Justice and Peace

For those who have developed an attraction to Krishna, attachment can be developed. Before my coming to the West, there was no movement like this Krishna Consciousness, but now it is developing. Krishna was not born in your country, you do not accept Krishna as your religious God. But Krishna is so attractive that, although you are a foreigner, you are not foreign. To Krishna you are not a foreigner. He claims everybody. We make Him foreign, but this is our foolishness.

In The Gita Krishna says, "My dear Arjuna, there are many different forms and different species of life undoubtedly. But I am their Father." Just see how Krishna is universal. He is claiming not only human society, but animal society, bird society, beast society-everyone. He says, "I am the Father." So how can Krishna be foreign? It is a mental concoction. They say Krishna is Indian or Krishna is worshiped by the Hindus, and therefore He is one of the Hindu gods; and they think that Krishna is saying, "Yes I am the Hindu God, yes, I am Indian." But He is like the Sun: if you say it is an American Sun, that's wrong. The Sun is the Sun. Why American Sun or Indian? Nothing is American or Indian; that is all artificial.

"This planet belongs to the humans, that's all." This is your Communism. This present Communism is defective because the Russians say that Russia is for the Russians or China is for the Chinese. Why not for others? Just think in terms of human communism! Why human communism? Living being communism! If you take this world as belonging to human society, that is defective. It belongs to everyone! It belongs to the tree community, it belongs to the beast community. They also have a right to live. Why should you cut the trees? Why should you send the bulls to the slaughterhouse? This is injustice. How can you gain justice by yourself doing injustice?

We have no Krishna Consciousness. We do not know that Krishna is the original Father, and that we are all His sons. The tree is my brother, the ant is my brother, the bull is my brother. The American is my brother, the Indian is my brother, the Chinese is my brother. Therefore we have to develop Krishna Consciousness. We talk all this nonsense of universal brotherhood and the United Nations-all nonsense. Either you acknowledge the Father, or else you have no idea of how to realize brotherhood or humanity. Therefore, they are talking for years and years. They are the same fools. Can't you see the U.N.? They have headquarters in New York. They are simply talking nonsense, that's all. That is their business. So unless there is full Krishna Consciousness, there cannot be any improvement of the world condition.

Krishna says that you have to develop your attachment for Him. Begin at the beginning, but you can do it; it is not artificial. I have a few sincere students here, just developing; they are not complete, but they are developing Krishna attachment. Otherwise, why should they waste their time chanting Hare Krishna? They are doing it, and it can be done. You can develop love for anything if you try for it. But Krishna development is very natural. Because Krishna is not a thing belonging to a particular type of religion or sect. Krishna claims, "I belong to everyone." Therefore, originally, we were all connected with Krishna, but we have simply forgotten. This process of chanting is to evoke your remembrance of Krishna. It is not that we are inducting something artificial into you. No, Krishna is already connected with you, but you have forgotten. And we are trying to give you the process-how you can revive your original consciousness. So you can come to our temple; that is the beginning. You can see Krishna or Krishna's devotees, you can chant Hare Krishna.

Krishna is not different from His Name because He is Absolute. He is non-different from His words. The Name Krishna and the Person Krishna are not different. Because everything is Krishna.

Oneness, the philosophy of monism or pantheism, is imperfect. When that Oneness comes in understanding Krishna, that is perfection. If Krishna is the Supreme Absolute Truth from Whom everything is emanating, then everything is Krishna. Just as you have a gold mine and you are preparing so many golden utensils and ornaments and many other things. But they are all gold because the original is gold. So you may name it "earring," but you have to add "gold"-golden earring. You may name it "necklace," but it is gold, because originally it came from the gold mine. Similarly, originally, everything is coming from Krishna.

If He is Supreme, the Absolute Truth, then nothing is different from Him. Just as, whether you say earring or necklace or bangle or wristwatch, these are all made of gold, and so they are gold. But, at the same time, you cannot say that this is all gold-you must say, "this is a gold necklace, this is a gold earring." The "Mayavadi," or impersonalist, will say that everything is Brahman. But "everything is Brahman" is not right.

This is very nicely explained in The Gita, in the Thirteenth Chapter: "I am expanded all over. That is My impersonal feature." Krishna is everywhere in His impersonal feature, but still He is a Person. The Mayavadi philosopher thinks that if Krishna has become everything, then where is the possibility of Krishna here, apart? This is complete rascaldom, because it is thinking in a material way, and there is no spiritual knowledge.

In the material way, suppose you take a piece of paper and tear it into particles and throw it all over. The original paper has no existence. This is material. But we get information from the Vedas that the Absolute Truth is so perfect that if you take away the whole, still the whole remains. One minus one equals one. The material way of thinking is one minus one equals zero; but spiritually it is not like that. Spiritually, one minus one equals one, and one plus one equals one also.

Krishna is everything. The Mayavadis, the impersonalists, see our Deities here and say, "Oh, they have installed some wooden forms and they are worshiping them as God." But one who knows Krishna science understands that Krishna is everything; and therefore He can appear in everything. With electricity, the current is everywhere along the line, so wherever you touch you will feel it. Similarly, the Krishna current in His impersonal Form is everywhere, and it is the technician who knows how to use the force. Before we have a phone installed, we have a telephone conversation, and we simply inform the person, before we even talk money, that he should come immediately to find out where the connection can be made. And he comes out and does his work; and we do not notice, because he knows the technique. So, one must know how to connect with Krishna. Krishna is everywhere-this is Krishna Consciousness. But one must know how he can derive Krishna from the features of Krishna's form in wood or iron or metal.

Everywhere you have to learn how to contact Krishna, in everything. That is explained in the system of Yoga. Krishna Consciousness is also Yoga, the perfect Yoga, the highest of all yogic systems. A yogi may come and we can challenge him, saying that this is the top Yoga system, though at the same time it is very simple. You don't have to exercise your body over a period of weeks before you feel some power. But in Krishna Consciousness you won't feel tired. All of our students are simply anxious to be overloaded with work in Krishna Consciousness. "Swamiji, what can I do?" And they are actually doing it. In the material world, if you work for some time you'll feel weak.

Of course, I am not exercising myself. I am an old man of 72 years. I was ill, I went back to India, but I want to work. Actually, I could retire from all these activities, but so far as I can, I want to work, I want to learn day and night. At night I will work with the Dictaphone, and I am sorry if I cannot work. It is not an idle society. No, we have sufficient engagements: editing papers, selling papers.

Simply find out how Krishna conscious you can be. If you want to be really at peace, if you want to be happy, then develop Krishna Consciousness. And the beginning is to develop attachment for Krishna. The process which we have prescribed is chanting and dancing before the Deities, and offering "Prasadam," spiritual food. This will make you more Krishna conscious.