Great Throughts Treasury

"Therefore go on remembering Me at all times and fighting with your mind and intelligence surrendered to Me, certainly you will attain Me without doubt."

"Therefore oh Supreme Lord, what would we, as sparks of the original fire [the 'golden seed'], now all have to tell You who personally are amused to be engaged in creation, destruction and maintenance with Your divine energy, You who as the Supersoul and spirit of the absolute Brahman resides in the hearts of all the different living beings and externally are present according to time, place and the physical constitution, You whom one realizes as the cause of that what constitutes the [existence and consciousness of the] living being, You, as the witness of all that is going on, as the witnessing itself and the embodiment of the eternal memory of the entire universe [the âkâs'a record]?"

"Therefore we do not really know whether Your Lordship is there like an ordinary human being bound to actions in the material world, who under the influence of the modes thus depends on time, space, activities and nature, and thereby is forced to accept the good and bad results of his own actions, or whether You are there as a completely self-satisfied [âtmârâma] and self-controlled person who never fails in his spiritual potency and is always a neutral witness."

"Therein one will not find the supremacy of time that for sure controls the godly who direct the worldly creatures with their demigods, nor will one find there mundane goodness, passion or ignorance, nor any material change or causality of nature at large."

"These eleven engagements of the mind are by the material elements, by nature itself, by culture, by the karma and by time modified into the many hundreds, thousands and millions [of considerations] that do not follow from one another nor from themselves, but [are caused by] the knower of the field."

"These three modes o King, are then, under the pressure of Time, overtaken by the inexhaustible doer [the original unmanifest form of nature] from whom there is not the transformation and such in divisions of time [shath-ûrmi]; unmanifest without a beginning and an end it is the infallible eternal cause."

"They also discuss the varnâs'rama system wherein the father may be of a higher [anuloma] or a lower [pratiloma] class than the mother, they are about heaven and hell and expound on the subjects of having possessions, one's age, place and time."

"They said: 'We have always bowed down to Your lotus feet like one does with the worship of Brahmâ and his sons and the king of heaven, because You, for the one who desires the supreme welfare in this life, are the Master of Transcendence upon whom the inevitable time has no grip."

"They, the devotees who with an equal vision are of surrender to the Supreme Lord and whose sacred histories are proclaimed by the demigods and perfected ones, you should never approach, for they are fully protected by the mace of the Lord. It is not given to us to punish them, just as it isn't given to time itself [to tell right from wrong]."

"Thinking the personal form of Lord Krsna illusory, fools reject His lotus feet and look elsewhere to find the Supreme Self. But the futility of their search is the obvious proof of their foolishness. There is simply no way to understand the truth of the Personality of Godhead without His mercy."

"This [form of S'is'umâra] certainly is the form of the Supreme Lord, of Lord Vishnu who consists of all the demigods. With that form before one's eyes one should each morning, noon and evening in all modesty meditate upon the following words: 'Our obeisances unto this resting place of all the luminous worlds, unto the master of the demigods, the Supreme Personality in the form of Time upon whom we meditate' [namo jyotih-lokâya kâlâyanâya animishâm pataye mahâ-purushâya abhidhîmahîti. Those who in respect of that leader of the demigods consisting of all the planets and stars, that destroyer of sin, practice the mantra as mentioned above by three times a day offering their respects this way or by three times a day meditating as such [in silence], will by that respect of time very soon find all their sins annihilated."

"This eternal time, beginning from the atom up to the final duration of two parârdhas, is never capable of controlling the Supreme Lord, it is the controller of the ones identified with their body."

"This material nature, which is one of My energies, is working under My direction, O son of Kuntî, producing all moving and nonmoving beings. Under its rule this manifestation is created and annihilated again and again."

"This movement of the sun is said to form one day of the demigods and is called a vatsara [a tropical year] of twelve months. The duration of life of the human being is estimated to be of a great number [a hundred] of those years [see also the 'full calendar of order']."

"This path of acceptance is called avaroha-pantha The word avaroha is related to the word avatara, which means ”that which descends.” The materialist wants to understand everything by the aroha-pantha - by argument and reason - but transcendental matters cannot be understood in this way. Rather, one must follow the avaroha-pantha, the process of descending knowledge. Therefore one must accept the parampara system."

"This time when the energies helplessly merge, completely dismantled by the Time, is the [prâkrita pralaya] dissolution wherein all the material elements of nature and energies of the unseen Original Person are completely dismantled by Time and helplessly merge."

"Those submerged in illusion see material existence as infinite, just as one who is submerged in water sees only water all around him."

"Those two positions certainly do not form a contradiction in You, the Fortunate One. For what would be impossible to You whose attributes are unlimited, You who are the Supreme Lord of unfathomable glories? You are by the present-day thinkers doubted with opinions and arguments laid down in scriptures containing judgments based upon halfhearted investigations and fallacious logic. But You are out of the range of the agitated minds of the obstinate theorists resorting to controversies. You withdrawn from all of them are hidden from view behind Your bewildering yoga potency, the incomparable and inscrutable potency [by which you make and break]. You after all, are not divided in two natures."

"Those who are of wisdom and properly understand how much Your mâyâ bewilders the human beings render potent loving service unto You, the source of liberation. How would there for those who faithfully follow You, be any kind of fear for a material existence, a fear which by the three rimmed [wheel of Time of past, present and future] of Your furrowing eyebrows repeatedly is created in those who do not take shelter of You."

"Those who consider themselves intellectual, philosophic or rational should carefully note that the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the ocean of all knowledge and consciousness. Thus surrendering unto the Supreme Lord does not entail giving up the method of rationally comprehending reality. Rather, one merges into the ocean of rational, logical comprehension. The Supreme Lord is the perfection of all sciences and all forms of knowledge, and only envious and trivial minds would deny this obvious fact."

"Those who know Me as ruling all as well as the godly and the sacrifices also; they with their minds connected in Me even know me at the time of their death too."

"Thus are with the classification I provided the material qualities of the Absolute Truth of Brahman summed up [called saguna brahman]. One speaks thereto of time as the twenty-fifth element."

"Thus he sarcastically criticized him severely. But there was no protest of a false belief of 'I' and 'mine' with him who carried on in silence the palanquin as before. As someone on the spiritual platform he was of such a particular disposition concerning the physical matters of having a from ignorance resulting, final vehicle of time, a physical body that consists of a mixture of the natural modes, the workload and material intentions.'"

"Thus is being meager, fat, tiny or big, existing as an individual entity, inanimate matter or whatever natural phenomenon else that might be of concern, all impermanence in the name of a certain place, time and activity, an impermanence which you should understand to be [inherent to] the operation of nature's duality."

"Thus one following the other, the saintly kings received this science understanding it that way but in the course of time in this world this great way of connecting oneself was scattered, o subduer of the enemies."

"Thus pondering the message reached him of the curse of death pronounced by the sage's son. That curse in the form of the fire of a snake bird he accepted as something auspicious because that expected happening would be the logical consequence of the indifference of an all too attached person."

"Thus supposing that his son, although he didn't feel for it, should be fully instructed by him in all the cleanliness, Vedic literature, vows, principles, sacrifice and service to the guru that belongs to the celibate state [the brahmacarya-âs'rama], the brahmin who considered his son to be his life breath, in reality with this engagement was heavily attached to his household so that he, when he [was seized] by death who was not as forgetful [as he was], died as a man full of frustration about the insistent faking of his son."

"Thus threatened goaded the angered elephantkeeper the furious elephant toward Krishna, of time, death and Yamarâja the excel."

"Thus wantonly involved with a heart enslaved by kith and kin, one day the time [of old age] arrived that is not very loved by those who are fond of women. O King, there is a king belonging to the heavenly kingdom [Gandarvaloka] who is called Candavega ['the impetuously streaming time']. He has the lead over threehundred and sixty very powerful other Gandharvas."

"Time [kâla] is the hidden, impersonal feature of God by means of which the cosmic creation in the form of material energy was separated from the Supreme Lord as His objective manifestation, as the phenomenal that was established by Vishnu's bewildering potency."

"Time I am, the great destroyer of the worlds engaged here in destroying all people, except for you [brothers] only, will all the soldiers who are situated on both sides, find their end."

"To a soul of complete surrender the invincible time, by which You in Your prowess and majesty with simply raising Your eyebrows vanquish the entire universe, constitutes no threat."

"To be trapped in a world in which all things are born and die is certainly a fearful experience. Anyone trapped in a dark place naturally becomes fearful. Since material life is always covered by the darkness of ignorance, every conditioned soul is fearful. The material nature is not ultimate reality, and thus analysis of matter can never provide answers to ultimate questions. This dark, snakelike existence called material life immediately disappears as soon as one opens his eyes to the bright light of Krsna consciousness."

"To embrace one’s son and smell his head are symptoms of affection."

"To that he [S'uka] clearly stated: 'Just as what one sees with the movements of small ants spinning around on a potter's wheel, who because of their changing positions experience a different orientation, such a difference can also be observed with the movement [of the sun and the planets] in relation to Meru and Dhruvaloka [the central heap of stars and the galaxy center]. With the stars moving around [that center], the two are located at their right side, but because of the individual movements of the planets lead by the sun upon that rotating wheel of time, the sun and planets that are observed in different mansions and constellations are evidently of another progress."

"To the time and place, the recipient and the paraphernalia there can be weaknesses with the mantras and following the principles, but it is all made faultless by regularly singing the glories of Your Lordship."

"To the Time, to the Secure of Time, to the Witness to the divisions of Time, to Him in the Form of the Universe, to the One Watching It Over, to its Creator; to the Final Cause of the Universe [our reverential homage]."

"Trees and vegetables provide the real means of livelihood recommended for everyone."

"TThe time measured by the two halves of Brahmâ's life takes but a second for the beginningless, unchanging and unlimited Soul of the universe."

"Uddhava said: 'What can I say about our wellbeing now the sun of Krishna has set and the house of my family has been swallowed by the great serpent of the past?"

"Under the influence of the no doubt hard to fathom potency of the Almighty One in the form of the force of time, the interaction [or disturbance of the equilibrium] of the modes of nature resulted in this diversity of energies upon which the Supreme Personality exerts His influence even though He is not the one acting and in which He leads to death even though he is not the one who kills. He to whom there is no end in the form of Time puts everything to an end, He who knows no beginning constitutes the beginning of everything, He who is inexhaustible gives life to one living being by means of another one and He as death puts an end to everything that kills. As death entering each his life no one is His ally or his definitive enemy. All the combinations of the elements [organic and anorganic] helplessly follow His movement like dust particles moved by the wind."

"Usually, the demigods never touch the ground, but Lord Brahma, voluntarily giving up his prestige as a demigod, bowed down on the ground before Krsna. Although Brahma has one head in each direction, he voluntarily brought all his heads to the ground and touched Krsna’s feet with the tips of his four helmets. Although his intelligence works in every direction, he surrendered everything before the boy Krsna."

"'Verily, seven days from now the wretched one of the dynasty who offended my father will, because of breaking with the etiquette, be bitten by a snake-bird.'"

"Vidura who knew this said to Dhritarâshthra: 'O King, [dear brother], please withdraw yourself without delay, just see how fear has taken the lead in your life."

"We may find a pot within a house, but we can hardly expect to find the house within the same pot. By the Lord’s spiritual potency, however, He can appear within this universe and simultaneously exhibit all the universes within His body."

"We pray that whatever that is disturbing us [and our devotion] will find its end as a logical consequence of the fact that it is You, the Lord [of time] alone who decides what the ultimate reality would be of that what is and that what is not [like happiness and grief coming and going."

"We speak about an orbit of the sun, about an orbit of the other planets, the orbit of the stars [in our galaxy around Sagittarius A in the sky], the orbit of the moon o Vidura, and the orbit of the earth as being a single [but differently named] year [resp. a celestial year, a planetary year, a galactic year, a lunation and a tropical year]."

"We take our material birth within a particular material atmosphere, in material bodies that are amalgamations of various material elements. Since Lord Krsna existed long before the creation of any material atmosphere or element, there is no question of material birth for His transcendental body."

"We who before by lusting for the wealth, having lost their sight quarreled with one another for conquering this earth, very merciless harassed our own citizens, o Master, and have with death in front of us arrogantly disregarded You. They, we indeed o Krishna, have been forced to part from our opulence in our pride destroyed by the mercy of Your personal form, the irresistable power of Time moving so mysteriously; may we please remember your feet."

"What else but Your divinity, that as a partial representation [the Paramâtma] dwells in as well the animate as the inanimate, would give us the knowledge of the threefold of Time, of past, present and future? In order to be freed from the threefold misery [as caused by oneself, nature and others] we as individual souls engaged on the path of fruitive activities have to surrender to that divinity."