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Imagination (Conversations)

Conversations and Morning Walks

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk at Stow Lake -- March 27, 1968, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: They kill the grandfather and have a feast, the cannibals. Yes. That is a great sport, that the grandsons will kill the grandfather and have a feast on his body by toasting.(?) Yes. The same idea is being preached by the communists. They want that all old man of the society, they should be killed. That is one of the theories put forward by the communists. Because they are not producing anything. So just imagine, these things will come gradually. So better to leave this place as soon as possible. Not to come again.

Room Conversation -- July 16, 1968, Montreal:

Prabhupāda: So you can give me a little milk and finish business. (pause) (devotees offer obeisances) All glories to the assembled devotees.

Devotees: All glories to Guru and Gaurāṅga!

Prabhupāda: Yes. All glories to you because you are interested in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Certainly it is glorious. Greatest science. Please try to understand it very nicely. You will be all happy. That is my request.

Devotee: Is this picture of He who is considered(?) Kṛṣṇa in the pine tree?

Prabhupāda: What is this? Some imagination. Some imagination. All cheating.

Room Conversation -- October 27, 1968, Montreal, With First Devotees Going to London On Evening of Their Departure:

Prabhupāda: (laughs) And what about that girl?

Mālatī: Tulasī devī? Oh, very nice.

Yamunā: Oh, Karṇapura is beautiful! He's the best little boy you could ever imagine.

Mālatī: He's already brahmacārī.

Yamunā: He's just fantastic. Upendra really loves that kid. Upendra picks up Karṇapura and Upendra doesn't know about children. And he'll take Karṇapura and he'll make him kiss every picture in the temple, (laughter) especially at the feet of Lord Caitanya he'll go, "Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa." Karṇapura will go, "bang, bang." (laughter)

Prabhupāda: (laughing) Very nice. So Murāri(?), you have got to say anything?

Murāri: I have got to say anything? No. I was just visiting.

Prabhupāda: Thank you. (end)

Interview with LA Times Reporter About Moon Trip -- December 26, 1968, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: But for sixty miles, fifty miles, if they could stand sixty miles off from the moon planet, they were already on the atmosphere. Suppose if I am sixty miles away from a city, I am in that atmosphere. So if I could stay that atmosphere, how it is possible that, how it is wonderful that they could not go further sixty miles? I don't believe these things, these statements, that they were within sixty miles area. This is simply imagination.

Reporter: Well, they didn't take along the spaceship that they need that they...

Prabhupāda: Anyway, anyway, just like I am inhabitant of Vrndavana. Vrndavana, that is ninety miles off from New Delhi. The atmosphere is almost the same. So, if I could live at Vrndavana, I could live at New Delhi also. So if they stayed sixty miles off from moon planet how is it that they could not go further sixty miles? This is most ludicrous. At least, we cannot believe such things. Sixty miles is no much difference. It is almost in the same atmosphere.

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

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

Prabhupāda: So these are different stages. Just like the sun. The first experience of sun is this impersonal effulgence all over the sky. But that is not very important than the sun globe. Because it is from the sun globe the effulgence is coming. So anyone will understand that this sunshine is not so important as the sun globe. And if you approach the sun globe and if you penetrate into the sun, if you have got strength to go into the... Just like you are trying go to the moon planet. If you have got really scientific strength to go within the sun planet, then you'll find there is sun-god. That information we get from Bhagavad-gītā. Imaṁ vivasvate yogaṁ proktavān aham avyayam (BG 4.1). "I told the sun-god Vivasvān first." So therefore there is a person. And why not a person? Your imagination is not ultimate truth. We get information from Kṛṣṇa, there is a person, Vivasvān. So there is a person, he's sitting there. Person, globe, sun, sunshine.

Discussion with Guests -- December 23, 1969, Boston:

Prabhupāda: So it is a great science. It is not bogus propaganda. And based on Bhagavad-gītā and Vedic literatures. Not that it is imaginary. No. There is...(inaudible), realized persons. There is chance of...(inaudible). So if you are here now, take advantage of this great science. And we are prepared to submit... (many people talking)

Guest (2) (Indian man): I want to love everyone.

Prabhupāda: Then you... That is bogus. You cannot love everybody. If you love God, then you can love everybody. Because God is everything. So just like if you pour water on the root...

Guest (2): If God is everything, then why don't you, not loving one by one? Why...?

Prabhupāda: Yes. But you... That is... Just like if you love one tree, then you have to pour water on the root. Not that every leaf. If you want to maintain your body, then you have to supply foodstuff in the stomach. Not to your eyes. Not to your ear. When you get a nice cake, you don't put it here. You put it here. Why? That is the process. There are nine holes in your body.

Discussion with Guests -- December 23, 1969, Boston:

Prabhupāda: If you go to the sun, you... You cannot go. You have no imagination what is sun, although you see it. How can I say that sunshine and sun is all the same?

Guest (3): No. You don't have to have imagination. You have to have insight. That's... That's...

Prabhupāda: What is that insight? Do you think that sunshine and sun, they can be, is one?

Guest (3): Everything is the same.

Prabhupāda: No, you cannot say that, that the temperature of the sun and the temperature of the sunshine is the same.

1970 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- November 7, 1970, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: These are also done within these five years.

Guest (1): And that too, in the foreign countries, to establish that, it is...

Guest (2): Yes, it's a wonderful thing. I was all the while imagining, imagining...

Prabhupāda: So I went in U.S.A. without any sponsor. No, I... That is the... One gentleman sponsored for one month, one month only. Not even one month. I remained there only three weeks, and then I chalked out my plan. He was my friend's son, and my friend wrote him that "You sponsor Swamiji for one month."

Guest (1): Some American gentleman?

Prabhupāda: No, Indian, one gentleman from Agra. So his son immediately sent me, sponsoring. But still, the government objected that "We cannot allow you to go there because you are sponsored by an individual person." But I wanted to see chief controller of, what is called, foreign exchange, Mr. Rao. So he kindly accepted. "Yes, Swamiji, you can go." He fought.

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1970, Indore:

Haṁsadūta: Ten lakhs. They can give the full amount?

Prabhupāda: Yes, why not? This man... It is to be very carefully tackled. This king is going to die very soon. And as soon as the king dies, the queen's position is very precarious, almost finished. So if she becomes our president, she'll continue to keep her honor and prestige. That's a fact. She's a good lady. We have no objection to make her the president of the local center. And she is American. She will be able to tackle these American boys and girls with motherly affection. And we shall keep her always in good respect so that throughout her life she shall be honored all over as she was, as she was honored with her husband. This is a fact. So you have to convince her. And I think if the other ladies who are..., her daughter-in-law and granddaughters, like that... Because her son is dead. He was the king. This old man being invalid, his son was king. And I think that middle-aged woman was there. You have marked this? She might be her daughter-in-law and the young girls might be grandchildren. One of them, one of the daughters, girl, was very beautiful. So it appears that she comes from the royal family. Rāja-kanyā King's daughters are very beautiful. That is fabulous in India, king's daughter, rāja-kanyā. In India if anybody gets a good dowry and a beautiful wife it is said, arddhe rajatva eka rāja-kanyā(?) Actually we have seen in..., when Devaki was married to Vasudeva, how much dowry. Can anyone imagine now? So many thousands of horses, chariots, elephants, maidservants, all decorated with gold ornaments. One cannot imagine even at the present moment. Therefore they talk of "legends." But actually such dowries were given when a king's daughter was married. Not only royal family, even in ordinary family still, those who are rich, they spend lots of money to be married, either son's marriage or daughter's. When one spends lots of money during the marriage of one's daughter and son he is considered to be really rich man. That is the proof that he is rich man. So we can begin. He cannot rise, this, what is called, Muktananada? That's all right.

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1970, Indore:

Prabhupāda: Oh. So we were talking of Ajamila, a brāhmaṇa resident of Kānyakubja, presently known as Kanauj. So, kānyakubje dvijaḥ kaścid asit patir..., asit kaścid dāsī-patir ajāmilaḥ, nāmnā naṣṭa-sadācāro dāsyaḥ saṁsarga-dūṣitaḥ. That, what is known as, at the present, prostitute, they were know as dāsya, dāsī. (aside:) Don't make sound, "cut, cut." Silent. Dāsī... The kṣatriya kings also, when they married, with dowry many maidservants would follow the queen. That was the kṣatriya system. So Ajamila was the illegal husband of a prostitute, dāsī, dāsī-pati. Actually one should be husband of dharma-pati, religiously married, not a friend or a husband of illegal marriage. That is not allowed. Dāsī-patir ajāmilaḥ nāmnā... Ajāmila nāmnā. His name was Ajāmila. Why the sound is in...? It is not possible to charge? "Cut, cut cut, cut." Naṣṭa-sadācāraḥ. Sadācāra means good behavior. Why good behavior was lost? Dāsyaḥ saṁsarga-dūṣitaḥ. Because he was associating with a prostitute, illegal sex. Therefore, anyone who wants to make progress in spiritual life, he must be sadācāra. His behavior must be very regulated. Asadācārī, unclean, nonregulated, cannot make any progress. If somebody says that "Whatever you like, you can do. There is no difference. You can imagine your own way..." This is going on nowadays. "Whatever you like, you can do. You can imagine your own way of self-realization." But that is not recommended in the Vedic literatures. One must be sadācāra. This is the beginning of sadācāra, to rise early in the morning, to cleanse, then chant, or chant the Vedic mantras or, simplified as in the present age, Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, mahā-mantra. This is the beginning of sadācāra. So sadācāra means to become freed from sinful reaction.

Room Conversation -- December 17, 1970, Surat:

Guest (1) (Indian man): Māyāvādīs may die like that, imagining... (Hindi) Ara saba bhṛtya.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They are after, inquiring after Brahmān, but nobody could give them. So they have got it. Now they are taking it. This is stage. (Hindi) That is the stage, sannyāsa stage. So these hippies, they are also giving up all work, that is sannyāsa, but there is no guide. There is no guide. And because they have no guide, therefore their intelligence is not being purified. Simply there is a propensity for renunciation, tyāga. But tyāga...(Hindi) After renunciation, what is the next stage, they do not know. That we are giving: "Yes, come here. Stand here." (laughs) Is it not?

Haṁsadūta: Yes. Exactly.

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 17, 1971, Allahabad:

Prabhupāda: That you have to learn from the authorized Vedic literature. You cannot imagine. You cannot speculate. You have to learn from authority.

Guest (1): Authority...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Suppose if you want to go to Germany. Now you have no idea how the German people live or their, how they are, what is their culture. So you have to learn. Here is a boy, German. You have to learn from him what kind of life there is. Similarly, there is a life like that. Now, what kind of life that is, we have to ask from a person who has realized that life.

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

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, more than three thousand, three thousand initiated. And outside admirers, there are many, many. And this means these three thousand who have accepted the principles, just like these boys. So there are fifty-five branches. In each branch we are maintaining twenty-five to hundred students. So just imagine.

Prof. Kotovsky: But does that mean the students, they abstain for normal West European universities their own, all their... How to explain it? Their... For instance, can a normal student from, for instance, from one of the best universities, who is attending lectures in normal way, etc., also be initiated and admitted to your community?

Prabhupāda: No, both ways. Both ways. If you want to be initiated, you are welcome. If not, you come. Try to understand our philosophy. Read our books. There are so many books, magazines. And question, answer. Try to understand the philosophy. It is not that all of a sudden a student comes and becomes our disciple, no. They first of all come, associate, try to understand. Then... We do not canvass.

Room Conversation -- August 17, 1971, London:

Prabhupāda: That you consider. That we imagine.

Haṁsadūta: That's why I'm asking. Or like in this world, so many living entities are forming of one spiritual form.

Prabhupāda: In one sense it is right. They are spiritual molecules. Yes. Here also, spiritual molecules, but here it is called material because there is no sense of Kṛṣṇa.

Śyāmasundara: Forgetfulness. They are covered by ignorance.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Revatīnandana: The cowherd boy with Kṛṣṇa, he is also vibhinnāṁśa expansion. Correct?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation with Dr. Weir of the Mensa Society -- September 5, 1971, London:

Dr. Weir: Oh, I'm sorry, that's the place (indistinct) I thought you meant the battle was still on.

Prabhupāda: No. Battlefield, where the battle was fought, took place, that is still there. There is a railway station, Kurukṣetra. And that Kurukṣetra is still dharmakṣetra, a religious place. People go on pilgrimage, and in the Vedas also it is stated that Kurukṣetra is (Sanskrit), you perform religious rituals in Kurukṣetra. Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre (BG 1.1). It is fact, historical fact. It is not imagination. But many commentators have taken as imagination. Therefore they are misled. It is historical.

Room Conversation -- November 11, 1971, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Birla temple is speaking that Kṛṣṇa is kalpanā.

Guest (2): Kalpanā.

Prabhupāda: Yes, kalpanā. Māyāvādī theory is brahma nirākāra, so... (Hindi) You can imagine that God is so insignificant that you can imagine His form. This dangerous theory is going on in India. God is so insignificant that you can imagine at your whims whatever you like. Ramakrishna Mission is also preaching this, and now this big, big sannyāsī, they also preaching this. God is a subject matter for, of my imagination, He is so insignificant. You have seen the paper?

Guest (1): No. I haven't read this particular statement.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Rayananda(?), can you get that paper, Hindustan?

Guest: Quite surprising. He's quite a learned scholar.

Prabhupāda: The learned scholar, they have been described in Bhagavad-gītā, māyaya apahṛta-jñānā asurī-bhāvam āśritāḥ. Because they have taken this view that God is impersonal, He has no form, this is āsurī. Then māyaya apahṛta-jñānā. Therefore, however learned they may be, māyā takes away their knowledge. Māyaya apahṛta-jñānā asurī-bhāvam āśr... That is described in the Bhagavad-gītā. (Hindi) The Absolute Truth, that is subjected to be imagined by me. I am a tiny soul. And if a learned sannyāsī says like that, how many thousands of people will believe in that, will be wrongly impressed? This paper will be read by thousands and millions. (Hindi) ...hodge-podge.

Room Conversation -- November 11, 1971, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: To imagine. By imagination one is going to tattva-vit, Absolute Truth. Just see the theory. By imagination you have to reach the tattva-vit. Tattva means Absolute Truth, reality, and that is subjected to man's imagination.

Guest: It seems, Swamiji, this is the headline which is not a Akhandananda's statement. Only the reporter has put up the headline.

Prabhupāda: But people will read as Akhandananda's...

Guest: Yes, sir.

Guest (2): Why don't you read the whole matter? Śrīla Prabhupāda says, he says, and he says it very wrongly, that (indistinct). You read the whole matter,. The summary of the whole matter is the same. This is very wrong.

Prabhupāda: Vasudeva, you just, you can read the whole thing. It is imagination. Tattva... (break) ...imagine yourself, that "My lover will be like this, like this, like that." In this way he will reach to the reality. Do you think it is very nice argument?

Guest: (Hindi conversation with Prabhupāda) He is not a bhakta.

Room Conversation -- November 11, 1971, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti dhanañjaya (BG 7.7). "There is no higher reality than Me." Are we imaginists? Kṛṣṇa says that mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti dhanañjaya (BG 7.7). "There is nothing," I mean, "as higher reality that Me." And these people are taking Him as mūrta-vigrahaḥ, kalpanā. (Hindi)

Guest: (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: No. Why this word kalpanā is there? That is, that is my point. Kalpanā means something false imagination. Kalpanā is not reality, and Kṛṣṇa says that "There is no higher reality than Me." And He became the subject matter of my kalpanā. (Hindi)

Guest: (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Let it become reality.

Guest: (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: Why this word should be used as kalpanā? I don't think the newspaper reporter can write in that way unless this word was actually spoken.

Room Conversation -- November 11, 1971, New Delhi:

Guest: He says imagination is the supermost.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Guest: (reading Hindi)

Prabhupāda: (Hindi conversation) Bhagavān is sac-cid-ānanda vigrahaḥ. Bhagavān says, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ, (BG 10.8) ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā. (Hindi) sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya sambhavanti murtayaḥ (BG 14.4). Ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā. So practical experience (Hindi). Īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ anādir ādir govindaḥ sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam (Bs. 5.1). (Hindi) They have been cut with two hands because I have got really two hands. (Hindi) Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22). (Hindi) Origin, I am spirit soul. (Hindi) Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūta (BG 15.7). (Hindi) Bhagavān katha mamaivāṁśo. So bhagavān nirākāra. Bhagavān avajānanti māṁ mūḍhāh, mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam (BG 9.11). (Hindi) is for imagination.

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Author -- April 1, 1972, Sydney:

Prabhupāda: But if he is actually, anyone wants to see, so he should see our books also, magazines also. Why does he not see? We, our, send our boys in the streets with books. If you are not liking this saffron dress and dancing, why don't you read the books?

Author: No. I don't think you take my point. What I am saying is that... Let us imagine that the reader who picks up the book, this book that I am going to write, I hope, is very much like a person who sees the devotees dancing in the street, because he is seeing something for the first time. Now, it's necessary, surely, to describe the external and superficial features.

Prabhupāda: It is not superficial. This dancing is spiritual ecstasy. Otherwise it is not a dog's dance. You see? Any gentleman, if I ask you, "Please dance on this footpath," will you agree? It is not that dancing. You don't compare with that dancing. It is not dog's dance. They chant, they feel, they dance. That is another thing. You try to understand it. If they are coming from respectable families... Now, here is a boy. He is a professor. So if I ask him, "Please go and dance on the footpath," will he agree? A professor will agree? But when a professor dances, there is something. You should understand.

Room Conversation -- April 2, 1972, Sydney:

Devotee (2): Māyāvādīs, are they thinking like that, Kṛṣṇa is...

Prabhupāda: Yes, "He is ordinary man. A little better than me, that's all." That Dr. Frog's philosophy. Atlantic was "That's all right, may be little one feet more than this well, that's all." He cannot imagine that millions of wells will be not compared. That he cannot begin. He says, "Yes, it may be bigger, say one foot bigger, two feet bigger. All right, ten feet bigger, make compromise." That's all. He will never think that beyond his estimation. Never think. He'll simply calculate, "All right, if not one, two feet, three feet. All right, ten feet." And the friend will say, "No, no, it is very, very great."

Conversation with the GBC -- May 25, 1972, Los Angeles:

Śyāmasundara: He can oversee some foreign...

Prabhupāda: Yes, he has this book department. Book department and... They may move according to convenience, Bali-mardana and Karandhara. He has got also very responsibility, with this department, that department. He has to purchase small houses. So big brain (indistinct). So similarly, you also think on the books. Everyone take big responsibility. Then we have to serve this mission. The people are foolish, they have forgotten God. We are delivering them. Best service. And without God, it is all useless, zero, all this civilization. Zero. Whatever they are making advancement, it is all zero. And nonsense. But actually it is. Now the priestly order supporting homosex. I was surprised. They are going to pass resolution for getting married between man to man. The human society has come down to such a degraded position. It is astonishing. When I heard from Kīrtanānanda Mahārāja there is a big conference for passing this resolution. In India still, if there somebody hears about homosex (makes sound of breathing out). Homosex is there but nobody will support publicly. (indistinct) People are going down and this is the subject matter for priestly order? It may be subject matter for the legislator, priestly order, they are discussing for one week. Just imagine. Phalena paricīyate, one has to study by the result. Not that superficially you show that "We are very much advanced." Phalena, what is the result? Phalena paricīyate, your, that is in English word also, end justifies the means. The end is this (indistinct) "We are going to support homosex." Getting married. There are many cases the priestly order has actually got married.

Morning Walk -- June 29, 1972, San Diego:

Prabhupāda: I don't think it is possible. It is simply imagination.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: It's the cows which are producing each other, it's not the man that is producing. But they artificially try to make them fat fast.

Prabhupāda: And what is the harm if they live?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Excuse me, Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: There is enough grass.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Yes, yes.

Devotee (1): This is a nice park.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- July 4, 1972, New York:

Prabhupāda: You should insert articles. It is reality. It is not speculation. Nothing, our activity, is speculation or imaginary. Everything is fact. We should present in that way. Either picture or philosophy, anything. They are all facts. People may not take it as something imagination. That argument will be there. Just like here there is a picture, Dakṣa is with a goat head. But they may not take it as imagination. That is possible. It is fact.

Devotee (9): So the..., our business is to present it in such a way that people will...

Prabhupāda: Yes, people will understand it is reality, not sentiment or fictitious. Because they have been instructed by rascals that all these Vedic literatures, they are allegories. Or, how do they call it?

Devotees: Mythology.

Prabhupāda: Mythology. So we are presenting facts, not mythology. That should be the spirit of all our artists and philosophy, writing.

Room Conversation and Interview with Ian Polsen -- July 31, 1972, London:

Prabhupāda: Hm. Comparative religion, from our point of view, that there cannot be many religions, cannot be many religions. Religion means... We define religion as the law given by God. So we understand from Bhagavad-gītā that God says, Kṛṣṇa says, man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ, mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru: "Always think of Me, become My devotee, offer your obeisances unto Me." So any religion that has no conception of God, how he can think of God? If I think of something, that something must be known to me; otherwise how can I think of it? If I imagine something, that is not wanted. My imagination of God... God is not a thing to be imagined by me. He is a concrete thing. Therefore according to our philosophy, any so-called religion which has no conception of God, that is not religion. That is simply mental speculation. We accept that religion means the law given by God. But if you do not know what is God, what is His law, then where is religion? Therefore in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is said that all types of pseudo religion is rejected. You can ask any religious man, "What is your conception of God?" he cannot give any clear conception. So far we are concerned, we can immediately give conception of God—His name, His address, everything. That is the difference. Strictly speaking, we do not accept any system of religion as bona fide. They are all rejected. That is not religion. They do not know what is God.

Room Conversation and Interview with Ian Polsen -- July 31, 1972, London:

Prabhupāda: It is suffering. When it is not serving, therefore it is suffering, and when it is serving, there is no suffering. Two things. There cannot be three things. This is very scientific. It is not imagination. The finger is not serving me means it is diseased. It is suffering. So they're not accepting this process. We say that you are suffering because you're not serving God. You serve God, your sufferings will be gone. Do you think our philosophy is all right, or not?

Ian Polsen: I accept it completely. Yes.

Morning Walk Conversation -- September 28, 1972, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That is explained in Bhāgavatam: satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi (SB 1.1.1). Finally proof.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: If there would be no ideality, the scientists cannot think about ideality itself.

Devotee (1): (indistinct) think about the concept of living eternally because this was the teaching of the church that I was going to. And I used to become very frightened at having to go on and on forever because I couldn't imagine what I'd be doing during all that time. I used to try to put some end to it all. Now in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we understand that eternity is filled up with ideal activities and that eternal life is very blissful and full of knowledge. This concept is not there in any other teaching. (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: The scientist says there is no life after death.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, they do not know that. They do not say also, they do not know that. They do not say that there is not life after death because they do not know.

Devotee (1): There is one plan to freeze people at the time of death. This is actually going on now—to be awoken out of such frozen state when the science is advanced...

Prabhupāda: That means there is no life. If you want to keep it frozen, that means after this body there is no life.

Morning Walk Conversation -- September 28, 1972, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: But there are so many laws, infinitum. The divisions, (indistinct) infinitum.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually, all physical laws are discovered by mathematics. Beyond our imagination.

Prabhupāda: Just like in our childhood we were thinking a gramophone machine, how it can speak without a man? There must be a man within.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So everything comes to Śrīla Prabhupāda's..., that nice comment on the frog's philosophy, Dr. Frog. That is I think what's happening.

Jayatīrtha: Just like that man who was searching for the touchstone in the garbage heap (indistinct). How will I find a touchstone in the garbage heap? (indistinct) story on college campuses.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I put some posters in the campus for Long Beach engagement. Somebody was asking me, "What is this knowledge, transcendental knowledge?" "You should come and find out. Please come and find out."

Prabhupāda: Physics has nothing to do with spirit. (break) ...manufacture the subtle(?) parts of motorcar, easily you can go. So this rascal thinking this is advancement, says, "I am killing the soul. The soul is going to become a dog next life after riding motorcar." That is written, and they have no knowledge. But because you have advanced from bullock cart to motorcar, this is.... So rascal they are. They have no knowledge what is advancement.

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

Prabhupāda: You do not require to pass the milk through the finger, then with the toes. No. Simply put the tea, tea or milk, within, and every part of the body is satisfied. Just like you pour water in the root of the tree. The energy immediately, I mean to say, distributed to the leaves, to the tree, to the flowers, to the fruits, everything, immediately. Similarly, there must be something which is the root of everything. That is God. The Vedānta philosophy says God means the origin, the source of everything. That is God. Now you can imagine how that source should be. That is also explained. But God, or the Absolute Truth, is that, is the original source of everything.

Introduction Speech By Dr. Kapoor and Conversation -- October 15, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No, there is no such thing.

Dr. Kapoor: Modern conception of speed is within the sphere of time. But our journey transcends time. Naturally it has to be faster than any journey you can imagine.

Prabhupāda: No. We speak from the śāstra. There is no question of imagination. We speak from śāstra. So we have explained, tried to explain these things in Easy Journey to Other Planets. And people are taking it very nicely. It is sold very quickly, very quickly. (break) I would like to see you that you are living in palaces.

Yaśodānandana: We want to put Kṛṣṇa in palace.

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is giving you the opportunity, you Americans. Now you are taking Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you will be the most opulent nation of the world. Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa both. You have got Lakṣmī, but if you take Nārāyaṇa, Lakṣmī will be permanent. Lakṣmī will not go. And if you reject Nārāyaṇa, then Lakṣmī will stay for some time. That is Cañcalā. Her name is Cañcalā. The British empire has failed, the Roman Empire has failed, the so many empires, the Mogul empire has failed, because they wanted Lakṣmī, not Nārāyaṇa. If you take Nārāyaṇa, your Lakṣmī will stay. Just try to convince your countrymen, just like President Nixon. It is Kṛṣṇa's desire that I was dictated to go to America, because Kṛṣṇa wants that you should take this Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Kṛṣṇa wants. So you have taken. Now spread. It will be grand success. And there are so many candidates, very nice. All right, go on, take... (end)

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- February 27, 1973, Jakarta:

Prabhupāda: They have manufactured different types of religions (indistinct). All these Radhaswami, (indistinct), Jains, Sikhs, they have manufactured... (indistinct) And our Vedic regulations (indistinct) Just like such a great personality as Buddha, simply he said that I do not follow the Vedic principles. (indistinct) That Buddhism could not flourish, although Buddhism began from India. (indistinct) He started this Buddha but because he did... Simply he said that I do not accept your Vedas, immediately... Such a great personality (indistinct) So anyone who does not follow the śāstra, the essence of śāstra is (indistinct) So anyone who studies Bhagavad-gītā minutely, (indistinct). These European, American boys, because they're strictly following the instruction of Bhagavad-gītā, (indistinct). Only thing is they're following (indistinct) śāstra. (indistinct) ...waste of time, śrama eva hi kevalam (SB 1.2.8). That is stated in the Bhāgavata. Simply wasting time. (indistinct) Prayer has failed all over the world because they are neglecting the (indistinct). Nobody goes to church. Churches, churches are now being sold. In London, have you been in London? There are hundreds and thousands of churches, they're simply (indistinct), nobody goes there. Not only in England, in America also. In America still, they are going on, because there are (indistinct) churches, but in England I will say, it is (indistinct). Very, very nice, you have been to (indistinct)? (indistinct) ...so excellent church, there is one flaw, very big church, well constructed. Now the church authority, desiring that the somebody, he's imagining (indistinct), he's imagining that this is such a nice church so our... Government has sent somebody to take this church, he's thinking Americans may take... No, why Americans will be interested to take the church, as it is... But he's thinking... That means he wants to dismantle the church.

Morning Walk At Cheviot Hills Golf Course -- May 13, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: So if the tree can produce so much chemicals, how much the body of God can produce chemicals, we can imagine only. They are giving the theory that "From these chemicals life begins, or evolution begins." But wherefrom that chemical developed? That they do not know. That explanation is here, Kṛṣṇa: "I am the source."

Paramahaṁsa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam or the Kṛṣṇa Book, you state that even clouds have souls. But then again they dissipate, in the rain they dissolve. Does that mean they die?

Prabhupāda: No. Just like your body dissolves. Does it mean you die?

Paramahaṁsa: So that means the life span of a cloud is very minute or very short. Is that so?

Prabhupāda: Yes, there are many living entities.

Morning Walk At Cheviot Hills Golf Course -- May 13, 1973, Los Angeles:

Paramahaṁsa: Scientists, they have proven the truth that the world is round. Therefore scientists...

Prabhupāda: Yes. That must be, therefore the scriptures must be transcendental. Nonsense scripture, and people become nonsense. So except Vedic literature, all nonsense scripture. They are not scripture. Manufactured. This Bible was manufactured by the saint, this saint, that, according to their imagination. It was not spoken by Lord Jesus Christ. What was spoken by Jesus Christ, that they ignore: "Thou shalt not kill." They kill. Nobody is following Christian principle; neither Bible is perfect. But that, if we say, we will be shot. (laughter)

Paramahaṁsa: That is what they do now in the Vietnam. For God they are killing.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Paramahaṁsa: One of the reasons that the Vietnamese war was beginning was because Communists, being atheists, it was a fight between the theists and the atheists. This was an excuse given.

Prabhupāda: Yes. But that is quite all right. We also prepare to kill atheists.

Paramahaṁsa: But preach first.

Morning Walk At Cheviot Hills Golf Course -- May 15, 1973, Los Angeles:

Paramahaṁsa: No competition.

Prabhupāda: No competition. That is Bhagavān. Bhagavān means... We are giving this definition. Bhagavān means a perfect man. That's all. Now, just like man wants to wife, to have wife. So why there is, what is called, adulteration? He wants more than one wife. Just see, perfect Kṛṣṇa, He has got sixteen thousand wives, which you cannot imagine. Here is perfection. You cannot say that a man has no inclination to have more than one wife. That is there. So that propensity is, in perfection, is there in Kṛṣṇa. Therefore He is God.

Umāpati: They refer to it as the Don Juan complex.

Prabhupāda: Juan complex, what is that?

Umāpati: It's a character in Spanish history, fictional history. The perfect lover, the image that all men would like to be, the perfect lover.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So who can be perfect lover than Kṛṣṇa? Kṛṣṇa, He loves everyone. Where is that man, he loves everyone? The so-called patriot, they love their countrymen, but kill their animals. Why? Mr. Nixon loves his countrymen. Why not love his country cows? They are also born in the land. They require also. They have right to live, so why they are killed? That is imperfection. And Kṛṣṇa is embracing the calf, come on, and embracing Rādhārāṇī also. That is perfection. That is perfection. Kṛṣṇa talks with birds. These are there. One day on the bank of Yamunā He was talking with a bird. One old lady saw and said, "Oh, He's talking with a bird?" That is perfection.

Room Conversation with Krishna Tiwari -- May 22, 1973, New York:

Prabhupāda: Just like I was speaking that the measurement of the living entity is such and such. So how God has become so small? Aṇor aṇīyān mahato mahīyān. This is... This we can simply imagine: one ten-thousandth part of the tip of the hair. I don't think any scientist can have any measuring instrument.

Krishna Tiwari: I think that can be measured.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Krishna Tiwari: I think they can measure that.

Prabhupāda: How think?

Krishna Tiwari: It can be measured.

Prabhupāda: It can be measured?

Krishna Tiwari: Yes.

Prabhupāda: It can be measured; otherwise how it is said?

Krishna Tiwari: Very easily measured.

Room Conversation with Krishna Tiwari -- May 22, 1973, New York:

Prabhupāda: So there is somebody above the state laws; otherwise how the state laws is made?

Krishna Tiwari: Well, I don't know which, somebody, in which sense we try to imagine it.

Prabhupāda: Why not imagine it? As soon as you say law, there must be law-giver.

Krishna Tiwari: Oh, I agree with that, but when you say law-giver, see, people get different concepts. For, for...

Prabhupāda: Why different concepts? Law-giver, just like...

Krishna Tiwari: For you, law-giver may be something, for me, law-giver may be something else.

Prabhupāda: No, law-giver is the same thing for you and me. Just like state laws comes from the government.

Krishna Tiwari: Government is nothing. This comes from people.

Prabhupāda: Anyway, there is an institution which is called government. It may be people.

Room Conversation with Krishna Tiwari -- May 22, 1973, New York:

Prabhupāda: You cannot avoid it. So everyone is under the laws the nature. Let us decide on that. Now these laws of nature, these also controlled by somebody else. As we gave the example that every individual person within a state is controlled by the laws of government or laws of king. Now it is governed by democracy. Formerly it was under the king. So king is a person. He gives the law, and under that law all citizens are controlled. This is a fact. Therefore the laws of nature is controlled by somebody, controller, and we get this information from Vedic knowledge. And practically it is so, that just by the example, law must be given by somebody. Law is not blind, or something dropped from the sky. Law is law. It is made by somebody. That is law. It is working systematically. That is law. So when there is systematic law, there is systematic law-giver, controller, supervisor, superintendent. So we are not imagining, but we'll take it from authority, Vedic information, which is accepted by a great culture, great ācāryas, great teachers.

Room Conversation with Krishna Tiwari -- May 22, 1973, New York:

Krishna Tiwari: This is all imagination according to me. I mean it's all imagination and belief at this point to me. I mean I have no objection...

Prabhupāda: No, what is the imagination? Not here, imagination. When you learn from a, a... Just like the law of gravitation, it is not imagination.

Krishna Tiwari: Well law of gravitation, anything we know about gravity did not come from Vedas.

Prabhupāda: Not from Veda, but it comes from Mr. Newton.

Krishna Tiwari: Yes, that what I was saying...

Prabhupāda: So therefore you take the laws of gravitation from Mr. Newton.

Krishna Tiwari: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So there is an authority.

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

Prabhupāda: Again, the same... You are comparing with yourself. Because your person can stay in one place only. That means you are simply comparing the Personality of Godhead with your personality. That you have to forget. He, He stays everywhere. Goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūtaḥ (Bs. 5.37). Therefore we have to consult the authoritative Vedic literature. This answer is there, that goloka eva nivasaty, "He is living in Goloka Vṛndāvana; still, He is everywhere." You cannot think of. You are in this apartment. You are not in your office. But Kṛṣṇa, although He's in Goloka Vṛndāvana, He's everywhere, in everyone's heart. He's seeing everything. That you cannot imagine, how it is possible. That means you want to compare with your, this foolish, imperfect personality with God's personality. That is our defect. He's distinct from our personality, but He's a person. Yes. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām eko bahūnāṁ yo vidadhāti kāmān (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). He's also a person like us, He's also living entity like us. But what is the difference? He's the maintainer; we are maintained. How many persons you can maintain? A family of two children and one wife, you are embarrassed. And He's maintaining everyone. Eko bahūnāṁ yo vidadhāti... Innumerable living entities, He's supplying food everyone.

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

Prabhupāda: A family of two children and one wife, you are embarrassed. And He's maintaining everyone. Eko bahūnāṁ yo vidadhāti... Innumerable living entities, He's supplying food everyone. He's supplying food the ants within the hole of your room there are thousands of ants. You are not supplying food. How they are getting food? Similarly, you go to the African jungle. There are thousands and millions of elephants. They eat one at a, oh, huge quantity. He's giving food. Eko bahūnāṁ yo vidadhāti kāmān. In the air, within the water, there are so many living entities. In the air there are so many living entities. On the land there are so many living entities. Everywhere. How He's feeding? That is the distinction between God's personality and our personality. We are embarrassed to maintain a family of four, five members, and He is maintaining the whole family of living entities. Not only one planet, there are innumerable planets. And not only innumerable planets, the one universe, then innumerable universes. And these, all these taken together, this is one-fourth creation of God. So three-fourth creation is of the spiritual world. Just imagine how big it is. All of them being maintained by that one. This is the difference. (Someone comes in). Come on. Eko bahūnāṁ yo vidadhāti kāmān. This is the distinction. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Conversation with Mr. Wadell -- July 10, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: But you cannot say that things which are beyond our imagination cannot be known. You cannot say that. Can be known, provided you have got the real process.

Mr. Wadell: I'm afraid I must make, so far as I am concerned, a clear division between what I know and what I believe. There are certain things... It is maybe, partly a use of words, but whereas I know that I am here and that I have people in..., I am in the same room with other men...

Prabhupāda: Do you think that this process, as I have suggested, to know one's father through the authority of the mother is not perfect?

Mr. Wadell: Oh, well, I think it's as near perfect as you can get.

Prabhupāda: Why you say, "as near"? Why still doubt?

Mr. Wadell: Because it is not quite the same thing as my knowing that I am here. There's a famous French philosopher who began all his philosophy from the phrase "I am conscious; therefore I know that I exist." And he deduced everything, you know, starting from here.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That's a fact. You are conscious, I am conscious, that's a fact. It is not the question of belief. It is not question of belief. Belief may be wrong, but fact is fact.

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

Kṛṣṇa-bhāminī: The idea was that everyone should be pleased, that everyone should take...

Prabhupāda: No, where is the... In France, everyone is pleased? That is the imagination. You see. Vox populi, peoples' government. People, generally, general people, they are fools and rascals. How a government of fools and rascals can improve? It's not possible. They're ignorant. Abodha-jāta. They have no knowledge. The knowledge of eating, sleeping, mating, defending, that is animal knowledge. Everyone knows it. How to eat, nobody requires any education. How to sleep, nobody requires and any education. How to have sex life, nobody requires any education. How to defend, nobody requires education. They are not subject matter of education. Everyone knows it, how to do it. The modern education means they are on this subject matter. Just like that rascal, Freud?

Haṁsadūta: Freud.

Prabhupāda: He has written a big philosophy on sex life. Does it require any education? Anyone knows how to use sex life. And he has written big book. Similarly, defense also: they are making big, big arrangements, atomic bomb. I am making atomic bomb, you are making... Similarly, sleeping: big, big skyscraper building; eating: start thousands of slaughterhouse. Formerly also there were meat-eaters. But did they maintain slaughterhouse? "All right, I want to eat meat. Just go in the forest. Kill one animal. That's all. Pick it up." So this advancement of civilization means advancement of slaughterhouse, advancement of skyscraper building, advancement of atom bomb, advancement of Freud philosophy. This is advancement.

Room Conversation with Mister Popworth and E. F. Schumacher -- July 26, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: That is another thing. Generally, you should not kill. But when there is absolute necessity, that is another thing. But generally, this killing process you cannot support, and at the same time, you want to make the society purified. You commit sinful activities; at the same time, you want to purify. How it is possible?

Schumacher: I think a society can survive, and spirituality can survive, even among meat-eaters. It's much more difficult, I imagine, that a society can survive which has animal factories. Now, I would be much more interested whether we can get our friends, the Dominicans, the Jesuits, to agree that this kind of a treatment of animals is just so, beyond the pale. This would be, in the European context, I think, a better test than to challenge the habit of meat-eating, which is also intergrown with all sorts of assumptions. I mean there is the ruling assumption that you need it, which I challenge and you challenge.

Room Conversation with French Journalist and UNESCO Worker -- August 10, 1973, Paris:

Dr. Inger: When I asked a group of priests at a meeting which was to celebrate the anniversary of a leading Catholic thinker, I.R. Shadder(?), I just asked him about the Sermon on the Mount, referring to similarities between the teachings of Sermon on the Mount and Hindu thought. He says, "You see, but the point is this, that the Sermon on the Mount is not meant for everybody. It is only meant for a very few. And therefore most of us, including the present company," he said, "cannot use it in everyday life." I said, "Do you mean it is only meant for monks?" He hesitated but said, "If you like, yes." But I said, "I imagined that this was meant for everyone and that anyone could follow it." And he said, "Well, it is too dangerous a teaching to give to everyone."

Prabhupāda: Just see. And therefore I say, "Cheater and cheated." Yes. Similarly, scientists also. Recently in Los Angeles, California University, one professor, a big scientist came. He's a Nobel Prize owner. He described, gave lecture. He has written one book, on which he has got Nobel Prize, Evolution of Chemicals. He wants to prove by chemical, combination of chemical, life has come into existence. That is his theory, like Darwin's theory, that life is from matter or chemical. So after hearing the lecture, there is a professor also, a student, yes. He is also Doctor of Chemistry. He is my disciple. He inquired that "If I give you all these chemicals, whether you can produce life?" At that time he said, "That I cannot say." Just see. He is proposing that "From these chemicals, life has begun," and when he is questioned whether by supplying these chemicals he can produce a life, he said, "That I cannot say." This is going on. Then what is the... Then, if you cannot say, then why you are saying that from these chemicals life has come? So when they are caught up for practical purposes, they'll deny. And they are passing on as philosopher, as scientist, priest, and these things. Just see.

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

Prabhupāda: They will print it. They will supply in August or July, they said. They'll supply. So it has come out very successful. Just imagine, 200,000 copies distributed within one year.

Professor: In one year. That's very good.

Prabhupāda: And in America, our people go to saṅkīrtana. Many gentlemen comes down, gets down from the car, inquires, "You have got Bhaktivedanta's Bhagavad-gītā As It Is?" They purchase like that. Yes. At least, they have become inquisitive on account of the word "As It Is."

Professor: What?

Prabhupāda: "As It Is."

Professor: Oh, As It Is, yes.

Yogeśvara: Because of the fact that our title is "Bhagavad-gītā As It Is."

Professor: "As It Is."

Yogeśvara: "As It Is." Yes.

Professor: Yes.

Morning Walk -- August 30, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: You know? I don't think you know. Who can explain what is that frog philosophy?

Śyāmasundara: Frog philosophy is trying to imagine the size of the Atlantic Ocean never having left my well.

David Lawrence: Oh, I see, yes. Completely beyond one's experience.

Prabhupāda: Yes. No, especially of the Mr. Frog, Dr. Frog. He has never seen what is Atlantic Ocean and somebody informed him, "Oh I have seen such a vast mass of water." "Oh, is it bigger than this well?"

David Lawrence: Yes, beyond his conception.

Prabhupāda: These people are like frogs rotting in the well, and what they can understand of the Vedic knowledge?

David Lawrence: Yes.

Morning Walk -- August 30, 1973, London:

David Lawrence: No. Just passing on what has already been there.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is already there. When we speak of Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is already there. When we speak of Vṛndāvana, Vṛndāvana is already there. It is not that we have manufactured some picture, imagination, no. They take it like that. The rascals take it like that, that it is a kind of imagination of the poet. The Māyāvādī philosophers also take like that. But that's not the fact. It is actually presentation of the spiritual facts and as the spiritual activities are quite different from material activities, they misunderstand. They misunderstand.

Morning Walk -- August 30, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

David Lawrence: They're being, lacking in imagination really because they can't imagine what happens when God possesses a man.

Prabhupāda: Because Kṛṣṇa is lifting the Govardhana Hill, they are thinking this is imagination. But if actually Kṛṣṇa is God, is it very difficult for Him to lift a mountain? He's floating so many heavy planets in the air, so, weightlessness. If Kṛṣṇa can make weightless so many heavy planets, is it very difficult for Him to make the Govardhana Hill weightless?

David Lawrence: Not at all.

Prabhupāda: So these things have to be understood.

Room Conversation with Dr. Christian Hauser, Psychiatrist -- September 10, 1973, Stockholm:

Dr. Hauser: No. Yes. Or in specific processes which are directed towards insight, the same kind of insight that I imagine you are striving for.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We ask them to refrain from four prohibitive principles. No illicit sex, no gambling, no meat-eating, no intoxication. And chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. That's all. Refrain from these prohibitions. And chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. And he becomes sane, Kṛṣṇa conscious. Very easy.

Dr. Hauser: Yeah, it sounds easy. I hope it works.

Prabhupāda: You see all the examples. Well, the same... I have not given them any bribe or anything.

Dr. Hauser: No, no, no. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: That they'll talk in my favor. But talk with them.

Room Conversation -- September 19, 1973, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: ...kaṇḍūtivan manasijaṁ viṣaheta dhīraḥ. Dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13). If you can quote ślokas, that will be first-class. In India especially. In your country they do not care. Our Bhavānanda Swami, because he could not quote śloka, so he was saying, "Oh, because you have quoted some śloka, it is authorized?" He was saying like that. Western people, they cannot imagine that by quoting a Vedic version it becomes immediately authorized. They cannot imagine.

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

Prabhupāda: Bhagavān. Aiśvaryasya samagrasya vīryasya yaśasaḥ śriyāḥ, jñāna-vairāgyayoś caiva ṣaḍ iti bhagavān gaṇaḥ. (?)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They will say that is imagination.

Prabhupāda: Why imagination? It is not imagination. Just like I am a man. I have got hundred dollars. He has got thousand dollars. He has got four thousand or five thousand. In this way we see comparative. One is richer than other, other, other. Then why there shall not be somebody who is richest of all? We see practically. How can you deny? That is God. Power, strength—you are stronger than me, he is stronger than you, he is stronger, like that. But if we find somebody, that nobody is stronger than him, he is God. Education, beauty, all the six opulences, you compare. Because we see comparative, so there must be somebody ideal, above whom there is no more education, no more wisdom, no more beauty. That is God.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: That they are hesitant to accept.

Prabhupāda: Why they should be hesitant? That is their foolishness. We see comparative, superlative, in our experience.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They say the concept of God is just imagination.

Prabhupāda: Imagination? That is atheism. Why imagination? This is the definition of God, that in these six items-richness, beauty, wisdom, strength, influence... So we see, practical world, that there are superlative, comparative. So when it comes to the topmost superlative degree, that is God.

Morning Walk -- December 10, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prajāpati: No one equal to or greater than.

Prabhupāda: No, that you cannot find here in this material world. Anyone has relative position. Everyone will find somebody is greater than him, somebody is lower than him. He's not absolute, nobody. A rough estimate of supremacy: if one man has got, is very rich, he's considered great. If he has got influence, if he has got bodily strength, bodily beauty, wisdom, or renunciation... These are the six items for calculating a man's greatness. Therefore when you speak, "God, the Supreme," He must possess all these things. That is the definition given by Parāśara Muni. The other day we were discussing. Somebody said, "This is all imagination." Why imagination? Who was telling?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Scientist.

Prabhupāda: Scientist! (laughs) So how, why it is imagination? Your idea of supremacy, you must define. How do you accept here in this material world a person as supreme? Why? Why you accept Nixon as supreme person within your state? What is the cause?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Because he has some power.

Morning Walk -- December 10, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Eh? Yes. Because... Therefore acintya. How great He is, how great fortunate He is, that you cannot think of, you cannot estimate. That is called acintya. Acintya means I cannot conceive, I cannot estimate. Not only I, any big personality within this universe. Just like Brahmā says, "The others may say that he knows you, but so far I am concerned, I do not know you." That is inconceivable. Brahmā, the greatest personality within this universe, he also admits that "Others may say that he knows what You are, but from my personal experience, I say I do not know anything." We can simply partially see. Parāsya śaktiḥ. Just like we are seeing this material nature, partial exhibition of His potencies. This is one of the potencies, but He has got many potencies. Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). This material nature is only... This is also inferior potency. Apareyam. Bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ (BG 7.4). This material nature is made of earth, water, air, fire, ether, mind intelligence, ego. All these eight elements are separated inferior energy, and how much superior energies He has got. The superior energy is supposed to be the spiritual world, manifestation of the spiritual world. So if in the inferior material energy there are so many wonderful things, just imagine how much greater important wonderful things are there in the spiritual energy, which is called superior.

Morning Walk -- December 11, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That one of my important Godbrothers says. He's sincere. All others, they are rascals. He says that "In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta it is said pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi grāma. (CB Antya-khaṇḍa 4.126) So we were thinking that this is imagination, that Caitanya Mahāprabhu's cult would be spread all over the world, everyone will chant. So you have done it." So he's appreciating in that way. "But we are simply thinking that it is not possible, it is simply imagination. But that you have made it possible." So that is his appreciation.

Hṛdayānanda: Because you are so faithful. So (indistinct), more firmer. (break)

Devotee (3): That's what he says.

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

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

Morning Walk -- December 16, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That's a fact. But still, they are dangerous. That is said by Cāṇakya Paṇḍita. The serpent is so dangerous. That, Caitanya Mahāprabhu said. The serpent is so dangerous that even one imagines there is a serpent, he is, becomes afraid. You see? When Mahārāja Pratāparudra wanted to see Him and Sarvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya and others requested, that "He is a devotee." "But I know that he is a devotee, but because he is king, therefore I cannot see him." He gave this encou..., "The serpent even by imagination is also fearful." He said like that. And Cāṇakya Paṇḍita said, manina bhujitaḥ sarpa kim asau na bhayaṁkaraḥ. (?) A serpent... You know, sometimes they have got jewel. "So a serpent with jewel, does it mean that he is not fearful?" Even with jewel he is fearful. Therefore, the demon, even with high educational qualification, he is rascal. He is rascal, fearful.

Morning Walk -- December 17, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: At will. So the soul is still finer. Intelligence is finer than the mind. And soul is finer than the intelligence. So just imagine what is the velocity. Soul is so powerful. By yogi, simply giving up this material body, they can capture the sun rays and immediately go to the sun planet. Beams of the sun. This is science. Where is that science?

Prajāpati: Śrīla Prabhupāda, are thoughts made of matter or spirit?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Thoughts actually made by spirit, but it is covered by matter. Therefore in the material condition you can think only of matter. Just like this body is covered by so many material things, but actually, the spirit is covered. So the soul being spirit, so long it is covered by matter, it cannot act spiritually. It is obstructed. Not obstructed. Covered. It cannot be obstructed. If you like, you can get out of the covering of the matter. So matter cannot obstruct. But it is the will of the soul. Therefore it is called taṭastha, marginal.

Morning Walk -- December 20, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: (laughing) So just imagine where is light. In our side or their side? They are deprecating, "Bhagavad-gītā is now old. We require new knowledge." Still, we sold thousand copies.

Hṛdayānanda: Finally the Guru Maharaji said over the microphone, "Don't buy more of these Bhagavad-gītās." (laughter) He said it's not bona fide. I told Prabhupāda that when the devotees had a big kīrtana, all the people...

Prabhupāda: So what was the result, stopped?

Hṛdayānanda: Yeah, after that it was more difficult. After that, the devotees were preaching more to individuals. But that was already after a thousand Gītās had been sold. Everyone left their meeting and went out to see the kīrtana. They had to keep calling them back, over and over again, "Please, please come back." (end)

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 5, 1974, Los Angeles:

Karandhara: And I can bring the car over.

Prabhupāda: No, no, what is that? We shall not die. (devotees laugh)

Bali Mardana: We will melt.

Prajāpati: The soul cannot be wet.

Prabhupāda: No, it is pleasant. Viśvaṁ pūrṇa-sukhāyate. For a devotee, everything is very happy. There is no unhappiness. Any condition, they are happy. Viśvaṁ pūrṇa-sukhāyate. For nondevotees everything is a problem. (devotees laugh) And for devotee everything is happiness. That is the difference.

Devotees: Jaya. (thunder sounds in background)

Prabhupāda: This is fact. This is not imaginary..., I mean to say... Kṛṣṇa says, ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi (BG 18.66). The suffering is due to sinful activities. So a devotee is not acting sinfully; he's fully surrendered... (end)

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

Prabhupāda: Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-saṁpragamyo vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puṅgavānām (Bs. 5.34). Just like child. We are experiencing. As soon as we finish, cries. And give him something. "All right." So there must be something positive. Simply taking away, vacant that will not satisfy. He'll have to cry again, "Oh, I am vacant. I am vacant." So Māyāvādīs' position is like that. The karmīs, yogis, jñānīs, all they are fools. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, sarva-dharmān parityajya. (BG 18.66) "You rascal, you give up all these karmīs, yogis, jñānī, siddhi... Kick out." Mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. This is the instruction. "Only unto Me. Then you'll be satisfied." Then the karmīs may say, "Oh..." Because he has got idea, without working... Just like all these fools and rascals, they are surprised, "How these people do not work, and how are happy?" They cannot imagine that without working hard, one can eat, one can sleep. But when they see that our devotees, they do not work, they are nobody's servant, "How it is possible?" They cannot think. They cannot think. But it is possible. Therefore the... When Kṛṣṇa says that mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja, that, the karmīs, jñānīs, they are thinking, "Then how I will live? If I do not..., simply I become a devotee of Kṛṣṇa, how shall I live?" So therefore Kṛṣṇa assures: ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi (BG 18.66). "I shall give you protection." This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. "You first of all surrender unto Me; Then whatever you want, there will be supply."

Morning Walk -- February 17, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes, śānta-bhakta means the bhakta who appreciates the greatness of the Supreme, but does not take Kṛṣṇa as very intimate. That is śānta-bhakta.

Dr. Patel: How can, ah, can you imagine God without taking Him very intimately? These are two, I mean...

Prabhupāda: No, no. Just like... Intimately... Just like I can give this example, that you have got a great regard for me, but not as intimately as my other disciples.

Dr. Patel: Ah, that is possible. Because I am, I have not put on the order clothes.

Prabhupāda: This example is, I think, proper.

Dr. Patel: (laughs)

Prabhupāda: They have sacrificed their life for me.

Morning Walk -- February 23, 1974, Bombay:

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

Dr. Patel: Spiritually, they must be worthy.

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

Dr. Patel: Because you think of the thing.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: First going is mind going.

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

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

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

Dr. Patel: Khaṁ manaḥ eva ca.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They are all material.

Morning Walk -- March 29, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Pañcopāsanam means that the Absolute Truth is impersonal. You can imagine as person like this. This is pañcopāsanam. Sādhu kanam hita taya brāhmaṇa rūpa kalpana, kalpana.(?) "You just imagine one form." But Vaiṣṇava, he's not like that. Sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1). (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. Sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ.

Indian man (3): It says in the śāstra, Veda ca rasa...

Prabhupāda: When the question of śāstra comes, shall I read Bhagavad-gītā or this?

Indian man (4): All this things should be read together, because they are complimentary to each other. Everybody needs to...

Prabhupāda: We have no time to read the complimentary...

Indian man (4): (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: ...then what he'll read?

Indian man (4): Tathā śrīmad-bhagavad-gītā iti.

Prabhupāda: It is not possible that everyone has to read all the corollaries. The one, main... Bhagavad-gītā you read and learn, that I am stressing. That I am stressing.

Morning Walk -- April 3, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel:

paraṁ brahma paraṁ dhāma
pavitraṁ paramaṁ bhavān
puruṣaṁ śaśvataṁ divyam
ādi-devam ajaṁ vibhum
(BG 10.12)

Prabhupāda: Yes. So therefore, what is Kṛṣṇa, is to be understood from Arjuna. This is paramparā system. Paramparā system. Arjuna talked with Kṛṣṇa personally. So his experience is first-hand. So how this rascal can imagine of Kṛṣṇa, that "Kṛṣṇa is like this, Kṛṣṇa is like that." If you actually reading Bhagavad-gītā as Arjuna understood Kṛṣṇa, you have to accept it. This is called paramparā. So what is the experience of Arjuna? Arjuna said, "You are, you are the Supreme Personality, puruṣam. You are not female. You are not prakṛti. You are puruṣa, śaśvata, and the original, śaśvatam, eternally." Not that, the Māyāvādīs, "Now impersonal..." Yes, read one line. That is sufficient.

Morning Walk -- April 4, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Entered. So just like it is to be understood. He's very intelligent. Now, I am... As soul, my magnitude is described. What is that? Keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya śatadhā kalpitasya ca (CC Madhya 19.140). Keśa agra, the tip of the hair, divide into hundred parts. And again take that one part and again divide into hundred parts. Keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya śatadhā kalpitasya ca (CC Madhya 19.140). Now, it is simply, it is to be imagined. Kalpitasya. Jīva-bhāgaḥ sa vijñeyaḥ. That is the magnitude of the jīva. Now, that magnitude of jīva has entered in this body or in the elephant's body. Now, which is important, the body is important or that small particle is important?

Dr. Patel: Small particle is important.

Prabhupāda: Ah. Therefore those who are materialistic persons, they are amazed with the huge body of this universe. But Arjuna is saying that "On account of Your entering..." As this body has developed on account of entering, that minute particle or spiritual spark, similarly, there are innumerable universes. All these universes, they have developed. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa, Jaya. (break) ...Kṛṣṇa's entering as Garbhodakaśayī Viṣṇu. That is explained in the last chapter.

Morning Walk -- April 5, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: That is what we say.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Dvi-bhuja murlidhara śyāmasundara. Venuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣaṁ barhāvataṁsam asitāmbudha-sundarāṅgam (Bs. 5.30). Arcā-vigraha. Venuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣaṁ barhāvataṁ... Barha, this peacock feather. They are described in the Vedic literature, but these rascals say, "That it is imagination. They have imagined." The Māyāvādīs say, "They have imagined a form of God as Kṛṣṇa, with peacock feather, with murlī." But that's not the fact. The fact is there in the Vedic literature. So Kṛṣṇa has got this universal form, but the devotees are not interested with this universal form. But they know that Kṛṣṇa has universal form. Go on.

Dr. Patel: (reads next verse 11.21 in Sanskrit)

Girirāja: (reads synonyms) "Translation: All the demigods are surrendering and entering into You. They are very much afraid, and with folded hands they are singing the Vedic hymns."

Prabhupāda: When the demigods... They have to offer prayers to the Lord, instead of... How they can be worshiped on the equal level of God? How can they be worshiped on the...? That is forbidden. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Yas tu nārāyaṇaṁ deva. Jaya. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (some people come) Yas tu nārāyaṇaṁ devaṁ brahma-rudrādi-daivataiḥ, samatvena vikṣeta sa pāṣāṇḍī bhaved dhruvam (CC Madhya 18.116). Nārāyaṇam devam, the Supreme Personality of God Nārāyaṇa, if one makes Him on the equal position with such big, big demigods like Brahmā, Rudra, so immediately he becomes a pāṣāṇḍī. And now they are comparing with the daridra. Just see.

Morning Walk -- April 5, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: You do not understand. That is... You fight with me. Therefore I am reading this. Yes. We are speaking on Bhagavad-gītā, not your imaginary words. That is our point. How these rascals compare with, ordinary, poor man with Nārāyaṇa?

Dr. Patel: That is wrong.

Prabhupāda: That's right. Yes.

Dr. Patel: I say so, but immediately I understood, but we want to understand more and more. You say it is not possible to understand...

Prabhupāda: No, if you immediately understand, then immediately you forget also.

Morning Walk -- April 10, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Anna-vastra, anna-vastra-dhana. Charity means to give in charity anna and vastra and cows. (break) ...give in charity some paper, one hundred rupees. (laughs) Another cheating. And he is also satisfied, "One hundred rupees." What is this one hundred? It is a paper, a piece of paper. (break) ...earned, black market, white market. Because when one does business, he has to do it, but it should be purified. I have seen the Marwaris, they do that. Although when earning money, they don't care, they do anything, but they give in charity. (break) ...purify the body by taking bath, similarly, the wealth is purified by the charity process, giving it to the brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas. Just like Rūpa Gosvāmī. He accumulated much wealth. He brought in a big boat, all gold coins. So... So he distributed fifty percent to the brāhmaṇa and Vaiṣṇava and twenty-five percent he gave to the relatives, and twenty-five percent he kept for his personal emergency. This is example shown by Rūpa Gosvāmī. (break) Kṛṣi-go-rakṣya-vāṇijyam vaiśya-karma svabhāva-jam (BG 18.44). So where is that vaiśya, giving protection to the cows? Although they were village men, they were very rich. That is the old Vedic civilization. Now you go to the village—all poor. The cows are skinny, people have no home, no nice cloth. This is the position. And we are still advanced, advanced. They are proud of "advanced." And here is the... Just hear the description of the village, with cows only. So how much fallen we have become, we can just imagine.

Morning Walk -- April 11, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: These Māyāvādī philosophers, they create God. Anthropomorphism. What is that anthropomorphism.

Satsvarūpa: To imagine that God has a form. Man imagines God, not that God exists originally, but man imagines God based on his own form.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Anthropomorphism it is called. They create a form, but that is not the fact. God has His eternal form. That I explained. Sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1). Vigraha means form. And it is sac-cid-ānanda, means eternal, full of knowledge and... Just like Kṛṣṇa is speaking Bhagavad-gītā. People are accepting, because that is real knowledge. And nobody reads other books so carefully. And this Bhagavad-gītā is read all over the world. All big, big scholars, big, big philosophers, theologists, they read. Because that is real knowledge. That is the proof. It is real knowledge. Cit. Sac-cid. And one who is giving real knowledge, it is natural conclusion, he has got eternal body. We cannot give real knowledge because we forget. As we change our body, we forget. Just like at night we dream, but we forget the body, this body. In another body we go to some dreamland. So because we change body therefore we forget. And because Kṛṣṇa is giving knowledge perfect, past, present and future, therefore it means that He has got eternal body. This is the proof.

Morning Walk -- April 11, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, no, not controlling.

Indian Man (1): You have to believe or imagine some entity. It may be Kṛṣṇa or it...

Prabhupāda: No, no, how can you disbelieve? First of all, thing is how can you disbelieve? Believe or not believe, that is another question. How you can... This water has come from some source. So what is that source?

Yaśomatīnandana: By our logical research we can come to Bhagavad-gītā and find out Kṛṣṇa is the only person in the whole world who says that "This comes from Me."

Prabhupāda: Yes. Water comes from your body, perspiration. So why not from Kṛṣṇa's body? Simple reasoning. (break) ...ānanda-vigrahaḥ. (break) ...tap produces water. An inanimate object, a small material thing, it produces water. And Kṛṣṇa cannot produce such water? (break) ...potency. They are explained. But because we do not go to the right teacher, we do not understand. That is the difficulty.

Press Conference -- April 18, 1974, Hyderabad:

Guest (6): So you mean the lack of spiritual leadership has driven us to this state of affairs?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because there have been so many. Just like Bhagavad-gītā, it is standard book. The so-called spiritual leaders, they give different interpretation. Why different interpretation? One interpretation is there. Anyone can understand. Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). It is plain thing, Kṛṣṇa says that "You always think of Me." Man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ. "You become My devotee, you just worship Me, offer your obeisance." And Dr. Radhakrishnan says, "It is not to Kṛṣṇa personally." What right he has got to say like that? Kṛṣṇa says, man-manā bhava. Dr. Radhakrishnan says, "It is not to Kṛṣṇa." This is going on. Just see. He is scholar, he is a philosopher. Even Gandhi says that "There was no Kṛṣṇa; it is all mythology." Then? How people will learn it? If Kṛṣṇa becomes mythology, the Bhagavad-gītā becomes imagination and anyone can interpret in any way. Then where is the teaching?

Guest (7): Are the teachings themself spiritual?

Prabhupāda: No, no. First of all try to understand that what is the defect. The defect is that malinterpretation, bad interpretation. Interpretation is required when a thing you cannot understand. But if a thing is clearly understood, why you interpret to mislead the leader? That is our protest.

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

Yaśomatīnandana: So-called scholars like Rādhākrishnan says, "It is, Vyāsadeva, is some imaginary character."

Dr. Patel: Why they say even Vyāsadeva is imaginary?

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Dr. Patel: They say, some of them, there was not one Vyāsadeva, but multiple Vyāsas and all sorts of things.

Prabhupāda: So which Vyāsa you accept? There may be multiple but which Vyāsa? That means if someone... I do not know if there were multiple Vyāsadeva.

Dr. Patel: Vyāsa is the surname.

Prabhupāda: No, Vyāsa, Vyāsadeva... The guru is called Vyāsa. That is one... But the original Vyāsa is one. Just like we. We worship the birthday of guru as Vyāsa-pūjā day because guru is representative of Vyāsa. (break) ...eating, if this tāmbūla is offered and sandal pulp, it becomes a garland. It becomes very comfortable. Yes.

Yadubara: "When Akrūra finished eating..." (break)

Prabhupāda: The guest may be comfortable. Sukham āsīnam. He is seated very nicely, comfortably, then talk. This is the system. Receiving guests and talking. (break) "Beware of dog. Beware of dog. I am living with dog. Don't come here." He poses that "I am friend of... Dog is my best friend, so don't come here." Yes. His overfaithfulness has obliged him to take the body of a dog.

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

O'Grady: Oh, very... Yes, I accept the strong word.

Prabhupāda: Yes. There is no question of... Because we have defined God, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). God is He wherefrom everything emanates. That is God. So love, love or even fight. The fighting propensity is also there in God. And loving propensity is also there in God. But His fighting propensity and loving propensity—absolute. Just like in the material world we have got experience, fighting propensity is just opposite the loving propensity. But in God, either fighting propensity or loving propensity, they are one and the same, therefore He is absolute. That is the meaning of absolute. Just like we get from śāstras. The so-called enemies of God who is killed by God, he also attains perfection.

O'Grady: Yes, the vengeful... Yes, that I understand, the avenging God of Biblical imagination as against... Is it possible to do it all on your own, alone?

Prabhupāda: No. Therefore the Vedas say, tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). Abhigacchet means "he must." It is not possible alone. This word, this abhigacchet, this verb, is used in Sanskrit grammar... This is called vidhiliñ form of verb. So vidhiliñ form of verb is used when there is a..., matter is a must. Tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet, samit-pāṇiḥ śrotriyam. And that is the Vedic version.

Morning Walk -- May 24, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: And fish combined.

Dhanañjaya: Yes, seahorse. Did such an animal exist, seahorse? Or is this man's imagination?

Prabhupāda: No, seahorse we have heard, there is. Sea elephant, seahorse, there are. (break)

Atreya Ṛṣi: ...fighting and all kinds of games. Four boys died that year trying to... (break)

Prabhupāda: ...and Roman climate the same? No.

Atreya Ṛṣi: Rome is a little warmer, isn't it?

Dhanañjaya: Yes.

Atreya Ṛṣi: Now the whole city is a little more humid.

Prabhupāda: Paris?

Satsvarūpa: It's sunny.

Atreya Ṛṣi: Sunnier than London. Very close to London.

Dhanañjaya: Not cold like London ever.

Prabhupāda: There is snow.

Morning Walk -- May 29, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because they are bahir-artha-māninaḥ, they are thinking that this is all. A group of men is coming, and they are exploiting the resources, material world. Just like this building. It is nothing but exploiting the resources. Making brick from the earth or stone or iron. And they pile up. Just like the children goes to the beach, they pile up the sand, and they imagine that somebody is making big palace, somebody is...

Dhanañjaya: Big castle.

Prabhupāda: Big castle. And at a time they left. In the Roman, the... Formerly, the Romans, they also came. They also constructed big, big buildings. Now they are rotting, and another generation, they also are creating the same thing. But exactly like the children, after playing, they are going. Nobody knows where they have gone. Similarly, these rascals, they are coming. They have got the human intelligence. Simply spoiling that intelligence in amassing the external resources of material nature, and they leave the platform, and again go away and take the birth of some other form of life. Everything forgotten just like dream. This is going on. They cannot understand it has no value.

Morning Walk -- May 29, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: That's all. They have got some intelligence. They are utilizing for piling up these stones and bricks. That's all. This is their intelligence, how to pile up nicely stones and bricks. Crane. The same thing. The real business is to pile up some stones and bricks, that's all. They are making research, engineering. The real business is how to pile up stones and bricks. That's all. The same business as the children pile up some sand and imagine "This is park, this is this, this is that."

Dhanañjaya: Didn't Rāvaṇa want to pile up stones and bricks, too, to reach the heavenly planets.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. No, he was a materialist. That is the business of the materialist. What is this? Aerodrome? No.

Dhanañjaya: No, this is a restaurant.

Prabhupāda: They can eat down. (laughter) These rascals are thinking eating on this top, this is their advancement of civilization. And waste energy. The human energy is so valuable that one can understand his real life, self-realization—that they forget. They wasting the energy for making a restaurant on the sky. They think it is advancement.

Morning Walk -- June 3, 1974, Geneva:

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Look up in the sky here and you can see all the different planets and stars. Can you also look up into the sky, the brahma-jyotir, and see all the different Vaikuṇṭha planets?

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. The space is three-fourths there. Here the space is one fourth. In one-fourth space there are unlimited number of universes, ananta-koṭi. This material world is situated in a one-fourth space, and three-fourths space, in the spiritual world. Just imagine how big it is. There the Vaikuṇṭha planets, each planet is as big as the universe, so big. There are aeroplanes also. It is described in the Second Canto of Bhāgavatam.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: When one looks up towards Goloka Vṛndāvana. Just as the... There's a description in Brahma-saṁhitā of Goloka Vṛndāvana with the lotus petals, corolla of lotus petals.

Prabhupāda: No. Lotus... These Vaikuṇṭhas are like lotus petals, and the Kṛṣṇaloka is the middle portion, whorl of the lotus. This way? (some talking in background, French) (break)

Prabhupāda: So their body and your body has nothing to do individually. Harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21). (break) ...living entities. As soon as there is opportunity, they are coming up. (break) ...as have got experience within this planet there is water. And the watermelons, they grow very nicely in the desert. And you see, within the watermelon, there is water. So wherefrom this water is coming? Hm? Wherefrom the water is coming.

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

Prabhupāda: Therefore behind this big, gigantic machine, physical world, there is a living entity, a big, powerful living entity. He is God. We are simply sample of God, a small particle. Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ jīva-loke sanātanaḥ (BG 15.7). Just find out this. Mamaivāṁśaḥ.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa:

mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke
jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ
manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi
prakṛti-sthāni karṣati
(BG 15.7)

"The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal, fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind."

Prabhupāda: Yes. So we are samples of God, small particles. Just like gold, big gold mine and a small particle of gold. Both of them are gold. Composition is the same. So we, the small particle of God, we are trying to create here so many things. The creating energy is there. Because we are a small particle of God, very small, so we have got so much energy, and we are planning so many things. Because on account of that creative energy. So you can just imagine how much creative energy has got the Supreme Lord, of whom we are little samples. We are little sample only, part and parcel, very small particle. So we are creating by our mind... Manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi. By our senses and mind, we are so many things planning. You are also working in the laboratory with that senses and mind. But you are the creative energy. So the struggle is that we are planning to become happy within this material world. That is described here: manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni karṣati (BG 15.7). Karṣati is simply struggling. That's all.

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

Prabhupāda: Suppose if you are thinking of me, "Swamiji might have one thousand dollars," so you can imagine, go on imagining, and that is not correct. But if I say, "No, I have got one million dollars," then you get the experience.

Priest: No.

Prabhupāda: Why no?

Priest: I will get the experience of you when we are living together.

Prabhupāda: That means you cannot talk with God.

Priest: Of course not.

Prabhupāda: But if anyone can talk?

Priest: Well, if it is his own experience, I have no objection.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

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

Prabhupāda: But if anyone can talk?

Priest: Well, if it is his own experience, I have no objection.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Priest: But my experience is that you cannot...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Therefore, our experience is we take experience from God. We don't imagine. That is our process.

Priest: Yeah, that is your faith. You must have faith for that.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like Kṛṣṇa is speaking about Himself, so we are taking Bhagavad-gītā as it is. So direct experience. Taking experience "I am like this."

Morning Walk -- June 12, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Within their power, so many things they're imagining. That is not possible. He can make a big hole only. That's all. Then where he'll stand? Suppose he finishes the earth. Then he is also finished. Then what is the credit? If you suicide, if you cut your own throat, is that very good credit? Then what is the credit? Suppose he has manufactured something that the earth will be finished. Then he'll be also finished. So what is God's loss? There are millions of earth-like planets floating in the sky. So one is lost. What is God's loss? It is your loss, that you are finished. Is that very good invention, to finish yourself? You are being finished. And now you have invented instrument to be finished. So you'll be finished. Wait for that. Why you are anxious to invent something to finish yourself? Is that very good intelligence? You'll be finished. That's a fact. So why you have invented machine to finish yourself quickly and you want to take credit? That means he proves he's a nonsense. He's a nonsense.

Room Conversation with Russian Orthodox Church Representative -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: It may be problematic to some, but Absolute Truth can be understood by śruti, authoritative hearing.

Karandhara: When the Absolute reveals Himself, then... Śruti means the absolute knowledge from the Absolute, from God.

Prabhupāda: Yes, the Absolute Truth is known by the absolute method which is called śruti, hearing from the Absolute. Absolute cannot be imagined or speculated. (French)

Yogeśvara: He says that is a fundamental point.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So therefore we accept Absolute Truth from the Absolute.

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

Bhagavān: I left them on your bathroom door, I think.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (pause) Hmm. So this kind of leadership will not make any solution, if you do not know what is the real goal. (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He doesn't agree if a man create or imagine a goal, he says, the real goal, the real things...

Prabhupāda: No, it is not imagination. That is another foolishness, to imagine a goal. If we imagine some goal, that is another rascaldom. We have to understand what is the goal of life from superior. Just like a child. He does not know what is the goal of life, but his parents know he must be educated. So goal has not to be imagined. Goal has to be understood from superior. So if the superior man is also blind, then he cannot lead other blind forward. If a blind man takes the position of superior, then he will lead these followers to the ditch only. That's all. (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He says who can understand that someone is blind or not blind?

Yogeśvara: Who can judge.

Prabhupāda: But because he has no eyes, he cannot see. Therefore he has to hear. He has to hear.

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

Professor Durckheim: There is only one way toward peace, through self-realization of those who are responsible.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Self-realization, that is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, that one should understand that "I am not enjoyer. Nobody is enjoyer." That is false. They are trying, endeavor, for enjoying this world, and that is false. Real enjoyer is the Supreme Lord. We are trying to occupy this land, that land. "This is Germany. This is England. This is France. This is India. This is my land, worshipable. Land is worshipable. It is my land." But he should know that no land belongs to us. Everything belongs to God. And this is a fact. The land is not created by us. The ocean is not created by us. Then why should we claim, "This is German ocean, and this is English ocean"? This is all false imagination. So when it comes to this understanding, that "Nothing belongs to us..." The United Nations, they are fighting for the last twenty years, but they are fighting on the false ground because everyone is thinking, "This land is mine. I must protect it." So they have no self-realization, and there is no peace.

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

Dr. P. J. Saher: Will you please be so kind as to further elucidate your technique of that one chants the name of God and will you please be so kind as to elucidate further in some particular way or what comes (German) what should be done in relation to that or how it is, how it is formulated in that, in that total, in that complete system of your reverent teachings?

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is the bhakti-mārga, means, the first thing is śravaṇam, hearing. Just like these books are being written to give chance people to hear. That is first business. If we don't hear about God we simply imagine something. No. We must hear about God. We are publishing eighty books like this, simply to hear about God. Then when you hear perfectly then you can describe to others. That is called kīrtanam. Śravaṇam, kīrtanam. And when the process goes on hearing and chanting or describing, kīrtanam means describing. Just like our, this whole society is hearing from these books and they're going out to describe. This is called kīrtana. Then by these two process, hearing and chanting, you remember, smaraṇam. That means remembering, you always associate with God.

Room Conversations -- September 10, 1974, Vrndavana:

Devotee (1): Her poetry was just like the braying of the ass.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Thinking, simply imagining that they shall be happy in this way. And accusing others. You cannot become happy in that way, that he will accuse, "He is the cause. He is the impediment of my perfect happiness." Envious, the same enviousness.

Devotee (2): Therefore, let me eliminate you.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Same enviousness.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- February 15, 1975, Mexico:

Prabhupāda: How do you think like that? Is there anything within this you world which can be learned without guru? Even if you become an ordinary carpenter, you have to learn from an expert carpenter. So how you can imagine to learn the topmost subject matter without guru? This is... The Vedic injunction is, therefore, tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham (MU 1.2.12), samit-pāṇiḥ, like that. We must have a bona fide guru to train us in the understanding of spiritual matter. Guru means who knows the thing, who can teach you. That is guru, not a humbug guru, but guru means one who knows. Tattva-darśinaḥ, one who has seen the truth, he can become guru.

Morning Walk -- February 21, 1975, Caracas:

Prabhupāda: Because they will not get sufficient food, shelter, bodily necessities. Just like it is already declining, already declining. Just formerly in our childhood we saw the Western people very tall. Now they are not tall. They are decreasing already. (break) In the Western countries, still there are some but in other countries they are very lean, thin and drawn. Stature of the body will decrease. Memory will decrease. It is already taking place. So in this way, you just imagine, in 400,000 years after, what will be the condition. You take mathematical calculation. (laughter) (break)

Hṛdayānanda: He's asking again about geographically, what will it be like as far as temperatures and the different continents. That's what he's interested in.

Prabhupāda: Yes, gradually everything will be barren. At the end of annihilation everything will be barren and by scorching the sunlight will be twelve times higher. So everything will be barren and burned into ashes.

Room Conversation with Metaphysics Society -- February 21, 1975, Caracas:

Prabhupāda: But one law... When he was president, he was powerful than the government. When he resigned from the presidency, then he became less important. This is a crude example. The another example is that the sunshine is universally spread, and the sun globe is situated in one place. So which is important, the sun globe or the sunshine? And just like this light is situated in one place and the illumination is spread. So what is important, the illumination or the lamp? The fire is one place, and the fire light and heat is expanded, so the fire is localized, and the light and heat is expanded many miles. So which is important, the fire or the heat and light? Therefore, God is person, but He is not a person like you and me. But His personality is expanded just like the heat and light of the fire is expanded. Similarly, whatever we see, that is the expansion of God's energy. Just like there are many big businessman. The man is person, but he is conducting hundreds of factories, big, big area. The factories are important or the man is important? If an ordinary person in this material world becomes so important and personal, you can just imagine how the person of God is important in spite of unlimited expansion of this material world. So what is his idea? The person is ultimately important. The impersonal feature is there, just like the impersonal feature, sunshine, but the sun globe, and within the sun globe there is sun-god. The sunshine is the expansion of the energy of the sun globe and within the sun globe there is sun-god.

Room Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- March 1, 1975, Atlanta:

Prabhupāda: Oh, we have got any experience? You have got any experience? Then, why do you say nonsense, this? You have no experience, and you say something nonsense, ludicrous. They say "nature." What is the nature? Nature is a machine only. Just like the harmonium. It is also machine. But if one expert operator is there, it makes very melodious, oh, nice. So will the harmonium play automatically? And bring melodious sound? So they have no common sense even; still, they are scientist. That is our regret. They are less than common sense man. That you have to expose, that these people have not even common sense, and they are passing on as scientist. That you must protest because you are servant of God, you are servant of the scientist. Call them directly rascal. Let them defend that they are not rascal. He brought some scientist. I called him, "You are rascal, you are demon. You are everything," (laughs) and he tolerated. That means internally he accepted that he is a rascal. (laughs) Actually they... They have no common sense even. So we are not scientist, but we speak from common sense. That's all. Yesterday or day before yesterday, I was talking on common sense on law points, so Rūpānuga said that "You are bigger than lawyer." I do not know that I am bigger than lawyer, but I was speaking on common sense. The difficulty is they are misleading. So many people are being misled by the so-called politician and scientist and... But Gandhi says... He has written so many nonsense things. One thing is that he said, "I do not believe that there was anybody as Kṛṣṇa living ever. Kṛṣṇa is of my imagination." These things he has written.

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

Bernard Manischewitz: There seems to be a determination on the part of most of the devotees to eliminate from their lives all news except that dealing with Kṛṣṇa. It seems..., it seems to me if they are to bring Kṛṣṇa to the world that it would be an important thing for them to have news, to know, to be able to communicate with people. Is there some actual prohibition against (indistinct)?

Prabhupāda: No, we know... It is useless. It is useless. Because what you will find in the newspaper? The material activities within this item-eating, sleeping, sex and defense. All the politicians will speak, "Now we are arranging eating process like this, we are making this plan, we are..., economic." Uhh? (aside:) Thank you. Very good. You have written? Aiye. The repetition of the same news. It has no good news. "There was a burglary, there was a theft, and this man cheated, and this man was rogue." What is the use of this news? Let everyone know that the whole world is full of such rubbish things. The politicians, they are talking in their own way, that's all. (indistinct) Even Gandhi, such an exalted man, he says that "I have no belief. I do not believe that there was any person as Kṛṣṇa ever living." Just see. All the big, big ācāryas of India who are practically controlling the destiny of the Hindu civilization or Vedic civilization, they all believe. Gandhi became more than them. Who made him, that is another thing. But he thinks like that, and because Gandhi thinks, just imagine how many millions of people have been misled. Similarly big, big scholars like Dr. Radhakrishnan, he says when Kṛṣṇa says man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65), he said, "This is not to the person Kṛṣṇa." Just see.

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

Ambassador: The process of change of consciousness which is actually taking place in the world under many influences, I think...

Prabhupāda: No. The influence should be only Kṛṣṇa, or God. Kṛṣṇa, when we speak of "Kṛṣṇa"—God. But they have no clear idea what is God. How does He speak, how does He act, where does He live, what is His form, what is His qualities—nobody knows. Ask any religious people, "Do you know about all this, about God?" They do not know. What do you think, Atreya? Have they any clear conception of God? They imagine something. If they think of God at all... First of all, generally they think of impersonal or void. Just like the Buddhists. They think God is zero. And others, they think that God has no form. The two classes. The Hindus they think, "Yes, God has no particular form, but He has got many forms. And you can imagine any one of them." That is Śaṅkara, the pañcopāsana. But still, Śaṅkara is very careful. He has given five particular forms. The Goddess Durgā, Lord Viṣṇu, Lord Śiva, the sun, then... Therefore there are a section who are the sun worshiper, or fire worshiper. Original Iranians were like that. So that is Vedic culture.

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

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

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

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

Prabhupāda: That... Just like... That form is God also.

Indian man: That is also an imagination of Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: No, no. That form is also God. Accepting your theory that there are many forms of God, so that form is also God.

Indian man: That form, OK, I agree...

Prabhupāda: So we accept Him, God, either way.

Indian man: But need not be a definite form. He need not have a definite form.

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. There may be different form. But that form is God. Then you have to accept Him God.

Indian man: Yes, OK. And when I say one form, it may be formless also, and I may...

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, that form is God. You have to accept.

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

Prabhupāda: Now our next point is that we say that God, the person, is identical with His name. Now, if, by meeting God, by seeing God, you become purified, then by chanting His name also, you'll become purified, because we say God and His name, identical. But if, by meeting God, you become immediately purified of material contamination, similarly, by chanting God's name you immediately become purified. So what is that name of God that acts immediately, exactly like God? So far Kṛṣṇa name is concerned, it is practically that so many thousands of men, they are chanting "Kṛṣṇa," and they are becoming purified. So find out any other name which can act equally. Then that is accepted as God's name, not by imagination.

Morning Walk -- April 2, 1975, Mayapur:

Pañcadraviḍa: They clam, then, unless you speak Sanskrit, you have to interpret Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: No, that means if you are a nonsense, you better remain silent. Don't interpret. It is better not to talk than to talk nonsense. What is the meaning of that interpretation. If you do not know Sanskrit, stop speaking. Why do you make imagination?

Pañcadraviḍa: Well, their claim is you have to read the Gītā in Sanskrit in order for it to be read as it is.

Prabhupāda: Now, now, in the very beginning it is said, dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre (BG 1.1). Now interpret. What is your interpretation, dharma-kṣetre? What is your interpretation, kuru-kṣetre? Come on, in the beginning. They cannot interpret anything.

Morning Walk -- April 3, 1975, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: That is within. You have got very good sight within. But I am a layman. I want to see that it is moving. (laughter) You have got some imaginary eyes. You can see.

Madhudviṣa: They say that's advancement.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Madhudviṣa: Advancement of science.

Prabhupāda: Yes, to become blind is advancement, certainly. When this is... Who will say it is moving unless he's a fool? Nonsense. (laughter) Moving, that's all right. Everyone... The whole world is moving. That is another thing. But as it is, why, where it is moving?

Rāmeśvara: They're talking about the atomic structure, that the atoms are moving.

Prabhupāda: And therefore it is moving.

Morning Walk -- April 5, 1975, Mayapur:

Devotee: New York blackout.

Prabhupāda: Yes. "No business. Come on. Let us enjoy sex." That's all. This is their civilization. Yan-maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham (SB 7.9.45). Most abominable sex life—this is civilization.

Nalinī-kānta: They say that in the human form of life we can ejoy sex life better than the cats and the dogs.

Prabhupāda: That is imagination. They enjoy without any restriction, and you have to make so many arrangement. You require apartment, nice bed, nice this, so many. So where is the better facility? You have to work for it. They haven't got to work. They get in the streets sex life.

Brahmānanda: But now, they're also saying that this is good.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- April 5, 1975, Mayapur:

Rāmeśvara:: There he'll talk.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Then? There is process, how to talk with God. But these rascals, they do not know. They think it is all imagination. They do not know.

Rāmeśvara: But we are so insignificant. Why should God waste His time talking with us?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because you are sons. Although you are insignificant, you are God's sons. So He likes to talk with His sons. Just like a small child. Everyone knows that he cannot talk. Still, father tries to make him talking, to enjoy. Māyāpur-candrodaya Temple is teaching all these fools and rascals how to talk with God. That is our mission. (break)

Devotee: ...citizens in the state are punished by the government by being put into the prison house and that similarly, in this human form of life, if we are irresponsible, then we are punished by God by birth and death. So what about the man who is responsible for his family and executes his duty ni...

Prabhupāda: Well, that is... Cats and dogs have also responsible for the family.

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

Prabhupāda: So what is to you? You are also a created being. He's also created being. That's the (indistinct). You are not creator of the (indistinct)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But you say that there was more intelligent life previously, whereas we see these dinosaurs were previously.

Prabhupāda: But you do not see, you simply imagine.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. We have the skeletons.

Devotee: We have the bones, the bones of animals.

Prabhupāda: But that's all right. There was a big animal, that's all. Just like you are a foolish animal, so there was a big animal. What is the difference? They are animals.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But we have skeletons showing the men at that time also and their brains were very tiny.

Prabhupāda: That you say. But I don't believe it. I have not seen.

Morning Walk -- April 23, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...stopped, then your whole business stop. Imagine if these hills were green. How much foodstuff would have been available both for the animal, for the man. All dry, all dry. People should immediately accept this chanting to solve this problem. (break) And the yajña means yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana.

Gopal Kṛṣṇa: They think they have better things to do.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Ātma-sainyeṣu asatsv api. They are depending on so many other things besides Kṛṣṇa.

Guest: If some definite example is there, then they will immediately copy. See, they are copy-minded. If suppose we open up a temple here and the conditions here improve, automatically everybody'll take up. So we will see next year. Automatically when things are done by copying, they would like to go by the copy method, not by experimentation. So if our temples are successful in Māyāpur and Hyderabad and everywhere, farms are attained, and if they are able to produce better things, they will understand, "Oh, because of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness, people are becoming more prosperous." Automatically they will come therefore.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes, that is also nice. (break) We have no factory; we have no business.

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

Prabhupāda: In all machines, your bodily machine, my bodily machine, and electric machines and other powered machines—everything is going on. Pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate. And in spite of taking so much energy from the sun, it is still full of light and energy. This is one of the creations of the Supreme. Now how much perfect is the Supreme? Its one of the creations, sun, is maintaining the whole universe. And there are many millions of universes, and each of them has got a sun to conduct the business. And all these suns are created by somebody. How much complete He is? You can just imagine. That is God. God is not such a cheap thing. People become God, "I am God." You are a nonsense rascal. What you can do? These are bluff. They do not know what is God. Here is God—complete. Pūrṇam adaḥ, pūrṇam idaṁ (Īśopaniṣad, Invocation). The whole creation is complete, still He is complete. The energy is coming from here, still He is complete. This energy also. A glass of water, I throw the glass, and water again is coming. Again I throw, again it is coming. Incessantly coming, all the energies. This is the idea of God.

Room Conversation with Justin Murphy (Geographer) -- May 14, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Yes, then why don't you accept it?

Justin Murphy: Well, I for one might. But...

Prabhupāda: No, no, I am not talking about you.

Justin Murphy: No, no, sure, certainly, but imagine the man, as we have to consider, the men, the thousands of them on their tractors, at their bulldozers, hacking down natural forest...

Devotee: He says we have to consider the men who are working the machines to take down the forest for agriculture... Is that what you mean?

Justin Murphy: The point I'm making is that there are so many people in Australia who would have no time. They are too busy making money. They are too busy doing what...

Prabhupāda: But what you will do with money? If there is no grain, then will you eat money? (laughter)

Room Conversation with Justin Murphy (Geographer) -- May 14, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: As far... Yes.

Justin Murphy: ...beyond say the normal sixty-five or seventy years that I might live in what I imagine to be this body?

Prabhupāda: The knowledge should be acquired from the beginning of life, from childhood. But if by circumstances I could not get this knowledge from childhood, then we should begin immediately. Because unless we get this knowledge, our life remains imperfect. We remain animal. The animal does not know this. And after evolutionary process, coming to the human form of body, if we keep ourself in the darkness of animal life, then our this opportunity is lost. This is the first problem. Unfortunately, the modern education is... Leaders, they have no education, and they are thinking just like animal that "I am this body." Therefore you are thinking you are Australian, I am thinking I am Indian, he is thinking American, he..., only on this bodily concept of life. But we are not this body. We are different from this body. So unless we understand this point, our aim of life, our standard of civilization, is incorrect.

Room Conversation with Justin Murphy (Geographer) -- May 14, 1975, Perth:

Justin Murphy: I suppose it's very easy to understand and to credit that so many people will be thinking maybe this way because that's part of the basis of being selfish, and, after all, a lot of people, particularly, I would imagine, a lot of Australians, are basically selfish. They are interested far more in what they can get and do for themselves not necessarily by working hard, by striving or by reading or by thinking or by studying. They, they... The old saying...

Prabhupāda: The human life is meant for acquiring knowledge, real knowledge.

Justin Murphy: But so many people don't see it that way.

Prabhupāda: At least one class of men must be thoroughly conversant, thoroughly aware of the things as they are. They are called brāhmaṇas. Therefore the society should be divided into four classes. The first-class men, who have got full knowledge of life and the problems of life... That there should be, the first-class men. They may be very few; it doesn't matter. Ideal class. People will learn by their behavior, by their character, by their knowledge. So must be there. Then the next class would be the administrators. They would be advised by the first-class men, and they would administer the state. And the third-class men, they should produce food, enough food for the whole population. And the fourth-class men would assist these three higher class, first class, second class and third class. This is the arrangement, nature's arrangement. There are first-class men; there are second-class men; there are third-class men; there are fourth-class men. But if you produce simply fourth-class men, there cannot be any adjustment.

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

Sister: But you don't need to see the picture... With His omnipotence, you don't need to have the picture.

Prabhupāda: No, because you, without seeing Him, you do not develop Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You require to see Him. So He has appeared before you so that you can see Him. That is His mercy, so that you see Him and you think of Him. Man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ. You see Him and think of Him. That is the meaning of picture. You cannot say, "I have not seen God." Here is God. You see God's picture here in the temple. In the śāstra description is there. Just like in the Brahma-saṁhitā it is said, veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣam: (Bs. 5.30) "Kṛṣṇa is playing on His flute." That is the information in the Vedas. Here He is playing on flute. Veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāya... "His eyes are like lotus petal." You see? The description in the Vedas and the picture the same. It is not imagination. It is in the Veda. Vedas will give you information. Then surabhīr abhipālayantam (Bs. 5.29). There are cows. Kṛṣṇa is very much fond of cows. So what is stated in the Vedas about Kṛṣṇa, that is depicted.

It is not imagination, not that we have imagined something like, "This is like..." No. It is corroborated, established by Vedic knowledge. So you'll find Kṛṣṇa's form like this everywhere. In India there are millions of temples. Everywhere you will find this.

Mother: How old is Kṛṣṇa?

Prabhupāda: He is never old. That is material question. He is the oldest person. He is the origin of everything.

Discussion -- May 15, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Nobody is independent. And still, everyone is thinking independent, "I can do anything I like." Yesterday morning we were talking. You are independent. That is, means, misuse of independence. Just like in a state every citizen is independent but dependent on the state laws. If he forgets that, that "I am not dependent on the state laws," then he is foolish. Similarly, if one does not know that "The nature's law is the God's law, state laws; I cannot violate it," (sic:) then he is sober. Dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13). One man is dying. A dhīra knows that he is changing his body; he is not dying. He will get another body. Dhīra, sober. And one who is not sober, he says, "No, life is finished." Or he can imagine he is going to heaven or hell. But a dhīra knows what is going to happen to him. If he was in the material modes of nature, goodness, then he is going to higher planetary system. Ūrdhvaṁ gacchanti. From śāstra we can understand. If he is in passion, then he will stay in this material world.

Room Conversation with Dr. Copeland, Professor of Modern Indian History -- May 20, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: That is called payi-nukuta-nyāya.(?) And when I find full successful, just imagine what is that. This is partial success.

Dr. Copeland: (laughing) That's called "touche."

Prabhupāda: This is the logic, that the partial success is this, and when it will be full successful, you cannot imagine that, what is.

Dr. Copeland: (Tape garbled) Ācchā. I don't want to ...

Prabhupāda: Give him some prasāda.

Morning Walk -- May 21, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Rāvaṇa's, Rāvaṇa's staircase for going to the heaven. He promised that "Oh, what is the use of austerity? I shall make a staircase directly. You can go." As their... It is the same, Rāvaṇa's staircase and the modern attempt to go to the moon planet, the same thing. They will never be able to go, but imagining that "We shall do it." The same process, Rāvaṇa's process. For how many years they are going? Since 1950?

Devotee: To the moon expedition?

Prabhupāda: Yes, moon expedition.

Room Conversation with Two Lawyers and Guest -- May 22, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Rectified.

Madhudviṣa: The system should be rectified.

Guest 1: I suppose Wally and I are thinking on the same wavelength because we can imagine the problems that we'd have.

Prabhupāda: Now you have got the United Nations. Now, if they are sane men, they should pass resolution, "The whole world belongs to God, and we are all God's sons. So let us make now United States of the World." That can be easily done. If they can make United States of America, why not United States of the whole world?

Guest 2: I think that would probably solve a lot of problems because...

Prabhupāda: Yes, all problems. Now, suppose in India there is scarcity of foodstuff. In America, in Africa, in Australia, there is enough grain. Produce foodstuff, distribute. Then immediately whole nations become united. Use everything, God's gift—we are all sons—very nicely. Then the, all the problems solved. Now the difficulty is that we have made, "No, this is my property. We shall use it, nation." In the Vedic conception there is no such thing as national. There is no such conception. That is the idea, Vedic conception of society or politics. There is no question of national.

Room Conversation with Two Lawyers and Guest -- May 22, 1975, Melbourne:

Guest 1: I think you must be very happy to see what's happened in Melbourne.

Prabhupāda: Yes, I am very happy. This house is quite suitable for our purpose.

Guest 1: They looked very hard and for a long time.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest 1: And they had a lot of difficulty. This is one of the things that I imagine, you know, the story that the Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church owned this property. And it was almost by devious means that it was acquired.

Prabhupāda: They did not want to give us?

Guest 1: He didn't want to sell direct, like that. Because that beautiful building across there, I think you saw photos...

Amogha: The convent. Śrīla Prabhupāda went through the convent.

Prabhupāda: Oh yes.

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) (break) ...and the water. (Hindi). (break) ...and one fourth land and we are puzzled with the increase of population. But there is no puzzle, three-fourths water population. Wherever you go, you get immediately many thousand fishes. So just imagine how many fishes are there. These rascals say "Overpopulation." Why not overpopulation there? Huh? The fishes, for want of food, they are dying and floating? Why overpopulation? All their calculation are simply bogus. There is no question of overpopulation. Even... Just like people simply can live on mango and coconut. Where is the question of over-population? It is chastisement. When one cannot get proper food, that is not due to overpopulation. It is due to godlessness. As soon as people will become godless, nature will chastise them—no food, no rain, suffer. This is law. (?) (break) ...signpost.

Morning Walk -- May 29, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: That is foolishness. That is foolishness, that... They have no future. So it is useless, "Keep out." Imagination, concoction, foolishness—this is the basic principle of material civilization. Mūḍhā, that's all. "I am asking to keep out; I do not know how long I shall live here." That he does not think. "I am asking others, keep out." If somebody asks him, "You are asking others to keep out, but when you will be asked to keep out, who will protect you? Is there any protection? Will your sons and grandsons and wife will protect you?"... That is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, pramatto tasya nidhanaṁ paśyann api na paśyati, dehāpatya-kalatrādiṣu ātmaśainyeṣu (SB 2.1.4). He is thinking that "These, my wife, children, and relatives and friends, will protect me not to be thrown out." But that is not possible. He will be thrown out. He will have to be kept out. And that is not by accident. Everyone knows, "Yes."

Morning Walk -- June 2, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: There is civilization. You have not gone there, rascal. You are simply imagining. (Devotees laugh) There is civilization. First thing is, you rascal, you did not go. You are talking only nonsense. That's it.

Paramahaṁsa: (break) ...Rahu planet, that's a hellish planet?

Prabhupāda: Yes. They might have gone to that hellish planet. That's all.

Bali-mardana: No wonder they left.

Paramahaṁsa: That seems more befitting them.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes!

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

Prabhupāda: That is civilization. Work very hard similarly, but for Kṛṣṇa and not for imitating the hogs. Now, why I should be interested in for God realization? Yes, you should be. You must be. Why? Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyed sattva: (SB 5.5.1) "By becoming Kṛṣṇa consciousness, your existentional constitution will be purified." What is that purification? Purīfication means because you are now impure, you are subjected to birth, death, old age, and disease. Therefore you require treatment to cure this disease. Yasmād brahma-saukhyaṁ anantam. And if you cure this disease, then—you are after happiness—you will get transcendental bliss and enjoy it eternally. This is human life. Everything is discussed in the Bhāgavata, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyed sattva yasmād brahma-saukhyaṁ anantam (SB 5.5.1). Anantam means unlimited. You are searching after happiness, but this is limited. Even if you enjoy sex life, that is also limited for a few moments. But anantam. That is... You will enjoy it eternally. Just Kṛṣṇa is dancing with the gopīs. He is enjoying eternally. So you can join with Him. That information we are giving. Just imagine what a valuable service we are rendering. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyed sattva (SB 5.5.1). Your existence is impure. Therefore you are undergoing the tribulation of birth, death, old age, and disease. But they are not making any research how to stop. Nobody wants to die. Why he is dying? Where is the solution? Can the psychologists give any solution, that "You think in this way"? No. That we are giving: "Think of Kṛṣṇa and you will become free."

Morning Walk -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: And bluffed. That is usefulness.

Indian guest: They have spent hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in that process, certainly a lot more money than one can imagine.

Bahulāśva: Even by studying the soil on the earth, Prabhupāda, they cannot make food grow without rain.

Prabhupāda: They cannot do anything. Simply they can bluff. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). Everything is being done by the nature. What they can do? These foolish rascals.

Indian guest: Certainly, nature got a whole lot of power.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Indian guest: They're looking for energy. Energy running short, and we are running short of energy for driving a car and driving the entire ocean over here. See all these big waves coming round. So...

Jayatīrtha: Yes, Kṛṣṇa has no shortage of energy.

Indian guest: No. All big hurricanes and they came and full of energy and... I'm not saying that's good, but... We can put a small little fan in a room to blow a little wind this much. And see a big wind comes in from the nature. (break)

Prabhupāda: Everything is floating in wind, in air. Such a big cloud, floating in the air. It contains millions of tons of water but it is kept in air.

Morning Walk -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:

Indian guest: We try to heat the home in the winter season, and it is a hard time heating a home. We don't have energy, run short of energy. But summer comes and nature heats it up that we are just too hot. So the nature's energy supply is just unlimited. Science cannot even imagine a small fragment.

Prabhupāda: Our science is stated in the Vedas, yasmin vijñāte sarvam evaṁ vijñātaṁ bhavanti. Just try to understand Kṛṣṇa, and everything will be understood. So try to understand one, Kṛṣṇa, and then you understand everything. Yasmin vijñāte sarvam evaṁ vijñātaṁ bhavanti. (break) ...philosophy is, it is said, that bhaktim... śreya-sṛtiṁ bhaktim... śreya-sṛtiṁ bhaktim upasya, ye kliśyanti kevala-bodha-labdhaye. Kevala-bodha means just trying to understand this, that, this, that, this, that, this, that. In this way they are wasting time and giving up devotional service to the Lord. So what is the result? Bhaktim udapasya te vibho kliśyanti ye kevala-bodha-labdhaye. Kevala-bodha. The duration of life is very short, and he is gathering knowledge by going to the moon. In this way he is wasting his time. So the result is that waste of time. That is their gain and nothing more. Just see that these people instead of teaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they wanted to study, go to the moon planet to understand. The result is, their only result is, that they have labored so much, and that is their gain, nothing else. What other thing they have made. Teṣāṁ kleśala evāvaśiṣyate nānyad yathā sthula-tuṣāvaghāṭīnām. Just like you beat the skin of rice paddy. You will not get rice. Simply your labor, "Gad, gad, gad, gad," that will be your gain. So their only gain is that they have learned that in the moon there is dust like here, that's all. This is their... (laughs) As if we are very much eager to know that there is also dust in the moon. (laughs) And they bluff people selling ticket for going to moon planet.

Room Conversation with Dr. John Mize -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Everything.

John Mize: It's difficult to imagine Kṛṣṇa jealous.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

John Mize: What could He possibly envy or be jealous of?

Prabhupāda: You can say whatever thing, but anger, all, whatever you have got, God has got in bigger quantity and perfect quantity. That is the conception of God, without any, what is called?

John Mize: Imperfection?

Prabhupāda: Imperfection, yes.

Morning Walk -- June 28, 1975, Denver:

Prabhupāda: And very nice park. And not far away. (break) ...interested with this natural history. That means Darwin's theory. That's all. Their whole civilization is based on this Darwin's theory. How long you shall keep history? Do you know what is the history of the sun, when it was created, when it came into appearance? Can Darwin give us the history of the sun, of the moon, of the sky? Where is the history? There is history, but where is your history? You simply imagine, "There was a chunk, and it became manifested as the sun, moon, and I am also this..." What is this? How this cosmic manifestation came into existence—your explanation is: "There was a chunk." And what other nonsense? (break) walking: ...house is on the water? No. (break) ...coughing. Catch cold?

Harikeśa: Hawaii was not a very healthy place for me. Hawaii.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Harikeśa: All the rain and the sun and the rain.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...you will find today's text. It has given very nice example, that the prostitute changes her dress to attract people. Similarly, we are changing our dress for sense gratification. Yes. (break) Nature, material nature, has been described as the prostitute, and we are trying to become the husband of the prostitute. Has anyone become happy by becoming husband of a prostitute? (laughs) (break) ...Paṇḍita has said, duṣṭā bhāryā śāṭhaṁ mitraṁ bhṛtyaś cottara-dāyakaḥ, sasarpe ca gṛhe vāso mṛtyur eva na saṁśayaḥ. A prostitute wife, duṣṭā bhāryā, and dupli..., what is called, duplicity? One who speaks something and heard something? What is called? Hypocrite.

Morning Walk -- July 2, 1975, Denver:

Prabhupāda: Try to become purified. Don't imagine and guess, "What will be the condition when I am purified?" This is all nonsense. Try to become purified.

Devotee (2): Then you perceive it.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Brahmānanda: You tell the story of the potter. He has many pots. (Prabhupāda laughs) And he tries to imagine what it will be like when he becomes very wealthy.

Prabhupāda: That is nonsense, waste time. (break) ...you are eating you will understand yourself, "Yes, I am eating, I am getting strength, I am getting satisfaction." But simply theory..., "What will happen after eating? What will happen?" You eat and you see what is happening. What is the use of asking this question? You eat and you will understand.

Conversation with Professor Hopkins -- July 13, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: The Śaivites, the Śaṅkarācārya.

Prof. Hopkins: Śaṅkarācārya, I know he is.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Śaṅkarācārya's theory is the ultimate, the Absolute Truth is impersonal. And one can imagine a personal form for the benefit of the worshiper.

Prof. Hopkins: But there are some worshipers of Śiva who would be personalists.

Prabhupāda: No.

Prof. Hopkins: You would deny that.

Prabhupāda: They are all impersonalists. They are pañcopāsana. Pañcopāsana means the ultimate, Absolute Truth is impersonal and Śaṅkarācārya recommended that you cannot worship the impersonal, so you conceive a personal form. So that he recommended five: the sun-god, Lord Śiva, Durgā, and Gaṇeśa, and? What else? And Viṣṇu.

Conversation with Professor Hopkins -- July 13, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: That is their theory. Then there is no more difference. In the preliminary stage, when I am not perfect, I am worshiping some imaginary form of God. But when I become perfect there is no need of worshiping, I become one with God. This is impersonal. Now, actually, the Supreme has no form so they recommend whichever form you like to worship you can select out of these five. But their destination is the same. So somebody likes "I worship Śiva," somebody says "I worship Gaṇeśa," somebody says, "I worship Durgā," and Sūrya, or somebody says, "I worship Viṣṇu." So this Vaiṣṇava is impersonalist. You'll find amongst smārta brāhmaṇas there are also some of them Vaiṣṇavas, but they are impersonalists.

Morning Walk -- July 17, 1975, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: And you were created by dog. (laughter)

Dharmādhyakṣa: That is a very big theory of the modern atheists that God is simply the creation of man's imagination in order to fulfill certain psychological needs.

Prabhupāda: Then what is the cause of creation?

Dharmādhyakṣa: Mother nature.

Prabhupāda: So mother nature... Where is the father? (laughter) You rascal, without father, mother can give any birth?

Dharmādhyakṣa: Well, it's asexual. There's some animals...

Prabhupāda: No, no. So animal is their father? Where is the father? It is all right, "mother nature," but everyone knows without father, mother is useless.

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

Prabhupāda: Because they have no eyes to see. They say that "The body is finished. Now..." Gatākāśa potakāśa. They give the example, just like within the pot there is sky, and outside the pot there is sky and when the pot is broken, the within sky mixes with the outside sky.

Bahulāśva: So we say that within the pot, or the body, there is consciousness, and that remains eternally individual.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is said by Kṛṣṇa. It is not our imagination.

Bahulāśva: So the eternal characteristic of the self, then, is that he is pure consciousness.

Prabhupāda: Pure consciousness, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He knows that "I am part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa." That is pure consciousness.

Bahulāśva: And therefore His servant.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Part and parcel means servant. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Room Conversation -- July 31, 1975, New Orleans:

Prabhupāda: There is no question of focus or no focus. One who sees Kṛṣṇa, he sees everything. Yasmin vijñāte sarvam evaṁ vijñātaṁ bhavanti. There is no question of imagination. This is fact. What is that?

Satsvarūpa:

nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya
yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ
mūḍho 'yaṁ nābhijānāti
loko mām ajam avyayam
(BG 7.25)

"I am never manifest to the foolish and unintelligent."

Prabhupāda: Yes. One who is foolish, nonintelligent, he cannot see Kṛṣṇa. Means Kṛṣṇa does not reveal to him. They never see.

Morning Walk -- August 6, 1975, Detroit:

Brahmānanda: Because they can't see the root, they think it's not there.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...house for the last four years. And I went for half an hour; I purchased—without any money. Still, they are so blind, they cannot see the mercy of God. One should imagine that "Yes, there is mercy of God. Otherwise how it is possible?" If they have no eyes to see, they should imagine at least.

Harikeśa: That's why the government thinks that we are being supported. In India they think we are being supported by the...

Prabhupāda: CIA.

Harikeśa: Yes. Because we have so many nice things. Where else could we...

Brahmānanda: They think it is the mercy of the CIA.

Prabhupāda: My Godbrother says-Tīrtha Mahārāja—that American government has given me two crores of rupees. They are supposed to be spiritually advanced, and they are so rascal. And he is the head of Caitanya Matha. Kṛṣṇa said, yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmy aham: (BG 9.22) "I take the responsibility of his expenditure." Kṛṣṇa says, and they are preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and they are thinking, "American government is doing, not Kṛṣṇa." Such fools and rascals, they are head of..., a spiritual head.

Morning Walk -- August 29, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: That is preaching. Our process is anuśṛṇuyāt. We hear from the superior and reproduce it. That is śravaṇaṁ-kīrtanam. Then perfect. If I add something, my own imagination, then it will spoil. No addition-alteration; as it is. As it is you hear from your spiritual master, reproduce. That's all. Yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). This 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa is coming by paramparā, so you reproduce. That's all. Even a child can reproduce what he has heard from his father. It is not at all difficult. (break) ...cheap rate.

Morning Walk -- September 29, 1975, Ahmedabad:

Prabhupāda: Unless one is actually spiritually situated, this material center of happiness, maithunādi, that will go anywhere. You give any color, spiritual or religious or political. You see? Why Gandhi's āśrama failed? Do you know that? This is... When Gandhi was in jail, when he came back he saw all pregnant. You did not know that?

Kartikeya: No, we imagined, but we don't have information.

Prabhupāda: That what... Gandhi said, "What is this āśrama?"

Indian man (1): No, but Gandhi... He is well known, very well known.

Prabhupāda: He is well known.

Indian man (1): Including mother Desai and all, there were lot of complaints and countercomplaints.

Prabhupāda: Yes. It cannot be. You cannot stop the sex unless you are fully in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It is not possible. And that is the material bondage. In the material prisonhouse they have got so many means-big, big walls, handcuff, chain—but nature is so perfect that simply give you a beautiful woman, and you are all prisoner. Big wall, handcuff and chain—everything is complete. I think I have discussed in my recent purports.

Room Conversation -- October 4, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: Therefore they are foolish. Therefore he has to take knowledge from Kṛṣṇa: dehino 'smin yathā... "Within this body there is soul."

Brahmānanda: You say there's a soul, but we've never seen a soul. It may be your imagination.

Prabhupāda: You may not see. You have not seen your forefather. That does not mean... This is all bad argument. Why do you believe? Your eyes are so imperfect; still, you say, "I did not see. I want to see." What is the value of your eyes? You see the sun globe—a small disc. But is it so? Then how do you know that it is so big?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: By hearing.

Prabhupāda: By hearing. That is important, not by seeing. Therefore śruti, Veda, is important, not your eyes.

Harikeśa: When people die, though, there is usually some cause. Like they have a heart attack or they get hit by a car or some disease. So that death is caused by the disease...

Prabhupāda: That is not the cause. That is the effect. You foolish, do not know. You are taking it, cause.

Morning Walk -- October 5, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: Because you are the frog of the well. The frog of the well thinks, "This well is everything." And if you say, "There is Atlantic Ocean," he cannot imagine, the frog of the well. You know frog of the well?

Indian man (4): Yes, yes.

Prabhupāda: A three-feet well, and a frog is there and he is thinking, "This is everything." And some friend comes and informs, "Oh, I have seen very big water, Atlantic." He simply imagines, "Oh? It's big? How much big? One feet more? All right, two feet. All right, three feet," like that. So the frogs in the well, they cannot understand. You should be not a frog in the well; you should be liberal to hear from the authorities, Vedas. Then you will understand. And if you remain a frog in the well... All these rascal scientists, they are all frog in the well. They have got little calculation of this planet, and they have no information of... There are so many millions of planets. What do they know? They cannot, could not study even this moon planet. Wrongly study. The moon planet is above the sun planet, 1,000,600,000 miles above. What do they know? They are thinking the moon planet is in between the earth and the... So the all wrong calculation.

Morning Walk -- October 16, 1975, Johannesburg:

Harikeśa: So the incentive is the happiness in society?

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is... Everyone is hankering after: "Where is happiness?" This will be the happiness. When people will be peaceful, happy in their living condition, that will bring happiness, not by imagining that "If I have got a skyscraper building, I will be happy," and then jump over and commit suicide. That is going on. He is thinking that "If I have a skyscraper building, I will be happy," and when he is frustrated, he jumps down. That is going on. This is happiness. That means all rascals. They do not know what is happiness. Therefore everyone requires guidance from Kṛṣṇa. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Now you were saying that there is high rate of suicide here?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Why? This is the country possessing gold mine, and why they are...? And you said that it is difficult to become poor here.

Morning Walk -- October 25, 1975, Mauritius:

Indian man: And because they have not seen, therefore they say that.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Here people take in consideration of his position. That is rascaldom. One should not think... There are varieties of life. And how they're in the sun? There is life. So you cannot conceive that there is life in the sun, but there is life. Otherwise how Kṛṣṇa went there and talked with the president of the sun? The president means he's alone there? President means there is kingdom. They have got body made of fire. Can you imagine there can be body made of fire?

Indian man: If Kṛṣṇa says, then there must be.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. That is our business. But you cannot interpret. They cannot accommodate within their tiny brain what is going on in the creation. They think in their own way. That's it. Now, they say that the water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. And who supplied so much hydrogen, oxygen?

Indian man: God.

Prabhupāda: So therefore it is, everything, in God's hand. Their difficulty is that they'll not accept God. That is the... Therefore we are very much angry with them. We want to kick on their face. The atheist number one, all these so-called scientists.

Morning Walk -- October 26, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: That is their... That is their stupidity. Therefore they are fit for being kicked. That is the disease-imagining, obstinacy. They cannot do anything; still they'll claim they can do. "Pay me my salary."

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: What is the position of the scientist who studies the laws of nature and then he tries to utilize them for his advantage, exploits them?

Prabhupāda: That's all right. The law is there. That is not his law. So his intelligence will be there when he understands who has made this law. Then his intelligence. That is intelligence.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Just like making airplane. They observe the bird, and then they make...

Prabhupāda: Now, that they... When they admit, "Oh, this law is made (heavy static) ," then they come to senses.

Morning Walk -- November 10, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Scholars, they think like that, "Kṛṣṇa is fictitious. This Bhagavad-gītā was imagined," as if Kṛṣṇa speaking and Arjuna hearing, and there was no war as Kurukṣetra. This is their reply. There was no five thousand years.

Dr. Patel: Suppose, sir, it may be like that, as they say, but this is an acme of the knowledge. That's all. Even though it may be fabricated, it is the acme.

Prabhupāda: Acme of the knowledge you are taking, but you don't believe the source of knowledge. You are so acme of the knowledge. You don't believe in the source of the knowledge, so where is knowledge? That is darkness. Tama and jyoti-two things are there. This material world is tama, darkness, because here actually there is no Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It is almost absent. And jyoti means there is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That we were discussing last night. Taṭastha-śakti. Taṭastha... The jīvas, they are in the marginal position between tama and jyoti.

Morning Walk -- November 11, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Gaṇapati, Viṣṇu, Lord Śiva, Sūrya and Devī.

Dr. Patel: No, there are no Devī's here.

Prabhupāda: No, Devī's..., But their principle is this, that "God incarnation, impersonal. You imagine some form." Sādhakānāṁ nityārthāya brahmaṇo rūpa-kalpanaḥ.

Dr. Kalpana: (Hindi) They have got one Datta.

Prabhupāda: Dattātreya.

Dr. Kalpana: Dattātreya, yes. Then no doubt there is Hanumān because of the Rāma Mandir. Then there is Gaṇapati. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...goats before Kāla-bhairava.

Morning Walk -- November 11, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Whatever they say, we have to believe. That's all. (laughter) Except Kṛṣṇa, we shall believe everything. When Kṛṣṇa says something: "No, no, these are all fictitious. There is no Kṛṣṇa, and these are all imagination." And as a rascal says, "Oh, this is scientific." This is going on. So we are not so fools that we shall believe these scientific rascals. We believe Kṛṣṇa. That's all. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We are not going to believe the scientific rascals.

Dr. Patel: All, all good, these do good, sir. I believe you should not be very harsh to the scientist. I am sorry...

Prabhupāda: They are not scientists. They are rascals. I don't accept them as scientists. They, if they are putting forward theories every day, what kind of scientist? They are not scientist. Scientist means fixed up idea. It cannot be changed. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. That is scientist. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20).

Morning Walk -- November 13, 1975, Bombay:

Yaśomatīnandana: Central Asia and inhabited in India. Then the Indian civilization sprang. Everybody thinks that India was not originally inhabited. It was all inhabited by the Dravidians, and then the Dravidians were pushed into the South and then Aryans dominated them. Whatever they learn in the schools. And because they have this theory, therefore they have to date all the śāstras, after, either after Christ or just a few centuries before Christ. (break) ...bhārata, they say, it must have been a small family feud and some poet's imagination made it a big war.

Prabhupāda: "May be. May not be." (laughter) We say, "may not be."

Brahmānanda: They say the Mahābhārata was written 1400 B.C., and that date correlates with dates of the Egyptian and Greek Empire.

Prabhupāda: No, no, so many dates have been quoted there. Which is correct? That is our question. So many dates they have discussed. And which one is correct? Either everyone is correct or everyone is incorrect. This is the... There cannot be many dates; that is not possible. Date must be one. So which one is correct? Who will answer this?

Brahmānanda: Everyone has a different opinion.

Prabhupāda: That's it.

Morning Walk -- November 14, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: This is Indian old fashion. They simply know how to test jewels and gold. That's all. One knowledge makes him rich.

vyavasāyātmikā buddhir
ekeha kuru-nandana
bahu-śākhā hy anantāś ca
buddhayo 'vyavasāyinām
(BG 2.41)

Avyavasāyinām bahu-śākha. And vyavasāyayinām-one. From practical point of view, from business point of view also, I started this Kṛṣṇa conscious business with forty rupees. Now we have forty crores. Who has got such business success? (laughter) Bring anyone. Within ten years. And here is Ambarīṣa Mahārāja. He is ready to give us any money, any amount of money, Ambarīṣa Mahārāja, yes, whole Ford Company. (laughter) So who has got this business? Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. I think there is no such history in the world, to begin business with forty rupees, and within ten years it becomes forty crores. One cannot imagine even.

Morning Walk -- November 16, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Ah. Niskiñcananaṁ mahiyasam. It has to be understood from the same thing, tattva-darśinam. Otherwise it is not possible. You cannot speculate. If you say, as Gandhi said, "My Kṛṣṇa is of my imagination," that kind of knowledge has no value. What you are, your imagination? Matir na kṛṣṇe parataḥ svato vā. Parataḥ svato vā. Vidya-bhāgavatavadhiḥ. If one reads Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, then he gets the ultimate knowledge of everything. That is the ultimate end, limit of knowledge.

Dr. Patel: Tasya karyaṁ na vidyate.

Prabhupāda: Matir na kṛṣṇe parataḥ... Nobody can understand Kṛṣṇa, and they are thinking, "In my imagination, Kṛṣṇa is like this." What is the value of this imagination?

Dr. Patel: That is why I said, sir, that divya-bhāva is very difficult to tell because it is felt by the divya-bhāva itself. It cannot be felt by the...

Prabhupāda: Yes, and therefore Kṛṣṇa said, manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye (BG 7.3). Unless one is siddha, there is no question of understanding Kṛṣṇa. Manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye yatatām api siddhānām (BG 7.3). Even if he is siddha he cannot understand. Out of many of them, one may understand. And they are trying to understand Kṛṣṇa by imagination.

Morning Walk -- November 16, 1975, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: That is why I said, sir, that divya-bhāva is very difficult to tell because it is felt by the divya-bhāva itself. It cannot be felt by the...

Prabhupāda: Yes, and therefore Kṛṣṇa said, manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye (BG 7.3). Unless one is siddha, there is no question of understanding Kṛṣṇa. Manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye yatatām api siddhānām (BG 7.3). Even if he is siddha he cannot understand. Out of many of them, one may understand. And they are trying to understand Kṛṣṇa by imagination. Just see the folly. Kṛṣṇa said,

manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu
kaścid yatati siddhaye
yatatām api siddhānāṁ
kaścid...
(BG 7.3)

And because one is voted some big man-śva-viḍ-varāhoṣṭra-kharaiḥ saṁstutaḥ puruṣaḥ paśuḥ (SB 2.3.19)—he is thinking...(laughter) He is thinking that "I can imagine my Kṛṣṇa." Hare Kṛṣṇa. (laughter) (break) ...accept the opinion of a saṁstutaḥ puruṣaḥ paśuḥ. Because public votes are there, although he is a puruṣaḥ paśuḥ, we have to accept.

Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Kāraṇam. Kāraṇam, yes. I am layman. I cannot say why I have got this fever. You can... By analysis, you can say. So therefore śāstra-cakṣuṣāt. Śāstra says, "You analyze his blood, and if these symptoms are there, therefore this disease is there." That is śāstra, not conjecture. You don't diagnose by simply imagining. No. That is not scientific treatment. You analyze blood, stool and this, and find out what is the germ. Then you analyze. And in the śāstra the symptoms are there, analytical, that "This kind of disease, the symptoms will be this, this, this, this." That is śāstra, not conjecture. Kāraṇa guṇa-saṅgo 'sya, very nicely explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, that "This rascal has infected this body on account of his particular connection with the modes of material nature." In the smṛti-śāstra it is stated how one gets tuberculosis, how one gets this disease, that disease, different pāpa.

Morning Walk -- December 20, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: If you manufacture your own knowledge, then you'll never be able to understand. (everyone laughs) Tad vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet: (MU 1.2.12) compulsory. You cannot understand; that is not possible. My Guru Mahārāja used to say that the honey, huh? Honey, honey, if somebody says, "Take this honey," the bottle, and he began to lick up the bottle: "It is not sweet. Why it is not sweet?" You go to a person who can open the bottle. (laughter) Then you'll see. You cannot taste the sweetness of honey by licking up the bottle. It must be... There must be some expert who can open it, and then you can taste. So they are trying to taste the honey in the bottle by their own imagination and licking up the bottle.

Morning Walk -- December 23, 1975, Bombay:

Devotee: They think it's too imaginary.

Harikeśa: Post-dated check!

Prabhupāda: And.. Not post-dated! That is real check, but he does not know. He refuses real check. That is not post-dated; it is real check.

Harikeśa: Well, they might say that we're always...

Prabhupāda: They might say, that is another thing. (Hindi conversation with man about blind leading the blind)

Lokanātha: (break) ...body is finished, everything is finished.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Lokanātha: When body is finished, everything is finished, so why...

Prabhupāda: That is their foolishness. You were a child; that body is finished. So you have got a different body. But this simple truth they do not understand; that is their folly. If the body is finished, then why you were a child, you have become a young man? Body is finished, but not everything is finished, everything is there. Only the body is finished. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). This is explained. So when the body is finished, that does not mean that you are finished. You have to accept another body. That is real truth, and it is spoken by Kṛṣṇa, not any so-called scientist.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 2, 1976, Madras:

Prabhupāda: There is a story that a grocer's son was doing business, and when he was given a five-rupees' note, so he was giving four rupees. So the customer said, "Why you are giving me four rupees?" "No, I do not know what is the exchange." "No, it is six rupees." So "No, father will be angry." (laughter) Means he knows perfectly well what is five rupees, but he is innocent when he was giving four rupees. And when the customer wanted six rupees, he, "No, my father will be angry." (break) ...created a havoc by misinterpreting Bhagavad-gītā, all people. According to their wish, "Five-rupees note means four rupees," by imagination. They have created havoc all over the world. Otherwise everything is there. Avajānanti māṁ mūḍhāḥ (BG 9.11). If we take Kṛṣṇa's instruction, then whole world becomes immediately happy. But they will not take it. They will manufacture their own, two plus two equal to five or three, not exactly the four.

Morning Walk -- January 3, 1976, Nellore:

Prabhupāda: You learn from him that it is school. Before that, you did not know. Therefore you have to learn. That experience is valuable, when you learn it.

Harikeśa: Yes, but the only thing that makes it a school...

Prabhupāda: You cannot imagine by seeing a building that it is a school. You cannot imagine that. That is foolishness.

Harikeśa: But all the people inside, they are also imagining that it's a school.

Prabhupāda: So that is all...

Acyutānanda: Just like if there is a pen. If I use it to kill someone, it is a weapon. If I use it to mix something, it is an instrument. If I use it to write with, then it's a pen. So it is not a pen. It is not a weapon. It is my idea that I impose on the object that makes it what it is.

Prabhupāda: No. No. Your idea, that is foolishness. But you learn from a teacher that this is pen; this is not a weapon. You have to learn it. If you don't learn it, then you will go on making experiment whether it is pen or it is weapon or it is this or that. Go on. But it will never come to any conclusion.

Morning Walk -- January 3, 1976, Nellore:

Prabhupāda: (break) This is basis of Gītā. Tad viddhi praṇipātena paripraśnena sevayā (BG 4.34). Learn from the real person, tattva-darśinaḥ, who has seen, who has actual experience of the truth. Learn from him. The Gītā never recommends that you imagine and make your theories. Never said. That is the Vedic culture. Tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). Tasmād guruṁ prapadyeta jijñāsur śreya uttamam (SB 11.3.21). This is the way. Take lesson from Kṛṣṇa or Kṛṣṇa's representative. Then you will get experience. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. What is the use of imagining?

Harikeśa: I mean, after all, all this talk about God was simply there because of man's desire to explain the unknown. He saw a thunderbolt and...

Prabhupāda: It is unknown to the rascal man. It is known to the sober man. (laughter) He should become sober instead of becoming a rascal. That is required. Vidyā-vinaya-sampanne (BG 5.18). Ācāryavān puruṣo veda: "He knows, who has accepted the ācārya." This is Theosophical Society, I think. Huh? That trademark. Or Rāmakrishna Mission.

Morning Walk -- January 6, 1976, Nellore:

Prabhupāda: So that is not your rascal's imagination. It is spoken by the Lord Himself. Mamaivāṁśaḥ. He is not rascal like you, that He will say something which is mistaken.

Acyutānanda: No, that is only during His avatāra He says that.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. He says like that; we have to accept it. Bhagavad-gītā as it is.

Acyutānanda: In the lower stage.

Prabhupāda: Lower stage not.... That is.... You are in the lower stage. You cannot understand. But what He says, that is right. Mamaivāṁśaḥ, sanātana, "eternally amara." It is not that made aṁśa at the present time. Sanātana. From.... From the very beginning.

Room Conversation -- January 16, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: That is.... A child can also do that. That is not expert. A child can advance in foolishness without any guidance. If the child touches fire and if somebody says, "This is advancement of knowledge," then imagine what is the position. Similarly, all these rascals, they are endeavoring. Just like Hiranyakasipu. He endeavored all through how to become immortal, which is impossible. But he advanced in that foolishness. Hiranyakasipu was such a big demon, his only idea was that "The devatās, they attack us sometimes. But now I shall attack them and plunder them. But because I am now practically immortal, what they will do? They cannot kill me. So I will go on with my demonic activities, and then they cannot do anything." This is his foolishness. He did not know that he's the greatest foolishness that he was trying to become immortal. When it was said by Brahmā that "No, no, it is not possible," still, he expected that "I shall become immortal." Brahmā flatly said, "No, no, this is not possible. I am not immortal. How can I give you immortality?" But he would not hear even Brahmā. He thought that, "In an indirect way I shall befool this man, Brahmā." "All right, sir, then give me this benediction." "What is that?" "I'll not die in the land." "All right." "Not in the water." "Yes." "Not in the air." "No, yes." So he thought that "The three things finished. Then where shall I die? There are three things only, land, water, sky. So he has given me benediction I shall not die anywhere of these three. So I have cheated now." And then "I shall not die in daytime." "Yes." "I shall not die in nighttime." But māyā dictated that there is another space or another place between day and night. (laughs) That he forgot. That is called sandhyā. That is accepted.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Night..., not night. But up to late night. So fifty-six time, chāppānna, within twenty-four hours, so just imagine.

Harikeśa: Four or five times an hour.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So we have to do that at this temple.

Prabhupāda: Every fifteen minutes new set, prasādam.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You need a whole lot of Shantilals to do that.

Prabhupāda: And these ingredients are supplied by Jagannātha's own field. They grow it, and they... So there is no difficulty. They grow and they sell. They get money so they can maintain the establishment. A long time. There are potters. Daily they will supply for each prasādam a new pot. It cannot be used again. So few people purchase with pot, original pot, and they have got a fixed price. This big pot, say, five rupees; this pot, two rupees; this pot, one rupee. So as you like, you can purchase. Very nice system.

Morning Walk -- January 20, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Twenty-five thousand. I never thought that these books will be so well received. It is beyond my imagination. I thought a few copies may be sold.

Sudāmā: Remember, Śrīla Prabhupāda, Tamāla, he inaugurated in Seattle, Washington, the saṅkīrtana party...

Prabhupāda: No, he inaugurated from San Francisco. We were printing these Back to Godhead, five hundred. And he was most of the... You were selling?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually it was 3,500, and we were selling 2,700 of them.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Then Brahmānanda... I asked Brahmānanda. He was in charge. I asked him that "Why don't you print more?" I understood that he has got the potency to sell more. So print in regular way, in that way we arranged. What is that press?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, mimeograph.

Prabhupāda: Mimeograph. I was printing. Yes. Then he inquired this Dai Nippon, many place. At last he said that "Unless we print twenty thousand, they will not take up this work." I said, "Immediately take it." From three thousand to twenty thousand immediately. At that time they were giving us ten cent or less than.

Morning Walks -- January 22-23, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: And therefore people are surprised that "How this man is doing like this?" They are surprised. Everyone is surprised.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They can't imagine how fallen we were. I don't think they think it's really possible to reform so...

Prabhupāda: It is impossible.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But you have done the impossible.

Sudāmā: Therefore they think that we are hypnotized.

Prabhupāda: Even Śrīdhara Mahārāja says that "This pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi grāma, we simply thought that it is an ideal, but you have practically done this." He admits that. (CB Antya-khaṇḍa 4.126)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I remember.

Dayānanda: In London you said that you were changing crows to swans.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- February 5, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Don't imagine. I am asking what is the current theory.

Hṛdayānanda: Yes, that God is... God now is in a dormant condition.

Harikeśa: God is dead.

Prabhupāda: God is dead. After creating, He is dead.

Harikeśa: He used Himself up.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Hṛdayānanda: No, but, no, they say... No, that's not what they say. They say that God created, and now God is in a dormant condition.

Prabhupāda: Whatever condition, there is God. That you have to accept.

Morning Walk -- February 6, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Just see the imagination, fanatic imagination. He is creating...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Species.

Prabhupāda: ...a theory, a species.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Missing link species. And they have... They have models of this missing link.

Prabhupāda: They know it; still "missing."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Although it's missing...

Prabhupāda: "Missing" means they know only, "Oh, he knows."

Morning Walk -- March 1, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Why Kṛṣṇa is within the atom? That is answered or not? Wherever there is the living entity, Kṛṣṇa is there as friend. Su-parna, sayujā. So, from the śāstra it is understood, as many material atoms are there, so many spiritual atoms are there. Now you can imagine how many living entities are there. (sic:) Physists, they have not been able to find out the spiritual atom. Therefore they are puzzled, and their scientific research is incomplete. But the Bhagavad-gītā gives them information, "You rascal, this is inferior. These material atoms are inferior." Apareyam. They'll not take it. Apareyam itas tu: "Besides this, there is another energy, spiritual energy." "What is that spiritual energy? We do find." "You don't find? Why don't you see jīva-bhūta, these living entities?" But they are rascals. They will not see.

Morning Walk -- March 9, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...purify the whole atmosphere. (break) ...world we are all condemned. Still, Kṛṣṇa has given so many facilities. There is a Bengali proverb. Bondhīr astekur bhaga.(?) Ast kur(?) means the place of garbage. If a aristocrat asks that "You have to live in my garbage place," "Oh, that is also better." Similarly, Kṛṣṇa.... This is garbage. This material world is garbage. Still, we live so comfortably. Now just imagine what is His dhāma. It is the garbage tank. Still so nice. And just think what is His real place, Goloka Vṛndāvana.

Morning Walk -- March 13, 1976, Mayapur:

Bhāgavata: In New York one policeman admitted that when the police would capture the thieves with the stolen goods, then they would confiscate the goods and keep it privately in their homes and sell the stolen goods and get the money for themselves. They would not return it to the owner, but they would utilize it for making money. So they are also thieves.

Prabhupāda: So if this is the practice in a country which is so opulent, just imagine what is there in India.

Morning Walk -- March 14, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...man is less. He is simply beating drum. (break) ...the reason? Nobody can explain?

Pañca-draviḍa: That they won't surrender?

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Jayādvaita: They have no confidence that Kṛṣṇa is there to actually fulfill responsi...

Trivikrama: They say He is imagination.

Mahāṁśa: Asurim bhavam asrita.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is due to sinful activities?

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Sinful activities?

Prabhupāda: Duskrtino mūḍhaḥ. Anyone commits sin, he is a rascal. Ordinarily also. A person kills somebody—that means he is rascal. He is rascal. He does not care for the law. That means rascal. So any sinful man is a rascal. Without being rascal, one cannot commit sin.

Morning Walk -- March 18, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So what is that center?

Jayapatākā: That they can't find out.

Balavanta: Somewhere near the sun. They've just imagined it. It's close to the sun, but not exactly the sun. It's the center, they say.

Prabhupāda: So our Bhāgavata says the whole planetary system is moving like this.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Centering the polestar.

Jayapatākā: They admit that there's some center of the universe. Everything is going around that, including the sun. But they don't know exactly where it is.

Prabhupāda: That is polestar.

Morning Walk -- March 21, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: That means you are suggesting simply. You have no clear idea. Actually the sun is moving. That is my point. Such a huge, gigantic matter, and we see, so quickly.... From the sunrise, now, it is not even fifteen minutes. Just imagine how big speed is there is.

Jayapatākā: But it is not so fast at midday.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Jayapatākā: It is not so fast at midday.

Prabhupāda: No. Eh? No...

Jayapatākā: At midday, it is not so...

Prabhupāda: Faster, fast..., it is fast also. But because on the head. The speed is the same.

Morning Walk -- March 21, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Now, just like if somebody says, "Maybe there is a president," he's a rascal. He does not know what is the history, what is the constitution. He does not know. So why a gentleman should waste a time with such a rascal who says, "There may be a president"? Immediately he becomes a rascal.

Pañca-draviḍa: Then he says, "There is a God, but all these stories about Him and His activities, they are just imaginations."

Prabhupāda: That's right. You do not know what is God, after all. "There may be." Then who is going to hear you? You do not know. Your statement is also another story.

Pañca-draviḍa: I am not a scientist.

Prabhupāda: No, no. The scientists, if they say "There may be God," that means he's a rascal. Scientist means, whatever he will say, that is accurate. That is scientist. What is the difference between a layman and scientist? That is the difference. The scientist will say what is actual fact. That is scientist.

Talk at Radha-Govinda Mandir -- March 24, 1976, Calcutta:

Prabhupāda: And that is the inspiration of my devotional life. Then I asked my father that "Give me Rādhā-Govinda Deity; I shall worship." So my father was also Vaiṣṇava. He gave me small Rādhā-Govinda Deity. I was worshiping in my house. Whatever I was eating, I was offering, and I was following the ceremonies of this Rādhā-Govinda with my small Deity. That Deity is still existing. I have given to my sister. So then I introduced Ratha-yātrā. So I.... My Ratha-yātrā was being performed very gloriously. My father used to spend money. In those days ten rupees, twenty rupees was sufficient. I hired one kīrtana party and a small friends, they..., I think the brother of the present generation, and there was another De family here, so we performed this Ratha-yātrā ceremony. According to our children's imagination, it was very gorgeous.

Conversation with News Reporters -- March 25, 1976, Delhi:

Reporter (2): So you want to encourage that.

Prabhupāda: Yes. I want that.... Bhagavad-gītā was spoken in India. Every Indian should take Bhagavad-gītā very seriously. Then India's fortune will change. But they have rejected Bhagavad-gītā, and they are making their own imagination as the goal of life. So how they will be happy? If you have your father's property, you squander it and then you beg from others, "Give me some money," then how much unfortunate you are, just see. Your father's property, you squandered it. Then you become a beggar and beg from others, "Give me some money, sir." So how much unfortunate you are, just imagine.

Reporter (2): When you visited the Soviet Union, Swamiji, did you find the atmosphere worse than it is in Western countries, say? Are the people...

Prabhupāda: Everywhere the people are very good, but the leaders are bad.

Press Conference -- April 27, 1976, Auckland, New Zealand:

Prabhupāda: Huh? Not only Guru Maharaj-ji, so many Mahārāja. So this movement is authorized. Others, they are some imaginary sentiments. That's all. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is authorized movement, Vedic culture. And they, in the name of Vedic culture, talking some nonsense. That's all. That is the difference. Do you know about Guru Maharaj-ji?

Interviewer: No, no.

Prabhupāda: None of you?

Interviewer: You've met him?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Interviewer: You've met him, have you?

Prabhupāda: No, what business I have got to meet him? He says that he is God. Do you believe that bogus statement? That he's God?

Interviewer: Do you think he's an egotist?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Devotee: Do you think he's an egotist? Do you think he's an egotist?

Prabhupāda: That is all simply foolishness. If somebody says "I am God," do you think it is very reasonable statement? Bogus. Simple thing, bogus.

Room Conversation -- May 1, 1976, Fiji:

Prabhupāda: Anyathā. These rascals, they're in ajñānam, dealing with sex life, dealing with the body as their philosophy, science. Dealing with the body and dealing with sex life is the animal business, and they are passing on as philosopher, scientist. This is their position, the whole world. So how much Kṛṣṇa consciousness is important, just imagine.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The goal of knowledge is not there.

Prabhupāda: They do not know. And animals.... Therefore they are animals. What the dogs will understand? When there is one lady dog, one dozen dog will come. Smelling the best part of the body. (laughter) This is their philosophy. So Freud is that: best part of the body, he's writing philosophy.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Books and books. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: Just see. This is the position. How low taste: hogs' and pigs' business, and write philosophy. His books are selling like anything.

Room Conversation with Siddha-svarupa -- May 3, 1976, Honolulu:

Siddha-svarūpa: I imagined that it would soon go on, on a mass scale, that...

Prabhupāda: No, it will go, because they are becoming more mūḍhas. There is no intelligence. Therefore I say that we are giving this intelligence. This is the only movement to make these mūḍhas intelligent. This is the only movement. Otherwise they are becoming more and more and more and more mūḍhas. So under the circumstances, if we also become mūḍhas, then who will make the other mūḍhas intelligent? That is my point. There are so many things. I'll begin this, I mean to say, recitation of Sixth Canto. There are so many nice instructions. So this... (break)...even they are kept to remain as mūḍhas, all other so-called attempts... There are many other attempts for awakening the human society to right platform, but their basic principle is wrong. They cannot do it. It is not possible.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: That's all right, general. But you know how to make general mass of people happy. That example we give, that the whole body.... You can make the whole body happy simply by supplying food to the stomach. That is the best way. And if you want to make happy every part of the body, individual, that will never be successful. You must know where to touch. Just like the huge machine is going on by the expert manipulation of the pilot. He is pushing one.... Works. Immediately the plane becomes.... It is.... So you must know where to touch. If.... I am layman, I am put into that, then, instead of putting here, I shall put my here, and then it will go down. "Ohhh." So finished. So this is nature's way, that you supply food to the stomach, and the energy will be distributed every part. You supply water to the root of the tree, it will be supplied everywhere. That you must know. Otherwise, if you.... Just like if you do not know, a expert, not expert, so he's advised, "Give to, the food to the stomach." "And in where?" "No, in the hole of the body." If he does not, which hole, then he will put somewhere, sometimes here, sometimes here, sometimes here, sometimes here. It will never act. Then you must know the science how to make everyone happy. If you do not know that, then your imperfect imagination will never be done, and that has become everywhere. Why there is difference of opinion even both of the communistic countries? Why there is difference of opinion between Russia and China? Because both of you do not know how to make everyone happy. That is the point.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: That will make them failure. Tell them, then this will make them failure. "If you are so foolish that you want to go above nature, then you are fool number one." Daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). It is not possible. That is not possible. Then you are following wrong path. If you are imagining like that, that "We have surpassed the laws of nature," then you are fool number one.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In that respect they are like the Americans and Russians. They think that we can overcome the laws of nature.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They are just like the Americans and Russians in the same way. They are thinking we can overcome the stringent laws of nature.

Prabhupāda: No, that is the foolishness. Mūḍha. Na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ (BG 7.15). So long they will have this impression that they can overcome the laws of nature they will continue to become mūḍha.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: This philosophy, it is science. Without water you cannot produce. This is science. This is not imagination. So if you want to surpass nature, then you do practically. Why should you try to bring canal water or well water? Don't bring. You cannot surpass the laws of nature. That has to be accepted.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Their main point is that they want to manipulate expertly the laws of nature.

Prabhupāda: That means let them waste their time. Therefore it requires many births to understand this law. Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān māṁ prapadyate (BG 7.19).

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're going away from this kind of understanding. They had a heritage of philosophical understanding, correct philosophical.... They were very.... For instance, their whole system during the time of Confucius.... Up until two or three hundred years ago their system was they had a monarchy, a king, an emperor, and the emperor was believed to be the representative of God.

Prabhupāda: That is good.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: ...that if they are rascals, then don't try. You see? Reject them. But there is good potency in your country. You do peacefully here. If they are rascals, means stubborn rascals...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You cannot imagine how rascal they are. That's why we wrote this report.

Prabhupāda: Then don't try. Don't waste time.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's a.... The Christians, they have a boat two hundred miles off the China coast, and they put little Bibles in cellophane bags and let the Bibles float into China.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Balloons.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Balloons. That's how hard it is to preach there.

Prabhupāda: That is also nonsense.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: That means the little children's policy. Children, just like imagining so many things, "I shall do that. I shall do." The potter's imagination. You know that? Potter's imagination? You do not know the story? One potter is selling earthen pots, and he is saying that "Now, these two paisā, it has cost me one paisā. I shall make one paisā profit. Then I can make such profit. I shall invest again. I shall make another profit, another profit. In this way I shall become millionaire. Then I shall marry, and my wife shall be very obedient. And if (s)he does not become obedient, I shall give him a kick like this." And he, what was.... One pot was there. He kicked that pot and broke. (laughter) It broke. "Oh, again I am poor man." So this is going on, imagination. Imagination.... "I shall become so great that I shall kick Kṛṣṇa's law," and whatever pot he had-broken. That's all. Rascals, simply rascals. If anyone thinks like that, that "I shall surpass the laws of nature," then he's madman. He's madman. So what is the use of dealing with madmen? And as soon as you challenge them that "Show us that you have surpassed the laws of nature," "Yes, we are trying. In future we shall do." That's all. This is their reply.

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Everyone, all rascals are thinking like this.

Hari-śauri: They were saying that God's existence is imaginary; man is reality, man is supreme.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because your..., you cannot... Just like our Alfred Ford, he never saw Henry Ford. Then why he says that "I'm the great-grandson of Mr. Ford"? Ford is not there. But why he's claiming Ford's property? Where is Ford? The great-grandson is not expected to see the original establisher of the family. But if there is no philosophy, how they can, any philosophers, all meat-eaters, drunkards, (laughs) woman hunters, and they can be philosophers. (laughs) They're dogs, simply barking. That's all. Simply dogs.

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1976, Honolulu:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...not a practical solution.

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is the knowledge, real knowledge. Eight million, four hundred thousand forms of life, and the supreme father is supplying food to everyone. And each form millions, millions. You'll find millions of one type of fish within the water. And there are nine hundred thousand different forms of fishes. They are eating within this water. Who is supplying them food? We cannot imagine even what is the food there within the water. But there is. Otherwise, how they are living? They have no scarcity.

Hari-śauri: Neither there's any overpopulation either.

Prabhupāda: Neither. Overpopulation, the fish, they lay eggs hundreds and thousands at a time. You know that? There is not..., unlimited number of eggs they lay down. (break) ...say, "Your food is ready. Just little work." Annād bhavanti bhūtāni (BG 3.14). Just produce food grain. Everyone will be happy. But why they are producing motorcars only?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So they can go to the market and get the food. So they can drive to the market.

Prabhupāda: Why market? You can produce your food at home.

Morning Walk -- May 30, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, such a wonderful things is there, and there is no brain behind it? Is it very reasonable proposal? It has come automatically. There is a chunk. Childish.

Devotee (1): Because it's too much beyond their conception, they say that it's simply imagination.

Prabhupāda: Ha?

Devotee: They say that simply because it's too much beyond their conception...

Prabhupāda: It's a fact. You see the heat and light. It is not the imagination. So who arranged so much heat and light? That is the question. It is not imagination. We have to manufacture a small bolt. It requires a big, big factory's brain. And this has come by chunk? Nonsense. And you have to accept it? These crazy fellows propose and we have to accept.

Room Conversation with Reporter -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: So we are simply giving a practical set(?) of the instruction of Gītā. This is our business. We don't manufacture any imaginative thing.

Rāmeśvara: His idea.... His question, Prabhupāda, is also, suppose someone wants to buy a farm or wants to do some new project. Do they ask your permission first?

Prabhupāda: Yes. The whole society is going on under my direction. Whatever they do, they take my permission and they put into (indistinct). Nothing is allowed without my permission.

Reporter: I wonder if you might have any opinions on some of the leaders of cults and groups in the United States, such as the Divine Light Mission, or the T.M. and so forth. I'm wondering if you have any opinions on Guru Maharaj-ji or Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Prabhupāda: There are different groups. I know that. But I do not go in detail to understand them. But our..., we have got a crucial test. That anyone who is..., does not know about Kṛṣṇa, he is put into four different types of categories as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. One category is that he is sinful. Another category is that he is rascal. Another category is that he's lowest of the mankind. Another category is that his so-called knowledge is taken away by illusory energy. So this is our test.

Morning Walk -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes, we say also.

Candanācārya: But can any body be generated from the imagination, any kind of...

Prabhupāda: It is not this imagination. I wanted that facility. So my subtle mind is wanting that. So nature is supplying: "All right, you get it."

Hari-śauri: We don't create the bodies. We desire them, and the material nature has created already.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rādhāvallabha: Their theory is that these bodies never before existed, but by the desire of the living entity, that certain type of body was created.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. That means nature is above. He wanted that body; nature has given. Is that correct?

Rādhāvallabha: No, not exactly.

Prabhupāda: Then what is that?

Rādhāvallabha: That they want a particular facility, and...

Prabhupāda: And nature supplies the body, that's all. Simple thing.

Morning Walk -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Another bogus. Another bluff. So be satisfied with their bluffs. That's all. (break, conversation continues in car)

Rāmeśvara: The sun planet is seated on a chariot, and it is pulled by horses? They take it to be mythology.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Rāmeśvara: They cannot imagine how horses can be flying in the sky.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And pulling an entire planet.

Prabhupāda: Because you cannot imagine it, there is no such thing? What is the value of your imagination?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But you just said by your imagination you can grow a beak.

Prabhupāda: If some horses can fly in the sky, what your imagination will check it?

Rāmeśvara: But they say that the planet is so heavy and so big it is not possible for a mortal...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. The planet is.... How it is floating in the air?

Rāmeśvara: They have an explanation for that.

Prabhupāda: No. You do not know the explanation. There are so many other things. Just like we say there is ocean of milk, ocean of liquor, ocean of oil.

Morning Walk -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That's all right. The planet is.... How it is floating in the air?

Rāmeśvara: They have an explanation for that.

Prabhupāda: No. You do not know the explanation. There are so many other things. Just like we say there is ocean of milk, ocean of liquor, ocean of oil.

Rāmeśvara: No, all of that they take to be...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Mythology.

Rāmeśvara:...imagination.

Prabhupāda: But why? Your imagination. You have not gone throughout the whole universe. You cannot say. You are imperfect.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But they say neither you have gone, so how can you know...

Prabhupāda: No, I have got authority, you have got no authority.

Morning Walk -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, we have got books, and these books are authorized, they are accepted by authorities, but what you have got?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They have their fairy tales, they call it, imaginary tales.

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, we have got something. I may believe it. That's all. You believe your imagination, we believe this. That's all. Finished.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Ours are better.

Prabhupāda: Your imagination is also rascaldom, and if ours, it is rascaldom, that's all right, you are rascal, I am rascal. Why do you pose yourself you are learned?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, that's the point.

Prabhupāda: Don't pose yourself that you are learned.

Morning Walk -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be.

Rāmeśvara: But they do not give one person the credit.

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. Just like this manufacturer of this car, he's not handling this creation by his own hand. He has got money, energy. He pays the mechanical person to create, but ultimately it is Ford. Ford is not creating everything. Ford's money, Ford's employees, workers, they are creating, but the name is Ford. Similarly, everything is being created by God. Mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram (BG 9.10). And He has got so many working hands. That is also.... Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). Multi-energies, they are doing like that.... But He is supervising, "Have you done this?" "Yes." "That's all. Go on." So how can you go beyond your experience? Everything is created. A child may think, "How this car is created?" But it is, factually it is created. He cannot imagine how this nice car is created. Why child? Even elderly persons in a nondeveloped country, they'll be surprised how this car is created. They cannot do it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. That means they're ignorant.

Prabhupāda: That's all. So you cannot imagine that the sky is created, this water is created, that is beyond your experience.

Morning Walk -- June 5, 1976, Los Angeles:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...and they, right in the middle of the jungle, suddenly the devotees were there. (laughter) Hṛdayānanda's men were there preaching, and they said they could not imagine that they were in this most unusual place, no one was around, but suddenly the Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees were. (laughter)

Hṛdayānanda: They told me they met Tamāla Kṛṣṇa's mother.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Rādhāvallabha: If he gets a book in an unusual place, they always say, "You people are everywhere."

Rāmeśvara: When we tell the public that we only have maybe ten thousand devotees, they are very surprised there are so few Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees, because they see us everywhere.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Therefore we're the most enthusiastic missionaries in the world.

Prabhupāda: (break)...say that all the ten thousand devotees, each of them is a moon, not a star.

Morning Walk -- June 5, 1976, Los Angeles:

Hari-śauri: Yes. That man was amazed when on the plane when he asked me, he said, "How many members of your religion are there?" So I said, "Well, in India there are hundreds of millions." He couldn't imagine it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's what we should say, two million, like that. American, five hundred thousand. Why should we say five thousand?

Hari-śauri: Śrīla Prabhupāda? Before you were mentioning that we should start to try to get on friendly terms with some of these governmental people. Would that be done in the same way as they do in India? Just like we have so many government ministers that have become life members and things like that. Is that possible to do in America?

Prabhupāda: Yes. There are many government men. Why not? Human psychology is the same. How many lines in...?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How many lanes.

Rāmeśvara: Four lanes.

Prabhupāda: That is biggest.

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Another imagination. These are actual facts.(?)

Hari-śauri: They just made up different compositions of bones and then drew some outlines on them.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They are imagination.

Hari-śauri: But you said in Hawaii though that there are some animals that are as big as skyscrapers?

Prabhupāda: Yes, these are birds. It is far from this earth though. They travel from one planet to another.

Rāmeśvara: So these bones that they have found of these gigantic animals, they were all living underneath the water.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: Not on the land.

Prabhupāda: Maybe. But the list is there: jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi. There are 900,000 different forms, and how many we have seen? There is information in the śāstra. Paśavas triṁśal-lakṣāṇi. Three million different types of animals.

Morning Walk -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That means there are so many conditioned souls, one after another, coming. And the conditioned souls are the few of the whole living entities. Just imagine what is the total! (laughs)

Rāmeśvara: It can't be imagined.

Prabhupāda: And majority in the spiritual world, and one fourth, minority, is here in so many innumerable universes.

Rāmeśvara: There are also many spirit souls in the Brahman effulgence, the spiritual sky.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Rāmeśvara: The spiritual sky.

Prabhupāda: Full of these souls. They have no forms. Just like sun. Sunshine means small illuminating sparks. (break) (out of car:) Flowers, they are good medicine for dysentery.

Morning Walk -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:

Rāmeśvara: ...surprised that you have written so many books. They cannot understand how you could write so much. They wonder whether you were a great Sanskrit scholar for many years, so they try to guess. They just can't imagine anyone writing so much.

Prabhupāda: We are exceeding all material authors except Vyāsadeva.

Rāmeśvara: Vyāsadeva.

Prabhupāda: One book, seventeen volumes, Caitanya-caritāmṛta. That is also.... So many, our Godbrothers, attempted. Everyone is...

Hari-śauri: Have any of your Godbrothers translated anything?

Prabhupāda: They died half-way finished.

Morning Walk -- June 11, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes, provided we keep it uncontaminated. You should take this opportunity.

Rāmeśvara: So after ten years we have gotten so many devotees and so many houses, so I can't imagine how big this movement will be after ten thousand years.

Prabhupāda: Yes. You'll get the government.

Rāmeśvara: The whole world will be delivered?

Prabhupāda: Yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhaḥ (BG 3.21). America will be the best; people will follow. They are already following-skyscraper building, that's all. Any nation in the world, they are all aspiring to have skyscraper buildings. India has done? In Bombay?

Rāmeśvara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Full of skyscraper buildings. Now they are thinking this is opulence, skyscraper building. When you are giving it up, no more skyscraper building, the others are imitating. Just like in this quarter you cannot construct skyscraper building. They don't want it. Now others are imitating: "Let us have skyscraper building like America."

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Ambarīṣa: It means to increase their happiness they have built this park. Melior means increased happiness.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...Kṛṣṇa there is no happiness. All imagination.

Hari-śauri: Moghāśā mogha-karmāṇaḥ.

Prabhupāda: We shall go this way?

Ambarīṣa: This way's OK.

Satsvarūpa: ...soldier. A hundred years ago when the north fought the south. This is some memorial. (break)

Devotee (2): ...devotional service is transcendental to the modes of material nature. That's from the very moment that one first begins to render devotional service? Or gradually? From the first very moment?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: That is the difficulty. The government is rākṣasa. So you have to take charge of the government. First of all make propaganda, the majority of population may (be) in favor of you. Then you'll get vote. This is the easiest process. If majority people likes, that "These Kṛṣṇa conscious men are very nice," then you make a candidate—"Vote for Kṛṣṇa conscious person, such and such." They'll vote. In this way, you'll capture the Senate, then government, then President's office. It is very.... At least, there must be majority of the people sympathizers of this movement. Then it will be successful. So you do everything exemplified, and people will vote. But it is difficult in this way, that "These people are prohibiting intoxication and gambling. How we can live without this?" That is the difficulty. They cannot imagine even that without these things one can live. Is it not?

Hari-śauri: It's a fact. If you stop them doing that, they'll have no activity, just working.

Rakṣaṇa: We should expand our New Bhakta program so that they can have weekend stays in āśramas, have practical experience.

Prabhupāda: That they are coming.

Conversation with Clergymen -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Oh, that is imagination. That is never will be fulfilled. That is simply imagination. As I told you, that, what you can do? There are so many poor men. We can estimate like this: the rich men and the middle class men and the poor class men. These three orders are there everywhere.

Scheverman: So you see that as in nature, as coming from the Lord God Himself, these three levels.

Prabhupāda: Now, when I did not come to your country, I thought that in America, everyone is rich.

Conversation with Clergymen -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: What is difficulty? You do not like to train first-class men?

Scheverman: Everybody wants to be first class.

Prabhupāda: Yes, so why not train him? If I simply by imagination, that "I have become first class," will that do? Simply by imagination, I have become a medical man, will that do? You must have training.

Scheverman: So you say put him in a training program, and if he can make it, okay, and if he can't make it, then he'll be..., he goes as far as he can in training program.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that process we can help. Therefore how to become peaceful.

Interview with Kathy Kerr Reporter from The Star -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Because my..., it is fact, it is not a bogus thing. It is not some imagination, "By meditation you become God." We do not bluff like that. We give education, scientific education. The books are there. You'll find this Bhagavad-gītā... Have you read ever? No. Here, how to understand God and myself, my relationship. There is no such thing that "You sit down fifteen minutes and you become God." There is no such bogus thing. It is science.

Room Conversation -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Hari-śauri: Nothing. It's just imaginary wealth.

Prabhupāda: That's it. Bank will give you loan, they are eager to give you loan, and you haven't got to pay anything in gold and silver. One check, that's all. And with that check you can purchase lots of commodities and hoard it, and price will be increased. If I have to pay gold for (indistinct), then I have limited source. The price will not increase. This is the only way. Introduce gold only, gold and silver. In the British period in our childhood there was practically no notes. Silver. If I have to take payment from you, one thousand rupees, you will give me so much silver. For counting, counting, I have to see whether it is.... There were some imitation, counterfeit. So each coin you have to see, they were saying like that, that, "For thousand rupees I have to occupy so much space."

Room Conversation -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Thing is that if the leaders of the society, they come to their consciousness, that this way the society cannot be peaceful, the way they are now conducting.... If they have brain.... Just like the other day, the Christian priest. He was speaking of disabled men. You were present? I challenge you: what do you mean by disabled man? If one man has lost his arm, can you supply it? Then he stopped.

Hari-śauri: He was finished when you told him it was all imaginary.

Prabhupāda: Yes, actually. What you can do?

Jagadīśa: Other than yourself, Śrīla Prabhupāda, no one in the world has a vision how to save the world.

Prabhupāda: Because I honestly think of it. Maybe others are also honest, but they do not know the right way. How they can be honest? Just like this Communist movement. They are favoring the labor class and rejecting the capitalist class altogether. They cannot make any adjustment.

Garden Discussion on Bhagavad-gita Sixteenth Chapter -- June 26, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: That does not mean that women are to be kept as slaves, but they are like children. Children are not given freedom, but that does not mean they are kept as slaves. The demons have now neglected such injunctions and they think that women should be given as much freedom as men. However this has not improved the social condition of the world. Actually a woman should be given protection at every stage of life. She should be given protection by her father in her younger days, by the husband in her youth, and by the grown-up sons in her old age. This is proper social behavior according to the Manu-saṁhitā. But modern education has artificially devised a puffed-up concept of womanly life, and therefore marriage is practically now an imagination in human society. Nor is the moral condition of woman very good now. The demons, therefore, do not accept any instruction which is good for society, and because they do not follow the experience of great sages and the rules and regulations laid down by the sages, the social condition of the demoniac people is very miserable."

Garden Conversation -- June 27, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: They have not done. Has everyone got the president's power? How do they say that you have done. Everyone equal? That is not possible. These are imagination. Mano-rathenasato dhāvato bahiḥ Everything is there in the Bhāgavatam. Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇāḥ. These rascals who are not Kṛṣṇa conscious, they have no value. They are simply speculating within the mind, mano-rathena, and they'll act all abominable, because they are on the mental platform. I'll say "I think like this," you'll say "I think like this." And nobody, none of us perfect. Then what is the use of your thinking like this or thinking like that? Both of them are imperfect. So if so many rascals sit together, or dogs, they simply bark, that's all. It has no value. So our propaganda is that "Don't remain in the dog platform. Come to the human platform." That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. There you will get, "If we all dogs meet together and pass a resolution, then it will be organized." That is democracy. Democracy means like that. The dog is kept as dog, and they are assembled together to take their votes. What is the value of their vote? They are dogs. I've publicly said this, where?

Devotees: Melbourne.

Garden Conversation -- June 27, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Gradual process, just like you are here in the sunshine. So if you are intelligent, you'll understand that the temperature in the sunshine and the temperature in the sun globe is different. So Brahman understanding is the lowest stage. Paramātmā understanding little higher. And Bhagavān understanding is complete. That is gradual. And these Māyāvādīs, they do not try to understand Kṛṣṇa. They are satisfied only with understanding Brahman. Therefore they fall down. Arūhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adho 'nādṛta (SB 10.2.32). Because there is no standing. The impersonal feature, that the sky... Go very high in the sky, you do not see anymore this planet earth, neither you see anything, you'll be mad. Then you will find out how to go back again. You cannot stay there in that condition. Although they say "so'ham," no, you cannot stay there. Just imagine, if you go very high and you do not see any other thing, only sky. Will you be able to stay in that condition? You go in the sea. When you do not find anything, all water, you become very much anxious, "Where is land? Where is land?" And as soon as you have a glimpse of land, island, you become very, "Oh, there is land." So this is impersonal understanding. It is simply imagination, that simply by Brahman understanding he'll be happy. No, that is not possible.

Room Conversation -- June 29, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Kadarya bhakṣaṇa.

Hari-śauri: It's difficult to imagine what kind of fate we would have had if you hadn't come and started this movement.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Everything is so scientific. We've seen practically that as people take up this chanting, that gradually they lose their taste for every other kind of eating. It's a fact. I should inform Kīrtanānanda Swami about some of these ideas?

Prabhupāda: Yes, if you can arrange with the butcher.

Hari-śauri: One thing, the other day they were saying that sometimes when they have this skim milk, and there's some excess after they've fed it to the cows, they throw it away, they use it for fertilizer. Should they do that? Is that all right to use that?

Prabhupāda: Oh, no. We can use it.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: I have heard that mathematics believes by some imaginary thing, minus, so on, like that.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The absolute numbers?

Prabhupāda: Something minus one, like that. Who is mathematician here?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: (laughs) Here is our mathematician.

Prabhupāda: All right, so is that the beginning of mathematics?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: What is the beginning of mathematics?

Sadāpūta: Well, the beginning of mathematics is counting a number. We have that square root of minus one.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That I heard. The beginning is minus one. That is imaginary; it is not fact. But they imagine something at the beginning.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Sadāpūta: Well, the beginning of mathematics is counting a number. We have that square root of minus one.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That I heard. The beginning is minus one. That is imaginary; it is not fact. But they imagine something at the beginning.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. In fact it is called imaginary number. Square root of minus one.

Prabhupāda: Yes, if mathematics begins with imaginary something, why not Absolute Truth? That Absolute Truth must be life. As Bhāgavata explains, janmādy asya yato 'nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ (SB 1.1.1). He must be aware of everything. That means life. That means life. Now the question is how He became experienced? Svarāṭ, independent. Just like we require experience, knowledge, from somebody else. Experienced knowledge is not gained automatically, but the Absolute means that He is full of knowledge. How He got knowledge? Svarāṭ, independently. That is the description. You have to imagine at least like that. It is Vedic injunction, it is the fact, that Absolute Truth independently cognizant of everything. That is Absolute Truth.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The physical forms.

Prabhupāda: No, nothing is extinct. Everything is going on.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: At that point, they are going to come up with the point that "How about dinosaurs?" They are going to ask like that.

Prabhupāda: That is imagination, where is dinosaur finding.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They say they have all the bones.

Prabhupāda: No, they are describing maybe another animal. That is existing. That is Timiṅgila, they can swallow up big, big whale fishes. That big, bones, they are living still. Nothing is extinct. They are already there.

Rūpānuga: Did these dinosaurs exist, or is it just their imagination?

Prabhupāda: The big animal exists. I call it dinosaur or finosaur, that is your choice. Big animals existing. Timiṅgila, I said the name, Timiṅgila, still exist.

Morning Walk -- July 4, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: Two atoms?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, angstroms. Angstrom is the smallest scale that science can imagine. It is smaller even than the hydrogen atom. So actually it is atomic, it is very small in size.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But we were wondering whether that is reasonable.

Prabhupāda: Reasonable? Yes. It is given in Upaniṣads and Padma Purāṇa, authorized.

Rūpānuga: It's just that this one ten-thousandth tip of hair has no material quality. It is nonphysical but still can be measured.

Prabhupāda: Nonphysical... Just like axiomatic truth point has no length, no breadth, but it has length and breadth. You cannot measure it.

Morning Walk -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: They have finished all their talks. So far as I know, these so-called scientists, they have finished their business. Now they have no other means than to bluff. To get their salary.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, actually the research is also getting more and more difficult.

Prabhupāda: Yes, what they'll research? Everything finished.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Their imagination is running out.

Prabhupāda: That's all.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, the ideas are running out. That's why now they are doing on the biological sciences mainly.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. There is another nonsense. Why they are checking the flow?

Vipina: The water is too rough for the boats to travel, so they made this artificial canal so boats could travel without getting wrecked, and they could transport their items of sense gratification in that way. They used to have mules that pulled the boats with ropes alongside here, these pathways, pulled them through the canal.

Prabhupāda: It will grow mosquitoes, mosquito plant.

Morning Walk -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: The more you go higher planetary system, the standard of living is many, many thousand times better than this. Many, many thousand times.

Rūpānuga: We can't even imagine it now.

Hari-śauri: What to speak of the spiritual world.

Prabhupāda: Just suppose here are stones, there are pearls. You cannot imagine.

Hari-śauri: Lying on the roadside. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...Western scientists, philosophers, they are all Dr. Frogs. They simply calculating three feet water, that's all. As soon as you speak to them about Atlantic Ocean, they say, "Oh, it is impossible." Froggish brain. (break) ...word has come, kūpa-māṇḍūkya-nyāya, the frog in the well.

Room Conversation -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: That is also imagination. Again you are bringing imagination, speculation.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So actually it's very subtle and critical.

Prabhupāda: As soon as you bring your imaginations, they'll bring their own imagination. "Perhaps," "It may be," they say

Rūpānuga: Our imagination is as good as your imagination.

Prabhupāda: We are to take the Vedic injunction axiomatic.

Conversation with Prof. Saligram and Dr. Sukla -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: They conquered over sleeping, eating. If we conquer over eating, then we can conquer over sleeping and other things also. If we can control over this tongue, then we can control over the other senses very easily. That is a fact. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura has sung, tar madhye jihvā ati, lobhamoy sudurmati, tā 'ke jetā koṭhina saṁsāre. Of all our senses the tongue is very, very prominent. So the first thing in spiritual advancement, the first thing is to control the tongue. In the śāstra also it is said sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ. Ataḥ śrī kṛṣṇa nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ (BRS. 1.2.234). Our present senses are unable to understand sri kṛṣṇa nāmādi, the holy name of the Lord. Ādi, beginning from His name, nāma, then guṇa, qualities, then pastimes, then form. So people cannot understand the form of the Lord because they are not practiced to devotional service. They are more or less impersonalists. They cannot imagine that God has His form like us, because they are not sevonmukha. Ataḥ śrī kṛṣṇa nāmādi. Not to speak of the form, they cannot understand what is the holy name of the Lord, why they are chanting, what is the benefit. They cannot understand. Ataḥ śrī kṛṣṇa nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ (BRS. 1.2.234). The present senses cannot appreciate. It has to be purified. That purification begins from the tongue. Sevonmukhe hi jihvādau. Then God reveals. When we chant the holy name of the Lord, purified, that is bhakti. Bhakti means to become purified. Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam (CC Madhya 19.170). Nirmalam means completely cleansed of all dirty things. That is bhakti.

Evening Darsana -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: You have to take it, because there is no difference. As soon as you bring in Mahābhārata and Kṛṣṇa, the Kṛṣṇa is the same. You cannot take it differently. Because Kṛṣṇa is speaking to one of the parties of the fighters, the Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas, and that is the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā. Dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre samaveta yuyutsavaḥ (BG 1.1). Yuyutsavaḥ means two parties desiring to fight. Who are those parties? Māmakaḥ pāṇḍavāś caiva (BG 1.1). That is the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā. That is the Mahābhārata history. So how you can differentiate this Kṛṣṇa, that Kṛṣṇa? There is no possibility, it is imagination. The beginning is Mahābhārata and the Bhagavad-gītā.

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

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, the poison action immediately spreads all over the body.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Otherwise, why is it happening like that?

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is also material. Now how much powerful is spirit soul, you can just imagine. If one grain of matter has got so much potency, how much potency has got the spirit.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But then somebody may ask that why that cyanide..., cyanide is just material. But now in the living body the spirit is there, but how is spirit affected by...

Prabhupāda: Spirit is unable to live. The condition changes. Poison means the condition changes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So cyanide is more powerful than the spirit.

Prabhupāda: No. Powerful, this is different element. Powerful, it is, certainly, because it is moving the whole thing. Powerful, that particular body is destroyed. But the spirit soul, there are so many, otherwise how the germs are coming? It is not powerful.

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

Prabhupāda: Imagining. "It may be like this. It may be like that." That is not knowledge. Doctor Frog is thinking of Atlantic ocean. He is within three feet of water. And how he can think of Atlantic Ocean? He may think, "It may be four feet, or five feet, or ten feet," and as soon as says 20 feet, he bursts. He's finished. Now you are finished.

Devotee (2): But they are so many... (break)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, that's a good point.

Devotee (2): But they cheated when they said they went to the moon.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they're cheaters, those who have got imperfect senses, they're all cheaters. If they say something, "Definitely this is like this," that is cheating.

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

Prabhupāda: All imagination.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So many strange things. They even said it that this, we have these five fingers, they said this isn't enough, so we must make six, so the six...

Prabhupāda: Yes, in this way they're cheating.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Our brain is a little too small, so we want to do it a little bigger, so that we can think more and utilize more ideas.

Prabhupāda: Where is brain? There is no question.

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

Prabhupāda: That is another thing, but not sentimentally.

Woman guest (2): Could you... Do you think you could explain to me about the Deities and how it's different from idol worship? Because no one has been able to explain that to my understanding.

Prabhupāda: Idol means your imagination. And Deity is not imaginary. Deity is installed by the authorized person and it is worshiped according to authorized methods. So it is not idol. Idol worship, you imagine something and, some doll or idol, and do in your own way, that is idol worship.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: She's saying but it's manufactured, it's made, graven.

Prabhupāda: That doesn't matter. But it is made according to the Vedic principles. Just like in the Vedas, Kṛṣṇa's form is described, veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣam (Bs. 5.30). Kṛṣṇa is playing on His flute, veṇuṁ kvaṇantam. His eyes are like the petals of the lotus flower. So if you follow the description, then it is coming from the Vedic literature or Vedic knowledge. It is not that an artistic way of imagining some idol, the eyes are like this and He must play flute. It is not like that.

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

Prabhupāda: So you don't take simply Jagannātha temple. There are many other temples, they allow. It is a particular management body, they do not allow. But that is not the sanction of the śāstra. That is not the sanction. Suppose in your private house you make some private law. That is your business. But actually temple is open for everyone. That is stated. Māṁ hi pārtha vyapāśritya ye 'pi syuḥ pāpa-yonayaḥ (BG 9.32). Even one is born of low-grade family, he can accept. There is no injunction. That is śāstra. But there are rascals who do not follow. They have their own imagination. That is another thing. Kṛṣṇa never said that "Only the brāhmaṇas or Indians or Hindus can take shelter of Me." Kṛṣṇa never said. Māṁ hi pārtha vyapāśritya ye 'pi syuḥ, whatever he may be. There is no restriction. Just like Ganges water, anyone can take bath. It is not that only a particular person or particular community can take bath. Anyone can take, and he becomes purified. There is an example, na hi harate jyotsnā candraś caṇḍāla veśmani.(?) When there is moonlight, there is no discrimination that here is a bhaṅgi's house, caṇḍāla's house, there should be no moonshine. The moonshine is open in the palace of the king or in the house of a caṇḍāla, na hi harate jyotsnā candraś caṇḍāla veśmani. So Kṛṣṇa's mercy is for everyone. It is not restricted to a certain community or class of people, no. Anyone can take advantage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And that is, practically they are doing.

Morning Walk -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: What we'll do, seeing him?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, right.

Hari-śauri: At least, though, if he's favorable, if he likes us a little, it may give us, ah...

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break)

Rāmeśvara: Nobody can imagine what they do in all these office buildings. There are millions of offices.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We're going to take a ride down Fifth Avenue.

Hari-śauri: This is the parade route?

Ādi-keśava: Yes. You can see there's no wires, so we don't even have to bring the top down except for the very end entering into Washington Square Park.

Prabhupāda: (break) He has told that we have got already a copy.

Room Conversation -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: That he has written.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not only are there numbers of us increasing, but there are many people who come once a week, once every month, who get magazines regularly. That number is increasing beyond what we can imagine, because it's due to the book distribution, Prabhupāda. We're coming due to two things, first the books, and second the association of devotees. But there's a general mass of people that are coming who are just getting the book, and they are beginning to follow simply on account of reading your books.

Devotee (1): This is a big article. Wow.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's another magazine article, like that.

Hari-śauri: Rādhāvallabha's got it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Where is he?

Hari-śauri: I don't know.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I asked, there's another very special magazine came out, and I asked Rādhāvallabha to bring it and present it to you. It's from New York, but I wanted him to read some of the things. He read the whole thing, it's a whole magazine devoted to meditation groups, and they have featured our society as the best. It's clear, our society was featured more than any others. They mentioned Maharishi and so many others, but they gave...

Prabhupāda: We are also mentioned.

Evening Darsana -- July 11, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: He is coming from spiritual planets. He is authorized representative of Kṛṣṇa, we accept him as śaktyāveśa-avatāra. So I was invited in some priestly meeting in Melbourne, they asked me the question, "What is your opinion of Christ?" So I said "He's our guru." (laughter) Actually, we accept him as our guru. He's preaching God's message; he's Vaiṣṇava. Anyone who accepts God, he's Vaiṣṇava. He was explaining kingdom of God, God. So according to time, circumstances, audience... Now we can just imagine what kind of people he had to deal with, that his commandment is "Thou shall not kill." Then understand how much they were accustomed to killing. So what kind of men they were? And not only that, in spite of hearing his instruction "Thou shall not kill," they killed him first. So what kind of men they were, just imagine. He said, "Thou shall not kill," and they decided, "We shall kill you first." So this class of men he had to deal with.

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

Prabhupāda: That is a form. The structure itself has a form.

Rāmeśvara: But it's abstract.

Prabhupāda: No, it is not ab..., it is form.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not personal, that's what he means.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is a form of their imagination, that's all. Not standard form, but it is a form. They want to make everything formless with form. That means they cannot avoid form.

Devotees: Oh, jaya.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...political satires. Critic of the government put the criticism in the form of a children's story, but indirectly was criticizing the government.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...reason they cannot keep this park neat and clean? In other cities they keep.

Evening Darsana -- July 13, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Meditating means this subject matter: that I don't want death, why death is forced upon me? That is real meditation.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So then the problems of life are more than simply those which we perceive?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Otherwise, what is the meditation? Think about something seriously, that is meditation. But if you have no important serious thinking, simply some imagination, how it will help you?

Devotee (1): Excuse me, Śrīla Prabhupāda. This evening they are having one convention here, the Democratic National Convention. One of the two big political parties in the city, at one place called Madison Square Garden. And all the television and newspaper people in the whole country will be there. They're beginning at 8 o'clock this evening. So we want to send all the devotees in the temple on saṅkīrtana party there, because we feel that not only will the atmosphere become purified but also all the television cameras and all the newspaper people will interview our devotees and take their pictures, and they will be on television all over the country, simply because...

Prabhupāda: That is good cause.

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

Rāmeśvara: We can never imagine where all those cows were able to be situated.

Prabhupāda: No... The whole world.

Rāmeśvara: Full of cows.

Kīrtanānanda: Yes, a few years ago we couldn't conceive of distributing twenty thousand Back to Godheads a month.

Prabhupāda: We started with five hundred. What was that machine?

Kīrtanānanda: Mimeograph. Then I think it went to two thousand then to five thousand.

Rāmeśvara: Now for December we are printing two million copies. Last year we printed one million copies, so this year we must double. Two million copies in one month.

Kīrtanānanda: Wonderful.

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

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Congress Library in Washington.

Room Conversation -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Indian man: Yes. But this is the height of hypocrisy, to teach Gītā and to chant oṁ namaḥ śivāya.

Prabhupāda: No, because they say, "Either way, you become impersonal at the end. You Brahma-liṅga;(?) you become one with Brahma. But before you become Brahma-liṅga, you can imagine some form, either Kṛṣṇa or Viṣṇu or Śiva or Durgā, the same thing." That is their...

Indian man: In fact some of the arguments that I received were... "If you go to heaven, let's say, Vaikuṇṭha, then you become... You join the impersonal Brahman. Then you have nothing else to do." He says, "In material world we have family. We have something to do." I said, "If you believe in impersonalism, you have nothing to do. If you believe in personalism, you will serve the Lord there."

Prabhupāda: Impersonal means if you have nothing to do, then you'll become mad.

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

Rāmeśvara: Whew! They're going to simply be astonished when the public sees this. The newspapers, they will just be..., they've never seen anything like it. They cannot imagine it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How big are those wheels, Rāmeśvara?

Rāmeśvara: Oh, they must be at least eight feet.

Ādi-keśava: Seven and a half.

Rāmeśvara: Seven and a half feet.

Prabhupāda: Jaya. Jaya.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's the park.

Prabhupāda: Very nicely made.

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

Prabhupāda: That is described, in the eighth chapter you'll find, er, Eighth Canto.

Rāmeśvara: In the Seventh Canto they described the palace of Indra, because Hiraṇyakaśipu had lived there. How he was living there, and the walls of his palace are studded with jewels. There's a nice description. What to speak of an ocean of milk, there's so many things they cannot imagine. (break) (walking)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The buses, you know the windows, some of the windows are broken a little bit—you saw them. Do you think they will look good in the parade? It's all right if the windows are not all...

Prabhupāda: Who is going to see? (break)

Hṛdayānanda: Great American paintings. What they consider to be great American paintings.

Hari-śauri: It's an art exhibition. (break)

Prabhupāda: In London they have got such a nice...

Rāmeśvara: You think one day, Prabhupāda, maybe these big buildings will be our temples?

Prabhupāda: (laughs) No, our executive office.

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There were a lot of reporters, and they said that next year... They told us next year they're going to have full television cameras. We're going to have to erect a news, er... What is that called? Press, not a table, but a platform where they're going to put their cameras, and their reporters will sit above the whole crowd. They want to cover it, full. They were very amazed to see such a gigantic festival in New York itself. They never imagined such a thing in New York.

Prabhupāda: The Christians cannot organize. (laughter)

Morning Walk -- July 20, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: That is the only explanation.

Rāmeśvara: They are very bewildered. They cannot imagine how a cell within the body is growing. They cannot imagine that there is a soul within it. Or a plant from a seed. They can never understand these things. Actually it's a fact. When we studied in biology before we became devotees, they never explained how the tree comes from the seed.

Prabhupāda: The seed creates a favorable situation, and the life comes. On account of the life's presence, it grows, it develops. This is right explanation.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Ah, incubation, no, another technical, yes, that after some time, the disease comes. There is a technical name. Anyway, so you cannot avoid it. If you have infected some disease, it will develop by nature's law. It is not possible to avoid it. Similarly, during our this life, we are in association with different modes of material nature, and that will decide what kind of body we are going to get next life. That is strictly under the laws of nature. Everything is under the laws of nature. You have no control over it; you are completely dependent, but people, on account of dull brain, they think that they are free. They are not free. They are imagining they are free. They're completely under the laws of nature. So this next birth will be decided according to my activities this life, sinful or pious, like that.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Mike Robinson: But ultimately you're basing all your faith factually, aren't you, on your reasoning?

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. It is quite logic, that the animal can eat, you can eat; the animal can sleep, you can sleep. The animal can have sex, you can have sex; the animal can defend, you can defend; so why do you deny this poor animal soul?

Mike Robinson: Well, perhaps if I put my point perhaps a slightly different way, if, by your reasoning, if.... This is a hypothetical situation, but if you, by your reasoning, could imagine something that seemed contrary to the scriptures that you were reading earlier...

Prabhupāda: Again scripture, why do you bring scripture?

Mike Robinson: Well, I'm referring to your scripture, not...

Prabhupāda: Not my scripture, it is common sense, talking.

Room Conversation -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Anyway, there must be defect because the love is reposed in some defective or imperfect personality. It may be Lenin or it may be Washington. It doesn't matter. He's imperfect. Love is there. Otherwise why so many people are working? But because it is misplaced, they are not satisfied. Therefore it is stated, yato bhaktir adhokṣaje. Adhokṣaje, this word, is used. God.... They may say that "Where is God?" And therefore the word is adhokṣaje: "beyond your sense perception." Everything is within sense perception. So therefore this very word is used, that "You cannot see, you cannot perceive, but still, you have to love Him." Adhokṣaje. They say, therefore, that this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, it is some ideal, imagination, Kṛṣṇa. They think.... They say, I have an imaginary form of Kṛṣṇa, a stone, and "Unnecessarily they are wasting their time, loving Kṛṣṇa."

Room Conversation -- July 31, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: Organize it and keep hundreds of books. They will live peacefully. But don't entangle in sinful activities. Then it will be all right. Such a nice place. The city residents cannot imagine. What a nonsense life—clubs, slaughterhouse, gambling places, drinking house. This is like hell. Try to save people from this hellish condition of life, without any knowledge, like animals. And nature therefore creates a wholesale slaughterhouse in war, to cut throat all—finished. Many millions and millions are finished. From 1914 to 1950, how many years?

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

Bhagavān: It will substantiate our claim.

Prabhupāda: No, our claim intelligent. They are loitering. Our claim is that they do not know anything about that. All foolish propaganda. But their position is that unless they say that there is life, then this false propaganda will no longer run on. We are certain that they cannot go there, neither is it possible to understand what is there, simply imagination. We do not give any credit.

Hari-śauri: You said you had some plan? For the land here? When we came in, you were saying you had some plan for the land.

Prabhupāda: Plan is that we have got woods. Cut the woods, make small cottages, and engage them for growing fruits, flowers, grains, and make the complete arrangement nicely.

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

Prabhupāda: Very good, but I could not digest them. That is my fault, but, oh, it was so nice palatable. Chick peas, chick peas, grow fresh. Eat very nicely, keep strong, drink milk, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Bas. Don't depend on this outside work and then gradually become debauch, thief, rogues, prostitutes. Is that civilization? They cannot imagine that the modern civilization can go without all these things. Do they not? Slaughterhouse, brothel, cheating, diplomacy, roguery, drinking—without this, no civilization. We are quite opposed. We want to show it is possible, yes. You can stop all this nonsense and still you go on as a perfect civilized man. With character, knowledge, satisfaction, everything. They are trying to gather knowledge by sending so many machines up to date. We have already got. We say you cannot go there, you are simply wasting your time. We have got so much knowledge.

Evening Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: In the material world there cannot be any peace, justice, morality. It is not possible. You may try to make some adjustment, but it will never be possible. So, by their concocted imagination, they are thinking, "This way will be beneficial," but unless they come to the spiritual platform, there is no question of peace, prosperity, justice. It is not possible.

brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā
na śocati na kāṅkṣati
samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu
mad-bhaktiṁ labhate param
(BG 18.54)

Unless we come to the spiritual platform, there is no question of justice, morality, peace. It is not possible. They may attempt in different ways, by their mental speculative process, but actually it will never come to be true. They are all trying: the scientists, philosophers, politicians, religionists, to make some adjustment, but that is not possible. We must understand the material platform.

Evening Darsana -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: And evaporation. Even the ocean can be evaporated by the air. So we have got this experience of the five or eight elements. They are physical because they are subjected to be cut into pieces, to be burned into fire, to be moistened, to be evaporated. But it is, soul is not affected. Then we have to think of—what is that. Therefore these scientists, they are puzzled. When the soul goes out of the body, they cannot imagine what thing is missing that the body is dead. Because they have physical ideas. But it is not physical. So everything is described. We have to study thoroughly and apply our brain. The brain must be sharp and finer tissues. Then spiritual understanding will be there. With dull brain, physical brain, we cannot understand. That is not possible.

Evening Darsan -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: So beginning is there. You can begin at any moment. But it is spiritual, it does not take so much time. You should remember spiritual. Just like speed, there are different kinds of speed. Mental speed and physical speed. Physical speed, you have got a very good nice airplane. Still, you have to take ten hours to reach London. And mental speed, you can immediately, within a second, go to London. And spiritual speed, still more. Kṛṣṇa says tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma mām eti (BG 4.9), as soon as you give up the body you immediately go to Kṛṣṇa. That is spiritual speed. Immediately. Not that so many miles, oh, Kṛṣṇaloka is far, far above this material sky, then spiritual sky. No. The spiritual speed is so high that tyaktvā dehaṁ, as soon as you give up this body, immediately. You can compare material speed and mental speed. Although you haven't got spiritual idea, still, we can at least imagine what is that spiritual speed. The mental speed is so rapid that by the speedy airplane I'll have to take four hours, you can reach there in four seconds by mental speed. That is with our experience. Then we can imagine how speedy is spiritual. It is actually known by education. It is a science. It is not sentiment. And everything is there.

Evening Darsana -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: That I am speaking, that this is the only chance of Kṛṣṇa, guru, and if he neglects this chance, then tanwan sthito hi ga(?). What is the loss more than that? We are simply calculating loss and gain. Just imagine what is the loss by misusing this human form of body. If you want to spoil this life under the influence of misleaders, you can do it. But if you prefer to take the sense of following leadership of Kṛṣṇa, then our life... Mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. That comes mām ekam, ekam—then your life is successful. Ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ: (BG 18.66) "I'll give you protection in all respects." So if we don't take this opportunity, then we are cutting our own throat. Do it, you can do it.

Evening Darsana -- August 15, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Māyayā apahṛta-jñāna. Māyā (Hindi) Who is very, very much under the influence of māyā, he is Māyāvādī. Unless he is too much under the influence of māyā, how he can say that "I'm God"? Which is impossible. (Hindi) So many things which makes one rāja, and if you simply imagine, "I am rāja. "So how much rascal he is. Just see. Mūḍha. Na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ (BG 7.15). (Hindi) Māyāvādi-bhāṣya śunile haya sarva-nāśa (CC Madhya 6.169). If one follow the Māyāvādīs and thinks that "I am God," then he is finished. His future is finished. (long conversation in Hindi)

Room Conversation -- August 21, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: The building belonged to a big zamindar. So Prabhākāra arranged. So it was to be given to me, and I wanted to start the League of Devotees from there. So I spent some money, whatever money I had, and it was going on. But in the meantime, this Lilavati Munshi, Mrs. At that time she was wife of the governor. Her husband, K. M. Munshi. She had some organization of foreign women. So somehow or other she got imagination that "This house is very nice." She was governor's wife. So it was not given to me rightly, but I was using. So she wanted that house. Through collector and through all government officials pressure. She wrote me later on, that "Bhaktivedantajī, you wanted to organize, but you could not. But I have got this institution. Why not give it to me?" So, of course, there were many lawyer friends. They advised me that "You do not give up. You should litigate." So I thought, "Who is going to litigate? Let me go to Vṛndāvana." So I left. So at Mathurā I delivered the Deity to this Keśavajī Gauḍīya Maṭha, and I made my place in Vṛndāvana.

Room Conversation with Endowments Commissioner of Andhra Pradesh -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: It is very difficult. Very difficult. You see. Big, big scholars, big, big politicians, they are supposed to be preaching Bhagavad-gītā. They take their photograph in front of Bhagavad-gītā, but without Kṛṣṇa. They'll never talk of Kṛṣṇa any time. Banish Kṛṣṇa. Even Gandhi has said, "My imagination of Kṛṣṇa is different." Perhaps you have read in his Gītā-Press edition.(?) Kṛṣṇa is speaking... Radhakrishnan said when Kṛṣṇa says man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ, he says "It is not to the Kṛṣṇa person." Kṛṣṇa says man-manā bhava mad bhaktaḥ, and he says it is not to the Kṛṣṇa person. Just see how misleading it is. And if a person like Dr. Radhakrishnan, Gandhi, misleads, then who will hear me? What I am? There is one big person in Bombay, he said that he has set aside ten lakhs of rupees for Gītā-pracāra. But when I proposed Gītā-pracāra means Kṛṣṇa pracāra, so he said, "No, I want Gītā without Kṛṣṇa.

Morning Walk -- August 23, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: That I have already explained. You cannot merge. You simply imagine. Merging means you merge in the spiritual atmosphere, but without ānanda you cannot stay there. Therefore you have to come back again to this material world. Suppose you are advocate and you are given some place without any practice. How long you will you remain there? If I say, "Please remain here happily without any practice." How long you'll remain? We want some activities. That is our nature, for ānanda. But here we are trying to get that ānanda, but that is temporary. That is not satisfying us. Therefore being disgusted we want to stop it and merge. But there is also temporary. Unless you go back to home back to Godhead, there is no complete life. Therefore Kṛṣṇa comes and shows by His spiritual activities. He's playing with the boys, He's dancing with the girls, He's killing the demons, and so many activities. This is ānanda. Sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1). They are all spiritual. You have read our Kṛṣṇa Book? Yes. There is everything. So as far as possible we are trying to give people the real knowledge from the śāstra. Now it is up to them to accept or take advantage of it.

Garden Conversation -- September 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Everything is possible by Kṛṣṇa's inconceivable energy. Everything is possible. That is inconceivable. It is called therefore "inconceivable." You, we cannot conceive how it is done. Our intelligence is very little. We cannot conceive. Therefore we say, "Oh, this is all mythology." Because we cannot conceive of it. Whatever we cannot conceive we take it as mythology. Nothing is mythology. Everything is possible. That is inconceivable. But they cannot understand what is inconceivable. Unless it is conceivable by them, they do not accept. That is their foolishness. We can see at night worms or flies so small Just like if you divide one grain of rice into one hundred divisions one division—such a small fly. They are independently walking, flying. Freedom. Now just imagine how their anatomic physiology is manufactured within that small (indistinct) of life. But he's exactly doing everything just like a big fly. How it is doing? Therefore I said in that, my interview.

Room Conversation -- September 17, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So because He is breathing and I am breathing, therefore equal. No. Paśyaty acakṣuḥ. He sees, but not like us. Kṣetra-jñaṁ cāpi māṁ viddhi sarva-kṣetreṣu bhārata. He's seeing every particular thing, anywhere. Kṣetra-jñaṁ cāpi māṁ viddhi sarva-kṣetreṣu. I can see within my limit, or I can feel pains and pleasure within my... But He knows everything, everywhere. Sarva-kṣetreṣu. And because I cannot become like Him, therefore Māyāvādīs say kalpana, "This is imagination." He wants to make God like himself, and he wants to become like God. Therefore all description about God he thinks imagination, kalpana. Kalpana. Dr. Frog. Huh? More than this water, the...? How it is possible? Atlantic Ocean, very very big. What is that big? Maybe four feet, five, yes. Otherwise kalpana. It it is not within his "feet" estimation, then he's kalpana, imagination. This is their knowledge. (indistinct) I can think of three feet, four feet, five feet, ten feet, hundred feet-like that. And when I'm informed, "No, no, it is unlimited feet." Ah, this is kalpana. This is going on.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- October 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: As the sun rays are concentrated in the sun disc, the brahma-jyotir is concentrated in Goloka Vṛndāvana, the topmost spiritual planet in the spiritual sky. The immeasurable spiritual sky is full of spiritual planets, named Vaikuṇṭhas, far beyond the material sky. The mundaners have insufficient information of even the mundane sky, so what can they think of the spiritual sky? Therefore the mundaners are always far, far away from Him. Even if in the future they are able to manufacture some machine whose speed may be accelerated to the velocity of the wind or mind, the mundaners will still be unable to imagine reaching the planets in the spiritual sky. So the Lord and His residential abode will always remain a myth or a mysterious problem, but for the devotees the Lord will always be available as an associate.

Room Conversation -- October 18, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Though we didn't have all the guests that we invited, but still, I think, those few who came, I think they have very good appreciation about Śrīla Prabhupāda's program. Especially bhakti-vedānta... Mishra's relation was very significant. He said he never had in his life to see this bhakti-vedānta. He called all of us Bhakti-vedantists. He said he was always Advaita-vedantist, and he said he never saw a bhakti-vedāntī. He said it was a great experience. He said he was very grateful that he came to the conference. And he had great appreciation of the whole movement. They said, "Just imagine that in about ten years a big empire can be built in such a pure spirit." So like that, Dr. Soni... Dr. Soni is the Deputy General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research. He's also a big government scientist. To see these people one cannot just go and see them. You have to wait for so many red tapes just to go to them. He came with his family. He was the chief guest on Sunday, and he had such a great appreciation of our whole movement, and he told me very frankly in his opening speech that a few years ago he saw the devotees in Picadilly Circus, first time in London. And about that time he said he had a very wrong impression, negative impression of the whole movement. He said he thought it was not very impressive.

Room Conversation -- October 27, 1977, Vrndavana:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: He was saying there is nothing like table. He was sitting on a table. So it is just an imagination. There's nothing like that.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Says it's illusion.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So he said it's illusion.

Prabhupāda: But he quotes from the Ramakrishna.

Room Conversation -- October 30, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: And that is Māyāvāda. (break) ...superficially Caitanya Mahāprabhu also a Māyāvādī.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. That was confirmed when He was talking like that. Just like Carl Jung... He's a psychologist. He says that matter is a concept, some sort of imagination that one has in his mind, something like that idea that these Māyāvādīs... They think this is not real.

Prabhupāda: It is not real in this sense: because the spirit is there, therefore it is there. Because there is consciousness, there is ignorance, covering. And if you stop this ignorance, then consciousness is there, pure.

Room Conversation -- November 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Ah. (Hindi) "I have come personally." Yadā yadā hi dharmasya (BG 4.7). Bhagavad-gītā. (Hindi) ...as it is. (Hindi) Bhagavad-gītā as it is, never say. (Hindi) ...imagination... (Hindi) Simply waste of time. Śrama eva hi kevalam (SB 1.2.8). Vāsudeve bhagavati bhakti-yogaḥ prayojitaḥ, janayaty āśu vairāgyam (SB 1.2.7). Janayaty āśu vairāgyam. (Hindi) Yaḥ śāstra-vidhim utsṛjya vartate kāma-kārataḥ, na siddhiṁ sāvāpnoti (BG 16.23). (Hindi) There is good demand all over the world. (Hindi) Nobody can turn them now. Jaya. Thank you very much.

Page Title:Imagination (Conversations)
Compiler:SunitaS, Mayapur
Created:27 of Aug, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=242, Let=0
No. of Quotes:242