Expressions researched:
"Billy Graham"
Reporter: Mr. Billy Graham makes people God conscious in a different way. Can you tell me what you think of him?
Prabhupāda: I do not know what is Billy Graham, but I am following the Vedic principle, Bhagavad-gītā as it is. Kṛṣṇa says, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). God says that "You give up all nonsense occupation, simply surrender unto Me, and I take charge of you and give you protection." This is our philosophy.
Jagadīśa: (break) In Toronto, Śrīla Prabhupāda... When we purchased the new church in Toronto we sold all the church pews. And Billy Graham... Do you know who Billy Graham is? He's an Evangelist preacher in the United States. He sometimes went to that church to preach. So when we sold the pews we would tell people that "Billy Graham sat in this pew," and they would become excited to purchase.
Prabhupāda: So it was sold in good price?
Jagadīśa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) That's nice.
Hṛdayānanda: As you are always saying, Prabhupāda, these people are not becoming purified. This one man who Jagadīśa mentioned, he's the most famous Christian preacher practically in the Western world. Now he's becoming older, about sixty. Recently they asked him that "If you could live your life again, would you live the same life or a different life?" So he said, "I am very sorry because I spent too much of my time preaching. I should have spent more time with my family."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, he actually said that?
Hṛdayānanda: Yes. At the end of life this is his...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He's the foremost Christian preacher in the world right now, Prabhupāda.
Hṛdayānanda: He said, "I accepted too many invitations to go preach. I should have spent time with my family."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That will make him more popular, and they'll say he's more religious.
Hṛdayānanda: (break) ...already left to preach.
Prabhupāda: Oh, that's nice. (break) Eh? Dhunvanti, aghaṁ dhunvanti kārtsnyena nīhāram iva bhāskaraḥ.(?) This is Kṛṣṇa. In one second He can make it purified. Ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ (BG 18.66). Simply surrender.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It seems like our desire not to surrender is very powerful because Kṛṣṇa is so...
Prabhupāda: Not powerful. Yes, powerful.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Kṛṣṇa is so powerful and yet our nonsense is so strong that we can resist such a powerful force as Kṛṣṇa's love.
Prabhupāda: Now the whole sky clear, hundreds of miles. (break)
Sadāpūta: There was one thing I was wondering a little bit. Is the possibility of..., is it possible of making some experiments which would tend to indicate that life is not material? And this might be appealing to some of the people with scientific education, because they are used to such things, experiments.
Prabhupāda: No, experiment is there. Just like in... Hindus, we burn the body into ashes. How the soul is transmigrating? This is scientific experiment. The Bhagavad-gītā says nainaṁ dahati pāvakaḥ. Everyone is seeing the body is burned into ashes, but still, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). He's going to another body. How it is going? So the soul is not burned.
Rūpānuga: We were having a meeting with the other scientists, and they were challenging you. They were saying, "Show us one experiment. Show us one experiment!" That's the way they are.
Prabhupāda: There are so many experiments.
Sadāpūta: We were wondering... We knew that, for example, Jagadisha Chandra Bose did some experiments indicating plants having consciousness. We were wondering if some things of that kind might be of some use.
Prabhupāda: So in the Calcutta there is Bose Institute, you can go and see. They have got all machine, how the plants are feeling. Everything is there.
Rūpānuga: That's important because they are saying these animals have no soul. They are saying lower form of life, they have no soul, so killing them is not important. So his work was important. It showed...
Prabhupāda: No, killing or not killing, that is another point. You can kill your own son. They are killing, actually. That is another point. But they have got soul. All the symptoms are there; how you can say there is no soul? Where is the difference between man's behavior and animal's behavior? So far eating, sleeping, sex, defense is concerned, the same thing. How do you say that it is different from the human being? Why they differentiate the animal from the man? What is the main point?
Sadāpūta: I think that scientifically that was just Christian doctrine that made them do that. Because the scientists turned around...
Prabhupāda: Christian doctrine is not perfect. But symptoms of animal and symptoms of human being, primary necessities eating sleeping, mating, defense that is there, everywhere.
Rūpānuga: They may agree, but they'll say that this...
Prabhupāda: There is soul. As soon as there is living condition, there is soul. As soon as the body is dead, there is no soul. This is difference. It is the Christian doctrine, not scientific doctrine, that animal has... What we have to do with Christian theory?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They have poor understanding of the nature of the soul.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: In Christianity, they speak of...
Prabhupāda: It is not very advanced.
Rūpānuga: That's not respected.
Prabhupāda: That is true.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Even Billy Graham says there's no soul in the dog. In his column "My Answer"... There's a column by Billy Graham...
Hari-śauri: That's that column you saw.
Prabhupāda: So you challenge them, the scientists.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Somebody asked that "I love my dog. Looks like the dog comes when I call and behaves very nicely." So this question was asking that the dog might have soul. So he asked Billy Graham, "What do you think?" So Billy Graham was saying, "No, dog has no soul."
Prabhupāda: This is dogmatic. This is not scientific; it is dogmatic.
Rūpānuga: He could not support his statements.
Prabhupāda: So dogmatic, you can say any nonsense, but philosophy and science is different. If he's talking on dogmatic platform, then what is his value? What does he mean by "soul is there" and "soul is not there"? How does he prove?
Rūpānuga: We were finding that there are some real scientific experiments like Pasteur's, the one we did in the slide show the other night, and some of the work of Bose, that have been ignored simply or misinterpreted. Already there has been some work in this area. So we were thinking that we could point to these as examples to confirm our position, because they are scientific.
Prabhupāda: Now, in Christian commandment, there is "Thou shalt not kill." So what does it mean? (door opens and closes)
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: These Chinese Bhagavad-gītās came, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Chinese will be color?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, he said there was some defect with them, so they rectified that, the color.
Rūpānuga: Who has done this, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: One devotee.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh, this is nice! (laughs)
Hari-śauri: This is the first six chapters.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He mentioned that he's going to begin printing the second six chapters soon, within two months, and also a new Chinese magazine. (end)
Rāmeśvara: This is the only movement now. All these other attempts have completely failed, at least in America. All the Indian teachers that have come to America are being exposed.
Prabhupāda: But they say Transcendental Meditation is going...
Hari-śauri: Six million.
Rāmeśvara: Oh, that's big because you don't have to give up anything. I met some of my old friends in New York, and I debated with them. And their philosophy is that this Transcendental Meditation is based on natural process of God consciousness, and our effort is all artificial. We are giving up meat, giving up sex—this is artificial. Their philosophy is that "If you continue meditating, one day automatically you'll give up these things. So why do it prematurely?"
Prabhupāda: No, but if one day you have to give it up, why not prematurely?
Rāmeśvara: Give it up when you are... By the Transcendental Meditation, twenty minutes a day, automatically you are purifying yourself naturally. Therefore that is more perfect.
Prabhupāda: No, if I can purify immediately, what is the wrong?
Rāmeśvara: He said it creates stress. By doing it artificially you create too much stress.
Prabhupāda: "No, we don't feel any... We do not feel any stress. You feel because you are unable to do it. But we don't feel it. We have given up... Since our spiritual master has said, we have given up, immediately. But you cannot do it," say.
Rāmeśvara: That's it. And they're envious, so therefore he's trying to find fault. He says, "You are creating so much stress that you are actually blocking your mind from the higher realms of meditation."
Prabhupāda: No, that is... "You are saying. Our mind is not blocked. We are making progress. You are saying that because you cannot do it. That is your deficiency. We can do it immediately."
Hari-śauri: They can only do it twenty minutes a day.
Prabhupāda: If that is the goal, that you have to give up, so we give up immediately, without any difficulty.
Rāmeśvara: But they're making propaganda against this Transcendental Meditation also. The biggest Christian preacher in America—his name is Billy Graham—he is a good friend of former president Nixon and very wealthy. And he has stated publicly that this Transcendental Meditation... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...sees practically.
Gargamuni: These people, though, who follow these processes, they don't dedicate their lives. They follow it for two years, then they get married and they forget the whole thing. While they're students...
Prabhupāda: It is a hobby.
Gargamuni: Yes. In college. In college they do it, and when they're out of college they get married and go to work. They forget it.
Rāmeśvara: Many ordinary businessmen and middle-class people have spent the money and practiced Transcendental Meditation for a little bit, and they say it has helped them. It has given them peace of mind for a little bit.
Prabhupāda: That can give temporarily.
Rāmeśvara: But there's one haṭha-yoga teacher from India who's a little well known.
Gargamuni: Yogi Bhajan?
Rāmeśvara: No. He's different. He is a sex teacher. But there is this one other haṭha-yoga teacher. I can't remember his name. He's... Viṣṇu Devananda. And he is publishing pamphlets against Maharishi, that "This is completely bogus. In the name of meditation it is completely fraud, bluff, bogus." And he mails out these pamphlets all over America. He takes out ads in the newspapers trying to expose that "This is not according to any Indian scripture."
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's a fact.
Rāmeśvara: But his movement is so nonsense, he has women sannyāsīs. Swami Māyādevī (laughter). I've seen a picture of his advertisement. "Join our camp..."
Prabhupāda: The woman sannyāsī, Rāmakrishna Mission has.
Rāmeśvara: He's... What is it? Śivānanda? Divine Light. They advertise, "Come to our summer camp for yoga practice, and our women will teach you." They are swamis.
Gargamuni: His students sued him one time because he preaches brahmācārya.
Prabhupāda: I have seen their sannyāsī kissing woman on the street.
Rāmeśvara: On the street.
Prabhupāda: Yes. He came to see me in London, and I saw in the street there was some woman; he is kissing her. I have seen sannyāsī.
Nanda-kumāra: This Rajneesh makes woman sannyāsīs too.
Prabhupāda: Rajneesh makes husband and wife sannyāsī. That we saw, that, in Poona?
Hari-śauri: Yes. We stayed at one man's house, and his brother was a follower of Rajneesh.
Prabhupāda: Sannyāsī.
Hari-śauri: After a day and a half Prabhupāda convinced the guy that Rajneesh was just a rascal. He came that morning we left, and he admitted Rajneesh was just a rascal and was just cheating everyone. "Neo-sannyāsa," they call it.
Rāmeśvara: Seems as soon as these people die, like this Sai Baba, Maharishi, then their movement will be finished.
Prabhupāda: And another rascal will come. (laughs)
| Page Title: | Billy Graham |
| Compiler: | MadhuGopaldas |
| Created: | 25 of Nov, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=1, Con=3, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 4 |