Sitting place (Conversations)

Expressions researched:
"sit down any place" |"sit in a solitary place" |"sit in one place" |"sitting and place" |"sitting in a solitary place" |"sitting in one place" |"sitting in some place" |"sitting one place" |"sitting place" |"sitting places"

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Discussion with BTG Staff -- December 24, 1969, Boston:

Pradyumna: 260, out of 574, done.

Jayadvaita: Almost half the book.

Pradyumna: But it's going pretty fast.

Hayagrīva: You want me to do Nectar of Devotion and then Kṛṣṇa and then Bhagavad-gītā, in that order?

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.

Satsvarūpa: Jadurānī asks are they going too slow? She wants to know are they going too slow. They have thirty pictures ready.

Prabhupāda: One thing, that Jadurānī should have some assistants. She alone cannot do that.

Satsvarūpa: Well, Prabhupāda, you used that word once before, assistant. So then when Jāhnavā saw that letter she said, "That means I should paint." So all that assistant meant was that they all painted. And Śāradīyā began to paint. I don't know what you mean by assistant.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- December 2, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Why changed? Suppose if I sit from this chair to this chair, why I am changed? I can change my seat. It does not mean that I am changed.

Karandhara: Change the heart also. The heart can change.

Prabhupāda: The heart is seat, sitting place.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But the new heart had spirit soul from the new one.

Prabhupāda: Spirit soul, new or old there is. But if you can prove by changing the heart you can increase the duration of life, then you can catch the spirit soul.

Karandhara: That they're not able to do.

Prabhupāda: That is their nonsense.

Bali Mardana: None of them have lived very long.

Prabhupāda: No, they cannot be. Because by karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa (SB 3.31.1), by superior arrangement, karmaṇā, you have got this body. So you have to live within this body certain age. So if you change the body, new, that doesn't mean you prolong your life. That is not possible. It is the duration of life, that is considered. They are thinking by changing the heart they will increase the duration of life. That is not possible.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So it is some sort of artificial transmigration?

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- April 13, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Ah, hita-kārtṛkā(?) (break) ...vacate his chair to receive a brāhmaṇa, a purohita. Just like Sudāmā Vipra went Dvārakā. He was poor man, but he was brāhmaṇa. Immediately Kṛṣṇa left His, offered His chair. Yes. And Rukmiṇī began to fan him. So much respect. Where is that respectful person? (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Girirāja: He received Gargamuni with the feeling of one who is worshiping God or the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He offered him a nice sitting place and when he sat down Nanda Mahārāja offered him a warm reception."

Prabhupāda: (break) ...presence of a brāhmaṇa, of a sannyāsī, in the household, in the house of a householder, means to enlighten. Mahad-vicalanaṁ nṛnām gṛhinām gṛhacet dīna-cetasām. The gṛhasthas, they are very cripple-minded. They are satisfied with the family, and they do not know that anything else to do. Therefore it is the duty of the sannyāsī and the brāhmaṇas to go to the householder's home and enlighten them spiritually. Therefore purohita. Go on. (break) ...pura. Purasara means "in the front", and hita means welfare. So one who conducts welfare of the householder. Guru-purohita. Every family must have guru and purohita for spiritual advancement. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya.

Indian Man (1): For all the vices...

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break)

Girirāja: "In household duties and are forgetting our real duty of self-realization." (break)

Room Conversation with Prof. Regamay, Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Lausanne -- June 4, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: Yes, and the grains are put within it and they are all smashed. But one grain who takes shelter of the center, the pivot, it is not smashed. Similarly the modern civilization is such that everyone will be smashed. And one takes the central point shelter, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he will not be. Kaunteya pratijānīhi na me bhaktaḥ praṇaśyati (BG 9.31). So best thing is to take shelter of Kṛṣṇa and save yourself. Save means... This is saving, if you simply understand Kṛṣṇa. Janma karma... Kṛṣṇa appears, disappears. Kṛṣṇa works here also, in the battlefield or in other field. Kṛṣṇa has a whole activity. You study Kṛṣṇa Book, beginning from the birth up to the point of His leaving this world. Full of activities. Not that because He is God, He is sitting one place. No. Full of activities in all different spheres of life. Art, philosophy, politics, sociology, military arts—everything complete. That is Kṛṣṇa.

Prof. Regamay: Yes, of course.

Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa. If He would have appeared as Viṣṇu with four-handed, then He had to take only worship. That's all. No other activity. Therefore He appeared with two hands like human being. Avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam (BG 9.11). So simply if we understand what are the activities of Kṛṣṇa, then we become eligible to go back to home, back to Godhead. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar. We are teaching that thing, "You try to understand Kṛṣṇa and all problems of life solved. You go back to home, back to Godhead."

Prof. Regamay: Everything is done by Kṛṣṇa, and we are only the tools for Him.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: No, no. Here it is? No.

Guru kṛpā: No, no, this isn't it. This is a very likely place for them to drop their bombs. There's too many marine bases.

Prabhupāda: Where is a sitting place? (break) ...introduce that "Why you are, rascal, you are introducing all this nonsense?" Let them read this. They will become human being. That is the business of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. They are reading only all rubbish things and becoming rubbish. Let them read these books, and their human life will be perfect. Na yad vacaś citra-padaṁ harer yaśaḥ: (SB 1.5.10) "The literature which does not give information of the glories of the Lord," tad vāyasaṁ tīrtham, "it is just like the pleasure place of the crows." So these books are meant for the crows, without any right information, without any God's information. Tad vāyasaṁ tīrtham uśanti mānasāḥ. The swans will not come there. The pleasure place of the crows is not meant for the swans. They have got different place. Our books are meant for swans, and all these literatures are meant for the crows.

Guru kṛpā: The trouble is is that even if we explain these things to most people, factually their only interest is how they can eat, and how they can gratify their senses, and they take these other scientists up as the extracurricular...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore it is said, bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānāṁ tayāpahṛta-cetasām (BG 2.44). "Those who have lost their identity, being captivated by bhoga and aiśvarya, they cannot understand." Bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānām. Māyā-sukhāya bharam udvahataḥ. For slight, so-called happiness they are making big, big problems (projects?). Māyā... bharam. Bharam means big, big problems. (projects?). And sometimes they put forward their whim (?) for the next generation. Now, if Darwin's theory accepted, the monkeys never thought of the next generation, so how you have got this consciousness(?)? Why you are thinking of your next generation? What is the argument? The monkey cannot think that Mr. Nixon will come, become president of this or that, U.S.A. So how he became president without your thinking of the, your forefathers, monkeys? So why you are thinking of your generation? Your forefathers did not.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Something must be given.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, if we get a good cook like Shantilal and he can cook hundreds of kachori and we can sell, and then the next room have one men who serves them prasādam, everyone will come to take prasādam.

Prabhupāda: Keep nice water, sitting place. They will take.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What kind of sitting place? On the floor with mats, or benches and tables?

Prabhupāda: Benches, table will be nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Better. Like in a South Indian house. The South Indian restaurants, they have those... Of course, those are fancy, like in Vṛndāvana. In the South Indian restaurant they always have a table with marble top. Then they put a leaf on it. Very nice.

Harikeśa: There is room down there. That big room can be used as like a restaurant.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Where?

Harikeśa: The next floor down on the end, where they sometimes have class.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, Prabhupāda wants it up there where they sell the prasādam.

Bhavānanda: They will buy in some leaf cup and go next door and have a place to sit down and take it, and then water to wash their... Actually there's a pump. Everything is right there.

Prabhupāda: You will find such confectioner's shop, sitting place and eating.

Room Conversation -- April 20, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: The same constitution of the body. Otherwise there is no question of heart.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: You've just challenged the whole field of biology also.

Prabhupāda: Then what is the.... I say they're nonsense, rascals. They say that there is no.... And what is their knowledge? We don't give any value to their knowledge. Kṛṣṇa says clearly, hṛd-deśe 'rjuna. And this body is just like a yantra, machine. So as machine means, moving machine means it must have wheel, it must have sitting place.... Everything is there, machine.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That would mean that even the plants and trees also have a heart.

Prabhupāda: Everything. That is proved scientifically. Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose has proved. There is a part(?). What is that? Spi...? Begins the word, the machine, the record?

Devotee (2): Spirograph.

Prabhupāda: Yes, the word begins with s. Spirograph or like that. You do not know? They smear with black, what is called, carbon, and the fine...

Devotee 2: Cardiograph.

Prabhupāda: Cardiograph, like that.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Cardiograph.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Sensation.

Evening Darsana -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: They should be trained up. Therefore Vedic civilization is training. Some section of the people, they should be very intellectuals, brain, just like to maintain this body we require first of all the brain. If the brain is not order, then other parts, they may be there, but they are also useless. So similarly, in the society, some intellectuals should be maintained. They are called brāhmaṇas, and some of the brāhmaṇas, they are sannyāsīs. They are simply meant for giving good instruction. They should personally become very good and intellectual, and they should give instruction to other people what is the value of life, how to live. This is one section. They should be free from the anxiety of maintaining themselves. The society should treat them as children and give them all necessities, bare necessities, not they are meant for living very luxuriously. No. Simple living. Then the next class, kṣatriyas, the politicians, administrators, they are also required to give protection to the people from injury. Kṣatriya, kṣat means injury, and trāyate, "one who saves people from injury." It is kṣatriya's duty. So kṣatriya should protect all the living entities, including the animals. They are also subjects. So the first, intellectual brāhmaṇas, then kṣatriya. Then vaiśyas, their business is to produce food. Food production you can do by agriculture, kṛṣi, and by giving protection to the cows. If you get sufficient food grains, like rice, wheat, pulses, and sufficient milk—from milk you get yogurt, butter, ghee—then your all food problem is solved. You must eat. You must eat, you must live properly. So this first, second, third, the intellectual class, the administrative class, and the productive class, these three classes must be there in the society. And those who cannot be grouped either of these three classes, they should generally help as workers. They are called śūdras. So the workers means... Suppose you require a sitting place: the carpenter is there. Suppose you require a knife: so the blacksmith is there. You require clothing: the weaver is there. In this way, four classes of men. First class, second class, third class, or the intellectuals, the administrators, the producers and the general workers. This is Vedic system of division. Brāhmaṇa...

Room Conversation -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: To the right, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Hari-śauri: (to devotee:) I have to set up for massage. You can do the machine? It's recording now.

Prabhupāda: Very nice sitting place.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Above all the noise in New York City, too.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa;: It's not so noisy up here.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Pālikā wants to ask you something.

Pālikā: Would you like to take fruit now, or prasādam as regular?

Prabhupāda: No, no, I have taken breakfast. So Bali-mardana Prabhu, doing all right?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Those are your servants' quarters, and the kitchen, and there's also a dresser in your bedroom.

Prabhupāda: There is any closet with lock?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes. This closet here is a walk-in closet. Small room with a lock. You also have a cabinet that locks. It's a big walk-in closet.

Prabhupāda: Oh, that's nice. So I shall again stay in New York? Nice place.

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Do that.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What do you think?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Preaching is required, here or there.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You once said, "A good businessman, if he knows how to do it, he can make more money sitting in one place..."

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. Money is not our aim. Our aim is how people will understand Kṛṣṇa.

Bali-mardana: He is just using that as an analogy for preaching.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That if you have a good place, many people can be attracted, as many as moving around to many places.

Prabhupāda: My Guru Mahārāja was in favor of preaching in the city because you can get many men.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But do you think I should travel a lot, or what is the best thing?

Prabhupāda: Both things should be done.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Both. So if you... We were hoping that you could give us another chance by coming back next year.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, I'll come.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But you do say that to a lot of different temples, but we will try to make this doubly big.

Prabhupāda: Always, so long I live, I must come.

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

Prabhupāda: Ah, sprinkling can. We all grandchildren, we were about half a dozen. So we took very much pleasure in watering. But my special tendency was that along with the plants, I, with the bushes, I'll sit down. My tendency. And I'll sit down for hours. And like that. In my childhood. In my maternal uncle's house also, I was doing that. As soon as I find some bush, I make a sitting place.

Bhagavān: It's hard to see how people could not be attracted to such a nice life.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bhagavān: But more and more people are coming.

Prabhupāda: They'll come. First of all, this life is not for every man. Most fortunate man. Kona bhāgyavān jīva. Kona, kona means someone; it is not for everyone. Kona bhāgyavān. Find out this verse, Nineteenth Chapter, Madhya-līlā.

ei rūpe brahmāṇḍa bhramite kona bhāgyavān jīva

guru-kṛṣṇa-kṛpā pāya bhakti-latā-bīja

(CC Madhya 19.151)

(devotees look for verse) Brahmāṇḍa bhramite? Guru-kṛṣṇa. Find out. Guru-kṛṣṇa-kṛpā pāya.

Hari-śauri: Guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Sixty seventy lakhs? And he squandered it?

Yaśomatīnandana: No. He has got land and he has got some buildings, but now he has no funds to go further. And there also no local people give. All he collected in London and Africa from the Gujaratis. (break) ...in becoming trustees and managing the things, but they will not give any money.

Prabhupāda: So bring some sitting place.

Vāsughoṣa: Every brāhmaṇa got 116 rupees, and they brought him a cādara and they paid for prasāda. Lakhs of people came from all over central India, Andhra Pradesh, thousands and thousands. They paid for prasādam. Whole pandal, huge pandal, they went to this exhibition ground. They gave, the rest of the money went to the Rāmānuja Swami.

Acyutānanda: Oh, that was the yajña.

Vāsughoṣa: Jeer Swami. Shriman Narayana Jeer.

Acyutānanda: That's not a Bhāgavata-saptāha.

Vāsughoṣa: Yes, Sahasra-Bhāgavata. They had one thousand...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Is that Donghari Maharaja?

Yaśomatīnandana: That Donghari is very famous in Gujarat, so now he has mostly become famous all over India.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But they are booking thirty rooms in our guesthouse for ten days for the program.

Acyutānanda: You've got new japa beads, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Ears and mind. Nivṛtta-tarṣair upagīyamānāt. This chanting is properly done by a person who has fully satisfied his material desires, satiated, no more. Nivṛtta-tarṣaiḥ. Tṛṣṇa. Nivṛtta. No more material desire. Nivṛtta-tarṣair upagīyamānād bhavauṣadhi (SB 10.1.4), and it is the medicine for this bhava-roga. Bhava, punar bhava. Once take your birth, then die, then punar bhava. So this is bhava-roga. Nivṛtta-tarṣair upagīyamānāt. (aside:) Just spread it here. According to Vedic system, if one has no sitting place, he can offer a straw. They should offer a straw, "Sir, I have no sitting place, kindly accept this straw." And one glass of water. This should be offered to any guest. This is Vedic system. Everyone should be received properly, even if he's enemy. Gṛhe śatrum api prāptaṁ viśvastam akutobhayam. So

nivṛtta-tarṣair upagīyamānād

bhavauṣadhāc chrotra-mano-'bhirāmāt

ka uttamaśloka-guṇānuvādāt

pumān virajyeta vinā paśughnāt

(SB 10.1.4)

Except paśughna, nobody can be aloof from this chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. It is bhavauṣadhi. This is good place for walking also.

Dr. Patel(?): Yes. Shall we call that Pandit Āyur-Veda ācārya of India for you? If you don't believe in our medicine?

Prabhupāda: (laughs) No, no.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: I say but somebody says that... What is the medicine? I take some āyurvedic medicine.

Dr. Patel: No, you do take. We don't say no. You don't take any medicine, we know exactly where you stand, as the modern science explains us. (break) Well, he may not (indistinct) truth immediately, but that is his aim.

Prabhupāda: Now I am feeling some dizziness.

Dr. Patel: Sit down, you sit down.

Prabhupāda: Where is that sitting place?

Dr. Patel: (Hindi) Go down. (break)

Prabhupāda: Harer nāma eva kevalam, kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva (CC Adi 17.21). (break) ...is a big tank of Calcutta Gas Company. That looks like this.

Dr. Patel: We have got also tank like this in Bombay. We have also gas company tanks. It's in (indistinct). We have bigger tanks here of the petroleum companies. Huge tanks, petroleum tanks.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guru dāsa: When I was in Northern Ireland preaching, they blew it up. The gas tank, by bombs. They blew the whole gas tank up.

Prabhupāda: Where?

Guru dāsa: In Northern Ireland, Belfast.

Dr. Patel: Those terrorists.

Prabhupāda: It was here. Who has taken?

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation First Day in Juhu Quarters -- March 30, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Nobody is joining?

Lokanātha: Yeah, the boys who are on the party, they are confident that in Bengal they should get some more boys to join. That's what they wrote to me. So I did not get any more reports. They are pretty good boys, they should be doing...

Prabhupāda: It is difficult to make one devotee. That is... Manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye (BG 7.3). So if two, three men are there, that is sufficient for preaching also. You have to sit down any place and chant, and people will join. Local men. Not permanently, but at least to continue chanting.

Lokanātha: They do it. They are carrying Bengali books. They have pots for cooking prasādam. They have slide show.

Prabhupāda: But our Bhavānanda's preaching in Bengal was very encouraging.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Your preaching in Bengal was very encouraging.

Bhavānanda: My preaching?

Prabhupāda: In Bengali village.

Bhavānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Very encouraging. (end)

Talk About Varnasrama, S.B. 2.1.1-5 -- June 28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: In our childhood we have seen. The bhangis, they carry stool, walk in the morning with stool, so neat and clean. And if you go to the house, you cannot understand that this is a bhangi's house. So neat and clean. And bathing their utensils, their sitting place. After taking thorough bath, sometimes they are worshiping Deity.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Wow!

Prabhupāda: Still you'll find.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Really?

Prabhupāda: Bhangi. And business is carrying stool.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: When they say "untouchables," do they mean those bhangis?

Prabhupāda: They have introduced this word, "untouchable."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But is that the community that they're talking about?

Prabhupāda: Hm hm.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And still they worship Deity.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. There are many devotees, Vaiṣṇava. Hui(?) dāsa, a great Vaiṣṇava.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Who?

Room Conversation -- July 19, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No, they eat also.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And they eat very nicely.

Prabhupāda: They are healthy men.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The Bengalis, they do a lot of clerical jobs, sitting in one place.

Prabhupāda: They get diabetes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Really?

Prabhupāda: No, no, not the Bengalis. Anyone who cannot physically work. They eat sitting, and it is not digested, and therefore the diabetes. Diabetes is caused by eating more which is not digested. They say it is medically proven, and that's a fact. And tuberculosis is the wasting disease. As much food requires, he'll not get.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What is that about tuberculosis?

Prabhupāda: As much food he requires, he does not get.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Starving.

Prabhupāda: People do not get nowadays proper nutritious food.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Tuberculosis. And diabetes, getting the food but not digesting.

Prabhupāda: So if we remain nice, then digest, or anyone who works, brain work... That is nice.