Guest: I have noticed when everybody touches their head to the floor. And this I find so disturbing (indistinct) another man and kiss their boots. I found that (indistinct). And to tell you frankly, I find it quite shocking, too, that people place their head on the ground before another man. And you are a man like that. You are a man of knowledge, and you're (indistinct). But yet I can't see of people their heads to the floor...
Prabhupāda: You have been asked to do that?
Guest: Nobody asked me, but I see everybody else does it.
Prabhupāda: Then why you are feeling so disturbed?
Guest: Because to me, people are people, and there's... No man is a God, and it's just appearing as if you were...
Prabhupāda: But as you are thinking that they should not, they are thinking that you should. (laughter) As you are thinking they should not do like that, they are thinking you must do that. Then what is it? Difference of opinion. Your vote is single and they are so many. So you have to follow the greatest majority vote.
Guest: Unless I am given a very good reason to do so...
Prabhupāda: No, I am answering your question. As you are thinking in that way, they are also at liberty to think otherwise. So you cannot encroach upon their thinking.
Guest: I will not do that.
Prabhupāda: So therefore as you are thinking that they should not have done, they are thinking you should have done. The real question is that they are following a system. So in that system the spiritual master is offered respect in that way. There is a system. And they don't feel any uneasiness by doing that.
Guest: But if I were to enter politics and..., and suppose I were to attack some people who have actually the leadership of foreign powers or something like that, and newspaper man would tell my opponents that that man has... (break)
Prabhupāda: Newspaper man has poor vision. He's seeing "Indian" and "American" and "Canadian." So his vision is poor. If anyone thinks that "This Swamiji is coming from India, and the Americans or Canadians, they are offering their respect in that way," so he has to expand his vision in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That... Just like it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, that,
- brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā
- na śocati na kāṅkṣati
- samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu
- mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām
- (BG 18.54)
So these obei... (break) ...is taught, just like Kṛṣṇa is asking everybody, Arjuna, that mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. This is our system. Just like anyone who comes to the temple, he at once offers by falling flat, offering respect to the Deity. And the spiritual master is accepted as representative of the Deity. He's the living representative. That is the system everywhere. Just like in our India somebody was going as viceroy, representative of the King in England. Oh, he was being offered all the respect of a king. Nobody bothered, "Oh, he's coming from England. Why a brāhmaṇa should offer respect to the viceroy?" No. They never grudged. That is a system. The representative of a king, if he can be offered such respect, then how much respect should be offered to a person who is representative of Kṛṣṇa? (pause) Yes?