Radio (Conversations)

Expressions researched:
"radio"

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Radio Interview -- March 12, 1968, San Francisco:

Interviewer: Okay. Karma, is this a part of your religion?

Prabhupāda: Yes, karma. Karma means work, fruitive work. As you work, as you sow...

Caller: I'll take my answer on the air please, okay?

Interviewer: Go ahead, Swami. She's just going to listen to your answer on the radio. Go ahead with your description of karma.

Prabhupāda: Karma means fruitive work. Just like you are laboring for some wages. You get your wages. Similarly, this material world our work is rewarded. Good work is rewarded with good benefit and bad work is punished. This is the law of karma.

Morning Walk at Stow Lake -- March 27, 1968, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: They kill the grandfather and have a feast, the cannibals. Yes. That is a great sport, that the grandsons will kill the grandfather and have a feast on his body by toasting.(?) Yes. The same idea is being preached by the communists. They want that all old man of the society, they should be killed. That is one of the theories put forward by the communists. Because they are not producing anything. So just imagine, these things will come gradually. So better to leave this place as soon as possible. Not to come again. That should be our serious attention. The other day the radio man was asking, "Swamiji, how to adjust?" "And there is no adjustment. You have to go out of the scene. There is no adjustment." So he was not very happy. If I would have bluffed him, "Oh, you do this, you do that, you do this humanitarian work, you spread(?) education and give foodstuff." No! There is no adjustment. The only adjustment is quit this place.

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- August 14, 1971, London:

Prabhupāda: Just like these flowers. These flowers the devotees are bringing to their spiritual master, to God. They are not enjoying. Ordinary man, if he gets a flower, he'll put it in the pocket. How... You see? That is the difference of God consciousness. The flower is the same, but use is different.

Guest (2): What's your view, if I may ask, on, for emotion in, of, an ideal, a Christian ideal and so on through the media. Will you use television and radio to condemn things like racial intolerance and the Vietnam War? Do you believe that you should become involved in these things? Could you issue a statement and say that the movement condemns so and so? Do you believe getting into anything in the world spectrum to comment on things?

Revatīnandana: Do you follow the question, Śrīla Prabhupāda? His question is do we concern ourselves with particular problems in the world, there's the war in Vietnam, there's racial discrimination? Do we make statements to condemn this war or to condemn that discrimination?

Conversation with Journalists -- August 18, 1971, London:

Prabhupāda: No. They may not be gentle, but we are gentle. Please come to us and learn. They may not be gentle. We can create gentle, provided he follows.

Journalist (1): Is that one single...

Dhanañjaya: (background talk) Śrīla Prabhupāda, (indistinct) the BBC One, Radio. They're (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: You can also note—this is common-talking of God.

Conversation with Journalists -- August 18, 1971, London:

Prabhupāda: So these three things, if you try to understand that God is the proprietor, God is the supreme friend and God is the supreme enjoyer, then all problems solved.

Journalist (1): Thank you.

Journalist (2): May I come in another queue for BBC Radio 4, just to tell me in fact what is the purpose of your visit to London?

Prabhupāda: To teach you these things, as we were just talking with your friend, that God is proprietor, God is friend of everyone and God is the supreme enjoyer.

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

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

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: They would like to film the, the...

Prabhupāda: I can ask?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: ...the devotees asking you questions for the audience.

Prabhupāda: They make radio, television, they ask the same question. They do not know what question they can ask. The real..., it is meant for the philosophy of life, but they, they do not know.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Yes.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Mr. Wadell -- July 10, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mr. Wadell: And I must accept that. I cannot be certain about that. Would you not agree?

Prabhupāda: But if there is a process... Suppose you are not in Sydney, but if there is a radio message from Sydney, how do you accept it?

Mr. Wadell: Oh, well, I'd believe it.

Conversation with Mr. Wadell -- July 10, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Then that is a question of belief.

Mr. Wadell: But that is not... Belief is not quite the same thing as...

Prabhupāda: No that is not belief; that is fact. Suppose a radio message is coming from Sydney, we accept it-fact. Although I am not in Sydney. So it is a question of process, how to receive the message. If the process is perfect, then the message is perfect.

Morning Walk -- December 2, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes, there are many scientists like that. Just like this Marconi, he stole the knowledge from Dr. Jagadisha Candra Bose. You know that?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I have heard this.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Jagadisha Candra... I was present. He said that "This man cheated me. I talked with him. Next morning he published the theory."

Karandhara: About radio?

Prabhupāda: No, newspaper. Because both of them were friends, scientists, they talked. And he took the clue, immediately published the theory.

Morning Walk -- December 2, 1973, Los Angeles:

Bali Mardana: Which theory was that?

Prabhupāda: That Marconi wireless.

Bali Mardana: Wireless, radio.

Prabhupāda: Yes, radio. That was Jagadisha Candra Bose's discovery. But the government will not give the credit to the Indians. Because Jagadisha Candra Bose happened to be Indian. These Britishers they are so much envious. Therefore they will never admit that Bhagavad-gītā was spoken five thousand years ago. They bring all within the Christian period. That is their rascaldom.

Morning Walk -- December 10, 1973, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The primordial flux, they call it. That nature has supplied such nice samples, elements, like potassium, argon, and this...

Prabhupāda: Everything is natural...

Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...they call radio-active elements.

Prabhupāda: Everything is natural. What you have produced? Everything is natural production.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, based on these elements, they calculate, they can calculate, they say very exactly the, how old the earth is. How old is the...

Morning Walk -- December 11, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prajāpati: In the last World War there was a very famous German propagandist named Goebbels who wrote that if one controls the communications, the media, the radio and television, newspapers, like this, he actually controls what people think. So we've not put so much emphasis on that so far in our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, actually controlling the linkage of communication. In the future should we be more and more concerned with that?

Prabhupāda: What is that future? What do you want to do in future?

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Guru-gaurāṅga: Who's left a copy of Bhagavad-gītā here?

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Who's left this copy? That's his, this young boy.

Yogeśvara: There have already been books written about it, television reports, radio, everything.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: One thing on that report. I read that there were certain people...

Prabhupāda: There was no vegetable?

Morning Walk -- June 12, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. He has given nice reference. A devotee, although sees God in His lion feature, and very ferocious, he knows He is God. "He's my Lord." But this so-called advancement of material civilization is the greatest enemy. That is not... Material civilization is very, very backward position. Māyā-mohita. He'll be captivated by the so-called stones and bricks, and he'll forget God. That is the disease of the western world. They are very much fond of these stones and bricks, and therefore they have no knowledge about God. This electricity, the electrons, the radio, this, everything machine and stones. They have got, forgotten God. Jaḍa-vidyā jato māyāra vaibhava. The more you materially advance, you forget God. So human life is meant for reviving our relationship with God, but if you forget God, then what kind of civilization it is? You are forgetting your real business.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Some people use the argument, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that by this advancement of technology, it will free us to think of philosophical.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk Through the BBT Warehouse -- February 10, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yad-uttama-śloka-guṇānuvarṇanam (SB 1.5.22). This is mission. Uttama-śloka-guṇanāvarṇanam.

Kirtirāja: We're advertising even by subscription. They can send in so much money, and every week they receive one or three tapes of Your Divine Grace's lectures. And there's kīrtanas...

Prabhupāda: American organization.

Rāmeśvara: They want very much to organize a radio show again with lectures and kīrtanas.

Prabhupāda: What is this? Q-tips?

Devotee: Cotton swabs.

Prabhupāda: Oh, I require a packet like this for my...

Room Conversation with Woman Sanskrit Professor -- February 13, 1975, Mexico:

Prabhupāda: Sata? Śabda, yes, śabda-brahman. Yes.

Professor: Then if you are able to communicate to heart with knowledge through śabda, no?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Śabda-brahman. Just like many thousands of miles away we are getting some radio message and we learn that "Something is happening there. Something is there." Therefore śabda. This is... Śabda means sound, sound, sound vibration. So that is the real source of knowledge. That is the real source of... Śabda-brahman.

Room Conversation with Woman Sanskrit Professor -- February 13, 1975, Mexico:

Prabhupāda: No, that is the only one. There are others; they are subordinate. But the śabda, knowledge received, śabda, through śabda, śabda-brahman, that is perfect knowledge. Just like the same example: beyond this wall I cannot see, but if somebody there says, "This is the position here"—the sound comes—that is perfect. You cannot see what is going on, but if somebody says, sends radio message or any message, sound, then you know. Therefore śabda-pramāṇa, śabda, knowledge received through śabda, that is perfect knowledge.

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

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Yaśodānandana: Atomic bomb for India. That is the greatest paradox.

Prabhupāda: There was a picture... some deputation came to the minister that we are starving. There is no food. The administrator, he went, "Of course I have no information that you have no, but we're advanced now. Come tomorrow, there will be radio message. Radio message, radio, there's television, ha television..."

Yaśodānandana: Television.

Prabhupāda: Television, tomorrow, from tomorrow you'll have television.

Yaśodānandana: Instead of food.

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

Prabhupāda: And they inquired, "Then God has father?" No, God without father. That is God. That is the distinction between ordinary living entity and God.

Paramahaṁsa: So I will try to arrange someone for tonight and tomorrow morning; that geographer, I hope. And the people from the radio conversation. They're very well known, actually. Because I asked the geographer man, I said, "Do you know this man, Tim Downs?" And he said, "Oh, yes. I have heard him many times."

Prabhupāda: Tim Down?

Paramahaṁsa: Tim Downs. He is the man who may come from radio to make a conversation. Then they will play it on radio. But I have to find out if he's coming. And in the case that there may be three people who want to come, so would it be possible for tonight to having two, maybe five o'clock and seven o'clock or something like that?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Talk -- May 16, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: There are three or four men coming at ten o'clock. One Mr. Nera(?) from the... They're all from one place where they deal with alcoholics and drug addicts. And they work for the government. And Mr. Nera(?) is a social worker, and for fifteen years he's worked in mental hospitals also. And there's a psychologist from Burma, and a psychiatric nurse and maybe one other, at ten o'clock. And I talked to some people who do radio conversations yesterday. And they want me to check back today. But they may come tonight or possibly tomorrow morning. Is it all right for tomorrow morning also?

Prabhupāda: When we are starting?

Talk -- May 16, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: We are starting not... The plane flies at two o'clock. So in the morning there would be time, I think. But if they come they will broadcast it on radio, the conversation. And perhaps that man, the geographer, will come again. He told me to check back today because he has to see if he can make it in the schedule.

Prabhupāda: So when he will be given time, five?

Amogha: Well, I can give him time tonight if he can come. Otherwise I can tell the radio people to come tonight. I have to telephone them and arrange it.

Radio Interview -- May 25, 1975, Fiji:

Śrutakīrti: The following is an interview which took place on May 25, 1975, in Lautoka, Fiji, which was later broadcast on a local radio station.

Interviewer: Why did you choose to go to America and propagate the teachings of Lord Kṛṣṇa in a western country?

Prabhupāda: Because Indian people, being subjugated for at least one thousand years, they have lost their original culture. And, being poverty-stricken, they are simply after money, by hook and crook. So in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānāṁ tayā apahṛta-cetasām (BG 2.44). Persons who have lost their consciousness on account of being too much attached to material enjoyment, they cannot understand Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1975, Honolulu:

Devotee: Yes. (break) ...to step down, she's going to defy the court order.

Siddha-svarūpa: They never want to step down.

Prabhupāda: Like Nixon, like Nixon. (break)

Siddha-svarūpa: They are junk tours from Japan. (break) ...finding security in his radio.

Prabhupāda: What is that security?

Siddha-svarūpa: It's false security. (break)

Prabhupāda: And there was no necessity. Still, we shall go. It is very pleasant. (break) One umbrella, if you push, it will open, and if you push down, it will come back. Machine. (break) ...mantra is described in the śāstra just like a potential medicine. If you take it, either you know it or not know it, it will act. And another example is given. Just like fire. If one, the father knows, "This is fire," and throws to the grass, it will be burned. Similarly, if a child—he does not know what it is—if he throws, then that will also burn.

Morning Walk -- June 16, 1975, Honolulu:

Harikeśa: So this is not the big one.

Prabhupāda: No, it is big war, but it will be finished within short time.

Bali-mardana: Drop their bombs, everything's finished.

Upendra: But the argument is that these bombs will create more disturbance than just the blowing up. They create what's called radio-active fallout.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that will do. But the war will stop because the party which will be able to drop the bomb first, he will be victorious.

Harikeśa: They've got these fancy...

Room Conversation with Dr. John Mize -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes. The same three guṇas. If you contact with tamo-guṇa, then your consciousness is tamo-guṇa. Tamo-guṇa, rajo-guṇa, sattva-guṇa, and if your consciousness is always with Kṛṣṇa, then Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

John Mize: James had a very interesting view of consciousness. The brain doesn't cause the consciousness, he felt. It does not originate it. It only receives it like a radio receiver is receiving transmissions.

Prabhupāda: That is the...

John Mize: He felt that the source of consciousness was divine. James was a religious man.

Bahulāśva: Sometimes also he would have a material view also.

John Mize: That matter can give rise to consciousness.

Bahulāśva: Yes. He would take both sides.

Room Conversation after Press Conference -- July 9, 1975, Chicago:

Devotee (1): There were supposed to be some aldermen here, but one of them was a woman and it has been on the news already about what you've said and she doesn't want to come now.

Prabhupāda: Alderman?

Brahmānanda: They're like city council men. But in this case it's a city councilwoman. So she has refused to come because the comment... There has been a lot of publicity created. (laughter) So they are speaking on the radio that "The Swamiji has come to solve all the problems by saying that woman is inferior to men."

Prabhupāda: Yes, that's a fact. (laughter) So what the man says?

Room Conversation after Press Conference -- July 9, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness is understood by the first-class men. In the social system, if we don't keep a first-class man, a section, then it will not be possible, socially. Or if next alternative, that everyone agrees to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, then it will be possible. That is the simplest method. You become first-class or last class; it doesn't matter. You take to this chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, then you become equally in spiritual consciousness. So it is already published in the paper?

Brahmānanda: Well, all the radio stations are carrying it. And the TV will probably have it tonight. Actually, this one purport might clarify the disagreement. They may not be so angry.

Prabhupāda: Why do they not understand, by nature's discrimination the woman is put into greater difficulty by bearing child?

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

Prabhupāda: But who is getting this advantage?

Paramahaṁsa: Big businessmen.

Bahulāśva: Actually, the fact is that now the scientists are spending so much money on this research, but the research is only being used in their personal homes. The common people have never seen any of these great devices. This one devotee, Jayarama, his uncle is a big scientist. He has created this radio telescope. So I saw pictures of his personal home, and it must cost about $300,000. All these scientific devices he has. But the people never see those things. (break)

Paramahaṁsa: ...and for all the success of scientific advancement, they have not created any love for God or their fellow man.

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.

Room Conversation -- October 5, 1975, Mauritius:

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 -- Durban, October 13, 1975 :

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (break) … in the last fifty years or so that especially that the Indian culture has been squashed and perverted by the British.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is that because of mass communication, Prabhupada? Is that because of mass communication?

Prabhupāda: Mass communication or no…

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Radio, and things like this.

Prabhupāda: Yes, if you want to make mass communication, you can do anything. (break) Due to industrialization, all intelligent men, they came in the city. In the village it was deserted. So there was no improvement in the village, and people preferred to come to the city, means industry, business. So India's basic principle was village life. Now that is lost. The intelligent class men, brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, they left villages for earning more money in the cities, and only the śūdras, less intelligent class of men, less than śūdras, they remained. So what they will do? So village became deserted. Still you’ll go and see in Indian villages, especially in Bengal, so many big, big palatial buildings, they are lying vacant.

Morning Walk -- December 12, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: You have to gain that intelligence.

Harikeśa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Sound is the proof that there is ether. Śabda. Now, I am talking, you are hearing. How you are hearing? Ethereal transportation. Otherwise how you can hear? I am talking here, and why you are hearing? This is ethereal. The sound is being produced, somehow or other the ether is passing, just (like) tele... What is called? Radio.

Harikeśa: They heard, people on the earth, talking on the moon.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- December 19, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: He did not remember God, he remembered his son. But God is so kind, because he uttered God's name, He took it seriously.

Dr. Patel: That Mr. Shah had gone to the States and came back from there, some three months back, and he praised the Americans, that no man on Sunday is in the street. All of them are in the churches, and you hear on the radio only those hymns. Is it a fact?

Prabhupāda: He is American. (indicates Harikeśa)

Harikeśa: Yes, but nobody listens to the radio.

Dr. Patel: He says that at least government does it. Here government is giving all the cinema. And there the churches are overflowing.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 2, 1976, Madras:

Prabhupāda: So, but no, no. "As we know," but what do you know? You are rascal.

Devotee: They are trying by radio waves to reach people.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Sarva-ga, this word is. Sarva-ga. Jivātmā (Hindi)...

Devotee: (break) ...sending radio signals to faraway galaxies.

Prabhupāda: What is the meaning of their radios? Do you think that their radios are perfect? Do you think so? What, Acyutānanda Mahārāja? Radio perfect? It is not perfect.

Acyutānanda: And I think the demigods and higher beings, they can disturb all their radio attempts.

Prabhupāda: No, apart from that...

Acyutānanda: Because they don't want trespassers.

Prabhupāda: ...how you can accept their radio machine are perfect? Because it is made by imperfect person, so how it can be perfect? If the manufacturer is imperfect, how he can make perfect machine? Nothing is perfect.

Morning Walk -- January 8, 1976, Nellore:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They already built it?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No, they have a temporary one, but they're building a.... They've been building it for five years. They just have a layout of all...

Prabhupāda: What is their cult, this Tirupati committee?

Acyutānanda: Hinduism. Hinduism. Very.... No definition of that term now, Hinduism. Just like if we want to get on the radio, they'll say, "Well, there are so many minor sects. So if we give time for one, then everybody will want." But then, when we want some other aid, they say, "No, you're a majority group. We have to help the minority groups." So sometimes we are a minor sect and sometimes we are a majority.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) All fools, rascals, mūḍhas. (break) The Tirupati is a Vaiṣṇava temple, so they should encourage.... Vaisnavism means real religion. All other, bogus, cheating religions. That is.... Dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo atra (SB 1.1.2). Kaitava means cheating. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum (SB 7.5.31). They do not know that. What is this land?

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: As soon as they say "certain people," that is not fact.

Candanācārya: Actually, they say that potentially everyone has these powers, but some are more developed than others. Also the powers to understand each other's thoughts. (someone passes with a portable radio hearing a news broadcast)

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Well we are not denying sense gratification. We want to regulate. That's all.

Mādhavānanda: Actually, we have the best sense gratification.

Prabhupāda: Hmm? Yes.

Mādhavānanda: On the radio program, one lady, she was asking questions. She was very envious. "And you are living in such a palace."

Prabhupāda: Why shall I not? Government servants, they live in the best place. We are Kṛṣṇa's servants, the supreme government. We must have the best car, best house, the best food, (laughter) everything. You are unfortunate, you are wretched, you cannot possess this. We are government's servants. Why the governor is living in the best house of the city?

Room Conversation -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Last chapter of the Seventh Canto.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And these rascals say there is no life in other.... Moon planet is accepted as the heavenly planet, and these rascals say "It is sand. And we have brought the sand." It is one of the heavenly planets.

Jayādvaita: Some scientists have started a project. They are beaming radio messages into space because they think perhaps there is someone intelligent there, and they will beam back something.

Prabhupāda: Their knowledge is "perhaps." It is nonsense. They have no definite knowledge. "Perhaps." Perhaps is not knowledge.

Room Conversation -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: We had one CIA agent. Previously, he was a CIA agent. I was told this story, I don't know. Anyway, might as well relate it. So they were doing an experiment in the Bahama Islands off Florida. They were all very high intellects. They were developing a certain radio beam to measure the beams which are given off from other planets, thinking that maybe these intelligent beings, they are sending some message out. So they developed this way of sensoring the beams which were coming from the North Star. Anyway, he said—and he was serious, I was told this; he's in India now, one of our devotees there—he said that when they focused on the North Star and they got the beam back, when they translated it, it came out to be the mahā-mantra.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Morning Walk -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Hari-śauri: This vicar, he used to sit, and he used to sip small glass of clear liquid. So everyone thought he was drinking water, but then once they checked, and it was pure vodka.

Prabhupāda: While speaking lie "I was drinking water." (japa) (break—converses in Hindi)

Indian man: Prabhupāda, I'm trying to get one radio station you know, so far the, so that we make a Hare Kṛṣṇa program. So the radio is the big media for...

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Devotee priest (Bhakta Gene): I'm told that...

Prabhupāda: Oh, (laughs) how are you?

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

Prabhupāda: That machine means, their machine. Again you are bringing the same argument. What is value of machine? The machine is made by a cheater. Imperfect senses, how it is perfect?

Devotee (1): But some machines work, though, like the radio, the TV...

Prabhupāda: Work to some extent, that much credit you can take.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, to some extent that is also you're saying...

Prabhupāda: To some extent is, everyone accepts.

Interview with Newsday Newspaper -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: My spiritual master appointed me that "You do this." Similarly I shall appoint somebody else, this is the way.

Rāmeśvara: It's difficult for people to understand that God can speak to a man. They question, "How can God speak to some man?"

Prabhupāda: That is, anything, that, the radio message is coming, a foolish man cannot understand how it is coming. He'll think "How it is that, speaking?" So any foolish man will be astonished how things are happening. That is foolishness. But God says, find out this verse...

Morning Walk -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: So why the seeds does not go by air to the other planets?

Rāmeśvara: When they first developed the radio, they set up a system to send out radio messages into outer space. And their idea was that if there was any intelligence on other planets they would answer by sending...

Prabhupāda: So whether your radio message reach there?

Hari-śauri: We should wait, Śrīla Prabhupāda, a minute, because police over there, they may object if we walk. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...only in America (laughter). All intelligence monopolized by America.

Morning Walk -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sounds like the old British policy.

Prabhupāda: Foolish policy. Just like the deaf man, he thinks everyone is deaf. You know that? This is psychology. Deaf man will think that everyone is deaf. Broadcast radio message in the Pacific Ocean, the aquatics they do not reply, that means there is no life? Rascal theory.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Anyway, maybe they speak a different language.

Devotee: They don't understand that there may be different mediums of communication.

Morning Walk -- July 20, 1976, New York:

Rādhāvallabha: About thirty or forty years ago a man named Orson Welles did a..., he had a radio show, and just as a joke he started giving a news report that the Martians had landed, and people were panicking. They were trying to leave the city in cars in huge numbers.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Bali-mardana: Thousands of people started to leave the city in fear. I think it was on April Fools? It was just a joke.

Hari-śauri: We can go down to the right, Śrīla Prabhupāda. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...difference between a śūdra and brāhmaṇa. A śūdra can be misled at any moment. That is stated in... Strī śūdra. Woman and śūdra on the same class. You can mislead them by high talkings: "Oh, I am coming from Indian prince." They come here, marry some European, and go to India and then engage him (her) for collecting water in bucket.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Mike Robinson: Oh, thank you very much. Can you tell me how the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement came to be founded?

Prabhupāda: You can tell these things. These ordinary things you can say.

Jayatīrtha: It's being recorded now. It's being recorded directly for the radio program now.

Mukunda: Śrīla Prabhupāda was a student of a great spiritual teacher in India, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī.

Mike Robinson: There's a problem with me asking him questions, is it?

Mukunda: Well, these are, just these preliminary questions. He prefers to discuss mostly the philosophical side. This is like background.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: That is the.... The microphone is the same. And the politician can speak all nonsense, and the so-called scientist may speak all nonsense of going to the Mars planet, but we don't talk all nonsense.

Mike Robinson: If we could just put one more tape on it. No, if I can explain to you, the question I am trying to ask, which I'm finding difficulty to explain. Obviously, the members of the movement who are here have made a definite sort of decision that you've decided, they've decided, for instance, to dress differently, and they're dressing now in what would appear to be an Indian style. Is it necessary to do that, or could I carry on being a member of a radio station and still be a member of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Yes, that means it is fictitious. You don't believe in God.

Harikeśa: We have to get you on every radio in the world, Prabhupāda. We just have to put you on the radio everywhere.

Prabhupāda: You do it, I give you the ideas.

Harikeśa: Oh, everything you say is so wonderful. We have to put you on the radio. These people, they have no idea.

Prabhupāda: No, thing is that I say all these things because I always think of this. I always think.

Room Conversation -- November 25, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Therefore I said it is better not to make these records.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Just your these records and paramparā records should be played, I think. There are so many tapes of your records.

Hari-śauri: This style that they are doing now, they explain that they wanted that because then that way, they'll be able get them played on the radio. Otherwise they won't play bhajanas or anything on the radio. But there's a distinction between that kind of music and pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness music. Even though the words indicate Kṛṣṇa consciousness, most of the songs are written in such a way that it's indirect. It's not directly Kṛṣṇa.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But you can't hear the words.

Prabhupāda: Yes, indirect.

Evening Darsana -- December 3, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Therefore voluntarily, willingly, I have drunk poison." Jāniyā śuniyā biṣa khāinu. Golokera prema-dhana, hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana, rati nā janmilo kene tāya: "This transcendental Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, it is not ordinary vibration. This vibration is coming from the spiritual world but I have no attraction." Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Indian man: I talked to radio (?).

Prabhupāda: Eh? Oh, you have taken so much trouble. Prasādam, some give it to... Jaya. A very big block of farms. What is the name of that...? Eh?

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Pradyumna: "If there is enough milk, enough grains, enough fruit, enough cotton, enough silk, and enough jewels, then why do the people need cinemas, houses of prostitution, slaughterhouses, etc? What is the need of an artificial luxurious life of cinema, cars, radio, flesh, and hotels? Has this civilization produced anything but quarreling, individually and nationally? Has this civilization enhanced the cause of equality and fraternity by sending thousands of men into a hellish factory and warfields at the whims of a particular man? It is said here that the cows used to moisten the pasturing land with milk." It's nice. You compare the warfield and the factory. I think people appreciate that. You compare the factory with the warfield.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So whatever thought comes to me, I discuss as far as possible. Why these things are... Therefore I want to organize this farm project. Let there be ideal. And it is becoming ideal in America. People are coming even from the school, college, they are coming to see New Vrindaban. And there was section where our enemies, they are not disturbing. So they are appreciating. Still we are not thoroughly organized, but still they're appreciating. They'll appreciate. One day will come they'll appreciate. And other parents, as they come and thank me, "Swamiji, it is our great fortune that..." Many parents came when I was in Los Angeles.

Morning Walk -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Trivikrama: Aldous Huxley.

Prabhupāda: Aldous Huxley. He is useless. Anyone connected with the Ramakrishna Mission is a useless. Immediately take it.

Dr. Patel: He was connected with Ramakrishna Mission.

Rāmeśvara: On one radio show they quoted from this Dr. Radhakrishnan that when you read Bhagavad-gītā you should not think that Kṛṣṇa is God. So then they say, "So even in India they reject this Hare Kṛṣṇa movement." They say "Look, this is the president of India. He is saying do not take Kṛṣṇa as God."

Arrival of BBT Manager -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That is peaceful. That will bring peace.

Rāmeśvara: Yes. I was seeing it. Because now it has become such a controversy that the biggest television and radio programs are begging us, "Come on my show and explain the issue, whether you are brainwashing." So we have been already invited to be on the biggest nationwide television programs, and we're on radio...

Prabhupāda: And you are presenting nicely.

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

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.

Rāmeśvara: So we have to scheme in so many different ways to take advantage of this. (train stops) (break) ...friends with all the newspaper, television and radio people. Already in Los Angeles they know us by our first names, and we know them by their first names. There is some familiarity.

Prabhupāda: Intimate with...

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

Prabhupāda: No, at least it is expected they will read: "What is this book I have purchased? Let me see." Reading, of course, meant for intelligent class.

Hari-śauri: Well, just like this radio show, there were so many things said, but at the end, even the man who was blaspheming said, "Well, I guess we'll just have to read your books and find out what it's about." So if people hear a (sic:) controvity and we're arguing one way, they argue another way, then if the book's there, they'll naturally want to read it just to see actually what's the fact.

Rāmeśvara: We are starting a new radio show again in America. Formerly we had a show called "The Kṛṣṇa Show." So we're starting it again, and it will be nationwide. And there will be a lot of controversy.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We have to take advantage of the modern medium of publicity.

Rāmeśvara: Radio and even television.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: Everyone watches television. If they see it on television it is—"That's a fact."

Prabhupāda: We have to show how we are eating, how we are sleeping, how we are talking. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

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

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is very practical: "Yes, Kṛṣṇa enjoyed sex. But where is abortion? Where is contraceptive pill?"

Hari-śauri: Actually, by practical example we can show that by following Kṛṣṇa, so many people are giving up intoxication, giving up so many sinful activities. But by following your Christian religion, it's not done them any good whatsoever. It's not changed their lives whatsoever. This man, he described our movement as very dangerous. On the radio he said, "This is dangerous," because we're trying to establish Kṛṣṇa as God and He's not stated in the Bible, and therefore we are very dangerous.

Prabhupāda: Christ is described as son of God, but where is the father? That means you are so rascal, you do not care to understand the father. And we are presenting the father, the father of Christ. And you are condemning. You do not know who is the father of Christ.

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

Rāmeśvara: But in the meantime, it should be as convenient as possible to live.

Prabhupāda: This is all childish. We cannot accept it. Madmen. In the history there is no such thing, and you are trying. And we have to believe it. These things are believed by rascals, and it is proposed by rascals. Rascals believe it. No intelligence at all.

Rāmeśvara: In America everyone has a very nice house with home entertainment by television and radio.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Then why they are lying on the street? They have got house, then why they are...

Rāmeśvara: Big car...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Why, in the Bowery Street, they are lying on the street in stool and urine? Why?

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Rāmeśvara: This year, definitely. But that means more propaganda for us, more publicity.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. (chuckling)

Rāmeśvara: And I look forward to it, because we'll smash them in each confrontation. They now realize that when they have a debate against us, they always lose. We have had maybe five or six confrontations in Los Angeles on television and on the radio, and every time they lose. And every time they go away like this.

Prabhupāda: (aside:) You can keep there under the bath section. I'll wash there.

Hari-śauri: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: So actually we're getting all this free exposure on radio and on television. And each time we come off sounding very intelligent, very religious, very nice, and they come off sounding like fanatics and bigots. So people are getting a good impression of us because of the publicity on radio and television.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like Sītā was put into the fire and she came out unburned. Sītā was blasphemed, that "This woman was kidnapped by Rāvaṇa, and Rāmacandra is so henpecked that He has again picked up her and living with her." So Rāmacandra put him (her) in the fire and she came unharmed.

Morning Walk -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Rāmeśvara: ...government.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Rāmeśvara: Censorship of television, radio, all media.

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

Room Conversation -- January 27, 1977, Puri:

Hari-śauri: I think the New York part of the testimony is going to be... They're going to read the Bhagavad-gītā from cover to cover, everything. That's included in our defense.

Prabhupāda: One book, and we have got eighty-four books. Come on. At least our books will be advertised.

Hari-śauri: Just like that demon on that radio show, after all his spouting out nonsense, at the end he said, "Well, I suppose we'll just have to read the books and find out." Their trick is to try to distract the attention from the books. Because they know the books are very perfect, so they try to say that that's not the issue, what's in the books. The issue is that we're not following what's in the books.

Car Conversation -- February 5, 1977, Calcutta:

Jayapatākā: ...and you do little work and get more money. You can buy radio and tape recorder. And working in the field, that is not noble.

Prabhupāda: Just see how foolish leaders. In the field there is food. They will not work for the food.

Evening Darsana -- February 15, 1977, Mayapura:

Brahmānanda: With loudspeakers and... We were very ambitious. So the people, they'd never seen anything like this, and so they accepted it. But then after a while, they resented. If you become too much... Actually, the governments feel very threatened. That was one of the reasons why you were not permitted to land in Kenya, because it was so much advertised, they put banners across the main avenue and radio, TV announcement, posters. They saw this as a..., something that will eclipse their government, their own president. You were more famous. (Prabhupāda laughs) Therefore they tried to say, "No, I am more famous." So therefore they didn't want you to come.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So it's better in some cases to be a little cautious, low key. Better to go slowly sometimes than very...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Not become aggressive.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But then again, not too slowly.

Prabhupāda: So in our Argentina we are no longer...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, no more.

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

Prabhupāda: Everyone likes.

Rāmeśvara: (aside:) They're coming in this morning.

Gargamuni: The jumbo jet arrived. There was at least one hundred dignitaries of Air India, TV, radio, watching the plane land on the airport.

Prabhupāda: When it is arriving?

Gargamuni: It arrived around 4:30 this morning. First time jumbo jet landing. They said, "Very good landing."

Room Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- February 28, 1977, Mayapura:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. In Manipur, it's no so much influenced yet from outside civilization.

Prabhupāda: Therefore I suggest. They are Vaiṣṇavas. They can take it and show an ideal state in the world. Then others may follow.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Every day in the radio, all Manipur radio, they have Caitanya-caritāmṛta reading at one o'clock. They read Bengali. One reads and another translates. It is a regular feature. And Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa. These are radio programs.

Prabhupāda: Just see. So why not? I may go or not go, but let the leaders take up this process to make Manipur an ideal state of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Room Conversation -- April 19, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Where there is?

Bhakti-caru: New Delhi. (Bengali) "The instructions have been issued in this regard to Assam authorities. Mr Brahmacari is known to be close to Mr. Sanjay Gandhi." "Morarji Wants Prices. The Prime Minister, Mr. Morarji Desai, today promised in a radio broadcast to check the recent rise in prices on certain goods. 'If necessary by comparing quotas in the current stocks and even by imports, where feasible.' Mr. Desai observed that prices had declined since between February 25 and the end of March but have again increased in the last few weeks in the case of essential goods like oil seeds, cotton, edible oil, til, pulses and food grains. This has raised apprehensions in the minds of (indistinct).

Conversation Pieces -- May 27, 1977, Vrndavana:

Yaśomatīnandana: (reading) "Regulative rains not only help ample production of food grains and fruits, but when they combine with astronomical influences there is ample production of valuable stones and pearls. Grains and vegetables can sumptuously feed a man and animals, and a fatty cow delivers enough milk to supply a man sumptuously with vigor and vitality. If there is enough milk, enough grains, enough fruit, enough cotton, enough silk and enough jewels, then why do the people want cinemas, houses of prostitution, slaughterhouses, etc.? What is the need of an artificial, materialist's life of cinema, cars, radio, flesh and hotels? Has this civilization produced anything but quarreling individually and nationally?"

Prabhupāda: Like hog. (break)

Yaśomatīnandana: Why don't you still take advantage?

Prabhupāda: Still you can take advantage of it. What you are doing? Here is this nice statement. Here is the thought.

Room Conversation -- June 18, 1977, Vrndavana:

Upendra: The reason the original faith was placed in the scientists was because radio, airplanes, tape recorders have been manufactured, and people are impressed by these originally.

Prabhupāda: So what is the benefit? Without radio, people were dying, or with radio they are not living?

Room Conversation -- July 19, 1977, Vrndavana:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Last night I heard on the radio—they were having news-yesterday in the Raja Sabha (Senate of the Indian Government) the Communist leader Bhupesh Gupta, he said that the government should close the Māyāpur center.

Prabhupāda: That is their business. Now you have to take the opposite, that "Why these people are so anxious about this unrest? Let there be further inquiry by the Janata party. And suspend..." No. Yes. "And suspend the Communist government for the time being."

Room Conversations Bangladesh Preaching/Prabhavisnu Articles by Hamsaduta -- August 11, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Who's talking Arabian Night?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He says, "Fairy stories like Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa, Bible, Koran, Pilgrim's..." Oh, this man... "Pilgrim's Progress, Jataka stories, astrology, palmistry, numerology, theology, demonology, etc., are the products of subjective thinkers. While the former are factual, the latter are all fictitious. Some of the marvelous achievements of mankind in recent years are the liberation of atomic energy, radio telescopy..."

Prabhupāda: What is value of atomic energy? A man is dying; you have accelerated his death. That's all.

Room Conversation -- October 4, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: In which paper the arrest of Indira Gandhi?

Bhagatji: Indira Gandhi was arrested last night at eight o'clock.

Haṁsadūta: Which paper reported?

Bhagatji: In the radio it came at once, throughout whole India. And she was released in morning on bail.

Prabhupāda: Who gave her the bail?

Haṁsadūta: Who gave the bail?

Bhagatji: So many persons.

Room Conversation -- October 14, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: And where the conference is being held?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Conference is held in that bank room. We have about 150 chairs in that hall. We have displayed Śrīla Prabhupāda's books with the bronze bust, nicely arranged, all the books. And we also have Śrīla Prabhupāda's picture from Bhaktivedanta Manor, that enlarged picture. It's very nice. We have that on the background. Then we have also the recording systems. Everything is recorded. We also had some men from radio... Five men came from radio, All-India Radio. They recorded. So everything seems to be going nicely, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Thank you. That's all.

Room Conversation -- October 28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: What you are doing?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: With the press from the Indian Express and other newspapers. And also I went to the television and the All-India Radio for the engagement. And also I wanted to discuss with some of my members the immediate plan that we have. So I sent one to Bombay to organize a conference. So I'll try to cover this area very quickly, Agra, Delhi, and Punjab. I'm meeting a lot of scientists. And also I collected several copies of the newspaper, The Statesman. I went to the Statesman building, collected the newspaper coverings. How are you feeling, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: That kavirāja did not come?

Room Conversation -- November 3, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Only party means?

Gaura-govinda: We. Lokanātha Swami's party had arrived, and we are at Bhuvaneśvara, four, five devotees. We were there two days before at Purī, and we went there and we chanted and did kīrtana before the ratha from ten to four. There were much crowd this year, so much crowd that this whole baḍa danda(?) was filled. And above, the top of the roofs, the buildings, were all overfilled. The government people that were broadcasting of radio, they all took photos and also they recorded our kīrtana. They announced in the radio also. This incident took place this year.