Expressions researched:
"eggplant"
|"eggplants"
The importance of tulasī leaves is very clearly mentioned here. Tulasī plants and their leaves are very important in devotional service. Devotees are recommended to water the tulasī tree every day and collect the leaves to worship the Lord. One time an atheistic svāmī remarked, "What is the use of watering the tulasī plant? It is better to water eggplant. By watering the eggplant one can get some fruits, but what is the use of watering the tulasī?" These foolish creatures, unacquainted with devotional service, sometimes play havoc with the education of people in general.
They offered pungent preparations made with black pepper, sweet-and-sour preparations, ginger, salty preparations, limes, milk, yogurt, cheese, two or four kinds of spinach, soup made with bitter melon, eggplant mixed with nimba flowers, and fried paṭola.
Amongst the various vegetables were newly grown leaves of nimba trees fried with eggplant. The fruit known as paṭola was fried with phulabaḍi, a kind of dhal preparation first mashed and then dried in the sun. There was also a preparation known as kuṣmāṇḍa-mānacāki.
Other preparations included eggplant mixed with newly grown nimba leaves fried together, light baḍī, fried paṭola and fried rounds of squash and pumpkin.
Śyāma dasi: Prabhupāda, can you tell me what you want for prasādam today?
Prabhupāda: Yes. The same.
Śyāma dasi: Eggplant or string beans?
Prabhupāda: Whatever you like. You give me four capātīs, little rice, and little vegetable. That's all. Don't put much butter, ghee. Yes.
Śyāma dasi: Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes, pleasure. Pleasing taste. So Vedas say, raso vai saḥ. The exact Sanskrit translation of mellow is rasa. What is that?
Mālatī: Eggplant fried.
Prabhupāda: Oh! (laughter) All-attractive! All-attractive! You are becoming all-attractive!
Mālatī: No.
Prabhupāda: There are two millions types of vegetables and trees. Two million. What these rascals know? The botanists might have seen thousands, but two millions there are. (japa) So they are getting bitter melon?
Bali Mardana: They have got already.
Prabhupāda: Oh, that's nice. Bitter melon, eggplant, maybe this mankachu (?). They prepare. They will be very nice combination, yes. Buy one vegetable, you can eat whole thing. Yes.
Prabhupāda: (reading sign?) "Cow protection and God consciousness. Visitors welcome." That's nice. So, which way we shall go now? Cow protection, they are surprised: "What is this nonsense, cow protection?" Huh? Do they say? "Cow is for eating, and you are protecting?" There are falls?(?)
Nityānanda: Falls?(?) No. This is our small garden.
Prabhupāda: Fruits and flowers. No, only fruits. What you are doing, flowers?
Nityānanda: This is okra.
Prabhupāda: Oh, okra.
Nityānanda: And sweet potatoes. And we have eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers here.
Prabhupāda: They give daily some fruits?
Nityānanda: Yes. And then we grow potatoes too.
Prabhupāda: Oh, where? Which side?
Nityānanda: Well, the spring crop was already harvested. We have to plant the fall potatoes in a few weeks. We'll put them over there by the fence.
Prabhupāda: So it is nice farm. This is squash?
Nityānanda: That's a cantaloupe plant.
Prabhupāda: Oh, cantaloupe. You can grow cantaloupe here?
Nityānanda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: And also watermelon?
Nityānanda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: ...know how to make kichri?
Harikeśa: Yes. I made for you in Hawaii.
Prabhupāda: Ah. So do it today. Kichri and eggplant, fried, and some vegetables. That's all. I'll take between one, half past one. So begin about...
Harikeśa: Twelve-thirty?
Prabhupāda: Yes. I shall go this way or that way? Whose, this garden? Where is our temple?
Śravaṇānanda: Yes. It is written right there, it's written right there. They say the playing of football will bring one closer to heaven than the study of the Gītā.
Prabhupāda: Yes, Vivekananda taught this.
Śravaṇānanda: He said "Pull out the tulasī and plant brinjal."
Prabhupāda: Yes, he advised, better water what is called, eggplant tree, than tulasī tree. It will bring some fruit. What is the use of watering tulasī tree?
Hari-śauri: Why bother with something that is available even to the hogs?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Now, even if you achieve such thing, achievement, so where is the guarantee that you'll..., it will stay? The so-called achievements for sense gratification, that means body. The body is always troublesome. That day I was asking, "Did you taste the Birla's eggplant?" You said, "No, I could not take it," due to the body. So even things are there, the body will not allow you. There are many rich men, they have got money, but they cannot eat anything.
Prabhupāda: What is this Communist? If you are Communist, if you are equal to all your brothers, why you should discriminate? And our communism is that even there is a snake in your home, you must see that he is not starving. This is spiritual communism. Nobody likes snake. Everyone kills. But śāstra says, "Even a snake is there at your home, you must see that he's not starving." This is communism, perfect. What are these he is collecting?
Devotee: Eggplant.
Prabhupāda: Eggplant? (break) Not of the sun but of the mist, one who is driving away, "Get out!" Now, just see. He is becoming pure. Yāhāṇ kṛṣṇa tāhāṇ nāhi māyāra adhikāra. Immediately there is Kṛṣṇa, there is no more māyā.
Bhagavān: When they work in the fields, we have speakers all over the land, and they hear you chanting all day long.
Prabhupāda: Very good. This should be arranged with lemon juice. If you have got these fruits, there is no need of purchasing.
Bhagavān: The tomatoes are supposed to be as good as oranges. The tomatoes are supposed to be as healthy as oranges.
Prabhupāda: Yes. In our childhood, these tomatoes were called foreign eggplant, bilāti beguna. And because it was foreign, nobody will touch it. In our childhood we'd never eat the tomato. It was rejected by whole Indian Hindu culture.
Prabhupāda: And mix with mustard oil and this, what is called, eggplant. Eggplant roasted in the fire and put with little mustard oil, salt and chilis, it becomes very tasteful. So puffed rice and that, they take in Bengal. That is tiffin, for breakfast. Formerly they were happy simply by eating palatable dishes according to...
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Today they have become so rich they cannot eat.
Prabhupāda: That's it. Simply they can eat meat.
Prabhupāda: Anything fresh. Any cultivator, he has got little land surrounding his house and he's growing vegetables like squash, chilis, and some spinage, spinach?
Haṁsadūta: Spinach, śāka.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And...
Haṁsadūta: Eggplant.
Prabhupāda: Eggplant. And this banana. So whatever he's grown he takes in a basket, goes to the market, immediately sold. And they're all fresh. Collected in the morning, and it is sold by eight o'clock. All fresh vegetables. There was no export, there was no facility of transport. These rascals introduced transport. Big scale transport, this railway. There was no railway. So transport means this villager, instead of selling locally or one mile away, he will dispatch in Calcutta. The Calcutta people, they are sitting on table and smoking and printing paper money and exploit.
Prabhupāda: Dāl can be replaced with boiled potato.
Life Member: Boiled potatoes, yes, they are made. That is puri or paraṭā? Paraṭā is better. Ālu paraṭā.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Make Punjabi paraṭā.
Life Member: You will like that.
Prabhupāda: All right. And another thing, and sabji, dry potato with hing. What vegetables other? There is cauliflower. There is no eggplant? Beguna? I require little.
Hari-śauri: What about paṭolas?
Prabhupāda: Paṭola is nice.
Indian man: We should make something of eggplant.
Prabhupāda: Eggplant vegetable, yes. Fried.
Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be. Not only tulasī plant, any plant you cannot take. You cannot take any vegetables. There is agricultural restriction.
Dr. Patel: But I think tulasī can be grown in all the countries. Even in cold.
Prabhupāda: Little cold countries with little care.
Dr. Patel: England?
Prabhupāda: Oh yes. We have got tulasī.
Dr. Patel: You may have to keep it in hothouse during winter.
Prabhupāda: Yes. We make that arrangement. And what Vivekananda said, that it is better to water eggplant tree. Why tulasī plant? What you will get? Eggplant tree means you'll get some eggplant, begun. (Hindi) This is his culture. Make your body strong and stout by eating meat, and there is nothing to do with the...
Prabhupāda: Our philosophy is very difficult to understand. Suppose you are giving some medical relief, and if I say that "Why you should waste your time by giving medical relief? Why not give him relief from birth and death?" they'll laugh. Is it not? They'll laugh, that "What nonsense he's speaking? This man is suffering. He immediately requires." We don't say that "You don't give medical relief," but why do you forget the real business? That is our.... Vivekananda said, "What is the use of pouring water in tulasī? Better pour water in a eggplant saka. You'll get some eggplant." This is.... Vivekananda said. Eggplant is also a small tree, and tulasī... So if somebody is pouring water on a tulasī leaf for bhakti, he condemns him, "Why you are wasting time? Pour water on this eggplant. Tomorrow you'll get two." (laughs) This is karmī. "God is fictitious. God's service is another sentiment. Do something practical."
Prabhupāda: Give them sumptuous food. What is this? (laughter)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Nakaldana. Prabhupāda wants them to be properly fed.
Pañcadraviḍa: All right. You mean khicuṛi?
Jayapatākā: Those that eat, they are satisfied.
Pañcadraviḍa: I was told that we were doing it for everyone.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda suggested khicuṛi...
Prabhupāda: Make one khicuṛi, one potato, one eggplant vegetable. No, tomato-eggplant. Tomato.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Tomato. Chutney?
Prabhupāda: Chutney.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Tomato chutney.
Prabhupāda: It is very nice. And if possible, little paramānna.
Rāmeśvara: Because he is becoming friendly with the royal family. Actually he goes every day to the palace. They send a chauffeured Mercedes to pick him up every day. He spends four or five hours every day talking to the royal family.
Prabhupāda: It is great opportunity.
Jayatīrtha: It's the wealthiest family in the world, much more wealthy than Rockefeller.
Prabhupāda: He goes alone or with somebody else?
Rāmeśvara: For now he's going alone. They are very interested in haṭha-yoga also, and he knows something of it, so he teaches them. The prince and the princess have already become vegetarian.
Prabhupāda: And they are not making any chānā preparation?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Are they cooking anything with chānā in it? No chānā preparations? Chick peas.
Prabhupāda: Not...
Jayatīrtha: Cheese.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, chānā. (laughs) Yes, cheese, right, cheese.
Rāmeśvara: Sometimes they make one sabji with eggplant, tomatoes and fried cheese, very nice wet sabji. Actually that's one of the sabjis every day in the restaurant.
| Page Title: | Eggplant |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti |
| Created: | 26 of Jun, 2010 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=1, CC=3, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=16, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 20 |