Prabhupāda: You may, according to your intelligence, you may discover defensive weapons, nuclear weapons, and aeroplanes, and bombs, and so many things. Because you have got higher intelligence. That the... But the ultimate conclusion: that the defensive propensity is there in you also. There is no difference in the material existentional propensities.
Airplane (Conversations 1968 - 1975)
Expressions researched:
"aeroplane"
|"aeroplanes"
|"airbus"
|"airbuses"
|"aircraft"
|"aircrafts"
|"airfare"
|"airline"
|"airlines"
|"airplane"
|"airplanes"
|"airport"
|"airports"
|"airship"
|"airships"
Conversations and Morning Walks
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
Conversation with Religious Group -- July 27, 1968, Montreal:
Prabhupāda: No. Don't laugh. Suppose you are here. You have to go to London. If you have purchased the ticket for London and if you are sure that you have got an aeroplane, so even you have not gone to reach London, but you are sure that you are going to London.
Room Conversation about Marriage -- September 24, 1968, Seattle:
Prabhupāda: Although the women are very, very beautiful, many thousand times more beautiful than here... Their stature of body, their everything, youthfulness, everything. But still they are so much engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, in chanting the glories, that they are not, I mean to say, influenced by the lust. That is stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavata, in the Vaikuṇṭha. There are women. They also, men and women there is, and they also go by airplane, fly in the sky for trip, and all of them are devotees to Nārāyaṇa, Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa associate. So these things are described. So similarly, amongst the gopīs also. So in the spiritual life there is nothing like this sex pleasure. And the more we forget sex life, that means we are advancing in spiritual life. So this should be the attitude, that women, Godsisters, they should be nicely treated so that they may not feel any... After all, they are weaker.
Room Conversation -- October 27, 1968, Montreal, With First Devotees Going to London On Evening of Their Departure:
Prabhupāda: Five o'clock?
Yamunā: That's when we have to get out.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. So you are going by taxi?
Guru dāsa: To the airport?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guru dāsa: Yes, I think so.
Devotee (2): You'd have to.
Yamunā: Three taxis.
Interview with LA Times Reporter About Moon Trip -- December 26, 1968, Los Angeles:
Reporter: Reach, I see. But would the flight that was just completed, that doesn't contradict with anything in this book? I mean they were within, I don't know, so many miles...
Prabhupāda: But so far we have got information, no flight has been successful to land there till now. So I do not think how they are going to be successful in the future. This process, just like we are going from one place to another by motor car or by airplane, this process will not help us to go to the moon planet. The process is different as described in the Vedic literature. One has to qualify.
Reporter: What would be, when you say impossible for one to land or to reach the moon's surface.
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Room Conversation -- April 27, 1969, Boston:
Prabhupāda: You are feeling all right? Satsvarūpa?
Satsvarūpa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. You did not go to the airport?
Satsvarūpa: No. I gave the lecture that was cancelled at...
Prabhupāda: Oh. Lecture?
Satsvarūpa: You were supposed to give a lecture today, but because you gave a lecture last night in Buffalo, we cancelled it and I went instead.
Meeting with Devotees -- June 9, 1969, New Vrindaban:
Prabhupāda: That Kṛṣṇa will provide. That doesn't matter. You see?
Hayagrīva: So I want to make certain that this is your...
Prabhupāda: Sometimes I think that "I came here with no money, and now I am spending so much money in traveling." (laughter) Aeroplanes. As soon as I get on aeroplane, immediately two hundred dollars. And not only I am, my assistant also. So Kṛṣṇa will provide. That doesn't matter.
Hayagrīva: This is the way, I mean, you want it. I don't quite understand...
1970 Conversations and Morning Walks
Room Conversation -- November 7, 1970, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: My Guru Mahārāja ordered me that "You go and preach this cult amongst the English speaking public and specially in the western countries." So first of all I thought of London, where is London, but I had no money. So I got the opportunity for going U.S.A. free on the, on a trade ship by the Scindia Steam Navigation. They gave me their first-class cabinet, the proprietor's cabinet. I was well carried. But first of all I went free on a steamship. I had no money, what to speak of aeroplane. So... What was your question?
Room Conversation -- December 13, 1970, Indore:
Devotee (3): You want to go by plane Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: No, I am asking one ticket for plane.
Devotee (3): You'll fly alone to Delhi?
Yamunā: The Delhi airport?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is not difficulty. Ask Gurudāsa to take me. For two hours I can sit down. It goes direct to Delhi from here.
Devotee (3): No, it makes two stops.
Prabhupāda: That doesn't matter.
Room Conversation -- December 13, 1970, Indore:
Yamunā: I didn't inquire into his vices.
Devotee (5): In New York they call them "uptown swamis."
Yamunā: His example of spiritual life is based on material prosperity.
Prabhupāda: So why they should go to the yoga system? The science is more advanced. Before flying in the sky by a yogi he has to press his nose for so many years and the science has given us the airplane. He can purchase ticket, immediately fly. (laughter) What is use of pressing nose?
Yamunā: You explain that in Bhāgavatam.
Prabhupāda: Yes. What is the use, wasting time?
Revatīnandana: (indistinct) about when you walk on the water, walking on the water is a bogus thing (indistinct) two cent yogi because for two cents he could have taken (indistinct)
Room Conversation -- December 21, 1970, Surat:
Śyāmasundara: Some party can go tomorrow.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Śyāmasundara: Rest on seventeenth. And we will see if there is airline connection.
Prabhupāda: If airline is not possible, we will go by train or... (break) ...preach like this.
Mālatī: Haribol.
Prabhupāda: Oh. (laughing)
Mālatī: Jaya. It was very good meeting (?).
Prabhupāda: That for the fifty years they are here, nobody can find. Gaudīya Maṭha is known as Indian temple. That's all.
Śyāmasundara: Yeah.
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Room Conversation -- April 1, 1972, Sydney:
Prabhupāda: Because he is not fit to get it, so God does not supply it. So we do not take anything as chance. We take everything as plan. But because God's omnipotency is so subtle, we cannot see how things happen. Therefore we say "It is a chance, chance of physical arrangement." Just like in the airport, as soon as I step on the door it becomes opened. It is not chance. A child will see it is a chance: "Oh, how it is? I wanted to go and the door is already open." He takes it a chance. That is poor fund of knowledge. There is arrangement, nice arrangement, electrical arrangement. So to a poor fund of knowledge it becomes a chance, and to the sober mind it is not chance; it is arranged by higher authority. Another opposite point is nobody wants to die. Why the chance of death comes? Nobody wants to die. If that argument is taken, necessity—I want to die, and the death comes—then it is applicable. But I do not want to die. Why death comes? There is no necessity of my death, but why the death comes? Then where this argument will be?
Room Conversation -- April 2, 1972, Sydney:
Prabhupāda: This is Kṛṣṇa's mercy. If somebody is thinking, "If I had like this, like that, like that, like that." "All right you will have all." (laughter) Just like Hiraṇyakaśipu wanted to save himself in this way, that... "Yes, all are granted," but still he had to die. All granted. So we are trying to take facilities from Kṛṣṇa beginning from "O God, give us our daily bread, then give me motorcar, then give me airplane, then give me this, give me that." "Take all, but you will never be happy unless you surrender to Me. You take all." This is going on. The modern civilization, they are wanting, "We may have this, we may have that, we may have this, we may have that." "Yes, you take all. But don't talk of happiness, please." That is the only problem. Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekam (BG 18.66), if you want this. Otherwise, you take whatever you like.
Room Conversation -- May 4, 1972, Mexico:
Prabhupāda: Who has created the brain of Professor Einstein? You have not created. You are trying to make a xerox copy, that's all. But the original is already there. Now who has created the original brain? Then you have to go to God. But you have not created. It is not my men(?). If man could create such brain, then, "Ah, never mind, the professor has died. We create another person like." That you cannot. So even if you are able to imitate, you are not the supreme scientist. First of all it is doubtful. So accepting that you will be able to copy or xerox copy of Einstein's brain, that does not give you the credit. The credit is already there, God's credit. At least we shall not give you any credit. We shall speak that the original brain is created by God. You cannot create. If you had the power to create, then there was no necessity of copying. You could create better brain. That you haven't got. You are trying to take xerox copy from that brain. Just like big, big aeroplanes are flying, but their, the shape is made after the bird. The original shape bird is created by God. He has got the same type of machine even within an insect, small insect flying. You can create a small aeroplane like that. That is not possible. Then what is your credit? Here is God's credit, a small fly, near water. You create it. You see? You can create a big, but you cannot a small. Therefore you are incapable. But God can create the biggest and the smallest. Aṇor aṇīyān mahato mahīyān. He can create the greater than the greatest and the smaller than the smallest.
Room Conversation -- May 4, 1972, Mexico:
Devotee: A big airplane cannot reproduce another airplane.
Prabhupāda: You cannot create male aeroplane and female aeroplane so that you haven't got to manufacture a third one. The third one is produced. Why third one? Millions. And then from millions, another millions, another million. That is God's creation. That means He has got different energies. He pushes on one button of one energy and the production goes on. (Sanskrit) These are the Vedic explanation. His energies are so subtle. Just like nowadays electronic television button, you press, and thousands and thousands of miles away something is happening, you see.
Room Conversation -- June 14, 1972, Los Angeles:
Devotee: Saṅkīrtana party.
Prabhupāda: Very good.
John Fahey: We want get some cymbals, cymbals.
Marilyn: Cymbals. We sang Hare Kṛṣṇa on the airplane.
Prabhupāda: You're chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa on the airplane?
John Fahey: Yeah, it was fun.
Prabhupāda: You can chant anywhere. There is no restriction. There is no special rules and regulations. You can chant anywhere. Whenever you find it convenient, you can chant.
Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:
Prabhupāda: How far?
Dhanañjaya: From here its about five miles, four or five miles.
Devotee (1): It's, ah, towards the airport.
Prabhupāda: Towards the airport. So not bad.
Devotee (1): Not bad. No, it's still downtown.
Dhanañjaya: It's on the motorway. It's very near to the motorway, the motorway coming from the airport into central London.
Prabhupāda: So why not see earlier? Have you got any description?
Dhanañjaya: Well, we can't see it earlier because it belongs to the Methodist Church, and their committee members are meeting in another city, in Manchester, for a week. They have their..., a big congress meeting there. So they don't come back until the end of this week.
Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:
Prabhupāda: He can alone make purchase a good temple. George alone can purchase.
Devotee (2): He says George is in New York.
Devotee: (conversation in background)
Dhanañjaya: Oh, he may be with Mr. Ravi Patel. I think we saw him at the airport.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Dhanañjaya: He's a printer, and he came in the van with you from the airport. He's a very nice man. He's doing printing for us. He says he has so many thousands of rupees in Bombay and in Madras from his printing. And he also wants to offer his services. I think he will come tomorrow to see you.
Prabhupāda: They can print our books, in Bombay.
Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:
Devotee: Yes, always.
Devotee (2): I saw Mr.... Who was that? What's that man's name who made your first record in New York?
Prabhupāda: Collin.
Devotee (2): Ah, I saw Mr. Collin at the airport when you arrived in New York at that meeting, press meeting.
Prabhupāda: Oh, he was there?
Devotee (2): He was there.
Prabhupāda: Oh, why did he not see me?
Devotee (2): He didn't come. He was a little embarrassed, I think.
Room Conversation -- October 25, 1972, Vrndavana:
Devotee (3): They are being punished.
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.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Morning Walk -- April 19, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Certainly. Yesterday, somebody has thanked to our students that: "Oh, we are so obliged to you that you are supplying Bhāgavatam." Is it not, somebody has said?
Devotees: Yes yes. Tripurāri said that. Tripurāri.
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...
Morning Walk -- April 20, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: He knows by practical experience that "This society, friendship, love, nation, nobody can save me." But still he thinks that "They'll save me." Just like when you, in the aeroplane, there may be thousands of aeroplanes, others, but when your aeroplane is in danger, nobody can save you. You have to save yourself, Otherwise, you go to hell. Similarly, we have to save ourself individually by Kṛṣṇa consciousness. What this material advancement will save me? Will the material advancement of knowledge can save anyone from death? Is it possible? Real problem, duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam, real problem is birth, death, old age and disease.
Morning Walk -- April 20, 1973, Los Angeles:
Karandhara: The ants, thousands of them without colliding. But the cars, they're always colliding.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: The living entities, when the soul is inside a body, they're much more flexible than the, the aeroplanes or cars that are made by the scientists?
Prabhupāda: Yes. The aeroplane wings, they're fixed up. But the bird wings, he can do like this. Even they can do like that, where is the credit? It is already there. Many millions and thousands. (pause)
Svarūpa Dāmodara: In physical sciences, there's a branch called thermodynamics that deals with the transfer of heat and energy in different forms. So their three laws is called first law, second law and the third law. First law deals with the conservation of energy in different forms. And the second law, it is stated that the energy of the universe is constant. Just like the, in the Śrī Īśopaniṣad, the Invocation, pūrṇa...
Morning Walk -- April 20, 1973, Los Angeles:
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They're smart.
Prabhupāda: So that smartness you haven't got. Even of a small bird. And still you are proud of advancement. The vulture goes up and he can see everything but when you go up, aeroplane, up you cannot see where is your home. Is it not? They can find out, four miles, five miles away, where is a corpse. Immediately they flock. (pause) What is this building? Some...
Karandhara: An auditorium. We're going to have a festival here on, next month.
Prabhupāda: Oh. That's nice. What do they charge?
Karandhara: Well, if you don't charge anything, they don't charge you anything for using it.
Prabhupāda: Oh, they don't charge?
Morning Walk -- May 3, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Why he avoids?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: He was thinking carefully and decided that he cannot defend what he has in his mind.
Prabhupāda: We are not ordinary, the so-called swamis and sādhus. We are going to give to the world something which they forgot. I told this in London airport. Yes. That was published in the papers. They asked me, "Why you have come to London?" And "Because to teach you something which you have forgotten."
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Is it before Prabhupāda came here.
Brahmānanda: In London.
Morning Walk -- May 3, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is our program. As soon as they agree, "Yes, life is...," then they have to accept Kṛṣṇa automatically. Sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam (Bs. 5.1). (break) Some of them are thinking that this is a saṅkīrtana party. We are saṅkīrtana party, undoubtedly. But they may not think "They are sentimentalists." They must know that we are scientists. Everywhere is the direction. These high waves, this big Pacific Ocean, they are also carrying out the direction of that Supreme life. Just like this airplane is floating. Is it floating without any direction?
Morning Walk -- May 3, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Yes. So everything is working under direction. Why do the rascals say like that? The aeroplane is a big machine. It is flying, but under the direction of a small spiritual spark, the driver, pilot. How you can deny? So as the small spiritual spark can direct a so-called gigantic plane, similarly, the big spiritual spark is directing this whole cosmic manifest... What is the difficulty to understand? You cannot say that "Without that spiritual spark, that airplane can be operated." You cannot say. That is not possible. You prove that "Without that spiritual small spark, this big 747 aeroplane will..." You cannot prove that. Where is your proof? You have to put that small spiritual spark. First of all the pilot body.
Morning Walk -- May 4, 1973, Los Angeles:
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So the difference is that the spiritual...
Prabhupāda: Everything spiritual... As here everything is material, there everything is spiritual. Now try to understand what is matter, what is spirit. Spirit, as I was explaining yesterday, the spirit is the conductor, operator, of the aeroplane. So matter is working under the guidance of spirit. So there everything being spirit, there is no necessity of another spiritual guidance.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So we have in this material world we have the evolution.
Prabhupāda: No, there is no evolution because there is no birth.
Room Conversation With David Wynne -- July 9, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: ...recently I've heard that the people in the airport protested against Indira Gandhi, that "Give us rain." Yes. That is Vedic civilization ideal. Why there is rain then no rain? The king should be responsible. One brāhmaṇa lost his son. He immediately went to the king and asked him that "The son has died before the death of the father; why this irregularity? You are responsible."
Room Conversation With David Wynne -- July 9, 1973, London:
David Wynne: Keep going round, I suppose. (devotees laugh)
Prabhupāda: Yes. Nowadays it is not difficult, because...
Devotee (1): Airplane.
Prabhupāda: Just like I started from India at eleven o'clock, and I came here at half past eight, the sunlight was still there. So if you proceed still further, further towards Western side, the night will not be able to come. So you can travel always in daylight. (laughs) Don't allow. It is an example.
David Wynne: Why do we choose the dark?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Room Conversation with David Wynne, Sculptor -- July 9, 1973, London:
Śyāmasundara: That's right. If ...one boy who stole from us, I told the police. We told them exactly where he was, at the airport, Manchester. "He's going on flight such and such to America tomorrow." Plenty of time to apprehend him. They didn't do anything.
Prabhupāda: Just see.
Room Conversation with David Wynne, Sculptor -- July 9, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: Translation? Yes. Everything is ready. Who has taken that Caitanya-caritāmṛta?
Śrutakīrti: Must have been Pradyumna.
Prabhupāda: He has not come back? Why he hasn't?
Śrutakīrti: Yes, he's returned with his suitcase. And yours is at the airport. They would not give it to him because it was in my name. So they gave a form. I have to fill out the form and then anyone can pick it up.
Śyāmasundara: Well, we can go tonight. Make out the form.
Śrutakīrti: (indistinct) are open all twenty-four hours.
Śyāmasundara: Yeah. Make out the form. I'll go right now.
Room Conversation with Indian Guests -- July 11, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is also ingredient of pāna. Pāna, it is called pāna.
Guest (2): I offered Vaikuṇṭhajī supāri. You see he won't accept it. So I thought, well, it only helps digestion because it only brings the saliva in the mouth.
Prabhupāda: Well, wine is also very digestive. (laughter) An appetizer also. All Europeans, they take first of all wine to eat voraciously. I see in the airplane. And after taking wine, they eat so much.
Guest (8): And then they go for dancing to digest it.
Room Conversation With Three College Students -- July 11, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: So when you understand Kṛṣṇa, then there is no need of yoga.
Student (1): I don't think you could ever understand God.
Prabhupāda: No, if you go to the place... Just like if you go to the airport, then you can understand which airship is starting from which gate, which gate. There are so many things you can see. But if you do not approach the airport, simply in other place, how you can study airport? First of all come to Kṛṣṇa. Then try to understand Kṛṣṇa. And if you understand Kṛṣṇa you become liberated. First of all we have to know that "Here is Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead." Then you try to understand. But if you do not approach there, where is your question of understanding Him?
Student (1): Yeah, but somebody else will say, "You come to us, and I'll do this to you, and you'll see God."
Room Conversation with Two Buddhist Monks -- July 12, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: The government is against any religious...
Buddhist Monk (1): Well, not so strict now as in past because the word "religion" has been used as a narcotic by people. The religious institution was kissing the state, and the state was kissing religion.
Prabhupāda: When I was in airport, the customs clearance, as soon as they saw my book, Bhagavad-gītā, they called police. (laughter)
Buddhist Monk (1): I was also getting ready...
Prabhupāda: So the policeman saw and said, "Oh, you can go."
Buddhist Monk (1): Well...
Prabhupāda: They were so suspicious.
Room Conversation with Dr. Arnold Toynbee, Famous Historian, at his home or office -- July 22, 1973, London:
Dr. Arnold Toynbee: Yes, yes. No.
Prabhupāda: They do not like.
Śyāmasundara: Only at the airport.
Prabhupāda: France? What is the position in France? They don't like also.
Dr. Arnold Toynbee: No.
Prabhupāda: In Canada, there is two languages, English and French.
Dr. Arnold Toynbee: Yes. And unfortunately, a great feeling between the two.
Prabhupāda: This material world is based on jealousy. And spiritual world is based on friendship. That is the difference. So the, these materialistic persons, United Nations, League of Nations, they are trying to unite, but they, at heart, there is jealousy. So they can never become united. This is only bogus farce.
Dr. Arnold Toynbee: Yes, yes.
Room Conversation with Lord Brockway -- July 23, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: Yes, selected persons.
Lord Brockway: What was the subject of discussion that day?
Śyāmasundara: Well, they were discussing something in the airport, and...
Lord Brockway: Oh, MacLynne (?) airport?
Śyāmasundara: ...Pakistan and Bangladesh and two or three other points.
Lord Brockway: Yes. Was I speaking?
Śyāmasundara: No, you spoke just before... When we arrived, you were speaking. You had addressed one question...
Lord Brockway: I was speaking; then you arrived. Yes.
Room Conversation with Reporter from Researchers Magazine -- July 24, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: But we see everything has got Kṛṣṇa connection. Therefore we utilize it for Kṛṣṇa. Just like you're talking about Kṛṣṇa, it is being recorded. So it is useful for Kṛṣṇa's service. Why should I give it up? Because the airplane is there, therefore my preaching has been easier. Every year I'm wandering all over the world, twice, thrice. Because if you use airplane. So why shall I give it up? It is giving me facility to preach my Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, why shall I give it up? It is mithyā. Just like the Jains, they do not ride on car, but if by going in a car I can go and preach, very swiftly, and come back again, why shall I give up this car? So our philosophy is not like that. Nirbandhaḥ kṛṣṇa-sambandhe yuktaṁ vairāgyam ucyate. It is yukta-vairāgya.
Garden Conversation with Mahadeva's Mother and Jesuit Priest -- July 25, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: The airplane botheration (sound of airplane flying over) was not in Switzerland. They do not come there for fear of rising...
Mother: They fly higher.
Prabhupāda: ...peaks. Peaks.
Jesuit Priest: Mountains.
Prabhupāda: So they don't come there.
Mother: No, no.
Garden Conversation with Mahadeva's Mother and Jesuit Priest -- July 25, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: That was the only place in the world there was no such sound. Otherwise everywhere. In America we have got so many temples. Even in West Virginia, hilly tract, there is also aeroplane. But less sound. Here it is near London, there must be. Yes.
Jesuit Priest: Have you met Mother Theresa?
Prabhupāda: Who is Mother Theresa?
Devotee: She's a Christian mystic.
Revatīnandana: She's a Christian nun, and she has a mission in Calcutta.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Saint Theresa?
Revatīnandana: Mother Theresa. She's living there now.
Room Conversation with French Journalist and UNESCO Worker -- August 10, 1973, Paris:
Haṁsadūta: This is your visa. It's been extend...
Guru-gaurāṅga: I just came back from the airport, and they made it good.
Haṁsadūta: It's been extended up until the 16th.
Bhagavān: Prabhupāda will be here till the 16th, so if you would like to come back, if you would like to bring some friends...
Dr. Inger: Yes, I would most certainly like to come back if I may. What is the best time?
Bhagavān: About three to four in the evening.
Prabhupāda: In the evening at four.
Morning Walk -- December 2, 1973, Los Angeles:
Karandhara: This isn't too bad. We can go this way. It's not too wet.
Citraka: Sometimes you have said that the Greek mythology comes from the Purāṇas.
Prabhupāda: Yes, certainly. In Greece I think some people know of our movement. Because in the airport as soon as some young men saw us, they chanted "Hare Kṛṣṇa!" Yes. Maybe they are Europeans, but I had practical experience. (break) which..., that Park Avenue?
Bali Mardana: Wednesday they are having a meeting. Perhaps on Wednesday.
Prabhupāda: Wednesday. So you have to attend? No.
Morning Walk -- December 2, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Hypnotist. They create heaps of money, the magician, I have seen it, all false.
Hṛdayānanda: Like in the Bhāgavatam, Arjuna said like money created by magic word.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, yes. Prāpti-siddhi. Now we are flying by aeroplane. A yogi can fly without any instrument. As Durvāsā Muni, he went even Vaikuṇṭha-loka. Not Vaikuṇṭha-loka. Within this planet, there is one planet where, Śvetadvīpa, Lord Viṣṇu lives. He went there and saw Lord Viṣṇu personally to request him to save him. He refused, "No, I cannot. You go to Ambarīṣa Mahārāja, beg pardon of him. If he pardons, then you will be saved." So to a devotee, innocent devotee, he had to fall down on his lotus feet, "Please save me." So what is the power of yogi?
Devotee: Is the pure devotee more merciful than Kṛṣṇa?
Morning Walk -- December 3, 1973, Los Angeles:
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.
Morning Walk -- December 7, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: No, no, they are not even expert of material science. They are expert in bluffing others things with jugglery of words. That's it.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, they're saying that it was not done before, like telephones and these airplanes and these new discoveries.
Prabhupāda: Well, there were better telephones. You do not know it. Just like Sañjaya is sitting with his master, Dhṛtarāṣṭra, and he's relaying all the war affairs going on. He asked, kim akurvata sañjaya: (BG 1.1) "What did they do?" But he was sitting in the room. Where is your that telephone? It is television within the heart. He is seeing everything and relay. Bhagavad-gītā, don't you see? Sañjaya uvāca, dhṛtarāṣṭra uvāca. Dhṛtarāṣṭra inquired, "Now, after meeting my sons and nephews, what they are doing?" And he's relaying, "Now Duryodhana is going to see Droṇācārya. Droṇācārya says like this. Bhīṣmadeva says..." How does he say within the room? But you know that science?
Morning Walk -- December 8, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is wonderful, either I talk or you talk. (laughs) He's wonderful. A sweetmeat is sweet. Either you give or I give, it is sweet. (break) ...your scientist will try to understand that "Kṛṣṇa has given us the metal, Kṛṣṇa has given us the intelligence, now we have prepared nice airship, and Kṛṣṇa has given us the sky to fly." Appreciate like that. Then your Kṛṣṇa consciousness... Actually that is the fact. If there was no sky, where would you fly your scientific advancement? And if there was no metal, how could you manufacture? If you had no intelligence, how could you do it? So everything is given by Kṛṣṇa, and you are denying Kṛṣṇa. How fool you are, just see? This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Simply accept that "Everything is given by Kṛṣṇa. We are utilizing it." That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Morning Walk -- December 10, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Hrishikesh, yes, that is Haridvar. So one yogi friend was coming to my father. He said that, he said that "I went with my Guru Mahārāja." They simply sit down and touch guru and after few minutes, he's in Dvārakā. This is, this is yogic power. What your aeroplane will do? Just like Durvāsā Muni, he traveled all over the universe, up to the Vaikuṇṭhaloka within one year. But according to modern calculation, they say, with light year, in forty thousand light years we can approach to the highest planet. Is it not? If they want to go to the topmost planet, how much, how many years it will take? Is there an estimation? But, so far I know, I heard it that, someplace... They have estimated it will take forty thousand leap year. Now, leap year is beyond our calculation. What is called leap year? Light year.
Morning Walk -- December 15, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: No. Books are written in favor: "If you want to know more about us, then here is book." Because from books, generally, we get knowledge. Otherwise book is not required. Very brilliant light.
Śrutakīrti: It's an airplane.
Prabhupāda: And if the light is little more brilliant, that means finished. If the same light becomes little more brilliant, that means finished, fall down immediately. It is a big aeroplane? (break)
Prajāpati: Several years ago you gave a series of lectures in New York on atonement, that are very famous, and devotees, they relish them very much. Prāyaścitta. And this is also in Christian theology to a large extent, plus another concept called feeling very sorry for one's sinful activities.
Prabhupāda: Repentant. Repentant?
Prajāpati: No so much repentance. It is called...
Morning Walk -- December 17, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Just like Kṛṣṇa says, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti (BG 4.9), "Immediately comes to Me." So just see the velocity. Tyaktvā deham. As soon as he gives up this body, immediately goes to Kṛṣṇa. So see... Where is Kṛṣṇa? You cannot estimate even this material world. And then you enter the spiritual world. And then you go to the highest planet of the spiritual world, Goloka Vṛndāvana. So you cannot calculate how far it is, neither by driving your aeroplane of mind and vāyu, you can reach there. But the soul is so powerful that immediately goes there. Just like mind. You are here, many thousand miles away, 25,000 miles away in somewhere, immediately goes, mind goes.
Morning Walk -- December 21, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) Yes, there is also my student. (break) Now the government is so irresponsible. Just like in Nairobi, I was refused permission. You see. We spent so much money, and they did not inform before. And when I was on the airport... That also, no written order. They said, "From higher authorities it is the order that you cannot enter." Just see. Kenya. So at the present moment we have got many enemies of this movement. (Hindi) "You are converting these European and American into brāhmaṇa. How they can become brāhmaṇa without taking birth as brāhmaṇa?"
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Morning Walk -- January 10, 1974, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Just see. Now how the business will... Another problem. The factory... How will so many men...? So they will create problem. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, "You give up all this nonsense desire."
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: The airlines have laid off so many thousands of people because there isn't enough gasoline to fly all the aeroplanes. So they are just laying off people. They are becoming unemployed now.
Prabhupāda: Yes, one after another, problem will come.
Morning Walk -- January 12, 1974, Los Angeles:
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That they have introduced a grade system just like here in the United States, and then there will be open books, so that they will be not be afraid of copying things. Open book examination.
Prabhupāda: Oh, common sense. (pause) (break) ...man's aeroplane. Just see. Immediately he goes up. And man's aeroplane, oh, you have to takes position, you have to go so many miles like this. Then you can... It is imitation. The aeroplane has also wings, but his wings is collapsed. But that wing you have to keep. Therefore you require so much space.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Just like, Śrīla Prabhupāda, a vulture. When the vulture wants to take off, he will run just like an aeroplane for a certain distance. They cannot just get up immediately. Vulture.
Morning Walk -- January 18, 1974, Hawaii:
Prabhupāda: Then so much control, that is another thing. But not control. "So much control" means no control. (japa) (break) ...admitted that we are controlled by nature. That you cannot refuse. That is foolishness. Now, next, how nature is working? That is also replied in the Bhagavad-gītā, mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram: (BG 9.10) "The material nature is working..." Just like we are also taking the advantage of material nature, kṣity-ap-tejaḥ. Here is earth, but we can take this earth and make into brick and make a skyscraper building. So it is not that the earth itself is going to become a skyscraper building. I am living entity; I am utilizing. So nature means these five elements, eight elements. So that has been manipulated by another living entity. Just like the aeroplane is a combination of some matter, but it is being worked out by the manufacturer, by the pilot. Therefore that driver of the aeroplane or the manufacturer of the..., he's superior. So superior to the material nature is Kṛṣṇa. This is the conclusion. (break) ...our position is that we are being controlled by the material nature, and, and nature, material nature, is controlled by Kṛṣṇa. So the sense is that one who is at all sensible, that "After all, the controller is Kṛṣṇa. So why not directly under control of Kṛṣṇa?" This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Why through the material nature? I have to be controlled. I am being controlled by the material nature; and material nature is being controlled by Kṛṣṇa. So why not being directly controlled? This is good sense.
Morning Walk -- January 23, 1974, Hawaii:
Prabhupāda: They cannot. It is not possible.
Bali Mardana: They have no Absolute.
Prabhupāda: No. They have no idea. Mental speculators, they are no good. (wind noise) Mental speculator means harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā manorathena (SB 5.18.12), manorathena by the mental plane, airship, he's simply hovering. They have no standard.
Bali Mardana: So a devotee does not have to cogitate too much. Whatever satisfies Kṛṣṇa, that is best.
Room Conversation -- February 13, 1974, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: Forty rupees.
Dr. Kapoor: Forty rupees?
Prabhupāda: Yes. But I could not spend because there was no exchange for Indian currency, no (laughter). So it was kept as it is. When I came back in 1967, that was spent as my taxi fare (laughter). At that time it was spent. From Palam airport to Delhi, that Chippiwada. So they charged me thirty-five rupees or forty rupees. So at that time it was spent, and 1967 there was heart attack.
Dr. Kapoor: Oh.
Morning Walk -- February 23, 1974, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: You must have read the carpet-flying in India.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: I used to read such stories...
Prabhupāda: Actually, the aeroplanes mentioned in the śāstra, they are not machine. Mantra.
Dr. Patel: Mantra.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Morning Walk 'Varnasrama College' -- March 14, 1974, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: That, as it is suitable. It is not that because the kṣatriyas were killing by bows and arrows formerly, you have to continue that. That is another foolishness. If you have got... If you can kill easily by guns, take that gun. Just like formerly, parivrāja, Caitanya Mahāprabhu walked on the street. There was no aeroplane or... Or he did not use it. Does it mean that I shall have to follow that? I must take the jet engine. If it is available. If somebody criticizes, "Oh, Caitanya Mahāprabhu walked on leg and you are travelling in the jet plane?" Shall I have to take that ideal? These are rascaldom. When you have to work, you have to work with the greatest facility. That's all. Now I have got the facility of the talking in microphone, and... So why should I not take it? It will be recorded. It will be heard by so many others. I am speaking to four, five men. It can be heard by a big crowd of four hundred men.
Morning Walk -- March 27, 1974, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: Well, you have read history; I have gone there personally.
Dr. Patel: Going there and reading history is something different. You have seen only at a particular time, but... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...I was on the airport, they called police because they got, they saw one Bhagavad-gītā in my bags. You see. This is the position.
Dr. Patel: They are, they are translating Bhagavad-gītā in their own universities now. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...may be because it was Bhagavad-gītā, they stopped me.
Morning Walk -- March 31, 1974, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: And... Yes. Śabdaḥ khe. In the sky. So in the sky there is śabdaḥ. As the aeroplane goes, there is śabdaḥ, (makes imitative sound) guraguraguragura... He can remember Kṛṣṇa. Is it very difficult? You see. Bhakti-yoga, how nice it is! When the aeroplane is passing, there is guragura śabdaḥ, you find Kṛṣṇa. When you are tasting water, you find Kṛṣṇa. When there is sunlight, you find Kṛṣṇa. When there is moonlight, you find... When you're chanting Vedas, you find Kṛṣṇa. So how you can be without Kṛṣṇa consciousness? It is simply foolishness that it cannot be done. No. The how it can be done, that Kṛṣṇa personally is teaching. Learn it. And do it.
Morning Walk -- April 4, 1974, Bombay:
Girirāja: (completes synonyms) "Translation: But you cannot see Me with your present eyes. Therefore I give to you divine eyes by which you can behold My mystic opulence."
Prabhupāda: Now, this is Kṛṣṇa's power. Let us understand. A teeny aeroplane is floating in the air, and it is making so much sound. And millions and trillions of planets are floating, there is no sound. There is no sound. (break) ...if you take it and fix it up... What is that? One thousand or more than, one thousand miles.
Dr. Patel: A second.
Morning Walk -- April 8, 1974, Bombay:
Mahāṁsa: ...material nature, it can become weightless.
Prabhupāda: Yes. A dead body immediately goes down in the water, but a living body floats. So this is the example, that because viṣṭabhyāham idaṁ kṛtsnam ekāṁśena sthita. Because Kṛṣṇa enters this material world as Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, as Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, therefore it floats. Just like this airplane. It is floating so long the pilot is there. If the pilot is not there, it will not float, however good machine it may be. It will not float; it will come down. These are the ex... (break) ...soul, the spiritual spark, even in minute quantity, it can float the heaviest matter. This is the conclusion. (break) ...so high and if the pilot is killed some way or other, no more floating, come down.
Mahāṁsa: So this laghimā siddhi is also being attained by the material scientists?
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Morning Walk -- April 12, 1974, Bombay:
Indian man (1): But they have provided you with motorcars and aeroplanes to go across the sea, reach America, France, within a few hours.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. That is also credit. Because they have done something...
Morning Walk -- April 12, 1974, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. (break) So much land is lying vacant. They could utilize for food grains. No. They do not do it. (break) ...they have been withdrawn from the villages to work in the city, in the factories, and the lands are lying vacant. (break) Mahimā siddhi, to become heavier. Animā, laghimā, mahimā, prāpti, siddhi. There are eight kinds of yoga-siddhis. So those who are yoga siddha... Kṛṣṇa is Yogeśvara. He became so heavy. (break) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Thank you very much. (break) ...aeroplane, it comes gradually, there is no crashing, but if it drops all of a sudden, then it is crashed. So this Tṛṇāvartāsura could not do that. He felt so heavy, fell down.
Morning Walk -- April 12, 1974, Bombay:
Girirāja: "Now he has come back to enliven his relatives. After observing such..."
Prabhupāda: So our policy is that if you want to construct, if you have got the tendency, so you construct for Kṛṣṇa. That will be service. Construct a temple for Kṛṣṇa. So that service will be taken into account. Similarly, when we use this motorcar or aeroplane, so in the same purpose... Now they have done this, let it be engaged in Kṛṣṇa conscious service. So one who has manufactured it, he will be benefited, and others will be benefited.
Girirāja: "After observing such wonderful happenings, Nanda Mahārāja began to think of the words of Vasudeva again and again."
Morning Walk -- April 20, 1974, Hyderabad:
Prabhupāda: Clergyman?
Nitāi: Yes, that man I was talking to was a clergyman.
Prabhupāda: Where he was?
Nitāi: He was on the airplane when we were coming here to Hyderabad. And he was asking what our program was. And I was telling him that first of all, in order to relieve the confusion of society, we wanted to establish the Vedic culture with this varṇāśrama system. And he asked me what would be the program that we would have for a man who works in the factory...
Prabhupāda: He is a śūdra.
Nitāi: Would we retrain him as a farmer?
Prabhupāda: No, if he is prepared. If not, let him remain. But we can utilize that śūdra also.
Room Conversation -- April 26, 1974, Tirupati:
Prabhupāda: I am, of course, Indian, but I have got my headquarters in America. (chuckles) Yes.
Indian man: America. (chuckles) I think I have seen you at Bombay once.
Prabhupāda: Yes, Bombay I have got my headquarters.
Indian man: And your friends were there at the airport, Santa Cruz Airport, and you came by plane, some two years back I remember.
Prabhupāda: No, I am going every year. Two times, three times, I have to go all round the world.
Indian man: I respectfully request you your name, please.
Morning Walk -- May 3, 1974, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: No, bhakti does not depend on jñāna, but jñāna depends on bhakti. Without bhakti, one cannot get liberation simply by jñāna. But if one develops bhakti, automatically he gets jñāna. Karma-kāṇḍa jñāna-kāṇḍa, kevala viṣera bhāṇḍa. Viṣera bhāṇḍa, amṛta baliyā yebā khāya. If one mistakes that this is the pot of nectarean, ambrosia, then what is the result? Nānā yoni sadā phire: "He remains within the cycle of birth and death." Nānā yoni sadā phire, kadarya bhakṣaṇa kare. And if he gets the body of a hog and dog, then he eats all the abominable things. Nānā yoni, tāra janma adhah-pāte yāya. So he condemns his human form of body in this way, spoils. So one should not be attached to karma-kāṇḍa, jñāna-kāṇḍa. Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam (Brs. 1.1.11). (break) The inhabitants there, they can go from one planet to another without any aeroplane. That is Siddhaloka. Hm. Go on.
Room Conversation -- May 20, 1974, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: When I was going to London from Bombay..., no, no, when I was going to Switzerland, I think I stopped at Geneva.
Devotee (2): Zurich. You were in Zurich.
Prabhupāda: Zurich, before that I stopped at Geneva. I saw the airport, very big airport. Then I went to Zurich. And from Zurich I went to some Mount St....
Devotee (2): St. Hellish.
Prabhupāda: You have been there? You are right, St. Hellish.
Room Conversation with Irish Poet, Desmond O'Grady -- May 23, 1974, Rome:
Prabhupāda: I never went to Greece.
Satsvarūpa: You said you went to the airport and they were chanting.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Room Conversation with Richard Webster, chairman, Societa Filosofica Italiana -- May 24, 1974, Rome:
Prabhupāda: At the present moment there is all over the world... We are touring all over the world. It is very hard to find out ideal class of men. That is the defect. In the Vedic culture the ideal class of men were the brāhmaṇas. Their qualification was: truthful, self-controlled, mind and the senses, and then tolerant, very simple life, full of knowledge, practical application of knowledge in life and full faith in God. These are ideal character. But such men are not available at the present moment. So therefore the social idealism is defective. Just like in your body, there are four divisions. The head, the arm, the belly and the leg. If the head is spoiled then you are a madman. In spite of possessing hands and bellies and legs, you cannot work properly. So at the present moment the heads are spoiled. Therefore the whole world is in chaotic condition. People, advanced in education, still they are inimical, one man to another. If you are passing on in the street, the gentleman's house there is a signboard, "Beware of the dogs. Don't come in," because he cannot believe anyone. You go to the airport, any high-class standard man. They search out the pocket. So nobody is believable. So this is the result of modern education. You cannot find out an ideal character man.
Morning Walk at Villa Borghese -- May 25, 1974, Rome:
Prabhupāda: Stick to your own place and grow your food. There is no question of transport. Little transport is required, that bullock cart. Kṛṣṇa was being carried on bullock cart. There is no use of petrol. Use simply the bull. They are already there. Utilize them. No. The bull should be sent to the slaughterhouse. Petrol should be used.
Atreya Ṛṣi: They try to solve every problem by transportation, by airplanes, cars. For example, we had this big conference in Montreal. From all over the world came...
Morning Walk -- May 27, 1974, Rome:
Bhagavān: You say in the, I think it's in the Second Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that by doing so much drilling into the earth, they actually disturbed the rotation of the earth.
Prabhupāda: Yes, we can think like that. Just like the plane, aeroplane, is flying. There is sufficient petrol stock. Is it not? So the world has got sufficient petrol stock. If you do not know how it is being used, maybe due to this petrol, it is floating. And if you take away the petrol stock, it may drop. Everything is there. There is a purpose. Pūrṇam idam (Īśopaniṣad, Invocation). There is full purpose. Not that whimsically petrol is there within the earth. There is some purpose.
Morning Walk -- May 28, 1974, Rome:
Dhanañjaya: I noticed this when I took the train from Calcutta to Krishnanagar. Once you get further out, it's so nice, the villages. There is the pond there.
Prabhupāda: And... Why Calcutta? You go to the airport. You will find so nice gardens, still existing. Now it is spoiled also. Because people have changed locally to the city. Nobody has to take care now. Otherwise, in Bengal especially, throughout the whole India, Bengal was so beautiful.
Morning Walk -- May 29, 1974, Rome:
Satsvarūpa: Then the next question is where do you get your knowledge. Like that boy asked in the airport.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Tad vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet. Go to guru. Guru. Yes. (indistinct) Who is guru? Śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham: who has heard from the Vedas perfect knowledge and who is fixed up in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he is guru. Everything is there. Immediate answer is tad-vijñānārtham.
Room Conversation with Mr. C. Hennis of the International Labor Organization of the U.N. -- May 31, 1974, Geneva:
Guru-gaurāṅga: He missed his airplane.
Prabhupāda: Huh? Missed his airplane?
Guru-gaurāṅga: Now he is supposed to come very, very soon, in about a half an hour. I think there will be many people this evening.
Morning Walk -- June 3, 1974, Geneva:
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Look up in the sky here and you can see all the different planets and stars. Can you also look up into the sky, the brahma-jyotir, and see all the different Vaikuṇṭha planets?
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. The space is three-fourths there. Here the space is one fourth. In one-fourth space there are unlimited number of universes, ananta-koṭi. This material world is situated in a one-fourth space, and three-fourths space, in the spiritual world. Just imagine how big it is. There the Vaikuṇṭha planets, each planet is as big as the universe, so big. There are aeroplanes also. It is described in the Second Canto of Bhāgavatam.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: When one looks up towards Goloka Vṛndāvana. Just as the... There's a description in Brahma-saṁhitā of Goloka Vṛndāvana with the lotus petals, corolla of lotus petals.
Room Conversation -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:
Prabhupāda: Yes. Is there any meaning, "Oh, these are foolish children creating trouble, so I will kill them"? What is this?
Yogeśvara: There was a story in Time magazine last week. Everyone was in a big flurry about it. An airplane crashed in the Andes mountains, and they were stranded way up in the mountains for eighteen days without any food. So there were maybe fifty people on the plane and only eighteen survivors. So because there was no food they ate the bodies. They ate the dead bodies to survive. Then, eighteen days later they were saved. A plane came and picked them up and brought them back. So people are very, very much excited, "Oh, what is this amazing occurrence, that they ate human flesh?" But every day they are eating...
Prabhupāda: Cow's flesh. When it was?
Room Conversation -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:
Prabhupāda: Yes, Viśvāmitra. How they exist in that open, and there was snow. For eating they... Eighteen days?
Yogeśvara: The plane crashed. Half the people were killed. So the other people, two of them left to go find help. They went to find out some people they could telephone or something. It took them eighteen days to find a house. So the other people, they all stayed close together inside the airplanes. They put on blankets and their coats. But there was no... They could not go outside. There was no food.
Room Conversation with Robert Gouiran, Nuclear Physicist from European Center for Nuclear Research -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:
Prabhupāda: This anxiety there must be when we are in a different atmosphere. Just like we heard there was a plane crash. So we are travelling by plane. So as soon as we get on the plane, that anxiety is there. So the anxiety is caused on my boarding airplane. So if I do not board airplane, then that anxiety is nowhere. So anyone who is existing in this material world, there must be anxieties. There must be anxieties. Exactly, the same example, that as soon as I... It may be very nice plane; it doesn't matter. But I know that it is unsafe. At any moment it can crash. Therefore there is anxieties. So similarly, we are, so long we are in the material platform, we cannot avoid anxieties.
Room Conversation with Robert Gouiran, Nuclear Physicist from European Center for Nuclear Research -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:
Prabhupāda: No, no. For the time being. It is useless... Actually, it is useless. But for the time being, we are taking as very useful. Just like the aeroplane. It is very useful. But as soon as crashed, where is the...? Whole thing is lost. And it will crash. Because everything material we are creating... Just like the big, big buildings. They're also crashed. The end is there. Anything material, it has got beginning, and it has got end. That is our point. So things which will end in due course of time, why we should waste our time in that way? And we are part and parcel of God. We have got different business. We have forgotten that. We are simply engaged in temporary castle building which will be relics after some thousands of years. So are we not wasting our time?
Room Conversation with Robert Gouiran, Nuclear Physicist from European Center for Nuclear Research -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:
Prabhupāda: You know or do not know, the transformation will take place. Take, for example, the ship. The ship is combination of these five material things, earth, water, air, fire and... And when it is destroyed, it again turns into earth, water, fire... So the conservation of energy is there. You simply give a shape, temporary, and it goes again to the same place, original physical elements. This is going on. But you are... You do not know that you are eternal. That is ignorance. So therefore the sense is that "If I am eternal, then why I am busy with these temporary things?" That knowledge is lacking. I am eternal. So now, as human being, I am busy in temporary things, to construct a big ship or aeroplane. But as soon as I change this body, I become a bird, I have no power. Then I manufacture a nest on the top of the tree. That is my business. Or... Because the body will change. That is lack of knowledge. I am eternal. In this particular body I am busy with some temporary things. And as soon as I change my body, then another temporary thing. Eh? The... Suppose the big Romans. When they were Romans, they constructed all these big, big buildings. But if the Romans have changed into birds, they're no more interested in this body. They're interested in making some complicated nest on the top of the tree. This is going on, life after li... This knowledge is lacking. Therefore it is said, manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni... They are struggling on this mat... (break) ...physical world by concocted mental speculation. That's all. As soon as the body is changed, then everything is changed.
Morning Walk -- June 6, 1974, Geneva:
Prabhupāda: Yes. (laughs) Yes. Just like the men ate some human flesh. That became news.
Yogeśvara: That airplane crash.
Prabhupāda: Yes. This is their business. (break) ...is when the dog barks, that is not science. When the man barks like a dog, that is science. Is that not? The man, how scientifically he has learned how to bark like a dog. This is their aim, how to imitate dog-barking. This is scientific.
Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:
Prabhupāda: It is darkness.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: They want to become minus.
Prabhupāda: But he is plus always. (French) No, if you have no goal... There is example: "Man without any aim is ship without any rudder." What is called? So suppose if the ship goes... (others are talking at the same time) Aeroplane is going with a aim to land in some country, but if he goes on simply without any aim, then there will be disaster.
Karandhara: Well, they have an aim. But the aim is... Because they haven't...
Prabhupāda: That you say they have got; he does not say. You say.
Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:
Yogeśvara: How can we tell a real authority?
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: As opposed to someone who is posing as an authority?
Prabhupāda: This authority means just like you follow somebody. You are going to somewhere by aeroplane. You do not know. But others are purchasing ticket and going there, so you have to follow them. That's all. So the authority is if he does not know... Therefore we are giving the chance, the association of the devotee. The devotee, they are practicing something for going back to home, back to Godhead, so you have to mix with the devotees and then gradually understand.
Karandhara: No, what he's saying is: what is the standard of measurement? There are so many people saying they are the authority. How does one individually judge which one is the best or proper?
Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:
Prabhupāda: Greatness should be understood, comparing my position. We can understand, "This man is greater than me. He is superior than me." That we can understand. Similarly, we can understand. Just like we human being, we are floating, flying one biggest airplane, 747, and we are thinking we are very wonderful, but that great is floating millions of planets in the air. But the foolish man cannot see the process. He can see that a pilot is floating this airplane, so there must be one big pilot who is floating all these things. But he cannot see. Therefore he says, "Nature." So he cannot see.
Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:
Prabhupāda: So narādhama, means lowest of the mankind. In the human form of life one could understand that as there is a pilot in the aeroplane, there is a pilot on this big cosmic manifestation.
Yogeśvara: Yes, but his last reaction to that was that he always finds Indian analogies amusing.
Room Conversation with Professor Oliver La Combe Director of the Sorbonne University -- June 14, 1974, Paris:
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Professor La Combe: They lacked authority. In Vṛndāvana there has never been such kind of trouble.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And the airport, these international flights, they are not going. They stop only to take petrol, and no passengers going. That has hampered very much India's tourist department. Because no respectable, respectable or nonrespect..., no airlines, just like BOAC and other big, big, they are not going. The minister of tourist department, he has several times requested that "You also come." There are no tourists coming in India.
Reporters Interview -- June 29, 1974, Melbourne:
Prabhupāda: Mixes means... Just like, the example is given: just like a green bird enters into a tree which is also green. So if... To my eyes it appears that the bird is mixed up, but actually that is not fact. Suppose an aeroplane, you see aeroplane is going on. Then, after some time you see there is no aeroplane. It is the same sky. It has mixed up. It has not mixed up. Your eyes are defective. It appears like mixed up. But it cannot mix up. The airplane is keeping its identity. The bird is keeping its identity.
Room Conversation with Devotees -- July 2, 1974, Melbourne:
Prabhupāda: But they could not answer "Who is the manufacturer of the brain of the scientist?" That they could not.
Madhudviṣa: You have said in one of your tapes, "They want to start half way." Like they say, "All of a sudden there is an aeroplane, appeared in the sky." They do not trace out where that aeroplane is coming from. So similarly, they are interested in the problems of today, but they do not want to delve into the essential problem. They are talking about building nice houses, using this, that. They do not want to delve into...
Prabhupāda: This is practical. The scientists have got good brain, but who manufactured the brain? You cannot do. You have not manufactured your brain. If you say, "By nature," then nature is more powerful than you.
Room Conversation -- August 12, 1975, Paris (with French translator):
Prabhupāda: That is false. That I am saying. This is false responsibility. Actually you cannot become responsible. You have no power. Everyone is under the laws of nature. Just like some birds flying in the sky. The father, mother, and children, but nobody is responsible for anyone. When there is danger in the sky, you cannot give protection. Suppose one bird is hit, he is falling. The father, mother, and others, they cannot give any protection. He has to become responsible for himself. Just like the aeroplane. When the one plane is in danger, no other plane come and help it. Even if you see that the other plane is flying a few yards and if it is in fire, you cannot help.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Room Conversation with Metaphysics Society -- February 21, 1975, Caracas:
Prabhupāda: So that is the difference between limited and unlimited, that I, you are living being... We can also create something like this microphone or this big aeroplane. We have created. That is limited. But there is another one who has created innumerable planets and that is floating in the air. Is it not? We are taking credit of becoming big scientist by creating one airship, 747, five hundred passengers carrying. How many we have created? Maybe hundred, two hundred. But there are millions and trillions of planets floating in the same way in the air, and those planets containing so many big, big mountains, ocean, and they are floating in the air.
Room Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- March 1, 1975, Atlanta:
Prabhupāda: Just like if you paint a picture, rose, you are a painter, not that you know the knowledge. A painter is not a man of knowledge. Man of knowledge means he knows how things are being done. That is man of knowledge. Painter imitates some painting, that's all. He may be a good painter, but a painter is never taken as man of knowledge. I think, therefore, two departments, art and science. So this knowledge, this technical knowledge... Suppose one man has created an aeroplane. That is an art; that is not knowledge.
Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:
Prabhupāda: You are well now for distributing books?
Tripurāri: (break) ...these are prabhus from different temples. Some work under the direction of the temple presidents and some work under my direction. And all these devotees distribute at the airports. Mostly big books.
Prabhupāda: And you are all feeling all right? Eh? Is there any difficulty?
Tripurāri: No, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Devotees: Increasingly blissful.
Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:
Devotee (2): Śrīla Prabhupāda, when we open up these new airports, because the authorities, they are not familiar with us, they become very demoniac towards us. And some of them actually, they're thinking about Kṛṣṇa all day...
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:
Prabhupāda: Yes, because he has chanted Kṛṣṇa, "Here is the Kṛṣṇa man. Here is the rascal Kṛṣṇa man." (laughter)
Tripurāri: We found one policeman at the Atlanta airport was always harassing the devotees, trying to stop them. And one time I came down the stairs and I saw him in the corner reading Īśopaniṣad and trying to understand. They know that we have some knowledge; they are just envious of our success. They want to find out, "What is this Kṛṣṇa consciousness about?" They don't want to admit that they want to know. Actually everyone wants to know about Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes, they must.
Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:
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.
Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:
Devotee (1): They even say, "I've seen him before."
Prabhupāda: Where they have seen me? Somewhere. (chuckles)
Devotee (6): All the employees in the Atlanta airport, now they all know you. They've all seen your books, and they've seen your picture. And when we go through the check points they say, "Oh, we saw him. We saw him come through. We saw your spiritual master come through the airport."
Devotee (7): There was one lady when you were here the last time at the airport, she would ask, when we saw the woman at the airport, practically every day, "When is that nice gentleman going to come back to Atlanta?" And she's always thinking about you. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...that (sic:) Kenneth Keat? Bring that letter. He wrote to Gurudāsa?
Śrutakīrti: Yes.
Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:
Prabhupāda: (sic:) Kenneth Keat was ambassador in India. So Gurudāsa met him. Now he is ambassador in Israel. So he has written that "You are all doing very nice work." People appreciate, any intelligent man.
Devotee (1): For one period of two or three days we were going to the airport and simply... This was during the whole controversy about the cheating and the honesty and..., that controversy. So we just went and we just started preaching. And we actually didn't find that much of a diminution in the sales of the literatures. In fact one time a couple of us went out in dhotīs even to the airport, without wigs or anything, for a weekend. And we still did nicely. It was a little more difficult. They weren't so... Some of them weren't as warm. But we find that the businessmen, they can be convinced by just preaching.
Prabhupāda: Read it.
Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:
Prabhupāda: Yes. For an American gentleman one hundred dollars is nothing.
Devotee (3): One nice boy in the airport, he was a soldier boy. He had, like read a Kṛṣṇa trilogy, and he was coming through the airport, and I approached him. And he immediately saw the books, and he immediately wanted one. And I didn't even have to ask him for the donation. Automatically he gave $20. And then I was walking down the hall, and I saw him again, and he came running up to me again, and he said, "Here, you're doing such a wonderful thing. Let me give you another $20." And somebody walked by as I was giving him another book, and they said, "Don't take that book. It's a rip-off. These people are trying to rip you off." And he said, "They don't know what they're talking about. They don't understand." And then, after that, he walked up to Cārudeṣṇa Prabhu and gave him another $40. So actually he gave something like $65 or $70 in the airport just because he had read one trilogy.
Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:
Prabhupāda: So he is still making propaganda? No.
Balavanta: Who, Guru Maharaj-ji? Not so much. You don't hear about them. There's not much activity.
Devotee (5): Decreasing. We are increasing, and they are decreasing.
Tripurāri: Sometimes the Christians are distributing papers still at the airports. We invite them to come and take prasāda with us every day.
Prabhupāda: They come?
Room Conversation with Yoga Student -- March 14, 1975, Iran:
Prabhupāda: No, concept is there as you told me: "The God has made human being after His own image." Then we can get the idea that God is a person like a human being, He has got two hands, two legs, one head, because after His image we have been... Now, if we study ourself and increase that quality... Just like I am. I can eat. I can eat a certain amount of foodstuff, but God can also eat, but He can eat the whole universe. So eating is there. But the difference of eating is there also. I can create one airplane, but God has created very, very big airplanes like these planets, and they are floating in the sky without any power crisis. That is God's creation. Here we are floating the airplane or running the car with the power, petrol, given by God. You cannot manufacture petrol. Just like in your country there is enough stock of petrol. But you have not created it.
Morning Walk -- April 2, 1975, Mayapur:
Prabhupāda: (Chuckles) These are comfortable?
Madhudviṣa: Automobiles. Aeroplanes.
Pañcadraviḍa: Well, they enable comfort. A person can lie down in his comfortable bed in his nice apartment and listen to music out of the wall.
Prabhupāda: But what about his death, how he uncomfortably dying?
Pañcadraviḍa: Well, we can't change that.
Prabhupāda: Then what you can change?
Morning Walk -- April 2, 1975, Mayapur:
Prabhupāda: Everything exists. For the time being, he may merge; then again he'll come to enjoy this material body. Āruhya kṛccheṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adhaḥ. Patanty adhaḥ. Even they become merged into the existence of Brahman, again they come back because there is no āśraya. Just like these air, airplanes or the jets. They have invented very good machine, eighteen thousand miles per hour, going very high, but there is no place. They come down again.
Conversation with Devotees -- April 14, 1975, Hyderabad:
Brahmānanda: Intoxication... By increasing the intoxication the desire for food reduces. You eat less.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore they are very much dizzy. And little hunger satisfied with meat. That's all. That is going on in the western country. The drinking... I have seen in airplane, bottles after bottle, they are drinking.
Devotee: Every day.
Morning Walk -- May 7, 1975, Perth:
Prabhupāda: Yes. It is maple tree.
Gaṇeśa: I don't think it's quite the same.
Amogha: No. It's maple tree, but you can't get any maple syrup from this kind. A special kind.
Paramahaṁsa: They had this tree where I used to live, also. I don't remember the name of it. In California.
Śrutakīrti: On the airplane coming here they had some article in one of the airline books about eucalyptus trees and how these monks, they make wine out of the eucalyptus. The Trappist monks. Some kind of Trappist monks, they make wine out of the eucalyptus, and they have a big store, and they sell it, in Italy. That's their profession, making different liquors.
Morning Walk -- May 10, 1975, Perth:
Prabhupāda: That's all right. You are not civilized so long you are eating meat. You are dogs and cats and tigers, that's all. The tiger may be a very strong animal, but it is not to be called that he is civilized. Nobody will say the tiger is civilized.
Amogha: But we have made airplanes and cars, and if we had only waited until we knew, we never could have made it. But by trying...
Prabhupāda: All right. You have made some technical advancement. That does not mean you are civilized. Civilized means the Aryans. They know what is the soul. That is civilization.
Morning Walk -- May 10, 1975, Perth:
Prabhupāda: How you can see? You cannot see. You do not believe in transmigration. So how can you see? Paśyanti jñāna-cakṣuṣā. When you will have the eyes to see—knowledge—then you'll see. Now you are monkey, how you can see? A monkey cannot see. Paśyanti jñāna cakṣuṣa. Just like our men in India, they know I have come to Australia. But he's not seeing by his eyes. He knows the arrangement was made, they purchased ticket, and they went to the airport. And they are confident. They are sending letters here. Has he come with me to see? How he knows? That I have come here, how he knows? He has not seen that I have come here. But how he knows?
Morning Walk -- May 14, 1975, Perth:
Prabhupāda: This artificial way of life will lead to such disasters. It is a most artificial way of life. It is not natural way. This bus goes this way—I see every day vacant, no passenger. And still, they have to run as scheduled. They cannot stop it. That means so much wastage. Not only bus, I have seen aeroplane. From Nairobi to London, you have seen? We were five passengers or four passengers. No passengers.
Śrutakīrti: Four or three, maybe three.
Morning Walk -- May 16, 1975, Perth:
Paramahaṁsa: About two millions years ago, Tretā-yuga.
Prabhupāda: Yes. No, why? Twenty lakhs, ah, two million, yes. Two millions of years ago the Rāvaṇa's civilization was there, and he was so prosperous. He had airplane. The zeplin, zeplin?
Amogha: Jet plane?
Prabhupāda: Not jet, zeplin.
Morning Walk -- May 16, 1975, Perth:
Amogha: Yes. He said the bauxite mineral, the multinational or international companies are exploiting, interested in exploiting the bauxite minerals to make much aluminium.
Prabhupāda: Now aluminium is in great demand for manufacturing airplane. They are all manufactured from aluminium. (someone shouts in distance) What does he say?
Amogha: I think he was barking.
Paramahaṁsa: Just a rākṣasa.
Morning Walk -- May 17, 1975, Perth:
Prabhupāda: No. This is my interpretation. He is also creating; you are also creating. You can create a motorcar and He can create a huge, gigantic sun globe. The same process. As you are controlling the aeroplane by air condition or by controlling the air, similarly all these planets are there. It is by His plan it is moving with the air. Big, big planets, there is no question of gravitation. That is nonsense. It is by His arrangement it is moving in the air. Just like big, big cloud containing millions of tons of water floating in the air. How it is being done? Eh? Millions of tons of water are floating in the air. That we see daily. So similarly, all these planets are floating by His arrangement. Not only floating. Making center that polestar, all the planets are moving around it, even the sun. So it is by His arrangement.
Morning Walk -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:
Prabhupāda: In Australia.
Madhudviṣa: Yes, we had some suffering.
Prabhupāda: Everywhere. Now you have seen that letter? We have been permitted by the federal government to sell our books in the airport.
Madhudviṣa: Yes, that is a major breakthrough.
Prabhupāda: The judge might have seen our literature, "It is such a nice literature they are selling, they must be given permission." (break) No husband, no children, one dog. (laughter) Just see. Children-contraceptive. And dog-welcome.
Woman: Good morning.
Morning Walk -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:
Prabhupāda: That is everything. Everything, everything will fall down on the ground, but the controlling power is the air. If the air is adjusted, then it will not fall down.
Madhudviṣa: That's why when they go into outer space they become weightless, they can float without any airplane.
Prabhupāda: That, what they're doing (indistinct). But we see that if you can make adjustment in the air, just like we see the heavy cloud bearing many million tons of water, they do not fall down, they float. Where is the law of gravity?
Amogha: (laughs) Hare Kṛṣṇa. You also give that example of those big birds.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Big, big birds, they carry elephant.
Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:
Prabhupāda: Therefore the philosophy is acintya-bhedābheda, inconceivable one and different simultaneously. One in quality, but different in quantity. God's power... I have got some creative power, and God has got creative power. So the creative power is there. But God has created millions of the planets that floating in the air and we have created a 747 airplane, we want to take more credit than God. That is our foolishness.
Radio Interview -- May 25, 1975, Fiji:
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. But the thing is that they are very intelligent. There is no doubt about it. Materially, they are always advanced. Materially, when they are manufacturing machine of the airship, in India we are manufacturing sewing machine or cycle. I have seen in the World Fair the Indians were very proud of manufacturing cycle and sewing machine, whereas the Americans and Europeans, they were showing the how subtle machine of this jet plane are there.
Morning Walk -- May 29, 1975, Honolulu:
Prabhupāda: Well, family men... When you are diseased, you do not say, "My family is there. Don't call for a physician. I am happy." That you do not say. You call for a physician. Your family cannot help you. And what to speak of death? That is another foolishness. When you fly in the sky with your friends and family and when there is danger, nobody can save you. You will drop down. Everyone is flying. Even airplane, if there is some accident in the airplane, what the other airplane can do? If the ship is drowning, what other ship can do? You are drowning; you must drown. There is no question of "my friends and relatives." That is described in the Bhāgavatam. Dehāpatya-kalatrādiṣu ātma-śainyeṣu. He is thinking, "They are my soldiers. They will give me protection." Ātma-śainya. Śainya means soldier. Asatsv api. It is false, but he is thinking like that. That is foolishness. When you have to fly, you have to fly on the strength of your wings, own wings, not your son's wings or daughter's wings or... That will not help you. Svakarma-phala, phala-bhuk. You have to enjoy or suffer according to your own activities.
Morning Walk -- June 2, 1975, Honolulu:
Prabhupāda: Yes. (laughter)
Śrutakīrti: They were selling airline tickets also.
Prabhupāda: Ah, yes. (laughter) Just see, route. Pan American, yes. They sold so many tickets. Such fools there are.
Bali-mardana: In New York sometimes people sell new immigrants the Brooklyn Bridge.
Room Conversation with Yogi Bhajan -- June 7, 1975, Honolulu:
Prabhupāda: New Mexico.
Śrutakīrti: It is not very far from Los Angeles if you wanted to go, maybe an hour flight.
Yogi Bhajan: No, hour and a half. We will receive you at Albuquerque. And we would like you to come the day the other Indian gurus are coming because we would like to receive them at the airport and we would like to have state banquet arranged for every visitors. And our basic idea is to bring understanding among all men of God. And...
Prabhupāda: Hm. It is a good idea.
Morning Walk -- June 10, 1975, Honolulu:
Prabhupāda: Oh. (break) ...they're kept for sale?
Siddha-svarūpa: Well, no. It's a very strange thing. They just show everybody. They capture them and show everybody what they look like. The public pays 25 cents to go see what it looks like. (break)
Prabhupāda: For aircraft killing?
Siddha-svarūpa: Maybe. I don't think it's that bad in... (break)
Bali-mardana: It's a war memorial.
Morning Walk -- June 10, 1975, Honolulu:
Prabhupāda: It is from the last world war? (break) ...far it goes?
Bali-mardana: About ten miles.
Prabhupāda: Oh. (break) ...such cannons are meant for killing aircraft. (break) ...London blitz, blitz, they were attacking from aircraft and from ground also, simultaneously. (break) ...beginning, they were conquering over Belgium and neighboring... Morning, one country, and evening, one country.
Bali-mardana: Blitzkrieg.
Morning Walk -- June 16, 1975, Honolulu:
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Bali-mardana: They stole the German scientists. And the Russians also, after the war, they took many German scientists.
Prabhupāda: I think the aeroplane was made by the Germans first.
Bali-mardana: Yes, the jet airplane, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And they took it, the idea, from Sanskrit literature. Yes. They purchased the book from Benares.
Devotee: In India we have, and Hawaii, the firecrackers going up, the idea was from there.
Morning Walk -- June 16, 1975, Honolulu:
Prabhupāda: So mostly rape cases.
Siddha-svarūpa: Yes, because they don't want to make a different... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...call it Jooeypur.(?) Joo-ee(?) Joo-ee.(?) (break) ...America can drop the first bomb in Moscow, then they will come out triumphant. And the Communists will be finished. (break) ...friendship with Pakistan only for this reason. It is just on the border of Russia. If from Pakistan they can drop the first bomb in Moscow. (break)
Siddha-svarūpa: ...in the United States and Russia are to get on special airplanes that are equipped... It's like a city in the air, where they will be able to wage war from the air so that even if the all the cities are destroyed, they will still be able to make strategy and keep sending missiles with warheads because they have so many missiles with warheads all over the country that even if all the cities are wiped out they can keep sending more. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...they will get their food?
Siddha-svarūpa: They have it so that they have something like a year's supply.
Morning Walk -- June 21, 1975, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: So that is in our hands; that is not in their hands.
Devotees: Jaya, Prabhupāda!
Revatīnandana: Some time back I was reading an article on an airplane, one of those airline news magazines, about the science of gerontology, the science of putting off death or stopping death. They say, "Within twenty-thirty years we will have stopped it. We will even reverse the process of old age. We'll become younger." That was their claim.
Garden Conversation with Dr. Gerson and devotees -- June 22, 1975, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: So I can do it anywhere. I can do it in this corner. I can do in this building. I can do it in the airplane. I can do it in the hell. I can do it India. I can do it in Los Angeles, anywhere. It doesn't matter what I am or what is my position. I may simply go on chanting. That's all." This is devotee.
Morning Walk -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: And we say, "No prostitution." (break) ...the problems will come, one after another. This is a bad civilization. It is already a dangerous place, material world, and this bad civilization is creating more dangerous problems.
Jayatīrtha: Now everyone is terrified. In New York they published... The police and the fire department published a pamphlet saying that New York is now called "fear city." And they pass them out to the passengers that come in on the airplanes and the buses, saying that "You should be very careful. You should not walk the streets at night and..."
Brahmānanda: Because the New York City is financially bankrupt they are firing so many policemen, firemen,...
Prabhupāda: Ācchā.
Room Conversation with Dr. John Mize -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: So we are giving importance to the machine, not to the person who is dealing with the machine. This is the folly of modern civilization. We are thinking like child, "The machine is working independently." But that is not the fact. The big airship, 747, is flying because the pilot is there, and the pilot is a soul, covered by another bodily machine. And that, that is missing point in the modern civilization, that who is working with the machine.
Room Conversation with Dr. John Mize -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: That means they have created thieves and rogues. Therefore they are suspicious. Nowadays in the airport, everyone is searched. Then it is now taken for granted that all of them are cheats. So what is the value of this education if all of them are cheats? There is no discrimination, "Now, here is a educated professor, Dr. Ph.D., he cannot be searched." No, he will be also searched-because, "You may be Ph.D., but we know you are a cheat." (laughter) Is not the conclusion? Will he be excused if he says, "Oh, I am Ph.D." No, you must be searched.
Morning Walk -- June 26, 1975, Los Angeles:
Rādhā-vallabha: In New Jersey one time we were driving very fast to try and meet you at the airport, and a police officer pulled us over, and he was very angry. We were driving very fast. And he said...
Prabhupāda: No, you should not drive fast. (devotees laugh) No, no, this is not good.
Rādhā-vallabha: We had to pick you up at the airport, Prabhupāda, and we were late.
Prabhupāda: That's all right, but fast, drive very fast, is risky.
Morning Walk -- June 26, 1975, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: "Please close your eyes. (everyone laughs) Let us do something." (break)
Jayatīrtha: (back in car) ...register as a travel agent so that we can get discount on all of our tickets, airplane tickets, and then also we can work on arranging that, that these tours would stop there.
Prabhupāda: The Cox and Kings, they inquired from me, "Whether you can take charge?" Guru dāsa can take charge of this. He is well acquainted with the several places. And he is loitering here and there doing as he likes. (break)
Harikeśa: ...had the plan to perhaps get one bus and leave it at our place and then do tours on our own.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...airport by this way? No, the other way.
Jayatīrtha: You can go this way. We usually go on the freeway. You can go straight up this street. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...freely.
Morning Walk -- June 28, 1975, Denver:
Devotee (3): Animals don't have an answer.
Kāśīrāma: Just a few days ago there was a plane crash and many people died, but they were sitting very comfortably in their chairs thinking, "It is so nice," but then it was all over, finished. And in the airport I was distributing books, and I was telling them, "You could die at any moment," but they still are thinking, "I am going to enjoy." They are not caring.
Prabhupāda: Where this air crash took place?
Morning Walk -- July 2, 1975, Denver:
Prabhupāda: No, in bad weather, towers, but simply by touching, such a big machine became in fire. (laughs) Unsafe everywhere. Padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadam (SB 10.14.58). Every step, there is danger.
Brahmānanda: One of our devotees... I was speaking to him. He was formerly in the air force, an electrician. And he was saying how there are so many wires in an airplane, and actually, when he was electrician, they would put the wires together very hastily in order to get the job done. And he said one of those wires could go wrong and then...
Prabhupāda: Finish everything.
Brahmānanda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Just see.
Morning Walk -- July 2, 1975, Denver:
Ambarīṣa: In Russia they will shoot you if you do not do it.
Prabhupāda: Well, but there is the tendency, "Do not do." Therefore there is shooting. (laughter) How can you check it?
Morning Walk -- July 3, 1975, Denver:
Prabhupāda: Yes. So they are thinking that "This is improvement." What is this nonsense improvement? You are dependent fully on other elements. What improvement will do? And Kṛṣṇa says, "This is a place for misery." How you will improve? This is folly, this is illusion. Kṛṣṇa says, "This place is for suffering," and you are making improvement. "Yes, we are advancing. In future we shall live. Nobody will die." Therefore they are called rascals. Persons who are trying to do something which is impossible, they are fools. Mūḍha. They do not see, still, they hope, "Yes, we are trying. We shall do in future." This is going on. This is the example by the ass. The ass... Driver is sitting on the back of the ass and showing one bunch of grass, and the ass is thinking, "I will get it." (laughter) And he is going on, and he is sitting safely, that "The ass will go on." So our improvement is like that. "Just little forward, then I shall get the grass." He will never get the grass. That he has no brain, that "I am improving; the grass also improving, going on." That they do not see. Now we invented so many airship. It was thought, "Oh, now it will be very nice. Within two hours we shall reach somewhere." Now there are so many dangers. Now there is problem, how to protect us from these accidents.
Morning Walk -- July 3, 1975, Denver:
Brahmānanda: Now they have too many airplanes.
Prabhupāda: Too many airplanes. So where is the improvement? Improvement means to die altogether two hundred men at a time. This is improvement.
Kuruśreṣṭha: They are trying to create a plastic body with plastic heart transplants and plastic liver. They feel that as soon as they can replace all the breakable parts with replaceble ones...
Prabhupāda: That is a Frankenstein?
Room Conversation with Lt. Mozee, Policeman -- July 5, 1975, Chicago:
Prabhupāda: Give him this garland.
Lt. Mozee: Thank you.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) I saw on the airplane. So it has struck me, yes, that this is the position of the human society.
Lt. Mozee: Yeah, Govinda dāsa told me that you had read this on your way in, so I brought a copy. I didn't know whether you wanted to quote from it. But I was ready to be prepa... I was prepared.
Prabhupāda: You have read it?
Lt. Mozee: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Room Conversation with writer, Sandy Nixon -- July 13, 1975, Philadelphia:
Woman: Along the same idea, I wonder also about the many beautiful material things that the devotees bring to you, and, for instance, when you left the airport, you left in a beautiful, big, fancy car, and I wonder about this because...
Prabhupāda: That is teaching them how to respect. If you respect government man as government, then you must treat him like that.
Press Conference -- July 16, 1975, San Francisco:
Reporter (1): Some of the objections are that the followers of the Hare Kṛṣṇa sect are, on the streets or in the airports, are bothering people.
Prabhupāda: The airport itself is a botheration, so much sound, so much accident. So why this little botheration they cannot tolerate? That means intolerance. It is full of botheration, and because we are chanting, they very much disturbed? We don't chant in the airport, but we ask people that "Here is a very good book. You will benefit. If you like, you can take." So what is the wrong there? Tell me what is the wrong? If I give you something very nice, is that, I mean to say, wrong? You read any book. We have got fifty books. You find out any fault in that. If we are distributing something, bad literature which is against the social welfare, then you can object. But you see. Bring all our books here, and you will see. Any page you open and you will find something good. Why you are denying to distribute such literature for the benefit of the people in general? What is the wrong there?
Press Conference -- July 16, 1975, San Francisco:
Reporter (1): Yes. That's a fact.
Prabhupāda: These are all manufactured things.
Reporter (2): Could you tell me how much you do derive from the airport solicitations in the United States?
Prabhupāda: That I do not know, but we sell, on the whole, about $300,000 worth, books, every month.
Reporter (2): At airports alone?
Prabhupāda: I do not know.
Morning Walk -- July 21, 1975, San Francisco:
Baradrāj: The airplane may crash.
Prabhupāda: Yes, there are so many things. There is no guarantee that you will reach there. But still you have to purchase ticket. You have to get on the plane. That is faith.
Sudāmā: And all the passengers have to have faith in the captain of the plane.
Morning Walk -- July 21, 1975, San Francisco:
Bahulāśva: Just like yesterday those impersonalists wouldn't come on the stage. When they saw your opulent vyāsāsana and so many devotees offering your āratik, they realized if they came to the stage, they would have to sit at your feet. Therefore they wouldn't come. This one Swami Satchitananda... I have a friend who's a member of his movement. So this yogi told him that if you want to know how to receive the spiritual master you should go watch the Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees when they greet their guru at the airport... Then you will learn what is the proper way to...
Prabhupāda: Who says?
Morning Walk -- July 24, 1975, Los Angeles:
Paramahaṁsa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, another field of study that Werner Von Braun is considering is unidentified flying objects. Now, this previously was not acknowledged by scientists, but he recently stated that when they have sent rockets into outer space they filmed objects that there's no explanation for. They think that they're spaceships from other planets.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's... There is Siddhaloka—without any aeroplane they can go from one planet to another. They are so perfect.
Paramahaṁsa: So these, what they think are spaceships, perhaps are demigods?
Prabhupāda: Spaceships there are in every planet.
Paramahaṁsa: On every planet.
Morning Walk -- July 25, 1975, Los Angeles:
Brahmānanda: They can make a little water in a test tube.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) That's all. (laughter) That we can produce while I pass urine. (laughter) So you can create little urine, but that we do automatically. At least I do. Every hour I pass urine. So your credit is urine-maker. (laughter)
Rādhā-vallabha: We have developed a method of seeding clouds. We send airplanes into the clouds and spread chemicals, and then rain comes. So what need is there for...
Brahmānanda: Sometimes, not all the time.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Brahmānanda: Sometimes they're able to...
Rāmeśvara: Agitate the cloud to produce rain.
Morning Walk -- July 25, 1975, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: You have time to talk all this nonsense. (laughter) And you have no time to read Bhāgavata, that's all. This is our misfortune. (break)
Jayādvaita: ...at the airport they cannot save themselves from our book distributors.
Prabhupāda: Rather, they purchase also.
Jayādvaita: Yes. The scientists become conquered. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...scientists do not manufacture brain and give it to a stone, and he becomes a scientist. Why do they not do that? Manufacture. You have got so nice brain. Now manufacture another brain and put it on the stone, and he becomes that, what is called, Frankenstein? (laughter) Why they are not able to create another brain? What is the answer?
Morning Walk -- July 28, 1975, San Diego:
Prabhupāda: Very good preaching.
Yadubara: They also have those cock fights, you know, those chicken fights. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...begin war with their own children. This is also war. The child wants to come out, and they are fighting, advanced.
Morning Walk -- August 5, 1975, Detroit:
Prabhupāda: So he is going over Tripurāri?
Ādi-keśava: Well, Tripurāri is also with us.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Including both.
Ādi-keśava: Yes, both. Now, what is happening, Tripurāri is training some of our men in the airports. He is training nine new men to distribute big books in the airports, men who were before distributing only the magazines. Now they will go to the airports and learn how to distribute the big books. And also some of Tripurāri's men have taken over the leadership of our parties to help the new men to distribute also. So that way they are cooperating.
Morning Walk -- September 13, 1975, Vrndavana:
Saurabha: No, we don't require iron.
Prabhupāda: Simply brick. So in that way you still require ten thousand?
Saurabha: We require about eight thousand but it's best to apply for ten thousand. If we only need five thousand, we take that. They will give us that allotment.
Prabhupāda: Do it. (break)
Dhṛṣṭaketu: When Kṛṣṇa would play His flute then the airplanes would be there.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Dhṛṣṭaketu: When Kṛṣṇa would play His flute then the airplanes would come and...
Prabhupāda: Where is Kṛṣṇa playing flute?
Dhṛṣṭaketu: In Vṛndāvana?
Prabhupāda: Oh. Then why the airplanes do not come Delhi? (laughter) (pause) He is godless and we have to fight against them. Just see our position. We have to fight with the whole world.
Indian man (1): Number of forces will increase day by day.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Morning Walk -- October 2, 1975, Mauritius:
Prabhupāda: Therefore Communism is coming. Go this way?
Cyavana: Is it this way? We can go this way. This way. Or better this way. Now he's coming the other way.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...create another danger. Just like airplane. It is comfortable. You can quickly go from one place to another. But as soon as on the plane, immediately your life is at risk. There is no certainty. So this is the way of material world. You create some comfort and you create some greater danger also. Side by side. It cannot be unhampered comfort. That is not possible. You create a motorcar—the same thing—you drive very speedy and you meet accident. Railway, the accident. There was no need. You produce your food locally and produce your milk. Then eat, drink, and live comfortably. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Room Conversation with Bill Faill (reporter) -- October 8, 1975, Durban:
Prabhupāda: Now, now... So we are leaving this place at nine?
Harikeśa: No, no. We are leaving this place maybe nine o'clock.
Prabhupāda: "Maybe." You do not know. But where they will come, here or in the...?
Harikeśa: You mean you will meet at the airport?
Faill: Oh, we'll meet you. We'll have somebody out at the airport.
Prabhupāda: Then that's all right. So the airplane leaves this port at 9:45. So you can come, according to the time.
Faill: Yes. You'll have to leave here about 8:30 actually. It's about three quarters of an hour's drive there.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Room Conversation -- October 14, 1975, Johannesburg:
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Photogram. Photogram.
Harikeśa: That's out here?
Prabhupāda: We saw one advertisement. So we are remaining these three, four only?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: There's three of us. We're flying, and then Rūpa and Gokulendra will drive the gray car back to Johannesburg. One devotee will drive to the airport, Vapu.
Harikeśa: I'm almost finished.
Prabhupāda: They are making so many wonderful things, but they cannot stop death.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They just make it quicker.
Morning Walk -- October 26, 1975, Mauritius:
Prabhupāda: That's all right. The law is there. That is not his law. So his intelligence will be there when he understands who has made this law. Then his intelligence. That is intelligence.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Just like making airplane. They observe the bird, and then they make...
Prabhupāda: Now, that they... When they admit, "Oh, this law is made (heavy static) ," then they come to senses.
Brahmānanda: They become?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "To their senses."
Brahmānanda: To their senses. Yes.
Room Conversation -- October 29, 1975, Nairobi:
Prahupada: Just see.
Brahmānanda: These are very old jets that were supplied by the British. (Prabhupāda laughs) They're so proud of their four airplanes. Now they only have three.
Prabhupāda: Could not replace the other one.
Brahmānanda: I don't know if they've replaced it or not.
Cyavana: That's the British scheme.
Brahmānanda: They give them these things to "civilize" them.
Morning Walk -- November 2, 1975, Nairobi:
Brahmānanda: There was a man yesterday at Dabji's house who was the brāhmaṇa who was officiating. He is a very much caste conscious brāhmaṇa, and although he and Shah were the first ones to meet you at the Nairobi airport when you arrived, in Nairobi, as soon as he heard your philosophy, he has never come. He came the first day only when you first arrived, and since that day he has never come. And yesterday I think he must have just come because Shah forced him. But he does not at all like our philosophy that brāhmaṇa by qualification. He is very staunch—"brāhmaṇa by birth."
Devotee (5): They always say the Africans could never become Kṛṣṇa conscious.
Prabhupāda: How they are becoming?
Morning Walk -- November 11, 1975, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: And in our list the plants are there. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati. Sthāvara means plants. There are jalaja, aquatics, and sthāvara means plant. All living entities, different forms... Bhagavad-gītā says, sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya (BG 14.4). As many forms are there of the living entities. But what are these forms? Forms means the spirit soul is one, and he is covered by these material elements. That is form. So either your form or my form, but the ingredients are the same, bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ (BG 7.4). (break) The soul is the same, and the ingredients of the body are the same. That is explained in Iśo..., ekatvam anupaśyate. Just like from gold, take from the mine—you make earring or this finger ring, the ingredients are the same. The forms may be different. (break) Apollo airship, thousands of technologists and scientists were engaged to make this Apollo, and it burst out. So they have no foreseeing power that it will burst out. At that time they began to pray to God.
Morning Walk -- November 15, 1975, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: Yes. Caitanya Mahāprabhu has said. (break)
Vipramukhya: ...bring Kṛṣṇa consciousness to the people, they don't have to travel long distances to the temples.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...fast, these birds. Airplane cannot do that.
Lokanātha: How do they decide the direction and they turn all together?
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Lokanātha: How they turn all together and how do they communicate each other that "Yes, let's move out away"?
Prabhupāda: Yes, they have got intelligence. You are thinking that they have no intelligence. They have got complete intelligence.
Morning Walk -- November 15, 1975, Bombay:
Lokanātha: They have, but how do they all together decide to either turn right or left or...
Prabhupāda: That is intelligence. You do not know that. If you are given airplane, so many, you'll, immediately at least half a dozen will be finished. (laughter) That means you are less intelligent than the birds, at least in the matter of flying.
Indian man (3): (Hindi) (break)
Prabhupāda: ...you wanted to construct apartment house. Is it possible to do now?
Saurabha: No.
Morning Walk -- November 20, 1975, Bombay:
Dr. Patel: Yes, it's a fact. (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: (break) ...ago, there was one Mr. Badhuri in Benares. He was a great astrologer. So he told me that from Benares the Germans have taken three books: one is Akāśa-patola, one is Kapota-vahi and his Khapoda-vahi. Khapoda-vahi, this airplane. Kha means akasa. And there is another science, kapota-vahi, to carry man by the pigeons. That is not yet displayed. Kapota-vahi. And there is another, Akasa-patola. Any, any, even your chairs you sit down; by mantra it will go on.
Dr. Patel: We have in Mahābhārata, that, I mean, Bhima threw away those elephants and rowing in the sky. And when Parīkṣit thought "How could it be?" then that elephants came down in the story. That means they were rowing about just like sputniks of today, perhaps. I don't know how they might have...
Morning Walk -- December 10, 1975, Vrndavana:
Indian man: Same thing?
Devotee (2): In France also.
Prabhupāda: They were very upset. And when I was coming, I think, in Chicago, in the airplane, one of the host girl, she was seeing... (laughter) I asked her to supply one 7-up. And, "I have no key." She was so angry. But all the captains and others, they gathered around me. (laughter)
Harikeśa: I think that was the same stewardess who came in the back and asked us, "Why the Swamiji doesn't like women?"
Prabhupāda: No, no, I don't say that I don't like women, but I cannot say that equal rights. How can I say? First of all show that you equal rights—your husband becomes sometimes pregnant and then you become pregnant, alternately.
Morning Walk -- December 17, 1975, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: What is the time?
Harikesa: 7.10 a.m.
Prabhupāda: So we shall return. (short discussion of actual time)
Dr. Patel: It is 7.20 a.m. You are airport?
Harikesa: Airport time.
Dr. Patel: Airport time is wrong. Every clock is very different time there. Each one has its own standard.
Morning Walk -- December 19, 1975, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: Nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭan kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye (SB 5.5.1). This is instruction. Where is culture? Culture is lost. So therefore there is no value of education. And besides that, education means spiritual education. Brahma-vidyā. This education how to make aeroplane or a nice bridge or a machine, this is called kalā-vidyā. This is not vidyā.
| Page Title: | Airplane (Conversations 1968 - 1975) |
| Compiler: | Rishab, JayaNitaiGaura |
| Created: | 05 of Aug, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=160, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 160 |