Calcutta (Conversations 1968 - 1974)

Expressions researched:
"Calcutta"

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Interview -- February 1, 1968, Los Angeles:

Interviewer: Yes, well, what is your explanation of the creation of the world?

Prabhupāda: That is a huge thing. That we have to see to the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that God expanded Himself first of all in Mahā-Viṣṇu, He lied down on the Causal Ocean. And while He was in sleeping mood, from His breathing, innumerable universes came into existence. Then each and every universe, Mahā-Viṣṇu entered. Then again He lied down there, and from Him the first creature, Brahmā, generated. Then Brahmā created other planets. First there was creation of sound. From the sound, the sky came into existence. From the sky, air came into existence. From air, fire came into existence. From fire, water came into existence, and from water, this land developed. In this way, there are very detailed description in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So we have to take it that way.

Interviewer: Were you born in this country or were you born in...

Prabhupāda: No. I was born in India, Calcutta. My birthplace is Calcutta.

Interviewer: When did you come to this country?

Prabhupāda: I came here in September, 1965.

Interviewer: Did you come with the purpose of spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness?

Prabhupāda: Yes. I am an ordained minister for preaching these missionary activities. So I came here in September, 1965. Then, for one year, I was traveling in many parts of your country. In the beginning I was in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, and then I went to Philadelphia. Then I came to New York.

Radio Interview -- March 12, 1968, San Francisco:

Caller: Yes, Swamiji, I'd like to know where in India was your native place.

Interviewer: Where in India did you come from originally?

Prabhupāda: Oh, I was born in Calcutta. But after my acceptance of this renounced order of life, I am inhabitant of Vṛndāvana.

Caller: Of where?

Prabhupāda: Vṛndāvana. V-r-i-n-d-a-v-a-n. Vṛndāvana is a sacred place. It is about 90 miles south of New Delhi, capital of India.

Caller: Yes, yes, I see. One thing I just wanted to clarify, did you... are you are follower of Lord Kṛṣṇa?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Caller: That's all I wanted to know. Thank you.

Interviewer: The callers know more about the subject today evidently than I do. Now, your guru told you to be a wanderer.

Prabhupāda: Yes. A sannyāsī means itinerant teacher. He will wander and teach from door to door.

Interviewer: When was it that you arrived from India with $2?

Prabhupāda: It was in September, 1965.

Room Conversation -- July 16, 1968, Montreal:

Prabhupāda: We are not taxing. We are not asking any... If you give some contribution, there is temple and management, there is expenditure, heavy expenditure, in this country. If you so kind... It is very kind of you. Even if you do not pay, you don't like, please come. Please come and hear. Please bring your friends if you are really friend. So it is very nice thing. Sthāne sthitaḥ śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhir. You remain what you are. We don't say that you change, but you hear. Śruti-gatāṁ. Śruti means this ear. God has given you this nice thing. You just inject this transcendental vibration through this ear. And when you will, you purify yourself, then you'll know how to make your life successful by your occupation. Sva-karmaṇā tam abhyarcya saṁsiddhiṁ labhate param (BG 18.46). Saṁsiddhi. Saṁsiddhi means perfection. So even fifty years... Not fifty. About sixty years before, in our childhood, or more than, sixty-five years before, when we were five, six years old, this system of hearing in the evening, in every village there was current. And my maternal uncle's house was in the suburb of Calcutta. So in our childhood, when we used to go to our maternal uncle's house, all the ladies and members being discussed. They will sit down. All the members of the neighboring people, they will come, very big crowd, and they will hear, and whatever they can pay, they will pay. And with that impression, at nine o'clock or ten o'clock, they will go to bed. Very nice arrangement. Usually the meeting was taking place after night, dinner, you see? Say, about at nine o'clock. And from nine to ten, eleven, the discussion would go on, and then the members dispersed and go to their respective home. We have seen. And all the ladies, whole road, they were discussing, "The priest told me..." They discussed very seriously to understand. So they don't require any education. Simply by hearing they become advanced. This is recommended. Śṛṇvatāṁ sva-kathāḥ... Śṛṇvatāṁ. Just try to hear, hear, hear. Very nice process. So we are inviting people. We have got so much big space. Unfortunately, nobody is coming to hear. Mr. Khanvar? Why they do not come?

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

Nayana Abhirāma: Could you tell us about something about Lord Caitanya's production of Vaiṣṇava drama? Are there any of the plays that you know are still extant?

Prabhupāda: Yes. He was playing Vaiṣṇava drama in His household life, rather in student life, and He was taking the part of Rukmiṇī, because He was very beautiful young boy. Formerly, in our childhood also, we saw in drama there was no females taking part. If there was a female part, the man would be dressed just like a female. Formerly females are not allowed. If one has to find out a female for taking part in drama, then he has to find out from other quarters, not in respectable part. Now, very, very respectable, educated girls are taking in drama and cinema in India. Formerly this was not possible. And perhaps in the theatrical performances, stage, that was introduced by Lord Caitanya, drama. But His dramatical performances were limited within the devotees. He will not allow to take part in the performance who is not a devotee. So if our devotees... That movie was very nice. That's a good example. If we play, train our devotees to present some dramatical performances or movie, I think it will be very successful, because they will play from transcendental sentiment, not for trade purpose. So that will come out very successful. Yes. In our childhood we had the occasion of taking part in a drama, Caitanya-līlā. I took the part of Advaita, and our friends, others, somebody took the part of Caitanya, Nityānanda. So that drama was so successful, it was unique in Calcutta. Because we were not, we were not professionals. I saw from the stage a huge gathering, they're all crying. I was surprised, "Why these people are crying?" You see? It was great successful, because we were not professionals. We were not devotees at that time, but some of us were devotee by family tradition, but not exactly what is actually meant by devotee. But still, because we were not professionals, the drama was so successful, unique.

Interview -- September 24, 1968, Seattle:

Interviewer: Would you tell me something of your own background? That is, where you were educated, how you became a disciple of Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: I was born and educated in Calcutta. Calcutta is my home place. I was born in 1896, and I was my father's pet child, so my education began a little late, and still, I was educated in higher secondary, high school for eight years. In primary school four years, higher secondary school, eight years, in college, four years. Then I joined Gandhi's movement, national movement. But by good chance I met my Guru Mahārāja, my spiritual master, in 1922. And since then, I was attracted in this line, and gradually I gave up my household life. I was married in 1918 when I was still a third year student. And so I got my children. I was doing business. Then I retired from my family life in 1954. For four years I was alone, without any family. Then I took regularly renounced order of life in 1959. Then I devoted myself in writing books. My first publication came out in 1962, and when there were three books, then I started for your country in 1965 and I reached here in September, 1965. Since then, I am trying to preach this Kṛṣṇa consciousness in America, Canada, in European countries. And gradually the centers are developing. The disciples are also increasing. Let me see what is going to be done.

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 11, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:

Allen Ginsberg: I assume Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: In Calcutta, and accidentally, I was born in a very rich family. You have seen that picture in my Calcutta, dancing. In that, there is a Kashi Mallik's family.

Indian Woman: (Bengali) Kashi Malliker?

Prabhupāda: They are very aristocratic family. I do, I did not belong to that family, but I was born in that family, you see? And from the very beginning the Kashi Mallik, they have got nice Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa temple. So I was standing before the deity, and I was seeing, "Oh, He is Kṛṣṇa. Oh, people say He is dead. How he is dead?" Like that I was thinking. And then my, I asked my father, "Oh, I shall worship Kṛṣṇa, give me." So my father gave me Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, so I, whatever I was eating, I was offering them. So the statement of the śāstra and my practical experience corroborates. So we we have to take instance like that, you see? Sādhu śāstra guru vākya. We have to test everything from three positions: the spiritual master, scripture, and holy man. Scripture means, just like Bible. What is Bible? Scripture. Why the scripture? It is fully contains the instruction of sādhu, holy man, or spiritual master, Lord Jesus Christ, therefore is scripture. The scripture means the statement of liberated holy man. That is sādhu. Therefore, scripture should be tested through the holy man and spiritual master. Spiritual master should be tested through scripture and holy man, and holy man should be tested through spiritual master and scripture.

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

Prabhupāda: But it is the mission of human life to come to that point. So at least there must be some center or institution who may give them this idea. It is not that everyone will come. Just like there are many educational department. I know in Calcutta in our boyhood age, at that time Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee was vice-president. So he opened some classes in the university. In each class there were four or five professors, and at that time the professors' salary was 1300 dollar, 1400 dollar. And the fees were collected, at most thirty-six dollar per month. You see? But still the classes were to be maintained because the ideal must be there. So our mission is the intelligent persons of the world may know that this is not, simply seeking after sense gratification is not the aim of human life. Human life is meant by... Just like Bhāgavata says, jīvasya tattva-jijnasa. Vedānta says, athāto brahma jijñāsā. The same thing. Bhāgavata is nothing but explanation of Vedānta. So Vedānta says that this human form of life is meant for inquiring about Brahman. Atha ataḥ. Now. Atha means now. Atha, hereafter. That means after passing through all animalistic way of life, when a man comes to the stage of civilized life, perfect civilized life, at that time his business is to inquire about the Absolute Truth, what is the Absolute Truth. That is the whole Vedānta philosophy, "What is that Absolute Truth?" The same thing is explained in Bhāgavata, jīvasya tattva-jijñāsa. Jīvasya means all living entities. The main business is to inquire about the Absolute Truth. So people, by education they are misled. Instead of getting them to the highest topmost stage, to the platform of inquiring about the Absolute, they are giving facilities how you can satisfy your senses nicely.

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

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Allen Ginsberg: Catholicism in the West operated in Latin for centuries.

Prabhupāda: Latin is from Sanskrit. Yes. Latin is from Sanskrit. Professor Rowe and Webb of Presidency College in Calcutta, they have got a grammar. They have said the Sanskrit language is mother of all languages. They were big English scholar, professor, Mr. Rowe and Webb. We had to read their grammar in our childhood. They have said that Sanskrit language is the mother of all languages. And in the dictionary you'll find Indo-European language practically all from Sanskrit. The original word mātṛ-śabda—the "mater," no?

Allen Ginsberg: But the question I'm posing still is this. You accept the possibility of a series of Kṛṣṇa consciousness centers in the United States.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Provided a man is not adversely inclined. Otherwise it is very simple.

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

Prabhupāda: Of course, scholarly Mohammedans, they also read very nicely Bhagavad-gītā. I know one Mohammedan professor in India. He was a great devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa. He did not disclose that he was a devotee, but he was observing Janmāṣṭamī fasting day and he was writing one article on Kṛṣṇa every Janmāṣṭamī day. There are many. They read. And in our childhood... Not childhood, we were young man at that time. So one Englishman was a tenant in Calcutta, my friend's house. So he was vacating the house. We went to take possession of that house, and he had many books, and there was a book, Bhagavad-gītā. So that, my friend, Mr. Mullick, he was a little astonished that "He is Englishman, he's Christian. How is that, he has got Bhagavad-gītā?" So he was touching that book, and that gentleman thought that "He is my landlord. He may like that book." So he immediately said, "Oh, Mr. Mullick, I cannot present that book to you. This is my life and soul." He said like that. So Bhagavad-gītā is accepted by scholarly section, by philosophers. So I think people should have one scripture, one God, one mantra, and one activity. One God, Kṛṣṇa. One scripture, Bhagavad-gītā. And one mantra, Hare Kṛṣṇa. And one activity, to serve Kṛṣṇa. That's all. There will be peace. There will be actually peace all over the world. So I request you to, at least to understand this philosophy to your best knowledge. And if you think that is nice, you take up. You are also willing to give something to the world. So you try this. You have read our books, this Bhagavad-gītā As It Is? No.

1970 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1970, Indore:

Haṁsadūta: I should send this to the GBC members in the West, and they should put ads in the paper.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Let us have application.

Haṁsadūta: Should I copy it down?

Prabhupāda: Yes, you take it. You take it. Type it.

Himāvatī: Prabhupāda, in Calcutta Madhudviṣa advertised like that at one meeting, and the next day a man came...

Prabhupāda: Only one man?

Haṁsadūta: Two men came.

Himāvatī: With his six children and his wife, they were prepared, "Let us live here. We will see."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Himāvatī: And another old man that was so old that he was ready to die. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Then you write, "Young men." No, even old man, there is no question. That we can test, whether he is able, he is a qualified brāhmaṇa. First of all he is qualified brāhmaṇa.

Room Conversation -- December 13, 1970, Indore:

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) This is called vṛddha. This is called yoni. This is madhyama. This is anāvṛtta, and this is kaniṣṭha. (indistinct conversation) Stores are now closed?

Haṁsadūta: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Yes. So he has gone to Calcutta. (break) Utsāhan, dhairyāt. Are you realizing the distinction between this association and others?

Revatīnandana: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That you should realize. That is realization. We are trying to create a real spiritual path, not bogus, for livelihood. India's falldown is due to that spirit, that everyone takes everything for livelihood, that's all. Not only India, everywhere. India especially because poverty-stricken. So they take religion also as livelihood. Just like this Akhila Saheb. He wanted to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra for livelihood. Do you know that?

Devotee (3): Yes.

Room Conversation -- December 13, 1970, Indore:

Devotee (4): ...national, just like the national...

Prabhupāda: Yes. So we have to organize. First of all let us publish in one city, big city like New York, like London, yes, Bombay, Tokyo. Big cities, world's big cities. In India only two cities are big: Calcutta, and Bombay, important. If you publish simultaneously, Calcutta... Delhi is given importance due to capital; otherwise not important as big city, as Bombay and Calcutta. Delhi, without government offices it is a dead city. Just like Washington. What is the value of Washington? It is nothing. Simply because it is headquarters of the President, it has got importance. Similarly, Delhi is that. Otherwise it is not important. But Calcutta, Bombay, is really important city in India, big business, port, all rich men, every kind of, all cultural, everything—Calcutta, and Bombay. Originally only Calcutta, now Bombay also. Because the Britishers, they made Calcutta capital. And Calcutta was very, very important city. But these Calcutta men, they create sometimes situation, very complicated. So once in 1905 the same situation was there, politically. Sir Surendranath Bannerjee made, Surendranath Bannerjee's movement, partition of Bengal. Lord Collier, he wanted to divide Bengal, made it East Bengal and West Bengal. And Surendranath Bannerjee... He is the practically father of Indian politics. Gandhi's not. He was. He was. And in the beginning, in European circles he was famous. He was called "Surrender-not." The spelling of the name, s-u-r-e-n-d-e-r, Surendranath. In Parliament he was known as "Surrender-not." He was a very powerful politician. So there was trouble in Calcutta; so therefore they transferred, 1911, capital to Delhi. Otherwise, from the very beginning of British occupation Calcutta was the capital. You have seen the government viceroy's house near that Hamilton building where you were trying to purchase.

Room Conversation -- December 13, 1970, Indore:

Prabhupāda: What is the value of vote by asses? According to Vedic civilization, there was democracy but that democracy is selected committee. Just like in England there was Privy Council. So selected body of learned brāhmaṇas and sages, they were guiding the king, and the king himself was properly educated how to rule over, under religious principles. He was trained from the beginning of his life as prince. As the future heir of the throne, he was trained, and at the same time, he was guided by a council of learned sages and brāhmaṇas. They were looking over the activities of the king. As soon as there was some mistake they will see. And there are instances; whenever there was a bad king they were dethroned. Not for political purpose. He was dethroned but his son was on the... Just like Lord Rāmacandra did. Rāmacandra killed Rāvaṇa but He never occupied the kingdom. His brother Vibhīṣaṇa proved to be faithful. He was enthroned. From the same family. And that was the system. Even a king was wrong, he would be dethroned but from his family, either his son or brother, or somebody would occupy there. Not that "Because I have conquered you, therefore I shall sit down." No. There are many instances. And therefore India was ruling all over the world. The emperor was in India, and the kings of different states, their family was. So there was no rebellion. And in every state a king was trained in the same process, guided by committee of learned brāhmaṇa and sages. How perfect this monarchy is. Monarchy... That Lord Collier studied that the Indian people like monarchy. Even these states, the so-called states... Now the Congress government has killed them; otherwise the Britishers were maintaining, necessary, and they were developed. Now see. The Indore was far better before. You can see from the buildings, from the whole city. It was very prosperous city. Still it is going on. So every state, the native prince, the Britishers maintained so many native prince. And because they maintained them, they were friends to the Britishers. They knew the policy, if you create zamindar, landlord. They created this aristocratic class to support them. So when Gandhi and other leaders started this movement all the princes and zamindars, they were in favor of British. Therefore it took so much time to transfer. And as a retaliation, the common people have bereft them of their kingdom. "No more kingdom because you always supported Britishers." It is a great politics. Therfore they have taken... The zamindars, immediately after this attainment of independence, all the zamindars and kings were bereft of their possessions. You were in Calcutta? Oh, none of you were with me.

Room Conversation -- December 13, 1970, Indore:

Revatīnandana: So he went to the spiritual sky?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Then what is the use of making friendship with Kṛṣṇa if you cannot do so? There was a rich man in Calcutta, Motilal Sill. He was so rich that... Every man has different circle in younger days. So he would see. If any of his friends did not possess a house in Calcutta, he would purchase house. He said that, "If people say, 'Oh, you are friend of Motilal Sill. You have no your own house?' what people will say about me? He must have his own house." He purchased house for him. He was very big man. And there are many incidences also like, a very noble story. Actually it was not long ago, say about hundred years ago. He would not see that any one of his associates, friends, does not possess a house in Calcutta. Another Kṛṣṇa's friend, Sudama also. (chuckles) He could not recognize his own place, how it had happened, palatial buildings, garden. In Kṛṣṇa, you have not read Sudama? Give me water.

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

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

Prabhupāda: So this Canakya Paṇḍita was a great politician and brāhmaṇa. And as brāhmaṇa, he was vastly learned. He has got some moral instruction. They're very valuable, still going on. In India school children are taught. So this Canakya Paṇḍita, although he was prime minister, he maintained his brahminical spirit. He was not accepting any salary, yes, because for brāhmaṇas to accept salary, it is understood that he becomes a dog. That is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata. He can advise, but he cannot accept. So he was living in a cottage, but he was prime minister. So this brahminical culture, the brahminical brain, is the standard of Vedic civilization. Just like Manu-smṛti. Manu-smṛti... You do not know. You cannot trace out the history, when Manu-smṛti was written. But Manu-smṛti is considered so perfect that it is the Hindu law. The Hindus are governed by Manu-smṛti. There was no need of passing daily a new law by the legislative assembly to adjust this social order. You see? The law given by Manu was so perfect that it can be applicable for all the time. This is perfect. Tri-kāla-jñāḥ. The word is there, tri-kāla-jñāḥ, past, present, future.

Prof. Kotovsky: But... I am sorry to interrupt you, but originally, to my knowledge, original Indian society, when, in the second half of Indian society, when in Calcutta by order of British administration was codified, so-called, you know, remember, "Jantu Law," they called, a big digest of Hindu law, there was a lot of change...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Prof. Kotovsky: ...called in.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they manufactured another...

Prof. Kotovsky: And this, the actual Hindu law which was used by Hindus, they're quite different from original Manu-smṛti.

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

Prabhupāda: In Bengal where you stayed ?

Prof. Kotovsky: In Bengal?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Prof. Kotovsky: I was in Calcutta, Shantiniketan...

Prabhupāda: Shantiniketan.

Prof. Kotovsky: ...Shantiniketan and in some town in 24 Parganas, in different small townships and villages also.

Prabhupāda: Yes. I see.

Prof. Kotovsky: Bengal. And by origin you are from...?

Prabhupāda: Calcutta.

Prof. Kotovsky: Calcutta. Ah, Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: Yes. My birth place is in Calcutta, yes.

Prof. Kotovsky: I understand. Yes, unfortunately I haven't been to North Bengal. You have just visited Pakistan.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Calcutta, Bombay and several places, Gorakhpur. Gorakhpur.

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

Prabhupāda: Calcutta.

Prof. Kotovsky: ...Bengal and Calcutta... Prabhupāda: Yes. Prof. Kotovsky: ...because of influx of refugees from Bangladesh. Prabhupāda: Yes. But we had our saṅkīrtana festival for ten days, and people participated very wonderfully. We... Our gathering was not less than thirty thousand people daily, and they are so much interested in hearing about our... Lecture things, we are lecturing from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Bhagavad-gītā. We are... Our preaching method is on the basis of Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So people are responding from every part of the world, especially the American boys. They are especially interested. And England also, and Germany, and France. From here I shall go to Paris. There we have got center. What is the name of that place? Paris? Recently they have taken. Śyāmasundara: Eh? Prabhupāda: Recently they have changed the...? Śyāmasundara: Oh. In some suburb, Fontenay Rose, Fontenay aux Rose. Prof. Kotovsky: Ah, near Paris? Prabhupāda: Yes.

Darsana -- June 28, 1971, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: So give one man from each center. It doesn't require that he is very advanced. Advancement will be done by training, by practical application in life. If you send from each center one man to India... If you can send more, that's all right. But at least one man. In India we have got many things to do. Because the business in India is important in this respect, that partly due to their subjugation by foreigners, their original culture has been killed. Just like in India, they did not know drinking tea, drinking wine, meat-eating, illicit sex. They did not know. Even fifty, a hundred years before, they did not know. These Britishers, in order to control them, very silently introduced all these things. I know in our childhood, this drinking of tea was unknown to any family. Meat-eating, there was no question. Just like in my life, I do not know what is meat-eating, do not know womanizing(?) or illicit sex life, because we are trained in that way. So due to foreign domination, they were killed; and after independence, these rascal leaders, they are killing it: "What is the wrong in meat-eating? What is the wrong in drinking?" They are canvassing: "Eat chickens, eat eggs,." This is going on. So at the present moment there is great propaganda from the side of the government and others to kill India's original culture. So when Americans go there and preach and they see, "Oh, so nice Vaiṣṇava, so nice devotee and so pure," they will become attracted, because that is their original culture. At heart they want to do that, but by artificial means they are being forced to accept something else. So when they see these foreigners and Americans so... And government is not very favorable of my movement there, because it is natural when the Americans exhibit a nice, pure Vaiṣṇava, they come attracted. Just like Calcutta and Bombay, what was there? The same Deity was and saṅkīrtana was there and I was speaking say for a half an hour. But why these forty thousand, thirty thousand people were coming? They were coming to see, "Oh, how Americans have taken to this philosophy(?)." That is their surprise. They are giving credit only for that purpose. This man also. So there is good chance of preaching in India in this respect. We want some men to preach there. It will be great work. So I think in each center, from each center you can contribute one man, and some of you leaders may go. There are already, organize. People are very much attracted. They are wanting..., giving us money, they want to give us place, there is no scarcity of food, there is no question. But this Immigration Department, they will harass. But we have to manage somehow or other. We shall have to keep always at least 100 men in India. So how to do it? That we will consider and do it. That's all. (devotees offer obeisances) Now chalk out your plan how to preach nicely all over the world. So Viṣṇujana Maharaja, how many centers?

Room Conversation -- August 15, 1971, London:

Prabhupāda: Because opening center means so much responsibility.

Śyāmasundara: So much. Land...

Prabhupāda: So better open. Deity will be there. Just like Kīrtanānanda Mahārāja is doing. Install the deity for one week. You know everything. You have done in Calcutta, Bombay and other. Same thing. You were in Allahabad also?

Devotee: Yes, I was there.

Prabhupāda: Allahabad, Gorakhpur. So same thing. And for persons spiritually inclined, for them this traveling is very good. Traveling means with this occupation. It is very good. You'll be more popular and there will be no difficulty, mind will be steady.

Śyāmasundara: It takes away our attachment for everything materially.

Prabhupāda: The Gosvāmīs, they did not stay underneath a tree for more than one night. So you decide; then you do the needful.

Room Conversation -- August 17, 1971, London:

Revatīnandana: And they must also study your books.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Otherwise, so many Indian temples or churches, they think, "The church is there; everything is finished." No. Why people are losing interest in church? There is no preaching. Neither do they know what is preaching. They simply think that "This building will attract people." So they are now on sale.

Revatīnandana: In Calcutta it was like that. Everywhere we attract people with the Deity worship, but we hold them with the lectures.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) Come on. So how you were allowed to enter?

Śivānanda: Oh, it was all right. No difficulty. No difficulty.

Prabhupāda: Last time you had difficulty.

Śivānanda: No. Last year it was all right also. But before that it was...

Prabhupāda: Before that. So what news?

Śivānanda: Nice place in Heidelburg. Kṛṣṇa gave us a very nice temple there.

Prabhupāda: Your health is all right?

Śivānanda: My health is fine.

Room Conversation with Mayor -- November 10, 1971, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: So only you have got only mṛdaṅga? Why?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think more are coming from Calcutta. Śyāmasundara called me.

Prabhupāda: At least four khols you want to have. Four khols and sixteen men, that is party. Yes. And one leading singer and one dancer. That makes complete party. Twenty, twenty-two men. So where is Śyāmasundara?

Devotee: I didn't find him.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Devotee: I didn't find him anywhere.

Prabhupāda: He is not here? Huh? Resting? (background discussion among devotees) He went to bed very late last night?

Devotee (2): (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Devotee (2): He was trying to finish the Māyāpur thing.

Prabhupāda: Oh, oh, that's all right. Let him remain. So you can speak some discussion from our books? You can see he is very great speaker, Viṣala prabhu.

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation Including Discussion on SB 4.13.48 to SB 4.14.11 -- January 18, 1972, Jaipur:

Prabhupāda: Henry, Henry, yes. So he revolted, not being controlled, revolted against being controlled by the priestly order. Here also we see, purohita amātya-suhṛd-gaṇādayaḥ. When the king left, then the priestly order, purohita, purohita means priestly order, amātya, amātya means ministers, and suhṛd-gaṇādayaḥ, suhṛt means those who are willing welfare of the state, they became very much aggrieved that the king has left.

alakṣayantaḥ padavīṁ prajāpater

hatodyamāḥ pratyupasṛtya te purīm

ṛṣīn sametān abhivandya sāśravo

nyavedayan paurava bhartṛ-viplavam

(SB 4.13.49)

So they were afraid of some political convulsion. So although the son was worthless, so they decided that "Let us make him king. Otherwise, without king, how the state can go on?" So

bhṛgv-ādayas te munayo

lokānāṁ kṣema-darśinaḥ

goptary asati vai nṟṇāṁ

paśyantaḥ paśu-sāmyatām

(SB 4.14.1)

Because there was no king, so people became always like..., almost like animals. Paśu-sāmyatām. Paśu means animal, and sāmyatām means equal. So when there is a political, less strong political situation, not very strong government, at that time a class of men take advantage. Just like in Calcutta. Because the government was very lenient, not very strong, a demonic class of men took advantage of it and they began to create atrocities and fearfulness in Calcutta city. We have seen, practically people are not going out after evening, they are always staying in the fearful state. Nobody knows whether he will come back home again when he goes out of his home on the street. People are so much disturbed. So in the absence of strong king, these people take advantage and create disturbances. That is always there. So that happened. The people became paśu-sāmyatām. Therefore, the sages called a meeting of all respectable ministers and saintly persons and brāhmaṇas and decided, "Let us make this boy king." So he was enthroned. But because he was demonic, he was very strong. So as soon as he became king, all the bad elements of the state, they stopped their nefarious activities. Śrutvā nṛpāsana-gataṁ venam atyugra-śāsanam. They knew that this king is very strong and for any little criminal action, he will strike very severely. So the bad elements, they subsided.

Room Conversation -- February 12, 1972, Madras:

Guest: You belong to West Bengal?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest: Or East Bengal?

Prabhupāda: My birthplace is in Calcutta.

Guest: Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest: Great and famous place. Looked after...

Prabhupāda: Where you are governor also.

Guest: Looked after very badly. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Lalaji was governor in West Bengal.

Guest: How you have... Yes. I was called governor for some time there. I liked the place when I was there. They were all very kind. They had settled down after a lot of rioting and, and (indistinct), and all that, they had settled down.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest: They were all very good to me. They looked upon me as a, an impartial man, which is a very great compliment in our country. Now you have undertaken a very great task. I am not competent to discuss or comment upon it.

Prabhupāda: No. I think you are the best man to comment upon it.

Room Conversation -- February 12, 1972, Madras:

Prabhupāda: Yes. (laughter)

Guest: He was very happy, and he was very good and I love..., I have great love for him, and he was a very just man. He was a teacher of...

Prabhupāda: In Calcutta he was a professor...

Guest: ...politics, not of the Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest: Now, would you allow me to think aloud...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Guest: ...in the matter you have taken up?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest: First of all, they are scattered all over the world, your society. Scattered all over the world. They do not live together, anywhere.

Prabhupāda: No. I have got different centers.

Talk with Bob Cohen -- February 27-29, 1972, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: That is foolish. Is it not foolish?

Bob: Having no knowledge? Yes.

Indian man: Prabhupāda, I have one personal question, can I ask?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Indian man: Some time ago in Calcutta they observed a week. It was named "Prevention of Cruelty to Animals."

Prabhupāda: Hmm. (Chuckles) This is another foolishness. They are advertising prevention of cruelty and they are maintaining thousands of slaughterhouse. You see? That is another foolishness.

Indian man: No, I wanted just to ask...

Prabhupāda: Asking, before asking, I give you the answer. (laughter) That is another foolishness. They're regularly cruel to the animals, and they're making society.

Bob: Maybe this is...

Prabhupāda: Just like a gang of thieves gives a signboard, "Goodman and Company." A gang of thieves are giving signboard, "Goodman and Company." You sometimes find such signboard.

Room Conversation with John Griesser (later initiated as Yadubara Dasa) -- March 10, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Chinese?

Yadubara: Chinese.

Prabhupāda: Chinese, they eat everything. (laughter) They eat rats also. Rats, snakes. They are caṇḍālas.

Yadubara: They say Chinese are very practical and that they will make use of anything.

Prabhupāda: They eat man also. Yes. There was a case in Calcutta, they were eating man. They will call a hawker, "Come in, I shall purchase." And as soon as he enters, he never comes back. There were two hawkers. So one entered the house and other was waiting. But when he saw that he is not coming, he went to the police, that "My friend, he went but he is not coming." The police inquired and made a search, whole house, there were so many human bones, they're eating. Man-eater. Man-eater, in Africa there are many.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're called cannibals.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're called cannibals.

Prabhupāda: That is also. And they eat white man very... They like white.

Yadubara: In the pot.

Room Conversation with John Griesser (later initiated as Yadubara Dasa) -- March 10, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Man-eaters?

Devotee: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So this Calcutta story is not a story, it is fact. Hm?

Guru dāsa: I was asking Yamunā about the tape.

Prabhupāda: Tape?

Guru dāsa: About this tape recording.

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is not the question of "the Chinese are eating, I am not eating." It is a question that how many number of different types of body I got. It is not that I am talking of Chinaman eating man or dog. I may be in this form, next life. So, therefore, the problem is how to stop this transmigration of the soul. That is the problem. Not that because the Chinese man eats something else other than I eat, that does not mean that I am very much... (break) Therefore, we have to prepare ourself what kind of body we are going to have next. That is human civilization. But they do not believe in the transmigration of the soul. They do not believe in God. They do not believe in anything. Simply just like animals. This life—eating, sleeping, mating—do it to your best capacity. That is Kali-yuga. They have no knowledge, neither they are interested to know. Mandāḥ. And even they become little interested of spiritual..., a hodgepodge, no clear idea. Mandāḥ sumanda matayo (SB 1.1.10). And unfortunate, harassed in every field of life. And hy upadrutāḥ. And over and above everything, they are always disturbed by external enemies. This is the position of Kali-yuga. And this life shortened, duration of life. So how they can advance by following the regular Vedic process? It is not possible. Harer nāma harer nāma harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21).

Room Conversation with Gaurachand Gosvami At the Radha-Damodara Temple (Mostly Bengali) -- March 11, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So differences are there, there will be always. So how one's opinion should be taken as...

Indian man (2): Yes. No, but you see, this kind of writing does create sort of a... It does give rise to...

Prabhupāda: So Vṛndāvana is the breeding ground for such things.

Indian man (2): No, it's not Vṛndāvana. That man doesn't live here, he lives in Calcutta. The book was brought here. It was sent by him to some people, and one copy was directed to me also. Five copies were sent here, and I have the honor to be the recipient of one of them. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: How big it is?

Indian man (2): A small thing, small thing, about eighty, ninety pages. So I was just going through it, I have been, and I will call a gentleman at two o'clock today with whom I shall discuss the matter. He belongs to that party.

Prabhupāda: Which party?

Indian man (2): The author.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Indian man (2): The author, author's party.

Prabhupāda: Author's party. They have got a party here?

Indian man (2): No party here, but this gentleman has given the foreword. He is the author of Ṭhākura Haridāsa, that big volume.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Room Conversation -- April 18, 1972, Hong Kong:

Prabhupāda: Because the United States, they are our best customer. A businessman goes to a place... Just like you have come here. Why you have come here? Wherever there is best possibility of doing your business, there you must go. I went to United States because I know these people are not poverty-stricken. And our Indian people, they are now, they have been trained to think like that—they are poverty-stricken. Actually, they are not poverty-stricken, but the leaders have educated them that, "You are all poverty-stricken." This is India's position. So far I knew that it would not be successful in India. The government will not help. The public is educated in a different way. They are after technology. So and "familiarity breeds contempt." They say, "What is this Hare Kṛṣṇa movement? It is known to us since a long time. What effect it will have?" Many Indian students in foreign countries, they say, "Swamiji, what will this Hare Kṛṣṇa movement benefit us? We want technology." So that is the mentality of the Indians at the present moment. They have lost everything and therefore they are beggars. They have lost their own culture and therefore they are beggars. So I thought it wise that I shall go to a country where there is no poverty. They will learn. They have enough. For material enjoyment, they have got enough. The material enjoyment means money and woman. That is, in America, it is lying on the street. As much as you like, you can take. But they are disgusted with this material enjoyment. Therefore they are coming as hippies. They are coming from very rich family. Their fathers, their grandfathers, are very rich. At least they belong to the richest nation. But they are not satisfied. They are not satisfied. That is the natural sequence. The Vedānta-sūtra says, athāto brahma jijñāsā. When one has satisfied his senses sufficiently, he is no longer interested in sense gratification. Perhaps you know C.R. Das, the name of C.R. Das in Calcutta.

Room Conversation -- April 18, 1972, Hong Kong:

Guest (1): Where were you born?

Prabhupāda: I was born in Calcutta, 1896.

Guest (1): And what did you do?

Prabhupāda: Yes. I was ordinary man. That's all.

Guest (1): Did you work?

Prabhupāda: Yes. I worked as a manager of a chemical concern in my family life. I have got my family also, my wife and children, my grandchildren, in Calcutta. But I have nothing to do with them.

Guest (1): And when did you start on...?

Prabhupāda: Yes. In 1960 practically, I left home.

Guest (1): You left Calcutta?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Say, for last twenty-two years.

Guest (1): And where did you go when you left Calcutta?

Prabhupāda: Yes. I retired in Vṛndāvana. Vṛndāvana you know?

Guest (1): Oh yes.

Room Conversation -- July 5, 1972, London:

Prabhupāda: His father is very rich man.

Sumati Morarjee: Is he?

Prabhupāda: His father is a very big lawyer, and mother, father, both came to me Calcutta. Mother, after all mother, she was crying, that give me back my boy (laughter) . You can take away your boy. So anyway, they are very good gentlemen. So, but he has he's graduate in psychology. He's learned.

Sumati Morarjee: No, no, he's a very nice man. So I asked him just now, I'm running a school. I said you come and, uh, give lecture, mean some stories...

Prabhupāda: Why don't you give some fruits?

Sumati Morarjee: ...to the children. No, I will take this, you give me a piece of paper, can you?

Prabhupāda: Yes, why not.

Sumati Morarjee: And I'll take this for the children.

Devotee: Isn't there some prasāda also, that's still out there in the...

Sumati Morarjee: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Śyāmasundara.

Śyāmasundara: Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:

Devotee (2): ...on her boats. We have many mṛdaṅgas, everything...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. In Calcutta. From Calcutta, there she starts for all over the world. So simply... But Calcutta manager is rascal. Calcutta manager, that is difficult.

Devotee: Why don't we send... Why don't we send a hundred, two hundred mṛdaṅgas to America and Europe, big shipments sometime? We really use them down through the years.

Prabhupāda: But I know that Calcutta manager is a (Hindi). (laughs)

Revatīnandana: Well, they won't become... They have many... All the big men in the Calcutta house, they won't become life members. None of them. I know, I approached them. No one will become life members.

Prabhupāda: Calcutta house?

Revatīnandana: That Calcutta Scindia office. There's several big men. The one I remember is Mr. Trivedi. I don't know if he's the head man.

Prabhupāda: Trivedi.

Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:

Prabhupāda: As far as possible. People will see, "The spiritual master of USA is going there."

Devotee: Supposing you want to go to Bombay. You can fly to Bombay and someone can drive the car there. And then when you're in Bombay, you can drive it in Bombay.

Prabhupāda: No, you can go from Calcutta to Agra, nice road. And from Agra to Bombay.

Devotee: How many days? Two days?

Prabhupāda: No, no. One day, two days, yes. Even if it runs fifty mile per hour, so from morning, early morning to noon, say six hours if we run, it's three hundred miles in the morning and three hundred miles in the evening, and stay at night. And then the next day three hundred miles, three hundred..., six hundred miles. Twelve hundred miles anywhere you go from Calcutta to Bombay, Calcutta to Madras, Calcutta to Delhi, within twelve hundred miles. Within two days from anywhere to anywhere you can go. India's length and breadth is not so wide as in your country. You have got... That is also not good roads, in your... But in Calcutta, to Calcutta-Bombay, Madras, Delhi, there are good roads.

Devotee: Yeah.

Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes. They are not very happy that you are in this movement, not in the family, naturally. They think, "Our lost child." (laughter) They cannot appreciate that "My child is lost for better purposes." That is the case.

Revatīnandana: Actually, I wanted to ask you about something like that. When I took sannyāsa in Calcutta, some time afterwards, I used to correspond with my parents. So I sent them a letter explaining what was sannyāsa, and that I had taken sannyāsa, and that I didn't want to hear so much more about nieces, nephews, things like that that I have in that family. I said "If you want to talk, now we have to talk about Kṛṣṇa consciousness." So I didn't hear anything from them for about six months. But just the other day I received a letter...

Prabhupāda: Then don't. Now you have taken sannyāsa, you don't.

Revatīnandana: I shouldn't do it at all.

Prabhupāda: No.

Revatīnandana: But she's quite intelligent. She's asking...

Prabhupāda: Your mother?

Revatīnandana: Yeah. ...all about Kṛṣṇa consciousness. She has the Gītā.

Prabhupāda: Your mother, your mother must be intelligent because you are intelligent. Your mother must be intelligent. Without mother being intelligent, no intelligent son comes out. A son inherits the quality of mother, and the daughter inherits the quality of father. This is natural.

Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:

Devotee: Meanwhile, he should start utilizing her invitation to teach in the schools sometimes.

Prabhupāda: Yes, and she'll cooperate. And write letter for permission for carrying our motorcar and incense.

Devotee: Yes, and inform Gurudāsa...

Prabhupāda: She has already agreed, that, ah, what is called? Punks? The punks sent to Calcutta, and from there then send to Los Angeles.

Devotee: Yeah. I'm wondering why they can't take them directly.

Prabhupāda: Directly not very many ships come to Hong Kong.

Devotee: Oh, from Hong Kong that way, that direction, they don't come. They come on their way back. I see. Yeah, they take Chinese goods from Hong Kong to India.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Devotee: They take Chinese goods from Hong Kong to India.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Morning Walks -- October 1-3, 1972, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. But I thought in the other sense that it may be dog's meat(?) (break) neighbour(?) from Poona, he was also from Calcutta, (indistinct) to me, he came little later than I, he thought... One day he came to me and he said he took a hamburger in the restaurant. He said that hamburger is not made out of beef. He said it is made out of ham. So he said he had hamburger. He came to me and he said. I said, "So you have taken beef?" So he said "No, it is not. It is ham."

Prabhupāda: Now many Indians are taking beef. Most. In London, all Indians they take beef. The school children, they take beef.

Jayatīrtha: They don't remember their culture.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: When they come here, they change everything, most of them.

Devotee (2): I run into many Indian people, many young boys going to school, on saṅkīrtana, on holidays. They don't want to try to understand Bhāgavata philosophy.

Prabhupāda: Indian student?

Devotee (2): Some students, they are going colleges for higher learning.

Prabhupāda: He was inquiring that why we ask no meat-eating. They (indistinct) that why we ask no meat-eating. That Dr. Bernhard, he was asking.

Room Conversation with Kenneth Keating, U.S. Ambassador to India -- October 14, 1972, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Fire, mind, intelligence, ego. These eight elements. Kṛṣṇa says that "They are my energies." The things which are made by Kṛṣṇa's energy, how you can claim your property? Suppose a carpenter comes, you give him money to prepare some chair. The money is your energy. Now when the chair is prepared, he cannot claim that "I have prepared this chair. It is my property." No. It has been made with my energy; therefore it is my property. So if you make analysis of this whole cosmic situation you will find that everything is made out of the energy of God. Then how you can claim that "I am proprietor"? This is false. This is called māyā. Just like we have seen in Calcutta when there was a (indistinct) during the transition state. Britishers are going on. There was a great Hindu-Muslim riot. Now they fought, Hindus and Muslims, and they died. After death, they're lying piles of dead body. No more Hindu and Muslim. It is simply lump of matter. But because they got a type of body, a type of mental situation, consciousness, they fought with one another, and then after death, no more claiming "Hindu" and "Muslim." This is called illusion. "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am Hindu," "I am Muslim," "I am this," "I am that"—these are all designation. Really what I am? I am pure soul, part and parcel of God. That is my identity. So people should be taught this science. As soon as one understands his constitutional position, his actual situation, then he says, "Oh, I am not this. I was struggling so hard under some misidentification."

Room Conversation with Kenneth Keating, U.S. Ambassador to India -- October 14, 1972, New Delhi:

Ambassador: Yeah, it's nice.

Śyāmasundara: We met Prabhupāda's sister in Calcutta. She is also a great devotee.

Ambassador: Oh, really!

Śyāmasundara: And she was lamenting that she has eight sons, eight sons, but none of them are devotees, and her brother has so many hundreds of sons, real sons.

Ambassador: Oh.

Mrs. Keating: Who is this?

Ambassador: His sister.

Mrs. Keating: Oh.

Ambassador: The sister of who, of uh, His Divine Grace?

Prabhupāda: My sister, my sister.

Mrs. Keating: Oh, your sister.

Prabhupāda: Material sister.

Ambassador: Oh, yes.

Prabhupāda: She is my Godsister also.

Room Conversation -- October 25, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Ration means black market. (break)

Devotee (3): ...especially in Bengal. (break) You come to Calcutta, we will keep you forever.

Pañca-draviḍa: But in Bombay we'll make better arrangements.

Prabhupāda: We have published one brochure. (break)

Pañca-draviḍa: ...nicely in the Kṛṣṇa book about the sacrifices of Vasudeva. Where Lord Kṛṣṇa speaks and says to the assembled sages and ascetics that "Seeing you is the perfection of these eyes and perfection of life," and that "Those persons who go to the holy places only to take bath there or to see the Deities in the temple, they are no better than animals like the ass." I've been thinking that how you have presented this ISKCON movement as an assembly of devotees all over the world so they don't even have to go to the holy places. Simply by walking into one of your temples is like walking into Vṛndāvana and having the association of these great ascetics and sages, because your teachings are (indistinct). (break)

Prabhupāda: ...picture?

Indian man: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Similar Deity we'll have in this London Berkshire Palace.

Room Conversation -- October 25, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Five to ten percent. Now fifty thousand at five to ten percent, how much? Unnecessarily you have to (indistinct). And to take back that octroi, I have got experience when I was in Allahabad doing business, you know, to take back the octroi, it is hanging. I could not develop my wholesale business due to the octroi. Then I arranged, because I was agent of Dr. Bose's factory. I was disbursing goods direct from Calcutta and sending bill from Allahabad. Octroi botheration I have got experience. You cannot do any large-scale business, the rascal government do not (indistinct) it. Due to this octroi botheration, nobody can do any large-scale business. Either you have to keep your go-down beyond the octroi limit.

Indian man: You can do that.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Indian man: You can do that here in..., because the octroi limit is very close to your (indistinct). It's just (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: Why the government is still keeping this octroi botheration, I do not know. It is old system. Practically in UP and Punjab, this octroi system. In Bihar there is no octroi, in Bengal there is no octroi. I think in Bombay also, Bombay, I mean Maharastra province, there is no octroi. Only in UP and Punjab. There is so much botheration.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- February 28, 1973, Jakarta:

Prabhupāda: How you are Mandarin?

Devotee (3): Chinese, from Hong Kong.

Prabhupāda: This sky(?), they are making like Calcutta Esplanade. (indistinct) Victoria Memorial, you don't remember?

Devotee (2): I've only been three days (indistinct) Śrīla Prabhupāda, before we left India.

Prabhupāda: Oh. You were mostly in Bombay.

Devotee (2): Yes. (break)

Devotee (3): Yes. "Mata" means "eye" and they use "hari" to mean "day". "hari" means "day" here and eye is mata, so they say it's the eye of day.

Prabhupāda: There is Sanskrit words like that. Divākara, divākara, sun's name, divākara. Divā means day and kara means manufacturer. Divākara, manufacturer of day, another name of sun. Cross here?

Devotee (3): Yes. (indistinct) That's all right. We'll watch. No problem. (break)

Prabhupāda: It is our car. (break) (in car:) (indistinct) should be noted, not (indistinct) (end)

Room Conversation -- February 28, 1973, Jakarta:

Prabhupāda: You become one of the life members of our society and you can go anywhere and stay there.

Guest (1): Like Birla Mandir or āśrama in India, āśrama...

Prabhupāda: In India, Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi have got branches.

Guest (1): Yes. Pondicherry, Rabindranath Ashram, Pondicherry. Nanda's Ashram(?), in Bangalore. Only Delhi I've been to āśrama (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: This is a cap, with this Japanese (indistinct)?

Guest (1): No, sir. National congress, national India. This is a (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Gandhi cap.

Devotee: Indian National Congress.

Guest (1): Indian National Congress Party, independent (indistinct) national pact with Indonesia ... hot.

Devotee: The Muslims wear the black one and he says it is very hot but this is cool.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversations with Sannyasis -- March 15, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: What is that māyā? Songs are māyā?

Acyutānanda: As soon as I left Calcutta, then all the bhajanas, they are all, "Oh that's Gauḍīya Maṭha poison." Then, "Ok, the songs are all right, but the tunes are poison." Now how can I overcome that?

Pañcadraviḍa: I heard something in reference to that. You wrote one of the devotees in Calcutta. You wrote... He came to Bombay, Bhavānanda, and he said, and he had signed a letter something like, "I pray that I may be engaged in the service of my Guru Mahārāja." And you wrote back: "We are personalists to the letter, so that when we say Guru Mahārāja we always say name, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, or Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī. We don't just leave it in, as vague Guru Mahārāja. So we were singing, jaya prabhupāda jaya gurudeva, and he was saying, "Well that is impersonalist."

Acyutānanda: Also he says "Nitāi-gaura haribol! That is also, that's māyā." So, what is that?

Pañcadraviḍa: And so he was saying that all these bhajanas, they are, they are not bonafide, because they are, have...

Prabhupāda: He said: "Gaura haribol! is not bona fide?" He said, bona fide?

Devotee: Oh, not that, he was saying jaya gurudeva, jaya prabhupāda, that is not good.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Devotee: I said, was saying, that is not good, jaya gurudeva, because it does not say who, it just says gurudeva. It could be any gurudeva. So he was criticizing that.

Prabhupāda: Who was criticizing?

Room Conversations with Sannyasis -- March 15, 1974, Vrndavana:

Pañcadraviḍa: In your lectures you emphasized two aspects must be there, jñāna and renunciation. So some knowledge is there, but that part of the difficulty is that with most of the devotees in every temple in India, is that they have not renounced these dirty things completely. They still are attached to sense gratification even on gross levels. So whether a sannyāsī or anybody interferes with their sense gratification, they tend to not oblige because they are attached to doing things the way they want. And they think because they are in a foreign country here, a long way from America where the standards are very rigid, that they can do any manner of nonsense and nobody will check them. And if you try to correct them, then they will only do it behind your back. We have seen this, with the sweet shops, with rising early, anything that interferes with them doing as, exactly as they please, they don't want to oblige. And this is in Calcutta, this is in Bombay, and it's happening here in Vṛndāvana. It's not something that's isolated here to the palace, but the devotees all over, they are just behaving on the level of sense gratification, and that's why there is so much rajas guṇa in the temples. So much rajas guṇa.

Prabhupāda: This is a fact. So how to correct it. If you do not correct yourself, how you can correct?

Room Conversations with Sannyasis -- March 15, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Now, such camps, because you are not established, so, under the circumstances, what is to be done? To reduce our devotees?

Śyāmasundara: We have our base in Calcutta, we have our base in Bombay, those two places.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Śyāmasundara: Those are important cities in the world.

Prabhupāda: Vṛndāvana, as long as our temple is not constructed, we are minimized. So therefore automatically there is no question of negotiating (indistinct).

Devotees: No, no.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Devotee (2): Because not everyone is going to want to be, uh, you know, it's really, if the temple's not there where the devotees can just come and fall into the schedule and program and activities.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversations with Sannyasis -- March 15, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: But we are... Śaṅkarācārya was concerned in India. But we are preaching all over the world. Therefore we have divided four, twelve. Twelve zones. My idea is like that, Śaṅkarācārya.

Śyāmasundara: But India itself could be divided even a few parts for preaching purposes.

Prabhupāda: That is already divided. Calcutta, Bombay, Māyāpur, Vṛndāvana.

Pañcadraviḍa: So the men in charge they could say which men they wanted to keep and the rest they could send somewhere else. That way you would have men who were willing to work on the project, and if they were not willing to work, they could also be sent somewhere else.

Prabhupāda: So, make something like that, because I cannot tax my brain with the administration.

Devotee: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: Well, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa will be in Hyderabad and we can ask him to do it.

Prabhupāda: Weak, weak I am. Physically I am weak and besides that, if I have to see to the administration then I cannot think of writing books and how to present our philosophy to be understandable by the people. Therefore the administration is divided. Now you do, little intelligently. We have got still respect. Keep our standard. The people will like us. People wants to give us help, just like this big sannyāsī, one of the biggest sannyāsīs, Gangesvarananda(?), he is attracted. He is a man of immense resource, men and money he has. Immense resource.

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

Prabhupāda: In my honors class, I had history. He was teaching us history.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: What is the standard of Calcutta University, Śrīla Prabhupāda, at the time when Śrīla Prabhupāda was in the University? How was the...

Prabhupāda: Oh, it was nice. Very nice students were coming out.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The moral standard was very good?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. We respected our professors like our fathers. The relationship between the student and the professors was very good. I had one Scottish professor, Dr. W.S. Urquhart. He was my nice friend. He was professor of philosophy, psychology. Later on he became vice-chancellor.

Brahmānanda:Calcutta?

Prabhupāda: Calcutta, yes. A very perfect gentleman. Kind-hearted. Sometimes we joked. We were taking this, what is called, peanuts. So the professor was passing. So some of our friends remarked: (Bengali) So he thought that professor did not know Bengali. So immediately he turned: (Bengali). So we became very much ashamed. Yes. So all the professors from foreign countries, they were instructed to learn Bengali language, local language. That was the system. All officers, big officers, educate... (Aside) Good morning. ...big educationists, they were to learn the local language. And they used to learn Bengali. Especially in Calcutta. There was one professor, Mr. Scrimgeour. He was professor of literature, English literature. So while teaching one English literature, he was giving parallel passage from Bankim Candra Chatterjee. Yes. "Your Bankim babu says like this." He used to say like that.

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

Prabhupāda: No, that... When they discuss, they must describe the good points only. But some of the British rulers were very, very unkind. And the last was that Jallianwalla Bagh massacre, created by Lord Chelmsford. Then the British rule finished. In 1917, and immediately Gandhi started non-cooperation movement. So after thirty years, the Britishers were obliged to leave.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The Scottish Church College in Calcutta...

Prabhupāda: Yes. I was student there.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh, Śrīla Prabhupāda was in Scottish Church?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's very popular among the...

Prabhupāda: Oh, Yes. In Calcutta, there are two colleges, Presidency College and Scottish Churches College. All respectable families, son will go there, Scottish Churches College, Presidency College.

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

Prabhupāda: He was first in the Presidency College, but on account of his national spirit, he was rusticated from Presidency College. Then he came to our college.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: There is a...

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...Subash Bose Research Institute in Calcutta in...

Prabhupāda: Subash Bose?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. About the museum.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: In Hazrat, Hazrat road it is in...near, not far from...?

Prabhupāda: Mahajati?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, maha...

Prabhupāda: Mahajati Sadhana.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, Mahajati Sadhana.

Prabhupāda: That is in Central Calcutta.

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

Prabhupāda: I don't find. I do not know much about it.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: When I was in Calcutta, I used to go there quite regularly. Because I was studying German. They have got German classes better in that institute.

Prabhupāda: This is the food for the fish?

Karandhara: Yes, bait.

Prabhupāda: Horse dung?

Brahmānanda: No, clams.

Karandhara: Clams.

Prabhupāda: What is that, clam?

Brahmānanda: Shellfish.

Prabhupāda: Oh. (pause) So many...

Svarūpa Dāmodara: There are so many flies.

Prabhupāda: They are not flies. They're insect of the sand. They live within the sand. The scientists will say: "You see? The living entities coming out of sand, from matter."

Morning Walk -- April 26, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: No. They feel pain. You know Jagadisha Bose's pulsitation...? What is called?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Pulsation?

Prabhupāda: The trees feel when you cut, they feel. There is machine. They, he discovered this. You have not been in Calcutta, Sir Jagadish Institute?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Probably not.

Prabhupāda: Yes. He, he discovered this wireless, Marconi's. Marconi took advantage from him. They were talking together and when Marconi got the hint from him, he immediately published. it was his invention, Sir Jagadish. Therefore he invented this pulsation of the trees. and started the Sir Jagadish Institution in Calcutta. So there is painful feeling even of the trees, what to speak of others.

Brahmānanda: Even a small insect...

Prabhupāda: Anyone.

Brahmānanda: He'll run away so quickly. You try to go to him.

Prabhupāda: As soon you try to kill or attack, then he protests. And there is feeling also. Why? Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa...

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Because they want to enjoy the material world.

Prabhupāda: If you say so, then material enjoyment or enjoyment, material or spiritual, it doesn't matter...

Someone: Good morning.

Morning Walk -- May 2, 1973, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Because there is no solid background.

Prabhupāda: No. (pause, japa) You and Dr. Rao just make a combination, world-touring. I shall give you all expenditure. And go to the universities, scientists, and talk with them. Our kīrtana party also will go. We challenge all scientists, "Come on." We shall pay all expenditure. Ask Dr. Rao to come and join. Just like in Calcutta University, all the students... No, one leader student, he came. He talked about economic development, and he said that "Our students did not derive any faith by your theological statement." So I told them that "Because you are all rascals, therefore you could not." I told them freely. Because in the Bhagavad-gītā... Because they are student of Sanskrit. And in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ (BG 7.15). "So you are amongst these. You are duṣkṛtinas, sinful, lowest of the mankind, and the university is responsible for creating such rascals." So professors clapped and later on they said, "Swamiji, you have rightly said." All the professors said. And so far economic question is concerned, the birds, beasts, animals, they have no economic concern. Why you have got? You are less than bird and beast, you have created this economic problem. Harer nāma harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21). Where is the economic question? The small birds, tiny birds, they are solving their economic question, coming (makes sound:) "bup, bup," finished. They are not stocking, they are not thinking of tomorrow, but are satisfied. They have got eating, sufficient eating, sufficient sex, sufficient intelligence to defend. As soon as we go, immediately they fly away. That is defense. They know how to defend them. They immediately understand, "They are human beings, stronger. They may do some harm. Let us fly away." So these things are everywhere, eating, sleeping, mating and defending. There is no scarcity. Only scarcity is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That we have to preach. Theology... Logy means science, is it not?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Morning Walk -- May 9, 1973, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Prabhupāda, I remember an incident in Bombay. That was when I was in Calcutta about, a few years ago. There was a yogī. There was advertisement that he was going to walk on water.

Prabhupāda: No, that is possible.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So I think it was about five hundred rupees per ticket.

Prabhupāda: Oh, just see. His real aim was to get some money.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Radhakrishnan was there, the president. But ultimately, he could not walk. He fell down in the water.

Prabhupāda: And what about the money?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I don't know. He was beaten or something. They said he missed something.

Prabhupāda: That's like you, chemist, just missing something, "In future we shall do it." It is the same thing. And these fools, Dr. Radhakrishnan and company, they are so fools that so many animals they are walking on the sea, "I am going to see another man." Just see, how they are fools. What is their credit? The sea lark. They call sea lark? They go very nicely. Why do they not see that? He is animal, he is, another is an animal.

Conversation with Sridhara Maharaja -- June 27, 1973, Navadvipa:

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: The other day, the family came there and Jagan(?) went there...

Prabhupāda: No, no. Another family. They came to our Calcutta center. In how many motors they came?

Bhavānanda: Seventeen.

Prabhupāda: Seventeen motor cars, whole family. And after seeing the Deity they presented a check for eleven thousand rupees. So by Kṛṣṇa's grace, money is coming. There is no scarcity. And they are spending here in Māyāpur. So with that five hundred, five thousand dollars, whatever asset is Indian now, that is from five thousand...

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: Also you have proved also that capital is on the other world. Capital is also... So it is being supplied.

Prabhupāda: Now, these books suppliers, Dai Nippon, they give us credit up to $200,000. $200,000, in our Indian exchange, it is twenty lakhs of rupees. So they give us credit. We take books from them and distribute and then pay. In this way, it is going on. In Los Angeles alone we are selling... How many books daily?

Devotee: Two thousand, maybe. Fifteen hundred a day.

Prabhupāda: Two thousand pieces, and the collection is about eight thousand dollars, no, eight hundred dollars. Eight hundred dollars. So they're very anxiously taking our books. A new literature. They have no such idea, what is God, what is bhakti. How they can be explained. Our Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, publisher MacMillan, within one year... Last August they, the first edition. And... Not yet August. By this time, they have finished two editions and the third edition is in the press. That will be available in July.

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

Prabhupāda: But you cannot get out with the gold.

Śyāmasundara: No, officially not.

Prabhupāda: Well? Then? Suppose you purchase gold there. If you want to take out, they will not allow.

Śyāmasundara: Not if they find it.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Śyāmasundara: Officially, no, they will not allow.

Prabhupāda: And these currency notes, the price, commodity, has gone so high due to this rascal currency. Because your enemy country, they print counterfeit and they overflood in the market. So how you can check it? You cannot check. I know, during wartime, a Chinese man was coming in Calcutta, and he had a purchasing agent who was my friend. So he would come, and he would give a list of goods, especially rare medicines, and he'll deposit with him bunch of notes, "You spend, purchase, and whatever..." That means all those notes were counterfeit. (end)

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

Guest (2): This gentleman went to the hotel and found a small finger.

Prabhupāda: Small children cut up. And there was another case in Calcutta. The, one Chinaman, he was eating human being. And then... (break) ...some Kancawala (?) (beggar) him called, and then captured and killed him. This was going on. Later on, when police enquiry was made, so many human...

Guest (2): Bones...

Guest (4): Skeletons.

Prabhupāda: ...bones, skeletons was found. In Africa there are still cannibals.

Guest (4): Oh, yes.

Kṛṣṇa-bhāminī: In South America as well.

Prabhupāda: South America also? In India also.

Guest (1): That, these...

Prabhupāda: Yes. In Assam side.

Guest (1): This Assam, some of the places.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They eat human beings. Nara-buli (?), sacrifice human being, still there is a class of men.

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

Prabhupāda: But if we transcend the position of our bodily concept of life, we come to the spiritual platform. So there is no difference.

David Lawrence: The difference is irrelevant then.

Prabhupāda: No. There is no difference. Just like we are talking. You have got a coat. I have no coat. That does not make any difference. We are talking as gentlemen. That's all. The last time when I was in Calcutta I was invited by the Indo-American Cultural Society, and they gave me the subject matter: "East and West." So I talked, "We don't find any such distinction, 'East and West,' when we come to the spiritual platform. This is all material platform."

David Lawrence: We find when we're teaching, you know, really secular youngsters that it's terribly difficult to get off this cultural veneer, you know.

Prabhupāda: Therefore one has to understand first that "I am not this body."

David Lawrence: That's it. And you've got to believe... The teacher... This is the big thing, isn't it? The teacher has got to be God conscious.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation with Lord Brockway -- July 23, 1973, London:

Śyāmasundara: Prabhupāda, this is Lord Fenner-Brockway.

Prabhupāda: I'm so glad to...

Śyāmasundara: And...

Prabhupāda: So you were born in Calcutta?

Lord Brockway: Yes, a little before you. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: So how long you remained after your birth?

Lord Brockway: I only remained in India for four years.

Prabhupāda: Four years.

Lord Brockway: And my childhood was spent at Berampur.

Prabhupāda: Berampur?

Lord Brockway: Yes.

Prabhupāda: I see.

Room Conversation with Lord Brockway -- July 23, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Hm. I was also a student of missionary college, Scottish Churches' College.

Lord Brockway: Oh yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We had very good professors. W. S. Urquhart, Dr. W.S. Urquhart, he was a Scotsman.

Lord Brockway: Yes, yes. Was that in Calcutta?

Prabhupāda: Yes, in Calcutta. And Lord Rolandson, Zetland, Marquis of Zetland. He was governor of Bengal. So he's also a Scotsman.

Lord Brockway: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So he came to our college in our, when we were young men, second year student. All our professors, mostly they were Scotsmen, and there was one English professor, Mister Warren. All other professors, they were Scotsmen, Mr. Keye, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Scrimgeour in this way.

Lord Brockway: Those are Scottish names.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Scottish names. So you remained only four years after your birth.

Lord Brockway: That is true. But I have quite clear memories, especially of Berampur, of our house, of playing with Indian children under a tree...

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Room Conversation with Lord Brockway -- July 23, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Yes. So...

Lord Brockway: ...to what has been read.

Prabhupāda: ...what kind of service we shall give? I can give you one example. I have seen it practically, that in Calcutta one neighbor, neighboring gentleman, he is (has) a daughter-in-law, he (she) was beating her young son. So I inquired, "Why that daughter-in-law...?" Because her father-in-law was of my age, little older. "So why daughter-in-law is punishing her son? What is the fault?" Naturally, young, a small child. So the report came that the, one of the child, one of the boy, was suffering from typhoid, fever, and another boy stole from the kitchen some parāṭā and gave him to eat. And when the mother came into knowledge, she was punishing, that "Why you have given this parāṭā?" Because in typhoid, no solid food is taken. So he cannot... But the suffering child was thinking that "Mother is not giving me food." So he requested his younger brother, "You give me some food." So he does not know. He has given the food. But the result is that he is being punished. So without knowing how to give service, sometimes we may be punished. What kind of service we shall give? (indistinct) example. So there are three kinds of services: goodness, passion, and ignorance.

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

Prabhupāda: Who is Mother Theresa?

Devotee: She's a Christian mystic.

Revatīnandana: She's a Christian nun, and she has a mission in Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Saint Theresa?

Revatīnandana: Mother Theresa. She's living there now.

Jesuit Priest: She's an Albanian nun who works in India and is, and has captivated the whole world just by the fantastic work she's done and is doing amongst the down, the outcastes and the desperately poor in the cities of India, particularly in Calcutta. And she's got disciples, young men, young women, joining her, where most of the other religious orders are desperately short. And the youth is being captivated by her, and they can't cope with the numbers wanting to join. And she was given a big speech in the Guild Hall in London and was the first person presented with an enormous sum of money by the Duke of Edinburgh, voted by the World Council of Churches as the outstanding religious person in the world. And people at her speech who heard, it brought the audience to its feet. And all she said in her speech was nothing more except "Love, love, love, love. Just go on giving and look for nothing back," which made an enormous impact, probably the greatest impact that anybody's making at present, in the world at present. (jet going over) (break)

Prabhupāda: ...satisfied to remain in the village. That is the defect of the modern civilization.

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

Prabhupāda: There was some bombing in Calcutta, nothing more.

Mother: Hm. Ah, but these Indians were fighting in France.

Prabhupāda: Oh, that is another thing.

Mother: Dunkirk.

Prabhupāda: Dunkirk.

Mother: And then they came, when Dunkirk was evacuated, they came back in all these little boats that they escaped in, and they got together and they billeted them... And I was living with my godmother in Sholden (?) in Devonshire. And we had eight acres. And the Army put up huts for them. And they lived there for about eight months until more Indians were sent to make them back to strength again, the regiments, big enough. And then they went overseas again. Some went to Burma, some to Italy. I don't know where they went, of course, but they were very good...

Prabhupāda: They went to die, after all.

Mother: They were very good soldiers. No, they didn't all die. Of course, some did, I expect.

Prabhupāda: Some, (laughs) yes.

Room Conversation with Cardinal Danielou -- August 9, 1973, Paris:

Prabhupāda: That, that, that difference is due to development of consciousness. The human body, human body, you get developed consciousness. Just like this tree. It is also a living entity, but it's consciousness is not yet fructified. If you cut the tree, it does not resist. But it resists in a very small degree. That is proved by the scientists. The Sir Jagadisha Candra Bose, in Calcutta, he's also a very great scientist. He has made machine: when you cut the tree, it feels and it is recorded in the machine.

Yogeśvara: (translates)

Prabhupāda: And for the animals we can see, when one kills the animals, it resists, it cries, it makes great sound, horrible. So it is the question of development of consciousness. But the, a soul is there.

Cardinal Danielou: But, why, why, why God make some animals who eat other animals? There is a fault in the creation because... It is a fault in the creation?

Prabhupāda: No. The God is very kind. If you want to eat animals, then He'll give facility, good facility. Just like tiger. You become tiger, and eat animals. Those who are animal eaters, unrestrictedly, God will give him the body of a tiger next life so that he can very freely eat. "Why you maintain slaughterhouse? I give you nails and jaws. Just eat." So they are waiting that life.

Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor -- August 13, 1973, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Vṛndāvana.

Professor: Oh, in Vṛndāvana, itself.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Māyāpur. Lord Caitanya. And we have got branch in Calcutta, Bombay, Hyderabad. Māyāpur and Vṛndāvana. Five, six... (break) I, I brought with me forty rupees and books. That's all.

Professor: Forty rupees! That was not enough to live in Boston or in New York.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And now we are spending about eighty thousand dollars per month.

Professor: Per month.

Prabhupāda: Throughout the whole world. But we are selling our books very nicely, about... How many, how much dollars?

Yogeśvara: How many, how many lakhs of rupees of books per month, Pradyumna?

Prabhupāda: No, no, daily...

Professor: Lakhs of...

Prabhupāda: Daily we are collecting about thirty, eight hundred... In, in, in Los Angeles we collect about eight hundred dollars daily.

Morning Walk -- August 30, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: It has been seen in Calcutta also, in dust bin found out some child, dust bin.

David Lawrence: Terrible. Some are in such an advanced state of pregnancy that clearly life is a strong possibility.

Prabhupāda: Not advanced stage, life begins from the very beginning of sex. The living entity is very small. By nature's law, according to his karma, he's sent to the father's semina and that is injected and immediately the two secretions emulsify, the man's and the woman's, and it forms a body just like a pea. That is the formation of body. Now that pea-like form develops gradually. Then first manifestation is the nine holes. Everything is there in the Vedic literature. Nine holes, they have got nine holes. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. In this way gradually the senses develop and by the time seven months, everything is complete and the living entity's consciousness come back. Prior to the formation of the body, the living entity remains unconscious just like in chloroform, anaesthetic. Then he dreams and then gradually consciousness... At that time he becomes very much upset to come out, come out. Then nature gives him "khut!" He comes out. That's all. This is the process of birth.

Room Conversation with Indian Ambassador -- September 5, 1973, Stockholm:

Prabhupāda: Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇāḥ. Yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ (SB 5.18.12). If one has got faith and devotion to God, God is one... God is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Muslim. God is one. So religion means according to... Not according to... This is the Vedic conclusion.

sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo

yato bhaktir adhokṣaje

ahaituky apratihatā

yayātmā suprasīdati

(SB 1.2.6)

One must be religious. Without being religious, he cannot be satisfied. Therefore there is confusion, dissatisfaction all over the world because, because people have become irreligious. If you want to keep... In Calcutta, there was, in the American Consulate Office, I was invited. There, they have got a department: "Indo-American Cultural Society." Perhaps you know.

Interviews with Macmillan and various English Reporters -- September 12, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Up to my I.A., I regularly studied Sanskrit, and in my B. A., I gave up Sanskrit. I read history. (laughs) No. Not in B.A. B.A., my combination was economics and philosophy. In I.A. I was intermediate, I.A. I had history and Sanskrit.

Prof. Gombrich: That was at Calcutta University?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Calcutta University, Scottish Church's College.

Prof. Gombrich: Oh, I see.

Prabhupāda: You have been in Calcutta?

Prof. Gombrich: Yes, I have.

Prabhupāda: Oh, you know Scottish Church's College?

Prof. Gombrich: I'm afraid not. No.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Prof. Gombrich: No, I'm afraid I've only been to Presidency.

Prabhupāda: Presidency?

Prof. Gombrich: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So the Scottish Churches College is also on the same standard, Presidency College.

Room Conversation -- September 19, 1973, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Office means their business is office. But your business is begging. Your business is not office. Your business is not... They have to direct so many things from there. That we can do. Besides that... Anyway, even they have got office, they come from in Bombay, Calcutta, even from hundred miles away. So if there is no such program, Deity worship, regulative principles, then it will be a joint mess. Hotel. Transcendental hotel. And transcendental fraud. This will go on. The business will be transcendental fraud, and life will be transcendental hotel. (Break) ...twenty, twenty-five. So these women devotees, they are given cāpāṭis by the bābājīs. Kṣurasya dhārā. Actually it is like that. A sharpened razor, A little inattention, immediately blood. Kṣurasya dhārā niśitā duratyayā durgaṁ pathas tat kavayo vadanti (?). That is the risk. Nowadays modern civilization, as we are accepting, there is jeep, there is telephone, everything is there. One can conduct his activities from anywhere.

Room Conversation with Banker -- September 21, 1973, Bombay:

Brahmānanda: Cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (BG 4.13). Guṇa means quality, karma means the work.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like he is manager. He has got the qualification of manager and he is working as manager. Then he is a manager. Even if he has got the quality, if he does not work, he is not a manager. Suppose he has got the qualities, but he does not work, he sits at home, nobody will call him bank manager. He must have the qualities and he must work. Then he is. So here is guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ. A brāhmaṇa or kṣatriya or vaiśya or śūdra must have the requisite quality. And at the same time he must work as such. Then he is brāhmaṇa. This is the (indistinct). But now in India they have taken: no quality, no work, still, he is brāhmaṇa. He is pulling on ṭhelā, no brāhmaṇa quality, neither work is brāhmaṇa, but still, he is paṇḍitjī. I have seen it in Calcutta. One man was pulling on ṭhelā with great difficulty, and another man is offering respect, "Paṇḍitjī, namaskāra." And he was... (Hindi) He was pulling ṭhelā. I have seen it. I have seen it in the street. You see. He is still thinking that "I am brāhmaṇa." He is working like an ass. He has no qualification. Neither he is qualified. Still, he is thinking that he is brāhmaṇa. Is it not? Yes. That is the cause of India's falldown. You work... These things should be... I am accepting somebody as brāhmaṇa; then I must see that he has the quality of brāhmaṇa, that is there, satya, śama, dama, titikṣā, and he is working as a brāhmaṇa. When this was not examined, checked, anyone born in a brāhmaṇa family became a brāhmaṇa, the whole thing topsy-turvied. Just like my student here. He belongs to the kṣatriya family. But he is not in the fighting, military plan. So he is not kṣatriya. But he is now more than kṣatriya. He is worshiping God. Therefore he is brāhmaṇa. He is neither kṣatriya nor śūdra. He is brāhmaṇa. His hereditary title is kṣatriya, Kṣanna. Kṣat na, kṣat na. He cannot tolerate injury to others. That is kṣanna. Is it not?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I think so.

Room Conversation -- September 21, 1973, Bombay:

Gargamuni: In Calcutta we're approaching all of the libraries. At least twenty-five libraries have ordered your books, complete sets.

Prabhupāda: So you see, anywhere we can approach. I sold in Bombay all libraries, my previous Bhāgavatam.

Gargamuni: About Ten or twelve books, each bill is about five hundred rupees times twenty-five. That's a lot.

Prabhupāda: No, that is a respect, if the libraries and schools, colleges, they keep our books.

Gargamuni: Some of them are shocked. We went to the National Library in Calcutta. That's the largest library. They saw your books and they said, "Oh, he is doing this work?" They were so impressed. They had never seen Sanskrit or Bengali printed in foreign countries the way you have done in your books. They said, "This is fan..." There's no one else who is doing this in India, no one. Very impressed. And these men themselves are Sanskrit scholars. He immediately started to read. He said, "Oh, very nice." He said, "It is just right." So he was very enthusiastic. There are two boys. They spend the whole day just going to libraries.

Prabhupāda: That has been written by Professor Dayal, Dimock, that "Sanskrit scholars should get good opportunity, and nobody, I think, will deny Swamiji's scholarship." He has said that.

Room Conversation -- November 4, 1973, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Four million. And what is the population of Bombay?

Guest: About six and a half million, seven million.

Prabhupāda: Seven million. And what is Calcutta?

Guest: About seven and a half million.

Prabhupāda: And we say you take.... And what is the population of India?

Guest: Five ah, nearly six hundred million now.

Prabhupāda: Six hundred million.

Guest: Five hundred fifty, six hundred million.

Prabhupāda: So if you take all these city population it will come to three hundred million. They are doing nothing for producing.

Morning Walk -- December 8, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes. He knew it.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Who is this Dr. Bose, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Yaśomatīnandana: Jagadishacandra Bose?

Prabhupāda: No, he's another Bose. There is...

Svarūpa Dāmodara: There is a Bose Institute in Calcutta in...

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is, (coughs) that is Sir Jagadishacandra Bose. Sir J.C. Bose...

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: ...who discovered, he discovered this wireless telegraph.

Yaśomatīnandana: Wasn't that your father's friend?

Prabhupāda: No. He, this, he's Dr. Karttikacandra Bose.

Devotee: Oh, I see.

Prabhupāda: There is a road, K.C. Bose, Dr. Karttikacandra Bose Street. He was my father's friend.

Morning Walk -- December 8, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Acarya Prafullacandra Raya was one of the director and this K.C. Bose was a managing director. Actually the life was given by Dr. Karttikacandra Bose to Bengal Chemical. But because Prafullacandra Raya was a famous chemist and he was attached to it, therefore his name become famous.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh.

Yaśomatīnandana: Also you mentioned Mullik family in Calcutta to be your grandparents or someone?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Yaśomatīnandana: That is also mentioned in the Bhāgavatam.

Prabhupāda: Yes. One of the members was our relative. So we are staying with them, these Mulliks. He had no sons. So we were staying, some relatives. Therefore I was born in that family, although they are our distant relations. But when I was, my father was staying there, I was born. These Mulliks they are also De. Their original title is De. This Mullik is their title.

Yaśomatīnandana: For being in the Mohammedan service?

Prabhupāda: Yes, not service. Sometimes the Mohammedans used to give... Just like the British government used to give titles, "Sir", like that. Mullik, Mullik comes from the word "mallika".

Morning Walk -- December 8, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Some of them gopīs, some of them cowherd boys, some of them father, mother, like that.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: In Bengal, Śrīla Prabhupāda, the brāhmaṇa caste family like Mukherjees, then Bannerjees, then,... I had a roommate when I was in Calcutta, his was Mukherjee. So he was telling me one day that we are much more superior brāhmaṇas than other like Chaudhuris and Sanyals.

Prabhupāda: But where is your superiority?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: He was explaining like that.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But what is your superiority. You're a servant now. You're śūdra. You're not even a brāhmaṇa. Superiority by simply explanation will not do. You must be (indistinct). Guṇa, karma, superiority means guṇa, karma. You must have the quality and you must work in that quality. You're a scientist, but after a few generation, a foolish boy in your family say, "We belong to the scientist's family." So what is the use of saying like that? You must become scientist. When you are a scientist then you are superior not by simply... This has killed the Indian, I mean Vedic culture when they began to claim superiority simply by birth without any qualification. That killed the whole civilization.

Morning Walk -- December 13, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Insane, yes. So they are all insane. Anyone who has no clear knowledge what is the aim of life, what is God, "what is my relationship," one who does not know all these things, he is a bokā, illusioned. He is hovering in darkness. Therefore, whatever he is doing, it is defeat. That we see practically. So many scientists, so many philosophers, politicians, are engaged to bring in a better condition in the world, but they are failure. In the darkness they are working. They do not know. One bokā is trying to excel another bokā. This is going on. (break) ...great personality, Rabindranath Tagore, he used to say, a bokā. Actually he is so. What he has done? He has given some imaginary songs, that's all. What benefit the people will derive out of it? Simply waste of time, that's all. (break)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...could have written a lot of Vaiṣṇava songs, if he were a Vaiṣṇava.

Prabhupāda: Yes. But he borrowed the idea from Vaiṣṇava. His guru, not exactly guru... In his zamindari, Golpur, he was going to a Vaiṣṇava, Baul. But Baul is sahajiyā. So he got the idea of Vaiṣṇavism, but because he was not Vaiṣṇava, he presented his idea in a different way. That is his Gītāñjali. Gītāñjali is the depiction of the idea he got from that Baul.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: His songs are so popular in Bengal.

Prabhupāda: No, all over the world, more or less.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Even I sang some of his songs when I was in Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: There is idea, some Vaiṣṇava idea. (end)

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

Guest (1): Yes, that is Candrakant. In Calcutta, no?

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) Yes, there is also my student. (break) Now the government is so irresponsible. Just like in Nairobi, I was refused permission. You see. We spent so much money, and they did not inform before. And when I was on the airport... That also, no written order. They said, "From higher authorities it is the order that you cannot enter." Just see. Kenya. So at the present moment we have got many enemies of this movement. (Hindi) "You are converting these European and American into brāhmaṇa. How they can become brāhmaṇa without taking birth as brāhmaṇa?" (Hindi)

Guest (1): You have done quite a lot. (break)

Prabhupāda: Yes. Here also they go to parties. Where they go here?

Jayatīrtha: To downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Prabhupāda: In New York, everywhere, every town, our men go and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and sells books. That's it. (break) ...order. Yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṇa-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Whomever you meet, you just deliver the instruction of Kṛṣṇa to him. That's all. This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission. Yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṇa-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). (break) (Hindi) They have got a cultural department, but not for helping this. And then... (Hindi) This is my position. Just see. (Hindi) That is the śāstric injunction. Kīrtana means about Viṣṇu. But these Ramakrishna men will say, "Why not Kālī?"

Guest (1): No, no, no, they never say that.

Prabhupāda: But they say that.

Morning Walk -- December 29, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Oh, how are you? Thank you very much. Come on. How are you? Feeling all right?

Dr. Wolfe: Fine, thank you.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I brought a friend, Śrīla Prabhupāda, from Calcutta. He was my class friend in Calcutta. He is from St. Xavier's College. He graduated.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Bengali?

Sujit: Bengali. (Bengali conversation)

Prabhupāda: (Bengali) ...Mahatma Gandhi Road.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Daniel, come here. Daniel Sardar.

Sujit: Sujit.

Prabhupāda: Sujit, oh. (Bengali conversation regarding his being a student of science, chemistry and plastics engineering, and Śrīla Prabhupāda tells him that he attended Scottish Churches' College) (break) ...astrology?

Sujit: What is my opinion?

Prabhupāda: No. I am asking scientist.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 12, 1974, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Sometimes people want to copy, and those people who are...

Prabhupāda: Guarding.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. They catch them, and sometimes they get killed outside. Still in Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: Yes. There has been case. Yes.

Umāpati: In Calcutta that way too?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh yes. I was in the examination hall, and in fact, people are very afraid to be caught there. But now I heard that the government of India is going to change the system of examination.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: That they have introduced a grade system just like here in the United States, and then there will be open books, so that they will be not be afraid of copying things. Open book examination.

Prabhupāda: Oh, common sense. (pause) (break) ...man's aeroplane. Just see. Immediately he goes up. And man's aeroplane, oh, you have to takes position, you have to go so many miles like this. Then you can... It is imitation. The aeroplane has also wings, but his wings is collapsed. But that wing you have to keep. Therefore you require so much space.

Morning Walk -- February 20, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: Bābās also, those nāgā-bābās, they all smoke...

Prabhupāda: No, no. Nāgā and also "sāgā (?)" also. All of them gañjā-... (laughs)

Guest (1): But, uh, but, uh...

Prabhupāda: Eh? In Calcutta there was a big poet, Girish-chandra Ghosh. Perhaps you heard his name.

Dr. Patel: Yes.

Prabhupāda: He started Indian state. He was a first-class gañjā smoker.

Dr. Patel: They get in a trance, and...

Prabhupāda: That, that... You have got appreciation for this trance.

Dr. Patel: They have got a trance. They get a trance...

Prabhupāda: You are, you are smelling.

Dr. Patel: Yes.

Morning Walk -- February 20, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Even in... I do not wish to say. Even this Kalyāṇa, Kalyāṇa, Kalyāṇa proprietor, that Goenka.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Goenka.

Prabhupāda: He was doing that. In Calcutta. Govinda Bhavan.

Dr. Patel: Goenka?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: This Goenka.

Prabhupāda: Not this Goenka. That...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In Gorakhpur, Gītā Press.

Prabhupāda: He was a pākā Māyāvādī.

Guest (4): Gītā Press?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- February 20, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: He knows also.

Guest (4): I know also. He spoiled so many girls, you see.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We have gone to him so many times in Calcutta.

Guest (4): (Hindi) This is the story of before ten or fifteen years old.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, and now he's at the head of that Gītā Press.

Prabhupāda: Hiralal.

Guest: No, no, no, no, no. Not that Guṇḍā (?). That is different. (Hindi)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, but Prabhupāda was speaking of that one.

Bhava-bhūti: It was Gandhi who said that Arjuna was the soul, that it is all allegory, too. He also interpreted Gītā like that.

Prabhupāda: Yes, he interpreted like that.

Morning Walk -- February 23, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Now scientific improvement has been done, but that is on the gross material platform.

Dr. Patel: Spiritually, they must be worthy.

Prabhupāda: No, it is not spiritual. That is also subtle. Just like mind, the speed of mind. The mind is material. By mind speed, you can... Just imagine. You are here. Immediately, within a second, you go to Calcutta.

Dr. Patel: Because you think of the thing.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: First going is mind going.

Prabhupāda: So this is the mind. Similarly, mental, then intellectual,... You are going?

Dr. Patel: No, no. You are going ahead. We have to come to that...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Mind is also material. Bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ kham. khaṁ manaḥ (BG 7.4).

Dr. Patel: Khaṁ manaḥ eva ca.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They are all material.

Morning Walk -- March 29, 1974, Bombay:

Indian man (3): They actually work for the Kṛṣṇa only, and they...

Prabhupāda: No, no, Kṛṣṇa recommends śāstra, harer nāma, harer nāma, harer nāmaiva kevalam (CC Adi 17.21). So why they should chant "Swami Narayan"?

Indian man (4): No, listen...

Devotee: He says to chant Kṛṣṇa. But they are chanting Swami Narayan.

Prabhupāda: You know, there was a big doctor in Calcutta, (indistinct) Sen. You have heard his name? He will die of thirstiness, still would not drink outside water. Would come home, offer to the Deity, and then drink. I know that (indistinct) Sen.

Indian man (3): But he is such a...

Prabhupāda: In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, satataṁ kīrtayanto mām (BG 9.14)—Kṛṣṇa. But why one should chant the other name? Kṛṣṇa says satataṁ kīrtayanto mām (BG 9.14). Hare Kṛṣṇa. Not any other name.

Indian man (3): (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: But their teacher, they're chanting "Swami Narayan." They're saying Swami Narayan is better than Kṛṣṇa. What kind of preaching is this?

Indian man (4): This is... (break)

Prabhupāda: ...nonsense this (Bengali). The people will go to the temple. If they say, if the preacher say that Swami Narayan name should be chanted...

Morning Walk -- April 2, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: You were all the time in Allahabad. You must be knowing them from very close part.

Prabhupāda: No, he was my customer. I used to go to his home. And he was coming to my shop. Yes. He was my customer. When 1928 congress was there, I sent him one letter that "I want to become a delegate and go there." So immediately, "Yes, you come." So I went to Calcutta and I told his secretary that "Panditji has told me like this." "Yes, take this ticket." Yes. I became... So I was criticizing my friend because the delegate fee is one rupee and the reception committee fee at that time was twenty-five rupees. And still, they were in the last seat. And because at that time Motilal Nehru became president, the president, the province in which the president becomes, that provincial member occupies the first seat. So we occupied the first seat from Allahabad. So I...

Dr. Patel: Front seats.

Prabhupāda: Front seat, yes. So I was criticizing my friends in Calcutta that you have paid twenty-five rupees, you have got last seat. I have paid one rupee, I have first seat. We were very thickly... Not very thickly, but as customer... Do you know? I shall tell one incident. One day Jawaharlal Nehru came and he asked me, "Give me prophylactic hair brush." So I told, "Panditji, we are selling prophylactic tube brush and we do not know that there is prophylactic hair brush." "No, you do not know. You get it for me. I want it." So I got it from Bombay, here, and supplied him.

Morning Walk -- April 6, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: ...by my sister. And you have seen in the Mullick Ṭhākura-bhati(?) Ratha-yatra?

Guest (Indian man): Yes.

Prabhupāda: So after my festival of Ratha-yatra the other boys in the Mullicks, they began. My ratha was, I think, this much high, very nicely made.

Acyutānanda: When we had Ratha-yatra in Calcutta we stopped in front of your house and they had that ratha decorated in the doorway. And we turned the ratha towards the house, and they came out and did ārāti, the Mullick family, Śyāmasundara.

Prabhupāda: So there was good festival, saṅkīrtana, and procession. We all little children enjoyed. And eight days, my mother was cooking different foodstuff for Jagannātha. Then return ratha-yatra. Ratha-yatra means...

Yaśomatīnandana: Fifteen days festival.

Prabhupāda: No, eight days. From dvitīya to daśamī.

Morning Walk -- April 12, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Evil spirit everyone believes, every country. In London there are so many ghosts. When I was in John Lennon's house, so they complained, "In this one house, every night a ghost comes." You see? So I advised them "Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. It will go away." Then it actually so happened.

Yaśomatīnandana: In many of our temple buildings also...

Prabhupāda: Yes. No, I have got experience. In our Calcutta house, there was ghost. In Lucknow when I started that laboratory in Mr. Bhattacarya's house in Vat-nagara(?), there was a ghost. I have practical experience. My servant...

Indian man (1): I have heard a few cases. You see. I was reported that they see in that house there was ghost, and he used to put clothes to fire and they have to run for water to extinguish it. Then I went and examined. He was a friend of mine. Then I ultimately detected that his own wife got hysterical and used to do all those things.

Prabhupāda: No, that is also possible. But...

Indian man (1): You see? So I discovered that there is no ghost, and I explained to them...

Prabhupāda: No, that is also possible. Sometimes we are misled. But ghosts, in every country, there are so many books, and especially it is mentioned in the Vedic literature also. Bhūta-preta-yoni. Bhūta-preta-yoni. That is described. Out of many forms of life, these bhūta-preta-yonis is also. Nana-yoni. Nana-yoni. There are different sources of birth. So bhūta-preta-yoni is also mentioned there, species of life. (break) Bhūta-preta is mentioned.

Morning Walk -- April 16, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: There also, there is life. There is life.

Indian Man (2): Unfertilized, but then... (break)

Prabhupāda: She became widow at the age of eighteen years. So my father engaged her in worshiping Deity. My father was worshiping, and she was the assistant. Of course, she had two children by that time. Yes, go on. (break) ...Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa is all attractive. So immediately they attracted the other cows, although they were not actual mother. (break) ...doctor in Calcutta, young man, he married the daughter of a very rich man. So his father-in-law gave him a motorcar, so he advised... He was a businessman. He advised that "Even if you have no practice, you simply ride on this car and go around."

Dr. Patel: (laughter) He's a typical Bengali. (Prabhupāda laughs)

Prabhupāda: So actually, by his going round, he increased his practice. (Indians talking Hindi)

Prabhupāda: (break) ...between demigod. Demigods are also expansion, but that is separated expansion, separated expansion, vibhinnāṁśa. In the Varāha-Purāṇa it is said, vibhinnāṁśa. And here, svāṁśa, personal expansion.

Morning Walk Excerpts -- May 1, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) This is very nice hell.

Dr. Patel: Now all that society, any decent(?) society.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Dr. Patel: That Mr. Nair...

Prabhupāda: Mr. Nair also, in Calcutta, many times. (break)

Dr. Patel: Irish or English?

Prabhupāda: No, Irish. He established the Home Rule, Home Rule Party, in India.

Dr. Patel: And he fell off from Gandhi's movement.

Prabhupāda: Hm. Go on. (break) ...rāga of love. When one goes to see his beloved and thinks so many things, "I'll do this, I'll do this, I'll do this," that is pūrva-rāga. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. (break) ...gopīs as krūra, not Akrūra.

Dr. Patel: Yes, because he was taking away Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma from there. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...manuṣyeṣu kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ. Kṛṣṇa recognizes immediately who preaches the gospel of Bhagavad-gītā. Yes.

Morning Walk -- May 9, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. There are many devotees, prostitutes.

Bhāgavata: So that was their service, not their service, but that was their work.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bhāgavata: But, still they were devotees of Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is their profession, livelihood, but they are devotees. In Calcutta, there is a big temple. It is called Kāca-Kāminī's temple. Kāca-Kāminī means she was a prostitute, but she was kept by a very big businessman who was dealing in glass, mirrors and all... So he has made a temple for her with glass and mirrors. Therefore it is called kāca. Kāca means glass. Kāca-Kāminī. (break) ...have a dispensary. Dr. Ojha. He thinks in this way people can be saved. That is also necessary, but not as necessary as this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Girirāja: Chapter Forty-two. The Killing of the Elephant Kuvala... (break)

Prabhupāda: We are speaking of Kṛṣṇa. No Indians are interested. Just see. (Hindi) Dr. Patel and his company. (Hindi) (break) Hear about the expedition to moon but not about Kṛṣṇa. What is that?

Devotee: It came off.

Prabhupāda: No, it is all right.

Room Conversation -- May 20, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Indian man: He is not a (indistinct)?

Prabhupāda: You do not know?

Indian man: No, I don't know. I think he is a graduate. Huh? He's not even a graduate? (Prabhupāda chuckles) I was told that he was a graduate long ago, you see, when I used to go to Calcutta, the Gauḍīya Maṭh there.

Prabhupāda: Anyway...

Indian man: And Bon Mahārāja also has told he is a graduate. What is he?

Prabhupāda: What is he?

Indian man: Bon Mahārāja, graduate? He is Karachi (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: No, I don't think so. Anyway, so (Hindi). Bon Mahārāja is a (Hindi), very important.

Indian man: (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: Accha. (Hindi) (break)

Devotee (2): Before I came, we had one big festival in Geneva for two days, Saturday and Sunday. Each night over 500 people. It was nice. Geneva's not very big.

Prabhupāda: Geneva is important town.

Devotee (2): Important, not very big though.

Prabhupāda: International town.

Room Conversation with Richard Webster, chairman, Societa Filosofica Italiana -- May 24, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: Historic.

Dhanañjaya: Not historical, more philosophical. And he writes many papers for the Catholic Church, for the Vatican.

Prabhupāda: I was also student of philosophy in 1916 to 20 under professor Dr. W.S. Urquhart in Calcutta, Scottish Churches' College. He was my professor. Later on, he became vice chancellor, very big philosopher. We read Dr. Stephens Metaphysics. What is your special subject for study?

Richard Webster: Well, it's rather difficult to say. I suppose medieval philosophy.

Prabhupāda: Medieval.

Richard Webster: From a modern point of view.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Richard Webster: From a modern point of view.

Prabhupāda: Modern.

Room Conversation with Catholic Cardinal and Secretary to the Pope -- May 24, 1974, Rome:

Bhagavān: You have visited India?

Cardinal Pignedoli: Oh, I have been many times, yeah, in India.

Bhagavān: You have been to Vṛndāvana.

Cardinal Pignedoli: No, I have been to Vārāṇasī, to Calcutta, to Bombay, Agra, Darjeeling and many other places in... Nepal also.

Prabhupāda: Nepal. My birthplace is in Calcutta.

Cardinal Pignedoli: Yes, very nice. In Delhi, and Monsignor too, he has visited all the places, huh?

Monsignor Verrozano: South India.

Cardinal Pignedoli: In Kerala?

Monsignor Verrozano: Kerala, Tirusrilapatti(?), Cochin, Madras, Bombay of course. Yes, last year I attended a kind of manifestation of your movement in Bombay.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Monsignor Verrozano: Yes, I visited.

Prabhupāda: Bombay, there was function.

Room Conversation with Catholic Cardinal and Secretary to the Pope -- May 24, 1974, Rome:

Monsignor Verrozano: Yes.

Dhanañjaya: That was our festival. The Bhāgavata-dharma discourses.

Bhagavān: We had a festival program in India. We've had one in Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, and for one week, and Srila Prabhupāda has spoken many times every night there. There's been thousands of people, ten thousand people.

Monsignor Verrozano: Yes, yes. And just last year about the 20th of January, it was this week of festivals also, this conscience of preaching sermons, many manifestations. Many people attended, and I too visited this, yes, also.

Prabhupāda: In Calcutta also we had such functions. About thirty thousand people were coming in Bombay.

Monsignor Verrozano: Could you be so kind to say to us something about your movement which is spread in the world.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Our movement is that, that is first-class religious system which teaches how to love God. This is the sum and substance of our movement. There is a Sanskrit statement in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam,

sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo

yato bhaktir adhokṣaje

ahaituky apratihatā

yayātmā suprasīdati

(SB 1.2.6)

If you want to be happy, then you must take to the superior type of religious system which teaches the followers how to love God without any motive, and which is never checked by any material condition. God's name is given here as Adhokṣaja. Adhokṣaja means beyond experimental knowledge. God has got many name according to different situation, and one of the name, for the materialistic person, adhokṣaja. Akṣaja means experimental knowledge. Akṣa means eyes or senses. Beyond sense perception. So we cannot speculate about God, but we can understand about God from authorities. This is the conception of Bhāgavata-dharma. So the human life is especially meant for understanding God.

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: If there is no opposite elements, there is no need of weapons. If I am not your enemy, there is no fear. We are preaching this philosophy, brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā: (BG 18.54) "As soon as you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, you become jubilant." So where is your enemy? Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu. Then where is your enemy? Formerly, a man might have become enemy of another man. But this demonic civilization has created nation to nation, country to country, community to community, all enemies. And on account of this communistic enemy, so many innocent people are killed. I have seen in Calcutta during the partition days. So many innocent Hindus and Muslims were killed. Any (indistinct), very quickly this Communistic feeling is aroused, and they fight, like cats and dogs. "Oh, here is another dog! Here is another dog, coming from another neighborhood." So this is demonic civilization. If you want to go to some country, you have to take visa, permission, this, that, so many. Why? Vedic civilization is "You come to my country. Welcome. You are my guest." Gṛhe śatrum api prāptaṁ viśvastam akutobhayam: "Even one is enemy, when he comes to my house, he is my honorable guest." And here, they are so much afraid that you keep dogs. The dog is kept here.

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Yogeśvara: The targets will be the cities.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They will be finished first. The bombs are never used at the villages. Downtown, downtown. (laughter) The downtown will be first finished. I have got experience during the last war. The bombs were being thrown in Calcutta and almost all the bombs were thrown in downtown.

Bhagavān: They know they don't want to bomb the countryside or else how can they live?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bhagavān: The overpopulation is in the city.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bhagavān: They think that overpopulation occurs in underdeveloped countries, but actually in every city it is overpopulation, people living on top of each other like rats.

Prabhupāda: (loud noises) These are subway trains?

Dhanañjaya: No, these are ordinary trains.

Prabhupāda: So all your problems solved?

Bhagavān: No, not yet.

Morning Walk -- May 28, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: Then do it. Do it. Set example perfectly. This is nice park. Yes. You can have your park locally. Where is the difficulty? Garden. Fruits, flowers, garden. There is park. Also you can have a pond like this. People are doing that locally. In Bengal especially. Whole Bengal was a garden. It was so nice. Whole Bengal was a garden.

Dhanañjaya: I noticed this when I took the train from Calcutta to Krishnanagar. Once you get further out, it's so nice, the villages. There is the pond there.

Prabhupāda: And... Why Calcutta? You go to the airport. You will find so nice gardens, still existing. Now it is spoiled also. Because people have changed locally to the city. Nobody has to take care now. Otherwise, in Bengal especially, throughout the whole India, Bengal was so beautiful. The Europeans became attracted by the beauty of Bengal. Therefore they made Calcutta their capital, the Britishers. Yes. Every European liked Bengal. Every European. I met one European German gentleman in Bombay. He was in Calcutta. When I was in Bimha (?). So I asked, "Why you left Calcutta?" "Oh, I am very sorry. Calcutta was so nice." And actually. Where we have got our temple, these quarters were known as "Sahib" quarter. Just like our temple is "Sahib" temple. So these Chowringee and Camac Street, Park, these were all European. They liked very much to live in Bengal. And there is another story. One English officer he became attracted by the beauty of a Bengali woman. There is story by Bankima Candra. Candrashekhara. The man was after that woman, how to get it. That is the subject matter of story. He was attracted by the black eyes and black hair. Bengali beauty.

Room Conversation with Professor Oliver La Combe Director of the Sorbonne University -- June 14, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: You have been in India several times.

Professor La Combe: Many times, yes.

Prabhupāda: Where did you stay generally?

Professor La Combe: In several places, but mainly in Calcutta. But in many other places too.

Prabhupāda: Calcutta where?

Professor La Combe: Park Mansions, Park St., near Asiatic Society.

Prabhupāda: Park St. Asiatic Society. Yes, I know that. It is just on the junction of Park St. and Chowringhee. Calcutta is my birthplace.

Professor La Combe: You were born in Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: Yes. All our former relatives, they are in Calcutta.

Professor La Combe: Even now.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Professor La Combe: I think the situation is better now in Calcutta, improving.

Prabhupāda: Yes, little better.

Professor La Combe: Because my last visit there was in 1970 and it was the worst moment. But I hear that it is improving.

Prabhupāda: Improving, yes. Just near that Asiatic Society we held our Hare Kṛṣṇa Festival in front of, I think, the museum.

Room Conversation with Professor Oliver La Combe Director of the Sorbonne University -- June 14, 1974, Paris:

Professor La Combe: This year?

Prabhupāda: No. (break in tape) ...God conscious. So the leaders suppressing. This is the present position. The leaders are more or less communists, and they are suppressing their natural outflow and that is the position now.

Professor La Combe: But I think that nowadays the situation in Calcutta is better. You would not have the same kind of difficulties this year I suppose.

Prabhupāda: No, it is easier now. In 1970, '69 there was no security. When you go out, there is no security whether you'll come back. Yes. You were at that time there? No.

Devotee: No, I arrived there just after. I arrived in Bombay when that was happening. The Naxalites...

Prabhupāda: Any man walking on the street can be killed. It was the situation.

Devotee: Especially any rich man or politician.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Professor La Combe: The Vice Chancellor of Jadavpur University was killed the day before I arrived in Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: Old gentleman?

Professor La Combe: Yes. And he was retiring. He was still in activity, but he was soon retiring, and he was walking from the University campus to his home, not far, a short walk. And he was killed by one of these...

Prabhupāda: Naxalites.

Room Conversation with Professor Oliver La Combe Director of the Sorbonne University -- June 14, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Ah. Vṛndāvana is very hot. Vṛndāvana is very hot.

Bhagavān: If you go back to India, you can..., you are welcome to stay in our temples.

Professor La Combe: In Vṛndāvana.

Bhagavān: In Vṛndāvana. We have Māyāpur, near Navadvīpa. And we also purchased some very nice land outside of Bombay. Juhu. Hyderabad and Calcutta.

Devotee: In Delhi also, we have a nice center.

Professor La Combe: What part of India?

Devotee: It's in West End. It is very close to the airport.

Professor La Combe: And in Calcutta?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Near Park St., Camac St.

Room Conversation with Professor Oliver La Combe Director of the Sorbonne University -- June 14, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Yes, he took with him three women. One of them was Sister Nivedita.

Devotee: Also you told us in India about Aurobindo and Ramakrishna. Aurobindo went also. Aurobindo, when that French woman came, he also fell to her, but just to cover it up he has called her "Mother" because in India, when you call someone "Mother..."

Prabhupāda: No, everyone knows he is mother and he is father.

Devotee: Yeah, right. And they don't think... There is no question of sex. When they think of mother and father, they don't think of these things. Also with Ramakrishna. He also had his divine mother. You told us a story in Calcutta that he was very debauched. In a village he used to chase the young women. And his brother actually made him famous.

Prabhupāda: It is very difficult to, not to be victimized by woman. It is very difficult.

Yogeśvara: Unless you are victimized by Kṛṣṇa first.

Prabhupāda: Yes. One who is, I means, what is called, captivated by the beauty of Kṛṣṇa, then he is not victimized.

Room Conversation with devotees about Twelfth Canto Kali-yuga, and Conversation with Guest -- June 15, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Anywhere. In Calcutta it was dangerous to go out because the next... You do not know whether you'll come back. People are so afraid. He's going to work in the office. It will be God's grace if he returns back. It is such a city. Actually so happened. We were sitting, I was at that time in a... I was guest in our life member's. Sitting in morning, afternoon, o'clock (?). "Oh, that gentleman is killed." He was very important businessman. He went to the temple, a Marwari, and on his coming back, he was killed from the backside. Life is still so, but it is little diminished. (break) ...about so-called saintly persons, they are: tapasvino grāma-vāsāḥ. "The so-called yogis, they'll live in the town." Actually, the yogis have no business in the town. They should go to a secluded place. But they will live in... Just like the other... He's living in Paris City, and he's a yogi.

Morning Walk -- June 20, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: That is the difference. And therefore they are rascals. No intelligence. Intelligence is there, but it is so covered that it is almost like trees. Trees are also intelligent because it is life. There is intelligence. You will see one tree is growing. If there is wall, it will grow like this. Have you seen it?

Haṁsadūta: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That is intelligence. And it is proved by science. Dr. Jagadisha Candra Bose, in Calcutta, he has got institute. A machine records how a tree feeling. You cut one tree. How it is feeling pain, that is recorded in the machine.

Haṁsadūta: They also hear sound. They made some experiment that when they grow plants with music, they grow more.

Prabhupāda: Oh, just see.

Haṁsadūta: In greenhouses. They play music. Then they become more healthy.

Prabhupāda: Just see. Their sensation is very covered. Just like you cut the nails. There is no sensation. And does it mean there is no sensation-therefore there is no life? Unless there is life, how it is growing? It is growing; therefore you cut. But when you cut, there is no sensation. But there is life. Otherwise, how it is growing? The same nail, when you cut, you throw it on the ground. It will not grow. These are practical example. Just like little child. Their sensation is less. I know. My eldest daughter, when she was six months old, there was some boil. So the doctor operated. She simply, "Uh, uh," no cried. I have seen it. She was not crying. But the same boil, when a fully developed man, he will feel more sensation. So according to the body, the sensations are different. The same things, means mind, intelligence and ego, according to the body, they act differently. But the mind, intelligence and ego are there. The dog is coming, and if I say, "Hut!", unless it has got intelligence, how it goes away the other way? There is intelligence.

Room Conversation with Reverend Gordon Powell, Head of Scots Church -- June 28, 1974, Melbourne:

Reverend Powell: Yes, yes, rightly. And I might also inquire... I take it that you feel... Forgive me if I'm not using the right expression, but the caste system is written into the law of Godhead.

Prabhupāda: No, no. No, we have no caste system.

Reverend Powell: Well, I'm sorry. The brāhmaṇa, the śūdras and so on, per se.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is qualification. This is a division according to... Find out the cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (BG 4.13).

Reverend Powell: Your base there is in Bombay?

Prabhupāda: My birthplace is in Calcutta.

Reverend Powell: Calcutta, ah. I was there many years ago, I knew...

Prabhupāda: You have been in Calcutta?

Reverend Powell: Yes, I have. I crossed from Karachi and Delhi, I went down to Agra, and I gather this...

Prabhupāda: Yes, for people coming from England to Australia, they passed through Calcutta or Bombay, like that.