Prabhupāda: Yes. This is the, in the fifth act, ecstasy. At night Caitanya Mahāprabhu would become mad in separation of Kṛṣṇa. He would dash His head on the floor. Sometimes He would write with His nails and sometimes He would go away. Although the house was locked, He would go away, and sometimes He would be found amongst the cowshed of Jagannātha Purī. Sometimes He would be seen in the seashore. One day it was so found that He fell in the ocean and some fisherman caught Him in the net. And as soon as He was in the net and the fisherman touched Caitanya Mahāprabhu, he also began to dance, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare. And his brothers, his fellow men thought, "Oh, he's caught ghost, haunted." So in the meantime, His secretary, Damodara Svarupa came to the seashore and he saw that the fisherman was dancing. Then he could understand that he must have some connection with Caitanya Mahāprabhu, (laughs) otherwise why this fisherman is dancing and Hare Kṛṣṇa? Then asked him, "What has happened to you?" He said, "Sir, I do not know. I am a fish-catcher. Now this morning I caught one big fish, and as soon as I caught I am haunted.
Floor (Conversations)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1967 Conversations and Morning Walks
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: So if we follow cautiously and sentiently these six stages of development, you come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness automatically. (break) ...study. This meditation and breathing exercise is not part of our study. Because we are following a method which is direct method. I will give you the example. Just like there is a skyscraper house, and there are staircases to go to the top floor, say, hundredth floor, and there is elevator also. So if you take advantage of the elevator, you reach immediately hundred floor within a minute, but if you go step by step, step by step, it will take hours. So this meditation process is not possible at the present age. This meditation was recommended, according to Vedic literature, in the golden age, when the duration of life was very, very long, people were peaceful, there was no disturbance. The exact version in the Vedas is kṛte. Kṛte means in the golden age, when everyone is pious. That is called kṛta-yuga, age of kṛta, very pious age. So in those ages people used to live one hundred thousands of years, and they were very pure, there was no sinful activity. In that stage, meditation was possible.
Prabhupāda: Yoga is a very broad term. Yoga means to connect with the Absolute Truth. That is yoga. Yoga means connecting link. So there are different varieties of yoga. Just like one staircase, it is the connecting link to the top floor. So that is, everywhere you can say staircase, but one who has crossed a few steps and one who has crossed a few floors, they are not on the same level.
Interviewer: I'd like to read one thing. This is evidently said by a man named Swami Śiva Premānada of New York's yoga center. He said, "If one has the time to put in about eight or ten hours a day for ten years, one might develop the power to see through a wall through meditation. I've seen people develop X-ray vision, but I've never seen the point of paying such a heavy price for it."
Prabhupāda: But I don't think it is practical that one can meditate for eight to ten hours or twelve hours.
Prabhupāda: When the result of the karma is offered to God, then it is karma-yoga.
Satsvarūpa: Swamiji? Can I make an announcement? Swamiji has said there are fifty important pilgrimage cities in India, but as far as we're concerned here, it's whatever city His Divine Grace is residing in. So right now it's Boston. And he will stay here so long as it's the best place to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So you have some taste for it. You can help us to keep Boston this city of pilgrimage. We need engagements for Swamiji. The universities will be closing... Well, some of them are almost already closed. But if you have any access to a nice engagement, a church or a club where people attend, please approach us and help us to spread in this way. Also we have a love feast here in the temple every Sunday at noon, and this is very sumptuous bhakti-yoga love feast with Indian delicacies that you'll certainly enjoy. So approach this way. We'll take collections at this time also. You can help us very solidly by putting in all that you can. Our next kīrtana is scheduled for Wednesday-Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—but it won't be, because it will be held at MIT instead in the student mezzanine lounge in the third floor at eight.
Prabhupāda: Wednesday there will be no meeting here?
Prabhupāda: She likes this... (microphone noise) But also marriage problem, one must have a choice. So if we force something, that is not (chuckling) good. At least, in your country it is not... Of course, in your country, the husband...the boys and girls are, I mean to say, not major, whatever the parents force, that is another thing. When the boys and girls are grown up, it is not possible. Just like in India, there was svayaṁvara. Svayaṁvara means the girl will select her own bridegroom. That was allowed to princess. Princess, highly qualified princess. So the father would make a challenge, that "This is the condition. One who can fulfill this condition, I'll offer my daughter to him." So this was generally amongst the princes. So there was great fight. (laughs) Just like Arjuna. Arjuna married Draupadī. You know the condition? Her father made condition: there was a fish on the ceiling and one wheel was circling. So one has to pierce the eyes of the fish through the hole of the circle. And he cannot see directly. He has to see down. There is a reflection in waterpot. In this way, he had to pierce. (laughs) "In this way, he has to fix, and in one stroke the eye will be pierced. One who is successful, my daughter is for him." So nobody could, except only Arjuna. He was such expert bowman that he... Similarly, Lord Rāmacandra also made... In the palace there was a big bow. It was all hardened, made of iron. So long standing it was there. So one day, Sītā was sweeping the floor, and with her left hand she pushed the bow. It was very heavy. Nobody could... It was very weighty, heavy.
Prabhupāda: Yes, very expensive.
Janārdana: Very expensive. They want a dollar sixty a square foot per year, which is very expensive. We are paying 49 cents a square foot per year.
Prabhupāda: Oh. I thought that because it is a downstairs floor, the restaurant can be started there.
Janārdana: Oh, you mean there's another place? You mean that storefront downstairs?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Janārdana: Oh, that place... It's a green color and the windows are covered with soap? The windows are painted white?
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. What is the description?
Satsvarūpa: Very excellent location, right downtown. The things wrong with it is that the temple area is no bigger than the temple area we have now, but the location is just the greatest. Second floor. Still, right downtown.
Prabhupāda: Second floor. So what is the rent?
Satsvarūpa: Three hundred a month. But we can do it as long as... Presently, Patita-pāvana is working and so am I, and sometimes the gopīs get some money. So we wouldn't have any problem as long as Patita-pāvana would continue to work.
Prabhupāda: All right, Kṛṣṇa will solve the problems. But the space is not lesser than this temple?
Hayagrīva: Hm.
Allen Ginsberg: Is there a stage?
Devotee: The stage has a..., there's a seat, there's a floor, and there's gradually little steps about six, seven steps and then the stage, where the platform, so on the steps people can sit also.
Allen Ginsberg: Yes, the more the merrier. So how long will we go? Did you figure?
Hayagrīva: Well, when, we have the auditorium till...
Allen Ginsberg: How long?
Hayagrīva: At least two and a half hours.
Allen Ginsberg: Okay, let's go through the whole two and a half.
Hayagrīva: Good, good.
Prabhupāda: So, how do you feeling about chanting?
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: (indistinct)
Devotee (1): This cord is not reaching well. You think perhaps it would be nice to keep it on the floor? (tapping sound) Not working.
Prabhupāda: Oh, there is no bulb.
Devotee (1): No bulb. Oh.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, you can set it here. I wanted that box covered, then I would have kept here.
Devotee (1): All right, I'll (indistinct) cover. Light bulb (indistinct). (devotee enters)
Prabhupāda: Yes. Pratyatoṣa. Do you know what is the pratyatoṣa? Prati, pratyatoṣa.
Pratyatoṣa: What is the translation, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Śyāmasundara: Yeah.
Mr. Arnold: Now in New Oxford Street, you can see it very easily. There's a Midland Bank, takes up the ground floor.
Śyāmasundara: It's right over here, isn't it?
Mr. Arnold: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: So, so long I am here, let us try some tangible, not simply proposal.
Śyāmasundara: Yeah. Now we've seen how nice places we can get, so we have to work on these other angles: the Indian community and George.
Mr. Arnold: The bank
Śyāmasundara: And the bank. There's... What about Mr. Gopal? Did you see him? He's very wealthy.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Parāsya śaktih..., parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). (Hindi) Originally cit-śakti. That cit-śakti is expanding. Just like we are..., rāmādi mūrtiṣu kalā-niyamena tiṣṭhan (Bs. 5.39). Kalā means part and parcel. So we are also part and parcel, but we are very small part and parcel. But rāmādi mūrti, they are bigger part and parcel. Just like if you throw one brick on the floor, so there will be so many small particles, big particles, this particle, that. They are all part and parcel of the brick, but one part very small atomic part, and one big part, this part, this part, then this part, then this part. So all, Kṛṣṇa is the origin, and everyone is part and parcel. Some of them are bigger and some of them are smaller. So Viṣṇu-tattva is almost like Kṛṣṇa.
Dr. Singh: This is my wife.
Prabhupāda: Ah, how are you?
Dr. Singh: And this is Mrs. (indistinct), one English friend of ours who is out..., who is...
Prabhupāda: So why are you sitting down?
Dr. Singh: Because I have a little problem in sitting on the floor, but she is all right.
Prabhupāda: Thank you very much for your humbleness. Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He has taught, therefore, that
- tṛṇād api sunīcena
- taror api sahiṣṇunā
- amāninā mānadena
- kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ
- (CC Adi 17.31)
- (indistinct) because here everyone is puffed up.
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: No more anxiety. That is Buddha philosophy. That means these philosophers are called fools and rascal, less intelligent. Would you like this advice, that you have got a big building, just like in London there is a big building, and he has got a policy anyway that he does not allow any tenant. Largest building in London, to save tax. But his point is different. In Bengali there is adage that (Bengali), that a man's utensils were stolen by a thief, so he became very angry, that "A thief has taken all my utensil. All right, I shall not purchase utensil. I shall take food on the floor. I shall take food on the floor. No more utensils. I shall not keep plates and utensils any more. I shall take food on the floor." This is philosophy. (break) We don't believe in so-called nonviolence, nonattachment, zero. No. We believe in everything, but if there is required violence, fight, "Yes, come on." Yes. Arjuna. No consideration, "The other side my grandfather, my father, or this or that.
Prabhupāda: Yes. No. Necessity you have to go and it is already done. And as soon as you step on the floor, the door opens. So those who are less intelligent, they are taking it as chance that "I came here. I wanted to go out. The door is by chance open." That is less intelligence.
Śyāmasundara: Oh. So before the necessity there is a plan. Previous to the necessity there is a plan. I see.
Prabhupāda: No, before the necessity, whoever we feel necessity, the chance is there. The arrangement is there. He knows that... Just like there may be hundreds and thousands of necessities, and for each necessity there is a planned performance.
Śyāmasundara: There is that saying, "Where there is a will there is a way."
Prabhupāda: But we... You can think of this willingness in different hundred and thousands of ways. That is known to God, and there is already plan. If somebody wills like that, the chance is given. This is plan.
Prabhupāda: Gradually try to convince him and let him read our books.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: We are in the same floor. He works on the physics side, I am in chemistry side, but we are in the same floor, fourth floor of the building. No, he is on the third floor. So Śrīla Prabhupāda is saying that prove the existence of Kṛṣṇa by the science of physics, your knowledge. So he asked me, how am I going to prove the existence of Kṛṣṇa by chemistry?
Prabhupāda: That requires your knowledge.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: (Hindi for some time, a few English words) (break) (Hindi for some time) (break) When the destiny of the people are to be controlled, there must be very, very intelligent man. That is Vedic civilization. There is standard aims and objects on which the people should be trained up. That is varṇāśrama-dharma. Viṣṇur ārādhanam. Worshiping Viṣṇu. This is the ultimate aim. So the whole society is divided into brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra, and brahmacārī, gṛhastha, vānaprastha, sannyāsa—departmental—and they are trained up. But the aim is viṣṇur ārādhanam. But they have no idea at the present moment. Viṣṇur ārādhanam, he has no knowledge. But the civilization begins on this point. Human being means he's meant for viṣṇur ārādhanam. Otherwise what is the difference between dogs and human beings? The western people, they do not know. They simply think that dog lies down on the floor, on the road... "We have got nice, best apartment. Therefore we are civilized." So that is their defect. They are trying to improve the condition of sleeping, eating. That's all.
Father Tanner: You see, I really don't know... I don't deny that, but I don't see the difference externally between that and brainwashing.
Prabhupāda: That, that, that, that... Suppose you are washing the floor of the temple. It is not external. Because there is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He's washing the floor or washing the dishes for Kṛṣṇa. So the consciousness is there. So actually, our life is consciousness. If your full consciousness is only for God, then you remain always godly. There is no doubt about it. If you make division, "so much for worldly and so much for godly," then there is difference. But if you dovetail everything towards the service of the Lord, then anything you do, that is godly.
Father Tanner: Would you think it is possible to hate the Deity?
Prabhupāda: Hate?
Prabhupāda: No. Anyone who knows that... That I have explained. That everyone is sitting on the floor. So everyone knows that he is not floor. He's different from the floor. Is it very difficult?
Bhagavān: No.
Prabhupāda: So this is knower. Similarly by common sense we can understand that we are not this body.
Yogeśvara: It says in the purport: "Now the person who identifies himself with the body is called kṣetrajña, the knower of the field."
Prabhupāda: Eh?
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Aha.
Yaśodānandana: This is, this was the old house which was used by nuns. And in the upstairs floor, on the complete top, there used to be some nuns that were dying there, very old nuns. And when they moved into the temple there was ghosts, still there, still there is there. There's one room, it still comes.
Prabhupāda: Comes?
Yaśodānandana: Yes. The ghost comes sometimes. They chant and put incense.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā? But she does not go away? Or does not do any harm?
Gurukṛpā: They don't let anyone sleep in that room.
Prabhupāda: Ah.
Prabhupāda: Therefore I say that a sensible man is that "I am controlled. I am controlled by some other agent of Kṛṣṇa. So why not be controlled directly by Kṛṣṇa." This is sense. I cannot be independent. Just like the government. If somebody says, "I don't agree to be controlled by you," then government will kick with police, with military. That is our position. We are being kicked by the agent of government, material nature. We are desiring in different way to become controller or enjoyer, and we are being offered different facilities, means different types of body, birth and death. So because they have no sense, they have accepted this process. So by the force of nature... "You wanted to desire. You desired this thing. All right, take this body. You wanted to eat without discrimination. All right, take this body of a pig and eat up to stool." That is nature's gift. So therefore he's changing. Ei rūpe brahmāṇḍa brahmite kono bhāgyavān jīva. He's going on changing, this dress that dress, that dress, that dress, that dress. But he's not in sense that "How I can stop this change?" That he doesn't know. Now, as Americans, they have so many nice facilities, but you cannot enjoy them. By nature's force, you'll have to change. What you can do? Today you are living on the twenty-fourth floor of this skyscraper, and tomorrow you may become a rat in that room. How you can change it? It is not in your power. The rat is also in the same room and you are also in the same room. Who has made this arrangement?
Prabhupāda: What is the difficulty? If I teach you how to cook, is it very difficult?
Satsvarūpa: Yes, we have to... No, we have to learn, though.
Prabhupāda: Then similarly, like that. Like that. I am doing that. I am teaching how to mop the floor.
Satsvarūpa: Then it becomes easy.
Prabhupāda: But I must know everything because I am a teacher.
Hṛdayānanda: So, for example, if I become a teacher at varṇāśrama, say, the first teacher at the varṇāśrama college, then I have to also become expert at how to fight, how to...
Prabhupāda: Whole...
Surabhi: Only hotel.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. With a hall, hall on the ground floor. Covering the whole land.
Prabhupāda: Not for the whole ground floor. First floor.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: On the first floor, one big, big hall.
Surabhi: Only hotel? One plan?
Prabhupāda: Yes. You have got the site plan of the land?
Surabhi: Yes, I have all the plans for Bombay.
Prabhupāda: Ah. Then you can make a sketch. (break) ...plan.
Prabhupāda: He came to Gujarati. No. He came to Baroda.
Dr. Patel: Then he studied Gujarati, but he did not know Bengali at all. And then he came... (break) What is that? (break)
Prabhupāda: (Sanskrit) From our childhood, if there was a rice grain on the floor, my father, er, my mother would ask me, "Take it and touch it on your head."
Dr. Patel: We were advised not to tread on the grains. (break)
Prabhupāda: Because by chance, if the grain is struck with the leg, she asked, "Take it and you touch it on the head."
Dr. Patel: That is the culture. That is real culture.
Prabhupāda: Means from the very beginning he understands anna-brahma.
Dr. Patel: Even it is not spoken, you practice it.
Prabhupāda: Just like when Kṛṣṇa is fighting. Kṛṣṇa is fighting, killing the demons. So that is also devotion, if you help Kṛṣṇa by killing demons, not that simply by chanting, you supply... Just like Bhismadeva. He even injured Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa took it very pleasant. Instead of throwing flowers, he pierced His body with arrow. So everything for the service. If Kṛṣṇa is pleased being pierced by the arrow the devotee will do that. His only business is how to please Kṛṣṇa. Just like, the example is given by Viśvanātha Cakravartī that when a man kisses a woman and bites her, she becomes pleased. Is it not? Is not a fact that that biting is pleasing? Is it pleasing? But sometimes it is pleasing. So one has to learn where to bite and when to... (chuckles) But if a rascal thinks that "Biting is pleasing. I shall bite always," then he is a rascal. (laughter) (break) ...lying down on the Yamunā beach, on the sand with His friends. And if we think, "No, there is no need of bedding of Kṛṣṇa. He was lying down on the Yamunā beach, so He will lie down on the floor." So is... That conclusion is very nice?
Yogeśvara: This is a man's story, if I may mention in this connection. Rūpānuga Mahārāja, one of our students, before joining the movement was a social worker. And he told me once a story about a particular case of a woman who was in a very destitute position. Her husband was in the hospital, she had five children, and one was... So many problems were there. And Rūpānuga was going and giving her her weekly money from the government, welfare check. And one day he came unexpectedly because part of his job was to see how they were using the money. And he found her there in her apartment with a strange man and drugs and alcohol on the floors and the children running naked, and he was obliged to stop giving her the money. Simply because there had been no proper use of it, there was no point in giving it. It was not doing her any good. To improve her situation superficially wasn't improving the situation at all.
Prabhupāda: You understand that?
Prabhupāda: No, no, if the body and the hand is the same, when it is cut, then it is lying down on the floor. So why there is no consciousness. His question is very intelligent.
Deshimaru: Because the hand is cut.
Prabhupāda: But it is hand. Why there is no consciousness?
Karandhara: It's part of the body. It should have its own consciousness if the body and consciousness is the same.
Prabhupāda: You say the consciousness and body is the same. So when it is cut, why there is no consciousness? Therefore the body is different from consciousness. Therefore body is different from consciousness. (French)
Prabhupāda: That is... That is all right. Light is here also, not only...
American Man: Light is here. Light is this table.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.
American Man: Light is this floor. Light is everything.
Prabhupāda: So that's all right. Then why do you say that you do not know God? You know God is light.
American Man: Because for me, God is merely a word. How can you explain God with a word?
Yogeśvara: I think you've been defeated.
American Man: No, no, I don't think I've been defeated.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Then that servant, while he was employed, there was an urgent business. The rich man said that "Tomorrow I am going. You must come and go with me." So suppose he was to go at ten o'clock. Then at nine o'clock a messenger came: "You are ready?" "No, just I am cooking. Then I shall finish my cooking, take my meals and then we shall go." So he was very angrily inquired, "So why you did not...?" "No, I am cooking." "Where you are cooking?" Now, he has three bamboos, and on the top there was a pot, rice pot, and he was giving fire here. So that rich man came and saw. "What kind of cooking this is?" "No, there is heat. It is going on." (laughter) "So how you do this, such a nonsense." "No, if the temperature from the lamp on the roof of the sky could protect that man, why not it will be cooking?" Then he could understand this is the reply. So that man was paid. So this kind of progress, cooking, three miles above, a pot, a little fire, it will not act. There must be proper adjustment of cooking. Then you can cook food and eat. A little smoke or little fire and three miles away the cooking pot, in this way, cooking is useless attempt. One must be serious to cook. There is method how to cook. If you don't adopt that method and if you cook in your whimsical way, you will never be able to eat. If you say, "I shall cook in my way," and if you adopt that process, will it help? Na siddhiṁ sa avāpnoti na sukhaṁ na paraṁ... So what are these things? (break) ...on the floor. But this instruction was for you, that you are keeping. I never keep my Bhāgavata on the floor. I keep always my head. So better you take it. (laughter) I keep my Bhāgavata either on this table or on the head and never on the floor. So that is for you. (laughter) Yes. Then next? (laughter) Yes. It is good, nice.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes. Unless you have got the necessary intellect, then you are no better than the animals. The animals have no intellect to understand God, but the human being has got that intellect. That is the distinction between animal and human being. (break) Sleeping, the human being also sleeps; they also sleep. Then sex enjoyment: the human being also enjoy, and the animals also enjoy. And protection from fear or becoming fearful—the human being is also fearful and arranges for protection, and the animal also does. So far the primary necessities of life, that is equal in animal and human being. But the human being has a special intellect developed than the animals that he can understand what he is, what is God, what is this cosmic manifestation, and what is the aim of life, how we should conduct. These things are prerogatives for the human being. The animals have no such prerogative. So if we do not utilize these special intellectual activities, then we remain animal. We do not make any development. So at the present moment they are improving the method of primary necessities of life—eating, sleeping, mating and defending. They are thinking the dog is eating on the floor; if we can eat on table, chair and nice dish, that is advancement of civilization. They are thinking like that. The dog is sleeping on the floor, and if we sleep in very nice apartment, very decorated, that is advancement of civilization.
Prabhupāda: This is covering of the beads because we put here, there may be some dust. So to show respect to the beads, we keep it covered. We do not touch on the floor. It is awe and veneration.
Jesuit: Well, I have kept you long enough. I...
Prabhupāda: No, you can keep me engaged whole day and night, (laughter) provided you have got time. We are meant for this purpose. If anyone can understand God consciousness, that is a great profit for us. Now our appeal is to everyone, every religious sect, that people are becoming godless generally at the present moment. So we should make combined effort to revive their God consciousness. Otherwise it is doomed. And there is no question of Christian God or Hindu God or Muslim God. God is one. So there should be no difference between the system. According to the time and circumstances, there may be little difference, but really if we can understand God, either through Christianity or through Hinduism or Muslim, that is our profit. That is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhokṣaje (SB 1.2.6). "That is first-class religion, following which, one becomes a lover of God". You become a lover of God. That we want to see.
Prabhupāda: There was a great devotee in South India. He was a treasury officer. So he took money from the treasury and constructed very nice temple. (laughter) Yes. Later on, he was caught, and he was put into jail by the Nawab. At that time the Mohammedan king, Nawab, he saw in dream that two boys, very beautiful, they have come to the Nawab: "Sir, what money he has taken, you can take from me and release him." So the Nawab said, "If I get my money, I can release him." Then, when his dream broke, he saw the money on the floor, and nobody was there. Then he could understand that he is great devotee. He called him immediately, that "You are released, and you take this money also. Whatever you have already taken, that's all right. And now this money also you take. You spend as you like." So devotees sometimes do like that. Actually nothing is private property. That is our philosophy. Īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam: (ISO 1) "Everything belongs to God." That's a fact.
Gurukṛpa: They are so dependent that if there is no electricity, where will they get water on the twentieth floor?
Prabhupāda: No, no, apart from that... There are so many inconveniences. There is no doubt about it. But he is thinking, "Now I have done this skyscraper building, it is my possession, and even though I go to hell, it will remain my possession." He does not believe next life, but he is thinking, "My generation." But if there is no next life, what is the question of generation? Who is coming to become your generation if there is no next life? Hm? "My son, my grandson will..." But who is coming to be your... Because there is no next life, everything is finished with this body, then who is coming to be your son and who is coming to be your grandson? The common sense. But they are so dull, they cannot understand.
Prabhupāda: No, you cannot see that the tree, wherefrom this tree has come. From the seed: you cannot see it? You are so blind? Why don't you see? Wherefrom this big tree has come? And such millions of big trees are on the floor. You cannot see it? Then you are blind.
Paramahaṁsa: It comes from that little seed.
Prabhupāda: Yes, everyone knows that.
Paramahaṁsa: But the seed came from another tree.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. But who has made this arrangement, packed up, millions of trees?
Paramahaṁsa: That's just part of nature.
Jayatīrtha: ...palace, fifty-five rooms. Each room is big size with a marble fireplace and the floors are marble and there's a marble winding staircase and several big rooms. And it's got its own chapel, very beautiful. And then the land is very beautiful, 250 acres, as far as you can see.
Prabhupāda: So it is worth taking?
Jayatīrtha: It seems to be. The price seems to be about the right price.
Prabhupāda: So down payment has been made?
Jayatīrtha: Yes, it's already... It's now in our name. It's been transferred.
Prabhupāda: And when they are moving?
Jayatīrtha: Some devotees have already moved.
Prabhupāda: Oh. It is vacant, vacant?
Jayatīrtha: Co-educational bathrooms.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: One bathroom. One residence, one bathroom...
Revatīnandana: The boys and girls live in the same residence on the same floors and use the same bathrooms. Practically there is no restriction on the association. They're not married.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Congress just passed a law that the health education, means the gym, gymnastic classes... Every day there's physical education class?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Must be co-educational. They must be. They passed a law like that.
Dharmādhyakṣa: Soon they'll get so disgusted with this association, they'll all want to become brahmacārīs.
Dr. Judah: I had an interesting dream last night, and after dreaming it, I woke up and stayed awake until I got up, until I was called at five. The dream was... It seems to be a mixture of the events that occurred last night. I was in a temple and doing kīrtana with a number of devotees, and in the middle of the kīrtana, a little child crawled in on the floor into the temple, and we all stopped and talked to the little child. And I'm reminded... And I thought, "Now what does this mean?" And I remember then. I was talking with Dharma just before I went to bed, and there was this little child that came in from next door there, and so he, we gave him some prasādam, and so I feel that this all got mixed together in this dream.
Prabhupāda: Dream means some mixed ideas.
Prabhupāda: Yes, I went to see the ambassador.
Ghanaśyāma: Yes, he is very favorable. The biggest book store in the world. They're so big, they have three blocks. They take up sort of like three blocks. And they have three levels, three floors. So we went to see the manager, the man who owns the whole book store. And he says, "Well, I only deal with rare books." We says, "Well, this is why we've come to see you." And he says, "I want three copies of every book."
Prabhupāda: Very good. So they have ordered?
Ghanaśyāma: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Very good.
Ghanaśyāma: Just in a matter of four, about seven to eight weeks over a hundred professors have taken your books there.
Prabhupāda: So everything is explained. If anyone wants to take advantage of it, he can take. We have got fifty books like this. Those who are interested in the science and philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they can read all these books. Otherwise, one can chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, That will also help. The human civilization means everyone shall try to become first-class man. This is human civilization, not to remain like animals. That attempt is lacking now. Here the civilization is that the dog is jumping or running, and human being is running in a motor car, and he is thinking he is more civilized than the dog. But the business is running. That's all. The dog is having sex on the street, and the human being is having sex in a very nice decorated apartment and therefore he is civilized. But the business is the same. The dog is eating on the floor and the human being is eating in a very nice table, nice dish, and therefore he is civilized. But the business is eating. The dog is trying to defend itself by barking or by teeth and jaws, and the human being is trying to defend the society by atom bomb, but the business is defense.
Brahmānanda: I was seeing in one of these Time magazines. On the rear page they're advertising a cigarette that is especially meant for women. It's a slimmer size. The larger size is for the men; the slimmer size is for the women. And the title of the advertisement, they show one picture of a woman cleaner, sweeper. She is cleaning the floors. This picture was taken in the 1920's. It was taken in Washington D.C. because in the background they show the capitol building is there in Washington D.C. So then they have a picture of a modern woman. She's sitting there looking very nice. And they say that "You've come a long way, baby." (laughter) Whereas in the 1920's you were sweeping the floors and now you're sitting on a throne.
Prabhupāda: "So you accept this cigarette."
Citsukhānanda: When we were first coming to this movement, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we opened Bhagavad-gītā. Myself, I read. I said, "I don't understand this." So I began to clean the floor, wash the dishes, cut the vegetables...
Prabhupāda: Yes, very good.
Citsukhānanda: And then by your...
Prabhupāda: Sevonmukhe hi jihvādau (Brs. 1.2.234). By service only. You can understand God simply by service. There is no other way. And the faith begins from the tongue. You see? Therefore it is advised that you chant and take prasāda. Then faith will come. Sevonmukhe hi jihvādau. It begins... The faith begins from the tongue. "Why?" People will be surprised. "Faith must begin from the mind, from the eyes, and why it is said tongue?" They do not know. That is also faith, that "Simply engaging tongue in the service of the Lord, I shall understand." So this is also blind faith. But actually it is happening. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and take{īūl prasādam. That's all.
Prabhupāda: Dr. Atmaram, that "We have simply learned how to bark like dog, but we don't care so many dogs are already barking." He admitted that if a man learns how to bark, people will purchase ticket and see him, and so many thousands of dogs, dog, are barking—nobody cares. This is scientist. You learn how to bark, imitate the dog, and you become important man. You have create one third fruit by mixing peach and plum, and one who is creating millions and trillions of fruits that is lying on the floor—nobody cares for that—he has no credit. These rascals wants credit for this most insignificant...
Satsvarūpa: They say their barking is an improvement on the original dog.
Prabhupāda: To another dog appreciates like that. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: No, no. This.
Saurabha: This will be garden also, but now we keep for storing because we need that for sand here.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: If we have to add a second floor there we can make it a BBT warehouse, exactly as per your directions.
Prabhupāda: And why not others? BBT warehouse, there are so many.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, a big room will be very good, so when we construct that, we can have a big hall.
Prabhupāda: Oh. That's nice.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh.
Saurabha: It has to be on the ground floor. We were thinking of making a godown there in the back, in back of the temple. When we build the temple, we build also a godown there.
Girirāja: Mr. Menon is willing to move upstairs.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Girirāja: Mr. Menon, who has a flat on the ground floor, he is willing to shift upstairs if we want to trade.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Let's have a look at his apartment today.
Dr. Patel: Then I think something should be done for you.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. So how many stories this building?
Saurabha: Three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Ground floor, eight.
Prabhupāda: Eh? How many we are having?
Saurabha: We have... Well, the height would come same as that. This is the limit now. They don't allow any higher building.
Girirāja: We could have had an extra story, but since the ground floor will be round and public gathering place, so we're making a little higher plinth in a higher ceiling.
Prabhupāda: Never mind. Do it nicely. And we cannot make garage like that? Hm?
Saurabha: Yes, we can make. How many garages do you want?
Prabhupāda: That we shall see.
Prabhupāda: No, plastering also.
Saurabha: But it comes to about eight thousand bags if I do the whole land like that around. That is the full thing, two stories. It comes to about eight thousand. And then there's always some extra for finalizing the floors...
Prabhupāda: No, no. I don't want to use this iron.
Saurabha: No, we don't require iron.
Prabhupāda: Simply brick. So in that way you still require ten thousand?
Saurabha: We require about eight thousand but it's best to apply for ten thousand. If we only need five thousand, we take that. They will give us that allotment.
Prabhupāda: Do it. (break)
Prabhupāda: In the European parks they do not allow to sit down on the grass. Do you know that?
Kartikeya: Yes.
Prabhupāda: In Paris I was trying to sit down on the grass floor. Immediately some policeman, "You cannot sit here." Bench. You can sit down on the bench. So here we think we can sit down little, eh?
Indian man (1): (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) There? (break) Harer nāma harer nāma harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21). (break) ...tamarind tree?
Kartikeya: Acacia.
Prabhupāda: Acacia. Gum.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Bodily conception life means misery and fear.
Brahmānanda: In Mauritius one of our life members, he's a contractor. He's constructing a hotel that has four floors. On one floor is the gambling casino, one floor is the restaurant, one floor is the cabaret, and one floor is the, also rooms for the women to stay.
Prabhupāda: Naturally people are not very much interested in our movement.
Brahmānanda: Because these four things that they are supporting, we are against.
Indian: I asked that pilot who was staying in our Bombay, Juhu land.
Prahupada: Ha ha. Mr. Sharma?
Indian: Not Sharma. That pilot. He's a pilot.
Indian man (4): The Indian people, when they see the Africans in the temple, singing and all that, they criticize, you know. They criticize us. They say, "Oh, you..." That boy, he told me. He read your Nectar of Devotion. Then he came to the conclusion... He read the story also of Mahārāja Ambarisa. So he used to go to the Hindu temple to clean the floor early in the morning before going to university. He told me that he went for one week and they never said anything. When he was going daily the temple, they told him, "Don't come here. Don't clean here. We don't want the African to come." So then he told me that "What should I do? I want to follow the Prabhupāda instruction. So what should I do? Prabhupāda said in his books that if one cannot do anything, simply he should go to the temple and clean the room." He was so serious. Then I told the pūjārī that "Why you are doing like that? He wants to serve the Lord. Why don't you let him serve? You want to keep out the inside the temple and throw the pots and the cigarette in the temple?" (?) So they criticize like that sometimes. They're simply imitating us.
Brahmānanda: There was a man yesterday at Dabji's house who was the brāhmaṇa who was officiating. He is a very much caste conscious brāhmaṇa, and although he and Shah were the first ones to meet you at the Nairobi airport when you arrived, in Nairobi, as soon as he heard your philosophy, he has never come. He came the first day only when you first arrived, and since that day he has never come. And yesterday I think he must have just come because Shah forced him. But he does not at all like our philosophy that brāhmaṇa by qualification. He is very staunch—"brāhmaṇa by birth."
Devotee (5): They always say the Africans could never become Kṛṣṇa conscious.
Prabhupāda: How they are becoming?
Prabhupāda: So that is explained in Śrīmad-Bhāgavata. So if Tīrtha Mahārāja is displaying...
Bhāgavata: Yes, Jayapataka Mahārāja told me he was there. He saw the construction, and it's going to be two stories high, 75 feet long by 30 feet wide, and they're going to have dolls on both floors, Caitanya-līlā.
Prabhupāda: Hm. That's all right. You can do.
Bhāgavata: But we should make different līlās, different dolls.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Modern men will understand Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by display of dolls.
Dr. Patel: What are the dolls you are talking about all this time? We don't know, sir. What it means?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Including that... And request them to come to our, one of the top floor. And as soon as the building is... They'll... In this way. (break)
Saurabha: ...plan and we make everything to submit to the municipality and then we will hear from them what is required and we will try to do that, whatever they want.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Saurabha: Now there is two things. We can make big apartments for which most people are anxious actually.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Saurabha: Those apartment buildings. Make them very opulent and big. They want... Some people told me they like to have apartments of 2,000 square feet for one apartment. It should have four big rooms, a kitchen, everything, very opulent. Like this we can have on one floor two of them. We can have 4,000 square feet on one floor. It is possible.
Prabhupāda: Do that. Do.
Saurabha: And then we make five like this, six, five or six. Then put... For those buildings one can get about 150. I think here at least 150 rupees per square foot minimum. I think it will... By the time we are having it built there'll be more.
Prabhupāda: So try for that.
Saurabha: Some buildings, it's already 175. Build a parlor so that each...
Prabhupāda: The tenants will advance money. If you open office they will pay advance. You can go on constructing. If not, we shall take money from Bank of America. (break)
Dr. Patel: You understand it; others don't. But they have got to.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...is saṁpatti... (break)
Devotee: Today they're going to put the steel on the second floor, and tomorrow they're supposed to start casting.
Prabhupāda: That "tomorrow" is daily put. Every day it is put "tomorrow." (break)
Devotee (1): ...of Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Dr. Patel: You have spread the steel on.
Devotee (1): The steel is now in?
Brahmānanda: The steel is there?
Brahmānanda: The steel is there?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They put it in yesterday.
Devotee (1): They'll be casting most of the floor today.
Dr. Patel: (indistinct)
Devotee (1): Every fourteen days we'll cast a new floor. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...the week days are set up.
Dr. Patel: We have our own information.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Prabhupāda: ....when he has gone to send (indistinct) that you have offered some room here?
Saurabha: No, well there was, on the floor space there is facility for a doctor, so he saw that on the plan, so he proposed that "Well, I'm a dentist, so I can give the devotees free service."
Prabhupāda: No, there will be no medical service in the building. (Hindi to some men) These quarters there is no such building, huh? Our, this pattern?
Saurabha: No. Not in Bombay, nowhere in Bombay.
Prabhupāda: (chuckling) That's very good.
Harikeśa: Well, he's actually saying that this is the task of science. He's not speaking about the idea of there's life or not in the sun. What he's thinking of here is, for example, a sensation. A sensation is an actual fact. Just like if..., there's a law that says equal and opposite reaction to actions. If I push some thing, some object, that, as this object is being pushed this way, there is simultaneously an equal and opposite reaction which is the force between the object and the floor, and the reaction comes in heat or friction...
Prabhupāda: Well, who made this arrangement?
Harikeśa: So that arrangement is a law.
Prabhupāda: Well, that law. Who made this law?
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Stock.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Books also?
Madhudviṣa: Doesn't it get wet down there, though, Jayapatāka?
Jayapatāka: There's another floor.
Sudāmā: And also up front, behind Bhavānanda Mahārāja, is also another storage which goes all the way up to the front of the ship.
Prabhupāda: Very nice.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: These seats go folding down also when not in use. They can go up or down.
Prabhupāda: It can go in the ocean?
Jayapatāka: What small little buildings?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We're planning to build them, one-story buildings.
Jayapatāka: (break) ...we should have a mosaic floor or a colored cement floor? What standard that should be?
Prabhupāda: Mosaic.
Trivikrama: Good standard.
Prabhupāda: (break) You can get mosaic tiles.
Jayapatāka: It is no cheaper. We make the mosaic ourselves. We manufacture here.
Prabhupāda: So digging must begin today? The men are there for digging? So Saurabha, you give one site plan immediately. Yes. And order bricks, that's all. Cement and sand we have got. (break) ...any living entity having a material body, he has got soul. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). Now preach this movement. (break) Begin also building there, like this.
Prabhupāda: Keep nice water, sitting place. They will take.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What kind of sitting place? On the floor with mats, or benches and tables?
Prabhupāda: Benches, table will be nice.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Better. Like in a South Indian house. The South Indian restaurants, they have those... Of course, those are fancy, like in Vṛndāvana. In the South Indian restaurant they always have a table with marble top. Then they put a leaf on it. Very nice.
Harikeśa: There is room down there. That big room can be used as like a restaurant.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Where?
Harikeśa: The next floor down on the end, where they sometimes have class.
Prabhupāda: Each flat.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Each floor?
Prabhupāda: Yes, each floor. Yes. But Tapomāyā, he does not see even that the water is... He is in charge of agriculture?
Jayapatāka: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Similarly, it can be understood how he is seeing, he is managing. He does not see.
Jayapatāka: Right now we only have about four or five men here that are managing everything. He is also purchasing all the things for the festival. The GBC's have been requested to give some men...
Prabhupāda: That means he has no time. Then why he says that "I am in charge." He is not in charge.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, we have been very fortunate. They have given us.... Just as you have this wing, they have given us the whole wing on the next floor above.
Prabhupāda: Oh, that's very nice.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's very comfortably situated.
Prabhupāda: Everything, water supply, everything is there? In the beginning I thought that "Such a big building. Who will come and live here?" (laughter) It is that Matsyāvatāra. You know Matsyāvatāra? Keśava dhṛta-mīna-śarīra, jaya jagadīśa hare. That one muni, he took water in his pot. He saw a fish. So after some time he saw the fish has grown, that it cannot be kept in that kamaṇḍalu. Then he gave more space. Then after some, he saw, He has.... "It is filled up." Again more, again more. Then he threw it in the ocean, and again still big. (chuckles) That is Kṛṣṇa. Pralaya-payodhi-jale dhṛtavān asi vedam **.
Prabhupāda: But it is not going to be four stories.
Jayapatākā: No. But five times as long, and two story. That means ten sides. On this, they got eight sides.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This, this building actually only has three floors.
Jayapatākā: Yeah.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not four floors.
Jayapatākā: So in that way, it's...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That one has two.
Guru-kṛpā: Half of it's kitchen.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This one has three.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That one has two.
Guru-kṛpā: Half of it's kitchen.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This one has three.
Prabhupāda: No, there are floors, ground floors.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That also has three, if you count the ground floor.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So that's three, plus six times longer
Prabhupāda: (break) ...just decorate green leaves and yellow flower. By chance? Rascals say, "By chance." It is coming by chance? Just see. Show me anything within your experience which has come by chance. Anything, whatever you like, show me, come by chance, which has come by chance.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So you can invent so many means of curing the danger. But as soon as the sun is there, immediately all mist is over. Similarly, we have invented so many medicines and counteractions for so many things. But if one becomes a devotee, all these troubles immediately.... That is the only one medicine. He has no more any inclination. Svāmin kṛtārtho 'smi varaṁ na yāce: (CC Madhya 22.42) "No more I want." And that is wanted. (break) ...asmi varaṁ na yāce. One should be fully satisfied: "No more I want this material disease. That's all. Enough of it." That mentality required: "I don't want anything material facility." Sannyāsa means that, that "I shall live with the minimum necessities of life and simply devote..." That is sannyāsa. "I shall become a sannyāsī and enjoy all material facilities"—that is not sannyāsa. (break) ...recommended that "If there is no need, don't take even cloth. Remain naked." That is sannyāsa. But because we have to preach, because we have to go the people, therefore some covering. Otherwise, this is also not necessary for a sannyāsī. Nothing. Lie down on the floor like the Śukadeva Gosvāmī said, and take water in your palm, no dress. Śukadeva was also not dressing, naked. That is the perfection of sannyāsa. (break) Where is Jayapatākā? (break) ...talk with this boy. He wanted to.... (break) ...make. He's offering a land. Did you talk with him?
Guru dāsa: Your name is man, and Dr. Patel.... You've been given a title, "Dr. Patel."
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda gave an example that if you see a note on the floor...
Dr. Patel: Only name of God has value.
Prabhupāda: Practical application.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda gave the example that if you see a note on the floor, three different people, one person sees it and ignores it, so he doesn't know the proper utilization of the thing. Another person sees it, picks it up and puts it in his pocket. He is dishonest. The third person sees it, picks it up, and seeks out the real owner. So there has to be Kṛṣṇa consciousness; otherwise how do we know who everything belongs to?
Prabhupāda: For our personal comfort, we, our students are lying on the floor. They are not using the money for purchasing nice furniture. No personal comfort. But if you say that "You are purchasing big, big car," yes, for going quickly to serve Kṛṣṇa. Our service is main point. If I can go and serve Kṛṣṇa within a minute, why shall I wait for one hour? So we take all advantages. After all, it belongs to Kṛṣṇa. They say that "We have manufactured." That's all.... But we say that Kṛṣṇa has manufactured. So they.... This philosophy, it is little difficult to understand by the dull men, that nothing is without Kṛṣṇa. Everything.... Īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam (ISO 1). Sarvam, when we say sarvam, how we can exclude this and that? Everything is in relationship with Kṛṣṇa, sarvam. Sarvam means everything. So how can you discriminate, "This is material; this is spiritual"? The discrimination is that when it is not used for Kṛṣṇa, that is material, and when it is used for Kṛṣṇa, that is spiritual. That is the explanation of sarvam. Just like a thief has stolen my money. The money will be utilized. He'll spend it. I am spending, and he is.... Then why he's criminal.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: You explained very nicely how these boys and girls, they will sit on the floor. What is the need to manufacture chair? So a civilization which is geared to unnecessarily increasing the necessities is simply glorified...
Prabhupāda: Wasting time.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That is not the real business of human life.
Prabhupāda: But they are thinking, "This is advancement. To sit on the floor is primitive, but to sit on the chair is civilized."
Prabhupāda: The child can understand, "Now, two finger and two finger, it becomes four finger." In this way we have to learn it. Therefore there are so many books. It is for the human being to learn. But if we simply remain civilized like cats and dog, then what is your advancement of civilization? There is no advancement. If you sit on this chair, and the others, they are sitting on the floor, sitting purpose is served. But if you say, "Sitting on the chair is civilized, and that is uncivilized," that is mental concoction. You have to serve your purpose. If by sitting on the floor you can understand what you are, that is civilization. And without understanding yourself, if you waste your time for manufacturing a chair, that is cats' and dogs' civilization. So that is going on. They are busy in manufacturing chairs, how to sit comfortably, without any knowledge that what is the value of life and what is life. This is going on.
Prabhupāda: Just like these boys, they are practiced to sit down. We have kept two chairs for the visitors. (laughter) We don't require. We can lie down on the floor. We can use only one or two cloths, that's all, throughout the whole year. We have no demands, only bare necessities. We don't smoke, don't drink. There is no expenditure. Don't go to cinema, don't read newspaper or ordinary magazines, nothing. We have got reading matter. Practically we are noncooperating.
Mr. Dixon: Practically?
Prabhupāda: Noncooperating.
Mr. Dixon: Noncooperating?
Prabhupāda: Which one?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The one while we were there.
Prabhupāda: Uhuḥ.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I remember they were doing the first, ground floor, I think you told them to.
Prabhupāda: They are completing.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What about the other side?
Prabhupāda: That side also scheduled to begin.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And Bombay also has to be finished.
Prabhupāda: Mm.
Hari-śauri: I saw this picture once that somebody had drawn. There's a man holding a sign saying "God is dead," and there's a big hand squashing him right on the floor, it's coming from the sky, it's squashing him on the floor, and his sign up on the side saying "God is dead."
Devotee (3): They say that actually there never was any God, it's just a belief that man had.
Devotee (2): ...revolutionary questions that you're asking because they never stop to ask... They say that you cannot accept any philosophy, why are they giving their philosophy? No one every thought to ask that question.
Prabhupāda: Hm? Everyone is rascal. Therefore I say all rascals. They have no sense. If you want me to pose your philosophy, why shall I not impose my philosophy? I've got the same right. Why should I accept yours?
Devotee (2): Philosophers are saying that there's no philosophy, but they're giving their philosophy.
Prabhupāda: If there's no philosophy, why you rascal propose some philosophy? Stop talking. (everyone laughs)
Prabhupāda: Simply faith, blind faith we do not endure. And therefore they are becoming godless. And gradually, if we do not understand factually what is God, then the whole human civilization will be godless. To become godless means again animal. That is the difference between animal and man. In the animal society there is no question of religion, faith, God. These things are not there. The human civilization, if it becomes like that, without any faith in God, without any understanding of God, then where is the difference between cats and dogs and human beings? They must know God scientifically. That is the actual aim of human life. Suppose the dog is sleeping on the street without any care whether a car is coming and smash it. He's also sleeping sound sleep. And we are sleeping in a very nice apartment. So after all, sleeping. And he is also enjoying sleeping, I am also enjoying sleeping. So do you think to change the, I mean to say, circumstances of the sleeping? I am sleeping in a very nice apartment, he's sleeping on the floor.
Dr. Wolfe: Prabhupāda, I told a friend, he's been a friend over the years, I tried to bring it home to him that we are not our body, and he said, "Oh, yes, and I cannot get away from the physical idea that I am this," and I said, "Your father is very sick now, and he may die at any time," he's very fond of his father, and when the father is dead and lying there on the floor and after few days he begins to smell, I asked him, "Is that still your father?" He had no answer for that.
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.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...can have so many engagements. Simply by making dress, we remain Kṛṣṇa conscious. Simply by cooking, we remain Kṛṣṇa conscious. Simply by cleansing the floor, we remain Kṛṣṇa conscious. Easiest method. Everyone can remain Kṛṣṇa conscious in any circumstance. Ahaituky apratihatā. It is not condition that "You have to become like this; then you'll become Kṛṣṇa conscious." No. In whatever position you are, you become Kṛṣṇa conscious. No extra intelligence required. Śrī-vigrahārādhana-nitya-nānā-śṛṅgāra-tan-mandira-mārjanādau **. Either you dress the Deity or you cleanse the floor of the temple, the same thing. You get the result the same. Tan-mandira-mārjanādau. Anything you do. Somebody is cleansing, somebody is chanting, somebody is cooking, somebody is printing, somebody is selling books—everything is Kṛṣṇa conscious.
Rāmeśvara: This building is only two stories, even though it has three windows.
Prabhupāda: No, no, why two story? There is ground floor, first floor, second floor, third floor.
Rāmeśvara: One of the floors has two windows, top and bottom. But it's just one floor. Someone went inside and looked.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Oh, that is not floor. There is no ceiling.
Rāmeśvara: No, just three steps up.
Prabhupāda: Anyway...
Rāmeśvara: All the instructions for the future-like you said that one day even we will have the government—how to run the government, everything is explained in your books.
Prabhupāda: Yes. I think like that. (laughs) Is there mention, "The slaughterhouse must stopped"?
Prabhupāda: The back building? That is a different building?
Śrutikīrti: No, yeah. This is condominiums, houses, for people living above, so the restaurant is just that one floor. That's what we would be purchasing, not the whole building.
Ambarīṣa: The kitchen is inside the big building.
Śrutikīrti: But it's very choice space. It's just two blocks from what's called the Ritz Hotel, which is most famous hotel in the country, they have in every large city. These pictures, that glassed-in area, that would all be just the serving area. Then the kitchen is behind the wall. There would be a large kitchen facility, where all the devotees would be cooking.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's the educational center of America.
Ambarīṣa: Academic center of the United States. So now we are fixing up the temple very nicely. We've spent about fifty thousand dollars putting in all new tile floor and a beautiful new onyx altar. Very, very gorgeous.
Prabhupāda: So it is framework or solid building?
Ambarīṣa: The building? It's stone, brownstone.
Prabhupāda: Oh, then it's nice.
Ambarīṣa: Very sound.
Śrutikīrti: It's in a very nice area in Boston. Commonwealth Avenue was the most aristocratic street in Boston. The temple is right there, just one block from downtown.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Not in the school, but in my family.
Kern: In the family. Any formal?
Prabhupāda: Not family. My mother taught us: if there is one grain on the floor, we shall take it, keep it on the head. It is God-sent.
Kern: Yes, and our mothers too, the same thing.
Prabhupāda: It is God-sent. The grain, food grain, it is actually given by God. You should not misuse it. This was the beginning of our training.
Kern: And then were you at the university or the school or somewhere?
Prabhupāda: Yes, Calcutta University. I was taught at the Scottish Churches College. All my professor's were Fathers and Reverends. Our principal was.... They were all Fathers. Mr. Scott.
Kīrtanānanda: They are constructing a... I have a big carpenter shop, a construction shop, a printing shop. And upstairs there will be a big hall for Janmāṣṭamī that holds seven, eight hundred people. There is another, that's our guesthouse building we're building there. You can see the top two floors, with the arches.
Prabhupāda: What is this? Another barn?
Kīrtanānanda: This is an oxbarn here.
Prabhupāda: No, this.
Kīrtanānanda: That tank? That tank we are making for grain storage.
Prabhupāda: Oh, much improvement. (end)
Prabhupāda: His palace will be different.
Kīrtanānanda: His palace will be where the building is now. We're planning to move Him into the new building next to the present temple, the four-story building. He will occupy the fourth floor for now. Then we will take down that old building and put up a nice big temple.
Prabhupāda: So why you dismantle, construct another?
Kīrtanānanda: The building is not in such good condition.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. As soon as the new temple is, move it; or you want to dismantle it.
Kīrtanānanda: The site is good.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, site is good.
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Gold wall paper.
Prabhupāda: One floor is like this. Very costly house.
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: They told me that the prasādam room floor alone, three hundred thousand dollars to build. And you have gotten the whole thing.
Prabhupāda: Everywhere it is so beautiful, nice, strong, and quite suitable for our purpose. Everyone is living. Still, big, big three, four rooms, not yet utilized. And climate also is nice, at the present moment, huh?
Hari-śauri: Yes.
Prabhupāda: I think the same climate here.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Actually, when there are so many skyscraper buildings, it is hell. The natural air is obstructed. In Bombay you'll see. If you are in the top floor you have got little facility; in the lower floor it is hell. If there are several skyscraper building, in the first floor, second floor, it is simply hell. No air. Simply you have to run on this electric fan. You cannot see the sky. Therefore it is meant skyscraper? What is scraper? What is the meaning?
Hari-śauri: It touches, touching the sky.
Prabhupāda: So you have touched the sky in such a way I cannot see even. (laughs) This is the result. You demon, you have captured the sky, so I have no opportunity to see even. Always electric light. Now we see the sky, the sun, how nice it is. This is life. Green, down and up, clear sky, sun, this is life. We get rejuvenation in this atmosphere. What is this nonsense, all skyscraper building, no air, no light? Jagato 'hitāḥ. The mind becomes crippled, the health becomes deteriorated, children cannot see even the sky, everything is spoiled.
Prabhupāda: This is the marble? No.
Kīrtanānanda: This is a marble base, this is what they cut on. Just to make it flat, it has to be a perfectly flat table. This is part of the floor for your study room.
Prabhupāda: Oh. This is marble?
Kīrtanānanda: Yes, this is all marble, but it is glued together in little pieces. Like inlaid. And this is the polishing room. (break) Take the rough marble and make it shine.
Prabhupāda: You have spent so much money. What is the price of this machine?
Kīrtanānanda: Well, there was a man, he was going out of business in Pittsburg, and I got a great deal of marble and all the machinery and everything for nine thousand dollars. It is very cheap.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Do you know how to work? No. (devotees laugh)
Prabhupāda: Therefore He is God. He's not dog like you, barking only and doing nothing. (Prabhupāda knocks on table or flooring) What is this stone?
Hari-śauri: Marble. It's a type of Italian marble, I think. They call it terrazzo. Something like that.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's very soft underneath.
Hari-śauri: They often put this on the facings of buildings, big buildings.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Comes off on the fingers, very soft stone.
Hari-śauri: In Detroit temple, that stairway that goes up, this is the same marble, marble steps.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Devotee (2): You cannot buy a devotee.
Prabhupāda: That is not possible.
Devotee (2): You can buy someone to sweep the floor, but you cannot buy a preacher.
Prabhupāda: No, that is not possible. So so long we remain devotees, our movement will go, without any check.
Devotee (2): Devotees should take over the world.
Prabhupāda: Yeah, that is... That is good for the world.
Devotee (2): Yes.
Prabhupāda: Oh, very nice.
Rāmeśvara: There will not be any noise here either, because this is the eleventh floor.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: So it's very peaceful for translating work.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. (pause) My Guru Mahārāja left alone, so he has sent so many gurus to take care of me. You are all my Guru Mahārāja's representatives.
Bali-mardana: We are guru dāsa.
Prabhupāda: So you are taking care. I am very much obliged to you. I sometimes think in my childhood I was very, very pet son of my father. I have admitted that in that book I told. My father was not very rich man, but still, whatever I wanted, he would give me. He never chastised me, but full love. Then of course I got friends and I was married, so by Kṛṣṇa's grace everyone loved me. (laughs) And I came to this foreign country without any acquaintance.
Rāmeśvara: You can walk around.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We can show you.
Rāmeśvara: On each floor it is like that.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Every floor has about twenty-five to thirty rooms.
Prabhupāda: Not only this portion.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, all the way round.
Bali-mardana: The long part is in the front. It goes all the way down.
Prabhupāda: I shall take my massage.
Devotees: Jaya, Śrīla Prabhupāda. (end)
Prabhupāda: During Truman's?
Rāmeśvara: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: These are the kind of tables we want to put on the balcony. Remember I showed you that place, our patio on the third floor. So I want to put those kind of tables in the restaurant.
Rāmeśvara: Like a snack bar. (break) ...problems in New York is in the schools they cannot control the violence. The students are very violent. They sometimes fight their teachers.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: When I was going to school, I grew up in New York, here in Manhattan, twenty years ago probably, and sometimes there would be children's gangs, and they would come in and beat the teachers.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. Still more?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. "After the sermon, more chanting. Now it really becomes frantic, and even compelling. Many curious first-time visitors begin to take up the mahāmantra chant. The hard-core group at the shrine seems to be completely carried away. The terrazo floor literally vibrates. Gradually the crowd begins to thin. Other things are happening in the center. On the third floor there is a traditional Vedic play in costume, acted with enthusiasm." (sound of kīrtana)
Hari-śauri: It's going downstairs somewhere, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Ādi-keśava: They're getting everybody together to go out on saṅkīrtana party.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It says here, "On the second floor there is a store which attracts many visitors who want to buy Indian costumes, jewelry and the movement's books. Prasādam is served in the basement restaurant. Visitors eat at tables in the same area where monks had breakfast on the floor. The prasādam features Hindu dishes served in the compartments of plasticized paper mess trays." Then it goes on. Now there's another article about you. Why are they holding a kīrtana now?
Ādi-keśava: They're getting a kīrtana party together to go out on hari-nāma down at Times Square (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: Hmm. What does he say?
Prabhupāda: It was stolen by that caretaker, a black man. He expected some monthly remuneration.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The same thing happened at our temple here. They were employing one man for cleaning the floor. So after a while I told them "Now fire this man." So anyway, they fired him. As soon as they fired him he stole a big air conditioner, worth five hundred dollars. Anyway, he came back later and we got the air conditioner. I caught him and I said "Now bring it back," and I sent a devotee with him and he brought the air conditioner back. (pause) "Hall of Minerals and Gems."
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They are having a big exhibit of minerals and gems, Museum of Natural History. One thing about this museum, it can give Bhāradvāja many ideas for doll exhibits.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee (1): It says "Watergate." Watergate Hotel.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Which floor did you live on?
Prabhupāda: And I was trying to purchase one house here.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Which floor did you live on, Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: I think third floor. And there was an electrician, he was my friend, one Jewish gentleman.
Devotee (1): You would walk on this street?
Prabhupāda: Yes, I was taking bathing there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Where did you... Did you sleep on the floor?
Prabhupāda: Yes, I had little platform. So on that platform...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You are the most bold person in the whole world, Prabhupāda.
Devotee (1): We will never be able to do what you have done.
Prabhupāda: Alone I was doing that. And then gradually one or two boys began to come.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Did any of them come up here who are still with you now?
Prabhupāda: No.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: There's moisture in the air and rain, like that.
Hari-śauri: They have a lot of hurricanes there, don't they?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: A few. But no place is perfect within the material world. (break)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: On the fourth floor we're going to have doll projects. Doll exhibits. So there's an open balcony up there and I want to do something like that, see up there with the glass, the balcony?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I want to do that. Because there's an open balcony right on the street side, enclose it with glass, it would be very popular. After going to see the doll exhibits people can sit there comfortably take, you know, rest on the bench. And it can be seen from outside so it will be indirectly an advertisement. You'll see that there are people sitting there. (break)
Prabhupāda: Oh. (pause) (break)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We can return back now. This one is older, this is new. There are twice as many floors in the same amount of space. It's actually double. (break) ...think there's an advancement in living conditions. Seems to be worsening, but they're taking it as advancement. (break)
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: About the same as Mercedes. Ten thousand.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Nandaki, is it as good mechanically as a Mercedes?
Devotee: No, I don't think so.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Mercedes is very sturdy.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The comfort's better.
Prabhupāda: You can give chair.
Cline Cross: No, I'll sit on the floor. I'll sit this way.
Jayatīrtha: You sure you're comfortable this way? We can bring a chair.
Cline Cross: Yes, I can... No, a chair would give the wrong atmosphere.
Prabhupāda: So you are observing our movement?
Cline Cross: Yes, really for the first time at close quarters.
Prabhupāda: First time? We are here for the last seven years.
Cline Cross: Yes, I know a little about you, but it's only in the last hour that I've really begun to learn.
Jayatīrtha: We showed him the movie,
Prabhupāda: Your paper is Observer. Why did you not observe for the last seven years? (laughter)
Bhagavān: There are three hundred devotees who want to carry you. But I mean there you will not have people coming if you want to rest. There are no.... There are only planned people who would come. But there won't be hundreds of Indians coming to see you. And you have.... Right next to your quarters there's your own private kitchen also, so everything's very close at hand. All your servants quarters are.... That whole floor is.... Actually the whole castle is empty, so there's no noise.
Jayatīrtha: It may be very nice for you there.
Bhagavān: Your quarters.
Prabhupāda: We shall go immediately?
Jayatīrtha: I think that, Srila Prabhupāda, you should not feel obliged in any way to go. Only whatever you think is best for your health condition.
Prabhupāda: No, obliged, I am always obliged to you. That's a fact. Yes.
Jayatīrtha: We are only obliged to you. That's a fact. That is the actual fact. It must be decided, though, what you think is best for your health situation.
Prabhupāda: Whatever you decide.
Gurudāsa: Just like they said that the children sleep in the basement. That's because it was in the hot summer. Everyone goes to the basement in the summer in Dallas.
Mukunda: The kids don't feel any difficulty at all sleeping on the floor. Children are naturally austere. It's just after you get to a certain age that conditioning affects you.
Devotee: They say they live without furniture. (laughter)
Gurudāsa: They're prejudiced about those things.
Jayatīrtha: They have to eat with their hands. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: You have got the last copy of Seventh Canto?
Hari-śauri: Seven, Three?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: I think five, six stories.
Hari-śauri: Oh. You just had the shop at the bottom.
Prabhupāda: Bottom shop and the first floor, I took my...
Harikeśa: With a garden.
Prabhupāda: Not a garden, but there was some vegetables.
Hari-śauri: Few plants.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Not bad. For me, it was very convenient, come down immediately to my down storefront. And some boys were living in the storefront. There was a sink in the storefront, and for toilet I allowed them sometimes in my bathroom. Not some, only two or one. So he was washing my dishes also. In this way, I was living.
Hari-śauri: That was Mukunda, or...?
Prabhupāda: So in the morning you can give. We have got other mung dāl? Soak it, soak it, and raw mung dāl also. Ginger and this cucumber.
Bhagavān: When we installed the Gaura-Nitāi Deity last January, many villagers came, and they all came, they were touching the floor, they have never seen such a nice floor, how smooth it was. (laughing)
Prabhupāda: Such marble floor they never saw. (pause) (break) ...who has paid you more than five thousand dollars and he has joined, that does not mean that he's a foolish man. He's a businessman. So what about his business? Leased to somebody else? He leased out to somebody else?
Bhagavān: He's finished.
Prabhupāda: Oh, stopped that business?
Prabhupāda: That is rascaldom. Truth is one.
Translator: He says in terms of knowledge, one has a higher knowledge of that truth and one has a lower.
Prabhupāda: That is different thing, but truth is one. Just like top floor is one. And one has gone few steps, another hundred steps, one has got ten steps, that is depending. But top is one.
Bhūgarbha: Can he find the truth on his level, because he hasn't arrived at your level.
Prabhupāda: How he can? If the top floor is hundred steps, how you can get it at ten steps?
Prabhupāda: So you make your formula, I mean to say, plan and scheme. So far how to do it, that instruction I give.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Now in this house you will see, this house, the plan is that the house, the first floor will be kitchen, restaurant and a store. A little section for store. Store will have Your Divine Grace's books, records, tapes, japa-mālā and some sweets, prasādam that is made to go, to sell.
Prabhupāda: Who made sandeśa? It was very nice.
Hari-śauri: Nava-yauvana's wife, Mañjarī.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Yes, she can make sandeśa. And some of these products also can be stocked there. Once we start and it is successful, then we can grow.
Prabhupāda: He knows how to make kacuri.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Otherwise I was thinking, we have a vacant old flat of Menon on the ground floor. I discussed it with Girirāja, and I just wanted to, I was waiting for you. If you like that, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we can convert. That is construction office. We can move the construction office somewhere else, and we can give you that whole flat on the ground floor. Girirāja and I both thought it was a good idea, but I just wanted your approval. We can do that in half a day. It is right on the ground floor.
Hari-śauri: That would be very nice.
Prabhupāda: Small.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, but it is on the ground floor. That's the only advantage. In Vṛndāvana the guesthouse is all completely renovated. S. K. Samani came from Bombay, I showed him around Vṛndāvana, and he booked thirty rooms for ten days in September and October. Oh, it's first class.
Prabhupāda: Mr. S. K. Samani?
Prabhupāda: Sixth. So we are finishing fifth only?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We are finished will be six stories. Pardon?
Prabhupāda: Only fifth, up floors?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, you can't go more than that. This is near the airport. Now they've introduced a new law that you can't go even below this. What we did is the new law has just come into effect, and so we did the slabs in the night.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: There's a new law which reduces the height even further. You can't have any big buildings in Bombay now.
Prabhupāda: Why?
Prabhupāda: No, before Deity everything.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They can do it.
Prabhupāda: (counting floors) One, two, three, four, five, six? No?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It's five, including the ground floor it comes to six.
Harikeśa: One, two, three, four, five, six. From the ground floor it's twice as high.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. (all chant japa) (break)
Prabhupāda: We are, some space is due to us on account of giving up the road?
Saurabha: That is already calculated. That is given to us already.
Prabhupāda: Given?
Prabhupāda: And they get cheap money and women and that's all. That is their business. (Bengali)
Gurukṛpā: He has a temple. The whole third floor of his house is a temple. He has Sītā-Rāma, Kṛṣṇa, Gopāla. He has big temple. They have saṅkīrtana every night. Every morning and night.
Guest: (Bengali conversation)
Gurukṛpā: That Raṅganātha temple is that temple where they do not allow us in. So Sampat Kumar and all of these paṇḍitas, they will sign one letter trying to request them. Also with the Purī people. To request them to let us in. While they are all here they will do that. Also Sampat Kumar was thinking that in November and December in South India the weather is nice because the rainy season is finished, and it would be a very good time to go and visit many of the temples. He personally knows many people in all the big temples. Shri Rangam, Kañcipuram, Maha Balipuram, Tirupati. They could arrange for receptions and programs.
Prabhupāda: (Bengali) South India, Indian culture is still there. Other parts of India, they are not now Indian.
Gargamuni: Well, the only thing is with these flats in Calcutta, they are so mismanaged, these new places. They become a slum in two months. In Bombay the flats are managed nicely, but in Calcutta when they build a new one, within two months the whole thing is filthy dirty. The elevators don't work. It's not worth purchasing a flat. I have one now. I am renting. It's on the twelfth floor, and the members of our traveling party stay there. There is nice water and so many things. But the building is so mismanaged. Who wants to stay there more than a year? We need our own place. Then we can keep it clean and nice.
Prabhupāda: Where is that own place?
Prabhupāda: All sides open.
Saurabha: Yes this is open. Well, we have arches here, just arches. Now we are finishing for the temple the second floor slab. That should be finished at the end of the month, and then one more month, the main slab of the darśana-maṇḍapa, and then we start towers, which we already started now precasting. We have rings. We make rings which we put up later, one by one.
Prabhupāda: Oh, it is by ring.
Saurabha: Yes, we make rings out of concrete and then we... With a rod we keep holes in it and then we just put them on top and it's... Because for Māyāpur, we get into Māyāpur we trying it out if that is possible to do that there, because there are so many domes. This system is very practical because you can cast at site, and then with a crane you bring it up and then it's fixed. Because this short ring, to make a tower on top of a building is very troublesome.
Prabhupāda: This ring, concrete ring?
Saurabha: Yes, concrete. Reinforced. Most of the rings are one foot and some, when it is straight, you make two feet. It depends. Then all the guest rooms we have marble on the floor, because that is very much liked in Bombay especially, to have marble. The halls, they are kota stone.
Prabhupāda: So there is proposal to provide a bank?
Saurabha: Yes. I have the area already marked out. There's about four or five banks that are very interested.
Prabhupāda: Which bank are these?
Saurabha: The Indian Overseas Bank. That is the bank most interested at the time now. Then the State Bank of India.
Saurabha: Of course, the location is excellent. It is... This is... There's two towers, and here is the road. Here is that, our road, going to our land in the back. Here is the main entry. Here is the temple in the back. So these two on the ground floor are meant for bank. So people can come right from here, and here is an entry. So place is the best for the bank. So they all want that place. So you think State Bank of India is the best?
Prabhupāda: No, as you think?
Saurabha: I don't know very much, but Gopāla said that the Indian Overseas Bank is an upcoming bank as well as Syndicate Bank, so they may be more eager for this.
Prabhupāda: Syndicate Bank is not very...
Prabhupāda: Syndicate Bank is not very...
Saurabha: I also think to have a big bank is better.
Prabhupāda: Big bank is better. And who pays the best price.
Saurabha: The best. And also the facilities. Now, in the floor we start tiling, the basement floor... Under the Deities there we have a basement. So there we have started the flooring, tiling, and now we have decided on all the other parts of the building, for the stone. So they promised, they guaranteed, that at the end of this year the building—that means the guesthouse—will be completed. And of course, that includes the temple. The only thing which will definitely go on is the marble work, the carving. That is a very big job. But that we can always continue. That is mainly outside work, finishing. So that we get the inside ready for the opening.
Prabhupāda: ISKCON Juhu? That is sufficient address?
Prabhupāda: That time wanted? That is finished now. Don't bother.
Saurabha: All right. Because I spent a lot of time in trying to arrange that.
Prabhupāda: That was not successful. That's all right.
Saurabha: No. That work is going nice also, isn't it, flooring especially.
Prabhupāda: Marble.
Saurabha: In New Vrindaban.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Let them do their own.
Saurabha: They practically do everything themselves.
Prabhupāda: Ah, yes.
Saurabha: That is their greatness.
Prabhupāda: Model room? What is that model room?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: A model, sample.
Girirāja: We're going to fix one of the rooms on the first floor with all of the furnishings and everything just as it will be when the building is complete. But there is still other work going on. So it couldn't be used for living, but it will look just like a finished room. And Acyutānanda Swami is doing very nicely. He attends maṅgala-ārati every morning, he gives class in the temple in the morning and in the evening. And we're having a lot of programs at Rotary clubs, Lion's Clubs, colleges and universities.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Prabhupāda: No, no, what is his name? You can give.
Hari-śauri: His name was not given.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Simply it is said a government official.
Interviewer: He said on the floor of the House or outside?
Hari-śauri: Said it on the TV.
Haṁsadūta: Houston. Houston, Texas. (everyone talking at once.)
Interviewer: Are you getting any opposition from the church?
Prabhupāda: No. That is very favorable. No. Otherwise, it was impossible. At least in America they have never prevented me. But in Europe especially in England and Germany, they, the Christian group, they are little angry with me. But so far America, they are very liberal. They never put any impediments in my movement.
Prabhupāda: (Bengali) A man's household utensils was taken by the thief. He promised, "I shall not purchase anymore utensils, I shall eat on the floor. (laughs) Because the thief has stolen my plates, I'm not going to purchase anymore, I shall eat on the floor. (Bengali)
Hari-śauri: They give the example that just because someone may be passing counterfeit money, that doesn't mean that all the money you get...
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes. They conclude that no more take any money, all counterfeit. At least in India, Bhagavad-gītā is there, accepted, the God-science literature all over the world.
Jagadīśa: Some of the younger boys chant six or eight rounds instead of sixteen. They chant that much during that time and then they study. Then they attend the temple program, guru-pūjā and Bhāgavatam class. And then after that, they go upstairs, wash their clothes and clean the āśrama. That takes them about an hour, to wash their clothes and sweep and cleanse the floor, cleanse the shower room, wash their clothes...
Prabhupāda: Now, when they chant the mantras?
Jagadīśa: Brahma-saṁhitā?
Prabhupāda: Or any...
Jagadīśa: Any mantras. At... Right now they're chanting from nine until 9:30 in the morning with Yaśodānandana Mahārāja.
Prabhupāda: Not in the, early in the morning?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is easiest, puri and sabji. Similarly, khicuḍi and sabji, puṣpānna and chutney, like that. Temple means feeding them with prasādam. In Bombay the Sunday feast going on?
Surabhi: We don't have so much facility to feed them because there's only the temple floor so there's always a big crowd and we have to do two shifts. So sometimes...
Prabhupāda: When it will be complete, more facility.
Surabhi: Oh, yes, then it will be... Everything...
Prabhupāda: Take prasādam, see drama, read books, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Bas. And if you like, you can live with us. So where is the difficulty? Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). Ānanda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhis tābhir ya eva nija-rūpatayā (Bs. 5.37). (pause) That American politician has predicted that "This Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, within ten years, they will capture our government."
Jagadīśa: All these... Kīrtanānanda Swami was there and a boy who was kidnapped, Vasu Gopāla, as well as Dr. Harvey Cox, the Civil Liberties Attorney who is defending us, and Dr. Stephen Corover, a psychologist, Jack Colley, who's a renowned religious scholar, and Dr. Eck, a lecturer in Sanskrit and India studies at Harvard. The public was invited and they had questions from the floor and all of the members of the panel, important people, were all in our support. It's very long...
Prabhupāda: That's all right.
Hari-śauri: There's one interesting statement in there from one of these men. He's lived in Vṛndāvana for about two years. And he says how when he first went to Vṛndāvana, all the people there, they would chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Rāma, but it was kind of a derogatory thing because they had seen this film, Dum-mada-dam. So whenever they saw a Westerner they thought, "Oh, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Rāma," implying, "Oh, you're a hippie, you're a drug addict." Like that. But he said in the last two or three years since we established our temple, now that is completely changed. They're still saying, "Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Rāma," all the children shout it, but now they expect us to shout "Haribol" back and that it's a sign of, it's a friendly gesture now. So he's an outsider, but he's noticed the change in the Indian people's attitude, especially in Vṛndāvana.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They are fixing it up now. I don't know why it goes out. I've told the construction department to look into it, to fix it. I don't know why it goes out again.
Prabhupāda: In our area only?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Just here, the top floor of this building. Just your apartment and the next apartment.
Prabhupāda: Other buildings, they are...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, yes. Even our buildings other side have it. Just this one.
Indian man: Some emergency light needs to be connected here, so automatically the light goes out (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: In Vṛndāvana they have got that generator.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's a fact. We do not make any compromise. Vivekananda went there. He came back. He said, "What is the wrong in meat-eating?" He introduced meat-eating amongst his contemporary sannyāsīs. This is his vedānta-pracāra. So he is advertised that he preached Vedānta all over America, and everyone has become Vedantist. What is...? What kind of Vedantist? Now, he introduced meat-eating amongst the sannyāsīs, which was never in India, any... There are two sets of sannyāsīs, the Śaṅkara sampradāya and Vaiṣṇava sampradāya. But their ācāra is the same. They may differ in philosophy, but their ācāra is the same. Rather, the Śaṅkara sampradāya sannyāsī are more strict than the Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī. Śaṅkara sampradāya sannyāsī, they'll never occupy a seat, those who are strictly following. They'll sit down on the floor. Without any āsana. They lie down on the floor. They are so renounced. And what is this, that sannyāsī smoking and drinking? And ordinary sannyāsīs, they are drinking also tea, one ghara (?). I have seen it.
Prabhupāda: So explain with that purpose. At least, they are sensible. (break) You cannot give up these four things: yajña, dāna, tapasya. So yajña for the brahmacārīs, begin yajña. And dāna for the gṛhasthas, and tapasya for the sannyāsīs. Yajña-dāna-tapaḥ-karma na tyājyam, Kṛṣṇa says. Do not give up this. "I have become sannyāsī, therefore I'll give up my tapasya also." Sannyāsī means the life of tapasya. If you give up tapasya also then what remains? How you become a sannyāsa? Yajña-dāna-tapaḥ-karma na tyājyaṁ kāryam eva tat. It must be continued. And again He stresses yajño dānaṁ tapaś caiva pāvanāni manīṣiṇām. Even if you think that you have become very great, "Now I'm very exalted personality. I don't require. I have become paramahaṁsa," No, no, no, no. This yajña-dāna-tapaḥ-karma, even if you are very exalted, still, it will purify you more, these things. Yajño dānaṁ tapaś caiva pāvanāni manīṣiṇām. In any condition of life these things cannot be given up. So those who are in sense, gṛhasthas, they must give in charity, at least fifty percent of their income. That was shown by Rūpa Gosvāmī. He, fifty percent. Dānam means not to the daridra-nārāyaṇa. Dānam means to the brāhmaṇa, Vaiṣṇava. In our śāstra charity is recommended to be given to the high-class men, brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas. They know how to spend money. Therefore dātavyam iti yad dānaṁ tad dānaṁ sāttvikam ucyate. Just like this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, they are appreciating. So all the charity should come here. Then it is properly utilized. Because we do not use a single paisa for anything of sense gratification. We do not even smoke, we do not take tea, we lie down on the floor.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Girirāja: I thought he was improving. Well, the construction is, you know, going at the same rate. I spoke to the marble... There's two marble contractors. The one who's doing the floor, he's going very quickly. All the guestrooms are finished and half of the bathrooms are finished. The temple room is mostly finished. Main problem is the columns and arches. And it seems that that contractor has a bad reputation for taking money and then wasting time.
Prabhupāda: Oh. He has taken money?
Girirāja: It seems he has taken lot of money.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Girirāja: On the plea that he needed it to get the work going. So, er...
Prabhupāda: The same thing was done in Māyāpur. These cheaters, they take advance money, and then they do...
Prabhupāda: The same thing was done in Māyāpur. These cheaters, they take advance money, and then they do...
Dr. Patel: The contractor of mine also did the same thing in my house. Give them advance... (Hindi) That's it.
Prabhupāda: Then, what to do?
Girirāja: Well, the floor man... (end)
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Trivikrama: Sleep on the floor.
Jagadīśa: There's no sense gratification.
Prabhupāda: That I was explaining, that what is Vṛndāvana life. In Vṛndāvana life there is everything—the cowherds boy, the calves, the cows, the elderly person like Nanda Mahārāja, Yaśodāmayī, friend. What is their aim? The aim is Kṛṣṇa. The demons... (laughter) Everything is Kṛṣṇa. The demon is coming there. That is also... Center is Kṛṣṇa. And gopīs are dancing. That is also... Center is Kṛṣṇa. And Brahmā is stealing the friends and cows. That is also center Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: That is the... That is in the via media. The real trouble is there—janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi. Now if you can make change... Suppose you are now a dog. You can become a man. But that is not solution. Or you are man; you can become a demigod. Karma. But that does not make solution! Either you become demigod or man or dog or cat or insect, you must have these tribulations, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi (BG 13.9). That is God's challenge. You first of all make solution. But you are eternal. Why you are in this condition? Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). You... That means you are eternally suffering, punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30), simply changing the position. But suffering's there. So you are taking credit by little change of the position. And that is your foolishness. And God challenges you, "You make solution of these things." Why little change? Suppose I am... I have got so many centers. Sometimes I live in the palace, other times a cottage. So this is change of position. But I am the same man. So whatever comfort or discomfort is there in that you France palace, the same comfort and discomfort is in this cottage. But if I think, "Now I am in the France palace, or Bhaktivedanta Manor palace. I am happy," that is foolishness. They are doing that. You are eating something bitter. So it is in the iron pot. You are thinking, "If I put it in the golden pot, it will be nice." That is your foolishness. The taste, either you put in the golden pot or iron pot or in the floor, the taste is the same. So our taste is this eating sleeping, sex and defense. So that is going on.
Prabhupāda: Practice yoga—solitary place, sacred and solitary. What is this circle we see in morning? Simply "Cāi, cāi, cāi." And cigarette, biḍi, and talking nonsense, drinking, no arrangement. Vedic system, still in India in morning they take bath, in the villages. In the cities also, those who come from village, you'll find in Bombay this side, many poor men, they're taking early in the morning bathing. You have seen that?
Satsvarūpa: Yes, Juhu.
Prabhupāda: Not only Juhu. Olee(?). They'll wash their floor, take bath. In village also they'll go to the well and take water. (end)
Prabhupāda: So in the meantime, your, this thing will be finished or not?
Jayapatākā: They all say that it will be finished in about five days, the wiring, and five days the flooring. And the bathrooms are already finished on the first floor. They're putting the fittings, and half of them are put in.
Bhavānanda: The floors will not be polished, but...
Prabhupāda: That doesn't matter.
Bhavānanda: Water will be there, electricity, and clean.
Prabhupāda: And here we can accommodate. How many rooms?
Satsvarūpa: 165 on one floor and 135 on another.
Prabhupāda: Two persons very comfortably can live in one room.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's nice.
Prabhupāda: So we have got about three hundred rooms. We can accommodate six hundred men.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: More than sufficient.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Now arrange for big festival. There is a program, Manipur. I want to start in that small state varṇāśrama idea. That is my dream. Small state it can be done, brāhmaṇa, kṣatri... So when you arrived in the airport?
Prabhupāda: Yes. This is brahminical culture. They don't want it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. When the...
Hari-śauri: They don't have any culture.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: When the British came here, they saw people sitting on the floor, they said, "Oh, uncivilized."
Prabhupāda: No, no. The British policy was that "If you keep the Hindus as Hindu, it will not be possible to rule over them." That was their policy. Therefore, from the very beginning childhood, everything Indian condemned.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So this is the same mentality in America now. They are seeing us... Just like the gurukula, their opinion of gurukula—"Oh, children are getting up early? Forced to get up early? Forced to eat on the floor? Not being given proper diet?"
Hari-śauri: "Don't sleep on beds?"
Prabhupāda: No. "But you do not know. We get this information, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānu... (BG 13.9). Eternal. Na hanyate hanyamāne (BG 2.20). Therefore we are trying for that. But you are so dull, in spite of having so many... Therefore the resultant action is you are producing hippies at the end. And how you can be satisfied anymore? They are disgusted with this eating, sleeping, mating business. Now you'll have only hippies." They're disgusted with this system of education, because it is not education at all. This is keeping them in ignorance. "Dog is lying on the street, and a man is lying on the hundred second floor. What is the result? Result is sleeping. Is that improvement? The dog is sleeping very peacefully; you are sleeping-'Oh, there is tiger! Tiger! Tiger! Save me! Save me.' Will that skyscraper building help you in your mental agitation? Is that education? Everyone is taking pill to sleep. You cannot sleep even peacefully, and you are claiming that you are educated." Give this defense. "Here the dog can sleep very peacefully.
Prabhupāda: This is the blessing of my Guru Mahārāja. He wanted it. And because we are trying to do this, he is giving us all blessings. He told me personally, "I wanted to sell this marble and publish some books." Calcutta, that Gauḍīya Maṭha is also marble floor. Now, he said that "Since this temple has been given by Mr. Datta, our men are fighting, 'Which room I shall occupy?' So I know there will be blazing fire here. So before that, I wanted to get out this marble and sell it and turn into some books." He told me, like that. So I noted down that, that he wants books. So I tried to do that. That's all.
Prabhupāda: Then there should not be any scarcity for their comfort. People are trained up to the modern comforts. Therefore I am building so big, big institution. Otherwise, I... That's a fact. Rādhā-Dāmodara temple is sufficient for me. It is not for me I want these big, big buildings. I am accustomed to live anywhere. But those who are educated, scientists, they are accustomed, Europeans, Americans... They must be given proper place. That was my Guru Mahārāja's policy. Not that all of a sudden they should now live on the floor. No, that's not possible. Then they will be disturbed. Give them nice place, give them nice food, nice instruction. You are all intelligent boys. Do it immediately. Another building construct. That colony should be for first-class Kṛṣṇa conscious people, to preach. So Gargamuni, you also help.
Prabhupāda: The sea breeze.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not so cool on the lower floors—where you are staying in the office.
Gargamuni: There no, it is hot. This is very good.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In those houses where you were formerly staying, it is not so like this at all.
Prabhupāda: Which house?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Your old quarters. You don't get the advantage of the breeze.
Prabhupāda: No. Sometimes there is nasty breezes coming.
Prabhupāda: So one must be cooking expert.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. So he's a nice choice.
Prabhupāda: And if Upendra can do like Bhavānanda, then it is very nice. Let him he trained up. He can do. (discussing cleaning of floor) Now it is black.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It is starting to shine.
Prabhupāda: The more we do...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It is like shining one's heart.
Prabhupāda: This is, this is marble.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. Bhavānanda Mahārāja and I were just discussing this morning... We were looking at the shining, and we were discussing the difference between this marble and kota stone. Kota stone is very much inferior.
Prabhupāda: If he is intelligent, he can learn it in one day.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Otherwise, a few days. Bhavānanda was thinking at least four days he will remain. He has gotten a little bit attached to taking care of you.
Prabhupāda: So wipe this floor twice like this. Let him see. As he does very nicely, very nicely.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think the best anyone has ever...
Prabhupāda: There is no doubt. How we can stop educating people about Bhagavad-gītā? It is most heinous mentality, such knowledge should be hidden from the human society. And some rascal will misinterpret.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Cow protection protects us from so many infectious disease.
Dr. Sharma: Even the cows, they have habit to take the leaves along the banks of the river. The iodine content of the grass is so high. It has got iodine in that. So if you smear cow dung on the floor... It is said it is an obnoxious thing. There is tincture of iodine sold in the shops (indistinct). It is most unfortunate that we do not appreciate, the nature itself is giving us aids.
Prabhupāda: We take it seriously because Kṛṣṇa says. Kṛṣṇa is our authority. He says, kṛṣi-go-rakṣya. Go-rakṣya: "You must give protection to the cows." This is authority.
Dr. Sharma: And the proper facility appears in the rights and democratic (indistinct). But we have a right to live on this planet. Why should we (indistinct) the right of another man?
Prabhupāda: Speculation. It is not sound knowledge.
Dr. Sharma: He says that the giraffe has got a very lengthy neck because there was no grass on the floor. He had to reach the branches and bows of a tree for the leaves. So he got a lengthy neck.
Prabhupāda: So who made this arrangement?
Dr. Sharma: It was written by Darwin.
Prabhupāda: No, that's all right, but next question will be, "Who made his neck so long? Why not your neck?"
Dr. Sharma: Then Darwin forgot there are millions of other herbivores living on the planet.
Prabhupāda: No, no.
Girirāja: No, the same building...
Prabhupāda: Same building.
Girirāja: ...exchange. We come from the second floor to the ground, and he takes what we've constructed on the top.
Prabhupāda: "Same space you can... Everything, that will be..."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We prefer to have the ground.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And he can utilize the roof also.
Girirāja: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Girirāja: Mrs. Warrior wants to shift to a higher...
Prabhupāda: So he is in the downstairs?
Girirāja: She is on the ground floor.
Prabhupāda: Then it is... If she moves, that is also good. But that space is bigger.
Girirāja: Yes, Acarya's is much nicer place.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Girirāja: So we will try that.
Prabhupāda: So Warrior... What is...? Warrior?
Girirāja: Warrior.
Prabhupāda: That is their way of sādhana.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Everyone admits that this is luxurious, fifth floor of...
Prabhupāda: It is luxurious. (break) ...the āṭā dough. So after it is cooked... They have got ghee. That ball soaked in ghee and the ḍāl, it is so nice when taken. That is called baṭī. Very quickly made. And after eating, with that ash the two or three utensils, mean the loṭā and the plate, they'll cleanse it very nice and walk away. And that food is sufficient for twenty-four hours. Within twenty-four hours he will not be hungry and feel very strong. The two things. And you can cook anywhere without any difficulty. In India, especially in village, you can get so many dried cow dung. So fuel is ready. The āṭā is packed up. And ghee in a pot. That's all. How simple life. Simply they'll sit down where there is water, and they'll take water. Then everything is arranged. No hotel. Or even there is no āṭā, they keep their own ghee, homemade, pure. Āṭā can be purchased anywhere in the village. There is no need of carrying āṭā. So this preparation for tourists...
Prabhupāda: That's all, part and parcel of God. (aside:) So why these people are outside? The jīva is a small sample of God. That example I was giving you yesterday, that you take a big brick, and you just strike it on the floor. There will be so many fragments. (aside:) Why you are busy now? Come here. Finish. Then you can leave. Why you are disturbing now? Keep it behind this post. You can leave it. Yes. So when the brick is broken, some parts of the..., bigger, some smaller. And at last, the dust. So all of them are the parts and parcels.
Indian man (1): The same thing.
Prabhupāda: So let it go on like that.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually—of course you don't want it—but if that other one is also turned on the whole bottom floor will be very cool. And the kus(?), when they put that in—all these windows will have kus—then you will not know that you are in summer season. In fact, you won't even want to go upstairs at night. It'll be so cool down here. Of course, upstairs is good because open air.
Prabhupāda: The nail cutter, can you...? You know how to cut?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't know how to use the tool that you use. The kind I use is a different thing.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Prabhupāda: Others things are going on.
Jayapatākā: Other things are going on.
Bhavānanda: Painting. Painting, finishing painting work is going on, first floor.
Jayapatākā: Painting is going on. Now we just have to furnish the rooms. Then guests can stay. The rooms are still unfurnished. This weekend it was packed, filled with guests, our big guesthouse. One Tara minibus came and filled, garden building. People only come to Māyāpur to see our temple. They don't go to see any other temple.
Prabhupāda: What they'll see there? (laughter) How Saman(?) Mahārāja is managing?
Prabhupāda: They like?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh, yes. They are very hopeful that this is the only thing that we can give to the world. Personally I talked with the man who synthesized this DIN molecule, the DNA part. We were invited to M.I.T. for honors there, and they showed us the whole lab. And the fifth floor, the whole floor, belonged to this professor. So I was taken in all the secret rooms, saw what they are doing, and I was just acting as a scientist, so they told me all the secrets that they were doing. So I was very satisfied that they...
Prabhupāda: They received well.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. Well and... It was actually the Indian who arranged this group, from the Federal Government, United States.
Prabhupāda: You gave him good reception?
Prabhupāda: There is a word, devāyatana,(?) Indian. Devāyatana property can never be mortgaged, sold or risked. (background whispering)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In America... Just like in New York there's a twelve-thirteen-story building. The temple only occupies the ground floor. They can't mortgage... Sometimes if they want to get other properties, they may want to use the asset of that building. If they have this clause, they won't be able to.
Rāmeśvara: Also sometimes we have got one property in America, and you have allowed us to sell it. Just like in Miami we had to sell the property in Coconut Grove and we bought that big farm.
Prabhupāda: No, with the consent of the GBC...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Consent of the GBC.
Prabhupāda: No, opening ceremony... Gurukula is going on.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. Some of the offices are already being utilized. So the dining hall can be utilized and the kitchen floor.
Prabhupāda: That offices I cannot understand. There is no management; then office. Big, big office, but no management. All bogus. Office means management. But there is no management, and the office. Office, what does it mean, office?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Good management.
Prabhupāda: That's all. But if there is no good management, where is the use of office? Simply occupying seats? Management is... I have told him that. And he has brought some management. But there is no one. Just like government, the Filing Center, the Filing Center. Where is the file? Nobody knows. This is going on. What can I do? How the things are being done finally, nobody knows. But it is informed. "I am informing." Is it not? Anyway...
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sometimes people say... There's couple people that even went to your place on 26 Second Avenue. They say, "So this movement has come a long way in ten years, from Second Avenue." They remember you sitting there. On Sundays in New York they have the Love Feast. So the average, they get about seven hundred people come. Six to eight hundred is an average crowd on a Sunday. And they serve the... They have simultaneously activities on the five different floors, four different floors. In the basement they have the restaurant. That is where the Life Members take prasāda. And very nicely dressed people, they go down there and they sit at the tables. And we have a group of devotees chanting bhajana, and they take prasādam and we serve them right at the table.
Prabhupāda: Then on the next floor up there is a lecture room, so there someone's always giving lectures, constantly giving lectures. And then there's different offices there, Life Membership office so we're enrolling members there. Then the floor after that they have a big lounge, and there we show all the time movies from the cassettes, so people can come in all the time and see movies. Plus there's prasādam. All young people, sitting on the floor, taking prasādam in all the different rooms.
Prabhupāda: They enjoy.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yeah. And then again on the next floor up it's the same, plus there's the theater, and the theater has two performances, Sudāmā Mahārāja's group. So a person can go from one floor to another for many hours and take part in different activities and feel very blissful. They love it. The same people love coming again and again, every Sunday. And there's about eight or nine devotees. Their only business is to try and make the people join and become full-time devotees.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guṇārṇava: ...on these floors. If we have administrative offices mixing...
Prabhupāda: No, no, we have to invite them. Otherwise what is the use, for four students, such a building? And simply managers? That is not good. There must be students, not that four students and three dozen managers.
Guṇārṇava: No.
Prabhupāda: It has no... That is waste. Then the whole thing is waste. There must be five hundred students and ten managers. That's all. Then it is good. Is that all right? Mr. Sharma?
Prabhupāda: The sun is above them?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not above Lokāloka. Inside, within.
Yaśodā-nandana: If this would be on the floor, that means Mount Meru would be 84,000 yojanas. Then, above Mount Meru, 16,000 yojanas above, is the sun. But then, so that the rays of the would not penetrate in that land all around, this great mountain, Lokāloka, extends all the way up to Svarga. So it is like a big, big cup, in which the middle of the cup, or the bottom, there is all of these planets, all of this Bhū-maṇḍala. And past this Lokāloka range of mountains is this Aloka-varṣa, which is described that there is no living being which can go to there. The only occasion where anyone went through there is when Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna went to see the Mahā-Viṣṇu in the spiritual sky. So Kṛṣṇa with His cakra penetrated through all of these regions, and then He went through all of the coverings of the universe who were there. That was the only occasion where anyone went to this land. So this is a general picture of Bhū-maṇḍala.
Prabhupāda: So that house we are possessing.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You should see this house. Fourteen hundred ounces of gold on the ceilings. The ceilings are coated with gold, fourteen hundred ounces. Yes. The floors are heated from underneath.
Vrindavan De: Twenty-two-karat gold.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. And the floors are heated underneath. All the floors. Because it's cold climate, they have heating underneath the floors.
Prabhupāda: When I entered the toilet bathroom I was surprised. (laughs)
Vrindavan De: In USA or Detroit?
Bhāgavatāśraya: ...ground floor restaurant. So it would take eighteen months to build the building. And then the idea is that we can have the ground floor for our restaurant.
Prabhupāda: Very good. Make Govinda Restaurant.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: New Delhi will like it. New Delhi people will appreciate a vegetarian restaurant. So I think there's some pleasing news, Śrīla Prabhupāda. This is sent by Bharadvāja Prabhu. It's a letter.
Prabhupāda: Delhi temple is going on nice?
Prabhupāda: Why alone? Can live with others.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Other householders there also.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Many householders can live there together.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. There's room on the floor below...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...his apartment for two other families. I don't know what...
Prabhupāda: That can be arranged. That is not...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't think he feels it's safe enough.
Prabhupāda: No, no. This is incidental. This is not permanent problem.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't know what's behind it. I don't know the full reason why he doesn't want to stay there anymore.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I was on my way with Bhavānanda to go to Africa for Brahmānanda Mahārāja. So we stopped for half a day in London, so they showed us the property. At that time they had not yet bought it, so the karmīs owned it. So I had to go in as if I was a customer there at the pub. I didn't buy anything, but I looked around. So then on the next floor... Basically it's a building, say, three rooms like this and then up.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: Quite big.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not real big, but then again, in that area and for what we want, it doesn't have to be real big. It's not meant to live a lot of people there. Upstairs, on the top floor, there's about four or five rooms for living or for other activities. Then the two ground and basement... I don't know the exact layout. I only went in quickly. I'm trying to think if it was basement plus three-basement, ground, first and second or basement, ground and first floor. Probably there was basement, ground floor, first floor, second floor. Yes, that's what it is. They have rooms where you can do different things.
Prabhupāda: Brick building?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not a big building. It's not that big.
Prabhupāda: Wooden.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, brick building. Yes, Prabhupāda, brick building. It is brick.
Prabhupāda: In London mostly they are brick.
Prabhupāda: It will be a very... What is called? Attractive spot? What is called? It will be tourist?
Kīrtanānanda: Yes. Tourist attraction. It will. Already it is that. The walls of the temple room, they are all marble. This is your study room. It has a marble floor. This is the marble floor. And the walls are all being done in marble in this pattern. This is the bedroom floor. This is the lower portion of the bedroom walls, and this is the upper portion, all done in these little... These is all onyx, and these are marble. And these are the outside doors. It's all ornamental carved concrete.
Prabhupāda: You have got so many artists.
Kīrtanānanda: This is a view of the outside near the top railing.
Prabhupāda: How they learned so much?
Prabhupāda: Good house.
Rāmeśvara: Also in downtown they purchased one house which cost $170,000. And the brahmacārīs live on the top floor, and then the ground floor is the restaurant.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Didn't you see that house, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think you went there when there were still other people living there. You said that the man received you very properly?
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Prabhupāda: Who is there?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's Upendra Prabhu. He's cleaning up your room for you. He's cleaning the floor nicely. He put fresh flowers. Somehow you have to be able to eat something, Śrīla Prabhupāda. That's the... At least in my mind it's perplexing question which I don't know the answer to. In all these events I have to face the reality that I'm simply a completely bewildered fool. I know you have to... If you're to get better, you have to be able to eat something. I don't know what to suggest, though.
Prabhupāda: You bring some milk. That's...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You want to drink some milk? (to Upendra) You make just now. You want any water mixed with it? Half-half? (to Upendra) Milk half-half with water. (some whispering discussion with Upendra) Upendra is thinking that milk will cause the coughing.
Prabhupāda: And what about the conference place?
Bhavānanda: The conference place is being cleaned up now.
Prabhupāda: Which room?
Bhavānanda: On the ground floor in the front, the conference room? They had a big conference room there?
Hari-śauri: That was going to be the bank.
Bhavānanda: Right. That's being cleaned now, and that will be all ready. So everything is going on.
Prabhupāda: When the conference begins?
Bali-mardana: The invitation says nine, but Mādhava dāsa said about ten. Friday at 10:30.
Hari-śauri: This is a palace that they're building in our New Vrindaban farm community. This is built by our own men. This is not complete yet, but it's being built, the dome. Kīrtanānanda Swami is in charge. These are the devotees. Everything is being made by our men. They learned how to cast concrete, how to make these pillars, archways. This marble laying is all done by our men. They came here and learned, and they have a marble shop. This is the kīrtana hall inside. This is on the walls. Here's the floor. This is onyx and marble together. This is pressed concrete, sculptured. This is a support piece, little decorative. This is a guesthouse that was built by the devotees. This is another new building they're building now, and this is present installation and silos for storing cow fodder. You want to sit up, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: I can sit down for some...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very good. And then our sannyāsīs look so nice. There's Akṣayānanda Mahārāja and Bhakti-prema Swami. They were both there, very nicely dressed, with daṇḍas. It's really... The whole thing is complete. They get to stay in a nice guesthouse. Then there will be building of Bhaktivedanta Institute Hall. All of these things are a complete arrangement. I think these men are surprised to see that how such a thing has sprung up, and they have not been aware of it before. And when they see these books, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that the scientists have written, I think that will floor these men. They will be completely amazed to see it. Normally, if anyone else dared to do such a thing as this, to prove by science that life comes from life, it would be a very immature attempt by some religious person, and it would not have very much weight. But here they are coming face to face with people who are actually scientists, and they will not be able to deny our arguments. I think that your Guru Mahārāja is very pleased with this program, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: I have given the ideas. Now you give the shape.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Bharadvāja: They are very strong, and they sound good.
Śatadhanya: They say that you can throw them on the floor and they will not break.
Bharadvāja: Made for Kali-yuga.
Prabhupāda: How many khols he has already prepared?
Bharadvāja: I don't know exactly, but I think it was close to about two hundred when I left.
Prabhupāda: Where he is making?
Bharadvāja: Well, they are having most of the part done outside by outside people, professionals, and Īśāna is assembling, and he's working very hard.
Prabhupāda: And they are getting benefit.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. It was the proper bank to have there. And because it's right on the ground floor and just near the entrance of the gate, people don't mind coming from the outside. And I've noticed people, after they come and do their banking business, they go for darśana.
Prabhupāda: Very good.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Maybe our Deity will get known that people who bank in our bank, they get more money. (laughs) I think the I.O.B. is thinking like that, that to be connected with the Deity is very auspicious, so they're accentuating the involvement with ISKCON and Your Divine Grace and Rādhā-Rasabehari.
Prabhupāda: That's a fact.
Prabhupāda: Now when we construct the other building, further down, it will be (indistinct).
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Godown will be on the ground floor, and residences and Gurukula on the other floors. The only problem is that it's such a good place that now we can't get the residents to move out of those other buildings. They say, "Why should we move? Now we have a temple. There'll be a Gurukula. There's a bank." It's very hard to get them out. Of course, we don't care if they stay, if they're nice.
Prabhupāda: Gradually they'll be devotee.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Either they'll be devotees or they'll be driven out by the mahā-mantra. The upper floor of each of those buildings has also increased the utilization of those buildings. That was also your scheme, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: That was my scheme, but we have not given full freedom to the tenant, or controllment(?).
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We're always on their heads.
Prabhupāda: You take four brāhmaṇas from South India, four from Vṛndāvana, and four from...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Bombay.
Prabhupāda: In this way, make it gorgeous.
| Page Title: | Floor (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 27 of Jun, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=164, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 164 |