(Click to enlarge photo of Srila Prabhupada and devotees)
Devotee: How do you make everything so simple to understand?
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Devotee: How do you make everything that you say so simple to understand?
Prabhupāda: Because the whole philosophy is so simple. God is great; you are not great. Don't claim that you are God. Don't claim that there is no God. There is God, and He is great and you are small. Then what is your position? You have to serve Kṛṣṇa. This is simple truth.
So that rebellious attitude is called māyā. Anyone who is declaring that "There is no God," "God is dead," "I am God," "You are God," they're all under the spell of māyā. Piśācī pāile yena mati-cchanna haya (Prema-vivarta 1).
Just like when a man is ghost-haunted, he speaks all kinds of nonsense. So all these persons are haunted by māyā, and therefore they are saying, "God is dead," "I am God," "Why you are searching God everywhere? There are so many Gods loitering in the street." They're all ghost-haunted, deranged.
So we have to cure them by this transcendental vibration, Hare Kṛṣṇa. This is the curing process only. Simply let them hear, and they'll gradually be cured. Just like a man who is sleeping very sound, you cry by the side of his ear and he awakes. So this is the mantra to awake the sleeping human society. Uttiṣṭha uttiṣṭhata jāgrata prāpya varān nibodhata (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.3.14).
The Vedas says, "O human race, please get up. Don't sleep any more. You have got this opportunity of human body. Utilize it. Get yourself out of the clutches of māyā." This is the declaration of Vedas. So you are doing that job. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and they'll be cured.
Devotees: Hare Kṛṣṇa!
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, Seattle, September 27, 1968)
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