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One is indulging in intoxication. He may say that "I am very pure." But how one can become pure, he's addicted to intoxicants?

Expressions researched:
"one is indulging in intoxication. He may say that"

Conversations and Morning Walks

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

One is indulging in intoxication. He may say that "I am very pure." But how one can become pure, he's addicted to intoxicants? So I heard from one of my disciples that there is a hospital in U.S.A., and five thousand priests are there for curing their intoxication habit. Do you know that?
Room Conversation with Father Tanner and other guests -- July 11, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Well, hypocrisy and other things, they are subsidiary. If one is pure from the very beginning, then there is no chance of becoming hypocrite. Why he should be hypocrite? If he is open, clear, why one should become hypocrite? Hypocrisy, when there is sinful activity, then hypocrisy. If there is no sin, where is the possibility of hypocrisy? A sinful man may pose himself a religious man. That is hypocrisy. But if there is no sin, then where is hypocrisy?

Father Tanner: What I didn't understand is how this is covered by your four pillars, the four...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Father Tanner: Which of these would cover lying?

Prabhupāda: Lying?

Father Tanner: Yes, telling lies.

Prabhupāda: That I have already explained.

Father Tanner: Yes. But which of those four pillars...?

Prabhupāda: All of them. All of them. Just like one is indulging in intoxication. He may say that "I am very pure." But how one can become pure, he's addicted to intoxicants? So I heard from one of my disciples that there is a hospital in U.S.A., and five thousand priests are there for curing their intoxication habit. Do you know that?

Father Tanner: I didn't know that number, but I know that there are hospitals and sanatoriums...

Prabhupāda: So if the priest is going to hospital for curing his intoxication habit, he's hypocrite.

Father Tanner: He would admit that,...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Father Tanner: ...wouldn't he? I mean, the priest himself.

Prabhupāda: How a priest can be intoxicants?

Father Tanner: He would say, wouldn't he, that was just his weakness.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Father Tanner: He would say it was his weakness.

Prabhupāda: Weakness is hypocrisy. If you are weak, you cannot become priest. Because you are teacher, religious teacher. You should not take that post. That is hypocrisy.

Father Tanner: But perhaps this is the difference, or one of the differences between western and eastern civilization...

Prabhupāda: No, it is not the question of eastern or western...

Father Tanner: But in the East, your wise man is nearly always an elderly man.

Prabhupāda: Not always.

Father Tanner: Not always.

Prabhupāda: Not always.

Father Tanner: But in the West, you know, your priest is generally made a priest in his early twenties. Then he has thrust upon him the role of the wise man, which he doesn't always seek.

Prabhupāda: Just like these boys, they are very young, twenties, between twenty to thirty. So they are made here brahmacārī, and some of them are sannyāsī, but they are strictly following these principles. Because they are young men, there cannot be any concession that he can become intoxicants, he can indulge in meat-eating. No.

Father Tanner: But would you think of a young man as wise man? Isn't it normal that a young man is working his way towards wisdom?

Prabhupāda: The wise man becomes by knowledge, not by age. Even an old man, if he has no knowledge, what is...? He is not wise man. Wise means one who has attained knowledge. He may be young, he may be old. It doesn't matter. Vidyatvaṁ vayasā vinā. In Sanskrit word, that one becomes elderly without being advanced in age. That means he knows the knowledge. Therefore he is elderly. An elderly person means advanced in knowledge, not by age.

Page Title:One is indulging in intoxication. He may say that "I am very pure." But how one can become pure, he's addicted to intoxicants?
Compiler:Krsnadas
Created:20 of Nov, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=1, Let=0
No. of Quotes:1