Practitioner (Conversations)

Expressions researched:
"practitioner" |"practitioners"

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- July 4, 1972, New York:

Bob Cohen: I received your very kind letter about a week ago.

Prabhupāda: Now, you are very intelligent boy. You can try to understand this philosophy. It is very important. And try to preach. For sense gratification people are wasting so much time, but they do not..., they're not responsible what is going to happen next life. But there is next life. Foolish people, they are ignorant, but there is next life, and this life is preparation for next life. That they do not know. The modern education, universities, they're completely in darkness about this simple knowledge. We are changing body every moment—that's a medical science—and after changing this body, we'll have to accept another body. How we are going to accept that body, what kind of body, this can be also known. Just like one is being educated, when he passes his examination, one can understand that he's going to be engineer or a medical practitioner. Similarly, in this life you can prepare yourself to become something next life.

Bhakti-devī dāsī: Can we decide what we want to be in our next life?

Prabhupāda: Yes, you can decide. Just like we have decided next life we are going to Kṛṣṇa. This is our decision: back to home, back to Godhead. Just like you become educated, after decision that you are going to be engineer, you are going to be medical practitioner, and in that objective you prepare yourself, educate yourself. Similarly, you can decide what you are going to do next life. If you don't decide, then material nature will decide. Just like a boy who is not nicely educated, without any future objective, the government will decide. If he's a criminal, then government will decide, "Go to jail," and if he's nicely educated, the government will decide, "You take this job." So everything is like that. We have got our future life, and if we don't prepare what is that future life, then we are like animals. The animals, they do not know.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- April 29, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That is scientist. But you haven't got that. But why you...? You are punishable. Just like if somebody is not a bona fide medical practitioner, but he gives: "Doctor M.D.," he's punishable. There are so many bogus. They are not detected. But if they are detected, they are punishable. If you say that: "Yes, I am a student, I am not a scientist, I have no full knowledge," that is right. You have no perfect knowledge. Still you say "There is no God." How is that? You have no perfect knowledge. How do you say there is no God. Eh? They say there is no God.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So if they admit they have no perfect knowledge, how they can say there is no God, or there is God? They cannot say.

Morning Walk At Cheviot Hills Golf Course -- May 17, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Activity without knowing the purpose of it, that is struggle for existence. You must know why you are working so hard. What for I shall work? The aim of life is missing. Na te viduḥ. They do not know it. Therefore failure, confusion, hopelessness. All the results of this world, hopelessness. Is it not? What is one... Show one result, that it is very successful, hopeful. Just like, say, moon planet-hopelessness. What is there? They spend so much time and money, but what is this? Hopelessness. They do not know. All scientists are working, all politicians are financing, but result is hopelessness. Is it not? Similarly, everything they are doing, but they are so rascal, they will never admit that "We are failure." Still they will stick, "Yes, we are success... Future, in ten years we shall do it. Never mind." I have seen, one man was condemned to death in Allahabad high-court. So the lawyer was assuring, "Don't be disappointed. I shall get you out by appeal. Don't be disappointed." I have seen it. That lawyer was very big lawyer, an Englishman, Mr. Allston. And one man was condemned to death. He killed his servant very mercilessly. And the case was... He was a doctor, medical practitioner.

Room Conversation with Malcolm -- July 18, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: No. That also... Therefore it is called sādhu-śāstra-guru-vākya. Three things there are for knowledge. Sādhu, saintly person; śāstra, scripture; and guru. So one statement we have to corroborate with other statement. If you accept somebody as guru, then you have to corroborate it whether śāstra says that he is guru or any saintly person says that he is guru. This is the way. Similarly, when you take a scripture, you have to know it from the spiritual master, whether that is actually scripture, whether it is accepted by the saintly person. Sādhu. Similarly sādhu also, whether guru says, "Yes, he is sādhu." Whether śāstra says, "Yes, he is sādhu." There are three things, sādhu-śāstra-guru. So to accept one, you have to take the opinion of the other two. Then you'll get the right way. Just like who is a guru? That is stated in the śāstras. Śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham. Śāstra says, tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet: (MU 1.2.12) "One must approach a guru." Then the same question comes, "Who is guru?" That is also stated, śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham. "He's well-versed in Vedas, knowledge of Vedas, and fully Kṛṣṇa conscious." He is guru. Just like how do you know that here is a medical practitioner? Before going for treatment, you find out. How do you find out?

Room Conversation with Reporter from Researchers Magazine -- July 24, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: So it is the king's duty. Just like the king, it is the government's duty to see that nobody cheats. If a person without any medical qualification, if he writes "Doctor, Medical practitioner," he should be punished. Similarly, if one is claiming to be brāhmaṇa, he must act as brāhmaṇa. If one is claiming to be kṣatriya, he must act as a kṣatriya. Now, what are the qualifications of brāhmaṇa, what are the qualifications of kṣatriya, they are there already in Bhagavad-gītā.

Reporter: Yes, yes, yes.

Room Conversation with Indian Ambassador -- September 5, 1973, Stockholm:

Prabhupāda: But, as, as you find out... Just like you issue license to medical practitioner. Registered medical... Why don't you see that which movement is genuine? That is the duty of the government. But the government is also, they're unaware about which one is actually... (Devotees bring in prasāda.)

Ambassador: Oh, I'm... I'm very grateful to you, but this is, it is a meal.

Paramahaṁsa: Jaya. It is our pleasure.

Prabhupāda: You can keep here.

Ambassador: I'll take the real prasāda. I'll be happy.

Prabhupāda: No, you can take. It is all real prasāda.

Room Conversation -- November 4, 1973, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: There are many instances but this is the injunction of the śāstra. And practically also. Suppose a man is a medical practitioner. He may be born in a brāhmaṇa family or śūdra family. Nobody wants to know to which family he belongs to. If he sees that he is a medical practitioner, he has passed the MD examination and that he is practicing then people accept him as doctor, medical man. Nobody asks him, "Are you a brāhmaṇa, then I make my treatment with you?" Nobody asks that. So, this is śāstric injunction. Then later on this caste brāhmaṇism, śūdraism made the whole thing, whole Hindu culture, Vedic culture spoiled.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 24, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Karma, karmaṇā, by your work. Just like you are working as a medical practitioner. So you earn lakhs of rupees. Give to Kṛṣṇa. That is tam abhyarcya. Then you become perfect. That is also confirmed in Bhāgavata. Ataḥ pumbhir dvija-śreṣṭhāḥ (SB 1.2.13). We have already explained that our karma, according to varṇa and āśrama... Ataḥ pumbhir dvija-śreṣṭhā varṇāśrama-vibhāgaśaḥ. Everyone is working according to varṇa and āśrama. So svanuṣṭhitasya dharmasya. Anyone who is serving according to his dharma, an engineer, a doctor, or somebody else, according to his occupational duty he is serving. But he has to see, svakarmaṇā tam abhyarcya saṁsiddhiṁ labhate. It is Gītā. And it is said, svanuṣṭhitasya dharmasya saṁsiddhiḥ, perfection. What is that? Hari-toṣaṇam.

Morning Walk -- March 31, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: ...life keeps the chemicals together. As soon as the life goes away, the chemicals dissolve.

Prabhupāda: Dissolve, yes. As a medical practitioner, you know. Where is chemical? Where is chemical? That is a fact.

Dr. Patel: Always fact.

Mr. Sar: So still we are researching it.

Prabhupāda: No...

Dr. Patel: There is no research...

Prabhupāda: That is... But when the fact is there, what is the use of your researching? When the fact is already there, what is the use of your so-called researching?

Morning Walk -- April 29, 1974, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Mirzapur is rich people. They have got carpet industry. Mirzapur carpet is very famous. They manufacture and sell big, nice carpets. Just like Persian carpets. So similarly, Mirzapur carpet. Besides that, they have got many other businesses. So it is on the Ganges side and the healthy quarter also. (break) ...still, he is the biggest practitioner in Allahabad. He has offered his house. In old days he constructed it for four lakhs.

Gargamuni: Allahabad is an important place?

Prabhupāda: Oh yes, Allahabad, very important. The UP high-court is there. Therefore all enlightened... University is there. All educated men of UP are in Allahabad. This Jawaharlal Nehru, Motilal Nehru, they were Allahabad men. Sarte(?) Bahadur Satru(?), big, big, well-known men, they are all... Pandita Madana Mohana Mahalabdha.

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: He told me that when he was student, so one professor, Colonel Megar, he described in the classroom—he is Englishman—that "In our country, 75% of the students, they are infected with venereal disease." So Dr. Ghosh as a student, "Oh, it is horrible." So he replied, "Why do you say, 'Horrible'? It is disease. In your country, 90% people are infected with malarial disease. So as a medical practitioner, you should not say that this disease is horrible; that disease is very nice. You cannot say that." That was between them. So this venereal disease, fifty years ago we heard that 75% of students are infected. Now they are advanced; cent percent must be.

Morning Walk -- June 14, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Yes. But gradually they will eat more meat and drink more wine. They, do they follow these principles: no intoxication, no meat, the so-called yoga practitioners?

Paramahaṁsa: Some, some do.

Prabhupāda: So it is not compulsory.

Bhagavān: One thing is, though, that people all over the world have great, great interest in India. They're looking for something in India.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They should because the actual spiritual understanding is there in India.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Devotees -- April 14, 1975, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But that does not mean there will be no disease. That is already being done by many medical practitioners. Better medicine. But where is the medicine that will not be disease.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Gradually we are eliminating one by one all the diseases.

Prabhupāda: No, that you have not done. No disease... You have increased diseases. You have stopped one disease and increased another. Not stopped! But you have increased another disease.

Devotee: We have to learn though how to prevent all these diseases.

Conversation with Governor -- April 20, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No, there is no need. Secular means government's duty is that "You call yourself a Hindu. Whether you are acting as Hindu? You call yourself as Muslim. Whether you are acting as Muslim?" This is government's duty. Government does not say or prefer that "You are Christian. It is not good. You become Hindu." No, that is not government's... You remain your Christian, but government's duty is that whether he is acting as Christian. This is government's duty. Not that you are acting like a something else, and you are calling yourself Christian. You are acting like a śūdra, and you are advertising yourself as a brāhmaṇa. So just like a, what is called, quack. If he writes, "Dr. something," that is punishable. But you are quack. That's all right. You can take a certificate that you have got some experience. The registered medical practitioner, I think that is...

Morning Walk -- May 21, 1975, Melbourne:

Madhudviṣa: ...cannot become a medical practitioner by simply reading the books. He must study under a medical practitioner. So in the case of your books, is it possible to become a devotee without actually having personal association with you? Just by reading your books?

Prabhupāda: No, it is not that you have to associate with the author. But one who knows, if you cannot understand you have to take lesson from him. Not necessarily that you have to contact with the author always.

Room Conversation with Two Lawyers and Guest -- May 22, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: That is not possible. Because there are different grades. But at least one class of men should remain in the society as ideal, God conscious. Just like for our usual life we require lawyers, we require engineer, we require medical practitioner, we require so many, similarly, in the society there must be a class of men who are fully God conscious and ideal. That is necessary. Just like in your body you have got hands, legs, belly, but the head must be there. If your head is cut off, then, despite you have got hands, legs, and belly, it is useless. So this attempt, Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, is an attempt to keep at least one class of men, ideal devotee, ideal character. At least, people will see, "Oh, here is an ideal character." That is required.

Garden Conversation with Professors -- June 24, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That is a different case. For meat-eating a cow should not be killed. This is not very good civilization. If you are..., you must eat meat, then you can kill other animals. They, those who are the kṣatriyas, they were sometimes going to the forest, killing the deer. They are allowed. Because they have to learn how to kill. So by killing animals, they used to practice. Just like doctors, medical practitioners, they first of all ply their knife on the dead body and find out where are the nerves, where are the..., not a living man. When they are fully practiced, then they are allowed to practice surgical operation. Similarly, kṣatriyas are meant for sometimes killing. Just like Arjuna, he's a kṣatriya. So Kṛṣṇa is criticizing him that "You are a kṣatriya. You have learned how to kill, and now you are hesitating? What is the nonsense?" So kṣatriyas are taught. So they have to rule over.

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: Oh. You are medical practitioner? (break) Cooler, cooler nowadays? (break) Then other big, big telescope, how many miles it can see?

Jayatīrtha: You can see millions of miles.

Prabhupāda: How many million? (laughter)

Jayatīrtha: You can see light years away. Many, many, many millions of miles with the big ones.

Prabhupāda: They can see four billion?

Jayatīrtha: Maybe not four billion.

Room Conversation with writer, Sandy Nixon -- July 13, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: Brahmānanda. Who has said that this is caste system? This is not caste system. Cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (BG 4.13). According to quality and according to work, there are four divisions of men. Just like you can understand there are engineers and there are medical practitioners. So do you take them as caste? "Oh, he is engineer caste. He is medical caste." Do you say like that?

Sandy Nixon: I don't want to say what I feel because I'm recording you. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: I'm asking you, I'm asking you...

Sandy Nixon: Well, I think there's always been castes. It's just that we don't recognize the fact that they're there.

Morning Walk -- September 4, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That was begun long ago. For their hospital, formerly... (bell ringing)

Viśāla (in distance): All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda!

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Retired medical practitioners, they used to join. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. But nobody is joining now. What is this?

Viśāla: Tad viddhi praṇipātena... (BG 4.34). (etc.) (end)

Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Blood or skin, the same thing. The same thing. The same thing.

Dr. Patel: All the Aryans have got B blood group in majority of them.

Prabhupāda: Skin comes from the blood. You know better than..., medical practitioner.

Dr. Patel: Skin is nourished by blood. It comes from something else.

Prabhupāda: So that is not the way. When there is symptoms... The symptom is... First symptom is that he must know that he is not body, and he must know what is God. Then it is Aryan civilization.

Dr. Patel: Ātma-niṣṭha and īśvara-niṣṭha.

Prabhupāda: Hm. And yasyātmā-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke, sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). That is animal.

Morning Walk -- December 16, 1975, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: We are manufacturing only for the body, but all these...

Prabhupāda: Nothing you can manufacture, even in the body. You are medical practitioner, hundreds of men you see, different types of body. Is it not? You cannot say that this is the standard." Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgasya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu. The actual disease is the contamination of the guṇa.

Dr. Patel: But they desire the people who are manufacturing for the guṇas only, and not for the soul. That is what I am hinting at.

Prabhupāda: That is another ignorance. That is another ignorance.

Dr. Patel: These fellows... That is what I said. That they are ignorant because they are only doing anything for the body and not for the soul.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 13, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: "...government(?) of postgraduate college..." Oh, O.B.L. Kapoor. (break) "It is an exhaustive plan of original Sanskrit text in Devanāgarī, then a translation, English synonym... What practitioner of philosophy cannot but be attracted to this serious student and scholar of Sanskrit language and Hindu religion and philosophy? The viewpoint of a devotee cum scholar has the advantage of making the philosophy meaningful to any practical-minded person."

Devotees: Jaya.

Rādhāvallabha: Śrīla Prabhupāda, this professor calls you "uncompromising." He said that you are "uncompromising."

Prabhupāda: Hm. That is my philosophy. Read it. Read it somebody.

Room Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That's nice. That is our preaching also.

Richard: That's your goal also. Okay...

Prabhupāda: Just like a student is being trained up in medical college, and when he becomes practitioner, the same thing. There is no change. There is no change.

Richard: Yes, I think you are talking about specific...

Prabhupāda: No, no, this is.... Take Christian religion. So going to the church, it is practicing how to establish relationship with Christ and God. So after death, if he's perfect, he goes back to home, back to Godhead.

Richard: Um hm, right.

Prabhupāda: So this is practice. If one is interested in going back to home, back to Godhead, then this is the only way.

Conversation in Airport and Car -- June 21, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Generally, they are engaged in education.

Hari-śauri: I know in England they all have responsible jobs. Doctors and like that.

Prabhupāda: There are many medical practitioners. I have, I learned that British people, they like Indian physicians.

Hari-śauri: Oh, yes, they're very popular.

Prabhupāda: They have got faith that these people treat carefully. One civil surgeon(?) is a Bengali in London. Civil surgeon(?). You have heard this Aurabindo? His father was a medical practitioner in England, and he was born there.

Hari-śauri: His mother was Indian also or...? No. (break)

Room Conversation -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very good. Then there is a part called "Hare Kṛṣṇa Meditation." "The Hare Kṛṣṇaś practice bhakti, the yoga of devotion. They have their mahāmantra, continual recitation of which will have a meditative effect. By integrating recitation of the mantra with a life of rigidly formulated devotional activities, it would seem that devotees actually live their meditation. Such a life of living meditation is not without parallel in secular fields. It is believed that the spiritual form of alchemy served this purpose; that is, an alchemist repeated the same experimental routine over and over until it became automatized, though still requiring some slight personal involvement." He's getting a little far out here. "It was expected that the result..." Anyway, "...practitioners of Western magical disciplines sought for similar results. Meditation takes effect in terms of the ambiance in which it is practiced. In the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement there are certain to be transcendental experiences. They would be in accord with Vedic teachings, but their exact nature has not proven easy of discovery, since devotees insist that their sole aim in life is to be of service to Kṛṣṇa." We're not interested in experiencing all these special things.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is very nice.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Evening Darsana -- February 15, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. I know. In England they like Indian doctors. And last time, when I was in London, the Civil Surgeon, he was a Bengali. This Aurobindo's father, he was a medical practitioner. Aurobindo was born in London. He was English-born, yes. His father, Dr. Monmohan Ghosh, he was medical man there. So although he was British-born, he became enemy of the British. (drinks medicine?) Very bad medicine. (laughs)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That means good. I know when I was going to get that operation I didn't want to go to America. I would rather have gotten it here, even though the machines may not have been so modern, the fact that the Indian doctors were here was more reassurance than the Americans. They are very...

Prabhupāda: Careless.

Room Conversation with Ram Jethmalani (Parliament Member) -- April 16, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: All right.

Indian man: Dr. Patel and myself, we are friends. I am also practitioner in Delhi. Dr. Ramam.

Prabhupāda: Oh, you are also medical man. Oh. (Hindi conversation) Prasāda-sevā. Not to waste. (Hindi)

Indian man: Of all souls, we are sinners.

Prabhupāda: Why sinners? (Hindi conversation)

Girirāja: Thank you. We will have to meet then.

Evening Darsana -- May 13, 1977, Hrishikesh:

Indian man (1): It is one gentle..., one person. He says, "I am Bengali." And he has got some trouble. He was told that "If you have got any physical trouble, go to the medical practitioners."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Indian man (1): "If you have got any spiritual, then you can stay." He is continuing. That is all.

Prabhupāda: (aside:) Don't talk. Why you are talking? So our real trouble is that we have become conditioned by the material identification, "I am this body." Everyone is thinking, "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am brāhmaṇa," "I am sannyāsī," everything, identification with the body. That is the dirty thing. So one has to purify, that "I am neither American, neither Indian, nor brāhmaṇa, or so many designations." Then it is called cleansing the heart. Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktam (CC Madhya 19.170).

Room Conversation With Dr. Ghosh -- October 16, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: And Kṛṣṇa has made him happy in all respect.

Lokanātha: Yes. He was mentioning to me that.

Prabhupāda: From monetary point of view, from family life, position. He is the biggest medical practitioner in Allahabad. Everyone knows. Even in the street, Dr. Ghosh they know. So take care of him very carefully.

Lokanātha: Yes, we'll take care of him. I'll promise. Actually his daughter was very much reluctant that he should not go or should not go immediately. But he did not hear her. He just decided to go. But I had to promise his daughter that I would take care of him. She was saying that he should not also become patient along with Śrīla Prabhupāda, as he is old and like that. We'll give him good room and nice accommodation.

Prabhupāda: Attendant, whatever he wants.