Doves

Expressions researched:
"dove" |"doves"

Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures

Lecture on SB 1.8.19 -- Mayapura, September 29, 1974:

So this is difficulty, that we are not very much interested in hearing. And that is the main business. Our bhakti begins: śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ (SB 7.5.23). We have to hear and we have to speak. But if we are not interested in hearing and speak, then it will be the same ṭhākura-bari(?), simply formula. That's all. And gradually it will be stopped. Unless there is life of śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam, these big, big buildings, temples, will become burden. So if we are, if we want to create burden for future, then we may give up this hearing and chanting and sleep very nicely. It will be burden. Galagraha. Not śrī-vigraha, but galagraha. Galagraha. Śrī-vigraha means worshipable Deity. So if we give up this śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ, then it will be thought that "Our Guru Mahārāja has given a burden in the neck, galagraha." This is the danger. So we must be very much alert in śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam. Otherwise all this labor will be futile. This building will be only the nest, nest for the doves and the pigeons. That is the danger. That is being done. Nobody is interested. Such, such things...

Now, who is, who can understand Kṛṣṇa? There are so many impediments. One side, there is curtain of māyā; another side, everyone is a rascal and fool; and another side, Kṛṣṇa is beyond your sense perception. This is the position. How much one must be alert. Then one can understand. Just like the Gosvāmīs. Is Kṛṣṇa is so easy thing to be understood? But there is process. So if we do not adopt the process, then how we can understand Kṛṣṇa? These are the so many difficult things. One side, one thing is the māyā is checking. Māyā is trying to put stumbling block for your advancement of spiritual life. Māyā-javanikācchannam. And the other side, we are all fools and rascals. And the, again, Kṛṣṇa is adhokṣaja, beyond the range of sense perception. This is the position.

Lecture on SB 1.8.45 -- Los Angeles, May 7, 1973:

So we have got this mystic power, but we do not know. The example is given like that. The, the deer who has got musk in the navel and the flavor is very nice, so he is jumping here and there, here and there, here and there. Where is this flavor? He does not know the flavor is in his navel. You see. The flavor is there in him, but he is finding out, "Where it is? Where it is?" Similarly we have got so many dormant mystic power within us. We are unaware. But if you practice the mystic yoga system, some of them you can evolve very nicely. Just like the birds are flying, but we cannot fly. Sometimes we desire, "Had I the wings of a dove..." There are poetry: "I could immediately go." But that mystic power is also within you. If you develop by yogic practice, you can also fly in the air. That is possible. There is a planet which is called Siddhaloka. In the Siddhaloka, the inhabitants, they are called... Siddhaloka means they have got so many mystic powers. We are trying to go to the moon planet by so many machines. They can fly. As soon as they desire, they can go.

Philosophy Discussions

Philosophy Discussion on William James:

Prabhupāda: Just like Kṛṣṇa says. Kṛṣṇa says, sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo: (BG 15.15) "I am sitting in everyone's heart." Sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca, "I am giving experience." So when the Africans are constructing a house or cottage like the Indians, that is not that the Africans came to India and learned this experience. Or the Indians are constructing a cottage just like the Africans, that does not mean that... Several times I have told you that so far as the pigeon is concerned, the sparrow, I mean to say, either American or Indian, they are of the same size and doing the same thing.

Śyāmasundara: I think that we have discussed this before under the categories of acquired knowledge and intuitive knowledge, that some knowledge is acquired, experienced; some knowledge is intuitive.

Prabhupāda: So the pigeons or the sparrows or the doves are doing the same thing in India as in America. It does not mean these pigeons have gone to America from India.

Śyāmasundara: So it's intuitive.

Prabhupāda: But because they are Kṛṣṇa's... As Paramātmā is there, within the heart of the pigeon in India and America, they are acting similarly. Therefore original experience comes from God. And He says that "I know everything past, present, and future." That is real experience.

Śyāmasundara: So his definition of reality is pure experience, or...

Prabhupāda: He cannot give any definition of reality because he has not experienced. He has not perfectly experienced, so how he can give the definition of reality? What definition he is giving, that is not reality. He has no experience. He is developing experience. So how he can give a definition of reality?

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Canadian Ambassador to Iran -- March 13, 1975, Iran:

Prabhupāda: Not possible. If they unite, if they try to unite on Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then it is possible. Otherwise not possible. But we are all part and parcel of God. Accidentally, or somehow or other, we are now all differently dressed although we are one. They have to come to this understanding. Upādhi, designation. Now just like you are Canadian; I am Indian. Then I was just... In the noon I was thinking about the, what is called, goo goo, dodo? Do? The bird? Do? What is called? There is one class of bird, do?

Atreya Ṛṣi: Doves, doves.

Prabhupāda: So there are doves, there are pigeons, there are sparrows, there are crows. Now Iran, the same doves, same... Why they are not called "Iranian sparrow"? Why they are called only sparrow?

Ambassador: (chuckles) It's only people.

Prabhupāda: So simply we have designated, "Iranian," "Indian," and "Canadian," "German," this, that. So we have to give up this designation. Then there will be unity. Otherwise not. But they are very much proud of this designation. Therefore bhakti means sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ (CC Madhya 19.170), when one is completely free from designation. The designation is material. It has nothing to do with spiritual life. And the whole world is being ruled by designation. "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am this," "I am that," "I am that." Ahaṁ mameti (SB 5.5.8), this is.

1970 Correspondence

Letter to Bhavananda -- Calcutta 9 September, 1970:

New York is very much attractive for me because New York is the starting place of my activities in your country and when I had no place of preaching, one Armenian gentleman offered me a two storied building in Brooklyn with a nice hall downstairs for only $125 per month, but at the time I was paying only $70 for my apartment and I could not bear at that time to pay 125 dollars. That situation continued for at least one year and then I was bold enough to accept an apartment for $200. In this way the Society extended with so many branches and now you are paying $1,450 per month, so it is very encouraging. I thank you very much that you have already allotted a nice apartment for me, an entire first floor, so if I had the wings of a dove I could fly immediately to Brooklyn and enter my apartment. Anyway, in future I wish to go there. For the time being keep it nicely. By the grace of Krsna, wherever I go you all my disciples give me a very nice place for residing and in Calcutta also Sriman Acyutananda and Sriman Jayapataka, who are going to be Sannyasis tomorrow, they have given me a very nice apartment. So I am now 75 years old. I never thought how far I shall be able to travel such a long distance. But as people say I am still younger, then maybe sooner or later I shall come back to New York again.