Hare Krsna
Please accept my humble obeisance. All glories to Srila Prabhupada
Why Lord Krishna is the authority we must turn to for faultless answers to the questions of life?
A lecture given in Bombay on March 21, 1974 by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada Founder-Acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
sri-bhagavan uvaca
imam vivasvate yogam proktavan aham avyayam
vivasvan manave praha manur iksvakave 'bravit
The Personality of Godhead, Lord Sri Krishna, said: I instructed this imperishable science of yoga to the sun-god, Vivasvan, and Vivasvan instructed it to Manu, the father of mankind, and Manu in turn instructed it to Iksvaku. -- Bhagavad-gita 4.1
Bhagavad-gita is the preliminary study of the science of Godhead. The word bhagavan, from which the name Bhagavad-gita comes, means the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Generally, a fortunate or opulent man is called bhagyavan, which comes from the word bhaga. Bhaga means six kinds of opulence: wealth, strength, influence, wisdom, beauty, and renunciation. These are opulences. If a man is wealthy, he's attractive. Similarly, he's attractive if he's very strong, very influential, very learned, wise, or beautiful. He or she -- it doesn't matter. Or if he's a great renouncer. Naturally we become attracted to one who has renounced everything for the benefit of the public.
In the material world we find some wealthy man, some rich man, some strong man, some beautiful man, some wise man, some renounced man, but they possess only a very small quantity of the total of these opulences. Take a rich man. He may be very rich, but he cannot claim, "I am the richest man." Nobody can claim, "I am the wisest man." Nobody can claim, "I am the strongest man." However strong one may be, he is under the rules and regulations of material nature. He cannot go beyond that.
Therefore, in this world you cannot find a Bhagavan, a supreme person possessing all these opulences. That is not possible. But here it is said, bhagavan uvaca. That means Krishna is the richest, the strongest, the most beautiful, the wisest, and the most renounced. He proved that by His actions when He was present in the material world, on this globe.
In this age, at the present moment, if a person can provide for his family nicely -- nice apartment or nice house, good dress, good food -- he's considered to be a very successful man. That is mentioned in the sastra [scripture]: daksyam kutumba-bharanam. Kutumba means "family." If one can provide for his family very comfortably, he is considered very expert. But family maintenance is done by cats and dogs. They also maintain their family, their wife and children, very nicely, according to their standard. But this age is so fallen that one is considered expert if he can obtain the preliminary necessities of life: eating, sleeping, sex, and protection from fear.
The age is so fallen that people have no food even. We all know how things are going on. People are hungry. No food. They have difficulty sleeping. Nobody's married timely, either boys or girls. And nobody's secure. Nobody knows what will happen at the next moment. These are symptoms of the current age, Kali-yuga.
Kali-yuga means:
prayenalpayusah sabhya
kalav asmin yuge janah
mandah sumanda-matayo
manda-bhagya hy upadrutah
"O learned one, in this iron age of Kali men have but short lives. They are quarrelsome, lazy, misguided, unlucky, and, above all, always disturbed." Alpa ayusah: people live a very short time. The duration of life is reducing. Anyone can see that. His forefather, his grandfather, lived for, say, a hundred years. His father lived for eighty years. And he's going to live for sixty years. In this way, the duration of life will be reduced to twenty years. That has been foretold. If a man lives for twenty to thirty years, he will be considered a very old man.
That day is coming. Because how will they live? There is no eating, there is no sleeping. These are required. Annad bhavanti bhutani. Simply by hearing dry lectures, how will people feel happy? There must be sufficient food grains so that people may live happily and the animals may live happily. Especially in India you will see. No animal is fatty, either cat, dog, or cow. They have no food.
Annad bhavanti bhutani. Everyone must be given sufficient food. Krishna does not say, "Fast and chant Hare Krishna." Krishna is not so impractical. He says, "Eat very nicely, maintain yourself very nicely, and chant Hare Krishna. Make your life successful." That is the program of the Krishna consciousness movement.
The Krishna consciousness movement is not one-sided -- it is all-embracing. Sarve sukhino bhavantu. The Krishna consciousness movement wants to see everyone happy. Without being happy, how you can remain peaceful? That is not possible.
Therefore: bhagavan uvaca. Take lessons from Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the all-perfect. Try to hear from the Supreme Personality without any fault, without any deviation. There are four kinds of defects in conditional life: we have imperfect senses, and we have the tendency to commit mistakes, to be in illusion, and to cheat. We are all infected with these four deficiencies of life, or material conditions of life.
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