“Interviewer: […] I think history shows that many people have misused religion. Isn’t that a fact?
Srila Prabhupada: These people have no conception of God, and they are preaching religion. What is religion?
Dharmam tu saksad bhagavat-pranitam: “The path of religion is directly enunciated by the Supreme Lord.” They have no conception of God–they do not know what God is–and they are professing some religion. How long can it go on artificially? It will deteriorate.
That has become the present condition. They have no idea of God, so how will they know what is the order of God? Religion means the order of God. For example, law means the order of the state. If there is no state, then where is the order? We have a clear conception of God — Krishna. He is giving His order, and we accept it. It is clear religion. If there is no God, no conception of God, no order of God, then where is religion? If there is no government, then where is the law?
Interviewer: Well, there wouldn’t be any law. It would be an outlaw society.
Srila Prabhupada: Outlaw–everyone is an outlaw, manufacturing his own concocted system of religion. That is going on.
Just ask–in any religious system, what is their conception of God? Can anyone tell clearly? No one can tell. But we shall immediately say,
venum kvanantam aravinda-dalayataksam
barhavatamsam asitambuda-sundarangam
kandarpa-koti-kamaniya-visesa-sobham
govindam adi-purusam tam aham bhajami“I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is adept in playing on His flute, whose blooming eyes are like lotus petals, whose head is bedecked with a peacock’s feather, whose figure of beauty is tinged with the hue of blue clouds, and whose unique loveliness charms millions of Cupids.” (Brahma-samhita 5.30)
Immediately, we can give a description of God.
If there is no idea of God, then what kind of religion is that?
Interviewer: I don’t know.
Srila Prabhupada: It is bogus. People have no conception of God, and therefore they have no understanding of religion. That is the decline, and because religion is declining, the human beings are becoming more and more like animals.
“Animal” means that one has no memory. A dog comes when there are some eatables; I say “Hut!” and he goes away. But again he comes–he has no memory. So when our memory of God is reducing, that means that our human qualities are reducing. In the Kali-yuga these human qualities will be reduced. That means that people are becoming like cats and dogs.”
pamho agtACBSP,
thank you for posting this clear and wonderful article by HDG ACBSP, is not the case that in this dark age of quarrel and hypocrisy there is the support of the computers and other facilitation to make the long journey of the conditioned souls shorter including the journey of any disable people,
of course the test of SRI MAYA DEVI is there for everyone especially for people who do the nirjana bhajan without any valid reason i mean one must act compare to the destiny of his guna and karma with the spiritual guna and akarma by keeping serving SRILA PRABHUPADA through HIS vani seva on the meditation of HIS perfection,
as we can see from the manusya samaj the history of the human society as wise people do a good business of a bad bargain for example one can take SRI KRSNA as the only shelter more easily when one is often misunderstood by others with a fake bad and temporary reputation spread by the alpa medhasah the less wise people which force any sadhakas to practice the nirjana bhajan and that’s for a good and valid reason as someone who got some form of mental and physical disease he is force by the dharman tv saksad bhagavat pranitam to find out his immortal relationship with SRI SRI GURU GAURANGA through the guna and karma arranged by the dharman tv saksad bhagavat pranitam,
after all real dharma means to go back to the sva murti the original form created by SRI KRSNA and this can happen only by the causeless mercy of SRI SRI GURU GAURANGA,the real devotees don’t care about the material world because they are trying to get SRILA PRABHUPADA lotus feet in the spiritual sky by becoming a resident of vaikunta-loka then krsna-loka and they are so determinate that they never stop to be connected with SRI SRI GURU GAURANGA even for a fraction of a second until they get transfer to the level of mahatmanas
tu mam partha bg 9-13 through satatm kirtayanto mam bg 9-14,then tesam jnani yukta eka bhaktir visisate bg 7-17 then udarah sarva evaite jnani tu atmaiva me matam bg-9-18, the real devotees just care about this wonderful manasa seva on the most powerful vani seva by SRI KRSNA BHAGAVAT
agtSP
ys
haribol