Expressions researched:
"true"
Prabhupāda: Huh? Not rasābhāsa. But it is not mentioned in anywhere. This is mental.... They should not have done like that. Several times He requested the gopīs, I think, that "You come to Dvārakā," but they refused.
Acyutānanda: The gopī-candana comes from the lake where they say the gopīs drowned themselves, and that is near Dvārakā. Is that a true story?
Prabhupāda: Maybe they might have gone. (break) ...these houses.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) This is nonsense.
Bhavānanda: "...our Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was born at Śrī Māyāpur, destined to remove the dark clouds which had overshadowed true religious thinking by traveling alone on foot throughout the length and breadth of India. Preaching His gospel of love, He brought about a religious upheaval which put an end to all religious conflicts and suicidal vissiferous(?) tendencies. The benign influence of His love philosophy made the whole of India a spiritually united cultural domain. Soul-enrapturing kīrtana music was organized from one end of the country to another.
Jayapatākā: Yesterday you mentioned to the secretary that the members of legislature should all be Vaiṣṇavas. They should all be brahminically qual...
Prabhupāda: Brāhmaṇa-vaiṣṇava.
Jayapatākā: Brāhmaṇa-vaiṣṇava. Then they could give true advice.
Prabhupāda: Yes. What is this nonsense asses and pigs and dogs and cats? What they will do?
Jayapatākā: One goal we could have is that they would pass a law that no one could be a member of a legislature who didn't follow the four regulative principles.
Prabhupāda: And the.... And the moon is not seen also for fifteen days in the morning (month?). As a layman, we should say that, as the moon is rising from this side and going to this side, the sun is also rising from this side. So if the moon is moving, the sun is moving.
Pañca-draviḍa: If that's true, then how does.... What about the changes in the moon's face? Sometimes...
Prabhupāda: True or nontrue, I am layman. I am saying that if the moon is rising from this side and going to this side, so sun is also rising from this side and going to this side. So if the moon is moving, the sun is moving.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Common sense.
Prabhupāda: Yes, actually. One of his secretaries came to us. One of his secretaries, he asked that "I want real knowledge of God." He said, "Then you go to ISKCON."
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That's true.
Reporter (4): And if you want blissful, pleasureful things, go to other, either Mahesh or to Bala Hathayogi. This is what has been.... This is what has been impressed upon by knowledgeable people in America. And at least I can say with authority that I have talked with lot of people in America.
Guru-kṛpā: But we follow in the footsteps.... Mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ (CC Madhya 17.186). We must follow what the spiritual master is doing. We cannot create our own way. Then we will not be successful.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No, that's true, but...
Guru-kṛpā: That is their idea. They have created their own way to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that idea is there. They are thinking of their own way. That is bad. We have got so much, so many literatures. They are printing their own literature and.... That is disturbing, yes. What he'll prepare? He's not a liberated person. He's thinking, somebody said, that "I'll give my interpretation on Bhāgavata." If these things are going, they are.... It is against our principles. (break)
Brian Singer: In the Kṛṣṇa teachings, the person is not the body but the soul, which is like many religions. Also, some animals, animals also, are not the body but the soul. This is true? Like the cow and the dog and the cat?
Prabhupāda: Yes, everywhere soul is there. Just like the soul is there in the child, in the boy, in the young man, in the middle-aged man, in the old man.
Brian Singer: Yeah, I understand this.
Prabhupāda: So similarly, soul is everywhere.
Brian Singer: And in the animal also? In the dog?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Brian Singer: Yeah? And how far down in the animal world? Like you have the worm and also bacteria and the virus. Is also true?
Prabhupāda: That is the difference. I have already told you that the soul is in the child, and the soul is in the body of the father, but the child's soul is.... Or.... Soul is everywhere, but the proportionate consciousness is not developed. Just like wood. In every wood there is fire. Do you admit?
Brian Singer: In every...?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Wood.
Brian Singer: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The machine, I forgot to turn it..., one knob down. I wanted to tape what you were saying because.... (break) We find actually it's true that when we try to speak philosophy sometimes to unwilling persons, they take that we are trying to convert them.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: And therefore they feel threatened. They react in an adverse way, put up so many barriers.
Prabhupāda: Chanting they will take part. That's it.
Mr. Dixon: Is it true that there are more young people now in the world that are giving more serious thought to what life is really all about?
Prabhupāda: Yes, they should. Because they are being educated, they are experiencing the faults of their fathers and grandfathers.
Mr. Dixon: And they're able to tell that?
Prabhupāda: So we are telling this is the aim. You take. And therefore more response from the younger section. All our devotees, they are just like my grandchildren. Their fathers may be like my children. But they are responsive.
Guest (3): No. Could I just share one experience, and I'd like your feeling on this. This is one thing that, the reason that we come throughout the world, and that is that we believe that in the year 1820 that there was a young man, Joseph Smith, who was confused about religion. And in this confused state he sought the Bible, and he read James 1:5, and the inspiration was to go seek God and ask Him in prayer. And in his prayer he had an experience where God the father and His son Jesus Christ appeared to him. Now, see this is what we base our religion about, is that a young man saw God and was visited by Him and His son Jesus Christ, and through him They used him as an instrument in restoring His true church. Now that's our testimony, and we believe this with all of our heart. We feel that it's built upon the spirit and that it's through prayer and study that we've found this. Now, what's your feeling about that?
Prabhupāda: No, if he has seen God, then God has given him some message.
Guest (3): Right.
Prabhupāda: What is that message?
Guest (4): We believe that the message that God gave him was that the true church was not on the earth, and we believe that through Joseph Smith the true gospel of Jesus Christ was once again restored to the earth with all its power, with all its authority, and with the holy priesthood.
Prabhupāda: So Jesus Christ is authorized.
Guest (4): Yes, Jesus Christ...
Prabhupāda: So what is the order of Jesus Christ?
Guest (4): We believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
Prabhupāda: And it is very hard to find out a woman chaste.
Guest (3): That's true.
Prabhupāda: Then where is Christian?
Guest (3): Well, see, this is the great thing of the atonement. See, when Christ suffered the sins of the world on Gethsemane...
Prabhupāda: So why for your sin Christ should suffer?
Guest (3): Christ suffered for my sins.
Prabhupāda: Yes, why?
Guru-kṛpā: You are feeding the beef grains to fatten it for slaughter, but you could eat the same grains and be healthy.
Guest (2): That's true. And we have many people who are in the church who strive to teach people of the church to eat more grains and milk products and...
Guru-kṛpā: That is not the point Śrīla Prabhupāda is making.
Prabhupāda: No, point is that every living being has to eat another living being. That is the law of nature.
Guest (2): Right.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's 250,000 pounds.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Interviewer: So would it be true to say that perhaps without George Harrison of the Beatles the religion wouldn't be as well known as it is today?
Prabhupāda: No, not like that. That is not that. But in the Western countries nobody comes forward to give us some contribution. But this boy is very nice, he gives us sometimes some thing. He gives, and another boy, who is the great-grandson of Mr. Henry Ford—his name is Alfred—he also helps us. But mostly we get our income by selling these books. We are selling books daily about $200,000 daily. That is our main source of income.
Prabhupāda: Bogus!
Interviewer: Oh, bogus. Do you believe that Hare Kṛṣṇa is the only true faith?
Prabhupāda: Yes. This is real knowledge. We have got, I have already told you, only on this Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, there is one book by Professor Judah. Have you got that book?
Devotee: No.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They believe that the... Of course it's a fact, the leaders are very corrupt, but the people want the change, that's what they believe. "And if we go, the people will work with us and overthrow this government and establish a true communistic government, a government for all the benefit the people." That's their idea. They feel that way about the whole world, the Chinese. They feel in America also—of course that's nonsense—but they think like that. That in America there is a huge working class and the working class are feeling oppressed. But that's nonsense.
Prabhupāda: I think American working class are paid more than any country.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The average income in the United States now...
Prabhupāda: (break) ...there's no such thing. "I believe." Immediately.... What Kṛṣṇa says, that's true. That is our movement. Kṛṣṇa consciousness. What I believe? I'm a nonsense. I am.... I have got four defects in my life: illusion, mistake, cheating, insufficiency. What is the meaning of my belief? A cheater saying, "I believe," I have to accept if I know that he's a cheat? (break) ...the public, by misleading them they have gone to moon.
Devotee: (tape static-inaudible)
Prabhupāda: Hearing directly from Him. Which one is better? Directly hearing from Him, or by some inspiration?
Devotee (2): Hearing directly, naturally.
Prabhupāda: Yes. It is true. By sentiment you can say "I'm inspired." But hear directly then there is no question.
Devotee (3): People sometimes ask, "If Bhagavad-gītā was spoken by Kṛṣṇa and it was recorded by Vyāsadeva in the Mahābhārata, was Vyāsadeva actually present there on the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra, or did he see it by revelation?"
Prabhupāda: No. Here, just like something's happening ten thousand miles away. You can record it by modern machine.
Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, when I first came to this, to your movement, the first thing I was told is that Lord Caitanya's movement in this age will, like a moon, rise for ten thousand years. I was told that number, ten thousand years. Is that true?
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Rāmeśvara: And then after that, they will...
Prabhupāda: This movement will go for ten thousand years without any impediment.
Bharadvāja: What is the special significance of constructing Kāliya-Kṛṣṇa temple in Fiji?
Prabhupāda: They say that "Kāliya lived here."
Bharadvāja: Is that true?
Prabhupāda: Well, might.... (break) But it is Kṛṣṇa's līlā, so...
Bharadvāja: Kāliya then became a devotee after Kṛṣṇa subdued him.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Bharadvāja: They are both worshipable.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) (continues in car)
Prabhupāda: Bhīma-ekādaśī, yes.
Rāmeśvara: So I've been told that if one fasts on Bhīma-ekādaśī, that it is like fasting on all the ekādaśīs. Is that true?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Ekādaśī is meant for fasting, either Bhīma or Arjuna. But we cannot fast, therefore we have to take little fruits and.... Otherwise, ekādaśī means fasting.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If it is possible, should we go without eating at all?
Prabhupāda: Yes. But don't lie down and sleep.
Mahendra: Eating mahā-prasādam is also fasting.
Prabhupāda: They are spiritual.
Rāmeśvara: Is this true for the plants and flowers?
Prabhupāda: Everything. Everything. They are spiritual, absolute. There is no condition. Because it is tree, it cannot move. That is condition.
Rāmeśvara: No condition. In the spiritual world, can trees and plants communicate? Here they have no means of communication, no talking.
Prabhupāda: Everything is possible.
Rāmeśvara: The animals can also understand and communicate.
Rāmeśvara: They don't want to be limited. They think that Kṛṣṇa is the kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam (SB 1.3.28). So why...
Prabhupāda: That is good. That is always true, but Kṛṣṇa says,
How you have understood Kṛṣṇa? Kṛṣṇa says, "Out of many millions of people, one becomes siddha, and out of many millions of siddhas, hardly one can understand Me." So how you have understood Kṛṣṇa so easily, within two years? What you have understood Kṛṣṇa, that is materially understood. You do not know what is Kṛṣṇa. That is prākṛta-sahajiyā. "Oh, we have understood. Kṛṣṇa was a playboy, dancing with His girls. Bas, we have understood. Now we shall..."
Indian Man: Yes. And then he was in a plane crash? Or...?
Prabhupāda: There is a great history.
Indian Man: Yes. I don't know if it is true. (break) ...taken sannyāsa, and just gone out somewhere.
Prabhupāda: So anyway, although you have got independence, India, oh, what is the profit?
Hari-śauri: The independence is just about to come, Śrīla Prabhupāda, when you start preaching there.
Prabhupāda: Real sva-raja is to go back to home, back to Godhead.
Jay Warner: That is true. But the difficulty for me is that although my spirit wants to believe in transmigration, the scientific upbringing that was inculcated in me from a child has a hard time...
Prabhupāda: What is that scientific?
Jay Warner: Through empirical evidence, through evidence...
Prabhupāda: This is evidence. I ask you to show me your childhood body. Where it is? Can you show? That is finished. So if the childhood body finished, you get another body, boyhood body. Similarly, the conclusion should be that after this body—I am old man; it will be finished—then I'll get another body.
Nalinīkaṇṭha: "We see materialistic persons busily engaged in economic development all day and all night, trying to increase their material opulence, but even if we suppose that they get some benefit from such endeavors, that does not solve the real problem of their lives. Nor do they know what the real problem of life is. This is due to a lack of spiritual education. Especially in the present age, every man is in darkness, in the bodily conception of life, not knowing anything of the spirit soul and its needs. Misguided by the blind leaders of society, people consider the body to be everything, and they are engaged in trying to keep the body materially comfortable. Such a civilization is condemned because it does not lead humanity toward knowing the real goal of life. People are simply wasting time and the valuable gift of the human form, because a human being who does not cultivate spiritual life but dies like the cats and dogs is degraded in his next life. From human life, such a person is put into the cycle of continuous birth and death. Thus one loses the true benefit of human life, which is to become Kṛṣṇa conscious and solve life's problems."
Prabhupāda: Now discuss on this point amongst yourselves whether it is rightly said or wrong. If anyone has any objection. Yes?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Richard: True, I agree. But is the point of the Catholic Church the only point that's to be made?
Prabhupāda: And if you accept Christianity, then the Catholic process, I think—I do not know—that is only way.
Richard: But is the point that the Catholic Church makes the only point to be made?
Prabhupāda: Not Catholic. I mean to say, any church original, authoritatively, that is genuine. If you deviate from that, then you cannot claim to that school.
Prabhupāda: Idea of God, and what to speak of faith in God, or trust in God.
Jackie Vaughn: It's true. Very little faith. "In God We Trust," your original statement.
Hari-śauri: Prabhupāda wrote one letter to the secretary of the President explaining that you write on your bills "In God We Trust," but who is it that knows about God? So he was asking if it was possible for the government, they could give us some aid and we would educate. We can educate the people.
Prabhupāda: No, I did not ask for any aid.
Mother: I read so much, you know, and I have four children—(indistinct) doesn't live at home—and I read so much that people probably wonder how I get my work done. But it gets done. (Prabhupāda chuckles). And it's like I'm in another world. It's really great. I had a dream about you, Prabhupāda. And I dreamed.... This is a dream that's coming true. But you didn't acknowledge me because I didn't say "Kṛṣṇa." (Prabhupāda laughs) And then when I give in, you did, and you asked me what I knew about Kṛṣṇa, and I didn't answer you because I didn't want to display my ignorance.
Prabhupāda: Very good. You chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and be one of our members. Your son is also very good. Mother good, son good. According to our Indian estimate, son acquires the quality of mother and the daughter acquires the quality of the father.
Prabhupāda: So in the school, college classes, there is sometimes argument?
Satsvarūpa: All the time. (laughter) We always save half the time for questions, and immediately, "How do you know that that is true?" All challenging. "Why should I believe?" "How could God present the scriptures?" All faithless.
Jayādvaita: In this part of the country, I think the students, generally they admit there is God. They're a little pious in this central portion. There are so many farms and they're not so deteriorated.
Prabhupāda: Polluted.
Stansky: This is true.
Prabhupāda: You see this black men. They earn sufficient money, but see their home. See their home. You America, you have given them equal rights, they are getting money, but they have no culture. Therefore you may pay them as much as you like, but still poverty-stricken. In Africa also I have seen that they have got their own kingdom, independence, but if we go to the African slums, they are poverty-stricken, wretched. So this civilization will not endure. If there is no culture, simply by money you cannot maintain a standard of civilization. That is not possible.
Prabhupāda: Why not to take our work in Māyāpur? (break)
Devotee (1): ...letter, Śrīla Prabhupāda. He never returned it. (break)
Satsvarūpa: ...half of what he says isn't true. I would doubt that all these claims are even true. He says things and then they turn out not to be true.
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: He came on my bus for a week.
Satsvarūpa: He's nice, but I don't think he has all that aristocratic background that he claims.
Devotee (1):...by the results. What a man can do?
George Gullen: Yes, this is true. My father was a Christian minister all of his life, and he had very deep beliefs about the spiritual matters. He felt very strongly, as you do, that the body was temporary and that his spirit would find its way into some other form of life, and he believed very strongly in life after human death, very much so. He believed in a matter he called cosmic consciousness, in which the spirit had far greater powers than physical powers. He had similar kinds, I believe, of beliefs that you do. I have some beliefs myself that the human body being quite temporary, that years are not long for it, that there must be more to life than just the physical side.
Prabhupāda: Everyone's body is temporary, either human body or cat's body, dog's body. But the human body is important because in the human body we have developed consciousness by which we can understand what is God. The cats and dogs, they cannot, they haven't got that developed consciousness.
Prabhupāda: He's Ph.D. He has recently joined us. He likes this movement.
George Gullen: I'm sure it satisfies a deep need. I'm sure that's true.
Prabhupāda: No, it is the need of the human society. There is no alternative. In the Vedic mantra it is said, tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). One must accept this. Otherwise, his human life is spoiled. If you simply trained up to live like an animal, then it is a great harm to the human society.
Prabhupāda: Because they are not devotee. Paśyanti jñāna-cakṣuṣā. Mām ebhyaḥ param, mūḍhā nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ parama-avyayam. Paraṁ bhāvam ajānantaḥ. Paraṁ bhāvam ajānantaḥ. They have no knowledge.
Satsvarūpa: They think that if they follow, they'll still be misled. "Why should I believe? It may not be true."
Prabhupāda: But you are already misled. Why not be second time misled? You are already misled, thousand times. Why not try once more. You are making so much arrangement to live comfortably, but you are kicked out. Are you not misled? Bahir-artha-māninaḥ. You are thinking that by adjustment of this external energy, you will be able to live very happily. Is it possible? You are trying, problem after problem, problem after problem. So you are already misled.
Prabhupāda: And they're doing that? (laughs)
Kīrtanānanda: People cannot distinguish between what is true and what is bogus. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...sophistication. (break) ...reminds me of a place in Germany. Heidelburg.
Kīrtanānanda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Like New Vrindaban?
Prabhupāda: If you can help, you can simply repeat the instruction of Kṛṣṇa. Otherwise you have no power to help. It is all concoction. Vivekananda, for the last hundred years-daridra-nārāyaṇa-sevā. He could not do anything. First of all you must know that you have no capacity to help.
Indian man (4): Right. That is true, prabhu.
Prabhupāda: Then why you propose to help?
Indian man (4): No, but prabhu, how far is it fair that if one is religious, say chanting and regulations and everything he is doing, and on the other hand, he doesn't behave as a good honest labor...
Prabhupāda: That good honest..., you have got some idea of good honest. But because he's chanting, he's all good.
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: You say, Śrīla Prabhupāda, they engage in unbeneficial horrible works meant to destroy the world and that this refers to the atomic weapons. This is so true.
Prabhupāda: Yes, God's speaking, Kṛṣṇa is speaking.
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: I was studying this nuclear energy in college, thinking that it would save the world. That by the energy they could make bigger tomatoes, bigger corn, and...
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Devotee (3): Śrīla Prabhupāda? It says in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, jaya jaya nityānanda, nityānanda-rāma, yāṅhāra kṛpāte pāinu vṛndāvana-dhāma. That means he has somehow achieved the shelter of Lord Nityānanda because He sent him to Vṛndāvana. Is this also true for the residents here in New Vrindaban? They have achieved the shelter of Lord Nityānanda?
Devotees: Jaya. (end)
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "The traditional charge against Hinduism is that it is fatalistic, that it inhibits progress by making people slaves to the belief in the inevitability of what is to happen. How far is this charge true?"
Prabhupāda: The charge is false. Those who have charged like that, they do not know what is Hinduism. There is no such thing as Hinduism, but there is mention of sanātana-dharma, varṇāśrama-dharma. That we can find in the scriptures. I've already given note.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, I have that.
Prabhupāda: So what is his, what is the charge?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So then, is it true then that people who have this conception, they would not try for progress?
Prabhupāda: No, no. Progress... The thing is that if you try progress vainly, what is the use of trying? If it is a fact you cannot change your destiny, so why should you try for that? Better... That is the... Tasyaiva hetoḥ prayateta. Therefore whatever energy you have got, you utilize it for understanding Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Make it clear. Just like our society. We are, our main business is how to make advancement in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We are not very enthusiastic to open big, big factories and big, big money-earning machine. No. We are not interested. We'll be satisfied with the amount of happiness or distress, whatever we are destined.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Now this experiment, another interpretation of these material scientists is that they claim that this experiment disproved the vital theory. But on other hand, actually, the opposite is true, that he proved that there is a vital theory, rather, that spirit must be there. That was actually proved by this experiment also. But the mentality of these scientists are so demoniac that they twist the truth around... (break) RNA is a big molecule and that is actually transferred from this DNA molecule. DNA molecule, they call it the master molecule from which everything comes, all the molecules. Now if we see this carefully, we can see at every step that there is a specific direction and information without which this whole machinery will break down.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. Sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca (BG 15.15). Find out this verse. Vedaiś ca sarvair... So "If you want to acquire knowledge how these molecules are working, so you must know it is coming from Me, the direction is coming from Me." You are waiting, wherefrom this direction is coming. Kṛṣṇa says "This direction is coming from Me."
Prabhupāda: So many, very subtle, subtle mixture. That subtleness of mixture is impossible for you to analyze.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, that's true. So we shouldn't do this?
Prabhupāda: Therefore it is said daiva-netreṇa, superior administration. You cannot do it.
Rūpānuga: We have to simply teach them that evolution really means some...
Prabhupāda: It's taking place in this way, that's all. That much you can say. You cannot actually analyze a particular body, what percentage of this or... That's impossible.
Prabhupāda: Becoming entangled in the machine. Because he has forgotten his spiritual identity. He thinks "With this machine I can help myself." That is going on.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: In a sense, it is also true that in the material world, especially material scientists, they make things more complicated.
Prabhupāda: That's all.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: The contamination of material desires. But when one develops spiritual desire, then he becomes more simple.
Prabhupāda: Karma-bandha. That is described in the Bhagavad-gītā, yajñārthāt karmaṇaḥ anyatra karma-bandhanaḥ (BG 3.9), to become entangled.
Prabhupāda: That is their proposition?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: It is possible, but that's why we're claiming that. They agree that because not only there is several facts in science, that one should be (indistinct) this is true, then suddenly by some new discoveries came out all wrong.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So we are discussing about our limitations of our so-called knowledge-finding technique. So we said, "One has to be a little open-minded and discuss these things..."
Prabhupāda: What does they say about that disi, astralogic kalokyam (Hindi) ?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: (Hindi)
Svarūpa Dāmodara: There is one, some sort of a mental satisfaction. When we work something we thought that by doing this I'll be able to come to a conclusion. But by the same research, by the same result, I found that what I thought was wrong, so from that, that satisfaction is there, so that must be true. Something like that.
Prabhupāda: Here is one, that Sukla, he is also favorable.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, he's a very nice man. I never saw any Indian like that.
Prabhupāda: Who is the creator?
Bill Sauer: Well, there is a creative force. The power of life is light, and you say (laughs) Godhead is light, nescience is darkness. I believe it, it's trite and very true, in my understanding.
Vipina: He thinks everything comes from light, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Bill Sauer: Now all the religions refer to God as light. Most of the religions, and science agrees. Light is that very fugitive bit of energy that allows life to be possible.
Prabhupāda: Unless there is fire, wherefrom the light comes?
Bill Sauer: From the fire in the sun.
Mr. Davis: Is it not also true that the more you can realize "I am not this body," but there is that within my body which is spiritual, and that is there in an African's body which is spiritual, or a Chinese...
Prabhupāda: Everyone's body.
Mr. Davis: Everyone's body, therefore the thing we have in common is we are all a part of the spirit.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is fact. We are part and parcel of the supreme spirit, God. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ (BG 15.7). "All these living entities, they are My part and parcel." Qualitatively, we are one. Just like a small particle of gold is also gold. It is nothing else. Similarly, we being part and parcel of God, we have got that godly qualification.
Indian man (1): Śrīla Prabhupāda, some of Indian people, they quote Veda and say that beef-eating was recommended in Vedas, and I don't know whether it's true or not, but they quote Vedas, Atharva-veda and...
Prabhupāda: Do they give any quotation?
Indian man (1): No, they don't give any quotation, but...
Prabhupāda: Rascals. (laughter)
Dr. Sharma: Even scientifically now it is being proven that many of the diseases, like of the kidneys, of the heart, arterial sclerosis, arteriosclerosis, uremia, gout, is because of high protein diet, particularly meat. Many of the scientists now are going away from meat by chanting.
Prabhupāda: It is not very advanced.
Rūpānuga: That's not respected.
Prabhupāda: That is true.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Even Billy Graham says there's no soul in the dog. In his column "My Answer"... There's a column by Billy Graham...
Hari-śauri: That's that column you saw.
Prabhupāda: So you challenge them, the scientists.
Prabhupāda: Yes. In the..., cut off their wings. (break)
Devotee (1): ...it's true that people are getting disease and sicknesses as the result of their past activities, pious or sinful. Why is it that it appears that when there is a flu many people are inflicted with that flu? Practically everyone, indiscriminately.
Prabhupāda: All of them? Hm. "Birds of the same feather, flock together, see."
Devotee (1): (laughs) What about when it happens amongst the community of devotees or some, hepatitis, or malaria, or something of that nature?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Others insist that the style of shaving the head identifies devotees of various spiritual orders. The long śikhās marks a man as a follower of Kṛṣṇa. Still another group says that the head-shaving simply stands for renunciation of the material world, its values and its pleasures. One or more of those reasons may be the true one. Possibly all of them have a multi-determined, have multi-determined the Kṛṣṇa cut. The how of the cut is simplicity itself. Commonly two men cut each others hair. Our pictures show how. Phase one of the cutting, known as the buzz-off, is done with ordinary..." (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Buzz off? (laughter)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. "...is done with ordinary hair clippers. The post buzz-off effect..." (laughter)
Prabhupāda: So many difficulties will come unless there is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekam (BG 18.66), if you want to be happy.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's true. If people are Kṛṣṇa conscious, then the origin(?) of these problems like death...
Bali-mardana: You are instructing us to finish up our business in this life.
Rāmeśvara: They are convinced that dinosaurs, these gigantic animals, were living on this planet millions of years ago. They found some bones, and they have created the form of the animal body.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is it true that there were big dinosaur bodies?
Prabhupāda: If they were, it is still now.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, wow.
Prabhupāda: We don't say it is extinct.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But you've explained that even if not here then it must be on another planet.
Prabhupāda: Yes. But they have misunderstood.
Interviewer: That is true?
Prabhupāda: Misunderstood.
Interviewer: Misunderstood.
Prabhupāda: The difficulty is they do not understand on which platform we are working.
Interviewer: How would you describe that platform?
Prabhupāda: That may be Hindu religion. But we do not belong to any religion. That may be true for the Hindu religion what the professor has said, but we do not identify with any religion. We are different from any religious system.
Interviewer: But the scriptures are the same, the Vedic scriptures are Hindu scriptures.
Prabhupāda: No, Hindu religion... Of course, the scripture is the Vedic principle, but the word is not Vedic. This word Hindu is not Vedic word.
Bali-mardana: Hindu is not Sanskrit, it's just a popular, general term.
Interviewer: One last question then. What you are saying, the thrust of your movement is that true religion is not something that you just believe, it is what you are.
Prabhupāda: You believe or not believe. A fool man's, fool's belief is different from a learned man's understanding. So if he says that "I believe in it," nature's law is different. Nature will not care whether you believe or not believe. It will work. Just like if you have infected some disease, so you are getting fever. Now if I say "My dear Mr. such and such, now you infected smallpox. Therefore symptoms are there." And if you say, "No, no, I don't believe in it." So will you be protected from the laws of nature?
Prabhupāda: No, I am not authority in Hindi, but this Hindi, different parts of India, a different standard.
Kṣīrodakaśāyī: Yes, that's true. That is why I had not depend on myself. It going from the four people different, one after another, and they are qualified Sanskrit and Hindi scholars.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. Let it be published.
Kṣīrodakaśāyī: Complete corrections also. It's not going by...
Prabhupāda: So you can show me some samples which you have completed. Yes, you can show me some.
Pṛthu-putra: (translating) "The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is most known under the name of Bhāgavata-Purāṇa. The Sanskrit word Purāṇa means 'ancient, old work.' It is a commentary on the Vedānta-sūtra by Vyasadeva, its author, from which we also learn about the Mahabharata. From a general way, but particularly the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the Purāṇa is a true encyclopedia containing all the aspects of the life of spirit. We have to see that this great work is containing all the predictions, this, of realizing in every detail. Then it is very important to point out that the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam under its poetic form is a very actual by the subject which it's treating about. The truth is one and universal, and the tradition of this work is always valuable. The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is an essential development of the Bhagavad-gītā. It's talking about the questions metaphysical, philosophical, religious, psychologic, political and social. The wonderful tradition of Swami Prabhupāda is inspired from the same principles that the one who guided him in his translation of the Bhagavad-gītā. Every Sanskrit verse is written in Latin characters and then a literary version. The commentary, which is referring always from the Veda, Upaniṣad, and other texts, is allowing the reader to make spiritual progress. The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is a precious work and will be revealed for a lot of people from the Western. And there is a very urgent need to spread this message throughout the world."
Jayatīrtha: Ah! It's a very good decision.
Bhagavān: Doctor of letters.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: May be true to some extent, but they do not know the ultimate truth. That they do not know. Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān (BG 7.19). He understands, vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā sudurlabhaḥ (BG 7.19). That requires many, many births, to come to that conclusion. Vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyaḥ (BG 15.15). This Kṛṣṇa says. Mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti dhanañjaya: (BG 7.7) "There is no more superior than Me." Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate (BG 10.8). He explains to everyone, sarva-dharman parityajya mām ekam (BG 18.66). That is the.... There is the ultimate person. You call Him Kṛṣṇa or something, but you must know Him.
Prabhupāda: He is still there?
Bhūgarbha: No, he has shifted now, he's in Darbhanga.(?) But his successor, he's taken, we just made copy, it is printed in your Bhāgavatam. So he made true copy on some paper, and he has two copies of the last order, and this is the balance of his subscription, so he should take.
Prabhupāda: That is Education Ministry.
Bhūgarbha: They're only giving the Sanskrit.
Prabhupāda: They can take at least fifty copies of each.
Bhūgarbha: So he's doing that now.
Prabhupāda: They gave me order, I dispatched by post, and if the acknowledgement received, I submitted my bill, they paid.
Prabhupāda: In the material world there cannot be any peace, justice, morality. It is not possible. You may try to make some adjustment, but it will never be possible. So, by their concocted imagination, they are thinking, "This way will be beneficial," but unless they come to the spiritual platform, there is no question of peace, prosperity, justice. It is not possible.
Unless we come to the spiritual platform, there is no question of justice, morality, peace. It is not possible. They may attempt in different ways, by their mental speculative process, but actually it will never come to be true. They are all trying: the scientists, philosophers, politicians, religionists, to make some adjustment, but that is not possible.
Ali: Is it necessary to get to know the true self before knowing God?
Prabhupāda: Yes, God means spirit, supreme spirit. If you cannot understand what is spirit, then how you'll understand God? You must know what is spirit, what is matter, and when we have little understanding of the spirit, then we can make progress spiritually.
Ali: How does one get to know the true spirit?
Ali: True, because the road is the same, the goal is the same.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is our philosophy. Sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo yato bhakti... (SB 1.2.6). Because unless you come to the platform of loving God, then you cannot be happy. And so long we have got the tendency to love something other than God, then we shall not be happy. That is the test.
Ali: What is the purpose of this internal dialogue? Internal dialogue, we talk to ourselves all the time, we can't be silent.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's all. We are preaching this. We don't say that you become one of us. You chant the holy name of the Lord, that's all.
Ali: There's no such thing as "one of us," "one of you," anyway, because the thing is the same. If one is true (indistinct) there is no difference.
Prabhupāda: Then when you are purified, you'll understand what is God, what God wants you to do, what is your relationship with God, so on, so on, so on.
Atreya Ṛṣi: And other devotees of God, you will understand.
Prabhupāda: Yes. To understand God means to understand everything.
Ali: Because everything is God.
Prabhupāda: That is my opinion, that instead of spending so much money for films, if you spend some money for propagation of book distribution... Any advertisement is good, it never goes in vain, but the film advertisement is very expensive. Very, very expensive.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: It is very true. Very expensive and very much endeavor.
Prabhupāda: Advertisement never goes in vain, that's a fact. But if it is too much expensive, it touches our financial position.
Hari-śauri: And then there's no certainty that it will be a success anyway.
Jñānagamya: There is a method. There is a method...
Prabhupāda: And you have to wait one million years. (japa)
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Is it true, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that Kṛṣṇa is testing us every day? We're having tests, opportunities...
Prabhupāda: No, just like if you want responsible post, then there is question of test. If you want to become a vagabond, remain vagabond. Where is question of test?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: No, for devotees.
Prabhupāda: Ah, for devotees, there is test. For devotees there is test. We see from the devotee's life, Prahlāda Mahārāja, how much severe test he had to pass through. Bali Mahārāja, Nārada Muni.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: The basic difference still is that they are saying that Kṛṣṇa, God, whatever you call Him, He..., the paramparā system starts from Him sending a representative, and then that representative has devotees and devotees, like that. But we also say that that is true, but also there is, you could...
Prabhupāda: Bring that wrapper.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: That is true, but also we could have paramparā go all the way to Kṛṣṇa Himself.
Prabhupāda: Yes, paramparā is coming from Kṛṣṇa.
Nava-yauvana: In Islam they say that God cannot come to this earth.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: God would not come to this earth.
Prabhupāda: No, that is everywhere.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: In every religion it is true.
Prabhupāda: Just like these rascals, Bhagavad-gītā they explain in a different way. What Kṛṣṇa says, rejected. He says something else. That is the difficulty-paramparā is lost.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: And the most convincing argument that Your Divine Grace is making is that we are not just talking, we are also acting. That is the big difference between our philosophy and all the others. Because there are many good philosophies, but they all finish in talk.
Guest: That is true. Whole universe is rasa. Even in Mars they're trying to find humidity. What is humidity, rasa. Everything is moving on the rasa only. We are floating on rasa.
Prabhupāda: Our aim of understanding this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, it is not a sentiment. It is a great science, great science. Otherwise how we are writing so many books? If it was a dry...
Guest: Nothing happens in dryness.
Pradyumna: "As far back as 1971 the Maharastra government had taken action against the foreign devotees who had chosen to overstay in Bombay and elsewhere."
Gargamuni: That isn't true. Their action was to allow us to build our Bombay center.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, that's not true.
Pradyumna: "In mid 1975 the Union Home Ministry took, however, a lenient view and allowed the immigrants to stay for long periods on the specious plea that the mastering of Vaiṣṇava literature, the spiritual diet of the cultists, was not like learning shorthand." Then heading: "Contrary Pulls in Government." "Lately, of course, the center has become wise, though contrary pulls in the thinking process still persist. This was quite evident at the Raj..."
Prabhupāda: This article no sane man will take notice of it. No sane man will like. It is not very important article.
Maṇihāra: "Hare Kṛṣṇa swamis. Man has unraveled many mysteries in his progress from barbarianism to civilization in his relentless pursuit of knowledge and his bid to add to his storehouse of information about the myriad mysteries of the universe. He has outstepped the boundaries of the earth and turned his attention to outer space, and at present he is trying to determine whether life exists on Mars. But even though he has climbed a long way up the ladder of knowledge, the great mystery of all baffles him still—the mystery of God. Who is God? What is the relationship between man and God? Why should man try to realize God? These are some of the questions which have been engaging the attention of all thinking men from time immemorial. The search for God has been going on down the ages because the Supreme Being is God, and to know Him is to know the truth of all things, in all forms in time as well as in space. The destiny of man is unity with God, for man is essentially inseparable from God. It is this knowledge which helps man to attain the state of eternal satisfaction or mokṣa. But for self-knowledge, mokṣa would be impossible. And self-knowledge would be impossible of attainment but for those divine messengers who throw light on the path of our lives. Whenever true knowledge, spiritual knowledge, begins to vanish from the face of the earth and tends to lapse into oblivion, the divine messengers revive that knowledge and nourish it with the vitality of their own experience. These divine messengers seek to awaken man to the knowledge of his real heritage. One such divine messenger is His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda..."
Prabhupāda: He has made the ground. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: No, dakṣiṇā. But they are chanting in exchange of dakṣiṇā. Because you are giving dakṣiṇā, therefore they are chanting. And you stop that dakṣiṇā, nobody will come.
Commissioner: True. You are correct. (laughs) That we have told them. If they teach their own children, hundred rupees for him for teaching, forty rupees for a child who learns.
Prabhupāda: That they will do, but when the hundred rupees will not be sufficient, they'll give up.
Commissioner: One thing is that at least one child is learning in each and every...
Prabhupāda: So we have got big program. Any amount of money you bring to us, we shall spend it immediately. (pause) (kīrtana in background) (break) There is a logic, andha-paṅgu-nyāya. One man is blind. Another man is lame. Both are useless. When they combined together the lame man was taken by the blind man. So the lame man has got eyes, he was giving direction, "Go this way." So both their work was done. So I say that India is lame and America is blind. Let us combine together. Then we can give a great culture for the benefit of the whole human society. India has no money-lame. And they have got money but they have no knowledge. So let us combine together. This is logic. Andha-paṅgu-nyāya. So by this cooperation they have... When I was in India I published three parts of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam with great difficulty. And now since I have gone there I am publishing every month a book. So on account of their cooperation we are able to publish so many books and organize the sale all over the world. But it is true that this culture is very much welcome all over the world.
Indian man: Yes, that is true.
Prabhupāda: The soul is never killed. Never killed. But because you have forcibly driven away from that body, you become criminal. That is the philosophy.
Indian man: Yes. Now, assuming...
Prabhupāda: So you cannot do that.
Indian man: Assuming that, everyone...
Prabhupāda: Not assuming. This is the fact. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Then you have to accept Paramātmā and ātmā different.
Indian man: Different, that is true.
Prabhupāda: Then dvaita-vāda. Where is advaita?
Indian man: Even dvaita does not, something different from advaitam. In this particular fundamental. But even advaitam does not say that ātmā is equal to Paramātmā. He never says that. You have māyā. Māyā will be field to you and that you get rid of that māyā and you try to elevate your soul to the ātmā. And you come, go to the Paramātmā.
Indian man: Well, that is true, that is...
Prabhupāda: So that is another thing.
Indian man: That attachment to the...
Prabhupāda: Yes. That attachment or no attachment, he is different from the body. That is the first lesson of spiritual education, that one has to understand that he is not the body. That is Brahman realization.
Indian man: No, after having realized that, we have to (indistinct) ourselves.
Prabhupāda: Now that individual soul and the Supreme Soul, Paramātmā, they are also different. That is described in the Bhagavad-gītā in the Second Chapter Kṛṣṇa says, "My dear Arjuna, both you, Me, and all these persons who are assembled here, we existed in the past, and we are existing now, and we shall continue to exist." So when they become one? Past, present and future. As they were different persons in the past, they are different persons now and they will continue to remain different persons in the future.
Prabhupāda: You become devotee, then immediately transfer to the nitya-yuktā upāsate.
Indian man: Yes, I become a devotee, a true devotee...
Prabhupāda: When you become a perfect devotee then you are transferred to the eternal world and your engagement is upāsana eternally.
Indian man: The eternal world. What is that eternal world?
Prabhupāda: That you do not know? You read, study? Have you studied Bhagavad-gītā? Do you know that there is an eternal world? There is an eternal world? Do you know that?
Prabhupāda: Therefore what is the use of earning? What is the use of earning?
Krishna Modi: That is true. Then I will get all the replies and papers today. And I will arrange each and every thing before 5th or 6th of September.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: You leave here the 6th?
Krishna Modi: Oh no. I will leave today or tomorrow. But I will come and I will arrange all these things.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: When are you coming back here?
Krishna Modi: I will come back on 5th.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. So I'll meet you on the 5th then.
Indian man (3): That's true. I also believe that there must be a direct...
Prabhupāda: No, why not direct?
Indian man (3): Putting in your interpretation, that is wrong. It should be direct. That doesn't mean only those people who have accepted this can come together.
Prabhupāda: And why the others will not accept?
Indian man (3): No, we have made, you must have seen our literature, Gītā as a text, but still people may not judge...
Prabhupāda: Bhaktivedanta Swami sata mukala.(?)
Akṣayānanda: It's true. It's true.
Prabhupāda: Now here is a big sannyāsī, Akhandanandan, or Bon Maharaja. They are supposed to be big, big sannyāsī.
Akṣayānanda: I do not know what Akhandanandan does.
Prabhupāda: Anyway, (indistinct) And this Anandamaya. Actually I am not proud, but what they have done in comparison to me?
Akṣayānanda: Yes, they've done nothing.
Prabhupāda: He has said sata mukala.
Doctor: That is true, sir, but that stage has not come. One day it will come. But till that stage and that realization of...
Prabhupāda: No, stage is there. But if the obstinate persons, they do not take it... Here it is clearly said... Just like Kṛṣṇa says, sarva-loka-maheśvaram: (BG 5.29) "I am the proprietor of all the lands, all the planets." So how can you say no? There must be someone proprietor.
Doctor: But then God Himself has created the ego in man.
Prabhupāda: No, no. He has created...
Dr. Kneupper: That's true of certain people, but there are also many...
Prabhupāda: Majority, they do not understand what is God.
Dr. Kneupper: There are many sincere seekers, I think, in Christians and Moslems. At least I have met.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That must be. There must be some sincere men. That can be admitted. But still the sincere man also does not understand clearly what is the meaning of God. "I believe in God." "I believe in God," they say. Just like in America they say, "We trust in God." But what is God, he does not know. So what is the meaning of this, "I trust in God"? That is a phobia.
Dr. Kneupper: I don't understand how this relates to distinguishing who are the true teachers...
Prabhupāda: No, that I have already explained. Everyone is foolish now. You cannot distinguish who is thief and who is not thief. (Bengali) If you study everyone you will find everyone is rascal at the present moment.
Dr. Kneupper: But surely there are some who are...
Prabhupāda: But then you cannot deny that it is not a temple.
Devotee: Yeah, that's true. Actually...
Prabhupāda: Best thing is this type temple.
Devotee: Like here. With three domes. Well see, it all depends on the cost. I have some cost estimates here that... We figured out it's somewhere between thirty and forty dollars per square foot to build.
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So public opinion dictates that "This property is ours." Will he give by votes? Why he'll protest on that point?
Guest: His point is that because everyone is telling Kṛṣṇa is Supreme, therefore you are also supreme, but where is it true that Kṛṣṇa is Supreme?
Prabhupāda: So we have to meet such rascals and we have to preach. The world is full of rascals, mūḍha. What can be done? But we cannot change our preaching because the rascals are many. That is not... We cannot make that...
Guest: There is no medicine for mūḍhas.
Prabhupāda: Then what is this? Self-realization, what it is?
Indian man: (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: That is knowledge, that is knowledge. Self-realization.
Indian man: This is, one part is true knowledge.
Prabhupāda: No, not, suppose self-realization, what I am, is it not?
Indian man: Yes.
Prabhupāda: The answer is one.
Indian man: Yes, that is true.
Prabhupāda: That the any person, any living entity, he is not this body. That is the answer. So then two things. Suppose you are, I am, that I am thinking of this body, and at the same time I am thinking that this finger, I say, "My finger." Nobody says, "I finger." "My finger." Even a child he will say. So "My finger, my head, my legs." So what is that "my"? That is the question. The answer is negatively that that "I" or "my" is not this body. That is different from the body. Now what is the nature of that "I"? That is explained one after another, one after another, one, one. Because he has no idea. Every one of us... I am speaking, you are speaking. Theoretically we take, accept it that I am not this body. But practically I say, "I am this body." That is wrong. That has to be explained. And that is being explained.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So I am speaking on the basis of the Bhagavad-gītā. I am not manufacturing.
Indian man: True.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is master. Master means he will not manufacture. Lawyer means who will speak in the court with reference to the lawbook. Not that "My Lordship I have manufactured this way. You accept it." "Get out. Get out, rascal. You are not a lawyer." So this is going on. The rascals are going to be lawyer, without understanding.
Mr. Malhotra: "So that is what we are doing. So even if they don't like it we are doing. So whosoever is passing by he will have at least his ears will be accustomed to hear the name of Lord Kṛṣṇa." I said, "But in Gītā it is said that those who do not wish to know the true knowledge, well, it is forbidden for the devotees or for the followers to tell them anything about spiritual knowledge." "So that, sir, we are not imparting knowledge to each individual by catching them. We are just playing ourselves. So whosoever likes it, he can stand by us. Otherwise we are not..." So they replied also correctly to this also.
Prabhupāda: Yes, and Kṛṣṇa says...
Prabhupāda: But if you want freedom, you have to do that.
Guest (1): Yes, that's true. There is no other alternative.
Guest (2) (Indian man): Freedom from mind, how would you explain it or how would you detail it? (break)
Prabhupāda: ...mind means polluted mind. We are part and parcel of God. Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ (BG 15.7). Jīva is as pure as God and on account of this mind, he is suffering in this material world. You can see. You can see. Here is a living being, this tree. It is also a living being, but he's standing before me for fifty years or more than that.
Prabhupāda: No, no, no. He was implicated. This is māyā, that although he got svarāja, he was not free. He was full of anxiety, and he he was not at all... (aside:) Ayi. Jaya. So long one is absorbed in material thoughts, he'll be full of anxieties.
Guest (1): That's true. He was full of anxieties.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That means he could not get any spiritual idea. Asad grahāt. Material existence means accepting something which will not exist, asat. Asato mā sad gamaya. The Vedic instruction is: "Do not remain in this material world, and make your progress..." Asato mā sad gamaya. But people are so accustomed to materialistic way of life that they are reluctant. That is māyā, very strong. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). It is very, very difficult.
Prabhupāda: Reason is: "This is cheap. The swami is giving something cheap." Nowadays it has become a fashion, "Meditation." What nonsense meditation he will do?" This is going on. He cannot take cheap thing.
Guest (1): Cheap thing may be the right thing, the true thing, but "Because it's cheap, (laughing) so we..., not to be bothered."
Prabhupāda: In Europe, America, the Indian students, they say, "Oh, we have seen all this Hare Kṛṣṇa. We now want technology."
Prabhupāda: And long, long ago, in the beginning, one friend wrote. I replied in that letter, that "You have finished your cows. You are importing powdered milk. Now you have to import brāhmaṇas also from America. (laughter)
Guest (1): True, absolutely true.
Prabhupāda: Now, you see that we are establishing so many temples. They are being maintained by imported American brāhmaṇas. You cannot get.
Guest (1): Same thing in Aurobindo. I went to Pondicherry also this...
Prabhupāda: You cannot get here now brāhmaṇas. They have learned how to eat meat, how to drink, how to have illicit sex. They are finished.
Prabhupāda: They wanted for graft, to manipulate their empire. They wanted some subordinate hands. They never wanted to give real education.
Guest (2): That's true.
Prabhupāda: They wanted that the... That is cooperation. That is one of the Gandhi's understanding, that "These people are ruling over us by our cooperation. Therefore let us noncooperate and they'll fail. They'll not be able to rule."
Guest (1): Carry on their...
Prabhupāda: "...opposition." Therefore he went out and organized the INA, and that was successful. It is not Gandhi's noncooperation movement.
Guest (1): That's true. Now in the British official records which they are publishing their secret papers of twenty-five years, that knowledge is very clearly that it was this armed fight of Indian National Army which convinced the British that they could not rule India with the Indian soldiers.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is real noncooperation. (laughter) What this public noncooperation will do. They are simply clerks. Some of them may be high-court judges, but no responsible post was given.
Prabhupāda: To reform.
Guest (1): Then minds are spoiled; that is true. Their minds are, all Indian youth completely.
Prabhupāda: But you have spoiled them. You have given this impression that "This 'religion, religion, religion' has spoiled our country. Now throw it, all these books, in the water." The leaders say that. "Take to technology." They come to me. They challenge, "Swamiji, what this Hare Kṛṣṇa movement will do? Now we require technology." This is ignorance.
Prabhupāda: I have seen them. They squander so much money, and I chastise them that "You are so loose, you are so rascal and..." But still, whatever money I have got, it is due to them.
Guest (1): That's true, that's true. (laughter) That's true. That's true.
Prabhupāda: Otherwise... (laughing)
Guest (1): Really, it is true. (break)
Prabhupāda: I have tried convinced them. Janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrīḥ (SB 1.8.26), to become moneyed, that also requires background. Pūrva-janmārjitaṁ dhanam. So they are born in rich country; that is due to their past pious deeds. Yes. There is no doubt. Yes. Now I request them that "You have got everything. You take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then you are perfect."
Guest (2): He has also translated Gītā.
Guest (1): Shh! Swamiji's saying is this, that Gītā is interpreted by different people in different way. That is true. Understanding of Gītā is a very big...
Prabhupāda: He does not present Bhagavad-gītā as it is. According to his own whims... But the original śloka is there.
Guest (1): But interpretation is his own.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guest (1): Original śloka, of course, everybody would put. Then they interpret in their own way. I think, sir, most of us are accepted through this Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, as you have rightly said.
Prabhupāda: That means you don't know religion.
Guest (1): He is preaching Gītā, that's true, but as Swamiji says, that is interpretation of his own. Original words are there. Everybody who speaks about Gītā...
Prabhupāda: Religion is to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. But he does not recommend to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. What does he know about Kṛṣṇa? That is the difficulty. He does not know what is Kṛṣṇa, what is religion, and he is preaching religion?
Indian man: So that is done by his disciples and not by him. He never...
Prabhupāda: That means he could not make his disciple correctly.
Indian man: That is true. That is true.
Prabhupāda: Therefore he did not know. Now see how my disciples are working all over the world within ten years. I am sitting here, still going on, my business. So you have to train in such a way. The Deity worship is going on. Bring that recent Denver pictures. They are now opening different branches, establishing Deity exactly in the way I have trained. It is a question of training.
Yogi Amrit Desai: You consider that as a material. Only bhakti-yoga is more... That's true.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Karma... What is the difference between the karmīs and yogis? Yogis want some siddhis, and karmīs want some material profit. Both of them are in want. They are not free from want. Is it not?
Yogi Amrit Desai: No, it depends on the yogi. My guru is a yogi, but he never demonstrated any power ever.
Prabhupāda: No, no... Yogi, he wants siddhi. Yogis... Of course, nowadays yogis, they have no siddhis.
Prabhupāda: He's also going to the hell. Adānta-gobhir viśatāṁ tamisraṁ punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). So without ācāryopāsanam, without being under the control of ācārya, these are all bogus.
Yogi Amrit Desai: That's exactly what I believe. That's so true.
Jagadīśa: Anahaṅkāra eva ca, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9).
Prabhupāda: They are showing some magic. Just like this child was being treated. So he could not check the process of death. Neither it is possible to stop the process of death. Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha... Our real unhappiness is this-janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi. So otherwise why there is knowledge? He does not know what is the miserable condition of life. Everyone knows that he is going to die.
Prabhupāda: Some portion. He wanted to prove himself that he is Puruṣottama.
Dr. Patel: He's not Puruṣottama. He does not say that. Puruṣottama is really reality in true sense and...
Prabhupāda: But his disciples say he is more than Kṛṣṇa.
Dr. Patel: Disciples..., disciples...
Prabhupāda: That means why he has created such nonsense? If the disciples say something wrong, then that means he is also wrong. These people will never say that "Our Guru Mahārāja is more than Kṛṣṇa." They are not so nonsense. They will say "My Guru Mahārāja is servant of Kṛṣṇa and I am his servant."
Girirāja: That's true.
Prabhupāda: If I am in power, give the dog a bad name and hang it. Who is going to check me? The same story, the lion and the lamb? No? A lion was drinking water this side and one lamb was drinking water that side. So the lion saw it is very nice food. So he wanted to kill with some plea, "Oh, you are making my water muddy!" "Sir, I am here so far. How I can make your water muddy?" (laughs) In this way he picked up some quarrel and jumped over. So he's lion and he's a lamb. So it is no difficult for the lion to kill a lamb under some plea. "Might is right."
Prabhupāda: Bhavānanda. Nothing was done.
Girirāja: Yes. It's true.
Prabhupāda: And Lalitā says that "I know Swamiji is very exalted. I am simply afraid... He has so many American disciples. If some of them do something wrong, that will be very bad thing for him." Lalitā was telling me. What can I do? Come anyone. Who is bad, who is good I do not know. But I know even bad man comes, he becomes a good man. That I know. So who will come? How can I discriminate who is bad or who is good?
Prabhupāda: Where is the location?
Gurudāsa: It's on what's called Gangadwip. But that's new place. It's an island that just appeared this year, splitting the Ganges in two. You know, Jushi is here, and Gangadwip is here. And the place where we were last year is here. We were here last year, Gangadwip is here, and Jushi is here. And... But I've been sending out and going out on saṅkīrtana, so that will make up for our location. It's not so bad, but I want to paint a true picture. It's not so good, nor is it so bad. And there's thirteen tents. We have three bigas of land, sand. And we've made a tin enclosure all the way around. And we had a Swiss cottage tent for yourself. Swiss cottage means a room about this large from the end of the almirah to the wall and about this wide.
Prabhupāda: Sat-saṅga, satāṁ prasaṅgāt. The sat-saṅga... We know that word only, but if we don't take advantage, then what is meaning?
Guest (5) (Indian man): Execution part is more important of the sat-saṅga.
Prabhupāda: Yes. No, sat-saṅga means sat. Sat means which is true and not contaminated. That is sat. Oṁ tat sat. So sat-saṅga means to associate with spiritual knowledge. That is sat.
Guest (5): And execution of the discourse.
Hari-śauri: Yeah. Philosophy and all the arts.
Prabhupāda: No, anything higher study, don't care for it.
Rāmeśvara: It's true. Technical studies and business...
Prabhupāda: Our Hayagrīva is not getting any employment. Nobody's interested. "Eh. What is the use of higher mathematics, all this, these things? We have to earn money."
Rāmeśvara: Physics, computer technology, all these things are big.
Gargamuni: And they're prepared to spend lakhs. Some of these technical books cost more than a hundred rupees a volume.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They're charging.
Guest (1): No, that is, mean... Kṛṣṇa is everywhere.
Prabhupāda: We cannot bring Prahlāda Mahārāja in ordinary thing.
Guest (1): No, that's true. That theory is: Kṛṣṇa is everywhere.
Prabhupāda: Prahlāda Mahārāja underwent so much persecution. He was never disturbed, because he was confident that "Kṛṣṇa will give me protection. Never mind." That is another position. Mahā-bhāgavata. We are kaniṣṭha-adhikārīs. We have to worship Deity.
Prabhupāda: The Absolute Truth is also chance?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: In order to write down in the form of mathematical formulas or equations in quantum mechanics this—they call probability—the theory of probability or chance should be introduced. But Einstein was against that. That's what he's saying. It says, "The Heisenberg all-tranquilizing philosophy or religion is so delicately contrived that for the time being it provides a gentle pillow for the true believer from which he cannot very easily be aroused. So let him lie there." In other words, those who believe in chance... The main concept in quantum mechanics or quantum physics is mainly from this Heisenberg and Borg. They are well-known physicists.
Prabhupāda: Who? Who? Whom I said?
Gurukṛpā: Mansingh.
Prabhupāda: Munsi,(?) ah, yes. (laughs)
Gurukṛpā: Everybody was, "Is it true?"
Prabhupāda: He did not believe in Kṛṣṇa. And from his character he's a rascal. I know that.
Hari-śauri: The one thing that shocks the Indians the most is Vivekananda.
Prabhupāda: Because they're rascals. Modern people in India, they are all rascals. Whole population is bokā.
Satsvarūpa: Isn't it true also that, in the Kṛṣṇa conscious state, that a rascal, he may be allowed to live if he does his rascaldom but within the regulations. Like there's even allowance for eating meat and for going to the prostitute. Not that he'll be automatically killed, but...
Prabhupāda: No, who said like that?
Satsvarūpa: Well, there are some purports in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that say there'll always be a class of men who will do this thing, so the prostitute is natural in society. That will keep him from at least going to...
Prabhupāda: So there must be rainfall. And if we become Kṛṣṇa conscious, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, there will be rainfall.
Yogeśvara: That will be true everywhere we go.
Prabhupāda: There'll be rainfall. And then even barren land will be fertile. They do not know this. They are importing water. These rascals, they continue sinful life and import water. There are oceans and seas. Why (chuckling) you scientist cannot bring the water, make cloud and pour water? Where is that science? What do they say about it?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They are making it.
Prabhupāda: That is temporary. That is temporary. That I can change without your scientific help. Now you have discovered this sweater. I can go to the sunshine, and it will be all right. I don't require. Nature's arrangement is already there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's true. But still, people like to be happy.
Prabhupāda: No, no, where is happiness? That is our misunderstanding. If you have to die, if you have to suffer from disease, if you have to become old... Just like I am old. I have got so many inconvenience. You are young man. I feel that you are so in convenient position. I was also young man. So how can I check it? I may be spiritual master of so many young men, you are trying to give me all comfort, but because I have got this body, old body, I am suffering. How you can relieve it?
Prabhupāda: So that duty is now entrusted to you, in your hands. Do it very nicely. Kṛṣṇa will help you. (break)
Jayapatākā: ...to disprove them. But we have the true fact, but they cannot... Then let them disprove that.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Jayapatākā: When the people all understand our philosophy then they'll have to disprove us. Otherwise they won't stand. Why we should disprove their nonsense? They haven't proved it yet.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Because they are not yet advanced. Beyond the mind there is intelligence, and beyond the intelligence there is the soul.
They have come up to the mind, but above the mind there is intelligence, and above intelligence there is soul. So we can understand this very easily because we accept Bhagavad-gītā. It is easy for us. And for others, they are going step by step. It is very difficult. But we can understand immediately.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. It's true that that theory that everything is material or everything beyond matter is false... (end)
Prabhupāda: Cākriyaḥ. Read?
Hari-śauri: "The blessed Lord said: 'One who is unattached to the fruits of his work and who works as he is obligated is in the renounced order of life and he is the true mystic, not he who lights no fire and performs no work.' "
Prabhupāda: Purport.
Hari-śauri: "In this chapter the Lord explains that the process..." (break)
Prabhupāda: So this is sannyāsī. Sannyāsī is not the dress. This mentality, that is sannyāsa. So you have taken all prasādam? No.
Jayapatākā: Now you take rest, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Yes. So things are going nicely?
Hari-śauri:
ahaṁ hi sarva-yajñānāṁ
bhoktā ca prabhur eva ca
na tu mām abhijānanti
tattvenātaś cyavanti te
"I am the only enjoyer and the only object of sacrifice. Those who do not recognize my true transcendental nature fall down."
Prabhupāda: Hm. Next verse.
Prabhupāda: So this will give impetus to Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati (BG 4.7). Don't be disappointed. Kṛṣṇa will act through His movement and kill them, these demons. How it will be done, that you cannot know now, but it will be done. Let us remain true soldiers. That's all. And if it is a fight, suppose we die in the fight. The fight means with vow, with determination either to gain victory or die. Because it is fight against māyā, why we shall be afraid of being killed? Where there is fight, one must know that "Either I am going to be killed or gain victory." Jīvo vā māro vā. Those who are devotees, either they live or they die—the same thing. While they live they are serving Kṛṣṇa; when they die they will serve Kṛṣṇa. Jīvo vā māro vā. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti (BG 4.9). He goes to Kṛṣṇa. (laughs) So what is the loss?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. A good businessman. They outright... This they outrightly say. "This is not religion. No question of religion, nothing about God." They advertise like that. "It is not religion."
Prabhupāda: That is true.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The Army has taken it up now.
Prabhupāda: He has not any new writings?(?)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He had one, but I heard that they had some difficulty in preparing it. (indistinct) (break)
Prabhupāda: ...the leaders agree, organize it. Then others take it. We can begin there this varṇāśrama program.
Rādhā-vallabha: I don't think anyone has ever done this before in our movement, the Vedic system. So I had a few questions about it. First of all I told them that they shouldn't associate until the actual time that they get married. That's true, isn't it?
Prabhupāda: No, no, marriage, they do not speak. That is the disease in your country, that... There is no objection nineteen-years-old boy and twelve-years girl, it is very good combination, but the culture is so bad that after few days they will separate.
Pañcadraviḍa: Can I say one thing? I think we should say that to Śrīla Prabhupāda that this resolution regarding the women was also to establish schools for them to protect them from local laws, to establish schools where they can learn domestic arts.
Rāmeśvara: That's true.
Pañcadraviḍa: That was passed.
Satsvarūpa: Resolved: Tuṣṭa Kṛṣṇa's group in New Zealand and Siddha-svarūpānanda Swami in Hawaii should pay the same price for BBT books as the temples in the ISKCON, not less, as they are paying now. It is well known that these groups preach actively against ISKCON. In response, although we should point out their philosophic defects, we should not directly confront them but remain aloof from...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In other words, no fighting with them.
Prabhupāda: This is to give them chance. They are chanting. Some way or other, keep them alive.
Prabhupāda: London, Bhaktivedanta Manor, they are nicer buildings. But if you cannot open these doors of the building, oh, immediately collapse...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's true.
Prabhupāda: You have to remain packed up.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, it spoils it. You can't really enjoy it.
Prabhupāda: Detroit and London. Oh, you cannot open.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Detroit also.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's very true. Scientists, once they are convinced, it is also very difficult to...
Prabhupāda: Yes. He is not easily convinced, then easily he does not forget.
Dr. Sharma: I've always said, teach the Russians that we have our own brand of communism or socialism.
Prabhupāda: Yes, I have already explained.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Just as that Christian asked you, is Lord Jesus's teachings universal. The Christians, they say that Jesus's teachings are universal. So that means that they must be true.
Prabhupāda: And they accept yes, and we say.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Jesus said "Thou shalt not kill." This applies to all human beings. So if they say that about Jesus's teachings, why not about dehino 'smin yathā dehe (BG 2.13)? They should say.
Girirāja: That's true. It's a fact.
Prabhupāda: This should be recognized. And sober men, leaders, they should come forward. And India's, this vast knowledge will be... That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission.
Girirāja: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Paropakāra. They have got this opportunity how to get out of this entanglement of being covered by the material body, and they are not being given the chance. And we are giving the chance so easy. Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ bhava-mahā-dāvāgni... (CC Antya 20.12). Bhava-mahā-dāvāgni, the same thing. Bhava-mahā-dāvāgni. This repetition of birth and death, it is the blazing fire of material existence. So when one understands that "What is my position?" then he'll do this, ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam, clear understanding, "Oh..."
Ram Jethmalani: No, that is true, that's the...
Prabhupāda: That is sarvopādhi-vinirmuktam (CC Madhya 19.170).
Ram Jethmalani: That is the only way to have a world movement. Must do. Cut across these...
Prabhupāda: Yes. So harijanas, Muslims, these are... And camara-bhangi. These are designations. Or brāhmaṇa, bodily concept of life. So according to our śāstra, so long one continues this bodily concept of life, he is animal. Either you call I am bhangi, or you call I am brāhmaṇa, you are animal. This is the verdict of the śāstra. What is the difference? The conception is the same. "I am dog." "I am brāhmaṇa," "I am Indian," "I am American." That "I am" with the bodily identification is there.
Girirāja: That's true.
Prabhupāda: That's all. Mūrkhasya lakuṭauṣadhi(?). When a person is fool number one, beat him. That's all. Ḍhol gobara...(?) Tulasī dāsa has said, ḍhol gobara śūdra paśu nārī, ei saba śāsana ke adhikārī. Ḍhol, drum, you have to bring it to the tune by beating, "tung, tung." Gobara. Gobara means fool person. Paśu, animal. Ḍhol, gobara, pa..., śūdra, and nārī, woman. They should be punished to bring them into order. Ei saba śāsana ke adhikārī. Otherwise they will spoil. A barking dog, you cannot pacify him, "My dear dog, don't bark." It will disturb him: "No!" Ḍhol gobara śūdra paśu nārī, ei saba śāsana ke... So anyone who is denying the existence of God, he is a rascal number one and beat him with shoes. Bas. He is being beaten with shoes by nature.
Patita-pāvana: One thing is, he's a Christian.
Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be...
Patita-pāvana: I guess so. It's true.
Prabhupāda: He has nothing to do...
Patita-pāvana: But we have emphasized that several times in the talk.
Prabhupāda: Hm. What is that?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very foolish. Somehow, though, it seems that if we remain true to everything you've taught and remain true to Bhagavad-gītā and to Kṛṣṇa, that somehow we can counteract the entire world of atheists. Seems possible.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This movement is so powerful, this message is so pure, that it seems that no matter how big the opposition is, still, it can conquer. We can be victorious. Arjuna was victorious. There's a wonderful statement in the beginning... You make this... It's stated in the Tenth Canto. Parīkṣit Mahārāja is appreciating Arjuna, and he's saying, "How, how could he defeat such gigantic...?" He's comparing to the ocean the battlefield. He says, "Bhīṣma, such a big fish..."
Prabhupāda: Timiṅgila.
Prabhupāda: Indians, intelligent... (Hindi) Indians... So, but they have sacrificed everything for..., to imitate the Westerners. But Indian (Hindi) knowledge... But we have locked it. Our knowledge, we have locked it, and we are trying to imitate.
Shri Narayan: Yes, true, imitation is not good at all. We must keep our originality and ancient...
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Vedic culture (Hindi) (Hindi conversation) Within ten years I have already written eighty-four books.
Prabhupāda: That's a fact. Aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara-stham (Bs. 5.35). Even within the atom there is living entity. Just like within the seed there is living entity, and when the seed gets favorable circumstances, the life is there. It fructifies. Different seeds, different life.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: This is true only, though, in the earth planet. In the earth.
Prabhupāda: Earth?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: In this planet.
Prabhupāda: Everywhere. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi. Everywhere there is water and there is... That's all.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So... And without water, where silica comes? They are all rascals. Wherever there is silica, there must be water, dried up or existing.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's true, though, that there is water, but not as much as we find...
Prabhupāda: But that is another. Water must be there. Without water, there is no question of silica.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I was thinking that... Just like in the sun planet, you said the body has to be fiery, like the sun, so in that sense the...
Prabhupāda: That does not mean there is no water.
Rāmeśvara: "...as the Founder-Ācārya; 4. that I further declare, say and confirm that I have no personal claim or interest in these said properties or any..." It says, "position alone...," "...and the same solely belongs to the said society, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, absolutely. That which is stated above is true to the best of my knowledge, information and belief. Witnessed..." The witnesses swear to that.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: So if this document is prepared, it does not have to be advertised, but if at any point there is some contention, we can show that this was...
Prabhupāda: Made.
Prabhupāda: I could not understand. "What is this, that I have to go outside India? That is not..." And Guru Mahārāja foretold. He told my Godbrothers, Śrīdhara Mahārāja and others, that "He'll do the needful when time comes. Nobody requires to help him." He told in 1935. And after all, this was true(?). Guru Mahārāja told. And in the beginning, first sight, he told, "You have to do this."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No one helped you. That's a fact. You asked that...
Prabhupāda: Who?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...Tīrtha Mahārāja for some help, he didn't help at all. He wouldn't even give a little place.
Prabhupāda: Nobody. Everyone admits.
Prabhupāda: I have several times stressed that living being is a sample of God. If you study living being, you understand God.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually it's very true and also very scientific to propose this simile because life, being nonmaterial...
Prabhupāda: It is Vedic version. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānṁ. But where is the difference? The difference is that eka is so important that He is the source of everything, and He is maintaining this bahūnām. That is... Both of them, quality, the same. But one is maintaining; others are being maintained. One is predominator; others are predominated. That is the difference. Āśraya, viśaya. So therefore when you come to the āśraya, that is perfection.
Prabhupāda: When he said, what the audience thinks?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, the audience, they laugh, and yet the laughing is a little... They swallow their laughing. In one sense it's funny; in the other sense they know it is very true, and they feel it. Actually it would be difficult to say such strong thing, but because it is an in a formal theater, the audience sits there respectfully, taking it all.
Prabhupāda: So we are criticizing, but...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But no one else is.
Prabhupāda: Nobody understands that these are bad things.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda..." This is a black devotee. "Please forgive me for my countless offenses against you and the entire Vaiṣṇava community. In desperation I beg that you accept my apology for being such an artificial devotee. My humble obeisances I quickly offer to you. I am simply praying every day for you to force me to become a true disciple. Otherwise I will be doomed."
Prabhupāda: How humble he is!
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Spiritual life means to please the Gurudeva..."
Prabhupāda: He was a principal somewhere?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That Aurora is very qualified, very important. He was a judge in South Africa. He was an international lawyer. He graduated from Harvard, so many big schools-Oxford, Harvard. I know he wasn't lying. It's true. He held very good position.
Prabhupāda: Is Aurora pleader? Is Aurora pleader, you mean?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, that barrister. We have to take very good care to make the gurukula bona fide and genuine. It's really lucky you got that Dr. Sharma. Clearly he's the best. I mean, he's already been principal of big schools.
Prabhupāda: No, they are different men. They are coming from different country.
Mr. Myer: That's true. So it's difficult for them to relieve.
Prabhupāda: And they are...
Mr. Myer: Local people, we have to have local people with more language and...
Prabhupāda: The local people... Some educated people come, they... Then it can be done.
Mr. Myer: 'Cause why...
Prabhupāda: For him it is new, but because he did not see...
Mr. Myer: That's true. But we are not covering very many activities of India in that, what is happening here.
Prabhupāda: Just like pañjikā... What is called, that?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Almanac.
Prabhupāda: Almanac. It is always written there, Nūtana Pañjikā, "New Pañjikā," although it may be fifty years old.
Mr. Myer: I understand. Who will read it? I recently bought a book. I bought a fifty-eighth anniversary book of...
Mr. Myer: In Madras we have got very particular people. This is ho-kalam(?). One and a half hour every day, nobody does any work. Monday, 7:30 to nine. It's some time every day they say very bad. People don't start anything new, not going... In the afternoon there is rama-dandana.(?) So it always means a way of postponing things, so, as Guru was saying the other day, somebody said, "It's not auspicious to sleep on the north side." So then he said, "I don't have a head, so it doesn't matter which way the..." Quite true, that is.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So if tomorrow we could have this... Or day after tomorrow, perhaps. It will take a day to get the ingredients. Day after tomorrow is all right with you?
Mr. Myer: No, that's very good, yeah.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, today's Friday, so day after tomorrow will be Sunday. Sunday morning. Is that all right? Actually Mr. Myer came here to get initiated. He had no idea to come here to become a manager here. Originally, before he went back to Madras to get his wife, he just came here for this thing, because he heard that you were very ill, and he didn't know what your position would be, so he wanted... So he rushed here, stopping all his work, simply to take initiation.
Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa's inspiration.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: She says, "Our most revered Guru Mahārāja, my crores of charan and vandana at the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa and at the lotus feet of our revered Guruji. When you were here we could not have your darshan due to your illness, and after that, you left Bombay and went to Vṛndāvana. We prayed to Lord Kṛṣṇa for your life, and our Lord Kṛṣṇa is so kind that He again heard our prayers, and now you are better. We are informed by the devotees that Guru Mahārāja is better. May Lord Kṛṣṇa give you a long life, happiness and good health and your stay with us for a few more years. We were in dark, and you have enlightened our life and taught us real religion. You shower your blessings on us. I always feel your presence near me always in the heart. We want you. Your life is very essential for us. Kindly, Guru Mahārāja, take care of your health. We believe in both prayer and medicines, so kindly do not neglect yourself. Your dream of Bombay ISKCON temple has come true. It is just like Kṛṣṇa's palace in Dvārakā. It is a top building, a jewel and (indistinct). Now I close my letter with my prayers for your good health. Your faithful devotee, Nirmala Singol."
Prabhupāda: You reply that I am progressing little.
Prabhupāda: That I say.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Today the one question was asked in the class that "Isn't it true that as one makes advancement, māyā will put up so many obstructions, even more as the devotee advances?" So I answered by saying that "In the case of a pure devotee, māyā realizes that there is no need to challenge, because māyā is the servant of Kṛṣṇa. So when someone is fully devoted, just like Śrīla Prabhupāda, then māyā cannot touch, and she knows that he will use everything in Kṛṣṇa's service, so there is no need to put up any obstacle, and all facilities are given to the pure devotee for using everything in Kṛṣṇa's service."
Prabhupāda: So I can stop?
Prabhupāda: Just see. To enjoy happiness they are sitting in that house. Your grandfather left such a nice property. But they are not happy. And they disturb you. You came out... (coughs) Practically seeing, you are happy more than them.
Vrindavan De: True. That is a correct. That is correct.
Prabhupāda: If you had lived in that house, you would have been simply harassed. So Kṛṣṇa has done so much mercy that you got free from their association, and now you are doing...
Vrindavan De: Also the mercy of Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: So happiness does not depend on money.
Prabhupāda: It is absorbed.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And the opposite is true, in the daytime the night goes into the water, so it appears a very dark color. This is... Every explanation is given in the Bhāgavatam, and it's all in contradiction to the so-called scientists. They say that the reason we experience day and night is that the earth is rotating on its axis and at the same time circumambulating the sun.
Prabhupāda: Double. Double motion.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...Vyāsadeva is the basis of all education. " 'Later the saint Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, in commenting upon the life of the great Mahāprabhu Śrī Caitanya, brought to the highest level of understanding these principles in his immortal Indian classic, Caitanya-caritāmṛta. It is good fortune of the world that these two spiritual works presented as the Encyclopedia of Indian Culture have been translated and commented upon in the style of a true scholar by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. Śrīla Prabhupāda, out of his obviously great desire to inject the world with his vast storehouse of learning, has translated precisely the rich Sanskrit and Bengali ślokas. He has given the transliteration, word-for-word meaning, purports, and each volume filled with full color illustrations by his disciples. I therefore wholeheartedly recommend this encyclopedia of our culture and all other Bhaktivedanta Book Trust publications to all educational institutions, schools, libraries, and colleges concerned with the moral and cultural development of their students within the boundary of Maharastra and throughout the world.' "
Prabhupāda: Very good.
Prabhupāda: That's it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...so that they can pay for some other place.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's true. Nowadays it's very difficult.
Prabhupāda: This is system in Bombay. Without paying, you cannot get even inch of land.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Trivikrama Mahārāja told me in Japan it's getting like that also, Tokyo.
Prabhupāda: Wherever there is scarcity, that is the system.
Prabhupāda: America, enough places.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They have paying a few months' rent, but not pagri.
Prabhupāda: There are so many houses. Why they should pay?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. That's true.
Prabhupāda: Multi-story building. Why people should pay? Now Bombay have got many multi-story building; therefore that demand is reduced. But still, you have to pay in important place, pagri or underhand. What is called?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Bribe.
Prabhupāda: Bribe is very bad word. "Under table." (chuckling)
Prabhupāda: ...because there is psychological difference.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: See, one thing is that... Of course, when one has no energy, when one has no strength, then it's hard to be active. But then the other thing is true, that when one is active, he gets appetite automatically.
Prabhupāda: Therefore those who are physically active, they can eat more.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, it's true.
Prabhupāda: But those who are not physically active, they cannot eat.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. That's the difference between the Bengalis and the Punjabis. Punjabis work very hard.
Prabhupāda: No, they eat also.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: She said, "Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda, please accept my most humble obeisances. All glories to Your Divine Grace. This shawl is made of the wool from our own sheep, spun and woven here at Gītā-nagarī. It is the first piece we have made. While I was working on it I would always think of you, of how I was supposedly making you a gift. But actually you are giving me the gift of engagement in devotional service. Śrīla Prabhupāda, I always pray to Lord Nṛsiṁha-deva to protect you and allow you to stay with us to finish your books. But I think today the rain falling from the sky is actually the tears of the demigods, crying at the prospect of your departure. I am also crying. Even Kṛṣṇa cried at the passing of Grandfather Bhīṣma, so I have a right to cry. I cannot be so philosophical to say that you are always present in your books and teachings, though I know these things are true. I will miss you so much, Śrīla Prabhupāda, if you go. I beg that I may always remain your menial servant and devotee. Your humble disciple, Satyabhāmā dāsī."
Prabhupāda: Thank to her. Made with our wool.
Brahmānanda: When you combine matter together, it just gives some reaction.
Dr. Kapoor: True, but the question remains...
Prabhupāda: Just like soda, acid and soda. Mix together. There will be effervescence. That is matter. And life means gives impetus: "Do this." It is not comparable(?) thing.
Upendra: Time for giving him this juice, so... (break)
Prabhupāda: A child can speak sensibly, "Mother, give me this." But soda, alkaline and acid, mixed, it can give some dead effervescence.
Jayapatākā: Because we are foreigners, so when they first came and said that "The foreigners, they are firing upon us Indians although we did no wrong," so rather than take what is the actual situation, they immediately said, "Oh, yes, foreigners are firing upon our Indians." They took a national stand, influenced by different reasons. That is why that matter initially was against us. But now the fact that they are such type of guṇḍā and anti-social, they are just showing by their own mistakes. They can't hide their nature. They've already been summoned by the SDO on what's called śabdara,(?) that they are undesirable elements, twenty of them, on another account, because they had done something else wrong, and they're all on a type of bail, even apart from our case. So day by day, it's becoming more and more apparent, their nature. You gave me the name Jayapatākā, Śrīla Prabhupāda, and I hope that by your mercy this name can become true. Then there will be victory in all these efforts.
Prabhupāda: It has become true.
Jayapatākā: Bhavānanda, when he... Just the day after he left here, there was a letter addressed to him. One gentleman wrote and said, "I am fifty years old and I am a M.A...." He was a professor of something. And he said, "Now my children are all grown up and I'm simply working. So I have heard that you are a pure Vaiṣṇava, so I want to take shelter and serve Kṛṣṇa at your āśrama." So although people are putting in paper so many things, but they are understanding that "No, he is a Vaiṣṇava." So people believe what they want to believe. So whatever... It's all that... The devotees are devotees. When we see people, they always say, (Bengali). They don't believe it that the report is true. Everyone doubts the reports. Only those that are of envious mind, they believe in, because they want to believe that.
Prabhupāda: What... (Bengali)
Prabhupāda: So if Bombay is sufficient, don't bother in Delhi.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. I will do it slowly first of all to make sure that whatever we have done is going on nicely, then we can expand later on. But in India it is true that everybody I met, very respectful to Śrīla Prabhupāda's movement to what we are trying to do.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That much we want to keep. The people may not think of it as bogus.
Prabhupāda: That construction is not so important as printing of books.
Jayapatākā: The president of the Bhadrak temple that Lokanātha Swami got donated from the Gauḍīya Maṭha to ISKCON, he has been collecting life members, hoping that he can build and improve a little bit on it. He was hoping to get the same facility of Bhuvaneśvara, of matching fifty-fifty. He's collecting everything locally in Orissa.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda? We got a telegram from Nṛsiṁha-Caitanya. You know, he's the boy who does library distribution? Should I read it to you?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay.
Jayapatākā: Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura's analogy of Bṛhad-mṛdaṅga has really come true through Your Divine Grace. The sound of your books has been heard in all corners.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He's asking for your...
Prabhupāda: Svarūpa Dāmodara?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. Yes. It is true that in big cities... Say, Piyal(?) find it(?) in Delhi. They say they can fill up the Vijñāna Bhavana. Also coming here in Vṛndāvana, especially if we don't provide transportation right from..., by some good conveyance, actually it's not so easy to come here.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And that also would be such an expenditure, each time you want to hold a meeting you'd have to convey people, especially from other cities.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: That's very true, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Pañca-draviḍa: You are a pure devotee of Kṛṣṇa, and your whole life is simply dedicated to the propagation of Kṛṣṇa's teachings all over the world, whereas my whole life is simply dedicated to sense gratification. So therefore, when I come in front of a person such as yourself, I feel ashamed.
Bhavānanda: It is true, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that if you lose your desire to remain here, then no medicine can be effective. But if you desire to remain, then the medicine can become effective.
Prabhupāda: No, in this way to remain—not desirable. Every day, crisis.
Bhavānanda: That is the crisis.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That is the puzzlement. (break)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. (Hindi) And the mayor, ex-mayor, has given telegram. Where is that telegram? This is a telegram... It says, "Pray God, Kṛṣṇa, to give you long life to spread Indian culture in every nook and corner of the universe. Signed Raji K. Ganatra, ex-mayor of Bombay." He's very convinced, Śrīla Prabhupāda, about Your Divine Grace and this movement, because he traveled around the world and stayed as a guest at our temples, and he was amazed to see how this Indian culture had actually been transplanted and taken root in all of these countries all over the world. He could not believe it. He was so amazed and impressed. He said that he's seen genuinely that this Indian culture has been taken up in true spirit.
Hari-prasāda: This is the first movement that has started (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Kavirāja (1): (Hindi)
Bhakti-caru: Pressure is good. When Dr. Ghosh came, that other Dr. Ghosh came... (Hindi) ...pressure, 180 and 80. (Hindi) He's saying that in this condition, Prabhupāda can't take makara-dhvaja. That any medicine that contains mercury and arsenic is poison to him.
Bhavānanda: That's what Prabhupāda said.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That is a fact. He found that to be true.
Kavirāja (1): (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi—long conversation with kavirāja)
Bhakti-caru: (Hindi) (end)
Mādhava: This is very true.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So the proposal that he continues to take some fruit juice has certain merit, because at least we've seen that that's one thing that he will take in large quantity. If nothing else... Every single kavirāja and doctor we've consulted, they all insist that one of the most important things is that there be sufficient liquid taken so that the body can be cleansed properly. So although you may be right that by taking one thing in particular and not taking fruit juice may be preferable, if he can't take it, then there's no use in that point.
Mādhava: That's true. If Śrīla Prabhupāda would take nothing but fruit juice, it is much better that he have the fruit juice.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So therefore Svarūpa Dāmodara Prabhu's suggestion was not unbased, because we see that in the past Prabhupāda has rejected... I've seen him reject vegetable broths. I saw him reject it at least three or four times. I've never seen him reject fruit juice. So how much vegetable broth will Prabhupāda take? He won't take 500, 600, 800 cc's. He may, but I've never seen such a thing.
Bhavānanda: He'll take one glass.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So you have to consider that, although he should take sufficient liquid. So you have to augment... (break) ...Śatadhanya, when we called Calcutta, and then I could not fall asleep properly because I was very... My mind was active last night. For three hours I was not sleeping.
Prabhupāda: On the back side.
Prabhupāda: Hm. That bābājī was telling.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, Bābājī, Kṛṣṇa dāsa.
Prabhupāda: He said that "In everyone's hand I see Gītār Gān."
Bhavānanda: Yes. (laughs) That's true. They take Gītār Gān and a Bhāgavata Darśana.
Śatadhanya: And they're anxious for the next issue.
Prabhupāda: They have already published twenty thousand.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Twenty thousand. Very good sale. Good scope in Bengal.
Prabhupāda: Hm. Everywhere. Two hundred men already subscribed. If we increase subscribers, many, many...
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. They must be tired. They traveled all night long. The kavirāja didn't sleep at all, I heard. Is that true, Jayapatākā?
Jayapatākā: Yes. The flight was three hours delayed. Three hours he was sitting, and he didn't leave Calcutta... 8:00 flight left at 10:30, 11:00, and arrived in Delhi 1:00. Then it took to 5:00 to get here, so he's quite tired.
Prabhupāda: It did not start on time.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, three hours delayed.
Jayapatākā: The flight was late.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So everyone can take rest now.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not to do anymore, unless he does it here.
Prabhupāda: If he cannot do here...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Seems like he's mostly after money, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Is that true?
Prabhupāda: Everyone says like that.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. I got that feeling when I saw him. I felt it was very inappropriate that he should come here and in your con-dition he should be pressing you for money like that. I didn't feel it was very proper. So, er, Bhagatji is going to be going to look at that temple, so I can tell him that he should tell Balaram Misra that unless he does the pūjā here, then don't do it.
Prabhupāda: Bhagatji has not gone?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We'll get you better, Śrīla Prabhupāda, and you will also be able to take bath personally there. We'll see you get better.
Prabhupāda: That's all right.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Kṛṣṇa will make all of our words come true, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Bhakti-caru: (Bengali-brings milk for Prabhupāda)
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. (Bengali)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, this kavirāja, I mean we're fortunate to get this sincere man.
Prabhupāda: Where is kavirāja?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He's out working, at work.
| Page Title: | True (Conversations 1976 - 1977) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 23 of Nov, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=167, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 167 |