Original culture

Expressions researched:
"original culture"

SB Canto 4

SB 4.21.27, Purport:

At the present moment, although the so-called brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas and śūdras have lost their original culture, they claim to be brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas and śūdras by birthright. Yet they have rejected the proposition that such social and spiritual orders are especially meant for worship of Lord Viṣṇu.

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Lecture on BG 9.26-27 -- New York, December 16, 1966:

You see, in the Hindu society since a very long time, especially since the days of India's destruction of the original culture, so many offshoots they have come out under the name of so many isms. So there is one section who are called Arya-samajists. Their business is only to criticize all the scriptures. That is their business.

Lecture on BG 13.3 -- Bombay, September 26, 1973:

Therefore India's position is now chaos and confusion because we have lost this Vedic civilization, we have lost Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we have lost God consciousness. We are being directed by the whims. So it is very lamentable condition of India, although this Kṛṣṇa consciousness is India's original culture, Kṛṣṇa culture. Kṛṣṇa appeared on this land. Although Kṛṣṇa is not for any particular land, but still, Kṛṣṇa appeared in this holy land of Bhāratavarṣa, Mathurā.

Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures

Lecture on SB 6.1.6 -- Bombay, November 6, 1970:

So the Jawaharlal Nehru, in order to become prime minister, he committed such a blunder. Therefore India is given... Still, if they keep to their original culture, they will not be unhappy. And you find in every city some such institution as this Gītā Bhavan, in every city you'll find. People are contributing. They are coming.

Lecture on SB 7.12.3 -- Bombay, April 14, 1976:

So that is India's position now. They do not care for their original culture. They are after money. You teach them something to earn money. Therefore they are after technology. This is not experience in India. In U.S. also, many Indian students question me. Long ago, when I was speaking in the Berkeley University, one Indian student came forward and he said, "Swamijī, what this Hare Kṛṣṇa will do? We have to learn now technology." He said. So this is India's mentality at the present moment, that they are not very much interested in the spiritual advancement of life.

Festival Lectures

His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Prabhupada's Appearance Day, Evening -- Gorakhpur, February 15, 1971:

So my Guru Mahārāja's desire and Caitanya Mahāprabhu's prediction is now being fulfilled. At least, it has begun to be fulfilled. So it is a genuine movement, authorized movement, and India's original culture. So our appeal to the Indian people, that "You should take seriously about this movement and try to cooperate with us." That will be glorification for Indian culture.

Arrival Addresses and Talks

Arrival Lecture -- Calcutta, March 20, 1975:

So time is very bad at the present moment everywhere, especially in India. Of course, India's original culture is all right. But unfortunately, our modern leaders, they are killing the original culture. They want to introduce Western culture. Now it is openly there are beef shop, wine shop. So what can be done? It is Kali-yuga. Everything is possible.

General Lectures

Lecture on Maha-mantra -- New York, September 8, 1966:

Formerly, any big man, any big scholar, they would be big scholar in Sanskrit. Sanskrit was the written language. Even in the beginning of the British period, Sanskrit was written language. It is the policy of Lord McCauley that he transformed the whole attitude. They made a plan that "If Indians remain as Indian, then we cannot rule over. Then we cannot rule over. We must make them Anglicized." So that policy was followed for two hundred years, so India has lost its original culture.

Speech to Indian Audience -- Montreal, July 28, 1968:

Unfortunately, the present policy is that students are being taught to forget their old Vedic culture and try to imitate the Westernized way of life, industrial life, technical life. That is being encouraged. But here I find that the young men and young girls and boys, both, they are very much interested about Indian original culture of spiritual life.

Lecture -- Bombay, March 18, 1972:

Unfortunately, we Indian people, we are rejecting. That is our misfortune. Our misfortune is, as it is said, (Hindi). We have kicked out our own culture; now we are trying to develop another culture from other spheres of the world. So you can do that—there is no objection—but don't forget your original culture, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, which was taught by Kṛṣṇa Himself five thousand years ago in the Bhagavad-gītā, man-manā bhava mad-bhakta mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru: "Always think of Me, always worship Me, always offer your respect unto Me, then you will come back to home, back to Godhead."

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Interview -- September 24, 1968, Seattle:

Prabhupāda: In India, due to her long subjugation by the foreigners, practically the so-called educated persons, they have lost their original culture. Rather, those who are not so-called educated, following the traditional rules and regulations, they are more Kṛṣṇa conscious. And the educated circle, they are thinking that this religious temperament is the cause of India's economic fall-down.

Interview -- September 24, 1968, Seattle:

Prabhupāda: So the policy followed by India now, that is, to imitate the Western way of life, is not very happy mood. This means they have lost their original culture. And so far Western countries are concerned, I think they have sufficient arrangement for material comforts. Now they can very easily take up this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement because they have no disturbance for material hankering. And I think it is the time for them to accept this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement to make them perfectly well.

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Darsana -- June 28, 1971, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: In India we have got many things to do. Because the business in India is important in this respect, that partly due to their subjugation by foreigners, their original culture has been killed. Just like in India, they did not know drinking tea, drinking wine, meat-eating, illicit sex. They did not know. Even fifty, a hundred years before, they did not know. These Britishers, in order to control them, very silently introduced all these things.

Darsana -- June 28, 1971, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: So at the present moment there is great propaganda from the side of the government and others to kill India's original culture. So when Americans go there and preach and they see, "Oh, so nice Vaiṣṇava, so nice devotee and so pure," they will become attracted, because that is their original culture. At heart they want to do that, but by artificial means they are being forced to accept something else.

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:

Devotee: But the British systematically broke it down.

Prabhupāda: Because Lord Macauley(?) gave them in this study, they said that if you keep the Indians in their original culture, then they cannot be broken. Gandhi took that state: noncooperation. Don't cooperate with them. And then kill them.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- November 2, 1973, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: No. Yes, flatter that "You can say that you'll be glorified when India will be glorified. So this culture will glorify India."

Śyāmasundara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: "And Prabhupāda has introduced."

Śyāmasundara: It is now already...

Prabhupāda: "So you should cooperate with us."

Śyāmasundara: Yeah.

Prabhupāda: "This is India's original culture, Kṛṣṇa culture." And ninety-percent of the people, they are Kṛṣṇa devotees, of India. There is no doubt about it.

Room Conversation -- November 2, 1973, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: No, this Bhagavad-gītā contains everything—politics, sociology, religion, philosophy. So this culture should be spread; this India's culture, original culture, should be spread. And we are endeavoring that. And it is becoming successful.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Guest (1): At this time I think India itself needs as much as spiritual needs.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest (1): We are as much backwards as anybody else in the world, probably more so.

Prabhupāda: Because we have lost our original culture and we could not take the Western culture. So we are in the wilderness.

Guest (1): Because here the average man takes more interest.

Prabhupāda: Because they are fed up.

Guest (1): Whereas in India the average man doesn't even take interest.

Prabhupāda: No, he knows, "What is this Hare Kṛṣṇa? We know it, now reject it."

Radio Interview -- May 25, 1975, Fiji:

Interviewer: Why did you choose to go to America and propagate the teachings of Lord Kṛṣṇa in a western country?

Prabhupāda: Because Indian people, being subjugated for at least one thousand years, they have lost their original culture. And, being poverty-stricken, they are simply after money, by hook and crook. So in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānāṁ tayā apahṛta-cetasām (BG 2.44). Persons who have lost their consciousness on account of being too much attached to material enjoyment, they cannot understand Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So I thought that America, they have enjoyed enough of this material happiness, money and women, and they are now becoming disappointed. So they are at least on the platform of renunciation. They don't want any more like their fathers and grandfathers.

Morning Walk -- May 28, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...fallen from their original culture. Still, we have seen, as soon as there is Kṛṣṇa conscious festival, thousands and thousands of men... That we have experienced.

Gurukṛpa: But in India it seems that no matter what you tell them, they don't change their ways. They have their...

Prabhupāda: No, they believe in Kṛṣṇa, "He is God." Vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti (BG 7.19). That they believe in.

Śrutakīrti: But that's what the Christians say. "We believe in Christ," but they don't follow.

Prabhupāda: They follow Him. In India they still. Majority follow. The non-followers are minority.

Morning Walk -- Durban, October 13, 1975 :

Prabhupāda: Just like Jawaharlal Nehru. He became a first-class victim.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: First-class?

Prabhupāda: Victim of European propaganda. He used to take "Anything Indian, bad. Anything Indian, bad." Not only he. Later on, all the so-called educated persons, they took it for granted that "Whatever is done in London, that is first-class, and whatever is Indian original, that is all bad." And they controlled the native princes. So many things. It is a big history, how they killed India's original culture. And then Hindu-Muslim riots, friction, fighting between Hindus and Muslims and dividing them.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: No. During British period, high British officers, big, big managers, they liked Indians with original culture. They did not like any Indian with European imitation-pants, coats. They didn't like these imitations. My Godbrother, that German, Sadānanda.... You have heard his name or you have seen him?

Jagadīśa: No.

Prabhupāda: When he came to India, he was my intimate friend. So he was telling me that "In our country, when some Indian student comes, especially while returning home after their education, they stop for some time in Germany, we used to inquire from him how much he is aware of his Indian original culture." Because they have got very good respect. All over the world they have got. Even Russia. They have got good respect for Indian culture. They have liked our books only on account of the..., because the Sanskrit verses are there. They took it, "Oh, it is original." Scholarly people like our book on that account, because we explain original Sanskrit verse. That they have got very good regard, that there is knowledge.

Conversation at House of Ksirodakasayi dasa -- July 25, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: You must be very serious, especially those who are Indians. They should take it very seriously. Because this Kṛṣṇa culture, Bhagavad-gītā, was spoken in the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra in India, and we Indians, we do not take full advantage of this great transcendental knowledge, then you are committing suicide. So my request is, all the Indians who are here in this foreign country, keep your own original culture. Don't forget. Don't be bewildered. Be in your position.

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

Hari-śauri: People in Thailand are quite pious.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They are Indian culture. Their original culture is Indian. It is called Siam. (pronounces like Śyāma) Kṛṣṇa's name. And they have got the airplane, Garuḍa.

Hari-śauri: Yes. Garuḍa Airlines.

Prabhupāda: So they are devotees originally, all Kṛṣṇa devotees.

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

Hari-śauri: Still, we still met a lot of people in India who are actually following the regulative principles just as a matter of social training. But they're becoming very few now.

Prabhupāda: In, actually, in Bengal, Bengal has lost its original culture. In other provinces the brāhmaṇa class, they are keeping very strictly the original culture. Even a brāhmaṇa would not accept foodstuff prepared by his wife, because woman is considered śūdra. The woman, when she becomes the wife of a brāhmaṇa, then she is called brāhmaṇī, but she's not offered brahminical culture. She remains as śūdra. So therefore a strict brāhmaṇa does not accept foodstuff prepared by his wife.

Room Conversation -- September 16, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: ...educated persons they lost. And the mass of people, they were not educated. They have not lost, but they don't find any good example by the leaders.

Haṁsadūta: No encouragement.

Prabhupāda: No encouragement. They are simply staying somehow or other in their original culture, but there is no encouragement by the leaders. But the leaders have lost. This is the position.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Letter to Russian -- January 5, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: "Easy Journey to Other Planets. So this is a different culture, how to go to other planetary system, how to transfer the soul from one body to another. In other planets there are also living entities. One can transfer himself, after giving up this body, to anywhere he likes without any help of the sputnik, and without the help of the sputnik or any flying machine. This is the mystic system unknown to the world, but it is authorized in the Vedas, original culture of the human civilization."

Hari-śauri: It's on the tape. I'm recording it too.

Evening Darsana -- January 7, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: This is the real culture, original culture of India, and they are accepting it. Why not government come to my help? Without any help I am doing so much.

Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:

Rāmeśvara: This is something that has been constant for many hundreds of years, the idea that a man is learned when he is well-learned, when he is educated in many different fields-literature, art, music.

Prabhupāda: That does not mean the original culture will be lost. That is not culture.

Conversation Pieces -- May 27, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Indian, the worst government and everything is crippled, crippled. People are hampered. And the government servant, they're simply wasting time and drawing big, big salary. This is India. Very precarious condition. Fighting, party, that party, that party. Because India's original culture is very, very strong, despite all these disadvantages, they are still standing, mass of people. Otherwise India's government is worthless.

1947 to 1965 Correspondence

Letter to Scindia Steam Navigation Company Ltd -- Delhi 31 March, 1961:

I shall therefore request you to give me full concession for going and coming back from Japan. India has to teach the world for cultivating human spirit and we are meant for this purpose. Please therefore cooperate with us broadcasting the message of cultivating human spirit and increase India's original culture of spiritual value for which counties outside India are always eager to have it.

1966 Correspondence

Letter to Ministry of Finance (India) -- New York 28 May, 1966:

So this is a cultural mission for enlightenment of the entire human society and New York is the best centre for distributing such cultural knowledge because it is the Head Quarter of the United Nations. We shall erect such a nice cultural Hall and Temple and everything is ready at this opportune moment. Kindly therefore give your sanction for this noble and sublime activities of Indian original culture still going strong.

1967 Correspondence

Letter to Janaki and others -- New York 10 April, 1967:

On my arrival here I was received by hundreds of devotees and friends although Mr. Ginsberg was out of the town. One young professor from India first greeted me and told me that Swamiji you are doing here real work whereas others who have come from India, have simply formed some groups of old lady students without any real information of Indian original culture.

1968 Correspondence

Letter to Sivananda -- San Francisco 14 September, 1968:

You know that I have got already one German God-brother, and he has influenced another German scholar, Vamana dasa, who has written a very nice book on Lord Caitanya, in German. So in that great country, people are very much interested with India's original spiritual and cultural life, and Krishna Consciousness is the most perfect order of such cultural understanding in India. Lord Caitanya is the symbol of India's original culture, and perfect Scholar for exposition of India's philosophical thoughts, based on the Vedic knowledge.

Letter to Rayarama -- Seattle 15 October, 1968:

Your idea of issuing a special issue concerning the Varnasrama dharma, and Gandhi's movement; it is very good idea. And actually India's position is now degraded; it is not advancing. They have lost their original culture, and now they are begging from outside. So actually they have not gained by sacrificing their original culture. Of course, this superficial loss of original culture is visible only to the so-called educated person at the present moment, and they have become befooled as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gita: Mayaya Prihatajnana, their knowledge has been taken away.

1970 Correspondence

Letter to Tamala Krsna -- Los Angeles 27 May, 1970:

So far the proposal of the Karachi Gujarat Hindu Union and the Brahma Samaj to take our devotees to Africa, if they give return fare we will go to Africa, but I am not very much hopeful of the Indians there. They may be of the same type as they are in England. The difficulty with the Indians is that they are under the impression that they know everything and they have not got to learn anything from us, but factually most of them have lost their original culture and they have to learn so many things from this Krsna Consciousness Movement.

Letter to Nirmal Babu -- Los Angeles 24 June, 1970:

Krsna Consciousness Movement is India's original culture. Why the Government should not help in spreading this culture while they are eager to receive it? I hope you will kindly think over this matter and help me.

Letter to Nirmal Babu -- Los Angeles 9 July, 1970:

I am very much glad to know that you have recovered from an attack of cerebral thrombosis but the grace of Lord Krsna. I shall always pray for your good health and prolonged life because at the present moment you are the only hope to us in the matter of spreading India's original culture, Krsna consciousness.

1975 Correspondence

Letter to Tulsi -- Bombay 18 December, 1975:

I can understand from your letter that you are very intelligent. Generally India people are not taking up this movement, although it is their original culture, they are now in favor of economic development and technological advancement which can never do any good to the people in general, neither material nor spiritual.

1976 Correspondence

Letter to Giriraja -- New Vrindaban 30 June, 1976:

Concerning our proposal to be presented to the Parliament, anyone coming from ISKCON should be given permanent residence. India's original culture and religion is being spread all over the world, and out of their religious feeling if they come to stay in Vrindaban especially, why the government should harass them.

Letter to Gaura Govinda -- Vrindaban 18 September, 1976:

In answer to your question as to why the Indian population is so slack in spiritual life: during the British rule there was a secret policy by the British to cut down the Vedic civilization in India. There was a confidential policy by the British government to kill India's original culture and everything Indian was condemned. From the very beginning they took this position. In our childhood and boyhood we had to read some book by a Mr. Ghose called, "England's Work in India". The purport was that we are uncivilized and the British had come to make us civilized. Later on the policy became successful because in our childhood days any anglicised gentleman was considered to be advanced in civilization.

Letter to Gaura Govinda -- Vrindaban 18 September, 1976:

So it is a long process how Indians, especially educated Indians, have become victimized by the slowly deteriorating position of Indian culture, but there is no use tracing out the history but generally we have lost our own culture and our leaders are not very serious to revive our own culture to the point. But still the mass of people, not being very much advanced in education, stick to the Indian culture. For example, lakhs of people still visit Jagannatha Puri during the Rathayatra Festival, lakhs still visit the Kumbha mela, and lakhs still visit the holy places of India, but there is no encouragement by the leaders. It is only a continuation of the original culture.