Plants (Conversations 1968 - 1973)

Expressions researched:
"plant" |"planted" |"planter" |"planting" |"plants"

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1971, Delhi:

Śyāmasundara: I read an article once that said...

Prabhupāda: No, no, the thing is that one has to eat. And whatever you eat that is coming out of some living entity, even if you eat vegetables. The vegetable has also life, the tree, the plant. So, the real explanation is that you take which is offered to Kṛṣṇa. That is nice philosophy. Killing you have to do, either you kill vegetable or animal, killing you have to do. Therefore our proposition is that you take the prasādam of Kṛṣṇa, so if killing is bad then the responsibility goes to Kṛṣṇa. We take Kṛṣṇa's prasādam. This is the method. And Bhagavad-gītā says, yajña-śiṣṭāśinaḥ mucyante sarva kilbiṣaiḥ. Suppose you don't kill animal, but you kill vegetables, but still you are responsible. Bhuñjate te tv aghaṁ pāpā ye pacanty ātma-kāraṇāt (BG 3.13). Anyone who is preparing food for his personal eating, he's eating all sinful activities. It may be vegetables or animals, it doesn't matter. Bhuñjate te tv aghaṁ pāpā. So this is the best formula. But therefore, for crude people, those who are accustomed to killing, for them this is best advice, "Thou shalt not kill". Next stage-prasādam. First of all let them stop. Generally, what is meant by killing... Actually vegetarians, they do not kill, because if you take fruit from the tree, the tree is not killed. Is it not?

Devotee: Yes.

Prabhupāda: You take grains, just like paddy or wheat. These plants, after producing the fruit, the grain, automatically they die. You are not killing. So, those who are taking fruits, vegetable, grains, they are not actually killing. You take the milk... What is milk? Milk is transformation of the blood. So, cow's milk means cow's blood, but still the cow is not killed. Cow's blood is nutritious, accepting this theory. Karnish (?), karnish it is called? Cow's blood? What is the meaning of karnish (?)? But by nature's way she is delivering you the blood which is nutritious—according to your science—but why you should kill her? So any circumstances, the direct killing is not approved by any śāstra, any religion. Jīva hiṁsā. Caitanya Mahāprabhu also says, niṣiddhācāra jīva-hiṁsā. So, jiva hiṁsā, violence upon other animals, that is against Vaiṣṇava principle. You cannot be violent, you cannot kill.

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1971, Delhi:

Devotee (1): And he also said, "I've not come to change the law." He did not come to change the law.

Devotee: That's just their standpoint. (indistinct) I don't mean to argue.

Śyāmasundara: The knowledge that we have of Jesus was not direct, but it was written down up to a 100 or 200 years later in another language called Aramaic, and scholars recently have discovered that wherever Jesus refers to fish, distributing fish, that that word actually refers to a type of sea plant that grows in the Sea of Galilee which they make a type of bread out of. And it's not really fish but a type of vegetarian bread. This is what I read in an article. So, we don't have... (laughter)

Devotee (7) (lady): Śrīla Prabhupāda, there was a fish on Laksmi's hand yesterday. The Deity in the temple, where Laksmi had her hand up like this, there was a fish here across her hand. What is this?

Prabhupāda: That is a mark, mark.

Devotee (7): Its not a fish.

Prabhupāda: Not actual fish.

Devotee (7): (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Not that Lakṣmījī eats fish. (laughter) There are many other marks also.

Devotee (7): So, it's an auspicious mark. Would it be better if we gave up the eating of vegetables then?

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1971, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Yes, there is jīva also. I say that even vegetable you are killing, but that killing responsibility goes to Kṛṣṇa. We are killing for Kṛṣṇa. Suppose in the vegetable there is life, but we are preparing food for Kṛṣṇa.

Nara-Nārāyaṇa: I think she wants to know what happens to the soul. Supposing that a plant, we are killing the plant and offering in prasādam to Kṛṣṇa. The jīva soul who is living in the plant, what happens to him?

Prabhupāda: Because he is killed for Kṛṣṇa's purpose so he gets immediately liberation.

Devotee (lady): This is a very sinful life they're living unless we offer everything to Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Not anything. Kṛṣṇa, whatever says (indistinct). Kṛṣṇa says, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyam (BG 9.26). You can offer these things which is asked by Kṛṣṇa.

Devotee: Do they just get liberation or do they go directly to Kṛṣṇa?

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Devotee: They go to Kṛṣṇa or do they only get liberation? Do they go to Goloka Vṛndāvana?

Devotee: What kind of liberation?

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- April 1, 1972, Sydney:

Prabhupāda: Then there is plan. As soon as you say that more trees can grow, that means there is plan. You cannot say chance.

Śyāmasundara: Nature can't be chance. If so many plants...

Prabhupāda: That plan is Kṛṣṇa's. That is said in the Bhagavad-gītā, mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram: (BG 9.10) "Under My plan, under My superintendence, the nature is working. The changes of the world is going on for that reason." Hetunānena kaunteya jagad viparivartate: "All these changes are taking place on account of My supervision." So there is no question of chance. It is all planned, planned by the Supreme, daiva netreṇa, by superior arrangement.

Śyāmasundara: Doesn't necessity mean plan?

Prabhupāda: Necessity means for a foolish person like me, I want something. That is my necessity and God supplies me. "Man proposes, God disposes." And that reception, or that, my achievement, being without explained by me, I take it as a chance. Because I cannot explain it, therefore I take... Just like the same example: the flower is fructifying. We are saying because we do not see how the working is going on.

Śyāmasundara: Like you defined miracle like that before once.

Room Conversation -- April 1, 1972, Sydney:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Governing all human action. God knows how many necessities you can create. And for all of them the supply is there. But you do not know, you take it as chance it has come. It is your foolishness that whatever necessities may be... God knows that so many necessities can be. It may be millions types. And for all of them there is immediately supply. So this rascal does not know that it is already planned. (break) The proprietor is living there. The servants are living there. The cats and dogs are also living there. The trees and plants are also living there, and insects and microbes and snakes and rats. So many living entities in the same building. Why they are different? What is the answer? They have been given the same chance of living in the same house, born in the same house. As the proprietor's son is born in the same house, these also, they are also taking birth the same place. Why they are denied the same advantage? And if they are denied, who has denied it? What is the answer to this question? They are all living entities.

Bhūrijana: The difference is that the human living entities have higher intelligence because of their body.

Prabhupāda: That is the question, that "Who has given you high intelligence and not to the rats and cats?"

Pradyumna: You said in one place, "Man is the architect of his own happiness and distress."

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. That is an axiomatic truth even by the modern man. Yes, that "Man is the architect of his own fortune." So as soon as there is work to make your fortune, then there must be a person to decide to give you a fortunate position. Just like in an establishment, so many men are working, but there is a president. He is considering the work file, "How this man has worked?" And he is being promoted, his salary is being increased, and somebody is degraded, no promotion, rather, transferred in some other place. So natural conclusion is when there are so many varieties of life in our presence and they are, although in the same place, they haven't got the same facility, so there must be somebody who decides on this point. So how you can deny God? Our point is the Supreme Person, the president, who decides on this fact, He is God. What is the opposite answer?

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1972, Mexico:

Prabhupāda: Nine hundred thousand, exact number. (aside:) Bring that socket.

Devotee: Oh, this? (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Jalajā nava-lakṣāni sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati. And 2,000,000 of leaves and plants, botany, botanical. Jalajā nava-lakṣāni sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati, kṛmayo rudra-saṅkhyakāḥ. Insects, there are 1,100,000 forms. (Sanskrit) Then (Sanskrit). From insect, they become flies and birds. (Sanskrit) One million. Then from birds, the beasts come, four-legged. (Sanskrit). Three million species of beasts. Then from beasts, the human form comes—either from monkey or from lion or from cows. Out of these three, sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa, tamo-guṇa. Those who are coming through rajo-guṇa, their last birth before human form of birth is lion. And those who are coming in the form ignorance, Darwin's father-in-law, (laughs) monkey, and ignorance. And those who are coming in goodness, their last form of birth is cow. So this is our scientific information from the Vedas. We haven't got to make research. Everything is there. That is Vedic knowledge. They have got already everything written there. The astronomy, everything is written there; simply you have to calculate. Astrology, we say simply mathematical calculation. If the moon is in this position and the other stars is in this position, the effect will be like this and the result will be like this. Like that.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1972, Mexico:

Prabhupāda: Similarly, this Darwin's theory is there in two lines. (Sanskrit) Asati, asati means eighty. Catura means four, eighty and four lakṣāṇi, lakhs, 400,000. Eighty-four hundred thousand, that means eighty million, four hundred thousand. (Sanskrit) Jīva means living entity; jāti means species. Jīva-jātiṣu, brahmadbhiḥ. The living entity is wandering or transmigrating from aquatics to trees, plants, then insect, then birds, then beasts. In this way the last is human form of life. Brahmadbhiḥ, brahmadbhiḥ, wandering. (Sanskrit), last he is getting (Sanskrit), by the evolution of birth. Now this form is for understanding Govinda, God. The other forms, they cannot. So if in this form the living entity does not contact Govinda... Contacting Govinda means surrendering unto Govinda. As Kṛṣṇa says, "Surrender unto Me." Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān māṁ prapadyate (BG 7.19). So after many, many, many millions of births, when one is actually in full knowledge, he surrenders to Kṛṣṇa. That is perfection. Then he goes back to home, back to Godhead. That is our program, Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Martin: So there's something higher than human form?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Demigods. (Sanskrit) Generally three divisions: demigods, human beings and other than human beings.

Martin: Primitive cavemen?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Martin: Primitive cavemen?

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1972, Mexico:

Prabhupāda: That means perfect knowledge. Ah, I am seeing that this rose flower is growing, but I do not know how it is growing. If I know perfectly how it is growing, that is science. We know that, how it is growing. Bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ (BG 7.10). The seed of this rose tree is Kṛṣṇa. All kinds of seeds are Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, from one seed you find a tree is growing from which a perfect rose of yellow color is coming. And another tree, a perfect rose of red color is coming or variety of color is coming. The seed is different. Otherwise the earth is the one, the water is the one, but because the seed is different, therefore different plants are coming and different results are coming. But the seeds are Kṛṣṇa. This is our observation. You cannot create the seed. You cannot create in your laboratory the seed of... What is that tree?

Devotee: Banyan? Banyan tree?

Prabhupāda: Banyan tree. There is small seed, very small. It contains the potency of a big banyan tree. You cannot create such seed. You create something, just like you are creating vitamin tablets. You are proposing that "No more eating required. You simply take some vitamin tablet." Is it not? Similarly, you create some tablet and sow it in the earth and big banyan tree comes. Then I will accept you. (laughter)

Martin: You, you say that... (break) ...who created this knowledge that this flower and the banyan tree is Kṛṣṇa. What place in the divine scheme do such great names as Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad have?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Buddha, we accept him as incarnation, as expansion of Kṛṣṇa. He's Kṛṣṇa working as Buddha, Lord Buddha. Keśava dhṛta buddha śarīra. He has accepted body of Buddha. That is our conception of Lord Buddha.

Martin: And Jesus Christ and Muhammad?

Room Conversation -- June 14, 1972, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: But a child or dog enters, that is not trespassing. A child or dog or cat, they enter without any permission. Therefore this animal kingdom and the human being, there is difference. By the evolutionary process we come to the human form of life. When we were animals... We were animals also. We are passing through 8,400,000 forms of life—from aquatic to plants, trees, then insect, then flies, then birds, then beasts, then uncivilized human beings, jungle, then come to this Aryan form, civilized form of human being. So it is obtained after many, many transmigrations. And if we do not understand the responsibility... Just like in an establishment one man is promoted. His first charge is doorkeeper, then he is gradually he is given promotion; he may come to the post of the manager. Just like in bank, it so happens. They must go through all the different stages of service. So when he becomes manager, if he does not know the responsibility, again he comes to the lowest position. Again he has to strive for the top. So if we forget our responsibility and become like cats and dogs, then we are going back again to take the forms of cats and dogs. This is a great science. Nobody is very serious to understand this science, but the science is there. We are, our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is to educate people about this science. They're neglecting this science. That means they are violating the prerogative of the chance, the facility of human being. After all, you have to die; you cannot check it. But if you die like the cats and dogs, then our life is spoiled, and if you die like a human being, then our life is perfect. Everyone will die, but one who dies like a human being for understanding what is God, what is my relationship with Him, and acting in relationship with God, then our life is perfect. So you like this philosophy or not?

Room Conversation -- July 4, 1972, New York:

Prabhupāda: Yes. When you preach, you can say all these things with so-called Christians. So what you are doing for God? Tejīyasāṁ na doṣāya (SB 10.33.29). Just like sun. The sun is absorbing urine. Can you drink urine? If you want to imitate sun, "Oh, here is sun absorbing urine. Let me drink urine," can you? Tejīyasāṁ na doṣāya. He is powerful. He can do everything. Therefore we cannot imitate Him. We have to simply abide by His order. That is real Christian. You cannot imitate powerful man. That is wrong. Just like in our Vedic literature there was a poison ocean. So what.... People became puzzled what to do with this—this demigod. Then Lord Śiva said, "All right. I'll drink it." So he drank the whole poison ocean and kept it in his throat, nīlakaṇṭha. Now, you drink poison? Not the ocean. You drink one cup. So how you can imitate Lord Śiva? Lord Śiva never advised that we drink poison. So you have to abide by the advice, not by imitating, "Oh, Lord Śiva..." Just like this LSD and marijuana, they say sometimes, "Lord Śiva used to smoke gāñjā." They say like that. But Lord Śiva drank the whole poison ocean. Can you do that? Lord Śiva's instruction should be taken. He says, "The best worship is to worship Viṣṇu," viṣṇu ārādhanaṁ param. When Śiva was asked by Pārvatī that "What method of worship is first-class?" Then he said, "The first-class worship is worshiping Lord Viṣṇu." Viṣṇu ārādhanaṁ param. Tasmāt parataraṁ devi tadīyānām ārādhanam. He said the Viṣṇu worship is the best. There are many demigods, but he recommended, "Viṣṇu worship is the best." And the better than Viṣṇu worship is to worship Vaiṣṇava. Tadīyānām ārādhanam. Tadīyā means His servant, or one who is, or what is in relationship with Him. Just like we are worshiping this plant, Tulasī. We are not worshiping all plants, but because this Tulasī has very intimate connection with Kṛṣṇa and Viṣṇu, therefore we are worshiping. Tadīyānām ārādhanam. Similarly, anything who is intimately related with Kṛṣṇa, worship of that thing is better than worship of Viṣṇu, Kṛṣṇa.

Room Conversation -- July 4, 1972, New York:

Prabhupāda: No.

Devotee (4): Eat? No, shouldn't send.

Prabhupāda: He's not a devotee. He'll "Oh, what is this?" Throw away.

Devotee (4): Hm.

Prabhupāda: Just like the tulasī plant is here, somebody will think that it is decoration. We put it here, devotion, but those who are not interested to speak them about Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we offense. One of the ten offenses.

Devotee (4): Yeah. I was wondering about that. I didn't know whether to do it or not.

Prabhupāda: They should be asked ordinary question: What is the life? What is the aim of life?

Devotee (4): Hm.

Prabhupāda: What is consciousness? Philosophy, which is understandable by everyone (indistinct).

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Would you like something Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Yes, I want to (indistinct) my head.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Where is Śyāmasundara.

Interview -- July 5, 1972, New York:

Prabhupāda: So if it is accepted that religion means the law of God... Is that accepted? Now we have to study what are the special laws of God and what is the nature of God. That is divine search. So from Bhagavad-gītā we understand the nature of God, that he is the supreme father. Is there any objection? God is the supreme father. I think in Christian religion also they accept. Is it not? Now, the supreme father says that all living entities, not only these human being or the civilized human being but even the animals, the trees, plants, the insects, birds, beasts, fishes or other aquatics—any living entity, even a small insect. Living entity means who has got that vital force of moving. Some of them are not moving also, just like trees. They do not move, but still they are living entity. So from Bhagavad-gītā we understand that all living entities, irrespective of bodily feature, they are sons of God. What do you think of this conception?

Guest (1): I think it's probably... I think it's probably a better and more universal...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest (1): ...notion of life than..., than you have in the somewhat more man-centered Western philosophy of...

Prabhupāda: That is defective.

Guest (1): The problem, of course, is that you don't want man to somehow get lost in it all, but still I, yeah, where I am, I think that you would say..., to agree with what you say...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest (1): ...the universalism of it's very appealing.

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

Prabhupāda: Just like this child, this is a dress. Now, after some days this dress will be changed to another dress. After some time another dress, another dress. This body is dress, we should understand, but the person who is putting on the dress... Just like I remember my childhood state, dress and condition, my youthful condition. So many things I remember. So although the body has changed—either you say it has grown or changed—I am the same. Therefore conclusion should be that after giving up this dress, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), I must have another body. This is the proof of immortality of the soul and transmigration from one body to another. Now, there are 8,400,000's of different dresses. There are 900,000 dresses within the water, then plants and trees, then insects, then birds. This is evolution of different dresses. The spirit soul is passing through different dresses.

Ambassador Keating: Both the human and the animals?

Prabhupāda: Just so. Spirit soul individual. He is passing through the evolutionary process. Evolutionary process means as he is desiring, nature is supplying a particular type of body.

Mrs. Keating: That's very interesting. I believe in the transmigration of the soul.

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is a fact.

Mrs. Keating: It's very interesting.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Indonesian Scholar -- February 27, 1973, Jakarta:

Prabhupāda: Now, what kind of body you are going to accept? There are 8,400,000 varieties of bodies. Is it not? Do you know that?

Scholar: No, we don't know that. (indistinct) varieties of bodies.

Prabhupāda: There are forms of body in the water, in the land, so many trees, plants and there are so many insects, reptiles. Then birds, then there are beasts, then there are human being. So there are 8,400,000 forms of body. Here it is indicated that after giving up this body, the soul is going to accept another body. Now the human civilization, is it not duty of the human society to know what kind of body I am going to accept?

Scholar: No, I think it's up to God and karma-kāṇḍa.

Prabhupāda: So then they must know what is karma-phala. This is a fact. Karmaṇā daiva netreṇa (SB 3.31.1). But they are..., do not know how to execute karma. They're doing all kinds of sinful activities. So, suppose after this body, on account of my sinful activities, I am going to become a rat or cat or snake or a tree, then what is the use of my so much, how you'd say, jumping over nationalism and this ism and that. If by nature I am going to accept next life the body of a cat and dog, or a tree, then what is the meaning of my, this so-called nationality at the present moment? Is it not the duty of the guardians who are taking care of the people or their son, to educate human being in such a way that they can get better body? What is that education? You are darkness, nobody knows what kind of body he's going to accept next life.

Scholar: At least we can start from living moral life.

Morning Walk -- April 19, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: These are some small earth, mound of earth taken out from the inside to make room for oxygen for the plants to breath.

Prabhupāda: No, no. These are stools.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, these are not stools, Śrīla Prabhupāda. There's a machine. They go around like this. And that makes a little earth taken out.

Prabhupāda: Ahhh.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They say they'll be doing in the future.

Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. Future, that is not science. Trust no future, however pleasant. This is the word. What is this? Everyone will say future. Trust no future, however pleasant. You may think it is very pleasurable. Why future? If you say that the biology, chemistry is the beginning of this life, so you are now so much advanced. Why don't you create? Then what is the meaning of your advancement? You're talking nonsense.

Karandhara: They always say they're right on the verge.

Morning Walk -- April 19, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: So they are all thieves.

Karandhara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So how we, a sane man can trust a thief? A sane man cannot trust a thief. There are so many things. They could not produce even a grass, even a small plant in the biology, chemistry laboratory, and still they're claiming it is product of biology, chemistry. What is this nonsenses. What kind of scientists there are?

Locana: We couldn't even choose when we were born.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Locana: We couldn't even choose being born here.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Locana: So where is the question of control?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is why, in the ultimate analysis, the geologists, mostly when they trace the origin of life, they say everything started from matter. Living matters came out from non-living matters.

Prabhupāda: Where it is coming now? It came in the past and not in the now, and not at present? Wherefrom an ant is coming from this dust. Is there any proof? Even an ant does not come.

Morning Walk -- April 19, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: That means that individual person has left. That is the proof, that is the proof of individual soul. Just like there are so many plants of the same species. One is dead. That individual plant is dead, but other species are living. It is not extinct. How can you say the species is extinct? How you can say? Darwin's forefather might be extinct. But the monkeys are there. What is the time?

Brahmānanda: Six-thirty.

Karandhara: Six thirty-five.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. We can walk little more.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But in the same living body, Śrīla Prabhupāda, there are innumerable small living entities. Like the cells themselves. They are living also.

Prabhupāda: Yes. In my body, there are millions of living entities. In my intestines, there are so many worms. If they, if they become stronger, then whatever you eat, they eat it. You don't take any benefit out of it. Therefore those who are full with these hookworms, they eat very much, but they do not grow. They become lean and thin. But they are very much hungry because these living entities are eating, and he's feeling hungry. And he's eating, but he cannot take any benefit out of it. He's lean and thin. So already there are thousands and millions of living entities in my body. But they are individual, I am individual. I may be proprietor of this garden, but there are many millions of living entities living in this garden. Similarly I may be proprietor of this body, but many millions of living entities are living in my body. I know that. Otherwise, how hookworms coming out of my intestines? So you cannot say that the chemical is lacking. Chemical is not lacking.

Morning Walk -- April 26, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: They were still alive...

Devotee: ...in a human form.

Prabhupāda: Yes, for Kṛṣṇa, there is no such consideration, human form or plant form or... Everyone is part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Why you are anxious to know about the human form? Why? Eh? What is your answer? Question: Tulasī devī should be in human form. Why you are asking this question?

Devotee: I was wondering is she was alive in human form while Kṛṣṇa was on earth.

Prabhupāda: No, no. She may not be. But where is the wrong if she's not in human form? Eh? Everyone is alive, plants, beasts, everyone is alive. Why you are so much anxious for the human form of life?

Devotee: It wouldn't matter.

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa can talk with animals, with trees, with plants. That is Kṛṣṇa. Do you think that "I cannot talk with plants, therefore the plant should be in human form?" That is your conception. If I can talk with everyone, then where is the difference for me, a human being, or an insect or plant? So there is no such question that everyone should be in human form. Then one can talk with Kṛṣṇa and enjoy. No. (pause)

Devotees: All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda. (end)

Morning Walk -- April 28, 1973, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: There is a very scientific journal called Nature, the title of the journal is called Nature. What they do is... Mostly they talk about the natural products like the plants, flowers, the natural living matters that we find. But they do not talk about God.

Prabhupāda: So they...

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But they say about nature.

Prabhupāda: Nature, that's all right. You are observing the plants are being produced by nature. But who has produced the nature? This is intelligence.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They don't think about this.

Prabhupāda: That is foolishness. Wherefrom the nature comes? As soon as we speak nature, then next question should be: "Whose nature?" Is it not? Just like I say: "It is my nature." You say: "It is my nature." Therefore as soon as you talk of nature, the next inquiry should be: "Whose nature?"

Karandhara: They don't want to think of that because they want to use it themselves.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Morning Walk -- May 4, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Just see. (pause)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, the material world is a reflection of the spiritual world. So we have different variegatedness in the material world, different living entities, plants, animals.

Prabhupāda: Without the inconvenience. Mean, in the material world there are so many inconveniences. So spiritual world, there is no inconvenience. Inebriety. It is a reflection of the spiritual world, but there are so many difficulties here. Therefore it is called material world.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, my question being, so they have all the variegatedness in the spiritual world?

Prabhupāda: Yes there are trees, there are water, birds, beasts, but they are all spiritual. Just like here everything is material. Here water is working according to the material laws. In the spiritual world if I say, "Please come here," he will come here. That is spiritual world.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So the difference is that the spiritual...

Prabhupāda: Everything spiritual... As here everything is material, there everything is spiritual. Now try to understand what is matter, what is spirit. Spirit, as I was explaining yesterday, the spirit is the conductor, operator, of the aeroplane. So matter is working under the guidance of spirit. So there everything being spirit, there is no necessity of another spiritual guidance.

Morning Walk -- May 4, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes, exactly like Nārāyaṇa. Their bodily features... Just like here, you cannot distinguish by the bodily feature who is President Nixon, who is a common man. You cannot distinguish by the bodily feature. Similarly, there also, you cannot distinguish who is a common man and who is Personality of Godhead. They are like that.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But still, there are plants and all the living entities in the Vaikuṇṭha...

Prabhupāda: They know. Because they have full knowledge, "He knows here is God. Although he is four-handed, I am four-handed, but here is God." Because there is full knowledge. That is the difference. Here we are selecting some rascal as God, because we have no full knowledge. There, in the Vaikuṇṭha planets, although the common citizens and God is of the same feature of the bodily, but they know, "Here is God, the Supreme." He has got special signs in the... Yes, that's all. Just like the king or the president, we may make mistake. We may accept somebody as "Here is president." No. But the associates of the president, he knows. They know that "Here is president." Similarly, there is no question of mistake there. Four kinds of defects of material life—to commit mistake, to become illusioned, to cheat, and imperfection of the senses—these things are not there. Everyone's senses are perfect. When he sees God, he sees perfectly. He does not mistake. He is not illusioned. And there is no cheating and there is no imperfection of the senses. There is no mistake. These are spiritual life.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So all the living entities are completely satisfied.

Morning Walk -- May 12, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes. He knows. Just like government constructs a prison house. Government knows there will be rascals, criminals. So already is there prison. Before the judgement the prison house is already there. Sarva-jña. God is sarva-jña. He knows everything. So He knows that some of them will come out criminal. Just like king knows that not that always everyone will be honest. There will be dishonest. So construct this prisonhouse. Like that. God knows, Kṛṣṇa knows that this material world, the varieties of desires according to the modes of material nature... So there are three modes of... You can calculate also. Just like there are three modes of material nature, sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa, tamo-guṇa. Now if you make variety, three into three, it becomes nine. And nine into nine, it becomes eighty-one. So there is eighty-four. What is the difficulty to understand? These three qualities, just like three colors, blue, red and yellow, you mix. Oh, thousands of different colors you will find. It is the expert color combination. That's all. Similarly this material world is made of three qualities and if you make varieties, mix them again eighty-one to eighty-one you can mix. So it requires expert handling. So that expert handling is there. Nature is there. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi (BG 3.27). Guṇaiḥ. This very word is used, guṇaiḥ. By the qualities, prakṛti is manufacturing different types of body, varieties of body: plants, trees, aquatics, human beings, demigods, cats, dogs, so many things, 8,400,000.

Morning Walk At Cheviot Hills Golf Course -- May 15, 1973, Los Angeles:

Kṛṣṇa-kāntī: Well the real in his book (tape distortions)

Prabhupāda: Jīvo jīvasya jīvanam.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: One life is the food of another.

Prabhupāda: Another. That is not the question. That is also science. And this is also science that every living entity has got... (distortions) You eat. That I have already said, but why do you say something which is not fact?

Devotee: They say what is the difference between an animal and a plant?

Prabhupāda: Maybe different (distortion) difference between you and me. That difference you'll find amongst ourselves. We are all different. But that does not mean I have no soul. Any one of us has soul. (distortions till end of tape)

Room Conversation with Krishna Tiwari -- May 22, 1973, New York:

Prabhupāda: How it comes?

Krishna Tiwari: I think everyone understands that neither the reaction goes this way or that way. Things do not happen. And there's not one thing which controls it. There are millions of, you know, variables in it. There are lots of variables.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Going back to your example about rats...

Krishna Tiwari: Uh huh.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: ...if I give you... You say you are creating rats. I give you this plant, can you create a rat from it?

Krishna Tiwari: No. That is transformation of matter.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Well, that's, that's what creation means. If I give you nothing, can you create rat from it?

Krishna Tiwari: No.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: So all you're doing is playing with established laws of nature...

Krishna Tiwari: Right.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: ...to create rats.

Krishna Tiwari: Right.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: So you're not creating anything.

Krishna Tiwari: No. Not..., I'm not..., I'm perpetuating it.

Room Conversation with Indian Guests -- July 11, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Therefore it is called bhava-saṁsāra, repeatedly taking birth and death in different species of life, different planets and different forms, 8,400,000 species, varieties. So Caitanya Mahāprabhu says ei rūpe brahmāṇḍa bhramite kona bhāgyavān jīva (CC Madhya 19.151), we living entities, we are wandering in this way, changing different bodies, different situations, different position and in this way wandering up and down, brahmāṇḍa bhramite, within this universe. Sometimes in the upper, heavenly planet, sometimes down in the hellish planet. Sometimes as human being, sometimes as cat, dog. Sometimes brāhmaṇa, sometimes śūdra, like that. Caitanya Mahāprabhu says that the living entities are wandering like this. Ei rūpe brahmāṇḍa bhramite. Bhramite means wandering. Kona bhāgyavān jīva. One fortunate person, guru-kṛṣṇa-kṛpāya pāya bhakti-latā-bīja (CC Madhya 19.151), by the grace of guru and by the grace of Kṛṣṇa, one gets the seed of devotional service. Mālī hañā kare sei bīja āropaṇa (CC Madhya 19.152). And when you get a nice seed of plant, you sew it. So that seed has to be sewn within the heart. Mālī hañā kare sei bīja āropaṇa, śravaṇa-kīrtana-jale karaye secana. So if we sew the seed within the heart and water it... And the watering required. The watering is this śravaṇa-kīrtana. Śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ (SB 7.5.23). Then it grows. And in due course of time, it gives you the fruit, which is love of Godhead. Then your life is successful. This is the process. So we have to try to sew the seed of devotional service within our heart, and it has to be watered by hearing and chanting. Then gradually it will grow. This is the process. And this is open for everyone. There is no restriction.

Guest (1): And no price.

Prabhupāda: And no price also. (Hindi) Eh?

Guest (6): This morning we didn't want to disturb you to have a darśana.

Room Conversation with Two Buddhist Monks -- July 12, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: No, if you give them nice food, they'll never attack you.

Haṁsadūta: In the Bible also, in the very beginning page, there's a verse. After God created everything, the animals and the trees and everything, then He gave allotment of food to the human society. It says very plainly that "The seed-bearing plants and trees of the earth shall be your meat, or shall be your food."

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Haṁsadūta: And it says nothing...

Prabhupāda: Vegetables.

Haṁsadūta: It says nothing about... Yes.

Buddhist Monk (1): Yes, but later it goes to add something that "Meat is meat unto you." Yeah. There your difficulty comes in. Well, Isaiaḥ in the Bible, one of five prophets in the Bible, he says: "Peace will come on earth when even the feroci..." (break) May you have long, healthy life.

Prabhupāda: What is your age?

Buddhist Monk (1): I am fifty-nine years.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Room Conversation with Mister Popworth and E. F. Schumacher -- July 26, 1973, London:

Popworth: I'm sorry. Distinction between what?

Revatīnandana: The distinction between killing a cow and cutting off a cauliflower from a plant. He said, "Both are alive." Yes, both are alive. But what is the psychological state of a cow, and what is the psychological state of a cauliflower plant? Practically speaking, he has no psychology. No senses, no mind, no ability to feel elation or suffering. But a cow is a completely different condition. Cow is very nearly to human consciousness. Practically the next birth after a cow, according to the Vedas, is a human birth. So you're putting so much suffering unnecessarily. But he had no sense, not... An intelligent man who can sense that "If I suffer, I don't like it," then when he sees another living entity put into suffering, he thinks, "How I could avoid that suffering for that living entity, because I don't like to suffer." But this gentleman had no conception. He's...

Prabhupāda: There is one moral instruction by Cāṇakya Paṇḍita. Cāṇakya Paṇḍita was a great minister during the time of Mahārāja Candragupta. So he was honorary Prime Minister in the empire. So he has a book of moral instruction. So he says in that moral instruction, who is a learned man. So he gives the description of a learned man, that: mātṛvat para-dāreṣu. Mātṛvat. "Just treat all other women except your wife as your mother." Mātṛvat para-dāreṣu, para-dravyeṣu loṣṭravat. Loṣṭa means as there are so many pebbles lying on the street, you don't care for it, similarly, others' property, others' money you should treat just like these pebbles lying on the street or the garbage lying on the street. Don't touch it. So mātṛvat para-dāreṣu para-dravyeṣu loṣṭravat, ātmavat sarva-bhūteṣu. And treat all living entities as you want to be treated. If one has got these three qualifications, he is learned man. He does not say, one who has got this BAC, DAC degrees, and so on, so on, so on. No. The result of his education is to be seen by three manifestations: treating all women as mother; treating others' money, property, as garbage, as rubbish in the street; and treating all living entities as you want to be treated yourself. If one has attained these three development of knowledge, he is learned. There is no question of literary education. Mātṛvat para-dāreṣu para-dravyeṣu loṣṭravat. So if we covet other's wife, if we eat meat, if we indulge in intoxication, if we indulge in gambling, we are polluting the whole society. So how we can expect purification unless we accept these principles? You cannot ignite fire, at the same time pour water on it. Similarly, if you want to purify the whole society, the first principle should be like this, as Cāṇakya Paṇḍita says,

Room Conversation with Cardinal Danielou -- August 9, 1973, Paris:

Cardinal Danielou: Yes, I understand, very well I understand some...

Prabhupāda: The king, this creation, God created this material world. What is the purpose? What is the purpose of creation? There must be some plan. When you manufacture something, do something, there must be plan. So what is the plan behind this cosmic manifestation?

Cardinal Danielou: Yes. What is this plant like? Yes. Yes sir. Yes.

Prabhupāda: What Christianity says about this plan?

Cardinal Danielou: Christianity thinks that creation is the work of the love of God, and the signification of creation is that God wants to partake His richness, His joy, His beauty with free spirit and the goal of the creation is essentially the realization of this communion with God, the communion with God. Alors, the visible world is without great importance. It is an appearance. But there is a reality in human person, in human personality, because human personality is, has a...

Yogeśvara: If you like I can translate. (Paraphrase)

Cardinal Danielou: Oui. You understand, you understand what I say? Or not very well? (French)

Prabhupāda: So the creation... We are, we all living entities, we are also part and parcel of God.

Yogeśvara: (Translation)

Cardinal Danielou: Oui.

Prabhupāda: Just like this finger...

Room Conversation with Cardinal Danielou -- August 9, 1973, Paris:

Cardinal Danielou: No flesh?

Prabhupāda: No. Why? Just like the fruits. The fruits are meant for human being. The tiger does not come to eat your fruits. So tiger's food is another animal. Man's food is fruit, food grains, milk products. Just like fruit...

Cardinal Danielou: Yes, yes. I understand. It is why because grain and plants are also living beings.

Prabhupāda: That's all right, that's all right.

Cardinal Danielou: Living beings.

Prabhupāda: That, that we also understand. But if, if you cannot live... Just like, generally, if I can live on fruits and grains and milk, why should I kill another animal?

Cardinal Danielou: Yes, yes...

Prabhupāda: Another thing is that how can you support that animal killing is not sin?

Yogeśvara: (translates)

Cardinal Danielou: (French)

Bhagavān: How do you justify it?

Room Conversation with Cardinal Danielou -- August 9, 1973, Paris:

Cardinal Danielou: Yes, because we, we thought that there is a difference of nature between life of man, life of spirit, and biological, biological life. And we say... (break) ...not really exists, and we think so. We think that animals, plant are not real beings, are world of appearance and that you human person only is real being. And that in this sense, the material world is without importance.

Prabhupāda: Now..., I follow. Suppose you are living in this house. So you are not this house, that's a fact.

Cardinal Danielou: Yes. Yes.

Prabhupāda: But if I come and break your house, is it not inconvenience for you?

Cardinal Danielou: Yes, surely. Surely it is inconvenient.

Prabhupāda: So if I cause inconvenience unto you, is it not criminal?

Cardinal Danielou: It is inconvenient to me, but is...

Prabhupāda: No. If I cause some inconvenience to you, is it not criminal? Is it not sinful?

Cardinal Danielou: I think if there is a serious reason, it is not the destruction of the spiritual man itself. By example, it is perfectly possible to use of the reality of the material world, of the natural world to the valuable finality of human vocation. We think that the question is a question of motivation. It could exist bad reason to kill an animal. But if the killing of animal is to give food to children, men, women, we ont faim. Qui...?

Devotee: Hungry.

Cardinal Danielou: Hungry, we are hungry, it is legitimate, legitimate... We have... It is difficult to admit that in India, comment dit-on les vaches?

Yogeśvara: The cows.

Cardinal Danielou: Oui, the cows.

Room Conversation with Cardinal Danielou -- August 9, 1973, Paris:

Prabhupāda: So this is external. But within the dress you are a human being, I am also human being. Similarly, there are eight million four hundred thousands of dresses. There are nine hundred thousand dresses within the water, aquatics.

Yogeśvara: (translates)

Prabhupāda: Similarly, two million kinds of dresses of the trees, plants, like that. In this way the Vedic literatures have calculated, there are eight million, four hundred thousand forms of living entity. But they're all living entities, part and parcel of God. Just like one man has got ten sons. Not all of them equally meritorious. Not all. One may be high-court judge. And one may be ordinary clerk in the office. But father, both the high-court judge and the clerk in the office, father claims both of them as son.

Cardinal Danielou: Yes, yes, I agree.

Prabhupāda: For father, there is no such distinction that: "This high-court judge is very important and the clerk in the office, my son, he's not important." So if the enlightened son, high-court judge, says to the father: "My dear father, your, this son, is useless. Let me cut him and eat." Will the father allow?

Yogeśvara: (asks in French if this is clear)

Cardinal Danielou: Non.

Yogeśvara: (translates)

Room Conversation with Graham Hill Former World Champion Race Car Driver -- London, August 26, 1973:

Prabhupāda: Yes, in the past. You forgot, but in the past you had life. Just like in the past I was young man. That's a fact. Similarly, but that young body is no more existing. Similarly, I had a past life but I have forgotten. That is the... Forgetfulness is our nature. Death means forgetting what was your first, past life. That is by nature you become forgetful because if you remember our past life and compare with this life... Suppose one was very rich man and if he becomes a poor, a cat and dog, then if he remembers, then it is very unbearable for him. Therefore nature helps him to forget. Forget. Otherwise he cannot do it. But the real problem is that we are eternal soul, we are changing our body one after another, birth and death. Apart from worldly happiness and distress, this birth and death, that is not very good process. At death time we have to suffer so much that we give up this body. And then again we enter into the womb of a mother. That is not very good situation. Then when come out there are so many tribulations, disease, then again old age. So people do not understand that he is passing... Especially when we are in other than human life. There are 8,400,000 species of life. Aquatics, then birds, trees, plants, insects, then beasts. In this way we come to human form of life. This is evolution. So in this human form of life there is chance of understanding the problems of life. In other forms of life it is not possible.

Graham Hill: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is consciousness. Full consciousness. But if that consciousness is developed into Kṛṣṇa consciousness then his life is success.

Graham Hill: Can we look at ourselves and say, well, this body that we inherited, the bodies that we're in now, are the results of the behavior of our souls when we were in our previous...

Room Conversation -- November 4, 1973, Delhi:

Devotee: Pārijāta.

Guest: Pārijāta.

Lady Guest: Pārijāta.

Guest: Pārijāta flower, no? We have got a plant. If you want for this you can have.

Prabhupāda: No, a Pārijāta plant is not here. It is not possible.

Guest: No.

Prabhupāda: That is heavenly.

Guest: We have got here Pārijāta.

Prabhupāda: No.

Guest: They call it Pārijāta.

Prabhupāda: They call. (laughs)

Guest: A very beautiful, fragrant flower.

Prabhupāda: Oh, that is (indistinct) (indistinct) flower.

Guest: Oh, it is nice.

Room Conversation -- November 4, 1973, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Oh, that is (indistinct) (indistinct) flower.

Guest: Oh, it is nice.

Prabhupāda: It is nice, there are many nice flowers.

Guest: You want some nice flowers. I have got a lot of plants now. (indistinct) Tell somebody to come I can give for the garden here. I have got some marigolds, I have got a few (indistinct). I think they are very nice for the pūjā. Tomorrow you can get that. (break)

Prabhupāda: So high for these poor people.

Guest: Such a vicious circle. Higher the prices, higher the wages, higher the wages, higher the prices with less production. If there are five loaves and people have 10 rupees they'll buy five loaves. And if they have 20 rupees also they'll buy five loaves because there are not 10 loaves.

Prabhupāda: No, no this high price is due to (indistinct). They are holding stock.

Guest: That is not sufficient for all these people, population.

Prabhupāda: No, if you pay them sufficient.

Guest: As it is the stock is so limited.

Lady Guest: (indistinct)

Morning Walk -- December 5, 1973, Los Angeles:

Yaśomatīnandana: Yes.

Prabhupāda: As energy, it is not different from Kṛṣṇa, as energy.

Yaśomatīnandana: Vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti (BG 7.19).

Prabhupāda: Yes. As energy, how can you differentiate from Kṛṣṇa?

Umāpati: You give the... It could be described as like the growth of a plant as compared to the energy of the sun.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Umāpati: The growth of a plant as compared to the energy of the sun.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Umāpati: The growth of the plant is the inferior energy, and the... (loud waves)

Prabhupāda: Yes, there are so many things. That is comparative study. But... (loud waves) Energy is not different from the energetic. Sunshine is not different from the sun. Idaṁ hi viśvaṁ bhagavān ivetaraḥ. Everything is Bhagavān, but it appears like different.

Yaśomatīnandana: Is that what it means by sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Yaśomatīnandana: Everything is spiritual, but when it is... due to our ignorance, we think it is material.

Prabhupāda: Yes, but don't associate with... (indistinct) ...must realize.

Morning Walk -- December 6, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes. A father-mother has dominion over the children. Does it mean that he shall kill him?

Umāpati: And eat them?

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is all rascals.

Hṛdayānanda: Then they will argue that we are, we are killing plants and grains, things like that.

Prabhupāda: We are not killing anything. We are not killing anything. We devotees, we don't kill anything. Do you know that, or not? We don't kill anything.

Hṛdayānanda: They'll say we eat vegetables, they will say.

Prabhupāda: No vegetables, we don't kill. We don't kill.

Umāpati: Well, vegetables are living entities also?

Prabhupāda: Yes, but we don't kill them. We take their fruits and flowers. That does not mean it is killed. And that also we take it for Kṛṣṇa. Patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyam (BG 9.26). So if there is any responsibility, that is Kṛṣṇa's responsibility. I am not, I am not responsible.

Hṛdayānanda: Ah, I see.

Karandhara: Fruits, vegetables and grains can be harvested without killing the plant.

Morning Walk -- December 18, 1973, Los Angeles:

Girirāja: Well, all of these different varieties of plants, animals, planetary systems, the sun rising, there has to be some controller, some brain who has made this order.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.

Devotee: They can become convinced simply by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the background. But you have to explain.

Girirāja: Their speaking power, that they are making their political speeches, that is also given by God.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Girirāja: At any moment it can be taken away. So they are under control. But they will raise the point that "We have our concept of God and you have your concept of God."

Prabhupāda: No. God cannot be "your God" or "my God." God is one. You cannot say that. Just like you cannot say in the United States that "your concept of president, my concept of president." President is one. If you manufacture your concept of president, that means you do not know what is president. President of United States, he has got a status, constitution, that "This is the president." So you must know that. You cannot say, "I have my concept of president." That you cannot say. Can you say that?