Prabhupāda: Expertness is you just try to do which is easily performed by you. You don't accept anything heavy task because Kṛṣṇa does not want that you have to do this heavy task. Whatever you know, you just apply it. You dovetail it in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Kṛṣṇa does not say that you have to become like this, like that, like that, then you can serve Him. Does not say. Just like this cow. Just see. What does it know? He's an animal. You see? But the calf knows to brush his head and tongue like this, in love. It is doing and Kṛṣṇa accepting, "Yes." That is expert. First of all find out what is easily done by you. Don't take anything which is not easily done by you. You find out what is your occupation, what you can very nicely and easily perform, and do it for Kṛṣṇa. That's all. Is that clear? Expert? This is expert. Expert does not mean that I do not know how to drive motor car, and I will have to imitate somebody, "Oh, I shall become driver." Why? If you do not know driving, why should you attempt driving? Whatever you know, you just try it, that business, and try to satisfy Kṛṣṇa. If you know driving, that's all right. But don't take... My Guru Mahārāja explained that you haven't got to learn anything extra for Kṛṣṇa's service. Whatever you know, you just apply it... Then you become successful.
Driver (Conversations)
Expressions researched:
"driver"
|"driver's"
|"driverless"
|"drivers"
|"drivership"
Conversations and Morning Walks
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Good roads. So we can go by road.
Devotee: So we can begin campaigning right away, collecting funds for the vehicle.
Prabhupāda: And you are a good driver. (laughter) Eighty miles. You once at eighty miles, his father's car. His father gave a very nice car for my driving. His father, mother, sister met me in Portland. Very nice gentleman, mother nice, sister very beautiful.
Devotee: But silent.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Devotee: I have written to her some letters, but silence.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes. They are not very happy that you are in this movement, not in the family, naturally. They think, "Our lost child." (laughter) They cannot appreciate that "My child is lost for better purposes." That is the case.
Prabhupāda: That means they are rascals. They do not have clear eyesight, clear insight. They do not know whether they are degrading or developing. Just like the flies, with great force they will go into the fire. They think they are making progress, they are going to the light. They think; otherwise how they are going? Such kind of advancement. They are going to die, be annihilated, and they still, "Oh, we are going force, by force we are going to the light. Here is darkness, there is light." This is their philosophy. Just like a mad driver drinking drives recklessly to die, that's all. But he is thinking, "Oh, I am going with so much great speed." He does not know that he is going to die after few minutes. And that is their development.
Prabhupāda: Oh, how you have come here?
Indian man (3): (indistinct)
Śyāmasundara: This is a new edition?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: Oh, all the dogs are coming. (dogs barking) Is the driver here? There's the driver. Should we walk, or...
Prabhupāda: (Hindi with guest) (break) ...and how it is concerned, we can get many. The thing is, will he get his (indistinct).
Śyāmasundara: Hm. I've been thinking a lot about it.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Śyāmasundara: I'm thinking that if we developed a very large center here, like a headquarters, it would have worldwide impact.
Prabhupāda: Uh.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Brahmānanda: All we have to do is fly up there, and it's bright as sun.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Somehow we have to remove the covering.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (pause) We don't give any credit to any man if he's not Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is our final conclusion. We can give credit so much, as you have got. Just like you are a driver. So I can give you the credit of a driver. But I cannot give you the credit of a high-court judge. So much, what you know, that much credit...
Brahmānanda: Future.
Prabhupāda: Yes. When in future you become high-court judge, then I shall give you credit. Why before you want to take credit?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So one has to have certain qualifications.
Prabhupāda: Everyone has got. The bird has got also certain qualifications. What is this. You cannot jump over like that. Just see how it is doing, a small bird. He has got complete sense how to protect. He's doing his business. So everyone has got some qualification, by nature's gift. One bird can go seven miles away and he can see where is his food. You cannot see half a mile even. What is the value of your eyes in comparison to that bird? There are so many wonderful things done by the animals, without any scientific knowledge, so-called scientific knowledge. So scientific knowledge for material comforts, that knowledge is there even in the birds and beasts, for material comforts. They know how to do it. Why these laboratories? There is no need of. Because if your knowledge is for these four things, eating, sleeping and mating, then what is the value of such knowledge? The bird will also die after eating, sleeping. You'll also die after eating, sleeping.
Brahmānanda: ...seems very dark.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Idle brain is a devil's workshop. If they're not directed, then think like devil. We are thinking rightly because we are taking direction from Kṛṣṇa, the most perfect. Therefore our thinking has meaning. And what is the value of their thinking? It has no value. Now we are thinking... Just like, take the first instruction, that within this body there is the proprietor of the body. You can go on thinking: "Then am I this body?" So you can think on your finger. "I am this finger?" The answer from the within will come: "No, you are not finger. It is your finger. It is your finger. You are not finger." If I am finger, then if I cut my finger, why shall I not die? If I am finger? Therefore it is my finger. Just like I'll never think that I am this stick. It is my stick. That is thinking. That is thinking. If I wrongly think that I am this body, then your whole thinking process is wrong and they are thinking like that, that we are this body.
- yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke
- sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu bhauma ijyadhīḥ
- yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile na karhicij
- janeṣvabhijñeṣu sa eva gokaraḥ
- (SB 10.84.13)
So such kind of thinking is done by the asses and cows, yasyātma-buddhiḥ. One who is thinking: "I am this body," he's no better than the animal, ass or cow. They're all thinking like that: "I am this body." They're asses. And the whole world is suffering by thinking like that. "I am American, I am Indian, I am Russian, I am this, I am that." That's all. We must know how to think. Then our thinking will produce some good result. If I do not know how to think, then what is the use of my thinking? A mad man is also thinking: "I am the emperor." Does it mean that he's emperor? Sometimes, I have seen, a madman falls flat on the street. "Nobody can check me." So motor driver, they become little cautious, he's a rascal, madman. So madman's thinking, what is the value of madman's thinking? They're all mad. Piśācī paile jana mati chana hana.(?)They're a ghostly haunted person. As he's mad, similarly those who are entrapped by this material energy, they're all madmen. If I think that, "I am this coat, I am this shirt, I am this cloth," am I not mad? The body's just like shirt and coat. Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22).
Brahmānanda: Shunting, yeah.
Prabhupāda: So who is giving the pushing? The living entity, driver. A big truck is being pushed: kata kak kata kak kata kak kata kak, one after another. Similarly the whole creation, Kṛṣṇa is giving the pushing. Then one after another, one after another, one after another working. You see. mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram (BG 9.10). That is stated in the Bha... mayādhyakṣeṇa. Kṛṣṇa gives the pushing first. Then everything comes, one after another. But His pushing capacity is so perfect that everything is coming out perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect. Just like Kṛṣṇa says: bījo 'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām (Bg 7.10). "I am the seed of everything created." Now take the seed of the banyan tree. Kṛṣṇa has created. He says, "I am the seed." Now you sow the seed. A big tree will come out. Big tree will come out. Not only big tree. Many millions of seeds will come out of it. And each seed, again big tree. So the original seed, Kṛṣṇa, pushes. Then one after another, one after another, one after another... So you are simply observing when the things are coming into existence by such pushing. But you are trying out, trying to find out who is the original pusher. That you do not know. That you do not know. Who has originally pushed this energy? That you do not know.
Prabhupāda: Handling every day. Still they'll not. Dog's obstinacy. That's all. They're seeing practically, that the material energy cannot work independently unless the spiritual energy joins. So how they can expect the whole cosmic manifestation, which is matter only, has come out automatically? We are practically seeing, a very nice car, Cadillac. But if there is no driver, what is the use of that car? A computer machine. Unless the man knows how to work it, pushes the button, it does not work. So practically we are seeing that without superior energy, the material energy does not act. Still they'll not believe it. Therefore in this wonderful cosmic manifestation, there must be handling of a superior energy. And that they do not know. They are amazed with this material arrangement. Just like a foolish person is amazed by seeing the mechanical, big machine. So many parts. But another person knows that, however wonderful machine it may be, unless the operator comes and pushes the button, it will not work. This is intelligence.
Karandhara: The Russian scientists are very proud in their working, and they're atheistical. But still they're not able to produce enough food. Every year, there's not enough food.
Prabhupāda: No. There's not enough food. Yes. I have experienced it. You cannot get food as you like. What government supplies, you have to accept. That's all. And that is rubbish, all rubbish. Generally, they supply meat. No fruit, no vegetable, no rice, no, nothing. You cannot get. You simply eat meat. That's all. And milk is available. This is their arrangement. And in all store, lines. You have to ask, even if you want to take meat only, you cannot go and immediately purchase. You have to wait for three hours, control. This is their position. No bank. No motor car. No taxicab. Simply... There are simply symbolic. And people are poverty-stricken so much that one taxi driver, he was trying to cheat us. They have no sufficient money. So they saw us, that: "Here is a foreigner, Indian and American. Let me cheat." This is their position. Just like India. India, being poverty-stricken, they also cheat. Of course, cheating is a disease. But especially those who are poverty-stricken, generally, they cheat, they steal. No character. And all women are engaged for sweeping, fat, fat women.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: There is direction.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So everything is working under direction. Why do the rascals say like that? The aeroplane is a big machine. It is flying, but under the direction of a small spiritual spark, the driver, pilot. How you can deny? So as the small spiritual spark can direct a so-called gigantic plane, similarly, the big spiritual spark is directing this whole cosmic manifest... What is the difficulty to understand? You cannot say that "Without that spiritual spark, that airplane can be operated." You cannot say. That is not possible. You prove that "Without that spiritual small spark, this big 747 aeroplane will..." You cannot prove that. Where is your proof? You have to put that small spiritual spark. First of all the pilot body. Now, within that body, Kṛṣṇa says, asmin dehe, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ, tathā dehāntaram (BG 2.13). There is dehinaḥ. There is a proprietor of this body. So that proprietor is 1/10,000th part of the tip of the hair, very, very, small, atomic. On account of that atomic spiritual energy, there is working. This is bare fact. That small atomic spiritual energy is within this body, and therefore the body is working, and therefore the plane is working. Where is the difficulty to understand? Now, this man thinks himself very stout and strong, but why he is stout and strong? On account of that small spiritual spark is there. As soon as the small spiritual spark is gone, stout and strong has no meaning. Immediately all the birds will come. Vultures will come and eat him, eat the body. Immediately.
Prabhupāda: And that is their foolishness. That is their foolishness. Why does not exist? What is the proof of existence of the soul in the body? What is the proof? First of all, you have to understand that. Suppose I am a human being, so...
Yogeśvara: (to driver) You know where to go?
Prabhupāda: I am a human being. You accept that I have got soul. By what symptoms you accept that I have got soul? First of all you have to ascertain that. What is the symptom that we agree that I am human being. I have got, I am a soul. By what characteristic, analytical study, you accept that I have got soul, and the dog has not got soul? What are the different characteristics? First of all, we have to enumerate that thing. If we find in the characteristics, then we can say there is no soul. But if we see that both the animal and the human being have the same characteristics of living condition, then how you can say the animal has not soul?
Yogeśvara: His point was that the animals don't show the same symptoms. They don't think as...
Prabhupāda: Why not, why not? The general symptom is animal eats, you eat, animal sleeps, you sleep, animal has sex, you have got sex, animal also defends, you also defend. Where is the difference?
Yogeśvara: His point was that human beings, they think on higher platforms than animals do.
Prabhupāda: Anyway, this machine is working to keep this beach very clean. So we can understand that there is some management behind this. Similarly, the nature is working so nicely. How we can deny that behind this there is a system of management? How we can deny it? (break) ...things are going on very nicely. The sun is rising exactly in time, the moon is rising exactly in time, the water is flowing in its own orbit. It does not violate. So if things are going on so nicely, how you can deny that "There is no management behind it"? How you can deny it? It is very natural to understand immediately. And that is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā that "What you are speaking that nature is doing, yes, nature is doing, but under My direction." Just like the machine. Take it as nature. The machine is working, but the driver is there. Without the driver, how the machine can simply work? (break) ...life is meant. That is Vedic instruction, to know that management, who is the supreme manager. That is human life. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. Otherwise animal life.
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Then so much control, that is another thing. But not control. "So much control" means no control. (japa) (break) ...admitted that we are controlled by nature. That you cannot refuse. That is foolishness. Now, next, how nature is working? That is also replied in the Bhagavad-gītā, mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram: (BG 9.10) "The material nature is working..." Just like we are also taking the advantage of material nature, kṣity-ap-tejaḥ. Here is earth, but we can take this earth and make into brick and make a skyscraper building. So it is not that the earth itself is going to become a skyscraper building. I am living entity; I am utilizing. So nature means these five elements, eight elements. So that has been manipulated by another living entity. Just like the aeroplane is a combination of some matter, but it is being worked out by the manufacturer, by the pilot. Therefore that driver of the aeroplane or the manufacturer of the..., he's superior. So superior to the material nature is Kṛṣṇa. This is the conclusion. (break) ...our position is that we are being controlled by the material nature, and, and nature, material nature, is controlled by Kṛṣṇa. So the sense is that one who is at all sensible, that "After all, the controller is Kṛṣṇa. So why not directly under control of Kṛṣṇa?" This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Why through the material nature? I have to be controlled. I am being controlled by the material nature; and material nature is being controlled by Kṛṣṇa. So why not being directly controlled? This is good sense.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Devotee: It's like you said last night. They begin to chant.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guru dāsa: Do the rickshaw drivers in Letchmore Heath chant Hare Kṛṣṇa?
Prabhupāda: No, they were sleeping. (laughter) That is western. Here you will find even the old man rises early in the morning. Yes, take bath. Without any reference to Hare Kṛṣṇa. They chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. In the village, they take bath early in the morning. That is very healthy. (break) ...I have generally... (indistinct) (heavy wind noise)
Satsvarūpa: Mixed with moisture?
Prabhupāda: That I do not know. The scientists say that it is a blazing fire, sun planet. Fire is generally red color with little yellow. Why it is white? We have no experience of fire, white. So how do they say it is fire? That is my question. (break) ...tell me what blue I have seen. Red I have seen. Where is white?
Guru dāsa: (indistinct) the sun is a reflection of the brahma-jyotir?
Prabhupāda: That is another. First of all, you answer whether it is fire or something else.
Prabhupāda: At least, we have got this experience in India. There are so many unemployed, educated. Because they have been educated as dog, they must find out a master. Otherwise, they have no independent power to work. Dog, unless he finds out a very nice master, it is street dog, loitering in the street.
Bhagavān: There's a report that there's so many Ph.D's who are graduating from school now that there are not enough jobs for them. So they have to take jobs as truck-driver and taxi driver.
Prabhupāda: Where?
Bhagavān: In the United States.
Prabhupāda: Just see.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: And that is supposed to be the brāhmaṇa class too, the professors. They're the educated class of people.
Prabhupāda: No, no. They are not brāhmaṇas. Those who give education in exchange of money, they are not brāhmaṇas. Just like we are lecturing, educated, educating people. We don't say that "Give us salary." We simply ask them, "Please come." Therefore we are making food. I'll give you food. I'll give you good seat. Please come and hear. We are not asking money, that "First of all pay the fees. Then you come and learn Bhagavad-gītā." We never say so. So those, these so-called teachers, they first of all set up salary, "What salary you'll give me?" That is dog's business. That is not brāhmaṇa's business. Brāhmaṇa will never ask. Brāhmaṇa is eager to give lesson only. That's all. Brāhmaṇa is eager to see that people are educated. "Take free education and be educated. Be a human being." This is brāhmaṇa's business. I came here not to ask for any money. But I want to give lesson. This is brāhmaṇa's business.
Prabhupāda: Naxalites.
Professor La Combe: Naxalites or somebody of the same kind. I don't know exactly. And he was not a politician at all. He had no political activities.
Devotee: Still, nowadays, they are having strikes every day, big marches, processions.
Professor La Combe: Oh, strikes, perhaps, yes, but no killings.
Devotee: And just before I left there they had a big strike where some of the younger communist kids, they got out in the street and they stopped all the buses, traffic and told the drivers to leave their cars. They burned a couple of cars and buses. But it is not as bad as it used to be.
Professor La Combe: Now it is better.
Prabhupāda: Actually, there was no government.
Professor La Combe: At that time, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: The physical defect... Just like a driver of the car, and when his car is damaged, the driver becomes very sorry that "My car is now broken, damaged," but is the driver the carriage? Sometimes a valuable car is damaged and the proprietor or the driver, he becomes very sorry, almost half-dead, "Oh, my car is lost." So this is due to his too much attraction for the car. When the machine car stops (it) does not mean the driver is damaged. But he thinks, "Now, I am finished. My car is damaged." But although he is not the car, he thinks that he is damaged. So that is mental disease. He is different from the car, but he thinks that he is damaged by the damage of the car. And if he knows correctly, that "What is that? I will get another new car," what is the cause of suffering? The driver is not the car, but on account of his too much absorption, identifying the car with him, he suffers. So if the psychiatrist informs him that "Why you are sorry? You are not the car," then he is cured. So the modern civilization defect is that he is not this body, but he does not know it. Therefore, in the Vedic literature it is said, yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke: (SB 10.84.13) "Anyone is identifying himself with this body which is made of material element," yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu, "and in bodily relationship he is thinking his family is protector, his nation is protector, in this way, one who lives, he is no better than the animal." Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā... You find out this verse, aśocyān anvaśocas tvaṁ prajñā-vādāṁś ca bhāṣase.
Prabhupāda: So this verse says that "You are speaking like a learned man, Arjuna," He addressed Arjuna, "but you are not very learned man because you are considering of the body." Just like the proprietor of the car, the driver. While the car is going on nicely or car is stopped, no more working, he is disinterested that he knows very well that "I am not this car." Therefore it is said, gatāsūn agatāsūṁś ca nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ. "Anyone who is actually learned, he does not consider very seriously about the body, either it is dead or alive." So basically we are, all, every one of us, we are spirit soul. The body is just like a machine. We have got it. But we are taking of the machine very much, not for ourself. Whole world is taking care of the body but not of the driver of the body, the spirit soul. Everyone is thinking, "I am this body, and because this body is born in America, I am American, and because the body is white, therefore I am white, or black." In this way everyone is identifying with the body. Nobody is identifying with the spirit soul. That is the basic disease of the human society.
Prabhupāda: No, no, it is not I am talking of God. I am talking of the constitutional position of the living being. That is science. So just like the same example: the driver is different from the car, but when there is some defect in the car, we are not advising that don't take care of the car. But if you simply take care of the car and don't take care of the driver, that is the basic mistake of the civilization.
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He's saying because this body can be used for intellectual advancement, therefore he's saying that sometimes people become so much concerned with intellectual things that they neglect their body.
Prabhupāda: It is not... It is beyond intellectual. The intellect also belong to the body. But understanding of the soul is beyond intellectual.
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He said that he has come with the idea that in order to pursue the philosophy, whatever philosophy we have, that the body must be in the best possible condition.
Prabhupāda: That I have already said, that the driver is different from the car. But if you simply take care of the car, not of the driver, is that very good intelligence?
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He agrees with that, that one should keep the body in the best condition in order to try to advance in life as far as possible.
Prabhupāda: No, unless you take care of the driver, the car cannot run.
Prabhupāda: No, unless you take care of the driver, the car cannot run.
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He also believes in the spiritual advancement, but he feels that the body must be kept in the best possible condition.
Prabhupāda: That we also say. We never say... I have already given the example that the driver is different from the car, but if you simply take care of the car and do not take care of the driver, is that very good intelligence?
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): So he agrees with you.
Prabhupāda: So the driver is not in order—he may create disaster at any moment. So the insanity is not of the car, but the insanity is of the driver. So when we feel problems of the humanity, it means the insanity of the soul, not of the body. And because the driver, or the soul, is not taken care of, therefore so many problems are coming in the body. Just like, if one man takes care of hygienic principle, his bodily ailments are less, similarly, if the driver is kept in proper sanity, then there will be no accidents in the car. Another example: just like the bird in, the cage. If you take care of the cage only and do not supply any food to the bird, it will cry, "Tanh! Tanh! Tanh! Tanh!" (aside to devotee:) This gentleman comes. Give him a seat. So the problem is: if we don't take care of the driver or the bird in the cage, the human problems will not diminish, it will increase. Keeping the car in good order does not mean taking care of the driver. And if you don't take care of the driver, the disasters of the car will increase. So what is the program of taking care of the driver? Factually, they do not know what is the driver. And what to speak of taking care of it? This is the problem, real problem. Do you think it is all right or not?
Prabhupāda: Then it is something like that, that the motor mechanic is interested with the motor car, but he is not interested with the welfare of the driver. But the fact is, if the driver is not in order, the car will not go. It may be well-equipped, well-engined, well-oiled, but if the driver is defective, it will create another disaster.
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He feels that you don't understand what he's saying, that actually he does not feel that we should dedicate ourselves exclusively to the body...
Prabhupāda: I don't say exclusively. I say the first care should be taken of the driver, and taking care of the car is secondary.
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He agrees.
Prabhupāda: So why you do not take care of the dead body? Because the driver is gone. Then who is important, the car or the driver? So that is the defect of the modern civilization. They don't take care of the driver. He is taking care of the car. So you said your, that what is the problems of human society. This is the root cause of the problems, that we are not taking care of the driver; we are simply taking care of the car. But if we take care of the driver, the driver knows how to take care of the car.
Prabhupāda: That we have already said. There is no question about it, that the driver is there, the car is there. So we must take care of the car, but the first treatment or the first care is for the driver. Just like dead body. The everything is there, present. The machine is there. Now, somehow or other, you again drive it. Why you cannot drive it?
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He says the body cannot be driven because the spirit is gone, and that he admits...
Prabhupāda: That means the driver is gone. So who is important, the body or the driver?
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): Both, he says, are important.
Prabhupāda: Both is there, but comparatively, which is more important?
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): The spirit is.
Prabhupāda: So that is the defect, that the modern civilization, they are not taking care of the spirit soul; they are simply taking care of the machine, body. Therefore the problems are there. You asked, "How to solve the problems?" The problems are there on account of this, that they are not taking care of the driver; they are simply taking care of the machine body. So if you take care of the driver, then he will remain sane, he will drive nicely, the body will not be disastrous, he will live peacefully. This is the problem. If the driver is careful, then he will not require very frequently the mechanical engineer for the car. He will keep the machine in order. If he keeps himself sane, then he keeps the machine also order.
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): That's what he said at the beginning.
Prabhupāda: So then what is your program to take care of the driver?
Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He feels that there are different philosophies and different methods...
Prabhupāda: That's all right. There are different medical men and difficult diagnoses, but the urgent case is: cure the driver, and then car will go on nicely. Unfortunately, modern civilization, they do not know what is the driver. And how he will keep him sane? He does not know what is the driver? He thinks the car is automatically going on. Just like child. A child sees the car is going automatically, but that's not a fact. There is a driver. So if our vision is childish, how we can solve the problems of life? I talked with big, big professor, Kotovsky, in Moscow. He said, "There is no driver." This is a big professor, and he is teaching others. So if the leading men of the world, they think there is no driver, the body is automatically going, then what is the fate of the civilization? (break) No, there are, similarly, capitalists, communists, "this-ists," "that-ists." Full of these rascals. So how the human civilization can be without problems? The leaders are rascals. How we can expect that it will go on without problem?
Prabhupāda: But we find the great cities are great jungles. A great city is a great forest. (lady begins speaking) Let her come forward.
Lady (Hṛdayānanda): She has said that you have repeatedly talked about those things which are wrong with the society. So she would like to know exactly what you mean by modern society and exactly what you feel are the problems with the society...
Prabhupāda: The modern society is not taking care of the driver; they are taking care of the car. This is the defect.
Lady (Hṛdayānanda): Also she would like to know what other societies there have been in history which did not have these problems.
Prabhupāda: The problems... In the material world this problem is always there. Sometimes it is more; sometimes it is less. Material world means ignorance of the driver. That ignorance is sometimes very big, and sometimes it is less, but ignorance is there.
Prabhupāda: The real problem is that the human being, I am speaking only of human being, not of the animals, because the animals, they do not know what is the problem; neither they can solve it. It is not possible. In the human form of body there is possibility of making a solution of this problem. Therefore in the human society, along with other educational department, there should be an educational department to understand what is soul, what it is (is its) nature, how it is working, what is the future, wherefrom it is coming. So many things there are. But there is no education for this prime factor, the driver. There is no education.
Lady (Hṛdayānanda): She feels that your affirmation is somewhat radical because she feels there are many groups and organizations of religion and philosophy and so on that are dealing with these matters.
Prabhupāda: Then why there is no solution?
Lady (Hṛdayānanda): Therefore she is asking you, "What is the solution?"
Prabhupāda: Yes, so that solution we are preaching, we are trying to preach. At least one section of people should know the science of the soul. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Just like medical necessity is there, does not mean that everyone should become medical man, similarly, the science of soul is necessity; it does not mean that everyone will be the transcendentalist or the scientist about soul. But at least one section of people must be there who knows perfectly well about the science of soul. As much as there is medical man—he knows perfectly well what is physiology, anatomy—there is engineer—he knows how to construct—similarly, a section must be there who knows perfectly well about the science of soul. So as there is need of medical man, engineer or lawyers or other, similarly, there is need of one section of expert who knows the science of soul. The medical man, the engineer, the archeologist or this or that, they are all meant for the body. Similarly, there must be one expert section who are meant for the soul. But all the universities, they have got these departments, medical department, engineering department, law department, but there is no department which is teaching perfectly well about the science of soul.
Rūpānuga: So this book actually, is directed to scientifically-minded people because in this age people are getting educated. They are getting scientific-minded.
Prabhupāda: But that creating problem. The psychiatrists came to see me, where? Caracas. So I said—he admitted, both the psychiatrists—that "You are not treating the real person who is diseased." I gave him the example, that "You have got good car, but the driver is a madman, and he is creating disaster, and you psychiatrists are going to cure it. You never say that 'The driver is bad. Change him or just educate him. Then there will be no disaster.' But you are taking your fees and giving some repairing in the car. But you do not know what is the original cause of disaster. It is not chance. Due to the bad driver." So our propaganda is to give the bad driver nice knowledge so that he can drive the car to Vaikuṇṭha. That is our position. And these rascals, the materialists, they are simply painting the body of the car. And the driver? "Let him starve."
Mādhava: Can we say that the living entity is there, and that he is the one that makes the molecules and the atoms come together to form a body just like the scientists give explanation? No? We can't?
Prabhupāda: No. Because the living entity is there for the formation of his body, so many things are going on, action and reaction of the matter. That's all. That is depending on his desires. It is so subtle thing. He is desiring, and action, reaction is going on. And as soon as the living entity is not there, these action and reaction will stop. So they are trying to find out the missing thing. That missing thing is the living entity. That they do not know, foolishly. Just like a motorcar is running very nicely, and as soon as the driver goes away it stops. The machine is there, the everything is there, but this rascal mechanic, he comes, "Something is missing." And why something missing? But he does not know the missing part is the driver. He is finding out in the motorcar what is missing. The motorcar, everything is there. The hand is there, leg is there, heart is there, the intestines are there, everything is there. So they cannot explain. They say, "Now the blood has become white." Then make it red. Where is the difficulty? So they do not know what is missing; neither he'll take, I mean to say, learned instruction. That is their defect. Real thing is the driver is missing, but that they will not accept. They are so foolish, they are thinking that motorcar is running automatically.
Prabhupāda: That may be or may not be. Who cares for them? It is being already done.
Rūpānuga: They're simply describing it.
Prabhupāda: That is also... Because they have no knowledge, how they can describe?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: We're explaining that, just like Śrīla Prabhupāda's example that the driver in the car. So inside the... We also say that "Yes, molecules are the ingredients to build the material bodies. But this does not mean that molecules are the living entities."
Prabhupāda: That's it.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: There is a driver necessary.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the first instruction of Kṛṣṇa. Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāra... (BG 2.13). Dehinaḥ. There is a living entity, driver, within this body. That is the first instruction. Unless one understands this simple thing, he is an ass. There is no knowledge. Because everything is based on something fictitious. This is the first thing one has to learn, the scientists, that there is the driver which is missing. Or the driver is moving this body. And if the driver is educated, then he can move this body to Kṛṣṇa, back to home, back to Godhead. Then he becomes perfect. So we are educating the driver. We are not painting the tin car. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rūpānuga: That's like saying the car produces the driver. That's what they're thinking.
Prabhupāda: The car necessitates the driver's service. Otherwise car is useless.
Rūpānuga: Neither is the driver dependent on the car for his existence. He doesn't need the car. The car needs him.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee: They also say that the car created itself somehow or other, the metal and everything.
Prabhupāda: That is not the fact. Car requires the help of the driver.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I have interest for these journals, say life, origin of life, that started from last year. So here the international scientists from all over the world, they have combined together and then they formed this, this is all chemicals, this. And they're a big group.
Prabhupāda: So why don't you protest?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, that's what we're starting the background.
Prabhupāda: Refute their arguments, then it will be nice. Aiye (Hindi—Prabhupāda greets guests and asks which province of India they come from and they reply Punjab). How long you are here?
Guest (1) (Indian man): (Hindi) Emory University.
Prabhupāda: That is also on account of presence of the spirit soul. Actually it... Whatever little you are doing on account of presence of the spirit soul, as soon as the spirit soul is gone then your body and senses are simply lump of matter. So you are working with that lump of matter on account of presence of the spirit soul. Therefore that is more important. To understand what is that spirit soul, how it is working, what is his position, that, that is real knowledge. Therefore Kṛṣṇa begins in the Bhagavad-gītā, first lesson, about the spirit soul, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). So you are studying the deha, that we are discussing just now. One is studying the motor car but he has no knowledge of the driver.
Dr. Wolf: Śrīla Prabhupāda, may I venture very humbly to this opportunity of saying something I've experienced so much with people, that they would say, "Oh yes, we are ready to respect the spiritual values, but we live in this real world, in this material world and so we would rather not have the spiritual values interfere with it, settle everything in the material sense."
Prabhupāda: No, they, what they are saying, "real world," that is unreal.
Dr. Wolf: They don't realize that.
Prabhupāda: No, their knowledge is so imperfect, they're taking asatyere satya kori māni. Asatyere, you understand Bengali? Asatyere satya kori māni, accepting the untruth as truth. Asatyere nitāi-pada pāsariyā, ahaṅkāre matta hoiyā nitāi-pada pāsariyā, asatyere satya kori māni, by forgetting our relationship with God and being proud of their so-called... (break) That motor car is not your life. That is being misguided. Everyone is thinking that this body, motor car, is everything. But within, the driver, he's starving. So how long he'll carry on this motor car. So first of all take care of the driver who will protect this motor car nicely. And if the driver is a nonsense, he's starving, then how can I expect the car will go very nicely. It will create disaster. Disaster means... Suppose you have got very nice car, Cadillac or, many good cars there are, Rolls-Royce, and he smashes. Then he'll get ordinary car. This human body is smashed... (break) ...hāntara-prāptiḥ, you enter into the dog's body, finished. That is not in your control, that is God's control, nature's control. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), it is not under your control or so-called science. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27), kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu (BG 13.22), these things are there.
Prabhupāda: About the movement?
Śrutakīrti: Yes, what special message for the people who don't know about us?
Prabhupāda: It is a little difficult to understand this movement, because it is spiritual movement. People practically have no information what is spirit and what is spiritual movement, but they can simply understand that the body is there. Body is the machine. And the driver of the machine is the spirit soul. So we are beginning our movement from that platform, the driver of the machine. People are very much engrossed with the machine only, but they have no information who is driving the machine. That is the difficulty.
Reporter: Swamiji, your movement has received a great deal of attention for, at least one reason, because many of your followers dress in what for the West is an odd fashion and relate to the world in what for the West is an odd fashion. Can you respond to that? Why have you asked your followers to dress in this fashion and to play drums on the streets?
Prabhupāda: This is our preaching method, some way or other to draw their attention. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: There is an operator. A child cannot think. Motor car is running. Child will think the motor car is running automatically. But a sane man will understand that there is a driver. So persons who deny the existence of God are like that. They see the machine. Nature is the machine. But behind the machine there is an operator. These rascals cannot understand. Nābhijānāti, mām ebhyaḥ paramam, tribhir guṇamayair bhāvair. Machine is working, nature is working, that much they can see. And behind the machine there is operator. That they cannot see. What is your answer? What the atheist will say? Has the atheist any experience that any machine works without operator? Has he got any experience?
Paramahaṁsa: No.
Prabhupāda: Then why does he say?
Paramahaṁsa: But this whole universe—we cannot compare the whole universe with any machine created by man.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Why you bring man? This machine is created and being operated by God.
Paramahaṁsa: Well, we don't have any experience of such a machine.
Prabhupāda: Huh? What do you mean by machine. First of all define what is your idea of machine. Just like the other day we saw, we saw the Thompson place, being printed, being collected, and so many things are being done. It is like this. By machine the seasonal changes are going on, the sun is rising, the moon is rising, the water in the ocean, the waves are there. Everything, machine working. It is machine. Everything being systematically done. Such a big ocean, vast water, it is just on the brink, no more. It is so organized. The sun is rising exactly in time, astronomically. The astronomical watch is one ten-thousandth part of a second. It is so accurate. You'll find everything is going on. (break) Today is ekādaśī, eleventh day of the moon, the moon shall be like this. There one can see the moon and he can calculate. "Today is ekādaśī." This is not machine? It is exactly, machine.
Amogha: That must be true.
Prabhupāda: Everything is true. If you think it properly, you'll find it is all true. Bhagavad-gītā says, cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ: (BG 4.13) "By Me, the four divisions of human society are made." The most intelligent class, the brāhmaṇa, who knows the soul, God, etc., by their character, by their behavior. That is brāhmaṇa class. This is the most perfect way of keeping society. Unless there is a class which is very intelligent who know what is God, what is soul, then what is the civilization? Simply motorcar drivers? Is that civilization? Where is the brāhmaṇa? This is not civilization. Simply some artisans and workers, motorcar drivers, mill workers, where is civilized man, who knows God, who knows soul, who knows how to conduct the human society to the perfection? Where is that man? It is not civilization.
Paramahaṁsa: But we have philosophers and poets.
Prabhupāda: They are all loafer class. They have no information of the soul. They are studying in the dead matter, that's all. Freud and others, Darwin. What do they know?
Amogha: There are also so many priests and rabbis, the Pope.
Prabhupāda: Yajña means to satisfy the Supreme Lord. That is yajña. Yajñaḥ karma-samudbhavaḥ. Karma means your activities. Whatever you are doing, that is karma. You are working as geologist? What is?
Justin Murphy: Geographer.
Prabhupāda: Geographer. And another man is working in the factory or somewhere else. Everyone is working. So by working the aim should be how to perform yajña. That is... That should the... Suppose you are geographer, and I am a religious preacher, and he is a cultivator, he is a factory man, he is a motorcar driver. So that is all right. But if we sit down together and perform yajña simply by glorifying the Lord, where is the loss in your part or my part or his part? Where is the loss? Suppose as a geographer, you sit down; as a religious preacher, I sit down; as a motorcar driver, he sits down; as a factory worker, he sits down and perform yajña. Yajña means we chant the holy name of the Lord. Where is the difficulty?
Justin Murphy: I wish it were as simple as that for the majority of people.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone. Even the child can take part. Even the child, woman, educated, noneducated, rich man, poor man, worker—everyone can sit down and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. So why don't you accept this formula?
Justin Murphy: How do you know that I haven't?
Prabhupāda: There is no check.
Prabhupāda: You, why do you believe on your seeing? That is the defect. That is the defect of the Westerners. They are very deficient; still they say, "I cannot see." What is your seeing power? Suppose if Nārada comes, some demigods come, but you cannot see. Just like when Lord Nṛsiṁha-deva appeared, Prahlāda was seeing. "Is your God here?" "Yes." And he could not see. So why do you believe so much on your seeing? You have to attain seeing power. That is very good example, Prahlāda... Hiraṇyakaśipu asking Prahlāda, "Where is your God?" "My God is everywhere." "He is on the pillar?" "Yes." So he was seeing, but he was not seeing. He became angry and broke the pillar. "Let me see, where is your God." This is the position. So one has to create the eyes to see things. Not that whatever eyes you have got you can see everything. No. Just like motorcar is being driven, a child is seeing that the car is running automatically. And the father is seeing, "No, there is driver."
Prabhupāda: If you advance in civilization or do not advance in civilization, you will die. That is sure. Then why do you labor so much? Huh? The animals, they do not labor so much. They live peacefully on the condition of the nature. Why do you labor so much? If the result is the same—the animal will die and you will die—then why you are laboring so much for nothing? That means they have no common sense even. Therefore they are rascals. That is discussed in Bhagavad-gītā. Kṛṣṇa said to Arjuna, "If you think there was no life before this body and if you think that there will be no life after this body, then why you are anxious for the body of your brothers and sisters?" So all these philosophies have been discussed in Bhagavad-gītā. After all, the conclusion is that they are all rascals. That's all. We have to take them as such rascals. After death everything is finished—that a child knows—but why you are making so permanent building? Piling, (imitates pile driver sound) "Donkhs!
Prabhupāda: He is acting on the field. If the field is not acting, the soul is not there. Just like field, agricultural field, when you see the food grains are growing, the grass is there nicely, the paddy is growing nicely, you know, "Somebody is working." And in the jungle, where there is no paddy field, it is simply jungle, you know nobody is working. Where is the difficulty? When these things are in working order, then you know the soul is there. And it is decomposing, lying on the field and birds are coming, eating, dogs are biting—that means the soul is not there. This is distinction. Where is the difficulty? When the motor car is standing on the middle road, you know, "There is no driver. It is left over." Although the big machine, but because there is no driver, it is lying uncared for.
Prabhupāda: No opportunity?
Devotee (2): Not enough, Śrīla Prabhupāda, not enough land.
Prabhupāda: Not enough? Let them come, I shall give them. So much land in America. They say "No land"? The all...
Yadubara: Just like the tri-shaw driver. We invite him to our temple, but he says he has to work so hard. He will not come.
Prabhupāda: He will go to the brothel. That he has got time. To the liquor house to forget his labor. This is civilization. Mūḍha, mūḍha civilization. Why the Communist are coming? Why Communist party is there? What is the philosophy, Communist?
Satsvarūpa: That wealth should be shared by everyone.
Prabhupāda: That means they also do not wish to work so hard. They are seeing that "Capitalists are sitting very comfortably and (we) working." They are also thinking, "Escaping." Is it not? So the natural tendency is that "I will not work, and still, I will get my necessities." That is natural tendency. The material world means avidyā-karma-samjñānya tṛtīyā śaktir iśyate. This is out of ignorance they are working so hard. In the spiritual world there is no question of working. You get everything. Cintāmaṇi-prakara-sadmasu. Everything, whatever you want. So why not endeavor to go there? Why should you work like hogs and dogs?
Viśakha: Śrīla Prabhupāda, they will accuse us of being parasites.
Brahmānanda: There'll be no water for their machines.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So they are thinking that "This is improvement." What is this nonsense improvement? You are dependent fully on other elements. What improvement will do? And Kṛṣṇa says, "This is a place for misery." How you will improve? This is folly, this is illusion. Kṛṣṇa says, "This place is for suffering," and you are making improvement. "Yes, we are advancing. In future we shall live. Nobody will die." Therefore they are called rascals. Persons who are trying to do something which is impossible, they are fools. Mūḍha. They do not see, still, they hope, "Yes, we are trying. We shall do in future." This is going on. This is the example by the ass. The ass... Driver is sitting on the back of the ass and showing one bunch of grass, and the ass is thinking, "I will get it." (laughter) And he is going on, and he is sitting safely, that "The ass will go on." So our improvement is like that. "Just little forward, then I shall get the grass." He will never get the grass. That he has no brain, that "I am improving; the grass also improving, going on." That they do not see. Now we invented so many airship. It was thought, "Oh, now it will be very nice. Within two hours we shall reach somewhere." Now there are so many dangers. Now there is problem, how to protect us from these accidents.
Prabhupāda: No, island is not required. Make a program like that.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Take photos.
Prabhupāda: And if possible, send them ideas and direction. Bhavānanda has gone. (break) ...convince them that they are doing very nice, to their best capacity, but they are doing it blindly. You are very good driver, but if you are a blind man, then how you will drive? You will create disaster. So we can open their eyes so that their good driving capacity will be properly utilized. A good driver, blind, what he will do? Ajñāna-timirāndhasya. Darkness, it will not help. The western method of seeing things—blind eyes. Actually, they are blind. They are trying to see things with microscope. First of all you are blind. What you will see? Microscope, this machine or that machine, but you are blind. That they do not know.
Prabhupāda: They do not accept soul.
Prof. Olivier: They accept the soul, I think so, but they do not care to analyze what it means.
Prabhupāda: Oh. And it is without analyzing this, what is the education? First of all this should be analyzed, what is the distinction between a dead body and a living body. That must be analyzed. Otherwise what is the education? We are dealing with this body. The body is always dead. Just like a motorcar with driver and without driver. The car is always a lump of matter. Similarly, this body, with the soul and without the soul, is a lump of matter. Therefore the...
Prof. Olivier: Not worth very much.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Prof. Olivier: Not worth very much.
Prabhupāda: No.
Prof. Olivier: I think about...around fifty-six cents or something. Somebody worked it out the other day.
Prabhupāda: Yes. But if one cannot distinguish between the car and the driver of the car, then he remains just like a child. A child may think that the car is running automatically, but that is foolishness. There is a driver. The child may not know, but when the child is grown-up, educated, still he does not know, then what is the meaning of his education?
Prabhupāda: No, Britishers. The Muslims interfered. They wanted to propagate Islamism. Not all, some of them. But Britishers, although they were spreading Christianism, still, outwardly they were neutral about religious affairs. So Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura preferred that "Britishers are good. They do not interfere with our religious affair." So the idea is that India—you may say primitive or whatever you want—they wanted to make progress of the soul. They did not care who is ruling. So "Whatever tax is due we shall pay. Let us do our own business." That was India's attitude. They never thought in terms of nationalism. That was never educated. They were never educated.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (to driver) Go down this street, Prabhu.
Prabhupāda: Nationalism was unknown to India. They never thought.
Bhargava: … allow the Muslims to enter and do so much damage to the Vedic culture?
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Bhargava: Why did Kṛṣṇa allow the Muslims to enter and do so much damage to the…
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is your father's servant that you do something wrong and Kṛṣṇa has to check it? Is your Kṛṣṇa your father's servant? Then why do you ask this question? If you allow somebody to cut your head, has Kṛṣṇa to come to save you? Why do you ask this nonsense question? You are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Samo ’haṁ sarva-bhūteṣu. If you cut your own head, what Kṛṣṇa will do? In the same term, nationalism, as Vedic culture is Kṛṣṇa's national affair, your disease is there. Why Kṛṣṇa will come to save the Vedic culture? What business He has got? If you are spoiling it, then why Kṛṣṇa will come? Spoil, and suffer. (break) … the same question in a different way, "Why India? Why Kṛṣṇa?" as if Kṛṣṇa is Indian. Kṛṣṇa is Indian? Then why do you ask this question, that “Kṛṣṇa will come to save India's culture?”
Prabhupāda: Hm. And yasyātmā-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke, sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). That is animal.
Dr. Patel: Kuṇape is a dead body. Kuṇape tri-dhātuke.
Prabhupāda: Yes. It is dead. What is this body? It is already dead. Just like motorcar. It is dead lump of matter. So long the driver is, it is moving. Similarly, the body is dead. So without understanding of spiritual identification, simply decorating this body means aprāṇasya hi dehasya mandanam loka-rañjanam. This is going on, loka-rañjanam, just to captivate some foolish person that they are advanced in civilization. What is that civilization? But we can understand, this civilization and the dog, there is no difference. There is no difference.
Dr. Patel: Now there will be no difference because there is just like dogs, the society, no marriages and all those... We talked yesterday. There are facts. That is going on everywhere.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Na te vidu svārtha-gati hi viṣṇu durāśay ye bahir-artha-māninaḥ. Bahir-artha, bodily concept, this is bahiḥ. And antar is the soul. So they are bahir-artha-māninaḥ. These rascals are bahir-artha-māninaḥ, simply studying this body externally, bahir-artha-māninaḥ. Very nice words, selected words, are used in Bhāgavata.
Prabhupāda: Why?
Mahāṁsa: Because first of all, they did not know how to ride the bulls, so the bulls gave a lot of trouble.
Prabhupāda: Then there is no professional driver?
Mahāṁsa: Well, now we are going to hire one driver to take care of the bulls. And secondly, even the axle of the cart was a little defective. Otherwise the program was a great success.
Prabhupāda: Oh, that is success. People were coming.
Mahāṁsa: Yes. And one person came to the temple in Hyderabad and met me. He said that "After your devotees had a program in our village, the farmers in the evening they were coming and doing kīrtana instead of just..." Previously they were not doing anything, but now they are coming after farming. In the evening they are collecting and they are doing kīrtana together.
Prabhupāda: Just see how quickly there will be response. Therefore I was insisting, "Go village to village, town to town." Caitanya Mahāprabhu's prediction, pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi.
Prabhupāda: Then the lion is better than them. The elephant is better than them. Why do you call them, "They are animals"? They are better situated. One lion can kill hundreds of Russians. Then lion is better than the Russian? You have to accept that.
Harikeśa: I mean, but they're not poor because they're so, you know, they're well fed.
Prabhupāda: There everyone is poor, begging. You are talking theoretically. I went to Moscow. The taxi driver was wanting something excess. They are so poor, begging, "Give me something more." They are so poor. Most of the people, they are walking on the street. There is no taxi. Nobody can pay for taxi. This is their situation.
Harikeśa: Yes, but why should somebody be rich and I be poor? What gives him the right to have money?
Prabhupāda: That is everywhere. That is called, that... He is born in a rich family; I am born in a poor family. So why this is happening?
Harikeśa: Yes, that's unfair. I mean, I should take his money.
Prabhupāda: No, no, not unfair. This is nature's arrangement, uccavacca. Why one has become animal? Why one has become man? The same living entity.
Prabhupāda: Just see. Then where the income? There is no income and there is loss.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Not everyone does it, but students and a lot of young people do that.
Tejās: Students coerce them. They stop the buses. If the bus driver doesn't stop, they'll break the windows and then they all get on and they ride free. They were burning many buses.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But this year, because of the emergency, everyone is behaving all right. They're scared to do anything.
Prabhupāda: How by emergency you can make people honest?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: This house belongs to the (name withheld).
Tejās: This belongs to (name withheld)?
Prabhupāda: Yes. He has got three, four houses like that, separate, I saw, and whole day-two hours here, two hours there, two hours there.
Śrīdhara: The soul is pure, part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa...
Prabhupāda: Yes, but he is covered by the material body. The material body is infected by the modes of material nature. Therefore, although he is pure, he is subjected. Just like when there is motor accident, you are separate from the motor, but you have to suffer. Everyone knows that I am separate from the motorcar, but why I am suffering? Because you have got bad car, you must suffer.
Śrīdhara: That may be because I'm an imperfect driver.
Prabhupāda: So you are imperfect; therefore this movement is to make you perfect. If you are not imperfect, then why the movement is there? To make you perfect. Saṁsiddhiṁ paramaṁ gataḥ. Mām upetya kaunteya duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15). So long you are imperfect, you must suffer in this material world. And as soon as you become perfect, you go back to home, back to.... Because you are imperfect, therefore this movement is necessary. Medicine is there for the patient, not for the person in perfect health. Mūdho' yaṁ nābhijānāti mām eva param avyayam (BG 7.25). These rascals they do not know Kṛṣṇa; therefore the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is necessary. Para upakāra. Caitanya Mahāprabhu says para upa, para upakāra. You know yourself what is Kṛṣṇa, and distribute this knowledge. That is wanted. That is entrusted to the Indians.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Acyutānanda: The word nature should be condemned. That.... No scientific-minded person can say the word nature.
Prabhupāda: No, they do not know what is nature. Nature is an instrument, and there must be an operator. So that they do not know, the operator. Just like a child is thinking the motorcar is going automatically. He does not know there is a driver. The child sees that the airplane is flying. They think it is automatically going. And there is a pilot, he does not know. Similarly, these rascals, they are studying nature, but nature is an instrument only. It is being operated by Kṛṣṇa. Mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram (BG 9.10). They have practical experience that without operator a machine cannot work. In the huge machine, how it is working unless there is operator? That they do not know.
Prabhupāda: Which side is boat? Straight?
Bhavānanda: Boat is at Hulor Ghat.
Prabhupāda: Boat is worth seeing. (laughter) (break)
Jayapatāka: He's the only one who gives out fish prasāda. Even the ricksaw drivers don't take his prasāda. They say it is unclean. (break)
Prabhupāda: Lady?
Jayapatāka: In this house here. There's one lady lives here. One of the devotees was walking. He said she hears the kīrtana at night. One widow.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...bus came here.
Bhavānanda: Down this road, turns here.
Prabhupāda: Oh. It goes to Krishnagar.
Prabhupāda: In America?
Acyutānanda: Yes. And the other union is the truck driver. And no man will do the other work. Like in India, if you hire a woman to wash the pots, if you tell her to wash the pāyakhānā, she will not go. Another woman you have to get. And that protects them. That protects their employment opportunity.
Prabhupāda: Division of labor.
Acyutānanda: Division of labor.
Prabhupāda: (break)... gradually no simple life. Struggle for existence, very, very...
Acyutānanda: People confuse change for progress. When it is just changed and done in a more complicated way, they think it is called progress. That is also the Communist thing when there is protest: "Oh, well, you have to accept change. It's natural. It's a natural change."
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is communal thought.
Acyutānanda: "Times are changing. You have to move. You have to change with the time."
Dayānanda: Mao says, "Revolution, constant revolution."
Acyutānanda: Yes. I asked one man. I said, "What do you have to show? What is the results? What is the results of the change? The people are still living in a hut." He says, "The struggle is what we have to show, that we had a struggle. People are not just sitting by and being exploited, but they are now struggling."
Prabhupāda: No, that is already found...
Acyutānanda: Śrama eva hi kevalam (SB 1.2.8).
Prabhupāda: ...in the Bhagavad-gītā: manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni karṣati (BG 15.7). This is the nature's law. What you have got to say about this thing? Nothing. It is already there. Prakṛti-sthāni karṣati. Manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni karṣati: "Although they are my part and parcel," mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ (BG 15.7), still, "because they have been predominated by the mind, manaḥ, and the senses, they are struggling." So our propaganda is "Stop this sense gratification and mental concoction. Then the struggle will cease. And if you still abide by the senses and mental dictation, then you'll have to suffer."
Prabhupāda: Yes. They why don't you create a body? What is your science?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: You've just pointed out: the body may already be there, but they cannot replace the life. Even a body is already created, like a dead body, but they can't bring life back into it.
Prabhupāda: Then what is that life? That is the question. That life is soul. You have to accept. (break) ...car stop. Some machine broken. As soon as the machine is placed, now the motor car is fit for running, but not for the machine, but for the driver. When the driver is not there, you cannot create or purchase a driver. That is not possible. You can repair the machine, but without driver the machine will not run. So why they should be blind about this fact? What is this knowledge, advancement of knowledge? The body is created. If it is accepted-body is created by these material elements—now create another body. Just like dollmakers make a body, you also make a body, very beautiful woman, and give it life. Why they cannot do it?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But even accepting that the soul is the living force, they may say that "Well, we're living in this material world and we have to deal with matter, so what is the importance of all this knowledge?"
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They may say that "We're living in the material world in spite of this knowledge, so we have to deal with material circumstances."
Prabhupāda: But you do not like to die. Why do you die with your material knowledge? Nobody wants to die but why you die? Then where is your material knowledge. You do not like to be old man. Where is your material knowledge that you can stop old age? Then you have to accept that your material knowledge is not perfect. Why you are so much proud of this false knowledge? Unnecessarily.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They accept a better theory when it is presented.
Prabhupāda: Yes. It is presented. This is the beginning, that "Your knowledge is imperfect. You are believing your eyes, but that is not perfect knowledge. You have to see with knowledge." Paśyati jñāna... Paśyanti jñāna-cakṣuṣā. Śāstra-cakṣuṣāt. That is seeing, not seeing like a child. A child is seeing, a motor car is running, a airplane is running. He thinks a wonderful machine, but it is not the machine. It is the pilot. It is the driver. A child cannot see it. The father knows that it is not the machine. The machine may be however perfectly made; it cannot run. There must be a perfect pilot also. Just like we get on aeroplane. There are hundreds of men. If there is any trouble, then the pilot can stop it, not the hundreds of men.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Vṛndāvana morning walk, Vṛndāvana, April 2, 1976. Śrīla Prabhupāda is walking in the Vṛndāvana Municipal Park this morning. He drove here by car in his Mercedes. Now he's taking walk here.
Prabhupāda: Car?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, car is locked, and the driver of the other car is watching it.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...small park, they cannot maintain it.
Tripurāri: ...reading in Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the cleansing of the Guṇḍicā temple. And towards the end, one Bengali Vaiṣṇava brāhmaṇa washed the feet of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and He became a little angry, outwardly angry, and unhappy within. And in one purport you mention that the spiritual master should not be offered obeisances or have his feet washed before the Deity. But the impression of most of the devotees has been that in the presence of the spiritual master one can stop worshiping the Deity and offer obeisances to the spiritual master. So I was wondering which is correct.
Prabhupāda: (chuckles) Dilemma.
Prabhupāda: That automatically comes.
Dr. Patel: How can automatically? Nothing can come automatically.
Prabhupāda: You'll see many drivers. They do not know about mechanics, but very first class driver.
Dr. Patel: Well, learning driving is a knowledge of driving.
Prabhupāda: Yes, driving, that is...
Dr. Patel: Svarūpa(?), why don't you say something?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Many.... Many first-class owner.... You know. You are a physician. You are not a motor mechanics, but you know how to drive. That is not very difficult thing.
Guru dāsa: Isn't it when you drive for Kṛṣṇa, doesn't it become parā-vidyā then?
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Guru dāsa: When you drive for Kṛṣṇa, doesn't it becomes parā-vidyā?
Prabhupāda: Yes, everything is done for Kṛṣṇa, that is parā-vidyā.
Dr. Patel: Anything spoken for Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is parā-vāṇī, and this is parā-vidyā.
Prabhupāda: Vāsudeva-parā... There is a verse, vāsudeva-parāḥ karma vāsudeva-parā... Like that.
Prabhupāda: Read it carefully. As the small soul has entered.... Dehino 'smin yathā dehe (BG 2.13). This is also a small universe. The same elements are working, but the soul is the prime factor. Similarly, this gigantic body. Athavā bahunaitena kiṁ jñātena.... Viṣṭabhya aham idaṁ kṛtsnam. "The kṛtsnam, the total material energy, millions of universes like that, that is being maintained by Me because I have entered in it in My fragmental portion." Same principle. As I, the individual soul, I am.... because I have entered this body, the body is working so nicely. It looks beautiful; it looks fresh. It is machine. The machine is working very nicely so long the pilot or the driver is there. Similarly, where is the difficulty to understand this universal affair? If we accept the same principle, that "I am a small fragmental portion of Kṛṣṇa. I have entered this body. This body is working so nicely.... Similarly, because Kṛṣṇa has entered as Mahā-Viṣṇu, Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, therefore it is working."
Prabhupāda: So what kind of government it is? It is a horrible government. And they are hackney only in literature. These communist country, the people are forced to accept the government regulation. And that is all bad. I have seen in Moscow, generally the people are morose, their face not very happy. They are also Europeans, they want freedom to go here and there (indistinct) and to work. The taxi driver-first of all there is scarcity of taxi, you can not get taxi...
Guru-kṛpā: Even in Moscow, big city.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That Professor Kotofsky, I asked him, "Please arrange for a taxi." (indistinct) "Well, Swamiji, this is Moscow." So he came down to the gate—he was very virtuous—he showed me, "You go this way, actually there was 3 or 4 lane then you find a short lane, then you go this way, this way, then you get to your hotel. He showed me some short cut, personally. They... He could not call a taxi. And somewhere we went, we got a taxi, private taxi, and that man was begging for more than the fare.
Devotee (1): Such programs are minimized in the temple. Should there be a college program in each temple? Or should everyone just work along with the BBT Library Party? Should there be a college program?
Prabhupāda: No, it is useless to talk with them. If you can peacefully sell some books, that's all. Don't enter into very long arguments, because they are all rascals. They cannot understand. Better peacefully, as far as possible, sell some books. Dante nidhāya tṛṇakaṁ padayor nipatya kāku-śataṁ kṛtvā ca... This is the process. They cannot understand that because there is soul within the child, therefore child is becoming boy. As soon as there is no soul, the child does not become a boy. This simple philosophy they cannot understand, so what is their position? Now, this car is standing because there is no driver. Anyone can understand. Stand still. It will remain there for thousands of years unless a driver comes. Simple reason. But they are so rascal, they will not understand. So what is the use of talking with them? Simply waste of time.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: It's actually the Lord that's keeping it.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
Rāmeśvara: ...the engine going.
Prabhupāda: Maybe driver. Driver is left.
Rāmeśvara: Driver is left.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: Like chauffeur.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). Kṛṣṇa has unlimited energies. Yesterday you were explaining in your garden to that priest that Kṛṣṇa, He says, Kṛṣṇa says, "I am the father of all living entities." And you were saying, "Who can challenge this or deny it?" Now someone can say that there is contradiction, if there is some contradiction in Kṛṣṇa's statement, therefore...
Prabhupāda: Who can deny? Who can contradict this? That is my challenge. The contradiction is not valid. Who can contradict it? That is my challenge.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: In Bombay.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Bhogilal Patel had twenty-three cars. Just for him and his wife and father. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Yes. They are spending money to save income tax. They have got enough income. So instead of giving to the income tax, they are thinking that "Why not provide some serfers(?), some drivers, some servants, and repair the house every year." In this way, spend money (laughing). It is good policy. Money's distributed to the poor instead of going to the government pocket.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He's got at least thirty-five servants, and it is only father and son and daughter-in-law.
Prabhupāda: (laughing) That's all. No children even.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. Prabhupāda stayed there. They gave us much, er, attention.
Prabhupāda: They are very favorable to us. Especially the father.
Hari-śauri: These church fathers that we've just done on the philosophy book, they are simply speculating about what was in the original Bible.
Prabhupāda: No clear conception, scientific idea. Therefore educated persons, they are not interested. "God, give us daily bread." They will say, "Why we shall go to church for begging bread? We can manufacture it, large quantity." (laughs) Why they should go? Formality: "God, give us our daily bread." "Just open a big factory and eat as much bread as we like. Why should we go to God?" (break) ...Jawaharlal Nehru, he took this view, that "For economic development why should you go to the temple, ask this demigod, that demigod, 'Give me this. Give me this'? Develop industry and get money to enjoy." That is his.... (break)...description of God in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam begins: janmādy asya yato 'nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ sva-rāṭ (SB 1.1.1). This is God, the origin of everything. Who is there who can challenge this explanation, "The origin of everything"? Now, what is that origin? Whether it is matter or sentient? No. Janmādy asya yato 'nvayād itarataś ca abhijñaḥ (SB 1.1.1). He knows everything. Therefore He's a person. Otherwise, how He can be origin of everything? Anvayād itarataś ca. Suppose I.... If I have manufactured this car, then I know every nook and corner of this car, how I have manufactured. One who has manufactured, he knows how it is working, every minute feature. Even an expert driver, he knows how many parts are there, which part is.... Anvayād itarataś ca artheṣu abhijñaḥ. If he's abhijñaḥ, if he's completely cognizant of every part of the whole creation, then He has created. (pause) All Santa Monica city?
Rāmeśvara: Today there are many articles in the papers that college students graduate and cannot find any jobs, so their degree is useless.
Prabhupāda: This.... This was the problem in India, and now it is also in America. (break)
Mahendra: Graduating with Ph.D.'s and then becoming truck drivers.
Candanācārya: Śrīla Prabhupāda said years ago that our colleges are producing beggars. They get a degree and then they beg.
Prabhupāda: Śūdras and beggar.
Rādhāvallabha: (break) ...reporter that he was liberated. Later on, he was asking whether you were joking. (laughter)
Duryodhana-guru: (break) It says in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam: āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adho 'nādṛta-yuṣmad-aṅghrayaḥ (SB 10.2.32). So this refers to someone who has attained Brahman realization, that he must fall down because he does not take shelter at Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet. Does this also refer to someone who has attained paramātmā realization?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Unless one reaches Vaikuṇṭha planet, nobody is safe. (break)
Rāmeśvara: ...to the reporter?
Bharadvāja: What did he say?
Rāmeśvara: He said that's all right, because the fish are happy.
Prabhupāda: And why did you not say that "I'll eat you"? (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Oh, you were in the car?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They all fell asleep. I was chanting. You were sitting, you didn't even go to sleep that night (laughs). Even though it was late at night, it was about eleven, twelve, one o'clock at night, you didn't want to stay at that bhogī yogi house. I remember that. And he drove very, very fast back to Portland. That was a very nice engagement.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. That was Śyāmasundara's father's car. So he's a good driver, (laughter) but very dangerous driver. I do not know, Śyāmasundara, his father is a rich man, lawyer, got good estate and he's the only son. He did not like to stay with father.
Hari-śauri: No one in the West likes to stay with their parents.
Prabhupāda: Two sisters, very beautiful girls. They're unhappy.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They're unhappy?
Prabhupāda: Yes. His two sisters.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I heard he was preaching to them. At least one of them that came to the temple that time. She came to that program.
Prabhupāda: She first of all came in London.
Guest: There's a very nice story about this illusion. That once he was walking and someone who knew that Śaṅkarācārya preached this illusion business, was riding on an elephant, so he asked his driver, "Chase Śaṅkarācārya." And of course he did and Śaṅkarācārya started running. So this man said, "Why are you running, since this is illusion?" And he said, "So is my running." (laughter) He said, "So is my running, that's also an illusion."
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Rūpānuga: But sometimes the impersonalists, they say, Prabhupāda, that this Kṛṣṇa consciousness is just the beginning platform, that after Kṛṣṇa consciousness then one can come to impersonal realization. They say that in the scriptures only Bhagavad-gītā and a few scriptures teach about Kṛṣṇa but the rest of the Vedas don't even talk about Kṛṣṇa's name. So, therefore, this impersonalism is higher realization, but one comes to it, after bhakti.
Prabhupāda: No. There are Vedas, there are so many names described. Kṛṣṇa says, vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyam (BG 15.15). If one has not understood Kṛṣṇa by studying Vedas, then he has not studied Vedas. It is very confidential. Otherwise, why Kṛṣṇa says vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyam (BG 15.15)? If one has studied Veda, but has not understood Kṛṣṇa, then his labor is useless. Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān māṁ prapadyate (BG 7.19). If one is actually jñānavān, then he (indistinct). Śaṅkarācārya said bhaja govindam, bhaja govindam. That is real knowledge. But if one says that in the Vedas, you don't find Kṛṣṇa's name, then he has not studied Veda. Because Kṛṣṇa says, vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyam (BG 15.15). The actual purpose of studying Vedas means to understand Kṛṣṇa. If one has not understood Kṛṣṇa, then śrama eva hi kevalam (SB 1.2.8). They have simply labored for nothing.
Rūpānuga: So they are already there.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rūpānuga: Created by Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The driver(?) is there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: He's trying to mention an experiment in science, there's a man called...
Prabhupāda: That is your duty, mention...
Svarūpa Dāmodara: He tries to show that the living system...
Prabhupāda: No, if we can see practically different seeds are exacting different color, different flavor, different chemicals. Everything is coming from the earth, sarva-kāma-dughā mahī, everything is coming.
Rūpānuga: So the plant...
Prabhupāda: Simply outside arrangement, how to take it.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's one gentleman named Fritt.
Rāmeśvara: This taxi driver is saying Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Our Jayānanda was driving taxi and chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, and one day (laughter) he brought to me five thousand dollars.
Rāmeśvara: And you used it to print Teachings of Lord Caitanya.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Rāmeśvara: Was that the time?
Prabhupāda: I think, yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You kept it then.
Prabhupāda: It was given for publishing Bhagavad-gītā, but I think Macmillan took it. So I spent it for...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Then you put him in charge to sell all the Teachings of Lord Caitanya, I remember. (Prabhupāda laughs)
Jayānanda: (indistinct) Didn't sell too many books, though.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I thought he was the best, most appropriate person to drive you.
Prabhupāda: He was chanting and driving. Very good boy.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Cyavana has been here also.
Prabhupāda: Just train him, he is good boy. He has fallen down, just take care of him.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In Europe most of the taxi drivers use Mercedes because they are so long lasting.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That means the engine.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: And the body also lasts. Good quality.
Devotee: You see them ten years old, still running. (break)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...telling you that the Māyāpur time, the Rāma-navamī comes in April, Gaura-pūrṇimā is in March, it will take a total of six weeks. This year our saṅkīrtana book distribution was set back severely on account of the over-long duration of the festival and all of the devotees and GBC men wanted that it should be about three weeks.
Prabhupāda: That's all right.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So the problem is that Gopāla Kṛṣṇa is saying that he wants all of the devotees to stay there for the opening of the Bombay temple.
Prabhupāda: Not necessary.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not necessary. Because there is at least, there would be still about a hundred, hundred-fifty devotees there anyway.
Prabhupāda: Some of them. They can go sometime later.
Prabhupāda: Not rejection. Just like your car. Your car is important so long it is moving. But if it does not move, then what is the importance of the car? Motor car.
Interviewer: Not, if it's not in use it's serving no purpose.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Similarly if you simply concentrate on the car without any attention to the car driver, then what is your knowledge?
Interviewer: It takes both.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Interviewer: It takes both, the car and the driver.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Car is important so long it is moving and if it is not moving it has no importance, it is lump of matter. So the car in both the condition, while moving and not moving, it is lump of matter.
Interviewer: Well does that mean that the world, the general world's activities are like a non-moving car? A lump of matter?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Bali-mardana: We are also utilizing the car but our attention is on the life principle, not on the dead metal.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Interviewer: Appears to be separated, that's the way you would put it. Well, is it separated?
Prabhupāda: It is always separated. It is always separated. Just like the driver and the car, they are always separated.
Interviewer: I'm talking about the movement, from the secular world.
Prabhupāda: First of all, understand the analogy. The car and the driver is always separated. The driver is not car, neither the car is the driver.
Interviewer: Well, is the Kṛṣṇa movement the driver or the car?
Prabhupāda: Why you bring Kṛṣṇa? First of all, try to understand the analogy. There is car and there is the driver. That car is always different from the driver and the driver is always different from the car. Is it not?
Interviewer: Absolutely. The car can't drive itself.
Prabhupāda: So, if you take attention of the car and you do not know anything about the driver, then what is your knowledge?
Interviewer: I didn't quite get the question.
Bali-mardana: If you pay attention to the car without paying attention to understanding who the driver of the car is, what is the driver, then what is the use of your knowledge? In other words, the driver is the living entity or the soul and the car is this body, the material elements of this material world including the body. So without understanding who you are, who the living entity within the body or the driver within the car, then what is the use of your knowledge of the material elements without understanding who you are?
Interviewer: Well, since this dichotomy appears to be the case, I mean that there is, that the movement is sort of cut off from the world in general, does that not deprive the world of the service, of the usefulness of these people?
Prabhupāda: First of all, if you do not understand what is the movement then how you can give your verdict like that? First of all, try to understand what is this movement.
Interviewer: The Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, the Kṛṣṇa Consciousness Society.
Prabhupāda: Then what is that Kṛṣṇa movement? That Kṛṣṇa movement is, just like to understand the driver.
Bali-mardana: The Kṛṣṇa movement is meant to help people to understand the spiritual knowledge, knowledge of who they actually are. That is what our movement is dedicated to. We are not dedicated for our own...
Interviewer: What is the purpose of the movement, your Grace?
Prabhupāda: Purpose of the movement is to know who is the driver of the car.
Interviewer: To know who is the driver of the car?
Prabhupāda: Of the car.
Interviewer: And who is that?
Prabhupāda: That is, we are contributing. People are in ignorance about his own identification, who is he. He's thinking he's dead body. That is misconception.
Interviewer: There's no way to identify the driver of the car then.
Bali-mardana: No, no.
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.
Interviewer: People are generally working on the body.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And we are working on the driver of the body. That is the difference.
Interviewer: Working on the driver of the body. On the spirit, right?
Prabhupāda: Yes, on the spirit soul. And because they do not know what is the difference between the soul and the body, they cannot understand what is our contribution.
Interviewer: Do you think that...?
Prabhupāda: Now, just you try. We are trying to give enlightenment about the driver of the car. Because the driver of the car is always important, either on the car or without the car. And people in general they are giving importance to the car only. They have no knowledge of the driver. The car requires petrol and the driver requires nice food. So people in general, when they see that we are not giving petrol to the driver, they are surprised.
Interviewer: When they see that you are not giving a role to the driver?
Bali-mardana: Petrol.
Interviewer: Oh, petrol.
Prabhupāda: They think that petrol is the food of the driver. (laughter)
Bali-mardana: In other words to satisfy the body does not satisfy the person within the body.
Prabhupāda: Therefore they misunderstand, "Oh, they are not giving petrol to this man for eating." But the man's eatable is not the petrol.
Prabhupāda: No, have you understood this point?
Bali-mardana: Have you understood the analogy?
Interviewer: I accept, ah, I suppose what you are saying is that the driver...
Prabhupāda: You have to understand, you have to understand.
Interviewer: ...that the driver is the spirit of man and that the car is his physical functioning.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. So the car requires petrol. Does it mean the driver also requires petrol?
Interviewer: You mean the spirit? Food? Does the spirit require food?
Prabhupāda: No, no. This analogy. The driver's food is different from the...
Interviewer: Body food.
Prabhupāda: ...from the petr..., of the motor car. The motor car without petrol cannot work. Similarly, the driver without food cannot work. But the food of the driver and the power of the motor car different.
Prabhupāda: So we are supplying the needs of the soul, and they are supplying the needs of the motor car. Therefore they find difference. They are thinking, "They are not supplying petrol to this man for eating." That is the difference. They are crying, "Oh, they are not giving petrol for eating to the driver."
Devotee: Actually we are giving all those things as well.
Prabhupāda: Yes. We are supplying everything, driver's food and the car's power. But they see that, "Why they are wasting time giving food to the driver?" They think that petrol is the food of the driver as well as the car. They do not know that the food of the driver is different from the petrol for the car. Try to understand this analogy. (indistinct)
Interviewer: I gather what you are driving at is that bodily food is different than, mental, reading, intellectual food, spiritual food, it all comes into the body and we take it all information, ideas, this is the kind...
Prabhupāda: Not ideas, that is a fact. Fact that you driver, you must have your food. Otherwise you will die.
Interviewer: I'm looking at you, that's taking in a certain kind of information.
Prabhupāda: You cannot drive the car without food.
Prabhupāda: The sum and substance is that if a person thinks that he is the car, the driver, if he thinks wrongly that he is the car, then his life is spoiled.
Bali-mardana: So if someone identifies too closely with the body, then his life is spoiled.
Interviewer: You think, if he identifies with the body too much his life is...
Prabhupāda: Not too much.
Interviewer: At all.
Prabhupāda: He should know that he is different from the car. That is real knowledge. And if he identifies himself with the car, then he's a fool.
Interviewer: Well, can he, is he supposed to care about and honor the body in the physical world...
Prabhupāda: That is already taken.
Interviewer: And that this is ignorance to identify the self with the body.
Prabhupāda: That I have already explained, that the driver...
Interviewer: But does that mean a sort of rejection of the body as unimportant?
Prabhupāda: Not rejection. Again, you come to the...
Interviewer: But the body is important to the self isn't it?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just try to understand. That we have already explained. The driver and the car are two different identities, is it not?
Interviewer: Yes.
Prabhupāda: The driver can exist without the car and the car without the driver has no value.
Interviewer: Well, in that sense...
Prabhupāda: So why don't you understand first of all this?
Interviewer: ...in keeping with that analogy can the self exist, does the self exist without the body in this world?
Prabhupāda: Yes, oh yes.
Hari-śauri: Like that man from the Associated Press. You forced him to stay on those two analogies until he understood. For ten minutes you explained that, the car and the driver, until it finally got through to him. Then when he finally had some realization of it, then you again gave him another analogy about breaking the bricks in the prison. And again you forced him to stay on the same subject matter. And he..., you do it in such a way that they think that they're asking very good questions from their own intelligence. Actually, you've already captured them.
Harikeśa: It's like taming wild animals. The perfect animal trainer. (laughing)
Prabhupāda: He said that breaking the bricks is the business. I said the sooner you give up this, then you are happy. Karmīs, the karmīs want this, breaking the bricks. They think this is civilization. Brick, more brick, and bring more bricks and break it. That is civilization.
Prabhupāda: So you keep that.... (break) They are opening hospital for giving medicine to the shirt and coat, and where is the man's medicine? Washing the shirt and coat, laundry work. They do not know that the man within the shirt and coat requires different treatment, different, he has got different necessities, different life. If I simply wash the shirt and coat, does it mean the man is happy? They have no common sense even. "Yes, we are supplying petrol to the car. It must drive." "Well, sir, to give good to the driver who will drive?" "Doesn't require, petrol is there." That's all. This is their intelligence. They are supplying petrol. Will the driver eat, drink petrol? They have no knowledge. He requires spiritual food. And these rascals, they do not know it. They'll say that petrol is sufficient both for the car and the driver. This is their intelligence.
Harikeśa: They are always maddened by lusty desires.
Prabhupāda: Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma (SB 5.5.4). Very, very risky civilization. Keeping the whole human society in darkness. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ bahir-artha-māninaḥ (SB 7.5.31). By material adjustment they are thinking that "Everything we will enjoy."(?) There are two different things, matter and spirit. The spirit requires spiritual food.
Jyotirmāyī: Okay. You also allowed... You said that some parents can keep their children with them and teach themselves.
Prabhupāda: You follow that, brahmacārī gurukula, that I've already explained. That should be done. Don't bring any new thing, imported ideas. That will not be helpful. It will be encumbrance. "My experiment with truth"—Gandhi's movement. Truth is truth. "Experiment" means you do not know what is truth. It is a way of life, everything is stated there, try to train them. Simple thing. We are not going to teach biology or chemistry. They are not going to... Our students are not going to... Our students should be fit for teaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness. By their character, by their behavior, by their knowledge, that is wanted. Biology, chemists, physicists, and mathematician there are hundreds and thousands. We are not going to waste our time that Gurukula should produce a great grammarian, a great geologist, biologist, don't want that. There are many other educational institutions. If you can get a good driver of your car, so what is the use of wasting your time to learn driving? Is it not? If you have got important business, you can do that. Why should you waste your time to learn driving? Better employ one driver, pay him some fare.
Hari-śauri: Seems everything is devolving at a phenomenal rate. Every decade that passes, everything breaks down twice as fast. Just in the last twenty years or thirty years everything has become so much degraded and...
Prabhupāda: No, I have got experience. I am Calcutta born. What Calcutta was in our childhood days and what is now, I know everything. How we were happy during British days and what is now position, I can speak from my personal experience. We do not belong to the richest class nor to the poor class-middle class. So we have got practical experience. My father's income was not more than 250 rupees. How opulent we were. At least, there was no question of need. We were receiving daily four, five guests, and my father was functioning so many festivals and he was asking... My father gave in marriage four daughters. There was no difficulty. The income was not more than 250 rupees. Of course, that 250 rupees at least ten times now. But still, there was no needy. Not very opulent, but there was no need. The first necessity is to feed and to clothe. So there was no such scarcity. May not be very luxurious life, but there was no scarcity for food and shelter or cloth. There was no scarcity. Happy. That is wanted. Happiness in whatever circumstance. Not that because we did not possess a motorcar, therefore unhappy. I purchased one motor car in 1925, Buick car. Not for personal use, but for using it as a taxi. My one nephew, he was a good driver, so my father, "Why don't you give him? He can do that, we can use it our own car also taxi." So I took it, Buick car, I think I paid eight thousand rupees.
Prabhupāda: Buick, yes, very strong car. At that time, Ford, Chevrolet and Buick, these cars were very popular in India. Ford for the poorer class and Buick for the first class.
Hari-śauri: Your nephew was a taxi driver.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Nephew was my sister's son. We had to maintain one sister and her family. She became widow. So this is Hindu family obligation. When the daughter is widow, she comes to the father's shelter with all family. The father has to maintain.
Hari-śauri: You wouldn't get that in the West. (laughs) They don't even maintain their own parents.
Prabhupāda: On the whole, during British time, people were happy, that I can... The thing is that Britishers were little afraid that "If the government is not good, it will go against our credit, that we may agitate." So they were careful to see that people are happy. But here nobody's careful. Everyone thinks "I'm in my own country. Whatever I do, it is all right." They were conscious, that "We are foreigners. If the management is not good, then it will go against our credit and it will be difficult working such a big England empire." So they were little careful. But these rascals are not... Just like the governor, he was friendly, but what is the report? Did he say? Did not behave very nicely?
Prabhupāda: A taxi driver, he was asking some bhakshish.
Krishna Modi: In Russia.
Prabhupāda: And I was talking with Professor Katovsky. I asked him please call for a taxi. So he said, "Swamiji, it is Moscow." That means taxis are not available. Then he came down with me and from the gate he showed me, "You take this shortcut when you go to your hotel." He could not call a taxi. Taxis are not available. He said, "Oh, it is Moscow."
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But even the taxi drivers are very corrupt because of the shortage of taxis in Russia. You have to stand in line for taxis.
Prabhupāda: Not taxi, bus.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Even for taxis they have no taxi stands where you stand in line. So the taxi driver, he will park his car a little bit away.
Prabhupāda: In my opinion it is a poor country. I think poorer than India.
Krishna Modi: They have advertised only.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. First-class prisoners. Not first-class, third-class. (laughter)
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But I was told, because a lot of people in Russia who are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa also. It's very... There's a lot of corruption. Even the taxi drivers are corrupt. They'll park their taxi a bit away then come and approach you when you are standing in a line and say, "Okay, I'll take you there," but he'll tell you three times the price because everyone's waiting in such a long line for a taxi.
Prabhupāda: Black market.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. And one friend of ours told us what they do because all the cars belong to the state, a lot of taxis, the people...
Krishna Modi: The taxis are not independent.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No, they all belong to the state. But the driver, if he makes extra money, that goes in his pocket and they have tipping also.
Prabhupāda: And they are always anxious to get extra. Buses are not very good. Third-class buses.
Prabhupāda: ...with some Indian wife they were called Eurasian, and Englishman marrying Indian wife they were called Anglo-Indian. There was a big Anglo-Indian community and they were given good facilities by the Britishers for government jobs, railways. In railway, almost cent percent. The driver, the guard, the ticket inspector, all, means, semi-important jobs, they were all given to these Anglo-Indians. Because they were not very much educated. And officers, they were all Britishers. Officers, secretaries. And Indians were clerks. Indians, they were accepted as clerks only. No officers. In military, Indian Sikhs and Gurkha, especially Sikhs, they were very valiant. Still they are valiant. They were given the post of captain. Not general. General all Englishmen.
Prabhupāda: No no, electric. A small table fan. Just like in the railway carriage. Let them fix up. Small ceiling fan.
Hari-śauri: You can get very small ones that fasten on the front of motor cars on the inside for fanning the driver. Just a small unit.
Caraṇāravindam: I was wanting to, in the future, build you a very beautiful construction here.
Prabhupāda: No, it is all right.
Caraṇāravindam: You like this. I thought you would also...
Prabhupāda: This is made simple. It is very nice. Rather, you can... No, it is all right. There is no space. In India, on the roof, we allow to grow squash.
Caraṇāravindam: You would like some growing?
Prabhupāda: Very small.
Haṁsadūta: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So, if you can arrange. Now I am purchasing car, I have given money to Gargamuni...
Haṁsadūta: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So one car here in Delhi side, one in Calcutta side, one in (indistinct) for my going. And he is a good driver, he will drive. Eh? I do not know but he said. (laughter)
Hari-śauri: I don't know about in India, different thing altogether.
Prabhupāda: Haṁsadūta is also a good driver.
Haṁsadūta: I am good for nothing.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Driver we'll get, there is no... So I want to preach little in the village. For that purpose in the big bus like that, we shall go with our tents, and we camp in a place where there is water, and begin our preaching. And Hindi book we are getting. In this way let me try in India, in the village, not in the city.
Devotee: Oh yes.
Prabhupāda: Very miserable.
Haṁsadūta: All these communist countries are like that. I was in many of these countries, people are all depressed.
Prabhupāda: There is no taxi. You cannot get taxi on call. And the taxi drivers, they want something more.
Haṁsadūta: Yes, they...
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Haṁsadūta: They do that.
Prabhupāda: Very bad country, the communist country.
Haṁsadūta: I was asking this boy, that was here a few days ago from South India, from Kerala, he was in Russia. I asked him. "What did you eat there?" What did you, you stayed for one year?
Prabhupāda: He must be eating meat.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) That we say. Consider. But these varieties are there, so how you can check it? Cause may be different. I have seen while I was in Allahabad one big barrister's sons. One became barrister; another became ekala.(?) You know ekala? Ekala driver. So the father did not like that "One of my sons should become ekala, and other son should be like me, barrister," but I have seen. And there are many instances. The father does not want that "My son should be vagabond, useless," but sometimes they become by their own activities. That independence everyone has got. So that is not father's creation. Your point was "Why God has created like that?" That is foolishness. God says that you surrender." But you do not surrender. That is your foolishness.
Prabhupāda: Who cares for them? In Gujarat they are eating fish?
Indian man: No. Eggs. They have started eating two lakhs of eggs in Ahmedabad.
Indian man: Ahmedabad is a very big meat-eating center.
Prabhupāda: In Surat I was guest of that Jariwala. So on the morning walk I went to the riverside. So I saw so many fisherwoman carrying the big basket. So I asked the driver, he was Mohammedan, "Why these fisherwomen here?" He said, "Nowadays, all Gujaratis, they're eating fish."
Indian man: I tell you Prabhupāda... Very, very, old... Before 1937, in Bhavnagar, Saurastra, we had our office in '37, '35 we had. I was in Karachi. We sent one manager from Peshawar, twenty-year man. So he used to eat meat and fish and everything and a young man he was...
Prabhupāda: Punjabi.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Hundreds and thousands. Here, of course, we have not so many cars, but there in many cities I have seen. They have gathered together, and then they are pressed and thrown to the iron factory and again melted in fire of... So similarly, when the life is not there, it is a lump of matter. So it is lump of matter. Just like the motorcar. When it was being driven by driver, it has value, but when it is not to be driven anymore, it has no value. Similarly... But the motorcar is the same. It is the driver that is important. Similarly, the soul is important, not this body. But the modern civilization, accepting this body as the important, and they have no information of the driver, soul.
Gargamuni: I'd have to inquire, but I'm pretty sure it's managed by the government, because they're allowing us to enter the temple. There's also a place being offered in West Bengal. I personally went there and took photographs. It's in Kharampur.
Prabhupāda: Kharampur.
Gargamuni: Yes. It's near the Bangladesh border. It's about 80 kilometers north of Krishnanagar...
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Gargamuni: ...near the Bangladesh border. It's five miles... In fact, we took the wrong road and we almost went over the Bangladesh border.
Prabhupāda: Acchā?
Gargamuni: We went through the border almost by mistake, and the guards came with their guns. Our driver took the wrong road. But it's five miles from the Bangladesh border. And the property... There's a temple there of Gaura-Nitāi. (end)
Prabhupāda: They are very glad.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Some of them come for thirds and fourths, regular customers.
Brahmānanda: Then they have a cart that goes on the street and keeps it hot.
Prabhupāda: Distribution.
Brahmānanda: Yes. I went to see it. Regularly people are coming. Even the taxi drivers.
Prabhupāda: Here also they are selling. They are paying sufficiently, khicuṛi and other, and they prepare very nice. This should be continued, prasāda distribution.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say, "Prasādam is our secret weapon."
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes. Yes. They say?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Many people are understanding now how we are defeating the enemy with prasāda. People become addicted.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hari-śauri: You say you do know what that thing is, so why don't you produce it...
Prabhupāda: Yes, I know, but I say it cannot be replaced. I know it. And you are rascal. You say, "It can be replaced. We are trying, after millions of years..." Therefore you have no brain. We say it cannot be produced. It is gone. It has accepted another body. We say like that. We don't say that it can be brought again and then replaced. We don't say that. Therefore we have got a brain. You have no brain. Just like motorcar stops. The driver has gone to another. And if a rascal finds out how it can be run without that driver, then he has no brain. And one who has brain—"Here the driver has gone. Now it cannot be run"—that is brain. You falsely trying. Driver has gone out, and you are trying to run on the car by putting petrol, by putting grease, by utilizing... That means you have no brain. Uselessly you are trying. That means you have no brain. I have got brain. Tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13).
Prabhupāda: But you go and it will... Go in the fire. This is the defect, that he is imperfect in every way and he claims to be God. That is the defect. The same way. I want to see who is my actual father. How you can see? You have to accept the mother. That's all. Veda. Veda is mother. Accept mother and Vedic information. Otherwise there is no possibility. Kṛṣṇa says. Then you don't believe Kṛṣṇa. Why you have taken to this? So many things are there. You should take it. Just like the soul. Kṛṣṇa says, dehino 'smin: "There is." You take it. You cannot say Kṛṣṇa, "Show me." Then finished, you knowledge. Kṛṣṇa has given the reason. Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanam... (BG 2.13). You can see in that way, that because the soul is there the body is changing. As soon as soul is not there, stop. It is no more... That you have to... Nothing more. Dhīras tatra na muhyati. If you are dhīra, then there is no difficulty. But you are the rascal. This is the defect. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ. Yes, we can practically experience also; when there is driver the motorcar is moving. No driver—no movement. Where is the difficulty? But because you are rascal you do not know how to take things practically. What is the difference between a motorcar and this machine? It is also machine. Bhagavad-gītā says it is a machine. So machine may without a conductor, without the... A machine may be very useful, computer, but if there is no worker, what is the use of this machine? Simply alone machine can work? It may be very wonderful machine.
Bali-mardana: Atom bomb.
Prabhupāda: No, Indian people are more intelligent. There is no doubt about it. I... At least I see that during British period there were so many railway collisions. Now it is not there.
Bali-mardana: So many what?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Railway collisions, and now there is none with the Indian drivers. Oh, yeah. We don't find... Although the roads are horrible here and there's no lights, there are very few accidents.
Prabhupāda: That I have studied already, that British period, occasionally so many railway accidents. But the Indian people, since svarāja, I see no railway accidents. And they are being managed, these railway lines, by śūdra class, less-intelligent class. So they are so intelligent.
Rūpānuga: Compared to the British.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They sent their best men here.
Prabhupāda: The fireman, Indian driver, the signal man, they are not very high class men.
Mr. Koshi: Yeah, but who is the owner?
Prabhupāda: Ah. Yes. Machine, if you take the importance of the machine and not the machine driver, then what is your knowledge? If a dog is thinking "I am a bulldog, gow gow," and if a man is thinking "I am Indian, gow gow," what is the difference? He is embarrassed with the machine body, and he is also embarrassed with the machine body. The dog is jumping, monkey is jumping with a machine body, and if we also imitate jumping like the dog and the monkey, so what is the difference? The human being is to understand that "I am not this body." That is the first knowledge. That is the first principle.
Mr. Koshi: All sorts of lessons are going out.
Prabhupāda: All sorts may go, but you must know the real message, that within this machine the owner of the machine, the driver of the machine... All sorts of... There are three thousand parts in a motorcar. You have all sorts of knowledge about the parts of the car, and you do not know who is driving, then what is this knowledge? Every paper, every learned man, every..., every should take it seriously and implement it. It is not meant for everyone. Still, there must be an institution to teach this, I mean, the highest standard of knowledge to the human being. Why they should simply jump like cats and dogs? This is our mission. So don't try to imitate cats and dogs, but be human being. Understand what is your position and cultivate that knowledge. That is nature's way. The evolutionary process, after 8,400,000 species of life, it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā that if you don't understand this opportunity, then nivartante mṛtyu-saṁsāra-vartmani (BG 9.3). Find out this verse. Aprāpya mām. Aśraddadhānāḥ puruṣā dharmasyāsya parantapa. "Those who are not interested in the teachings of the Bhagavad-gītā, the result will be he will not understand Me, God, and he will again return to the cycle of birth and death."
Prabhupāda: Yes, they are manufacturing. They have to do artificially. My things are ready, but I have simply distributed. Why shall I not be happy? If you do something artificially, you have to manufacture. I am not doing that. My things are ready.
Mr. Koshi: How is your health now?
Prabhupāda: Not good. Health or not health, it is the outward machine. That doesn't matter. But if it is a good machine then it helps, that's all. Otherwise, machine good or bad, it doesn't matter to machine driver.
Mr. Koshi: What happens when the machine stops?
Prabhupāda: It changes. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13).
Mr. Koshi: What is the meaning of that?
Prabhupāda: If your machine is stopped, you take another machine. That's all. You go on hearing. Not that your work will stop. You give up this machine. Take another machine. Actually you do that. Why shall I be overwhelmed, "Oh, machine is gone, machine is..."? Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, aśocyān anvaśocas tvam: (BG 2.11) "You are lamenting for the machine, nonsense. This is not paṇḍita's business." Nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ. Machine is gone, take another one, that's all.
Prabhupāda: What has been done there?
Bharadvāja: It has been made into a museum, complete museum. There is twelve different exhibits. And the first exhibit is exhibit of Your Divine Grace writing books at Rādhā-Dāmodara temple, introduction. The next exhibit is Kṛṣṇa-Arjuna on the battlefield, and Kṛṣṇa begins to explain dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13) to Arjuna. And the third exhibit is showing changing bodies, showing how the body is changing but the soul remains the same. The fourth exhibit shows the chariot of the body—the five horses, the five senses. The driver is the intelligence; the soul is the passenger. Then there is the fifth exhibit. It shows how a man can become degraded and how he can become elevated from a neutral position in life. And the sixth exhibit shows that when a man becomes elevated by Vedic wisdom he becomes sama-darśinaḥ. Paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (BG 5.18). He sees everyone equal-dog, elephant, a cow, even brāhmaṇa—everyone, the same spirit soul. And he also sees Paramātmā in the heart of everyone. Then the seventh exhibit shows how Paramātmā, the original Paramātmā, is Kṛṣṇa, Govinda, and that He comes... Then different incarnations are shown. Then the eighth exhibit shows Kṛṣṇa's viśva-rūpa, explaining how everything is created, maintained and annihilated all within the potency of the Supreme Lord. Then the ninth exhibit shows how Kṛṣṇa personally comes on Garuḍa, to deliver those who are faithful from the ocean of birth and death. It shows a man struggling in the ocean, swimming, but he cannot save himself. And then Kṛṣṇa comes down on Garuḍa. The Lord Himself intervenes. In this way the man is saved. And the tenth exhibit shows the incarnation of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, how He is delivering the whole world by this chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa. The eleventh exhibit explains how the soul... It shows Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana surrounded by eight gopīs and different animals and peacocks and birds and flowers. And it explains that the soul has eternal form and that it can enjoy, that the soul enjoys in eternal loving pastimes with Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Eleven.
Prabhupāda: Gradually the whole world will be sympathetic. Everyone will recognize that they are doing real service.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's already so famous in Bombay. Everybody knows, all the taxi drivers. You say, "Hare Kṛṣṇa Land, Juhu." Everybody knows.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda? We'll sit you up now for you to take a little bit of prasādam. All right?
Prabhupāda: I think you have to cleanse my...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. First we'll cleanse, then we'll sit Prabhupāda up. (break) For one thing, just like this prasādam that Bhakti-caru Mahārāja prepared is good for stopping... It's against passing stool. It will make a binding effect. That's why I thought you might appreciate it. Bhakti-caru made it especially because of that. It's like medicine. But nice-tasting medicine. You could try.
Prabhupāda: Yes, I can try.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're ferocious men. So the men said that "Now we will kill you and take your money, plunder you." So his father said, "Well, we will give you whatever we have, but what is the use of killing us?" They said, "No, we are not brāhmaṇas. We are aborigines. So we like to kill also." So then the father said, "Then at least, the king, even if he hangs someone, he gives them five minutes for prayer. So give us five minutes." So then all of the Vaiṣṇavas, they chanted Nṛsiṁha-deva mantras very strongly. And suddenly there was a strong roaring of a lion, and a big ferocious lion leaped into the middle and ate up two of the attackers. And then all of the Vaiṣṇavas, they bowed down at the feet of the lion and they were offering prayers, and the lion went away. So his father... He said that if one has a pure heart, if he's a pure Vaiṣṇava, Kṛṣṇa can appear. He said in the form of the lion Kṛṣṇa actually protected them. So he wants to make some charitable dispensary in his home town on behalf of his father. I'm thinking if he cures you we will give him a nice donation towards that charitable dispensary. Then we told him that... We asked him what kind of food does he like. So he told us, so that now we'll make arrangement. We gave him very good food this morning, and we will cook him ruṭis. Bhakti-caru and another devotee are cooking. So they will cook him fresh vegetables as he likes, according to his taste. And Adri-dhāraṇa serves him personally. And then I said also, "While you're here, there's much time. We can take you to the different temples." Because this is the first time he's come to Vṛndāvana. I said, "Even in the afternoon you can go with Prabhupāda's car to Govardhana." He said, "First of all, before darśana, let us do the medicine." So he went with the car. He said, "I will drive the car. I can drive." We said, "We have a driver." He said, "If you don't have a driver, I will drive to get the medicine." So then they went into the city to get..., into Vṛndāvana to get the necessary medicines. He said very strongly, "What I prescribe, no vaidya can talk over what I prescribe. If I prescribe something, it is correct. That I'm sure." But he is very devotional, very pakka, like a Marwari, just like a high-class life member. He sits very straight and he's... Now we will have to see. But the main point we stressed is that you will not have confidence in anyone else. So there's no point in..., that he should tell some other man that in his absence, "Do like this." Because supposing in his absence the medicine doesn't work right. Then the other kavirāja becomes the kavirāja. That we don't want. I said, "You must see the reaction of the medicines, and you must... When Prabhupāda eats, you must sit there and watch and see what he's eating, see everything." And he said, "That I will do." Another nice, thing Śrīla Prabhupāda. Remember, you initiated one devotee, Rādhā-Ramaṇa Goswami? You remember his father and mother, Joshis, from Delhi? You lived with them. So he wrote a letter to you about a week ago, saying that he wanted to come back. So I wrote him, "Yes, you come. Prabhupāda will see you." So he came today. He's in saffron with shaved head. So I thought afterwards he can come and... He wants to become a devotee again. He's wasted his five years. He knows he's wasted time. Akṣayānanda Mahārāja suggested that he can engage in helping Bhakti-prema Swami. Because Bhakti-prema, he dictates, but he needs someone to hear and to write. This way, he'll be working for your books and hearing the philosophy, and he's a literate person. Three years in college. Anyway, he returned today. Nanda-kumāra also came. He arrived yesterday. So gradually everyone is returning to your lotus feet, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Not possible to leave you, Śrīla Prabhupāda. So would you like to go on the parikrama this morning? We can make arrangements now?
Upendra: We have some grape juice?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Would you like to take something, Śrīla Prabhupāda? Drinking?
Prabhupāda: I have taken in the morning Horlicks.
Prabhupāda: So what is better?
Lokanātha: Well, depends on whether we like to use it for longer time. Then we should purchase. If it is just for a few days, best thing is to hire.
Prabhupāda: Hundreds rupees and food.
Lokanātha: No. He has his food for himself and bullocks. So that's for the cart, two bullocks and the driver.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Lokanātha: Yes. This is what they earn for living. Usually they carry different loads from place to another place. Each trip they take twenty rupees, thirty rupees, fifty rupees, according to distance and the load they carry. But it's expensive to keep it for many days.
Prabhupāda: No. If it is inconvenient, we may not keep.
Lokanātha: If it is convenient?
Prabhupāda: Then we shall keep.
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Lokanātha: And most of the holy places are connected with good roads. During our preaching we also visit holy places. When they're on the way, we pass through them. And if we travel not very fast, with good drivers, it won't be much...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Bhakti-caitanya Swami is the fit driver for your vehicles, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Is that all right? I know he would want to come. Is that all right, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He's expert, Bhakti-caitanya Swami. He knows how to arrange everything also.
Jayādvaita: These vehicles can supply electricity so that when you stop...
Prabhupāda: Purchase at least four vehicles.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Four what, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: At least four vehicles.
| Page Title: | Driver (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, Mayapur |
| Created: | 07 of Mar, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=105, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 105 |