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Conversations and Morning Walks

1967 Conversations and Morning Walks

Discourse on Lord Caitanya Play Between Srila Prabhupada and Hayagriva -- April 5-6, 1967, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: ...recording?

Hayagrīva: Good.

Prabhupāda: The first scene is that people passing on with saṅkīrtana movement as we have, as we usually do, very nice procession with mṛdaṅga, karatālas and that bugle, all people, just in the ordinary way. We have to make a nice procession. The second scene is that Kali, the personified Kali, a person should be decorated blackish. A blackish man with royal dress and very ugly features. And his queen, another ugly featured girl or lady. So they are disturbed. They'll talk between themselves that "There is saṅkīrtana movement now and how we shall prosecute our business of this Kali-yuga?" There will be, in that scene, in some corner somebody is drinking. Two or three persons drinking. The scene will be like that. They are sitting in the center. In one corner somebody taking part in drinking, and another part somebody is illicitly talking of lust and love with woman. In another section there is slaughtering of a cow, and another section gambling. In this way that scene should be adjusted. And in the middle, the ugly man, black man, and the ugly woman will talk that "We are now in danger. The saṅkīrtana movement has been started. What to do?" In this way you have to finish that scene.

Hayagrīva: Now Kali is depicted as a male. As male?

Prabhupāda: As male, yes.

Hayagrīva: Because sometimes I know he's depicted as female.

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Radio Interview -- March 12, 1968, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: But I don't think it is practical that one can meditate for eight to ten hours or twelve hours.

Interviewer: For ten years.

Prabhupāda: But it is... Yes, for ten years. It is most impractical proposition. Therefore, as recommended, we have to follow the regulation as recommended in the scriptures. For the present age, this meditation. Now, last night we had saṅkīrtana in the public library... Where is that? Oakland. So all people immediately joined us as soon as we began to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Immediately there is effect and there is no rules and regulation that you have to do this or that. Simply join, Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma... We had lectured in the YMCA Sunday School, little boys and children, they also joined with us. We performed this Hare Kṛṣṇa chanting in the park, the children, old men, young men, everyone joined. It is...

Interviewer: Do you have a temple here, Swami, or do you meet in libraries?

Prabhupāda: No, we have got a temple here. Actually it is Frederick Street, 518.

Interviewer: What does your temple look like?

Prabhupāda: It is temple, just there is Deity, Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deity and it's very, a place of sanctuary. If you go there you'll find immediately some impulse of spiritual idealism.

Interviewer: Do you have altars?

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Lord Caitanya Play Told to Tamala Krsna -- August 4, 1969, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Ṭhākura Haridāsa was living in a cottage which was... Just like I am living here, and the garage site a little far off, Haridāsa was living a little distance. So when Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu used to go to the sea for taking bath, He every day, every morning He used to go to Haridāsa Ṭhākura and taking his informa..., "Haridāsa, what you are doing?" Because Haridāsa was Mohammedan by birth, so out of his meekness he did not go to the temple. But in those... Especially in those days they were very strict. They do not allow anyone except Hindus to enter the temple. Nowadays, of course, there is law. If somebody is, actually has come to the Hindu way of life, he's allowed. Our Jayagovinda and others were allowed to see Jagannātha temple. But in those days there were no such system and Haridāsa out of his own accord, he did not want to disturb. But Lord Caitanya, God Himself, used to come to see him every day. So one day when Caitanya came, he looked little bit depressed. So Caitanya Mahāprabhu asked him, "Haridāsa, you do not look very well today. What is the matter?" "Sir, I'm not very feeling well. And because I do not feel well, I could not finished my chanting." He was chanting daily 300,000 times. "So I could not finish my chanting." So Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, "All right. You are growing old. You may not follow the rules now strictly. You can make it later." Haridāsa Ṭhākura said, "No, Sir, so long my life is there I shall try to follow. When the life is over, that is different thing. But I have got one desire if You fulfill." "What is that?" "Now I can understand that You will also leave this world very soon. So I cannot tolerate that. So best thing is that before You'll go, I go. And my another request is that You shall stand before me, and I shall leave this body." So Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, "Oh, if that is your desire, that will be all right. That is not difficult." So next day, when Caitanya Mahāprabhu came, Haridāsa Ṭhākura said, "Sir, today I wish to leave. So You please stand before me." So Caitanya Mahāprabhu also could understand that he's leaving. So He asked His devotees to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and in the presence of Caitanya Mahāprabhu he left. Then Caitanya Mahāprabhu took this body, and Himself He went... He carried the body. He was very stout and strong. And He was dancing and... Then He went to the seaside, and He bathed the body, and in His own hands He buried Caitanya, uh, Haridāsa Ṭhākura's body within the sand. So that burial place is still there in Purī, Haridāsa Ṭhākura's samādhi. Then He personally went to the shopkeepers and begged prasādam. "You give Me some prasādam." All people gave Him so many things. Caitanya Mahāprabhu was so well-known. So He asked all the devotees to take prasādam after the burial ceremony was over. In this way Haridāsa Ṭhākura's... Niryāna. This is called departure of Haridāsa Ṭhākura. That is stated in Caitanya-caritāmṛta.

Room Conversation With John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison -- September 11, 1969, London, At Tittenhurst:

Prabhupāda: No, no. These mantras are also... But Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra is specially recommended for this age. And the Vedic mantras, they are also chanted, I told you, with musical, tampura, and they sit down and chant. Nārada Muni, he's chanting always. So chanting through musical instruments, mantras, it is not new introduction. It is from time immemorial. And Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, especially in this age, that is recommended in many Vedic literature, Brahmanda Purāṇa, Kali-santaraṇa Upaniṣad, Agni Purāṇa, like that. And apart from the statement in the Vedic literature, Lord Caitanya Himself, He preached this mantra. Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa... And people, public, followed Him. Yes. (break) So anything... Just like a scientist. When he discovers something, it becomes a public property. People may take advantage of it. Similarly, if mantra has got potency, all people should take advantage of it. Why it should be secret?

George Harrison: All people can get the mantras that we have, but it's just they must get it from somebody else. We can't give it to them, but it is available for everybody.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Mantra, if it is valuable, it is valuable for everybody. Why it should be for a particular person?

John Lennon: If all mantras are... All mantras just the name of God. Whether it's a secret mantra or an open mantra, it's all the name of God. So it doesn't really make much difference, does it, which one you sing?

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Talk with Bob Cohen -- February 27-29, 1972, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: You see, Kṛṣṇa says that ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi (BG 18.66). So Kṛṣṇa's so powerful that He can immediately take up all the sins of others and immediately make it gone. But when a living entity plays the part on behalf of Kṛṣṇa, he also takes the responsibility of these sinful activities of his devotee. So to become a guru is not an easy task. You see? He has to take all the poisons and absorb. So sometimes, because he's not Kṛṣṇa, so sometimes there is some trouble. Therefore Caitanya Mahāprabhu forbidden that "Don't make many śiṣyas, many disciples." But for preaching work we have to accept many disciples, for expanding preaching. Never mind we suffer. But that's a fact. The spiritual master has to take the responsibility of all the sinful activities of his disciples. So to make many disciple is a risky job unless he's able to assimilate all the sins. (pause) (break)... patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo. He takes responsibility for all the fallen souls. That is... That idea is in Bible. Just like Jesus Christ take all the sinful reaction of all people and sacrificed his life. That is the responsibility of spiritual master. Because he's Kṛṣṇa's representative. So Kṛṣṇa takes all responsibility. Kṛṣṇa is Kṛṣṇa, apāpa-viddham. He cannot be attacked by any sinful reaction. But a living entity may be subjected sometimes, because he's small. Big fire, small fire. On a small fire if you put some big things, (chuckling) then the fire itself may be extinguished. In the big fire, whatever you put, that's all right. Finished. The big fire can consume anything.

Bob: So Christ's suffering was of that nature?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Bob: Was Christ's suffering this...

Room Conversation with John Griesser (later initiated as Yadubara Dasa) -- March 10, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No, no, all the yugas. More or less. (aside:) So when we shall have to go?

Devotee: I'll just see if the car is here. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...take away Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. The Japanese, they also eat everything? No.

Devotee: Not now.

Prabhupāda: Some of them?

Devotee: In times of war, I think all people...

Prabhupāda: That is another thing, but generally.

Devotee: No, they don't. In China, the island of Taiwan, the original inhabitants, they were known as man-eaters.

Prabhupāda: Man-eaters?

Devotee: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So this Calcutta story is not a story, it is fact. Hm?

Guru dāsa: I was asking Yamunā about the tape.

Prabhupāda: Tape?

Guru dāsa: About this tape recording.

Morning Walk -- June 14, 1972, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: No. Their policy is that they want to keep the people in that way-rascals and fools—then they'll vote and they'll enjoy the political power. That is their policy. Actually they do not want to see their countrymen elevated good character. They don't want to see. If the people become... Just like the British government in their time, they wanted to give education. Their education means A-B-C-D, half-mediocre, so that the government may be run on. They require clerks, servants, so much, not high education. As soon as there was question of high education, they stopped. And actually it so happened that as soon as the Indian people became highly educated and they learned the history of the world, they kicked them out. So these people, these rascals, Nixon and company, they want to keep the people in ignorance so that they'll get vote and enjoy. If the people become intelligent brāhmaṇas, then immediately he'll be kicked out. What is his value? He has no value. This is policy. They don't want to see that people become elevated in knowledge. That is not their policy. Therefore, they do not agree. Actually they are seeing that "These Hare Kṛṣṇa people, they're so nice character, they're religion, God conscious, so if all people become like this, then where we are?" Because as soon as people become Kṛṣṇa conscious, they'll noncooperate with the slaughterhouse, liquor industry, gambling, illicit sex. They will noncooperate. Then the whole plan of civilization will be collapsed.

Room Conversation and Interview with Ian Polsen -- July 31, 1972, London:

Devotee (1): Aggravates the disease.

Prabhupāda: That's all. People after sense gratification. A diseased man, who cannot digest, if he thinks that "I shall eat this, I shall eat that, I shall eat that," but actually he cannot digest. Eating this or that, how it will help him? (laughs) If you have lost your digesting power, then if you change, "I eat this, I shall eat that," that will not help you. So the modern civilized man, he has lost the point how he can be happy. He is simply changing the program of sense gratification. That's all.

Ian Polsen: Becoming more and more desperate.

Prabhupāda: Huh? Yes. He has no other idea. Just like here in this material world the highest pleasure is sex life, so they are changing, different types of sex life, that's all. (break)

(break) We want to see that you are lover of God. God is one. God is neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Christian. So we want to see that you love God, that is all. That is our mission. You have forget... (break) ...understand little Bengali?

Guest: Oh, yes.

Room Conversation with Kenneth Keating, U.S. Ambassador to India -- October 14, 1972, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Śyāmasundara: One thing that has so much gone to, into our hearts is the fact that this philosophy and this way of life is eternal and nonsectarian. It applies to all people of all different races, different ages.

Prabhupāda: That is my experience, you see. I have preached this cult everywhere, and everywhere it has been received well.

Ambassador: Well that's a philosophy that mother Anne here believes in. All, all, all religions are...

Prabhupāda: First of all, we have to understand what do you mean by religion?

Mrs. Keating: What?

Prabhupāda: What do you mean by religion?

Mrs. Keating: Oh, religion. Well, I'm more of an eclectic. I believe in, in the best of all religions.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Mrs. Keating: I believe in the best of all religions.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Mrs. Keating: The highest.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- February 26, 1973, Jakarta:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest (2): He is the director of the (indistinct) of Hindu and Buddhist religion, from Department of Religious Affairs. His duty is to maintain and look after the development of (indistinct) expecting that all people of Indonesia that has to follow any kind of religions (indistinct) Christians, because we have also in charge for the Christianity, we have also in charge for the Muslim, or Islam, and we have also in charge for the Catholic and we have also in charge for other...

Prabhupāda: Very good idea. This is very nice.

Guest (2): So because we have so many in the prosecuting of their religions, there might be, the people between many religions (indistinct). So the government have to lead the people how (indistinct), to supply also, in the (indistinct) of their materials for readings, and facilities for their, prosecuting their religions. This is the actual (indistinct) department.

Prabhupāda: So this is the idea which I was explaining that...

Guest (2): (Indonesian) As a matter of fact, also that we are looking from the Hindu and Buddhist religions' point of view, how to get (indistinct) this department, especially because we are feeling of lacking of materials because no of our books actually here, written in ancient Indonesian language, which are translated from Sanskrit (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Ancient English...?

Room Conversation -- February 26, 1973, Jakarta:

Prabhupāda: There is example in Sanskrit grammar, gaṅgāyāṁ ghoṣa bali(?). The neighborhood of ghoṣa family is on the Ganges. Now, on the Ganges-Ganges is water—how there can be a village? Now, here interpretation required. When the matter is (break) ...on the water but on the bank of the Ganges. So when the meaning is not clear, then you can interpret. But when the meaning is clear... Just like Bhagavad-gītā: dharmakṣetre kurukṣetre samavetā yuyutsavaḥ (BG 1.1). Now Kurukṣetra is still there, in..., about 90 miles away from Delhi. Perhaps you have been there. The station is there, Kurukṣetra. Now how one can interpret that kurukṣetra means this body? This is going on. In spite of clear understanding, they interpret in their own way so that they have got their own philosophy, they want to support. This is going on. So if you kindly avoid this misleading interpretation, and if you take Bhagavad-gītā as it is, then you get the science of God, science of religion, which is applicable either to Indonesian or Indian or African or American, everyone. The science is appreciated everywhere. Two plus two equal to four, this mathematical science is applicable everywhere. It doesn't matter whether one is a Christian or Hindu or Muslim. Similarly, Bhagavad-gītā is the science of religion, science of God. So if you take this book seriously, and try to spread this knowledge among your countrymen, I think you'll be very much benefited. And it can be... We are preaching that. We are the, our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, is meant for one God, one scripture, one mantra, like that, for all people of the world. And we are happy that people are accepting it in that way, very nicely. And it is very easy. It is very easy. So Mr. Director he has read Bhagavad-gītā?

Room Conversation -- March 17, 1973, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Mahratta (?), yes. Then the intimate relationship with Gauḍīya Maṭha grew. In this way, I think in 1933, yes, the Sir Malcolm Haley came to lay down the foundation stone of Allahabad Maṭha. Mahārāja, I think you remember, yes?

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: Yes, we were coming from Vṛndāvana parikrama.

Prabhupāda: Yes, parikrama. And the parikrama, that is also another incident that... I, I was not initiated at that time, but I had very good admiration for these Gauḍīya Maṭha people, and before, before 1933 I met Śrīdhara Mahārāja and other devotees, old Tīrtha Mahārāja. So they were kind to me. Now, the parikrama, I thought, "What these people are doing in this parikrama? Let me go." So I met them in Kosi. Parvata Mahārāja, you may remember, and all people were going to see some Sesasayi.

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Yes, so at that time Vinode Bhai, later on Keśava Mahārāja, he informed that "Prabhupāda is going to Mathurā tomorrow morning and he will speak Hari-kathā this evening. Anyone who wants to remain may remain or otherwise they may prepare to go to see Śeṣaśāyī." So at that time, I think only ten or twelve men remained. Out of them Śrīdhara Mahārāja was one of them, and I thought it wise, "What shall I see, this Śeṣaśāyī? Let me hear. Prabhupāda will speak, let me hear." So Prabhupāda marked that this boy...

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: (indistinct) to listen to him (indistinct).

Morning Walk -- April 29, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Oh, they are set of fools.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They do not believe in God, the Russians?

Prabhupāda: No. They are all rascals. I have studied them in one week.

Karandhara: They struggle so hard, but they still cannot produce enough food.

Prabhupāda: They are simply set of rascals. All people are unhappy there. Unhappy. They cannot speak anything against the government and they have got so many protests to lodge. So many. But they cannot speak. If you speak, immediately he's sent to the concentrated camp. Some... Nobody knows where he has gone. You see the Kruschev, such a big man. Nobody knows where he is. That is their policy. As soon as you are suspicious,... Therefore Lelin... Lelin, Lelin...

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Lenin...

Prabhupāda: Not Lenin. Stalin.

Karandhara: Stalin.

Prabhupāda: Stalin. He's estimated to be the greatest criminal in the world. As soon as he'll suspect you... You may be a great friend. Next day you are finished. He'll ask his friend: "Now, here is poison and here is revolver. What do you want? If you want to die yourself, take this poison, and die. Otherwise, you'll be shot." So what he will select? He will take poison. Finish. This was his business. As soon as little suspicion. He'll call him: "Now here is poison. Here is revolver. What do you want?" Yes.

Room Conversation with Indian Guests -- July 11, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: No, this kind of family life is very suitable. This is wanted. All the wife... His wife is very nice girl. And she is good devotee. So if wife is favorable, then everything is favorable. Household life means cooperation with wife. Na gṛhaṁ gṛham ity āhur gṛhiṇī gṛham ucyate. Just like we are also living within a room, gṛha. But we are sannyāsī. What is the difference between gṛhastha and sannyāsī? He lives with his wife. Gṛhiṇī gṛham ity āhuḥ. Gṛhiṇī means "the wife is gṛha." So if the wife is favorable, devotee, then there is no use of giving up family life. That's all. We have got so many married couples. Just like this boy. He's married. His wife is there. They are favorable. Both husband and wife, they have dedicated life for Kṛṣṇa. So it is very nice. It is not that he has to become sannyāsī. No. Why? There is no necessity. Gṛhe vā vanete thāko. Either you become sannyāsī or gṛhastha, the life must be dedicated for Kṛṣṇa. That's all. That is required. And for Kṛṣṇa's sake, if we have to give up something, is that very difficult job? If Kṛṣṇa wants that "You give up this habit,"... Just like Kṛṣṇa says... If you become devotee of Kṛṣṇa... Now, Kṛṣṇa says, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati (BG 9.26). So Kṛṣṇa wants that patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalam, "Vegetable, milk, rice, grains, you can give Me." So you have to please Kṛṣṇa. You live on this, what Kṛṣṇa says, and take Kṛṣṇa's prasādam. That's all. (People coming in) Aiye. (Hindi) (break)

Room Conversation -- August 11, 1973, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Ceta etair anāviddhaṁ sthitaṁ sattve prasīdati. In this way, as the heart becomes cleansed, he revives his quality of goodness. And when he's situated in the quality of goodness, the other two qualities, passion and ignorance, cannot infect him. By this process. Rajas-tamo-bhāvāḥ. Rajas-tamo-bhāvāḥ. The example is kāma-lobhādayaś ca ye. When one is too much affected with the rajo-guṇa and tamo-guṇa, passion and ignorance... What is this kāma? Lusty and greediness. These are the symptoms of rajas-tamo-guṇa. So then therefore we see that all people are lusty and greedy. So as soon as he becomes cleansed, come to the standard of goodness, these two qualities cannot affect him anymore. Tadā rajas-tamo-bhāvāḥ kāma-lobhādayaś ca ye (SB 1.2.19). One has to take the process. And it is simple process. Simple... And that, that is actually happening, in our practical experience. They say, they say... They are all rascals, fools. They can say anything and everything. Pāgale kim abole chāgale kiṁ na khāoyā. In the Bengali it is said: A madman, what does he not speak? He speaks any nonsense. And a goat, what does he not eat? So if you keep a madman... They are keeping them mad... That is our protest, that why you are keeping all people mad, crazy, nonsense? And you are also teacher, university? They have no knowledge that what is the aim of life. That you have to protest. So as we gradually increase our strength, our number, we have to protest to the world that: "Why you rascal and fools, keeping the whole human society in darkness? You have no knowledge." Here God says that: 'Under My direction the prakṛti's working.' You have no knowledge. You are saying that there is no aim. Without aim, why God should create this, such a big gigantic manifestation. Why He should take responsibility? Is there no responsibility to maintain this gigantic... God has got immense power. He can maintain. That is another thing. But why He should take the responsibility?

Morning Walk -- December 12, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: ...two classes of men: the communist and the non-communist. Not exactly communist and capitalist, but communist and non-communist. Out of these two, the communists are going to be powerful. This is the world tendency. So if the world becomes full of communists, then the human civilization will be finished. All rogues and rascals, that's all. The American government wants to check this tendency. But they cannot check it if they remain "so-called trust in God." That will not be possible. So according to our proposition... Not only now, it is forever. Two classes of men are there: sura and asura. Surāsura. Viṣṇu-bhakto bhaved devaḥ. Deva and sura, the same thing. Asuras tad viparyayaḥ. And the asura, or the demons, godless. So if the Americans remain godless in the name of so-called trust in God, they will not be able to check this communistic movement. They will not be able. Now, if they are serious to check this communistic movement, save the American country as well as the whole world, then they must be very serious to understand what is God and what is trust in God. Otherwise this communistic movement will finish the civilized human society. So you are thoughtful. They must be very serious about it. And this is the only movement, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, which can make all people actually trust in God and explain what is meant by God. Demons, they... If the communists are demons and the capitalists are also demons, fighting between demons, there will be war and loss of life, but nobody will come out victorious. That is going on. There is occasional world war, but the situation of the world remains the same. No party has become able to change the situation of the world. What do you think, Karandhara?

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 7, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Privy council.

Śyāmasundara: Something like that. It's called a "think-tank". She's named it. It's presided over by Lord, Lord Goodman.

Prabhupāda: No, no. The thing is, unless the people are Kṛṣṇa conscious, either this board or that board, that will not help. First of all, people should know what is the aim of life, what is culture, how the human activity should be directed. The people should know first of all this. Otherwise, changing from frying pan to the fire, it is useless. That is going on. That change, revolution, is going on. Just like the Russian people, they changed the Czarist government into communist government, revolution, but still, they're unhappy. They're trying to change by another revolution. This is going on. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). This is described in the śāstra as "chewing the chewed." Or the same simple philosophy: "This side of stool is better than that side." So he keeps the whole thing, stool. "This side, the dry side, is better and the moist side, wet side, is bad." This is no philosophy. It, it must not be stool. It must be gold. Then it is all right, this side or that side. That philosophy, that the dry side of stool is better than the wet side, this will not help. So first, first of all, human society must know what is the aim of life. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum (SB 7.5.31). We are part and parcel of God, Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu. We are suffering on account of our relationship with God. This is the cause of our suffering. Then we have to make plan how to revive our lost relationship with God. Then the... Everything is there in the Vedic literature. All directions are there. So we have to... Just like when we are in danger, we consult some learned man or physician or a lawyer, similarly we have to consult the Vedic culture, how perfect it is. This way?

Jayapatākā: Yes.

Morning Walk -- March 14, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: ...that business in your country. What is that? Topless, bottomless?

Devotee: Yeah.

Prabhupāda: No? They want. There is regular business. In India also. In the hotels there are regular business to pick up college girls and enjoyed by the guests. So many things are going on on this basis of sinful activity. All over the world. So they become polluted, all people..., population, then how they can expect good government? Some of them will take the charge of the government, and he's polluted. (pause) Indigestion. You know that? Indigestion.

Devotee: Ha.

Prabhupāda: You have not digested your food. (break) Any carpenter working in... (break) The government was pleased to reply that they're maintaining themselves by selling literature. Similarly, if it comes to the notice of the government that they're maintaining ourselves by production of food, they'll like very much. (break) In your temple.

Devotee: Feeding.

Prabhupāda: (chuckles) (break)

Bhagavān: ...the society would go to the gurukula, and there it would be decided what their work would be?

Prabhupāda: Yes. First of all there should be an instructor on the spiritual life, then according to his position... Our spiritual life is meant, we should always remember... But for management we have to make divisions. That is...

Devotee: Actually the whole society could be Vaiṣṇava.

Morning Walk 'Varnasrama College' -- March 14, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: They are śūdras. Little arts and crafts can be trained up to the śūdras. They, at the present moment, they have given too much stress on the arts and crafts.

Yaduvara: Hm. Yes.

Prabhupāda: Therefore the whole people, population, is śūdra.

Hṛdayānanda: It is a fact.

Prabhupāda: That is a... That is the difficulty. All people are being drawn by giving them, I mean to say, attraction for high salary, and they are taking so-called technical education, and all of them working in the factory. Nobody's working on the field. They are śūdras. (break)

Hṛdayānanda: ...artist is accepted as a philosopher in life.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Hṛdayānanda: In our society (break) ...accepted (break) ...as a philosopher.

Prabhupāda: Artist?

Hṛdayānanda: Yeah, the artist.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Artist is also business of the śūdra.

Hṛdayānanda: Yes, but in our... I'm saying, in modern society in America, they are considered... (break)

Prabhupāda: Nonsense philosophy. They do not know what is the meaning of philosophy.

Morning Walk -- March 27, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Why you know? Everyone knows.

Dr. Patel: They have got so many women outside, and some of them want every day new one. All sorts of rascals they are. (break) Raja should rule, and not these...

Prabhupāda: Asaṁskṛtāḥ kriyā-hīnāḥ.

Dr. Patel: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Everyone, all people, not only the ministers.

Dr. Patel: But yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas tat tad itaro janaḥ (BG 3.21).

Prabhupāda: Yes. And they have become śreṣṭha. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ (SB 7.5.31). Blind men have become the leader of the blind men. That is the difficulty. And if you want to open their eyes, they will say, "No sanction for temple. Get out." Murkhāyopadeśo hi prakopayati na śamyati (?). This is the position.

Bhava-bhūti: It's an excellent preaching point, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Bhava-bhūti: Christianity was taught to the publicans and the beggars, but Kṛṣṇa taught originally bhakti-yoga to the kings.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because they were cultured.

Dr. Patel: According to the Upaniṣads, you know, actually the brahma-vidyā was with the kṣatriyas. And how could a brāhmaṇa boy come to kṣatriya to learn it. "But still, my boys, you have come and I will teach you." That is what we have seen in one of the...

Morning Walk -- April 5, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. No, how to stop this forceful entering into the mouth of the kāla. Just like a very good example: When there is fire and all the insects and flies, "Phat! Phat! Phat! Phat! Phat!" That's it. Attracted by the beauty. Similarly, all these big, big leaders, being attracted, bahir-artha-māninaḥ... They have been described in Bhāgavata, bahir-artha-māninaḥ. They are thinking this beautiful nature as everything, "There is no other thing."

Dr. Patel: There is very good description in Twelfth..., these things. (break)

Girirāja: "I see all people rushing with full speed into your mouths as moths dash into a blazing fire." (break)

Prabhupāda: The doctors also will enter. (laughter) Not only the patient, but the doctors also. Don't think that doctors will be excused. (laughter) No, no. That is not possible.

Dr. Patel: Shall I read further?

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. (break)

Dr. Patel: Just like...

Prabhupāda: He was thinking, "Oh, why shall I kill?"

Dr. Patel: "If I don't fight, they will live."

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is already planned. So even if you don't kill, it is there already.

Girirāja: (reads synonyms for following verse:) "Translation: The Blessed Lord said: Time I am, destroyer of the worlds, and I have come to engage all people. With the exception of you, the Pāṇḍavas, all the soldiers here on both sides will be slain."

Dr. Patel: Shall I read further, sir, or you want to comment?

Room Conversation with Mr. C. Hennis of the International Labor Organization of the U.N. -- May 31, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: You understand that?

C. Hennis: Yes. Well, of course it's only by a long term of general program of cultural improvement that you can hope to overcome that kind of problem. On the other hand, it would be, I think, wrong to argue from that experience that the provision of welfare benefits to all people who are destitute should be stopped, you see. It is true that...

Prabhupāda: No, we don't want to say that.

C. Hennis: It's true these are abused, but the fact that a good thing is abused doesn't turn it into a bad thing.

Prabhupāda: No that is not the point. Point is that everyone should be guided by the brain. Therefore the brain must be maintained. That is our point.

C. Hennis: Well, I would say, to the extent that it has a bearing on improving a man's position in his job, improving his skills at work, and improving his ability to represent his fellowman in trade unions and that kind of thing, we are concerned with it. We are concerned with generally improving his general culture, his general education, and in particular his education as a worker in relation to industrial and trade union life in general. We hope that by this means a man will improve his status, and by improving his status, he will have other things to think about than just getting drunk. So that's the...

Yogeśvara: We find that in our society, all of our men, in whatever particular capacity of work they have, are now hundred times more productive than they were before they came to Kṛṣṇa consciousness because now they have found peace of self, and therefore they are in a better position to execute their prescribed duties successfully.

Morning Walk -- June 2, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: Yes,

Yogeśvara: With the long hair.

Prabhupāda: Ah ha. So, he did not like the idea?

Yogeśvara: He didn't think it was very practical.

Guru-gaurāṅga: He thinks it works but not all the time. He thinks it works for some people, but not for all people.

Prabhupāda: And all people... Any good thing, it is meant for some people, not for all people. But if there is an ideal class of men, the others will follow. Jewel. Jewel is always costly. Still everyone aspires, "If I get a jewel." That is wanted. Not that everybody can possess jewel, but still, everybody will appreciate jewel.

Yogeśvara: There are a lot of people who don't accept it because they think, "Maybe it is another imitation jewel. Maybe I'll get cheated again."

Prabhupāda: So why don't you become once more cheated? You have been cheated so many times. Why not try this also? If that is his argument, that means you have been cheated so many times. So why not once more, and see whether it is cheating or reality? That sense will not come. "Oh, I have been cheated so many times. Therefore I shall not take." So why not become once more cheated and see the value? The example, as I say, sometimes. (Bengali) ...that he lost his utensils several times. The thief stole it. Therefore he promised, "Now I shall take my food on the ground. I shall not purchase any more utensils." What is...? This is bathing place or...?

Room Conversation -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: Among the animals. But you are not animal.

M. Roche-dieu: They do not eat anything else.

Prabhupāda: But you are not animal. Animals among... The tiger, he is destined to eat meat. But you are not animal. You are human being. Why should you eat? Why you should imitate an animal? Then why there is religion?

Frenchman: (French)

Yogeśvara: (translates) There's a story. Someone asked Lord Jesus to describe how we should love all people. Describe... Just like a man who has one hundred sheep and there is one of them who has gone astray, he is lost, so the man leaves aside all of his other hundred sheep to go looking for that one sheep. So in the same way, he says, we must take care of the people who are suffering. The minority, those who are suffering, they must receive food, they must be given help and fed.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But why you should kill animal?

Young Swiss Man (3): At the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā...

Prabhupāda: And Christ says, "Thou shall not kill." Why you are killing? From the very beginning disobedience. How you can become Christian?

Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Deshimaru: (French)

Yogeśvara: (translating for Deshimaru) He suggests that perhaps this force is something more than person. Since it is in all people, it is something that all people share, but it's beyond them.

Prabhupāda: That's all right, but in all people the force is a person. Just like the force is in him, force in me, but we are person. (French)

Yogeśvara: This force is the soul.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So soul is a person. (French)

Yogeśvara: He's confused: what do you define by person then? Because our experience is this person.

Prabhupāda: Just like I am a living being; I have got living force. You have got living force. But we are talking as person.

Yogeśvara: His question is: how is it that the soul is also a person?

Prabhupāda: Because I am soul, you are soul, we keep our person. That is person. (French)

Yogeśvara: He suggests that we are only individuals, distinct, because of the bodily difference, that now we are persons, but afterwards we become one.

Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Thank you. (some guests leave) So now we have come to Germany. You cooperate and make it a great success for the general benefit of the whole humanity. We have got arts, music, literature, culture, food, everything.

Prof. Pater Porsch: I think it will also help to quite a considerable extent for the removing of prejudices and for a better understanding of...

Prabhupāda: No, this is the only platform where all people, all religion, all culture, can unite. This is the only place, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We practically see how they are becoming successful. In Africa also, within the villages they are responding. (break) ...distinction.

Devotee: (showing Śrīla Prabhupāda's books) This is Spanish, Chinese.

Prof. Pater Porsch: (indistinct) Chinese.

Prabhupāda: Japanese also. And Hindi.

Devotee: Italian, French. Hindi also we have. Bengali, Gujarati.

Prof. Pater Porsch: But I also noticed on the faces of the devotees downstairs that many or several faces were, we would say in the West, sublimated, that the facial features showed that a certain form of sublimation had taken place. (German)

Prabhupāda: Even children are learning how to dance, how to offer obeisances, how to chant, how to clap. They are also learning, small children.

Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany:

Professor Durckheim: ...I realize that the closer members engaged, really, in this work of distributing books and chanting, wearing the white robes and shaving the heads, they are the closer participants I suppose. And then have you also members of your movement which are simply in their work, in the community, in the world? Or is...

Prabhupāda: No, we invite everyone.

Professor Durckheim: You invite. But as far as members are concerned, to become a member of your movement...

Haṁsadūta: Yes, we have people in all walks of life. For example, we have the (German). He is a life member. And all people...

Professor Durckheim: He's simply a member?

Haṁsadūta: Yes. He is a member, he supports the movement, he follows the principles himself, he appreciates the philosophy, but he has his responsibility in the society. He acts as a member of the society and he is a member. But his lifestyle is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. (end)

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Yoga Student -- March 14, 1975, Iran:

Prabhupāda: But if he says, "No, I don't feel," is that difficulty?

Devotee: Then he'll be cast away.

Atreya Ṛṣi: What they don't have really, is the practice of devotional service. They don't have...

Prabhupāda: That is finished, I think. Their propaganda is already finished. Nobody cares for them. How they are...? You can cheat all people for some time, and some people for all time, (laughter) but not all people for all time. That is not possible. This is their policy. Some fruits are there?

Devotee: Yes, Prabhupāda. Some juice also.

Atreya Ṛṣi: Shall we make some fresh juice?

Prabhupāda: No, no. That's all right. (end)

Interview with a German Girl and Assorted Devotees -- March 30, 1975, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Not put all the questions.

Haṁsadūta: So you can begin.

Prabhupāda: Our ideal is that we have got this body, and there are some bodily necessities. That is the prime necessities. So we do not neglect these necessities of the body. But our culture is spiritual culture. Generally, people, being disturbed by the bodily necessities, they do not inquire about the spiritual identity. Actually this is the distinction between human life and animal life. (Hindi) (break) Our real purpose of this mission is to educate people about his spiritual identity. All people, they are misguided by the idea-(aside:) Don't do—that he is this body, everyone, all over the world, especially in the Western countries.

Girl: Why?

Prabhupāda: Because rascal fools, they have no knowledge, just like cats and dogs, animals. Do you admit this?

Haṁsadūta: (German)

Prabhupāda: Everybody's thinking that "I am this body." That is rascaldom. They have not even this primary knowledge of spiritual identity that he is not this body, although he has got very practical experience that a child is getting another body as a boy, the boy is getting another body as young man. Suppose I am... I know I had a body of a child. I still remember, when I was a child, six months old. I remember how I was lying down on the lap of my eldest sister. She was knitting, and I was seeing. Very vividly I remember. Now, where is that body? Tell me. Where is that body? Now sometimes I think that "I was jumping as a boy. And now I have to take this stick." So where is that, my jumping body? Tell me.

Room Conversation -- April 4, 1975, Mayapur:

Bhagavān: Atheistic communist.

Prabhupāda: Atheistic communist.

Devotee (1): It's not natural.

Prabhupāda: They, they're not real communists. Real communist we are. Actually see. All people from all parts of the world, professing different religions, different path of life. Still they are joined. This is natural. Kṛṣṇa community.

Devotee (1): So this war... You mentioned a couple of minutes ago that this war almost broke out once before when America aimed all of its weapons at India. So it could happen at any time. It could happen very shortly then.

Prabhupāda: That war was also Russian instigated. This war, last war between Pakistan and India, was practically between India and Pakistan, uh, yes...

Devotee (1): Russia.

Prabhupāda: No. The Bangladesh, they were Bengalis. Although the whole Pakistan, including Bangladesh and the other part, West Pakistan, East Pakistan, Bangladesh... So actually, Bangladesh is bigger than West Pakistan. They should have taken the government, majority. But the West Pakistan, by force they were ruling. They are not majority. So after all, they are Bengalis, maybe Muslim. They're intelligent than these Punjabis. Punjabis, they have got bodily strength, not brain. So these Bengalis, in Mujjhamat Raman, that was his demands, that: "We are majority. Why they should govern us? We should govern over them." This is the movement.

Conversation with Governor -- April 20, 1975, Vrndavana:

Governor: The thing is a very intensive and completely dedicated course on making an individual a brāhmaṇa. (indistinct)... Then the second thing is not that intensively, but in a village (indistinct) all people.

Prabhupāda: All people.

Governor: No, all people... One or two could be taken out of many.

Prabhupāda: No, that I asked him. Actually the idea is in the society as it is recommended in the Bhagavad-gītā, cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (BG 4.13). The guṇas are there. Just like naturally one is taking education just to become a politician, one is taking education how to become a high character saintly person. That natural inclination is already there, but that is not being properly harnessed. Therefore a regular educational institution should be there where proper training of brāhmaṇa, proper training of kṣatriya, vaiśya, must be given. These four divisions must remain there. And the, so far the brahminical culture, that must be there. Otherwise you cannot say that you become moralist. Where is the example of moralist? A section of person must be there, fully moralist. That ideal section is now lacking. Therefore, what I have written, that?

Room Conversation with Dr. Copeland, Professor of Modern Indian History -- May 20, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: What is that meaning?

Madhudviṣa: It means that you have finished him. (Prabhupāda laughs) They are... They have such a misunderstanding of the philosophy coming from India. When they come to see you they think that you will be very liberal-minded because they have received this liberal-mindedness from so many other bogus swamis, and when they come to see you, you are very conservative. You will not accept anyone else. So they cannot agitate their mind. They cannot do their muni thing. So many other swamis come, and they accept this, accept that, do this, and do that, and simply stress, "The follower is right."

Prabhupāda: They will say to him, "Love humanity."

Madhudviṣa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: And this is very palatable. "Oh, Swami is for humanity." He is a rascal, he does not know. "Love humanity. Do not love Kṛṣṇa. Love humanity." And then people believe him. "By loving humanity, you love Kṛṣṇa or God." These things are very palatable. This is Vivekananda's philosophy. And most people say like that. "Love humanity." Oh, why humanity? Why not tiger? That they shall not. All bogus. Don't be misled by the bogus. Stick to your own principles. That's all. People may come or may not come. We don't care for them. We must speak the right truth. Why "people not coming"? People are not coming? We are getting more and more devotees. (end)

Room Conversation with Two Lawyers and Guest -- May 22, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: No. That is a very good idea, but the leg is also required. If you simply keep the head and there is no leg, then it is incomplete. Everything is required. To keep the body fit you require head, you require arms, you require belly, you require leg. That is the system of varṇāśrama-dharma. In India you have heard that there is a class, brāhmaṇa. Now it is now broken. But this is the Vedic civilization, that one class of men should be the brāhmaṇas, first class. One class of man should be kṣatriya, the administrators, politicians. One class of man should be food producer, vaiśya. And one class of man should be laborer, who has no brain but he can assist the other three.

Guest 2: The ideal in western societies is all people should be equal.

Prabhupāda: No, that is not ideal and neither it is possible. Not that everyone is going to be lawyer. Even though everyone has got the ambition to become a first-class lawyer and earn like anything, but that is not possible. So therefore it requires selection, who will become a lawyer, who will become a scientist, who will become a medical man...

Guest 2: In our society you are taught in school that if you try hard enough, you can become prime minister.

Prabhupāda: No, no, there is no harm. You become prime minister. But I say that not everyone is capable to become prime minister. That has to be. If one man is not capable and if he takes education to become, he will waste his time.

Guest 2: But once you have the idea in your head that you can be prime minister, you don't want to be a laborer.

Prabhupāda: Then you become. But if he is a loafer and he wants to become prime minister, then it will create havoc. Just like in America. He was not fit for the president's post. Nixon was elected. Then again he has to be dragged down. We say the fit man should go to become a particular...

Morning Walk -- July 14, 1975, Philadelphia:

Guru dāsa: In India this would all be utilized for living.

Prabhupāda: Yes. These places also should be allowed to the people who are overpopulated. No visa, no immigration. The whole world is simply mismanaged for want of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Pramattaḥ, the word used, pramattaḥ, mad. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma: (SB 5.5.4) "All people mad and engaged in misdeeds only for sense gratification." (break) ...this room?

Ravīndra-svarūpa: I don't know, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Now it is just used for garbage.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...all like this, jungle?

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Yes, all along this creek there's a forest like this. This has been done in Philadelphia all along the river, and this huge area of land has been set aside. It's like this. No one can use it except to take walks. (break)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The question that I wrote to Śrīla Prabhupāda, the answer that Śrīla Prabhupāda gave me was that the cells in the body and the jīvātmā that resides in the heart, they are different living entities. But my understanding was directed to the relationship between the two, the jīvātmā in the cells and the jīvātmā in the heart, how they are related, how they...

Prabhupāda: They are separate identity.

Room Conversation -- August 21, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: (Bengali) Exactly what Kṛṣṇa has said. Our mission... (Bengali) Yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Bas. If you speak what Kṛṣṇa has instructed, you become guru. But if you make your own concoction, own invention, then... (Bengali) I don't speak any nonsense except the instruction given in the Bhagavad-gītā. That is my credit. That's all. People say that I have done wonderful, but I do not know any magic. The wonderful thing I have done is that I don't speak any nonsense thing. (Bengali)

Lalitā: What you say, you act according to that.

Prabhupāda: No, what I learn from Kṛṣṇa I say. I don't say independently. That is not my business. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's instruction. (break) How? Āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra' ei deśa (CC Madhya 7.128). You deliver your village people and become a guru. Everyone is not going to be so big that he can go all over the world. But everyone can teach within his limit, within his family, within his community, within his village, within his town, within his district. As he is capable, he can increase. But everyone can become a guru and deliver the local people. How? Yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Then you are guru. As soon as you manufacture anything nonsense, then it is spoiled. That is going on. So many gurus are there; they are manufacturing. They are becoming Kṛṣṇa. That is nonsense. That is nonsense. You cannot become Kṛṣṇa. Īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati (BG 18.61). Bhagavān sakala hṛdaya... (break) Can you stay in everyone's heart? You are claiming God. This one instance. Īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛdeśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati. He is aṇḍāntara-sthaṁ-paramāṇu-cayāntara-sthaṁ. He is within this universe, and He is within the atom. You are claiming to be Īśvara, God. Are you within the atom? Are you within everyone's heart? Then how do you claim that you are Īśvara? Practical. Īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ (BG 18.61). Īśvara, God, God is everyone's heart. Sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭhaḥ (BG 15.15). (Bengali) ...on the basis of Bhagavad-gītā... (Bengali) And as soon as you manufacture something, then it is spoiled. (Bengali) That is going on. The so-called gurus, they get some mystic power, yoga-siddhi, and they show it and they mislead people that he is God. That is the difficulty. We never said... Where is that book? (Bengali) ...gurus. Again he has to go? (Bengali) So far as I am concerned, these things are not there. About me, I am... In Dallas I am taking one child's hand and I am teaching them how to write "a," "a." (Bengali) Where is that professors?

Morning Walk -- August 28, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No. We want many educated men to understand this philosophy and preach. People are... Whole world, they are in ignorance—the value of life. Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke (SB 10.84.13). They are accepting this body as self. The whole trouble is there. So-called scientist, philosopher—everyone is thinking, "I am this body," and therefore there is so much trouble. They do not know what he is and what is his goal of life, how life should be molded. No knowledge. Therefore vigorous preaching is required. Our Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission is that, that all people are suffering. There is little knowledge in India. So anyone who has taken his birth in India, he should make his life perfect by studying this Vedic literature and then spread the knowledge all over the world because they are in ignorance. Here also now they are ignorant. They do not know what is the value of life, thinking like cats and dogs. What is your idea about the value of life?

Member: Unless it is very towards God, it is useless.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Member: Constant thinking of Him, His lotus feet, it is the only way by which we can get the real benefit of getting this human life.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And where is that education?

Member: That is real education.

Prabhupāda: That is... But where is that education? There is no such education all over the world.

Morning Walk -- October 16, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: Government means you, like rascal fools like you. So how you will take care?

Harikeśa: When it is properly set up.

Prabhupāda: First of all you see the government, what is government? Government means a pack of rascals and fools. That's all. This is modern government. All these thieves and rogues are voted to be government men. So how you expect good government? It is not possible. "People's government." All people are rascals. That means government rascal. People's government.

Harikeśa: How would the other necessities of life be taken care of, like medical things? If actually they have no knowledge, and they have to require to build these gigantic hospitals...

Prabhupāda: The brāhmaṇas, the brāhmaṇas will give you medical help. Āyur-Veda. They will read Āyur-Veda. They will give help.

Harikeśa: So the Āyur-Veda possibly can work nowadays.

Prabhupāda: Why not?

Harikeśa: Some people were telling me that the herbs had lost all their effectiveness in the Kali-yuga.

Prabhupāda: Then die. (laughter) Do you mean to say this modern medical treatment is guarantee for your living?

Harikeśa: No.

Morning Walk -- December 19, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, this is not government, if you lose after all. What is this government? You must govern in such a way that you will never lose it.

Dr. Patel: Well, sir, we also had an empire, India, and we have lost it, haven't we? And we, all the eastern country, Malaya, Java, Sumatra, and all those things. Why we lost it? Kālena!

Prabhupāda: Kālena of course. So when you lose your culture, then you lose everything.

Dr. Patel: That's right. Because they did not see with the same eye all people. They were the rascals. (indistinct) ...a very good race. After all, we are Aryans.

Prabhupāda: Aryans means to follow Vedic instructions.

Dr. Patel: They have forgotten.

Prabhupāda: That is Aryans. So they are now the same thing. A person born in a brāhmaṇa family, he is claiming "I am brāhmaṇa." Similarly, even though born in Aryan family, without any culture they are claiming "I am Aryan." Kṛṣṇa observed it in Arjuna, and therefore He chastised him, "This kind of proposal is anārya-juṣṭam. Under the non-Aryans, you're forgetting your duty." That is the beginning of loss of culture. A small beginning, it creates havoc. Kṛṣṇa warned this, anārya-juṣṭam. Kṣatriya's description is given in the Bhāgavata: yuddhe cāpy apalāyanam, not to go behind. They must fight. That is Aryan culture.

Dr. Patel: They are doing strategical fight. Strategically great. They should not repeat, but our army is doing strategical fight.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 2, 1976, Madras:

Prabhupāda: Yes. You want five.

Indian man (2): (laughter) We want five, correct. Four to make it five.

Prabhupāda: There is a story that a grocer's son was doing business, and when he was given a five-rupees' note, so he was giving four rupees. So the customer said, "Why you are giving me four rupees?" "No, I do not know what is the exchange." "No, it is six rupees." So "No, father will be angry." (laughter) Means he knows perfectly well what is five rupees, but he is innocent when he was giving four rupees. And when the customer wanted six rupees, he, "No, my father will be angry." (break) ...created a havoc by misinterpreting Bhagavad-gītā, all people. According to their wish, "Five-rupees note means four rupees," by imagination. They have created havoc all over the world. Otherwise everything is there. Avajānanti māṁ mūḍhāḥ (BG 9.11). If we take Kṛṣṇa's instruction, then whole world becomes immediately happy. But they will not take it. They will manufacture their own, two plus two equal to five or three, not exactly the four.

Indian man (3): So all anxiety and duḥkha have been created by the man himself.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They have created.

Indian man (3): Nobody else is doing for him, but he created himself.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Indian man (3): And then he said, "I am in misery. I am in trouble." Trouble is created by you. Nobody has created.

Prabhupāda: So that is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, that mind is the enemy and mind is the friend. So we created our mind, enemy or friend, and we suffer for that.

Morning Walk -- April 15, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes, they should be amazed, because they are mental speculators.

Dr. Patel: You mean unconditional surrender.

Prabhupāda: And here are the surrendered souls. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, api cet sudurācāro. "Even they have got some bad symptoms," bhajate mām ananya-bhāk, "but if he is fully Kṛṣṇa conscious," sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ (BG 9.30), "he is sādhu." So if we want to make the whole world sādhu, perfect human being, then we have to push on this movement without any hesitation. All people will be sādhu, and then there will be peace and prosperity.

Dr. Patel: You mean bring about the spiritual communism of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Prabhupāda: That is real com... Everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa. They are stating, "Everything belongs to the state." Why you are limiting? State is limited. Everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa. Then it is perfect communism.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In the Bible it says, "On earth as it is in heaven," that the life on earth should be also under the domain of God.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But there is no program how to actually do that.

Prabhupāda: No, program is there. Kṛṣṇa is speaking, "Do this program, execute," man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad... Program is there, but rascal will not take it. There is no difficulty.

Dr. Patel: The Christian prayers are also the self-surrender.

Room Conversation -- April 23, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Then where is the prophet and where is the followers?

Guest (3): Well, see, the prophet is teaching the people about this and teaching them to live it.

Prabhupāda: That means people are not obeying the prophet.

Guest (3): Well, people are. We are.

Prabhupāda: Then how it is said that.... How they are killing animals? How the women are unchaste?

Guest (4): All people aren't following the prophet. All people in your belief aren't following you completely.

Prabhupāda: That is very nice. My point is that if we follow God—God's message is carried by prophet, and prophet if obeyed by the people—then the religion is in order. Otherwise it is a bogus religion.

Guest (3): Well, I think we would agree there.

Prabhupāda: We must follow; then it is all right. We don't follow, and still we rubberstamp, "I am Christian. I am this. I am that." This is the disease.

Guest (3): Would you agree that Christ is the greatest master of all?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. We accept him as our guru.

Guest (3): What is the...

Prabhupāda: Guru means prophet, yes.

Morning Walk -- April 26, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Yes. In spiritual world there is everything, but only central point is Kṛṣṇa. Here anxiety is "Where I shall get money? Where I shall get woman?" And there is anxiety, "How shall I get Kṛṣṇa?" The anxiety is there. That is the difference.

Devotee (1): But do they have anxiety...

Prabhupāda: Here all people are anxious how to get money and how to get woman, that's all. And there the anxiety is how to get Kṛṣṇa. The anxiety is there, but quality is different.

Devotee (1): If we're in anxiety that we cannot perform devotional service nicely, that is all right?

Prabhupāda: That is devotional side. Kṛṣṇa anxiety itself is the first-class devotional service. If one becomes anxious like that, then he is perfect. Janma-koṭi-sukṛtair na labhyate. After many, many millions of life of pious activities one can get such anxiety. This is not so easy, to become anxious for Kṛṣṇa. You don't think it is like ordinary activity (anxiety?). Koṭi-sukṛtaiḥ. If one becomes full of anxiety for Kṛṣṇa, that is the highest stage of perfection.

Devotee (1): So the anxiety that I am always falling down...

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee (1): We are in the neophyte stage, and we're often falling down.

Prabhupāda: You don't imitate. You follow the rules and regulations. Don't try artificially to be anxious. When you are purified, then you'll get that anxiety, not artificially. Then you are sahajiyā.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Education.... That means what is that education?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say that the.... They don't.... Of course, we say education means Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Education means they must learn to sacrifice everything for the topmost.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say the topmost is the general mass of everyone, the proletariat, all people combined.

Prabhupāda: That's all right, general. But you know how to make general mass of people happy. That example we give, that the whole body.... You can make the whole body happy simply by supplying food to the stomach. That is the best way. And if you want to make happy every part of the body, individual, that will never be successful. You must know where to touch. Just like the huge machine is going on by the expert manipulation of the pilot. He is pushing one.... Works. Immediately the plane becomes.... It is.... So you must know where to touch. If.... I am layman, I am put into that, then, instead of putting here, I shall put my here, and then it will go down. "Ohhh." So finished. So this is nature's way, that you supply food to the stomach, and the energy will be distributed every part. You supply water to the root of the tree, it will be supplied everywhere. That you must know. Otherwise, if you.... Just like if you do not know, a expert, not expert, so he's advised, "Give to, the food to the stomach." "And in where?" "No, in the hole of the body." If he does not, which hole, then he will put somewhere, sometimes here, sometimes here, sometimes here, sometimes here. It will never act. Then you must know the science how to make everyone happy. If you do not know that, then your imperfect imagination will never be done, and that has become everywhere. Why there is difference of opinion even both of the communistic countries? Why there is difference of opinion between Russia and China? Because both of you do not know how to make everyone happy. That is the point.

Room Conversation -- May 7, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: If they allow us to forward our movement, then we are satisfied. And when there is hindrance, the person who is hindering, finished. But don't do it now, (chuckles) then you will be finished.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Do you think the time will come when we will...?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Because Kṛṣṇa has two business, paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtam (BG 4.8). We are for delivering all people. Anyone who will put hindrance, then we have to finish. Not small, big. That is going on all over the world, politics.

Guru-kṛpā: Cāṇakya Paṇḍita, he also...

Prabhupāda: That is the way everywhere. (break) They will be automatically finished. Just like the Rāmakrishna Mission, who are advertising that they have got wonderful importance. They are now finished. They are simply making false propaganda in India. Actually, they have got fangs, what is called, fangs?

Devotee: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: The quality?

Devotees: Fangs.

Prabhupāda: Fangs, fangs. That is broken. So make... First of all try to push books, everywhere all over the world. They have got so many languages, like Russian or... Blackmarket. Chinese also. Blackmarket, they cannot check.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, no, and you don't need permission either.

Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: After all, imitation is imitation. Sometimes it is perfect imitation.... Perfect cannot be. But as far as possible. But imitation is there. And the material life is imitation. Because material life means we want to imitate God. That is material life. God is all-powerful; we want to become all-powerful. That is material life. And the struggle for existence. Because we cannot become God, it is impossible, but artificially, they are trying to become God. And that is struggle for existence. So material life means imitation. Everyone is struggling to become God. Even when one is so-called liberated, self-realized, just like the Māyāvādī philosophers, they are also writing "Self, my own self," but "I am independent." That is the material disease. Ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā. He's always thinking that "I am independent," which he's not. He's completely under the laws of nature, prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni (BG 3.27), but he's thinking "I'm independent." That is foolishness. They'll not accept knowledge given by God; they'll manufacture knowledge. That is material disease. And that knowledge is also uncertain. One stalwart man of knowledge is speaking, "I think, I believe," and another stalwart is saying, "No, no, I think, I believe." What is the meaning of this "I think, I believe"? We say "You are all rascals. Whatever you believe, whatever you think, they are all rascaldom." That's all. This is our decision. There are many persons, they are simply saying, "I think, I believe," and we say, "You all people who are thinking independently, believing independently, you are all rascals." That's all. So far our position is concerned, we never say "I think." Whatever we say, we support it immediately by some quotation of the Vedic literature. That is our process. So this morning I was talking with Hari-śauri that our test is this: that because it is written in the Bhagavad-gītā that na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ (BG 7.15), so anyone who is not surrendering to God, he's thinking independently, so he is either miscreant, a rascal, lowest of the mankind, māyayāpahṛta-jñānāḥ, all knowledge taken by māyā, in these groups.

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Small house.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, traveling.

Prabhupāda: This is fulfilling Caitanya Mahāprabhu's desire: pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi-grāma. (CB Antya-khaṇḍa 4.126) Go to every village and town. So you are doing very nice to satisfy the Lord. He wanted this. Pṛthivīte nagarādi—all over the world. So when He meant all over the world, naturally He meant all the people of the world. Why Indian? Pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi-grāma, it will include all the villages, towns, all over the world. That means all people of the world should take up this. Bhārata-bhūmite haila manuṣya-janma yāra (CC Adi 9.41). The Indians' duty is to carry the message, give it to the other people, and then they'll do. (break) ...a worldwide movement, not any particular. They may not misunderstand that this is Indian or Hindu. It is not that. Kṛṣṇa is meant for everyone. So, we shall have to go?

Devotees: Yes.

Prabhupāda: First class, everything is first class.

Satsvarūpa: They have all your books here too, Śrīla Prabhupāda. All your books are here. (kīrtana starts)

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Satsvarūpa: ...full of your tapes. (end)

Room Conversation and Reading from Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto 1 and 12 -- June 25, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: When they heard in the hell there is no newspaper, then came to the idea, "Oh, it is horrible." Otherwise, cold, dark, "Oh, this is our custom. We are already accustomed to these habits, we are working in the mine. So don't make any distinction between hell and our present residential quarters. But if there is no newspaper, certainly that is hell."

Pradyumna:

naiṣkarmyam apy acyuta-bhāva-varjitaṁ
na śobhate jñānam alaṁ nirañjanam
kutaḥ punaḥ śaśvad abhadram īśvare
na cārpitaṁ karma yad apy akāraṇam

"Knowledge of self-realization, even though freed from all material affinity, does not look well if devoid of a conception of the infallible God. What then is the use of fruitive activities, which are naturally painful from the very beginning and transient by nature if they are not utilized for the devotional service of the Lord?" Purport. "As referred to above, not only ordinary literatures devoid of the transcendental glorification of the Lord are condemned, but also Vedic literatures and speculation on the subject of impersonal Brahman when they are devoid of devotional service. When speculation on the impersonal Brahman is condemned on the above ground, then what to speak of ordinary fruitive work, which is not meant to fulfill the aim of devotional service. Such speculative knowledge and fruitive work cannot lead one to the goal of perfection. Fruitive work, in which almost all people in general are engaged, is always painful, either in the beginning or at the end. It can only be fruitful when made subservient to the devotional service of the Lord. In the Bhagavad-gītā also it is confirmed that the result of such fruitive work may be offered for the service of the Lord, otherwise it leads to material bondage. The bona fide enjoyer of the fruitive work is the Personality of Godhead. And thus when it is engaged for the sense gratification of the living entities, it becomes an acute source of trouble."

Answers to a Questionnaire from Bhavan's Journal -- June 28, 1976, Vrndavana:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So is there anything obligatory or prescribed for all people who follow this religion, that a minimum observance that they must do?

Prabhupāda: Yes, sanātana... The sanātana... Every living entity is eternal, sanātana. God is eternal, and we can live with God in a place which is called sanātana-dhāma. So this reciprocation is called sanātana-dharma. So Vedic religion means this sanātana-dharma, not Hindu dharma, or Muslim dharma, or this dharma. Read it.

Rādhāvallabha:

tvam akṣaraṁ paramaṁ veditavyaṁ
tvam asya viśvasya paraṁ nidhānam
tvam avyayaḥ śāśvata-dharma-goptā
sanātanas tvaṁ puruṣo mato me

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rādhāvallabha: Translation?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rādhāvallabha: Your are the supreme primal objective. You are the best in all the universes. You are inexhaustible and You are the oldest. You are the maintainer of religion, the eternal Personality of Godhead.

Answers to a Questionnaire from Bhavan's Journal -- June 28, 1976, Vrndavana:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: This would be the prescription for all people?

Prabhupāda: Everyone, for all people. There must be on the head the intelligent class of men who will give advice. Then next class, the... That is all given in the Bhagavad-gītā. Brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra. But when you become Kṛṣṇa conscious you can give up all these regulative principles directly. Therefore Kṛṣṇa, sarva-dharmān parityajya (BG 18.66). A brāhmaṇa-dharma, kṣatriya-dharma, or this dharma, that dharma, Hindu dharma, Mussulman dharma. If you have everything, simply... Because the ultimate aim of dharma is to come to Kṛṣṇa. "You directly come to Me; then everything is all right."

Devotee: So many other people, they concoct their own system and they say "This is the way to go to God."

Prabhupāda: Then let them suffer. What can be done? What can be done? If you don't take the laws of the state, you manufacture your own laws, then you'll suffer. If the state says, "Keep to the right," and if make your own law, "No, keep to the left," then you'll suffer. It's a fact.

Devotee: So many innocent people are also...

Answers to a Questionnaire from Bhavan's Journal -- June 28, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Why you sticking to the Hindu religion? Any Hindu will accept Bhagavad-gītā and Kṛṣṇa. So why not ask them to take Kṛṣṇa? Why so-called Hinduism? Who is a Hindu who will deny the authority of Kṛṣṇa? Is he a Hindu? Every Hindu observes Janmāṣṭamī, the birthday of Kṛṣṇa. So why do they not take Kṛṣṇa's advice and remain practically Hindu? They will not take advice of Kṛṣṇa, and they, how they can claim to be Hindu?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So can all people have an equal interest in religion despite their different classifications?

Prabhupāda: Yes. That I have already explained, that any human civilized man, he has got some religion. So religion, basic principle of religion is with reference to God. So here is God, What God says, if you take that system, then it will be perfect, not only for the Hindus, for Christian, for Mohammedans, for everyone. And that is being practically done in our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. We have got devotees from all groups of human society and they are taking to it. It is practical. There is no difficulty. So Hindus, Muslims, Christian, everyone take to this Kṛṣṇa religion, Kṛṣṇite. Kṛṣṇian. (laughter) Not Christian, but Kṛṣṇian. The word christo is also a Greek word. From this christo the Christ has come. So instead of c-h-r-i, k-r-i, the same thing. Christian or Kṛṣṇian, or Christian. Krishta is also another broken, I mean, another spelling of Kṛṣṇa. In India, if one's name is Kṛṣṇa, we say Krishta. My younger brother, his name was Kṛṣṇa. So we were calling him Krishta. So Krishta, Christian. So actually, if we take the root meaning, Christian means Krishnian or Krishtian. So that is a controversial point, but everyone can take to Kṛṣṇa. Then everything will be settled up. Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekam... (BG 18.66). Make everything clear.

Morning Walk -- July 12, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This school is called Amsterdam School, Prabhupāda, because this is Amsterdam Avenue.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's very funny that Ninth Avenue turns into Amsterdam Avenue at this point. Ninth Avenue becomes Amsterdam Avenue on about Sixtieth Street.

Rāmeśvara: Yesterday there was a big parade in New York City, all people who are against abortion, they were marching. The U.S. is having a presidential election, so the Democratic party, they are having their convention in New York City to decide who will be their candidate for President. So all these people were marching to try to convince him to be against abortion. But he has already said he will not take any issue, he will not take a stand, because it is too controversial.

Prabhupāda: Who?

Rāmeśvara: The Presidential candidate. He will not give his opinion.

Devotee: Who is that, Reagan?

Rāmeśvara: No, Carter. They are unwilling to give their opinion because then someone may not vote for them.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, that's too controversial. Most people are for abortion.

Prabhupāda: Why they are for abortion?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Because it gives them unlimited room for sense gratification. The whole business is...

Prabhupāda: So why not become brahmacārī?

Room Conversation -- July 31, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: Let them do that, befool others. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānās (SB 7.5.31). Because others, they are blind, this blind man, whatever he says, they believe. They will say "Perhaps ten millions of years ago there was life, perhaps." These things are going on. But we know every planet is full of living entity. There is regular life and there are streets. The streets are paved with pearls, corals, in Svargaloka. We have got information. And what is their information? Scratching some sand and bring it, that's all. As if sand is not available. But we give information there are planets where the pavements are with pearls. Go and bring some pearls. There is the ocean of milk. Bring some milk from there. And then we shall understand that you are making some research. Simply all over the universe dry sand? And here the population is increasing. Just see. We have to believe all this. Everything is by nature vacant and all people and animals are here. And we have to believe that. Hmm. Read it. They are exposing more and more about their nonsensical scientific inquiry.

Harikeśa: "Some are trying to reach the moon or other planets by some mechanical arrangement, for they are very anxious to get into such planets without doing good work. But it is not to happen. By the law of the Supreme, different places are meant for different grades of living beings according to the work they might have performed. By good work only, as prescribed in the scriptures, can one obtain birth in a good family, opulence, good education and good bodily features. We see also that even in this life one obtains a good education or money or bodily beauty. Similarly, in our next birth we get such desirable positions only by good work. Otherwise it would not so happen that two persons born in the same place at the same time are seen differently placed according to the previous work.

Evening Darsana -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Yes, that I can... Always traffic I see.

Dayānanda: But there is no work on Thursday.

Atreya Ṛṣi: Thursday is very easy. We can go very fast and come back very fast. I have to call...

Prabhupāda: That's all right, make arrangement.

Nava-yauvana: Prabhupāda, some people confuse the chanting with the...

Prabhupāda: Every people must be confused, because he has no training. Not some people. You say, "All people." Then it is all right.

Atreya Ṛṣi: This is one sort of confusion that he wants to explain.

Prabhupāda: You should know everyone is confused. If you have got capacity, then you make him peaceful. Otherwise, you expect everyone is confused. It is a different life. Unless one is very, very fortunate, he cannot understand it. So confusion is natural. There is not the question of some people or other, everyone is confused. They do not know what is spiritual life, what is spirit. Everyone is thinking, "I am this body." So how he'll not be confused? The very beginning is confusion. So long one is confused with this bodily conception of life, he's called in the śāstra animal. The animal is always confused. He does not know what is life, what is aim.

Evening Darsan -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Dharma means what God says, that is dharma. But you have created your own dharma. You give up that.

Hari-śauri: He's not referring to sanātana-dharma.

Prabhupāda: Law given by the state, that is law. If you create a law at home, that is not law. Dharma means what is ordained by Kṛṣṇa, God, that is dharma. And other things, that may be temporary. You can create some laws within your family, but that is not generally applicable to others. But when it is given by the government, that is real law. That is applicable to all people. When you go out to the street, you have to abide by the laws of the state, the light. As soon as there is red light, you have to stop. At home you may not make such rules and regulations. But that is within your home, that is not general. Similarly, sarva-dharmān parityajya (BG 18.66) means what you have made at your home, concoction, give up all these dharmas. Here is the real dharma, mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. That is dharma. Everyone has to surrender to Kṛṣṇa or God. So that is real dharma.

Dayānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, is that what it means in the Bhagavad-gītā when Kṛṣṇa says that we have to go śruti-vipratipannā, we have to go beyond just hearing about these different...?

Prabhupāda: Find out that verse.

Arrival Conversation -- August 13, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Unfortunately, I am not receiving encouragement from the leaders and the authorities. This is India's glory. History will say. (prasāda arrives) Give it, yes, you can...

Hari-śauri: Pass it out.

Prabhupāda: All people are responding all over the world. They... Money, men, strength, everything they are supplying. But we are not getting very good encouragement from India. Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission is that every Indian should become guru and preach the instruction of Kṛṣṇa.

āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra' ei deśa
yāre dekha tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa
(CC Madhya 7.128)

This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's... And people are hankering after receiving this instruction. Unfortunately, the so-called swamis, yogis, they are going... Or even politicians, they are not presenting Bhagavad-gītā as it is. Anyway, so long I live I shall go on struggling like this. That's all.

Devotee: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda! All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. So Nitāi, when you have come?

Nitāi: I came just two days ago, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Press Interview at Muthilal Rao's House -- August 17, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: I was explaining, imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ (BG 4.2). If the big big politicians, head of the state, they understand, yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhaḥ lokas tad anuvartate (BG 3.21), others will follow.

Host: Others will follow. So I must thank you for coming. I request you, if you have little time, you could sit there and listen to Swamiji, other people also are coming, and have little prasādam and go, see, after having come to my humble house, see my pūjā room also, how humbly I keep that pūjā room, so that we learn, we must learn to keep up our religion. When we become educated, when we become ministers, ambassadors, we forget our.... When we become big people, very big people, our eyes jump up and go to the head here. When we become rich people and money people—who is speaking to you? Not a rich man. A man who comes from a humble family. The man who was born in a tiled-roofed house. So I have never changed. My, among my friends, you have seen a friends sitting here, and also the village which I come from, he has seen where I staying and where I am staying now. But I am not changed. But at the same time I have not forgotten my religion. I have not changed my faith. Many people say you must know that I drink. Am I a drunkard? Am I a trouble-maker? No. Sometimes in the society it becomes a necessity. I am not a sādhu, I am not a sannyāsī, I have not renounced the world. Many of you have drunk with me. Some of you at least. So what? Am I a sinner, if I remember my religion, if I pray my God, if I pray my Lord? No. I do not dupe anybody, do not cheat anybody, do not harm anybody, do not hurt anybody. That's what I have been following. That is why I think my God has been very very kind to me. That is why, because of Lord Kṛṣṇa, all of you have been very kind to me throughout... Can you imagine a poor man born in a poor family winning four elections without money? People spend lakhs. Lord knows in 1952 how much money have I spent? Two thousand rupees. '58, '57 maybe twelve thousand rupees. '62 maybe about forty to forty-five thousand. Of course, '67 was expensive for me. I had to sell away my humble house. So this is all faith. Faith in God, faith in country, that is patriotism. Without patriotism we talk and yap a lot. "What do you think of this? What do you think of this?" My country is my country, no other country. This is my country. That is deśa-bhakti. All people say that, you know, "My religion is my religion, that is my bhakti. But my country comes first." That is known as patriotism.

Meeting With Member of Parliament, Mr. Krishna Modi -- August 31, 1976, Delhi:

Krishna Modi: No. Yesterday. Because yesterday I was to come here. But I was called by Mr. Brahmānanda and he told me that you have come here (indistinct) so that I want to know something (indistinct). One question was put up in Rājya-sabhā and he's (indistinct) there. I told him that he's full of (indistinct). There are some gentlemen of er..., labor minister and from (indistinct) Andhra Pradesh. They were also there. (indistinct) Mr. D. D. Desai is also there. (indistinct) And we have discussed at length. And we have told them and there is no restriction (indistinct) the size and to everybody. And you see then it is in Indian history, it is first time that something has been done. All people are saying that they have done in America, they have done in so many centers all over the world and then we are, something like that, it is shameful.

Prabhupāda: It is Indian culture.

Krishna Modi: Indian culture. Then he told me that you are perfectly right and I am also an Indian and I have that right also that we have no knowledge about all these things. If you have something then you please let us know so that we may inquire the particular matter. And I told him that you inquire first and then why I should have to inquire. Why I have? There is no matter, no anything, then how can I give the order for inquiry. On what basis? Let the something come, then I will... And I told them that why you are harassing? This sign, this sign, all these things, this passport, and in all these things, and you say that you go over and, Why you are...? Visa.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Visa.

Krishna Modi: Visa. Why you are harassing? I will check up. And you write me a letter so that I may call the consultant on the visas so that I may discuss it. And at length there was a discussion and that was refuted because there were two, three gentlemen, personalities from Andhra, they also supported.

Press Interview -- December 31, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Caitanya Mahāprabhu is the mercy incarnation for all people. How we can question upon this idea?

Indian man: So you are elaborating on this thing.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Ignorance. Stated in Bhagavad-gītā, mūḍhaḥ nābhijānāti. You take Bhagavad-gītā as it is. Mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam. Tribhir guṇamayair bhāvaiḥ. Oh, that is given to that doctor. (Hindi) But that knowledge is being neglected by Indians, and the whole world is in ignorance. The knowledge has to be given by India because knowledge is in India. But the Indians, they have become rascals. They are imitating the rascals. This is reply. India should have given knowledge to the whole world. Instead of, these rascals are imitating their ways of life, and knowledge remains in the darkness throughout the whole world.

Indian man: What do you find, you know, that when you impart this knowledge to Western disciples and when you talk to someone who are in India, what difference do you find?

Prabhupāda: Indian men refuse this culture. India's leader, beginning from Gandhi and all, they do not know what is India's culture. They have forgotten.

Indian man: Would you like to include Gandhi also in that?

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with C.I.D. Chief -- January 3, 1977, Bombay:

CID Chief: It has gained tremendous and spontaneous response, and people, all people... It has... The strength has shown me that people have taken liking from their soul. Not just...

Prabhupāda: No, these young men, they have taken seriously. Otherwise what business they have got to join me? They have taken it seriously. And with their help I am little able to push on this movement. But they are taking it seriously. And big, big learned scholars, they have opined that this movement is not going to die.

CID Chief: I saw the photograph yesterday, Vinoda Bhave, meeting with Vinoda Bhave.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They're showing the pictures of our Walda (?) meeting. I just showed him pictures of our Walda meeting.

CID Chief: Vinoda Bhave.

Prabhupāda: Vinoda Bhave is also... He has issued some statement.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: He said "What Prabhupāda has done, no one has done," something like that.

CID Chief: Otherwise, how can the West would have come to know about Kṛṣṇa?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: These are all books by Prabhupāda, all. I was telling our book sales...

Room Conversation with C.I.D. Chief -- January 3, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, we have got judgment. You read those judgment, judges? We have got counterjudgements also.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Now, this is from Philadelphia, Judge Alfred Longo, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia decree was typical and included the following points: "Kṛṣṇa consciousness is recognized as an authentic religion. To broadcast the glories of God to all people, members of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness society can perform saṅkīrtana, a missionary activity including chanting, dancing, and playing cymbals and drums, the dissemination of the word of God through preaching and reading aloud from religious literature, the distribution of religious literature, sanctified food and flowers to the public, and the solicitation and acceptance of contribution. In performing saṅkīrtana devotees can go wherever people gather: streets, libraries and other public places." So we also had decisions... Eventually we win almost all cases.

Prabhupāda: And we have got good support from the scholarly section by big, big professors. Even one priest, Mr. Cox, he is forming an association to support this movement in Harvard University. So we have got supporters also.

CID Chief: People are also coming in a good number to join this organization.

Prabhupāda: Indian community, they are also supporting us.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: All the Indians abroad.

Evening Darsana -- January 7, 1977, Bombay:

D. D. Desai: One of the earliest days, when we had this group come to our neighborhood, Mrs. Desai and myself visited. They invite together. Swami Parvati-kanta had called that in Gupta House, Natinsi Road. So our house is adjacent. Bungalow is adjacent to it. So we were there, invited there, so we joined the group. Those all people came to our bungalow subsequently, and they had some program. Then Mrs. Desai served them some food...

Prabhupāda: Our program?

D. D. Desai: Yes, sir, Hare Kṛṣṇa program. They had a program, kīrtana. Then we enrolled as life member. I think that was about four years back. Swamiji from our Badranath, who is around this... Vina(?) Swami. He was there. He was saying that "Our people have forgotten our, this culture and this heritage, but people..."

Prabhupāda: Everyone says. It is purely Indian culture, and I am not getting any help from the government although they have got cultural department. Some dancing party will go; they'll pay. That is culture. And cultural knowledge is religion. This is the position. (Hindi) Real culture is neglected. And some dancing party in the name of culture will draw money and go.

Guest (1): Perhaps he is right, Swamiji. Nobody has studied this movement deeply.

Prabhupāda: Why they don't study? It is going on worldwide. They are studying.

Indian lady (2): They do not study because they give their opinion.

Morning Walk -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: Haṁsas.

Prabhupāda: Haṁsas. They live in a very nice clean water, garden. Uśanti mānasā. They do not go there. Now they are making so much propaganda against our men, but these boys will never go to cinema. Uśanti mānasā. They are boys. They have no attraction, restaurant and cinema. You'll never find. Uśanti mānasā. They have rejected. And we see others—they are making line, queue. Yes. Why? Vāyasaṁ tīrtham. They like that. Crows like... They have been educated like crows.

Dr. Patel: They feed on the filth. This is one difficulty. All people are mad after the cinema.

Prabhupāda: They will wait four hours, five hours, standing. Why cinema? I have seen in London the British Museum. Something came there. From morning there is a queue. Exactly like that, they were standing to go and see the museum. Something came. I... Three, four years ago I saw. They were standing. Just like here. For purchasing the cinema ticket they are standing and eating nampalli, just to see, eyesight. They will not come to see Deity in the temple. They'll not come. Mentality is different. It is a very dangerous civilization, soul-killing civilization. We should be very, very careful if we want success also. We shall go now? (end)

Morning Walk -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Samo 'haṁ sarva-bhūteṣu (BG 9.29). God must be equal to everyone.

Dr. Patel: You are right. With that extreme faith, Jesus took to the cross. Huh? (break)

Prabhupāda: That is the greatness of the movement. (break)

Dr. Patel: We will be meeting with all people in the whole world. And you will be...

Prabhupāda: Yes, I am the oldest.

Dr. Patel: (laughing) Keep in my hand and walk. And I would say, sir, that you also should not take bath in cold water.

Prabhupāda: No, I don't take. I... Since 1970, 1966, '67, I am not taking cold bath. Before that, even in America I was taking twice cold water bath.

Dr. Patel: I have never taken cold water in my life.

Prabhupāda: Shower I was taking.

Dr. Patel: All these boys take cold water, required from them.

Prabhupāda: I never used hot water. In India the Delhi is the coldest part. In my business life, in the hotel I was taking cold water. Everyone was surprised. "How you can?" In Saharanpur, in bitter cold, I was taking cold water early in the morning.

Dr. Patel: This will be extreme cold in river. I have taken bath in the confluence four or five years back. It was not winter, but then it was... It is cold throughout the year because snow melt and keep water very cold.

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa never said that "You sit down, lazy." You must work. And that is intelligence, how to engage a person in some work. That requires governing body. That is intelligence. They should be ready to work, and your intelligence will engage them. And there is sufficient. Why you are constructing so many centers? There is enough work to do. Just like here. All people are coming, and each one can be preached, each one can be convinced of the philosophy.

Gargamuni: In India there are 500,000 villages. So we need so many men for going.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And we want that all these village people may come daily and hear and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Gargamuni: They were in Assam, one of our traveling parties, and they met a Gauḍīya Math temple managed by Mādhava Mahārāja. And there were three or four brahmacārīs in the village, and they had the whole village actually engaged. They saw some of the activities. So they were engaged in making the village Kṛṣṇa conscious in their way. So similarly, we can do the same. Prabhupāda: Yes.

Gargamuni: Just like Gaura-Govinda, he's bringing many villagers here.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. He's good preacher.

Hari-śauri: Yes, he's doing nicely.

Gargamuni: And there's 500,000 such villages all over India. And they're more pious. In Sundarban, when Bhavānanda went to the Sundarban jungle, they had tremendous reception.

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Rāmeśvara: And they're paying the farmers not to grow food in America.

Prabhupāda: Just see. There is pūrṇam idam (Īśo Invocation). By God's arrangement everything is full. There is no question of overpopulation. Just see. So much land is lying vacant. There is no utilization.

Rāmeśvara: No, they should use their science for developing the resources for the benefit of all people.

Prabhupāda: There is no needs of science. This is the science: chant Hare Kṛṣṇa; there will be sufficient rain, and you till the ground and grow food.

Hari-śauri: Actually by their science...

Prabhupāda: This is the science.

Hari-śauri: Their science is incapable.

Prabhupāda: Yajñād bhavati parjanyaḥ (BG 3.14). If there is... What is your nonsense science? If there is no rain, drought, what you can do?

Hari-śauri: They can't develop their science to that point where they can...

Prabhupāda: No, these... These scientists are rascals. I call them rascals. That's...

Hari-śauri: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda. (break)

Rāmeśvara: ...to make them fatter.

Morning Walk -- January 29, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: They are trying also to correct, but they do not know how to correct. That is the defect. And therefore we take this authority, that "Here everything is correct." Everyone is trying to remodel, but they do not know how to remodel. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) (in car)

Pṛthu-putra: ...but he's not writing books himself. It's all people. They hear his conferences, they collect all his conferences, and they write for him. He never wrote any books himself, Krishnamurti.

Hari-śauri: No, I read a book he wrote. (break) A friend recommended it to me. He said he was very exuberant. He said he'd found a book you could read and throw away at the end. So out of curiosity, I started to read...

Prabhupāda: So why shall I take the trouble? I throw it immediately. (laughter)

Hari-śauri: I got the book, and I... There was one chapter called, "Does God Exist?" something like that. So I turned to that one first. And after I read the first paragraph, I threw the book out, (laughs) because he was saying, "Well, God exists if you believe He exists. And if you don't believe He exists, then He doesn't exist."

Prabhupāda: So it depends on me. God's existence depends on me.

Hari-śauri: Yeah. So I thought, "Well, if he's leaving it up to me to decide..." I was buying the book to try and find some information. So what was the...? So I couldn't see the value in the thing. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...all the clubs, they...

Satsvarūpa: Social.

Room Conversation -- February 19, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Tomār kāmanā āche? (laughter) That's... Āmi bāṅgalā boli nā, "I can't speak Bengali very well," bolete pari nā. They like it, to hear. There is nothing new. If you simply... You can read Bengali also?

Bhavānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Then Bhagavad-gītā, that's all. People like ācāra, behavior. That is main thing. And nobody wants to check you, whether you know Bengali or Hindi. They see the person, that "Here is a Vaiṣṇava." Oh, then it is all right.

Bhavānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, tomorrow's program...

Prabhupāda: Hm. So Acyutānanda has come. You all sannyāsīs may, one or two, remain here. And kīrtana party-Acyutānanda, he has got minibus.

Bhavānanda: Yes, I was going to fill the bus and Your Divine Grace's car and one, Abhirāma's car. Jayapatākā Mahārāja is in Calcutta, and he's returning tomorrow morning, so he thought that he would stop in Chakdaha.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Bhavānanda: But we're very, very busy, Jayapatākā and I, because the festival is coming up. Would it be all right if I stayed back? I make all the arrangements, but stay behind to supervise it?

Prabhupāda: Yes, as you think best. (break) ...heavy duty, to fight with the demons. So on the whole, our book sale is hampered or not for this propaganda?

Conversations -- May 17, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Kavi.

Indian man (2): Kavi. In the mission only he is to poet, no other sannyāsīs and nobody, even not Prabhupāda, any sannyāsī. But he realized it. How much love he saw, Prabhupāda. Yesterday I spoke, yesterday night. The greatest living export that has been brought down by God, it is what Bhaktivedanta Prabhupāda has... He's such a living export, Indian culture... (Hindi) ...in the world.

pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi grāma
sarvatra pracāra haibe mora nāma
(CB Antya-khaṇḍa 4.126)

It is the literary living translator and implemented and carried out by single person. And that single person is so much infested and imbued with such a divine power. None of us can do. It is impossible. Practically it is impossible. The Prabhupāda's unfulfillment mission has been fulfilled by this Vedanta Prabhupāda. Śrīmad-Bhāgavata, all quotes, quotations, praising this all types of the power, all propagating the hari-nāma. And it is all-powerful... So there is a medium of literature, medium of professor, medium of the cinema, but still, medium of the personality who in (indistinct) presented it himself. And you, of all people, that attracted by transcendental personality. What with these social religions; there are many authorities and leaders have gone there, and social-religious reformers who practice the yoga, jñāna, karma, etcetera, etcetera. But the one person imbued and empowered fully, transcendental form, by Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu Himself, and by his guru, Prabhupāda. It is not that... Nobody can empower. And as a result our this Vaiṣṇava culture installing the Supreme as Kṛṣṇa pronounced in the mantra to worship Him. (Hindi) The nāma... If he fulfills the propagation of this out of the nāma, and then more powerful... Means that he is the more loved. This kīrtana, and then this saṅkīrtana. These things themselves teach us, though in one word—kṛṣṇa-nāma-saṅkīrtana is one faith. But still it has the three aspects—Kṛṣṇa, then nāma, then kīrtana, then saṅkīrtana. So he has, by his mission, his translations, and in the world he has given this Kṛṣṇa. He has given this Kṛṣṇa. He has given the nāma. He has given the kīrtana, the saṅkīrtana which we have seen this morning, the saṅkīrtana, bahubhir militvā. Wonderful. In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta...

Prabhupāda: So you have got assets. You have got parentage. Everything you have got. Now do something. You have come. It is a good association. Satāṁ prasaṅgān mama vīrya-saṁvidaḥ. (break) But they have dedicated their life to Kṛṣṇa. That is their qualification. Bhajate mām ananya-bhāk sādhur eva sa man... So their association is sādhu-saṅga (CC Madhya 22.83).

Morning Conversation -- June 23, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No, artificially you can do for a while. Unless it is sound footing, it cannot stay. You can cheat some people for some time..., no, all time. You can cheat some people for all time, and all people for some time, not all people for all time. This is the... That was their business, to cheat some people for all time and cheat all people for some time. But not all people for all time. That is not possible.

Bhakti-caru: (Bengali)

Prabhupāda: (Bengali) (Bengali conversation) Britishers made a mistake. They made a empire, very good, but they did not rule for the people. They wanted to rule over the world for their own sake, London. Their policy was all big, big brain from England should go outside, earn money and bring in London, exploit. Therefore it is... Otherwise it was a very grand plan. They were very nice. This was suggested by one of their viceroy in India, Lord Curzon, that "India is a vast country, very cultured country. Don't try to exploit them. Better send one royal family member to become king here and rule as one empire. Don't discriminate." The others did not like the idea. "Make England's men king in India. The people in general, they like king. And rule over them and have good relationship." These rascals, they did not like.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Even if they had, though, nowadays they would have been kicked out.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Room Conversation with Mr. Myer -- July 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, he has a big target of eight or ten million people.

Mr. Myer: In twenty years all people have experienced. Poor, poor children, we'll have to give them(?).

Prabhupāda: Why poor children? Bring hundred children, I shall maintain. (break) There are many fathers. They cannot maintain even one child, what to speak of four children.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They can't maintain any, because they don't have Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Prabhupāda: They do not marry for being... Or they kill children. They are doing that. Where is the question of "four," "two"? These are all nonsense program. They do not know how to do things. We welcome. Four, nei. Four hundred. Come on. My Guru Mahārāja used to say that "I am a brahmacārī-sannyāsī, but if I can bring Kṛṣṇa conscious child, I can beget hundred children. I have no objection." And that is... There is no question of four or two. Four hundred—if you can make them Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is the criterion. That is required. But that, they do not know. They'll not be able to maintain properly even one children, one child. That's not possible. But that is the difficulty in In... They do not know the laws of nature, the laws of God, how things are going on, although they are being explained. They'll... There are so many things. They are jumping like monkey. That's all. They... They take photograph for "Gītā student," and they do not understand one line, even one line. In the beginning, the Bhagavad-gītā is tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ: (BG 2.13) "This body will change." Do they take it seriously? So what is the use of their reading Bhagavad-gītā? Kṛṣṇa says, tathā dehāntara, na hanyate hanyamāne (BG 2.20). Do they take seriously, that "I am eternal. I do not die after the annihilation of the body. And the body will change. What I am going to do?" So this is going on, and still, they are... Gandhi is... "He is great student of Bhagavad-gītā." He is... "Tilak is a great student." "Dr. Radhakrishnan..." All rascals. All rascals. They do not understand even one line. If they study only one line, they'll be able to bring a great transforming to the... Do you think they do understand this line?

Room Conversation-Recent Mail -- July 14, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're tremendous. Here is a letter from the member of the advisory board of the Sāhitya Academy. You know what that is Śrīla Prabhupāda? Sāhitya Academy? I think it's a literary academy. " 'No earthly writer today can match the vast outpouring of pure verse which our ancient sages, particularly the great Vyāsadeva, have left to the world. Motivated by a deep desire to give moral, cultural, and educational upliftment to all people irrespective of caste, creed or nationality, they have taught us the higher values of life through the medium of historical narrations, biographies, the lives of great men, and simple instructive stories. The unlimited wealth which they have left behind in the Devanāgarī script is sheer ecstasy to read for the poet, the student and the common man. Since dialectic differences began to splinter men into smaller groups, the original language, Sanskrit, was gradually forgotten. It is special grace upon the denizens of this world today that His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda has done such a tremendous job of meticulously translating into so many languages the sacred books of our heritage. Swamiji's most noteworthy achievement is his Encyclopedia of Vedic Education, the multivolume presentation of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Caitanya-caritāmṛta.' " One thing, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that this calling it the Encyclopedia of Vedic..., as he's doing...Everyone has always known the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, but fewer people knew Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and now these two are lumped together as equally very important works.

Prabhupāda: Complete.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's very much increased...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Page Title:All people (Conversations)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, RupaManjari
Created:30 of Nov, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=71, Let=0
No. of Quotes:71