Door (Conversations 1976 - 1977)

Expressions researched:
"door" |"doors" |"doorstep" |"doorway" |"doorways"

Notes from the compiler: VedaBase query: doors or door or doorways or doorway or doorstep not "door to door"

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 8, 1976, Nellore:

Prabhupāda: Tirupati is establishing Gaṇeśa temple. That is against Bhagavad-gītā. Bhagavān says that kāmais tais tair hṛta-jñānā yajanty anya-devatāḥ (BG 7.20). The rascals who are very much lusty, lost their intelligence, they worship other demigods.

Acyutānanda: The Rāmānuja sannyāsīs have had all their authority taken away from them by these...

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Acyutānanda: All their authority in the temples has been taken away by the government committee.

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Acyutānanda: Just ritualistically in the morning the sannyāsī comes and opens the door. He holds the key. We met him at Rangaji.

Prabhupāda: Rāmānujācārya sannyāsīs, they have no influence over them.

Morning Walk -- January 16, 1976, Mayapur:

Bhavānanda: There is one woman from England. She is in charge of our dispensary. I can send her by today?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bhavānanda: You can give her the...

Prabhupāda: (break) ...mixture. Stock medicine that is called. (break) ...consulting doctor, without any harm, you can give. Just like homeopathic. So now these are vacant. Why these doors are not closed?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This one is utilized.

Jayapatāka: This is our spinning room, workroom. They just left it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: These are hand loom departments, the whole.... How many rooms?

Bhavānanda: Five rooms.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Five or six.

Jayapatāka: Nine rooms? No.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...that's nice. Very good. (break) ...surprised that "In temple, why handloom? What kind of temple it is?" They will criticize like that.

Morning Walk -- January 16, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: So by pump store water and by pipe distribute.

Jayapatāka: This is what the Gargamuni's money, as we get, we're using for these programs.

Prabhupāda: Why it is being broken again?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Why are these rooms being broken?

Jayapatāka: This is.... We're putting on the other side the doorway. You commented that "Why the door should be facing inside?"

Prabhupāda: No, no. No inside store.

Jayapatāka: It's facing outside.

Prabhupāda: Yes. You can...

Jayapatāka: It's already finished. We're just going to...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, these are stores.

Jayapatāka: Bookstore and...

Bhavānanda: Yes. We're going to make a small entrance door on this side.

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Morning Walk -- January 16, 1976, Mayapur:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is that.... The stones and everything cost fifteen rupees?

Jayapatāka: Well...

Prabhupāda: (break) Vandalism, no? Then what is to be done? (break) ...big doors, why it is open? This should be open when car is going. Otherwise not.

Jayapatāka: (Bengali)

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Jayapatāka: I think he opened it for Your Divine Grace to go.

Prabhupāda: No, close it. Simply...

Jayapatāka: (Bengali)

Prabhupāda: Who is in charge? (Bengali)

Bhavānanda: It's normally closed, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...spending money unnecessarily. And no...

Jayapatāka: This wall was.... We only got the money for building all this a month and a half ago. Then this wall is just plastered. It takes two months to dry the wall. If you paint before two months, then the paint will come off. Therefore, we're giving this two months. We made the arch and now we're going to start the painting. (break) ...immediately paint it right after plastering and the paint doesn't stick. We thought that by doing this the wall would be so beautiful and impressive that the pictures will be more accented.

Prabhupāda: Do it. (break) ...foolish person in the whole world. You allow vandals to come and break your dolls. (break) ...give them protection, even to the dolls. (break) ...made with so much labor and you allowed the vandals to come in?

Morning Walk -- January 16, 1976, Mayapur:

Bhavānanda: This is American subway.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Bhavānanda: Engineering. To keep people going in single file.

Jayapatāka: There's no other door like this exactly.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In India. It's the only one in India.

Bhavānanda: Otherwise the people come and crowd up at the exit, and then, when we open it up, everyone falls down.

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is.... (break) ...place to be utilized?

Bhavānanda: This will be playpen. This will be for the children, the little children to stay.

Prabhupāda: Oh? Why?

Bhavānanda: So many times there are always little babies. Their mothers are working, and they get into trouble, so this will be a nice area for them to play around in.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...abide by these rules?

Bhavānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Morning Walk -- January 18, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Gurukula boys: Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Prabhupāda: Jaya. Brahmacārīs.

Jayapatāka: (break) Not so many gosas come for prasādam. (break—to room conversation)

Devotee (1): "...Sanat Kumāras were going to Vaikuṇṭha to visit Lord Viṣṇu. They were stopped at the door by the doorkeepers, Jaya and Vijaya. But specifically, the Supreme Lord cannot be seen by ordinary eyes. But He now became visible to the eyesight of the Kumāras. Another significant word is samādhi-vākyam. Meditators who are very fortunate see the Viṣṇu form of the Lord within their hearts by following the yoga process. But to see Him eye to eye is a different matter. It is only possible for pure devotees. The Kumāras therefore..." (break)

Bhavānanda: ...aratika?

Prabhupāda: No. No. That...

Bhavānanda: They have kīrtanas...

Prabhupāda: Going on.

Bhavānanda: Yes.

Devotee (1): (break) They couldn't see the Lord face to face?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Dhruva Mahārāja saw face to face.

Morning Walk -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Sudama: I had a similar experience, Śrīla Prabhupāda, in Kansas with one college student who was a senior in commercial art. He had one big, large apartment and about five roommates, and he had all your pictures and pictures of Kṛṣṇa all on his wall, and Dhrstadyumna prabhu and I went and preached to him. And I began taking all the pictures down off his wall and said, "You are coming with us because you are a devotee of Kṛṣṇa." And he agreed, so we began moving everything, and he owned everything in the house, and all his friends protested at the door, "No, no. You cannot go. You cannot take all of your hi-fi equipment and music..."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They don't love the friend; they love all of his things.

Sudama: So we took all of his things in big trucks. We had to take furniture and everything. And he sold over one period of a week. And then all his friends began coming to the bus for evening āratika and prasāda, and two of his friends, they also became influenced and started chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa because they were left with nothing after he went away.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: One boy who joined us in Boston...

Prabhupāda: (break) Chewing the chewed. This is going on. Material world means chewing the chewed.

Bhavānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, I think this narrow path is smoother.

Prabhupāda: Better.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...go ahead and get the projector do you think, new projector?

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...government, Mr. Chaudhuri can do.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Bhavānanda: They will buy in some leaf cup and go next door and have a place to sit down and take it, and then water to wash their... Actually there's a pump. Everything is right there.

Prabhupāda: You will find such confectioner's shop, sitting place and eating.

Bhavānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Like that.

Bhavānanda: Just like in Navadvīpa.

Harikeśa: They have that near the Gopīnātha temple in Vṛndāvana. Everybody goes there. That is very big.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We should make a nice sweet, sweetmeats also.

Harikeśa: Lugloos is big there. Those lugloos.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We should make many types of sweetmeats. There should be so many preparations, all offered to the Deity. People can purchase mahā-prasādam. It will be very big. When you read in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, every time Caitanya Mahāprabhu's devotees are purchasing prasādam from Jagannātha temple, all the time.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the system.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It sounds like they make a huge quantity at Purī, huge quantities of foodstuffs.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Any time you can get one thousand man's eatables.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You wanted them to take it? You were offering...

Prabhupāda: No, suppose a big monkey comes and takes. You are stunned. (laughter) You have to give him. No other way.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They will attack otherwise.

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. So you have talked and dealt with him?

Jayapatākā: He came to me and said he wanted a job here.

Morning Walk -- February 4, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So why it is like that? People may fall down.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In other words, it should be up there in the day.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...again mūḍha.

Sudāmā: (break) ...speaking about how they are complaining that we are waking them up. A very interesting story... In Hawaii for one year every day this one man living next door to us every morning would call the police force at guru-pūjā. So many cars would come, three, four police cars. So finally, after one or two weeks' coming, they would come very happily, and they would take prasāda. So they came because he called, they had to follow his complaint, but they told me personally, "We are coming not to arrest you or complain. We like your activities. Please give us some prasādam."

Hṛdayānanda: Also in Caracas many, many police cars come to the temple for prasādam.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- March 12, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Oh, very nice.

Satsvarūpa: There are ten acres. That's just a tiny bit.

Rāmeśvara: They have nice mango trees?

Satsvarūpa: Oh, yes, they have many, many, a whole orchard with irrigation pipes.

Rādhāvallabha: This sign on the door of the Tokyo temple says, "Hare Kṛṣṇa Temple."

Prabhupāda: So make arrangement that people may come. They should be given direction. Otherwise how they will know there is such thing?

Hariśauri: Mexico.

Rādhāvallabha: This is only half of the temple pictures. The other half will go up today.

Rāmeśvara: And all the professor quotes will be up by tomorrow morning.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Morning Walk -- March 22, 1976, Mayapura:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Devotee: One time you told us, Śrīla Prabhupāda, to meet every man at his door and ask him to give up everything he knows and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is simple. "You rascal, you give up whatever you have learned, you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa." Don't say "rascal," but indirectly (laughter), that "Whatever you have learned, it is all nonsense." Sakalam eva vihāya dūrāt, "You give up everything, kicked out, and simply become adherent to Caitanya." This is our preaching. And what Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128), that's all. Because ultimately He is Kṛṣṇa.

Pañcadraviḍa: Can you repeat why you said you have been successful where others have not?

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

Morning Walk -- April 8, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Electricity is coming?

Lokanātha: Yes, these poles are meant for that.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I doubt, though, if these people can afford.

Prabhupāda: The government can. (break)

Pañcadraviḍa: ...go to beg rice or something, like we were doing for a food program, all the people slam the door in your face. (break)

Pañcadraviḍa: ...went to America, what was your idea of what would be your program when you got there?

Prabhupāda: This idea: I shall speak to don't eat meat, and they'll immediately kick me out. (laughter) That was my program. And I was going to say that "Don't eat meat. No illicit sex," and immediately they will kick me out. "All right." I never thought that you would accept it. That is the idea of my poetry. That is sung, no? You have got that?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: And I was asking Kṛṣṇa, "I do not know why You have brought me here. As soon as I will say these things, they will kick me out. What is Your program, I do not know."

Morning Walk -- May 3, 1976, Fiji:

Guru-kṛpā: So actually back to home, back to Godhead, means just back to devotional service.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because a devotee is always in Vaikuṇṭha. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate (BG 14.26). He is already in Vaikuṇṭha. Why he shall for that, Vaikuṇṭha? He's not in this material world. Muktiḥ svayaṁ mukulitāñjali sevate 'smān. This is called mukti. "The mukti? Why shall I accept mukti? Mukti is standing on my door: 'What shall I do, sir?' So why shall I ask for mukti?" (break) Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam. First make all desires zero. That is the beginning of bhakti.

anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ

jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam

ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu-

śīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā

(Brs. 1.1.11)

Why should you desire anything?

Guru-kṛpā: Then they say, "Why you desire to serve Kṛṣṇa?"

Prabhupāda: Huh? That is not desire. It is a natural. That is natural. Obedience to Kṛṣṇa, that is my natural business. Servant's business is always ready: "What can I do, sir?" This is not desire. This is natural position. He's not desiring anything. He's simply ready, "What can I do?" Ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanam (CC Madhya 19.167). That is, he's not desiring anything. Desire means when I want something for my satisfaction, that is desire. (break) ...mukha-padma-vākya, cittete koriyā aikya. He's simply expecting what spiritual master will order. Citta. Āra nā koriho... He has no other desire. That is desirelessness.

Room Conversation -- Honolulu, May 20, 1976 :

Prabhupāda: No. Jagannātha, that is another history. King Indradyumna, he wanted to establish a temple of that incidence, and that the Deities while being carved would remain unfinished. So, he was very impatient to establish, so he established the unfinished Deity. That is Jagannātha.

Devotee (7): The nondevotees cannot understand...

Prabhupāda: They are being carved, Kṛṣṇa's wood form, but he was so impatient, he said "Whatever is done now, establish." It is said that Viśvakarmā was enquiring. So the term was, Viśvakarmā said that "Unless I finish, don't open the door." So this king, he went impatiently, and calling out whether he is finished. Then he forced, forcibly opened the door, and it was unfinished. So he said "Never mind, (indistinct)." Unfinished Kṛṣṇa (indistinct). So Kṛṣṇa, finished or unfinished, is Kṛṣṇa. That is omnipotency. That is Jagannātha form, (indistinct) doesn't matter finished or unfinished. (end)

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

Prabhupāda: Nepotism. That is human nature.

Hari-śauri: They said he was becoming too friendly with the West, getting too many Western ideas.

Prabhupāda: Who?

Hari-śauri: Kruschev. So they kicked him out. (knock at the door)

Prabhupāda: Yes?

Rādhāvallabha: Answer the door.

Hari-śauri: In England, their whole difficulty with the labor.... (several people talk at once, door is open, kīrtana going on)

Prabhupāda: Let him in.

Rādhāvallabha: It's Govinda dāsī. Tell her to come in.

Hari-śauri: But the union problem they have in England, that's why the whole country now is in disruption because the labor is always on strike. They did a survey, and they found out that all the major union leaders are Communists.

Prabhupāda: And they're making money.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: I thought this space was bigger.

Hari-śauri: It looks bigger, but the temple room is actually very big. It's a good size. Actually, the only reason they need to go above the Deities is just to get into that room where tulasī is, although they open those doors sometimes.

Prabhupāda: There is another big room, so add it together. Two rooms, then it will be bigger. (pause) (break) ...with snow.

Satsvarūpa: I was thinking of that. About five months, it can even snow here in April, and it snows in December. From December to April. Not that every day, but when it comes, it doesn't go away either.

Prabhupāda: These trees become leafless? No.

Mādhavānanda: Yes. Except for these.

Prabhupāda: All other trees become.

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

Prabhupāda: No, he should not be admitted.

Ambarīṣa: Also in Boston there's a lady who may be donating a million-dollar farm to the Boston Temple. This is just a project that's a little bit..., that's just started, and she wants to donate her farm. So that is also going on, and also the temple is purchasing the building next door. I gave them some money for a down payment on it so they could buy the building next door to use it to house the people that are living in the restaurant and also for the Bhaktivedanta Institute, because I think the Bhaktivedanta Institute is going to be in Boston. Mādhava is there.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Boston is nice place for the Institute.

Śrutikīrti: Best place for it.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's the educational center of America.

Ambarīṣa: Academic center of the United States. So now we are fixing up the temple very nicely. We've spent about fifty thousand dollars putting in all new tile floor and a beautiful new onyx altar. Very, very gorgeous.

Prabhupāda: So it is framework or solid building?

Ambarīṣa: The building? It's stone, brownstone.

Prabhupāda: Oh, then it's nice.

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

Prabhupāda: You can keep record.

Stansky: Yes. Now the reason I would like to keep a log and prepare an outline and start a book, say a year from now, it would show a transition from Roman priesthood to Hare Kṛṣṇa devotee. I think this would open up the door to all of the colleges and universities across the country.

Prabhupāda: Very good idea, yes. Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (BG 2.59). The nature is if we get better engagement, we give up inferior engagement. Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate. So this will be an example. You are a Roman priest. You are educated, learned scholar also. So when you come to this movement, you do not come here by sentiment or by whims. You consider, then you have come.

Stansky: This is what I wanted to say, that I'm not here because of sentiment. I'm here for very, very sound reasons, and I want to explain the reasons.

Prabhupāda: Therefore we are presenting these books, that we are not a so-called sect of whimsical faith. It is based on science and authorities. Recently we have got report that our books have been taken in Hamburg University. You know Hamburg University?

Stansky: Yes.

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

Prabhupāda: My seat should be near the altar of the Deity.

Hari-śauri: The vyāsāsana. Like in Los Angeles, at the side? On the left-hand side?

Prabhupāda: Not left-hand side. Just like you are facing Deity and there are spaces here.

Viśvakarmā: Between the doors.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Viśvakarmā: Which side, Śrīla Prabhupāda? On the left-hand side or the right-hand side of the Deity, facing towards the altar?

Prabhupāda: Any side.

Viśvakarmā: Any side? How far away from the front? In the middle so that they can see from the balcony as well. (child calls out)

Prabhupāda: Yes. Prabhupāda?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Sounded like it.

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

Prabhupāda: This iron is corroding. If it will not hamper.

Kīrtanānanda: It will be covered.

Prabhupāda: Covered, but now it is corroding.

Kīrtanānanda: I see what you are saying. There is another door that goes in that wall there, like this, for access to that side.

Prabhupāda: Svalpam apy asya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt. Little service in this connection, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, can protect one from the greatest danger. Svalpam apy asya dharmasya.

Kīrtanānanda: You are so kind to let us do it.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa's desire. White sand, wherefrom you secure?

Kīrtanānanda: In Ohio, about sixty miles from here.

Prabhupāda: From the seaside, sea beach? No.

Kīrtanānanda: No, they call it silica sand. I think it's made from glass.

Prabhupāda: Not glass, it is a kind of stone made powder. Silica sand. They are like sandstone.

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

Kīrtanānanda: It's OK.

Prabhupāda: These are specially made?

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

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

Prabhupāda: This is lead?

Kīrtanānanda: Yes.

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

Kīrtanānanda: That is, I think, from India.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

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

Prabhupāda: Gold? (laughter)

Kulādri: Twenty-four karat.

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

Kīrtanānanda: This is a sample of the handles.

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

Kulādri: Twenty-four karat.

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

Kīrtanānanda: This is a sample of the handles.

Prabhupāda: Plumbing?

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

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. What for these marbles?

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

Prabhupāda: Doing here?

Kīrtanānanda: Yes. This is some of the castings they've done. This goes up on the ceiling.

Prabhupāda: Cornice.

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

Prabhupāda: There is the question. (devotees laugh) but their reality is dog's race, and our reality is to advance in self-realization, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. There is difference. Therefore karmīs have been described as mūḍha, asses. Asses. And asses, why the example is given to the asses? Because the ass works very hard. It loads on the back tons of cloth of the washerman, and the washerman in return gives him little morsel of grass, and he stands at the door of the washerman, eats the grass, again loading. But he has no sense that "If I go out of these clutches of washerman I can get grass anywhere. Why I am loading so much?" The karmīs are like that. They're busy in the office, very busy. If you want to see him, "I am very busy now." (laughter) So what is your result of busy? "Now, I take two pieces of toast and one cup of tea. That's all." (laughter) And for this purpose you are so busy? He does not know why he's busy. Because in the books he's finding, "Now, the balance was one thousand million dollars, now it has become two thousand," that his satisfaction. But he will eat two pieces of bread and one cup of tea. When it was one million dollars, when it was two million dollars. But still he'll work hard. This is called karmī. Asses. Work like asses, without any aim of life. This is asses.

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

Prabhupāda: Wholesale. You must avoid at least sinful activities.

yeṣāṁ tv anta-gataṁ pāpaṁ

janānāṁ punya-karmaṇām

te dvandva-moha-nirmuktā

bhajante māṁ dṛdha-vratāḥ

(BG 7.28)

You cannot become a devotee unless you are completely sinless. So to become completely sinless you have to begin with these four prohibitory injunctions, or avoid sinful activities like illicit sex, meat-eating, smoking, intoxication and gambling. Then you'll be gradually completely sinless. One side, to practice things, and another side, to engage yourself in devotional service. To engage oneself devotional service under the order of spiritual master and the śāstra means to remain on the transcendental platform. Transcendental platform means there is no sinful activity. It is above. Sinful.... Pious and sinful activities are there so long you are on the material platform. Good and bad. Piety and sinful. But when you are on the transcendental platform, then you are automatically without sin.

māṁ ca yo 'vyabhicārena

bhakti-yogena yaḥ sevate

sa guṇān samatītyaitān

brahma-bhūyāya kalpate

(BG 14.26)

Sin, life of vice and life of piety, they are within this material world. But when one is spiritually engaged, he is above the spiritual plane. Sa guṇan samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate. So one side, voluntarily accepting these prohibitory process.... You can keep it open. (the door)

Hari-śauri: Tell him to leave the door open.

Prabhupāda: So the whole thing is that if you chant hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra and give up these sinful activities, automatically you become reformed, come to the spiritual platform, and in this way your life will become successful.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Can we go on to the next question, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Hm.

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

Hari-śauri: When it starts to fall apart, that's when they think it's the best. I think I mentioned before, in England, the gentry, the British gentry, when they used to go hunting, shooting pheasants and partridges, afterwards they would get the dead birds and hang them in a shed outside, and then after some days, when all the skin and feathers were literally falling off, that's when they would eat it. That's when it was considered rich.

Prabhupāda: There are so many kadarya things. In Burma, they have got a system, Burmese family. In the door, there is a pot, a big pot. So whatever animal dies, put it in there and cover it. So in this way, after some years, they're decomposed, and it becomes liquid, and then it is so decomposed that if you open it, within three miles they smell. So that is mature. Then they take out the liquid and keep it in bottles. That is called naphi. And they stock it, and when there is some feast at home they'll give little that naphi, and they'll relish it.

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

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.

Rūpānuga: But this is Washington, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Everything, this neighborhood is one of the most wealthy neighborhoods in the country. It is very big. We did not think we would be able to get in so easy. But now people are appreciating how we have fixed up the property. So they have accepted us into the community, but it is very wealthy. You will see some of the houses.

Prabhupāda: They have seen our books?

Rūpānuga: I don't know. Have you made some...? Well, basically we've been just getting them used to us. We have not approached them so much, because we've only been here a short time. How long have we been here altogether?

Vṛṣākapi: Four months.

Rūpānuga: In four months, they have transformed this.

Prabhupāda: That's good. This wooden wall was there?

Vipina: Yes. We refinished them.

Room Conversation -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: Don't misspend.

Vipina: Not all on chandeliers. Just part of it.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: You have a bell system?

Rūpānuga: Yes, it rings, but you can't hear it in here. It rings in the back quarters.

Prabhupāda: The doors you have purchased?

Rūpānuga: Yes.

Prabhupāda: It is costly?

Devotee: Yes.

Rūpānuga: The other doors were not..., they could not even be locked nicely.

Prabhupāda: Very nice.

Vipina: We got matching doors all the way through your quarters.

Vṛṣākapi: We are hoping if you like it, you will stay here, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: I want to stay, but...

Rūpānuga: ...cannot. (to Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa:) On the other side, it works. This Washington temple actually is one of your oldest centers, but this is the first time you have been able to come when facilities were proper.

Prabhupāda: Indians are coming?

Rūpānuga: Yes.

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

Hari-śauri: The animal that was making the noise was the man on the porch. (laughs)

Vipina: Many people have horses in the neighborhood. They have horse shows, Śrīla Prabhupāda. They spend lots of money on fancy horses, and in this way, one becomes greater than another by showing his horses. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...slam the door. The door is secure or not? (break) ...trying to find out that happiness from this body, that is mistake. That happiness is there in the spirit soul, not this body. Happiness is our right. Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). By nature, we want happiness. Mistaking, where is the happiness. The living being, he is to enjoy happiness. But they are trying to give happiness to the body, which is dead. Gatāsūn agatāsūṁś ca nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ (BG 2.11). The body is dead from the very beginning, but they are trying to draw happiness from the dead matter.

Hari-śauri: Chewing the chewed.

Prabhupāda: Yes, and that is not being fulfilled. Therefore planning, sometimes this way, sometimes that way. Manorathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ (SB 5.18.12). Mental concoction. Real platform they are missing. Sometimes sitting down, sometimes... (laughter) Happiness. When tired up, then come down. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30).

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

Devotee: It is explained that the intelligence is the next door neighbor of the soul, can you explain exactly what that means, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: So what is his question?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: His question is that the intelligence, sometimes you've gone like this, I've seen, you say that the soul and the intelligence are like that, that the intelligence is very close to the soul.

Guest: (indistinct) the relationship between the intelligence, working in the soul.

Prabhupāda: Soul is above intelligence. This is the relationship. Intelligence is above the mind, and soul is above the intelligence. Senses, then mind, then intelligence, then the soul.

Devotee: (indistinct) matter.

Prabhupāda: Yeah, subtle (?) matter (indistinct).

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Indriyāṇi parāṇy āhur (BG 3.42).

Prabhupāda: Oh, indriyāṇi parāny āhur indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ (BG 3.42).

Room Conversation With Scientists -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: All detailed?

Yadubara: Some detail, yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that's nice. Yes, you can close. (door closes) One set to Gargamuni and one set to Saurabha and one set for me, three sets. And if you like, you can keep one set for you. The negative will be with you. What is the height altogether?

Yadubara: Actually, I don't know, I didn't get that. I can get that information also.

Prabhupāda: So, guessing?

Yadubara: Oh, I don't know, two hundred fifty feet? Something like that. Three hundred?

Rūpānuga: That's too big, three hundred. The Washington monument is five hundred fifty feet.

Prabhupāda: Then it is all right.

Yadubara: Maybe two hundred.

Rūpānuga: Maybe a hundred seventy-five. We can check reference book easily. You'll find out today.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, we want to make a chart. Now from these gross elements, the five gross elements, we want to extend to...

Prabhupāda: Earth, water, air, fire.

Room Conversation With Scientists -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: In a sense, it is also true that in the material world, especially material scientists, they make things more complicated.

Prabhupāda: That's all.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The contamination of material desires. But when one develops spiritual desire, then he becomes more simple.

Prabhupāda: Karma-bandha. That is described in the Bhagavad-gītā, yajñārthāt karmaṇaḥ anyatra karma-bandhanaḥ (BG 3.9), to become entangled.

Rūpānuga: So for a karmī, if you ask what is the purpose of life it is a very complicated question. For a devotee, it is a very simple question with a simple answer. It is very complicated, they will answer, "Oh, this is very difficult, we cannot discuss this in this class, this is too complex." That is the answer we got all our lives until we came to you, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Then you answered very simply-Kṛṣṇa. (devotee offer obeisances, door opens) Thank you, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Thank you for explaining these... (inaudible) (end)

Evening Darsana -- July 7, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: Ācchā. In Los Angeles we have our mandira, we have... You sometimes go to our temple?

Dr. Sharma: Yes, I go to the temple in Berkeley. I was at Berkeley about a week ago. I'm in London now, at the Royal Institute of Chemistry. I was born in Haridwar.

Prabhupāda: Haridwar. (laughs) Bhagavān ka deśa hari. Hari, Hari means the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and dvāra means the door, the doorway to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. There is a place in India, Haridwar, people go there for pilgrimage, very famous place.

Dr. Sharma: I grew up with yogis and sannyāsīs in Hrishikesh. My father is a recluse.

Prabhupāda: Oh, your father is also recluse.

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

Rūpānuga: We were finding that there are some real scientific experiments like Pasteur's, the one we did in the slide show the other night, and some of the work of Bose, that have been ignored simply or misinterpreted. Already there has been some work in this area. So we were thinking that we could point to these as examples to confirm our position, because they are scientific.

Prabhupāda: Now, in Christian commandment, there is "Thou shalt not kill." So what does it mean? (door opens and closes)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: These Chinese Bhagavad-gītās came, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Chinese will be color?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, he said there was some defect with them, so they rectified that, the color.

Rūpānuga: Who has done this, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: One devotee.

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

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Whew. That's why they are afraid of you in India, Prabhupāda. The government is very much afraid.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, government is alarmed.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well how will they try to stop us?

Prabhupāda: Through restrictive government(?). (door opens) Who is...? Let him come.

Devotee (1): Here he comes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Svarūpa Dāmodara Prabhu? Prabhupāda wanted to see that boy-Arjuna Mallick?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I went to find him.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I sent someone to look for him, they haven't come back. You haven't seen him? It would be nice, because Prabhupāda wanted to see him.

Prabhupāda: You know him? Arjuna Mallick?

Hari-śauri: I only saw him just this morning.

Prabhupāda: Just find him.

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

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

Prabhupāda: Harry Kṛṣṇa.

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

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

Hari-śauri: Harry is an English...

Prabhupāda: Harry, Harrison, like that.

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

Prabhupāda: Ācchā? Why upset? It has no soul. Kill it.

Hari-śauri: They cannot explain it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There was one story that this family came, they were touring the world, and they came to Hong Kong, and they were carrying their pet dog with them also. So they went to one restaurant and they left their dog tied up on a leash outside the restaurant, because that is the custom in America. So they told the man at the door, the doorman, they pointed to the dog, just to take care of the dog. So anyway, then they went in and they had their dinner and they came out, and the dog was gone. They said (laughter) "Where's my dog?" And the man said, "Well, you pointed to him, we have prepared him for you."

Prabhupāda: Yes, they do that. He thought that he has pointed out this dog.

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

Prabhupāda: This is that mango preparation.

George Harrison: Okay.

Devotee (2): It's coming.

Prabhupāda: You like that preparation? Yes.

George Harrison: We used to have this with milk at Hrsikesa. Every day they'd leave outside of the door. It's good. Do you, Mukunda, break even with all the costs, running cost? Do you do okay with all this food, fruit and stuff?

Mukunda: Oh, yes. More than even. We have about thirteen hundred life members in the Indian community. And then when they come on the weekends they bring food, they bring these hundred pound donations, money in the box.

George Harrison: At one time you just had the Godhead and incense.

Mukunda: Yes, now it's all public support.

Jayatīrtha: We don't sell incense anymore.

Mukunda: And the books we just sell for very little; we hardly make any money on them at all.

Prabhupāda: Are you reading sometimes my books? Which one?

George Harrison: Mainly Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: That is the main book. (laughs)

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

Prabhupāda: If they can be trained up, they can become very good preacher, each one of them. And they can make hundreds of devotees. In this way we can expand. Are you realizing that there is no civilization? Actually civilization we are introducing. Except Aryan civilization, Vedic civilization, there is no civilization—animal society. What do you think? Are you convinced about it?

Harikeśa: Oh, yes, every time I walk out the door I'm convinced. And when you come back to the temple, it's marvelous, the spiritual world. No matter what going on, may be bad, may be good, doesn't matter. It's very relieving.

Prabhupāda: Civilization means to push the man forward for perfection. That is civilization.

Hari-śauri: Development.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Society and economic condition, everything should be so arranged that this human child should be gradually pushed for perfection of life, go back home, back to Godhead. This is civilization. And modern civilization is "Don't care for what is going to happen. So long you live, eat, drink, be merry, enjoy," that's all. Sense gratification. This is called nāstika-vāda. Very dangerous. And that is going on all over the world. How a gentleman can live in that society?

Hari-śauri: They can't. Gradually people...

Prabhupāda: Therefore my Guru Mahārāja used to say, "This is not a place for a gentleman." Formerly, therefore, they used to go away from the society, go in the forest, to give up this bad association. Live alone.

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

Prabhupāda: There are so many things in India culture for becoming happy and advancing towards the goal of life. Now I am appreciating for more and more, seeing the whole world, what is India's culture. Formerly I was thinking, "It is custom. To become faithful wife, this is custom." But when I come outside I see what is wife and what is faithful wife. In India, still, in the village, even there is fight between husband, wife, the wife is faithful. Still. Completely dependent on husband. The husband also, in spite of fighting, is always careful that the wife does not get any inconvenience. It was the culture, now it is breaking. (about door or window) You can close that. In material world, for peaceful life, there must be peaceful condition between the husband and wife. Everyone requires wife, everyone requires husband. Sex is necessary, so make the condition of sex very peaceful. Why disturbed? Make the condition that there will be... It is necessary. As eating is necessary, sleeping is necessary, for ordinary man, so sex is also necessary. So make a condition so that nothing will be disturbed, and in undisturbed condition of mind execute spiritual advancement. This is Indian civilization. Aim is spiritual advancement. And to make condition favorable, there are so many things. So unless we get favorable condition... Here in the Western countries there is no favorable condition. First of all, they have no idea of spiritual life, the goal of life, neither there is favorable condition. And gradually things are becoming degrading. On my last tour in Chicago I saw. In three weeks she has twice divorced, one lady's advertised.

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

Harikeśa: Yes, the baby, they put it in a closet and lock the door and walk out.

Hari-śauri: Oh, in Japan.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is happening in Japan and other places. They put, and when the obnoxious smell comes, they open it and they find. Mother has become so kind. They put in a box and lock it up.

Hari-śauri: Airport lockers.

Prabhupāda: These are happening. But when you talk of that "You learn how to become brahmacārī," that they will refuse. This is the position. The aftereffect is very, very bad, either you get legally or illegally. Legally, we have to raise the children very nicely. Otherwise, they will, unwanted children, create so much trouble. You have to take care for their proper education, of their clothes.(?) We say, "Never mind, you have got children, give them proper education, make them devotees, make their life successful." We cannot say that "You kill them." That we cannot say. That is not possible. Neither we can pack them in the, what is that box?

Hari-śauri: Lockers.

Room Conversation -- August 4, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: So the devotees like this evening class?

Hari-śauri: They like?

Prabhupāda: Evening class.

Hari-śauri: Oh, yes, it's a very enlivening program. In the evening it's very nice out of doors. It's warm from the day. No one falls asleep. Except for the children, and that's very good because then they're quiet.

Prabhupāda: Small children, they also clap and dance on the lap of the mother, they were smiling. Very fortunate children, otherwise from the birth, associating with devotees... (long pause) Nowadays cheating is a good qualification, huh?

Hari-śauri: Yes. It's their only qualification.

Prabhupāda: If I cheat somebody and get some money, you are very expert.

Hari-śauri: Top-class businessman.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Nandarāṇī: All right. We have chaturi (?)and parāṭā. You want that also?

Prabhupāda: Oh, you have already made?

Nandarāṇī: But I can make khicuḍi, that's all right.

Prabhupāda: Oh. I'll take also little parāṭā. Where is bathroom?

Dayānanda: There's another room for resting. And you can go out this door, this here, and bathroom is on the other side of this resting room.

Prabhupāda: That is all right.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Let me show you, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hari-śauri: This is the key to this cabinet, Śrīla Prabhupāda. I put the bag in it. (break)... very expensive.

Prabhupāda: This is a rented house?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Room Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: You can bring here. Who is there in the bathroom?

Hari-śauri: They're just cleaning it out. They're giving you the big bathroom because it has a Western toilet and a nice shower and separate everything, it's very nice, and we'll use the small one. They're just cleaning it now, if you want you can use.

Prabhupāda: Lock this door, otherwise if you come there, it will be disturbance.

Harikeśa: Nandarāṇī's making khicuḍi with the peas and okra.

Prabhupāda: Okra could be done separately. Let her do independently.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: She's doing both. She first mixed it, now she's also making separate.

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

Evening Darsan -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

Jñānagamya: It's the worst place in the country. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: But I did not know. Mukunda suggested this is good place, all right, live here. And actually happened to be good place. Gradually, all my disciples came. So I had no disturbance. I was living in the Bowery Street, and on my door these bums were lying with urine and wine bottles and everything. Still, they were so respectful. When I'll come, "Yes, you can enter. Please." (laughter) I had no quarrel with them. They were very kind. They welcomed me, they opened the door, "Please go." They also knew that "He's a harmless..." So, platform, if you remain on the spiritual platform, this material condition cannot hamper you. Ahaituky apratihatā. Then yenātmā suprasīdati, in that condition you can execute. First of all, we have to ascertain on which platform we shall stand. And if you want to stand on the spiritual platform, nothing can check it. That is not conditioned. So why not stand directly to the spiritual platform and make you life successful? That is our preaching. People in general, they do not know the importance of the spiritual platform. Therefore they prefer to stay in the material platform. They have no sufficient education.

Room Conversation -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

Jñānagamya: But you said to make everyone fortunate.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is by your preaching. That we have to do. We are doing that. That I have given the example, Nityānanda Prabhu, He faced rebellion, and by His power converted the Jagāi-Mādhāi. By chanting. They injured, Jagāi-Mādhāi injured, and Nityānanda Prabhu said, "Never mind you have injured Me, please chant Hare Kṛṣṇa." That is not advertisement, that is personal behavior.

Jñānagamya: In Dallas where I was there's a town next door, Ft. Worth, there are many rich Baptists, Fort Worth. They have big studio for producing many different films, television shows.

Prabhupāda: These Christian people, they have got money, and still the churches are being closed. What is the effect?

Jñānagamya: They have no potency to their message. It's not the medium, it's their message.

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, by their advertisement, the effect is the church is being closed. Eh? Is it not?

Jñānagamya: But there is also a movement in America, in Christianity, but they do not want to go to church. They want to be Christians, but not go to church.

Prabhupāda: That means it has no effect. Now talk about something substantial. Yesterday we were talking about the proprietorship of God. So if people are interested to talk like gentlemen, how they can refute the proprietorship of God of everything? Talk on this point.

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: So why you are not rushing?

Saurabha: No, this is finished. We have reached the highest. That point is the highest. It's only for the slab. Afterwards, they don't mind. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...from this light.

Hari-śauri: The switch is just in front of Prabhupāda's door.

Prabhupāda: There was a seat? Where is gone, that seat?

Hari-śauri: They probably took it in because of the rain. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...rainy season these leaves should have been very green, but it is not green. Huh?

Saurabha: It's also the sea wind that kills a lot of trees. Not so much here, but if one goes down to the sea, all trees they have no leaves. There's some type of salt or something in the air that destroys plants. Here it's all right, but close to the sea it's all... That must affect them. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...saptāha, it is not authorized.

Acyutānanda: No. But in some editions of Bhāgavatam they have a Bhāgavata-māhātmyam, and there's a story about bhakti and jñāna and vairāgya and Nārada Muni.

Prabhupāda: That no ācārya has mentioned.

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: You have advised to see our temple?

Jayapatākā: Yes, he'll definitely visit. I also gave him an introduction that if he goes, he should be received there. He's got... The present place where the Deities are situated is on four cuttas(?) of land. And apart from that, where Maheśa Paṇḍita's samādhi is, he's got three bighās of land. That's right next door to a four-hundred-year-old temple.

Prabhupāda: Chugda is to the... It is from Shrirampuri? No.

Jayapatākā: No, it's on this side of the Ganges. It's on the eastern side of the Ganges.

Prabhupāda: Oh, eastern.

Jayapatākā: There there's another temple of Jagadīśa Paṇḍita.

Prabhupāda: Hm, yes.

Room Conversation -- August 20, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Eh? Nobody. (break) So it is immediately cut.

Mahāṁśa: The door is ready, so when you go for a bath...

Prabhupāda: No, he can come.

Mahāṁśa: Now he can come?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Mahāṁśa Swami is nicely doing (?).

Hari-śauri: He's very sincere.

Prabhupāda: And everyone likes him.

Hari-śauri: Yes. He's very popular with the life members.

Prabhupāda: He has no enemy. Nobody has complained against him.

Hari-śauri: He's very even-tempered.

Prabhupāda: (chuckles) Neither he has complained against anybody. He does not complain, and nobody complains against him. His mother was very much sorry. Now she is very happy.

Morning Walk Conversation About Bombay -- August 29, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Oh, you have to walk, why you are getting?

Hari-śauri: There's no room. Prabhupāda said you have to walk. You have to stay in the park.

Children: No!

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It's a straight road.

Hari-śauri: Come on, let's go. Let's lock the door. (break) (in the car)

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: His father's the head pūjārī.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Very good pūjārī.

Children: You know the dress that was yesterday? Deity's dress? The same as your birthday dress.

Girirāja: The dress that was put yesterday was the same as the birthday dress?

Child: Of Prabhupāda.

Morning Walk -- August 31, 1976, Delhi:

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.

Devotee: I even see these boys when I was in Chandigarh, in a dish next door to the temple we were starting there.

Prabhupāda: Woman is meant for that purpose, how to make nice palatable dishes.

Devotee: Just these young boys who were carrying the bricks every morning, they would prepare their own vegetables and cāpāṭis like this, and I was amazed to see this because you would never get anyone doing this...

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.

Garden Conversation -- September 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Practically all your family is military.

Caraṇāravindam: Yes. Now he is retired. He is living in...

Prabhupāda: Your father is living? How does he like you have become Vaiṣṇava?

Caraṇāravindam: At first he would not even speak to me. Then I used to visit next door and my mother would come to see me. And then after awhile he would talk to me from the other side and I quickly used to go and see. I would sit down. I would not preach to him. I would just be social.

Prabhupāda: After all, father and son, affection, where it will go?

Caraṇāravindam: Now he likes. He says, "This is better what you are doing than all the other things you were doing." I've not seen him now for three and a half years since I left England. They are a little sick now.

Prabhupāda: What is the age of your father?

Caraṇāravindam: Sixty-five I think.

Prabhupāda: Grandfather died.

Room Conversation -- September 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Thing is, the whole thing has to be completed in three weeks because the American GBCs don't like... They think it is a very big loss financially. (Hindi) Book distribution stops completely. (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: Is that correct? Is that correct key?

Hari-śauri: This one's for some of the locks on the doors.

Prabhupāda: Which door?

Hari-śauri: Ah, from the... I think it was one on the bedroom originally. They may have taken them off again.

Prabhupāda: Find out the door.

Indian man: (Hindi conversation with Prabhupāda)

Prabhupāda: ...special quality, he's very tolerant.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: He's very cool.

Indian man: (Hindi conversation for some time) Keep patience. I am not dishonest.

Prabhupāda: Dishonest or not... (Hindi) Your family is very nice.

Room Conversation -- September 4, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Who has gotten this idea?

Harikeśa: I think Gopāla Kṛṣṇa. It's an exhibition room.

Prabhupāda: Then they are breaking wall or what?

Harikeśa: No, no, they're not breaking. They made a big door so that you can walk straight in from the outside. You saw that door yesterday. Now what they're doing is building shelves and bookcases.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. That sound is disturbing.

Harikeśa: Would you like them to stop it until you left?

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) There was a Mohammedan king, Raj Uddin or some... Nizamuddin. Nizamuddin there is a tomb in Delhi. He was poet. So if some friends come he would read some writing, and he will suggest, the friend will suggest, "Why don't you make like this." "Oh, it is good. All right." He'll do it. Whatever he says. And when he goes away, then again makes his own. So the secretary said, "Why you are changing?" "What can I do? Those... That is my friend. And that is nonsense; therefore I am again doing what I wrote." So we have to do that. As soon as you call anybody, he'll give you some suggestion. "Make this alteration, make this alteration." So description of the sādhu is there. It is very nice. Where they will find this description all over the world? Hm?

Harikeśa: I think there's only one person who's following that description.

Room Conversation -- September 30, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: One boy, he was coming to me. In that hundred, about one hundred seventy-first street, all my things were stolen. My tape recorder, typewriter. Fortunately they did not touch my manuscript that I was typing, typing my books. So some money was stolen. Then one boy, he was coming to me, he told me, "Please come to my place." A loft. Bowery Street. I did not know the Bowery Street was not a good quarter. All bums and drunks. When I see there, one Jewish friend, he had electrical shop, he told me, "Swamiji, you have gone to Bowery Street? Oh, it is not your place." I did not know that it is full of drunkards. But they were lying down in front of my door, but they were very respectful. When I'd go, these drunkards comes and they respectfully give me ways. And they would lie down on urine and something like that, on water. Then the boy who took me there... He was Murray. His last title was Murray. And he was taking LSD. So since I went there he did not go to work. Otherwise, he was working and getting daily twenty-five dollars, in some dock he was working. Since I went, he stopped working, and I had to pay 125 dollars for the loft. One lady was the landlord. So I was going on. Some people were coming. That Mukunda began to come, his wife, and another black boy, half-black. Yeargen, Karlapati. I gave him name, Karlapati. He was coming. Then one day that boy Murray, he showed some crazy features.

Room Conversation About Gurukula -- November 5, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: The modern education means... Just see what is the disastrous condition. For 531 posts, three lakhs people have applied. How the unemployment... This application means they are all educated. Uneducated, they do not apply for any post. That means educated unemployed. This is India's so-called education. Without light it is... You can open door. (break)

Jagadīśa: First thing, I wanted to go over the daily schedule. According to the schedule, the boys get up between 3:30 and quarter to four.

Prabhupāda: Why so early?

Jagadīśa: Why 3:30 and quarter to four? That's what time we all get up.

Prabhupāda: We are holding maṅgala-ārati at five. So why 3:30?

Jagadīśa: Well, they do japa before maṅgala-ārati.

Prabhupāda: No, no. It will be too early for them. They first of all...

Jagadīśa: They're accustomed to getting up at...

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Jagadīśa: They've been getting up at that time for years.

Prabhupāda: If they are accustomed, that is all right. But otherwise it is not needed, so early. When they go to sleep?

Jagadīśa: At 8:15.

Room Conversation -- November 20, 1976, Vrndavana:

Akṣayānanda: The ability to remember Kṛṣṇa, that will also increase?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes, if the brain is clear—it is not filled up with rubbish cow dung—then Kṛṣṇa consciousness easy. Yes. Kṛṣṇa consciousness means there is no more material consciousness. Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktam (CC Madhya 19.170). Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam (Brs. 1.1.11). That is required. In material existence we have got so many obligations, thoughts (indistinct), and so many things. Bṛthā.

eta saba chāḍi' āra varṇāśrama-dharma

akiñcana hañā laya kṛṣṇaika-śaraṇa

Sarva-dharmān: Everything give up. That is India's Vedic civilization. They are not concerned with the material advancement. Simple life. That's all. And our present leaders, they are thinking that "brainwashed." They are not deeply thinking, "Why our great sages and ācāryas recommended this life, not the skyscraper life? Why? They were not less intelligent." They are not thinking in that way. They are thinking that "Because we neglected the skyscraper thoughts, we are so backward." At least this rascal Nehru was thinking like that. "So finish this." The Russia is... What is called? Opiate, brainwashed. These things are accepted like that. "It has no value, simply some prejudice and superstition, and they are thinking like that and they are spoiling their material side of life." This is their idea. "What is this? No meat-eating?" (knock on the door devotee enters with prasādam ) That little dāl, daliya,(?) bas.

Pālikā: Nothing else?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Pālikā: Nothing else?

Prabhupāda: No. If I take anything else it becomes overburdened. Better take little less, just to satisfy that I am not starving. (laughter)

Room Conversation -- November 20, 1976, Vrndavana:

Hari-śauri: That's in the big building right on the side of Keśī-ghāṭa?

Prabhupāda: No.

Hari-śauri: No?

Prabhupāda: No. There is a big building, Bharat Maharaja, yes, Bharatpur, just by the side of that house. It is in the corner. The door is in the corner. The road is going this way in the corner. It is stone. Face is stone. Good building, but... (break) ...in thought of Kṛṣṇa, outside cleaning by oil and soap. Soap. Bāhyābhyantara-śuciḥ. This is quite comfortable, not very chilly, within this room.

Hari-śauri: Yes, this retains the heat nicely.

Prabhupāda: People are so misled. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). We have to change this body. There is no preparation. "As sure as death." Death will take place, and you have to accept another body. Who understands this philosophy? Nobody. They are so dull-headed. This body finished, everything finished. All big, big leaders, scholars, they say. One gentleman, his name is... He was Rabindranath Tagore's brother, artist. So in a meeting he was saying, "We are so fool. Thinking of next life, next life, we are spoiling this life." He said like that long, long ago when we were children, young men, about eighteen years, twenty years. So I remember distinctly, he is saying in the meeting that "Simply thinking of next life, we are spoiling this life." He said. That was his explanation. So at that time we were young boys: "Yes, why we should think of, so much of next life?" Of course, I was not very much convinced, but naturally... I think his name Aurobindo Tagore, like that. Rabindranath Tagore. He is good artist. Artist means latest fashion, like this, like that, like that. He was considered to be latest artist.

Room Conversation -- December 7, 1976, Hyderabad:

Mahāṁśa: Oh, yes, it's not a joke.

Prabhupāda: And he is practical business man. So immediately... And besides that, he is already sympathetic. He is becoming interested more. So he can do so many things for us. He is a very nice man. So he volunteered to come here. So bring him immediately. So arrange. From tomorrow we go there. If it is not finished, then he may be given that place. I am at here. I shall stay. Or he can be given this room; I can go there. In this way... Because the doors are not yet fitted.

Mahāṁśa: Yes, that's the main problem.

Prabhupāda: But there are so many main problems. So at least in my side the doors are fitted. So I can go there, and he can stay here. Anyway, either there or here, arrange to bring him immediately. He will go away by the twelfth. So he may stay here at least for one week.

Mahāṁśa: One week.

Prabhupāda: Tell him like that.

Room Conversation -- December 7, 1976, Hyderabad:

Jagadīśa: What about the program here?

Mahāṁśa: The program here doesn't need too many people. Only five, six people is enough.

Haṁsadūta: (aside:) Close the door.

Mahāṁśa: Because the program here is just needing supervision.

Jagadīśa: No, but I mean kīrtana, constant kīrtana, and prasādam.

Mahāṁśa: Well, if you want constant kīrtana, then we have to have more devotees here.

Prabhupāda: Constant kīrtana? Who says constant?

Jagadīśa: Well, we have to engage the villagers.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So they'll come in the evening. We cannot be always...

Haṁsadūta: Why not?

German Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda, we want to go nagara-saṅkīrtana to the villages and announce the program.

Prabhupāda: Go. Well, go.

Room Conversation -- December 7, 1976, Hyderabad:

Mahāṁśa: No need of painting.

Prabhupāda: No. Why there is use? We can manage there. Bhogilal may come, and he may be given here or wherever possible.

Mahāṁśa: I'll ask the carpenter to try and fix those doors by this evening in Bhogilal Patel's room. The inside doors are already finished. Only those curved doors take time. So I'll...

Prabhupāda: So you have made, cut fashion?

Mahāṁśa: Pardon?

Prabhupāda: Fashionable?

Mahāṁśa: Yes, it looks a little nice.

Prabhupāda: All right. So that room, if it is done, it is all right. If not, this room and that room. That's all. Better bring him. He'll be very useful.

Mahāṁśa: Yes.

Preparation for Gita Pratisthana -- December 9, 1976, Hyderabad:

Jagadīśa: They are answering rains. (?)

Prabhupāda: What their answer, these rascals? Just like in Europe there is scarcity of water, they proposed to import, rascal. But there are so many oceans. So where is the scarcity of water? But why you cannot use it? Unless there is intervention by the nature's law you cannot do it. Therefore you are completely under the laws of nature. Nature will punish you, nature will reward you, according to your acts. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi (BG 3.27), ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā. You are falsely thinking that you are independent. A slight deviation from the laws of nature will put you into difficulty. Immediately there are... You can close this door. (break) ...population. In any case, one can be punished when the nature's supply is restricted. (break)

Jagadīśa: Third Chapter.

yajña-śiṣṭāśinaḥ santo

mucyante sarva-kilbiṣaiḥ

bhuñjate te tv aghaṁ pāpā

ye pacanty ātma-kāraṇāt

(BG 3.13)

Prabhupāda: So in order to release ourself from the sinful reaction of sinful activity, we must perform yajña. And in this age the easiest process of yajña is saṅkīrtana-yajña. (long pause) So what are the problem?

Jagadīśa: Under "problems" are... There are some general problems such as taxes.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Jagadīśa: Taxes. Taxation.

Preparation for Gita Pratisthana -- December 9, 1976, Hyderabad:

Jagadīśa: We've solved all the problems. Now we want to convince this Vinoda Bhave to support us?

Prabhupāda: Yes. So can you see what is the position, my quarters?

Hari-śauri: Well, Mūrti said your side is fit for moving into. But if they have... See, Bhogilal Patel is not here yet, so I thought if we wait at least till tomorrow, if you want, then that will give them the chance to get a few more doors on, and then, if Bhogilal comes tomorrow, then we can move in the morning.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Hari-śauri: See, they have all the wood now for the doors, and they need one more day and then all the doors will be fitted in the whole house.

Prabhupāda: So do that tomorrow.

Hari-śauri: And that will be a lot safer too. Security reasons, it will be a lot better.

Prabhupāda: Tomorrow morning we can go. That's all right.

Hari-śauri: Yes.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 7, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, first-class is... We reserved whole room, so no outsider there; will be very comfortable. We'll leave at...

Dr. Patel: First-class have got now berths.

Prabhupāda: Four, we reserve four whenever... So two upper berths, two lower berths—we sleep very comfortably-lock the door. And first-class...

Dr. Patel: You'll be coming back after how many days?

Prabhupāda: Maybe by March

Dr. Patel: More. Fifteen days, no?

Prabhupāda: No. More than that.

Dr. Patel: It will be very, very cold. It will be very, very... You have to live in a tent... After all, tent is not really... Especially in March, January, cold is extreme. It is as cold as New York but more than that.

Prabhupāda: I have got many invitations from friends. I can live in the home, house. That depends on my... Either in the tent or a mile, two miles away.

Room Conversation -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Pills? No. If required I shall take again.

Guest (5): If possible, I'll come tomorrow. Otherwise I'll see you when we come back or I'll see you there.

Prabhupāda: All right. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Trivikrama: Thank you, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Jaya. (everyone leaves the room... long silence. Knock on the door)

Haṁsadūta: Jaya, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Oh! Hare Kṛṣṇa! Come on. Just now coming?

Haṁsadūta: Yes. Just now. We came by truck.

Prabhupāda: Oh. So everything is all right?

Haṁsadūta: Well, everything is all right. I came because I have to pick up one truck which was... It was in an accident, and it was repaired, so we have to pick that up. So I thought I would come to Bombay and also see Your Divine Grace. I heard you're not feeling well.

Prabhupāda: No. So? When you started from there?

Haṁsadūta: We started eleven o'clock yesterday, eleven o'clock in the afternoon, and we spent one night in Shalampur, a nice town. We did some kīrtana in a Dvārakādhīśa temple, very nice temple. And we stayed with the owner of a trucking company. A very nice place. You look so handsome, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: (clears throat) So, how business is going there?

Haṁsadūta: Well, there's no money, so not much can be done.

Morning Discussion about Kumbhamela -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That is not so good. If you make any picture, then you paint according to the people's, local people's feature. Kata catur anana, mani mani yāvat. Vidyāpati. You have heard the name of Vidyāpati? He was a great poet of Darbhanga.

Dr. Patel: Vṛndāvana?

Prabhupāda: No, no. Darbhanga, the entrance to Bengal from Bihar.

Dr. Patel: Darbhanga. Door to Bengal.

Prabhupāda: Hardwar. "Door to Hari." Dwar means gate.

Gurudāsa: Someone invited me last year to Hardwar for the Kumbha, and I said, "Why should I go to the door when I live in the house?" I was in Vṛndāvana.

Prabhupāda: We are not interested with the door. You are doormen, dvar-men. We are inmates. That Vidyāpati has sung, kata catur anana, mari mari yāvata. Catur anana means Brahma. They also die. And kata means "how many." (pause) So what is the amount of the bank that he transferred?

Devotee (1): Twenty-five thousand rupees.

Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:

Hari-śauri: (to child) Finished? It's too hot? He can't eat the samosa. It's too hot. He can't eat the samosa. It's too hot.

Prabhupāda: Oh. So is there any remaining in...?

Hari-śauri: Puffed rice is finished. But he can't eat the samosa.

Prabhupāda: So you can eat. He can take this thing. Hand. Keep that paper and apply it in service. (sweeping noise) Yes. (sounds of door opening, closing, train starts again) The bathroom is free?

Hari-śauri: Yes. (break)

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness is real religion. Religion cannot be "your religion" and "our religion."

Rāmeśvara: Yes. They were saying in essence that only the Jew or the Christian, he can represent God. Hare Kṛṣṇa, he does not represent God.

Prabhupāda: Now let us talk why he cannot or why you are the only. First of all you have to ascertain what is religion. Then it will be decided who has got the stock. Let the Christian or the Jews answer this question: What is religion?

Rāmeśvara: They cannot answer.

Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:

Rāmeśvara: But the... Pradyumna has some sweet mango.

Prabhupāda: No.

Rāmeśvara: What is that?

Jagadīśa: Mango candy.

Prabhupāda: Mango candy? (Hari-śauri opens door and asks in another compartment)

Hari-śauri: Pradyumna, have you got some mango candy?

Jagadīśa: There are grapes also.

Prabhupāda: Grape candy?

Jagadīśa: No. Fruit.

Rāmeśvara: So, actually, their arguments are not very... So therefore it is simply a plan of Kṛṣṇa to help give us some prominence, make us more well known.

Jagadīśa: Give us a chance to preach.

Rāmeśvara: Because their arguments have no substance.

Prabhupāda: Defeat them. "God cannot came as fish." "Why? What kind of God He is? He likes, He can do. That is God."

Room Conversation -- January 15, 1977, Allahabad:

Abhirāma: Where should I leave them?

Hari-śauri: Arundhati. No, leave them in the car.

Abhirāma: Who is this for? Prabhupāda's? (doors opening and closing)

Gurudāsa: No, they won't leave.

Abhirāma: Please, nobody come in the hallway unless necessary. We've got to get everything in.

Hari-śauri: This is for... This is not coming in here.

Rāmeśvara: Not in this part. That should be stored.

Abhirāma: Just stick this in here right now.

Hari-śauri: Prabhupāda's case still has to come. Prabhupāda's suitcase is not on.

Devotee: Would everyone get out of the room? (voices, shuffling)

Hari-śauri: Is that your typewriter?

Devotee: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Rāmeśvara: Yes, you'd better get off.

Abhirāma: Stop the train.

Gurudāsa: Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Starting?

Gurudāsa: Is it moving?

Rāmeśvara: Gurudāsa, you better just jump right off. It's going to start any second.

Prabhupāda: No, no.

Morning Walk -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: ...in a Kṛṣṇa conscious...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Rāmeśvara: ...government.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Rāmeśvara: Censorship of television, radio, all media.

Prabhupāda: So let us... (car door opens—break) The people are becoming godless. How much degradation. Lord Rāmacandra appeared, Lord Kṛṣṇa appeared, Lord Buddha, Caitanya Mahāprabhu appeared and many others, and the people of India, they are becoming godless. Why? Do you follow what I say? Yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati bhārata, tadātmānaṁ sṛjāmy aham (BG 4.7). And He does it in India within this universe. And they are become now... This is Kali-yuga. Other countries, they may, but India, so fortunate birth... Bhārata-bhūmite haila manuṣya janma. They are becoming degraded so much so that they are doubting, asking questions. (end)

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: And also later missionaries went all over the world alone, to Africa, all countries of the world, converting people, although it was very difficult. So they had a very good missionary spirit formerly. When I went to Fiji I saw many Christian churches in Fiji. Right next door to the house where Vasudeva lives there is a Christian tabernacle, and they wake up every morning at 4:30 and they have hymns-same practice as we have, but it's Christian hymns.

Hari-śauri: Along with all, that, though, they're allowed to please their senses in any way that they like. So their teaching doesn't really have much benefit for anyone. They're still doing all kinds of sinful activity. Now their idea is that if you accept Jesus, it means that you can carry on doing as many sinful activities as you like, but Jesus is going to take all the sinful reaction.

Rāmeśvara: Yes. "He died for us, so why should we suffer?" (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Jesus Christ is the contractor. They say that "Our religion is very good. If you simply have faith in Jesus Christ, we can do anything."

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Hari-śauri: That man in Perth.

Prabhupāda: "There is no first-class man now governing the situation. All fourth class, fifth class, tenth class. There is no first-class man." I challenged him.

Hari-śauri: When he went out the door he said, "Oh, well, I suppose I'd better go back to my fourth-class life."

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes. You are already.

Rāmeśvara: In Vedic culture, kings like Parīkṣit Mahārāja were trained when they were very young.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: So it seems...

Prabhupāda: They were trained by the first-class brāhmaṇas, saintly persons. They abided by their order. There was committee, advisory committee. Even at the time of his death, he's asking advice from the saintly..., "What is my duty?" That is king. He's not doing anything whimsically. And the first-class man should be first-class. Then second-class man, executive, kṣatriyas, they will force: "You must do it!" And then the third class, they should produce and carry out the order of the second class, king. And fourth class, they cannot do anything. Let them serve everyone, that's all, śūdras. They have no intelligence. But everyone is important, cooperatively. This is society. You require also legs; you require also heads. Simply heads will not help you. Head will give instruction, "Leg, please walk in this way." That's all, legs will move. He carries me. "Hands, give me protection." Immediately, "Yes!" A bad somebody(?) "Come on." Yes. Coming. "Belly, you produce food, sufficient, so that the legs, hands and brain, everyone will be provided with sufficient..." This way. This is society. All third-class, fourth-class men, simply going to the factory, and they are making laws. This is... What is called? Chaos. Chaotic society, no brain.

Room Conversation -- January 27, 1977, Puri:

Prabhupāda: Quarantine. Simply by thinking that "I shall not be allowed to go out of this room..." It is not a room; it is a big house, but still, I was feeling uncomfortable: "How is that? I shall not be free to go out." And that three days was actually suffering to me, "I cannot go out of the door." Simply by feeling this. I do not do practically. I sit down. But if I feel, "No, I cannot go out of this room," that's a great suffering. Whole day, I am sitting here. That's a fact. But I have got this intelligence that "I can go out as I like." But if you say that "You cannot go out," then it is a great suffering, psychologically. So creation or no creation, there is suffering. Rather, when there is creation it is less suffering, because he's mad, so he's engaged in some way. (laughs) He's thinking, "It is happiness." Eating, sleeping, sex is there. That is going on. That is māyā. Therefore this creation is another mercy of Kṛṣṇa. That I was reading this night. One creation, so many millions of years... There is calculation. One Brahmā's day, twelve hours, you cannot calculate. Sahasra-yuga-paryantam ahar yad brahmaṇo viduḥ (BG 8.17). One yuga—forty-three hundred thousand years—one yuga, thousand times. Forty-three hundred thousand years equal to one yuga. Such thousand times. That is Brahmā's twelve hours. Then another twelve hours, night. That is also another trouble, when Brahmā's night. Everything merge into water, pralaya-payodhi-jale **. Not all the planet. At least half the universe plunge into water. This earthly planet and up to Svargaloka everything is inundated.

Room Conversation -- January 31, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yesterday, when I came from Manipur, there was one Bengali engineer, civil engineer, who was working in Manipur, Mr. P. K. Sanyal.

Prabhupāda: Hari-śauri? You close this part of the door. Yes That's all. That's all.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Mr P. K. Sanyal from Balliganj.

Prabhupāda: P. K. Shah?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Sanyal. Sanyal. He's in late sixties or early seventies, very old. We became very good friends. He's a very nice man.

Prabhupāda: On the plane?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: On the plane. When I went also, we were in the same plane, because he was making a bridge in Manipur. So he invited me to come to his place in Calcutta, in Balliganj. When also I came back we were in the same plane. It just happened. So he started talking to me that he lost about forty thousand rupees because bridge was broken, and so he said he was feeling very bad, very sad. He was telling me all stories about "Whether I should prepare my life for the future, or whether I should wind up, as he is. Then I started talking about that we always want to be happy, but somehow we misunderstand about our basic position, what position we shall take up, whether... He said he has great difficulty in making decisions, "Whether I shall decide this," so many problems, not knowing what to decide. So we started talking about the real nature of knowledge. The real knowledge is to understand the real difference between this life and matter, the fundamental principle of knowledge.

Prabhupāda: This is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā.

Room Conversation -- January 31, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Guest (7): (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) ...asat-saṅga-tyāga ei vaiṣṇava-ācāra (CC Madhya 22.87). You must give up the association of bad elements. And who is bad element? Asat eka strī-saṅgī kṛṣṇa abhakta āra: One bad element is one who is too much attached to women, and the other bad element is who is not devotee of God. Give up their association. Then you will be steady. Mahat-sevāṁ dvāram āhur vimukteḥ (SB 5.5.2). If you actually associate with mahātmās, so that will open your door of liberation. Mahat-sevāṁ dvāram āhur vimuktes tamo-dvāraṁ yoṣitāṁ saṅgi-saṅgam. Those who are too much materially attached, if you associate with them, then you are going in the darkest region, not liberation, but in the darkness. Adānta-gobhir viśatāṁ tamisram (SB 7.5.30). Those who are too much to material enjoyment—they cannot control their senses—they're going in the darkest region. Tamo-dvāram. Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya. This is Vedic instruction, "Don't go to the darkness; go to the light." Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Satsvarūpa: There is prasādam being served now.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) (end)

Room Conversation -- February 17, 1977, Mayapura:

Ādi-keśava: Just like in the case of Vasu-gopāla. When he was held in his house, he managed to get to the phone and call me. So we went out to his house with some of the brahmacārīs from the temple and starting breaking all the windows in the house and smacking down the doors. And as he was running around the house, his brothers and friends were grabbing him and throwing him down against the walls and locked him in a room to try to get him away from us, and they were fighting. Finally, they say in Ted Patrick's book, they thought there were twenty-five of us. There were only four of us or five of us. So finally, in the end, they were so terrified that all of them began to fight. Even this Ted Patrick came at me with a straight razor. In those cases, generally, they use the family members for the fighting.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This clouds the issue in the courtroom, because everyone naturally feels very sympathetic towards the fathers and mothers. So always... These deprogrammers are very intelligent. They personally try to avoid the physical part, so they get the parents to do it.

Ādi-keśava: And then, if the person strikes out at the parent, they say, "Just see how crazy he's become!" Just like with Vasu-gopāla, he took a stick and hit his mother across the head and ran out shouting the name of Nṛsiṁha-deva as they were holding him captive, so he could run away. And so they said, "Just see how crazy he's become that he hit his own mother." Of course, the fact is they didn't mention they locked him in the bathroom for thirty hours just before. They kept him in a little bathroom. They locked the door, put him in there for thirty hours. All they mentioned is that he come out and hit her on the head with some stick. So then they say, "Just see! He's acting against his parents." So then the judge says, "Oh, what can I do? Naturally the father loves the son."

Prabhupāda: So why don't you quote from our śāstra that "He is not father." Pitā na sa syāj jananī na sā syāt. Find out this verse.

Room Conversation -- February 18, 1977, Mayapura:

Hari-śauri: You want sweet water?

Prabhupāda: Where is that miśri? No, we have to fight. Devise means, ways, how to fight. That's all. But try to prove that they have no brain. Actually that is the fact. Nobody has brain, especially in this age. Na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ (BG 7.15). Mūḍha means one who has no brain. Mūḍha, this word, applies to the ass, because ass has no brain. He works so hard for little grass, which is available everywhere. But still, he thinks that "This washerman is giving me grass." Therefore mūḍha. He'll stand at the door of the washerman whole day, eating little grass, which he can get anywhere. So that is mūḍha. Mūḍhaḥ nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam. Bas. And anyone who is a mūḍha, he does not know Kṛṣṇa. So so long we do not know Kṛṣṇa, we shall remain mūḍha-ass. That's the fact. The whole system is to understand Kṛṣṇa. But one does not know Kṛṣṇa, so he remains mūḍha, and therefore all his attempt is baffled. (Bengali) (break) ...speaking that "Everyone who is not a kṛṣṇa-bhakta, he's a gādhā." Do you believe in this or not, first of all? Unless you are firmly convinced, you cannot say strongly. (Bengali) Kṛṣṇa-bhakta naya ei sei gādhā. (Bengali) Na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ (BG 7.15). (Bengali) (break)...must be intelligent. Otherwise how can I say that you are rascal if I am in the same category? So that I was explaining in the morning. Where is your brain? And mūḍha is one who has no brain. (break) Wherefrom consciousness comes? Where is consciousness? What is that consciousness? You have to explain.

Room Conversation -- February 19, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Oh. Yes. They can be trained up very nice, from the very beginning.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So that should be one of their programs here, saṅkīrtana parties with the young gurukula boys when they get to be twelve, thirteen.

Prabhupāda: Similarly, Vṛndāvana also can be done.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Are they making devotees there? Not so much.

Prabhupāda: Vṛndāvana locally you cannot do. Mostly they rogues, the bābājīs. But there is good potential. (door opens and closes)

Hari-śauri: I can't find him.

Prabhupāda: Oh. He's not in his...?

Hari-śauri: He's not in his room.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He may be taking prasāda now. He was... I had a talk with him today. He was a little... I was surprised that he was complaining that the prasādam is the same every day. In other words, his complaint is that although we are giving... Of course, he may be critical, overcritical. I think that is a fact. But still, we should listen a little bit. Now every day there's at least seven sabjis. I mean, that's a big variety. But his point is that every day it's the same seven sabjis.

Prabhupāda: That is not good.

Room Conversations -- February 20, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Night or daylight, it is not.

Devotee: So many robbers.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, worse than robbers. I was in Central Park when I was a young boy, only five years old... (door opens)

Prabhupāda: Who is come? Let him out.(?)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's a painting that one boy has done here which is not perfectly done, and he wants to get your advice on it.

Prabhupāda: No, no. I cannot give him advice on painting. I have no experience. He should go to the painter.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He's the boy who did that painting of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa that's outside where your vyāsāsana is. He wants to know how to fix it.

Prabhupāda: Don't waste time like that. If he wants to paint, he should join the painters.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In L.A.

Arrival of Devotees -- February 24, 1977, Mayapura:

Gargamuni: We're going to have... At the Calcutta Book Fair we finished decorating our pandal. It promises to be very successful. We're just opposite the Americans, who have spent fifty thousand rupees, the American Embassy. And next door to us is the German Embassy, and on the other side is the British Embassy. So we're in a very good spot, and we'll have all our books. We'll have the displays as well as the movie, the BBT movie, and we have our men there, who will take orders and sell books. It starts tomorrow afternoon. And we'll have a press conference also and release these figures.

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Rādhā-vallabha: Want to hear more?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Evening Darsana -- February 25, 1977, Mayapura:

Devotee (1): They keep iron gates in front of the doors. When you knock on the doors, and they open the doors, and they just become very afraid and they slam the door right in your face.

Prabhupāda: That is in America also.

Devotee (1): Hong Kong. But here even more so.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The dogs.

Prabhupāda: Hong Kong?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, in America.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: To scare people

Devotee (2): Attack. Attack dogs.

Prabhupāda: In Hong Kong there is no dog, only people. (laughter)

Evening Darsana -- February 25, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Oh. Very good.

Hari-śauri: That's her on the picture, here.

Prabhupāda: Very good intelligence.

Cāru: This has all the significant temples of India, and just included in there is the ISKCON temples. Right as they come in the front door is a very nice cultural exhibit.

Prabhupāda: Increase more temples. Pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi grāma. (CB Antya-khaṇḍa 4.126) As many towns, as many villages. At least as many towns, and then push through the villages. What is your news about our palace in France? I am asking you, Bhūgarbha.

Bhūgarbha: Chateau palace in France?

Prabhupāda: Huh? Yes. Is it going nice?

Bhūgarbha: It is going on. I haven't been to the palace.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Bhūgarbha: I go to the Paris temple.

Prabhupāda: So it is very nice temple.

Room Conversation -- March 1, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Ah. Very good. (chuckling)

Yaśomatī-nandana: There is no misunderstanding. It says Hare Kṛṣṇa and they'll understand this is the Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Gargamuni: Yes. It's a big sign about sixteen feet long and four feet wide. Everyone stops there.

Yaśomatī-nandana: Where is this?

Gargamuni: Just where the Maidan..., next to Victoria Memorial, next door.

Prabhupāda: I have seen the camp.

Gargamuni: Of course, we didn't spend as much as the others, but ours was the most attractive because of your books.

Hṛdayānanda: How many...? You have all the books there?

Gargamuni: Yes. We have them on display. All of the books.

Hṛdayānanda: In different languages?

Gargamuni: Yes, in all the languages. We sold a Spanish book. Spanish Bhāgavatam someone bought. There's international people there. Some Russians came. We sold Russian book. We had one Russian book, and we sold it.

Prabhupāda: A small book, Easy Journey.

Room Conversation 'GBC Resolutions' -- March 1, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: No, another thing is that BBT you are keeping, a separate organization. So if the BBT representative goes somewhere, so why he should be restricted?

Harikeśa: Well, for example he went to visit the two devotees we have in Moscow, and a KGB man followed him up to the door and he tried to lose him. It was a whole thing. It seemed very risky for the people.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No, the two devotee... We have one devotee, and with him I did so much preaching, so the KGB man, the Russian spy...

Prabhupāda: KGB? What is that?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That's the Russian spy.

Gargamuni: Like CIA.

Gurukṛpā: The Russian cops.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They were following me around, but still...

Prabhupāda: That they do for everyone.

Room Conversation -- March 26, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Wednesday?

Hari-śauri: Yeah. Main work now is cleaning and the kitchen.

Prabhupāda: The doors have been...?

Hari-śauri: The door frames are there. They are just..., it will take tomorrow to fit, and then they'll be ready. Gargamuni's men have arrived last night, too.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, Girirāja is still on the phone, so he says this Mr. Rajda is a real devotee and is really after you. He is very keen on being with you. And he's also prominent because he has been elected. So the thing is that supposing... Girirāja's idea is that he will be at Shivaji Park, and he will bring Mr. Rajda, and they will pick us up from here. And that way Mr. Rajda can ride with you and have further time to be with you in the car.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So the thing is that will get us to the pandal, if everything goes on schedule, by about 8:30.

Prabhupāda: That is all right.

Room Conversation First Day in Juhu Quarters -- March 30, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Then so many servants will come? (laughter)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, according to the number of rings you give us.

Prabhupāda: That is a botheration. (pause) Just close the doors. I want to see how the doors are fixed up.

Gargamuni: These also?

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Gargamuni: These doors in the back.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (devotees go around closing the doors) All the greeting room? Hm?

Gargamuni: It is quiet.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Close that door, Gopāla.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: There's no door here.

Bhavānanda: There's no doors on this side.

Prabhupāda: One door is lacking.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: One door there and one more door outside is still lacking. Still, it is pretty quiet.

Bhavānanda: And then if we pull the drapes over the doors it will be very quiet, these drapes.

Prabhupāda: All right. You can open. So that was my dictaphone.

Room Conversation -- March 31, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: This year or last year?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This year. Over ten thousand people came.

Prabhupāda: They are, after all, Mathurā men, after Kṛṣṇa. They have got natural love for Kṛṣṇa.

Dhanañjaya: Also the decoration was very gorgeous in the temple. All the domes were lit, and in the front door two cakras and one lotus flower, opening and closing. Thousands of people were coming daily to attend it. We inherited all the American devotees that come. So they were very anxious to see the arrangements made. Also the signs are up on the road, Bhaktivedanta Swami Marga. Big marble plaque. Very nice stone fitting. In two places on the road.

Prabhupāda: On all the roads.

Dhanañjaya: Everyone knows, this is now Bhaktivedanta Swami Marga. No longer Chattikara Road.

Prabhupāda: But you have printed Bhaktivedanta Marga.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Bhaktivedanta Swami Marga.

Prabhupāda: No. In the book, I see. Why?

Devotee: Bhaktivedanta Road.

Room Conversation with Scientists, Svarupa Damodara, and Dr. Sharma -- March 31, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...the whole world much nicer building, palaces, and...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Nicer building?

Prabhupāda: Yes, this...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Detroit?

Prabhupāda: London, Bhaktivedanta Manor, they are nicer buildings. But if you cannot open these doors of the building, oh, immediately collapse...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's true.

Prabhupāda: You have to remain packed up.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, it spoils it. You can't really enjoy it.

Prabhupāda: Detroit and London. Oh, you cannot open.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Detroit also.

Prabhupāda: Not so much. When I was there it was very clear.

Morning Talk -- April 5, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. So will the government accept?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In United States there is a group in Pennsylvania, and they say that they will not undergo any kind of normal education, because it is polluted, and they have their own education, and they are permitted. Even from six, seven years old, from first grade. They are called the Amish people. (some noise in background) That's not a door, Śrīla Prabhupāda. That's heavy dropping of heavy items.

Prabhupāda: Another point, in secular, the scientific knowledge, two plus two equal to four. If somebody says, "No, in our opinion it is five," will it be accepted?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I didn't hear what you were saying.

Prabhupāda: If two plus two equal to four. If somebody says "In our opinion it should be five..."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, no one will accept that.

Prabhupāda: Similarly, if government requires teaching the science that this body is not yourself, you are different from the body, if some other sect, they say, "That it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā; it is meant for the Hindus, not for us," will it be accepted?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It should not be.

Conversation with disciples of Chinmayananda and Shivananda Ashram -- April 22, 1977, Bombay:

Indian man (5): So please bless us.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. But if you are interested, you are welcome.

Indian man (3): Yes, Swamiji.

Indian man (6): When door is kept open, it is...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Indian man (6): ...very natural to come to you, Swamiji.

Prabhupāda: Jaya.

Indian man (1): Really, Swamiji, bless...

Prabhupāda: Jaya. Jaya. Aiye. (Hindi) (guests leave)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Next time maybe we should deal with them?

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is it all right that they are brought in, or should we talk to them?

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is all right.

Second Meeting with Mr. Dwivedi -- April 24, 1977, Bombay:

Kārttikeya: Amadara?

Prabhupāda: Formerly India was very advanced in devotion.

Mr. Dwivedi: And just near there is moving door, shutting door. It has got nine pillars. If you just push one pillar, the entire structure shifts. And the pity is the archaeological department of government of India has taken no care about this. We had some good statue of Buddha and Mahāvīra and... Two, three were stolen away. We collected at our own institution. Then ultimately I wrote to government. I said, "Already some statue have been stolen away. You kindly left it wherever you like. We can't protect them from thieves." Just three months back. Then they took away another three statue, one of Viṣṇu, one of Buddha, another of Mahāvīra.

Prabhupāda: Stone?

Mr. Dwivedi: One big, one were stolen. Three... I asked government. I asked them three times. Government has not yet taken them away from there. Otherwise we had collected it at our own headquarters and institute.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Deity of Kṛṣṇa?

Mr. Dwivedi: Pardon?

Prabhupāda: No, Buddha.

Room Conversation -- May 8, 1977, Hrishikesh:

Prabhupāda: Hm.

British devotee: So the people how have been staying here...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You can make an announcement.

British devotee: Yes. Everyone can please take leave now. Śrīla Prabhupāda now has to get ready to leave. He's going to Agra tomorrow.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

British devotee: So if you can come to the door, stand at the door... That's the door, yes.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

British devotee: Bhūmipati, could you help there?

Prabhupāda: Jaya. Thank you very much.

British devotee: That man would like you to...

Prabhupāda: I'll go. (end)

Discussions -- May 20-22, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: I think this cooler keeps the whole block...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, it does. It does. I keep the wooden doors separating your room and my office open, and my room is quite cool. Only a curtain is there. Air blows through.

Prabhupāda: So let it go on like that.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually—of course you don't want it—but if that other one is also turned on the whole bottom floor will be very cool. And the kus(?), when they put that in—all these windows will have kus—then you will not know that you are in summer season. In fact, you won't even want to go upstairs at night. It'll be so cool down here. Of course, upstairs is good because open air.

Prabhupāda: The nail cutter, can you...? You know how to cut?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't know how to use the tool that you use. The kind I use is a different thing.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, it clips, and I think you use a knife of some kind.

Prabhupāda: No. You have got that clip?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, I have a clipper.

Morning Conversation -- May 29, 1977, Vrndavana:

Gargamuni: No, his case is between Gauracānda and Madana Mohana.

Prabhupāda: Yes, but we have got to do, everything to do. I told you. Tamāla said.

Gargamuni: The thing is, Prabhupāda, it could affect us. If the court awards the verdict to Madana Mohana, then that means that entrance door is his, and he will lock it, and then we cannot enter.

Prabhupāda: We'll break it.

Gargamuni: Oh, yes. I'll break it.

Prabhupāda: We shall kick it and break it. Then we shall see.

Devotees: Jaya!

Rāmeśvara: Jaya Prabhupāda!

Gargamuni: Also, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we had talked over with some other GBCs about having some pūjā work.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Gargamuni: Some pūjā. If we had a deity of yourself within the rooms and we...

Prabhupāda: No, first of all go on with the picture. Let us settle that.

Morning Conversation -- May 29, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: All very aristocratic, very aristocratic. What is aristocracy, that is displayed there.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Those people, they always used to look from the outside in, but they were never allowed to come in. The people from that neighborhood, they used to stare within, wondering what is inside there. Now, since we have come, we have opened our gates and doors and said, "Please come." Oh, they're very much happy to come in and see us there.

Prabhupāda: They're grave. They behave very nicely.

Rāmeśvara: Tourists.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's two boat docks underneath for boats to come, underneath the house. They're 80 foot long, two boat docks, to come in their boats right into the house.

Prabhupāda: The boats were sold by cheating our... Who was in charge of that?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Er... Govardhana dāsa.

Prabhupāda: No, GBC?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Jaga...

Rāmeśvara: Jayatīrtha is now.

Prabhupāda: Jagadīśa.

Gurukula Inspection -- June 26, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The advantage of a big room is that one teacher can watch over many children at one time.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Guṇārṇava: And also, the other side of the room, right along the whole wing, we have a veranda with doors on the other side so you can just keep going in and out, in and out.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But do the verandas connect? Does it go all the way there.

Guṇārṇava: Yes. It's all one.

Prabhupāda: So bank building is down?

Guṇārṇava: Bank building is downstairs.

Prabhupāda: So we can go down.

Guṇārṇava: We'll go downstairs to the bank.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What are the upstairs rooms like, like these rooms?

Guṇārṇava: Yeah, same size as this.

Devotee (3): Smaller sizes.

Guṇārṇava: Varied sizes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, do you want to see one or two rooms upstairs? They're different than this.

Prabhupāda: No... Different?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're smaller sized.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Conversation with Surendra Kumar and O.B.L. Kapoor -- June 26, 1977, Vrndavana:

Yaśodānandana: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda. (break)

Prabhupāda: You open the door and close. And keep open. Why it is... (break) They will close the closet, and I'll open the door. Close it and go on, open and go on, throne, this... (Hindi) Very well. (break) There is a agent preparing the stolen papers.(?) That now...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Every time I go to the marketplace... (break)

Prabhupāda: And well done, to the next fair(?). What I have got? In the Deity room silver stand, silver lamp, silver plate. I do not find this. (break) ...is known there.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. Seems like more varieties of living entities take birth in Bhāratavarṣa than anywhere else. I don't find... So many different kinds of bugs are there. Here every day a new bug comes out, new type of bug.

Prabhupāda: Not new. You see new. They are all existing.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They hatch. (end)

Talk About Varnasrama, S.B. 2.1.1-5 -- June 28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: You can have more than one wife, but maintain them just like wife. She may not have any complaints that "My husband cannot maintain me."

Śatadhanya: (entering) All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Close that door. How are you?

Śatadhanya: Feeling much better. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...man and woman happy, and in happiness, in peace of mind, make progress, spiritual life. That is the Vedic civilization. The guide is there, brāhmaṇa. The protection is there, kṣatriya. The food is there, vaiśya. And labor is there, śūdra. Combine together, live very happily, peacefully, in the society. You'll find still. The aim is how to realize God. Village to village, you'll find temples.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I saw when going to the bank yesterday. We passed through the bhangi colony, but there was a temple there. They have their temple, even the bhangis.

Prabhupāda: In our childhood we have seen. The bhangis, they carry stool, walk in the morning with stool, so neat and clean. And if you go to the house, you cannot understand that this is a bhangi's house. So neat and clean. And bathing their utensils, their sitting place. After taking thorough bath, sometimes they are worshiping Deity.

Room Conversation with Devotees -- July 1, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So ask him wherefrom he has brought.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, I just sent that boy to (indistinct) to find out where he brought it from.

Prabhupāda: Anyway...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: As soon as he came in the door, I said, "Where is this coming from?" He said, "It's coming from Ramesh." I said, "That's all right, but where did Ramesh get it from?" He said, "I don't know." He's the vice president.

Prabhupāda: All right.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I have tried. I can go myself to Seth.

Prabhupāda: So you should know that here are so many rascals. When you say something to one rascal, just inject him that "We... I want this. Have you understood? Because you are a rascal." Otherwise you won't get.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's right.

Prabhupāda: You have to inject ten times. Then they will learn. That... They are so rascal: "Oh, all right..." But... And you ask him, "Wherefrom...?" "I do not know." Anyway, now if I get that glass and... (pause)

Room Conversation With Son (Vrindavan De) -- July 5, 1977, Vrndavana:

Śatadhanya: That way we avoid wasting time.

Prabhupāda: Yes. "Probably," "maybe," "in millions of years."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We call that "closet talk." That means when you start talking like that, we advise him to go into the closet and close the door. Then only they will have to hear it.

Prabhupāda: We take Kṛṣṇa's word. Na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante... (BG 7.15). (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very positive. He says, "One additional note. Our Library Party in America recently attended the annual convention of the largest organization of libraries." That's called the American Library Association. It's made up of all of the libraries in the US, and it's the most prestigious library association. "At this convention, the booth of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust won the first prize..."

Prabhupāda: Just see. This is our triumph.

Room Conversation about Mayapura Attack Talk with Vrindavan De -- July 8, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Restrict, that instead of myself, he has to restrict: "Do this way."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Including go to the court. This boy writes further. He says, "They claimed I was brainwashed by Śrīla Prabhupāda and the devotees, and they were here to get me to think for myself again. They kept me up for ten hours at a time for so-called deprogramming, just blaspheming Śrīla Prabhupāda and Kṛṣṇa and telling lie after lie. Finally they let me go to sleep, and in the morning it was time for more blaspheming and lies. But by Kṛṣṇa's mercy I was able to escape out the front door of the house," he says, "which was unguarded. I ran down my block barefoot and was able to get to my friend's house. I told him the story. He gave me enough money to get to a nearby temple. There I served Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa and had the association of my Godbrothers, who are most dear to me. There I spent the happiest time of my life as a devotee with the association of the Brajabāsīs. Being a devotee of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, there's nothing like it-singing, dancing, taking prasādam, being happy and free from anxiety all the time. It is just a blissful life. All Kṛṣṇa wants is for us to be happy with Him. I called my parents and told them that I was doing fine and that I had even gained seven pounds in weight. They had the police looking for me all over the place in only a minute, and they finally showed up. Mahārāja felt it was best that I go back and clear things up with my parents and with their consent come back. But they refused to let me go, and instead put me through a one-month deprogramming session. This time I was unable to escape. But now Kṛṣṇa has pulled me through, even though I'm forced to live with my parents. They are nice people, but they just don't understand about transcendental life. But they will come around sooner or later. I cannot keep any Vedic literature at home, so a friend lets me keep it at his house, and I read it during my school lunchtime. I am not able to keep japa beads to chant on, so I chant Hare Kṛṣṇa on rosary beads. I'm sixteen years old now and going to school, where I am taught little of any value. It is sometimes difficult to remain Kṛṣṇa conscious out in the material world, but I pray to Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda to help me become strong and desire to serve Kṛṣṇa more and more every day. I will be able to join the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement in person in two years, which isn't very long considering that I have waited to serve Kṛṣṇa for millions of lifetimes. If you have the opportunity to serve Kṛṣṇa, don't waste it, because you may wind up in my shoes in your next life. Hare Kṛṣṇa." This is...

Prabhupāda: If one man is turned by this, the movement is successful. So there is good prospect, good hope. And you all combine together, try. Push this movement more and more.

Room Conversation -- July 27-28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, you can't do that.

Prabhupāda: No.

Yaśomatīnandana: What we'll do is we'll grow the food and then distribute the food. And if someone is ready to come and live on the farm, then we'll give him the facility. Because Bhogilal's farm is just next door, and he's getting fifty mounds of rice in every bighā. Fifty mounds.

Prabhupāda: Why not our farm?

Yaśomatīnandana: Just now this is the first year, and it has not been used for three, four... It is not that fertile. It is not too much fertile. For rice you have to prepare the ground. Some part of it is there. Once we develop, then we can develop it for rice. That area is doing maximum rice. Bhogilal's men grows fifteen lakhs' worth of crops every year. He has thousand acres, and most of it is even unfertile. Only in certain part of it, fifteen lakhs.

Prabhupāda: So why not our farm?

Yaśomatīnandana: We cannot get that much. But we can easily go up to two lakhs.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Per year.

Yaśomatīnandana: Per year. This is at least.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And he donated it free. Yaśomatīnandana said Bhogilal will be coming here for Janmāṣṭamī to be with you.

Yaśomatīnandana: We invited him for Janmāṣṭamī. So he said, "If you come, I'll go." He wants me to accompany him.

Prabhupāda: He's godly man. And he's religious, honest, ideal man.

Room Conversation -- October 6, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: It will be a very... What is called? Attractive spot? What is called? It will be tourist?

Kīrtanānanda: Yes. Tourist attraction. It will. Already it is that. The walls of the temple room, they are all marble. This is your study room. It has a marble floor. This is the marble floor. And the walls are all being done in marble in this pattern. This is the bedroom floor. This is the lower portion of the bedroom walls, and this is the upper portion, all done in these little... These is all onyx, and these are marble. And these are the outside doors. It's all ornamental carved concrete.

Prabhupāda: You have got so many artists.

Kīrtanānanda: This is a view of the outside near the top railing.

Prabhupāda: How they learned so much?

Kīrtanānanda: (laughs) Kṛṣṇa's in the heart. Nobody's ever done this before. This is the bracket that goes under the sun shade. This is a view of Bahulaban farm. This is the big guesthouse that is just completed, and this is another new building that has gone up since you've been there. This will be a utility building for all different kinds of shops where they can make jewelry and cast concrete and carpenter shops and all different shops. So we all thank you very much, because it is only by your grace we have gotten this inspiration.

Prabhupāda: Besides that, whenever you require money, you can ask. He'll give.

Room Conversation -- October 9, 1977, Vrndavana:

Brahmānanda: So we would like to invite you to come, Śrīla Prabhupāda. It is your temple. You have asked Kṛṣṇa to come there, and when we all gave up, you carried on the fight.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everything I do is(?) fighting. Out of (indistinct), fighting, survival and construct such a big temple is a great triumph.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't think Kṛṣṇa will come into that temple unless you personally are there, Śrīla Prabhupāda, to open the door for Him.

Prabhupāda: All right. But chanting should not be stopped.

Brahmānanda: Oh, no, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: It should go naturally. Kīrtanānanda's...

Kīrtanānanda: Yes?

Prabhupāda: ...palace, when it will be ready?

Kīrtanānanda: Early spring. Soon as the weather starts to warm up. It just gives you a little time to recuperate here and then go to Bombay and open the temple there and then come to your palace. I have about fifty or seventy-five letters from the devotees at New Vrindaban. They're just all begging you to come. They say their life is finished if you don't.

Prabhupāda: Hm. So let me take a little rest. Then I shall take strawberry.

Room Conversation -- October 11, 1977, Vrndavana:

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Thank you very much.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Thank you, Śrīla Prabhupāda. (break)

Prabhupāda: Very good chance.

Parivrājakācārya: These people, they are the door to people all over the world who are rulers, because they are the closest friends of King Khalid(?) of Saudi Arabia, King Hussein of Jordan, King Constantine and Queen Tina of Greece. They know all over the world this whole set of rulers who have great opulence and great intelligence and who simply lack spiritual knowledge.

Prabhupāda: Guidance.

Parivrājakācārya: They lack guidance. They lack brāhmaṇas. Instead, they have cunning ministers who simply want to have the same opulences as they have. But these are the people. They can change the world.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- October 13, 1977, Vrndavana:

Purī Mahārāja: Jagannātha's Ratha-yātrā. (Bengali-explains to others.)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Lord Jagannātha is all-attractive. You cannot keep Him here. He's going out the door. This is... One of the sannyāsīs was giving a big lecture. We had some elephants. The children were riding on them. See, "Free Love Feast." Prasādam distributed... You can see these people are...

Purī Mahārāja: Love Feast.

Jayatīrtha: They served full prasādam to fifty thousand people.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Fifty thousand people took full prasādam free of charge. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...ratha (Bengali) prasādam.

Purī Mahārāja: Prasādam.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I just sent Hari-śauri to...

Purī Mahārāja: Yes, yes. They are preparing.

Hari-śauri: The prasādam will be ready in about five minutes, Śrīla Prabhupāda. They're just cooking the puris now. The halavā is done, and the sabji is almost ready. (break)

Prabhupāda: (Bengali)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The prasādam is here, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Purī Mahārāja: (laughs) There is so much prasādam.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, not so much.

Prabhupāda: What you have given?

Purī Mahārāja: Puri, halavā and gulabjamin. You have prepared very costly feast.

Room Conversation -- October 24, 1977, Vrndavana:

Brahmānanda: Seat right at the door.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What we'll do is we'll purchase two extra seats so that Prabhupāda can have three seats.

Brahmānanda: And right by the door so they can just bring it in the door and... Take the seats right on the door.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That can be done. We can try to get the front row.

Haṁsadūta: Whatever they do when they have to transport someone in emergency... They must have an arrangement.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, they do. They take the seats out and put your stretcher on. But we don't want that. There's no question of that.

Prabhupāda: It goes direct?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes. Delhi-Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: Then arrange for that.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah? It's a lot easier. Plane travel is easier.

Prabhupāda: Ah, ah.

Room Conversation -- November 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Light you can keep. Hm?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I have to give the key to the door. I keep the door locked when I'm not in the room.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: (whispering) I made two members today for the Institute.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If you stay longer on this planet, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that will make this movement stronger. That is the real reason for living longer. 'Cause you are a pure devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa, you have no personal desire. This is Kṛṣṇa's movement. If you stay longer, then this movement will become stronger and stronger. Simply by your presence the devotees become inspired and they work much better. We can understand that there's nothing to lament if you were to depart, because you're always going to be with Kṛṣṇa. But we would have to lament from our own point of view that we would lose you, at least in the way that we have you now. And the whole world would lament because this movement might not be as strong if you were not present.

Prabhupāda: Then make this arrangement, one week or ten days.

Room Conversation -- November 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Well, atmosphere... Suppose there is temple, and there is the park and other houses, and they are already polluting the atmosphere. You cannot stop it. Is it not?

Jayādvaita: All over our movement we have temples, and then next door there's some nonsense place.

Prabhupāda: Yes. You cannot check the atmosphere all around. That is not possible. (pause) So when you described the number of books, what did they say? Hm?

Akṣayānanda: They said it was very nice. They said they were very impressed with that, and that you are doing the greatest work. They... Superficially they say all these things. They must.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They haven't even published one book.

Akṣayānanda: They must say these things.

Bhavānanda: Of course, Śrīla Prabhupāda, another view is that we've constructed such attractive facilities here, and the purpose is to attract people to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So if we let out this auditorium in Bombay and here in Vṛndāvana, so those people will come. They may be Māyāvādī... Actually everyone is Māyāvādī today. So it's a good opportunity for preaching if we're strong.

Prabhupāda: Preaching means to convert Māyāvādīs to Vaiṣṇava. Otherwise where is the need of preaching?

Bhavānanda: Preaching also means risk.

Room Conversation -- November 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: "And in the absence, we shall select another."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. I felt very bad whenever they tell me to leave the room like that. I don't like to leave you alone. I get very disturbed. I was standing on the other side of the door. I could not... I didn't like it, to be leaving you alone like that. We're trained always to be with you.

Prabhupāda: Hm. Very carefully deal with them. They are trying to come into the institution to grasp the power gradually.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's the point. I can understand that.

Prabhupāda: How much urine I passed?

Bhakti-caru: Ninety, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda has not drank that much yet. Did he have milk and barley water?

Bhakti-caru: Not today.(?) But he doesn't want to take barley and water. (Bengali)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda? I'm going to take a short little rest now. Taking a little rest, just short. Then I'll come back.

Prabhupāda: Very carefully deal with them. They want to enter into our management.

Room Conversation -- November 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: What resolution they passed?

Akṣayānanda: I do not know. (Prabhupāda laughs) I could not attend it, Śrīla Prabhupāda. I had to go... Next door we had some work with one bābājī. We had given him money last year, and I had to get that money back for his land. They're given a security.

Prabhupāda: Money?

Akṣayānanda: Yes. We were using his land for a sewer, water waste. So we had given him two thousand rupees' security. We were going to buy that land. You remember once Your Divine Grace came to see it. We were going to put all that waste water and make a garden and all this. So now we have connected with the municipal sewer line, so there's no need for that land, and that problem is solved. So we took the money back that we had given as a security. I have been there for the last two or three hours, so I was unable to come.

Prabhupāda: They have returned the money.

Room Conversation -- November 3, 1977, Vrndavana:

Girirāja: I don't know if they have a lease, but the owner of the house is a Vaiṣṇava, and he's very... Actually his house is next door, and his house is called Viṣṇu-nivāsa. And when he built the second house, he wanted it to be used as a temple, and he called it Bhagavān-nivāsa.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So he's very pleased with the use of the house.

Girirāja: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How many members they've made there?

Girirāja: Well, he's only made two members. I think he's going to get into it a little more. He doesn't have to be registered to make members, because the two members he made... Tax exemption has to be... Each case is considered individually. There's no system, but the lawyer and other people I spoke to felt that, since it was a Hindu state, and since they wanted to encourage such activities, that they would give us tax exemption. There's even a community of Marwari businessmen. So Prabhaviṣṇu had made one or two members by giving receipts from Calcutta, since we're not registered. So I suggested that he should concentrate on the Marwaris for the time being, and he can give receipts from Calcutta, and that would be good practice, because they are the most willing to become members. And then, by the time he got registered, he could start approaching the Nepali businessmen.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How will the Calcutta receipt help them?

Girirāja: Well, I don't think...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They care much.

Girirāja: No. Just to give them something official. He has seven boys there now, and a few of them ...

Prabhupāda: They are taking their prasādam and living there?

Girirāja: Yes.

Room Conversation -- November 3, 1977, Vrndavana:

Pañca-draviḍa: These paṇḍitas, Śrīla Prabhupāda... Five years ago I got permission to go into the temple and they let me in the gates, only the paṇḍitas blocked the door. They would not let us in. But we were allowed inside the temple gates and everything. It was only the one paṇḍita came and stopped us. (break)

Prabhupāda: Management is in the hands of government?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is the management in the hand of the government?

Gaura-govinda: Yes, government. One administrator is there. He's governmental power.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That means the government is being paid off by the pāṇḍās.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: This is Orissa government.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Anantadeva said the government administrator also wants money. They're all in it together.

Gaura-govinda: That Sadasiva Ratha Sharma, the president of... (break)

Pañca-draviḍa: The biggest paṇḍitas are all known meat-eaters also.

Gaura-govinda: Ah, yes!

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They eat meat.

Gaura-govinda: Meat, fish, everything.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think, Prabhupāda, you mentioned in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta that.

Gaura-govinda: Many also take all sorts of intoxication and they also go to the prostitute. Everything they do.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How can they serve the Deity? Śrīla Prabhupāda, does Lord Jagannātha reside there any more?

Prabhupāda: That is the proof, that it was not in order this year.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What was proof, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: That ratha-cakra broken.

Room Conversation -- November 6, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Up to three thousand you can take. Four bighās.

Jayapatākā: Yes.

Prabhupāda: And make a dighi.

Jayapatākā: Yes. That Praphulla brahmacārī or Prabhupāda dāsa or whatever he's called, next door, he has built a small temple now. The dome has come up. It's about 45 feet high.

Prabhupāda: On top?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Temple with a dome.

Jayapatākā: Very narrow one.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is he friendly?

Jayapatākā: He's very friendly. He came by and he said that... He recommended about two months ago that for a while we shouldn't say anything to the Muhammadan. Then he will bring the price down. Then mutually we can decide that who will take the land.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He wants the land?

Jayapatākā: He doesn't know if he has the money to buy the land, but he has got some interest to get the land.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Why?

Jayapatākā: Because he only has one bighā right now, and that land is just next to his.

Bhavānanda: Planting?

Jayapatākā: Now planting is going on. Already many flowers and vegetables have been planted, and now the wheat fields are being plowed for planting. (break) ...if the big temple was thirty or thirty-five stories high, there would be any harm?

Prabhupāda: No harm. It is too much.