![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/-v_2dWupKRlU\/Vbn7CCu65EI\/AAAAAAAARms\/X6kh7CVE4L8\/s0\/2015-07-30_12-22-51.jpg\")
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By Kesava Krsna dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n I am sure many of us have encountered someone who may have doubted the efficacy of their duty, or were unsure of the completion of a task, to which we, with an air of authority say \u201cImpossible is a word found in a fool\u2019s dictionary.\u201d This saying amongst others form parts of devotee speak as we mimic Srila Prabhupada\u2019s words.<\/p>\n It was discovered some years ago that the most common word used by devotees is; so. So is so prevalent and almost infectious that we all know of a so and so prabhu who intersperses his spoken word with so\u2019s. <\/p>\n So what of the origin of the \u2018impossible\u2019 saying? Firstly, we have to be aware that not only was Srila Prabhupada a scholar, his general knowledge was exceptional too. Once when a group of disciples expressed amazement at his grasp of knowledge, he jokingly replied that he had a \u201cPhD in trivia.\u201d He was well read and conversant with much of world history. Srila Prabhupada often mentioned the names of various world historical leaders who began empires and then lost them, or of the futility of their efforts.<\/p>\n One such figure is Napoleon Bonaparte who built an impressive empire. When it came time for his army to head north and eastward into what is now Russia during the middle of the winter, the bitterly cold snowy weather decimated the soldiers. When some of the field commanders protested Napoleon\u2019s ruthless push, he is known to have responded by saying \u201cImpossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.\u201d So, did Srila Prabhupada pick his saying from him?<\/p>\n If someone is now surprised to hear of this, thinking it to be an original maxim, does this take the sheen off, so to speak? Certainly not! Given the many limitations which are imposed upon us mortals, this saying was said by an overly optimistic war leader bent on defeating impossibilities. In the realm of devotion however, Srila Prabhupada himself did what was ordinarily impossible, and his use of the saying has its proper place.<\/p>\n Another axiom of Srila Prabhupada was that \u201cin the beginning, people will laugh at us\u201d devotees. \u201cThen they will hate us, and then love us.\u201d If we compare this with Gandhi\u2019s \u201cFirst they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.\u201d Srila Prabhupada as Abhay Charan was once a follower of Gandhi and would have familiarized himself with his words and deeds.<\/p>\n Another wise aphorism attributable to Gandhi is when after seeing his fellow countrymen try to imitate western ways; he is on record as saying \u201cit is more difficult to wake up a person pretending to sleep, than it is to wake up a person genuinely asleep.\u2019 These words by the way, as with other sayings, may differ slightly when repeated at other times. The same applies to Srila Prabhupada words, and he did use the above saying.<\/p>\n I am sure there are other maxims used which are more commonly known, such as \u201cCaesar\u2019s wife must be above suspicion.\u2019 And so on. <\/p>\n What is astonishing is Srila Prabhupada\u2019s loyalty not just to spiritual authority, but everything he said or did seemed to have some basis in greatness somewhere, which may not make him very original. But that quality itself is so rare as to make him uniquely original.<\/p>\n Ys, Kesava Krsna dasa<\/p>\n[kqf=9]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am sure many of us have encountered someone who may have doubted the efficacy of their duty, or were unsure of the completion of a task, to which we, with an air of authority say \u201cImpossible is a word found in a fool\u2019s dictionary.\u201d This saying amongst others form parts of devotee speak as we mimic Srila Prabhupada\u2019s words. It was discovered some years ago that the most common word used by devotees is; so. So is so prevalent and almost infectious that we all know of a so and so prabhu who intersperses his spoken word with so\u2019s. So what of the origin of the \u2018impossible\u2019 saying? Firstly, we have to be aware that not only was Srila Prabhupada a scholar, his general knowledge was exceptional too. Once when a group of disciples expressed amazement at his grasp of knowledge, he jokingly replied that he had a \u201cPhD in trivia.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-kesava-krsna-dasa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2862"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18715,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions\/18715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hare](\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/-6H83uQDPJWE\/Vbn7LVIHncI\/AAAAAAAARm0\/1T-wMT61sRs\/s0\/2015-07-30_12-23-40.jpg\")
By Kesava Krsna dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n