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Cooking (Conversations 1976)

Expressions researched:
"cook" |"cookbook" |"cooked" |"cooker" |"cookers" |"cookery" |"cooking" |"cooks"

Conversations and Morning Walks

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 2, 1976, Madras:

Yaśodānandana: In Hyderabad there is a cook who used to cook for the Rāmakrishna Mission, and he said they used to cook any kind of meat.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Acyutānanda: I said, "Did you ever cook human meat?" He said, "If they told me, I would have done that also." There was nothing beyond their diet. "Anything they told me to cook..."

Prabhupāda: This building belongs to Vivekananda's society, no? Vivekananda house.

Room Conversation -- January 3, 1976, Nellore:

Prabhupāda: They have no guidance.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Last night when we were reading, they all left, especially on that point of following the regulative principles: no meat, crabs, fish, eggs. They all got up and walked out.

Prabhupāda: You said that the same cooking place will have to do, where they are cooking meat?

Harikeśa: They're not cooking it now.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Harikeśa: They're not doing that now.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...is not planning. When he comes here he is determined that he will not eat in anyone's home.

Prabhupāda: That is very good.

Room Conversation -- January 3, 1976, Nellore:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He says that he finds it very.... From reading your books it is very clear that Caitanya Mahāprabhu was very careful and strict to only eat prasādam cooked by proper persons.

Prabhupāda: No, purchase from Jagannātha temple. People would come to offer Him prasādam, so what is the cost of the prasādam, that was taken, and He purchased. Formerly, the system was, there was no hotel, but there were temples. You go and you can purchase very cheap price. I went with my father in my childhood in a place. My father would never take food at anyone's house or in the hotel. He will find out some temple and pay them and take prasādam. Still there are many temples. So I was about ten years old at that time, say, seventy years ago. So he paid two annas to the pūjārī and he gave us so much. It can be eaten by five, six men. Kicheri, vegetables, varieties. So much. Two annas.

Room Conversation -- January 7, 1976, Nellore:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They can everything. They have canned food, canned fruits, canned...

Prabhupāda: Yes. No, I have seen. Eating and remnants, it is kept in...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes, put in the refrigerator. And then you cook it up again with fresh foods, mixing together.

Harikeśa: Is it all right if he keeps it in there and then he puts some on the plate when taking? He puts on the plate when taking?

Prabhupāda: I do not know whether it is all right, but it is not all right that you eat and keep it. This is not all right.

Harikeśa: He takes it from there and puts it on the plate before you eat?

Yaśodā-nandana: He keeps the salt in a separate bowl. When you require it he will give you only as much as you require.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is nice.

Morning Walk -- January 16, 1976, Mayapur:

Jayapatāka: During the festival days for putting cooked food in big quantities.

Prabhupāda: Where?

Jayapatāka: In these.

Bhavānanda: A man who has joined us, he has given us the tempo.

Prabhupāda: It is work...?

Jayapatāka: It needs to be repaired.

Prabhupāda: Oh, then don't take it. Don't take it. Kānā goru brāhmaṇa ke dāna.(?) You do not understand Bengali? "Blind cow given in charity to a brāhmaṇa." When it is useless—"Charity. All right."

Morning Walk -- January 17, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Oh. It goes to Krishnagar.

Sudāmā: Over here, Śrīla Prabhupāda, down below, there is the kitchen for cooking. And we have here small kuchulla(?) for coal cooking.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Can you open one of these boards, show Prabhupāda the... (break)

Jayapatāka: All is for storage.

Sudāmā: Underneath. You have to open.

Prabhupāda: (Bengali)

Jayapatāka: They put all rice and everything there.

Prabhupāda: Stock.

Morning Walk -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: (break) Cleansing.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Cleaning, pūjārīs, cooking.

Saurabha: Cleaning is very big job to maintain, especially with exhibitions that...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Maintenance.

Jayapatāka: We can get a lot of people, village people, to come and live without pay and do the cleaning, but they won't be productive. I mean, they'll have to be supported by the temple. They'll just be cleaning all day.

Prabhupāda: Supporting is no problem. To everyone we can give place and food. There is no problem.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If there is an escalator in the building, simply the proceeds from people going on that escalator, Prabhupāda...

Prabhupāda: Yes, there will be income.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Something must be given.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, if we get a good cook like Shantilal and he can cook hundreds of kachori and we can sell, and then the next room have one men who serves them prasādam, everyone will come to take prasādam.

Prabhupāda: Keep nice water, sitting place. They will take.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What kind of sitting place? On the floor with mats, or benches and tables?

Prabhupāda: Benches, table will be nice.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There is such a demand in Purī?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone goes. They do not cook. He purchases prasādam and eat. Everyone.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's so famous. Yes, whenever someone visits there they always bring back prasādam from Jagannātha.

Prabhupāda: It is... Fifty-six time, prasādam is offered there, fifty-six time.

Harikeśa: It's constant.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Harikeśa: It's constantly being offered all day long.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Once offered, ārati is performed. Then it is taken away, washed, the room. Again half and hour after... Why half an hour? Fifteen minutes after. Throughout the whole day and night, fifty-six times.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: In Rādhā-Dāmodara temple I was cooking the other room. So although the door was closed, he knew, he opened the door and took away my prasādam. Sometimes they would take away... (door opens) Come on. The, what is called, dough? For...?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Cāpāṭis?

Prabhupāda: Cāpāṭi. So they will eat that.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Raw dough.

Prabhupāda: You gave him some book, this Surendra?

Jayapatākā: That was a long time ago I gave one book. Since then you wrote that don't give any books, but that was a long time ago I gave.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Morning Walk -- January 20, 1976, Mayapura:

Jayapatākā: But some devotees say that "In cooking rasagullā for Kṛṣṇa and the masses, I got my hand burnt. So now I want to practice on my own how to make rasagullā. When I become expert, then again I'll make for the masses."

Prabhupāda: You can prepare for Kṛṣṇa so that your hands will be saved. Because you are thinking in that way, that "Let me prepare for myself," therefore your hands is burned. Bhuñjate te tv aghaṁ pāpā ye pacanty ātma-kāraṇāt (BG 3.13).

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's seven o'clock now, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: So we have to go down?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not have to. Whatever you like.

Prabhupāda: As you like.

Morning Walks -- January 22-23, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Formerly the Hindus, they used to purchase meat and cook it in Ganges water. (laughter)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, boy.

Harikeśa: Purify it.

Prabhupāda: They thought, "Now it is..." And you will still find in Calcutta, "Hindu butcher." That Hindu butcher is pure. You have been in Calcutta? So they are going on.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The Jews have that, "Kosher butcher."

Prabhupāda: "Mother's prasādam." The rascals say, "It is mother's prasādam."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Durgā, Kālī-prasādam.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The Ramakrishna Mission, they take mother's prasādam. And they call...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And you will also be mother's prasādam.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- March 5, 1976, Mayapur:

Pusta Kṛṣṇa: Sometimes we have difficulty discriminating where the enjoying spirit stops and where the service spirit begins, especially when we take prasādam.

Prabhupāda: No, you should remember it is Kṛṣṇa's mercy. Then it is all right. Actually everything is Kṛṣṇa's mercy. Without Kṛṣṇa's mercy, you cannot live even for a moment. You should always remember. Kṛṣṇa bado dayāmaya. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Kṛṣṇa badā dayāmaya karibāre jihvā jāya, sva-prasāda-anna dila bhāi.

Hari-śauri: So if one cooks according to one's own tastes, and then offers it to the Deity, that is not so good.

Prabhupāda: Oh, you have to learn this now?

Hari-śauri: No, I'm just parrotting.

Pusta Kṛṣṇa: So is it that everything we do, are we trying to make some mental adjustment, that "We're taking prasādam..."?

Prabhupāda: Mental adjustment is nonsense. No mental adj... Actual. Mental adjustment is material. You have to follow the orders of superior. There is no question of mental adjustment. (break) You get all your necessities of life from the earth. Now, you get food, you get drinking water, you get shelter, bamboo. These things will... You get cotton.

Morning Walk -- March 8, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Then thank you, no more talk now. We shall talk later. (break)

Brahmānanda: He should... He should cook?

Prabhupāda: I do not know. What is the harm? But he does not like...

Child: Śrīla Prabhupāda!

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Bhāvānanda: That short man we passed, Prabhupāda, on the way, coming in?

Prabhupāda: With so much bunch of hair. Who are these men? Oh, they're working.

Bhāvānanda: They're paṇḍal...

Jayapatāka: They are making a paṇḍal.

Prabhupāda: (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Black and white frame.

Morning Walk -- March 10, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Niyamagrahaḥ is not good. Niyama means regulative principles. And niyama-āgrahaḥ is niyamāgrahaḥ. Āgrahaḥ means not to accept. And niyama-āgraha. Āgraha means only eager to follow the regulative principles, but no advancement spiritually. Both of them are called niyamāgrahaḥ. So the basic principle is that niyamāgrahaḥ is not recommended. The real business is that.... And if we advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, simple method, chanting twenty-four hours, kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ (CC Adi 17.31), then things will be automatically adjusted. You cannot find in Kali-yuga everything is being done very correctly, to the point. That is very difficult. Just like our poet, Allen Ginsberg. He was always accusing me, "Swamijī, you are very conservative and strict." Actually, I told him that "I am never strict, neither I am conservative. If I become conservative, then I cannot live here for a moment. So I'm not at all conservative." (laughter) I was cooking, and I saw in the, what is called, refrigerator of Yeargen, Yeargon? What is his...?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. (sic:) Jergen. That boy you were staying with.

Prabhupāda: Ah, ah! I saw he kept some pieces of meat for his cat. So still, I kept my things in that refrigerator. What can be done? I had no place at that time. Jaya. (break) ...will be little earlier?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Hm. The walk should be earlier.

Prabhupāda: Quarter to six. And class beginning quarter to seven. Because the sun is rising earlier.

Morning Walk -- March 10, 1976, Mayapur:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ... nutritious. This Santilal is very much accustomed to cooking for devotees, because when Gargamuni was in Calcutta for nearly two years, he was the chief cook there. So he knows just how to, how not to...

Prabhupāda: So he cannot give an equal good cook here?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, maybe he will be kept here.

Bhavānanda: He's staying.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think, personally, he should...

Guru-kṛpā: He's coming on the buses with Gargamuni.

Bhavānanda: He's going...

Prabhupāda: (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Variety means beauty.

Morning Walk -- March 12, 1976, Mayapur:

Pañcadraviḍa: You showed the example when you came to New York. You were cooking capatis and everything.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Otherwise who would cook at that time? (break) ...apartment. So I was cooking, and he liked. He thought that "Without any payment, I have got a cook."

Revatīnandana: Dharmadhyaksa dāsa used to be one of his disciples before he joined your, he became your disciple. And he said that he was talking to Dr. Miśra, and Dr. Miśra still talks about your cooking. He said, "Oh, Swamijī, he saved my life." He said, "He taught me how to eat properly." He still talks about you.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...improved his health. He says still?

Revatīnandana: Yes. Yes.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Revatīnandana: Dharma was telling me.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...to rise early in the morning and do whatever is needed. Then, at nine, half-past nine, I will go his apartment and begin cooking. Then, after finishing, I'll take my bathing, and then we shall eat together. And then, after eating, I will go to the Fifth Avenue for loitering.

Morning Walk -- March 12, 1976, Mayapur:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Fifth Avenue.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So I was cooking once only, that's all.

Yaśodānandana: Your loitering was very fruitful even.

Prabhupāda: I was studying Americans, how they are walking, how they are shopping, like that.

Satsvarūpa: One time you said you were happier then, maintaining yourself, than having thousands of disciples.

Prabhupāda: Yes. There was no chance of finding fault. (laughter) Now I have to find fault.

Morning Walk -- March 15, 1976, Mayapura:

Pañca-draviḍa: (aside:) You'll have to add to the regular cooks...(?)

Siddha-svarūpa: The greatest difficulty in our preaching in Chinese will not be their receptiveness but our inability to see them as living beings rather than seeing them as Chinese. The Americans.... In a sense, anybody who is in the bodily conception at all is going to see them as Chinese rather than living beings, so we'll have a tendency to be prejudicial from the very beginning, think of them as very low. So...

Prabhupāda: No, we don't think anyone as low.

Siddha-svarūpa: Yes, so this will be difficult for the preachers, to see them not as Chinese but as actually Kṛṣṇa's servants too.

Prabhupāda: No, no, our devotees will not see like that. Our devotees will not see like that. (break) ...sama-darśinaḥ. Paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (BG 5.18). A paṇḍita is sama-darśī. He does not see anyone as low or high. That is paṇḍita. There is a verse in Bhagavad-gītā, "One who sees Me in everything and everything in Me..." What is that verse?

Guru-kṛpā: Yo māṁ paśyati sarvatra.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- March 16, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Very nice, a good news. You are eating nicely. That gives me pleasure.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Everybody is so satisfied. This... What is it? Shantilal is just a wonderful cook.

Prabhupāda: So just give him the leadership of cooking everywhere. When the prasāda is supplied?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: At one o'clock.

Prabhupāda: So you can send me at half past one?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Oh, yes, it can be kept warm very easily. Hot capatis, he says, for hundreds of people.

Prabhupāda: Hot. That is wanted. That I had asked. Therefore it is so filling.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, everything is hot. (break) ...so...

Prabhupāda: No, no. Prasādam, when it is supplied from the temple, in any condition it is prasādam. So communists should be impressed that "You are trying to establish a perfect society. That is your philosophy. So unless there is perfect leader, how you can establish?" This is the way.

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

Prabhupāda: Just like I am talking with you, and as soon as talking stops, I am.... My hand is going: "Hare Kṛṣṇa." Kīrtanīyaḥ sadā.

Reporter (1): Is it possible to talk and also to chant the mantra at the same time?

Prabhupāda: Yes. That requires practice. That requires practice. Just like woman is cooking and (s)he is also talking. It does not mean the cooking is going bad. It is practice.

Reporter (1): Swamiji, does this chanting of mantra brings purity or following of your four instructions or regulations which you have told, or both?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. It purifies the heart, yes, the core of the heart. Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam (CC Antya 20.12). This is the effect of chanting, because everything we are doing on account of dirty heart, so everything is dirty. So if you purify your heart, then everything becomes clear.

Reporter (1): How long does it take to purify ourself?

Prabhupāda: It takes.... Just like if the dirty things are very fixed up, it takes little more time. Otherwise it takes little time.

Morning Walk -- April 21, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...foreign or this, a small river. (break)

Devotee (2): 1717. Captain Cook.

Guru-kṛpā: He's the same one that went to Hawaii.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Guru-kṛpā: You know, and they never saw a white man there before. So the natives there in Hawaii were very enamored to see such a big white man, so they took him as God, and they were worshiping him. And one day...

Prabhupāda: Captain Cook?

Guru-kṛpā: Yes. And one day he was walking across the rocks and he hit his foot on a rock and he began to bleed. When they saw the blood, they said, "He is not a God. He is just like us." So they killed him and ate him.

Prabhupāda: Oh, oh. Killed him?

Guru-kṛpā: Yeah, they killed him and ate him.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā?

Guru-kṛpā: Yeah.

Prabhupāda: He was eaten?

Guru-kṛpā: Yes. (laughter) He was taking advantage of their ignorance. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...these original Hawaiians, they were man-eaters.

Room Conversation -- April 22, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Utensils for cooking purpose must be very, very clean. The.... If the black portion remains, in India they will not touch.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Even on the bottom?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: On the outside?

Prabhupāda: They'll not touch: "Oh, it is still dirty." But our going on. What can be done? Where there is no cleanliness, little rubbed with soap, that is sufficient. What can be done? But that is not cleanliness. If there is a black spot on the..., it has to.... It will immediately be cleaned. My mother used to see every utensil, whether there is any spot. The maidservant had to surrender. Examine. Then it is no spot. Then it is finished. Otherwise she has to do again. Everything should be neat and clean. The kitchen should be very neat and clean, washed twice daily, opened nicely and smeared with water and gobar. And if you see the kitchen, immediately you'll feel comfortable. It is very cleanly prepared, then offered to the Deity. Then you take. Automatically your mind becomes cleansed.

Morning Walk -- June 5, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: (break) Worshiping Deity.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Oh, they're doing that beautifully, and they're expert cooks. They're very good devotees.

Rāmeśvara: They could just be so valuable to helping our temples if they agreed to preach to our devotees. They could train. (break) ...brought the reporters from Time magazine over to see our temple. I had Mother Yamunā prepare some prasādam, and she was also serving them, and then she was explaining about prasādam and preaching. So I could understand that as long as she stays on that farm, she's limiting herself, because she's an excellent preacher. She could be very valuable, expert preacher. In her.... Their idea is that they would like to make their farm a little bigger, with more women living with them.

Prabhupāda: I like that idea.

Rāmeśvara: There will be no man to help give advice, just the women manage it all themselves.

Prabhupāda: Just like in Vṛndāvana there is bhajanāśrama, they're only women.

Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: So far our position is concerned, we never say "I think." Whatever we say, we support it immediately by some quotation of the Vedic literature. That is our process. So this morning I was talking with Hari-śauri that our test is this: that because it is written in the Bhagavad-gītā that na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ (BG 7.15), so anyone who is not surrendering to God, he's thinking independently, so he is either miscreant, a rascal, lowest of the mankind, māyayāpahṛta-jñānāḥ, all knowledge taken by māyā, in these groups. Our test is very simple. As soon as we see somebody is not thinking as God thinks, as Kṛṣṇa thinks, we take him in either of these groups. That is our test. Na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ—we see, practically, they do not speak or they do not think as Kṛṣṇa says, but he's thinking independently. Therefore he is mūḍha. His thinking is imperfect, so therefore, he's mūḍha. And because his thinking is imperfect, another mūḍha comes, he says that "I think like this." This is their controversy. So many independent thinking philosophers have spoiled the broth. Too many cooks spoil the broth. Real knowledge is lacking. Hmm? Anyone, any questions? Yes? Just attend to the question.
Room Conversation -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...can have so many engagements. Simply by making dress, we remain Kṛṣṇa conscious. Simply by cooking, we remain Kṛṣṇa conscious. Simply by cleansing the floor, we remain Kṛṣṇa conscious. Easiest method. Everyone can remain Kṛṣṇa conscious in any circumstance. Ahaituky apratihatā. It is not condition that "You have to become like this; then you'll become Kṛṣṇa conscious." No. In whatever position you are, you become Kṛṣṇa conscious. No extra intelligence required. Śrī-vigrahārādhana-nitya-nānā-śṛṅgāra-tan-mandira-mārjanādau **. Either you dress the Deity or you cleanse the floor of the temple, the same thing. You get the result the same. Tan-mandira-mārjanādau. Anything you do. Somebody is cleansing, somebody is chanting, somebody is cooking, somebody is printing, somebody is selling books—everything is Kṛṣṇa conscious. And that is the best yoga. Sa me yuktatamo mataḥ. Yoginām api sarveṣām: (BG 6.47) "Of all the yogis, who is thinking of Me, always in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, is the topmost yogi." "By meditation I am trying to become God. By meditation one can become God." This is their foolish theory. Kṛṣṇa, when He exhibited His godly power at the age of three months, where was meditation? (laughs) God is always God. You cannot become by meditation God. You can become godly; that is possible.

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

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 Ambarisa and Catholic Priest -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Did you explain that it was being built for someone who was going to start a restaurant, but they didn't?

Śrutikīrti: Yes. They ran out of money, these people, and there were so many restrictions at this location because of these buildings here. People live there, and they didn't want anyone in there who was going to cook meat. And they didn't want anyone who was going to serve intoxication. So practically we're the only people that don't serve meat and intoxication. So actually they're very glad.

Ambarīṣa: The man who owns it says he gets fifty phone calls every day from people who want that space. It's such a good space that fifty people a day call.

Prabhupāda: Fifty?

Śrutikīrti: People are very interested, the location is excellent. It's on one of the most important streets in all of Boston.

Ambarīṣa: Once we get open we'll be able to serve a thousand people a day.

Prabhupāda: Oh. And what you are charging?

Ambarīṣa: We're charging anywhere between three and eight dollars.

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

Prabhupāda: Mmm. Hari-śauri's one defect is he cannot cook. (laughter) Otherwise he is duplicate. Except cooking. He knows very good cooking.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He can eat though. He can eat prasāda.

Śrutikīrti: So I can travel and cook?

Prabhupāda: Cooking and.... A young man must eat. Why one should be like me?

Śrutikīrti and Ambarīṣa: Jaya. Jaya, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) (tape continues after guest's entrance)

Stansky: ...the very best.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Conversation with Clergymen -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Scheverman: Thank you very much. I cook once in a while, too, so I'm very interested in what the ingredients are for various kinds of food.

Hari-śauri: We can teach you how to cook very expertly.

Scheverman: Very good.

Devotee (1): Chick pea flour, butter and sugar, nuts, dried fruit.

Pālikā: They're very nice.

Scheverman: May I take it with me?

Pālikā: Oh, yes.

Scheverman: All right, thank you.

Prabhupāda: Take more also, give him one more.

Conversation in Airport and Car -- June 21, 1976, Toronto:

Kīrtanānanda: Tamāla has said that there's only one other place in the US now that has Vedic cooking. (break)

Prabhupāda: Facility to get enough ghee.

Hari-śauri: Fresh vegetables, everything. (break)

Kīrtanānanda: ...Indians come and they always say, "Who has taught you to cook like this?" We tell them, "Śrīla Prabhupāda has taught us everything."

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) (break) Many Indians come?

Kīrtanānanda: Yes. (break) ...membership program now.

Hari-śauri: There were about three or four hundred Indians came to the feast yesterday. No, not yesterday, on Sunday.

Prabhupāda: Six hundred.

Conversation in Airport and Car -- June 21, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Indian families, they are living for two, three generation. (break) ...teaching them how to make home comfortable, they'll be trained up to become prostitutes. How to kill time. (break)

Hari-śauri: I think Tamāla was saying in New York they need good cooks there. Tamāla was saying that in New York they don't have very good cooks there.

Prabhupāda: Nowhere there is good cook except here. (laughter) Kīrtanānanda Mahārāja is good cook.

Hari-śauri: He's trained everybody up very nicely.

Kīrtanānanda: Prabhupāda knows how to flatter. Well, I think even we could not cook so good in Boston or New York. Without being in Vṛndāvana and the natural ingredients, it is not so...

Prabhupāda: You can supply them ghee.

Morning Walk -- June 27, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They actually cook the live goat in the ghee? Maybe we should withhold this science from the Western world for a while.

Prabhupāda: No, you are expert already. (laughter)

Hari-śauri: There were some mantras they chant... Just like the sacrifices where they would give new life to the sacrificed animal. They would do the same thing?

Prabhupāda: To test, to test the Vedic mantra.

Hari-śauri: So that goat would get a new life, or...?

Prabhupāda: Who? No, this is used for medicine.

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

Prabhupāda: Rādhāvallabha, just see, young boy, how he's working hard. You were doing also. You were doing so many things at a time. In Bombay you were doing herculean task, everywhere. He knows how to cook, how to give massage, how to... Yes. How to keep accounts, yes. Qualified. How to cook. Everything. So, may Kṛṣṇa save you. What can I say more?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: This evening, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we are arranging that you can see the film a little bit later in your room. Perhaps you would like to sit outside in the garden?

Prabhupāda: Very nice. New York, how is everything going?

Rādhāvallabha: Very nice.

Prabhupāda: So we have to go outside?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (aside:) The chair is there? There are some people who have come, if you'd like to...

Prabhupāda: Yes, I'll go.

Room Conversation -- June 29, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: They are eating so many rotten things.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Yes. And they are burning it, cooking it.

Prabhupāda: Lobster, it is simply pus. They eat. I've seen it. From whiteness it has become yellow. Puslike. They eat it, what is called that soup? Lobster soup?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Clam chowder? So many things.

Prabhupāda: But they like very much that lobster soup. In the plane, one Englishman was doing "What is this? I asked after lobster soup."

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In England? Oysters?

Prabhupāda: No, lobsters.

Room Conversation -- June 29, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: And when you fry luci, all the other tenants will come "What you are cooking?" This is practical because we opened..., my Guru Mahārāja opened a branch in Burma in an apartment. So that Gaurāṅga who was my servant in family life, he was there. He said like this, that "When I fry puri, the ghee smell is there, so many people will come from other apartments, (whispers) "Oh, what you are cooking? What you are cooking?" And the naphi, they relish it in feast. So it is a question of taste.

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

Vipina: The kitchen is governmentally approved, so that if we decide to have a big festival, we can cook and distribute publicly without any problems.

Prabhupāda: These furnitures were there?

Rūpānuga: No, this is all we have purchased.

Vṛṣākapi: For you, Prabhupāda.

Rūpānuga: The doors also, lights, everything we have purchased.

Prabhupāda: Oh. You had to utilize so much money.

Room Conversation -- July 2, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: So, without reference to God, what is the meaning of sacred rites? Everything is reference that accepting the supreme controller. That is the real meaning. At least, Christian religion accepts God, Muhammadan religion accepts God, or Hindu religion accepts God. So without God, how it can be religion? If there is no understanding of God, the conclusion comes that there is no religion. Fictitious. "We trust in God," but do not know what is God. This is going on. So we have to fight against all this nonsense. Nonsense scientists, nonsense religionists. What do you think? It is not easy-going, sleeping business. We have to fight with so many demons. Otherwise, kava dava adakanam (?), my Guru Mahārāja used to say. Beg some rice and bring it and cook it and eat and sleep.

Pradyumna: Kava daka?

Prabhupāda: Kava dava adakanam. As all our Godbrothers are doing. They have got a little temple, and a few devotees go and beg rice and cook it and eat and sleep, that's all.

Morning Walk -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Hari-śauri: That's a fact.

Prabhupāda: No, even in their meat there will be so many germs. What they know?

Rūpānuga: The common people think that by cooking the meat they kill so many worms and germs in their meat.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rūpānuga: But studies have shown that certain worms and germs are not killed, and they are ingested into the body and cause diseases.

Prabhupāda: You take the yogurt, even by microscope, you see so many germs.

Hari-śauri: Yogurt is made by...

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Even a drop of water there is...

Prabhupāda: Bacteria. Lactic acid. Bacteria.

Conversation with Prof. Saligram and Dr. Sukla -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: So where is your home?

Dr. Sukla: It's in Benares, Kāśī. So there were some books by Vivekananda, and he is emotionally against Vivekananda, so that's a little too much perhaps. So he brought those books so that I can read them, I was curious. And he said, "When you are through, give it to your cook." (laughter) That's the only functional use of those books.

Prabhupāda: For burning it in the fire?

Dr. Sukla: Yes, he said so that we can make our capatis, to have some use of those things. And Kṛṣṇa, of course, there's hardly a village in India where, whether knowingly or unknowingly, people are not aware what is Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: In India they know, everyone. They observe Janmāṣṭamī.

Room Conversation -- July 7, 1976, Baltimore:

Prabhupāda: Woman should be expert in cooking. That is their natural tendency. They should be educated how to cook nicely, how to please the husband, how to take care of the children. This is Vedic civilization. In the beginning a woman, childhood, she's trained up by the mother. Then as soon as she is married, formerly, child-marriage, so she's transferred to the care of mother-in-law. There she is trained up. Then she becomes very good housewife, takes care of household affairs, husband, children, and home becomes happy. What is this nonsense, divorce? There is no such thing in the Vedic civilization, divorce. You must accept whatever God has given you as husband or wife, you must. They had no thinking even, idea of divorce. One may not agree with the husband. That is natural. Sometimes we do not agree. But there is no question of divorce. When this divorce system was introduced?

Rūpānuga: Comparatively recent. Because for many years the Catholic Church forbade it. When did it begin?

Pradyumna: Henry the Eighth, the King of England.

Prabhupāda: Oh, he's the rascal.

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

Prabhupāda: Surrender to God, there is no fault. That is the highest faultless action. And so long you do not surrender, anything we do there is fault. Anything you eat... That is stated:

yajña-śiṣṭāśinaḥ santo
mucyante sarva-kilbiṣaiḥ
bhuñjate te tv aghaṁ pāpā
ye pacanty ātma-kāraṇāt
(BG 3.13)

Even if you prepare vegetable, not meat, still you are sinful. It is not that those who are meat-eaters, they are only sinful, and you are eating vegetable, you are not sinful, no. Anything you cook for yourself without being offered to the Deity or Kṛṣṇa, you are sinful. Bhuñjate te tv aghaṁ pāpā ye pacanty ātma-kāraṇāt. Now, pacanti, you may do whatever you like to eat, but if it is not prasādam, then you are sinful. It is not the question of... Sometimes they mistake the vegetable is good, meat is not good. May be, comparative. But either vegetable or meat, if you simply cook it for your tongue's satisfaction, then it is sinful. And if you offer to Kṛṣṇa, maybe only little patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyam (BG 9.26), not very gorgeous, palatable dishes, and if you eat that, then bhuñjate, again. Yajña-śiṣṭāśinaḥ santo mucyante sarva-kilbiṣaiḥ, he becomes free from all sinful actions. As there is sin in cutting the throat of an animal, similarly, there is sin in destroying a vegetable. Maybe more or less sinful. But it is sinful.

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

Prabhupāda: He's also very good boy.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: All day long he cooks, and after he cooks, then the people take the prasādam in the restaurant, he goes out and preaches to them.

Prabhupāda: He's an able worker.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Then he goes out and leads the hari-nāma party on the street. He's very enthusiastic to make this restaurant very successful.

Prabhupāda: But keep watch on him.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: For the women.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (laughs)

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

Prabhupāda: And I think Ṛṣi Kumāra is a good cook also.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: My personal opinion is he's the best cook that I've so far seen.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Since he has come here the prasādam in the restaurant has at least doubled in the quality.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā. (laughs)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Completely different prasādam. He's learned the Gujarati style. Kacuris, samosā, every kind of special prep. When we stayed in Kailasa Shiksarya's house when we were first in Bombay, the things that those cooks were cooking, he knows how to cook. Very high class Marwari and Gujarati cooking.

Prabhupāda: He's very intelligent.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And Maṇibandha, he's another one, he's cooking with Ṛṣi Kumāra.

Prabhupāda: He's also very intelligent boy, but sometimes spoiled.

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

Prabhupāda: We are also mentioned.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They gave us the most space in the magazine.

Hari-śauri: They did it in sections. There was a bit about kīrtana, there was a section about shaving the head, there's a whole section about Kṛṣṇa prasādam, how to offer it and cook it and everything. It was very nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He's getting it ready. He wants to read you certain things in the magazine. He likes to prepare things to discuss with you, Rādhāvallabha, controversial topics.

Prabhupāda: What is that controversial? (laughter)

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

Ṛṣi-kumāra: From Kailash Saksarya's cook. At least I learned something there.

Prabhupāda: From that cook, Kailash's cook?

Ṛṣi-kumāra: Yes.

Prabhupāda: He was very expert. In India, a girl, if she could cook nicely, then she is perfect. There is a ceremony, it is called bahubhat(?). After marriage the girl comes to her father-in-law's house and there is a ceremony called bahubhat. In that bahubhat, the girl is to cook and distribute this food to all the relatives of her husband. If they say it is excellent, then she is accepted in this family.

Bali-mardana: What if they say it is not excellent?

Prabhupāda: Nobody says. (laughter) But the ceremony is made. The social system in India is that "If I do not accept your food, then I do not take you within my inner circle. You remain outside."

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

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "The recipes given below, taken from the Hare Kṛṣṇa Cookbook'—another good advertisement, and they give you at least three or four recipes in here. They give recipes for, the recipes are for...

Prabhupāda: Anyway, he has given more pages for our movement.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes, he's given us three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve pages. And the whole magazine, including many advertisements..., actually the nonadvertised part is about fifty-five pages, of which we have twelve. At least one fifth of the book is for Hare Kṛṣṇa. The other groups only have three pages, four pages. And he blasts them mostly. Some of them are really nonsense. Here's one called the Deichman experiment. You stare at a vase...

Prabhupāda: Another meditation.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, this is another one.

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

Prabhupāda: Hmm. This is also good article. (break) Hm! Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa, where is the key? Key? Distribute this prasādam.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You can see how he's cooking very..., he's the most expert I've ever seen, and he knows these special preparations. He can cook many varieties of kacuri. (end)

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

Hari-śauri: He said he can understand meat-eating is sin, but when we are doing our ordinary work and normal functions, aren't we killing so many other things? So is that sin or not?

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is also sin. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, that whatever you eat, bhuñjate te tv aghaṁ pāpā ye pacanty ātma-kāraṇāt (BG 3.13). Anyone is cooking something, meat or vegetables, for his own eating, he is eating only sin. It is not that the vegetarians are not sinful and the meat-eaters are sinful. Everyone is sinful if it is not cooked for Kṛṣṇa. It is not that we are propagating that you become vegetarian. We are propagating that you become Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is our propaganda. But because we are trying to become Kṛṣṇa conscious, we offer something to Kṛṣṇa. Patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati (BG 9.26). So not patraṁ puṣpam, whatever within this group available, fruits, flowers, grains, milk, so we offer to Kṛṣṇa.

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

Devotee (1): You would walk on this street?

Prabhupāda: Yes. There is one building with temperature, a gauge? Here it is. This is Broadway. I was taking bath here in a station. Sometimes I was taking the station(?)... I think this building is new. I was going to Dr. Mishra's apartment for cooking.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What street did he live on?

Prabhupāda: He... Seventy-eighth. The Riverside corner. Yes, I was purchasing my goods from this store.

Devotee (1): Westend Superette.

Prabhupāda: They were charging, a little chili powder, twenty-five cents. In India it may be one anna.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You were purchasing here.

Prabhupāda: Yes, because I was going to cook my food there, so whatever I needed, I used to...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How come you didn't cook your food where you were living?

Prabhupāda: Huh? There was no place.

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

Prabhupāda: It was an office room. That building is meant for office, not for residences.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You rented a room there?

Prabhupāda: Yes, I was paying seventy-two dollars a month.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And where did you sleep? Was there a bed?

Prabhupāda: No, there was bed. There is toilet and water, but no bath and no cooking.

Devotee (1): Did you have to go there to bathe also?

Prabhupāda: Yes, I was taking bathing there.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Where did you... Did you sleep on the floor?

Prabhupāda: Yes, I had little platform. So on that platform...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You are the most bold person in the whole world, Prabhupāda.

Devotee (1): We will never be able to do what you have done.

Prabhupāda: Alone I was doing that. And then gradually one or two boys began to come.

Morning Walk -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Cooking the poppers.

Ādi-keśava: And also do the treasury.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So I want three buses together in the...

Prabhupāda: All cars, also.

Rāmeśvara: The cars. (laughs) Some of the cars don't look appropriate. Some of the cars are used cars, they do not look very nice.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Good cars.

Rāmeśvara: The nice-looking cars.

Prabhupāda: Good cars. This car and the other van.

Morning Walk -- July 20, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: We are going to the Riverside?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, Riverside Park. Would have been faster, wouldn't it, to go down on Westside Drive? (break)

Prabhupāda: I was coming here daily for cooking my food.

Hṛdayānanda: Purchasing food?

Prabhupāda: Cooking.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In the park, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: At one Dr. Mishra's house. In my apartment there was no kitchen. (break) There was some news. Their machine has gone to Mars planet.

Hari-śauri: Machine is?

Prabhupāda: They sent some machine?

Hari-śauri: To Mars?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: To picture, to take pictures around the Mars, to take pictures, and they have found on Mars signs of life and water. They have taken many close pictures.

Hari-śauri: Of Arizona.

Prabhupāda: No, they know that this time if they say there is no life, then there is no interest. This time another falsehood.

Conversation with George Harrison -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Sunday we have about five hundred to one thousand.

George Harrison: So they must cook for days to feed all those people.

Gurudāsa: No, day before, night before.

George Harrison: Do they bring food as well?

Gurudāsa: They bring grains or something like that.

Prabhupāda: We had a very gorgeous Ratha-yātrā ceremony in New York last Sunday.

George Harrison: Hm?

Prabhupāda: Sunday, eighteenth.

Conversation with George Harrison -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Who cooks for you?

George Harrison: Sometimes me, sometimes, ah.... I don't know, I think we'd had some Chinese food.

Prabhupāda: Oh, you should not take.

George Harrison: Because I was working as well, so I, you know I think I was pretty tired.

Prabhupāda: Better you cook simple food yourself and take it.

George Harrison: The only thing I could eat was papaya.

Prabhupāda: Papaya is very good, yes.

George Harrison: I still have...

Prabhupāda: Give him, give him, give him. No, that is the different. Oh, all right. We are just attempting a big planetarium in Māyāpur. We have asked government to acquire land, 350 acres. That is negotiation going on. We shall give a Vedic planetarium.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Farina.

Hari-śauri: Farina and ghee, it's cooked.

Harikeśa: Clarified butter.

Prabhupāda: Most of our preparations are made from milk products. Therefore we are so much fond of cow protection. It gives the basic principle of palatable foodstuff. But these people, they do not know. They simply cut the throat of the cow and boil it and with salt. (laughter) They do not know how to keep the cow and take milk from it and prepare hundreds and thousands of nice preparations. That is a lack of civilization. Just like all the, what is called, aborigines, they find an animal, kill it and eat. They do not how to utilize the animals. Most aboriginal. We keep cows, we take milk, and from milk we make yogurt, we make ghee, and from ghee we prepare so many things.

Room Conversation -- July 27, 1976, London:

Jayatīrtha: The main reason why he doesn't.... I think he got jaundice because, he admitted, is that he had Ravi Shankar's brother cooking for him.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Jayatīrtha: He had Kumar Shankar, the brother of Ravi Shankar, cooking for him. So this man is a demon; therefore he is becoming sick.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they are all drunkards, all third-class men, fourth-class men, low-class men. In India, this naṭas, they are third class, fourth class. Naṭas means the artist class, singer, dancers. They are meant for the fourth-class, fifth-class men. It was never taken by the.... They are called, and they will expertly sing, dance, in some festival. The brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas, they were not doing. Still in India there is a class, very expert in dancing, singing, low class. Their hereditary business is like that.

Arrival at Farm -- July 29, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: Who will cook?

Bhagavān: We have Mandakini?

Prabhupāda: Mandakini has not cooked very nice last...

Bhagavān: There is Aditi, there is... The wife of Hari-vilāsa, she cooked for you before.

Prabhupāda: All right, she can cook.

Bhagavān: What is bitter melon?

Prabhupāda: Bitter melon, you teach them how to do it.

Bhagavān: Samosa?

Prabhupāda: Not necessarily, simple prepare nice dahl, nice rice, vegetables, some bitter melon, and two, three capatis, that's all. Not cumbrous. Must be well cooked, rice. That's all.

Arrival at Farm -- July 29, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: All right.

Harikeśa: So I explained to her, and Arundhatī's going to show her the cooker and everything, so...

Prabhupāda: Arundhatī cannot. She cannot.

Harikeśa: No, she's not so... She knows the mechanics of it, but the details are difficult. When we get to the farm there is a separate kitchen, and every spare minute I will be with him and just teach him everything in great detail. (break) (lecture:)

Prabhupāda: So I am very glad to see you again in this village.

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

Prabhupāda: Once Sarasvatī said that "We have no sex with woman." (laughter) So, innocent, she does not know. That is, if they are kept separate, they remain innocent. And they are taught that all women should be addressed as mother. Whatever self-control. And female children should be taught how to become faithful to the husband, and to learn the arts of cooking, arts of painting—that should be their subject matter.

Jyotirmāyī: Painting?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Sixty-four arts, Rādhārāṇī did. Then She could control Kṛṣṇa.

Jyotirmāyī: So after they have learned all the academics, reading, writing, all these.

Prabhupāda: Academic is ordinary, ABCD, that's all. Not very much. But these arts. They should learn how to cook nicely.

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

Bhagavān: The boys, they should learn how also to cook?

Prabhupāda: Huh? I never said that. Why you are bringing that question? I said the girls should be. Cooking is not boy's business. But cooking is not a very difficult art. If they want, the boys can... (coughs) There are so many, in the Bhakti-rasāmṛta sindhu it is stated, how Rādhārāṇī was qualified. So these things should be taught to the girls. If the girls are taught to give service to the husband to the greatest satisfaction, there will be no disagreement.

Yogeśvara: Can the older boys be trained in a particular kind of devotional service? For example, press work?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, everything is devotional. Śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam (SB 7.5.23), there are varieties. We are not Māyāvādī, impersonalists, finished, all business. It is not like that. So whatever business is going on in our movement, everything should be taught according to the capacity, boys or girls, it doesn't matter. Some department is suitable for the boys, some department are suitable for the girls. In this way, they should be trained up. But everyone should be trained up to give service. That is Gurukula. And brahmacārī, this sex impulse should be controlled. That ruins the whole character.

Room Conversation -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: In, actually, in Bengal, Bengal has lost its original culture. In other provinces the brāhmaṇa class, they are keeping very strictly the original culture. Even a brāhmaṇa would not accept foodstuff prepared by his wife, because woman is considered śūdra. The woman, when she becomes the wife of a brāhmaṇa, then she is called brāhmaṇī, but she's not offered brahminical culture. She remains as śūdra. So therefore a strict brāhmaṇa does not accept foodstuff prepared by his wife. Still there are in U.P. The wife will arrange for cooking, and he'll sit down and cook dāl, cāpāṭis. Then he will eat, and whatever remains, that is there, that will be taken by her. But he will not take foodstuff cooked by his even wife. And if there are several brāhmaṇas, so each one of them will cook his own food. In Calcutta, mostly the rich men they used to keep the collector's darwans, they are called darwans. Means guard, policemen, guard. They're all, very big, big brāhmaṇa family, they used to take, accept the job. But each of them, even in police, I have seen, they are cooking separately. They take bath thrice, cook their own food, very strictly. The government had to give them a big hall for cooking. So, it will not take much space, say, little space. One small oven and demarcated: "This, you see, is mine, and then I, you get, this is yours, this is yours." So within that space they'll sit down and cook dāl, cāpāṭis, rice, one vegetable, and cook, and immediately all the utensils will be cleansed and washed, and the space washed and kept. You'd like to eat, they cook so nicely, although simple. And I have got practical experience, if you cook your own food, whatever it may be, it is healthy.

Room Conversation -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: If you cover from the beginning, the water which is already there will be coming out. And the idea is the water should be taken away. Then it will be tasteful. Still, it was good.

Harikeśa: Should I cook if I still have this fever tomorrow?

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Harikeśa: Right now I have a fever.

Prabhupāda: No, don't cook.

Harikeśa: So if I have a fever I shouldn't cook for you? It's unhealthy for you? It won't bother me so much, but if it's unhealthy for you...

Prabhupāda: No, no, I have no objection. But if you have got fever, why shall you? There are so many others.

Room Conversation -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: This is apple?

Devotee (1): Yes, that's for cooking.

Hari-śauri: Cabbage.

Devotee (1): Pears.

Bhagavān: They're growing chick peas. They're not ripe yet.

Devotee (1): You can see inside, inside the pod. They have to go yellow on the plant and then we pick them and then put them in sacks for the winter.

Bhagavān: We had a whole field planted of chickpea. They're very expensive here, so it's nice.

Prabhupāda: So you have got immediately some pods?

Devotee (1): And also you have been taking the fresh coriander, dhane.

Prabhupāda: Oh, nice. So, this pod?

Devotee (1): Peas, beans.

Room Conversation -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: You have got puffed rice? So bring some this pod. I shall, with puffed rice, I shall take this.

Hari-śauri: How do you want them cooking?

Prabhupāda: Yes, I'll take it. Let them bring.

Hari-śauri: Bring some now? (laughter)

Bhagavān: Glories to Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) Give Mandākinī these peas. Tomorrow she can utilize it for kacuri. I've asked her to make kacuri. Let them use this.

Hari-śauri: They must have only just come ripe just this last week.

Prabhupāda: So many things are growing. Puffed rice, you simply make it hot, dry, take it away, and then take some of the peas, put very little ghee and masalā and some peas, fry it nicely. Then put little water and cover it. When it is soft, you can add with it little the green chilis.

Room Conversation -- August 3, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Devotee (1): Apple, cucumber. The apples are not fresh, Śrīla Prabhupāda, from the tree, because those apples you saw yesterday were just for cooking. They're very sour...

Bhagavān: They have eating apples. We have eating apples.

Devotee (1): They're sour, too sour. Just for cooking.

Bhagavān: That's fresh cucumber? And our tomato?

Devotee (1): They're a little warm because they've been in the sun all day.

Bhagavān: The peas were good last night?

Prabhupāda: Very good, but I could not digest them. That is my fault, but, oh, it was so nice palatable. Chick peas, chick peas, grow fresh. Eat very nicely, keep strong, drink milk, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Bas. Don't depend on this outside work and then gradually become debauch, thief, rogues, prostitutes. Is that civilization? They cannot imagine that the modern civilization can go without all these things. Do they not? Slaughterhouse, brothel, cheating, diplomacy, roguery, drinking—without this, no civilization. We are quite opposed.

Room Conversation -- August 3, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):
Prabhupāda: We say you cannot go there, you are simply wasting your time. We have got so much knowledge. No, you can attempt, just like a monkey, that's all right. But our verdict is already there. You cannot go there. Ten years before I said this moon excursion is simply childish and waste of money in my Easy Journey to Other Planets. I am not a scientist, but how I dared to say? Because I know, I have got full knowledge. That is the difference. Without becoming scientist, we can give our verdict. Veda-pramāṇam. (Prabhupāda is eating) Umm, better give this fresh fruit. Don't bring all rotten. In the market you cannot get fresh. All three hundred years old. Anything fresh, that is full of vitamin. Grow fresh, take fresh. In India there is no system to purchase three-hundred-years-old bread and eat. It must be freshly made. Wife is preparing in the simple oven, husband is eating, children are eating. You know Yaśodāmāyī calling Kṛṣṇa? "Come back! Your father is waiting!" You remember this? That is Indian system. The father and the children, they sit down, mother will bring fresh dāl, rice and cāpāṭi, and distribute, and they eat. We used to do that. Along with father we shall sit down for eating, separately. There was no need of table-on the ground. And mother will distribute, cook. No servant; mother personally, wife personally.
Room Conversation -- August 3, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: My mother used to make puffed rice at home. So there is special rice available for making puffed rice. Either you can prepare at home or you can purchase in the market, special rice. So she was preparing nice puffed rice, very, very nice. In a sand pot. My mother was always engaged in making some food preparation. Some pickle, some chutney, and this puffed rice, or something else, something else, something else. Besides cooking for the family, she was being assisted by my sisters. Always palatable foodstuff. So many guests were there, and if son-in-law would come, they would specially prepare food for him. To receive guests, give them nice food to eat, prepare nice food for the family, this is the Indian pleasure. They are not very much, nowadays, for upkeep of the home, very... That, in their own way, they keep it very nicely. Every utensils, very cleansed, they are kept ready for use, some cloth. If you go in a poor man's home, but you'll find everything very neat and clean. Ask these gṛhasthas to keep their home very neat and clean. Are they keeping?

Bhagavān: Yes.

Room Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Oh. Anyway, let her do it. She was cooking for me in Māyāpur.

Harikeśa: I heard you like it very much.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The more you become eager to know God, God will reveal Himself. From our side, we should not be stereotyped. People in different sects of religion, they say, "We believe." But they do not want to go further than they believe. That is very difficult. You must be dynamic and progressive, then you will have. I have talked with many sects, especially Christian priests. They will say "We believe," no more further than that. So knowledge is not like that. Knowledge must be progressive. "We believe there is no soul of the animal"—bas, fixed up. You believe like a rascal, so I shall remain rascal. What is this? We should be progressive. That is wanted. Of course, in the lower stage one may have a type of belief, but if you want more clearly, you must be progressive. According to Vedānta system, the life, human life, is only for inquiring about Brahman. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. We shall talk again.

Evening Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: For two, three days?

Pradyumna: They eat it immediately after cooking.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Pradyumna: Was that the rice she made, did she prepare it that way last night? This afternoon?

Atreya Ṛṣi: No. This rice isn't even Persian, it's American rice. Persian rice is too expensive, even in Persia. (break)

Prabhupāda: They make very nice puffed rice in Melbourne.

Atreya Ṛṣi: How do they make it, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Not difficult. The paddy, they are boiled. And then again baked in the sunshine. Again boil, then again baked in the sunshine. Then the skin is taken out by that dekhi, what is called? That rice...

Pradyumna: Thresher?

Prabhupāda: Dekhi, husking, the skin is taken away. Then mixed with salt and make it heated. Then when it is prepared, then they heat sand, and in that heated sand you put the rice and immediately puff-puff-puff-puff-puff-puff-puff-puff-puff. Like that.

Evening Darsana -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: So your daughter is good assistant in the matter of cooking?

Nandarāṇī: Yes, they are both very good in cooking. And they clean the altar and they do some maintenance of the altar and the temple room, and they cook and sew, and I give them class in the morning, Bhagavad-gītā in English.

Prabhupāda: Yes, teach them personally. That Aniruddha is always chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Nandarāṇī: They are?

Prabhupāda: No, Aniruddha.

Nandarāṇī: Aniruddha, yes. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: They are also chanting.

Room Conversation -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

Dayānanda: In our experience we have no understanding how this can be practical, because we think that meat is good for our strength. How can we be strong?

Prabhupāda: No. Therefore you are not human being, you are animal. If you cannot produce your food, uncivilized animals, they cannot produce their food. But you are given the chance of becoming human being, if you cannot produce your food, if you do not know how to cook food, how to offer it, then you are not human being. You are animal. When the uncivilized man in the jungle, they did not know how to produce food, they used to kill animals. So if you want to remain in the same uncivilized status of life, then where you are human being? You have got greater intelligence, you produce your food. Why should you kill animal like the uncivilized jungle men? Your action is just like jungle man, and you are claiming to be civilized man.

Morning Walk -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Nava-yauvana: That means it cost only six rupees per month for food.

Prabhupāda: Yes. In the hotel also they were charging six rupees. Means third-class hotel, not first class for cooking dāl, vegetables. Rice was, first-class rice, six rupees per month. Dāl, twelve annas for kg, flour, five annas for two and a half kgs. And from 1942, all of a sudden the price increased, artificially. Milk, two annas per kg. Now three rupees, four rupees. Ghee, first-class ghee, one rupee per kg. First-class ghee. (break) ...paying for the clerks thirty rupees per month. And head clerk, sixty rupees. Officers, hundred to two hundred rupees. High-court judges, four thousand rupees. High-court judges were highly paid.

Morning Walk -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Nava-yauvana: We had asked Praṇava to help arrange for a cook to come here. We'd asked help to arrange for a cook, so we could open a small prasāda restaurant. And he's written back that "I have made arrangements for a cook, and also I would like to come."

Ātreya Ṛṣi: We can get someone else. (break) ...strong but dangerous.

Prabhupāda: Not dangerous if the both of them become devotee.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: If they understand the purpose of life.

Prabhupāda: Yes, otherwise it is dangerous

Ātreya Ṛṣi: They can fool each other.

Prabhupāda: That is generally done. Wife increases the responsibility. Strī-vistāra. But still one has to maintain wife. A brahmacārī has no responsibility. His only responsibility is to serve Kṛṣṇa. But a gṛhastha has many responsibilities. "There is the children, I have to give them education, see that they're well situated."

Room Conversation -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: It was not properly done. I asked Pālikā.

Harikeśa: It was very good that other time. It was completely merged in the ghee and it was very nice. I cooked it for three hours.

Prabhupāda: The water portion should be abolished. Then it will go not bad.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: If the water portion is?

Hari-śauri: Abolished.

Harikeśa: The secret is cooking it for a long time.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Yes, yes, of course, it should be dry. Then it won't go bad.

Prabhupāda: If the water portion remains, it will decompose.

Arrival Conversation -- August 13, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: So come tomorrow at five.

Indian boy: At five. Do you have the Hare Kṛṣṇa Cookbook?

Prabhupāda: Ask...

Hari-śauri: If you like, go out there now and see Girirāja, he's the president, he'll fix you up. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Get some prasāda when you go.

Indian boy: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So cleanse this.

Evening Darsana (on night of arrival) -- August 16, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: No, bring it to... Why you making there, puffed rice? There is... It is too late now. (long pause) So what she is doing?

Harikeśa: I will check.

Mahāṁśa: She is cooking prasāda.

Prabhupāda: Cooking? What she is cooking?

Mahāṁśa: Only puffed rice.

Prabhupāda: No, no, what she is cooking?

Mahāṁśa: I'll just...

Hari-śauri: Here it comes. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda. (Hindi) (end)

Room Conversation -- August 20, 1976, Hyderabad:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Maybe she should come here to cook for you.

Prabhupāda: Oh, maybe. No, they are very happy. All the boys and girls are very happy. Sit down. So that I want, that I live happily and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. That's all. We don't want unnecessary luxury. Anartha. Anartha-nivṛttiḥ syāt. Anartha should be reduced, nil, bare necessities. Anartha... Just like this material thing we require for preaching. That is not anartha. But when it is used for sense gratification, that is anartha. Anything for sense gratification, that is unwanted, anartha. And anything for Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that is spiritual.

Room Conversation -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Vegetable, fruits, very innocent, little milk. That's all. Even if you don't eat these foodgrains, that is preferred. Better. Vegetable and fruits and milk, that is sufficient nutritious. There is no question of disease. But for our tongue taste we eat so many cooked food, but if we eat vegetables, boiled vegetables and fruits and milk, ah, it is sufficient. Ekādaśī. (laughter) Daily ekādaśī.

And these peanuts, a few grains. Not much. That is also nice. Cashew, peanut. Yes. So thank you very much. You are working so much for Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission. Yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṇa-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Bas. You become a guru. Actually you are doing the guru's work. "Here is a message from Kṛṣṇa. Please take it." Bas. Simple. Yāre dekha. And whomever you meet, tāre kaha kṛṣṇa-upadeśa. Either you speak personally or give him a book.

Room Conversation -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: My sister, while she was married, her father-in-law's house, they were all eating fish. So a new girl, ten years, eleven years old. So she was given this foodstuff with fish and everything. So she was crying. So her mother-in-law, "Why you are crying?" "No, we do not touch all these things." She immediately arranged special cooking for her. So her husband and other members they were taking fish, but she never touched. She never touched. She does not know what is fish. If one wants to keep oneself pure, he or she can keep herself pure in any circumstances.

Morning Walk -- August 31, 1976, Delhi:

Devotee: Prabhupāda, you've taught so... (break) ...instruction for cooking this prasādam.

Prabhupāda: I have seen, I have seen. In our family, I know. That's all. But from my childhood it is my nature, if somebody is preparing, I see it.

Devotee: It seems to me that most people in India can cook something. Even if there's just cāpāṭis they can do this. But people in the West, they now are so helpless. They buy everything it seems in packets and you would not know how to prepare any food as much as just to cut the packet and pour it out and even then they don't even know how to put water into the pan.

Prabhupāda: They do not know how to eat on the whole. India knows how to eat. (Pause) I have traveled all over the world, and this is my experience. Nobody knows how to eat.

Devotee: Nowhere at all, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Only India. (break) ...every province they have got different dishes. Because the woman, they are trained up how to cook very nice.

Morning Walk -- August 31, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Jaya. In Bengal there is a ceremony after marriage, bahu-bhāta. (?)The newly married girl, she shall cook, and all the relatives, friends, are invited and they appreciate, "Yes, nice cook." Then she is accepted as member of the whole family. Bahu-bhāta.

Devotee: And if not, Prabhupāda? If her cooking is not...

Prabhupāda: Therefore she is trained up.

Devotee: And if she's not trained up.

Prabhupāda: She must be trained up. Just like Rādhārāṇī, She was trained up in sixty-four arts. Do you think to captivate Kṛṣṇa is easy thing? How much qualified She must have been so that Kṛṣṇa was attracted.

Room Conversation -- September 4, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: If stop then how their work will go on? They manufacture ideas and spend money. This is the difficulty. Everyone manufactures some idea. And break it, do it, dig it. Money is coming and they are spending it. They cannot adjust whatever is there. Big big ideas. Big big belly. And money we have to bring from America. "Give me one lakh, give me one lakh, 15,000. I make idea, you pay." So many rooms you can make showroom. Why breaking this door, breaking that door? Too many cooks spoils the broth. And repairing and, what is called, addition, alteration, will never stop. I do not know how to stop it. Now, the other, Yesterday that Viśvambhara said, you were here, no? Viśvambhara said, suggesting there should be raft (?) three feet high, seven feet high, this high... Everyone will suggest. And spend money. Any friend, you bring him, he'll suggest so that you may spend it. And wherefrom money will come? Oh, that is your look after. I am your friend, I am giving you good suggestion. Break it. Do it. I am your friend. You break your head. (laughs)

Room Conversation -- September 5, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: That is a fact, but provided he is devotee. If he's not a devotee then he will go away, here and there, here and there. That is the habit. And a devotee is satisfied anywhere. A devotee is not that "I'll go to Vṛndāvana, then I'll be satisfied." Nārāyaṇa-parāḥ sarve na kutaścana bibhyati (SB 6.17.28). I did not go to your country taking Vṛndāvana with me. I had to stay in places where in the refrigerator there is meat. And I was cooking. When opened it I saw, "Here is meat. All right, what can be done? Hare Kṛṣṇa." That's all.

Garden Conversation -- September 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Harikeśa: I think puris and halavā, there isn't a person in the world who doesn't like it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Anything you'll nicely prepare, tastefully, people will like. (Japa:) Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa. You have learned cooking? I'm asking... Huh? What you have learned? What preparation you can make?

Devotee : Many different kinds of preparations.

Prabhupāda: Tell me something.

Harikeśa: Tell Prabhupāda some.

Caraṇāravindam: Ah... Most of the kitchen preparations (indistinct) one gets in India. Iddlies (indistinct) ...things like that.

Prabhupāda: Oh, he knows so many things. You have learned something? You?

Devotee: Very little. I can cook halavā and puris. Simple things. I can cook sweet rice. Sweet rice I can cook.

Prabhupāda: Sweet rice. That is very sweet for you. (laughs) The Europeans and Americans, they like sweet rice. Is it not?

Harikeśa: Oh yes.

Room Conversation -- September 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Six hundred rupees. So take another four hundred rupees, make one thousand. It should not go more than five hundred to one thousand. You spend.

Harikeśa: But milk, when you cook down milk to make a sweet...

Prabhupāda: I have taken from six hundred to one thousand. All the maintenance.

Akṣayānanda: I will take every item with Viśvambhara, every single item.

Prabhupāda: You don't believe me?

Akṣayānanda: I can't understand. My intelligence is not great enough to understand it. I believe you, but I have to do it. That's all.

Prabhupāda: It cannot go more than one thousand.

Room Conversation -- September 9, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So Gopal was very much pleased that he could get some Indian cāpāṭis, like this.

Hari-śauri: So he had you cook for him. You took your cooker with you? Is that the same one?

Prabhupāda: No. So I lived with him for twenty-one days. Then I came to New York.

Hari-śauri: Yes, that picture in the Butler Eagle. It's in the Vyāsa-Pūjā book this year.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Butler County, it is good (indistinct), there were many churches (indistinct) people have got so many churches (indistinct) (break) ...some time, that one piece of wire lying in one place, one piece of bamboo was lying in another place, and one dry shell of a squash was lying. So one intelligent man collected. So this dry shell became the tamburā's what is called...

Hari-śauri: I don't know. Like sound chamber. What do you call it?

Prabhupāda: Sound chamber may be called. So with that dry squash he made the sound chamber. The bamboo he fixed up and the wire upon it and then it became a "Tin, tin, tin, tin..." (laughs) Our organization is like that. I was loitering in the street. Somebody was over there, somebody was there. Not combined together, International Society String Band. Yes. Separately we are all useless.

Room Conversation -- September 16, 1976, Vrndavana:

Harikeśa: Abortion.

Prabhupāda: Yes, also. Otherwise, we have seen in our childhood how happy people were. They were. Simple. If one has five rupees income per month he's happy. I've seen it. Husband, wife, a small family. If he has got five rupees income, they can maintain very nicely, happily. Why not? Suppose he has got five rupees income. The rice was selling at four rupees. So two person, say one-fourth kg., one-fourth share each. A gentleman cannot eat more than that. So means half a share. And the whole month, fifteen share. It is about one rupee eight annas. And further, one rupees eight annas add for vegetables and other things. With three rupees they can maintain, the husband and wife. And two rupees still there. He can spend for other purposes. I have seen it. Fresh vegetables, rice, this and... Just like with banana leaf. The pots were of earthen, the wife is cooking and she's utilizing dry foliage as fuel, a little temperature, everything is cooked. The husband takes one banana leaf and spreads, and the wife gives sufficient rice, vegetables. And things were so cheap. I have seen it. And fresh.

Morning Walk -- October 2, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: ...up and down. If we keep the temple clean, then our heart will be cleansed. This is the process. (break) ...should be engaged in flower business, in dress business, light and interesting to them. They should not be given any heavy work. Cooking, helping cooking, cutting the vegetables. (break) ...woman should be engaged in something. That is wanted. (break) And to paint these panels also.

Haṁsadūta: Yes, outside. So it will be painted. These decorations. Oh, the panels here?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Haṁsadūta: You mean the panels. Yes, inside and outside.

Prabhupāda: There are so many pictures. And what is that boy?

Hari-śauri: Viṣṇu Das.

Prabhupāda: He can do every panel in three days.

Room Conversation -- October 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Hari-śauri: That was in Vṛndāvana or Delhi?

Prabhupāda: No, Delhi. Vānaprastha. I was alone. But my paper was going on, Back to Godhead. In Delhi I was alone. I was doing everything. Editing, selling, collecting, cooking.

Hari-śauri: There was no Godbrothers helping at all?

Prabhupāda: I did not take. They wanted. I did not like.

Hari-śauri: Did you ever think at that time that you would be able to expand or...

Prabhupāda: I was trying to do. It was a struggle at that time. At that time, I lived with some of my Godbrothers, but I did not like, and I left their temple, and I was living alone. Then in Imlitala you know here? Imlitala, Seva-kunj there is a...

Hari-śauri: No, I'm not familiar.

Prabhupāda: My Godbrother's temple. He had a temple in Delhi, Karol Bagh. I left Jhansi and came to Mathurā. I lived there for few months. Then I went to Delhi. In this way, here, there.

Garden Conversation -- October 9, 1976, Aligarh:
Prabhupāda: His name is Vivasvān. And his son is Vaivasvata Manu. Vivasvān manave prāha. These things are there. And his son, Ikṣvāku. And from Ikṣvāku, the kṣatriya-vaṁśa... In India still, the kṣatriyas are known, two dynasties, one from sun, one from the moon. Candra-vaṁśa, Sūrya-vaṁśa. Still, they are. So the kṣatriyas are coming. One dynasty is coming from the sun, another... So moon is not desert. These are simply rascals. They do not know anything, and rascals believe that the moon is desert, and the sun is desert. Only this planet is full of variety and beauty. No. We have to take lessons from the śāstras. So anyone can be raised to the highest platform. Caṇḍālo 'pi dvija-śreṣṭho hari-bhakti-parāyaṇa.(?) Even one is born as caṇḍāla... Caṇḍāla means less than the śūdras. The dog-eaters. Caṇḍālas. Śva-paca. They are called śva-paca. Śva means dog and paca means cooker. One who cooks the... There are still so many. In Korea, in China, in Hong Kong. They eat dogs.
Room Conversation -- November 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: All rotten, rather the same vegetable, as we have got in India practice, we dry it and keep it. That is tasteful. In season time—suppose this season there is huge quantity of vegetable—so here the system is they cut into pieces during the season and dry it in the sun and keep it. And during out of season it is soaked in water, it revives the old taste, then you can cook. (Hindi or Bengali)

Devotee (1): Tastes as though it is different. The fresh vegetable the taste is very good.

Prabhupāda: Fresh vegetable must be, but still there is some taste. But this frozen it has no taste.

Hari-śauri: No.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Even they have, Indians those who are fish eaters, they keep this dry fish.

Room Conversation -- November 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Eh, (Hindi) In that night because in daytime it is so hot, it is embarrassing to cook and to digest also. Better take food, ah, fruit, this melon, and at night they take 3 or 4 cāpāṭis according to the... And good sleep. Very happy life it was, all over India. There was no question of poverty. People did not know what is poverty and now it is poverty. They do not get even sufficient food.

Hari-śauri: Industrialization.

Prabhupāda: Ugra-karma. I don't like industrialism.

Morning Walk -- December 5, 1976, Hyderabad:

Devotee (2): Śrīla Prabhupāda, this morning we went to this engagement. There was the inauguration of the Vivekananda Society Home, so we went there on saṅkīrtana because we were invited by them. And one swami spoke and he said service to mankind was also service to God. And at the end he also said that Vivekananda used to say that for the housewife, that the cooking pot was becoming God, had become God, had become a God.

Prabhupāda: People applauded. This is foolishness. They do not know how to act. Just like if you pour water on the tree, then it is accepted that you are pouring water on the tree but that is not the process. The process is to pour water on the root of the tree. Practically we... You can make an experiment. Just like here is a tree. You don't pour water on the root but pour water on the leaves. Then it will dry in due course of time. It will not be effective. But if you pour water on the root, the water will go everywhere. So the whole thing is just like a tree. God is the origin of everything. He is the root. Aham ādir hi devānām (Bg 10.2). Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ (BG 10.8). Therefore He is the root.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 7, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Cow dung can be collected. At least they can be used as cow dung. Here, you should.

Devotee (6): In the small villages the women and children they make the paddy for burning in cooking.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mahāṁśa: This whole rocky area which we see here used to be like a natural dam, and the land on that side which is now our field used to be a big tank so the soil there is very good. It's like silt. But then, afterwards, somebody had cut through this natural dam and there's a canal that flows through here and goes into that tank over there.

Prabhupāda: The canal is in our land?

Mahāṁśa: Yes, it passes through our land.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 7, 1976, Hyderabad:

Jagadīśa: Yeah, he has to cook.

Devotee: You can see the canal from here. You can see (indistinct).

Hari-śauri: Just down there at the base of that rock.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Devotee: Water from the canal.

Prabhupāda: It is coming? You can go?

Mahāṁśa: I think the ground becomes muddy.

Jagadīśa: Go and check, Jagadānanda.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Room Conversation -- December 7, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Tell him like that.

Mahāṁśa: Yes. And the cooking will be done by his men.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mahāṁśa: Because if he comes his cook will also come.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. His cook and servant, yes. So make this arrangement so that everything should be inaugurated tomorrow, not more than that. So You have to purchase vegetable and then make a big, big scheme. Bambharambhe(?) laghu-kriyā. Ārambha, very big, and action, very little. And ask some of our devotees to collect all the gobars and bring here. I want gobar. There so much gobars scattered here and there. Take one basket and two men may go and collect all of them, put it in the sunshine. So nowadays sunshine is so bright. You can have so many things exposed to sunshine. All vitamins. So you immediately make program for vegetable, fruits, flower, surrounding this, immediately. So how Bhogilal will be brought here?

Mahāṁśa: In his car.

Room Conversation on Farm Management -- December 10, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Give them nice prasādam by which they are attracted. It doesn't matter khicuṛi, puri, kacuri, lāḍu. Whatever they are attracted, we must give. Whatever that will attract them. That I want. Kṛṣṇa-prasādam. Don't waste, give them nice palatable foodstuff. Give them one finest kacuri, one nice samosā, two puris, they will be very glad. Make very, very, nice prasādam. What is this rubbish, the dog cannot eat even? They have done a great mistake, all rascals. I am very angry. I say that if you have got no money, I'll spend, I will give you money. Why should you make such tenth class, and no food at all. It is to be thrown away. Simply waste of grains and energy. Engage nice professional cook, prepare nice foodstuff. I shall spend for that if you have no money. Gentlemen who are coming immediately should be offered some prasādam. "Please come here, take: puri, kacuri, samosā." Arrangement should be like that. The doctors came, he comes out of love, but there is no prasādam. Huh? What is this? The doctor comes, but we couldn't supply him prasādam at 12 o'clock.

Room Conversation on Farm Management -- December 10, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: But attract them. They will come here to eat, "Oh, very nice thing." That is wanted. I made this movement successful simply by love feast. They did not come to hear Hare Kṛṣṇa. They came for love feast. From very beginning, when I was in 26 2nd Avenue, every Sunday I was giving nice foodstuff, at least 200 men. Daily at least more than 15, 20. I was cooking myself. That is the beginning of my movement. The cāpāṭis with Kīrtanānanda, first of all he was taking one and two, then twelve. (laughter)

Room Conversation on Farm Management -- December 10, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Stryādhīśa. Twenty-two cāpāṭis. (laughter) "Stryādhīśa, can I give you?" "Yes." I gave him four. Finished. "Stryādhīśa, can I give you?" "Yes." (laughter) Very nice boy. He was eating twenty-two. One day there was no money, so he immediately went and came after some time with some money. "And where did you go?" The shoe booth. He polished shoes and brought some money. (laughter) In this way, this was developed. Give them prasādam, nice prasādam. Any gentleman comes, immediately there must be some prasādam. Engage first class cook. Spend money, don't be a miserly. If you have no money, I will pay. So long I am living, I shall go on paying. You don't be miserly. Bring devotees for eating, and then chanting, then cinema, then lecture, in this way you have to develop. Not that people will come, "Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra is there, let us go there." They will not come. What do they know about Hare Kṛṣṇa? They will come, "Oh, there is nice, good prasādam distributed."

Room Conversation on Farm Management -- December 10, 1976, Hyderabad:

Mahāṁśa: Some people I know, they said that yesterday the prasādam was not nice, and there was...

Prabhupāda: Not nice, it is not eatable even by the dogs. But you are less than the dogs if you (prepare) such thing. I was surprised. You allowed a sweeper to cook. I was surprised. We have distribution prasādam, not dog's food. Such rascals as here. You do not know. I do not wish to discuss anymore on this point. You have murdered the whole thing in two days. Now if possible, bring them, bring them first class prasādam, very palatable. Foodstuff means even one has no appetite he'll eat. That is food. Not that even one has got appetite, he'll forget. That is not food. So do like that and for money produce, use cane, sugar cane, rice. We shall spend for that. Don't spoil money, but do like businessman. He invests money, he gets a return. Spend it for Kṛṣṇa. That is wanted. There is no question of becoming a miser. I never did it. When I have got that farthing, I want to spend it. Immediately spend. Oh, what I have made this BBT? Immediately 50% for printing, and 50% for spreading this. (indistinct) and understand what I want to do. So whatever is done is done, now do it very nicely. I want to see at least 1,000 men coming from the villages. There are 20,000 men here, you cannot attract them?

Mahāṁśa: Do we announce that you will give darśana on the stage for five minutes?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Mahāṁśa: Can we announce...?

Prabhupāda: Nobody will come for my darśana, but if you want I'll go.

Room Conversation on Farm Management -- December 10, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: I shall go. I shall speak. Give them very nice food. From tomorrow I will... If there are rascals, you'll bring. I will pay nice cook. Make varieties, very palatable food. Kichranna,(?) puṣpānna, rice, there are so many preparations. Paramānna. You do not make paramānna, kichranna,(?) puṣpānna. There are varieties of rice preparation. They know, the southern people, with curd, yogurt...

Mahāṁśa: Tamarind.

Prabhupāda: Eh? Tamarind, so many preparations. So make like that. Why dog eating? They are not dogs. You cannot expect, because you are giving some dog eatable food, they will come. There must be one first class cook, and all our men should learn. There's no need of simply keeping unduly: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, and sleeping. We don't want such men. Make a show. And do not know anything how to preach. Useless. The householder, the women should be engaged in cooking. Their children should be gathered together. One man... I have said many times, all the children should be taken in a room by one woman, and others should be engaged in the cooking department. I have seen it. Your country, America. When they go to church, all the childrens are gathered together in a room. Is it not?

Devotees: Yes.

Room Conversation on Farm Management -- December 10, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: And one or two men take care. And others, they go. Similarly, children they must have, so... Not that everyone is children busy, "I cannot do." They cannot do if they are busy with children. What is the use of keeping such householders? Let them live outside, earn their money. Women business is to cleanse, to cut the vegetables, to cook, what is this? They're simply busy with the children? And they have started their mission for maintaining some children, and useless women. You should organize. Rādhikāra pakka anna vividha byañjana. All the gopīs, they are engaged for cooking for Kṛṣṇa. Mother Yaśodā will call them, "You young girls, you can cook very nicely."

rādhikāra pakka anna vividha byañjana
parama ānande kṛṣṇa korena bhojana

Do you understand Bengali?

Mahāṁśa: No.

Prabhupāda: Rādhikā with Her friends, they are cooking. And they cook so nicely that parama ānande kṛṣṇa korena bhojana. With great pleasure Kṛṣṇa is eating. And that we have to distribute. Not dog's food. You do not know what is the purpose of this mission. No need. Here is a good chance, don't spoil it. Produce food. Make profit, you spend for Kṛṣṇa. Train all devotees how to cook. All women. Don't distribute dog's eatable things. Kṛṣṇa prasādam.

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1976, Hyderabad:

Haṁsadūta: One question I have, Prabhupāda. Yesterday, day before yesterday, we were discussing the prasādam cooking.

Prabhupāda: So if they bring one nice cook...

Haṁsadūta: Yes, well, this evening I was just over there, and I noticed some of the carpenters are cooking and I don't know who the other people are.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Mahāṁśa: They're not cooking for the feast. They're cooking their own thing.

Haṁsadūta: No, no, no. They were cutting up our vegetables which are going to be cooked and served to the public.

Mahāṁśa: No.

Haṁsadūta: Yes, right over there by the fire.

Prabhupāda: No uninitiated person should cook. Brāhmaṇa cook.

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1976, Hyderabad:

Mahāṁśa: What about professional cooks?

Prabhupāda: Real brāhmaṇa.

Mahāṁśa: Professional cooks?

Prabhupāda: Profes...? They are brāhmaṇas.

Mahāṁśa: Yes, but they... Even though they are brāhmaṇas, they have this habit of smoking, and if we try to find a professional cook who doesn't smoke, it is very difficult.

Prabhupāda: Hm. As far as possible, our men should cook, a professional man who is in good habit, who has promised that they will not do this smoking. We have to manage somehow.

Mahāṁśa: As far as our devotees' cooking, it's practically impossible. We have tried so hard. They just can't do it. Yesterday two of the boys tried to help, and the rice was not cooked because it was not done and he burned his leg. The water fell on his leg, and he couldn't handle the pots properly and he got... Now the poor boy, he is suffering. He's got a wounded leg, one of the German boys, the one with long hair. So our devotees, they are not... This boy, Bengali boy, Divid (?), he's good. He can do it but he needs at least four or five men to help.

Tejas: He was a professional cook but he's not... He can't do it himself. He needs too much...

Mahāṁśa: He needs at least four people to help. It's a big cooking, so it's also very difficult for one man to do and nobody wants to help the cooking because it's so hot, the smoke goes in the eyes and it's very troublesome. So nobody wants to help in the cooking, devotees.

Prabhupāda: Not willing. They are not willing.

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1976, Hyderabad:

Mahāṁśa: They're not willing to help in the kitchen because it is very hot, very hard, the eyes get burned, things like that. So this one Bengali boy, he's a very good cook. He can do it very nicely but he wants help. And if no one helps, then he refuses to cook. And if you press him, then he runs away. Yesterday he tried to run away four times because we were trying to press him.

Prabhupāda: No, no, cooking alone, it is not possible. So that you have to do. Find out some men. Cooperate. Otherwise how it is possible?

Haṁsadūta: Yes, therefore I'm asking you about hired people, whether hired people are good. In my experience...

Prabhupāda: So if they are, if our men not available, then you must hire, hire people. But not these carpenters or like that.

Mahāṁśa: No, we should get professional cooks who are really good, like this man who cooked today.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And this man is coming. He can bring.

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: So if they are, if our men not available, then you must hire, hire people. But not these carpenters or like that.

Mahāṁśa: No, we should get professional cooks who are really good, like this man who cooked today.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And this man is coming. He can bring.

Mahāṁśa: Yes, he himself will come. But he will have the habit of smoking and I think we can at the most regulate his smoking. "If you want to smoke, you go somewhere far away and smoke and before you start cooking you must wash yourself, have a bath, and then do the cooking."

Prabhupāda: Yes. What can be done? Ne māmā che kānā māmā (?) "If there is no uncle, one blind uncle is all right." So the matter is now clear. You do it and develop it.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Ask the leaders! I was talking that in all our other branches, our men manage the cooking and kitchen and as soon as they come here, they become varalasai. (?) That is Rāvaṇa. Why do they not do here? We have to keep some cook who is neither initiated, nor very clean, a smoker, and we have to keep them. (break) In all other branches, the boys and girls, they manage everything. (break)

Amogha-līlā: ...follow the regulations more strictly?

Prabhupāda: That I have to say again? That means Rāvaṇa. He's asking. I am repeatedly saying that follow, and he's asking. That means he's Rāvaṇa. Why you are inquiring like that. If you know this is the solution, why don't you do it? That means Rāvaṇa. If you know this is the solution, why don't you do it? (break)

Śrutaśrava: ...one week ago and in just four days time the devotees there have distributed over one lakh of Back To Godhead magazines in just four days.

Prabhupāda: But you do not do here. Huh? That means Rāvaṇa. (laughter) (break) ...to become less intelligent, less active, and therefore I say, yāya sei laṅkā sei haya rāvaṇa,(?) "Anyone who comes to Laṅkā, he becomes Rāvaṇa."

Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Indian man: You have six o'clock in the morning same thing, six o'clock in the evening same thing. No change. In the morning I was also there. No change. I've brought this gentleman and this lady they want to come here and stay and work for the institution. He's 74 years old and she's also very active and she knows very good cooking.

Prabhupāda: Hm, very good.

Indian man: They cannot speak in English. That's the whole difficulty, they are speaking Hindi and Gujarati. They are very, feeling very shy. And he's very great expert in growing this wheat grass which has become very popular. Everybody likes very much. Your devotees are also liking. He's an expert in this. He's a very good music teacher, he has a very good tape recordist. Puppeteer, also he's making these puppet for last twenty years. He's expert in making puppets. We can make kṛṣṇa-kathā puppets also for our theater. And he can train our young boys for the same thing. Video tape and everything, he knows about this audio-visual communication...

Prabhupāda: Everyone has got some talent. So svakarmaṇā tam abhyarcya. That is wanted. Whatever talent you have got you can utilize for Kṛṣṇa.

Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Indian man: He has got one son and daughter. His family is in Bombay. One son is expired earlier. And he has got good talent of teaching Hindi, music, and tape recording. He's such work. And she knows cooking, very good cooking.

Prabhupāda: Yes, if she gives cooking direction.

Indian man: She is also quite expert in cooking. (Hindi) He plays very good harmonium.

Indian man (2): All musical instruments.

Prabhupāda: No, we don't want to introduce harmonium.

Indian man: No, I know. That is what he's teaching at the moment. He's doing it out of force.

Prabhupāda: The other musical instrument, if he plays his attention will be diverted in musical instrument, not to chanting. "We have to see melody, whether it is going on nicely." But that is not good. Our concentration should be hearing Hare Kṛṣṇa. That is... That is bhakti. Caitanya Mahāprabhu, simply this karatāla, khola, that's all. In those days... Of course, there was no harmonium, but many stringed instruments were there. Sitar, esarāja, but these things were not used. Sometimes we do use to attract, but it is not required.

Room Conversation -- December 31, 1976, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: Bengali culture is fish-eating. Even brāhmaṇas eating.

Prabhupāda: No. They are eating fish only. Because Bengal is full of rivers. But not for all. Mass of people, that's a fact. But he introduced, "You can eat anything. It has nothing to do with religion." In Bengal in our childhood we have seen if anyone was habituated to take meat... Common man would not. Rich man. The rich men they have their sahis. Sahis you know, who takes care of the horse. So he would cook in the horse shed.

Dr. Patel: And eat there.

Prabhupāda: No. Then he'll bring the (indistinct) and eat it. It was never brought within the precincts of the house.

Room Conversation -- December 31, 1976, Bombay:

Girirāja: Hare Krishna Das Agarwal.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. He was very friendly. Actually, he is the organizer, main person. He showed that, "Here Swamiji was cooking." (laughs) Yes. I was guest for fifteen days, that Dalmia. Not this Jayadal, his big brother, Ram-Krishna. He asked me that his family... He wanted to construct a little cottage in his house, "You can live here. I'll give you a nice cottage." I thought, "No, it is not good to be patronized by a viṣayī." This is not good. Fully dependent on a materialistic... And he's first-class materialist.

Page Title:Cooking (Conversations 1976)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, Mayapur
Created:09 of Aug, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=112, Let=0
No. of Quotes:112