Prabhupāda: So now people do not wish to consider also this point, that "If I am eternal, if I am changing my place, my dress, my occupation every fifty years or ten years or twelve years according to the dress..." The cats and dogs, they live for ten years. The cows live for twenty years, and the man lives for, say, hundred years. Trees lives for thousands years. But everyone has to change. Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22). As we have to change our old dress, similarly, this body has to be changed. And we are changing. Changing every moment. That is a fact. This boy will grow also some day like you, like me. This body will not stay. I had a body like this, say, fifty years ago or sixty years ago, but that body is now missing. I have got a different body. So everyone is changing body in this way. We do not know where that body gone, but ultimately also, we shall change, and we shall enter another body, and again we have to begin new set of work, leaving all aside. Suppose this life I was President Kennedy; next life, even if I am born in America next door to President Kennedy's house, nobody will recognize me that "Here is your property. Come on. Enjoy." No. Property's gone. Again he has to make another property. This is going on. So the people do not think that "What I am doing? What I have gained? What is my ultimate aim of life?" This is missing. Therefore Bhagavad-gītā says, mūḍha. Na māṁ prapadyante mūḍha duṣkṛtino narādhamāḥ, māyayāpahṛta-jñānā āsuraṁ bhāvam aśritāḥ (BG 7.15). People are not very serious. They're so much in ignorance that they: "All right, let it happen, whatever may happen. We may enjoy life." But this is not very good position. One should be, at least in human form of life, one should be very sober, considerate (of) what is happening. So out of many fruitive workers like this, one becomes wise: "Why I am doing this?" This is wisdom. That is the platform of knowledge, to inquire that "What is my position? What I am? What is my aim of life?" That is the position of the jṇānī, persons who are wise. And one, when one is fully wise, then bahūnāṁ janmanām ante (BG 7.19), after many, many births, when one becomes fully wise, bahunam janmanam ante jñānavān, when he's actually wise, jñānavān, then māṁ prapadyate, Kṛṣṇa says, "He comes and surrenders unto Me." Why? Vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti (BG 7.19), he understands that Kṛṣṇa is everything. Sa mahātmā sudurlabhaḥ. But such person, such great soul, is very rare. Generally people are mūḍhas. So from mūḍhas we have to be elevated to the position of mahātmā. So mahātmā... And who is mahātmā? That is also described in the Bhagavad-gītā. Mahātmānas tu māṁ pārtha daivīṁ prakṛtim āśritāḥ (BG 9.13). Mahātmās, those who are great souls, they are not under the spell of this material energy. They are not attracted by these activities of piling and digging and leaving. They are interested with Kṛṣṇa, Vasudeva. That is mahātmā. Mahātmānas tu māṁ pārtha (BG 9.13). Kṛṣṇa says, māṁ. Bhajanty ananya-manasaḥ. Their only business is how to satisfy Kṛṣṇa. That is the highest perfection of life. If one is engaged in the business of satisfying Kṛṣṇa instead of satisfying himself... Most people, they are engaged in satisfying themselves. Everyone in this material world. The so-called politicians, they promise that "I shall give you so many things." But actually, he is trying to occupy the post for his satisfaction.
Most people (Conversations)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes, unless you take to this movement, you cannot be happy. That's a fact. Therefore we invite everyone to study, to understand this great movement.
Woman Interviewer: What worries me slightly is that since the arrival in Britain some while ago of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a lot of... He was the first guru that most people ever heard of, and since then there have been a lot of people and a lot of gurus that have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. And one gets the feeling that sometimes they're not all as genuine as they ought to be, and I wondered whether you feel that it's right that you could perhaps issue a warning to people who are seeking some new spiritual life that they should take care to make sure they have a genuine guru to teach them.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Woman Interviewer: Do you feel there's a danger?
Prabhupāda: Of course, to search out guru is very nice. But if you want a cheap guru or if you want to be cheated, then there will be many cheater gurus. But if you are sincere, then you'll have sincere guru. People want to be cheated because they want everything very cheap. But just like we are asking people no illicit sex, no meat-eating, no gambling, no intoxication. So people think it is very difficult, it is botheration. And if somebody says, "No, you do. Whatever nonsense you like do. You simply take my mantra," they will like it. So the thing is that they want to be cheated; therefore cheaters come. They don't want to undergo some austerity. Human life is meant for austerity. But they are not prepared to undergo austerity. Suppose some cheaters come. They say, "Oh, no austerity. Whatever you like you do. You simply pay me and I'll give you some particular mantra, and you become God within six months." (Laughter) And that is going on. So you want to be, if people want to be cheated like that, the cheaters will come.
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: So they are Hare Kṛṣṇa people, they dress in a particular way. That is the answer. That's all.
Author: I don't mind. Sir, I don't mind how they dress. I don't mind how anybody dresses. I don't mind at all. I happen to dress conservatively, other people dress less conservatively, and you people dress in saffron robes. It's not an...
Prabhupāda: Then what is your real question about the dress and shaven head.
Author: For most people...
Devotee: One thing I think I understand is that he is saying that many people come and become interested in our movement by seeing us. Or by—not understanding anything of what we are doing—but by visual, by the mundane, seemingly, aspects. And in his book, I think what he is saying is he wants to present it in a way that will attract that sort of person, whereas most people will not pick up the book and read it because it's a book on Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy, but because they are interested in the outward aspect of things, if it contains that to some degree, then they will pick it up and then he can present both and give them some knowledge also of what we are doing in our philosophy.
Prabhupāda: I do not follow.
Upendra: By putting a label, poison, a label, nectar on a bottle of poison. (laughter) They will take. They will think he is giving them what they are interested in, even though it may be superficial. But once there, then he can present the philosophy as well. I think that's what he's saying.
Śyāmasundara: So actually most people are innocent, but if the...
Prabhupāda: Not innocent-rascal. Innocent, another thing. Innocent, if he is innocent, if I say, "You do not know, this is..." "Oh," then he will accept. But he will protest, a rascal. Innocent will accept. Therefore, the more one is innocent, simple, it is easy for him, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The more one is rascal, it is very difficult.
Devotee (2): Is one called Māyāvāda philosophy?
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Devotee (2): Māyāvādīs, are they thinking like that, Kṛṣṇa is...
Prabhupāda: Yes, "He is ordinary man. A little better than me, that's all." That Dr. Frog's philosophy. Atlantic was "That's all right, may be little one feet more than this well, that's all." He cannot imagine that millions of wells will be not compared. That he cannot begin. He says, "Yes, it may be bigger, say one foot bigger, two feet bigger. All right, ten feet bigger, make compromise." That's all. He will never think that beyond his estimation. Never think. He'll simply calculate, "All right, if not one, two feet, three feet. All right, ten feet." And the friend will say, "No, no, it is very, very great."
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Just like Śrīla Prabhupāda says, there are so many departments of knowledge in all the universities, but the most important department of knowledge, what is the purpose of human life, is left out.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...leaders. General public, they do no know, they are ignorant, blind. But the leaders are also blind. So blind leader leading other blind men, that means disaster. That is happening.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Most people, including scientists, they are not satisfied with the arrangement of nature.
Prabhupāda: That is another foolishness.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They say they are making all these things.
Prabhupāda: That is their foolishness. We cannot change the arrangement of the nature. That is not possible. What we have changed?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They want to be really happy, and so they say the...
Prabhupāda: No, you be happy, that is nice, because happiness is our position. According to Vedic civilization, every living entity is by nature should be happy. Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). That is the nature, to become happy. But if you say that the arrangement of nature is not perfect, then you are fool.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's why these people are saying that God created the universe, but still they say, "We want more." (indistinct)
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: In India, everywhere. They cannot attract people by their philosophy. It is show money, "Yes, come on, take money." (pause) Hong Kong also. (break) Very, many meat shops. Rather this vegetable,...
Devotee (1): It's expensive.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Devotee (1): It costs a lot of money. Meat is more expensive to eat. Actually, most people, mostly they eat vegetables because it is available. But there's much fish. There's much fish and they carry around in the streets everywhere.
Devotee (2): In the Eastern countries usually people eat little bits of meat but they're vegetable. It's only in the West that they eat steak. But in every restaurant, they all have meat, much chicken also. They raise chickens. (pause)
Devotee (1): Tomorrow morning we have asked some Indian community leaders to come about 7 o'clock, because they want to be requested by you to do something to help make a temple or what you like. But they... Apparently they feel unhappy because we have not met with the leaders and asked them to help.
Prabhupāda: Why should I put the question? They should first of all. They should come forward.
Devotee (1): Well, actually that meeting with the Indians they wanted you to eat some prasādam in the room, and come inside, and request, and ask you like that.
Prabhupāda: No, no. I cannot do that.
Devotee (1): That was before that night they want... I think...
Prabhupāda: Eh?
David Wynne: Why do we all choose the dark? Why are we all in the dark, most of us?
Prabhupāda: Dark means without Kṛṣṇa consciousness—darkness.
Devotee (1): He asked why do we usually choose the darkness.
David Wynne: And most people.
Prabhupāda: Due to bad association.
David Wynne: To...?
Prabhupāda: Bad association.
David Wynne: Ah.
Prabhupāda: Hm. Call Pradyumna.
Student (1): Because I can't completely control my mind and senses.
Revatīnandana: The thing that is covered when we are always acting on the sensual platform, agitated in the mind, is we do not experience our self, our eternal self, which doesn't change. We become locked on the temporary platform.
Student (1): In normal life, you mean? Most people, you're talking about.
Revatīnandana: Yes. Because all of our attention is lodged in the mind and the senses, and we are lost to ourselves, so any kind of self-realization process means that you have to control the mind and senses or you cannot be self-situated. Beyond being situated in the self, there may be more, but that's the first point. That's the basic point of yoga.
Student (2): Where does Kṛṣṇa fit into it? Where does Kṛṣṇa fit into the yoga?
Revatīnandana: He wants to know... If being self-situated is one thing, then where does Kṛṣṇa enter into the system? That's his question.
Prabhupāda: Self-situated. When you are self-situated... Just like in the water you are taking bath in a pool. Something has fallen on the water. Suppose your key has fallen. Now you'll have to find out. You are just trying to settle up the water and see where is the key. So when your mind and senses are controlled, then you can talk of Kṛṣṇa. Before that you cannot talk. Because Kṛṣṇa is missing, with uncontrolled mind, senses, you cannot capture Kṛṣṇa. That is not possible. The same example. When the water is agitated, you cannot see where your things have fallen. You have to wait to make the water calm and quiet. Then you'll see, "Here is my key."
Mother: Well, I think we do that.
Jesuit Priest: We're all doing that.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: Most people.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So that is our mission. Now, if you find it difficulty, you can come and join with us. That's all. Practically, in Europe and America, they are all coming from Christian group, Jewish group. So... Yes. This is a recent photograph of our Los Angeles center. They are regularly living in the temple, as they are living in the temple.
Mother: Hm.
Prabhupāda: And you'll also be surprised to know that this, this was a church, that building. It was a big church. So we have purchased it.
Jesuit Priest: Very nice.
Mother: In other words, your temple... Do you call it your temple or a church?
Prabhupāda: We call temple.
Mother: A temple. And are these married and...?
Prabhupāda: So one should transcend these, what is called, historical references. They calculate in Darwin's theory.
David Lawrence: Darwin's theory's out now isn't it? (laughs) It's sort of old fashioned now. They dispense with these theories as quickly as most people do their newspaper each day.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes.
David Lawrence: One day it's in, and the next day it's out. And while it's in, everybody claps and applauds. One or two other points, perhaps I can raise one or two of them. Some of them are longer in fact. An interesting thing that came out of my study of the Christian, or certainly the Jewish tradition, and I wondered, really, on your views on this, whether it relates at all to the Indian one. It seems when you get to the really high spot of Jewish religion, which many people consider the prophets of Judah...,
Prabhupāda: What is their high spot?
David Lawrence: Well, exactly,(laughs) that is, in inverted commas.
Prabhupāda: They are rotting in the lowest spot, still. What is their high spot?
David Lawrence: Let's think, somebody like, perhaps Isaiaḥ or somebody like this who was a universalist and uh...
Prabhupāda: Somebody, somebody says so many things...
Devotees: Marx.
Paramahaṁsa: Karl Marx.
Prabhupāda: Karl Marx.
Professor: But, of course, in Sweden, most people, they don't, they don't follow anybody. So it's... I mean...
Prabhupāda: No, they follow. At least, one follows himself. Is it not? "Don't follow anyone" means he follows himself. He has got a particular philosophy, and he's the leader.
Professor: Well, naturally, everybody has some kind of ideas, I mean, how to lead his life.
Prabhupāda: But that will not help us.
Professor: But, uh...
Prabhupāda: Unless we accept the real leader, a perfect personality who can give us perfect knowledge, there is no success. That is our philosophy.
Prabhupāda: So there are different prakṛtis. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). So there are different prakṛtis, different mentality. They want to live, eat. The eating, sleeping, mating, defending is there, but everyone has got different ideas. Just like you say, majority of people, they want to eat meat. They have got different mentality. But we don't want.
Ambassador: In India, of course, not majority, I think it's a minority.
Prabhupāda: No, no. More...
Ambassador: Most people are...
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. In India, they're now being educated to eat meat. (Ambassador laughs) Otherwise, Indians, at least, Hindus...
Ambassador: It is true. That's true.
Prabhupāda: Eh? They are being educated.
Ambassador: (laughing) I belong to vegetarian family. I eat meat now.
Prabhupāda: Yes. No, in Madras, I have seen...
Ambassador: Most of them...
Prabhupāda: Mostly they are vegetarian, strictly vegetarian. Actually, in Southern India, they maintain the Hindu culture. You'll find big high-court judges, they have got tilaka.
Sudāmā: Most people, Śrīla Prabhupāda, have difficulty accepting that God has an animosity.
Prabhupāda: But he has got so many difficulties because he's diseased rascal. So he has to be treated. But his only fault is that he doesn't want to be treated. He's a diseased person, but he doesn't want to be treated. When he's treated, he'll understand. But he doesn't agree to be treated. That is his fault. A tuberculous patient, he doesn't want to be treated, but if he's treated, he can be brought into healthy state. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is treating all these rascals and fools because all of them are born rascals. This is our judgement. Not... śāstra's judgement. Abodha-jāta. Jāta means born. Born rascals. Everyone is a born rascal unless he's Kṛṣṇa conscious. This is our... Our propaganda should be like that. We can call anyone rascal and fool if he's not Kṛṣṇa conscious. So what is the value of rascals and fools? He may say something. He may say something. Just like a madman. He may speak so many things. But who values his word? Everyone knows that he... A child, he speaks so many things. Who cares for it? Similarly we must know, anyone who's not Kṛṣṇa, he's a madman. He's empowered by this illusory energy. He talks all nonsense. So ours should be that "If you want to understand, then you come to this position. Then you'll understand. You must be educated." Your belief and not belief or acceptance, who cares for them? Now, this sky is there. Everyone has seen. The experienced man says, "Now, this side is sun." And if somebody says, "Why not this side?" So who cares for this version? You rascal, you may say like that, but it is a fact, this side is sun. One who knows, he can say. One who does not know, he'll argue, "Why not this side? Why you are so bigot that the sun is coming from this side? It may come this side also." This is all nonsense. Upadek... upadekṣyanti te jñānaṁ jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ. Therefore Bhagavad-gītā recommends, tad-vijñānārtham...
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: No. Just like we are teaching these boys how to live, Kṛṣṇa conscious. Then... (to devotees:) What is our program, just explain. What is our program in the temple from the early in the morning.
Haṁsadūta: Rising at 3:30, take bath, then go to the temple for kīrtana and lecture. Then chant our rounds, take breakfast, and then do duties.
Reporter: What time do you take breakfast?
Haṁsadūta: 8:00, 8:30. So before taking breakfast, we are already awake four hours. Most people sleep till eight.
Reporter: And then through the day?
Haṁsadūta: Through the day we're engaged. Some people are typing; some people are painting; some people are preaching; some people are printing books. We do everything, because this society is complete. As Kṛṣṇa says, "Whatever you do as work, whatever you eat, whatever you give away, everything should be done as an offering unto Me. By this principle of work you are freed from all sinful reaction and you come to Me." So the goal of life, or the goal of this society, or human society, should be to go back home, back to Godhead, back to Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Paramahaṁsa: They were very popular. They would travel around and do performances, and thousands of people would come. He had quite a big group of musicians, and he was the leader. He would lead the whole group. He would play the trumpet and sometimes dance.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. Then, Ravi Shankar is no more popular?
Paramahaṁsa: Most people think he's too puffed up.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Otherwise how they say he's God? Then? You can stop. Those who are tired can take rest. What is the local time?
Amogha: 8:30
Prabhupāda: 8:30?
Paramahaṁsa: Usually people don't have a very clear idea of what spiritual life is. So when they see someone who is a good musician or a good artist or something like that, sometimes they automatically think, "Oh, he must be spiritual, because he is so good at this. No one else can do it. He must be some spiritual power." So therefore someone like Ravi Shankar, a lot of people either they become envious or they worship him as being an incarnation or something like that.
Prabhupāda: That is also stated, yad yad vibhūtimat sattvaṁ.
Amogha: They don't know. They simply...
Prabhupāda: That means they are so rascal, that... You are reading Bhagavad-gītā. You must take the words of Bhagavad-gītā. Why you are taking other words? What business you have got?
Amogha: They think by majority, most people think like this...
Prabhupāda: Majority or minority, it doesn't matter. But why you should take Bhagavad-gītā to establish your rascal theories? That means you are cheating.
Amogha: But they think that's the meaning of Bhagavad-gītā.
Prabhupāda: That's the meaning how?
Amogha: That's what they think. They think because they've read so many commentaries...
Prabhupāda: Why do they think? If I have written one book, my words are my meaning. Why you should give meaning? I shall kick on your face. What right you have got? You write another book. Why should you take my book and give your meaning? What is this?
Paramahaṁsa: These professors didn't write the books, but they read all these Swami this and that books' translations. And then they think, "Well, all these swamis say it's like this..."
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is said here, that if you understand Kṛṣṇa, then after giving up this body—this is material body, you have to give up—so you are not coming again in the womb of another material mother. You are transferred to the spiritual world by nature's law. They do not know the subtle laws which is going on underneath. They are simply concerned superficially. Because they have no knowledge of the spirit soul—they think the body is everything—so therefore knowledge is imperfect. Body is only the covering. Real person is the spirit soul. So the modern education has no knowledge of this.
Mother: But most people are materialistically minded, aren't they? There's very few that aren't.
Gaṇeśa: Most people are materialistically minded. Not many people are spiritually inclined.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the defect of the modern civilization.
Mother: Yes.
Prabhupāda: And therefore they are suffering.
Sister: How can you get back to Godhead...
Prabhupāda: That is stated here. You try to understand Kṛṣṇa and go back to home, back to Godhead.
Sister: Yeah, how can you follow it if you've never been exposed to Kṛṣṇa?
Prabhupāda: The book is there.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is a fact. Why they will think? It is a fact. There is English proverb, "There is many dangers between the cups and the lips." You are going to drink tea. The distance is: here is cup and here is lip. There may be many dangers. So suppose in drinking tea there is some choking within the throat, and coughing, you may die immediately. You are so much under the control of nature. Little mistake will cause your death, little mistake. And conditioned life means we commit mistake, we are illusioned, we cheat, and our knowledge is imperfect. This is conditioned life.
Amogha: I telephoned that geographer yesterday to talk to him, and he said that "What Swamiji said was true, but how can...?" He said, "It will be very difficult to apply because most people, they are not interested." But he says it was very... He could understand that was true, what you were saying. He may also come again to talk more.
Prabhupāda: Yes, let him come. Let him come. People may take or not take, but he is inquisitive gentleman. Let him understand. People... We are preaching. Who is taking? Mass of people, they are not taking it. But still, we are doing that. That is our duty. People may take or not take, but a God's servant must speak the truth. Just like Jesus Christ. He was crucified. Nobody took his words. But he did it. If people would have accepted his philosophy, then why he was crucified by the judges? It was done by the judges, Roman judges. So this is the position of the world. Socrates was killed because he said that there is soul. This is the defect of Western civilization. They want vox populi. What is that vox populi? Huh?
Devotee (1): Bauxite?
Prabhupāda: Vox populi. You know this word?
Prabhupāda: Christ said, "Thou shalt not kill." They killed Christ. This is the position.
Amogha: When Buddha came, did most people follow Him?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Amogha: And they stopped their (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: Yes. In their religion animal-killing is strictly forbidden.
Amogha: Did Śaṅkara, did he physically force the Buddhists out of India, by force?
Prabhupāda: No.
Amogha: Or just teaching.
Prabhupāda: By argument, by teaching. (break) Just see how nice flower is coming from the sand. And they say there is no vegetation. What is the difference between this sand and that sand? Sand is sand. Huh? How they are coming? Wherefrom they are getting nourishment? If there no possibility of living being, who is coming to water it? Nobody is coming. In this place, flower, it is a good as the flower growing on the land. But they are growing in the sand, you see. You see actually in the sand things are coming out, and one rascal will say, "No, there is no life." We have to believe it? Even it is full of sand and dust. Here we see dust and sand produce life, so why shall I believe these rascals about sand? What is the difference between that sand and this sand?
Prabhupāda: No, they are right officially: "We trust in God." (break) ...the whole, I think, Americans are fortunate because this saṅkīrtana movement is there. Yes. If they take it more seriously, they will be actually favored nation of the Lord.
Hari-śauri: At the present moment it seems that the Communist movement seems to be taking over more and more countries.
Prabhupāda: They will take because people are becoming godless. That is the defect. People are becoming hippies, godless. This material world is full of miseries because most people are godless. Here... Material world means avoiding God. That is the sum and substance of material world. They are trying to avoid, becoming independent of God. That is their endeavor. The scientist, the philosopher, the politician—everyone is trying that. Therefore they are suffering. Māyā is there. Just like a criminal, if he says "I don't care for government," the police will take care of. That is certain.
Devotee (4): Śrīla Prabhupāda, if someone has inquired about God, but can be so overpowered by māyā...
Prabhupāda: No, if you are strong, then māyā will not be able to overpower you. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te. Anyone who is fully surrendered to God, māyā cannot touch him.
Devotee (4): How does one become strong?
Prabhupāda: They will say to him, "Love humanity."
Madhudviṣa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: And this is very palatable. "Oh, Swami is for humanity." He is a rascal, he does not know. "Love humanity. Do not love Kṛṣṇa. Love humanity." And then people believe him. "By loving humanity, you love Kṛṣṇa or God." These things are very palatable. This is Vivekananda's philosophy. And most people say like that. "Love humanity." Oh, why humanity? Why not tiger? That they shall not. All bogus. Don't be misled by the bogus. Stick to your own principles. That's all. People may come or may not come. We don't care for them. We must speak the right truth. Why "people not coming"? People are not coming? We are getting more and more devotees. (end)
Prabhupāda: Where is a sitting place? (break) ...introduce that "Why you are, rascal, you are introducing all this nonsense?" Let them read this. They will become human being. That is the business of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. They are reading only all rubbish things and becoming rubbish. Let them read these books, and their human life will be perfect. Na yad vacaś citra-padaṁ harer yaśaḥ: (SB 1.5.10) "The literature which does not give information of the glories of the Lord," tad vāyasaṁ tīrtham, "it is just like the pleasure place of the crows." So these books are meant for the crows, without any right information, without any God's information. Tad vāyasaṁ tīrtham uśanti mānasāḥ. The swans will not come there. The pleasure place of the crows is not meant for the swans. They have got different place. Our books are meant for swans, and all these literatures are meant for the crows.
Guru kṛpā: The trouble is is that even if we explain these things to most people, factually their only interest is how they can eat, and how they can gratify their senses, and they take these other scientists up as the extracurricular...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore it is said, bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānāṁ tayāpahṛta-cetasām (BG 2.44). "Those who have lost their identity, being captivated by bhoga and aiśvarya, they cannot understand." Bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānām. Māyā-sukhāya bharam udvahataḥ. For slight, so-called happiness they are making big, big problems (projects?). Māyā... bharam. Bharam means big, big problems. (projects?). And sometimes they put forward their whim (?) for the next generation. Now, if Darwin's theory accepted, the monkeys never thought of the next generation, so how you have got this consciousness(?)? Why you are thinking of your next generation? What is the argument? The monkey cannot think that Mr. Nixon will come, become president of this or that, U.S.A. So how he became president without your thinking of the, your forefathers, monkeys? So why you are thinking of your generation? Your forefathers did not.
Prabhupāda: No, no, if you become first-class, and they will follow you. You remain last-class, and how you can train your first-class? (laughter) In the śāstra it is said, "Unless you can create first-class man, don't beget children." Pitā na sa syāj janani na sa syād gurur na sa syāt, na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyum. It is the duty of the father to raise his children first-class. Otherwise he should not become a father. That is contraceptive. Just like Vasudeva and Devakī. Formerly they were Vasus and they were asked by Brahmā to create progeny. So the husband and wife, they practiced austerities very severely. So then God appeared before them: "What do you want?" And they said that "We can enter into family life provided You become our son." No, "If we get a son like you." Then God said, "Where is second person like Me? So I shall become your son." Then, in next life, Devakī got Kṛṣṇa as his child. So every father and mother should take this vow, that "Unless our children become first-class, we don't want children." This is ideal. What is the use of begetting cats and dogs? You must have first-class children. That requires tapasya. So at least we should follow the standard, how to raise our children to become first-class. There is no current? You can get on the light. At the present moment, people cannot understand even that there is life after death. Most people. There is life after death—they cannot understand, even big, big professors, big, big learned scholars. Everyone is thinking, "This body is accidental and when the body will be finished, everything is finished." That is the general understanding. But Bhagavad-gītā, you read. It is said, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre: (BG 2.20) "After the destruction of the body, the soul is not destroyed." Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya navāni anyāṇi gṛhṇāti aparāṇi: (BG 2.22) "Just like when our dress becomes old enough not to be used, then we accept another dress, similarly, when this body is old enough, not workable, then we accept another body." These things are there. But who is trying to understand it? At least all our Indians, those who are born in India, wherefrom Bhagavad-gītā has come out, at least they should understand. But they are not understanding.
Prabhupāda: ...already very much attraction for this material world. That is called māyā. And when we are involved with these things, material prosperity, then we become more involved. On account of our material attachment, we are getting repetition of birth and death in different forms of life, and these attractions are making us more and more involved. māyāra vaibhava. People are becoming illusioned, "I am American. My country is so rich. I shall live here." But you cannot live. He is preparing for another body. So therefore Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says, anitya soṁsāre, moha janamiya, jība ke karaye gadha. Anityad means we shall not be able to stay. Unnecessarily, we are becoming involved in this material world. Now, those who built up this nation, where they have gone, nobody can say. Because after this body is fallen, where he is being carried, nobody knows. He is carried by his work, fruitive activities. Therefore they do not believe next life. Finished. (break) ...gentleman, he was very well known, brother of Rabindranath Tagore. Rabindranath Tagore was poet, and he was artist, Abanindranath Tagore. In our childhood, in a meeting, he said that "Why should we bother about the next life? Let us enjoy this life." I remember that. Most people think like that. Carvāka Muni advised like that. Ṛṇaṁ kṛtvā ghṛtaṁ pibet. "Just enjoy life." "I have no money to enjoy." "Beg, borrow or steal. Bring money. Purchase ghee." "I will have to pay." "Ah! Why do you think like that?" "Then next life I will suffer." "Don't think like that. Your body will be finished. Who is coming here again?" What is that tower?
Prabhupāda: Purport.
Brahmānanda: We have already discussed that pure devotional service to the Lord is automatically followed by perfect knowledge and detachment from material existence. But there are others who consider that all kinds of different occupational engagements, including those of religion, are meant for material gain. The general tendency of any ordinary man in any part of the world is to gain some material profit in exchange for religious or any other occupational service. Even in the Vedic literatures, for all sorts of religious performances an allurement of material gain is offered, and most people are attracted by such allurements or blessings of religiosity. Why are such so-called men of religion allured by material gain? Because material gain can enable one to fulfill desires, which in turn satisfy sense gratification. This cycle of occupational engagements includes so-called religiosity followed by material gain and material gain followed by fulfillment of desires. Sense gratification is the general way for all sorts of fully occupied men. But in the statement of Sūta Gosvāmī, as per the verdict of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, this is nullified by the present śloka.
One should not engage himself in any sort of occupational service for material gain only. Nor should material gain be utilized for sense gratification. How material gain should be utilized is described as follows.
Prabhupāda: People are after material gain. They have no spiritual information even, what is spirit, what is the need of spiritual realization, they do not know. Therefore they have been described as mūḍhas: fools and rascals. Those who are after material way of...
Prabhupāda: What is your definition of religion?
Professor: My definition of religion? I think religion has mostly to do with the kinds of questions people ask. Religion is the attempt to answer questions about "Who am I? and "Who is God?" and "How do I relate to God?"
Prabhupāda: That is nice. That is the meaning. So do the people in general know what is God?
Professor: People in general... Today most people have an idea, but they don't all agree. So you can't say that they all have an idea of God. But they all believe they do.
Prabhupāda: No, believing is different thing. You can believe anything. But God is one. So God is there, you believe or not believe. Just like the president of your state is there. One may say, "I don't believe in him." That does not mean there is no president. Similarly, a foolish man can say that there is no God, but that does not mean there is no God. There is God. Now who is that God?
Professor: Who is God?
Prabhupāda: Just like in your state, everyone knows there is a president. And one can enquire, "Who is now president?" Is it not natural?
Professor: Is it not...? Everyone knows who the president is.
Prabhupāda: No, knows or not knows. Suppose I am a foreigner. I know...
Professor: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Rest means lazy; you don't work.
Indian man (1): If one works five days a week, you rest for two...
Prabhupāda: That is another thing. You have to work to become lazy. (laughter) That is another thing. But the goal is to become lazy. You work five days very hard just to become lazy for two days. That's all. So if you have got means to become seven days lazy, you'll prefer it.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But I think people would... Most people would go crazy if they didn't have any work.
Prabhupāda: No, that means their life is not properly conducted. And therefore the word laziness has come. Laziness is not actually the word. Laziness means minimizing the bodily labor and engaged in spiritual work. If you ask people, "Please come to our temple," who is coming? Because he says, "I have no time." But we are not working hard. So real aim of life is to... In German, I think, or somewhere there is classification: "Lazy intelligent, busy intelligent, lazy fool, and busy fool." So at the present moment (laughs) the whole world is full of busy fools. But the first-class man, he is lazy intelligent. Lazy and intelligent, that is first-class man. And second-class man, busy intelligent. And third class means lazy fool and fourth class means busy fool. When the fools are busy... Just like nowadays they are busy but they are fools. Like monkey, he is very busy. You see? And they prefer to be generation of monkey, busy fool. That's all. Fools, when he is busy, he is simply creating havoc. That's all. Better... Lazy fool is better than him because he will not create so much harm, but this busy fool will simply create harm. And first class-man is lazy intelligent. He knows the value of life, and soberly he is thinking. Just like all our great saintly persons. They were living in the forest, meditation, tapasya, and writing books. All, you will find, lazy intelligent. They are first-class men.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Including that... And request them to come to our, one of the top floor. And as soon as the building is... They'll... In this way. (break)
Saurabha: ...plan and we make everything to submit to the municipality and then we will hear from them what is required and we will try to do that, whatever they want.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Saurabha: Now there is two things. We can make big apartments for which most people are anxious actually.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Saurabha: Those apartment buildings. Make them very opulent and big. They want... Some people told me they like to have apartments of 2,000 square feet for one apartment. It should have four big rooms, a kitchen, everything, very opulent. Like this we can have on one floor two of them. We can have 4,000 square feet on one floor. It is possible.
Prabhupāda: Do that. Do.
Saurabha: And then we make five like this, six, five or six. Then put... For those buildings one can get about 150. I think here at least 150 rupees per square foot minimum. I think it will... By the time we are having it built there'll be more.
Prabhupāda: So try for that.
Saurabha: Some buildings, it's already 175. Build a parlor so that each...
Prabhupāda: Then it's all right.
Dr. Patel: One hundred eighty rooms? One hundred eighty?
Saurabha: Yes.
Dr. Patel: Very fine. After the building of this completely as per plan...
Saurabha: Yes. And then we still have area for gurukula also. Another hundred rooms.
Dr. Patel: Most people (indistinct) (break)
Prabhupāda: Yesterday... Last night, I explained at the Birla house that you have to change only your care of. Now we are care of under material energy, and you have to transfer your under care of spiritual energy. They appreciated.
Dr. Patel: They are under the care of great māyā, mah-māyā.
Prabhupāda: Everyone...
Dr. Patel: ...is sitting in the building, of all the Birlas.
Prabhupāda: Not Birlas, everyone. (laughing)
Dr. Patel: (also laughing) I don't know, sir. But I... I am a rebellion against them. In 1958, sir, I told you, the Congress, when I was a member of Congress, that I can't be the member of such an institution which just simply lies, telling white lies.
Prabhupāda: No, no. You may say about congressman, and this one, Communist man; everyone is under...
Dr. Patel: Is a rascal.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Ha?
Hari-śauri: That law is decided by man in accordance with his...
Prabhupāda: Man will dictate law according to his own convenience. Well what about the trees? They are also living entity. You are cutting the trees and making it ugly, because they have no voice to protest. So why man should be given the chance?
Devotee (2): Most people think that if it's very confusing, and if their philosophy is very contradictory, then it's very profound. They think that if a philosophy is confusing...
Prabhupāda: Jugglery.
Devotee (2): ...or contradictory, then it is...
Prabhupāda: The word is jugglery. The word is jugglery. If you present something with jugglery of words, "Oh, it is very deep thought." (laughter)
Devotee (2): Because they could not understand it, they think that...
Prabhupāda: Nobody understands it.
Hari-śauri: Use some big words and don't make any clear points. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: (speaking something in a run-on fashion, as a made-up very long word) (everyone laughs) Put some words. (repeats it again) Is there any meaning? (everyone laughs) You have some jugglery of words. (everyone laughs) (repeats in run-on fashion again) What is the meaning of those (repeats phrase)?
Prabhupāda: No. Reject immediately.
Devotee (2): (break) ...Śrīla Prabhupāda, is that we actually don't believe that they're fools.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Devotee (2): I said our difficulty is that we don't actually believe that they're fools. Most people are thinking that the scientists do have knowledge. We don't fully believe that they are rascals.
Prabhupāda: You do not believe because you are also fool, rascal. That means you're also rascal.
Devotee (2): Yes.
Prabhupāda: So you be intelligent. You're learning from your spiritual master. ...gurum eva abhigacchet. Therefore one must approach a guru to learn everything rightly. This is Vedic injunction. Tat tvaṁ puruṣam eva, ācāryopāsanam. Read Bhagavad-gītā. Ācāryavān puruṣo veda. Ācāryopāsanam. This process of knowledge is to worship ācārya. Who's got ācārya, he knows. Ācāryavān puruṣo veda.
Devotee (2): We're accused that when we take to some religious process, that it's a process of brainwashing.
Prabhupāda: Very good.
Nalinīkaṇṭha: In the West, people are generally unfamiliar, I think, with the philosophy of Śaṅkara, yet in your books you devote so much argument to defeating Māyāvāda philosophy. I was wondering if it is within every conditioned soul's heart to be an impersonalist. Is it.... Does every conditioned soul have the propensity for impersonalism?
Prabhupāda: No, they cannot understand God; therefore it is impersonalism. It is due to their poor fund of knowledge. So most people are in poor fund of knowledge.
Hari-śauri: As soon as one forgets Kṛṣṇa, he's impersonal.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Mahendra: Just like many of us, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we were thinking, that...
Prabhupāda: They cannot think that a person, how he can produce a sky? That is beyond their conception. This is their illusion.(?) They say God is all-powerful, but He cannot produce a sky. This is their defect of knowledge. If God is all-powerful, why He cannot produce a sky? That they cannot think. Yes, He's all-powerful, cannot produce a sky. Their intellect. Poor intellect.
Mahendra: Many of us were also thinking God to be impersonal before we met you, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: No, I am not a doctor.
Richard: You have no doctor.
Prabhupāda: My point is that these are the problems—birth, death, old age and disease. This is our point.
Richard: That these are the basic problems of most men?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Richard: Death, fears of death and disease.
Prabhupāda: Yes, everyone.
Richard: You too?
Prabhupāda: Everyone, I am everyone also. I am also, I have taken up my translation work, Bhāgavatam. So I am trying to live at least up to the time I finish my translation. That is also.... I do not wish to die before I finish. That is also.... Everyone is like that.
Richard: But what happens if you do die before you finish?
Prabhupāda: Well, you are talking something extraordinary. Everyone has got some ambition, and he wants to do it, and death, disease, old age, these are impediments. That is the point. No one wants to die premature death. Family man, a family man wants to see that his sons are properly educated or they are well-placed, so on, so on, so many things. And if all of a sudden death comes, he becomes sorry, that "I could not finish my business." Therefore death is impediment.
Prabhupāda: This is the major obstacles, and subordinate to these obstacles there are hundreds and millions of obstacles.
Richard: There are millions of obstacles.
Prabhupāda: Yes, this is the main obstacle.
Richard: Right, right, okay. But I mean, okay, you say most people are, almost everyone, except me perhaps, is concerned about death. Ah, but how about the smaller obstacles which nevertheless can make people very depressed, neurotic? How do you recognize and live with them or eliminate them?
Prabhupāda: Our point is there are hundreds and millions of obstacles. If they are, I mean to say, summarized, they become birth, death, old age and disease. This is my point. There are hundred and thousands of obstacles, but if you take all of them and make a summary, then it comes four—birth, death, old age and disease.
Rāmeśvara: He wants to know, Śrīla Prabhupāda, if these are the obstacles, how do we Kṛṣṇa conscious people deal with these obstacles or eliminate these obstacles?
Prabhupāda: Yes, that we are doing by Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
Richard: How?
Prabhupāda: Because if we try to understand Kṛṣṇa, simply by understanding Him, I am going to get a life which will be free of all obstacles.
Richard: And how do you do that?
Prabhupāda: Who?
Rāmeśvara: The Presidential candidate. He will not give his opinion.
Devotee: Who is that, Reagan?
Rāmeśvara: No, Carter. They are unwilling to give their opinion because then someone may not vote for them.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, that's too controversial. Most people are for abortion.
Prabhupāda: Why they are for abortion?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Because it gives them unlimited room for sense gratification. The whole business is...
Prabhupāda: So why not become brahmacārī?
Devotee (1): They want to dance without paying the piper. (laughter)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I tell them "Birth control by self control." That is our program.
Prabhupāda: Besides that, why birth control?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say because the world is overpopulated.
Prabhupāda: So much vacant land in your country.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, everywhere in the world. When we fly in the airplane, every country, mostly it's vacant land. It's only these big demoniac cities.
Prabhupāda: Florida. And in summer?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Summer it's not very pleasant.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's about the same.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Really? Most people though, most tourists don't go to Florida in the summer time.
Prabhupāda: Very hot?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It is a little hot.
Prabhupāda: Some rain?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: There's moisture in the air and rain, like that.
Hari-śauri: They have a lot of hurricanes there, don't they?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: A few. But no place is perfect within the material world. (break)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: On the fourth floor we're going to have doll projects. Doll exhibits. So there's an open balcony up there and I want to do something like that, see up there with the glass, the balcony?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hari-śauri: "As stated in Brahma-saṁhitā, Lord Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Lord. No one is greater than Him; He is the cause of all causes. Here it is also stated by the Lord personally that He is the cause of all the demigods and the sages. Even the demigods and great sages cannot understand Kṛṣṇa. They can neither understand His name nor His personality, so what is the position of the so-called scholars of this tiny planet? No one can understand why the Supreme God comes to earth as an ordinary human being and executes such commonplace and yet wonderful activities. One should know, then, that scholarship is not the qualification necessary to understand Kṛṣṇa. Even the demigods and the great sages have tried to understand Kṛṣṇa by their mental speculation, and they have failed to do so. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also it is stated clearly that even the great demigods are not able to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead. They can speculate to the limits of their imperfect senses and can reach the opposite conclusion of impersonalism, of something not manifested by the three qualities of material nature. Or they can imagine something by mental speculation. But it is not possible to understand Kṛṣṇa by such foolish speculation. Here the Lord indirectly says that if anyone wants to know the Absolute Truth, 'Here I am, present as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. I am the Supreme.' One should know this. Although one cannot understand the inconceivable Lord who is personally present, He nonetheless exists. We can actually understand Kṛṣṇa who is eternal, full of bliss and knowledge, simply by studying His words in Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The impersonal Brahman can be conceived by persons who are already in the inferior energy of the Lord, but the Personality of Godhead cannot be conceived unless one is in the transcendental position. Because most men cannot understand Kṛṣṇa in His actual situation, out of His causeless mercy He descends to show favor to such speculators. Yet despite the Supreme Lord's uncommon activities, these speculators, due to contamination in the material energy, still think that the impersonal Brahman is the Supreme. Only the devotees who are fully surrendered unto the Supreme Lord can understand, by the grace of the Lord, that He is Kṛṣṇa. The devotees of the Lord do not bother about the impersonal Brahman conception of God. Their faith and devotion bring them to surrender immediately unto the Supreme Lord, and out of the causeless mercy of Kṛṣṇa, they can understand Kṛṣṇa. No one else can understand Him. So even great sages agree, 'What is ātmā? What is the Supreme? It is He whom we have to worship.' "
Indian man: In my class I run into lot of arguments, especially from our Indian people, and this is one of the biggest arguments people pose. They say, "Why are you calling yourselves Vaiṣṇavas and not Kṛṣṇayas?"
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Prabhupāda: They're established.
Bhagavān: Yes, and he's building them houses. (breaks)
Prabhupāda: I think it's unusual in Europe.
Bhagavān: It's like this every July and August, very sunny. During these months most people in Europe come to France. (break) ...storage house.
Prabhupāda: What does he manufacture?
Bhagavān: Manufactures boats and plastic things.
Prabhupāda: What is box?
Devotee (2): Spiritual Sky, incense boxes.
Bhagavān: It's a quarry for stone. The same kind of stone that the chateau is built from.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Bhagavān: This is the factory here.
Prabhupāda: Factory of the proprietor? The proprietor?
Bhagavān: Yes, and he rents to Spiritual Sky.
Devotee (3): These incense packs, we are reorganizing the stock now.
Jñānagamya: You have said it's like two airplanes. If an airplane is in trouble, no other airplane can help.
Prabhupāda: God can help. Other airplane cannot. If God likes, He can save you.
Hari-śauri: You were saying that if one is intelligent he can just accept the father's instruction, and he knows it will be good. But most people have such bad experience that every time they've accepted instruction they've just been cheated, that they're a little slow to...
Prabhupāda: What is it? No, you said, cheated or...?
Hari-śauri: You were saying that by intelligence one can just accept what the father says will be good for him and he'll do it, but most people have such a bad experience in the material world, they get cheated so often...
Prabhupāda: That is his misfortune, if the father is cheating him. So that means he's most unfortunate. Father is not expected to cheat the son, but if he's cheated by the father, then he must accept himself as most unfortunate cheated in the world. Then there is no help. Because he's so unfortunate that he's under the care of a cheater father, then what can be done? Nobody expects that father will cheat. And nowadays it is coming. Mother is cheating, mother is killing, father is cheated. Yes. It is Kali-yuga.
Dayānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, it seems as though in the modern scientific idea, so-called scientific idea, is that everyone should have his own individual intelligence, develop himself.
Prabhupāda: You are giving all of them?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Yes, it's from our garden(?).
Prabhupāda: Give me one piece. For any intelligent man, Bhagavad-gītā is perfect knowledge. There is no doubt about it. But unfortunately most men are rascals. That is the difficulty. Otherwise, there is perfect instruction. There is no doubt about it. How can I deny? God is speaking personally.
Jñānagamya: I met a man on the plane coming here just recently Prabhupāda, and he had translated Bhagavad-gītā into Parsi, the Persian language, and I invited him to come here, but he is not coming. He is afraid to meet you, I'm sure. And I told him... He was smoking cigarettes and was buying, purchasing liquor on the plane, and I said, "Why are you doing this?"
Prabhupāda: Your duty you have done, that's all.
Jñānagamya: I said "Why are you doing this? Kṛṣṇa asks for controlled senses, but if you know Kṛṣṇa, then you would have no difficulty, you don't need these things."
Prabhupāda: In the beginning if you said, they will not hear.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Little salt?
Prabhupāda: Try to give to the people. If they are fortunate, they will take it.
Guest: I think you are from the south?
Prabhupāda: That's it.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: For example...
Prabhupāda: For them, argumentum ad baculum. Sanskrit is mūrkhasya laktosadi(?). Just like animal. Animal, if you give argument, no. When you show stick and beat him, then he'll, he'll be... Argumentum ad baculum for them.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: In Iran most people accept all our philosophy fully, but they are not willing to accept authority from Kṛṣṇa because they say, well, why is... They cannot be convinced that Kṛṣṇa is the original Personality of Godhead, Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Prabhupāda: Then there is proof: śāstra is there, sādhu is there, ācārya is there, other authorities are there. Just like Arjuna said, that, quoted Vyāsa, Nārada, Asita, Devala, "All of them have accepted You the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and You are explaining Yourself. Therefore I have no doubt." Vyāsadeva is authority, Nārada is authority, and there are many others. Recently, all the ācāryas, Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya, Caitanya Mahāprabhu... We are following the Caitanya cult, but He's stated yāre dekha tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa. He's accepting. Why does He say "Kṛṣṇa"? Why does He not say others? Āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra ei deśa yāre dekha (CC Madhya 7.128), tāre kaha And Kṛṣṇa also, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat (BG 7.7), "There is no more superior person." And Arjuna accepted, "Whatever You are saying, it is all reasonable." Sarvam etad ṛtaṁ manye (BG 10.14). "Whatever you have said, I accept in toto." There is no cut short, "I don't like this, I don't accept this." No, everything, sarvam etad.
Prabhupāda: Hill Station, I have also heard—I do not know—that during rainy season they get some diarrhea. Get some diarrhea. And that hill diarrhea is not...
Gargamuni: Good.
Prabhupāda: Not at all.
Gargamuni: Best season for Hill Station is May and June. May and June.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That's when most people go, in the summer months.
Gargamuni: Very nice. Very warm.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Summer period.
Saurabha: Most people in the rainy season, they all leave that place, many houses. They close it all.
Gargamuni: Yes. In Simla and Nanital everyone leaves after June.
Saurabha: But after the rainy season?
Gargamuni: Yes, in October again they go back.
Prabhupāda: Rainy season is bad on the whole.
Saurabha: That place. But the rest of the year it's excellent.
Prabhupāda: That all right.
Prabhupāda: No. It is not a question of winning. It is a question of discussing in the court.
Girirāja: Yes, but that's also...
Prabhupāda: And the paper does not give any publicity.
Girirāja: Well, see, their paper... You see, this man, the editor, he thrives on controversy and notoriety. So he likes cases. And then when the case comes up, he gives the report of the case in his newspaper. So most people felt that he would be very happy if we filed suit because that will increase his...
Prabhupāda: It will be in his favor.
Girirāja: Yes.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I met one, but, I knew the assistant editor of Times of India and I spoke to him about it. He said if we wrote a strong reply, we could perhaps get him to print our reply on third page. We could perhaps get him... He's done that in the past. But it's a risky gamble.
Girirāja: There was a new article this week.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: In Blitz?
Girirāja: Yes.
Prabhupāda: About us?
Girirāja: Yes.
Prabhupāda: It is not kacuri.
Devotee: Prabhupāda, you've taught so... (break) ...instruction for cooking this prasādam.
Prabhupāda: I have seen, I have seen. In our family, I know. That's all. But from my childhood it is my nature, if somebody is preparing, I see it.
Devotee: It seems to me that most people in India can cook something. Even if there's just cāpāṭis they can do this. But people in the West, they now are so helpless. They buy everything it seems in packets and you would not know how to prepare any food as much as just to cut the packet and pour it out and even then they don't even know how to put water into the pan.
Prabhupāda: They do not know how to eat on the whole. India knows how to eat. (Pause) I have traveled all over the world, and this is my experience. Nobody knows how to eat.
Devotee: Nowhere at all, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Only India. (break) ...every province they have got different dishes. Because the woman, they are trained up how to cook very nice.
Devotee: I even see these boys when I was in Chandigarh, in a dish next door to the temple we were starting there.
Prabhupāda: Woman is meant for that purpose, how to make nice palatable dishes.
Devotee: Just these young boys who were carrying the bricks every morning, they would prepare their own vegetables and cāpāṭis like this, and I was amazed to see this because you would never get anyone doing this...
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: They're admitting. That's good.
Rāmeśvara: "...and they are way ahead of those on our side who believe that it is not a religious issue. Sun Yung Moon"—this is that Reverend Moon—"has been largely exposed in the Press. But not the Kṛṣṇas."
Trivikrama: Haribol.
Prabhupāda: So the more they expose, the more implicated. (laughter)
Rāmeśvara: "Most people think of them, if at all, as loving, peaceful, prayerful children with strange customs and dress but low-key action and behavior."
Prabhupāda: What is that behavior, low...? Lowky?
Trivikrama: Low key.
Rāmeśvara: Means not violent.
Hari-śauri: Nice people.
Prabhupāda: That's a fact.
Rāmeśvara: "But they do not know about their forceful, harassing solicitation..."
Prabhupāda: They know.
Rāmeśvara: "...begging tactics."
Rāmeśvara: They say that most people do not know how aggressive we really are. "Most of the families with young people involved with Hare Kṛṣṇa..." (break)
Prabhupāda: ...very important letter.
Rāmeśvara: We sent this to all the temples in America.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And give me one copy. I shall keep.
Rāmeśvara: This is for you.
Prabhupāda: All right.
Rāmeśvara: This is all based on the information received by various parent groups. "These people usually fear physical harm that may come to them and to their children who are in Hare Kṛṣṇa, as well as forcibly permanent separation from their children in Hare Kṛṣṇa."
Prabhupāda: They do not know what is meaning, liberation. This is liberation, forcely separating from māyā. That they do not know. māyām etaṁ taranti te. Yes.
Rāmeśvara: "Hare Kṛṣṇa is known to hide out those whose families want them out."
Prabhupāda: Family?
Hari-śauri: Should we try to make an effort to have our householders go and live on the farms, a special effort? If it's ready to do that?
Prabhupāda: Why householders? Everyone. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (japa)
Rāmeśvara: In America there is a very big emphasis on getting people to join us by moving into our temples. The temple presidents are very eager to get as many people to move in as possible, but in the long run most people cannot come up to the standard.
Prabhupāda: Therefore I am... Farms.
Rāmeśvara: So they have to be encouraged to have a little bit of Kṛṣṇa consciousness in their own home, make their home a temple.
Prabhupāda: No, let them go to the farm, New Vrindaban.
Rāmeśvara: Many people... Most people in the world, they are gṛhamedhīs, and they cannot give it up so easily.
Prabhupāda: "No, you remain... Come here with your wife, children. You remain gṛhamedhī."
Jagadīśa: New Vrindaban is very austere. If we build little bungalows with modern convenience...
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Jagadīśa: There has to be some modern convenience.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Then we shall do that.
Jagadīśa: Why does the train keep stopping?
Prabhupāda: Who is this gentleman?
Hari-śauri: Pradyumna?
Prabhupāda: Oh, Pradyumna.
Rāmeśvara: Say, in America, most people live in the cities, and they already have their job, and they are set in their ways.
Prabhupāda: But you said that there is unemployment also.
Rāmeśvara: To a certain extent. But there are still 250,000,000 people. So most of them...
Prabhupāda: So those who are unemployed, let them come to us. We shall give them employment.
Rāmeśvara: Yes. But for the mass population...
Prabhupāda: Well, gradually you will increase and...
Rāmeśvara: We have to give them something that they can do in their home.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Rāmeśvara: Because it is impractical to think that they will give up everything and move into the temple.
Prabhupāda: No, those who are unemployed, let them come. We shall give them employment.
Jagadīśa: On the farm.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: For those who are unemployed, that's attractive.
Jagadīśa: But for those who are already employed...
Rāmeśvara: But most people have jobs.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Rāmeśvara: Many people already have their jobs and their families.
Prabhupāda: All right, let them not come, but those who are unemployed, let them come.
Rāmeśvara: But what...? For those people who already have their jobs, instead of...
Prabhupāda: That job... They will be very soon jobless. Don't worry. (laughs) They will come. They will be obliged to come. Now they have got job, but as the days are advancing in Kali-yuga, they'll be jobless.
Hari-śauri: So we can expect that material conditions are going to become very much worse than this.
Prabhupāda: They may come or not. We don't care for it. Let us establish an ideal society. That is the...
Jagadīśa: If someone who is well-off wants to become a devotee, shall we encourage him to give up all of his material well-being or shall we ask him to instead put a temple in his house and encourage him how to make his house into a temple and make his whole family Kṛṣṇa conscious?
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Hari-śauri: They asked him, "Do you think that another religion will help Ireland?" criticizing that "We've already got two religions and they're fighting. What do you think you're going to do?" So then he said, "Well, actually, it's another way of life, and Ireland could certainly use another way of life." It was a good point. We get a good reception there too, our devotees. People are very pious there because Ireland is still very simple.
Prabhupāda: Everywhere people are simple. That is my opinion. Mass people, they are simple. The leaders spoil them.
Hari-śauri: Yes. That's a fact. Most people are just... They're in ignorance.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The human psychology is the same for man, woman. That's all. Amongst the lower animals you see. The pigeons, they are the same. The sparrow, they are the same everywhere. The squirrels, the same, the same. So why men should be different?
Hari-śauri: It's artificial, the differences they've created themselves.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hari-śauri: On national basis.
Prabhupāda: In Russia I have seen. The people are the same.
Hari-śauri: Yes. Common mass of people are always...
Prabhupāda: Simple.
Hari-śauri: I think I'll see what's happening with the van.
Prabhupāda: Hm. (end)
Prabhupāda: I do not remember, but may be.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So. Anyway, he's lodged a complaint with the Tea Board because he's a big tea importer, so he has connections. So he's lodged a complaint with the Tea Board. They're so dishonest. Even this is the five-star hotel. It's a big hotel in Calcutta, one of the two or three best, and they're so dishonest that as soon as a foreigner comes, they can figure out where the valuables are and they steal it. And most people will let them get away with it. He may not, because he's got so many connections. But it's so dishonest. Even they make an attempt to cultivate tourism and be professional but-spoiled.
Prabhupāda: Hotels are always unreliable. They have got duplicate key.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Even during Sanātana Gosvāmī's time, that hotel-keeper.
Prabhupāda: Hotel you should not go simply by locking. Somebody must be there. Otherwise they have got duplicate key.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They just stole the whole suitcase.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. They have got duplicate key. They can take.
Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He's wondering about his Deities. I told him that the Deities are supposed to be ready by Gaura Pūrṇimā. You gave that time limit. He wanted to know what the size was and how many. So I knew there was Kāliya-Kṛṣṇa and four nāga-patnīs and Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and Lalitā and Viśākhā and, I think I told him Gaura-Nitāi, Guru-Gaurāṅga, Gaura-Nitāi, and your deity and your Guru Mahārāja's deity. That makes thirteen.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Why? It doesn't matter, only a few persons may take, but the ideal must be there. And preach all over the world. For me it will be difficult to move everywhere, but so long my life is there, I'll give you hint. You develop it.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So far in Manipur, most people in the educated class, they all accept.
Prabhupāda: Then that will be very nice. I want to have a small Vaiṣṇava state-varṇāśrama ideal.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: This is possible in Manipur.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore I thought it. Ideal Vaiṣṇava state. Brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra, they are doing very nicely, and people will be surprised, "Oh." There is no question of hatred. It is division for proper discharge of duty.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But I saw in the airport, the policemen, they have this tilaka.
Prabhupāda: Tilaka.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Policemen, they are dressed, but they have tilaka.
Prabhupāda: Manipur? Manipur?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, Manipur. And always give respect. Though I am nobody, but...
Prabhupāda: Tilaka.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: We have got only one case of Deva, Deva...
Girirāja: Devashan. Then actually there's one other which was carried over from Mrs. Nair. When she was the landlady one tenant left and put another person there. But, I mean, the tenants are... I mean they're gaining more and more respect for us.
Prabhupāda: After all, they are human being.
Girirāja: Yes. Actually most people are. They see the book distribution, the construction, and the time factor, that we are still pushing on. We're not going away. Many factors. They see the leaders are also appreciating our activities. Actually our movement is very all-encompassing. Our movement is all-encompassing. I mean I've really seen from Svarūpa Dāmodara that... Your same teachings we can dress up in different garbs and present to anyone, and they will be convinced, unless they are very envious.
Prabhupāda: Iron-clad demons, they will be made remain.
Girirāja: But innocent people, they can be convinced. One thing I was concerned about for the pandal is that many of these leading personalities, they want to meet Your Divine Grace. But at the same time it might be very strenuous for you to come from Juhu every day.
Prabhupāda: Not every day.
Girirāja: Just selected days. The other alternative would be to arrange a place closer to the pandal, but then it would have to be with some member like Kārttikeya or someone.
Prabhupāda: That is near pandal, Kārttikeya's house?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I'll do that first thing in the morning. Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Gargamuni: All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Jaya. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (devotees offer obeisances)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, do you think that you'll be lecturing this evening? I mean, are people going to be here or at the pandal?
Girirāja: I think most people will be at the pandal today. Maybe we could send out invitations and make publicity for next Sunday.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It should be a big thing, prominent. (end)
Prabhupāda: He has given very good reasoning.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Everything is reasonable. But so were your reasons. Just like when you met with the reporter from Los Angeles Times, I remember last year... When this question comes up they, inside they are laughing. When they hear our opinion they think it is a joke. They cannot conceive that the whole thing could be a hoax. We were discussing that actually, that the nation is more dear to most people than their family is, because one will get divorced from his family, but who will give up citizenship? Very rarely does anyone give up his citizenship. But people divorce again and again. So to... The nation is something very strong, that affection, and nation, in America, means this moon shot, all of these things, the truthfulness of the leaders. So this is too shocking. Probably the American people could not swallow it.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (indistinct) Lie.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Right. Why no other newspaper carried the story?
Prabhupāda: It is only because I disbelieved, he disagreed. (referring to Puruṣottama?) He disagreed with me from that moment. He thought me foolish that I do not believe scientific research.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That was in London, I think. I remember.
Prabhupāda: He was a good boy, very good boy. Only for this reason he left. The whole institution he left. Where he is now?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We have not heard from him. Last time he was staying with St. Paul.
Prabhupāda: We have some artist. We have... That's all. That is perfect.
Bhakti-prema: It is also repeated in Upaniṣads, iti susruma dhīrāṇām.(?)
Prabhupāda: This...
Bhakti-prema: From the intelligence...
Yaśodānandana: This knowledge will actually destroy their misconceptions, 'cause most people think that previously, to five thousand years ago, people used to be barbarians. But if they were barbarians and they knew the whole description of the universe, they must have been very advanced.
Bhakti-prema: This is Lokāloka Mountain. We're drawing that.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We're simply following your Bhāgavatam description, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Not that... Iti susru... (break)
Bhakti-prema: Except this Kimpuruṣa-varṣa and other varṣas in the mountain area, these are part of subtle world. So how we will mention it?
Prabhupāda: Mention by picture.
Bhakti-prema: So how we will expose it before scientists?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In our temple?
Prabhupāda: No, no, some public...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, that... And even the fact that they got married is more than most people do nowadays. They don't even get married.
Prabhupāda: There is no marriage. And in Bhāgavata says, "There will be no more marriage. Agreement."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sex agreement.
Śatadhanya: And in Switzerland, in the schools, they teach small children, "You should have sex at early age." They teach in school.
Prabhupāda: Switzerland.
Śatadhanya: Switzerland, yeah. They say they are the most liberal.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Therefore it's easy to see why your Guru Mahārāja said that this world is not a fit place for a gentleman.
Prabhupāda: As I told you last time, in the Western countries, so long I am in the temple, I am safe. And as soon as I go out of the temple, it is hell. And implica..., as they are attached. How they are doing?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But then he has to be... To do editorial work requires that he understand the philosophy. And if he's following Sai Baba now, how will he...?
Mr. Myer: Actually he's not following. I think it's just that at that point of time, nothing else is there. Like most people...
Prabhupāda: The professors challenge him... What...?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. There was a challenge?
Mr. Myer: Yes, one of his disciples was recently caught. He had lot of vibhūti inside, hidden inside his body. So when he lay down they say that lot of vibhūti was coming out. So when they opened the shirt it was just filled with whole thing inside. That is one of his very close disciples, they are... But he is still managing to get away. His argument is that there are two types of people who come to him. One who is spiritually advanced, for them he does not show any miracles. But there are some poor people who do not believe in God unless you show the miracle, so therefore he gives all these mūrtis and... I told, once (indistinct) with him last year. So I was sitting there and suddenly, you see, he just did something and...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Let's see him save himself from death. Let's see him make the miracle that he can save himself from dying. That he cannot do.
Mr. Myer: Whole thing is, in the last four, five years. Once they tried to buy my chairman's car, they want to buy. It is big Chevrolet car he has got.
Prabhupāda: Without fail.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Without fail. And I can see even though this is a difficult time, actually it's still very sublime, because... This is wonderful, that all of your senior disciples are coming and we're all chanting and you're hearing and we're hearing. And actually it's a very wonderful... Even though it's critical, it's very wonderful, because we're all chanting the holy name. And then gradually Kṛṣṇa will answer our prayers. And in the meantime we're becoming purified by chanting like this, and you're pleased by hearing our chanting. Most people, when they are ill, everything is very horrible. But this is very different. It's all spiritual. So we're very satisfied. Of course, we want you to get better immediately. But still, as long as it takes, we're very satisfied to remain chanting and expecting Kṛṣṇa's mercy at every moment. Jaya, Śrīla Prabhupāda. I'll come back in a little while, Śrīla Prabhupāda. I'll just end that meeting. (break)
Girirāja: I had a very wonderful meeting with the chairman of the bank. And he's ready to do anything to satisfy us and keep our business. So he said that he was going to get rid of the man who is on this counter, Mr. Gupta, and give us some more young, dynamic, cooperative person to be in charge over here. And we completed the formalities for transferring the fixed deposits to the main branch, and he assured me that it was a completely routine transaction and that if the local people tried to do anything to stop it, that he would himself personally see that it went through smoothly. So I gave them the certificates. It was not necessary to sign them. We just gave the certificates, and they gave us a receipt. And they're going to endorse the certificates. So they are payable from New Delhi instead of from Vṛndāvana, and then we can go and collect them. And the chairman also called the assistant general manager.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very good field it sounds like, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Trivikrama: What about the language? Is there problem with language?
Girirāja: No. The educated people speak English. In all the schools they teach English, so all the youngsters speak English in Kathmandu. And then most people in Kathmandu, even if they don't speak English, they speak Hindi. And there are just a few who only speak Nepali. But Prabhaviṣṇu has arranged for The Perfection of Yoga to be translated into Nepali.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He sounds like he's doing very good, Prabhaviṣṇu.
Girirāja: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Good man.
Girirāja: He's very good. So he's eager to get that in print. Then they'll be able to distribute literature to everyone without exception.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda? Do you remember when Prabhaviṣṇu was here you told him to go with "the courage of an Englishman and the heart of a Bengali mother"? He remembers those words.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
| Page Title: | Most people (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 28 of Nov, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=60, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 60 |