Conversations and Morning Walks1968 Conversations and Morning WalksMorning Walk -- March 27, 1968, San Francisco: Devotee (2): What is the difference between an expansion and an incarnation? Prabhupāda: Huh? Devotee (2): What is the difference between an expansion and an incarnation? Prabhupāda: Expansion is direct, and incarnation is indirect. When expansion of expansion is accepted, that is called kalā, incarnation, avatāra, kalā. So Advaita is not direct. The example is given in Brahma-saṁhitā, just like you get one candle kindled from the first candle, another from the second, another from the third. So similarly, either expansion or incarnation, they are all candles. The original candle is Kṛṣṇa. It is not that expansion of expansion is less powerful. The candle power is the same either origin or expansion or expansion of the expansion. It is not that Nityānanda is less powerful than Caitanya, or Advaita is less powerful than . . . no. Any incarnation or expansion has the same potency, Viṣṇu-tattva. The manifestation of potency is different. Just like Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and Lord Rāma is also the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But one is original. Kṛṣṇa is original, and Rāma is an expansion. Why? Because Kṛṣṇa exhibited the qualities of God fully; Rāma exhibited qualities of God partially. Take, for example, Rāma was manifesting Himself as an ideal king. He was not manifesting Himself as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore as ideal king He was limiting Himself with the moral principles of this world. And Kṛṣṇa, being the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He exhibited that He's above any principle of the material world. He's free to act any way He likes. Otherwise what is the meaning . . . means full-fledged manifestation of God. Lord Rāma, He married only one, Sītā. And when Sītā was kidnapped by Rāvaṇa, He never married again. Or when Sītā was sent to the forest for public opinion, He never married again. He remained a sticked to . . . stuck to only one wife, because He was setting example, moral principle, to the world. Kṛṣṇa married 16,108. Not religious. Religious, He married only eight wife. But these 16,100 girls were kidnapped by one demon, and they were concentrated in a camp. So they prayed to Kṛṣṇa to save them. Kṛṣṇa is kind to everyone. So Kṛṣṇa came to their rescue, and He killed that demon. He rescued all the girls. But the girls requested Kṛṣṇa that, "Because we were kidnapped and we are concentrated under his custody, so if we go back to our father, it will be difficult for him to get us married to a suitable prince. So our request is that You marry us." Kṛṣṇa agreed, "All right." He married wholesale, 16,100. And that can be possible. Why 16,100? He can marry 16,000,000 at a time. Otherwise how He's God? Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja advises his class fellows that "Don't be bothering yourself for solution of economic question. That is already provided." Just like all these animals, these birds, they have no question how to live, how to eat, how to mate, how to defend. This is already there. They're eating, they're sleeping, they're mating and they're defending as far as required. Just see the birds, as soon as they see us they . . . (indistinct) . . . so the defending propensity is there. How you can say the man is greater intelligence? There is intelligence. They were here, and as soon as they saw, "Here are come all the men. They can eat us. Let us fly there." The man cannot come to . . . (indistinct) . . . so don't you see the defensive propensity is here? You may, according to your intelligence, you may discover defensive weapons, nuclear weapons, and aeroplanes and bombs, and so many things, because they have got higher intelligence. That the . . . but the ultimate conclusion: that the defensive propensity is there in you also. There is no difference in the material existentional propensities.
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