Bhagavan: Srila Prabhupada, the word ksetrajna...
Prabhupada: Eh?
Bhagavan: Ksetrajna, the knower of the body.
Hamsaduta: Ksetrajna.
Prabhupada: Ksetrajna.
Bhagavan: Ksetrajna. Is that for one who is differentiating himself from
this body? In other words, a person who has realized that there is field
and there is knower, is he given that title or is the person who cannot
make that distinction, is he also given that title?
Prabhupada: No. Anyone who knows that...That I have explained. That
everyone is sitting on the floor. So everyone knows that he is not floor.
He's different from the floor. Is it very difficult?
Bhagavan: No.
Prabhupada: So this is knower. Similarly by common sense we can
understand that we are not this body.
Yogesvara: It says in the purport: "Now the person who identifies
himself with the body is called ksetrajna, the knower of the field."
Prabhupada: Eh?
Yogesvara: In the purport it says: "The body is called ksetra, or the
field of activity for the conditioned soul, and the person who
identifies himself with the body is called ksetra, ksetrajna, the knower
of the field."
Prabhupada: No, no. It is wrongly written.
Yogesvara: Ah. It's everyone, everyone.
Prabhupada: No, no.
Yogesvara: Not just those people.
Prabhupada: Identifies with the body. He's not ksetrajna.
Yogesvara: He does not know.
Prabhupada: No. It is wrongly written.
Bhagavan: That was no my question. This was my question.
Prabhupada: Ah. Oh, it is wrongly written.
Bhagavan: From the lecture, from lecture, when one can...
Prabhupada: Who does not identify, it should be.
Yogesvara: Who does not identify. Yes.
Prabhupada: Oh, it is wrong.
Bhagavan: That's always questioned in Bhagavad-gita.
Prabhupada: It is not, has been mis-edited. If you identify with body,
how you know it? Oh, it is a very great mistake.
Bhagavan: We can, we can write them, make that correction.
Prabhupada: Yes. Write immediately. One must know that I am not
this body. That is knowledge. That is knower. That is common sense.
I say: "It is my body." I don't say: "I body." That I explained. One who does,
one who knows that, "I am not this body, " he's real knower. And one who
knows that: "I am this body," he does not know. He's in ignorance.
Just like Danielou.
Yogesvara: A Krsna conscious person, he can maintain his position
in family, government, business, anything.
Prabhupada: Why not? All these Pandavas, they were government
men. How they maintained Krsna consciousness? Yudhisthira Maharaja...
They were fighting for political reasons. So they were Krsna conscious,
fully. (break) ...who identifies with this body, he's described as cow or ass.
How he can be knower? It is wrongly edited. The word: "Not" It
was edited by whom? Hayagriva?
Hamsaduta: Hayagriva.
Bhagavan: Jayadvaita.
Prabhupada: Eh? Eh?
Hamsaduta: Hayagriva also...
Bhagavan: Hayagriva and Jayadvaita.
Prabhupada: This should be corrected immediately.
[Srila Prabhupada Room Conversation,
August 11, 1973,Paris]
After reading the above quote the other day, I thought I would
do a little research to see if this very great mistake had been rectified
as Prabhupada ordered. I first checked my little original black pocket Gita,
printed in Taiwan by BBT Philippines. The mistake was corrected,
it now read: "Therefore the body is called ksetra, or the field of activity
for the conditioned soul. Now, the person who does not identify
himself with the body is called ksetra-jna, the knower of the field."
[Srila Prabhupada’s original Bhagavad-gita13.1-2]
I then checked the recently reprinted original Gita, which is available in
hardback with forty-four colour plates and the mistake was present
there. So I concluded that this Gita was printed in 1972 before the
above conversation in Paris 1973. The little black pocket Gita’s are
obviously reprints of original Gita’s printed just after the very great
mistake was rectified, probably in 1973-1975. I then located a
Jayadvaita Gita printed in 2000, and checked the purport from
chapter 13 verses 1-2. Sure enough the very great mistake that
Prabhupada ordered to be rectified was present again! "Therefore the
body is called ksetra, or the field of activity for the conditioned soul.
Now, the person who identifies himself with the body is called ksetra-jna, the
knower of the field." [Jayadvaita’s Gita or Srila Prabhupada’s original
Bhagavad-gita13.1-2, 1972 print before the mistake was changed]