Go to Vanipedia | Go to Vanisource | Go to Vanimedia


Vaniquotes - the compiled essence of Vedic knowledge


Exactly (Conversations 1974 - 1975)

Expressions researched:
"exactly"

Notes from the compiler: VedaBase query: exactly not "exactly like" not "not exactly"

Conversations and Morning Walks

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 3, 1974, Los Angeles:

Gurukṛpā: A long streak. It was behind the clouds. There were many clouds, and you could see it through the clouds.

Prabhupāda: What is the speed? If it is 83 million miles, very heavy thing, then the speed must be also.

Karandhara: Well, the speed is very great. I don't know exactly what it is, but it's millions of miles per hour. Perhaps not millions of miles. Hundreds of thousands of miles per hour.

Prajāpati: There must be living entities then on the comet. Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Oh yes. Everywhere there are living entities.

Jayatīrtha: Scientists are very excited about the comet because they think that it's made of the primordial substance of the universe and they think they'll be able to find out some clue how the solar system was created by examining the comet with their telescopes. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Let them talk all nonsense. We say in Bengali, pāgale ki nā bole, chāgale ki nā khāya. The goat can eat everything, and a madman can speak anything. (laughter) Pāgale ki nā khāya..., pāgale ki nā bole, chāgale ki nā khāya.

Morning Walk -- January 11, 1974, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: ...therefore they see that this, their conception of Kṛṣṇa, there is mother, there is father, there is friend—"So what is this? Here also we see the mother, father, friend. So how they become free?" They cannot understand. Their brain is so poor they cannot understand. Therefore they: "It is also māyā. To think of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme, having father, mother, friends, playing pastimes, this is also māyā." Therefore they are called Māyāvādīs. They cannot conceive that in the spiritual world exactly the same things there are, but the position is different. That is absolute, without any designation.

Candanācārya: Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Candanācārya: Also this morning you said that we should try to only love Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- January 23, 1974, Hawaii:

Prabhupāda: Every day. Why I am taking so much trouble? Everything enlightened.

Bali Mardana: I was reading yesterday about the talks between Uddhava and Maitreya and Kṛṣṇa, and it described that previously Uddhava was one of the eight Vasus who desired to associate with the Lord.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bali Mardana: What is exactly the position of the Vasus?

Prabhupāda: Vasus, they are demigods. Before appearance of Kṛṣṇa, some of the exalted demigods were ordered to come and arrange for His arrival. So Uddhava arrived, and many others arrived. They were coming from heavenly planets.

Bali Mardana: Bhīṣmadeva was also one of the Vasus previously.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Aṣṭa-vasu.

Bali Mardana: In Bhīṣmadeva's instructions, while he was dying, one of the questions that he was asked is "Which is more powerful, action or destiny, karma?" He replied that they are both very powerful, but of the two, action was more powerful.

Prabhupāda: Time. Reaction. Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa... What is that bird? (tropical—sounding bird in background) Bird, or something else?

Bali Mardana: Bird.

Room Conversation -- March 16, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Oh, Baba Rāma. (Hindi) (break)

Guest: ...that's the last time I saw you. From time to time I see Baba Rāma.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Now we have got one hundred and two branches. Mexico City, we have got. I have been there. I forget the name of the street. Very nice center. Indian standard. Mexico City building almost Indian standard.

Guest: Yes.

Prabhupāda: And people are also almost Indian standard.

Guest: Well, Mexico and India are exactly same, opposite side of the world, like this.

Prabhupāda: Anti-point.

Guest: Yes. And, uh, some, there's a few similarities in the religion, I think, because they have a fearful goddess like Mahā-kālī.

Prabhupāda: Worship Mahā-kālī?

Guest: Like Mahā-kālī, yes, very fearful, you know. She's, er, her head comes from two serpent's heads.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Room Conversation -- March 16, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: That, in the Bhāgavata it is said, sammohāya sura-dviṣām (SB 1.3.24). Lord Buddha appeared for cheating or bewildering the atheistic person. They do not believe in the (indistinct). They did not, did not believe in God, but God is there. Lord Buddha himself is God. Just like if I say I don't want (indistinct), but you come in a different place. So (indistinct) is there, but I am thinking it is not (indistinct). Similarly, God is there—Buddha—but they are thinking that they don't believe in God. This is cheating. God is there. They are worshiping Lord Buddha exactly as we worship Kṛṣṇa. Then is it not the same? Then how do they say they don't believe in God? They are made to believe in God in a different way. That is cheating, and it is good for them. That is written in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, sammohāya sura-dviṣām (SB 1.3.24). (break) They're Australian. (Hindi conversation with another guest about Lakṣmī's position in relation to Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs) (break)

Guru Dāsa: Like Lord Caitanya, you have also showed him the right way.

Prabhupāda: He is on the line.

Room Conversation -- March 16, 1974, Vrndavana:

Harikeśa: Preaching must be perfect.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Perfect means as you have heard from your spiritual master. (indistinct) We are not perfect, none of us, but if you perfectly follow the orders of the perfect, then you are perfect. You should not think that "I have become perfect." Caitanya Mahāprabhu also said, guru more mūrkha dekhi (CC Adi 7.71). He presented Himself as fool number one. So we should always keep ourself as fool number one, that "I am not perfect. I am fool number one." But whatever I am doing I am carrying the orders of the perfect. That is my credit. I am not perfect. Suppose I give you, (indistinct), five thousand dollars. That is not my money. I am not rich man. But the money is paid by somebody else and I deliver, that's all. That is my perfection. If I don't touch it, I do not take from five hundred dollars a paise even, and I deliver it, that is my perfection. I may not be rich man, but if I deliver this amount to you, in perfect order, that is my perfection.

Harikeśa: Sometimes, due to my conditioning, I cannot exactly understand what you are saying.

Prabhupāda: Yes. If you cannot understand what I am saying, then you should ask repeat. Try to understand (indistinct), that "I cannot understand this, and explain." Put it to the immediate president or any Godbrother. If he still, if he cannot explain, if he feels unable, he can inquire to me. In this way.

Morning Walk -- March 31, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: That is going to come now.

Prabhupāda: Subtle body... Just like your body at night is on the bed, but you are carried by the thinking, feeling, intelligence to somewhere else. Is it not? So how are you are carried? You are actually lying on the bed. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. It is carried by the subtle body. Similarly, death means that this body stops working. But the subtle mind... Exactly in the same way. Just as while you are sleeping this gross body has stopped to work, but the subtle body is working.

Dr. Patel: That is in, I mean, svapna.

Prabhupāda: Svapna, yes.

Dr. Patel: But that does not work in deep sleep.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Dr. Patel: In deep sleep it does not work, no?

Prabhupāda: This sleep means temporary. Again the subtle mind, intelligence, come back. So death means no more coming back. It goes elsewhere. That is death. Is it clear? Eh?

Lilavati: How is it possible to forget?

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Lilavati: The subtle body...

Prabhupāda: Yes, you forget. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jayo. You forget. When you dream, you forget that you have got this gross body and you are the father of such and such or mother of such and such.

Morning Walk -- March 31, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That is Māyāvāda. Yes. That is Māyāvāda, impersonalism. They don't accept the person. That... "Because Vāsudeva has expanded Himself in so many ways, therefore the identity of Vāsudeva is finished."

Dr. Patel: It cannot be exactly. Pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇam adhaḥ.. (Īśopaniṣad, Invocation).

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But because they are fools, they cannot understand.

Mr. Sar: Celo. Celo. You are a fool; so you don't understand. (laughter)

Dr. Patel: No. Don't call me a fool. I'll hit him.

Mr. Sar: We are fighting! We are fighting! No, we are not fighting.

Prabhupāda: (laughing) Now, now one thing I must explain. I think Dr. Patel is the eldest of you.

Mr. Sar: Yes, he is the oldest.

Prabhupāda: All right. So you are all... He's just like my younger brother.

Morning Walk -- April 1, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Whatever you do, that is your satisfaction. That is karma.

Guest (1): But not yogi.

Prabhupāda: No, karma. (break) ...for your own sense satisfaction, that is karma. And if you do it for Kṛṣṇa's satisfaction, that is karma-yoga.

Makhanlal: Pure bhakti and karma-yoga considered to be exactly the same?

Prabhupāda: Exactly the same.

Prabhupāda: Pure bhakti is above karma-yoga. Pure bhakti is above karma-yoga.

Bhāgavata: That is the difference between the Chapter Karma-yoga and Karma-yoga in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Pure, pure devotion means Śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam.

Guest (1): I read fifteen percent power cut from today in the state. They have not able to do the service in electric. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...cut, cent percent. (break)

Makhanlal: ...you're performing, is the vaidhī-bhakti stage of...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- April 1, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Yaśomatīnandana: Karma-yoga.

Prabhupāda: Unless one is inclined to take to devotion, it is not possible to take to karma-yoga. Who can sacrifice the profit?

Yaśomatīnandana: Does karma-yoga mean to follow exactly the śāstras?

Prabhupāda: Karma-yoga means yat karoṣi yaj juhoṣi kuruṣva tat mad-arpaṇam.

Yaśomatīnandana: Doing only for Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is karma-yoga.

Devotee: Which means?

Prabhupāda: "Whatever you do, the result give Me."

Devotee: To Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Yaśomatīnandana: So we are also, those who are on the vaidhi-bhakti (indistinct) on karma-yoga path because we are...

Prabhupāda: Yes. They are acting under the order of the spiritual master. That is bhakti-yoga.

Morning Walk -- April 8, 1974, Bombay:

Mahāṁsa: This is also a siddhi, that they can invent a plane...?

Prabhupāda: Yes. To some extent. By material arrangement... The yogis can do still more. Without any material machine, they can float. They can walk on the water, becomes light. (break) ...man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). This is the process. (break) ...colleges, the students are being educated that there is no God. And they expect good behavior from them. And when they set fire in the bus, that is... "The students are so dangerous now." But you have made them dangerous. The educational system. They are protesting against the existence of God. (break) ...so-called swamis. And they are also accelerating, "yes, no more. There is no God. Why you are searching God anywhere? There are so many gods loitering in the street. They are God." That is the statement of Vivekananda. "Why you are finding out, trying to find out God elsewhere. These are Gods." (break) ...if required, one may come, very easily, one may take some time. But we should go on preaching.

Indian (3): No, exactly. We should not do anything...

Prabhupāda: No. (break) ...American, rude. That is my experience. He may not agree with my philosophy. (break) ...the reason is that they are not poverty-stricken. Yes. When one becomes poverty-stricken, his all good qualities become null and void. Daridra-doṣa guṇa-rāśi nāśī. Our country is now poverty-stricken. Therefore we have lost our all good qualities. (break) ...loss is that we have lost our culture, original Vedic culture. That is the greatest loss. When the culture was that one man was trying to kill one cow, and immediately Mahārāja Parīkṣit wanted to take step against him. Now just see how much that culture has gone down. Here ten thousand, twelve thousand cows are being killed regularly under government management. You see. (break) ...for stopping cow-killing.

Morning Walk -- April 10, 1974, Bombay:

Mahāṁsa: We cannot actually conceive of all these things.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The conclusion is that Kṛṣṇa being the reservoir of all pleasure, so the pleasure of fighting is there. So He can exhibit anywhere. (break) That is the understanding of Kṛṣṇa. As soon as we limit Kṛṣṇa like one of us, or little bigger than me, then I become doctor frog. (aside:) Don't come near. Why don't you tell them? (break)

Girirāja: "...Vasudeva attempted to take His son from the delivery room, and exactly at that time, a daughter was born of Nanda and Yaśodā. She was Yogamāyā, the internal potency of the Lord. By the influence of His internal potency, Yogamāyā, all the residents of Kaṁsa's palace, especially the doorkeepers, were overwhelmed with deep sleep and all the palace doors opened although they were barred and shackled with iron chains. The night was very dark, but as soon as Vasudeva took Kṛṣṇa on His lap and went out, he could see everything just as in the sunlight." (break)

Dr. Patel: (Hindi) ...he worships like anything. Then he... We have an assembly, and they passed by majority vote that I should refrain from coming here, but I somehow or other came.

Prabhupāda: But I saw and offer my obeisances to your motorcar. (laughter) I was thinking that "Dr. Patel's representative, the car is here."

Morning Walk -- April 11, 1974, Bombay:

Italian Man (1): Exactly. I wanted to ask you about Kṛṣṇa in the heart. Could you tell us something about His physiognomy.

Prabhupāda: Yes. His physiognomy is sac-cid-ānanda vigraha (Bs. 5.1). That we can understand. Sac-cid-ānanda. He is eternal, He is full of knowledge and He is blissful. Sac-cid-ānanda. Your body, my body, is just opposite. It is not eternal, it is temporary. And it is full of ignorance. Therefore we require knowledge. (aside:) Little away, yes. So this is full of ignorance, and there are so many miseries. So Kṛṣṇa hasn't got a body like this. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa's body is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha. So we can distinguish what is Kṛṣṇa's body and what is our body. (break) ...understand. Try to understand, that what is the nature... That is called spiritual body. So we have got also similar body, but very small, very small. That is covered by this material body. And because in the spiritual body I am person, I have got form, therefore the material elements have taken a form. Just like when your coat is made, it is made according to your body. Because you have got hands, so the coat has got a hand. But the hand of the coat is not real. The real hand is within the coat. Dehino 'smin yathā dehe (BG 2.13). Within. These foolish people, they do not understand. They take, "This is hand. This is hand." He does not know that this hand is artificial, outward. Real hand is within. This is their misconception. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Try to understand. These are very important question. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Because within the coat the real man is there, therefore the dress has assumed two hands, two legs, one collar, like that. But this is false, like dress. Real... Therefore every living entity has got form. He is not formless.

Press Conference -- April 18, 1974, Hyderabad:

Guest (2): What exactly is guru's role in your system?

Prabhupāda: To teach how to get rid of this disease of birth, death and old age. That is guru's business. That is also father's business, that is also guru's business, or the caretaker's business, the government's business. Because this human life is meant for getting out of these clutches of māyā, constantly, repeatedly changing body. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), bhūtvā pralīyate. This business should be stopped. Na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyuṁ gurur na sa syāt. Śāstra says, "One should not be guru if he cannot deliver the disciple from the chain of birth, death, old age and disease."

Guest (4): (indistinct-question about why there is a better response to Kṛṣṇa consciousness in foreign countries than in India)

Prabhupāda: The Americans and the Europeans, they are fed up with this material type of civilization. They are... They know that spiritual life is there in India. They understand it. Therefore, any swami goes there, they go round him to take some spiritual instruction. Unfortunately, mostly they go who have no knowledge. They cannot give them right knowledge. So for the time being they may surround them, but after some time they disperse. Because they do not get actually. Because so far Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, now many swamis went there and they preached Bhagavad-gītā also, but not a single person became a devotee of Kṛṣṇa for the last hundreds of years. But now Bhagavad-gītā is being presented as it is, and people are taking it by hundreds, thousands. So they are after some knowledge, spiritual knowledge, from India, but our so-called swamis, they go, they do not give actual information of the Indian spiritual culture. Therefore they are practically deceived. But this Bhagavad-gītā as it is, we do not change anything.

Morning Walk -- April 24, 1974, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Mahāṁśa: He used to be running for the chief ministership. He's very, very popular, but there was some mischief he did, for which he was taken to court and exposed.

Prabhupāda: What is that mischief?

Mahāṁśa: I don't remember exactly, but he was taken to court and exposed and he was expelled from entering into any...

Prabhupāda: Party.

Mahāṁśa: ...any elections for five years. So now his period is finishing, his five years is finishing, and he is going to stand again, and seems that he's very, very popular, he has a good chance. And he's our Life Member...

Prabhupāda: Oh, he's a Life Member?

Mahāṁśa: Oh, yes.

Prabhupāda: He studies our books?

Mahāṁśa: Oh, yes, he has taken our books and he especially asked that "I am reading these books and please give me." And he attended all the three days of the exhibition grounds.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Room Conversation -- May 20, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Gurudāsa: Usually he is not rude.

Yamunā: He is never harsh. He was a little harsh. I could tell something was wrong.

Prabhupāda: So they are planning something.

Indian man: I don't know exactly. I've not been able to make out what their plans are exactly because they don't tell me everything.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Indian man: They don't tell me everything. They have something up their sleeves. I don't know what.

Gurudāsa: So what should be our...

Prabhupāda: Madana-Mohana Gosvāmī, other time he was not harsh?

Yamunā: Not to me. To Gurudāsa maybe, but never me.

Prabhupāda: But this time he was harsh?

Yamunā: Yes, very harsh.

Prabhupāda: What did he say?

Yamunā: He was yelling.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Yamunā: He was yelling, raising his voice. He wasn't speaking in a quiet tone, he was yelling at me, "Why you are disturbing my sevā-pūjā by making me come to the door?" I said, "I am engaged in Vaiṣṇava sevā as well. Vaiṣṇava sevā and Kṛṣṇa sevā. You please excuse me." I was very courteous, but he was harsh.

Prabhupāda: So he was on the door?

Yamunā: Yes.

Room Conversation with Irish Poet, Desmond O'Grady -- May 23, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: Yes. So that is... (break)

Atreya Ṛṣi: ...there's a great different between that and what we know today as Christians. They're designations. We are not talking...

Prabhupāda: That is another point. The thing is that Christ came to preach the message of God. So therefore, to become actually Christ conscious means God conscious.

O'Grady: God conscious, exactly. And to become God conscious means...

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa conscious.

O'Grady: To become self conscious.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

O'Grady: To be conscious of who you are yourself.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. God consciousness includes self consciousness. But self consciousness is not God consciousness. God consciousness includes self consciousness, but self consciousness is not God consciousness.

O'Grady: Well, it may be.

Prabhupāda: No.

O'Grady: You may achieve recognition of the God that's in yourself, of that aspect.

Prabhupāda: When you are God conscious...

O'Grady: Without being pantheistic, you mean?

Prabhupāda: Just Like if you come in front of the sunlight, the sun consciousness is there, which includes your personal conscious... you also see. In the darkness you cannot see. At night you do not see even your hands and legs. But if you come in front of the sun, or light, then you see the sun and see yourself. So without the sunlight, without God consciousness, self consciousness is incomplete. But God consciousness makes self consciousness very clear.

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: Oh yes, that is kṣatriya. If one does not obey the social structure, he must be forced. That is the idea of slaves. The śūdras who do not work properly, he must be forced. Nobody should remain unemployed. The śūdras are inclined. If he has got something to eat, he will not work. You see? Then again he will work when his need, eating. This is śūdra mentality.

Bhagavān: So they have to be kept employed.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They have to be... They should not possess, so that they will work always.

Yogeśvara: Yeah, but that was exactly the situation that sparked the Communist revolution. When the workers felt themselves exploited, then they revolted.

Prabhupāda: No, workers, what is that? Exploited?

Yogeśvara: Yes, when the śūdras were seeing that, "Oh, these men, they are keeping us as slaves, and they are making us work just for our food," then they revolted.

Prabhupāda: No, no. You should keep them such nicely and friendly way, they will never think like that. They will think that you are giving him food and shelter, and you are taking care, giving them protection to their family. Then they will be happy. Then they are happy. When you give them all protection, then they will be happy. Now... Just like in Japan. The industrialists give all men. They give food. They give education. They give shelter. So they work very happily.

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

Prabhupāda: So bhakti school does not very much appreciate the speculative method. They surrender and they try to get knowledge directly from the Supreme Lord, as Bhagavad-gītā is being spoken by the Supreme Lord, or statements of the pure highly elevated devotees, just like Brahmā is speaking. This way. Hearing. The main purpose is hearing, hearing from the right source. That is... Especially in the western world, instead of hearing from the right source, they want to speculate about the Absolute. We have got about twenty books like this, but they are not speculation. They are simply by hearing. I am writing what I have heard, not that I am speculating. Mostly, the philosophers, they write as they speculate. They write their own opinion. But our process is not that. We don't speculate. We present the statements of God and His devotees. There is the whole book. Anywhere you won't find, "I think," "In my opinion," "Perhaps it should be like this way." No. We don't do that. As soon as there is "perhaps" or "maybe," that is not perfect knowledge. That is speculation. Just like in the Padma-Purāṇa, there is statement of different species of life, jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi, statement that "There are 900,000 species of life in the water." It is not written like this, "Perhaps," "it may be." No. Neither says one million or 800,000. No. 900,000 specifically. So how do they get this knowledge, exactly seeing? Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati (?). Now, in another place, the magnitude of the soul is explained. Keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya (CC Madhya 19.140). In the Upaniṣad also it is stated that 10,000th part of the top of the hair point, is the magnitude of the soul. Our knowledge is accepted in that way, Vedic knowledge. Whatever is stated in the Vedas, that is taken as Absolute Truth and we accept it. And that is fact. If you go to the same point by experimental truth, you will come to the same conclusion. So we think that by experimental knowledge, why should we waste our time? Better take the truth which is already stated in the Vedic literature and build up your farther premises on that basic principle. Just like that small fragment of spirit, 1/10,000th portion of the top of the hair, is there within you, within me, and that is rotating through the air, prāṇa, apāna, vyāna, like that, the vāyu. The yogic process is to capture it. But that is a fact, that the spirit soul is there within this body. It is a fact. So either you try to understand or capture it by the yogic process or you know it, that there is the soul within the body, the result is the same. Therefore you will find in the Bhagavad-gītā at the end of the Sixth Chapter that the bhakta-yogī is the topmost yogi.

Morning Walk -- June 2, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is said that he was very poor man. So he painted in a fruitshop grapes.

Devotees: Cezanne.

Prabhupāda: Ah. So the crows came to pick up the grapes, and the king was passing, he picked up, "Oh, who is that artist?" He became rich man in association. No, I have seen in that hall. So first-class picture. I have never seen such nice picture. Exactly life. (break)

Yogeśvara: ...the book glorifying the Russian ideals, he is thrown out of the country.

Prabhupāda: Just see. It is a country... People are not bad. I have seen. They are very nice. The government, the rascals, a few men, who are controlling the government, they are all rogues and thieves. The same thing in India. Everywhere mass population, they are innocent. These rascals made them..., misleading. In Russia I have seen. The mass people, they are very nice. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ (SB 7.5.31). They are innocent. In India also. The Pakistan happened due to these politicians. The Hindus, Muslims, they are innocent. They don't fight. These politicians engaged them to fight artificially for their political ambition. The wars also declared nowadays, on account of the rascal politicians. The people do not want it. (break) ...to the Indian railway strike, have you got any news?

Bhagavān: It ceased the other day.

Room Conversation with Biochemist, Dr. Sallaz -- June 4, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: Hm. Yes. It is... This matter is also energy, and life is also energy. So according to Bhagavad-gītā, this life, or the living being, is superior energy, and the matter is inferior energy. So this living being is combination of the superior and inferior energy. But the superior energy is not matter. It is spirit.

Dr. Sallaz: Exactly.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And it is the... Both the energy are coming from God.

Dr. Sallaz: Exactly.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is our study. So the living energy, the spirit soul, it has got a formation, formation, form. That is also stated in the śāstra, that 1/10,000th part of the top of the hair. Hair, the point, hair. (Yogeśvara translates in French) 1/10,000 part of the... The exact version is keśāgra. Keśa means hair, and agra means the top. Keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya (CC Madhya 19.140). So that point, you divide into hundred, and take again one part of it, and again divide into hundred. That means you divide the top of the hair into ten thousand parts and then that one part is the magnitude of the soul, spiritual energy. That spiritual energy is within you, within me, within the ant, or within the elephant. So we are living entities. And the body is inferior energy, at the present moment. In the material world the body is covering. Just like you are covered by the coat.

Room Conversation with Biochemist, Dr. Sallaz -- June 4, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: So we are very pleased that you are accepting that the life comes... Life is energy. Now, which is...

Dr. Sallaz: We give it a name, energy. It is much higher.

Prabhupāda: No, it is energy, exactly the name. Because we say prakṛti. Prakṛti means energy, nature, nature. Just like it is said in the Bhagavad-gītā, apareyam itas tu viddhi me prakṛtiṁ parām. You find out this verse. (Yogeśvara translates.)

Dr. Sallaz: Our aim. We are looking about. The state of the world is going down since thirty years, I said. With pollution, with strengths, with power, with everything, the world is going down, going to the catastrophe. And there is only one possibility to save it. It is a question of spiritual revolution. Without a spiritual revolution, between twenty, twenty-five years, the world is finished, all the world of which people are so proud.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Room Conversation with Biochemist, Dr. Sallaz -- June 4, 1974, Geneva:

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: You spoke of a destruction. You said that without a spiritual revolution, there would be some type of destruction. What exactly do you think of as destruction?

Dr. Sallaz: Oh, the world will be dead.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: No. In the Bhagavad-gītā we have information that the living force, or the soul, is neither born and neither it dies.

Dr. Sallaz: Ah, yes. I meant this world. Matter is the earth. Be careful. I don't mean life in general...

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Now, this is the point that my spiritual master is bringing out, that the material energy is inferior, and in order to have a spiritual revolution you have to understand the superior energy which is eternal, without birth and without death. So, of course, there is no question of destruction for the soul.

Dr. Sallaz: Destruction in our occidental language and practically, which is not yours.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Destruction in simple terms, just as we know something has a beginning and something has an end. That is destruction. So in Vedic terms that which has a beginning and has an end is called material, and that which has no beginning and no end, but is existing nonetheless, that is called spiritual or superior energy.

Dr. Sallaz: Of course. This cannot be destroyed.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That cannot be destroyed.

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

Prabhupāda: Arunacalam. Oh, yes. The temple is on the mountain.

Robert Gouiran: No, just at the foot of the mountain, on the east, exactly on the east. And the Maharshi Ashram is on the south.

Prabhupāda: So you stayed there for some time?

Robert Gouiran: Well, between Pondicherry and there for one month, four weeks.

Prabhupāda: So who is the...

Robert Gouiran: Then I have to go back to so many places.

Prabhupāda: So what was your achievement by visiting these places?

Robert Gouiran: Uh, it's a little difficult to explain, but I made a series of personal experiences which convinced me of the existence of the occult plane. So I could get some contact with what I call the occult plane or whatever you call it. That means that the way how we could get the transparency and then to go where we have to go.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that's nice, beginning of spiritual understanding.

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

Prabhupāda: This anxiety there must be when we are in a different atmosphere. Just like we heard there was a plane crash. So we are travelling by plane. So as soon as we get on the plane, that anxiety is there. So the anxiety is caused on my boarding airplane. So if I do not board airplane, then that anxiety is nowhere. So anyone who is existing in this material world, there must be anxieties. There must be anxieties. Exactly, the same example, that as soon as I... It may be very nice plane; it doesn't matter. But I know that it is unsafe. At any moment it can crash. Therefore there is anxieties. So similarly, we are, so long we are in the material platform, we cannot avoid anxieties.

Robert Gouiran: Yes. It's a little... Because what I felt is this, when we could...

Prabhupāda: First of all we should understand this, that we are in, on a platform. That is called material platform. So, so long you'll remain on the material platform—material platform means the bodily concept of life—the anxiety will never be stopped. First of all let us understand why there is anxiety. The example is given: because I am a being of the land, artificially, when I go up on a plane, on the sky, this is the cause of my anxiety. So I am a spirit being, I am a spirit soul. So long I'll live in material conception of life, we cannot avoid anxiety. This is not possible. This is the problem.

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

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Robert Gouiran: ...with this plane, nothing could happen because I felt I was in harmony. And when I went back, I took the plane, exactly as you say, at Colombo, I went by Colombo, and there was a storm, terrible storm when the plane took off, and the lady beside me was very frightened, and I was so enlightened at the time that I told her, "We are protected. I am protected. So if you are beside me you are also protected. So nothing could happen." And it was an extraordinary feeling. In French we call that providence. You know that?

Prabhupāda: Providence? Yes. That... When we are in danger, we remember the providence, but when we are happy we forget providence. (laughter)

Robert Gouiran: (French, "I didn't understand.")

Guru-gaurāṅga: (French)

Robert Gouiran: No, because I felt that when we reach this point, we, we are, we get to...

Prabhupāda: Anyway...

Robert Gouiran: (French)

Prabhupāda: At the time of danger, we remember providence or God. That is also good. So that is a Hindi proverb that duhkse sab hari bhaje, sukse bhaje kol, sukse ajar hari bhaje, duhka ase hay(?). Means "When one is in danger, he remembers God, and when he is in happiness he forgets God. Therefore if he remembers God always, then where is danger?" So our business is to become God conscious. Then there will be no anxiety. So we are preaching that, I, here, that you become God conscious. Death is there. You cannot save yourself. Either you are on the land or on the plane, death will be there. You must be prepared for the death. But if by practicing remembering God, even at the time of death you continue to remember God, then your life is successful.

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

Yogeśvara: Let me relate the information little by little. He says "The word science is misleading. Generally the word science is used by people who are enemies of science to make it, to pinpoint it, that 'This is the enemy.' So they call it science, a general word."

Robert Gouiran: Exactly.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They are misleading. They have no knowledge, and they are misleading. The basic principle of knowledge... They have no idea of spiritual basic principle. They take material basic principle. Therefore the beginning of their knowledge is wrong.

Guru-gaurāṅga: (French)

Robert Gouiran: Yes, yes, yes.

Prabhupāda: So on the wrong platform you may go, go forward more and more, but it will be dismantled because it is wrong.

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

Robert Gouiran: Exactly, that the, that the... I was telling the definition of the energy. And if we start from pure energy, absolutely immaterial, pure energy, this pure energy can transform itself in two parts. One is called matter and the other I call anti-matter. And these two parts, they can annihilate together, and then you have back the pure energy. That is definition, our definition, of anti-matter. The anti-matter is what is produced with the matter from pure energy, and what is annihilated by matter to produce again pure energy. You can't, you can't produce our matter, ordinary matter, from pure energy. It's impossible.

Prabhupāda: That I have already explained. That pure energy is spiritual energy, and from that spiritual energy the material energy comes out. That I have already said: From the soul the matter grows. So that is spiritual energy. The basic energy is spiritual. And because the spiritual energy is the cause and the material energy is the effect, therefore in one sense we can say there is no difference between material energy and spiritual energy. Because spiritual energy is the cause, and material energy effect. Effect may be presented in different forms. Just like cotton is the cause of thread. And the thread is transformed into cloth. But you cannot take cotton for cloth. The cotton is there in the cloth in a different, transformed, transform, but you cannot accept, when you require a cloth, you cannot take cotton. This is a crude example.

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

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

Priest: So if anyone can say...

Prabhupāda: That is another thing. That is another thing, because everyone can say "I am avatāra."

Priest: Exactly.

Prabhupāda: So...

Priest: So how can we have faith of anyone who said he was an avatāra?

Prabhupāda: No, no, we don't accept anyone as avatāra. We have got documents who is avatāra.

Priest: Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: No, Kṛṣṇa is... Kṛṣṇa is avatārī. He is the origin. That is stated here, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ (BG 10.8). You know Sanskrit? What is the meaning of ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ? "I am the source of all avatāra."

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

Yogeśvara: So I think, if I understood.

Prabhupāda: I agree. I agree. He's right. He's right. He's right.

Pṛthu Putra: He wasn't appreciating exactly.

Bhagavān: Did he appreciate? First of all...

Pṛthu Putra: He doesn't appreciate what we are doing exactly. He says, he says, with his Indian, with his Indian, what he's doing with his Indian, what is the name of it...?

Bhagavān: Francend. (Name of paper?)

Jyotirmayī: Franscend.

Pṛthu Putra: Franscend. He says there is many swami and writer come from India and teach to the people, to the western people, what is Kṛṣṇa, what is Indian philosophy, what is God, but they always teach the people who need to be safe, to be, who need something to be safe, and they take it like just a drug or some kind of a dream just to get something to get safe from the material world. But that doesn't mean their action is concrete. That is his point.

Prabhupāda: But we are not doing that. We are, in the material world, we are teaching Kṛṣṇa philosophy, practicing. All these young men, they are actually twenty-four hours engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We are different from them.

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

Prabhupāda: Yes, that you can judge. Here is the action of the men. Now the young men and boys and girls are taking to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And who is taking to Ramakrishna? (French)

Bhagavān: So he is a man of action, and here we have a movement of action which is solving all problems of the world. What's his complaint? It's not a dream. It's actually by following this movement, we're solving all problems. So what does he have to say? If he follows exactly what Kṛṣṇa says, then all the problems will be solved. So why doesn't he follow what Kṛṣṇa says? (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He received information.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Pṛthu Putra: He received information that to follow, with some interest, that to follow what Kṛṣṇa says and like that, we can solve problems. (French) And personally, he respects you.

Prabhupāda: Thank you. That's all right. But thing is that we must know that he has spoken about Ramakrishna and Aurobindo. They also center their propaganda on Kṛṣṇa. Just like I already told. Ramakrishna said, "I am the same Krishna." That means he takes to Kṛṣṇa. Aurobindo, he has written "Life Divine." That is his explanation of Bhagavad-gītā. He takes to Kṛṣṇa. This Maharishi, he has also presented Bhagavad-gītā; he (has) taken to Kṛṣṇa. So their importance is by taking to Kṛṣṇa. Otherwise, they are valueless, nobody.

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

Prabhupāda: How you can explain? Why the body's hand is there, leg is there, head is there, why it stopped working? (French)

Yogeśvara: He says that when there is no longer any movement in the cells, scientific explanation.

Prabhupāda: So why don't you... If you know that, then replace that cell.

Karandhara: The scientists don't have a perfect explanation either. They don't know exactly what death is.

Deshimaru: They cannot know also what life is.

Karandhara: They do. They know this much, that life is what is not present in a dead body. So it must be different than the body.

Deshimaru: But the death is... You can change also what you say.

Prabhupāda: How you can change? Can you make the dead body alive? (French)

Karandhara: I can say that life is not present in a dead body, but you can't say that death is present in a live body. (French)

Prabhupāda: No, he says that the living force and the body is the same.

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

Prabhupāda: Old gentleman?

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

Prabhupāda: Naxalites.

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.

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

Prabhupāda: So this is the position. As soon as you point out, "This man is dishonest," and you scrutinize, everyone is dishonest, then where is dishonesty? It is all honesty. Because if the whole business is dishonesty, so there is no question of honesty? Let it go on. That is the public opinion. Why one should be unnecessarily honest? If the whole world is dishonest, and the dishonest world is going on, then where is the harm? What is the use of becoming... The same thing: "It is folly to be wise where ignorance is bliss."

Jyotirmayī: That is exactly what people are saying now. They say "What's the use of being organized and good and sane? Everybody is dishonest now."

Bhagavān: We have to give them a place to go where they can come if they want.

Prabhupāda: Just like Parīkṣit Mahārāja gave Kali four places. He could not find out. First of all he gave him four places, that "These four places you can go." But he could not find out such place. So he was embarrassed. So now there is no question of finding out. Everywhere you go, the same four principles. Formerly, it was very difficult to find out a place where these things are going on. Now everywhere you go, these four things are main principles of life. So therefore they cannot very much appreciate these prohibitory principles, that "What is wrong there?"

Devotee: It is just the opposite now. Now there is no place where Mahārāja Parīkṣit can go to find out a spiritual atmosphere.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Some of our men, at least one, left our association. He thought that "This is denying the primary necessities of life." Rāyarāma, Rāyarāma. He left for this reason, that we do not allow the bare necessities of life. Illicit sex, intoxication... He was first-class criminal on this account, but he could not give it up. Therefore he left.

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

Prabhupāda: Anyway. So vāsaḥ anna. Food. Vāsaḥ anna. Vāsa means residence. Anna means food. Pāna means drinking, milk or water or whatever. You require something drinking. And śayana, sleeping or lying down on bed. Vāsa, anna, pāna, śayana, and vyavāya, sex. Sex also required. Vyavāya, snāna. I have seen in New York. They have no... In a humbug, they have no place for taking bath. They have to go elsewhere. Sometimes some friends come to take bath. The, our students, they were coming to take bath in my bathroom. So snāna. So these things, nil. "When these things will be nil," vāsa, anna, pāna, śayana, vyavāya, snāna, bhūṣaṇaiḥ, "and dress," hīnāḥ, "being devoid of all these things," piśāca-sandarśā bhaviṣyanti, "they will be just like, what is called, urchins."

Yogeśvara: Piśācī.

Prabhupāda: These hippies, they are exactly this. They have no place to sleep, no nothing of the sort and looking like big, big hair. Piśācī. Piśāca. What is the English?

Nitāi: Ghost?

Prabhupāda: Ghost, yes. Ghost, yes. Ghost-like. Hīnāḥ piśāca-sandarśā bhaviṣyanti kalau prajāḥ: "In the Kali-yuga, the prajāḥ, people in general, devoid of residence and proper food, then proper drinking, resting place or sex or bathing and dress, they'll look like ghost."

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

Prabhupāda: That word, sound, is the Vedas. So before creation, Vedas were there. So you cannot find out the history of Vedas. You find out the history where the creation began. Then, before that, Vedas were there. (French)

Yogeśvara: He (the Bishop) says that he finds many things agreeable in this Vedic tradition, but he says that he thinks it might be a mistake to say that the Bible is exactly the same thing as the Vedas. He says there are still distinctions.

Prabhupāda: Then, then, distinction, then it is to be considered which is perfect, the later edition or the original. (French)

Jyotirmayī: They are saying that according to their understanding, God revealed Himself little by little, and then at certain moment, He revealed Himself in His totality. But in the Vedic literature, there it is said that the whole knowledge was given at the beginning. Everything together. He said that he's very much respecting your research, and that he's asking that we should not say that these two research in Christianism and the Vedas, the scriptures, are the same. They are two different things. (French)

Yogeśvara: He says, for example, the verse you read yesterday, that was similar to what is taught in the Vedas, but if we take the rest of that chapter from the Bible, we find some discrepancies, differences.

Prabhupāda: What is that? (French)

Yogeśvara: For example, in that chapter, it also says that the word of God became flesh and that flesh was the son of God, Lord Jesus Christ.

Prabhupāda: But that means Jesus Christ is transcendental, not of this material world.

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

Prabhupāda: Yes. In paper I saw. (French)

French Woman: But we are not under historical literally. We try to speak of mystical experience. This is exactly the subject of, that we did. We cannot discuss history because everybody has his own documentation.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So I was very much pleased because I was very sorry that Jesus Christ was crucified. But when I heard this historical discovery, I was very satisfied. But one thing is that... Here, at least, in London, I have seen. There are so many churches vacant. (French)

Yogeśvara: He says he was at your conference, last night and he was there when you described how human life is meant for knowing God. So now he wishes to ask you a question: What is our process for coming to know God?

Prabhupāda: That is very simple. It is not at all difficult. Just like in your body, you are, the soul, important active principle... (to Jyotirmayī:) Explain. (French) Similarly, this huge, gigantic, cosmic manifestation must have some active principle. That is God. So where is the difficulty to understand God? (French)

Yogeśvara: For example, in our prayers, in our studies, what is our...

Prabhupāda: Now first of all, let us understand what is God. Then prayer. If you do not understand God, then what you'll prayer? If we understand that there is the active principle, then the prayer we have already described, janmādy asya yataḥ anvayāt itarataś cārtheṣu abhijñaḥ: (SB 1.1.1) "I pray to the Supreme Personality of Godhead Vāsudeva who is the origin of all creation." This is the active principle. There is. So... And how He is working? (To Jyotirmayī:) You have to explain. (French) In the beginning of Bhāgavatam, I offering the prayer. So the process is that I offer my all respect to the Absolute Truth, Supreme Truth, from whom the creation has taken place, everything is resting, working nicely, and after annihilation, it will go there. And when you study what is the nature of the original source, it is said, abhijñaḥ, cognizant. He knows everything. Just like I am the owner of this body, I, the soul, but still, I do not know how the body is working. I am eating, but I do not know how my eatables transformed into secretion, then goes to the heart, then... Of course, they have discovered something, but not fully. So I do not know what is going in within my body. I do not know how many hairs are there. But God knows everything, nook and corner of the whole universe. But if we compare ourself with God, that is impossible, because naturally we get knowledge from others, we may question, "Wherefrom God got knowledge?" Therefore it is stated there, svarāṭ. He hasn't got to take knowledge from anyone else. He's independently full of knowledge.

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

Professor Durckheim: May I put a question, master? On the way there should be progress, inner progress. How to realize that there is a progress? I would say one thing is very important. There are three sufferings in the world of mankind: fear of annihilation, despair if you are taken by something which is absurd, and loneliness, if you are alone. These three sufferings in the world for the natural being. I realize that you make a decisive step on your inner way when you feel life in the very moment when you have to die, when you feel the great meaning in the very moment when you are just having despair, and when you feel the great love of the person God exactly while you are a lonely in the world. And I have realized that we are now in a very decisive moment in the western world because for the first time in the history of mankind, the western people, in Europe and the States, start to take seriously certain experiences, inner experiences, where this truth is revealed. In all times, as far as I see, the great condition of the east, they knew about those experiences where death loses its terrifying character and becomes the threshold to some bigger life. And I always see with also my disciples, as soon as they learn to go through some kind of death, they awake on a new level. So I will say if people are in my place and after a week, they still sleep very well, then I have made a mistake. About that sleep, just to realize something in overcoming their usual needs, their usual fears, their usual habits, in order to touch inwardly another level, and then suddenly they realize there is some quite different principle at work as they see usually in their natural mind.

Prabhupāda: So that different principle, for a devotee is already realized. Because a devotee never thinks of this body, that "I am this body." He thinks "I am...," ahaṁ brahmāsmi: "I am spirit soul." So without that realization, there is no question of devotional life. So that is first understood. That instruction is being given by Kṛṣṇa to Arjuna, that "You are considering very seriously on this body, but a learned man does not take this body very seriously, either dead or alive." That is the first realization. So everyone in this world, they are concerned with this body, dead or alive. When alive, they take care of the body in so many ways, and when dead they erect big statue upon it. So that realization is this body. When it is alive, very nicely dressed, nicely groomed, nicely everything on account of this body, and when dead, then again the statue, the tomb, that's all, but missing the active principle. He is taking care of this body even after death by erecting very nice memorial, but he has no knowledge where the active principle has lost. That is ignorance.

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

Prabhupāda: That's it. That we can experience every night.

Professor Durckheim: Yes, exactly.

Prabhupāda: When we dream, my body is left on the bed and I go somewhere. That we experience, that I am separate from this body. At that time I forget my, this body is lying down on the bed. I am acting in a different atmosphere. So and again, in daytime, I forget that at night I was in a different body, and I went to such and such place or on the sky I was flying. I forget. At night I forget this body and at daytime I forget that body. But I am existing. Therefore I am not this body. I am existing in this body and that body, but that body I have forgotten, and this body I forget. So this is a structure on my mind only. Actually I am different from the mind. And that is self-realization. That is described in the Bhagavad-gītā. Indriyāṇi parāṇy āhur indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ (BG 3.42). Find out this verse. Manasas tu parā buddhir buddhes tu yaḥ saḥ. That's it. It is in the Third Chapter, I think.

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

Prabhupāda: Past and future is concerned with this body.

Professor Durckheim: Is concerned with this body. It is concerned, exactly, with this body and with this ego, with regard to which there is a before and an after, up and down. And if you take away this ego, what's there, what's left?

Prabhupāda: That is pure ego. Now I am born Indian, say, seventy-five years ago, or seventy-eight years ago, and I have got this Indian body, I have got this false ego that "I am Indian; I am this body." This is misconception.

Professor Durckheim: That is one way to look at time.

Prabhupāda: Time is there, but because I have got this temporary body, I am thinking past, present, future. The temporary body will vanish. I shall get another temporary body. Then again my begins past and present. So therefore this is called illusion. Time is eternal. It has no beginning, no end, but we transmigrate from one body to another. We are calculating, miscalculating, past, present, future.

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

Professor Durckheim: Absolutely, that's it. But I realize that since about twenty, thirty years there is a big awakening in the western part of the world. Science and the technique coming out of science, which was invented to liberate the human being, right do exactly the contrary. People become more and more slaves of that organization which they created for their freedom.

Prabhupāda: (chuckles) Yes.

Professor Durckheim: You see? And today we realize the only thing, the only possibility not to be crushed, is to adapt themselves to the technical world, and in adapting themselves to the technical world, they become themselves little wheels of the big machine and stop to be human beings.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Professor Durckheim: Now this is going so far today that now suddenly something is awakening. They have said no. And this kind of rebellion in our western, as you know better than I do, in our western kind... And they say, "Well, after all..." You see, science, they say, "Whatever you are feeling here, it is only subjective. The only thing which counts are the objects." Now, today, mankind has awakened and said, "No, I am not subjected. I am a subject. I am a person. So you are quite right to eliminate me if you want to make an atomic bomb or I don't know what, a technical thing. But you want to guide me? You have to do away with scientist's spectacles and look at me with the eyes of the real self. Otherwise you won't see me." So this is the turning point today where we are.

Prabhupāda: Yes. But this is explained in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam five thousand years ago. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum: (SB 7.5.31) "These rascals, they do not know what is the aim of life."

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

rofessor Durckheim: That is exactly what you say, that real life, real eternal life, means nothing but to recognize the father in the son.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is real business. And we have created so many unnecessary, superfluous business. We have set aside the real business, to know the father. And that is the mistake of this civilization. (German) (break)

Haṁsadūta: Professor Durckheim's question was: "Very simply, what is our way or what is our method to realize the highest truth, the absolute truth?" What is our process?

Prabhupāda: The simplest method is to associate with the Father, or the Absolute Truth. By association. This association can be possible. God, His name, His form, His pastimes, His abode, His paraphernalia, everything is God, because absolute. First of all you should understand this Absolute Truth. Just like here in the relative world the name of a person is different from the person. But in the absolute world the name and the person the same. So we are teaching or preaching this, that you chant the holy name of God, you associate immediately with God. And if you associate immediately with God then gradually you become Godly. The example is, just like you put one iron rod in the fire it becomes warm, warmer, warmer and, at last, red-hot. When it is red-hot, it is no longer iron rod, it is fire. Similarly, if you simply associate with God then gradually you become Godly or or all the qualities of God. Then you understand God and your life becomes perfect.

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

Prabhupāda: Well, who is not self-controlled, he'll not be convinced because he'll think that he's rebellious, "I can do anything what I like. I can eat whatever I like." Now how he will like this idea of self-control?

Professor Durckheim: But one question, you see. These virtues have been always asked for by Christian churches also, exactly the same. But then today we realize that the virtues are on one level with the vices. But there's something different. If you pass through the (indistinct) step you get somewhere, you see where we can understand, for instance, if Christ says "Let the dead bury their dead." A phrase like this appeals to a different level. So I think as long as you...

Prabhupāda: No. It is not different level. The advice is given according to the time, person. So if people follow Lord Christ and, I mean to say, instruction that is also perfect. But they do not follow.

Professor Durckheim: They do not...

Prabhupāda: They do not follow.

Professor Durckheim: Sure...

Prabhupāda: That's it. Otherwise either you follow Bhagavad-gītā or Bible as they are, then you become gradually perfect. The difficulty is they do not follow. And still they're claiming "I am Christian." "I am Hindu." "I am this." "I am that." Rubber stamp. No qualification but rubber stamp. This is the defect.

Morning Walk -- June 20, 1974, Germany:

Haṁsadūta: I don't know Prabhupāda. We have been here for too short a time to find out who is exactly here, and all the people we contacted, their program was already fixed. They could not come, but they said they would be happy to meet you if you came again.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. I wanted to know the philology of the Greek word "Kristo." Or is there any dictionary? Find out the word "Kristo."

Haṁsadūta: Yeah, we can see today.

Prabhupāda: Greek dictionary. (break) ...France.

Haṁsadūta: Germany is bordered by many countries—Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland. So we are right in the center of Germany. So Germany is in the center of Europe.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...even a single stick like this in the laboratory. What do you think? You can?

Satsvarūpa: No.

Prabhupāda: What is scientist? Simply talking. Vikathyante. Vikathyante. This word is used in Bhāgavata. When one is covered by māyā, he talks so many nonsense things, vikathayante. (break)

Mādhavānanda: ...different living entities in different material bodies suffering.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So long you have a material body, you must suffer. Just like in prisonhouse. When the criminals are put there, they are punished different way according to the criminal offense, similarly, you are, we are all criminals, and for different types of suffering we have got different types of body. Different types of body means different types of suffering. Just like this tree is punished, "Stand here for three hundred years." This is punishment. Just like we do, "Stand up on the bench!" Children. So any kind of material body, even Lord Brahmā, that is suffering, different types of suffering. That's all. And if you want to be free from the suffering, then get out of this material body. This is... Kṛṣṇa says that this is a place for suffering.

Room Conversation -- June 20, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: That consciousness will not help you...

Guest: It won't.

Prabhupāda: ...that will rather check you.

Guest: Yes, exactly.

Prabhupāda: Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran loke tyajaty ante kalevaram (BG 8.6). At the time of death if I die with designation, then I will have to accept again the body. The mind if it contains contamination, he gets different types of bodies on account of mind being contaminated.

Guest: Contaminated?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like if you contaminate some disease, then you must develop that disease. Similarly, if your mind is contaminated with some material designation, then you have to.... By nature's law. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). Because mind associated with a particular type of the modes of material nature, (indistinct). There are three qualities—sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa, tamo-guṇa and mixed up. At first mixing it becomes nine and again mixing up it becomes 81. Each quality there are thousands and thousands of varieties and that means by mixing up these qualities there are 8,400,000 species of life. So, it is by the God's law, nature's law, they take account of the particular color and award the quality. It is not man-made law. That there may some mistake. There is no mistake. If you have contaminated this disease, whether small pox or whatever or (indistinct), you must develop.

Morning Walk -- June 21, 1974, Germany:

Professor Durckheim: Yes, quite. Well, I understand exactly what you mean very well.

Prabhupāda: There is name. It is confirmed. "Hallowed be Thy name." Now, we are chanting the name. What is your objection? You chant this name.

Professor Durckheim: I have no objection.

Prabhupāda: No, you... I mean to say anyone.

Professor Durckheim: Yes, quite, quite.

Prabhupāda: And "Hallowed be Thy..." Those who are chanting the name of God, Kṛṣṇa, just see the result, whether they are improving or not than those who have no name. Come to the practical field. These boys and girls, before my coming in the western countries, they were all so many, I do not wish to... (laughing) Now by simply chanting the name, how much improvement they have done? So why there should be any objection to chant this name? And what is the loss there? Suppose anyone chants Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. There is no loss, but the gain is practical. Why do they not, these theosophists, do not agree to chant this name, simple thing?

Professor Durckheim: I think they don't know it, and then...

Prabhupāda: That is the fact. They don't know it. And still, they are theologicians. They are philosophers.

Room Conversation with Pater Emmanuel (A Benedictine Monk) -- June 22, 1974, Germany:

Guest: No, I like to sit, thank you.

Prabhupāda: Not only Christianity, everywhere, the people now do not love God, but they love dog. Yes. Therefore this movement is required, awakening of God consciousness. Not the Christians, they are only to be accused, but Hindus, Muslim, everyone. They are simply stamp, but no obedience to God. This is the position.

Pater Emmanuel: Can you say exactly the point where Christians are not obedient. Do you see any points here by your visit to the Christian countries and you like to say for us? It is a help for us to say exactly the point.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The first point is that your commandment is "Thou shalt not kill," and you are maintaining regularly slaughterhouse. The first commandment is disobeyed. Do you agree or not?

Pater Emmanuel: Um...

Prabhupāda: Or in my front the animals are being kept for being killed.

Pater Emmanuel: I personally agree.

Prabhupāda: That's it.

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

Prabhupāda: Duty has to be done despite all inconveniences. That is very important thing. The example is given that one has to take bathing early in the morning, but because it is cold, one cannot avoid it. He must bathe. This morning we had some meeting... (break) ...a little boy, but he was a great devotee, and father was a great atheist. So he was surprised that his son became so great devotee. After all, as a father he asked him, "My dear boy, what nice thing you have learned by your education?" He said, "My dear father, the best thing I have learned, that people are always full of anxiety on account of accepting material..." (break) ...exactly the same thing as you were... So one thing is that formerly it was the practice to go to the forest, go to the Himalaya, but in this age this is not possible. Therefore we have to take shelter of the Lord wherever we are, and that is Hare Kṛṣṇa chanting.

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

Bishop Kelly: I beg your pardon, your grace. I didn't quite catch what you said.

Prabhupāda: I said that if one engages himself in the service of the Lord some way or other, then the revelation, the original dormant God consciousness and love of God, becomes revived. Exactly in the same way: the psychiatrists, they treat the crazy fellow by talking, talking, talking some way. So if we talk of Kṛṣṇa, then the original Kṛṣṇa consciousness is revived. That is also stated. You find out in the Bhāgavata, śṛṇvatāṁ sva-kathāḥ kṛṣṇaḥ puṇya-śravaṇa-kīrtanaḥ hṛdy antaḥ stho hy abhadrāṇi... (SB 1.2.17). Yes, purport. So this is very important thing. Therefore we have published so many books about Kṛṣṇa—to hear. Hearing, hearing, hearing, and... Just like man is sleeping. You talk loudly, and he will be awakened. Yes. That's it.

Morning Walk -- July 9, 1974, Los Angeles:

Jayatīrtha: What exactly is the definition of a cheat?

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Jayatīrtha: What is the definition of a cheat?

Prabhupāda: Cheat means that I am exploiting you. I am saying that I am creating you a religious, but you are most sinful. I am creating a most sinful. That is cheating.

Guru-kṛpa: Giving something under false pretensions.

Prabhupāda: That's all. You are taking something else while thinking something else. That is cheating. Actually, we see the so-called religious system... Religion means to become lover of God. But who is lover of God? Do not know what is God, and what to speak of love Him. They do not know, have no clear conception of God even.

Jayatīrtha: They are lovers of dog.

Prabhupāda: And actually they are lovers of dog. And still, he's professing "I am religious." This is not cheating.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk Through the BBT Warehouse -- February 10, 1975, Los Angeles:

ayatīrtha: ...in māyā. He doesn't feel that he'll be able to surrender to whatever instruction you give so he doesn't want to appear before you.

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) He doesn't want to become a cheater.

Jayatīrtha: Exactly.

Prabhupāda: (chuckles) That's all. Formerly...

Jayatīrtha: Just like that Sudāmā and Subala...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Not like that.

Jayatīrtha: They came for instruction, but then, when you gave them instruction, they said, "No." So what was the use of their coming? That's his feeling.

Prabhupāda: Yes. No, in that way he's very sincere, I know. So what is there? I love him. Let him come. After all, he is my son. There is no harm. Let him come. (break)

Hṛdayānanda: Right here. See on the left there?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Room Conversation -- February 15, 1975, Mexico:

Prabhupāda: That sin you have explained. These are the four principles of sinful life. This can be avoided. Just like these European, American boys. They were also addicted to these sinful activities, but now they have given up, and they are understanding Kṛṣṇa consciousness very nicely. Material life means sinful life. Therefore we have to act materially under regulation. Just like a man suffering from some disease, he has to live under the direction of the physician. Otherwise his sufferings will continue. (break)

Mr. Cortez: (Spanish)

Hṛdayānanda: I'm going to translate piece by piece so I can tell you exactly what he's saying. He's saying that he understands perfectly well that a human being should look for a way for self-control and to control the physical force within him, but there's also another dimension in the human being which is a social dimension which also has to be taken care of.

Prabhupāda: Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā the social dimension is described, cātur varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (BG 4.13).

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

Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He says that the spirit is also extremely important for the following reason. He feels that the human being needs to have problems and fight for something. The example he gave was in the Scandinavian countries they've practically solved all material problems. They have so many Social Security and this and that, and there are practically no material problems, but they have the highest suicide rate in the world.

Prabhupāda: Yes, exactly. So where is the institution, university, for educating people of the spirit soul? Where is it? Therefore the whole civilization is going in the wrong way.

Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He feels there are some people, for example who are teaching the right thing. There are missionaries who go to the Amazon jungles and also to Africa to teach. And he feels they are offering...

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.

Room Conversation with Bernard Manischewitz -- March 5, 1975, New York:

Prabhupāda: Now recently I have got one news from one German scientist. His name...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Von Braun.

Prabhupāda: Von Braun. He is comparing there is God. He is scientist. He is thinking like us exactly. He is a very well known scientist, German scientist, Von Braun. Yes.

Bernard Manischewitz: I have some questions.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bernard Manischewitz: You know I'm in the food business, so my first question deals with my food business. I'm familiar with the Kṛṣṇa cookbook—I've read the recipes—but I do not see any suggested menus or nutritional information, and I'm wondering if there's any thought that's been worked on that. Is there any background of menus or nutritional information?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Nutritional information means that we require for balance food: starch, carbohydrate, protein, fat. What else? Starch, carbohydrate, protein, fat. These are necessary nutrition, but these things are there in vegetable diet. Rice, starch; wheat, protein; dahl, protein; then vegetable, carbohydrate; and milk, fat. So if we take food and test it within these four, five groups... Eat according to our conception, sattvikaḥ. Sattvikaḥ means foodstuff in goodness. There are three qualities in the material world—goodness, passion and ignorance. So they are described: these are goodness foods, these are passion, these are ignorance. So these items: rice, wheat, vegetables, dahl and milk is sufficient for nutrition. Above that, you take little fruit, it is very good. And in India this foodstuff is taken by the learned circle—brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas—and they keep very good health, very good life.

Room Conversation with Canadian Ambassador to Iran -- March 13, 1975, Iran:

Prabhupāda: That consciousness will not help him. That will rather check him.

Ambassador: Yes, exactly.

Prabhupāda: Because in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran loke tyajaty ante kalevaram (BG 8.6). At the time of death, if I die with designation, then I will have to accept again the body. So the mind is the criterion, contamination. We get different types of body on account of mind being contaminated.

Ambassador: Contaminated.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like if you contaminate some disease, then you must develop that disease. Similarly, if your mind is contaminated with some material designation, then you have to accept similar body, by nature's way. Kāranaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). Because the mind associated with a particular type of the modes of material nature, he got this body. There are three qualities: sattva-guṇa, raja-guṇa, tamo-guṇa. Now you mix up. By first mixing it becomes nine, and again mixing up, it becomes eighty-one. And each quality, there are thousands and thousands of variety. And that means by mixing up these qualities there are 8,400,000 species of forms of life. So it is very... God's law, nature's law, they take account of the particular color and awards the body accordingly. It is not man-made law, that there may be some mistake. There is no mistake.

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

Young man: I find it very difficult to know the difference between truth and illusion.

Prabhupāda: God is truth; what is forgetfulness of God, that is illusion. God is truth. Just like the sun is present all the time, twenty-four hours. But we say now there is no sun, at night. But that's not the fact. The fact is the sun is there; I cannot see. That is illusion. Not that God is not there. God is there. As exactly, same example, the sun is there at night, but I cannot see under certain condition. Therefore it is illusion. Our senses are imperfect; therefore sometimes we cannot understand or see God. If our senses are purified, then we can see God every moment. So, what is your idea of God?

Young man: I, I... Something that I see sometimes in everything, the sameness in everything.

Prabhupāda: No clear concept.

Young man: I have no clear...

Prabhupāda: Yes. The clear conception of God is that originally He is person. Just like the same example, the sun. We can see every day the sun. (aside:) Can you give me that 7-Up? The sun is there always, but at night we cannot see. At night we cannot see. That does not mean the sun is not there.

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

Prabhupāda: No, just like dictionary. The small pocket dictionary is also dictionary, and the international dictionary, (sic?) Webs, that is also dictionary. So both of them are dictionary, but they are not equal. One dictionary is meant for children and one dictionary is meant for the higher scholars. So although are dictionaries, they are two kinds of dictionaries.

Guest: Do you know, sir, that it is exactly the same way of thinking which we have in our people who believe to Muhammad? They think that the teaching of Muhammad is the most superior one. And others... Of course, Muslims do believe to others' religions, to Moses, to Christ, and so on. They have the same way of thinking. They think that they are elementary stages...

Prabhupāda: The point is... Yes.

Guest: ...and Muhammad's teaching is supposed to be the superior one. So everybody thinks that his way or his way of thinking, his theory, his religion is the most superior one.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. That is all right. If you accept progress... Just like you are seeing the sun, I am also seeing the sun, the boy is also seeing the sun, but the understanding of the sun may be different. Everyone is seeing the sun. The objective is the same. But a child's understanding of sun and an elderly man's understanding of sun, a scientist's understanding of sun, or one man who has actually gone to the sun planet, there are different categories. Do you accept or not? The sun is there. God is accepted in every scripture. That is a fact. But in the same way, how far He is understood, that is different. That is different.

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

Prabhupāda: Then... Either Christian tradition... Then it becomes bound up by the Christian ideas.

Prajāpati: And that is exactly the situation today.

Prabhupāda: But that is not God. Just like gold. Gold is everywhere gold. Because it is in Christian country, you cannot say, "It is Christian gold." And because it is in Muslim country, you cannot say, "It is Muslim gold." Gold is the world standard of money. The same gold, dispatched from America, can be accepted in India. Dispatched from India, it can be accepted in Palestine because it is gold. Everyone who knows what is gold, he'll accept it. So God should be like that. And therefore the name Kṛṣṇa, "all-attractive"... When there is gold, either you be Christian, Muslim, Hindu—"Oh, here is a lump of gold. Can I possess it?" That is attraction. So as gold is all-attractive, similarly, God must be all-attractive. And that word is used as Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa means all-attractive. One who knows gold, he'll be attracted. Doesn't matter whether he's Hindu or Muslim, Christian, poor, rich man, black, white. It doesn't matter. Here is gold, and everyone... Just like in your country there was gold rush. Eh? In California? From all different parts of the world they came. So gold is gold for everyone. So now one should try to understand or check what is gold. That is required.

Morning Walk -- April 19, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Everybody praising. Now the governor should praise. Then it will be praising. We can praise ourself, mutual praising society. You are very good, and you say I am very good, that's all. "Mr. Such and such is very good," and another man says, "Mr. Such and such very good." That is mutual praising society. Others must praise. Outsider must praise. (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...question about the philosophy? It's about the expansions. We've been reading the Caitanya-caritāmṛta about Nityānanda Rāma, about the expansions of Lord Nityānanda, Saṅkarṣaṇa. And we were having a little difficulty trying to understand exactly the order in which He expands Himself. We understand that Kṛṣṇa expands as Balarāma. And then...

Prabhupāda: Then again Balarāma expands as Saṅkarṣaṇa. And Saṅkarṣaṇa expands. In this way expansion goes on. Where is the difficulty?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You mention two Saṅkarṣaṇas.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Hundred thousand Saṅkarṣaṇa. Do you mean to say that this universal management is so easy thing?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No.

Morning Walk -- May 8, 1975, Perth:

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.

Paramahaṁsa: But the thing is this machine is so wonderful that it goes on without an operator.

Prabhupāda: That is your dullness! You are rascal, you cannot understand how the machine is working, how big it is, that is your dullness. But it is a machine. Very big machine. You cannot understand—that is not (argument) that this is not a machine. This is not very good argument, that "I cannot understand, therefore it is not a machine." But you see the idea machine is there already, everything is going on—machine.

Morning Walk -- May 10, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: (laughing lightly) You cannot say that I have introduced it. It is already there. As it is there in India, it is also everywhere. It may be under different names. The four classes are already there, everywhere. The... Even in Muslim, they have also got the (indistinct), what is called, mohallas, priestly class. They have got. We are introducing the systematic caste system, but caste system is already there, everywhere. Maybe under different names. And it is necessary. The caste system is there as a matter of necessity. You cannot abolish it. But it is now existing in a deformed manner. People should be systematic and organized. That we are trying to. Not that a new thing we are trying to introduce. It is already there. Our proposition is that "You priestly class, you must act exactly as a priest-ideal priest. You are a drunkard, you are woman-hunter, you are doing everything nonsense, and at the same time you are passing on as priest—this should be stopped." This should be stopped. The priestly class, or the brāhmaṇas, they should be trained up to become truthful, how to control mind, how to control senses, and tolerant, and very learned, knowing God also—these things are required. They should be the first-class, ideal men. Similarly, the kṣatriyas, they must be fearless; they must be very boldly, face fighting the enemies; they must have the capacity to govern nicely so that people will not have any complaint against the government. In this way they should be trained up. And the mercantile class of man, they should produce enough food grains, not motor tires. That is śūdra's business—artisans—that is śūdra.

Morning Walk -- May 11, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: ...only sun.

Amogha: What are the stars exactly, they're other planets or...?

Prabhupāda: They're planets, (indistinct) planets.

Amogha: Are they self-luminating like the moon?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Like that. That is stated in Bhagavad-gītā, nakṣatrāṇām ahaṁ śaśi.

Amogha: Ah, "Of luminaries, I am the moon."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Amogha: Very soon the United States is sending up one rocket and Russia is sending up another rocket and they are joining in space and they think this is progress. They'll join together up there. They hope someday they'll be able to stay in a station like that and then go out to some planet.

Prabhupāda: They could not mix in this planet, they are going to mix in another planet.

Srutakirti: They'll probably have some argument in outer space. The astronauts will get into a fight.

Prabhupāda: The rascal could not compromise here, they're going in the sky. All mental concoction.

Morning Walk -- May 12, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: It is wrong thing.

Paramahaṁsa: Is their calculation for the distance of the sun wrong also?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Paramahaṁsa: 93,000,000? It says in the Bhāgavatam exactly what the distance?

Prabhupāda: The whole universe, diameter, is pañcaśat-koṭi-yojana. One yojana equal to eight miles, and one koti is ten miles, er, ten million. So pañcaśata, fifty into 10,000,000 into eight.

Paramahaṁsa: Yeah. So it's fifty crores yojana. Fifty crores yojanas?

Prabhupāda: Yes, fifty crore yojanas, pañcaśat. So one yojana equal to eight miles, one crore equal to ten million.

Paramahaṁsa: That's eighty million.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Paramahaṁsa: Eighty million times fifty.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

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

Guest (1): You can follow actually? What does that exactly mean? It's a direct translation, I think.

Paramahaṁsa: He says, "What does that exactly mean?"

Prabhupāda: Explain to him.

Paramahaṁsa: Well, as it explains here, "The strong man's strength should be applied to protect the weak, not for personal aggression. Similarly, sex life, according to religious principles, dharma, should be for the propagation of children, not otherwise. The responsibility of parents is then to make their offspring Kṛṣṇa conscious."

Guest (2): The question was which religion, which religious principle?

Paramahaṁsa: Well, he means our marriage under... We accept that marriage, sex life in marriage, is licit, not illicit. So he asked, "Under what religious principles or under which religion?"

Prabhupāda: Any religion. Christian religion does not allow illicit sex. No adultery.

Guest (2): Any religious principles?

Prabhupāda: This is religious principle. In the animal kingdom there is no marriage, but in the human society—may be Christian, may be Hindu, may be Muslim—there is marriage system. That is religious system.

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

Guest (1): I'm sorry, I missed that point. Could you please explain?

Paramahaṁsa: He said it is Vedic because the answers he is giving are not his opinion or concoction, but he is giving from the Vedic knowledge or the Vedic scriptures instead of making up his own opinion. That is the meaning of Vedic; it is based on the Vedic teachings exactly.

Guest (1): But the Ramakrishna wasn't.

Prabhupāda: No.

Guest (1): They formed their own way.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest (2): Do you consider that this kind of practice or the practicing this kind of culture is regimentated? A person has to come in and spend sometimes in the temple, and...

Prabhupāda: Yes, the association, the influence of association. If you go to a drunkard association, you become a drunkard. And if you go to a saintly association, you become a saint. Saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ.

Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Yes. God is friend always. He is sitting with the individual soul within the heart and giving him good advice that "You come to Me, you'll be happy." But he's not going. Therefore he's (indistinct). Still God is with him, "All right, let me see." Just like the father, he loves his son. He always gives him, "My dear son, why you are going out? Your father has got nice property, you live with me." But he'll not do, he'll go away and become hippie. What can be done?

Jesuit: "Kṛṣṇa," what exactly does "Kṛṣṇa" mean?

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa means all-attractive. That is great. You say, "God is great." We say God, Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa means all-attractive. Unless you are the great, you cannot be all-attractive.

Jesuit: When you speak of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, it means...

Prabhupāda: God consciousness, God consciousness. God is great and I am His eternal servant. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Two words: God is great and I am His eternal servant, I am small. This consciousness is called Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

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

Prabhupāda: No, I do not say anything.

Yogi Bhajan: You have seen this.

Prabhupāda: Whatever I have said, I am quoting from the Bhagavad-gītā. You have seen it. I don't say anything. I never say, "It is my opinion," "I think." No, I never say like that.

Yogi Bhajan: This style, they will look at it and like it. And there will be nobody else who can exactly present this style.

Prabhupāda: If you like to go me, I can go there. That's all right.

Yogi Bhajan: Yeah, yeah, it must... It is... My basic idea is you in Kṛṣṇa consciousness can present a style which a Judeo, a rabbi, may not be in a position to do it.

Prabhupāda: That is certain. Nobody can present.

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

Prabhupāda: They are very expert in wasting. (laughter)

Yogi Bhajan: Yeah, that I have seen. That is totally what annoys me sometime and then I go and "Well, say you have to learn this way. It doesn't matter." Now, the Mexico marble has a flower arranged in it. Everybody has two eyes, and that flower arrange can be arranged, and none of your persons, in spite of my... One day I yelled at them and say, "I am going to pull your out of your this little hair, and what are you doing, waste of time?" They said, "Well, we have to ask some mahātmā, some ācārya. Someone will tell him the message." I went again next day. They did it exactly what was wrong. But you know, they are kids. They will learn. So I go and poke my nose all the time because I thought if I can tell them, they will do it better. But my basic situation is we are doing...

Prabhupāda: The Americans, they have no value for their money.

Yogi Bhajan: No, no, nothing.

Prabhupāda: Therefore they can waste very lavishly.

Morning Walk -- June 16, 1975, Honolulu:

Bali-mardana: Yes. The people have lost faith in the science because they have not produced anything.

Prabhupāda: That is the problem. Because they have cheated people for so many years and drawn high salaries, now they are finding out: "How to cheat these rascals and continue our business?" This is the problem. Because they have nothing to research. Everything, whatever, are finished. And all failure. Simply big, big words, that's all. Word jugglery, that's all. They could not do anything. What exactly they have done, something which is not done by God? They competition with God, so what they have done? What is their contribution?

Bali-mardana: Only negative; nothing positive. (break) ...easier to kill people.

Prabhupāda: That's it. That much they have done, yes. (break) ...diverting the attention of the people from going to the moon planet, they are meeting in the sky. So what will benefit we shall derive by their meeting in the sky?

Siddha-svarūpa: They have scientists now that are proposing and they have grants on how to develop a city in outer space or on the moon. They already have it how they're going to send people, how they're going to get their...

Prabhupāda: This is another bluff. You see? And these rascals are believing them.

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

Dr. Gerson: I have yet to look into the material that I'm presenting to the devotees but my experience with them is that as they are into the movement longer and longer and become deeper involved in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, just exactly that is happening, that their material nature seems to become much more relaxed and...

Prabhupāda: Yes, there will be no more material activities. Just like you take a iron rod and put into the fire. It becomes warm, warmer, and at last it becomes red hot. When the iron rod is red hot, it is no longer iron rod. It is fire. If you touch the iron rod, red hot, anywhere, it will act as fire. Similarly, if you engage your mind in Kṛṣṇa activity the mind becomes Kṛṣṇaized gradually, and when he is advanced, there is no material activities, all spiritual activities. Just like here in this temple there is no material activities. And material activities means based on this illicit sex, meat-eating, intoxication and gambling. Here you will not find anything of this.

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

Prabhupāda: That I want. Do it. We want to give degrees, at least B.A., M.A., and Ph.D., according to the advancement of knowledge. And that will be very much beneficial to your country. Then America will be saved from disaster and it will be the leader. The country will be leader of the whole world. Take this advantage.

Dharmādhyakṣa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, there are some questions about exactly how to do this college. We will be licensed by the state of California, that is no problem. We can get a license immediately.

Prabhupāda: Get it.

Dharmādhyakṣa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Get it, and the, what is called, syllabus, that we shall give. We have got so many books. We shall select this book for graduate, this book for post-graduate, and these books for Ph.D.'s.

Dharmādhyakṣa: Even you have different levels. Like they can undergraduately study Bhagavad-gītā, but in graduate they can study it more intensely, like that.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like in general course they select some passages from some books. So we can do that.

Morning Walk -- June 22, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: It is early?

Brahmānanda: Well, earlier than yesterday.

Prabhupāda: No, I don't think. What is the time?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Ten minutes to six.

Jayatīrtha: Yesterday you left about 5:40 and today you left exactly at 5:30. So...

Brahmānanda: I came just after you left.

Prabhupāda: I think your watch is slow. (laughter) (break) ...actual time now?

Jayatīrtha: It's 5:51.

Prabhupāda: Hm? What is my?

Jayatīrtha: Your's is about one minute faster.

Prabhupāda: And what is your?

Brahmānanda: 5:53.

Prabhupāda: Fast. (break) ...in my childhood, I remember, I went to see football match in the Maidan.

Morning Walk -- July 1, 1975, Denver:

Prabhupāda: What did he say?

Brahmānanda: I don't remember exactly, but he stressed the importance of the chanting of the mahā-mantra. He said "It is an important means for God realization, and by doing this, one can achieve love of God, and they are spreading this all over the world."

Prabhupāda: So what do you think? Shall I write? Hm? I have made a draft of letter this night. So you come and see. Let us take a chance. We want actually good for everyone. And this is the only medicine, Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. For any problem. Para-duḥkha-duḥkhī. People are suffering. If her guru has opined like that, then she may take some attention. Then it appears that guru is to some extent nice.

Brahmānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: She gave interview to our men.

Morning Walk -- July 2, 1975, Denver:

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Devotee (2): Does that mean that he's not... He's experiencing the subtle body inside of the gross body, or what does that mean exactly?

Prabhupāda: Mental platform is mixed sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa, not pure. But if you keep always Kṛṣṇa in your mind, then you are purified. The mind has no other opportunity to keep anything else. Kṛṣṇa is sitting there, then guarantee. (break) ...they keep always seeing Viṣṇu form within the heart. Therefore they keep in sattva-guṇa. Similarly, if you keep Kṛṣṇa, then you are in sattva-guṇa. And when that concentration on Kṛṣṇa is not disturbed, then it is śuddha-sattva. That is spiritual platform. (break) ...ekādaśī?

Nitāi: It's Saturday, the 6th.

Devotee (2): What does the yogi perceive when he cuts off the outer senses, he finally reaches the...

Prabhupāda: Perceive?

Devotee (2): What does he experience when he cuts off the outer senses and is able to...

Prabhupāda: Outer senses, what do you mean by outer senses-dead?

Devotee (2): His bodily senses.

Prabhupāda: There is no question of outer senses. Senses purified. What do you mean by outer senses?

Devotee (2): The senses with which you perceive the outer gross...

Prabhupāda: That always remains. But when it is not purified, you perceive material things. When it is purified, you perceive spiritual things.

Morning Walk -- July 2, 1975, Denver:

Devotee (2): Can you explain exactly what speculation means?

Prabhupāda: Speculation means thinking, "What will happen? Maybe like this, maybe like this." That is speculation. (break) ...speculate, "Kṛṣṇa may be like this. Kṛṣṇa may be like this." That is speculation. When Kṛṣṇa appears before you, you see, "Oh, Kṛṣṇa is like this." That is wanted. And if you speculate, "Kṛṣṇa may be like this," it is all nonsense. Come to the stage when Kṛṣṇa will appear before you, and you will see what is Kṛṣṇa. Be qualified to that position. Māyāvādīs, they are speculating simply, "God may be like this." Why "God may be like this?" God is factual, Kṛṣṇa. Therefore they cannot understand Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...plane crash took place in John Kennedy?

Brahmānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So such a big... simply by touching the electric wire that becomes...

Brahmānanda: Well, they were, I think, steel towers, two hundred feet high, so they were pretty sturdy, and it hit four of them.

Ambarīṣa: There was some bad weather.

Brahmānanda: And then it toppled over.

Prabhupāda: No, in bad weather, towers, but simply by touching, such a big machine became in fire. (laughs) Unsafe everywhere. Padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadam (SB 10.14.58). Every step, there is danger.

Room Conversation with Mr. & Mrs. Wax, Writer and Editing Manager of Playboy Magazine -- July 5, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: Then you ask him how, he'll reply. (laughter)

Mrs. Wax: Why did you?

Prabhupāda: Why he became attracted and began to dance. He is present here. I did not ask him to come and dance.

Brahmānanda: Well, I was just... I cannot say exactly why. I was searching, however. I was looking for something better than what I was doing.

Prabhupāda: His father predicted that "This boy will become a pious man. He is not going to take up my business." (laughter) His father is a very big, rich man running on factories. But he was disappointed that "This, my child, will not be a factory worker." Is it not? You tell.

Television Interview -- July 9, 1975, Chicago:

Nitāi: Third-class: "Farming, cattle raising and business are the qualities of work for the vaiśyas,..."

Prabhupāda: Not cattle raising, cow protection.

Nitāi: Cow protection.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Farming and cow protection and trade, this is meant for the third-class division. And worker, fourth-class. These divisions must be there. Then the society will go on very nicely. Exactly the same example, that if the different parts of the body—the brain, the arms, the belly and the legs—all are in order, the bodily function will go on very nicely. This is natural.

Woman reporter: Where do women fit into these four classes?

Prabhupāda: That I already explained. Women's position is subordinate to man. So if the man is first-class, the woman is first-class. If the man is second-class, the woman is second-class. If the man is third-class, the woman is third-class. In this... Because woman is meant for assisting man, so the woman becomes suitable according to the man, her husband.

Morning Walk -- July 12, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: Working, that's all right. You have seen that so many people are dying. That's all right. But I am challenging that you have not seen the next man who does not die. That you cannot answer.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: For example, they find the laws of motion, Newton's laws of motion. They utilize that concept in shooting rockets. And they use exactly some mathematical formula and apply it.

Prabhupāda: That's all right, but sometimes the shooting of the rocket missing.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, what we are saying is that the law that they find out by their own effort is working...

Prabhupāda: So you effort is limited. How you can conclude?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So inductive knowledge is true to a certain limit.

Prabhupāda: Certain extent, that's all. It is not conclusion.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But to a devotee, though, there is nothing like inductive knowledge because knowledge gives by Kṛṣṇa. So it must be deductive.

Prabhupāda: Deductive always. And that is easier. Kṛṣṇa says that "I come as death and take away everything." So we know that nobody can be immortal; everyone must die. Simple conclusion.

Morning Walk -- July 14, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: Immovable? Where it is?

Devotee (2): It states this in Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: What is this? What is the verse?

Devotee (2): I don't know exactly. It's in the Second Chapter. Kṛṣṇa's describing the nature of the spirit soul to Arjuna. Does anyone know that verse?

Nitāi: Sthanur acalo 'yam...?

Prabhupāda: Immovable in this sense: when he is fixed up in a certain body, then he is immovable from that body. Acalo 'yam sthanuḥ, sthanuḥ. Just like we're speaking of transplanting the heart. That does not mean you move the soul. That is immovable.

Devotee (3): Śrīla Prabhupāda, the pure devotee's spirit soul is not trapped by the gross and subtle bodies?

Prabhupāda: Yes, when he is liberated by devotional service. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate (BG 14.26).

Devotee (4): Prabhupāda, when we try to explain to people that our philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is authoritative and is coming from undisturbed men, learned men, that our spiritual master is not an ordinary man, what does it mean that he is not an ordinary man?

Prabhupāda: He is not moved by the rascal scientist. (laughter) All rascals are moved by the so-called scientists.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda... (laughter)

Press Conference -- July 16, 1975, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: Our program is whatever collection is there, half is spent for our establishment—we have got about more than one hundred centers all over the world—and half we spend for reprinting the books. That's all.

Reporter (2): How many members in the United States? I'm told two thousand. Is that correct approximately?

Prabhupāda: That they can say.

Jayatīrtha: Well, our published figure is that worldwide membership is ten thousand. How much of that is in the United States isn't exactly broken down.

Reporter (2): I did a story on this movement five years ago and the figure at that time was two thousand in the United States also.

Prabhupāda: It is increasing.

Reporter (2): It is increasing?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Definitely.

Jayatīrtha: I said that the worldwide figure is ten thousand.

Reporter (2): Yes, I understood. Could you tell me how old you are?

Jayatīrtha: He wants to know your age, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: After one month I will be eighty.

Morning Walk -- July 20, 1975, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...call gaj pat(?). They eat pigeons also. (break) ...not very clear. Dirty water. (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...of the trees in Seva-kuñj.

Prabhupāda: Mm. (break) ...are exactly Indian. (break) They have good facilities on this lake.

Citsukhānanda: They have one church here, Prabhupāda. It is Mormon church. It is not too far from here. It is very gigantic, and it's on a hill. And every Sunday they get maybe five to six thousand guests because they have spent great money on a big complex. They have a library, museum and church. This is... We could also do this sometime, make one nice Indian temple. Thousands of visitors would come, even just tourists, from all over the world. They could probably come the same way. Ours would be much better, though.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Very good idea. (break) ...also very nice.

Bahulāśva: The lake?

Prabhupāda: Hm. Due to that lake. (break)

Bahulāśva: ...but no one can swim.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā?

Bahulāśva: That big lake in Chicago? No one can swim because of the pollution.

Morning Walk -- July 21, 1975, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: Not necessarily. The size is there in the Bhāgavata.

Paramahaṁsa: In Stockholm, Prabhupāda, in the museum, they have a whole room, and in the room there is all these... There's American flag and Swedish flag, and there's a whole exhibit with one teeny little rock about as big as my finger nail that the Americans gave the Swedes. It's supposed to be a rock from the moon. And they said in it that it's exactly as any kind of rock that you'll find on earth. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: They say? It is simply cheating. They found this in Arizona, somebody... (laughter) And laboratory work.

Bahulāśva: I have been trying to arrange a meeting between Your Divine Grace and that astronaut. He was going to come to Rathayātrā, but he had to go to Florida for some space project.

Prabhupāda: What does he say, astronaut?

Bahulāśva: He says that... His name is Edgar Mitchell, and he was one of the men who went to the moon. But we talked, and he said... He thinks he has gone to the moon. But he said that when he was there, he had a religious experience, and he felt that there was a God. When he went to the moon, he had this experience. So when he came back, he was telling all his scientist friends what his experience was. So they became very afraid, and they kicked him out of the space project. They thought he had become a fanatic, religious sentimentalist, so they kicked him out. So now he has opened up an institute for noetic sciences or... It is some Greek word. It means like spiritual sciences. He wants to prove to the scientific world that there is God.

Prabhupāda: That's nice. He is good.

Room Conversation with Devotees -- August 1, 1975, New Orleans:

Brahmānanda: So this is the varṇāśrama system that you are...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Brahmānanda: This varṇāśrama college...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Varnāśrama means everyone should be engaged. There will be no, I mean to say, (indistinct).

Jagadīśa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, what exactly do the... Do the vaiśyas cultivate the fields or the śūdras cultivate the fields?

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Jagadīśa: Is it the duty of the vaiśyas to cultivate the fields or...?

Prabhupāda: Actually it is the duty of the vaiśyas, but the śūdras can help everyone, the helpers. The śūdras will help the brāhmaṇas, the kṣatriyas, as well as the vaiśyas. Those who have no brain—simply they can carry out order—they are śūdras. And those who have got brain, they can act as brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, or vaiśya. They have got brain to take the initiative. First-class brain, they should be engaged in studying śāstras, writing books and in the worship of the Deity, lecturing enlightened people. This is brāhmaṇa. They haven't got to work as kṣatriya, as vaiśya. They are simply intellectuals. This is brāhmaṇa, with good character.

Morning Walk Excerpt -- August 17, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That, big... Here you can simply have one story more. And what about this land?

Saurabha: This is used now for storing sand. That land or this?

Prabhupāda: No, no. This.

Saurabha: This will be garden also, but now we keep for storing because we need that for sand here.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: If we have to add a second floor there we can make it a BBT warehouse, exactly as per your directions.

Prabhupāda: And why not others? BBT warehouse, there are so many.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, a big room will be very good, so when we construct that, we can have a big hall.

Prabhupāda: Oh. That's nice.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. A big hall, like in Los Angeles where we can have shelves and...

Saurabha: The slab is not strong enough to have so much weight on it.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Room Conversation -- August 21, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: (Bengali) Exactly what Kṛṣṇa has said. Our mission... (Bengali) Yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Bas. If you speak what Kṛṣṇa has instructed, you become guru. But if you make your own concoction, own invention, then... (Bengali) I don't speak any nonsense except the instruction given in the Bhagavad-gītā. That is my credit. That's all. People say that I have done wonderful, but I do not know any magic. The wonderful thing I have done is that I don't speak any nonsense thing. (Bengali)

Lalitā: What you say, you act according to that.

Prabhupāda: No, what I learn from Kṛṣṇa I say. I don't say independently. That is not my business. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's instruction. (break) How? Āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra' ei deśa (CC Madhya 7.128). You deliver your village people and become a guru. Everyone is not going to be so big that he can go all over the world. But everyone can teach within his limit, within his family, within his community, within his village, within his town, within his district. As he is capable, he can increase. But everyone can become a guru and deliver the local people. How? Yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Then you are guru. As soon as you manufacture anything nonsense, then it is spoiled. That is going on.

Morning Walk -- September 29, 1975, Ahmedabad:

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Brahmānanda, you just take an idea. We shall construct Gurukula in this pattern.

Brahmānanda: This building here, double story.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Exactly. Double or three-storied.

Kartikeya: Most simple type.

Prabhupāda: Very simple type, very nice. Just get a sketch with your work. This will be done like that.

Brahmānanda: I'll ask Bhārgava. He has his camera. He can take photographs.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And downstairs, all shops. Only the roadside. Other side...

Brahmānanda: Oh, no. That's the courtyard, and then other side, a building. (break)

Bhavānanda: ...at the Gurukula best thing is outdoors classes. As soon as they're in rooms it gets too hot.

Prabhupāda: As far as possible, outdoors.

Bhavānanda: Best place in Māyāpur is on the verandas of the big building. It's perfect.

Prabhupāda: That is very nice.

Morning Walk -- October 6, 1975, Durban:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They think that this is the most civilized that human beings have ever been, this modern so-called civilization.

Prabhupāda: Civilization... If you remain in a dog's position, is that civilization? I proved that you are in a dog's position. How can you refute the argument which I have put, that you are in a dog's position? Exactly the dog. Śva-viḍ-varaha. Dog's position, hog's position, camel's position, and ass's position. These four animals have been compared. Śva, viḍ-varāha, uṣṭra, khara. And "I have been given vote." Yes, śva-vi-varāhoṣṭra-kharai saṁstuta puruṣa paśuḥ. You are animal, and other animals, they are giving you vote. That's all. You are very much proud that you are minister, you have got vote, but who has given you vote? The same animal class. What is the meaning of your vote? Śva-viḍ... How selected words in the Bhāgavatam. Śva-vi-varāhoṣṭra-kharai saṁstuta puruṣa paśuḥ.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: This desire to accumulate money, is this just like annamaya stage?

Prabhupāda: That is doggish. The example, he has got already one loaf, but another dog: "This is also my stock." Why you should hanker after another? You have got already. Be satisfied. "No." That is doggish mentality. (end)

Room Conversation with Professor Olivier -- October 10, 1975, Durban:

Prabhupāda: So this is the opportunity.

Prof. Olivier: You see, now, they turn...the senior ones turn perhaps to the ācāryas that you saw there.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The youth are not attracted...

Prof. Olivier: They’re not...

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: ...because they don’t have the answers. The youth want to know exactly. In other words, if a youth asks a question and you can’t answer it, he doesn’t want to hear from you anymore. But we can answer all questions on the basis of these literatures without any tinge of mental speculation. Scientific, that's a fact.

Prof. Olivier: Then basically they and myself and others want to know how do we get this spirit into our own hearts and how does this then issue out into everyday living.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is all explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, how to live peacefully in this world and go back to home, back to Godhead. This is the whole thing is explained very nicely.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's not that everyone will become a monk.

Prabhupāda: No, no.

Morning Walk -- October 25, 1975, Mauritius:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Now recently some European astronomers, they said comet is coming, but he did not come. Just see. But no Indian astronomer said that comet is coming, no Indian astronomer. So he became a fool. So much arrangement was made: "Comet is coming." Nobody came. And in our childhood we saw one comet, and Indian astrologers, they very particularly said, "It will begin from this corner. It will rise like this," in this... Exactly it was done. The comet came, and as it is stated, "From this corner it will come," it happened so, everything correct. (break) ...comet did not come, what people said to this astronomer? Nothing?

Harikeśa: Nobody knows if it came or not.

Prabhupāda: No, it was advertised.

Brahmānanda: Just like they were selling land on the moon.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just see. (laughter) He was telling me. Selling ticket. And if I say, "They are cheater, bluffer," they become angry. Just see. Actually they cheated and bluffed so many men. Now they say it is inhabitable. Why they sold ticket for going there? So many living entities there are, living within the sand, and they say there is no living entity. How they are eating? How they are sleeping?

Morning Walk -- November 1, 1975, Nairobi:

Prabhupāda: So how Kṛṣṇa has prepared earth? That I want.

Devotee (2): So we can see by studying the nature of the construction of this earth that it is much more intelligent...

Prabhupāda: So how earth is coming from Kṛṣṇa? Tell me that.

Devotee (3): The scientists say that this earth came from gases, but they cannot explain exactly where those gases have come from. That source, that is Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: No, they do not know, but we know. How in your belly gas is formed? How? There was no gas, but automatically the gas is formed. And therefore sometimes, if it is much gas, then you go for treatment. So this is the practical. The gas is also generating from my body. So as I am an individual, insignificant body, if there is possibility of generating little gas, so Kṛṣṇa's gigantic body, why not gigantic volume of gas? This is the explanation.

Jñāna: The materialistic scientists, they are saying that matter is energy. So we understand if it's energy there must be an energetic.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So how the energetic is producing, this is common. Gas is forming. Just like you perspire, there is water. So one ounce of water may come from your body. So water is coming from your body, so why not from the gigantic body of Kṛṣṇa, the oceans, millions of oceans, come out? This should be the understanding. We see practically that water is coming out from my body. So it may be one ounce or less than that because my body is very small, but Kṛṣṇa's body is unlimited, so why not unlimited supply of water? This should be the common sense. And this body, this body, what it is? It is earth. When the body will be dead it will be earth. So I am spirit soul, a small particle, so much earth is coming from me, why not Kṛṣṇa, the supreme spirit? This is the explanation. God is great, I am small. From me a small quantity of earth is coming, water is coming. Why not from the gigantic body of Kṛṣṇa, so huge, I mean to say, volume of water, gas, and everything as we see it is coming? So therefore Kṛṣṇa is correct. He's correct, but for our understanding we can understand like this, chemicals, the chemicals coming from our body. There are so many salt. And you test the blood or the perspiration. You'll find so many chemicals.

Morning Walk -- November 7, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Models, yes.

Dr. Patel: Just you are doing pictures in your Bhāgavata...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: Like that, a model.

Prabhupāda: Models. Yes, exactly the word, model. You can display... Everything is there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, this anatomic, physiologic, how the child is growing within the womb of his mother.

Bhāgavata: Different...

Prabhupāda: Yes. One day, fifth day, and like that. In seven months how it is developed. Everything is there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata. Then you can display the hell, different hells.

Girirāja: Different hells.

Bhāgavata: Hells, oh, Fifth Canto.

Prabhupāda: Yes. How one is going by cheating others, by stealing. So everything. You can display, what is called? That planetary system?

Indian man (1): Planetarium?

Prabhupāda: Planetarium. According to planetarium.

Morning Walk -- November 11, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: As soon as he had written "God likes me," nobody would purchase the book. (laughter) Nobody would. He is clever—"Somebody."

Harikeśa: One devotee asked me, "If the scientists don't know anything about the universe, then how is it they can predict exactly when there is going to be an eclipse of the sun or the moon for hundreds of years in advance?"

Prabhupāda: That is very preliminary knowledge. That is not... Just like you can predict that after two months there will be winter. That does not mean that you are very advanced scientist. (laughter) Any child can say. The rascal predicted that there is some comet, and it never appeared. He did. So therefore they are rascals. What is already scheduled, everyone knows. He can say that. (break) ...story about Kali dāsa. Kali dāsa was such a fool. It is a long story. It will take time. So he was sitting on a branch of a tree and cutting. So some intelligent man came, was passing: "Oh, you rascal, you'll fall down." So he did not care. He would go on. And when he actually fell down, he, "Oh, you are so nice astrologer." What is astrology? It is a common sense. If I say, "At six o'clock in the evening there will be no sun," (laughter) is that astrology? Even it is astrology, this astrology is known to everyone. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Morning Walk -- November 14, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Nehru and company are praised... That is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhag... Śva-viḍ-varāhoṣṭra-kharaiḥ saṁstutaḥ puruṣaḥ paśuḥ (SB 2.3.19). Puruṣaḥ paśuḥ. A big animal is being eulogized by small animals. Does it mean a big animal is a human being? He's animal.

Dr. Patel: I think he had not understood exactly.

Prabhupāda: What he understood?

Dr. Patel: The second adhyaya, Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: He never knew what is Gītā. He plainly...

Yaśomatīnandana: He was an atheist.

Prabhupāda: In America, when he went, somebody requested, "You explain something of Gītā." He said, "I do not know much about Gītā." He explained. He frankly admitted that "I do not know." His excuse was like that. And he did not know anything. He thought, "Overnight, if I make my country like America, that is success." And he constructed a few skyscraper building, or big, big building in New Delhi, and he thought, "My country is like that." Therefore, when President Eisenhower came, he wanted to see the village. And as soon as he saw the village, the secret was out.

Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, we cannot cooperate. But if there is meeting we can prove them that they are fools. (laughter) That's all. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. Jaya.

Indian devotee: That is required. Actually, that is the potency of your teaching is so powerful. I have seen that every time someone makes this poor excuses in front of people... Just like yesterday I was in the train, and one guy was saying exactly the same thing, that "I believe in the Bhagavad-gītā in my own way." So I opened up Bhagavad-gītā and I showed to four people, "Look here, just see what Kṛṣṇa is saying here." And all of them agreed. They said, "Yes, yes. You are right and he is wrong." All of them. He said that "I believe in Bhagavad-gītā in my own way." I said, "Are you the controller of the sun and the moon and the stars and the planets?"

Mahāṁsa: Oh yes, we all... Just two, three days back we went to see that Śaṅkarācārya of Kamakochi(?), and the old Śaṅkarācārya, he was very nice. He said, "Oh, you are doing very nice work," and he liked us very much. But then the young Śaṅkarācārya, he didn't say anything, but he had one paṇḍita near him who started, who first questioned us that "Do you know Sanskrit?" So...

Prabhupāda: Why did you not, "Do you know English?" (laughter)

Morning Walk -- December 12, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: The fire is the same. There is fire. Fire is the same. In the life the fire is not different.

Harikeśa: No, what I mean to say in the example, that the people are there and the fire is also there...

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Harikeśa: So, in a...

Prabhupāda: Exactly the same way. In the factory there is big fire and there are workers also.

Harikeśa: But the life is the workers not the fire.

Prabhupāda: No. I mean to say, in the midst of fire, the living entity can live. That is my argument.

Akṣayānanda: But they can't jump in the fire and live. They will die.

Prabhupāda: No. That is material body. Spiritual... In the Bhagavad-gītā there is, (it says that) it does not burn into fire, in the fire. Adāhyaḥ, adāhyaḥ. So living entity is never burnt. Even if he's in the fire. So he may have a body of fire but he does not burn.

Akṣayānanda: But why should we accept that, because to make our factory we did not need Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Akṣayānanda: To make our factory we did not need Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Akṣayānanda: To make the factory... We have made such a nice factory for fire, so we did not need to consult Bhagavad-gītā for that.

Prabhupāda: I do not follow what he is saying.

Morning Walk -- December 24, 1975, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: But your how..., ask a question puzzling with me. So I...

Prabhupāda: No, I ask you, that how this experiment with truth can be?

Dr. Patel: The experiment with sciences, we are making experiment with biological sciences and abstract, I mean sciences of physics and chemistry, and that those who are truths already, we are trying to honor. We cannot make truths. Truths are there already settled by God. God, we try to find out what is exactly, and how it is being done. But we are not trying to find out who is doing. That is your point. I understand.

Prabhupāda: No. If the truth is there, there is no question of experiment.

Dr. Patel: We are experimenting to find out the truth. Truth is there. My house is there, sir, but you may go this way or that way, that way. We are making experiment to go to my house.

Prabhupāda: So that means you do not know what is the truth.

Dr. Patel: Truth is there, but we do not know the truth. That's a fact.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that's a fact.

Conversation on Roof -- December 26, 1975, Sanand:

Harikeśa: Dialectical spiritualism.

Prabhupāda: Ye.... Not dia.... Dialectical means keep spiritualism or materialism. It is dialectic. Two sides there are, the material and the spiritual. These ignorant rascals, cats—and dogslike men, they have no information of the thing which is covered. They're simply dealing with the covering. Therefore their knowledge is imperfect, and they're not successful by so many theses. They do not know the real problem. Who is enjoyer? That they do not know. That enjoyer is covered. And they are talking on the cover. That.... In Bengal, it is a proverb, said, that: Sobraniye tanatan.(?) In the.... I think I was talking on this. In the coconut. The coconut sweet pulp and water is within. And they are struggling with the fibers above the coconut. Coconut.... They have got some information coconut is enjoyable, but where is the enjoyable article is there, that they do not know. They have simply information this body, and the coconut's body is covered with fibers. And they are fighting with the fibers. None of these so-called capitalists or, what is called, Communists, they do not know where is the real substance is. Superficially, they are fighting on the platform of fiber covering. That's all. Sobraniye tanatan,(?) this Bengali word exactly. They're fighting just like dogs. Actually they do not know how to become happy, but one dog is barking upon another dog, and they're fighting, attacking, barking-useless. The dogs and cats, they do not know what is the value of life, and they fight on the covering, same fiber, fight. But here is a chance, human being. Therefore dialectic. Dialectic materialism. You should be materialist; you should not condemn anything, both the inside and outside. The inside pulp of coconut requires the covering outside. Otherwise, it will be spoiled. Crude example. But the real substance is inside, not outside. But these rascals, they have no information of the inside substance. They think that "Here is coconut. Let us try to find out happiness." And they are simply struggling to adjust the fibers. Therefore they have been described as mūḍhaḥ, rascals. Hmmm? What do you think, Haṁsadūta?

Haṁsadūta: Very perfect.

Conversation on Roof -- December 26, 1975, Sanand:

Harikeśa: In this book, Lenin has a dialogue. He makes these dialogues. At his.... I was just looking quickly. There's some dialogue here.

Prabhupāda: What is that dialogue?

Harikeśa: I haven't looked into it exactly, but I've seen.... This is too...

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Harikeśa: He's too insane to read quickly.

Prabhupāda: No, read it. Let us see.

Harikeśa: OK. "The fundamental premises of the theory of knowledge of Mock(?) and Averniu..., Avanarias(?) are frankly, simply and clearly expounded by them in their early philosophical works. To these works we shall now turn, postponing for later treatment an examination of the corrections and emendations subsequently made by these writers. 'The task of science,' Mock(?) wrote in 1872, 'can only be: 1. to determine the laws of connection of ideas, psychology; 2. to discover...' "

Prabhupāda: That is not science, ideas.

Page Title:Exactly (Conversations 1974 - 1975)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, Mayapur
Created:25 of Feb, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=98, Let=0
No. of Quotes:98