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Changing (Conversations - 1976)

Conversations and Morning Walks

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 8, 1976, Nellore:

Mahāṁsa: If the government wants to do that, you can't do anything.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But we are changing.... We are making our constitution look like a welfare society, so this way we may not fall under this.

Acyutānanda: We have to preach to them so that they understand the value of this movement.

Prabhupāda: (break) Europeans, they are coming here not for religion, but they are coming for the Kṛṣṇa culture. You have to make that. Religion they have already got, Christian. Why they should come?

Mahāṁsa: They will say that this Kṛṣṇa culture is Hinduism.

Prabhupāda: Then he's a rascal. Prove it in the court. Kṛṣṇa is not Hinduism. Never.... Is there anything in the Bhagavad-gītā that Kṛṣṇa says, "I am for the Hindus or for the Indians"?

Acyutānanda: The Hindu law is so elastic, anyone who calls himself a Hindu or who practices any branch...

Mahāṁsa: Or puts on tilaka.

Morning Walks -- January 22-23, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Even Śrīdhara Mahārāja says that "This pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi grāma, we simply thought that it is an ideal, but you have practically done this." He admits that. (CB Antya-khaṇḍa 4.126)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I remember.

Dayānanda: In London you said that you were changing crows to swans.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dayānanda: It is impossible to change a crow to swan but you are changing crows to swans.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, in reading the description of Jagāi and Mādhāi, they don't seem as bad as we were.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) We shall go this way? No.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, we have time.

Prabhupāda: Therefore Kavirāja Gosvāmī says, jagāi mādhāi haite muñi se pāpiṣṭha: "I am lower than the Jagāi Mādhāi."

Morning Walk -- February 19, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is communal thought.

Acyutānanda: "Times are changing. You have to move. You have to change with the time."

Dayānanda: Mao says, "Revolution, constant revolution."

Acyutānanda: Yes. I asked one man. I said, "What do you have to show? What is the results? What is the results of the change? The people are still living in a hut." He says, "The struggle is what we have to show, that we had a struggle. People are not just sitting by and being exploited, but they are now struggling."

Prabhupāda: No, that is already found...

Acyutānanda: Śrama eva hi kevalam (SB 1.2.8).

Prabhupāda: ...in the Bhagavad-gītā: manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni karṣati (BG 15.7). This is the nature's law. What you have got to say about this thing? Nothing. It is already there. Prakṛti-sthāni karṣati. Manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni karṣati: "Although they are my part and parcel," mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ (BG 15.7), still, "because they have been predominated by the mind, manaḥ, and the senses, they are struggling." So our propaganda is "Stop this sense gratification and mental concoction. Then the struggle will cease. And if you still abide by the senses and mental dictation, then you'll have to suffer."

Morning Walk -- February 20, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: The Ramakrishna Mission man came to see me. He said that "You dress like American. Otherwise, nobody will take you as important."

Acyutānanda: Nikhilananda...

Prabhupāda: "And I don't want to be important. I have no dress. If you pay for it, I can dress. I have no money. I know how to dress as a European. As business man, I was doing that. But not this shabby dress. You must give me four set of nice dress, (laughter) changing every alternate day. I know how to do it, but have no money." (end)

Morning Walk -- March 16, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. So these... All this ism, Communism, this ism, this ism, beginning from that Greek history, so many changes have been made in Europe, leaders, sometimes Napoleon, sometimes Mussolini, sometimes Hitler. It is going on. So where is the perfect situation? You have changed so many leaders for so many years in the history, but where is your perfect situation?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We have one leader, and our situation is perfect, and we are not changing that leader.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is perfection. We have taken Kṛṣṇa as leader. We are not taking any other leader.

Mahāṁśa: In thousands of years.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Hundreds and thousands of years.

Prabhupāda: Millions of years.

Morning Walk -- March 16, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: That is a fact.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So they are changing leaders one after another because they think that the present leader will satisfy their present desires more.

Prabhupāda: The leader, perfect leader, is God. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānāṁ (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). That nitya and cetana, all living entities, we are eternal, and we are conscious. And He is the supreme conscious. Therefore God means Supreme Being. You take His leadership. Then He'll properly guide you. That is our philosophy.

Madhudviṣa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, actually, I think it was either Marx or...

Prabhupāda: But the leader says, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja, ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo: (BG 18.66) "I shall give you protection from all pitfalls." This is. We also accept leader, but the most perfect leader, who can actually give me protection from all dangers. So Śrīdhara, when you go, you take some letters from me. So what happened about Ganguli? (break) ...this nature. Just like a child is born. Immediately requires protection by mother.

Morning Walk -- March 22, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Our proof is that we are following the sane man's instruction, or sane being, the Supreme Being. There cannot be any mistake. Therefore, we are sane.

Devotee: They say they are also following.

Prabhupāda: No. Therefore, why they are changing? We don't change, millions of years. What Kṛṣṇa said, we are following the same. But they change every year.

Pañcadraviḍa: That Vairagi Bhava, he showed up in Hong Kong, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Pañcadraviḍa: You know that person who gives us the mandir in Vrndavana and... What's his name? We stay at that Fogal Ashram every year? Vairagi Bhava?

Prabhupāda: Vairagi Bhava.

Morning Walk -- April 9, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So the Communists, they are thinking, "By changing the hand, things will improve." But they do not know that very industry is the cause of falldown. They're simply trying to change the hand. The principle should go on, industry, only the proposal is that the capitalists should give up and the workers should take it.

Devotee (2): Which way is India headed towards? The capitalists or the Communists?

Prabhupāda: India has no, had no such ideas. They are borrowing ideas. India's idea is self-realization. Live very simple life—brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra. The brāhmaṇas, they are living simple life, becoming very learned scholar, pure character, advanced in spiritual life—one class, ideal. And kṣatriyas, they are supposed to be the king. They distribute the land on nominal taxation, and the vaiśyas utilize the land for cultivation and cow-keeping, and the śūdras, they are engaged as weaver, blacksmith, goldsmith, mean other necessities of life. In this way the whole society is simplified, and the central point is how to become advanced in Kṛṣṇa consciousness by cooperation. This is India's civilization.

Morning Walk -- April 16, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That is not...

Dr. Patel: If you make two plus two is equal to one, then that is spiritual. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: No, no. Apart from spiritual, they are talking and again changing. Sometimes they say two plus two equal to four, sometimes they say two plus two equal to five, and then next they say two plus two equal to three. This is going on. So where is you truth? (break) ...the mūḍhas.

Dr. Patel: No, no, no, you are not.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: Don't say that. We are mūḍha.

Prabhupāda: No, but because we simply talk of Kṛṣṇa, therefore, although mūḍha, we are not mūḍha. Yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṇa-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). That's all.

Morning Walk -- April 16, 1976, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: No, it is kuṇape tri-dhātuke, kuṇape.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And Kṛṣṇa says, dehino 'smin. In this hodgepodge combination of matter there is the soul. Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanam... (BG 2.13). On account of this, this body is changing. Kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā, tathā dehāntara prāptiḥ. Very simple thing, but they're so rascal, they will not understand. The whole world is like that. (break) He is speaking Himself. Let us accept it. Every knowledge is there. I am not scientist, but all the scientists come. Our Svarūpa Dāmodara, Doctor, Ph.D., he was defeated three times, four times daily, and then he is now writing book, Scientific Basis of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. You see? And I was not a scientist. He was Ph.D., but I talked on the basis of Kṛṣṇa's assets. That's all. That is my knowledge. (break) ...this knowledge, very practical knowledge, and if we don't accept it, then what is? It is simply rascaldom. No, yes. Yes.

Room Conversation -- April 22, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Śaucam. Satya-śaucābhyām. Śaucam means cleanliness. The Western people, they do not know what is cleanliness. And therefore brāhmaṇa's another name is śuci, always clean. Three times' bathing, three times' changing cloth. It doesn't matter, loin cloth, but cloth must be changed.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Outer cloth?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Dhoti, like that?

Prabhupāda: No, you take bath. You have to change your cloth. It becomes wet. This is cleanliness. Satya-śaucābhyām. Śamena damena ca brahmacarya, tapasā brahmacaryeṇa (SB 6.1.13). Tapasya, the first beginning of tapasya, is brahmacārī. Yamena niyamena vā tyāgena satya-śaucābhyāṁ yamena niyamena vā. This is human life, tapasā, brahmacaryeṇa, śamena, damena vā (SB 6.1.13), then truthfulness, cleanliness, controlling the senses. So these things are required. Otherwise what is the difference between dog's life?

Room Conversation -- April 22, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: The soul is already there. Soul is already.... Just like this room was already there. Now I have entered. And again I give up this room; I go to another room. Like that. Not that this room becomes another room, room. If I have to go to another room, I have to give up this room. I have to go another room. So I am the same. I am changing different rooms, different body. Tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13). Find out this verse.

dehino 'smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati
(BG 2.13)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "As the embodied soul continually passes in this body from boyhood to youthhood to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change."

Prabhupāda: Hm. Purport.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Purport: "Since every living entity is an individual soul, each is changing his body every moment, manifesting sometimes as a child, sometimes as a youth, and sometimes as an old man. Yet the same spirit soul is there and does not undergo any change. This individual soul finally changes the body at death and transmigrates to another body. And since it is sure to have another body..."

Prabhupāda: The example is already given: The child is transmigrating to the boy's body. Already given.

Room Conversation -- April 22, 1976, Melbourne:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "And since it is sure to have another body in the next birth, either material or spiritual, there is no cause for lamentation by Arjuna on account of death, neither for Bhīṣma nor for Droṇa, for whom he was so much concerned. Rather he should rejoice for their changing bodies from old to new ones, thereby rejuvenating their energy. Such changes of body account..."

Prabhupāda: Now, suppose I am old man. If by some medical process, if I am given a young man's body to be more enthusiastic for working, is it not benefit for me? Similarly, in old age, when the body is changed, he gets another new body. That is a profit. There is no loss. The old body, it cannot work nicely. It cannot move nicely. Just old car.... If your old car is changed into new car, will you not accept it? So it is just like machine, car.

Room Conversation -- April 23, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: This is the important men.

Guru-kṛpā: That one Marwari spent eighteen lakhs of rupees.

Prabhupāda: I do not know eighteen lakhs, but I know he went to Germany for medical operation and changing the gland with monkey's gland. Yes. He was eighty years old at that time.

Devotee (2): The leaders are so infected. There was an article recently...

Prabhupāda: Therefore I say, andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ (SB 7.5.31). That is already dictated by Bhāgavata. These leaders, rascals who are blind, and they are trying to lead other blind men. All of them are falling in the ditch.

Room Conversation -- April 23, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Savior? Who saves the followers from the danger of materialistic way of life, which means transmigration of the soul from one body to another.

Guest (3): Do you believe in a resurrection?

Prabhupāda: Resurrection? What do you mean actually? But it is a fact that one, the soul, is changing from one body to another.

Guest (4): That's what.... We agree.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like you are young man. You had a body of a child. That child's body.... You remember that you had a body of a child, but that body is no longer existing. But you remember; therefore you, the owner of the body, is existing. Otherwise how do you remember, "I had a body like, like this," measurement? But that body is no longer existing, so you are remembering. So you are the owner of the body. Just like you have now black coat. Say after two days you may put on another color coat, but you remember that "I was putting on one black coat on that day." So you are existing; the coat is changed. Similarly, the soul is existing; the body is changed. Therefore it is natural that I am old man. When I change this body, I get another body. This is resurrection, if you say.

Press Conference -- April 27, 1976, Auckland, New Zealand:

Prabhupāda: It is not my—everyone's. You are in ignorance; you do not know; therefore we are trying to educate you. It is yours also. It is not a personal thing. It is meant for the living entities. That you people, you do not know, that we are all living entities. There is slight description of the evolution by Darwin. But he's also not in perfect knowledge. The real fact is the..., I am not this body, you are not this body. I am living entity within this body. Just like you are within your coat and shirt. The coat and shirt you are not. Similarly, we living entities, we are within this gross and subtle body. The gross body is made of earth, water, air, fire, and the subtle body is made of mind, intelligence, and egotism. So we are within this. So nobody knows; there is no educational system, what is our real constitutional position. We are wrongly accepting this body. And that kind of acceptance is there in the animals. The dog also thinking that "I am this body." So if I am thinking like that, "I am this body," then what is the difference between the dog and me? We are educating from him that point of view, that the living entity is entrapped within this body, and according to his desire, he's changing different types of body and undergoing continually birth and death. So in order to save him from the cycle of birth and death, one has to understand God, or Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa means God. Then he comes to his real, identical position as spiritual body, and then he lives forever. He lives forever. Just like a man changing constantly dresses; that does not mean he's dying. Similarly, we do not die. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). After destruction of this body, we are not dying.

Room Conversation -- April 27, 1976, Auckland, New Zealand:
Prabhupāda: So we want to stop that suffering. These rascals, they do not understand. They think, "Hare Kṛṣṇa movement is disturbing." A rascal civilization. So let us try our best. What can be done? You also helping in this movement. So don't spoil the movement by manufacturing ideas. Don't do that. Go on in the standard way, keep yourself pure; then movement is sure to be successful. But if you want to spoil it by whimsical, then what can be done? It will be spoiled. If you manufacture whims and disagree and fight amongst yourself, then it will be another edition of these so-called movements. It will lose the spiritual strength. Always remember it. You cannot.... Now, actually, people are surprised: "What this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra has got power that it is changing so quickly?" And on the other hand, it is to be admitted, unless it has got power, how it is changing? So we have to keep that power. Don't make it an ordinary musical vibration. It is a different thing, spiritual. Although it seems like musical vibration, but it is spiritual, completely. Mantrauśadhi-vaśa. Even, by mantra, the snakes can be charmed. So mantra is not ordinary sound vibration. So we have to keep the mantra in potency, potent, by offenseless chanting, by remaining pure. If you pollute the mantra, then it will lose its effect.
Room Conversation -- May 2, 1976, Fiji:

Prabhupāda: This is also cold water?

Hari-śauri: It was. It's still cold.

Prabhupāda: Darwin's theory is body is changing, but why it is changing, he does not explain.

Guru-kṛpā: It's because of nature. You can't explain nature. That's his only answer.

Prabhupāda: Nature.... But we also say, prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni (BG 3.27). So it is to be understood that it is being done under superior control. If nature is doing, so nature is superior control. He cannot explain. So if he does not know how nature is working, then what is the value of his theory? If he says that he cannot explain how nature is doing, that means he is not expert. He may be mistaken. So why his opinion or decision should be taken final? He does not know how nature is working. That is not perfect knowledge. Does he say like that, "Nature is working"?

Guru-kṛpā: Nature.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: So anywhere you send, the student and teacher class is there. You change the name, you change the process, it doesn't matter, but the student class and teacher class will always remain. That is your foolishness. You are simply changing different names. But originally, as planned by nature, that is always there.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: They say let the factory worker teach the teacher.

Prabhupāda: Anyway, teacher class, rascal, it is teacher class. You make a teacher class.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say everyone should be teachers.

Prabhupāda: That "should be" means not.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, they are making everyone teachers.

Prabhupāda: And this "making" means not.

Room Conversation -- May 5, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: But first of all (indistinct) you what is the special attraction? Your wife said that their instruction is very clear. So what is the distinction between clear and ambiguous. What do you find ambiguous, what do you find clear? What is that?

Bhūrijana: I think the part I found clear, the more introspective points about humility, and changing one's desires...

Prabhupāda: Humility means not to follow the instruction of guru? That is not...

Bhūrijana: No, that is not humility.

Prabhupāda: I'm asking you what is the special attraction? You say... Your wife says it is very clear. What is that clear and ambiguous?

Bhūrijana: You mean what is ambiguous and... (indistinct) what is ambiguous or what...

Prabhupāda: No. You say that is very clear what others are telling you. Now what is that ambiguous, what is that clear?

Morning Walk -- May 12, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Die means you sleep as a man and wake up as a dog. That is dying.

Devotee (1): But it is okay to be a dog. It is okay to be a dog.

Prabhupāda: Yes. But if you are so foolish that it is okay to be dog, then it is very nice.

Hari-śauri: But if we live forever, then where's the harm in changing bodies a few times? We can enjoy in all different kinds of bodies and have a good time whilst we're here. And if we're eternal, then what is the big rush to get out?

Prabhupāda: That is going on. For the foolish person, it is going on. (break) ...land there is?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...farms all over the world, even in India, they have to irrigate the land.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They have to irrigate the land artificially like this. Either they dig a ditch and they pour water into the ditch by some method, or sprinkling like this. So in a society where everyone is God conscious, Kṛṣṇa says how He supplies the rain. Was there any need even for such irrigation?

Prabhupāda: Irrigation?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Irrigation means digging a hole beside where the vegetables or grains are growing. Or will the rain just fall from the sky naturally?

Prabhupāda: You have to work. Otherwise.... This is material world. Without working, you cannot get anything. (break) ...between material world and spiritual world. In the material world you have to work to get your necessities. In the spiritual world there is no need of working.

Morning Walk -- May 12, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: And what is, the scientists will not believe? We say, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ: (BG 2.13) "As the child is becoming boy, boy is becoming, similarly you have to change body." What scientist has to challenge this? But they are obstinate dog. Dehāntara-prāptiḥ you have to accept. Can the scientist say, "No, no, no, the child is not going to be a young man or boy"? Can he say like that? Then why they challenge unnecessarily? They are changing the body. Can the scientists stop it? But if they are unreasonable dogs, then what can be done? What argument will reach them? A dog cannot understand.

Rādhāvallabha: Just stick.

Prabhupāda: Yes. No, they will not understand even with stick. You see? They are less than dog. Bhagavad-gītā days, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13), very simple argument, that "As the child is becoming boy, boy is becoming young man, young man is becoming middle-aged man, and middle-aged is becoming old man, similarly, you are changing body." So where is the difficulty to understand? But they are so obstinate rascal, they will not believe. As soon as the child is dead, does he become boy?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No.

Morning Walk -- May 12, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...provement. Have you improved this, that a dead body can be brought into life by scientific arrangement? And still, they'll say "improvement." What improvement? Simply dry talks, that is science? (break) First subject matter for scientific advancement, that there is soul within the body. On account of the presence of the soul, the body is changing. So the soul is different from the body. So this is the first education of scientist. And they have avoided this major.... They simply bluffing people, "We have discovered this..." What you have discovered? Discover this: What is the principle within the body? Real discovery, they are not interested. They are bluffing. They are fools, making others fools and going on as scientific advancement. First of all answer this.

Morning Walk -- May 12, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Then you are.... As soon as you say "making research," then you are not perfect. Don't say that you are scientist. You are student. Don't say that you are scientist. And you are declaring, "There is no authority, nothing." Why do you speak all this nonsense? Because you are not scientist. You are making research. That's all right. When you complete your research—you come to the conclusion—then call yourself as scientist. Why, as a student, neophyte, you are claiming as "scientist"? Why misleading people? You do not know anything, how things are going on, and you are claiming you are scientist. Our point is, "Don't do this, misleading propaganda. You are not scientist. We protest against this false propaganda. Why you are making.... You do not know anything. You cannot solve any problem, major problem, so why you are claiming scientist? Stop this as a gentleman." (break) And there is the soul within the body, and when the soul is gone, transferred to another body, it is dead. Dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13). One who is actually scientist, he is not surprised. He knows the soul has transferred to another body. That's all. That is scientist. (break) ...real scientist, not a rascal like you. We don't give.... (break) You cannot act. We accept Kṛṣṇa as scientist because He explains. You cannot explain. How we can accept you as scientist? You are rascal. Up till now, nobody was able to explain—simply vague. How we can accept these vague explanation as scientist? And daily changing, every year new theories. And I have to accept you scientist? Kṛṣṇa said tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13) five thousand years ago. It was known very well, and it is going on. That is science. You cannot give any solution, you are changing your ideas and theories every year, and we have to accept you as scientist? (break) ...speaking something, and I have to accept him as scientist? Madman, crazy fellow, saying something today, saying something other next day.

Morning Walk -- June 3, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: This present, future, means, just like a father knows the..., how the child is. Now if the child changes, and touches the fire, Kṛṣṇa knows it will burn. He knew when the child did not touch the fire, his future. And when he touched the fire, Kṛṣṇa knew the result. So He always knows. His position is to know the future. He's always.... Now you are changing, what is the future due to your little independence?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So can you actually say that Kṛṣṇa knows you'll misuse your independence? He knows if you misuse your independence what will happen, but can it be actually said that...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: ...he knows you will definitely misuse...

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Room Conversation with Reporter -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: First of all.... As you say science. What do you mean by science? Can you explain?

Reporter: Well, what the..., the best conclusions of the best people in science.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That's all right, but what is the best conclusion?

Reporter: Well, rely on their opinions.

Prabhupāda: That is opinion, the opinion is changing. How you can rely? That is not fixed up. So what is this opinion, what is the value of this opinion?

Reporter: Well...

Prabhupāda: You give some opinion, and after some years you change it. So what is the.... How can I rely on your opinion?

Reporter: Would Darwin's theory of evolution and other evolutionary theories...

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be. If it is being changed every year or every ten years, then what is the value of this opinion? There is no value.

Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Rāmeśvara: They say all matter goes through the stage of development and destruction.

Prabhupāda: No, no. First of all, this is to be answered, that this child, when he was born he was very small, lying on the lap of the mother. Now he's jumping. Now that body which was lying on the lap of the mother is no more existing. He has got another body which is jumping. But the mother knows that "It is my same child." Therefore the same soul is there; the body has changed.

Rāmeśvara: But they argue that there is no soul; it is simply the changing of matter.

Prabhupāda: The changing.... When the child is born dead, why he does not grow? (laughter) Therefore they are rascals.

Mahātmā: There was one boy in Berkeley, and he worked for a company that would record facts and figures, and he said every year the Navy would pay this company something like sixty thousand dollars and would give them their theories that they knew were wrong, and this company would supply false facts and figures to coincide with the theories—make up facts that would support their false theories.

Prabhupāda: What is that false theory?

Hṛdayānanda: They want to take money, so they say "We need so many things, you have to give us money from the government to buy new weapons," this, that, so they make up false things for money.

Prabhupāda: Befool.

Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Nobody can answer. They simply falsely argue. Therefore less intelligent. Mūḍha. If he was intelligent, then he would immediately accept the Kṛṣṇa's teachings, beginning with dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13). On account of the soul, the body is changing, kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā. The body is sometimes child, sometimes boy, sometimes young man, sometimes old man, sometimes diseased, sometimes healthy. All these terms are there on account of presence of the soul. If the soul is not there, then it is simply a lump of matter, and it is going to decompose into matter again, and then it will smell, either you have to throw it for being eaten by the vultures or you can bury it under some ceremony or you can burn it. Three.... What is called? Pariṇamanam. Transformations. Either as stool or as ash or as earth. Those who are burying, the bodies gradually becomes earth; those who are throwing, the vultures eat, the jackals, dogs eat and it turns into stool; and those who are burning, it turns into ashes. Three transformations. This beautiful body.

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Rādhāvallabha: Previously the scientists used to say that they would put dirty laundry and rotten garbage in a box. Then a few weeks later they would find rats. So they said that rats are made from garbage. So then everyone—this was presented as a very laughable theory. And then the next theory that was presented as the actual one was that life came from chemicals.

Prabhupāda: First of all, life comes from rats (laughs). Every year, they are changing their theories.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Actually, their philosophy came from rats.

Prabhupāda: Hmm? What is that philosophy? Rat philosophy? This is called vṛścika-taṇḍula-nyāya in Sanskrit. The scorpion is coming from the stock of rice. Actually, the scorpions they lay egg within the stock of rice, and by fermentation the eggs become scorpion and come out. Not that the rice is producing scorpion.

Rādhāvallabha: The scientists know about that, and they say yes, that is very laughable, primitive. But their new theory is simply that life comes from chemicals. So it is actually the same thing.

Hṛdayānanda: Yes, because life is also chemicals.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But the fact is that they cannot even manufacture a tiny seed which will fructify.

Prabhupāda: Yes, let them manufacture a seed. From that seed a big tree will come.

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, oh, yes. That is Darwin's gradual evolution.

Mahendra: Except this is evolution of consciousness, growing bigger.

Prabhupāda: Darwin has captured that portion, how the body is changing one after another.

Duryodhana-guru: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in Bhagavad-gītā it is said śucīnāṁ śrīmatāṁ gehe yoga-bhraṣṭo 'bhijāyate (BG 6.41). So, for somebody who is now a disciple of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, are we to understand if he is not born in a family of devotees and if he is not born in an aristocratic family, that he was not a yogi in his past life?

Prabhupāda: Eh? Past life, they had some good deeds. Therefore they have come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. It is called ajñāta-sukṛti. Besides that, whatever he may be in the past life, the movement is there, it is open for everyone. Everyone can come and take advantage, despite whatever he did in his past life. It doesn't matter. If he comes and if he is fortunate, if he chants, then he becomes advanced.

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: (in car) Scientists are changing their theories, how we can accept? Reasonably? You are changing your theories, how we can accept you are scientist? You are not sure of your position. Philosophers also, they say "I believe." What is the meaning of this philosophy?

Hari-śauri: They simply give their own opinion about something and present that as being fact, and everyone else has their own.

Prabhupāda: I have got my own opinion. Or anyone can have his own opinion. Why your opinion should be accepted? I have got.... (break) ...is that one does not understand that he is imperfect. Or he knows that he is imperfect, still, he wants to push forward his opinion. That is the difficulty. He knows he's imperfect. But he does not think that "I am imperfect. What is the value of my opinion?"

Rāmeśvara: If I have a bigger brain than someone else, and if I give my...

Prabhupāda: Comparatively, you are less crazy. That is another thing.

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

Arnold Weiss: Or could the prior life also be human life?

Prabhupāda: No, not necessarily. There are 8,400,000 different forms of life, and you are one of them now, as you, as soul, you are the same; the body is changed. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said in the Second Chapter that "Arjuna, you, Me and all these persons who are assembled here, they existed in their previous lives, they are now existing, and they'll continue to exist." So our life is eternal. That is the first instruction in the Bhagavad-gītā. Na jāyate na mriyate vā kadācit, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). This living entity, soul, is never born, neither he dies. It is simply change of body. Just like you just took this sweater. That means you are there, and you may give up the sweater again. So your body is changing like dress, but you are the same. So your... In previous... Just like now we are elderly gentleman, but we were a child. That's a fact. At that time the body was different. You are a young man; the body was different. And again you'll become old man like me, your body will be different. So in this life also we are experiencing going through different types of body. Similarly, after giving up this body, I'll have another body. Where is the difficulty to understand? Tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati.

Garden Conversation -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: So dehāntara-prāptir, to accept another body, that is inevitable. Now, what kind of body you'll accept... You'll not accept. You'll be forced to accept, according to your work, karmaṇā daiva-netrena (SB 3.31.1), by superior arrangement. After death, after giving up this body... Generally, at the time of death, your mental condition will carry you to a similar body. Yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante kalevaram (BG 8.6). This is the general, but it is under superior arrangement. So we are changing this body continually, cycle of birth and death. That is material world. Therefore it is said that according to the body, the standard of happiness, distress, is there. So that will come automatically by nature's law. Therefore there is no need of endeavoring improving or subduing this kind of bodily comforts. That you cannot change; it is all destiny. You try for self-realization. What you are? Why you are in this body? Why you are suffering? These questions should be discussed. That is human life.
Morning Walk -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That is Darwin's theory. Motorcar is not developing to big motorcar. That is nonsense. Motorcar is motorcar, but I can change from this car to that car.

Hari-śauri: Yes, that's what he was wondering, whether the spirit soul leaves the atom to take another higher body.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is always.... Transmigration means going on, simply changing.

Rāmeśvara: Is that counted as one of the 8,400,000 species? Is the atom counted among the different species?

Prabhupāda: Atom is not manifested. May be one of the species, but the total is 8,400,000. What is the difference between the small atom and this body? The same thing, material. It's very small; it is a little bigger. That's all. And similarly, the universe is still bigger. After all, it is matter. (break) ...prakṛti. Aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara-stham (Bs. 5.35). What is this? He's standing on election? (break)

Rāmeśvara: It is written in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta that when Lord Caitanya entered this universe, the entire universe was blessed, or benefited. So I'm wondering how Lord Caitanya's movement is going on on other planets other than this planet. Is there some organized saṅkīrtana?

Prabhupāda: Yes. How other planetary system is going on, you do not know, but we can guess it is going on like this. Anumāna. Pratyakṣa anumāna. One thing is direct perception, another by guessing. Pratyakṣa anumāna and śabda and śruti, aitihya. There are so many evidences.

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

Prabhupāda: Film, yes. There are hundreds of bodies in the film, and when they are played, it seems that it's the same—one man is moving—but actually, in the film there are hundreds of bodies, but it is changing so swiftly it appears one.

Jay Warner: A man's eye cannot see it changing.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Jay Warner: A man's eye cannot see it change.

Prabhupāda: Yes. By nature's law it is changing every second in such swift way that we cannot understand.

Jay Warner: How does one give up the fear of dying?

Prabhupāda: There is no death. You change body. Because the body is lost, you are no more, you do not possess the childhood body, youth-hood body, that does no mean you are dead. You are living; the body has changed. But because we do not know the science, we think "The body is finished; therefore he's dead." Therefore you have to learn Bhagavad-gītā-na jāyate na mriyate vā kadācit. Find out the verse.

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

Hṛdayānanda:"For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain."

Prabhupāda: That's it. So as a lawyer, when there is some dispute, you refer to the lawbook. Similarly, when there is dispute how the soul is immortal, the body is changing, you refer to Bhagavad-gītā. You find it clear, na jāyate na mriyate, clearly said. Explain?

Hṛdayānanda: Purport? "Qualitatively, the small atomic fragmental part of the supreme spirit is one with the Supreme. He undergoes no changes like the body. Sometimes the soul is called the steady..."

Prabhupāda: (aside:) Just bring little salt.

Room Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Hṛdayānanda: He had become so afraid of death that he would wear a mask over his face to avoid germs, and he would be changing his clothes constantly, and he was living terrified of dying and losing his money. So in this way, in his last several years he became mad, just with the fear that he was going to die. (break)

Prabhupāda: What is your next publication?

Hṛdayānanda: Mine?

Prabhupāda: Portuguese and Spanish?

Hṛdayānanda: In a few days we will be sending to the printer a complete Portuguese Bhagavad-gītā and Spanish Kṛṣṇa book. I think within one week perhaps we will, in one or two weeks, we will send both to the printer.

Prabhupāda: Where is the editorial department?

Room Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Richard: Yes, but you still have a body at sixty.

Rāmeśvara: Death is another change of body. Life will go on. The example of life going on even though you are changing your body, you are experiencing within this one life. You've already experienced that your life goes on even though you have changed your body so many times. So death is simply another change of body. You have already experienced that you can exist even though you have quit one body and gotten a new body.

Prabhupāda: Now the point is that you are going to get another body. That's a fact.

Richard: How do you know that?

Prabhupāda: Now what kind of...? This is a fact, just like you have got already another body. Where is that child's body, where is that boy's body? That is finished. This is the proof.

Room Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Richard: It's always active at the same level?

Prabhupāda: Not same level, because you are understanding the spirit through the body. So body is changing. Just like the soul, when he's in the boy's body, it is talking so many nonsense things. But you don't take it seriously. But when you are grown up, if you talk such nonsense things, then you'll be taken as a nonsense, because the body has changed.

Richard: Okay, what I was leading up to was, her brain is dead, she has no...

Prabhupāda: Not dead, it is not working.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: What was that argument? (laughs)

Jayādvaita: He said that two fish are swimming in a tank, and one fish said to the other fish that there must be God because someone must be changing the water in the tank. So he was trying to ridicule that these fish are speculating something. But I just said to the students, "So this is a very good conversation. The fish is intelligent. There must be someone who is running the environment, nature." So he couldn't say anything against us, although he was trying to be a big atheist.

Prabhupāda: What was the point?

Jayādvaita: He was trying to show somehow that these foolish fish were speculating something just to make some story that would sound..., that this is a ridiculous thing to think. But it was a very sensible thing to think.

Prabhupāda: What is that sensible thing?

Jayādvaita: That the environment is being controlled by someone, not by us. So there is someone superior. So I just said that to his students, "So your professor is giving a good example."

Prabhupāda: In our favor.

Room Conversation with George Gullen, President of Wayne State University -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: No, the things is.... Suppose a person, by his right, has to get so much money from his father's property. If somebody does not give him that money or somehow or other checks him to get the money, so that's a very heinous act. If he is actually inheritor of the father's property, he must get it. That is justice. Similarly, in the human form of life, one can get this education. If this education is lacking, that means we are envious. We're not giving the opportunity of fulfilling the right. And without this education, there is chance of falling down. Just like tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). Another body you have to accept. If you do not give proper education, then next body may be lower than human being. There are so many different types of bodies, 8,400,000. So according to our mentality, we get another body. Nature's law. Nobody can check it. This life I may be very satisfied, that "I have got this body, let me enjoy without any responsibility and become an animal." That's not very good civilization. They do not believe in the next life. Big, big educated men, they have no brain even to understand that we are changing every moment the body, and they don't believe that body changes and the soul continues. Dhīras tatra na muhyati. Find out this verse.

Room Conversation -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Svarūpa Dāmodara must be the best candidate. Others, what they'll know about it? All other Ph.D.s, they are simply rubber stamped. Actually they have no knowledge. Svarūpa Dāmodara has solid knowledge. He has learned from us. Therefore he's writing all these books. He has rejected his so-called scientific knowledge. He has completely understood that so-called scientific knowledge is bogus, it has no solid background. Now he's writing books on this. Now this morning, last night also, I got hint from Bhāgavatam, I told you in the morning? The sun planet is first. And nobody can reply this, that "Why Sunday first?" Nobody has replied this point. Sunday, Monday.... First of all Sunday, then Monday. Why not Monday, Sunday? That is according to the planetary arrangement. The Saturn is the last planet. That is admitted in the Bhāgavatam. So sun is first, then moon, then Mars, then Jupiter, like that, last, Saturn. That is everywhere. So why the modern scientists changing it? The Monday first or moon first, sun second. Hmm? What is your reply. You sometimes support them.

Interview with Kathy Kerr Reporter from The Star -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: There is only one way. Just like the spirit soul is within you and within me. Your skin may be white, my skin may be colored, but within, the spirit soul, what is there in you, that is in me also. There is not change on account of the body. Therefore to understand that spirit soul, there is only one way. There is no second way. Because it is not experimental; it is already there. If it is based on experiment and observation, then my experiment, your experiment may be different. But it is a fact that the soul is there, and as soon as the soul is gone from the body, the body is a dead lump of matter. That you have to understand. And any gentleman, any sensible man can understand it, that soul is there although we are changing body. Just like you were a child. That's a fact. But where is that child's body? Now your body's different. Is it not a fact? What do you think? So where is that body, your child's body?

Kathy Kerr: It's material, I would say.

Interview with Kathy Kerr Reporter from The Star -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Material. When you were on the lap of your mother the body was so small. Now you are a young girl and you are.... So where is that small body? That means you have changed bodies. But your mother knows that you are the same, "My child." Because you have grown up or you have changed your body, your mother will not cry "Where is my child?" She knows that "My child is there, but she has changed body." Why these people do not understand this plain truth? Suppose you have come in this dress; next moment you come in another dress. But if I know you I'll not mistake because you have changed your dress. Similarly, we are changing our dress from baby to child, child to boy, boy to young man, young man to middle-aged man, constantly changing, every moment. Medical science also says. The blood corpuscles are changed every moment. So we are changing our body every moment. But still we cannot understand that on account of change of body, the living force within the body does not change. Is there any difficulty to understand?

Kathy Kerr: No. Does that mean then that the basic, your basic self, your basic spirit then, is innocent basically? Like if it's the same spirit throughout your life from the moment you were born on, then it is innocent and you can, you can achieve fullness...

Prabhupāda: Now first of all, let us accept that the basic principle is the soul. Now whether he is innocent or evil, that we shall consider later on. First of all, the basic power is the spirit soul. First of all we have to understand that the spirit soul is there always, although we are changing bodies. This first principle has to be.... But they do not understand. This education is lacking.

Interview with Kathy Kerr Reporter from The Star -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Kathy Kerr: Do you advocate then that one deny the body? Like comforts and so forth, in order to...

Prabhupāda: No, why deny the body? Just like you are putting some type of dress. So dress is not unimportant. But real importance is you, the person. So where is that education about the real person? They are simply engrossed with the dress. This is going on. Such kind of mentality is there even within the cats and dogs. He's also thinking "I am this body." If a human being does not understand this fact, that he is not this body, he is changing his body, but he is spirit soul, then he is no better than the cats and dogs. We do not want to keep the human society in the category of cats and dogs. We want to raise them to the real understanding of his identification. That is our mission. It is neither Hindu religion or Muslim religion or.... This is science.

Interview with Kathy Kerr Reporter from The Star -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: We cannot get many followers. Because everyone is under this impression, "I am this body." And to get him released from this conception is not so easy job. So we cannot expect many thousands and millions. Only selected fortunate people will understand it. But everyone can understand it. It is very simple thing. But the modern education has made them so dull brain, they cannot understand, neither do they try to understand. That is the difficulty. Matter, subject matter, is very simple thing. I am changing bodies, but in spite of my change of body, I am the spirit soul existing. This is the first understanding. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20), that I am not dead on account of my body being finished. My childhood body is finished, my boyhood body is finished, my youth-hood body is finished, but I am existing. I can remember that I was in such body, I was in such body, in such circumstances. When I was a child I was talking like this, I was jumping like this. But because that body is finished, I cannot do that. Now I have got a different body, I cannot jump like a child. This simple truth. But I know that I was jumping. That is not dream, that's a fact. But we are educated in such a foolish way that we cannot understand this simple truth. That has to be amended. Otherwise, there is no question of enlightenment in the human society.

Interview with Kathy Kerr Reporter from The Star -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Kathy Kerr: Do you consider that going..., your movement then is basically more of an educational movement than a religious movement.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Educational. It is religious, but it is not a man-made religious. Our idea.... I have already explained that our idea of religion means that like the sugar, it must be sweet. It is not that in Europe sugar is not sweet, in India it is sweet. Sugar, wherever it is, it is sweet. Similarly, the soul, the spirit soul is the same everywhere. So he, the spirit soul, is now embodied within this material body, and he is suffering on account of this material body. So we are teaching everyone how to get out of this material body and stay in his original, spiritual body. This is our real movement. This is another way..., another name is liberation. We are suffering within this body. Our suffering means on account of this body. So if there is such science how to continue our life without changing body, that science we are teaching. It is purely educational.

Interview with Kathy Kerr Reporter from The Star -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Kathy Kerr: So that means then that our society then gives certain people certain status just because of their job, that's not correct.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We must come to the correct position of our spiritual life, then it is perfection of life. Otherwise, they're ignorant. If the husband comes at home and the wife calls him by the name, "John, come here." "Oh, you are not addressing 'my lord,' " it will be ridiculous. He might be "my lord," in the court, but when he's in the family, the wife calls by the name. So our, with the change of dress we are changing our name, circumstances, thoughts, and everything. Therefore we find differentiation. American, Indian, Hindu, Muslim, black, white, this, these are all designation of the dress. And therefore we do not agree. As soon as I accept, identify myself with the dress, there will be disagreement. And as soon as we, everyone of us, we know that this is superficial, this is dress, I am spirit soul, then there will be agreement. Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu, find out this verse. Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu (BG 18.54). So without this understanding they have opened United Nations, keeping them cats and dogs. And they are simply barking, that's all. This is going on. For the last forty years simply they are barking. What achievement is there? In your country, who is the president gave the black man same liberty?

Jayādvaita: Lincoln.

Morning Walk -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: The problem is that we are suffering in this material world life after life, and our aim is how to again go back to home, back to Godhead. That they do not know. They are showing some mysticism. Stop death. Then I shall see your mysticism. What is this nonsense mysticism? Can you stop death? Is it possible? Then what is the meaning of this mysticism? All bogus. My problem is that I am accepting one body and suffering, because as soon as I get this material body, I have to suffer. Then I am creating another body. I die. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). And again begins another chapter. In this way, from this grass life to the demigods, I am simply changing body and dying and taking birth. This is my problem. So what mysticism will do? But that they do not know, what is the problem. That is clearly stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9). This is your problem. You are repeatedly taking birth and dying, and so long you are living there are so many troubles. Jarā-vyādhi. Especially old age and disease. So this is the problem. What mysticism will help you? Will the mysticism stop your birth, death, old age and disease? Then that is mysticism. Otherwise, what is the use of such nonsense things. (break) ...misleading from the real path. They do not know what is the aim of life, what is the problem of life. They create some mysticism, and some rascal people are after them. That's all. "Here is mystic."

Prabhupada Visits Palace and Garden -- June 22, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Kīrtanānanda: Many people come by every week to see what progress has been made. And everybody who drives by, they stop.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is something wonderful in this quarter.

Kīrtanānanda: You can drive fifty miles away around here and they'll stop and ask you about how's the palace coming.

Devotee: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Changing New Vrindaban. It is already organized, New Vrindaban? (in car:) Little further.

Kīrtanānanda: We're trying to clear all this now too.

Prabhupāda: This is ours?

Kīrtanānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Kīrtanānanda: It takes a long time to clear it, though.

Prabhupāda: Never mind. Do slowly, that is pleasure.

Room Conversation -- June 24, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Kīrtanānanda: Practically it is impossible to teach these older boys how to use bulls and how to... It is very difficult, they cannot do it. But I think if we train the children.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṛṣṇa Himself did it. He was king's son, Nanda Mahārāja. In the childhood, He was taking care of the calves, and when He was grown up, little, He was taking care of the cows. Kṛṣṇa personally showed it. His father could have avoided, "No, no, You don't go. The servants will go." No. "You also go." Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma, both. Balarāma has got the plow, tilling ground, and Kṛṣṇa has got the flute to enchant the cows. Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma. They were not sitting idly, although Nanda Mahārāja could keep Them without any work. No. They worked. From the beginning of childhood. They would come in the evening and mother would take care of bathing Them, changing dress, and then giving nice food, and after taking food They would go to rest. Whole day They worked. Kṛṣṇa never taught that you sit idly. No. Personally, He did not do so, neither He taught anyone. In the Bhagavad-gītā you'll find.

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

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It is said that while the śrutis embody the eternal truths of Hinduism, the smṛtis, which embody the rules of conduct need to be revised according to the dictates of the changing times.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Will such a stand be acceptable to all sections of Hindus, and if so, how can the new smṛtis come into being and who will give them sanction and sanctity?

Prabhupāda: The authority will give. Just like Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He is giving authority. The śāstra is giving authority. But in this age, Kali-yuga, it is full of faults, the ocean of faults. And Śukadeva Gosvāmī is giving direction,

kaler doṣa-nidhe rājann
hy asti eko mahān guṇaḥ
kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya
mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṁ vrajet
(SB 12.3.51)

So although in this age there are so many faults, it is like the ocean of fault, but still there is one very great advantage, that simply by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, one becomes purified. So this smṛti injunction we should take up, and actually we see all over the world how it is purifying all section of people.

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

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is this practical in the present context?

Prabhupāda: Yes. We are doing it. See. If anyone has eyes to see they can see how we are accepting the pāpa-yoni, so-called pāpa-yoni to become the topmost Vaiṣṇava, that is possible. Unless it is possible how it is being done all over the world? There is no consideration. The process is so effective that it is being done. They are taking it as a proselytization. But it is not proselytizing. Proselytization is superflous. If one is Hindu you make him a Christian, and you change the name. But what is the use of changing the name if you do not reform him about his character? Simply changing the name from Hindu to Muslim or Muslim to Christian, that does not make him better...

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: This next question is rather interesting. Question sixteen. "Is it not possible for all sections of Hindus, be they Advaitans, Dvaitans, or viṣiṣṭādvaitans, to come together instead of remaining isolated as warring factions?"

Prabhupāda: Yes. Dvaita and advaita. This is the process of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, to bring all the dvaitas and advaitas in one platform. To understand that he is essentially servant of God. The Advaitas, they are wrongly thinking that he is God himself. That is wrong, or not the proper way of thinking. How you can become God? God is ṣaḍ-aiśvarya-pūrṇam, full with six opulences, all-powerful, all-strength, all-beauty, all opulent. So this is artificial, to think to become God. And... This is Advaita. And Dvaitas, they think that one is different from God, God is separate from the living entity.

Interview with Mike Darby -- June 30, 1976, Wheeling, W. Virginia:

Prabhupāda: So it is the duty of the Christians. But they are also... What can I say? They are passing resolution according to the time, changing the instruction of Bible. How they can be fixed-up? Our standard is Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. We accept guru as representative of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If he speaks what Kṛṣṇa has spoken, then he is guru. Similar in Christianity, if they actually take care that whether one is speaking according to the Ten Commandments, if he is living according to the rules and regulations of the Ten Commandments, then he is guru. Why people accept them? Because they are ignorant, they do not know who is real and who is fake. But the standard is there. Take for example in the Bible, it is said "Thou shalt not kill." But everyone is killing. Killing is the business of the Christians. They are maintaining big, big slaughterhouse. We are maintaining cows here, and there are others, they are maintaining cows for slaughtering. Why? In these Commandments it is clearly said that "Thou shalt not kill." How they will detect? If they are violating themselves the laws, how they will punish the lawbreaker? "Physician, heal thyself." The physician himself is diseased, and he's going to treat other patients.

Arrival Room Conversation -- July 2, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: But they are simply interested with the pots. External. Bahir-artha-māninaḥ. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ durāśayā ye... (SB 7.5.31). They are thinking by changing the pot the advancement of civilization will increase. And that is going on. Just like America. You have got very big, big roads, nice cars, everything. You are changing the pot, but the eatable is the same.

Vipina: I heard a nice example given the other day about how living entities are suffering. A black widow, male and female black widow spiders, have sex life. After the sex life the female spider consumes the male spider, eats him alive.

Prabhupāda: What's that? Spider.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: Just see. I'm immediately going to become a dog, and I have to wait for millions of years. Just see. This is their nonsense. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), as soon as you give up this body, you get another body. The greatest scientist, Kṛṣṇa, says. And he says "Wait for millions of years." So shall I take Kṛṣṇa or the scientist? Kṛṣṇa says "Immediately," and you haven't got to wait for millions of years for a boy to become a young man. It takes few years. Does it require millions of years for a boy to grow as young man? By nature's way, it is immediately, a few years. Every moment, the body is changing. Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13). Anyway, fight with this ignorance. Kṛṣṇa consciousness means fighting with ignorance. That's it. Mūḍho 'yaṁ nābhijānāti loko mām ajam avyayam (BG 7.25). What is the next verse? You read it? That is very interesting chapter. You read the purport.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Evolution means material evolution, from chemicals.

Prabhupāda: No, no. It is not evolution. The species are already there, 8,400,000. Now the living entity is changing the position. The status is already there.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, but they don't understand that.

Prabhupāda: They don't understand. That is their foolishness.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So that's why we want to bring up this point that...

Prabhupāda: You can bring up. This is the position. Just like there are apartments are already there. Sometimes I am coming here, sometimes going there, but this is the position. I'm not fixed up. Similarly, living entity, as soon as he changes his mind, the apartment is ready. Here is your position. Again he changes, "Here, here is your position." They are already there. Not that for him especially being created. The species are already there. As soon as he fixes himself up particular species, he's transferred, daiva-netreṇa karmaṇā. He gets a similar body, "Come on, here, take this body." Yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61). These are explained. So he's transmigrating, he's not fixed up. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). He gets, by his desire, he gets a particular body. Then after some time he changes to another body.

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

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) just like we're opposing their theory. They are not absolute.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Science, science also, Prabhupāda, changing the subject level, science also comes to the conclusion that the stars and this universe have..., they die out and then they produce new ones, just like life cycle of the living body. So...

Prabhupāda: Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So in fact, one of the remarks of a scientist, Nobel laureate actually, in Harvard, Mādhava told me he was in American Association for the Advancement of Science. This professor is a professor in biology in Harvard, Boston. His answer was that, "In order to have man in this planet, the stars have to die." That means we come from the stars. The particles, from the stars, then the main involved from those molecules, that star, that come from the stars.

Prabhupāda: You do something. I can give you the idea. But it is fact. What ideas I am giving, that's a fact. Now it is up to you to put it (into) so-called scientifics. He'll... In future millions of years after it will create one living entity in the laboratory, so he's taking all the credit, and God is creating millions and millions already, He has no credit. You'll see their intelligence. What the people will gain even if you manufacture one life in the laboratory? So what is the gain? Why you are spending so much money?

Evening Darsana -- July 7, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Bill Sauer: Is that immediately after one dies you transfer to another body, or later?

Prabhupāda: Yes, body is changing every moment. That is the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā lesson.

dehino 'smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati
(BG 2.13)

Every body... Just like a child is changing his body to boyhood, boy is changing his body to youthhood, kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā. The young man is becoming old man. Similarly, when the body is no more endurable, then you get another body. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). This body is being destroyed, we are not destroyed. We living entities, we are nityaḥ śāśvato 'yam. We are eternal. The proof is given that the child is growing, getting the boy's body. That means the living entity is there, he has changed bodies. When a child is grown to become a boy, the father, mother do not think that "My child is no more existing." He knows "My child is existing, but in a different body." This is common sense. So we shall exist, we existed in the past, we are existing now and we shall exist in the future, but in a different body.

Evening Darsana -- July 7, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Eugene Thoreau: May I ask a question? Is it possible to aim at any form of personal existence after death?

Prabhupāda: Yes, you are personally existing, you are old man. When you were a child, you were person. When you were young man, you were a person. Now you are old man, you are a person. We are personalities continuing although the body is changing. You are not missing your personality. So therefore personality continues even when you change this body. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, in the Second Chapter. Kṛṣṇa says... Find out this verse.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13).

Hari-śauri: Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20)?

Prabhupāda: No, there is another verse where Kṛṣṇa says, "My dear Arjuna, you and Me and all these persons who are assembled here..."

Hari-śauri: Na tv evāhaṁ jātu nāsam.

Prabhupāda: Ah, that verse.

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

Hari-śauri: They think that transmigration only applies to human beings. Or in fact they don't even accept transmigration. They think that you've just got one lifetime.

Prabhupāda: Why? Transmigration for everyone. The Darwin's theory, evolution, it is like that, transmigration. The living soul is changing bodies, that's a fact. We can experience in our own life. The child is changing body to boyhood. The boy is changing his body to youthhood. So therefore it's a fact. The living entity is there within the body, and the body is changed. This simple truth they cannot understand. When a child grows up to become a boy, so what is the change? The change is body. But everyone knows the same child has become boy. Is it not? What do you think?

Guest (2): Well, when you leave this planet you go to sleep.

Prabhupāda: No, no, that is another thing. Studying, that a child is grown to become a boy, he has changed his body. Does it mean the living entity who was in the child's body is different from the living entity within the boy?

Guest (2): No difference.

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

Dr. Sharma: Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22).

Prabhupāda: Yes. Common sense. And we are practically experiencing. When the child has grown to become a young man, the mother does not cry, "Oh, my child is gone." She knows, she knows that "Here is my child. Simply he has changed his body." So this is a fact, that we are changing bodies but we are eternal. This is the conclusion. Tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13). So unless one is properly educated, where is the talk of advancing? So this is the beginning of spiritual education, to understand that the living entity is eternal and the body is changing. And then next question will be that if the body is changing, then this body will be changed, so after my death what kind of body I am going to accept? That is education. That is education. And if I remain blind, I do not care, and next life I become a dog, then what is the value of my present education? In spite of all education, next life I am going to become a dog or tree, then what is the value of my education? That education is not. Throughout the whole world perhaps we are giving this education.

Interview and Conversation -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: This is a spiritual movement, and at the present moment people are more interested with material improvement, but our real interest is... Not only our, every human being's interest should be for spiritual upliftment. Just like our body is there, and within the body I am the spirit soul, also I am there. So we are taking care of the body but not of the spirit soul. So the nature's law is that a spirit soul, changing in different position of the body, as we experience in this life, from childhood to boyhood, boyhood to youthhood, similarly, after giving up this body, we'll have to accept another body, and there are 8,400,000 different forms of body. We do not know what kind of body we are going to accept according to our activities and mentality. At the time of death the mentality will ascertain what kind of body we are going to get next. So these things are completely not discussed, neither they have any knowledge. So at the present moment the human civilization is a very risky civilization, so in order to save them from this state of ignorance, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is essential. It is not a sectarian religious movement, faith or sentiment. It is actually scientific movement. Here are many scientists present. They are also taking very seriously about this movement. So we invite all important men to contact us and try to understand the basic principle of this movement, how to elevate the human society to the proper standard of life and become peaceful in this life as well as in the next life.

Room Conversation with Scientists -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: Sometimes dancing is done here in peculiar method. (laughter). That is not desirable. The dancing, Caitanya Mahāprabhu is showing.

Rūpānuga: You have shown us the feet, changing of the feet with arms upraised, not with the back to the Deity.

Prabhupāda: They do it out of sentiment, but that is not very good.

Rūpānuga: Also they bump one another with the drum or with each other's bodies, they dance and they bump like this. That is not bona fide is it? It is very popular in our movement now.

Prabhupāda: They are inventing. What can I do? If you invent your own way...

Devotee: I have a question, Śrīla Prabhupāda. At what point is a householder to know when he should leave his family or her family?

Prabhupāda: After fifty years of age.

Room Conversation -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: Sthāne sthitāḥ... That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's recommendation. Sthāne sthitāḥ śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhiḥ. You remain your place, but engage your body, tanu, vāk, your words, and mind. Tanu-vāṅ-manobhiḥ. Engage all these things for Kṛṣṇa. So tanu means senses. You hear about Kṛṣṇa and act for Kṛṣṇa. Then vāk, automatically, words, and mind also. If you hear of Kṛṣṇa, you'll think of Him. In this way there is no need of changing the place, Sthāne sthitāḥ. Sthāne sthitāḥ śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhiḥ, prāyaśo 'jita jito 'py asi: "My Lord, You are Ajita, nobody can conquer You. But this person who has engaged his body, mind and words for Your service, he can conquer You." Sthāne sthitāḥ śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhiḥ. This was spoken by Lord Brahmā, that there is no question of changing position. Caitanya Mahāprabhu never says so, neither śāstras. But in a regulative way there are steps, brahmacārī, gṛhastha, vānaprastha, sannyāsa. But on the transcendental platform these things are useless. Simply engage in the service of the Lord. That is mukti.

Morning Walk -- July 12, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: But now they are changing.

Rāmeśvara: Yes, now they are changing.

Prabhupāda: That means no fixed-up idea.

Devotee (1): No sound philosophy.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But we also believe, but do we allow? We also believe in polygamy, but we don't allow it in our society.

Hari-śauri: Not for the time being, anyway.

Prabhupāda: We don't encourage sex life on the whole.

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

Prabhupāda: So there is no question of death for a spiritually realized person.

Interviewer: Is there any method for dissent within your movement? Or change?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Reform, you mean? Changing the teaching perhaps, to fit the times?

Rāmeśvara: Just like in the church, as the public mood is changed, they have compromised on certain issues like abortion, homosexuality, priests getting married. So she wants to know if in our movement there will be this arrangement also. (laughter)

Interviewer: Well, I didn't necessarily mean the specifics.

Bali-mardana: In other words the purity is maintained by... The system is perfect to begin with so it remains perfect by being unchanged. If the system is imperfect, you may always be questioning.

Prabhupāda: Yes. When the system is imperfect, then it has to be changed according to time and circumstance. But if the system is itself perfect, there is no question of... Just like the perfect system: the sun rises from the eastern side. So for millions and trillions of years the system is going on because the system is perfect. It doesn't require change, neither you can change. You cannot ask the sun to rise from the western side. So if the soul is eternal, it does not die or it is slain after the body is finished. But that is eternal fact. Destined in the past present and future, everything.

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

Prabhupāda: They expect like that?

George Harrison: Well, I don't know. I think the whole world's changing. Somebody said it's the pollution, leaves so much..., there's so much of the oceans now with polluted and with oil on the top, there's not so much evaporation anymore.

Prabhupāda: Not in the ocean. It is the sinful activities of the populace. That is real problem. They are all engaged in sinful activities. Especially this innocent animal killing. These are the all reaction.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: You can understand at any moment, but it requires little brain. Just like a child is growing or changing the body. A child is becoming a boy and the boy is becoming a young man. The body is changing, but the child cannot understand that his body's changing. Actually, the body is changing. So the young man's body is also changing, and the old man's body. Therefore the conclusion is that the body is changing, and the occupier of the body, it is the same. So on this logic, the occupier being the same and the bodies changing, it is to be concluded that when this body is changed, we get another body. This is called transmigration of the soul.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: This is the beginning of education, that you are a spirit soul. Because you are spirit soul you are changing bodies. This is the understanding, beginning A-B-C-D. So when the body is finished, annihilated, you are not finished—you get another body. Just like you have got this coat and shirt. If you change tomorrow, you come to me in another shirt or another coat, that means you are not finished. This science has to be understood. Then one can make progress about the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement.

Mike Robinson: I'm beginning to understand. What I'm finding difficult is, for instance, we see on Oxford Street a lot of people who are handing out Hare Kṛṣṇa literature. Now...

Prabhupāda: Yes, this is the literature, how to convince them about the spiritual life.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: This is going on, this is going on, because you are eternal. According to your work, you are simply changing body. Therefore you should be educated how to stop this business, how to remain in our original, spiritual body. And that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

Mike Robinson: Oh, I see. So if I gain Kṛṣṇa consciousness, I wouldn't have to have the threat of coming back as a dog or something like that.

Prabhupāda: No, no.

Mike Robinson: Can you tell...

Prabhupāda: Read that, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9).

Room Conversation -- July 31, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: No, he's undoubtedly very great Sanskrit scholar. He had written some book how to make the sacred thread, like that. How many knots should be there, how many... (laughter) Smārta brāhmaṇa.

Bhūgarbha: Now he's written another book to show how his line is changing. His latest book was about the five chapters of the Dasama-skanda, which is the rasa-līlā. That is his book now.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Bhūgarbha: So he's changing smārta, now he's turned different.

Prabhupāda: No, he has no training in bhakti.

Bhūgarbha: He said one nice thing. He said that without Jīva Gosvāmī's Ṣaṭ-sandarbhas there's no question of understanding Bhāgavatam.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Bhūgarbha: He made that statement.

Prabhupāda: I met him when he was in Delhi once.

Morning Walk Around Grounds -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Devotee (4): We're changing the design on this package, we have Gopal Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: But it is nice, why you are changing it? Unnecessary spending is not... (break) ...the sticks?

Devotee (3): From China.

Prabhupāda: What are in these bags?

Devotee (3): We're specializing in henna.

Prabhupāda: Honey?

Devotee (3): Henna. We're going to produce ten different coloring henna. (break) ...leaf of acacia making noncoloring henna.

Prabhupāda: Where you get?

Devotee (3): This is coming from India I think. But there's much acacia in France, and so we're going to pick it ourselves. This will make us a producer, which will increase our profit.

Bhagavān: Spiritual Sky is paying right now almost eighty thousand dollars a year to the association here.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Room Conversation with Professor Francois Chenique -- August 5, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: Oh. The definition of religion is just like law. Law can be given by the government. You cannot make law. If you make at home some law, nobody will touch it. It is not obligatory. But if government says "Keep to the right," it is obligatory. This is law. So religion, you cannot manufacture religion. Religion means the word of God. And if yearly or quarterly you change the words, that is not religion. That is not religion. That is mental concoction. Therefore we are presenting Bhagavad-gītā as it is. No change. Others, they are interpreting in their own way. That is not Bhagavad-gītā. That is something else. (to devotee:) Keep it there. He will take. In the words of God there is no question of changing. You cannot change. As soon as you make a change, immediately it is material; it has nothing to do with spiritual world. The same example, the law of government is one, and if you make change, that is not law. Government says "Keep to the right," you have to keep to the right. You cannot make "Keep to the left," no. That is nowadays happening—which edition of Christianity? There are so many. Therefore it is, the purport of Christianity is lost. That is lost. You have, what that verse I wanted?

Morning Walk at Niavaran Park -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: This is family relation. Ṛktha-haraiḥ svajanākhya-dasyubhiḥ. Ṛktha-haraiḥ(?). Their only business is that you earn money with hard labor, and they'll take away. Their business is to take away. And they have got legal right. Dāya, dāya-bhāga. The son has got the right, legal right, to take whatever the father has accumulated. Nobody will say "No, you cannot take." No, he has the right, and so far wife is concerned, her business is to extend your condition, material condition. When one is alone, brahmacārī, he has no condition, he lives freely. But as soon as he's married, so many obligations. Ato gṛha-kṣetra-sutāpta-vittaiḥ (SB 5.5.8), must have a nice house, must have good land, good source of income. And then if you have got house and good source of income, then you call friends to oblige them. Then get children, give them education, put them in nice condition of life, get them married, again grandchildren, and so on, so on. That means these material conditions which have embarrassed me, that business is very nicely done by the wife for increasing my embarrassment. Nowadays nobody takes responsibility of family. That is another thing. But marriage means to take so many responsibilities. That is another condition of material life. Then home, people are sacrificing so much for home, for country, for nation. That also will be finished with the end of this body. When the body's ended, you are no more Iranian or American or Indian. You do not know what you are. Even if you have got attachment for the country, you can become a tree in that country. If you become animal, you are slaughtered in that country. Dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), even though you have got attachment, on account of changing the body your situation is changing. So in this way Bali Mahārāja analyzes the whole thing, that "What is the use of all this?" Is he right or wrong, his analysis?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Very intelligent, perfect.

Evening Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Pradyumna: "Only the material body of the indestructible, immeasurable and eternal living entity is subject to destruction."

Prabhupāda: Yes, the body's destructible, but the spirit soul is not destructible. When you understand this point, then we understand what is spirit, and then spiritual culture begins. Without being convinced of this spirit soul, there is no question of spiritual culture. So the spirit soul is described as eternal. And the proof is given, eternity. Just like there are so many children. They'll grow up from childhood to boyhood, from boyhood to youthhood. The body is changing. This is very practical. But the spirit soul is there, the same spirit soul which was within the womb of the mother in a small body. Then coming out of the mother's womb, the same spirit soul is there, but the body is different. In this way, the body is being situated in different status, but we know that the proprietor of the body is the same. Is there any difficulty to understand? Anyone? The body is changing, that's a fact. You are young man. You'll have to become an old man like me. That means body will change. But so far you are concerned, you are the same.

Evening Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:
Prabhupāda: So this life should be utilized for purifying ourself from this designation. If you keep the designation then there is no possibility of purification. You'll get another designation. Now we are Indian or Iranian, next a sparrow or a crow or a tree or a demigod. Another designation. Just like the same, the child, a baby, on the lap of the mother, a baby, and another designation, boy, another designation young man, another designation, old man. But the spirit soul is the same. He's simply changing designations. So freedom means freedom from all these designations. I am spirit, ahaṁ brahmāsmi. I am spirit soul, my business is spiritual activity. So long we want to keep designation, you'll have to accept material body and suffer. So our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means to educate people how to become free from designations. Therefore we accept from any group. If I think that he is under designation... But our business is to make him free from the designation.
Evening Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Assurance is there. Kṛṣṇa says kaunteya pratijānīhi na me bhakta... (BG 9.31). If you remain a pure devotee, you'll never fall down. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti (BG 4.9). These are assurances. If you simply try to understand what is Kṛṣṇa, why does He come, what are His activities. Janma karma ca me divyam (BG 4.9). Simply.... This is cultivation, to understand Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa consciousness cultivation. And Kṛṣṇa assures: tyaktvā dehaṁ, you have to give up this body, but for a devotee giving up this body means no more accepting another body. And nondevotees giving up this body, tathā dehāntara prāptir, another body. That is the difference between devotee and nondevotee. One may say both of them are dying. Yes, they are dying, that's all right. They are not dying, nobody is dying, but changing the body. But a devotee's changing not to accept any more material body. The nondevotee's changing to accept another. That is the difference. And if you accept another body you will suffer, more or less, degrees. And if you don't accept material body then you become spiritually situated. Sac-cid-ānanda vigraha (Bs. 5.1), simply ānanda, eternally blissful. Very easy.

Evening Darsana -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Maṅgala āratik, bhoga āratika and sundara āratik, that's all.

Nandarāṇī: And changing Their clothes every day?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Every day.

Nandarāṇī: Bathing and changing of Their clothes and three āratiks. Once we have a separate place and we have devotees to maintain Them. We have been eager to worship Deities, so we planted tulasīs, so now we have sixty tulasīs, so we are looking forward to worshiping the Deity and having a good program for bhakti.

Prabhupāda: Here also you can do, but Atreya Ṛṣi thinks separate building. He thinks like that.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Why they're changing?

Parivrājakācārya: Because they're desert people. The sheep eat all the little green, and then they have to move on.

Pradyumna: Same thing as the Bible. When the sheep eat up all the green in that place, then they have to go to another place with their sheep. In the Bible the same thing. All that Abraham, Joseph...

Prabhupāda: Bible was produced here, in this desert. Jerusalem is not far away. Mecca, (indistinct), Arabia.

Parivrājakācārya: All they had to eat was the milk of sheep and goats and sometimes when they would camp near a farm they would have vegetables. Sometimes. And then the meat of the sheep.

Prabhupāda: And these dates. In the desert the date tree grows. Sometimes they eat camel also. Do they not?

Parivrājakācārya: Yes. But I don't think if they...

Prabhupāda: They cannot be strictly vegetarian; it is not possible.

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: No, what I mean to say, that kṣetra and kṣetrajña are depend on each other. If there is no kṣetra, there will be no kṣetrajña to stay.

Prabhupāda: No, no, no.

Dr. Patel: So you have got to look after that kṣetra, or what the kṣetrajña will be happy there to live there? I think I am not wrong.

Prabhupāda: No, you are right. Kṣetra is changeable. Kṣetrajña is permanent.

Dr. Patel: Permanent, but changing kṣetra may be kept till the kṣetrajña is there, presiding over it.

Prabhupāda: However you may try, antavanta ime dehāḥ.

Dr. Patel: Antavanta ime dehāḥ, that is right, but the anta may not be got too quickly.

Prabhupāda: No, it is not.

Indian: What is this (Hindi)?

Dr. Patel: Sagrada(?) is meant for only cough. (Hindi) Is Āyur-Vedic, very good medicine.

Indian: Where can we get some?

Dr. Patel: You can grow them here in this garden.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is very easy.

Room Conversation -- August 17, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Virus.

Guest: Virus. (Bengali) Now we know even the inanimate is animate, but by biology only it is changing. All the unanimate subject is slowly being transformed into animate. We are all convinced the whole process is the same. It's a terrific science now, biology. Latest, we have discovered. I am also working on biology quite a bit for all the virus disease and all. And we can eliminate them by only vacuum. My whole cure, they call it miracle and all is nonsense, it is only creating a vacuum which automatically takes away.

Prabhupāda: This biology will be complete...

Guest: When we accept this.

Prabhupāda: ...when you accept this.

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

Prabhupāda: Who?

Jayapatākā: The MLA. The local Member of Legislative Assembly. He was previously a little against us. But because our whole aṁśa (?) is for us, if he doesn't cooperate he won't get their vote, they want the development in their area. Also the...He is changing a little. Everyone is saying that our society is actually simply doing sincere work.

Prabhupāda: As they doing (?).

Jayapatākā: This food distribution has been very important.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Room Conversation with Endowments Commissioner of Andhra Pradesh -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:
Prabhupāda: Don't remain on the asat platform. Come to the sat platform. Asato mā sad gamaya. Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya. Don't remain ignorant. But unfortunately people are so absorbed in asat things they do not know what is sat. They cannot go to the sat platform. They cannot go to the light platform. And they are struggling like that. No solution. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). The government may change, but the men are the same, in darkness. What improvement will there be simply by changing government? The persons who are governing, they are in the darkness. So how, by change of government, there will be change of situation? I said in, where? That the United Nations is an assembly of dogs barking. Where did I say it? It was published in the paper. I said that if you keep them as dogs, and if you ask some dogs, "My dear dogs, please do not bark. Live peacefully," is it possible? The dog will bark. That is their business. So we are not enlightening them what is actually we are. We are keeping on this bodily conception. That is the dog's conception. And how there will be peace? There cannot be. Simply by agreement, by treaty, there can be any peaceful? No. Just like children. They agree, "Yes, we shall not fight." Next moment they'll fight. And again they will make agreement. This is going on.
Room Conversation with Endowments Commissioner of Andhra Pradesh -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Brāhmaṇas means they are teachers. Paṭhana-pāṭhana-yajana-yājana-dāna-pratigrahaḥ. So every temple should be educational center, and the brāhmaṇas should be engaged. They should be properly educated and they should teach others also. In this way, temple means education in spiritual life. And actually spiritual life is life. This material life, the bodily conception of life, is dead life. Aprāṇasyeva dehasya maṇḍanaṁ loka-rañjanam. This nice shirt you have changed because there is life. When there is no life, who is going to change dress? The body is there, but why you are not interested in changing the dress? Better interest... The sooner the body is thrown away or burned, better. So similarly... (break) There is a proverb that a vulture goes very high, but his ambition is where is a dead body. As soon as he finds a dead body, (growling sound) immediately. And we see, "Oh, how high he has gone." So what is the going up so high if your aim is to find out a dead body? And actually, these aeronautics, they went to very high, suppose they went to moon. But after going there they find, "Where is Moscow? Where is this?" The same vulture business. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is the only hope to give relief to the human society. So everyone should cooperate with this movement. Unfortunately, there are so many envious persons, they are writing against us, talking against us. They should be envious. Because they want to exploit, keeping the people in ignorance.

Room Conversation -- September 4, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: If stop then how their work will go on? They manufacture ideas and spend money. This is the difficulty. Everyone manufactures some idea. And break it, do it, dig it. Money is coming and they are spending it. They cannot adjust whatever is there. Big big ideas. Big big belly. And money we have to bring from America. "Give me one lakh, give me one lakh, 15,000. I make idea, you pay." So many rooms you can make showroom. Why breaking this door, breaking that door? Too many cooks spoils the broth. And repairing and, what is called, addition, alteration, will never stop. I do not know how to stop it. Now, the other, Yesterday that Viśvambhara said, you were here, no? Viśvambhara said, suggesting there should be raft (?) three feet high, seven feet high, this high... Everyone will suggest. And spend money. Any friend, you bring him, he'll suggest so that you may spend it. And wherefrom money will come? Oh, that is your look after. I am your friend, I am giving you good suggestion. Break it. Do it. I am your friend. You break your head. (laughs) There was a Mohammedan king, Raj Uddin or some... Nizamuddin. Nizamuddin there is a tomb in Delhi. He was poet. So if some friends come he would read some writing, and he will suggest, the friend will suggest, "Why don't you make like this." "Oh, it is good. All right." He'll do it. Whatever he says. And when he goes away, then again makes his own. So the secretary said, "Why you are changing?" "What can I do? Those... That is my friend. And that is nonsense; therefore I am again doing what I wrote." So we have to do that.

Room Conversation -- September 9, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Whatever your father and mother has chosen, that's all. He's your worshipable husband. This is the... This point I wanted to bring. And her father was surprised. "How is that? I got you married with an old man? Somehow or other, circumstances I was obliged. How is that you have picked up one young man?" He chastised her like anything. Then when he came to understand that the same old man has become now young man by medical treatment, then he was satisfied. So you cannot change. I have seen it. One, my father's friend, he was very old man. My father was also... He was at that time not less than sixty-five. But his wife died, and he was married with another young girl. But his sister forced him to marry. That "Unless you marry, who will look after you? You have no children." But I have seen that young woman who was married with that gentleman... In our childhood we used to called her didi. Didi means elder sister. So the relationship was very thick and thin. But that old man, not less than sixty-five, and this young woman, utmost twenty to twenty-five. She was serving the husband like anything. We have seen it. There is no question of changing or being dissatisfied.

Garden Conversation -- October 9, 1976, Aligarh:

Prabhupāda: And he has called Padma-locana. Similarly, this harijana movement is a farce because they remain the Cāmāra and Bhangis, and still they are called harijana. The same thing. No locana, but padma-locana. Everyone has got right. You can become the most advanced devotee. There is no hindrance. But they must be trained up as harijana. Not that artificially you simply rubberstamp harijana. Therefore that movement is failure. We have no objection to make anyone... Kṛṣṇa says māṁ hi pārtha vyapāśritya ye 'pi syuḥ pāpa-yonayaḥ (BG 9.32). Pāpa-yoni, lower class. Janma-aiśvarya-śruta-śrī, these four things, to take birth in high class family, janma, aiśvarya, to become very rich, and śruta, to become very learned scholar, and śrī, beautiful, these four things are there whose background is pious life. Otherwise, not possible. Janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrī (SB 1.8.26). So those who are just the opposite—means not born in very high class family, not... They say "accident." No, it is not accident. According to śāstra, karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa (SB 3.31.1), there is superior examination. Yamarāja is there. Now, this man is now dead, this soul is now changing body. What kind of body he'll get next? That is judged by the superior authority. Just like in the office a person is promoted. So his record is examined, how he has worked honestly to the interest of the establishment. All this consideration.

Garden Conversation -- October 14, 1976, Chandigarh:

Indian man (5): Mūḍha, you explained last night.

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is going on. That's it, that we should take advantage of this human form of life, and we must know what is our position, why we are in this material world. I am this body or so... So many things. This is called brahma-jijñāsā. But nobody is interested. That is the effect of bad education. And especially in the Western countries, they do not believe in the next birth. They do not believe, although it is very clearly pointed out by Kṛṣṇa, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā: (BG 2.13) "The body is changing from baby body, is coming, becoming a boy, a boy is becoming a young man, young man is becoming middle-aged man, and the middle-aged man is becoming old man." The body is changing every moment, and still, they do not believe. Every one of us, we know that we had a childhood body, a boy's body. Where is that body? That body is gone. I am existing, but the body is not existing. Therefore I have changed body. This simple word, they do not understand. Therefore they are called mūḍha. Kṛṣṇa is pointing out, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). Similarly, there is after this, after so-called death, the soul changes to another body, and He still further clearly says, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre: (BG 2.20) "After the destruction of this body, the person is not killed. He's not dead." Na jāyate na mriyate vā kadācit. These things are there, but nobody understands. And they're very good scholar, big, big student of Bhagavad-gītā. But these things they do not understand. And they're writing very, very big, big comments.

Room Conversation -- November 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Śarīraṁ vyādhi-mandiram. It is a temple of disease. The temple of di..., temple of miseries. Not only disease, there are so many other things. Huh? Mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ (BG 2.14), simply giving trouble. Śarīra-bandha, asann api kleśada āsa dehaḥ (SB 5.5.4). Deha, deha means kleśada, kleśada troublesome. They do not know this science. And they do not know how to get out of this body, there is no science. This is the only science Kṛṣṇa consciousness. They do not know this science, they do not know what is the real position, how troubles come, how we are suffering. Nothing of the sort. And our Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement is simply dealing with this, how to get out of this entanglement of the body. That is the only problem. And the materialistic person, they do not think it as a problem. Manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni karṣati (BG 15.7). We are dealing with the real problems, and others they do not know what is the problems, what to speak of dealing with them. Completely in ignorance, how the body is changing, why there are different forms of life, wherefrom they are coming. They do not deal with these things.

Room Conversation with Dr. Theodore Kneupper -- November 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Rich man you can become but for how long you shall be rich? The nature is so cruel; at any moment he'll take away everything. Then what is the use of becoming? No, you become rich man. There is no... But you should know that "Although I am rich, powerful, everything can be taken by nature at any moment." Mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham (BG 10.34). That is statement of God, that "Any moment... You try to become rich, powerful, and president or minister, that's all right, but any moment, I can take everything from you." So who will protect himself? They have no brain that "Whatever I have created, it can be taken at any moment." So what is that confidence? They have no inquiry even. That this is a fact. Either you become Napoleon, Hitler or Gandhi, or this or that, any moment everything will be taken away. "Get out." Not only that, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), you have to accept another body. And that is no guarantee what body you are going to get because fully under the control of nature. They therefore don't believe in transmigration of the soul. And that is very great botheration. They try to evade. But Kṛṣṇa says, God says, "You cannot evade. It is nature's law." Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13). Within your body the soul is there. On account of presence of the soul—you were a child; now you are a grown young man—the body has changed. You were a boy; now you are young man. So on account of presence of the soul, the body is changing. So when this body will be finished, the soul will exist. Therefore, naturally you have to conclude, there will be another body.

Room Conversation with Dr. Theodore Kneupper -- November 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So this is difficulty. If I say, "Here is a person who knows mathematics," why there should be... Any person who is interested in mathematics will welcome him. So similarly, here is Vedic knowledge. Vedic knowledge means real knowledge. Here is Bhagavad-gītā, the knowledge of God, but they misunderstand. They think, "Oh, we have got another God." How God can be another? So people should be sober, that we are giving books. They should understand. And it is accepted by the educated class, big, big professors, big, big philosophers. It is not blind faith. Just like this version of Bhagavad-gītā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ: (BG 2.13) "As we are changing body even in this duration of life, similarly, when this body is finished, then another body," so where is the difficulty to understand? But they will say, "It is Hindu idea." Fact we are presenting, that "You are changing your body. When you came out of the womb of your mother, the body was so small. And then little bigger body, little bigger body, little bigger body. Now you are full grown young man." So the body is changing, everyone can understand, but I can understand also that "I had so big..., small body and this body." Then body is changing; I am existing. Then where is the difficulty of the transmigration of the soul?

Dr. Kneupper: Many people do accept.

Room Conversation with Dr. Theodore Kneupper -- November 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: That depends on your philosophy. You are reading so many books. How do you select, "This is nice." That depends on your philosophy. But if you accept it that it is spoken by God, then there is no argument. But why should you accept it, spoken by God? You read it, whether how much logical, how much full of knowledge. Then you can say. The same thing. Just like Kṛṣṇa says, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ: (BG 2.13) "Within this body there is the soul, and because the soul is there, therefore body is changing." So anyone can... Any layman can understand. Things are there like that. So there is no difficulty. If we take, "Oh, this description, the transmigration of the soul-Hindu idea." Why Hindu idea? It is science. As soon as we consider it "Hindu," then it becomes sectarian. Then you will say, "I have got my Christian idea. Why shall I take your Hindu idea?"

Room Conversation -- November 24, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So all Indians are here. Now say what is the difficulty.

Devotee (3): Well, some things like changing of our duties, changing of our services.

Prabhupāda: So why you change? Consult.

Devotee (3): Well, they're wanting change, Prabhupāda. And they were not satisfied with that change, so, and they wanted to remain in that particular service.

Prabhupāda: Change is no rectification. If somebody is not working he should be trained up. Changing is another... If he is a fool, another fool will come. What will be the difficulty? You see? Change, of course, sometimes required but if you constantly change, the man is not trained up. That practice is not good. If somebody is not doing satisfactorily, then he should be trained up that "You should like this." And if you immediately change another that, that is not actually solution because all our workers, they are not accustomed to certain type of duty. They are devotee, after all.

Room Conversation -- November 24, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Change is no rectification. If somebody is not working he should be trained up. Changing is another... If he is a fool, another fool will come. What will be the difficulty? You see? Change, of course, sometimes required but if you constantly change, the man is not trained up. That practice is not good. If somebody is not doing satisfactorily, then he should be trained up that "You should like this." And if you immediately change another that, that is not actually solution because all our workers, they are not accustomed to certain type of duty. They are devotee, after all. So still, we have to do something, so one man requires little training. But whatever capacity he has got, he is posted, so immediate change, that is not very good management. Let him be reformed and whatever inability he has got, he should be instructed and he should be... And this, all of a sudden change, simply go on changing, nobody... "Rolling stone never gathers moss." A "rolling stone" policy is not good. So what is the difficulty? Keep the stone in a place and it will gather moss. And if you simply roll, it will never gather moss. If the man who has committed mistake, he should be reformed. He should be instructed. Sometimes I show your cleaners by myself, "Do like this." Change them, immediate change, that is not good management, and to make him competent in that way, that is management. So this policy should be followed, not that because he has done something not correctly he should be changed immediately. That will not help. Now discuss this point.

Evening Darsana -- December 3, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: The scientists' position denying God, do you think?

Mahāṁśa: It's always changing. They simply...

Vāsughoṣa: They feel great anxiety to talk about God. Once, about three years ago, I had met one big scientist from University of Chicago. Just a chance there was one... My father had invited me back home for something. The scientist was there. We got in a big discussion with him and his daughter. They were just saying, "We don't see God. There is no evidence of God." Even logically we could show them. They still didn't want to accept. It was so obvious to them. Ultimately they couldn't say anything.

Prabhupāda: What is their logic to deny God?

Vāsughoṣa: They don't have any logic. And ultimately, if we present our conclusions of Bhagavad-gītā to them, they are silent. They can't say anything but they still refuse. They don't accept it, but they can't deny it.

Prabhupāda: That is dog's obstinacy. The dog, however you ask the dog to stop barking, it will go on barking. Dog's obstinacy. Hm. What is that? I have taken.

Morning Walk -- December 5, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Te hitam. So it is not for all. One who is in confidence of Kṛṣṇa, a pure devotee, for him, not for the ordinary man. Ordinary man—"You do your prescribed duty." But they have no prescribed duty even. The people of this age, they are so fallen, they have no prescribed duty. They are simply engaged like animals-eating, sleeping, sex, and defense. That's all. Animal is engaged like that, eating, sleeping, sex, and defense. So we are being educated only like animals. We do not know the value of life, how nature is working, how we are changing our body. No education all over the world. Simply making plans how to eat, how to sleep, how to enjoy senses, how to defend, that's all. This is animal life. This is not prescribed duty. Prescribed duty is above this. From animal, one has to become brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, utmost, śūdra, like that. That is prescribed duty. And simply whole day working for eating, sleeping, mating, that is the business of the hog. Hog is also whole day working for eating, sleeping, and sex, and defense. Therefore śāstra says, nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye (SB 5.5.1). You should not live the life of a hog, viḍ-bhujām. Viḍ-bhujām means the stool eater. He is also working day and night.

Press Conference -- December 16, 1976, Hyderabad:

Guest (2): Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is desirable in human. Otherwise the animals are in darkness. They do not know what is God. But a human being, because he has got this human form of body, he can come to the light. So all the śāstras are for the human being, not for the cats and dogs. So if you do not take advantage of the śāstras, then you remain in the darkness. This is our position. The light is here. Just like apart from all other śāstras, if you take Bhagavad-gītā, it is the very brilliant light. It is not that changing. Five thousand years ago Kṛṣṇa said, what, that is still the same thing. Just like light. Millions of years ago, what was sun, the same sun is there. In the light there is no change. In the darkness there is change. If we do not accept the standard knowledge of Bhagavad-gītā, then we shall continue to remain in darkness and there will be no solution of the problems of life. This is our propaganda. Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means that we are asking everywhere, all over the world, "You come to this light and be happy." That's it.

Press Conference -- December 16, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: And we are not changing. Because five thousand years have passed therefore, we have to make some additional, no.

Guest (1): Then why should there be so many commentaries upon it?

Prabhupāda: They are rascaldom, that's all. Simple word, rascaldom.

Devotee: Rascaldom.

Prabhupāda: Yes. You cannot interpret on the words of God. You cannot interpret. Just like law. There is law by the government. You cannot interpret in your own way. You have to accept it. "Keep to the right"—no interpretation. You must keep to the right. That is law. If you say, "What is wrong if I go to the left?" Actually if one goes to the left, it is not very... But you cannot do it. As soon as you do it, you are criminal. You'll be punished. That is law. The dharma means dharmaṁ tu sākṣād bhagavat-praṇītam (SB 6.3.19). This is dharma. If you want a general definition of dharma, or religion, that is given in the śāstra that "Dharma means the law given by God." That is dharma. You cannot manufacture dharma. And because we are manufacturing so many dharmas, mental concoctions, there is no peace. And Kṛṣṇa therefore says that "You give up this rascaldom." Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66).

Press Conference -- December 16, 1976, Hyderabad:

Guest (9): The sections of your movement accept in that sense.

Prabhupāda: No, they have given up. They have purposefully given up, that "This religion and śāstra has killed our nation. Better give it up. Throw it in the water." This is the leaders' plea. Therefore they are changing. They have altogether rejected this.

Indian reporter: No, they don't reject. They give religious freedom.

Prabhupāda: What is freedom? That "Whatever you like, you do."

Indian reporter: No, not that.

Prabhupāda: So then what is freedom?

Indian reporter: Whichever religion I like, I am free to follow it.

Prabhupāda: This freedom means you can manufacture your own religion. And this is freedom. They want this freedom, that you can manufacture. Yato mata tato patha, as the Ramakrishna Mission says, that "You can manufacture your own way of religion."

Room Conversation with Indian Man -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Prabhupāda: That the any person, any living entity, he is not this body. That is the answer. So then two things. Suppose you are, I am, that I am thinking of this body, and at the same time I am thinking that this finger, I say, "My finger." Nobody says, "I finger." "My finger." Even a child he will say. So "My finger, my head, my legs." So what is that "my"? That is the question. The answer is negatively that that "I" or "my" is not this body. That is different from the body. Now what is the nature of that "I"? That is explained one after another, one after another, one, one. Because he has no idea. Every one of us... I am speaking, you are speaking. Theoretically we take, accept it that I am not this body. But practically I say, "I am this body." That is wrong. That has to be explained. And that is being explained. The question is one and the answer is one. There cannot be many questions or many answers. Answer is one. That answer is, Kṛṣṇa begins, that "As the body is changing, within our experience..." dehino'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). Very nice example. We are changing bodies. When you were born, there was no beard. Clean shaved or no hair. So that body has changed. It is not the same body. In which body you came out of the womb of your mother, that was a small body. That was a different body. This example given there. This body is changing during your experience of life. Similarly, after death the body will change, but you will continue. This is self-realization. It is not very difficult. The example is there. It doesn't take much time. The answer is one, and it is realized, say, within some minutes. So Bhagavad-gītā begins from self-realization, that "I am not this body."

Room Conversation with Indian Man -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Indian man: But questions remain the same.

Prabhupāda: No, no, not... Then it is explained, how you are not this body. In the beginning He explains, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13). Just like you see the body has changed every daily, per minute, the body is changing, imperceptively. But try to understand that you were a child, now your body has changed in a different body. But you understand, you remember, that "I was a child." But the child body is no longer. So you remember or not remember, the body is changing. This is the answer. This is self-realization.

Indian man: I am the constant change, the process?

Prabhupāda: You are not changing.

Indian man: Body is changing.

Prabhupāda: Body is changing. This is to be understood.

Indian man: Then who am I? Question is still hanging.

Prabhupāda: That will come next. The first question is this.

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

Prabhupāda: So we have got also the same theory. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati. (break) ...within water. So where is the difference? We also admit the forms of life begins from the ocean. Then plants. As soon as the water is dried, there are plants, trees. Sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati. Sthāvara means "the life which cannot move." So the trees, plants, grass, they cannot move. Then insects, then reptiles, then birds, then beast, then human being. In this way the living entity is changing body. So what is the difficulty?

Devotee (1): But they say that the human body developed right from these other bodies. In other words...

Prabhupāda: Evolution, from beast human body has come. That is the difference? Even there is difference, what is the idea?

Devotee (1): Well, they maintain that therefore man was not created by God, but simply by chemicals.

Prabhupāda: Rascals! Wherefrom the life came first? Wherefrom the life came from? When you find life in the water, wherefrom this life came?

Devotee (1): They say originally it came from chemicals that came together.

Prabhupāda: Rascal! Create from chemicals. Otherwise, beat them with shoes in their mouth. Why you talk nonsense? Create from chemicals, life. (break) What do they say?

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

Prabhupāda: Another place, Vaiṣṇava says, either he is businessman, or doctor, anyone, they are all madmen.

piśācī pāile yena mati-cchana haya
māyā-grasta jīvera haya se bhāva udaya

(Hindi) Ghostly haunted. And he talks all nonsense. Similarly, anyone who is in the material condition, he is a ghost-haunted man. So he can talk anything, all nonsense. Piśācī pāile yena... This is applicable to everyone. Anyone who has got this material body, he's ghostly-haunted. Therefore we are explaining that verse, that first treatment is how to get out of the clutches of this ghost which has attacked everyone. So ghostly haunted man, he's himself a victim of the ghost. How he can treat other men? He's also haunted by the ghost. This is the position. You may, one may say, "I am haunted by better ghost." That may be, but every one of us ghostly haunted. And śāstra says this is treatment. Tapasya. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā, yasmād sattvaṁ śuddhyed (SB 5.5.1). Sattva, our existence, is polluted. (break) ...the skin and bone. The skin and bone will continue so long I am in the material condition of life. Either bird's skin... Just like who was talking of evolution, who was? This disease of skin and bone will continue. Because the spirit soul is not the bone and skin. The Darwin's theory, he is putting that the bone is changing. The bone is not changing. You get different bones in different life. I am changing my position. I am going from one apartment to another apartment. The apartment not changing. I am changing apartment.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: According to my karma, I am sometimes residing in one apartment, in another apartment. This is going on. The Darwin's theory, the apartment is changing. That's not the fact. Fact is I am living entity. Tathā dehān..., Kṛṣṇa also says tathā dehāntara. Apartment antara. The spirit soul is the same. There is no change. That is spirit always. But according to his karma, he is going from this apartment, or this body, tathā dehān... That is the main point with the modern science and our Vedic knowledge. That is the main difference. They have no idea of the existence of the soul, and therefore say, "We are trying to make, we are trying to make." This rascaldom is going on. You cannot make soul. That is not possible. You cannot do anything. You cannot make even the body, what to speak of the soul.
Room Conversation -- December 28, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Everything is becoming a farce. (pause) What is that?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: These are just some letters I'm sending with Rādhā-vallabha to Los Angeles.

Rādhā-vallabha: When we reprint the Kṛṣṇa Book trilogy this year, the hardbound, I was wondering, could we put more pictures in the second and third volumes? Not changing, but additional.

Prabhupāda: Why increase cost?

Rādhā-vallabha: I don't think it would be that much. The first volume has over sixty pictures and the second one only has thirty-two and the third only has twenty-four. Anyway, anything we do will increase the cost but not so significant. Few cents. We were thinking that the Kṛṣṇa Books were originally printed many many years ago and since then we have a lot of nice paintings of Kṛṣṇa's pastimes that we could put in.

Prabhupāda: If you can give without increasing price, there is no harm. Or for this cents. Let us.

Room Conversation -- December 29, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Sa eva ayam yogaḥ proktaḥ purātanaḥ. "Therefore I am saying you again, the old yoga system. It is not that because the time has changed, I am changing." Somebody says, "Now it was spoken some millions of years ago, now it is modern ways, I am explaining in the modern way." That is not the system. The system is I am speaking the same yoga system. Yogaḥ proktaḥ purātanaḥ. And they are modernizing, making compromise. That is naṣṭa. That is the defect. Therefore we did not get any benefit. And in the modern countries, before me, so many yogis, swamis have been there for the last two hundred years. Not a single person became a Hindu. Now they are calling (them) "American Hindus." Why? Because it was lost. Rotten thing was given. Yogo naṣṭaḥ parantapa. If you supply something to me which is rotten and decomposed, such foodstuff, what shall I get benefit? Now they are getting benefit. Our mission is to put Bhagavad-gītā as it is. It is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission that He said, āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra' ei deśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Everyone of you become a guru and deliver these persons, these fallen conditioned souls. That is your business.

Page Title:Changing (Conversations - 1976)
Compiler:SunitaS, Mayapur
Created:07 of Aug, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=107, Let=0
No. of Quotes:107