Oct 21, 2013 — CANADA (SUN) — By His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Back To Godhead Vol. 14, No. 11, November 1, 1979 - Part One.
"It's one thing to know it theoretically, but it's a vastly different thing to feel it and to experience it."
The countryside near Frankfurt, West Germany. His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada talks with Professor Karl Friederich Graf Eckfrecht Von Durckheim. Professor Durckheim holds a Ph.D. in analytical psychology and is famed for starting a therapeutic school (in the Black Forest) that incorporates both Western and Eastern approaches to the psychology of consciousness. He is the author of fifteen books.
Prof. Durckheim: May I ask a question, sir, about the meaning of time? I think there are two ways to look at time and to look at eternity.
Srila Prabhupada: Time is eternal but we calculate time in terms of "past" and "present" and "future," according to our temporary material existence. I am a human being. I live for a hundred years. So my past and present are different from the past and present of the ant, who lives for, say, a few hours. And similarly, living beings on higher planets their past and present are different, too, because one of their days equals millions and billions of our years. So time is eternal but according to our condition in time and space, we calculate time in terms of past and present and future.
Prof. Durckheim: Well, now, I question you … you see … talking about eternity there are two meanings or concepts at the same time. It seems one concept is that finite life, as we see it in this finite world, is going on infinitely, infinitely, millions of years that's one way to think about eternity.
Srila Prabhupada: Yes.
Prof. Durckheim: But there's another way.
Srila Prabhupada: Yes. Strictly speaking, eternity means both no end and no beginning.
Prof. Durckheim: So isn't this other concept the one where, for instance, Christ says, "Before anything else in this world existed, I am"? This "I am". . . isn't this the kind of eternity that is totally beyond past and future?
Srila Prabhupada: Yes. Past and future have to do with this body.
Prof. Durckheim: Oh yes, exactly. Past and future have to do with this body and with this ego, which has a before and an after, an up and a down, and … if you take away this ego, what's left?
Srila Prabhupada: What is left is the pure ego. For instance, now I have got this seventy-eight-year-old Indian body I have got this false ego that "I am Indian," "I am this body." This is a misconception. Some day this temporary body will vanish, and I'll get another temporary body. Then again will begin my past and present. So therefore, this is called illusion. Time is eternal it has no beginning and no end but we transmigrate from one body to another. And so we are miscalculating "past," "present," "future."
Prof. Durckheim: But without this body you couldn't become conscious of what is beyond the body. The pure consciousness has to have a material body it has to have a background which is not pure consciousness …
Srila Prabhupada: No. The pure consciousness, the soul, does not need to have a material body. For instance, when you are dreaming, you forget your present body, but still you remain conscious. The soul, the consciousness, is like water: water is pure, but as soon as it comes down from the sky and touches the ground, it becomes muddy.
Prof. Durckheim: Yes.
Srila Prabhupada: Similarly, we are spirit souls we are pure. But as soon as we leave the spiritual world and come in contact with these material bodies, our consciousness becomes covered. The consciousness remains pure, but now it is covered by mud this body. And this is why people are fighting. They are wrongly identifying with the body and thinking, "I am German;" "I am English, "'I am black;" A am white;' "I am this;" "I am that" so many bodily designations. These bodily designations are impurities. And so we see that sometimes artists make statues that are naked. In France, for example, they regard nakedness as pure art. Similarly, when you come to the "nakedness" of the spirit soul without these bodily designations that is purity.
Prof. Durckheim: But to come to our pure consciousness, we have to experience the background of impurity, the suffering of impurity. We cannot become conscious of the pure without having experienced the suffering of the impure …
Srila Prabhupada: Why'? Right now your health may be covered by a disease, but do you need that covering of disease to experience your natural, healthy state? Similarly, I do not need to think, "I am American," "I am German," "I am this," "I am that" all these impure, diseased ideas to experience my pure consciousness: "I am a spirit soul, part and parcel of God."
Prof. Durckheim: But in order to get there, to feel that one is neither "this" nor "that," one must first have suffered by having thought that one is this or that.
Srila Prabhupada: No, suffering is not necessary. To experience your pure spiritual consciousness you do not have to go through suffering. Suffering is just like a bad dream. Let us say you dream that you are being attacked by a tiger but there is no tiger. So actually there is no suffering, but on account of ignorance you are thinking, "The tiger is eating me." This dreaming experience is simply material it is not a spiritually enlightening experience. It is an unwanted thing. You do not need it. But this material, dreaming experience will go on continually. As long as we are attached to temporary, material sense pleasures, we will get new material bodies, one after another. Even in this single lifetime in your childhood you experienced a body that was much different from the body you are experiencing at this time. So as we are getting new material bodies we are getting different experiences, and all of those experiences are photographed within the mind. Sometimes they come out at night and intermix, and we see more dreams, and we experience so many contradictory things. All of this daytime and nighttime is simply hovering on the mental plane. This is not the spiritual plane. As Krsna explains in the Bhagavad-gita [3.42],
indriyani parany ahur
indriyebhyah param manah
manasas tu para buddhir
yo buddheh paratas tu sah
"The bodily senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and the soul is even higher than the intelligence." So we have to transcend all our material designations. Then we come to real consciousness "I am eternal, God is eternal, I am part and parcel of God, my duty is to serve God." Of course, here in the material world I am also serving. I am not free from service. But I am serving under material designations. For example, perhaps during the last war you went to fight, because you might have designated yourself, "I am German." "I must fight, give service to my country" Everybody is thinking, "Let me give service to my community" or "to my family," or if there is nobody else, at least "to my dog." This is going on. So we have to get rid of all these designations and become pure and serve God. In other words,
sarvopadhi-vinirmuktam
tat paratvena nirmalam
hrsikena hrsikesa-
sevanam bhaktir ucyate
"If anyone actually wants to get free from all material designations and purify his senses, then he should simply engage all his senses in serving Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the master of all the senses." [Narada-pancaratra] Take Arjuna, for example. Arjuna was in so much anxiety on the Battlefield of Kuruksetra.
(To be continued...)
Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
