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Cure (Conversations 1974 - 1975)

Conversations and Morning Walks

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

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

Prabhupāda: No. We should preach that "Stop these things. No illicit sex, no gambling, no meat-eating." Practically you teach them. This is the real social problem.

Umāpati: Should we also try to introduce legislation immediately to close the slaughterhouses?

Prabhupāda: No. If you want good men, good leader, you must be free from all these, I mean, sinful activities. Otherwise there is no question of good leader, or good man. There is no question. First principle is this. Just like a patient, he must abide by the prescription, that "You must do this, you must do not this." Then there is cure. And simply if he goes on in his own way, then there is no value of consulting a physician. So the first program is that "If you want really good leader and if you want to become yourself also good, then you must give up these four sinful activities. Otherwise, all your scheme will be failure."

Umāpati: So we would tell the people that if we were elected we would try to close the slaughterhouses.

Prabhupāda: No, no, that is different thing. Why you should say, revolting something. You say that "Don't eat meat." That is slaughterhouse closing. If you say that "Close your slaughterhouse," they will think that these are, what is called?

Umāpati: Radical.

Prabhupāda: Ideal, radicalist, idealist. But if you can induce them... That is also another process...

Morning Walk -- March 6, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: ...call them rascals and fools. They may advertise themselves as scientists, but we take them as rascals and fools.

Siddha-svarūpānanda: Some of them so much want to be God, they're thinking they're going to create life and make bodies and this and that.

Prabhupāda: The only question is that first of all, keep your life. Then you cure another life. Life in you is already there. Now keep it. Protect it by some machine or by some chemical. Then you talk all this nonsense. What do you think, Viṣṇujana Mahārāja?

Viṣṇujana: At the fairs in the United States, they have exhibits of what the scientists are doing, and one scientist has actually invented a machine... Costs one hundred thousand dollars, and this machine can take the head of a man from his body and keep the brain cells still going, and they expect that this machine, they expect, they haven't done it to anyone because no one will do it...

Prabhupāda: That expectation is always there. Any fool can expect anything. That is another thing.

Room Conversation -- March 16, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: You mean, but you the word nirvāṇa. Suppose I take out your eyes. This is one thing. And I...

Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Huh? What is that?

Devotee: Gopāla wants to see you. (break)

Prabhupāda: Suppose I take out your eyes. That is nirvāṇa. But if there is some disease, I cure it, that is (indistinct). Suppose cataract, cataract operation.

Guest: Well, um, whatever the origin, so the word may be etymologically, the way it's used by the people that I'm studying with and the way I understand the meaning of the word is a little different than meaning just uh, sheer nothingness. Sheer nothingness is supposed to be a misunderstanding of what nirvāṇa means.

Prabhupāda: Now you have to understand as it is in the dictionary.

Guest: Well, as it is used by people. You have to understand it as, as it's used, you know, in uh, by, by the people who are using this word to...

Prabhupāda: Nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa means, I have already explained, this is the people take, those who know Sanskrit, nirvāṇa means extinguished. Now, you may have different meaning.

Morning Walk -- March 26, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: I am not talking of Śaṅkarācārya.

Dr. Patel: Śaṅkarācārya's philosophy has been misunderstood, and they are, those are the people who, real Māyāvādīs. Śaṅkarācārya was, I mean, a... (break)

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) (break) There is no mercy. If he says, "No, no. I shall, I shall rub over your belly and it will be cured," is that the means? It must go on, operation, surgical operation. That is treatment. If you become kind, "No, no, no, it is very difficult. I will give him something. It will cure," That is not treatment. (Hindi) (break) Tān ahaṁ dviṣataḥ krūrān kṣipāmy ajasram āsurīṣv eva yoniṣu (BG 16.19). No mercy. "You surrender. Otherwise, if you are envious, then I am sending you to the darkest region of ignorance." (break) (Hindi) (break) ...after, you are quitting?

Girirāja: Well, I thought that everyone knew. We follow that.

Dr. Patel: They wash their hands seven times with soap and water.

Devotee: Prabhupāda, they may not be able... (heavy wind)

Prabhupāda: But why they'll not...

Dr. Patel: If one man does not do it, the bathroom gets infected and all others get infection.

Prabhupāda: ...do not learn?

Devotee: (indistinct) (break)

Dr. Patel: No, diarrhea, bad stomach, they may get vomiting also tomorrow. One man vomited also. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...keeping dogs? Is that hygienic?

Dr. Patel: Dogs?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- April 14, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: They are trained like that, very good. (break) It is compulsory that every man should become a mendicant for some time.

Indian Man (1): They must have experience of that. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...there is a temple, Tarakeśvara, in Hoogli district. So Lord Śiva... So people, I mean to say, pray that "If my this disease is cured or if I get this victory, I shall become a sannyāsī for a month." (laughs) So that system is going on. They become sannyāsīs for one month. There are hundreds and thousands.

Dr. Patel: They... (break)

Prabhupāda: This is called "one month sannyāsī." That is not mentioned in the śāstra, but it has come into custom. (break) ...and if he returns, he is called vāntāśī, yes, "eating the vomit."

Indian Man (1): Before giving sannyāsa the teacher will take proper care that his mind is already peaceful and all... (break)

Prabhupāda: ...obeisances, we take out our shoes. That is a system.

Indian Man (1): Even the hat...

Prabhupāda: Hat, yes. (break) ...naked is not civilization. It is not civilization.

Morning Walk -- April 23, 1974, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Well, people are now shameless, you see? They are being kicked in so many ways. We are giving the prescription, "Here is the remedy," but they are not taking to it. But they will take it. Some of them will take it, provided you remain also ideal. If you become also degraded, then who will take it? Ideal character, ideal behavior, ideal preaching. People will appreciate. (break) ...pure character or position, people will take, in any condition. There may be revolution or no revolution. They will take it. (break) ...that our movement is actually good. They will take in any condition. That standard we must maintain. Somebody... Yes, Balavanta, when he was speaking against smoking, one candidate—he was important man—he was smoking. Immediately he wanted to hide. (laughter) So immediate effect was there. He understood that "Yes, this is bad habit." So people will take it, any condition, provided you are ideal. Āpani ācari prabhu jīveri śikṣāya. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's movement. He teaches others by behaving Himself. "Example is better than precept." If you cannot rise early in the morning, then how can you ask others to rise early in the morning? What is the effect? There is no effect. We have got business early in the morning, to attend maṅgala ārati. And if you sleep yourself and teach others, so who will take it? (break) ...we have introduced. Very, very simple thing. But still, if he cannot... (break) ...(indistinct) Mahārāja. He is, he admitted him, smārta paṇḍita, but he cannot rise early in the morning. Never. And he is imitating the smārta paṇḍitas. You know that? Smārta, and one pot, and this and that and āsana (laughing). And "I had some..., consult with some smārta paṇḍita," and the real business, to rise early in the morning, he will never do. He will never do. Brāhmaṇa. Brāhmaṇa means he must rise early in the morning. What kind of brāhmaṇa? Oh, he is coming. (laughs) Early in the morning at half past seven. If he walks early in the morning, all his disease will be cured. That he will not do. After all, everyone can do after performing maṅgala ārati, take a morning walk. Bathing. (break) How did you know we were here?

Pradyumna: I asked (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Yes. If you rise early and take a walk, all your ailments will be cured. (break) If a gentleman wants to walk early in the morning, he must have his dog friend.

Room Conversation with Monsieur Roost, Hatha-yogi -- May 31, 1974, Geneva:

M. Roost: I am according, but how to understand, how to measure...?

Prabhupāda: This is plain understanding. Just like physician says that "If you eat these things, then you will not be cured." A physician should straightly speak to the patient, "You should not do this. Then you will be cured." If he does not agree, then he will not be cured. It is like that. If you remain sinful, then you cannot make any spiritual progress of life. That is going on. All the swamis, yogis, and... Don't mind. I have seen. They keep them in the sinful life and talk very, very, big, big words. That will not help. Sinful life must be stopped. Then yoga practice will be successful. Yuktāhāra-vihārasya yogo bhavati siddhiḥ. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. If you are yogi, if you want siddhi, then you must eat and sleep and accept things—yukta. Yukta means "as it is required, not more than that, not less than that." That is yukta. We don't say that you stop. No, we don't say. We give them eatables. We don't say there is no sex life. Sex life is there. But married, simply for begetting children. Otherwise, no sex life. Not for sense gratification. If these things go on... In New York there is a yogi. I do not wish to name his... But in the paper it was published that he was having sex with his disciple. Is it not?

Nitāi: Yes.

Room Conversation with Robert Gouiran, Nuclear Physicist from European Center for Nuclear Research -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: There is no healing in the material world. There is disease always. There is no question of healing. Their healing is temporary. I am suffering from some disease. You give me some medicine. Does it mean that there will be no more disease? You heal that temporary disease. Again another disease. So where is the healing? So this is to be thought, that... Healing, that is the problem. There is no healing. There is always disease, this disease or that disease. If you prefer this disease heal, you are cured, and there will be no more disease, then you are profited. Another disease. You heal this, another disease. You heal this, another disease.

Robert Gouiran: So you think we can't help people?

Prabhupāda: Eh? You cannot! Can you help people to stop death? Or to stop disease? Or to stop old age? I am becoming old, can you stop?

Robert Gouiran: I think so.

Prabhupāda: That is foolishness. If you think that you can stop my old age growing, then that is foolishness. It is not possible.

Robert Gouiran: I think there is a misunderstanding there.

Prabhupāda: No, no. I am... A man grows old, can you stop it?

Robert Gouiran: I can't stop time, of course.

Prabhupāda: That is... We are speaking, that you cannot do anything. Even in spite of your so-called health (indistinct) or old, you cannot stop it.

Room Conversation with Robert Gouiran, Nuclear Physicist from European Center for Nuclear Research -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: Now in spite of this fact, if you try to do it, (it's) your business. But I say you cannot heal. If you want to go on, in spite of your inability to heal, that is your business, but I say I challenge that you cannot heal. That is my proposition. Now you go on with your business, that in spite of being unable to heal, if you go on healing activities, you go on. Who takes you? But I say you cannot heal. You are other (indistinct). Nobody can heal. What is that? Is that all right?

Yogeśvara: It's very strong.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is a fact.

Robert Gouiran: Do you mean that nobody could be cured?

Prabhupāda: Where is the cure? Show me that this man is cured from disease.

Robert Gouiran: To be better, if he suffers.

Prabhupāda: Better, that is everyone is trying, that is... But there is no cure. If you think that temporary cure is better, that's nice, but there is no cure.

Robert Gouiran: So do you mean that healing is an illusion? Because healing is a fact.

Prabhupāda: But if you cannot cure, then where is that healing? First of all answer this. If you cannot cure, then where is that healing?

Robert Gouiran: But healing is a fact of life. I have seen.

Prabhupāda: What is that fact?

Robert Gouiran: I have seen healings.

Room Conversation with Robert Gouiran, Nuclear Physicist from European Center for Nuclear Research -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: That's all. But your business is temporary healing. That's all.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: My spiritual master is trying to stress this evening that because we are eternal spirit soul that our real business is not with this temporary body or with temporary cures. And therefore, because we are involved with these temporary struggles, karṣati, we're simply struggling time and time again to make something permanent out of that which is always changing...

Robert Gouiran: How do you, why do you eat? It's taking a medicine. Food is a medicine.

Prabhupāda: But we don't say that is healing. Temporary relief, that's all.

Robert Gouiran: Eating is... You...

Prabhupāda: That is not relief. That is temporary appeasement. That is all.

Guru-gaurāṅga: It's getting late, I think.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- June 6, 1974, Geneva:

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Many of the young people now, they look to the Bible for instruction, but they don't like to go to church at all. They feel that the church is hypocritical.

Prabhupāda: Hypocritical, simply hypocritical. All these priests and cardinals and popes, they're all hypocritical. Getting high, highly salaried, high salaries, and drinking wine. And in America there is a hospital, five thousand drunkard priests are admitted there to cure their drinking habit. That was published in a paper. And they're sanctioning man to man marriage. That was published in that, what is that? Watch?

Satsvarūpa: Watchtower?

Prabhupāda: Watchtower. Yes.

Guru-gaurāṅga: They did a survey among the Catholic priests...

Prabhupāda: What is this? They do not fight. Why there is soldier? (laughter) What nonsense. Why there are soldiers? The neutral? 1939. This is Second World War. And First World War, 19...

Yogeśvara: (reading) "Dedicated to the soldiers of Geneva who died in the service of their country."

Prabhupāda: So that means it was attacked?

Guru-gaurāṅga: Probably defending banks or things like that. Civil.

Prabhupāda: Two wars, 1914 to 1918.

Morning Walk -- June 9, 1974, Paris:

Bhagavān: To become thoughtless.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because they are disgusted with this material thought, therefore they want to make it zero. But that is not possible. You must think of something. But they have no spiritual idea. They do not know what is spiritual thinking. They think that "Make it zero. These thoughts, let us make it zero." Just like a diseased man, suffering for, from the very beginning of his life... Then, if somebody suggests that "When you'll be cured, you'll very nicely eat, nicely walk and nicely think," so he's coming to the stage of diseased condition, "Again thinking? Again eating? Again lying down on bed? Then what is the difference? No, no. It must be zero: no eating, no sleeping, no bedding, nothing." He's thinking like that. Because he has got bad experience of his diseased condition, he thinks, "Again if there is eating, again if there is walking, then how it can be cured?" He cannot think of. These rascals, because they have no idea what is spiritual thinking, they want to make this thinking zero only. That's all. Śūnyavādī. They are called Śūnyavādī, nirvāṇa, Buddhist philosophy. "Your body is subjected to pains and pleasure; so dismantle this body." This is Buddha philosophy. "Make it zero. There will be no more pains and pleasure." "You have got some trouble in the eyes? Pluck it out." He does not know how to cure it. He simply knows, "Pluck it out." This is their philosophy. Asatyere satya kari māni. Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura's song.

Room Conversation with M. Lallier, noted French Poet -- June 12, 1974, Paris:

Karandhara: Well, that can also be done. You can hear, listen to the philosophy, and then..., but in order to really examine it thoroughly, you have to experiment with a hypothesis. We say if you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and eat prasādam, you become pure. So that may be a hypothesis so long as you don't try it, but as you try it, you come to realize that it's an actual fact. Just like if the doctor advises you to take a certain medicine for a cure of an illness, you may not have the understanding to know how that cure is going to work, but if the doctor is actually qualified, and you follow his orders, then you'll become cured, even if you didn't understand it in the beginning.

Bhagavān: The problem is if you don't try.

Karandhara: Or make sure you have a qualified remedy, a qualified medicine. Or doctor. One way you can see doctors... One way doctors are checked out is if they have successful, if they have had success in the past. You go to a friend and ask him, "Can you recommend a doctor who's cured you?" And he'll recommend, "Yes, you go to here. He's cured me." So if you're trying to find a spiritual master, one evidence of his potency is his disciples, how pure are his disciples. If you see that his disciples are becoming pure, then you can understand that here is a spiritual master who is giving something real. But sometimes the knowledge will come after the appreciation. Sometimes the appreciation will come after the knowledge. It can work either way.

Bhagavān: So I think we can go. It's time for Prabhupāda's massage. (devotees offer obeisances and leave.)

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (end)

Room Conversation with Roger Maria leading writer of communist literature -- June 12, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Now, another point is he's accusing us that we're escaping. Why he's escaping Kṛṣṇa consciousness? (French)

Yogeśvara: He says he thinks that what we're doing is simply a kind of medicine that doesn't actually resolve the problems that people are facing.

Prabhupāda: If it is not result, then how this boy says, "We have no problem"? The patient says that he is cured, and you say that it is not curing? (French)

Bhagavān: (to translators) So repeat to Prabhupāda what he said. (French) We have proof that anyone from any part of the world who takes to this process loses his problems. It's not a matter of western or eastern. (French)

Yogeśvara: With your permission, he would like to take leave.

Prabhupāda: Why? He should stay with us. Let us conclude. Why you are flying away? We have started one discussion. Let it be finished. Why you are going away? (French) That means he is escaping.

Yogeśvara: He says because he works in the evenings. He's a theater critic.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Some way or other, he's escaping. (French) A man...

Yogeśvara: With pleasure, he would like to come back to finish the discussion.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Because he has got different dress, different person. (French)

Yogeśvara: So he's asking: therefore, what is the conclusion? If the soul is a person, how does that help us to solve the problem of the man's suffering?

Prabhupāda: That is another thing, why man is suffering. First of all... Just like we have to find out the disease, why he is suffering, and if the disease is cured, the suffering is cured. (French) (aside:) Why the others, they do not come? Why is that? What kind of GBC?

Yogeśvara: Because there's an old Buddhist saying that no matter what kind of body you have, whether it be made of feathers or flesh or whatever kind of body you have, the problem is how to get out of it.

Pṛthu Putra: (correcting Yogeśvara's translation) No, it's not question of body. If you receive an arrows. You have to translate clearly. If you receive an arrows, it doesn't matter if the arrow is made with wood, with iron, with anything. But just to take out the arrows of your body because that's the cause of suffering.

Prabhupāda: Why the GBC men are not interested in these talks?

Satsvarūpa: I'm interested, I was just doing secretary work.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. How you will do secretary work if you do not hear? These are the important philosophy is going on. Where is the other man Bhagavān dāsa? These important talks going on and you do not..., you think that you have learned everything.

Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Yogeśvara: This young gentleman's question is: if you are pierced with an arrow, it's not so much important to discuss how the arrow has got there. Just like you suggest we define the disease before we try to cure it.

Prabhupāda: No, we are not caring how the arrows, but you have got the arrows, you must take out the arrows.

Yogeśvara: That is his point also.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So the disease is because he has forgotten his own self, therefore he is suffering. (French)

Yogeśvara: He says that actually that is the actual problem, to find out our real self.

Prabhupāda: Suppose a man, a sane man, has become insane. That insanity should be cured. Then he becomes a sane man. (French)

Yogeśvara: Yes, he must understand that he is crazy.

Prabhupāda: Yes. He must know... He may understand or not understand. Somehow or other, he has become crazy. So if the craziness is cured, then he is normal man.

Bhagavān: Yogeśvara, let Pṛthu translate.

Pṛthu Putra: His point... He says if a man understands that he is crazy, then he is not crazy any more.

Yogeśvara: Prabhupāda says somehow or other, if he understands or not, if he gets cured of his insanity...

Prabhupāda: So the insanity is just like you are dressed and if you identify yourself with the dress, that is insanity.

Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: So the insanity is just like you are dressed and if you identify yourself with the dress, that is insanity. (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He says he agrees. That means to be identified with the appearance.

Prabhupāda: So that is insanity. We are actually the living force, soul, but we are identifying at the present moment with the material body. Everyone is thinking, "I am Japanese, I am Englishman, I am German, I am Indian, I am white, I am black," but that is his insanity. So this insanity should be cured, that "I am not this body; I am spirit soul." And when he understand that he is spirit soul, he should be engaged in the business of the spirit soul. And because he is misidentifying himself with this body he is engaged with the bodily activities. So when he stops his bodily activities and he begins his spiritual activities, then he will be cured. So far bodily, I mean to say, pains and pleasure, that will be automatically cured when he understands that he is not body. Just like I feel heat and cold on account of this body. (French)

Pṛthu Putra: They believe that the soul and the body is one thing.

Prabhupāda: How it is one?

Pṛthu Putra: He says we have one body, we have the soul, and these two things cannot be separated.

Prabhupāda: How the man becomes dead? (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He says the man is like a phenomenon. He appears and he disappears. And when he disappears, he merge in this cosmic force.

Yogeśvara: Like anything. Like a flower that grows and dies and merges again into the earth.

Prabhupāda: Merges?

Yogeśvara: Just like a flower grows from the earth...

Prabhupāda: They do not believe in the reincarnation, next birth?

Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: If you cannot define, there is no remedy for your suffering. Just like a disease, unless the physician knows what is the infection, he cannot treat. (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He says one thing: we don't have to put name on disease or we don't have to know this name is called like that, this name is called like that, to cure it.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the system. If you go to a physician, he will try to understand what is the cause of the disease. Then he makes treatment. (French)

Pṛthu Putra: They agree about knowing the cause of the disease, that it's necessary to know.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That, what is the cause of the suffering? (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He says ignorance of himself. The man suffer because he's ignoring himself.

Prabhupāda: So let him become in knowledge. (French)

Karandhara: How does the cosmic force become ignorant of itself and fall into this condition? If before he was this form he was the cosmic energy, how he can fall down into ignorance and become an individual, limited, conditioned soul? (French)

Yogeśvara: I'm finding it hard to be able to translate because he says that we're ignorant and he says at the same time we're not ignorant.

Prabhupāda: What is this? When you speak of ignorance, that means he has fallen down from knowledge. That is ignorance.

Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: No, without result, why should I practice unnecessarily? (aside) Go. Take sleep. (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He says the religious life is not a bargain between God and him. He says we just have to practice without gaining, without waiting for any result, without praying...

Prabhupāda: No, no, we are not so fool, without any result we are going to do anything. We are not so fool. (French)

Bhagavān: According to their philosophy, if whether you practice or you don't practice you get the same result in the end, what's the use of doing anything? If at death everything merges back, what's the use of doing anything? Why not commit suicide? (French)

Prabhupāda: No, the idea is that when you know that you will be cured, then I take the medicine. And if I do not know whether I will be cured or not, why shall I take the medicine? (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He says from the medical point that's all right. But from the religious point...

Prabhupāda: So you are talking about medical point. Why you place something utopian? (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He says this example of medical point we made is just an analogy. But the religious life...

Prabhupāda: Their analogy must be perfect in all points, otherwise it is no analogy.

Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Because he has no information what is spiritual desire, he thinks material desire is as good as spiritual desire. (French)

Karandhara: They don't have a conception of spiritual. To them everything is material.

Prabhupāda: No, it is ignorance. Just like a man is suffering from disease. He is also lying down. He is also eating. He is also passing stool. And if he is informed that "After your disease is cured, you will also nicely sleep, you will also nicely walk, you will also nicely eat," but he is thinking, "Again eating? Again sleeping? Again...?" This is something like this. "So I don't want to be cured."

Karandhara: Yes, that's actually the psychology behind Zen philosophy.

Prabhupāda: That is the trouble, yes. He does not know what is the sleeping in healthy condition and what is the eating in healthy condition. He thinks this eating and that eating the same. (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He says for him, spiritual and material, they are going together. In spiritual is something material, and in material is something spiritual. And they are... Together they form harmony, and this harmony is the goal.

Prabhupāda: But he has no knowledge that although... Just like here is my leg, and here is my nail. Now when I cut the nail I don't feel, and as soon as you come little later, the skin, you feel pain. So they are one. But why there is no sensation, and why there is sensation? (French)

Yogeśvara: He doesn't understand the analogy. He doesn't understand the example, how that explains spiritual life as compared to material life.

Prabhupāda: Then why... How he will understand? Let me know. I will tell him. Let me know how he will understand.

Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany:

Professor Durckheim: Zero, yes. Well, zero from the point of view of the alter ego, but this zero is everything from the outside. From the point of view of the natural ego it's zero, but once you touch it, it's the plenitude, everything. But it's beyond something and everything, as far as I understand it.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is beyond. That beyond is realized, as I explained to you, in different angle of vision. Some, impersonal, without any variety, and some, localized Paramātmā, and some, the Supreme Being. As you are sitting, I am sitting, we are talking, so the Absolute Truth is a person, Supreme Person, Supreme Being, and we approach Him, talk with Him, sit with Him, play with Him. That is Kṛṣṇa realization. First of all, negation of the material varieties, then impersonal realization, then localized realization, then personal realization. Just like a diseased man. First of all cure, then healthy activities. A diseased man has got activities. He also eats, he also sleeps, he also evacuates, but all troublesome. Therefore, being disgusted, he wanted to make everything zero. But if he hears that again sleeping, again eating, again evacuating is healthy life, he thinks it is something like his diseased condition. But healthy life is different from diseased life. So some philosophers, they are trying to negate this diseased condition only, without any realization of healthy life. So I think Buddha philosophy is called nirvāṇa, negation of this diseased condition of life, pains and pleasure.

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

Prabhupāda: Hmm, no. Practically, we have very little suffering from disease. The devotees... We are spending so much money, but we don't spend for doctors' bill. You see?

Reverend Powell: Well, normal doctors, but now, we explain to our patients that the doctor normally works with the physical level, and the psychiatrist works with the emotional mental level, but the church works with the spiritual level. And just as Jesus...

Prabhupāda: Spiritual level means to cure his material disease.

Reverend Powell: Yes.

Prabhupāda: The material disease is birth, death, old age and disease.

Reverend Powell: I'm sorry. I don't quite follow that.

Satsvarūpa: He said the real disease is the material condition in which we have to suffer birth, death, disease and old age.

Reverend Powell: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So these things can be overcome by Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Reverend Powell: Umm... Yes, I see. On the point of reading... In this very interesting magazine and this...

Prabhupāda: You find out this verse of Bhagavad-gītā.

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

Bishop Kelly: Oh, yes. Your Grace, there is one thing I wish to ask you. Do you believe in some sort of universal but inherent deficiency in human nature, in other words, that man irrespective of his environment, irrespective of where he comes from, that he has, he is prone to evil? In the Catholic church we call that original sin. Original sin is an inherited deficiency in which man is turned away from God rather than turned towards God, and that he holds within himself a seed of failure in..., spiritually, and also a seed of unreliability so that the very makeup of man demands the enlightening touch and the helping hand of God so that he may overcome his inherent and abiding deficiency. So we hold that that is the nature of things, that man... It's not just a good thing or an advisable thing that man reaches out to and for God, but it is a necessary thing, that God not merely is there to improve upon what you might say would be a natural goodness of man, but man has a natural deficiency he needs God to overcome. And as he overcomes, of course, he progresses further and he is enriched by God. But we hold that very clearly.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is stated in one of the Vedic literature, that:

nitya-siddha kṛṣṇa-prema sādhya kabhu naya
śravaṇādi-śuddha-citte karaye udaya
(Cc. madhya 22.107)

The inherent principle is eternally a fact, his obedience to God. But artificially he has covered it, artificially. The God consciousness is there in everyone, but by so-called material advancement, he has forgotten. He has his obedience to God, natural. Even the aborigines in the forest, they also submit to the manifestation of God's different energies. As soon as there is some lightning and there is thunderbolt, they immediately... They offer obeisances. As soon as they see a big sea, ocean, they offer obeisances. So that is inherent. But due to the material association it is covered. And therefore Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says,

jaḍa-vidyā jato, māyāra vaibhava,

tomāra bhajane bādhā

The more we advance in so-called material, what is called, amenities, we forget God. We forget God. So the inherent, dormant, propensity is to become servant of God, but material association is checking him. Therefore if he... Just like now psychological treatment—a crazy fellow, he goes to the psychiatrist and he talks with him. Gradually, talking, talking, he cures him—similarly, these men who have forgotten or these living entity, if they associate with devotees and they constantly talk and hear about God, then again he revives his God consciousness. Yes. So we are, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement or any other... We open many centers, and we talk, we sell our literature. His lordship has seen our books? You can show some of the books.

Room Conversations -- September 10, 1974, Vrndavana:

Devotee (1): "Without envy"?

Prabhupāda: Yes. The whole world is envious, whole world. I am envious of you, you are envious of me. That Bhāgavata is not meant for such envious persons. Paramo nirmatsarāṇām (SB 1.1.2), those who are no more envious. How they will have a devotee envious? He loves Kṛṣṇa and in relationship with Kṛṣṇa loves everyone. In that position, in that state, one will not try to suppress another. Otherwise, it is material life. To live at the cost of others, to suppress one, to take other's money and become rich. There is story in the Aesop's Fable that—you perhaps know it—that a dog took the flesh in his mouth and was crossing a river, and the shadow was in the water. So he thought there is another dog with the flesh, so he wanted to..., he lost this, and that was a shadow. So he has got a flesh in his mouth, but he is an animal, it was deluded that "Another dog is carrying, so I shall take." So even in the cats and dogs, this tendency is there. Even the cats and dogs, they are also. So how can you stop it? That will be not stopped. They do not know. Therefore, these theories, they are simply theories; they are not practical. They do not know what is the nature, how nature is working.

daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī
mama māyā duratyayā
mām eva ye prapadyante
māyām etāṁ taranti te
(BG 7.14)

This material nature can be avoided only by one who is Kṛṣṇa conscious. Otherwise, it is not possible. That example is given by Rāmānanda Rāya. He is touching naked woman, washing, dressing, touching, because he is not in the material world. That is the example given by Caitanya Mahāprabhu. In the material world, as soon as you think of woman, you will be (indistinct). In the spiritual world, you can touch even a naked, beautiful, young woman but you will be (indistinct). That is the difference. Hṛd-rogaḥ kāmam.

vikrīḍitaṁ idaṁ ca viṣṇoḥ vraja-vadhūbhir
śraddhānvito 'nuśṛṇuyād atha varṇayed yaḥ
bhaktiṁ parāṁ (bhagavati) pratilabhya kāmaṁ
hṛd-rogam āśv apahinoty acireṇa dhīraḥ

Acireṇa dhīraḥ. So advanced spiritual life means he becomes dhīra. He is no more disturbed by these material laws, and he becomes free of all lusty desires. This is spiritual perfection. So long you have got lusty desires, any position immediately you will try to same way snatch (indistinct). Never satisfied. Hṛd-rogaḥ kāmam, that is the heart disease. It has been described as heart disease. Lusty desire within the heart. Just like one who has got heart disease, he succumbs to that disease, similarly, all these living entities they have succumbed—what is called, succumb?—by lusty desires. By spiritual advancement means that heart disease is cured. Then you will be... Then there is no more envious that "I shall become superior. I shall become Kṛṣṇa. I shall become God." These are different symptoms of the same material disease. Somebody is thinking "I shall become minister," somebody is thinking "I shall become leader," somebody is thinking "I shall become millionaire," and at last, "I shall become God." So even the so-called religionist, that heart disease is there. Bhukti-mukti-siddhi kāmī. Bhukti means ordinary karmīs want to enjoy in this material world. And mukti, they also want "I shall become God, I shall become one with God." That means "I shall become God." One with God means I'll become. Bhukti-mukti and siddhi. The yogis, they want to show some magic power and gain. Just like this rascal is doing, (indistinct) Baba. He has some yogic siddhi, so he has some (indistinct). Otherwise what is the attraction? He is a most wretched man, always he's smoking, and he sleeps too long, no regulation of life. But people are attracted because they have been captivated that "If I pay him one lakh, I shall get two lakhs." This is the propaganda. It is a..., what is called, gambling. You put one rupee, and if you are successful you will get four rupees. Siddhi. Because material world, they think "If I get more money, then it is perfection." Everywhere, the whole world is thinking-nationwise, individual—how to become. You will find in Europe the same propensity. Napoleon is trying to make Paris the most opulent city in Europe. Or Englishmen, Gladstone and others, they are trying to make England, London, most opulent city in the world. Similarly, czar was very accomplished. (indistinct) it is burst out into war. So we see the propensity. In Paris, the Place Concorde, so many beautiful buildings are there for museum, how they have conquered. In Rome, how they have conquered over Egypt, that pyramid they have brought.

Room Conversations -- September 10, 1974, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: Everything is there; simply we have to learn how to utilize it. Our Acyutānanda Swami has written that introduction, he's realizing (indistinct). This Kṛṣṇa consciousness means the life of realization, self-realization, what I am. As Sanātana Gosvāmī presented himself (indistinct), "What I am?" (break)

But if you remain diseased, then just like I have got this disease, no appetite. First-class things are being made—nothing is giving me any taste. Disease is there. Therefore, if you want to taste what is God, then you first of all try to cure your disease. Our disease, material disease is the lusty desire. Lusty desire is so strong that you will find it is existing amongst the so-called religionists performing religious rituals. But the same disease is there, that "If I execute the rituals, then I shall be promoted to the heavenly kingdom (indistinct)." Similarly, the so-called monist philosophers, meditation, this, that, the disease is there: "I shall become God." Similarly, the yogis, they can perform so many gymnastics, but the disease is there. The disease is cured when he is a devotee of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa-bhakta niṣkāma, ataeva 'śānta' (CC Madhya 19.149). By kṛṣṇa-bhakti, you cure the disease. Hṛd-rogaḥ kāmam apahinoty acireṇa dhīraḥ. This is the only... Unless you have cured your material disease, you have to remain in this material world in any form and fulfill your material desire. The ant is also trying and Lord Brahmā is also trying. Hṛd-rogam. (break) He cannot sit down peacefully. At any moment, (indistinct). Padaṁ padaṁ vipadām. The material world means in every step there is danger. Every step. However you step... (end)

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Psychiatrist -- February 22, 1975, Caracas:

Prabhupāda: The physical defect... Just like a driver of the car, and when his car is damaged, the driver becomes very sorry that "My car is now broken, damaged," but is the driver the carriage? Sometimes a valuable car is damaged and the proprietor or the driver, he becomes very sorry, almost half-dead, "Oh, my car is lost." So this is due to his too much attraction for the car. When the machine car stops (it) does not mean the driver is damaged. But he thinks, "Now, I am finished. My car is damaged." But although he is not the car, he thinks that he is damaged. So that is mental disease. He is different from the car, but he thinks that he is damaged by the damage of the car. And if he knows correctly, that "What is that? I will get another new car," what is the cause of suffering? The driver is not the car, but on account of his too much absorption, identifying the car with him, he suffers. So if the psychiatrist informs him that "Why you are sorry? You are not the car," then he is cured. So the modern civilization defect is that he is not this body, but he does not know it. Therefore, in the Vedic literature it is said, yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke: (SB 10.84.13) "Anyone is identifying himself with this body which is made of material element," yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu, "and in bodily relationship he is thinking his family is protector, his nation is protector, in this way, one who lives, he is no better than the animal." Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā... You find out this verse, aśocyān anvaśocas tvaṁ prajñā-vādāṁś ca bhāṣase.

Room Conversation with Psychiatrist -- February 22, 1975, Caracas:

Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He says that he has no objection philosophically to this position, and he understands our example very well.

Prabhupāda: No, this is not... Philosophy, of course... Philosophy is the science of science. This is scientifically true that we are not this body.

Hṛdayānanda: So I'll tell you what else he said. He said that even though we may not be this body, even though we should be looking for God, still, for example, he, as a doctor, if a patient comes to him and has, for example, say, some disease, he can, within twenty-four hours, cure the disease and stop the person's suffering. And he feels that even though he may be looking for God, that does not mean that he should let someone go on suffering if he can very easily stop it.

Prabhupāda: No, no, it is not I am talking of God. I am talking of the constitutional position of the living being. That is science. So just like the same example: the driver is different from the car, but when there is some defect in the car, we are not advising that don't take care of the car. But if you simply take care of the car and don't take care of the driver, that is the basic mistake of the civilization.

Room Conversation with Psychiatrist -- February 22, 1975, Caracas:

Prabhupāda: So then what is your program to take care of the driver?

Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He feels that there are different philosophies and different methods...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. There are different medical men and difficult diagnoses, but the urgent case is: cure the driver, and then car will go on nicely. Unfortunately, modern civilization, they do not know what is the driver. And how he will keep him sane? He does not know what is the driver? He thinks the car is automatically going on. Just like child. A child sees the car is going automatically, but that's not a fact. There is a driver. So if our vision is childish, how we can solve the problems of life? I talked with big, big professor, Kotovsky, in Moscow. He said, "There is no driver." This is a big professor, and he is teaching others. So if the leading men of the world, they think there is no driver, the body is automatically going, then what is the fate of the civilization? (break) No, there are, similarly, capitalists, communists, "this-ists," "that-ists." Full of these rascals. So how the human civilization can be without problems? The leaders are rascals. How we can expect that it will go on without problem?

Room Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- February 28, 1975, Atlanta:

Rūpānuga: So this book actually, is directed to scientifically-minded people because in this age people are getting educated. They are getting scientific-minded.

Prabhupāda: But that creating problem. The psychiatrists came to see me, where? Caracas. So I said—he admitted, both the psychiatrists—that "You are not treating the real person who is diseased." I gave him the example, that "You have got good car, but the driver is a madman, and he is creating disaster, and you psychiatrists are going to cure it. You never say that 'The driver is bad. Change him or just educate him. Then there will be no disaster.' But you are taking your fees and giving some repairing in the car. But you do not know what is the original cause of disaster. It is not chance. Due to the bad driver." So our propaganda is to give the bad driver nice knowledge so that he can drive the car to Vaikuṇṭha. That is our position. And these rascals, the materialists, they are simply painting the body of the car. And the driver? "Let him starve."

Interview -- March 5, 1975, New York:

Prabhupāda: I, I quite follow. That is your ignorance. Because you do not know that what is the real service. You do not know. Do you know what is real service?

Reporter: The answer should come from you and not from me.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The real service is... Suppose you open hospital. You can cure for the time being some disease, but can you give me, can you give him any assurance that he will not die? Can you protect him from death? In spite of your all big, big hospitals, can you protect humanity from death, from birth, from old age, from disease? Can you?

Reporter: Physically, of course not, only spiritually.

Prabhupāda: Ah. That we are giving. That we are giving you, that no more death, no more birth, no more old age, and no more disease.

Reporter: But couldn't your disciples perform all the wonderful things that you have them do and at the same time provide outer material service?

Prabhupāda: They are doing. They are doing. What they are not doing? They are doing all service. We have got this body. We have to maintain this body. We are doing everything. We are also eating, we are also sleeping, as you are eating, we are sleeping. Where is the difference? We also allow sex, but not illicit sex. We allow eating, but no meat-eating. That is the difference. We are also eating, as you are eating. We are sleeping, as you are sleeping. Where is the difference?

Room Conversation with Indian Guests -- March 13, 1975, Tehran:

Guest: Can the profit of the manufacture of something which is manufactured purely for profit be turned to good?

Prabhupāda: Yes, if he gives to Kṛṣṇa. Just like Arjuna. He fought. He killed. Killing is not good business, but he killed on the advice of Kṛṣṇa, and he became a bhakta by killing. Kṛṣṇa said, bhakto 'si. And what did he do? He killed, that's all. This is an example. Of course, bhakta never kills. Kṛṣṇa... Arjuna was not willing to kill. But when he saw that "Kṛṣṇa wants it, so this is my first business. Never mind I shall go to hell," that is Kṛṣṇa conscious. "By killing my brother I may go to hell. It doesn't matter. But Kṛṣṇa will be satisfied. That is my first business." Kṛṣṇa sometimes pretended to be sick. And many physicians came, they could not cure Him, headache. So He suggested that "I think if My devotee gives their dust of foot on My head, then I'll be cured." Then every devotee was approached that "Give your dust of feet. Kṛṣṇa wants it." Even Nārada. So Nārada said, "How it is possible I shall give my dust of feet to Kṛṣṇa? No, no, no, it is not possible." But when the person, messenger, approached gopīs in Vṛndāvana and they were informed that "Kṛṣṇa is sick. So He wanted the dust of feet of the devotee to be applied on His head. Nobody gave it. So we have come last to you," so immediately: "Yes, yes, take it, take it." Immediately. So so much dust was collected. And Kṛṣṇa was cured. So this is gopīs. Others thought that "If I give the dust of my feet to Kṛṣṇa, I may go to hell," but the gopīs thought, "Let us go to hell, but let Kṛṣṇa be cured." Therefore the gopīs are the first-class devotee. They do not care for themselves. That is recommended by Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Ramyā kācid upāsanā vraja-vadhū-vargabhir ya kalpitāḥ: "The process of worship as it was planned by the gopīs in Vṛndāvana, there is no comparison. That is the highest devotion." They did not care for themself. They simply wanted to satisfy Kṛṣṇa. When Kṛṣṇa was playing flute at dead of night, all the gopīs were flying to Kṛṣṇa. His father, his husband—"Where you are going in this dead of...? Where you are going?" They didn't care. Society, friendship, love—all sacrificed: "We shall go to Kṛṣṇa." This is kṛṣṇa-bhakti.

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

Young man: Yes, but one is egocentric... My egoism is very close to my body.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone says "I am." But the mistake is: he is thinking "I am this body." That... When one is in knowledge, he understands that "I am not this body; I am spirit soul." The "I am" is there. But "I am" is now falsely identified with this body. That has to be cured. Then spiritual knowledge begins.

Young man: When one is aware of that fact, that he is not the body?

Prabhupāda: As soon as he come into knowledge.

Young man: But can one be egoistic and be spiritual at the same time, I mean, be proud of himself, not as a body, but proud of his state of the spirit?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Now we are bodily busy. Because I am identifying with this body, therefore my misunderstanding is there. But if I understand I am not this body, then my activities will be different. So first of all, you have to understand that I am not this body. That is the beginning of spiritual education. (break) ...with this body, we remain an animal, because animal cannot understand that he is not body. Try to understand that you are not this body. And what is the difficulty? When a...?

Young man: The difficulty is that I fear that if this body leaves me I'll no longer be. That's the difficulty, because it's difficult for me to imagine that when my brain doesn't work, I can't live, if I can live when my brain stops functioning. That's the difficulty.

Prabhupāda: Difficulty is not there, but we have to understand from teacher. Just like the many subject of knowledge we do not understand in the beginning, but by hearing from the teacher, gradually we understand. So that teacher must be perfect, in full knowledge, and then we can understand from him. So we accept Kṛṣṇa. Because He is God, He is perfect. So we receive knowledge from Him, and that is Bhagavad-gītā. So knowledge from Kṛṣṇa or His pure servant, both of them are equal. They can give us that knowledge.

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

Indian man: You have to use the material, all the potential...

Prabhupāda: No. Atīndriya. You haven't got to use this material (break) ...enjoy the spiritual senses, one has to not only stop, but undergo tapasya, tapo divyam. Just like a man is diseased, he wants to eat, but due to the disease he cannot eat. So first of all, you have to cure the disease, then your eating will be a pleasure. And if you want to eat in the diseased condition, then the taste will not be proper; you cannot eat. A man suffering from jaundice, if you give him sugar candy, he will taste it bitter. The same man, when he is cured, he will taste the sugar candy as very sweet. Tapo divyaṁ yena putrakā śuddhyed sattvam (SB 5.5.1). You have to purify your existence by tapasya. And tapasya means stops material sense gratification. (Hindi) (Someone enters room) Ah, thank you. So you have translated in Parsi?

Dr. Movebhed: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So Bhagavad-gītā... Kṛṣṇa is speaking Bhagavad-gītā. What is the position of Kṛṣṇa? That you have mentioned?

Dr. Movebhed: I have to listen to you.

Morning Walk -- April 1, 1975, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The people won't accept any austerity.

Prabhupāda: Then you must suffer from the disease. If you have got disease, you must undergo the... What is this austerity? Where is the austerity?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: If they don't accept the medicine, then they can't be cured.

Prabhupāda: Then they must suffer. A man, diseased, and he doesn't want to take medicine, then where is the...? He must suffer. Where is the cure?

Pañcadraviḍa: They say we're the ones who are diseased.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Pañcadraviḍa: They say we are the ones who are diseased. They say, every one of us, we are diseased, not them.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The deaf man thinks all others deaf. (Laughter) That means they are not even human beings. Animals. They do not come to reason, that "Whether we are diseased, or you are diseased. Sit down. Talk." That also, they are not ready. Then? What we can do with animals?

Pañcadraviḍa: They say we are old-fashioned. They don't want to bother with us anymore.

Prabhupāda: Hm? Then why do you bother with the problems? Why do you bother with the problems of society? You bother, but you cannot make a solution. All over the world, the newspaper is full, simply throbbing.

Conversation with Devotees on Theology -- April 1, 1975, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: It is very difficult to convince them. (break) We may not keep the Christ in heart, but even you do not keep Christ by your dealings. You are simply disobeying the orders. Then how you can be a Christian?

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Jesus says that in Matthew. He says that "Many will come to me and say, 'Lord, Lord,' that 'We cured the sick in your name, and we cast out demons in your name,' " and Jesus said that "When they come I will say, 'Get away from me. I know you not, for you failed to do the will of my Father.' " Even though they're claiming to be Christians.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Prajāpati: Many times, Śrīla Prabhupāda, I've heard you say, when speaking to people, that "You don't have to give up your faith. You can remain a Christian or you can remain a Mohammedan. Simply chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, and you'll become purified." So the main point...

Prabhupāda: No, we say not only Hare Kṛṣṇa. "You chant the name of God. But if you have no name of God, then here is the name of God."

Morning Walk -- April 2, 1975, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Therefore, because you have no brain, therefore you cannot understand the rasas with Kṛṣṇa. That is spiritual; that is not material. Ānanda-rasa. Ananda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhiḥ (Bs. 5.37). That is the Vedic statement. There is cinmaya. In the spiritual world there is ananda. You... You have no knowledge. You, due to your poor fund of knowledge, you think that in the spiritual world there is no rasa; it is simply void, negation of this rasa. Just like a diseased man. He is practiced to drink bitter medicine and pass stool on the bed and so many inconveniences, so if some of his friends says, "When you'll be cured, you'll be able to pass stool in the lavatory. You haven't got to, haven't got to pass stool..." Then he shudders: "Again I have to pass stool after becoming cured? Again I have to eat? No, no, this is not good. Make it zero." He has no idea what is the meaning of passing stool in healthy stage. It refreshes the body. We get good energy. That he cannot conceive. He thinks that "If there is passing of stool again, then it must be the same suffering as I am undergoing now in this condition." So the Māyāvādī's idea of spiritual life means negation of these material activities. But they have no idea that similar activities are there in spiritual life, but that is not material. That is their poor fund of knowledge. Therefore we are... You are not understanding Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the rādhā-kṛṣṇa-praṇaya-vikṛtīv hlādinī-śaktir asmāt. That I am explaining for the last few days. That is not at all this material. So unless there is loving affair in the spiritual world, how here it is as perverted reflection? It is the reflection of the reality. The reality is there. That they cannot understand. That is also hinted in the Bhagavad-gītā, that "There is another feature, or another nature," paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyaḥ (BG 8.20), "which is sanātana, is eternal."

Morning Walk -- April 5, 1975, Mayapur:

Tripurāri: They say that our enjoyment is subtle sense gratification. We feel we're saving the world. Therefore we get some pleasure from that.

Prabhupāda: Yes. If you say sense gratification, senses are there, and senses want satisfaction, but you can know the proper way of satisfaction. That we are teaching. We do not say that "Make your senses blunt." But you enjoy properly. That is stated, tapo divyaṁ yena śuddhyet sattva hy asmad brahma-saukhyam anantam (SB 5.5.1). You are wanting sense gratification, but it is being checked up on account of your diseased condition of life. Therefore you purify yourself. Then you enjoy senses perpetually. This is the injunction. We are not stopping sense gratification. But you are trying to gratify senses in your diseased condition. Just like if you are feverish, you cannot enjoy to eat a rasagullā. It will be not tasteful. So cure yourself and enjoy rasagullā. That is our program.

Morning Walk -- April 7, 1975, Mayapur:

Devotee: But the devotees, they seem to be suffering too, from...

Prabhupāda: Yes, you cannot expect, if you are suffering from some disease, you cannot expect to be cured immediately. But one who is taking the medicine, he is intelligent. His sufferings will be gone. But these rascals, they will not take medicine even. They will continue to suffer. This is the position. Devotees actually do not suffer, but you see that he is suffering. Because you are suffering. Devotees do not suffer.

Madhudviṣa: What happens to them?

Prabhupāda: They enjoy. They enjoy. Hare Kṛṣṇa! How you are dancing always, Hare Kṛṣṇa, unless you are enjoying?

Madhudviṣa: Sometimes I get sick stomach too.

Prabhupāda: That's all right, because you have got this body. And after giving up this body, completely, blissful life. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). You are not going to get another body of suffering, that is your advantage. And these rascals, they are going to continue one body after another simply suffering. And for the devotees, although they do not suffer, it is just like, the fan is moving, you make the switch off. It is actually not moving, it is by the last force it is moving, but the switch is off. And it will stop, suffering. But you have no such chance, you will simply go on suffering, moving, moving, moving, bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). You shall have to accept one body, suffer, and again give up this body. Another body suffer, because so long as you accept material body, this body or that body, you will have to suffer. Material body means suffering. So those who are not Kṛṣṇa conscious, they will change bodies one after another, and continue to suffer threefold miseries. And devotees, actually they are not suffering, but even if you say they are suffering, so after giving up this body, they are no more accepting material body. They will remain in spiritual body.

Morning Walk -- April 7, 1975, Mayapur:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Why did God arrange for the pleasures of sense gratification if He wants us to go back to home, back to Godhead?

Prabhupāda: Yes, senses are meant for enjoyment. But if you want to enjoy your senses in diseased condition, that is your misfortune. You have to cure your disease, then you will enjoy. Just like the tongue, in diseased condition, even if you are given rasagullā, you will not taste it. Senses, we are not the Māyāvādīs, they finish the senses, make, become impersonal. That is not our program. We want to purify the senses. Sarvopādhi vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam (CC Madhya 19.170). Purīfy. The diseased man, he cannot see. He has got some glaucoma disease. Cure it, and he will see very nicely. That is our program. The Māyāvādī program is that if this eye is giving trouble, I cannot see, pluck it out. We are not doing that, we are trying to cure the disease and see. So senses should be cured, and then you will be able to enjoy. That is our program. We are not stopping sense enjoyment; we are trying to give you real sense enjoyment.

Morning Walk -- April 7, 1975, Mayapur:

Brahmānanda: How do we give knowledge to the common masses of people?

Prabhupāda: Yes, by saṅkīrtana. By hearing, hearing, hearing—this is a medicinal process—the heart will be cleansed and they will take up the knowledge. Now the heart is unclean, so he cannot take up. So this is the medicine. Kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā. Harer nāma harer... (CC Adi 17.21). Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra wherever possible, and whoever will hear, he will gradually become cleansed. Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam (CC Antya 20.12). And then bhava-mahā-dāvāgni... Then his material pangs will be over. This is the only medicine. Therefore chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Some way or other, let them have the chance of hearing, and then it will act as medicine. Even he does not will, you chant, you let him hear by force, and he will be cured.

Satsvarūpa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, sometimes you say only a very small percentage can take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Satsvarūpa: But yesterday morning in your lecture you were saying it can expand to ten thousand, million, or ten million.

Prabhupāda: Yes, if you take the proper way it can be increased.

Conversation with Devotees -- April 14, 1975, Hyderabad:

Devotee: Well, at the atomic research plants...

Prabhupāda: Oh, that is another foolishness, I say. You have not done it. You are simply expecting. Hope against hope. That's all.

Devotee: But they are making different cures for critical diseases that are causing deaths...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But that does not mean there will be no disease. That is already being done by many medical practitioners. Better medicine. But where is the medicine that will not be disease.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Gradually we are eliminating one by one all the diseases.

Prabhupāda: No, that you have not done. No disease... You have increased diseases. You have stopped one disease and increased another. Not stopped! But you have increased another disease.

Devotee: We have to learn though how to prevent all these diseases.

Prabhupāda: Therefore you are fool. You have to learn. That means you have to learn, means you are fool.

Yaśodānandana: But we are learning.

Prabhupāda: Don't assert it, that you have done it already, you shall do it... As soon as you say we have to learn, that means you are fools. And while you are student, why you are claiming all these perfections? You have to learn. That you have to learn from us.

Conversation with Devotees -- April 14, 1975, Hyderabad:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Your students also suffer from diseases and all...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. So long the body's there, one has to suffer. That we tolerate. That is advised in the Bhagavad-gītā,

mātrā sparśās tu kaunteya
śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ
āgamāpāyino nityās
tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata
(BG 2.14)

Titikṣa, we know how to tolerate. We are not mad after curing. We know these things will happen so long I have got this body.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So your difference is that you tolerate, whereas the scientists don't.

Prabhupāda: Because we know that there is no cure. You do not know. You are trying to cure. That is the difference between you and me. We know so long I have got this body, I'll have to suffer. So we do not stop our business. We tolerate and do our business. That's all. But you have no business. You are simply trying, hope against hope. But it will never be fulfilled. Just like birds, bees, they do not know science. But so long they have got this body, they are also sometimes diseased. But they have no science, how they are cured? The same thing, just like this tree, they have no scissors, so how their leaves are being trimmed, falling down, (indistinct). We have discovered scissors, or clippers, but you have no clippers. How their hairs, or their leaves are being cut?

Devotee: Prabhupāda, according to archeological findings primitive man, before, when they would get some disease they would just die. And now modern science has developed so nicely...

Prabhupāda: That is there. And who is not dying now?

Morning Walk -- April 23, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Ācchā?

Guest: One restaurant near Metro was serving that type. And one man suffering from leprosy was given only about one month to live, and "If you want to enjoy, you enjoy. But if you want to get cured, you have to eat human flesh." "I don't eat human flesh." So he started eating anywhere. And he liked one place very much, and he started eating for one month at that particular place. And eventually he was cured. Then a police report was found out that they were serving human flesh by inviting very poor people from the South India for washing the dishes at night, giving five rupees. When they come, they kill him and serve in the morning.

Prabhupāda: That was being done long, long ago in a Chinese house in Calcutta. They'd call hawker.

Guest: Hawker. And kill him up.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest: It is a very confidential report. The government will not publish it. (break)

Prabhupāda: Supply large quantity of milk? No.

Guest: No, that milk is medicinally used for whooping cough. Anybody suffering from whooping cough, they have to take this camel's milk. And any children who do not increase their height, they are given this milk in winter. So height is automatically increased. They become like camel eventually. (laughter) Tall, I mean. I don't mean the..., in Western way. According to Āyurvedic principle, every animal have got a particular method of curing particular disease.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- April 23, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest: Now, Sitalamata, she is always traveling on a she-ass. Now she-ass's milk is very good for smallpox. If you take one spoon every day for three days in a year, one does not get an attack of smallpox. Very simple. Ideologically...

Prabhupāda: Her carrier is ass.

Guest: Ass, and it's a cure. And I've got a small idol of...

Prabhupāda: And the carrier of Ganeṣaji...

Guest: Is mouse.

Prabhupāda: Mouse. So, you have to eat that also, to get success?

Guest: No, no, not success but intelligence, I think.

Prabhupāda: No, Ganeṣaji is meant for giving you success.

Guest: Correct.

Prabhupāda: So, then you have to eat rat?

Guest: No, not rat. Milk. We are talking about milk product only.

Prabhupāda: So, milk of the rat?

Guest: If the scientist can extract it, then well and good. Because a very such small mouse.

Prabhupāda: But they must have milk. Every lady animal has got milk.

Room Conversation with Kim Cornish -- May 8, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Not perhaps. There is no question of perhaps. We want to speak factually.

Kim: But Patañjali says that siddhis, powers, can be produced by drugs, so perhaps...

Prabhupāda: Drugs are meant for medicinal purposes, not for drinking or taking generally. Every herb, every vegetable, is a drug meant for curing a particular disease. This is nature's gift. Just like if you cut your finger, you take little grass and take a little juice and apply it. It will act as tincturizing, immediately. They are meant for this purpose. These vegetable, drugs, are meant for when you are sick or disturbed, you can utilize. Not for intoxication. Just like opium. If you have severe type of dysentery, diarrhea, a little opium it will immediately cure. But opium is not meant for using as an intoxication. There is use of opium. Morphia, opium, they have got use at a certain time, not for using it for intoxication. That is foolish.

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

Prabhupāda: It is said, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto. Think of God. So we are doing this. Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa—we are thinking of Kṛṣṇa. THe direction is there, and we are doing that. Therefore my action is perfect. If the physician says that you take this medicine in such and such dose, you don't do this, and do this. If I follow, then I'm cured, perfect.

Carol: Does a man then stop judging his actions?

Prabhupāda: No, if I know that the knowledge which I am receiving from the person is perfect, then there is no question of judging. You simply follow.

Carol: So it's a matter of complete faith.

Prabhupāda: Just like a child. Child assumes that my father is perfect. So, actually a father should be perfect at least for the child. So whatever the father, mother, gives him knowledge, that is perfect. Father says, "My dear child, this is called 'table.' " The child does not know what is table, but he understand from his father. He says, "This is table." So when the child says it is table, it is fact. This is perfect. He may be imperfect, his child, but because he is repeating the perfect knowledge of his father, whatever he is speaking is perfect. Because he has received the knowledge. Actually the child inquires from the father, "Father, what is this?" Father smiles at child, "This is called bell. If you push your hand in this." Then you get the perfect knowledge. He tries it. Oh, it is coming. The knowledge is there. He may be imperfect, but the instruction he has received, that is perfect. Similarly, if you get instruction from the perfect, then your knowledge is perfect, and if you receive knowledge—just like anthropology—from an imperfect person, Darwin, then whole thing is imperfect. So why should we waste our time in imperfect knowledge?

Carol: Because there are few people around us who think they are perfect.

Morning Walk -- May 11, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: That is tapasya, that voluntarily we accept some inconvenience. That is called tapasya. Tapasā brahmacaryena (SB 6.1.13). The tapasa means first brahmacarya, how to avoid sex desire. That is the first tapasa. Tapasā brahmacaryena samena vā, yamena niyamena vā, damena tyāgena satya-śaucābhyām (SB 6.1.13). The steps are there. So tapasā, tapasā... Tapasya means first brahmacarya, how to restrain this sex desire. That is first step. Where is their tapasya? "It is very difficult to do this tapasya. Oh." Therefore Caitanya Mahāprabhu has given harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21). If you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra regularly, you'll be cured. Otherwise, regular tapasya is almost impossible nowadays.

Paramahaṁsa: Is there a stage after a person becomes completely purified...?

Prabhupāda: The students, they are going to school, college, and they are talking of sex. Where is tapasya? How it is possible? So therefore bhakti-yoga is the only way of spiritual improvement in this age—all age, especially in this age. No other method will help you-yoga, karma, jñāna, nothing. Bhakti-yoga is always strong, especially in this age, Kali-yuga. Therefore it is said, kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva, especially. Harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam, kalau nāsty eva... (CC Adi 17.21). This is the simplest. But people do not know what is the ultimate goal of life. They are so much in ignorance. They do not know what is spiritual life, what is ultimate goal. Simply like cats and dogs. The dog jumps over with four legs, and if a man can jump over with four wheels, then that is advance. Just see. They think, "Now we are advanced. We have got four-wheel car to jump over. And the dog is jumping with legs. Therefore this is advanced." They do not know this is also the same dog's business. They do not know it. (break) ...again they have made this car, coming from miles away, but the business is fishing. Just see. Bambhārambhe laghu-kriyā. "Advancement of civilization, we have got car, we are nicely dressed, we are human being, ev..." But what is your business? Fishing. Bambhārambhe... Ārambha, gorgeous arrangement—the business is the same. The skylark, what is called? Skylark? These birds?

Room Coversation with Psychiatrist and Indian Boy -- May 12, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: So, everyone is attracted with the woman's body. In your country I have seen the advertisement: "bottomless," "topless..." That is the material attraction. Everyone is in this material world on account of attachment. And similarly, for woman, the man's body is beautiful. So in this way both of them are attached to one another. That is the basic principle of material life. Yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham kaṇḍūyanena karayor iva duḥkha-duḥkham (SB 7.9.45). They become attached. On account of sex life, they become more attached, and therefore both of them remain almost perpetually in this material world, and to satisfy different desires they transmigrate from one body to another. And on account of accepting this material body, there is always miserable condition. Therefore everyone requires the psychiatric treatment so that the mind may be transferred from matter to spirit soul. Then he will be cured. The disease is of the mind. Harāv abhaktasy kuto mahād-guṇa mano-rathena. Everyone is riding on the chariot of mind. And the mind is taking him here and there, here... And the yoga practice is also treatment. This is also yoga, bhakti-yoga, and this ordinary haṭha-yoga, that is also treatment of the mind. Treatment of mind means controlling the senses. Yoga indriya-samyamaḥ. Mind is the leader of the senses. So if the treatment of the mind is done properly, then the senses work properly. The example is the madman. Because the madman's mind is not controlled, he is acting in a way—people say, "Here is a madman." So everyone is more or less a madman in this material world, or, in other words, you can say anyone who is in the material world, he is a madman. He requires treatment. Just like anyone who is in the prison house, it is to be accepted that he is a criminal. Without any study, without any exception we can accept all the prisoners as criminals. (break) ...gradually appreciate. Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ (CC Antya 20.12). This treatment is in the beginning just cleansing the mirror of the heart. That is the treatment. Just like a mirror, when it is overcast with dust, it requires cleansing. So the mental mirror is covered with material dust. So it has to be cleansed. That is the treatment. And when it is cleansed, you can see your real face in the mirror. Similarly, as soon as our heart disease, contaminated by the modes of material nature, is cleansed, you can understand what is your real position. That is the success of psychiatric treatment. One comes to know, "What I am." Ahaṁ brahmāsmi: "I am spirit soul; I am not this body." That is called brahma-bhūtaḥ stage. Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā (BG 18.54). He becomes immediately happy. And happiness means na śocati na kāṅkṣati: "He does not lament, neither he desires." Our present disease is we hanker after things which we do not possess, and when that thing is lost, we lament. So hankering and lamenting. So when one is cleansed in the heart, he has no more hankering or desire. This is the symptom. And samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu: "Then he becomes equal to everyone." Everyone means every living being, man and animal, trees, plants, lower or higher. Paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (BG 5.18). Then he enters into the sphere of devotional service. This is the symptom. Then he is perfectly in his original position. Then he is happy. Just like a diseased man. So long the disease is there, he is unhappy. And as soon as the disease is cured, he will be happy. So this material disease, as soon as it is cured, one becomes happy, because he is, by constitution, spiritual being. People have no knowledge even, his..., even about his spiritual identity. Therefore they are unhappy. So if you forget what you have written, then?

Morning Walk -- May 13, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Nescience, yes. That is pravṛtti and nivṛtti. Pravṛtti means sense enjoyment. And nivṛtti means self-negation. So when we say that "You shall not have illicit sex," and their inclination is illicit sex, so therefore it is revolutionary. They are materialistic persons. They want sex enjoyment to the best capacity-homosex, this sex, that sex, naked dance, all sexually inclined, pravṛtti. And we say, "Stop this," nivṛtti. They do not like it because āsura. Pravṛtti jagat. They do not know this is essential. They do not know it. This is essential. Tapasā brahmacaryena (SB 6.1.13). Tapasya means brahmacarya. The so-called swamis, they are coming for this so-called yoga practice and..., but they are themself victim of sex. This is going on. Actually, it is a bluff—they have become swami and teaching some yoga system—because they do not know that one has to stop this first of all. Brahmacaryena. So this bluffing is going on all over the world, and we are speaking just against them. Murkhayopadeśo hi prakopāya na śāntaye. If you give instruction to the rascals, he will simply be angry. He will not take advantage of it. This is our position. All the so-called professors, philosophers, they are all in the pravṛtti-mārga. Therefore they are bringing somebody, "Our interpretation is like this." Pravṛtti-mārga. Because if they can find out some support from the śāstra, then they think, "We are secure." This is going on. Pravṛttim ca nivṛttim janā na vidur āsurāḥ. The whole world is full of asuras, descendant of Hiraṇyakaśipu, and it is very difficult. But if we give them chance to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, gradually they will understand. (pause) Our difficulty: the so-called swamis, priests, popes, they are also in the pravṛtti-mārga. All these, priests, and they have illicit sex. Pravṛtti-mārga. So they are passing, "Yes, you can have homosex with man." They are getting man-to-man marriage. You know? They are performing the marriage ceremony between man to man in the open church. What class of men they are? And they are priest. Just see. Such degraded persons, drinking... They have got hospital for curing their drinking disease. Five thousand patients in a hospital in America, all drunkards, and they are priest. Just see. Simply by dressing long, what is called, overcoat?

Śrutakīrti: Cloak.

Morning Walk -- May 14, 1975, Perth:

Devotee (1): Śrīla Prabhupāda, how can the position be reconciled if in Kṛṣṇa consciousness one of the two, the husband or the wife, wants to enjoy sense gratification, but the other does not? Should there be separation then?

Prabhupāda: No... They should be trained up. Sense enjoyment means not advanced in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. As soon as one is advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, his sense enjoyment spirit will be reduced. That is the test. Bhaktiḥ pareśānubhavo viraktir anyatra ca (SB 11.2.42). The test is, how you are advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the proportionate diminishing of sense enjoyment. That is the test. Just like cure of the disease means diminishing the fever, temperature. This is the test.

Devotee (1): What if that fever is not being diminished?

Prabhupāda: Then he should try to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, instead of sixteen rounds, sixty-four rounds. That is the way. Sixteen round is the minimum. Otherwise Haridāsa Ṭhākura was 300,000. So you have to increase. That is the only remedy. If one has got determination, he will make progress without any trouble. That determination is very difficult, that determination, "I must be Kṛṣṇa conscious fully." That determination. Dṛḍha-vratāḥ. So they have asked to the central government, federal government, help?

Paramahaṁsa: In New York? Yes, they asked from the President, President Ford.

Prabhupāda: That is federal government.

Room Conversation with Ganesa dasa's Mother and Sister -- May 14, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Inevitable, but you can avoid it. That we are giving. That is the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, that you can avoid this problem: birth, death, old age, and disease. That is our propaganda.

Mother: But you'll always have disease and you'll always have old age.

Prabhupāda: Yes, but just like you are diseased, so all the problems are there. But when you become cured of the disease, then there is no more problem. Similarly, the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means training people how to go back to home, back to Godhead. And as soon as he is educated to go back to home, back to Godhead, then all problems solved. Find out this verse,

janma karma ca me divyaṁ
yo jānāti tattvataḥ
tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma
naiti mām eti kaunteya
(BG 4.9)

Gaṇeśa:

janma karma ca me divyaṁ
evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ
tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma
naiti mām eti so 'rjuna
(BG 4.9)

Translation. "One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna."

Prabhupāda: This is the solution of the real problem, that after... If you understand Kṛṣṇa, then after giving up this body, you don't accept another material body. And in the material existence the problems are not solved because you have to, after death, you have to accept another material body. And as soon as you accept a material body, the sufferings are there, at least these four sufferings: birth, death, old age, and disease. So it continues. If you take the body of a human being, the birth, death, old age, disease are there. If you take the body of a heavenly demigod, the birth, death, old age, and disease are there. Or if you take the body of a dog, the birth, death, old age, disease are there. So any kind of birth, material body, you have to accept these four problems. And there are many other problems. But if you stop accepting a material body, then these things are finished. So we are training people, simply janma karma ca me divyam (BG 4.9).

Morning Walk -- May 15, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: By our technological inventions we can make a heater that makes the coldness...

Prabhupāda: But the heater is not curing the suffering.

Amogha: But it makes us warm.

Prabhupāda: But a heater, how many men will get heater?

Amogha: Well, we can make them cheaply so that practically everyone...

Prabhupāda: You can, but you do not, neither you can.

Amogha: But in this country everyone, all these houses have heaters.

Prabhupāda: In the... Why do you take in this country? Why not other country?

Amogha: Well, so many countries.

Prabhupāda: Where? That is simply bluff. You cannot do it. Cannot do it. Suffering must be there.

Paramahaṁsa: Well, we accept the suffering is there, but we will still try to reduce it. That's all.

Prabhupāda: Reduce...

Paramahaṁsa: By inventing so many things.

Prabhupāda: That is another bluffing. You have already invented so many things. Where is the reduction of suffering?

Amogha: Well, there are less diseases, we are finding so many cures now that...

Prabhupāda: I don't find less diseases. You are increasing hospitals.

Morning Walk -- May 15, 1975, Perth:

Paramahaṁsa: They can suffer in a nice warm hospital...

Prabhupāda: So you are increasing this cancer. Very comfortable at home, but there is cancer.

Paramahaṁsa: But now we have almost got the cure.

Prabhupāda: You have, all right. My point is that you have so many things, but the suffering is going on. That is my point. You increase your means of diminishing suffering, but they are coming in a different way. So the sufferings cannot be stopped. That is not possible. This is the conclusion.

Śrutakīrti: But we're learning how to enjoy even the suffering, make the best of it.

Paramahaṁsa: Best use of a bad bargain.

Prabhupāda: That is another bluff. That is another bluff. But then don't say that "We shall stop suffering." You can say that...

Amogha: No, we don't say we can stop it, but we can almost stop it.

Śrutakīrti: Minimize.

Prabhupāda: Not minimize. If you are increasing hospital, where is the minimizing? Every state is increasing hospitals.

Room Conversation with Alcohol and Drug Hospital People -- May 16, 1975, Perth:

Paramahaṁsa: ...to solve the problem of drug and alcohol addiction and, of course, they're concerned with the causes of it and things like that.

Prabhupāda: So you can send all these alcohol and drug patients here and they will be cured. These boys, American and European boys, they were all addicted to alcohol, drugs. Now they have given up. Practical.

Guest (1): In what way would they cure?

Prabhupāda: Simply I say that "If you want to be my student, then you must give up four things: illicit sex, meat-eating, intoxication, and gambling." This is my condition. So they give up, and they become my student.

Guest (2): Do they suffer withdrawal symptoms?

Paramahaṁsa: He says, "Do they suffer withdrawal symptoms?" Sometimes when a patient is giving up alcohol or drugs, he goes through various symptoms which are painful.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. That should be... But unless... Find out this, paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate. Rasa-varjaṁ raso 'py asya paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (BG 2.59).

Room Conversation with Alcohol and Drug Hospital People -- May 16, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Polygamy means if it is married. Just like in the Vedic society they used to marry many wives. Just like Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa had sixteen thousand wives. And He maintained them sixteen thousand palaces. And He expanded Himself into sixteen thousand Kṛṣṇas. So that is a different thing; He is God. But if you can maintain each and every wife, you can marry more than one wife. But if you are unable to maintain, that is illicit. All the kṣatriya kings, they used to marry more than one wife. Still in India, the kṣatriyas, kings, they have more than one wife. But they maintain very nicely.

Guest (2): But your method of curing drug addiction has no definite practical use, surely.

Prabhupāda: Why not practical?

Guest (2): Not everyone who wants to stop taking drugs can spend six months in solitude or in a company like yours.

Paramahaṁsa: He says he finds it not practical because not everyone who is addicted to drugs can spend six months in a temple with us.

Prabhupāda: They are spending years. They are all European, Americans. They are not Indians. We have got here... You go to Melbourne. We have got big branch. In Sydney we have got. In Europe. They are doing that. It requires training, proper training. Then it will be done.

Room Conversation with Alcohol and Drug Hospital People -- May 16, 1975, Perth:

Guest (3): Yes, the origin of everything. But why is it necessary for man to have to discover? I mean, man discovered the cure for poliomyelitis.

Prabhupāda: Why man discovers?

Guest (3): Yes, well, I'm using it as an example.

Prabhupāda: But he... Just like... It is not the question of discover, but because you are existing, you must have come from a father. That is science. It is not the question of finding out a father. Without father, there is no existence of you. It is not the question of finding out a father. Father must be there. This is science. Without father, is there any existence of any man or any animal? What your science says? Is it possible that anyone is existing without a father? What do you think?

Guest (4): I was just wondering, um, do you believe in...

Prabhupāda: Who is there independently existing without having a father? What is that science?

Guest (2): It's not necessarily in the science itself...

Prabhupāda: No, no, this is a sign, that if there is a man, he must have a father. This is science. So what is your opinion about this science?

Guest (1): I see it as a straight, deductive logic. If there is a...

Prabhupāda: ...son, there must be father. That is science.

Morning Walk -- May 21, 1975, Melbourne:

Madhudviṣa: Yes, but there is some traditional respect. (break) When you were speaking with the priest yesterday, he was saying the chanting is material because it comes out of the mouth and it's made like a material sound vibration. Would it be possible for them to run scientific tests on the chanting, the sound of Hare Kṛṣṇa, to make a distinction between that sound and let's say the sound of an automobile's horn? Would that be perceptible?

Prabhupāda: No, the same sound. Sound is the same; when you are impure, this is material. Just like the tongue is the same, but when you are suffering from jaundice, you are tasting sugar as bitter, and when you will be cured, then the same tongue will taste it is sweet. So it depends on the purification of the body. Whole this bhakti-yoga or any yoga, the whole system is purification. Tapo divyaṁ yena śuddhyet sattvam (SB 5.5.1). Our existence is now impure. Therefore we have to accept birth, death, old age, and disease. And when it is purified, without any contamination, then there is no birth, death, old age. In diseased condition you cannot relish. Even if you are given actually rasagullā you will not taste it very nice. If there is no appetite, even it is rasagullā, it is useless. Spiritual life means curing the contamination of material disease. That is spiritual life. And when you are purified, you relish the spiritual taste.

Room Conversation with Director of Research of the Dept. of Social Welfare -- May 21, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Just to help you in your social activities, social welfare activities. To take some suggestion from us. But when we give the suggestion, you reject it. That is your position. You have come here to take some suggestion so that you can make your activities very nice, but when we suggest you reject it.

Director: I'm two people—I'm myself and I'm a public servant.

Prabhupāda: Any, anyone. That is the position. For treatment we go to a physician, and the physician prescribes medicine, you reject it. So how you will be cured? That is the position. When the prescription is given you want to put it in the votes of other patients. What the patient will know about the prescription? They are patients. There is no question of...

Director: If I would come here and want to join your movement I would accept it.

Prabhupāda: No, you join or not join, you have come here to consult us if we can help your activities. But when we prescribe, you do not accept it. That is your position.

Devotee: He has to go now, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Give him prasāda, just... So, to, actually to make the whole human society happy, this God consciousness movement must spread.

Room Conversation with Director of Research of the Dept. of Social Welfare -- May 21, 1975, Melbourne:

Devotee: That's the cause of this whole problem.

Prabhupāda: Yes, the welfare department is for that purpose only.

Devotee: And he's the head of the department.

Prabhupāda: He also does the same thing. He does not know how to cure it.

Devotee: He said that "I could not live without illicit sex life."

Prabhupāda: Yes. Mostly the bachelor daddy. They pose themself as bachelor, but they are having at least three times sex with contraceptive method, you see. This is going on. And they are accepted as standard. And if you want to reform it, then it is (indistinct). The whole basic wrong is they have become godless animals, that's all. The only method is this Kṛṣṇa consciousness. There is no other second method. Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇāḥ. You cannot raise anybody to high qualities unless he is Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is a subtle fact. And example is there. Because some of them have taken to Kṛṣṇa conscious they are ideal. All others, what is the value? He is a leader, and he says, "Yes, illicit sex is all right. We are enjoying by contraceptive method." If the leaders do something wrong, the others will follow. (to devotee:) I think you should continue as a gṛhastha for the time being.

Morning Walk -- May 22, 1975, Melbourne:

Madhudviṣa: Isn't nature material?

Prabhupāda: Yes, material nature, yes.

Madhudviṣa: So how is material forcing something spiritual?

Prabhupāda: You have voluntarily accept her supremacy. Just like you have accepted some disease. So disease is forcing you. And if you cure, then it will not be able to force you. You infect some disease. Then you become forced by the disease to accept the miseries. But if you are not diseased, there is no question of force. If you become criminal, the police forces you. And if you are not criminal you have no business with the police. It is like this. Police control, controller—the controlling power upon me comes when I am criminal. Otherwise why police will control me? Therefore I voluntarily accept the control of police by my criminal desires. That is going on. That is material life.

Madhudviṣa: But would that mean that a person who is a pure devotee doesn't have to die?

Prabhupāda: No, die... Pure or nonpure, nobody dies.

Madhudviṣa: Though his material body dies.

Prabhupāda: Yes. But a pure devotee goes back to home. There is no more material body. That is the... So we are advocating that you come to this stage where you will not to have accept this material body. Then you are really happy. And if you want to enjoy the flickering, illusory māyā, then you are subjected to the māyā. You are enjoying as American. Then you enjoy as a dog. That is māyā's control. But if you don't enjoy material things then you become purified. You come to the eternal life, back to home, back to Godhead. But they are not willing to give up this material enjoyment. That is the defect. So it requires education. It requires knowledge. It requires training.

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1975, Honolulu:

Harikeśa: Well they haven't found it yet.

Prabhupāda: Well, that's it still they are talking of chemical... They did not find what is the original cause; still, they are suggesting this is the cause.

Harikeśa: Because they are finding so many cures to diseases, they are trying now...

Prabhupāda: What the disease? What they have...? Have they found any cure for the cancer?

Siddha-svarūpa: Cancer?

Harikeśa: For certain diseases they are...

Prabhupāda: Certain diseases. Then we are calling of disease.

Ambarīṣa: There's always new diseases though.

Siddha-svarūpa: That's the whole thing. Like cancer is a new disease.

Ambarīṣa: For every old disease they find a cure for, there are..., a new disease.

Prabhupāda: No cure. They simply find out... They say, "It is better medicine," but it is not cured. What disease they have cured? What... Name particular disease, "This disease is cured."

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: That is all right. It is due to poverty, uncleanliness. So that is known to everyone. The smallpox takes place amongst the poorer class, unclean class. In India also, that is there. No gentleman's house, there is smallpox. Only these lower class, unclean.

Siddha-svarūpa: Where there's no facility for sanitation...

Prabhupāda: If you remain unclean, all diseases will come. Where is the cure?

Harikeśa: They also have this thing where they're freezing bodies just before they die.

Prabhupāda: That is another nonsense.

Harikeśa: Later on, they will unthaw them...

Prabhupāda: Later on.

Harikeśa: ...when they find the cure and cure it.

Siddha-svarūpa: They promised that man? (laughs) So they are doing good for that person?

Prabhupāda: Everything, "Later on. Wait. Take this post-dated check." "And where is money, sir?" "Wait. You have got the check. That's all right."

Garden Conversation with Dr. Gerson and devotees -- June 22, 1975, Los Angeles:

Bahulāśva: Not just reading the books but there also must be chanting and following the regulative principles.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Then you will turn your America as Vaikuṇṭha. And that is your duty, to save your countrymen. I think the America is... The people were pious in their past life. They have got this opulent position. Now they should use this opulent position. They have no poverty. They haven't got to work so hard, and they take advantage of this knowledge. Other countries, they are poor. They are busy how to earn their livelihood. But your country, because you are favored on account of your previous pious activities, you should utilize this position. People are embarrassed for improving their economic condition in other countries. Of course, if one is cultured, he is not embarrassed in any condition of life. But without Kṛṣṇa culture, poverty-stricken people, they are very much hampered. So you have no such problem. Therefore you can utilize your position, this opulent position, for advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. As a learned scholar you should advocate this cause. Why should you waste your time in sense gratification? That is being done by the cats and dogs and hogs. Why this life? That is also... We have described in the Fifth Canto, nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye (SB 5.5.1). For simply to satisfy the senses, why you should make such a gorgeous program for working? The sense gratification is enjoyed even by the hogs, the stool-eater. This particular animal is mentioned because they are gratifying senses without any discrimination. You will find the hogs eating stool, and they are with mothers and sister and have sex life, that's all. They have no discrimination. So this kind of sense gratification is there in the hog's life. So are the human beings to imitate the hog's life? This is the question. So they are imitating the hog's life, all the human being. This is the defect. Kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye (SB 5.5.1). Working so hard day and night, and only sex, that's all. This is life's enjoyment? This is a hog's life. And what else they have got happiness? We challenge them, "Except this happiness of sex, what other happiness you have got?" There is no answer. So this is being done by the hogs. Whole day and night they are searching after, "Where is stool? Where is stool? Where is stool?" And as soon he gets the stool and they have sex, that's all. Is that civilization, hog's life? And what is civilization? That is tapo divyam: "Just undergo austerities for realizing God." That is civilization. Work very hard similarly, but for Kṛṣṇa and not for imitating the hogs. Now, why I should be interested in for God realization? Yes, you should be. You must be. Why? Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyed sattva: (SB 5.5.1) "By becoming Kṛṣṇa consciousness, your existentional constitution will be purified." What is that purification? Purīfication means because you are now impure, you are subjected to birth, death, old age, and disease. Therefore you require treatment to cure this disease. Yasmād brahma-saukhyaṁ anantam. And if you cure this disease, then—you are after happiness—you will get transcendental bliss and enjoy it eternally. This is human life. Everything is discussed in the Bhāgavata, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyed sattva yasmād brahma-saukhyaṁ anantam (SB 5.5.1). Anantam means unlimited. You are searching after happiness, but this is limited. Even if you enjoy sex life, that is also limited for a few moments. But anantam. That is... You will enjoy it eternally. Just Kṛṣṇa is dancing with the gopīs. He is enjoying eternally. So you can join with Him. That information we are giving. Just imagine what a valuable service we are rendering. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyed sattva (SB 5.5.1). Your existence is impure. Therefore you are undergoing the tribulation of birth, death, old age, and disease. But they are not making any research how to stop. Nobody wants to die. Why he is dying? Where is the solution? Can the psychologists give any solution, that "You think in this way"? No. That we are giving: "Think of Kṛṣṇa and you will become free."

Morning Walk -- June 28, 1975, Denver:

Prabhupāda: Oh. (break)

Brahmānanda: ...hospital is more expensive?

Kuruśreṣṭha: All, in this area, doctors and high class, so-called high class men live.

Prabhupāda: The real doctor is he who can cure material disease. What do you think?

Satsvarūpa: You said Murāri Gupta was a doctor in both ways.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Satsvarūpa: (break) Prabhupāda, yesterday one of the library parties visited this Maharishi University which is an estate nearby. And it's very impressive they said. It's a big university, many buildings. But in the library they had no books of Vedic literature, so they took our books. And they said they are very glad to get them. They had nothing. Buildings, but no books.

Prabhupāda: University without books. (laughter) Very good university. Anyway, if they are taking our books, that is good. What he will have? He is also another bogus man. But you people want to be cheated by this yoga, meditation. Therefore he has been able to get some facility. Only a selected group has come to me. Otherwise, they do not understand this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

Room Conversation with the Mayor of Evanston -- July 4, 1975, Chicago:

Mayor: Would you use the facility, then, as sort of a center for all over the United States?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. We invite. As soon as they have got a leisure hour, let them come and live with us for one week and see the result. They can remain forever. It doesn't matter. But for experimental sake they can come, live with us and associate with us. It is not difficult. And we invite everyone. We have no such discrimination that black, white, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, no. Anyone. It is universal. Because we consider every living entity is part and parcel of God. That is a fact. We are teeny gods, part and parcel. The same quality we have got—in minute quantity. Quality is the same, quantity is less. So God is good, so we are also good. But we have become bad under circumstances. Just like under infection, one becomes diseased. So if we cure that infection, again he becomes good. So it is the curing process. It is not an external artificial thing, imposed upon somebody, no. His goodness is there. Just like generally a man is healthy, but by infecting some disease he becomes diseased. So this material way of life is a kind of infection. So we have to cure that. And this is our process. And it has become successful. So therefore this problem of your country... I was this morning also lecturing that "You take up this movement very seriously and save your country." And if you save America, means you save the whole world because others are following America. So you can do it very easily. That is my appeal to the authorities of the American administration. But I do not want anything. For your countrymen, for your misguided youthful generation, you have to do it. That is my request. Otherwise there is no other way.

Room Conversation with the Mayor of Evanston -- July 4, 1975, Chicago:

Viṣṇujana: According to national statistics, as far as curing drug problems and crime problems, it's seen that social organizations that are supported by the town councils, etc. are usually about 3% effective in cases cured of either drug addiction or crime. But as far as religious organizations are concerned, some of them are 70, 80% effective in cases that have been attempted cure. So it's, as far as percentage cured, the process of introducing God consciousness is much more effective than some social reform or rehabilitation work or something like that.

Prabhupāda: No, social reform will automatically come. The first-class reform, the brāhmaṇas, if their advice is taken, then the other classes the kṣatriya, vaiśyas, and śūdras, they become automatically.

Mayor: We're aware that a religious approach is more successful and our mental health society here is funding the Reverend Perry who is a black ordained, I think, a Baptist protestant minister, formerly a drug addict. And he's been working out with, especially with the blacks who have drug addiction and he achieves much more success than other agencies.

Prabhupāda: Which process? Drug addiction has been helped by somebody?

Brahmānanda: No, the mayor's saying that the administration is not against supporting religious organizations.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation with writer, Sandy Nixon -- July 13, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: The process is genuine, the process which I recommend and they follow. Then it is sure.

Devotee: Yes. He's saying that our lifestyle will enable you to have that strength also, by worshiping God.

Prabhupāda: Just like the physician. He gives you medicine, and he give you the process, the dose, how to take the medicine, how to take diet. If the patient follow, then he is cured. (break) ...the opportunity, human life. This process of God realization can be accepted by human being. It doesn't matter where he is born. Either in India or outside India, it doesn't matter. Any human being can take it up. That is the difference between the animal life and human life. The animal, the dog, he knows how to bark only, that's all. He cannot be taught about this process. But a human being can be. He has got that intelligence, every human being. So in this human form of life, if we do not take this process, how to become Kṛṣṇa conscious, then we will remain dogs. Because we are abusing the opportunity.

Father: What is it that Kṛṣṇa consciousness has that offers people so much more than other religions do?

Prabhupāda: This is religion. I have already explained that religion means to become lover of God. That is religion. When there is no love of God, that is not religion. Religion means—I have already explained—to know God and to love Him. So if you do not know what is God, where is the question of loving Him? So that is not religion. It is going on in the name of religion. But religion means to know God and to love Him. Dharmaṁ tu sākṣād bhagavat-praṇitām (SB 6.3.19). Can you find out this verse? Give him. You don't find?

Nitai: Yes, 3.19.

Prabhupāda: Third Chapter, nineteen verse.

Room Conversation with writer, Sandy Nixon -- July 13, 1975, Philadelphia:

Devotee: Prabhupāda, because people are not being taught that, in this country there is a great disease of alcoholism.

Prabhupāda: Not in this country, in every country. Why do you say this country or that country?

Devotee: Well, I was saying about alcoholism in particular.

Prabhupāda: No, that is also in India. That is not uncommon. At least, they are learning, by your grace. (laughter) By imitating the western countries, they are learning everything.

Devotee: I was reading. There's a group called A.A., Alcoholic Anonymous, and they have a treatment for curing this disease. And it's the only one that's been successful. And one of the initial steps in achieving success in this method of theirs is that one agrees to the possibility of an ultimate reality or God. And because of that, they've had success in curing alcoholism.

Prabhupāda: What is that process?

Devotee: Well, it's a self-analysis. It doesn't go very far, but at least they accept that God exists and...

Prabhupāda: Self-analysis, that requires intelligence. But our process is, "Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa." There is no difficulty. So it is better than A.A.

Devotee: Yes, much better. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: So why should you bother about that process? You chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. That's all. Is that all right?

Devotee: That's fine. (end)

Morning Walk -- July 24, 1975, Los Angeles:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But we see that even your devotees, they are also subject to birth, death, disease and old age.

Prabhupāda: No, we do not say that we are making progress like you. We are trying to make spiritual progress. We are servant of God. We never say that we are very big men, Vaiṣṇava. Tṛṇād api sunīcena. We think most insignificant creature.

Paramahaṁsa: But what of our efforts to conquer cancer and tuberculosis?

Prabhupāda: No. Because we are conquering to... We are trying to avoid death. Then it is... Everything is cured. Cancer, cancer's father, grandfather, everything is cured. So we are trying for that. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that "If you simply understand Me..." Janma karma ca divyaṁ me yo jānāti tattvataḥ. Simply if you understand what is Kṛṣṇa, why He comes, what is the purpose, then you become conqueror over death. That is our philosophy. Simply by understanding Kṛṣṇa. That is our progress, how much we have understood Kṛṣṇa. And when one understands fully Kṛṣṇa-fully it is not possible; at least partially—he is conquering over death. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). That is real human life, how to conquer over death. Aihiṣṭhaṁ yat tat punar-janma-jāyāya. All the great sages and big, big kings, they left everything, went to the forest for austerity, penance. Why? To conquer over death. That is the mission. That... Everyone can do that, human life. And that is plainly explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, "Simply try to understand Me and you conquer over death." Simple thing.

Morning Walk -- July 24, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Because they are rascals, they cannot conquer. Everyone doesn't like death, but because they cannot conquer, they say like that, "Grapes are sour. Don't bother." After jumping, jumping, jumping, when the grapes were not available, "It is sour, no use."

Rādhāvallabha: We have also got a method of conquering death. We are planning now to freeze... When there is some illness that will cause death we will freeze the body, and when the cure for the disease is discovered we will wake it up.

Prabhupāda: That is same as death. That freezing itself is death, but the rascal does not know that it is death.

Rādhāvallabha: But later on we will thaw the body out and cure it.

Prabhupāda: "Later on," that is their post-dated check.

Paramahaṁsa: But then they say this, "In a hundred years, when we discover the cure, then we will bring you out and cure you."

Hṛdayānanda: Or eat him.

Prabhupāda: So you will never discover the cure, and he will never come out. Now somebody was saying that this freezing, the body within, they decompose. The parts of the body are separate. That is... As we have... You take the frozen vegetable. It is tasteless. It is decomposed.

Morning Walk -- October 3, 1975, Mauritius:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: There's a verse in the Bhāgavatam, Prabhupāda. Yenātmā suprasīdati: "By rendering devotional service to the transcendental Lord, one becomes completely satisfied." So what happens? These people in material life, they come to the temples and they chant a little bit. But they find that the standard of pure devotional service is so high that they're not able to grasp it. They don't feel the complete satisfaction. They're still attached to the material world.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is compared with the jaundice disease. Jaundice disease, for jaundice, sugarcane is the medicine. But they taste sugarcane as bitter. Sugarcane... One who is suffering in jaundice will taste sugarcane as bitter. That is the test. So that is the medicine. So he has to take the sugarcane. And by taking, when he is cured he will find, "Oh, it is very sweet."

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So then he has to recognize there is some problem living in this material world.

Prabhupāda: No. He does not find any happiness on account of his too much materialistic mind.

Brahmānanda: That is the disease.

Prabhupāda: That is the disease. So it has to be cured by this bhakti-yoga. So in the bhakti-yoga, in the beginning, it will taste bitter. Therefore they do not come. But if they take to bhakti-yoga, then the material disease will be cured and they will find it is very sweet.

Room Conversation -- October 4, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: Therefore this process is recommended. Caitanya Mahāprabhu argued with Sarvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya, Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī, not with ordinary public. Ordinary public—"Go on chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa and dancing." Never argued, neither He discussed Bhāgavatam. For ordinary public-four hours' kīrtana, chanting and dancing, bas. And then give them sufficient prasādam: "Take prasāda." This process... Because unless he has got little śraddhā, he will simply put some false argument and waste your time. Not in the beginning. Mad-bhakteṣv abhidhāsyati. First of all create him a devotee a little. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa-harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam (CC Adi 17.21)—only. Because this is Kali-yuga, people are so fallen, so downtrodden, so rascal, cats and dogs. It is very difficult. But this process—chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra, giving them chance to hear it and take prasādam—that will cure. And that is easily accepted by anyone. It doesn't matter what he is. Anyone will accept. To chant and dance and take prasādam—no one will disagree. So this is the process. When they come to the temple... Just like these boys. You are offering obeisances; they are also offering. But that will go to their credit, to become bhakta. This process should be adopted. Not in the beginning, but in the beginning give them prasādam, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. And try to sell some book. You pay something. That means he is giving some service, the hard-earned money. That will also go to his credit. And then, when he'll concerned that "I have paid for it. Let me see what this nonsense has written. All right. Read." And that will also convince him. This is the way. He'll keep this body, book, and show some friend, so the infection will go on.

Morning Walk -- October 7, 1975, Durban:

Prabhupāda: You enjoy, but where is your enjoyment? Why don't you see to this? Therefore this is not the way of enjoyment. We say there is enjoyment. Just like a diseased person, he wants enjoyment. How he can enjoy? He is diseased person. It is not possible for the diseased person to enjoy. First of all he has to cure his disease. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyet sattvam (SB 5.5.1). First of all, your existence should be purified by tapasya. Be cured of the disease. Then you'll enjoy. Enjoyment is your right. Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). That is your right, but you are now diseased. Why don't you see to this? You are dying therefore. You are becoming old therefore. This is your disease. That they will not admit. In the diseased condition they want to enjoy. Then tuberculosis. If a tuberculosis person, suffering from tuberculosis, he wants to enjoy sex, that means he will die very soon. His life is finished. But he wants that, that "I shall suffer from tuberculosis, at the same time enjoy." Then all right, go to hell. What can be done? Enjoyment is the life, but when you are diseased, you must first of all "Heal thyself," then enjoy. That enjoyment will be nice. This is the instruction of śāstra, that you are working so hard day and night like hogs and dogs, but where is your enjoyment? First of all cure your disease. Then you will be happy. Simply working hard like hogs and dogs, you are thinking that you will enjoy. That is not possible. Hogs and dogs, they simply work hard, but there is no enjoyment. Is there any enjoyment in the life of dogs and hogs? They simply work hard, that's all. So human life is also meant for that purpose, that you will blindly work like hogs and dogs and no enjoyment? Still you are hankering after enjoyment. You should know what is enjoyment, how to do it. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

Morning Walk -- October 12, 1975, Durban:

Indian man (3): And also to rehabilitate them.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We have giving them shelter also, food, cloth, everything, giving them proper chance to live peacefully and be God conscious.

Indian man (3): And in the way of hospitals?

Prabhupāda: Hospitals, there are many, but real hospitals... to cure the material disease, there is no hospital. They are... There are hundreds and thousands of hospitals for curing the disease of the body, but there is no hospital to cure the disease of the soul. That is the defect. So we are opening hospital for curing the disease of the soul. They have no information about the soul throughout the whole world. Even so-called religious organizations, they have no information about the soul. They go to religious ceremonies for material profit. They do not know what is the necessity of the soul and what is the disease of the soul. They do not know. (break) ...nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam. What is the goal of life, these people, they do not know, mūḍhas. Mūḍha means rascals, gadha. They do not know what is the goal of life. They take calculation of the duration of life, that fifty, sixty, or hundred years. That's all. Beyond this, after this, they do not know. Yes. That is the defect. (break) Now, in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that this temporary attempt to become happy-antavanta phalaṁ teṣām—it will end with the end of the body. But they do not know beyond this. Therefore alpam-medhasām, they are less intelligent. Just like a child playing. He likes to play and does not go to school. So do you think that is all right?

Morning Walk -- Durban, October 13, 1975 :

Prabhupāda: That's it. And these rascals are talking very big, big words. That has to be stopped, that “Don’t talk nonsense and bluff people and take high salary, simply cheating. Don’t cheat any more. Admit that you cannot do anything. You simply bluff. That's all.” That is to be done.

Harikeśa: “Well, with all our research we’re finding cures to so many diseases. With our research…”

Prabhupāda: That, you nonsense, you go on doing, but no disease is stopped. You… Futile attempt.

Harikeśa: "But twenty years ago there was so much smallpox everywhere. But now…"

Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. You have stopped smallpox, but you have increased cancer. So what is the use?

Harikeśa: "Now we are finding a cure for that also."

Prabhupāda: That's all. Go on working like ass, (laughs) without any… Even if you have some medicine for disease, you cannot stop disease. You cannot stop death.

Harikeśa: “Well, man's duration of life is getting longer.”

Prabhupāda: Rascal.

Morning Walk -- October 20, 1975, Johannesburg:

Harikeśa: Maybe people don't believe it.

Prabhupāda: No, it is made by the scientists. (break)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: ...behind the frozen body was that if someone had an incurable disease, they thought that they could suspend the life by freezing it, and then, when they found the cure for the disease, they would unfreeze him or thaw him out and cure him of his disease so that he could live again.

Prabhupāda: And these childish activities are taken as scientific advancement.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is there a Vedic definition of science?

Prabhupāda: Vijñāna. Jñāna-vijñāna. (break) ...not this science, experimental. That is not science. Vedic knowledge is science.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So there is no experimental science in Vedic culture.

Prabhupāda: Experimental science is condemned. What you will make, ex... You are imperfect. What is the value of your experiment? Therefore it is rejected. Whatever you'll do, that is imperfect. First of all you become perfect; then you make experiment. But you are... You remain imperfect, and you making experiment. What is the value of it? (break) ...is no experimental knowledge. All established truth. That is vijñāna, or science.

Morning Walk -- October 20, 1975, Johannesburg:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: People blindly would accept that cow dung was purified without having to test it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. But you make experiment; you will find it all right. So we save time. (break) ...no experiment. (break) ...experiment has become successful? Hm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Well, they've cured certain diseases by experimentation.

Prabhupāda: That is success? You stop disease. What is this, "cure disease"? Malaria, if it is not here, it is somewhere there. And if I am not suffering from malaria, I am suffering from syphilis. So what is this cure, experiment? Disease must be there. So you stop it. Then it is success.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So it is not possible to stop disease.

Prabhupāda: No. How it is possible?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is it worthwhile to try to prolong life?

Prabhupāda: It is also condemned. Prolonged life... Suppose you live hundred years and a tree lives five thousand years, ten thousand years. Then what is the use of prolonging life, life like this? Is that very good life?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No.

Prabhupāda: Standing in one place for ten thousand years? Why should you prolong your life? For suffering? You are suffering, that is your problem, so what is the use of prolonging your life? This is foolishness. What do you gain by prolonging life if you are suffering? Stop suffering. That is wanted. How you can stop suffering? With suffering, prolonging life, what is the benefit?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Just means more, longer suffering.

Morning Walk -- October 20, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: That means you are fool number one. That means you are fool number one. As soon as you say, "I am happy," it is immediately proved that you are a rascal, fool number one.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But everyone is afraid of death. They don't like the idea of dying. Put if off.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So therefore, you cure that first of all; then prolong life that there will be no death. Then you prolong life is... Make some understand. Can go this side?

Harikeśa: So it's not possible that anyone's happy? There is no possibility of anyone being happy.

Prabhupāda: No. One who thinks he is happy, he is number one fool.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Everyone is searching after material happiness.

Prabhupāda: Yes. But there is no happiness.

Harikeśa: What about if one is in the mode of goodness? Maybe one or two...

Prabhupāda: Mode of goodness... If he thinks that he is happy, then he is fool. The mode of goodness means one must know that we cannot be happy here. That is mode of goodness. And if he thinks, "I am happy," then he is not in mode of goodness. He's in darkness.

Morning Walk -- October 20, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa says, duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15), and you are finding out happiness. Then how much fool you are. The best authority says that "This is a place of suffering," and you are finding out happiness. So how much fool you are, it is very difficult to estimate. (laughter) Therefore Vedic knowledge is perfect. Now just like there is signboard, "No admission." So who is the fool, create some trouble by entering into it? He's a fool. If there is signboard, "There is no admission," and if somebody enters to create some trouble, he is not a fool? So Kṛṣṇa says, "There is no happiness," and if somebody searches happiness, he is not a fool? That is... Therefore Kṛṣṇa consciousness required, that he gets perfect knowledge from Kṛṣṇa. He has no trouble. Kṛṣṇa said, "There is no happiness," and if somebody thinks, "All right, although Kṛṣṇa said, let me try for it," then he is a fool.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Similarly, they say that they can cure disease, but it's impossible.

Prabhupāda: How it is possible? The disease is suffering, and this place is suffering, so where is the question of curing disease? Kṛṣṇa consciousness means intelligence. We are guided by Kṛṣṇa, so there is no trouble. Everything is all right. That is Kṛṣṇa conscious. And as soon as you make experiment like fools and rascal, then you are doomed.

Harikeśa: "Well, my guru, Meher Baba, tells me, 'Don't worry. Be happy.' "

Prabhupāda: Then he is another fool, another rascal, mūḍha.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He didn't even speak. He didn't speak for so many years.

Room Conversation -- October 29, 1975, Nairobi:

Prabhupāda: "I don't suffer. (laughter) I am enjoying."

Harikeśa: You are enjoying death and old age?

Prabhupāda: "Yes, you are putting upon me some impression, 'suffering,' but I am enjoying."

Harikeśa: Your knee is hurt. Is that enjoying?

Prabhupāda: "That I am curing. That is also nice." (laughter)

Harikeśa: But soon the whole thing will be finished. You will not... No one enjoys death. No one will take voluntarily a death pill.

Prabhupāda: Nobody of you could answer the question. Now I give you again chance to answer this question very properly. Why one should be obliged to please Kṛṣṇa? Why?

Harikeśa: Just like this finger. Its position is to serve the body. Just like the stomach. Everyone may be jealous of the stomach and not want to feed the stomach, but if all the hands and the legs and the mouth went on strike not to feed the stomach...

Prabhupāda: This is the right answer.

Harikeśa: ...they would ultimately be destroyed.

Prabhupāda: This is right answer, that you cannot non-cooperate with the stomach. You must serve the stomach. Otherwise your position is very precarious. That is the answer. If the finger thinks that "I shall remain independent and be happy," that is not possible. The stomach must be supplied food, and then all the parts of the body, they'll be happy. That is the point.

Morning Walk -- November 12, 1975, Bombay:

Indian man (3): ...not taking bath in the morning. I was not coming to the temple because my bronchitis. And once you told me, "You take without bath. You go to the temple." I started taking bath. I was now coming to the sea because that bronchitis was troubling me. But now... (Hindi) My wife told me, "Don't go. You are a sick man. You are not taking my..." I said, "No, it will be Kṛṣṇa's mercy only." I am ninety percent happy. Once I give some... Still I think I am, by your grace, I am ninety percent cured now.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Kṛṣṇa's grace.

Indian man (3): Still in a congregation when I sit I get some phlegm. That is why.

Prabhupāda: Do you feel any inconvenience while walking?

Indian man (3): No.

Prabhupāda: No, no, for bronchitis this open air is very good.

Indian man (3): Good. Ah. That is good. During night, I can't get sleep, so if I go in the evening to the sea, so morning I think... Four days, I am better.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, very good. Even if you cannot walk, you can sit down and breathe the open air. (break) Progress is going on?

Saurabha: Yes. (break)

Prabhupāda: Temple foundation is fixed up?

Saurabha: The laying concrete, one third has been done and today we start setting up the columns, steel work. (end)

Morning Walk -- November 17, 1975, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: No, no, as a matter of fact, if there is a continuous headache, we can give him a number-one needle. Then his head will be cured. Then he will say, "I am all right sir. Now don't do it," with this much of needle inside. (break)

Prabhupāda: The first cultural education is how to teach the small children to become purified, brahmacārī.

Dr. Patel: In ancient times it was done by association in gurukula.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is required, gurukula. We are starting, therefore, gurukulas. And it is becoming...

Dr. Patel: Gurukula. Kula of guru.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Brahmacari gurukule vasan danto guror hitam. This is the beginning. A brahmacārī should live in the aśrama of guru, danta, self-controlled, and only for the benefit of guru, not for anyone's benefit. Brahmacārī guru... They'll go, collect alms, and everything should be delivered to guru.

Dr. Patel: When Kṛṣṇa was sent to collect the wood.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Guror hitam. The brahmacārī life means only for the benefit of guru. Everything is there in Bhāgavatam.

Dr. Patel: That mode of teaching, I mean...

Prabhupāda: That can be introduced.

Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay:

Brahmānanda: ...culture should be designed to cure the material disease.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is Aryan culture. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). That is Aryan culture. But they do not know what is punar janma, how we can stop this birth and death, nothing of the sort. Simply dogs and cats, that's all, jumping, very busy. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). That's all. Immediately the verdict: "Oh, he does not know anything. He's as good." So? Everything is going nice?

Mahāṁsa: Yes, Prabhupāda. I just came from Bangalore last night. They are having a very big program there and a lot of publicity from the newspapers with pictures and nice articles, big articles on the front page of the newspapers there. And tomorrow the governor is coming as the chief guest for the program. He was... He had that Sunday—that is tomorrow—he was fixed on going to Sai Baba's conference, but when we went to see him he was very pleased because he had gone to our Vṛndāvana temple just ten days back, so he was very much enthused with our activities and he liked the temple very much. So he was very pleased and he said, "Yes, I will cancel Sai Baba's program and come to your program."

Devotee: Jaya. (laughter)

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That's the governor of Karnataka?

Mahāṁsa: Yes. He was the chief minister of Rajastan previously.

Prabhupāda: Yes, some governor went to our temple, I heard.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Akṣayānanda wrote to me. Governor of Karnataka State.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So that is a good response, that after seeing our temple he decided to attend our conference. That is very good.

Morning Walk -- November 29, 1975, Delhi:

Ambarīṣa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Thank you. (break) ...if they know the chemicals, why they open deaf and dumb school? Let the chemical be injected and they will be cured from dumbness and deafness. And where is that chemical? Hm?

Harikeśa: I mean, after all, isn't it just a matter of time, because we've already invented new skin now.

Prabhupāda: Again rascaldom. Again rascaldom.

Harikeśa: Yes, but just think of what we've already done. We've made new skin.

Prabhupāda: What you have done? What you have done? A man... A man is...

Harikeśa: I tell you, we've made new skin. If somebody gets burned we can put new skin on.

Prabhupāda: A man, when he is blind, what you can do? You can simply make some experiment. Then you say, "We tried. We could not do it."

Harikeśa: Ah, but now we're putting in new eyeballs.

Prabhupāda: That cannot see. (laughter) That is another... So how they are bluffing, just see.

Room Conversation -- December 14, 1975, New Delhi:

Hari-śauri: Pup.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They follow, some gentleman. And because at that time it is good living, somebody takes charge, "Alright let me take this pup." And the children also like, so he gets some shelter. So similarly, according to different body the activities begins. Therefore body is the field of activities. A snake, because he has got the field of activity of a snake's body, from the very beginning he is very, very envious. The same, trying to bite others. In this way our activities begin according to the body. And this change of bodies take place in the lower animal life automatically, by nature's law. Prakṛte kriyamānāni guṇai karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ. But when comes to the form of a human being, on account of developed consciousness, he has got responsibility. He has to make his choice. He is suffering in this material world changing different types of bodies, one after another, and the propensity to lord it over the material world is going on. Now he has to change the consciousness, whether he wants to continue this propensity for lording over the material world, or he wants to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. This choice has to be made by the human being. If he makes his choice after getting good education from the right source, that "I am going on in the wrong way, by the desire to lord it over the material nature but I am eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa therefore I must surrender now. Bahūnā janmanām ante jñānavān mām... This is wisdom. And if we do not get this wisdom, simply like animals we continue to lord it over the material nature, by acquiring money. Dharma, artha, kama. Then we are spoiling our life. Separate times we become religious for being promoted to higher standard of life, economic development, big, big scheme, plans, how to make gorgeous city, buildings, roads, cars, slaughter house, scientific, how to cut throat very scientifically. These plans are going on. Some of them are trying to be religious to go to the heaven because he has heard, and that's a fact also, that heavenly planets the standard of living is more opulent, hundreds and thousands times, the sex enjoyment, is hundred and thousand times better. So by so-called religious functions and sacrifices, they are engaged the same, how to satisfy the senses. The dog is also anxious to satisfy his senses. As soon as he finds a female dog, he wants to make friendship with her and have sex. On the street, never mind. And similarly the demigods they are also engaged in the same business. In a different standard only. The business is the same. Āhāra-nidr-bhayam etam. So if one wants to continue this business then he'll continue this material body and if he wants to stop this business, come to his original position, then he makes real progress. But nobody is interested in advancement of spiritual life. Generally they take to religion, religiosity, for material happiness. Artho 'rhati. I am distressed, I have no money, or I am suffering from some disease; you'll find all these. So all of them go to the sādhus only for this purpose. Sir, I am suffering from some disease, so without going to the doctor, and saving so much money, let me pay hundred rupees to the sādhu and he'll give me his blessings. So I will save thousands of rupees, for curing the disease. For this purpose they go to sādhu. Nobody goes to sādhu for going back to home back to godhead. It is only (material) proposition. Otherwise the so-called yogis, sādhus, swamis, they are making good luck business simply by promising that you'll get this material power. This Mahesh Yogi he says that, what is his philosophy?

Harikesa: He says that if you renounce now, you can enjoy later. That if you take some austerity now, like meditation, abstaining from certain things, that later on you can enjoy sex life unlimitedly, have clear intelligence unlimtedly, and ultimately become the...

Prabhupāda: The Mahesh Yogi, TM. Transcendental meditation. But I don't think they say that if you undergo austerities you...

Morning Walk -- December 17, 1975, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: ...kaunteya mukta-saṅga samācara.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is wanted. The māyāvādī philosophers, they are taking because the senses are creating so much trouble, material existence, finish this-śūnyavādi. But that will not solve the problem. Problem will be solved that you keep your eyes. You don't require to finish it, but cure it. Just like you medical man. If one is blind out of cataract, you don't say that you pluck it, the eye, and throw it. No. "Please cure it and you'll be able to see." This is the difference between māyāvādī philosopher and Vaiṣṇava philosopher. They want to pluck it out, make it zero, śūnyavāda.

Dr. Patel: Śūnyavāda.

Prabhupāda: No, no. This is the philosophy. Śūnyavādī means they want to make it zero. Your are troubling, you have got so much trouble with your eyes: don't bother, pluck it out! This is their philosophy. And our philosophy is, "No, there is no need of plucking out. Just cure it and you'll see."

Morning Walk -- December 17, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That is your interpretation. Killing means finish everything. Killing does not mean that you will again see. There is not killing.

Harikesa: But you'll just go in another body...

Prabhupāda: That is curing. Killing and curing. If you kill yourself, then whole thing is finished. But if you cure yourself, then you see rightly. So we advise cure, not kill. That is our philosophy.

Dr. Patel: You mean cure the ego. Cure the ego.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Cure the disease.

Dr. Patel: ...ego is the disease. First disease man is overtaken by.

Prabhupāda: False ego, you can say false ego. "I exist"; this is pure ego. I exist, that's a fact, and when we say "I exist for this life, I can finish it, there is no next life," that is not pure ego.

Morning Walk -- December 17, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Saurabha: If we cut them...

Prabhupāda: No, not cutting.

Saurabha: No. These poles, they all set in size about nine feet. You notice they're about fifteen to eighteen feet. So we use them only for the scaffolding.

Dr. Patel: (Hindi) ...anyhow, they have done it very quickly. Our engineers could not have done it so quickly as that. You are quite fast. And the structure is very strong.

Prabhupāda: (laughter) I say they are quite slow.

Dr. Patel: No, no, but it takes its own time for curing and all these things. How can an engineer accelerate that natural process? And that structure is really extremely strong.

Prabhupāda: No, no. We want to see the temple also. (kīrtana) (end)

Morning Walk -- December 23, 1975, Bombay:

Devotee: Imitation. (Prabhupāda laughs)

Lokanātha: There should not be any medical service in the building, new building, so what about there should be any other place on the land, or they should not...?

Prabhupāda: That we shall do conveniently. It is not very urgent. When there is spare room-then. Medical service is to cure the material disease, not this temporary headache and stomachache. There are so many medical services for these things, but where is the medical service for curing bhava-roga, material disease? That is wanted. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa! Medical service does not give any guarantee that there will be no more disease. Our service is guarantee, there will be no more birth, death, old age and disease. That is the difference. (pause) Mauritius, I was suffering so much from dental pain, I never went to the dentist; I invented my medicine, and it cured. (laughter)

Harikeśa: Now everyone else is using it here.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Harikeśa: I taught them all, and they're all using it now. Or they will all be using it.

Prabhupāda: They like it?

Harikeśa: Oh, yes. The best.

Morning Walk -- December 23, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Hm. That is called, they were playing the role of human being. (pause)

Indian man: ...would be nearing the portion where that (indistinct) is there. I told Girirāja prabhu, when you were sick, that fever is there, you were having fever, so I...

Prabhupāda: No, I had no fever.

Indian man: When you went to Vṛndāvana? Some...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Indian man: So I was telling my wife, she said that you read that Bhāgavatam, where that Bāṇ(āsura) is there, that Śiva means having, producing jvārā, fever, so Viṣṇujvārā is cold only, so that Viṣṇujvārā will bring down the fever. So you were just reading more Bhāgavatam only, when you are sick. Anybody who is suffering from fever means you read such and such a portion, so it should come down.

Prabhupāda: No, Viṣṇu should not be utilized for curing your fever. (laughter) That is not bhakti. That is business.

Indian man: So you are always reaching for bhakti point. That is too high for mundane people to reach.

Prabhupāda: That is bhakti, high, highest. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti (BG 18.55). If you have real bhakti, then you can understand Vaiṣṇava. To know Viṣṇu-avan manasā-gocara: it is very difficult.

Morning Walk -- December 23, 1975, Bombay:

Kīrtanānanda: How about if a disciple wants to use the help of Viṣṇu for the spiritual master?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Kīrtanānanda: A disciple wants to take the aid of Viṣṇu for serving the spiritual master.

Prabhupāda: Hah. That is nice. That is for curing Viṣṇu's representative. When we were in danger, there was so much obstruction for constructing the temple, and we prayed to Kṛṣṇa that it should stopped. We prayed to Kṛṣṇa, "Please give your protection." That is for Viṣṇu's purpose. (break) ...Bhagavad-gītā, arto 'rthārthī jijñāsur: when one is in distress, he comes to Kṛṣṇa. So that is not pure bhakti. Pure bhakti means, "I shall not take a farthing from Kṛṣṇa; I shall give everything to Kṛṣṇa." That is pure. "I shall not take any return from Kṛṣṇa." Prahlāda Mahārāja says, "I am not a merchant, that for my service I take some return for it." No. But sometimes when, since we are not pure devotees, we have no other alternative than to beg Kṛṣṇa for some material benefit. That is also good. They have said, catur-vidhā bhajante māṁ, sukṛtinaḥ, that pious. Although they are not pure devotee, but they are pious. But the duṣkṛtinaḥ, they do not approach Him. That is the difference.

Morning Walk -- December 23, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Material nature means because you are in diseased condition in this material world, therefore according to the infection. Just like you have got body, and he has got body. You are suffering from typhoid; he is suffering from smallpox. So you have contaminated the typhoid germs, and he has contaminated smallpox. So the, this body is after all material body, so there is infection of material nature, tri-guṇātmaka. Therefore you have to transcend this position of tri-guṇātmaka. Then you are cured.

māṁ ca yo 'vyabhicārena
bhakti-yogena sevate
sa guṇān samatītyaitān
braham-bhūyāya kalpate
(BG 14.26)

If you transcend the infection of the three modes of material nature, then you are safe. So long you do not transcend, just like so long we infect some disease, then you must suffer. But if you don't infect, you'll not suffer. That is up to you. There is disease, cholera disease; why shall I go there? Why shall I infect my body in that way? That is up to you. If you don't take precaution, then you will suffer. Jaya.

Morning Walk -- December 24, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: Daily or..., yes or no.

Prabhupāda: I am passing (laughing).

Dr. Patel: Yes, sir, but you have got the edema on the leg, and I mean, when...

Prabhupāda: It is cured. That one tablet, two tablets, has cured. So explain what is the experiment with truth.

Dr. Patel: Now we must make. I have booked a visit at 7:15.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Dr. Patel: At 7:15 I have booked a visit.

Prabhupāda: So...

Dr. Patel: Ha, tell me what is your...

Prabhupāda: No, what is this experiment with truth?

Dr. Patel: About what?

Prabhupāda: Anything. The world.

Page Title:Cure (Conversations 1974 - 1975)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, Mayapur
Created:23 of Feb, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=93, Let=0
No. of Quotes:93