Pariprashnena — Q&A Archive

it more or leas means that we see the world through our own perspective, or that we judge it using our own standards. to a guy who only has a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

My understanding of the meaning of the words is something like this:

atma - the self, the mind
van - one who possesses
manyate - thinks
jagat - the world

I translate it like this: "I know you are, you said you are, but what am I?" ;-)

Srimad Bhagavatam 5.8.16, purport

"Bharata Maharaja was very noble and exalted, and therefore when the deer was absent from him he thought himself unworthy to give it protection. Due to his attachment for the animal, he thought that the animal was as noble and exalted as he himself was. According to the logic of atmavan manyate jagat, everyone thinks of others according to his own position. Therefore Maharaja Bharata felt that the deer had left him due to his negligence and that due to the animals noble heart, it would again return."

Another example from a Prabhupada lecture.

"There is a story. You will hear it. That one gentleman, he was hard of hearing, hard of hearing. So he is calling his wife Mrs. Such-and-such, Mrs. Such. She is replying, "Yes, I am coming." But he is hard of hearing. He is thinking that my wife is hard of hearing. She is replying, "Yes, I am coming." But this rascal is hard of hearing, so he is thinking my wife, that is my wifes fault, she is hard of hearing. He cannot hear and he is thinking that my wife is hard of hearing. This is the example. A man thinks others like himself."

Prabhupada uses this saying in other places to describe Dr. Frog philosphy and also for people who think Bhagavan Sri Krishna must be an ordinary person and the scriptures imagination. (Gita 9.11).

Great quotes deena....like someone wearing yellow glasses only sees yellow in the world.

I have to say that use of it is vary form positive (often by nastikas) to negative (by Vaishnavas). Prabhupada would almost ALWAYS use it in negative connotation, by denouncing so called interpretations or limitations of imperfect human perception. SB 5.8.16 meaning (I see others against the criteria of my own qualities, which I consider as good qualities.) is also used in Hridayananda and Gopiparanadhana purports on 11th canto: Thus one sees the world just as one sees himself.
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The meaning of it itself is something Prabhupada never agreed with it as being a spiritual principle. He used it as a term for narrow-minded thinking: "Prabhupuc0u257 da: No. Because he is imperfect, he does not know what is truth. The same experience: because he cannot hear, other who is hearing is answering and he cannot hear him, so he thinks that he is dumb, deaf. u256 tmavan manyate jagat. The difficulty is that everyone thinks others on his own standard. If a fool, he thinks others fool. [b]So that is not the fact. We have to take experience from a person whose experience nobody can surpass.[/b]"
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I have noticed Sita pati and others often use it quite differently, positively, nothing wrong with it
:) atmavans, but we also need to know that Prabhupada used it to disagree and used it as an example of illusion, or the basic limitation of humanistic gnoseology.
[quote] That is the mistake of civilization. We think everything in our own standard. u256 tmavat manyate jagat. That is the nature, that u257 tmavat, what he is thinking of himself, therefore, others must be like that. No. Others may be different from you. (March 12, 1970)[/quote]

Considering this aphorism, how much should it be taken that the sins I see and condemn in others are actually in me?

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ccd, It looks like you are saying Srila Prabhupada is disagreeing with the aphorism, but I read the same quote and see that he is disagreeing with the fool. In other words I see Srila Prabhupada as saying (inserting my own words with his): "If a fool, he thinks others fool. So that is not the fact, what the fool thinks. Because he is a fool, he has to take experience from a person whose experience nobody can surpass; otherwise he will remain a fool." In other words, "Everyone (in material consciousness) sees others as having the same deficiencies as himself, just like a fool who is deaf thinks everyone else is deaf. A materially conditioned soul needs a guru, but due to illusion thinks there is neither guru nor God."

Nothing to do with the sins per se, but can be used like that - why not. Maybe I was not clear, not that he disagreed with the uc0u256 tmavan manyate jagat, he just used to show it as foolish, relative and limiting side of the material world.

So when we say as Prabhupada said, '93atmavan manyate jagat'94 - you should know how he used it. Not that as Prabhupada said, '93atmavan manyate jagat'94, therefore all sins you see in other, are your own faults...

Not to be confused with completely different sloka: na cu257 su257 v u7771 u7779 ir yasya matau7745 na bhinnam. "If you want to be a muni or a sage, you must put forward some new theory." I know at lease a few people who used it in this way...

Dear Caitanya Candrodaya prabhu,

Hare Krishna. Apparently I misunderstood what you said, so thank you for the clarification.
Hare Krishna.