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Do not know how (Conversations 1976 - 1977)

Expressions researched:
"did not know how" |"do not know how" |"does not know how" |"doesn't know how" |"don't know how"

Notes from the compiler: VedaBase query: "did not know how" or "do not know how" or "doesn't know how" or "don't know how" or "does not know how" not "did not know how to" not "do not know how to" not "don't know how to" not "does not know how to"

Conversations and Morning Walks

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 3, 1976, Nellore:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's a nice temple in Nabadwip that does that, the Govinda temple in Nabadwip. When I was going to purchase the land in māyāpura, the Mr. Das, the lawyer, and I, we would take our meals at this temple. Every day he would purchase. He would give a little.

Prabhupāda: Yes, still there are.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They had arrangement like this. At least a hundred people were taking, respectable people.

Prabhupāda: Acchā.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's a very big temple, that temple. Of course, I don't know how bona fide the persons who speak at night are, but every night there are speakers, and many people coming. It's a very good temple. I was very impressed by it. Nice rooms for people to stay upstairs, very active, always being cleansed by people.

Prabhupāda: That is temple.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And first-class prasādam.

Prabhupāda: So we have got so many examples. Introduce this. (end)

Morning Walk -- January 8, 1976, Nellore:

Prabhupāda: What they are doing?

Acyutānanda: They bring in preachers to preach Bhagavad-gītā, but they themselves, they don't read Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: So preachers means third-class preachers. Anybody is allowed to speak, any nonsense? That is going on?

Devotee: How they are going against it, Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: You read Bhagavad-gītā? You do not know how they are going against?

Devotee: I'm not familiar with this.

Prabhupāda: Then why do you say, "I read Bhagavad-gītā?"

Devotee: I'm not familiar with Tirupati's practice.

Prabhupāda: Tirupati is establishing Gaṇeśa temple. That is against Bhagavad-gītā. Bhagavān says that kāmais tais tair hṛta-jñānā yajanty anya-devatāḥ (BG 7.20). The rascals who are very much lusty, lost their intelligence, they worship other demigods.

Acyutānanda: The Rāmānuja sannyāsīs have had all their authority taken away from them by these...

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Acyutānanda: All their authority in the temples has been taken away by the government committee.

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Morning Walk -- January 17, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Oh. (Bengali) Now, taking instruction from Mādhava Mahārāja, you should be careful about purchasing land. People are very cunning.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...that ten bīghās and eight bīghās of land on the corner, you were mentioning?

Jayapatāka: Yes. We will go back this way. Will Prabhupāda be able to walk that far?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't know how far it is.

Jayapatāka: It's right over there. Of course, we can go back through the field.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...can see tomorrow. Eh?

Jayapatāka: All right. We'll check it, make a path. See, that's the path.

Prabhupāda: (break) The road is rough.

Sudāmā: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So we shall go that way. If it is like this, we can go. Now, still, it is rough. (Bengali) (break) ...filling up the road? No. You have taken earth from here. (Bengali)

Jayapatāka: They're just leveling.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...whether they are being properly utilized.

Jayapatāka: Every land is being planted on. We made...

Morning Walk -- February 4, 1976, Mayapura:

Bhavānanda: Planet, this planet is moving so fast, but it doesn't appear to be moving at all.

Prabhupāda: Suppose a small ant is on some big wheel, does it feel anything, movement? A big wheel and a small ant. What he will feel? This is called relativity. Law of relativity. Why you are thinking that relatively you are very big? That is your foolishness. You are nothing, insignificant. Therefore you are surprised when Kṛṣṇa appeared as Varāha-mūrti, to take the whole earth on His nose. Who will say it is mythology? You do not know how great Kṛṣṇa can become. Mahato mahīyān. Aṇu... What is that?

Hṛdayānanda: Aṇor aṇī...

Śāstrījī: Aṇor aṇīyān anusmared yaḥ.

Prabhupāda: Aṇor aṇīyān mahato mahīyāt. So He is greater than the greatest. Yaśodāmāyī thought that "My child are eating earth? So show." She saw all the planetary system within His mouth. So she thought, "What is this? All right, don't do this." (laughs)

Hṛdayānanda: So to accept a spiritual master means that one has to learn everything again.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Hṛdayānanda: That to accept a spiritual master means that we have to learn everything over again. Practically everything we learned was incorrect.

Prabhupāda: It is correct to some extent but... Just like you can see to some extent, but that does not mean you can see everything. You have got limited potency. This is called unlimited and limited. We are limited.

Harikeśa: Actually I think it makes much more sense, because when the scientists say that the

Morning Walk -- February 5, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Then you are not living being. You are dull stone. God does not want that you remain a stone.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Free will" means living being.

Hari-śauri: But if he gave us the material world to enjoy, then why do we have to suffer here?

Prabhupāda: No, no, enjoyments... You do not know what is enjoyment. You suffer. Just like you are voracious eater. You eat and then suffer. Then no eating. That means you are nonsense. You do not know how much to eat. Just like you require little salt with your food, and if you put one ser of salt, then that is your foolishness. Because salt has to be eaten, it does not mean that you bring the whole ocean to make it salty. Tena tyaktena bhuñjīthā (ISO 1). That is the instruction.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So if you know how to...

Prabhupāda: Whatever direction is there, you take that. The medicine is given. Doctor gives direction. "So many drops you can take." Now you say, "Oh, the good medicine. Let me eat the whole thing. I become cured immediately." Then you die. You have to take, enjoy, but according to direction. God does not say that "You don't enjoy." You are, what is called, ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). A living entity means ānandamaya, enjoyment. But that ānanda, where it is permanent ānanda, how we have to reach that permanent ānanda, that is being taught. Otherwise, you foolish, you'll eat the whole medicine and die. That's all. Therefore the varṇāśrama-dharma. Varṇāśrama-dharma means that is real human civilization. There is direction that "You enjoy like this." And if you become mlecchas and yavanas, then you'll not enjoy. You simply suffer. You do not know how to enjoy.

Morning Walk -- February 18, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes, journalist.

Acyutānanda: But he got into some big embarrassment.

Prabhupāda: Journalists, they write very good English. Every journalist, they learn how to write good English.

Acyutānanda: He got into some big embarrassment. I don't know how. Then he went to the Himalayas.

Prabhupāda: He was in, several times in embarrassment. One friend in Delhi, Mr. Gupta, he told many things about him. He was patronizing him. In those days, when he was not very rich, he had, he gave him 25,000 rupees, that Mr. Gupta. (break) Ācchā?

Acyutānanda: I felt uncomfortable. He was clicking his teeth and moving his hands and talking very quickly. It was very uncomfortable just to be in his presence. I was very nervous. He actually contradicted himself. I was saying we should be respected in all Hindu temples. He says, "Yes, you are Hindus." He says, "Jains and Buddhists, they are also Hindus." I said, "How is that?" He says, "Who is Buddha?" I said, "He is incarnation of Kṛṣṇa." He says, "No, aside from that, he is the son of a kṣatriya." I said, "Then you are bringing it back to birth again." And then he started groping for words and avoiding it. They want to make a unity of Hindus so that they can always sway elections, so that Mohammedan and Christians do not change the election.

Prabhupāda: And we want to make Mohammedans Hindus.

Morning Walk -- April 8, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Mm.

Madhudviṣa: He gave her a donation.

Prabhupāda: Mm.

Akṣayānanda: How much did he give?

Madhudviṣa: I don't know how much he gave, but he gave a donation.

Akṣayānanda: Did he get a book?

Madhudviṣa: Yes, she gave him our magazine.

Devotee (1): (indistinct)

Madhudviṣa: There was no security.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Madhudviṣa: There was no security around him. He just was standing there on the sidewalk out in front of one hotel after this luncheon.

Prabhupāda: Mm.

Madhudviṣa: And she just walked up to him and "Oh, this is a flower for you," pinned it on his lapel.

Prabhupāda: Mm. So he has no personal guard?

Morning Walk -- April 16, 1976, Bombay:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: DNA.

Dr. Patel: DNA, that is biochemistry. DNA. (laughs) (Hindi?) This DNA and RNA, these are the special nucleic acids. They actually have the power to procreate new cells. These our Indian..., that, those scientists have.... (laughter) Because I am.... In fact, that company.... I got that bad company just now, this.... So I say "Indian." Very good joke. RNA and DNA are nothing, but we don't know how they work even now. A lot of research is going on.

Prabhupāda: Our study should be that these things we cannot explain, but these things are there, so there is a great scientist. That's it. That much understanding is good. You go on analyzing one after another, so you do not come to the final conclusion. But you see actually it is existing, so it has been done by a great scientist. That is wanted.

Dr. Patel: (Hindi)

Guru dāsa: Kṛṣṇa tattva.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...otherwise how things have been arranged like that?

Dr. Patel: I said Aryans, not Indians.

Prabhupāda: Anyone. We don't say Aryan or Indian, but there is a great scientist who has arranged like that.

Dr. Patel: The greatest scientist is Kṛṣṇa, God. You call Him by any other name but He is personally present, as He says.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Even the modern scientists do not learn everything by laboratory. They take knowledge from their predecessor.

Dr. Patel: But intuition does come. The topmost scientists.... The intuition, then they work on that way.

Room Conversation -- April 22, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: They are imitating.

Hari-śauri: Yes. It's laziness.

Prabhupāda: But you see. I take little medicine and wash hand. But you don't learn it. You remain the same. You have to.... (microphone moving) I show example, but you don't do it. What can I do?

Hari-śauri: We're learning.

Prabhupāda: I do not know how long you'll learn.

Hari-śauri: (laughs) It's like you said in Māyāpura. It's a little artificial for us. It's very.... It's not...

Prabhupāda: Cleanliness unknown to the Western people.

Hari-śauri: That's a fact.

Prabhupāda: Śaucam. Satya-śaucābhyām. Śaucam means cleanliness. The Western people, they do not know what is cleanliness. And therefore brāhmaṇa's another name is śuci, always clean. Three times' bathing, three times' changing cloth. It doesn't matter, loin cloth, but cloth must be changed.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Outer cloth?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Dhoti, like that?

Morning Walk -- April 26, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: All rascals. They are not ācāryas.

Guru-kṛpā: Last night this boy sits down and immediately he says, "I am a Hindu." I said, "What is this Hindu business? We are not interested in Hindu." Then he said, "Well, you do not know." "How you can say we do not know?" "Well, I was born a Hindu." So I said, "So how you know what I was born? What does that matter, where we were born? A learned person doesn't speak birth." Representing himself as very advanced or something. "Okay, you become Brahman, but we think that that is hell. That is no better than hell for us. And that is the liberation that the demons get. So we are satisfied to chant Kṛṣṇa's name, and we never want to become one. We would rather go to hell, because in hell we can chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, but in the Brahman we cannot chant."

Prabhupāda: Staunch adherent. (break)

Guru-kṛpā: ...in Bhāgavatam, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that when a devotee, he sees a banyan, fruit of a banyan tree, and there are so many seeds within that fruit, and each seed can mean one tree and one tree means millions of fruits, and in this way the devotee can appreciate Kṛṣṇa. But the jñānīs, they go on speculating, and they can never relish anything. The devotee can simply relish how Kṛṣṇa has done everything in the material nature.

Prabhupāda: We can go here? No. And no...

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes. It is a little distance there.

Room Conversation -- May 2, 1976, Fiji:

Prabhupāda: Darwin's theory is body is changing, but why it is changing, he does not explain.

Guru-kṛpā: It's because of nature. You can't explain nature. That's his only answer.

Prabhupāda: Nature.... But we also say, prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni (BG 3.27). So it is to be understood that it is being done under superior control. If nature is doing, so nature is superior control. He cannot explain. So if he does not know how nature is working, then what is the value of his theory? If he says that he cannot explain how nature is doing, that means he is not expert. He may be mistaken. So why his opinion or decision should be taken final? He does not know how nature is working. That is not perfect knowledge. Does he say like that, "Nature is working"?

Guru-kṛpā: Nature.

Prabhupāda: So how nature is working, he does not know. Then his knowledge is imperfect. Nature is working how, that we know. That is very sober understanding. We say that nature is working under the superintendence of Kṛṣṇa. Mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram (BG 9.10). Nature.... We see nature. Generally we have got idea of the material nature, that the sun is one of the part and parcel of nature's working. The moon is also, the seasonal changes. So many things, nature is working very systematically. The summer season will appear exactly in the month of June and July. The fall begins in September every year. One can foretell that "Next September this will happen," because nature's routine is very fixed up. So this systematic work of nature, how it is possible if there is no supervision?

Guru-kṛpā: What they do is they just take it for granted because it's happening so regularly.

Room Conversation -- May 3, 1976, Fiji:

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Hari-śauri: Yes. So sinful means punishment. (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Our point is that we are going to live in the future. So if, becoming modern, we forget our future, then what is the use of becoming modernized? Better remain primitive. The business is that in future also we shall exist. If we do not know how we shall exist—either I shall exist as a cat, as a dog, or a tree, or a demigod, or as associate of Kṛṣṇa.... If I do not know.... On account of being modernized, if I remain in darkness about my future, so it is better to remain primitive. What is the use of becoming modernized and forget myself and my future? Becoming modernized, if I become dog in future, so what is the use of modernized? The real business is that I shall take care of my future. Especially in the human form of body. Cats and dogs, they do not know about future. If I know there is future, I have a future.... This is also said by Kṛṣṇa. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ: (BG 2.13) "In future." Not this body, another body. So is it not my first business, to prepare what is my future body? That is my first business? Or to drink R.C. (Royal Crown?) my first business? Just see. By drinking R.C. if I, next life I become a dog, then what is the use of modernized life? And if we, by remaining in primitive state, we can produce Vyāsadeva, oh, it is better. But the fools have no sense. Suppose if I go to some place for some business, and going there, to select my hotel, which hotel I shall enter, I remain busy to find out the hotel, and I forget the business for which I have gone there, then am I not madman? A human life is meant for deciding his future. If we do not care for the future, and if I want to become modernized from primitive life, is that very good inclination? Real business forgotten, but I am busy with modernized life. That example I give sometimes, (Bengali). That one has to go to see a fair on account of (Bengali). So women, they generally dress themself very nicely.

Morning Walk -- May 26, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: After all, you produce it, then conserve. These rascals, do they produce water?

Devotee (2): No.

Prabhupāda: Why he's anxious to conserve it? It is not his production. That is rascaldom. Ha. He has taken from some other sources, and he wants to conserve it. He does not think that "I did not produce it. It has come to me."

Hari-śauri: Well they don't know how it's produced. So what's there they're gonna have to save, because they're not certain that there'll be any more supply.

Prabhupāda: No. The sense is that if I'm not produced, then even if I conserve the proper..., the supply may be stopped. Because it is, there is no control over, of me. Suppose you have got some water. How long it will be conserved? Ha? The water supply is stopped. Now suppose it's the ocean. There's enough water, but if Kṛṣṇa desires, it will be dried up. Then, where you will get water? So what is the meaning of their such conserving?

Devotee (3): Right.

Prabhupāda: Enormous. Why should we bother about conserving? We should be Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is our business. The child is born; immediately there is milk in the breasts of the mother. And one minute before, there is no milk. There is no milk. Just the child is born, immediately. Who supplies the milk? He does not see that eko bahūnāṁ yo vidadhāti kāmān, that one Supreme is supplying all the necessities of the others. So our duty is only to become Kṛṣṇa conscious. Other things will be supplied by Kṛṣṇa.

Room Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: And when I arrived in Boston I wrote that poetry.

Hari-śauri: If you were only sponsored for one month, how is it that you were able to extend your visa all the time?

Prabhupāda: I was extending. The immigration officer came in Boston in my boat. He inquired about this. So he asked me, "Sir, Swamiji, how long you want to stay?" So I thought that I have no shelter, I have no money, but I have got the return ticket. So I did not know how long I... (laughs) He asked me, "How long you want to stay?" So I thought, "In these circumstances, I can stay at most two months, because I have no means where to stay, how to eat, and where shall I go? So I may struggle for two months." So I told him: "I may stay at most two months." He immediately, two months, sanctioned immediately. I could not think that I shall be able to... (laughs) That one month were there, sponsoring. So I thought "Another one month, that's all," that "This gentleman has sponsored for one month. So that is guaranteed. Then I can stay another one month. That's all." So after that, so I was staying here and there without any fixity. So I was extending the visa. Each time, I was paying ten dollars. Another three months, another three months, like that. And when one year was finished, they refused: "No extension."

Hari-śauri: But by that time you had some kind of...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hari-śauri: ...organization going?

Room Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Transport is the same. You have to transport from here, they will have to transport from...

Bharadvāja: Hm. Nanda-kiśora, or someone else?

Prabhupāda: You send to Akṣayānanda. (long pause) Prahlāda Mahārāja said there is no necessity for endeavoring for economic development. Very difficult to understand this philosophy.

Hari-śauri: People don't know how they'll survive if they don't get money.

Prabhupāda: No. We are actual examples. We are not after economic development, but we are after following Kṛṣṇa's instructions.

Nalinīkaṇṭha: People criticize us sometimes because they always see...

Prabhupāda: No, what do we care for them? We go on with our own business.

Bharadvāja: Actually, they are all envious because they see that without working we are getting such nice facility.

Prabhupāda: No, we are working, but working for Kṛṣṇa.

Bharadvāja: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That is the difference.

Rādhāvallabha: I went to the bank the other day to take out some money for the Press, and I took out a few thousand dollars. I had to take it in small bills, and there were karmīs there, and they were yelling, "They should be thrown out of town!"

Prabhupāda: They said?

Room Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Therefore we have to know what is reality.

Richard: What is reality.

Prabhupāda: Therefore we have to know what is reality. Simply ideas will not do.

Richard: Okay, reality I would say is...

Prabhupāda: If you do not know, how you will say? You say that you do not know, but how you will say, if you do not know what is reality?

Richard: Oh, I know what reality is.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Richard: Reality is a series of moments or a moment perceived by the senses.

Prabhupāda: That I have already explained. The drunkard is feeling by drinking his senses are very satisfied, that is reality.

Richard: Sure, it's his reality.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Then why should you canvass him, "Please come to the church and accept Christianity"?

Richard: Frankly, I don't know. I don't really know why he should be asked to go to church.

Prabhupāda: Therefore.... Then there is no need of church. Everyone can do whatever he thinks reality. That is no standard reality.

Prabhupada Visits Palace and Garden -- June 22, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: That means you do not know seriously what is soul. You have simply an idea, but you do not know in detail. Just like they say, the Christians, "God is great." But they do not know who is God and what is the meaning of greatness. That they do not know. They accept this theoretically or religious sentimentally, "God is great." Just like your state says, "In God We Trust." As soon as I inquire what kind of trust and to whom, there is no reply. That means they do not know what is God, what is trust. As a matter of slogan they write, that's all. Even the state heads, and what to speak of the nonsense ordinary citizens. Seriously taking, it is very important question. They should have reply. But they do not know how to reply.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: With all of the situations that take place in the material world, they may not be able to see how God is actually active in the material world, that whether there's a war or whether...

Prabhupāda: Well, that you should.... Why you should remain in ignorance how God is acting? If you are serious about God, then you must know. Just like a statesman, he knows how government is acting. Ordinary man, he knows government is acting, but he does not know how government is acting. But advanced in knowledge, they know what is the constitution, how the government is acting. That is the difference. Therefore lawyer is appointed when there is some trouble. He can find out where is the defect. That is advancement of knowledge. (end)

Answers to a Questionnaire from Bhavan's Journal -- June 28, 1976, Vrndavana:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That, the charge is that Hinduism is fatalistic, and therefore people are not making progress because they simply accept...

Prabhupāda: No, no. They are misguided. First of all, the Hinduism is also misguiding. There is no such thing as Hinduism. It is sanātana-dharma and varṇāśrama-dharma. I do not know how this word... Most probably it was given by the Mohammedans, "Hindus." But there is no such thing. In Bhagavad-gītā I don't find any word as "Hindu." Is there any word? Throughout the whole? There is no such thing.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: There's a second part to this question also, Śrīla Prabhupāda. They ask: if it's false that actually Hinduism is not fatalistic or sanātana-dharma is not fatalistic...

Prabhupāda: No, no. Fatalistic in this sense, that the destiny cannot be changed. Just like I have given already the example, that the Mahatma Gandhi, nobody expected that he would be killed by his own countryman. Why it happened? This means destiny cannot change. This is a prominent example, that Mahatma Gandhi, he was in a big meeting. Who expected that Mahatma Gandhi could be killed, and by his own countryman? But it was done. That is destiny. You cannot check it. So our point is that... The whole Vedic civilization is that destiny, a certain amount of happiness in this material world... Nobody is enjoying uninterrupted happiness. That is not possible. A certain amount of so-called happiness and certain amount of so-called distress. There must be always. So as you cannot check your distressed condition of life, similarly you cannot check your happy condition of life. It will come automatically. So don't waste your time for these things. You better utilize your energy for advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So those who are not Kṛṣṇa conscious, they think that "These people are wasting time."

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

Prabhupāda: Yes. How can you deny God? All the scientists, they deny God. This simple fact that there is... (break) ...is mother, and beginning from grass to the highest form of human being there are children. The mother is there; the children are there. Who is the father? How you can say there is no father? If the mother is there, then child is there, there must be father. I do not know how they can deny a supreme father. Anyway, this New Vrindaban life will attract people gradually, this peaceful life. They are searching after alternative.

Hari-śauri: In the Vedic culture did they have sheep? Sheep herds? Did they keep sheep?

Prabhupāda: Who?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: For making, you know, the wool, woolen garments like the cap and cādara... Sometimes it's made out of wool. They would get from sheep?

Prabhupāda: Yes. No, the meat-eaters cannot be stopped. They will eat meat. So they can kill the small animals, unimportant, not cow. Kṛṣṇa says, go-rakṣya. He never said lamb-rakṣya or hog-rakṣya. (laughs) You can eat hog. If it is decided that you must eat meat, then you can eat a nonimportant animal. We have no objection.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Or at least, as you said this morning, wait until the cow dies naturally.

Prabhupāda: That is another. Otherwise, if you want to kill, you kill less important animal.

Hari-śauri: Chickens.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Give protection to the cow, the source of milk.

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

Prabhupāda: You know that?

Hari-śauri: Yes, there was a story about five years after he got kicked out of office. He was just doing nothing, living by himself.

Prabhupāda: And what he has done? Nothing, and what he has done?

Vṛṣākapi: They want to worship Kṛṣṇa, but they don't know how.

Prabhupāda: They don't want to worship anyone. They want to worship their senses. That's all. Sense gratification. What is dictated by the senses, they agree to worship. Servant of the senses. In the material world nobody worships nobody. Everyone serves his own senses: "I like it." That's all. There is a Bengali song, yoke yadi lage phala kena dag botai(?). "If it satisfies my eyes, why shall I not see? I shall see." This is the sum-substance of... Yoke yadi lage phala kena dag bhajai.(?) Everyone wants sense gratification, to be servant of the senses. If the senses want "Do this," he will do it. And our movement is that we shall not hear the dictation of the senses; we shall do what Kṛṣṇa says. That is just opposite. So long I am carrying out the orders of the senses, then I am involved in this material birth, death, transmigration. Today I am running on this nice car. Next I can stand up here as a tree. Who can check it? After death you are completely under the... You are... Your life also completely under the laws of nature. So there is no discussion, no understanding, no knowledge about this. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). We have to change our body. What kind of body we are going to get, nobody knows. This life is everything. This body is everything. Very risky. They do not inquire even wherefrom this body has come. They are also coming. They are also living. They are also eating. The trees, they are also eating water.

Room Conversation -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh, Scottish.

Prabhupāda: Scottish Churches College. So one American, Scientific American, we have contribute(?). So there the picture was that one skyscraper building is constructed and so many men are working, carrying the beams and so on. So there was—I remember still—that all, some material construction, so many living entities they are being sacrificed(?). I do not know how the Scientific American gave this picture, I still remember. Actually that is a fact. This human being would have been released from this materialistic way of life, back to home, back to... No, instead of giving them the chance, they are engaged in constructing huge skyscraper building. They're spoiled. So it is little difficult to understand our philosophy. And Prahlāda Mahārāja said, tat-prayāso na kartavyo yata āyur-vyayaḥ param. Tat-prayāso na kartavyaḥ. This kind of activity should stop. It is simply wasting the valuable life. But they do not know how they're wasting. They're in such an ignorance. They are thinking that these people, crazy people, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, are wasting time, they're thinking like that. They do not know what is the value of life.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's a fact that the material opulence is actually a hindrance.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānāṁ tayāpahṛta-cetasām, vyavasāyātmikā buddhi... What is that? Bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānāṁ tayāpahṛta-cetasām (BG 2.44). Their life will be spoiled. And when they are tired, give them sex, and wine, and meat, and gambling, they are satisfied. Again as soon as they get little energy, again begin another skyscraper. You got this human life for solving all the problem. He is not given the chance. He's engaged otherwise, his life is spoiled. (end)

Evening Darsana -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: That is have already explained, that you serve God in any position, but if you want to know about God more, then you have to come here. Now ask any Christian what is God, who is God, what is His form, what He is doing. Can he answer? Nobody can answer. He knows God is great. How great He is, who is that God, they cannot answer. To some extent it is all right, but if you want to know full extent, then you have come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. "Two plus two is equal to four" is mathematics, but if you want to know higher mathematics, you have to go some higher college. "Two plus two" is also mathematics, is it not? Everyone knows two plus two equal to four. So when you go to higher university, that "two plus two" does not change, but you know more about it. Because one has gone to higher university, the previous education, "two plus two," has changed, it is not that. But as a Christian you understand God is great, "two plus two," but how He is great, that you have to learn in the Vedas. That is real education. Because you do not know how He is great, therefore you do so many sinful activities. Otherwise, how it is possible to maintain slaughterhouse? Christian doctrine says "Thou shall not kill." But he does not understand; therefore his business has become to kill only. This is the defect. Why you are disobeying the orders of Christ, "Thou shall not kill"? Because you do not understand him properly.

Guest (2): Śrīla Prabhupāda, when we don't eat meat in the...

Prabhupāda: No, I mean to say...

Guest (2): We didn't know why we didn't. But now I know why, because the animal is a living entity.

Prabhupāda: No, God says "Everyone is My son."

Comments on Bhagavad-gita Play -- July 12, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: ...of this human being, people do not know how they are kept in ignorance. And because we are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, out of His causeless mercy He comes to deliver us from this ignorance. Unfortunately, they are so much engrossed by the illusory energy, they do not take advantage of the instruction of Kṛṣṇa. So therefore this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is being propagated that these dull-headed mūḍha—they are being described as mūḍha, dull-headed; they do not know actual interest of life. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum (SB 7.5.31). These dull-headed conditioned souls, they do not know their real self-interest, being influenced by māyā. Māyā is also Kṛṣṇa's energy, so it is her duty to punish the conditioned soul because they have decided to forget Kṛṣṇa. Still, Kṛṣṇa is so merciful, He comes personally, He authorizes His devotees, servants, to enlighten these conditioned souls. Now our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is an humble attempt to raise the standard of these conditioned souls to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Those who are engaged in this business, they should personally behave as devotee, and by their example they should teach others and elevate them from this gross ignorance of materialistic life. Thank you very much. (break)

Rāmeśvara: Either by your books, by the dioramas and by the dancing.

Devotees: Jaya, Haribol Prabhupāda! (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So what is your opinion, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Morning Walk -- July 12, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: These scientists, they find one little bone and they make a hundred-foot body out of their mind. They say, "Well if this bone was like this, then the whole thing must have looked like this."

Rāmeśvara: That is the Museum of Natural History. They spend millions of dollars on these museums, making these displays. (break) (walking)

Prabhupāda: ...for dog, means she's going to become dog. She does not know how she is spoiling the life.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Unless she gets one of our books.

Prabhupāda: No, that is another plan. At least she does not know how things are going on.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, unless someone gets one of your books, there's no way they can come out of the darkness of this material world. There's no other source of knowledge for the people nowadays.

Prabhupāda: That is a fact. Śrīmad-bhāgavate mahā-muni-kṛte kiṁ vā anyaḥ śāstraiḥ. When there is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, composed, compiled by Vyāsadeva, where is the use of other literature? Śrīmad-bhāgavate mahā-muni-kṛte. (pause) Dusty, eh? No one is taking care.

Bali-mardana: They cannot afford to pay the garbage men to clean up the mess.

Prabhupāda: Why he's going there?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's another lake over there. So we are checking for tomorrow's walk, if it is also a good path. That's a natural, not natural, a little more natural lake.

Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Just see it is so difficult subject matter. I am speaking to you, still you feel difficulty. It is little difficult subject matter. We say the car and driver, if you understand this analogy, the car and the driver, so who is important? The driver is important, the car is important. Both combined together giving a service, the car is moving. But if they are separated, who is important, the car is important or the driver is important?

Interviewer: I don't know how I'm going to get the point you're making there across. If the car and the driver are separated, the car is useless and the driver is a person. The driver is always important.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, driver is always important. Within the car or without the car.

Interviewer: Within or without the car, and if he's a chauffeur driving a carload of people then he becomes less important, the people are primarily the ones that are important, that are in the car. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: First of all try to understand the car is moving with the help of the driver. So the driver and the car they are always different identity. So when the car is dead, the driver do not work with the car, but the driver is important within the car or without the car.

Bali-mardana: In other words, the soul is important with this body or without this body. But the body without the soul is simply fertilizer, like you said, it's dead, useless. So our mission is to educate people about the driver, about the soul within the body.

Prabhupāda: And people are generally working on the body.

Morning Walk -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Kīrtanānanda: Wonderful.

Prabhupāda: It is all Kṛṣṇa's mercy. You have seen the first copy? They have brought photograph from which library?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Congress Library in Washington. They found the original...

Prabhupāda: Yes. I do not know how they got my...

Rāmeśvara: Oh, your original, from India.

Prabhupāda: Yes, 1944, the first copy. I get them from selling. Perhaps they had been, American.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Very thick, it was a thick magazine.

Prabhupāda: In those days I was spending three hundred rupees per month.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That was a lot.

Prabhupāda: Yes, three hundred rupees, nowadays at least ten times. Three hundred ten times?

Kīrtanānanda: Three thousand.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: At least three thousand. I think even perhaps more, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes, not less than.

Kīrtanānanda: Say five hundred dollars a month?

Morning Walk -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: "Afro-American Art." What is this?

Hṛdayānanda: I think it means art by American black persons.

Rāmeśvara: Afro-American means people with dark-skinned bodies, they have painted these paintings.

Hari-śauri: One of the big problems that you read about a lot now is how parents are confused about how to educate their children, because there are so many different standards, and they don't know how their children will turn out anymore.

Prabhupāda: Here is our standard—to make him devotee.

Hṛdayānanda: China.

Rāmeśvara: These are Chinese art paintings. They are having a special exhibit of Chinese art.

Prabhupāda: Afro-American, why not Indo-American?

Bali-mardana: There is an Indian exhibition at a different museum right now. This museum also has Indian exhibitions sometimes.

Satsvarūpa: One of the biggest art professors in this country saw our books recently, and he said he's very interested in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that he thinks it's a new kind of art that your devotees are painting. That's also a school of art, and more and more it will be recognized.

Rāmeśvara: Right now they have one big exhibit of photographs that the British took when they first came to India.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Where's that?

Rāmeśvara: It's at the Asia House Gallery nearby.

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

Prabhupāda: That is the main book. (laughs)

George Harrison: Mukunda gave me the new books, but there's so much in, ah, there's just so much to read.

Prabhupāda: Philosophy.

George Harrison: I don't know how anybody could have written it, it's difficult enough to read all that amount.

Prabhupāda: Sometimes they are surprised how one man can write so many books, but it is Kṛṣṇa's grace. Otherwise not possible. Human being, it is not possible.

Mukunda: That one series of books I brought you, the Caitanya-caritāmṛta.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Hari-śauri? There is no sweet melon.

Mukunda: And every single word is written by hand, five hundred years ago.

Prabhupāda: You are in the same house?

George Harrison: Hm? Henley.

Prabhupāda: Henley, yes. Very nice house.

George Harrison: Hm, very nice. I work from the house. I have a studio, recording studio in the house. So I don't have to go to London anymore.

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

Mukunda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, you're going to outdo Shakespeare soon. You'll have written more English words than William Shakespeare. (Prabhupāda laughs) Maybe you already have.

Hari-śauri: I don't think Shakespeare's brought out fifty-six books.

Mukunda: The Encyclopedia Brittanica wrote to us asking for...

Prabhupāda: They have said...

George Harrison: These books are such a lot of work. I don't know how he did it all.

Gurudāsa: While everyone else sleeps, Prabhupāda...

George Harrison: Yes.

Prabhupāda: At night I don't sleep. Not that because I am nowadays sick. But generally I don't sleep. At most two hours. At most.

Hari-śauri: I think it's a long time since you've taken any rest at night.

Prabhupāda: I take little rest during daytime. So on the whole, three to four hours. But actually I do not like to sleep.

George Harrison: No, it's a waste of time.

Prabhupāda: I think it is, when I go to sleep, I think that now I'm going to waste my time. I actually think like that.

George Harrison: What's the word for..., the call it a little, little death. Sleep is the little death.

Prabhupāda: The śāstra also, Prahlada Mahārāja describes the sleeping is waste of time. You find out that verse.

Hari-śauri: It's in Seven, Two?

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

Mukunda: He's got up to.... You've got about two more coming before that. I'll give them to you.

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa varṇa-dvayī, you have got that?

Jayatīrtha: I found that verse. Actually, Rancor found it. Tuṇḍe tāṇḍavinī ratim vitanute tuṇḍāvalī-ladbhaye.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Pradyumna? You just note down this verse and give him.

Jayatīrtha: And the translation is "I do not know how much nectar the two syllables 'kṛṣ-ṇa' have produced. When the holy name of Kṛṣṇa is chanted, it appears to dance within the mouth. We then desire many, many mouths. When that name enters the holes of the ears, we desire many millions of years. And when the holy name dances in the courtyard of the heart, it conquers the activities of the mind, and therefore all the senses become inert." That was Rupa Gosvāmī.

Prabhupāda: That is very nice poetry. Read it gain. Tuṇḍe tāṇḍavinī...

Jayatīrtha: The English? I don't chant very well. Harikeśa Mahārāja.

Prabhupāda: Yes, you first of all recite. Very nice.

Room Conversation -- July 27, 1976, London:

Harikeśa: "The material miseries of the living entity, which are superfluous to him, can be directly mitigated by the linking process of devotional service. But the mass of people do not know this, and therefore the learned Vyasadeva compiled this Vedic literature, which is in relation to the Supreme Truth."

Prabhupāda: So here is vidvān, and there is a rascal. He does not know how people will be helped. Where you got these beads?

Bhagavān: Vṛndāvana.

Prabhupāda: Purchased?

Bhagavān: Someone gave them as gift, tulasī.

Prabhupāda: In Hawaii there are so many tulasīs dry wood. We can make those.

Bhagavān: In our preaching this is good point, that we do not alienate the communists and stress on the differences between us and them.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bhagavān: That can come later.

Prabhupāda: But they see practically that "We are theorizing while they're practically doing." So expand this farming project, self-help and peaceful life for spiritual culture. I saw that Philadelphia farm is better organized than all others.

Jayatīrtha: Yes, in Pennsylvania they have the best farm. It is the best farm. When they bought it, it already had all this equipment and best flat farmland, whereas New Vrindaban, they have such a...

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

Prabhupāda: Oh, give them this garland. (break) ...he begins with surrender. Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). So anyone who voluntarily offers obeisances, immediately he becomes fifty percent advanced. Because.... Who is talking? This material world means nobody wants to surrender. Everyone wants to become master: "I am the monarch of all I survey." Everyone is planning how to become a master. Therefore the struggle for existence. Nobody wants to become a servant. You know very well in European history, Napoleon wanted to become the master of all Europe. Hitler wanted also. Similarly, there were so many leaders, sometimes Roman leaders, sometimes Greek leaders, sometimes French leaders, sometimes German leaders, English leader. The whole European history is full of fighting, war. The basic idea is that everyone wanted to become master. That is the material disease. We are now discussing Bali Mahārāja. He also wanted to become master of the whole universe. So that is the material disease. Actually, master is one, Kṛṣṇa. There cannot be two masters. There is only one master, that is Kṛṣṇa, or God. But in the material world, because we have forgotten the real master, every one of us is trying to become master. This is material disease. Not only in one life, but life after life. The cats and dogs, they also want to be master. The dog, if he finds another dog coming, he immediately begins barking very loudly, "Why you are coming here?" So this mastership competition is going on life after life, sometimes as human being, sometimes as animal, sometimes as fish, aquatic, sometimes as demigod, bird. This is the whole material situation. And the difficulty is that we cannot become master, but on account of our false ambition that "I shall become master," we are becoming servants of material nature. We are acting in a certain way to become master, creating a situation, mentality, and at the time of death, when this body finishes, the mind absorbed in that mastership idea takes me to another body according to my ambition, so I become again manifest in different body to exhibit my mastership. Another chapter begins. So they do not know how these subtle laws of material nature is working to give us opportunity to become master according to our idea, false idea. And we are actually suffering, sometimes as human being, sometimes as animal, sometimes as trees, sometimes as dog. So the mastership cannot be attained.

Room Conversation With French Commander -- August 3, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: That's it. This is the... We are all recklessly wasteful sons of God. We are sons of God, there is no doubt, but at the present moment, recklessly wasteful. We are wasting our valuable life even, we are so reckless. So the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is to check their recklessness and bring them into senses of responsibility, going back home, back to Godhead. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But people are so reckless, as soon as you say something of God, immediately they laugh, "Oh, what is nonsense, God." This is the supreme recklessness. India was very serious about God. Still, India is serious. Now, the present leaders, they are thinking that Indians are spoiled, simply thinking of God—they're not thinking like the Americans and Europeans for economic development. So this is the position, and it is very difficult, but still we can do something this to the humanity, by preaching this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. And those who are fortunate, they'll come, take up seriously. These reckless prodigal sons, we have got so many examples. For example, just like there is some stock of petroleum and they got information that from petroleum they can run on cars without horse. So, manufacture millions of cars and spoil the whole oil. This is recklessness. And when it is finished, then they'll cry. And it will be finished. This is going on. Recklessness. Just as reckless boy, father has left some property, use it, use it. As soon as you get. The sooner it is finished, that's all. That is recklessness. There is some strength in the body, and as soon as he gets a little taste of sex life, "Oh, spend it, spend it," whole energy spent. The brain becomes vacant. This is recklessness. Beginning from twelfth year, by the thirty year, everything finished. Then he's impotent. In our childhood—in our childhood means, say, eighty years ago, or say, a hundred years ago—there was no motorcar. And now, wherever you go, in any country, you see thousands and millions of car. This is recklessness. Hundreds years ago they could do without motorcar, and now they cannot live without a car. In this way, unnecessarily, they're increasing bodily or material necessities of life. This is recklessness. And the leaders will say, "Stop this nonsense, come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness," nobody will care. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānās te 'pīśa-tantryām uru-dāmni baddhāḥ (SB 7.5.31). This is called blind leader leading blind followers. They do not know that both of them are bound up by the strict, stringent laws of nature. (break) ...how the laws of nature is working. They are completely in ignorance. They do not know. This is modern civilization. The laws of nature must work in its own way. You care for it or do not care for it, that is your business, but the laws of nature will work. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). But these rascals, they do not know how the laws of nature will work. They are endeavoring artificially for, foolishly, to overcome the laws of nature.

Room Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: "God" means He must possess all the wealth. Just like in Persia you have got so many wealthy persons, but nobody can claim, even the Shah cannot claim, that he possesses all the wealth. That is not possible. Persia. Do you follow what I say? So this is one of the items, that God is the richest, or He possesses all the wealth. Similarly, He possesses all the strength, He possesses all the beauty, He possesses all knowledge, and He is the renouncer also, the most exalted renouncer. Although He possesses so many things, He is renounced. Just like this universe is the property of God, but He has given to you, all the living entities. "Now you wanted to enjoy, enjoy it to your best capacity." He doesn't interfere. "All right, you go on." And we are trying to enjoy this material world to our best capacity. Just like in Iran, you are trying to enjoy by exploiting the oil. Similarly, somebody is exploiting. It is all God's property. He doesn't interfere. "All right, enjoy." This is renouncement. His property, He does not come to interfere. God knows how this universe is made. So many big, big scientists, they are trying to understand what is the constitution, how this universe is made, how it is created. Nobody knows, but He knows. Just like you have got this body, I have got this body, but we do not know everything of this body. I do not know how many hairs are there. Is it not? So, so many things. I am eating, and it is transformed into blood, and it is directed towards brain, towards other parts of the body and we are working very strong, but we do not know how things are happening. Although I am claiming I am this body, I am my body. But God knows every particular, any... anvayād itarataḥ. How the stone is made, He knows. How this flower is colored, He knows. That is called wise, wisdom. Vedāhaṁ samatītāni (BG 7.26). He knows. That is God. He is the possessor of all wealth, all knowledge, all beauty, all strength, all influence. In this way you have to understand God.

Evening Darsan -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

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

Morning Walk -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: No, I mean to say the modern scientists.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Modern scientists. One theory is the evolutionary process.

Prabhupāda: So wherefrom evolution begins?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: They don't know how it began. Some say it came from water. How does life begin? Nobody really knows.

Hari-śauri: They say there has to be certain combination of gases, ammonia, water, some hydrogen.

Prabhupāda: They cannot make this gas and combine?

Hari-śauri: This is the way they are testing for life on Mars. This is one of the tests.

Prabhupāda: No, why Mars? In their laboratory they can make gas and mix.

Hari-śauri: Well they say that they've made amino acids.

Prabhupāda: They cannot make?

Hari-śauri: They've made that, they say.

Prabhupāda: But they cannot produce life.

Hari-śauri: They haven't succeeded in having it develop any further than that.

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

Gargamuni: The State government is very favorable. But the doubt, of course, is coming from the central government because they don't know us. But the state government, they are very favorable. Everyone we've met within the State, they like us very much. They like the Society, they like your work, and, of course, they like your books.

Jayapatākā: The local police intelligence officer in Krishnagar, when I went to see him, he told me, (Bengali). Like that, he told me. "Definitely I make you an Indian citizen." So they are favorable. I don't know how much they can do, but locally they are favorable.

Gargamuni: Now on the weekend we have tours of the building. Many groups of people come. Fifty in a group sometimes come and visit.

Prabhupāda: Tourists.

Gargamuni: Yes, tourists, and we take then on tour of the building. That's Subhaga. He takes them on tour and he gives some preaching. So many people are coming.

Prabhupāda: Subhaga is in charge of that?

Gargamuni: Yes, he does.

Jayapatākā: Others are there also. One new boy is very good.

Gargamuni: Kiśora.

Room Conversation -- August 20, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: That was his diagnosis.

Hari-śauri: Yes. So as soon as we came... Like in New Vrindaban, a little bit high, then again it changes over. But then, as soon as we left, then it stopped again.

Prabhupāda: Then this Mahabaleswar will not be...

Hari-śauri: No. If it's very high, the altitude will not be so good. As soon as we arrived in Iran, immediately the next day the swelling was there. I don't know how high this will be, but New Vrindaban is not so high.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes? (?)

Hari-śauri: I think someone said about 1200 feet, not very much. But that may be because the atmosphere in the hills is a little rarified as well.

Prabhupāda: I had vision of (indistinct)... More than going to the hill (indistinct). It is higher than sea level anyway... Therefore the northern portion of India is called upper. It is very higher than the sea level. It is called upper because it is much higher, very high from the ocean. But I was... Vṛndāvana is also that part of (indistinct). Only Bengal is not upper.

Hari-śauri: Yes, it's low.

Prabhupāda: It is near the sea, so... (end)

Morning Walk -- August 23, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: About birth control. So birth control means the father and mother, the father and mother should not become father and mother unless they take full responsibility for the children to save them from the repetition of birth and death. This is the śāstric injunction. Pitā na sa syāj jananī na sā syāt na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyum. The, everyone is, in this material world, is going on in the cycle of birth and death. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). Transmigrating from one body to another. And after many millions of years he gets the chance of becoming a human being. Now in this life he can stop the birth and death. Punar janma jāyate. That is Vedic culture. How to conquer over this process of repetition, birth and death. That is only possible in the human life. A chance is given, and if he misses this chance then again he'll be cycle... Therefore the father and mother's duty is to train up the children in such a way, that this is the last birth. No more birth. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). And that training, that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But the things are different. Both the parents and the children, all of them are going again in the cycle of birth and death and wasting the opportunity of getting a human body. This is modern civilization. They do not know this science. They are kept in darkness. This is so-called education. Mūḍho 'yaṁ nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ paramaṁ mama (BG 7.25). Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi... They do not know what is the destination of life. In darkness. There is no education practically. The modern education is how to eat nicely, how to sleep nicely, how to have sex nicely, how to defend nice. And that is the business of the animals. They know how to eat, how to sleep, how to have sex, and how to defend. So the extra intelligence of human being is making a royal edition of eating, sleeping, sex and defense. That's all. What is called? Deluxe edition. The modern civilization is deluxe edition of animal life. That's all. Animal-deluxe edition. That's all. They do not know what is the aim of life. So as you are life member, you should study our, this philosophy. Life members, they are given books. And preach this, and save this human... That is the duty. Paropakāra. Human life is meant for paropakāra. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission.

bhārata-bhūmite haila manuṣya-janma yāra
janma sārthaka kari' kara para-upakāra
(CC Adi 9.41)

Because they are in darkness, all rascals, mūḍha. Nābhijānāti. They do not know anything. And they're puffed up by their false education, false knowledge. Ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā. "Huh! I have no engagement." Vimūḍhātmā. Kartāham iti manyate. They do not know how nature's law is working. Do they not know?

Room Conversation -- September 9, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes. His father came to see me some time in Agra. Agra. His father, mother came.

Hari-śauri: And then they suggested that he be your sponsor.

Prabhupāda: It was all by chance. I was for a few days guest at his father's place in Agra. I did not know that his son is in America. So he was talking about his family. He was little sorry that his eldest son went to America to study electric engineering, and he was entrapped by an English girl, and he married and settled there and did not come back. In this way... So I took the opportunity, that "Why don't you ask your son to sponsor me?" I wanted to go to America. So I did not know how seriously he took it. But I simply told him that "Why don't you ask your son to sponsor me at least for one month. So I am thinking of going to America." Then that was talking, beginning and end, that's all. I did not know that he took it very seriously. Then after two, three months, some documents came. I was receiving my letters in a post box. So when I left Delhi I used to keep my key of post box with some nice bookseller, Atmaram, he was manager. So he opened that, he got that documents. That is No Objection Certificate, Sponsor, and everything. I was out of Delhi. Then when I came back I took it. So everything was there, that sheet (indistinct) from the Indian Consulate, No Objection Certificate. Then I applied for a passport. In this way I had to go. So Gopal was unknown to me, but his father was, his father was known to me. His father was... Then his agent got me on the bus. So on the bus (I) went to Pennsylvania.

Hari-śauri: That's a long drive.

Room Conversation -- September 26, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: You do not know? Who is paying?

Akṣayānanda: I'll check with Viśvambhara. I don't know, to be quite honest.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Akṣayānanda: To be perfectly honest, I don't know.

Prabhupāda: You do not know? How is that?

Akṣayānanda: Because I've been away so much, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: All right. Still, you should know what is this and what is...

Akṣayānanda: Yes, I know. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...he was going to cleanse these rooms, so whether this is going on or not, you do not know. Then who knows it?

Akṣayānanda: Viśvambhara would know because he took full charge in my absence for all these things.

Haṁsadūta: You want me to take care of it? Your rooms at Rādhā-Dāmodara? You want me to take care that they're cleaned and kept?

Prabhupāda: That was being done.

Akṣayānanda: Yes, I had it being done once a week.

Morning Walk -- December 5, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Guest (1): Bhagavad-gītā gives the way to go back to Godhead. Otherwise one has to suffer continuously.

Prabhupāda: Yes, this material world, birth after birth. One birth, suffering, then again die, again another birth, again suffering. But the people are kept in ignorance. They do not know how the soul is transmigrating. (aside:) Ayi. Betiye.(?) From... Ask them to sit down properly. Why don't you... Is there any seat, proper? So you... (Hindi) What was the topic? What was going on, the topic?

Devotee (2): Śrīla Prabhupāda, this morning we went to this engagement. There was the inauguration of the Vivekananda Society Home, so we went there on saṅkīrtana because we were invited by them. And one swami spoke and he said service to mankind was also service to God. And at the end he also said that Vivekananda used to say that for the housewife, that the cooking pot was becoming God, had become God, had become a God.

Prabhupāda: People applauded. This is foolishness. They do not know how to act. Just like if you pour water on the tree, then it is accepted that you are pouring water on the tree but that is not the process. The process is to pour water on the root of the tree. Practically we... You can make an experiment. Just like here is a tree. You don't pour water on the root but pour water on the leaves. Then it will dry in due course of time. It will not be effective. But if you pour water on the root, the water will go everywhere. So the whole thing is just like a tree. God is the origin of everything. He is the root. Aham ādir hi devānām (Bg 10.2). Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ (BG 10.8). Therefore He is the root. So if you pour water in the root, then the water is distributed everywhere. But if you pour water on the leaves, on the twigs, on the fruits, it will take time and it will not be successful. So one who is not in awareness of the laws of nature, they commit this mistake. We can say that pouring water on the leaves is also pouring water on the tree.

Morning Walk -- December 30, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Because they were doing with commodities, even he has no cash money he can immediately sell something and pay. That was the credit. That was the credit. Then people believed them. The village bankers were these grocers, especially the gold merchants. Therefore the gold merchants were bankers and dealers in gold. Suvarṇa-vaṇik. They had position. They have got stock of ornaments, gold ornaments, silver utensils. So you can believe in him, that by putting in his custody one hundred, one thousand rupees he can deliver. At any moment. The bankers. And Rūpa Gosvāmī did it practically. Some money for emergency, some money... Relatives they also expect. That is allowed. So they should be given something. Not that cent percent. At least 25% to the relatives and 25% for personal. And 50% for Kṛṣṇa. This is the system. So this is called dānam. Kṛṣṇa also says kuruṣva tad mad-arpaṇam. "If you want to give in charity, give it to Me." Kuruṣva tad mad-arpaṇam. Dadāsi yat. "If you have got some capacity to give something, give it to Me." He never said to daridra-nārāyaṇa. I do not know how they manufactured these things. Kṛṣṇa says, "Give it to Me." He's not daridra. He's Nārāyaṇa, but He's not daridra. The principle is to give to the richest Nārāyaṇa, not daridra-nārāyaṇa. But these rascals misinterpret that daridra has become Nārāyaṇa. How daridra can become Nārāyaṇa? This is going on. And therefore there is no effect. There is no effect. See from practical what Vivekananda has done? But they have made propaganda, false propaganda, they have got roads. In a city like Bombay, big road, Vivekananda. But they do not care what Vivekananda has done.

Devotee: Even they got road, in the road so many nonsense going on.

Prabhupāda: That every road is there. We have no such thing. (Hindi) But he's not recognized in... Wherefrom he has got the advertisement that in America he has done tremendous work. What they have done?

Press Interview -- December 31, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: He is not a scholar. He's a rascal. We have to follow the ācāryas. The ācāryas never said. There are so many ācāryas. They never say. So, we have to follow, ācāryopāsanam, not the rascals. We cannot worship the rascals. Worship ācāryas. They are guide. So śāstra says... Find out sa evāyaṁ mayā te 'dya yogaḥ proktaḥ purātanaḥ. Purātanaḥ, Kṛṣṇa says that imaṁ vivasvate yogaṁ proktavān aham avyayam (BG 4.1), "I spoke this science to Vivasvān, the sun-god." So if you calculate sun, this sun, Vivasvān, is the father of Manu, Vaivasvata Manu. And if you take, calculate, it becomes forty millions of years. So this Bhagavad-gītā is spoken, according to the Bhagavad-gītā, according to the version of Kṛṣṇa, forty millions of years ago. Now He says that science was known to the people by paramparā. And that paramparā is lost somehow or other. Therefore as... (break) Suppose you are born in Bombay, but you do not know how the state is being managed, then what is my jñāna? If you do not know how the state is being managed then what is your jñāna? That jñāna is, dogs and cats, they have also jñāna. How to eat, how to sleep, how to use sex life, how to defend. This is not jñāna. Everyone knows it. If you know God, who is conducting the whole, that is jñāna. So if you do not know who is the supreme controller...

Indian man: Knowing God through śāstras is one thing, but can a realization come in life as Arjuna had?

Prabhupāda: No.

Indian man: As Arjuna had the viśvarūpa-darśana.

Prabhupāda: No, that is not... Arjuna said, śiṣyas te 'haṁ śādhi māṁ prapannam (BG 2.7). For that jñāna you have to become śiṣya to the ācārya or it is useless.

Room Conversation -- December 31, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: You were... Two thousand years ago, Christ, he was born in Jewish family, he was horrified by seeing animal sacrifices in the synagogue. Therefore his first commandment is, "Thou shall not kill." He was so horrified. Why he has given this commandment? He was so much horrified. What is this? Therefore he gave up the Jewish religion. He started his own. This is the history. And he first commanded, "Thou shall not kill."

Dr. Patel: And the Jews were killing the pigeons in the temple.

Prabhupāda: They are very expert in killing.

Dr. Patel: I don't know how the religiosity could even...

Prabhupāda: So where is religion?

Dr. Patel: They have misinterpreted religion.

Prabhupāda: Therefore Bhāgavata has criticized all so-called religion.

Dr. Patel: One patient of mine Sardar Patel, he's a old (indistinct) from Hindus and Muslim. And (indistinct) killing of their...

Prabhupāda: Muslims are also restricted... (break) ...for some purpose. Therefore they are called karmīs. Actually, it is for satisfying Viṣṇu. Without Viṣṇu's satisfaction nothing can be done. So those who are desiring some material grants, they used to perform this ritualistic ceremonies. It is not for the devotee.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Yogi Amrit Desai of Kripalu Ashram (PA USA) -- January 2, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: They cannot give any real position. They are studying so many molecules, so many atoms, so many this, so many... They are mixing... They are... That is already going on. How it is going on? Who has set up the machine going on? That they do not know.

Yogi Amrit Desai: Right. They don't know the key part of it.

Prabhupāda: Neither they can set up similar arrangement. They're simply studying.

Yogi Amrit Desai: They can study what is, but they do not know how it came about.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So where is jñāna? Ajñāna.

Yogi Amrit Desai: And it can at the most increase the convenience on the material plane.

Prabhupāda: Jñāna, real jñāna, is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. Find out. Etaj jñānam iti proktam ajñānaṁ yad ato 'nyathā. What is jñāna, that is stated. But where is jñāna? Everyone is ajñāna. General people, they're karmīs and, little more, jñānīs. But jñāna is not complete unless he knows the Supreme Lord.

Yogi Amrit Desai: Unless he has realized.

Prabhupāda: Not realized, no. Just like we are talking personally. This is...

Jagadīśa: Amānitvam adambhitvam ahiṁsā kṣāntir ārjavam, ācāryopāsanaṁ śaucam... (BG 13.8).

Prabhupāda: Yes. So this is ācāryopāsanam. That is required. But these yogis, jñānīs, karmīs, they have no ācārya. They are self-made. Just like Dr. Russer.(?). He's self-made. So what he will do? Now he's caught up. He's in the trap. He's not a scientific man, but he presented himself as very scientific, so now he's caught up.

Room Conversation -- January 7, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: There, there. Not here. They're on that side. Now they are not going to have any more beef now, from first of January. Cows are prohibited. Practically the whole India there will be no cow slaughter. That is why Vinoda Bhave was putting on a fast unto death. Still, he did not...

Jagadīśa: I thought he killed bulls.(?)

Dr. Patel: Bulls I included in cows. In place they will kill the buffaloes. The buffaloes are tamed. I don't know how in the world, sir, nowhere these buffaloes are tamed as it is in India. That means what height of these things Indian people must have reached to tame the wild animals.

Prabhupāda: No, buffaloes are killed.

Dr. Patel: No, no. What I mean to say, how buffaloes were tamed and milked and all these things, nowhere in the world other than India you'll see buffaloes, anywhere.

Trivikrama: China.

Dr. Patel: In China they have got? They have also? They have got, Arabian... In Africa, oh, you see a buffalo and bison... (?)

Prabhupāda: Buffalo and bison different.

Dr. Patel: But they are of the same degree or more wild. These are tame. This, sir, is a (Hindi). We call it (Hindi), the Sanskrit word, more or less. (pause)

Room Conversation -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Mr. Asnani: Yes. You told my wife also.

Prabhupāda: Nobody is interested. That is the difficulty in this age. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ durāśayā ye bahir-artha-māninaḥ (SB 7.5.31). They do not know how one can become happy. They are simply hoping against hope. Durāśayā. Aśayā means hope, and dura means which will never be fulfilled. Durāśayā ye bahir-artha-māninaḥ.

Pradyumna: You wrote that essay one time, "Hope Against Hope."

Prabhupāda: Yes. Hope against hope is which is never fulfilled.

Mr. Asnani: Living in the fool's paradise.

Prabhupāda: Yes. "This plan has failed. Now let me this, make this plan. And then again fail? All right, let me this." This is hope against hope. He's thinking that "This plan has failed. Let me do this plan." Again failed? "Again another, again another."

Mr. Asnani: Foundation, as you said, is on the household.

Hari-śauri: Moghāṣā.

Prabhupāda: Moghāśā mogha-karmāṇo mogha-jñānā vicetasaḥ... (BG 9.12).

Hari-śauri: Baffled hope.

Discussion on Deprogrammers -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Rāmeśvara: "But they do not know about their forceful, harassing solicitation..."

Prabhupāda: They know.

Rāmeśvara: "...begging tactics."

Prabhupāda: We do not know.

Rāmeśvara: They say that most people do not know how aggressive we really are. "Most of the families with young people involved with Hare Kṛṣṇa..." (break)

Prabhupāda: ...very important letter.

Rāmeśvara: We sent this to all the temples in America.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And give me one copy. I shall keep.

Rāmeśvara: This is for you.

Prabhupāda: All right.

Rāmeśvara: This is all based on the information received by various parent groups. "These people usually fear physical harm that may come to them and to their children who are in Hare Kṛṣṇa, as well as forcibly permanent separation from their children in Hare Kṛṣṇa."

Prabhupāda: They do not know what is meaning, liberation. This is liberation, forcely separating from māyā. That they do not know. māyām etaṁ taranti te. Yes.

Rāmeśvara: "Hare Kṛṣṇa is known to hide out those whose families want them out."

Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:

Prabhupāda: Our business is sai vai manaḥ kṛṣṇa-padāravindayoḥ (SB 9.4.18). First of all is mentality. Man-manā mad-bhakto. Mental cure, then physically devotee. "Always think of Me." This is the cure, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Kṛṣṇa says, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto. Beginning: always think of Kṛṣṇa. This is the treatment. It is proved. Mentally he'll be cured. And then physically after. Nice (indistinct). They do not know how things are happening. (japa) Thinking, feeling, willing. First of all thinking, then feeling, then willing, then working. (break) ...and spending for military strength. They are not performing yajña, so how there will be rainfall? There will be warfare, devastation. Most rubbish civilization, modern misleading, soul-killing. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ (SB 7.5.31). Very difficult to live with them. Still, we have to do this Kṛṣṇa's business. So we have to do our business. Let the dogs bark on. We don't care for it. If we remain sincere to Kṛṣṇa, that is our victory, not the result. Karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana. We have to act according to direction of Kṛṣṇa, that much. We want to see good result. Even there is no good result, we don't mind. We must be sincere to Kṛṣṇa that "We have done our best." That's all. Without cheating Kṛṣṇa. That is our duty. As servant, we shall not cheat the master. Result, no result—that depends on Kṛṣṇa. We should not be sorry if there is not result. Never mind. Caitanya Mahāprabhu says that "I have brought to Benares hari-nāma, but here they are full of Māyāvādīs. So if it is not sold, all right, I shall take it back." Caitanya Mahāprabhu said. So we should not be anxious whether the things are sold or not. But we must do our best canvassing work: "Please take it." That is our duty. Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa... (break)

Room Conversation -- January 20, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: ...neither they do not know how life becomes possible. They may go on (Imitating the speaker?) "Bhag, bhag," but these two things are absent. You are all scientists? No. You do not know how life becomes possible. They simply theorize in so many ways, but they cannot give us any positive information. (Bengali) "Man is the architect of his own fortune." So we can take the words of the ācāryas. (Bengali) (someone preaching in Oriya in background) (Prabhupāda speaks in Bengali to guests, tells someone to give them prasāda)

Indian boy: I want to read some books published by Swamiji. Can I get?

Prabhupāda: Yes, why not? You can have here. We have got forty standing orders from this city in different libraries, colleges. So you can take books from any library, or if you like you can purchase also.

Indian: From libraries?

Prabhupāda: Yes. So many libraries, they have ordered. There is a list in Orissan. (aside:) You can give me little, little sample... (break) ...for life that it is a dead body. A dead body. So what is the use of decorating a dead body? So if anyone accepts Christ actually and his instruction, then it proves that he has got a good soul. Otherwise what... He's dead body. That's a fact. If one accepts that Christ says, "Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not do this," if one is actually a person with soul, they must accept this. Otherwise where is the use? Dead body. The same thing, as we say, aprāṇasya hi dehasya maṇḍanaṁ loka-rañjanam. What is the use of decorating a dead body? A dead body means soul-less. When the soul is not there, it is called dead body. So even one has got the soul, but he does not act... They possesses the soul. Then it is dead body. So when we shall hear about the land? One program is suspended. That program is for constructing a house for me.

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: And especially in your country it will be dangerous because these blacks, if they don't get employment, they will create havoc, these blacks. And they are not civilized. They want money, and if they don't get money, then they will create havoc.

Gargamuni: Money and liquor.

Hari-śauri: Yes. If they do get money, they just buy it.

Prabhupāda: Money they get. But they can live. But there is no culture. They want liquor. So these rascals do not know how we are making human civilization. They do not see it, that without any fixed income we are maintaining such a huge establishment all over the world, without any fixed income. How we are doing? We are not thieves, we are not rogues. We are all gentlemen.

Gargamuni: In India they say the CIA is funding you.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They may say anything, but actually what we are?

Rāmeśvara: In America they are supporting the unemployed through federal and state welfare, which is paid for by tax money. So the more the unemployment increases, the more the taxes...

Prabhupāda: Taxes increase.

Rāmeśvara: ...have to increase. Otherwise these people will starve.

Gargamuni: And thousands of people live off the welfare checks.

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Pandemonium, yes. This has to be reformed. You cannot avoid these four classes working under the superior instruction of brahminical culture. Then everything... This life successful, next life is back to home, back to Godhead. That is civilization, no speculation. The formula is already there. Bhagavad-gītā is the guidance, as it is. "Be happy here, and next life hope. Why you are disappointed? Take this way and be happy." This is our movement. We are not going to exploit anyone. We are giving the right path: "Be happy in this life and next life also." This is our mission. Para upakāra. They are blindly following some ways of life. Blind men, certainly, without guidance, we are falling down in the ditch. Once this human life is misused, he falls down in the ditch. He does not... He becomes a tree. "Stand up there for one thousand years. What you can do?" This risk they are taking. They do not believe, therefore, there is next life. And wherefrom this life came, varieties? These rascals have no brain, and they are passing as scientist, politician, philosopher, all rascals, tenth-class men. Tell them. Challenge them, "What do you know about the value of life? Your brain must be washed to clear out all the dirty things." Our duty is that. Just like a patient does not know how he will be cured, but the surgeon—"Operation. Clear out these pusses." He may protest, "Oh, you are clearing out my pusses!" But "Yes! It is my business. Clear out the pusses. Then you will be relieved—by force." But he can protest, "Oh, you are clearing out my pusses!" "Pusses, what for you...? Pusses is not to be maintained. It has to be cleared out." This is para upakāra, doing good to others. And the patient will protest, "Oh, this rascal doctor, killing me, killing me, killing me!" "Yes, I am not killing you. I am saving you. You go on accusing me any way, but I must do my duty." This is the point. "Yes, we are washing brain," exactly like the experienced surgeon. He doesn't make any compromise. "Oh, you are suffering from the boil. There is pus. All right, you don't like operation?" Will that cure? ""No, fool! Come one. Bring knife. Cut it. Press. Now?" "Oh, I am so relieved! You are God. You are God." Then he will see. That is our duty: purge out all pusses accumulated due to infection, material infection. This is our duty. We cannot make any compromise. When the pusses are to be purged out, we cannot take your advice, that "Just blow some air from the mouth or some fan. It will be cured." No, it will not be. Take surgical operation. That is only way. Purge out. "No this! No this! No this! No meat-eating, no..." This is purging.

Evening Conversation -- January 25, 1977, Puri:

Prabhupāda: Two.

Hari-śauri: Oh. And then one when you got to...

Prabhupāda: New York. Third one paralyzed.

Hari-śauri: Very bad one.

Prabhupāda: Left side paralyzed. I do not know how we were saved.

Hari-śauri: Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: And one girl, that captain's wife, she studied astrology. She said, "Swami, if you can survive your seventieth year, then you'll live for one hundred years." (Hari-śauri laughs) So, somehow or other, I survived my seventieth year. I do not whether I shall live for hundred years, but seventieth year was severe-three heart attacks and paralysis.

Hari-śauri: All in the same year.

Prabhupāda: Then without any family. At that time none of you were with me. I was alone. I was completely dependent on anyone.

Hari-śauri: Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: But on the ship I saw that "Kṛṣṇa is with me." I was going for this reas..., Hare Kṛṣṇa. So they are not here, some prasāda to eat?

Hari-śauri: There's a little extra. He can take some. They'll all be eating Jagannātha prasādam.

Room Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- January 30, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: They come out from egg?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. They lay eggs.

Prabhupāda: Oh. How big it is?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I don't know how big it is.

Prabhupāda: Not very big.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I don't think it's very big.

Pradyumna: Not very big. Because they have baby crocodiles at home. In the United States it used to be the fashion to get a baby crocodile and keep him in a tub. Then he would get too big so they would flush it down the toilet, and then in the sewers in New York many crocodiles.

Hari-śauri: Yes. They're all living in the sewers. (Prabhupāda laughs)

Pradyumna: If one goes in the sewers it's very dangerous, because crocodiles have grown up and they are in the sewers. So they get them small size and they keep them at home.

Prabhupāda: And when it is bigger it is thrown into commode?

Room Conversation Varnasrama System Must Be Introduced -- February 14, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. If the leaders of the society, they agree. They are barking like dogs in the United Nation. They should take rightly the instruction of Bhagavad-gītā. Then everything will be all right. They're simply barking like dogs. What benefit is there? What benefit people have derived from the United Nation? Nothing. So if they want actually world peace, world unity, they must take the formula given by Kṛṣṇa. That is our duty. Because we are preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness, so our duty is to convince that "You are uselessly wasting your time for unity, for benefit of the human... You take this. You'll be happy." We are safe. We have taken to Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet shelter. There is no doubt. But... Just like Prahlāda Mahārāja. He said that "I am quite happy. I have no problem. But I am thinking of these rascals." Tato vimūḍha-cetasa indriyārtha: "They have made the whole aim of life sense gratification." Indriyārtha. "And for that purpose, a few years, they're making huge arrangement, how we shall become happy?" And next life a dog. It is risky. So as Kṛṣṇa conscious men, we should try to save them. That is the duty. But this civilization as it is going on is very risky. They do not know how nature's law is working, how he's going to be a dog next life. He does not know. Mūḍho nābhijānāti. To save the mass people from falling down to the repetition of birth and death, that is welfare activity. To save them by Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we have to keep this ideal at least, varṇāśrama, that "Here is the position."

Hari-śauri: At this time should we try to introduce it in our centers or not?

Prabhupāda: Always we shall try. Human society will be always there. We have to serve them, para-upakāra. We have to keep them in the right position.

Hari-śauri: I just remember two or three years ago there was a thing... A pamphlet came out about introducing the varṇāśrama system in the society, but actually nothing came of it.

Room Conversation -- February 14, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Everywhere, all over the world. It will be a revolution from godlessness to understanding of God. That is wanted. Otherwise the whole human society is suffering. Harāv abhaktasya kuto. This advancement of so-called education has no value. It is very risky. They do not know how the nature's law is working. Rascals. They are taking this short duration of life, māyā-sukhāya bharam udvahato vimūḍhān (SB 7.9.43), making big, big plans, forgetting they're completely under the control of nature. A very risky civilization. A living being gets the opportunity to understand all the secrets of nature's path, but he's denied the opportunity. Very dangerous He's thinking like animal. Eating, sleeping, that's all. And big, big educationist and in... Like Professor Kotofsky, he said, "Swamijī, after this body is finished, everything (is finished.)" Just see.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No intelligence. (break)

Prabhupāda: Anyone who has understood the value of Hare Kṛṣṇa, he is saved. But we should not simply keep ourselves saved. We should think for others. That is para-upakāra. And that you cannot do unless you are in the safe position. Janma sārthaka kari'. If you become polluted, then you cannot do. That is the secret. If you are not polluted, then you can do. Otherwise it will be show only, no effect. This is the secret. Janma sārthaka kari' kara para-upakāra (CC Adi 9.41). So, things are very easy, not at all difficult. If you follow, then you can do good to others.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This process gives one the strength to carry it forward more and more.

Room Conversation -- February 17, 1977, Mayapura:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We have to educate them.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Vidvāṁś cakre sātvata-saṁhitām (SB 1.7.6). Anarthopaśamaṁ sākṣād bhakti-yogam adhokṣaje, lokasya ajānataḥ. The rascal people, they do not know how life is going on, and they are creating anarthas. Therefore vidvān, Vyāsadeva, vidvāṁś cakre sātvata-saṁhitām. So this is the position. Mūrkhāṇām upadeśo hi prakopāya na śāntaye. "If you try to advise rascal, he'll be angry."

upadeśo hi mūrkhāṇāṁ
prakopāya na śāntaye
payaḥ-pānaṁ bhujaṅgānāṁ
kevalaṁ viṣa-vardhanam

So this is the position. Still, we have to do our business. What can be done? Difficult task. Therefore, if you want to please Kṛṣṇa very quickly, you should struggle for preaching.

ya idaṁ paramaṁ guhyaṁ
mad-bhakteṣv abhidhāsyati
na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu
kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ
(Bg 18.68)

So we have got our business, to please Kṛṣṇa. That is our mission. So despite there are so many inconveniences, we have to do this business. Mūḍhaḥ nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ paramam avyayam. They are all mūḍhas. So we have been engaged to teach them some lesson. Caitanya Mahāprabhu did also. He sacrificed all personal comforts, home life.

Room Conversation -- February 18, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: But they have no brain to understand this. No, no. Not this volume. The Tenth Canto I am explaining now. How nature is working, māyayā... They have no value. They are studying gross science. Actually science means how nature is working. But how nature is working, they do not know, and they are very much proud. "Nature's study..." They say they have studied nature, but they do not know how... Here it is said, bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61). This machine is made by nature. Do you know how it is made? So where is your brain? This is a machine. And everyone knows this machine is made by nature. So how...? Do you know how it is made? Then where is your brain? You are concerned with the typewriting machine—"cutacutacut." Study this machine. Produce a machine like this. Then where is your brain? What do they answer? What do they answer? They are trying?

Brahmānanda(?): Future.

Prabhupāda: So in our Back to Godhead these things should be demonstrated, not that imitating that tech position, like this. These things should be... If you have got intelligence, this description what I am giving you, that should be explained. This nonsense should be stopped. That means we are imitating them. Explain this, how, yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61), how this machine is being made by māyā. Then we shall give them brain. So be intelligent and try to give them brain. And if you remain dull-brained like that, then you'll say, "Yes, yes, you are right." You are not right. Every step we shall... "You are not right. You are wrong. You have no brain." That should be our idea.

Room Conversation with Adi-kesava Swami -- February 19, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: It is condemned. My position is different. Why shall I die? The rascals, they agree to die. We do not agree to die. We want to come to our original position, no more death. This is our motto, because we get information from the Bhagavad-gītā, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). I do not die on account of my material body mixed up... "Dust thou art; dust thou beist." This body is made of five elements: earth, water, air, fire, ether. And this is my gross body. The gross body is finished, but my mental, subtle body—mind, intelligence—that is not yet finished. That is carrying me to another body. Just like we have got practical experience. I am sitting here, you are sitting here. Mind carries me to New York, and I am now dreaming or thinking I am sitting in that room and talking with somebody. I have forgotten this, but... It is practical. Although I am sitting here, I have forgotten it, and I am working, thinking myself that I am in New York. Similarly, in dream my body is on the bed. I am thinking I am on the Himalayan top. So as it is possible even in this body, similarly, I get another body, gross body. Then I forget this body. This is transmigration. I have explained it. This is the factual. Everyone can experience. I have got a period of remaining in this body. So as soon as this period is finished I get..., I create another body and enter it. And because the period is not finished, although in dream I am getting another body and going to the Himalaya, top, or I'm going to my New York apartment, still, I have to come back because period is not finished. Simple thing. This is transmigration. Why I shall be put into this condition because my original position is eternal? Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). That we are teaching to the whole world: "Why you are suffering with this body? Get out of the body." This is our Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It is the best welfare activity to the human society, but because they are so dull, they cannot understand. Mūrkhāṇām upadeṣo hi prako... If first-class rascal is advised, he thinks otherwise, that "He is bothering me." So what can be done? We have taken this daṇḍa, we have accepted service of Kṛṣṇa, and if He has ordered that "You preach this philosophy of Bhagavad-gītā. You'll become My very dearest servant," He'll show them. Na ca tasmād manuṣyeṣu kaścit. So we want to be very faithful to our master, so you may come against us. We don't mind. Jesus Christ was crucified. He didn't mind. So if you are unnecessarily prosecuting us, we don't mind. We must go on with our duty. We cannot give it up. That's all. It is not possible. What to..., you are prosecuting? If you kill us, we shall not. We have taken this daṇḍa. This is our determination. You cannot stop us. That's it. "Because we know this is the only welfare activity to the human society. You make talk, madmen. We don't care for it. To be imprisoned with this material body—the greatest suffering... You are trying to mitigate suffering, temporary, this way and that, but you do not know how."

Room Conversation with Adi-kesava Swami -- February 19, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Actually it is brainwashing, educating. (break) "You take this. This is our aim. Remain brahmacārī, no bother. Is that bad? You will have your sex unrestricted and make your wife pregnant and kill him and eat him. You'll be implicated with so many sinful activities, and if I say, if you are so much afraid, 'Don't have sex,' what is the wrong there? And you are thinking, 'Oh? No sex? It is so brainwashing, mind-controlling.' But what is... You want that in a sinful way. We want in a pious way."

Hari-śauri: Yes. Same thing. No one wants the suffering.

Prabhupāda: That is the difference. "Your brain is so filled with stool that you do not know how much sinful activities you are..., and how much you are becoming entangled in this material body. You are killing the child. You have to become his child again, or you have to become again a child and you will be killed. And then you will enter another mother's body; you'll be again killed. As many child you have killed, you'll have to be killed so many times. You'll never see the light. In the womb, womb, womb, you'll be killed. So your brain is so filled up with stool, you cannot understand. This is your education. This is you education. We are trying to save you, that 'You'll suffer so much. You've made the situation so complicated. Better remain a brahmacārī.' If there is little trouble without sex enjoyment, take it just like itching. Itching trouble, if you don't itch, it will not increase. And if you itch, more and more it will increase.' That is advised. Kaṇḍūtivan manasijaṁ viṣaheta dhīraḥ. One who knows, one who has got brain, 'All right, let me suffer little itching. I'll not itch it.' It will...This is intelligence. Tapasā brahmacaryeṇa (SB 6.1.13). The suffering from the itching sensation by brahmacārī, that is recommended in our śāstra. Tapasya means voluntarily accepting some trouble. 'So I am feeling itching. I don't itch it. It is little troublesome, little. Never mind, I shall tolerate it.'

Evening Darsana -- February 24, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Oh. Actual.

Jayatīrtha: People I've shown it to like it much better than this picture. It's more realistic. Has a very classical look.

Prabhupāda: This is a protest against Gandhi's nonviolence, (laughter) bogus nonviolence. So it is a protest against that idea.

Jayatīrtha: Yes, this is not a nonviolent picture.

Prabhupāda: I do not know how he wanted to draw nonviolence from this idea. This is going on, distorting the real fact. Politics without violence is impossible. There is a Bengali proverb, Naste base gun tata:(?) "A girl has come to the stage for dancing, and she is pulling her veil." (laughs) She has to dance freely, and what is the use of...? Nasta base gun tata.(?) In politics nonviolence, there is no history. The Britishers took it an opportunity to continue their ruling.

Mahāṁśa: He wasn't even political man, because politics means there has to be violence.

Prabhupāda: No, impartially studying, he endeavored for upliftment of the South African Indians, South Africans, yes, Johannesburg.

Brahmānanda: In Durban he started.

Prabhupāda: Ah, in Durban. That was failure. The Indians haven't got any position still.

Jayatīrtha: None.

Room Conversation -- February 25, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So make this arrangement.

Bali-mardana: But how will we arrange that?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, there's no problem. In other words, as long as we can get the import license... We'll be able to get an import license.

Prabhupāda: No, one thing can be done.

Hari-śauri: I don't know how they're going to do it.

Bali-mardana: Gopāla wants me to make LCs for the books.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: LCs?

Bali-mardana: Letter of credits. I have to open a letter of credit for the full amount.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So if he can get permission... Gopāla has to get permission from Delhi that instead, fifty percent will be paid in the form of these milk products.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He just has to get permission from Delhi. That's all. Once he gets permission, there should be no problem.

Bali-mardana: Yes. I can work it out with Gopāla. It is no problem.

Room Conversation with Scientists, Svarupa Damodara, and Dr. Sharma -- March 31, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: All Indian scientists should join.

Dr. Sharma: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That I want. To keep people in darkness is not science. They are keeping people in darkness. They do not know how nature is working, how they are subjugated to the laws of nature and trying to be independent.

prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni
guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ
ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā
kartāham iti manyate
(BG 3.27)

Keeping people in darkness in the name of science, now it should be stopped. That is my humble humble opinion. So your pandals...?

Girirāja: It's going on. People are still coming and... Did you see the press reports?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We showed one this morning mentioning that the member of parliament had made a statement.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: English.

Room Conversation -- April 2, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Do the needful. Go. At least, in India, there must be this spiritual institution. The whole world may take advantage of it. What is this cats' and dogs' race civilization? Is that civilization? Here is civilization, Bhagavad-gītā. Basic principles of civilization. So India should maintain this. People may... There are so many big universities. A student may go or may not go, but the university must be maintained. Because there is no student, therefore university closed. No. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness institution must be maintained for the benefit of the whole world. Mṛtyu-saṁsāra-vartmani (BG 9.3). They do not know how nature's law is working.

Gargamuni: These breezes are very nice here, better than, I think, in Māyāpura. Many breezes.

Prabhupāda: The sea breeze.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not so cool on the lower floors—where you are staying in the office.

Gargamuni: There no, it is hot. This is very good.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In those houses where you were formerly staying, it is not so like this at all.

Prabhupāda: Which house?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Your old quarters. You don't get the advantage of the breeze.

Prabhupāda: No. Sometimes there is nasty breezes coming.

Room Conversation -- April 5, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That's all. And then go to hell. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). So after jumping, when this body is finished, he is going to accept another body offered by nature. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu (BG 13.22). Rascals, they do not know how nature is working. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi (BG 3.27). Making plan and wasting time, wasting their valuable life. At least, this institution which we have started to give this enlightenment, they must be maintained in India in a first-class standard, that at least some intelligent persons can take advantage. They are all fools, rascals. They cannot take. All the duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ. That is already described. Narādhamas will not take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But there are persons who are not narādhama. For them there must be. Diamond shop is not for everyone, but there are some persons who can purchase diamonds. Manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu (BG 7.3). It is not meant for everyone. So this is India's culture. At least, these men should be conscientious that "Let this Bhagavad-gītā culture be maintained in pure form." There is cultural department government. They are sending dancing party. You see. Real culture. And to make show they will pose themselves as great student of Bhagavad-gītā. So we are making alone a little tiny effort, but it is being appreciated all over the world. That is our encouragement. Our books, our philosophy, our religion, America has accepted: "Yes, it is Indian. Enough." (?) It is not sentiment.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Everyone has seen that. The bank manager at Central Bank today said that "I saw your movement is now respected as genuine religion."

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is genuine. It is genuine.

Room Conversation -- April 13, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Newly started?

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

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

Girirāja: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Make friends with them about real knowledge.

Girirāja: And then Mr. Bajaj... Mr. Bajaj was on the same plane going to Poona.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Girirāja: So he wants to arrange another meeting of the Gītā Conference. So he's thinking of either Kurukṣetra or Vṛndāvana. So I suggested that they should hold it at our Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma. So he's seriously thinking of it. But he's not very much intelligent. I mean, he's not able to understand the Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: They are influenced by these rascals, Vinod Bhave and company.

Girirāja: Actually he has no idea what the Bhagavad-gītā says.

Conversation with Yadubara (after seeing film) -- April 17, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: What did you reply?

Girirāja: Well, I said that we knew what his philosophy was, and that we were not impressed by it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He defines Kṛṣṇa as the dark unknowing within. That's his definition of Kṛṣṇa, Swami Cinmayananda.

Prabhupāda: How you explain the unknown if you do not know? How do you speak "unknown"? You know or not?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He doesn't define Kṛṣṇa. I mean he doesn't speak about Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: No, anyone. If unknown, then how do you say unknown? You know. You know Him as unknown.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Contradiction.

Prabhupāda: Mohitaṁ nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam (BG 7.13). This picture is very nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Where should it be hung?

Prabhupāda: Hung?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It would be nice if it could be hung where you can see it easily.

Prabhupāda: Just by the side, it will be placed?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't think it would fit there. It could be hung, hung over here.

Upendra: When you take prasādam.

Meeting with Mr. Dwivedi -- April 23, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: And my order means Bhagavad-gītā. We don't say anything extra. That is our principle. Caitanya Mahāprabhu says that "You become guru." Āmāra ājñāya guru hañā... You understand Bengali?

Mr. Dwivedi: Just smattering of it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra' ei deśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Suppose you are living in that village. Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, "You become a guru here." Here. You haven't got to go out. Ei deśa, "where you are living." Just see how nice it is. Āmāra ājñāya: "By My order, you become a guru and deliver the people of this place." This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's... So "I am not educated, I do not know. How I shall become?" No, you haven't got to bother. Yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṇa-upadeśa: (CC Madhya 7.128) "Simply you repeat what Kṛṣṇa has said. You become guru." That's all. Everyone can do that. Gītā is there. You sit down in your place and preach Bhagavad-gītā and try to induce them to take it. You become guru. But these rascals, they are becoming guru and showing magic and so many jugglery, not Gītā (Hindi), and spoil the whole country. Anyway, whatever is done is done. Now Kṛṣṇa has sent you. You have got all arrangement. I am prepared. I am asking my secretary to make arrangement. Let us cooperate. It will be very nice. Mr. Dwivedi is very nice man.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Hm.

Prabhupāda: Now you have got experience. Immediately take it, and let us go practically, some of us, and cooperate. I have decided like that.

Mr. Dwivedi: Some rough date?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Rough date means when you're free.

Mr. Dwivedi: Little difference... There will be difference, one or two days.

Morning Conversation -- May 29, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Every fortnight. At least. Before going to Europe, six years ago, you were keeping hair: "I have to go to Europe." That I have seen. Everywhere. Those who... You like to keep hair. That hippie mentality is going on. That's right. That is good, very intelligent reasoning, actual, long hair by keeping...(?) Everyone is giving some advice. Gurudāsa is giving. "He's keeping. He's..." Gargamuni. Everyone has some explanation. I do not know how you can give up this hippie mentality. Hippie. Lāvaṇyaṁ keśa-dhāraṇam. Kali-yuga. Victim of Kali-yuga. It is... It is not yet whole, but weak men, victimized by Kali-yuga... There are so many things to victimize over the living entities in Kali-yuga, and one of the item is that he will take that "I have become very, very beautiful, attractive by keeping long hair." Keśa. That is already stated there. You are victimized by that Kali-yuga. That's all. No explaining. Our trademark is clean-shaven. We are known as shaven hair. Why you should be victimized? You are known as shaven hair. Are you not? Hm? They say that "Hare Kṛṣṇa people, shaven hair"?

Hari-śauri: Shaven-headed.

Prabhupāda: Shaven hair. So why you should be victimized by keeping hair? What victory you will gain? Conquer over the whole world, Roman Empire, by keeping hair? Hippie mentality, that's all. That is within the core of the heart. As soon as get some opportunity... Just like during summer season the field appears to be dried up. And as soon as there is some rain, oh, it is green, immediately green. So things are already there. Hm? Is it not?

Talk with Svarupa Damodara -- June 20, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Janmanā brāhmaṇo guruḥ. As soon as you take birth, brāhmaṇa is your guru. So where is brāhmaṇa? Tad-vijñānarthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). Where is that guru? Therefore the society, chaotic condition.... As soon as you take birth, you have to accept brāhmaṇa guru. So there must be brāhmaṇas. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, cātur-varṇyaṁ māyā sṛṣṭam (BG 4.13). There must be brāhmaṇas. Otherwise where is human society? It is animal society. In the animal society they are clever, enjoy. "How! How! How! How!" Jackals and tigers and big, this animal, that animal, they are everything. Where is the brāhmaṇa? This is the first time attempt is being made—"There must be brāhmaṇas"—this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. They do not know the aim of life, how it should be organized, what kind of members there should be. No knowledge. Therefore I have challenged that "Your brain is filled up with stool. You do not know how human society is happy." Here is janmanā brāhmaṇo guruḥ. So where is brāhmaṇa? Janmanā brāhmaṇo guruḥ.

Bhakti-cāru: (Bengali)

Prabhupāda: (Bengali) Actually this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is a process of making this animal society into human civilization. At the present moment especially, all animals. I take them as animals. Therefore I say so boldly. I care for them. They are animals. That's all. Maybe very well do. I have not said. Bhāgavata says. Śva-viḍ-varāhoṣṭra-kharaiḥ saṁstutaḥ puruṣaḥ paśuḥ (SB 2.3.19). What are these leaders? Paśu. "Paśu? And they are so much held in estimation." Whom? By whom? Śva-viḍ-varāhoṣṭra-kharaiḥ: "They are in estimation by the dogs and hogs and camels and asses." Actually they have no position. The public is dog, hog, camel and.... And they are selecting one leader. So what he should be? Another big paśu, another big camel, another big ass. That's all. Śva-viḍ-varāhoṣṭra-kharaiḥ saṁstutaḥ puruṣaḥ paśuḥ. (Bengali) A big animal. These leaders, they are only big animals. Just like in the jungle, a lion. A very powerful. Then does it mean that he's human being? He's animal. May be an elephant or lion, but he's not human being. A human child is more important than this lion. It doesn't matter that the human child is taken away by the lion and immediately killed or carried. That does not make the lion very important. (Bengali) A big paśu.

Conversation -- July 1, 1977, Vrndavana:

Mr. Myer: Our grand-uncle in the family, he named all the brothers in the family after God. My eldest brother, he's in Belux.(?) He's already met you several times in Māyāpura. He's one of the first member in ISKCON from there. He was called Ram Prem Narayan Sen Myer. So teacher found the name was too long. She dropped the Ram, so she kept Prem Narayan Sen Myer. Then Dr. Badrinarayan Maraka, he abridged the name in Bangalore to Har Narayan Sen. However, I was told I named myself Krishan. I don't know how it... So that's how the name came into being.

Prabhupāda: So keep it on Sunday.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: All right, Śrīla Prabhupāda. There's a letter from Vāsudeva, Deoji Punja. Would you like to hear?

Prabhupāda: Hm. (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It says, "I met Hari-śauri in Australia last week." He went to Australia. "He and I have agreed upon August 28th for the date of opening the Śrī-Kṛṣṇa-Kāliya Temple." It says, "People here are very anxious for this event to take place. The Deities are to arrive on July 18th according to Rāmeśvara Swami, who also will be coming to the opening ceremonies. Rāmeśvara Swami has also told us that he will send money to Dhanañjaya to make clothes, crowns and jewels for the Deities. Hari-śauri will be sending money to Yaśodānandana Swami to come."

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "And as luggage, he can carry the clothes, jewels, crowns, etc., for the opening if possible."

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Room Conversation with Mr. Myer -- July 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes. I started this movement with forty rupees. You know that Scindia Steam Navigation Company?

Mr. Myer: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So they gave me a free ticket, and the government allowed me to take with me, forty rupees. In this state, condition, I started for New York. You see? No friend, no secre..., no hotel, nothing, arrangement. This was the beginning. Then I went there. So I do not know how it happened. Now we have got forty crores. It is all Kṛṣṇa's mercy. I never expected that my books will be sold and appreciated all over the world. So that is being done. People are appreciating the whole movement. Even in our country our government, it has come to their notice, cabinet ministers. So my point of view was that in Delhi there is a confectioner's shop. You had been in Delhi?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Do you go to Delhi sometimes?

Mr. Myer: Yes, I will...

Prabhupāda: There is a street, Loiya Bazaar. So there is a Punjabi's shop. He makes all preparation, first-class ghee. So whenever I used to pass that area, at least fifty customers are waiting. Somebody wanting something, somebody wanting something. That gave me the impression that if you have goods genuine, customer will come. If your dealing is straightforward and the goods are nice. So, so many religious institution and missionary and other, they are all over the world. Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission, substantial, genuine, so why this will not be appreciated if we present properly? So I fought on that, and some way or other it is successful.

Room Conversation with Mr. Myer -- July 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: That is expected. He's a good man. But...

Mr. Myer: And people have got very happy for his personal life. He's gets up in the morning and does the spinning, and he's dedicated... He's not even taking medicines or any type of... Very, very strict. He does not wear any cloth which he is not spinning. I don't know how he finds the time, but he is doing so many things. The people are amazed at his... It is very fortunate that he has come now. I think certainly they will all adopt some special... Because people has to come. Once they see the gurukula and Bhaktivedanta Institute coming up... Whoever's not in the gurukula, we're going to post there also... So you don't work the modern language. It is a university also. Perfectly represent special...

Prabhupāda: No, our books are more than university standard. If they simply can study our book, it is more than the course he was given. Tan manye adhitam uttamam. All right.

Akṣayānanda: All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...of first grade, one hour there. That doesn't mean necessarily life is shorter. (end)

Room Conversation-Recent Mail -- July 14, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Organized very nice. Hm. "Gargamoney." (laughter)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Kindly fill in the form below to receive your first volumes." Then it says, "Name and age, date of purchase, address, city, state, country, type of business, phone, number of sets to be purchased." Number of sets to be purchased. It's very hopeful. "Whether encyclopedia is for personal use or other, please explain." 'Cause they're going to keep a file to see what people use it for. "Number of books to be received each year. Amount given as advance." He says, "At least fifty percent of the total cost can be given for the complete set as advance, and balance to be made in yearly installments. Signature of purchaser. Please note: The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust shall fulfill its obligation to supply all books to the purchaser as agreed upon and shall ship all books postage prepaid to any part of the world. Dated and signature of the salesman. Checks to be made out in the name of Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Bombay. The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust Library Encyclopedia of Vedic Knowledge, Founder-Ācārya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. Recommendations and appreciations by leading scholars of India on the BBT Library Encyclopedia of Vedic knowledge." He seems to have got a lot... I don't know how he did this. It says... These are different recommendations. It's from the Minister of Education, Government of Maharastra. Shrimati Patiba Patel. " 'I therefore wholeheartedly recommend this encyclopedia of our culture and all BBT publications to all educational institutions, schools, libraries and colleges concerned with the moral and cultural development of their students within the boundary of Maharastra and throughout the world.' " See, each one he has the word encyclopedia bold and underlined. "Ph.D. from Harvard University."

Room Conversation -- July 19, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: One man is kneading flour, five sers, and he's getting two hundred rupees' salary, and paratha and halavā. This is management, going on. Now today it has been checked. They are eating paratha and our men are starving. He is getting two hundred rupees, three hundred rupees. This is management. What can be done? And he has... Three dozen manager, four dozen cook. This is... That's all. I am giving you report which he has given to me. Money is squandered like anything, and live blindly, and "Still, I want everything for myself." Everything is in my notice. I can feel now actually (indistinct) is coming. Anyway, we want... In India, the affairs are most mismanaged. That we see. In foreign countries they are doing very nice. In New York, in Los Angeles, in Chicago. Now there is Toronto report. This Toronto report... I do not know how things are managed there very nicely, and here..., three dozen cook. "Too many cooks spoil the broth."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're not cooking for any more people here than they do in New York. They don't have one hired person.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: How many you have?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We have plenty of devotees here. There the devotees are being...

Prabhupāda: You see how things are mismanaged. There is no place for accommodating the cooks. What is the question of cooking? Have you seen it? They have no place where to accommodate the cooks, so many cooks. Similar thing I noticed in Bombay also, so many laborers. What can I do? Anyway, don't be discouraged. But things are going actually. I am discouraged. At the same time, let things go on like that. Therefore I say do not mind for little more charges. If things are coming quickly, good work, pay. You are already squandering money in this way, in the kitchen. Why not for your own?(?) Hm? Unnecessarily you're feeding some rascal paratha, halavā, and paying him. Who is going to see?

Room Conversation Gaurasundara, Dr. Kapoor -- July 26, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: How big the Deities are?

Gaurasundara: Right now we have small brass Deities. But this time I'd like to get marble, marble Deities to bring back.

Prabhupāda: From Jaipur? You are going to Jaipur? No.

Gaurasundara: Yes. I think if I can take a few days I'll go and order Deities.

Prabhupāda: How big?

Gaurasundara: I would like to be able to carry them back on the airplane. I don't know how big I can carry them, but I'll see.

Prabhupāda: I think there is no need of changing Deity.

Gaurasundara: Leave small?

Prabhupāda: Huh? You have got?

Gaurasundara: Small.

Prabhupāda: Small.

Gaurasundara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Because you are maintaining the temple as private. So make nice clothes, decorations.

Gaurasundara: Yes, we are doing. We have...

Room Conversation With Madhudvisa and others -- August 17, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Oh, it started from the beach.

Śrutakīrti: Yes. All along the beach for two miles.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: A lot of people?

Śrutakīrti: Oh, thousands, tens of thousands of people. They served prasādam. I don't know how many. Several thousand. It was much bigger than San Francisco.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Bigger?

Śrutakīrti: Yes. I was at both. It was very big. It was... I think it was the best that I have seen. The carts were very beautifully decorated with nice carnations all over.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: People pulled it?

Śrutakīrti: Yes. They had no problem with the people pulling. There was nice kīrtana and a very nice feast. And Sudāmā Mahārāja was there with his players. They put on a play. That was the...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They liked that?

Śrutakīrti: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What preparations did they serve at the feast?

Room Conversation With Dr. Ghosh -- October 16, 1977, Vrndavana:

Dr. Ghosh: I'd like to see the report.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Where is that report? No one ever gave me this report.

Prabhupāda: (Bengali)

Dr. Ghosh: I don't know how he... I don't know. He went to my son-in-law's at Lucknow, got all the informations and then, oh, I don't know how he followed, how he could find me. He went to Loretto Convent there. Two of my granddaughters are there. Inquired from them, "When your grandfather is coming?" And they told him. And the next day we met him at Loretto Convent. (laughs) What was...? A wonderful thing. Then he gave me the message. I at once... Within two hours, I started. Oh, it was a very travel from...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How you came? By what means?

Dr. Ghosh: By that rocket bus. Sixteen hours it took us from Siliguri to Calcutta. Terrible, bone-breaking. I never did that in my life, sixteen hours by bus. In Calcutta, Calcutta the greatest thing. With Lord Kṛṣṇa's blessings He could otherwise. This is the third flight that we got. We couldn't get before that. This morning we got a flight without a great...

Prabhupāda: Rocket bus?

Dr. Ghosh: Ha, from Siliguri to Calcutta. It usually takes twelve hours, but the road was so bad that it took sixteen hours to come to Calcutta. From Siliguri to Calcutta. Then Calcutta we were delayed. We couldn't get the first flight, second flight... Couldn't rest. With greatest difficulty, third flight we came this morning. Otherwise we would have reached yesterday, last night.

Prabhupāda: (Bengali)

Room Conversation -- October 24, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This Tulasī dāsa has sent different things. Here's a news clipping from the Leader. It's a newspaper. It says, "Hare Kṛṣṇa festivity. All roads lead to the Hare Kṛṣṇa farm āśrama at Cato Ridge last Sunday where thousands of well-wishers and devotees celebrated Kṛṣṇa Janmāṣṭamī. His Holiness Śrīmān Jayatīrtha dāsa Prabhu came out especially from the United States for the occasion and to officiate at the opening of the new temple of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness." One picture shows the devotees... It says, "Members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and followers of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda lead the crowd in the singing of Hare Kṛṣṇa kīrtana. In the foreground is the havana-kuṇḍa on which the sacrificial prayer was performed prior to the opening of the new temple. A view of the large gathering...," it shows thousands of people, Śrīla Prabhupāda, "...at the Hare Kṛṣṇa farm āśrama at Cato Ridge at the weekend when the new temple was officially opened. The function was held in conjunction with Lord Kṛṣṇa's birth anniversary celebrations." Here's the temple. "Head of the group, Tulasī dāsa, seen with other devotees in front of their new temple." It's a very beautiful temple with pillars and arches. I don't know how they built it so soon. (laughs) It's a big temple they built there. It says, "The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, more widely known as the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, opened its temple to coincide with the celebration of the birth of Lord Kṛṣṇa. This birthday celebration..." (break) Here's another article, pictures of devotees opening the temple. Another article. "Śrīmān Jayatīrtha dāsa Prabhu, one of the top officials..."

Prabhupāda: Still, they criticize us. Hm? Affirmations(?) good character, good health...

Room Conversation -- October 27, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No. If he Rāmānujī kavirāja gives makara-dhvaja, that is the last. If he...

Bhavānanda: He'll only have to come once, you mean, and prescribe makara-dhvaja.

Prabhupāda: No... (break) ...said there is a good kavirāja?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't know how it is that approved this one, but according to Gopāla, Jayapatākā says that he's arranged one Rāmānujī kavirāja.

Prabhupāda: Where?

Bhavānanda: Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: Why not consult him?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, we'd have to go there.

Prabhupāda: Go.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, I mean the point is you would have to go there. See, they want to see you, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Actually this is not the... You know, generally a kavirāja wants to see the person that he's giving the medicine to so he can know...

Prabhupāda: So if he agrees to take up the case, I'll go.

Bhavānanda: He'll take up the case. That there's no doubt.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, but will he come every day to Māyāpura or stay in Māyāpura? That is the question.

Prabhupada Vigil -- November 1, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: That laying down and this laying down, that is different?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, then we have to think of what the alternative is. Staying here means being subject to the possible care of this assistant who you saw the other day, 'cause this kavirāja will not wait any longer. He can't stay here any longer. We can try and convince him to stay, but I don't know how successful we will be. And he may give his medicines, but if some unforeseen difficulty develops, then it means that we are under the care of this other person.

Bhavānanda: This palanquin parikrama is very rough. You're bouncing up and down. You're going swinging sideways.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (aside:) It's not as rough as traveling to Māyāpura, though, not one tenth as rough or one fiftieth. You know, all you got to do is go on a rough road. It's nothing. This palanquin is smooth compared to that, going slowly and being carried. I think the main point, Śrīla Prabhupāda, is that we have to consider going as opposed to staying here with the possibility of being at the..., under the care of this other kavirāja. That to me is the choice. This kavirāja will give medicines... First of all, we can try to convince him to stay, but failing that, he's giving a series of medicines which he expects will be proper according to the condition. But naturally the condition can change on any date. Then what will we do?

Prabhupāda: I say no medicine.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No medicine. We should reject this kavirāja.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Brahmānanda: Yadubara was asking how much time the kavirāja would stay with you in Māyāpura.

Room Conversation -- November 8, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "My dear Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami and Dhṛṣṭadyumna Swami: Please accept my most humble obeisances unto your feet. All glories to our beloved spiritual master Śrīla Prabhupāda. May Lord Kṛṣṇa, if He so desires, please cure Śrīla Prabhupāda. I'm writing this letter as a brief report on the recent events as a result of my trip to Kwangchow, Canton China. I arrived on October 16th. Business—attended the Trade Fair but signed no contracts as all the prices were far too high. Research on some items may result in future business. Saṅkīrtana—our real business: I gave two Chinese Bhagavad-gītās to the Chungshan University, or Dr. Sun Yatsen University as it is called now, in Canton. They were accepted by the administration with assurance of being delivered to the appropriate departments. I inquired from the liaison office how to visit the university. They said it must be prearranged, but they did not know how. From past experience..." This boy had gone to China once before, Śrīla Prabhupāda. He's a Canadian. He says, "From past experience..." He's one of your disciples. "From past experience, because of limited time, I decided to just go, although warned not to. I walked past the guard's house at the gate of the university, hoping not to be seen. After I got forty to fifty yards, when a woman came running after me yelling in Chinese. I finally turned to her and said, 'No, it is all right,' and smiled and I kept walking on. She retreated, by Kṛṣṇa's grace, and I went on to the first building, where I saw some books through the windows. As I approached the front door, the first person I met was a middle-aged woman who spoke good English. She was a biology teacher, and we discussed the life principle as she took me to the history department and then reception. There, with two other Chinese persons, we discussed Chinese politics, and I explained the natural social body, varṇāśrama."

Page Title:Do not know how (Conversations 1976 - 1977)
Compiler:MadhuGopaldas, RupaManjari
Created:18 of Apr, 2013
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=83, Let=0
No. of Quotes:83