Loss of Culture the Cause, Not Effect

Everything is God-gifted
excerpt from lecture on Bhagavad-gita 2.48-49, New York, April 1, 1966

Holy Pilgrimage

The Pilgrimage has Come to You Hansadutta das

We don’t go on pilgrimage. We go on harer nama sankirtan [chanting in public: "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare"], or we go to the temple, chant Hare Krishna, or we go to read Bhagavad-gita. Don’t waste your time. Don’t waste your money. Everything is right here. Krishna has come to you. What more do you want? Why looking some other place? He’s right here. He’s as near as your tongue chanting Hare Krishna. You are there. Krishna is there. There is no need at all. And if Krishna wants, you will go on pilgrimage. You will go. No need… don’t bother about it. The pilgrimage has come to you in the form of Bhagavad-gita, the holy name, the devotees, the prasadam. It’s coming to you. Krishna is so kind. Isn’t it? more

Related Articles

The Pilgrimage has Come to You
The Point of Visiting the Holy Places
Professional Holy Men
The Ultimate Weapon
Freedom from Illusion - The Benefits of Spiritual Association
What to Look For in Holy Places

Related Topics

Krishna Consciousness, the Process
Religion
Saints - Devotees

Now in India there is a system of worshiping the Ganges water. Ganges water. There are five sacred rivers which the Hindus worship. They are Ganga, Yamuna, Kaveri, Godavari, Narmada. Just like you have got your Hudson River here, similarly there are many rivers, and these five rivers, they are accepted as the sacred rivers, and people take their bath and offer their respect. Now, what is the process of respect? The process of respect is just like worshiping the Ganges water. Now, after taking your bath, you stand in the water and take little water from the river, just like this. The river is flowing. You take little water like this, and chant your mantra and offer it. Now, this offering, offering of water, wherefrom the water is come? Oh, you have taken the water from the Ganges. You have not brought even the water from your house. You are taking the water from the Ganges, and you are again offering the same to the Ganges with some mantra. So similarly, the Ganges has got immense water. If you take one palmful of water out of it, the Ganges is not in loss. And again, if you offer a palmful of water on the Ganges, the Ganges does not gain anything. But utilizing the Ganges water and offering to the Ganges, you become a devotee of Ganges. Similarly, the offering to Lord... What you have got? Your body, it is also given by God. Your intelligence, it is given by God. The facility of work, it is given by God. Everything is given by God. Now, what do we work? Now, suppose I am writing books. All right. In which you are writing? On paper. All right, who has given you paper? Now, you make philosophical study. "Well, paper I purchased from the market." Market, how does it supply paper? "It is manufactured in mills." Oh, it is manufactured in mills. Where they get the raw materials? "Oh, from the wood." How the wood is produced? Oh, then you come to the God. You cannot produce the wood. You simply bring wood from the forest and get it to chemically purified and make a plaster, and the paper is made. So no raw material you can manufacture. Raw material has to be taken from God's stock. Now, if the raw material is taken from God's stock, then how the paper becomes yours? This is God consciousness. Everything we'll find that nothing is our. We simply... The economists also say that we cannot manufacture anything; we can simply transform from one form to another. That's all. We can give our labor only. And that labor also, given the strength... Now, suppose I work with my hand. Now, I am claiming, "This is my hand," but if God withdraws the power of your hand, paralyzed, oh, your pride is at once vanished. Not your hand. You see? So in everything, nothing is yours. I am also... As spirit soul, I am also part and parcel of God. And we are thinking independently that "I have no connection with God." This is very horrible condition. The whole world is suffering because this misconception of life—misconception of life that he has forgotten his eternal relationship with God. So we have to revive it. We have to revive it, this process. The Bhagavad-gita has prescribed

durena hy avaram karma
buddhi-yogad dhanañjaya
buddhau sharanam anviccha
kripanah phala-hetavah

Kripanah means those who are anxious for enjoying sense gratification, by the fruits of their labor. They are called kripana. And those who have sacrificed the whole body, whole intelligence... Sacrifice... You always remember: what we can sacrifice? Just like we take Ganges water from Ganges and offering Ganges, so everything is obtained from God, and now, if we offer the same thing to God, then we become liberated. Actually I am not proprietor in anything. Myself is also not... I am also the part and parcel of the Supreme Lord. This is the conception. Without this conception, without this God conception, there is no spiritual realization and there is no happiness, either personally, or impersonally, or socially, or economically or politically. There cannot be.

Of course, today there is no time. Otherwise I would have recited. Those who have got my books, you will see that how much profusely the earth was producing during the time of Maharaja Yudhishthira, because the executive head of the state was pious, so how nature was helping. Nature was helping. Now India there is scarcity, scarcity of foodstuff. But the same India was producing so much grains, even during British time, that many thousands and thousands of tons of rice were being exported from India to other countries. You see? That I have seen. I have seen. My maternal uncle was very rich man by simply exporting rice to the foreign countries. Yes. Spices... And old history you will find that India, they had got their own ships for exporting spices to Greece and other countries of Europe. The history is there. And they were supplying muslin cloth, even just before the British period, Muslim period. So India's export, export, I mean to say, status was far greater than other countries. And these spices and other export attracted persons from Europe, that Vasco de Gama, and the Columbus also wanted to go, but he fortunately came to America. You see? All these Europeans and the Britishers went and established their supremacy. So India was so rich. But now how that India has become so poor? The same land is there. Why? Because they have lost that old culture, God consciousness. You see? And at least my calculation is that a state, a secular state... Secular state means he has no... Here in America you have got state religion. You have got state religion. But in India there is no state religion. Every country has state religion. Even Pakistan, it has divided. It is now a part of India. But they have also their state religion. But unfortunately India has no state religion. That means deliberately they are trying to disconnect with God relation, godly relation. But in the same India... You just read the history, five thousand years before, how much profusely the nature was supplying. In the morning we are studying that portion. Mr. Paul was reading that portion, that how much nature was giving. So nature can give you anything. After all, it is the nature that supplies your necessities, not the industry. Industry simply transformed in a different way, and a certain class make profit out of it. Industry does not mean really economic improvement. Real economic improvement means what you produce from the land. That requires God help. Without raw materials, even your industry cannot go on. Just like I have cited the example of paper. Nowadays paper is made from wood. Now, if there is no sufficient... Now you have got in your America sufficient wood, so you can make, produce paper in large quantity. But suppose the woods are finished. Then industry will be finished.

Anyway, we should always be in conscious that everything that we have in our possession, even our body, even our mind, even our energy, everything, that is God-gifted. One who has got this conception of life, he is brahmana. He is the one who knows Brahman. One who does not know this and simply lives for sense gratification, he is called the miser. So we shall not be miser. We shall be the brahmana.