Prabhupāda: So anyone who is not in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he's spoiling his time, wasting his life and subjecting himself in so many laws of nature. So these things are very nicely explained in this Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. This is the preliminary study of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and if one studies this book nicely then he goes to other books. I've got this Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. This is also Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But the project is very great. It will have to be finished in sixty volumes like this. So about ten, twelve volumes are already finished. So I'm going on working on this. So it is a great subject matter for study. So people should take interest in it. It is not anything trifle thing. People should come to us to understand. We have got literature. We have got philosophy. Everything we have got. It is not a blind, imposing thing, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. So everyone who actually wants to give some service to the society, to the humanity, they must study this philosophy and get prepared to meet anyone, scientists, philosopher, poet, talk with them, and he can give answer to all their questions. But our method is very simple. We call everyone, even to the child, "Come, sit down, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa." And then gradually he realizes.
Volume - of a book (Conversations)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
Interviewer: Now I just want to read one section here. I think you'll be able to... "The International Society for Krishna Consciousness began when Swami Bhaktivedanta arrived from India with $2 on his person, a metal suitcase full of ancient-looking books and a cotton cloth robe, colored yellow, as a sign of the renounced order of life. In India, men of his order are completely dedicated to propagating the spiritual life of a mendicant wanderer. He had wandered across the sea upon the order issued to him by his guru who told him he should prepare to go to America to teach the principles taught in the Bhagavad-gītā and to translate the sixty volumes of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam into English." Now, are you a guru?
Prabhupāda: Yes, I am the spiritual master of this institution, and all the members of the society, they're supposed to be my disciples. They follow the rules and regulations which I ask them to follow, and they are initiated by me spiritually. So therefore the spiritual master is called guru. That is Sanskrit language.
Journalist: You go for a prescribed course of study?
Prabhupāda: Yes, prescribed course of study, these two, three books, that's all. Anyone can read. Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam or Caitanya-caritāmṛta. You'll learn everything. You haven't got to learn so many huge volumes of books. Because Bhagavad-gītā is such nice book, if you can understand one line, you advance hundred years. You see? So, I mean to say, meaningful and so solid. Therefore we have published this Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. Let your people read it, let them question, and try to understand what is this movement.
Journalist: Macmillan is publishing this one.
Prabhupāda: Yes, Macmillan is publishing.
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: That we have got varieties of duties. Just like we are. You have seen all these boys. They are always engaged. Always engaged. Similarly, everywhere they are always engaged in Kṛṣṇa. We want extra time to work for Kṛṣṇa. The twenty-four hours is not sufficient for us. Yes. Then we shall see that we are sleeping, wasting time. Gosvāmīs, they used to sleep for one half-hour only. That also sometimes forgot.
Allen Ginsberg: To dream?
Prabhupāda: No. They were always engaged. Volumes of books they have written. When there is no writing, chanting, dancing, talking, and like that—engaged in Kṛṣṇa always. That we have been taught by our Guru Mahārāja, twenty-four hours engagement with Kṛṣṇa. So māyā has no scope to enter in our mind. She always remains aloof: "Oh, here is fire. I cannot touch." Bhakti mukulitāñ... Bhaktis tvayi sthiratarā yadi bhagavan syād daivena phalati divya-kiśora-mūrtiḥ, muktir mukulitāñjaliḥ sevate 'smān. Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura, a great devotee, he executed devotional service for seven hundred years. He lived for seven hundred years in Vṛndāvana.
Allen Ginsberg: Into English. Good translations. Good translations. They were published in the Bhakti-vidya-bhavan series. In that series. They have four or five books.
Prabhupāda: Oh. They have five books they have written?
Allen Ginsberg: One Sufis, Yogis, Saints, poets like Muktesvara. And then another of Mīrā. Two volumes of Mīrā with a life of Mīrā. And then one on the Kumbhamela, a book on the Kumbhamela.
Prabhupāda: They are good scholars.
Allen Ginsberg: Yes. Good scholars. They know Blake also. They know English.
Prabhupāda: Mataji?
Prabhupāda: Caitanya-caritāmṛta? He has written a book? I have not seen it.
Satsvarūpa: No. I just mean that devotees, sometimes they write an article and they say, "As it says in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta," and they quote a book that they read by some scholar, very good Vaiṣṇava literature, but translated by somebody that may not be good.
Prabhupāda: No. Somebody... So far Caitanya-caritāmṛta, that Navina-candra Rāya... You, mean to say that...
Brahmānanda: That six volume set? That is all right?
Prabhupāda: That is all right. That is translation. That is all right.
Brahmānanda: That is the one which is in use, I believe. It's not anything, you know...
Prabhupāda: That is simply translation. But Caitanya-caritāmṛta is now presented in our TLC. Actually that is our conclusion. And Navina Rāya's translation, there are sometimes little defects, but not very dangerous, not very dangerous.
Prabhupāda: Yes. It should not be describing the definition. That is not glossary. Glossary should be explained in gist, but the meaning should be carried.
Hayagrīva: Well, can we use, for instance, the glossary to your Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam printed in India, can we use that as a model for...? Is that...?
Prabhupāda: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam?
Hayagrīva: You have a glossary at the end of the first volume. Is that the type of glossary...?
Prabhupāda: Yes. I have given glossary. You can follow that principle. Yes. And at the end of each book, glossary, index, will carry weight.
1970 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is God. People are searching—"Where is God?"—but they are missing Kṛṣṇa. That is the dilemma of the present society.
Guest (4): You have written number of books also ...?...volumes are there. It is not only appealing to your eyes but to your heart and to your soul. By the very look of the book, our heart is..., rather, our soul is elated and we come into that state of mind. Huh? So after reading this, we don't know what stage will come? See how beautiful...
Guest (5): Will they be answering in Hindi or English?
Prabhupāda: Which one?
Guest (5): This gentleman. You'll be answering in Hindi or English?
Prabhupāda: As you like.
Prabhupāda: Take to Kṛṣṇa; everything will be solved. So they are reading Bhagavad-gītā but they do not know this. Therefore we have to preach. For thirteen years they are attending this Bhagavad-gītā class or Gītā Bhavan, but nobody knows that this is the Gītā, this is the fact. Why? (Hindi) You tell me. So Bhagavad-gita As It Is we are presenting, as it is. Then it will be nice. If you understand Bhagavad-gītā as it is, then you'll be profited. If you make your irrelevant commentaries, that "Kṛṣṇa means this, and Pāṇḍava means this, and the Kurukṣetra means another thing, another thing," volumes of books and years together lecturing, what is benefit? You do not know the principles. Simply waste of time. Śrama eva hi kevalam.
- dharmaḥ svanuṣṭhitaḥ puṁsāṁ
- viṣvaksena-kathāsu yaḥ
- notpādayed ratiṁ yadi
- śrama eva hi kevalam
- (SB 1.2.8)
If anyone is serving the cause of his religion very perfectly, very nicely, so-called nicely, but after serving or observing the rules and regulation, one's religious principles, if he does not understand what is God and relationship with Him and does not become attracted to Kṛṣṇa, or God, then all, whatever he has done, it is simply waste of time. So Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so nice and so important. Aiye Aiye. You can make some place here. Make.
Prabhupāda: Then, accepting even that Vyāsadeva has expanded, so there is no difference. Therefore, even if we take the Bhagavad-gītā as it is presented by Vyāsadeva, so there is nothing to be said against it.
Guest (1): Nothing.
Prabhupāda: Just like Caitanya Mahāprabhu, he gave us only eight verses, Śikṣāṣṭaka. But our Gosvāmīs, they have written volumes of books on that eight verses. But there is no difference of the writings of the Gosvāmīs and the original eight verses. That is not very important thing.
Prabhupāda: So you can explain. (break) ...the footprints of liberated predecessors like Manu and others. So they are conditioned. Therefore their rules and regulations are not perfect. It cannot be perfect.
Haṁsadūta: Here is our monthly magazine, Back to Godhead. These are our... (indistinct) This is in Washington, D.C. This is in Berkeley, California. That magazine is being printed in six languages: Hindi, English, French, German, and Japanese, and Bengali. Bengali is not yet out, but it's coming. Then Prabhupāda started presenting these books while he was still in India. This book was published in 1965. This was printed in India, the First Canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The First Canto comprises three volumes like this, the First Canto. And then the following Cantos are being printed by our own press in America in Boston, like this, chapter by chapter, so that people can take advantage of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and read it at their convenience instead of...
Guest (1): (indistinct)
Haṁsadūta: And here, Kṛṣṇa Book, is the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Prabhupāda calls it, "Kṛṣṇa: The Supreme Personality of Godhead." And it's full of illustrations which are done by his American students. Just see how beautiful. There are eighty-four full color illustrations that show the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa. So the people in the western world and for the first time in the history of the world will get an idea of who God is, what He looks like, what He does, where He's residing. This is the Kṛṣṇa Book, in two volumes. This is volume number one and this is volume number two. This is just a blueprint. We haven't got a printed copy yet. Then Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, which you must be familiar with, in the Teachings of Lord Caitanya and there are also illustrations although they're not color. They're black and white.
Prabhupāda: Try. You just try it immediately. You take one newspaper and comment on the current news. Any one of you... Every one of you can do. And show me how you have given. Then you start immediately. We have got many things to do. We have Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa is the bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ sarva-loka maheśvaram (BG 5.29). What these petty politicians and three acres of land? Their stage is three acres of land; our stage is the unlimited. That I have mentioned in the second volume of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So what news they can publish? Three acres of land. We have got the innumerable universes. We can supply so much news, provided people are ready to read it. We have published so many books, they are not even able to read these books. So the other devotees, (laughs) they cannot ri..., come at five o'clock. That is the test. Yes. One who cannot rise early in the morning, he is not spiritually serious. That is test. Brāhma-muhūrta, this hour, one hour before sunrise, is very auspicious moment.
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Prohibitive. No illicit sex life, no meat-eating, meat or fish or eggs, no, and no gambling, and no intoxication, including cigarette, tea, coffee. These also we take as intoxicants. So these four principle one has to obey, and let him chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. And by this process only, you'll find, how these boys and girls are improving quickly. Process is very simple. Besides that, we have got books, volumes of books, just like Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Bhagavad-gītā. I have given them. Throughout all these years I have written so many books. And they have got ample stock for reading, the whole life. We have got four hundred pages', big, big books, about one dozen books: Kṛṣṇa in two parts, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in six parts, Teachings of Lord Caitanya, one part, Nectar of Devotion, one part. In this way I am... And these are... We are publishing every month one chapter, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, with this detailed information, giving a heading like this, "The First Step in God Realization." Here is also. The heading is: "Puruṣa-śukta Continued." Puruṣa-śukta is a Vedic stotram. So we are trying to push this Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Prabhupāda: No, no. In Kṛṣṇa Book. Where is that...? This is second part. I say always that...
Śyāmasundara: Second part?
Prabhupāda: That is Volume Two. No, no. It is not in Volume Two.
Revatīnandana: It's in Volume One, when Brahmā kidnaps the cowherd boys. When I went to Paris, they had gotten all confused. Someone was thinking that Brahmā, Lord Brahmā is not a pure devotee, because...
Prabhupāda: In one sense, not. In one sense.
Revatīnandana: By his behavior sometimes...
Prabhupāda: No, no, behavior... Because he is in the material world, he wants to lord it over. But a pure devotee has no such desire.
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Author: Sir, when somebody joins your movement, when they first come to see your movement, what presents itself to them-men with shaven heads and saffron-colored robes who dance in the street and who sing songs, strange songs—these are strange aspects. And in themselves they are not especially significant to an understanding of the philosophy, are they?
Prabhupāda: No, this is... This chanting and dancing is for mass of people, but when you want to discuss philosophy, we have got volumes of books. Yes. Both things we have got. We are attracting both the intelligent class of men and the mass of people, even the children.
Prabhupāda: It will be finished in about sixty volumes, like the one already you have got coming?
Karandhara: Sample. Yes. Five coming. They are printing five already.
Prabhupāda: Five coming. So similarly, we have to reprint our First Canto.
Karandhara: That's what they're printing now. First and Second Canto.
Prabhupāda: First and Second Canto. So all the First Cantos?
Karandhara: Yes. Three volumes.
Prabhupāda: Three volumes.
Karandhara: And two volumes of the Second Canto.
Prabhupāda: Then third, fourth, fifth. And the Tenth Canto will be about... There are ninety chapters.
Prabhupāda: So on the average, if you take eight chapters, then it comes to...
Karandhara: Eight volumes.
Prabhupāda: Eight volumes in the Tenth Canto. Then Eleventh Canto, Twelfth Canto. So altogether it will be sixty volumes. One book, sixty volumes. Perhaps there is none in the world, one subject matter. So that I wish to contribute to the world, with the cooperation of Dai Nippon. Yes. It will be record contribution to the world thought.
Karandhara: Already the first volume of the Third Canto and the First Volume of the Fourth Canto, they are ready to be printed. I have them in Los Angeles.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So now our Sanskrit editor is there, Pradyumna.
Prabhupāda: Hm. And if Hayagrīva also finishes, then I can give daily one chapter.
Karandhara: Per day?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Karandhara: Should be able to produce a volume at least every month.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And the editors must be very expedient. Besides that, I think this Kṛṣṇa Book, smaller edition, that will have very soon another reprint.
Prabhupāda: Now this Macmillan's report is that ours selling more. Therefore, they have advanced to take up this enlarged edition. Otherwise, they are business. In the beginning they refused. They said, "No, no, we cannot publish so big volume. We can... If you minimize..." Therefore, we minimized it to four hundred pages.
Śyāmasundara: They made a study. They know what's going... They want all of your books. In the contract for Topmost Yoga and Easy Journey they have the option to take your next big book.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: There is such proposition that He should exist, He should not exist. Then there must be some authority to give such order. That is answered in Bhagavad-gītā. Kṛṣṇa says: mayādhyakṣeṇa (BG 9.10), "Under My superintendence, nature is working." Harer nāma harer nāma harer nāma... (CC Adi 17.21).
Svarūpa Dāmodara: He also says that the species are not created independently. They say it is descended from, one after another.
Prabhupāda: So, if there is no question of independence, then how, abruptly, he can begin from a certain species? You must explain wherefrom this species came into existence. Harer nāma harer nāma...
Svarūpa Dāmodara: There are so many books on Darwin's theory. Goes... In the library, if one goes there are hundreds of volumes of books on Darwin's theory.
Prabhupāda: They have accepted or protested?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is, that is our protest. That you remain a rascal at home. Why you are misleading others?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They're spoiling themselves, but, not only that, they want to spoil others also.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is their business. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ (SB 7.5.31). (pause) Kṛṣṇa so easily simplifies the matter. They'll not accept it. Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā, tathā dehāntara-prāptir... (BG 2.13). In two lines, he solves the whole biological problems. In two lines. That is knowledge. Minimum words, maximum solution. That is knowledge. And talking nonsense and no meaning. Books, volumes of books, talking nonsense and there is no meaning. Is that knowledge?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's ignorance.
Prabhupāda: Ignorance.
Prabhupāda: Oh Tripurāri Yes. Somebody said like that?
Tripurāri: Yes, two boys yesterday at the airport, they bought two sets of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatams.
Jayatīrtha: Complete?
Tripurāri: Six volumes. They held the Bhāgavatams and said: "Thank you very much." And then they put them in their lockers and they were waiting for their plane and they each had the First Canto...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Any sincere man will feel obliged of our, this propaganda movement. "By distributing these books, you are doing a great service to Kṛṣṇa." He wanted to say everyone: sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). He comes, therefore. So anyone who is doing the same service, that: "Surrender to Kṛṣṇa," he is recognized by Kṛṣṇa very nicely. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā: na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu (BG 18.69). In the human society, nobody is dearer than him who is helping preaching work. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: This is research. Yad-uttamaśloka-guṇānuvarṇanam. Uttamaśloka. Uttamaśloka means Kṛṣṇa. Guṇānuvarṇanam. Describing His qualities. Avicyuto 'rthaḥ. This is success of life. Avicyutaḥ. Avicyutaḥ means infallible. And how it is ascertained? Kavibhir nirūpitaḥ. By great personalities. They have decided: "This is the perfection of life." Kavibhiḥ. Yad-uttamaśloka-guṇānuvarṇanam avicyuto 'rthaḥ. This is Bhāgavata. Each word, each line, volumes of volumes of philosophy. This is called perfection. This kind of writing required. Not that I have researched, find out, and after fifteen days: "No, no. It is not right." Another thing. This is not science. This is childish play. I say: "Today it is all right." And, after fifteen days: "No, no. It is not all right."
Prabhupāda: That's all. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). Chewing the chewed. One scientist explained to some extent. The matter remained the same. Another rascal comes. He explains again. And the matter remains the same. What advancement you have made? Nothing. Simply some volumes of books. That's all. Just like there is petrol problem. What your this explanation will help? You have created problem. Now you are dependent so much on petrol. If the petrol supply is stopped, then what these rascal scientists can do? They cannot do anything. It is stopped. Now there is scarcity of water in India. What the scientists can do? There is enough water. Why the scientists cannot throw this water where there is scarcity of water? It will require the help of cloud. That is God's manipulation. You cannot do anything. Water is here, so much water. Why don't you make this sand fertile by bringing this water? Fertilization made by supplying water in the desert.
David Wynne: I have seen the one that (indistinct) gave.
Devotee (2): Bhagavad-gītā he has seen.
Prabhupāda: If you read carefully, each and all carries volumes of meaning. David Wynne: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee (2): He's got the Bhagavad-gītā that the Queen was reading.
Prabhupāda: Ah.
Devotee (2): She was looking at...
Prabhupāda: Bhagavad-gītā, our Bhagavad-gītā?
Devotee (2): Yes. Queen Elizabeth was looking, and she gave...
Prabhupāda: Yes, as far as possible you should help everyone how to be, how to become enlightened about his future. That is real humanitarian work—to save a human being from the future disastrous condition of life. Just like a father thinks of his son, that he may not be unhappy in his future life. So it is the duty of the king, it is the duty of the father, it is the duty of the spiritual master to see that his subordinate is not falling a victim of future disastrous life.
Devotee: These are some of His Divine Grace's books here, Dr. Toynbee.
Dr. Arnold Toynbee: Hm? Yes?
Devotee: And we'd like to leave them with you in fact.
Prabhupāda: Any one you can take. There are so many.
Mukunda: Give first volume.
Prabhupāda: Give him the first volume.
Devotee: This is First Canto, Part One of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Śyāmasundara: With commentaries, Sanskrit...
Dr. Arnold Toynbee: Yes, this is the original text and the translation. Yes.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. This is Śrīla...
Dr. Arnold Toynbee: I have some small editions up here.
Prabhupāda: But this is elaborate.
Prabhupāda: So Mahesh Yogi does not speak of God. Therefore he's bogus.
Guest: I understand.
Haṁsadūta: He wants to know if you, if you think that you will be able to complete all the volumes of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam which you have projected.
Prabhupāda: Why not?
Guest: Yeḥ? Good. Thank you. (German)
Haṁsadūta: He says, if you have anything, you can instruct him. Otherwise...
Prabhupāda: I will instruct you to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra.
Prabhupāda: Set all the books. Let him read the Sanskrit portion.
Guru-gaurāṅga: This is Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā.
Professor: That's the translation of...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Each word. Just see how we have translated. You are Sanskrit scholar.
Professor: This is the first volume. Are you preparing more of them?
Prabhupāda: Yes, we are preparing sixty.
Professor: Oh, I see.
Prabhupāda: Sixty volumes.
Professor: Oh, that's wonderful.
Prabhupāda: Sixty volumes.
Prabhupāda: Phalena paricīyate. Yes. And we shall... Our manuscript is ready for sixty volumes but we are gradually publishing. Already we have got about twenty volumes, different kinds of literatures. Yes. Show all the books. You have seen our books? No.
Professor: No, not very well.
Prabhupāda: Show all the books. Bring. Bring him. Yes.
Yogeśvara: These are nice paintings as well, you'll find in here. Yes, all done by the devotees. Some prasādam. This Kṛṣṇa Book is a summary study of the Tenth Canto, Bhāgavatam, the intimate pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Professor: And it is just two volumes or...?
Yogeśvara: Yes, two volumes.
Prabhupāda: Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The other book is Nectar of Devotion. It is translation from Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu of Rūpa Gosvāmī.
Prabhupāda: These are our books. You have seen?
Professor: Yes, sir, I've seen... Some of them, I've seen. This one in particular I have seen.
Prabhupāda: Yes. We are... This is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. There are sixty volumes, books like this.
Professor: Sixty volumes like this?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Sixty volumes. And you can see how we are doing Sanskrit.
Professor: Transliteration.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Transliteration and word meaning, then translation, then purport.
- āra dine gelā prabhu se vipra-bhavane
- dekhilena, vasiyāchena sannyāsīra gaṇe
Here is the transliteration. Āra, dine, gelā, prabhu, se, vipra, bhavane, dekhilena, vasiyāchena, sannyāsīra, gaṇe. Professor: Hm. How many volumes is this one, when it's complete? Prabhupāda: This is only one chapter. Professor: Yes. Prabhupāda: And you know how many chapters there are. How many chapters? Pradyumna: Seventeen in the first part, about twenty something in the second part... Professor: Second part. Pradyumna: Thirty something in Third Part. Professor: Yes, about sixty altogether. A little more than sixty. Prabhupāda: So how many, all...? Sixty. Professor: Sixty, sixty-five... Prabhupāda: So, at least, fifty volumes like this.
Prabhupāda: Nectar of Devotion. This is Caitanya-caritā..., I mean to say, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. Yes. "The summary study of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī's Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu."
Professor: Hm, hm? So it's the complete text?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Complete. You can read from any portion; you'll find so nice description. Anywhere from, you can read. Yes.
Professor: But original text is not given.
Prabhupāda: Then it will be very big volume. Therefore we have given summary study. But if time we get, we shall give the original text also.
Professor: So Śaṅkara is a bit difficult because his followers, even he's Māyāvādī, the followers, even the followers, they clearly believe in it. But whether, what Śaṅkara himself meant by it...
Prabhupāda: No, that is explained. Śaṅkara is the incarnation of Lord Śiva. He has no fault. He has simply executed the order of the Supreme Lord. But the way in which he has presented the commentary, one should not hear it. That is his warning. Here is the Tenth Canto of Bhāgavatam, two volumes.
Professor: That's also "Not for sale in India". Why?
Prabhupāda: Because...
Professor: Well, I'm not in India.
Prabhupāda: India, we make members. We get more price. Because we are, our scheme, life member, they pay eleven hundred rupees, and whatever books we can supply, we supply. That's all. That is not even to the amount they pay. So we give our presentation and they contribute. This is the program.
Ambassador: The complete set I have seen. And also the other...
Prabhupāda: That is not yet complete. Bhāgavatam will be finished in sixty volumes.
Ambassador: Oh, sixty.
Prabhupāda: We have published only six volumes. Our manuscript is ready, but it requires great amount of money to publish.
Prabhupāda: That also kāmān. Whatever benediction they get, that is sanctioned by Kṛṣṇa. They cannot give it independently. You can keep it here. These six volumes are already published.
Ambassador: Oh, I see, Bhagavad-gītā.
Prabhupāda: But, uh, no, this is Bhāgavatam.
Ambassador: Śrī Bhāgavatam.
Prabhupāda: Similar, another fifty-four volumes is to be published.
Ambassador: Oh, it's a tremendous undertaking.
Prabhupāda: Oh yes.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā. This verse is very important verse.
Guest (1): Very important.
Prabhupāda: Huh. Idaṁ hi puṁsas tapasaḥ śrutasya vā. Idaṁ hi puṁsas tapasaḥ śrutasya vā sviṣṭasya sūktasya ca buddhi-dattayoḥ (SB 1.5.22).
Gurudāsa: That volume is packed, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: All right. Nāmāny anantasya yaśo 'ṅkitāni yad avicyuto 'rthaḥ kavibhir nirūpitaḥ. Nirūpita means it is already decided. The perfection of your education is this. What is that? Nāmāny anantasya. Anantasya. Yaśaḥ aṅkitāni. Yaśaḥ. That is perfection. If you scientific knowledge, philosophical knowledge; cannot establish the glories of the Supreme Lord.
Guest (1): Then they are useless.
Prabhupāda: Useless. Avicyuto 'rthaḥ kavibhir nirūpitaḥ. It is already taken. Nirūpita means there is no argument. It is already concluded.
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Kṛṣṇa-caitanya: Just by saying "Kṛṣṇa Book," he makes spiritual advancement?
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. (japa) (break) ...say, "Give me Kṛṣṇa Book." They say like that? Eh?
Devotee (1): Last night a boy came up and asked, "How much are those books?" and he wanted to purchase one. It was very nice.
Devotee (2): Prabhupāda, one time we went to a shopping center and I was walking down the sidewalk and a boy came running up to me and he said, "Is that Volume Two?" And he said, "Can I have Volume Two?" He said, "I've almost finished Volume One, and I was in so much anxiety that I was going to not have anything else to read, because they're so beautiful." And he said that he works in a candy store, and he has so much anxiety all day from all the people that just give him problems and he doesn't like the work and he doesn't like the people. But he says that lunch time he goes and every day he reads the Kṛṣṇa Book and he says he comes back feeling so high. (break)
Praghoṣa: ...so he came up and he asked me to look into, if I could show him the Kṛṣṇa Book for a second. And he had two friends with him and he said, "Here I would like to show you boys something," and he said, "Do you mind?" And I said, "No." So I handed him the Volume One and he opened it up to that picture of Kṛṣṇa with Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī playing His flute, and he showed the boy and he said, "Look, isn't He beautiful?" Just like that, and they both looked at Kṛṣṇa and said, "Wow," just like that. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Yes, the very picture is attractive, Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa.
Satsvarūpa: Śrīla Prabhupāda writes.
Indian Man (1): The same thing happens with so many other books also because it is not known properly to proper persons...
Prabhupāda: Therefore they are rascals. Why do they touch of writing books? They are foolish people. Why they should attempt to write books and mislead others? That is our protest. (break) ...Kṛṣṇa's life in two big, big volumes.
Indian Man (1): But these volumes are very short, sir.
Prabhupāda: Yes, no, the lowest. But they have not written even a page about Kṛṣṇa's life. And writing comments on Bhagavad-gītā. Just see how much rascal they are. Not even a page. Rather, they deny, "There was no Kṛṣṇa." Just see how much foolish they are, and they are writing comments on Bhagavad-gītā. That is our regret, that how these rascals dare to write on Bhagavad-gītā?
Prabhupāda: That's all right. Because we have got substantial sale of books, we are free to get money. And it is unbelievable that religious books are sold thirty thousand, forty thousand, fifty thousand daily. There is no history.
Gargamuni: So that is a miracle.
Prabhupāda: Is it not miracle?
Satsvarūpa: Yes. Some of those devotees like Tripurari, a hundred big Bhāgavatams. It's not a popular book.
Prabhupāda: It is not popular actually. For the common man it is dry subject. And I have heard that after reading one book, somebody comes to purchase. "What is this, Bhāgavata?" "We have got six." "All right, give me six volumes." He is not a devotee. Why he purchases all the six volumes of Bhāgavatam? In London our Bhagavad-gītā As It Is was sold in two months, thirty thousand copies. That is the report. Thirty thousand copies.
Yogeśvara: Theology student. Our spiritual master, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: So you have shown our books?
Yogeśvara: (French)
Prabhupāda: Sixty volumes of these books.
Yogeśvara: (French-Yogeśvara showing books)
Prabhupāda: And Caitanya-caritāmṛta.
Yogeśvara: No. He asks if our students are Indian. He likes the paintings. He was wondering whether they were done by Indian students.
Prabhupāda: No. American students under my direction.
Yogeśvara: (French)
Prabhupāda: You can inform about our reception in the higher circles. Professors, they have ordered all the sixty volumes of...
Satsvarūpa: The letter, in English.
Prabhupāda: Mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ (CC Madhya 17.186).
Bhagavān: Have you seen our Bhagavad-gītā?
Prabhupāda: He saw our all books. He is a scholar.
Devotee: This is a translation of Bhāgavata Purāṇa.
Prabhupāda: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Devotee: In sixty volumes we will translate this.
Bhagavān: We have Caitanya-caritāmṛta.
Prabhupāda: Here it is.
Devotee: And the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, all volumes.
Bhagavān: Would you like to see some of the pictures?
Priest: Yes, yes.
Bhagavān: These have been painted by our devotees. The meeting of Lord Caitanya and Sanātana Gosvāmī.
Prabhupāda: The American devotees, they have painted. We have got a very big painting department. All these pictures, they are painted by our devotees.
Prabhupāda: The American devotees, they have painted. We have got a very big painting department. All these pictures, they are painted by our devotees.
Bhagavān: This is one of our other specialties.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Prasāde sarva-duḥkhānāṁ hānir asya upajāyate.
Devotee: This is also a translation of the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. It's a description of the activities of Lord Kṛṣṇa. That's in two volumes.
Priest: It's a tremendous work.
Prabhupāda: Our books are selling very nice. Last year we have sold four million copies throughout the whole world.
Bhagavān: This book is being published in twelve volumes.
Professor La Combe: Yes. (indistinct)
Bhagavān: Yale University. I think you are familiar with Yale University in the United States. They have already placed advanced order for all these volumes. (French)
Prabhupāda: We are translating the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and other Vedic literature. You have seen the sample, original verse, word to word meaning, then translation, then giving a purport.
Professor La Combe: You wrote the commentary.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Professor Durckheim: May I come back once to my question, master, the relationship between belief and experience, because this is a great question for us today, especially also in the religious circles, and theologians, the priests and the monks. Prabhupāda: No, believe the authority. That is the... That is better than experience.
Prabhupāda: No. First of all find out from the index this verse. Jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā nārtho yaś ceha karmabhiḥ.
Prabhupāda: Kāmasya nendriya-prītir lābho jīveta yāvatā, jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā yaś... Kāmasya nendriya-prītiḥ (SB 1.2.10). Have you found?
Satsvarūpa: Chapter Two, verse 10. But the verse is not here. It is in the first volume.
Devotee: Some is bringing.
Prabhupāda: So he has gone?
Devotee: Yes.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: What is the picture?
Rāmeśvara: This is Sītā, the wife of Advaita Ācārya receiving...
Prabhupāda: Oh, Lord Caitanya.
Rāmeśvara: It is in Ādi-līlā, Volume Three.
Prabhupāda: Who has painted?
Rāmeśvara: Jadurāṇī.
Prabhupāda: Jadurāṇī has got good talent. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (chuckles)
Rāmeśvara: This is the office where I work.
Prabhupāda: This is developed photo.
Rāmeśvara: We have fire alarm? These are Kṛṣṇa Trilogies.
Prabhupāda: All these? All these, stock?
Rāmeśvara: We always require large inventory because the temples order so fast. Bhagavad-gītās in this corner, and on this back wall here, all the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatams and Caitanya-caritāmṛta volumes... These books have just arrived from the printer.
Prabhupāda: Where is that Prajāpati? He's not here? That play yesterday... Last evening I saw. It was very nice.
Tripurāri: Sometimes the devotees question, "What is the best book to distribute, Caitanya-caritāmṛta or Bhagavad-gītā?" We're thinking all of them are absolute. It does not matter.
Prabhupāda: Yes. It is just like sugar doll. Anywhere touch—it is sweet. That's all. When I read books, I open anywhere. Any book I take, and anywhere I open, and I read.
Devotee (3): Sometimes we feel like... I know myself personally, if I'm distributing, like, Second Volumes of Caitanya-caritāmṛtas I have this doubt, this feeling that it's sometimes hard for me to understand Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and I feel like the karmī, he will open the book, and he will look into it, and he will become offended because he won't be able to understand hardly a word of it.
Prabhupāda: No, Caitanya-caritāmṛta is not meant for ordinary person. Bhagavad-gītā, Īśopaniṣad and other thing...
Tripurāri: Kṛṣṇa book?
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa. They will read as story book. The Kṛṣṇa trilogy is selling very nice?
Tripurāri: Yes. Nectar of Devotion also.
Prabhupāda: Nectar of Devotion is very nice.
Prabhupāda: Nectar of Devotion is very nice.
Devotee (1): And Śrīmad-Bhāgavatams. They are very attracted to the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Tripurāri: Many of the karmīs appreciate the Fourth Canto, part four, the story of King Purañjana. They understand that.
Devotee (2): There's many psychologists at the airport. I would attract them by giving them that particular volume and saying how this deals with the psychology of the conditioned self. And they were attracted in that way.
Prabhupāda: Yes, it is very nice, Purañjana. His city, his gates, various manifestation.
Devotee (4): Sometimes we are very encouraged because we find people, they come back to us. They say, "I have gotten this volume, and I'd like to have the first part" or "I'd like to have the Second Canto." I found that in the army base among the soldiers... I went to distribute at an army base with the soldiers. And one man saw me, and he came up, and he says, "Can I have the Second Canto? I liked the first one so much." It's enlivening for us.
Prabhupāda: Sometimes they come and demand.
Prabhupāda: No. He, not temple, but he chants always. He is keeping one Jagannātha within the bead. He showed me: that "I have put..." He saw me in Vṛndāvana.
Devotee (8): We use his name quite a bit to distribute books. A lot of people take books because of his name. We often wonder what he was actually doing as far as the movement was concerned.
Prabhupāda: He has got his foreword in the Kṛṣṇa book.
Devotee (1): Now each one, the foreword is there, in every volume. So we always show them that and they're very impressed, especially hippies and students, college students.
Devotee (5): Just like Kṛṣṇa says. What the big men do, the common men follow.
Prabhupāda: He gave me first money for publishing Kṛṣṇa book, $19,000. He is a good boy. He is a good boy, and he has got good regard for me.
Tripurāri: Yes. We study Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in the morning and Bhagavad-gītā in the evening. Then in the day we read Nectar of Devotion, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and Kṛṣṇa book at night. All the devotees are reading...
Prabhupāda: It never becomes old.
Tripurāri: No.
Prabhupāda: (chuckles) Yes.
Devotee (9): Sometimes, Śrīla Prabhupāda, when we give someone a book we tell them that there's eighty volumes, and they... They just... They're amazed that there's so many books.
Prabhupāda: We are teaching to be influenced by Kṛṣṇa. Therefore we have written fifty books like that, four hundred pages. You can show some of our books.
Paramahaṁsa: This is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Volume Two, Volume Four...
Prabhupāda: Sixty volumes.
Paramahaṁsa: Nectar of Devotion.
Guest (4): You seem to be placing a lot of emphasis on books. Are you following any particular path of yoga, niyama-yoga...?
Paramahaṁsa: She says we place a lot of emphasis on books, and she wonders if we are following a particular path such as dhyāna-yoga or jñāna-yoga or what?
Prabhupāda: Bhakti-yoga.
Dr. Copeland: When you do the translations...
Prabhupāda: I have all translated during these ten years. I translated, began translating from 1968, or '9, I was publishing that Back to Godhead paper even from my gṛhastha life, from 1944.
Dr. Copeland: And when you do do the translation...
Prabhupāda: Then I began translating from 1968 or '69. And I published my first book in 1962. Then next was in 1964. And then the third volume was published in 1965. And then I came to America. And then I translated all these books, whatever you see, about fifty books. This is about eleven hundred pages. Other books are not less than four hundred pages.
Australian devotee 2: ...Śrīla Prabhupāda, they can teach these people how to educate the youngsters. Is this right?
Prabhupāda: Therefore so many books. (break)
Hari-śauri: ...the verse that you have put in the front of the first volume of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, kṛṣṇe sva-dhāmopagate, that the Bhāgavatam can give light even to people in ignorance.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Kalau naṣṭa-dṛśām. Naṣṭa-dṛśām: "They have lost their sight, what is the progress of life. They have lost their sight." (devotees offer obeisances as Prabhupāda enters car)
Prabhupāda: No, no. How many books are pending?
Rāmeśvara: Still about seventeen.
Prabhupāda: So?
Rāmeśvara: We have just sent Madhya Two...
Prabhupāda: They are not complete?
Rāmeśvara: You have finished them.
Prabhupāda: No, I have finished. I mean to edit, editing?
Rāmeśvara: Editing, we are done five volumes in Madhya-līlā and two volumes in Antya-līlā. But they are being held up in the Sanskrit division.
Prabhupāda: So you get it corrected. I am present. I will do that.
Rādhā-vallabha: You're including the Fifth Canto when you say seventeen books.
Rāmeśvara: Yes. Fifth Canto also by the end of August, for Vyāsa-pūjā day.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Rādhā-vallabha: (break) ...amṛta, that is thirteen more books. Caitanya-caritāmṛta is sixteen volumes altogether. So we have already finished four. So that's twelve plus maybe four to five Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. (break) Now that Nitāi and Jagannātha are here, it may be possible.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...may be, must be. (laughter)
Nitāi: The only difficulty we face in editing is that sometimes there are problems that come up which we can't figure out ourselves.
Prabhupāda: So I shall remain here.
Rādhā-vallabha: We are going fast enough so far to do the seventeen books.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Rādhā-vallabha: I think in one week we'll be able to finish Madhya-līlā, volume three, and Antya-līlā, Chapter One.
Prabhupāda: Very good news.
Rādhā-vallabha: I went to the press right after maṅgala āratrika, and one of the composers had already run out the door of the temple room, and she was composing already.
Prabhupāda: Oh. (break) Pālikā is also doing?
Rādhā-vallabha: She's going to school now. she's learning how. She will start tomorrow, I think.
Jayapataka: (break)...now all the Caitanya-caritāmṛtas are printed.
Prabhupāda: You have got all?
Jayapataka: No. I only have first, Ādi-līlā.
Prabhupāda: So, you haven't got here? No? So they want book. So they are not dispatching Caitanya-caritāmṛta?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They haven't dispatched latter volumes. They've done the first few but not the new ones which have come. But he is sending some for your room, to have a complete set in each of your rooms.
Prabhupāda: No, no. It should be exhibited in Māyāpura, especially.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Immediately ask them to dispatch to Māyāpura all books for demonstration. That is the main item, and they have not sent in Māyāpura? Caitanya?
Girirāja: Well, other than the Ādi-līlā, the later volumes only came within about a few days ago.
Prabhupāda: No, no. In māyāpura all the books should be displayed.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. We'll get a complete set for display also.
Prabhupāda: Caitanya-caritāmṛta especially, it should be displayed in Māyāpura. Immediately ask to send to Māyāpura. And whatever books you have got already, you send them immediately. You select what books you want. Harer nama harer nama (CC Adi 17.21).
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: No, they are intelligent. First...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The thing is, it seems to me, that we are flooding so many books that they must become Kṛṣṇa conscious.
Prabhupāda: (laughing) Yes, they have no alternative than to read these books.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Practically now it is commonplace that every day when our men go out, supposing each man meets in a day a thousand people or five hundred people, always, without a doubt, at least one or two of the people he's met, they already have another book, and they are taking a second or third book.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Many of them have two or three volumes of Caitanya-caritāmṛta or Bhāgavatam. And although they may not read it, their children are reading it.
Prabhupāda: Somebody is reading.
Jayapatāka: If we could distribute the Hare Kṛṣṇa records, they would play that over the loudspeaker.
Prabhupāda: That's nice. (break) Oh, śrī kṛṣṇa caitanya. (over loudspeaker)
Madhudviṣa: There was one question in class this morning about Kṛṣṇa's pastimes, and in your Bhāgavatam you say that this is the smallest universe. So I questioned whether if this is the smallest universe, and Jayapatāka said that in other universes there's more volumes of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Would that mean that Kṛṣṇa manifests more pastimes in the higher universes?
Prabhupāda: Yes. He is unlimited. Why do you limit?
Madhudviṣa: So is the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam compiled in the same way in other universes? Vyāsadeva compiles it like he does in this universe as well?
Prabhupāda: Yes, same process.
Acyutānanda: Twenty-two rupees, we shall pay.
Prabhupāda: We shall print. It will cost not more than ten to twelve rupees.
Acyutānanda: Must be. Then we'll... Many people will take that. It is also... It is about ninety pages' index, which has increased the volume of the book.
Yaśodānandana: Ninety?
Acyutānanda: Ninety.
Yaśodānandana: In India they don't care for index.
Prabhupāda: No, index is liked by scholarly people.
Prabhupāda: (sings) Śrī kṛṣṇa caitanya prabhu, dayā koro more...
Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, sometime today the new copies of the second volume of Seventh Canto are coming from the printer today. That's the volume with the section about Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva killing Hiraṇyakaśipu and Prahlāda's prayers.
Prabhupāda: Ah.
Hṛdayānanda: Prabhupāda was lecturing on that in Māyāpura.
Rāmeśvara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Hṛdayānanda: In Māyāpura you were lecturing on the prayers.
Rāmeśvara: So that volume is coming today.
Prabhupāda: (break)....culture and civilization is being introduced by Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement for the benefit of the whole human society. The modern civilization is not civilization. Mūḍhā nābhijānāti; mām eva param avyayam. Ninety-nine percent or ninety-nine point nine percent people do not believe in the transmigration of the soul. Is it not?
Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, we were painting one painting for the last volume of Seventh Canto which shows that Kṛṣṇa is in the heart of all living entities. Now, the question came up whether Kṛṣṇa.... Since Kṛṣṇa is inside every atom, are there living entities in every atom? So I said that you had already answered that, that Kṛṣṇa is never alone, so there must be some living entity within the atom. So then the question was: Is this atom one of the bodies, just like human body, and then gradually that living entity gets a higher body, higher body, or does he always remain inside the atom?
Prabhupāda: Body does not develop. He changes body. Why don't you understand this?
Rāmeśvara: He changes body.
Prabhupāda: The motorcar does not develop. I change this motorcar to another.
Rāmeśvara: But that's the question.
Prabhupāda: That is Darwin's theory. Motorcar is not developing to big motorcar. That is nonsense. Motorcar is motorcar, but I can change from this car to that car.
Prabhupāda: We are exceeding all material authors except Vyāsadeva.
Rāmeśvara: Vyāsadeva.
Prabhupāda: One book, seventeen volumes, Caitanya-caritāmṛta. That is also.... So many, our Godbrothers, attempted. Everyone is...
Hari-śauri: Have any of your Godbrothers translated anything?
Prabhupāda: They died half-way finished.
Rāmeśvara: This is the twentieth volume of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam now printed, twentieth volume.
Prabhupāda: Number twenty.
Rāmeśvara: Of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam series.
Prabhupāda: Out of sixty. Still forty.
Rāmeśvara: So you have already finished two more volumes at least.
Prabhupāda: So, say...
Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda says out of sixty volumes, twenty are already printed, and...
Prabhupāda: Twenty already printed, and two or three ready for being printed.
Hayagrīva: But this is the bulk of the cantos, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Rāmeśvara: No, Tenth Canto will be very long.
Hayagrīva: The Tenth...
Prabhupāda: Tenth Canto will be like Caitanya-caritāmṛta, fifteen volumes, Tenth Canto. Generally six chapters a volume, eh?
Rādhāvallabha: Depending on the size.
Prabhupāda: No, generally. So there are ninety chapters. That means minimum fifteen volumes, and maybe more. We have presented Kṛṣṇa book, just a summary study, not explained. But when it will be explained, with each and every śloka, purport, then it will be not less than fifteen volumes. Tenth Chapter is the face of of the Lord. We have described the legs, hands, belly, that's all, and Tenth Chapter is the face, smiling face. Therefore we should not jump over the face all at once. It must go from the legs, gradually, and then face, then forehead, then hair. Eleventh, Twelfth, Twelfth Chapter, finished, the whole body of Kṛṣṇa. Hmm. So thank you very much.
Devotees: Thank you, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya.
Viśvakarmā: He said, "Oh, no, the Hare Kṛṣṇas."
Prabhupāda: So they are not very favorable to the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. (laughs)
Indian man: How long did it take for Swamiji to write the seventeen volumes, translation of Caitanya-caritāmṛta?
Prabhupāda: It can be finished, but I have to look after this management, that is the difficulty.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He's asking about the Caitanya-caritāmṛtas.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā, it is finished.
Hari-śauri: How long did it take?
Prabhupāda: Oh. It took one year and six months.
Prabhupāda: I write in the night. I get up at half past twelve. I go to bed at half past ten, and I get up at half past twelve. Then I finish my chanting, if there is any balance, and then I begin dictating. And the morning they take it and type it. So this dictaphone is always with me, wherever I go, so my writing book is not stopped. Maybe few pages, but something is there daily. Little drops of water wears the stone. So in that way we have translated so many books. About fifty-four books are already published, besides the small booklets. And, how many we have published, Bhāgavatam? About twenty-two?
Hari-śauri: Twenty volumes, and two more in print now.
Prabhupāda: Therefore twenty-two. I am expecting sixty volumes. Sixty volumes of four hundred pages. The biggest canto is the Tenth Canto. I've already published the Tenth Canto, summarized: Kṛṣṇa. But in detail, it will take at least twenty volumes.
Indian man: It's almost as big as the rest of the book.
Prabhupāda: Gajendra, that is I think Seventh Canto, no?
Hari-śauri: Beginning of the Eighth.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Gajendra also.
Hari-śauri: That means four parts. That means four books for the Eighth Canto.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Kīrtanānanda: Each volume is more wonderful. Each volume...
Prabhupāda: Aḥ? Oh, yes. There is no comparison of this literature.
Kīrtanānanda: I think before you came, Bhāgavatam was unknown.
Prabhupāda: Unknown, yes. The Ramakrishna Mission published one Bhāgavatam commentary. You know that? Farce. They, these Ramakrishna Mission people have done the greatest harm to the Vedic culture. Of course it is not taken very seriously, Ramakrishna Mission.
Devotee (1): In the Seventh Canto, second volume, the first chapter in that volume, Prahlāda Mahārāja is talking how the studying of the three Vedas is external and it includes knowledge though, of education and self-realization, but he considers it material because it is external study of the Vedas. I don't understand that. Prabhupāda: Anything external is material. Devotee (1): Self-realization is included in that list of education and self-realization and other items. Prabhupāda: Yes, self-realization, simply understanding "I am not this matter," is also external because there is chance of falldown. But when you are actually engaged in Kṛṣṇa's service, that is positive platform of self-realization.
Kulaśekhara: Then the more we understand Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the more we'll understand the Caitanya-caritāmṛta.
Prabhupāda: Yes, and if you understood Bhāgavatam thoroughly, then you can understand Caitanya-caritāmṛta. But if you have not understood Bhāgavatam, then you cannot understand Caitanya caritāmṛta. The simple statement, na caitanyāt kṛṣṇāt para-tattvaṁ param iha. Where is Caitanya-caritāmṛta? Bring.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Which volume, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: First volume. That means you are not reading, you simply are referring. This is the difficulty. Without thoroughly reading something, we bring so many questions. Caitanya Mahāprabhu has therefore forbidden, bahu śāstra nā pore. Don't bother yourself reading so many books at a time. You'll be puzzled. Find out this verse, yad advaitaṁ brahmopaniṣadi...
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I don't believe there's an index in this first volume.
Prabhupāda: In the first chapter you'll find.
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Seventeenth verse? "What is described in the Upaniṣads..."
Prabhupāda: Yad advaitaṁ brahma-upaniṣadi.
Prabhupāda: What news?
Rādhāvallabha: Seven-three was sent to the printer.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Rādhāvallabha: Seventh Canto, Volume Three, has been sent to the printer.
Prabhupāda: Seven-three? Oh. So our Ṛṣi Kumāra has come back.
Ṛṣi Kumāra: I couldn't stay away any longer, because I was so bored with everything I was doing. All I could do was chant, and then I had to come back. There's nothing that satisfies except Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Best thing is to preach for some time. Go with the saṅkīrtana party. He's a good mṛdaṅga player also. His photograph is there.
Prabhupāda: Māyā is so strong. Lord Śiva is not excused, what to speak of others.
Rādhāvallabha: I have three sketches from the artists. Would you like to see them? This is for Eighth Canto, Volume One.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the only life, to think of publication and distribution.
Rādhāvallabha: This keeps me alive. If I didn't have this service, I think I would just die.
Prabhupāda: Even in this weak... I am very weak nowadays. Still, I am working.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Nicely.
Prabhupāda: I think I shall not be able to go for walks. This morning my heart was beating too much.
Prabhupāda: So Kṛṣṇa is giving us facilities to preach this cult. Everywhere we have got very, very palatial buildings to accommodate devotees. Now we have got here a very nice place, accommodate devotees. Everywhere we have got. In Bombay we are getting the best temple in India. We are spending crores of rupees, Kṛṣṇa is giving us money. So I started the business with forty rupees. That was also not American currency. They allowed me to bring forty rupees. So when I was getting off the ship I asked the captain, "I have brought these forty rupees, which will not be accepted here, so you take." At that time three books I had, the first, second and third volume. So I asked him that "You purchase. Give me some dollars." So he asked, "What is the price?" "Sixteen dollars." So he gave me twenty dollars, and I delivered them. With that twenty dollars I got out down on the land of America, and that forty rupees. So I did not know where to go, where to stay. So Kṛṣṇa is giving us all facilities, and these American boys are helping.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's a very big library, many books.
Prabhupāda: They have all our books?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. Including the earlier Bhāgavatam, Śrīla Prabhupāda's earlier volumes from India; it's available there.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) You like our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement? You know how we have got New Vrindaban here in America? We are giving protection to the cows. In New Orleans, and what other places?
Vipina: Virginia, Rūpānuga's farm.
Rāmeśvara: I observed that these devotees at New York, they've practically given up sleeping this past week to prepare everything for your arrival.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) They are so kind to me.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, they worked very hard.
Rāmeśvara: It reminded me that time when the Press devotees stayed up all the time to get those Caitanya-caritāmṛta volumes. The same spirit. They just stopped eating and sleeping.
Prabhupāda: That is love. These things can be done only out of love.
Prabhupāda: Why don't you sell Spanish books to them?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We do. We distribute here Spanish books from New York.
Rāmeśvara: Today Hṛdayānanda Mahārāja is sending to the printer the last volume of the First Canto in Spanish, another volume of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in Spanish. And before you leave New York he will give you...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I'll give him...
Rāmeśvara: ...a new book in Spanish, the Kṛṣṇa book, Volume One.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Rāmeśvara: That is coming in a few days.
Prabhupāda: You have seen Chinese Bhagavad-gītā?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, we have seen that.
Prabhupāda: You have got it?
Hari-śauri: Yes, in the back.
Prabhupāda: There is nothing doubtful; everything is very plain. But we, by our rascaldom, we make it doubt. By our rascal interpretation. Everyone can understand. Just like dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre samavetā yuyutsavaḥ (BG 1.1). The Kurukṣetra is dharma-kṣetra. Still Kurukṣetra is there in India, and it is dharma-kṣetre. People go there for performing religious ritualistic ceremonies. So where is the difficulty to understand? And five thousand years ago the Kurus and Pāṇḍavas, they assembled there for fighting—that is clearly stated, dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre samavetā yuyutsavaḥ (BG 1.1). Who were they? Māmakāḥ pāṇḍavāś caiva: "My sons and the sons of Pāṇḍu," Kuru-Pāṇḍava. So where is the difficulty to understand? But by misinterpretation they'll write volumes of books and spoil the whole thing. This is going on. This business should be stopped. Then we will be benefited. Everyone is misinterpreting.
Rāmeśvara: The Library Party said that everywhere they go in India, they find that you went there first with your first three volumes of Bhāgavatam. Especially in New Delhi, they said. There's one institute which had fifty sets of your original first canto, so now they ordered fifty complete sets to complete the books they had. They said that all the major colleges had your original Bhāgavatams in India, first edition. So then they could understand that you were distributing books yourself.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: They became very enlivened, inspired.
Prabhupāda: In India the sannyāsīs beg, but I did not beg. I sold my Back to Godhead, books. I got income tax free...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You always gave literature.
Devotee (5): Two hundreds places, universities, schools, government institutions, big ministers, temple managements for all,...
Prabhupāda: They have given all orders?
Devotee (5): Yes, most of them gave orders to our... Even unlike... Some like Unites States some place, they would order all seventeen Caitanya-caritāmṛtas, and all the volumes of Bhāgavatam out and place an order for the rest to come, plus other books. And we lowered the price to about 45 rupees which was, which was right where they can afford to pay for the volumes (indistinct) take them.
Prabhupāda: What is the usual price?
Devotee (5): $7.95 which would be like too many, eighty rupees or something like that. It would be very expensive for India for one volume.
Prabhupāda: So you have reduced the price?
Devotee (5): To forty-five rupees. Gopāla Kṛṣṇa made it very, very reasonable for them that they can partake.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. They are taking the book. That is wanted. We don't want much profit.
Prabhupāda: We are getting good response for our books all over the world.
Devotee (6): Constantly growing. Any new volumes coming out?
Devotee (1): We'll be coming (indistinct) when we get (indistinct) ...to let you translate as much because now we're getting lots of tapes recorders. (indistinct) ...70, 90, 100 books for one class, so they...that's when the students are waiting for more books. They're constantly saying more and more.
Prabhupāda: So, you'll get it, you'll get it.
Rāmeśvara: Thank you, Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: So, give prasādam to Mr. Kallman.
Prabhupāda: I work at night.
Rāmeśvara: It is hard to keep up with Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Hari-śauri: Very difficult.
Prabhupāda: We are not idle creatures.
Rāmeśvara: We are publishing his books and sometimes he is ahead of us by seventeen volumes.
Interviewer: How do you spend your days? You do an awful lot of traveling I understand.
Prabhupāda: Traveling is going on throughout the whole world and wherever I go, at night I write books.
Bali-mardana: Translates.
Prabhupāda: Translate. And daytime I meet devotees.
Prabhupāda: We are explaining this science in so many books. It is open to everyone.
Interviewer: That's quite a library.
Hari-śauri: This is just the beginning. And there's another forty volumes after this.
Interviewer: Are all of these translations that you've made Your Grace? I don't blame you for sleeping only four hours a night. I tell you, just to produce a half a dozen books in a lifetime is quite a job you know.
Prabhupāda: It is very difficult, but I have already produced eighty books.
Interviewer: Eighty? Eighty?
Prabhupāda: Eighty books.
Prabhupāda: Three times. (break) ...used to come sometimes.
Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda said he sold his books then; they ordered his books.
Prabhupāda: Yes, they purchased my books. In Butler also, many churches would purchase.
Rāmeśvara: This month the first volume of the Eighth Canto is going to the printers.
Prabhupāda: Seventh Canto, last volume you saw.
Kīrtanānanda: Jaya.
Rāmeśvara: That reporter yesterday, he was surprised you had written so many books.
Prabhupāda: They're all viṣṇu-tattva. Viṣṇu-sahasra-nāma-stotra.
Indian man: Because many people... At least among the Indians I get very big argument about it, that it is Mahā-Viṣṇu who is Supreme Personality of Godhead, and Kṛṣṇa is only one avatāra of His. And I try to...
Prabhupāda: That argument is discussed in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta.
Hari-śauri: First volume?
Prabhupāda: Yes, first volume you see. You see. See the contents. You can't find it? When he is discussing somebody, says Viṣṇu is the origin? So children, how many?
Indian man: No children.
Prabhupāda: No children.
Indian man: No children
Prabhupāda: That is good than another. (laughs) No responsibility.
Prabhupāda: So what is your new publication?
Bhagavān: So I have a big surprise.
Devotees: Whew! Wow! It's fabulous! Wow!
Prabhupāda: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Hari-śauri: This will make Rāmeśvara very envious.
Bhagavān: This is special. This is on all volumes.
Prabhupāda: Oh, how many chapters?
Bhagavān: Up to chapter nine.
Prabhupāda: Oh, First Canto.
Bhagavān: Half of First Canto.
Prabhupāda: Yes, twenty. Rādhā-kṛṣṇa-praṇaya-vikṛtir hlādinī...
Prabhupāda: So hundred years finish. (laughs) Fifty years, twenty years, twenty years and ten years.
George Harrison: Which volume is that?
Hari-śauri: This is the one before that one.
George Harrison: Part Two.
Hari-śauri: Yes. This is Prahlāda Mahārāja's instructions.
Prabhupāda: You can give that volume also.
George Harrison: Did you, do you.... I'm not too sure which ones I've got up to.
Mukunda: He's got up to.... You've got about two more coming before that. I'll give them to you.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa varṇa-dvayī, you have got that?
Jayatīrtha: I found that verse. Actually, Rancor found it. Tuṇḍe tāṇḍavinī ratim vitanute tuṇḍāvalī-ladbhaye.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Pradyumna? You just note down this verse and give him.
Hari-śauri: In Vṛndāvana you were just translating?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hari-śauri: The library party said that everywhere in Delhi they went, they found that you had already placed your three volumes of Bhāgavatam.
Prabhupāda: Yes. In American also. The Congress Library purchased nineteen sets.
Hari-śauri: Which library?
Prabhupāda: Congress Library.
Hari-śauri: Oh, Congress. The one in Washington? The Library of Congress?
Prabhupāda: Or there is a branch in India.
Hari-śauri: That is where they have your original Back to Godhead.
Prabhupāda: Maybe.
Prabhupāda: Books means solid ground. What we want to preach, it is recorded, not any concocted ideas. There is direction by Rūpa Gosvāmī:
- śruti-smṛti-purāṇādi-
- pañcarātra-vidhiṁ vinā
- aikāntikī harer bhaktir
- utpātāyaiva kalpate
- (Brs. 1.2.101)
Without the support of śruti, smṛti, purāṇa, any religious movement for understanding God is simply disturbance-utpātāyaiva kalpate. Utpāt... That is the... It is the version given by... Even Kṛṣṇa, He's God Himself, He's speaking, He's giving reference to the Vedānta-sūtra: brahma-sūtra-padaiś caiva hetumadbhir viniścitaiḥ (BG 13.5). So without reference to the Vedic literature, anything you speak, it has no ground. Śruti-pramāṇa, this is Vedic culture, śruti-pramāṇa. It must be supported by śruti. In Caitanya-caritāmṛta you'll find whenever Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, He gives immediately Vedic evidence, śruti-pramāṇa. Then it is solid. So we are trying to present this movement with śruti-pramāṇa. Our Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam will be finished in sixty volumes, and Caitanya-caritāmṛta is already finished in seventeen volumes. So altogether at least we'll have hundred volumes of books, small and big, to give śruti-pramāṇa. This is the example.
Prabhupāda: Puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho hi (BG 13.22). Puruṣaḥ. Why you cannot find this verse? What you are...
Mahāṁśa: Puruṣaḥ prakṛti, bhuñjante...
Prabhupāda: Tad guṇān. Puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho hi. You did not find?
Guest: (Bengali) Bhāgavatam series twenty volume.
Prabhupāda: Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Seventeen volumes. Seventeen.
Guest: I have only two. Can I, is there any set available? I would like to buy the rest.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: You must encourage.
Pradyumna: Other, all young men... Paṇḍitas... That book isn't here.
Prabhupāda: Teachings of Lord Caitanya?
Pradyumna: Oh, maybe. No. It must be in Ādi-līlā, first volume.
Prabhupāda: Ādi-līlā is not here.
Pradyumna: They took first volume. They don't have all the books here.
Prabhupāda: No. They should be charged, "Why you have said 'ungodly face'? What do you know about God?"
Harikeśa: We're working on printing them in cheaper editions in India.
Indian man: That would be wonderful.
Prabhupāda: Yes, we are trying for that.
Gurukṛpā: Already this Bhāgavatam, First Volume has been printed in Delhi for about three times less cost.
Prabhupāda: So you are not getting that book?
Gurukṛpā: No, in Hyderabad we haven't gotten that.
Prabhupāda: Why?
Gurukṛpā: I don't know. I'm not in a management position. Mahāṁsa Mahārāja is ordering.
Prabhupāda: Get this cheap edition. You can order cheap edition.
Prabhupāda: You have to read the subject matter. Even if he thinks that it is written by Bopadeva, such a great knowledge, one has to read. Such great knowledge is not possible by Bopadeva and unless... He is incarnation of God, Vyāsadeva. It is said... (indistinct) Not this. (indistinct)
Mahāṁsa: Which volume do you want, Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Second volume. Varīyān eṣa...
Harikeśa: Second Canto, Part One, verse one.
Prabhupāda: Find out this. Varīyān eṣa...
Prabhupāda: Tam paribhāvita, like that. There is a verse.
Pradyumna: Oh. I will find it.
Prabhupāda: Ādi-līlā.
Hari-śauri: Which volume?
Prabhupāda: Caitanya-caritāmṛta.
Hari-śauri: First volume?
Prabhupāda: I think. There is, what is called, index?
Pradyumna: Yes, for Ādi-līlā? Where's the verse index.
Hari-śauri: Which verse is it. If you give me the verse I can...
Pradyumna: It begins tam paribhāvita. T-a-m. T-a-m. Tam paribhāvita.
Prabhupāda: You can bring here. Then?
Doctor: I think I have taken too much of time.
Prabhupāda: I am going there at six.
Doctor: Words of enlightenment.
Hari-śauri: Have you got any of Prabhupāda's books?
Doctor: I have got some. I bought all the volumes of translation of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. I have got all of them. But some of them have not arrived from United States, the latest ones. And I have got...
Hari-śauri: That's very nice.
Prabhupāda: You are staying in New Delhi?
Doctor: I stay in the Hague, and come to New Delhi when there are no cases.
Prabhupāda: Hague?
Prabhupāda: Everything is becoming a farce. (pause) What is that?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: These are just some letters I'm sending with Rādhā-vallabha to Los Angeles.
Rādhā-vallabha: When we reprint the Kṛṣṇa Book trilogy this year, the hardbound, I was wondering, could we put more pictures in the second and third volumes? Not changing, but additional.
Prabhupāda: Why increase cost?
Rādhā-vallabha: I don't think it would be that much. The first volume has over sixty pictures and the second one only has thirty-two and the third only has twenty-four. Anyway, anything we do will increase the cost but not so significant. Few cents. We were thinking that the Kṛṣṇa Books were originally printed many many years ago and since then we have a lot of nice paintings of Kṛṣṇa's pastimes that we could put in.
Prabhupāda: If you can give without increasing price, there is no harm. Or for this cents. Let us.
Prabhupāda: Oh yes. Each word. You can show Bhagavad-gītā.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: A very authoritative presentation. For example, here's the original Sanskrit śloka, word for word...
Guest (3): For example, sāṅkhya-yoga. You have a separate book? Then sthita-prajñā. You have a separate...?
Prabhupāda: No separately. It is there in the Bhagavad-gītā.
Guest (3): But that way, your volumes are dealing with each chapter of Gītā?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Each śloka. Each chapter.
Guest (2): No, no. Not inside the book. Different volumes. Like eighteen chapters, but eighteen volumes.
Prabhupāda: No, no.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No. It's in one book. Twelve hundred pages.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. You saw Hindi... (breaks)... Bhagavad-gītā, Bhāgavata. (Hindi) languages. Bengali. (Hindi—breaks) ...we received. We have recently received one telegram.
Indian (1): Those are big volumes. It takes time to read it, to go through it. And just a small booklet, a man can keep it in his pocket.
Prabhupāda: We have got three classes. Medium class and the...
Indian (1): Volume.
Prabhupāda: Volume, no. Hardbound big books, and small books. Besides that, magazines. So in one week what we have sold, they have sent one telegram from Los Angeles.
Prabhupāda: That is the introduction. And Śrīmad Bhāgavatam?
Rāmeśvara: First Canto. Mostly First Canto. We're only printing twenty thousand copies of every volume. But of First Canto we always print fifty thousand copies. And now Bhagavad-gītā, we have printed one and a half million copies.
Prabhupāda: That's abridged.
Rāmeśvara: For one year's sales.
Prabhupāda: That's very nice. (laughs) One and half million.
Prabhupāda: And Dialectic Spiritualism is published?
Rāmeśvara: This year, after the Māyāpura Festival. Hayagrīva hasn't finished working on it completely.
Prabhupāda: How many pages it will be?
Rāmeśvara: Two volumes.
Prabhupāda: Two volumes?
Rāmeśvara: Two volumes, eight hundred pages.
Prabhupāda: Oh? So, big?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Is that Harikeśa's book?
Jagadīśa: Śyāmasundara.
Rāmeśvara: For the year 1976. It lists... The first section lists all the Caitanya-caritāmṛtas title by title, all seventeen volumes. So last year we sold 55,000 copies of Caitanya-caritāmṛta.
Prabhupāda: All parts.
Rāmeśvara: Yes. Then it lists the Bhāgavatams. We sold 7,000 volume one, First Canto; 46,000 First Canto, volume two; 41,000 First Canto, volume three; 6,000 2.1's; 8,500 5.1's; 8,500 5.2's; 17,000 6.1's; 16,000 6.2's; 16,000 6.3's; 45,000 7.1's, Prahlāda Mahārāja; 15,000 7.2; 16,000 7.3; 16,000 8.1; and 15,000 8.2. Total Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam sales in English last year, 275,000 hard bound volumes. Then Bhagavad-gītā. Macmillan edition, 5,000; the abridged edition, paper bound, 11,000. Then the abridged edition, hardbound... (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Choking.
Rāmeśvara: 606,000 hardbound volumes, for a total sale of Bhagavad-gītā last year in English, not counting what was printed in India, 622,000 hardbound volumes. Then Kṛṣṇa book, hardbound, 28,000, volume one; 12,000 volume two; 12,000 volume three; making a total of Kṛṣṇa book hardbound sold of 51,000 hardbound volumes. Then Kṛṣṇa trilogies, paper bound: 17,000 volumes one; 19,000 volume two; 24,000 volume three; making a total of 60,000 Kṛṣṇa trilogies. Then 6,000 Teachings of Lord Caitanya, 7,000 Nectar of Devotion, 160,000 Śrī Īśopaniṣad, 100,000 Nectar of Instruction, 253,000 Easy Journey to Other Planets...
Prabhupāda: This is the largest sale.
Prabhupāda: Our immediately problem is toward my health. I am not digesting food, so therefore there is some swelling in the hands and the legs.
Rāmeśvara: That's due to the kidney?
Prabhupāda: Kidney or whatever it may be.
Rāmeśvara: So is it affecting your translation work?
Prabhupāda: That is not affected. That is going on. I have translated today seventeen volumes (verses?). That does not affect.
Prabhupāda: Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and depend on Kṛṣṇa. Actually... Nārtasya cāgadam udanvati majjato nauḥ. That is the Prahlāda Mahārāja's verse. Find out this. Bālasya neha śaraṇaṁ pitarau nṛsiṁha. Seventh Canto.
Rāmeśvara: Volume Two. That's it.
Hari-śauri: What was that again?
Prabhupāda: Bālasya. B-a-l-a.
Hari-śauri: Bālasyāntaḥpura-sthas...
Prabhupāda: Bālasya neha.
Prabhupāda: Oh, begged from some house.
Hari-śauri: That's what I made out from him. But this boy should be back very soon. The boy that went out to do the shopping should be back very soon. They took a van.
Rāmeśvara: There was one question I had, Śrīla Prabhupāda. You have written in the Third Volume of the First Canto different instructions for the age of Kali, how there'll be compulsory marriage and so on and so on. And you mentioned about the gold standard, that this is very bad, this artificial standard of monetary exchange.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. It is very bad.
Rāmeśvara: In the future this is something that we should try to correct.
Prabhupāda: You should introduce coin, real money.
Prabhupāda: Hm. That's a fact.
Rāmeśvara: Then he mentions that in the Bible there is no information, so you have to look elsewhere.
Prabhupāda: Read Bhagavad-gītā.
Rāmeśvara: Unfortunately he has not come across the Vedas. I have already written a letter to some devotees in Los Angeles to meet this man and give him your Third Canto, Volume Four, which describes the movements of the living entity, development in the womb... I think he'll be shocked to read these things.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Gargamuni: He's also read this book called the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Prabhupāda: No, why not this also, Bhāgavata also, Bhagavad-gītā?
Rāmeśvara: Apparently he's not familiar with the Vedic writings. So...
Prabhupāda: So inform him.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Why don't you present...? Kṛṣṇa has so many līlās. Just like... Where is our Kṛṣṇa book? You have got?
Hari-śauri: I can get a copy.
Prabhupāda: Yes. There is...
Hari-śauri: Any volume, or...?
Prabhupāda: That... Kṛṣṇa is killing Kamsa.
Guest (1): That is the final līlā of Śrī Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Not final.
Prabhupāda: It is not the question of preaching. The lawyer can present that "My client's defense statement is here in these books." "Defense statement." Don't say, "the books." "Defense statements are there."
Hari-śauri: It's all written, already complete.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Gargamuni: "We've already compiled our defense..."
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Gargamuni: "...in eighty-four volumes."
Satsvarūpa: Certain sections, or just say all of these?
Prabhupāda: All, line to line.
Gargamuni: Yes. And they will have to read line to line.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Line to line, each word.
Gargamuni: Our defense is eighty-four volumes.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...in Washington with Rūpānuga Prabhu and the other scientists in our group for the Institute. So I have some papers to be signed by Your Divine Grace. So you'll read in the morning? Tomorrow?
Prabhupāda: Yes. We have started one institute, Bhaktivedanta Institute?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. And I want to show several aspects of our journal, Sa-vijñānam. We have almost completed the first volume.
Prabhupāda: They are publishing one paper, Sa-vijñānam. How do you like this name? Sa-vijñānam. This is picked up from Bhagavad-gītā. Jñānaṁ te 'haṁ sa-vijñānam idaṁ vakṣyāmy aśeṣataḥ. Sa-vijñānam (BG 7.2). Sa-vijñānam means according to science. So did you see...
Prabhupāda: That is... That you are. In our Institute you lecture.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I think our journal, the Sa-Vijñānam, will be...
Prabhupāda: Able to...
Svarūpa Dāmodara: By Prabhupāda's mercy, I think, it will be very useful in making contact with the...
Prabhupāda: Yes. So when you are going to publish?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: We wanted to print this in about three months, the first volume.
Prabhupāda: And not yet finished?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I have the draft, the manuscript here. It needs to be revised. And then we have to contact with the...
Prabhupāda: How many pages? How many pages it will be?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh, it's going to be big. First... It's little too big for the first volume. I have a draft here. (gets out draft-groans as if it's heavy)
Prabhupāda: Oh! (laughter)
Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's going to be the first volume, but... We're going to put a lot of illustrations.
Prabhupāda: This is wanted.
Prabhupāda: Yes. When we bring, present scientific basis, it must be powerful. All right, let us...
Gargamuni: I think in America that we cannot say that the general public is against us, because the book sales are increasing. It is only when the book sales decrease...
Prabhupāda: No... So how many pages these are?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: We plan to print up to at least hundred pages each volume. But this is already about two hundred pages. So we are going to reduce it little bit so that we can print it in next volume.
Prabhupāda: Life From Life, we are already advertising in our BBT list.
Hari-śauri: Yes. It's already listed there.
Prabhupāda: But they have no brain to understand this. No, no. Not this volume. The Tenth Canto I am explaining now. How nature is working, māyayā... They have no value. They are studying gross science. Actually science means how nature is working. But how nature is working, they do not know, and they are very much proud. "Nature's study..." They say they have studied nature, but they do not know how... Here it is said, bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61). This machine is made by nature. Do you know how it is made? So where is your brain? This is a machine. And everyone knows this machine is made by nature.
Prabhupāda: How many copies they are printing?
Brahmānanda: One hundred thousand.
Prabhupāda: One hundred thousand. This is the first?
Brahmānanda: I think so.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Volume One. Was there any difficulty for getting our present edition here?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think one of the points that Jayatīrtha Prabhu was making is that some of the... He found that some of the editions were especially orientated to American reading public. For example, there was an edition about bicentennial celebration. So that celebrates the American...
Prabhupāda: Independence.
Prabhupāda: No, they sanctioned. Either you can send a copy or the original.
Rāmeśvara: Oh, yes, no problem. Also this receipt, I wasn't sure. The artists had some meeting to plan out the paintings for Ninth Canto, Volume Three. The Second Volume is rāma-līlā and also Paraśurāma. That's already at the printer.
Prabhupāda: No picture?
Rāmeśvara: They're at the printers. When we return they'll be printed. We left Jagannātha-sūta there to supervise the printing, and we left enough artists to start painting the Third Volume, the final volume. So there are two paintings describing the story of Mahārāja Yayāti...
Prabhupāda: Yayāti.
Rāmeśvara: ...how he was cursed to lose his youthfulness and so on.
Prabhupāda: Śukrācārya.
Prabhupāda: Not overgrown. This is all right.
Rāmeśvara: Oh. Then there are many descriptions of Lord Kṛṣṇa in this volume, so they have painted this painting of Lord Kṛṣṇa. There is especially a description describing the beauty of His face and His lotus feet and His whole bodily beauty, carrying the flute.
Prabhupāda: Very nice. It is all right. Now you have become expert, painting Kṛṣṇa so many years.
Rāmeśvara: Now, at the time he was taking this prasāda, would he be sitting in his palace room on his throne or...? We were thinking that in his dining room.
Prabhupāda: No, dining room.
Rāmeśvara: There should be a dining room. Then the last painting for the volume is from the twenty-fourth chapter, just the last few verses describing the appearance of Kṛṣṇa. It describes...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Bali-mardana: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes, very nice.
Bali-mardana: Very nice quality.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Now Bhāgavatam will be there.
Bali-mardana: Any volume we want, they are prepared to print. We simply give them the volume. They will print.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, because he is giving such a big order that they can print the whole printing even for him.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: Find out janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1).
Guest (1): It is in the indexes. It is according to alphabetically arranged.
Prabhupāda: They have so much respect for Sanskrit language.
Guest (1): No, there are about ten, fifteen volumes like this. Sanskrit dictionary.
Prabhupāda: That means they have got respect.
Guest (1): No, they are learning from it actually. They are doing all the research and everything.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I read in the paper there is going to be a world Sanskrit meeting in Paris soon.
Prabhupāda: Our books are selling due to the Sanskrit scholarship.
Prabhupāda: Apart from, we are not concerned with politics. We are concerned with the madman. So what is this nonsense politics conducted by some big...? Śva-viḍ-varāhoṣṭra-kharaiḥ saṁstutaḥ puruṣaḥ paśuḥ (SB 2.3.19). What is this politics, the democracy? Some animals voting another big animal, that's all. The leader is an animal, and the voters, they are animals. So what is the use of such politics? They remain animals. That is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Śva-viḍ-varāhoṣṭra-kharaiḥ saṁstutaḥ puruṣaḥ paśuḥ. That is going on. You have got it?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. I don't know if this is the right volume. It's the only one that resembles. I can't read Russian, so I don't know if that's...
Prabhupāda: Is that Russian?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We have one book in Russian.
Prabhupāda: So in this way smaller books we can publish. (break) ...to Other Planets, similarly.
Guest (1): How long did you stay in Moscow?
Prabhupāda: About ten days.
Prabhupāda: Fifth Canto, fifth chapter.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Fifth Canto, fifth chapter? I don't have the first volume, Śrīla Prabhupāda. We only have the second volume of Fifth Canto with us.
Prabhupāda: No other Bhāgavatam?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We do. We have Prahlāda Mahārāja's teachings, Seventh Canto.
Prabhupāda: No, Bhāgavata original?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Original Bhāgavatam.
Prabhupāda: Then?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Paṇḍitajī might have taken.
Prabhupāda: Ask Pradyumna.
Prabhupāda: So I am not going to die. Kīrtir yasya sa jīvati: "One who has done something substantial, he lives forever." He doesn't die. Even in our practical life... Of course, this is material, karma-phala. One has to accept another body according to his karma. But for devotee there is no such thing. He always accepts a body for serving Kṛṣṇa. So there is no karma-phala. (pause)
Rāmeśvara: Last volume of Ninth Canto is at the printer.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Rāmeśvara: The last volume, it is already at the printer, being printed.
Prabhupāda: Oh, Ninth.
Rāmeśvara: It will be here in about ten days. And the first volume of Tenth Canto, we have just received Chapter Four and Chapter Five, and the artists will be finished in two weeks.
Prabhupāda: Another thing, the Hindi photographic pages, if you send to Los Angeles, the books can be printed there.
Rāmeśvara: In India. To compose.
Prabhupāda: And there?
Rāmeśvara: If we did it in America, it would not be less expensive. It might be even more expensive, because you have to order a special font for the Hindi alphabet. I've gone over this with Gopāla, and he says that so far, he is able to keep up with the translators. He is just now in Bombay, giving some more books in Hindi to the printer. Bhāgavatam 1.3 and Bhagavad-gītā in Hindi are going to the printer. And the translator is just still working on the first volume of Second Canto. As far as printing, this printer in Bombay called Usha is giving us very good service at a very low price. So it's a good place to print the books, the Hindi books. (pause) There's no question of buying equipment in India because it's too expensive for us to buy our own equipment.
Prabhupāda: No, that is...
Rāmeśvara: Plus it will not be repaired when it breaks.
Prabhupāda: That is very risky.
Śatadhanya: You are compassionate.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Tathā vinoda(?). I have done on reality. I want to establish reality, not imagination. What is the use of giving some imaginative idea, just like this rascal Darwin? Everything rascal. No practical value. And he has written volumes of books, and people are accepting: "From monkey, man has come. That's all." But monkey is there; man is there. Where monkey is extinct? The whole theory is absolutely bogus, and people have accepted it. I never believed that. Anthropo... Anthropomor... No? The...?
Upendra: Anthropomorphism.
Prabhupāda: And... What do you call, this science?
Śatadhanya: Anthropology.
Prabhupāda: Selling?
Harikeśa: Yes, we can sell these like anything, because in Yugoslavia we can pretend we're going to Greece, and we can bring as many as we like and then we can sell these.
Prabhupāda: So why not print ten million?
Harikeśa: I only had time to print ten thousand, Śrīla Prabhupāda. We did it in one day from the flats to this book in one day, just so I could bring it to you. This is the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Second Canto, First Volume, with Śrī-Śrī-Rādhā-London-īśvara. This we printed twenty thousand copies.
Prabhupāda: Selling?
Harikeśa: Oh, yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Wow. Look at Rāmeśvara. He jumped at that.
Prabhupāda: He's defeated. (laughter)
Harikeśa: I am just taking everything they do and do it. That's all. And then there is these other ones, volume two and three. We have printed 35,000 of each. This one has a very nice picture of you on the back.
Rāmeśvara: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: Rāmeśvara Mahārāja, how do you like?
Rāmeśvara: These books are very good. The most incredible thing, the printer can print them faster than anywhere else in the world. From the day he gives the book to the printer and the day the printer ships it, it is faster than anywhere else in the world.
Prabhupāda: Hm. Rome.
Bhagavān: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Which book?
Bhagavān: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, First Volume. The devotees are thinking if they can do over twenty thousand big books in one week you'll be encouraged to stay. And then they will do even more.
Prabhupāda: No. Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī will give them blessing. He'll delay.(?) He wanted this.
Bhagavān: When the book distribution is going on so strongly, everything is remaining very pure. It is taking away all inauspicious elements.
Prabhupāda: Thank you. (break) You can note down from him the crisis day.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda? Rāmeśvara Mahārāja wanted to show you some very nice things from the BBT, I think your Godbrothers would also be interested to see.
Prabhupāda: Bring him.
Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, these are pictures of the new paintings for Tenth Canto, Volume Two.
Prabhupāda: Bring some prasādam for these men.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We have, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: First of all you...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda wants prasādam to be distributed.
Abhirāma: Śrīla Prabhupāda started translating Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam last night. Pradyumna was reading, and Śrīla Prabhupāda was giving the explanation of translation.
Prabhupāda: Try... (Bengali)
Bhāgavata: Everyone is eagerly awaiting the new issues of your books all over the world. What to speak of the devotees, the scholars, the professors, the librarians, and just the general reading public who are patronizing your books, literally millions of people all over the world are eagerly awaiting new issues of your volumes. When the news gets out that you are again translating and that the new volumes of Tenth Canto will be available, everyone will be in ecstasy.
Prabhupāda: I have got some letters from New Vrindaban appealing for the books.
Prabhupāda: You read some more.
Jayādvaita: Yes, with great pleasure. Teachings of Lord Kapiladeva.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa.
Jayādvaita: Kṛṣṇa book. Any particular part that you'd like to hear, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Anywhere. From Second Part.
Jayādvaita: Second Volume. "Akrūra's Arrival in Vṛndāvana." Is that all right?
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Jayādvaita: "Nārada Muni did not mention Kṛṣṇa's killing Vyomāsura..." (break)
Prabhupāda: ...depend on you. For me, wherever I am kept, I shall remain. This is the position.
| Page Title: | Volume - of a book (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, Serene |
| Created: | 03 of Mar, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=133, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 133 |