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Black (Conv. 1967 - 1975)

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: 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.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Male, his feature black, and dressed like a king. Black means ignorance. And similarly the scene is also blackish.

Hayagrīva: Yes.

Prabhupāda: These things should be ascertained(?). Then, it is mentioned there, exhibit illicit sex, slaughterhouse, intoxication, gambling. Then the third scene is very nice. Rāsa dance.

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Questions and Answers -- Montreal, August 26, 1968:

Prabhupāda: So your question, Rukmiṇī's question, Lord Caitanya's opulence... There are six kinds of opulences: richness, then fame, strength, influence, beauty, education and renunciation. So He exhibited all these six. He was very beautiful; therefore His name is Gaurasundara. Very beautiful-tall and stout and strong. There was no comparison of His beauty at that time, He was so beautiful, fair complexion. This time He did not appear in black complexion because people after fair complexion. So... And son of a very respectable brāhmaṇa family, and very highly educated. His scholarly manifestation you'll find in the explanation of one verse:

ātmārāmāś ca munayo
nirgranthā apy urukrame
kurvanty ahaitukīṁ bhaktim
ittham-bhūta-guṇo hariḥ

This verse was twice explained, two times explained: once before Sanatāna Gosvāmī and once before Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya. Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya was considered at that time to be the greatest learned man in India.

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 12, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa said in the Bhagavad-gītā that "I am the father of everyone." Sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya (BG 14.4). Not only human being. All animals, trees, plants. So Kṛṣṇa is universal.

Allen Ginsberg: Now, for instance, in America many of the black people are tending toward Allah and toward Muhammadanism.

Prabhupāda: That is another thing. Somebody is inclined to some thing, somebody is inclined to some thing. That is going on, and it will go on till the end of the creation. (laughing)

Allen Ginsberg: Yuga.

Prabhupāda: But our process is that, you are searching after the center, here is the center. That is our proposal.

Room Conversation With John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison -- September 11, 1969, London, At Tittenhurst:
Prabhupāda: Everything belongs to God, Kṛṣṇa. Sarva-loka. Not only on this planet. We have divided this planet in so many states. Actually this planet was not divided. From the history of Mahābhārata we understand. This planet, there was only one king, one emperor, in India, Hastinapur. Even up to five thousand years ago, there was only one king, Mahārāja Parīkṣit, one flag. And he came out for touring over his kingdom, and he found somebody near Sindh, a black man killing a cow. And he immediately arrested him: "Oh, in my kingdom you are killing cow?" So actually the whole planet was under one flag, one suzerainty. Gradually it has become small, small, small, small, small. Just like in our, very recently, twenty years ago, India became divided, Pakistan and Hindustan. Actually India was one, but we see now it is Pakistan. And some day another "stan" will be divided. So this is going on. So sarva-loka, in all planets, all the planets, actually that is God's place. Nobody's place.

1970 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- December 13, 1970, Indore:

Haṁsadūta: And here, Kṛṣṇa Book, is the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Prabhupāda calls it, "Kṛṣṇa: The Supreme Personality of Godhead." And it's full of illustrations which are done by his American students. Just see how beautiful. There are eighty-four full color illustrations that show the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa. So the people in the western world and for the first time in the history of the world will get an idea of who God is, what He looks like, what He does, where He's residing. This is the Kṛṣṇa Book, in two volumes. This is volume number one and this is volume number two. This is just a blueprint. We haven't got a printed copy yet. Then Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, which you must be familiar with, in the Teachings of Lord Caitanya and there are also illustrations although they're not color. They're black and white.

Guest (1): Śrī Tukārāma is disciple of Caitanya.

Prabhupāda: He also went through in Maharastra by His chanting, (indistinct)

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 17, 1971, Allahabad:

Prabhupāda: One respectable pleader in Allahabad, I said, "Why you are eating this?" We also find that he's a very religious man. So I inquired. He was just like our father; still, I inquired. He said, "No, what is the wrong there? Nārāyaṇa, Brahman. So one Brahman is going into the belly of another Brahman, Brahman being absorbed, brahmeti." So they have got so dangerous theory. But still, we shall not hesitate to kick on their face but because they are making a propaganda, it should be peaceful. But I become very much agitated with this nonsense because I know they are creating havoc. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Come on. (door closes) So many rascals. Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa...

Haṁsadūta: So yesterday we went to that place, that swami with the silver glasses and black beard that always gives his respect to you.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Haṁsadūta: Well, he has become head swami of this temple, very big, very nice place.

Prabhupāda: Very nice place?

Haṁsadūta: Yes. Hodgepodge but very...

Prabhupāda: They have.

Room Conversation -- January 17, 1971, Allahabad:

Prabhupāda: Śyāmasundaram... But the Śyāmasundaram means He is blackish, still, He is so beautiful that thousands of Cupids cannot be compared with Him. Kandarpa-koṭi-kamanīya-viśeṣa-śobhaṁ (Bs. 5.30). Kandarpa-koṭi. Cupid is supposed to be the most beautiful, but about Kṛṣṇa it is stated that:

veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣaṁ
barhāvataṁsam asitāmbuda-sundarāṅgam
kandarpa-koṭi-kamanīya-viśeṣa-śobhaṁ
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
(Bs. 5.30)

Veṇuṁ kvaṇantam: He is playing on flute. Aravinda-dalāyatākṣaṁ: His eyes are just like petals of the lotus flower. Barhāvataṁsam: He has got a peacock feather on His head. Asitāmbuda: and His color is just like black cloud. Sundarāṅgam: but His beauty, total beauty is kandarpa-koṭi-kamanīya-viśeṣa-śobhaṁ (Bs. 5.30). Still, the beauty... As soon as we say blackish, we think that he... If somebody is blackish, he is not beautiful.

Room Conversation -- January 17, 1971, Allahabad:

Prabhupāda: No, first of all you have to understand in the spiritual...

Guest (1): Yes, even there is spiritual form, one has to live in certain form, without which...

Prabhupāda: That is natural form. That is not a conventional form. Just like you have dressed yourself with black coat. It is not your natural form. So material...

Guest (1): Has spirit no want?

Prabhupāda: Yes, no want.

Guest (1): Without it, you see...

Prabhupāda: Everything you desire, it is present immediately.

Guest (1): You mean the spirit has got subtle form, though it may be exact form?

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Yes.

Guest (1): Though mind has got no form outside but mind has a form.

Prabhupāda: The spirit, he has a form.

Room Conversation with Dr. Weir of the Mensa Society -- September 5, 1971, London:

Prabhupāda: So actually the cause is one. But in different position, one side is light, one side is darkness. Therefore the cause cannot be different. The cause is one. But under different position it appears, "This is light." "This is darkness." So bad, which you consider bad, that is also caused by the Supreme Cause. In the Supreme there is no good or bad. Everything is absolute. Just like the sun is always light, but, in relationship with sun, the planet, one side is dark, one side is light. So black means that is also caused by the light, absence of light, that is black, dark.

Dr. Weir: With respect, it's not caused by the light. It's the absence of light.

Prabhupāda: Absence, that I'm saying. It is also indirectly, the cause is the light.

Room Conversation with Mayor -- November 10, 1971, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Ha, ha.

Guest (2): This is what they're worried about. Did you know last time there were these signals practicing black-out and all that sort of thing? So now whole country is full of it.

Prabhupāda: Lord Rāmacandra's father, Daśaratha Maharaja, about him it is written, samūla vartham nava dhṛt ariṁśca(?). There are many qualifications. Out of that, one qualification was samula avartham nava dhṛt hariṁś ca.(?) Enemy will come, then he will uproot the whole generation. Samula vartham nava dhṛt hariṁś ca(?).

Guest: After the festival, Prabhupāda, are you going to Vṛndāvana?

Prabhupāda: Yes, I am thinking of. I have not gone for many years.

Guest: Your room is very well kept there. I have been to that place myself.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Room Conversation with Dr. Karan Singh, -- November 25, 1971, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: That's all right. It was recorded. That fighting is going on even in the family. We see between husband and wife also there is sometimes fighting. That is not taken into account. But the major wars in the history of the world... Because India, or Bhāratavarṣa, means the whole world. Now it is cut into pieces. Just like twenty years ago, Pakistan is cut. This planet is called Bhāratavarṣa. Formerly it was known as Ilāvṛtavarṣa. Later on, after the ruling of Mahārāja Bharata... You know Mahārāja Bharata. After his name, this planet is called Bhāratavarṣa. And up to the Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, there was one ruling all over the world. One king in this (indistinct). Then gradually... Why? The culture was lost. The Vedic culture was lost. Up to Mahārāja Parīkṣit, the Vedic culture was kept intact. Just like Mahārāja Parīkṣit, while he was going on tour of the Western countries, he saw one black man was trying to kill one cow. He immediately took his sword, ""Who are you? You are killing cow in my kingdom?" So that culture we have lost. Immediately he began, "With this sword I shall kill you."

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversations -- April 22, 1972, Japan:

Prabhupāda: So who will paint?

Sudāmā: Cintāmaṇi will paint.

Prabhupāda: So take note. So eyes are all right. Eyes are all right. It is all right. Simply you have to, all the hairs to make black up to the...It is all right?

Cintāmaṇi: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Then His hands should be red.

Cintāmaṇi: What about this? She's holding?

Prabhupāda: She holds the sari, skirt. Give me some cloth.

Sudāmā: Some cloth.

Prabhupāda: Like this.

Room Conversations -- April 22, 1972, Japan:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Green. Green. In dancing mood, She is offering a betel nut to Kṛṣṇa. And Kṛṣṇa is dancing and playing with flute. So this should be white and red. These are petals. It should be red. And this should be white. And a little black line. Is that all right? Then this. They should be all red. And the nails should be white, nails.

Cintāmaṇi: Also...

Prabhupāda: Hands red and nails, yes, you can make white. You can... Go on. So any other?

Cintāmaṇi: I made wigs, but maybe they are too long.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Cintāmaṇi: I made hair. But I don't know how long it should be.

Prabhupāda: That you can see Kṛṣṇa's picture.

Cintāmaṇi: Picture of Kṛṣṇa? Is His hair curly?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Curling, (indistinct) black.

Cintāmaṇi: Is this too long?

Prabhupāda: Too long. This is also too long.

Interview -- July 5, 1972, New York:

Guest (1): ...the universalism of it's very appealing.

Prabhupāda: No, we are not manufacturing this idea. That it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya sambhavanti mūrtayaḥ: (BG 14.4) in every species of life, whatever forms are there. And besides that, we take this body as dress. Just like your white shirt is not you. You are different from the white shirt. Similarly, one may have a body white or black, but he, as spirit soul, is different from the body. We are taking account of the person who is possessing the dress—not the dress, but the person. Just like I am talking with you, I am not talking with your shirt. I don't look to your shirt, whether you have put on a white shirt or black shirt. That is not my concern. I am concerned with you as a living being. This is our philosophy. We don't take account of the outward shirt and coat. This body, this gross body is just like coat, and within this gross body there is subtle body—mind, intelligence and ego. Within the subtle body, the spirit soul is there, and we are trying to deliver the spirit soul from these two kinds of entanglement, subtle and gross. That is our aim. The national movement or religious movement, that is more or less on the basis of the outward dress. One is Christian because he is born by a Christian father. Is it not? One is American because he is born on the land of America. We say that you are neither Christian nor American, Hindu, Muslim or Indian. You are servant of God eternally. Try to understand this fact, and make your life in that way. Then your life is successful. This is all. Simple. Now what is your comment on this statement?

Interview -- July 5, 1972, New York:

Prabhupāda: Alike. (laughter) The dress is different, the spirit soul is the same. Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said,

vidyā-vinaya-sampanne
brāhmaṇe gavi hastini
śuni caiva śva-pāke ca
paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ
(BG 5.18)

Paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ. A learned, really learned man, he sees everyone on the same level, because he sees to the spirit and he is (indistinct) that a learned brāhmaṇa, a dog, an elephant, a low-born, everyone is on the same category of spirit soul. That is the vision of a learned scholar. He does not make any discrimination that "Here is a dog" or "Here is a very learned scholar." His vision is the dog is also entangled by this body and a learned scholar is also entangled by this body, but both the dog and the learned scholar, both of them are spirit soul. That is actual vision. The same example, that I am talking with you, not with your dress. I am not very much concerned with your white dress or black dress. I am concerned with you as person. Similarly, we are concerned with the soul, not with the outward body. That is our position. Yes?

Conversation with Bajaj and Bhusan -- September 11, 1972, Arlington, Texas, At Their Home:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Janmāṣṭamī, Kṛṣṇa's birthday, is observed by every Indian still, although artificially they are being checked not to take to Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is presented by government in so many bad way. You see? In government there is a paper. It is called "Indian Culture," something. In that paper Kṛṣṇa is depicted as a bil boy. (?)

Guest (3): What?

Prabhupāda: Bil boy means just like black, Negro. And He is worshiped. Such a rascal. Kṛṣṇa is worshiped, and for Kṛṣṇa worship so many Vedic literature, and government is presenting Him as bil boy. Just see what kind of government we have got.

Guest (2): Is that right? It is surprise to me.

Prabhupāda: Yes. You'll find they have got paper, "Indian Culture," or... Yes. One Mr. Ananda, he has written that nonsense article.

Guest (3): Of course, I have seen before 1963, before I came to this country.

Prabhupāda: So government is presenting Kṛṣṇa like that. Dr. Radhakrishnan has spoken like that. Yes. What he has spoken?

Room Conversation -- October 25, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Ration means black market. (break)

Devotee (3): ...especially in Bengal. (break) You come to Calcutta, we will keep you forever.

Pañca-draviḍa: But in Bombay we'll make better arrangements.

Prabhupāda: We have published one brochure. (break)

Pañca-draviḍa: ...nicely in the Kṛṣṇa book about the sacrifices of Vasudeva. Where Lord Kṛṣṇa speaks and says to the assembled sages and ascetics that "Seeing you is the perfection of these eyes and perfection of life," and that "Those persons who go to the holy places only to take bath there or to see the Deities in the temple, they are no better than animals like the ass." I've been thinking that how you have presented this ISKCON movement as an assembly of devotees all over the world so they don't even have to go to the holy places. Simply by walking into one of your temples is like walking into Vṛndāvana and having the association of these great ascetics and sages, because your teachings are (indistinct). (break)

Prabhupāda: ...picture?

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- February 28, 1973, Jakarta:

Prabhupāda: Gandhi cap.

Devotee: Indian National Congress.

Guest (1): Indian National Congress Party, independent (indistinct) national pact with Indonesia ... hot.

Devotee: The Muslims wear the black one and he says it is very hot but this is cool.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest (1): ...nearly bald head, I cover with this...

Prabhupāda: Nowadays gradually, everyone is giving up cap. First of all, only the Bengalis were the capless nation. Now gradually, it has spread all over the world. Nobody uses hats or cap.

Morning Walk -- April 28, 1973, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So the, the background is not solid.

Prabhupāda: No. Just like the one strata is like that. After an hour, it will be different. So what is the use of your studying this strata? Therefore it is called jagat. Jagat means always changing. The material world is always changing. Your body. This body will stay, say, for fifty years, hundred years. Then you get another body. That's all. Another body. Jagat means changing. Now this color is there. Say, after one hour it will be white. You see. Then you study this black color. Again you study the white color. Again this black color. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). Chewing the chewed. That is your business. Just like seasonal changes. Now it is cold. Any moment, you'll have to get out (of) these clothes. It is very warm. So these changes are going on. The whole material cosmic manifestation is subjected to different types of changes. Therefore it is called jagat. Jagat means going, changing. Your body's changing. Similarly everything is changing. What is the eternity behind these changes? That is knowledge. That, the eternity, they do not find. Therefore they are disappointed: "It is void, zero. Eternity is zero." That's all. And when they are asked wherefrom the zero, varieties come...? Zero means there is nothing. So how the varieties come? Therefore Vedic conclusion, the varieties, there is, eternity variety. And this is only shadow of that variety. It is not eternal because it is shadow. But the real variety spiritual world, is there.

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

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Opposite, one opposite to the other.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Just the opposite. Yes. You cannot understand light without darkness. This is relative. Unless there is darkness, how you can say: "This is light"? So opposite, you can say opposite. Now this, this knowledge is there. Everyone knows. But where is that absolute where the bad and good, the black and white, everything coincides? That is absolute. Everything is there. That is not distinction. Everything is there. That is called absolute. Brahman. That means, Brahman means the biggest. Now when you speak something big, so everything is included. Big means bad and good, everything is included. Otherwise, how it can be big? Big means... Just like if you, when you speak of Los Angeles, so there are so many things, bad and good, in Los Angeles, all included. Is it not? So Brahman means bṛhattva, being the largest. The largest means it contains everything. Just like the sky. We have got the idea. The sky means it, it, it contains everything universal. This is the idea of greatest. So athāto brahma jijñāsā means we are now studying the relative truth. I'm studying black. You're studying white. He's studying another, another. In this way. Partial. But what is that biggest thing which includes everything? That is called brahma-jijñāsā, to inquire about that thing. Just like you are studying chemistry. We are studying Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Conversation with Mr. Wadell -- July 10, 1973, London:

Mr. Wadell: I think we are all partially blind.

Prabhupāda: No, then there is no question of knowledge. Somebody must be with eyes. He can give knowledge. That is our proposition. As soon as you say blind, there must be somebody with eyes. It is a relative term. It is a relative term. You cannot say, "all are blind." Then there is no question of blind and with men eyes. As soon as you accept blind man, you must accept the other side, man with eyes.

Mr. Wadell: Oh, I see. You mean just as you distinguish from white, black because it is different...

Prabhupāda: Yes, this is relative world.

Mr. Wadell: I agree, but I am using this in, as an example, not as an absolute description. I think my view—may I explain this—of the whole of which I am, as I say, I think, an imperfect part, a part which is trying to learn something which I am not even quite sure what it is that I am trying to learn...

Prabhupāda: No, no, this is... You are perfect gentleman, means that you say that "I am imperfect." That is nice. But our point is that from imperfect man, imperfect knowledge is received. We cannot expect perfect knowledge from imperfect man.

Room Conversation with Two Buddhist Monks -- July 12, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Every... Everything has two sides, black side and bright side. We are interested with the bright side. Black side we can point out, but anyone who is sincere, he'll take the bright side. Sajjano guṇam icchanti doṣam icchanti pāmaraḥ. There are guṇa and doṣa, fault and good qualities. So those who are sajjana, they take the good qualities, give up the bad qualities. Then there, gradually things will come out. But if we accept God, "God is all-good," then all good qualities automatically manifest. Yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ (SB 5.18.12). All good qualities manifest. If you remain with the fire, you become warm. The quality is acquired. If you remain in the sunshine, you become warm. Because sun is warm. So you acquire the quality. So if we remain always with Kṛṣṇa, then we acquire the qualities of Kṛṣṇa. So God is all-good. Therefore I become good, by association with God. It is very simple reasoning. Yes. God is all-good. So if you remain always with God, then you become good. The same example: if you remain with fire, you become warm, the quality of the fire. If you remain in sunshine, you become warm. And the more you remain, the more you become warmer, warmer. Then become hot. Yes. Just like you put one rod, iron rod in the fire. It becomes warm, warmer, warmer. Then it will be red-hot. When it is red-hot, it is no longer iron rod. It is fire. Touch anywhere, it will burn. (pause) So from Nairobi they import ghee here, I think.

Room Conversation with Malcolm -- July 18, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: ...what is śāstra. Everything is there. You have to know it. What is avatāra. That is my business, how to know. But there is, everything's there. What... Everyone can know it. Sādhavaḥ, sādhu. Sum and substance of sādhu means devotee. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa says, api cet sudurācāro bhajate mām ananya-bhāk, sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ (BG 9.30). "He's sādhu." Who? Ananya-bhāk: "Without any diversion of attention, he's completely engaged in My devotional service... Even if he has got some minor defects, still, because he is completely surrendered and engaged in My service, he's sādhu." Sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ (BG 9.30). So this is the test of sādhu. Sādhu means he must be a devotee. Sādhu does not mean having saffron color and long beard and doing all nonsense. No. Sādhu means... First test is that he is unflinching, without any deviation. Api cet sudurā..., bhajate mām ananya-bhāk. Ananya-bhāk means he does not know anything except the service of the Lord. That is the qualification of sādhu. So similarly, in other places also, the definition of sādhu is there. Sādhu means titikṣavaḥ: he's very tolerant because a sādhu has to face so many opposing elements and sometimes very offensive, but he has to tolerate. Titikṣavaḥ. At the same time, kāruṇikāḥ, very merciful. The same man who is torturing him, torturing him, he is trying to convince him about Kṛṣṇa. That means very merciful. He's not rejecting. Although he's torturing him, but he's trying to convince him, Kṛṣṇa. Therefore kāruṇikāḥ. And he is not friend of any particular society or man. Suhṛdaḥ sarva-dehinām. He is well-wisher of all living entities. It doesn't matter whether he's Indian, American, or black and white.

Room Conversation with Mister Popworth and E. F. Schumacher -- July 26, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: When there is no food, so human life is more important than animal life. So the human life should be saved at the sacrifice of animals. That is another question. But where there is complete facilities to get very nice, nutritious food, why these poor animals should be killed?

Revatīnandana: But in the last week we've had a Jesuit priest, a Black Friar's monk, several other theologically inclined Christian gentlemen have been here, and not one of them has assented to that statement. They do not agree. They think that...

Prabhupāda: They do not agree that animal killing is sinful. They do not agree.

Schumacher: It's a very long question, isn't it. I mean...

Prabhupāda: No, it is a simple question. Killing, do you think killing is very good business? Then why it is forbidden, "Thou shall not kill."

Room Conversation -- London, August 24, 1973 :

Prabhupāda: So every, everyone everywhere is dying. Do you think in your country nobody dies? Is there any guarantee, that any, that nobody will die?

Woman: No, but everyone, everyone dies because this..., because this is the pattern and this is the cycle: you are born, you will live your life, you will die. Some people die young, some people die old.

Prabhupāda: No. India, India at the present moment, they have lost their culture. In India, five thousand years ago, when Maharaja Pariksit was there, one black man was trying to kill a cow. He immediately took his sword, the king. So "Who are you? You are killing cow in my kingdom?" The same India, the government is sanctioning ten thousand cows to be killed daily. So India is not the same India. India has lost its culture. You see? Therefore they are suffering.

Woman: But everything is changing. Not only India is changing, every country is...

Prabhupāda: So every country is suffering. Just they are suffering in one way.

Room Conversation with Cardinal Danielou -- August 9, 1973, Paris:

Prabhupāda: No. Our Bhagavad-gītā says: sarva-yoniṣu. "In all species of life, as many forms are there, so the spirit soul is there." This outward body is just like a dress. You may have a very costly dress, and I may have a very shabby, poor dress, but both of us are human being, or living entities. Similarly these different forms of living entities, they are just like different types of dress. Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22). Just like you are in black dress. I am in saffron dress...

Cardinal Danielou: Yellow, yes.

Prabhupāda: So this is external. But within the dress you are a human being, I am also human being. Similarly, there are eight million four hundred thousands of dresses. There are nine hundred thousand dresses within the water, aquatics.

Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor -- August 13, 1973, Paris:

Prabhupāda: What is the purport?

Pradyumna: Uh. "Kirāta. A province of old Bhāratavarṣa mentioned in the Bhīṣma-parva of the Mahābhārata. Generally the Kirātas are known as the aboriginal tribes of India. And in modern days the Santal Parganas in Bihar and Chota Nagpur might comprise the old province named Kirāta."

Prabhupāda: They're black.

Pradyumna: "Hūṇa. The area of East Germany and part of Russia is known as the province of the Hūṇas. Accordingly, sometimes a kind of hill tribe is known as the Hūṇas, the Huns."

Prabhupāda: Hoons.

Room Conversation with Graham Hill Former World Champion Race Car Driver -- London, August 26, 1973:

Graham Hill: Are all spiritual bodies the same? I mean, is your spiritual body exactly the same as...

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Spiritually you are all the same. Just like as human beings you are all the same but you may have a black dress, I may have a saffron dress, he may have white dress. This is outward covering. This is not myself. Similarly, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13). Within this body the spirit soul is there and he is changing different types of bodies. So when he accepts a process, this going back to home, back to Godhead, to Kṛṣṇa, then he hasn't got to accept any more material body. He remains in his own spiritual body. And spiritual body by original constitution it is eternal. Eternal. Nityaṁ śāśvato 'yam, na hanyate hanyamāne (BG 2.20). na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin. This is a description of it.

Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor, Dr. Suneson -- September 5, 1973, Stockholm:

Prabhupāda: Oh yes.

Professor: Could I see it? Is it any...?

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is only Fifth Canto. We have got... You can bring that book, black bound.

Pradyumna: Here's others.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Pradyumna: Third Canto also.

Prabhupāda: Oh, here is. (break) ...eight commentaries by different ācāryas. So I read all the commentaries and give my own. In this way, we are doing. Yes.

Professor: Where do you have these eight commentaries? Are they found in this edition or...?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Vīrarāghava Ācārya, Jīva Gosvāmī, Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura. Here is the original text, type. It is in Bengali type. (break)

Conversation at Airport -- October 26, 1973, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Ādya. During Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira's reign everything was ample supply. Kāmaṁ vavarṣa parjanyaḥ (SB 1.10.4). You have got that verse.

Pradyumna: I just have the black one.

Prabhupāda: Oh yes. Kāmaṁ vavarṣa parjanyaḥ (SB 1.10.4). During Mahārāja Parīkṣit's time, one black man was attempting to kill a cow. Immediately the king wanted to kill him, immediately: "Oh, who are you?" It is the duty of the vaiśyas. Kṛṣi-go-rakṣya-vāṇijyam vaiśya-karma-svabhāva-jam (BG 18.44). It is the duty of the vaiśyas to protect the cows, to increase agricultural activities and trade. But they are now interested in producing electronic parts. No go-rakṣya, no vāṇijyam, no food production. Cheap profit, and for eating, let there be slaughterhouse and eat meat. And to digest meat, you drink wine. This is being taught. So you create the situation and when you suffer, then why should we lament? We have created this situation, godless civilization, do not follow the direction of the śāstras. When we follow, what is that kāmam?

Room Conversation -- November 4, 1973, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: (speaking in background)

Guest: You see what happens.... Suppose you see in a house there are four liters of milk, you see, and each one is given 100 rupees, you see, then they will buy each one, let's say one liter. And if they are given 200 rupees the one who has got 200 rupees, they get one for also 200 rupees, you see? So what is happening is people who have got black money, they want the things for themselves, there is a price there.

Prabhupāda: How they get black market?

Guest: No, because stock being limited. Suppose a medicine is being wanted, a man is willing to give anything for that medicine.

Prabhupāda: So far I have got experience the stock is available if you pay for it.

Room Conversation -- November 4, 1973, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: And when the prices are high they sell it. Now the same process suppose if I want to hold stock, say 100 tons of rice, so I have no money, if I have got 25% price the bank will advance me 75% so I hold the stock.

Guest: Now it is an offense to hold the stock.

Prabhupāda: That is going on in black.

Guest: Therefore that should be stopped.

Prabhupāda: So how you can stop?

Guest: By better consciousness, where truth is good.

Prabhupāda: Ah! That requires Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Morning Walk -- December 6, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Karandhara: So it's a great risk.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Māṁ saḥ. Mām, mām means "me." Saḥ means "he". "He eats me." That is meat.

Bali Mardana: In Nepal, they kill thousands of black goats and buffaloes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. But never they kill cows.

Bali Mardana: No.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We shall go this way? (break)

Prajāpati: They had a great difficulty. Because of poor fund of knowledge in the śāstras, they formed doctrines, so many doctrines, where groups of men got together and said. "This is what we believe." And they have so many doctrines. Many people killed, fighting over these doctrines, and even the intelligent people will simply, instead of trying to find out about God, simply try to clarify these doctrines more and more.

Prabhupāda: As soon as you say there are so many doctrines, that means that all of them are rascals. All of them are rascals. Otherwise, why there should be so many doctrines.

Morning Walk -- December 6, 1973, Los Angeles:

Satsvarūpa: What about Śaṅkara's cheating?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Śaṅkara's cheating is also like that, because he was taking, he was accepting from the Buddhists. If he immediately says that "Lord Buddha was, cheated you," they'll not accept. Therefore he made some compromise. The Buddhist theory is "void," and he said, "No form." So it is almost the same. But he said, "There is Brahman." Brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā. That much improvement. The same process. Just like one wants to eat meat. He is given some regulation, "Yes, you can eat meat. There is no harm. But you do like this: Go to a mosque. On Eid day you can kill one animal." Or "You go to the synagogue under the protection of..." And our Hindu śāstra says, "Go to the Goddess Kālī's temple, and get a goat, black goat." That means under condition. If it is good thing, it would have been sanctioned, "Yes, you can do whatever you like." But it is not good. But if you say, "It is not good," he'll not accept. Therefore under some condition. (break)

Morning Walk -- December 31, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prajāpati: And as the practical basis, transactions of thousands and thousands of dollars, would be...

Prabhupāda: That will be good for the people. Because large scale transaction is there, therefore the capitalists hoarding. Capitalists hoarding. Goods are there, everything is there. You pay black price, you get it. Then, when somebody's hoarding, he is not giving to the market. So if the large scale industry and trade becomes stopped, that is good for people.

Jagajjīvana: Does that mean the same amount of gold is here?

Prabhupāda: No, larger scale... Suppose if you want to store, say, thousand kilos or a thousand bags of rice, so you have to pay me gold. But you have no such gold. Therefore large scale industry will be stopped. Just see.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 3, 1974, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Karandhara: ...with black robes on.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Nara-nārāyaṇa: With a, two balls.

Prabhupāda: Make nicely this picture. Short-cut, at the same time very convincing. (break) Yes?

New Devotee: I'm very new to this Kṛṣṇa conscious movement and I'm not as firm as your devotees. Right now I'm being torn in half. Māyā is so strong and I see so much of what you say. Is there...

Prabhupāda: What is this?

New Devotee: Doubts.

Prabhupāda: What is your doubt?

Morning Walk -- January 5, 1974, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That Chaganlal this, I pay him extra eighty-five thousand. That is also black. No more white. So the black money was paid in this way, that the money was counted and it was put in a handbag, and it was locked by him. So the key was with him, and the bag was with me. As soon as court accepted the agreement, then I handed over, "Take this bag." Then again this Ratna Parik, he first of all proposed twenty thousand to sell that house. Then when I went there, he knew that he's settling at any cost, he said, "Now that twenty thousand was cost formerly. Now things have gone very high, I cannot sell." So he knows that we are eager to purchase. Then I said, "Then what do you want to do?" "Now I want thirty thousand." "All right, yes. Take it." I did not argue. In this way I settled up. And our Girirāja's father appreciated that "It is better a bad settlement than to prolong the case." So I took this policy. It is bad settlement, from twenty thousand to thirty thousand. But settled out. "I give you 85,000 black." But one thing I gain—that by cancelling the agreement, their proposal was that increase the price, twenty lakhs from fourteen lakhs. That was the arrangement between the attorneys. They cancelled the agreement and take twenty lakhs from him, and the balance should be divided by..., amongst us. That was the agreement. So that addition of twenty lakhs I satisfied Mrs. Nair by fourteen lakhs fifty thousand.

Morning Walk -- January 5, 1974, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Twenty thousand. That was... Not two lakhs, nowadays. Eight rupees. About one lakh sixty thousand. Then we had about three lakhs. In this way, somehow or other, we paid seven, more than sixteen lakhs. Black, white, everything.

Gurukṛpā: For Kṛṣṇa anything can be done.

Prabhupāda: She was to be paid fourteen lakhs fifty thousand, then stamp duty two lakhs... Sixty thousand or six thousand? Then registration fee... Oh, it was very expensive. (break)

Devotee (2): ...that at the end of this month the United States will be destroyed by the comet, the Kahutek comet.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Their demonic principles will be destroyed. They'll take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Room Conversation -- February 9, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So, Mr. (indistinct) said that he'll send the contract form. So we have to see.

Guru dāsa: If it does not include the delivery and the polishing...

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) include delivery, polishing, everything.

Guru dāsa: If it does, it's good rate. Also this black marble, I've gotten the price in Makrana four, four rupees and fifty paise.

Prabhupāda: That is excluding labor.

Guru dāsa: Yes. So if they can do it for five, it is good rate.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- March 6, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So the Brahman realization is like that. Every living entity, he wants ānanda. Ānanda means just like we are walking together, talking together. This is ānanda. If I would have walked alone, it would have been no ānanda. I do not like. Nobody likes. So ānanda means there must be entourage. Therefore ānanda is with Kṛṣṇa. When we play with Kṛṣṇa, we dance with Kṛṣṇa, talk with Kṛṣṇa, serve Kṛṣṇa, take care of Kṛṣṇa, then there is ānanda. And simply to become one with the Brahman, then you will have to fall down again. Therefore jñāna-kāṇḍa is not perfect. And karma-kāṇḍa is, you can migrate from one body to another or one planet to another. You'll be brahmāṇḍa bhramite. You have to wander. And jñāna-kāṇḍa means you merge. That is also intolerable. Therefore unless you come to bhakti-kāṇḍa, there is no question of real life and bliss. That is the conclusion.

karma-kāṇḍa jñāna-kāṇḍa, kevala viṣera bhāṇḍa,

amṛta baliyā yebā khāya

nānā yoni sadā phire, kadarya bhakṣaṇa kare,

Kadarya. This is kadarya. So many nice food. Yes. And before this movement, in Europe and America, they were eating all these kadaryas. So many type of kadaryas. Their food is only to boil the meat. And when it is boiled, mix with little salt and black pepper and take it. Is it not?

Morning Walk -- March 6, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because they require. They require. The cow is being killed, and that's all. That is sufficient food for them." And let the farmers work for me, for bolts and nuts and motor tire. We make huge profit." You see. You are making profit, but other...

Devotee: What is the use of that profit, Prabhupāda Mahārāja, when don't get even for eating, no clothing, no eating? Only profit... What profit will be beneficial?

Prabhupāda: No, but they don't care for others. But they're having wine and women with their black market money. That's all. They're satisfied. They do not know... (end)

Morning Walk -- March 16, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: We have..., taking sacred thread has qualities less than śūdra. Camaras, cobblers. Camara means expert in skin. I am white, I am black, I am this, I am that. That is camara. Expert in skin. (break) People are very receptive?

Devotee: Yes, especially Gujarati and Marwari communities.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Devotee: The south Indians, they are not so receptive. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...men, so everyone should be very alert in their behavior. Rising early in the morning, taking bath, be prepared for maṅgala āratik immediately. Then class. Everything in regulated way. (break) ...and still everyone comes to the point, "I know everything." This point.

Morning Walk -- March 25, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. No. I have seen one temple here in Nigulesvara (?). Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa white.

Dr. Patel: No, Maharastriyan temples are all white, excepting... Who?

Guest (1): Viṭṭhala.

Dr. Patel: Vitoba is black.

Prabhupāda: We have black also. Some are black. Some are... In Texas, Dallas we have got black. Kālachanda. Contradiction. Chandjī or Kālajī.

Dr. Patel: What about starting a school of Sanskrit here? There is a... I have a... (break)

Prabhupāda: ...have place to stay.

Dr. Patel: Never a place. But in school means... I mean, these boys, you miss...

Prabhupāda: Now we are introducing Hindi, Gujarati and Maharati, speaking. Where is Manasvī? He has gone?

Morning Walk -- April 10, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Anna-vastra, anna-vastra-dhana. Charity means to give in charity anna and vastra and cows. (break) ...give in charity some paper, one hundred rupees. (laughs) Another cheating. And he is also satisfied, "One hundred rupees." What is this one hundred? It is a paper, a piece of paper. (break) ...earned, black market, white market. Because when one does business, he has to do it, but it should be purified. I have seen the Marwaris, they do that. Although when earning money, they don't care, they do anything, but they give in charity. (break) ...purify the body by taking bath, similarly, the wealth is purified by the charity process, giving it to the brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas. Just like Rūpa Gosvāmī. He accumulated much wealth. He brought in a big boat, all gold coins. So... So he distributed fifty percent to the brāhmaṇa and Vaiṣṇava and twenty-five percent he gave to the relatives, and twenty-five percent he kept for his personal emergency. This is example shown by Rūpa Gosvāmī. (break) Kṛṣi-go-rakṣya-vāṇijyam vaiśya-karma svabhāva-jam (BG 18.44). So where is that vaiśya, giving protection to the cows? Although they were village men, they were very rich. That is the old Vedic civilization. Now you go to the village—all poor. The cows are skinny, people have no home, no nice cloth. This is the position. And we are still advanced, advanced. They are proud of "advanced." And here is the... Just hear the description of the village, with cows only. So how much fallen we have become, we can just imagine.

Morning Walk -- April 17, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Anardhena nyāya-rahitam: "If you have no money, then you'll never get justice." Dalmia, he was imprisoned for two years.

Dr. Patel: He was never in the jail. I know.

Prabhupāda: He was in the Delhi Hospital. (break) I am speaking so loudly real thing. Here you cannot. Immediately you'll be in the black book. (break)

Girirāja: "...must go unpunished. This is itself the business of criminal and lawless men who have no knowledge what it means to protect the citizens under their charge." (break)

Prabhupāda: Therefore it is rogues. So what is the value of that laws? The legislative assembly means a set of rogues, and if they legislate something, what is the value of that? (break) Caught like that, yes. Because people are becoming degraded, so they elected such degraded everything. (break) Shameless. The whole nation is asking that "You resign." "No." Such shameless. (break) ...that somebody was in the room, and the outsider says, "Who is in the room?" "No, no! I am not stealing!" (laughter) "No, no, I am not stealing."

Morning Walk -- April 22, 1974, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is good preaching. But when there is argument, when somebody says, you should be prepared to argue with them. It stopped? We shall go another round?

Akṣayānanda: I think it has stopped.

Satsvarūpa: No rain.

Pañcadraviḍa: (break) ...dressed in shiny saffron. He is dressed in black. He looked like nescience and you look like the sunshine, standing next to him. He is wearing all this black with a little bit of red trimming on it, looked like nightime. (break) ...I met a Christian, and he said "You have got your guru and you are following him. He teaches you by his example. We have got our pope. He is our example of what Christianity is. He is the head of Christian order, and he himself is eating meat. Now how you can say...?"

Prabhupāda: Then how he can be pope?

Pañcadraviḍa: "But how you can say he is not the best Christian? He is the head of all the Christians."

Prabhupāda: But that means you are foolish and pope is also foolish. If he does not follow the orders of Jesus Christ, then how he becomes a pope? Therefore you are foolish. You have elected some foolish, another foolish man as your pope. That should be the right answer, that "If he does not follow Christ, how he becomes pope?"

Morning Walk Excerpts -- May 2, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Center is Kṛṣṇa.

Dr. Patel: I want to read this Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam five times in one year.

Prabhupāda: Oh yes. You read it. You will be benefitted. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam amalaṁ purāṇam. Amalam: There is no black spot. Amalaṁ purāṇam. Yad vaiṣṇavānāṁ priya...

Dr. Patel: I have read all the modern literatures... (break)

Prabhupāda: ...nāmāny anantasya yaśo 'ṅkitāni yat śṛṇvanti gāyanti gṛṇanti sādhavaḥ. Even there is some broken language, abaddhavat api. Abaddha, not systematized. Because there is explanation, nāmāny anantasya yaśo 'ṅkitāni, therefore śṛṇvanti gāyanti gṛṇanti sādhavaḥ. Sadhu, they do not take care of this. They see what is the bhava there. Budhā bhāva-samanvitāḥ (BG 10.8).

Dr. Patel: Something they'll say, "Why do you want to go after Sanskrit? That will be all right if you are merged with God."

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is real thing. God is not concerned with any language.

Room Conversation with Irish Poet, Desmond O'Grady -- May 23, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: No, there is possibility—when the consciousness is purified. That we are preaching, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Now, so long the consciousness is polluted, if I think that "I am Irishman," "I am Englishman," "I am Indian," "I am white," "I am black..."

O'Grady: Christian.

Prabhupāda: "I am Christian," "I am Hindu," they are all contaminated. There is no possibility of unity in the contact of this world.

O'Grady: That's very... I'll accept that.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation with Richard Webster, chairman, Societa Filosofica Italiana -- May 24, 1974, Rome:
Prabhupāda: Perpetually they are in want, in scarcity, not in peace of mind, full of anxieties. In India especially, we see, the economy is so unsteady. The money value is decreasing every day. Nobody knows what will be tomorrow. Rice is selling today at two rupees kilo, tomorrow, three rupees, next day, four rupees. Where is the income is coming? Therefore there is strike, railway strike. So this is the mismanagement. They cannot guarantee. At least in England I have seen that... Or why the England? In America also, the people are happy in this: they have got enough foodstuff, no scarcity. You see? India is in always scarcity. Goods are there. It is hoarded by somebody else. He will not let loose. He will not... Many goods are there, sufficient. The government stock. The government stock because the black marketeer, they have got some arrangement. So many things are going I don't wish to discuss. It is due to unclean politicians, unclean head of the department. Things are so mismanaged, and people are suffering.
Morning Walk -- May 28, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: And... Why Calcutta? You go to the airport. You will find so nice gardens, still existing. Now it is spoiled also. Because people have changed locally to the city. Nobody has to take care now. Otherwise, in Bengal especially, throughout the whole India, Bengal was so beautiful. The Europeans became attracted by the beauty of Bengal. Therefore they made Calcutta their capital, the Britishers. Yes. Every European liked Bengal. Every European. I met one European German gentleman in Bombay. He was in Calcutta. When I was in Bimha (?). So I asked, "Why you left Calcutta?" "Oh, I am very sorry. Calcutta was so nice." And actually. Where we have got our temple, these quarters were known as "Sahib" quarter. Just like our temple is "Sahib" temple. So these Chowringee and Camac Street, Park, these were all European. They liked very much to live in Bengal. And there is another story. One English officer he became attracted by the beauty of a Bengali woman. There is story by Bankima Candra. Candrashekhara. The man was after that woman, how to get it. That is the subject matter of story. He was attracted by the black eyes and black hair. Bengali beauty.

Yogeśvara: Kṛṣṇa has black hair, too.

Room Conversation with Christian Priest -- June 9, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: So at least in the human society, everyone must have understanding of God, that is expected. It is not expected in the society of cats and dogs because they are animals. The human being, dharmasya glāniḥ, there is dharma, some sort of religious system. And religious system means to understand God. That's all. Just like to become a lawyer means to understand the laws of the state. Similarly, religious system means the process by which one can understand God. And that is the summary of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhokṣaje (SB 1.2.6). That is first-class religious system which trains the followers to understand God and love Him. Sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo yato bhaktir, ahaituky apratihatā (SB 1.2.6). If somebody says, "Oh, it is a very great thing to understand God and to love Him," they are thinking it is not possible. No. The answer is ahaituky apratihatā. It can be learned by anyone. It is not checked by any material condition. If one wants to know what is God and to love Him, the path is open for everyone. It does not require high intelligence, high education, high culture. No. Anyone. The process is śravaṇam, the beginning. One has to hear. One may be fool number one, it doesn't matter. No education, it doesn't matter. Poor, doesn't matter. Black, doesn't matter.

Morning Walk -- June 11, 1974, Paris:

Paramahaṁsa: So we should be able to see the quality of man we are preaching to.

Prabhupāda: Yes, you have to make him intelligent. Everyone is fool, mūḍha. Everyone within this material world is supposed to be a fool. Because everyone is thinking, "I am this body." So he's fool. "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am German," "I am Frenchman," "I am this," "I am that." What is the difference? A cat is thinking, "I'm cat." A dog is thinking, "I am dog." So if somebody thinks that, in relationship with the body, "I am Frenchman," "I am Englishman," "I am...", then where is the difference between the cat and the dog? He's thinking himself as this body. Therefore everyone is thinking, at least in this modern world, the so-called nationalism, everyone is thinking, "I am Englishman," "I am Frenchman," "I am Indian," "I am this," "black," "white." So everyone is fool. Is it not? Yes. He's thinking in a way what he is not. Therefore he's a fool. All these big, big political leaders, Napoleon, Hitler, Churchill, and in Europe , they fought with this consciousness, "I am Englishman," "I am German," "I am Frenchman." That's all. Even the big, big leaders, they are fools. And what to speak of common men?

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

Prabhupāda: So that is insanity. We are actually the living force, soul, but we are identifying at the present moment with the material body. Everyone is thinking, "I am Japanese, I am Englishman, I am German, I am Indian, I am white, I am black," but that is his insanity. So this insanity should be cured, that "I am not this body; I am spirit soul." And when he understand that he is spirit soul, he should be engaged in the business of the spirit soul. And because he is misidentifying himself with this body he is engaged with the bodily activities. So when he stops his bodily activities and he begins his spiritual activities, then he will be cured. So far bodily, I mean to say, pains and pleasure, that will be automatically cured when he understands that he is not body. Just like I feel heat and cold on account of this body. (French)

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

Prabhupāda: No. Pure consciousness is actually you are. Just like water. Water is pure. When it is comes from the sky, it is clear crystal water. But as soon as it touches the ground, it becomes muddy. Similarly, we soul, spirit soul, we are pure. As soon as we come in contact with this matter, material existence, we become impure. And there are three stages of impurity: goodness, passion and ignorance. So all of them are impure. Unless one comes to the spiritual consciousness—he may be a very nice man—he is infected with the impurity of goodness. He is thinking, "I am very big man, I am very..." That is also impurity. And another man does not know what he is, just like animal, all the animals. That is also impurity. When both of them will come to the clear consciousness that "I am part and parcel of God; my duty is to serve God," that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So long he identifies with this material consciousness, he is impure. Just like people are fighting: "I am German," "I am Englishman," "I am this," "I am that," "I am black," "I am white," "I am brāhmaṇa," "I am śūdra"—so many, designations. These designations are impurity. Just like sometimes the artists, they manufacture some statue naked. In France I saw, naked. They take it this naked statue is pure art, not dressed. Similarly, when you come to the nakedness of spirit soul without this designation of this body, "I am American," "I am German," "I am this," "I am that," that is purity.

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

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is experienced, but on account of his foolishness he is thinking otherwise. He knows that "I am not this body. I am now in this body of old man, but I was not in this body, say, fifty years ago. Therefore I am not this body, that body or this body. I am different from the body." This is very easy experience. I am existing. I understand that I existed in a baby's body. I existed in a child's body, boy's body. So I have now changed so many bodies. Therefore I am not this body. Just like you dress. You are now in black coat, and next moment you can be in other color. But you are not this coat. You have changed the coat. Similarly, I have changed the body, but I am not this body. This is self-realization. First of all let me know that "I am not this body; I am living within this body." You are not this coat. If I ask you, "Mr. Blackcoat," that is my foolishness. You are neither black coat or white coat. And that is self-realization.

Room Conversation with Pater Emmanuel (A Benedictine Monk) -- June 22, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. We are also chanting Christ or Kṛṣṇa, the same thing. So let us join to together and chant. If you have got objection to chant Kṛṣṇa, you chant Christ or Christo. Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, nāmnām akāri bahudhā nija-sarva-śaktis tatrārpitā niyamitaḥ smaraṇe na kālaḥ. He says that God has got many multi names. Any one of them you chant because each and every name has the same potency as God the person, because His name and He, there is no difference. And if we become designationless, if we give up these titles, "I am Hindu," "I am Muslim," "I am Christian," and simply chant God's name, then we become on the spiritual platform immediately, without any discrimination that "Here is Hindu, here is Muslim, here is Christian, here is white, here is black," that. We are preaching that human form of life is meant for God realization or to learn how to love God. That is real business of human being. So either do it as a Christian or as a Muslim or as a Hindu, it doesn't matter. But do this business.

Room Conversation -- June 28, 1974, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Formerly we were paying two rupees. Two rupees, and if it is this name, at most, three rupees. Now the things have increased twice. Forty years ago that black Bhāgavata was bound only for two rupees. This is very nice one. In the U.S.A the binding cost is very, very... Just like Macmillan Company. Bhagavad-gītā, hardbound, they charge ten dollars, ninety-five. And softbound, softbound, they charge four dollars. Six dollar difference on account of binding. So they have charged one dollar, seventy-five cents, and in America they charge six dollars. So all the fathers clapped for long.

Reporters Interview -- June 29, 1974, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: There is no second religion. There is only one religion. That is God consciousness. Now, as soon as you designate, "Christian," "Hindu," "Muslim," that is upādhi, designated religion. Just like you are here and you are in black coat. So if I say, "Black Mr. such and such," so to say, "Black Mr. such and such," there is no need. "Mr. such and such" is sufficient. But we have been accustomed to say like that, "Black Mr. such and such, white Mr. such and such." Similarly, religion is one, but due to our sophisticated mind, we call it "Christian religion," "Hindu religion," "Muslim religion." Why don't you come in? Why are you outside?

Devotee: I have my working clothes on, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: All right. So there cannot be... but for particular reason or circumstances we call it, but religion is one. That means to abide by the laws of God. That is religion. If you do not know what is God, what is His law, that is another thing. But the religion means to abide by the laws of God, that's all. It cannot be Hindu, Muslim, Christian. Just like the state law. So there are many persons, citizens of the state. The law is not that it is for the Christians, it is for the Jews, it is for the Negroes, it is for the white man. It is not like that. Law is the same for everyone. You can call it, "This is Negro law, this is white law, this is black law..." No. That is not very scientific. Scientific is that God is there and we are all... God is great, we are all subordinates and we have to obey the orders of God. That is religion. Am I right or wrong?

Room Conversation with Scientists -- July 2, 1974, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: ...these are all misconceptions because I am not this body. I am spirit soul. When the spirit soul goes away, then where is the distinction? Suppose in hospital some Hindu dies or some Muslim dies, some Christian die, the spirit... They are stacked together as useless matter. Is it not? There is no distinction there now, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, white, black. Now it is dead body, put aside. Eh? So, but when living, when the spirit soul is there, they are dividing, this designation. So this knowledge that so long the spirit soul is there in the body, it is important. As soon as the soul is gone, it is useless. But people are giving more stress on the body than on the active principle, living force, what is there. There is no study. Suppose you are all scientists. What is your studying about that living force that is moving the body?

Room Conversations -- September 10, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Bhaumāsura, something like that. They all of them became Kṛṣṇa's wife. They prayed to Kṛṣṇa to be rescued from the hands of... Then Kṛṣṇa rescued them, killed that Bhaumāsura, and excused them, then they were set free. Then their plea that "We are set free, that's all right, but we cannot go home because we were kidnapped. So we shall not be married. Nobody will accept us." "Then what do you want?" "You become our husband." "All right." Kṛṣṇa becomes (indistinct). This is going on. Somebody is thinking of money, somebody is thinking of woman. These two things, money and woman, and whole struggle (indistinct). The Musselman nawabs, they used to keep... That one nawab, they have got his quarters in Lucknow, he had 160 wives. Even in recent, you know this (name withheld)? His elder brother, (name withheld), practically he is the origin of the (name withheld) concern. So I was a guest of the (indistinct). So he has got three wives—one Bengali wife, one (indistinct) wife, and his original wife being Jain. He had three, four wives. And each wife's establishment, ten thousand rupees per month. So he is earning money and he is spending it. Earning money by black market, this way, that way, and his whole day's business is that go to some wife's house, remain there for some hours, then next wife, remain there for some hours, and he thinks, "I am a king." Still he is living. He is of my age, old man. And each wife has got dozens of children. They're not his.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Psychiatrist -- February 22, 1975, Caracas:

Prabhupāda: So this verse says that "You are speaking like a learned man, Arjuna," He addressed Arjuna, "but you are not very learned man because you are considering of the body." Just like the proprietor of the car, the driver. While the car is going on nicely or car is stopped, no more working, he is disinterested that he knows very well that "I am not this car." Therefore it is said, gatāsūn agatāsūṁś ca nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ. "Anyone who is actually learned, he does not consider very seriously about the body, either it is dead or alive." So basically we are, all, every one of us, we are spirit soul. The body is just like a machine. We have got it. But we are taking of the machine very much, not for ourself. Whole world is taking care of the body but not of the driver of the body, the spirit soul. Everyone is thinking, "I am this body, and because this body is born in America, I am American, and because the body is white, therefore I am white, or black." In this way everyone is identifying with the body. Nobody is identifying with the spirit soul. That is the basic disease of the human society.

Morning Walk -- March 11, 1975, London:

Prabhupāda: Because from Bhāgavata we understand that the black man who was born out of the body of King Vena, he was thief. So he was sent to the African jungle. Yes. And they are still thief. (laughter) They cannot give up their... Although they have got independence, they cannot give up this habit. (Dog barking) "Best friend."

Brahmānanda: Mahārāja Pṛthu also came from the body of King Vena.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Conversation with Devotees -- March 31, 1975, Mayapur:

Acyutānanda: The Rāmānuja and the Madhva, they say, kṛṣṇa-varṇam means "black." Kṛṣṇa-varṇaṁ tviṣa kṛṣṇam: (SB 11.5.32) "But He is effulgent."

Prabhupāda: Hm? No. We should follow our ācāryas. Why...

Acyutānanda: No, but how to convince them that? They will never accept Cai...

Prabhupāda: No. "You are also ācārya, but we have got our own ācārya. Why should I follow you?"

Acyutānanda: But how to convince them?

Prabhupāda: Convince means they will not be convinced. Kṛṣṇa-varṇam, kṛṣṇaṁ varṇayati. One who is describing Kṛṣṇa, that is kṛṣṇa-varṇa. And kṛṣṇa-varṇa does not mean black. And again it is confirmed, tviṣā akṛṣṇam. So how can they say, "black"? By complexion, He is akṛṣṇa. So how they can interpret that He's black?

Conversation with Devotees on Theology -- April 1, 1975, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: But that is not God. Just like gold. Gold is everywhere gold. Because it is in Christian country, you cannot say, "It is Christian gold." And because it is in Muslim country, you cannot say, "It is Muslim gold." Gold is the world standard of money. The same gold, dispatched from America, can be accepted in India. Dispatched from India, it can be accepted in Palestine because it is gold. Everyone who knows what is gold, he'll accept it. So God should be like that. And therefore the name Kṛṣṇa, "all-attractive"... When there is gold, either you be Christian, Muslim, Hindu—"Oh, here is a lump of gold. Can I possess it?" That is attraction. So as gold is all-attractive, similarly, God must be all-attractive. And that word is used as Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa means all-attractive. One who knows gold, he'll be attracted. Doesn't matter whether he's Hindu or Muslim, Christian, poor, rich man, black, white. It doesn't matter. Here is gold, and everyone... Just like in your country there was gold rush. Eh? In California? From all different parts of the world they came. So gold is gold for everyone. So now one should try to understand or check what is gold. That is required.

Conversation with Devotees on Theology -- April 1, 1975, Mayapur:

Ravīndra-svarūpa: In the Bible they give twelve names for God.

Prabhupāda: No, let me finish this. If you do not accept Kṛṣṇa is the name of God,... I have explained what is the idea of Kṛṣṇa. The Kṛṣṇa means all-attractive. The example is given: Just like gold. Gold is attractive to everyone—to the educated, the uneducated, to the black, to the white, man, woman, everyone. One who knows God, er, one who knows gold-gold is attractive. Similarly, God is all-attractive. There cannot be that "It is black gold," "It is white gold," "It is Christian gold," "It is Hindu gold." No. Gold is gold. So we present Kṛṣṇa that "Here is God, all-attractive." Now you say, "No, He's not God." Then you present your God.

Pañcadraviḍa: Well, I know just the...

Prabhupāda: You cannot say, reject. They cannot reject Kṛṣṇa unless you present an alternative.

Conversation with Indian Guests -- April 12, 1975, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: ...nānyat. Na anyat. So this is going on. And where is surrender? If you don't believe in Kṛṣṇa, don't surrender to Kṛṣṇa, then what is the meaning of this surrender? This is going on. Our, one swamiji, is there in Bombay, Cinmayananda. He is a big speaker in Bhagavad-gītā, and he has constructed temple-Śiva-liṅga, the genital of Lord Śiva. Just see.

Mahāṁsa: He said he has translated... His interpretation of Kṛṣṇa is that this "Kṛṣṇa means black. Black is ignorance. So Kṛṣṇa is ignorance."

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Guest (1) (Indian man): I think one of the best persons in Madras who is translating the Prita-Gītā (?), isn't it? Cinmayananda Swami.

Guest (2) (Indian man): Cinmayananda?

Guest (1): Yes. I have heard it.

Guest (2): Ramana Maharshi, (?) has...

Guest (1): Ramana Maharshi was a great man.

Prabhupāda: Rāmānuja bhāṣya is a fact.

Conversation with Indian Guests -- April 12, 1975, Hyderabad:
Prabhupāda: These boys are certified in their own country by the Christian priests that "These boys are our boys, they will never come into church, they are never interested about God, and now they are mad after God. What is this?" Because that is the price only to purchase Kṛṣṇa. To mad after Him. Where is Kṛṣṇa? He rādhe vraja-devike ca lalite he nanda-sūno kutaḥ. Where You are? Where You are? Śrī-govardhana pādapa-tale kālindī-vane kutaḥ. Are You under the valley of Govardhana Hill or on the bank of the Yamunā? Where you are? Ghoṣantāv iti sarvato vraja-pure. That was their Kṛṣṇa consciousness, simply wondering where is Kṛṣṇa, where is Kṛṣṇa, where is Kṛṣṇa. Ghoṣantāv iti sarvato pure khedair mahā-vihvalau. Madlike, vihvalau. Vande rūpa-sanātanau raghu-yugau śrī-jīva-go... This is, this price one takes, then you can get Kṛṣṇa, you can understand Kṛṣṇa. It is not so cheap, that anyone can comment on Kṛṣṇa, whimsically, and he becomes a devotee. That is not possible. That is going on. I can interpret in my own way. Kṛṣṇa says, mām ekam. (indistinct) Somebody is taking Kṛṣṇa is black, somebody is taking Kṛṣṇa as something else. Who says Kṛṣṇa is black? Who told me?
Conversation with Indian Guests -- April 12, 1975, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṛṣṇa means "black." Sapta nuraman pure sita kar baba. (?) One has studied all the Rāmāyaṇa, seven cantos, seven khandas, and he is asking, "Whose father is Sītā?" Sītā is a feminine, and the Rāmāyaṇa expert is asking, "Whose father is Sītā?" This is their education, they are becoming big lecturer on Bhagavad-gītā, he has understood Kṛṣṇa means "black." And people are following him blindly. Big swamiji is speaking.

Guest: Can we (indistinct).

Mahāṁsa: Kṛṣṇa means, actually in Sanskrit, one of the meanings of the word Kṛṣṇa...

Guest: That is...

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is all-attractive, that he will not explain. In the Brahma-saṁhitā, it is said, asitāmbuda-sundarāṅgam kandarpa-koṭi-kamanīya-viśeṣa-śobhaṁ (Bs. 5.30). Asitām, sundaram. He is blackish, but He is so attractive, more attractive than many millions of Cupid.

Conversation with Indian Guests -- April 12, 1975, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is all-attractive, that he will not explain. In the Brahma-saṁhitā, it is said, asitāmbuda-sundarāṅgam kandarpa-koṭi-kamanīya-viśeṣa-śobhaṁ (Bs. 5.30). Asitām, sundaram. He is blackish, but He is so attractive, more attractive than many millions of Cupid.

Guest: (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: No, no. Why you should commit offense like that? It is a great offense to decry Kṛṣṇa.

Guest: (indistinct) ...describe Him as blackish or black.

Prabhupāda: But why does he say Kṛṣṇa means black?

Guest: Kṛṣṇa means black, (Hindi) Somebody questioned me: "What is Kṛṣṇa means?" Then apart from this, Sanskrit reply he gave: "Kṛṣṇa means black also."

Prabhupāda: So why did he not say Kṛṣṇa means all-attractive?

Guest: As far as Kṛṣṇa's features are concerned, we know it is (indistinct) black. (indistinct)

Mahāṁsa: The last time we had come here, I had come to just see on the first day what he says. So on the first day he said that now we'll have a gītā-jñāna yajña, and he said we will take the ślokas which are suitable and which ślokas are not suitable...

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Conversation with Devotees -- April 14, 1975, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Did it...? (break) ...special. There is a proverb, kalo brāhmaṇa kota śūdra bete mussulman kalki chele busi... (?) A brāhmaṇa, black... Brāhmaṇa's another name is śukla, white. So as soon as a brāhmaṇa is black then he's (indistinct) kalo brāhmaṇa. Kota śūdra, and śūdra, just like African, if they become white there is something mystery. Kalo brāhmaṇa kota śūdra bete mussulman, Mohammedan, because Mohammedan means the Afghans, they are very tall, so a Mussulman is dwarf, a brāhmaṇa is black, the śūdra is white, kalo brāhmaṇa kota śūdra bete mussulman and kalki chelo, that means the bastard and (indistinct) ...these are all of the same class. Adopted son, he gets money, without any labor, he spends like anything. In your country there is adopted son?

Morning Walk -- May 7, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: No. Vivasvān was begotten by Brahmā.

Amogha: Some Kali-yuga swans.

Prabhupāda: Black swans. Bhara nitya bhayamāyā. They are also aware how to protect their interest. Every living being knows how to eat, how to sleep, how to have sex, and how to defend from fear. These trees I find in America. Here, they are scented. What is called, these? Canada.

Gaṇeśa: They look like a maple tree.

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is maple tree.

Morning Walk -- May 16, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Every, all world was emperor, the Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira and the family. Sa-sāgara. Sa-sāgara means "including all the oceans." That means the whole world. There was one flag only during the time of Mahārāja Parīkṣit. And he first saw the cow-killing maybe in Africa or in Arabia. One black man was trying to kill a cow, and Mahārāja Parīkṣit was on tour, and immediately he punished him. That is Kali. The black man means Africa. Or where other place, black men?

Paramahaṁsa: Some of the, there are some natives in Asia also, southeast Asia, that are black.

Prabhupāda: Arabia? No. Arabians are not black.

Paramahaṁsa: Not... Generally they're not so black. Indonesians are black.

Prabhupāda: No.

Śrutakīrti: Africa is about the only place other than some islands.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Africa is black.

Amogha: Aborigines here also.

Paramahaṁsa: They have black natives here also, Australia.

Prabhupāda: They are all descendant of the same.

Morning Walk -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Very nice gardens. Hardly there is such nice botanical gardens in the world. I have seen many botanical... Very nice. (break) This swan is black and the crow is black, but crow's place is different, their place is different, although they are birds. The crows will enjoy a filthy place where all refuses are thrown. I don't think in your country there is many crows. In India, you've seen, all nasty place, that is visited by the crows. It is stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, na yad vacaś citra-padaṁ harer yaśo jagat-pavitraṁ pragṛṇīta karhicit, tad vāyasaṁ tīrtham (SB 1.5.10). The literature which does not describe Kṛṣṇa, that is the place for the crows. There is sex literature, they're enjoyed by the crows, and this Bhāgavatam is enjoyed by the swans. That is the difference. Crow's literature and swan's literature, paramahaṁsa. Paramo nirmatsarāṇāṁ satāṁ vāstavaṁ vastu vedyam atra (SB 1.1.2). Everyone in this material world, they're envious. Their business is to become envious. I am envious of you, you are envious of me. This is material world.

Room Conversation with Jesuit -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is stated here.

Jesuit: I find it hard to accept that.

Prabhupāda: What is the difficulty? Just like you have entered this black dress and I have entered this as colored dress, but as human being we are the same.

Jesuit: But to think that my soul belongs, say to a dog in ages gone past, or that it's going to come back and be a tiger or another person that...

Prabhupāda: Tiger is the body and human form is also the body, so if you want to become like a tiger, then God helps you to enter the body of the tiger.

Jesuit: I find it hard to accept that.

Prabhupāda: How you'll not accept God is so kind if you want to be something, He helps you, "All right you come."

Morning Walk -- May 28, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: No convert. Actually we are. Just like you have got this different dress from me. That does not mean you are convert to the dress. You are a gentleman; I am a gentleman. That's all.

Guest (1): I don't know whether I'm a gentleman or not. I'm just a man, and pretty lowly as far as my own opinion's concerned.

Prabhupāda: So different dress does not mean converts. We are in different dress, American body or Indian body or this body, black body or... This is body. But we are within the body.

Guest (1): What is the symbol of the staff here? There's a symbol of that, is there?

Prabhupāda: That is a big thing to be understood. (laughter)

Guest (1): Can't be answered in one sentence, huh?

Prabhupāda: That is the symbol... That requires good explanation. If you come to our temple, then we shall inform you.

Room Conversation with Yogi Bhajan -- June 7, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Heroism. That is... Just like Mahārāja Parīkṣit. He was going on his tour, and he saw one black man was trying to kill a cow. Immediately he took his sword, "Who are you? You are trying to kill cow in my kingdom?" This is called heroism. Now, where is that hero? And they are becoming president. How he will command? He is not hero. Everyone has right to live. Why they are killing animals? This is heroism. As soon as he saw that a rascal is going to kill a cow, "Why you are doing this?" Immediately he took his sword. Heroism. Then?

Devotee: "Power, determination..."

Prabhupāda: Power. He must have power, influence. Why he should beg vote, "Give me vote, give me vote, give me vote," begging? Where is power? If he is begging vote, where is power? Formerly the kings... Just like they used to take sword. "If you don't accept me, then I shall kill you." This is power.

Morning Walk -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:

Revatīnandana: And mussels also. The black ones are called mussels. And also crabs.

Prabhupāda: (speaks to someone in Hindi) So you were hearing me talking just now?

Indian guest: Oh yes, Swamiji. Listening, part of the conversation I heard. (break) ...these college courses and units, and I realize that to teach a religious course which is a Vedic culture first needs devotion, second needs knowledge. And I need both of them. I lack both of them. And this is... But still, I can support this kind of...

Prabhupāda: That I was explaining. Because you have a little desire to know, so that we have to take, a small fire, and we have to fan it. Then it will come, blazing fire. Kali-yuga means actually there is no brāhmaṇa, but whenever there is a little tendency of becoming brāhmaṇa, we take it, accept. Otherwise there is no question of pushing on this movement. Wherever there is little chance, we take advantage. That is our process. (break) Initiation means just to see, "Here is a little chance. He is coming forward. Take it, accept him, and fan it." This is initiation, not that "Now I am initiated, I become perfect." (break) Theological Union, when it was started.

Room Conversation with Dr. John Mize -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Now they have been trained up. What can be done? Woman is not trained up now to become a chaste wife. That is the defect of the civilization. Formerly, woman was trained up only to become, remain faithful to his husband, that's all. Nari-rūpaṁ pati-vrataḥ: "Woman's beauty is how she is faithful to her husband." That's all. That is beauty, not personal beauty. Vidyā rūpaṁ kurupanam: "A black man or ugly man, if he is educated, that is his beauty." Kokilānāṁ svaro rūpaṁ. Kokila, the cuckoo is just like a crow, but everyone likes because his voice is so sweet. Kokilānāṁ svaro rūpaṁ vidyā rūpaṁ kurupanam nari-rūpaṁ pati-vratam. Like that, he has given a list. These are the beauty. If a woman is trained up not to talk with any other man except her husband, that is her beauty. That enhances the beauty and prestige. This is Vedic knowledge.

Morning Walk -- June 26, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: ...freely.

Brahmānanda: Yes. Eating, sleeping, mating, and defending.

Jayatīrtha: Everyone is afraid now, of taking it. The crime rate has become very high.

Prabhupāda: Black and white?

Jayatīrtha: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Negroes are envious of the white men.

Jayatīrtha: Yes. In Detroit every year one out of every five hundred people is murdered.

Prabhupāda: White man?

Jayatīrtha: White men and black men. Usually black men are murdering.

Prabhupāda: What is the reason? The same feeling as in India, Hindu Muslim. But it is not so strong.

Room Conversation with the Mayor of Evanston -- July 4, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: And to serve under somebody, that is śūdra. So at the present moment people are being educated to serve under somebody. Technology, one is very expert in some particular line of technology, say, computer machine... You know how to operate. It is a big qualification. But unless he gets a job under some big establishment, he is useless. He cannot live independently. The first-class man will live independently. The second-class man also will live independently. And the third-class men, they will also live independently. And those who cannot live independently, they are fourth-class men. So at the present moment we are simply creating fourth-class men. So fourth-class men, they are prone to be degraded. If you don't raise them to become first-class, they must degrade. So that is the position of the present civilization. They are creating all fourth-class men, and gradually they are degrading. So now you should take up very seriously how you can create some first-class men. First-class, second-class, third-class also. If you simply remain in the fourth grade, technology... Technology means he has to serve under somebody. This industry, that is also the same thing. Hundreds and thousands of men are working. They are fourth-class men. And śūdra. Just like formerly in Indian village... Still there are. They are self-supported. Suppose there is a blacksmith. If you require some black iron instrument, you go there and he will prepare immediately.

Room Conversation with the Mayor of Evanston -- July 4, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. We invite. As soon as they have got a leisure hour, let them come and live with us for one week and see the result. They can remain forever. It doesn't matter. But for experimental sake they can come, live with us and associate with us. It is not difficult. And we invite everyone. We have no such discrimination that black, white, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, no. Anyone. It is universal. Because we consider every living entity is part and parcel of God. That is a fact. We are teeny gods, part and parcel. The same quality we have got—in minute quantity. Quality is the same, quantity is less. So God is good, so we are also good. But we have become bad under circumstances. Just like under infection, one becomes diseased. So if we cure that infection, again he becomes good. So it is the curing process. It is not an external artificial thing, imposed upon somebody, no. His goodness is there. Just like generally a man is healthy, but by infecting some disease he becomes diseased. So this material way of life is a kind of infection.

Room Conversation with the Mayor of Evanston -- July 4, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: No, social reform will automatically come. The first-class reform, the brāhmaṇas, if their advice is taken, then the other classes the kṣatriya, vaiśyas, and śūdras, they become automatically.

Mayor: We're aware that a religious approach is more successful and our mental health society here is funding the Reverend Perry who is a black ordained, I think, a Baptist protestant minister, formerly a drug addict. And he's been working out with, especially with the blacks who have drug addiction and he achieves much more success than other agencies.

Prabhupāda: Which process? Drug addiction has been helped by somebody?

Brahmānanda: No, the mayor's saying that the administration is not against supporting religious organizations.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Brahmānanda: He gives the example of one religious organization.

Prabhupāda: This is everything. Religious, social, political, philanthropical, science, everything included. We can give advice for solving any problem. That we have got all these books, practical. And in India there is political problem. Everywhere it is going on. They do not follow the standard way. Who will be the politicians? Here is the..., described. What are the politicians? Second-class, they are taken second-class. What is that? Śaurya tejaḥ?

Morning Walk -- July 9, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: But he is animal. That is, if you call a thief a thief, he will feel insulted. But does it mean that I shall say that "You are very honest?" A thief shall be called thief. That is natural. If you call a Negro, "You black," he will be angry. But he is black. So... So that is another thing. When the activities are similar to the animal activities, then he is animal. Why a reasonable man will not accept that, hm? In that case also, he is animal. Because they say, "Man is rational animal." So if you are devoid of rationality then again you are animal. So how he will avoid, that he is not animal?

Satsvarūpa: Many people today are willing to accept that. They say, "Yes, we're animals. We should enjoy our animal nature."

Morning Walk -- July 9, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: Yes. But everyone can become devotee. There is no harm. It is not that because one is in the lower species, he cannot become a devotee. Everyone can become a devotee. (break) ...yoni, they can also become perfect devotee. (break) This is the power of God. He can deliver anyone without any consideration. Therefore paṇḍita is sama-darśinaḥ, he does not make these divisions. He sees that "He is spirit soul. So let him be delivered." That's all. Paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśināh (BG 5.18). Materially there is division. He is black, he is white, he is this, he is that. This is material. Spiritually, there is no division. One. (break) They make, what is called, spiritual division also. That is their foolishness. Spiritually there is no division. Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu mad-bhaktiṁ labhate param (BG 18.54). Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu mad-bhaktiṁ labhate param. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. (end)

Room Conversation with writer, Sandy Nixon -- July 13, 1975, Philadelphia:
Prabhupāda: They do not know what is religion. But still, the cats and dogs are supplied with necessities of life. So why we should bother Kṛṣṇa, asking Him, "Give us our daily bread"? He is supplying already. Our business is how to love Him. That is religion. Dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavaḥ atra paramo nirmatsarāṇāṁ satāṁ vāstavaṁ vastu vedyam atra (SB 1.1.2). Sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmaḥ yato bhaktir adhokṣaje: "That is first-class religion which teaches how to love God." And that love—not for any material motive: "God, You give me this. Then I will love." No. Ahaitukī. Love means without any personal profit. If I love God for some profit that is business. That is not love. Ahaituky apratihatā. And such love of God cannot be checked by any material cause. In any condition, one can learn how to love God. It is not conditional, that "I am poor man. How shall I love God? I have got so many things to do." No, it is not like that. Poor, rich or young or old, black or white, there is no impediment. If one wants to love God, he can love God.
Morning Walk -- July 25, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: No, you cannot control because you are controlled. That is eternally you are controlled. You are controlled.

Yadubara: Also, Śrīla Prabhupāda, they don't recognize that there are so many species of life. Just like the white man and the black man they will say is one species. And also the aborigine.

Prabhupāda: We... Let us accept forms, not species but forms. It doesn't matter. There is only change of words. There are so many forms.

Rādhā-vallabha: They say that the amount of forms is not constant because by breeding different forms together they can create completely new forms that never existed before.

Prabhupāda: What is the use of creating new forms? Already there are eight million.

Morning Walk -- July 31, 1975, Dallas:

Prabhupāda: They will not kill each other?

Brahmānanda: No, they respected one another because they were both after the same embassy. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...black government is going on all over the world. What they will think of people's welfare?

Brahmānanda: They are all against us.

Prabhupāda: Simply political gain. (break)

Jagadīśa: ...back to the temple we'll be performing āratik to Your Divine Grace. And there was not very much time. I was wondering whether during the time we're performing āratik to you, whether it's proper to be giving out cookies to the children?

Prabhupāda: As you make convenient.

Car Conversation -- August 3, 1975, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: ...cious animals also.

Brahmānanda: Here?

Ambarīṣa: The black people from Detroit. (laughter)

Brahmānanda: They come here?

Ambarīṣa: Yes. It's a very dangerous park.

Prabhupāda: No, black?

Brahmānanda: The negroes from Detroit, they are the fierce animals that come here at night.

Prabhupāda: They come?

Brahmānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: At night? Why?

Morning Walk -- August 4, 1975, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Cat?

Brahmānanda: A very low-class fish. It eats the stool of the other fish.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Black? It is black?

Mādhavānanda: Yes. Black. Yes.

Prabhupāda: We call magur mach. One who cannot digest anything, he is recommended to eat this fish, magur mach. Jīvo jīvasya jīvanam. One living entity is the life of another living entity. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Mādhavānanda: Is it wet?

Brahmānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Then?

Satsvarūpa: Ambarīṣa? Is there another way we can go? It's wet.

Ambarīṣa: We can go back around in the road and then walk along that road over there. (Devotees chanting japa) (break)

Prabhupāda: Grass is coming out. Where is the chemical? How the grass is coming out from the stone side? Harer nāma harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21). (break) ...he will go?

Morning Walk -- August 6, 1975, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: By the neighbors.

Ādi-keśava: Yes. (break)

Brahmānanda: ...heard one report that the mayor of this city, he prevented a race riot. He personally prevented there being a race riot. Recently one white man killed a black man. So the blacks then were attacking his shop, and the mayor personally came and subdued the crowd. He was able to prevent the riot.

Prabhupāda: Recently?

Brahmānanda: Yes. (break)

Ādi-keśava: ...see that in those deer up there, that the one with antlers, the horn coming out of his head, he is the male. He thinks he is in charge of all of the females. He will fight anyone who comes after them, any other deer who comes after them. And he thinks, "I am so strong. I am so brave." He tries to protect them all and chase them away. That one in the center there.

Devotee (1): It looks like they've all assembled to see you.

Prabhupāda: There's a big.

Room Conversation -- August 21, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Ah, they are engaged.

Lalitā: No time to talk.

Prabhupāda: I don't allow them to sit down.

Lalitā: At other āśramas you go and see. I go every āśramas. So I reported that now you catch all the sādhus. I'm giving a secret letter that, "All the black marketeers with them, sitting, chatting and patting, and you catch them. Then all the smugglers you will get. Sai Baba... (Bengali) He will throw you out. And he is exploiting that girl, and I have got a picture, very bad picture, with me. (Bengali) "Bhagavān Satya Sai Baba." So she hates him. And (Bengali) I have seen Satya Sai Baba. I know he is, what type of man he is. (Bengali) Government letter, certified.

Prabhupāda: (Bengali) Kṛṣṇa consciousness to the foreign countries.

Lalitā: (Bengali) ...what personality you are.

Prabhupāda: Thousands of Americans will do that. Thousands.

Morning Walk -- August 27, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: I know that. Do they say like that?

Akṣayānanda: Not directly. But when we explain how many things, what is being done and we show photographs, how people have become devotees, they will say, "Yes, but have you heard of Swami so and so?" And we'll say, "Yes, we have heard of him. But our Guru Mahārāja has got thousands of devotees all over the world." "Yes, he has also got thousands of devotees." They'll minimize, even though it's there in black and white.

Prabhupāda: But where they are?

Brahmānanda: Yeah. Where are those thousands of disciples of these other swamis?

Prabhupāda: "Here we are, but where are the swami's disciples?" Ask them.

Akṣayānanda: Then they will become angry.

Prabhupāda: "No, no. Well, don't be angry. Well, Bhaktivedanta Swami's disciples, we are present here. Present anyone else. So how shall I believe you?"

Morning Walk -- September 1, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Next life or this life. Suppose you are earning money in the black market. As soon as you will be arrested, you will be pun... Just like so many people are put into jail. Why they are put into jail? They have done something, big, big leaders.

Brahmānanda: In the past. They have done something in the past and now they are suffering.

Prabhupāda: "In the past" means in this life. So as soon as you do something wrong, you must suffer, either by government's laws or by nature's law.

Brahmānanda: They're thinking that "If I earn much money now, then later on in my life, everything will be very comfortable."

Prabhupāda: That's all right, but this is the fact. If you earn money by black market and if you are arrested, then your all comfort will be finished.

Press Conference -- October 2, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: Yes. We go interior to African village.

Guest (4): Swamiji, can I ask a question? How old are you, or, maybe I should say, how young are you?

Prabhupāda: Eighty years old. Eighty.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Here is one black American, a sannyāsī in the renounced order of life. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...the bodily concept of life, he is no more African, no more American. He is spirit soul. (break)

Guest (2): ...Swamiji, a very personal question. How would you react when people give you a godly reception?

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Brahmānanda: He asks, "When you get a godly reception, when you come to a place, how does your..., receive it?"

Prabhupāda: Because I am representative of God, therefore they must give me godly reception. It is reception to God. Just like if you receive one ambassador from a country, then that means giving honor to that country. It is not my personal reception; it is acknowledging the glories of the Lord. Yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādaḥ **. It is said, "If you please God's representative, then God is pleased."

Morning Walk -- October 3, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So during World War I and World War II many of the South Africans, they actually sided with the Germans because they were against the English so much.

Prabhupāda: African means black Africans. No?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No. South Africans, they were Europeans. The British started the first concentration camp. They took these "Afrikaners" as they call them, Europeans. They put them on an island called St. Helena. That was actually the first concentration camp, by the British.

Prabhupāda: This is going on. Still, even the opposite party, they are not disgusted—"This material life is not very peaceful." They are not disgusted.

Morning Walk -- October 6, 1975, Durban:

Prabhupāda: So many things. And to make a show, the Lord Hasting was impeached in the Parliament. Here the black men, they are Africans.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes. In this country there's nineteen million Africans and about over five million Europeans, about one million Indian people, and about one million colored people.

Prabhupāda: So these women, what they are carrying on the head?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I don't know. What do they carry, Gokulendra prabhu?

Gokulendra: They carry all sorts of things, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Sometimes they carry their supplies that they...

Prabhupāda: They are local women or...

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes. But they don't allow the Africans to live in the cities. They have to travel long distances, unless they are servants at some house. For the Africans to live in the cities, they have passes. They have to have a pass.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā. Black men. The Indians, they cannot? They can?

Morning Walk -- October 7, 1975, Durban:

Prabhupāda: Indians are taken within the group of black? No.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Well, they have white and nonwhite. So technically speaking, they can classify all of the Indians as nonwhite. But at the same time, there is more division, and they have Indian community, and they have the colored community and the African community.

Prabhupāda: The government officer, responsible post, they are offered to the Indians? No.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Government?

Prabhupāda: Government responsible post.

Morning Walk -- October 7, 1975, Durban:

Prabhupāda: And for the black?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: For the Africans? They don't have so much now. Very poor facility.

Prabhupāda: Oh. So the government gives facilities to the Indians, but separately.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Not with them.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Not with them.

Prabhupāda: That is not bad.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It has preserved, little bit, the feeling of Hinduism here.

Prabhupāda: And for the black people there is no hospital?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They have hospitals also, but not as good facility, because there are so many, and they haven't developed it sufficiently.

Prabhupāda: Medical help is free? No.

Morning Walk -- Durban, October 13, 1975 :

Prabhupāda: How long they can stay in the water?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: If it's warm weather they can stay all day.

Prabhupāda: Acchā?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In the cold weather, a few hours. They put on these black suits made out of a certain fabric—it's called a wet suit—and they are able to stay in the water much longer. It insulates, insulates the body from the cold water.

Prabhupāda: Going for surfing?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: These gentlemen? No, I don’t think so. These young boys are. (break) …surf, we tell them, "Yes, we surf in the ocean of bhakti-rasa."

Prabhupāda: Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. (break) … karma bandha phasa: one after another. Asate vilāsa: material enjoyment means implicated in unnecessary activities. If people are satisfied, plain living, then these things are not necessary: go into the ocean, find out oil, then bring it in the port, then distribute it, so many, one after another. That, this kind of civilization, they think it is advanced. And to live very plainly, minimizing this unnecessary activity, they think it is not civilization.

Morning Walk -- Durban, October 13, 1975 :

Prabhupāda: Gorilla. So these men are still existing. But why from gorilla they do not come?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They don’t come from the gorilla.

Prabhupāda: Africans, I have seen, they look like gorilla. So why now from gorilla the Africans or any black man is not coming? Then the question is the black man… We have got experience. The black man come. And wherefrom the white man came? Is there any white gorilla?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No.

Prabhupāda: No. Then white man, how did he come?

Harikeśa: Well, sometimes there is a freak of nature, and the pigments that are in the skin…

Prabhupāda: Simply it is for Darwin, "sometime." To support his rascaldom, nature has to serve him “sometimes. “Just see. We have to believe. Nature's law is the same, symmetrical. Nature is not obliged to serve Mr. Darwin, the rascal. Sometimes. He says, "sometimes." He did, and he knew it only and nobody knew. We have to believe that. Sometimes it was done, and it was revealed to Darwin. How he came to know? Nobody could understand. Only Darwin could understand? There was no other?

Room Conversation with Reporter of The Star -- October 16, 1975, Johannesburg:
Prabhupāda: This is an appreciation. Why he should be envious? He should be, rather, very much enthused that "This single man is keeping Kṛṣṇa all over the world." And everyone is deriding. Even Gandhi is killing Kṛṣṇa. Dr. Radhakrishnan is killing. Their only business is to kill Kṛṣṇa. He is also doing that, our, this Bon Mahārāja. He never speaks of Kṛṣṇa. His rascal, that Institute of Indian Philosophy, nobody goes to urine(?) there. We see practically. And our temple is always filled up, five hundred men. And he is trying for the last forty years. He is simply planning: "This will be playground. This will be this ground. This will be this ground." And it is becoming jungle. Still, he is so envious, black snake. So one circular letter should be issued to all our center, that "Any Bon Mahārāja or anyone, his representative, should not be received." They are envious. Yes. Quoting that. We have got several complaints like that. Satsvarūpa also complained. Sometimes our order was cancelled by Bon Mahārāja's propaganda.
Morning Walk -- October 17, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: Because the democracy. You will not get vote. As soon as you become honest man in the public office, nobody will be obedient to you, and it will be impossible for him to execute any... You see? The bank manager in Delhi—he was my friend—that "I am afraid of this union. If I press them to do something, they will immediately topsy-turvy the whole management." Bank manager said. "So I am afraid of the workers' union," he told me. So therefore good men, they do not go to this political post because they know they will not be able to do anything good. He will be surrounded by all rogues. Nobody will execute his order.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So the future in Kali-yuga looks very bleak.

Prabhupāda: Very, very black. Āchinna-dāra-draviṇ gacchanti giri-kānanam. People, general people, will be so much disgusted that they will be obliged to give up family and home and go to the forest, being disappointed: "Now I cannot manage. Let me go away."

Morning Walk -- October 20, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Harikeśa: Because he just stood there and said, "Nothing is happening to me," everybody has figured that he is already there.

Prabhupāda: "There" means where?

Harikeśa: At the ultimate.

Prabhupāda: Hell. (laughter)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes. (break) Anyone who is thinking that they're happy is simply a rascal. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...saying the black man is not allowed to marry a white woman?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Oh, no. Neither vice versa also. There is no intermarriage permitted here. (end)

Morning Walk -- October 28, 1975, Nairobi:

Prabhupāda: I know that. In Calcutta, Kukumcha. This firm was very big. One of the richest Marwari. So eighty years old, he wanted to change the hormone to become young. Not only... There are many Marwaris. You know the (name witheld)? (name witheld)? His elder brother, (name witheld). His only business is to keep one wife and have a big establishment. He has got four, five wives—one Bengali, one U.P., one Marwari, one this—and each wife's establishment not less than ten thousand per month. And his business is morning to this wife and evening to this wife and noon to this wife, this wife. And he is old man. The wives do not care for him, and she is doing everything whatever, with the secretary. That's all. It is going on. I have seen. I was guest in his home, and this rascal is doing this. He is earning money, black market, white market, this mar... At any cost, and spending like this. That's all. There are many persons. Oh, in Europe also, the same thing. In Paris very, very old men, seventy-five years old, eighty years, they go to the night club. Entrance fee fifty dollar, then pay for the woman, wine. Spend few hours and spend two hundred, three hundred, five hundred dollars-go home. Then tranquilizer pill and sleep. This is going on. Therefore mūḍha.

Morning Walk -- November 14, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Thank you very much. Unless one understands Kṛṣṇa... Vedais ca sarvair aham eva vedyaḥ (BG 15.15). Veda means knowledge. So all kinds of knowledge, they are aiming at the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So if one does not understand what is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, then māyayāpahṛta-jñānā—he has no knowledge. Knowledge means ultimately he must know what is God. That is knowledge. Ye kṛṣṇa tattva vetta sei guru haya. Anyone who knows Kṛṣṇa, he becomes guru. Otherwise not. The first test is you may be scientist, philosopher, educationist, whatever you may be, but ask him, "Do you know Kṛṣṇa?" If he says, "No," then he is a fool. That's all. This is the test. (chuckles) Hare Kṛṣṇa. So Ambarisa Mahārāja, do you agree?

Ambarīṣa: Yes. It's a good test.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) Goldsmith, they take a stone, black stone. Do you know? And they rub the gold on the stone, and they can immediately say whether it is gold or not. So our, that stone, is Kṛṣṇa. If anyone knows Kṛṣṇa, then it is gold. (laughter)

Morning Walk -- November 16, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: You are taking yogurt? Give him kicheri and yogurt.

Harikesa: He won't eat yogurt. Ambarisa: No, I eat it with that śādhisav, gold(?), mixed in it.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Take yogurt with black pepper and salt. Yes.

Ambarisa: Oh, okay.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. Very good. What is your name?

Indian child: Kīrtana.

Prabhupāda: Kesan?

Indian child: Kīrtana.

Yaśomatīnandana: Kīrtana.

Prabhupāda: Kīrtana, oh.

Girirāja: Actually, he comes and dances in ecstasy in the temple.

Prabhupāda: Very good. Kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ (CC Adi 17.31).

Morning Walk -- November 16, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No. Devasadan.

Brahmānanda: Just Devasadan.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break)

Brahmānanda: ...Vṛndāvana.

Prabhupāda: Vṛndāvana is not black. (laughter) People have come less due to candra-gana. (break) Kirātuddhara.

Brahmānanda: Kirāta?

Prabhupāda: Uddhara.

Brahmānanda: Udha. Udha means?

Prabhupāda: Uddhara means deliverance.

Brahmānanda: Okay. "Delivering the kirātas." They might object to that. (laughing) They might object to that.

Prabhupāda: They might object?

Morning Walk -- November 17, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...infection and disinfection also, but you don't take to disinfection. That is our... Here is disinfection, Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Who is going to take it? They will prefer to be infected. (break) ...respectable person will send their children to gurukula. They don't want. I tried in the beginning. It was a failure. They don't want. Just like Prahlāda and Hiraṇyakaśipu. What is the trouble? The Prahlāda was devotee, and his father did not like him, that "Why you should be devotee? You become politician, diplomat." That is the difficulty, that nowadays everyone is Hiraṇyakaśipu, and he wants that his son should be diplomat, politician, black market and... What is the use of this Prahlāda? That is going on, especially in India. (break) Hiraṇyakaśipu, he'll never like to see his son Prahlāda. And our system is to make Prahlāda. So nobody will like it.

Morning Walk -- November 20, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Amongst the Vaiṣṇavas, he was the greatest ācārya, Rāmānujācārya. And to kill the Māyāvādīs, he was the ablest person, Rāmānujācārya. Still in South India, the Māyāvādīs and the Rāmānujas, they have talks, and the Māyāvādīs are defeated always.

Dr. Patel: These ācāryas, they are all Rāmānujācārya followers that Tithi Kṛṣṇam Ācāri(?) and Rajgopal Ācārya, and they are all these Vaiṣṇavas of Rāmānujācārya.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Ācārya means Vaiṣṇava. Ayar. Ayar. And avaiṣṇava, Nayar, yes.

Dr. Patel: Nayars are non-Aryans. Then the... All Nayars are black, charcoal black, because they are not Aryans. Aryans have the white, light skin.

Prabhupāda: Even in Madras there are many brāhmaṇas, black.

Dr. Patel: Brāhmaṇas, they are Ayars. They are quite... Even though they have settled in Madras for generations together, they are still having the color of... (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: No, no. Āryas, they are not Vaiṣṇava, then. Ayar? Eh?

Indian man (1): Śaṅkarācāryādi.(?)

Prabhupāda: Ācāryas, they are Vaiṣṇava.

Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That is first business, that they should join this movement and eat prasādam and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...food, they have begun spinning their own cloth.

Devotee (2): Oh, yes.

Mahāṁsa: Most of the land at the farm is black cotton soil, very favorable for growing cotton. So a piece of that we can take, ten acres or so for growing cotton, and spin our own cloth.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is required. Why purchasing cloth, twenty-two rupees per pair? No? What is the charge nowadays?

Mahāṁsa: It's about three, four rupees per meter.

Girirāja: For two dhotīs you'd need fifteen rupees.

Prabhupāda: Fifty?

Girirāja: Fifteen.

Prabhupāda: Fifteen. Yes.

Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: (break) What did he speak?

Mahāṁsa: He spoke on different verses, one by one, of the twelfth chapter. But no conclusion. Every lecture there was no conclusion. So he leaves the people in a blank. There is no conclusion to any of his lectures. And his philosophy is "Kṛṣṇa means black. Black means unknown. Therefore Kṛṣṇa is unknown. Kṛṣṇa is unknown. We cannot know Kṛṣṇa."

Prabhupāda: And what about others' version who knows Kṛṣṇa? Just like Caitanya Mahāprabhu or all the ācāryas? (end)

Morning Walk -- December 14, 1975, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: What is written there? Ravindra. Ravindra's Gate. Ravindra's gate is, how to enjoy illicit sex. This is his gate. He introduced māgha-melā, inviting young boys and girls to dance together. And taking this opportunity, he was enjoying young girls. That was his purpose. They would come, the young girls would come, Ravindra (Bengali), grandfather, and he'll, "Alright you sit down on my lap." That's all. This is Ravindra Bhavan, to become debauch. And if you teach young man debauchery, he can attract millions. There is no doubt of it. The pride(?) philosophy. Hm? Debauchery. Allow sex without any discrimination. (observes passing hand drawn cart) Economic development. Where is economic development for these men? There, when there was no economic development, the same taila and poor people with black cloth was there, and now the same thing is still there, so where is development?

Page Title:Black (Conv. 1967 - 1975)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, Mayapur
Created:02 of Aug, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=112, Let=0
No. of Quotes:112