Prahlada Maharaja’s Transcendentale Kennis

De Ivoren Toren / Prahlada Maharaja’s Transcendentale Kennis

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Het boek "Transcendental Teachings of Prahlāda Mahārāja" (1)
(based on a series of talks Śrīla Prabhupāda gave in 1968 on the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto 7, Chapter 6)
...bestaat nu ook in een (uitstekende) Nederlandse vertaling (2).
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Enkele rake citaten uit de Engelse versie:
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TTP 2: "We Are Spoiling Our Lives":

We should not think, "Because Kṛṣṇa is supplying my food, I shall now sleep."
No,
you have to work,
but without fear.
You should engage yourself wholeheartedly in Kṛṣṇa consciousness,
confident of Kṛṣṇa's maintenance and protection.
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Accepting that a person lives for one hundred years,
if he has no information of spiritual life,

• half of that is wasted at night in sleeping and sex life. That's all. He has no other interest.
• And in the daytime, what is his concern? "Where is money? Where is money? I must maintain this body."
• And when he has money: "Now let me spend for my wife and children."

So where is his spiritual realization?

• At night he spends his time in sleep and sex indulgence, and
• by day he spends time working very hard to earn money.

Is that his mission in life?
How horrible such a life is!

• The average person is illusioned in childhood, playing frivolous games. Up to twenty years, easily, you can go on like that.
• Then when you become old, for another twenty years you cannot do anything. When a man becomes old, his senses cannot function. You have seen many old men; they have nothing to do but rest... In old age, everything is finished as soon as you are eighty years old.

Therefore,

• from the beginning to twenty years of age, everything is spoiled;
• and even if you live for a hundred years, another twenty in the last stage of life is also spoiled.

So forty years of your life are spoiled in that way.
And in the middle age there is a very strong sex appetite, so another twenty years can be lost.
Twenty years, twenty years, and twenty years-sixty years gone.
This is the analysis of life by Prahlāda Mahārāja.
We are spoiling our life instead of using it to advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
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TTP 3: Family Illusion:

Unless one feels pleasure, how is it possible that he can engage himself in such a process as Kṛṣṇa consciousness?
This is due only to the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa.
This is our single asset—the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra.
One can be very jolly simply by Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Actually, it is a joyful life.
But unless one is trained, one cannot live it.
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If you transfer your love to Kṛṣṇa, that is perfection. But now, because people are being frustrated and cheated, they do not know where to place their love, and at last they place their love in cats and dogs.
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Prahlāda Mahārāja says that in this state, when you are too much imlicated in materialism, you cannot cultivate Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Therefore one should practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness from early childhood.
Of course, Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu is so kind that He says, "Better late than never. Even though you missed the opportunity to begin Kṛṣṇa consciousness from childhood, begin now, in whatever position you are."
That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's teaching.
He never said, "Because you did not begin Kṛṣṇa consciousness from your childhood, you cannot make progress."
No. He is very kind.
He has given us this nice process of chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.
Whether you are young or old—no matter what you are—just begin. You do not know when your life will be finished.
If you chant sincerely, even for a moment, it will have great effect. It will save you from the greatest danger—becoming an animal in your next life.
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TTP 4: "I Love Kṛṣṇa More Than Anything!":

Unfortunately, we have forgotten that Kṛṣṇa, God, is all-pervading. This memory has to be revived.
As soon as we revive our Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we can see everything in relationship with Kṛṣṇa, and then everything becomes lovable.
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If we actually want to implement the idea of universal brotherhood, then we will have to come to the platform of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, not material consciousness.

• As long as we are in material consciousness, our lovable objects will be limited.
• But when we are actually in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, our lovable objects will be universal.

That is stated by Prahlāda Mahārāja: "Beginning from the nonmoving plants and trees and extending up to the highest living creature, Brahmā, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is present everywhere by His expansion as the Paramātmā, the feature of the Lord in everyone's heart. As soon as we become Kṛṣṇa conscious, that extension of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Paramātmā, induces us to love every object in relation with Kṛṣṇa."
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TTP 5: Realizing that God Is Everywhere

Although the Supreme Lord is all-pervasive by means of His expansions and His energies,
that does not mean He has lost His personality.
That is significant.
Although He is all-pervading, still He is a person.
According to our material perception, if something is all-pervading, then it has no personality, no localized aspect.
But God is not like that.
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Prahlāda Mahārāja says that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is identical with the all-pervading Supreme Soul, the Paramātmā. The same information appears in the Brahma-saṁhitā—that the Supreme Lord, although situated in His own transcendental abode, is all-pervading. Still, although He is present everywhere, we cannot see Him with our imperfect senses.
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Those who have received perfect knowledge in disciplic succession know that everything is an expansion of the energy of the Supreme Lord. Therefore they see the Lord everywhere.
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What can we perceive with our material senses?

• We can see what is visible to the material eye—earth, water, fire. 
• But we cannot see air, although we can perceive it by touch. 
• We can understand that there is sky by sound, 
• and we can understand that we have a mind because we are thinking, feeling, and willing.
• Similarly, we can understand that we have an intelligence which guides the mind. 
• If we go still further, we can understand, "I am consciousness." 
• And one who is further advanced can understand that the source of consciousness is the soul and, above all, the Supersoul.

We can perceive that there is "consciousness spread all over the body". In the Bhagavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa says we should try to understand that ("consciousness is spread all over the body") and that it is eternal.
Similarly, "consciousness is spread all over this universe". But that is not our consciousness. That is God's consciousness. So God, the Supreme Soul, is all-pervading by His consciousness.
One who understands this has begun his Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
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Our process is to dovetail our consciousness with Kṛṣṇa consciousness—that will make us perfect. It is not that we merge into that consciousness. In one sense WE "MERGE," BUT STILL WE KEEP OUR INDIVIDUALITY. That is the difference between impersonalist philosophy and Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy.
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Prahlāda Mahārāja says that we cannot see consciousness—either supreme consciousness or individual consciousness—but that it is there.
How can we understand that the supreme consciousness and our individual consciousness are there? Simply by PERCEPTION OF BLISSFULNESS:

• Because we have consciousness, we can feel ānanda, or pleasure. Without consciousness, there is no feeling of pleasure. 
• Because of consciousness we can enjoy life by applying our senses in whatever way we like. But as soon as consciousness is gone from the body, we cannot enjoy our senses.

Our consciousness exists because we are part and parcel of the supreme consciousness.
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In the Bhagavad-gītā, the Lord says that you, the soul, are present in your body and that your body is the field of your activities. So whatever you are doing is limited by the field of your body... But Kṛṣṇa says, "I am present in every field."
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TTP 6: Kṛṣṇa Consciousness: The Perfection of Mercy

If you want to show any mercy at all to the living entities, then enlighten them in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, as Prahlāda Mahārāja did. Otherwise, it is materially beyond your power to show mercy.
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We find in the Bhagavad-gītā that people who are thinking: "Who is God? There is no God" are called miscreants, for they always try to make mischief. They may be very well educated lawyers, for example, but their plan is to cheat. We have practical experience. These lawyers are highly educated with so many qualifications and are nicely dressed, but their mentality is more base than that of a dog. "This man has some money, so let us conspire to cheat him." They are simply miscreants.
What are they cheating for? Simply for sense gratification...
Therefore they are compared to asses. They are always planning something mischievous.
They are the lowest of mankind because they do not believe in God. Why? Their knowledge has been plundered by the influence of the material energy.
Because they deny the existence of God, illusion impels them: "Yes, there is no God. Work hard and commit sins so that you may go to hell."
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Prahlāda Mahārāja requests his demoniac friends to give up this idea that there is no God. If we give up this nonsensical idea, then the Supreme Lord, who is beyond our perception, will be pleased and show His mercy to us.
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(1)
https://vanisource.org/wiki/Transcendental_Teachings_of_Prahlada_Maharaja
https://www.vedabase.com/en/ttp
(2)
https://blservices.com/product/prahlada-maharajas-transcendentale-kennis/