Indian man (4): Only one thing I just want to clarify, that under human behavior towards the society, honest behavior toward the society, to help the people, to help the neighbors and like that, try to help...
Prabhupāda: First of all, tell me, what is your power to help? You are poor yourself. What you can help? Then why you are talking all...
Indian man (4): No, prabhu, supposing if we see...
Prabhupāda: You cannot help. First of all, you cannot help.
Indian man (4): Right.
Prabhupāda: If you can help, you can simply repeat the instruction of Kṛṣṇa. Otherwise you have no power to help. It is all concoction. Vivekananda, for the last hundred years-daridra-nārāyaṇa-sevā. He could not do anything. First of all you must know that you have no capacity to help.
Indian man (4): Right. That is true, prabhu.
Prabhupāda: Then why you propose to help?
Indian man (4): No, but prabhu, how far is it fair that if one is religious, say chanting and regulations and everything he is doing, and on the other hand, he doesn't behave as a good honest labor...
Prabhupāda: That good honest..., you have got some idea of good honest. But because he's chanting, he's all good.
Devotees: Jaya.
Indian man (1): Prabhupāda, because he's chanting, sometimes a person get very false ego, that he has become a very big devotee, he's serving the Lord, and he tries to...
Prabhupāda: That's all right, he's on the line of goodness. But those who are not chanting, they're all bad. Do you understand it or not? Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇāḥ. One who is not a devotee of God, he has no good qualification. You may propose that "I am so much good, I am this, I am that," but it is all bogus thing. Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā manorathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ (SB 5.18.12). He's simply concocting in the mind. And so far a devotee's concerned, even you find some defect in him, he's sādhu. Sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ (BG 9.30). Api cet sudurācāro bhajate mām ananya-bhāk sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ (BG 9.30). Now I find some defective state. Kṣipraṁ bhavati dharmātmā. These defects will be out very soon. Don't bother. But because he is devotee, he's sādhu.
Indian man (4): So you mean to say, prabhu, truthfulness and honesty will come after chanting, chanting, chanting.
Prabhupāda: But those who are not devotees, there is no truthfulness at all. Here he has begun truthfulness. But one who is not a devotee, he has no question of truthfulness. He's simply concocting in the mind. Manorathena. And because he's on the mental platform, he'll do all bad things.
Indian man (4): Therefore devotee must try to be honest and truthful.
Prabhupāda: Devotee becomes automatically. If he sticks to the devotional principles, he'll become good very soon. Just like he has stopped. Devotee means, just like we say, no illicit sex, no drinking or intoxication, no meat-eating. So he has adopted this, and chanting. That is perfect.
Indian man (4): Prabhu, these things (indistinct) we say. Indian women or even men, those who are in the village life. Well, I don't say all, but most of them, they obey these things right from the very childhood itself. So...
Prabhupāda: We are jumping to the village.
Indian: Well village is a little bit pure life you know, but in the cities of course people get involved too much in...
Prabhupāda: Pure life, village—doesn't matter village or city. If you become devotee, then pure life. It is not that because one is living in city, therefore he's polluted, one is living in village, no. Unless one becomes devotee, there is no question of becoming good.