Prabhupāda: Cornmeal, yes. And he was very stout and strong. He was deriving all the vitamins. Because he was poor man, he could not eat any butter or milk or any other things, meat also no, nothing of the sort. He was simply eating . . . he was drawing, at that time, only twenty-two rupees from me. Twenty-two rupees means . . . according to your American exchange, is comes to five dollars—five dollars a month, his income. And what he could spend? So he was taking the cheap food. But he was very strong and stout.
The whole idea is that these grains, these grains are meant for human being. Coarse grain or fine grain, there are so many varieties of grain, varieties of rice, varieties of dāl, according . . . now, the fine rice, the basmati rice . . . the laborer class—in India, of course, we have got this distinction—they are not satisfied for, with this white rice. They want coarse grain for satisfaction. While gentleman class, they cannot eat coarse grain. They want finer grain. So all these varieties of grains and vegetables and everything is there by nature's arrangement, by God's arrangement.
Here it is said, annād bhavanti bhūtāni. Now, your body depends on the foodstuff supplied by nature. Annād bhavanti bhūtāni parjanyād anna-sambhavaḥ. And these grains are produced by rains, parjanya. Parjanya means regular rainfall from the sky by the arrangement of God. It is not your arrangement. Rainfall is not your arrangement. It is supernatural arrangement. If there is regular rainfall, then it can produce all the necessities of our life.
I think, Carl, you were reading from the Bhagavad-gītā about Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira's reign, during his kingdom how rainfall was regular, and the necessities of human being were being produced. So here is the same thing. Annād. Anna, the grains . . . grains are our life's subsistence, human being. Annād bhavanti bhūtāni. And grains are produced by regular rainfall. Parjanyād anna-sambhavaḥ. Parjanya means rainfall. And yajñād bhavati parjanyaḥ: "And rainfall is produced when you offer yajña, sacrifice, to the Lord."
Regular rainfall will be possible when people are engaged in the yajña. Otherwise, nature will control rainfall. For want of rain, all your arrangement—mechanical arrangement, tractors and all these things—will all fail if there is rainfall . . . if there is no rainfall. So control of the rainfall is not in your hand; it is in supernatural power. So here it is said that rainfall is made possible by offering yajña, by sacrifice. Parjanyāt . . . or yajñād bhavati parjanyo yajñaḥ karma-samudbhavaḥ: "And yajña is prescribed according to the Vedic rituals."
Now, just see the link. Living entities, they can develop by eating grains. Grains are produced by rainfall. Rainfall is made possible by offering sacrifice. And the process of sacrifice is given in authoritative scriptures like Bhagavad-gītā, Bhāgavata and Vedic literature, what is the process. So because the beginning is from the Brahman—Brahman means Veda, transcendental sound—therefore, if we work according to the direction of this Bhagavad-gītā or Veda, then the whole thing becomes, I mean to . . . spiritualized. Whole thing becomes spiritualized. Because . . . karma-yajña . . . yajñaḥ karma-samudbhavaḥ. Karma.
And if your karma is regulated by the direction of Kṛṣṇa, just like Arjuna regulated his karma, his warfare, by the direction of Kṛṣṇa, then by regulation of karma you perform yajña, sacrifice, and from, for your performance of yajña, sacrifice, there is regulative rainfall, and from regulative rainfall there is sufficient production of grains and foodstuff, and from your sufficient foodstuff you can grow yourself, body, maintain your body very nicely. The whole program is like that. Annād bhavanti.