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Imperfect (Conversations 1974 - 1975)

Expressions researched:
"imperfect" |"imperfection" |"imperfectional" |"imperfections" |"imperfectly" |"imperfectness" |"imperfects"

Notes from the compiler: VedaBase query for imperfect pages: "imperfect" or "imperfectly" or "imperfectness" or "imperfects" not "imperfect senses"@5 not "imperfect knowledge"@5

Conversations and Morning Walks

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 6, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: He cannot save himself. He can make a machine which will not die, but he will die. Is that all right?

Devotee: Yes.

Prabhupāda: How much perfect he is, that you can consider, that he's making something perfect which will not die, but he will die. So he's imperfect. So how his machine is perfect? This is common argument. He's imperfect. But he cannot make such machine that he will not die.

Satsvarūpa: They say in the future they will...

Prabhupāda: Oh, that is, that is a... Kicking, they on their face. That is the only loophole on which we can kick on their face. You see? They are making machine perfect, but they cannot make themselves perfect. Why don't you ask that "Why don't you make a machine that you'll not die? Your machine will not die, I accept. You're so perfect. But why you will die? Why you will die?" What is their answer?

Siddha-svarūpānanda: They say that they will get to a point where, when each cause of their death, maybe, say, a bad heart, then they can get an artificial heart.

Morning Walk -- March 23, 1974, Bombay:

Guest (3): Do you mean the other persons...?

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. Own one who cannot understand rightly. That is another rascaldom.

Dr. Patel: Understanding God is always supraconscious with them. Never by the mind.

Prabhupāda: They... One has to rise, rise... understand rightly from the right person. He cannot. He's imperfect. How he can understand rightly?

Dr. Patel: Yes, that's right.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: If a man has seen a place, that man will show you that place. That is how it is.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest (3): But to reach that place there are several ways.

Prabhupāda: Therefore it is said, tattva-darśinaḥ. You have to approach a person who has seen the truth. You don't manufacture your own truth. That will be misleading. Tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). This is Vedic instruction. In order to understand scientifically, you must approach a guru.

Morning Walk -- April 4, 1974, Bombay:

Satsvarūpa: Their reaction is: "Simply because it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā does not mean it actually happened." They don't think it happened just because it is written here.

Prabhupāda: No, no, happened or not happened. But you have no estimation, even one universe. You cannot say like that because you are a fool still. Even though it did not happen in the body of Kṛṣṇa, but you have no estimation, you cannot know what is the sun-god or sun planet or moon planet. You cannot go there. So what is the value of your knowledge? If the statement of Bhagavad-gītā has no meaning, then what is the meaning of your scientific knowledge? You are not perfect. So how you can say? Because you are imperfect, so you cannot say against Bhagavad-gītā, which is accepted by all the ācāryas. Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya... Don't be in hurry. Just finish one word. That is sufficient.

Morning Walk -- April 7, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: But when they stop it...?

Girirāja: Then the patient is dead. (laughter)

Yaśomatīnandana: That is the modern science, so imperfect. They don't even know whether a person is live or dead.

Prabhupāda: What do they know? They know something, but everyone knows. Even the birds and beasts, they also know something.

Girirāja: "In this way, one after another the body changes and the soul transmigrates. See how the plant worms change from one twig to another so carefully. Similarly the living entity changes his body as soon as the higher authorities decide on his next body." (break)

Prabhupāda: ...the modern civlization is that they have no knowledge about the change of body. Almost 99 percent people, they do not know.

Yaśomatīnandana: Even the so-called religions, the religions even don't teach.

Prabhupāda: They do not know.

Morning Walk -- April 11, 1974, Bombay:

Indian Man (1): ...recently what we read from the papers. There is so many... So far, nobody tells us that there is a moon-god over there. Although they have gone to particular one place only or two, three places only, not the whole moon, but still, nobody comes from. They say nobody is there and...

Prabhupāda: But these bodies are imperfect. They are not perfect. The moon may not be exposed to them, these rascals. Because a king is not exposed to the ordinary man... Unless one is fit to see him, king is not exposed. That does not mean there is no king. If some rascal says, "There is no president, there is no king," that is his rascaldom, not that there is no king, no president. He cannot see. He has not that qualification. Is that correct?

Indian Man (1): Yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. One who has no qualification, he says, because he could not see somebody, he sees, "There is no such existence." Is that a good conclusion?

Indian Man (1): Good psychology.

Prabhupāda: He is a rascal. He is not fit to be seen by the great personality. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ (BG 7.25). You cannot see the sun-god. Does it mean there is no sun-god? What is the value of your eyes? It is imperfect. You are seeing the sun just like a disc, but it is fourteen hundred thousands of times bigger than this earth. Can you see it? Then what is the power of your seeing? Whatever you are seeing, that is defective. So don't be proud of seeing. What is your eyes? What is the value of your eyes? You cannot see even the eyelid. Can you see the eyelid? Although it is attached to your eyeball. So what is the power? Why you are so much proud of seeing? First of all, understand that "I am so defective, I cannot see perfectly, properly." And you want to see God with these defective eyes?

Morning Walk -- April 20, 1974, Hyderabad:

Pañcadraviḍa: ...must associate with them, that is difficult.

Prabhupāda: But you do your business. You don't follow them. That's all. You remain perfect. There are many imperfects, admitting, but you try to remain perfect so that they may see you, your behavior, and they may follow you. If everyone is sincere in his activity, then where is the question? The society means if I am defective, I am seeing that you are doing nicely, so I will be ashamed. That is also teaching. Actually that should be the practice. If I cannot finish my sixteen rounds due to some business, then next day I must finish it. If you say that "Next day also, I am busy," then you should forego your eating and sleeping and finish it. That is the way. You are so busy, but you do not forget your eating and sleeping. That is cheating. If you are so busy that you forget your eating and sleeping, then I can consider that you are very busy. But you do not forget this portion. "Whenever there is opportunity, I sleep and eat. And I have no time for chanting"—this is cheating. How long you can go on by cheating? You must finish it. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Somebody, after initiation he promises, "Yes, I shall follow these rules and regulations. I shall chant sixteen rounds," before the fire, before the Deity, before the guru, and if he does not follow, then he is a cheater. What to speak of his becoming a Vaiṣṇava, he is a cheater. He breaks all his promises. Therefore after seeing, observing a person is doing everything, then say second initiation, or then he should not be recommended for second initiation unless the president and the other authorities see that he is doing nicely, he is following. Otherwise he should not be recommended. If he is recommended, that is also another cheating. If you know that this person is not following the rules and regulation, then why should you recommend him? Then it is another cheating. Viddhi-bhakti must be followed; otherwise it becomes sahajiyā.

Room Conversation with Catholic Cardinal and Secretary to the Pope -- May 24, 1974, Rome:

Monsignor Verrozano: In our Christian faith the love of God is joined with the love for man. Are you also interested with this love for man, for our rivals?

Prabhupāda: No, love for man... Let me say it. Love for man is imperfect conception because God is for everyone. God is not monopolized by simply the human society. The animal society, the bird society, the tree society, they are all living entities, soul. According to our karma, they are differently dressed. That is the most important philosophy, that soul is part and parcel of God. Somehow or other, the soul is now separated from the service of the Lord, and according to his desire of enjoying this material world, he has been offered different types of body. So either human being or animal or trees or aquatics, birds, beasts, everyone, all living entities, they are all part and parcel of God. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. Sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya sambhavanti mūrtayaḥ. Can you find out this?

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

Priest: But who is to say...

Prabhupāda: That is... Yes.

Priest: ...what is a perfect experience?

Prabhupāda: No. Even we are imperfect, with our... As far as our knowledge goes, generally, just like the Christians, they say "God is great." Is it not?

Priest: That is rather the Muslims.

Prabhupāda: Huh? That is Muslim.

Priest: Allah.

Prabhupāda: Allah akbar. So what is the conception of God of the Christian?

Priest: As you said, it's impersonal, trans-personal, what we explain by that Trinity. It's a relationship. It's a pure relationship.

Prabhupāda: Yes, relationship means that He must be a person.

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

Prabhupāda: Then let him understand from us.

Yogeśvara: No, he says he thinks that we don't understand.

Bhagavān: (Simultaneously with Yogeśvara) He thinks that we don't understand.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Yogeśvara: He says that he thinks that we have imperfectly understood.

Prabhupāda: So let us discuss who understands, you or me. So who will decide? You are understanding or I am understanding—who'll decide? Who will decide it? (French)

Bhagavān: So if he is a man of action, let us see. He has got his philosophy of Bhagavad-gītā. We have got our philosophy. Let us see by the results whose action is doing things. We have no political problem, we have no economic problem, we have no social problem. What more action does he want?

Prabhupāda: Religious problem. Any problem.

Bhagavān: No problem. So what does that indicate? And you have all problems. (French)

Prabhupāda: Now, this question... Listen. Our Bhagavān says that he has no problem. We have no problem. And you have got all problems. So who is better? Who is better?

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

Prabhupāda: Therefore Vedic instruction is tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). In order to get first-class experience of the perfection of life, you must approach guru. That is the Vedic injunction. Samit-pāṇiḥ śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham. Now, who is guru? Whom shall I approach? So the next line explains that approach such guru, śrotriyam, who has heard from his guru perfectly, that guru. Who had no chance of hearing from perfect guru, he is not guru. This is called guru-paramparā, disciplic succession. I hear from a perfect person, and I distribute the knowledge the same way, without any change. So Kṛṣṇa gives us knowledge in the Bhagavad-gītā. We are distributing the same knowledge. It is not by our... (aside:) Water is not required. Water I don't want. There is water. So I am always inexperienced because my power of understanding is very little. Therefore I must get experience from a person who is perfect. Then my experience is perfect. Just like a child does not know what is this. he asks his father, "What is this, father?" Father says, "My dear child, it is microphone." The child knows it, "microphone?" That knowledge is perfect, although his capacity is imperfect. A child is imperfect, but because he gets the knowledge from the perfect father who knows what it is, when he speaks "a microphone," he speaks rightly. This is perfect process of knowledge: You approach the perfect person and get knowledge, and that is your perfect experience. Personally, I may be, you may be, not perfect. But because I get the knowledge from the perfect, my knowledge is perfect. This is our process. We are getting knowledge from Kṛṣṇa, the most perfect. Or you get knowledge from Jesus Christ, that is also perfect, because source is perfect. I am taking knowledge from God and you are taking the knowledge from the son of God who has come directly from him, the same. So, but we have to receive knowledge from the perfect, not by ascending process, experiencing failure, experiencing failure, experiencing failure, not like that. That will take long time. But if you actually want to be perfect, just approach the perfect, take knowledge from him and you become perfect.

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

Vedavyāsa: (Vedavyāsa is translating from here on) So he asks, "How to become perfect, as human being or as spirit?" Because he sees now only human beings. So this is the problem how to become perfect as human being, not as spirit.

Prabhupāda: Why you are sticking to human being although it is imperfect? Why you are sticking to human being? (German) You are accepting this human being is not perfect, and still, why you are sticking to this imperfect life? Now, in what way you like this human form of body? What is the purpose? (German)

Vedavyāsa: So he says his body is just an instrument of communication, and through this body he can communicate with other people.

Prabhupāda: So this is also possible by the birds and beasts. They also talk: "Kichu, kichu, kichu, kichu." (German)

Vedavyāsa: He thinks there's a great difference between the talking of birds and bees and our talking.

Prabhupāda: Why difference? They are talking in their community, you are talking in your community. (German)

Haṁsadūta: No, he has said a very good point. He said there is a difference because an animal has no self-consciousness. He does not understand what he is in essence.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the real point. That is the real point, that you can try to understand what you are. The birds and beasts, they cannot understand. That is the difference. So our human effort should be utilized for that realization, not to act like birds and beasts. (German) Therefore the Brahma-sūtra, Vedānta-sūtra, instructs in the beginning, athāto brahma jijñāsā: "This life is meant for inquiring about the supreme spirit or Absolute Truth." That is the aim of this life, not like birds and beasts, simply talking and eating and sleeping, but extra responsibility, extra intelligence is there to understand the Absolute Truth. You take the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, First Canto, first part, yes. Jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā. Jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā nārtho yaś ceha karmabhiḥ.

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

Dr. P. J. Saher: We have a similar thing in the Christian (German).

Prabhupāda: Yes. Christian method, the offering prayer. That is bhakti, that is bhakti. (German) (break) Kali-yuga means fight. Nobody is interested to understand the truth but they'll simply fight, "In my opinion, this." I say, "My opinion, this." You say, "His opinion." So many foolish opinions and fight within themselves. This is the age. No standard opinion. Everyone has got his own opinion. Therefore there must be fighting. Everyone says, "I think like this." So what is your value, your thinking like that? That is Kali-yuga. Because you have no standard knowledge. If a child says the father, "In my opinion, you should do like this." Is that opinion to be taken? If he does not know the thing, how he can give his opinion? But here, in this age, everyone is prepared with his own opinion. Therefore it is fight, quarrel. Just like the United Nation, all the big men go there to become united, but they're increasing flags. That's all. Fighting, it is a society of fighting only. The Pakistan, the Hindustan, the American, the Vietnam. It was meant for unity but it is rendered into fighting association. That's all. Everything. Because everyone is imperfect, anyone should give his perfect knowledge.

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

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. When, when one is qualified with all these attributes and he acts accordingly, then he is first-class man.

Reverend Powell: Yes. I gather when you had this interview with the professor in Moscow that there was a little bit of adjustment needed. What is your view of communism, Your Grace?

Prabhupāda: Communism, the idea is nice. But they are imperfect. Imperfect. Their philosophy is that everything belongs to the state.

Reverend Powell: Yes.

Prabhupāda: But that is imperfect idea. Our philosophy is everything belongs to God. So unless they come to this conclusion, they'll remain imperfect. The equal distribution of wealth, everything belongs to God—that is very good idea. But if it is limited within certain area... Just like the communistic state. Besides that, this is imperfect in the sense, they have no idea who are nationals. Not only they, even the capitalists. National means those who are born in that particular land. So there are animals also. They are also national. But because they are imperfect, either the communists or capitalists, they do not accept the animals as nationals. They are sent to the slaughterhouse. These things are happening because they are imperfect. They have no God conscious views. They have crippled views. They are imperfect.

Morning Walk at Marina del Rey -- July 14, 1974, Los Angeles:

Bali Mardana: So they only end up with a conditioned truth, a relative truth.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The more you are not conditioned, the more your finding out truth is perfect. But it is not possible for you to become completely unconditioned. That is not possible. That is mukta puruṣa, liberated. Therefore we have to take knowledge from the person who is not conditioned. That is perfect knowledge. And one who is conditioned, what is the value of his giving knowledge? So therefore we don't accept any knowledge from the conditioned souls. Conditioned soul is imperfect by the four deficiencies. Bhrama, pramadā... He must commit mistake. So what is the value of his knowledge? There is no value. We take knowledge from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is unconditioned. There is a verse in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata: eṣad īśānām īśasya. That is God. God means He becomes, He comes within this material world, but He's not conditioned. That is Kṛṣṇa.

Bali Mardana: And His representative.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The whole thing is managed by the law of gravitation, but when Kṛṣṇa lifted the hill, there was no weight. He's not conditioned by the law of gravity. He can lift up. We cannot do because we are conditioned. And when they cannot understand God's inconceivable power, they think it is all mythology. Because he is a rascal, he thinks Kṛṣṇa also rascal.

Room Conversation -- August 12, 1975, Paris (with French translator):

Prabhupāda: So we have no responsibility. It is false, māyā. Our only responsibility is how to become obedient servant of Kṛṣṇa. So that is only responsibility, one responsibility. Just like the political parties, they are advertising, different political party, "I am your friend. Give me vote." How he can be friend? Just like in America, the Nixon took vote, he was advertising "America requires Nixon." I have seen that advertised when he was being elected. But after some time, the people found that he is not required, "Get out." So nobody can become, because everyone is imperfect. How one can become friend or responsible for another person? Just like in your country, in Europe and America, so many hippies are there. Their parents are responsible, rich men, able men, but why they have become hippies? Is it not a fact? The father does not want that his son should become a hippie, but still he is becoming hippie. Where is his responsibility? You cannot give protection to your son. In spite of your desire, you are disappointed. So where is your responsibility? Who can answer? Where is your responsibility? You don't really like that your son should become a hippie, but you cannot protect him.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Woman Sanskrit Professor -- February 13, 1975, Mexico:

Prabhupāda: They are not philosopher. They have no philosophy.

Professor: Eh?

Prabhupāda: They have no philosophy.

Professor: I think you are also supporting the possibility to acquire knowledge through contact.

Prabhupāda: Our position is—I have already explained—that we are all imperfect. Therefore we have to take knowledge from the perfect. So God is perfect, or Kṛṣṇa is perfect, so we have to receive knowledge from Him. Then our knowledge is perfect. And so long we shall speculate, that is not perfect because you are speculating with imperfect instruments, what is the use? If I want to cut this table, I must have proper instrument. If I want to cut this table with this book, "Let me cut this," how it will be possible? You must know that for cutting this table it requires this instrument.

Professor: Yes, they say that the only way to acquire knowledge is through śabda.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Śabda-pramāṇa.

Professor: And I think other pramāṇas will be also possible according to those...

Prabhupāda: Just like I am trying something, and some experienced man says, "Do like this." This is śabda-pramāṇa. The śabda-pramāṇa, one who knows, he says, "Do like this." The "Do like this," means śabda, sound, and it enters your ear, and you do adjustment. Therefore śabda-pramāṇa. Just like you are sleeping, and one is, another man is coming to kill you. And another friend says, "Get up, get up, get up! There is enemy. He is coming to kill you." Then you wake up. Therefore the sound is the pramāṇa, there was enemy. These are crude examples. When you are asleep, you cannot understand. You have got eyes, you have got hands, you have legs but no experience, but the ear gives you warning even if you are sleeping. There is enemy, your eyes cannot see, your hand cannot touch, but the ear can give you evidence, "Yes." As soon as you are awakened you say, "Yes, here is enemy. He is coming to kill me." Therefore the aural reception, sound reception, is the evidence. Knowledge received through authentic sound vibration, that is perfect.

Room Conversation -- February 15, 1975, Mexico:

Prabhupāda: So the soul transmigrates to another body. That is the evolutionary process for anthropology, basic principle of anthropology. So in Darwin's theory there is no admission of the soul. Therefore it is imperfect. The soul transmigrates from one type of body to another type. And then there are 8,400,000 forms of body. So when we get this human form of body we get all intelligence. And we should utilize this intelligence how to stop this transmigration of the soul from one body to another. So what is your opinion?

Mr. Cortez: (Spanish)

Hṛdayānanda: (translating) If there's a certain criteria of proof or a certain evidence that we can know for certain that there actually is such transmigration of the soul?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like the baby is, the soul is, transmigrated from baby's body to child's body, child's body to boy's body, boy's body to youthful body, so the body vanishes, and because the soul remains, he gets another body. Now I am old man. I remember I had a child's body, I was lying down. I quite remember it. But that body is not existing. So this is the example. Everyone has experience. This is transmigration of the soul from one body to another. And at the time of death, the psychological condition of the mind will carry me to a suitable body, and I shall enter into the womb of my mother through the semina of the father, and the mother will give that a particular type of body, and when it is completely manufactured, then I come out and begin my again. Therefore we find varieties of forms, but in each and every form there is the soul. Now, in the human form of life, we should utilize our intelligence that "This constant change of body, how it can be stopped?" And we should remain in our eternal body because I am eternal, but psychologically I am simply changing different forms of body, and at the time of change of body I have to undergo so many sufferings. To remain within the womb of the mother for ten months in packed up condition, it is a very terrible punishment. But for each new birth, we have to undertake this terrible suffering. Sometimes nowadays they're being killed. So to avoid all these dangers, one should try to remain in his spiritual body so that there will be no more chance of accepting material... Find out this, janma karma me divyaṁ yo jānāti tattvataḥ, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9).

Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas:

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He's saying that he accepts that we can receive perfect knowledge, but then because I am imperfect I make an imperfect interpretation.

Prabhupāda: No, you are not allowed interpretation. As soon as you interpret, you become imperfect. Therefore we are presenting Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. Don't interpret. Before this, all these rascals were simply interpreting and spoiling the whole thing. So this is the fact.

Professor: So what you really are asking for is blind faith.

Prabhupāda: Not blind faith. Perfect man is perfect. Unless you understand that he is perfect, don't hear from him. That is blind. Without knowing that he is perfect, if you hear, that is your imperfectness. Why should you try to hear from a person whom you do not know perfectly well that he is perfect?

Hṛdayānanda: Can I translate that?

Prabhupāda: Yes. If you hear blindly, that is your imperfectness. You must be first of all convinced that. "The person from whom I am hearing, he is perfect." Then your knowledge is perfect.

Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says why do you put so much emphasis on the personalism after liberation because it seems like to him that the ideal perfect thing would be the unity rather than having something separate.

Prabhupāda: That is your ideal, imperfect ideal. Because you are imperfect.

Professor: Are you perfect master?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, because I am heard from the perfect. I am not perfect, but what I say, that is perfect. Just like a child does not know what is this dictaphone, but he has learned from the father, "This is dictaphone," so when he says, "This is dictaphone," it is perfect. The child is not perfect, but because he has heard from his father perfect, so the knowledge is perfect.

Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas:

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): All the religions say they have knowledge of God.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Anyway, religion means searching after God.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says for example they have a new god which is money.

Prabhupāda: Yes, because you are imperfect, therefore you are thinking like that. Now, suppose you are on deathbed, can money save you? Then why do you say money is all-powerful? God is all-powerful, but money is not all-powerful. Then therefore money cannot be God.

Professor: Does religion or God, can give you eternal life?

Prabhupāda: What is that? What he says? He says money is God.

Professor: No, I am not saying that. People down here...

Prabhupāda: People are rascal fools, what is the value of their knowledge? Therefore knowledge, man of knowledge required.

Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas:

Professor: No, that's ideally, but is not so.

Prabhupāda: You hear. Because you imperfect, you have so many things. But we hear differently.

Professor: I know that there is only one God.

Prabhupāda: We say that God is one. Whether you accept it or not? Unless God is one, there cannot be God. God cannot be many. God means, in the dictionary it is said, "Supreme Being." The Supreme Being can be one. If there is competition of Supreme Being, then he is not Supreme Being. That is the philosophy. That is the philosophy. Then we have to find out who is that Supreme Being. You cannot say... You find somebody who has got little power. You cannot say, "Now here is God." The supreme power, that is God. Just like money, that is also one of the qualification of God. But money, He has got all the money. You may have got some money, some millions dollars. I may have got little more than that. But nobody can say, "I have got all the money." Or one can say that "I have got all the money," then He is God.

Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas:

Professor: By time.

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be. It may be by time. Suppose a child, he can say, "I am now foolish for the time." But he is foolish at that time. That is not argument, that this child expects to become an M.A. That does not mean he can say he is M.A. at that time. So you cannot make time. Unless you are perfect in knowledge, you cannot say that you are in knowledge. Time, everyone has got the chance. In time he will be in perfect knowledge. That is not... There is no disagreement. But so long he is imperfect, he must admit that he is imperfect. Now, a businessman, a small businessman, he is trying to become millionaire, and if he says, "I will become millionaire in time," that does not mean he is millionaire. He must first of all become millionaire. Then he should claim.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): If he accepts that he is imperfect, what experience qualifies him to talk about God?

Prabhupāda: That I have already discussed, that you have to go to the perfect and take his experience. And then, gradually, you become a perfect.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): So then everything would be an act of faith, simply to believe.

Prabhupāda: No, no, no, not believe. You just corroborate it with your experimental knowledge, and you will find it is right. Just like Kṛṣṇa says that...

Professor: Excuse me.

Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas:

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): Then he's asking, he's humbly asking you to give him a little bit of the clue.

Prabhupāda: Yes, just like... It is very common sense clue. Kṛṣṇa says the proprietor of the body is within the body. Now, you were a child. So in your child body, you were present there, and in your boyhood body, you were present there. In your youthhood body, you were present there. Now you are middle-aged. You are there. I am old man. I am there. So body, the childhood body, the boyhood body, the youthhood body, they are no more existing, but I am existing. Therefore I am eternal; the body is temporary. This is the clue. Therefore the conclusion is that as I have changed so many body but still I am existing, therefore, when I shall change this body, I will exist. Now, I have transmigrated from babyhood body to childhood, childhood to boyhood, boyhood to youthhood. Similarly, I shall transmigrate to another body. A you..., young man can say, "No, no, I don't believe in the old body," but that does not mean he will not get the old body. He will get it by laws of nature. That is compulsory. Similarly, if somebody says, "I don't believe in the next life," that does not mean he is authority. Nature will give him. Nature will not agree or obey the imperfect person. The same example: if the young man says, "I don't want old body," nature will not hear him. Nature will give him, force him: "You must accept old body." Everyone does not want to die, but nature puts him forcibly: "Yes, you must die." So after all, we are perfectly under the control of superior authority. We cannot become independent, and our independent thoughts has no value.

Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas:

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): If God created man?

Prabhupāda: Yes. God created everything. God created man, God created dog, God created demigods, God created everything.

Professor: He made us imperfect.

Prabhupāda: No, He is not imperfect.

Professor: No, God made us imperfect.

Prabhupāda: No, you have got that... Just like you have stolen, and you have gone to the prison house. That means judge is not imperfect; you are imperfect.

Professor: If God has not created us imperfect?

Prabhupāda: No, God has created perfect, but you have become imperfect by misusing your independence. God is fully independent. You are part and parcel of God. Therefore you have got that quality, independence. When you misuse that, you become bad; when you use it properly, you remain good.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): Yes. How do we make ourselves bad?

Prabhupāda: Therefore the Bible is there: "You become good like this." If you don't do, then you become bad. The Bible says that "Thou shall not kill." If you don't kill, then you are good. If you kill, you are bad.

Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas:

Prabhupāda: That he thinks. But the authority thinks otherwise.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says he doesn't know.

Prabhupāda: Then that is his mistake. Just like a man does not know what is law, but that is no excuse.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says that he can accept that man is born perfect, but that his development is imperfect, but he cannot accept that man is born imperfect.

Prabhupāda: No, that we don't say. Therefore man is advised to associate with perfect so that he can keep his perfectness.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says, "The problem is there are so many millions of people, but there are so few perfect persons."

Prabhupāda: One perfect person is sufficient to teach thousands of imperfect persons.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says he thinks you are right because the example is Buddha and Christ, and so many people follow them.

Prabhupāda: They are perfect, but the followers do not follow the instructions. That does not mean they are imperfect.

Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas:

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He said that Buddha achieved perfection outside of joining any particular religion, and that after reading so many things and hearing all different philosophies that it was actually the practice.

Prabhupāda: He changed himself religion.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says that... It's some story that when Buddha was about to leave his body, he said that... Anyway, the conclusion of the story is that he also considered himself imperfect.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the greatness of Buddha. Because his followers were imperfect, he could not say more than what they could understand. Therefore he said that "I am imperfect." His mission was to stop animal killing. But people are very much accustomed to animal killing, so he did not say higher things that they could not understand. For them, if they could stop animal killing, that was perfection. For primary student, if he understands the mathematics, two plus two equal to four, that is his perfection. That does not mean there is no higher mathematics. Give them prasāda. Wait, wait. Bring it. Wait, wait little minute. (break) ...otherwise one cannot understand spiritual matter.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says, "That's another one of my problems."

Prabhupāda: It is not problem; it is practice. If you come here daily, within a week you will learn.

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

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But you are basing your knowledge, "Perhaps." Therefore you are imperfect. "Perhaps." That means you are imperfect. Your statement will not be accepted. Because you are imperfect, you say, "Perhaps, maybe." So this is not knowledge. This is not knowledge. This is ignorance. As soon as you say, "Perhaps, maybe," that means you do not know what is, the actual thing is. Knowledge must be perfect. There is no question of "Perhaps, it may be." No, that is not knowledge. That is speculation. That is speculation. That is not knowledge. Because you are sitting, "Perhaps," therefore your knowledge cannot be accepted.

Guest: No, no, I'm just asking the question whether or not the right question could be: "Who am I?"

Prabhupāda: Yes, that's nice. That's nice. Therefore I say when you say, "I am," and when I say, "I am," I must understand who I am, you must understand who you are. That I am saying, that simply saying "I am," is not the final. Is not the final. Everyone is "I am," but he must know what I am, what that "I am." That is knowledge. If you blindly say, "I am," and you do not know what you are, then what is the use of using "I am"? Therefore I ask, "What you are?"

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

Prabhupāda: That is kick on your face with boots. Immediately: boom! (laughter) That's all. That is the answer, only answer. Rascaldom answer, "chance." The only answer is to kick his face with the boot, that's all, as soon as he says chance.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So Richard Prabhu is going to write a topic, a chapter, that mathematical proof of the idea that chance comes into play, that...

Prabhupāda: Your mathematics is also imperfect because you are imperfect. You are imperfect. There is nothing chance. There must be cause. You do not know the cause. You cannot find out. You are taking a loophole, chance. Then why you are making so many scientific research? Chance, let it happen, everything, by chance. Then what is the use of your scientific research? Let everything happen by chance. There is no chance.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Another answer that we come across when we talk with these people...

Prabhupāda: There is nowadays the chance theory.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, chance is not so much popular, but the answer that "chemicals were supplied by nature," that's a very...

Prabhupāda: No, what is nature? That you cannot explain.

Room Conversation -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Guest (1): That we believe in.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We are not perfect. We can speculate only and that is not perfection. "Maybe," "perhaps," like that. No definite knowledge. The definite knowledge you can get from Kṛṣṇa, the perfect. Therefore all the ācāryas accept Kṛṣṇa. We have to follow the ācāryas, ācāryopāsanam. So in India all these ācāryas, Śaṅkarācārya, Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya, Viṣṇu Svāmī, Lord Caitanya, they accept Kṛṣṇa the supreme absolute. Why you should not? Are you more than these ācāryas? Then? That is the defect of modern education, they manufacture education although they're imperfect. They have no the common sense that "I am imperfect, how I am manufacturing education and becoming teacher. My becoming teacher is cheating because I have no perfect knowledge." Knowledge means it must be perfect, not "maybe," "perhaps." This is not knowledge. Definite knowledge.

Guest (1): But to bring some message of truth to the people all over the world which are...

Prabhupāda: Yes, the message is there, Kṛṣṇa's message.

Room Conversation -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Prabhupāda: First of all make solution that you will not die. Then try to find out best protein. What is your answer about this birth, death, old age and disease? Can you check it?

Guest (2): No, sir.

Prabhupāda: Then? You take protein, why you are becoming old?

Guest (2): The researches, though they have been made, they are imperfect again.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Guest (2): They are imperfect, surely imperfect. "Maybe," "perhaps." (laughs) (indistinct) But scientists say that Rome was not built in a day. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Therefore Indian civilization is that you take rice, wheat, ḍāl, vegetable, a little milk, whatever protein and vitamin A,B,C,D can be available, that is sufficient.

Guest (2): Dr. Malhotra has done excellent work on nutrition and he has done two books. In those books he has advocated that milk is not the only best diet. Balanced food, you can have by I mean ḍāls and so many other sources.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Prabhupāda: And we are subordinate. Is it not our position?

Professor Fenton: Being servant, yes.

Prabhupāda: This is our position. God is maintainer and we are maintained. God is predominator and we are predominated. This is our position. We are not equal to God, neither over God. We are always subordinate. And why you are subordinate? Because He maintains us. That is the difference between God and ourselves. He is the supreme being and we are subordinate being. We are maintained by God. That is Vedic instruction. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām eko yo bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān. (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13) This is understanding of God. He is nitya, He's eternal, and we are also eternal because we are samples of God. God is great and perfect and in our this position we are subordinate, and in material condition we are imperfect. So even if we become perfect, still we remain subordinate. Therefore our position is always to abide by the orders of God. This is religion. When we abide by the orders of God, then we are religious. When we do not, then we are demons or Satan. (speaks with arriving guests in Hindi, inviting them to come in and asking whether they have been to the temple in Vṛndāvana) Religion means to remain faithful to God and abide by His order. That is religion. (end)

Room Conversation with Indian Guests -- March 13, 1975, Tehran:
Prabhupāda: He says that "All of you, you become guru." Just like I am requesting all Indians outside that I am alone trying to spread this Indian culture, why not you also join? You also become guru. So how to become guru? Not that simply by advertising that one has become guru all of a sudden, no. Guru means, as Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Whomever you meet, you just instruct him in what Kṛṣṇa says, that's all. You become guru. It is not very difficult to become guru, provided we simply preach the instruction of Kṛṣṇa. That we are doing. We do not say that we are perfect, we have become God, or we have so many, so many magic jugglery. No, we have nothing to do, that. No magic, no jugglery, no God. Simply to become servant of God, and whomever we meet, we speak the words of God, that's all. Then you become guru. This is our mission. That we may be imperfect, that doesn't matter. We are imperfect. Just like this child, he is imperfect. Everyone knows. But if he says, "My father has informed me that this is microphone," so this knowledge of "is microphone" is perfect because he has received from the father, experienced father. And before hearing from the father, he may not know that this is microphone, but since he has heard from the father that this is microphone, and if he says to others that "My father has said, 'This is microphone,' " then people will accept this is perfect knowledge. So we should follow this instruction of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). So you, every one of you, can become guru. You may say that "I am not interested to become a guru," but Caitanya Mahāprabhu says that if you are not interested, that is not very good. You should be interested. You must be guru. That is success of your life. You can speak the instruction of Kṛṣṇa, even to your family. That also guru. You are actually guru. The father or the head of the family is guru to the children, to the wife. In India still, the wife addresses the husband as pati-guru. And father is guru. That is natural.
Conversation with Devotees on Theology -- April 1, 1975, Mayapur:

Pañcadraviḍa: But when you came to France, Śrīla Prabhupāda, you spoke at the Theology Club. About four years ago you came for a conference. They arranged a big meeting at the Theology Society in France, a world-wide society. And one thing I was... One thing I was considering. They must be interested because the Christians say that there is soul, and they say that there is God, so then wouldn't our question be: "What is the relationship of the soul to God?" They admit there is a soul. Every human being, they say, has a soul.

Prabhupāda: No. That, that is also beginning of understanding. But first, preliminary understanding should be that God is one. There cannot be Christian God. There cannot be Hindu God. There cannot be Muslim God. That is not complete idea of God. That is imperfect. Just like in Vedic literature, brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti: (SB 1.2.11) three phases of understanding of the Absolute. First, beginning, is Brahman, then, further advanced, Paramātmā, then, final advancement, Bhagavān. Similarly, the final realization of God is the Supreme Person. And then we should seek (see?) who is that person. That is real theology.

Pañcadraviḍa: What if they say, "We agree there's one God, but we do not agree that His name is Kṛṣṇa" or "We do not agree..."

Prabhupāda: Then you suggest what is His name. My next challenge will be... You suggest.

Evening Discussion -- May 6, 1975, Perth:

Paramahaṁsa: Sometimes people ask where Swami Prabhupāda get his meanings for different words, because they would differ, they would disagree and pick some other word. But they don't know that you are simply taking the verse and the meaning of the words word for word, as the previous ācāryas have done.

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa says. You take that meaning. Where is the difficulty? You do not know, and neither you accept Kṛṣṇa's words. Therefore you remain foolish. You foolishly... First of all you do not know, you are imperfect. And one who knows, you do not take his words. Then you remain foolish. What can we do? What is the answer? You are foolish. So you have to know from others. When we say that you take from others who are perfect, then you will not take. And you are foolish, so remain foolish. What can we do? Hmm?

Paramahaṁsa: Sometimes people ask, though, they say, "Why is it that even among the ācāryas sometimes we find there is a difference of opinion?"

Prabhupāda: They are not ācāryas. They are not ācāryas. There is no difference of understanding between ācāryas. What Madhvācārya understands, we also understand. Suppose you are present also. So there is no difference. What Rāmānujācārya understands, we also understand. What Caitanya Mahāprabhu understand, we also understand. So where is the difference? Difference should be that the fact that he is not ācārya. As soon as he differs from the previous ācāryas, that means he is not ācārya. Otherwise there is full agreement between all the ācāryas. Just like Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Person, all ācāryas agree. Where is the difference? Does Rāmānujācārya differ from Madhvācārya, or Madhvācārya differ from Śrī Caitanya, Caitanya differs from—no. There is no difference. That is Vaiṣṇava. All the Vaiṣṇavas understand that Viṣṇu is the Supreme. There may be, sometimes, such as Kṛṣṇa is understood as incarnation of Viṣṇu, and sometimes they understand Viṣṇu as the incarnation of Kṛṣṇa. That is sampradāya. That is sampradāya. But either Kṛṣṇa or Viṣṇu, He is Supreme, that is accepted by all.

Morning Walk -- May 7, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: There is no other religion. All bogus. Dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo. Only religion is to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. That is religion.

Amogha: They think that if they sin it's all right, because man is imperfect. So they think we should believe in Jesus.

Prabhupāda: Every animal is imperfect, but man—animal can become perfect. If he likes. So it is very important life.

Śrutakīrti: They say it's not possible to become perfect, that that's saying "I can become God."

Prabhupāda: What?

Śrutakīrti: They say only God can be perfect, that we cannot become perfect.

Prabhupāda: No, you cannot become as perfect as God, but near about.

Morning Walk -- May 7, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is imperfect. We are alo Communists, but we are perfect Communists. We are thinking of all living beings.

Gaṇeśa: Some people say that in our philosophy, if we do not wish to slaughter the animals, what about the trees? We are killing the plants. They are also living entities.

Prabhupāda: If you compare the animals and the trees as the same, then why not kill yourself, your brother? Why do you distinguish? Why don't you slaughter your own son? Why do you distinguish?

Gaṇeśa: He's a relative.

Prabhupāda: You discriminate. If you are slaughtering animals and you are comparing that killing of the vegetables and the killing of the animals is the same, then killing your son and killing an animal is also the same. Why do you discriminate? Just kill your own son and eat.

Morning Walk -- May 8, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Some people. Many authorities say it is right, and that is your fortune or misfortune. As some people say that it is written by some man or something, then it is not perfect. There are many others also, they say it is perfect. Now it is your choice, whom you to follow. So that some people as they are against, there are for also. Now it is up to you to accept whom. It is up to you. We accept the direction of the ācāryas, Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya, Caitanya. Their word is perfect. They take the direction of Gandhi or this man, that man. Both of them are taking direction, but when the direction is perfect, then you become perfect. If the direction is imperfect, you remain imperfect. That's all.

Gaṇeśa: We can see from the results of those different directions.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Results, phalena-paricīyate. That is required. Now there are so many Gandhi-ite students. They have also read Bhagavad-gītā, and you have also read Bhagavad-gītā. Find out the difference. That is the result.

Paramahaṁsa: We have heard that Gandhi was a great mahātmā.

Prabhupāda: You have heard. You have heard so many things. That mountain gave birth to a mouse. You have heard like that.

Morning Walk -- May 17, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: But maybe by our study... We are all imperfect, but if we keep compiling the information, then after so many years they will have all the information...

Prabhupāda: They... You do not take the right information. Right information is with us. That you refuse to take. Your information is zero. Compiling of zeros does not make any value. It is all zero. Take information from us. Then it will be beneficial. You are taking information from all universe except our this solid information given by Kṛṣṇa. That is your policy. Mūḍho nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam. You have read this verse? "The mūḍha, rascal, he does not know the ultimate background is I am." That he does not know. What is the use of his information? And in the Vedas it is said yam eva viditvā sarvam idam... There is a mantra, that "Only understanding Kṛṣṇa, you understand everything." Yam eva viditvā sarvam idaṁ vedituṁ bhavanti.

Amogha: But how can we understand all this science and technology just by understanding Kṛṣṇa, just by one book?

Prabhupāda: Not one book. You cannot read them throughout your whole life, there are so many books.

Morning Walk -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:

Madhudviṣa: My eyes are not good enough.

Prabhupāda: Therefore if you have got imperfect eyes, what you can see? First of all you admit that you have got imperfect eyes. Then what you can see with your imperfect eyes? If you are a blind man, what is the use of telling, "I do not see." You are blind man, what you can see? First of all you admit that you are blind man, then talk of seeing. Therefore Vedic literature... Śāstra-cakṣus. You should see through śāstra, not your these blind eyes. Śāstra says there is Kṛṣṇa, He is doing like that. Cintāmaṇi-prakara-sadmasu kalpa-vṛk... You should see like that. What you see with your eyes? Why you are so proud of your eyes? Blind eyes. That is submission. Do you see who is your father? Why do you accept by the recommendation of the mother that "Here is your father." Do you see who is your father? Then what is the use of telling, "I want to see"? What you can see? You have to take the authority of the mother. Mother says, "Here is your father," that's all. You cannot say, "I have not seen that he is my father." Can you say? So there is no value of this statement, "I do not see" or "We cannot see."

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

Prabhupāda: Message is already there. I am giving you the message.

Yogi Bhajan: Well, they are coming about lot of people, and they would like to understand and..., what this Kṛṣṇa movement...

Prabhupāda: No. Yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhaḥ (BG 3.21). If you carry this message... It is not my message; it is the message of Kṛṣṇa. I have not manufactured this message. I am imperfect. But I am presenting the perfect message. That is my business. I don't say I am perfect. I am simply carrier, peon. When a peon delivers a money order, thousand dollars, it is not his money. He simply carries. So my business is to carry Kṛṣṇa's message. That's all.

Yogi Bhajan: It is very kind of you. But if you carry this message to New Mexico, to all those guys, (laughing) it will be a great joy.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- June 25, 1975, Los Angeles:

Dr. Judah: Yes. Well, they have tried to give descriptions, but, of course, I think all descriptions that have been given of God are, as descriptions are inadequate. Because in my own feeling I believe that the full knowledge of God comes through the actual experience of God, experiencing God in our lives.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that experience you can get. Just like God is describing Himself. Now, why don't you take that? Your description may be defective because you are imperfect. But if God Himself is giving His, I mean to say, identification, why don't you take it? Not only gives description, He acts according to the description. When Kṛṣṇa was present, He says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat (BG 7.7), "There is no more superior element." He proved it when He was present. There was no more superior power than Him when Kṛṣṇa was present. In His opulence, in His richness, in His strength, in His education—everything, all topmost, Kṛṣṇa. All topmost. The proof is that because you get the topmost knowledge, therefore Bhagavad-gītā is read all over the world, accepted, topmost knowledge. All scholars, all philosophers, all religionists, they read it.

Room Conversation -- June 26, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: They say like that?

Devotee (1): Everyone says like that.

Devotee (2): They do, Prabhupāda.

Satsvarūpa: No, they don't. Śrīla Prabhupāda has said these things don't apply to you. Don't worry about them because you are not following the principles.

Devotee (1): But they do say, and we are following and you don't know what we're doing, Satsvarūpa, because you haven't known me for two years. So you really don't know what I'm doing. You're not around.

Satsvarūpa: But our society is going nicely. It's not...

Devotee (2): In some respects it's going fine. But these are problems which can be dealt with amongst us, and they are affecting all of us. And for some people these are problems though they may not be for you. I think, as far as I know, your conduct has always been very honorable. But for some people who it's not and where these misconceptions apply, it's a real problem and we're trying to deal with it because it affects our lives.

Upendra: The strength to deal with those problems comes from following sādhanācāra.

Devotee (2): We are also attempting to follow sādhanācāra. And if we are imperfect...

Prabhupāda: Anyway, if he has said so, that is wrong.

Devotee (1): But is that then applying to everyone. Does someone who is in the adminis... (end)

Morning Walk -- July 4, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: That is His opulence. Here the material man, if he is rich man, he cannot become a poor man. That means he is lacking that opulence. (break) ...opulence. Aṇor aṇīyān mahato mahīyān. He can become the bigger than the biggest and the smaller than the smallest. That is opulence. You cannot manufacture a mosquito. You can manufacture a 747, but manufacture a mosquito, then we shall know your science. (laughter) ...the same machine. Otherwise how it is flying? (break) ...seen, so imperfect you are, that what are the machine there? And you are proud of seeing, nonsense. See the machine, where it is there, how the mosquito is flying.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And one mosquito can produce many mosquitos.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everything is there complete.

Brahmānanda: It doesn't crash either.

Prabhupāda: No. (laughter) And still, these rascals, believing their eyes. What is the meaning of your eyes? You see, study mosquito. Not only mosquito, you will find at night I see a small insect, less than the magnitude of full stop. (Makes insect sound:) "Gu, gu, gu, gu." The same machine is there. Now see what is the machine there if you have such eyes. What is their answer? "In future." Just see. In future they will be able. Yes.

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: How many million? (laughter)

Jayatīrtha: You can see light years away. Many, many, many millions of miles with the big ones.

Prabhupāda: They can see four billion?

Jayatīrtha: Maybe not four billion.

Prabhupāda: Then it is imperfect. The radius, what is called, radius?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Diameter?

Prabhupāda: Diameter is four billion miles, universe.

Tripurāri: One universe.

Prabhupāda: One universe. This is the smallest. Four-headed Brahma. (break) ...all universes taken together, that is one-fourth energy. And three-fourth energy is spiritual world. Ekāṁśena sthito jagat (BG 10.42), one part. (break) ...asat koṭi-yojana, one yojana equal to eight mile. And one koti means ten million. So fifty into eight, two hundred, into..., ten into ten million..., it comes. I have calculated four billion. How many millions make a billion?

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: Anywhere, speculation is not science nor philosophy. We don't admit. No hypothesis.

Satsvarūpa: They call the Vedas speculation. They say the Upaniṣads are speculation.

Prabhupāda: No, no, no, not speculation. Īśopaniṣad, īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam (ISO 1), everything beginning from īśa, the supreme controller... Where is speculation?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say that the Vedas are written by man so they are imperfect.

Prabhupāda: So you are less than a dog. It is written by man. That's all right. But you are less than a dog. You have no reason, no right. What is your philosophy? What is the value of your philosophy? It is speculation. We don't say, "It is written by man." Apauruṣeya. They may say whatever they..., we don't say. If somebody says, "Your father name is that," and I know my father's name. "What you are? You are not authority to say what is my father's name. I know very well." So it is their suggestion like that, "Your father's name is this." We don't say that "My father name is..." Is that very good suggestion? You don't know anything of my family. How you say that "Your father name is this?" Is it not another rascaldom? You do not know anything about my family, and you say that "Your father's name is this." What is this logic? You cannot say what is my father's name. You do not know about my family.

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1975, Chicago:

Harikeśa: Darwin's whole theory rests on the fact, the speculation, that he can show bones. They take these bones and these evidences, archeological...

Prabhupāda: Anyway, it is not possible that he has seen all the bones. That is not possible. So taking it that he has studied by seeing the bones, but I can say very easily that it is not possible for a person like you to see all the bones. That is my challenge. How you can say that you have seen all the bones? You say, "Millions and millions of years ago..." You live for fifty years. How you have seen all the bones? That is imperfect. You are a limited person. How it is possible that you have seen all the bones? What is the answer?

Satsvarūpa: They say they haven't found all the bones, but what they've found is conclusive evidence.

Prabhupāda: But then you cannot do that. If you have seen all the bones, then you can conclude. You say, "Some of the missing." So how it is fact? You did not see it.

Satsvarūpa: Just this year they found a skull that was millions of years older than any human skull they found before.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But still, you cannot say that you have seen all the skulls. That is not possible.

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1975, Chicago:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: 8,400,000 species.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Has he gone down the water? Then what is the...? simply speculation.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Factual scientific study would mean to study all 8,400,000 species?

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is scientific study. But that is not possible. Therefore your theory is always imperfect because you cannot say that "I have studied all." You simply guess, "There is some gap, millions of years." So this is not study.

Brahmānanda: They say even there's a missing link, a part that they cannot explain. So they admit...

Prabhupāda: So that is not science.

Harikeśa: It's the most important part too.

Prabhupāda: Therefore we say they are rascals. And rascals will believe.

Jayatīrtha: Once you said the missing link was your foot in their face. (laughter) (break)

Prabhupāda: ...logic also it is admitted that inductive logic is imperfect; deductive logic is perfect. (break) ...logic means śrota-panthā, paramparā, śruti, Vedic language, śruti. Śruti pramāṇa. Pramāṇa means evidence, and śruti means Veda. Pratyakṣa, anumāna, śruti. Pratyakṣa means direct, direct evidence, and anumāna, hypothesis. That is Darwin's theory, something like that. And śruti, Vedic. So out of these three kinds of evidences, śruti-pramāṇa is accepted as supreme, neither anumāna nor pratyakṣa. Pratyakṣa, you are seeing the sky, but you cannot say the length and breadth. You cannot say. You are seeing daily. If you say, "I have got this telescope," so that is an imperfect. and how you can see with your eyes directly, direct sense perception? Hypothesis, anumāna, guessing, that is also not perfect. And śruti, we take śruti from the perfect person, Kṛṣṇa. He says, aham evāsam agre: "Before the creation I was there." We take simply.

Morning Walk -- July 12, 1975, Philadelphia:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: What about jñāna-yogīs?

Prabhupāda: Jñāna-yogīs, they are also imperfect.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Their knowledge is speculative.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Anyone who is speculative on the strength of his own knowledge is imperfect. Because we are imperfect, speculation is imperfect.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: The same criticism that you made of induction was also made by John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, but they became skeptics. They said, "Therefore there's no knowledge at all."

Prabhupāda: That is another nonsense. That is also speculation. (laughter) "Because I have failed, therefore there is no knowledge." This is also imperfect because how I can conclude like that? I am imperfect. I cannot decide this way or that way. So that is also. Vedic knowledge says that a conditioned soul has got four defects: illusion, mistake, imperfectness and cheating. Any conditioned soul. Even Brahma, he is receiving knowledge from Kṛṣṇa. Tene brahma hṛdā ya ādi-kavaye (SB 1.1.1). Ādi-kavi means Brahma. He is the most perfect person within this universe, Lord Brahma. So he is also receiving knowledge from Kṛṣṇa. Any conditioned soul, beginning from Brahmā down to the ant, they are defective in four ways: illusion, mistake, imperfectness and cheating. They know that "I am imperfect." Just this Darwin. He knew that he is imperfect, and he cheated so many persons—by false theory, which he cannot explain. He simply gives, "Perhaps millions of years' gap...," this, that. That is not knowledge. So the imperfect person is prone to become a cheater. So we should not take knowledge from the cheaters.

Room Conversations -- July 26, 1975, Laguna Beach:

Prabhupāda: But that you do not know, how to do good to the people. Just like a diseased man. The doctor has ordered that he should starve. But if you go in the hospital and you take sympathy with the starving patient, "Oh, you are starving for the last three days," if you give to him some food without the permission of the physician, then you will be punished. So he may think that "Oh, here is a starving man. I must give him some food." But you are liable to be punished. So first of all learn how to do good to others. So that is described here. Tasyaiva hetoḥ prayateta kovido (SB 1.5.18). To bring him to the knowledge of self-realization, that is good. If you can distribute knowledge to bring him back to his consciousness, original consciousness, that is real welfare activity. Otherwise, if you manufacture something that "This man is starving: let me give him some food," it may be wrongly done, and you are liable to be punished. So first of all, you must learn what is actually good to the human society. Then, if we do that, that is good. In ignorance, if we do it, then we may be liable to be punished. Besides that, your thought is imperfect. Just like you try to give food to some living being, but other living being you send to the slaughterhouse. You do not consider. You put your philosophy, that "The animal has no soul. They are like dead matter," but that is not the fact. The animals also have got soul, and the human being, he has got also soul. The ant has got also soul. Everyone has got. Every living being has got soul. Why you are inclined to do good to the human society? What is the reason? Why not to the animals?

Devotee (3): Because we see ourselves in other humans more than we see ourselves in animals.

Prabhupāda: Hmm? So...?

Upendra: He identifies. Identification.

Morning Walk -- August 6, 1975, Detroit:

Ādi-keśava: In this country, when they had the slavery, the masters were not qualified either.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the defect. That is the defect. Either the master is defective or the servant is defective or the system is defective. That is material world. Doṣa-catuḥsthānī, four faults: mistake, illusion, cheating, and imperfectness. (break) ...the struggle for existence—one mistake after one mistake, one illusion after one, one imperfectness after another. Like that, it is going on. (break)

Mādhavānanda: It's our duty in society to show everyone how to work for Kṛṣṇa and become happy in life.

Prabhupāda: That is yajña. To work for Kṛṣṇa means yajña. Yajñarthe karma: "For yajña, performing yajña, one has to work." To work for Kṛṣṇa means yajña. That is performance of yajña. (break) ...Communistic idea is borrowing this idea from... But because they are imperfect, they have made center, state. And because it is imperfect, it is not successful. They have made center the state. (break) Tamo-guṇa means laziness and sleep. The śūdras, they are in laziness and sleep. So if they have got something to eat, they will not work. Laziness. Or eat more and sleep. This is tamo-guṇa. And rajo-guṇa means they are working for sense gratification. That is also useless. Tamo-guṇa is laziness and sleeping, and rajo-guṇa means working foolishly or for sense gratification. And sattva-guṇa means they know how to work. And therefore above this sattva-guṇa they become devotee, work for Kṛṣṇa. So without working for Kṛṣṇa, everyone is under the spell of these modes of material nature. And there is no training how to work for Kṛṣṇa. That is the defect of modern civilization.

Morning Walk -- September 29, 1975, Ahmedabad:

Indian man (4): But do they not come here sometimes to visit us or we cannot go there?

Prabhupāda: But you cannot see them. Your philosophy is unless you see, you don't believe. That is your philosophy. But you do not consider what you can see. That is the defect of this imperfect world, that people do not think that they are imperfect. With all imperfectness, they think they are perfect. That is the defect. Therefore it is said, andha. One is blind, and he is becoming the leader of other blind men. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānās te 'pīśa-tantryām uru-dāmni baddhāḥ (SB 7.5.31). Īśa-tantrya, by the laws of nature he is bound up very tight, hands and legs, and he is thinking he is free to think, free to see, free to... That is the defect. He is not at all free, completely under the clutches of material laws, and he is thinking that he is free. That is the defect. And when this sense comes, that "I am not free; everything is forced upon me," then he becomes human being. Otherwise he's a dog. Just like, you see, if a dog thinks he is free. He is jumping here, there. He is thinking, "I am independent," barking, attacking somebody. Oh, he is thinking he is free to do everything. When one comes to this sense, that he is not free, that is beginning of human life. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. Then the question will be that "Why I am not free? What is the reason?" Then that is... Real human life begins. Otherwise he's a dog. Is it correct or not? What do you think? If one is not free and wrongly thinks that he is free, then what is that mentality? A doggish mentality. And if I say, "Yes, you are free. You can think in any way you like. That is correct," then you become more encouraged to become, to remain a fool, to continue. That's all. So we shall go now? That is the defective part of modern civilization. Everyone is thinking, "I am free." Is it not? Everyone.

Morning Walk -- October 2, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: That is real scientist. These are false scientists.

idaṁ hi puṁsas tapasaḥ śrutasya vā
sviṣṭasya sūktasya ca buddhi-dattayoḥ
avicyuto 'rthaḥ kavibhir nirūpito
yad-uttamaśloka-guṇānuvarṇanam
(SB 1.5.22)

Actually the Supreme Lord is the source of everything. So if one is actually scientist, by his scientific explanation he will point out, "Here is the cause of all causes." By scientific knowledge he will point out that God is the origin of everything. Then his scientific study is perfect. But these rascals, they are doing the opposite, that "There is no need of God. Science is everything," although it is imperfect. That is their fault. Therefore they are rogues. They cannot prove; still, they will insist, "Yes, we shall do. We are trying," like that, and misleading people. General people, they are rascal and fools. If you mislead them, they will be misled. Śūdra, mūḍhas. They are to be educated. Instead of educating them, they are making them more and more fools and rascals. (break) There is utility, but they have no utility. There is some service; they carry some passengers. They are carried nowhere. Simply they mislead.

Morning Walk -- October 2, 1975, Mauritius:

Brahmānanda: But this world is so imperfect...

Prabhupāda: The world is not imperfect; you are imperfect rascal. You are rascal; you are imperfect. World is not imperfect.

Brahmānanda: Well, they have these cyclones. They come...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Must come because you are to be killed. You are rascal; you are to be killed. Therefore God has created cyclone. You protect yourself if you are scientist, if you have got power.

Cyavana: Because they are anxious for some...

Prabhupāda: Because God has created cyclone, therefore He is perfect because you are to be killed, blown away with your all paraphernalia, with your all scientific laboratory and instrument. Go. Go to hell. That is perfection.

Cyavana: They are eager to find a solution. Therefore they are forced to speculate because they have no other way...

Prabhupāda: No other way.

Cyavana: They have no other way to learn, unless they will accept Veda, which they won't accept. (break) ...sense gratification. They enjoy making so many theories.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Mano-ratha: "Chariot of mind."

Press Conference -- October 2, 1975, Mauritius:

Guest (3): Has your movement arranged once any particular event which is a movement in a particular country?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. When we are many in number, then we shall take politics also. Yes. First of all let there be perfect men. If there is no perfect men, the government will be imperfect. If there is perfect men, the government will be perfect.

Guest (4) (Indian man): Do you think, Swamiji, that man can become perfect?

Prabhupāda: That is the chance of a human being. Therefore in the human society there is school, college, education, culture, not in the animal society, because they can be made into perfect, not the animals. So if they are denied proper education, that is the greatest harm. They got the opportunity, and the authorities are not giving them their opportunity.

Guest (4): No, but do you mean the perfectness is to become God or to become the man? Then I want...

Prabhupāda: You never become God.

Guest (4): What does perfectness mean?

Prabhupāda: Perfect means to become godly.

Guest (1): Can you be interested directly in politics?

Prabhupāda: Why not? Kṛṣṇa... Kṛṣṇa was in politics. So He instructed Arjuna to fight. This is politic—for a good cause. When Arjuna denied that "Kṛṣṇa, I am not willing to kill my, the other side, my brothers and my uncles," He chastised him that kutas tvā kaśmalam idaṁ viṣame samupasthitam: "How you are talking like non-Aryan? What is this nonsense?"

Morning Walk -- October 4, 1975, Mauritius:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes. They think that actually that we're suffering from so many desires, that we must be very poor creatures because we become devotees.

Prabhupāda: So why so many desires? Because one desire is not complete, therefore you desire next. Therefore the process of desiring is defective, and our process is to purify the desires, not to remain in the imperfect platform of desiring, but whatever desire you have got, just purify it. Then it will be satisfied. So desire produced by bodily concept of life will never be satisfied. Therefore some of them are trying to become desireless, the impersonalists. Nirvāṇa.

Brahmānanda: That is also impossible.

Prabhupāda: That is not possible.

Indian man 3: Still there is a desire to become desireless. (break) ...nice example for Mr. Seller, a murghee(?). He thinks the rains are getting under and then cutting his slack.

Prabhupāda: Expensive. (break)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That was one of those men over there. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: One of the men over there made that sound, Prabhupāda.

Cyavana: They just came out of that dancing club.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

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.

Harikeśa: Well, when you get hit by a car, that's a cause.

Prabhupāda: Just like one man becomes insolvent, loses everything. So he said that "I had no money. Therefore I become insolvent." But that is not the fact. He could not manage; therefore there was scarcity of money and he became failure. So that is effect. On account of his bad management, he came to a position that he could not pay to his creditor, and his business is failure. So that insolvency is not the cause. It is the effect.

Room Conversation -- October 4, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: It is organized. It is organized. For thousands of years the sea is there, the beach is there. So sea cannot come here. This is order.

Cyavana: But the line of the beach is all crooked and...

Prabhupāda: That is your imperfect vision. It is perfect.

Harikeśa: People think, "Straight and corners, that is very nice. If everything has corners..."

Prabhupāda: That is your concoction.

Cyavana: Like a building, straight.

Prabhupāda: Just like if you think that "Why keep to the left? Why not right?" You think like that, but that is ordered by the superior. You can think in your own way.

Cyavana: Because it appears that way to my senses, therefore I think that...

Prabhupāda: Therefore it is authority. You can think like anything, but it will not be done according to your desire. It will be done by the authority's desire. That is authority. You cannot dictate the authority that "You do like this." That is not authority. You think any way; that is your business. But authority will do in their own way.

Morning Walk -- October 5, 1975, Mauritius:

Devotee (6): Also one other question came up from this man.

Prabhupāda: A man may ask so many nonsense. A man is that, imperfect man. Why you bother about that? Man is imperfect. You have to take conclusion from the śāstra. A man may say anything nonsense. What we have got to do with him? He is a man, after all, imperfect man. So what is the value of his statement?

Indian man (7): So he's a man and he's imperfect that he asks questions from you... No, Swamijī.

Prabhupāda: No. If he submissively asks to know, then we can explain. If he challenges, then he should be avoided. He's a rascal. He does not know what is what.

Brahmānanda: Yesterday at that meeting they were challenging.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Brahmānanda: Some of the men yesterday...

Prabhupāda: So I replied in that way, yes, that "Why you put these ridiculous questions?"

Cyavana: Yes. Before he asked it.

Harikeśa: That's what he could not understand, that you knew he was a... (laughter)

Prabhupāda: The other man I said, "Why do you bring India? Never... Kṛṣṇa never said, 'yadā yadā hi Hindu dharmasya glānir...' (laughter) Nonsense, what is this? Dharmasya glānir bhavati. Why do you bring 'Hindu dharma,' India?" That is their imperfectness of knowedge. We are not talking of Hindu dharma, Muslim dharma, this dharma. We are talking of what is religion. Dharmaṁ tu sākṣād bhagavat-praṇītam (SB 6.3.19). Religion means the law given by God. You should know what is God, what is that law. That is religion.

Morning Walk -- October 5, 1975, Mauritius:

Devotee (6): They all think we are propagating Hindusim because we're wearing dhotī...

Prabhupāda: They are thinking. They are rascals. They are thinking like that. Therefore I say they are imperfect. They are imperfectly thinking. So... So there were many Muslims, and the Christian, that Scotland man, he appreciated.

Cyavana: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So we do not say anything about any particular section. We are speaking about God. God does not belong to any section. When Kṛṣṇa said that there should be four divisions, cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭam (BG 4.13), He does not say that these divisions should be in the Hindu society or in India. He never says so. So why they take it as Hindu? Kṛṣṇa does not say that it is meant for the Hindus, for India. If God says that "I have created the sun," does it mean sun is created for India, not for this island? So these are foolishness. Whatever is spoken by God, that is meant for everyone, all over the universe. That is real understanding.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's in the American Constitution that all men are created equally.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is real idea!

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So they complain that "If all men are created equally, then each man will have equal opportunity."

Prabhupāda: Yes. You can become a brāhmaṇa. Equal oppor... We are giving. Any man, he may be caṇḍāla but we give them opportunity: "Come on, you become a brāhmaṇa." We don't deny: "Oh, you are coming from a caṇḍāla family. You cannot become brāhmaṇa." No. We don't say that. We give equal opportunity. (break) ...is that before this movement, really Vedic culture was never broadcast. Therefore they are finding somewhere contradiction, something astonishing. But Vedic culture is meant for the whole world.

Room Conversation with the Rector, Professor Olivier and Professors of the University of Durban, Westville -- October 8, 1975, Durban:

Prof. Olivier: But now do you not think that Christianity and Islam accept this as well?

Prabhupāda: I do not say which religion accepts and which religion does not, but unless one understands that he is not this body—he is different from this body—his education is imperfect.

Indian man (2): But do I mean that up till now your excellency were giving the question of transmigration, field of science, and now you are also taking that subject of God in this sphere of science?

Prabhupāda: It is not God. God is far away. First of all I must know what I am. God is long, long distant.

Indian man (2): But what should be the...

Prabhupāda: First of all you understand what you are, whether you are this body or something other than the body. That is first.

Indian man 2: Whether we are different or separate from God, or we are God. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: That also dog can say, "I am also God." That is not very difficult thing.

Indian man 2: Whether God says or not, it is the question between us, whether we are God...

Prabhupāda: So, that bodily conception of life is dogism. Dog thinks, "I am dog." Cat thinks, "I am cat." Similarly, if I think "I am Hindu," "I am Christian," so what is the difference? Because you are giving some name of religion, therefore you are better than dog?

Indian man (2): With due respect, I want to know the God knows that He is God and dog knows he is dog? (?)

Prabhupāda: Why do you bring God? I am not talking of God.

Morning Walk -- October 16, 1975, Johannesburg:

Harikeśa: "Action is better than inaction."

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Yes.

Harikeśa: A man cannot even keep his own body in shape.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So stealing is still better than keeping oneself lazy.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "It is better to perform one's duty, even though it may be imperfect, than to perform another's duty"?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. (laughter)

Harikeśa: I've always wondered... The food will be taken care of in a perfect varṇāśrama society; government is taken care of...

Prabhupāda: Government means you, like rascal fools like you. So how you will take care?

Harikeśa: When it is properly set up.

Prabhupāda: First of all you see the government, what is government? Government means a pack of rascals and fools. That's all. This is modern government. All these thieves and rogues are voted to be government men. So how you expect good government? It is not possible. "People's government." All people are rascals. That means government rascal. People's government.

Morning Walk -- October 20, 1975, Johannesburg:

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

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

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

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Established truth.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The sun rises on the eastern side; that is established truth. You cannot change it. And that is vijñāna. Man dies. This is established truth. You cannot make any change by experimental knowledge. This is vijñāna. Nṛpa nirnita: "It is already settled." In the Vedic knowledge there is no such thing as laboratory or experiment, discovery, nothing.

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

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

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

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

Morning Walk -- October 20, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: Then God is separated from this world. How much imperfect knowledge it is. God has created this world, and He has nothing to do with. Just see. They say God created this world, but He has nothing to do with it.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That's a very imperfect understanding.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...you were with Meher Baba?

Harikeśa: No, I was never with Meher Baba. (laughter) I just bring up all these points just so you can defeat them. I was with Maharishi.

Prabhupāda: Maharishi? Oh. You got his mantra? How much you paid for that?

Harikeśa: Thirty-five dollars. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: And what was the mantra?

Harikeśa: "Aing."

Prabhupāda: "Aing"? That's all?

Harikeśa: That's all. And they told me, "Never tell anybody else, 'cause if you tell somebody else the whole thing is ruined."

Prabhupāda: Oh, you are also ruined? No, he is also ruined? No?

Harikeśa: I don't know.

Morning Walk -- November 1, 1975, Nairobi:

Prabhupāda: He is made perfect, but He is not... You are not stone. God is not stone. You are living being. The same thing you are repeatedly asking. You have got little independence because you are part and parcel of God. So by misusing your independence, if you violate the orders of God, then you suffer. You are perfect because you have got independence, but you misuse that perfectness. That is your fault. You perfect. You become imperfect by misusing.

Jñāna: Independence?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everything is perfect. Pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate, pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate (Iso Invocation). Because you are part and parcel of God, you are perfect, but willfully you become imperfect. Again you become perfect; then you become imperfect.

Jñāna: Where does that will come from?

Prabhupāda: Will is given to you. Living being means there is will—thinking, feeling and willing. Don't question if you do not know. Everything comes from God. What is the use of "Where will comes?" Janmādya asya yataḥ. Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvam... (BG 10.8). Everything is coming from Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa has got will; you have got will. Why do you ask? This is foolishness. Kṛṣṇa has got independence; you have got independence. You are a small Kṛṣṇa. A particle of gold is also gold. Everything is there. All chemical composition is there. It has come from Kṛṣṇa. Why you are asking wherefrom it comes?

Jñāna: All living beings are independent, but some choose to serve and some choose to disbelieve.

Morning Walk -- November 11, 1975, Bombay:

Devotee (3): (break) You were speaking about the blind person who is thinking that he can see. He is in illusion. How can we best convince him that he is not able to see?

Prabhupāda: You have to convince him that "Your eyes are imperfect." Then you can tell, "Just close your eyes. Can you see the eyelid? It closes, but you cannot see. Why? You have got eyes. When there is some particle in the eye, so close and find out where is the particle. Why making this way, this way, this way? So what is the value of your eyes? This is the proof. You cannot see even your eyelids. So why do... Why you are so much proud of seeing?" Is it not?

Devotee (3): Yes.

Prabhupāda: This is conviction. He can say that "I cannot see on account of distant place, the planet," but you see the nearest. So you cannot see distant place things and you cannot see nearest. Then what is the value of your eyes? That means you can see only under certain condition. So condition is offered by somebody else. Therefore you are conditioned. Your seeing is conditioned, because it is not absolute. So how do you believe your eyes? Hm?

Devotee (3): The vision of the eyes is imperfect. We have to see by intelligence, from the authority...

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is not intelligence; that is fact. Intelligence you should have that "However I can perceive by the senses, the senses being imperfect, all our perceptions are imperfect." That is intelligence.

Morning Walk -- November 13, 1975, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: Another is śuni caiva śva-pāke ca paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (BG 5.18).

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the same thing, because he does not see the form; he sees the ingredients. Just like there are so many earthen pots, dolls. So any sane man knows that these are all made of earth. That's all. That vision is wanted, but these rascals, they are thinking, "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am brāhmaṇa," "I am kṣatriya," "I am fat," "I am this," "I am that." Therefore they are imperfect.

Dr. Patel: Oh, we are prepared to think we are Americans, but they don't take us, unfortunately. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Dr. Patel: You see? I may little digressing from this point. Before the India became freed we had an extremely high opinion about American race, American people.

Prabhupāda: Still I have got.

Dr. Patel: Because... No, not people like us.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is correct. Still I have got.

Morning Walk -- November 14, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: But what you can see, rascal? Therefore we say you are rascals. Why do you believe your eyes? You cannot see so many things. We don't find any living entity in the ocean. Does it mean there is no living entity? So what is the value of your seeing? That is the defect. They believe in too much their eyes. Although eyes are... Every sense is imperfect. You can see here: "Oh, we don't find anything. It is all zero." Does it mean the sky is zero? There are millions of planets and millions of living entities. So that is their rascaldom. They think that they are perfect. Whatever they see, that is perfect. That is their mistake. If I say, "No, there is no life. I cannot see," is that very good statement? And in the..., externally you don't find any living entity, but is it void of living entities? Then why shall I assert that "There is no living... I cannot see"? Is that very good proposal? Therefore they are rascals. There cannot be any place within this universe which is without life. There cannot be. We see there is life even within sand. How you can say there is no life? "Because I cannot see." What is this argument? What you are? You are a rascal. Because you cannot see, therefore we have to accept? First of all we say you are rascal. And if he says that "I cannot see," is it to be accepted? And the example is there. "I cannot see any life. It is simply water." But there are millions and trillions of life, big, big fish. Where is your perfection of seeing?

Morning Walk -- November 29, 1975, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa. There are so many kalākendras but no kendra for understanding ātmā. Huh? Apasyatam ātma-tattvam (SB 2.1.2). In Bhāgavata it is said, apasyatam. They do not know what is ātma-tattvam, these rascals. Gṛheṣu gṛhamedhīnam. Apasyatam ātma-tattvam (SB 2.1.2). These rascals, they do not know ātma-tattva, the science of self-realization. Bahir-artha-maninaḥ. They have been simply external. They are giving importance to the music, but the person who is playing the music, he has no information. He is thinking this tongue is vibrating music, such a rascal. If the tongue is vibrating music, then why—he is dead—why the tongue does not play music anymore? And the ear is there. Why he does not hear any more music? If this body is all, then the body is there, the tongue is there, the ear is there—why there is no response of the music? Apaśyatām ātma-tattvam. And these rascals, they do not know who is the person who is singing and who is hearing. Therefore they have been called as mūḍhas. Who is singing, who is hearing, he does not know. Apaśyatām ātma-tattvaṁ gṛheṣu gṛhamedhīnam.

Devotee (1): You were saying in Mauritius that they are imperfect and they are taking advice from the imperfect. Therefore very difficult for them to understand, because they don't take advice from the perfect person, Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...apaśyatām. They cannot see. They see only that the tongue is vibrating, the ear is hearing. And the dead man, the same ear is there, the tongue is there. Why there is no music? What they will answer?

Tejās: They say it's a chemical interaction.

Prabhupāda: What is that chemical? Eh? Why talk nonsense? Chemical reaction? Bring that chemical and let him hear again. What is the answer? Why do they say nonsense which he does not know? Chemical reaction, if it is chemical reaction, bring chemical and inject it. What is the answer?

Harikeśa: That chemical is very complicated.

Morning Walk -- December 3, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: He cannot do anything, even in his... Everything is to be done by Kṛṣṇa. But he has to apply his intelligence by Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Even if he is intelligent, he cannot do anything.

Harikeśa: Except surrender.

Prabhupāda: Yes. He can surrender, and Kṛṣṇa will do everything. You have to act very sincerely under the direction of Kṛṣṇa, and then the war will be successful, as Arjuna did.

Harikeśa: So imperfect activity is a sign of lack of surrender.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...avaśya rakṣibe kṛṣṇa. Rakṣiṣyati iti viśvāsa-pālanam. You work sincerely, devoutly, and have faith that "Kṛṣṇa will save me from all dangers." Rakṣiṣyati iti viśvāsa-pālanam. "I have surrendered to Kṛṣṇa sincerely. Now Kṛṣṇa will give me all protection." This faith, that is the beginning of devotional life. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Faith.

Harikeśa: So this faith, is this śraddhā or niṣṭha?

Prabhupāda: Śraddhā. Beginning, śraddhā. Then, when he is advanced, then he becomes fixed up. "Yes, Kṛṣṇa is protecting me." (break) ...that here is some goddess Kali, and nobody is living here.

Morning Walk -- December 17, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, why not to the...

Dr. Patel: And the first boy, his shoes goes to the teacher.

Prabhupāda: Some idea...

Dr. Patel: That is great idea.

Prabhupāda: No. That is also imperfect. Anyway, it is something. Amānitvam adambhitvam: they from the very beginning of their life, they address other's wife as "mother," you see? Matrvat paridaresu. This is culture, to see every woman except his own wife as mother. Where is that culture?

Man: Mahātm Gandhi also changed his life after brahmacārī...

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Man: Mahātm Gandhi?

Prabhupāda: We are talking of real mahātmās, not politicians.

Man: No, no. He was changing after brahmacārī, his life.

Prabhupāda: I do not know, but...

Dr. Patel: He took a big vow. He took a big vow at the age of forty-three years. That mahan, mah-vrata, what they call it? For not indulging in sex.

Prabhupāda: That is one of the qualification...

Dr. Patel: That is one of them. But by controlling their sex, people derive much (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: That is a fact.

Morning Walk -- December 23, 1975, Bombay:

Śrīdhara: The soul is pure, part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa...

Prabhupāda: Yes, but he is covered by the material body. The material body is infected by the modes of material nature. Therefore, although he is pure, he is subjected. Just like when there is motor accident, you are separate from the motor, but you have to suffer. Everyone knows that I am separate from the motorcar, but why I am suffering? Because you have got bad car, you must suffer.

Śrīdhara: That may be because I'm an imperfect driver.

Prabhupāda: So you are imperfect; therefore this movement is to make you perfect. If you are not imperfect, then why the movement is there? To make you perfect. Saṁsiddhiṁ paramaṁ gataḥ. Mām upetya kaunteya duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15). So long you are imperfect, you must suffer in this material world. And as soon as you become perfect, you go back to home, back to.... Because you are imperfect, therefore this movement is necessary. Medicine is there for the patient, not for the person in perfect health. Mūdho' yaṁ nābhijānāti mām eva param avyayam (BG 7.25). These rascals they do not know Kṛṣṇa; therefore the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is necessary. Para upakāra. Caitanya Mahāprabhu says para upa, para upakāra. You know yourself what is Kṛṣṇa, and distribute this knowledge. That is wanted. That is entrusted to the Indians.

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

Harikeśa: But he's satis...

Prabhupāda: That is also mental satisfaction.

Harikeśa: But happiness is a state of mind. So the child is happy...

Prabhupāda: Such mind is imperfect. What is this satisfaction? If mind is imperfect, so mental satisfaction is never complete satisfaction. That is also another illusion. It will be changed again. Again revolution. This is going on. So in the dialectic process, try to bring this thesis, that within this body there is the real enjoyer, and try to convince them in that way. That will be great service.

Harikeśa: You've already done it.

Prabhupāda: I've done with a few selected men. Now it has to be spread. We have to face bigger field. Then it will be nice. Hm? Thesis, antithesis and synthesis. This is good. This is scientific method. So, so what is that thesis? That thesis is given by Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa gave the thesis: asmin dehe, the proprietor of the body is there. Within this body.... This is thesis.

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

Harikeśa: Kṛṣṇa is the strongest.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṛṣṇa says, "I am the proprietor." But they'll not accept it. Kṛṣṇa says, the real proprietor says, that "I am the bhokta. Sarva-loka-maheśvaram (BG 5.29)." But they are so rascal that they will deny the existence of Kṛṣṇa or God, or the real proprietor. They claim to be proprietor for a few days, and they, by one slap of Kṛṣṇa's hand, they finished all proprietorship, and they are going, struggling. This ignorance is prevailing all over the world. Does not know who is the proprietor, how I became proprietor, how I shall be enjoying. Nothing. The same thing, the dog philosophy: if the dog secures a morsel of bread, he's thinking, "I am proprietor." Another one snatches: "I am proprietor." This is going on. But the dog has no sense that none of us will be proprietor. So when you know who is the proprietor, then this Īśopaniṣad.... Tena tyaktena bhuñjīthā. Īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam (ISO 1). Everything, God's property. You enjoy for livelihood what is given to you. That's all. That is perfect philosophy. "I am the proprietor." That was the system in Vedic civilization. God is proprietor. King is the representative of God. He knows.... He gives you some land, that "You take this land, produce your livelihood, utilizing this land, and whatever you produce, one fourth give me." Not a fixed tax. "If you produce, one fourth is mine. If you don't produce, there is no tax." This was the system. And that includes all tax. No botheration. So people were God-fearing, honest, simple-dealing. So "I have produced a hundred mounds of rice. The king, you can take twenty-five mounds. That is my obligation." And king is also satisfied. By distributing that grain, he maintains the whole government. The real difficulty is all these rascals, they are not sufficiently educated. They are mūḍhas. And they are trying to solve the problems. That is not possible. That is andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ (SB 7.5.31). They are bound up. They're making adjustment, but.... Just like Gandhi. For making adjustment, all of a sudden a man came, (makes sound like gun) khat. Finished. Kennedy was making some adjustment. Somebody came and killed him. It is like that. What is the value of your adjustments? It will be finished after some days. Therefore the Russians, they support revolution. They said, "It is necessary." They admit the imperfectness. And occasional revolution makes it perfect. This is their idea of perfection. But they do not inquire that "What is that supreme power which makes our ideas of perfection imperfect?" These rascals, they do not never, do not ever inquire, "What is that power which forces to make our attempt frustrated, spoil, and make it imperfect?" What do they say about this?

Haṁsadūta: They never come to this point.

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

Haṁsadūta: They never come to this point.

Prabhupāda: Just see how rascal they are. This is the fact. We make some arrangement, and after few years it becomes imperfect. They say the revolution required. Why? That is natural. And natural means a power which makes your arrangement spoiled. Then what is your brain? You have got some superior brain which nullifies your plan. Why don't you accept this?

Harikeśa: Like breaking the law and being thrown in jail...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Harikeśa: ...after you are caught...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Harikeśa: ...and then wondering why.

Prabhupāda: Yes. He does not know that "I was imperfect, thief. Therefore I have put into jail." So we can face any philosopher. But I can give you ideas. You can write some small articles. Let them solve these thesis, antithesis and synthesis. They, they accept this thesis, antithesis?

Harikeśa: Oh, yeah.

Prabhupāda: Put them.

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

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Harikeśa: He says he wants to determine the laws of connection of ideas.

Prabhupāda: But idea is also not fact. And what is other word?

Harikeśa: "The laws of connection of ideas."

Prabhupāda: If the idea is imperfect, then where is, what is the meaning of this law? That is also imperfect.

Harikeśa: Well, actually there's three things here. And they work together. 'Cause he calls this psychology. And the second one...

Prabhupāda: But psychology is also imperfect.

Harikeśa: So, yes, he's going to now connect that with physics. He says, "To discover the laws of connections of sensations..."

Prabhupāda: But physics, physical law, also, you are studying with your imperfect senses. So how far it is perfect? Just like the physical laws. There is heat in the sun, temperature. So you are seeing from long distance, and you are suggesting, "There cannot be any light." So this is imperfect.

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

Harikeśa: So your idea is that there's a limit to all this.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because...

Harikeśa: It's not possible.

Prabhupāda: ...anything, any ideas made by imperfect man is useless. That is our, our proposition. You are imperfect, and the sun is so perfect, physically, that how you can theorize unless you know the whole expert. If you say "I know everything," then the question will be: "Who made this sun? So powerful, so extraordinarily heated and light. Who made it?" You did..., you have not made it. Where is your, that knowledge?

Harikeśa: As I read on, I find out that it's...

Prabhupāda: These are all speculation. That's all.

Harikeśa: Definitely. Useless book.

Prabhupāda: Useless speculation.

Harikeśa: But this, this argument that's being brought up here, actually people are thinking about a lot, that there's an idea and there's, there's a fact...

Prabhupāda: That argument is.... Just like I told you, in my childhood I was thinking in the gramophone box there is a man. I could not think at that time without a man how this gramophone can sing so nicely. So there is a man, and as soon as the record is..., he gives, he sings. That.... I was thinking like that.

Page Title:Imperfect (Conversations 1974 - 1975)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, Mayapur
Created:25 of Mar, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=76, Let=0
No. of Quotes:76