Prabhupāda: The first scene is that people passing on with saṅkīrtana movement as we have, as we usually do, very nice procession with mṛdaṅga, karatālas and that bugle, all people, just in the ordinary way. We have to make a nice procession. The second scene is that Kali, the personified Kali, a person should be decorated blackish. A blackish man with royal dress and very ugly features. And his queen, another ugly featured girl or lady. So they are disturbed. They'll talk between themselves that "There is saṅkīrtana movement now and how we shall prosecute our business of this Kali-yuga?" There will be, in that scene, in some corner somebody is drinking. Two or three persons drinking. The scene will be like that. They are sitting in the center. In one corner somebody taking part in drinking, and another part somebody is illicitly talking of lust and love with woman. In another section there is slaughtering of a cow, and another section gambling. In this way that scene should be adjusted. And in the middle, the ugly man, black man, and the ugly woman will talk that "We are now in danger. The saṅkīrtana movement has been started. What to do?" In this way you have to finish that scene.
Mrdanga (Conversations)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1967 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Huh? That's clear. Accha. Then fourth scene is lunar eclipse. You'll have to arrange a scene that just in the evening there is appearance of the full moon on the side of the Ganges and people are taking bath half in the water and half above the water, and they're all chanting, this same scene, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, with mṛdaṅga and... Yes. So somebody comes, Advaita. Advaita comes in the scene to take bath in the Ganges and begins to dance. "Oh, my mission is now fulfilled! My mission is now fulfilled!" He'll talk. He was very sorry to see the condition of the people that everyone is engaged simply for material sense gratification. Nobody is engaged in love of Godhead. So he wanted to rectify their behavior, but he thought that "I am ordinary man, what can I do? If Kṛṣṇa Himself comes, then He can do it." Therefore he worshiped Kṛṣṇa, and he simply offered Ganges water and tulasī leaf. In this way Kṛṣṇa has taken His incarnation as Lord Caitanya. So he has understood now at this moment Lord Caitanya is now taken His appearance.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Then the next scene is that some constables came and during the Hari-saṅkīrtana, they broke the mṛdaṅgas that "You have disobeyed the magistrate order that... So you cannot do it." So as the constables, they do some violence or assault, so they did that. And after the constables went away Caitanya Mahāprabhu was informed. He came. He saw that the mṛdaṅgas are broken and everything is strewn away so Caitanya Mahāprabhu saw. He decided, "All right. Now we shall organize a civil disobedience movement. Now tomorrow we shall organize thousands and thousands of people with mṛdaṅgas and we shall approach the magistrate house." So He... Next scene... What is that next scene?
Prabhupāda: When Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya was meeting the King, the King inquired that "I have heard that there is a big sannyāsī has come here. What is the details of the sannyāsī? I've heard that you have also become a disciple." So Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya explained, "Yes, He's not ordinary sannyāsī. He's Kṛṣṇa Himself so far I've studied." So Bhaṭṭācārya, he was authority, a great learned man. And the King, when he heard that He is Kṛṣṇa, he also became a devotee. So all expenditure, all everything was supplied by the King and his officers to Caitanya Mahāprabhu. So many people... Always four hundred, five hundred men were visiting Him. So whoever would come he would supply food and place. And Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He began His chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa in the Jagannātha temple. The same scene is being performed here before the Jagannātha temple, Lord Caitanya is dancing. When we perform the class I remembered that scene. Yes. That Caitanya Mahāprabhu is dancing before Jagannātha. Every evening four parties. In each party four mṛdaṅga and eight karatālas. So one party this side, one party this side, one party back side, one party front side, and Caitanya Mahāprabhu in the middle would dance and the four parties will chant Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa... That was going on every evening so long He stayed at Jagannātha Purī.
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: So Caitanya Mahāprabhu had all these facilities. He was learned, very honored young man in His country; He had many followings. In one incidence we can understand how beloved leader He was. The Kazi challenged His saṅkīrtana movement and first times warned Him not to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and when He did not care for it, then he ordered that, er, that mṛdaṅga should be broken. So the constables came and broke the mṛdaṅgas. This information was given to Lord Caitanya, and He ordered civil disobedience. He was the first man in the history of India who started this civil disobedience movement. It is not Gandhi who is the originator of civil disobedience; it was Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He said that "Defy the order of the Kazi." Kazi means magistrate. So "This evening we shall go at the Kazi's house in hundreds of thousands, with mṛdaṅga and kīrtana." So simply by His order many hundreds of thousands young men—not young men; young, old, all kind of men-gathered, and... The point is just how popular leader He was.
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is Tulasī dāsa's remark. So in many passages of his poetry he has not done very justice to woman. And another poetry, he writes, dhol guṇār śūdra narī. Dhol guṇār śūdra narī ihe sab śaśan ke adhikārī.(?) Dhol guṇār paśu śūdra narī, ihe sab śaśan ke adhikārī. Dhol, dhol means drum, mṛdaṅga. Gunar, guṇār means... What is called English? A fool, fool. Illiterate fool, what is one word?
Brahmānanda: Buffoon?
Prabhupāda: Maybe buffoon. Buffoon is sometimes troublesome. But guṇār means he doesn't understand very nicely.
Brahmānanda: Dullard.
Prabhupāda: Dull, dull. Dhol guṇār, dhol means drum and guṇār means dull. Śūdra, and the laborer class. Three. Dhol, guṇār, śūdra, and paśu, household animals, just like cows, dogs.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. That doesn't matter. You have to take saṅkīrtana party. That should be the main business. And the..., at least sixteen men, four mṛdaṅgas. Practice mṛdaṅga like that. And twelve cymbals, and one chanting and all others responding. Oh, it will be tremendous. Take some flags, "ISKCON, Hare Kṛṣṇa" flag, red flag. You see? And conchshell, mṛdaṅga. In New York they are doing now, and they also one day collected 240 dollars or something like that. What is that?
Puruṣottama: 247.
Prabhupāda: 247. You see?
Prabhupāda: You get hundred dollars; then we shall get.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. Wakim and Son?(?)
Prabhupāda: No, from elsewhere.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: More mṛdaṅgas.
Prabhupāda: These boys, Acyutānanda, they do not write what they are doing, what they are not doing. I do not know whether they have made a plan to go away from the society and live independently.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It seems like it is very difficult to go to India without you and still come back. It seems...
Prabhupāda: No. When we go to India I shall go with you. Yes. We must go.
Prabhupāda: You can make scene that people, His disciples, are performing kīrtana and one scene you can make Kazi, Muslim magistrate, is sitting, and the brāhmaṇas, they come. "Sir, you are our protector. You are Kazi. You are magistrate. And this Nimāi Paṇḍita, young boy, He is creating so much disturbance." "What is that?" "He has begun this chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. This is not our Hindu religion. He is chanting so loudly. Now this is the time God is sleeping. So He'll be disturbed. So the whole society will be vanquished if God becomes angry. So He'll be disturbed." So Kazi... After all, Hindus are complaining. So Kazi said, "All right, I am taking steps." So he sent some officers. And they were playing mṛdaṅga, and warned that "You cannot do this. You are disturbing here." That is going on still. Just like our Los Angeles, it is going on. In New York also, they complain to the Kazi, (laughs) police officer. But they could not do anything. So this complaint is going on since the inauguration of the saṅkīrtana movement. So Kazi first of all warned. Then He did not care. Then the police also came and broke the mṛdaṅgas forcibly. Then Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, "All right. We shall start thousands of men playing mṛdaṅga, and we shall go to the house of Kazi. Let us see what can he do." So He went with many followers, and many followers playing mṛdaṅga, and Kazi became afraid that "The people have become agitated." So he fled away. Then the people began to create disturbance in his garden.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So everything is all right, bṛhat-mṛdaṅga department? Major saṅkīrtana party. They are going, saṅkīrtana parties in different cities. That is junior. But your, this party, it is senior. You are sitting one place; you have to work thousand times more than them. Yes. You have to edit in such a way. Where is that water?
Brahmānanda: It's being offered, Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: All right, all right. That's all...
Satsvarūpa: I have a question from the art department.
Prabhupāda: Art, yes.
1970 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: No, in the reading matter he said that, "He was trained by his father to worship Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, to observe Rathayātrā, and he was taught mṛdaṅga." These are all true. But anyone who worships Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and who follows the Hindu ceremonies, Rathayātrā, how he can say that "Hinduism nothing"? Just see how rascaldom. This is contradiction.
Guest (4): Mahārāja, there is reason for that. Because that paper, the owner of that press is a Jain. And the Jains have a natural antipathy towards the ...?...
Prabhupāda: Oh, just see. So how biased man can report? So therefore we are avoiding reports.
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Pratyatoṣa: Because the speed is electronically controlled, so you don't have to worry about the current, how many cycles per second. It'll work at different voltages, so it'll work anywhere in the world. And you could record your voice on one channel and karatālas on the other channel and mṛdaṅga on another channel, and you can mix them together at the end.
Prabhupāda: It is very big?
Pratyatoṣa: Well, I think this one probably might be kind of big.
Prabhupāda: Can you carry it?
Pratyatoṣa: Oh, sure. Sonys are actually pretty compact. You can tell by the size of the reels. But, see, there's four meters, so you could record four tracks, four channels simultaneously.
Prabhupāda: And it's stereo?
Prabhupāda: Electric guitar, if it is, they chant Hare Kṛṣṇa only, nothing else, then it is all right. But as far as possible, simply mṛdaṅga and kartāl. But if GBC thinks that it attracts more people so they give contribution, that is a different thing. Otherwise there is no need.
Parivrājakācārya: I think nothing can attract like mṛdaṅgas and karatālas.
Prabhupāda: That is practical, we have seen.
Parivrājakācārya: When we put guitars, it waters it down. It doesn't have the same effect.
Prabhupāda: All GBC members should organize like that. Then everything will be all right. And sell books. Now you... What is the name? Maṇḍalībhadra, he is slow. So you translate.
Prabhupāda: So only you have got only mṛdaṅga? Why?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think more are coming from Calcutta. Śyāmasundara called me.
Prabhupāda: At least four khols you want to have. Four khols and sixteen men, that is party. Yes. And one leading singer and one dancer. That makes complete party. Twenty, twenty-two men. So where is Śyāmasundara?
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee (2): ...on her boats. We have many mṛdaṅgas, everything...
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. In Calcutta. From Calcutta, there she starts for all over the world. So simply... But Calcutta manager is rascal. Calcutta manager, that is difficult.
Devotee: Why don't we send... Why don't we send a hundred, two hundred mṛdaṅgas to America and Europe, big shipments sometime? We really use them down through the years.
Prabhupāda: But I know that Calcutta manager is a (Hindi). (laughs)
Revatīnandana: Well, they won't become... They have many... All the big men in the Calcutta house, they won't become life members. None of them. I know, I approached them. No one will become life members.
Prabhupāda: Calcutta house?
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: That is what. We are preparing them so that they can read our literature which is in Sanskrit and English. As soon as they can read, that's education finished. They will understand, practical demonstration, ārati, worship of the Deity, and they play mṛdaṅga, they chant, they join Hare Kṛṣṇa chanting. They are not meant for any technology.
Guest (3): No.
Prabhupāda: No. That we do not train. We are training them to become actual devotee, brāhmaṇa. Not for become technologists. Technologists, there are many.
Guest (1): I think the spiritual element is also essential in life.
Prabhupāda: Oh yes. That is the only business of human life.
Prabhupāda: That chance is also to you also. Māyā is always there. But our duty should be like that. You become Kṛṣṇa conscious and raise your children to that standard. (indistinct) Just like we are teaching in Dallas. There is nothing extraordinary. The children are there, they're learning how to read, how to write, at the same time rising early in the morning, attending maṅgala-ārātrika, joining in the saṅkīrtana, playing mṛdaṅga, dancing, taking prasādam. (Aside:) That's all right. By such training, automatically they'll be Kṛṣṇa conscious. And then all your duties are complete. If you make him Kṛṣṇa conscious, then all your duty is finished.
Prabhupāda: Loud, they are very good. How can you stop it? As soon as you chant, somebody... That you cannot check. You may stop mṛdaṅga. That's all.
Haṁsadūta:
- mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ
- sūyate sa-carācaram
- hetunānena kaunteya
- jagad viparivartate
- (BG 9.10)
"This material nature is working under my direction, O son of Kuntī, and it is producing all moving and unmoving beings. By its rule this manifestation is created and annihilated again and again."
Prabhupāda: So when Kṛṣṇa is directing, is it aimless? The whole cosmic manifestation, is it aimless? There is some purpose. Otherwise, why God has created, and He's directing? These people, they cannot understand it.
Professor: Yes, very much. Prabhupāda: Well, all right. Begin. Pradyumna: With the mṛdaṅga? Prabhupāda: Yes. Paramahaṁsa: Karatālas. Prabhupāda: So you are a bhakta? You are a devotee. Professor: Well... I'm sorry. Prabhupāda: Now you have appeared. Very good.
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Devotee (2): ...this is on chanting hari-nāma in the streets, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa in the streets with mṛdaṅgas and karatālas. It's a very important part of our program. Is that correct?
Prabhupāda: Both of them are kīrtana. When you chant, that is also kīrtana; when you distribute book, that is also kīrtana. When you read book, that is also kīrtana. (break) ...joking, if one meets one fat man, so the other man will ask him, "Will you kindly let me know wherefrom you purchase rice?"
Prabhupāda: Very gorgeous. All decorated, (indistinct), gongs, bells, mṛdaṅgas. Keep at least twelve trained devotees. At least twelve. (indistinct) (break)
Guru dāsa: Some people make the, cut the coat to fit the pocket.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guru dāsa: Cut the coat to fit the pocket.
Prabhupāda: That's right.
Guru dāsa: Basics. Then after everything is built and nicely established, then we will increase. Very clear and very nice.
Prabhupāda: That is good. One who desires well-being(?).
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: That is fine. That is wanted. You are expert mṛdaṅga player? I have seen. He is very, very nice.
Tripurāri: Sometimes when we go to the temples they ask us to give class, saṅkīrtana class on book distribution techniques. We tell them that before you can take any techniques, first you must follow the principles and study the books.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is real technique. Our only technique is to be very devout followers of the rules and regulation.
Paramahaṁsa: But if a person becomes too much inquisitive, just like with the boy and the mṛdaṅga, due to his inquisitiveness he ruined the mṛdaṅga, and then he doesn't have any drum.
Prabhupāda: That's alright. The drum can be purchased again, but he should be given credit because he is inquisitive. You can purchase another drum, it doesn't matter, but he gets the credit because he is inquisitive.
Gaṇeśa: What about the scientists, Śrīla Prabhupāda? They are very inquisitive, they are trying to find out the cause of the material world.
Prabhupāda: That credit we give them. Just like this child. But the childishness is this, that when they are given correct information, they do not take it. (indistinct) If we say to the material scientists that "You are searching after this, here it is, Kṛṣṇa, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo (BG 10.8), I am the original source of everything." they will not accept. That is their foolishness.
Paramahaṁsa: Many devotees, they put it in the sun when it becomes dead. Is that all right to tighten the head? (referring to mṛdaṅga)
Prabhupāda: (inaudible) Yogi Bhajan... did he come here?
Paramahaṁsa: At most eight years, seven or eight years.
Prabhupāda: So less than we are.
Paramahaṁsa: Oh, yeah. You were here long before he was here. I think he came... 1968 he came. So you came three years before him. I have seen his āśramas in America. I saw one in Arizona. He has quite a large āśrama there. And I saw some of his smaller ones in New Guinea.(?)
Bali-mardana: I've seen them in Brooklyn, but it was just an apartment. It was not really an āśrama.
Paramahaṁsa: They have, in Phoenix, Arizona, they have a very nice place, very large building.
Prabhupāda: Where?
Dr. Judah: I've seen his picture so often times in the Back to God magazine playing the mṛdaṅga drum.
Jayatīrtha: What is it, ten years, Brahmānanda? Or nine years?
Brahmānanda: Well, '66. August '66.
Dr. Judah: August '66. You are one of the very earliest.
Prabhupāda: Actually, I began this movement from July '66. I came in '65 but I could not do anything. I was loitering here and there. Actually, I began my preaching work from '66, June, July, I think, yes.
Prabhupāda: I don't like... Yes.
Harikeśa: You were telling us last year, you wanted to play mṛdaṅga.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The bus is coming.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...disagreement between my father and mother. My father would give me all independence, and mother was going that "You are spoiling the child by giving too much independence."
Harikeśa: Just see.
Prahupada: That is going on. Just like mother Yaśodā. She would chastise Kṛṣṇa. But you will never find Nanda Mahārāja is ever chastising. Rather, when Kṛṣṇa was chastised, Nanda Mahārāja would come back and take Him on the lap: "All right, I shall punish Your mother," and call him (her?), chastise. And then Kṛṣṇa will stop His mouth: "No, no. Don't do this." It is natural that when the child is in the lower stage, minor stage, the mother takes more care. That is natural. (break) Such a big planet, sun, six months rotating on the northern side of the equator, six months on the southern side. It is never changed.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: And.... Books, prasādam, and cloth. (Bengali)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What about mṛdaṅga?
Prabhupāda: And mṛdaṅga? Why not appoint one mṛdaṅga maker? He can sell outside, and whatever he makes we shall take.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, we need them for America.
Prabhupāda: One utensils, karatāla seller.
Jayapatāka: I can.... We can have our own people. Just as the store owners are making outside, we can make outside with them.
Prabhupāda: Why outside? We shall make here. Simply you require the manufacturer.
Jayapatāka: To make karatālas... To make mṛdaṅgas doesn't require much capital, but to make karatālas requires a lot of capital because the metal is very expensive.
Prabhupāda: We shall invest. If we get good manufacturer, we shall invest. What is the capital wanted?
Jayapatāka: About four, five thousand rupees.
Prabhupāda: Oh, we shall invest.
Jayapatāka: The gurukula is living on this side. And they're having classes in this original house. (break) (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Bidi.
Jayapatāka: Many people want to open up a shop. They'll pay for the...
Prabhupāda: (break) ...tulasī...
Jayapatāka: Our land.
Prabhupāda: So why not employ one man to manfacture tulasī beads? Yes. There are many experts.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Yes. So let us go. (break) ...says, uttiṣṭhata jāgrata prāpta-varān nibodhata.(?)Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says, jīv jāgo, jīv jāgo. Still he will sleep in this human form of life and remain animal, cat and dog. A simple word, jīv jāgo, jīv jāgo. This is Vedic instruction. Uttiṣṭhata jāgrata: "Get up. Be awakened. You have got this body. Try to understand God." That they will not do. They'll come to fight: "Oh, you are playing mṛdaṅga at four o'clock and disturbing my sleeping?" This is going on. "Let me go to the police. You are trying to awaken me from my sleeping? You are trying to make me intelligent? Let me remain fool. Why you are disturbing me?" Māyā's influence. Kota nidrā jāo māyā-piśācīra kole. Simply wasting of time. Nidrāhāra-vihārakādi-vijitau **. The Gosvāmīs, they conquered over sleeping first, nidrā, then eating. Nidrāhāra-vihārakādi-vijitau. What is this?
Devotee (2): Because our kīrtana party now, we have, we go on kīrtana, eighty men. We go two nights a week with eighty men. Huge kīrtana with five mṛdaṅgas and guitars, and we get huge crowd from the whole street.
Prabhupāda: That will make you triumphant. Go on kīrtana. That is very nice. Kīrtana, and book distribution. This is also kīrtana.
Guru-kṛpā: This is bṛhad mṛdaṅga.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So do it enthusiastically. Keep yourself pure. Nobody will be able to do any harm to you. Kṛṣṇa will give you protection.
Prabhupāda: Best thing is to preach for some time. Go with the saṅkīrtana party. He's a good mṛdaṅga player also. His photograph is there.
Devotee: From the very beginning.
Prabhupāda: Fifth Avenue.
Rādhāvallabha: Brahmānanda?
Prabhupāda: Yes. He was Brahmānanda's assistant always. Mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te. Simply capture Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet. Māyā will not be able to... When you have come here?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Because a class of men will demand to eat the flesh. You cannot stop it. So we are giving free: you eat. And from economic point of view, we require the skin for our mṛdaṅga making. So give us the skin. That's all.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda says the butcher, even, he can sell the meat cheaply, make profit. He's getting it free of charge.
Hari-śauri: Maybe some time in the future this could happen when Kṛṣṇa consciousness becomes very powerful influence in the country, but unless we could actually close the slaughterhouse...
Prabhupāda: No, but now by imploring, we are requesting him that "You can take this cow and sell in your shop, butcher shop, you give us the skin. And you can tell the customer that it is as good, it is cheaper. So whatever money you get, that is your profit. You haven't got to invest anything."
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Simply kartal and mṛdaṅga. Still, people do not come. They'll prefer to go the factory, whole day work in the hell. (laughs) They prefer.
George Harrison: I suppose some day the whole of the world will just be chanting in the country.
Prabhupāda: That is not possible, but if some of the leading men, they take it seriously, then others will follow. Just like in our book, your signature is there, "Oh, George Harrison. Yes." They take it without any consideration. Kṛṣṇa book. Yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas tad tad evetaro janaḥ (BG 3.21). If the leading man does something, then his followers also do. This is the way. So if some of the leading men of the world, they take this movement seriously, then people will be happy. There's no doubt about it. You have come alone, without any associate?
Bhagavān: The garden crew, when they go out in the afternoon, they have kīrtana out to the fields with mṛdaṅga and karatālas where they work.
Prabhupāda: You have to arrange for little more water so you can... The pump is not in order. You can arrange for that.
Bhagavān: Your water supply has been all right?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Bhagavān: This, in July, this is normal weather now, in August and July. But generally in July it has some rain.
Prabhupāda: This year...
Bhagavān: Yes. And it was the hottest weather in a hundred years.
Prabhupāda: Now.
Bhagavān: It was, in July. Extremely hot. And actually our well was one of the only ones functioning in the whole area, and we were watering the crops and everything. Our corn is very nice, very high, and our tomatoes are very good. The barley harvest was five tons.
Prabhupāda: Five times more.
Prabhupāda: I used to sit down there. There was no mṛdaṅga. A small dundubi. And I was chanting three hours—Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa. And people used to come.
Nava-yauvana: In a very bad neighborhood. Very low-class neighborhood.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Low-class, high-class, we don't mind. We chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, that's all. That 26 Second Avenue also not very good neighborhood.
Jñānagamya: It's the worst place in the country. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: But I did not know. Mukunda suggested this is good place, all right, live here. And actually happened to be good place. Gradually, all my disciples came. So I had no disturbance. I was living in the Bowery Street, and on my door these bums were lying with urine and wine bottles and everything. Still, they were so respectful.
Gargamuni: "To my father, Gour Mohan De, 1849-1930, pure devotee of Kṛṣṇa, who raised me as a Kṛṣṇa conscious child from the beginning of my life. In my boyhood ages he instructed me how to play the mṛdaṅga. He gave me Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa vigraha to worship and he gave me Jagannātha Ratha to duly observe the festival as my childhood play. He was kind to me, and I imbibed from him the ideas later on solidified by my spiritual master, the eternal father."
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Very beautifully written.
Gargamuni: Yes, very poetic.
Prabhupāda: That is a fact. I got good father and good spiritual master. That's all.
Hari-śauri: You just bring them out for ārati and then have somebody take them back and they won't get broken. Haṁsadūta was doing that with his mṛdaṅgas.
Akśayananda: I was also doing that.
Hari-śauri: The mṛdaṅgas are in there all day long. Any karmī that comes in, they beat the drum and mess around. The little kids go in and they do the same thing. I've seen them. You should take them out of the temple. Let them be there for kīrtana and then take them away and store them in your room. There's no kartālas now either because everybody steals them.
Prabhupāda: These two rooms can be used for keeping.
Akśayananda: Kartālas are locked away every time and the drums were done... That was done until they were broken.
Hari-śauri: Or you can just put them in that tourist room. Or in the pūjārī room.
Akśayananda: Yeah, I'll arrange for that.
Prabhupāda: Everything depends on organized management.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Preach as much as possible. By saṅkīrtana, big saṅkīrtana. Big saṅkīrtana is book distribution and small saṅkīrtana is with mṛdaṅga. Big saṅkīrtana is going on all over the world. Small saṅkīrtana locally. Overflood the demons' Godless civilization. Our declaration of war against this Godless civilization.
Girirāja: I met a very, very nice boy yesterday. His father is a life member, but he's studying in Boston at MIT.
Prabhupāda: Oh, technology.
Girirāja: Very superexcellent student. But he was so submissive and inquisitive that he could really... And because he lives there...
Prabhupāda: He qualified? No.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Six rupees. And a small mṛdaṅga I gave to my youngest son-three rupees. (laughter) So it is long..., not long ago, say about forty years ago. So it was, smaller, three rupees, and bigger, ten to twelve rupees, like that. So what about your purchasing house?
Bali-mardana: Oh, yes. You are purchasing. I am only the agent. Here is the...
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Bali-mardana: From outside it looks very good. From the inside, it needs a lot of work. That is...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Bali-mardana: It is... And the..., three minutes from the center of the city, and right across the street... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...earning and cow protection. You must do it. The other day I was explaining that not from economic point of view, even the cows do not supply milk, still, they should be protected.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...plastic mṛdaṅga?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Plastic mṛdaṅga. Should we get some? He saw one in London. Do you want us to have plastic mṛdaṅgas for the parikrama?
Prabhupāda: No, just a sample.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīdhara Swami in Hyderabad has one. (break) ...parikrama is successful, we can attempt the Māyāpura parikrama. That will also be very good, Śrīla Prabhupāda. And then, if that is successful, we will do a world parikrama, ISKCON parikrama. That means world parikrama. We will go to all your temples around the world. That may be the sweetest parikrama of all, Śrīla Prabhupāda. (break)
Prabhupāda: I'll take little rest. (break) Makara-dhvaja will give strength. So for passing stool, whatever strength I have got, that will.
| Page Title: | Mrdanga (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Rishab, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 05 of Jun, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=40, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 40 |