Prabhupāda: So if you are not this body, how he is your son? In this way you go on. As soon as you study nicely that you are not this body, you will find that you belong to none of these. You are free. You see? This is called Brahman realization, spiritual realization, this stage, when you understand that "I am not this body. I do not belong to this country. I do not belong to this family. I do not belong to this society." This is negative. Some philosophers are trying to make these things void. But actually I am existing. I am existing in misunderstanding. But that does not mean I am not existing. I am not void. Just like I am existing within this apartment. But instead of knowing myself, I have identified this apartment: "myself." So to simply to understand that "I am not this apartment" is not perfect knowledge.
Apartment (Conversations)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: That is... Viṣayaḥ khalu sarvataḥ syāt. Viṣaya means this sense gratificatory business, you will have in any life. In bird's life, in dog's life, in cat's life. So do you think that human life is also meant for that purpose? Then what is the meaning of civilization? Is that civilization? If the end of life is the same, just like cats and dogs, is it civilization? They do not know what is civilization. They have forgotten. They think that eating very nicely in a palatable dish, that is civilization. But eating is eating. And if you eat... If you are hungry, anything satisfies you. That is eating. Finish. You can eat. Sleeping. When you are fast asleep, you do not know whether you are on the nice building in a nice apartment.
Interviewer: What do you offer to Kṛṣṇa? That is, do you offer money in the sense of an offering in a Christian church or do you burn anything, for example, incense or could you explain this?
Prabhupāda: Yes. The flowers, incense, and fruits, the same thing. I have already explained that whatever He has described in the Bhagavad-gītā. Kṛṣṇa says that "Anyone offering Me these things in devotion..." So we follow the same principle. So it is very nice thing. If the students follow, they can follow it individually. Even in his own apartment he can keep a picture of Kṛṣṇa and offer a lamp, a candle, and one, I mean to say, incense. He will feel tremendously spiritually advanced. And if he reads these books, his life will be changed completely. That is a fact. (break) And two boys, Kṛṣṇānanda and one German boy, is going there very soon. So, of course, we do not expect to sell English books in Germany very much, but maybe... (end)
Room Conversation about Marriage -- September 24, 1968, Seattle
Prabhupāda: On the corner?
Janārdana: It's on a corner. It's on the corner of Esplanade and the other street. I don't remember. I can go on my bicycle and take a look there.
Prabhupāda: That's a very big building?
Janārdana: It is a three story house. It is about the size of one of these houses here, not the apartment houses but...
Prabhupāda: (break) Because in the winter season they don't get tenants?
Janārdana: Well, a few will get easily tenants, but he wants to get a tenant for the whole winter. And September is a month when there is the best chance for getting a tenant because that's when all the student population comes back into town and this is a student district. And so in the month of September he would like to either get a tenant for the whole year or leave the place open. But maybe I can persuade him because it is not very easy to find a suitable apartment for only one month in Montreal.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...pare dhana parke diye nija labha cora: "I borrowed something from you, and I lend him. He does not pay me, and I become thief."
Janārdana: Yes.
Prabhupāda: They will collect those paddies only. Just like birds, they collect. They collect those paddies, and that they will eat, not even beg, ask anybody for any morsel of food. So completely... And in the Bhāgavata, Śukadeva Gosvāmī recommends that "Oh, this open field is your bed, this is your pillow, this is your pot, and the water in river is sufficient water, the tree is full of fruits, and in the cave, there is sufficient apartment. So why should you go, anyone, to ask for your shelter, for your food?" Kasmād bhajanti kavayor dhana-durmadandhān: "Why should you approach the materialistic, puffed-up, monied men to give you some help?" So Śukadeva Gosvāmī was strictly following this, strictly following, completely independent. That is not possible at the present day. (chuckles) If we imitate, that will be not good.
Prabhupāda: What is this? Oh. For taking?
Viṣṇujana: Would you like a plate, Swamiji?
Prabhupāda: No, no. A sannyāsī should always take in his hand. That is the system. Not in a plate. That means if you take in a plate, you'll take much. (laughter) So in hand, he cannot take much. Kara-pātrī. That is the instruction. But in this age such strict laws cannot be followed. The Bhāgavata says that when there is flat grass cushion, why should you ask for bedding? When you have got natural pillow, this hand, why you ask for a pillow? Then when there is river, so much water, why do you stock water? When there are fruits in the tree, why do you go and beg? When there is cave, why you are searching after apartment? (laughs) When the old garments are thrown in the street, then why you are searching after clothing? These are the instructions. Completely free. Kasmād bhajanti kavayo dhana-durmadandhān (SB 2.2.5). Why should you go and flatter these monied men? That is complete independence. But those days are now gone. (laughs) It is a different age. Los Angeles, I think it is a good place. Hm? What is your...? Your problem solved?
Prabhupāda: Somebody must remain always. That is the only precaution.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: O.K. Yes, that's what I was thinking.
Prabhupāda: I think in our apartment also somebody must remain. Here this is... In New York also I lost my typewriter, tape recorder. In 72nd St. at daytime, at nine o'clock. I went to take my meals in Dr. Miṣra's place at about nine, and when I came back I saw the door is broken. That superintendent, he was a Negro. He has done, I know that. This is very common case here. You purchased new machine and new...?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The tape recorder... I mean the sewing machine was Śīlavatī's. She has sent it down here with Dinesh. Two or three hours before I had just gotten it.
Journalist: Let me ask you... I have my opinion, but I want to ask you. Why do you feel that the younger people today are turning more and more toward the eastern-oriented religions?
Prabhupāda: Because you have failed to give them satisfaction.
Journalist: You what?
Prabhupāda: You have failed to give them satisfaction. Your this materialistic way of life will no more satisfy them. There is a stage, in the beginning, when one is poverty-stricken, he may think that "Money and woman and good apartment, good car, can give me satisfaction." They are after this. But after enjoyment, they see "Oh, there is no satisfaction." Because matter cannot satisfy you. So your stage is, in America especially, you have got enough for enjoyment. You have got enough food, you have got enough woman, you have got enough wine, you have got enough house—everything enough. This shows that material advancement cannot give one satisfaction.
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Student (7): Tell me. You said (inaudible)... that I am the soul that enters the body... (inaudible)
Prabhupāda: Yes. I change my body. Just like if I change this apartment, does it mean I shall stop speaking? Similarly, if I change this apartment of body, does it mean that I shall stop speaking? That's right. (laughter) All right. Let us now chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. (The recording of the recording ends here-tape is turned off)
Prabhupāda: There is chanting? All right. There is chanting recorded?
Devotee: No.
Prabhupāda: Just see. (end)
Prabhupāda: No, sometimes the, some children disturb. They broke...
Miss Rose: No. Oh, I know they broke the windows. I know that. You know, Swamiji, it's very hard to find apartments, and, Swamiji, they're very expensive. $125, $135, $145 dollars a month, the apartments are. See. Yeah. And they're very, very hard to find. And sometimes I want to get out of there myself. Because, I mean, there is so many... It's really turning out to be kind of a bad, a lot of children there.
Prabhupāda: Let us see. As Kṛṣṇa desires. Begin kīrtana. Chant. (end)
Prabhupāda: There is no illumination," or "There is no clear sky," that is insanity. Because I cannot see-under certain circumstances, I deny it—that is my insanity. Therefore you have to approach to a man who knows that there is sunlight, there is sun, there is clear sky... If you go there... You require all this education, knowledge. By knowledge one transcends māyā, or material existence. What is the difference between ordinary man and Kṛṣṇa conscious man? They are also living in this world, in this apartment. Everything is being utilized like others. We are also eating, sleeping also. But what is the difference? Our difference—that we accept that everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa; others do not. That's all. That is māyā. Everything actually belongs to Kṛṣṇa. He does not know. He thinks, "It belongs to me," or "This, my nation, this, my country, this, that," so many things. He is manufacturing. And we know the simple truth, that everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa. So let everything be offered to Kṛṣṇa. That's all. Yes.
Guest (1): They might say it's a rotation. They just have to do it.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest (1): Do some work.
Prabhupāda: But do you like to do that? Suppose you are making very nice arrangement in this apartment to live. And again, after, say, one hour you are asked, "Now quit this place." So are you not disgusted?
Guest (1): Yes, I am interested
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Pradyumna: They would say that you are in your position and they are in their position just by chance, just like...
Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. This is sheer nonsense. There is nothing by chance. What is that chance? By chance one is becoming millionaire, and a chance, one is becoming cockroaches. What is that chance? Explain that chance. It is evasive. It is most foolish reply, "Chance." We have got this nice apartment. Is it by chance?
Pradyumna: No.
Sudāmā: But even where does... In my mind, if I hear the word chance, where does chance, how does chance come about, if there is such a thing?
Prabhupāda: No. The rascal says that I am trying in so many ways; one of them by chance becomes... But I am not working in so many ways. We had a plan, to come here, to preach. So according to that plan, we arranged with this man, and it is not chance. It is all prearranged. Where is that I am trying this way or that way? We are going to preach. There is a plan. So our men go before my reaching there and they make nice arrangement, nice apartment. Then they receive me. These are not chances. This is all prearranged plan.
Bhūrijana: They say that... But they don't acknowledge the pl
Pradyumna: Mandara-kuṇḍa.
Prabhupāda: So was this material advancement less than this? And this is description of five thousand years ago. So here in Tokyo Kobe, in Japan there is so much industrials. We find the common man, 99% they are living on matchboxes. That's all. How many men are living in this nice apartment? The common man is living in matchbox. So this is not material advancement. A few people exploiting them in their factory. They are working and they are living in this nice building. But the common man is living in matchbox houses. We traveled these three hundred miles, or four hundred miles. We saw simply 99% matchboxes. What do you think, Bhānu? Is it not?
Bhānu: Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Sudāmā: As their father supplies them with money and motor car.
Pradyumna: He built this house, and this house had a very nice view over the whole place. But another man built another building here. And now the view is... Right next to, he built this building. That's why this apartment is vacant.
Śyāmasundara: No one will live here. The apartments are vacant.
Sudāmā: He's losing money.
Bhūrijana: So the hippies have this sense gratification and all the people who are working so hard, they are envious of them, and they use that for their advertising.
Prabhupāda: We say in our śāstras that this sense gratification facility is there to the hogs and dogs, better sense gratification. If you have to enjoy sex life, you'll have to find out some room. Either you go to a hotel or have your own apartment, otherwise you cannot have sex life on the street, although you are too much lusty. But you have to arrange for it. But the dogs and hogs, they have no such restriction. Immediately "Come on. Let us enjoy." So they are better, in better position for sense gratification.
Sudāmā: So better to become and hog and dog.
Śyāmasundara: So because they want better and better sex life, they have to compete and get better and better apartments. Because the nice girls will not go to the shabby apartments. They will only go to a nice apartments.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Night girls.
Śyāmasundara: Nice girls, nicer, more beautiful girls will only go to the most beautiful apartment. So there is competition.
Sudāmā: Everyone is competing. Now the girls, they want handsome man, so man is trying to get his face fixed and buy new clothes.
Prabhupāda: Trying to keep himself young.
Śyāmasundara: It seems like that it's the nature of all living entities to be mad after something.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Love. That I explained—love. We have got our love in store. But instead of loving Kṛṣṇa, we have distributed the love in so many ways, and frustrated. Love is there in store. That is reserved for Kṛṣṇa. And we are trying to love Kṛṣṇa, that I explained. Why I am loving this body and this apartment? Ultimately he goes to Kṛṣṇa. But that you do not know. You are actually trying to love Kṛṣṇa. But because nobody is giving him Kṛṣṇa, he's crying.
Śyāmasundara: That was the name of Allen Ginsberg's first book, Howl.
Devotee (1): Yes.
Prabhupāda: Neither you can do so. You must have an apartment. Maybe less costly apartment, but because you are a human being you must have an apartment. So how you can go to the nature? Even the ṛṣis used to live in the jungle, they had a cottage, not like animals. They had hermitage cottage to live. Just like Rūpa Goswāmī's picture. You have seen?
Devotee (1): Yes.
Prabhupāda: You get another body.
Bhakti-devī dāsī: Immediately?
Prabhupāda: Yes. After your, just like you change your apartment, you fix up your apartment first, then you leave this and go there.
Bhakti-devī dāsī: But we won't, we won't know it.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Bhakti-devī dāsī: We wouldn't know it.
Prabhupāda: Otherwise I would have asked you to live with us and work.
Devotee: We're trying to get another place with bigger facilities. Now they're sleeping in the hallways practically.
Prabhupāda: You have got your own apartment?
Ian Polsen: I've just transferred down from Edinburgh on Friday for the first time. So I have not found a place yet. I'm staying in a hotel for the time being.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Prabhupāda: So I left Vṛndāvana in 1970 and went to New York. Uh, not. 1965. At the age of 70 years. But for one year I had no place to live. I took some of my books, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, printed here, up to three parts, First Canto. And I was personally selling these books to the book sellers and to the persons any way. With great difficulty I was pulling on. And New York is a very expensive city, a great city, a great forest. (laughs) And I am poor man. So then it is a long history. Then I began chanting in the Tompkinson Square, and I think, in the first day this boy, Acyutānanda Mahārāja now, he and another boy, Brahmānanda Mahārāja, he is also preaching in Africa, these two boys danced, and this photograph was published in the New York Times with great details. That was the first encouragement. And after chanting in the park, many young men and girls used to come to my apartment and my meeting place. In this way I started, first in New York, then in San Francisco, then Montreal, then Boston. In this way, now we have got about one hundred branches all over the world, forty branches in America. Big, big cities, Australia, I mean to say, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Boston. What is that? Other cities? San Francisco.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Guest (1): (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: That is another thing. First thing is, why you are working? What is the purpose of working? If the purpose of working is to work hard and then die, finished, then where is the difference between the animals and the men? They are also working. They are dying, too. Cats, dogs, hogs. Then after some time they die without knowing the purpose of life. Then where is the difference between cats, dogs, hogs and (indistinct) human beings. This question does not arise in the modern civilization. And one is thinking, "Yes, it is the same." But they're lying on the street, we're lying on a very nice apartment, bedstead. This is our profit.
Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda, it will take about a half hour to get the puffed rice.
Prabhupāda: We have got temple there.
Guest (1): Edinburgh.
Prabhupāda: What is the address, Edinburgh?
Devotee: Scotland. The address is here, Flat No. 6, 11 Greenhill Place, Scotland, Edinburgh.
Guest (1): But only one year, I'll be. I'll go back to Tokyo. I have my house, Tokyo. At about 1980. Still I have my house, my mother (indistinct) small house there (indistinct) 1980, I go back.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: jīva-jātiṣu.
Prabhupāda: Jīva-jātiṣu. Jīva-jātiṣu. That means the evolution means from one form to another. The forms are already... Jātiṣu. Their facilities, they are already there. The living entity is simply transferring himself. The same example: One man is transferring himself from one apartment to another. That apartment is first-class, second-class, third-class. Just a person has come from a lower class apartment to a first-class apartment. The person is the same. Now, according to his karma or according to his capacity of payment, he has got a good apartment. This is... Bhramadbhiḥ. Bhramat means wandering, wandering. Not that they... Evolution means developing. Is it not?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. I understand that part, but I also come across from Śrīla Prabhupāda's commentary on the Bhagavad-gītā that the living entities, all the living entities, 8,400,000 species, they are simultaneously created.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So the evolution of life... Those who are coming to the lowest living entity, the organisms, smaller units, so once they come to that stage, then they have to pass through the stages stepwise.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just the same example: As you get more money, you can acquire better apartment. The apartment is already there. Not that a apart..., this lower class apartment has become high class apartment. This is their nonsense. The Darwin nonsense theory is like that: "The apartment has become lower class to higher class." That is his theory.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, he is saying that evolving from the smaller units. So they are claiming that there was no human beings at the beginning, so the smaller living entities...
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So this applies only to those living entities who are born...
Prabhupāda: They are advanced in consciousness. They are advanced in consciousness. Suppose you are advanced in consciousness. So you are not going to get the dog's body or cat's body. You get another human body. Yoga-bhraṣṭo 'bhijāyate. Yoga-bhraṣṭaḥ is not ordinary man. He is practicing yoga, but somehow or another could not fulfill. Therefore he gets again human body. He does not get the cat's body, dog's body. So he directly comes to the human body. There is no question of evolution. Same example. The apartments are already there. If you can pay more, "Come on, this apartment is ready for you." Not that you have to come from the lower platform, lower animal apartments. Daiva-netreṇa. The judgement will be done by the higher authorities. They do not know that.
Karandhara: Prabhupāda, we should start going back.
Devotee: This material nature is just one energy of Kṛṣṇa acting in a certain way?
Prabhupāda: Why shall I say...? Kṛṣṇa has created so many nice things for His enjoyment, why shall I say, "mithyā." Suppose if you create nice house, very good apartment and you call me, "Just see." And if I say, "It is all mithyā."
Paramahaṁsa: That's also an offense. Because I can't enjoy it.
Prabhupāda: (laughing) Then how much depressed you'll be. Let's say I brought this friend and this rascal is saying, "This is mithyā."
Karandhara: Sour grapes.
Śyāmasundara: So if God is a person with eyes, legs, He stays in one place?
Prabhupāda: Again, the same... You are comparing with yourself. Because your person can stay in one place only. That means you are simply comparing the Personality of Godhead with your personality. That you have to forget. He, He stays everywhere. Goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūtaḥ (Bs. 5.37). Therefore we have to consult the authoritative Vedic literature. This answer is there, that goloka eva nivasaty, "He is living in Goloka Vṛndāvana; still, He is everywhere." You cannot think of. You are in this apartment. You are not in your office. But Kṛṣṇa, although He's in Goloka Vṛndāvana, He's everywhere, in everyone's heart. He's seeing everything. That you cannot imagine, how it is possible. That means you want to compare with your, this foolish, imperfect personality with God's personality. That is our defect.
Prabhupāda: Oh. So whenever you find time, you can come, or, if you like, you can live with us. We have got ample place. Girls and ladies, they live separately. Boys and gentlemen, they live separately. Those who are married, we have got apartments for householders. And gradually, we are improving, I mean to say, arranging further facilities. First of all you try to attend our class in the morning and inquire all about your doubts. Have some clear idea what is this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Read our literatures as far as possible. You have taken some book, I see, I saw. And if you agree to this principle, we take charge of you. You haven't got any botheration, how you'll get prasāda. We shall arrange for that...
Prabhupāda: (Hindi for some time, a few English words) (break) (Hindi for some time) (break) When the destiny of the people are to be controlled, there must be very, very intelligent man. That is Vedic civilization. There is standard aims and objects on which the people should be trained up. That is varṇāśrama-dharma. Viṣṇur ārādhanam. Worshiping Viṣṇu. This is the ultimate aim. So the whole society is divided into brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra, and brahmacārī, gṛhastha, vānaprastha, sannyāsa—departmental—and they are trained up. But the aim is viṣṇur ārādhanam. But they have no idea at the present moment. Viṣṇur ārādhanam, he has no knowledge. But the civilization begins on this point. Human being means he's meant for viṣṇur ārādhanam. Otherwise what is the difference between dogs and human beings? The western people, they do not know. They simply think that dog lies down on the floor, on the road... "We have got nice, best apartment. Therefore we are civilized." So that is their defect.
David Lawrence: Yes, yes.
Prabhupāda: Now, this spirit is eternal. That is the first understanding. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). This spirit is occupying a material body at the present moment. And the next, when this... Just like I am in this apartment. If I find some inconvenience, I go to another apartment. Or the lease is expired, I have to leave it. Some way or other, I change. Similarly, the... You can change your coat. So these are explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22). Ex..., very nicely exemplified. So we are changing this apartment or dress and accepting another. This is going on. This is the material world. But I, the spirit soul, eternal. Nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ purāṇo na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). Find out this verse. Na jāyate mriyate vā kadācit. Na jāyate mriyate vā kadācit. Second Chapter. Everything is there in the Bhagavad-gītā. If you can introduce, study some Bhagavad-gītā among the students, oh, it will, it will be a great service.
Pradyumna: He is a very nice gentleman. He appreciated Bhagavad-gītā. He said right away, very...
Prabhupāda: Yes...
Pradyumna: My wife's typing up all your lectures. She has finished L.A. lectures. Now she is typing Māyāpur lectures, this lecture, that lecture. She has permanent machine and typewriter and apartment. So she types all during the day and she minds the child. And then it is in the same apartment.
Prabhupāda: Attending class also?
Pradyumna: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Pradyumna: They live now across the street, in the temple apartments.
Prabhupāda: In our house?
Reporter: All right. So... The purpose for economic plan of all the planet, for the world would be everybody can eat, and I suppose just, just eating and some clothes and some roof to be, if you are in a cold country...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Eating, sleeping... Sleeping requires roof, apartment. So it includes your housing, your eating, your sex urge, and your defence. Everything should be nicely... So arrangement should be made that people are not harassed for these necessities of life.
Reporter: And all the rest is superfluous. Is too much.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Reporter: All the rest is superficial, is superficial.
Prabhupāda: What is superficial?
Devotee: Extra. Not needed.
Guest (1): I see. Right, I'm beginning to understand that. Another thing I would like to know very much is that I feel, but have no proof, that I have experienced in my, in the things I do, which lead me to believe that my experiences based on a memory I don't understand which, which belongs to previous lifetimes. Now is that, a fa...?
Prabhupāda: Yes, previous life there was. Just like previously, you were a child. Previously, you were a boy. Previously you were a young man. So similarly, we had previous life. Previous life means not exactly in this body but another body. But I am eternal. I live either in this body or in another body. Just like I'm a person, I live in this apartment or any other apartment. The apartment may change, but the person who lives in the apartment, he does not change. Similarly, I am spirit soul. I am simply changing different apartments. But there is a life, because I am eternal, where I haven't got to change apartment. I get permanent residence.
Guest (1): I see.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That we are preaching. That is spiritual life. That you act in such a way that you haven't got to change any more apartment.
Dr. Hauser: Yes. But I feel in the...
Prabhupāda: Just like this is an apartment. So from this apartment, you go to another apartment. So it does not mean that this apartment has evolved to that apartment. I, the person, I create that apartment, or I prefer that apartment. Not that this apartment has evolved into that apartment.
Dr. Hauser: Yes, I can see what you mean. Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Darwin's nonsense is there. He is changing the apartment. Apartment is becoming a different apartment. That is not a fact. Just try to understand. This room cannot develop into another room. But I, the resident of this room, I can go from this apartment to another apartment. Or I can create another apartment. This is evolution.
Dr. Hauser: And I can create a bigger apartment.
Prabhupāda: Yes, bigger, smaller, as I like. Not necessarily bigger. That is also another nonsense.
Dr. Hauser: And my intelligence might grow also.
Prabhupāda: Intelligence, maybe. But there must be means. You may be very intelligent, but if you have no means to erect another nice apartment, how it will?
Dr. Hauser: Trial and error.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Dr. Hauser: Trial and error.
Haṁsadūta: But the point is Vedic, Vedic conclusion is...
Prabhupāda: No, but, apart from Vedic conclusion, this example, that practically, when I go from this apartment to another apartment, so this apartment does not become another apartment. I go from this apartment to another apartment. He's missing that "I". Or "you". That is his nonsense.
Dr. Hauser: He's only talking about apartments.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is his rascaldom.
Dr. Hauser: Yes, I can see what you mean.
Prabhupāda: He does not know. The apartment does not change. The owner of the apartment goes from one apartment to another. That he does not know. Therefore he's cheating. He does not, he has no perfect knowledge, and he's cheating. Cheater. He does not know. The soul, from the monkey's body is coming to human body. That is nice. Not that the monkey's body is changing into human body.
Prabhupāda: They are... So jñānī. Human life is developed consciousness, jñānī, so why they should waste their time in inquiring so many unwanted things? They should devote their life simply for inquiring about the Absolute Truth, jijñāsu. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. This life is meant for brahma-jijñāsā. This life is not meant for to live like cats and dogs. They have no jijñāsā. Their only jijñāsā is inquiry. Where is food? Where is sex? Where is nice apartment? Where is defense? This is their inquiry. In the animal life, there is no possibility of inquiring about the Absolute Truth. Everyone is working. They are also jijñāsu. "Where is money? Where is money?" That is also inquiry.
Prabhupāda: What is immediately pleasing to you, it will be a source of great displeasure at the end. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. So uttamam. Uttamam. Ut means transcendental, and tama means this material world. "Beyond this material world," Uttama. Śreya uttamam. Because we are not this material body, therefore our śreyas, our highest perfection of life, is different. Here the perfection of life—you get a comfortable life of the body. That is not possible, however comfortably you may situate. You may be very rich man, you may have very rich connection or good apartment, but still, you cannot be happy because you are not this body. But they do not know.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Karandhara is managing very nicely, giving them some pocket expense. And instead of renting elsewhere, they are tenant of our house. So we have got tenants, but no trouble from the tenants.
Devotee: Very nice.
Prabhupāda: Ah. When it was suggested that I purchase house, I said that "I am not going to have this tenants' trouble. That is very botheration." So Karandhara suggested that "We have got our own tenants. Why they should stay in other apartment house? If we have got our house, they will stay, and there will be no trouble." "Then it is all right." They require house. So all gṛhasthas, they have got separate apartment, living very peacefully. So anyway, every one of us should observe strictly the regulative principles and serve sincerely. Kṛṣṇa will help us.
Viṣṇujana: They want dog's life. They think dog's life is good life. They have to work hard and the dog stays at home all day and enjoys in their nice big house. So they think, "I would be better to be the dog."
Prabhupāda: So they have become. But when he becomes street dog? That means he has to depend on good master. Big apartment for dog means he belongs to the master. So he has to find out a good master. But if he fails to find out a good master, then he's street dog. Dog's life is good, provided he gets a good master. So therefore we have decided to become dog of Kṛṣṇa, (laughter) the best master. And the master says, ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ: (BG 18.66) "I will give you protection." So why not become dog of Kṛṣṇa?
Prajāpati: He will be flea a on Kṛṣṇa's dog.
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Umāpati: Some of them think dogs and cats are more intelligent than people.
Prabhupāda: Intelligent, ant is also intelligent than any human being. So they live within the hole of wall, and there is no scarcity. Can you become like that? You live within your apartment and there is no scarcity. Wherefrom he gets food? They are more intelligent than human being. Everyone has got some specific talent, either human being or cats and dogs or ants, everyone. Just like the vultures, they go four miles, five miles above and they can find out where is a corpse, where is a dead body. But you cannot do that. You see? Immediately pounce on it. Hundreds of vulture will come. Did you not see it? So they are intelligent more than human being. Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is called acintya. Every living entity has some special quality.
Bali Mardana: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So we shall return? (break) Bombay also has beach. Not much cold, not much heat.
Bali Mardana: They now have an apartment for you in Juhu.
Prabhupāda: Oh. That is our house.
Bali Mardana: I think it is. (break)
Satsvarūpa: We say sense gratification is available for everyone, but they don't agree. They think, "If I don't have this nice apartment it's not the same as sleeping in a bad condition."
Prabhupāda: Bad condition, good condition, that is another thing. But you get it. You get it. Bad condition, good condition, that is my consideration, but things are available. Even the best apartment in India, that is not a good apartment for America. This is simply my mental concoction: "This is good; that is bad." I am thinking, "It is the best;" another may think, "Oh, it is lowest." The hog is thinking stool is very nice food, and I am thinking, "What is this nonsense thing?" So "best" and "good", it is simply mental concoction, it has no value. Just like these western people, what is their ultimate standard of best, nobody knows. Nobody knows. Just like hundred years before, there was no skyscraper building, but now even best skyscraper building is not best. So where is the standard of best and... It is all mental concoction.
Guest (1): Philosophy.
Guest (3): Yes, I do. I think I do. (laughs) I was in New York at Hare Kṛṣṇa (indistinct) time, and we have a temple in our apartment, picture of the Deities.
Prabhupāda: Where?
Guest (3): Philadelphia.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Dr. Kapoor: Oh.
Prabhupāda: It was hundred and twenty-five dollars. And I got opportunity, also, the same building, one small apartment, seventy-two dollars, or seventy dollars, no seventy-five, seventy-five. In this way, two-hundred dollars per month. So I had only two-hundred dollars, I immediately advanced and took the risk of two-hundred dollars.
Devotee: That was a year after you went.
Prabhupāda: Yes. In 1966. I went there in 1965. So, then...
Prabhupāda: Ācchā.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Because they live in Woodlands, Warden Road. So they go to Chowpati.
Guest (1): They also own flat, I think.
Guest (2): No, they are not staying in that same flat where they stayed.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā?
Guest (2): They have their own apartment. They heard, and they have seen workers. They are barking... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...big animals.
Prabhupāda: Yes. All fights should be decided by the board. That's nice. And it will be accepted even by the court. Here, in India, there is such system. A board of five, ten men in the village, if there is some fight between two parties, whatever the board will decide that will be accepted in the court. Pañcāyeta. It is called pañcāyeta system. (break) You join. There will be no scarcity. This will engage people. Some are, some of them will be engaged to produce food. Where is the question of scarcity? There is food, there is milk. Eat and drink and be human beings.
Viṣṇujana: When we first go to open a temple in a city we get an apartment or a storefront. But then, when more and more people come, then we should get land and cows and everything and...
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
Dr. Patel: Ah, but then these are Muslim brāhmaṇas.
Prabhupāda: So it is Muslim name. Their forefathers were magistrates. That's all. Kāzi, there is no harm... Munshi, Kāzi. They're common... (break) If you go to anyone, "Hare Kṛṣṇa," they'll understand: "Here is Hare Kṛṣṇa people." That's all. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Anywhere, Africa, Australia, Japan, they know, "These are Hare Kṛṣṇa people." We are known as "Hare Kṛṣṇa people." So there are so many apartments... (end)
Dr. Patel: In America also, like here?
Prabhupāda: That's all. My things were stolen from my apartment in the beginning, so I went to the police. They simply noted down. That's all. (break) ...you can narrate the incidents when the negro at San Francisco...
Lilavati: Yes, we were...
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) Kṣatriya, this is all finished. Now only śūdras and, little vaiśyas there are.
Prabhupāda: Topless. Topless.
Dr. Patel: Topless and bottomless.
Prabhupāda: These things are going on. That means they are attracted. Attracted. Puṁsāṁ striyā mithunī-bhāvam etad. They'll dress. Woman will dress very nicely so that she can attract man, and man will also do something which will, he'll attract woman. Mithunī-bhāvam tayor mitha... In this way, when they are united-hṛdāya-granthim āhuḥ, a very strong knot: "Oh, you are mine. I am yours." (laughter) "You are mine. I am yours." In this way they pull on this material life. And then, gradually, "Now we must have good apartment to live and enjoy sex life." Puṁsāṁ striyā mithunī-bhāvam etad tayor mithaḥ hṛdāya-granthim āhuḥ, tathā gṛha. "Now have skyscraper building." Kṣetra: "Land. We must produce food grains." Tathā gṛha-kṣetra-suta: "We must have children."
Prabhupāda: We cannot do anything, but the bird, small bird, "Hut!" He can do that. Is it not? So his defensive measure is better than us. Similarly, I want to have sex. I have to arrange for that, find out some... But the female bird is always around him, at any time. This sparrow, the pigeon. You have seen it? Immediately ready for sex life. And eating? Oh, there is some fruit. Immediately he can eat. And sleeping? That is also very comfortable. So these facilities, don't think that it is available on this skyscraper building. They are available for the birds and the beasts. It is not that unless you have got a very nice apartment in the skyscraper building, you cannot have all these facilities of eating, sleeping and sex life. Anywhere. Viṣayaḥ khalu sarvataḥ syāt. This is called viṣaya. Viṣaya means the facilities for sense enjoyment. That is called viṣaya.
Satsvarūpa: But that's not my condition. I am a human being.
Prabhupāda: That you may think, but you do not know the nature's law. You have to accept. Just like this apartment, either you accept or somebody accept. Similarly, these bodies are apartment. You have to accept or your brother has to accept. Somebody must accept. They are also living entities. Wherefrom they are coming? As I am a living entity, they are also living entity. So changing body, I may change to that body, he may change to this body. Where is the unreasonableness? We are all living entities. These are different types of bodies. So we have to accept some body. Similarly, he has to accept some body. So he may accept my body, I may accept his body. This apartment change. I may go to this apartment, he may go to another apartment. But there are so many apartments, gṛha. Therefore it is called gṛhamedhī. If you say, "No, no, I am not going to accept that apartment." "No, no, it is not your judgement." Daiva-netreṇa. "What money you have got, sir, to occupy?" "I have no money." "All right, then go this apartment." You must accept. Karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa (SB 3.31.1). By your work it will be ascertained what kind of apartment you will get.
Prabhupāda: Well, Christianity also, they are trying to understand God, and we are also trying to understand, not only understand, but we, we are trying others to understand what is God. (French)
Pṛthu-putra: He asks if we have temple in France or if we do in apartment or if we do in conference, private conferences. How we are doing it?
Prabhupāda: Anyway. We welcome all, all learned men, or leading men, to understand this philosophy. And the book is... You show Bhagavad-gītā. And all other books also show him. (French)
Prabhupāda: No, no. I withdraw that word false. But it is not you. It is false in this sense, that you are accepting this body yourself, but that you are not. (German) Just like...
Dr. P. J. Saher: But I live my identity with the body.
Prabhupāda: With the body. But the body is false, false in this sense, that you are not this body. You are simply... Just like I am occupying this apartment, but I am not this apartment. I am different from this apartment. This is understanding. So if you take interest of the apartment and you forget yourself, that is false. (German) If I simply decorate this body, apartment, and I don't eat myself, then what is the... This is false attempt, that we are trying... This is called. In the Bhāgavata it is said that aprāṇasya hi dehasya mandanaṁ loka-rañjanam.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the main point. The subtle body carries the soul. Just like in dream, we are carried by the subtle body and placed in different condition. But so long this body is capable of working, I come to this body. My dream is over, and I come back to this body. And death means that this body, being useless, instead of coming to this body, I go to another body. This is transmigration. Just like when you vacate an apartment, then you do not come back in that apartment, but you enter another apartment. Is it clear?
Haṁsadūta: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Anybody can understand. I am coming, going, but when it is a question of vacating, I go out of the apartment, but I never come back again. I will enter another apartment. "The soul enters another body" means enters the womb of another mother. And there the suitable body is created and again mother delivers the child. Again new chapter of life begins.
Prabhupāda: So nowadays the rascal philosophy has spread that everyone is God, and therefore nobody is humble and meek. If everyone thinks that he is God, then why he should be humble and meek? So they are being educated how to become humble and meek. In the temple, to God, or to the spiritual master, the God's representative, they offer always respect by offering obeisances. That is humble and meek. They are doing very easily progress, you see, only on account of this humbleness and meekness. Even on the road, if they see me, they immediately fall down flat. Never mind there is dust. This very qualification is pushing them towards spiritual realization. In the Vedic scripture it is said,
- yasya deve parā bhaktir
- yathā deve tathā gurau
- tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ
- prakāśante mahātmanaḥ
- (ŚU 6.23)
Devotee (2): They'll all be cheated.
Prabhupāda: No, not a single person. Actually he remains slave, artificially he thinks that "I am master." Just like Nixon was thinking. He was actually slave of the nation, but he was thinking, "I am master." When he was pressed too much, he had to admit, "Yes, I am your slave." He was pressed. Rather, oppressed. Nobody is thinking. Idam adya mayā labdham imaṁ prāpsye punar dhanam. Everyone is thinking, "I have got now so much money (indistinct) ...lot of money, so who is better than me?" (indistinct) She has become poet. Nonsense number one, and she is poet. Does not know the human psychology or animal psychology. The human psychology, animal psychology, that you have seen on the road, the sex. The animal does not require any education. The animal knows how to use sex; the man knows how to use sex. Where is the difference? Simply she is animal, she does the sex intercourse in a public street, animal (indistinct) an apartment, very nice apartment (indistinct). It is (indistinct), either you are dog or a human being, the fact is. He also sleeps. He sleeps on the street anywhere, and we sleep in a nice apartment. He also eats, and the human being also eats
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Identity is there. That, therefore, I have already said, nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānṁ. Both of them are identical so far nitya is concerned or cetana is concerned, but one is dependent, and other is maintainer. That is difference. Both of them are truth. Both of them truth. You are truth; I am truth. You are living; I am living, existing. This is truth. This is truth, but you are professor and I am something else. That is temporary. But so far you are, as living being, and I am, as living being, that is truth. But your dress and my dress, that is temporary. So we have to understand like that. In this material world we are mixed up with temporary and eternal. The living entity is eternal, but his body is temporary. This is the position. So the problem is: why the eternal has got temporary things? That is hampering his ānanda. Just like I am sitting here. Now, if somebody says, "Now you'll have to die and accept another body," this is not very pleasing to me. Or even I am sitting in this apartment, and somebody..., "No, you change your apartment. Come. Come here." Again I change another apartment. So I'll seek after: "Why I am changing this apartment? Is it not possible to get an eternal apartment?" That should be the brahma-jijñāsā. That is... Vedānta-sūtra first says, athāto brahma jijñāsā. "Why I am subjected to this change?" That is intelligence. "Why not eternal apartment if I am eternal?" That is intelligence.
Professor: By transcendence, I understand it, the universal consciousness. The search for God.
Prabhupāda: Yes, right you are. This life, human life, is distinguished from animal life because the animal cannot inquire about transcendence. The human life, if it is not interested in transcendence, then he is animal. If simply he is interested with the bodily demands of life, namely eating, sleeping, sex and defense, these are bodily demands of life. So if we think that "Dog is eating on the street, and we are eating very palatable dishes, nicely made, very tasteful. That is advancement of civilization," that is not advancement of civilization because it is, after all, eating. Similarly, sleeping; the animals sleep on the street and we sleep in very nice apartment. But in sleeping, we dream horrible things more than the animals. So eating, sleeping, sex life and trying for defense, these are common formulas both for the animals and for the man.
Prabhupāda: Industry, technology you can continue, but practically it has no use. (break) Just like there is the bench, you can sit down on the ground, and to sit down little comfortably you manufacture the bench. So for sitting down, you can utilize the ground, but you are unnecessarily wasting your time and manufacturing... This is industry. (break) ...philosophy is that we have to save time for becoming fully Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is our necessity. And if we divert our energy for sitting down comfortably, then time is wasted. That... There is natural mattress, and there is a natural pillow, so why should you manufacture pillow and mattress? This is Sukadeva Gosvāmī. And there is natural food, fruits. So... And if you want still nice home, go to the cave. It is already made. Why should you waste your time? This is the Bhāgavata philosophy. But they are wasting time simply how to live in nice apartment, how to manufacture nice mattress, pillow. This is... So the whole philosophy is: save your time and make your life perfect within this short duration of life which you have obtained in this human form of life. Durlabhaṁ manusaṁ janma. It is very rarely you have got. Utilize it. And if you don't utilize, if you waste your time in these bodily comforts and next life you become a cat and dog, then what is the benefit? They do not understand this. (break)
Haṁsadūta: It means, it means apartment, furniture, money, family, and so many things. She says... She means that we don't require all these things.
Prabhupāda: I don't say that. I have never said that.
Haṁsadūta: (German)
Prabhupāda: But only for furniture and apartment, if you forget yourself and act in such a way, then next life you become a dog and lie on the street, then what is the use of your furniture? You are getting next life. First of all, you understand that, that "This is not the end of my life. I am eternal. I am changing my body." So it is described as dress. Now you may be dressed like a royal king. And next dress may be different. "May be" means it must be. And for the examples of the dresses—so many living entities. So you must be cautious that "What kind of dress I am going to have next?" (break) Where is that science? Where is that school, college? If you remain only confident that "I'll go on with this dress perpetually," that is not the fact.
Prabhupāda: Avoid it. They are regularly advertising. I have seen in Dallas, "topless, bottomless," like that.
Haṁsadūta: Everywhere.
Prabhupāda: They do not know. What can be done. Mūḍho 'yaṁ nābhijānāti (BG 7.25). They do not know that behind everything there is a supreme power. He'll punish. "Never mind, we shall be punished." You'll become dog. "Oh what is the wrong if I become a dog?" They say like that, "What is the wrong?" He thinks that "I'll get good facilities for sex. There will be no need of apartment. I'll save the rent. To become a dog and have sex life on the street, it is good facility." This is going on.
Prabhupāda: (Chuckles) These are comfortable?
Madhudviṣa: Automobiles. Aeroplanes.
Pañcadraviḍa: Well, they enable comfort. A person can lie down in his comfortable bed in his nice apartment and listen to music out of the wall.
Prabhupāda: But what about his death, how he uncomfortably dying?
Pañcadraviḍa: Well, we can't change that.
Prabhupāda: Then what you can change?
Prabhupāda: What is that culture? Your culture is the same—sex. As soon as there was no light, immediately there was pregnancy. That is the statistic record.
Brahmānanda: Oh, in the blackout.
Devotee: New York blackout.
Prabhupāda: Yes. "No business. Come on. Let us enjoy sex." That's all. This is their civilization. Yan-maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham (SB 7.9.45). Most abominable sex life—this is civilization.
Nalinī-kānta: They say that in the human form of life we can ejoy sex life better than the cats and the dogs.
Prabhupāda: That is imagination. They enjoy without any restriction, and you have to make so many arrangement. You require apartment, nice bed, nice this, so many. So where is the better facility? You have to work for it. They haven't got to work. They get in the streets sex life.
Brahmānanda: But now, they're also saying that this is good.
Jayādvaita: The karmīs will say that materialistic culture is also meant for the whole world.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That we admit. The materialistic culture, how to eat nicely, that is meant for everyone. Everyone wants to eat nicely, not that only Europeans want, not the Indians. That is material. To sleep nicely in a good apartment, that is wanted by both the Easterners and Westerners. So there is no discrimination. Sex life, that is meant for everyone. So as material life is also meant for everyone, similarly, spiritual life is also meant for everyone.
Jayādvaita: So there are only two cultures.
Prabhupāda: We do not make any development. So at the present moment they are improving the method of primary necessities of life—eating, sleeping, mating and defending. They are thinking the dog is eating on the floor; if we can eat on table, chair and nice dish, that is advancement of civilization. They are thinking like that. The dog is sleeping on the floor, and if we sleep in very nice apartment, very decorated, that is advancement of civilization. The dog is having sexual intercourse on the street without any shame, and we are also coming to that point already. And if we have sex intercourse in the name of love and so on, so on, that is advancement. And dog is defending with his jaws and nails and teeth, you are defending with atomic bomb, therefore we are advanced. But they have forgotten that the human being has got this special intellect to understand God. That they are not doing. Just like you are going to be a doctor in anthropology. Is it not?
Carol: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Just like you're in this apartment, you can go to another apartment and that apartment may not be exactly like this. It may be better or it may be worse. Similarly we have entered, find out the tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ.
Devotee:
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptir
- dhīras tatra na muhyati
- (BG 2.13)
"As the embodied soul continually passes in this body from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change."
Bali-mardana: Prabhupāda, in the Bhāgavatam it also states that there are nine divisions of creation, and that in the first creation there's the plants and trees.
Prabhupāda: That's all right, but these different bodies, and the soul is transmigrating, that they do not know. The soul is getting a different type of body according to his desires, not the body is developing. This I have explained many times, that you get the apartment according to the rent you are able to pay, not that a small apartment is becoming a skyscraper building. That is their theory.
Bali-mardana: But is there a great time period between the different divisions of the creation?
Prabhupāda: No, everything is there already. It becomes manifest. Just like beneath the water there is land already. And when the water will dry, land will be manifest. Not that the land is created. No, it is already there. (break)
Paramahaṁsa: Oh, yeah. You were here long before he was here. I think he came... 1968 he came. So you came three years before him. I have seen his āśramas in America. I saw one in Arizona. He has quite a large āśrama there. And I saw some of his smaller ones in New Guinea.(?)
Bali-mardana: I've seen them in Brooklyn, but it was just an apartment. It was not really an āśrama.
Paramahaṁsa: They have, in Phoenix, Arizona, they have a very nice place, very large building.
Prabhupāda: Where?
Paramahaṁsa: Phoenix, Arizona. It's similar to our Los Angeles branch. I think they tried to make... They have buildings, block buildings nearby, apartments for householders. In many ways they are imitating our movement.
Prabhupāda: But there is no Deity?
Bali-mardana: No, they worship the... (end)
Prabhupāda: ...cow which is killed, that does not get immediately human life because he is untimely killed.
Ambarīṣa: Oh. So he takes birth as a cow again?
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...finish his birth as cow, and who is killing, he becomes... He is stopping his progress, therefore he is punishable. Just like you have leased one apartment to live for so many years, and if somebody, by force, kicks out, then he is punishable. (break)
Devotee: ...Kamehameha Day, today?
Prabhupāda: ...is not knowledge. If the tenant thinks that "This apartment is mine, I am owner," then he is wrong. If he knows perfectly well that it belongs to the landlord, "I have given for use," then it is knowledge.
Dr. Wolf: Śrīla Prabhupāda, and the tenant can be easily evicted.
Prabhupāda: So everything is explained. If anyone wants to take advantage of it, he can take. We have got fifty books like this. Those who are interested in the science and philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they can read all these books. Otherwise, one can chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, That will also help. The human civilization means everyone shall try to become first-class man. This is human civilization, not to remain like animals. That attempt is lacking now. Here the civilization is that the dog is jumping or running, and human being is running in a motor car, and he is thinking he is more civilized than the dog. But the business is running. That's all. The dog is having sex on the street, and the human being is having sex in a very nice decorated apartment and therefore he is civilized. But the business is the same.
Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in a purport in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam you say that even fifty years ago in India the householders had separate apartments for the men and women.
Prabhupāda: Not apartment, quarter.
Devotee: Separate quarters in the apartment. And the husband would not see his wife during the day?
Prabhupāda: No.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I want to clarify another that Prabhupāda told us that compared with the cells, I am a little bigger god, but the cells are smaller. Just like we are serving spiritual master. Similarly, the cells are serving. They have no choice in the...
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is good idea. Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So similarly, we were discussing with the Balavanta Prabhu one day about the... He was giving a nice example that in a kingdom where the king stays... Just like Śrīla Prabhupāda's example: living in an apartment. Śrīla Prabhupāda and disciples and many other living entities stay in the same apartment, but a person, an individual, who knows his position, is to serve the order of the head of the apartment. But somebody doesn't follow. He just goes away from the apartment. So Balavanta was asking what is the use of that? So similarly, when the cells... We can take out from one part of the body and can culture it, but what is the use? It produces, but actually it's not really behaving as it should. It has no value.
Prabhupāda: So I repeatedly say this to American boys, that "By the grace of God you are very much opulent materially. So if you don't take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then you will have to become beggar again because we know these two things: sometimes beggar, sometimes rich; sometimes beggar, rich..." We do not know third way. Renouncing and possessing. But both these two things are wrong because you haven't got anything, so what you can renounce? Just like this morning I came here, and they have given me this room to stay. And if I say next morning, "I renounce this," the question will be, "When you possessed this room that you are renouncing?" And if I say, "I possess it," that is also wrong, because somebody has given me this apartment to live for some time. So where I possessed, and how I renounced? But we know these two things only. Sometime we possess. Economic development means to possess. And to become hippie means you renounce. We know these two things. But we cannot possess; we cannot renounce. That is real knowledge. What do you think?
Mr. Surface: I'm just enjoying listening.
Prabhupāda: So I repeatedly say this to American boys, that "By the grace of God you are very much opulent materially. So if you don't take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then you will have to become beggar again because we know these two things: sometimes beggar, sometimes rich; sometimes beggar, rich..." We do not know third way. Renouncing and possessing. But both these two things are wrong because you haven't got anything, so what you can renounce? Just like this morning I came here, and they have given me this room to stay. And if I say next morning, "I renounce this," the question will be, "When you possessed this room that you are renouncing?" And if I say, "I possess it," that is also wrong, because somebody has given me this apartment to live for some time. So where I possessed, and how I renounced? But we know these two things only. Sometime we possess. Economic development means to possess. And to become hippie means you renounce. We know these two things. But we cannot possess; we cannot renounce. That is real knowledge. What do you think?
Mr. Surface: I'm just enjoying listening.
Prabhupāda: ...tree you collected the dantana.
Brahmānanda: Which tree did you collect the twigs from?
Ambarīṣa: Oh, over by your apartment.
Prabhupāda: No, no. What is that tree?
Ambarīṣa: It was a fir tree. Fir wood. It's a type of pine tree.
Prabhupāda: Oh. It is good.
Girirāja: Mr. Menon is willing to move upstairs.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Girirāja: Mr. Menon, who has a flat on the ground floor, he is willing to shift upstairs if we want to trade.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Let's have a look at his apartment today.
Prabhupāda: So, you can make down.
Vāsughoṣa: Hm. But by this smoking cigarettes, meat-eating... I mean, we explain to them that doctors have found that meat-eating...
Prabhupāda: I have seen about some thirty years ago, one man was sitting... I was traveling in the railway apartment, and all of a sudden he jumped through the window.
Devotees: Whew!
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: This area is downtown, it's not so clean. Downtown is not so clean. This area is.
Prabhupāda: This is residential or industrial?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Over here is all residential, European apartment houses. And along the beach there is all hotels. This is a very big resort area in South Africa. There's a... Whole south coast, going down for about eighty miles, is all resorts. (break)
Prabhupāda: That, yes. Devotee means brahmacārī. Pure devotee means brahmacārī. Anyabhilasita-sunyam (Brs. 1.1.11). He has no other desire. That is brahmacārī. (break) This building is meant for playing cards. Somebody knows?
Girirāja: Club. I don't think this one is. No, behind it.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This looks like a residential apartment building.
Girirāja: Indira's daughter stays here. Indira? It belongs to her niece's family. So sometimes her niece was staying here, and she used to come to the temple every day. There's another which is a club.
Prabhupāda: ...tri-dhātuke sva-dhiḥ kalatrādiṣu bhauma īḍya-dhīḥ, yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile na karhicij janeṣu abhijñeṣu sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). South Africa... (Hindi) ...successful.
Prabhupāda: That, yes. Devotee means brahmacārī. Pure devotee means brahmacārī. Anyabhilasita-sunyam (Brs. 1.1.11). He has no other desire. That is brahmacārī. (break) This building is meant for playing cards. Somebody knows?
Girirāja: Club. I don't think this one is. No, behind it.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This looks like a residential apartment building.
Girirāja: Indira's daughter stays here. Indira? It belongs to her niece's family. So sometimes her niece was staying here, and she used to come to the temple every day. There's another which is a club.
Prabhupāda: ...tri-dhātuke sva-dhiḥ kalatrādiṣu bhauma īḍya-dhīḥ, yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile na karhicij janeṣu abhijñeṣu sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). South Africa... (Hindi) ...successful.
Prabhupāda: That is intelligence. You do not know that. If you are given airplane, so many, you'll, immediately at least half a dozen will be finished. (laughter) That means you are less intelligent than the birds, at least in the matter of flying.
Indian man (3): (Hindi) (break)
Prabhupāda: ...you wanted to construct apartment house. Is it possible to do now?
Saurabha: No.
Prabhupāda: Why?
Saurabha: Because we don't have the required garden space yet. We have to break down the huts in the back. There's some hutments there, and unless those are removed, we cannot do any other construction.
Saurabha: Now there is two things. We can make big apartments for which most people are anxious actually.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Saurabha: Those apartment buildings. Make them very opulent and big. They want... Some people told me they like to have apartments of 2,000 square feet for one apartment. It should have four big rooms, a kitchen, everything, very opulent. Like this we can have on one floor two of them. We can have 4,000 square feet on one floor. It is possible.
Prabhupāda: ...ly regret is that these rascals are going as scientists and big men. Simply talk. They cannot create. It is very simple thing. Put some chemicals together and if you know the chemicals, then why don't you put it? And incubator put, then you don't require to kill so many chicken. (break)
Alanath: In Sweden when you go on the street and you preach, "Everybody must suffer here," they don't believe because everybody got an apartment. They have never seen a poor man or a starving cow.
Prahupada: But he is himself a poor man.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: No, recently we have published very important book, Nectar of Instruction. For common man it is very nice. (break) Yesterday's lecture you liked?
Indian men: Yes. (Hindi) (break)
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: ...sleep on the streets. They've arranged this housing, it is very minimal. So what many of these slumdwellers do when people are living on the streets is they come here, and they go back and live on the streets, but they rent out the apartment that the government has given them and they keep the money. They go back and live on the streets.
Prabhupāda: So let who is coming, let him bring it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. They'll be coming in about a month from now. I'm not at all sure of the condition of it. In America things like that are.... A very old one, it's probably about fifteen years old. One boy joined us and donated it. We couldn't even sell it. In America things like that, if they're used, once they are used, sufficiently used, no one will purchase.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Ten dollars you can sell it like that for, twenty dollars. Every month or two we have to hold a garage sale because so many.... When the boys join I get them to donate everything they have. I send one man with them to their apartment. Usually they are sharing their apartment or house with some others, friends, and suddenly the Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees come in and take everything out of the house, furniture...
Prabhupāda: They feel glad.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Bāhir bāri. Bhitar bāri. Then pūjār bāri. Rāmnā bāri.
Jayapatāka: Kitchen.
Prabhupāda: Ah, kitchen. Not that within the apartment, all bāris. This is European invention.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Bāri?
Prabhupāda: Bāri means house. In Gujarat they say wādi. Wādi.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Bāhir bāri. Bhitar bāri. Then pūjār bāri. Rāmnā bāri.
Jayapatāka: Kitchen.
Prabhupāda: Ah, kitchen. Not that within the apartment, all bāris. This is European invention.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Bāri?
Prabhupāda: Bāri means house. In Gujarat they say wādi. Wādi.
Revatīnandana: Dharma was telling me.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...to rise early in the morning and do whatever is needed. Then, at nine, half-past nine, I will go his apartment and begin cooking. Then, after finishing, I'll take my bathing, and then we shall eat together. And then, after eating, I will go to the Fifth Avenue for loitering.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Fifth Avenue.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So I was cooking once only, that's all.
Prabhupāda: Yes. There was no chance of finding fault. (laughter) Now I have to find fault.
Madhudviṣa: (break) ...New York now named Jaya Nimāi Nitai. When you were first in New York, he was a musician. He used to write music, and he used to get inspired by looking down from his apartment down to the street. And every day he said he used to see this little Indian man walking by, and it was you, Śrīla Prabhupāda. And he couldn't figure out what was going on, this man walking by on the street every day.
Prabhupāda: Yes, I was having morning walk regularly, alone.
Prabhupāda: It has been condemned in the Bhagavad-gītā as ugra-karma, laboring very hard for livelihood. This industry means engage the poor worker class to work very hard, and there is huge profit, and some directors of the capitalists, they take it. And they have one dozen motorcars, palatial building, no work, simply wine and woman, that's all. This is going on. And the others, they are seeing: "There is no classification, neither real brāhmaṇa nor kṣatriya nor vaiśya. So he is enjoying like that. He has got so many cars. He has got such a nice apartment. Why not me?" There is struggle. This is actual picture. Our Vedic advice is that make life very simple. You must have some means of livelihood. Keep your body and soul together. So according to quality, guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (BG 4.13), there must be division and then simple life. The real aim is tam abhyarcya, how to become Kṛṣṇa conscious.
Prabhupāda: Vṛndāvana.
Dr. Patel: In His original.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūtaḥ (Bs. 5.37). This is God. Not that... (Hindi) That is not God. God is in His apartment, at the same time everywhere. Īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati (BG 18.61). That is God. (Hindi) Without knowing God, they are becoming God.
Dr. Patel: God has made them mūḍhas by His māyā, sir.
Prabhupāda: So, it is still unsold?
Devotee (1): No one can do anything with it now.
Prabhupāda: Why?
Devotee (1): This neighborhood here, they will not allow any more than three stories to be built, no high rise.
Prabhupāda: Oh. There cannot be any skyscraper building, so no capitalist will purchase.
Devotee (1): And no developer will use it just to make three-story flats because the land is too expensive. (end)
Prabhupāda: Simply faith, blind faith we do not endure. And therefore they are becoming godless. And gradually, if we do not understand factually what is God, then the whole human civilization will be godless. To become godless means again animal. That is the difference between animal and man. In the animal society there is no question of religion, faith, God. These things are not there. The human civilization, if it becomes like that, without any faith in God, without any understanding of God, then where is the difference between cats and dogs and human beings? They must know God scientifically. That is the actual aim of human life. Suppose the dog is sleeping on the street without any care whether a car is coming and smash it. He's also sleeping sound sleep. And we are sleeping in a very nice apartment. So after all, sleeping. And he is also enjoying sleeping, I am also enjoying sleeping. So do you think to change the, I mean to say, circumstances of the sleeping? I am sleeping in a very nice apartment, he's sleeping on the floor. Does it mean this is advancement of civilization? Sleeping is sleeping. Eating is eating. Sex life—the male dog is enjoying with female dog.
Prabhupāda: gṛha-kṣetra-sutāpta-vittair janasya moho 'yam ahaṁ mameti (SB 5.5.8). Gradually.... First of all, there is attraction, male and female, puṁsaḥ striyā mithunī-bhāvam etam. The whole material world existing on sex attachment. Puṁsaḥ means male, and striyā means female. Their attachment. Even before marriage or unity, the attachment is there. Puṁsaḥ striyā mithunī-bhāvam etaṁ tayor mithaḥ. And when they actually unite, hṛdaya-granthim āhuḥ, the hard knot in the heart, hard knot. Then after unity.... If, suppose one is married or united, then they want apartment, gṛha, then field. Formerly they used to earn money by producing food from the field. There was no factory. So ato gṛha-kṣetra, then children, then friends, then accumulation of money, ato gṛha-kṣetra-sutāpta-vittaiḥ (SB 5.5.8). With all these things, the conception of "I" and "mine" increases, and he becomes entangled.
Prabhupāda: They are not getting the opportunity. We are giving the opportunity. You come here and live here.
Richard: This is the only way?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Richard: Living in an āśrama.
Prabhupāda: Not living..., to take the philosophy. Follow the policy or process; then your life is successful.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Just like our householders, they have their apartments, but they're always associated with Kṛṣṇa's service.
Richard: Right.
Prabhupāda: First of all knowledge means kṣetra-kṣetrajña. The body is the field of activity. You are acting, I am also acting, everyone is acting—according to the body. But the actor is called kṣetrajña. Just like a cultivator is tilling the land, his own, and the tiller is cultivator. Similarly, this body is an analogy of this field, and we are tilling. So Kṛṣṇa says that "I am also one of the tillers." Just like the tenant and the landlord. In an apartment house, the tenant is occupier of a certain house, certain apartment, but the landlord is the owner of the whole house. So God says "I am also kṣetrajña—but for all the buildings." Everything that is there, all planets, all, everywhere. That is His all-pervasiveness. I am the proprietor of this body, owner of this body, but God is proprietor of all the bodies. In this way that is explained. Purport?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That's the most...
Prabhupāda: And when you fry luci, all the other tenants will come "What you are cooking?" This is practical because we opened..., my Guru Mahārāja opened a branch in Burma in an apartment. So that Gaurāṅga who was my servant in family life, he was there. He said like this, that "When I fry puri, the ghee smell is there, so many people will come from other apartments, (whispers) "Oh, what you are cooking? What you are cooking?" And the naphi, they relish it in feast. So it is a question of taste.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That's the ultimate.
Rūpānuga: He doesn't want to be educated.
Prabhupāda: That is foolishness. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. This human life is meant for becoming educated about Brahman. They will not take it. They want to remain animals, eating and sleeping, this animal life. Eat nicely, sleep nicely, have sex life nicely, defend nicely, that's all. Nicely, according to the standard of the body. Here in America, to have a conveyance nicely like a car like this, but in Indian village, a bullock cart is nicely. So this nicely and that nicely, according to the body. You have got this American body, this is nicely. He has got Indian body, that is nicely. But the feeling of niceness is there and here. We are having sex in a very nice apartment, decorated and so on, so on, and a dog is having sex on the street. But the pleasure of sex life is both the same. But we are thinking this is nice. But that is not the fact. The niceness, the feelings of niceness, is there and here.
Prabhupāda: That is also Vedic conception, that sex between man and woman is not the cause of life. Unless the living soul comes in the proper situation, the man's secretion, woman's secretion combined together emulsifies, and it creates a proper situation for the rest of the soul. So contraceptive method means that emulsification is disturbed. It does not create the proper situation; therefore pregnancy does not happen. Or imperfect discharge. The main point is that the two discharges, they create a situation wherein the living entity comes and rests. Then it will grow. Not that that is the cause of life. The mixture of two secretions is not the cause of life. That creates a proper situation, and the life comes. And if the situation is not favorable, the soul cannot stay. It has to go to somewhere else. So by the order of Kṛṣṇa, he was to come to take shelter there, but this man and woman checked it, therefore it is sinful; he is to be punished. Just like one apartment is fixed up for me, and if somebody checks, does not allow me to enter, that is criminal. That is criminal, he is to be punished. Unlawful detention. But they do not know the laws of nature, how it is working.
Prabhupāda: Everything is on that principle, that you (are) violating the laws of nature, therefore you are criminal, you have to be punished. You cannot do it. Ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā.
Rūpānuga: Like if you are situated in your apartment and someone comes and forces you out of your apartment, that is like abortion.
Prabhupāda: That is abortion. By force you are destroying the shelter. Therefore you are criminal.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So we can utilize this experiment.
Prabhupāda: Goes to another body. Dehāntara. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). If you do not allow him to this body, he goes to another body. Just like if you drive me from this apartment, I must go somewhere. I must find out another apartment. It is not that I am finished. You force me to go out of this apartment. So I go to a friend's house or anywhere, I must go.
Devotee (1): Would that also be due to that soul's karma, that he has gone from being aborted on to another body?
Prabhupāda: Not necessarily, but you create a karma. You are responsible for that.
Hari-śauri: So it's not necessarily that he's receiving some sinful reaction from past work that he's not allowed to enter.
Prabhupāda: That may be, but you are responsible for that. Because you are driving me from this apartment by force. Actually, in a higher sense, that is accepted, that he was to be driven away. But because you are driving, you are responsible for that.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So that's why we want to bring up this point that...
Prabhupāda: You can bring up. This is the position. Just like there are apartments are already there. Sometimes I am coming here, sometimes going there, but this is the position. I'm not fixed up. Similarly, living entity, as soon as he changes his mind, the apartment is ready. Here is your position. Again he changes, "Here, here is your position." They are already there. Not that for him especially being created. The species are already there. As soon as he fixes himself up particular species, he's transferred, daiva-netreṇa karmaṇā. He gets a similar body, "Come on, here, take this body." Yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61). These are explained. So he's transmigrating, he's not fixed up. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). He gets, by his desire, he gets a particular body. Then after some time he changes to another body.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That we understand, only your Divine Grace's disciples, but not everyone.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: The question is, now we want to argue that how is it possible, now you are claiming that life is coming from molecules? If you claim like that, then how is it possible that in the same species, let's say in the birds, that these qualities are spreading? Some birds we see behave like a little influenced by the modes of goodness, though it is mixed. Like swan, we are taking that example. But some are like eagle, very passionate, wants to kill small birds as their food, and on the other hand, birds like crows, they like just to be completely ignorant, or they like to survive in a dirty environment. Why? Is this possible just from the concept of molecular evolution? It's completely, it's failing. They have no explanation along those terms. So we thought to bring up these points, it will be very clear that this evolution is completely wrong. So we want to use that...
Prabhupāda: There is no question of evolution. It is already there. This is a wrong theory. The monkey is there, the man is there. The soul is going from monkey to man. It is not the evolution. Just like you have got apartment, ten rupees, five rupees, twenty rupees, thirty rupees, like that. Now, as you pay, "Come on, here." There is no question of evolution. It is already there. Jantur dehopapattaye. These dehas, these bodies, are already there. So immediately it develops a particular type of desire, "Yes, come here, sit down." First class, second class, third class, fourth class is already there. As you pay, "Yes, come here." It is not evolving; it is already there. He is transferred from one apartment to another.
Prabhupāda: We have come here, not that that room developed. This room is here, that room is there, but I am transferring. Because they have no idea of soul, they are thinking that this nice room, now transform into this room or this room, transform... This is foolishness. A civil man transferred into jail—not that his civil house becomes jail. They are thinking wrongly like that, Darwin's theory. Body becoming changed. No. The different types of bodies are already there. The living entity is being transferred from one body to another. Just try to explain. So evolution you take that this apartment is better than that apartment, that apartment better than, and a living entity's going from one after another. So this is evolution. That you are now getting salary, one thousand dollar, now you get fifteen hundred dollars. So according to your qualification, you are getting.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually, we are not analyzing, but we're just giving this by seeing from practical example.
Prabhupāda: That is already there, one life after another. That is already there by superior arrangement. Very fine arrangement, exactly to the percentage of different qualities, the body is already there. Simply the soul has to be put into that body by superior arrangement. Say, first-class passenger, what does he require? The apartment is already made by expert, what is needed for a first-class passenger?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: He needs some more money. He must be rich to get a first-class apartment.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's why we want to bring out, that modes of nature, that can explain so many things so nicely, the difference, but science has no background on that.
Prabhupāda: That means you have to analyze different bodies. But that is described in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which apartment is better than the other apartment, there is description. Just like a dog's body is so made that two furlongs away some newcomer is coming, immediately he will bark, he can immediately understand, perceive. He can smell that "Somebody is coming who is not known to me." Is it not? So he has got that special quality. Even in animals we will find. A fish in the water, two miles away there is some enemy, they can understand by touch.
Prabhupāda: These are cooperative buildings?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, Prabhupāda. These are lower middle class cooperative buildings. This is the East Side.
Prabhupāda: I selected one cooperative apartment, they wanted five thousand dollars. (laughs) I had no money. Very nice apartment, near city office.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Downtown. This is First Avenue here, at about ll6th Street, where we are now.
Prabhupāda: I think third floor. And there was an electrician, he was my friend, one Jewish gentleman.
Devotee (1): You would walk on this street?
Prabhupāda: Yes. There is one building with temperature, a gauge? Here it is. This is Broadway. I was taking bath here in a station. Sometimes I was taking the station(?)... I think this building is new. I was going to Dr. Mishra's apartment for cooking.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What street did he live on?
Prabhupāda: He... Seventy-eighth. The Riverside corner. Yes, I was purchasing my goods from this store.
Prabhupāda: So automatically he's being trained up in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Good association, that is required. Satāṁ prasaṅgān mama vīrya-saṁvidaḥ. We are keeping this house for association of devotees so that automatically they become Kṛṣṇa conscious by association. The most unfortunate position is that there is no education about future life, or the perfection of life. The education is the animal education: the animal (is) eating, we are eating. If we are eating on table, or nice place, nice chair, then we think we are advanced. But the business is the eating. Similarly sleeping. The dog is sleeping on the street, we are sleeping in good apartment, skyscraper building. They are thinking this is advancement of civilization. But actually the business is sleeping. Similarly sex life. The dog is having sex life on the street, we are having in a very nice apartment.
Prabhupāda: This is Eighth Avenue?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No this is Central Park West. I used to live on this street. I was living here, Eighty-first Street and Columbus.
Prabhupāda: These are apartment buildings?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh yes, all residential. Very big, actually they are very first-class residential apartments. The ceilings are very high in every one of them, fifteen, twenty-foot ceilings. Nowadays the ceilings are usually only...
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In the park, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: At one Dr. Mishra's house. In my apartment there was no kitchen. (break) There was some news. Their machine has gone to Mars planet.
Hari-śauri: Machine is?
Prabhupāda: They sent some machine?
Hari-śauri: To Mars?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: To picture, to take pictures around the Mars, to take pictures, and they have found on Mars signs of life and water. They have taken many close pictures.
Prabhupāda: One, you are, and another, I am. So what is the difference between you and me?" That you know simply everything, not everything, but to some extent, about your body, but I know everything of everyone's body. That is the difference. I know the pleasure and pains of my body, you know the pleasure and pains of your body, but Kṛṣṇa knows the pleasure and pains of your body and pleasure and pains of my body. That is the difference between Kṛṣṇa and ourself. Īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati (BG 18.61). Kṛṣṇa is situated... Kṛṣṇa is not stereotyped in one place. Kṛṣṇa, He is in Goloka Vṛndāvana. Goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūtaḥ (Bs. 5.37). That is Kṛṣṇa. I am sitting here; you are sitting here. I am not in my apartment, but Kṛṣṇa, although He is sitting in this temple, He is present everywhere. Aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara-stham (Bs. 5.35). In this way we have to study Kṛṣṇa very scientifically, and the books are there, and we have tried to explain as far as possible. Take advantage of this institution. Don't waste a moment of your life. Take it very seriously.
Hari-śauri: If they do go out, it's just to go and get drunk.
Prabhupāda: And still, our landlord in 26 Second Avenue, if there is anything wrong in the apartment, he would personally do it. He could spare money to call a worker. He was alone. I don't think he had any dog, but he was always seeing the television, and when there was some complaint, he would come and work on it. He's landlord. And so many tenant, there is complaint always. Old house. That house was not very good, very old house.
Hari-śauri: There was many stories?
Prabhupāda: I think five, six stories.
Prabhupāda: The body is changing, that's a fact. You are young man. You'll have to become an old man like me. That means body will change. But so far you are concerned, you are the same. So, the body changes and the spirit soul remains the same. This is to be understood first of all. What is the difficulty? First of all, you must distinguish what is spirit, what is matter. Material culture means this body is there, it requires some necessities. The body must be given something to eat. Is it not? Eating? Then the body must be given some rest, sleeping, for which we require some apartment, some place. Not we, but also even the animals, birds, they have got their nest, or the animal has got some hole or something. So eating, sleeping, and some sense gratification, sex. These are bodily necessities.
Prabhupāda: What about the lift here?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: The lift will not be ready till... Your apartment will not be ready till December or January. They can't do it any sooner.
Driver: If Śrīla Prabhupāda wants to stay somewhere else, we can find out from people where, who have got lift.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Otherwise I was thinking, we have a vacant old flat of Menon on the ground floor. I discussed it with Girirāja, and I just wanted to, I was waiting for you. If you like that, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we can convert. That is construction office. We can move the construction office somewhere else, and we can give you that whole flat on the ground floor. Girirāja and I both thought it was a good idea, but I just wanted your approval. We can do that in half a day. It is right on the ground floor.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: ...decide where your apartment will be.
Prabhupāda: That roof is the fifth story?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Sixth.
Prabhupāda: Sixth. So we are finishing fifth only?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We are finished will be six stories. Pardon?
Prabhupāda: Only fifth, up floors?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, you can't go more than that. This is near the airport. Now they've introduced a new law that you can't go even below this. What we did is the new law has just come into effect, and so we did the slabs in the night.
Gargamuni: So they are thinking they want to get...
Prabhupāda: And one thing is that next thing will be... Now there are many flats.
Gargamuni: Now, we have one flat that we are renting.
Prabhupāda: Not renting. Purchase.
Gargamuni: Well, the only thing is with these flats in Calcutta, they are so mismanaged, these new places. They become a slum in two months. In Bombay the flats are managed nicely, but in Calcutta when they build a new one, within two months the whole thing is filthy dirty. The elevators don't work. It's not worth purchasing a flat. I have one now. I am renting. It's on the twelfth floor, and the members of our traveling party stay there. There is nice water and so many things. But the building is so mismanaged. Who wants to stay there more than a year? We need our own place. Then we can keep it clean and nice.
Harikeśa: The car is here if you want to go.
Prabhupāda: So, come on. Let us talk. (break) ...problem of life. But they do not care for it. Nobody is serious about this point, that we learn that I am ahaṁ brahmāsmi, I am spirit soul, and na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20), I am not finished after finishing this body. Who is caring? Then what is my position? Any gentleman, suppose we have given notice that you have to vacate this house, this apartment. Your term is finished. So he finds out another house. But what these rascals are doing? They are so foolish. The notice is there, that any moment you'll be kicked out. And where you are going? Where to stay? And they are intelligent. And they're intelligent. They are struggling for existence, but who will allow you to exist? That the small brain cannot think. Who will allow you to exist? But they foolishly say struggle for existence. Survival of the fittest. Who is fit? He does not know.
Prabhupāda: Underneath a tree I was sitting and speaking. That's all. And when I would come back from the park to my apartment, at least two dozen people will come with me.
Hari-śauri: Like a Pied Piper.
Hari-śauri: The article is by Hayagrīva, and the heading, it says, "Are you from India?" That was when he met you on the street.
Prabhupāda: Yes, he first of all met me on the street and asked me this question. And I brought him, "Yes, I have taken one apartment here. You come here with me." Then I came back to show him the apartment. And from the next day they began to come, Kīrtanānanda and Hayagrīva.
Hari-śauri: Second Avenue apartment?
Prabhupāda: Yes. And this Umāpati. Then Satsvarūpa. They began to come regularly.
Harikeśa: Mukunda, you were already...
Prabhupāda: Stationwagon. So he took my luggage, and from there thirty miles off, the Butler County. So I went there. Then at night he took my (indistinct). The next day, he had no many rooms in his apartment, he arranged for my stay in the YMCA nearby them.
Hari-śauri: You never actually stayed with him then.
Prabhupāda: Some people were coming. That Mukunda began to come, his wife, and another black boy, half-black. Yeargen, Karlapati. I gave him name, Karlapati. He was coming. Then one day that boy Murray, he showed some crazy features. So I thought it is dangerous to live with him. So I approached Mukunda. Mukunda had no place, still I asked him. So I kept my goods at Mukunda's house and went to live with Yeargen. That is another loft. So in this way, with great hardship—sometimes here, sometimes there—in this way, I got two hundred dollars by selling books, and then I asked Mukunda to find out an apartment. He found this apartment, 26 Second Avenue. One storefront down and one living quarters up. So I found it very convenient. Down I would lecture and hold kīrtana. So he charged 75 dollars per month for the apartment, small apartment. I think in a space like this room or less than that, everything is there.
Haṁsadūta: In that city, one has to wait for years in order to get an apartment.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā?
Haṁsadūta: Yes, Anatol was telling me, that boy Ānanda-śānti. His whole family was living in that..., but you did not see his room. His room is very small, maybe two times the size of your kitchen and whole family was living in that. Mother, grandmother, father, him, and when Mandākinī went there she was also living there.
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Devotee: And here you have the offices where you can make an apartment and here we have thirty units, small, about the same size as the rooms upstairs.
Prabhupāda: Ah.
Devotee: Which is good for like āśrama, you know.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: The Darwin's theory, he is putting that the bone is changing. The bone is not changing. You get different bones in different life. I am changing my position. I am going from one apartment to another apartment. The apartment not changing. I am changing apartment. That is the difference between Darwin's theory and our theory. They are thinking the apartment is becoming another apartment. No. The apartments are already there. I am entering different apartments as I can pay for it. That is karma. According to my karma, I am sometimes residing in one apartment, in another apartment. This is going on. The Darwin's theory, the apartment is changing. That's not the fact. Fact is I am living entity. Tathā dehān..., Kṛṣṇa also says tathā dehāntara. Apartment antara. The spirit soul is the same. There is no change. That is spirit always. But according to his karma, he is going from this apartment, or this body, tathā dehān... That is the main point with the modern science and our Vedic knowledge.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Just here, the top floor of this building. Just your apartment and the next apartment.
Prabhupāda: Other buildings, they are...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, yes. Even our buildings other side have it. Just this one.
Indian man: Some emergency light needs to be connected here, so automatically the light goes out (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: In Vṛndāvana they have got that generator.
Indian man: That is very good but (indistinct).
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We don't need it in Bombay because in Bombay it never goes off. I think it's going off because something is wrong with the wiring in this apartment.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Pradyumna has got child. Gopāla has... Live with husband, wife. There is no restriction for husband and wife. But what is this nonsense that you take sannyāsa and make relation with...? This should be completely stopped. And in our, this campus, actually those who are eager to advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they should live, nobody else. We give free food, free apartment, cloth and everything. "Come here. Live. As far as possible we shall provide." But this is specially meant for bhagavad-bhajana. Attend ārati, early rise in the morning, attend the functions, take prasādam... In this way everything will be reorganized, not loose things.
Mr. Asnani: Oh, I was taking sometime in literary sense. So it was sometimes confusing me.
Prabhupāda: No, it is literally, that yā niśā sarva-bhūtānāṁ tasyāṁ jāgarti saṁyamī. He, spiritualist person, he knows, that "What is the use of the sense gratification? The sense gratification is there in the cats and dogs. Why I am wasting in this way?" That is awakened. What is the difference? A man is having sex life in a very nice apartment, very decorated and nice cot. He is enjoying sex life, that "I am advanced civili..." And the dog is enjoying sex life on the street in presence of everyone. But the enjoyment of sex life is the same. There is no difference either for the dog or the man. So the spiritualistic man, he says that "Why shall I waste my time in sex enjoyment? This is enjoyed by the dogs and cats.
Mr. Asnani: But among them, the sex is very powerful.
Prabhupāda: Puṁsaḥ striyā mithunī-bhāvam etat. This is the basic principle of... A man and woman is married; the purpose is sex. Now, when he's married, ataḥ gṛha-kṣetra-sutāpta-vittair. "Then where shall I enjoy sex? I must have very nice apartment, gṛha. Then I must maintain myself, kṣetra." Formerly agriculture was the source of maintenance. Ataḥ gṛha-kṣetra. "Then I get some children, suta, then some friends." Ataḥ gṛha-kṣetra-suta apta vitta. "Then money." In this way, janasya moho 'yam ahaṁ mameti: (SB 5.5.8) "He increases this paraphernalia, and he becomes entangled:" Ahaṁ mam... "I am the proprietor; I am the father; I am this; I am that." And one day, nature's law comes, gives him a slap: "Get out!" Finished.
Prabhupāda: I have seen in Bombay. The other day I went to a gentleman's apartment. He is.... The gentleman is earning two thousand, and the wife is earning seven hundred. But they are living in an apartment of this size. Within this, there is bedroom, and there is kitchen, and there is toilet, and everything is there. And if we say people, "Please come here. Take a room like this and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa," they'll not come. They'll prefer to remain in that tiny apartment. Am I right or not? Manda-bhāgyā. Mandāḥ sumanda-matayo manda-bhāgyā hy upadrutāḥ (SB 1.1.10). Therefore Caitanya Mahāprabhu has declared, ei rūpe brahmāṇḍa bhramite kono bhāgyavān jīva. They are rotting or rotating within this universe in different species of life. But if by chance he becomes fortunate, then take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Rāmeśvara: They say that if God had all of these things, then He would have revealed them in the Bible.
Prabhupāda: Because you cannot, rascal, manage that. That is the difference between him and God. Kṛṣṇa had sixteen thousand wives and sixteen thousand palaces. You cannot maintain one apartment.
Rāmeśvara: In the Bible...
Gargamuni: You were keeping in the corner...
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes!
Gargamuni: ...in your apartment. We used to ask, "Swamiji, can we take?" And you used to say "Yes."
Prabhupāda: And that Stryadīśa?
Gargamuni: Yes, Stryadīśa. He would eat twenty capatis.
Prabhupāda: "Stryadīśa, shall I give you more?" "Yes. Four." Then he finished. "Can I give you more?" "Yes." So I was giving him four at a time. So four at a time, I was giving five times, six times.
Prabhupāda: No sādhana, bhajana, and simply naga.
Hari-śauri: They smoke chillums, so they're so intoxicated that they don't...
Gurukṛpa: I saw one naga. They said he was smoking a cigarette for twelve years. Not a chain smoker, "cable smoker."
Prabhupāda: Markaṭa-vairāgya, the renunciation of a monkey.
Bhāgavata: You have explained in Fifth Canto. Verses are there. Renunciation like a monkey.
Gurukṛpa: One man had his arm up for twelve years. He had his arm up with his hands closed, and his fingernails had grown, and his arm was flat for keeping up for twelve years like Hiraṇyakaśipu.
Prabhupāda: Mind carries me to New York, and I am now dreaming or thinking I am sitting in that room and talking with somebody. I have forgotten this, but... It is practical. Although I am sitting here, I have forgotten it, and I am working, thinking myself that I am in New York. Similarly, in dream my body is on the bed. I am thinking I am on the Himalayan top. So as it is possible even in this body, similarly, I get another body, gross body. Then I forget this body. This is transmigration. I have explained it. This is the factual. Everyone can experience. I have got a period of remaining in this body. So as soon as this period is finished I get..., I create another body and enter it. And because the period is not finished, although in dream I am getting another body and going to the Himalaya, top, or I'm going to my New York apartment, still, I have to come back because period is not finished. Simple thing. This is transmigration.
Ādi-keśava: ...they can't think that anybody else has anything better.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So we have to wash the stool. "Yes, it is brainwash." Tell them that. This is the truth actually. "You do not know what is the aim of your life. You are claiming, 'human being.' The dog does not know what is the aim of life. The dog is eating, sleeping, having sex and defense. Your whole education system is based on these four principles. Where is that university which is teaching more than this? You have got technological knowledge. Then what is the purpose? The purpose is how you'll get good bread. That's all, eating. What more? Suppose you have become very good technologist, good title. But what is the aim? You get good salary and eating. That's all, nothing more than that. Or sleeping, good apartment. Or sex, very nice girl." (aside:) Come on. "What else you have got by this education? Nothing... Nowhere it is taught that 'You are eternal. You are suffering in this way.' Where is that education?"
Ādi-keśava: They don't have it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It may be Kṛṣṇa's will that you... I think that if for one month you are under the care of Dr. Ghosh in a very first class healthy weather...
Prabhupāda: I think also. He is a very kind doctor. Whole family is attentive. Living is... That we have already discussed. Trees also live for many years. That is not wanted. To live for living forever, that is wanted. Yad gatvā na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṁ mama (BG 15.6). That should be the human endeavor, not this dog race, changing condition, from four legs to four wheels. This logic was never taught, from four legs to four wheels. They are astonished.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And anthills. Yes, it's a very unique presentation of the philosophy. They have never heard it so nicely adapted to the modern situation.
Prabhupāda: So they have got farther two days, so I think they will be able to do it. That, my, apartment in Juhu.
Gargamuni: It's actually your own building.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This apartment is the best actually.
Prabhupāda: Los Angeles and in New York, big, big cities they are—London, Paris. But nobody can present such luxurious royal palace.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: The drama was very appreciated last night. Samayadi was watching it with us, and he said he would like to arrange a big program in his house.
Prabhupāda: Old Samayadi or his son?
Prabhupāda: ...and bangle, and tink-tink-tink. Then he took away another bangle, again tink-tink-tink. Another bangle, again tink-tink-tink. When there was only one, there was no tink-tink-tink.
Hari-śauri: Right.
Prabhupāda: So remain always one and read books. Then there will be no noise. And as soon as you become two, tink-tink-tink. That I don't want.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, it won't happen. If anyone comes to see me, I'll go out of the apartment.
Prabhupāda: No, I mean to say that we are inviting, people may come, live peacefully, and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. This is an attempt. Otherwise, we could have built some apartment house... (break)...the J.P.?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Jaya Prakash Narayan.
Prabhupāda: Jaya Prakash Narayan. Even in old days they were dealing with this politics. What they will do good to the people? But they do not know. This is disease. They do not study the whole history of the world. What Gandhi has done? What Hitler has done? What Napoleon has done? And what they will do? But they are applauded. "He is promising within one year poverty will be driven away." All false propaganda. Ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham iti manyate (BG 3.27). Vimūḍhātmā. Rascals. They are promising so many things. They will never be able to do anything. And they are applauded.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I was just wondering about this, that we may be traveling around, and even here Your Divine Grace is not so fit for going to all of the ceremonies. Maybe you would like it if we were to keep a little Deity here.
Prabhupāda: Where?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In your apartment.
Prabhupāda: No, no.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You don't need...
Prabhupāda: Hm. The Deity is there, fixed-up. That's all right. I was keeping Deity with me, but a constant change of this servant.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But the lift wasn't working, so he couldn't come upstairs. That's why Karttikeya left early, because he was waiting downstairs.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Karttikeya brought him actually. They live in the same house, apartment complex, downstairs, this man. And at one point he expressed that he had a great attachment for his wife, and his wife died about three years ago because of cancer. So since that time he said that he find no peace, and he's looking...
Prabhupāda: He has no children? He has no children?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: We didn't talk about children...
Prabhupāda: No, no...
Prabhupāda: No, I am speaking, within the temple.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think practically all over the society that has been stopped, the gṛhastha living together with wife. I don't think there's any case like that. But in the adjoining buildings they might be...
Prabhupāda: Adjoining buildings... But the temple should not provide them with salary to enjoy their life. That is same thing.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Generally the temples are providing them with apartments, like that.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In other words, if the temple provides an apartment, it's the same as paying a salary.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In other words, giving an apartment is the same thing as providing a salary.
Prabhupāda: All right, apartment can be... But what is this? They are given high salary. Because his service is essential—"All right, you take apartment."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But not...
Prabhupāda: You take prasādam. But why salary? Where is the question of salary? Where is vairāgya, renouncement? So in all circumstances the salary process should be stopped. One who wants salary, he can work outside.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, even if you don't give a salary, if you give an apartment and you give food and you give all these other things for someone to maintain his household life...
Prabhupāda: Hm hm. So he's trying to practice... Because sevonmukhe, if he gives service, then gradually he'll renounce. Sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ (Brs. 1.2.234). God realization means service. The more you give service to the Lord, the more you become advanced in devotional... So one who is giving service, dedicated life, so maybe... But no salary. They may live in the temple, woman separate, man separate.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're... But the actual thing is that they're being, living together in an apartment, and the temple is paying for that apartment. They're not living separately in the temple. They're being...
Prabhupāda: That is to be discouraged. What do you think?
Girirāja: I agree.
Prabhupāda: If you can maintain it, then it is all right. That, you mean to say, that storefront or the whole building?
Gargamuni: The rear apartment or the storefront?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: The storefront as well as the building, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Both storefront and the building.
Prabhupāda: Oh. I, I know that that building was several times changed hands.
Prabhupāda: As soon as you rent, it become botheration.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It means you have to collect the rent.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: No, your apartment can be a place of pilgrimage.
Indian man: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: Ha. As soon as you rent out, then botheration.
Prabhupāda: Eleven?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The elevator charge, for the electricity, twenty-five hundred dollars a month. It's not a joke to run a building of that size. That's why in New York to have, own a building in that location they get a very good rent. Every apartment, say, a two and half room apartment, 250, 300 dollars per month.
Prabhupāda: USA.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And we have three hundred rooms. It would fetch... If it was divided up as an all-apartment building, it would make very..., lot of money. To run a building like that... It's very prestigious. Even though it's not a new building, still, it is prestigious.
Prabhupāda: . I usually take every visitor from the Eastern European countries to at least..." Because he speaks Polish, so he's always being asked to take the visitors around "...to at least one appointment and give them a copy of your Bhagavad-gītā..." While he's taking them there, he's preaching, and he gives a copy of the Bhagavad-gītā. "...a calendar and a copy of a foreign language book, such as the Russian or Hungarian book if they speak that language. Whichever language they speak, we have our books now. I previously brought them to my apartment at the temple, for either lunch or dinner, until one very prominent Russian professor, a very close friend of Dr. Kotovsky, and a Romanian film producer complained to the Washington, D.C., office of the WAC that they felt very strange being brought to the temple. I think that this was because they were the biggest demons of all. All of the others liked the temple, and even those two big demons liked the prasādam. They liked my apartment and my family.
Prabhupāda: I was cooking, myself, in a friend's house. So he took it as a free cook he has got. And two men, of course, we... Sometimes some guest would... And I would be very glad. And ten, twenty, I'll feed them. And they would like very much ḍāl, cāpāṭi, and one vegetable. First-class... Everyone would like. That was going on, ḍāl, cāpāṭi, and one vegetable. I'll take pleasure. Sometimes somebody would come to assist me. He wanted to eat immediately. And "No, that you cannot. After I have finished, when it is offered to Kṛṣṇa, then I'll give you sumptuous prasādam, not before." So there was no... And little rice. Ḍāl, cāpāṭi, rice, vegetable, bas. Oh, it was so nice. Everyone would praise. The same thing, when I took my own apartment I did the same thing, distributed prasādam. Then, gradually, they came forward to assist me. First came Kīrtanānanda. He is the first cook. Then Acyutānanda. Brahmānanda was washing dish. He could not help the cooking.
Prabhupāda: ...gṛhastha life. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura independently... Or I was also gṛhastha. Our aim was different. But this neophyte, if they remain aloof from temple connection without attending the function, gradually they will be lost.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That was the reason that I suggested to Abhirāma Prabhu that he should make his business in Bombay. Actually the gṛhasthas have no desire to live independent of the temples. Just like Mādhavānanda, he's got an apartment now just near the temple so that he can attend maṅgala-ārati and the other functions.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Unless these things are continued, the karmīs' poison will spoil them. He can do independent business; there is no harm. But must be connected with the devotional service.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It seems like the solution is to get apartments near the temple, get room near the temple.
Prabhupāda: Why not in the temple? Why? If he pays, what is wrong?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, in a place like Bombay where we have so many buildings, in the temple. But sometimes... Just like in America, if there's only one building with only...
Prabhupāda: No, America also... Just like Los Angeles we have got.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's different. There there are apartments.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Why not? In a building there are so many different types of men. In a big building, apartment building, you cannot expect all of them of the same class.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Hm. 'Cause in Bombay you had said that is was better that in an immediate building of the temple they should not live together with wife. They should live separately.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. Right now in our Society throughout the world, wherever there are gṛhasthas living in our temples, they live separate from their wives. And if they want to live with their wives, then they get a room or an apartment near the temple.
Prabhupāda: So may be like that, but must be attached to the temple.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Hm. No, but there is alternative always. There are available rooms and apartments just adjoining the temples.
Prabhupāda: Then it is all right, but he must be connected with temple.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. That's the principle. Under no circumstance should anybody be independent.
Prabhupāda: Upendra is here?
Upendra: Yes, Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: That is devotee. So for the time being you utilize the money and checks, everything, for developing. So you have returned?
Hari-śauri: Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda. (break)
Haṁsadūta: And we're also considering that a farm is very important there, to have a farm.
Prabhupāda: Apartment?
Haṁsadūta: No. It's a house. Quite a large house. Large area.
Prabhupāda: You have got any (indistinct). Where is Girirāja?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He went into the city today for picking up the fixed deposit receipts. That was the main thing.
Prabhupāda: City?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Delhi. Because the receipts are being turned over to the head office, so they have to be endorsed there. So he went for that purpose. There's not much more to do now with this Panchashil flat, because we're going to give it. So simply it will be up to Vrindavan to make up the necessary document for transferring it. I think it doesn't even require a big document. Simply a letter on behalf of Your Divine Grace saying that "We give this apartment to you."
Prabhupāda: But one thing, if they can dispose?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, they may try and sell it.
Prabhupāda: No, no, I don't want that.
Prabhupāda: That I cannot allow. They're allowed to live, that's all. Then, after that, whatever...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, what happens if, on their own, they sublet it to someone else? Supposing on their own they make an agreement with someone. Say someone pays them twenty thousand rupees and they move out? That they won't do...
Prabhupāda: No.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...because they won't be able to get another apartment. Yes. I don't see how they would sublet it. There would be no purpose to it. They might, though.
Prabhupāda: No subletting.
Prabhupāda: We pay, and you cut down. Other tenants are there. But not tenants-occupier. What they are doing?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, they're going to pay corporation taxes. See, we're the actual owners of the flat. There's no other instance like this. The other people who own the flats, they live in it. But we don't live in it; they live in it. So the flat is owned by us, but if they pay taxes and stuff, they're going to get the receipts in their name. I don't think they're going to get the receipts in your name.
Prabhupāda: Why not in my name?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. If they get the receipt in your name, then the matter ends right there.
Prabhupāda: That's all right.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Jayapatākā Mahārāja, if someone owns a flat and someone else is allowed to live there, if the person who's allowed to live there, but doesn't pay rent, when he pays taxes, the receipt for the taxes should be issued in the owner's name, isn't it?
Prabhupāda: If other owners are doing that, do that for us, in my name.
Prabhupāda: Hm. So how you are spending that money?
Dayānanda: Now I live in my own apartment, I'm giving fifty percent to the ISKCON Tehran projects, and fifty percent I keep for maintenance.
Prabhupāda: So there is no scarcity? Eh?
Dayānanda: No, there's no scarcity, Śrīla Prabhupāda. In my spare time I am working in the restaurant, helping to manage the restaurant.
| Page Title: | Apartment (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | SunitaS |
| Created: | 24 of Jul, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=170, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 170 |