Allen Ginsberg: Beautiful. You are very industrious. It's marvelous. (chuckles)
Prabhupāda: Next book is coming, Nectar of Devotion.
Allen Ginsberg: What will that be? Your own writings?
Prabhupāda: No, it is the authorized translation of Rūpa Gosvāmī's book, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu.
Allen Ginsberg: Whose . . .?
Prabhupāda: Rūpa Gosvāmī, Lord Caitanya's principal disciple.
Allen Ginsberg: Uh-uh.
Prabhupāda: Rūpa Gosvāmī. There are six Gosvāmīs, direct disciples of Lord Caitanya. Er, not . . . six Gosvāmīs and three other confidential.
Allen Ginsberg: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: So, our . . . amongst the six Gosvāmīs, Rūpa Gosvāmī is the principal.
Allen Ginsberg: Rūpa Gos . . .
Prabhupāda: Rūpa Gosvāmī. He was finance minister in this government of Nawab Hussain Shah in Bengal. But when Lord Caitanya started His movement, he was captivated and he resigned his service, government service, and joined Him. And he wrote immense literature, Gosvāmīs. And that just I was talking that Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura, he says,
- rūpa-raghunātha-pade haibe ākuti
- kabe hāma bujhaba (se) yugala-pīriti
- (Prārthanā 1.3–4)
The conjugal love of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, one can understand when they go through the literatures presented by these Gosvāmīs.
So his first book is Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, the ocean of . . . Nectar of Devotion. That is very authorized book. Quotation from various Vedic literature about Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and the different stages of relationship with Kṛṣṇa: śānta-rasa, dāsya-rasa,
(break) admiration, "God is great." This is also one stage, appreciating the greatness of God. Then further development, dāsya-rasa, willing to serve. "Oh! God is so great, and I must serve." Because every one of us serving somebody. So why not serve the Supreme?
Nobody is free from service, because we are constitutionally servant. Either we become servant of the great or māyā. Just like in any condition of our life, we have to abide by the laws of the state. If he says that "We don't abide," then come to prison house. You will be forced. Similarly, māyā and Kṛṣṇa. If we don't abide by Kṛṣṇa, then come to māyā. He cannot be free. That is not our position. Freedom is frustration.
Allen Ginsberg: Do you remember a man named Richard Alpert?
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Allen Ginsberg: Do you remember of a man named Richard Alpert? He used to work with Timothy Leary . . .
Prabhupāda: Ah.
Allen Ginsberg: . . . in Harvard many years ago. And then he went to India and found a teacher, and is now a disciple of Hanumānjī, or a devotee of Hanumān. And he said that . . . when we were talking about māyā and the present condition of America . . .
Prabhupāda: Have some fruits?
Allen Ginsberg: In a while. Well, we can talk as . . .
Prabhupāda: Ācchā.
Allen Ginsberg: Bite your food. I have that question I wanted to ask. Are you tired?
Prabhupāda: No, no. I can talk with you whole night. (laughs)
Allen Ginsberg: So he said that his teacher in India told him that LSD was a Christ of the Kali-yuga for Westerners.
Prabhupāda: Christ?
Allen Ginsberg: . . . of the Kali-yuga for Westerners, in that, as the Kali-yuga got more intense, as attachment got thicker and thicker, that also salvation would have to be easier and easier, and that . . .
Prabhupāda: (aside) Eke chenen, eni hochhen Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg: Namaste. (to Indian lady)
Prabhupāda: She is a Bengali lady recently come from London.
Allen Ginsberg: Ah!
Prabhupāda: Rekha. (Bengali)
Indian lady: London theke eschhen
Prabhupāda: Na uni ei New York a thaken.
Allen Ginsberg: So, as the Kali-yuga became more intense and as attachment became deeper and more confusing . . .
Prabhupāda: Attachment for?
Allen Ginsberg: . . . that salvation would also have to become easier and easier in the Kali-yuga.
Prabhupāda: That is very nice statement that in the Kali-yuga salvation is very easier. That is the version of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also. But that process is this kīrtana, not LSD.
Allen Ginsberg: Well, it was . . . the reasoning there was that for those who would only accept salvation in purely material form, in chemical form finally, and completely material form . . .
Prabhupāda: Hmm. So where is the salvation when there is . . .
Allen Ginsberg: . . . that Kṛṣṇa had the humor to emerge as a pill.
Prabhupāda: No, the thing is that when it is material form . . .
Allen Ginsberg: Yes?
Prabhupāda: . . . then where it is salvation? It is illusion.
Allen Ginsberg: Well, the subjective effect is to cut . . .
Prabhupāda: No.
Allen Ginsberg: . . . attachment during the . . .
Prabhupāda: Well, if you have got attachments for something material, then where is the cut-off of attachment? LSD is a material chemical.
Allen Ginsberg: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: So if you have to take shelter of LSD, then you take, I mean to say, help from the matters. So that is . . . how you can . . . how you are free from matter?
Allen Ginsberg: Well, the subjective experience is, while in the state of intoxication of LSD, also realizing that LSD is a material pill, and that it does not really matter . . .
Prabhupāda: So that is risky. That is risky.
Allen Ginsberg: Yeah. Now so, if LSD is a material attachment, which it is, I think, then is not the sound, śabda, also a material attachment?
Prabhupāda: No, śabda is spiritual. Originally, just like in Bible there is "Let there be creation," this sound, this spiritual sound. Creation. Creation was not there. The sound produced the creation. Therefore, sound is originally spiritual, and through the sound . . . sound—from sound, sky develops; from sky, air develop; from air, fire develop; fire, water develop; from water, land develop.
Allen Ginsberg: Sound is the first element of creation?
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
Allen Ginsberg: What was the first sound, traditionally?
Prabhupāda: Vedic states oṁ. Yes. So at least we can understand, from your Bible, that God said: "Let there be creation." So this is sound, and there is creation. God and His sound is nondifferent, absolute. I say "Mr. Ginsberg," this sound and I, a little difference. But God is nondifferent from His energy.
Nitya . . . what is called? Śakti śaktimator abhedhaḥ. Śakti, energy, and śakti-mat, the energetic, they are nondifferent. Just like fire and heat, they are nondifferent, but heat is not fire. You cannot differentiate heat from fire or fire from heat. But fire is not heat.