Read the books

Prajāpati: ...foolish play tennis, and the lazy foolish they play golf. (Prabhupāda laughs) [break]

Prabhupāda: ...less dangerous than the active foolish. (devotees chant japa) [break]

Prajāpati: In the Bhagavad-gītā it is indicated by Śrī Kṛṣṇa that when we approach a bona fide spiritual master our relationship is twofold. We render service and then we also make inquiry.

Prabhupāda: Yeah.

Prajāpati: Now, you have answered all our inquiries so thoroughly in our books that to make inquiry at this point seems like..., you've already answered all the questions. So how may we... What is the proper relationship at that point to make inquiry?

Devotee (4): Read the books.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Read the books, yes. Why I'm working so hard? Read the books.

 Morning Walk -- January 5, 1974, Los Angeles

"If your surrender is cent percent, then Kṛṣṇa is realized cent percent"

Guest (1): After all, the views, you see. Everybody is right in his own views. You see. You cannot challenge... After all, the views are given by the God. The jñāna-śakti's from God, from the Almighty, and not your self. [break]

Prabhupāda: ...if you are right, Kṛṣṇa said, sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭaḥ.

Guest (1): Ah, mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca [Bg. 15.15].
Prabhupāda: So why, why Kṛṣṇa gives you less knowledge and other's more knowledge? Why?

Guest (1): Because...

Prabhupāda: Is Kṛṣṇa partial?

Guest (1): No. As long as you're more conscious, then He gives you more knowledge.

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. Conscious is not. Because ye yathā māṁ prapadyante [Bg. 4.11]. Because the surrender is not full, therefore he's also not fully realized.

Guest (1): He's not fully... Correct.

Prabhupāda: That is the point.

Guest (1): That's correct.

Prabhupāda: Ye yathā mām... That very word, prapadyante. Ye yathā māṁ prapadyante. So if your surrender is twenty-five percent, then Kṛṣṇa is realized twenty-five percent. If your surrender is cent percent, then Kṛṣṇa is realized cent percent.

Morning Walk -- March 25, 1974, Bombay

Pure devotees of the Lord can render any place into a place of pilgrimage

"So by their actions the pure devotees of the Lord can render any place into a place of pilgrimage, and the holy places are worth the name only on their account. Such pure devotees are able to rectify the polluted atmosphere of any place, and what to speak of a holy place rendered unholy by the questionable actions of interested persons who try to adopt a professional life at the cost of the reputation of a holy place."

Srimad Bhagavatam 1.13.10

"The Lord is equal to every living entity"

"The Lord is equal to every living entity, just like the flowing Ganges. The Ganges water is meant for the purification of everyone, yet the trees on the banks of the Ganges have different values. A mango tree on the bank of the Ganges drinks the water, and the nimba tree also drinks the same water. But the fruits of both trees are different. One is celestially sweet, and the other is hellishly bitter. The condemned bitterness of the nimba is due to its own past work, just as the sweetness of the mango is also due to its own karma." 

Srimad Bhagavatam 3.5.39

Old wine in a new bottle

Nothing is modernized. You can say, "modernized," but the principle is the same, old system. Nobody can change. And people are dying also. Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi [Bg. 13.9]. That is also the old system. Everyone is taking birth, everyone is growing, everyone is falling diseased, and everyone is dying. Can the modern system stop this? The modern system can say, "Now you do not require to eat, you do not require to sleep," or "You do not require to have sex,"or "You do not require to defend?" No. The same system. "The old wine in a new bottle."

Similarly, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi, five thousand years before, Kṛṣṇa said... This is real problem: janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam. "The same problem is still going on. So it is useless to say that modern time, modern ways, modern things. There is nothing modern. The old thing is going on. So if we follow systematically the previous ācāryas, previous system, as Kṛṣṇa is advising... Kṛṣṇa does not advise, "Modern." Five thousand years ago He instructed Bhagavad-gītā. Still, He was saying pūrva pūrvataraiḥ, pūrvatamaiḥ. Evaṁ paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ [Bg. 4.2]. This is intelligence. We have to accept the real truth and follow it. It does not mean modern age or previous age, past age. That is not Vedic system.

 Bhagavad-gītā 4.15 -- Bombay, April 4, 1974

Prasāda of Lord Viṣṇu

"If one is habituated to taking the prasāda of Lord Viṣṇu,
there is no chance of his becoming a ghost or anything lower than a human being." Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.18.18

Bhāgavatam's conclusion is that a devotee is never disturbed

"When something is arranged by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one should not be disturbed by it, even if it appears to be a reverse according to one's calculations. For example, sometimes we see that a powerful preacher is killed, or sometimes he is put into difficulty, just as Haridāsa Ṭhākura was. He was a great devotee who came into this material world to execute the will of the Lord by preaching the Lord's glories. But Haridāsa was punished at the hands of the Kazi by being beaten in twenty-two marketplaces. Similarly, Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, and Prahlāda Mahārāja was put through so many tribulations. The Pāṇḍavas, who were direct friends of Kṛṣṇa, lost their kingdom, their wife was insulted, and they had to undergo many severe tribulations. Seeing all these reverses affect devotees, one should not be disturbed; one should simply understand that in these matters there must be some plan of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Bhāgavatam's conclusion is that a devotee is never disturbed by such reverses. He accepts even reverse conditions as the grace of the Lord. One who continues to serve the Lord even in reverse conditions is assured that he will go back to Godhead, back to the Vaikuṇṭha planets."

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.16.37, Purport