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Medicine (Conversations - 1976)

Expressions researched:
"medicament" |"medication" |"medicinal" |"medicinally" |"medicine" |"medicine's" |"medicines"

Conversations and Morning Walks

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 6, 1976, Nellore:

Prabhupāda: These things are being done by so many other people, and we are doing something which is ultimate. The hospital gives some medicine when there is some disease, but that does not mean there will be no disease. Can they guarantee that "I give you this medicine—no more disease." We are giving that medicine, that no more disease. That is the best social work. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). We are giving this medicine, that after leaving this body.... So far this body is concerned, somehow or other you pass on. And as soon as you give up this body—tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9)—you'll have no more birth. And if you have no more birth, there will be no more death. And if you have no more birth, then there will be no more disease. This is our prescription.

Morning Walk -- January 12, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: So many medicines, vitamin D, vitamin C...

Dr. Patel: All medicines, sir, vitamins, and all even hormones...

Prabhupāda: But why not discover something that you will save from death?

Dr. Patel: But what is death, after all? Our forefathers found it out...

Prabhupāda: Then why you are trying to live?

Morning Walk -- January 16, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bhavānanda: You can give her the...

Prabhupāda: (break) ...mixture. Stock medicine that is called. (break) ...consulting doctor, without any harm, you can give. Just like homeopathic. So now these are vacant. Why these doors are not closed?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This one is utilized.

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

Prabhupāda: What is the use of taking vaccination?" This is no argument. The epidemic is there; the vaccination is there. (aside:) This is tulasī? Tell them. The disease is there; the medicine is there. So intelligent man should take the medicine, precaution, and then he'll be saved. Two things are there. Kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā. In Kali-yuga, if you don't take this, then there is no means of your save, safety.

Morning Walk -- February 5, 1976, Mayapura:

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

Morning Walk -- February 11, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Stolen?

Hṛdayānanda: Yes. The medicine was all stolen. Also the government was making many people work hard due to the disaster, and when the people...

Prabhupāda: So they are suffering from disaster. Again work hard. Just see how benefit.

Morning Walk -- March 7, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: They can continue to befool you, that, and take money. And as soon as you don't give them money, there is no research. Then they starve.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: We've seen, though, from examples in the Vedic literatures like Viśvakarma and Āyur Vedic medicine, that it's possible to engage in architecture, medicine, such activities, without being atheistic. So it must not simply be that they're scientists, but that they're actually...

Morning Walk -- March 9, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Very good. You are injected with some medicine. You are cured. Then again you are attacked. So why you are going in this way? Stop it." And that is knowledge.

Morning Walk -- March 19, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Anywhere, if you break the laws, you suffer. Anywhere.

Devotee (2): Prabhupāda, science has develop methods where they can have sense gratification and.... Just like if they get some disease they can give them some medicine, and then the disease goes away very easily. So in this way, they're actually giving more facility for more sense gratification.

Prabhupāda: So do you like to accept it, that disease? Therefore it has been condemned, prāyaścitta. Perhaps you have read it in the beginning of Sixth Canto. Prāyaścitta... Parīkṣit Mahārāja condemned, "What is the use of this Vedic prāyaścitta if it is suffering, again and again? Then what is the use?" That he has condemned.

Morning Walk -- March 19, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. So you can invent so many means of curing the danger. But as soon as the sun is there, immediately all mist is over. Similarly, we have invented so many medicines and counteractions for so many things. But if one becomes a devotee, all these troubles immediately.... That is the only one medicine. He has no more any inclination. Svāmin kṛtārtho 'smi varaṁ na yāce: (CC Madhya 22.42) "No more I want." And that is wanted.

Morning Walk -- March 25, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: And as soon as there is sickness, that means punishment. So if you want to be punished, then violate the hygienic laws. You can see that there is hospital and medical treatment and medicine—for whom?

Morning Walk -- April 9, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No, no, even when the father-mother is supposed to give protection, that is also not right conclusion. Otherwise there are so many fathers and mothers who is giving protection to his children. The father-mother, when the child is sick, the father-mother gives all—one who has got means—best medicine, best medical treatment, but the child dies. Where is the protection?

Morning Walk -- April 12, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: So why they do not utilize it proper?

Dr. Patel: This is a private thing. They want to be (indistinct) My daughter (indistinct) boy who is studying.... He has his M.D. of London (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: It is settled up. Very nice. And son? Your son?

Dr. Patel: My son is in the Caine(?) Hospital, a professor of medicine.

Prabhupāda: No, no, he is also married? No.

Dr. Patel: He is married, yes.

Morning Walk -- April 12, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Just like now medical science is improving means hospital increasing. That means people are becoming more diseased. And they are taking it advanced.

Dr. Patel: No, no, modern advancement is required, even hospitals. So modern medicine is always preventative.

Prabhupāda: Stop disease; otherwise where is improvement? (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...poetry, kṛṣṇa-bahirmukha hañā bhoga vāñchā kare, nikaṭa-stha māyā tāre jāpaṭiyā dhare (Prema-vivarta). As soon as the living entity desires sense gratification, immediately māyā captures.

Room Conversation -- April 22, 1976, Melbourne:

Hari-śauri: That habit is spreading. I've seen in India. Even the Indian businessmen that come to see you...

Prabhupāda: They are imitating.

Hari-śauri: Yes. It's laziness.

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

Hari-śauri: We're learning.

Room Conversation -- April 22, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Because the consciousness is not developed. Now, what do you mean by...? When you are unconscious, if your head is cut off, you do not understand. That is practical if by medicinal process you are made into unconsciousness, chloroform anesthetic, so that you don't feel. This is practical. So unless the consciousness is developed, one's soul's full-fledged function does not develop. So this is a chance in the human form of body that the consciousness should be developed.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Materialism means capitalism.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Well, they want communistic materialism. In other words, by creating, forming communes, everyone will get equal portion of food and bedding and clothing and medicine.

Prabhupāda: No, that is not the fact. A man's tendency is that everyone wants to get more. So how they will check it? This is already proved in Russia.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They condemn Russia. They say Russia is a failure.

Room Conversation -- May 5, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Just like there are sometimes the father's child is suffering from fever. So the father wants that the child may take the medicine, and promises, "You take the medicine. I'll give you this cake." The purpose is not to give the cake actually. The purpose is the child may take the medicine. That is the purpose. But when the father promises that "If you take the medicine I'll give you the cake." But cake is dangerous for the child who is suffering from fever, but still the father allures him. "If you take the medicine and I'll give you cake." So is the father wrong or right?

Room Conversation -- May 5, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: That "If you take the medicine I'll give you cake." So those who are mundane moralist, they cannot understand this thing, because they are mundane platform. The another example is that Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja. He was asked by Kṛṣṇa that "You speak lie to Dronācārya that 'Your son is dead.' " Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja refused.

Room Conversation -- May 5, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: We want that book selling must be increased as much as possible. This we want. The same thing. Let the child take medicine. Never mind the father is speaking lies. That is... Because as soon as he takes the medicine he'll be benefited. End justifies the means. End is that everyone should have a Kṛṣṇa literature. Doesn't matter what is the means. Because he has taken one Kṛṣṇa literature, that justifies everything. This is the principle.

Morning Walk -- May 12, 1976, Honolulu:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (break) Because we don't accept their scientific achievements as being worthy, for example, in medicine, and things like this, they will say that our argument is one-sided. Just like that Dr. Wolfe. He was thinking like that.

Prabhupāda: What is one-sided?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Well, we simply say that the scientists have done nothing good to further human cause.

Prabhupāda: No, we don't say that. We say that you take credit as far as you have been successful. Why do you say there is no God? We protest against that.

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

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

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

Prabhupāda: But they cannot, or even they do know that death is not good, but why they are not trying how to stop death? Where is the advancement? They are very much proud of advancement of science. Where is the advancement? You cannot stop death. You cannot stop old age. You can manufacture advanced medicine, but why don't you stop disease? Take this pill, there will be no more disease. Where is that science? Hm?

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

Prabhupāda: I've seen it, I've seen it, that he was begging the doctor, "Please give me four years life. Give me some medicine so that I'll live at least for four years, I'll finish my plan." I've seen it. You are the first man that you are not afraid of death (devotees laugh), but I see everyone is afraid of death.

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

Prabhupāda: Naturally, everyone, that is the problem of life. Otherwise, why there are so many medical colleges, drug shops and medicines, just to avoid disease? Otherwise, there was no need of arrangement. Everyone is afraid of disease, not to suffer from disease. That's a fact. If you say that you are not afraid of disease, that is something new. But unless we are afraid of disease, why there is this Memorial Hospital, this drug shop, this pharmacy? Why these things are required? We don't want it.

Morning Walk -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Who cares for it? (laughter) Wine is highly taxed in India. When I was manager in Dr. Bose's laboratory, he was manufacturing alcohol(?) for medicinal purposes. The cost was one rupee eight annas per gallon. The government was levying duty. For medicinal purpose, five rupees per gallon, whereas purchasing liquor, fifty-eight. The government would take profit out of it, fifty-eight rupees.

Room Conversation -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, any rascal thing. They made a good market. And British Empire means to sell their goods. And they, for that purpose, they became rich. Money was drawn from all parts, especially from India. Everything. Later on, gradually we came to understand. In Lucknow, because I was in medical business, so I saw one Japanese salesman was selling one medicine, one or two items, potassiodide. Do you know? No. Potassium iodide. And another, iodine. He was selling at four rupees, eight annas a pound.

Interview with Professors O'Connell, Motilal and Shivaram -- June 18, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Yes. And the cure, medicine, is also given: tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). If you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, then.... Everyone has to give up this body, but a person who is in thorough knowledge of Kṛṣṇa, then he, after giving up this body, he does not accept any more material body. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma (BG 4.9). Find out his verse.

Room Conversation and Reading from Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto 1 and 12 -- June 25, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: And Sukadeva Gosvāmī, the son of Vyāsadeva, is the right person to receive it. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the topmost theological science, and therefore it can react on the layman as medicinal doses. Because it contains the transcendental activities of the Lord, there is no difference between the Lord and the literature.

Room Conversation and Reading from Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto 1 and 12 -- June 25, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Any question regarding this?

Pradyumna: Says Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the topmost theological science, therefore it can react on the layman as medicinal doses?

Prabhupāda: If they simply hear, it will act as medicine.

Devotee (1): Vyāsadeva is called tri-kala-jñā—he sees past, present and future. How is it that he sees the future, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: (microphone rattling) Just like common business. Bring that black (indistinct) Bhāgavata. Five thousand years before Bhāgavatam was written, and so many foretelling are there. (microphone rattling-indistinct) If you like, you can keep...

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

Prabhupāda: Better deal with him than with the rascals and waste time. Better avoid the rascals. Just like in hospital, emergency cases, the doctor, when they see that this patient hopeless, he does not take care anymore. But when there is hope, they give medicine and try to... So hopeless condition, better not. Don't talk with them. That's all. That is vaiṣṇava-ācāra. Then he'll remain safe. Hopeless person, don't waste your time talking with them. Īśvare tad-adhīneṣu bāliśeṣu dviṣatsu ca. Four observations.

Morning Walk -- June 27, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Brahmā is the origin. (break) ...a class of men, they are called vaidyas (doctors). They know all these herb, which herb is medicine for certain disease, and they sell in the market. Every one of these is meant for some medicine. They know it.

Morning Walk -- June 27, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Animal-killing is only allowed when it is absolutely necessary, for medicine. Suppose by killing one animal hundreds of lives are saved, so that is allowed. One preparation is chagalaka-ghṛta. It is prepared... A live goat is put into the ghee with other ingredients, and that is a good medicine for tisis(?).

Morning Walk -- June 27, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: To test, to test the Vedic mantra.

Hari-śauri: So that goat would get a new life, or...?

Prabhupāda: Who? No, this is used for medicine.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Many, many of the Western medicines are taken from different glands from animals.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break)

Devotee (1): They had an Āyur-vedic doctor in New Vrindaban, and he was prescribing mung and rice diet for the...

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

Prabhupāda: Nothing can be changed. But according to the time you have to... Just like in Kali-yuga the smṛti order is kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṁ vrajet (SB 12.3.51). So you have to do this. Just like a physician gives a medicine that "Morning you take this medicine, in the evening you take this medicine." It is not a change of treatment. It is according to the time a different medicine. But it is recommended by the physician, not by your whims. Śruti-smṛti cannot be changed, but they have recommended different process in different times. So the reference to the śruti-smṛti is there, authority is there. It is... You cannot modify.

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

Prabhupāda: But there cannot be new smṛtis. We are giving the sanction to Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra because it is already there in the śruti. But for this time it is suitable. I am taking a certain type of medicine in the evening, it is already recommended by the physician. I am not doing it whimsically. So whimsically you cannot change. It must have reference to the śruti-smṛti-purāṇadi (BRS 1.2.101).

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

Prabhupāda: Yes. So therefore guru is necessary. Everyone is perplexed. Nobody can decide himself. Even a physician, a medical man, when he is sick, he does not make his own treatment. He calls for another physician because he is sick, his brain is not in order. How he can prescribe the real medicine for himself? That is natural. So similarly, when we are perplexed, bewildered, we cannot make any solution, at that time the right person, guru, is required. It is essential. You cannot avoid it.

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

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In other words, the question is that do people who have such types of low-grade desires take birth in the Kali-yuga. So the question is that, naturally, yes, everyone is taking birth according to their karma. But we can change our destiny by becoming Kṛṣṇa conscious. Just like if a sick man is offered medicine, so if he takes medicine, then he can become cured from his disease. Similarly, Kali-yuga means very high temperature, and the medicine is there in the form of the holy name, harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21). So we have to take advantage. Otherwise everyone in Kali-yuga is condemned.

Prabhupāda: Have we not published that "You have created 747. All right, take credit. But you cannot make a mosquito with pilot. Can you?" "No." "So why..., how can you defy the supreme creator?" We are taking it, there is supreme creator.

Conversation with Prof. Saligram and Dr. Sukla -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: There is no pain. It is painful in the beginning, but... Everything. If you take some medicine, it is bitter, it is painful, but if it helps to cure disease, we must take it. "Because the medicine is bitter, I'll not take it." That is not sense. If you want to be cured from the disease, even the medicine is bitter, you must take. That is tapasya. Tapasya means things we are going to accept may be not very pleasing, but still we have to do it. That is tapasya. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyed sattvam (SB 5.5.1). We take bitter medicine just to cure our existence. Similarly, at the present moment, our existence is impure.

Conversation with Prof. Saligram and Dr. Sukla -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: Just explain.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Too fallen to follow the regulative principles is like saying a diseased man is too diseased to take medicine. So it's actually in our own self interest. We have to become enlightened, to understand what our real interest is. Yajña vai viṣṇu. Now we are thinking that our real interest is to gratify the senses. This is perishable.

Room Conversation -- July 7, 1976, Baltimore:

Prabhupāda: You have done nothing good, I say. You have simply wasted time and taken public money, that's all.

Rūpānuga: "We have made some mistakes, but we have produced some good things in medicine and, anyway, you should accept our authority because we have done so many good things."

Prabhupāda: No, because you have done something, that I accept. Just like you have done very good, 747 airplane, but just make a mosquito, with pilot and everything. Can you do it? Then why do you take all the credit. Take credit for 747, that's all. But when I ask you create another plane like a fly or mosquito, you are unable to do it. Then why do you take, "There is no God; science is everything." Why do you say like that?

Room Conversation -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: Yes. (aside) No, call Svarūpa Dāmodara.

Dr. Sharma: I shall write in books and give it to the editors here to use it the way they best can. I normally publish... I only last month got a medical prize, a large prize, for medicine. My name is known internationally, medical journals. So I'll submit it to the Book Trust.

Prabhupāda: So, you are qualified medical man?

Room Conversation -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: So, you are qualified medical man?

Dr. Sharma: No, I am only in research. I am not qualified to practice medicine, but in clinical medical practice and clinical journals I am qualified. I used to be...

Prabhupāda: From chemical point.

Dr. Sharma: No, from medicine point.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā?

Dr. Sharma: From medicine point. In physics and mathematics I'll write in those ways, and I'll submit it and let them use it the way they feel like it. Previously I was with the āśrama.

Morning Walk -- July 9, 1976, Washington D.C.:

Rūpānuga: But we will laugh last.

Devotee (1): No, they'll say, "You're chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, but I can give you this pill and I'll take away your pain," or, "I can give you this medicine and correct your disease. You're chanting, but I am not seeing a practical result."

Prabhupāda: No, I will say, "because I'm chanting you, you are my servant, you have brought the pill. (laughter) Because I am chanting, therefore Kṛṣṇa has sent the pill through you."

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: So what Supreme Court will decide? (laughter) What you nonsense judge know? He's also as good a rascal as the person who put the question.

Bali-mardana: Actually they admitted that they could not decide.

Rāmeśvara: The argument is that by medicine or by injecting some, inserting some apparatus, some machine, they can keep the heart beating.

Prabhupāda: You rascal, he's another rascal. And one who believes in it, he's also a rascal.

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1976, New York:

Hari-śauri: I was reading the other day that at one university they started a course where they take the students through a course of death. They study death and then they try to get them to...

Prabhupāda: If it was possible to keep them by medicine, then no rich men would have died. You have got sufficient means to pay for medicine, and he would have kept his relatives, son alive. Bālasya neha śaraṇaṁ pitarau nṛsiṁha nārtasya cāgadam udanvati majjato nauḥ. Prahlāda Mahārāja has said. It is not possible.

Rāmeśvara: They are very hopeful that modern medicine can keep them...

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

Prabhupāda: That any rascal will do. Bambharambhe laghu kriya. Aparkulasvenavargolajagundakuligondoliojalīlāvale... (gibberish) (laughter) You can talk like that—what is the meaning? That intelligence they have got, to manufacture... I know, I was in the medical business. So any petty medicine, and you inquire medical man, and he'll present it in such a scientific way that people will think that it is very important thing.

Interview with Trans-India Magazine -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: The problem that "I do not want to die, but I'll be enforced to die," so what is the advancement in this connection? They might have, so big, big scientists, they have discovered many, many things, but where is that thing that "Take a pill and you'll never die. Take a pill, you'll never become diseased"? They can offer me... I had some abdominal pain, so they have given me dozens of medicine. But still they are not sure whether the pain will be cured. This is their science. So in this way things are going on, in ignorance, mūḍha.

Room Conversation -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: I did not take anything, tablet. Rather, what one I was taking, I have stopped that also.

Jayatīrtha: You do not put very much faith in these doctors.

Prabhupāda: What this medicine will help?

Hari-śauri: Most of the medicine he gave was to dull your senses so much that you wouldn't feel any pain, or would make you sleep for six hours at a time or, like this.

Prabhupāda: So in the village how many devotees are there?

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: So you keep that.... (break) They are opening hospital for giving medicine to the shirt and coat, and where is the man's medicine? Washing the shirt and coat, laundry work. They do not know that the man within the shirt and coat requires different treatment, different, he has got different necessities, different life.

Room Conversation -- July 31, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: So what is the use? First of all, he'll take one ounce of blood from you, and they send, this station, that station, now making a chart, then he'll give you a tablet, "Perhaps it may help." This is going on. Even the biggest pathologist, medical man, cannot guarantee that whatever medicine...

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

Prabhupāda: You simply..." So it was sent from his house, and when it was given to me, immediately I began to vomit. And my father threw it away, and when the doctor asked that this was the... "No, no, then don't bother." This story I heard. This allopathetic system of medicine introduced all these things in India. Otherwise they did not know.

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

Prabhupāda: No. It was imported. Because it was imported they would not touch. The mill cloth, because they were imported, no gentleman will touch. No religious function would allow to use mill-made cloth. And so far medicine is concerned, they would never touch it.

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

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, everything is nice. In the morning also you give me fresh fruit and that milk and medicine, that's all. And when I'm (indistinct), someday we can take puri and...

Meeting with Italian Printer -- August 5, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: No, we are prepared. Just like horse is not prepared to take the medicine. But four men force him to take the medicine. Nobody was crying for this edition of Bhāgavata, but we are forcing, "You must read. You must take." We are printing and forcing everyone. French edition, Bhāgavata's edition, they were not dying for this book, but this is our force.

Room Conversation -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Yes. The antibiotics medicine, at a certain stage it does not work. If too much antibiotic injection is given, then the (indistinct) does not work.

Room Conversation -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: This is always, Western disease. It is a Western disease. Vairanga-roga (?). In the Ayur Veda it is called vairanga-roga. Fairanga, ferengi, ferengi, the Westerners are called ferengi, the vairanga-roga. So this syphilis disease was imported in India by these Europeans. Before, it was not there. There is a medicine called (indistinct) injection. Fifty years ago it was one rupee, four annas, price. But during the wartime the same medicine was selling at nineteen (ninety?). On black market.

Morning Walk -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Every father, mother plan that "My child should be like this." But he is becoming hippie. When there is somebody diseased, rich man, he is planning to save him, best physician, best medicine supplied, but he's dying. So what is the value of your planning? Your planning is... That's all right. That's your duty.

Room Conversation -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Ātreya Ṛṣi: We will manage it, Śrīla Prabhupāda. There will be plenty of market.

Prabhupāda: We require all these things. The more they become civilized, the more they require medicine and all these things. So you decide. I am so far giving instruction and help, and that will be available.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: We have been, Śrīla Prabhupāda, talking and thinking about it amongst ourselves, that now that we have this propensity to be in business, instead of working for karmīs we should have our own business.

Room Conversation -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Where is that nim ointment?

Harikeśa: He was in a car accident in Mauritius, and he had a big cut on his leg, and when Prabhupāda invented this medicine, cured it in two days.

Prabhupāda: Any cut, any ulcer, it is very...

Room Conversation -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Jaya.

Prabhupāda: Many things toilet and medicines and... We can give.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: We will like that very much.

Prabhupāda: Let them be engaged in different ways and earn some money. This incense I taught Gargamuni first.

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Nivṛtta-tarṣair upagīyamānād bhavauṣadhāc chrotra-mano-'bhirāmāt. Bhavauṣadhi (SB 10.1.4). (Hindi)

Dr. Patel: Highest medicine.

Prabhupāda: Bhavauṣadhāc chrotra-mano-'bhirāmāt. And it is very pleasing to the ear and the heart. Mana, śrotra, śrotra means...

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Ears and mind. Nivṛtta-tarṣair upagīyamānāt. This chanting is properly done by a person who has fully satisfied his material desires, satiated, no more. Nivṛtta-tarṣaiḥ. Tṛṣṇa. Nivṛtta. No more material desire. Nivṛtta-tarṣair upagīyamānād bhavauṣadhi (SB 10.1.4), and it is the medicine for this bhava-roga. Bhava, punar bhava.

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Dr. Patel(?): Yes. Shall we call that Pandit Āyur-Veda ācārya of India for you? If you don't believe in our medicine?

Prabhupāda: (laughs) No, no.

Dr. Patel: What do you say? After all, this is our...

Prabhupāda: No medicine is...

Dr. Patel: No, what I mean to say, that kṣetra and kṣetrajña are depend on each other. If there is no kṣetra, there will be no kṣetrajña to stay.

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, it is not.

Indian: What is this (Hindi)?

Dr. Patel: Sagrada(?) is meant for only cough. (Hindi) Is Āyur-Vedic, very good medicine.

Indian: Where can we get some?

Dr. Patel: You can grow them here in this garden.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is very easy.

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: You can buy it from the market, serabasagra.(?) Syrup, it is in the form of paste. Leaves are also paste make a decoction out of it. Asaka(?) is recognized by the Western medicine also. Americans are importing it.

Prabhupāda: It was introduced by Dr. Bose.

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Gomūtra is good medicine for liver disease. If you drink urine of...

Dr. Patel: Yes, it is proved scientifically so many hormones and by-products and hormones which can be resynthesized into human hormones, modern science.

Indian: (Hindi)

Dr. Patel: That's right, gomūtra is considered sacred by we people that we put a drop in the newly born child's mouth.

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, no, I don't say that, that he should not fight. It is my personal... Not that one should not take care of the body or one should not eat medicine, that is not. I like this, let me do without medicine. That is my personal... It is...

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: What is medicine? Any herb is a medicine, even food is a medicine.

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, I don't decry medicine. That is not my business.

Dr. Patel: No, no, I don't say decry. But you don't want to take advantage of medicine.

Prabhupāda: Medicine. Just like a type of vairāgya, sometimes they do not eat. That does not mean eating is forbidden. It is not. It is my personal, I am trying to avoid, that's all. There was a big friend of W. C. Bannerji.

Room Conversation -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No. Suppose, just like you are medical man, you are giving somebody medicine, you are giving the direction. If he wants to be cured, he must take your direction. Not that somebody comes, "No, no, you can take it this way, you can do this." That is nonsense. That is nonsense.

Room Conversation -- August 17, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: ...when you accept this.

Guest: I know. (laughs) And I have accepted long ago. Because I felt, as a sincere worker, medicine doesn't interest me. What interests me is the cure. My profession is to cure, not to study the medicines. That is the cure.

Prabhupāda: Here it is very clearly stated that kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). The biology, infection. Kāraṇam, that is the kāraṇam. Kāraṇam guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu. Why there are varieties of life? One is very intelligent...

Room Conversation -- August 17, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: So, if from... Just like medical science... It is also a medical science. Bhavauṣadhi. It is... auṣadhi means medical science. This is bhavauṣadhi. By this treatment one becomes relieved from the material disease. Bhavauṣadhi. Bhavauṣadhāc chrotra-mano-'bhirāmāt. But the medicine is so nice that it is pleasing to the ears and to the heart. The medicine pleasing to the ear? What is that.

Room Conversation -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: My health is not well.

Acyutānanda: Yes, I have heard. We brought you some medicine from your sister.

Prabhupāda: Oh, oh!

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

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Gargamuni: This medicine.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Gargamuni: There is ginger, I think.

Prabhupāda: This is ajwain(?). My only concern is about the immigration department. They are gagging you: "Now your visa... Go out, go away, go out..." So they are making so big, big arrangement. If my foreign disciples are forced to go away, then what is the value? That is...

Room Conversation -- August 21, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Bhavauṣadhāc chrotra-mano-'bhirāmāt. And prescription is so sweet it pleases the ear and the heart. That is stated in the Bhāgavata. Bhavauṣadhāc chrotra-mano-'bhirāmāt. It is medicine for this material disease. At the same time it is so pleasing to the ear and the heart. This is the very word. Bhavauṣadhāc chrotra. Śrotra means aural. Śrotra-manaḥ, and mind. Mano 'bhirāmāt. Abhirāma, pleasing.

Room Conversation -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: It is the site of a ten crore rupees international Vedic village comprised of community farming projects, high-class gurukula school, free medicinal facilities, and handloom weaving center. An institute of Vedic studies is proposed to be established at this site. Other major ISKCON centers in India are in Vṛndāvana, Bombay, and Kurukṣetra, the site of a three-crore rupee international Sanskrit university.

Room Conversation -- August 25, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: No, there is no amalgamation. It is clearly stated.

Indian man: Even a drop of water, when you take it from the glass and put it on this one. Another drop of water will come and when you put it in medicine won't come in water. Like that, ātmā, will it not merge with the Paramātmā?

Prabhupāda: That water is matter, that is not spirit. But we are talking of spirit. You cannot bring matter. No, that analogy cannot be, because similarity. The water is different, matter. And you are talking of spirit souls. Here it is stated that the spirit soul individually, they'll never amalgamate. Acchedyo 'yam. They cannot be separated...

Garden Conversation -- September 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Never mind what he is. And he gives treatment. He never thinks that here is a Christian patient, here is a Muhammadan patient. He is patient. Give me this, bring him medicine. That is physician's business. Why should we consider, "Here is a Christian patient. He should be treated differently than the Muhammadan."

Garden Conversation -- September 7, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: They have only use, their fat is very good medicine for burns. Some portion is burned, monkey fat is very good medicine. The Chinese eat their brains.

Room Conversation -- October 31, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Minister, Vṛndāvana. Collect all these and send it that this is a genuine movement because it is great cultural movement. Therefore, Swami Bhaktivedanta wanted to give it to Europe who are in the darkness. So anyway, now they are feeling the action of the medicine.

Evening Darsana -- December 3, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: So we have to meet such rascals and we have to preach. The world is full of rascals, mūḍha. What can be done? But we cannot change our preaching because the rascals are many. That is not... We cannot make that...

Guest: There is no medicine for mūḍhas.

Prabhupāda: Yes. There is medicine; there is beating with shoes. That is going on. Mūrkhasya laktansadhiḥ,(?) argumentum baculum. You cannot mildly speak to the animals, "My dear cow, my dear dog, please do not bark. Do not go this way." No, you require lāṭhi, stick, and they will behave. Can you stop dog's barking by simply request? But you take the stick and beat it, and he will stop. Mūrkhasya laktausadhiḥ.(?) So there is no king.

Morning Walk -- December 5, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Nobody is in healthy condition. (devotee offers obeisances—break)

Devotee (2): Just like a medicine... We may understand it. For myself, I can tell. I study Bhagavad-gītā and I understand it, but I find so much difficulty to applicate it to the life of every day because...

Prabhupāda: That is... Everything is difficult but... Why "but"? (pause—break) ...a physician, to purchase the medicine, to drink the medi..., that is also difficult but we have to do that.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: I say but somebody says that... What is the medicine? I take some āyurvedic medicine.

Dr. Patel: No, you do take. We don't say no. You don't take any medicine, we know exactly where you stand, as the modern science explains us. (break) Well, he may not (indistinct) truth immediately, but that is his aim.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Guru dāsa: "Penny wise, pound foolish."

Dr. Patel: So let pound be wise for the penny foolish. If you do in right path then you may not break down like (indistinct) getting all this trouble. (break) ...at least for four, five days. We don't want any more. In one day we will find out what to, how to, this will be cured. I don't mean medicine, but even advice, food, this, that, other things. If you get rid of the medicine, well, all medicines are, I mean, synthetics. They are not produced from animals. Many of them. (break)

Prabhupāda: Harer nāma eva kevalam (CC Adi 17.21). (break) ...that sound all the time. (sounds of birds)

Girirāja: Do they have many birds in Bhuvaneśvara?

Morning Walk -- December 29, 1976, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: No, after kidneys are little affected. It was lack of albumen and perhaps you'll be all right by this shapauri.(?) You know this shapauri. Shapauri's growing in our own garden here. That (indistinct) will be coming on first day at six o'clock.

Prabhupāda: What is that satavari,(?) you see. If it is medicine, we can have.

Dr. Patel: He will guide you better than me. At six o'clock we have to send somebody to catch him on his consulting. He stays somewhere... His house number is 36.

Page Title:Medicine (Conversations - 1976)
Compiler:Rishab, JayaNitaiGaura
Created:18 of May, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=85, Let=0
No. of Quotes:85