River (Conversations)

Expressions researched:
"river" |"river's" |"riverbank" |"riverbanks" |"riverbed" |"riverbeds" |"rivers" |"riverside" |"riversides"

1967 Conversations and Morning Walks

Discourse on Lord Caitanya Play Between Srila Prabhupada and Hayagriva -- April 5-6, 1967, San Francisco:

Hayagrīva: How old is He here? How old is Caitanya here? Maybe five, six?

Prabhupāda: That was, He was five or six years old. That's all.

Hayagrīva: And this is... What's the location again?

Prabhupāda: This location is front of Jagannātha Miśra's house.

Hayagrīva: Yes. Six years later in other words.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hayagrīva: All right. That's the... Does He meet any of these characters at the river? Does He meet any of the characters up there?

Prabhupāda: No. General public. General public. But they are all brāhmaṇas, rigid brāhmaṇas. They are taking bath. Yes.

Discourse on Lord Caitanya Play Between Srila Prabhupada and Hayagriva -- April 5-6, 1967, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: I'm spelling. V-i-j-a-y N-r-i-s-i-n-g-a G-a-r-h. Vijaya Nṛsiṁha Garh temple. This is near modern Visakhapatnam shipyard. There is a very great Indian shipyard, Visakhapatnam. Formerly it was not Visakhapatnam. So near that, five miles away from that station there is that nice temple on the hill. So I think that the temple scenery may be there and Caitanya Mahāprabhu's visiting that temple. And after that temple He came to the bank of river Godavari. Just like the river Ganges is very sacred river, similarly there are others, four other rivers. Yamuna, Godavari, Kṛṣṇa, Narmada, Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Narmada, and Kṛṣṇa. These five rivers are considered very sacred. So He came to the bank of Godavari and He took His bath and was sitting in a nice place underneath a tree and chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Discourse on Lord Caitanya Play Between Srila Prabhupada and Hayagriva -- April 5-6, 1967, San Francisco:

Hayagrīva: At who's death? At Haridāsa's death?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Haridāsa was very old man. He was Muhammadan.

Hayagrīva: He was the person that was thrown in the river.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hayagrīva: So he finally met his end here, in the fifth scene.

Prabhupāda: We are not meant for those... Of course, Haridāsa Ṭhākura has a separate life, but that we are not going to show.

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- March 25, 1968, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: "...you, under the direction of Lord Śiva. I worshiped Lord Śiva very successfully, and I prayed from him some sources of my happiness. So he has directed me to see you, that you have got that thing. So please give me that." So Sanātana Gosvāmī said "Well, what can I give you? Oh, all right. Can you find out some stone in that garbage?" There were heaps of garbage, and the man searched out and found out a stone. "Sir, do you mean to say this stone?" "Yes." "So what is this?" "This is touchstone. You take it and touch it to iron. It will become gold." "Oh, you are very ... You're so... Now I shall become the richest man in the world. I shall take heaps of iron and touch with this stone, and it becomes gold." So he, with great joy, he went out and he tried that actually, touching the stone, iron is becoming gold. But he thought that, "Lord Śiva directed that Sanātana Gosvāmī has the greatest benediction, I do not think this stone is greatest benediction because it was placed with garbage." So he came back and appealed to Sanātana Gosvāmī that "Lord Śiva told me you have got something most valuable. I don't think this stone is most valuable. Otherwise, why would you keep it in the garbage? You must have something more valuable. So you must give me that because that because Lord Śiva directed me to receive from you." Then Sanātana Gosvāmī told him, "Would you like to take that?" "Yes, sir. I have come for that purpose." So he asked him, "First of all, throw away the stone in the Yamunā River." So he threw away the stone. "Sit down and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa."

Room Conversation -- October 20, 1968, Seattle:

Jāhnavā: I've heard an analogy to that before.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So this material world is perverted reflection of the original energy. So this "Hare" means we are directly approaching the original energy of the Supreme Lord. "Please accept me, under You. Now I am under reflection. I am trying to get substance from the reflection." Suppose a tree is reflected by the bank of a river, the exact. So if somebody dives into the river and tries to take fruit from that tree, it will not be possible because that is reflection. One has to go to the real tree. So we are hankering after life, we are hankering after pleasure, but we are seeking pleasure in the reflection, māyā. Therefore we are frustrated, confused. Therefore this prayer is to the original energy. Without energy, without energy the Lord is not without energy. Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa, Sītā-Rāma. So God is always with energy. Without energy, he is incomplete. Sun without sunshine is incomplete. Is it possible? Can one think of sun without sunshine? Similarly, the Māyāvāda theory that the absolute is without energy, there is no energy, absolute is... They have misunderstood. The energy is not different from the energetic. Just like sunshine is not different from the sun, neither the sunshine has got any existence without the sun, nor the sun can exist without sunshine. They are so intimately related. Similarly, the Lord and the energies are so intimately related, they cannot be separated, but they are not one. This is the whole philosophy. So we are praying to the original energy, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Because energy and the energetic, Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, They are not separate, but it is pleasure.

Room Conversation -- October 20, 1968, Seattle:

Prabhupāda: Woman is the energy to the man. Why the creation is not one kind of? Why there is fair sex? They're coming from the same womb of the mother. Why not one, boy only? Why girl? Why nature has provided like that? Let simply boys come. No. It is required. But the whole thing is perverted reflection. Here the man, woman, the energy... It is simply... But by this, one can understand the reality. Just like the shadow, the five fingers. One person who is not misled, he can understand that the original palm has five fingers, although he cannot see it. From the shadow. Similarly, from this energy, work of the energy in this material perverted reflection, one can understand that there is a reality. In the reality, in the abode of Kṛṣṇa, the same things are there, the same trees are there, the same things are there, but they are original, personal energy. And here, they are simply imitation or perverted reflection. Not imitation. The exact word is perverted reflection. The same example. Just like a tree on the bank of a river is reflected obverted, the root upwards and the branches downwards. So this world is like that, and that is described in the Fifteenth Chapter of Bhagavad-gītā. So one has to learn all these things. Everything is there.

Room Conversation -- October 27, 1968, Montreal, With First Devotees Going to London On Evening of Their Departure:

Prabhupāda: So, and devotees, they want to decrease the fever. Decrease the fever. Therefore the highest, ideal life, according to Vedic civilization: brāhmaṇas, Vaiṣṇava. They decrease their demands of the body. Minimum demand. You see? There is amongst the brāhmaṇa, not now, in the Vedic system, the uñca-vṛtti. It is called uñca-vṛtti. Uñca-vṛtti means they will go the paddy field, and after the cultivator takes all the paddies, some paddies are thrown away. They will collect those paddies only. Just like birds, they collect. They collect those paddies, and that they will eat, not even beg, ask anybody for any morsel of food. So completely... And in the Bhāgavata, Śukadeva Gosvāmī recommends that "Oh, this open field is your bed, this is your pillow, this is your pot, and the water in river is sufficient water, the tree is full of fruits, and in the cave, there is sufficient apartment. So why should you go, anyone, to ask for your shelter, for your food?" Kasmād bhajanti kavayor dhana-durmadandhān: "Why should you approach the materialistic, puffed-up, monied men to give you some help?" So Śukadeva Gosvāmī was strictly following this, strictly following, completely independent. That is not possible at the present day. (chuckles) If we imitate, that will be not good.

Talk During Prasada After Kirtana -- November 8, 1968, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: No, no. A sannyāsī should always take in his hand. That is the system. Not in a plate. That means if you take in a plate, you'll take much. (laughter) So in hand, he cannot take much. Kara-pātrī. That is the instruction. But in this age such strict laws cannot be followed. The Bhāgavata says that when there is flat grass cushion, why should you ask for bedding? When you have got natural pillow, this hand, why you ask for a pillow? Then when there is river, so much water, why do you stock water? When there are fruits in the tree, why do you go and beg? When there is cave, why you are searching after apartment? (laughs) When the old garments are thrown in the street, then why you are searching after clothing? These are the instructions. Completely free. Kasmād bhajanti kavayo dhana-durmadandhān (SB 2.2.5). Why should you go and flatter these monied men? That is complete independence. But those days are now gone. (laughs) It is a different age. Los Angeles, I think it is a good place. Hm? What is your...? Your problem solved?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Good news. We went to the Hollywood police station and the man told us that part of the duty of the police station is to... He said he should protect religious people like us.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Interview with LA Times Reporter About Moon Trip -- December 26, 1968, Los Angeles:

Reporter: Yes. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness, its Vedic literature, they have some of the same books or also holy books for what we call Hindu religions, aren't they?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just try to understand, the inhabitants of India were called by the Muhammadans from Persia and other places, "Hindus." "Hindus" means the resident on the other side of the River Indus. You have heard the name of River Indus. So they cannot pronounce it Indus, they say "Hindus." From "Hindus," it has become "Hindu." So actually the residents of India were called "Hindus." And generally, at least in, say, three thousand years ago, all the inhabitants of India were strictly followers of Vedic principles. After the advent of Lord Buddha, a different religious system developed. Otherwise, before Lord Buddha, there was all the... Not only in India, in other parts of the world. They were followers of Vedic principles. So in that sense, you can say if followers of Vedic principles are called Hindus, then before Lord Buddha, everyone was Hindu all over the world. Not that particular part of India. So far we have got historical reference from Mahābhārata, Indo-European stock, they are also Hindus, the so-called Hindus, followers of Vedic principles. Yes. Gradually, they deviated. Just like recently there is division of Pakistan and India. Twenty years before, this Pakistan was part of India. Now, these Muhammadans, they did not come from outside. They changed their faith from Hindus to Muhammadans. Now they divided their property. Similarly, actually the whole planet was called Bhārata-varṣa. Gradually, people deviated from Vedic principles or imitated something else and they became different.

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation Including Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.1-34 Recitation & Explanation -- April 1, 1969, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: I don't mind whether You put me into distress or You put me into happiness. Or if You don't help me in realizing You. It doesn't matter. Still, I love You. Whether I am going to hell or heaven, it doesn't matter. But I love You." Just like Cowper said, "England, with all thy fault, I love you." This is love. This is material, crude. Ahaitukī apratihatā. Apratihatā means that business, "I love Kṛṣṇa," cannot be stopped. "I could not love Kṛṣṇa because I was busy in doing this thing or that thing, or because..." So many reason we can put forward. No. Love of Kṛṣṇa cannot be stopped by any material reason. That is love. Nobody can say that "For this reason I could not love Kṛṣṇa." There is no reason. There is no impediment for anyone. Any circumstances. So any religious principle which helps a person to love Kṛṣṇa and God, in that way, without any reason, without any impediment... Just like flow of the river. There is no impediment in this world which can stop the flow of the river. Or the waves of the Pacific Ocean. There is no power in the material world which can stop the waves going on, going on, going on. You see? Similarly, that is the best type of religion. Now just see how Bhāgavata is liberal in the description of religion. Religion... You are religious, you are very pious man—how it will be tested? How much you have developed love of God. That's all. Without any reason, without any impediment. This is test of best religion.

Room Conversation -- April 11, 1969, New York:

Prabhupāda: Just like if you create a doll, clay doll, very nice beautiful girl. But it will... It is imitation. It is shadow of the real beautiful girl. It is created at some time and... So reality is there in the spiritual world. Therefore it is called janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). The idea comes from there, but the impersonalists, due to their intelligence being very meager, they think that the Absolute Truth is without any variety, impersonal or void. They think that varieties are only in the material world, but actually, real varieties are there in the spiritual world. It is only reflection, as it is described in the Bhagavad-gītā, ūrdhva mūlam adhah-śākha. Adhah-śākham. Aśvatthaṁ prāhur avyayam. Aśvattha... This material creation, material manifestation is compared with a banyan tree whose root is upward. And that I have explained several times how the tree can be upwards root. That means it is reflection. Just like you stand on the riverside, the tree will be reflected on the river, on the water, as obverted. That means that is reflection. As soon as we say that this is a tree, the root of which is up, that means it is reflection. The Māyāvādī philosopher, they do not take account of the mathematical calculation, 380 degree. They are taking account of... 360 degree, the whole circle. They are taking account only 180 degree.

Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 13, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:

Prabhupāda: So he was that about that prostitute, Cintāmaṇi. So he was performing the rituals, but he was thinking of his girlfriend, that Cintāmaṇi, "When I shall go there?" Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura? Yes. So he asked his servants, "Give me some food. I shall go to Cintāmaṇi." So anyway, he performed... Did not perform. His mind was there. He took some nice foodstuff, and when he went, there was a big river, and it was raining heavily, and the river was flooded. So he thought, "How shall I go the other side?" So one dead body was floating. So he thought, "It is a log," and he took the help of the log and went the other side. And it was heavy raining. And then, when he reached that Cintāmaṇi's home, he saw the door is locked already. Blocked. So he jumped over the wall, taking the tail of a serpent, and when he reached inside, he knocked the door, and Cintāmaṇi was astonished. "How did you come? So heavy rain. You had to cross the river." He said everything, that "Oh, I cannot stay without you." So she was much inquisitive: "How did you come? How did you jump over this wall?" And so he showed everything, that there was a big snake, and so he thought it as rope and jumped it. And then, when he went to the riverside, he saw that was a dead body. So at that time Cintāmaṇi thought, "Oh, this man is so much addicted to me." So she told, "Oh, this much attraction if you would have with Kṛṣṇa, oh, how nice your life would have been."

Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 13, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:

Prabhupāda: Oh. You have seen Vṛndāvana nicely.

Allen Ginsberg: Well, we went from one temple to another, sang, sat by the river, went to the little garden where the tree is.

Prabhupāda: Nidhuvana.

Allen Ginsberg: And met two bhakti devotees. The one I mentioned, Śrīmata Kṛṣṇaji and Bankibihari.

Prabhupāda: Bankibihari?

Allen Ginsberg: Yes. They translate from Mīrābhai.

Prabhupāda: Oh. English.

Allen Ginsberg: Into English. Good translations. Good translations. They were published in the Bhakti-vidya-bhavan series. In that series. They have four or five books.

Prabhupāda: Oh. They have five books they have written?

Allen Ginsberg: One Sufis, Yogis, Saints, poets like Muktesvara. And then another of Mīrā. Two volumes of Mīrā with a life of Mīrā. And then one on the Kumbhamela, a book on the Kumbhamela.

Prabhupāda: They are good scholars.

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Prof. Kotovsky -- June 22, 1971, Moscow:

Prof. Kotovsky: ...religion, Indian, a way of philosophy, a way of life, a religion, everything...

Prabhupāda: No, this Hinduism, Hindu, this word, is not a Sanskrit word. It is given by the Mohammedans. You know there is a river, Indus, which is..., Sanskrit name is Sindhu. Sindhu.

Prof. Kotovsky: Yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Prabhupāda: These Mohammedans, they pronounce "S" as "H." "Hindus," "Hindus." Instead of "Sindus," they made it "Hindus." So Hindu is a term which is not found in the Sanskrit dictionary.

Prof. Kotovsky: Yes.

Prabhupāda: But it has come into use. Real, I mean to say, cultural institution is called varṇāśrama, four varṇas and four āśramas: brāhmaṇa, kṣatri, vaiśya, śūdra—these four varṇas—and brahmacārī, gṛhastha, vānaprastha, and sannyāsa. So according to Vedic concept of life, unless people take to this system or institution, institute of varṇa and āśrama, four varṇas and four āśramas, actually he does not become a civilized human being. This... One has to take this process, four divisions of varṇas and four..., four divisions of social order and four divisions of spiritual order. That is called varṇāśrama. So India's culture is based on these four, eight system, varṇa and āśrama.

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Talk with Bob Cohen -- February 27-29, 1972, Mayapura:

Bob: So that is the real goal, to know God.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Go back to home, back to Godhead. That is real goal of life. Just like the water coming from the sea as cloud falls down as rain and the actual goal is to flow down the river and again go to the sea. So we have come from God. Now we are embarrassed in this material life. Therefore the aim should be how to get out of this embarrassment and go back to home, back to Godhead. This is real goal of life.

mām upetya tu kaunteya

duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam

nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ

saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gatāḥ

(BG 8.15)

That is the version of Bhagavad-gītā. "If anyone comes back to Me," mām upetya kaunteya... Mām upetya tu kaunteya duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam, nāpnuvanti, "he does not come back again." Where? In this place, duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15). This place is the abode of miseries. Everyone knows, but he has become fooled, befooled by so-called leaders. This is miserable life, material life. So duḥkhālayam... Kṛṣṇa says, God says, that this place is duḥkhālayam, it is a place of miseries. And that also aśāśvatam. You cannot make a compromise, "All right, let it be miserable. I shall remain as American or Indian." No. That you also cannot do. You cannot remain as American. You may think that you are born in America, you are very happy. But you cannot remain as American for long. You'll have to be kicked out of the place, and next life you do not know. Therefore it is duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15). That is our philosophy.

Talk with Bob Cohen -- February 27-29, 1972, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Similarly, Kṛṣṇa being the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as soon as we think of Kṛṣṇa (it) means all energies of Kṛṣṇa. That is complete by saying "Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa." Rādhā represents all the energy of Kṛṣṇa. And Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Lord. So when we speak of Kṛṣṇa, the living entities are also included. Because the living entities are energies, different energies of Kṛṣṇa, superior energy. So when this energy is not serving the energetic, that means material existence. The whole world is not serving Kṛṣṇa. They are serving Kṛṣṇa in a different way. they are serving Kṛṣṇa indirectly. Just like disobedient citizens, they serve the government indirectly. They have come to the prison house on account of their disobedience of the laws of the state. So in the prison house they're forced to obey the laws of the state. Similarly, all the living entities here, they're godless. Either by ignorance or by his will, he doesn't like to accept the supremacy of God. Demonic. So we are trying to bring them in their original condition. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. (break)

Bob: I'd like to ask you just something I talked with devotees about, just medicine. I went to go, I walked to the river with some devotees today. I have a cold, so I said I shouldn't go in the water. Some felt I should because it is the Ganges, and some said I shouldn't because I have a cold. And we were talking, and I don't understand. Some... Devotees, do we get sick because of our bad actions in the past?

Prabhupāda: That's a fact.

Talk with Bob Cohen -- February 27-29, 1972, Mayapura:

Bob: It is stealing.

Prabhupāda: Yes. He does not know that these are all government property. He takes away. That is stealing. And when he's caught he's arrested and he's punished. So similarly, whatever you are collecting... Suppose you are drinking a glass of water from the river. Is the river your property?

Bob: No.

Prabhupāda: Then? It is stealing. You have not created the river. You do not know who is the proprietor. Therefore it is not your property. So even if you drink a glass of water without the knowledge to whom it belongs you are a thief. So you think, "I'm honest." But factually you are thief. (Speaks to someone in Bengali) Raso 'ham apsu kaunteya (BG 7.8). You must remember Kṛṣṇa that "Kṛṣṇa, it is Your creation, so kindly allow me to drink it." This is honesty. This is honesty. Therefore a devotee always thinks of Kṛṣṇa in all activities. "Oh, it is Kṛṣṇa's." Sarvatra sphuraya tara iṣṭa-deva mūrti. This is honesty. (Speaks to someone in Bengali) So without Kṛṣṇa consciousness everyone is a rascal, is a thief, is a rogue, is a robber, these qualifications. Therefore our conclusion is anyone who does not understand Kṛṣṇa, he has no good qualification. Neither he's honest, neither he has knowledge. Therefore he's a third-class man. Is that correct? What do you think, Girirāja?

Girirāja: Yes.

Morning Walk -- October 15, 1972, Vrndavana:

Indian: This is an old place, Vṛndāvana. Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu came here and sat under this tree nearly five hundred years back. He sat under this tree and meditated: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare, until midday. Several days He chanted His name and came here and sat. This tree is the old tree of Dvāpara-yuga. Under this tree, Rādhikā and Kṛṣṇa both met once. This is written in Param-Gita(?) For this reason Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu came here with this reason. He came here and sat under this tree and recited the name Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. When He sat here once, one Vaiṣṇava, name Kṛṣṇadāsa, name Kṛṣṇadāsa, he saw, at night, he dreamt of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and became mad to see Him, and he crossed the Yamunā River, Keśīghāṭa, and gradually came here and saw the glorious silhouette of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and he made his obeisance to His feet, and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu touch him, and he became mad with Kṛṣṇa-prema, and then Mahāprabhu, from this place, Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu came, went to Rādhā-kuṇḍa, but displayed the name of this before that time.

Prabhupāda: He went to Rādhā-kuṇḍa?

Indian: Rādhā-kuṇḍa. He went there and asked the old gentlemen of that place that "Where is Rādhā-kuṇḍa and Śyāma-kuṇḍa?" But none of them (indistinct) Rādhā-kuṇḍa.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, discovery of Rādhā-kuṇḍa.

Morning Walk -- October 15, 1972, Vrndavana:

Śyāmasundara: The, the movie camera.

Devotee: It's really dark.

Śyāmasundara: Oh, it's dark.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Śyāmasundara: This is Yamunā River?

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is branch of.

Śyāmasundara: Branch of Yamunā.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- February 28, 1973, Jakarta:

Guest (1): And also see some Pondicherry, but never been (indistinct) this great river, Gaṅgā. (indistinct) Pondicherry (indistinct) evacuated...

Prabhupāda: You stayed in India for two years?

Guest (1): Yes, sir.

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

Svarūpa Dāmodara: It is explained nicely in today's Bhāgavata śloka that by the influence of Kṛṣṇa, the rivers are flowing filled with water, the trees are bearing fruits, flowers of the...

Prabhupāda: That's a fact. I have several times explained that in higher sense there is no matter. Did I not? So life and matter equal, that can be accepted, but there is superior and inferior position. Just like Kṛṣṇa is life, I am also life. Kṛṣṇa is also person, I am also person. Kṛṣṇa has got... What Kṛṣṇa, propensities He has got, I have also got. Kṛṣṇa wants to love another girl, so I want to love. A girl wants to love another boy, so Rādhārāṇī wants to love Kṛṣṇa. So everything qualitatively are all equal, but Kṛṣṇa can marry at a time millions of wives. You cannot maintain even one wife. That is the position. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaḥ, Vedas say. That is the difference. He is life, I am also life. All the life symptoms, there is in Kṛṣṇa and there is in me, but still I am inferior, He is superior. And that is the law, that the inferior should be subordinately serving to the superior. Therefore we want to..., our business is to serve Kṛṣṇa, although qualitatively we are one. That inferior, superior, that is the difference between God and the living entity.

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

Svarūpa Dāmodara: This example is available in Bhāgavatam, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes, in nyāya-śāstra. Kūpa-maṇḍūka-nyāya. Kūpa means well, and maṇḍūka means frog. "The frog in the well." The frogs, sometimes they are in river also, in bank of the rivers. But never in the ocean.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The environment is not suitable. They are fresh water species.

Prabhupāda: Well, they are also aquatics. They also live in water. But they are unfit for living in ocean water. So many varieties of life, different living entities meant for different purposes.

Morning Walk -- May 9, 1973, Los Angeles:

Kṛṣṇa-Kāntī: Surfing?

Prabhupāda: Yes, because I do not know how to do it. Therefore it is mystic power. But the boy is going like this. (pause) Just like one of the yogīs, she (he) walked over the river, crossed. So another old man said: "Oh this is only two paisā worth." Why? "I will pay two paisā to this boatman. He will cross me there." But to attain that power, he had to spend so many years for practicing. This is waste of time. If you can do it by paying two paisā or one ānā to a boatman to cross the river, why should you for ten years or fifteen years practice this yoga, just to show a magic?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Prabhupāda, I remember an incident in Bombay. That was when I was in Calcutta about, a few years ago. There was a yogī. There was advertisement that he was going to walk on water.

Prabhupāda: No, that is possible.

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

Buddhist Monk (1): That's by the river, uh? It's quite far away, yes. So last night we stayed there. Is that on the western side of...?

Devotee: Yes, that's the West Fork.

Buddhist Monk (1): West Fork. West Fork.

Prabhupāda: This is northern? No, southern. I do not know. We are also (Buddhist laughs) camped for the last few days. We do not know much about...

Buddhist Monk (1): Much about it, yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation with Lord Brockway -- July 23, 1973, London:

Lord Brockway: I would not want death through suffering. I should love to go to sleep and die. When I have an operation, I would like to die under the anaesthetic. It would be quite beautiful. And I say that, though I have no picture in my mind at all of what would happen after death or if anything happens. I love the description which was given by my friend Bertrand Russell, that life is like being born in a spring on the hillside, and the stream becoming a river... (break)

Prabhupāda: ...so many tossings. That is the problem of life. It is not that it begins and goes. Going to the end, oh, we have to face so many tossings. That is the problem of life.

Lord Brockway: Yes, and I acknowledge I don't know. And I am personally satisfied with trying to do what I can while I'm living in this life for the betterment of mankind. And I believe that's the best preparation for any future life, if there is a future life.

Prabhupāda: Well, there is future life, undoubtedly. It is not the question... Just like you say, you remember your childhood days. You were playing with Indian children in Berampur.

Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor -- August 13, 1973, Paris:

Professor: Only a small river. That is not the...

Prabhupāda: And on the whole, Paris city is very nice. Very nice. Opulent city.

Professor: And they told me also that this morning you had some brahminical initiation to the...

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, yes.

Professor: ...Gāyatrī.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor -- August 13, 1973, Paris:

Pradyumna: "Andhra. A province in Southern India mentioned in the Bhīṣma-parva of Mahābhārata. It is still extant under the same name. Pulinda. It is mentioned in Mahābhārata, Ādi 174.38, that is the inhabitants of the province of the name, Pulinda. This country was conquered by Bhīmasena and Sahadeva. The Greeks are known as Pulindas, and it is mentioned in the Vana-parva of the Mahābhārata that the non-Vedic race of this part of the world would rule over the world. This Pulinda province was also one of the provinces of Bhārata, and the inhabitants were classified amongst the kṣatriya kings. But later on, due to their giving up the brahminical culture, they were mentioned as mlecchas, just as those who are not followers of the Islamic culture are called kafirs, and those who are not followers of the Christian culture are called heathens. Ābhīra. This name also appears in Mahābhārata, both in the Sabhā-parva and the Bhīṣma-parva. It is mentioned that this province was situated on the River Sarasvatī in Sind. The modern Sind province formerly extended on the other side of the Arabian Sea. All the inhabitants of that province were known as the Ābhīras. They were under the domination of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira and, according to the statements of Mārkaṇḍeya, the mlecchas of this part of the world would also rule over Bhārata. Later on, this proved to be true, as it was proved in the case of the Pulindas. On behalf of the Pulindas, Alexander the Great conquered India, and on behalf of the Ābhīras, Muhammad Ghori conquered India. These Ābhīras were also formerly kṣatriyas within the brahminical culture, but they gave up the connection. But the kṣatriyas who were afraid of Paraśurāma and had hidden themselves in the Caucasian hilly regions later on became known as the Ābhīras, and the place they inhabited was known as Ābhīradeśa. Śumbha, or the..." (break)

Prabhupāda: One Yavana fought with him, Kālayavana.

Professor: Because usually the Yavanas is considered as being Greeks.

Prabhupāda: Greeks.

Professor: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- December 8, 1973, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They are planning to go to Mars now.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is another bluff. Another bluff. The smaller plan, they could not make successful. Now they're attempting bigger plan. Bara bara goragere rasatala, beta gora katha jala.(?) Betagor... There is a story that there was river. You know, horse can swim over. So big, big stalwart horses, they waved, mean, they washed away by the flood. So one lean and thin horse is coming, "Can you tell me how much water is there?" It is like bara bara goragere rasatala, beta gora katha jala. (?) So these rascals could not reach even the moon planet; now they are planning to the Mars planet. Just see. And another rascal will believe him. That, What you have done for the, which is the nearest planet?

Karandhara: Well, they say they've done everything they wanted to do with the moon. They say they've accomplished everything they wanted to on the moon.

Prabhupāda: So you are not successful. That's a fact.

Morning Walk -- December 9, 1973, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: "New frontier of knowledge."

Prabhupāda: Yes, because the new frontier of knowledge for the rascals not for the intelligent men. They're... The same example. If somebody imitates barking of the dog, if he says, "This is new frontier of knowledge," so a foolish man can believe that "How you have learned to bark like dog! Oh, great advancement." But an intelligent man says "What is the use of this barking, imitation barking? There is already dogs who are barking." Just like there is a... It is a fact, not story. One man, he went out of his village, and after ten years, he came back, advertised himself that "I have become successful in yoga practice." So naturally villagers surrounded him. "Oh, you have...? What yoga practice you have learned?" "I can walk on the water." "Oh?" Actually, even at the present moment, if somebody comes and says, "I can walk...," many people will come, thousands of men. So when everything, arrangement was that he'll cross the river, walking on the water, one old man came. He said, "Sir, it is very wonderful, but it is two paise worth. Two paise worth." "Why?" "Now, you will walk and go the other side; I'll take a boat, pay him two paise. I'll do the same thing. So what is your credit?" So those who are actually intelligent men, they will take like that, that "What actual profit you have made? You have spent millions and millions of dollars, and you say, 'Now, we have seen in the moon there is a crack.' " So this bluffing to the public must be stopped. They're squandering money, public money, and we Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, we cannot do our activities for want of money. They have become so fools. How they are squandering money simply by bluffing another set of rascals that they are advancing in scientific knowledge. They are rascals, and they're cheating other rascals that they're advancing. And result is they're squandering public money. What do you think, Mr. Scientist?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But, Śrīla Prabhupāda, is not, though... Just like we are learning about Kṛṣṇa from Śrīla Prabhupāda...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 5, 1974, Los Angeles:

Bali Mardana: They're like owls.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (pause)

Bali Mardana: There's a river. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...duḥkha-nivṛtti. Ultimately, stop of all sufferings. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). Simply ānanda. Dancing with Kṛṣṇa, rāsa dance. Supposing if there is such life—dancing and eating and chanting, no suffering. So would anybody deny that? Is there any such fool?

Bali Mardana: Yeah, they're all denying.

Prabhupāda: Ah?

Bali Mardana: They deny. Just like the Puritans...

Prabhupāda: No, no. Deny... You deny or accept, that is the... Suppose there is such life where you can simply dance, eat and live eternally, happy life. Would you not like to accept it?

Devotee (2): Yes, of course, anyone would.

Prabhupāda: Ah?

Devotee (2): Anyone would like to accept that.

Prabhupāda: You see? That we are giving.

Morning Walk -- February 17, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That is quite possible.

Dr. Patel: There is a big community called Issans(?) and Issans are somewhere in between Tigris and that Doab(?), you know, Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. From there he migrated to the Palestine area and preached those fellows all the philosophy that he learned in India. That is... That man has said. So I consider Christianity is a part of..., one of the pañca, of Hindu... of the...

Prabhupāda: No, no. Christianity is Vaiṣṇavism.

Dr. Patel: Vaiṣṇavism? Absolutely Vaiṣṇavism.

Prabhupāda: Anyone who... Mohammedan is also Vaiṣṇavism.

Dr. Patel: Mohammedanism is not Vaiṣṇavism.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Caitanya Mahāprabhu had talk with the Pāṭhānas. He proved that "Your religion is Vaiṣṇavism."

Morning Walk -- February 25, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: This is sea, and that's a canal or a river only, small.

Dr. Patel: They are... So far as the custom hygiene is concerned, I mean, the... We have actually been teaching personal hygiene through religion. This is the only country that...

Prabhupāda: But that is also hygienic. After passing stool, they are taking bath in the river. That is good hygiene.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes.

Prabhupāda: That is good hygiene.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The river is moving water, clean.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That I have seen. They are taking bath in the morning. (break) ...Jakarta people.

Morning Walk -- March 2, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: "...near the brahma-jyotir, I don't want. Now I have merged." This is Māyāvāda theory.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This is all that silt from the Ganges River, Prabhupāda.

Jayapatākā: This man, he wants to sell this land, seventeen bighās, for seven hundred rupees. (break)

Madhudviṣa: How is that possible?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Madhudviṣa: How is the Ganges flowing through the planetary systems?

Prabhupāda: So? It is not possible?

Madhudviṣa: I don't know. It is possible, but it is incomprehensible.

Prabhupāda: Everything is incomprehensible. How the planets are floating in this air?

Madhudviṣa: Because Kṛṣṇa is in them.

Prabhupāda: Then, similarly, Kṛṣṇa desires; everything is possible.

Morning Walk -- March 4, 1974, Mayapura:

Jayapatākā: Not imli? They call that...

Prabhupāda: No, no, not imli. Imli's different. This way, up to that river? (break) ...vāsudeva-parāyaṇa. Vāsudeva-parāyaṇa, means Kṛṣṇa conscious person, they solve all questions by one thing, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Exactly like the sun solves all the problems of this nihāra, foss. It is called foss?

Jayapatākā: Fog.

Prabhupāda: Fog.

Jayapatākā: Mist.

Prabhupāda: Nihāram iva bhāskara. Let the scientists do it in their scientific way, drive away the fog. Is there any process? Eh? In the ocean, when there is fog like this, they have to stop all the ships and cry, (makes sound like fog horn:) onnnh, onnnh, so that they may not collide. I have seen it when I was coming, going to USA. Where is Mohanānanda? He is here? No. Mohanānanda? Hare Kṛṣṇa. The difference between other camps and our: they call these men from their daily, I mean to say, life, householder's life, for this purpose for a week or so, but they are not dedicated. Here, in our camp, all our people are dedicated to the cause. That is the difference. So they cannot surpass your activities.

Morning Walk -- March 4, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: ...immediately appreciates Kṛṣṇa's intelligence. Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate svā-bhāvikī... (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). It is being done as if automatically, but no, there is brain. That brain, these rascals, they cannot find out. Machine, nature only. What is this nature? Nonsense. So which way we shall go? This way? Up to the river?

Jayapatākā: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Each and every grain...

Jayapatākā: Here's our mango tree.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Viṣṇujana: Mango.

Morning Walk -- March 6, 1974, Mayapura:

Devotee: Then what is the difference in our philosophy and...

Prabhupāda: No, that is not different. That is variety, that they worship Bāla-Kṛṣṇa, and we worship Kiśora-Kṛṣṇa. We worship Bāla-Kṛṣṇa also. Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava, they worship all kinds of pastimes of Kṛṣṇa. But they specially stress on Bāla-Kṛṣṇa, child Kṛṣṇa. That is spiritual variety. There is no difference. That is not difference. Cid-vaicitra. The exact name is cid-vaicitra. Cit means spiritual. Vaicitra means varieties. Where this road goes?

Jayapatākā: This one goes down on the river side. (?)

Prabhupāda: Hmm. So... (break)

Devotee: ...Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, very prominent. When Lord Caitanya came, He made the worship of...

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Devotee: ...Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa very prominent.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Morning Walk -- March 7, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So where are... Where are those boys? That Svarūpānanda?

Jayapatākā: They may have gone back to the temple now. This land... I'm sending... Because land, different land takes different time, so I'm sending both information out for this land here-It goes from this path, this, over to the other side of the barley, right to the river edge, twenty bighās—or this one, ten bighās, whichever is first. This is more fertile. For agriculture, this one...

Prabhupāda: So which one, like you like?

Guest: Whichever one is possible. As he says, "First come, first served."

Prabhupāda: All right. So you arrange. During stay, arrange something.

Guest: Something available here also?

Śyāmasundara: This is the old river bed, isn't it?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Jayapatākā: Yes. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...will help us. (Bengali) So you purchase on this side land.

Morning Walk -- March 9, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: They have sacrificed so much for me. They are ready to lie down under the tree. But it is my duty to see they are, as far as possible, they're comfortably situated. That is my duty. They can agree to live in any condition.

Guest (2): Gargamuni said me like this one day, and myself and one of the devotees went to draw the ration from the river in the distance, two miles off. And the devotee's saying, "We'll go by the car." And "Let us go by the rickshaw."

Prabhupāda: Yes, they do like that.

Guest (2): I like to save the paths(?) of the temple. And that devotee's not... Up till devotee, but he was a worker, his whole time living in the temple. And I asked Gargamuni, "Your devotee is saying, 'We'll go by car. It is expensive. Because we are collecting money from the different peoples and from the public. And we must not use our money in this way.' "

Prabhupāda: Jaya. For Kṛṣṇa bhakti, yes.

Morning Walk -- March 23, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: I don't come to that. I say everything is made by Kṛṣṇa which is useful. Nothing... It is not useful is made by Him.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We are pūrṇasya, pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate. Pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idam (Iso Invocation). Everything created by Kṛṣṇa, that is perfect. He does not create anything useless. Just like this sea water is salty. Why it is salty? If it is not salty, then it cannot be preserved. Therefore it is salty. You have to take water. But it is made salty. The process is... It is distilled by the sun, and then you are supplied. Just see how perfectly it is done. It is put onto the top of the hills, and it comes as river. This is God's creation.

Bhāgavata: Complete.

Prabhupāda: Complete, yes. Complete... Complete intelligence.

Bhāgavata: But we make it incomplete.

Dr. Patel: How can you make anything incomplete. You have no power to... (break)

Prabhupāda: ...instruction from the Complete, Kṛṣṇa.

Morning Walk -- March 27, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: In the shadow in the pond.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: That is in rivers.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So therefore this reality is there that is up. And this is shadow.

Dr. Patel: That's it.

Guest (1): (indistinct)

Dr. Patel: No, he has... I mean, delivered. I was not able to understand for many years this one. Ūrdhva-mūlam... (break) ...and this illusionary shadow.

Prabhupāda: This is maintained by Vedic injunction. Just like people are very much attached to fruitive activities. They are attached to that. They do not want to go beyond. The karmīs. Karmīs, their whole ambition is how to go to these heavenly planets. He does not know that what is the benefit of going to the heavenly planets? He does not know. Therefore he is amazed by the chandāṁsi, Vedic chandāṁsi. Yām imāṁ puṣpitāṁ vācam, veda-vādinaḥ. So they are especially attached to these Vedic...

Chandobhai: Injunctions of action.

Prabhupāda: Fruitive activities. They do not accept this: ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino 'rjuna (BG 8.16). They'll not. "No, no. We shall go to..." Just like these rascals are going to the Candraloka. Candraloka. (laughter) Now other rascals supporting them: "Oh, now we are..." (laughter)

Morning Walk -- April 6, 1974, Bombay:

Bhāgavata: On the border. Before you reach earth, the element of earth.

Prabhupāda: Yes. On the border between spiritual world and material world.

Bhāgavata: On the Virajā River? That is where Kailāsa-dhāma is.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Yaśomatīnandana: Are there different Kailāsa-dhāmas like is there any Kailāsa-dhāma in a particular universe also?

Prabhupāda: Yes. There is. Just like there is Vṛndāvana, similarly, there is Kailāsa-dhāma. (break)

Acyutānanda: There are many other planets on the earth level?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- April 14, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: ...just like in the river sometimes several straws will meet together. And again they disperse. (break) We get our body and mix together, and again we are dispersed by the waves of time. (break) ...at the end we shall see Kṛṣṇa. (break)

Girirāja: "...the original Personality of Godhead, master of all mystic powers, learned brāhmaṇas know very well that this cosmic manifestation is an expansion of Your potency." (break)

Prabhupāda: ...and Nalakuvara, but He remained bound up.

Indian Man (1): About His līlā?

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) Yaśodāmāyī is more powerful than Kṛṣṇa.

Room Conversation with Prof. Regamay, Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Lausanne -- June 4, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: Buddha is śaktyāveśa-avatāra. We accept Lord Jesus Christ also, śaktyāveśa-avatāra; Mohammed, śaktyāveśa-avatāra. Śaktyāveśa-avatāra means a living entity especially empowered and he preaches the philosophy on behalf... That is called śaktyāveśa-avatāra. There are different types of avatāras. Guṇāvatāra, manvantarāvatāra, yugāvatāra, līlāvatāra, śaktyāveśāvatāra, like that. They are described in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. About avatāras. You find out Teachings of Lord Caitanya, avatāras. Innumerable avatāras. Come here. Find out this chapter. Avatāra saṅkhyeyaḥ. It is compared, just like in the river, the waves are flowing. You cannot count, or in the... What is that? Avatāra. Read, read that chapter.

Morning Walk -- June 9, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Drain water.

Bhagavān: Generally, all these rivers, everywhere now, are all contaminated.

Prabhupāda: That means the mode of civilization is so nice that everything is becoming contaminated. And why not the people? They're also contaminated.

Bhagavān: That is called madness when they...

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Bhagavān: Madness when they keep creating things which are hurting them, but they don't stop.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is māyā. Māyā is very strong.

Room Conversation -- June 20, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: Cannery? Anyway, when they boil this onion, up to ten miles the good smell is (indistinct). (laughter) And the whole atmosphere is (indistinct) Similarly, they are trying to refine oil and the refuse will be thrown in the Yamunā and the River Yamunā will be spoiled, nobody will go there. (indistinct) They think that these so-called spiritual fanaticism of India is the cause of India's material deficiencies.

Guest: I know.

Prabhupāda: This must be killed. (indistinct)

Guest: (indistinct) Even here there are people who think that.

Prabhupāda: Oh, they are thinking like that? (indistinct)

Guest: One of the big people here, I said to him after I argued like this for hours, I said, "You are Western and I am Eastern, not the other way around." Thank you very much.

Prabhupāda: Give him the whole plate. (laughter)

Reporters Interview -- June 29, 1974, Melbourne:

Guest (2): ...in this material universe?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like when you say, "United States of America," that's actually a place. There are living entities. There are men and mountains, rivers. Everything is there. Similarly, all these planets, they are inhabited by living entities. There are similarly cities and towns and mountains and rivers and oceans. Everything is there—of different pattern. Just like the moon planet. It is... The temperature is 200 degree below zero. So you cannot go and live there. But there are living entities who can live there. Just like even on this planet, there are living entities in the Arctic region, but for us it is very difficult to live there. And there are different climatic influences. Even on this planet. One place is suitable for one kind of man, another place is suitable for another. Just like we are Indian. We cannot tolerate such, I mean, what is called, pinching, cool. So similarly, in India you cannot tolerate scorching heat. So for each and every planet there are different patterns of living entities. They can live. Just like you cannot live within water. For that reason you cannot say nobody can live in the water. That is foolishness. You cannot live. You say. So there are so many fishes, varieties of fishes. They are living. Don't carry your present experience to others. That is not very good argument. Now, here the so-called scientists, they are saying in other planets there is no living entity. Why? They are putting so many reasons, that "This is lacking. This is lacking." But what do you know, what is lacking and how...? These things are not accepted. You do not know anything about the other planets.

Room Conversations -- September 10, 1974, Vrndavana:

Devotee (1): "Without envy"?

Prabhupāda: Yes. The whole world is envious, whole world. I am envious of you, you are envious of me. That Bhāgavata is not meant for such envious persons. Paramo nirmatsarāṇām (SB 1.1.2), those who are no more envious. How they will have a devotee envious? He loves Kṛṣṇa and in relationship with Kṛṣṇa loves everyone. In that position, in that state, one will not try to suppress another. Otherwise, it is material life. To live at the cost of others, to suppress one, to take other's money and become rich. There is story in the Aesop's Fable that—you perhaps know it—that a dog took the flesh in his mouth and was crossing a river, and the shadow was in the water. So he thought there is another dog with the flesh, so he wanted to..., he lost this, and that was a shadow. So he has got a flesh in his mouth, but he is an animal, it was deluded that "Another dog is carrying, so I shall take." So even in the cats and dogs, this tendency is there. Even the cats and dogs, they are also. So how can you stop it? That will be not stopped. They do not know. Therefore, these theories, they are simply theories; they are not practical. They do not know what is the nature, how nature is working.

Room Conversations -- September 11, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa says that "You and Me and all these soldiers, we existed before, we are existing now, and we shall exist in this way in the future." Where does He say that "We shall be mixed up"? He never says. And these rascals, they have got so many parties, the same thing. Where do you get this idea? There is sayujya-mukti, but Kṛṣṇa never says that "You take it." All this Ramakrishna Mission, all these, this (indistinct), he gives the example that rivers come from different sources, but when it comes to the ocean it is mixed up. Why don't you see within the water? Within the water there are big, big fishes, they do not mix up with the water. They see superficially the water. This is going on. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānās (SB 7.5.31). Our philosophy is "Come. Come here, play with Kṛṣṇa as cowherd boy. Come here, dance with Kṛṣṇa as gopī. Come here, accept Kṛṣṇa as your son, Kṛṣṇa will accept you as His mother." There will be always two, and enjoy, any way. Even as enemy, demon displaying part of enemy, Kṛṣṇa killing, that is also pastime too. That is also enjoyment. Just like sometimes we fight, friend to friend, to enjoy life, because fighting is enjoyment.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- February 21, 1975, Caracas:

Prabhupāda: University education is simply to learn some art, materialistic art. It is not education. Education is different. Education is brahma-vidyā, self-realization. Therefore in politics the so-called leader, because there is no standard, they change government, revolution. Why? From nature's study we can see one tree is producing a particular type of fruit and flower. There is no revolution. It is standard. But these people, because they have no standard, they change every moment, every year. Nature's way—the sun is rising from the eastern side—that is standard. (chuckles) These rascals, they will say, "Let the sun rise from the north." It is childish, simply childish. "Eastern philosophers, Western..." What is this philosophy? Philosophy is philosophy. Why they talk of Eastern, Western?" Eastern sun, Western sun." Sun is always Eastern, never Western. How one can say, "Western sun?" (break) Just see. It is in the water, but the water is not over it. If the water increases, it also increases. See? There is no water on the leaf. Here you see. The water must be always down. (break) ...falling from the top of the Sumeru Hill, a big tree, and the juice, after falling down, turns into a river of mango juice. And the blackberries, they are just like the body of elephant and small seed. They also turn into river, Jambu-nada. And the both sides of the river, being moistened by the juice and dried by air and interacted by the sunshine, it becomes gold. And that gold is used for the denizens of heaven for their ornaments, helmets, bracelet, belt. Where is gold here? Paper. They cannot make even gold coins. They are reducing into poverty. In our childhood we have seen gold coin currency, silver coin. And now there is no such thing. Plastic. Paper and plastic. This is their advancement. Yes, it is a nice garden.

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

Prabhupāda: By desire you are creating everything. Why these material varieties? You desire. In the spiritual world also, varieties. You desire. You want to serve Kṛṣṇa as His friend, you want to serve Kṛṣṇa as His lover, you want to serve Kṛṣṇa as His father, as His servant, or you want to serve Kṛṣṇa by supplying fruits and flowers, or river Yamunā. Everything, whatever you like, Kṛṣṇa will give you opportunity, in this material and the spiritual world.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: After complete annihilation and then, when the creation starts again...

Prabhupāda: There is no question of annihilation.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I mean the material universe.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is manifest, not manifest. Not annihilation. The energy is there. Just like sometimes I become angry, and sometime I am peaceful. But that means anger is annihilated. Anger is there. It may be manifest at any time. There is no question of annihilation. You say like that because actually it is vyakta, avyakta: manifest and nonmanifest.

Room Conversation with Canadian Ambassador to Iran -- March 13, 1975, Iran:

Prabhupāda: Cannery? Anyway, so when they boil this onion, up to ten miles the good smell spread. (laughter) You see? And the whole atmosphere of Vṛndāvana is spoiled. Similarly, they are trying to refine oil, and the refuse will be thrown in the Yamunā. So the river Yamunā will be spoiled. Nobody will go to take bath. This is Indian government's policy. They think that this so-called spiritual fanaticism of India is the cause of India's material degradation. So this must be killed. Like the Russians.

Ambassador: Um hm. I know they think that sometimes. Even here there are people who think that.

Prabhupāda: Oh, they are thinking like that? But I heard that the king is very pious.

Ambassador: One of the big people here, I said to him—after I argued about this for hours—I said, "You are Western and I am Eastern, not the other way around." (laughs) Thank you very much. I shall take your leave?

Prabhupāda: So, give him prasāda. Give him the whole plate. (laughs) You can take whole plate. So I am very glad to see you.

Morning Walk -- April 7, 1975, Mayapur:

vīndra-svarūpa: A person might argue that the Indians weren't satisfied either; otherwise they wouldn't have taken up the English culture. So what's the difference?

Prabhupāda: No. When you are standing on two boats you'll never be satisfied. It is very dangerous position, you know? Two boats, on the river, and if you put one leg here, one leg here, it is always troublesome. Either you give up this or give up that. Then your position will be safe. But India's position is like that. Two boats, he is standing, and he is troubled.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The English taught devotional service to England. The English were teaching devotional service to England.

Prabhupāda: When?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Because the Indian people, they have such a feeling for bhakti and service. Everywhere in the world we go...

Prabhupāda: But the Englishmen never took that line and when...

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Did they teach God consciousness?

Prabhupāda: When our godbrother Acyuta Mahārāja and Bon Mahārāja was sent, Lady Willingdon, he derided them that "You Indian people you come here..." (break)

Rāmeśvara: ...say that Western civilization is very good for the world.

Prabhupāda: Yes, but they cannot teach their own children. They are becoming hippies. That is the effect of their education.

Morning Walk -- April 23, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: ...although there is full arrangement for producing food, and because we are rogues and demons, nature will restrict supply. (break) But this machine will be stopped as soon as the increase of population of rogues and demons. The machine is there already. Mūḍhā nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam. The background is Kṛṣṇa. Mayādhyakṣeṇa (BG 9.10), under His order. He says, "Don't supply here." Mayādhyakṣeṇa. The supply is stopped. That they do not know. They are making scientific research. What scientific research? Bring water. There is so much water. Bring that water, distill it and throw. Are you such great scientist? And by God's arrangement the sun is there, evaporates the water from the sea, and it becomes purified without any salt, and it is extravagantly thrown on the land. And the same water again flowing down through the river in the sea, the water is reserved. Nothing is lost.

Morning Walk -- April 23, 1975, Vrndavana:

Guest: We are not recommending. In the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement we are not recommending buffalo.

Prabhupāda: No. Anyone who wants to go very soon to Yamarāja, he can drink buffalo milk. Or it may be that if you drink buffalo milk, the Yamarāja will not touch you. (laughter) The other side may be taken. (break) ...in the morning take water from the river, evacuate, then wash their hands and take nice bath. And one jug water brings at home. Then everything, water problem, is solved.

Guest: But now they've put in Mathurā, refinery at Mathurā to pollute Yamunā River. And again problem will come after four or five years.

Prabhupāda: So if your government wants to kill you, who can save you? That is another thing. Rakṣa bhakṣaka. Government is meant for giving you protection, but if the government wants to kill you, then who will give you protection? Just like nowadays. The mother is meant for giving protection to the child, and the mother is killing now. Then who will protection? There is no other way. Even in the animals, birds, the mother is giving protection. And the small children, they are going after the mother.

Morning Walk -- May 10, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: Then it will be a very different situation for preaching.

Prabhupāda: Your preaching will not be stopped. It will go on. (pause)

Amogha: He's bringing the car. He went back. He'll bring it around. (reading sign) "The Tree Society originated the idea of placing this kadi log in King's Park. The log, normally destined for milling, was provided and brought by Booning Brothers P.T. Limited from their Darling River sawmilling area. The following transporting and placing in position of this great log from over 200 miles from the depths of the forest, with each of the three sections borne on a 200 horsepower motor truck, was a major engineering feat and a tribute to the spirit of western Australian timber men. With the approval and assistance of the King's Park board, the actual placing of the log in King's Park by 25 June, 1958, was contributed to by Hume Pipe Co., Aaron Brothers B.P. Australia Ltd, the Forests Department and other government departments. The completion of the project was a fine example of community effort."

Paramahaṁsa: It weighs a hundred and ten tons. And it's 363 years old, this log. They say it grew that long. In America we have some redwood trees in California they say are many thousands of years old.

Amogha: This is a type of eucalyptus?

Paramahaṁsa: It says Eucalyptus diversicol.

Prabhupāda: Bhāgavata says, kiṁ taromana jīvanti. You want to prolong your life. The trees—they do not prolong their life? So if you prolong your life, does it mean that you are better than a tree? Kim taromana jīvanti. If prolonging life is your mission, the trees automatically do that without any scientific knowledge. Then what is the value of your science? Kim taromana jīvanti. Do they not live for thousands of years? What is the value of such living? If the tree is living, standing for 10,000 years, then what is the value of this 10,000 years? So if you live like a tree, without any benefit, then what is the value of your life?

Room Conversation with Justin Murphy (Geographer) -- May 14, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: But first of all, you want water. If the water is reserved on the top of the hill, then it gradually comes down. That is nature's, God's, arrangement: Let river fall down, and you can use that water. That is the nature's arrangement. Just like you keep your water on the tank, and by pipe you get down. But there is nature's arrangement. The water is stocked on the top of the hill, and throughout the whole year the pipe is the river. That water must be there. That is the first problem. Therefore here it is said, parjanyād anna-sambhavaḥ. You must have sufficient water. Water is already there. But it has to be purified, kept on the top of the hill, water tank, and it will come down in rivers. Then you take and utilize. And when the water falls down and there is sufficient water, the ground becomes cleansed so it is no more polluted.

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

Prabhupāda: Any city which has river and sunshine is considered to be first class.

Mother: You don't feel the cold in the nighttime here?

Prabhupāda: I am going on.

Gaṇeśa: She asked if you feel the cold in the nighttime.

Prabhupāda: Oh, a little, not very much. Yes.

Sister: Is this your first visit to Perth?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation with Dr. Copeland, Professor of Modern Indian History -- May 20, 1975, Melbourne:

Madhudviṣa:

cirāṇi kiṁ pathi na santi diśanti bhikṣāṁ

naivāṅghripāḥ para-bhṛtaḥ sarito 'py aśuṣyan

ruddhā guhāḥ kim ajito 'vati nopasannān

kasmād bhajanti kavayo dhana-durmadāndhān

(SB 2.2.5)

"Translation: Are there no torn clothes lying on the common road? Do the trees, which exist for maintaining others, no longer give alms in charity? Do the rivers, being dried up, no longer supply water to the thirsty? Are the caves of the mountains now closed, or, above all, does the Almighty Lord not protect the fully surrendered souls? Why then do the learned sages go to flatter those who are intoxicated by hard-earned wealth?"

Prabhupāda: That... Saintly person should depend on Kṛṣṇa. If Kṛṣṇa is not supplying cloth, all right, find out some torn, thrown-out cloth on the street. And food? Go to the tree. Take some fruit. And for water, go to the river. There is sufficient water. And for shelter, go to the cave. So these are already arranged. And above, over and above, do you think that the Supreme Lord does not take care of the person who has fully surrendered unto Him? Then why you are going to flatter this rich class of men for your food? This is the... And that is the... Especially throughout the history in India you will find, many hundred thousands of these sādhus. They do not go anywhere. I have seen at Allahabad, Kumbha-melā. They take bath in the Ganges and sit down in their place, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, without caring wherefrom the food will come. They sit down. And everything is coming. Still in India, if there is information, even in the remotest villages, "There is a saintly person has come in the village," they will approach. "Bābā, what can I do for you?"

Morning Walk -- May 21, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: And it is stored on the mountain head and it comes down. Eternal supply. Whole year's supply through the rivers, huge water. You have seen that, what is name, Niagara Falls?

Madhudviṣa: Yes. You have seen? (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Yes. Huge water. There are many falls like that. Clean, clear, nice, sweet water is coming. There is sweet-water sea also.

Madhudviṣa: In the sea.

Prabhupāda: No, not here. In the sky. There is sweet water, very sweet, nice water, drinking water, sea. Sea of ghee, sea of yogurt, sea of milk. Everything is there.

Morning Walk -- June 7, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: But of the same kind, having bunch of hair. (break) ...three hundred varieties of birds. How many one has seen? One million. Pakṣiṇam dāsa-lakṣakam. Dāsa-lakṣakam means one million. (break) ...varieties of life, so many varieties of planets, sky, the sea, ocean, the mountains, the rivers, and they want to compete with God. Just see their foolishness. (laughs) Controlling nature, is there... Eh? Bali-mardana? Scientists they want to control nature.

Bali-mardana: Yes, they try to make it rain or stop the rain. They try different experiments.

Prabhupāda: Why not death? Stop death.

Bali-mardana: Yes, they are trying that also. They are not succeeding.

Prabhupāda: That is the misfortune.

Morning Walks -- June 18-19, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Everything is exactly like this. And in any circumstance they are happy. It is not that in Vṛndāvana Kṛṣṇa is a sannyāsī. He cannot see the face of woman. It is not like that. (chuckles) But because it is spiritual, it is all-attractive. There are also the trees, animals, the river, the fruits, the flowers, the father, the mother, the beloved girls, beloved boys, sporting among the cowherd boys, going to the forest, the cows and calves, everything. So that attraction is required. The Māyāvādī philosophers, they are thinking, "Again attraction like this? So make it zero, no attraction. Become zero." So their philosophy is zero philosophy. That is also no information of the spiritual world, Buddha philosophy and Māyāvāda philosophy, śūnyavādī, nirviśeṣa, without varieties or zero. Without varieties means zero. So two philosophers. But therefore they invent: "Anything is all right." They invent. After all, they want zeroism. (break) ...pārtha yogaṁ yuñjan mad-āśrayaḥ. (break) ...one increases the attraction for Kṛṣṇa, they will never be happy. (break) ...simply changing attraction on the material platform under different names. That will be failure.

Garden Conversation with Dr. Gerson and devotees -- June 22, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Because even if you find somebody diseased, still, spiritual consciousness is not hampered. That is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, ahaituky apratihatā. Apratihatā means without any impediment. There is no checking. Just like in the Ganges water you will sometimes find the stool is floating there. But that does not mean the Ganges water has become polluted. It is practical. In Calcutta, in our childhood, I was taking bath in the Ganges with my father. Many gentlemen regularly takes bath in the Ganges. And the modern scientific method is: all the garbage, throw into the river. So we were taking bath, and here is some stool floating. So we used to drive away the stool and take bath. The stool is unable to pollute the Ganges water. You will find in India still. The advanced gentlemen... "The dirty water," they say, Ganges water. But you will find practically, that anyone who is taking regular bathing in this dirty water, he is healthy. You will find. It is very healthy. No disease touches him ordinarily. Of course, the body is susceptible to disease, but generally, those who are taking regular bath in the Ganges water, they are not diseased. You will find it practically still. So as the stool floating in the Ganges water cannot pollute the Ganges water, similarly, a devotee, even if you find scientifically that he is crazy or he is diseased, that is not impediment.

Morning Walk -- June 22, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: There is some river?

Jayatīrtha: No, there's no river, but there's a...

Prabhupāda: Waterfall?

Jayatīrtha: ...pond there.

Prabhupāda: Oh. (break)

Jayatīrtha: ...fifty devotees in Paris now. So that temple there is very crowded. Impossible.

Prabhupāda: So, why not some of them moved?

Jayatīrtha: Yes, that's their plan. (break) ...enough for several hundred devotees very easily. (break) They're letting us through in the mornings for nothing now, I think, unless this man is going to nip us. (break)

Prabhupāda: Why?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He was in maṅgala āratik. I don't know where he is now.

Morning Walk -- July 3, 1975, Denver:

Prabhupāda: So you remain with bad and good. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. That possibility is here. Sometimes you are going to the higher heavenly planets, a long duration of life, better standard of enjoyment—again coming back. (break) Good and bad is exemplified: just like I catch you and put down the water, and when you are suffocated, I raise you little, and you say, "Oh. (laughter) It is very nice." But you do not know, again you are going to be... You see? "This good, bad" is here like that. He is put into the water and suffocated, and when he is taken out little, he says, "Oh, it is very good. It is very good." The rascal does not know, the next moment he is going to be again drowned in that. That is going on. Daṇḍya-jane rāja-jana... That was the chief punishment formerly. If one has to be punished, instead of putting into the jail and feed him, the officers will take him to a river and put him in the water. In this way, one day doing, he will say "I will never do these things. Please excuse me." Daṇḍya-jane rāja-jane nadite cubaya. (break) ...unless one remembers this, that "To be in the material world, how suffocating it is," he will not fit for going to back to Godhead. He must be completely detestful. If he keeps little attachment, "No, it is very good sometimes," then you have to remain here. (break) "This is not permanent. I shall be put next moment in the bad condition." That he must know. That is knowledge.

Morning Walk -- July 12, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: Lighthouse for the river?

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Yes. These buildings are all rowing clubs. They're for boating, boathouses.

Prabhupāda: Oh. So still they are rowing house? No.

Kīrtanānanda: Yes. It is a big sport. They race. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...idea is there in the western countries? No.

Kīrtanānanda: Not very much. Although the idea is there that the best education can be secured when boys are separate in school. That idea is there. The best families have always sent their sons away to school.

Prabhupāda: That should be followed in our system. Boys and girls must be separate. (break) ...introduce now. How long? What is time?

Brahmānanda: It's still a little early.

Morning Walk -- July 14, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...all like this, jungle?

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Yes, all along this creek there's a forest like this. This has been done in Philadelphia all along the river, and this huge area of land has been set aside. It's like this. No one can use it except to take walks. (break)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The question that I wrote to Śrīla Prabhupāda, the answer that Śrīla Prabhupāda gave me was that the cells in the body and the jīvātmā that resides in the heart, they are different living entities. But my understanding was directed to the relationship between the two, the jīvātmā in the cells and the jīvātmā in the heart, how they are related, how they...

Prabhupāda: They are separate identity.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But it looks like, though, in the material body the one cannot exist without another. They look like interdependent.

Prabhupāda: That may be, but still, they are individuals.

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

Prabhupāda: Bora bora goye gala rasatala, vetta gore bole katha jala(?). There is a river. The horses, they can swim. So the river was so ferocious and many horses drowned. So one vetta gora, means third-class horse, he said, "How was the water? Let me try."

Paramahaṁsa: (laughing) They all drowned.

Prabhupāda: The vetta gora. These are vetta gora, horses with (remedy?).

Satsvarūpa: But they can point to progress, not that they're all drowning.

Prabhupāda: What is that progress?

Satsvarūpa: Well, people never thought they could reach the moon. Now they think they have.

Prabhupāda: So that is not progress. Progress means when you conquer death. That is progress.

Car Conversation -- August 3, 1975, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Everything belongs to God, Kṛṣṇa. And we are sons of Kṛṣṇa. (break) I came this side last time when I came. You were there?

Jagadīśa: In Detroit? Yes.

Prabhupāda: This river side, did I not come?

Jagadīśa: We came to this park last time, yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. I remember. The river is navigable. Big, big ship can go.

Ambarīṣa: Yes. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...St. Lawrence?

Jagadīśa: No. Detroit River.

Prabhupāda: And St. Lawrence is different river.

Morning Walk -- August 28, 1975, Vrndavana:

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.

Brahmānanda: It's a real what?

Prabhupāda: Reminiscence.

Morning Walk -- August 28, 1975, Vrndavana:

Dhanañjaya: Very fertile land. (break) ...used for mooring boats. Perhaps it was used for mooring boats when the river was there.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is said that Yamunā was navigable river. Hm?

Brahmānanda: I was just wondering how they were mooring boats to this thing.

Prabhupāda: It is well.

Devotee (2): There's a frog that lives down there.

Prabhupāda: I think we shall return. I am getting tired. But how strongly built it is. You see? What was the mortar? Mortar, it is called? That is Madana Mohana temple. (break) ...also good datuna.(?) They use.

Morning Walk -- September 25, 1975, Ahmedabad:

Prabhupāda: That is your foolishness. What you have changed? Can you stop the fire burning your hand? Can you change this? Then why you talk foolish? These are foolish propositions. Nature will act. You may be so-called advanced in science. What is, your science will do? Will you not die? Will you not be diseased? Will you not become old? Then where is your advancement? You are strictly under the laws of nature. You cannot violate a single inch even. Daiv hy eṣ guṇamay mama māy duratyayā. One sane man should consider that "Why I am strictly under the laws of nature? I am prime..." This question was put by Sanātana Gosvāmī, that "I am prime minister. People adore me as paṇḍita, very learned, but why I am put into these tribulations of the laws of nature? Why as prime minister and learned paṇḍita I cannot counteract it?" This is real question. Simply doggish mentality: "Yes, why shall I not do it? Why shall I?"—what will benefit you? That means you are not even sober. You are not human being. Human being should question "Why?" That is human being. Now by nature's law the river is full with water. If the nature does not supply, what you can do, your so-called science? Can you fill up with water? Then what is your science? Bogus. You cannot counteract the laws of nature. Hm? Can you? Brahmānanda can. (laughter) He is strong enough. Kartikeya, you can do it?

Kartikeya (Indian Life Member): No, I can't do it.

Morning Walk -- September 25, 1975, Ahmedabad:

Kartikeya: Yes. Except Surat. Surat has no problem. Narmad is there.

Prabhupāda: No, here is also the river, Savarmati. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya.

Kartikeya: Here is Mr. Bhagwati. He's...

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, he is our old friend.

Mr. Bhagwati: (Hindi)

Kartikeya: He has come yesterday. Today also program is there. (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. He has got his house, Nara...

Kartikeya: Narampura. (?)

Prabhupāda: Narampura. (break) United Bank, there was one Bengali manager, maybe Mr. Chatterjee.

Kartikeya: In Ahmedabad?

Prabhupāda: Hm. He's our good friend.

Morning Walk -- November 8, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...city one house with twenty rooms on the riverside.

Dr. Patel: I was told that Lasteri's house, you know, sir, Charpak Lasteri.(?)

Prabhupāda: What do you think will be the price?

Dr. Patel: I don't know about price, sir. But their prices are as high as in Bombay. Whose is this house? Who is the owner? (break)

Prabhupāda: ...jīvanti. The trees, they live many, many hundreds of thousands of years more than men.

Indian man (1): Yes.

Prabhupāda: Does it mean he is sinless? (laughter)

Morning Walk -- November 12, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Such kind of religious system is rejected. Dharmaḥ projjhita kaitavaḥ. Kaitava means cheating. To cheat God or to be cheated by God, this kind of religion is rejected. But people are very much fond of that kind of religion by which the God is cheated and he is cheated. He will commit all kinds of sins and he will be excused. That means God is cheated. And if he thinks that "I will go on committing sinful; God will excuse me," that is also cheating. He is cheating himself, as if God is so fool that he will go on committing sin and God will excuse. These are cheating. This is not religion. God is personally speaking, yeṣāṁ tv anta-gataṁ pāpaṁ janānāṁ puṇya-karmaṇām (BG 7.28), and he is thinking that "I will go on committing sinful activities and God will excuse." Why God will excuse? This is foolishness. He can excuse once, twice, thrice, but as a matter of routine, he will commit sinful activities and God will excuse—this is all nonsense. Parīkṣit Mahārāja has condemned this process. He has compared the kuñjara saucavat. Kuñjara means elephant. The elephant takes bath in the river or in the lake very minutely, becomes very clean. And as soon as he will come on the shore, he takes some dust and... You will find this. He's such a big animal, but he has no sense that "Now I have washed all dirty things. Again I am taking dirt?" So this kind of knowledge, that "Cleanse yourself by doing prāyaścitta, and again unclean." If you have cleansed yourself, then keep yourself clean. Why you are uncleaning again? This is foolishness. (break) "What is this, pious activities and sinful activities? These are all old, primitive ideas. Now we are advanced." (Hindi) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya (break) ...surfing introduced as (Hindi) ...Surfing sport... (Hindi) (break) ...that toothpaste within the box?

Harikeśa: Yes.

Morning Walk -- November 16, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: This body. And in body relationship, "She is my wife, she is my child, she is my countrymen, she is my race." So this is dehātmā-buddhiḥ. Yasyātmā-buddhiḥ... "This is my country." In this way one is thinking, and little more religiosity, he is going to holy place and taking bath in the river but not to the person who knows things. Sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). There are. Sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). Go means cow, and kharaḥ means ass. This class of men are grouped among the cows and asses.

Dr. Patel: Asses.

Indian man (3): That means they have got no... Sthira buddhiḥ neha(?) (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) This is animal civilization. There is no spiritual knowledge. Simply like cats and dogs, they are working hard, eating, sleeping...

Indian man (3): Then what should be the spirit of a man? How do you call him a man?

Prabhupāda: When he knows that he is not this body—he is soul, ahaṁ brahmāsmi—then he begins to become. Then his real identity...

Indian man (3): That means ninety-nine, ninety percent of the people living in the world are practically animals.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Asses.

Morning Walk -- November 16, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Keśighāṭa we have already given in New Vṛn...

Ambarisa: It's right on a river. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...name that... Kṛṣṇa... They brought the assembly house from heaven and located in Dvāraka. There is a name like that. I shall give you the name.

Brahmānanda: (break) ...robi. You can give a name for Nairobi mandir.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) Devasadan.

Brahmānanda: Devasadan. What is the meaning?

Prabhupāda: Celestial building.

Morning Walk -- November 20, 1975, Bombay:

Nanda-kumāra: In South America one man went up the Amazon River and he found a place where he could pick gold nuggets up out of the water.

Dr. Patel: Gold nuggets are there in the rivers, so many, in Africa.

Prabhupāda: Gold?

Dr. Patel: Gold nuggets. Because gold never get, I mean, oxidized. It is always in (unclear). So nuggets, they are available in big rivers even in Africa. Because when they come through the mountain, you know.

Prabhupāda: There is one river in India also, Suvarna-rekha, between Orissa and Bengal.

Morning Walk -- November 20, 1975, Bombay:

Indian man (1): We have got our Pultasena.(?) Pultasena means he is a lower-class man. He has written the Rāmāyaṇa in Malayalam. He was the son of a muhri(?) (indistinct), and the muhri was crossing a river, just when he came to a lake. That river he cannot cross because (indistinct). So he said, "There is an auspicious moment. If I get a son, he will be a wonderful chap." So he went and slept in somebody's veranda. That lady (indistinct) He was not getting sleep, walking up and down. He asked (indistinct) The lady of the house came back and told, "Oh, at this auspicious moment if I get a son he will be wonderful chap." So he got a son from that... And this man went away. After so many years, when he came, this boy, from the childhood he went to the temple. And when he goes there he says, "False, false." He used to say because these brāhmaṇas are narrating the Vedas in such a bad way, it is all false only. It is all darkness. The muhri knew if they gave some (Hindi) after praying something, they (indistinct) The boy (indistinct) Then this amuhri came after so many years that way. He saw this boy, he understood it. Then he gave another... (break)

Dr. Patel: ...are rogues. (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: And the Patel was subordinate to Nehru. (laughter)

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- January 3, 1976, Nellore:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not only that, but he's not going to sleep in anyone's home either. They want to camp out by the riversides.

Prabhupāda: Very good idea.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He says that he finds it very.... From reading your books it is very clear that Caitanya Mahāprabhu was very careful and strict to only eat prasādam cooked by proper persons.

Prabhupāda: No, purchase from Jagannātha temple. People would come to offer Him prasādam, so what is the cost of the prasādam, that was taken, and He purchased. Formerly, the system was, there was no hotel, but there were temples. You go and you can purchase very cheap price. I went with my father in my childhood in a place. My father would never take food at anyone's house or in the hotel. He will find out some temple and pay them and take prasādam. Still there are many temples. So I was about ten years old at that time, say, seventy years ago. So he paid two annas to the pūjārī and he gave us so much. It can be eaten by five, six men. Kicheri, vegetables, varieties. So much. Two annas.

Morning Walk -- January 6, 1976, Nellore:

Mahāmṣa: What about the analogy that many rivers flow into the same sea and lose their individuality?

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Mahāmṣa: Their example is that many rivers, they flow into one sea, and then they lose their individuality.

Prabhupāda: Because they are short-sighted, blind, that there are many individual living entities within the river. But they are blind. They cannot see them. Because it is covered by water they see only the water is there. Because they are blind rascals, they cannot see. But if they go deep into the water they will see there are so many individuals, millions, and they are living in the same river.

Harikeśa: But there's no difference between the individual living entity and the total...

Prabhupāda: Yes, there is no difference. Still, that is.... That is acintya-bheda... That is individuality and no individuality. So long they are living there within the river, there is no individuality.

Acyutānanda: That example is also a jugglery of words because the.... Let's say the Mississippi River is the quantity of water that's on the land. When it goes into the ocean you don't say that "Now the Mississippi River is in the ocean." Mississippi River is still individual, and the ocean is another thing.

Prabhupāda: The Mississippi is not finished.

Morning Walk -- January 8, 1976, Nellore:

Prabhupāda: They are doing like that here?

Acyutānanda: Yes. In Europe, when Christianity first came to Constantine, the priests would stay in the top of a river, and they marched an army through the river, and the priest put the holy water, and when the army came on the other side they said, "Now you've all been baptized. You're all Christians." Mass conversion. (break) ...Hindu groups are mixing Hinduism and Indian nationality, it's fascism. That was also the government's...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Huh?

Acyutānanda: Fascism.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Who?

Acyutānanda: The Hindu groups. That was the point that enraged the government. The same paṇḍitas with the prāyaścitta, they don't like the Mohammedans, they don't like the Christians. They say, "You have created Pakistan, so all the Mohammedans should go there. This is Hindustan."

Prabhupāda: Murvi(?) meat here?

Indian man (1): Not everyone did.

Prabhupāda: Mostly.

Morning Walk -- January 12, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...try to do this you get arrested, living on the street, bathing in the river. (break) Jayapataka is very intelligent. He could understand if we weren't there, we must be here. He looks like Vivekananda with that hat.

Prabhupāda: (chuckles) (break) And see how their lota is cleansed.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Shiny. Is that a special point, Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Yes. That means that how cleansed they are. That is the point. (break) ...is if their lota is so cleansed how they are personally clean.

Morning Walk -- March 17, 1976, Mayapura:

Hṛdayānanda: There was a big crowd going in constantly, a river of people.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It was impossible to walk.

Prabhupāda: Next year the Chinese men must come.

Hṛdayānanda: Chinese bhaktas.

Madhudviṣa: Chinese and Russian.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Russian, you cannot distinguish, but Chinese can be distinguished.

Madhudviṣa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: From the face.

Madhudviṣa: Just like the Manipur people come sometimes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is same stock.

Morning Walk -- April 7, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...cannot say, Hare Kṛṣṇa. There is such competition. (Hindi with others) I like this garden very nice. (Hindi) It is maintained very nicely. We can get flowers. (Hindi) Water is supply there? (Hindi)

Indian man: There are two wells. (Hindi) The river is very near. Just after that garden, Yamunā. (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: These people, they like Vṛndāvana. (Hindi) What is our telephone number?

Akṣayānanda: 179.

Devotees: 8.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Vṛndāvana 178.

Indian man: 178. (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: So they are not tres.... (Hindi) Whatever you think, as you like, we can ex.... (break) (Hindi) (break)

Tripurāri: I can remember from Caitanya-caritāmṛta, one devotee of Lord Rāmacandra was always chanting the name of Rāma, but Lord Caitanya convinced him to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) There is competition like that. One will say "Hare Rāma." Another will say "No, Hare Kṛṣṇa."

Morning Walk -- April 8, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Māyāvādī-bhāṣya sunile haya sarva-nāśa (CC Madhya 6.169), finished—his spiritual progress is finished if he associates with a Māyāvādī.

Madhudviṣa: It says in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, even if we look upon the face of a pāṣaṇḍī, we should jump in the river with all our clothes on to become immediately purified, what to speak of giving any aural reception to them. But then again we see that Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu listened, you know, attentively for so many hours to Sarvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya and also Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī. How is it can we understand...?

Prabhupāda: Just to see how the animal is jumping. (to passers-by:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya, jaya. (chuckles) Just like a fish is given freedom, even if he's caught up by the trap. It is like that.

Morning Walk -- April 21, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: That means foolish, less intelligent.

Guru-kṛpā: We are walking across everyone's field to go the river, and they are saying, "Haribol!"

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guru-kṛpā: Here they are coming with dogs.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Fences.

Guru-kṛpā: Especially if it's a devotee, they'll be more eager to shoot.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...foreign or this, a small river. (break)

Devotee (2): 1717. Captain Cook.

Guru-kṛpā: He's the same one that went to Hawaii.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Morning Walk -- April 21, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee (2): So it's very dirty river.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Devotee (3): They say it is the upside-down river. It is more blue on the bottom than it is on the top.

Devotee (2): In factories they put all of their waste into the river. (break)

Devotee (1): Prabhupāda, last night you were describing how people serve their dogs. And now, in the Western countries, they have restaurants where you can take your dog, and he sits at the table with you and they serve a meal for him. And they have catering services. You can call up, and they will bring a special meal to your dog, so he can eat at his home. They have beauty parlors for dogs, everything.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they have taken dogs as God. According to Vedic civilization, dog is untouchable. (break) ...all the centers, then how many days it takes?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: To visit all of our centers in the world?

Prabhupāda: No, Europe, America? That is world round.

Garden Conversation -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: And why he's after mystic power? What is the use of mystic power. Suppose if you have got this mystic power—you can walk over the water—so what benefit you'll get? There is a boat also. It can walk on the river or on the ocean Does it mean his all questions are solved? Suppose you can walk over the water. So I cannot walk. I take a boat and pay him four annas. So what is the difference between you and me? It is a question of four annas, that's all (laughter). So why do you endeavor for this rascaldom, and make some jugglery to the foolish people? If you have to walk over the water, you can pay four annas to the boātmān and can do it. Why for this so many mystic power?

Bharadraja: Kaitava.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Bharadraja: This is all kaitava-dharma.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes, kaitava. You do not get any more benefit. After practicing yoga for ten years, twenty years, if you learn this art how to walk over water, so you can show the magic to the foolish man. But intelligent man will say, "It is a question of four annas. I can walk. Why shall I waste my time, twenty years, for learning this art?"

Indian lady: Sometimes these mystic powers, they use on human beings...

Prabhupāda: This is one of the mystic powers which amaze people, foolish people.

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Ambarīṣa: Yes, Detroit River, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Big, big ships, they pass under this bridge?

Ambarīṣa: No, on the other side of this island, there's a channel, a freighter channel. That's Canada over there, and this is a small island, Belle Isle.

Hari-śauri: What is that project up ahead?

Ambarīṣa: I guess.... It's got problems.

Prabhupāda: What is that problem?

Ambarīṣa: No, he was asking if they are..., big project, Renaissance Center. They are having some problems building it.

Room Conversation with Mother and Sons -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: And if you purchase that land, it will be very beautiful.

Mādhavānanda: Oh, yes.

Prabhupāda: I have advised them to advertise books on the riverside. People will see.

Hari-śauri: Hmm. That's a very good idea.

Prabhupāda: Therefore, on the first day of seeing, I closed the transaction. "Now agreed, I will give you cash, three hundred thousand." He immediately agreed. Verbally, your transaction was finished on my first meeting. Then it was done. It was kept for us by Kṛṣṇa; otherwise, you could not touch this property, it is so valuable property.

Hari-śauri: Seems Kṛṣṇa arranges things very nicely sometimes.

Prabhupāda: Everything is done just like it is temple. The Deity hall.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Specially this building on the riverside. Water is there.

Mādhavānanda: Maybe, Śrīla Prabhupāda, you would like to stay a little longer this year?

Prabhupāda: I have got engagements; otherwise I would have stayed here. Already engagement is there. I want to return by fourteenth August in India. Otherwise, I would have stayed here and see things are nicely done. Anyway.

Jayādvaita: They've been after you for so long in New Vrindaban.

Prabhupāda: New Vrindaban climatic condition is not so good. Here the climatic condition is good. Four months this climate is very good. It is in the central part of America?

Mādhavānanda: Little north.

Prabhupāda: North. So north is supposed to be cooler.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: They drink this water? No.

Mādhavānanda: But of all the lakes in this part of the country, this lake is the cleanest. But still it is not clean. They ruin all the waterways with the factories' wastes. When I was flying to Detroit, I passed over the lake and I saw big oil slicks all along the shores.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Just like the Kāliya serpent, poisoning the river. But you have come to dance on their heads, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Sometimes our boys, when they go into the city, they see the big buildings like the teeth of Aghāsura. But they say, "Śrīla Prabhupāda will protect us. We will go into the smelly city, we will distribute the books in the belly of the city, but Śrīla Prabhupāda will come and he will protect us." (Prabhupāda laughs)

Prabhupāda: What price they want for this island?

Mādhavānanda: Very large amount.

Interview with Kathy Kerr Reporter from The Star -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Jayādvaita: Purport: "To the impersonalist, achieving the brahma-bhūta (SB 4.30.20) stage, becoming one with the Absolute, is the last word. But for the personalist, or pure devotee, one has to go still further to become engaged in pure devotional service. This means that one who is engaged in pure devotional service to the Supreme Lord is already in a state of liberation, called brahma-bhūta, oneness with the Absolute. Without being one with the Supreme, the Absolute, one cannot render service unto Him. In the absolute conception, there is no difference between the served and the servitor; yet the distinctions is there, in a higher spiritual sense. In the material concept of life, when one works for sense gratification, there is misery, but in the absolute world, when one is engaged in pure devotional service, there is no misery. The devotee in Kṛṣṇa consciousness has nothing to lament or desire. Since God is full, a living entity who is engaged in God's service, in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, becomes also full in himself. He is just like a river cleansed of all dirty water. Because a pure devotee has no thought other than Kṛṣṇa, he is naturally always joyful. He does not lament for any material loss or gain because he is full in service to the Lord. He has no desire for material enjoyment because he knows that every living entity is the fragmental part and parcel of the Supreme Lord and therefore eternally a servant. He does not see, in the material world, someone as higher and someone as lower; higher and lower positions are ephemeral, and a devotee has nothing to do with ephemeral appearances or disappearances. For him, stone and gold are of equal value. This is the brahma-bhūta stage, and this stage is attained very easily..."

Prabhupāda: So this brahma-bhūta stage is spiritual stage. We want to bring everyone to this spiritual stage. That is the sum and substance. We are not on the material stage. Therefore it is little difficult to understand. Everyone is on the material stage, but we are working on the spiritual stage. But the spirit and matter, we can distinguish. Without the spirit, the body is nothing but lump of matter. The spirit is there, the matter is there, but we are so dull, we do not understand what is that spirit. That is the difficulty of the modern society. This is the most important thing. Without the spirit the body cannot move. They are daily experiencing that without spirit the body is nothing, decomposed matter. But still they are simply licking up that decomposed matter without taking care of the spiritual. This is the most defective position of the modern society. So it is not a Hindu religion or Christian religion. It is a science to understand.

Morning Walk -- June 18, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: ...is sympathetic with this movement. Everyone wants godlessness. And this movement is preaching about God, so nobody likes us. (break)

Devotee: They've poisoned the lakes so much in Canada now that they've been making an attempt to turn rivers around in northern Ontario to flush the lakes out like a toilet, so they can flush part of the water down to cities like Chicago. (break) (laughter)

Prabhupāda: To save all these botherations. You live here? How long you'll live in Canada?

Devotee: Nine years.

Prabhupāda: No...

Devotees: How long will you live here.

Devotee: I don't know. (laughter)

Satsvarūpa: ...the leaf movement. That movement is another watering of the leaf and branches instead of the root, to try to improve the lakes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ paramam avyayam. It has been published in the paper that we consider everyone a rascal, miscreant...

Devotee: Sinful.

Prabhupāda: ...who is not Kṛṣṇa conscious. That has been published. (laughter)

Morning Walk -- June 21, 1976, Toronto:

Indian man: Kṛṣṇa has made lot of things for human beings to enjoy—the trees and rivers and...

Prabhupāda: That is the Vedic version-pūrṇam idam (Īśopaniṣad, Invocation), everything is complete.

Indian man: It says in the Bible that animals were given to the man for protection and for service, they could take service from the animals. And they think the slaughtering of an animal is all right on that basis, that God gave the animals to the human beings.

Morning Walk -- June 22, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Why it is there is no fog here? Due to the trees? It is clear.

Kīrtanānanda: There's a river up that way, and I think there's more fog up that—it's always like that, I don't know exactly why. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...in the jungle?

Kīrtanānanda: Deer.

Prabhupāda: Deer only.

Kīrtanānanda: Few fox.

Prabhupāda: Fox also. And fox, they come to our temple?

Kīrtanānanda: No.

Prabhupāda: No. Fox, they eat men? No.

Kīrtanānanda: Not usually. Only if they get sick, rabies, then they'll attack. They eat rabbits and rodents.

Prabhupāda: Deer also?

Kīrtanānanda: Deer are vegetarian, they eat grain.

Prabhupāda: No.

Prabhupada Visits Palace and Garden -- June 22, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...wood as fuel so that gradually this jungle will be clear. Thank you very much.

Devotees: Śrīla Prabhupāda ki jaya! Śrīla Prabhupāda ki jaya! Śrīla Prabhupāda ki jaya! (break)

Kīrtanānanda: (in car:) It's sand, yes. It's not from our property, but it's gotten locally. It comes out of the river.

Prabhupāda: Everything you had to purchase?

Kīrtanānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: It will be required.

Room Conversation -- June 24, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Bigger than here, double.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Very nice garden.

Prabhupāda: Very nice garden and on the riverside.

Kīrtanānanda: Can you bathe in the river?

Hari-śauri: Sometimes.

Prabhupāda: Yes, if you like, you can bathe.

Answers to a Questionnaire from Bhavan's Journal -- June 28, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So far Vedic religion is concerned, it is not for the Hindus. That is to be understood. The sanātana-dharma. It is for all living entities, all human beings. It is called sanātana-dharma. That I have already explained. The living entity is sanātana, God is sanātana, and there is sanātana-dharma. Paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyo 'vyakto 'vyaktāt sanātanaḥ (BG 8.20). And where Kṛṣṇa is described sanātana in the Eleventh Chapter. Do you remember? He is described as sanātana. Sanātanam. So actually, the Vedic system is called sanātana-dharma. Not Hindu dharma. This is a wrong conception. The sanātana-dharma is meant for all living entities, not the so-called Hindus, Muslims, Christians. For everyone. That is sanātana-dharma. These are later misconceptions, Hinduism and this ism, that ism, that ism. Actually, it is called sanātana-dharma, or varṇāśrama-dharma. That is meant for everyone. But because it was being followed regularly in India and Indians were called by the Muslims on the other side of the River Sind, or Sindu, and they pronounce Sind as Hind. Therefore they called India as Hindustan, means on the other side of Sindu, or Hindu River. Otherwise, it has no Vedic reference. So this Hindu dharma has no Vedic reference. The real Vedic dharma is sanātana-dharma, varṇāśrama-dharma. First of all he has to understand this. Now that sanātana-dharma, or Vedic dharma, being distorted, not being obeyed, not being carried properly, it has come to the understanding of Hinduism. That is a freak understanding. That is not real understanding. We have to study sanātana-dharma or varṇāśrama-dharma. Then we'll understand what is Vedic religion.

Room Conversation -- June 28, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Yes, round about. Yes. Why he's there? It is all right. Give them here.

Rādhāvallabha: Okay. So they are on the land. And then there is one more picture. When the goddess of fortune took birth from the milk ocean, they installed her on the throne, and the personified rivers came and personified clouds. So this would be Lord Brahmā, this would be the personified rivers and different personalities. So the ocean actually is not visible, just the actual installation area.

Prabhupāda: That's nice. So?

Rādhāvallabha: That's all that they want to know. Thank you, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. When everything do with devotion, it will come out correct.

Morning Walk -- July 4, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: This is river?

Rūpānuga: Potomac River.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I was going to ask that this soul, the nature of the soul, we find that...

Prabhupāda: Salt?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, no, the soul, the ātmā, jīva. We get a description that the soul, the size of a soul is one ten-thousandth part of the tip of the hair. We were just discussing whether does this imply that it can be measured.

Prabhupāda: Yes, this is the measurement.

Room Conversation -- July 7, 1976, Baltimore:

Prabhupāda: Then the answer is the chicken is better than you. He can give you life within seven days. Dr. Chicken is better... They are shameless. Not ordinary, because ordinary a human being will become shameful to speak something nonsense. But they are shameless. In that Bengali, duḥkhānvita(?) One man, one ear was cut off. So in order to hide his cut-off ear he was keeping this side to the river side and this side to the habitation side. So then again his two ears were cut out. Then there is no question of hiding. Both of them were cut out. So these people are duḥkhānvita. When both the ears cut out, there is no shame. They will go on talking all nonsense. Because they are accepted. So many millions of years have passed in the history, nobody could do that, and they are giving hope that life will come after millions of years. Why million? Here is a chicken, he can give life within five days. What credit you'll get after millions of years? But they are duḥkhānvita.(?)So shameless they can speak such nonsense and still pass on as scientists. Tibocham,(?) I think. Duḥkhānvita. No shame, you do not feel that why you are talking nonsense. Am I right or wrong? Here is a chicken, insignificant animal, he is giving life within five days, and we are talking of millions of years, and still we are scientist, Dr. Frog.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: I think these buildings are not ten years ago.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh. New York has three airports.

Rāmeśvara: This is the oldest airport.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Kennedy, La Guardia, and there's one just across the river, Newark. It's in New Jersey, but it's considered part of the Port Authority.

Prabhupāda: I hear, Māyāpur Project? You have not been sending money?

Rāmeśvara: Not yet.

Prabhupāda: They want money. Gargamuni has written.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Sometimes I was coming there and sitting down near the bridge.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Near the water? You were sitting near the water?

Prabhupāda: Yes, that river.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's a famous bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge. It's the biggest expansion-type bridge.

Prabhupāda: Because I was on that Bowery Street, it is not very far away. So I was coming, walking there, and sitting under the bridge. And thinking, "Whether I shall return to India?" (laughs)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You said you were always inquiring when the boat was returning.

Prabhupāda: Yes. There was one sub-railway station, beginning with F?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Fulton Street?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Fulton Street.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, yes. Sometimes I am going there. Fulton.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Oh. This is over New York?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, it goes over the East River.

Prabhupāda: That Hudson Street?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Hudson River is on the other side. This is going on the east side of the city.

Prabhupāda: That subway that goes to the city office? There are so many bridges.

Morning Walk -- July 12, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Yes. There is one building with temperature, a gauge? Here it is. This is Broadway. I was taking bath here in a station. Sometimes I was taking the station(?)... I think this building is new. I was going to Dr. Mishra's apartment for cooking.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What street did he live on?

Prabhupāda: He... Seventy-eighth. The Riverside corner. Yes, I was purchasing my goods from this store.

Devotee (1): Westend Superette.

Prabhupāda: They were charging, a little chili powder, twenty-five cents. In India it may be one anna.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You were purchasing here.

Prabhupāda: Yes, because I was going to cook my food there, so whatever I needed, I used to...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How come you didn't cook your food where you were living?

Prabhupāda: Huh? There was no place.

Interview with Newsweek -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Interviewer: How important is your physical environment to you? If this room is very lovely—it has light and space and air and flowers—is this important at all or would it be the same to you to be sitting out on the street?

Prabhupāda: No, why shall I sit if I can sit down on the open space anywhere, on the bank of the river, on the bank of the ocean. There are so many open spaces. You can sit down there.

Bali-mardana: Her question was, "Is your physical place important, surroundings"?

Prabhupāda: Yes. So long I have got this physical body, I have to give some physical facility. Yukta-vairāgya. If I can write my books in a comfortable place, why shall I voluntarily go to a dark place? Material facilities, either dark place or lighted place, it is the same thing, but I'll have to accept which is favorable for me.

Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Vedic, Vedas, Vedas, that is real, the word. But they have taken it in a different way. Actually the "Hindu," this name is given by the neighbor Muhammadans. There is a river called Sindhu. That river is still there, it is now in Pakistan. So outside the border of India, the Muhammadans, they used to call the inhabitants of the neighborhood of that river Sindhu, Hindu. Because they pronounce s as h. So this is the origin. So "Hindu" is a title given by the Muhammadan neighbors. It is not found in the Vedic literature.

Interviewer: I see, I see. That's like most religious names derived quite often out of ridicule or scorn. Like the Quakers, that was originally a title of scorn. And Methodists, they were the methodical ones, that was a title of scorn. And the Baptists were the baptizers.

Prabhupāda: Real Vedic principle is called varṇāśrama. Observing the principle of four varṇas. Brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya. It is a very long science. Brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra. This is called varṇa. And brahmacārī, gṛhastha, vānaprastha and sannyāsa. This is called āśrama. So the Vedic civilization is called varṇāśrama-dharma, not Hindu dharma. This is later contribution of the so-called scholars.

Morning Walk -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: They propagated the Thames River as very big river. And when I first saw it, it is canal. (laughter)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Canal. And the Ganges they said was nasty. Thames was a river and the Ganges was...

Prabhupāda: Jamesford, Lord James. That Jamesford is a village only. Some big man, little, take the title lord and go and become governor there. And when some Indian comes they say that Lord Jamesford was traveling in third-class compartment in railway.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: These buildings are not actually made of this stone. They are made of brick, covered by stone.

Prabhupāda: But they are very nicely made. It is not possible now to construct such nice...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Kīrtanānanda is constructing like this, though.

Prabhupāda: Yes. What is this building?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Museum of Natural History. Actually, it is made of stone. The museums are...

Prabhupāda: Government building, they can stand at the cost of taxpayer. (break) West Central Park?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Central Park West, it's called.

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: And the view of the river is very healthy. If you can see the river from your house, it is to be understood that quarter is very nice. If you can see sky from your room, then it is understood the room is very nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, all these things are here.

Prabhupāda: We can see from the room the river.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Otherwise from the roof. So it is very nice.

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

Prabhupāda: We are going to the Riverside?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, Riverside Park. Would have been faster, wouldn't it, to go down on Westside Drive? (break)

Prabhupāda: I was coming here daily for cooking my food.

Hṛdayānanda: Purchasing food?

Prabhupāda: Cooking.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In the park, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: At one Dr. Mishra's house. In my apartment there was no kitchen. (break) There was some news. Their machine has gone to Mars planet.

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

Prabhupāda: That is you. That is you, not Kṛṣṇa. That is the difference between you and Kṛṣṇa.

Rādhāvallabha: (break) Across the river, there was reports from many people that one ship landed from another planet.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Rādhāvallabha: Across the river there were reports from many people that a ship from another planet landed and took soil samples and then left. And everyone reported that saw, they were very much afraid.

Conversation with George Harrison -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: That house was constructed fifty years ago at the cost of six million dollars, and we have got it very cheap. Three hundred thousand dollars.

George Harrison: Was it a big house?

Hari-śauri: A very big mansion on the riverside.

George Harrison: Colonial house?

Prabhupāda: Not as big-four acres of land—but the building is very costly. One room will cost now three hundred thousand dollars. So nicely made.

Hari-śauri: They estimated it would cost about fifteen million to build such a house now.

George Harrison: Yes, they probably wouldn't even bother or be able to, at least. Is it an old house?

Hari-śauri: Fifty years old. It's very solid, though, very good condition as well.

Prabhupāda: And on the house on bottom, there is river. Not directly, but an offshoot of river. People come, rowing. A very nice situation, and because it is black quarter, nobody was purchasing. So I said that "For us, what is black or white? Purchase it

Conversation with George Harrison -- July 26, 1976, London:

George Harrison: Well, you can find it I think anywhere if you just bore a hole. So what we did was just bore at the end of the lake. But you have to go down to the depth of the riverbed, and there there's not much water because the rain, it's all chalk and limestone, so the rains.... That's the problem with watering in the summer, if you put water...

Prabhupāda: From your house the river is near?

George Harrison: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Thames?

George Harrison: Yes. But then the Thames is here, and we're up on the hill, so we bored a hole right down to the three hundred feet, I think, three hundred and fifty feet, to the level of the river, and then a pump, we can pump that. But when it does rain or if you do water the ground, it's so chalky that it runs right through it. So it's hard to keep a lot of moisture in the water. But also at the same time all the rain water runs through, then it hits the rock level of the riverbed, there must be tons of water down there. We can pump out of there all day long for months on end, and nothing seems to dry up.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Latest development they are finding water in Mars?

Parivrājakācārya: It is very difficult for them because they are using their eyes and other instruments. They have found places where there were rivers, and they are finding ice, other things. So, I don't know the latest about it. It is obvious to them there is life, different kinds of life.

Hari-śauri: The way of testing for life...

Prabhupāda: Why you are spoiling your nails? It may come to a boil and then you'll understand. It is very dangerous habit. If there is little (indistinct) then it will become a boil.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: No, it is stated in the Bhāgavatam.

Pradyumna: In the Jyotiṣa it has, it controls liquids. And I think even in hospitals here, near Pūrṇimā, where some of the times they don't like to do the operations because there will be more..., the blood will run more. Something, they have some, somebody told me. The tides are also going according to the moon. The rivers are running according to the moon. In the Ganges, one time we went...

Prabhupāda: The ebb tide, low tide, according to the moon.

Pradyumna: One day the Ganges was very peaceful, and then we went again and it was rushing. If you went in you would just be carried away. (long pause)

Prabhupāda: You can do it here.

Arrival Conversation -- August 13, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: All, no cloud.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: In France I read in the paper that the river was the lowest... (break)

Prabhupāda: ...premse kaho śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya-prabhu-nityānanda (prema-dhvani etc.) Thank you very much.

Devotee: All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: So when you have come? Everything all right?

Hari-śauri: Hyderabad will be complete.

Prabhupāda: If there is any prasāda to distribute?

Hari-śauri: Is there any prasāda to distribute?

Devotee: It's coming.

Prabhupāda: You are taking so much trouble.

Evening Darsana -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṛṣṇa is... That is explained in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Ete cāṁśa-kalāḥ puṁsaḥ kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam (SB 1.3.28). All incarnation of God is described, and the summary is given at the end that all these names, Rāma, Nṛsiṁha, Varāha, and so many, hundreds and thousands, so all of them are Kṛṣṇa's plenary portion or portion of the plenary portion. Ete ca aṁśa-kalāḥ. And this Kṛṣṇa, tu bhagavān, He is the original. Ete ca aṁśa-kalāḥ. And this Kṛṣṇa, tu bhagavān, He is the original. Ete cāṁśa-kalāḥ puṁsaḥ kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam (SB 1.3.28). It is clearly stated. And Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-gītā, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ (BG 10.8). There are many incarnation of God. So many incarnations that you cannot count even. Just like it is said in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that like you cannot count the waves of the river, similarly you cannot count how many incarnations are there.

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: It requires more rain.

Jayapatākā: It requires more rain and early tide. Right now the river is full, but it is not flooding. It is full. See, Mr. Choudhuri, he was interested. At that time when the Chief Minister wrote that, then he wrote this, that "If you were to see the Chief Minister, then this type of letter could be submitted and he would definitely see you, "although it is not necessary to see him.

Prabhupāda: Do you think it is?

Jayapatākā: No, it's not necessary to personally see him.

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Jayapatākā: Now the price of rice has gone up by about eighty paisa. From two rupees to two-eighty. So the poor class of people, they are in a very bad situation. So now our attendance has gone up from twelve hundred to two thousand on that Saturday and Sunday, each day. So we have two shifts. So many people are coming that they come from ten o'clock in the morning and wait because otherwise they can't get a boat in time to cross the river. So then we were very surprised to read in a recent newsletter from LA that "They're going to restart the food relief." But we never knew it stopped. We never knew that they had stopped the food relief. We saw then that he said, "They're going to restart." But we never stopped, and we were very surprised to see that. And now they say...

Prabhupāda: Who said?

Jayapatākā: Rāmeśvara.

Gargamuni: To maintain this food relief from the centers only requires what? Fifteen hundred dollars a month. So little amount and so much service is done.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: No, no, we have to... Yes. We have to see, make plans.

Jayapatākā: Because actually just by giving the site plan you can't make a plan because that's a high area and it goes down to the river. So from our land to the river, that is also under our use. That is klashjami.(?) That is no man's land, but that we can also use and that has to be some strengthening so that when the river..., and rain cannot wear down the side. So these details they should come and see, and then they could make a proper plan, I think. Without seeing, they can't make. 'Cause it's a very small area, it should be very well planned. And the local people there, they are very innocent people. They don't seem to have any type of enmity or envy at all. They all come and chant and see. Although they don't strictly follow the rules, naturally. They eat fish and other things and smoke, but they seem to be simple people. If someone would work with him, I think he could make the whole village gradually Kṛṣṇa conscious.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- August 20, 1976, Hyderabad:

Saurabha: It's on a hill, but the land is flat so you can cultivate it.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Saurabha: It's excellent. And from there you can see down. You look down, and then you see the river Krishna.

Prabhupāda: It is a plateau.

Saurabha: Yes, a plateau.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: See the river Krishna.

Saurabha: Yes, you can just see the river flowing down there.

Prabhupāda: Oh, it is beautiful spot.

Garden Conversation -- September 7, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Oh. Then we cannot sit. (break) ...book is going on. (Bengali) This is our childhood song. (Bengali) The small drops of rain falling, now their will be flood in the river. (Bengali) (break) We know even in October sometimes there are rains. Because the Durgā Pūjā takes place in October. From our childhood we have experience. During Durgā Pūjā there was raining, fog.

Hari-śauri: We haven't got rid of those monkeys.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They've gone?

Hari-śauri: No. There's some on the roof.

Prabhupāda: The (indistinct) is there? In the open?

Hari-śauri: No, it's undercover.

Devotee: Jaya, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Jaya.

Room Conversation -- September 16, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Eggplant. And this banana. So whatever he's grown he takes in a basket, goes to the market, immediately sold. And they're all fresh. Collected in the morning, and it is sold by eight o'clock. All fresh vegetables. There was no export, there was no facility of transport. These rascals introduced transport. Big scale transport, this railway. There was no railway. So transport means this villager, instead of selling locally or one mile away, he will dispatch in Calcutta. The Calcutta people, they are sitting on table and smoking and printing paper money and exploit.

Haṁsadūta: We had this experience when we were traveling with our bus from Calcutta to Vṛndāvana. We would want to buy watermelon from people who were growing right on the bank of the river, and he would have huge piles. And he would say, "No, I'm not selling. I'm transporting these to Delhi, where one cannot get watermelon." He's getting five times the price he would get in his local...

Prabhupāda: And from Vṛndāvana, we have seen, they are exporting that drumbeats? Vṛndāvana?

Hari-śauri: Drumsticks.

Prabhupāda: Huh? Drumstick. So the transport is a dangerous thing.

Room Conversation -- October 31, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: I saw in London... Near London there is a village, Chelmsford, and he is Lord Chelmsford. We thought Chelmsford, the big state. (laughter) We were under the impression, Thames River is four times bigger than Ganges and (laughter) it is a canal. When I saw it, it is nothing but a canal. But they advertise this river, very big river. And underneath the water, men are going, and upper and wonderful. Big Ben, that Big Ben advertisement.

Haṁsadūta: Yeah.

Prabhupāda: Parliament. All photograph (laughter) actually. Downing Street, 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister's office and so on. And actually it's all (chuckles) no importance. Parliament, big, big advertisement. People are still going, they are paying fees to see.

Room Conversation with Life Member, Mr. Malhotra -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Prabhupāda: Oh, Kaumuda, Kāverī...

Mr. Malhotra: Kṛṣṇā, Kāverī, Veṇā, five rivers flow from there. We will go there, tomorrow morning we'll go. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...just now. In the morning it was little cold. Now it is very pleasing.

Mr. Malhotra: It is. But since you have been going all over Europe and you must be accustomed to cold, it is severe cold.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. I was going to morning walk when there was snow fall. I was walking on snow.

Mr. Malhotra: Actually when snow falls it is not very cold but when there is breeze, then it is very unbearable.

Prabhupāda: Ah, yes. (break)

Mr. Malhotra: ...the first month, I think, except April and May, all the rest months.

Prabhupāda: All the year.

Room Conversation with Life Member, Mr. Malhotra -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Prabhupāda: And He says another place.

ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo

mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate

iti matvā bhajante māṁ

budhā bhāva-samanvitāḥ

(BG 10.8)

Vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā sudurlabhaḥ (BG 7.19). Everything is answered in Bhagavad-gītā. (break) There is river, there is fountain...

Mr. Malhotra: (indistinct) (break)

Prabhupāda: ...written by D.L. Raya. (indistinct) janme puṣpa bara amatare vasudhārā. (indistinct) hari hari āche. Tāra madhye āche deśe eka sakala deśe śreya.(?) Out of all these countries, there is a first-class country, and that is my country, India. (indistinct) Tāra madhye āche deśe eka sakala deśe śreya.(?) So the India is sakala deśe śreya. The best of all other countries.

Room Conversation with Life Member, Mr. Malhotra -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Prabhupāda: Yes, karmī means this how to enjoy this world. Whole life they have struggled how to enjoy this, how to enjoy myself, how to allow my men to enjoy. This is karmī platform. Everyone is doing that. Everyone is working hard for himself, for his family, and expand the family, for society, and expand the society, for the nation. Here is karmī plan. Gandhi, Birla they are all... There is no question of spiritual life.

Mr. Malhotra: Now this is the Kṛṣṇā River. You just see how small it is, and how big it becomes later on. In the rainy season this road is closed because this all water comes up, you know. Now it is just a small rivulet. This is Kṛṣṇā river. And it comes just opposite our place, from where it starts, from the mountain. Here is the place called Haya (?). This was also one of the biggest Sanskrit University in the older time like that of Teksasila. And Sarnatha, near Sarnatha, what is that place? Not Sarnatha, up in Bihar, that was also very big university, no?

Prabhupāda: Oh, Taksila.

Mr. Malhotra: No Taksila was in Punjab, that side. In Bengal, Bihar, that...

Prabhupāda: Tarbanga.

Room Conversation with Life Member, Mr. Malhotra -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Mr. Malhotra: I visited that. So this was the seat of very old temples, oldest temples in this place, this Haya. (?) And they say this is one of the oldest of the oldest towns or cities of the country. Small place, Pasir, with a population of about 10-15,000 people. All the temples are in the Kṛṣṇā River, in the Kṛṣṇā river. (break) Whatever I am today, that is all due to my past karmas, good or bad, I mean.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mr. Malhotra: And whatever I am doing today, that I will have to reap the harvest in the future.

Prabhupāda: You are creating the next position.

Morning Walk -- December 25, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: And because they are fortunate, wherever they go, they get money.

Guest (1): That is law of nature. All the big rivers go to the sea where water is not wanted.

Prabhupāda: I have seen them. They squander so much money, and I chastise them that "You are so loose, you are so rascal and..." But still, whatever money I have got, it is due to them.

Guest (1): That's true, that's true. (laughter) That's true. That's true.

Prabhupāda: Otherwise... (laughing)

Guest (1): Really, it is true. (break)

Prabhupāda: I have tried convinced them. Janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrīḥ (SB 1.8.26), to become moneyed, that also requires background. Pūrva-janmārjitaṁ dhanam. So they are born in rich country; that is due to their past pious deeds. Yes. There is no doubt. Yes. Now I request them that "You have got everything. You take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then you are perfect."

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Why should we spend for our camp? (laughter)

Guest (4): We are just on the bed of the river, far away from the mela, which is about three, four... We have our āśramas at various places, you know.

Prabhupāda: What is this philosophy? What is the philosophy?

Guest (4): Philosophy is bhajana of the Śaṅkarācārya.

Prabhupāda: But whether you recognize Kṛṣṇa...

Dr. Patel: Yes sir, he was our guru. We have published a book from the Calcutta University, so just take your remise. Leave the book for you.

Prabhupāda: Oh, this is for me? Bheṭiye, bheṭiye.(?) Vedānta philosophy (Hindi) Let us discuss. What is Vedānta philosophy? Let us discuss something. You belong to this camp, so what is Vedānta?

Guest (4): Ādi Śaṅkarācārya's preaching, actually defining God as what he thought.

Prabhupāda: Then what is the meaning? Everyone can think of God according to his whim. You say, "As he thought." That is not standard.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, no. Our men will not be fifty to so much. Suppose for us, if you spare one camp, so how many men we can accommodate there. Because...

Guest (5): In one tent at least we can accommodate six people. Easily. With a drawing room and two bedrooms. We have the military tents. And just on the bed of the river.

Prabhupāda: So how many men you are expecting?

Girirāja: Fourteen.

Prabhupāda: Fourteen. (break)

Dr. Patel: ...you can serve how many people?

Guest (5): Each tent we'll accommodate with all sanitary conditions. We have in one tent, which is quite a big one, six people easily. With a drawing and two beds.

Prabhupāda: So at least three camps we shall require.

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Confluence, confluence.

Guest (5): On the spot. We are in the bed of the river and this plot is reserved since last 200 years for us from the government when the Mela comes. Pūrṇa-kumbha, ardha-kumbha. And the boats ply from our spot downstream at Prayaga on the saṅgam. That we take them during the day according to the nakṣatra.

Prabhupāda: These gentlemen offering, why not take advantage?

Guru dāsa: If it's away from the Mela there won't be so much preaching there.

Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: In Surat I was guest of that Jariwala. So on the morning walk I went to the riverside. So I saw so many fisherwoman carrying the big basket. So I asked the driver, he was Mohammedan, "Why these fisherwomen here?" He said, "Nowadays, all Gujaratis, they're eating fish."

Indian man: I tell you Prabhupāda... Very, very, old... Before 1937, in Bhavnagar, Saurastra, we had our office in '37, '35 we had. I was in Karachi. We sent one manager from Peshawar, twenty-year man. So he used to eat meat and fish and everything and a young man he was...

Prabhupāda: Punjabi.

Room Conversation -- December 31, 1976, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: Bengali culture is fish-eating. Even brāhmaṇas eating.

Prabhupāda: No. They are eating fish only. Because Bengal is full of rivers. But not for all. Mass of people, that's a fact. But he introduced, "You can eat anything. It has nothing to do with religion." In Bengal in our childhood we have seen if anyone was habituated to take meat... Common man would not. Rich man. The rich men they have their sahis. Sahis you know, who takes care of the horse. So he would cook in the horse shed.

Dr. Patel: And eat there.

Prabhupāda: No. Then he'll bring the (indistinct) and eat it. It was never brought within the precincts of the house.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Yogi Amrit Desai of Kripalu Ashram (PA USA) -- January 2, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: It is very dangerous. And if there is some force, you become suffocated. So still, people were going slowly. By grace of Kṛṣṇa nothing happened. But same thing happened later years when Jawaharlal Nehru was present. So many people crashed and fallen in the river Yamunā and died.

Hari-śauri: Drowned in the river.

Prabhupāda: The rush came, and there was no protection.

Hari-śauri: We'll have to be very careful if we go to bathe in the river.

Prabhupāda: No, now they make arrangement, section by bamboo, so the rush may not be very pressurable. Section by section. So section they go. Now the arrangement is better. But formerly the arrangement was not... It was open, and people come. As soon as there is little rush, pushing, there is great danger.

Roof Conversation -- January 5, 1977, Bombay:

Mr. Gupta: Naini, railway stationwise is five miles from Allahabad, but people want to go to Sangamner just at the bridge at the bank of the river... (break)

Prabhupāda: It is not far away from the Sam... It is nearer. Rather, Allahabad main station is far away.

Mr. Gupta: You see, the way railways have organized it, Eastern Railway will...

Prabhupāda: So Naini, you are crossing the river or this side of the river?

Mr. Gupta: By special, we will not cross the river. By through-going trains, we will cross the river.

Dr. Patel: If you cross the river, then you go to Allahabad main station.

Mr. Gupta: So Varanasi Express will go to main station. That special would not have gone to main station. It would have caused you inconvenience.

Prabhupāda: So they will receive from Allahabad station our men?

Dr. Patel: You have to tell them to...

Hari-śauri: We'll have to telegram to Gurudāsa to tell when we're coming.

Dr. Patel: There will be huge, I mean, traffic blocking and all those things. No? (break)

Prabhupāda: Fifty years before, when I was in Allahabad, 1920's, there was Kumbhamela. Then forty lakhs people came, fifty years ago.

Roof Conversation -- January 5, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Mix together. They say Sarasvatī also.

Dr. Patel: Sarasvatī is the subterranean river. They call Sarasvatī everywhere. "Hindu mythological river."

Trivikrama: Mythological?

Dr. Patel: Yes, it is mythological. It is all subterranean water. Here's Sarasvatī. You got Sarasvatī in Gujarat also.

Prabhupāda: No, there is Sarasvatī

Room Conversation -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That is far away. It takes, I understand, one and a half hours to come.

Guest (5): It is three miles away, in water, in the river.

Prabhupāda: Three miles means one and a half hour? So go one and a half hour and come one and a half hour-three hours.

Guest (5): No, where is our camp then?

Prabhupāda: We have got our camp underneath the bridge.

Room Conversation -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Dhana-durmadāndhān. What is the translation?

Girirāja: "Are there no torn clothes lying on the common road? Do the trees, which exist for maintaining others, no longer give alms in charity? Do the rivers, being dried up, no longer supply water to the thirsty? Are the caves of the mountains now closed, or above all, does the Almighty Lord not protect the fully surrendered souls?"

Prabhupāda: Where is the question of empty stomach? Kasmād bhajanti kavayo dhana-durmadāndhān. Last line.

Girirāja: "Why, then, do the learned sages go to flatter those who are intoxicated by hard-earned wealth?"

Prabhupāda: They think that "Why should we go to God? The devotees come here to beg from us. We are bigger than God."

Morning Discussion about Kumbhamela -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Gurudāsa: No, others are. Processions. It is a procession thing. The nagas take them into the river.

Prabhupāda: When there was no car, elephant had some importance. And now they have got so many cars. (break)

Dr. Patel: Camels were used as they are now, for ...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Gurudāsa: They still do.

Dr. Patel: They're better than the horses, don't get tired earlier. From Vṛndāvana to Delhi the camels were running. They used (Hindi). I don't know what they call it in Bengali.

Prabhupāda: My Guru Mahārāja purchased two camels. I did not... I do not know what happened, but he purchased.

Gurudāsa: I think Tīrtha Mahārāja was fighting with someone else over them.

Prabhupāda: No, it is long ago.

Morning Discussion about Kumbhamela -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is their food. Karmis, they are compared with the camels. Śva-viḍ-varāhoṣṭra-kharaiḥ samstutaḥ puruṣaḥ paśuḥ (SB 2.3.19).

Dr. Patel: I don't think, sir, there will be camels in Bengal because in Bengal is so many rivers.

Prabhupāda: No. No, there is no camel. And unless there is that thorny twig, they cannot live. That is their food.

Dr. Patel: In Gujarat you find these camels right at the Surat, south of the Gujarat. In north Gujarat they are very common. On the desert. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...Darjeeling we were hiring these ho.... (break)

Gurudāsa: (whispers) Tape always runs out on places like that. (Hari-śauri laughs)

Prabhupāda: Mules, I have seen, if they stop, you can beat like anything; still, it will not move.

Morning Walk -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: I never used hot water. In India the Delhi is the coldest part. In my business life, in the hotel I was taking cold water. Everyone was surprised. "How you can?" In Saharanpur, in bitter cold, I was taking cold water early in the morning.

Dr. Patel: This will be extreme cold in river. I have taken bath in the confluence four or five years back. It was not winter, but then it was... It is cold throughout the year because snow melt and keep water very cold.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...gentleman will have a flag in the home.

Morning Walk Excerpt -- January 20, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Rāmeśvara: ...two demons, she was feeling thirst. So Lord Śiva with the end of his trident created this hole. And then he sent his bull carrier to gather waters from all the sacred rivers in the universe. An then Lord Brahmā came...

Prabhupāda: Bindu-sarovara. Drop by drop. Bindu means drop. So the sarovara came into existence by contribution from all rivers. (break) Bhuvaneśvara will help me. I have got little hint.

Gargamuni: Maybe we should build a permanent house for Your Divine Grace also.

Prabhupāda: We shall build there, in our place.

Gargamuni: Yes, there. I mean a separate bungalow there.

Prabhupāda: No, if we build like Māyāpur, a portion is sufficient. It is well-known sanitarium.

Room Conversation -- January 20, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Hm. So I have no objection. Money can be supplied, but it may not be another burden. That's it.

Gargamuni: No, we'll investigate the ship because in Calcutta is a very big center of shipbuilding.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Gargamuni: They build big ships there. And we don't have to limit our traveling simply in the river. We can also go along the coast of Bengal and also Orissa. There's so many villages. And if we have...

Prabhupāda: Orissa... That means you have to go by the sea, Bay of Bengal

Gargamuni: Bay of Bengal. And there's so many villages along there.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Evening Darsana -- January 23, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Guest (3): He wrote Bhakti-bhāgavata mahā-kavya, and taking materials for Tenth Skandha of Bhāgavata, the Bhāgavata, he wrote a kavya called Bhakti-bhāgavata Mahā-kavya in thirty-two cantos, in the work only itself. When Pratāparudra was on expedition to South, he wrote on the bank of the river Kaveri this Mahā-kavya called Bhakti-bhāgavatam, containing thirty-two cantos, each canto containing about two hundred ślokas.

Prabhupāda: Big work.

Guest (3): And recently we have taken up the editing of this manuscript from our...

Prabhupāda: Oh. It was in manuscript.

Guest (3): Yes.

Prabhupāda: The brāhmaṇas were so learned at that time. Therefore brāhmaṇas were addressed as Pandita. Panditaji. Still they're addressed. Brāhmaṇas were addressed as Pandita, kṣatriyas were addressed as Thakura, vaiśyas were addressed as Mahājana, and śūdras were addressed as Chaudhuri. Yes, still. In northern India this is the etiquette.

Room Conversation -- January 29, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: But Japanese are very intelligent, Bengalis are intelligent, by taking fish and rice. In Bengal ninety percent people, they take fish. Here also, Orissa, cent percent, even the Jagannātha pūjārīs. In Bihar also, fifty percent. The more you go towards Western part of India, you get more wealthy province, just like Uttar Pradesh, very wealthy province, enlightened. All the big cities are there: Allahabad, Kanpur, Agra, Lucknow. Every hundred miles you get a very nice city in UP, the best province in India. All the holy places-Vṛndāvana, Prayāga, Hardwar, Ayodhyā, many celebrated holy places. Ganges and Yamunā flowing, two sacred rivers. Both of them through in Uttar Pradesh. And all the cities are either on the bank of the Yamunā or Ganges. And that is the best province, state, in India. It has got fifty districts. And fifty districts means fifty towns. Little more or less important. But the Kanpur is the third important city in India. First Calcutta, Bombay, and next, Kanpur.

Morning Walk -- February 1, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Satsvarūpa: ...and the other said, "No, it was a scissor that was used." And they began arguing back and forth, and finally one man who held that it was a knife, he threw the other man in the river...

Prabhupāda: That "You accept that it is done by scissor." So he said, "No, I won't tolerate." Then he pushed him in the water. Then he was doing like this. (laughter) Scissor logic.

Bhāgavata: Argumentum vaculam.

Prabhupāda: That was used. He was put in the water. "Either you accept or I shall push you in the water." "No, I'll not accept." (laughter) So these rascals are like that. They are failure. They cannot. Still, they'll do, (laughter) the so-called scientists.

Room Conversation With Artists and About BTG -- February 25, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: No. Right hand is all right.

Rāmeśvara: It's all right either way. Now, this painting shows... At the time of Vyāsadeva living in this cottage on the Sarasvatī River, there's a description that Śukadeva, he was in the womb, and he would not come out and Vyāsadeva went to get Kṛṣṇa. Personally Kṛṣṇa came and ordered Śukadeva to take his birth.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Rāmeśvara: And they have got the womb area a little effulgent to indicate the presence of Śukadeva being a pure...

Prabhupāda: Overgrown.

Rāmeśvara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Room Conversation -- March 26, 1977, Bombay:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: From the newspaper I see that the United States is praising a lot this election.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The democratic campaign. But from our point of view, these are not the solution. Temporary. Temporary relief. Daṇḍya jane rāja yena nadīte cubāya.(?) You know this? Daṇḍya jane rāja yena nadīte cubāya. I have spoken several times in... Formerly, the criminal was taken in the middle of the river and he was drowned. And when he was suffocating, he's held up. Then he, ahhh (takes deep breath). This relief is like that. That means as soon as he takes little strength, again, put again. Then daṇḍya jane rāja yena nadīte cubāya.(?) These rascals are like that. For the time being there is little relief: "Oh, we are now free from the leaders." And there is another hand is being created. Bābājī or something like that. Then again they shall put his... This is going on.

Room Conversation -- April 2, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No. Sometimes there is nasty breezes coming.

Gargamuni: That still comes. Every morning at six o'clock we wait for that. Guru dāsa was thinking of writing letters to the municipality, signing it in foreign names, that "I am a tourist staying in a hotel, and this smell is coming. Something should be done." Because they should have a pipe back there instead of a river. One of those big round pipes.

Prabhupāda: They must doing something.

Gargamuni: The thunder showers have started in Bengal now. So it is not so hot when I was there.

Prabhupāda: Kala-vaise.(?) (devotees discuss weather) So get a bank immediately here.

Morning Talk -- April 18, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: There is no information.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. None at all. Everybody thinks that he must have drowned himself in one of the rivers here in India, because the day that he disappeared he asked you a question, out of..., just without any reason he asked you to explain the disappearance of Junior Haridāsa. That was on the roof at Māyāpur. Thereafter, that morning, he was not seen again. And neither, I think... He's not in the West... In America no one has seen him. His parents have searched for him. They cannot find him.

Prabhupāda: Even if he has committed suicide, he'll be saved.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If he did that, he'll be...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. He lamented. He was very grave(?). Yoga-bhraṣṭo 'bhijāyate. He'll get another good opportunity to develop Kṛṣṇa consciousness-until finally he reaches to Kṛṣṇa.

Talk with Svarupa Damodara -- April 18, 1977, Bombay:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, it's not in the middle. It's on the side, one of the sides of the... And there's a river, this Imphal River. It almost surrounds this little forest. And this forest is full of monkeys and so many birds, and they are very natural. It is about seven acres. It's not very big. Seven acres of land.

Prabhupāda: Seven acres.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Seven acres is a big plot.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yeah. And other one is here. lt's called Vishnupur. Vishnupur is... There was a Viṣṇu temple. It was constructed in fourteen hundred and..., about 502 years ago, a temple. The temple is still there. It was built by a king called Kyambha in Manipur about that time. And he worshiped this Viṣṇu, and that place is called Vishnupur, that Viṣṇu. And this is... Actually this is a nicer place. That is ten acres. But this is a little away from the town, but the congregation is very good here. Comes from all places, from Burma...

Prabhupāda: How many miles?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: How many miles from Imphal? Seventeen. One-seven.

Prabhupāda: Not many miles.

Talk with Svarupa Damodara -- April 18, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Cow protection protects us from so many infectious disease.

Dr. Sharma: Even the cows, they have habit to take the leaves along the banks of the river. The iodine content of the grass is so high. It has got iodine in that. So if you smear cow dung on the floor... It is said it is an obnoxious thing. There is tincture of iodine sold in the shops (indistinct). It is most unfortunate that we do not appreciate, the nature itself is giving us aids.

Prabhupāda: We take it seriously because Kṛṣṇa says. Kṛṣṇa is our authority. He says, kṛṣi-go-rakṣya. Go-rakṣya: "You must give protection to the cows." This is authority.

Second Meeting with Mr. Dwivedi -- April 24, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Very good atmosphere.

Mr. Dwivedi: This is just a mile or even less than a mile from our colony itself. River there... First of all there is river. Your Holiness may not be... Your Holiness will be able to see it from the riverside. But other people, my friend Gosvāmī, will be able to go up over the mountain. It's not a very...

Prabhupāda: And river, river, how far it is, river?

Mr. Dwivedi: Pardon? River, there are two rivers. One river is a small nada, but it flows throughout the year, where we have a scheme for starting dairy. So that is actually shaving our school boundary. Then there is another river, where I am talking of the Kedāreśvara temple. This is about a mile or about three-fourth of a mile...

Prabhupāda: Good river.

Mr. Dwivedi: ...from our colony. And a fairly big...

Prabhupāda: Cāṇakya Paṇḍita says, or somebody, some authority says, that "In a place whether, where there is no friend, no temple and no river, don't go there."

Second Meeting with Mr. Dwivedi -- April 24, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Our Indian touring means...

Kārttikeya: River and temple.

Prabhupāda: River and temple. That's all. All our holy places are on the bank of the Ganges, Yamunā, temple.

Kārttikeya: Except Bombay. Bombay has no river.

Prabhupāda: Bombay is big river, this... (laughter)

Mr. Dwivedi: Has got father of rivers.

Prabhupāda: And the temple is there, Umā devī.

Kārttikeya: Father of river is Himalaya.

Second Meeting with Mr. Dwivedi -- April 24, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Good place.

Mr. Dwivedi: So this is a mile's, hardly, less than a mile's distance from our colony. And the river it is perennial river. We have to just cross it, and it gives good passage, particularly during this season. All seasons practically we go and go over the mountain and the temple. Then, on the roadside itself near our colony, there is a water temple. We call it Jagamandir(?). That is also a beautiful temple. It's like the (indistinct) type. And one story of that temple is always in the water. Even in the summer, when Your Holiness will go there, Your Holiness will find. And that is Kṛṣṇa's temple.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Mr. Dwivedi: And some of the photographs which were shown to me yesterday, I find the ditto in that temple, Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa's temple.

Prabhupāda: Good place.

Evening Darsana -- May 15, 1977, Hrishikesh:

Prabhupāda: This tīrtha-sthāna, this is recommended. General public is recommended to go to the tīrtha-sthāna so that he may have some spiritual atmosphere, saintly person. If somebody thinks that tīrtha-sthāna means—just like this Hrishikesh—to take bath in the Ganges and go away, that is also good, but that is not the purpose. Yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile na karhicij janeṣv abhijñeṣu sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). Yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile. In every pilgrim, pilgrimage, there is Gaṅgā, there is Yamunā. At least in India we have got so many holy places on the bank of the pious rivers. But if we take simply the advantage of the pious river, yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile, but we don't care for the persons who are living there, very experienced, spiritually advanced persons, then we remain animals. "So we have gone to such holy place. I have taken bath in the Ganges and Yamunā. Bas. My business is finished." Then go to the shop, purchase some plate, toys, go back home. Sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13).

Indian man (1): (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: Janeṣu abhijñeṣu. Sādhu means one who is in the knowledge. Otherwise anyone can become a sādhu by changing the dress.

Evening Darsana -- May 15, 1977, Hrishikesh:

Prabhupāda: "I am sādhu. I am the leader of the, this society. And the animal-killing is going on. I don't care for it." Suhṛdaḥ sarva-bhūtānām. So titikṣavaḥ kāruṇikāḥ suhṛdaḥ sarva... These are the qualities. And ultimately, summary, sādhu is spoken by Kṛṣṇa Himself that bhajate mām ananya-bhāk sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ: (BG 9.30) "One who has no other business than to execute Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he is sādhu." "Well, he is a foreigner. He is not brāhmaṇa. He is accustomed to so many habits." Sādhu is always in good habit. But due to past practice, sometimes we may see some discrepancy. You can find out some fault. But Kṛṣṇa says that "Never mind there is some fault. Still, he is sādhu." "Why?" Now bhajate mām ananya-bhāk: "He has taken Me as everything." So sādhu descriptions are there. Sādhavaḥ sādhu-bhūṣaṇaḥ. A sādhu means ultimately bhajate mām ananya-bhāk. So tīrtha-sthāna, one should try to associate with sādhus. This is the purpose to go to the tīrtha-sthāna. Otherwise, if you simply go to the tīrtha-sthāna and take bath in the Ganges and Yamunā, and if you think, "My business is finished..." Everywhere, all tīrtha-sthāna... In Gayā-actually, begins from Gayā—there is Phalgu River. Then Benares, there is Ganges. Then there is Prayāga. There is also Ganges, Yamunā. Then go to Mathurā, Vṛndāvana. Everywhere there is the sacred river. So if we simply think that going to the holy place and taking bath... In Kali-yuga it is general hobby.

Short Dissertations -- May 24-25, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: And whole Bangladesh is a picture.

Jayapatākā: It's just so green, all rivers. And everywhere I saw rice field and jackfruit and mango, everywhere filled with fruits, very luscious.

Prabhupāda: And cow's milk.

Room Conversation -- June 18, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So you have to arrange for that.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, I see. We could buy... Actually there was some land being offered to us. It went right from the road all the way to the river. There was a strip of land belonging to that Gaura Mahārāja. Remember Gaura Mahārāja?

Prabhupāda: Ha, ha, ha.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So there was one piece of land he had. There's a little temple there. And it goes all the way from the road right up to the Gaṅgā. So we could have a little ghāṭa there, and the boat would dock. Yeah, that's a very good idea because if it goes from where the other boats go, then the boat wallas will cause trouble. But now they... They could not protest if we make our own place.

Prabhupāda: Arrange like that. You have understood?

Śatadhanya: Yes, Prabhupāda.

Conversation about Old Days in Calcutta -- July 1, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: I do not know whether it is stopped or not, but formerly. In Bangladesh, fish you can get very cheap. It is... It is water. You can... Rivers.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So many rivers.

Prabhupāda: And especially for (indistinct), the branch of Ganges, it is full of fish, hilsa fish, very famous. You know hilsa fish?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, I've heard you talk about it previously.

Prabhupāda: It is full of oil.

Bhu-mandala Diagram Discussion -- July 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Yaśodā-nandana: Then surrounding Jambūdvīpa then there is Plakṣadvīpa, the next dvīpa, which is... Around the salt ocean there is Plakṣadvīpa. That is the planet beside(?) of the river we call ocean. That is 200,000 yojanas, or 1,600,000 miles. That is right in the middle.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually you can hardly see it there. It's very small.

Yaśodā-nandana: Then, surrounding Plakṣadvīpa is another ocean, the sugarcane ocean. That sugarcane ocean is the same length as Plakṣadvīpa, or 200,000 yojanas, or 1,600,000 miles. And one each one of these dvīpas...

Prabhupāda: So in each ocean there are islands?

Bhakti-prema: No. These are all ocean.

Prabhupāda: Simply ocean.

Yaśodā-nandana: Now, each one of these dvīpas are managed by different sons of Mahārāja Priyavrata. Mahārāja Priyavrata had so many sons, and each one of their sons...

Prabhupāda: No, no, but the son is the king, but he is ruling over the ocean?

Room Conversation about Mayapura Attack Talk with Vrindavan De -- July 8, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, do you see what this says, Śrīla Prabhupāda, on this past page? It says... This is the verse. "The small rivulets, which were almost dried up during the months of May and June, now begin to overflow, transgressing the banks of the river, just as the upstarts addicted to uncontrolled sense enjoyment overflow the limits of expenditure all of a sudden." And then they show a picture describing it. Sense enjoyment. They're going verse by verse and drawing original illustrations to depict. Vedic recipe page: rasagullās. It says, "Agni-hotra on Lord Nṛsiṁha-deva's Appearance Day."

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sanskrit is given. It's very nice. "Spiritual Psychology: Going Beyond the Sex Impulse."

Prabhupāda: They printed in their own press.