some people will say art is all about imagination so then you can say that there's no Superior art to the imagination of Krishna and the prajagopis god also has an imagination and we're so riveted to the mundane and the mundane world the temporary world we think this is the substantial place because you know it's made out of or you know boomerapo and a little earth water fire things you can stand on touch feel they have weight breath Dimension Etc I think this is the real world then we hear about Krishna consciousnessand we can think that's like a theoretical world this is the real world we live in and how much all of this is true what we're hearing how much it can be relied upon we're doubtful this is the plight of a neophyte devotee to be honest and candid we're hearing things so we think that is imaginary when the people hear about puranic Legends and the story they think like Oh you mean Hindu mythology but they're very happy to embrace the mythology of Hollywood or of this that or the other that they get all excitedabout the thing I want to talk to you about yes uh Cinema because lenient once you see Cinema considers the most important art and he immediately combines Cinema and ideology and we see in a particular part of History Cinema there were Mania uh you know Hitler's films about you know great ideological presentation through Cinema um you know there were Soviet Cinema there were Hollywood Cinema and of course uh talking about very recent history of Cinema the latest movie Life of Pi it's become a popular whyI would say because people they like to see images that reflect Concepts that are in their hearts that's a very interesting point can you reveal something well we're we're always the heart we could say in this sense is the subjective Realm and what we see objective and we're forever trying to take what's in the heart out into the objective world actually really we want to live in the subjective world but we find ourselves in the objective world and that's why people everybody like to go to movies and immersethemselves in an experience it's like you're taken away from the objective world for some time and you enter another world and you're voyeuristically envisioning envisioning yourself through the characters there and I mean that's in a simple way that's part of what people do through media but there may be more profound implications about that also can you bring a little light on that well it has to do with uh our ultimate aspiration and also what separates human beings from animals right we'reriveted to story were hardwired for story that's why to this day what's been handed down in time when we say story we mean a narrative about who are people what is our purpose what is our Prospect or our possibility and different stories speak to that that's what human beings are storytellers animals are not storytellers all right someone will try to say no but dogs they dream about catching you know cats or cats dream about catching mice that's another thing dealing with base Necessities eatingsleeping sex defense human beings they're interested in story that speaks to their heart and their identity potential well it's a very interesting point so we look at religious realm yes Bible Vedas right all stories it's the stories but in modern world replaced by different stories right so and what what and he's talking about movies so what was popular at one point were Star Wars let's go back to that it's still people everyone knows what Star Wars is and we saw where the media observed a almostreligious-like following of the those who were the devotees of it and what was it about the force and the dark side and the good side these very basic things that human beings deal with good nature bad nature so some people will make the argument that these religious stories that you have in the various scriptures in time philosophers tried to translate that into something else science came along but still you have uh filmmakers of the 20th century presenting these basic story models that some people will sometimesattribute to the Greeks saying there's only five six seven stories that you can tell it's these same Stories being reworked in different ways and people still find them fascinating because it speaks to uh their inner aspirations what is the difference between mundane story which is very touch here and divine story which is like well that's a good point and we can say this if you look at the structure of Vedic literature Omni revealed truth particularly the puranas you have three divisions of puranas thatsometimes tell the same story so you have puranas and tamagoon for people in the mode of ignorance piranhas and rajagun passion and satwagon so they tell the same story a little differently with different emphasis points according to the intended audience someone will point out for example the nasringadev pastime prahladness in the rajasek purana they'll be elaborate descriptions of fight scenes armor those kind of things if we look to the Bhagavad purana was not which is not merely but is near goon as described as theAmala purana right the emphasis is on philosophy the minimum is placed upon descriptions about battles and things like that and fights that's the minimum and what what do we come away with the maximum is the teachings of prahlad Maharaja his prayers to nishringadev the prayers of the devatas to nishringa Dave so and we're told and what is the Bhagavad purana srimad bhagavatam pramana mamalam this doesn't have any mundane reference point if you think it does you're not perceiving it properly it's not uh it doesn't have as areference point the mode of ignorance the mode of passion or even the mode of goodness really it's what nirgun that's why sukadev was selected no no mundane reference point just a pure medium for expression of higher truth and saying I wasn't watching any movies I'd never seen any movies I was in an iraguna plane remember he was liberated in the womb of his mother and also rather large right not just a little baby he like was fully came out fully developed liberated so this is why he's the speaker of thebhagavatam he was never under the influence of the mundane but still near goon I mean he's on the outskirts uh the vaikunta world you're gonna dive deep into reality so what does he say s but then I heard the poetic descriptions of Krishna that means divine imagery Divya chaksu Divine Vision deeper Vision was awakened because there's generic Divine Vision too but deep I like to quote Yeah it's because he says in the Deep Hearts core and the Spanish word Corazon for heart and core I like that because it'stalking about the core because say everything has gradation according to Guru so even the heart the outskirts of the heart going deeper then the Deep heart's core so what does silica Dave say when I heard these descriptions of Krishna he was flooded with real-time Divine imagery right Divine not just images but images of reality reality images live streaming reality images and he said which surrounded enveloped my Consciousness and carried me away to a domain that I didn't know existed previously there's ways of different styles of artto represent certain Concepts in previous ages of Vedic Sages were speaking then they start writing then we'll see that images the pictures uh appear on sculpture and Frescas and burglars and it seems like now is the age of multimedia and moving pictures animation you know animated comicses advertising so considering all this new ways to represent different concepts to people and people ability to them to connect and reciprocate with them so how would be modern way of Representatives Concepts be appropriate I'm remindedof when some devotees they wanted to make some deities Krishna balarama and subal and sridham so they're asking srila Guru Maharaj how should we show Krishna balarama we have some idea famous Tampa but how should we show subal and sridham and groomer said uh they should be shown uh ready to fulfill the inner desire of Krishna they looked at them so like all right but how should they be what should their posture be he said they should be shown ready to fulfill the inner desire of Krishna and then finally when they pressed aboutbut how what would be their posture and government said that an artist can decide so when we see uh pictures or images of divine forms uh we're warned against thinking that their accurate representations of divine form what we're getting is an artist's imagination what is that artist devotional qualification is unknown right so for example Sarasota when it came to chanting krishnam he did not advise one look at a picture of Krishna and chant Hare Krishna Maha mantra many devotees think they should do thatthey think oh that'll be good I'm taking krishnam and looking at a picture of Krishna or radhan Krishna or that'll be helpful that'll remind me of the Divine form of Krishna he told the opposite of that he said the senses are like vultures and their in other words we're subjective agents this is the objective world he said they're going to turn the image of Krishna into vulture food what they want what is their idea they're looking for some objective representation of subjective realityand it's the opposite of that that's why we'll notice when we observe deities we go to India and they'll say this is a self-manifested deity say we look at Radha Rahman will say oh anatomically Radha Rahman uh is uh an exaggeration a very thin very broad soul but everyone will say such a beautiful deity small and very powerful right but not anatomically correct to the extreme the hands the the form as we told the other day we don't portray Gods with muscles human beings have muscles which are a result of Flesh and Bonegods do not have muscles they don't need them it's not a product of subtle forms muscularity that's a fleshy consideration so when it comes how these you know forms appear will manifest it's according to Divine will even from an artistic point of view we saw we visited the Vatican and there they have the pieta of Michelangelo Mary after Christ has been taken down from the cross she's holding Christ on her lap so people it's considered a Masterwork masterpiece but an analysis from an analytical point ofview they've measured Mary is much larger than Jesus if you get out of tape measure and measure her like very much larger than him which is from an objective point of view not true but when this is put together it's conveying some sort of subjective reality that everyone finds overwhelming and the the objective flaws if you want to call them are not a factor to the subjective aspect coming through right so when we deal with any particular art form we have to be very careful about that because people will think as they asksrila prabhupada when he had an art Department they'd say srila prabhupada does Krishna really look like this and once he said you know not exactly but you'll recognize him when you see him okay so he uh seeing that the people had no idea what is the form of Krishna and all of these things started an art Department to do artistic representations of that we just have to remember that's what it is it's an artist's conception everything in the spiritual world is composed of Consciousness we're addictedto uh because we live in the world of time and space and measurement we're always measuring things this is that far from here and Thailand is this far from India or Russia we think like that so we hear oh iodiz here and by Quintas over there and go we we can't think of it in terms of time and space you need to think of it in terms of conscious development and dedicating conscious tendency that's what uh uh how do you say uh separates spiritual Reasons from one another is it uh development of a consciousdevelopment of dedicating tendency not some topographical cartographic type representation of it which an artist is likely to do if they make a painting you know putting goloka here and then the bike Hunter world and then like that but we're told chintamani's children Abus world is accommodated in an atom of goloka so you have to really change your thinking about that means to come under the influence of revealed truth give way that the uh time space measurement consideration that we have of The Limited world ifwe're going to discuss the unlimited World that needs to be suppressed therefore it's called The Advocate Realm there are those who think by suppressing sense experience you'll have you'll experience the higher that can only take you to a generic neutral position but when the higher plane comes down then it hooksetta automatically the lower experience is suppressed and the presence of that so there's total immersion in that domain well I found in your explanation very deep meaning but from another point itlooks like a little bit of contradiction of what most people believe about Divinity because they believe that through ART you can achieve some kind of a Divine form and some people say you know specifically in Vedic culture that Divine form can be achieved to particular sound vibration so can you really explain how Divinity descent and how it takes different shapes and forms yeah so Guru Mars gives us a principle a hegelian principle reality reality exists for itself and by itself and this is uh uh congress with what's expressed inthe upanishads where it says he will reveal himself according to his own necessity and that's the point I was making why the the deity of Radha Rahman if we say well if this is a self-manifesting deity but it's not from external point of view a hundred percent anatomically correct how is that possible then it means it indicates the sweet will of Krishna he decided to appear that way in that particular form but my point is so when you're um dealing with subjective uh expression and the objective world wewill say as a general rule it has to be descending from up to down not the inverse that we're trying to go from down to up we're trying to reconfigure matter or media in a particular way to generate spiritual substance that's the opposite right and that will generally come under the heading of what we call prakrita sahaji-ism or imitationism thinking we can reconfigure matter to generate something spiritual the inverse or what we strive for is descending that some divine inspiration will come down andmove manipulate the media just as kaviraj goes Swami is saying I can't see and I'm arthritic he's in his 90s he's saying but some divine power has come down and is moving my hand and miraculously I'm writing this caitanya charitamritum right so that this this is at the basis of anything that's pure and substantial that something higher is descending what I can say as possible very much possible that the same conversation going on right now in between some art group where they say that they are true art which is descendingright the artist is an instrument for expression right and most of the popular art which people are taking wrongly it's imitation or maybe good imitation or better institution of a true descending process so we can say an art world is always has a fight internal fight which is going on yes the guys who can come up with original stuff and people who's trying to cook and there was a movement called Art For Art's Sake and uh whenever it was 19th century or whatever and as we've mentioned The Picture of Dorian Gray the introductionOscar Wilde makes many observations about art want and he concludes with this statement all art is quite useless and naturally being a wit some people they they thought they took it at faith that he's saying it's of no value that's not what he was saying when he said it's quite useless it was a clever way of saying it exists for itself and by itself if it exists to fulfill some purpose then that's something less than art and that's why Guru Marsh invokes Hegel if reality exists to fulfill the purpose ofanother then it's not for itself and by itself so we're back to this means of uh revelation of divine expression of Krishna you know nimita Matra babasavya satyan Arjun you can be an instrument for the expression of my Divine will that so it's whether you're Arjun on the battle field of kurukshetra or you're an artist in front of a canvas or a devotee giving a lecture the the the aspiring servitor is offering themselves as an instrument to be used for divine expression actually what you've said it's reveal inparticular devotional literature and stories and Sages and again to conclude our talk tonight we were speaking about art Cinema visual representation literature way to present all these things so yeah so just conclude where art has a place in all of us see we know even by just a a secular study of Art the medium is almost irrelevant what's important is the artist's concept so one artist is a master of drawing and anatomically perfect another one is giving an impressionistic representation someone else is doing mixed mediasomeone else is doing there but what what's really behind it all concept that the artist has a concept and they're using the medium for expression so the same thing it's like groomers saying substance and form if the substance is there then it can use different forms for expression but the all-critical point is it that substance or is it counterfeit substance is it imitation so is it not the real thing so that's the critical point so as I told by mentioning the Radha Rahman deity or the expression could be verysimple yet very profound and very divine but some people may say yeah acting in a particular frame of religion or a particular frame of philosophical School it's not entirely a the same as to being pure artist where you have no Bridges you have no limits you Just Surrender yourself to some kind of a Divine floor and that will let you represent itself so how would you apply that well we can say anything well I mean some with many people would say they can say I'm saying so slave with religion well now where the Arts isseparated from religion they can be more true sincere and honest and produce lower Quality Art [Laughter] so to this day they can't produce something that matches one of these Masters under the influence of theism that's another subject but what I'm saying we can say anything but whether it's true or not is another thing so wait so what does that re instead of dealing in nebulous terms about being moved by the spirit and expressing something right why is one artwork selling for 100 million euros and theother one for a hundred uh you know a hundred right so those who are you know subjective experts they're determining value and they have some criteria for doing that so in in a similar way we have to have some idea about what is that reality what is the nature of that or reality who's going to express himself through a particular uh agent is the Ultimate Reality something impersonal abstract is it personal is it multi-dimensional can it be impersonal uh localized and super personal all these things willhave to be considered otherwise if we just say well it's some Divine abstract thing that is moving me to express these things how can that be verified well my question is very similar to almost a Vedic approach as a spontaneous divine revelation as artistic approach as true pure art a spontaneous divine revelation so and revealing what that's the point it all sounds good then what is revealed what is the substance of what is revealed well in both ways we can say that's why invaded culture let's just put this out there also sovisual arts are in the lower section of society done done by Artisans and Craftsmen the higher section of society brahmanas who are dealing with Brahma spiritual sound they they're not uh visual they don't do visual representations the the artist the actor all of those positions in vediculture or in the uh lower section of society why uh well I think it's very obvious because it's their uh external for the most part sometimes it occurs to me that uh the Western World dominating to be theyou know the the world of like rationalist empiric thinkers that says the uh you know the Hallmark of Western philosophy rationalism empiric observation all of these sort of things so I found it interesting that people with um I'd say educated in the western line of thought how much they admire bhagavad-gita and uh years ago in iskcon to promote bhagavad-gita the book uh they started searching for any quotes by people in the western world who are appreciating it they even made a poster showing you know Emerson Thoreau Whitmanyou know schopenhauer and others you know quoting what was the one of the favorite quotes was from Thoreau at Walden Pond where he's living in nature by himself for a couple years to see what that would be like to live with Noah and he said it's noteworthy it says in the morning means every morning when he says because in the morning what are you doing you get it in the morning you bathe so he said in the morning I bathe my intellect and the stupendous and cosmoginal glory of the bhagavad-gita the thing is people get up in themorning and they think about I get up in the morning and I bathe my intellect in the bhagavad-gita so it means Thoreau must have known something he gets some credit for this and he said in comparison with which our modern literature seems truly trivial and puny by comparison what we've got so that's one example and there's so many others but what I found interesting is a side point that none of them questioned the the method of delivery the general name one of the names given we say uh you know shabbed the Brahma spiritual soundnow there's amniah Omni like in Buck even know it's dasmal amniah so he starts with Omni revealed truth means descending truth it's coming from the upper World descending into this world so here the method of descent I found interesting these rap so-called rational thinkers empiric thinkers they don't challenge the method and I was learning why why not we know from the beginning what we hear that says you know you know he uh what does he do he asked Sanjay what did my sons and the sons of pandu do when they assembled on thebattlefield of Dharma kurukshetra Etc and so this Sunday admittedly by what's presented in the text he's not there it's not that greater Russia is saying you were there and now um you know this is something that happened in the past tell me what happened no he's saying you have a living experience that means by um as we find out in the end he says by the mercy of Vias I heard this Divine conversation he doesn't say well arjun's Chariot was here and the other and then I you know I I was like on another chair no hedoesn't say that so he's admitting that he wasn't there physically objectively but what he's saying uh vyasa Prasad by the mercy of Vias I got some Divine vision and what did what happened what did you hear what did you see and then he presents bhagavad-gita right that Krishna said this Arjuna said that the back and forth right of Krishna and Arjuna it's all from the mouth of Sanjay who by his own admission is not there I can't I'm trying to you know emphasize this point objectively speaking thebhagavad-gita that of what we know of bhagavad-gita is spoken by someone who was not there so then you would think these rational people empiric-based uh you know observers would say well how can he be reliable he wasn't even there you know how did he get oh he had some sort of a Divine vision this stuff would be mocked normally right they would dismiss out of hand like what is he some sort of uh trance Chandler you know a medium but the I think there's a a good explanation for why they do not that no one has brought this up or made thisaccusation or challenged good in this way and what it is the overwhelming spiritual quality of the substance of bhagavad-gita that cannot be denied so the method of transmission from we will say it's wonderful he's saying by the mercy of the Vias I got this uh you know I was I got I had this uh I want to say Vision or realization revelation we will praise that what I'm saying they can't find fault with it because of the overwhelming quality of the spiritual substance it's undeniable it'sunmistakable even if people have some other agenda they're not promoting Devotion to Krishna they're promoting anything and everything but Devotion to Krishna but what they find there is so overwhelming substantially that they're uh attracted to it on some level it resonates within them if the greatest production of men is imaginative literature then you'll find no greater imaginative literature than what has been delivered by the irishis the only difference is it's not a product a product of their imaginationdarshan darshi drushtva drishy Rishi Guru says it doesn't say Creator they didn't create vyas didn't create anything they even when they compose what does copy Rogers saying some higher power is moving my hand Madan Mohan is compelling me to say these things we told the other day Govinda is saying these things ramananda the mahaprabhu I'm like an instrument that you're playing you're praising the music but you're playing the instrument like that and that is not the uh it is not the tothe detriment of the instrument but that is the instruments full potential for self-expression being realized humility is not the outcome of low self-esteem it's the outcome of the perceived proximity of greatness or greatness to the infinite degree thereby making one a superconductor zero resistance to current zero resistance to Divine current to Divine flow without mixing anything it's my firm belief that everyone who's ever substantially been in connection with Krishna consciousnesshas some uh level of revelation something's been revealed to them and not only once repeatedly and we know that not in a sense of self-assertion britished arrogance but out of gratitude to our Guru Varga we cannot deny that something has been gifted to us something has touched us that's why on the philosophical basis for this is kaviraj gosami self-deprecation but extreme glorification of the gift of the guru of our God I'm lower than the worm in the school stool more sinful than madai if youhear my name you'll lose all your good qualities if you chant my name you'll fall down but what I'm telling here what's passing through me here in the form of caitanya charitamritam there's nothing higher than us that he says with after the uh uh confessional self uh um deprecation says with absolute certainty assuredness there's nothing higher than us gurumar has expressed it like this once he said if we take of it as a current or a stream if you're standing on the bank of the gangardand you toss a flower into the Ganga where you it enters that current then it's carried away so gradually it's going further away from you that means being situated in the realm of time and space and limitation sing but if you run along the bank with the flower it remains in view so we can say that there's like this is live stream real time live streaming Lila that's what's in the bhagavatam that's what's in the chariotamri Tom we sing it every day Radha Krishna Leela korilo prakash it's going on eternallybut so for someone who has the capacity they may enter the current of that stream and a real lifetime meaningful way it's also the purpose of part of the purpose of hearing hearing the pastimes of Krishna their Eternal and unlimited so each time we approach them if we approach with the proper serving mode something new can come to us and they're extremely visual the pastimes of Christians they're filled with all sorts of visualizations Krishna his devotees the vrindavan environment conveyed also is the mood of theserviters so the greater charges they have the capacity to appreciate appreciate these things with the greatest depths Praise of udva is given in the bhagavatam in the third canto saying what kind of child was he his soul in love with Krishna and always thinking and absorbed in Krishna when his mother would call him to eat he wouldn't hear her and he wouldn't answer because even in his childhood his childhood play was centered on Krishna so what sort of you know Divine imagination that's what chakrabartitakor is saying and that's the point I want to conclude he's saying the div the imagination of Krishna in the hearts of his real devotees that is supreme and Nothing Compares with that and we can say that's the highest form of artistic expression what comes from the hearts the Krishna conception that manifests from the hearts of devotees