Go to Vanipedia | Go to Vanisource | Go to Vanimedia


Vaniquotes - the compiled essence of Vedic knowledge


No physician can stop disease. He can suggest, "This is very nice medicine," but my problem is, "Why shall I become diseased?" That is my problem

Expressions researched:
"No physician can stop disease. He can suggest" |"This is very nice medicine" |"but my problem is" |"Why shall I become diseased" |"That is my problem"

Conversations and Morning Walks

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

No. Even that. No physician can stop disease. He can suggest, "This is very nice medicine," but my problem is, "Why shall I become diseased?" That is my problem.

Prabhupāda: What medical science? Can they stop disease? What is the value? If they can stop disease then I can accept that they know something. What is their . . .

Śyāmasundara: In India the doctors, simply by feeling your pulse they know everything that's wrong with you.

Prabhupāda: No. Even that. No physician can stop disease. He can suggest, "This is very nice medicine," but my problem is, "Why shall I become diseased?" That is my problem.

Ian Polsen: They only treat the symptoms, not the cause.

Prabhupāda: Huh? Well, you can give me some medicine; for the time being I am cured and again I fall diseased. You cannot stop disease. Suppose you have got a very nice coat. That's all right. But one has got not so nice coat, so what is the difference?

Śyāmasundara: Coat.

Prabhupāda: Coat, yes. So this so-called scientific improvement, nice medicine . . . nice medicine or not nice medicine, what is the difference? I fall . . . I become diseased. You cannot stop disease. Therefore Bhagavad-gītā says, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9). You may think that "I have overcome so many distresses," but real distress is birth, death, old age and disease. What you have done for that?

Ian Polsen: That's true.

Indian: That's the hardest part of the whole . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Just like your British Empire. You are British?

Ian Polsen: Yes.

Prabhupāda: British Empire, when there was British Empire, when they were getting money from all parts of the world, some way or other they constructed so many big, big buildings. Now their income is not so big, and now it is difficult to maintain it. We can see practically that you have got so nice buildings in London, but it is not being properly maintained. You haven't got sufficient means now to maintain them. Therefore it was . . . British Empire was for the time being that prosperity. Now to keep up your prestige you are concerned in so many ways.

So anything you do in this material world, that is temporary. So many Roman Empire, Moghul Empire, British Empire, Hitler Empire—they came and gone. But my real problem is that I am eternal, so what I am doing for my eternal life? That is real.

Temporarily I may become very rich or poor; it doesn't matter. But people are being taught, "Oh, you are poor? You become rich." That's all. Just like our India trying to imitate the Western world. But they do not see that in the Western world, in America, in Europe, why these young boys, they are rejecting this materialistic way of life? These boys have come to me because they have rejected. They don't like. Just like you are coming. Why you are surrendering to me? Because you are not satisfied.

So our Indians, they do not see that, "These men, they . . . they have already everything. Why they are rejecting it?" All facility. Because this will not give us real happiness. We are spirit soul. We cannot be happy simply by material opulence. That is not possible. This is Vedic civilization: how people will be happy. They can be happy simply by self-realization, spiritual realization, because he is spirit. Material advancement will never make us happy. That's a fact. People have not become happy.

In India they say that we neglected this material side therefore. But actually that's not the fact. They have lost their own spiritual culture; therefore they are not . . . but still, whatever little spiritual culture they have got, still they are happier than others, if I make comparative study. In India still in village you'll find a man of practically no income, but he has got his happy home, good wife, a cottage, little bread, but he is happy.

You see? Here I see they have no home, no family life. Even ordinary necessities of life—means eating, sleeping, sex life and defense . . . they have no fixed-up eating. In America, in the Bowery street, lying down on the street, drinking. You see? So many. Here also in your country, day and night. In India they are lying, suppose they are poverty stricken, lying on the street. Now why you are lying on the street? When I go to the park I see so many there.

Our philosophy is that there is no necessity of wasting time for economic development. Be satisfied whatever Kṛṣṇa has given you. That's all right. Be satisfied according to your position, save time, and be Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is the verdict of the śāstra. Because your happiness and distress is already fixed up. According to the body you have got it. You cannot change that.

Page Title:No physician can stop disease. He can suggest, "This is very nice medicine," but my problem is, "Why shall I become diseased?" That is my problem
Compiler:SharmisthaK
Created:2022-08-20, 13:09:36
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=1, Let=0
No. of Quotes:1