Prabhupada cut in. "No, no. If he resides in everyone, then why he has special claim?"
"Yes. Well, he says he has remembered."
"He remembers?" Prabhupada asked. "How God can forget?"
"That he says here. He says that, 'Take paddy or rice by way of an illustration. Every grain of rice is enclosed in a husk. You have to remove the husk to get the grain of rice. Now husk and rice both come from the same seed. Rice is the equivalent of God in man.'"
"But still husk is not rice," Prabhupada said. "You cannot say husk is rice."
Nodding in agreement, Pradyumna read on. "He says, 'Rice is the equivalent of God in man, while the husk can be compared to desire which reduces God to man.'"
Prabhupada sat shaking his head. "No, no."
Pradyumna finished the quote: "Therefore life plus desire equals man. Life minus desire equals God."
Prabhupada dictated the concluding words of his letter: "You are desiring to become God. There cannot be no desire. But you're unceremoniously desiring to become God. Although there is no proof in the sastras. In the Bhagavad-gita it is accepted that the living entities are sparks of, part and parcel, of God, Krsna. But part is never equal to the whole. So you can claim as a spark of God, as every living entity can claim, but you cannot claim as the Supreme Person with full power. That is misleading. You can show a little magic, as other magicians also can show, but you cannot show the full magic, as Krsna displayed or Lord Ramacandra displayed. Therefore, your claim as a full power is completely false and blasphemous."
Pradyumna stopped writing and looked up, raising a point of his own, "Now someone may bring up the one point, they say 'Well, if an avatara comes if he must show all kinds of great opulences and powers.' Then he says sometimes the incarnation shows this, but sometimes, like when Lord Caitanya appeared He didn't show visvarupa or..."
Prabhupada replied. "But He [Lord Caitanya] never claimed that 'I am avatara.' But we understand from the sastric evidence. He never claimed. Rather, when He was addressed as Krsna He blocked His ears, 'You don't say like that.' He never claimed. He fully displayed Himself as a devotee, not Bhagavan. Therefore gaurangavada is illegal; gauranga-nagari, that is illegal."
Familiar with the apasampradaya that Prabhupada was referring to, Pradyumna said, "Gauranga-nagari, mentioning Lord Caitanya in the role of Krsna dancing with the gopis..."
Prabhupada nodded. "In this way, find out the faulty statement and give him proof."
Leaving Prabhupada to chant quietly in the garden, Pradyumna typed the letter out and it was sent off to Satya Sai Baba.
- From "A Transcendental Diary Vol 4" by HG Hari Sauri Prabhu
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