Style (of food) may be different. That's all right. Besides that, to maintain your body and soul together, you require eating, you require sleeping, you require mating, you require defense

Expressions researched:
"style may be different. That's all right. Besides that, to maintain your body and soul together, you require eating, you require sleeping, you require mating, you require defense"

Conversations and Morning Walks

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Style (of food) may be different. That's all right. Besides that, to maintain your body and soul together, you require eating, you require sleeping, you require mating, you require defense. We don't say that you don't do this. Kṛṣṇa was... Arjuna was defending. Rather, he wanted to be nonviolent. "Oh, what is the use of fighting?" Kṛṣṇa said, "No. It is required. You should." So where is the difference? There is no difference. Simply we are adjusting things so that you may become happy. Any intelligent man will take it. We are not prohibiting, but we are adjusting. So there is no difficulty. Simply intelligent persons like you should try to understand and take it and administer because your country is wanting this.

690512 - Conversation - Columbus:

Allen Ginsberg: Is the Caitanya-Kṛṣṇa ritual, as you have it here in this house and in the other āśramas, is that something that a large mass of people can enter into?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Why not?

Allen Ginsberg: In America.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because we have seen. All my students are Americans. So it has to be . . . and it is spreading.

Allen Ginsberg: Yes, but what it requires is a adaptation of Indian dress and a adaptation . . .

Prabhupāda: That is not very important.

Allen Ginsberg: And an adaptation to Indian food.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Indian food . . . it is not Indian food. Are you not eating fruits?

Allen Ginsberg: Yes, yes.

Prabhupāda: Then that is Indian food? Do you mean to say it is Indian food?

Allen Ginsberg: Well, the curries.

Prabhupāda: Curries you may boil only. That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that you have to take our taste. No. That is not the program, that to become Kṛṣṇa conscious you have to change your taste. No. We say from the Bhagavad-gītā . . . Kṛṣṇa says, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati (BG 9.26) "Anyone who is offering Me with devotion these vegetable, fruits, flowers, milk, I accept them." But we are going to satisfy Kṛṣṇa. Therefore we are selecting foodstuff from this group. That you are all already accepting. Don't you take vegetables? Don't you take fruits? Don't you take grains? So where is the new item? Now, so far cooking, you can cook in your own taste. But the group must be this. Not meat. Because Kṛṣṇa does not say. That is our program. So you are already taking grains, you are eating fruits, you are eating . . . drinking milk. So where is the difference? I don't find any difference.

Allen Ginsberg: Well, I suppose not. You could say there is no difference, because the food is basically the same materials. It's just a question of the style.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Now you take . . . style may be different. That's all right. Besides that, to maintain your body and soul together, you require eating, you require sleeping, you require mating, you require defense. We don't say that you don't do this. Kṛṣṇa was . . . Arjuna was defending. Rather, he wanted to be nonviolent: "Oh, what is the use of fighting?"

Kṛṣṇa said: "No. It is required. You should." So where is the difference? There is no difference. Simply we are adjusting things so that you may become happy. Any intelligent man will take it. We are not prohibiting, but we are adjusting. So there is no difficulty. Simply intelligent persons like you should try to understand and take it and administer, because your country is wanting this.

Allen Ginsberg: But there is a limit to how much the pronunciation of Kṛṣṇa will spread, I think. There's a limit.

Prabhupāda: Hmm? No limit. You can pronounce in any way Kṛṣṇa. K-r-i-s-h-n-a. That's all. Any way. Niyamitaḥ smaraṇe na kālaḥ (CC Antya 20.16, Śikṣāṣṭaka 2).

Allen Ginsberg: The limit is people's prejudice . . .

Prabhupāda: So we don't say that, "Why you are chanting 'Kṛṣṇa' like this?" We never say that. We simply say: "Please try to chant 'Kṛṣṇa'."

Allen Ginsberg: Or let us say there would be a limit until the word Kṛṣṇa became as common in English as any other English word.

Prabhupāda: It is already in the dictionary. It is already in the dictionary. All dictionaries you will find Kṛṣṇa. What you want more?