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Helping others (Conversations)

Expressions researched:
"each one will help the other" |"help each other" |"help from other" |"help from others" |"help of other devotees" |"help of other friends" |"help of other two boys" |"help of others" |"help other blind men" |"help others" |"helped others" |"helping each other" |"helping other" |"helping others" |"helping the other" |"helps others" |"helps the other three"

Conversations and Morning Walks

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

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

Prabhupāda: Therefore he has a teacher. You cannot say that, or he has taken the techniques of other scientists and he has experimented. In the laboratory appliances he cannot say that he has, he invented the laboratory appliances.

Dr. Weir: No, but his power of observation was important.

Prabhupāda: That is all right. That is all right.

Dr. Weir: That's in him and nobody else.

Prabhupāda: But he, he has taken help from other scientists' method.

Śyāmasundara: In other words, everyone operates under a certain set of restrictions, controls that are not of their own choosing. Everyone is in that category. They may think, "I am the controller of my own destiny." But actually they are being pulled on every side.

Dr. Weir: That's so. But it's only when they break out from that control by, let's say making an observation or having an intuition that isn't inherent in the system of control in which they've been brought up, that they make an advance of any sort. You see, people with... I always give this example of Sir Alexander Fleming and Freud and others. People have been trained that dirty pet traditions should be thrown away, because they're moded and they will interfere with the experiment. This happens time again whereas a man suddenly thinks, "I will have a look at this. I'll ignore that." He breaks away from this control.

Mensa Member: It wasn't anything new, simply a rearrangement of the (indistinct).

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

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

Prabhupāda: That is stated in the Bhāgavata. Kāmāt krodhād bhayāt. Some way or other, come to Kṛṣṇa. Just like gopīs came to Kṛṣṇa-kāmāt. Kṛṣṇa was very beautiful, so they wanted to associate with Kṛṣṇa. Bhayāt, Kaṁsa and Śiśupāla, they were afraid of Kṛṣṇa, but still, they became Kṛṣṇa conscious, always thinking of Kṛṣṇa. Bhayāt. Krodhāt. Śiśupāla, krodhāt. He was very much envious of Kṛṣṇa. Pūtanā-rākṣasī, she wanted to kill Kṛṣṇa. So if kamāt-krodhād-bhayāt coming to Kṛṣṇa, they get perfection, what to speak of loving Kṛṣṇa? What is their position? So some way or other, you come to Kṛṣṇa. That is our mission. Yena tena prakāreṇa manaḥ kṛṣṇa niveśayet. Somehow or other, just attach your mind to Kṛṣṇa; your life is perfect. And what is the objection? Kṛṣṇa is most beautiful, Kṛṣṇa is most opulent, Kṛṣṇa is more powerful, Kṛṣṇa giving you assurance, "I give you protection," and still, if you don't take to Kṛṣṇa it is misfortune, simply misfortune. Unfortunate. So you remain. If you want to remain unfortunate, who can help you? So instead of arguing, you just surrender to Kṛṣṇa and make your life successful. That's it. That is wanted. Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma... Now, these foreigners, they are practiced, always chanting Kṛṣṇa. You cannot do that? Why? Let me know why. You are all young boys; they are also young. They have got more facilities for sense enjoyment than yours. Why don't you take to it? So it is better late than never. Take to it. Take interest in Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. You are all Indians. Make your life successful. Help others and be helped. (aside:) What is this? (Hindi—discussing prasāda to be served) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Tūrṇaṁ yateta. (Hindi) Life is very short. Any moment it can be finished. Tūrṇaṁ yateta na pated anu-mṛtyu yāvat. Before the next death comes... You give me in a plate. Where is restroom?

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

Ambassador: That's right.

Prabhupāda: So there is some defect, and here is a chance to rectify that defect. Here is a chance. I can argue with any scientist, any philosopher, that this is the only remedy to save people from frustration. This is the only remedy. Why it should go unnoticed by your country, such a great, who are willing to help others, willing to help. You started the United Nations in your country for that. Let us do something tangible, scientific, that people will be happy.

Ambassador: Oh, I think the, what this young man says is very encouraging, that some of this is now being slowly inculcated in our colleges and universities.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: Of all the movements, religious movements from India that have gone there, this one has shown the most potency of all, by far...

Ambassador: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: There's been nothing like this movement ever before in the United States or in the world. And its potency proves the philosophy. If something is potent it automatically grows.

Ambassador: Yes, that's true.

Guru dāsa: We want also to be encouraged by our brothers and friends.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Banker -- September 21, 1973, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Why one third? They are sleeping more than half.

Banker: Seeking what you call happiness. Just as in your life you get up at three o'clock, you do a certain thing at that time, go around on a schedule, so you don't have to think about the mundane, and you seek the eternal happiness.

Prabhupāda: Therefore I have already explained. There must be a class of men like me. They are called brāhmaṇa. They should help others. One who cannot rise so early, they will help him by his knowledge. He, the man who cannot rise early in the morning and cannot take the brahminical principle, śūdra, kṣatriya, vaiśya, he should be helped with the knowledge acquired by the brāhmaṇa. Just like the same example. The leg. Leg is not brain. The brain will give direction to the leg, "You go this side." Then it is perfect. The leg has no brain, but the brain is there. If he takes the advice of the brain and goes... Just like... It is called the logic of blind and lame. There is a lame man and there is a blind man. The lame man cannot walk, and the blind man cannot see. They should join. The blind man took the lame man on his shoulder, and the lame man giving direction, and the blind man is going nicely. So by the cooperation of the blind and the lame, the work is done perfectly. Andha-kañjatā-nyāya. Similarly, it is not required that everyone has to become brāhmaṇa. Neither it is possible. So if the brāhmaṇa and the śūdra combine together, work, then both their lives will be perfect. Here you cannot expect everyone as brāhmaṇa, in this material world. That is not possible. Because in the material world three qualities are working. So one may be brāhmaṇa, another may be kṣatriya, another may be vaiśya, another may... So they should cooperate. Then everyone's life will be perfect. That is the program. That is cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (BG 4.13).

Morning Walk -- December 16, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes, because on account of their sins. Because they do not know. Why government hangs one person? Is there government discrepancy? When government says, the judge says, "This man must be hanged," is it discrepancy? It is justice.

Karandhara: Well, just like that one Indian chemist Svarūpa Dāmodara brought. He said that philosophy is killing India. People just sit by and watch each other die instead of trying to help each other.

Prabhupāda: No, that he is rascal. No Indian is dying. We are going three times, four times India. Who is dying? Everyone is dying natural death. This is all propaganda, to make their position secure. That's all. I have never seen anyone dying for starvation. I have pointed out so many times that fifty years ago this class of men lying on the footpath... Now the foodgrains has risen price fifty times. Still he is living. Still he is living. But he has to live in that condition. Although he must have increased his income, otherwise how he is purchasing foodstuff, fifty times? But in spite of his increasing income, he must live like that. Apart from India. Why, in your country or in Europe, so many hippies are lying? Why? They have no want.

Karandhara: But not as many.

Prabhupāda: Oh, you have not seen Amsterdam. Full, one big park, hundreds and thousands hippies are lying on the ground. Hundreds and thousands. You have been in Amsterdam? I have seen it personally.

Karandhara: Yeah. But not like India where there is millions of people...

Prabhupāda: No, no, India you will not find that in the park hundreds and thousands are lying. You never find.

Karandhara: Well, you'll find them living in sewer pipes.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

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

Prabhupāda: So...

O'Grady: And so, rather than present the kind of answers that one could present if one was trained in oneself originally... And one who is first of all trained, then one has to untrain oneself, and then one trains oneself from that experience basically. This is my way of seeing it. And then one tries to help others through this course with the same process. Do you think that we should tell them more directly, or... Well, the basic question is how to handle the problem of modern education.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Our Vedic process is... There are so many questions, as you have already explained. Somebody thinks, "Why I have come here? And what is the purpose? What you are?" So many questions. Questions should be answered by the perfect. Therefore the Vedic injunction is tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet: (MU 1.2.12) "In order to take answers of all these questions one must approach the bona fide spiritual master."

O'Grady: One must...?

Prabhupāda: Approach the bona fide spiritual master.

Atreya Ṛṣi: Approach.

O'Grady: The bona fide spiritual master. If you have none, what do you do?

Prabhupāda: No, there is.

O'Grady: If you are told that Mr. Nixon is the bona fide spiritual master, what do you do?

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

Prabhupāda: Yes. First of all, there must be a class of men, ideal men, brain; people will follow them. My request is therefore that you should become ideal men. If we fight... Now there is fighting amongst ourself. That is very disappointment to me. The same politics, intrigues. The nature is so strong that brain becomes, what is called? Fag brain? Brain becomes deranged.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: I remember on a walk in Vṛndāvana, Your Divine Grace said that there should be no politics in our society because a Vaiṣṇava means one who wants to help others become happy.

Prabhupāda: Now politics is coming in. As soon as we are getting money, the politics coming. That is a great concern.

Yogeśvara: What will happen to our temples in the cities? Will we keep them?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Yogeśvara: Our temples. These big, big temples we have now.

Prabhupāda: No, no. We have to go everywhere. Wherever there is opportunity to instruct about this spiritual subject matter, we must go there. We should not have such discrimination, that city should be neglected. No. Why? They are also human being. They are misled. So we have to give them a little instruction. Everywhere. In cities there is possibility. Whatever we have collected, our men, that is from city, not from the village. So why should we neglect city? Where is the question? (break) All hobgoblin, the last word which I said, "dressing the dead body, decorating the dead body." The society has no brain; that means dead body. When a man's brain is gone, he is dead body, maybe he is living. He has no use. Just like a madman. He has got life, but what is the use of that life? It is already dead. Because his brain is deranged. Is it not? So if the brain is lost, brain is deranged, therefore it is dead body. That is the distinction between living body and dead body. A living man has got brain. He can work with his brain. And the dead bod... The body is there. Why call it dead? Because brain is not working. Brain is dead. That is the difference. Although the hand is there. The dead man has also hand. The leg is there. The dead man has also leg. But why the hand is leg? Because the brain is dead.

Room Conversation -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: The fellow man helping, what does he gain?

Yogeśvara: (translates) He says, "Even if someone is committing all kinds of sinful activities..."

Prabhupāda: No, no. What you gain by helping your fellow man? First of all that is the question.

Yogeśvara: He says, "The purpose of helping other people is not to gain something for yourself."

Prabhupāda: But I say that you help your fellow man. So do you know how to help him?

Swiss Man (1): Certain circumstances.

Yogeśvara: He says, "In certain circumstances."

Prabhupāda: In certain circumstances, but if you do not know how to... Suppose a man is diseased and you think... The doctor says that he should not eat anything. But if you think that "Let me give some food. The doctor is very cruel. He is not giving food," is it, that, helping or fully pushing him towards death? First of all you must know how to help. If I do not know—I help in the opposite way—that is not helping. That is degrading. These are all manufactured things. They are not... Helping means, real helping is, that a man or anyone... Everyone is suffering for want of knowledge. So if you can give knowledge, that is real help.

Swiss Man (1): (French)

Yogeśvara: The first thing is that this gentleman doesn't agree. He doesn't think that the major problem is ignorance. But this gentleman suggests that there is a danger, there's a danger in what he calls "spiritual pride," "spiritual egoism," that is to say, thinking that we have helped someone and actually...

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Ganesa dasa's Mother and Sister -- May 14, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: What you are doing for your benefit?

Sister: For my benefit? It develops me because it helps me to learn to give to others rather than, you know, for myself.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Everyone is doing for others, but what he is doing for himself?

Sister: Well, I feel it has developed me as a person. You know? I can look more into myself by helping others.

Prabhupāda: So what is the way of helping?

Sister: Well, in the society it's full of problems and people are just sort of lost, and I can't solve their problems, but I can help them to cope with them more adequately. That's what I hope to be able to do when I'm qualified.

Prabhupāda: But do you know what is the problem?

Sister: The problems? No. That's why they come to you, really. You know? They're expecting an answer. You can't really give them one, but...

Prabhupāda: The real problem is birth, death, old age, and disease. So we are dealing with that problem. Now... Does anybody like to die?

Sister: No, I don't think so.

Prabhupāda: Yes. But the death is there.

Sister: Yeah, death is there. It's inevitable.

Press Conference -- July 9, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: Yes, cow, from where you get milk, that cow. So the exact word is used in Sanskrit, kṛṣi-go-rakṣya-vāṇijyaṁ vaiśya-karma svabhāva-jam (BG 18.44). Vaiśya, the third-class man, is called vaiśya. So his duty is how to produce food, food grains, for both for the animals and the man. And he gives protection to the cows. As the second-class man, the administrator, he gives protection to the human being from danger, similarly, the third-class man is entrusted to give protection to the cows. Cow is very important animal in the society because it is supplying milk, the most nutritious food. And... Find out. This is the third-class man's duty. And the fourth-class man means general worker. He has no brain, he simply helps the other three classes: first-class, second-class, and the third-class. And below the fourth-class men, they are called fifth-class, sixth-class. So they are called lower class, less than the fourth-class. So the society should be generally divided into four classes. As I have given example, there is head, arm, belly, and leg.

Reporter (3): (a woman) Where... Do women fit into this social structure? You keep referring to man.

Prabhupāda: Woman is not equally intelligent as a man.

Reporter (3): Equal in intelligence?

Prabhupāda: Not equal intelligence. In the psychology, practical psychology, they have found that the man's brain has been found up to sixty-four ounce, woman... Sixty-four ounce, man's brain. And woman's brain has been found, thirty-six ounce. So therefore woman is not equally intelligent like man.

Reporter (3): So where does she fit?

Prabhupāda: You will find in practical psychology.

Morning Walk -- August 27, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Richer than us? (laughter) Do you think?

French devotee (1): No.

Prabhupāda: How many branches he has got of his business?

Akṣayānanda: So I usually tell them, "It is not for us that we want help, but so that we can help others." They like that. They can appreciate humanitarian viewpoint, material benefit. That's all.

Prabhupāda: So we are giving the best humanitarian service—to stop his repetition of birth and death.

Brahmānanda: The final solution.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Brahmānanda: This is the final solution.

Akṣayānanda: In India, now in the cities, wherever we go, there are so many big cinema houses being built. So if the young people are not yet tired of that, then how will we convince them of Kṛṣṇa consciousness? They all go by the thousands to the cinema house.

Prabhupāda: You approach the cinema proprietor and make him a member. We have got contribution from a very big cinema man.

Brahmānanda: Raj Kapoor has become a patron member.

Room Conversation with Reporter of The Star -- October 16, 1975, Johannesburg:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The mass of people, he says it doesn't effect them.

Prabhupāda: Mass of people will follow. Yad yad ācarati śreṣṭha (BG 3.21). Just like everywhere, in politics there is in one leader and people follow him, so we want first-class leader. Then mass will follow. If the leaders are rascals and fools, then what will be result? Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ (SB 7.5.31). If the leader is blind, how he can help other blind men? He must be open eyes. Then he can lead thousands of blind men—"Come here." And if he is himself blind, then how he can help? That is wanted. One blind man... One open-eyes man is sufficient to lead many thousands of blind men. But if the leaders are also blind, then it is useless. He must be in perfect knowledge. That is wanted. We do not expect that mass of people will understand this philosophy. It is not possible. But at least the leaders, they must know how to lead people—the father, the teachers, the government, like that. Then people will follow.

Reporter: My last question: Will you be meeting other spiritual leaders in South Africa?

Prabhupāda: I do not know who is that spiritual leader. Nobody...

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: We haven't found any really prominent personalities to introduce Prabhupāda to.

Prabhupāda: But one spiritual leader is there, Swami Sahajananda.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, the Divine Life Society in Durban, the head of that. He wrote one letter praising Prabhupāda's work, that he is rightfully representing the Vedic literatures.

Reporter: Well, thank you very much.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- February 3, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So Jayapatākā Mahārāja, explain. You have got practical experience.

Jayapatākā: Bhārata-bhūmite haila manuṣya-janma jāra. Those people who are born on the sacred land of Bhāratavarṣa, they should perfect their life, janma sārthaka kari', and help others. Purpose of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is to perfect one's own spiritual knowledge and then to go and help other people. So people that are born here in Bhāratavarṣa have a special facility because of the Vedic culture, Aryan culture, to perfect their lives. And just as Śrīla Prabhupāda has gone all over the world spreading the Kṛṣṇa consciousness—one person from this Bhāratavarṣa has been able to do so much—if other pure devotees would come and preach as Śrīla Prabhupāda has done, then how many unlimited amount of fallen souls could receive the benefit of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. (break)

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

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

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: The difficulty I have found by my personal experience with these groups is that it couldn't give me a concrete enough realization, neither a whole practical lifestyle by which I could stay on the platform of God realization. You can go to the meeting, but then when you go out in the society you're forced to act in so many sinful ways because of the conditioning and the advertising and the force of pressure in the society. But even.... I lived in a Trappist monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts, with the monks there, and there was still that gap between how I could not only fulfill my own spiritual life there, but also how to help others in theirs, without losing my purity. And that I've been able to find in this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, because it gives you a twenty-four-hour a day program to remain in God consciousness.

Prabhupāda: In our Bhagavad-gītā there is a verse. Find out:

yeṣāṁ tv anta-gataṁ pāpaṁ
janānāṁ puṇya-karmaṇām
te dvandva-moha-nirmuktā
bhajante māṁ dṛḍha-vratāḥ
(BG 7.28)

Those who are addicted to sinful life, they cannot understand God. So therefore we have to stop sinful activities. If you keep them in sinful activities, and if you expect that God will be revealed to them, it is not possible.

Scheverman: Yes, we certainly agree, no contradiction on.... I think it's very, very important—we do not see you in competition with our...

Prabhupāda: No, there is no competition. It is a science. Science is to...

Scheverman: We rejoice when we see people coming to the Lord God, wherever it may be and however it may be.

Prabhupāda: Do you have the passage there?

Room Conversation -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes, but the mission should be, human being should be meant for doing good to others. Para-upakāra. That para-upakāra spirit is gone on account of losing our own culture. Otherwise, India's culture is para-upakāra. India was open, "Come everyone, learn." Lord Jesus Christ also came here. All the Chinese, learned scholars, they used to come. The history is there. And India was open. Gṛhe śatrum api prāptaṁ viśvastam akutobhayam. This is Indian culture. Even the enemy comes, "Yes, please come, you stay." But later on, they took advantage: "Oh, they are very liberal, enter there." And still we are liberal. "Please come here, stay here and take prasādam free, and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa." Open to everyone. I shall manage anyway, I shall travel, still I shall lay down my life and bring money. Come here, stay. Still we are liberal. This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission, janma sārthaka kari' kara para-upakāra (CC Adi 9.41). First of all, make your life successful by Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then do good to others. Yesterday, I think, in Tehran, one boy came. He proposed that is it not good to help others? I immediately challenged, "What you have got you can help? What is your asset?" You cannot help. It is simply bogus proposition. If you can help, you can simply help by spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness, as Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṇa-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). "Sir, I have come to you." "Why?" "To request you that you become Kṛṣṇa conscious." "How?" Man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ, "Always think of Me, just become My devotee, offer little obeisances." Anyone can do, a child can do. You cannot do? What is the difficulty to become Kṛṣṇa conscious? Is there any difficulty? You haven't got to practice any yoga process, pressing your nose or keeping your head or this or that, no. Nothing. Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru mām evaiṣyasi asaṁśayaḥ (BG 18.68). "Without any doubt you are coming back to Me." And that is the highest perfection, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). There is no difficulty in preaching this Kṛṣṇa consciousness. There is no difficulty to accept it. And the result is the supreme.

Room Conversation -- October 31, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: He says, "Important Hindu sect." How they can say whether it is a genuine? Important, not only genuine but important, Vaisnavism.

Hari-śauri: Hm. (continues reading) "...whose worship of Lord Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu, in one of His many forms is one of the most important religions of India. The American devotees of ISKCON worship Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Being, the highest Personality of Godhead, whose worship according to the archaeological and epigraphic evidence, is pre-Christian in origin, as found in India's early sacred texts, the Ṛg Veda, Atharva Veda, etc. The detailed history of Kṛṣṇa's incarnation is found in the religious text of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, and the philosophical basis of the Hare Kṛṣṇa Movement is found in India's most sacred book the Bhagavad-gītā. These sacred texts and others have been translated and commented upon by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda and are being studied today in many major universities across the United States. The particular form of Vaisnavism of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement dates from Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu, one of India's saints born in 1486 A.D. in Nadia, India. His immediate followers organized this philosophy in a number of Sanskrit texts, and His religious practices such as chanting and dancing are most authentically represented in America by the Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees according to this tradition. Lord Caitanya, worshiped as the last incarnation of Kṛṣṇa, initiated a disciplic succession. In the mid-19th century, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura appeared in this spiritual lineage. Soon afterwards, his son Bhaktisiddhānta, Sarasvatī became the spiritual master of India's Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas, and his most prominent student was Śrīla Prabhupāda. It was at Bhaktisiddhānta's command that Śrīla Prabhupāda later came to America to bring the teachings and practices of Caitanya to the West. My study of these American devotees, which I have pursued since 1968, was published in my book, Hare Krishna and the Counter-culture, published by John Wiley and Sons in 1974, New York. The sociological data revealed through a detailed questionnaire and many hours of taped interviews, indicates that many of the devotees had been influenced by the hippie culture of the 1960's. However, after they joined the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, their lives became completely changed from a life of drugs, illicit sex, and violence to one of dedication to a spiritual discipline and morality and to helping others in their search for happiness. In this period of rapid social and cultural change..."

Prabhupāda: This is the fact, in many cases. So many drunkards, so many violence... This is... (name witheld)?

Haṁsadūta: (name witheld).

Prabhupāda: Big drunkard.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Film Producer about Krsna Lila -- January 22, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Hari-śauri: "In his statement, Mahārāja Parīkṣit has used several important words which require clarification. The first word, jugupsitam, means 'abominable.' The first doubt of Parīkṣit Mahārāja was as follows: Lord Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who has advented Himself to establish religious principles. Why then did He mix with others' wives in the dead of night and enjoy dancing, embracing, and kissing? According to Vedic injunctions this is not allowed. Also, when the gopīs first came to Him, He gave instructions for them to return to their homes. To call the wives of other persons or young girls and enjoy dancing with them is certainly abominable according to the Vedas. And why should Kṛṣṇa have done this? Another word used here is āptakāma. Some may take it for granted that Kṛṣṇa was very lusty amongst young girls, but Parīkṣit Mahārāja said that this was not possible. He could not be lusty. First of all, from the material calculation He was only eight years old. At that age a boy cannot be lusty. Aptakāma means that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is self-satisfied. Even if He were lusty, He does not need to take help from others to satisfy His lusty desires. The next point is that although not lusty Himself, He might have been induced by the lusty desires of the gopīs. But Mahārāja Parīkṣit then used another word, yadupati, which indicates that Kṛṣṇa is the most exalted personality in the dynasty of the Yadus. The kings in the dynasty of Yadu were considered to be the most pious, and their descendants were also like that."

Prabhupāda: This is described in the śāstra. If one hears of the Yadu-vaṁśa, he becomes purified. And Kṛṣṇa is addressed, Yadupati. Then?

Page Title:Helping others (Conversations)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, RupaManjari
Created:20 of Nov, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=17, Let=0
No. of Quotes:17