Srila Prabhupada - Vedic Teachings

  But he has his normal way of thinking, feeling and willing „The living being is by constitution transcendental to material encagement, but he is now imprisoned by the external energy, and therefore he thinks himself one of the material products. And due to this unholy contact, the pure spiritual entity suffers material miseries under the modes of material nature. The living entity misunderstands himself to be a material product. This means that the present perverted way of thinking, feeling and willing, under material conditions, is not natural for him. But he has his normal way of thinking, feeling and willing. The living being in his original state is not without thinking, willing and feeling power. It is also confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā that the actual knowledge of the conditioned soul is now covered by nescience.” (SB 1.7.5, Purport)

  Mind is not spiritual „The mental speculation, so long we are on the platform of mental speculation, we should understand that we are on the material plane, because mind is material. Mind is not spiritual. So mano-gatān. The special word is used here, mano-gatān. Whatever we create in our mind, that is material, all creations. Mind is the leader of the senses. So the activities of the mind—thinking, feeling and willing—are expressed through our senses. And these sensual activities are known as our living condition. Therefore the Lord says, "When one shall be free from mental speculation, then he's to be understood that he is in the perfect stage of spiritual consciousness." Mental speculation. So by mental speculation we cannot understand what is our position. Generally, people, they indulge in mental speculation. Different philosophy of the world, they are established on the principle of mental speculation, especially in Europe, Aristotle, Schopenhauer, Kant. They'

  "There is an English proverb that says, "The face is the index of the mind." If one is angry, his anger is immediately expressed in his face. Similarly, other mental states are reflected by the actions of the gross body. In other words, the activities of the gross body are reactions of the mental condition. The mind's activities are thinking, feeling and willing. The willing portion of the mind is manifest by the activities of the body. The conclusion is that by the activities of the body and senses, we can understand the condition of the mind. The condition of the mind is affected by past activities in the past body. When the mind is joined with a particular sense, it immediately becomes manifest in a certain way. For instance, when there is anger in the mind, the tongue vibrates so many maledictions. Similarly, when the mind's anger is expressed through the hand, there is fighting. When it is expressed through the leg, there is kicking. There are so many ways

  Prabhupāda:  ...Just like the Buddhists. They think God is zero. And others, they think that God has no form. The two classes. The Hindus they think, "Yes, God has no particular form, but He has got many forms. And you can imagine any one of them." That is Śaṅkara, the pañcopāsana. But still, Śaṅkara is very careful. He has given five particular forms. The goddess Durgā, Lord Viṣṇu, Lord Śiva, the sun, then... Therefore there are a section who are the sun worshiper, or fire worshiper. Original Iranians were like that. So that is Vedic culture. There... Vedic culture means there are many demigods, but the original God is accepted-Viṣṇu. And original to Viṣṇu is Kṛṣṇa. Īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1). And Kṛṣṇa also says in the Bhagavad-gītā, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat: (BG 7.7) "There is no more superior form or superior authority than Me." And that is confirmed by Lord Brahmā. Īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ (Bs. 5.1). Īśvaraḥ means controller. There