They have simply jugglery of words; that’s all.
- It’s new for us, so I’m not very… - Yes, yes.
It’s brand new for us; we’ve only been doing it for a few months.
Read Bhagavad-gītā As It Is
I’ve got it; I am reading it.
Each time I read it, I find I read it a little better.
Aurobindo has no clear knowledge.
And which other swami you are reading?
- We’ve read… Which one did you read? WOMAN: Maharishi.
No, he has no…
We’ve started practicing that Transcendental Meditation.
We have found that by practicing the meditation
we have had a change in consciousness.
It has led us into further inquiry,
so we’ve found that it has been valuable in a certain way,
and that’s the only actual practice.
We have been reading things like Muktananda and kundalini-yoga
and that sort of stuff, the haṭha-yoga.
So it’s just been an inquiry of our own which we’ve never done before.
We’ve only been exposed to our own Christian scriptures.
And we find in bhakti-yoga and Christianity a lot of similarities.
They are the same, as far as we can see.
It’s difficult, though, to understand our scriptures in…
No, in the Bhagavad-gītā everything is clearly explained.
That’s right.
Our scriptures are interpreted,
and we’ve been taught to interpret them in a certain way, and it hasn’t been very clear.
- What scripture you are… Bible? - Well, the Bible.
But we only know the Bible as we’ve been told it,
and it’s been told to us by unrealized men,
and we ended up being virtually atheistically inclined, until that led to…
So in Bible what is the conception of God?
It’s very unclear.
That [indistinct] I was speaking.
- In every religion… - To identify with it.
- There is no clear conception. - That’s right.
And I think this is the reason that leads you away.
We’ve been led away from the Bible because of that.
There is nothing clear,
and everybody who has read it to us has read it to us in a different way.
But I would say that the finest book we have read is Bhagavad-gītā.
There’s no question.
Subtitles by Pratyatoṣa Dāsa, Causelessmercy.com