(Click to enlarge photo of Srila Prabhupada)
Young woman: May I ask another question?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Young woman: Thank you. Do you say that God has nothing to do?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Young woman: But He has lots of energies, and...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Young woman: ...it is the energy that creates beautiful things?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Young woman: How is the energy ordered?
Prabhupāda: How is the energy...?
Young woman: Is ordered? How is it that there are both roses...
Prabhupāda: Well, that energy is so perfect. Just like you are feeling some itching. You want to itch it. Immediately hand goes. It does not require that you have to train the hand to itch it. So you have got such energy. So just imagine—He's complete. He's full—how much His energy is perfect. He doesn't require. Immediately He desires... Just like in Bible it is said, "God said, 'Let there be creation,'—immediately there was creation." So His energy is so perfect that He wanted to see this material cosmic manifestation—immediately there was. But because we haven't got such energy we think this is all illusion or fictitious or something like that. Because if you want something immediately, you have no such energy that, immediately, the same thing is done. That is not possible. That is possible also when you are also in spiritual life. But now you are conditioned by the matter; therefore that is not being perfected. But when you are also in pure spiritual life, you can do like that, like God. Immediately, whatever you want, you can do. Immediately, wherever you want to go, you can go. That is the... That perfection is there.
Young woman: Does that mean that you can do it just so that you see it or so that other people can see it?
Prabhupāda: No, anyone who comes to the spiritual perfection, he can act like that.
Young woman: Then my question is if you have a man who has spiritual perfection and another man sitting next to him who does not have spiritual perfection, and the man who has perfection wishes to have a rose, and, and...
Prabhupāda: Wishes to have?
Young woman: A rose. And, a rose...
Disciple: A flower.
Prabhupāda: A rose? Oh.
Young woman: ...and he might see the rose or have that rose because he has spiritual perfection.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is possible.
Young woman: Can the other man see the rose?
Prabhupāda: That is possible.
Young woman: The other man can...
Prabhupāda: That is possible. That is the yogic perfection. If anyone... There are eight kinds of yogic perfection, and one is called prāpti. Prāpti means if actually a man is in yogic perfection, he can immediately have whatever he wants. That is possible.
Young woman: How do you measure...
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Young woman: ...your liberation from the laws of nature.
Prabhupāda: Well, that, as you replace yourself to Kṛṣṇa consciousness... You are under the laws of nature because you are material conscious. Just like one who is in criminal consciousness, he's committing criminal activities and going to jail. It is the change of consciousness. The same man, if he changes his criminal consciousness, then he's no more subjected to go to the jail. Similarly, liberation means, if you become complete in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then you are liberated.
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, Boston, May 7, 1968)
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