Very little (Conversations)

Expressions researched:
"very little"

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Press Interview -- December 30, 1968, Los Angeles:

Journalist: Yes, I understand.

Hayagrīva: Well, it's control of the senses, and he teaches us how to control the senses. Generally, marriage doesn't take place until a boy is about 22, 23, 25.

Journalist: You mean in his culture.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We select girl, say, about 16, 17 years old, and boys not more than 24 years old. I get them married. You see? And because their attention is diverted to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they have very little interest simply for sex life. You see? They have got better engagement. Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (BG 2.59). You see? We give substitute. We simply don't say that "You don't do it," but we give something better. You see? Then automatically the "don't" automatically comes. You see?

Journalist: At the right time.

Prabhupāda: Immediately. We give something better engagement.

Journalist: What is this?

Prabhupāda: Just like our boys and girls, they are all engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness business, in temple work, in painting, in typing, in recording, so many things. And they are happy. They are not going to cinema, they are not going to club, they are not drinking, they are not smoking. So practically I am training them how to control. And there is possibility because these boys and girls, they are all Americans. They are not imported from India. Why they have taken to this? The system is so nice that they have liked it. So if you spread this system, everything will be solved.

Journalist: So then it...

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 11, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:

Prabhupāda: No, we have to corroborate.

Allen Ginsberg: ...of your own?

Prabhupāda: Corroborate. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā, it is said that śucīnāṁ śrīmatāṁ gehe yoga-bhraṣṭo 'bhijāyate (BG 6.41). One who could not finish this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he gets birth in two places, either in very rich family, or in a very pure brāhmaṇa family, brahminical cultured family. So from my life I experience, when I was very little child six or seven years old, I was very much fond of Kṛṣṇa. And I got the opportunity of this two things. Although my father was not very rich, but he was pure Vaiṣṇava. He was great devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

Allen Ginsberg: I assume Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: In Calcutta, and accidentally, I was born in a very rich family. You have seen that picture in my Calcutta, dancing. In that, there is a Kashi Mallik's family.

Indian Woman: (Bengali) Kashi Malliker?

Prabhupāda: They are very aristocratic family. I do, I did not belong to that family, but I was born in that family, you see? And from the very beginning the Kashi Mallik, they have got nice Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa temple. So I was standing before the deity, and I was seeing, "Oh, He is Kṛṣṇa. Oh, people say He is dead. How he is dead?" Like that I was thinking. And then my, I asked my father, "Oh, I shall worship Kṛṣṇa, give me." So my father gave me Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, so I, whatever I was eating, I was offering them. So the statement of the śāstra and my practical experience corroborates. So we we have to take instance like that, you see? Sādhu śāstra guru vākya. We have to test everything from three positions: the spiritual master, scripture, and holy man. Scripture means, just like Bible.

Lord Caitanya Play Told to Tamala Krsna -- August 4, 1969, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes. While He was traveling in South India, in a village that leper Vasudeva, he was coming to see Caitanya from a very distant place. And then when he came to see Him, Caitanya Mahāprabhu had already left. So he was so sorry and crying. So Caitanya Mahāprabhu came back and embraced him and he was cured. These are some of the miracles.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In the introduction to the Teachings of Lord Caitanya, up until the age of 31 there is description, but then there is very little description from the age of 31 to Lord Caitanya's disappearance. Maybe you can tell me as much as you can of what happened...

Prabhupāda: He left His home at the age of 24 years. Then He made His headquarter in Jagannātha Purī. For six years He traveled all over India. That means up to thirty years. And after that He remained in Jagannātha Purī for 18 years. He was chanting in the evening in the Jagannātha temple, and taking bath. And during this car festival all devotees, especially from Bengal, would go there and live there for four months. And after seeing the Rathayātrā ceremony, they will remain there for four months. Then they will come back. This was going on year after year.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Are there any nice stories you can tell me so that I can... See, I need some stories from that part of His life to show in the play how He... Some incidents, memorable, you know, that...

Prabhupāda: There were not many. The Rathayātrā is very nice. He was chanting with a group of devotees, and while the car festival is going on. And sometimes car used to stop. It still stops. That is the fashion of Jagannātha. And nobody could, even an elephant could not draw it. Then Caitanya Mahāprabhu will say, "All right, come on." So He would push it with His head and it will go on.

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Television Interview -- July 29, 1971, Gainesville:

Prabhupāda: That is already explained. That is already explained. Caitanya Mahāprabhu wanted that this propaganda should be made all over the world and they will accept. So my Guru Mahārāja said that "You go and try to do this." So I came with this purpose. And it is happening.

Interviewer: There must have been an element, though, of dissatisfaction then on your part, with the way God was being... Godhead was being professed in this part of the world before you came. Otherwise there would have been no sense in you coming here.

Prabhupāda: Not this part. Every part. Every part of the world, practically everyone... There is very little interest in God. They have more interest in dog.

Interviewer: You are in general, then, trying to increase the interest in God. Is that correct?

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the only interest we must have in human life.

Interviewer: And you are not particularly interested in what particular name this God has.

Prabhupāda: No. Our purpose, mission, is that people may become God conscious. And the process is in this age by chanting the holy name of God. If you have got any name for God which is actually name of God, then you'll be successful by chanting that name.

Interviewer: The chanting of Kṛṣṇa's name, the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, seems to play a very important role in the profession of your religious belief. Right? In fact, I think I will ask you and some of your followers who are sitting here with us tonight a little bit later to chant the name of Kṛṣṇa.

Interview -- July 29, 1971, Gainesville:

Interviewer: This is being recorded on videotape, so it will be broadcast later.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Interviewer: Not right now, but later on... (break) ...very little about this...

Prabhupāda: (laughs)

Interviewer: Yes. So if I ask questions which, you know, sound sort of ignorant...

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes, I shall...

Interviewer: ...I ask your indulgence. Thank you.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (laughs)

Interviewer: You are the expert, and I know very, very little about this.

Prabhupāda: Expert is Kṛṣṇa. He is expert (indistinct). (laughs)

Interviewer: The expert is Kṛṣṇa. Yes. That much I understand. Yes. In fact Kṛṣṇa is everything. (Prabhupāda chants japa) (break)

Prabhupāda: ...so he is authorized.

Interview -- July 29, 1971, Gainesville:

Interviewer: There must have been an element, though, of dissatisfaction on your part with the way God was being..., God was being..., Godhead was being professed in this part of the world before you came. Otherwise there would have been no sense in you coming here.

Prabhupāda: Not this part, every part. Every part of the world, practically everyone, very little interest in God. There's more interest in dog.

Interviewer: You are (indistinct) and trying to increase the interest in God. Is that correct?

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the only interest we must have in human life.

Interviewer: And you were not particularly interested in what particular name this God has.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Our purport mission is that people may become God conscious. And the process is, in this age, by chanting the holy name of God. If you have got any name for God which is actually name of God, then you'll be successful by chanting that.

Interviewer: The chanting of Kṛṣṇa's name, the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, seems to play a very important role in the profession of your religious belief. Right? In fact, I think I will ask you and some of your followers who are sitting here with us tonight, a little bit later, to, to chant the name of Kṛṣṇa. That probably would be a proper ending to this particular program. However, I'm still wondering, you know, about some of the aspects. In reading a little bit—and I have not read much of course—but in reading a little bit about your beliefs and your writings and, you know, your magazine or your publications...

Prabhupāda: I may correct here, that it is not my belief.

Temple Press Conference -- August 5, 1971, London:

Prabhupāda: That requires little education, a little knowledge. Therefore we are opening so many centers, giving people opportunity to know what is genuine, what is not genuine.

Woman Interviewer: How many followers have you got now throughout the world or can you not count...?

Prabhupāda: Well, for any genuine thing the followers may be very little, and any rubbish thing, the followers may be many.

Woman Interviewer: How many... I meant for the initiated followers, people who have...

Prabhupāda: About three thousand we have got.

Woman Interviewer: And is it growing all the time?

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is growing very slowly. Because we have got so many restrictions. People do not like any restriction.

Woman Interviewer: Yes. Where is the following the greatest? It is in America?

Prabhupāda: In America, in Europe, and Canada, in Japan, Australia. And India there is millions, there is millions of this cult. Apart from India, in other countries they are small quantity. But in India there are millions and millions.

Male Interviewer: Do you think your movement is the only way to come to know God?

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Devotee: Do you think this movement is the only way to know God?

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Author -- April 1, 1972, Sydney:

Prabhupāda: Explain... Any group of men, they have got a particular type of dress, the military dress, the police dress. So people can understand that "Here is a police." Similarly, by this dress they will chant, "Hare Kṛṣṇa!" immediately. That is our experience. As soon as they will see these people, "Hare Kṛṣṇa," and if they will criticize our, anything, we want that people see us and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. That we want. Simply by seeing us they will remember Hare Kṛṣṇa. That is great advancement. Indirectly that is our propaganda, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Author: Can I appeal to (devotee name) just for a second. What I am trying to say here is that, well, for most of the people who read this book, what they are going to be reading about is something which is completely alien, and therefore one can't start by offering them a highly sophisticated discussion of the philosophy because they won't even begin to understand it. Just as when you people sell Back to Godhead on the footpaths, the people who buy it, I can assure you, understand very little of it. And I think you are aware that they understand very little of it. But they understand some of it. And probably enough to make it worthwhile. You think so, and I think so too. But this book can't start off at the end. I can't start off with the philosophy.

Prabhupāda: (aside) Your business is finished at sundown.

Room Conversation -- October 25, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: And I was in month of June, still in the morning the wind was so cold. And there is double glass in every window, double glass. Just like aeroplane, double. And at half past eleven in the month of June, when in your country it is half past eleven o'clock, that is evening. And at half past three o'clock, morning. And still the little night, that is just like dusk; it is not completely dark. And laborer class... (speaks to someone in Hindi) Keep it open. (break) (indistinct) Every corner of the street, Lenin's picture. All books are sold, they are Lenin. No other literature. You cannot get taxi. Poor men, they cannot pay for taxi. Very little number. When I was talking with Professor Kotovsky, so I asked him, "Now we shall go. Get me taxi." So he, "Yes, it is Moscow." So he got down, he personally showed me, "Instead of taking taxi waiting, please go in this way when you go to your hotel." He showed me shortcut. People are walking, and they are running for the bus. It is not at all a rich country. A poor country. And if you see the shops, you will find old (indistinct), just like antique shop. Because you cannot purchase generally, everything you have to purchase from government store, and in queue. It is botheration. And actually in India it is going to happen like this. Everything you have to purchase in queue. Here?

Indian man: Oh, yes.

Prabhupāda: So you have to waste so much time.

Gurudāsa: Milk you have to purchase in queue.

Prabhupāda: Everything.

Room Conversation -- October 25, 1972, Vrndavana:

Pañca-draviḍa: Rava or something, a particular notation on the calendar, it corresponds to March or April, r—a something. I don't know the exact period of time, but by March, the government says they will completely..., they want to completely take over the control of wheat by this time. They have already taken over the control of atta and flour and now suji. They want to take over the control of wheat and the control of sugar completely. So all these things we are seeing is what they are doing, they are taking over control, they are rationing the items, but in the ration shop you can get 800 grams of the product and then you have to go out onto the market and buy at outrageous prices, because nobody can feed a family on 800 grams of sugar a month. It's very little for five people. The price of sugar has gone up over a rupee and a half since the government took over.

Prabhupāda: Ration means black market. (break)

Devotee (3): ...especially in Bengal. (break) You come to Calcutta, we will keep you forever.

Pañca-draviḍa: But in Bombay we'll make better arrangements.

Prabhupāda: We have published one brochure. (break)

Pañca-draviḍa: ...nicely in the Kṛṣṇa book about the sacrifices of Vasudeva. Where Lord Kṛṣṇa speaks and says to the assembled sages and ascetics that "Seeing you is the perfection of these eyes and perfection of life," and that "Those persons who go to the holy places only to take bath there or to see the Deities in the temple, they are no better than animals like the ass." I've been thinking that how you have presented this ISKCON movement as an assembly of devotees all over the world so they don't even have to go to the holy places. Simply by walking into one of your temples is like walking into Vṛndāvana and having the association of these great ascetics and sages, because your teachings are (indistinct). (break)

Prabhupāda: ...picture?

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk At Cheviot Hills Golf Course -- May 15, 1973, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They will explain that by..., it blocks some of the metabolic paths...

Prabhupāda: That's all right, but it is acting. That is my point. You can explain in your nonsense way, this, so many things. But I see that because that very little portion of poison is there, immediately he dies. Why don't you see the action?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Just like taking cyanide. Cyanide, they say cyanide blocks the...

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, but the thing, we have to see by the effect. Similarly, if the small particle of... Therefore our knowledge is perfect. We take it from Vedas. The small particle of soul, because it is present there, you will see the whole thing is going on nicely.

Karandhara: But they say the soul is subject to material conditions. They are seeing the body as the soul; so they say because it is subject to material conditions, therefore it's not eternal.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Maybe material conditions, that is... But soul you have to accept there is soul.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Once they accept the existence of the soul, then there is not much difficulty. Once they accept this, then automatically they have to accept.

Prabhupāda: No, they have to accept. They have no explanation. All they explain foolishly. How the man is living, how there is consciousness, he cannot explain. Avināśi tu tad viddhi yena sarvam idaṁ tatam. Consciousness, because the soul is there, if I pinch here, immediately I feel, I am conscious. Throughout the whole skin, I am conscious. Actually the soul is not there. If you cut it, chop it, nobody protests. Why this simple thing they do not understand?

Room Conversation with Krishna Tiwari -- May 22, 1973, New York:

Prabhupāda: But we get information that there is a measurement. Keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya, śatāṁśaḥ sādṛśātmakaḥ (CC Madhya 19.140). The tip of the hair you divide into one hundred parts, and take that part, again divide into one hundred parts, that is the measurement. That is one ten-thousandth part of the tip of the hair. How far do you agree with this?

Krishna Tiwari: I don't know. (laughs) I don't know what you mean by that, but of course it is very true that we do not know much about life, and scientists are the first to agree to that, that we know very little.

Prabhupāda: That is real scientist.

Krishna Tiwari: But the question is, on the left hand... Of course, in my opinion, and I think in the opinion of many scientists, there is no difference between a scientist or a common man or a religious man. Both..., all these people are trying to find out about their environment. So are the religious men. They want to find out more about themselves, about the nature they live in. They want to know more about it. They want to find out why they're here, how are they to live in this world, and so I do not think there is any difference between the two.

Prabhupāda: No, there cannot be difference.

Krishna Tiwari: Yes. And the only difference is that where the scientist deals with the phenomena of nature and wants to show it to others. In a strict sense he can tell how he (indistinct) better; others can go and say it. Sometimes it is very hard, I think, for all these reasons, for the religious leaders to do that.

Room Conversation with Sir Alistair Hardy -- July 21, 1973, London:

Pradyumna: You probably had those in India.

Sir Alistair Hardy: (break) ...through India, going out to the Far East. I've been out advising on the setting up of a fishery, biological research, at Hong Kong. But I never believe in going straight out and I've always stopped in India, various places, very little, short time. (eating) I had a great friend, Professor Bower, who was professor of zoology at Lucknow. He then became the vice-chancellor of Patna. But he overworked very badly, and he had a breakdown, and then... But he was an awfully nice man. I stayed with him in Lucknow.

Prabhupāda: This zoology is another subject matter, whether life began from matter or matter began from life.

Sir Alistair Hardy: That's a great problem in biology, how did life arise from the inorganic matter.

Revatīnandana: Quite a problem. We don't agree. We think that it didn't.

Sir Alistair Hardy: No? I say, that's...

Prabhupāda: Life came from life; matter also came from matter, er, life. That is explained in the Vedānta-sūtra, janmādyasya yataḥ. And it is explained in Bhagavad-gītā: Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ (BG 10.8). So there is no difficulty.

Sir Alistair Hardy: But life may have arisen from the inorganic by the breathing in of the Divine into it. And there's no doubt that our bodies are material, but within our bodies is this divine, what I call the "divine flame" in one of my (indistinct).

Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor -- August 13, 1973, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Yes, they'll do.

Professor: Next year?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guru-gaurāṅga: We had a very little one in the Bois de Bologne.

Professor: That...

Guru-gaurāṅga: Next year at the Arch of Triumph.

Professor: Well. Wow, it must be something, a kind of happening.

Prabhupāda: And Ratha-yātrā, when we hold Ratha-yātrā, many thousands join. Without becoming our disciple, they chant and dance.

Professor: But did you, did you build a Mahā-ratha?

Prabhupāda: Yes. I'll show the pictures.

Professor: Oh, I see.

Prabhupāda: It was published in, what is that, Observer paper?

Śrutakīrti: Oh, yes.

Room Conversation with Banker -- September 21, 1973, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: What is your post? Typing? No.

Banker: She's a clerk in my department.

Prabhupāda: I see. So our philosophy is Bhagavad-gītā. You know Bhagavad-gītā?

Lady: Yes, very little.

Prabhupāda: That is standard. All big, big ācāryas of India.

Banker: Is this the thousand-page book that you're holding?

Gargamuni: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So before leaving India, you can become a member. We have got many books, twenty books like that. This is published by MacMillan Company of New York.

Banker: Oh, this one is. Some of them are printed in New York.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Some of these are. This one is the most popular. It is printed by MacMillan (indistinct) publishing house. They went through already three editions just in the first year. The sales manager at MacMillan reported that while all the other editions of Bhagavad-gītā are declining in sales, ours was increasing. So there is a good a interest there. So many I think there are so many English Bhagavad...

Prabhupāda: 645.

Room Conversation -- November 3, 1973, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: No. Just like Dr. Bose's laboratory. So Dr. Bose's laboratory, I was manager. Then I took his agency, very good terms. I was earning money like anything. But the next manager, he became envious. He began to poison Dr. Bose, to cut off our relationship. So it happened. Then, when I was Dr. Bose's agent, I become so much famous that Bengal Chemical, the biggest chemical factory, he, they wanted to give me the agency. If I would have taken that agency, I would have been the richest man in the chemical world. You see. But they made some condition. So I did not accept it. I wanted in my condition. That is the very little... But I was puffed-up, that "I am such a big... And this man is flattering. So I must get my condition fulfilled." So I did not accept it. The Smith Stanstreet gave me agency. Because in my work, in Dr. Bose's laboratory, I did it very creditably. So every other manufacturers, they became attracted to me, how to get me. The Smith Stanstreet Company, Bikepala(?) Company, Bose's, Bengal Chemical Company, they all wanted me. And I thought, "Oh, everyone wants me." So, so I refused. And later on there was a clique between Dr. Bose and me. So I lost everything. Then I started my own laboratory. Somehow or other, there was something, and...

Śyāmasundara: Oh, I see.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: In Bombay, you were having your own business then?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: Manufacturing?

Morning Walk -- December 3, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Ah, yes, yes, That's it. A potter.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: This idea Śrīla Prabhupāda, about the chemical evolution, this idea came from, I think, in 1920 by a Russian scientist. He is a biologist. His name is Oparin. So he demonstrated that before biological evolution the atmosphere of the earth should be, he called, very much reducing. Reducing, that means it must be mostly full of hydrogens, no oxygen, very little oxygen, but mostly hydrogen. Then in due course because of the reaction in these hydrogen compounds and the radiation from the sunlight, then these compounds form into different chemicals which are...

Prabhupāda: That is a side study. But there was hydrogen. Wherefrom the hydrogen came? The scientists, simply they study in the middle. But they do not know what is the origin. Just like here is one aeroplane is coming, and you can say, "All of a sudden a light came out of the sea." Is that the study of this aeroplane? If we... the foolish person will see, "All of a sudden, in the sea there was a light." Is that scientific study? So your study is like that. "There was this, and all of a sudden, by chance..." That's it. That is not scientific study. We have to find out the original cause.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So in due course if they create these amino acids, there are 20 amino acids which are necessary for the body, for the material body.

Prabhupāda: But it is already created. What is your credit?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But they want to do it themselves.

Prabhupāda: You may do, but already... Just like there is a soap factory. You start another soap factory. So what is your credit? It is already there.

Morning Walk -- December 8, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Well, just like I came here alone to reform, to make God conscious, but gradually it is increasing. Although I had very little hope, but still now hopeful. So let us try for it. It is not that cent percent people, but if one, two men can understand, leading men, then the whole society will be benefited. It is not that mass people will be reformed. Just like we have received one letter from one Mr. Ford, Ford family, how much he is appreciating our movement. He has paid also. So it is our duty to do. But if one, two men comes out, comes forward, then it will be successful.

Yaśomatīnandana: That Ford boy is about to become a devotee, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes, he'll become devotee, just like George is becoming devotee. So if somebody comes in our touch and if he is sincere, he'll become devotee. Now this, I shall go this way?

Śrutakīrti: Yes.

Prajāpati: So therefore, because we're not actually trying to gain the office, there need be no compromise in our preaching. Our preaching can be strictly on the platform...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Prajāpati: ...It always has been.

Prabhupāda: Our, this attempt is for preaching, not for the post. If we get the post it is all right. If we don't get, we are not disappointed. Just like even Kṛṣṇa. He came to preach, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekam (BG 18.66). And did everybody do so, sarva-dharmān? So that it is so sublime... It is not possible. But if one or two men accept, then you are successful.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 8, 1974, Los Angeles:

Karandhara: Oh, that... There is... Let's see. 1968, nineteen sixty..., 1970 there was a lot of rain. But I've never seen it rain four days in a row like this, just all day.

Prabhupāda: All day and night.

Karandhara: I don't ever recall it raining so long in succession. Last year it didn't rain very much at all. Very little rain.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Last year all over the world there was drought. (break)

Hanumān: ...and they had some temples there in Rio Janeiro and San Pablo, and they were followers of Gaurasundara and Siddha-svarūpa. And I think they're still there. And when I was there they were making kīrtana, and they were chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. In the middle of their kīrtana, they would stop their kīrtana, and they would chant "Jaya jaya Siddha-svarūpa," and "Jaya jaya Gaurasundara." So I could not do anything. I told them it was all wrong and everything, and uh... But there is many, many innocent people who are following. They go there for the first time and they make them chant "Jaya jaya Siddha-svarūpa" and "Jaya jaya Gaurasundara," like this. So we were telling, we were talking with...

Prabhupāda: There is no harm in giving "jaya" to Vaiṣṇavas provided they follow the Vaiṣṇava principles. Otherwise, to glorify Vaiṣṇava is not bad. (pause) No, no "jaya" to Mahāprabhu, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu? They chanted?

Satsvarūpa: Were they chanting, "Jaya Lord Caitanya, Nityānanda Prabhu?"

Hanumān: Yes, they also chanting, "Bhaja śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya." Yes. But the point is that they were chanting the name of Siddha-svarūpa Gosvāmī and Gaurasundara Gosvāmī, uh, Gaurasundara Adhikārī.

Morning Walk -- March 24, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yena sarvam idaṁ tatam. Yena, that is person. Yena. That is not imperson. That is person. Is it not?

Guest (1) (Indian man): Yes.

Dr. Patel: We have to say yes before you. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: No, no. You are a Sanskrit scholar.

Dr. Patel: I am not. I have just very little Sanskrit.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Yena, this word means person. Yena. This is person.

Dr. Patel: Both imperson and person. Svakarmaṇā tam abhyarcya siddhiṁ vindati mānavaḥ. Now that girl, the doctor lady, you choked the other day in the morning, she, poor thing wanted that "I am practicing the medicine and serving people," and you call her a fool, "You are a damn fool." Well, she's doing the...

Prabhupāda: She is not serving. She's serving her... Everyone is serving money, money.

Dr. Patel: Svakarmaṇā tam abhyarcya siddhiṁ vindati...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. This serving, everyone is serving. Unless he pays, no service. That is not service.

Guest (1): If we expect payment...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest (1): Karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Here, service, Kṛṣṇa is...

Room Conversation -- May 20, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: ...even those who are farmers (indistinct). In India also. As soon as they get some education, they don't want to be a farmer.

Gurudāsa: They're going to the cities.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They will be satisfied to become a petty clerk and get some very little income. They will be satisfied. They don't want to be śūdra. That is the real śūdra. They are satisfied simply by eating, that's all. No ambition.

Gurudāsa: So somehow or other we have to attract some śūdras to our movement if we want to work self-sufficiently.

Prabhupāda: So for the time being, what is to be done? We shall take it, then we shall see, find out śūdra, (indistinct) better price. But we will require more land.

Gurudāsa: We will require a self-sufficient... Not only land, but we require a self-sufficient community.

Prabhupāda: That is wanted.

Gurudāsa: Because of Kali-yuga. And also everyone in Vṛndāvana that I mention that we are planning to have gośala, everyone likes the idea. That will be very popular here. Gośala, everyone, their eyes become bright.

Prabhupāda: Make at least gośala, keep cows. That is also profitable.

Gurudāsa: Yes, maybe we should do that.

Prabhupāda: One or two men may simply take care of the cows.

Room Conversation with Mr. C. Hennis of the International Labor Organization of the U.N. -- May 31, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: Just let me finish. So United Nation is taking care of the fourth class department of the society. What they are taking care of the first-class department? That is my question?

Nitāi: He is asking what are they doing to care for that first division.

Prabhupāda: At the present moment in the society, there is very, very little care for the first-class intellectual class of men.

C. Hennis: The International Labor Organization has as one of its major aims to promote social justice, and that means that every class of worker, if you like to accept the four categories that you mentioned—the intellectual, the productive, the protective, and the laboring classes-should each have their proper place in society, should each have a full measure of human dignity, and should each have a proper share in the rewards for labor, both clearly material rewards and honors and dignity and leisure and time for, free time for meditation and so on. In the International Labor Organization, we are not like UNESCO devoted to the more philosophical and cultural and educational aspects for the intelligentsia, but I would draw your attention to the fact that the UNESCO is very much concerned with looking after the head part of society.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So that is my request to you.

Room Conversation with Monsieur Roost, Hatha-yogi -- May 31, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: "Then he gets śāntiṁ nirvāṇa."

Nitāi: Mat-saṁsthām adhigacchati.

Prabhupāda: Mat-saṁsthām. "Then he is promoted to the Brahman effulgence." That means he surpasses the material existence. Then?

Nitāi: Nāty aśnatas tu yogo 'sti.

Prabhupāda: Ah, nāty aśnataḥ. It is not that you should not eat, abstain, no. Eat very little. So?

Nitāi: Na caikāntam anaśnataḥ.

Prabhupāda: Ah. Not to eat more, not to eat less. Whatever will sustain you, you must eat.

Nitāi: Na cāti-svapna-śīlasya.

Prabhupāda: "Neither sleep very deeply nor sleep less." Then?

Nitāi: Jāgrato naiva cārjuna. Yuktāhāra-vihārasya.

Prabhupāda: Yuktāhāra-vihārasya.

Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: Therefore Vedic instruction is tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). In order to get first-class experience of the perfection of life, you must approach guru. That is the Vedic injunction. Samit-pāṇiḥ śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham. Now, who is guru? Whom shall I approach? So the next line explains that approach such guru, śrotriyam, who has heard from his guru perfectly, that guru. Who had no chance of hearing from perfect guru, he is not guru. This is called guru-paramparā, disciplic succession. I hear from a perfect person, and I distribute the knowledge the same way, without any change. So Kṛṣṇa gives us knowledge in the Bhagavad-gītā. We are distributing the same knowledge. It is not by our... (aside:) Water is not required. Water I don't want. There is water. So I am always inexperienced because my power of understanding is very little. Therefore I must get experience from a person who is perfect. Then my experience is perfect. Just like a child does not know what is this. he asks his father, "What is this, father?" Father says, "My dear child, it is microphone." The child knows it, "microphone?" That knowledge is perfect, although his capacity is imperfect. A child is imperfect, but because he gets the knowledge from the perfect father who knows what it is, when he speaks "a microphone," he speaks rightly. This is perfect process of knowledge: You approach the perfect person and get knowledge, and that is your perfect experience. Personally, I may be, you may be, not perfect. But because I get the knowledge from the perfect, my knowledge is perfect. This is our process. We are getting knowledge from Kṛṣṇa, the most perfect. Or you get knowledge from Jesus Christ, that is also perfect, because source is perfect. I am taking knowledge from God and you are taking the knowledge from the son of God who has come directly from him, the same. So, but we have to receive knowledge from the perfect, not by ascending process, experiencing failure, experiencing failure, experiencing failure, not like that. That will take long time. But if you actually want to be perfect, just approach the perfect, take knowledge from him and you become perfect. That is the injunction. Tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham (MU 1.2.12).

Room Conversation with Reverend Gordon Powell, Head of Scots Church -- June 28, 1974, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Hmm, no. Practically, we have very little suffering from disease. The devotees... We are spending so much money, but we don't spend for doctors' bill. You see?

Reverend Powell: Well, normal doctors, but now, we explain to our patients that the doctor normally works with the physical level, and the psychiatrist works with the emotional mental level, but the church works with the spiritual level. And just as Jesus...

Prabhupāda: Spiritual level means to cure his material disease.

Reverend Powell: Yes.

Prabhupāda: The material disease is birth, death, old age and disease.

Reverend Powell: I'm sorry. I don't quite follow that.

Satsvarūpa: He said the real disease is the material condition in which we have to suffer birth, death, disease and old age.

Reverend Powell: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So these things can be overcome by Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Room Conversation with Scientists -- July 2, 1974, Melbourne:

Dr. Muncing: I think that the situation which would apply to the Asian area, whilst I don't know it in complete detail, it's my impression that we have used very nearly all of the Australian area that is suitable for tilling the soil and growing food grains. There are vast areas of Australia that have very little rain, or if they have rain it comes intermittently. And it's my impression that the Australian area... The area that's used for growing grains in Australia couldn't be vastly increased. It couldn't be doubled, for instance. On the other hand I accept that it might well be possible to double the amount that comes off the present area. And of course, that's something that C.S.R.O. is working towards.

Dr. Harrap: I think you could add to that, Roy, that an attempt to grow grain in large areas of Australia would significantly damage the ecology, and from reading your writings, I suspect that this would be completely unacceptable to your way of thinking, that one doesn't disturb the natural life cycles of innumerable creatures in order to grow more grain because the terrain is just not suited to the grain growing.

Prabhupāda: The land is not suitable?

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas:

Prabhupāda: It is not the question of western life or eastern life. The life... Just like westerners, they eat, and the easterners, they eat. Now the question is how to supply eating. (break)

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He's saying that the way we dress, our whole way of life, will make our movement only available to a few people because it requires someone who is prepared to completely change his way of life.

Prabhupāda: Well, when there is question of knowledge, only you will find a few people to get the knowledge. When you put this question, "Find out some learned scholar," generally they will be very... Their number will be very little. But one thing is that if there is one man in real knowledge, he can give the..., distribute the knowledge to many. The example is just like ekaś candras tamo hanti na ca tārā sahasraśaḥ: If you get one moon at night, that is sufficient to dissipate the darkness. And there are millions of stars—it is useless. So it is necessarily not required that everyone should be in perfect knowledge. But if one man is in perfect knowledge, hundreds and thousands can hear from him and they can perfect(?). So it does not depend on the quantity; it depends on the quality.

Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He's saying that just like you give the example of the dictaphone, but it seems like if he just recorded the knowledge within his brain and then repeated it, that he would just be like an instrument, and he might not really be conscious of the knowledge himself. He'd just be transmitting it. It seems like... He thinks that's a defect because he's not really, he might not be conscious.

Morning Walk -- April 2, 1975, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Impersonalists.

Madhudviṣa: What is the difference between an impersonalist and a Māyāvādī?

Prabhupāda: Very little difference, but still, there is difference.

Trivikrama: Māyāvādīs are offenders.

Prabhupāda: Māyāvādīs means they are speaking that "Everything is māyā; Kṛṣṇa is also māyā." And impersonalist means they are thinking that "To merge into the Brahman effulgence is better than to keep our personal identity."

Satsvarūpa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, this Professor Dimmock was going to arrange a Vaiṣṇava conference at which we were going to attend. You yourself was going to be invited with many professors, but I received a report from one of the professors that when they tried to contact other professors, none of them wanted to come because they said, more or less, that we are like fanatics and we wouldn't actually discuss things in a philosophic way, that we would just use the conference to proselytize. So in this way, they're rejecting us from...

Prabhupāda: What is the harm? Let them reject.

Satsvarūpa: We don't need them.

Room Conversations -- July 26, 1975, Laguna Beach:

Brahmānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in America there's a great deal of material development but very little spiritual development.

Prabhupāda: Therefore, we have given you the Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that material development is very good provided it is added with spiritual consciousness. Zero is very good when it is added with one. Otherwise, thousands of zeros together is still zero. But if there is one, then it increases value. If you have got ten zeros, so together, ten zero, it is zero. But if you add one, that ten zeros means—some millions?

Rāmeśvara: No, billion.

Prabhupāda: Billion. So zero is there, and one is there. You add together. Then the value will increase. Otherwise you remain zero. And because the so much material opulence is zero, therefore the hippies are disappointed. It is zero. What they will do with the zero?

Devotee (2): Śrīla Prabhupāda, our parents in America teach us that we ought to be doing good things for other people. Should we be engaged for our fellow people?

Room Conversation -- October 4, 1975, Mauritius:

Cyavana: We can see in some of our boys in Kenya. Practically they have no education and very little intelligence, but still, they are doing everything. They're falling down. They are offering all the prayers. They are taking prasādam. They are chanting. They are doing everything, even they don't have the intelligence to understand why.

Prabhupāda: You said that no chemical is missing.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No chemical difference.

Prabhupāda: But why it is dead?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The body is dead? Well, they haven't been able to determine that yet.

Prabhupāda: Then they are rascals. There is no argument because you do not know.

Cyavana: They say "fate." They say "There is fate."

Prabhupāda: Faith we have got, but you have no faith.

Cyavana: Not faith. Fate.

Prabhupāda: What is that fate?

Cyavana: Predetermined, predestined.

Prabhupāda: Who made it, the predestination?

Room Conversation with Professor Olivier -- October 10, 1975, Durban:

Bhargava: I don't know his name. I saw he was an Indian gentleman.

Prof. Olivier: Yes. We want to... I mean, I can do very little at the university. My attempts have been to try and stress that the only...the only permanent element in education is the spiritual, and how to effect this...

Prabhupāda: These are the books. That is a fact. So you saw the Sanskrit professor there?

Devotee: Yes, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: What is his name?

Devotee: He's not a professor. He's a lecturer.

Prof. Olivier: Mr. Mishra?

Devotee: (?)

Prof. Olivier: Mishra.

Devotee: Mishra. He's a lecturer. He has this special class.

Prof. Olivier: That's right, yes. He does Sanskrit for us. He's from Mauritius.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 16, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Plinth should be higher.

Jayapatāka: See, right now there's no bricks available in the market.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Jayapatāka: Because they just started producing bricks in January, December 15th, and all the government has advance bricks. We wanted bricks.... Right now it's very little...

Prabhupāda: There are so many brick fields.

Jayapatāka: But they've just started production.

Prabhupāda: Just inquire. If it is available you can do.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, inquire Jayapatāka.

Jayapatāka: I'll inquire. Because we just ordered four thousand bricks.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Jayapatāka: We ordered four thousand bricks. It took two weeks to get them.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, but now it's later.

Prabhupāda: You can make a big tent here, big tent. So people may come: women tent and men tent. There is no need of rooms. That will be nice.

Morning Walk -- February 6, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: They know it; still "missing."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Although it's missing...

Prabhupāda: "Missing" means they know only, "Oh, he knows."

Hṛdayānanda: When I was preaching in California, one very famous anthropologist came to speak there, and he gave a new theory about the origin of the species. So he said... Before the audience he said that "Actually we have very little evidence of this theory."

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Hṛdayānanda: He said that "We have very little evidence for this theory," but he said that "All of you should not be disturbed because our previous theory, we had no evidence whatsoever. (laughter) So this is an improvement."

Prabhupāda: He admitted. "Previous theory, that was nonsense," and still the nonsense going on.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "So don't be disturbed."

Prabhupāda: Yes. "So you are dealing with all nonsense. Don't be disappointed."

Hṛdayānanda: Another professor, he was very, a world famous geneticist, professor of genetics. I remember, when I was a student there, he was always trying to prove that there was no God. That was his mission. So he was in so much anxiety-he's an older man—that he would simply stand up every day and shake. During the whole class he was actually shaking with anxiety. He could hardly speak. He was famous scientist.

Garden Conversation -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Arnold Weiss: So your chances are very, very little, and God, of course, understands this.

Prabhupāda: No, chances are very little, and chance is immediate. Ordinarily, the chance is very little, but if you accept what God says, immediately... Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā it is stated,

bahūnāṁ janmanām ante

jñānavān māṁ prapadyate

vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti

sa mahātmā sudurlabhaḥ

(BG 7.19)

So by regular process, it will take many, many births, bahūnāṁ janmanām. When he is actually jñānavān, then he surrenders to God, and he understands vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti: (BG 7.19) "Everything is Vasudeva." Sa mahātmā sudur... So if we are intelligent, we can take this verse seriously, that "Although it is very difficult to understand Vasudeva"—it takes many, many births to understand this fact—"but if one has to come to this point, vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti (BG 7.19), why not do it immediately?" That is intelligence. So if we surrender to God immediately, the thing is very easy; it is a task of one minute only. But if you don't do that, then it is difficult. Go on, birth after birth, birth after birth.

Arnold Weiss: Why... I understand that. It seems very acceptable in an intuitive sense, but then the mind sort of questions some of these things.

Prabhupāda: Is there water? Bring it. Hmm, yes?

Interview with Jackie Vaughn (Black Congressman) -- July 12, 1976, Detroit:

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.

Hari-śauri: Oh. If they would...

Prabhupāda: You can get the copy. I never asked for any aid.

Hari-śauri: No, I didn't mean monetary or anything like that. (pause)

Prabhupāda: Read it.

Room Conversation and Reading from Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto 1 and 12 -- June 25, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: "My lord! Everything that is mysterious is known to you because you worship the creator and destroyer of the material world and the maintainer of the spiritual world, the original Personality of Godhead, who is transcendental to the three modes of material nature." Purport. "A person who is cent percent engaged in the service of the Lord is the emblem of all knowledge. Such a devotee of the Lord in full perfection of devotional service is also perfect by the qualification of the Personality of Godhead. As such, the eightfold perfections of mystic power, aṣṭa-siddhi, constitute very little of his godly opulence. A devotee like Nārada can act wonderfully by his spiritual perfection, which every individual is trying to attain. Śrīla Nārada is a cent percent perfect living being, although not equal to the Personality of Godhead."

tvaṁ paryaṭann arka iva tri-lokīm

antaś-caro vāyur ivātma-sākṣī

parāvare brahmaṇi dharmato vrataiḥ

snātasya me nyūnam alaṁ vicakṣva

"Like the sun, Your Goodness can travel everywhere in the three worlds, and like the air you can penetrate the internal region of everyone. As such, you are as good as the all-pervasive Supersoul. Please, therefore, find out the deficiency in me, despite my being absorbed in transcendence under disciplinary regulations and vows." Purport. "Transcendental realization, pious activities, worshiping the Deities, charity, mercifulness, nonviolence and studying the scriptures under strict disciplinary regulations are always helpful." Text 8.

Room Conversation and Reading from Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto 1 and 12 -- June 25, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: "Śrī Nārada said: You have not actually broadcast the sublime and spotless glories of the Personality of Godhead. That philosophy which does not satisfy the transcendental senses of the Lord is considered worthless." Purport. "The eternal relation of an individual soul with the Supreme Soul Personality of Godhead is constitutionally one of being the eternal servitor of the eternal master. The Lord has expanded Himself as living beings in order to accept loving service from them, and this alone can satisfy both the Lord and the living beings. A scholar like Vyāsadeva has completed many expansions of the Vedic literatures, ending with the Vedānta philosophy, but none of them have been written directly glorifying the Personality of Godhead. Dry philosophical speculations even on the transcendental subject of the Absolute have very little attraction without directly dealing with the glorification of the Lord. The Personality of Godhead is the last word in transcendental realization. The absolute realized as impersonal Brahman or localized Supersoul, Paramātmā, is less productive of transcendental bliss than the supreme personal realization of His glories. The compiler of the Vedānta-darśana is Vyāsadeva himself. Yet he is troubled, although he is the author. So what sort of transcendental bliss can be derived by the readers and listeners of Vedānta which is not explained directly by Vyāsadeva the author? Herein arises the necessity of explaining Vedānta-Sūtra in the form of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by the self-same author." He has not said it, so how can they know it?

Room Conversation -- June 26, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Immediately, just see. And if you allow one second, he'll fill the whole body up by sucking the...Just see what is that nozzle and how quickly they can... There is no intelligence? The mosquito has better intelligence than any human being about his business. Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja said sukham aindriyakaṁ daityā deha-yogena dehinām. That particular body, he is destined to enjoy a certain amount of sense gratification according to his body. Sarvatra labhyate daivād. God's arrangement is nice. He can get it. The mosquito is getting. He wanted to suck blood, so he has been given a teeny body, he can suck blood. Very little quantity. So arrangement is there. He'll satisfy his senses, daivād, by arrangement of God. So why you are endeavoring? Even it is there in the mosquito, even it is there in the tiger or any animal or man, it is already arranged. Why you are wasting time in that way? Simply sense gratification. Who will understand this philosophy? The fact is explained. That gentleman, Subramanya is very much appreciative.

Hari-śauri: Hmm.

Prabhupāda: Those who are sane men, they are appreciating that here is a movement actually for the benefit... It is not sentimental, cheating, bluffing. Economic development. Do economic development, why you forget your real business? Tat-prayāso na kartavyo yena āyur... What is that? Vyayaḥ param, simply wasting the valuable time of our life. If you want to suck blood, just become a mosquito. (laughs) Pray to God: "Give me the body of a mosquito." Quickly, you will get. Yānti deva-vratā devān (BG 9.25). Bhūtejyaḥ yānti bhūtāni. You'll get it.

Devotee: Kīrtanānanda is here with the car. (microphone rattling-changes to outside)

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Simply expand this idea. Kṛṣī-go-rakṣya-vāṇījyam (BG 18.44). (end)

Answers to a Questionnaire from Bhavan's Journal -- June 28, 1976, Vrndavana:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Question number three. It is said that the greatest strength of Hinduism is its catholicity, or breadth of outlook, broadness of vision, but that this is also the greatest weakness in that there is very little common prescribed religious observances which are obligatory for all as in other religions. Is it necessary and possible to outline certain basic minimum observances for all Hindus.

Prabhupāda: So far Vedic religion is concerned, it is not for the Hindus. That is to be understood. The sanātana-dharma. It is for all living entities, all human beings. It is called sanātana-dharma. That I have already explained. The living entity is sanātana, God is sanātana, and there is sanātana-dharma. Paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyo 'vyakto 'vyaktāt sanātanaḥ (BG 8.20). And where Kṛṣṇa is described sanātana in the Eleventh Chapter. Do you remember? He is described as sanātana. Sanātanam. So actually, the Vedic system is called sanātana-dharma. Not Hindu dharma. This is a wrong conception. The sanātana-dharma is meant for all living entities, not the so-called Hindus, Muslims, Christians. For everyone. That is sanātana-dharma. These are later misconceptions, Hinduism and this ism, that ism, that ism. Actually, it is called sanātana-dharma, or varṇāśrama-dharma. That is meant for everyone. But because it was being followed regularly in India and Indians were called by the Muslims on the other side of the River Sind, or Sindu, and they pronounce Sind as Hind. Therefore they called India as Hindustan, means on the other side of Sindu, or Hindu River. Otherwise, it has no Vedic reference. So this Hindu dharma has no Vedic reference. The real Vedic dharma is sanātana-dharma, varṇāśrama-dharma. First of all he has to understand this. Now that sanātana-dharma, or Vedic dharma, being distorted, not being obeyed, not being carried properly, it has come to the understanding of Hinduism. That is a freak understanding. That is not real understanding. We have to study sanātana-dharma or varṇāśrama-dharma. Then we'll understand what is Vedic religion.

Room Conversation -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: Yes, the (indistinct) is a big affair, the sun is one of the important planets. Not only the sun, moon, Mars, Jupiter, everyone.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually as astronomy and (indistinct) are especially astronomy is one of the most unscientific branch of study, knowledge is concerned. It's very, very little known. The way that... The techniques that they use, are very difficult to rely on.

Prabhupāda: So their Astronomical calculation, the sun is fixed up, that is also wrong. The sun is not fixed up.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yeah, Your Divine Grace, you wrote me a letter saying about the universe is just like an inverted tree.

Prabhupāda: Yes, ūrdhva-mūlam adhah-śākham (BG 15.1), Bhagavad-gītā.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: And the tree, and the leaves, and the fruits and flowers are the planets.

Prabhupāda: Ūrdhva-mūlam, Gītā says, ūrdhva-mūlam adhah-śākham. The pole-star in the... And we see at night everything is moving. As a bunch it is moving.

Hari-śauri: Does that means all the planets are fixed in relationship to each other as well?

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Just like a tree. Tree is fixed up, as a whole tree is moving.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Rāmeśvara: And Queens.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Queens and Brooklyn, much more people are living there than before. Queens and Long Island especially.

Prabhupāda: So Bali-mardana is doing all right?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, he and I stay together. We get up at two-thirty in the morning, chant sixteen rounds before ārati, saying Gāyatrī strictly on time, eating very little, and he reads a great deal of the day, two or three hours he reads, and he's also preaching, giving classes.

Prabhupāda: His wife?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: She's engaged in taking care of the life members, Indian life members who come, and the guest rooms.

Prabhupāda: Oh, that's nice. She is expert. She's very expert. She can do nicely. During winter here it will be so cold you cannot stand even.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually after I left Hawaii, I went to see you in Hawaii, all of the work that we did in this building began from when I returned here. So it's been a great push for the last month or month and a half, I think. They did not do much improvement on the temple the first five or six months they were here. They were just adjusting, I guess.

Prabhupāda: Not proper leader. What is this building?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This is the, ah...

Interview with Newsweek -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes, that is our books. It is our books. We have got enough matter to understand. It is not a thing that you'll understand in a minute.

Interviewer: I understand you sleep very little. You sleep three to four hours a night. Do you feel that this is what any person who is spiritually actualized will also realize?

Prabhupāda: Yes, we see from the behavior of the Gosvāmīs. They practically had no material necessities. This eating, sleeping, mating and defending, practically they had no such thing. They are simply engaged in Kṛṣṇa's business.

Interviewer: Engaged in Kṛṣṇa's...?

Rāmeśvara: Kṛṣṇa's business or God's service.

Bali-mardana: He's setting the example of the previous spiritual masters.

Interviewer: Well, what I was interested in is why... Has he found that three to four hours is the necessary time period to sleep?

Bali-mardana: She's asking why is three to four hours the amount that you sleep. How have you reached that standard?

Prabhupāda: That is not artificially. The more you are engaged in spiritual activities, the more you become free from material activities. That is the test.

Morning Walk -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Stone houses or brick?

Bali-mardana: Stone.

Prabhupāda: Stone?

Bali-mardana: Yes. Now they cannot afford to make it like that.

Prabhupāda: In Jaipur still there are so many nice craftsmen, and they charge very little.

Bali-mardana: Jaipur.

Prabhupāda: Jaipur, yes.

Bali-mardana: We should bring some to Māyāpur and live there...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Bali-mardana: ...and train others.

Prabhupāda: (break) Just like New Vrindaban they have a dozen brahmacārīs.

Kīrtanānanda: They have an expert teacher, Gopīnātha.

Prabhupāda: Also Los Angeles. (break) ...and big, big city like Calcutta, Bombay, there are many, many more pigeons. Why they are so small?

Kīrtanānanda: They kill them.

Conversation with George Harrison -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Just have an ordinary pumping, then it will be green.

Jayatīrtha: There's a kind of a limit on the amount of water pressure you can get these days.

Prabhupāda: Limit?

George Harrison: There's been a drought in England, there's no, very little water.

Prabhupāda: This is very dangerous. Everything is now yellow.

Jayatīrtha: It's greener here than most places around, but...

George Harrison: Everything's so dry this year, lots of trees and things dying without water.

Prabhupāda: That is the punishment for this age. It is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. There will be scarcity of rain and there will be scarcity of food and heavy taxation by government. And people will become mad on account of these three things. Anāvṛṣṭi, durbhikṣa, karopī.(?)

George Harrison: It's getting dryer in England each year. It's probably going to end up as a desert in another hundred years.

Prabhupāda: They expect like that?

Conversation with George Harrison -- July 26, 1976, London:

Mukunda: Yes, now it's all public support.

Jayatīrtha: We don't sell incense anymore.

Mukunda: And the books we just sell for very little; we hardly make any money on them at all.

Prabhupāda: Are you reading sometimes my books? Which one?

George Harrison: Mainly Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: That is the main book. (laughs)

George Harrison: Mukunda gave me the new books, but there's so much in, ah, there's just so much to read.

Prabhupāda: Philosophy.

George Harrison: I don't know how anybody could have written it, it's difficult enough to read all that amount.

Prabhupāda: Sometimes they are surprised how one man can write so many books, but it is Kṛṣṇa's grace. Otherwise not possible. Human being, it is not possible.

Mukunda: That one series of books I brought you, the Caitanya-caritāmṛta.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Hari-śauri? There is no sweet melon.

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

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) Give Mandākinī these peas. Tomorrow she can utilize it for kacuri. I've asked her to make kacuri. Let them use this.

Hari-śauri: They must have only just come ripe just this last week.

Prabhupāda: So many things are growing. Puffed rice, you simply make it hot, dry, take it away, and then take some of the peas, put very little ghee and masalā and some peas, fry it nicely. Then put little water and cover it. When it is soft, you can add with it little the green chilis.

Hari-śauri: These big ones?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Not very much, but little.

Hari-śauri: These are not very hot, the big ones. The small ones are the hot ones, but we don't have any of those left.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Hari-śauri: Then mix them or keep them separate?

Prabhupāda: No, keep separate. They should be very soft. And the puffed rice hot. Then mix with little ghee and masalā. Then, I'll take little.

Hari-śauri: Jaya. (end)

Evening Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Fresh.

Atreya Ṛṣi: Would you like it fried a little?

Prabhupāda: Little make it hot.

Atreya Ṛṣi: Hot, We can little heat it.

Prabhupāda: That's all. After heating, put little ghee, very little, and mix it with black pepper and salt.

Atreya Ṛṣi: We mix it or you mix it.

Prabhupāda: I can mix.

Atreya Ṛṣi: We'll bring it separately.

Prabhupāda: But this is good.

Atreya Ṛṣi: And also we can bring some fruit?

Prabhupāda: No. More salt, pepper. So this is nice.

Hari-śauri: Shall I put some on this lid?

Prabhupāda: Some Indian gentleman has given?

Atreya Ṛṣi: This is Mrs. Patel.

Prabhupāda: She has prepared or....?

Morning Walk -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Ācchā.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: It's big, it's good. It is good bread.

Nava-yauvana: It is subsidized by the government.

Prabhupāda: Still half a rupee.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Government pays half on the price, more than half the price. That is why if Iranian poor people, with very little salary, they can survive. They can eat this bread.

Nava-yauvana: We had asked Praṇava to help arrange for a cook to come here. We'd asked help to arrange for a cook, so we could open a small prasāda restaurant. And he's written back that "I have made arrangements for a cook, and also I would like to come."

Ātreya Ṛṣi: We can get someone else. (break) ...strong but dangerous.

Prabhupāda: Not dangerous if the both of them become devotee.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: If they understand the purpose of life.

Prabhupāda: Yes, otherwise it is dangerous

Ātreya Ṛṣi: They can fool each other.

Evening Darsana (on night of arrival) -- August 16, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Oh, he has seen our temples.

Mahāṁśa: He has seen our temples in Europe and Africa and he was very, very impressed. So when I told him that Prabhupāda is coming for the inauguration, he said, "You must give me the privilege again to have a program." So tomorrow evening there will be a program there, and on the 18th morning at ten o'clock, between ten and ten-thirty is the prāṇa-pratiṣṭhā. The chief minister is coming there as the chief guest, and it will stay till about twelve o'clock. I wanted to have a feast for all the people as we did in Vṛndāvana, but it's not possible here because there's no space. The area around the temple is very little. So we have made these kinds of packages with different items, just like a little prasāda feast, small. We'll be giving everyone who comes, about ten thousand packages we are preparing. We'll be distributing prasāda like that. And then in the evening there's a program again, Janmāṣṭamī program, this is for public. The morning program we have restricted only to invitees, because it will be so crowded otherwise. This is one problem which I am trying to figure out, how to face of managing the crowd. The space around the temple is very small, so we cannot have very big, huge assembly. We have to figure out something about that. I'm still trying to think what to do.

Prabhupāda: There is no question of management. Anyone comes, if you have made packages for distribution, give a package.

Indian man (4): There will be a lot of confusion, Prabhupāda, there. And what we should do in that passage, we should make them sit, as we were discussing, about six hundred or so. We should make the passage and put daddis(?) these on that and make all the visitors and guests sit on that, and immediately after pratiṣṭhā is over, installation of the Deities and all, one by one they should be allowed to go have darśana and come back. When they return, give them prasāda. Not in package, bhoogi (?) sweet, it is...

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Gargamuni: Kiśora.

Jayapatākā: Kiśora dāsa. He's also translating. He's a little more strong than Subhaga, although new. Very good boy, very humble. He's from a good family also.

Prabhupāda: What is the flood situation?

Gargamuni: Very mild monsoon this year. Almost drought. Almost. Very mild. Very little rain.

Prabhupāda: Rain is not very strong.

Gargamuni: No. Monsoon is not strong.

Jayapatākā: Our aus(?) crop has been hampered because of lack of rain and early monsoon. Only in the past week there's been a little rain. Otherwise, before, there was very little rain. Not fully drought...

Gargamuni: But less rain than previous years.

Jayapatākā: Everything is very green and nice, but so far as agriculture is concerned...

Prabhupāda: It requires more rain.

Evening Darsana -- September 1, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Indian man (3): Well, this is God's work, Lord Kṛṣṇa's work. I am trying (indistinct) to cooperate with you because nobody can do.

Prabhupāda: No, you have done tremendous work.

Indian man (3): No, but which is very little considering the situation, the condition, problem (in the) country. I am at a lower level than your level than your work (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: The one encouraging thing in this movement is that our books are being very much appreciated. In all universities, foreign and Indian, libraries, professors, learned scholars.

Indian man (3): Yes, they'll branch out and... It's a great service.

Prabhupāda: We are selling books to the extent of sixty thousand dollars daily. That is our only hope, that we shall not be financially in difficulty. People are taking our books very nicely. People are accepting our literature.

Indian man (3): It is not that difficulties were not there (indistinct). I don't have the support, but I feel (indistinct) find that several places the demand for this for the acceptance of (indistinct) also not in the manner in which I had wanted. (indistinct) ...lakhs of people stand against (indistinct) religion and moral side. There should be a linking up of all those who want religion to remain and morality to also be there. Those forces have to be met by also organized force from the right kind of people (goes on giving his own opinions-indistinct) ...I hope you are not coming in your way.

Prabhupāda: No, no.

Garden Conversation -- September 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So formerly, by simply desire of very exalted person like Lord Śiva and others, they could turn a man into woman, woman into man.

Hari-śauri: I heard a story, Viśvāmitra once he grew people from trees. Is that correct?

Prabhupāda: Everything is possible by Kṛṣṇa's inconceivable energy. Everything is possible. That is inconceivable. It is called therefore "inconceivable." You, we cannot conceive how it is done. Our intelligence is very little. We cannot conceive. Therefore we say, "Oh, this is all mythology." Because we cannot conceive of it. Whatever we cannot conceive we take it as mythology. Nothing is mythology. Everything is possible. That is inconceivable. But they cannot understand what is inconceivable. Unless it is conceivable by them, they do not accept. That is their foolishness. We can see at night worms or flies so small Just like if you divide one grain of rice into one hundred divisions one division—such a small fly. They are independently walking, flying. Freedom. Now just imagine how their anatomic physiology is manufactured within that small (indistinct) of life. But he's exactly doing everything just like a big fly. How it is doing? Therefore I said in that, my interview.

Hari-śauri: Oh. "They can manufacture a jumbo jet but they can't make a mosquito. Neither can they supply the pilot."

Prabhupāda: And the mosquito is with the pilot. They are manufacturing jumbo 747 plane. It requires a pilot separately. But Kṛṣṇa is manufacturing an airplane, mosquito—everything complete, with pilot. This is inconceivable. You can manufacture a big airplane. The pilot is separate. You cannot manufacture the pilot. Kṛṣṇa is manufacturing not only the smallest airplane, but with a pilot. This is inconceivable.

Room Conversation -- September 5, 1976, Vrndavana:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Thank you very much, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Visa department, ten dollars.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: In Canada you had problem. I remember when you came to Montreal in '68.

Prabhupāda: Oh, you did not know. Canada I had very little problem. U.S., it was always problem. Rather Canada helped me. Canada, I immediately got immigration in Canada. Then I got some standing. That never mind, I have got now immigration in Canada. It will be easier from Canada to go to U.S.A. Then again I tried for U.S.A. And (in Canada) it was obtained within three months and spending only within hundred dollars. And there, in America, they were spending each time $150. The lawyer was taking. He was phoning, "Will you please send $150 for this expense." And how many times he has taken I do not know. They were paying. Rāyarāma was at that time chief man. He immediately... This was going on. Then when I came to Canada... First of all, I made my position secure, that "Let me have Canadian immigration." So Canadian immigration I got very soon. I think within two months. Then I applied for U.S.A. immigration. So U.S. immigration I got within three months. And I paid I think within hundred dollars. So... You know. When I came to Montreal?

Harikeśa: Very easy...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. You went for the interview with the U.S. Consulate in Montreal before you got your green card for America.

Prabhupāda: No, no. In Montreal went...

Garden Conversation -- September 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Caraṇāravindam: Ah... Most of the kitchen preparations (indistinct) one gets in India. Iddlies (indistinct) ...things like that.

Prabhupāda: Oh, he knows so many things. You have learned something? You?

Devotee: Very little. I can cook halavā and puris. Simple things. I can cook sweet rice. Sweet rice I can cook.

Prabhupāda: Sweet rice. That is very sweet for you. (laughs) The Europeans and Americans, they like sweet rice. Is it not?

Harikeśa: Oh yes.

Devotee: I think they like halavā the best, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā? If halavā is made nicely, actually it is best. So prepare all these things. Offer to Kṛṣṇa and devotees, and at last you take. Don't take first. Give all, as much as you like, then you take. Susukhaṁ kartum avyayam (BG 9.2). It is such a nice movement. It is simply pleasing. To execute, it is simply pleasing. And avyayam. Whatever you do is permanent. Whatever little service you have given. It will never be lost. Avyayam. Therefore Nārada Muni says, bhajann apakvo 'tha patet tato yadi. Even if he's not fully matured and falls down, kva vābhadram abhūd amuṣya kim. Where is loss? Whatever he has done, that is permanent. Because that will grow. If the seed is permanently sown, then it will naturally grow. It may take some time, but it will grow. So he's not loser. If he's little careful, then it will grow. Mālī hañā sei bīja kare āropaṇa, śravaṇa-kīrtana-jale karaye... Then the creeper goes, grows, and at last takes shelter of Kṛṣṇa. These are described in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta.

Room Conversation -- December 7, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mahāṁśa: Because if he comes his cook will also come.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. His cook and servant, yes. So make this arrangement so that everything should be inaugurated tomorrow, not more than that. So You have to purchase vegetable and then make a big, big scheme. Bambharambhe(?) laghu-kriyā. Ārambha, very big, and action, very little. And ask some of our devotees to collect all the gobars and bring here. I want gobar. There so much gobars scattered here and there. Take one basket and two men may go and collect all of them, put it in the sunshine. So nowadays sunshine is so bright. You can have so many things exposed to sunshine. All vitamins. So you immediately make program for vegetable, fruits, flower, surrounding this, immediately. So how Bhogilal will be brought here?

Mahāṁśa: In his car.

Prabhupāda: In his car. So make arrangement. Either we both of us, we may stay there or one here, one there.

Mahāṁśa: And the secretaries can stay here.

Prabhupāda: Secretaries, as they are staying. I think one can manage that. There is no difficulty. (break) So all the devotees here, they are all required there?

Mahāṁśa: No.

Prabhupāda: Then why... So the temple work is not suffering?

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: No, Caraṇāravinda is eccentric.

Devotee: Too much.

Mahāṁśa: And then there was Advaitācārya also. So there was very delicate situation because these people... It may be a very little thing, you know, little thing, which does not need much propaganda or anything like that, but the village people made it very big and all the village people came...

Prabhupāda: Naturally they do that.

Mahāṁśa: They do that. They start... Because they have no other engagement. A little thing to excite them, then they want to become excited.

Prabhupāda: In Bengal it is called tilake tāla. Tāla, a palm fruit, it is big, and tila, is the sesame. You know sesame seeds?

Haṁsadūta: Sesame.

Prabhupāda: Sesame, yes. That is very small. So these seeds, sesame seed, is called tila. Tila lava, and they make it tāla. Instead of tila, it becomes tāla, and then big mess. Tilake tāla. The fact was tila, but they called it tāla.

Mahāṁśa: So that was happening. Then the other thing is that these people, they are very innocent people and they are very superstitious also. So when they see foreigners, they immediately become a little afraid. And there is some kind of a complex that comes on them and it makes it very difficult for the foreigners to communicate with these people. This is what I have seen happening. It is very difficult to commu... Now this is what I have experienced since last two, three days also. When Tejas was trying to get this garden around here done, but the laborers could not get the message across. They were doing something else and then the blame was coming on me. I never instructed them at all for doing anything. I never took them away from the work at all. I was amazed and I was surprised to hear that I was accused of taking away the laborers from Tejas and put them on some other work which I had no concern at all. So this is what was troubling me today when I was thinking that "How is it that there was this misunderstanding which has caused anxiety in so many devotees?" So this communication gap is going to be a problem which has to be solved. And for that...

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Oh, chāyā-śuka. Yes. Duplicate. Yes. So it is up to date?

Pradyumna: One little...

Prabhupāda: I am not working nowadays. Still it is not up to date?

Pradyumna: I just have to go over a few things then I'm sending out.

Prabhupāda: I'm doing very little. Anyway...

Pradyumna: No, it's just this last chapter.

Prabhupāda: I am in the Twenty-second Chapter.

Pradyumna: Yes. You're in Twenty-second Chapter. Twenty-first I'm going to send out.

Prabhupāda: And two chapters more will finish Ninth Canto.

Hari-śauri: You did quite a bit last night.

Prabhupāda: Yes. If people actually taking like that, then there will be a revolution in Western country.

Hari-śauri: I don't see how they can stop it. They can't stop it.

Prabhupāda: Huge quantity selling. Either Kṛṣṇa's desire... It is Kṛṣṇa's desire. Otherwise a religious book which is not their religion, Bhāgavatam, Indian. So somehow or other it is being distributed, and they say it is spreading like...

Girirāja: Epidemic.

Room Conversation -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Then I can take two pills in the morning. That will help. This nim, tickly, and bara is very good. But you people say that... (laughs)

Hari-śauri: The ghee's not.

Prabhupāda: Ghee's not good, that I can understand. But without little ghee, we cannot eat at all.

Hari-śauri: There's no harm for a small amount. There's not much harm for...

Prabhupāda: We have to take very little.

Hari-śauri: Wouldn't it be better just to take some fresh leaf?

Prabhupāda: Fresh leaf, how can I chew it?

Hari-śauri: Too bitter. Hm. I'll get some dried. I can dry some on the roof tomorrow.

Prabhupāda: Not dry. You have to take fresh leaf. But you have to make...

Hari-śauri: Just mash it. I can just mash it and make it. That would be all right.

Prabhupāda: Or if you make two or three baras with nim, that is easy to take, and palatable. With chick pea flour, fresh nim leaf paste and equal quantity of chick pea flour. Just fry it.

Hari-śauri: Oh. Like those spinach pakoras.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Arundhati was doing that in Vṛndāvana.

Hari-śauri: With nim leaf?

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

Prabhupāda: You first of all said that we are depriving with food. Where is this?

Rāmeśvara: This is their argument...

Prabhupāda: This is their argument...

Rāmeśvara: ...that we only let them eat twice a day, and even then, not only is there no meat, but there is very little protein.

Prabhupāda: That depends on him. If he likes to eat that kind of food, you have no right to enforce upon him. Then you are going to enforce upon him. There are different persons; they like different types of food. And food must be according to his own taste. Aguru ohikhanna.(?)

Rāmeśvara: Only twice a day.

Prabhupāda: But if he likes twice a day, why you give thrice? That is his choice.

Rāmeśvara: And sleeping only four, five hours.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: Very little.

Prabhupāda: Because it is waste of time.

Rāmeśvara: This makes his mind very weak.

Conversation and Instruction On New Movie -- January 13, 1977, Allahabad:

Prabhupāda: Yes. And so long there is no income, I shall supply food or money.

Rāmeśvara: This year I think I can spend some time developing this record. I'm sure we can make money.

Prabhupāda: Yes, make money.

Rāmeśvara: With very little manpower.

Prabhupāda: And send... Send grains. Send grains, food grains, and we shall utilize it in all our temples and farm projects in the beginning. Then they'll... Naturally they'll produce. As soon as they become little interested in our scheme, they'll give service.

Rāmeśvara: And this will also be a good angle for getting the record tax exempt. The books are already tax exempt, but not the record. So if the money from the record is going to be used for feeding people...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: ...automatically they'll give us tax exemption.

Prabhupāda: Actually India is poor. When we give food, how voraciously they eat. They cannot eat. They have no resources to eat nicely at home. That's a fact. Half-fed. At least half-fed. In the villages they are not fully fed. They have no sufficient clothing, no food, that's all. The rascal politicians, realizing heavy tax, and that is divided amongst them. It is not going to the poor. They are imitating Western way of life. They have got huge expenditure. So whatever money is coming, they are spending for their luxury, and poor men... The Gandhi's movement, boycott British goods, but they took it: "Boycott British goods and take our goods." So the consumer goods were the same. Gandhi helped to stop the British capitalist in favor of the Indian capitalist. The consumer remained in the same position, rather, worse. The foreigners, they are thinking that "These people are poor. They cannot pay more to me." And these rascals, Indian capitalists, in the name of nationalism, Birlas and others, they exploit. And they give contribution to Gandhi, Gandhi's staff, Jawaharlal Nehru's staff. And they took the opportunity that "I shall pay this rascal one lakh, and I shall utilize the ten lakhs." That's it. So the object of exploitation remained the same.

Room Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- January 30, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: So you can arrange when it will be suitable to go there.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Any time will be suitable. This is pretty cold at this time.

Prabhupāda: Then it is not so good.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: After Māyāpur I think it will be best, this Māyāpur festival. Then it will be very nice. It's getting warmer. Actually it was seven degrees this morning, but they have very little snow.

Prabhupāda: So...

Hari-śauri: Very little? (laughs)

Gargamuni: We should go after Māyāpur.

Prabhupāda: You came directly here by plane?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No. I came to Calcutta. (Bengali) So I was planning to go to Bombay. Then I went to the temple. Last night I came, and I called the temple, but there was nobody, so I didn't know where Prabhupāda is. So I was trying to go to Bombay today. Then I learned from the temple that Prabhupāda is here, so I was planning to go by train. Then I found out there is an airplane also available, so I came by plane.

Prabhupāda: Yes, from Calcutta to Bhuvaneśvara there is plane.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I have never been here before in Bhuvaneśvara.

Room Conversation -- January 31, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Jaipur artists?

Satsvarūpa: There's some... Just like village craftsmen and workers that Saurabha is working with in Bombay who are making the furniture and different decorations in Bombay, and he says that Saurabha also knows some men in these villages who are artists, and they work for very little, but they can make nice authentic illustrations of all these things, whether...

Prabhupāda: Hm, that is all right. I do not know.

Satsvarūpa: And they would be carefully...

Prabhupāda: No, I have no knowledge about these things. What is the use of consulting me?

Satsvarūpa: Well, I think it's to consult with you on the principle that they're not devotees...

Prabhupāda: I know that they made some books already. Why they are being rejected? Then again you make, and again rejecting. That is unnecessary.

Satsvarūpa: I see.

Prabhupāda: They can better translate in French so many books, the husband, wife. And the children's books there are already. (break) ...excess book had to be cancelled. They have already made.

Satsvarūpa: They have quite a number of books.

Prabhupāda: Then?

Room Conversation -- February 3, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Bhāgavata: So then they killed him. They killed him in that plane crash.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The Japanese had no honesty, dishonest. You see? They thought "This is the opportunity that this Indian leader wants our help. So with his help we enter India. And this is the opportunity to occupy India." Because they are searching after land. They are very poor in land. They have no place, and very little land. Therefore they are now going to Hawaii to settle down. They have no place.

Bhāgavata: How did Subash Bose get from India to Germany?

Prabhupāda: That is also political. He was, what is called, interned at home.

Bhāgavata: By the British. Kept in his house.

Prabhupāda: Hm. So there was the minister Nizamuddin, I think, he helped him to go out. He was going for evening walk with police force and other. So it became accustomed. Police became lenient, in the meantime slipped. And in a dress of a Kābuli, Kābuli-wālā, Pāṭhan he crossed India. In this way he went there.

Bhāgavata: I heard he took the dress of a Muslim?

Prabhupāda: Yes, this is called... Yes. This is called pāṭhan. So after going outside India, he organized this INA, Indian National Army. And Hitler helped him. Tojo also wanted to help him, but he had a plan.

Room Conversation about BTG the Moon -- February 18, 1977, Mayapura:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's practically no Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Bhavānanda: In the whole magazine, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we feel that there's very little Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No Lord Caitanya's picture. Lord Caitanya and Kṛṣṇa's picture never appear in the whole magazine. They've taken it out.

Brahmānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, this is your magazine.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No picture.

Ādi-keśava: And even the pictures of the devotees, they're not recognizable as devotees.

Hari-śauri: They put a picture of the devotees this big at the bottom of the page.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Just like you asked that there be a picture of the temple... (break) ...you can't even recognize it... (break)

Prabhupāda: Curb down this.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This and other movements, but gradually it will be just this movement.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's meant to curb down many movements, but gradually it will be simply against this movement because these other movements are finishing quickly.

Hari-śauri: Their first target was that Moonie, Moons. Their first target was that Korean Unification Church, the Moonies. Now we're the big target.

Prabhupāda: Moon is finished? No.

Conversation with Italian Woman with Translator -- February 28, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Mother, that's nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Jayapatākā's mother.

Prabhupāda: That's nice. So she may also become a daughter of Jayapatākā's mother. And live together and read. She understands Italian? No.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't know if Jayapatākā's mother...

Translator: She speaks very little. I think she learned a few new words when she came. But like an Italian lady, she speaks a lot and very quick, but for the mother of Jayapatākā it's a little difficult.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're associating.

Prabhupāda: Anyway, you read Bhagavad-gītā, Italian, and study nicely, and whenever there is any doubt, you can ask me.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda. (end)

Room Conversation -- March 26, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: There is no doubt about it. Father wants, "These rascals may come back to Me," and if anyone helps the child of the father... Father wants him, and if he tries to bring his rascal son back, to get him to the father, father is pleased, he is pleased and our service is... Is it not? Greatest thing. So far other things, material adjustment, everything is there. Where is the scarcity? Work little, you get everything. Annād bhavanti bhūtāni. There is anna, food. Because you are in the material world, you have to work little, very little. Yajñād bhavati parjanyaḥ (BG 3.14). Keep the earth moist. You produce anything.

Hari-śauri: (laughing) It's so simple.

Prabhupāda: So simple.

Hari-śauri: Put a little water and anything we want comes.

Prabhupāda: If you perform yajña, the water will fall down. Even if you don't perform yajña, the water is there within ground. Moisten. And if you perform yajña, you haven't got to dig water.

Hari-śauri: They have unnecessarily complicated everything, and this has made it impossible to live.

Prabhupāda: Yajñād bhavati... Why you should go three hundred miles away from your home, hanging in the daily grinding, risking life? So much labor? It is not required.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: More like an ass than a human being.

Morning Conversation -- April 19, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Then don't show it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What about in the universities, the students?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: University students?

Prabhupāda: They are... University students, they may be educated. They'll also make a... Don't make it a laughing stock.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Well, very little is there. Just started, then finished. So I said, "If it can be done, it can be a little elaborated. Give some more authentic examples, a little more discussion and some philosophy...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But it's too short. And in a short time...

Prabhupāda: No, no. It is made by layman, so it is not valuable.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yadubara is coming to see you at the end of the massage today, so maybe you could give him some further direction.

Prabhupāda: What I can do? He'll do.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Just if you tell him that he should start this movie over again.

Prabhupāda: He should not produce such thing without consulting the scientific men.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually I suggest that we make another movie.

Conversations -- June 28, 1977, Vrndavana:

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: Human activity should be guided toward Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then it is human. Otherwise it is animal. Take minimum demand, be happy, and make progress. That is the platform of progress. Very little... (too faint) The same shape, (too faint) they are improving to make straighter, topless, bottomless, in this way and that way, miniskirt. They are arranging. The thing is the same, but they want to change the taste in different way. No knowledge. That means (too faint). Sex, you require under... You'll get it between husband and wife. There is no difficulty. What is the use of that? Daily pregnancy, daily... Three days divorce. Actually I saw in Chicago, within three weeks, three divorce.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In our temple?

Prabhupāda: No, no, some public...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, that... And even the fact that they got married is more than most people do nowadays. They don't even get married.

Prabhupāda: There is no marriage. And in Bhāgavata says, "There will be no more marriage. Agreement."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sex agreement.

Room Conversation with Alice Coltrane -- July 1, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Good.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. It's personal. They have a personal conception of God, of a person, but they don't understand that one has to become very highly qualified before he can actually talk to God. They take it as anybody who has any position in spiritual life should be able to talk to God. So that she has to learn again with real understanding.

Prabhupāda: Teṣāṁ satata-yuktānām (BG 10.10). One who is twenty-four hours engaged, He talks with him.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: She's quite serious. She eats very minimally, sleeps very little. This girl told me... She lives with her. She only sleeps about three hours a day, and she eats very little.

Prabhupāda: Then she'll be qualified if she reads Bhagavad-gītā nicely.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And she's only reading... You know, she... All of her students, they only read your Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think it's a question of time only. She says that... She's been to India three times, and she said that she's never found any place like Vṛndāvana. And this is to her... Now she feels this is her home, that she only wants...

Prabhupāda: She may stop here whenever she likes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think it was a very ba... She was in India this time for three weeks, and she never left Vṛndāvana. She only wanted to stay here.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Conversation -- July 1, 1977, Vrndavana:

Mr. Myer: Well, here the problem is that, you see... I'm just wondering what is the form of management, because it may happen that... I attended one committee meetings the other day when GBC was here from Bombay, and I was not able to find out that somebody who normally would take some action... There would have to be one person who has to be given some guidelines, and then he must take action. But then the trouble thing will be, if he has to go to a committee, it will only delay things. One can't really act in... In committees, see, there are different people. They have different opinion, and very little can be consensus of all the different ideas. So I think it's good to have a committee meeting where a man reports the problems, evaluation like, where we have a... I will attend a meeting in England, where... That is about twelve... Yatita Prabhu(?), he was conducting a meeting on a Sunday, and they were trying to take the stock of what had happened in the week and what was the budget for next week. That kind of a meeting is very... Because then there are some statistics. We have some performance of what happened and what we wish to do.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So make... You have to develop. You have to teach them how to do that.

Mr. Myer: Quite right.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But you had... But he had a reservation that before any change like this can be made, Akṣayānanda Mahārāja should also be acceptable to his proposal, because right now he's managing everything himself. So...

Prabhupāda: That... Whatever I'll say, he'll accept. There is no question of refusing.

Bhu-mandala Diagram Discussion -- July 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Yaśodā-nandana: Mount Meru is in the middle, and then, surrounding Mount Meru, is the whole Jambūdvīpa. Jambūdvīpa is 100,000 yojanas or (sic) 800 miles in length and width. These are the maps we have shown you already previously. And surrounding Jambūdvīpa in the salt ocean, this very little circle... The south ocean is the same width as Jambūdvīpa, or 100,000 yojanas. That is 800,000 miles. And it is all around Jambūdvīpa. Here it is. Maybe you can see. Then there is the south part of the ocean. You can see here?

Bhakti-prema: No, Plakṣadvīpa is the orange dot.

Yaśodā-nandana: Then surrounding Jambūdvīpa then there is Plakṣadvīpa, the next dvīpa, which is... Around the salt ocean there is Plakṣadvīpa. That is the planet beside(?) of the river we call ocean. That is 200,000 yojanas, or 1,600,000 miles. That is right in the middle.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually you can hardly see it there. It's very small.

Yaśodā-nandana: Then, surrounding Plakṣadvīpa is another ocean, the sugarcane ocean. That sugarcane ocean is the same length as Plakṣadvīpa, or 200,000 yojanas, or 1,600,000 miles. And one each one of these dvīpas...

Prabhupāda: So in each ocean there are islands?

Bhakti-prema: No. These are all ocean.

Prabhupāda: Simply ocean.

Bhu-mandala Diagram Discussion -- July 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Bhakti-prema: No.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What do the scientists say? How...?

Prabhupāda: Two lakhs.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Two lakhs miles, 250,000 miles. So that means about, in yojanas, very little, about 25-, 30,000 yojanas.

Yaśodā-nandana: They say the sun is 93,000,000 away.

Bhakti-prema: I think the difference of the (indistinct).

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They have froglike brains.

Prabhupāda: That, the microscope... What is called? Telescope.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This is the book of the rascal scientists. They describe the solar system according to their nonsense. The solar system... Gives all the calculations. They calculated how much it weighs on each planet. (laughs) They haven't even been there. They say that each planet has moons. Says here... This is how scientific they are. "Pluto was discovered only in 1930, and as yet, little is known about this remote planet. Pluto is much smaller than Neptune and has a diameter probably about..."

Prabhupāda: "Probably."

Room Conversation -- October 8, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: And then again...?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Then there are some critical days in the following month. At the end of this month there's a couple of critical days, and then in the next month there's two or three, and in the following month there are some. The whole period is not very bright-looking.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think this program of kīrtana and just taking very little drink whenever you are thirsty, this is the right program, because I am seeing how peacefully you are resting, more than in many days. And now you should not struggle so hard. If Kṛṣṇa wishes, then He will do. We are prepared to stay here and sing for you for one year in a row.

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It is our greatest pleasure to be with you and sing for you. Actually, I was thinking how your whole life is so perfect, Śrīla Prabhupāda. You have so many nice disciples, nice sons, and they are all gathered here to be with you, and everything is perfect by our chanting.

Prabhupāda: Yes. More chanting.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Shall we chant some more?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. (kīrtana starts-Govindam prayers)

Room Conversation -- October 11, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: And they are very sincere. What do you charge?

Parivrājakācārya: About sixteen rupees, fifteen tomands(?). It is very little price. It's very small.

Prabhupāda: For one plate?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: One plate. Very reasonable price. But many people give donations. And many of them take the books. We have your books. They take, and they read it, and they love it.

Prabhupāda: Success.

Hari-śauri: What kind of people do you get?

Prabhupāda: High class.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Higher class. Very intelligent, educated...

Prabhupāda: The low class, they purchase that big ruṭi. (laughs) That's all.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Big cāpāṭi.

Prabhupāda: They cannot come to the restaurant.

Room Conversation -- October 26, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Not like that.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Bring... There's a mirror on my trunk.

Prabhupāda: One dose.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, it's very little.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. (break) Old kavirāja?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, no. This is from the new kavirāja.

Prabhupāda: And what is this?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This mirror?

Prabhupāda: Mirror!?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (laughs) No. I was just using this mirror to show you the medicine.

Bharadvāja: Can you see it?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Bhavānanda: The kavirāja said because the gold is oxidized into gold sulphur... (break)

Prabhupāda: ...preparation, svarṇa-sindhura.

Room Conversation -- October 28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Some money should be paid. I mean 25,000 rupees' books were taken and no money was received. Very little money was received. I mean, I think to establish credibility some money should be paid. It's only right. The BBT has supplied books. Some money should come back. Otherwise there's a feeling that it's a very one-way business—simply books go out and no money is ever coming in. I think that from your side there should be some... Prabhupāda's only point with the car was to get you to give some money towards the BBT. That was the whole point. Otherwise he could give you the use of the car right away, but he wanted to encourage you that some money should be given to the BBT. The car is there in Māyāpur.

Vrindavan De: I shall send three thousand rupees, as I have committed.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: When you send five thousand, then take the car.

Vrindavan De: At present I have arranged to pay BBT three thousand.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's good.

Vrindavan De: But I must get the confirmation. Otherwise he is not ready to deliver the car.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, I told the BBT that they should write you as soon as they receive five thousand rupees.

Vrindavan De: I must have some letters. On the strength of the letters I can...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What letters?

Vrindavan De: That "Please allow the car to Prabhupāda's son."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The letter is already there. I've sent him a letter with... I sent the letter, so he knows that. The letter is there. But they have to receive five thousand rupees from you, and then they'll release the car.

Vrindavan De: Because if the confirmation of the amount received by mail reaches very late, the...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But you have not sent the money, Vrindavan. So why you're worried about the letter reaching late? First of all send the money, then worry about it. There's no worry. Once you send the money, the letter will come. I don't think that you can doubt that the letter will come. The main point is that the money has to come first. You have no reason to suppose that the letter will be delayed. It will come. They already know it. As soon as they receive five thousand rupees, the BBT, Bombay, will immediately inform Māyāpur, "Five thousand rupees been received. The car may be given." They know that. It's set up. It's a set-up. And you have to live up to your side to pay the five thousand rupees. It's not very much. It's not that much.

Prabhupāda: Now, with the help of Tamāla Kṛṣṇa and who else? Chandra. You can...

Room Conversation -- October 30, 1977, Vrndavana:

Bhakti-caru: I was telling him that it comes and goes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, it comes and goes. But in the eye it's very much today.

Bhakti-caru: (Bengali with kavirāja) Did he pass stool day before yesterday? Very little in the morning.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Only a little.

Kavirāja: (Hindi)

Bhakti-caru: Śrīla Prabhupāda? I think the kavirāja had a dream last night. (to kavirāja:) You had a dream.

Kavirāja: (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: (Hindi conversation with kavirāja and Bhakti-caru about milk, Horlicks, coughing, etc.)

Bhakti-caru: There's another Ayurvedic physician in Raṅgajī's temple. He's going to arrange for that. Yesterday he already asked him. And he'll be coming today also. (Bengali and Hindi for long period)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda? Your Godbrothers Kṛṣṇa dāsa Bābājī and Ānanda Prabhu, they are here. You want to see them? Also somebody told me that Bon Mahārāja has returned to Vṛndāvana. Is there any reason to call him here?

Prabhupāda: If he likes, he can come.

Prabhupada Vigil -- November 1, 1977, Vrndavana:

Bhavānanda: Also you said he took twelve spoons of khicuṛi and loki?

Bhakti-caru: Yes. You took some lunch today, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You took morning and lunch.

Prabhupāda: That is very little.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. But compared to other days, you took as much or more. Well, then we can postpone and we can put ourselves under the care of this other kavirāja who came the other day.

Prabhupāda: Who came?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Remember the kavirāja from the Raṅgajī temple? The assistant that this man was going to bring. So now we can be put under his care and take our chances. 'Cause that's what staying here means.

Bhavānanda: The kavirāja, he explained that if you remained here, that would be good. But he didn't think there was any risk of death for you to go to Māyāpur.

Prabhupāda: No, actually, when I was making parikrama, this corner, I was feeling fainted.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This corner?

Brahmānanda: At the turn. Prabhupāda felt like fainting.

Room Conversation -- November 6, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He took a little bit about a month ago, but it was very little.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Kavirāja: (Hindi)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Since he left we haven't done parikrama.

Kavirāja: (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: What is the news of Māyāpur?

Jayapatākā: Actually everything is going very nicely now. Everyone was... When the news came that you were coming, it spread just like electricity. All of a sudden, all Gurukula boys, all devotees, they started to cry out, "Haribol! Haribol!" jumping up and down. Just within a few moments everyone was immediately jumping. Now the book distributors, they've been very eager to fulfill your order to do hundred thousand books. So already last month they did almost forty thousand. Last week they did twelve thousand books. One party in Assam, they were selling Bengali, mostly Bengali books. They did seven thousand books in one week.

Prabhupāda: Which one?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Which book?

Jayapatākā: Gītār Gān and Bhagavānera Kathā and...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Seven thousand. That's pretty good, Śrīla Prabhupāda, in one week, just for one party. And they have four parties.

Jayapatākā: Well, now there's two. But... So we are organizing now so that we'll be able to even distribute thirty, forty thousand big books in a month.

Prabhupāda: English?

Room Conversation -- November 7, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: It is warm now. Hm. (break) What Shastriji said?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Hm. I had a nice talk with Shastriji, very detailed talk. He explained that the main... He said we have brought you to him at the very last possible moment. He said had we come six months earlier, so much easier it would have been. He said this time that we have called him just now was just timely that he came back again. He said that the main problem is the kidney. He said the kidney is working, otherwise you could not pass urine. And the medicine which he has given over the past week has had an effect, because the urine is increased. He explains that the whole body, there's very little blood due to not having eaten for so many months, and there's great weakness because of this. He says the muscles are all more or less gone; therefore you have no strength, because the blood is not there. And because you're so weak, he can't give strong medicine, because it will be too strong for you. He has to give it very, very carefully and slowly, in small doses. He says the kidney, urine goes downwards, and blood goes upwards. So the urine is passing. Now he's going to give... He started today already giving medicine which will help to form blood. And automatically... He says that... I asked him, "How will we know if it is working? Will Prabhupāda feel stronger?" He said, "Not immediately. I can't give it very much dose." He said, "I'll be able to tell it from the pulse." I guess that's the kavirāja's ability, that he can tell from the pulse. He said, "I'll be able to tell from the pulse that the medicine for creating more blood is being taken up by the body." Then we asked him... He said that it is better you don't sit up 'cause it puts strain on the heart. He said it's better you don't sit up for the next four days or so. Better that you lay down all the time. And that for feeding you, that we can feed you while you're laying down. He said it's not necessary that you take anything solid unless you want it. Liquids are good, he said, for now. Because the whole point is that he has to treat you very, very slowly.