Vaniquotes - User contributions [en]

Category:Devotees of God Are Thoroughly Intelligent

2021-03-03T18:40:20Z

108.162.245.142: Removed from deleted category 'Are'

[[Category:Devotees of God]]
[[Category:Thoroughly]]
[[Category:Intelligent]]
[[Category:Devotees of God - Umbrella Category]]
[[Category:Devotees of God Are... - Umbrella Category]]
[[Category:Characteristics of Devotees of God - Umbrella Category]]
[[Category:All Categories - Vaniquotes]]

The collage of the pictures and the articles in the magazine have been wonderfully set up and I very much appreciate it. I can understand from your attempt that you are doing something wonderful this year

2021-03-03T07:49:23Z

108.162.245.142: Removed from deleted category 'From'

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{{terms|"The collage of the pictures and the articles in the magazine have been wonderfully set up and I very much appreciate it. I can understand from your attempt that you are doing something wonderful this year"}}
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{{compiler|Ratnavali}}
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<div id="section">
<h2>Correspondence</h2>
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<div id="sub_section">
<h3>1973 Correspondence</h3>
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<div class="quote">
<div class="quote_heading">
The collage of the pictures and the articles in the magazine have been wonderfully set up and I very much appreciate it. I can understand from your attempt that you are doing something wonderful this year.
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[[Vanisource:730628 - Letter to Jaya Hari written from Calcutta|730628 - Letter to Jaya Hari written from Calcutta]]
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<div class="text">
June 28, 1973

London

My dear Jai Hari,

Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated 25 June along with the wonderful literature, "Rathayatra '73, London Summer Festival." The collage of the pictures and the articles in the magazine have been wonderfully set up and I very much appreciate it. I can understand from your attempt that you are doing something wonderful this year. So I think I must accept your invitation. So far my health is concerned, by the Grace of Krsna I have improved very much, about 90%. In the meantime I received one telegram from Syamasundara: "Flying London Wednesday will Telex your tickets Thursday. BOAC Calcutta office." Therefore as soon as I get the tickets I shall try to reserve my seats and reach London as early as possible before 8 July. Thank you very much for your enthusiasm. Offer my beloved blessings for all devotees who have signed the invitation album. I shall enjoy their company when I meet them. I wish to visit the other branches in England. Invite all members of our European centers and make the ceremony very very successful by combined effort.

Your ever well wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

ACBS/sdg
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The Hayasirsa-pancaratra explains that although in each and every Upanisad the Supreme Brahman is first viewed as impersonal, at the end the personal form of the Supreme Lord is accepted

2021-03-03T07:07:58Z

108.162.245.142: Removed from deleted category 'That'

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{{terms|"The Hayasirsa-pancaratra explains that although in each and every Upanisad the Supreme Brahman is first viewed as impersonal, at the end the personal form of the Supreme Lord is accepted"}}
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<div id="Other_Books_by_Srila_Prabhupada" class="section" sec_index="3" parent="compilation" text="Other Books by Srila Prabhupada"><h2>Other Books by Srila Prabhupada</h2>
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<div id="Teachings_of_Lord_Caitanya" class="sub_section" sec_index="0" parent="Other_Books_by_Srila_Prabhupada" text="Teachings of Lord Caitanya"><h3>Teachings of Lord Caitanya</h3>
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<div id="TLC24_0" class="quote" parent="Teachings_of_Lord_Caitanya" book="OB" index="30" link="TLC 24" link_text="Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Chapter 24">
<div class="heading">The Hayaśīrṣa-pañcarātra explains that although in each and every Upaniṣad the Supreme Brahman is first viewed as impersonal, at the end the personal form of the Supreme Lord is accepted.
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:TLC 24|Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Chapter 24]]: </span><div style="display: inline;" class="text"><p style="display: inline;">There are many similar Vedic hymns which definitely establish that the Supreme Absolute Truth is a person who is not of this material world. The Hayaśīrṣa-pañcarātra explains that although in each and every Upaniṣad the Supreme Brahman is first viewed as impersonal, at the end the personal form of the Supreme Lord is accepted. Another example is Śrī Īśopaniṣad, the fifteenth mantra of which runs as follows:</p>
:hiraṇmayena pātreṇa satyasyāpihitaṁ mukham
:tat tvaṁ pūṣann apāvṛṇu satya-dharmāya dṛṣṭaye
<p>"O my Lord, O Supreme Personality of Godhead, You are the maintainer of the whole universe. Everyone is sustained by Your mercy. Therefore devotional service unto You is the true religion of life. I am engaged in such devotional service, and so I request You to please maintain me and ever-increasingly engage me in Your transcendental service. You are the eternal form of sac-cid-ānanda, and Your effulgence is spread all over the creation, just like the sunshine. As the sun disc is covered by the glaring sunshine, so Your transcendental form is covered by the brahmajyoti. I desire to find You within that brahmajyoti. Therefore please remove this glaring effulgence." </p>
<p>In this verse it is clearly stated that the eternal, blissful, cognizant form of the Supreme Lord is to be found within the glaring effulgence of the brahmajyoti, which emanates from the body of the Supreme Lord. Thus the personal body of the Lord is the source of the brahmajyoti, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (14.27). That the impersonal Brahman is dependent on the Supreme Personality is also stated in the Hayaśīrṣa-pañcarātra. In every other Vedic scripture, such as the Upaniṣads, whenever there is talk of the impersonal Brahman in the beginning, the Supreme Personality is finally established at the end. The Īśopaniṣad mantra we cited above indicates that the Supreme Absolute Truth is both impersonal and personal eternally, but that His personal aspect is more important than the impersonal one.</p>
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Man may discover so many wonderful vehicles of journey, but even if he reaches the moon by his much advertised spacecraft, he cannot remain there

2021-03-03T02:03:22Z

108.162.245.142: Removed from deleted category 'But'

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{{terms|"Man may discover so many wonderful vehicles of journey, but even if he reaches the moon by his much advertised spacecraft, he cannot remain there"}}
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[[Category:Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 02 Chapter 09 Purports - Answers by Citing the Lord's Version]]
[[Category:Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 02 Purports]]
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<div id="section">
<h2>Srimad-Bhagavatam</h2>
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<div id="sub_section">
<h3>SB Canto 2</h3>
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<div class="quote">
<div class="quote_heading">
Man may discover so many wonderful vehicles of journey, but even if he reaches the moon by his much advertised spacecraft, he cannot remain there. The sane man, therefore, without being puffed up, as if he were the God of the universe, abides by the instructions of the Vedic literature, the easiest way to acquire knowledge in transcendence.
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[[Vanisource:SB 2.9.10|SB 2.9.10, Translation and Purport]]
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<div class="quote_translation">
In that personal abode of the Lord, the material modes of ignorance and passion do not prevail, nor is there any of their influence in goodness. There is no predominance of the influence of time, so what to speak of the illusory, external energy; it cannot enter that region. Without discrimination, both the demigods and the demons worship the Lord as devotees.
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<div class="text">
The kingdom of God, or the atmosphere of the Vaikuṇṭha nature, which is called the tripād-vibhūti, is three times bigger than the material universes and is described here, as also in the Bhagavad-gītā, in a nutshell. This universe, containing billions of stars and planets, is one of the billions of such universes clustered together within the compass of the mahat-tattva. And all these millions and billions of universes combined together constitute only one fourth of the magnitude of the whole creation of the Lord. There is the spiritual sky also; beyond this sky are the spiritual planets under the names of Vaikuṇṭha, and all of them constitute three fourths of the entire creation of the Lord. God's creations are always innumerable. Even the leaves of a tree cannot be counted by a man, nor can the hairs on his head. However, foolish men are puffed up with the idea of becoming God Himself, though unable to create a hair of their own bodies. Man may discover so many wonderful vehicles of journey, but even if he reaches the moon by his much advertised spacecraft, he cannot remain there. The sane man, therefore, without being puffed up, as if he were the God of the universe, abides by the instructions of the Vedic literature, the easiest way to acquire knowledge in transcendence. So let us know through the authority of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam of the nature and constitution of the transcendental world beyond the material sky. In that sky the material qualities, especially the modes of ignorance and passion, are completely absent. The mode of ignorance influences a living entity to the habit of lust and hankering, and this means that in the Vaikuṇṭhalokas the living entities are free from these two things. As confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā, in the brahma-bhūta ([[Vanisource:SB 4.30.20|SB 4.30.20]]) stage of life one becomes free from hankering and lamentation. Therefore the conclusion is that the inhabitants of the Vaikuṇṭha planets are all brahma-bhūta living entities, as distinguished from the mundane creatures who are all compact in hankering and lamentation. When one is not in the modes of ignorance and passion, one is supposed to be situated in the mode of goodness in the material world. Goodness in the material world also at times becomes contaminated by touches of the modes of passion and ignorance. In the Vaikuṇṭhaloka, it is unalloyed goodness only.

The whole situation there is one of freedom from the illusory manifestation of the external energy. Although illusory energy is also part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, illusory energy is differentiated from the Lord. The illusory energy is not, however, false, as claimed by the monist philosophers. The rope accepted as a snake may be an illusion to a particular person, but the rope is a fact, and the snake is also a fact. The illusion of water on the hot desert may be illusion for the ignorant animal searching for water in the desert, but the desert and water are actual facts. Therefore the material creation of the Lord may be an illusion to the nondevotee, but to a devotee even the material creation of the Lord is a fact, as the manifestation of His external energy. But this energy of the Lord is not all. The Lord has His internal energy also, which has another creation known to be the Vaikuṇṭhalokas, where there is no ignorance, no passion, no illusion and no past and present. With a poor fund of knowledge one may be unable to understand the existence of such things as the Vaikuṇṭha atmosphere, but that does not nullify its existence. That spacecraft cannot reach these planets does not mean that there are no such planets, for they are described in the revealed scriptures.
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It is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita: those who are engaged in the devotional service of the Lord have already transcended the material position

2021-03-02T18:39:21Z

108.162.245.142: Removed from deleted category 'Have'

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{{terms|"This is also confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā: those who are engaged in the devotional service of the Lord have already transcended the material position"}}
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{{compiler|Alankrutha}}
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[[Category:Confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita]]
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[[Category:Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 10 Chapter 02 Purports - Prayers by the Demigods for Lord Krsna in the Womb]]
[[Category:Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 10 Purports - Chapters 01 to 13]]
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<h2>Srimad-Bhagavatam</h2>
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<h3>SB Canto 10.1 to 10.13</h3>
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<div class="quote">
<div class="quote_heading">
Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has explained that those who are always engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness by body, mind and activities are to be considered liberated even within this body. This is also confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā: those who are engaged in the devotional service of the Lord have already transcended the material position.
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<div class="quote_link">
[[Vanisource:SB 10.2.36|SB 10.2.36, Translation and Purport]]
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<div class="quote_translation">
O Lord, Your transcendental name and form are not ascertained by those who merely speculate on the path of imagination. Your name, form and attributes can be ascertained only through devotional service.
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<div class="text">
As stated in the Padma Purāṇa:

<div class="quote_verse">
:ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi
:na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ
:sevonmukhe hi jihvādau
:svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ
:([[Vanisource:CC Madhya 17.136|CC Madhya 17.136]])
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"One cannot understand the transcendental nature of the name, form, quality and pastimes of Śrī Kṛṣṇa through one's materially contaminated senses. Only when one becomes spiritually saturated by transcendental service to the Lord are the transcendental name, form, quality and pastimes of the Lord revealed to him." Since Kṛṣṇa and His transcendental name, form and activities are all of a transcendental nature, ordinary persons or those who are only slightly advanced cannot understand them. Even big scholars who are nondevotees think that Kṛṣṇa is fictitious. Yet although so-called scholars and commentators do not believe that Kṛṣṇa was factually a historical person whose presence on the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra is recorded in the history of Mahābhārata, they feel compelled to write commentaries on Bhagavad-gītā and other historical records. Sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ: [Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.2.234] Kṛṣṇa's transcendental name, form, attributes and activities can be revealed only when one engages in His service in full consciousness. This confirms Kṛṣṇa's own words in Bhagavad-gītā ([[Vanisource:BG 18.55 (1972)|BG 18.55]]):

<div class="quote_verse">
:bhaktyā mām abhijānāti
:yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ
:tato māṁ tattvato jñātvā
:viśate tad-anantaram
</div>

"One can understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead as He is only by devotional service. And when one is in full consciousness of the Supreme Lord by such devotion, he can enter into the kingdom of God." Only by sevonmukha, by engaging oneself in the Lord's service, can one realize the name, form and qualities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

"O Lord," the demigods say, "the impersonalists, who are nondevotees, cannot understand that Your name is identical with Your form." Since the Lord is absolute, there is no difference between His name and His actual form. In the material world there is a difference between form and name. The mango fruit is different from the name of the mango. One cannot taste the mango fruit simply by chanting, "Mango, mango, mango." But the devotee who knows that there is no difference between the name and the form of the Lord chants Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare, and realizes that he is always in Kṛṣṇa's company.

For persons who are not very advanced in absolute knowledge of the Supreme, Lord Kṛṣṇa exhibits His transcendental pastimes. They can simply think of the pastimes of the Lord and get the full benefit. Since there is no difference between the transcendental name and form of the Lord, there is no difference between the transcendental pastimes and the form of the Lord. For those who are less intelligent (like women, laborers or the mercantile class), the great sage Vyāsadeva wrote Mahābhārata. In the Mahābhārata, Kṛṣṇa is present in His different activities. Mahābhārata is history, and simply by studying, hearing, and memorizing the transcendental activities of Kṛṣṇa, the less intelligent can also gradually rise to the standard of pure devotees.

The pure devotees, who are always absorbed in the thought of the transcendental lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa and who are always engaged in devotional service in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness, are never to be considered to be in the material world. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has explained that those who are always engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness by body, mind and activities are to be considered liberated even within this body. This is also confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā: those who are engaged in the devotional service of the Lord have already transcended the material position.

Kṛṣṇa appears in order to give a chance to both the devotees and the nondevotees for realization of the ultimate goal of life. The devotees get the direct chance to see Him and worship Him. Those who are not on that platform get the chance to become acquainted with His activities and thus become elevated to the same position.

The Brahma-saṁhitā (BS 5.38) says:

<div class="quote_verse">
:premāñjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilocanena
:santaḥ sadaiva hṛdayeṣu vilokayanti
:yaṁ śyāmasundaram acintya-guṇa-svarūpaṁ
:govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
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Although Kṛṣṇa's transcendental form is presented as black, devotees who are in love with the Supreme Personality of Godhead appreciate the Lord as Śyāmasundara, having a very beautiful blackish form. The Lord's form is so beautiful that the Brahma-saṁhitā (BS 5.38) also states:

<div class="quote_verse">
:veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣaṁ
:barhāvataṁsam asitāmbuda-sundarāṅgam
:kandarpa-koṭi-kamanīya-viśeṣa-śobhaṁ
:govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
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"I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who plays on His transcendental flute. His eyes are like lotus flowers, He is decorated with peacock plumes, and His bodily color resembles the color of a fresh black cloud, although His bodily features are more beautiful than millions of Cupids." This beauty of the Supreme Lord can be seen by devotees who are in love with Him, devotees whose eyes are anointed with love of Godhead (premāñjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilocanena (BS 5.38)).

The Lord is also known as Giridhārī or Girivara-dhārī. Because Kṛṣṇa, for the sake of His devotees, lifted Govardhana Hill, the devotees appreciate the Lord's inconceivable strength; but nondevotees, in spite of directly perceiving the Lord's inconceivable strength and power, regard the Lord's activities as fictitious. This is the difference between a devotee and a nondevotee. Nondevotees cannot give any nomenclature for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, yet the Lord is known as Śyāmasundara and Giridhārī. Similarly, the Lord is known as Devakī-nandana and Yaśodā-nandana because He accepted the role of son for mother Devakī and mother Yaśodā, and He is known as Gopāla because He enjoyed the sport of maintaining the cows and calves. Therefore, although He has no mundane name, He is addressed by devotees as Devakī-nandana, Yaśodā-nandana, Gopāla and Śyāmasundara. These are all transcendental names that only devotees can appreciate and nondevotees cannot.

The history of Kṛṣṇa the person has been openly seen by everyone, yet only those who are in love with the Supreme Personality of Godhead can appreciate this history, whereas nondevotees, who have not developed their loving qualities, think that the activities, form and attributes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are fictitious. Therefore this verse explains, na nāma-rūpe guṇa janma-karmabhir nirūpitavye tava tasya sākṣiṇaḥ. In this connection, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura has given the example that persons suffering from jaundice cannot taste the sweetness of sugar candy, although everyone knows that sugar candy is sweet. Similarly, because of the material disease, nondevotees cannot understand the transcendental name, form, attributes and activities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, although they actually see the Lord's activities, either through authority or through history. The Purāṇas are old, authentic histories, but nondevotees cannot understand them, especially Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which is the essence of Vedic knowledge. Nondevotees cannot understand even the preliminary study of transcendental knowledge, Bhagavad-gītā. They simply speculate and present commentaries with absurd distortions. In conclusion, unless one elevates himself to the transcendental platform by practicing bhakti-yoga, one cannot understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead or His name, form, attributes or activities. But if by chance, by the association of devotees, one can actually understand the Lord and His features, one immediately becomes a liberated person. As the Lord says in Bhagavad-gītā ([[Vanisource:BG 4.9 (1972)|BG 4.9]]):

<div class="quote_verse">
:janma karma ca me divyam
:evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ
:tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma
:naiti mām eti so 'rjuna
</div>

"One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna."

Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has therefore said that by affection and love for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, devotees can express their mind to Him with their words. Others, however, cannot do this, as confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ ([[Vanisource:BG 18.55 (1972)|BG 18.55]])).
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