Go to Vanipedia | Go to Vanisource | Go to Vanimedia


Vaniquotes - the compiled essence of Vedic knowledge


City (Conversations 1976)

Conversations and Morning Walks

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 2, 1976, Madras:

Yaśodānandana: This is the vehicle in which we travel.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Yaśodānandana: This vehicle is the vehicle in which we travel to all the different cities for making the life members and arranging all the programs in South India, this vehicle.

Prabhupāda: This is your own?

Yaśodānandana: We are renting.

Prabhupāda: When I was in South Africa...

Indian man (1): South Africa.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Johannesburg. This beach reminds me of that beach. You were with me?

Harikeśa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: All statues are crying here.

Room Conversation -- January 3, 1976, Nellore:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Whole Europe became threatened, Napoleon. And there must be some reaction. And when he was under custody he was treated like an.... So where is independence? He had to drink horse urine as reaction of his atrocities. Hitler committed suicide and finished himself. Mussolini was forced to be killed. Gandhi was killed. And they are fighting for independence. You know this Sydney? Sydney? You know why the city is known as Sydney?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No.

Prabhupāda: Sir Philip Sydney, a great commander, during the fighting time, when he was shot, he asked for water, and the water was not supplied and he died. Now, he was very generous man. He was the commander. Water was brought, and at the same time another soldier was being carried. He was also going to die. He was looking for the water. So immediately he said, "This water give him. Give him," and he died. He was very generous. He knew that "I am going to die. If he can be saved, give him this water." So that Sydney, Sir Philip Sydney, his name. Melbourne, it is also named after great soldier. So where is your independence? If you are thinking independently and doing things independently, then is it not foolishness? Hm? Why don't you answer? You don't want to be foolish? Suppose within the prison walls, if you want to do things independently, is it possible?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, you're always dependent.

Morning Walk -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: But who is working as farmer? Who is working as farmer? The government is eager to give them land, but who is working? Nobody is working. They are going to the factory. Even whatever land is still available, they are not being worked out.

Indian man: Well, in the villages there are many poor peoples who are landless, so they are cultivating the land.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Some of them are cultivating. Others are going to the city to be...

Indian man: So now everybody will go. When the rich people will take their land they have to go. They will say, "How we can live with the small land," so they will move.

Prabhupāda: Yes. No, why they should not try to be rich? If the rich man exploits them, that "You work in our land and take some salary," why they will work for that? They will go to the factory, will get more salary. This way Indira Gandhi cannot solve the poverty problem. They must take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Just like these soldiers, they for twenty years, simply eating and sleeping, and they are not engaged in cultivating-useless waste of time—and government has to maintain in big cantonment, big, big house, big, nice food, nice.... This is going on. Why the soldiers are maintained? It is waste of energy. They should have been engaged in tilling. Formerly the kings would give them free land. "You make your fortune—but on condition: when there is fight, you have to join." That was very easy. He possessed so much land, and he worked hard, and he got riches. Unless.... "Proprietorship turns sand into gold." Unless there is proprietorship, it cannot be. So therefore kṣatriyas, they were given land: "You take land as much as you like and produce but on condition that when there is war you have to join."

Morning Walk -- January 21, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes. Tā'ra madhye jīhwā ati, lobhamoy sudurmati, tā'ke jetā kaṭhina saṁsāre, kṛṣṇa baṛo doyāmoy, koribāre jihwā jay, swa-prasād. So prasādam should be so nice that he'll (be) conquered. He'll not go to the restaurant; they will come to Māyāpur. I have seen in Japan. Who is? You were... Where you were staying, that place?

Sudāmā: Which place, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: No, no, far away from the city.

Sudāmā: Oh, yes, yes. Takal, outside of Tokyo, we had our temple.

Prabhupāda: So there were hotels?

Sudāmā: Yes. Yes. One bird restaurant.

Prabhupāda: Yes, bird. They are coming from fifty miles to eat there. So eating is so strong. If you prepare nice foodstuff and the flavor goes to hundred miles away, then they will automatically come. This is practical. Only for satisfaction of the tongue, there were special buses bringing them, and they were coming, full load of bus, to eat that jungle birds.

Morning Walk -- January 21, 1976, Mayapura:

Devotee (2): Jungle birds. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Yes. The birds are available in the city, the fowls and cocks, but they wanted to eat the jungle birds. Just like there are men. They get sex pleasure at home; still, they go to the prostitutes. Very beautiful wife, but he goes to the prostitute. Taste is such bad.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Like Ajāmila. Ajāmila.

Prabhupāda: Yes. He had very good wife, young wife, and he became a victim to a prostitute and lost all brahminical culture. So if you create prostitute in the society, where is the hope of brahminical culture? There is a story that a gentleman... Not gentleman, a rascal. He was rich, and he was going to the prostitute. So the wife inquired that "What is wanting in me that you are going to the prostitute?" You know that story? "No, I go there because she dances, sings." So she learned dancing. So in this way, one after another, drinking, dancing, this, that. Still, he was going. The wife learned everything. Then when she said, "Now I have learned whatever you wanted. Still why you are...?" "No, one thing. I cannot express that." "What is that?" "You do not abuse my father and mother. That you cannot do." These prostitutes, they abuse the father and mother. In Bengal it is known, rakta kedara vega.(?) They address like that. Then she said, "All right. Stop. I am no more your wife. I cannot abuse your father and mother. That is not possible. I have learned everything for your satisfaction, but I cannot learn this thing." The prostitute will not only abuse the paramour but his father, mother, family, everything, culture.

Morning Walk -- February 3, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: ...in so-called transcendental meditation, go to the Himalaya and go to the forest. We are not interested in all this nonsense. Our only business is to spread Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, door to door, town to town, city to city. We are not going to seclusion. Prahlāda Mahārāja said, "This is professional bluff: 'I am going to the Himalaya. I am going to the forest.' " Prahlāda Mahārāja condemns that "These are professional bluffs." Or they may be sincere, but still, they are trying for their own salvation. Prahlāda Mahārāja said, "I am not interested in that sal... I am interested for everyone's salvation. Everyone must go back to home, back to..." That is Vaiṣṇava, not that "For my own salvation I go to Himalaya or in the forest and transcendental meditation, nonsense..." We are not interested in those things. (laughs) And our men... Just like that Gaurasundara. He is doing all nonsense, transcendental meditation. Is it not?

Sudāmā: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Rascal. He is doing transcendental meditation. He got so much opportunity to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He did it in the beginning very nicely. A rascal, he became victim. These things are for ajitendriyāṇām. Those who are not able to control the senses, they make this business, transcendental meditation, and secretly doing all nonsense. The whole thing, this transcendental meditation, that, what is that, Maharishi Yogi, they are doing all nonsense and advertising, "We are transcendental meditation."

Morning Walk -- February 4, 1976, Mayapura:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Original fragrance of the earth"?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Out of that, most fragrant flavor, Kṛṣṇa says, "I am directly that." So if you are Kṛṣṇa conscious, having this flavor, he'll understand, "Here is Kṛṣṇa." This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Puṇyo gandhaḥ pṛthivyāṁ ca. This flavor is there all over this earth, but you cannot see it. That does not mean there is no God. But He is there.

Viśvakarmā: It would be easier for them if they didn't live in the cities, because the cities make it so hard for anybody to understand there is a God.

Prabhupāda: After all, understanding... Therefore they are mūḍhas. They have to understand. If they do not understand, they remain mūḍha. That is human life. The human being should understand that "I am mūḍha, so I'll have to learn." And the Vedas says, "Then go to guru." Tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet: (MU 1.2.12) "You must go if you want to learn." And if he remains mūḍha and speculates, then he remains mūḍha. He never gets the enlightenment. He remains continually... Mūḍhā janmani janmani mām aprāpyaiva (BG 16.20). He cannot get God. Life after life, he will go on like that, mūḍha. Asuriṣu-yoni. Asurika-yoni. He'll remain completely ignorant about God, what was his function, only function to understand God during this life of human form of life. And so-called science wants to keep him rascal and mūḍha, that's all. Therefore we fight so much with these rascals, big rascals. They want to keep them. He is mūḍha, he is blind, and he's trying to lead other blind men. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānās te 'pīśa-tantryām (SB 7.5.31). Rascal does not know that he is hand and bound..., hand and leg, bound up by the laws of material; still he denies, that "I am independent. I can think independently. I can avoid God," and so many things.

Morning Walk -- February 4, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda, I think your dhoti is pulling...

Hṛdayānanda: (break) ...that the people against us were trying to prove that we're not actually a real religion. So the judge became very angry at the other lawyer and stood up on his bench. The judge stood up and said, "Are you trying to say that these people are not a bona fide religion?" And the lawyer said, "No, your honor. No." (laughter)

Hari-śauri: In Sydney they spent ten thousand dollars, the council, compiling a case against us. Every day they used to come and film us and take names. And we didn't contest the case but just carried on saṅkīrtana, and the judge threw them out of court. They spent ten thousand dollars—it was a big scandal—and lost the case. The judge said, "Why not let them go on the streets? They add a lot of color to the city."

Hṛdayānanda: (break) People are always asking about you, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hm. (break) No, I shall go now. Is it direct flight? No.

Hṛdayānanda: It is very far away. Everyone is... Even the guests, everyone is always asking about Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I was wondering whether—I was speaking with Sudāmā Mahārāja—whether it would be possible for him to come and be in the boat program with Sudāmā Mahārāja. (end)

Morning Walk -- February 11, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Oh?

Hṛdayānanda: The whole skyscraper just fell into the earth. That was in Caracas. They said that after that people became more pious. During the earthquake they were screaming to God, "Have mercy, have mercy."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hṛdayānanda: Another country, Nicaragua, just a few years ago there was a big earthquake, and the capital city was entirely destroyed. It was all gone, the entire capital.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I have experience of an earthquake, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I was in one in Mexico. It was at night. When the earthquake happened I was completely thrown right out of my bed.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I was thrown right out of the bed by the earthquake. It shook the building so much, the whole building shook, and I was thrown right out of the bed. Fortunately that building I was in, it only sagged, but other buildings completely collapsed. The building was left slanting, though. We had to all evacuate the building.

Hṛdayānanda: So it reminds us of the Kṛṣṇa book, because in Caracas, when there was an earthquake, the whole sky became dark, and there were great roaring sounds in the sky.

Prabhupāda: Where?

Hṛdayānanda: In Caracas. Great roaring sounds and the sky became dark, no one could see, and then everything began to...

Prabhupāda: When it was?

Hṛdayānanda: Less than ten years ago.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Morning Walk -- February 18, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes, he's...

Acyutānanda: I met him once. He is addicted to snuff very, very much.

Prabhupāda: Constantly.

Acyutānanda: Even during his lectures he makes gestures so that he can take snuff without anybody knowing.

Yaśodānandana: And one of his favorite styles is that whenever he goes to a city, he always stays with elderly widows, very rich elderly widows, in their houses. Very strange.

Acyutānanda: I think the people know that he is bogus, but they just go for some entertainment because he is so... (Prabhupāda laughs) Yes, they just go for some... Some people go just because they want to hear some nice English, to improve their English knowledge.

Prabhupāda: He speaks good English?

Acyutānanda: Very... He's an orator.

Prabhupāda: He's M.A. in English. I know. He's...

Acyutānanda: He used to be, I heard, a journalist.

Prabhupāda: Yes, journalist.

Morning Walk -- March 2, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: The engagement must be there.

Hṛdayānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: It can be organized. The children should be raised Kṛṣṇa devotees. The woman can be engaged. Everyone can be engaged. I can give you suggestion if you can execute.

Hṛdayānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, we were thinking that it would be nice to have the cities, city-centers, for the preachers, and those, for example, women, children, it's much easier to maintain them on our farms. That way they can do a little work and produce their own food and...

Prabhupāda: Yes, in the farms they can live and do some handwork.

Hṛdayānanda: Yes.

Guru-kṛpā: They won't do it, though, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Hṛdayānanda: They must do.

Prabhupāda: Then you don't allow. Don't allow that. Don't allow.

Morning Walk -- March 2, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Then you don't allow. Don't allow that. Don't allow.

Guru-kṛpā: That's good.

Hṛdayānanda: Maintenance is much more simple, easier, less expensive for them on a farm.

Prabhupāda: If they do not follow the rules and regulations, then what is the use?

Hṛdayānanda: We were thinking that unless someone is a preacher, he has no real business in the city. Let him go have a peaceful life out on the farm.

Yaśodānandana: It has been seen that when many householders come together in many of our big communities, because there are so many women and children, there is a great atmosphere of laziness a lot of times. I have seen in Los Angeles and also in many other temples. But when there's a lot of brahmacārīs preaching, it's much more enlivening.

Prabhupāda: So now you make some regulation. Otherwise... Attending class? No.

Hṛdayānanda: Excuse me?

Prabhupāda: They attend class?

Gargamuni: Yeah.

Morning Walk -- March 12, 1976, Mayapur:

Satsvarūpa: It's called brownstone.

Prabhupāda: Oh, brown... Stone it is. That is nice. (break) ...new temple? No.

Rādhāvallabha: That's Ottawa, Canada.

Prabhupāda: Canada.

Rāmeśvara: That is the capital city of Canada.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Johannesburg. That is wonderful. (break) Stockholm, yes.

Rādhāvallabha: People will wonder when they see all these pictures. You are in half of them.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Actually, he's in all of them.

Prabhupāda: Virginia. Here I did not go.

Rāmeśvara: It's near Washington, D.C.

Prabhupāda: Baltimore.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The new Miami temple, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Oh, very nice.

Morning Walk -- March 19, 1976, Mayapura:

Pañca-draviḍa: Outlawing prostitution.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And no prostitution. And no prostitution, what means? That means there is prostitutes in the society.

Pañca-draviḍa: Everybody's a prostitute.

Prabhupāda: Now, the Vedic civilization is "All right, you are not satisfied, one woman, don't pollute the innocent girls or in the home. Go to the prostitute." Still, in big, big cities, there is a quarter, prostitute quarter, still. They are professional prostitutes.

Pañca-draviḍa: What was the Vedic punishment if somebody broke these moral principles?

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Pañca-draviḍa: What would be the punishment in a Vedic society if somebody...

Prabhupāda: Oh. Picture, Fifth Canto. You see the description of the hell.

Pañca-draviḍa: Hell. But I mean, within the society itself, there was punishment there also from the king?

Prabhupāda: Everyone who will commit sinful activities will be punished. That is nature's law. Exactly like that: If you infect some disease, you must suffer from that disease. The nature's law is so strict, and it is going on. It doesn't require any supervision. The supervisions are already made so perfect. You infect this disease: you suffer from it. That's all.

Morning Walk -- March 22, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Because I stick to Kṛṣṇa's word. I, therefore, present Bhagavad-gītā as it is. We do not make any amendment nor accept any amendment. And, therefore, we decry everything—Gandhi, Dr. Radhakrishnan, Aurobindo, this, that—all rascals. Because they tried to amend it. That is admitted by the science professor. They have all tried to make it modernized, but I have not done. Here is the spiritual master in the disciplic succession, so we remain indebted to him to understand the original traditional knowledge.

Devotee: Also that professor from Mexico City, he appreciated.

Prabhupāda: Yes, everyone who is after truth will accept. If he's a bogus, if you want to be cheated and cheat others, that will not. Ninety-nine percent, they are cheaters and cheated. This is the position. All these cheaters they are cheating, and they accept to be cheated. If I am very clever that I don't want to be cheated, then nobody can cheat me. But these rascals, they want to be cheated. If you say, "No, no, what is the wrong in illicit sex?" That means you want to be cheated. And if you say, "(indistinct) this swami is very conservative." This is the position. We want cheap things because we want to be cheated. And there are so many cheaters, they will take advantage and cheat you. This is going on.

Talk at Radha-Govinda Mandir -- March 24, 1976, Calcutta:

Prabhupāda: And that is the inspiration of my devotional life. Then I asked my father that "Give me Rādhā-Govinda Deity; I shall worship." So my father was also Vaiṣṇava. He gave me small Rādhā-Govinda Deity. I was worshiping in my house. Whatever I was eating, I was offering, and I was following the ceremonies of this Rādhā-Govinda with my small Deity. That Deity is still existing. I have given to my sister. So then I introduced Ratha-yātrā. So I.... My Ratha-yātrā was being performed very gloriously. My father used to spend money. In those days ten rupees, twenty rupees was sufficient. I hired one kīrtana party and a small friends, they..., I think the brother of the present generation, and there was another De family here, so we performed this Ratha-yātrā ceremony. According to our children's imagination, it was very gorgeous. So I think our present Manmohan.... His name is? Gabhur Bhavana? (Bengali) Gopishvara Mullik. That Gopishvara Mullik was my father's friend. So he was criticizing my father that "You are performing Ratha-yātrā ceremony and you are not inviting us." So my father said, "That is children's play. What shall I invite you? You are very big man." "Oh, so you are avoiding. In the name of children you are avoiding us." On the whole, this Ratha-yātrā festival was very gorgeously.... Then imitating me, the other, my brother like, Kangalu(?), he also introduced Ratha-yātrā. And.... Kangalu. (Bengali) So all of them introduced Ratha-yātrā, and the destination was this Thakurbari, from there. So practically what I am doing now, the same thing, Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa worship and introduction of Ratha-yātrā. I am not doing anything else. You know very well. We are now performing Ratha-yātrā ceremony practically in all big cities of the world, in San Francisco, in...

Hari-śauri: Philadelphia.

Conversation with News Reporters -- March 25, 1976, Delhi:

Reporter (3): Sometimes the suffering is self brought and sometimes a suffering is brought without self, by nature.

Prabhupāda: Eh? No, no, that is wrong. Every suffering is brought by you, yourself. Just like if you are punished by the high-court judge to be hanged, you don't make the high-court judge is the cause of your hanging. You made a situation; the high-court judge has given you the judgment that you must be hanged.

Reporter (2): Would you tell us something about the Vedic city which is being constructed in Māyāpur?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He wants to know something about the Vedic city which is being constructed in Māyāpur.

Prabhupāda: Yes, not Vedic city. Vedic planetarium. How you got this information?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: He had come to our temple earlier. He's already published one article in yesterday's paper.

Reporter (1): Which paper?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This morning I have got.

Prabhupāda: You must try to understand that we are suffering on account of our sinful activities.

Reporter (1): Sir, I am asking what is sinful activity.

Prabhupāda: You do not know?

Reporter (1): I don't know. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish.

Prabhupāda: If you go on the street and it is, there is, "Keep to the left," as soon as you go to the right, you suffer. Is it not? Immediately you go to the court. Is it not suffering? No, no, just try to understand.

Room Conversation -- April 4, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: You have kept his address?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Two devotees.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: One is that gentleman, Mr. Narayan. He's an engineer with the city electrical department, and the other is a full-time devotee. I have his address, Mr. Narayan's address.

Prabhupāda: So they are still here?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He's anxious to go back. He's going to London until August; then he's going back to Mauritius with his family.

Jagat-guru: We will invite him to come to our Durban festival. And also I've suggested that they also arrange something big, festival, because there are 600,000 Indians there, and that some of our men can go to the island and give them association.

Prabhupāda: So they'll give visa? Me?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: For you? Oh, yes. I think we have to make a chest x-ray again and take several shots for you, (laughter) no problem.

Prabhupāda: So when you are going back? Tomorrow?

Jagat-guru: Yes.

Room Conversation -- April 4, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Conscription.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, conscription. But the Indians are not drafted. There's no army for them. So we're hoping that in Durban, where you first preached at the City Hall, the young people there, if we can get them sufficiently enthused, that they'll also join, and then we'll be able to have a very big movement amongst Indian community as well. We won't lose any devotees like that from the draft.

Prabhupāda: I think our students who are going to be ministers, they are excused from draft.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No, even in South Africa the ministers.... No excuse. It's a very strict situation. If you don't go into the army, you go to jail. Even if you're a minister, they don't care. There is no religious grounds for objecting. But only the Europeans are in the army, no one else. They're afraid that if the Indians had guns, they might use them against the Europeans.

Devotee: So we're going to try and make more devotees this year, more Indian devotees especially. We've never really tried before.

Jagat-guru: Also, Śrīla Prabhupāda, you have seen on our altar, Gaura-Nitāi? We have large Gaura-Nitāi and two small, three actually, three small sets of Gaura-Nitāi Deities. The ones on the far left, just under Lord Nityānanda's feet, They are going also to South Africa. They came originally from East Africa. I mentioned it when I first came to Māyāpur(?). So we will be taking them. We have a very nice siṁhāsana built for Them, finished tomorrow, and we'll be displaying Them at all our programs, preaching programs.

Prabhupāda: Do the needful. That's all.

Morning Walk -- April 8, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: They do not know what is civilization, that is there. The difficulty is they have no education about human civilization. Bahir-artha-māninā. They are simply captivated by the external energy, bodily conception of life. They do not know what is the aim of life. This is Western civilization. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum (SB 7.5.31). This is not Western, this is the demonic civilization. They do not know what is the aim of life. Our..., the material atmosphere, they're not happy, they're failing always, missing the real point.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The people that live in the cities think that the farmers work so hard.

Prabhupāda: And these rascals rise early in the morning and start their car to go to the office, five hours coming and going, and eight hours working there...

Lokanātha: Again in the evening they have to drive back. (break)

Pañcadraviḍa: ...I saw that these big men, they were taking so many pep pills during the day to do their work, and in the evening they had to take tranquilizers to go to sleep.

Prabhupāda: Yes, I have seen so, so many advertisements. One has to take at least five to six types of.

Pañcadraviḍa: No peace of mind.

Madhudviṣa: In this way the Kali-yuga will progress, and they'll eat less and less food and take more pills, and they will think it is advancement.

Prabhupāda: Mm. Yes.

Morning Walk -- April 10, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No. Another Mercedes?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (laughter) Yes.

Hari-śauri: A Rolls Royce next time.

Prabhupāda: (laughing) No. (break) ...land you can utilize. Where is.... They say overpopulation. Where is man? Overpopulation in the city. Eko yo bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān. Kṛṣṇa has His own plan. Even overpopulation Kṛṣṇa provides. Why you are worried, "overpopulation"? You chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Why you are worried about overpopulation?

Yaśodānandana: "We are less worried now with the family planning program."

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Yaśodānandana: "With the family planning program the worry is decreasing."

Prabhupāda: Decreasing?

Yaśodānandana: They will argue like that.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Family planning, why family planning? Family planning is already there that don't marry. Why don't you accept this? Don't have sex. This is real family planning.

Morning Walk -- April 10, 1976, Vrndavana:

Hari-śauri: Perhaps we cut across this way? This is a dead end here.

Prabhupāda: No, we shall come back.

Jayādvaita: You gave that other example in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that Nṛsiṁha-deva let Hiraṇyakaśipu slip from His hands for a little while just to play with him.

Nalinī-kānta: The Vedic civilization is centered around villages, not cities?

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Nalinī-kānta: If we want to make the world Kṛṣṇa conscious...

Prabhupāda: Vedic civilization is in the forest. Go to the forest.

Hari-śauri: Renounce.

Prabhupāda: Neither in the city nor in the village. Go to the forest.

Lokanātha: But there were cities like Dvārakā.

Prabhupāda: That is another thing, but the ideal is vanaṁ gato yad dharim āśrayeta (SB 7.5.5). Go to the forest and depend on Kṛṣṇa and live there. And that is perfection. Vanaṁ gato yad dharim āśrayeta (SB 7.5.5). Go to the forest and remain, depending on Kṛṣṇa. That's all.

Recording of TV Interview -- April 20, 1976, Melbourne:

Interviewer (1): ...were minstrels who wander who wander our city streets, mumbling about Hare Kṛṣṇa, then the man to answer your questions is the man who started the Kṛṣṇa movement, His Divine Grace Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. And if you have trouble following that, the best is yet to come. His message might seem complicated to the unconverted, but when it's all boiled down, it's quite simple. All you have to do is concentrate, like Carol Jarvis did during this in-depth interview. (sound of kīrtana)

Carol Jarvis: Your Divine Grace, what prompted you to start the Kṛṣṇa movement? (From here on follow excerpts of Interview, Melbourne, 4/20/76, combined with short, loud recordings of kīrtanas)

Prabhupāda: Well, the scientists make research. One does wrong thing to do that. So our process is to carry out the order of the higher authorities. So my Guru Mahārāja, my spiritual master, asked me to do this. (inserted kīrtana)

Carol Jarvis: But you led a rather normal life—before this you were married. You were a businessman.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Carol Jarvis: What made you change suddenly?

Prabhupāda: By this association. Just like we are holding meeting, and so many boys, girls, they come. If somebody is capturing the idea, he makes further progress. (inserted kīrtana)

Carol Jarvis: Do you think the type of life that your devotees must lead...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- April 20, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Nothing. Artificial blood.... Superficially it is red water. So if red water is the life, then why you are spoiling so much blood? Keep it scientifically and push it into the dead body. I say it is, that way, it is the red water, nothing but red water. Urine is white water. I am coming to the five elements, air, water.... Then what is this bone? Earth. You can manufacture bone, hard bone, with earth or wood or something plastic. So we are analyzing the combination of the body, so everything you can manufacture. But where is the life you can manufacture? Why do you say? That is our challenge. All the ingredients of the body you can manufacture exactly like that. Ultimately you can give the beauty also of the woman or the man. But where is life? Bring life by all these things. Then I will say that you are scientist. Otherwise cheater, simply bluffing people. This thing should be stopped. Where you get the information that this, from matter life is possible. "In future." But in future.... In inceptive condition you show something. Just like formerly they were flying balloons. So because they were flying, they could say that "Future we shall fly a big city." And in the history we can see that that is not impossible, because in the inceptive condition or initiative condition we see that big things can be flown. But here you cannot even prepare an ant. You have not been able to prepare even a small ant, germ. Show me. So why do you say, "In future I shall do it"?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Some of these creature don't even have hearts.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Some of the insects don't even have hearts.

Prabhupāda: And how do you say? They have everything. You have no intelligence to understand. Everything, all anatomic physiology is there, even the small full stop. You cannot see even, microbe. That is God's creation.

Morning Walk -- April 21, 1976, Melbourne:

Guru-kṛpā: ...were so worried, but this country is so big, and there's only twelve million people. More people live in New York City than in this whole country. And they say "overpopulation."

Prabhupāda: They would not allow.

Guru-kṛpā: Yes, they don't allow.

Devotee (3): They have the "white Australia policy." (break)

Prabhupāda: ...Chinese man, Indians, they will come in large number. But they will not allow. That is the difficulty.

Guru-kṛpā: There's more cows in this country than people.

Prabhupāda: They are killing?

Guru-kṛpā: They are eating them.

Prabhupāda: And other countries, they are starving for want of milk. Therefore I say the United Nation simply barking dogs. What is the value if they cannot adjust? United Nation, all the nations should take advantage all the facilities offered, but that they will not allow. And they are named, "United." Just see. Farce.

Morning Walk -- April 21, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Switzerland.

Guru-kṛpā: ...four or five weeks. Altogether it's eleven weeks, maybe even two and a half, three months.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I think you were possibly wanting to stop in Tehran this year on the way back to India?

Prabhupāda: Hm, yes.

Devotee (2): We have word from the Melbourne City Council that they intend now not to let us have our annual Rathayātrā festival.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee (2): They want to stop our Rathayātrā festival.

Prabhupāda: Where?

Devotee (2): In Melbourne. We have got official letter from the City Council, and they are saying that we need not apply anymore.

Prabhupāda: That...

Guru-kṛpā: So we will make propaganda several months before the festival.

Prabhupāda: No, you can go to the court.

Devotee (2): They are claiming we make too much mess on the streets after the festival, too many flowers on the streets.

Prabhupāda: So it is a festival. There must be crowd. You have no festival? Unfortunate.

Room Conversation -- April 23, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Anyway, you offer some honor. Otherwise why do you give this picture?

Guest (2): Honor, not worship.

Guru-kṛpā: They put this on the top of their temples.

Guest (2): On one, two of them.

Guru-kṛpā: I have seen in Salt Lake City.

Guest (2): Salt Lake City and...

Prabhupāda: No, no, anywhere, top of.... Here you are giving a particular picture. That means...

Guru-kṛpā: Gold and silver.

Guest (2): That's right.

Prabhupāda: Stop. That means you have got respect.

Guest (2): We have respect. We do not worship.

Prabhupāda: That means that respect is partial. Our process is whomever we respect, we worship him. That is more perfect.

Press Conference -- April 27, 1976, Auckland, New Zealand:

Interviewer: So would it be true to say that perhaps without George Harrison of the Beatles the religion wouldn't be as well known as it is today?

Prabhupāda: No, not like that. That is not that. But in the Western countries nobody comes forward to give us some contribution. But this boy is very nice, he gives us sometimes some thing. He gives, and another boy, who is the great-grandson of Mr. Henry Ford—his name is Alfred—he also helps us. But mostly we get our income by selling these books. We are selling books daily about $200,000 daily. That is our main source of income. And I have made a trust will in which fifty percent of the collection is spent for reprinting the books, and fifty percent is spent for spreading this movement.

Interviewer: One thing, New Zealand cities are passing bylaws which seek to ban the chanting of your disciples in the streets. Do you get much opposition like this?

Prabhupāda: Yes, but we don't depend on the city authorities; we depend on Kṛṣṇa.

Interviewer: But does it worry you that your disciples perhaps annoy city officials by their chanting and their activities in the streets?

Prabhupāda: The city authorities, they like our chanting?

Interviewer: They're annoyed.

Press Conference -- April 27, 1976, Auckland, New Zealand:

Interviewer: Do you attempt to speak with governments and city officials and that sort of thing to spread your message?

Prabhupāda: (to devotee:) I think you have talked with these city authorities.

Devotee: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Here is the boy, he can...

Devotee: Yes, we've spoken with some of the government officials. I've spoken with or I've had contact with the cities where we have not personal contact but through the mail, and also some contact with the minister of immigrations.

Interviewer: How long do you intend to keep traveling and, and...

Prabhupāda: If I stayed four days in each center, it takes one year to travel all the centers.

Interviewer: Four days in each center takes you one year.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Three days.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We have got 102 centers all over the world.

Room Conversation -- April 27, 1976, Auckland, New Zealand:

Prabhupāda: Everyone likes; that's a fact.

Guru-kṛpa: We gave the argument before that they say it is a disturbance, but there are so many cars and airplanes which are making disturbance. They should also be stopped.

Devotee (2): Last week we wrote letters to the newspaper, and they published them, showing our view. And in Whangarei.... It's another city, a hundred miles from here. It's near the farm up north, and the devotees chant there. And the businessmen complained. And the devotees wrote a letter criticizing the materialistic businessmen, and that they didn't care for the people, only they wanted money. And they printed it this big in the newspaper, completely criticizing, and the people liked it. They put it in everything, word for word what the devotees said. So it was good.

Prabhupāda: So there is agitation against chanting. That is also good. Yes, "Hare Kṛṣṇa is bad." (laughs)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They don't want to be bothered with Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They don't want to be bothered with Hare Kṛṣṇa. Go on with their hellish life.

Prabhupāda: So we want that. Let them chant Hare Kṛṣṇa somehow or other. (devotees laugh) "We don't want to be bothered by Hare Kṛṣṇa." That means chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: And for public it is very cheap.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very inexpensive. And if they advertise it, they won't be able to handle all the people who come. It's such a central location.

Prabhupāda: It will be automatically advertised. When people will say, "Oh, there is a nice ISKCON restaurant, and it is so cheap and so nice," people will come. Just like in our Vṛndāvana temple, we don't advertise. Of course, that's.... People are coming by thousands. I thought that so long distance from the city, nobody will come. But Balarāma is so powerful, He's bringing: "Come out here." (laughter) Otherwise, I was.... What is that? Plowing? Yamunā was threatened.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, Balarāma.

Prabhupāda: And the whole Kuru dynasty was threatened.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very good class of people are coming to the restaurant, businessmen, like that.

Prabhupāda: And there is book display?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, there's a book display.

Prabhupāda: They are purchasing book also?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. They give them a Back to Godhead, complimentary copy...

Prabhupāda: Ācchā.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. And not only China, this is for all of Asia. It includes as.... Some of the persons belonging to it are the chairman of Coca-Cola, the Bankers Trust Company first vice president, all of the big banks, Bank of America senior vice president, First National City Bank vice president, all of these men.

Prabhupāda: So you can contract with all big, big men.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. And he's the president of the council.

Prabhupāda: His father?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Then he is very influential man.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very. So he immediately got...

Prabhupāda: So you should be like father like son.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He has the same name. It's just "Junior" at the end, so they know him.

Prabhupāda: No, intelligence also. Father's intelligence he must inherit. There is an Indian proverb, bāpakā beṭā sepāikā ghoḍā, kucha nehi to thoḍā thoḍā (indistinct), mean "The father's son and the soldier's horse, they acquire the quality, if not all, some, must." If one is good soldier, his horse is also trained up. There is a history in India. The horse has played heroic. The Queen of Jhansi's horse and this, our, what is called, Shivaji's horse, they have played unique part in the history. Sepāikā ghoḍā. It is animal, but because it is the horse of a famous hero, it has played. Similarly, the son of father must be as good as father. If not, to some extent. Yes. So you are the.... Your father is the leader of so many big, big businessmen. You also become leader.

Room Conversation -- May 7, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: So what kind of government it is? It is a horrible government. And they are hackney only in literature. These communist country, the people are forced to accept the government regulation. And that is all bad. I have seen in Moscow, generally the people are morose, their face not very happy. They are also Europeans, they want freedom to go here and there (indistinct) and to work. The taxi driver-first of all there is scarcity of taxi, you can not get taxi...

Guru-kṛpā: Even in Moscow, big city.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That Professor Kotofsky, I asked him, "Please arrange for a taxi." (indistinct) "Well, Swamiji, this is Moscow." So he came down to the gate—he was very virtuous—he showed me, "You go this way, actually there was 3 or 4 lane then you find a short lane, then you go this way, this way, then you get to your hotel. He showed me some short cut, personally. They... He could not call a taxi. And somewhere we went, we got a taxi, private taxi, and that man was begging for more than the fare.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That means the system...

Prabhupāda: "Can you not give me little more?"

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That means the system is a failure.

Prabhupāda: And then I could understand. And they have got that there is tourist bus, taking here and there, that bus is third class. Even less opulent than in India.

Room Conversation -- May 7, 1976, Honolulu:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How many days were you there?

Prabhupāda: One week.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Short. You were only in Moscow?

Guru-kṛpā: That is the rich city. People are fighting to get into that city, they only allow so many people to live there.

Prabhupāda: Everything restricted.

Guru-kṛpā: You cannot just decide to move to Moscow. You cannot do that. You must take permission from the government to live in Moscow.

Prabhupāda: Everything..., and we could not get nice food. There was no nice rice, wheat, fruit, flour, nothing. Fruit means the strawberries. I don't remember we could get any other fruit.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Perhaps you went at a bad season.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Everything is controlled. Whatever government will give you, they have to accept. And all the stores, it is just like, what is called? The old?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Grocery store?

Prabhupāda: Antique, antique, antique shop. That means no purchaser. People have no p..., no bank. People have no money, simply bare necessities of life their government supplies. And bus transport, buses standing in one place, best time, and people are running after. Women, men, mostly they walk.

Morning Walk -- May 12, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: No, we don't say that. We say that you take credit as far as you have been successful. Why do you say there is no God? We protest against that.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...there's a God, then they won't be making so many materialistic arrangements.

Prabhupāda: You don't require it. (break) ...so many materialistic improvements, we require open field like this. We require trees. That is nature's gift. Although we have got this car, we come here to take advantage of nature's gift. Why you have come here? The city was there. I don't like. So actually you enjoy nature's gift. Important persons, they work whole week in the city, and as soon as there is weekend they go to the village. Why? The enjoyment is in the village. They do not like to stay in the factory. It is disgusting. (break)

Devotee (1): Just like sleep. And just like when we're sleeping it's very comfortable, then why should we be afraid of dying? It's very comfortable. Death is just like sleep. When we're sleeping we feel.... So why, then, we should be afraid of death?

Prabhupāda: But you are actually afraid. Why? You say.... You are a great philosopher: "Why should we be afraid?" But if I kill you, immediately you cry. Why? Don't cry. Let peacefully die. I kill you? Why do you protest, "This man is killing me, killing me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Police! Police! Police!" Why? Die peacefully. I am helping you to die peaceful. Why you make me criminal? (break) ...says, "Thou shall not kill." If killing is peaceful, dying is peaceful, why He has prohibited?

Room Conversation with Reporter -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Devotee (1): Yes, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Then, in Boston, I stayed on the sea, on the only, but I saw the Boston city. Then I was brought to New York. So I had one friend in Butler, Pennsylvania. Hm. After my arrival, I was received by some representative of my host. So he took me to Butler, and there I stayed for twenty days. Then I came to New York. (break) One (indistinct), one Dr. Miśra, so that is the beginning of my life in New York. Then struggling, then gradually, when these boys came to me, I got some relief. And in this way, we are propagating, opening branches, and the movement is going forward.

Reporter: Are there many decisions that people asked you to make, about whether the movement should do this, or should do that, or do they bother you of that now, or are you just busy writing and translating?

Prabhupāda: No, we do not accept any—what is called?—defective suggestion. We do not accept. We have got our program. This program is coming directly from Kṛṣṇa. The Bhagavad-gītā is there.

Morning Walk -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So we agree with that theory.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hṛdayānanda: It has been given by Kṛṣṇa because he always wanted to catch fish.

Hari-śauri: They used to give us a simple example at school. They said that the people that lived in Mexico City...

Prabhupāda: No, no, we accept that. Yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante (BG 8.6). If, at the time of death, he thinks that "If I would have possessed a beak," then he gets the life. That's all. (laughter) That's a fact.

Rādhāvallabha: They say that this is the way the different types of bodies come into being, that by the desire...

Prabhupāda: That we say also. There is no difficulty. Because at the time of death, whatever you are thinking, you'll get the next body. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā.

Rādhāvallabha: They say, though, that this is how the different bodies come into being.

Prabhupāda: Yes, we say also.

Candanācārya: But can any body be generated from the imagination, any kind of...

Prabhupāda: It is not this imagination. I wanted that facility. So my subtle mind is wanting that. So nature is supplying: "All right, you get it."

Morning Walk -- June 6, 1976, Los Angeles:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You said, I think it said, he was a thousand times greater. You wrote that in the purport.

Prabhupāda: Nature's law is not like that, that you suffer for me. No. I suffer for my. It is magnanimity that I'll suffer. Sometimes they do so, but actually nature's law is different. If you have committed theft, you will suffer; why I shall suffer? Even if I say in the court that "I'll go to jail," he'll not go. (break) ...city in the world except in America, such nice roads.

Hari-śauri: The Americans are expert at building highways.

Prabhupāda: They have got money and all these.... They want to do it (laughs) (unclear) money.

Rāmeśvara: They use these arguments that they are civilized, that they are making progress.

Prabhupāda: Who?

Rāmeśvara: Americans.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that I say also. That you are fortunate. Take Kṛṣṇa consciousness and be the best nation in the world. Simply you take Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Morning Walk -- June 6, 1976, Los Angeles:

Rāmeśvara: Everyone in the country.

Prabhupāda: And the Rathayātrā also.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, it will be like going to the ball game.

Prabhupāda: Rathayātrā, introduce in every city. You have already got some national holiday?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: You'll get everywhere. In this way, one day we'll capture the whole government, and you'll become the president.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Rāmeśvara.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (laughter)

Rāmeśvara: You said Balavanta.

Prabhupāda: Balavanta may be his secretary. He can.... (laughter)

Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, I was told you once said that he would be in the White House before he's forty years old.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) No, I did not.

Morning Walk -- June 7, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That's all right. It is saved for you. Go and take it.

Mahendra: They wear the snakes and eat the rats.

Prabhupāda: Snake will die of starvation. It is better. You go and eat.

Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in Egypt, they have been able to dig underneath the ground and find the remains of ancient cities. So this is proof of the ancient civilization of Egypt. But they have not found ancient ruins of the cities of Dvārakā or Hastināpura. They do not have such...

Rādhāvallabha: There are ruins in Dvārakā.

Rāmeśvara: So they do not accept that the ancient civilization of India is old, very old.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I read one anthropology book, and it said that about 3,500 years ago in India people were only living in all the caves, and they were simply using stones and things like that, very primitive tools. No knowledge at all.

Mahendra: But they cannot explain how it was that these people evolved, these cavemen evolved such a language as Sanskrit, which not even the greatest scholar today can even begin to comprehend. It is a very great language.

Prabhupāda: That is their grudge. When they see such exalted literature, they are envious.

Morning Walk -- June 7, 1976, Los Angeles:

Candanācārya: (break) ...country, build cities and then spend billions of dollars to make the city look like the country.

Prabhupāda: Carvita-carvaṇānām. Chewing the chewed, again and again. This is their position. (japa) (break)

Rāmeśvara: On the calendar it says it is Bhīma-ekādaśī.

Prabhupāda: Bhīma-ekādaśī, yes.

Rāmeśvara: So I've been told that if one fasts on Bhīma-ekādaśī, that it is like fasting on all the ekādaśīs. Is that true?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Ekādaśī is meant for fasting, either Bhīma or Arjuna. But we cannot fast, therefore we have to take little fruits and.... Otherwise, ekādaśī means fasting.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If it is possible, should we go without eating at all?

Prabhupāda: Yes. But don't lie down and sleep.

Mahendra: Eating mahā-prasādam is also fasting.

Prabhupāda: Who says?

Mahendra: You said that to Paramahaṁsa Swami once.

Prabhupāda: And you heard from Paramahaṁsa.

Mahendra: No, I was in the room. It was when he was trying to observe Caturmāsya.

Prabhupāda: I never said that.

Mahendra: Oh, okay, I must have heard wrong.

Prabhupāda: If there is service and, on my fasting, service will be stopped, then I can take. First consideration, service. Now if somebody feels weak, he can take mahā-prasāda, render service.

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Petrol smelling everywhere.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's from these automobiles, the exhaust. They say that in some cities like New York, just living in the city itself, it is like smoking two packs of cigarettes every day because of so much pollution in the air, so contaminated. (break)...in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that the cure for madness is open space and fresh air. That's Ayurvedic method. So in the cities there's all kinds of confined spaces, the air is not all clean. There's so much madness. (break)

Prabhupāda: (in car) Scientists are changing their theories, how we can accept? Reasonably? You are changing your theories, how we can accept you are scientist? You are not sure of your position. Philosophers also, they say "I believe." What is the meaning of this philosophy?

Hari-śauri: They simply give their own opinion about something and present that as being fact, and everyone else has their own.

Prabhupāda: I have got my own opinion. Or anyone can have his own opinion. Why your opinion should be accepted? I have got.... (break) ...is that one does not understand that he is imperfect. Or he knows that he is imperfect, still, he wants to push forward his opinion. That is the difficulty. He knows he's imperfect. But he does not think that "I am imperfect. What is the value of my opinion?"

Rāmeśvara: If I have a bigger brain than someone else, and if I give my...

Prabhupāda: Comparatively, you are less crazy. That is another thing.

Morning Walk -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:

Hari-śauri: These church fathers that we've just done on the philosophy book, they are simply speculating about what was in the original Bible.

Prabhupāda: No clear conception, scientific idea. Therefore educated persons, they are not interested. "God, give us daily bread." They will say, "Why we shall go to church for begging bread? We can manufacture it, large quantity." (laughs) Why they should go? Formality: "God, give us our daily bread." "Just open a big factory and eat as much bread as we like. Why should we go to God?" (break) ...Jawaharlal Nehru, he took this view, that "For economic development why should you go to the temple, ask this demigod, that demigod, 'Give me this. Give me this'? Develop industry and get money to enjoy." That is his.... (break)...description of God in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam begins: janmādy asya yato 'nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ sva-rāṭ (SB 1.1.1). This is God, the origin of everything. Who is there who can challenge this explanation, "The origin of everything"? Now, what is that origin? Whether it is matter or sentient? No. Janmādy asya yato 'nvayād itarataś ca abhijñaḥ (SB 1.1.1). He knows everything. Therefore He's a person. Otherwise, how He can be origin of everything? Anvayād itarataś ca. Suppose I.... If I have manufactured this car, then I know every nook and corner of this car, how I have manufactured. One who has manufactured, he knows how it is working, every minute feature. Even an expert driver, he knows how many parts are there, which part is.... Anvayād itarataś ca artheṣu abhijñaḥ. If he's abhijñaḥ, if he's completely cognizant of every part of the whole creation, then He has created. (pause) All Santa Monica city?

Hṛdayānanda: Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda (break) ...a very clear day.

Prabhupāda: Clear? That is not clear. So many clouds.

Morning Walk -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...bluff subject.

Rāmeśvara: The edge of the cliff, there may be some rockslide.

Hari-śauri: Just like the path used to go there, but it fell through.

Prabhupāda: Path may slide? That is a warning?

Hari-śauri: They put that warning there so that no one can sue the city authorities if someone is killed if the cliff falls apart.

Prabhupāda: Therefore not many people come here. (break) ...animal kingdom, by nature's arrangement, the couple, one male and one female, is fixed up, fixed up, this one female, one male. But amongst the monkeys, dogs and jackals, there is no fixed up.

Hari-śauri: Anything that comes along.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore in the human society, a man and woman not fixed up, they are monkeys, jackals and dogs. By marriage it is fixed up, but if they do not fix up, they are compared with the jackals, dogs and monkeys.

Hari-śauri: Hogs as well?

Prabhupāda: Hmm? Hogs, also like.

Garden Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: (laughter) Huh? That he can send to us. Milk is so nice that it cannot be wasted, even a drop. First of all you get milk, that is the Indian system. So there is a big milk pan, and as soon as the milk is drawn it is put into the pan. The pan is in the fire. So as much as you like, drink milk, children, elderly persons. Then at night, when there is no demand for milk, it is converted into yogurt, not wasted. Whatever balance milk is there is converted into yogurt. Then in daytime also you take yogurt, as much as you like. If it is not all consumed, then it is stored in a pot. Then when that pot is enough stored, then you churn it. Churn it, and you get butter and Buttermilk. So again you take buttermilk with cāpāṭi and everything, not a single drop is lost. Then the butter, you melt it, convert into ghee and store it, it will stay for years. So not a drop of milk can be wasted. And this butter, because in the village they are eating so much milk products, they do not require butter or ghee. Maybe little, so that is stored. They go to the city. The city men they require, especially. Ghee is very important thing in the city. So they purchase. So in exchange of that money, whatever they want, they purchase in the city and come back. But the simply maintaining the cows, their economic problem is solved. Simply maintaining the cows. And to maintain cow there is no difficulty. The boys.... Just like Kṛṣṇa, as boy, was taking the cows, the calves, in the fields. They are grazing here and there, and coming back they're giving milk. Only one attendant required to take them into the pasturing ground and bring them back home. You don't require to give them food even. Simply take care, they give milk, and with milk you make so many preparations. Yes?

Dr. Wolfe: Last year, I drove with Svarūpa Dāmodara through Texas on the way to Atlanta, and I thought so much.... We watched those thousands and thousands of cattle, only beef cattle, only for slaughtering, not one milk cow anymore. And I was so acutely aware of what I had learned from you.

Prabhupāda: They do not know the civilized way of life. They are still barbars, called?

Devotees: Barbarians.

Garden Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: In South Africa.

Dr. Wolfe: The government?

Devotee: Yes.

Dr. Wolfe: It's barbarian.

Prabhupāda: Hm. I was in South Africa in, what is that city?

Hṛdayānanda: Johannesburg.

Prabhupāda: Johannesburg. From the downtown, the Indian quarters about ten miles or fifteen miles away. Indian.... African, black quarters, they are not allowed even to enter the city. They require a pass. If any black man enters the city without that passport, he will immediately be taken to police. The bus for the black man is different from the white man. I think Indians also they have got separate bus. But the bus in which the white men travel, the Indians and the black men are not allowed. Gandhi tried to adjust this injustice, but he failed. Then with determination he went to India, that "I must drive away the Englishmen." These South African white men, mostly they are Englishmen and Dutchmen. Originally, they were Englishmen and Dutchmen.

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Hṛdayānanda: Very prestigious, "Hare Kṛṣṇa Museum."

Prabhupāda: In everywhere, every center.

Hṛdayānanda: Museum, library...

Rāmeśvara: Then, eventually, Bharadvāja wants to have big museum in the city, not necessarily in our building, because the building may not have enough space. Śrīla Prabhupāda, I think it will be more prestigious if we use the art paintings to be displayed in museums or art galleries.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: That way, wealthy, upper-class people will get a chance to appreciate. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...said that beef-eating is the cause of cancer.

Devotee: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Which is correct?

Hṛdayānanda: Too much addicted. (Prabhupāda laughs)

Rādhāvallabha: This cancer problem seems to be increasing. Previously only old.... We would only hear of old people getting it. Now young people are getting it also. It is becoming very common.

Hṛdayānanda: Young people also.

Rādhāvallabha: Yes, two, one girl here got it. Another girl was suspected of having it.

Prabhupāda: What is the symptom?

Rādhāvallabha: Generally, with women, they get some lump...

Rāmeśvara: Pain, the symptom is lump and great pain. Cancer is said to be some bacteria or virus cells that are inside the body, eating the body organs.

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Hṛdayānanda: Miserable condition.

Rādhāvallabha: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: Many modern sociologists, they are predicting that in twenty or thirty years the population will increase so much on this planet that the cities will be very, very crowded, and there will be many, many new problems: no room for so many cars and not enough food, not enough housing. They predict very, very.... And then the result will be rioting. So many people will not have enough food and good places to live that they will...

Prabhupāda: So why don't you go back to home, back to Godhead? (laughs) We are trying to save them. Why you are rotting in this problem? (out of car) That reporter?

Rāmeśvara: "No obstacle."

Hari-śauri: "Death is not a problem."

Prabhupāda: They are predicting so many problems, and still the rascals will say there is no problem. Padaṁ yad vipadām. The material world is so made that in every step there is problems. (break) ...na teṣām.

Rāmeśvara: They say that as the population increases in the cities, there must be rioting and fighting. There will be so many people without the minimum necessities of life, so much exploitation of the rich upper class.

Prabhupāda: Why not go to New Vrindaban? That they will not do.

Rāmeśvara: There is no training how to live in New Vrindaban. They are educated only to live in the cities and work like mūḍhas. Even now.... One of the biggest problems that they're predicting is unemployment. They cannot...

Prabhupāda: Yes. In America it has begun, what to speak of other countries.

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Candanācārya: ...density that we already have some population like in China and things like that.

Prabhupāda: In Los Angeles we find so many houses: "Now Renting." (break)

Rādhāvallabha: They told us in school that in India there are so many people, practically you cannot even move. But when we go to India we see there is miles and miles of empty land, simply a few cities where it's crowded.

Prabhupāda: Cities are crowded. Village? Very nice. (break)

Nalinīkaṇṭha: ...there were so many people just in India that Mahārāja Ugrasena had ten quadrillion bodyguards alone.

Prabhupāda: At that time the India was whole planet. (break)

Rādhāvallabha: ...the body moves because of the presence of the soul. The scientists say that the body moves due to electronic impulses from the brain that cause the muscles to contract.

Prabhupāda: Rascal, why don't you produce it? Why you talk nonsense?

Rādhāvallabha: I can't produce. It has happened by evolution over many millions of years. I don't have that long.

Prabhupāda: So why you are dreaming? Do it practically.

Room Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Bharadvāja: What is some example of that?

Prabhupāda: Just like you create a motorcar for easy transportation, and you have experience: the power problem, the accident problem. If there is no power problem, you get more petrol, and you commit more accidents. And you stop car, then you are unable to move, because you now you have created city. If you want to go to consult a doctor, you have to go thirty miles from your residence. You require doctor, but because you have now car, you have big, big roads. So your doctor, medical consultant, is living thirty miles off. So you have to ride on cars to go to the market, to go to the office, to go to the medical man. So car is required. And as soon as car is there, the accident is there, and there is, power shortage is there, you require big, big roads, so on, so on, so on.

Hari-śauri: Pollution.

Prabhupāda: So where is the solution of your problems? It has created more problems.

Kīrtanānanda: So village life is best.

Prabhupāda: That is the best life. That you develop. It will be an ideal thing. You haven't got to go office fifty miles off. Just get little vegetables and milk, bas, your problem is solved. It is practical. Why you should go fifty miles off?

Rādhā-vallabha: In New York, to go to work, they go into the subway car, and there are so many people...

Prabhupāda: That... Not only, the ferry, steamer, bus, train, subway, cars, there are so many things. I've seen it. They start for going to the office early in the morning, and they come back at eleven o'clock at night. And few hours, that is their family life. And that hours are wasted by sleeping and by sex. This is their life. And to forget all these miserable conditions, drink. This is civilization.

Room Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Rādhā-vallabha: I think all Kīrtanānanda Mahārāja ever thinks of is when you are coming.

Prabhupāda: I am also thinking of their fresh vegetables and fresh milk. (devotees laugh) Which is not avail...

Hayagrīva: Remember the first time you came out, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Hayagrīva: Remember the first time you came? You walked up the road. Our car, we tried to take you in the car, but it didn't work, it broke. Power wagon.

Kīrtanānanda: It got stuck.

Prabhupāda: All fresh vegetable, fresh milk, this is celestial. Who has got the opportunity in the city? Automatically. (noise like drums in background)

Devotee: Some kind of parade.

Prabhupāda: All right.

Devotees: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda. (end)

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Ambarīṣa: You should signal for him to stop then.

Devotee (1): (break) ...attract people back to the cities. It's called the Renaissance Project.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Devotee (1): It's, Ambarīṣa's uncle, Henry Ford II, he is building, along with many different companies, a million dollar project.

Prabhupāda: Why not at Māyāpur? Huh?

Devotee (1): Ambarīṣa? I was explaining the Renaissance Project, and, ah, to try to attract people back to the city, they are building a million dollar project. Prabhupāda said: "Why not Māyāpur?"

Ambarīṣa: Jaya.

Prabhupāda: Lake here dried up or what?

Hari-śauri: Looks like it.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...attracting men to the city.

Devotee (1): Because everyone is leaving the city.

Prabhupāda: That is good.

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Hari-śauri: But not from an industrialist's point of view.

Ambarīṣa: The cities are simply becoming for the low-class people. Cities are simply filled now with the low-class people. No respectable people can walk safely in the streets.

Devotee (1): In Detroit at five o'clock it becomes like a ghost town. No one walking. They are all afraid. If low-class people move into the buildings, everything becomes rundown, not kept up. So now they're investing millions and millions of dollars to build new buildings, new stores, to make it attractive again.

Prabhupāda: They'll not attempt to make the low-class men high class. Huh? Why they are lacking that point?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Actually the high-class man and the low-class man, their activities are the same. Simply they are living in bigger and smaller houses. They smoke the same cigarettes and they drink the same.

Prabhupāda: Therefore I say why not make them high class.

Hari-śauri: There's no high-class men to teach them.

Prabhupāda: We are there.

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: It is just like Jagannātha temple.

Hari-śauri: That, right in the distance there with the light on the top. Yeah, same design. (break)

Devotee (2): ...after us anymore because they don't have the money.

Prabhupāda: Detroit has got no money? Such a big industrial city. Neglected. They have got money.

Hari-śauri: They're not keeping this park up very well.

Prabhupāda: No. Because nobody comes here.

Hari-śauri: Too dangerous.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā?

Hari-śauri: Many of the big parks in the big cities, they are full of thieves and all kinds of other people.

Prabhupāda: That means they cannot improve the condition of the people. Just like at the airport, everyone is checked. There is no gentlemen. Why everyone is checked? That means the whole mass of people, they're all rogues and thieves. Therefore it is necessary to keep an ideal, an ideal class of men brāhmaṇas. Then people will follow. But there is no such.... Everyone is coolie. That's all. Everyone is. They are making everyone coolie. Coolie civilization. One officer came to see me in Perth, Australia. So I told him, this is a civilization of fourth-class men. You remember?

Devotee (2): We heard the tape.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (laughs)

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Hmm.

Hari-śauri: Very dirty and overgrown. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...the Indian park. Not like American park.

Hari-śauri: Living in the city is a very fearful existence.

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) ...construction is. Nobody knows when it will be finished.

Devotee (1): Now they build a building, now they are building so that they will only last for twenty years or so, and then they will tear it down and build new ones.

Ambarīṣa: In Boston, they built a very tall building, and already it's sinking. And the windows are falling out, and it cannot be used. Millions of dollars they spent on this building. (break)

Devotee (1): ...percentage of unemployment in the city. They are always trying to make new jobs for the people because there are so many people not working. And then they claim welfare and the state supports them.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Devotee (1): The state supports them by welfare. So they are just idle and getting money from the government, and then they just cause trouble. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...storefront building?

Devotee (1): Yes, this is a black area.

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Ambarīṣa: This used to be actually the best street in Detroit. About maybe seventy-five years ago, all the wealthy people lived on this street, Jefferson Avenue, and then the black people moved in and took over, and then all their businesses, they went out of business, and now it's all boarded up. Very dangerous place. All the white people in the suburbs, they live in fear of all the black people in the city.

Prabhupāda: The government cannot manage?

Ambarīṣa: No. The mayor is black. The police they cannot do anything.

Devotee (4): The police force is also becoming black. He's putting black men in charge of every department of the city, and they're mismanaging everything.

Prabhupāda: There is possibility of another civil war?

Ambarīṣa: Yes. Possibly some sort of a race war or something. In Boston, they have a lot of trouble because of this bussing. They bus the black children into the white neighborhoods to go to school to achieve equal education, and the white communities do not like this. In Boston there has been a lot of violence between the black people and the white people. Very much hatred, very much hate each other.

Prabhupāda: So only remedy is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Ambarīṣa: Yes. About a month ago there was a black lawyer, and he was walking out of the City Hall in Boston, and some white people beat him with an American flag. They beat him with an American flag and hurt him very badly, and this caused very much...

Prabhupāda: Commotion.

Ambarīṣa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: There is hatred within. Artificially they have given equal rights. (break)

Devotee (4): ...because in bad neighborhood, (break) (continues onboard bus)

Prabhupāda: ...two vans.

Satsvarūpa: Besides this, well, we have so many more. Ghanaśyāma and the men in the library party, they have three vans, and then the men who finance their travels, they have two vans, so that's another five.

Prabhupāda: Along with this van, another van goes?

Satsvarūpa: Yes. And since we have this and the Deity worship, the collecting has increased and the book distribution, because now they're more regulated and it's not so difficult.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They have a kitchen in the back, Śrīla Prabhupāda. And a shower and toilet, a sink. It's complete.

Prabhupāda: Small house.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Just like the Kāliya serpent, poisoning the river. But you have come to dance on their heads, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Sometimes our boys, when they go into the city, they see the big buildings like the teeth of Aghāsura. But they say, "Śrīla Prabhupāda will protect us. We will go into the smelly city, we will distribute the books in the belly of the city, but Śrīla Prabhupāda will come and he will protect us." (Prabhupāda laughs)

Prabhupāda: What price they want for this island?

Mādhavānanda: Very large amount.

Rakṣaṇa: We can have a Māyāpur complex and a Detroit complex.

Mādhavānanda: I don't know exactly. (break)

Satsvarūpa: ...Sundays ago, one Indian man asked after the Sunday lecture why does Kṛṣṇa like a peacock feather, or why does Kṛṣṇa have a peacock feather? So Mādhavānanda answered, "Because He likes it." And the man said, "This is not an answer. There has to be some reason." So then I said, "You cannot question why Kṛṣṇa likes something. He's a person." But he wasn't satisfied.

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is God; whatever He likes, you have to supply. That is God. Why He likes, we cannot question. That is not the business of the servant. So as servant we simply obey the orders. That's all. That is real servant. Is there any instance the servant is asking, "Why you are asking me to supply you this?" Therefore what would be the position of the servant? He would be dismissed. Bhṛtyaś cottara-dāyakaḥ. That is very dangerous.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Why shall I not? Government servants, they live in the best place. We are Kṛṣṇa's servants, the supreme government. We must have the best car, best house, the best food, (laughter) everything. You are unfortunate, you are wretched, you cannot possess this. We are government's servants. Why the governor is living in the best house of the city?

Mādhavānanda: We said, "You can live here with us." She said, "Thank you."

Prabhupāda: Without any charges. Did you not say? But as soon as you shall say there is no tea, he'll go away. "Oh, horrible." (laughter) Just see. And you have to rise early in the morning. "Oh, it's still horrible." And chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. "Ah, still."

Hari-śauri: There are so many apparent contradictions in our life-style, the karmīs are just baffled. They see us living in a big nice house and enjoying such nice grounds and everything, and then we tell them we get up at three-thirty and take a cold bath and do so many..., and we don't drink or smoke or anything. They can't understand.

Satsvarūpa: The Sunday newspaper here a month ago did a very big story, the whole front cover. And it was called "Kṛṣṇa Consciousness: Salvation or Slavery."

Hari-śauri: That was that article that you saw in Honolulu.

Mādhavānanda: These are our two biggest book distributors of the women-Lekhaśravantī and mother Jagadhātrī.

Prabhupāda: Hmm.

Mādhavānanda: They claim that when we chant, we hypnotize ourselves.

Prabhupāda: And still we save expenditure. You hypnotize by drinking. (laughter) We haven't got to pay for that, whiskey bottle. That is also hypnotizing. You want to forget all day's labor by drinking. That is also hypnotizing. Or by gambling. So we also hypnotize. Better hypnotizing method.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Makhanlāl: (laughter) These are some pictures of our farm project, St. Louis farm project.

Prabhupāda: Yes, increase farm projects. It is very nice project. Self-dependent. Very good. Kṛṣṇa personally, He lived in village, farm, cows, calves, land, Govardhana Hill. It is very nice. Land, in America, you have got so much land. Produce vegetable, grains, milk, eat sumptuously, no economic question. Prepare very nice product. And make some money by sending ghee in the city. Śrutakīrti will take charge. (laughter) There is sea also? No.

Makhanlāl: There's a small creek in one...

Prabhupāda: Not ocean.

Makhanlāl: Not ocean, no.

Hari-śauri: That's just the hills in the background.

Prabhupāda: I think this farm organization will not be liked by the government.

Hari-śauri: Because of the self-sufficiency? Once they know that we can live independently, they won't like it.

Mādhavānanda: They don't like it already. They are attacking in New Vrindaban, publicity saying that this is just a hippie farm and this and that. They don't like.... It is the state. They see that we are living independently of the entire society. They don't like that. They want everyone to be following their way of society.

Prabhupāda: Why not our way of? If you want to enforce your way of life, why not I enforce my way of life? Then where is my independence? You cannot enforce your way of life. This is standard life.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: That is good sign.

Devotee: One farmer called his tractor the Hare Rāma tractor.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) They are getting daily fresh vegetable, fresh milk. It is very palatable.

Mādhavānanda: We wanted to have a cow here, but they won't allow one within the city limits.

Prabhupāda: That is the difficulty. The government is rākṣasa. So you have to take charge of the government. First of all make propaganda, the majority of population may (be) in favor of you. Then you'll get vote. This is the easiest process. If majority people likes, that "These Kṛṣṇa conscious men are very nice," then you make a candidate—"Vote for Kṛṣṇa conscious person, such and such." They'll vote. In this way, you'll capture the Senate, then government, then President's office. It is very.... At least, there must be majority of the people sympathizers of this movement. Then it will be successful. So you do everything exemplified, and people will vote. But it is difficult in this way, that "These people are prohibiting intoxication and gambling. How we can live without this?" That is the difficulty. They cannot imagine even that without these things one can live. Is it not?

Hari-śauri: It's a fact. If you stop them doing that, they'll have no activity, just working.

Rakṣaṇa: We should expand our New Bhakta program so that they can have weekend stays in āśramas, have practical experience.

Prabhupāda: That they are coming.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Mādhavānanda: We have good facility here for it.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. The clay is soft here?

Mādhavānanda: Well, usually they purchase clay, don't they? Bharadvāja's? Usually they purchase art clay in America.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Fuller's earth. That is wanted, Fuller's earth.

Mādhavānanda: Actually the previous owner of this house, he wanted to make this a restaurant, a very posh restaurant on the waterfront, and he applied for many, many months to get permission from the city. And finally he got it. So actually we have restaurant status here. It would be very easy for us to start a restaurant. People would come.... When people see the house, they are so amazed.

Hari-śauri: That would be a big attraction—a waterside restaurant.

Prabhupāda: Hmm, yes.

Mādhavānanda: We could have tables and chairs on the grounds.

Prabhupāda: No, we are not going to do that. Better make it a doll exhibition. And give them prasāda free. Restaurant in the city, that is all right. Not here. Nobody will come to the restaurant from the city. That is not possible. But we give them free prasāda.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Here, in this world, everything has got six changes. Birth, then stay, and then develop, then by-products, then dwindle, then finish. Everything. So the motorcar civilization, it was born. And now the time has come it is dwindling, and it will be finished. Just like railway; railway no more interested, anybody. But when it was invented, it was very important. Now it is useless. That is the nature of everything here in this material world. It cannot be permanent benefit. That they do not know. They become very enthusiastic when some new thing is born. Child is born, I am very happy. The same child, when he's dead, I am unhappy. But one must know: what is born, it will die. So everything material has got a period of development, then it dwindles, and then finishes. So from this nature's law, we can see this motorcar attraction, utility, it will finish. It will not stay.

Mādhavānanda: Now everyone wants to travel by air. In some large cities, the airports are so crowded, there is so much traffic overhead, that now they have to develop means of...

Prabhupāda: All accident takes place while coming down. Or while going up. On the sky there is no danger.

Devotee: They call it traffic control system in the sky. Just like there is traffic on the road, they call it the traffic control system. They have so much traffic in the air.

Prabhupāda: What they control?

Hari-śauri: They keep them flying around the airport until there's room for them to come in.

Prabhupāda: That already they are doing. When there is no space, they send news, that "Don't come down." So they come like this.

Morning Walk -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: East Berlin. As Sanskrit text.

Devotees: Jaya.

Devotee (1): Śrīla Prabhupāda? When we're distributing on this program, we go to very small towns where people are not very much exposed to the degradedness of the big cities, and we're having great success with the people because they are a little more innocent. But we're having a problem with this other group that goes around, and they do saṅkīrtana just like us, but for māyā. And then when we go in the parking...

Prabhupāda: They chant Hare Kṛṣṇa?

Devotee (1): No.

Prabhupāda: Then, that is not possible. (laughter)

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: They'll not last.

Devotee (1): But Śrīla Prabhupāda, they mistake us. When we go up and approach them with our books, they think, "Oh, you are this rascal." They know he's a cheater. And it's causing a lot of difficulty with our distribution. I was just wondering what we can do about it.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Hari-śauri: Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Room Conversation with Ambarisa and Catholic Priest -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: The back building? That is a different building?

Śrutikīrti: No, yeah. This is condominiums, houses, for people living above, so the restaurant is just that one floor. That's what we would be purchasing, not the whole building.

Ambarīṣa: The kitchen is inside the big building.

Śrutikīrti: But it's very choice space. It's just two blocks from what's called the Ritz Hotel, which is most famous hotel in the country, they have in every large city. These pictures, that glassed-in area, that would all be just the serving area. Then the kitchen is behind the wall. There would be a large kitchen facility, where all the devotees would be cooking.

Prabhupāda: Kitchen is within the building?

Śrutikīrti and Ambarīṣa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So one-story building also included?

Ambarīṣa: Yes, there's a kitchen and dish-washing room and office, storage...

Śrutikīrti: All inside.

Prabhupāda: Nice.

Room Conversation with George Gullen, President of Wayne State University -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Everyone's body is temporary, either human body or cat's body, dog's body. But the human body is important because in the human body we have developed consciousness by which we can understand what is God. The cats and dogs, they cannot, they haven't got that developed consciousness. Therefore if we do not use this developed consciousness for understanding God and our relationship with Him, then we are no better than cats and dogs. Cats and dogs cannot be educated about God, but a human being can be educated. That is the distinction between animals and man. But modern education is keeping them in ignorance about God, so they are no better than cats and dogs. And how can you bring peace among cats and dogs? Can you bring in peace calling all the dogs of your city and sit down peacefully? No, that is not possible. So if we keep our citizens like cats and dogs, then how we can expect peace?

George Gullen: We are much in ignorance about those matters, I understand that, and...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Complete ignorance, like animals. So the leaders of the society, if they are serious about advancement of human civilization, they must take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, or God consciousness; otherwise, they'll be baffled.

Room Conversation -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: You may read that.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "One of India's biggest and most ancient religious festivals, Ratha-yātrā, the festival of the chariots, which has been enacted in several Western cities in recent years, is to be staged in South Africa in July. The festival in honor of Lord Kṛṣṇa is planned to be held in Durban next month by the local branch of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, widely known as the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. Based on the thousands-of-years-old annual parade of the three main deities of the Jagannātha temple on huge chariots through the streets of Purī, Orissa, the festival has been staged by devotees of Lord Kṛṣṇa in major world cities such as London, Paris, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Montreal and Melbourne, following the spreading of Kṛṣṇa consciousness amongst thousands of Westerners in the decade since the founding of the movement in 1966 by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. Almost a million devotees participate in the chariot festival held every summer at Purī, where they offer oblations to Lord Kṛṣṇa; lend a hand, tugging the ropes, to pull the huge chariots; line the grand route; or simply attend to see the color and pageantry from high vantage points. Jagannātha-The three colossal chariots from which the term Jagannātha is derived carry the three Jagannātha Deities of Lord Balarāma, the Lord who gives spiritual strength and pleasure; Lady Subhadrā, one who is the auspicious one; and Lord Jagannātha, the Lord of the universe,"—with a capital L—"on the three-kilometer journey symbolizing Lord Kṛṣṇa's visit to the town of His childhood pastimes. This year ISKCON will sponsor Ratha-yātrā festivals in ten cities worldwide. Durban, however, is not amongst them, as the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement is fairly new and has not yet established itself on a firm basis and increased its following in Durban. Branch members are enthusiastic and are hoping to organize a procession of their own through the streets of Durban to coincide with the festivals which will be held in several major cities."

Prabhupāda: They are arranging like that or not? Our branch there?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They want to. I told them that better to wait until they have some more local support, because they would have to have Deity worship, and I don't think they're ready for Jagannātha deities there. There's only eleven devotees in Durban. So when they have some more local support, they can start holding.

Prabhupāda: No, this Jagannātha festival will be participated by all the Indians. There is no doubt about it. So our few men, and with the cooperation of the local Indians, it can be successful.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No doubt, but what about the daily worship? Should we have Jagannātha deities if it's not possible for worshiping them? Should we have them just for the festival?

Prabhupāda: What is the difficulty of worshiping? You are already worshiping Gaura-Nitāi. Then what is the difficulty? The same.

Room Conversation -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: No, one brāhmaṇa, half brāhmaṇa will do. Only one hand will do.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Okay. "According to Ṛddha dāsa brahmacārī, head of the local mission, the festival of the chariots glorifies Lord Jagannātha. The Lord of the universe and the chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra by people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds in cities in the world over has turned into a truly international event. Durban, with its large Hindu population, is aware of the divine status of Lord Kṛṣṇa, and we pray that by organizing our own chariot festival, we will be able to extend our message to a wider audience."

Prabhupāda: Do it immediately; they are eager. Begin this year. Yes, they'll get life, the Hindus. Immediately advise them. Just like I began in San Francisco on the truck. You know that? So you can begin in that way.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That was the first ratha cart?

Prabhupāda: Yes. I suggested Śyāmasundara that on a truck you make a ratha-like dome, and put this. It was successful.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It was in New York?

Prabhupāda: It was San Francisco. The first beginning was in San Francisco.

Room Conversation -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Hari-śauri: They'll do anything for money.

Prabhupāda: Now, in the Kali-yuga, things will degrade so low that if I see I have no money and if you have got some few cents with you, I shall kill you and take it. That day will come. Very dangerous condition is coming forward. Yes, if things go on like this. Just like we saw in Detroit, the whole city is dangerously situated. Therefore nobody purchased that house.

Jagadīśa: Eighty percent of the people in the city are black.

Prabhupāda: And the white men, they are very much afraid of these black men. They have to be afraid.

Jagadīśa: They've taken over the city.

Prabhupāda: Without them, the factories cannot go on. That's all. The white men cannot work so hard. How they...? No gentleman can do that. This kind of work is meant for the fourth-class, fifth-class men. Therefore they cannot say anything. They require. And they know that their money will be taken away again by supplying them wine. They'll pay, and next moment, the wine merchant will take away. And the government will get huge profit without doing anything. And excise tax. Excise tax, government hasn't got to invest or do anything—simply take the tax.

Interview with Professors O'Connell, Motilal and Shivaram -- June 18, 1976, Toronto:

Prof. O'Connell: Don't you have a gurukula in Texas?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Prof. O'Connell: Is there any chance of having a gurukula in Canada?

Prabhupāda: Why not? We can...

Prof. O'Connell: Nice city.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Gurukula means to teach them a way of life, that's all. Brahmacārī guru-gṛhe vasan dānta, how to control senses, the first business. Dānta. Śānta dānta, peaceful and controlling senses.

Prof. O'Connell: Swamiji, if somebody is in the movement for several years and feels that he's not making progress and leaves, is he looked upon as a sinner or enemy? How do the devotees feel about persons like that?

Prabhupāda: Not like.... Just like in college, school, some student making rapid progress, some of them are a little slow. That does not mean that he should he rejected. He should be given chance. But if he follows the regulative principles, there is no chance of falling down. The regulative principle is that you refrain from these activities: illicit sex, meat-eating, intoxication and gambling, and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. That's all. That will make him perfect. Very easy. We don't say no sex; we say illicit sex. So if you want sex, you become a gentleman, marry and live like a gentleman. Why illicit sex? There are many gṛhastha devotee. Just like Caitanya Mahāprabhu's direct associate, Nityānanda, He was a gṛhastha. Caitanya Mahāprabhu Himself was a gṛhastha. He married twice. First wife died, he married second wife. So gṛhastha is not rejected. Simply it is not that simply sannyāsīs will go back to home. No. Everyone can go. Striyaḥ śūdrās tathā vaiśyāḥ. They can go also. But one must be Kṛṣṇa conscious. Caitanya Mahāprabhu's recommendation is that you remain your place-don't try to change it artificially—but be Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is required. And that is also very easy, how to become Kṛṣṇa conscious. Read Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, you become Kṛṣṇa conscious. At home or out of home, it doesn't matter. Sthāne sthitāḥ śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhiḥ. You remain in your situation, place, and śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāk, and hear, just lend your aural reception of the words of Kṛṣṇa. So that day will come, Kṛṣṇa, who is ajita, you can conquer Him. Ajito 'pi jito 'py asi. Nobody can conquer Kṛṣṇa, but by this method, one can conquer Kṛṣṇa.

Morning Walk -- June 18, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: ...is sympathetic with this movement. Everyone wants godlessness. And this movement is preaching about God, so nobody likes us. (break)

Devotee: They've poisoned the lakes so much in Canada now that they've been making an attempt to turn rivers around in northern Ontario to flush the lakes out like a toilet, so they can flush part of the water down to cities like Chicago. (break) (laughter)

Prabhupāda: To save all these botherations. You live here? How long you'll live in Canada?

Devotee: Nine years.

Prabhupāda: No...

Devotees: How long will you live here.

Devotee: I don't know. (laughter)

Satsvarūpa: ...the leaf movement. That movement is another watering of the leaf and branches instead of the root, to try to improve the lakes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ paramam avyayam. It has been published in the paper that we consider everyone a rascal, miscreant...

Devotee: Sinful.

Prabhupāda: ...who is not Kṛṣṇa conscious. That has been published. (laughter) You have seen it?

Viśvakarmā: Which paper was that?

Devotees: Los Angeles Times. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...question? Tell it.

Room Conversation -- June 18, 1976, Toronto:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Vāsudeva.

Prabhupāda: He was homosex and sex, everything.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Here, Śrīla Prabhupāda, in this city.... I haven't been back in so many years to America. Things have become more degraded. I'm watching women and women walking arm around each other. And I asked, "What is this?" "Oh," he says "they are lesbians." Women together, girlfriends. They don't mix with men.

Prabhupāda: This is now very much prevalent in America.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No higher consciousness.

Prabhupāda: I had one disciple, she was for that purpose (?), yes.

Satsvarūpa: So one professor is already here.

Prabhupāda: Let him come.

Satsvarūpa: This is Shivaram.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda? Should I turn this light on?

Prabhupāda: Yes. You also sit down. Note down.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I want to get the newspapers that you wanted. (break)

Prabhupāda: What can I do? (laughs)

Jayādvaita: I'll speak to Rāmeśvara and see if we can do something to publish it. (break)

Prabhupāda: I began with these men are running in car and the dog is running on leg, where is the difference. His running by car is his advancement of civilization. They are taking running by car, never mind the passenger is a dog. (laughter) But the passenger is running on car, a dog, therefore he's a dog.

Morning Walk -- June 21, 1976, Toronto:

Indian man (4): Prabhu, these things (indistinct) we say. Indian women or even men, those who are in the village life. Well, I don't say all, but most of them, they obey these things right from the very childhood itself. So...

Prabhupāda: We are jumping to the village.

Indian: Well village is a little bit pure life you know, but in the cities of course people get involved too much in...

Prabhupāda: Pure life, village—doesn't matter village or city. If you become devotee, then pure life. It is not that because one is living in city, therefore he's polluted, one is living in village, no. Unless one becomes devotee, there is no question of becoming good.

Indian man (1): Prabhupāda, there's a very important question in my mind all the time. How a Godbrother should treat the Godbrother with great (indistinct) to produce more love of Godhead and to (indistinct) in them?

Prabhupāda: You show example. If other Godbrother is not treating you well, you treat him well. Then it will be right. Why you should deviate, that "This Godbrother is not treating me well, so I shall do also"? Āpani ācari' prabhu jīvera. You treat well. You show the example how to treat his Godbrother. (break) ...Mahāprabhu's teaching,

tṛṇād api sunīcena
taror api sahiṣṇunā
amāninā mānadena
kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ
(CC Adi 17.31)

So who is treating me good or bad, I don't want to bother about it. Let me become humbler than the grass, tolerant than the tree, and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Garden Conversation -- June 22, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: That mercy depends on Him. You cannot dictate Him. If I am merciful, that will depend on me, whether I can show you mercy or I can condemn you. That is, depends on me. Simply on the basis of "God is merciful," I can do all unlawful things, this is not practical proposal. Merciful means it depends on me. Whether I shall show mercy or I shall be very strong and strict, that is my will, freedom. I may show you mercy, I may not show. You cannot force me, that "You must become merciful." That is not right. God is really merciful. Otherwise, how He's supplying this... In the morning if a fog, so God mercifully has asked sun, "Now give them some sunlight." So we are enjoying. He is merciful. When there is sunshine you see the sinful man and the pious man, both enjoy. That is His mercy. When he bestows His mercy, it is for all of them, either you are sinner or you are pious. That is God's mercy. Just like the cloud when it pours water, it does not make any discrimination. On the sea, there is also rainfall; on the rocks also, there is rainfall, where there is no necessity of rain. Therefore where is necessity of rainfall on rock? What is the use? There is no use. It is simply waste. So God also wastes: "All right, you take. You don't require; you also take." In the ocean there is no need of water, but when... The cloud pours water on the ocean also. Only on the land we can utilize, but God is so merciful, exactly like the raincloud, He is so merciful, where there is no necessity they are also getting rain, "Take rain." That is merciful. Without any discrimination, whether you want or not want, "Take it." That is mercy. You can show your mercy when there is scarcity water—you can bring some tanks of water from other places and put here—but how long you'll do it? But when the God is merciful, He'll pour rain so in large quantity that everyone will benefit. That is God's greatness. You'll have to spend so much money, labor, to bring a few buckets of water from other place. Beyond that, you cannot do anything. But God is so powerful, so great, that within a twinkling of, within a few minutes only, immediately He can overcast with cloud and overflood the whole tract of land. That is God's greatness. You have to understand God's greatness in that way. If the sinful, number of sinful men are great, God immediately starts one war, and within few years, all finished. Russia finished, America finished, everyone. That is greatness of God. In this way try to understand how God is great in every activity. In mercy He's great, in cruelty He's great. If He wants to show cruelty, He's the greatest cruel. No discrimination, all finished. Never mind women, children or cats, dogs—all finished. That is cruelty, greatness of cruelty. Then there is greatness of mercy. So that is greatness. So you study, in God, the greatness, how great He is. At night you have so many lights for illuminate your city, home, and so many electric powerhouse going on, and God is so great that one sun-immediately, all light. There is no need of powerhouse, there is no need of matches, there is no need of this light, that light. Take sunlight. That is His greatness. And within a second. When night is going on, we have seen.

Prabhupada Visits Palace and Garden -- June 22, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Kīrtanānanda: It's OK.

Prabhupāda: These are specially made?

Kulādri: Yes, special for you, in New York City, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Kīrtanānanda: And this is the kind of doors and the stained glass work is being done like this. The marble is being worked like this.

Prabhupāda: This is lead?

Kīrtanānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Like in the church. Who has done this painting?

Kīrtanānanda: That is, I think, from India.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Kīrtanānanda: These pictures are rose quartz. This is rose quartz and twenty-four-carat gold.

Prabhupāda: Gold? (laughter)

Kulādri: Twenty-four karat.

Prabhupāda: In that Detroit house, so much gold. That is also like this. What are these?

Kīrtanānanda: This is a sample of the handles.

Prabhupāda: Plumbing?

Kīrtanānanda: Like those on the doors. But we are just śūdras; we don't know how to do anything else.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. What for these marbles?

Kīrtanānanda: That will go on the wall in the bathroom, Italian cremo marble. Here's a picture of how the windows are being done in jāli work. This is being cast out of white cement.

Prabhupada Inspects New BTG -- June 24, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: What is this article? Ah. "Kṛṣṇa Consciousness-The Spirit of '76." "Curing the Crimes of a Lifetime." Vibhavatī. "Curing the Crimes"—read it.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (reads) "Adapted from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, translation and commentary by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda." In the middle there is a picture of Arjuna piercing the target, and Draupadī. "With the recent disgrace of an American president still fresh in our minds, it is interesting to read of a similar case in ancient times. Five thousand years ago a blind king named Dhṛtarāṣṭra dishonored his high post and caused the death of millions. This story is of special importance even today, because he found an antidote to the crimes of a lifetime and in his old age became self-realized. King Dhṛtarāṣṭra was the acting monarch of Hastināpura, the capital of the Vedic kingdom of Bhārata, which five thousand years ago, according to the Vedic literature, spread over most of the planet. Hastināpura was on the banks of the Yamunā River at the present-day site..., at the site of present day Delhi. As its name indicates-hasti means elephant—it was a city full of opulently decorated elephants. Noble men rode elaborate chariots past marble palaces inlaid with glittering jewels. The sweet smell of incense drifted out of lattice windows. Trees bearing fruits and flowers lined the wide streets, which were sprinkled with scented water. There was no hint of poverty or distress. Hastināpura was the crown jewel of the abundant Vedic civilization. From the beginning, Dhṛtarāṣṭra's position as king was never legal, for he was blind, and Vedic law ruled that a blind man cannot be king. Thus the throne went to his younger brother Pāṇḍu. But when Pāṇḍu died in his young manhood, Dhṛtarāṣṭra began ruling on behalf of Pāṇḍu's five sons, who were still children. In an age of great and honorable kings, Dhṛtarāṣṭra was an exception. Swayed by his eldest son Duryodhana's ruthless lust for power, Dhṛtarāṣṭra began to abuse the guardianship of the Pāṇḍavas by closing his already blind eyes to the planned and purposeful efforts of Duryodhana to destroy the boys. As the descendant of a great royal dynasty, Dhṛtarāṣṭra had the lineage and rearing of a proper monarch, but it seemed that he was as blind spiritually as he was physically. Although he admired and even loved the five fatherless princes, he began to contemplate taking away their kingdom, and even their lives."

Prabhupāda: At seven o'clock we shall go there?

Kīrtanānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: What is time now?

Kīrtanānanda: Six. Six o'clock, five past six.

Prabhupāda: Oh. All right. (exits room) (end)

Room Conversation -- June 24, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Kulaśekhara: At John Lennon's estate, remember? In London. You said to me, the tractor, you said, this is the cause of all the trouble. That it took all the work from the young men and they went to the city and became entangled in the sense gratification in the cities. So I've noticed in the city there's much more passion, but living in the country is simpler.

Prabhupāda: Yes, passion, there must be. When you have got the facility, naturally we are lusty, and when we have got the facility, then we take to it.

Kulaśekhara: The country is more peaceful. It's easier to think of spiritual life.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Less disease. Less brain taxing. Everything is less. So balance time, utilize for Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And if you have got temple, it is very happy life. Just for your food work little, and balance time engage yourself in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This is ideal life. Just see minute fibers on the flower. Can anyone manufacture this? So small fibers. And how brilliant it is. If you study only one flower, you become God conscious. There is a machine which we call nature. From that machine, everything is coming. But how machine is perfect? And who has discovered this machine?

Kulaśekhara: In London you said they do not know that the butterflies and flowers are painted, but Kṛṣṇa paints them with thought.

Prabhupāda: Yes. How you can expect without painting it has come so beautiful? This is foolishness, "nature"—what is this nature? Everything is being done by the machine of Kṛṣṇa. Parāsya śaktir vividaiva śrūyate. Anyway, improve this mode of life. Live in open place, produce your food grains, produce your milk, save time, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Plain living, high thinking, ideal life. Artificial necessities of life do increase your so-called comforts, but if you forget your real business, that is suicidal. We want to stop this suicidal policy. We don't want to stop the modern advancement of technology, although the so-called advancement technology is suicidal. But we don't talk of this. (laughter) Caitanya Mahāprabhu has therefore given a simple formula-chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Even in your technological factories, you can chant. What is the wrong there? You go on pulling on with your machine and chant, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa.

Room Conversation -- June 24, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Kulaśekhara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, if you take milk in other forms, like if you eat cheese, if you take curd or cheese, is it the same as drinking milk or ... ?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Any milk preparation. And if you have got enough milk, then keep it as ghee and open restaurant in the city. Give them nice samosā, kachorī. So in exchange you get money, you require little money, so that money will help you. Actually, in India, before these British, the poorer class of men, they were simply keeping, say, a dozen of cows, and that was their means of livelihood, that's all. From the milk they'll eat the, that, little milk, then yogurt, then..., what is called? It is another milk?

Devotees: Casein? Curd? Cheese?

Visakha: Buttermilk.

Prabhupāda: Buttermilk, yes, and in this way after drinking and eating so many things, whatever balance is there, churn it and they get ghee, and that ghee is kept in stock. On the market day, they go to the city and sell it. You'll find in Vṛndāvana, so many cultivators, they have brought ghee. So the inhabitants of the city, town, they require ghee, they purchase, and with that money they get some necessities, just like some oil or some spices, salt, like this, which is not available. In this way...

Hari-śauri: How is it they are so keen on buffalo milk in India?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Hari-śauri: The Indians, they seem to prefer buffalo milk to cow milk.

Prabhupāda: No, cow milk is not available, therefore buffalo milk contains more fat. But milk means cow's milk. What is the daily milk?

Kīrtanānanda: About a thousand pounds.

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

Prabhupāda: Is this Cleveland?

Devotee (1): Yes. There are many skyscrapers, tall buildings, there are many tall buildings, and people were looking out at the Ratha-yātrā cart and at Lord Jagannātha.

Prabhupāda: Here, the daytime is...

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: We have found, Śrīla Prabhupāda, when the buses are going to many of these cities, they have never seen our devotees, because when we go, we are dressed like they are for distributing the books. So now the boys are going again in the streets with a kīrtana party once a week downtown, and they have all done front-page newspaper articles, because although they have been reading the books, they have never seen the devotees in many years. I think festivals like this...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: ...in all these cities would be very advantageous, and all the book distribution...

Prabhupāda: And therefore I said that introduce Ratha-yātrā every city. At least wherever we have got our centers. Bring Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa. They have received some testimonial from Indian...

Hari-śauri: Oh, yes, Indian reviews?

Prabhupāda: You can open this file. I don't want, but...

Devotee (1): Prabhupāda, how should we have these Ratha-yātrā festivals. Should they be big? Should they be big festivals? Should I plan on having three carts next year, just one, or a small cart?

Prabhupāda: As you can afford. Minimum one cart. Otherwise, three carts. In India the Ratha-yātrā festival is going on, according to rough estimate, for the last two thousand years, and the crowd never diminishes. One secretary of Parliament or something like that.

Garden Discussion on Bhagavad-gita Sixteenth Chapter -- June 26, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It seems almost like a contradiction in one sense, that prabhavanti, that they flourish and at the same time, ksayaya.

Prabhupāda: Prabhavanty, materially, materially. Just like when you go to a modern city and say, "Oh, how developed," prabhavanty. But what kind of prabhavanty? That is next word, jagato 'hitāḥ, to destroy this world. So their prabhavanty in the opposite direction. That is not prabhavanty actually. Prabhavanty in the material sense, but what is the purpose, what is the end? Jagato 'hitāḥ. There are two kinds of progress, to hell, to heaven.

Hari-śauri: Fifty years ago they were thinking it was progress to build big skyscrapers; now it's so hellish in the cities, everybody is moving out.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Actually, when there are so many skyscraper buildings, it is hell. The natural air is obstructed. In Bombay you'll see. If you are in the top floor you have got little facility; in the lower floor it is hell. If there are several skyscraper building, in the first floor, second floor, it is simply hell. No air. Simply you have to run on this electric fan. You cannot see the sky. Therefore it is meant skyscraper? What is scraper? What is the meaning?

Hari-śauri: It touches, touching the sky.

Prabhupāda: So you have touched the sky in such a way I cannot see even. (laughs) This is the result. You demon, you have captured the sky, so I have no opportunity to see even. Always electric light. Now we see the sky, the sun, how nice it is. This is life. Green, down and up, clear sky, sun, this is life. We get rejuvenation in this atmosphere. What is this nonsense, all skyscraper building, no air, no light? Jagato 'hitāḥ. The mind becomes crippled, the health becomes deteriorated, children cannot see even the sky, everything is spoiled.

Garden Discussion on Bhagavad-gita Sixteenth Chapter -- June 26, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Kulādri: Every day in the city they make a report, pollution report. And they say you should go outside or not go outside. Some days it is not good for your health to leave your home.

Devotee (1): They are also selling fresh air, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Fresh air? (laughter) Fresh water, also.

Hari-śauri: In Tokyo there are special machines you can get air, clean water.

Prabhupāda: Fresh, by cleaning the urine? Now they are doing that. Fresh water by cleaning urine. Fat derived from stool. Yes, German people did it. Fat extracted from stool. Scientifically. You can use it with butter very nicely on your bread. This is going on.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Some of the materialists may argue that these activities are not all that unbeneficial. For example, they have made a tractor, and in America they can produce so many grains, so much so that practically they could feed the world.

Prabhupāda: Why do they not?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Because their mentality is very abominable.

Prabhupāda: Do that. There are so many overpopulation, and you can do it in America. So much land lying vacant here.

Garden Discussion on Bhagavad-gita Sixteenth Chapter -- June 26, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Kṣayāya jagato 'hitāḥ

Prabhupāda: Kṣayāya, kṣayāya means all for ruination, bringing ruin, ruination. So save them from ruination. Actually I've seen in New York, some quarter so nasty. In London also, so nasty. Disaster. So many storefront, lying vacant houses. I was, when I had no business, I was loitering to see the city. Hellish condition. They said it was risky, but I did not know that it was risky. One electrician, he was my friend, "Oh, Swamiji, you are going in those quarters? It is not for you, don't." "Oh, I do not care. What I have got they will take from me?" So I was loitering in New York City. So many nasty quarters. London also. So many houses vacant.

Kulādri: There is more chance of being killed in New York City than in the jungle.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They warned me not to go to the Central Park in the evening. They say at night nobody goes there.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Except the thieves and killers.

Prabhupāda: Just see. Such an important city, and such important park, and nobody can go.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is there any stage at which these atheistic people have done anything good by accident?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is there any step?

Prabhupāda: Therefore they support this accident theory. Nowadays they have got the accident theory. Because ordinarily there is no good. There is no possibility. But by accident if some good comes, that's all. Otherwise, jagato 'hitāḥ, it is only fault. They are... But accidentally means good comes. Accidentally, Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement came. (laughs) Although it was going on in India. Nobody called Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the scientists, the philosophers, the politicians. But accidentally came. Accidentally, we got result. You cannot explain God, therefore you take it as accident.

Garden Discussion on Bhagavad-gita Sixteenth Chapter -- June 26, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But if their standard is demoniac to begin with...

Prabhupāda: Therefore they are selling churches. Nobody is attracted. In London city there are so many churches closed. Nobody goes.

Devotee (1): In Cleveland, also, Prabhupāda, there are so many churches, only five, ten, fifteen people attend, and they are all elderly, elderly ladies.

Hari-śauri: Due to the Pope's taking a firm stand over the not allowing abortion and contraception, like this, they said that the number of practicing Catholics was reduced from seventy-five percent to fifty percent, just simply because of that one principle that he'd stuck to. So twenty-five percent immediately left.

Prabhupāda: Where they have gone? (laughter)

Hari-śauri: Well, they gave up going to church at least.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Hopeless life.

Prabhupāda: No, why hopeless? There is hope—Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Yes.

Hari-śauri: Hopeless for them.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: This very much describes modern civilization also. They are such aśuci-vratāḥ, they are given much respect in modern-day society. And the devotees, sometimes we go preaching and put into jail.

Prabhupāda: It is very fortunate they are not crucifying you. Putting into jail, but they crucified Lord Jesus Christ, they were so intelligent. Because he was preaching God consciousness, he was crucified. What was his fault? He was talking of God, therefore he was crucified.

Garden Discussion on Bhagavad-gita Sixteenth Chapter -- June 26, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Hari-śauri: And violence. So many things they'd do. They used to organize all the heroin that comes into the country, like this, for revenue, to get revenue, money. So many things. And places like Las Vegas, which is a big gambling city, that is also run by the Mafia. They control all the casinos and they control the police, they pay everyone off, like that, and if they don't agree, they kill them. So like this, their influence is spread everywhere, any illegal things that are going on.

Prabhupāda: Terrorism.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Our last President, two Presidents ago, Kennedy, he was involved with one of their prostitutes. She was getting information, and he was not investigating them because he was involved with one of their prostitutes.

Prabhupāda: They keep prostitutes also?

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Oh, yes, they use them. Actually, they are controlling many of these judges, and then we are coming in, and we are preaching the other thing, no prostitution, no drinking, and then we are getting fines.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: If the natural tendency of the living entity is to want to exist, to live, then why is it they perform so many horrible acts that will destroy themselves?

Prabhupāda: They are thinking that they will exist in that way.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is it that they see everyone as their enemy, and therefore everything has to be around them?

Prabhupāda: No, that is foolishness. Everyone wants to exist, struggle for existence, but they do not know how to exist. That is foolishness. Everyone wants to exist because actually he is eternal. He doesn't like to be destroyed. That is his natural inclination. But he does not know. We are giving the formula that if you want to exist, then you come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We are giving the right information. But they want to exist in their wrong way of existing. That is not possible.

Garden Discussion on Bhagavad-gita Sixteenth Chapter -- June 26, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: He has manufactured airplanes?

Hari-śauri: Yes, he had something to do with airplanes. And also he had a lot of land in Las Vegas, this gambling city. So many... He was involved in many mysterious maneuvers. It's open in the newspapers, they said that he got most of his money from illegal methods.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: In his old age he was very afraid of germs. He didn't want to catch any disease. So he would wear..., he would live in perfectly sealed rooms with all artificial air and light, so no germs could exist, and he would wear these...

Prabhupāda: He did not know that he's creating germs within his body.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: He could not avoid death.

Prabhupāda: If there was no germs, how he died? So at last he said?

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: He said something to the effect that "I don't know what this life was about. I think I've made a mistake." Just at the end.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it was mistake.

Garden Conversation -- June 28, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Modern yogic society. "Transcendental Meditation." Whatever nonsense they like, they do. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is stated that yogis should sit down in a secluded, sacred place, and they are seeking after America's big, big cities. Hmm? They find out yogic class in America's big, big cities, hotels. This is their program. The prescription is that one should sit down in a solitary sacred place, alone, and these rascals are holding class. All smokers, drunkard, woman-hunters, (laughs) they are yogis. Hmm? What do you think? Is it all right? This is going on. And they are accepted, "Yogi this," "Yogi that." This is going on. In India they cannot find out because people are not so fool as yet that in big, big cities, in a big, big hotel, "yoga practice." India, although so fallen, they will not accept. They will at once detect, "Here is a rascal." But here, their dhana-māna, their qualification... They have got money. So whatever they accept, that is all right, because they have got money. No other qualification required. They have money; they can pay. That's all. You read that, dhana-māna...

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Ātma-sambhāvitāḥ stabdhā dhana-māna-madānvitāḥ.

Prabhupāda: What are the word meanings?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "Ātma-sambhāvitāḥ-self-complacent."

Prabhupāda: Whatever they are thinking, it is all right, that's all. They are not going to hear any authority. Whatever they think, that is final. That's all. Why?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "Stabdhāḥ-impudent."

Prabhupāda: No obedience to authority. Impudent. And?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Dhana-māna.

Arrival Room Conversation -- July 2, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Vipina: Cold water for you too, Prabhupāda. Cold water here if you want some.

Prabhupāda: Cold water.

Hari-śauri: They are bringing some hot milk, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Vipina: Also something interesting about this water, Prabhupāda. It's all natural spring water, it's not city water. Underground water, fresh water.

Rūpānuga: It's quiet here.

Prabhupāda: Nice.

Vṛṣākapi: There's a swimming pool here, Prabhupāda. You have a garden by the pool; you can take your massage there.

Prabhupāda: This is your own house? What you have paid for it?

Rūpānuga: Well, now we are leasing with option to buy. We have ten-year lease, we can purchase anytime before ten years.

Prabhupāda: Price is fixed?

Rūpānuga: Six hundred fifty thousand. But all money paid for rent goes toward purchase.

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Room Conversation -- July 7, 1976, Baltimore:

Prabhupāda: Of course, we are not very much concerned with the social affairs, but still, if we can organize society, that will be very good. That will be peaceful.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Might be possible on the farms.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Away from the bad social environment of the cities.

Prabhupāda: The system is the boys and girls should be married earlier, and they should work, and there should be no divorce. But whether your country law will allow, that is another difficulty. You may introduce something, but the state law may not approve of it.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I don't think there is any minimum age for marriage, simply the parents have to give their consent under a certain age. There's no minimum age.

Hari-śauri: There is in England. In a lot of countries now there's a minimum age. No, they cannot be married under that age. Women sixteen, men eighteen.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But with parents' consent.

Rūpānuga: ISKCON parents, if the girl is fifteen, like you said, fifteen, then the ISKCON parent may give permission, that is legal. Not only that, but our own men, as I have done in Virginia, I have registered as minister in the state, and I can perform marriages. So our own men can register to perform marriages.

Prabhupāda: Another difficulty is the boy and the girl, they also do not stick. That is another difficulty.

Evening Darsana -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: When they clear the land, we are going to construct a nice building for the school. As soon as it is done, then we will organize. Kaumāra ācaret prājño dharmān bhāgavatān... (SB 7.6.1). From the very beginning of life, this Bhāgavata principle should be trained. That is perfect. Brahmacārī guru-kule vasan dānto guror hitam (SB 7.12.1). They should be trained up how to read at the house of the spiritual master. They should be trained up how to control the senses, dānta. Dānta means to practice how to control the senses. That is the difference between human being and animal. Animal cannot be trained up how to control their senses. That is not possible. But a human being can be trained up to control his senses. The yoga practice is meant for controlling the sense. Yoga-indriya-saṁyamī. That is the real yoga practice, not that I indulge in sense gratification as I like, and I become a yogi. This is all bogus. This is not yoga. Yoga means how to control the senses. Then I can concentrate my mind towards God realization and self-realization. If my senses are always disturbing, it is not possible to apply my mind for self-realization. That is not possible. Therefore the yoga practice, preliminary practice, is yama-niyama, controlling, niyama, under regulative principles. They are all described in the Sixth Chapter of Bhagavad-gītā and other Vedic literature also. And the ultimate end of yoga practice is to think of Kṛṣṇa. That is perfection of yoga. Dhyānāvasthita-tad-gatena manasā paśyanti yaṁ yoginaḥ (SB 12.13.1). By meditation, he always thinks... This morning I was walking near the (indistinct) falls, I told, "This is the best place for practicing yoga." Yoga cannot be practiced in a fashionable way in a big city with (indistinct) meditation. That is not possible. He must be free from everything, and in a secluded place, alone, he should meditate on the Supreme Lord. That is real yoga. Controlling all the senses, all disturbances of the mind. Then it is perfect yoga. Dhyānāvasthita-tad-gatena manasā paśyanti yaṁ yoginaḥ (SB 12.13.1).

Interview and Conversation -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: Yes, I am in the Western country for the last ten years, sometimes Europe, sometimes America. I have got more than one hundred temples all over the world, so I go and visit and instruct my disciples about this movement.

Janice Johnson: But you indicated in..., before you came here, that you were interested in meeting some leaders in the city. Have you met any of them?

Prabhupāda: Leaders?

Hari-śauri: She's wondering whether you met with any political leaders.

Prabhupāda: No. I have no interest with the political leaders because it is not a political movement. It is spiritual movement.

Janice Johnson: Another question I have is, if materialism is not so important as the...

Prabhupāda: No, it is important, but not at the sacrifice of spiritual understanding.

Janice Johnson: Well, what I was interested in is why is it necessary to live in such lavish situation as is shown here?

Prabhupāda: Lavish? What do you mean by lavish?

Janice Johnson: Well, I think this is a rather elegant, lavish kind of room.

Hari-śauri: She's referring to your quarters are very nicely furnished.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So it is for you, because you cannot sit down cross-legged, we have arranged this couch for you. (laughter) If it is not lavishly decorated, you'll refuse to come here.

Room Conversation -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: That's a great certificate, because it is coming from you.

Dr. Sharma: It's a supernatural thing. I do not believe that it is natural. It is in the world and eternal. I have been here... To be able to convert these people, to be able to make devotees, is unnatural.

Prabhupāda: Where is Svarūpa Dāmodara?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I don't know, Śrīla Prabhupāda. That indemnity bond? I think I can pack it away until New York City.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I could take care of that, pack it away until we get to New York.

Prabhupāda: Who will pack it?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I think I put it on your desk in there.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Indemnity bond. But the letter has to be written also.

Dr. Sharma: Today's discussion was possibly the most magnificent, and very clearly given, about people can be in work as well as...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Do they own or lease it?

Rāmeśvara: They lease. The city builds it and they lease it from the city.

Prabhupāda: What is the name of this airport?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: La Guardia.

Prabhupāda: La Guardia, yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There are three airports.

Prabhupāda: I think these buildings are not ten years ago.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh. New York has three airports.

Rāmeśvara: This is the oldest airport.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Kennedy, La Guardia, and there's one just across the river, Newark. It's in New Jersey, but it's considered part of the Port Authority.

Prabhupāda: I hear, Māyāpur Project? You have not been sending money?

Rāmeśvara: Not yet.

Prabhupāda: They want money. Gargamuni has written.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This bridge we're going on is called the Tri-borough Bridge.

Prabhupāda: Oh. This is over New York?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, it goes over the East River.

Prabhupāda: That Hudson Street?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Hudson River is on the other side. This is going on the east side of the city.

Prabhupāda: That subway that goes to the city office? There are so many bridges.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So many, yes, many, many bridges. Every day about seven million people come into this island of Manhattan from the other boroughs, and they go back. From your room, our building is very close to the Empire State Building, so from your room you have a very nice view of it.

Prabhupāda: Oh. So Los Angeles everything is going nice?

Rāmeśvara: Everything is very nice. We just had a big saṅkīrtana marathon for this Fourth of July, and they distributed up to thirty thousand Back to Godheads in just a few days.

Prabhupāda: (referring to garland) Make it smaller.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: New York climate is very nice?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very nice, like Calcutta.

Hari-śauri: On July Fourth Prabhupāda went and drove into Washington to see the fireworks.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Really.

Hari-śauri: In the evening we had traveling kīrtana all around the city.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think this is enough, Prabhupāda? I'll tie it together now.

Prabhupāda: No, no.

Hari-śauri: Kīrtana, the reaction was amazing, people were dancing and chanting and waving, Prabhupāda was in ecstasy.

Prabhupāda: Very nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: New York climate is very nice. Sometimes now it rains a little bit, then shining. So just like Bengal.

Rāmeśvara: I observed that these devotees at New York, they've practically given up sleeping this past week to prepare everything for your arrival.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) They are so kind to me.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: These are cooperative buildings?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, Prabhupāda. These are lower middle class cooperative buildings. This is the East Side.

Prabhupāda: I selected one cooperative apartment, they wanted five thousand dollars. (laughs) I had no money. Very nice apartment, near city office.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Downtown. This is First Avenue here, at about ll6th Street, where we are now.

Prabhupāda: Our building is on the Fifty-fourth?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Fifty-fifth Street. Just near Broadway, one block from Broadway.

Prabhupāda: Broadway is important place.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very important. Our building is right in the midst of the theater, restaurant and entertainment section of the city.

Prabhupāda: In New York I feel little homely because first I came here, I was loitering on the street here and there. From 1965 September, to '67 July, continually I stayed in New York.

Rāmeśvara: Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja gave one class this morning. So he was explaining that we cannot understand the good fortune of this city that you have come here. We cannot begin to estimate how fortunate this city is.

Prabhupāda: Yes, I, when I decided I shall go to foreign countries, I never thought of going to London, I thought of coming here. Generally they go to London, but I thought, "No, I shall go to New York."

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We're going to go up to Central Park and then go along the Park.

Prabhupāda: This is Ninety-sixth?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This is Ninety-sixth Street.

Prabhupāda: There was fire in this building?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There are many fires in this city, I notice.

Prabhupāda: It is due to the warm.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, due to the warm, and also the buildings, some of them are old and they are not built properly.

Prabhupāda: Not taken care of.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. Our building is also an old building, it's seventy years old. But it's made of solid stone and concrete, brick.

Prabhupāda: Then it will never get old.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Then it will continue new for hundreds of years.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's built like that, it's all steel reinforced everywhere.

Prabhupāda: Ah, then it is very nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's rated..., it has the top fire rating in the city.

Prabhupāda: After three years it will require little repairing, then it will keep new always.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Right now we're in the process of simply repainting it, giving it a fresh coat of paint to make it new, because they had not painted it for about ten years.

Prabhupāda: It should be painted every three years, then it will be all right.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay.

Rāmeśvara: On the outside as well.

Prabhupāda: Yes, everything, then the building will keep very fresh always.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: This is Second Avenue?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think Third Avenue. Next comes Lexington Avenue.

Prabhupāda: This is black area?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Puerto Rican and black. This city has as many people Puerto Ricans as Puerto Rico does. So many Puerto Rican people come here, because part of it's a possession of the United States.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Our temple is four blocks from Central Park. Just walking distance. The mothers and children go there.

Prabhupāda: Central Park? Very nice. So you have advantage of the park.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes. And on Sundays we put on saṅkīrtana in the park, and then people are invited to come to the temple for the feast. Now because of the good weather, many people leave the city on the weekend, so the numbers of people who are coming on the Love Feast days is not as much as before the summer and after the summer. Now they like to go to the beaches and resort areas, where it's cool and there's water.

Prabhupāda: The zoo is here also here? (pronounces "joo")

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Jewish people?

Prabhupāda: No, zoo, zoology.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Zoo, zoology. Yes, Central Park Zoo is on about Sixty-fourth Street, Sixty-fifth Street, just off of the east.

Prabhupāda: All big, big buildings.

Room Conversation -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: To the right, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Hari-śauri: (to devotee:) I have to set up for massage. You can do the machine? It's recording now.

Prabhupāda: Very nice sitting place.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Above all the noise in New York City, too.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa;: It's not so noisy up here.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Pālikā wants to ask you something.

Pālikā: Would you like to take fruit now, or prasādam as regular?

Prabhupāda: No, no, I have taken breakfast. So Bali-mardana Prabhu, doing all right?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Those are your servants' quarters, and the kitchen, and there's also a dresser in your bedroom.

Prabhupāda: There is any closet with lock?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes. This closet here is a walk-in closet. Small room with a lock. You also have a cabinet that locks. It's a big walk-in closet.

Prabhupāda: Oh, that's nice. So I shall again stay in New York? Nice place.

Morning Walk -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: It is very strongly built.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, it is first-class. So we sent our big truck there and we picked it up, and we brought it here and assembled it, and now we have three carts. And these carts will be disassembled and kept in the garage. And the nice thing is that we are now on 60th Street and Eleventh Avenue and the festival is on 59th and Fifth. Very easy to get there. (break) These are mostly warehouses, Prabhupāda, this part of the city.

Rāmeśvara: The city of New York is the most mismanaged city in the United States. The city government has a big debt. They borrow money from the banks and they cannot pay it back. So they..., the banks were closing the debt, the loans, calling for the loan, and they had no money, so they were firing everyone and there was great unemployment, and finally the United States government had to give them a free gift of money to bail them out. It is the worst management of any city in America. One of the big reasons is because of welfare. They give away free money to so many people in New York who don't want to work.

Prabhupāda: Yes, welfare is actually waste of money. But social construction is so bad they have to give welfare. If they take our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, we can stop this welfare money, let them pay.

Morning Walk -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Rāmeśvara: They don't know how to engage them, so they just give them free money. Also famous for its labor unions, the most powerful in America. They force the city to pay the highest wages for the garbage men, for school teachers, the highest anywhere in the country. So that's another reason they are in debt so much. (out of car, walking)

Ādi-keśava: Śrīla Prabhupāda, there's one of our posters for our Ratha-yātrā.

Prabhupāda: Yes. What they are doing here(?).

Rāmeśvara: The highest paid garbage men in America.

Prabhupāda: Still it is unclean. This is subway.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think it's a little quieter(?) from now on, Prabhupāda. This is the Plaza Hotel.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Have you ever heard of it, the Plaza? (break) Growing out of stone.

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is little crack, they are growing.

Morning Walk -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: That is the... Killed, in the...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In our school one teacher was killed by such a gang.

Rāmeśvara: This is still a big problem. And the teachers are also very militant. They blackmail the city that, "Unless you give us more money, we refuse to..." Then they close the schools. They go on strike. The teachers have joined a union, and they are very militant, they always go on strike. So sometimes the school is closed half the year.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Ādi-keśava, I want to show Prabhupāda the banner, so maybe you can stop...

Hari-śauri: In a lot of big cities that's a major problem now. They can't get any teachers to teach there because the children are so violent and uncontrollable that the teachers are just too scared to work there.

Prabhupāda: In our Gurukula we'll improve. But the parents do not want that their children should be religious, sādhu.

Rāmeśvara: In these schools, the children are given drugs by their schoolmates. Even at an early age, six, twelve years old, ten years old, they are smoking cigarettes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not only cigarettes, marijuana also.

Rāmeśvara: And all types of drugs.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I wanted to show you this banner closely, Prabhupāda, that we have a big banner, this is permanently hanging outside our building. You'll see it shows a picture of a devotee dancing with "Hare Kṛṣṇa" over it. See? Very attractive, people can see it. (break) "Founder-Ācārya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, founded 1966." (end)

Room Conversation -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It says "Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare. The group above are performing a kīrtana, the chanting of the names of Kṛṣṇa, the Vedic Deity they believe to be the supreme personification of Godhead. They are shown before the doorway of one Astor Plaza in Manhattan's Times Square area. Their chant, increasingly familiar on street corners in all large cities across the country, runs, 'Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.' These Kṛṣṇa devotees belong to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, ISKCON, less formally known as the Hare Kṛṣṇa Movement and still less formally to the man in the street as the Harry Kṛṣṇas." (laughter) Actually, Prabhupāda, one...

Prabhupāda: Harry Kṛṣṇa.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They think that we're worshiping a person, some material man by the name of Harry Kṛṣṇa. They think that your name is Harry Kṛṣṇa. (laughter)

Ādi-keśava: In Boston they once wrote an article in the newspaper, the Boston Globe, they said "I walked into the temple room and there he was, a big picture of Harry Kṛṣṇa sitting on a big throne." (laughter) On the vyāsāsana.

Hari-śauri: Harry is an English...

Prabhupāda: Harry, Harrison, like that.

Room Conversation -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Hmm. What does he say?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Prabhupāda, ācārya-founder, born Abhay Caran De in India in 1895, the founder, future founder-ācārya, spiritual leader of ISKCON, came under the spiritual direction of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāja, ascetic scholar and preacher who had devoted his life to the spread of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Three years later, shortly before he died, Bhaktisiddhānta ordered Abhay to spread the Kṛṣṇa faith in the English language. One of the ways that Abhay, now known as Prabhupāda-'one at whose feet masters sit'-did that was to begin to translate the classic Vedic literature, but it was not until thirty years after he was charged by his spiritual mentor that he was able to make a trip to the United States. He arrived in Boston in September, 1965, a spry but grim-faced passenger of seventy years on the steamer Jaladuta. He had forty rupees in his pocket and a metal suitcase full of his books and translations. Finding his way to New York City, he set up a storefront temple at 26 Second Avenue in the East Village section. Gradually he drew a small coterie of students around him, mostly through his preaching in Tompkinson Park. As his movement grew, he found backers among his converts. Hare Kṛṣṇa centers were established in Boston, Buffalo and San Francisco, and an appreciation of Prabhupāda's Vedic translations by American university authorities, Columbia, Princeton, Yale professors among others, permitted the establishment of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust in Los Angeles. The Trust launched a promotion of Prabhupāda's translations and original works under the logo of the Living Library of Transcendental Knowledge. Remarkably, in the face of a worldwide economic recession, the Trust's book and magazine sales reached nine million in 1975, up 34.5 percent over 1974. Some of this was due to the determined promotion of groups such as the hundred-man Rādhā-Dāmodara group which criss-crosses the country in six Greyhound-type buses and ten vans giving lectures and kīrtanas at college university campuses. Now eighty-one years old, Prabhupāda still works at his writings and the spiritual direction of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. His translation of Bhagavad-gītā, the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, the most widely used in the Western world, is in great demand by professors of Indology and Vedic literature."

Prabhupāda: He has given advertisement for our books.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes, very favorable.

Rādhāvallabha: The amazing thing is that he's an impersonalist.

Prabhupāda: Impersonalist?

Rādhāvallabha: The man who wrote all of these articles, he's an impersonalist.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Here's a picture of him.

Prabhupāda: Oh, he's American?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes.

Evening Darsana -- July 11, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Charges four things, He wants: to always think of Him, become His devotee, worship Him, mad-yājī, and offer obeisances unto Him. Therefore this temple is there. These four things can be done even by the child. So why don't you do it? And the guarantee is that if anyone does like that, he goes back to home, back to Godhead. Every one of you should come to the temple, always think of the Deity, and if possible chant His holy name and offer Him some worship and obeisances. That will make you perfect. New York is such a big city, there are so many Indians, they should come. Where is the difficulty, to become a thinker of Kṛṣṇa, always thinking, man-manā? The Deity is there. As soon as you come, you get some impression of the Deity. So if you think of the Deity, where is the difficulty? (Hindi) Can anyone say that there is difficulty in thinking of Kṛṣṇa? And as soon as you think of Kṛṣṇa, you become a devotee, immediately. And as soon as you become a devotee, you'll offer something for worship. And at the end of worship, you offer your obeisances. There is no need of education or Vedānta knowledge. Vedānta knowledge means this, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). Four things. Anyone can do. And practically see. These foreigners, ten years, five years ago they did not know what is Kṛṣṇa, and because they are following this man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ, they are now advanced devotees. So why Indians are lacking? Hmm? What is the objection?

Guest (1): Simply our hearts are caked with dust.

Evening Darsana -- July 11, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Therefore we shall keep it dusty. If our heart is full of dust, cleanse it. That is intelligence. What is this, "My heart is dirty, let it be kept as dirty"? No, if it is dirty, cleanse it. It is the duty of every Indian to understand Kṛṣṇa and preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement to others. That is real Indian business. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission, that every one of you become Kṛṣṇa conscious and preach this Kṛṣṇa consciousness to others who are unaware of Kṛṣṇa. That is the injunction; that is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission. He said bhārata-bhūmite manuṣya-janma haila yāra (CC Adi 9.41). Anyone who has taken birth in India as a human being—not as dogs manuṣya, manuṣya means human—his duty is to become Kṛṣṇa conscious and preach to the other people for welfare activities. Bhārata-bhūmite manuṣya-janma haila yāra (CC Adi 9.41). We should mark this point, manuṣya-janma. He's not requesting the cats and dogs. So in other words, that those who are not taking, Indians... Bhagavad-gītā is known to everyone, every Indian knows. But if he does not preach this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then he is not to be counted as human being. Because He says manuṣya-janma haila yāra. If we claim to be human being, born in India, it is our duty to understand the value of life from Bhagavad-gītā and preach this cult to others to do real welfare activities. This is the duty of every Indian. Why Indians are lacking in their duty? They do not understand Kṛṣṇa and they do not understand how to do good to others. Now whatever is done is done. It is time, now that Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is here, the temple is here, you come, you understand the whole philosophy and distribute. That is your duty. In New York City we can open many temples, provided you come.

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: They are eating their own child...

Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda, we come from the lowest of the low. (in car)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What about the possibility of opening more than one temple in this city? Just like if there's a good building on the East Side, if we can manage, what about the possibility of that?

Prabhupāda: If you can manage, very good. In a city like New York you can have ten, twelve centers.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, I mean the Christians have so many churches in every part of the city.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Similarly, we can have temples.

Rāmeśvara: You said that once in Los Angeles to me.

Prabhupāda: That Juhu temple, Akasganga, you know? Everyone asked me not to go there, "Nobody will go there." I said "It is Bombay city. Wherever you shall go, people will come."

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: And that is advertised means nobody's purchasing at this quarter, it is not very safe.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This quarter? No, this is the most prestigious. Fifth Avenue between Seventy-ninth Street and Thirty-fourth Street is the prime location. That's about as far north as you would want to go. Any further north uptown will not be nice, but this area here is very select. The best area is from Fifty-ninth Street to Thirty-fourth Street on Fifth Avenue, where all the shops are, the library. That area is very high class. This is Fifty-seventh Street, Fifty-fifth Street.

Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda, if the spiritual master has a mission, is it proper for the disciple to think that he can take more than one..., he can take many births to help the mission of the spiritual master?

Prabhupāda: When the spiritual master goes there, somewhere, his nearest assistants, they automatically go there to assist him. When Kṛṣṇa comes the demigods also come to help Him. That is there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. All these Yadus, Yadu family, they came from heaven. So before Kṛṣṇa's disappearance, by some trick they were all killed and they returned to their original place. It is nicely described in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Just see, small house, this yellow. Still, in New York City.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, small little house. (end)

Comments on Bhagavad-gita Play -- July 12, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Do they come?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes. Usually at least half or more of our attendance on Sunday is from the Americans.

Sudāmā: And here in New York is very much a theatrical city, entertainment, Broadway and... This theater we have here in our temple is situated in off-Broadway. Our theater downstairs is as high a standard in its interior as any other off-Broadway theater house.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There are two classes, Broadway and off-Broadway theater. Two different classifications. Broadway is very costly, big productions, very elaborate, and off-Broadway is more simple, but also very often there are good plays there. So this particular temple is located in an off-Broadway location. And actually it's very prestigious. We can advertise, and people will attend. They will definitely attend, and they'll even pay for the performances. We don't feel that we should charge yet, until the caliber of the performance is first class and until they have some full program. Because right now, just like this play only took about..., the dance only took about twenty-five minutes.

Prabhupāda: Altogether.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Unless they have something that is at least two hours, one and half, two hours, you cannot charge for. People will definitely pay.

Prabhupāda: Pay or not pay, doesn't matter. They should understand the meaning.

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

Prabhupāda: That any rascal will do. Bambharambhe laghu kriya. Aparkulasvenavargolajagundakuligondoliojalīlāvale... (gibberish) (laughter) You can talk like that—what is the meaning? That intelligence they have got, to manufacture... I know, I was in the medical business. So any petty medicine, and you inquire medical man, and he'll present it in such a scientific way that people will think that it is very important thing. I know it well. In Bose's laboratory we used to do that. Aparkulavenavargolajdgunda... This is... (gibberish) Simply soda bicarb and little this and that. So the modern world means how to befool persons, that's all. Not to enlighten, but to keep them in ignorance and befool them more and more, and they like it. Under the influence of māyā they like to be cheated. (sounds of fire engines) Now just see the whole night there is blazing fire, and they are thinking they are happy. And if we sing saṁsāra-dāvānala-līḍha-loka **, "the material world is blazing fire," that is sentiment. And this is not practical. Whole day and night, simply fire, disturbing. Such a big important city, and they are disturbing always twenty four hours, gongongongongongongon. They are so expert that this ordinary fire they can control. Another side is that nobody wants this fire, and why it is coming? Yathā duḥkha... Prahlāda Mahārāja, long, long years ago: yathā duḥkham ayatnataḥ. As this fire business is coming without my endeavor, similarly, the other part, distress, this is distress, other part, happiness, also will come. Why shall I endeavor for it? So my energies should be utilized only for Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This is civilization. And whole life, day and night, they are trying for material happiness, and that is not happening. The problems are increasing.

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

Rāmeśvara: Some ambulance.

Prabhupāda: Hmm.

Rāmeśvara: Some ambulance. Somebody is sick. Right now in New York City there is a big strike. The people who work in the hospitals, they refuse to work. They want more salary.

Prabhupāda: What can be done? Price raising, they want all comforts.

Rāmeśvara: So if someone is sick they will not take him to the hospital because there is no one to take care of him there.

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

Prabhupāda: Oh.

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

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

Prabhupāda: Who?

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

Devotee: Who is that, Reagan?

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

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

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

Prabhupāda: Besides that, why birth control?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say because the world is overpopulated.

Prabhupāda: So much vacant land in your country.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, everywhere in the world. When we fly in the airplane, every country, mostly it's vacant land. It's only these big demoniac cities.

Rāmeśvara: Their philosophy is first we'll conquer nature, then we'll talk about self-control. That is one philosophy.

Prabhupāda: Which is impossible. They'll never be able. You can control nature only by self-control. Otherwise, it is not possible. Ajitendriyāṇām. Ajitendriya means those who cannot control the sense, sense organs.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Famous address because you were there, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Hmm. Number one hundred.

Hari-śauri: Seventy-second Street.

Prabhupāda: One hundred, Seventy-second Street.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Maybe we can go by it. On the way back if we go by, you could show us the building there.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

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

Prabhupāda: I have seen in New Delhi, I was going to sell my Back to Godhead, so they were all sitting and gossiping, and files are piled up. If you want some file it will take six months. Doing nothing. Sixty percent of the employees are simply wasting time.

Hari-śauri: City workers are very famous for not doing anything, taking tea breaks.

Prabhupāda: Why they will do? When they get money without doing?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If we could just introduce to them the chanting, they could be great yogis, sitting chanting, and have so much free time. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Just see, why this wood is dried up? Why?

Hari-śauri: There is no spirit soul in it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It has been severed from the tree.

Prabhupāda: Yes, from the, it is out of touch from the original bark. Similarly, any civilization which is out of touch of God consciousness, that will dry up in due course of time.

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

Prabhupāda: Don't waste time. You stop this. If you imitate a madman, then you become mad. (laughter) Don't try to talk on behalf of these madmen.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The principle is there, though, that there must be a father and a mother.

Prabhupāda: That's it.

Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda, in New York City, many of these big buildings have courtyards, and in the courtyards they have purchased sculpture. So all the sculpture is abstract. They are against form; they are all impersonalists. And they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to have these gigantic structures. All over New York City you see them. They have no form.

Prabhupāda: That is a form. The structure itself has a form.

Rāmeśvara: But it's abstract.

Prabhupāda: No, it is not ab..., it is form.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not personal, that's what he means.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is a form of their imagination, that's all. Not standard form, but it is a form. They want to make everything formless with form. That means they cannot avoid form.

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

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not personal, that's what he means.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is a form of their imagination, that's all. Not standard form, but it is a form. They want to make everything formless with form. That means they cannot avoid form.

Devotees: Oh, jaya.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...political satires. Critic of the government put the criticism in the form of a children's story, but indirectly was criticizing the government.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...reason they cannot keep this park neat and clean? In other cities they keep.

Ādi-keśava: They cannot pay the workers.

Prabhupāda: How is that? In America, city, New York, they cannot pay?

Hari-śauri: New York almost went bankrupt.

Devotee (1): They have mismanaged the whole thing.

Hari-śauri: They had big strikes last year or early this year. They wouldn't clear the garbage away, and the whole city was piled up with garbage everywhere.

Devotee (2): Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says in this Kali-yuga they are all lazy, misguided.

Prabhupāda: So much drinking, they must be lazy.

Devotee (1): Yes.

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

Prabhupāda: So much drinking excessively. Drinking means laziness.

Rāmeśvara: Also the banks, they loan the city money, but at a very high interest rate. So then the city cannot afford it.

Hari-śauri: People nowadays are so filled with intoxications they are not fit to do anything.

Rāmeśvara: They loan the city money at a very high interest rate, so in order to pay it back they have to borrow more money.

Prabhupāda: Dried up on account of being detached from the original bark. Similarly, as soon as any civilization detached from God consciousness, they'll dry up.

Devotee (1): Simply buildings and cement, that is their culture.

Bali-mardana: Except for India, no civilization has lasted very long.

Prabhupāda: No, cannot last.

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

Prabhupāda: This is due to excessive meat-eating, intoxication, sex. This is the result.

Devotee (1): They've wasted their brains.

Hari-śauri: Also these bums that hang around the cities, they're all alcoholics.

Prabhupāda: That is the reason.

Devotee (3): That's one reason crime is so high is because of intoxication.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee (3): Always increasing crime.

Rāmeśvara: In America, millions of people have guns in their houses. Very common. They are all preparing for fighting.

Hari-śauri: You said once in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that the one principle that gives the most trouble is the fearing in the material world.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

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

Prabhupāda: The best thing is they should be educated to become gentlemen. Keep guns, but they may not improperly use them.

Rāmeśvara: When New York City had to start borrowing money from the banks, the banks became very powerful. They were able to control the city government and get many favors.

Prabhupāda: What is that favor?

Rāmeśvara: They get special contracts, concession rates, and they are able to get their men appointed to important government positions. Also, in the national government, the government of the United States has to always borrow money from banks. There is something called National Debt. Hundreds of billions of dollars they owe the banks, the United States government, to support all their different programs.

Prabhupāda: National Debt.

Rāmeśvara: National Debt. So then the banks are able to use their power to get favors. "Oh, you want to borrow money? Then you must give me some favor." It's common knowledge.

Hari-śauri: Everyone's trying to blackmail everyone else.

Rāmeśvara: Some people say that there is a worldwide conspiracy of bankers, that they can control any government. They can cause a depression. They say that the bankers caused the depression in the 1920s, 1930s, just to increase their power.

Prabhupāda: Yes. As soon as you become dependent on me, I pay money, you can create some trouble for me. That is conspiracy(?). (pause) What is this, memory?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Looks like World War I.

Devotee (1): Yes, World War I.

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

Hari-śauri: One hundred and seventh United States Infantry.

Rāmeśvara: (break) ...came here, Bhāradvāja and myself went to Salt Lake City to visit the church of the Mormons. The Mormon religion is a branch of Christianity, and they own the whole city of Salt Lake City. It's the capital of Utaḥ, one of the United States states. So they control the whole city, and it is planned with the temple in the center of the city. Like our Māyāpur plan. And all around the streets are named after the temple. It is well planned. And in the temple square they have a visitor center, and it costs hundreds of millions of dollars, with dioramas and movies. They even have a little planetarium. It's all for recruiting people to join their religion. So we went there to study how they did it. Actually, it's all based on a crazy philosophy. They say that after Jesus Christ was crucified in Israel, he rose, and then the next stop he came to America.

Prabhupāda: Next...?

Rāmeśvara: Next he came to America. Because Jesus, they say, is the savior of the whole world, so why just Israel?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So when did he come to America?

Rāmeśvara: Immediately afterwards.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What did he do here?

Rāmeśvara: He gave another Bible teaching. Again he converted people to follow, to accept him as God. So this whole religion is based on his teachings when he came to America.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Except for them, who accepts such a thing? No one accepts that except the Mormons.

Rāmeśvara: They say that God orders every man to get married.

Hari-śauri: They are very strong on the principle of family life.

Prabhupāda: That is a good idea.

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

Prabhupāda: That is also good.

Devotee (1): Yes.

Hari-śauri: Like those two young men that you met in Melbourne? Those American boys? They were Mormons.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Are they vegetarian?

Rāmeśvara: No, they abstain from... In Salt Lake City you are not allowed to smoke cigarettes. They have passed a law, "No cigarettes."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In the whole city?

Rāmeśvara: In the whole city.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Wow, that's a big city. It's one of the capitals of the States.

Rāmeśvara: But they have meat-eating. Originally they are not supposed to, but they are already deviating.

Devotee (1): Do they still have many wives?

Rāmeśvara: No, that's against the law. Originally they believed in polygamy...

Prabhupāda: But now they are changing.

Rāmeśvara: Yes, now they are changing.

Prabhupāda: That means no fixed-up idea.

Evening Darsana -- July 13, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Our men's productive. There must be food production, otherwise how the society will live. That is also a requirement. Good direction required, good government required, good production required, and good worker required. You can explain that there is no understanding of spiritual life. That they are missing the opportunity of human life.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: This Kṛṣṇa consciousness is a spiritual culture, and basically speaking the human society begins from dharma, or accepting the principle of God. Dharma begins with this acceptance of the principle of God, that human beings, their activities, have to be regulated. Just like in human society there is marriage. This is according to scripture. Every scripture regulates there must be marriage. This is dharma. It regulates certain activities that should be done, certain activities that should not be done. And basically speaking this is the beginning of human civilization; otherwise, they're simply living in a civilization of gross sense gratification which is in reality no different or no better than the society of animals. So from dharma, human society begins and generally... You can see practically that dharma generally focuses... People are taking that dharma is for the basis of economic development. This is proven practically because in pioneer times in America for example, people they were simple going to churches and synagogues, and temples and all kinds of things, what have you. And economic development was going on very nicely, in fact, economic development could not have gone on unless there was this principle of religion. People were very, practically speaking... In a pioneer situation people are very barbaric, struggle for existence—you know, you're in the country, there is no road, there's no cities—everyone is very, simply interested to maintain themselves. But by churches and things of this nature, people saw the need for a civilized give-and-take way of living—economic development. Then gradually, the ideas developed further and further, but in modern days we can see that people are having economic developments and there's no need for God, they think at least. In other words, people are no longer attending churches, synagogues, things of this nature, because they are making sufficient money without the need of religion. Therefore, the basic principle is being missed that human life is not simply meant for economic development. Human life—we analyze, we can say that...

Prabhupāda: Human life is meant for making a solution of all material problems.

Evening Darsana -- July 13, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: No but dream is... It may be, but when there is fire, you call it dream, but why do you call fire brigade? When you are diseased why you go to physician? Dream it. (laughter) The major problem is birth, death, and old age, and disease. You do not want that. You must seek the measures. That is human life. Whether birth, death, old age, disease can be stopped? If there is any such life that there is no more birth, death, that is human life. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. That is the Vedānta philosophy: "Now the human life is meant for enquiring about these things." If you don't enquire, then you remain animal. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is trying to save the human society from this animal life. To bring him to the real human life. Animal life means there is suffering—go on suffering. Human life means there is suffering—how to get, how to counteract. That is human life. Suffering—so long you have got this body, there must be suffering.

nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma
yad indriya-prītaya āpṛṇoti
na sādhu manye yata ātmano 'yam
asann api kleśada āsa dehaḥ
(SB 5.5.4)

The karmīs, Ṛṣabhadeva is warning that nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma: (SB 5.5.4) these rascals being mad after sense gratification, they are doing everything and anything irresponsibly. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ. Pramattaḥ means mad. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma (SB 5.5.4). Things which you should not have done, but he's doing it. Why? Yad indriya-prītaya: Simply for sense gratification. Therefore, he advises, na sādhu ayam: this is not good. So why it is not good? Yata: he has already got a body, material body for which he's suffering, and he's again creating the circumstance by which he'll again get a material body and will suffer. Therefore, one should act very responsibly. Not like madmen. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma (SB 5.5.4). Then Ṛṣabhadeva instructs, nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye (SB 5.5.1). This body, although I have got this body, and the dog has got the body, or the hog has got the body, but these bodies are not meant for being spoiled like the dogs and hogs. The hog is also whole day working to find out where is stool. So if you also work whole day and night for our sense gratification, then where is the difference between the hog's life and my life. The human life, human brain should be sober to understand what is the problem of life, why I'm subjected to so many tribulations, how to remedy, how to find out the remedy and that requires tapasya. Tapo divyam (SB 5.5.1). In order to create that brain, it requires a little tapasya. Therefore we are recommending no illicit sex, no meat eating, no intoxication, no gambling. Because we are already mad by material existence, and again we are... If you are forced to become more and more mad by intoxication, by meat eating, by this... Then where is your life? Your life is finished. Because to understand these problems of life requires a little brain. So to create that brain, this little tapasya is required. He's already puzzled, and if you make him more and more puzzled by supplying him intoxication and this gross eating of meat, then he remains in the grossest platform of ignorance. That is not human activity. The brain must be little clear to understand what is the value of life, why I am suffering, if is there any remedial measure, how can I take it. That is brain. And if the brain is used only to find out where is sense gratification, where is sex, where is food, where is shelter, where is money? Then, that is, that business is being done by the hogs and dogs. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means to save people from this dogs' and hogs' life and to come to the real platform of understanding the value of life. They do not know it. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ durāśayā ye bahir-artha-māninaḥ (SB 7.5.31). They do not know what is the aim of life. Simply by false hopes they are trying to adjust things with material effects. That will never do that. Durāśayā. Durāśayā means it is useless hope. It cannot be. Just like we practically see that the, here in New York City, American people are very rich and intelligent, but they cannot stop this fire which is unwanted. They cannot stop it. That is not possible. Because they are living very high, 300 feet high or more than that, you are not safe still. You are still in the same danger. Because you are living in big, big skyscraper building, it does not mean that you will not die. Death is there also, birth, death, old age, disease, the real problems of life. It does not mean that because we have advanced in so-called material civilization, you have avoided birth, death. Even big, big scientists who gave us so many big, big inventions, but still they died. They could not invent something which will protect them from death, that at the time of death, give me this pill so that I will not die and I'll go on giving you more scientific advance. That is not possible.

Evening Darsana -- July 13, 1976, New York:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So then the problems of life are more than simply those which we perceive?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Otherwise, what is the meditation? Think about something seriously, that is meditation. But if you have no important serious thinking, simply some imagination, how it will help you?

Devotee (1): Excuse me, Śrīla Prabhupāda. This evening they are having one convention here, the Democratic National Convention. One of the two big political parties in the city, at one place called Madison Square Garden. And all the television and newspaper people in the whole country will be there. They're beginning at 8 o'clock this evening. So we want to send all the devotees in the temple on saṅkīrtana party there, because we feel that not only will the atmosphere become purified but also all the television cameras and all the newspaper people will interview our devotees and take their pictures, and they will be on television all over the country, simply because...

Prabhupāda: That is good cause.

Devotee (1): So we are requesting if all the devotees can possibly go?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee (1): In that way they can all attend, if we have a big force...

Prabhupāda: At least, let them hear Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Devotees: Yes.

Evening Darsana -- July 13, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: This is the... (break) ...to see the newest sanitary condition.

Devotee: Oh yes.

Prabhupāda: Such an important country. So nasty everywhere, park, street, what is there? This is not good sign. In other cities, you see so neat and clean. Washington, even that parkway, so neat and clean. Why this city is neglected? Los Angeles also, neat and clean. Which other cities we went?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Detroit.

Prabhupāda: Detroit is... Detroit is also.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That park was a little dirty also.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Beer cans and...

Prabhupāda: This is national degradation. Every state full of garbage, litters. Not only now, I was living here (indistinct); the last 10 years. At least I have seen.

Morning Walk -- July 13, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: What is valuable there?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Someone may have thrown something out which he could use. He's a bum.

Prabhupāda: Another madman. In Hong Kong I have seen, they are searching some food.

Hari-śauri: You can see in every big city, mainly older people, they go and look in all the rubbish bins.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Just like they'll find an empty bottle, and if they return the bottle to the shop, they'll get a deposit, ten or fifteen cents for a bottle deposit.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In Māyāpur we've seen the little children coming looking for prasādam left over in the rubbish outside.

Rāmeśvara: This is one of the big problems in the world today. They don't know how to dispose of all the paper and garbage that they go through. They are selling so many goods, and then they have to throw away the packages. They don't know how to get rid of the garbage. They try to throw it in the ocean sometimes.

Prabhupāda: And for manufacturing the paper they are cutting so many trees and committing sinful life.

Rāmeśvara: The scientists report that by throwing all this garbage in the ocean they kill many fish. Here in New York there is one beach called Coney Island, and no fish can live near the shore, they are all dying.

Prabhupāda: Why they are so sympathetic to the fish? Because they will eat it. No? They are thinking that "We shall eat the fish, and they are dying." Is it not?

Hari-śauri: Do you want your hat, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Hmm? No. This is ventilation. (laughter) You are feeling cold? Mister? You are feeling cold?

Child: No.

Morning Walk -- July 13, 1976, New York:

Rādhāvallabha: (break) The big ones in New York, they build in such a way that it's very difficult to evacuate them in case of a fire, and this movie company did a movie of the two buildings burning up. So after that no one would move into them. They were half empty. So the city had to move all of its government offices into the buildings just to fill them. (dog barking) The Russian dogs are the largest dogs in the world.

Bali-mardana: Dogs to hunt wolves. These dogs are used to hunt wolves in Russia. (break)

Prabhupāda: (in car) ...saṅge calo, ei mātra bhikhā cāi. "Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and come with us," that's all. We don't want any more. No fees. We don't say, "First of all pay so many dollars." There is no condition. "Simply chant and come here. We shall arrange for your food, we shall arrange for your shelter, everything." Still they will not come. They will go and pay fees and chant nonsense.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Maybe we should charge, then they will become more encouraged.

Prabhupāda: No. No.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Others will be discouraged.

Hari-śauri: The ones who are paying are the ones who want to be cheated.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Hari-śauri: The ones who are paying are the ones that want to be cheated, and the ones who come here are the ones that are serious.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: In Bengali it is called pare mukhe jhalma(?). Somebody says "Oh, it is very hot!" "Oh, it is very hot!" (laughter) He did not taste, but the other man says "Oh, it is very hot!" So he says "Oh, it is very hot!" Pare mukhe jhalma.

Rāmeśvara: The city pays these artists hundreds of thousands of dollars to make these forms. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...it is constructed?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Metropolitan Museum of Art extension.

Prabhupāda: Oh. (pause) (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We can return back now. This one is older, this is new. There are twice as many floors in the same amount of space. It's actually double. (break) ...think there's an advancement in living conditions. Seems to be worsening, but they're taking it as advancement. (break)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: About the same as Mercedes. Ten thousand.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Nandaki, is it as good mechanically as a Mercedes?

Devotee: No, I don't think so.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Mercedes is very sturdy.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The comfort's better.

Devotee: But after two years this all becomes finished, all this. Starts falling apart.

Prabhupāda: But Mercedes is strong.

Morning Walk -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Rāmeśvara: Now they have designed these buildings so that many of them have fountains and big courtyards and you can walk from one street to the other by going through the center of the building.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā.

Rāmeśvara: And in the middle of the courtyard they have this crazy sculpture. All over the city. (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...some of our artists make big sculpture out of metal?

Prabhupāda: Hm? No. That's not possible.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Philosophically not possible?

Prabhupāda: No, practically.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Because some of our men here who have helped to make this wall, the front wall of the temple that we're making in front of the Deities, they are artists and they have the ability to cast large, they've done this previously,

Prabhupāda: Let them do some small first of all.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And show you.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Interview with Trans-India Magazine -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Interviewer: No, I have not.

Prabhupāda: So we have got our temple, that is considered the best temple in Vṛndāvana. You can show the pictures. So thousands and thousands of Americans went to Vṛndāvana for our temple and other temples. But there is another Vivekananda, Ramakrishna āśrama, nobody went there. Not a single. So what preaching they have done, from practical point of view? So many men went to our temple. They had no inquiry even that "We have heard that there is a Ramakrishna Mission Temple here. Where it is?" It is not..., Vṛndāvana is not a very big city. Everyone knows. Nobody, not a single person went there. And they visited other temples. So what kind of preaching, hmm? What do you think?

Interviewer: It seems to me that what you are saying is that you cannot have a religion, you cannot expect a religion to survive or prosper when the culture which is supposed to serve it is its opposite, is its antithesis. And that's why your movement, you are trying to suggest that the only way you can attain mokṣa, or liberation, or whatever, is through a particular kind of culture that you are propagating.

Prabhupāda: It is not..., it is the culture, it is the culture. Because you are suffering under material conditions and you are struggling for existence, that means you are struggling to get liberty. So this is the liberty. As it is said in the Bhagavad-gītā, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9). Mām upetya, find out this.

Morning Walk -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Go ahead, let's go, just go.

Prabhupāda: (beak) ...in this bus.

Kīrtanānanda: Oh, you traveled in the bus. Yes, it was comfortable.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda, there's about two hundred and fifty devotees here now.

Prabhupāda: That's nice. Make the whole city your (indistinct).

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's very nice. We can handle all of these devotees, I think, very comfortably.

Prabhupāda: All facilities are there.

Kīrtanānanda: Kṛṣṇa is giving all facility. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...distributing free, thirteen hundred or thirteen thousand?

Kīrtanānanda: Thirteen thousand.

Prabhupāda: Daily.

Morning Walk -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Bali-mardana: ...and train others.

Prabhupāda: (break) Just like New Vrindaban they have a dozen brahmacārīs.

Kīrtanānanda: They have an expert teacher, Gopīnātha.

Prabhupāda: Also Los Angeles. (break) ...and big, big city like Calcutta, Bombay, there are many, many more pigeons. Why they are so small?

Kīrtanānanda: They kill them.

Prabhupāda: Kill.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They kill them?

Devotee: They poison them.

Kīrtanānanda: They put poison feed out.

Prabhupāda: Ah, killing experts.

Morning Walk -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Five days and nights he's worked continuously.

Prabhupāda: Jaya. (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...this city, this will be a small parade with some hand-pulled floats. Another trick of the Hare Kṛṣṇas.

Prabhupāda: Bali Mahārāja was asked for three feet of land. "Very good. You speak so nicely, such intelligent, but You are boy, You do not know how to ask. I can give You a big island." "No, I must be satisfied as I require. I don't want more. Only three feet, that's all."

Rāmeśvara: That story is in the Eighth Canto, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Hmm. I'm going now with that story. (break) "Rascal, if you give like that, where you will stay? He'll take everything!" Smārta brāhmaṇa. Simply considering "How I shall live?" (laughs)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Materialist.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What did Bali Mahārāja reply?

Prabhupāda: He rejected guru. "You are not guru."

Rāmeśvara: Śukrācārya.

Satsvarūpa: But that guru told him to worship Viṣṇu officially.

Prabhupāda: No, he was by nature Viṣṇu, Vaiṣṇava, like the grandfather, Prahlāda Mahārāja.

Morning Walk -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: First thing is that it is full of life. Full of very, very intelligent demigods. They have never gone.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If a devotee were to go to the moon, would he see all of these very intelligent demigods?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Anyone would see them. (laughs) But nobody's gone.

Rāmeśvara: No, he would see the cities also.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So if someone actually went there, they would see all this life. It's not that you have to have a special vision to see it.

Prabhupāda: But you have to qualify yourself.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: To get there. But once getting there, I mean it's plainly visible to the eyes.

Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda gave the example that Arjuna, he was qualified, so that he went to Indraloka planet one time, and he saw with his eyes the cities, the palace of Indra.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, he was tempted. Arjuna was tempted when he went to Indraloka. But he closed his eyes.

Prabhupāda: No, descriptions are there of Indraloka. The pavements with pearls.

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Preaching is required, here or there.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You once said, "A good businessman, if he knows how to do it, he can make more money sitting in one place..."

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. Money is not our aim. Our aim is how people will understand Kṛṣṇa.

Bali-mardana: He is just using that as an analogy for preaching.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That if you have a good place, many people can be attracted, as many as moving around to many places.

Prabhupāda: My Guru Mahārāja was in favor of preaching in the city because you can get many men.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But do you think I should travel a lot, or what is the best thing?

Prabhupāda: Both things should be done.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Both. So if you... We were hoping that you could give us another chance by coming back next year.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, I'll come.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But you do say that to a lot of different temples, but we will try to make this doubly big.

Prabhupāda: Always, so long I live, I must come.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Really?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Room Conversation -- July 19, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, that nice. "Like many other immigrant groups who preserved their forms of worship once they came to America, the Indians who watched or participated in the parade were pleased to see that they could keep the faith even in New York City." (laughter)

Prabhupāda: These rascals, let them come, they become baḍa sāheb.

Bali-mardana: Become what?

Prabhupāda: Baḍa sāheb.

Hari-śauri: Baḍa sāheb, big Westerner.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "While Hare Kṛṣṇa propounds doctrines of world renunciation common to other varieties of the Hindu faith, the sect, officially known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, was founded in 1966 by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, whose fame as a guru came only after he arrived in the United States in the same year. For most of the Indians watching the parade, however, Hare Kṛṣṇa was close enough to their brand of Hinduism to make them feel at home."

Gurudāsa: That's good. It means that we're not a light cult. It means we have a great tradition.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, it's actually good.

Gurudāsa: They're recognizing that.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: " 'It's surprising that you find this right in New York City. It's our way of life,' said Nagan Patel, a civil engineer from Jersey City, who immigrated from Bombay. 'We love New York City and America. It's the most beautiful place in the world. No other country will give such freedom for our own ceremony.' "

Prabhupāda: That's a fact, that I say always.

Car Ride -- July 20, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: When another came?

Rāmeśvara: Not in the same way. This city has so many, they have so many different groups, religious groups and minority groups from other parts of the world, they call it a melting pot. So they accept us because they've accepted so many others, the Puerto Ricans, the blacks, so similarly they are accepting us.

Prabhupāda: Who?

Rāmeśvara: This city, the people of this city.

Prabhupāda: America.

Rāmeśvara: New York.

Prabhupāda: New York.

Rāmeśvara: In other places they consider us to be very foreign, alien. But here there are so many foreigners, so it fits right in.

Prabhupāda: This is the Tenth Street? No.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This is Amsterdam Avenue.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Car Ride -- July 20, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: So why not ask the mayor to construct a temple there? (laughter)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't think they'd...

Prabhupāda: People will come.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Maybe, but, ah, I don't think they will agree to that. They're not that spiritual.

Rāmeśvara: No, in America you have to raise your own money for temples. You cannot get the city to build it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, you can't get their land either, not for a building like that. You can put a hospital maybe. Thing is, park space is so short in that area of the city that they..., I don't think they'd give it up for a building. Prabhupāda told us yesterday that we should rent a small building downtown in that area and call it Guṇḍicā, so that Lord Jagannātha will stay down there.

Prabhupāda: For one week.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: For one week. And we'll keep a restaurant there.

Prabhupāda: And then they'll again come in procession.

Car Ride -- July 20, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: And then they'll again come in procession.

Rāmeśvara: Wow!

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, two festivals.

Gurudāsa: I was told there was another procession last night bringing the car back, and all the night persons-there's a different whole segment of the city, people who come at night...

Devotee: Bums.

Gurudāsa: ...who stay up all night. And they were there, hundreds of people following the car back in the nighttime.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It took about seven hours to bring the carts back. All night they worked. Jayānanda was slaving out there, and Ādi-keśava Swami. Ādi-keśava finally got back at five in the morning, collapsed on the carts, he was exhausted.

Prabhupāda: They should be given some recommendations(?) in writing.

Morning Walk -- July 20, 1976, New York:

Ādi-keśava: Who is that, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Cigarette is full of poison. It is being advertised, "Nobody is lower than me."

Ādi-keśava: Oh, yes, the tar content.

Prabhupāda: That means "I am first, I am first class." Less poison. "Nobody contains lower poison than me." (break) ...city, when it was constructed?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: A lot of the buildings are from the early 1800s, 1850. Like the Museum of Natural History that we visited, that was 1869. It was settled even earlier than that.

Hṛdayānanda: It was always a very important city. For almost two or three hundred years it's been a very important city for trade, business, commerce.

Prabhupāda: When you first settled?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In the 1600s.

Ādi-keśava: It was settled by the Dutch in the 1600s. That's three hundred years ago.

Hṛdayānanda: Called New Amsterdam.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Some Indians were living here on this island, and the Dutch people, they bribed them or traded it for about thirty dollars' worth of jewels and trinkets.

Hṛdayānanda: The Dutch were defeated by the British, and the British took New York.

Prabhupāda: Yo bala maluk taya (?): "Might is right."(break) ...right is going on now also, but under some plea, United Nations. Where is unity? (break) Sometimes I stayed in this house. Eighty-seventh Street? No.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This is not Eighty-seventh, Prabhupāda.

Morning Walk -- July 20, 1976, New York:

Rādhāvallabha: About thirty or forty years ago a man named Orson Welles did a..., he had a radio show, and just as a joke he started giving a news report that the Martians had landed, and people were panicking. They were trying to leave the city in cars in huge numbers.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Bali-mardana: Thousands of people started to leave the city in fear. I think it was on April Fools? It was just a joke.

Hari-śauri: We can go down to the right, Śrīla Prabhupāda. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...difference between a śūdra and brāhmaṇa. A śūdra can be misled at any moment. That is stated in... Strī śūdra. Woman and śūdra on the same class. You can mislead them by high talkings: "Oh, I am coming from Indian prince." They come here, marry some European, and go to India and then engage him (her) for collecting water in bucket. One Muhammadan crewman, a vagabond, he bluffed one girl that "I am coming from Muhammadan prince family." Then she married, and she went to Allahabad, and she was given borakhā and she was living in a hut, and then she was bringing water from the street. She wrote a letter to the Viceroy that "This is my position." Then police came and rescued her and sent her. (break)

Gurudāsa: ...Pañca-tantra about a jackal who poses as a king. He has blue dye on, so they think he's special, but when he heard other jackals, all he could do was howl, and he was exposed. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...Tamāla Kṛṣṇa?

Bali-mardana: He's here, Prabhupāda.

Room Conversation -- July 26, 1976, London:

Jayatīrtha: Every hour. All right, so you're sure that this is...

Prabhupāda: No, I want some nice water, digestive. Let us see there.

Jayatīrtha: Here the water is not good?

Prabhupāda: No, no, I don't say it is not good, but...

Bhagavān: This is our own water; it's not city water with so many chemicals in it.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Jayatīrtha: What about that bottle water, mineral water?

Bhagavān: He can have that too.

Prabhupāda: No, I know.

Pṛthu-putra: France is the best place for mineral water.

Jayatīrtha: In France they have many very nice waters.

Prabhupāda: Mineral water.

Room Conversation -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Western people, they are not only fool but misbehaved. Paścime loka saba mūḍha anārya.

Hari-śauri: And the further West you go, the worse they become.

Prabhupāda: In India, from Bengal you go Western side. They are very filthy. And go more, more, more Western-filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy.

Harikeśa: Pakistan is the worst. Karachi, I heard, is the worst city in the world almost.

Prabhupāda: Śrīmad-bhāgavatam amalam purāṇam.

Harikeśa: These books are exquisite. The books they make in France are just marvelous.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Harikeśa: It was printed in Italy, I think, but this here is so nice.

Prabhupāda: Yes, embossed. I think our other books are not like that.

Harikeśa: Of course, in France this is very much appreciated because the people are like that.

Prabhupāda: Fancy.

Harikeśa: Yes.

Conversation with George Harrison -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Hamburg, I think closed?

Jayatīrtha: They have a place in Frankfurt, where the devotees are.... Just outside Frankfurt.

George Harrison: So they haven't got a place in Hamburg.

Jayatīrtha: No, it's a heavy city.

George Harrison: I was there one year when they were having fights. It's...

Jayatīrtha: Rockers. It's a heavy place.

Mukunda: Rockers.

George Harrison: It is full of gangs.

Prabhupāda: And we have got another palace, what is that village?

Jayatīrtha: South of Paris? That one?

Prabhupāda: No, France.

Conversation with George Harrison -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: If there is rain then there is no scarcity of water. The water comes here. Yes.

George Harrison: But how, when you drain it, then how did you stop it from filling up?

Mukunda: Well, it did fill up in the winter quite a bit, but then in the summer it went back down. It's filled up now—we had to use city water to get it started. But as soon as it rains it goes up about this far.

Jayatīrtha: It's evaporated about six inches since

Mukunda: You don't have a well in your place?

George Harrison: No, just, well, that (indistinct) pond. Originally the lakes all were filled just like this as well as flooding the drains, and when it rained off the house everything would go, and we have a big storage tank, and then there's ball cocks, and underneath that big bank of rhododendrons was like a room built there, which was a storage tank. Then any other water he must have used just from the mains. But these days, you know, they have meters on the mains, so you have to pay for every gallon.

Mukunda: What about getting those water diviners to come and find water?

George Harrison: Well, you can find it I think anywhere if you just bore a hole. So what we did was just bore at the end of the lake. But you have to go down to the depth of the riverbed, and there there's not much water because the rain, it's all chalk and limestone, so the rains.... That's the problem with watering in the summer, if you put water...

Prabhupāda: From your house the river is near?

George Harrison: Yes.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Jayatīrtha: No one takes any personal benefit. All the money is used for the furtherance of our principles.

Prabhupāda: Besides that, when we require a nice house, somebody gives. Just like George has given us. Similarly, we have got many houses. One boy, his name is Alfred Ford, he's the great-grandson of Mr. Ford, Henry Ford. He has given us two, three very nice properties. So the money, there is no scarcity, and Kṛṣṇa is everywhere. If Kṛṣṇa dictates "Give him this," he'll give, that's all. And that is being happening actually. Within ten years nobody can expect to construct a house like this in a city like London. Is it possible? Even if he is a very big businessman. Not only one, there are so many. It is all Kṛṣṇa's mercy. (kirtana in background)

Mike Robinson: I don't know. Cost a lot, wouldn't it. Is this worship that's taking place downstairs?

Harikeśa: Yes, go down and see.

Prabhupāda: You can see the Deity, yes, go and see.

Mike Robinson: Thank you very much, pleasure to meet you.

Prabhupāda: Thank you very much for your coming.

Devotees: Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Morning Walk Around Farm -- July 31, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Bhagavān: This way we have to go.

Prabhupāda: Why they congesting the city in this, such light? (break) ...very nicely, people may seek out. Thank you. All right. (laughter)

Hari-śauri: He was going to give him a flower, and then just as Prabhupāda reached out he took it back.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break).... to capture him. (cow bells) He's very young?

Devotee (1): One year.

Prabhupāda: Bull

Devotee (1): Cow.

Bhagavān: This here, and the vegetable garden is up here.

Devotee (2): This is mung dahl, Śrīla Prabhupāda, mung dahl. And these are marigolds. We put them in the greenhouse because it gives a longer season. Then we'll have more flowers for the garlands for the Deities.

Bhagavān: These are all table grapes.

Devotee (1): They are melons, Śrīla Prabhupāda. You can see here, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Hari-śauri: There are melons also, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Devotee (2): Here are flowers. This is a heater for the winter to keep the temperature up. We try to grow tomatoes for the Deities in the winter.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (end)

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

Prabhupāda: Organize it and keep hundreds of books. They will live peacefully. But don't entangle in sinful activities. Then it will be all right. Such a nice place. The city residents cannot imagine. What a nonsense life—clubs, slaughterhouse, gambling places, drinking house. This is like hell. Try to save people from this hellish condition of life, without any knowledge, like animals. And nature therefore creates a wholesale slaughterhouse in war, to cut throat all—finished. Many millions and millions are finished. From 1914 to 1950, how many years?

Harikeśa: Thirty-six.

Prabhupāda: Within thirty-six years there were two big wars, slaughter. Especially Europe. Nature will create. Pestilence. Somewhere there is pestilence, somewhere there is war, somewhere there is scarcity of food. But you cannot indulge in sinful activities. Then you'll be killed. Then nature's law will act. You may defy, that's your business, but nature will act in her own way. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). You cannot surpass. That is not possible. But they are foolish, they are trying to conquer over nature by their so-called scientific knowledge. They are such a rascal. You change the color of this fruit and flower, conquer over nature. So rascal, they talk rascal, "It will take millions of years." We have to wait million. "Yes, from chemical we shall bring life. Wait million of years." This is going on. And for such thing, big building, laboratory, research, scientific research. Big, big signboard. And the students out of disappointment, going to the roof and falling down, committing suicide. I saw it?

Harikeśa: Berkeley.

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

Prabhupāda: Berkeley. Very horrible condition. Let them do whatever they like, you live apart from them. Live peacefully in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Be happy. Let these cats and dogs go to hell; what can be done? We are trying to educate them as far as possible, but if they do not take it, that is their business. We are doing our duty, going door to door, "Read these books. If you like, you can come and live with us." What we can do more? We do not make any condition, that if you live with us you have to fulfill. Of course, the condition is that you should not act sinfully. That is the first condition. But we never say that you have to pay so many dollars. Come. Whatever little food we have got, we shall share. So try to understand the importance of this movement. Kṛṣṇa is giving us. This is a first-class place. You can develop it into a Vaikuṇṭha. It is already Vaikuṇṭha, Kṛṣṇa is there. But develop it very nicely, peacefully live. Hundreds of miles away from the hellish cities. For little conveyance we can have bullock carts, when we have to get, transport. Very peaceful life. Introduce it and live peacefully. Am I right or wrong?

Devotee: Oh, yes.

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

Bhagavān: Yes.

Prabhupāda: What do they say?

Bhagavān: They are impressed with how much we have done.

Prabhupāda: They will be more and more impressed. What is this city life? In Paris, simply to fulfill the necessities of life, a professional prostitute, so many. And people from all over the world, they come here for indulge in prostitute. From our childhood we know. What a civilization they have made. Spoiling the life. Then, after finish this life, you just become a cat, a dog, or a tree and stand up. And all other planets are vacant. Simply this planet is filled up, overpopulation. Kill them. Why not send there? So vacant land. (laughter) "That we cannot do." Then what is your scientific research? "Yes, we are trying. Wait millions of years." (laughter) These bluffing rascals. Don't be misled. Live peacefully here, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Hari-śauri: If you like, we can set up for the film now.

Prabhupāda: Now I have given the ideas, the philosophy, in the books. So it is your business to develop all over the world. You are very intelligent, Europeans and Americans. Give it a shape, for the world prosperity. Give it a practical.... It is practical. There is no difficulty. So much land. Very good fertile land in Africa, Australia, in America. All of them can be utilized for the happiness of the whole world. The portal(?) has come or not?

Yogeśvara: I haven't seen any new devotees come from London, so probably not.

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

Prabhupāda: Everything. Bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānām (BG 7.10). The pitā is there. Properly put it into the womb of mother earth. That is the process. Bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānām. Ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā. Harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21). (film projector comes on)

Bhagavān: Last year's European tour.

Devotee: This is the City Hall in Geneva, Switzerland.

Devotee: After you spoke with the mayor in Geneva, Śrīla Prabhupāda, he was worried about the economy of the country, when you explained if we cultivated grains there will be no problem.

Yogeśvara: "If people become devotees of Kṛṣṇa, then who will work?"

Prabhupāda: What was answer?

Hari-śauri: What answer did you give?

Yogeśvara: Do you remember the answer Śrīla Prabhupāda gave?

Devotee: Prabhupāda said we work for cultivating grains. All living entities to live together peacefully. (projector goes off)

Prabhupāda: Very good.

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

Prabhupāda: That may be, you may be a teacher, but you'll remain only a worker. That is another thing. Just like Dronācārya, he taught, he remained a teacher. So we can become a teacher of a particular subject matter, but that does not mean you should be worker. Still, there are many professors, they are teacher, they are not worker. But if the teachers are available, why you should become a teacher? Let them teach. We have to save our time for advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. After all, this, in the modern world they have invented so many varieties of occupations unnecessarily, to develop economic condition. Is it not? But our philosophy is that you cannot develop your economic condition than you are destined to suffer or enjoy. So one should not waste his time for so-called development of economic condition. He should utilize his time for advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, which was not possible in any other form of life. When we had cat's and dog's life, tree's life, we could not do that, development of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Now we have got human form of life, we should fully utilize it for developing Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Why should we waste our time for economic development? Economic development is not possible. Then every work, every city, they are trying to develop this economic condition, but they're struggling. Why they word it of "struggle for existence" is there? It is not possible. Why there are varieties of social position? Everyone could come on the same standard. That is not possible. Anywhere you go, the three classes of men, upper class, middle class and lower class, is there. Is there any country where there is not these three classes, only the upper class? Is there any country? Then what is the use? Anywhere you'll go, you'll find this upper class, middle class and lower class. In the beginning, I thought that America, everyone is richer class. So when I came I saw the three classes are already there. The lower class, although the country has good facilities not to become lower class, still, voluntarily they are hippies, lower class. They are lying on the street. Although he has got very good opportunity to become first class, but he is lying on the street. Why? What is answer? British Empire, London, one is lying on the bench. New York, lying on the bench. There is no sufficient clothing? Why? Actually, he can live very comfortably, but why he's living in that condition? What is answer?

Harikeśa: It's his nature.

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

Harikeśa: It's his nature.

Prabhupāda: No, he has to live in that way. That is his destiny. You cannot change it by artificial ways. Even if he has got all the facilities, he will have to live like that. That is nature. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa saṅgo 'sya sad-asad janma yoniṣu (BG 13.22). This is... So therefore there is no use of so-called improvement. And you cannot do it. This is a fact. Tasyaiva hetoḥ prayeteta kovido. Find out this verse. Na labhyate yad bhramatām upary. Your standard of happiness and distress must be there because you are destined by the laws of nature. You have to suffer although you are born in America. In New York you can get very comfortable life there; still, you have lie down on the bench, lie down. Although you are born of a rich man's family, you have to become hippies, lie down here. Who can check this? What is that law. Do they know it? But there is a law. There will be a first class, second class, third class, fourth class. You cannot check it. Huh? New York City? So cared for? Nasty road, streets. And always, every moment-dung dung dung dung dung dung dung dung, gu gu gu gu gu gu gu-fire. Saṁsāra-dāvānala-līḍha-loka **. Fire is blazing. Despite all arrangement, fire is blazing. How can you stop it? Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura said saṁsāra-biṣānale, dibaniśi hiya jvale. The blazing fire of poison is always going on. Taribāre nā kāinu upāya. And one has to make ways how to get out of this fire. That is intelligence.

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

Devotee (1): And they should give us some facilities?

Prabhupāda: Yes. We want to preach. Here also, if you give us facility, we can preach. That is after your interest.

Devotee (1): This one gentleman has already offered one house in Bangkok. He's put at our disposal, in the middle of the city. A very beautiful house.

Prabhupāda: Oh, that is very nice.

Devotee (1): But now I'm wondering how this should be managed, who should take charge of this project.

Prabhupāda: No, we can send some men from India. Bangkok is not far away from India. If we get a living place, then we can find out. When there are rice thrown, the crows will come. If there is no rice, how the crows will come? This is the philosophy. (laughter) If there is living place, then many crows will come.

Devotee (1): So we can first go and see the situation and then contact our men in India.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Men will be supplied from India. What is his name? Send him some thanks.

Room Conversation -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: Just see how rascal they are. My Guru Mahārāja every step condemned this Ramakrishna Mission and Vivekananda. He said frankly that if there are any impediments for our movement, that is this Gandhi and Vivekananda. He said frankly. Hodge-podge. Gandhi's also hodge-podge. He was a politician, and in politics he mixed some spiritual ideas, hodge-podge. And this Vivekananda was also politician. His name was recorded in the government as "sannyāsī-politician." Because after returning from America, he began to preach to make the poor man rich, and these weak, fatty, and so on, exercise. So the government took it that he's, under the dress of a sannyāsī, he's preaching social and political upliftment. So his name was recorded as "sannyāsī-politician." And his name was also recorded, "political saint," Gandhi. After all, the British government, they were very intelligent. They could understand what is what. Otherwise, how they were managing this big empire? Very intelligent, there is no doubt about it. And actually they were intelligent. When they were managing, we were happy, actually. Nobody can deny it. Although they were exploiting. But nobody could understand. Everyone was feeling happy. And as soon as they left, everyone is unhappy. That distinction I can give evidence, I can, from my personal experience. Things were very, very nice. Calcutta, oh, it was so nice city. Now it is hell. It is same Calcutta. Why it is now hell? Hidden(?) garden, that was a nice garden. So... Everywhere hell, only hell. Calcutta was considered the nicest city in India, better than Bombay, but it has become now hell. The streets, especially those quarters in our temple.

Hari-śauri: I think Calcutta was voted the second dirtiest city in the world.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Ācchā? Just see. And it was next to London. People used to say, "In the British Empire, first London, second Calcutta." And now it is...?

Hari-śauri: Second dirtiest city.

Prabhupāda: And who is the first?

Harikeśa: Karachi.

Room Conversation -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: Both of them got sva-rāja, Pakistan and India. That means after getting sva-rāja..., Karachi was one of the first-class city, yes. They cannot manage. Unfit persons, they are on the top of government.

Hari-śauri: Seems everything is devolving at a phenomenal rate. Every decade that passes, everything breaks down twice as fast. Just in the last twenty years or thirty years everything has become so much degraded and...

Prabhupāda: No, I have got experience. I am Calcutta born. What Calcutta was in our childhood days and what is now, I know everything. How we were happy during British days and what is now position, I can speak from my personal experience. We do not belong to the richest class nor to the poor class-middle class. So we have got practical experience. My father's income was not more than 250 rupees. How opulent we were. At least, there was no question of need. We were receiving daily four, five guests, and my father was functioning so many festivals and he was asking... My father gave in marriage four daughters. There was no difficulty. The income was not more than 250 rupees. Of course, that 250 rupees at least ten times now. But still, there was no needy. Not very opulent, but there was no need. The first necessity is to feed and to clothe. So there was no such scarcity. May not be very luxurious life, but there was no scarcity for food and shelter or cloth. There was no scarcity. Happy. That is wanted. Happiness in whatever circumstance. Not that because we did not possess a motorcar, therefore unhappy. I purchased one motor car in 1925, Buick car. Not for personal use, but for using it as a taxi. My one nephew, he was a good driver, so my father, "Why don't you give him? He can do that, we can use it our own car also taxi." So I took it, Buick car, I think I paid eight thousand rupees.

Room Conversation -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Hari-śauri: The whole country could be like this if everybody was Kṛṣṇa conscious.

Prabhupāda: Very peacefully you can live. In the city you go, thousands of cars are running-ror-ror-ror-ror-ror-ror-ror. What is called? Flyway, expressway, downway, every ten yards stop for the light. (laughter) How artificial life. And with all these things, if people would have been happy, all right. But they're not happy, in spite of all this advancement.

Hari-śauri: Yes. Simply increasing their miseries.

Prabhupāda: That's all. Problems.

Hari-śauri: The bigger the buildings, the more anxiety they're in.

Prabhupāda: Not only many cars, they construct new roads, new... Increasing business, in the hope of happiness. But there is no happiness.

Room Conversation -- August 3, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: New Vrindaban is on the rocks and hills, and this is plain. Therefore situation is better. That New Orleans is also plain land. You have been there? And Pennsylvania is also.

Hari-śauri: Pennsylvania is very good.

Prabhupāda: But it doesn't matter. Our purpose will be served anywhere. So, try to concentrate in this village organization life. Full of anxieties, city life. The houses already there, if you repair them nicely then it is a very nice place. They're gradually being repaired.

Bhagavān: Yes. No one is getting any salary here, they are just working and taking...

Prabhupāda: Yes, that's all. Why salary? Kṛṣṇa's servant. We are eternal servant. That is the beauty of our institution. We have no hired men. Unless one is sincere, why he'll work? What is the time now?

Bhagavān: Eight-thirty.

Prabhupāda: I think it is stopped. Just see how beautifully it is colored. This sense, aesthetic sense. Kṛṣṇa knows how it will become beautiful. Svā-bhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca. Construction—eh?—of the flower. And there is no intelligence.

Room Conversation -- August 3, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hari-śauri: Seems they're always carrying little snippets of information about what we're doing. Before there was a report about the restaurants, and here there's two reports about..., one about the Jagannātha festival in New York and one about the proposed Vedic university in Kurukṣetra. These were on consecutive days. The one about New York, it says, "Washington, July the 19th." That's where it's reported from. It says, "New York saw on Sunday an unusual spectacle of three brightly colored chariots being pulled along the city's prestigious Fifth Avenue from Central Park to Washington Square, a distance of about five kilometers, by members of the Hare Kṛṣṇa group. The rathas, built in Orissan style with giant wooden wheels, attracted large crowds of spectators all along the route. It was a novel experience for the New Yorkers. Many resident Indians who are not members of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement enthusiastically gave a hand in the pulling. The Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees were celebrating the feast of Jagannātha in the traditional Indian way. The police and the city administration readily cooperated. In a city that is coming to be known for its tolerance of diverse cultures, chariot processions promise to be an annual event. While a few citizens booed and some altercations were reported, the spectacle was well received by the New Yorkers. 'I think it is great,' the New York Times quoted a man as saying. The person, who identified himself as a visitor to New York and was not a Hare Kṛṣṇa fan, referring to the Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees, added, 'They are all happy and dancing, and that's what life's all about.' Later a vegetarian feast was served to the admirers."

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Room Conversation -- August 4, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: So what happened to the tickets?

Harikeśa: The tickets are being locked up in the safe right now. They're going to..., they're going to bring the tickets tomorrow to this city called Tours, which is very nearby. They have an Air France office, and we can have it converted(?) there. So everything's all right for Saturday.

Prabhupāda: So we shall go by the same plane?

Harikeśa: Yes, everybody goes in the same plane.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Jayatīrtha: Jaya (break)

Hari-śauri: This is the first pamphlet that you ever printed?

Prabhupāda: No.

Hari-śauri: I mean in the West?

Prabhupāda: No, before coming here.

Hari-śauri: Oh, then you brought it with you.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Everywhere materialistic. Manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye (BG 7.3). Spiritualistic means siddhi, perfection. Who cares for perfection? Bring money and enjoy. That's all. Who cares for perfection? They do not know what is perfection. They think that you get money, you live comfortably as far as possible, and after death, everything's finished. Is it not? This is the philosophy. Who cares to know that there is life after death and better life, better planet, better world? This is not at all good, it is full of miseries. They are driving all day, car, but they do not think it is tiresome. They think it is pleasure. To have a car and drive whole day, they do not feel that is tiresome. They think "I have got a car, I'm driving, people are seeing. It is pleasure."

Parivrājakācārya: It is madness, how they can enjoy a city like that.

Prabhupāda: But we do not deprecate. We simply say that do whatever you like, but do not forget your real business, self-realization, ātma-tattvam. Self-realization, that is required. And if we live like cats and dogs and again become cats and dogs and pigs, that is not success. But there is chance if one does not know ātma-tattva. Nature's law will work. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu (BG 13.22). Hare Kṛṣṇa. So, your son is sleeping?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: No, this is not my son.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Evening Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: The material world is full of miseries. It may be of different degrees, but it is full of miseries. You cannot avoid by adjustment. That is not possible. Therefore the materialists, they are trying. Just like in this country, Iran, now the Iranians are trying to become as opulent as the Americans. They are trying to build up similar cities and industries, but do you think they will be happy then? No. Are the Americans happy by having big, big cities? No. That is not possible. Now they are trying to imitate, but that is a false attempt. That is not the life. They can see that Americans have got big, big cities, they have big, big organizations, but are they happy actually or not? From practical example. Then why you are attempting again to imitate them? That intelligence is lacking. How they will be happy, they do not know. They are trying to imitate somebody else. He is already on the standard, so-called, but still they are not happy. The Communists, they're trying for the last fifty years to become happy, but are they happy actually? No. The Russians and the Chinese, they are now differing, "No, this is not the standard. This is standard." So the same thing is going on. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). It is like chewing the chewed, that's all. Somebody has chewed the sugar cane and it's thrown away. Another man comes, "Let me taste it." And what you'll taste? It is already finished. So all these "isms," they are all finished. All the scientific discoveries, they are all finished. And where is happiness? This is not the way. Mām upetya kaunteya duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15). You have to attempt in such a way that after giving up this body, you go back home, back to Godhead, never come back again here. This is the way. Otherwise, there is no happiness. You go on struggling, that is your choice. Make new attempts. Just like this moon excursion. Ten years ago in one small book, Easy Journey to Other Planets, we predicted that this moon-going attempt is childish and waste of time. We are not expert scientist, but from the śāstra we can understand. Now such a brilliant planet, pleasing, and they have discovered there rocks and sand. Just see their intelligence. Do you think rocks and sand are so brilliant? What do you think? This bluff is going on. People are feeling under the moonshine is so pleasing, and it is full of rocks and sand. We have to accept that. Rocks and sand, throughout the whole day by scorching heat, they also become heated. So at night it is suffering.

Evening Darsana -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Nandarāṇī: I have class only two days a week because the city is big and I have to go myself and collect them from their homes or meet in one home downtown and the traffic is very difficult, so we only have class two days a week, but I teach Bhagavad-gītā and Kṛṣṇa book.

Prabhupāda: They cannot come here?

Nandarāṇī: This, it takes them almost two hours to come from the city to here, so now they are coming here because on Janmāṣṭamī all thirty of them are putting on a play of Kṛṣṇa's birth from your Kṛṣṇa book. So starting Sunday until the 18th, every day I am bringing them here. I'm renting a minibus and getting them from city and bringing them here for play practice. Then on Janmāṣṭamī we are having four hundred guests from the Indian community, and the children are putting on this "Birth of Kṛṣṇa" play, and they learn to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and play the karatālas. These children are actually like American children; they have no touch with their culture. Most of them don't know Kṛṣṇa from anyone else. So now I've taught them, just like we had to teach American children. And they like it very much. So they are doing the plays...

Prabhupāda: The parents also like it.

Evening Darsana -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: That's nice. Here is love of God. Whole day he was engaged to serve God, that is love.

Atreya Ṛṣi: We have a nice building for Kṛṣṇa, it's very nice.

Prabhupāda: Where it is?

Atreya Ṛṣi: It is in the middle of the city. It is the one I was explaining to you the other day. So we went to the notary, and it takes a long time, because it's a lot of red tape. And also the lights went off. The lights went off in the middle of writing the agreement. So now we have the agreement, by your grace, it is nice. If you feel good, maybe you can visit it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Tomorrow morning I'll go?

Atreya Ṛṣi: Well, I would like it when traffic is low, because it's in the city.

Prabhupāda: When it is, traffic is...?

Atreya Ṛṣi: It is in the heart of the city.

Prabhupāda: No, when the traffic will be low?

Atreya Ṛṣi: Thursday is very good, otherwise... It should be both cool... I mean they're living there, it's not...

Hari-śauri: Six o'clock.

Evening Darsana -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Atreya Ṛṣi: Iranians start work early. Some start at six-thirty.

Prabhupāda: Six-thirty.

Atreya Ṛṣi: Yes, this is a very busy city. Some people work two, three shifts.

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

Dayānanda: But there is no work on Thursday.

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

Prabhupāda: That's all right, make arrangement.

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

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

Evening Darsana -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Yes, Kṛṣṇa's mercy.

Atreya Ṛṣi: You will see it.

Prabhupāda: So make arrangement on Thursday. At any time, we shall go.

Atreya Ṛṣi: It is both nice location and a nice small house. We can also get a bigger one nearby, and a bigger one, we can take the whole city.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Later on. Later on. No, we can member anyone, because we are proposing very pure thing, "You chant the holy name of God." Who will object?

Atreya Ṛṣi: You should let Dayānanda Prabhu and I live a thousand years. We will buy the whole city.

Prabhupāda: I shall go there. I am going. (devotees offer obeisances) So thank you very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Give this one garland to this boy and another to Atreya Ṛṣi. (end)

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Iranian: Pustu.(?)

Prabhupāda: Tustu(?) language, tustu. This language resembles like that. This Irani language. (break) And they are claiming it is ours. Nobody has created anything. God has created for His pleasure. Everything is God's property, and they have made an unfavorable situation, "My property." Now here is a city, it is all right, there is no trouble. If I say it is my property and you say it is your property, then there is trouble. Then there is immigration department, "Why you are coming here?" Then the dogs barking, yow yow yow. This is going on as civilization. First of all, they claim God's property falsely their own, and they create a situation. And for this purpose the whole world is working, how to create a bad situation of proprietorship right on God's property, that's all.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Sahara, Sahara.

Pradyumna: Sahara Desert. It used to be very rich thousands of years ago, but then became desert.

Hari-śauri: It's supposed to increase its size by ten miles every year.

Pradyumna: Desert growth. Formerly, that city Carthage used to be there. Carthage was fighting Rome. Carthage was very rich, all farms.

Prabhupāda: Cartharian civilization was very big civilization. The thing is that the more people become sinful, they'll be disturbed by this natural atmosphere. Therefore I'm surprised that moon planet is inhabited by pious inhabitants, how there can be desert?

Pradyumna: But does moon planet have something to do with Pitṛs? Does the Pitṛ..., Pitṛloka is different?

Prabhupāda: Pitṛ?

Pradyumna: Pitā, Pitṛ?

Prabhupāda: No, Pitṛloka is different. That is downwards.

Evening Darsan -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: We have got three platforms, generally. Material platform divided into two-gross and subtle, and there is spiritual platform. The body is material platform, divided into two, gross and subtle. And then if you are fortunate enough to come to the spiritual platform, then your life is successful. So the karmīs generally... Just like we see in the city, they are all busy, working very hard. They are on the gross material platform. And then next class, just like scientist, poet, philosopher, they are in the subtle platform. And above them, there are persons who are simply interested in spiritual understanding. They are on the spiritual platform. So according to the platform, there are thoughts and activities also. Your question is what is about these so many things. So first of all you have to understand in which platform he is situated. Then his activities are ascertained. If you are in the material platform, doing some business, making some profit, and if you bring there question—"What is this, use of material profit, this body is temporary, why I am..."—then your material activities will be diminished.(?) So we have to understand first of all what is our actual objective. And then if we stand in that platform, then our life is successful.

Room Conversation -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Suppose there is little success, but in comparison to the money expended, that success is little. Just like I, in the beginning I advertised my books in the Times, New York Times. They charged me sixty-three dollars, a small space. So there was inquiry, not order, three inquiries. Not even order. I have got this experience. For me, at that time, sixty-three dollars were too much. So I did not get any response. That is my practical experience. I got three inquiries, not even order. But the Times, New York Times, they have got millions of customers and millions of readers, but I got three inquiries.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: To find those few potential devotees that are in, let us assume, in New York, big city, there were a few potential devotees, and materially speaking, it may be very difficult to find them. But when the devotee is sincere, Kṛṣṇa will give opportunity that those people will be found, even if they are one in that big city. Kṛṣṇa will arrange that they will find a pure devotee if they are sincere. So no material advertising will accomplish the task.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Caitanya Mahāprabhu says that it is only for the fortunate persons. But we must present. Only the fortunate will come forward. We cannot expect that everyone will come. That is not possible.

Room Conversation -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: That is asura. That is, that means asura. They have already tried the moon excursion, failure, again do it. This will be a failure, again do it. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). Repeatedly chewing the chewed. That is their business. One excursion-failure. It is already chewed. Whatever possibility finished—again chewing: "Let me see if there is any juice." Because they have no other business. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). Adānta-gobhir viśatāṁ tamisraṁ punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām. Matir na kṛṣṇe parataḥ svato vā. There are already discussed.

matir na kṛṣṇe parataḥ svato vā
mitho 'bhipadyeta gṛha-vratānām
adānta-gobhir viśatāṁ tamisraṁ
punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām
(SB 7.5.30)

This is their business. Failure, again; failure, again. One war started, all the city bombarded—finished—again start, again reconstruct. And when the reconstruct finished, again war. Again bomb it, again reconstruct.

Room Conversation -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: But what profit you have gained? You have spent some millions of dollars, that's all.

Devotee: More theories.

Prabhupāda: (chants japa)

Devotee: The government encourages this spending of money while the citizens are unhappy and cannot be safe in their own city.

Prabhupāda: Yes, you must have such government. Dasyu-dharyogi (?). They will snatch your money by force. You cannot say anything. That is punishment. Godless civilization, that is punishment, that your own government will snatch, by force, take away your hard labor accumulation, by taxes. That is written in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. You cannot fight. You will be harassed in so many ways you will become mad. Ācchinna-dāra-draviṇā yāsyanti giri-kānanam. Hopelessly you will leave hearth and home and go to the forest. This godless civilization will be punished like that. That day is coming like that. Nobody will be peaceful. They will be mad. Just like when a man becomes mad, he commits suicide, he blows off his head. This will be done. There will be no rain—this is one punishment—and scarcity of food and heavy taxation by government. They are all mentioned. What more suffering you want? But still they are advancing, scientists.

Evening Darsana -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: But why the Indians, they are not like the Americans? You find in India still millions of people will go to the Kumbhamelā with torn cloth. They are not like Americans, riches. Why they take? Indian is well-known poverty-stricken. So why almost ninety-nine percent people, they are after Kṛṣṇa consciousness naturally? Still they'll go, when there is Kumbhamelā, so many saintly persons are coming. They will come by lakhs. Have you seen it? You have seen Kumbhamelā? You have seen? That is the proof. Not only Kumbhamelā. In Vṛndāvana, just like in our temple, recently it was jam-packed. Why they are coming to Vṛndāvana? Mostly they are coming from villages. Especially during this time at least twenty thousand, fifty thousand men are coming, daily. Still. We held Hare Kṛṣṇa festivals in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras. As soon as it is advertised, you'll find fifteen thousand, twenty thousand men come. And if you hold for weeks, for weeks they will come. You have seen? They are not like Americans, rich. They are all poverty-stricken. To the general eyes they are poverty-stricken. Kumbhamelā you'll see, Hardwar, in Vṛndāvana. Or even in big, big cities like Calcutta, Bombay, such festivals are held, people will come by thousands. It is training, culture. And this boy is taking three times bath, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. It is training and culture. And if he is kept in this culture, in future he'll be great saintly person. Then he'll do everything automatically. He will deliver others. It is training.

Morning Walk -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Such kind of argument can be counteracted by so many other argument.

Harikeśa: We just see practically that we're enjoying life. We can't...

Prabhupāda: Enjoy life means... Even the industrialists, they go to the remote village and have a peaceful house there. That is the anxiety, how I shall live peacefully. The poorer class, the workers, they live in the city, and the capitalist, he goes to a different place.

Jñānagamya: Vṛndāvana, they came to Vṛndāvana, those Indian industrialists. They were so nervous, always like this, "Who is here? Who is also here? Should I talk to him about business." Very nervous.

Hari-śauri: But variety is the spice of life.

Prabhupāda: Variety, there are qualities of varieties. Just like we enjoy varieties prasādam, and there is variety in the brothel also. Two qualities of variety. Variety is good, that's all right.

Morning Walk -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Harikeśa: I can't live on a farm.

Prabhupāda: That does not make you, what is called, unfit. You can do something like that.

Harikeśa: I mean I was born in a city, raised in a city, and feel very good when I'm in a city, but when I'm on a farm, I'm very disturbed.

Prabhupāda: Rājasika, you have got rājasika. So that means your mode of nature is rājasika. There are three kinds of-sāttvika, rājasika, tāmasika.

Harikeśa: But what are we going to do with all these kind of people?

Prabhupāda: That is already there, three kinds of propensities. Sāttvika, rājasika, tāmasika. So you belong to the rājasika, that's all. So it can be conquered by sāttvika.

Hari-śauri: So we should all aim towards leaving the cities. If everyone becomes sāttvika...

Prabhupāda: That tendency is there, why these bungalows are here? They do not like to live in the city. They are paying so high rent. Why? The inner tendency is to live like this, with trees, with lawn. (to passerby:) Hare Kṛṣṇa, thank you. (end)

Morning Walk, House Visit, Evening Darsana -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: For restaurant, very nice. (some conversing as lady shows them through)

Dayānanda: Very nice kitchen, Śrīla Prabhupāda. It's a good size kitchen.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: That kitchen can be extended.

Prabhupāda: Thank you.

Dayānanda: An adjoining room for storage.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Would you like one of these peaches, Śrīla Prabhupāda? Yes, that's right, that's right. Would you prefer an orange? Can I skin this?

Hari-śauri: I can cut an orange.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Orange?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Cut into pieces, give me. Give me little.

Pradyumna: Bitter skin. Sometimes there are amoebas on the outside.

Nava-yauvana: The location is very central. In the city it's very central. (end)

Room Conversation About Blitz News Clipping -- August 21, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: You also explain, that British Empire expanded by military strength. And we are expanding by Ratha-yātrā. We are expanding our empire simply by Ratha-yātrā.

Hari-śauri: East meets West.

Pradyumna: Singing, dancing and chanting.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We introduce three chariots in big, big cities, and conquered them.

Hari-śauri: "Rival to Nelson's Column."

Gargamuni: We are marching through the streets not with guns.

Prabhupāda: They admitted, "Rival to Nelson Column" in Guardian even. So who is strong enough? We are stronger than British Empire. Simply by Ratha-yātrā we are conquering. And actually that is being done. What I have got strength? Forty rupees beginning. Simply Hare Kṛṣṇa and Ratha-yātrā, that's all. That's a fact. They can see, they have got eyes.

Room Conversation -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: This is "theologians, scholars," and they, he said... Just see. Go on.

Maṇihāra: "At present there are 108 ISKCON centers in 30 countries throughout the world. These centers enable full-time members to live in close association, following the principles of Vedic life, and also provide a place where interested visitors can learn about the philosophy and culture of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and participate in its various functions. The basis of the movement is the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra—Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. The chanting of this mantra is the most recommended means for spiritual progress in this age, as it cleanses the mind and enables one to transcend the temporary designations of race, religion, and nationality and to understand one's true identity as an eternal spiritual being. In other words, simply by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa one can directly experience self-realization and lead a blissful life. The devotees experience divine ecstasy in singing the holy names of God to the accompaniment of musical instruments. The Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees, as a prerequisite for the serious pursuit of spiritual life, voluntarily abstain from meat-eating, illicit sex, intoxication, and gambling. The Kṛṣṇa conscious life style is based on the principles of simple living and high thinking. The devotees rise very early, about 3:30 a.m., and spend the morning hours in meditation and study. During the day, the main activity is preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Many devotees go out to public places to distribute the Society's books and its official journal, Back to Godhead magazine, which has a monthly circulation more than a million copies in fourteen different languages. In addition to book distribution, devotees engage in a variety of activities, including teaching, artistic pursuits and farming. The qualification in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is not what kind of work one performs, but that it be done in the spirit of devotion to God. For the first time, Swami Prabhupāda has introduced Ratha-yātrā of Lord Jagannātha of Purī in the Western world. This festival is now being conducted in the major cities of the world like San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, London, Paris, etc. Millions of people relish the taste of pulling the transcendental ratha and partake of Kṛṣṇa prasāda. Another of ISKCON's projects is New Vrindaban, a model thousand-acre Kṛṣṇa conscious community farm in the hills of West Virginia. This is ISKCON's first venture in protecting cows from going to the slaughterhouses."

Prabhupāda: Take care of the cows, and?

Maṇihāra: It says, "This is ISKCON's first venture in protecting cows from going to slaughterhouses. Over four hundred cows give twelve hundred litres of milk daily, providing natural, healthy products like butter, ghee, etc. And especially milk sweets like gulabjamon, rasagullā, etc."

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Pradyumna: Just the names of those...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Enclose this quote.

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

Prabhupāda: That will be very nice.

Krishna Modi: So that... Let them ticket hire and air freight and all that should be paid by them. Let them support.

Prabhupāda: We have got branches in almost all important cities.

Krishna Modi: Ten or fifteen. Let them see so that they may be attracted and they may know each and every thing. Because here we know only by this thing. And then let us advertise about.

Prabhupāda: You take this paper. Make a list of important cities. Now suppose if you go from Delhi. So you can go first to Paris, Geneva, Rome, then London, Amsterdam, Stockholm. Then from London I think New York, Boston, Montreal, Canada. Then you go to the western side, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver. Go further, Honolulu.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Then you could go to the Pacific, Australia.

Prabhupāda: Ah yes.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: New Zealand, Sydney.

Prabhupāda: Australia, Melbourne.

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

Prabhupāda: Australia, Melbourne.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: You can stop in Japan on the way.

Krishna Modi: Let us have a program, make a program so that some...

Prabhupāda: In every big city...

Krishna Modi: Five or ten, they should go with all their expenses.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They can stay at our temples. Wherever they go. We will pick them up at the airport and bring them to the temple.

Krishna Modi: Pre-arrangement should be done by our, this thing, this transport and fooding and lodging.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Local transport and...

Krishna Modi: That is. So that I may fix up this program with the...

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Garden Conversation -- September 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: They got their own paddy from the field, milk, some vegetables. Those who are fish eaters, they have got small lake, fish. Whole family without any... "Where I shall get money?" "How shall I eat?" These things were absent. Even the poor man.

Caraṇāravindam: Actually I have seen that even in all these villages in Africa and India, they have no real connection to the city politics. Because if the city breaks down they could move back to... They have their cow, they have field, vegetables...

Prabhupāda: If there is war they were not affected. And the soldiers would not bother the public. It is said during Mohammedan period the soldiers of one party will ask the cultivator, "Where the other soldiers gone?" They would say, "I have seen and they have gone this side." The cultivator is going on. The fighting is going on, but the cultivator is not affected. He is free. "You fight between themselves and whoever the victor is, I shall pay taxes. That's all. I have nothing to do with politics." This was... Between two parties of king or political, they may fight. Citizens, they have nothing to do who is the victorious. "You fight and one of you will become victorious. So you take taxes. I am concerned with paying tax. And tax, tax means whatever I have grown, you take one-fourth. You see this I have grown. Now you can take away one-fourth." No income tax, no sale tax, no this tax or that tax. And if some year, by chance, he has not grown anything—no tax. "I have not produced, I could not produce anything." Very simple. Soldiers, they were not paid. They were given land by the king. "You enjoy this land without any price. But when there is fight you have to come out." Fight is not going every day. It may take place after some years. So they are living peacefully.

Garden Conversation -- September 7, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Now their delicacy their own children. (break) ...big stack of bricks, iron. Left over.

Hari-śauri: Sometimes they don't even finish the buildings they're building. That building across the road from our temple in New York, that's been there five years like that, half-completed.

Prabhupāda: Now things are deteriorating. And fire is always... (Siren bell sound:) dungdung dungdungdungdungdung-gawaawaawaa. Saṁsāra-dāvānala. Still they think that they are advanced. In one hour three times fire, still he is advanced. Therefore he is mūḍha. At least, in small city such disturbances are not... It is always gawaagawaagawaa.

Hari-śauri: Police, ambulance, fires.

Prabhupāda: How the city life is attractive we cannot understand.

Hari-śauri: (laughs) Ask him. He's always telling us how New York is the best place in the world.

Prabhupāda: You were born in New York?

Devotee: No.

Prabhupāda: That is mother and... (laughter) Jananī jana. (Sanskrit) Any rotten place, but birthplace has got some attraction.

Room Conversation (Bullock Cart SKP) -- September 12, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: I have seen, Gandhi wanted to organize a program, village (break) ...in the field, that this program for constructing toilet in the village, they have spent so much. You know that? The first business was toilet. To restrict them to pass stool here and there, they must have. Now in constructing that toilet paraphernalia, (indistinct), they... Therefore it failed, village organization. Not for that purpose. There were many purpose. Because they had no engagement, so why they should remain in the village? There are so many attraction in the city, and they get money. The factory-wallas, they're inviting, "Come here. You shall get twenty rupees per day." Why shall he remain in the village? So if you can organize in the villages, they are interested in chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra and getting nice prasādam, then... One must have some attachment. In the city there are so many artificial attachments. So on what ground they'll remain in the village? Mind, always remember this. Unless you have got some attachment, there is no possibility. Gandhi's program was very nice, village organize so that they may not come to the city and help the capitalists. Remain satisfied in the village. But where is that satisfaction? That is the failure.

Room Conversation (Bullock Cart SKP) -- September 12, 1976, Vrndavana:

Lokanātha: If they add the holy name to their lives, they will...

Prabhupāda: Yes. If they could understand that. That will be helpful if you chant. Therefore Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu's statement will never be false. Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam (CC Antya 20.12). If they chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, then gradually the dirty things accumulated within the heart will be cleansed. And if he comes to the understanding, clear idea, that "I want to eat something and my necessities... So if I get my necessities, primary necessities of life, and satisfaction of mind, then why shall I go to city?" That they can have very easily. If they follow the instruction of Bhagavad-gītā, that "Your first necessity is food." So produce food here. Kṛṣi-go-rakṣya-vāṇijyam (BG 18.44). And you'll find here so much land is lying vacant. Because they have gone to the city for twenty rupees daily to manufacture Goodyear tire. And who will work here? Now I have seen in Delhi, the government is advertising, "Go back to the village." Rascal, you are manufacturing wine and keeping them engaged whole day in the work. So after being tired, he requires some wine. And why he'll go? And no spiritual education, no cleanliness. Simply inviting "Go to the village" they will go?

Lokanātha: Just a propaganda.

Room Conversation (Bullock Cart SKP) -- September 12, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No, they're thinking that so many people are coming to the cities, how we shall provide them? That's a problem. After all government has to supply them rations. Where is so much foodstuff? And if they are not supplied, then there will be resentment. That's a fact. What they are doing in the city, so many scooter (makes motor sound), going here and there. Actually no engagement. The girls are loitering in the street by dressing. It will become more and more problems, city life. So this is the solution, that they must go back to the village. But they are trained up to enjoy the facilities, so-called facilities, of the city. They are not going to village. But if we can introduce this hari-saṅkīrtana, and if they have little taste, that is success. It's a great program. And that taste will come-ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam (CC Antya 20.12). If he simply becomes little sober that "I want to eat, I have to sleep, I want some sense enjoyment and defense. So if I can get easily in the village, why shall I go three hundred miles away? Just keep in mind the psychology. So that simple life will be possible if one is bhakta. Bhaktiḥ pareśānubhavo viraktir anyatra syāt (SB 11.2.42). Only by devotion. Not by otherwise. Not by artificial means, by manufacturing toilet. Only bhakti. If they get little attachment for Kṛṣṇa the questions will be solved automatically. And they will be happy. Undoubtedly. That is the Caitanya Mahāprabhu's first instruction. Ceto-darpaṇa.

Lokanātha: I come from village, and I'm happy now as I have taken to holy name and prasāda. So more, other villagers... Half of these boys are from villages?

Prabhupāda: Yes, they are villagers.

Room Conversation (Bullock Cart SKP) -- September 12, 1976, Vrndavana:

kanātha: When you went to some place in Gujarat, Sanand? It was reported that thousands of people will come. It was a small village...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Village, if you go out they will come like anything. Even in the city we have got experience. In Calcutta we did Maidan. Thirty thousand they were coming. They could not understand English, still they are coming, simply by kīrtana. This Haṁsadūta was performing kīrtana, and all the Bengali ladies coming from outside Calcutta by train, and they're praying, "take this." (indistinct) Still India is alive. And I was speaking in English mostly. Also in Delhi. Still ladies are sitting. (laughs) What they'll understand English? But that kīrtana was so attractive, they sat down only for kīrtana.

Lokanātha: Nobody outside ISKCON does this kīrtana.

Prabhupāda: What do they know? What they'll do? All rascals, fools.

Room Conversation -- September 16, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: And from Vṛndāvana, we have seen, they are exporting that drumbeats? Vṛndāvana?

Hari-śauri: Drumsticks.

Prabhupāda: Huh? Drumstick. So the transport is a dangerous thing.

Haṁsadūta: Yes, this is a scheme.

Prabhupāda: A local man cannot get. He's starving. And the man in big cities, he's doing nothing, he simply has got paper to sign and paper money he's attracting. All production. And they are starving. This is modern civilization. Everything, milk, vegetables, fish, everything, this chānā. Otherwise, within the village you can get everything. Village economy. Everything very cheap. And as soon as they got these transport facilities, the local men, they could not eat, and these lazy rascals, they are getting everything. Big, big cities like Calcutta, Bombay, they (have) millions of population. They are not producing anything. The producer is different man. They are simply artificially cheating them by paper money and they take. This is modern civilization.

Haṁsadūta: And on the basis of this transporting of food, other industries grow. Like for instance packing. Sometimes the package costs more than the item which is being packaged.

Prabhupāda: Especially in your country. Packing is more important than the... They sent me some presentation in a huge package.

Room Conversation -- September 16, 1976, Vrndavana:

Haṁsadūta: And on the basis of this transporting of food, other industries grow. Like for instance packing. Sometimes the package costs more than the item which is being packaged.

Prabhupāda: Especially in your country. Packing is more important than the... They sent me some presentation in a huge package.

Haṁsadūta: Consequently those persons who are farmers, they become discouraged.

Prabhupāda: Now it has become a problem how to throw these packings.

Haṁsadūta: Yes, this is another problem.

Hari-śauri: Yes. Plastic they can't dispose of, glass.

Prabhupāda: Simply creating problems. Lavana haila ithe gatila jagya.(?) This modern civilization, they could not make any profit. They have created some problems, that's all. Very dangerous civilization.

Haṁsadūta: There was one writer, he wrote a book about the cities, these big modern cities. And he said that in the future the price of labor will become so enormous that to break down the old buildings in these cities which have been built to become obsolete, will be impossible. And the whole place will become swamp land by that. (end)

Room Conversation -- October 31, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Haṁsadūta is also a good driver.

Haṁsadūta: I am good for nothing.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Driver we'll get, there is no... So I want to preach little in the village. For that purpose in the big bus like that, we shall go with our tents, and we camp in a place where there is water, and begin our preaching. And Hindi book we are getting. In this way let me try in India, in the village, not in the city.

Devotee: Oh yes.

Haṁsadūta: For us there is no problem Prabhupāda, but it may be difficult for your Divine Grace.

Prabhupāda: No what is difficult? (laughter) But I want to do something for India in the village. So that I... That, we are getting lands, making one center, we can go here and there, not continually. Suppose here is a center, we go sometimes this side, sometimes this side, sometimes come back again.

Haṁsadūta: Um hm.

Hari-śauri: Find one good camping spot.

Prabhupāda: Yes. You go early in the morning and do something. If it is favorable... Just like in Bengal they are doing. (They get) good reception. You have heard it?

Haṁsadūta: Yes, I heard.

Room Conversation on New York court case -- November 2, 1976, Vrindaban:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: ...and that's the most important thing.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is a most important thing. That you cannot discriminate minority communities. That is against American constitution.

Haṁsadūta: Prabhupāda, when this, when we had a similar situation in Germany, what we wanted to do is have all our centers in important cities in foreign countries all over the world make a letter and a delegation to visit the United States embassy in all these places. This will have an effect because if it's brought, if it comes in this way, international reaction...

Prabhupāda: Yes, arrange like this.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We can understand, Rāmeśvara suggested we send a big petition of telegrams to the American consulate. Because then American consulate will transmit these telegrams to the state department in Washington. We said that if our... We would pay for it but our life members will all sign if we send a telegram to the American...

Prabhupāda: Hm, Dr. Saligram taken a leading part?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Who?

Hari-śauri: Dr. Saligram Sukla.

Prabhupāda: Saligram Sukla.

Room Conversation on New York court case -- November 2, 1976, Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: ...that if the people take to this movement, then where you stand? (about Hari-śauri:) He has also expressed. What is that?

Hari-śauri: There's a psychiatrist (indistinct). Sydney city council are trying to have us banned from the city altogether and they took us to court and we didn't contest the case and they lost. And then afterwards they, they worked out they spent $10,000 and so much manpower to try and get rid of us and it didn't work. And one newspaper man went to a psychiatrist and he asked him, "Can you explain why this huge reaction against just a few people singing and dancing in the street? So he said, "Basically it's because the city-dwellers feel very threatened by our simple lifestyle.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just see. So this whole western civilization is threatened.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They are afraid of the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Their whole economic structure will fail. Theoretically, take it for granted that if people give up meat-eating...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No smoking, no drinking.

Room Conversation -- November 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Haṁsadūta: Big country, very poor.

Hari-śauri: Moscow.

Haṁsadūta: In that city, one has to wait for years in order to get an apartment.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā?

Haṁsadūta: Yes, Anatol was telling me, that boy Ānanda-śānti. His whole family was living in that..., but you did not see his room. His room is very small, maybe two times the size of your kitchen and whole family was living in that. Mother, grandmother, father, him, and when Mandākinī went there she was also living there.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Haṁsadūta: Very small.

Prabhupāda: Pigeonhole.

Room Conversation -- November 4, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: ...full of pictures, so naturally, as soon as they, the picture and..., they take it.

Akśayananda: Yes, that's the trouble. So we have a system in some towns. We find one member who is very much liking us, and we send all the magazines to him, and he goes, sends his, given by hand, to all the other members in that city.

Prabhupāda: That is not possible.

Akśayananda: We are doing that in some cities but we don't have in all cities such a system. That system works.

Prabhupāda: How it is possible? Some are living ten miles from him. It is not possible. No, that is happening in India, not in other countries. In your country the peons are very responsible.

Akśayananda: Yes, the post office is also very good.

Prabhupāda: Here they never satisfied. This is the modern mentality. Nobody is satisfied with his income. He wants more money. And for that purpose he can do anything rascal. I have seen it. This peon puts his bag without any responsibility. Letters are strewn and maybe some letters stolen. Who can say? And he came to earn some money. For some time he'll compose and get some labor. And in Calcutta I have seen all the office peons, they are sleeping in Dalhousie Square, the peon book as the pillow, for hours together. And when they, after distributing, when they return to the office it is going to be closed. And if they are asked explanation, "Why you are so late?" "Oh, he was not there. I had to wait three hours," and so on, so on, so on. Everyone is dishonest. Nobody is working honestly. Especially in India, because poverty-stricken. If they can sleep two hours he thinks that he has made some profit. Formerly people were God conscious. They did not like to cheat, that "God will be displeased." Now they don't believe in God, so they can do anything.

Room Conversation with Dr. Theodore Kneupper -- November 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Well, in your country there is some adjustment because it is very big country and you are all intelligent people. In other countries they... But even though you have got resources, if you not properly utilize it, then the bad time is coming. You should expect. If your energy is all engaged in manufacturing tires and wheels, then who will go to the... Actually I have seen in your country. Now the farmers' son, they do not like to remain in the farm. They go in the city. I have seen it. The farmers' son, they do not like to take up the profession of his father. So gradually farming will be reduced, and the city residents, they are satisfied if they can eat meat. And the farmer means keeping the, raising the cattle and killing them, send to the city, and they will think that "We are eating. What is the use of going to..." But these rascals have no brain that "If there is no food grain or grass, how these cattle will be...?" Actually it is happening. They are eating swiftly. "The cattle will die. Before they die, let us kill and eat." Actually it is happening. In Italy they killed because the problem is twenty thousand cows. This is going on. They do not care that killing is sinful because they don't care for God. This is going on. And sinful, sinful, sinful, everyone will be punished. The nature's law will act. Tag wande gao(?) (Bengali) There is a Bengali proverb, tag wande gao(?), that "One man wanted to take statistics, 'How many thieves are there in this village?' So when he began to take statistics, he saw everyone is thief. Then he said that 'What is the use of making statistics? This is village of thieves, that's all.' " So it is... At the present moment this is the position. If you make a statistics who is sinful and who is not sinful, you will find all sinful. And because they are sinful, they decry the existence of God. Na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante... Find out this, seventh... Because they are all sinful, they deny the existence of God. This is the position.

Room Conversation with Dr. Theodore Kneupper -- November 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes. And by force trying to give him meat. So now, if educated men of your country, they come forward, understand this philosophy, then combined effort... My philosophy is that American and Indian, American money and Indian culture, combine together; the whole world will be changed. That is my philosophy. It is coming to some extent... (break)

Jagadīśa: "...International Society for Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The two should cooperate. The blind man should carry his lame companion, and the lame man should give guidance to his blind friend. In this way both will benefit. Similarly, the wealthier Western countries should assist the materially exploited East, and the East, particularly India, should help the spiritually blind West to understand scientifically the actual higher purpose of human life. To offer India's transcendental science of Kṛṣṇa consciousness to the West, Prabhupāda sailed from Bombay to New York City in 1965. After a year of great personal struggle, he established the first center of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. In the next few years he attracted hundreds of sincere disciples and opened centers in dozens of American and European cities. He also established gurukula schools and farming communities based on the ancient Indian patterns. In 1970 Prabhupāda returned to India and with the assistance of many Indian gentleman and some of his disciples, he established ISKCON centers in Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, Madras, and the rural holy spots of Vṛndāvana, Lord Kṛṣṇa's place, and Māyāpur, West Bengal, the birth place of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Soon he attracted many Indian disciples as well, who opened centers in Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, and in several rural areas. Today ISKCON has about one hundred āśramas, gurukula schools, temples and farming communities around the world. But according to Prabhupāda, his books are his most important contribution. In the last ten years he has published over eighty volumes in sixteen languages. Scholars in India and abroad have praised Prabhupāda's books as classics, scholarly and authoritative. Literally crores of his literatures are sold annually, and this figure is almost doubling every year. How is it possible to sell so many books about Kṛṣṇa? Girirāja, president of the ISKCON center in Bombay, answers, 'People all over the world are looking to India for transcendental knowledge. They know that India's ancient Sanskrit literature speaks of lasting happiness beyond the frustration of material life. They are eager to buy our books because they know that we are presenting the genuine Vedic culture. In fact, many Westerners come here to discover the real India for themselves, (indistinct) life experience. For this reason we are building a model Vedic community at our Juhu center in Bombay, providing all the modern amenities for scholars, students, and sophisticated inquirers from abroad as well as from India who can study the original Indian culture and practice. The center will include a Vedic library, theater, prasādam restaurant, gurukula school, an international guesthouse, as well as a temple and āśrama.' ISKCON is also building a model Vedic community in Māyāpur near Calcutta based on cottage industry and agriculture. The important principle is that everyone must be gainfully employed. In ISKCON's Māyāpur project hundreds of persons operate spinning wheels and more than a dozen handlooms, dye the cloth, and (indistinct) popular design, process rice and dāl by hand, crush sugar cane for sugar products, and manufacture by hand, wooden shoes and other items of daily use. On twenty-five acres of agricultural land in Māyāpur, ISKCON is developing and demonstrating scientific farming procedures such as crop rotation, organic fertilization, and using improved strains. ISKCON is also cross-breeding cattle from Canada and Australia with Indian cows to increase milk production. Thus the community provides (indistinct) daily needs, acts as an agricultural development and demonstration center, and additionally feeds thousands of people twice every week. Within the next ten years, according to ISKCON's plans, the Māyāpur project will extend into a complete Vedic city with fifty thousand..."

Prabhupāda: We have applied for 350 acres of land from the government. The process is going on. If we get, then we shall spend crores of rupees for... The description is...

Room Conversation with Dr. Theodore Kneupper -- November 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Jagadīśa: "Within the next ten years, according to ISKCON plans, the Māyāpur project will extend to a complete Vedic city with fifty thousand inhabitants, its own university, airport, and stadium. It will also claim the world's largest planetarium with 410 foot high Temple of Understanding..." (break) ...civilization.

Dr. Kneupper: It sounds like a beautiful project. That is near Bombay, now?

Prabhupāda: No, that is near Calcutta.

Dr. Kneupper: Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: About sixty miles.

Dr. Kneupper: Have they progressed much now?

Prabhupāda: Yes, the enquiry is finished. Now government is considering to give that land. (indistinct) that land. There were many others, land offers in Hyderabad, but I wanted to start this institution in the, on the birth site of Lord Caitanya. Otherwise we have got better land. We have asked government for 350 acres but we have already bought in Hyderabad, 600 acres. Here also we can get immediately 500, 600 acres, like that. We have already got another plot of land, 100 acres in Ahmedabad. So there are so many lands available but I wanted to start this project in Māyāpur, the birthsite of Lord Caitanya. Therefore we are (indistinct). If they say no, then we shall attempt it somewhere else.

Room Conversation with Dr. Theodore Kneupper -- November 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Dr. Kneupper: Such a short time and so many changes.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Kneupper: The growth, the temple here, beautiful. On my next trip to India...

Prabhupāda: Yes, you can come and stay here or in Bombay, we have got...

Dr. Kneupper: But I want to see the one, the city when it's constructed. That would be really...

Prabhupāda: Oh, that is... Yes.

Dr. Kneupper: I hope that is... Calcutta will be a success story.

Prabhupāda: You have got the contemplative man with you. (indistinct)

Indian man: Yes sir.

Dr. Kneupper: This will be over 300 acres if it's...

Prabhupāda: Three hundred fifty acres.

Room Conversation with Dr. Theodore Kneupper -- November 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Dr. Kneupper: It's a large city. Fifty thousand, did you say? People? How many people were there?

Jagadīśa: Fifty thousand.

Dr. Kneupper: Fifty thousand.

Prabhupāda: Expecting fifty thousand. The real (indistinct).

Devotee: That's what we're trying to bring together here in this city. (indistinct-conversation going on) and then all around, the different communities, vaiśya community, the merchant community (indistinct), their own communities.

Dr. Kneupper: I see.

Hari-śauri: According to the Vedic system (indistinct—more than one person speaking)

Jagadīśa: Read?

Prabhupāda: Hm? Yes.

Room Conversation -- November 15, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Devotee: It's made to look like a desert but it's actually very lush and it looks a lot bigger than two acres.

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) ...these things are (indistinct), you can keep cows. Eh?

Devotee: I'm not sure if we can keep cows in there because it's inside of the city and sometimes they don't allow the cow within a certain zoning. And now the only problem we might run into with this is that it's not zoned right now for a church or a temple but...

Prabhupāda: Don't say "temple."

Devotee: Excuse me.

Prabhupāda: You say "community project."

Devotee: Community project?

Prabhupāda: Community project.

Devotee: Oh, community project. Well...

Prabhupāda: Don't say church.

Morning Walk -- November 17, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Like our poison, (?) more. Mm?

Mahākṣa: Oh yes. The people are gullible. They do not know. They are more attracted to us. But we are not always there.

Prabhupāda: Occasionally, you find cities. (Break) You cannot speak Hindi, still they like? Huh?

Mahākṣa: They like us.

Prabhupāda: They like our kīrtana.

Mahākṣa: Yes, kīrtana, they like. (break)

Prabhupāda: Seven person you took in a car?

Mahākṣa: Some of the boys went in a bus. We had a bus also.

Prabhupāda: Bus?

Mahākṣa: That belongs to Yaśodānandana Swami.

Prabhupāda: Bus, why do you take the car?

Mahākṣa: Well, the bus is not with me. My program is separate from the bus program.

Prabhupāda: What is that separate.

Room Conversation -- December 7, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Well, they mistake... You say, "They mistake." Who are "they"? You say you do mistake. Don't say, "they." This is bureaucracy, "they." You are all "they." Anyway, whatever is done, immediately make arrangement. And this is one thing. And the other thing, I came here that there will be festival and prasādam distribution. Why this is not begun?

Mahāṁśa: Till yesterday there was being marriages in the city. Now, from today, the pandals are free.

Prabhupāda: Because there are marriages our program will be cancelled?

Mahāṁśa: No, but the person who gives us the pandal... It's supposed to start today, Prabhupāda, their program. They have been advertising in the villages about the prasādam distribution this evening, so the stage and the śāmiyānā will be coming today and the pots are coming today. So we have all the grains and everything. We can start the prasādam distribution this evening.

Prabhupāda: So you'll keep, come in charge. So do this also immediately. And the next is that Bhogilal wants to come here. So bring him immediately. What is the difficulty of that house?

Mahāṁśa: All the plastering inside is finished now.

Prabhupāda: Everything, whatever is finished...

Mahāṁśa: Painting has to be done.

Room Conversation -- December 7, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: So write what you are going to do immediately. Write. Write the names, who is going where.

Mahāṁśa: (indistinct) ...they will leave?

Haṁsadūta: I just wrote down all the leaders. Ātmavidyā, Puṇyaśloka, Rājasāra. Otherwise I can go anywhere without fixing a program. I can go to any city. If no one is going to fix the program, I can go anywhere. That I was doing already. I came here because you promised me that in every city you know people, you can fix program. So fix them and then we'll go there. Otherwise there is no need to send anyone. We'll just go there and stay in a dharmaśālā.

Prabhupāda: So why not go, one or two men, to fix up program?

Haṁsadūta: In Nagpur, a city like Nagpur, you say you have members. Send some man who knows them from your temple. He makes some arrangement. We go there, make a nice program.

Mahāṁśa: Okay.

Prabhupāda: So who is going Nagpur? Write that.

Room Conversation -- December 7, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: For that reason van is required?

Haṁsadūta: No, he can do everything by...

Mahāṁśa: They have extra vans here.

Haṁsadūta: It's not practical. I tell you, these vans... It's not practical to take these vans and drive them around the cities. It's very dangerous. It's not practical. It's easier to go by rickshaw.

Mahāṁśa: What about a small one?

Haṁsadūta: Yes, the small ones. I mean, it's easier to go by rickshaw. It's a fact, you know. We had this experience...

Prabhupāda: No, there is local bus. For one, two men van running is not good.

Mahāṁśa: So one bus party goes immediately to Kakinagar with maybe Ātmavidyā or whoever...

Haṁsadūta: Ātmavidyā.

Mahāṁśa: Ātmavidyā can lead that party. And one party goes to Nagpur as soon as that is fixed. And to fix that program, Vāsughoṣa and Vāsanta Kṛṣṇa can go there.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Press Conference -- December 16, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Farms.

Guest (3): Fifty, five zero.

Guest (5): Yes, five zero.

Prabhupāda: No, in America. We have got farms like this. They are very successful. They are eating fresh vegetables, fresh grains and milk, and chanting. The temple is there. They have left the city life. So I want to organize that here also. We have already one in Navadvīpa. The devotees are there. They are having their own cloth, own food, own milk, residence, and chanting. That's all.

Guest (3): Total membership for around the world?

Prabhupāda: Total membership is practically unlimited because we are now getting opposition, so... But actually dedicated life, about ten thousand like these boys.

Guest (5): What's going to be the name of this āśrama?

Prabhupāda: It is already told. It is ISKCON Venkateshvara Trust.

Room Conversation with Life Member, Mr. Malhotra -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Prabhupāda: Maharastra Province is rich? I don't think so.

Mr. Malhotra: It is like this, that Maharastra is industrially quite stable. But that only Bombay and one, two cities. The rest of Maharastra is poor. There is not much cultivation.

Prabhupāda: But industry it belongs to the other persons, not to the Maharastrians.

Mr. Malhotra: Hm?

Prabhupāda: All these Bombay industries, they belong to the outsiders.

Mr. Malhotra: Outsiders. Now in Punjab for instance, they have created sufficient wheat to cater the entire country. That is 4/5 of the total need of the country of wheat is supplied by Punjab.

Prabhupāda: But it is always.

Mr. Malhotra: Punjab and Haryana, now they are two, but both together.

Prabhupāda: Punjab is the best province in India.

Room Conversation with Life Member, Mr. Malhotra -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Prabhupāda: Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam (CC Antya 20.12). This is the process of cleansing the heart. So if it is done properly, everyone becomes cleansed of all dirty things. Naturally he becomes Kṛṣṇa conscious.

Mr. Malhotra: I was rather very much surprised when I first met, Prabhupāda, about four or five devotees on the streets of this Honolulu. Because I went from this side, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and then entered in America through Honolulu, Hawaii. So when I went I was just in the morning, I was trying to get the tourist bus moving in the whole city to see. And then on the main road, you know that main road, have you been to Honolulu?

Prabhupāda: No. He has gone.

Mr. Malhotra: Ācchā. You have been to Honolulu?

Hari-śauri: Yeah.

Mr. Malhotra: Five devotees were having drums, this khola, they were dancing like, I mean, in their own mood, you know. So then I had a curiosity. I just stopped one of them and I said, "Well, Mr. I would like to know about all this." He said, "Yes, you come to our temple in the morning and we'll tell you all about it." But I said that "What you are doing?" "We are playing kīrtana." I said "Well, why you are out on the streets." "Because these all demons. These are all demons you know. So those who do not have any spiritual knowledge, so we want to penetrate in their ears, and through their ears in their hearts, the name of Kṛṣṇa. So that even if they don't like it, well, the Kṛṣṇa name should enter in their hearts."

Prabhupāda: That is... This mantra...

Mr. Malhotra: "So that is what we are doing. So even if they don't like it we are doing. So whosoever is passing by he will have at least his ears will be accustomed to hear the name of Lord Kṛṣṇa." I said, "But in Gītā it is said that those who do not wish to know the true knowledge, well, it is forbidden for the devotees or for the followers to tell them anything about spiritual knowledge." "So that, sir, we are not imparting knowledge to each individual by catching them. We are just playing ourselves. So whosoever likes it, he can stand by us. Otherwise we are not..." So they replied also correctly to this also.

Prabhupāda: Yes, and Kṛṣṇa says...

Mr. Malhotra: Ācchā, then I said "What is this?" "This is śikhā." I said, "Well what it is meant for?" So he said "Well, this is the..." What he told me was this exactly, that the aerial of knowledge. He said that this is the aerial of knowledge. I said is it your own interpretation. No, but I think that I feel that way. This is the aerial of knowledge. (break) ...that "You come have prasādam in the morning." So next day we had to leave actually. So in the morning busy going to airport. Then I met in this New York. Then when I came to Europe, then I was sitting in one restaurant in London, and then a big group of about 15, 18, 20 devotees, they were having a good chanting, and they were...

Prabhupāda: Our men regularly go on the Oxford St.

Room Conversation with Life Member, Mr. Malhotra -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Prabhupāda: This is called musical science, Jala-taraṅga. Jala, taraṅga means vibration, different vibrations. Still there are, among the musicians, there are artists, they'll put vials and make the different tunes by filling it with water. (SP makes sound dn dn dn dn dn) (break)

Mr. Malhotra: This place is full of tourists from Bombay, from all of Gujarat. (break) Pancagani is one place, and 12 miles difference Mahabalesvara. Also it is twin city like Secunderabad, Hyderabad. (break) In the morning when you go for walk you will find local ladies getting load of food collected from the forests and taking. Very old, old type of life (break) ...this place. I visited Switzerland and I visited almost every hill station of the country, and almost practically entire world. But I find this place of a different solace, (break) ...and second, it is very neat and clean.

Prabhupāda: Maharastrians are very neat and clean. Upper class, they are very. (break) ...karmī.

Mr. Malhotra: Good man.

Prabhupāda: Good man from worldly point of view, but from spiritual point of view, in the lowest stage. Karmī is the lowest stage. Then jñānī, then yogi, then bhakta.

Room Conversation with Life Member, Mr. Malhotra -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Prabhupāda: Oh, Taksila.

Mr. Malhotra: No Taksila was in Punjab, that side. In Bengal, Bihar, that...

Prabhupāda: Tarbanga.

Mr. Malhotra: I visited that. So this was the seat of very old temples, oldest temples in this place, this Haya. (?) And they say this is one of the oldest of the oldest towns or cities of the country. Small place, Pasir, with a population of about 10-15,000 people. All the temples are in the Kṛṣṇā River, in the Kṛṣṇā river. (break) Whatever I am today, that is all due to my past karmas, good or bad, I mean.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mr. Malhotra: And whatever I am doing today, that I will have to reap the harvest in the future.

Prabhupāda: You are creating the next position.

Mr. Malhotra: So that means that I am bound by my past karmas. My destiny, my fate is tied with the past karmas. So I have no other goal but to have the phala of past karmas. Or can I change my fate?

Prabhupāda: Yes. You are enjoying the past karmas, and you are creating new karmas.

Morning Walk -- December 25, 1976, Bombay:

Guest (1): We have degraded ourself to such an extent...

Prabhupāda: No, we can rise immediately.

Guest (1): Yes yes, but foundation stone is there. City is there...

Prabhupāda: Foundation or no foundation, but we'll not agree. That is the difficulty. We'll not agree.

Guest (1): It's a difficult job, but it has to be done because I...

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so nice. Kṛṣṇa says,

sarva-dharmān parityajya
mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja
ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo
mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
(BG 18.66)

Our difficulties are due to our sinful activities. So Kṛṣṇa assures, "I will excuse you from the resultant action of all sinful activities. You surrender to me." But I will not do that. What Kṛṣṇa will do? He says, He assures, but nobody will do that. I say to my tenants here, that "You become Kṛṣṇa conscious. You won't have to pay rent." (laughter) Because the whole rent... I am getting two-thousand, 2,500. That is my one day's expenditure.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Girirāja: I feel this is important.

Prabhupāda: All right. So, sab bhārata-varṣī, young men, jitna hai. (Hindi) movement (Hindi) seriously. It is not ordinary movement. Cheating movement naiye. This is real movement. Kṛṣṇa, what Kṛṣṇa is speaking, what Caitanya Mahāprabhu is speaking, that is not cheating. That is real solution of the problem. So we have taken the business of Kṛṣṇa, Caitanya Mahāprabhu. So every intelligent person, intelligent young man... Now we have got... We have got everywhere, but especially now in Bombay—it is important city—we have constructed this. We can keep at least five hundred, six hundred men in these buildings. But who is coming? Nobody's coming.

Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: There must be preacher, good preacher.

Indian man: Preacher of their language. But language (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: Language can be managed if there is good preacher.

Indian man: But in these areas they don't require such intelligent preachers. Intelligence is required in cities where people are full of logic and want to argue right or wrong. And where they're determined to prove that "You are wrong, I am right," there you require...

Prabhupāda: That will not help. That is my propaganda. If they are induced to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa...

Indian man: That's all. But for that very big preaching is not required. Sincerity is required.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Indian man: It is the personal sincere influence which one...

Prabhupāda: America, I simply began this chanting and few minutes speaking.

Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: I like that place Hyderabad.

Indian man: Hyderabad.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Indian man: The temple in the city is also very good.

Prabhupāda: Oh, you have seen it?

Indian man: Oh, yes.

Prabhupāda: Kārttikeya you've seen?

Kārttikeya: I have seen one, before the opening. I haven't gone after the opening.

Prabhupāda: It is very nice. That is the nicest temple in Hyderabad.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, thousands of people come every day.

Indian man: It's right in the center. (end)

Morning Walk -- December 27, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: I have not seen him?

Guest (1): He used to come.

Prabhupāda: So anyone's question about this, this misdirected civilization? In India there was no such misguided civilization. Now they have learned how to misguide people, and they have taken this ideal, that "Unless we become like the Europeans and Americans our progress is checked." This is going on. Actually there is no progress. We are condemned. Why they should waste so much energy not for progress. Before British period, India, there were cities, but not like this because their energy was utilized. Cities were constructed especially in pilgrimages, like Mathurā. Mathurā is very old city, but that is a pilgrimage. Dvārakā, that is also very old city. First of all there was no need of big, big cities because there was no industry. They did not know what is industry. And there were ample food-food grains, milk, vegetables. Those who were eating meat, they were eating small, nonimportant animals like goats, hogs, and they never touched cows. Cows are very important animals. Even the stool, urine, is important. In the agricultural field the cows, passing stool, they will also benefit. Natural fertilizing.

Room Conversation with Fate -- December 27, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Which is still continuing, but in a limited circle.

Rādhā-vallabha: "They come from a text which bears the most profound truths ever revealed to mankind. Evaṁ paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ (BG 4.2)." It's that series of verses. "This supreme science was received through the chain of disciplic succession and the saintly kings understood it in that way. But in course of time the succession was broken and therefore the science as it is appears to be lost. That very ancient science of the relationship with the Supreme is today told by Me to you because you are My devotee as well as My friend. Therefore you can understand the transcendental mystery of this science. Preserved by the invincible tradition of spiritual scholars known as the disciplic succession, these original words spoken by Lord Kṛṣṇa to one of his most intimate devotees were recorded in a book called Bhagavad-gītā, Sanskrit for the 'Song of God.' Today a unique presentation of this ancient classic has aroused keen interest and deep appreciation from leading scholars in diverse disciplines. It was brought to the West by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, who is a living link in the chain of disciplic succession. Bhagavad-gītā, long viewed with awe by many contemporary and early Western thinkers, is not a simple summary of the Hindu faith, although it is the book of truth for some five hundred million people. It is a scientific study of universal, spiritual truths, far above sectarian doctrines and ethnic beliefs. Bhagavad-gītā is a study of the nature and origin of consciousness. Śrīla Prabhupāda, the world's most distinguished scholar of Vedic writings and a true humanitarian, began his labor of love in this tiny room in a temple in one of India's holiest cities, Vṛndāvana." This is when the scene of your working in the Rādhā-Dāmodara room comes on. "Working often throughout the night, Śrīla Prabhupāda painstakingly carried out the request of his spiritual predecessor to bring the message of Bhagavad-gītā to the Western world." Now this is the part that... This will be a recording of you speaking, and it will appear to be you thinking in the display. "Out of many, many human beings, Bhagavad-gītā is directed to the one who seeks to understand his position. The Lord has great mercy for human beings, therefore He spoke the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna, a saintly prince, to enlighten him. Arjuna was actually above ignorance, but he was put into ignorance on the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra just to ask about the meaning of life so that our mission of life can be perfected.' " So Bharadvāja wants to know if you could say this one into a microphone so he could use it in the display. (end)

Morning Walk -- December 28, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: What this time where it will be held?

Girirāja: This is an organization. Last time was Shrimati Morarji's personal...

Prabhupāda: Private house. This is organized function you ask them a place to show our books. If they deny then we don't go. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break)

Rādhā-vallabha: This one parade in Los Angeles, the Rose Bowl, they distribute thousands of books on this one day. What happens is all the karmīs get out there, sometimes the night before, at least very, very early in the morning. They line both sides of the road.

Prabhupāda: To see?

Rādhā-vallabha: To see yes. Approximately a million people. About a million people, they're just lining both sides of the road and the street is empty before the parade. So this year we're going to have the gurukula boys do a kīrtana and go right up the road. So one million people will see the saṅkīrtana party.

Guru dāsa: And then it will be on television.

Rādhā-vallabha: It will probably be on television.

Hari-śauri: They have a similar parade in Melbourne like that called a Moomba. Three-quarters of a million people come for it and the whole city closes down. And they line up and down the main road and then they have a parade of floats. So they invited that we could put a float in so Bali Mardana said he would try and get the ratha cart in. Three-quarters of a million people seeing Lord Jagannātha.

Guru dāsa: Why don't you do that in Los Angeles? (end)

Morning Walk -- December 29, 1976, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: Gomath, gangath.(?)

Prabhupāda: No no. Kane. After... Because formerly the girls were married early. So after getting puberty there is one ceremony, it is called diti-abhi-bha.(?) Another ceremony. And then she goes to her husband's house. So she was going there with presentation of father, mother. So she was covered. So another young girl, up-to-date, she was doing like this. They were girls. One can touch another. So once, twice. When it made thrice, that village girl slapped her, "Hut!" I said, "Yes, you have done right." She was thinking, the city girl was thinking, "What is this nonsense?" She wanted to criticize... (laughs)

Guest (1): She got a slap.

Prabhupāda: And she gave a good slap. I've seen it. She's up-to-date and she became surprised. Lifting the avaguṇṭhana. So the whole train, they became laughed. And woman, the shyness is the only protection for them.

Guest (1): Shyness.

Dr. Patel: Modesty.

Prabhupāda: Modesty. There is no modesty left. Anyway, and that is the beauty. But we are breaking that. There is no beauty, no attraction. And as soon as you break this modesty, shyness, then the woman will create devastation.

Morning Walk -- December 30, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: By others money, they would prosper, and the money is ready. Because they were doing with commodities, even he has no cash money he can immediately sell something and pay. That was the credit. That was the credit. Then people believed them. The village bankers were these grocers, especially the gold merchants. Therefore the gold merchants were bankers and dealers in gold. Suvarṇa-vaṇik. They had position. They have got stock of ornaments, gold ornaments, silver utensils. So you can believe in him, that by putting in his custody one hundred, one thousand rupees he can deliver. At any moment. The bankers. And Rūpa Gosvāmī did it practically. Some money for emergency, some money... Relatives they also expect. That is allowed. So they should be given something. Not that cent percent. At least 25% to the relatives and 25% for personal. And 50% for Kṛṣṇa. This is the system. So this is called dānam. Kṛṣṇa also says kuruṣva tad mad-arpaṇam. "If you want to give in charity, give it to Me." Kuruṣva tad mad-arpaṇam. Dadāsi yat. "If you have got some capacity to give something, give it to Me." He never said to daridra-nārāyaṇa. I do not know how they manufactured these things. Kṛṣṇa says, "Give it to Me." He's not daridra. He's Nārāyaṇa, but He's not daridra. The principle is to give to the richest Nārāyaṇa, not daridra-nārāyaṇa. But these rascals misinterpret that daridra has become Nārāyaṇa. How daridra can become Nārāyaṇa? This is going on. And therefore there is no effect. There is no effect. See from practical what Vivekananda has done? But they have made propaganda, false propaganda, they have got roads. In a city like Bombay, big road, Vivekananda. But they do not care what Vivekananda has done.

Room Conversation -- December 31, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Agra is very good.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Agra is even bigger than Mathurā and our book distribution would be good. I'm going to write and see what the possibilities are.

Prabhupāda: Nearby cities we can...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, that is what I'm thinking of. Near Vṛndāvana.

Prabhupāda: Away from Vṛndāvana.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Girirāja: There's that one man, he was very enthusiastic there, Mr. Bansalji.

Prabhupāda: Bansalji.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: From Agra?

Girirāja: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Tire merchant?

Girirāja: I don't remember. But Haṁsadūta and I went way in the beginning and later on he came during the Delhi pandal. He met you and he wanted us to open a center there.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Agra is a very good place. Very nice place. There are devotees. (indistinct) goes there.

Page Title:City (Conversations 1976)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, Mayapur
Created:25 of Feb, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=217, Let=0
No. of Quotes:217