Bit (Conversations)

Expressions researched:
"Bit" |"Bits"

Notes from the compiler: VedaBase query:bit or bits not "little bit"

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Questions and Answers -- Montreal, August 26, 1968:

Prabhupāda: Suppose if we take film, very long film, what will be the cost?

Dāmodara: Well, in an eight-millimeter, the size film that you saw last night, the other night, it's not very expensive. It costs a little more than a dollar a minute for, you know. So if there was an hour and a half film, it might cost $150. Not much. But to make a film of the quality that's seen in the theater, it's very expensive. An hour and a half film, it's not unusual, a hundred thousand dollars.

Prabhupāda: (laughing) Oh!

Dāmodara: That's quite a bit of difference. You see, when you have sound on a film it makes it very expensive. And the proper lighting. It takes a long time to make a film that has the right quality. It's expensive.

Prabhupāda: So why don't you get a financier? We can give so many ideas of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and we have got our players.

Dāmodara: Brahmānanda mentioned that I should write to some foundations, groups...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 12, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:

Allen Ginsberg: Well, the chanting is easy. The chanting is easy. That's true.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Let them do that. Don't come to the ritualistic performances. Let them chant as far as possible and see the result. This is the easiest method of transcendental realization. But if you recommend, oh, that will be accepted by many. And if we...

Allen Ginsberg: No. You see, I recommend it quite a bit but it isn't accepted by very many.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) No, no. Then I say, you are American. You are popular leader. You have got some voice. I am a foreigner. I have come new, and who cares for me? That is a different thing.

Allen Ginsberg: Well, that's why I'm asking you very specifically cause I've been chanting for five years, six years. Since 1963, '64. Since the fall of 1963, I've been chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa on this continent, beginning in Vancouver in July, 1963. And I am finding there is a limitation to how many people will join that chant. Or I have found a limitation. Part of the limitation is the fact that it is strange and new to people here.

Prabhupāda: But there is no loss.

Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 14, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:

Allen Ginsberg: Well, this university he chose because it's supposed to be typical of America. So if in this typical university the young people greet him by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, then he may well invite you.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) No. I came here with this idea, that in America they are in need of these things, and they are wanting something substantial. So if some is given... Of course, I am doing my bit as far as possible. But if some organized things are done like government help or people help, then this movement can be pushed further nicely. Otherwise slowly it will go on, as Kṛṣṇa desires.

Hayagrīva: Mr. Ginsberg said he also chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa for Robert Kennedy before he died.

Allen Ginsberg: I think I told you about that, didn't I?

Prabhupāda: Yes. You told me in San Francisco. Yes.

Allen Ginsberg: So he heard two rounds of it. Okay. I have to take a plane today to a Catholic college in New York State. I'll be going back to New York at one o'clock, so I have to go back and pack and say good-bye to the students. It was a pleasure to see you here, lovely. So maybe we'll do it again in New York.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Lord Caitanya Play Told to Tamala Krsna -- August 4, 1969, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Hm? No. These are not eternal pastimes. They are instructive particularly for this planet. In the eternal Vaikuṇṭha, Lord Caitanya is engaged in chanting and dancing. That's all.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Maybe you should, you must have your massage now. It's time.

Prabhupāda: What is time?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It is twenty-five minutes to uh... Maybe we can do a little more. Twenty-five minutes to twelve. Maybe a tiny bit more.

Prabhupāda: You can do, you can ask me for fifteen minutes more.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. We also wish to show a scene of Lord Caitanya in school, learning. Some kind of incident about how nice a pupil He was so we can show people that He was the best student in the school.

Prabhupāda: In India the system is in the school that the best student is appointed... What is called in English? The chief student is called "minor," or... "M," beginning.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Monitor.

Prabhupāda: Monitor, yes. Monitor. So He was monitor. That is the same. And He'll teach the students from grammar all Kṛṣṇa. Dhātu. Dhātu. There is subject matter. Dhātu means verb. So He will ex-plain... dhātu means, when a dhātu is taken away a man is dead, and this dhātu is Kṛṣṇa. So Kṛṣṇa is the life. Without Kṛṣṇa a man is dead." In this way He explained. Kṛṣṇa explanation.

Room Conversation With John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison -- September 11, 1969, London, At Tittenhurst:

John Lennon: I've read bits of the Bhagavad-gītā. I don't know which version it was. There's so many different translations.

Prabhupāda: There are different translations. Therefore I have given this edition, Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. There are interpretations. In many translations they have got interpretations. Not only in other parts of the world, but in our own country also. Just like Mahatma Gandhi. He was a great man. He has also interpreted. But the point is interpretation where required. Now, here is a fountain pen box. Everyone knows this is a fountain pen box. But if I say, "No, this is something else." That is my interpretation. Is that very nice thing? (Chuckling) Similarly, interpretation is required when things are not understood clearly. If everybody can understand this box is a fountain pen box, where is the necessity of interpretation? This is the first thing. So Bhagavad-gītā is so clear. It is just like sunlight. Sunlight does not require any other lamp. For example, I'll give you, in the first verse,

dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre

samavetā yuyutsavaḥ

māmakāḥ pāṇḍavāś caiva

kim akurvata sañjaya

(BG 1.1)

The, dhṛtarāṣṭra uvāca. The father of Duryodhana is asking his secretary, Sañjaya. His secretary's name was Sañjaya. "Sañjaya, my boys..." Māmakaḥ. Māmakaḥ means "my sons," and pāṇḍava, "the sons of my younger brother." His younger brother's name was Pāṇḍu, and therefore his sons are known as Pāṇḍava. So mamaka, pāṇḍava. "My sons and my younger brother's sons, they assembled together for fighting." Yuyutsava. Yuyutsava means "with fighting spirit." And dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre (BG 1.1), on the place known as Kurukṣetra, which is a place of pilgrimage, dharma-kṣetra. Kim akurvata: "After assembling there, what did they do?" That was his question. Now, this Kurukṣetra place is still existing in India. You have been in India? No.

Room Conversation With John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison -- September 11, 1969, London, At Tittenhurst:

Prabhupāda: What is that? You want to hear? Come on, sit down. So there is no difference. Lord Jesus Christ says that he is son of God. So there is no quarrel between God and God's son. So he says that "Love God," and Kṛṣṇa says, "Love Me." The same thing. (laughs) If you say that "You love me," and your wife says that "Love my husband," there is no difference of opinion.

Yoko Ono: But about the knowledge, I'm a bit worried about it, if you have to, you know, learn Sanskrit and all that, and that's the only way to get enlightenment... I mean, what do you do about people who are not sort of skillful in learning languages and things like that? Would that not at all... I mean, I thought that it...

John Lennon: It's translated, anyway.

Prabhupāda: Translation is there.

John Lennon: So you've got to take a risk.

Yoko Ono: But he said, then why don't you go and...

John Lennon: So then you've got to take the risk of reading a translated one.

Gurudāsa: So you see many devotees of the authority, and then you decide which is the most sincere devotee. And just like in the ninth chapter He says, "You will come to Me." Now, if I asked you for a glass of water and you poured it on the wall, I'd think you were silly. But if you brought it to me, then I knew you were in knowledge, we were having a reciprocal relationship. Therefore, if the devotee is saying, "Worship Kṛṣṇa," and not putting so much of his own ideas in, but just saying, "Worship Kṛṣṇa," all throughout, as Swamiji does, then you can know he's a sincere devotee.

Prabhupāda: No, no. One thing you try to understand. Why these people, if Kṛṣṇa is not the supreme authority, why they are taking Kṛṣṇa's book and translating? Why don't you try to understand?

George Harrison: I'm not saying Kṛṣṇa isn't the Supreme. I believe that.

Prabhupāda: No, no. I mean to say, even there are other sects, as you say, Maharsi. They accept also indirectly Kṛṣṇa as the supreme authority. Because if we say Maharsi belongs to Śaṅkara sampradāya...

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Prof. Kotovsky -- June 22, 1971, Moscow:

Prof. Kotovsky: But you know what is interesting to... It is the opinion of some European and old, old Russian scholars, this varṇāśrama system...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Prof. Kotovsky:...is a bit late creation. If you would trace the old sūtras, texts, of Vedic literature, you would find much more simple and egalitarian society. And there is an opinion that this varṇāśrama system was introduced into Indian society on the late stage of Vedic era but not from the beginning, about... If you would analyze scientifically the old texts, you'll find that... (break)...human estimations. (laughs) As many brains, as many estimations...

Prabhupāda: (laughs) That's it.

Prof. Kotovsky: ...about the duration of this period because unfortunately the old classic India we have not so much information.

Prabhupāda: But so far... So far we are concerned, this Bhagavad-gītā... It is mentioned in the Bhagavad-gītā, cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭam (BG 4.13). Now, this Bhagavad-gītā was spoken five thousand years ago, and in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that "This system of Bhagavad-gītā was first spoken by Me to the sun-god." So if you take estimation of that period, it comes forty millions of years. So whether the European scholars can trace out the history of at least for five thousand years together, not to speak of forty millions?

Prof. Kotovsky: Yes.

Room Conversation -- July 20, 1971, New York:

Prabhupāda: Tanberg machine is nice.

Pratyatoṣa: Yeah, it's a good machine. It's made in Norway.

Prabhupāda: And that is not very costly also.

Pratyatoṣa: No, I ordered it directly from Norway, saved quite a bit on it.

Prabhupāda: What did you pay for it?

Pratyatoṣa: Two hundred and twenty-five, and the list price at the time was five hundred and fifty. I got this before I came into the movement.

Prabhupāda: So it is five hundred and fifty the same machine?

Pratyatoṣa: Yeah, that's what they charged in the United States, five hundred fifty, and I ordered it for two hundred and twenty-five.

Prabhupāda: (indistinct)

Pratyatoṣa: In Norway I got it, and then there's duty.

Prabhupāda: The same machine?

Pratyatoṣa: Yes, exactly.

Room Conversation with Dr. Weir of the Mensa Society -- September 5, 1971, London:

Dr. Weir: Well, I'm sorry I think you're using the word cheat in a much broader sense. We would use cheat as conscious mistake as opposed to a person who doesn't realize that what he says doesn't happen to be true.

Prabhupāda: No, no, conscious... Suppose you think it is right but it is wrong. That is also cheating. Without knowing the thing perfectly well, if you deliver your knowledge to somebody that's cheating.

Dr. Weir: Well, I think that's being a bit hard when a person is not... If he's tried his best to do something and he doesn't intend to mislead, to call that cheating is a bit hard.

Prabhupāda: No, even if not intend, but if you misguide some way or other without sufficient knowledge, that is also cheating.

Dr. Weir: Well, we would say, using the English language properly, that's a misuse of the word.

Prabhupāda: But, generally, if I'm not in perfect knowledge, if I guide you, that is, according to Vedic version that is cheating. You must be confident of the knowledge perfectly. Then if you deliver the knowledge that is right. Just like our position is that we say what Kṛṣṇa says. Kṛṣṇa is God. So we say what Kṛṣṇa says. We don't say anything which does not Kṛṣṇa... Kṛṣṇa does not say. Therefore you are confident that we are delivering the right message. We don't manufacture our own philosophy or words. We simply say, "Kṛṣṇa says, 'sarva dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66).' " Kṛṣṇa, God, says that you simply surrender unto Me, I take charge of you. We are preaching the same philosophy. That you surrender to God and you'll become happy because God takes charge of you. We don't manufacture our word. That is not cheating.

Room Conversation with Dr. Weir of the Mensa Society -- September 5, 1971, London:

Prabhupāda: Therefore we say, we have to receive knowledge from a person who does not commit any mistakes. That is our proposition.

Dr. Weir: Well, that would be going like God if you define it that way, you're (indistinct).

Mensa Member: That does seem a bit...

Prabhupāda: Therefore I said...

Śyāmasundara: This can be proven. This can be tested, if someone's cheating or not cheating can be tested on a factual basis. Similarly, this science can be tested...

Prabhupāda: Observation and experiment.

Śyāmasundara: Whether it has a good effect or it has a bad effect.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So similarly, just like this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is coming down from Kṛṣṇa through the chain of disciplic succession. So if it is actually given in the exact definition, that process, it is effective. And it is actually being experienced that it is effective.

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1972, Mexico:

Prabhupāda: Hm? Let him speak.

Martin: This is why I'm here. I know science...

Prabhupāda: Hm? He can...

Martin: I, I know a bit of where it's going, and I don't find it compelling, fulfilling.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Martin: It's just the empty... (indistinct) one half of the world.

Prabhupāda: Scientist business is he can become a great devotee. Just like...

idam hi puṁsas tapasaḥ śrutasya vā

sviṣṭasya sūktasya ca buddhi-dattayoḥ

avicyuto 'rthaḥ kavibhir nirūpito

yad-uttamaśloka-guṇānuvarṇanam

(SB 1.5.22)

(aside:) You sit down. Why you don't sit down like... Yad-uttamaśloka-guṇanuvarṇanam. Idam hi puṁsas, sviṣṭasya, tapa, sūktasya tapasaḥ. If you are scientist, scientist means you are learned, learned scholar, you know or you've heard from the books so many things. So your duty will be that whatever you have learned, you try to explain all these scientific research work as qualification of the Supreme Lord. Any scientific law, just like law of gravity... (aside:) You are following?

Devotee: Si, si. (Yes, yes.)

Prabhupāda: Law of gravity... The big, big planets are floating in the air. Now you can explain how it is it's floating. The hint is already there in the Bhagavad-gītā, that He enters. Viṣṭabhyā idaṁ kṛtsnam ekāṁśena sthito jagat (BG 10.42), (Sanskrit) that "I enter into this universe, and by My prowess they are floating." These hints are there. Now you are a scientist; if you are actually devotee, then you try to explain from your scientific explanation that this floating is possible because God has entered within it. That is your duty. And because you're scientist, your explanation from the scientific point of view, how God has entered, how He is acting, that will be very well received by the public. So that will be great service. Actually that is the fact. It is already stated there that "I enter." We can understand. Yes, we believe. I'll explain. Just like that balloon. What is that gas? Hydrogen gas?

Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:

Prabhupāda: Is he a very influential man?

Dhanañjaya: What's the definition of influential man?

Prabhupāda: Or he's not very... He talks?

Dhanañjaya: He talks a bit about his community, but he's not produced anything for this community. He's produced some money for the jewelry. This is very nice.

Devotee (1): Personal money. Personal money?

Dhanañjaya: Not just personal money.

Prabhupāda: Do you think he can help us by raising funds?

Dhanañjaya: He can help, but I don't think he can raise thousands and thousands and thousands. See, personally he has no money. He told me he has no money. He's simply at his job he gets so much money.

Prabhupāda: And he's working somewhere?

Dhanañjaya: Yes, he's working. He's in Oxford Street, very near.

Prabhupāda: And he says that he's M.A., Ph.D.? You see? So? He says so.

Morning Walk Conversation -- September 28, 1972, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That also they do not understand properly, because they do not see the spiritual energy. Just like we know that within this body there is a small bit of spiritual energy, spark, which is ten thousand part of the tip of the hair. How small it is. But due to its presence within the body, the body is working so nicely. We know that, that how a small particle of spiritual energy can work so wonderfully. They do not know it.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So nowadays the scientists are also thinking that there have been so many mistakes, so...

Prabhupāda: They will find out.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So they say that this atomic energy, this bombing, was a tremendous mistake on the part of the... They say this mostly responsible by politicians, not on the part of scientists, the scientists say. But on the other hand, the public say, people say, the scientists are responsible because they discovered the...

Prabhupāda: Yes, they are responsible. If you give a sharpened razor in the hands of a child, the child will cut here and there. So who is responsible: the parent or the child?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Parent.

Prabhupāda: So the rascal scientist is responsible for giving such things in the hands of the rascals. Politicians are the most rascal; the most scoundrel, they go to politics. Politician means a tenth-class man. No first-class man goes to politics. Suppose if somebody says to me that "You come and become president." Why shall I go there? What can I do there? I know I shall not be able to do anything, so why shall I take the post?

Jayatīrtha: They just like to lord it over.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- February 28, 1973, Jakarta:

Prabhupāda: (indistinct)

Devotee (1): Not yet. But one man came yesterday who was very interested, big local paper and Associated Press International, the man in charge was in San Francisco for Ratha-yātrā, and he saw you there and took prasādam also. And he wants to take some color photographs for international coverage. (indistinct) I think in Indonesia they're usually a bit slow so a week later they will cover.

Prabhupāda: (indistinct)

Devotee (1): You wrote a letter to me from Sydney in which you said that the preaching program was very nice, but by your experience, it takes much time and money. And how will we do saṅkīrtana and do prasādam distribution and cooking all at the same time? Then you said, "You can think this over with a cool head and we will discuss more when we come."

Prabhupāda: First thing is that we (indistinct).

Devotee (1): (indistinct) The translation we have done so far, some, it seems to me, not right. Although I can't read it, I've tried so many times to print it, but I can never get it printed. And it seems that if it was a good translation...

Prabhupāda: Why not? (indistinct).

Devotee (2): (indistinct)

Devotee (1): (indistinct) We can tell because sometimes we ask their help to clean sometimes. Please make this very, very clean and they (indistinct). There are intelligent here, in Jakarta? They have Theosophical Society with a large following, and there's many Buddhist people who are very intelligent.

Morning Walk -- March 1, 1973, Jakarta:

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee (1): It costs a lot of money. Meat is more expensive to eat. Actually, most people, mostly they eat vegetables because it is available. But there's much fish. There's much fish and they carry around in the streets everywhere.

Devotee (2): In the Eastern countries usually people eat little bits of meat but they're vegetable. It's only in the West that they eat steak. But in every restaurant, they all have meat, much chicken also. They raise chickens. (pause)

Devotee (1): Tomorrow morning we have asked some Indian community leaders to come about 7 o'clock, because they want to be requested by you to do something to help make a temple or what you like. But they... Apparently they feel unhappy because we have not met with the leaders and asked them to help.

Prabhupāda: Why should I put the question? They should first of all. They should come forward.

Devotee (1): Well, actually that meeting with the Indians they wanted you to eat some prasādam in the room, and come inside, and request, and ask you like that.

Prabhupāda: No, no. I cannot do that.

Morning Walk -- March 1, 1973, Jakarta:

Prabhupāda: I can request them. But if they deny that will be insult for me. Therefore I do not like to request them. That will be not good for them, if I request and then they deny, or they do not do. That is not that will be good for them. It is better not to request. That will be offense, if they deny. Or if they did not carry out my order, then it will be offense. Why should they put themselves in such risk? Generally it is the duty of the householder to offer, "Sir, what can I do for you?" Then I can request. But if, as a beggar, I request them and they deny, then that will be great offense for them. That will not good for them.

Devotee (2): (indistinct)

Devotee (1): We are almost there.

Prabhupāda: So you wanted to secure place here?

Devotee (1): Yes. They have a house in this area, but it is a bit far from the center of town.

Prabhupāda: Never mind. It is good quarter, you can take it.

Devotee (1): O.K. It is about one mile more though.

Prabhupāda: That doesn't matter.

Devotee (1): O.K.

Prabhupāda: This is also a center. It is congested.

Devotee (1): Yes. It is near a bus station also.

Prabhupāda: Oh. (end)

Room Conversation With David Wynne -- July 9, 1973, London:

Devotee (2): So one doesn't have to give up his...

Prabhupāda: No. Arjuna was a soldier, he was a fighter. The battlefield was there, the war was there, everything was there. He did not... He took to Kṛṣṇa consciousness does not mean he gave up the field and went away. He remained there, but simply the consciousness was changed. He was not willing to fight on his own account. He changed his opinion, "Yes, now I shall fight. By Your grace, my all doubts are now gone." This is required, this is perfection. And there's the picture how Kṛṣṇa is guiding Arjuna. When the ranks are formed.

Devotees and David Wynne: Yes.

Prabhupāda: "Just here. Just here."

Devotee (3): This picture is in George's album.

David Wynne: Yeah, yeah. When I was young my mother died. I was very unhappy, and I read the..., a bit where Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna that "That which is real always exists, and that which isn't real never existed at all," and then I stopped being unhappy. Because this book is..., it tells you everything. (end)

Room Conversation with David Wynne, Sculptor -- July 9, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Hm?

David Wynne: It seems... I, I mean I, I don't know. I've thought of it, of course, many times as every intelligent person has, but it's, my idea of God is on the consciousness of the whole world, of all that we could possibly envisage, its consciousness is, that's God, and we're the little bits of it. But would you tell me...?

Prabhupāda: Complete in everything. That is the conception of God. Complete in power, complete in knowledge, complete in beauty, complete in opulence... Everything complete. That is the conception of God. Everything complete. There is no scarcity. Everything complete, unlimited. So what is your idea of this material creation? Material means so much land, so much water, so much air, so much fire. So who created these things?

David Wynne: Well, God created it, and it seems to be the aspect of God that we are attached to.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

David Wynne: (laughs) But I'd rather you told me, sir.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Śyāmasundara: This material world is like an aspect of God that we are attached to, but the God behind we don't know.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is our foolishness, that we do not know that behind this material cosmic manifestation, there is God. That information we get from Bhagavad-gītā. Mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram (BG 9.10). That means this cosmic manifestation is creation of God. The vast water is created by God. The vast land is created by God. Everything is created by God. Do you believe that?

David Wynne: Yes.

Room Conversation with David Wynne, Sculptor -- July 9, 1973, London:

Śyāmasundara: How much time do you need to?

David Wynne: Oh, not very long. Two days maybe. But it'll have to be a bit later on.

Śyāmasundara: That's...

David Wynne: Maybe if...

Śyāmasundara: Any time.

David Wynne: August or (indistinct), I've got to go back to Morocco.

Devotee: Do you translate now?

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Devotee: You will translate now?

Prabhupāda: Translation? Yes. Everything is ready. Who has taken that Caitanya-caritāmṛta?

Śrutakīrti: Must have been Pradyumna.

Prabhupāda: He has not come back? Why he hasn't?

Śrutakīrti: Yes, he's returned with his suitcase. And yours is at the airport. They would not give it to him because it was in my name. So they gave a form. I have to fill out the form and then anyone can pick it up.

Śyāmasundara: Well, we can go tonight. Make out the form.

Śrutakīrti: (indistinct) are open all twenty-four hours.

Śyāmasundara: Yeah. Make out the form. I'll go right now.

Prabhupāda: First of all phone if they're open.

Śyāmasundara: Twenty-four hours.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Then that's all right. Then do it. I think you have to pay some money.

Conversation with Mr. Wadell -- July 10, 1973, London:

Mr. Wadell: But there are many things about which I cannot have any clear idea. I cannot...

Prabhupāda: No, you cannot have but if you get clear idea, why you do not take it.

Mr. Wadell: No, I mean even in the physical realm. I cannot at this moment conceive what it is like, say, to be in Sydney, in many cities in the world. There are many things, many bits of knowledge which I cannot have. I cannot be everywhere at once. I am here now. I do not even know what is happening in the place from which I have come.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mr. Wadell: And I must accept that. I cannot be certain about that. Would you not agree?

Prabhupāda: But if there is a process... Suppose you are not in Sydney, but if there is a radio message from Sydney, how do you accept it?

Mr. Wadell: Oh, well, I'd believe it.

Prabhupāda: Then that is a question of belief.

Mr. Wadell: But that is not... Belief is not quite the same thing as...

Prabhupāda: No that is not belief; that is fact. Suppose a radio message is coming from Sydney, we accept it-fact. Although I am not in Sydney. So it is a question of process, how to receive the message. If the process is perfect, then the message is perfect.

Conversation with Mr. Wadell -- July 10, 1973, London:

Mr. Wadell: But when I do not know something then I admit that I do not know it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That admission, that's all right. But in that case, one should not take the post of the teacher. That is our Vedic injunction. One must know perfectly.

Mr. Wadell: You may well be right. (laughter) But actually, I think there are many things which, about which knowledge is changing. There are things...

Prabhupāda: That means cheating.

Mr. Wadell: I see you have here, certain bits of equipment which didn't exist...

Prabhupāda: That is described in the Vedic literature: andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ: (SB 7.5.31) "A blind man is trying to lead other blind men."

Mr. Wadell: I suspect that that is as probably very near to the truth of human situation...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ. What is the benefit? If I am blind and if there are hundreds of blind men, "All right, come on, I shall..."

Mr. Wadell: I think we are all partially blind.

Prabhupāda: No, then there is no question of knowledge. Somebody must be with eyes. He can give knowledge. That is our proposition. As soon as you say blind, there must be somebody with eyes. It is a relative term. It is a relative term. You cannot say, "all are blind." Then there is no question of blind and with men eyes. As soon as you accept blind man, you must accept the other side, man with eyes.

Room Conversation with Indian Guests -- July 11, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Working?

Guest (5): Yes.

Prabhupāda: What work?

Guest (5): Well I'm on the (indistinct) hotel. In the kitchen working, all the washing, and the supervising and things. You know, my father's seen you. He's come and seen you a bit.

Prabhupāda: Ma-phal?

Guest (5): My father.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Guest (5): He's come around, eh? I think he came in London, to the Hare Kṛṣṇa temple in London. He came there. All (indistinct) This thing has really gone into my mind. And I don't drink, no meat, nothing, you know.

Prabhupāda: You don't eat meat?

Guest (5): Nothing. No drink, no...

Prabhupāda: Ah, very good boy. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...ready to sacrifice your hair?

Guest (5): Well, I had it before.

Guest (2): Not yet. (laughter)

Guest (1): Is it compulsory to have a full consciousness that he must shave his head?

Prabhupāda: No, no. This is formality. But he must be prepared to observe formality also. But if it is very much objectionable, sometimes we excuse.

Room Conversation with Guest -- July 11, 1973, London:

Guest: But many times Swami Vivekananda himself went to temples and bowed down before Kālī, before Śrī Kṛṣṇa, before Śrī Bhavānī, and many other temples. He went to Kanyā-kumārī and prayed before Mother.

Prabhupāda: Hm. Distribute the prasāda. Bhagavān ka prasāda. Hm. That's all. So it is a great pleasure for us. Your Holiness visits us voluntarily. Although I could not invite you, but still, you are so kind, you came. So I am doing my bit, following in the footsteps of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. That's all.

Guest: It is a great service to Hindu dharma and Hindu society and humanity as well.

Prabhupāda: They are strictly following Vaiṣṇava principles. They... Whenever one comes to become my disciple, the first condition is that no illicit sex; no meat-eating, eggs, fish, nothing of the sort; no intoxication up to smoking cigarette, drinking tea and coffee; and no gambling. So they strictly follow these things. In our society, there is no tea-drinking even. We don't drink tea. So... Intoxication, pāna, chāi pāna, pāna... Pāna is intoxication.

Guest: Tāmbūla...

Prabhupāda: Tāmbūla. Yatra pāpaś catur-vidhā.

Guest: (Sanskrit or Hindi: Kṛṣṇa is offered tāmbūla in the temple.)

Prabhupāda: No, Kṛṣṇa can take.

Guest: Yes. And that prasāda of Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation With David Lawrence -- July 12, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Here?

David Lawrence: Yes. Well, no, in the Bury Place. And they were thrilled to bits. We had one or two who made the usual silly comments, you know, which you'd expect. But they were embarrassed, you know. Everything that came over, which was interesting, was that they found that all the devotees were very kind, very loving and very sincere. This, this came from even really the most secular of boys with a very, very low intelligence. He could see and perceive and understand that this was how it was.

Prabhupāda: That is our general certificate, everywhere. Even the Americans, they are surprised. They inquire, "Are you Americans?" (laughter.)

David Lawrence: Yes.

Prabhupāda: The, the priest also, he's surprised, that "They are our boys. They did not come to church, never cared for religion. And now they are after God, mad after God. What is this?" They are surprised.

David Lawrence: Well, I think a lot of our boys could understand it, having been to a service, you know, attended ārati, and they...

Prabhupāda: So that is, that is due to our strict following the principles. That is making them stout and strong in spiritual platform.

Garden Conversation with Mahadeva's Mother and Jesuit Priest -- July 25, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Then the question comes: What is the good life?

Jesuit Priest: Obeying the commandments of God.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So if the commandment is "Thou shalt not kill," if somebody kills, so that is good life?

Jesuit Priest: No, no, no. Father, you're being a bit unfair. It isn't... Interpretation, "Thou shalt not kill," thou shalt not unjustly take away life. If a man walks in this afternoon through those bushes with a revolver, I have every right... I'm not saying I'm going to do it, but I have every right to defend myself against that unjust aggressor. And if I kill him...

Prabhupāda: Yes, you can, you can protect yourself...

Jesuit Priest: ...that is justified.

Mother: Yes.

Prabhupāda: ...from the aggressor, but when you kill innocent animal, what is the reason?

Jesuit Priest: Oh, well then... Yes. Well, again, that's got to be interpreted. We wouldn't be able to... What foo... How would we live on food? How do we live if we don't eat?

Prabhupāda: How we are living?

Jesuit Priest: Pardon?

Prabhupāda: How we are living?

Jesuit Priest: Well, I don't know...

Prabhupāda: We don't kill animals.

Garden Conversation with Mahadeva's Mother and Jesuit Priest -- July 25, 1973, London:

Revatīnandana: Not eastern philosophers.

Jesuit Priest: But all eastern philosophers... Omnia animalia intellectu carent.(?) (Latin) And now, as Mrs. Christie just said, if you've done a bit of study...

Prabhupāda: So because, because some animal is not intelligent, you are right to kill?

Jesuit Priest: No, no, no. We're not talking about killing. He, his theme now, that there's no difference between us and the dog.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Yes.

Revatīnandana: You're more intelligent than a dog—to some degree.

Prabhupāda: No, if...

Jesuit Priest: So in other words, if we are, all of us here...

Prabhupāda: Even the animal is not intelligent, you cannot kill. Because your child is also not intelligent, so that does not mean you can kill your child.

Jesuit Priest: Oh, but nobody, I'd, nobody'd, nobody'd, master, nobody'd for one second would think about killing a child.

Prabhupāda: No, no. That is not a very good reasoning, that because the animal is not intelligent, they may be killed. That is not very good reason.

Room Conversation with Mister Popworth and E. F. Schumacher -- July 26, 1973, London:

Schumacher: But I would hesitate a long, long time before I would make meat-eating the touchstone on which I would judge a Jesuit. I don't think I could see such a central position. And the evils that are going on that have to be fought are, in comparison with meat-eating, gigantic. And therefore, to refuse to accept that even a meat-eating Jesuit may be a far better man than a vegetarian who is engaged in all sorts of nefarious practices, I think one should be a bit careful. If you come out of a civilization where this has been customary all, all throughout history...

Haṁsadūta: Therefore all throughout history...

Schumacher: Yes, I know. I haven't...

Haṁsadūta: ...you haven't... Why hasn't there been peace in our civilization? Because we're practicing these four things: meat..., animal killing, intoxication, illicit sex life and gambling. According to Vedic scripture, these four activities are the sum and substance of sinful life, and sinful life means...

Prabhupāda: Pollution.

Haṁsadūta: Pollution. Or reaction. You're getting... Just like you make an automobile; you get the reaction-air pollution. So if you kill animals, you will be killed.

Popworth: You think like this?

Haṁsadūta: And intoxication itself means that you are polluted. Toxic means poison. Poison means pollution. So if you indulge in intoxication, everything you do, say and think will be polluted. If you kill animals, the result is you're polluting nature's... There are laws of nature. Animal is part of nature. You're part of nature. So if you disturb nature, that means you're polluting the nature. And you are living in that nature. So you are suffering the reaction.

Schumacher: The Buddhists have got a good, a good formula on this, and...

Haṁsadūta: It's common sense. That's all.

Prabhupāda: It is not the question of Buddhist, Christian or Hindu. It is common sense philosophy.

Schumacher: The Buddhists have a good compromise on this. They say you can eat meat...

Prabhupāda: No, no strict Buddhist will say.

Room Conversation with Graham Hill Former World Champion Race Car Driver -- London, August 26, 1973:

Graham Hill: (indistinct) at home he is very active.

Prabhupāda: Yes, ...that's nice. Yes. So he sometimes becomes disobedient? Sometimes? Eh? Why? (laughs) That means you have got independence. Is it not? Yes. That means he has got independence. Yes. This is a fact. Similarly we are sons of God, we have got little independence. We may remain with God, we may give up His company and come here to find our own fortune. And to find our own fortune we are becoming implicated and taking birth in different species of life. That is our ignorance. You are obedient to your mother?

Girl: Sometimes.

Prabhupāda: Sometimes, not always.

Girl: Yes.

Prabhupāda: She is the youngest? Ah, therefore she must be disobedient. (laughter) Daughter is eldest? This daughter? Oh. You are obedient?

Girl: Sometimes.

Prabhupāda: Sometimes? Not always? (laughs) All right. Thank you.

Graham Hill: She's a bit wild when she is at home.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. So give them prasadam. Oh, (indistinct) that's nice. So I am very glad to see you with your all family. Ah. Please come here. We have got very... (end)

Morning Walk -- August 30, 1973, London:

David Lawrence: But we can meet them, in a sense, before they're even asked.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

David Lawrence: That makes it even more impressive.

Prabhupāda: In which point the students may possibly object?

David Lawrence: Well I've mentioned a few points on which... You know, obviously, I've studied a bit more deeply than the average student, because of the university and all this sort of business, which gives a particular form of knowledge.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

David Lawrence: Let me think of one, yes, one that I asked which I know Mukunda has already answered for me, but we need it in the teachers' pack, of course, is the fact of the dating of the Vedas. You know, people like some of the archaeologists such as A.L. Basham and Mortimer Wheeler maintain that the Harrapa dig, so to speak, in the Indus Valley and Mahenjo-Daro and all those towns, show the dating of the Vedas in fact to be a great deal later, you know, and therefore to take away, some people would say this, to deprive the Vedas of a certain amount of authority because they no longer, according to these men, would appear to be the most ancient religious scriptures in the world. And that, that sort of question, which...

Prabhupāda: Veda means not religion, Veda means knowledge. So if you can trace out the history of knowledge, then you can trace out what is the date of Veda. Can you trace out? When...? Which is the date when knowledge began. Can you trace out?

David Lawrence: I wouldn't think they could.

Morning Walk -- August 30, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Well, longer life, you can see this tree, you'll find at least five hundred years old. So this kind of longer life, what is the value? What is the value? There are many trees... I have seen one tree in San Francisco, seven thousand years old.

David Lawrence: Oh, the redwood...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

David Lawrence: ...the redwoods, yes. Makes Walt Disney look a bit...

Prabhupāda: So this kind of longer life, what is the value?

David Lawrence: Yes, you know he had his body put into suspended animation. I don't know what they call it, cytology is it or something? They have them put into chemicals and bathed. Because he died of cancer and he wants to be woken up in about fifty years time when they've got the cure for cancer and then he can live again and make a few more films apparently. (laughter) It's extraordinary attitude to life isn't it really? One of the other problems that I was going to raise, and in fact it appears in the question sheet, it seems to be some, in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, is that the right pronunciation? I always get these things wrong.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Bhāgavatam.

David Lawrence: A very great deal of what one could call demonology if you like. Now, I confess this raises problems for me. When a book like that...

Prabhupāda: Bhāgavata was written five thousand years ago.

Morning Walk -- August 30, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Just like Kṛṣṇa used to dance with so many gopīs, everything is described there, that they embraced, they kissed, but there is no such thing abortion or contraceptive. (laughter) So these things have to be studied. How we can compare gopīs' love with Kṛṣṇa with these lusty affairs of this material world?

David Lawrence: Can't be done. Another question that raised itself, you'll see in the paper in fact, was the little mention in one of the books that I was reading, not from Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, just to get a bit of background, on Lord Caitanya, and it seems to have been...

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is already there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, described.

David Lawrence: Yes. If you like, the later manifestation isn't it. Of the avatāra.

Prabhupāda: We are simply trying to present them, that's all. It is not we have manufactured something, no. There is no question of concoction, manufacturing.

David Lawrence: No. Just passing on what has already been there.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is already there. When we speak of Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is already there. When we speak of Vṛndāvana, Vṛndāvana is already there. It is not that we have manufactured some picture, imagination, no. They take it like that. The rascals take it like that, that it is a kind of imagination of the poet. The Māyāvādī philosophers also take like that. But that's not the fact. It is actually presentation of the spiritual facts and as the spiritual activities are quite different from material activities, they misunderstand. They misunderstand.

Room Conversation with Officer Harry Edwards, the Village Policeman -- August 30, 1973, Bhaktivedanta Manor, London:

Revatīnandana: We'd get in trouble all the time.

Harry: But that's the only thing... But if there's anything else that you, if you got...? I think, as I say, given time, a bit of experience. But I do feel that a lot of little things which you do in the temple, and I appreciate this, but I think that they, to try 'em outside until people accept.

Revatīnandana: Yes.

Harry: But, at the same time, I don't believe that you're going to change all your principles, are you, just to suit people outside?

Revatīnandana: When we go outside, we can act accordingly. There's no...

Harry: No, you do, don't you? There's only these little things, you know. To me, I mean, you come past me, my house, and if I'm out there, it makes no difference to me at all. And I don't suppose it makes any difference to a certain other people, but there's just that little bit of nuclear that, you know, will sort of catch on to it, as a, as a means to their own ends or to justify their rumors, I suppose. This is what I think. Well, anyway, we can sort out that as we go along.

Śyāmasundara: Yeah. Time heals all wounds.

Harry: Ah yes, time... yeah. I dare say, I mean, possibly about next year, there may be something, someone else may have bought another house. So, so there'd be rumors about that.

Prabhupāda: In America, we are recognized by the police: We are well-behaved, peaceful persons.

Harry: Yes.

Room Conversation with Officer Harry Edwards, the Village Policeman -- August 30, 1973, Bhaktivedanta Manor, London:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Harry: But the point is this, that if you just act as you are, and, if you don't mind me saying... These little things which come back to me, and thinking a bit logically, from a common sense point of view, I don't think it's necessary. But you can tell me to mind my own business. I'm not here to dictate to you. Now you must remember this. And the only time I should dictate to you is if you commit any offense outside the road where my jurisdiction starts, or there is a serious incident in the temple which I would have to come out and sort out. Now can you follow me?

Śyāmasundara: Yes.

Revatīnandana: Actually, we would appreciate if you would tell us these things, that the village people are thinking this, thinking that. If they're feeling unhappy about something, if it's something that we can change, let us know.

Harry: Well, this is it. Look... But you can't do this... Rome wasn't built in a day.

Prabhupāda: No, you cannot satisfy...

Harry: You cannot satisfy everyone.

Revatīnandana: No, but about our external behavior...

Prabhupāda: That's not. We cannot change our policy.

Harry: No.

Revatīnandana: No. About our external behavior, things that they are finding bothersome... Like we are chanting loudly on the street or in the doctor's office.

Prabhupāda: Well, that is...

Revatīnandana: These kind of things, we want to know. See.

Room Conversation with British Man -- August 31, 1973, London:

Guest (1): I understand I think most of what you have said. I will definitely come to some of your morning lectures and I believe I must read one of these books too.

Prabhupāda: Yes, you can read...

Guest (1): To know a bit more. So next time I come and see, I shall be smiling a bit more.

Prabhupāda: All right. (laughs)

Guest (1): Thank you, very, very much. And now perhaps you can guide me and tell me what to do, which one, you know, that I ought to be concerned with?

Pradyumna: Yes.

Guest (1): And I will take my leave of the master, yes. Thank you very much.

Prabhupāda: You can, he wants Bhagavad-gītā?

Pradyumna: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Read.

Guest (1): Thank you very, very much.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Thanks for your coming.

Pradyumna: Take a sweet.

Guest (1): Certainly. Thank you very much.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya.

Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor, Dr. Suneson -- September 5, 1973, Stockholm:

Prabhupāda: Yes, right you are. It is round.

Professor: It's a question of...

Prabhupāda: ...about way.

Professor: Yes, of course, it's difficult to practice, of course, for people in general also. But, of course, he has also written hymns.

Prabhupāda: Yes. About Kṛṣṇa.

Professor: And they are... Yes. And they are, of course, a bit different. So he, Śaṅkara himself, seemed to...

Prabhupāda: That is explained in this Caitanya-caritāmṛta, why Śaṅkara prepared, presented his Māyāvāda philosophy. It is explained there.

Śrutakīrti: I remember where it was.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Śrutakīrti: I remember where it was...

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, yes. (break)

Professor: Do you have classes on Caitanya-caritāmṛta?

Prabhupāda: Oh yes.

Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor, Dr. Suneson -- September 5, 1973, Stockholm:

Prabhupāda: He accepts Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Professor: Yes, Kṛṣṇa, yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Professor: So Śaṅkara is a bit difficult because his followers, even he's Māyāvādī, the followers, even the followers, they clearly believe in it. But whether, what Śaṅkara himself meant by it...

Prabhupāda: No, that is explained. Śaṅkara is the incarnation of Lord Śiva. He has no fault. He has simply executed the order of the Supreme Lord. But the way in which he has presented the commentary, one should not hear it. That is his warning. Here is the Tenth Canto of Bhāgavatam, two volumes.

Professor: That's also "Not for sale in India". Why?

Prabhupāda: Because...

Professor: Well, I'm not in India.

Prabhupāda: India, we make members. We get more price. Because we are, our scheme, life member, they pay eleven hundred rupees, and whatever books we can supply, we supply. That's all. That is not even to the amount they pay. So we give our presentation and they contribute. This is the program.

Conversation at Airport -- October 26, 1973, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: So our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is to educate people to understand the value of life. The modern system of education and civilization is so degraded that people have forgotten the value of life. Generally, in this material world everyone is forgetful of the value of life, but the human form of life is a chance to awaken the importance of life. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is stated, parābhavas tāvad abodha-jāto yāvan na jijñāsata ātma-tattvam. So long one is not awakened to the consciousness of self-realization, the foolish living entity, whatever he is doing is defeat for him. This defeat is going on in the lower species of life because they cannot understand what is the value of life. Their consciousness is not advanced. But even in the human form of life, the same defeat prolongs, that is not very good civilization. That is almost animal civilization. Āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithunaṁ ca samānyā etat paśubhir narāṇām. If people are simply engaged in the four principles of bodily demands-eating, sleeping, mating and defending—that is visible in animal life also, so that is not very advancement of civilization. So our attempt Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is to educate people to come to the responsibility of human life. This is our Vedic civilization. The problem of life is not the difficulties for a few years of this duration of life. The real problem of life is how to solve the repetition of birth, death, old age and disease. That is the instruction in the Bhagavad-gītā. Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9). People are embarrassed with so many problems of life, but the real problem of life is how to stop birth, death, old age and disease. So people are callous. They have become so dull-headed that they do not understand the problem of life. Long, long ago when Viśvāmitra Muni saw Mahārāja Daśaratha, so Mahārāja Daśaratha inquired from the Viśvāmitra Muni, aihistaṁ yat taṁ punar janma jayaya (?): "My dear sir, the attempt that you are trying to conquer over death, how that business is going on nicely? Is there any interruption?" So this is our Vedic civilization, how to conquer over birth, death, old age and disease. But at the modern time there is no such information, neither anybody is interested. Even big, big professors, they do not know what is there after life. They do not believe even that there is life after death. So this is a blind civilization going on. We are trying our bit to educate them that the aim of life, especially in the human form of life, is different from the bodily necessities of life: eating, sleeping, mating and defending. In the Bhagavad-gītā also it is said, manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye: (BG 7.3) "Out of many millions of persons, one may attempt to become successful in his life." Siddhaye, siddhi. This is siddhi, how to conquer over birth, death, old age and disease. And manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye. The modern civilized man is so dull, he does not know what is siddhi. They think that "If I get some money and one bungalow and one car, that is siddhi." That is not siddhi.

Morning Walk -- December 5, 1973, Los Angeles:

Sudāmā: Summer's very hot. Hundred and five.

Prabhupāda: But there is rainfall.

Sudāmā: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Summer.

Sudāmā: Yes. There's quite a bit now. Sometimes in the winter it rains. So that one devotee brought up the point of the philosophy of "Do your own thing," and that's what the devotees were instructed in Hawaii to do. When they closed the temple, Gaurasundara just said, "Now everyone go and do your own thing for Prabhupāda."

Prabhupāda: If he does Prabhupāda's work, then where is the own thing?

Sudāmā: Yeah, right. There's...

Prabhupāda: "Do your own thing on behalf of Prabhupāda." So if he wants Prabhupāda, he must abide by the order of Prabhupāda.

Morning Walk -- December 6, 1973, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They will prolong death.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They will prolong death. They're trying to prolong.

Prabhupāda: "They're trying."

Svarūpa Dāmodara: A bit longer.

Prabhupāda: Death.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Ultimately, find there is no death.

Prabhupāda: No, what...? Death is... What do you mean by death?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Losing the material body.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So that you are losing every day, every moment. You are not today what you were yesterday, that you are losing. So, how can you defeat? You are, every moment you are being defeated.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: There are some theories now. By turning the temperature, by cooling down little more than the body temperature, you can live longer.

Prabhupāda: Well, you can live little longer, but you cannot live forever. That is not possible.

Morning Walk -- December 11, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: All these things are sinful. To drink is sinful. Even among the Muhammadans. To smoke, sinful. They have got austerities. Their animal-killing is once in a year. (Hindi) Only animals should be sacrificed in worship. There are so many things. Every religion there is good thing, but then nobody follows. Simply defined, "I'm Christian," "I'm Muhammadan," "I am Hindu..." That's all. He's neither of them. He's simply animal. He's simply animal. Just like these rascal Christian. The first proposition is "Thou shalt not kill," and see they're simply killing, and they're claiming "Christians." Just see. All rascals, and they're claiming, "We're follower of Christian." (break) ...propaganda is to teach all these rascals. Therefore we say general rascals. It may be very strong... That professor was referring, "Yes, everyone is rascal." You know that professor?

Karandhara: Yes. He thought "rascals" was a bit harsh.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṛṣṇa says rascal; therefore...

Yaśomatīnandana: But he... The professor, when he left he said that "Prabhupāda is very, very gentle," he said. He's the most gentle man he's ever seen.

Devotee: Gentle like a rose, and strong like a thunderstorm. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...India. Just start this movement seriously.

Yaśomatīnandana: Yes, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And Bombay is the best center.

Morning Walk -- December 21, 1973, Los Angeles:

Guest (1): Yes. That is the difference between man-made law and... Nitya and śāśvata.

Prabhupāda: Yes. I was coming here at six, but I caught cold. Therefore I have changed the time.

Guest (1): Yes, six is a bit too early.

Prabhupāda: Yes, too early. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...loving propensity, we want to love somebody, up to the dog, but we are not getting satisfaction because the love is placed in wrong place. But if you love Kṛṣṇa, then everything will be all right. (break). If you pour water on the root, it reaches to all the branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, everything. (break) (Hindi).

Guest (1): Disneyland, all sorts of shows and devices for children.

Prabhupāda: So children's father also go there?

Guest (1): (break) She is also doing that japa. And while this mālā, doing mālā, and doing the japa, the mind doesn't remain fixed in God. You know, it wanders about. So what is the way of fixing the mind?

Prabhupāda: To hear. "Hare Kṛṣṇa." Chant and hear.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 5, 1974, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: You admit or not, theologian? (devotee laughs) Eh? Eh? Or you have got anything to say? This is deathlessness.

Bali Mardana: Because the soul is acting.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Ah?

Karandhara: Looks like it may start raining a bit, Prabhupāda. We may cut over here.

Prabhupāda: All right.

Karandhara: And I can bring the car over.

Prabhupāda: No, no, what is that? We shall not die. (devotees laugh)

Bali Mardana: We will melt.

Prajāpati: The soul cannot be wet.

Prabhupāda: No, it is pleasant. Viśvaṁ pūrṇa-sukhāyate. For a devotee, everything is very happy. There is no unhappiness. Any condition, they are happy. Viśvaṁ pūrṇa-sukhāyate. For nondevotees everything is a problem. (devotees laugh) And for devotee everything is happiness. That is the difference.

Morning Walk -- January 20, 1974, Hawaii:

Nitāi: Venus and Mars. They suspect life on those planets, especially Mars.

Prabhupāda: So they are going there?

Sudāmā: Yeah, they're making plans to go there.

Nitāi: It's quite a bit further than the moon. They watch through their telescopes and every year they see that the surface of the planet changes, that there's certain dark areas which grow and then they recede.

Prabhupāda: Every day, every year changes? Why?

Nitāi: Well, it appears to be like seasons. First they grow big, and then they grow small, then they grow big.

Prabhupāda: Moon planet?

Nitāi: No, this is the Martian... They call them "the Martian canals." So they think that although the life there may not be like we have here, that there may be some living beings there. They consider... What they consider living being is something that could live on this planet. That's what they consider living. So they think that Mars and Venus, because they're very close to this planet-out of all the planets that they know, those two are the closest—that on those two planets, there may be life like on this planet. (end)

Morning Walk -- April 24, 1974, Hyderabad:

Akṣayānanda: That Sai Baba too...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone.

Akṣayānanda: Many of those young boys and girls, they are potential devotees. They are just in it for a bit of fun. A bit of fashion or fun.

Prabhupāda: Similarly Rajneesh. (break) ...very good intelligence, Lieberman.

Satsvarūpa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes, he's speaking very nicely. He's fit for that position. Similarly our, what is his name?

Satsvarūpa: Balavanta.

Prabhupāda: Balavanta. He's also very nice. If we get some important votes in the government, then our mission will be successful. This, our philosophy is being properly ventilated, it is coming in the papers, isn't it? On account of this political leadership. And I see that his statements are published profusely. Not with other contemporaries. And what they'll speak? They have no sense, they have no leadership idea.

Room Conversation with Christian Priest -- June 9, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: But if you say God is beyond your experience, that you have no experience of God. This is clear meaning. Why do you go round about?

Priest: No, you don't..., you see...

Prabhupāda: Then it is a bit difficult.

Priest: I have always told that the duty of the swami is to listen and to understand, and you don't seem to listen and to understand. You misunderstand.

Prabhupāda: No, no, I use... First of all let us... Why misunderstand? You say that you have no experience of God.

Priest: No, I never said that.

Prabhupāda: Then tell me your experience. That I want to know.

Priest: That every time I had an experience of God, and first I went through the bhakta, and I was a bhakta for a long, long time, then I found out that God was beyond my experience.

Prabhupāda: That means you have no experience. How can I talk with you?

Priest: That the image of God, whether you call it Kṛṣṇa or Rāma or Nṛsiṁha or any of the avatāra... And you know, near our place in Poona in Amenagar(?), there was a swami who called himself an avatāra, and...

Prabhupāda: That anyone can say. I can say third avatāra, he can say fourth avatāra.

Room Conversation with Bishop Kelly -- June 29, 1974, Melbourne:

Bishop Kelly: So I am very pleased to have had the opportunity of meeting with you, your grace.

Prabhupāda: So I am also that your holiness has come.

Bishop Kelly: I hope that in some real way that the cause of God will be served the better for this meeting. I do wish you Godspeed in your work, and in that, of course...

Prabhupāda: Yes, we are trying our bit to educate people how to revive his original God consciousness. Then he will be happy. Our principle is how to make people happy. There is a verse about the gosvāmīs. Nānā-śāstra-vicāraṇaika-nipuṇau sad-dharma-saṁsthāpakau lokānāṁ hita-kāriṇau. This word is very important, lokānāṁ hita-kāriṇau: "for the welfare of the people in general." People accuse sometimes—of course, foolish people do that—that these God conscious person they are escaping. No. Who are actually God conscious person is always thinking how to do well to the people in general. Yes. Sad-dharma-saṁsthāpakau. Give it to him. You can take.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Devotee (1): He's living in the temple?

Prabhupāda: No. He, not temple, but he chants always. He is keeping one Jagannātha within the bead. He showed me: that "I have put..." He saw me in Vṛndāvana.

Devotee (8): We use his name quite a bit to distribute books. A lot of people take books because of his name. We often wonder what he was actually doing as far as the movement was concerned.

Prabhupāda: He has got his foreword in the Kṛṣṇa book.

Devotee (1): Now each one, the foreword is there, in every volume. So we always show them that and they're very impressed, especially hippies and students, college students.

Devotee (5): Just like Kṛṣṇa says. What the big men do, the common men follow.

Prabhupāda: He gave me first money for publishing Kṛṣṇa book, $19,000. He is a good boy. He is a good boy, and he has got good regard for me.

Devotee (3): He just recently went on a concert tour around the country, and he was having the young people chant Kṛṣṇa's names in the concert. And because of the concert tour, many, many, many books were distributed, unlimited.

Prabhupāda: Oh, his song, "Kṛṣṇa..." I have forgotten that. That record?

Tripurāri: Yes. And he went on a tour of the United States, playing at different cities, concerts, and he would ask people in the audience to chant, "Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa."

Prabhupāda: He was asking?

Tripurāri: Yes.

Interview -- March 5, 1975, New York:

Reporter: My question to you is at what age did you realize God?

Prabhupāda: God is a person like you and me. The difference is that we are also persons. We are many, and God is one, leader. Now, what is the difference between this one and we many? He maintains all these many, and we are maintained by Him, but He is also a person like you and me. Do you follow?

Reporter: Yes, I do, but Swamiji, my question to you was a bit more pointed than that. I appreciate the answer you just gave me, but at what age did you realize the highest truth? At what physical age...?

Prabhupāda: There is no question of age. Realization of God should be educated from the very beginning of life.

Reporter: Oh, I understand that, Swamiji. My question to you was at what age did you yourself in this physical incarnation realize the highest truth?

Prabhupāda: Of course, we were born in a very nice family. My father educated me in this way. So practically from the very beginning of our life we were educated in this way.

Room Conversation with Yoga Student -- March 14, 1975, Iran:

Prabhupāda: That is the Christian idea.

Young man: Yeah. And the...

Prabhupāda: The Mohammedan, Islam is also same idea?

Young man: Well, since the Old Testament, part of the Old Testament, is very similar to the Koran, I presume the creation of Adam, that bit, is also taken from the Old Testament. But He is projected as a great judge really, a supreme judge.

Prabhupāda: Yes, He must be the supreme judge because He is Supreme Being. So He is not only... Supreme judge means supreme knowledge.

Young man: Yes. Somehow in modern religion they very much emphasize on the fact that He judges. And I could never accept that idea for example, that the Supreme Being judges, because judging is a low activity. It's a... Spiritual people don't judge. So how come...

Prabhupāda: Spiritual...?

Young man: Leader.

Prabhupāda: They do not judge?

Young man: That's what I thought.

Prabhupāda: No, judgment is there everywhere. Unless there is judgment, how you can discriminate, "This is spiritual; this is material"? Judgment must be there for intelligent person. Otherwise how you can distinguish? We are distinguishing every moment—"This is good. This is bad"—in the relative world. So there is judgment. So God—the supreme judge. So as soon as there is question of judgment, then what is our position? There must be good and bad, so that if we have lived a very nice, good life, then by the judgment of God we get better position. And if we have not done so, then you get degraded position. Therefore, for human being it is very sanguine to understand how we are going to be judged by the Supreme. So if we are following the rules and regulation given by God, then the judgment will be better. And if we are not following the laws, the judgment will not be in favor. This is natural to conclude. Then we have to judge what is sin, what is piety, how to be pious, how one becomes sinful. So many things will come.

Room Conversation with Carol Cameron -- May 9, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: Śrīla Prabhupāda, this is Carol Cameron from the University of West Australia. She has a degree in Social Work, in Arts, and she's working on a Master's Degree in Anthropology. In this degree her paper is on the subject of the influence of Hindu and Buddhist mysticism on the West. So she would like to ask you some questions. This is our spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.

Carol: I would like to know why in the beginning why you came to the West. I know a bit about your background, but not very much. Why you saw the need to come.

Prabhupāda: That I was speaking. Of course, it is very strong words. That Western people they are claiming very civilized, but I have got objection. Therefore I have come to the West. Because, for example, the animal-killing. The Western people are mostly Christians. Now, Lord Jesus Christ said that "Thou shall not kill." But the result was that two thousand years passed, but the people of the Western countries, they are still killing. So when they have accepted Christianity? What is your answer?

Carol: But the actual original scriptures aren't enacted in Western life.

Prabhupāda: I mean to say that Lord Jesus Christ said, "Thou shall not kill." So, what kind of men were there that Lord Christ had to request them not to kill? That means they were killers. Suppose if somebody's thief, and if I give him some good instruction, I say "You should not commit theft." That means you are thief. You are already. Otherwise why I say that "Thou shall not commit theft"? A naughty child is disturbing. I say, "My dear child, don't do this." Similarly, when Christ said, "Thou shall not kill," that means he said amongst people who were in the habit of killing. Is it not?

Carol: Hmm.

Room Conversation with Carol Cameron -- May 9, 1975, Perth:

Carol: Can you have perfect knowledge?

Prabhupāda: What?

Carol: Can you have perfect knowledge,...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Carol: I mean ultimately you might say that I might be able to have some, but it's still a bit doubtful. In the near future how could you ever...

Prabhupāda: Perfect knowledge you can immediately, provided you take knowledge from the perfect. If you receive knowledge from a bogus person, then how you can have perfect knowledge? Knowledge has to be received from a person. Why shall I go to a school, college, teachers, guru? To receive knowledge. So if your teacher, guru or parent, those who are your superior, if they are perfect, then you get perfect knowledge. But if your teacher is a bogus, then you get bogus knowledge.

Carol: And this is immediate, is it?

Amogha: She says is this immediate, the reception of perfect knowledge?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like we are giving knowledge from Bhagavad-gītā. This is perfect knowledge. You take it; you become perfect.

Room Conversation with Yogi Bhajan -- June 7, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Similarly, whenever we come in a big assembly, we respect each one, gentlemen. There is no harm.

Yogi Bhajan: No, no, but people do not understand why we are like this, why they wear like this. They don't get a chance to explain. At Interreligious Council, I am a member. They never knew. They think we are the most weird people from the Mars perhaps. They don't understand a bit. And now our legal services are helping them, and all sorts of things have happened, and they are trying to understand. And when the last president left the office, he said, in his words of departure, he said, "I am only limited by the Christ. I never understood anything else. But I do feel from that limit that God is unlimited and it is in everybody." Asking a fanatic Christian to make that statement to the general assembly, it took us about two years.

Prabhupāda: Hm. You find so many fanatics. How you will unite them?

Yogi Bhajan: Gradually, one by one, one by one, they will understand. Love is the winning point. That's why they don't understand. When they find love from you, they will find love from me, they will love from people, they will love from everybody else. You know, you can take a mango stick and beat somebody, but you can take mango off it and eat. Effort has to be made somehow. And now...

Prabhupāda: Effort is being made, but the platform, the world where you are staying, that effort is very difficult to fulfill.

Room Conversation with Yogi Bhajan -- June 7, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Give some prasāda.

Yogi Bhajan: And this is... Because this is time of the world where love has to prevail from the higher and from the lower equal.

Prabhupāda: Put it here. (Prasāda is distributed; Prabhupāda speaks a bit in Hindi)

Yogi Bhajan: All these young people walk into the āśramas, and any time, middle of night, they are always received. That understanding exists anywhere. Nobody has issued them any instructions. But they go with each other very well. Some of our boys who started with us in yoga classes are member of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. Sometime we get on telephone. I say, "At least, you are somewhere. It's all right. Take care of yourself. Keep up." So life is going on as it has to go on.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is nice.

Yogi Bhajan: But there is a lot of mutual love, understanding. And after all, this is a discipline. All can't have this discipline. Those who can have it, they can have it. (Hindi) Understanding is there, pralabha is there, will of God is there. God wants us, we are the pawns of it. But it will be a great joy. So I will ask for your leave. It's my pleasure.

Prabhupāda: Oh, thank you very much for your coming. Give him our literature, Back to Godhead.

Yogi Bhajan: (Hindi:) Namaskara. And we will, we will get you, receive you, and it will be our privilege. After all, you are our elder. Don't forget that. Thank you. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Jaya.

Morning Walk -- July 18, 1975, San Francisco:

Paramahaṁsa: Under the threat of nuclear warfare wouldn't Kṛṣṇa consciousness be more easy to spread?

Prabhupāda: No, threat is already there. But they are so fool that they are not afraid of the threat. Threat is already there. Everyone will die. That is the problem. So who is caring for this? They are avoiding this. They cannot take any anti measures.

Yadubara: So it will take a war to bring them to their senses a bit?

Prabhupāda: No, war is going on. But they are so senseless that they will not come to this, so rascal. Therefore they are described as mūḍha, all rascals.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very hard to preach to these fools, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: These people are so stupid, it is very difficult to preach to them.

Prabhupāda: (chuckles) No, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. That will be...

Dhīra Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, we are hearing from you and your books that we will die, and we must learn to face these problems as you mentioned, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi (BG 13.9), but still, even as your disciples, we are not so convinced.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Dhīra Kṛṣṇa: Because we've been brought up in a culture where we've been taught that we will never die. Particularly in America we never even see death here.

Prabhupāda: You think you will not die?

Dhīra Kṛṣṇa: I know I will, but how can we realize that, come to the platform of realizing?

Prabhupāda: Everyone is dying, your father is dying, your mother is dying, your friend is dying, and still if you cannot understand, then how it will be possible to make you understand? Every day you see so many people are dying. Ahāny ahāni lokāni gacchanti yamālayam iha. Every moment, every day, we see so many animals or men are dying. Śeṣaḥ sthitam icchanti kim āścaryam... But those who are living he is thinking, "I will not die." Death is inevitable but still, he is thinking, "I will not die." Therefore that is the problem. Everyone is dying, and everyone is trying not to die. This is the problem. Nobody wants to die, but everyone is dying. That problem this rascal scientist cannot solve. Therefore they are like dogs, and to catch their tail is like that. Yes. And that is the real problem. Everyone is dying, and everyone is trying not to die.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 16, 1976, Mayapur:

Jayapatāka: (break) Yes.

Prabhupāda: So you can make tent here?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, this is better place than up there.

Prabhupāda: Yes. You can make tent here.

Jayapatāka: We put much dirt here. This land is a bit raised now. We can just open them out here.

Prabhupāda: All right. Anywhere you can.... Here, you can make tent here, here. Just near the...

Jayapatāka: Some sabjis are growing there. We can make some place.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee (2): This place is already open.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...and people can live there. (break) ...very nice, facing east. Very good.

Morning Walk -- March 12, 1976, Mayapur:

Rāmeśvara: It's near Washington, D.C.

Prabhupāda: Baltimore.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The new Miami temple, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Oh, very nice.

Satsvarūpa: There are ten acres. That's just a tiny bit.

Rāmeśvara: They have nice mango trees?

Satsvarūpa: Oh, yes, they have many, many, a whole orchard with irrigation pipes.

Rādhāvallabha: This sign on the door of the Tokyo temple says, "Hare Kṛṣṇa Temple."

Prabhupāda: So make arrangement that people may come. They should be given direction. Otherwise how they will know there is such thing?

Hariśauri: Mexico.

Rādhāvallabha: This is only half of the temple pictures. The other half will go up today.

Rāmeśvara: And all the professor quotes will be up by tomorrow morning.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Morning Walk -- March 18, 1976, Mayapura:

Satsvarūpa: The earth planet?

Prabhupāda: If it is like a tree, then these things can be as dvīpa, island.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Wow. You know...

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The scientists are getting smashed to bits by your statements, Śrīla Prabhupāda. This destroys their whole theory. Orbs, round spheres. I think that this Māyāpur building, we must build a big planetarium in it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That, that I am going to do, Vedic planetarium.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, boy. You're going to bring a lot of.... A lot of scientists will come here just to dispute this.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Wonderful attraction.

Prabhupāda: World people will come to see the way the planetary systems...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We should advertise it very widely that this is the actual, factual explanation of the universe.

Prabhupāda: This will be automatically advertised. As soon as the temple is finished, people will come like anything.

Morning Walk -- April 10, 1976, Vrndavana:

Jayādvaita: Our ISKCON population rate is less.

Yaśodānandana: However, in some of our centers it tends to increase quite a bit.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, you made the statement the other morning that if someone kills a young child, it is condemned. So if someone is killing the young child within the womb, that also should be condemned.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Simply that they have no clear idea what consciousness is and what life is. Therefore all these things are going on.

Prabhupāda: All rascals. How they are risking their own life, karma-bandhana. Just like a thief. He is thinking "I am doing very nice business. Without any..., I am getting so much money." That is risky.

Hari-śauri: Perhaps we cut across this way? This is a dead end here.

Prabhupāda: No, we shall come back.

Jayādvaita: You gave that other example in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that Nṛsiṁha-deva let Hiraṇyakaśipu slip from His hands for a little while just to play with him.

Nalinī-kānta: The Vedic civilization is centered around villages, not cities?

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Nalinī-kānta: If we want to make the world Kṛṣṇa conscious...

Prabhupāda: Vedic civilization is in the forest. Go to the forest.

Hari-śauri: Renounce.

Prabhupāda: Neither in the city nor in the village. Go to the forest.

Room Conversation -- April 20, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mike Barron: Just along those lines.

Guru-kṛpā: What do you think of that article?

Mike Barron: A bit facetious. A bit facetious. I didn't like it very much.

Prabhupāda: You liked?

Mike Barron: No.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Mike Barron: Er, a bit facetious. They had a funny way of doing it.

Prabhupāda: Funny way, but it is very serious. It requires little intelligence...

Devotee (3): Like to sit there?

Prabhupāda: ...that this body is a lump of matter, and the consciousness, or the living pulse, that is different. Can you prove that they are not? Eh?

Mike Barron: No.

Prabhupāda: Then how do you say it is joking?

Mike Barron: Er, no, I.... The actual context.

Prabhupāda: The context is that if you cannot separate the living force, or the soul, from the body, then you are on the same position as the dog is thinking, "I am the body. I am a big dog. I can bark very loudly." And he's showing his capacity. And if we are talking big, big assembly, and in the same conception of life, that "I am this body," then where is difference?

Mike Barron: I cannot argue against that.

Morning Walk -- May 31, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Worship God by fighting?

Hari-śauri: Then it becomes a question of who's the best man.

Prabhupāda: God, but you shouldn't fight with Him. But these rascals say worship man, but why does he fight with man? Another...

Devotee (2): (break) Actually there was a boy sitting like that, and a shark came and bit off his leg while he was sitting there.

Devotee (1): (break) ...they still think that...

Prabhupāda: Worship.

Devotee (1): ...still think that man can decide his own future. He can decide how the universe was made. That's the basic philosophy now, that man is actually the center of the universe. He can decide and make anything he wants. Initially there's no sense in worshiping God.

Devotee (2): There's another philosophy, though. It's called ecology, which is even more popular.

Prabhupāda: Zoology?

Devotee (2): Ecology.

Morning Walk -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Nature?

Satsvarūpa: You know what that is, Ambarīṣa?

Ambarīṣa: No, I don't know. I have no idea. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...monkey.

Hari-śauri: It's a bit odd. They're busy building new attractions for the park, but they can't even keep the place clean. Everything is completely dirty and run down. No one will want to come anyway. They do that, though. They have a certain amount of things that they construct new so that the people will be thinking, "Oh, our taxes have been spent for our benefit like this." It's to make a show. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...is Canada?

Ambarīṣa: No, this side over here.

Devotee (1): Way over there.

Prabhupāda: What is this?

Satsvarūpa: Detroit Yacht Club. Boat owners. (break) ...by some Catholic monks who were keeping some drug rehabilitation. They were leasing it from us. We still have a lease to the owner. So they are subleasing it. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...to stop drug habit?

Satsvarūpa: Yes. They have.... People who are addicted, they come and live there voluntarily and say "I'd like to try to stop." They call it "half-way house," because they are half still addicted, but they're trying to stop. So maybe six of such addicts are living...

Prabhupāda: Only six.

Interview with Professors O'Connell, Motilal and Shivaram -- June 18, 1976, Toronto:

Prof. O'Connell: Swamiji, could you speak a bit about the proper attitude of the child towards the father? Is it one of fear, respect, love?

Prabhupāda: Love. Basic relation love. Father loves the child, naturally. The child also naturally loves the father. This is natural relationship. Father works whole day and night for maintaining the children, family, and if the child out of love takes his lozenges and offers to the father, "Father, it is very nice, you take," father will be very glad. "Oh, yes, yes, I'll take." Father does not require the lozenges, but out of love the small child offering a little lozenges, father is very glad: "Oh, this child loves me." So Kṛṣṇa says patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati tad aham aśnāmi (BG 9.26). This is relationship. Even the poorest man, he can offer to Kṛṣṇa a little flower, little fruit, and Kṛṣṇa says, "Yes, if it is offered with love, I accept it." That is the relation. What Kṛṣṇa has got to do with little flower and little fruits? But He accepts, tad aham aśnāmi. He said. Bhakty-upahṛtam. "Because he has brought it with love and devotion, I accept it." If the supreme father accepts from you something, then your life is successful.

Conversation in Airport and Car -- June 21, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Big, big lawyers, through this real estatement. I have got bitter experience. People go to real estate man, he has got, say, five thousand dollars, and he wants to purchase one hundred thousand worth property. And they'll say, "Yes. We shall arrange." He will, in such a way, implicate, that he will take this five thousand dollars, and it will be divided amongst them. He will not give anything.

Hari-śauri: We lost quite a bit of property in Detroit because of that lawyer of Ambarīṣa's. That lawyer of Ambarīṣa's, when they did the Detroit deal, they said they lost quite a bit of movable property because the lawyer did a deal with the real estate agent to take it away for himself. He got that boat very cheap, and other things also.

Prabhupāda: Lawyer is thief, medical man is thief.

Hari-śauri: All thieves. They're all thieves.

Prabhupāda: Then whom to believe? Whom to believe, this is the question.

Hari-śauri: The general public, they are becoming very bitter, very frustrated, because they can't turn to anyone for protection anymore. The government is the biggest thief.

Prabhupāda: Dasyu-dharmabhiḥ. It is stated that all government men will be rogues and thieves. Rājanyair dasyu-dharmabhiḥ. Rājanyaiḥ means government men, and dasyu-dharma means practiced to roguery, thieves.

Hari-śauri: American police are well known for being corrupt.

Prabhupāda: Everywhere. In India. Police means everyone takes, first of all (indistinct).

Room Conversation After Film -- June 28, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Ṛṣi Kumāra: There are a lot of artists and people who have everything, and they're living in the nicest..., that's about the nicest place to live, and they're all unhappy. My brother's living there. He's a psychiatrist, and he's beginning to understand that the more he thinks, the more confused he gets, and I've been preaching to him, and he understands. There are also a lot of devotees who aren't in the temple now. They like Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but they also can be preached to, I think.

Prabhupāda: Yes, preaching constantly required to keep them in balance. As soon as the balance is tilted over on the māyā side, then everything is finished.

Hari-śauri: They get a bit overwhelmed sometimes.

Prabhupāda: That is possible. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). It is very strong. But if we also become equally strong in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, there is no... That... Just like in the beginning, a seed sown, it requires very careful attention. Then it grows up. And when one grows a tree, then that is all right. But so long it is not a tree—it is a plant—one has to take... And the watering is śravaṇa-kīrtana. Śravaṇa-kīrtana-jale karaye secana. That is required. Mālī hañā sei bīja kare āropaṇa, śravaṇa-kīrtana-jale karaye secana. I think, nineteenth chapter of Madhya-līlā.

Arrival Room Conversation -- July 2, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: It was not used.

Rūpānuga: It was simply for office, like that. And the temple building was a gymnasium. It used to be a gymnasium, and we have converted the whole thing.

Vipina: That was one reason that we were very much attracted to the property. The property itself was not very beautiful when we came, but the gym was built, and we saw it as an immediate temple where we could hold kīrtana and preach. So we then made a contract and the fish bit.

Prabhupāda: Nobody was taking.

Vipina: No one was taking it.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Our Detroit property is like that.

Rūpānuga: White elephant.

Prabhupāda: Nobody was taking, but it was quite suitable for us. And that is the finest property. You have seen it?

Rūpānuga: I have not been there. I have seen photographs.

Vṛṣākapi: I have seen it.

Prabhupāda: Is it not?

Vṛṣākapi: It is the finest, the finest.

Prabhupāda: And we have got very cheap. One room will cost three hundred thousand, it is so costly. They said they spend about two millions dollars fifty years ago.

Morning Walk -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Devotee (2): Prabhupāda, one the one hand you say the scientists are rascals, and on the other you say not to condemn them.

Prabhupāda: No, the rascal means when they say there is no God. Then they are rascals. Here is a scientist—he does not say that there is no God. Anyone who says there is no God, he's a rascal. He may be scientist, philosopher, or anyone. (break—back in car)

Hari-śauri: I'm a bit puzzled about this, these entities that are born from perspiration, like that. It seems that there's no father and mother, yet like we were just using the argument that there must be a father and mother.

Prabhupāda: No, there is father and mother. The supreme father is Kṛṣṇa, and mother is nature, ultimately. So perspiration is also another form of nature. Yes. There's always father and mother.

Yadubara: There's no material father, though? In that case?

Prabhupāda: Material father is not material. Real father is Kṛṣṇa. He may come in so many ways.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The thing is that the scientists may isolate some cockroaches in a box, and they will watch the cockroaches secrete eggs and this or that or whatever—I don't know exactly how the cockroaches...

Prabhupāda: Not, give up cockroach. There are many other living entities, they come from perspiration. Take for..., bugs. Bugs, they come from perspiration. Many, many come by fermentation.

Room Conversation -- July 7, 1976, Baltimore:

Prabhupāda: Because many wives were not allowed?

Hari-śauri: No, they had a system, one wife, but he got fed up with them. He chopped off the heads of two of them and then... It was considered a bit outrageous. So then he wanted to divorce and have another wife after the third or fourth one.

Prabhupāda: So he used to cut them, the head?

Hari-śauri: Yes, two of them he did. And then the Catholic Church excommunicated him.

Prabhupāda: Therefore in Vedic civilization they keep, they have more than one wife. So what is the use of killing? Why one should kill? We find from the history, Dhruva Mahārāja's mother and stepmother, there were some critical words, and Dhruva Mahārāja became very, very angry. So the critical words and wives, different wives, that may be, but why one should cut off the head? Dhruva Mahārāja's mother said when Dhruva Mahārāja began to cry before the mother, mother said "My dear child, what can I do? How can I help you? Your father does not care for me, even as maidservant, what to speak of I am queen, I am the senior queen. So this gentleman does not care of me even as maidservant. How can I help you? If God helps you, then..." That was her statement. So that does not mean because the king did not like, she should be beheaded. What is this nonsense? If he is,(?)... may be... After all, he is king. He may not like first wife. Actually, there was no scarcity of comfort, but liking may not be, but that does not mean that she shouldn't be accepted as wife. Kings were allowed to marry more than one wife. Why to accept another wife means another wife should be killed? What is this? Everything nonsense. King can marry more than one wife. And at the time of marriage they were given so many woman. Because the woman population is greater than the man, always. So when the King is married, along with the queen, many other friends of the queen they would go with the king. They live in the same palace, same palace. Sometimes they had children, dāsī-putra. Just like Vidura. Vidura was not queen's son. One of these women friends. So that was allowed.

Room Conversation -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: We are also mentioned.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They gave us the most space in the magazine.

Hari-śauri: They did it in sections. There was a bit about kīrtana, there was a section about shaving the head, there's a whole section about Kṛṣṇa prasādam, how to offer it and cook it and everything. It was very nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He's getting it ready. He wants to read you certain things in the magazine. He likes to prepare things to discuss with you, Rādhāvallabha, controversial topics.

Prabhupāda: What is that controversial? (laughter)

Evening Darsana -- July 13, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Beer cans and...

Prabhupāda: This is national degradation. Every state full of garbage, litters. Not only now, I was living here (indistinct); the last 10 years. At least I have seen.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: One of the parents of the devotees who came the other day, they said they went to Vṛndāvana, and the gentleman who bought those pictures, photographs in Washington...

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He said he was surprised how clean Vṛndāvana was.

Prabhupāda: Many, even the poorest man's house you go in the village, you'll find everything neat and clean. At least the kitchen and eating, very neat and... Climatic condition is also nice. Almost all the year there is sunshine. Only during rainy season the sun is... That is also cooling a bit. After summer season, the rainy season covering, there is enjoyable cooling. Now everywhere... (end)

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Bali-mardana: We can do New York for the spring, summer and fall.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bali-mardana: Because the weather is nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That coincides. Rāma-navamī is spring, Ratha-yātrā is summer, and Janmāṣṭamī is fall.

Hari-śauri: Gaura Pūrṇimā would be a bit difficult, though. Everybody is in India.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's not possible.

Bali-mardana: We could do that inside.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But those three...

Prabhupāda: Janmāṣṭamī, take Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa procession.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: On carts?

Prabhupāda: No, on siṁhāsana, carried by hand.

Bali-mardana: Palanquin.

Prabhupāda: Palanquin; no, the siṁhāsana as it is. Just like this is siṁhāsana, two big poles down, and tie it with..., cut it with legs and carry, four men or eight men change. Change the soldiers.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But not on carts, not on big chariots.

Prabhupāda: No. Chariot, only Ratha-yātrā.

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, they're so favorable. Rāmeśvara was commenting. He said he never saw... The climate of the people of New York is unique in America. They are very favorable.

Prabhupāda: So where is that man? Where he has gone? 7-UP can be had anywhere.

Hari-śauri: Well, it's Sunday evening. It's a bit difficult. He has to drive around in a car till he finds somewhere.

Bali-mardana: 7-UP? You want 7-UP? I can get it.

Hari-śauri: I sent Śravaṇānanda out to get it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: At the Bloopie's they can get it. Rādhāvallabha got it.

Bali-mardana: Not a can, though, just in a cup.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But how do they get it into the cup? Buy the whole bottle.

Prabhupāda: Bottle or... Bottle or can.

Bali-mardana: This store has it... They have the machine.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What about Ninth Avenue? There's all those shops. (whispering in background about 7-UP)

Bali-mardana: He already went to get it?

Prabhupāda: If the government is going against our movement, then I'll have to stay. There is no alternative.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In India.

Prabhupāda: Because in that case I'll be hampered in India.

Conversation with George Harrison -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: If there is rain then there is no scarcity of water. The water comes here. Yes.

George Harrison: But how, when you drain it, then how did you stop it from filling up?

Mukunda: Well, it did fill up in the winter quite a bit, but then in the summer it went back down. It's filled up now—we had to use city water to get it started. But as soon as it rains it goes up about this far.

Jayatīrtha: It's evaporated about six inches since

Mukunda: You don't have a well in your place?

George Harrison: No, just, well, that (indistinct) pond. Originally the lakes all were filled just like this as well as flooding the drains, and when it rained off the house everything would go, and we have a big storage tank, and then there's ball cocks, and underneath that big bank of rhododendrons was like a room built there, which was a storage tank. Then any other water he must have used just from the mains. But these days, you know, they have meters on the mains, so you have to pay for every gallon.

Mukunda: What about getting those water diviners to come and find water?

George Harrison: Well, you can find it I think anywhere if you just bore a hole. So what we did was just bore at the end of the lake. But you have to go down to the depth of the riverbed, and there there's not much water because the rain, it's all chalk and limestone, so the rains.... That's the problem with watering in the summer, if you put water...

Prabhupāda: From your house the river is near?

George Harrison: Yes.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Mike Robinson: Thank you very much for reading that. So can you explain to me just a bit more, if the soul is undying, does everybody's soul go to be with God when they die? Do you have a belief in a heaven or a hell?

Prabhupāda: Not necessarily. If he's qualified, if he qualifies himself in this life to go back home, back to Godhead, then he can go. If he does not qualify himself, he gets another material body, and there are 8,400,000 different forms of body. And according to his desire and karma, activities, the nature, laws of nature, gives him a body. Just like a man infects some disease and he develops that disease. Is it difficult to understand?

Mike Robinson: It's very difficult to understand all of it. Perhaps we can...

Prabhupāda: Now suppose somebody has infected some smallpox disease. After seven days it develops. What is that called, that period?

Mike Robinson: Incubation? Is that the word?

Prabhupāda: Ah, incubation, no, another technical, yes, that after some time, the disease comes. There is a technical name. Anyway, so you cannot avoid it. If you have infected some disease, it will develop by nature's law. It is not possible to avoid it. Similarly, during our this life, we are in association with different modes of material nature, and that will decide what kind of body we are going to get next life. That is strictly under the laws of nature. Everything is under the laws of nature. You have no control over it; you are completely dependent, but people, on account of dull brain, they think that they are free. They are not free. They are imagining they are free. They're completely under the laws of nature. So this next birth will be decided according to my activities this life, sinful or pious, like that.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Harikeśa: That would be very nice.

Mike Robinson: Perhaps if I phrase it a bit differently. I gather that the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement also has some concern for areas of the world where there is suffering, physical suffering.

Prabhupāda: We have got the only concern. Others, they are simply avoiding. They have no responsibility. They are talking all nonsense. We have got real responsibility. These people are being misguided, they are kept in darkness. Let us try to give them some enlightenment.

Mike Robinson: Yes, but apart from giving spiritual enlightenment, do you also..., are you also concerned for people's physical well-being?

Prabhupāda: That is automatically done.

Mike Robinson: And how would you go about doing that? Would you help the sick people?

Prabhupāda: Just like if you have got a car to drive on. So naturally you take care of the car also. But not that you identify yourself, "I am this car." That is nonsense. They are doing that. They are taking too much care of the car, thinking that the car is one. He forgets that he is different from the car, he has got different business. He cannot eat the petrol and be satisfied. He has got different eating. But these rascals, they are thinking that "Petrol is also my eating." And they are drinking petrol and dying, that's all. Petrol is meant for the car, and for you there are so many fruits, flowers, milk. But if a man thinks that "I am the car, I must drink this petrol," then he is doomed.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Our religion is science. As we, when we speak, that a child grows a boy, it is science, it is not religion. Every child grows to become a boy. Where is the question of religion? Every man dies. Where is the question of religion? And when a man dies, the body is useless. So where is the question of religion? It is science, it is science. Either you Christian or Hindu or Muslim, when you die your body's useless. This is science. You cannot say that "We are Christian. Now the body is dead. Now we don't consider it as dead. We believe it is not dead." No, it is dead. Either you are Christian or Hindu or Muslim, it is dead, it is useless. So when we speak, we speak on this basis, that the body is important—it doesn't matter whether it is Christian body or Hindu body or Muslim body—so long the soul is there. When the soul is not there, it is useless. It is applicable to everyone.

Mike Robinson: I think I'm beginning to get, if you could explain, a bit confused. What I'd like you to explain is...

Prabhupāda: We are trying to educate people on this basis.

Mike Robinson: But that's, if I understand you correctly, you seem to be educating people on a purely scientific basis.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mike Robinson: So where does religion come into it at all?

Prabhupāda: Religion means also science. But they have taken religion as faith, "I believe." Religion means, actually, religion means.... Just like in the dictionary you find what is the religion...

Hari-śauri: Obeying the Supreme Person.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Religion means to learn how to obey the supreme controller. That is religion. So you may be Christian, I may be Hindu, it doesn't matter. But we must accept there is a supreme controller.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: This is religion. This is religion. So this religion is applicable to everyone, any human being. Why do you bring Christian or Hindu or Muslim, or...? Everyone has to accept that. That is real religion. And this is not religion, "We believe there is no soul of the animal." That is not religion. That is most unscientific. That is not religion. Religion means scientific understanding of the supreme controller. So now if you accept the supreme controller, then if you violate something, you must be punished. Immediately you have to accept. As soon as you accept there is supreme controller, so immediately as you violate the laws of the supreme controller, immediately you are punished. That is nature's law.

Mike Robinson: Can we, can you say a bit more of that, just for the tape? You were saying that religion is obeying the supreme controller.

Prabhupāda: Yes! Religion means to understand the supreme controller and obey. That's all. Just like good citizen means he understands the government and obeys the laws of government. That's all. Good citizens. What is the difference between bad citizen and good citizen? The bad citizen means he doesn't care for the government—"Ah, I don't care for"—that is bad citizen. That is irreligious. If you are bad citizen, then you are irreligious. If you are good citizen, then you are religious.

Room Conversation -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: I did not see Harikeśa.

Hari-śauri: He was there.

Prabhupāda: Oh, he was there?

Hari-śauri: Yes. He's been feeling a bit ill today.

Prabhupāda: This is thyme herbs? No. This is the seed.

Hari-śauri: Oh, them. They grow it in the garden. The first, what you got, that was grown here. Those twigs? They were grown here in the garden. Would you like anything tonight? A piece of chavana-prash? (Harikeśa comes in)

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Harikeśa: This boy brought this. I wanted to just ask you if this is any good or not. This is nutmeg oil.

Hari-śauri: This is the oil I was telling you about.

Harikeśa: And this is Ax Brand Universal Oil, supposed to be for massages or something.

Prabhupāda: Chinese?

Harikeśa: (indistinct) This is Chinese.

Hari-śauri: It's got different..., says menthol crystal, peppermint oil, eucalyptol oil, menthol salicilate, oil of lavender, chloroform BP, camphor powder, and white oil.

Prabhupāda: What is for?

Harikeśa: Supposed to be for massaging.

Evening Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: In the material world there cannot be any peace, justice, morality. It is not possible. You may try to make some adjustment, but it will never be possible. So, by their concocted imagination, they are thinking, "This way will be beneficial," but unless they come to the spiritual platform, there is no question of peace, prosperity, justice. It is not possible.

brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā

na śocati na kāṅkṣati

samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu

mad-bhaktiṁ labhate param

(BG 18.54)

Unless we come to the spiritual platform, there is no question of justice, morality, peace. It is not possible. They may attempt in different ways, by their mental speculative process, but actually it will never come to be true. They are all trying: the scientists, philosophers, politicians, religionists, to make some adjustment, but that is not possible. We must understand the material platform. It is threefold miserable conditions. Just like we are trying to avoid some miserable condition, very insignificant—to get out of the disturbance created by the mosquitoes and the flies. We are trying our best, but still they are disturbing. Is it not? Still they find out some loopholes and go in to the room and disturb you. So you cannot avoid. Similarly, the disturbances of nature: the severe cold, scorching heat, how you can counteract it? Is it possible? Not possible. Adhyātmic, you may keep your body quite fit to your best knowledge, bit still there will be some trouble, sometimes coughing, sometimes mental equilibrium is lost, you don't feel nice. So these things will go on. Because we have got this material body, the material conditions must work. You cannot make any adjustments. That's not possible. (If) you have come to the spiritual platform independent of this material body, then there will be everything solved. On every surface (?). They can waste their time for making an adjustment, but that is not possible. I have given some example, that everyone is trying to become free from the material disturbances, but it is not possible. Nobody is free from material disturbance. That is not possible. So if you actually want freedom from material disturbances, you have to come to the spiritual platform and cultivate spiritual knowledge and be fixed up. Then your life is successful.

Evening Darsana -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: And evaporation. Even the ocean can be evaporated by the air. So we have got this experience of the five or eight elements. They are physical because they are subjected to be cut into pieces, to be burned into fire, to be moistened, to be evaporated. But it is, soul is not affected. Then we have to think of—what is that. Therefore these scientists, they are puzzled. When the soul goes out of the body, they cannot imagine what thing is missing that the body is dead. Because they have physical ideas. But it is not physical. So everything is described. We have to study thoroughly and apply our brain. The brain must be sharp and finer tissues. Then spiritual understanding will be there. With dull brain, physical brain, we cannot understand. That is not possible. Therefore to spiritualize the brain, the senses, requires a process. Just like to keep a vegetable in frozen condition, it requires a process. Similarly, we have to undergo a process to come to this spiritual platform, to understand the spirit soul, the supreme being, God, and the relationship and the activities. We must adopt the process. And those who are adopting the process, they are making progress. Practical. So it is not impractical. Thousands of these Europeans and Americans, they, say, a few years ago, four, five years ago-say, at most ten years ago—they did not know what is Kṛṣṇa, what is God. But now you ask them, they will explain. They are not foolish, they are not uneducated. So unless they are situated in the spiritual platform, how they are sticking? So there is process, and the process is practical. Anyone who adopts this process, he'll be able to understand. The process is meant for human being. Any human being who adopts this process will understand. So ask any one of them, these European, American boys, "Are you sticking to Kṛṣṇa consciousness sentimentally or understanding?" Ask them. They will explain, "Yes, understanding." Not blindly. Blindly one cannot stick—that is not possible. No, there is God, there is possibility to come in touch with God, there is possibility to serve Him directly, to see Him face to face, if we adopt the process.

Ali: What I'm practicing now is that I'm battling against my nafs—the commanding self, as it's known in dervishism. And it amazes me, the way it acts, so mischievous, so dishonest, so many faces that I can only catch out very few, very few. It's always a bit late, after anger, I recognize the presence of anger.

Prabhupāda: Yes, any process you adopt, it doesn't matter, provided it helps you to the platform of loving God, that is approved. Because without coming to the platform of loving God, you cannot be satisfied. That is not possible. So you can adopt any process, it doesn't matter. If it brings you to the platform of loving God, then you'll be happy. We do not say that this process is bona fide, that process is not bona fide. We say any process you adopt, it doesn't matter, if it helps you to bring to the platform of loving God.

Evening Darsan -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Nobody. Do you think your king, Shah, is also happy? No. His sons, daughter, they are happy? No. He is also anxious how to keep his position, exalted position, he has to makes many plans, satisfy so many ministers, so many. He is also full of anxiety. And a small bird eating some grain here, he's attracted for the grain, but he's looking this way, "Oh, here is a man, here is man, he may not do some harm to me." So everyone is full of anxiety. Nobody can be free from anxiety. That is not possible. Sadā samudvigna dhiyam asad-grahāt (SB 7.5.5). Because we have adopted this material life, asad, our mind should always be full of anxiety. Nobody can be free from anxiety. That is not possible. Sadā samudvigna dhiyam asad-grahāt. Because we have accepted this temporary body, we have to be full of anxiety. This is law of nature. And if we act in this life to create another material body, then our all activities are spoiled. Parābhavas tāvad abodha-jāto yāvan na jijñāsata ātma-tattvam. He did not ask about the constitutional position of himself, he simply engaged himself in dog's place(?). Then whatever activities he has done, it is simply defeat. Next body what he's going to get he does not know. If you become a minister in this life and next life you become a dog, then what is the benefit? Can anyone challenge this? "No, no, I'm not going to become a dog." Nobody can say. You are going to change the body—tatha dehāntara prāptir—now what kind of body you'll get, that will depend on nature, not on yourself. If you go to a tailor's shop, so you have to pay for if you want a better garment. Similarly, what kind of body you will get, that will depend on your work. So in this life you may be a prime minister, but if you have worked like menial dogs and hogs, then you are going to get body of a dog and hog. That is nature's gift. You cannot check it. You have no hand on the administration of the nature. That is not possible. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). If you have infected some disease, you must suffer from that. This is nature's law. You cannot say, "Although I have infected the smallpox disease, I'll not suffer." No, you have to suffer. Or you have to die of that disease. You cannot check it. So they do not know how nature is going. Declaring independence. That is foolishness. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi (BG 3.27). And people are kept in ignorance. There is no school, no college, no institution to give instructions about this science. This is the position of modern civilization. People are kept in ignorance. They got the chance of human body to understand the value of life, but they are not given education by the father, by the guardian, by the king, by the guru. Nobody is giving. Therefore śāstra says you should not become a guru, you should not become a father, you should not become a king unless you are able to save him from these laws of nature, repetition of birth and death. Then you should not become. It's the duty of the guardians to give education to the dependents about the spiritual knowledge. But who is doing that? We are trying our bit because we are ordered by superior that "You do it." So we are trying as far as possible, that's all.

Evening Darsana -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: It is not God's plan, it is your plan. Whatever you make, it will cause inconvenience. And if you follow God's plan, you'll make progress. Where is in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said by Kṛṣṇa that you make motorcars like this? He has never said.

Hari-śauri: They get a bit confused because God has to... Like that man last night was saying not even a blade of grass can move without God's sanction. So they think because God sanctions...

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is so many times explained. Just like a child wants to do something. The father says, "Don't do it," I have said several times. Reluctantly, "All right, do it." I have given this example of my practical experience in 1925 or '26 when my son was two years old. There was a table fan, "I would like to touch it." And I said, "No, no, don't touch." This is child. So but it's a child. He again tried to touch it. So there was a friend, he said, "Just slow the speed and let him touch." So I did it, slowed the speed and he touched-tung! Then he would not touch. You see. So this sanction was given, "Touch it," reluctantly. Now when he gets experience and I ask him, "Touch again?" "No." So this sanction. All of us who have come to this material world, it is like that. Reluctantly. Therefore God comes again to inform these rascals that "Now you have tried so much, better give up this, come to Me again." Sarva-dharmān parityajya (BG 18.66). Sanction was given, certainly, and he has experience, very bitter, but still he won't... This is obstinacy. Dog's mentality. The father has come personally. Now we have experimented everything—karma, jñāna, yoga, this, that, all nonsense. "Now I say..." It is said most confidential. Sarva-guhyatamam. "Better give up this job. Surrender to Me, come back to Me." So sanction was there, certainly. Without sanction they cannot do it. God created this. That is sanction. You wanted material world to enjoy. "All right, do it, here is material world. Take as much petrol as you like and drive motorcar and create accident, do, go on. But now I am giving you good advice, that give up this business, come back to Me." This is sanction. Reluctant, the same example. I did not like that child to touch the fan, but he would insist. "All right, make an experiment." And when he got the experience, next time, ask him, "Now do it?" "No." This is going on.

Room Conversation -- August 17, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Virus.

Guest: Virus. (Bengali) Now we know even the inanimate is animate, but by biology only it is changing. All the unanimate subject is slowly being transformed into animate. We are all convinced the whole process is the same. It's a terrific science now, biology. Latest, we have discovered. I am also working on biology quite a bit for all the virus disease and all. And we can eliminate them by only vacuum. My whole cure, they call it miracle and all is nonsense, it is only creating a vacuum which automatically takes away.

Prabhupāda: This biology will be complete...

Guest: When we accept this.

Prabhupāda: ...when you accept this.

Guest: I know. (laughs) And I have accepted long ago. Because I felt, as a sincere worker, medicine doesn't interest me. What interests me is the cure. My profession is to cure, not to study the medicines. That is the cure.

Prabhupāda: Here it is very clearly stated that kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). The biology, infection. Kāraṇam, that is the kāraṇam. Kāraṇam guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu. Why there are varieties of life? One is very intelligent...

Guest: You know also in (Sanskrit).

Prabhupāda: Same thing.

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Jayapatākā: So that time Mr. Choudhuri, he was put down. But he said, "I have not yet lost hope." He said, but he was put down a bit. That might personally talked to the Minister of Nadia, Anandamoy Visvas, who I personally met last year. And he was telling him that for Nadia he should sponsor this. Even the negative political issue with the Chief Minister, he should push it through. In the meantime I wrote an application to Karun Kanti Ghosh, who up to now we hadn't asked. Because it had already passed all the preliminaries. And I went and spoke to him. I told him that "It has already passed all the government stages. Now simply the Chief Minister has to be convinced." He said, "No, no. You are of good integrity. There is not doubt about ISKCON. I will immediately tell him." He called up the Chief Secretary, the Chief Minister was out then. Later on he talked to Chief Minister. The next time I saw Mr. Choudhuri. Before that, he told me... That's when he told me that "Maybe Prabhupāda should see the Chief Minister." Now he said it's not necessary. He liked your reply to them. After that, I saw Mr. Tarun Kanti Ghosh. Then I saw Choudhuri again a week later. At that time he said, "Now everything is changed." He said "Now the Chief Minister, that problem is solved." He has written that "Let Mr. Choudhuri make the decision. Let him make the decision. But I cannot simply take the decision. They'll say I am biased. I must work in the ordinary ways of the government. But there is no trouble now. You have waited so long. You wait another thirty or sixty days." He said, "Wait another sixty days, and then you'll get it."

Prabhupāda: When he wrote? When he wrote this?

Gargamuni: He spoke to me just two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. Then, last week, again I saw him just before Janmāṣṭamī. I asked him... And I gave him invitation to Janmāṣṭamī. At that time he told me that... There was this bad publicity. He told me, "Now this bad publicity, I think it has given us some benefit."

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, could you give darśana over here later? They're all been waiting for your darśana.

Gargamuni: Hey, wait a minute. We're talking about Māyāpur. We're talking about Māyāpur.

Prabhupāda: Is there...? Is there there necessity?

Gargamuni: There's no necessary.

Room Conversation About Blitz News Clipping -- August 21, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: No. They should be charged, "Why you have said 'ungodly face'? What do you know about God?"

Pradyumna: The courts can take it up also. In Allahabad when they were doing about the Congress Party having the cow, they said this is of the nature... They were discussing what is God in the court to make a decision. Something, what is God, what is religion. We can bring it up in the court. That will make a case celebre. Case celebre, they call it, affaire celebre.

Prabhupāda: Yes. This case must be brought. Challenge them, "What do you know about God?" Explain. And we can prove God consciousness from every page of our books. That will be very interesting case. And we shall continue this unless this man is sufficiently fined.

Hari-śauri: This is a... That bit about... Some of it, there's the front page also. Thought you might like to read.

Prabhupāda: "Evidence of fraud"? No?

Hari-śauri: That's Sai Baba.

Pradyumna: One man is trying to prove Sai Baba is fraud. One professor.

Hari-śauri: He's a scientist. He says he can prove that Sai Baba's making things appear and disappear is just a trick.

Prabhupāda: He is a fraud. What is this paper?

Hari-śauri: This is the same issue.

Pradyumna: But there's something very interesting. When he manifests something, he gives evidence, he says, "This cannot be a creation, because to be a creation, to be God you must be creator. To be creator you must produce something which is uniquely not made by anyone else." So he said he's only making things that are already created by someone else—a watch. So he is...

Hari-śauri: He's producing a watch, then it's a watch that's made by some manufacturer. It's not made by Sai Baba. Like that. So there was a comment that even if he has some... He may have some supernatural power, but he's not God.

Pradyumna: He has some yogic siddhi, but he cannot be God because he does not create.

Prabhupāda: So this paper is against Sai Baba also?

Pradyumna: No.

Room Conversation -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: And when he first came to me he expressed that "I was searching this institution. Now I'll join." And he was getting at that time four hundred dollars?

Gargamuni: Yes. A school teacher.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So he was paying everything almost, keeping little money. And then he brought him.

Hari-śauri: I have a picture of you with your hair. I'll show you. I have a picture of Gargamuni Swami when he still had hair and karmī clothes.

Gargamuni: "Shakespearean locks." Prabhupāda used to call me that.

Hari-śauri: Hair in this picture's a bit cropped up, but you had a bead bag then.

Gargamuni: Oh, yeah, then that was later.

Prabhupāda: You were selling Back to Godhead on the street?

Gargamuni: Yes, in the pushcart.

Prabhupāda: That time how many copies we were printing?

Gargamuni: We were printing 500 to 1,000. We started at 500 then to 1,000.

Prabhupāda: Then when Brahmānanda proposed that we can get it printed from Japan, but they want order for 20,000 minimum. So I said yes. Five hundred, 1,000 we were selling, and he proposed 20,000. "Yes. You order." (laughs) Now, two million?

Hari-śauri: The biggest one I think was that centennial, bicentennial issue. What was that? It increases, anyway, every year.

Prabhupāda: Brahmānanda was hesitating how 20,000 per month we shall consume.

Meeting With Member of Parliament, Mr. Krishna Modi -- August 31, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: And people are not happy. They are terrorized.

Krishna Modi: That is correct. That is correct. In Parliament we are telling that they are a first-class prisoner. First-class prison.

Prabhupāda: Yes. First-class prisoners. Not first-class, third-class. (laughter)

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But I was told, because a lot of people in Russia who are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa also. It's very... There's a lot of corruption. Even the taxi drivers are corrupt. They'll park their taxi a bit away then come and approach you when you are standing in a line and say, "Okay, I'll take you there," but he'll tell you three times the price because everyone's waiting in such a long line for a taxi.

Prabhupāda: Black market.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. And one friend of ours told us what they do because all the cars belong to the state, a lot of taxis, the people...

Krishna Modi: The taxis are not independent.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No, they all belong to the state. But the driver, if he makes extra money, that goes in his pocket and they have tipping also.

Prabhupāda: And they are always anxious to get extra. Buses are not very good. Third-class buses.

Garden Conversation -- September 7, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: You give me lunch in banana leaves. Give me.

Hari-śauri: We were doing that in Māyāpur. I remember last time.

Prabhupāda: Because there are so many banana leaves. You can utilize it. One leaf is sufficient for four plates at least.

Caraṇāravindam: Actually I must confess, generally most days I use a bit of banana leaf to take some of your remnants on. Take a bit on a banana leaf, and then take from there. It is very handy. Actually the monkeys they come and also they eat this leaf. They often come and tear off a piece of leaf and sit on this eating them. Monkey.

Prabhupāda: That is destructive. They do not know.

Caraṇāravindam: They sit there eating them.

Prabhupāda: Because they do not get anything they make mischief. They're very mischievous. If they do not get any eatables they will cause mischief.

Room Conversation -- September 7, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: But not that willfully do something wrong. There is punishment. If one unconsciously, without any knowledge, does something wrong, that is excused. But they do willfully. They know it is wrong, still they do it. That is punished. Knowingly. Caitanya Mahāprabhu personally said, asat eka strī-saṅgī. Those who are habituated to illicit sex are punishable. Asat. It is very, very bad. And still if somebody does like that, he is punished. This is going on. "All right." Here illicit sex... The bābājīs, I heard, they say, "What is the wrong there? It is love." They say like that. They take it as love. "Gopī's love," they say. "Gopī's used to do that, used to have illicit mixing, intermingling with Kṛṣṇa. What is wrong?" They'll say. They get support from Kṛṣṇa līlā. Such rogues they are. Sahajiyās. There are many so-called gentlemen, they write books on Kṛṣṇa līlā, paint picture." This is very nice. Kṛṣṇa is advocating illicit intermingling." They take it as support of their sinful activities. I have seen personally. Anyone who is a woman-hunter, he's being addressed by his friend, "Oh, you are like Kṛṣṇa." They take Kṛṣṇa as a man. How they will take instruction of Kṛṣṇa? Avajānanti māṁ mūḍhāḥ (BG 9.11). Paraṁ bhāvam ajānantaḥ. We are teaching people to become Kṛṣṇa conscious, to become servant of Kṛṣṇa, and the so-called gentlemen, enlightened gentlemen, take Kṛṣṇa as a debauch. Black debauch. (break) ...Vaiṣṇava religion is sex. (break) There are aborigines in India. Santal, (?) they are called santal. Black men, live in the forest like the African aborigines. So I asked him that "You, jungle, do you meet the tigers?" "Oh, yes, yes. Why not?" "So how do you save yourself?" So he had a small axe in his hand. So he showed me that "So long I have got this axe, even the tiger will not dare to attack me." (Bengali or Hindi) After all, tiger is afraid of the axe. They are afraid of even stick. That immediately they understand, "He's superior." Actually man is superior with some weapon. I have got personal experience. He said, "He's a big tiger. But we treat them like dogs." One axe. They keep always. Just like we keep a stick, they keep one axe.

Harikeśa: Last year they bit Upendra. Remember that? Upendra went to Sevā-kuñja and the monkeys came and took away all of his prasādam and bit him in the leg.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā?

Harikeśa: Yes.

Room Conversation -- November 15, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Mm.

Hari-śauri: With the lyrics about Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Why don't you keep one record player.

Hari-śauri: Well record players are a bit bulky to carry. They have it on cassette.

Prabhupāda: No, this time anyone comes, ask them to bring one record player. Japanese record player is very cheap.

Devotee: Yeah, I think that's a good idea to have because all these albums are coming out now.

Hari-śauri: But you can get them all on cassette...

Prabhupāda: Between fifteen dollars, sixteen dollars.

Hari-śauri: We can't carry it all. We've got so much baggage we couldn't possibly carry all...

Devotee: Actually cassette is more practical.

Hari-śauri: These cassettes we can get, we can have everything on cassette.

Prabhupāda: All right.

Devotee: OK, this is... Actually they're probably sent by (indistinct). This is quite nice too. (Change of Heart starts to play—break)

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- December 25, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: And that is being supported, "Oh, they are CIA."

Guest (1): So I talked at great length with Girirāja, and I cross-examined him thoroughly with all these Indians who would be thinking about this Hare Kṛṣṇa because when I said that I have become a life member of yours, then he also might have been bit surprised, but mainly I wanted to impress upon my children—they're young boys—that "It's all right. You also go there."

Prabhupāda: Once spoiled, it is very difficult.

Guest (1): Very difficult.

Prabhupāda: To reform.

Guest (1): Then minds are spoiled; that is true. Their minds are, all Indian youth completely.

Prabhupāda: But you have spoiled them. You have given this impression that "This 'religion, religion, religion' has spoiled our country. Now throw it, all these books, in the water." The leaders say that. "Take to technology." They come to me. They challenge, "Swamiji, what this Hare Kṛṣṇa movement will do? Now we require technology." This is ignorance.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: I am in the Twenty-second Chapter.

Pradyumna: Yes. You're in Twenty-second Chapter. Twenty-first I'm going to send out.

Prabhupāda: And two chapters more will finish Ninth Canto.

Hari-śauri: You did quite a bit last night.

Prabhupāda: Yes. If people actually taking like that, then there will be a revolution in Western country.

Hari-śauri: I don't see how they can stop it. They can't stop it.

Prabhupāda: Huge quantity selling. Either Kṛṣṇa's desire... It is Kṛṣṇa's desire. Otherwise a religious book which is not their religion, Bhāgavatam, Indian. So somehow or other it is being distributed, and they say it is spreading like...

Girirāja: Epidemic.

Prabhupāda: Epidemic. So it is a kind of revolution.

Hari-śauri: And it's not just in one place. It's every country our men have been to.

Prabhupāda: Every country. Whole Europe and America. What business they have got to purchase our books in Christmas? They have no business. Why they are purchasing? Huge quantity. I never dreamed even (laughs) that my books would be sold in large quantity.

Room Conversation -- January 27, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Satsvarūpa: It's too big a job. They can't... It's too big a job.

Prabhupāda: Then what kind of scientists?

Satsvarūpa: They can do a tiny bit in a laboratory, make some water.

Prabhupāda: So still, we have to accept them scientist?

Satsvarūpa: Everyone is simply bluffed by their word jugglery and by whatever little bit they've done. They say, "We've done this. Now you must worship us." And people are indebted.

Prabhupāda: So we have to challenge them like that. And as soon as you challenge, "Yes, wait millions of years." That's all.

Satsvarūpa: They say, "Actually we are working on that, how to make rain."

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Satsvarūpa: They'll say, "Yes, actually we are working on that problem of making rain."

Prabhupāda: What is the working? People are suffering; you are working. There is a Bengali proverb, sate kusti dolpe gelun.(?) There was a big fair. One has to go there. So he began to dress himself nicely. So the time occupied for dressing, in the meantime the fair was finished. (laughs) Sate kusti kolpe gelun.(?) These are practical. You need immediately water. These rascals say, "Yes, wait. Wait for future."

Room Conversation -- February 12, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Where you have?

Jayapatākā: Where... Just the place would have to be... Their place is a bit irregular. Seeing the ultimate plan, we have to find out one place. It would be in this area somewhere. Now they're keeping records of how much is spent on agriculture, and how much is received. So what is the profit or loss, that can be ascertained. And actually that's not such a threat because I know that many of the things he is doing by contract. If at some time we need outside laborer for, say, harvest time, we need to harvest—so we pay them ten rupees or twenty rupees to harvest one bighā. So there is no question of labor. That is the contract.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Jayapatākā: In so many ways we can...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Jayapatākā: ...go around that.

Prabhupāda: That's all.

Jayapatākā: Envious people just trying to upset. The Western devotees that come, they are amazed that all of the devotees that are here, all the families are living separate from their wives. No temple has achieved that yet.

Prabhupāda: Everything can be done by practice.

Jayapatākā: The hari-nāma is purifying them because they are chanting so many hours. Now, when we give class, they also ask questions.

Prabhupāda: Life is coming.

Room Conversation -- April 13, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: He's impressed. He told Mr. Rajda? He informed Mr. Rajda?

Girirāja: Um, not... No, he didn't, not when I was there. But I am sure they had talked. I mean, people are very aware of our movement, at least superficially, that we are building something, we're doing some... One weekly newspaper editor...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think I'm going to write... If you leave me a tiny bit of room, I'll write "For International Society for Krishna Consciousness Building Fund" just above.

Prabhupāda: Write there.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Girirāja: He's asked us to have a column in his newspaper every week for questions or answers, so that the readers can send their questions and then we will give our answer. He will pay. He wants to make a regular weekly feature. It's called The Bombay Times.

Prabhupāda: Newly started?

Girirāja: I don't know how old it is, but now they're making a big push to make it popular.

Prabhupāda: At least one day or two day in a week important men may come here, live here. You hold meeting in that auditorium.

Girirāja: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Make friends with them about real knowledge.

Morning Talk -- April 25, 1977, Bombay:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There was a picture in the newspaper showing the students going to school, and each one of them was shown as a dog with a hat, graduation hat on, comparing the students to dogs. There was a cartoon, very apt.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they are creating so many dogs. "Can you give me any service?" "No vacancy! Get out!" And somebody becomes a... "All right, a bit of bread..." And: "Oh, oh, you are so kind." These śūdras... The number of śūdras have created this world situation so bad. (break) In your country also the farmers wants to go to the city to become educated and never comes back again. They are no more interested.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. Actually Paramānanda was telling me that, you know, he's made some very close friends amongst the farming people, not our own people. So every year he goes back to near New Vrindaban, 'cause he made friends with the local people there, and he spends a week with them, and Devakī-nandana also. So he says that now he helps them. Whenever he goes, he helps them with the farming because their sons are all starting to marry the girls from the city, and they're not so much inclined towards the farming work. So the father and mother, even though they're getting older, they have to more and more work because the children are not helping them.

Prabhupāda: The city girl, she does not wish to come.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. It's too... What should I say?

Prabhupāda: They are not faithful wives.

Room Conversation -- October 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Husband does not do.

Hari-śauri: This is the modern disease. Everyone is so lazy. You have always pointed out that there is so much land unused. Now no one wants to work. It is much simpler for them to go and work for eight hours a day in some office and get some bits of paper money and then buy from the grocery store.

Brahmānanda: Or even if they're farmers, all they do is just graze cows. And they don't do any work. They just have the cows eat, and then they sell them.

Prabhupāda: And maintain slaughterhouse, eh?

Brahmānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So you have kīrtana now?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, Prabhupāda. I'll bring the little... (break) ...that the bells are being rung on time, on the hour and half hour.

Prabhupāda: It is going on?

Akṣayānanda: Oh, yes. Everything's going on nicely, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: So the bank has dispatched them, no?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Has the bank dispatched those two deposits? I wrote you one letter. You received that?

Akṣayānanda: I only got that letter.

Room Conversation -- October 24, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yeah. And they walk right by you, and their feet are right next to your head. It's most dishonorable and disrespectful. You feel... You feel every bit of being a patient.

Haṁsadūta: Don't they have private planes?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, Prabhupāda doesn't want. (talking in background amongst devotees) I already suggested that in London to Prabhupāda, and he wouldn't do it. I mean it's very difficult to arrange these things in India, private plane, you know, without a lot of advance, like twenty thousand, thirty thousand rupees.

Hari-śauri: Private plane? Yes, and then it would have to be a propeller plane, too. They're hellish. Phew! We traveled on those to Chandigarh.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This country you can't do these things like that. So...

Brahmānanda: Then directly from Dum Dum to Māyāpur?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Then we go direct from Dum Dum to Māyāpur. We don't even have to go into Calcutta. Is that all right? So do you agree, Śrīla Prabhupāda, with the idea then, that the sooner we transfer there, the better, to Māyāpur? As far as the kavirāja goes, let us see if we get a local man from Calcutta, failing which, Smara-hari plus one other devotee will go to Śrī Raṅgam, and from a very reliable kavirāja, in their presence, they will have it made. Smara-hari, you see, is from Gurukṛpā and Yaśodā-nandana's party, so he has got experience sitting and watching people making the silver onto the throne. He knows how to sit and watch not to get cheated.

Prabhupāda: No, the thing is the man who would prepare, he must be experienced. That is wanted. And sincere. Then it will work, either you prepare there or here. When our men...? (devotees talk among themselves softly about who should go to Śrī Raṅgam)

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, in the meantime, some treatment should be there. In the meantime, before you get this makara-dhvaja, some treatment should be there.

Room Conversation -- October 24, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, he's from America.

Bhavānanda: He has quite a bit of money. And so Ādi-keśava called him up, and he had a kavirāja in the Rāmānuja-sampradāya. And Chandi Das went to see his kavirāja, and his kavirāja had just gotten finished mixing makara-dhvaja medicine. He'd been preparing it for the past ten days. And Śatadhanya Mahārāja and Ādi-keśava were just now going over to see this kavirāja. That Chandi Das has purchased seven tolās of the medicine for Your Divine Grace as a gift. They are going over to pick it up.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Just see. Kṛṣṇa arranges. Just see.

Trivikrama: Kṛṣṇa's so kind.

Prabhupāda: Very good. No, I saw somebody, Rāmānuja-sampradāya. He is preparing for me. This is all Kṛṣṇa's plan. It is being prepared in Delhi, and He is giving information and doing. So very good news.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: More chanting?

Prabhupāda: Chanting is our life.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So there's no need to send anyone to South India.

Prabhupāda: I have got it already.

Room Conversation -- October 25, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Definitely better?

Prabhupāda: I think so.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. I'll just tell him.

Prabhupāda: I'll lick it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. That way every bit will be on your... Okay. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...round the temple.

Hari-śauri: Round our temple. Do you feel strong enough to be able to sit in that...

Prabhupāda: Strong or weak, it doesn't matter. You carry me at least three times.

Hari-śauri: Yes. And darśana?

Prabhupāda: Hm? And darśana also.

Hari-śauri: At 9:30 or 10:00.

Prabhupāda: Any time.

Hari-śauri: Just as before.

Prabhupāda: Any time. If by parikrama, even I die, that is good luck. Do you follow?

Hari-śauri: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Instead of dying on the road, jerking of train, aeroplane, why not here?

Hari-śauri: Vṛndāvana is the best place.

Prabhupāda: So arrange like that. It doesn't matter. Which leaves his time with kīrtana, even I may die or live, it does not matter.

Room Conversation -- October 27, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Bhakti-caru: Miśri?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. "Just see," I think Prabhupāda said. The urine. It's finished now.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: (whispering) Quite a bit. Looks clear.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's more than that even.

Bhakti-caru: Can I see it in the light, please?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: One hundred cc's, Śrīla Prabhupāda, and clear. So urine is normal amount. Try to take a little bit to eat tonight, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: I'll try.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. And we won't give any medicine tonight. Tomorrow morning we're giving it. Okay?

Bhakti-caru: Even the swelling is down.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Svarūpa Dāmodara brought an article from The Statesman about the news of the conference that was held here in Vṛndāvana.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Statesman carried an article.

Prabhupāda: Oh, really?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: It was printed in The Statesman.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You want to hear it?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- October 29, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: As it is.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's in all languages.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's unlimited service that one can render.

Hanumān-prasāda: That's why I become a bit discouraged sometimes because I'm not able to do what I want to do.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So you can translate also.

Hanumān-prasāda: I want. It's his mercy we shall do. (Hindi) He's a divine power. That's all. He's not a person.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: You want to take some prasādam?

Prabhupāda: Here... (?)

Bharadvāja: Nayanābhirāma.

Prabhupāda: (Bengali)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda. (break)

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Upendra: Oh, Śrīla Prabhupāda, none of us speak Hindi. There's no more Hindi-speaking disciples at your side just now. Bharadvāja, Nayanābhirāma and myself, Upendra dāsa, are here.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) ...report...

Upendra: They have that article in the next room.

Nayanābhirāma: I just cut it out.

Upendra: And we'll show it to Rajiv. They've gone to take prasādam just now.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Just make it dark.

Room Conversation -- November 13, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: (as they lift Prabhupāda?) You'll bruise.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "You'll bruise," Prabhupāda said.

Prabhupāda: It is already bruised enough.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It is already rough and bruised.

Bhavānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda? We'll just lift your shoulders a slight bit so that we can pull the sheet out? Then it won't bruise. If I just lift you... Is that all right, Śrīla Prabhupāda? (pause) (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Or shall we discuss more? We can start discussing.

Prabhupāda: Yes.