So one Kṛṣṇa and one gopī, they are dancing. That should be, scene should be... Then the rāsa dance should be stopped and Kṛṣṇa will talk with the gopīs. Kṛṣṇa will say to the gopīs that "My dear friends, you have come to Me in this dead of night. It is not very good because it is the duty of every woman to please her husband. So what your husband will think that you have come in such dead of night? A woman's duty is not to give up her husband even he is not of good character or if he is unfortunate, if he is old, or if he is diseased. Still, husband is worshiped by the wife. So you have come here, it is very sinful. So you... People will decry it. Please go back. Now we have finished." So in this way the gopīs will reply that, "You cannot request us to go back because with great difficulty and with great, I mean to say, ecstatic desire we have come to You, and it is not Your duty to ask us to go back." In this way you arrange some talking that Kṛṣṇa is asking them to go back, but they are insisting, "No, let us continue our rāsa dance." Then when the rāsa dance is finished, the gopīs will go, then Kṛṣṇa in His halilak(?), He says that "They are My heart and soul, these gopīs. They are so sincere devotees that they do not care for family encumbrances and all, any bad name. They come to Me. So how shall I repay them?" He was thinking. "How shall I repay their so ecstatic love?" So He thought that "I cannot repay them unless and until I take up their situation to understand Me. Because I Myself cannot understand Me. I have to take the position of the gopīs, how they are loving Me." So with that consideration He took the form of Lord Caitanya. Therefore Kṛṣṇa is blackish, Lord Caitanya is of the color of the gopīs. The whole life of Lord Caitanya is representation of gopīs' love towards Kṛṣṇa. That should be painted in that picture. You have got to ask anything?
Whole life (Conversations)
Expressions researched:
"Whole original life"
|"whole conditional life"
|"whole family life"
|"whole human life"
|"whole life"
|"whole lives"
|"whole material life"
|"whole spiritual life"
Conversations and Morning Walks
1967 Conversations and Morning Walks
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
Interviewer: So each one accepts a new name.
Subāla: Yes. The initiation by the spiritual master is known as the second birth. You enter the spiritual world by taking a second birth. Your spiritual life begins.
Interviewer: Do you still live in, quote, the rest of the world, the outside world, or is your whole life within the Kṛṣṇa consciousness?
Subāla: My whole life is within Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but yet, at the same time, I function within the world at large.
Interviewer: We have a lot of people who have some questions here, and caller, you're on the air on KGO with the Swami. Hello.
Caller: Hello?
Interviewer: Go ahead, sir.
Caller: Is this Swami?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Oh, he was talking that on zero some great swami spoke four hours. And he was very proud that on zero one can speak throughout his whole life. Now I did not... (laughs) But if you can speak on some subject matter for four hours, how it is zero? Just see the contradiction. Gaurasundara, you were present when he was speaking? You heard? If I can speak something on a subject matter, is that subject matter zero? Zero means śūnya. Śūnya means nothing. So how you can speak on nothing? If you can speak on nothing, then nothing is no more nothing. It is something. Just see. But you are so proud. "Oh, he spoke on zero for four hours." I did not contradict because he is newcomer, but I talked on other subject. But this is the position. Suppose you can talk on zero for four hours. Then either you waste your time... Because after all it is zero. The result is zero. Just like you add one million zeros. So what is the value? Zero. So who is a fool that knowing that one million zeros makes zero, why shall I waste my time making so many zeros? So either he is a fool or if zero has so much substance to speak, then how it is zero? If zero has so much value that one can speak on it for hours and hours together, then how it is zero? So people do not understand things very properly. They're so dull.
Prabhupāda: This is natural. Just like a man and woman. In whole world there is combination of male and female, either... Any society, human society, or bird society or dog society or animal society. Why this male and female? Why? Female is the energy, energy of the male. Why a man takes, marries a woman and takes responsibility...? Of course, in your country they marry as a matter of joke, immediately divorce after week or after seven days. But marriage means to take full responsibility of a woman. That is real marriage, Vedic marriage. We, when I get married our boys and girls, the boy takes this vow that "I take responsibility of your maintenance throughout your whole life," and the girl promises that "I desire to serve you throughout my whole life." So the woman, the female, is the energy. When a man comes at home, he sees that everything is nicely decorated, my wife is well-dressed and foodstuff is nicely prepared, he becomes encouraged. He can work more nicely. Therefore woman is the energy. The woman gives the energy and he can work. Wherefrom this idea came? The idea came because it is originally here, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). Everything is coming from the Supreme; otherwise where do you get this idea? Sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma. Without being in the origin? Bījo 'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām (Bg 7.10), Kṛṣṇa says that "I am the root of everything." So if this energy, male and female combination, is a necessity, so wherefrom this necessity came into existence unless it is there in the origin? Therefore it is to be understood that the Absolute has energy. He has got different energies. By His energies He is acting, and that is confirmed in the Vedic sūtra, parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport).
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Takes so much trouble. Simply for uttering one Kṛṣṇa they are not prepared to take little trouble?
Lady: Liberation. The whole life, whole human life liberation. They don't take, they don't like to take because it is started in Indian language. Or it is not Indian language. Kṛṣṇa is not Indian language. Oṁ isn't Indian language. It's the ultimate God's name.
Prabhupāda: Neither Kṛṣṇa says that He is Indian.
Lady: He didn't say, "I am Indian." It's universal. It's not Indian. Oṁ is not Indian. Anybody who wants to know oṁ, how to say oṁ. See?
Prabhupāda: So you have to accept little trouble to utter Kṛṣṇa. That's all.
1970 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: So you can join. You are family man, so it is not that we have no family men. We have got many family men. Now, they are all family. These girls, they have got a husband. And some of them, they are living separately. Just like one of my students, Professor Howard Wheeler. He is married man. He is living separately. Not separately. He is also conducting our, one establishment, New Vrindaban. So it is not that one has to live with us. He can live separately also, but his whole life is dedicated to Kṛṣṇa. That is wanted.
Guest (4): I would like to live with you and tour with you.
Prabhupāda: So why not come and live and tour with me? Who forbids you? But it is not possible to pay anything for your family expenditure. That is difficulty. We cannot pay anything but you can live with your family. That responsibility you can take. But I cannot pay you. That's not possible. Because we are maintaining by collecting alms. In that case it is not possible to pay something. There is... (break) It is selling all over Europe. (Hindi)
Guest (4): Mahārāja, could you employ me in some...?
Prabhupāda: Yes, employ, I can employ in any way. But there is no payment.
Guest (6): (unclear) ...From tomorrow he was not able to get (unclear)
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just see. Yes. Therefore in our system Vaiṣṇavāparādha is the greatest offense, to commit offense at the lotus feet of a Vaiṣṇava, and spiritual master is to be considered the first Vaiṣṇava. If there is aparādha, that is great, greatest offense. That will spoil the whole spiritual life. These are stated in Caitanya-caritāmṛta. In Teachings of Lord Caitanya you'll find.
Guest (6): In yesterday's paper I read that somebody donated some land to you.
Prabhupāda: Yes. No. He has proposed to donate; not he has done. Where you learned this?
Guest (6): In that (unclear)
Prabhupāda: Yes, somebody has promised. Somebody has promised.
Guest (6): And it will (unclear) Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa mandir, I will possibly able to get (unclear)
Prabhupāda: Yes, why not?
Guest (6): Swamiji, you are here still.
Prabhupāda: Prabhaviṣṇave namaḥ. Kirāṭa-huṇāndhra-pulin... Huh? (Hindi) (break) ...obeisance to guru. Then his guru, then his guru, up to Kṛṣṇa. (Hindi) ...paramparā system. You cannot directly approach God. That is useless. You have no power to approach God directly. That is not possible. Guru kṛṣṇa kṛpayā (CC Madhya 19.151). (Hindi) Let them study this philosophy. We have got books, enough books. One cannot read all these books even throughout whole life. (break)
Guest (2): I am going to...
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) You do actually work.
Guest (2): So I can also accompany certain places like...
Prabhupāda: You arrange. We can go there with all party. Now here in this part... You can get. This... Immediately we can go. From India...
Guest (2): From India, yes.
Prabhupāda: We can go to Indonesia.
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Guest: That should not be for ours.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṛṣṇa says, kuruṣva mad-arpaṇam, yat karoṣi. "Whatever you do, the result should be given to Me." Do for it. "Do for for Me." Yat karoṣi yaj juhoṣi yad aśnāsi yat tapasyasi dadāsi yat (BG 9.27). So this requires training, how everything can be molded for Kṛṣṇa. Therefore guidance required, bona fide spiritual master required. Under his guidance, one has to do. Ādau gurvāśrayam. In order to execute Kṛṣṇa consciousness, one has to first of all accept a bona fide spiritual master. Then everything will be done. He is representative of Kṛṣṇa, and to act under his direction means acting under Kṛṣṇa. He knows how to utilize your energy for service of Kṛṣṇa. Ādau gurvāśrayam sad-dharma-pṛcchat sādhu-mārgānugāmanam. Just like Rūpa Gosvāmī, he was prime minister. He had no information of Kṛṣṇa, but since he saw... Of course, Rūpa Gosvāmī is eternally Kṛṣṇa's companion, but superficially he was showing that he was a prime minister and he was engaged in Nawab's service. But when he met Caitanya Mahāprabhu, then he decided that "I shall retire from this service and act Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission." So what did he do? Whatever money he collected by his service—it was huge amount-fifty percent he immediately spent for Kṛṣṇa. And fifty..., twenty-five percent he gave to the relatives, and twenty-five percent he kept for his emergency expenditure. So this division, fifty percent for Kṛṣṇa means the whole life he acted as a minister, that means he acted for Kṛṣṇa. Because the result is given to Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa says, yat karoṣi kuruṣva tad mad-arpaṇam. Is it clear? But our business is... Suppose I am earning for my livelihood. Everyone is working for... Livelihood requires only six annas per day. But he is earning six thousand per day, and he says, "It is my livelihood." Is it not fact? Very, very... Many, many big businessmen, they are earning six thousand per month...per day. But actually, for his livelihood he requires six annas. Why he's earning six thousand? Then Kṛṣṇa says, "Give it to Me." Yat karoṣi kuruṣva tad mad-arpaṇam.
Prabhupāda: Prohibitive. No illicit sex life, no meat-eating, meat or fish or eggs, no, and no gambling, and no intoxication, including cigarette, tea, coffee. These also we take as intoxicants. So these four principle one has to obey, and let him chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. And by this process only, you'll find, how these boys and girls are improving quickly. Process is very simple. Besides that, we have got books, volumes of books, just like Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Bhagavad-gītā. I have given them. Throughout all these years I have written so many books. And they have got ample stock for reading, the whole life. We have got four hundred pages', big, big books, about one dozen books: Kṛṣṇa in two parts, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in six parts, Teachings of Lord Caitanya, one part, Nectar of Devotion, one part. In this way I am... And these are... We are publishing every month one chapter, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, with this detailed information, giving a heading like this, "The First Step in God Realization." Here is also. The heading is: "Puruṣa-śukta Continued." Puruṣa-śukta is a Vedic stotram. So we are trying to push this Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Just like in your country there is Lenin consciousness, similarly, it is also a different type of consciousness. Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Kṛṣṇa is also historical personality as much as Lenin is also historical personality. So His philosophy... Just like you are trying to understand his philosophy, we are trying to understand Kṛṣṇa's philosophy. In this way this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is going on.
Prabhupāda: So if he becomes, if he takes to these processes, then automatically...
Guest: Transformation(indistinct) will take place automatically.
Prabhupāda: ...his whole life is changed. Yes. Because these four things—illicit sex life, intoxication, meat-eating, and gambling—they are very great impediments for social improvement.
Guest: And that will automatically make his life simpler because a person who is not indulging in illicit sex life or intoxication and other things has to live a comparatively simpler life.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prof. Kotovsky: That's right. One will live much simpler life, agreed. But at the same time, would it change some complex things...?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. oh, yes.
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes, you can learn more and more.
Bob: Now I still have my connections in home. Marriage is... I'm engaged and all this...
Prabhupāda: No, no. There are so many marriages. He is married. Marriage is no barrier. I told you, there are four different orders of social life: brahmacārī, gṛhastha, vānaprastha, and sannyāsa. So after brahmacārī, one can marry. But that is not obligatory. He may remain naiṣṭhika-brahmacārī for whole life. But a brahmacārī can marry. So after marriage there is vānaprastha life. Means little aloof from family. Live—husband and wife—separately. That time there is no sex life. And then, when he's fully renounced, detached from the family life, he takes sannyāsa.
Bob: Does somebody forget his wife completely then?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Forgetting is not very difficult if you try to forget. That's all. Out of sight, out of mind. (laughter) Just like I have got my wife, children, my grandchildren, everything. But out of sight, out of mind. That's all. Therefore vānaprastha, sannyāsa. Everything is nicely arranged by the Vedic system. (break)
Prabhupāda: You are feeling warm?
Bob: Just tight.
Prabhupāda: They have no tendency for going to cinema or going to hotel, no. Everything all stopped. Anartha-nivṛttiḥ. Anartha means unnecessary things, all rubbish.
Bob: I feel that when I go back, though...
Prabhupāda: The whole human life is meant for purifying. Śuddhyed sattva. Sattva means existence. So if you don't purify your existence, then you'll have to change your body, from this body to that. Sometimes it may be higher, sometimes lower. Just like, if you don't cure your disease, it can take turn in so many ways to put you into trouble. Similarly, if you don't purify your existence, then you'll have to transmigrate from one body to another. And there is no guarantee what kind of body you'll get. Very subtle laws of nature. Now there is no guarantee that you will get a very comfortable body or American body, no. Therefore for human being it is essential that he should purify his existence. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena sattvaṁ śuddhyed yasmād brahma-saukhyaṁ tv anantam (SB 5.5.1). Unless you purify your existence, you're hankering after happiness, you cannot get continued happiness. That is not possible.
Śyāmasundara: They say, "Well, it's my luck," or "My bad luck."
Prabhupāda: Yes. They say. So this "luck," as soon as you say, "luck" there must be somebody who is giving you the luck, good luck or bad luck.
Śyāmasundara: One man may desire something very badly, and his whole life long he will not get it. He will always say, "I am so unlucky."
Prabhupāda: Because he is not fit to get it, so God does not supply it. So we do not take anything as chance. We take everything as plan. But because God's omnipotency is so subtle, we cannot see how things happen. Therefore we say "It is a chance, chance of physical arrangement." Just like in the airport, as soon as I step on the door it becomes opened. It is not chance. A child will see it is a chance: "Oh, how it is? I wanted to go and the door is already open." He takes it a chance. That is poor fund of knowledge. There is arrangement, nice arrangement, electrical arrangement. So to a poor fund of knowledge it becomes a chance, and to the sober mind it is not chance; it is arranged by higher authority. Another opposite point is nobody wants to die. Why the chance of death comes? Nobody wants to die. If that argument is taken, necessity—I want to die, and the death comes—then it is applicable. But I do not want to die. Why death comes? There is no necessity of my death, but why the death comes? Then where this argument will be?
Śyāmasundara: Oh, there's no necessity. There's no necessity for death?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Nobody wants to die. So why death comes?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Next time he may be getting chance. Because he was at heart afraid of God. Because sometimes he was, "Swamiji, you pray for me to God." He told me that. At heart he was. But because he is impersonalist and mundane scholar, he was writing all nonsense.
Śyāmasundara: There's a whole class of scholars now called literary critics who simply take one book, or not even a scripture but any mundane book, and they spend their whole lives making comments what this must mean, what that must mean, "This is my opinion," "this is my thesis."
Prabhupāda: Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30), chewing the chewed.
Śyāmasundara: That really is chewing the chewed.
Prabhupāda: That is chewing the chewed.
Śyāmasundara: One book called Moby Dick...
Prabhupāda: That is called scholar. "Oh, he is a big scholar."
Devotee (2): Is that the māyayāpahṛta-jñānāḥ?
Prabhupāda: Māyayāpahṛta-jñānāḥ (BG 7.15), yes. All nonsense. You take it granted that anyone who has no Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he is a nonsense, whatever he may be. That is I take it, and I challenged him like that. I criticized Dr. Radhakrishnan in my Back to Godhead, "scholar deluded." I was criticizing him like anything.
Devotee: ...how a man such as yourself, in such a high position and such hierarchy was able to leave all this in order to bring this message to others?
Prabhupāda: No. It's not to be... Life is divided into four parts: brahmacārī, student, gṛhastha, householder, vānaprastha, retired life and sannyāsa. Everyone should follow this principle. First of all, as brahmacārī student he should learn sufficiently what is the value of life. Then, when he's a householder, he should live properly with husband, wife and children-properly. Then, after retired life, giving the responsibility of household life to grown-up children, he should take lessons from saintly persons. (indistinct) Then at the end he should take sannyāsa. Whatever knowledge he has gathered he must distribute by traveling from one place to another. This is Vedic civilization. Everyone should come out. Not that they should remain at home and drink and sleep for the whole life. This is Vedic civilization.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Deki(?) What you'll gain?
Prabhupāda: Deki, yes. Simply dag da dag da dag dak. (sound imitation) But the rice is already taken away. So their labor is being spoiled in that way. They, pleasure... For the pleasure's sake, they are spoiling the human facilities. This is their intelligence. Therefore Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says: jaḍa-vidyā jato māyāra vaibhava tomāra bhajane bādhā, anitya saṁsāre moha janamiyā jībake karaye gādhā. This jaḍa-vidyā, this material science, is simply a hindrance to our progress of spiritual life. All these rascal scientists, they'll deny God. That is their business. Just like you said yesterday that somebody was accepting God, and the other scientists, they thought: "No, it is insult." So already they are in oblivion. They cannot understand what is God. And these rascals are making them more and more rascals. "There is no God." By their scientific research, the rascals are becoming more rascals. And they're becoming captivated: "This is pleasure." What pleasure you will do you with. Therefore they are, they are gādhā. They are gādhā and they are creating gādhās. That is the song of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. Jaḍa-vidyā jato māyāra... It is expansion of māyā's illusory energy. The so-called scientific advancement is simply expanding the influence of māyā's illusory energy. They're already rascals and fools, and still they are being made rascals and fools. So they're forgetting their real purpose of life and the whole human life is spoiled. This is the result of so-called scientific advancement.
Devotee: Kāma...
Prabhupāda: Kāma-karmabhiḥ. Avidyā-kāma-karmabhiḥ. They are creating a situation of suffering by unnecessary desire. That's all. So your scientific improvement means you are creating a situation of suffering. That's all. No improvement. You cannot. Kāma-karmabhiḥ, kāma-karmabhiḥ. They are working in such a way... Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura also says the same thing: anitya saṁsāre moha janamiyā jībake karaye gādhā. The so-called scientific improvement means he's already an ass, and he's becoming more, better ass. That's all. Nothing more. He's already an ass because he's part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, and he has come to this material world to enjoy. That is ass mentality. There is no enjoyment. So he's already an ass. And this scientific improvement means he's becoming more attached to this material world to remain better ass. Avidyā... anitya saṁsāre, anitya. He cannot stay here. Suppose, working very hard like an ass, he gets a skyscraper building, throughout his whole life, laboring. But he cannot stay there. He'll be kicked out. Is it not ass? Is he not an ass? He cannot stay there. Anitya saṁsāre. Anitya. Because it is not the permanent settlement. You are trying: dum dum. (sound imitation) Very strong foundation. That's all right. But your foundation is nothing. You'll be kicked out. Therefore he's an ass. That: "I'll stay here for twenty years." Why dum dum dum, foundation stone? Where is your foundation? Therefore he's an ass.
Mr. Wadell: Yes, oh I know that it is expected of the teachers.
Prabhupāda: So it is my misfortune; if I get a cheater mother, then my whole life is spoiled.
Mr. Wadell: But the teacher may be wrong without wishing to be wrong.
Prabhupāda: No, he is not teacher. If a teacher is wrong, he is cheater. That is our proposition.
Mr. Wadell: Well, I'm sorry, this is a point which we must surely...
Prabhupāda: This is the real point. If you have to go to a teacher, you must go to a real teacher. You don't go to a cheater.
Mr. Wadell: But suppose I teach you something, a subject in which knowledge is not complete.
Prabhupāda: Then you should not be teacher. Then you should not be teacher. Then you are cheater.
Prabhupāda: That is, that is next question, that you have to accept next body, but what kind of body you'll have? That you can see, that there are so many varieties of life, body. You have to accept one of them. Just like when you were admitted into school for education. The idea was that you'll be educated, and according to your education, there are so many posts you'll have to occupy. Just like you are lawyer, he's medical man, somebody's engineer, somebody else, somebody... Varieties or field of activities. So according to the perfection of one's education, he has to accept one post like that. Similarly, next body means according to your karma. Karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa jantur dehopapattaye (SB 3.31.1). You are preparing your next Life. That is also explained in the Bhagavad-gītā:
- yānti deva-vratā devān
- pitṟn yānti pitṛ-vratāḥ
- bhūtāni yānti bhūtejyā
- yānti mad-yājino 'pi mām
- (BG 9.25)
So according to your culture, mentality, your condition of life will be at the end of your life. Yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante kalevaram, sadā tad-bhāva-bhāvitaḥ (BG 8.6). The whole life, as we have thought, as we have absorbed in thought, the same mentality will be concentrated at the time of your death. So, a god's mentality, or dog's mentality or hog's mentality, or... There are so many kinds of. So you'll get next body according to that mentality.
Prabhupāda: Eh? Yes. Simply if you can... Just like Ajāmila. He simply chanted, "Nārāyaṇa." Svalpam apy asya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt. He was saved from the greatest danger. So this human form of life should be so trained up that at the time of death you can remember Kṛṣṇa, "Kṛṣṇa, now you can judge what I have done for you, and what you have done for me." Then give me that place. That's it." That... If you have worked whole life for Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is not ungrateful. He'll give you.
Guest (3): Can a person become Kṛṣṇa conscious only by renouncing, or can he do both, continue his life and also become Kṛṣṇa conscious?
Prabhupāda: What we have renounced?
Guest (3): Well, you are not conducting any business. You are conducting the business of Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So in Kṛṣṇa's business, there is no question of renouncement.
Guest (3): No, but that is not a specific thing. But if somebody's carrying out a particular duty, does he have to renounce that...
Prabhupāda: That particular duty, you cannot manufacture. That particular duty is, as Kṛṣṇa says, if you cannot... Cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ... (BG 4.13). (end)
Prabhupāda: Nobody has intelligence. It will not, it will not stay. It will be spoiled. Joint mess organization. In Los Angeles, they're also doing business. They're going to sell books. But regulative principle is observed. Huge expenditure they have got. No center is so improved as Los Angeles. We have purchased six houses. And I wanted immediately two lakhs, immediately sent. You cannot pay. You simply want to take. In India, nobody can pay. If I want two lakhs, nobody can pay. But all this money have been taken from U.S.A. I asked Bali Mardana, I asked Karandhara. They paid me for this Bombay affair, sixteen, eighteen lakhs. (break) ...and breathing also does not stop. It goes very slow. Therefore he cannot be immortal. And Bhagavad-gītā proposes, that is wonderful thing, if you can stop death. And whole spiritual life means how to stop death. That is Bhāgavata's instruction, "Don't accept guru, don't accept father, don't accept, or don't be father, don't be mother, don't be, if you cannot stop death." Either you don't accept, or don't become. Just like they want guru. So don't accept a guru who cannot stop your death. And from guru's side, it is advised, "Don't become guru if you cannot stop the death of your disciple." This is Bhāgavatam's statement. So our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is to stop death, live eternally with Kṛṣṇa, go back to home, back to Godhead. This is our movement. So our guru gives us this opportunity, no more death. Tyaktvā... After leaving this body, you don't accept any more material body. And if you don't accept material body, then there is no death. As soon as your spiritual, you remain in spiritual body, there is no death. There is no birth also. Death is concomitant where birth is there. If the death is stopped, then there is no birth. And if there is no birth, there is no disease, there is no old age. This is the process. So birth, death, old age, disease can be stopped only by Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So if you don't like to be Kṛṣṇa conscious then what is the use of becoming your disciple, and if the guru, if he cannot stop your death, birth and death, then what is your becoming guru? So 'mṛtatvāya kalpate. Yaṁ hi na vyathayanty ete puruṣaṁ puruṣarṣabha. Find out this verse. Yaṁ hi na vyathayanty ete.
Hṛdayānanda: If it is so important, I think perhaps I should stay here and help Rūpānuga.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Turn your whole nation, turn into God consciousness, because they've declared in the Constitution, "In God we trust." Now they must take it very seriously. What does it mean by "God"? What does it mean by "trust"? You take this propaganda. We are doing, actually. We trust in God; therefore we have sacrificed our whole life for God. This is trust in God. Not that smoking in the parlor, and you trust in God. Not that kind of trust. Real trust. Trust means first of all you know what is God. Suppose that if you say "Trust this man." But I must know what is this man. Then my trust will be convinced, that "He is very respectful man, he's rich man, he's able man..." Yes, I can trust. But simply trust in God, you do not know what is God, what is trust, and it is going on. Why this bluff? Ah? What you say?
Prajāpati: That that's right, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Which way? (break) ...stayed in that Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa temple, Malliks. And still I am living in temple. So Kṛṣṇa has arranged nicely, from the beginning of my life, temple. Which way? This way? (break) Medhi, this is called medhi, this rod, center. So the, the bull is bound up with it and he goes round, goes around. All day. So gṛhamedhī means center is home, and he goes round. Throughout the whole life. They are called gṛhamedhīs.
Hṛdayānanda: This is called medhi.
Prabhupāda: Medhi, yes. Another medhi means killing. So one who keeps himself in household life, he kills himself. Killing, Gṛhamedhī. And that is little long term meaning. But this is the direct meaning. The medhi rod is there, and he simply... He's very busy. Busy means within few feet. But he's thinking he's very busy. Anyone got, he has got home, and he's simply rounding about. Anywhere you go. The center is that. And what is that gṛha? Where? Which way?
Bhavānanda: This way, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: No life membership, life membership they're... Just like if somebody joins, he's more than life member. But if he does not join, then he becomes life member by paying the fees.
Guest (4): I also...
Guest (5): I want to be a member, and I wish to resign from my present service. And I wish to dedicate my whole life to...
Prabhupāda: What is your present service?
Guest (5): At present, I am serving in the steel plant, Hindustan Steel Industry.
Prabhupāda: Oh, steel plant.
Guest (5): And I want to, wish to dedicate my whole life to the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: That is very good proposal.
Guest (5): And I am a...
Prabhupāda: How far you are educated?
Guest (5):. As long as I will live, I will broom and clean the temple.
Haṁsadūta: How can they make such a mistake?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Haṁsadūta: How is it that they made such a big mistake?
Prabhupāda: Their whole life is mistake. (laughter) They cannot do anything but mistake. Why you are so much confident about that? Their whole life is simply mistake.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda, they see a little fire, and they see that it has heat and light, and so they see a huge thing having heat and light, and so they conclude that that's also a fire. So if that's their deductive method, then if they see that whenever there's intelligence, there must be a person, then why don't they conclude that behind the universe, there's so many wonderful things, that there must also be a person?
Prabhupāda: Yes, we say there are persons, combination of fiery persons. Therefore it looks so bright.
Akṣayānanda: Is the brightness of a diamond because of the presence of a jīva?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Dr. Patel: Everything is Kṛṣṇa's. How can you give anything? Even a leaf?
Prabhupāda: Oh yes, yes. Just like these boys and girls are giving. Oh, that is the philosophy. These boys, girls, they are giving everything. Whole life. Whole life. They have no... They do not ask even a single payasā from me that "My dear sir, please give me four ānās. I'll go to the cinema." You see? They are serving. Everything they have given. This boy, you like this Girirāja. He's earning at least 50,000 per month. Not a single payasā, even fifty n.p. he does not keep. This is service. They are not poor. They're earning, but everything for Kṛṣṇa.
Dr. Patel: Girirāja, how you are earning fifty thousand rupees a month?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Fifty-thousand. Because fifty members. Fifty members, eleven hundred rupees. He makes at least two, three members. If some day absent, average fifty. Fifty thousand. Not a single fifty n.p. he keeps. There are many. All, all of them. Not that everyone is earning fifty thousand, but even fifty hundred or fifty payasā, everything for Kṛṣṇa. That is tam abhyarcya. And if you divide partially, "Some percentage for Kṛṣṇa, some percentage for my sense gratification," then Kṛṣṇa says, ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham (BG 4.11). Proportionately. If you have spent cent percent of your energy for Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is cent percent for you. And if you have spent one percent for Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is one percent for you. Responsive cooperation. (laughter) Yes. This institution has advanced so much all over the world because we have got these boys who have dedicated everything for Kṛṣṇa. Therefore it has so quickly advanced all over the world. They do not think of anything of personal. Svakarmaṇā tam abhyarcya. Saṁsiddhir hari-toṣaṇam (SB 1.2.13).
Prabhupāda: So...
Dr. Patel: Therefore at the last moment you... But you can't get that last moment in this position because you have, whole life, you have...
Prabhupāda: Yes, you have spoiled your life simply in material activities. How you can remember?
Dr. Patel: But even if you are doing material activities by your body, and by your mental activities you are bhaja kṛṣṇa...
Prabhupāda: But you are under the body... Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni (BG 3.27). Body and mind is working... Unless you practice to be above body and mind... That is bhakti-yoga. Māṁ cāvyabhicāriṇi-bhakti-yoga..., sa guṇān samatītya. You cannot expect that you go on doing all these material activities and at the time of death you'll remember Kṛṣṇa. That is not possible.
Acyutānanda: But otherwise Nārāyaṇa has all the six opulences.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Super-excellent opulence in Kṛṣṇa, by His veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣam (Bs. 5.30). That attraction is only in Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...scientist, we say the same thing.
Bhāgavata: Yes. He has spent his whole life, twenty-five years, studying so hard.
Prabhupāda: When he said this?
Bhāgavata: In 1972. His name is Professor Leakey. He is from, I think, America. And he has found in Kenya one skull two million years old. (break)
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. When our book was published?
Girirāja: This was in about seventy...
Bhāgavata: 1970 it came out.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...you discover.
Prabhupāda: But hate each other, that's all right. We say what is the use of your sexual intercourse? That is animalism. You avoid it. Our Vedic civilization is to avoid it. Therefore they remain brahmacārī, naiṣṭhika-brahmacārī, no sexual intercourse in the whole life. That is perfection.
Yogeśvara: But that's not possible for the mass of people.
Prabhupāda: No, why not possible? We have got so many, just like Śukadeva Gosvāmī. He remained completely brahmacārī, although naked he is. He is. He doesn't require, and neither he is agitated. Just like when he was passing, the girls were taking bath. They did not take care. They knew that he is not at all affected by any woman. And when his father was going, they covered. So father inquired, Vyāsadeva, a personality like Vyāsadeva, said, "Why you covered? I am old man, and my young son he was passing naked." They said that "He is paramahaṁsa. He has no agitation of the mind. But you are gṛhastha. You live with woman. You have got distinction, man and woman." So this is civilization. What is the use of sex life? It is simply entanglement. Therefore, at the last stage, one is supposed to become sannyāsī. What is sannyāsī? Vānaprastha, sannyāsī, brahmacārī—no sex life. Out of the four different status of life, the brahmacārī has no sex life, the vānaprastha has no sex life, the sannyāsī has no sex life. Only the gṛhastha. That means it is prohibitory. It is allowed—it is simply concession to the person who cannot remain without sex life. It is simply a concession.
Prabhupāda: Whatever they, others women, they may take lesson from them that, "If these woman are suffering or these men are suffering, why should we marry?" There is a Bengali proverb, dekhe sekhe and tekhe sekhe (?). One who is intelligent, he can see what is happening, he becomes cautious. And one, when actually experienced, then he becomes cautious. Less intelligent. So if it is not good, why you are marrying? Why you are induced by sex life? Stop it by Kṛṣṇa consciousness. If you devote yourself, the whole life, in Kṛṣṇa consciousness you will not be agitated by any sex life. And that is yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ kṛṣṇa-pādāravinde. If one is actually advanced in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he will deride, "Huh! Nonsense! What is this?" That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness, advancement. The only remedy, prime remedy for all solution, is Kṛṣṇa conscious. That we have to say. So answers are all right or not?
Yogeśvara: No, very nice. (laughter)
Brahmānanda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Mirabhai is becoming mixed up with Kṛṣṇa. You have seen it?
Brahmānanda: Yes, that was the final point. She worshiped Kṛṣṇa throughout her whole life so at the end she could become one with Him.
Prabhupāda: This is going on, the Māyāvādī rascals. But they do not refer where Kṛṣṇa says that "You become My devotee, then you become pushed (indistinct)."
Brahmānanda: They showed the two bodies coming together.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Brahmānanda: I think the picture of the two bodies...
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa says that "You and Me and all these soldiers, we existed before, we are existing now, and we shall exist in this way in the future." Where does He say that "We shall be mixed up"? He never says. And these rascals, they have got so many parties, the same thing. Where do you get this idea? There is sayujya-mukti, but Kṛṣṇa never says that "You take it." All this Ramakrishna Mission, all these, this (indistinct), he gives the example that rivers come from different sources, but when it comes to the ocean it is mixed up. Why don't you see within the water? Within the water there are big, big fishes, they do not mix up with the water. They see superficially the water. This is going on. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānās (SB 7.5.31). Our philosophy is "Come. Come here, play with Kṛṣṇa as cowherd boy. Come here, dance with Kṛṣṇa as gopī. Come here, accept Kṛṣṇa as your son, Kṛṣṇa will accept you as His mother." There will be always two, and enjoy, any way. Even as enemy, demon displaying part of enemy, Kṛṣṇa killing, that is also pastime too. That is also enjoyment.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes. Nondevotee means too much attached to woman. That is the plain fact.
Yaśodānandana: Also one time in Bombay you told this verse from Caitanya-caritāmṛta, sādhu-saṅga (CC Madhya 22.83), sādhu-saṅga...
Prabhupāda: Sarva-śāstre kaya, lava-mātra sādhu-saṅge sarva-siddhi haya (CC Madhya 22.54). For me, personally, I had the opportunity to talk with my spiritual master not more than ten times in my whole life, not more. It may be less than that. But I tried to follow his instruction, that's all, although I was a gṛhastha.
Bali Mardana: You are a much better student than us.
Prabhupāda: So this is the process. That is the... You sing every day. Guru-mukha-padma-vākya, cittete koriyā aikya **. That is the process. Wherever you live, if you follow strictly the instruction of guru, then you remain perfect. But if we create, concoct ideas against the instruction of guru, then we are doomed, hell. Yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādo yasyāprasādān na gatiḥ kuto 'pi **. There is no more shelter, finished. Yasya prasādāt. If guru thinks that "This person, I wanted to take him back to home, back to Godhead. Now he is going against me. He is not following," aprasādāt, he is displeased, then everything is finished.
Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He still wants to go on with the same question he asked before: If we are content just to purify ourselves or if we also want to help the society.
Prabhupāda: No, you do not know what is self. How you will purify? You do not know what is self. Can you say what is self?
Professor (Hṛdayānanda): Is it possible that he could spend his whole life trying to find himself and at the end of his life not find himself and meanwhile he didn't help the society?
Prabhupāda: Not only one life, but millions of life, you will not be able to know—unless you change your policy.
Professor (Hṛdayānanda): What is the value of the transcendence?
Prabhupāda: Because you are transcendence. You are actually seeking transcendence because you are transcendence.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Young children should be educated from the very beginning about God consciousness or the science of God. We had the opportunity in our childhood. My father taught. And then, when I was grown up, my spiritual master taught. So for that reason we have got some sense. Spiritual education should be given...
- kaumāra ācaret prājño
- dharmān bhāgavatān iha
- durlabhaṁ mānuṣaṁ janma
- tad apy adhruvam arthadam
- (SB 7.6.1)
This is statement of Prahlāda Mahārāja. He was a five-years-old boy and a devotee. So he was trying to preach amongst his classfellows. The classfellows said, "Why you are bothering about spiritual consciousness, God consciousness, now? We are young men. Let us play." He said, "No. The spiritual life should begin kaumāra, just at the beginning of five years." Why? Durlabhaṁ mānuṣaṁ janma: "This human form of life is very rarely obtained, and we do not know when we shall die. So before our next death we must be spiritually equipped. That is the business of human life." There is no guarantee when death will come. A child may also die tomorrow. There is no guarantee. Therefore spiritual education should begin as soon as a child can understand something. Because there is no guarantee that he will remain for many years. There is no guarantee. So the business of human life is to revive our lost relationship with God. So if we miss, then I may get another body, not even human body. Then I miss the opportunity. There are 8,400,000 types of forms. Just like the trees, they are all... (break) ...human form of life. And that may take millions of years. So if we miss this opportunity of human life, to revive our relationship with God, and next life I become something else, then how much great loss it is, just try to understand. This human form of body is obtained after many, many millions of years' struggle. So this is also temporary, as the cats' and dogs' body, they are also temporary. But although it is temporary, it is arthadam. You can achieve the real purpose of life. That is the privilege of this human form of... Therefore as soon as possible, the spiritual education should begin, immediately. If the child simply can understand, "God is great," that is immense profit for him. (break) ...means from five years to twenty-five years, brahmacārī, he has nothing to learn except God, brahmacārī. Brāhme carati iti brahmacārī. He is simply interested in Brahmān. That is called brahmacārī. He has no material interest. That is the foundation of spiritual life. Brahmacārī. And if he can, he remains brahmacārī throughout the whole life. But if he is unable, then he is allowed to marry, gṛhastha. So according to Vedic civilization, any education should begin at childhood. Therefore even one is king's son, he was sent to Gurukula to remain as brahmacārī to learn the basic principle of life. That is Vedic civilization.
Prabhupāda: Blind men. Therefore this fact is summarized in the Bhagavad-gītā in the words,
- na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ
- prapadyante narādhamāḥ
- māyayāpahṛta jñānā
- āsuri-bhāvam āśritāḥ
- (BG 7.15)
Because they have denied the existence of God, therefore they are blind and they are engaged in sinful activities without knowing what is going to happen next in his life. Therefore mūḍha, rascal. And narādhamāḥ. Narādhamāḥ means lowest of the mankind, because in the human form of life one could understand what is God, but he is misusing his intelligence for something else, narādhamāḥ. But if you say, "They are educated. They have got so much education. Why do you condemn them?" then the answer is māyayāpahṛta-jñānā. This so-called knowledge they have acquired, that means māyā has made them more foolish. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says,
jaḍa-vidyā sab, māyāra vaibhava,
- jībake karaye gāḍhā
He has said like that, that so far advancement of material education means that so-called educated man is becoming more, more, more an ass. Why?
anitya soṁsāre, moha janamiyā,
He is simply getting more attached to this material world, where he will not be allowed to stay. This is his foolishness. Naturally, we are sitting in this room, and if we say that "I can spare only two minutes," then will you be very much eager to decorate the room? So that warning is already there. Everyone knows that "I will not be able to stay here," and they are making skyscraper building. How foolish they are. He knows that "I will not be allowed to stay here," and he is busy whole life how to make fogscraper, skyscraper. The same example. If I say, "You cannot sit here more than few minutes," then will you be engaged how to decorate this room? You'll know naturally that "I am here for two minutes. Why shall I take, waste my time to decorate?" They are doing that actually. So are they not foolish?
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is fourth class. This is the proof. Fourth-class men administering... Just like misadministration not immediately detected. After some time, when the case is unmanageable, it is detected. Therefore fourth-class men. Simply these Western people, they know how to earn money by hook and crook. So, so long the money is there it is covered, the fourth-class men. And when the money is finished, they are exposed, fourth-class men. They're simply covered by money. No social structure, no spiritual understanding, no character, nothing of the sort. Still India, so fallen, you... 95% people, living, husband and wife, very peacefully. And in the Western countries after six months' marriage, divorce. Are they not fourth class? Even the husband and wife cannot continue peaceful life, what to speak of others. Now this rascal Jawaharlal Nehru has introduced divorce in the Hindu society. Otherwise in the Hindu society separation between husband and wife is not even dreamt of. That, it cannot be. However there may be quarrelsome, but there is no question of separation. Husband and wife, they fight, everywhere. I have seen. My father and mother was fighting. I fought. (laughter) But there is no question of separation. Separation, they never think. Neither the husband can think of, nor the wife can think of. Even in the life of Gandhi there was fight between husband and wife, and the Gandhi one day drove his wife, "Get out from my home." So she was put into the street, and she began to cry, "Where shall I go?" And then Gandhi ans..., "Come on." Yes. And Cāṇakya Paṇḍita said, bambhārambhe laghu-kriyā. The husband and wife may fight. It becomes a very serious thing, but don't take of it as serious. This is Hindu philosophy. Husband and wife quarrel should not be taken as very serious. They fight and again they live peacefully. Why this divorce? The divorce mean it kills the whole family life. The children goes away; the father goes away; the mother goes away. I have seen so many cases.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Devotee (1): If a man simply works for Kṛṣṇa for his whole life, yet he doesn't follow the regulative principles...
Prabhupāda: Then how he follows Kṛṣṇa?
Devotee (1): That's not possible.
Prabhupāda: If you are following Kṛṣṇa, then how you can violate the regulative principles?
Devotee (1): Just like they follow a few regulative principles, like the basic four: no illicit sex, no meat-eating, no gambling, and no intoxication. If they follow those four regulative principles and just work for Kṛṣṇa...
Prabhupāda: He doesn't follow the four principles?
Devotee (1): Oh, yes. Yes. There's this one devotee in Sydney who works very hard for Kṛṣṇa, but...
Prabhupāda: But does not follow.
Amogha: But how can we understand all this science and technology just by understanding Kṛṣṇa, just by one book?
Prabhupāda: Not one book. You cannot read them throughout your whole life, there are so many books.
Amogha: I don't think they have any argument.
Prabhupāda: What argument? They are fools, rascals. What argument?
Amogha: Yesterday they did not know what to say.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Nobody could say against me. Maunaṁ śamyati labdhaḥ.(?) If they remain silent, that means they have accepted. I charge you that "You are thief," and if you don't protest, then you are thief. If you are not thief, immediately you will: "How you say? Why you have said?" There will be fight. But if you remains silent, that proves that you are thief. So they could not give us any counterargument. Therefore they accepted.
Śrutakīrti: Just like that man who wrote the letter yesterday. He's prepared to spend the rest of his life understanding the transfer, the transmigration of the soul instead of just accepting it in the Gītā. He's going to spend his whole life.
Prabhupāda: No, no. His non-acceptance means he's a rascal. He's a rascal. He may waste his time in that way. What can be done? His non-acceptance means he's a rascal. It's evident. Anyone knows that "After this, I will get another body." You are all young men. You know that you will get after some years a body like me. So what is the difficulty to understand that we are changing body?
Paramahaṁsa: So actually it's useless to try to give any more proof other than that.
Prabhupāda: That is sufficient for an intelligent man. That is sufficient.
Paramahaṁsa: So if a scientist or someone who has some degree in science comes to our movement, should we encourage him to try to prove through science the Kṛṣṇa conscious principle of transmigration and eternal quality of the soul?
Prabhupāda: Not necessary. Not necessary.
Paramahaṁsa: Better if he just...
Prabhupāda: It is not that if we prove scientifically there is soul, if there is scientific proof, not that all the people of the world will become Kṛṣṇa conscious, even if you do that. So it is useless. You simply understand what is stated by Kṛṣṇa.
Brahmānanda: You were also saying that the psychology of the abortion is that the parents do not want to take the trouble...
Prabhupāda: Yes, that I explained.
Brahmānanda: Yes. Of raising the child. Therefore they create some...
Prabhupāda: Otherwise, what is the reason? They know there are so many troubles. To avoid the troubles, "Kill this." That's all. So to save trouble, people are prepared to kill child even.
Brahmānanda: And that's considered advancement, in modern life, to remove trouble. The whole life is conveniences, remove trouble. That shows they will go to any extent.
Prabhupāda: So trouble that is, atyantika-duḥkha-nivṛtti, how to mitigate or finish all trouble, that they do not know. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma (BG 4.9). So long you will get this body, you will have trouble. But that they do not know, how to stop getting another body. So trouble is not mitigated in that way. You increase your entanglement, become sinful. You again take another body to suffer this sinful reaction. (end)
Devotee (2): She remained with the cloth wrapped for her whole life?
Prabhupāda: Whole life.
Devotee (2): Whole life.
Prabhupāda: She voluntarily became blind. And up to the last point of her husband's precarious condition, she remained with him. These are the examples. There are other examples. Damayanti. They became so poor that they had no clothing. So the one cloth divided into two, husband and wife. So these instances are in the Vedic literature, that wife remains always faithful and subservient to the husband. That is their perfection. Now the Americans may not like this idea. That is different thing. But we are speaking of the Vedic culture. And these are the instances, vivid instances. Why Sītā accompanied her husband? And because she accompanied her husband in the jungle, the war between Rāma Rāvaṇa became possible. And it is the advice that "When you go to other countries you should not take your wife." Pathe narī-vinārjitaḥ. Because it may create some trouble. But still, the faithful wife goes with the husband.
Brahmānanda: In the First Canto?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Dharmasya hy āpavargyasya nārtho 'rthāyopakalpate. The first thing is that people become religious. Just like in your Christian religion they go to the church to get some material profit. "Oh God, give us our daily bread." This is material profit. Similarly, Hindus or Muslims, they become religious, dharma artha kāma mokṣa (SB 4.8.41, Cc. Ādi 1.90), the material activities. Those who are actually advanced... Those who are not even human beings, their philosophy is different. Those who are human beings, their dharma, religion. Then artha, economic development, and then kāma, sense gratification, and then mokṣa, liberation. These four things are taken as general activities. So Bhāgavata says your dharma... Religious principle means the ultimate goal is how to become liberated, not artha. Artha means economic development. So then question may be if you do not, if we are not economically developed then how we shall live? The Bhāgavata says that you can make economic development as far as it maintains your body and soul together. Not that making whole life economic development and real purpose of life forget. This is foolishness. So dharma, artha. Dharma means, religious advancement means how to get out of this material condition. Not that I go to temple and chant, "God, give me millions of dollars, and this, and that." This is not possible. It is good that one has gone to God to ask some help, that much credit is there. You have found out the verse?
Brahmānanda: Yes.
Brahmānanda: In Dr. Judah's book he gives interviews with the devotees, and they tell so many instances of how our devotees were so depressed and hopeless, and then they became Kṛṣṇa conscious, and oh, their whole lives have been transformed, and how happy and... Why don't they see that? They somehow discount it as being not very substantial, being fanatical or something religious. But it's a fact. He took a survey of "What was the thing that attracted you to the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement?" So the majority, about 53%, they said it was the sound of the mantra, Hare Kṛṣṇa. And another, about 48%, they said it was the friendliness of the devotees.
Prabhupāda: And that one, what is called? Draft? Draft man came to inquire that "What is the allurement here in this society that they try to avoid that..." What do you call? Draft? "...draftboard and come to this society? What is the facility?" So when he studied he said that "There is no facility; still harder. They have to give up so many things." He remarked like that, "Still harder."
Indian Man (2): In Hardwar I have been recently, and I met one of my uncle's wife. My uncle's father was a very big mahanta. He was having quite in a big numbers, maybe in lakhs or you can say million, half million to million disciples. And what he was using in whole life, the disciple's money, for his own pleasure or his wife and children's. And at the end of it he took his sannyāsa. Only just few years after that, he died. And I found there in a lot of mahantas, they have a temples, they are using there lot of jewels, gold, and money, and they have a business, like that. And thousand of educated people visit, and they believe that this is all they are doing, show off, and there is no God. This is bewildering everybody's mind. Is there any... we have some system that we can conquer those people by means to... Those young generation of their children, they really looking for the truth. I met one mahanta, his son. He is very educated boy. He met impersonalist leader, and he misguided, and they are leading their life just like a, you can say, I don't want to use bad word, like pigs. They are eating and sleeping and mating, same as there are other people doing.
Prabhupāda: Well, this is want of knowledge, jñānam.
- vāsudeve bhagavati
- bhakti-yogaḥ prayojitaḥ
- janayaty āśu vairāgyaṁ
- jñānaṁ ca yad ahaitukam
- (SB 1.2.7)
If one is engaged in the devotional service of Vasudeva, then he immediately becomes vairāgī—no attachment for material things—and knowledge. But most of these rascals, they are nondevotees. The so-called mahanta, he is not mahanta-mohāndha: "great blind." So that is the difficulty. Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is to bring everyone to the stage of devotional service to Vāsudeva. Then it will be all right. Other platform will never be successful. Simply show. It is not fact. (break) ...also take it very easily that "I haven't got to do anything. My Guru Mahārāja is there. He will do everything. I can do whatever I like." The Christians are doing like that, that "Jesus Christ will suffer. We indulge in sinful activities. That's all." This is their policy. It is perhaps in our movement only that each and every individual is being trained up. Others they do not do that. "I have made a guru; then my business is finished. Now I can do whatever I like." (To dogs barking:) Hut!
Prabhupāda: This is the road. This is the bus. (break)
Tejas: Many of the members are reading the books now, Śrīla Prabhupāda. One man, he is coming tonight. He has read your Bhagavad-gītā six times now. He is very enthusiastic. Now he is thinking that he has wasted his whole life. That's the way he talks.
Prabhupāda: Yes. If he comes to that conclusion, then he becomes perfect.
Tejas: He told me, "I have read so many Bhagavad-gītās previously, but never was the commentation clear. I could not understand the meaning."
Prabhupāda: Yes. They simply jugglery of words.
Tejas: All impersonal.
Bhāgavata: There was one man in Calcutta. You stayed in his house just before you left for America, and later he became a sannyāsī. He sings bhajans. He became a sannyāsī later. He knew you very well. You had written him a letter, and he just recently became a patron, and he is reading your books now also. I have forgotten his name, but he knew you very, very well. He used to sing bhajans. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...dranatha statue? (break) ...some contribution through that... What is that temple? No, no, Chandi Chowk?
Tejas: Ācchā. Gauri Shankar.
Prabhupāda: Gauri Shankar. I think, that Sita Ram? Sita Ram? He is living or not?
Dhanañjaya: So the Christians... (break)
Prabhupāda: So what they are doing?
Dhanañjaya: Well, Praṇava, he was investigating.
Prabhupāda: Investigating for life. Whole life, simply investigating.
Dhanañjaya: But now, since the rains have been here, this whole countryside has become very, very green. It seems like the land is very fertile. Grass is growing so profusely like this.
Prabhupāda: Arrange a meeting with the D.M.
Dhanañjaya: Yes. Mr. Bagla, the D.M.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I've heard he wants to see the film very badly. He wants to see our Hare Kṛṣṇa film, the D.M. So we are waiting for it from Delhi.
Dhanañjaya: It is coming this morning.
Prabhupāda: Oh. D.M. is coming?
Dhanañjaya: No. The film is coming this morning.
Devotee (1): There's a cart.
Prabhupāda: And what is the pleasure? Stool-passing and urine-passing points are joined together, and it is pleasure. Just see their standard of pleasure. Just like the pigs. With pleasure, they eat stool. So they think it is pleasure. Standard of pleasure has gone down so low. This is Kali-yuga. (break) ...advanced. He has disciple, guru, but he knows that he is suffering whole life for this institution. Still he'll not give it up.
Brahmānanda: He still has hope against hope.
Prabhupāda: Yes. He thinks that "I shall die peacefully if I expand the laboratory house, that I have given something to Vṛndāvana." Did he not say like that?
Brahmānanda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: As if Caitanya Mahāprabhu asked him to give this institution to Vṛndāvana. Such a foolish person.
Brahmānanda: Yet he also admits that any boys who have intelligence, who are good students, they will go to Mathurā and Agra and other places for education. Here only the village boys come.
Prabhupāda: (to passerby:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya.
Vāsughoṣa: But I was reading in this National Geographic Magazine, there is one sect of people in New York City, very orthodox following. They don't even go to cinema. When they have free time they are studying the śāstras, their śāstras. They are very strict. They don't even shave their faces because it says, "Do not round the corner of your face." So they have these big beards like this, and their whole life is dedicated like this to reading and... They also sing and dance.
Prabhupāda: That is something good.
Brahmānanda: When I was a teacher in New York I taught in one of their schools. I taught the little children... (break)
Prabhupāda: After that, he is fit down(?). Then, if life member comes, he can simply stay in the guest room without any charges for three days. (break)
Dhṛṣṭaketu: ...that one is making progress by how he feels, or should he just simply execute the order of the spiritual master and not worry about how he feels? How should... In other words...
Prabhupāda: If he is making progress, he must feel. If he is not making progress, then he will not feel.
Dhṛṣṭaketu: And that feeling is a willingness to serve Kṛṣṇa or...
Prabhupāda: No, that is always. Whether he is actually serving Kṛṣṇa... That is devotion. So if he is actually serving Kṛṣṇa, then anartha-nivṛttiḥ syāt bhajana-kriyā. Bhajana-kriyā means anartha-nivṛttiḥ syāt. This is the result. If his anartha is not decreasing, or becoming zero, then he is not making bhajana. He is doing something else.
Prabhupāda: Equal rights. Make agreement. "Once you beget; once I shall." (laughs) Make this contract. Then it is equal right. If the woman has to give birth of a child and she has to suffer all the pains thereof, then where is the equal right? Where is equal right? Nature has said, "You must suffer." The husband, the so-called husband, will give birth, er, will utilize you for sex satisfaction, and you will be pregnant, and he will go away and you will suffer the whole life to maintain the child, welfare—"Give me some money"—or this or that. Where is equal right? He is free. He has gone away. Huh? This is general experience in the Western countries.
Brahmānanda: "Unwed mothers."
Prabhupāda: Yes. And she cannot also check that "I shall not become mother." For sex appetite she will agree, and the man will go away and she will suffer. Is that civilization?
Brahmānanda: Each year there are over one million abortions.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Brahmānanda: In America there are over one million abortions.
Prabhupāda: And they are advanced. They are proud of their being advanced. And they will not suffer? So we are trying to save the whole human society from rascaldom. That's all. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You see? This is nīm tree. There is many nīm trees. If they kindly accept and follow this movement they will be happy. Otherwise they are doomed. Let them suffer. What can I do? Thorough overhauling.
Indian man (4): Many intelligent people in Africa, they are taking it very seriously. We have one professor, Entenjania Danisanjunibristi. He's a very young boy. So he bought your Bhagavad-gītā and Bhagavat dāsa was there. So he took all the picture out, all the picture, and he framed. I have seen in the room. He put all the pictures in his room. Then he was writing me from a long time. He became our patron life member, and now he chants sixteen rounds. He has gone to London for our course. He said, "After finishing this course I will take initiation from His Divine Grace. Then I will dedicate my whole life to preach in the university."
Prabhupāda: He is Indian or African?
Indian man (4): No, no, African. He's a professor. Oh, yes. You have seen the letter, I think. So when I was in, then I was in Mandena's room. He said "No, you stay with me. Don't stay with the Asians." So I was in (?) university, you know. He said Asian can take this philosophy and not be so serious. Now he has gone to London. He may see you when you will be there, for a year. And he chants sixteen rounds. He has nobody, no picture else in his room. There was one picture of the president there. He took it down and he put a Kṛṣṇa picture there. So it's very serious. And he said, "I don't know. Since I have read the Bhagavad-gītā I go to my class to give a class to the students and I don't speak anything else about the scriptures."
Prabhupāda: That is the sign.
Prabhupāda: Just like the students, they say... What do they say? The students?
Girirāja: That in the beginning there was a chunk, and it exploded, and there's no God.
Prabhupāda: How they are spoiling the career. Whole life is spoiled. They are being taught in this way. Andha yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ (SB 7.5.31). This is going on, schools, colleges: "Don't believe in God." That has become a fashion, advancement. Yes. (Hindi)
Dr. Patel: But all are not like that.
Indian man (1): Not all, but some. (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: Not some, ninety percent.
Dr. Patel: Some of the fools like him may be thinking like that. I have been right from the... I was born in science and I never thought that there was no God.
Prabhupāda: No, no, you...
Dr. Patel: Do you call me an exception?
Prabhupāda: I know that. I know. I know you.
Prabhupāda: You cannot be corrected.
Dr. Patel: I cannot be wrong, say that.
Prabhupāda: No, I cannot correct you.
Dr. Patel: You? You cannot be correct...? Why I should not be corrected? Because the philosophy must encompass the whole life, not a part of it. All Western philosophers, only except Schopenhauer and Eckhart, they only thought about the waking stage. They have never thought about the dream and the deep sleep stage and the stage beyond the three. None of them, excepting Eckhart of Germany. So the Western philosophers are all wrong or partially true. (break) The Western philosophers have never thought about the three other stages, none of them.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...philosophy rejects any philosophy based on thinking.
Dr. Patel: But you see thinking is an apparatus which takes you beyond thinking.
Prabhupāda: That is another.
rt off with this capitalistic system.
Prabhupāda: No, what Marx has explained that a man is born in a rich family, from the birth he is millionaire, and another man is trying whole life, but he could not secure more than his provision? That's all. Why this is here?
Harikeśa: That's due to the capitalistic system. Because he is born in a certain kind of a system, then this hereditary birth and wealth comes. But that capitalistic system, if it's more in a socialistic or communistic system, then there is no possibility of that happening. So therefore this inequality doesn't exist.
Prabhupāda: They are trying for the last fifty years. Why the capitalism is not yet gone? Fifty years at least. They started their movement in 1917. Huh? So how many years? More than fifty. Sixty years. Sixty years. What they have done, progress?
Dr. Patel: ...human society (indistinct) support the devotee.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. Support the right man who is after Bhagavān, not to the rascals. That is the problem. Dātavyam iti yad dānam tad sattvikam. Here is the person. Here, one has dedicated his whole life for Bhagavān, give everything to him. That is dānam. Dānam sattvikaṁ rājasi tamasi. One is a rascal, then what is the use of giving him dāna?
Dr. Patel: Even you do not give dāna, he will take away by thievery.
Prabhupāda: Anyway, that is a misuse. Misuse.
Dr. Patel: Dānam, dānam... (quotes Sanskrit)
Prabhupāda: If you make tamasic dāna, then you become implicated with his sinful activities. Suppose you want to kill somebody, and you're asking, "Can you give me a nice knife?" "What you will do?" "I shall kill that man." "All right, take it, dānam. I am giving you in charity." So he will be implicated. In the court, if it is known that that man supplied the knife, "Arrest him. Bring him immediately."
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Abhirāma: I have seen in Miami Beach that one man was found dead in his apartment, and he was living poverty-stricken. His whole place was full of rats and cockroaches. When they investigated his file they found that he had eight million dollars in the bank and in stocks. But all of his friends said he couldn't spend one penny his whole life, because he was too cheap. So even though he was a rich man, actually he was a poor man.
Dr. Patel: But, sir, there are some beggars here in Bombay who have got one and two lakh rupees. You have read the railway(?) story about couple of beggars. They rounded up, and they had money.
Prabhupāda: No, I am also a beggar. I am also beggar.
Dr. Patel: That is not.... You are a rich beggar.
Prabhupāda: Millions of dollars.
Dr. Patel: Sannyāsīs don't touch money.
Prabhupāda: Yes, I don't touch money. They pass check. (laughter) I simply sign check. All these accounts in Bombay, they are being managed by them. I do not touch even. Lakhs and lakhs of rupees they are spending.
Prabhupāda: Yes, they have nothing to give. Simply denial, how it will act?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sometimes when I talk with Christians, I tell them that "The reason that you're not feeling any bliss is that you're not following the way Jesus lived. We are living like him. He was wearing robes, he was living simply. But you, you're living in big fancy buildings with so many washing machines and this machine, and that your whole life is complicated."
Prabhupāda: Grievous folly is that they are disobeying the Ten Commandments.
Rāmeśvara: Disobeying.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That is the.... "Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not be an adulterer." Those are the big ones.
Rāmeśvara: "Covet thy neighbor's property, steal. Dishonor the mother and father, the cow, the earth, God."
Prabhupāda: Cows?
Rāmeśvara: Well, there's one of the Ten Commandments is "Thou shalt honor thy mother and thy father." But the mother is one of the cows, the earth. I mean the earth is the mother, the cow is the mother.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: No. Any science, any knowledge who is trying to give enlightenment about God, there is the same line as we are doing.
Richard: Right, but those people who study say, okay, to use an example, the Pope. Now there is a man who has dedicated his whole life, publicly, personally, spiritually, however you define it, to Christianity, specifically to the Catholic Church. Now apparently, and for all intents and purposes, his life seems to work for him.
Prabhupāda: The thing is, the Catholic Church is the original Church, I think.
Richard: The original Christian Church, yes.
Prabhupāda: Then why there are so many varieties?
Richard: Well, because...
Prabhupāda: Now hundreds and thousands of churches are there.
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: "Purification of one's existence."
Prabhupāda: That they do not know. When they fall sick, then they want to purify, go to the physician, but his whole life is impure, he doesn't know. Because it is impure, therefore they are subjected to birth, death, old age and disease. That they do not know. But if you scrutinizingly examine all these different items of advancement of life, the modern man has no idea. That is being explained in this chapter. Therefore there is no such education, neither people are interested. Now higher art classes in the colleges, universities, no student will join. They are simply learning technological process. Go on.
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: "Those who are situated in the transcendental nature make progress on the path of liberation. For those who are acting in the modes of passion and ignorance, on the other hand, there is no possibility of liberation. Either they will have to remain in this material..."
Prabhupāda: They say "What we care for liberation? It is troublesome. You have to sacrifice so many things. We don't want liberation. That is nonsensical. You keep your liberation. We don't want." This is the problem. As you said, liberation means "Whatever I like I will do." But that is, actually, he cannot do that. But he's thinking that he's liberated. Can he do that, whatever he likes? But still he's... Therefore rascal. Dog's life. The dog is jumping, barking, that "I'm free now." But he forgets that as soon as the master will call and chain him, he'll do it. But he's thinking that "I'm liberated." This is the problem. What is his liberation? He does not know what is liberation.
Prabhupāda: That is explained. They do not know what is progress. The Vedic civilization is not interested in this so-called false progress. Just like from hut to skyscraper. They think this is progress. But the Vedic civilization thinks how much he is advanced in self-realization. Either he is in cottage or in skyscraper. But if he wastes his time to turn the huts into skyscrapers, then the whole life is finished. And next time he is going to be a dog. He does not know. That's all.
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Śrīla Prabhupāda? They want to know how this can be counteracted, this idea?
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Don't get...
Hari-śauri: (whispering) this is going to be transcribed.
Prabhupāda: Make everything clear.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, that is very clear. Would you like to hear the next question, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: No, it is clear or now?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Vṛṣākapi: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Not outside. Not like England, they have to import from... This is a very good example. Just like salt, we require. A little salt will increase the taste. But because it is absolutely necessary for eating, salt—everyone eats salt, nobody can avoid salt—it does not mean I shall eat too much. If I take this whole salt pot and put into..., "It is very good," that is foolishness. Similarly, sense gratification, so long we have got this material body, we require little. But because it is tasty, let us take it, whole pot, that is mistake. This is going on. This foolishness is going on. Sex life is good; simply take sex life, go on and spoil your whole life. That is going on. If everything is accepted in regulative principle, little salt, that's all, that's very nice. But as soon as you think "It is very nice. Let me take simply this," then it is spoiled. That is wanted. We don't reject anything but accept in a regular way. Flesh eaters? All right, you want flesh? "No, I want flesh, but I want this big cow." Why not less important animals? There are so many other animals. The goats are there, the lambs are there, the hogs are there. Take them. Why Kṛṣṇa says go-rakṣya? It is a very important animal. It will give you brain substance, this rasagullā. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says go-rakṣya. But this rascal has no knowledge. The cows give us milk, very nutritious. "Oh, eat the whole cow. Then all nutrition will come." This is their intelligence. Rubbish civilization. Why Kṛṣṇa has recommended go-rakṣya? He never said that other animal. If you are fond of eating flesh, you take other animals, not the cow. Give protection, take milk from it, and prepare nice preparations, that will be good for brain, for your mind. Apart from... There is no question of religious sentiment. From practical.
Bill Sauer: Sir, may I read you back the, my version of "Materialism Without Purpose"? May I read you "Materialism Without Purpose"? "Mankind's insatiable appetite for material things stems from instinctive desire to pursue technology, which in turn drives civilization to a frenzy of activity. However, without a cause or a purpose," or spirituality, as you say, "the rush and hurry in uncertain directions to uncertain places creates an excess of technological gimmickery. Perhaps this continuing quest for more material goods would be less anxious if the cause of this obsession of mankind were universally recognized. If we saw the ultimate use of technology as an extension of nature with a purpose for the whole life system, perhaps a new life style would evolve. We would see creative natural instinctive satisfying outlet for energies, and we might all collectively attain more peace of mind. The waste of technological gimmickery would then disappear. Hard reality, however, will extinguish our relentless desire for material things if we do not correct the situation ourselves. We will soon run out of resources and power if our technological explosions continues as blind as a raging torrent of water flowing in any direction gravity takes it."
Prabhupāda: Yes, we are carried away by the laws of nature. However you may improve your technological science, you are under the laws of material nature. That you cannot change. But if you revive your spiritual life, then you can change. Otherwise it is not possible. If you keep yourself under the laws of material nature, then you have to be carried away by the laws of material nature, however expert you may be in technological understanding. Because, after all, you are an instrument in the hands of material nature.
Prabhupāda: How there can be, because the democracy? You are corrupt, therefore your government is corrupt. You correct yourself, the government will be automatically corrected. If you are rascals, the government will be rascals. The government means elected. So if you are not rascal, you'll not elect another rascal to take charge of the government affairs. But because you are rascal, you'll send another rascal. So how can you expect good government? You do not know whom to select. And besides that, the whole population is rascal, śūdra. So anyone you elect, if he's by qualification he's a śūdra, worker, he's not intelligent person, he's not brāhmaṇa, he's not kṣatriya. Actually, the legislative assembly, or in your country, Senate? They should be all brāhmaṇas. They give advice. Formerly this was the system. Although it was monarchy, even Lord Rāmacandra or similar kings, they were not ruling independently—they were taking advice from learned brāhmaṇas, sages. So the legislative assembly should be composition of intellectual brāhmaṇas. Then the other administrators, the President or the minister, they should be kṣatriyas. In this way, if social organization is made, then there will be perfect peace. If śūdras are allowed to rule over, what they know? Their only aim is that so long he is in the office, "Let me collect some money," that's all. And that will be the latest atmosphere, dasyu-dharmabhiḥ. Rājanyair dasyu-dharmabhiḥ. All the government men will become thieves and rogues. Dasyu, dasyu means thieves and rogues. So as the thieves and rogues capture you on the street and ask "Whatever you have got, give, otherwise I shall kill you," so this will be the position in the Kali-yuga. It is happening now. You cannot have any private property; everything you have to declare. Otherwise, it will be taken by force. So people will be very much embarrassed by two things: one thing is taxation, and another thing will be scarcity of food. In this way, all the people all over the world will be embarrassed, so much so that they will leave their home, hearth and home, ācchinna-dāra-draviṇā yāsyanti giri-kānanam. Being separated from family and property, they will take shelter in the hilly ranges or in the forest to get relief. This will be the position. Harassment, so much harassment, by nature, by government. So therefore for complete happy society, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is essential. All intelligent persons, they should join this movement and reform the present social, political, religious. All field of activities, they should reform. Then people will be happy. Not only happy in this life, but also next life. Unfortunately, the present education does not provide knowledge of next life. There is no such education. They are kept in darkness like cats and dogs. They do not know that there is life after death, and we get our next life according to our present activities—karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa (SB 3.31.1). These things are unknown. Very risky life. If I am prime minister in this life or president, and if I am going to become a dog next life, then what is the benefit of becoming prime minister or president? And nature's law is that you get your next life according to the mentality at the time of death. So if I have acted like cats and dogs throughout whole life, naturally I shall think like cats and dogs at the time of death. Then next life is cats and dogs. So I may be worshiped here in a statue, that "Here is our beloved prime minister," and next life, I'm barking as a dog. Then what is the benefit?
Prabhupāda: That is the disease. Even Mahatma Gandhi, he was talking of Kṛṣṇa, Bhagavad-gītā, but throughout his whole life he never established a temple of Kṛṣṇa, although his photograph you'll find with Bhagavad-gītā. This is the calamity.
Indian man (1): In the last days Mahatma Gandhi kept saying rāma rāma, rāma-nāma is the only way chanting... One of his article he says there is no other cure but to chant the name of the Lord.
Prabhupāda: Mahatma Gandhi would have preached Bhagavad-gītā, the world would have taken very seriously, because he was respectable.
Bali-mardana: You wrote him to preach Bhagavad-gītā.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (Hindi) The four things Kṛṣṇa wants, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). He charges four thing: to think of Kṛṣṇa, to become His devotee, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto, mad-yājī... Find out this verse. Here is Bhagavad-gītā. Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65).
Prabhupāda: That any rascal will do. Bambharambhe laghu kriya. Aparkulasvenavargolajagundakuligondoliojalīlāvale... (gibberish) (laughter) You can talk like that—what is the meaning? That intelligence they have got, to manufacture... I know, I was in the medical business. So any petty medicine, and you inquire medical man, and he'll present it in such a scientific way that people will think that it is very important thing. I know it well. In Bose's laboratory we used to do that. Aparkulavenavargolajdgunda... This is... (gibberish) Simply soda bicarb and little this and that. So the modern world means how to befool persons, that's all. Not to enlighten, but to keep them in ignorance and befool them more and more, and they like it. Under the influence of māyā they like to be cheated. (sounds of fire engines) Now just see the whole night there is blazing fire, and they are thinking they are happy. And if we sing saṁsāra-dāvānala-līḍha-loka **, "the material world is blazing fire," that is sentiment. And this is not practical. Whole day and night, simply fire, disturbing. Such a big important city, and they are disturbing always twenty four hours, gongongongongongongon. They are so expert that this ordinary fire they can control. Another side is that nobody wants this fire, and why it is coming? Yathā duḥkha... Prahlāda Mahārāja, long, long years ago: yathā duḥkham ayatnataḥ. As this fire business is coming without my endeavor, similarly, the other part, distress, this is distress, other part, happiness, also will come. Why shall I endeavor for it? So my energies should be utilized only for Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This is civilization. And whole life, day and night, they are trying for material happiness, and that is not happening. The problems are increasing. No intelligence, mūḍha. Mūḍho nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam. They admit, the scientists, they admit that they are in ignorance. Simply bluff. Again one bluff, that Mars-going expedition. The business is going on in the Arizona, that's all.
Prabhupāda: That is real rest.
- kṛṣṇa tvādīya-pada-paṅkaja-pañjarāntam
- adyaiva viśatu me mānasa-rāja-haṁsaḥ
- prāṇa-prayāṇa-samaye kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ
- kaṇṭhāvarodhana-vidhau smaranaṁ kutas te
- (MM 33)
The Mukunda-māla-stotra... There was a big emperor, Samrat(?), Kulaśekhara, emperor Kulaśekhara, he was a great devotee. So he wrote some poetry. Formerly, kings were so advanced, rajarṣi. They are king, at the same time, saintly persons. In the Bhagavad-gītā also it is said imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ (BG 4.2)—this science of Bhagavad-gītā was learned by the rājarṣis. People were happy therefore. The head, or the executive, they were all saintly persons. So this Kulasekhara, he writes in the beginning of his poetry, "Kṛṣṇa, O Kṛṣṇa..." Kṛṣṇa tvādīya-pada-paṅkaja-pañjarāntam. The paṅkaja means lotus flower. So Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet is just like lotus flower. The lotus flower has stem down, and the swans, they take pleasure to go down the water and entangled by the stem. Have you seen their pleasure? Yes. That is their great sporting, to be entangled by the stem and come out, in this way, go deep, this is their sporting. So this Kulasekhara is praying, "My Lord Kṛṣṇa, let my swan of mind be entangled with the stem of Your lotus feet." Kṛṣṇa tvādīya-pada-paṅkaja-pañjarāntam adyaiva: "Immediately"—viśatu—"let enter." Who? Adyaiva viśatu me, "My," mānasa-rāja-haṁsaḥ, "my mind, which is just like a swan." So why adyaiva, immediately? He says that prāṇa-prayāṇa-samaye, "At the time of death," prāṇa-prayāṇa-samaye kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ, "when the physical condition of the body will be in disorder," kapha, pitta, vayu will not be in order.... Prāṇa-prayāṇa-samaye kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ kaṇṭhāvarodha, "At that time I shall not be able to speak. I'll 'ahn, ahn,' but that's all. So I may not be able to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Better I am now in good health, so let my mind be entangled in the stem of Your lotus feet." Very nice poetry.
- kṛṣṇa tvādīya-pada-paṅkaja-panjarāntam
- adyaiva viśatu me mānasa-rāja-haṁsaḥ
- prāna-prayāṇa-samaye kapha-vāta-pittaiḥ
- kaṇṭhāvarodhana-vidhau smaraṇaṁ kutas te
- (MM 33)
"At that time I may be not able to utter 'Kṛṣṇa' or think of You, and now I am healthy, let me finish this business." That means "Let me die immediately. Now I'm healthy, I'm quite fit." This is the ideal. Ante nārāyaṇa-smṛtiḥ (SB 2.1.6). At the time of death, if one remembers Kṛṣṇa, then his life is successful. Immediately he goes to Kṛṣṇa. Just like Ajamila. He chanted "Narayana," and immediately his path to Vaikuntha become clear. So this practice means, whatever we practice all through life, there is chance of coming that remembrance at the time of death, and then it is successful, life is success. If at the time of death one can remember Kṛṣṇa, then his whole life is successful. Our one student, Kārttikeya, his mother was very fortunate. So his mother had nothing to do with this Society, but the boy was attached, and she heard several times "Kṛṣṇa," that this boy is attached to Kṛṣṇa. At the time of her death, she asked her son, "Is your Kṛṣṇa here?" and died. Just see how fortunate she is. She simply uttered this word, "Is your Kṛṣṇa here?" then she died. Very fortunate. So on account of her son she got salvation. Otherwise, Kārttikeya told me that he went to see his mother, and the mother was going to ball dance, and the mother did not receive him well. "All right, you sit down. I'll come again." She was such lady. But by Kṛṣṇa's grace, at the time of death, she inquired her son, "Is your Kṛṣṇa here?" Very fortunate.
Ali: During this transformation, are we still ignorant? During this transformation from body to body.
Prabhupāda: No, he's not ignorant. This body, next body is achieved according to the consciousness. At the time of, if you are thinking of something to which you are very much attached, then you get that similar body. If you are thinking of your pet dog, then you get the dog's body. And if you are thinking of Kṛṣṇa, God, then you'll get the body like Kṛṣṇa. That will be decided at the time of your death. Because at the time of death you'll be absorbed with thinking which you have done throughout the whole life. Sadā tad-bhāva-bhāvitaḥ (BG 8.6). Just like the whole day you are working with some business, at night also dreaming that, subtle body. So you have to train up yourself within this life how to think of Kṛṣṇa. Then there is chance of thinking of Kṛṣṇa at the time of death and go back to home. It is not difficult. Very easy.
Ali: So the ultimate goal is not to come back.
Prabhupāda: No, what is the use of coming here to suffer? Who is happy here? Can you find out anybody who is happy here?
Ali: Not that I've seen.
Prabhupāda: Any rascal comes, he's a third-class man, he gives some idea.
Akṣayānanda: I'm going to get this work finished today definitely.
Prabhupāda: He has no position, he is third-class man. He has given some idea. "Here, you break it." That is the nature. And how long this work will continue? Throughout the whole life?
Akṣayānanda: No. I'm going to finish it today.
Prabhupāda: You say no, but it is going on. You simply say no, yes, no, very good. That's all.
Akṣayānanda: When I go away and I come back and the wall is broken what can I do?
Prabhupāda: Don't go.
Akṣayānanda: That's right.
Prabhupāda: You don't manufacture idea. Don't go to (indistinct) others to manufacture ideas.
Akṣayānanda: Right, right.
Prabhupāda: Simply manufacturing idea.
Aksayananda: We can arrange elsewhere.
Prabhupāda: Ha. So (Hindi). He will go with you, immediately. Meeting arrange (Hindi). Thank you very much. (pause) Combine together in Vṛndāvana. Fight! Without fight where is life? If there is no fighting then what is that life? That is dead stone. Fight must be there. Kṛṣṇa's whole life is fighting from the very birth. His father carried Him to Gokula where He (indistinct) and He fell down from the Yamunā and... Just born, fighting began. Just born. And at Yaśodāmayī's house, Nanda Mahārāja's house, so many demons daily coming, Śakaṭāsura, Aghāsura, Bakāsura, Pūtanā, so on, so on, so on. Ultimately Kaṁsa, when He was young boy. Vṛndāvana, so many asuras came. You have seen the pictures? Kṛṣṇa is fighting with the horse demon, with the bull, Dyutiman (?), fighting. If Kṛṣṇa is fighting, why not Kṛṣṇa consciousness the same thing. You cannot expect peaceful life. No, there must be fighting, then think "That is Kṛṣṇa's presence, His fight." So this fighting means they're feeling the presence of Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Otherwise why they're (indistinct) fight? Had it been an insignificant thing, there was no question of fighting. (Hindi) The gun, howitzer gun, what is that? German, some gun they will go from this part of, this side of English Channel to other. Calais, the other side Calais?
Prabhupāda: Good man from worldly point of view, but from spiritual point of view, in the lowest stage. Karmī is the lowest stage. Then jñānī, then yogi, then bhakta.
Mr. Malhotra: More a politician.
Prabhupāda: Yes, karmī means this how to enjoy this world. Whole life they have struggled how to enjoy this, how to enjoy myself, how to allow my men to enjoy. This is karmī platform. Everyone is doing that. Everyone is working hard for himself, for his family, and expand the family, for society, and expand the society, for the nation. Here is karmī plan. Gandhi, Birla they are all... There is no question of spiritual life.
Mr. Malhotra: Now this is the Kṛṣṇā River. You just see how small it is, and how big it becomes later on. In the rainy season this road is closed because this all water comes up, you know. Now it is just a small rivulet. This is Kṛṣṇā river. And it comes just opposite our place, from where it starts, from the mountain. Here is the place called Haya (?). This was also one of the biggest Sanskrit University in the older time like that of Teksasila. And Sarnatha, near Sarnatha, what is that place? Not Sarnatha, up in Bihar, that was also very big university, no?
Prabhupāda: Oh, Taksila.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: In this old age-eighty-one years I am—I am working day and night just to preach this Kṛṣṇa consciousness and...
CID Chief: This is absolutely a service to God and humanity. Whatever tendency you have... Whatever comes out of your mouth, word, becomes a religious... It is written, out of which you write books. Out of the produce... From the proceeds of that book, you constructed a... It is wholeheartedly towards the God. Whole life is devoted to God.
Prabhupāda: And for these books, as author, if I would have taken royalty, my daily income would have been one lakh, fifty thousand. I don't take a single farthing. Whatever two cāpāṭis they give, that's all.
CID Chief: Then if that had been the objective, so much of this (indistinct) not would have come in reality.
Prabhupāda: I have no appetite also. (laughs) I do not eat too much. Whatever, one or two cāpāṭis, they give, I take. That's all. This is my royalty.
CID Chief: But any... How these politicians, they react to this in America? Do they...
Prabhupāda: There also... Here. Here people are suspecting that I am getting money from CIA, and they are also suspecting that I am cheating people and getting money.
Dr. Patel: He made it, and then He entered into it. That is what the Veda says.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Antara-stha. Yac-chakti... There is verse. The Paramātmā. Paramātmā is there. The whole human life is meant for understanding all this and glorifying the Lord. And they are wasting the life by imitating the hog. Nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujaṁ ye (SB 5.5.1). Viḍ-bhujām. Viḍ means stool; bhujā means eating. Yac-chaktir eṣa... What is that? There is a verse. Eko 'py asau racayituṁ jagad-aṇḍa-koṭiṁ yac-chaktir asti jagad-aṇḍa-cayā yad-antaḥ, aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu... (Bs. 5.35).
Dr. Patel: Jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi.
Prabhupāda: Ekaḥ apy asya. Eko 'py asau racayituṁ jagad-aṇḍa-koṭim. They create millions of universes.
Dr. Patel: But the standard of creation is the same, sir. That I believe of life. Wherever you see, it's the same. That is the greatness of God, that there is no change.
Prabhupāda: So without that...
Dr. Patel: If you are an amoeba or a highest evolved man, the system of life is the same.
Prabhupāda: Without...
Dr. Patel: That is the wonder of biology and science. That is why we wonder how great God has made the creation. That is where we feel the presence of God, or the real scientist. (break)
Prabhupāda: They believe. Some rascals, they say there is no God.
Prabhupāda: Let them chant and take prasādam. They'll... Everyone will get. Then gradually, as a snake charming, by chanting, chanting, chanting, then they will be subdued. And that is guaranteed process. There is no doubt. Anyone, even a man is like a snake. In material world everyone is a snake, envious. Snake is very envious. You are passing by the side, "Oh! You are passing by my side?" This is snake. No offense. Because he is passing—he has got the poison-he'll utilize it. This is snake. Without offense. If somebody hurts him or tramples him—no. "Oh, you are so daring? You are passing? You do not know I am snake." Sarpaḥ kruraḥ khalaḥ kruraḥ sarpāt krurataraḥ khalaḥ. There are similarly men also. Unnecessarily they are envious, offensive, unnecessary. They cannot tolerate others' opulence. Just like our Godbrothers. They are envious. What I have done to them? I am doing my business, trying to serve my Guru Mahārāja. But they are envious because I am so opulent. I have got so much fame, so many influence, so much influence all over the world. Everyone is praising me about... That is ignorance. And this is regrettable because they are posing themselves as Vaiṣṇava. Ordinary man can do that, but they are dressing like Vaiṣṇava, and they are so envious. That Tīrtha Mahārāja, unnecessarily he was envious, whole life fighting, fighting, fighting in the court and died. Simply planning. So who has gone for the beads? Simply planning. So who has gone for the beads?
Hari-śauri: She's just got some beads.
Jagadīśa: Oh, she's got?
Prabhupāda: No, you save so much barbers' expenses. (laughter)
Hari-śauri: So much inconvenience for washing.
Rāmeśvara: These are misunderstandings that confuse people.
Prabhupāda: The whole life is misunderstanding, material life.
Rāmeśvara: But we want them to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. That's the main thing.
Prabhupāda: Why they are envious of us? When we live very nicely, they are envious that "These people do not do anything, and they are living so nicely."
Rāmeśvara: They will not be so envious if they see that people who dress in Western style and keep their families and keep their jobs are also chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: We say... We say that, that we simply say, that "You change your consciousness."
Rāmeśvara: Not change your dress, but change your consciousness.
Prabhupāda: No, we never said. If you prefer that kind of dress, costly, you prefer it, but we are simplified.
Rāmeśvara: It's our choice.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: Here's the description of that. "The initial appearance of this luminous being and his questions are the prelude to a moment of startling intensity, during which this luminous being presents to the person a panoramic review of his life. It is obvious that this luminous being can see the individual's whole life and he doesn't need the information," but he is getting the dead man to reflect on his past life. It says that "The remembrance is extraordinarily rapid. Everything appears at once and can be taken in with one mental glance. Yet despite its rapidity, all the..."
Prabhupāda: That is happening in dream also. So many remembrances come together; it becomes topsy-turvied. Therefore we see all of a sudden: "Oh, it is done long, long ago."
Rāmeśvara: Yes. They say that the review, even though it's very quick, is incredibly vivid.
Hari-śauri: Find out where it discounts about punishment and reward.
Prabhupāda: One idea, another idea overlaps. Therefore it appears mysterious.
Rāmeśvara: Now, we're taught in the Bhāgavata that when a soul, when a living being quits his body, if he's in the human body, he's either taken by the Yamadūtas or the Viṣṇudūtas. So this description of their encountering this luminous being, it doesn't seem to fit in with the description of the Bhāgavata.
Prabhupāda: No. Luminous when they are taken by Viṣṇudūtas.
Prabhupāda: These poor Japanese, in two, three wars they attempted to expand. They are very poor in their land. Practically they have no place, very poor. Only by some technical knowledge they are maintaining. Otherwise they have no food, no shelter. Very poor country. I have studied. The Dai Nippon directors, they are living in a thatched house. And their system is: big company, they supply everything—food, cloth, medicine, children's education, and little salary. So people do not leave the post.
Hari-śauri: Yes. Because their whole life is there.
Prabhupāda: They are not independent. Fully dependent on the employer. So they give poor salary. Dai Nippon has their own hospital, own education, and everything, big industry. And little salary, that's all. So whatever house they allot, they have to accept. And I have seen the director living in a cottage like this almost. So Japanese actually they are poor. Only the capitalists, they have got... Therefore their yen value... You go to purchase—"Two thousand yen." You'll be surprised, "So much paying!" But it has no value. "One million yen." (laughs) In the beginning I... "What is this nonsense? So much?"
Prabhupāda: So you reply this, that "You come. I shall train you. You will guide. We are prepared to guide you, but it is not possible to, bring men outside to guide you. You come to us. I shall train you how to guide." This is the reply. And that is wanted. This Bon Mahārāja failed. Why? He wanted... Guru Mahārāja wanted that you start one temple in London. But he was thinking of bringing, taking men from India. Actually he had no.... (break) That is the fact. Therefore he failed. Instead of serving Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, he wanted to serve Vivekananda. To become like Vivekananda and "I shall be very much eulogized in my country, second Vivekananda." That was his ambition. He never wished to defy Vivekananda and elevate Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He has introduced in his Oriental Institute, Gandhi philosophy, Vivekananda philosophy. Just see his position. He's appreciating... We are simply condemning Gandhi philosophy, and he's appreciating Gandhi. We are simply depreciating Vivekananda, and he's introducing Vivekananda. This is his position. He cannot understand even that where is philosophy in Vivekananda and Gandhi? Gandhi is nationalist. Again problem with your finger. Twenty-four hours, finger problem or nose problem. That I am observing. No attention. So where is philosophy in Vivekananda or Gandhi? He was nationalist. Nationalist means dehātma-buddhi. Dehātma-buddhi means sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13), cows and asses. He worked throughout his whole life for Indian people. In Africa also, he wasted twenty years, and India, thirty years. Fifty years. He lived for seventy-eight years. So twenty-seven years was for his education or something like that and fifty years wasted. This is his position. And he's a big man. Actually he wasted fifty years. Twenty years in Durban and thirty years in... He started in 1917, and svarāja was, independence was given to India in '47. He had nothing... It is not due to him. It is that Subash Bose's INA. So twenty years there, thirty years-fifty years he wasted of his life. And balance, twenty-seven, education, sex with wife and so on, so on. He was so sexually inclined, he has written in his biography that when his father was dying he was enjoying sex life with his wife. Just see how he was sexually inclined. He could not take the serious illness of his father. He's going to die. He was enjoying his wife. We can... Just from one point we can understand. Everyone is sexual in young days. That is generally. But just see his position, that his father was going to die and he was enjoying sex.
Prabhupāda: In the... Find out, Fifth, Fifth Canto, Fifth Chapter. Bhāgavata is the only guide. Read Bhāgavata, repeatedly whole life. Safe. Always. Always, whenever there is time, read, read, read.
- anarthopaśamaṁ sākṣād
- bhakti-yogam adhokṣaje
- lokasyājānato vidvāṁś
- cakre sātvata-saṁhitām
- (SB 1.7.6)
Vyāsadeva has done this sātvata-saṁhitā. Anartha. To live in this material world is anartha, unnecessary. Hm? You have got it?
Pradyumna:
- yadā na paśyaty ayathā guṇehāṁ
- svārthe pramattaḥ sahasā vipaścit
- gata-smṛtir vindati tatra tāpān
- āsādya maithunyam agāram ajñaḥ
Prabhupāda: Ajñaḥ.
Jayapatākā: Which verse?
Pradyumna: It's Canto Five, Chapter Five, verse number seven. "Even though one may be very learned and wise, he is mad if he does not understand that the endeavor for sense gratification is a useless waste of time. Being forgetful of his own interest, he tries to be happy in the material world, centering his interests around his home, which is based on sexual intercourse and which brings him all kinds of material miseries. In this way one is no better than a foolish animal."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Maithunyam agāram ajñaḥ. The selection of words in Bhāgavata are, from even literary point of view, perfect. Padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ na teṣām (SB 10.14.58). Bhavāmbudhir vatsa-padaṁ paraṁ padaṁ padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ na... This is literary. Samāśritā ye pada-pallava-plavam. Again plavaṁ plavam. Anuprāsa. This is literary, anuprāsa. Samāśritā ye pada-pallava-plavaṁ mahat-padaṁ puṇya-yaśo murāreḥ. Padam. Bhavāmbudhir vatsa-padaṁ paraṁ padaṁ padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ na teṣām. Just see literary arrangement. And full of meaning. This is Bhāgavatam. Any way you study, from literary point of view, from knowledge, from philosophy, from social, every-perfect. Therefore lokasya ajānato vidvāṁś cakre. Vidvān. One who has learned, Vyāsadeva, vidvān, the first-class learned person. The sātvata-saṁhitām—for the devotees, Vedic cream. Nigama-kalpa-taror galitaṁ phalaṁ idam (SB 1.1.3). Nobody can be like Vyāsadeva; He's incarnation of Nārāyaṇa. Where is such scholar throughout the whole world? Is there?
Prabhupāda: Real mother.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Everyone is from divorced family. Jayapatākā's mother, my parents, Brahmānanda's parents. Brahmānanda's mother called him. We think that they were trying to deprogram Brahmānanda, because the second day that Brahmānanda arrived in New York, suddenly his mother called. How could she have gotten news that he was coming to New York? We never told her. But as soon as he arrived in New York she called him. So we ascertained they are listening to all of our telephone conversations. And they know. They are writing. The deprogrammers are writing to all of the devotees' parents in the movement, and they are going and talking to the parents, saying, "Do you know what your son..." or "Do you know what your daughter is doing? Are you aware that your daughter has lost all of her free choice? That they're being brainwashed now by this cult? That they are giving her... They have spoiled her whole life?" In this way they try to pollute the minds of the parents who are innocent.
Hari-śauri: They're doing that everywhere, too. In Australia they're doing the same thing there, too.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And they know all of the devotees' parents' names. Because the few devotees who do become deprogrammed, they give them all the names they know. And they have some informers within our temple also. All of our parents have told us that the deprogrammers contacted them.
Prabhupāda: They're organized.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, they're highly organized. They have regular newsletters.
Prabhupāda: (aside:) Yes, one spoon more. Take. (break) Very strong opposition. (chuckling) This combination in your country is costly.
Prabhupāda: He's half-spoiled.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is he the oldest son?
Prabhupāda: He was little crazy. Might have gone away from home. Very intelligent boy he was. His mother made him crazy. Very... He was standing first in school. Very intelligent. She spoiled the whole family life. It was good for... For my youngest daughter I selected one very nice boy, rich man. She did not give. She wanted to keep her as her assistant, and she's not married.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Even now. How old? She must be forty-five years old.
Prabhupāda: Not so much. Older than Vṛndāvana.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So she must be thirty-five.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Thirty-five. Most irresponsible and lethargetic.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very selfish to keep one's daughter not married.
Prabhupāda: But still, all the children are addicted to the mother. She does not do anything. I used to... Like that.
Girirāja: Yes, he can participate. Just like if someone is initiated as a disciple, he must follow these four principles very rigidly. No meat-eating, no intoxication, no illicit sex, and no gambling. But the śāstra says that you can serve, either by giving your whole life or by giving your intelligence, by giving your time, by giving your words. So in whatever way possible, anyone can serve Kṛṣṇa and make more and more progress.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, this gentleman who has written this letter from Pakistan, he is a big businessman. He is the head of a very, very large business consultant firm in Iran. But in his free time he also tries to do a little preaching work.
Prabhupāda: He is a very responsible officer. What is his position?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He is the managing director of Arthur Young and Company. It's a big international firm of chartered accountants.
Ram Jethmalani: Thank you very much.
Prabhupāda: Thank you. (Hindi) Thank you very much. (Hindi)
Ram Jethmalani: Sir, how old are you?
Prabhupāda: I am eighty-one.
Girirāja: There was some discussion earlier whether Kṛṣṇa had an actual existence or whether He is imaginary.
Prabhupāda: Why imaginary? He is in the history, Mahābhārata. Mahābhārata means greater, history of greater India.
Prabhupāda: Why?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, you've been mentioning so many times about how foolish the..., so many people are. Under the banner of nationalism they are basing their whole life.
Prabhupāda: But they'll not hear. If you forbid the dogs, "Don't bark," it is like that. Why waste time? He'll go on with all politics. Negative, as soon as you say, they'll neglect.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is there some subject matter...?
Prabhupāda: It requires training.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is there some subject matter...?
Prabhupāda: Just like so much training we are giving; still, there is falldown. So simply by saying...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So you had... There was a newspaper article about a few weeks ago, and you had said that something could be written on this subject. That's the only reason I...
Prabhupāda: (Bengali) Hm.
Bhakti-caru: (Bengali)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is there any subject that would be good to write on?
Prabhupāda: Oh, we have got so many subjects, positive. Read our books and present it in a different way. You can write intelligently. That's not bad. Just to induce them...
Prabhupāda: That's all. And one tin box. (laughs) Give up this mistaken idea that "If we get some large sum of money from our father, then we shall be happy." That is not... That is wrong idea. Happiness depends on Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You can take advantage from your father that you may not live uncomfortably. That's all, that much. That I am making sufficient arrangement. In your present position you'll never be disturbed. Now try to become happy by advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is required.
- nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma
- yad indriya-prītaya āpṛṇoti
- na sādhu manye yata ātmano 'yam
- asann api kleśada āsa dehaḥ
- (SB 5.5.4)
Pramattaḥ. These persons are mad, pramattaḥ. Prakṛṣṭa-rūpeṇa mattaḥ. Mattaḥ means mad, and pra means still more, more than mad. Kurute vikarma. They are engaged in so many nefarious activities—black market, white market, stealing, burglaring, so on, so on. Vikarma. Idam adya mayā labdham idaṁ prāpsye punar dhanam. This is asuric thing. If one can squander away crores of rupees like Harendra Singh... Suppose if I give you each one lakh of rupees, how long it will take? You can squander away in one day. Take some regular income. Be comfortably situated. Advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Bas. That is happiness. In your whole life you'll never be disturbed for economic condition. That I am arranging. That's all. That "I am suffering for money." No. It will regularly. Is not that scheme? So what is next Mukherjee? Hyderabad (Hindi) It will be great service to Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Everyone is recommending. All libraries.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: " '...should have on its shelf these works.' " Next is a letter from Trinvak Govind Meinpark(?), Professor of Sanskrit and Head of the Department at the University of Bombay. " 'His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, the renowned Vedic scholar and founder-ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, has translated into English the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the Encyclopedia of Vedic Culture.' " Now it's getting to be known like that. " 'The special feature of this publication is to be seen in the explanatory notes, added with a view to summing up the purport of the passages rendered. The Bhāgavatam is a classic of the Kṛṣṇa cult, and in the manner of sweetness, sincerity of devotion and purity of emotion, it surpasses all other texts of the Purāṇas, as well as other texts of the Bhāgavata religion. As such it is no wonder that it has become a veritable scripture of the devotees of this cult. Again, of all incarnations of the highest Lord, the Kṛṣṇa incarnation has a peculiar fascination for the Indian mind and has all along exercised a great influence over the Hindu religious mind—in fact, of all minds that have God consciousness. The Lord's grace, His interest and deep concern for His devotees and even for sinners, His great love for all beings without any distinction of order, caste, creed, and sex, His ever-willingness to look after all ardent devotees, His extreme sweetness, all these qualities have made Him the most easily lovable of the divine manifestations. The text of the Bhāgavata, scenes of the whole life of the Lord from His childhood to His withdrawal from the world, yet the philosophical aspects receive greater emphasis than the historical ones.' " Not simply that it's some stories, but full of philosophy. " 'Along with the Bhāgavata, the Caitanya-caritāmṛta has received as much care and attention in the translation by Śrīla Prabhupāda. The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust is presenting these two sets as an encyclopedia of our culture, and our university has made a standing order of these volumes, which our students delight in reading. There is no doubt that the Swamiji has immensely obliged all lovers of our Vedic culture and devotees of Kṛṣṇa cult by this simple, clear, faithful, and illuminating rendering into English. The notes bring out beautifully the subtle implications of the Sanskrit and Bengali text. The lay reader is thus greatly helped in appreciating and understanding the brilliant simplicity of the path of bhakti.' "
Prabhupāda: What he is?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He is the Head of the Department of Sanskrit at the Bombay University. " 'The printing is really excellent and the general get-up highly attractive. I have nothing but the highest praise for this splendid publication. The BBT's encyclopedia would be a valuable asset to each school and college library as well as all general libraries throughout the world.' " These reviews are as good as your books, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: Gandhi tried twenty years to get little equal rights. The General Smuts refused. He was failure in South Africa. And then he decided that "I shall drive these Europeans, Englishmen, from India." He came. That also he could not do. Here also, for thirty years he struggled. He was failure, nonviolent. It is Subhash Bose's INA which drove away these Englishmen. You know that? That Indian Army, what is that, INA, Indian National Army? When he organized this National Army, then the Englishmen came to sense that "Now we cannot rule over." This rascal was going on, nonviolence... (laughter) While... "We shall pat them: 'Oh, yes, you are so powerful. Oh, why you are trying to drive away?' " And he'll be... "Oh..." The Baitland(?) Colony in a loincloth, and engaged in the sun chair.(?) He had no practical knowledge. He started the movement from 1917, and actually it was... Independence was given, 1947. Thirty years he failed. Twenty years he failed there. He spoils fifty years for nothing, and distorting Bhagavad-gītā, that in Bhagavad-gītā there is nonviolence. Such a rascal. Bhagavad-gītā begins with, with this word, dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre yuyutsavaḥ: (BG 1.1) "Two parties desiring to fight." That is the beginning. Yudhyasva mām anusmara (BG 8.7). And Kṛṣṇa's whole life is yuddha, fighting. Before His birth, plan was being made how to kill Him. This is yuddha. Kaṁsa was planning. And after His birth He had to go away, just to make a show, from His father's house to another house incognito to avoid yuddha. And when yuddha began, three months old, He killed Pūtanā.
Prabhupāda: Very good. So there you have got business. You have got money. Why you are miser? Earn money and spend money. That's all. I know this business. Earn money and spend money.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I try to make it...
Prabhupāda: Throughout my whole life I have done this. Earn money and spend money. I am not miser.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. When you wanted something...
Prabhupāda: See money. Earn money and see money. I don't follow this policy.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: When you wanted something, you'd spend anything.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Just like that land in Bombay, that house...
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Whatever everyone wanted, "All right, take it." Finish. I know. I am giving ten thousand more, fifteen thousand more. I didn't mind. "Take it and finish business tomorrow. Take it."
Gurukṛpā: If they..., we make aware of the actual suffering they are causing on the animals.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Gurukṛpā:. If they are aware... They are not really aware of the actual suffering that they're causing the animals.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They think the animals don't have any feelings or soul.
Prabhupāda: No, they think in so many way, nonsense rascals. What is the value of their thinking? Rascals, all number one rascals. They say, "Why do you...?" But they, how they can believe? Their whole life is belief, no factual knowledge.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How they will believe that man didn't go to the moon? When Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote that in Easy Journey, Hayagrīva took it out of the book, saying that "How will they believe this?"
Prabhupāda: Believe. "I believe." You can say also, "I believe." You can say, "I believe." Where is the standard?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: This is their life. "I believe." Whatever he believes, that's all right. This is going on.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It is our greatest pleasure to be with you and sing for you. Actually, I was thinking how your whole life is so perfect, Śrīla Prabhupāda. You have so many nice disciples, nice sons, and they are all gathered here to be with you, and everything is perfect by our chanting.
Prabhupāda: Yes. More chanting.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Shall we chant some more?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. (kīrtana starts-Govindam prayers)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't think you're feeling any pain. No. Are you thirsty at all? So today, tomorrow, those are critical days. And then one day lapse, and then another critical day. Generally the whole month is not very good, this month, next month, and one after, not very good. Of course, the best place to be is Vṛndāvana, and the best association is Kṛṣṇa's devotees, and you're under the protection of Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma. So there can't really be anything inauspicious in such a situation. Śrīla Prabhupāda? We were noticing that your bed is facing... Your bed is facing more or less north. So we were wondering whether we should turn it to face east, which would be in the direction of the Deities, Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma. We could turn your bed just like this, as if we were turning you. We would keep you in the bed. We can pick up the bed and make it to face with your head towards Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma, which would be east. You have any objection? This is north.
Prabhupāda: There is no objection, but which is north?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You are now facing north, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: The affection was increasing not to māyā, but because Kṛṣṇa expanded Himself as everything... So their whole life was meant for Kṛṣṇa. On account of Kṛṣṇa affection, the affection of the older calves were more than the new calves. What is written in the English Kṛṣṇa?
Jayādvaita: "One day when Kṛṣṇa, along with Balarāma, was maintaining the calves in the forest..." It's just up here. "Balarāma was astonished to see all the residents of Vṛndāvana so affectionate for their own children, exactly as they had been for Kṛṣṇa. Similarly, the cows had grown affectionate for their calves as much as for Kṛṣṇa. Balarāma therefore concluded that the extraordinary show of affection was something mystical, either performed by the demigods or by some powerful man."
Prabhupāda: Is it clear now? Balarāma was surprised to see the action of yogamāyā; therefore He inquired from Kṛṣṇa, "What is happening in this scene? What is that mystery?" Is it clear?
Pradyumna: Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: In this way go very slow, but the discussion may be complete. So you can go on.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: That's very true, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Pañca-draviḍa: You are a pure devotee of Kṛṣṇa, and your whole life is simply dedicated to the propagation of Kṛṣṇa's teachings all over the world, whereas my whole life is simply dedicated to sense gratification. So therefore, when I come in front of a person such as yourself, I feel ashamed.
Bhavānanda: It is true, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that if you lose your desire to remain here, then no medicine can be effective. But if you desire to remain, then the medicine can become effective.
Prabhupāda: No, in this way to remain—not desirable. Every day, crisis.
Bhavānanda: That is the crisis.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That is the puzzlement. (break)
Bhavānanda: ...we have to appraise that if Your Divine Grace leaves us, what will be the result both to ISKCON society, to each of you disciples individually, and to the entire planet.
Prabhupāda: That I am thinking, that such a big society, the aims and object may be dismantled. I am thinking from that vision.
| Page Title: | Whole life (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, Mayapur |
| Created: | 17 of Mar, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=91, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 91 |