Go to Vanipedia | Go to Vanisource | Go to Vanimedia


Vaniquotes - the compiled essence of Vedic knowledge


Plants (Conversations 1974 - 1975)

Conversations and Morning Walks

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 15, 1974, Hawaii:

Bali Mardana: There are thousands of islands in the Pacific.

Prabhupāda: Just see. Let them come and live here. Produce foodstuffs, have cows, fruits, flowers, live peacefully, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa; but they won't allow. Americans, yes, they have got so much land. Īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam, tena tyaktena bhuñjīthā (ISO 1). Whatever is Kṛṣṇa's property, you can... You are Kṛṣṇa's son; you can utilize it. But one son is prohibiting, "No, no, you cannot enter here." This is the problem. The so-called nationalism is dangerous. Just see how nice flowers, fruits, plant. Everything is there, complete.

pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇam adaḥ
pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate
pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya
pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate
(Iso Invocation)

There is no question of overpopulation at all. These rascals have created like that. Hare Kṛṣṇa. They're coming from our temple?

Sudāmā: Yes. Jayaśrī is here also.

Prabhupāda: Oh. (japa) Thank you. Jayaśrī joined when I first came here?

Sudāmā: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Feeling all right? I think you joined when I first came here?

Morning Walk -- January 15, 1974, Hawaii:

Prabhupāda: Oh yes. Very nice. (japa) (break) Where? Here?

Sudāmā: Yes, they're cows, but they keep them very poorly, treat them very badly.

Prabhupāda: Why? You keep cows nicely.

Sudāmā: Yes.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Jayaśrī: On Kauai they have tulasī plants and they have a cow.

Sudāmā: There's some devotees on another island and they have tulasī plants and a cow there.

Prabhupāda: Very good. (break)

Nitāi: Morning Walk... (end)

Morning Walk -- January 18, 1974, Hawaii:

Bali-mardana: They say the water is from the ground. By the roots, it is drawn up to the dob.

Prabhupāda: I understand that. But the chemical is being supplied from the root?

Bali-mardana: Yes. Just like when there is no water they say the tree will die.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Bali-mardana: When there is no rain, the plant life cannot live. So they say that the water is drawn from the root to nourish the plant. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...water is drawn, then the question will be how the water is drawn?

Bali-mardana: Well, each tree has a system of, er, system of like tubes through which the water is drawn up.

Prabhupāda: Then as soon as there is system, system is done by somebody.

Bali-mardana: Hm.

Satsvarūpa: Nature, they say.

Bali-mardana: Nature, mother nature.

Prabhupāda: Yes, then mother nature why does not allow you to draw water from the ground? Then mother nature has got sense.

Sudāmā: Why mother nature doesn't let us draw water?

Morning Walk -- February 20, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, no. We are talking of the majority, not of the small minority.

Dr. Patel: All is, everything is made by God with intentions of fulfillment of His līlā or māyā or whatever you call it. No? And all these, all these auṣadhīs, these cārās, what do you call, the vanaspati-auṣadhīs, they have also venomous poison in them.

Prabhupāda: Oh yes. Vanauṣadhī loke jayate paramam (?).

Dr. Patel: So many, so many plants are extremely poisonous. And the poisonous plants are the plants which give the best medicine. As for example, digoxen(?), digitalis, life-saving in heart disease. If you eat a leaf, you will die.

Prabhupāda: Then, just like in your dispensary, you keep everything medicine. But it is to be given to different persons, different medicine. Not that because it is medicine you give to everyone.

Dr. Patel: No, what I mean to say is that this pān or gañjā, they might have used used by some for a good aim. But it has been misused by a majority of men.

Prabhupāda: So they are innocent people. They have imitated. Our, these so-called sādhu says that Lord Śiva used to smoke gañjā. That is their... So they have become Lord Śiva. Lord Śiva drunk the whole poison ocean and he kept it here. So you drink one drop of poison. But these rascals, they compare with Śiva, with Kṛṣṇa. "Kṛṣṇa danced with girls. Therefore we must have." These Māyāvādīs do that. I know.

Morning Walk -- March 4, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Each and every grain...

Jayapatākā: Here's our mango tree.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Viṣṇujana: Mango.

Prabhupāda: Mango tree?

Bhavānanda: Yes, we planted, uh... (end)

Morning Walk -- March 9, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: No life membership, life membership they're... Just like if somebody joins, he's more than life member. But if he does not join, then he becomes life member by paying the fees.

Guest (4): I also...

Guest (5): I want to be a member, and I wish to resign from my present service. And I wish to dedicate my whole life to...

Prabhupāda: What is your present service?

Guest (5): At present, I am serving in the steel plant, Hindustan Steel Industry.

Prabhupāda: Oh, steel plant.

Guest (5): And I want to, wish to dedicate my whole life to the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: That is very good proposal.

Guest (5): And I am a...

Prabhupāda: How far you are educated?

Guest (5):. As long as I will live, I will broom and clean the temple.

Prabhupāda: Very good. That's all right. You go on doing that.

Guest (5): OK. And then I will submit my resignation.

Prabhupāda: That is up to you. I cannot say.

Morning Walk -- April 7, 1974, Bombay:

Yaśomatīnandana: That is the modern science, so imperfect. They don't even know whether a person is live or dead.

Prabhupāda: What do they know? They know something, but everyone knows. Even the birds and beasts, they also know something.

Girirāja: "In this way, one after another the body changes and the soul transmigrates. See how the plant worms change from one twig to another so carefully. Similarly the living entity changes his body as soon as the higher authorities decide on his next body." (break)

Prabhupāda: ...the modern civlization is that they have no knowledge about the change of body. Almost 99 percent people, they do not know.

Yaśomatīnandana: Even the so-called religions, the religions even don't teach.

Prabhupāda: They do not know.

Girirāja: "This body is exactly like one of the bodies which we always see in dreams. During our dream of sleep we create so many bodies according to mental creation." (break)

Prabhupāda: ...the psychologically whatever mental condition we prepare throughout this life, that means you are preparing next life, and in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvam tyajanty ante kalevaram (BG 8.6). The situation of the mind at the time of death will carry you to the similar body. Just like one who likes to eat some special foodstuff, so... Suppose the meat-eaters... So the mentality is "How to eat meat, how to eat meat." So they are given next life the canine teeth to give facility for eating meat. Canine teeth means dogs, cats, tigers, like that.

Press Conference -- April 18, 1974, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: There are nine lakhs varieties of life in the water. Similarly, twenty lakhs varieties of life in the trees and plants. Then there are insects, then there are birds, then there are animals, then there is human being. So this human form of body is obtained after evolution of many millions and trillions of years. It should not be... This is a chance for stopping this business of repetition of birth and death. But people, they have no knowledge how to stop it. Although everything is there in the Bhagavad-gītā, everything is explained, but we are not utilizing. We are manufacturing our own concocted knowledge. Therefore we are suffering. If we read Bhagavad-gītā as it is, then all the solution of human society's problem are there. Economic, social, political, religious, cultural, philosophical—everything is there.

So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is meant for spreading the knowledge contained in the Bhagavad-gītā as it is, without any malinterpretation. Bhagavad-gītā as it is. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Paraṁ brahma paraṁ dhāma pavitraṁ paramaṁ bhavān (BG 10.12). After understanding Bhagavad-gītā from Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna affirmed, "Kṛṣṇa, You are Para-brahman, the Supreme Personality of Godhead." Brahman... Every living entity is Brahman, or everything is Brahman. Sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma. That is a fact. But Para-brahman is Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). That is the Vedic version. He is the Supreme. So unless we accept Kṛṣṇa the Supreme, what is the use of reading Bhagavad-gītā? So that we have to accept, and His instructions, as they are given, everything. Just like economic solution, there is in the Bhagavad-gītā, annād bhavanti bhūtāni (BG 3.14). There is need of anna to feed the animals and the human being. Simply by passing resolution, conference, it will not do. You must produce anna so that animals and men, they may be fed sumptuously. They will get strength, then they can work for yajña. Yajñaḥ karma-samudbhavaḥ. In this way people can be happy.

Morning Walk -- April 22, 1974, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: No, no, that is not questioned. God says that you shall not kill. But you are killing. Where is your love? You cannot argue with God. Then you do not love. You cannot put your argument, logic, "What God has said I must do." That is not...

Pañcadraviḍa: "But God did not mean us not to eat. We must eat."

Prabhupāda: God did not... That means you have to eat only meat. You have nothing to eat?

Pañcadraviḍa: But if I eat a plant, it is also killing.

Prabhupāda: That is your argument. But God says that "Thou shalt not kill." You cannot argue. This is the first theory... Suppose if I say something to you, order, you cannot argue. That is not obedience. Obedience means without argument accepted. That is obedience. That is love.

Satsvarūpa: The other important point is that we love God not for getting some reward. You say that the other important thing is that this person claims to be pious, but he approaches God for material reward.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is business. That is not love. I go to somebody and flatter him to get something. Just like a shopkeeper does also like that. He flatters the customers in so many ways to sell goods so that he can make some profit. So there is no question of love.

Akṣayānanda: But that "I am following Jesus Christ and I am a vegetarian," so that's all right, isn't it?

Morning Walk -- April 22, 1974, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: The thing is that we must eat something. And vegetables also have got life. The nature's way is that one living entity is eating another living entity. It may be animal or it may be vegetable. The question is the obedience to the order of God. So when Jesus Christ says that "Thou shalt not kill," it means bigger animals. Killing is applied, from dictionary, if I kill a man, if I kill an animal, then this word is used. So he meant like that. And that is very reasonable. Because I am eating another living entity, that does not I can eat another man. So therefore Kṛṣṇa has specifically mentioned, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati (BG 9.26). After all, we have to eat. And if you take that all killing is the same, even by ordinary law, if I kill one tree, and if I kill one man, does it mean it is of the same degree? Even taking killing of plant, so there are comparative. But it is also necessity that we must eat something. So therefore here, perfect thing in the Bhagavad-gītā, that He says that "You offer Me." "Offer Me" means "After My eating, you shall eat." Yajña-śiṣṭāśinaḥ santo mucyante sarva-kilbiṣaiḥ. Even by killing vegetable, you are also as sinful as killing animal, but because we offer to Kṛṣṇa, therefore we are not sinful. Kṛṣṇa wants it. Just like Kṛṣṇa wanted Arjuna to fight and kill the other party. Therefore Arjuna is not infected with the sin. So here Kṛṣṇa is asking, "Give me this foodstuff," and Kṛṣṇa knows that I will eat the remnants of the foodstuff. So I am not responsible. We have no very much study of the Muslim, but instead of criticizing others, better we shall preach our own cult. But if there is occasion when somebody attacks, then we should be prepared. But our positive business should be to inform people what is the nature of God, as they are stated in Bhagavad-gītā and in Bhāgavatam.

Room Conversation -- May 20, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: One or two men may simply take care of the cows.

Gurudāsa: Maybe we should do that.

Prabhupāda: And grow grass, let them pasture.

Gurudāsa: Yes, and plant trees.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Gurudāsa: Maybe we should do that.

Prabhupāda: Anyway, we have to utilize the land; otherwise what is the use?

Gurudāsa: Of course.

Prabhupāda: Suppose we invest one lakh of rupees. One lakh rupees means 10,000 rupees per annum, almost 800, 900 rupees per month in interest. So we must utilize it. From this monetary point of view, because they get bank interest, people are not very interested in land.

Gurudāsa: But you can't eat money.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Gurudāsa: You can't eat money.

Morning Walk -- May 30, 1974, Rome:

Dhanañjaya: Yes, I've seen sometimes at the Sunday Feast we make some sweets, like sweetballs, and there's some left over. They'd find the next day so many drowned ants, because they'd been so wild, they'd jump into it and drown themselves.

Prabhupāda: So śāstra says, labdhvā su-durlabham idaṁ bahu-sambhavānte: "My dear human being, please note. You have got this form of life after many many births, bahu-sambhavānte. You had to undergo the aquatic life, 900,000 species, the birds, trees and plants, two million. How much time it has gone by for this evolution. Now you have come to the human form of life." Labdhvā su-durlabham idaṁ bahu-sambhavānte mānuṣyam: "This is human form of life." Artha-dam: "Now you can achieve success. Although it is temporary, but you can achieve the highest perfection of life. Therefore," tūrṇaṁ yateta anumṛtyu yāvat, "before next death, you be very dexterous to complete the success." And if you think, then what about my sense enjoyment? Viṣayaḥ khalu sarvataḥ syāt: "It will be available any life. This life you spend for this purpose. Don't waste simply for viṣaya." Viṣayaḥ khalu sarvataḥ syāt. This you will get even if you become cat and dog. But in the cat and dogs, I will not get this opportunity, how to get out of this material existence. Labdhvā su-durlabham idaṁ bahu-sambhavānte. These are the instructions of Prahlāda. These rascals have no education to understand. Therefore we must give this education. We must induce them to read these books in the school, colleges. That is propaganda. Now we have got books. These rascals, they have no books to read about this realization. They have got only Freud's philosophy and this... What is that? And Darwin's theory. All rascaldom, simply rascaldom. Let them read these books. This philosopher, that philosopher. What is that? Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). The same philosophy, repeatedly for sense gratification, that's all. That rascal Mahesh Yogi, he also said that, "You take this special mantra; your material enjoyment will be easier." The same: the punaḥ punaś carvita. He has no other information. "It will be better." And they accepting. "Oh, my enjoyment will be better? All right, take $35. Give me that mantra." They like it because they are promising that "You will get this..." Politicians also, they are promising, "You take this ism. Your sense gratification will be easier." The same promise. This ism or that ism.

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

Prabhupāda: Piling of bricks and stones? Heaps of stones and bricks? That is emblem of civilization? They have seen. In Rome they have seen. They also piled like that. Now they have gone. Where they have gone? Why they left? Why they were obliged to leave? That nobody is questioning. And if he has got a different body, if he is living in that house as cats and dogs and rats and ants, then what benefit he has derived? There is possibility. If you have got an attraction for the body, for your house, but you are not going to get a human body, then you'll have to take your birth in that place, as tree, as plant, as live as rat or cat or ant. You have to live. Nature will give you advantage. But you must get the body according to your karma. That you cannot violate. Where is this science discussed? As soon as we shall speak gentleman like them, they will say, "I have got meeting."

Yogeśvara: Yes, "I must leave."

Prabhupāda: Ah, "I must leave." When we come to real proposition, immediately they want to leave. This is their brain.

Yogeśvara: Every time a gentleman like that comes or a man like that comes and we get too close to the point about Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they seem to become afraid.

Morning Walk -- June 3, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: So why the moon planet is bereft of? Material, anything material, it is combination of earth, water, fire, air, ether. Anything material. It is a combination.

Karandhara: Well, there are probably very minute quantities of moisture on the moon. But they say nothing significant, nothing suitable for agriculture.

Yogeśvara: There are no plants growing on the moon. In the desert we find some plants, but they have not found any vegetation on the moon.

Prabhupāda: That means they have not gone thoroughly. One portion of it.

Karandhara: Well, they have scanners on these satellites which pick up vegetation or life. From hundreds miles away, it will show up on a screen. And they sent it all around the moon, and it hasn't shown any indication of any organic matter or life. They can send this satellite up around the earth planet and they can locate fields of corn, fields of wheat, from hundreds of miles away, just by the way it shows up on these different electronic devices. (break)

Prabhupāda: Take one of these... (break)

Yogeśvara: The vegetables, made of different elements. (break) ...and they say they found indications of elements that were existing at the time of creation that went into the making of the living entities... (end)

Room Conversation -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: Living, any living. We are all living beings. We are in different dresses. Just like you are European; you have got a different dress. I am an Indian; I have got a different dress. But dress is not consideration. You are a human being; I am a human being. Similarly, all the living entities, they are dressed in 8,400,000's of dresses. But they are living being. And all the living beings are part and parcel of God.

M. Roche-dieu: (French) Life is a whole view, and there is no division between animals and man.

Prabhupāda: Spiritually advanced man, God conscious, there is no such distinction that "Here is an animal; here is a man." He sees that spirit soul is there in the animal and in the man, in the tree, in the plant, in the aquatics, the same spirit soul. Read that.

Room Conversation -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: But first of all you take your Bible. You are ordered not to kill. Why you are killing? Then go to Bhagavad-gītā. When there is aggression you have the right to kill but not unnecessarily you can kill. Suppose a tiger attacks you; you can kill. But you cannot go in the forest and kill the tiger. That is sinful.

Young Swiss Man (3): Why does the distinction stop with animals and not with plants?

Yogeśvara: Why do we make the distinction between not killing animals and plants? Why do we kill plants?

Prabhupāda: We do not kill plants also. We take... Of course, by nature's way some living entity is the food for another living entity. Jīvo jīvasya jīvanam. That is the nature's way. But if you give that argument, then I can say, "Why you are killing cows? Why don't you kill your own children?" If that is the way, that "Because I have to eat some animal," so why go outside? Just inside the family there are so many animals. You can kill them and eat. there must be discretion. Apart from this point of view, we Kṛṣṇa conscious people, we do not kill even a plant because, Kṛṣṇa says-find out this-patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati (BG 9.26).

Yogeśvara: (translating) ...jīvo jīvasya jīvanam (French)...

Prabhupāda: There is no jīvo jīvasya jīvanam. Here Kṛṣṇa says, "Give Me these things, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyam." There is no question of jīvasya jīvanam.

Yogeśvara: (translates)

Prabhupāda: Just hear. Kṛṣṇa is ordering, "Give Me this food."

Room Conversation -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: There was no vegetable?

Yogeśvara: No, it was way up in the mountains.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Icy, cold.

Yogeśvara: It was very cold. There was no plants, no nothing. They had to stay inside the plane just to stay alive, to stay warm. So they could not go and get food anywhere.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: And the bodies were already dead. And there were certain people that they knew their bodies, his fiance or his sister. They agreed that if they were going to eat the bodies they would eat them last. It's true. It was in the story. One man, he had his prospective wife. One man had his sister or sister-in-law, cousin. They said, "If we're going to eat the bodies, then we'll eat them the last." So they had a sense that this body is more important than that body, like that.

Prabhupāda: No, in last war they ate stool also.

Yogeśvara: Concentration camps.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Really? What is the Vaiṣṇava point of view?

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Is a Vaiṣṇava, is he willing to maintain his body for the service of Lord Kṛṣṇa even if he has to break regulative principles—if it is necessary?

Room Conversation with Mr. Tran-van-Kha, and President & Members of the Society of Buddhists in France -- June 15, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: So, not only the animals. The trees, the plants, the insects, the birds, the bees, the aquatic animal: fish. Everyone has got soul. So anything, which has got life symptom, it is due to soul and so long the soul is there the change of body takes place. A child born, if it is dead, the change of body does not take place. You cannot understand?

Lady (2): No.

Prabhupāda: You have got now a different body, but you had a body like a child, so you cannot understand this? Why is that? Even a child can understand. You were also sometimes a body like this young girl. You do not believe that?

Yogeśvara: (French)

Lady (2): (French)

Yogeśvara: She says she can recollect.

Prabhupāda: No, but who recollects? The soul. The body is changed. The body is changed, but the soul is the same and therefore she can recollect.

Yogeśvara: (French)

Lady (2): (French)

Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: Yes. So they are always engaged in devotional service. So unless there is some realization, how they can engage their time in this way? (break) "You are human being. You can eat. I have given you fruits. I have given you vegetables. I have given you food grains. I have given you milk, very nutritious, palatable, containing all vitamin ABCD. And why should you kill animals? Why should you give trouble to the others?" This is self-realization, that "Here is another self. The same active principle is working there. The body is different. Why shall I kill him?" So they have realized it. Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu. Equal vision to all living entities, that the self, that active principle, is working in the fish, in the insect, within the tree, within the plant, within the animals, within the birds and within me. This is self-realization. That active principle is soul, and the soul is migrating from one body to another as you are migrating from childhood to babyhood, babyhood to boyhood, boyhood to youthhood. So the soul is the same. The body is different. The body is material and the soul is spiritual. When one comes to this understanding, that is self-realization.

Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany:

Professor Durckheim: May I put one question to this? How do we know that the plant, the flowers and so on do not suffer when we take them away?

Prabhupāda: No, they have also sensation. They have sensation when you pluck it. That is proved by scientists, Dr. Jagadisha Candra Bose. The trees have got sensation.

Professor Durckheim: So that's what I mean. So if we kill plant or tree...

Prabhupāda: No, we don't kill. You take the fruits.

Professor Durckheim: We cut it.

Prabhupāda: Yes, cutting is not allowed unless it is absolutely necessary.

Professor Durckheim: For eating vegetables, for instance, you need it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. No, that is the law of nature, that every living being is eating another living being. That is stated in the Vedic śāstra.

ahastāni sahastānām
apadāni catuṣ-padām
phalgūni tatra mahatāṁ
jīvo jīvasya jīvanam

That "Those who have no hands—that means animals—they are food for the animal who has got hands. And those who have no legs, they are food for the four-legged." Just like grass has no legs, but it is a food fo the cows and the goats. Apadāni catuṣ-padām, phalgūni tatra mahatām: "Then one who is powerful, very powerful..." Just like tiger, he jumps over another animal. So because the other animal is weak and this animal is strong, so in this way, the feeding is going on, one living being for the other. But when you come to the... That is nature.

Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Vedavyāsa: Should we translate?

Prabhupāda: Yes. (German) Even the birds and beasts they will hear and be benefited. (German) Therefore loud chanting is recommended. So that even the birds, beasts, trees, plants, they can hear. (German)

Prof. Pater Porsch: I seldom saw so many happy faces as today, this evening, below.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the case. In America also the ladies and gentlemen ask them, "Are you Americans?" Because they do not see Americans with such nice face. One Christian priest—I was going from Los Angeles to Hawaii—so he came to talk with me. He inquired "Swamiji, how is that your disciples look so bright?" He inquired. Yes.

Prof. Pater Porsch: Without drugs.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And one Christian priest he showed one pamphlet that these boys, they're our boys but before this they're not coming to the church. They do not want to ask anything about God. Now they're mad after God. How is it? He admitted, "They're our men." And I give you another example. In our Los Angeles temple—this was a church, big church—but it was not going on. It was being closed. And it was sold to us. And now you go and see there is daily thousands of... the same men, the same place. The crowd is so... Why? I have not brought all these men from India. Judge. Unless it is something sublime, how they're accepting it? And they're all young boys. Not that they have become old, therefore they're seeking after God. (everyone laughs) And young men have got so many aspirations, they go to the restaurant to smoke, to enjoy girlfriend, boyfriend, these... They have given up everything.

Morning Walk -- June 20, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: That is intelligence. And it is proved by science. Dr. Jagadisha Candra Bose, in Calcutta, he has got institute. A machine records how a tree feeling. You cut one tree. How it is feeling pain, that is recorded in the machine.

Haṁsadūta: They also hear sound. They made some experiment that when they grow plants with music, they grow more.

Prabhupāda: Oh, just see.

Haṁsadūta: In greenhouses. They play music. Then they become more healthy.

Prabhupāda: Just see. Their sensation is very covered. Just like you cut the nails. There is no sensation. And does it mean there is no sensation-therefore there is no life? Unless there is life, how it is growing? It is growing; therefore you cut. But when you cut, there is no sensation. But there is life. Otherwise, how it is growing? The same nail, when you cut, you throw it on the ground. It will not grow. These are practical example. Just like little child. Their sensation is less. I know. My eldest daughter, when she was six months old, there was some boil. So the doctor operated. She simply, "Uh, uh," no cried. I have seen it. She was not crying. But the same boil, when a fully developed man, he will feel more sensation. So according to the body, the sensations are different. The same things, means mind, intelligence and ego, according to the body, they act differently. But the mind, intelligence and ego are there. The dog is coming, and if I say, "Hut!", unless it has got intelligence, how it goes away the other way? There is intelligence. There is no language, but because he has got intelligence, he can immediately understand I don't want him to come here. So how you can say there is no intelligence? The rascals say "The animals have no intelligence; therefore they have no soul." If one has no intelligence, there is no soul. That is admitted. But here is intelligence. How can you deny, "There is no soul"? The animals, the cows, when they are taken to the slaughterhouse, why they cry? Because he has intelligence that "Now I am going to be killed." And these rascals say there is no soul. And still, they are religious priests. Such fools and rascals are made religious fools, priests. No common sense. And they also get degree, Doctor of Divinity, DD. (break) ...Greek scholar, here in this Germany or in nearby?

Room Conversation with Pater Emmanuel (A Benedictine Monk) -- June 22, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: Why should we interpret? Interpretation is required when the things are not clear. Here it is clear, "Thou shall not kill," plainly advised. Why should we interpret? (German)

German devotee: (translating for Pater Emmanuel:) To eat plants, is it not killing? To eat vegetables, is it not killing?

Prabhupāda: Then vegetable killing and animal killing is the same?

Pater Emmanuel: It's not the same. Not the same. But human killing and animal killing is also the same.

Prabhupāda: So we are not killing. Our Vaiṣṇava philosophy, we do not kill even vegetable because our Kṛṣṇa says... Find out this verse. Patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati (BG 9.26). (German)

German devotee: Should I read this in Sanskrit, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati, tad aham aśnāmi bhakty-upahṛtam.

German devotee: (reads translation in German)

Prabhupāda: So we offer Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa wants: "Give me this foodstuff," so we offer the foodstuff to Kṛṣṇa, and we take it. Therefore, if for killing this patraṁ puṣpam there is sin, that is Kṛṣṇa's sin, not my sin. (German) But Kṛṣṇa, God, apāpa-viddham, sinful reaction cannot take place to Him. Apāpa-viddham. Pāpa means sinful. Just like the sun is powerful. It can absorb urine, but you cannot drink urine. (German) So the injunction is tejīyasāṁ na doṣāya (SB 10.33.29). One who is very powerful... Just like a king. He orders, "Kill this man. Murder." He commits murder regularly, chopped up. But he is not under the law, being hanged, because he is very powerful. But an ordinary man, if he commits murder, he will be hanged. When there is fight the commander in chief says, "You kill them," and the soldier kills and he gets gold medal. But the same soldier, when he kills a single person at home, he is hanged. Therefore this injunction, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyam (BG 9.26), "This vegetables give Me. I shall eat, and you take the prasādam." So we are not sinful.

Room Conversation with Reverend Gordon Powell, Head of Scots Church -- June 28, 1974, Melbourne:

Reverend Powell: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So these things can be overcome by Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Reverend Powell: Umm... Yes, I see. On the point of reading... In this very interesting magazine and this...

Prabhupāda: You find out this verse of Bhagavad-gītā.

Reverend Powell: There was a reference to something you said about plants having a feeling. Some years ago I carried out an experiment at the request of one of our magazines in praying for plants and seeds growing and so on, and there seemed to be a relationship between these prayers for the plants and the opposite, in a negative way, against the plants. And I didn't have an opportunity to carry it out too far, much, but in two experiments, there was apparently a clear indication that the plants responded to prayer. And the peas and the beans in particular, (laughs) there was a significant, a very significant increase in the plants that were...

Prabhupāda: Hmmm. Find out. Jarā-maraṇa-mokṣāya.

Morning Walk at Marina del Rey -- July 14, 1974, Los Angeles:

Bali Mardana: According to Vedic culture, is seaweed edible?

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Bali Mardana: Seaweed? Is that edible?

Prabhupāda: I don't find. Why they should eat seaweed?

Bali Mardana: In Asia, many people eat seaweed. Certain types of plants that grow in the sea.

Prabhupāda: No, no.

Rāmeśvara: In America it is very popular.

Prabhupāda: That is all right, but why man should eat seaweed?

Kṛṣṇa-kānti: When there are so many nice things.

Prabhupāda: There are so many vegetables.

Bali Mardana: If vegetables are not available.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Kṛṣṇa-kānti: They don't have to cultivate seaweed. They just take.

Jayatīrtha: They have to go diving with lungs and tanks to collect it rather than plough the earth.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Metaphysics Society -- February 21, 1975, Caracas:

Prabhupāda: Just like we are sitting, ladies and gentlemen here. So every one of us, we have got different dress. The dress is superficial, but as ladies and gentlemen, human being, we are one. Similarly, each one of us can have a different dress. So these living entities, they are in different dresses only, and the dresses are calculated-8,400,000 different forms. In the water there are 900,000 different dresses. Similarly, the trees and plants, the two million different types of vegetables. Jalaja-nava-lakṣāni sthavara-lakṣa-viṁśati. There are insects. There are 1,100,000 species. Similarly birds, there are one million. And Pakṣiṇāṁ daśalakṣanam. Daśa-lakṣa means one million, one million types of bird. And three million types of beasts. And 400,000 forms of human being. In this way the living entity is passing through different dresses. And the best dress is this human form because in this dress you can understand what is God, what you are, what is your relation with God, and then you can act and go back to home, back to Godhead. Therefore if this dress, in this dress... I am living being; you are living being. So we are in this human form of dress. We have got developed consciousness. If we miss the opportunity to understand God, then again we are put into the cycle of this evolutionary process. We should not therefore misuse this form like other forms. We should utilize it properly to understand the unlimited God and our relationship with God and act accordingly. That is perfection of life.

Room Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- March 1, 1975, Atlanta:

Prabhupāda: Try to understand this, that life is always there, as God is there. So these living entities, part and parcel of God, they are also there. That God has got multi-energies, potencies. Out of that, three potencies have been taken as very important. Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). God has multi-energy. Out of that, three energies have been taken as principal: material, spiritual, and marginal. The material energy is this material world. The spiritual world is the spiritual energy. And we living entities, we are also spiritual, but we are called marginal because we may live under the subjugation of material energy or spiritual energy. So the living entities, they are eternal. Their only position is marginal, sometimes manifested here, sometimes manifested there. So in the material world the living entities are already there. You haven't got to create. That is foolishness. It is never created. Simply in the material world it becomes manifest in four ways. Some of them are coming like trees, plants. And some of them are coming from perspiration... not coming, being manifested through fermentation, perception. And some of them are being manifested through eggs. And some of them are being manifested through embryo. The living entity were already there. Their struggle is going on, and they become manifest in the material world in four sources. In the spiritual world there is no such... They are eternally existing. There is no question of manifestation. So this is the science of living entities. What do they know? Therefore I say they are rascals. They do not know anything, simply trying to create. What is the creation? It is already there. But they do not know what is this, and still, they are scientists, they are advanced education. All rascal. They do not know. Therefore through Bhagavad-gītā we say they are rascals. Mūḍhā.

Room Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- March 1, 1975, Atlanta:

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. But they are not manifested yet. Because it was like sleeping. When there is no creation and..., there is sleeping stage. Just like in the sleeping stage, even at the present moment, at night, the dog is sleeping, the bird is sleeping, the man is sleeping, the tiger is... Everyone is sleeping at night. But in the morning, as soon as they awake, they understand, "I am tiger," "I am dog," "I am man," "I am this," "I am that." Everyone remembers that "I have to do this. I have to do that. I have to go there. I have to bring money from there." All duties come immediately. So all these living creatures who are sleeping at night, but when there is morning, they again become the same. That is creation.

Rūpānuga: But when Brahmā creates, does he first of all create the aquatics, then the plants?

Prabhupāda: No.

Rūpānuga: No, everything is at once. There's no gradual, it is all immediate.

Prabhupāda: There is a process, from aquatics to this, this, this, this, but when there is creation, all of them come at once.

Rūpānuga: So that process is transmigration of the soul.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Rūpānuga: That is evolution.

Prabhupāda: So in the last creation, if somebody could not come to the human form of body, now again he will be able to come. Therefore the creation is there. Another chance is given.

Rūpānuga: Yes. Otherwise there would be no chance.

Room Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- March 1, 1975, Atlanta:

Prabhupāda: Because we have heard from authority. As you are asking assurance from me, so I give you the knowledge from where I have heard. You want to hear from me. I have heard from authority. That's all. What is the difficulty? Why you are asking me? You want to hear from me. So I have also heard from authority. This is the statement. You take it.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So when... They say that there are some plants that can grow from just branches... We stick the branch in the soil. Then it just grows to another plant.

Prabhupāda: The same thing. The living entity is there, but he is manifested in such a way. The same explanation. Just like there are many living entities within my body, and when this body is stopped, decomposed, they come out in different forms.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Are these living entities constant? They don't change any.

Prabhupāda: Yes, nitya, nitya. Nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). Why don't you see these references? It is never created. It is ever-existing, eternal. Only it appears to be temporary on account of accepting different material bodies. Therefore, paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (BG 5.18). One who knows, he knows that he has changed his body, the same person. Just like father, mother knows. When a son becomes very stout and strong, the mother sees that same child. Others may be bewildered. One who has seen the child very long ago, now he has become robust build. He cannot say. And the mother says, "He is my child, that child." So paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (BG 5.18).

Conversation with Devotees -- April 14, 1975, Hyderabad:

Devotee: We may not be able to actually stop death, but while we're here we can at least prolong our lifetime and...

Prabhupāda: That also you cannot do. Where is the proof?

Devotee: Well, at the atomic research plants...

Prabhupāda: Oh, that is another foolishness, I say. You have not done it. You are simply expecting. Hope against hope. That's all.

Devotee: But they are making different cures for critical diseases that are causing deaths...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But that does not mean there will be no disease. That is already being done by many medical practitioners. Better medicine. But where is the medicine that will not be disease.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Gradually we are eliminating one by one all the diseases.

Prabhupāda: No, that you have not done. No disease... You have increased diseases. You have stopped one disease and increased another. Not stopped! But you have increased another disease.

Devotee: We have to learn though how to prevent all these diseases.

Prabhupāda: Therefore you are fool. You have to learn. That means you have to learn, means you are fool.

Yaśodānandana: But we are learning.

Morning Walk -- May 7, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is imperfect. We are alo Communists, but we are perfect Communists. We are thinking of all living beings.

Gaṇeśa: Some people say that in our philosophy, if we do not wish to slaughter the animals, what about the trees? We are killing the plants. They are also living entities.

Prabhupāda: If you compare the animals and the trees as the same, then why not kill yourself, your brother? Why do you distinguish? Why don't you slaughter your own son? Why do you distinguish?

Gaṇeśa: He's a relative.

Prabhupāda: You discriminate. If you are slaughtering animals and you are comparing that killing of the vegetables and the killing of the animals is the same, then killing your son and killing an animal is also the same. Why do you discriminate? Just kill your own son and eat.

Paramahaṁsa: He's a human being, though.

Morning Walk -- May 7, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Ah, therefore there is discrimination. Discrimination is the better part of valor. Whom should we kill? It is all right. Jīvo jīvasya jīvanam. But there is important. If you eat vegetables there is no crisis, you can go on. It is a fact that an animal is eating another animal. It may be vegetables or animals, but they are disturbing. Therefore it is said, "As it is allotted." You should eat such and such. Not that indiscriminately you can eat everything. If you think killing of an animal and killing a vegetable is the same, then killing of your son and killing of animals or vegetable is the same. Why do you discriminate? What is your answer?

Gaṇeśa: So if we discriminate between the animals and the plants, well what about the discrimination between the human beings and the animals? Is it not all right to kill animals and not human beings?

Prabhupāda: No. You discriminate actually. You do not kill human beings, but you kill animals. Similarly you discriminate: instead of killing animals, kill vegetables. Importance. Just like this grass. There is enough supply of grass, but you cannot have enough supply of cows. Therefore discrimination is that it is better to live on grass than on animals. Now, still they are eating seventy-five percent other than animals. They are not eating only animals. Why not twenty-five percent more? In the market they are not eating animal. When the animal-eaters I see, they have got a little flesh, surrounded by salad and these peas and so many other things. Why don't you eat only meat?

Śrutakīrti: Because we require a balanced diet.

Prabhupāda: No, you cannot supply. If everyone eats meat only, then one day all animals will be finished.

Paramahaṁsa: But we want to have a balanced diet with meat, and vegetables and fruit.

Morning Walk -- May 8, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Great service.

Amogha: From the public gardens. There is a big public garden.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Amogha: The government plants for the city to look nice.

Prabhupāda: But you are stealing.

Amogha: No, not from anyone's house.

Paramahaṁsa: From the government.

Prabhupāda: Very, very nice flowers. Such a big rose I have never seen.

Paramahaṁsa: In India they don't grow that big. They are very small.

Prabhupāda: Nobody takes care. The man also grows very small. There is no food, there is no soil. Poverty lives. Daridra-doṣa guṇa-nāśe, when a person becomes poverty-stricken, all his quality goes away. He might have very good qualification but if... (break) Unfortunately, being misguided, this position of opulence, they are misusing it, and therefore becoming hippies. Simply misusing it. Instead of utilizing the position for development of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they are misusing it. So timely the movement has come to your country. Just try to apply in your practical life, preach all over the world, at least all over your own country. Here also, the Australians, they have got opulence. Try to relieve them. You are American or Australian?

Room Coversation with Psychiatrist and Indian Boy -- May 12, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: So, everyone is attracted with the woman's body. In your country I have seen the advertisement: "bottomless," "topless..." That is the material attraction. Everyone is in this material world on account of attachment. And similarly, for woman, the man's body is beautiful. So in this way both of them are attached to one another. That is the basic principle of material life. Yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham kaṇḍūyanena karayor iva duḥkha-duḥkham (SB 7.9.45). They become attached. On account of sex life, they become more attached, and therefore both of them remain almost perpetually in this material world, and to satisfy different desires they transmigrate from one body to another. And on account of accepting this material body, there is always miserable condition. Therefore everyone requires the psychiatric treatment so that the mind may be transferred from matter to spirit soul. Then he will be cured. The disease is of the mind. Harāv abhaktasy kuto mahād-guṇa mano-rathena. Everyone is riding on the chariot of mind. And the mind is taking him here and there, here... And the yoga practice is also treatment. This is also yoga, bhakti-yoga, and this ordinary haṭha-yoga, that is also treatment of the mind. Treatment of mind means controlling the senses. Yoga indriya-samyamaḥ. Mind is the leader of the senses. So if the treatment of the mind is done properly, then the senses work properly. The example is the madman. Because the madman's mind is not controlled, he is acting in a way—people say, "Here is a madman." So everyone is more or less a madman in this material world, or, in other words, you can say anyone who is in the material world, he is a madman. He requires treatment. Just like anyone who is in the prison house, it is to be accepted that he is a criminal. Without any study, without any exception we can accept all the prisoners as criminals. (break) ...gradually appreciate. Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ (CC Antya 20.12). This treatment is in the beginning just cleansing the mirror of the heart. That is the treatment. Just like a mirror, when it is overcast with dust, it requires cleansing. So the mental mirror is covered with material dust. So it has to be cleansed. That is the treatment. And when it is cleansed, you can see your real face in the mirror. Similarly, as soon as our heart disease, contaminated by the modes of material nature, is cleansed, you can understand what is your real position. That is the success of psychiatric treatment. One comes to know, "What I am." Ahaṁ brahmāsmi: "I am spirit soul; I am not this body." That is called brahma-bhūtaḥ stage. Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā (BG 18.54). He becomes immediately happy. And happiness means na śocati na kāṅkṣati: "He does not lament, neither he desires." Our present disease is we hanker after things which we do not possess, and when that thing is lost, we lament. So hankering and lamenting. So when one is cleansed in the heart, he has no more hankering or desire. This is the symptom. And samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu: "Then he becomes equal to everyone." Everyone means every living being, man and animal, trees, plants, lower or higher. Paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (BG 5.18). Then he enters into the sphere of devotional service.

Morning Walk -- May 14, 1975, Perth:

Paramahaṁsa: In one science magazine they have published recently there's an article by a man who says we must eat meat because the plants don't have any fatty tissues for making brain tissue, so they say...

Prabhupāda: Rascal. So your brain is causing disaster; still you are developing brain? (laughter) Your brain is causing bankruptcy, and still you want to develop this rubbish brain? Begging money, "You give us money so that we can maintain"? And what is the use of this brain? Burn this brain. Advise him that "You better burn your brain so that you may not create any more disaster." To keep his brain, one animal must be sacrificed. And the brain work is this, that they are creating disaster. What is the use of this brain?

Paramahaṁsa: He says that the brain of man is bigger because man has been eating meat for so long.

Prabhupāda: Another rascal. That is the difficulty. The world is full of rascals and demons. And they are leaders. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ (SB 7.5.31). "A blind man is leading other blind men."

Devotee (1): Instead of using the land to grow potatoes and watermelons, they're simply using it to build more offices for tables and chairs to study the situation.

Room Conversation with Alcohol and Drug Hospital People -- May 16, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest (2): Is there an animal soul, Swami?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because it is already said, sarva-yoniṣu, "all forms of life." Even ant, tree, birds, plant, trees, everything. There are 8,400,000 forms of life. All of them, the soul is there. And they have got different... Just like you are differently dressed, I am differently dressed, but you are also soul, I am also soul.

Guest (4): You're really talking about the ātman? Aren't you?

Prabhupāda: Ātmā, yes, soul is ātmā. And the soul of the soul is God, Paramātmā.

Guest (2): Is it possible for us to communicate with plants?

Prabhupāda: With...?

Paramahaṁsa: With plants. Is it possible for us to communicate with plants?

Prabhupāda: Yes, they have done. Sir Jagadish Candra Bose in Calcutta, Bose Institute, he has proved—he has got machine—that they feel pains and pleasure, which is recorded in the machine. If you pluck one leaf, they feel. Immediately it is recorded in the machine.

Morning Walk -- May 18, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: No, no, these scientists are all rascals; first of all take it, don't believe it. "Some scientists say"; then who is real scientist? This scientist says there is no life, another scientist says there may be, then who is right, hm?

Amogha: They have to go and see. (laughs) But they don't see any signs of civilization or buildings, so they say it may be plant life, but they don't see anything...

Prabhupāda: First of all whether you have gone there. That is our charge, "You have not gone there."

Amogha: That's what we are trying to do. In a few years we will find out.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They might have gone to some hellish planet, where there is only sand, only, and very hot, and the culprit is pushed through that deserted place to the Yamarāja. And before going to Yamarāja he has to suffer so much. There are places, copperlike, you see. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. So hot, and the criminal has to go on that copper land. There are mentioned for many millions of miles simply copper, and one has to pass through that to Yamarāja. So, they might have gone to some such place, not to the moon planet, who is the source of vegetation even throughout the whole universe—and in his own planet there is no vegetation. Now I am sure they have not gone to moon planet. How they will go? It is beyond the sun. I was protesting that they have not gone; now I am convinced that they have not gone. The Russian scientists and the American scientists joined on the platform, "Don't expose me, I don't expose you." (laughter) (Bengali) "You have to do your business and same I have to do my business. Let us support one another." In all other case, they are inimical, and the scientific field they are friends. That means that if a scientist, another scientist, opposes me, then my attempt will be futile, so let us don't do it.

Room Conversation with Journalist -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Because the whole world was merged into water. So evolution takes place from aquatics, fish. Then, as the water dries up, there was vegetation, plants. Plants, creepers, trees. Then, gradually, the insects, moths, reptiles, serpents, they come out. And then, from insects, the birds, varieties of birds, and aquatics, 900,000. And eleven hundred thousand, 1,100,000 species of these insects and reptiles. And one million varieties of birds. And then beasts, animals, four-legged, there are three million varieties. So all together this is eight million. Huh? No?

Australian devotee: 400,000.

Prabhupāda: No, total human being, 400,000 species. Altogether, 8,400,000 species of living entities. So these are coming, evolution, by the laws of nature. You cannot stop it. The laws of nature, you cannot interfere. In this way we come to the human form of body, and especially civilized human being. Supposedly, it is the Aryans. The Aryan family, they are the topmost civilized group amongst the living entities. Now, in this life one has to enquire about himself that what is the difference between me and the dog? Why I am claiming a better position than the dog? What is the difference? The difference is that a human being, if he endeavors, he can understand his real constitutional position and he can understand God also. God. Therefore in the human society, civilized human society, there is some sort of religious system. It does not matter whether it is Hindu religion, Muslim religion, Christian religion, or Buddha religion. There is some religion in the civilized human society.

Morning Walk -- May 20, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: ...here.

Devotee (1): Not too many flowering varieties.

Prabhupāda: No, not speaking of flowering. I mean to say varieties, plants and creepers, two millions. Lakṣa-viṁśati. Ten lakhs equal to one million, and viṁśati, twenty lakhs.

Hari-śauri: There was one newspaper article in the paper I was reading. They were advertising a new book about the evolution of man. And they were saying that there was approximately two million varieties of life on this planet. This was the calculation of the scientists.

Prabhupāda: Two millions? No, 8,400,000.

Śrutakīrti: You were saying the other day that all the species of life are mentioned in the Padma-Purāṇa.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śrutakīrti:: They're all given account of.

Prabhupāda: They have given separate account or only on the total?

Hari-śauri: Only approximation.

Śrutakīrti:: An estimate. (break)

Morning Walk -- May 20, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Therefore it is decreasing. The more you are becoming sinful, the rain will decrease.

Devotee (3): So it is decreasing now.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And at the end there will be no rain. Then this whole planet will be ablaze with fire. That is the beginning of destruction. Everything will die—all trees, plants, animals, everything. It will be made into ashes by the fire. And then there will be rain, and the ashes will be melted, and the whole universe will be finished.

Devotee (2): I read too, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that in the time of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira there was only rainfall in the nighttime. Is this true?

Prabhupāda: Night time?

Devotee (2): Rain would fall in the nighttime so that...

Prabhupāda: No. Who said that nighttime?

Śrutakīrti:: It mentions in Kṛṣṇa book that in the evening it would rain.

Devotee (2): So as not to disturb the activity of the inhabitants through the daytime.

Room Conversation with Director of Research of the Dept. of Social Welfare -- May 21, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Indian society, the did not know how to drink tea even. In our childhood we have seen that Britishers started tea garden. There was no tea plants before Britishers. The Britishers saw the labor is very cheap, and they want to do business, they started. Just like they are doing in Africa. So many gardens, coffee and tea. So they started, and the tea was transferred to be sold in America. They were after business. So the... Now, so much tea, who will consume? The government started a tea sets committee. All the tea garden holders they would pay government. And road to road, street to street, their business was canvassing, preparing tea, very nice, palatable tea, and they advertising if you drink tea, then you will not feel very much hungry, and your malaria will go away and so on, so on. And people began to drink tea. Nice cup. I have seen it. Now they have got a taste. Now gradually now a sweeper also, early in the morning, is waiting in the tea shop to get a cup of tea.

Tea was taken in our childhood if somebody is coughing, sometimes they used to tea. That was also later. But it was unknown. Drinking tea, drinking wine, smoking, meat-eating—these things were unknown. Prostitution. There was prostitution. Not that everyone is prostitute. Very strict. So these things should be taken care of—at least a class of men must be ideal for people others will see. And the training should go on, just like we are doing. We are inviting people to come to chant with us, to dance with us, take prasādam. And gradually they are becoming. The same (?) addicted to drinking, addicted to prostitution, addicted to meat-eating, he is becoming saintly person. This is practical, you can see, what was their previous history and what they are now.

Room Conversation with Two Lawyers and Guest -- May 22, 1975, Melbourne:

Guest 3: It's a funny story. There's a funny follow up to that one, and that is that the flowers were taken from two men that ran nurseries. And we had to go through an appeal finally to get heard. But just before the appeal came off the boys needed a glass house because of their special plants, which you've got outside here.

Śrutakīrti: Tulasī.

Guest 3: And they didn't know anything about glass houses. So they were driving around and one said, "Well, let's go and find out something about glass houses. Oh, there's a nice nursery." (laughter) So the car drives up, you see. The devotee comes out, and he said, "Excuse me, sir, but we're interested in glass houses." He said, "Will you please get out of my land?" The same nursery. (laughter) There were two hundred nurseries around the area. He picked that particular one.

Prabhupāda: But if people would have been God conscious, they would have excused, "Oh, they have come for God's service. All right, you can take." Therefore the first business is to make people God conscious. Then everything is adjusted. Yasyāsti bhaktiḥ, there is a verse in Bhāgavata,

yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā
sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ
harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā
manorathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ
(SB 5.18.12)

The meaning is that "Anyone who is God conscious, a devotee, he has got all the good qualities". What we consider as good qualities, he has got. And similarly, one who is not a devotee of God, he has no good qualities because he will hover on the mental platform. There are different platform: bodily concept of life, general, "I am this body. Therefore my business is to satisfy the senses." This is bodily concept of life. And others, they are thinking, "I am not this body. I am mind." So they are going on mental speculation like philosophers, thoughtful men.

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1975, Honolulu:

Bali-mardana: From fossils.

Prabhupāda: From bacteria? How rascals they are.

Bali-mardana: Prabhupāda, in the Bhāgavatam it also states that there are nine divisions of creation, and that in the first creation there's the plants and trees.

Prabhupāda: That's all right, but these different bodies, and the soul is transmigrating, that they do not know. The soul is getting a different type of body according to his desires, not the body is developing. This I have explained many times, that you get the apartment according to the rent you are able to pay, not that a small apartment is becoming a skyscraper building. That is their theory.

Bali-mardana: But is there a great time period between the different divisions of the creation?

Prabhupāda: No, everything is there already. It becomes manifest. Just like beneath the water there is land already. And when the water will dry, land will be manifest. Not that the land is created. No, it is already there. (break)

Guru kṛpā: ...told us last time that actually the earth did not come out of the water, but the water receded, and this is how this Hawaii came.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Guru kṛpā: There was water covering everything, and then the water receded, and then the land was there.

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: He will think, "What is next? Is it finished here?" The rascal says, "No, after finishing, everything is finished." What is this? If there is evolution—you have come to this stage —then what is the next stage? That is natural. That is answered in the Bhagavad-gītā. Yānti deva-vratā devān (BG 9.25). Now you can go to the moon planet if you try. Moon planet, sun planet, Venus and so many. If you become serious. And you can go to God's planet, mad-yājino 'pi yānti mām. Now you select where will you will go. But there is spiritual planet. But what is their theory? That after finishing this body, everything is finished.(?) They do not believe in the next life.

Bali-mardana: Therefore their life must be hopeless.

Prabhupāda: Hopeless, yes. (break) Yes, you can send him to India.

Guru kṛpā: But there is no "after" here because there is so much to plant here.

Prabhupāda: Oh, that's all.

Devotee (1): Yesterday at night we got many plants, and this morning also we got lots of more plants, flower plants.

Prabhupāda: Oh, that's all right. But somebody may learn from him and go to India. (end)

Morning Walk -- June 2, 1975, Honolulu:

Paramahaṁsa: Blueberry.

Devotee (1): Java berry.

Gurukṛpa: Where's the path?

Devotee (1): In either direction, you know, they're all different plants. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...say "This contains this chemical, that chemical, this chemical," but he will never think who has put this chemical. That is his dullness. They will analyze and say, "It contains this chemical, that chemical, that..." And who has put this chemical? That they cannot say.

Śrutakīrti: Very large trees.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Devotee (1): This big one?

Prabhupāda: Maybe thousand years old.

Devotee (2): It's from Africa.

Prabhupāda: African trees are like tall like this.

Devotee (1): One hundred years, it's more than hundred years.

Indian man: This is that same one. They give red, different flowers.

Morning Walk -- June 16, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Yes. You have got?

Siddha-svarūpa: Many here, yes.

Prabhupāda: That's very good. That is very good for diabetic patient.

Devotee (1): Should we plant one on the land too?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. (break) It is called...

Devotee (2): Kalajam?

Prabhupāda: Kalajam, yes. (break)... is good medicine for diabetes. (break) ...houses are all fire-proof, eh?

Devotee (1): That's what they say, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Siddha-svarūpa: No, they're not fire-proof.

Prabhupāda: No, they are concrete. There is no frame work.

Bali-mardana:. There is no wood.

Prabhupāda: No.

Siddha-svarūpa: Then how is it they had a fire in one? They had a fire in one recently.

Bali-mardana: Sometimes a fire starts in the kitchen or...

Morning Walk -- June 16, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Flowers, yes. That is... But not you take some dirt and extract the flavor. Then I will know that you are scientist. (laughter) (break) ...the vast water, but they cannot make it sweet. That you will have to depend on God. The water is, actually is taken, and it is made sweet. So how they can deny the hand of God?

Harikeśa: They have some water distillation plants now.

Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. He may distill one pound of water. That does not mean that... Why they are unnecessarily proud and denying the authority of God? How foolish they are. Therefore I don't like them, the most heinous type of atheist, not gentlemen. (break) Whenever they hold some conference they say, "Don't talk of God. Then you cannot come to the conference." Do they not? What is that principle?

Bali-mardana: Yes, yes, they do that. There was a conference on biology and evolution, and they made a rule at the beginning of the conference that "Whatever we discuss from now on is all right except that we will not discuss about God or anything, any divine factor of creation.

Prabhupāda: Just see how much atheist they are. Shameless atheist. Other atheists, they have got some shame. But these people are shameless. Shameless.

Bali-mardana: "Because we cannot see God in our laboratory, therefore we will not discuss Him."

Prabhupāda: But why do you teach us? We do not see whatever you say. We do not, so why do you place upon us? If seeing is evidence, then we don't see what nonsense you are talking.

Garden Conversation with Professors -- June 24, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: God is three. I have already given you the example. The sunshine, then sun globe, and the deity within the sun globe, they are all one; still, they are different.

Dr. Pore: And we as human beings, are we part of that too?

Prabhupāda: Why human being? Even the trees, plants, everyone. We are part and parcel of God.

Dr. Pore: And how is Kṛṣṇa different from us?

Prabhupāda: He is not different. Because we cannot realize Him we are thinking He is different from us. That is māyā. Just like father and son. They are not different, but the son, out of his foolishness, he is thinking father is different from him.

Dr. Judah: Wouldn't you say, though, that, in the case of us, that we are, as it were, jīva-śaktiḥ, we are the marginal energy, and so we do have, as it were, that aspect of Kṛṣṇa, but we also have in this world then the māyā-śaktiḥ. We are the combination, as it were, here in the...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone is...

Garden Conversation with Professors -- June 24, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Oh, that... We are not... Chanting... We are also working. It is not that we are simply sitting down and chanting. Because we are chanting, therefore we are loving everyone. That is a fact. These Hare Kṛṣṇa chanters, they will never agree to kill any animal, even a plant, because they know everything is part and parcel of God. Why unnecessarily one should be killed? That is love.

Dr. Pore: Love means never killing?

Prabhupāda: There are so many things. It is one of the items. Yes, that is one of the... Do you kill your own son? Why? Because you love him.

Dr. Judah: Would you explain the other side of it, the fact that, of course, the Bhagavad-gītā was, has its setting on a battlefield in which Kṛṣṇa enjoins Arjuna to go out and fight his kinsmen because it is his duty as a kṣatriya.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because in the material world, for the maintenance of equilibrium of the society, sometimes killing is necessary. Just like fight, war. When the enemy has come to your country, you cannot sit idly; you must fight. But that does not mean that you are allowed to kill everyone as you like. That is a special circumstances when fighting must be there. Therefore the kṣatriyas are required to give protection. Like the government is keeping military, police, soldiers, that does not mean government is after killing only. That department will be utilized when there is necessity, not that government is meant for killing. Government has other departments also. But this is also maintained. If there is necessity, it should be utilized. So Kṛṣṇa, when He is on the battlefield, that was a necessity. He has got two business. Paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām (BG 4.8). Those who are demons, those who are disturbing elements, they should be killed. And those who are honest and peaceful, they should be maintained. But because it is material world, the world of duality, there are good and evil, so you have to curb down the evil. Sometimes force is required. So that killing is not bad. When the enemy is aggressive and you are killing, that killing and poor animal who is supplying milk... You are drinking milk, your mother, and you are killing. This killing and that killing is not the same thing. According to Vedic civilization the cow is to be given special protection.

Morning Walk -- June 26, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Just like astrology. That is a science. Eh? What is that?

Jayatīrtha: But still they're awarding Ph.D.'s in theology, even they don't know anything about it.

Prabhupāda: You can do. Hiranda-pitha drumayate. When there is no tree, the small castor seed oil tree... It is not much. It becomes a very big tree. Hiranda-pitha drumayate. The castor seed plants, they are taken as big tree. (break) Actually, theology is Bhagavad-gītā. (break)

Jayatīrtha: Oh, that's nice. Very good. (break)

Prabhupāda: Suitable?

Brahmānanda: Yes. (break)

Prabhupāda: (walking) ...means science of God. So what is that science of God? Who knows it?

Jayadvaita: You do.

Prabhupāda: Yes, I know. (laughter)

Bahulāśva: Jaya! (break)

Prabhupāda: ...of God means first of all we must know who is God. This is the first. Then, what is this material world and what is my relationship with this material world and God. This is science of God. (break)

Bahulāśva: ...you wanted the colleges named the Vedic Theological College?

Morning Walk -- June 26, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bahulāśva: Yes? So like plants for example, they would be in the annamāyā state of consciousness?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bahulāśva: Simply eating?

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...in Vṛndāvana, as they will be advertised, many people will come, more people, because they will come rather surprisingly, "How the Europeans, Americans have become devotee and they have their temple?" That will be attractive for them. (break)

Brahmānanda: Should they advertise like that?

Prabhupāda: That is automatically being advertised. Just like our Māyāpur mandir is known as "Sahib mandir." (laughs) Sahib means European. (break) It is said that... Where is Nitāi?

Jayatīrtha: Nitāi?

Prabhupāda: That visitors coming in full bus?

Morning Walk -- June 27, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Na satyaṁ teṣu vidyate. This is the whole population. They do not know... There are big, big nation, big, big philosopher, big, big scientists and all very big, but what kind of life they should live, they do not know. What is the accurate destination of our life, that they do not know. And all humbug, big, big scientist, philosopher, theologist, and so on, so on, politician, sociologist, welfare. But real thing, they are rascal. They do not know which way we have to go. So what is the use of these big, big words? They do not know which way to go. Suppose we are walking. If we go to the this side without knowing that "This is water; we should not go," then what is the use? That is their defect. Pravṛttiṁ ca nivṛttiṁ ca na vidur āsurāḥ janā. Na śaucaṁ nāpi cācāro (BG 16.7). (chuckles) Śaucam, cleanliness, they do not know, neither behavior. Nāpi cācāro. Jagad āhur anīśvaram; (BG 16.8) "Oh, there is no God. It has come out out of the sand." This is the whole population. Jagad ahur anīśvaram (BG 16.8). Which way we shall go? (break) Therefore we require vigorous propaganda to make these fools to understand what is the real aim of life. That should be our propaganda. Idam adya mayā labdham imaṁ prāpsye punar dhanam. They have simply calculated, "Now today the bank balance is now three millions dollars, and tomorrow it will be four million." Simply, they say. Idaṁ prāpsye punar dhanam. And everyone is proud, "Who is greater than me? Who can understand more than me? I am very great man." Āḍhyo mām abhi... What is that? Āḍhyo mām, hmm? "I am the richest man. I am the most aristocratic. I have killed so many enemies. Now I shall kill that enemy." Everything is described in the Bhagavad-gītā. This is their position. The rascal does not know whether he is going to be a dog next life, and if he is going to, he says, "Oh, what is the wrong? I can become dog." This is the position. (break) ...āhur anīśvaram. (break) ...trying to go to the planet, this planet, that planet. Rascal, say... They did not recognize, "Who has made this planet, where I am going?" They are taking credit by going there, but he is not giving any credit to the person or the agent who has made it. Just see. What do you think? That, "I am going there, but who has made it? Who is that person?" "No, it has come out... There was a chunk, and it became plant and then so on." This is their knowledge. And people are accepting, "Oh, great scientist. There was a chunk." Just see. Why don't you get yourself a chunk and it burst into big, big planet? (laughter) Such rascals are governing the whole human society.

Morning Walk -- July 12, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: That's all. He became a victim of the western people. Because the Oxford University was paying him very nicely, he became a servant of the western thought. (break)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...in the evolutionary cycle, the transmigration of the soul, we were inquiring whether there's any specific details in the Vedas about the step by step transmigration of the spirit, of the soul.

Prabhupāda: Yes. From the aquatics to the plants, and then insect, then bird, then beast, then human being.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Then it's the same with the Darwin's Theory.

Prabhupāda: Darwin has taken from here, and he has tried to explain in a hodgepodge way so that he may get the credit, that's all.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: The plants have more consciousness, manifest consciousness, than aquatics?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Ravīndra-svarūpa: That plants and grass, they are more conscious than aquatics.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is also mentioned in the Bhāgavata, about different animals, how they are conscious, developed.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: In the Bhāgavata, in the later chapters, Śrīla Prabhupāda? Not up to the present Fourth Canto that...

Prabhupāda: Fourth Canto there is, how one animal is more conscious than the other.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Yes.

Morning Walk -- July 14, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, can I change the topic? Last, day before yesterday, morning, Prabhupāda said that plants are more highly developed than the fish or the aquatics. But someone may ask what about the dolphins and the seals. They are regarded as very intelligent and highly developed.

Prabhupāda: Every living entity has a particular type of intelligence which is greater than the other.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, in the evolutionary cycle. Talking about the...

Prabhupāda: No, evolutionary, cycle, the body may change, but every living entity has got a special advantage upon the others.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: What is the advantage of a tree, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: You see how they are standing there for five thousand years. You cannot do it. You cannot do it even for five minutes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually the trees are absolutely necessary for the survival of animals.

Prabhupāda: That is another thing. We say nothing is necessary, simply Kṛṣṇa is necessary. That is material conception: "This is necessary. This is necessary." But Kṛṣṇa says, "Nothing is necessary." Sarva-dharmān parityajya (BG 18.66). You are simply planning and becoming entangled with so-called "necessary."

Morning Walk -- July 18, 1975, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: If you are business-minded, you can do that. Do business and give the result to Kṛṣṇa. (break)

Brahmānanda: ...planting a tree. And here are the animals. The tiger and the lizard, fish.

Prabhupāda: So what is the meaning?

Bahulāśva: This is zoology. They study all the animals.

Prabhupāda: Not himself?

Bahulāśva: Well, they think they get an idea of man by studying the animals.

Brahmānanda: Catching the tail of the dog.

Bahulāśva: Of the crab. Then they come to conclude that since all the animals do is eat, sleep, mate and defend, man should also just do that.

Prabhupāda: Then why he has become man? Why not animal? Therefore the śāstra says, "One who is engaged in these animal activities, he is animal. He is not man." Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu bhauma idya-dhīḥ (SB 10.84.13). Actually, man is doing like that. In the jungle the similar animals, they flock together. This nationalism is like that. It is nothing better than that. So our defending, that "We are Americans," "We are Indians," "We are Germans"—the same thing. Because they are animals, they have this United Nations. The animals will fight, so they are trying to compromise, "Let us live peacefully." That is not possible because they are animals, all failure. (break)

Paramahaṁsa: Under the threat of nuclear warfare wouldn't Kṛṣṇa consciousness be more easy to spread?

Morning Walk -- July 24, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: No, no, in the sand. You'll find so many lives, many millions. How there is life in the water? There is life in the water, there is life on the land, there is life in the air, so where is there no life? How you can say there is no life? That is foolishness. And they say that the dust brought from the moon planet is the same. It can be found here. So why there should not be life?

Paramahaṁsa: If there is life on other planets then they assume it's in a plant form or very, very low, like plants, bushes at the most.

Prabhupāda: That is their opinion.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda? If these scientists, they landed on the Rahu planet, that means that...

Prabhupāda: That could be, but some... Just like somebody was saying that there are many planets unknown. They might have gone to some... Just like there are many parts of the world you have never seen. Even on this planet, you cannot say that you have seen all the parts of the world. That is not possible. (break)

Paramahaṁsa: As far as these unidentified flying objects that Werner Von Braun was recently mentioning, he says that previously they've had many sightings. They've seen these and filmed these, but they're afraid to release them or the government is afraid to acknowledge them because they're afraid it would cause a panic amongst the world.

Prabhupāda: What is that panic?

Room Conversations -- July 26, 1975, Laguna Beach:

Bhojadeva: Plant?

Prabhupāda: Yes. So it dies before. All these food grain plants, when the food grains are ripened, they dry. So it is not required to kill the plant. When it is already dead, you can take the food grains. When you take milk, the cow is not killed. The milk is nothing but transformation of the blood. So we are taking milk means blood. The blood is in a red color, and milk is in white color, but it is blood. Unless it is blood, how so much liquid comes from the body? So we take the same blood in a very intelligible way so that cow may live, he can continue to give me more and more, and I take more benefit from the wonderful food, milk. This is intelligence. And because cow blood is very beneficial for health, if I kill the cow, that is not very good intelligence. In our New Vrindaban the cows are giving more milk than others because they know we shall not kill them. They are happy. You'll get from Bhāgavatam... Find out this verse in the First Canto, I think, kāmaṁ vavarṣa parjanyaḥ. Kāmaṁ vavarṣa parjanyaḥ sarva-kāma-dughā mahī (SB 1.10.4). Find this verse. (break)

Satsvarūpa:

(kāmaṁ) vavarṣa parjanyaḥ
sarva-kāma-dughā mahī
siṣicuḥ sma vrajān gāvaḥ
payasodhasvatīr mudā
(SB 1.10.4)

"During the reign of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, the clouds showered..."

Prabhupāda: (aside:) The windows this side cannot be opened?

Satsvarūpa: "... all the water that people needed, and the earth produced all the necessities of man in profusion. Due to its fatty milk bags and cheerful attitude, the cow used to moisten the grazing ground with milk."

Prabhupāda: You can open this, these windows. There is no window? Just hear this.

Room Conversations -- July 26, 1975, Laguna Beach:

Prabhupāda: "Cheerful attitude." If cows know. They have got intelligence that "We will be killed." Therefore they are not supplying sufficient milk. They cannot, just like if your mind is full of anxiety, you cannot work fully. So because they are denied this cheerfulness, you are getting less milk. If you keep them cheerful, they will give more milk. This is nature's economic development. Artificially you cannot increase the production of milk. But according to the instruction of scripture, if you keep them cheerful without any fear, they will deliver double milk. So therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā it is recommended that cows should be protected in the human society. If you want to eat meat, you can kill insignificant, small animal, but don't kill cows. There are other animals-hogs, pigs, goats, lambs or birds, so many, fish—if you are at all interested in meat-eating; but don't kill cow. Find out this verse from Bhagavad-gītā, kṛṣi-go-rakṣya-vāṇijyam vaiśya-karma svabhāva-jam (BG 18.44). Those who are vaiśyas... Economic development... Vaiśya means economic development. They should produce ample food grains and give protection to the cows. Just like our Kṛṣṇa's life, His foster father was a vaiśya. So he is keeping so many hundred thousands of cows, and Kṛṣṇa was entrusted to take charge of the calves, Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma. So although They were very rich father's son, still They were taking the calves in the forest for tending in childhood. Still... You have seen in Māyāpur? The small children, they are taking care very nicely of the cows. After all, it is animal. The small child has got a stick, and he has been trained up how to allow them to graze. They have done. So according to Bhagavad-gītā... But that is very nice, that economic development means you produce more food grains and more milk. Then it will solve all posit... There will be no scarcity of food or happiness. Our, these Kṛṣṇa society young boys and girls, they have prepared so many nice things from milk. It is nutritious, very palatable, every..., everything. And we take food grains, fruits, milk preparation, that's all. That is very easily available. You can get enough fruits if you cultivate trees and plants. That is recommended in Bhagavad-gītā. Patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati (BG 9.26). What I have given, purport of that verse?

Room Conversations -- July 26, 1975, Laguna Beach:

Prabhupāda: Nature's arrangement... In this material world you cannot eat without working. Even if you are lion-lion is considered to be the most powerful animal—he has to capture one animal. He cannot think that "Let me sleep, and the animal will come automatically in my mouth." It is not possible. You have to work; this is the material world. So that work is simple work. If you have got land... Everyone has got land. You just work little, and it will produce your food grains. And the food grains will give food to the animal and man. The animal, cow, he will eat the grass, and you will take the grains. Why should you kill the animal? You haven't got to arrange for his food. You produce paddy. The plant, when it is dried, it is good for animals, and you take the grains. Why should you kill him? And he will deliver you. If you protect his life, he will give you nice milk. So you keep animal, cows, and grow food grain; then your food problem is solved. So if your food problem is solved and your cloth problems is solved, then where is your economic necessity? Then you save time and cultivate Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So real business will be how to cultivate, how to become advanced in God consciousness. That the animal cannot do. You are claiming more intelligence than the animals, so use your intelligence in this way. Don't spoil day and night for your economic development. So-called economic development means as soon as you become stout and strong, then sense gratification. Then you cultivate the culture of nudism. That Los Angeles beach, "Beach for nudies." Is not written there?

Room Conversation -- July 31, 1975, New Orleans:

Prabhupāda: If there is nothing available, what can be done? But when you have got such orange, such nice fruits, and rice and dahl and milk, why should you eat fish? After all, you have to eat something. If such nice foods are not available, you can eat fish. But when very nice foods are available, why should you? In other place Christ said that "These vegetables should be your meat," like that?

Satsvarūpa: In Genesis, the very beginning of the Old Testament. "The plants shall be your meat."

Prabhupāda: One must eat something. The nature's law is that sahastānā... Sahastānām ahastāni. And catuṣ-padam. That is the arrangement by nature's way, that animals, they have no hands. So the primitive life, so they become food for the primitive natives or uncivilized man. They kill some animals and eat. And why civilized man do so? He can produce his food. God has given him land. He has intelligence. Just like our temple commander was telling us. He has got immense opportunity... Just explain to them about you are producing with the farm.

Nityānanda: We have a farm and we are producing all kinds of foodstuffs for men and animals.

Walk Around Farm -- August 1, 1975, New Orleans:

Prabhupāda: Any grains for man?

Nityānanda: No, we're not growing any grains for man right now. We have fruit trees in the yard. Pears, peaches, plums, figs.

Prabhupāda: Some growing?

Nityānanda: Not very much. They are very young. We just planted them. In a few years we will get lots of fruit.

Prabhupāda: Here the land is mixed with some stones? No.

Nityānanda: I think they put this here, this gravel.

Prabhupāda: There is no mango tree here? No.

Nityānanda: No what?

Brāhmaṇada: Mango trees.

Nityānanda: We have some growing at the house.

Prabhupāda: Vegetables you are growing?

Nityānanda: Yes. We have a garden across the street. All these big trees are pecan trees. We have twenty. All this land across the road here that is cleared is ours, all the way up to the trees.

Walk Around Farm -- August 1, 1975, New Orleans:

Prabhupāda: They give daily some fruits?

Nityānanda: Yes. And then we grow potatoes too.

Prabhupāda: Oh, where? Which side?

Nityānanda: Well, the spring crop was already harvested. We have to plant the fall potatoes in a few weeks. We'll put them over there by the fence.

Prabhupāda: So it is nice farm. This is squash?

Nityānanda: That's a cantaloupe plant.

Prabhupāda: Oh, cantaloupe. You can grow cantaloupe here?

Nityānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: And also watermelon?

Nityānanda: Yes.

Jagadīśa: There is one big watermelon on the vine up there. Perhaps it's ready to eat.

Prabhupāda: We are getting similar land, 600 acres, in Hyderabad.

Nityānanda: We can go this way, here. This is all our machinery here.

Morning Walk -- August 25, 1975, Vrndavana:

Dhanañjaya: ...all this has subsided. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...and did he?

Dhanañjaya: We will find out.

Prabhupāda: So much land is vacant here.

Brahmānanda: What are these plants here? (break)

Jayapatāka: ...much more available here.

Dhanañjaya: And the soil is such good quality. Everything is growing. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...land belongs to somebody because it is barbed wire.

Brahmānanda: Very nice fencing here.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...this janglee. (?)

Jayapatāka: They make oil from this now.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Castor seed?

Jayapatāka: Kusuma or something like that, I think. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...this is?

Dhanañjaya: This is Akaṇḍhānanda Swami. Akaṇḍhānanda Mahārāja. (break)

Morning Walk -- August 28, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Vana means forest. What is this?

Dhanañjaya: This is garden.

Prabhupāda: Acala-vihāra Gosvāmī. (break)

Dhanañjaya: ...and down here where they're growing about two acres of tulasī. They just grow tulasī plants for the temples, for Bankibehari and other temples. The fragrance is so nice.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...built. Nobody living. Only locked.

Dhanañjaya: This is where the gardener keeps his tools. (break) ...in there, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Oh, there. (break) Tired. (break) Now you can take him back. (Child crying)

Dhanañjaya: Did the Yamunā river used to...

Prabhupāda: I do not know.

Dhanañjaya: ...flow in this part?

Prabhupāda: How this building could be constructed? (break) ...a strong-built wall, and the tree has grown from there.

Dhanañjaya: That means it must be very old wall, because now they are not building such strong walls. (break)

Prabhupāda: Rādhāballabha. (break) Real reminiscence of Vṛndāvana.

Morning Walk -- October 2, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: But you do not know how to be happy.

Indian man (1): Even this land, here they are producing sugarcane. So that is strong for wheat. They can grow plenty of wheat.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Everything can be grown.

Cyavana: If sugarcane will grow, anything will grow. It's very fertile.

Indian man (1): Because they don't want to do anything, they simply plant the sugarcane and then they want rest for few months, simply getting money and taking and drinking.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Indian man (1): No work. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...getting rice, wheat from outside, they can charge any price because the price of grain is increasing.

Indian man (1): Any time, they can stop it.

Morning Walk -- October 3, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: We are in the material world means everyone is diseased. (break) māyayāpahṛta-jñānāḥ, duṣkṛtinaḥ (BG 7.15). This is described. This is the material disease. I explained how they are committing sinful life: slaughterhouse, this liquor house and so many things, simply sinful. And they do not know they are going to suffer again in another body. He's going to be slaughtered next life. "Life for life." You are taking life, so many lives; you have to give so many times life. Take birth and become killed. Take birth and become killed." There is no knowledge.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Sometimes people ask, Prabhupāda, that if one falls down into lower species of life like plants or animals, how then do they come again to the human form of life?

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is nature's way. Give them again chance to develop. From trees they become flies. That is the beginning of movement. Then from flies to birds, birds to beast, and beast to animal, er, human being. This is great chastisement. You cannot move even. Suffer torrents of rain, cyclone, scorching heat, pinching cold. Stand up for hundreds and thousands of years. Then, when the punishment is finished, then he becomes moving. If there is scorching heat he can move to some shelter. But he cannot move. They do not study all this science, why there are so many varieties of life, of different grades. Wherefrom they are coming?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The living entity, then, in the tree is actually conscious of its condition of life.

Morning Walk -- October 3, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: Not advanced consciousness, but he is conscious. He feels. He feels.

Harikeśa: It shocked a lot of people when they made the test of bringing a scissor to a plant, and they put some electrodes on it and they found that the plant was reacting with fear.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. That machine has been discovered by Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose. He discovered this wireless telegram, radio. But Marconi took from him, and British government helped him.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The British again.

Prabhupāda: Britishers were advertising outside India that "Indians are uncivilized. Therefore we are making them civilized. Therefore we should stay there. Don't object." Because United Nations, they were asking, "Why you are occupying India?" So they used to forward this argument, that "These people are uncivilized. We are making them civilized." (laughter) Now, how there should be Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose? Therefore they used to suppress always. Everything Indian wanted to do, they would suppress: big businesses, this mining... They would suppress. This Morarji, Sumati Morarji, her father-in-law started that... He had to face so many impediments from the Britishers to start the shipping company. Formerly there was no shipping company, Indian. Now, before that, there was shipping, not shipping company, but navigation was there from India to Rome, Greece, Turkey, there was regular business of spices and fine cloth. Later on, this large-scale shipping industry, that was done by the Europeans. So when Indian wanted to start, they would supress. The Tata iron industry, he had to face so many difficulties. Formerly, even if you wanted to bring some iron frame, it would come from Sheffield.

Morning Walk -- October 5, 1975, Mauritius:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But throughout the rest of the world, places like Japan and Australia...

Prabhupāda: Your calculation of the world. If it is preached anywhere, that is preached on the world. It was not spread, you can say, but it was preached.

Cyavana: The seed was planted.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Harikeśa: They were saving it for you.

Prabhupāda: For you also.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I think they had their hands full with India. They had their hands full with India, all of the preachers.

Prabhupāda: Yes. What they are collecting?

Harikeśa: Crabs, I think. Crabs.

Indian man (4): Swamijī? It is prohibited to consume, consume flesh, meat. It's because there is soul in the body and if we kill it, therefore we are doing a sin. I think it's because that we can't consume meat according to the Vedic literature. But what about plants, Swamijī?

Prabhupāda: Plants also, you... They are also killed. They are also killed. But this is... Plants are killed by the order of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore you are not responsible.

Morning Walk -- October 5, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: That is stated in the śāstra. Kṛṣṇa says, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati (BG 9.26). Patram means vegetable, leaves; puṣpam, flower. In this way, whatever He says, you collect and offer to Him and take prasādam. Then you are not responsible. And if you collect for yourself even patram without offering to Kṛṣṇa, if you take, you are responsible for killing. It doesn't matter whether you kill a big animal or a small plant. You are responsible. Just like a soldier. He kills hundreds and thousands of men and he is given gold medal. And as soon as he kills one man for his sense gratification he is hanged. Eh? Is it not? He can say, "I have killed so many men. At that time I was not hanged. I was given gold medal. How is that? (laughter) I have killed only one man. I am going to be hanged?" That is law. You cannot do anything on your own account, sense gratification. Then you are responsible. Yajñārthāt karmaṇo 'nyatra loko 'ya karma-bandhanaḥ. Everything is stated. Read Bhagavad-gītā very thoroughly and try to understand. Then everything will be clear, how to live, how to organize society. We have to live. The same thing: we are also working, we are also eating, we are sleeping, we are also marrying—but according to Kṛṣṇa's direction. Then it is Kṛṣṇa conscious life and perfect life. And as soon as you do anything whimsically, at your will, then you are responsible. Kṛṣṇa or His representative. Kṛṣṇa is giving instruction, and His representative is explaining. In both ways Kṛṣṇa is helping. So even so much facility being offered to you, if you don't take advantage, then you are committing suicide. Ātmahā. Ātmahā. Just like the sea is now calm and quiet. If you want to go somewhere, take advantage of it. And if you start your boat while it is cyclone, then you'll be drowned. So Kṛṣṇa has left the book of instruction, Bhagavad-gītā. It is favorable condition. And the spiritual master is the captain, and you take advantage. Your, this human body is a good boat. So good boat, favorable condition, good captain—take advantage of crossing this ocean. Otherwise you are committing suicide. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). It is very difficult to cross over this ocean of nescience, but these are the favorable conditions. One should take advantage of these favorable conditions and cross over this ocean of nescience.

Room Conversation -- October 5, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: But one thing you must be assured, that if you can introduce this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, everyone will be happy. Be rest assured. That's a fact.

Guest (1): Because if you go to the villages...

Prabhupāda: Everyone will be happy. Men and animal, everyone will be happy. Even the trees and plants, they will be happy.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: We could have big saṅkīrtana parties in the villages here too.

Brahmānanda: How is it that the trees and plants will be happy?

Prabhupāda: Because they will hear Hare Kṛṣṇa. Not only trees and plants. The insects and everyone, they will have the opportunity of hearing Hare Kṛṣṇa. That will benefit.

Guest (1): If we have got this act, Swamijī, here itself we can organize it. For example, we are getting holidays in November, school holidays, twenty-first November. So we can put it in the newspaper that "Those who are interested, young people from fifteen or twenty to thirty or forty, these people can send their letters and they would come. So we can answer them through newspaper, also radio, through TV, so that they would come...

Prabhupāda: Yes. If you do organize, then I shall stay. It is very good program. Let us give it some shape with your good cooperation. So Kṛṣṇa is giving you intelligence. He is giving so nice program. So do it practically.

Morning Walk -- October 7, 1975, Durban:

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They're not in season right now. There is some fruit on this tree. See up there? There is some fruit. Could be a mango tree.

Prabhupāda: What are these plants? Pineapple? No. Different. (break) ...intelligent. Just like here is sunshine. Wherefrom the sunshine is coming? We can see the sun globe. So what is the arrangement there? This is inquiry. And there must be some heating arrangement, lighting arrangement. There must be some fire. And who has made this fire? How it came, so big fire that the whole universe is heated and light? This is inquiry. And see the sunshine and say, "It is nature," and finish business, dismiss all other questions—what is this nonsense? "I am great scientist." Eh? What is your reply? "It is nature, that's all." A great scientist. That a child can say also. It is automatic. That is not intelligence. If the scientists simply study the sunshine, they will have to come to the conclusion there is God. But they will not do that. They will bluff others, they will cheat others, and they will be cheated. And still they pass on as great scientist. Study the sunshine, wherefrom it is coming. You have no experience that unless there is arrangement at night, there is no sunshine, why you make so much arrangement for heat and light by electricity, by this way and that way and there is no arrangement nature? But such foolish talks we have to hear from so-called scientists? That is going on.

Harikeśa: They like to think that everything evolved so they can think that eventually...

Room Conversation with Bill Faill (reporter) -- October 8, 1975, Durban:

Prabhupāda: Yes, a covering. Vehicle also. Vehicle also. It is just like a machine. You go from one place to another on a motorcar machine. So this body is just like machine. On account of our material, conditional life we are thinking that "If I get this position, then I will be happy. If I get this position, I will be happy." We are creating mental concoction. But nothing will make us happy unless we come to our real position that "I am part and parcel of God. My business is to associate with God and help or cooperate with God." So that position we have to revive. And there are different types of vehicle, in the aquatic animals, then, I mean to say, plants. When the water is dried up, then vegetation comes. Then vegetation..., from vegetation, we... Trees and plants, they cannot move. Then we get little improvement; we can move, just like flies, insects, microbes, reptiles, and so many. So there are nine lakhs' forms of body within the water. Then two million types of bodies in vegetable, and then 1,100,000 species of life like microbes, germs, worms, insects. Then you come to the birds' life, three million different forms of. Then we come to beast life. That is also... Birds, I am sorry. Birds' life, one million, and then the beast life, three millions... Then we come to human form of body, and especially, gradually, we become civilized. So when we are civilized, then it is a chance to understand "what is God, what I am, what is our relationship." So if we don't take advantage of this civilized human life to understand God, and if we simply waste our life like cats and dogs, jumping and going here, then this is a great missing point. So the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is to educate people not to miss this opportunity. You take full advantage on this human form of life and try to understand God and your relationship with God.

Room Conversation with Bill Faill (reporter) -- October 8, 1975, Durban:

Prabhupāda: No, that... This I have already told you. There are 8,400,000 different forms of life. So you can enter any one of them according to your mental condition. We are under the control of the material nature. The material nature is being conducted in three modes: goodness, passion and ignorance. So just like three colors: yellow, red, and blue. Now you mix-three into three equal to nine, nine into nine equal to eighty-one. So these modes of material nature is being mixed up. Therefore there are so many varieties of life. So if we transcend this coloring platform of material nature, we come to the pure consciousness. Then we stop this repetition of birth and death in different forms of life. And if we do not that, then there is chance of going down or going up. There are different planets. If you cultivate the modes of goodness, then you are promoted to the higher planetary system, higher standard of life. And if you don't improve or don't go down, then you may remain in the present stage. But out of ignorance, if you still degrade, commit sinful activities, violate the laws of nature, then we go down again—the animal life, the plants' life, like that. But again we have to evolve, evolutionary process, by nature's... So it may take many millions of years. So therefore a human being must be responsible that "I have got this opportunity to get out of this cycle of birth and death and different forms of life, and let me properly understand God and what is my relationship with God and act accordingly so that if we understand what is God, then we go back to home, back to Godhead."

Faill: What can an ordinary man do? I mean the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement involves shaving the head and wearing the saffron robe. What can the man who is caught up in family life do?

Morning Walk -- October 9, 1975, Durban:

Prabhupāda: Everywhere. Brahmā also dies.

Indian man: Brahmā also dies. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...plants are within the sea?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Down?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Some plants live underneath the water.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And why these rascals say there is no life? We see underneath the water there is life, and in the moon planet there is no life? We have to believe this?

Indian man: So there is life on the moon, Swamijī?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Indian man: But can you see them? Do they have bodies?

Prabhupāda: First of all you go there. Then see. I don't admit that they have gone to the moon planet.

Indian man: You don't believe.

Morning Walk -- Durban, October 13, 1975 :

Prabhupāda: Man came from man. The first man is Brahmā. From him came. And Brahmā came from Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu. So this is easy. Brahmā appeared from Viṣṇu.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So the first created being was a man.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Brahmā, a first-class man.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Even before the plants. Even before the plants.

Prabhupāda: Yes, because man can create everything.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That means Genesis in the Bible is wrong, because they say that first there were plants and then trees and then after man came.

Harikeśa: No, first they say that there was a man did that.

Prabhupāda: They say Adam and Eve.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But they say first that the plants and the fish and the trees and the birds…

Prabhupāda: Then Adam, Eve.

Morning Walk -- Durban, October 13, 1975 :

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But they say first that the plants and the fish and the trees and the birds…

Prabhupāda: Then Adam, Eve.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Then, afterwards, that after creating so many things, the plants and the trees, God was still lonely.

Prabhupāda: Brahmā … Brahmā, when he was created, he was in darkness. He could not see anything. "What to do? What … ? Why I am?" Then he tapasya, meditation. Then he was given intelligence. Then, gradually, everything…

Harikeśa: It seems that the Christians' idea of God is our idea of Brahmā. Their God is like Brahmā. He's just a creator.

Prabhupāda: What is their idea? I do not know.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Their idea is that in the beginning there was darkness until God created the light. Then he created the different heavenly planets and the oceans and the inanimate things. Then He created…

Prabhupāda: Then it is like Brahmā.

Harikeśa: It is like Brahmā. And their heaven and hell is like the upper and lower planetary systems. It's all little bit of knowledge.

Prabhupāda: Little difference, maybe, but the basic…

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They say that Adam was created…

Prabhupāda: Then their God created. God created. So that is all right. We also say God created Brahmā.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Then they say that woman was created from a rib of Adam.

Morning Walk -- October 16, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: Why not?

Harikeśa: Some people were telling me that the herbs had lost all their effectiveness in the Kali-yuga.

Prabhupāda: Then die. (laughter) Do you mean to say this modern medical treatment is guarantee for your living?

Harikeśa: No.

Prabhupāda: Then? That is also not guarantee. If you see the herbs and plants are no more effective, then if there is no guarantee in your modern medical, there is no guarantee. So why should you spend so much money? As soon as I go to a doctor, immediately twenty dollars. As soon as go to purchase some drugs, immediately twenty. If I have no money... And still that is not guarantee, so why shall I spend so much money?

Harikeśa: So actually this money doesn't even exist in Vedic society—money.

Prabhupāda: Money is not required. You require things. Just like instead of money, you are getting papers. Money means gold. Where is gold? You are cheated. Money means gold. So instead of possessing gold, you are possessing some paper, written there, "hundred dollars." And you are such a fool, you are satisfied. You are being cheated. Bank's check and currency notes, you keep it in your..., "Oh, here is my money." Is that money? Just see.

Devotee (3): They only do that to make it easier for them, because they've got so much money that they can't carry it...

Morning Walk -- October 26, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: Yes. There is no standard idea. I dream some way; you dream some way. That's all. What is this?

Cyavana: Seaweed.

Brahmānanda: It looks like a sponge.

Cyavana: Plant.

Prabhupāda: That is their defect. If my dream is wrong, why your dream should be right? That they did not conceive of, that "My dream is right(?)." And if you say that "Your dream is also wrong," yes, I do not dream. I take the facts from the authority. We do not dream. Dream is dream, either yours or mine. It doesn't matter.

Brahmānanda: Well, some people question whether that Aquarian Gospel is authority.

Prabhupāda: Why Bible is authority? Who cares for Bible? Nobody cares for Bible. So there, some supporter for some book, these, you will always find it. Huh? Now they are decrying, deriding Bible also. So how do you say that Bible is authority when so many things have changed?

Brahmānanda: Even they are changing their interpretation of the...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Brahmānanda: ...Bible regularly.

Room Conversation -- October 29, 1975, Nairobi:

Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa's grace, just like the government gives the prisoners also to eat. But they are condemned. And government's grace that government provides all necessities. If a prisoner is sick, he is given the hospital facility. But he is restricted free movement, that much. Otherwise government gives the same facilities within the prison house and without the... The standard may be little different. Eko yo bahūnāṁ (yo) vidadhāti kamān. He satis... Why this human being prisoner? Even He is giving food to the animals, to the birds, beasts, everyone. Noncooperation cannot be. Kṛṣṇa says, bijo 'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām (Bg 7.10). Now, you have to grow trees, plants and vegetables for your eating. So that you cannot have without cooperation with Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa gives all the seeds. Bijo 'ham. You cannot manufacture the seed. He gives the seed. You work little, sow it and get the result. But without cooperation with Kṛṣṇa, how can you get the seed? Then where is your food? No food. You must take... "God, give us our daily bread." Kṛṣṇa gives the seeds, and you sow it and get the fruit or grains. Then you can exist. Even if you are animal-eater, the animal must also come from Kṛṣṇa. You cannot manufacture the animal. That is also coming from Kṛṣṇa. Bijo 'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām (Bg 7.10). The animal is produced by father and mother, but the seed is given in the semina by Kṛṣṇa. And then animal is produced. So how you can non-cooperate Kṛṣṇa? You have to cooperate. Otherwise... (man yelling in background) What is that? (laughter) Huh? They are criticizing us? No.

Room Conversation -- October 29, 1975, Nairobi:

Prahupada: Yes.

Cyavana: This park? The British. They designed all these parks and roads.

Brahmānanda: I know that other park-yesterday or the other day we went—that was done by the British. They've taken plants from all over East Africa.

Prabhupāda: All these buildings are constructed by the Britishers.

Cyavana: Some Indian organizations, firms, come also. Big construction companies from India, they are combined.

Brahmānanda: Usually, in all of the business concerns here, the top man is British, managing their activity.

Prabhupāda: So when they kill such brutally in the farm, the Britisher did not take any step?

Brahmānanda: Not very effective steps. They declared a state of emergency, and they brought soldiers here, and they had huge arrests. They had camps just outside of Nairobi, and they were arresting tens of thousands, huge camps. But the tactics that they would use, the Africans, the British soldiers couldn't...

Prabhupāda: They brought British soldiers or Indian soldiers?

Brahmānanda: I'm not sure.

Prabhupāda: British soldiers, so long, how they'll come? They were using Indian soldiers.

Morning Walk -- November 1, 1975, Nairobi:

Prabhupāda: No, formerly, three hundred years, you had some water; therefore the water is coming out. This is all nonsense. Seven generation before my great-grandfather ate some ghee, and still I have got the smell. (laughter) It is that argument. Huh? This kind of argument has no value. Water is... You can create water from your body. What is there? You are a doctor. What is your...? Eh? Medical men they are. No? Water is created. How the blood is created? He did not drink blood. This is nonsense argument. How we create blood? It is becoming. You do not know how it is, but you have got such potency that blood is being created. You even do not know how the blood is being done, but it is being. That is inconceivable energy. There are so many secretions. They are coming within the body. So everything is there. By God's supreme energy they are being automatically. Svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca. Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). God has got multi-energies. Na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate. This is the description. He hasn't got to do anything. Just like so many things are being manufactured within my body. I haven't got to directly work for it. So similarly, the God's gigantic... Na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate. He has nothing to do. Na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate. Na tat-samaś cābhyadhikaś ca dṛśyate. Nobody is found equal to Him or greater than Him. We are... He is God, and we are subordinate because we have many equals, but He has no equal. He is unlimited; we are limited. Parāsya śaktir vivdhaiva śrūyate. He has got multi-energies. The energies are working. Just like here there are so many instruments within this box, but you just push one button and it works. You just push one button; the whole thing is working. So similarly, the God has made this body so perfect that whatever is required, it is being manufactured. Nobody can explain. Can you explain how your hair is... You shave today, and tomorrow again, how it is growing, can you explain? But it is coming out. The energy is there. Similarly, if in the small body, a sample of God, so many energies are there, automatically working, then, so far God is concerned, that parāsya śaktir, He has got unlimited number of energies and things are taking place automatically. This material world is also external body of Kṛṣṇa. Just like our body, external body, and the hair is coming out. Do you endeavor for it? Similarly, the trees, plants, they are coming out.

Morning Walk -- November 2, 1975, Nairobi:

Harikeśa: So in the beginning only it was an accident. Then it became regular, after that first accident.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So in the beginning let us kick. Then things will be all right. (break) Bhagavad-gītā says in the beginning? Hm? What is the beginning?

Brahmānanda: Ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā (BG 14.4).

Prabhupāda: Ah. Bījo 'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām (Bg 7.10), very good. Thank you very much. All these plants begins from the seed. That seed... Kṛṣṇa says, "I am the seed." So how it is accident? Every plant has got a particular type of seed. You cannot change it. You take two seeds. It will grow as it is; it will grow as it is. Not that by accident it will grow like this and it will grow like this, no. Rose seed will grow rose tree, and mango seed will grow mangoes. Where is accident? The seed is there. Simply rascals.

Harikeśa: It's an accident where the seed falls.

Prabhupāda: Then you are great scientist. Let me kick on your face. (laughter)

Devotee (1): What about cross-breeding, when they change the...? Cross-breeding.

Prabhupāda: That is not accident, cross-breeding. You arrange for that.

Devotee (1): They change the original seed.

Morning Walk -- November 11, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: You take decision or not, he will be killed. That you cannot say. You are becoming very much moralist, whether to kill, but it will be killed. You cannot save him. That is not possible.

Harikeśa: So, they should just keep the machines going?

Prabhupāda: No, they should stop this nonsense and save money. That's all. Therefore they are called rascals. It will not be persisting. It is temporary. So why should you spend money? That is intelligence.

Saurabha: They have examined those people, and they say they have the same symptoms as plant life.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Saurabha: Not more than that.

Prabhupāda: And in our list the plants are there. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati. Sthāvara means plants. There are jalaja, aquatics, and sthāvara means plant. All living entities, different forms... Bhagavad-gītā says, sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya (BG 14.4). As many forms are there of the living entities. But what are these forms? Forms means the spirit soul is one, and he is covered by these material elements. That is form. So either your form or my form, but the ingredients are the same, bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ (BG 7.4). (break) The soul is the same, and the ingredients of the body are the same. That is explained in Iśo..., ekatvam anupaśyate. Just like from gold, take from the mine—you make earring or this finger ring, the ingredients are the same. The forms may be different. (break) Apollo airship, thousands of technologists and scientists were engaged to make this Apollo, and it burst out. So they have no foreseeing power that it will burst out. At that time they began to pray to God.

Morning Walk -- December 19, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: It is a fact if he says.

Śravaṇānanda: Yes. It is written right there, it's written right there. They say the playing of football will bring one closer to heaven than the study of the Gītā.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Vivekananda taught this.

Śravaṇānanda: He said "Pull out the tulasī and plant brinjal."

Prabhupāda: Yes, he advised, better water what is called, eggplant tree, than tulasī tree. It will bring some fruit. What is the use of watering tulasī tree?

Dr. Patel: Tulasi has got great medicinal properties.

Prabhupāda: That he is not even prepared to...

Dr. Patel: He must not be knowing. Those rascals.

Prabhupāda: And "Why you are searching out God here and there? There are so many Gods loitering in the street." This is the Vivekananda's statement. And therefore everyone is God. Everyone is thinking, "I am God." This is going on.

Śravaṇānanda: When we went to try to arrange a lecture at their football field for a pandal program, they said all the people coming would ruin the turf for cricket season. So they didn't have time for spiritual training, they said, only for the physical training. It caused too much damage on the field.

Page Title:Plants (Conversations 1974 - 1975)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, RupaManjari
Created:19 of Nov, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=84, Let=0
No. of Quotes:84