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Something like... (Conversations 1968 - 1975)

Conversations and Morning Walks

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation about Marriage -- September 24, 1968, Seattle:

Prabhupāda: So in your country the situation is different. You see? The boys and girls are freely mixing, and from school, college, they are freely mixing, free sex without any restriction. So we cannot enforce, at least, at the present moment. If some boy and some girl agree, then I bless him. That's all. Now another thing, that girls should not be taken as inferior. You see? Sometimes... Of course, sometimes scripture we say that "Woman is the cause of bondage." So that should not be, I mean to say, aggravated. (laughs) That should not be aggravated, that "Woman is inferior," or something like that. So the girls who come, you should treat them nicely, at least. I heard that Gargamuni, after his wife left him, he became a woman-hater like that. (chuckles) That is not good. You see? Yes. After all, anyone who is coming to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, man or woman, boys or girls, they are welcome. They are very fortunate. You see. And the idea of addressing "prabhu" means "you are my master." That is the... Prabhu means master.

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- April 27, 1969, Boston:

Prabhupāda: That's all right. That doesn't matter. You have to take saṅkīrtana party. That should be the main business. And the..., at least sixteen men, four mṛdaṅgas. Practice mṛdaṅga like that. And twelve cymbals, and one chanting and all others responding. Oh, it will be tremendous. Take some flags, "ISKCON, Hare Kṛṣṇa" flag, red flag. You see? And conchshell, mṛdaṅga. In New York they are doing now, and they also one day collected 240 dollars or something like that. What is that?

Puruṣottama: 247.

Prabhupāda: 247. You see? (chuckles)

Haṁsadūta: I'll try in Montreal. We have new devotees now, lot of new boys.

Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 12, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:

Allen Ginsberg: Well, you could almost do, "Amen, Amen."

Hayagrīva: That's not English.

Allen Ginsberg: Yes, that's not English. (laughter) But it's known in English. And maybe Kṛṣṇa could become as well known as God and Amen, or something like that.

Prabhupāda: No, Kṛṣṇa is in English dictionary.

Allen Ginsberg: Yes. Now in the dictionary?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Allen Ginsberg: He infiltrated the dictionary.

Hayagrīva: Although as an incarnation of Viṣṇu.

Prabhupāda: English dictionary.

Discussion with Guests -- December 23, 1969, Boston:

Prabhupāda: No, why not?

Guest (1): You speak of God and matter and as matter being the thing which keeps us from seeing God. It seems to me it's something like pride and delusions, myself, and something like this, and ideas that I have.

Prabhupāda: You may have ideas, but I don't agree with your idea. If... I say that anything take it material or spiritual they are different energy of God. Matter is not different from God as it is energy of God, but still matter is not God.

Guest (1): Yes.

Prabhupāda: Just try to understand this point, that whatever we see, that is distribution of energy of God. But energy and the energetic is not the same. But they are same as...simultaneously same also because you cannot separate. Just like fire and heat. You cannot separate heat from fire but heat is not fire. Just try to understand this. Heat is not fire although heat and fire cannot be separated.

1970 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1970, Indore:

Prabhupāda: And unless one is fully freed from sinful reaction he cannot understand what is God. Those who are not in sadācāra, regulative principles, for them... Just like animals, they are not expected to follow any... Of course, by nature they follow regulative principles. Still, but human being, having advanced consciousness, so instead of using it properly, they misuse the advanced consciousness and thus they become lower than animals. The animals, for want of advanced consciousness, cannot follow any regulative principles. But by nature they have got some regulative principle. A human being, advanced consciousness, instead of using it for advance in spiritual life they use it for sense gratification and thus they become lower than the animals. So as soon as one becomes irregulated, without any sadācāra, then he doesn't care for any sinful activities for maintaining his body and soul together. He doesn't mind. Their philosophy is, what is called? "Existence is the first law of nature," or something like...

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- July 20, 1971, New York:

Prabhupāda: What is the price of this machine?

Pratyatoṣa: I'm not too sure, but it'd probably be about two hundred and fifty, something like that. The numbers usually sort of correspond to the price more or less.

Prabhupāda: I found Tanberg better than Sony.

Pratyatoṣa: The very expensive Sonys are good. The less expensive Sonys aren't very good because the motors aren't powerful enough. But like that real expensive Sony has three motors, and it's got..., it's all electronically controlled with solenoids, so that there's very few moving parts, and I think it would be a really good machine.

Room Conversation -- August 14, 1971, London:

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Guest (1): And they also pray to the mother of God.

Prabhupāda: Sinful? "We are sinful?" You say, "sinful" something? "Forgive some sins" or something like?

Haṁsadūta: "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on us." That is the prayer.

Guest (1): And you say it in your own language.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. "Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God, have mercy on us." That's nice. Very good.

Guest (1): (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: That is nice. Now, the, by praying, it is expected that one should have mercy of God. So what is the test that he has got the mercy of God?

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

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

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bob: "...then he will be elevated."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bob: Something like that.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So as soon as he begins to pray to Kṛṣṇa, that is not evil. Therefore He is all-attractive.

Śyāmasundara: Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Why don't you cover?

Devotee: I covered the outside with a cloth, I didn't want to disturb you; so I put thick cloth on the outside.

Prabhupāda: You have covered?

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

Prabhupāda: But you cannot say that sunshine is not sun. But without sun, where is the sunshine? So you cannot say sunshine is not sun. But at the same time it is not sun. It is sun and not sun, both. That is our philosophy. Acintya-bhedābheda, inconceivable. In the material science you cannot conceive that a thing simultaneously positive and negative. That you cannot think. That is inconceivable energy. And because everything is Kṛṣṇa's energy, Kṛṣṇa can manifest Himself from any energy, and act. Therefore, when we worship Kṛṣṇa made of something of earth, water, or something like that, that is Kṛṣṇa, that is not Kṛṣṇ... You cannot say it is not Kṛṣṇa. When you worship this metal form of Kṛṣṇa, that is Kṛṣṇa. That's a fact. Because metal is energy of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore it is non-different from Kṛṣṇa. And Kṛṣṇa's so powerful that He can present Himself fully in His energy. So this Deity worship is not heathenism. It is actually worshiping God, provided you know the process.

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

Prabhupāda: No dislikings, no liking. Whatever Kṛṣṇa likes, that's all right.

Devotee: Yes. But say someone prepares something, like some prasādam for Kṛṣṇa, but he does not make it so good, and it is...

Prabhupāda: No, if you have made sincerely with devotion, then Kṛṣṇa will like it. Just like Vidura. Vidura was feeding Kṛṣṇa banana. So he was so absorbed in thought he was, I mean to say, throwing away the real banana and he was giving Him the skin, and Kṛṣṇa was eating. (laughter) Because He knows that "He's giving Me in the devotion." So Kṛṣṇa can eat anything, provided there is devotion, real devotion. It does not matter whether it is materially tasteful or not. Similarly, a devotee also take Kṛṣṇa prasādam. Whether it is materially tasteful or not, he should accept everything.

Room Conversation -- March 12, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Ninety-two?

Dr. Kapoor: Ah, you don't know yourself. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: Yes, actually Kapoorji, I do not know how things are going like this. I tell you frankly. I have no credit. But things are going on like this. It is something like—of course, I am not comparing exactly—just like Kṛṣṇa could not understand about His potency and, therefore He became Rādhārāṇī's feature to understand Himself. So... Of course, I... This is a comparison. Things are taking very wonderfully. Very wonderfully. Just see these boys and girls, how seriously they have taken.

Dr. Kapoor: Oh, yes, there is no doubt about their earnestness, and people have...This is just what strikes people. How can these people be so sincere and so earnest?

Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:

Prabhupāda: Well, what is the description?

Dhanañjaya: It's very nice. It's something like, ah, something like the size of this temple but bigger.

Devotee (2): Bigger than Los Angeles?

Dhanañjaya: And also it has a steeple.

Prabhupāda: Bigger, bigger. What is the price?

Dhanañjaya: Oh, more than 250,000 pounds.

Devotee (2): Quarter of a million pounds. Two lakhs of pounds.

Devotee (1): So that's six million dollars?

Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes. They are not very happy that you are in this movement, not in the family, naturally. They think, "Our lost child." (laughter) They cannot appreciate that "My child is lost for better purposes." That is the case.

Revatīnandana: Actually, I wanted to ask you about something like that. When I took sannyāsa in Calcutta, some time afterwards, I used to correspond with my parents. So I sent them a letter explaining what was sannyāsa, and that I had taken sannyāsa, and that I didn't want to hear so much more about nieces, nephews, things like that that I have in that family. I said "If you want to talk, now we have to talk about Kṛṣṇa consciousness." So I didn't hear anything from them for about six months. But just the other day I received a letter...

Prabhupāda: Then don't. Now you have taken sannyāsa, you don't.

Revatīnandana: I shouldn't do it at all.

Room Conversation -- October 25, 1972, Vrndavana:

Pañca-draviḍa: The last situation I had heard was that everybody was agreeable, that Nair himself was agreeable and that everything was proceeding, but it was in the hands of the Municipality and that was going so slow, and that Nair himself, he is saying so many dubious things on the outside, but in complete agreement once you step into a room with him. So we are not so much sure. It's more or less in the hands of the Municipality, but who knows what is going on behind the table. Something like that. (break)

Prabhupāda: Take a little breakfast?

Gurudāsa: They said you wanted to see me?

Prabhupāda: Huh? Oh, about that typing. (break) How we have secured that house in London.

Room Conversation -- October 25, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is real (indistinct).

Pañca-draviḍa: I was being trained up in this. For one-and-a-half years I was going to MIT in Boston and planning to go into this chemical, chemistry or chemical engineering or metallurgy, something like that. But I could see that actually the people around me, my student body, all the people in the school, they were so maladjusted and miserable that I decided "If this is the result of their scientific training that they are so miserable, I'm going to leave here immediately," and I did so. I got out as quickly as I could. (break) ...see that their training is just simply bringing them misery in life and, therefore, there is no purpose in acquiring such knowledge. And Prabhupāda describes it as being like the jewel on the hood of a snake, more dangerous.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversations with Sannyasis -- March 15, 1974, Vrndavana:

Pañcadraviḍa: I heard something in reference to that. You wrote one of the devotees in Calcutta. You wrote... He came to Bombay, Bhavānanda, and he said, and he had signed a letter something like, "I pray that I may be engaged in the service of my Guru Mahārāja." And you wrote back: "We are personalists to the letter, so that when we say Guru Mahārāja we always say name, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, or Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī. We don't just leave it in, as vague Guru Mahārāja. So we were singing, jaya prabhupāda jaya gurudeva, and he was saying, "Well that is impersonalist."

Acyutānanda: Also he says "Nitāi-gaura haribol! That is also, that's māyā." So, what is that?

Pañcadraviḍa: And so he was saying that all these bhajanas, they are, they are not bonafide, because they are, have...

Prabhupāda: He said: "Gaura haribol! is not bona fide?" He said, bona fide?

Room Conversations with Sannyasis -- March 15, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So, make something like that, because I cannot tax my brain with the administration.

Devotee: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: Well, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa will be in Hyderabad and we can ask him to do it.

Prabhupāda: Weak, weak I am. Physically I am weak and besides that, if I have to see to the administration then I cannot think of writing books and how to present our philosophy to be understandable by the people. Therefore the administration is divided. Now you do, little intelligently. We have got still respect. Keep our standard. The people will like us. People wants to give us help, just like this big sannyāsī, one of the biggest sannyāsīs, Gangesvarananda(?), he is attracted. He is a man of immense resource, men and money he has. Immense resource.

Śyāmasundara: We have to be careful not to...

Room Conversation -- March 17, 1973, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Jaya oṁ viṣṇupāda paramahaṁsa parivrājakācārya....So we are thinking we are very much fortunate to hear His Divine Grace Oṁ Viṣṇupāda Paramahaṁsa Parivrājakācārya Bhakti Raksaka Śrīdhara Mahārāja. He is, by age and experience, in both ways he is senior to me. I am also always fortunate to have his association for a very long timeperhaps since nineteen hundred and thirty or something like that. At that time, he did not accept sannyāsa; he just left home, vanaprastha. In his white dress he went to Allahabad. (Aside, to Śrīdhara Mahārāja:) Mahārāja, I think you remember this incident when you went to Allahabad.

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: Yes, I do.

Prabhupāda: Yes, thank you. Yes, at that time...

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

Prabhupāda: It is, it is something like, giving post-dated check. I pay you one lakh of rupees, post-dated. Although I have no money,... What is the value of that check? Will anybody accept that check? "Oh, I have received the money." That is foolishness. Why future? You are talking of future, and you are talking of perfectness at present. What is this nonsense? You are claiming that your science is perfect, and, at the same time, when practical example wanted, you say; "I shall do it." The same example. I am saying I am millions, owner of millions of dollars. And you ask me: "Give me some payment." "Yes, I give you post-dated check." Will you accept? At present, if you give me five dollar, I see something tangible. And you're talking of big, big word, but you'll pay me in the future. So is it very sanguine proposal? And I am to accept it? So what kind of intelligent man I am also? You cannot produce even a grass by biological chemistry. You cannot do anything. Still you are claiming: "It is produced of chemistry, biology." What is this nonsense? Nobody questions?

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

Prabhupāda: Assume, everyone can assume. That is not science. Assuming, then, everyone can suggest something like. You can suggest something, I can suggest something. What is the proof? We can prove that life begins from life. Just like father begets a child. Father is living and the child is living. That we can prove. But where is your proof that the father is a stone and the son is a child? Where is your proof? We say that life begins from life. The original life is Kṛṣṇa. That we can prove. But you say that life begins from matter. Where is this evidence that a child is born out of stone.

Karandhara: There's a miss... They say there's a missing link.

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

Prabhupāda: Ca ca canh, ca ca canh, ca ca canh, ca ca canh, ca ca canh... That's all. They're thinking: "Oh, we're talking very nicely." The result is the snake, they find out here is a (unclear). Pop. Finish. So this ca ca canh, scientists, means when death comes, oh, everything's finished. That's all. All their ca ca canh, scientific investigation, finished. And he becomes a dog, cat and something like that. That's all. Therefore mūḍhāḥ. They do not know that "I have got this valuable life, human form of life, advanced intelligence. I'll have to take lesson from Kṛṣṇa, and make my life successful." They do not know that. Ca ca canh, ca ca canh, ca ca canh, ca ca canh. And then die, and become again. When he dies, there is no question of science and talking nonsense. That is under the grip of nature. "Yes, come on. Enter this body. Finished." Just like the rascal rogue. He's very much proud of his strength. And the police comes arrest: "Come on. Enter this custody. Finished." It is like that.

Devotee: We should go back, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Morning Walk -- April 20, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: No, there is the latest theory. What is this, theory of ignorance? Or what is that? Theory of impossibility, or something like that?

Karandhara: Oh, theory of uncertainty?

Prabhupāda: Uncertainty, yes. Theory of uncertainty. Everything is uncertain. And that is little intelligence. That, how to find out the certainty. (pause)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The scientists, they claim that the discoveries are accidental and incidental, by accident, by chance.

Prabhupāda: What is this? That means they're fools.

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

Prabhupāda: What do they charge per day?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They are getting much more than the normal scientist because manual labor is very expensive here.

Brahmānanda: About seven, eight dollars an hour or something like that?

Prabhupāda: And they work for how many hours?

Brahmānanda: Eight hours. So fifty-six dollars, or fifty dollars per day. Who can earn, the scientists, fifty dollars?

Devotee: The brick-layers get a hundred dollars a day.

Prabhupāda: Just see. So why don't you become a brick layer instead of scientist? (laughter) You get more money. Dr. Bose, he called me... I told you. He asked me, "What you are doing?" "Now, I am going to the share market." So he immediately said, "Then what is the value of your education if you are going to the share market like the Marwaris who are illiterate?" Share market means to have some tricks how to sell and purchase shares. That by practicing anyone can do. It is not very difficult. (break) ... life from life.

Morning Walk -- May 14, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: What is called? Button, is it not button? Shirt-fixing? Collar-fixing?

Devotee: Is it a pin or something like this?

Prabhupāda: Yes, like that...gold.

Devotee: Not cuff links. No those are...

Prabhupāda: Aha, cuffles.

Devotee: Oh, jaya. Do you like I buy from you?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee: I give you my soul for the cuff links?

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

Prabhupāda: Oh, He used that part. He has found out. The rascal. Beat with shoes, that what "Christian, Christ could not find out, you have found out. You are so great. Thank you very much. You are more intelligent than Christ. Oh. So why Bible. Why not write your Bible? Let us follow."

Paramahaṁsa: Generally there are now something like 451 different translations. Just like the Gītā. They interpret in so many ways.

Prabhupāda: No Gītā, or... Many translations, but the original Gītā is perfect.

Paramahaṁsa: Yeah. Well they are not even sure that the Bible is (tape is very distorted) As a matter of fact it's a known fact that so many of the excerpts from Christ's disciples were, how you say, censored. There were parts taken out.

Prabhupāda: Some Bible authorities say that there is no soul of the animal. St. Joseph or something.

Conversation with Sridhara Maharaja -- June 27, 1973, Navadvipa:

Prabhupāda: Ah, Saloka. (?)

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: ...thirty-two miles. But Paravyoma, which is to be understood as Vaikuṇṭha, means infinite, many of the paravyomas is accommodated there within that thirty-two miles area. Square miles area, or something like that. That, we must be conversant with that sort of understanding. Any number of length of rope coming, but only two fingers less. Only two fingers less. Another big rope added. Again that two fingers less. This is all categorical principles. We have to be acquainted with. Then we shall go to read Bhāgavatam or to... (Bengali)

Prabhupāda: Drive the flies.

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: How it is possible. Eka vigraha tāṅra ananta svarūpa. In one figure, He accommodates numberless of figures. Eka vigraha tāṅra ananta svarūpa. But all these appear to be real and it will be shown to them who has got real śraddhā. Śraddhāmayo 'yaṁ lokaḥ. The world of faith. And that is substantial, not imaginary.

Conversation with Sridhara Maharaja -- June 27, 1973, Navadvipa:

Prabhupāda: And there was a picture: "Swamiji is playing on harmonium."

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: And Tīrtha Mahārāja is trying a, feed (be?) a pigeon or something like that, and staring... These were the pictures while London preaching. And the money...

Prabhupāda: So our present Tīrtha Mahārāja, Bhakti-Vilāsa-Tīrtha Mahārāja, he's representing Prabhupāda. At least, he tries to pose himself. So Bon Mahārāja's activities, in comparison to that, my activities certainly better. And Bon Mahārāja was given so much reception. But he did not give me any reception. How he can claim to be Prabhupāda's representative?

Śrīdhara Mahārāja: Bon Mahārāja was given reception because Prabhupāda...

Prabhupāda: No, Prabhupāda appreciated anyway.

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

Prabhupāda: Yes. Now the Christ, what is the meaning of Christ?

Mr. Wadell: I, well, it is this that he is the anointed.

Prabhupāda: No, Christ means love, something like that.

Mr. Wadell: It is connected, I suppose, with the word meaning grace, which is... There is another Greek word which is "havis."(?) But I am not a theologian. You know, I am not a brilliant man who understands all the meanings of the words in the Christian faith. But I think the word Christ means anointed, and that it may well be connected with another word which means grace or favor. But I don't think it is the same word.

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

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Guest (1): Your karma is actually the other secret of success or something like that.

Guest (2): There are so many. I think it is in Bhagavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa explains that...

Guest (1): It's all his words, not outside words, in Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Guest (1): No, (Hindi). First I went there...

Prabhupāda: So you have got your own house there, Dehra Dun?

Guest (3): No, I tried to buy house, and I made deposit and everything. I wanted to buy the house. Then I came to England to raise the money. I raised the money and went back to India. And by the time I went back, there were four litigations going on on the house.

Prabhupāda: Oh... (laughter)

Room Conversation With Three College Students -- July 11, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Not only "Kṛṣṇa exists," "What is my relationship with Kṛṣṇa? What is my duty in that relationship?" everything.

Revatīnandana: Just see. Who can produce this? Who can produce something like this? Supposing you take your best chemists and engineers,

Student (3): Well, you must call it God, mustn't you.

Revatīnandana: And you see who can produce, right? They cannot produce anything with this texture, this nice smell, you see?

Prabhupāda: He knows it.

Student (3): It doesn't smell.

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

Prabhupāda: No, any sane man will accept. This cult will not be accepted by the insane. One who is in quite order of the brain, he'll accept it. Only mūḍhas. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. Na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ (BG 7.15).

Professor: And in India where is your āśrama or something like that?

Prabhupāda: My main āśrama is in Vṛndāvana.

Professor: Where?

Prabhupāda: Vṛndāvana.

Professor: Oh, in Vṛndāvana, itself.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Māyāpura. Lord Caitanya. And we have got branch in Calcutta, Bombay, Hyderabad. Māyāpura and Vṛndāvana. Five, six... (break) I, I brought with me forty rupees and books. That's all.

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

Prabhupāda: English?

Professor: No, no. In French.

Prabhupāda: In French.

Professor: Bhagavad-gītā? Yes. I think translated I think something like ten or twelve times.

Yogeśvara: Ten or twelve times in French?

Professor: Oh, yes.

Yogeśvara: He says there are ten or twelve different French translations of the Gītā.

Professor: Yes.

Prabhupāda: In English also there are...

Room Conversation -- September 2, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: Hawaikila, yes. Hawaikila means in the air there is a fort. It is something like, the Vaiṣṇava considers the heavenly planets, that hawaikila. That's all.

Guest (1): This rich birth is important for self-realization?

Prabhupāda: Next birth?

Devotees: Rich birth, to be born in a rich family.

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. But there is facility. Because people are harassed for getting food and shelter. Everyone is working so hard where to get nice food, where to get nice shelter. Rich man means he has already got. So if he's sane, if he's good, has got good association, direction, then he can think, that "I have no anxiety for my food, shelter and other necessities of life. So how I shall utilize my time?" And if he gets good guru, then he can utilize very nicely, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor, Dr. Suneson -- September 5, 1973, Stockholm:

Professor: In India, where is your center? Do you have any headquarters or something like that...?

Prabhupāda: Yes, I have got center in Vṛndāvana.

Professor: Oh?

Prabhupāda: Yes, in Navadvīpa. I was, after my retirement from family, I was staying at Vṛndāvana. From 1956. Then in 1965 I came to America. So... Where is Haṁsadūta?

Paramahaṁsa: He's leading kīrtana downstairs, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā. Then...? You can, you can lead. Or anyone can lead. (break) So you like this kīrtana?

Professor: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Interviews with Macmillan and various English Reporters -- September 12, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: But before that, this movement was not there in the western countries.

Reporter (2): I know that. But there's got to be a mood of the times before something like this can catch on.

Prabhupāda: Well, that, not that time. Any time. This sweetmeat is sweet all the time. It is not that at a particular time it is sweet.

Reporter (2): But people have got to be hungry to eat it.

Prabhupāda: Eh? Yes, hungry, everyone is hungry. Because in the Western countries, unless they are hungry for spiritual consciousness, why they are hippies? They are frustrated. They are not going to live like their fathers and forefathers.

Reporter (2): Frustrated?

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

Prabhupāda: I am talking on that matter. So if the American nation trusts in God... If not... They say, they have declared. Now, the difficulty is they do not know actually what is God, how to trust. That we are teaching. So the government must come forward to cooperate with us. This should be... There should be an agitation. Now this "In God we trust," it is, it is something like vague idea. There is a need of... (aside:) You can make copy from there. If you bring one dozen like this, then it is difficult to walk. (about tape recorders) So our propaganda should be to the United, I mean to say, United States government and public. And you are theologicians. You should make program that simply saying that "In God we trust," and we do all nonsense, which exhibits that we do not trust in God, this thing should be stopped. You have placed in your Constitution, there is, you trust in God. Now you should understand what is God and how to trust. That we are teaching. This should be taken very seriously.

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

Prabhupāda: They can make everything, but why, why don't you make a sun, imitation sun, so that so many electricity lights can be saved? But these rascals say everything, but cannot do anything. (laughs) That is their position. They can model a universe. First of all make a model of moon like this so that in the dark night we won't have to spend so much money. Now there is energy shortage. But they cannot do anything. Still, they'll speak big, big words. That's all. Simply to take money from the taxpayer. Why do they not manufacture an imitation moon so that we can save the electric energy? Imitation sun, imitation moon, they know the composition of the moon, the composition of the sun. Why do they not make? Simply talks. And fools are befooled by their words. Where is that power? Now in the Vedic literature it is described: yac cakṣur eṣa savitā sakala-grahāṇāṁ rājā samasta-sura-mūrtir aśeṣa-tejāḥ. Unlimited temperature. This is creation of Govinda. You create something like that so that in, what is called, Iceland, just have aśeṣa-tejāḥ... Eh?

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

Devotee (1): If we approached them and we said something like that, they would laugh.

Prabhupāda: That's because they're rogues. Against their ideals. "Why you're laughing like fools? Does it belong to you or your father? This whole world? Why you are laughing like a fool?" You should have said like that. "You're laughing not like a gentleman; you're laughing like a fool. Can you say that it belongs to your father? Or you'll be allowed to stay here in America? After some years you'll be kicked out. Do you know where you were going? Why you are laughing like fools?" This should be the answer.

Karandhara: The Arabs, some of the Arabs, they say they believe in God, but that everyone else is...

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

Prabhupāda: "Yes, anybody can claim. But we think you are a rascal. Therefore we do not come. Now, if you can show us something like Kṛṣṇa, then we shall immediately come. Our difficulty will be solved. We shall see Kṛṣṇa. But we know that you are a rascal." You go there. Go there, somebody, and tell like that.

Prajāpati: No. There is one rascal, Prabhupāda, who can do tricks. His name is Sai Baba. He can make jewels appear, give people photographs of himself, give them to people like tricks.

Prabhupāda: But another rascal will be victim of that tricks. Why shall I accept him as God?

Karandhara: Besides, they're insignificant tricks.

Morning Walk -- December 20, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes. And by taking their sinful money, because they do not engage to Kṛṣṇa, they also become sinful. Affection. Infection. (break) They have mentioned something like sinful?

Prajāpati: Yes, sinful.

Prabhupāda: What he has said, Karandhara?

Karandhara: He doesn't say specifically. He just said that generally the country is degraded and people have become apathetic, and the morals have reduced. He was referring to things like Watergate, political scandals, and the youth degradation.

Prabhupāda: But why they have degraded? That is to be understood... Not known to them.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 3, 1974, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Gurukṛpā: It was very spectacular. Something like twenty miles.

Prabhupāda: Twenty miles?

Yaśodānandana: Maybe at least fifty, sixty miles the four, five first flashes, very big. Let's see. From this tree all the way to the end of this tennis court, all over the sky. Big white flashings. Like big huge incredible lightning. Then afterwards it decreased, and then regularly, every thirty, forty-five seconds, there was big lightning. Not lightning, big flashes. Very uncommon.

Jayatīrtha: The scientists say that it's eighty-three million miles long...

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Jayatīrtha: The scientists, they say that it's 83 million miles long, the comet.

Prabhupāda: 83 miles?

Jayatīrtha: 83 million miles.

Morning Walk -- January 9, 1974, Los Angeles:

Bahulāśva: But Prabhupāda, there are still such things as dead matter?

Prabhupāda: Not dead matter. The soul is there.

Bahulāśva: Suppose something, well, something like this shoe that I'm wearing...,

Prabhupāda: It is now dead matter. But when you go, the higher understanding, it is a composition of atoms. So we learn from Vedic śāstra that within the atom there is life. Aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara-sthaṁ govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi (Bs. 5.35). There is, there. If within the atom there is life, then what to speak of anything else.

Bahulāśva: That's a jīvātmā?

Prabhupāda: No, no. Govinda is there.

Morning Walk -- January 10, 1974, Los Angeles:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I told that to my mother and she would not believe it. You know, people think that if someone is a great politician or something, he can never become something like this.

Prabhupāda: Then why the politician dies? If he has got so good brain, let him live forever.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: People have so much blind faith in people like Nehru and Gandhi.

Prabhupāda: Jawaharlal Nehru did not want to give up his Prime Ministership unless he was collapsed. So why he did not live if he is so intelligent? And Kṛṣṇa says, if you have to believe Bhagavad-gītā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). "He has to accept another body." So why you should disbelieve that he has accepted a dog's body? Because the acceptance of body is not your business. It is the business of higher nature. Daiva-netreṇa. So if the daiva likes that "You must take this dog's body," how can you refuse it? You cannot refuse.

Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda, yesterday in the paper I saw a picture. Nixon had his sixty-first birthday, and he had a big cake made, and he offered the first bite, the first lick to his dog.

Room Conversation -- February 13, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Kapoor: You are just an instrument, you see.

Prabhupāda: Just like Kavirāja Gosvāmī also writes that I do not know how things are coming, but with my hand is getting written. It is something like that.

Dr. Kapoor: Yes, yes. It cannot be, cannot but be (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so nice. Even by his consciousness it acts faultlessly.

Dr. Kapoor: It acts immediately.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Kapoor: Yes (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: Ahaituki.

Morning Walk -- March 6, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: This is the position. "You wanted to become a sera. All right, you become a sera. Jump over some animal and immediately suck his blood." All facility is—the nails, the teeth-given. But is he happy? But everyone thinking that "If I could become like this, I would have been happy." So Kṛṣṇa gives all chance. "All right, you become this." This is transmigration. This is transmigration. (break) ...yathāndhair upa... We are thinking something like that, and Kṛṣṇa is giving us chance, "All right, you take this chance; you become like this." Ye yathā māṁ prapadyante (BG 4.11). But it will not make you happy. Therefore ultimately says, sarva-dharmān. "You give up all this rascaldom. What I speak, you can accept. That is your dharma." Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇam... (BG 18.66). That will be beneficial for you, the most confidential instruction.

Morning Walk -- March 7, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Privy council.

Śyāmasundara: Something like that. It's called a "think-tank". She's named it. It's presided over by Lord, Lord Goodman.

Prabhupāda: No, no. The thing is, unless the people are Kṛṣṇa conscious, either this board or that board, that will not help. First of all, people should know what is the aim of life, what is culture, how the human activity should be directed. The people should know first of all this. Otherwise, changing from frying pan to the fire, it is useless. That is going on. That change, revolution, is going on. Just like the Russian people, they changed the Czarist government into communist government, revolution, but still, they're unhappy. They're trying to change by another revolution. This is going on. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). This is described in the śāstra as "chewing the chewed." Or the same simple philosophy: "This side of stool is better than that side."

Room Conversation -- March 16, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Achieved. Oh.

Guest: And uh, then he started to say, "Well if they believe in an external God," or something like that, "then it is heretical." I says, "But nevertheless," I says, "Uh, like in the writings of, say, Meister Eckhart or the different mystics, they all seem to describe their experience in pretty much similar terms." So I said, I asked him, "Does this mean that the experience is different or not?" So then he argued, he finally says.... Well, he didn't say it directly, but what he said is that if, if you want to get the experience of touching something to find out what hot is, he says you may have different motive. Like some people may do it because it's pretty, some out of curiosity or different motive. In other words, he admitted that the experience finally was the same, even though the approach was different.

Morning Walk -- April 3, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Now people may say that "Arjuna was Kṛṣṇa's friend, so he is eulogizing Kṛṣṇa like anything." Therefore he is giving evidence that āhus tvām ṛṣayaḥ sarva: "It is not my sentiment that I am accepting you as such and such. But..." (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa, Jaya. (break) He is giving evidence. This is required. This is required. If you say something, it must be supported by authorities. Not that my whimsically I say something like daridra nārāyaṇa.

Dr. Patel: Again you say, daridra-nārāyaṇa.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes. Unauthorized statement. This will not be accepted. So āhus tvām ṛṣayaḥ sarve.

Morning Walk -- April 10, 1974, Bombay:

Indian man (6): Semen means before the birth.

Indian man (5): After pregnancy, eight or nine months, something like that.

Prabhupāda: That is ṣaḍ-lakṣana. That is another thing. Before sex, there is a ceremony. That is called garbhādhāna. (break)

Śrīdhara: "...ceremony takes place after the birth of the child. The family members take baths, cleanse themselves, and decorate themselves with ornaments and garlands. Then they come before the child and the astrologer to hear the future life of the child. Nanda Mahārāja and other members of the family dressed and sat down in front of the birthplace. All the brāhmaṇas who were assembled there on this occasion chanted auspicious mantras." (break)

Prabhupāda: (break) ...Mahārāja. This is kṣatriya king. Who has got so many cows to distribute? They cannot maintain even one cow. He is handed it over to the slaughterhouse. This is our position.

Morning Walk -- April 11, 1974, Bombay:

Indian Man (2): They say just something like a small degree to the people, all right, those who are coming...

Prabhupāda: Childish, childish. Therefore they have been described as mūḍhā, mūḍhā. Mūḍhā means a child, they are foolish. Na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhāmāḥ (BG 7.15). (break) ...nābhijānāti prakṛtiṁ mohiniṁ śritaḥ. Prakṛtiṁ mohiniṁ śritaḥ. What is that verse?

Devotee: Paraṁ bhāvam ajānantaḥ...

Prabhupāda: Paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto mama-bhūta maheśvaram. Avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam (BG 9.11). (break) ...says, bhūmir āpo analo vayuḥ (BG 7.4). This water is Kṛṣṇa's energy. So how can you refute it? Kṛṣṇa says, "It is My energy."

Morning Walk -- April 29, 1974, Hyderabad:

Mahāṁsa: Which press?

Devotee: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan?

Prabhupāda: Associated Press, something like that. Bombay's first-class press. (break) ...They are not coming to us.

Satsvarūpa: (break) ...but they would rather be non-devotees than work all day. They can say they are free.

Prabhupāda: Yes. I offered that, that "What is this two thousand, 2,500 per month? Oh we can earn at any moment two thousand. So you become devotee; I excuse you of rent." They are not agreeing. (break) ...like an ass simply for sense gratification. Therefore it is warned in the Bhāgavatam, nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kāṣṭān kāmān arhati (SB 5.5.1). (break) ...to respect the Vaiṣṇava, to water tulasī, and this aśvattha tree. These are bhakti items.

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

Prabhupāda: About him it is, description is there, sadaya-hṛdaya darśita-paśu-ghātam. The Lord became compassionate on the animals, as they were being killed unnecessarily. So Buddha, Lord Buddha, his only mission was to stop the sinful activities of animal... Ahiṁsā paramo dharmaḥ. He was teaching that. But these rascals, they would show the evidence... Just like Christians says that "Lord Jesus Christ ate fish" or something like that. Because Lord Jesus Christ ate fish, therefore they should maintain slaughterhouse. This is their reasoning. The other day somebody questioned me that... I said that killing of animals is sinful activity. So somebody questioned that "Lord Jesus Christ ate fish," somewhere. So I said that He is powerful. He can eat the whole world. But you cannot imitate. You have to follow his instructions, what he says. He said, 'Thou shall not kill.' So you should follow his instruction, not the action." He is powerful. He can act some way or other, according to circumstances. That is his business. Actually, that is the Vedic statement, that just like the sun, the sun can absorb the urine.

Room Conversation -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Yogeśvara: He says, in a sense we're something like the Buddhists because the Buddhists also don't take account of this, of the caste system.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Buddhist or anyone. Just like a person, when he is not educated in medical science he is not a medical man, but when he is properly educated in the medical science and he practices as a medical man, then he is a medical man. So you take it from Buddhism, or Hinduism; it doesn't matter. The thing is, consideration is, guṇa-karma. One must be qualified and he must work. Then he is elevated.

Yogeśvara: (translates)

Swiss Man (2): (French)

Room Conversation with Robert Gouiran, Nuclear Physicist from European Center for Nuclear Research -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Robert Gouiran: I... Do you mean that matter grows starting from a spiritual seed, something like that?

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Robert Gouiran: If we, if we speak in scientific terms, there is an immaterial concept called the energy.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The spirit soul is also energy, and matter is also energy. Two energies, when they contact, the, the so-called expansion of matter takes place.

Robert Gouiran: Yes, and we could study in our laboratories the passage from energy to matter and back from matter to energy. It's what we call...

Prabhupāda: Matter is also energy.

Morning Walk -- June 6, 1974, Geneva:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Satsvarūpa: Even if he was mleccha, he can become brāhmaṇa.

Yogeśvara: Actually, the chemists also say that there are four types of blood, A, AB, O, and something like that. They give it four names.

Prabhupāda: And according to Hindu system, the marriage was taking place finding, examining the girl's constitution and the boy's constitution so that there may not be disruption. Everything was there.

Yogeśvara: The Vedic system is so scientific.

Prabhupāda: Oh yes. That is human civilization. That is Āryan civilization. Vedic civilization means Āryan.

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: That is their ignorance. They do not know what is responsibility.

Devotee (3): They would say that so many have taken God realization as a responsibility following some Christian church or something like that, but they are also frustrated.

Prabhupāda: We are not frustrated. We are not frustrated. Are you frustrated? (laughter) How the rascal says frustrated? If you take false thing, then you will be frustrated. If you take real path of God realization, there is no question of frustration. It is ānandāmbudhi-vardhanam, increasing pleasure. No frustration.

Devotee (3): But they'd say that no one has real information of God.

Prabhupāda: You have no, rascal, because you are rascal. I have got. You just wash my feet and I will inform you.

Room Conversation with Roger Maria leading writer of communist literature -- June 12, 1974, Paris:

Pṛthu Putra: He says we can't say... His point is we can't say something. There is so many aspects of religion. There is the bhakti-yoga, by love and by heart. There is the karma-yoga, by action. There's jñāna-yoga, by knowledge. He says if in western countries, we propagate bhakti-yoga, we take the risk of using bhakti-yoga like a drug or something like this, if you are dreaming or something like that.

Prabhupāda: (laughing) Bhakti-yoga by drugs?

Pṛthu Putra: He says, he made the statement...

Prabhupāda: That is...

Pṛthu Putra: ...according to the state of the French people, in right now, in this time.

Prabhupāda: But we do not prescribe drug. We ask them to give up drug. (laughter) (French)

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Yes, but they have no sense. They think it is Geneva's park.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: We could call it Puruṣottama Park, or something like that.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is nice. Therefore, we give name everyone: Kṛṣṇa dāsa, servant of Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa... (pause) (break)

Paramahaṁsa: ...and we give them the argument, could you eat if we brought you the cow and let you kill her yourself, and they say, "No, I could not do that." (Prabhupāda chuckles) But yet, when the cow's meat is killed and wrapped up in a nice wrapper, they eat, and they don't have any bad feeling about it.

Prabhupāda: This is called māyā. He cannot face the actual situation, but, covered by some māyā, he accepts. This is another example of māyā. Directly killing the animal he cannot tolerate, but when it is covered by māyā, the same danger, he accepts.

Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: That is also desire.

Pṛthu Putra: He says that's for sure. In the beginning when they are practicing zazen is always some material desire. We desire that, we desire that. We would like to know God or something like that. But by practicing zazen finally we just come to the point—we don't have any more desire, just by practicing zazen.

Prabhupāda: Then what is that position of no desire?

Karandhara: The real position is to eliminate the self. The only possible way that they can achieve no desire, no initiative, is to eliminate the self altogether, to make the self become eliminated and just be the cosmic one again without any self.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that will be done automatically. Why you practice so much? (French)

Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: So they are not so advanced that there is spiritual desire. That they do not understand. But so far the material desirelessness, that is accepted by us also. (French) It is something like this. Just like a child without education at home is simply doing mischief. So the parents want to make him mischievousless. But if the parent does not know that he should be given better engagement, otherwise it cannot be mischievousless, that he does not know. (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He says there is something beyond material desire and spiritual desire.

Karandhara: No, he doesn't understand the definition when we say spiritual then. He's confusing spiritual with something like esoteric. Spiritual is the opposite of material. And beyond material desire, that means beyond gross and subtle desire, when we say spiritual we mean transcendental, the opposite of material.

Room Conversation with Mr. Deshimaru -- June 13, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: No, it is ignorance. Just like a man is suffering from disease. He is also lying down. He is also eating. He is also passing stool. And if he is informed that "After your disease is cured, you will also nicely sleep, you will also nicely walk, you will also nicely eat," but he is thinking, "Again eating? Again sleeping? Again...?" This is something like this. "So I don't want to be cured."

Karandhara: Yes, that's actually the psychology behind Zen philosophy.

Prabhupāda: That is the trouble, yes. He does not know what is the sleeping in healthy condition and what is the eating in healthy condition. He thinks this eating and that eating the same. (French)

Pṛthu Putra: He says for him, spiritual and material, they are going together. In spiritual is something material, and in material is something spiritual. And they are... Together they form harmony, and this harmony is the goal.

Room Conversation with Professor Oliver La Combe Director of the Sorbonne University -- June 14, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: No. When there is political game, everyone does everything to gain his victory. In politics, these things are allowed. Just like killing, fighting, kṣatriya's fighting. That killing is allowed. But killing is not allowed generally. Kṛṣṇa has killed so many. If you take from moral point of view, He's sometimes immoral. He has killed His maternal uncle, Kaṁsa, and Śiśupāla, Śiśupāla, his cousin brother. And Balarāma killed Rukma. Once He saved him, and another time, that Aniruddha's marriage, or something like that... Balarāma killed Rukma, the brother of Rukmiṇī. They were family relatives. But there was some misunderstanding in chess playing that other party, Rukma, he was cheating by tricks. The Balarāma became so angry, they killed him. So in politics amongst the kṣatriyas, these things are not uncommon.

Room Conversation with German Women Philosophers -- June 17, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: Yes. (German)

Pṛthu: Yes, yes, she says that there is something like eternal condemn in the Christian teachings, like Jesus said.

Prabhupāda: Eternally hellish life.

Pṛthu: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So then why she says that everyone will go, peace? (German) (break)

Pṛthu: She makes no... She said that if she could listen to Jesus, what he said, formerly, then she would know, but she says actually one cannot believe it so much because can anyone believe that he has made the dead Lazarus... This was a person who already died, and Jesus came and gave him life back. So she says nobody can believe that, that Jesus has made this dead Lazarus...

Prabhupāda: I don't follow. What is that?

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

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is beyond. That beyond is realized, as I explained to you, in different angle of vision. Some, impersonal, without any variety, and some, localized Paramātmā, and some, the Supreme Being. As you are sitting, I am sitting, we are talking, so the Absolute Truth is a person, Supreme Person, Supreme Being, and we approach Him, talk with Him, sit with Him, play with Him. That is Kṛṣṇa realization. First of all, negation of the material varieties, then impersonal realization, then localized realization, then personal realization. Just like a diseased man. First of all cure, then healthy activities. A diseased man has got activities. He also eats, he also sleeps, he also evacuates, but all troublesome. Therefore, being disgusted, he wanted to make everything zero. But if he hears that again sleeping, again eating, again evacuating is healthy life, he thinks it is something like his diseased condition. But healthy life is different from diseased life. So some philosophers, they are trying to negate this diseased condition only, without any realization of healthy life. So I think Buddha philosophy is called nirvāṇa, negation of this diseased condition of life, pains and pleasure. Am I right or wrong?

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

Professor Durckheim: There is a change today. The other day, a little while ago, I gave a conference. There were about a thousand doctors, physical medical doctors and psychotherapists assembled, and I told them, "Today be careful. There are two sufferings in the world. The one suffering is suffering because of lack of being efficient in the world. And they are going to look for the medical doctor or the psychotherapist in order to repair them, to repair their machine in order to be efficient. But there is another suffering, the suffering of not being one with the divine self in ourselves. And this is something quite different. Then you doctors have to be quiet and to discover in yourself something like a guru who answers this question which has nothing to do with efficiency in the world." Oh, they were very, you see, became nervous about this question.

Prabhupāda: Now, the efficiency, just like medical treatment. If you know what is the end... Āyurvedic treatment it is called nidāna, nidāna, or diagnosis. First of all, before treating a patient you first of all diagnose what is the disease. Then you can give the proper medicine. But these people do not know how to diagnose. The diagnosis is that they must realize the Supreme. That is the disease. Because they have forgotten the Supreme, they are suffering. The symptoms are different. But they are treating only for the symptoms, not for the root cause. And this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is trying to treat the patient from the root cause. They have forgotten God. Let them remember God. Then everything will come into...

Morning Walk -- June 20, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: But before that, they were not drinking.

Haṁsadūta: There may have been something like wine. The monks also used to make wine.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they make wine. Uncivilized men, they know how to make wine. In India they do so by rice boiling and keep it for some days. It becomes wine, fermented. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...used to say that "I was drinking beer in barrels." He said. Forty years ago he said me like that. Here I don't see them, but Hamburg I have seen, yes, passing urine on the roadside. There are so many urine coming from the wall. 'Cause the more you drink beer, you will pass urine more. The German language is trinken, trinking. Drinking means trinking. Yes, I have seen it. Trinking or trinken?

Room Conversations -- September 10, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Bhaumāsura, something like that. They all of them became Kṛṣṇa's wife. They prayed to Kṛṣṇa to be rescued from the hands of... Then Kṛṣṇa rescued them, killed that Bhaumāsura, and excused them, then they were set free. Then their plea that "We are set free, that's all right, but we cannot go home because we were kidnapped. So we shall not be married. Nobody will accept us." "Then what do you want?" "You become our husband." "All right." Kṛṣṇa becomes (indistinct). This is going on. Somebody is thinking of money, somebody is thinking of woman. These two things, money and woman, and whole struggle (indistinct). The Musselman nawabs, they used to keep... That one nawab, they have got his quarters in Lucknow, he had 160 wives. Even in recent, you know this (name withheld)? His elder brother, (name withheld), practically he is the origin of the (name withheld) concern. So I was a guest of the (indistinct). So he has got three wives—one Bengali wife, one (indistinct) wife, and his original wife being Jain. He had three, four wives.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

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

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. That receiving the perfect knowledge... There is paramparā. Just like I have got perfect knowledge. I tell you. Then you get the perfect knowledge. You tell him. This is called paramparā.

Professor: I read something like that.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. Evam paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ (BG 4.2). Without that paramparā the knowledge is not perfect. Give them prasāda. Hm?

Hṛdayānanda: We're going to bring you some prasādam? Spiritual food.

Professor: You are traveling all Latin America now?

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

Prabhupāda: The others? That is the distinction between matter and spirit. Just like this microphone, it is combination of earth, water, air, fire, like that. But the living being, he has utilized, he has combined this matter into this microphone. Is that admitted? Now, exactly like the microphone, the combination of matter and done by some living entity, similarly, the whole cosmic manifestation is combination of matter, and there is one living being or the Supreme Being who has combined them, and it is working. Is that admitted? So that is the difference between limited and unlimited, that I, you are living being... We can also create something like this microphone or this big aeroplane. We have created. That is limited. But there is another one who has created innumerable planets and that is floating in the air. Is it not? We are taking credit of becoming big scientist by creating one airship, 747, five hundred passengers carrying. How many we have created?

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

Prabhupāda: Hare means, "O the energy of God," and Kṛṣṇa, "O God, kindly accept me again. I am fallen in this material world." That's all.

Lady (Hṛdayānanda): She says that she sees it as a mantra, and from her point of view it seems like we're repeating this mantra over and over again, and it's something like hypnotism. For example, in some tribes there are different rituals. They are chanting different things, and she would like...

Prabhupāda: That is her opinion. She is not authority.

Lady (Hṛdayānanda): She would like an explanation.

Prabhupāda: This is the statement in the Bhagavad-gītā. Satataṁ kīrtayanto mām (BG 9.14). Find it out.

Room Conversation with Psychiatrist -- February 22, 1975, Caracas:

Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): As a doctor, he says he is naturally interested in this life in the problems of the body, but he also feels that a human being should follow whatever philosophy he chooses in order to achieve what one may call the spiritual world or eternal happiness.

Prabhupāda: Then it is something like that, that the motor mechanic is interested with the motor car, but he is not interested with the welfare of the driver. But the fact is, if the driver is not in order, the car will not go. It may be well-equipped, well-engined, well-oiled, but if the driver is defective, it will create another disaster.

Psychiatrist (Hṛdayānanda): He feels that you don't understand what he's saying, that actually he does not feel that we should dedicate ourselves exclusively to the body...

Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Prabhupāda: Yes. For an American gentleman one hundred dollars is nothing.

Devotee (3): One nice boy in the airport, he was a soldier boy. He had, like read a Kṛṣṇa trilogy, and he was coming through the airport, and I approached him. And he immediately saw the books, and he immediately wanted one. And I didn't even have to ask him for the donation. Automatically he gave $20. And then I was walking down the hall, and I saw him again, and he came running up to me again, and he said, "Here, you're doing such a wonderful thing. Let me give you another $20." And somebody walked by as I was giving him another book, and they said, "Don't take that book. It's a rip-off. These people are trying to rip you off." And he said, "They don't know what they're talking about. They don't understand." And then, after that, he walked up to Cārudeṣṇa Prabhu and gave him another $40. So actually he gave something like $65 or $70 in the airport just because he had read one trilogy.

Devotee (5): Just like in the Kṛṣṇa book it says anyone who reads this, he will become a devotee.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that's a fact. Anyone who reads that book, he will become Vaiṣṇava.

Room Conversation with Press Representative -- March 21, 1975, Calcutta:

Prabhupāda: This is spiritual. Unless you come to this platform, there is no question of samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu or samyavāda. Generally, they do not know it. They are talking of samyavāda. They do not know what is the platform of samyavāda. That is also further explained in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum (SB 7.5.31). Bhāgavata, śāstra, all Vedic literatures, they are perfect. So people do not know what is the aim of life. Therefore they have got different views. Actually they are missing what is the aim of life. There is a English proverb, "A man without aim and a ship without rudder," or something like that. So similarly, ask anybody what is the aim of life. He doesn't know, no clear idea.

Guest: Our aim of life should be the realization of God?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because at the present moment we are part and parcel. Just like a son, he has got the symptoms of his father, but he does not know who is his father. He does not know who is his father. There is a Hindi proverb, bap ka beta sipaika gora kusnaita tora tola: "The son inherits the quality of the father, but if he does not know who is his father, then what is his position?"

Room Conversation -- April 4, 1975, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: No. The Bangladesh, they were Bengalis. Although the whole Pakistan, including Bangladesh and the other part, West Pakistan, East Pakistan, Bangladesh... So actually, Bangladesh is bigger than West Pakistan. They should have taken the government, majority. But the West Pakistan, by force they were ruling. They are not majority. So after all, they are Bengalis, maybe Muslim. They're intelligent than these Punjabis. Punjabis, they have got bodily strength, not brain. So these Bengalis, in Mujjhamat Raman, that was his demands, that: "We are majority. Why they should govern us? We should govern over them." This is the movement. So, but they're already in power. So how to throw them out of power? So he negotiated in India, that: "You help us to separate from..." And India's interest is that Pakistan becomes weak by separation, that is India's interest. So India agreed to help them. How to help? They organized a false, er, soldiers. You know? What is called? Bahini. Mean a freedom soldier. They organized freedom soldier. And India consulted Russia. Russia was friendly, that: "We want to help Bangladesh." So they said: "Yes, you help. If there is fight, then we shall help you." This was the... So these bahini, sanan bahini, sandana bahini, or something like that, they organized, "freedom soldiers."

Evening Discussion -- May 6, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Jazz? What is that jazz?

Paramahaṁsa: American music. Something like rock and roll. It is modern music.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. So, how he learned? He is Indian.

Paramahaṁsa: Well, I don't know, but he's pretty good. His band was very popular in America.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Paramahaṁsa: They were very popular. THey would travel around and do performances, and thousands of people would come. He had quite a big group of musicians, and he was the leader. He would lead the whole group. He would play the trumpet and sometimes dance.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. Then, Ravi Shankar is no more popular?

Evening Discussion -- May 6, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: 8:30?

Paramahaṁsa: Usually people don't have a very clear idea of what spiritual life is. So when they see someone who is a good musician or a good artist or something like that, sometimes they automatically think, "Oh, he must be spiritual, because he is so good at this. No one else can do it. He must be some spiritual power." So therefore someone like Ravi Shankar, a lot of people either they become envious or they worship him as being an incarnation or something like that.

Prabhupāda: That is also stated, yad yad vibhūtimat sattvaṁ.

Room Conversation with Carol Cameron -- May 9, 1975, Perth:

Carol: Do you think a man who says he loves God should withdraw from the world, say into a community or something like that?

Prabhupāda: First of all between two. Then you can expand it. First the love between-love means there are two, the lover and the beloved. So, the transaction begins between the two, then it expands.

Carol: How do you go if you look at the two as say the creator and the person? Would that be the two that you have in mind? How would you go about fostering that relationship?

Amogha: She says if you mean by the two the creator and us, how would you go about fostering or increasing that relationship between us and...

Prabhupāda: Creator, created. Do you believe in creator?

Room Conversation with Carol Cameron -- May 9, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: No. I mean to say the anthropology it is a big scientific department. Where is the understanding of God there?

Carol: I find it difficult to reconcile the love of God with actually doing something like this.

Prabhupāda: Then how you are going to speculate on anthropology?

Carol: Hmm.

Prabhupāda: If you cannot adjust, how you are wasting your time in the science, anthropology? It is a false science.

Carol: I'm waiting to be led into something which is good.

Prabhupāda: There is no meaning.

Room Conversation with Carol Cameron -- May 9, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: He is also chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Yes. He chants all day Hare Kṛṣṇa. He has made some record, "Kṛṣṇa."

Amogha: "My dear Lord, I really want to see You." Something like that.

Prabhupāda: Like that, yes. "Kṛṣṇa" he has said.

Śrutakīrti: Yes. His latest album, "Kṛṣṇa Where Are You?"

Amogha: Oh, I haven't seen it.

Prabhupāda: And in the record album he has given this picture. So you are intelligent girl, you study about this Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That will benefit you. The anthropology you may get some degree, adoration. What is the benefit? Jaya. (Carol leaves) They enquire why I have come to the West. If I enquire that two thousand year ago you have been taught that "Thou shall not kill," and your business is only to kill. I have come to enquire from you, "What is your answer?"

Morning Walk -- May 13, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: When the devotees went to India this year, they said that Acyutānanda Swami very..., chastised them that "You should never... If I catch any of you buying Bhaktisiddhānta's books from Gauḍīya Maṭha then I will take it away," something like this.

Paramahaṁsa: Yeah, that was, the reason was because of, he didn't want the devotees going to Gauḍīya Maṭha. But there's nothing wrong with the idea of studying the previous ācāryas' books.

Prabhupāda: No. Who said? That is wrong. We are following previous ācāryas. I never said that.

Paramahaṁsa: All of your commentaries are coming from the previous ācāryas.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Jayadharma: But that wouldn't mean that we should keep all the previous ācāryas' books and only read them.

Prabhupāda: That is already there. You first of all assimilate what you have got. You simply pile up books and do not read—what is the use?

Morning Walk -- May 14, 1975, Perth:

Paramahaṁsa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, the Christians have one place for the women and another place for the men. But we find the women can't organize themselves very well, so it is difficult to organize something like that also.

Prabhupāda: Therefore, if we do not give up lusty desires, either we keep separately or together they fall down in the... All these nuns, they are all complicated, although they live separately. There was a convent school in Calcutta, and it was detected that the head minister was supplying women outside for business. Now one brahmacārīṇi āśrama is started. This means that the authority of this āśrama, they supply young women to rich, richer class, and they pay money. Business is going on.

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

Prabhupāda: No, because you, without seeing Him, you do not develop Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You require to see Him. So He has appeared before you so that you can see Him. That is His mercy, so that you see Him and you think of Him. Man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ. You see Him and think of Him. That is the meaning of picture. You cannot say, "I have not seen God." Here is God. You see God's picture here in the temple. In the śāstra description is there. Just like in the Brahma-saṁhitā it is said, veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣam: (Bs. 5.30) "Kṛṣṇa is playing on His flute." That is the information in the Vedas. Here He is playing on flute. Veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāya... "His eyes are like lotus petal." You see? The description in the Vedas and the picture the same. It is not imagination. It is in the Veda. Vedas will give you information. Then surabhīr abhipālayantam (Bs. 5.29). There are cows. Kṛṣṇa is very much fond of cows. So what is stated in the Vedas about Kṛṣṇa, that is depicted.

It is not imagination, not that we have imagined something like, "This is like..." No. It is corroborated, established by Vedic knowledge. So you'll find Kṛṣṇa's form like this everywhere. In India there are millions of temples. Everywhere you will find this.

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

Prabhupāda: Purport.

Devotee (2): Purport? "Unless one is transcendentally situated, it is not possible to cease from sense enjoyment. The process of restriction from sense enjoyment by rules and regulations is something like restricting a diseased person from certain types of edibles. The patient, however, neither likes such restriction, nor loses his taste for edibles. Similarly, sense restriction by some spiritual process like aṣṭāṅga-yoga, in the matter of yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, etc., is recommended for less intelligent persons who have no better knowledge. But one who has tasted the beauty of the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa in the course of his advancement in Kṛṣṇa consciousness no longer has a taste for dead material things. Therefore, restrictions are there for the less intelligent neophytes in the spiritual advancement of life, but such restrictions are only good if one actually has a taste for Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

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

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

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Paramahaṁsa: Yes. I will keep in touch with those people and let them know. I will send them some literature too. Should I go and telephone those people?

Prabhupāda: Um hm. (end)

Morning Walk -- May 17, 1975, Perth:

Paramahaṁsa: I was reading in the Bhagavad-gītā last night. In Chapter Two there was a verse where it says, "Of the existent, there is no cessation, and the nonexistent, there is no continuation," something like that. But in the purport it says that one can understand the Supreme by studying himself. What does that mean? By analytical study of oneself one can understand the Supreme.

Prabhupāda: So you could not understand? You have got all propensities, different, the similar propensities are there in God. Because you are part and parcel of God, the chemical composition in drop of water from the sea is the same. In the sea it is in bigger quantity, and in the drop in smaller quantity. And therefore your composition you can study, and the same things are there. Therefore He is a person. He is person.

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

Jesuit: 'Cause as I would understand it, the soul of the man, of any man, is what we would call a spiritual soul, an immortal soul, and the soul of the animal is a principle of life, what the Greeks would call savvy(?), Aristotle would call psyche. But it is not of an immortal soul, therefore the man has higher value than the animal, the dog, something like that.

Prabhupāda: No. What do you think? Just like a child, as a child's father, the child has got different soul and the father has got different soul?

Jesuit: They've got different souls but they're both immortal, spiritual souls.

Prabhupāda: Who is important, the child or the father?

Jesuit: Both are important, both very important, both more important than...

Prabhupāda: Which one? Which important?

Devotee: He says both are equally important, but they're both more important than the dog.

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

Prabhupāda: Body and soul different.

Jesuit: But that's the point I was trying to make, that you have a gradation in your prayer of..., in the Jesus prayer, in which you speak and you can hear the noise, chanting. You might say something like this: (Sings softly) Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Now, that's a chanting, a singing, and it sums up everything I believe in, say, in the word Jesus. But then there can be the other where there's no sound is heard, but I'm still thinking it in my mind.

Prabhupāda: Similarly you can think of Hare Kṛṣṇa. (Sings) Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa... Same thing. Where is the difference? There is no difference.

Jesuit: The third form is where I do not think it, it's just, I'm sort of rapt, absorbed in the divine...

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

Guest 1: That's one reason that the main religion has possibly become bad in the eyes of non-religious people when they hear something like that. Because you could assume that whatever religion, if a person was religious...

Prabhupāda: Religion means God. God is one.

Guest 1: ...that that should aid all religions. And the more Kṛṣṇas there are, the more other religious people might benefit. Yet they can't see it.

Prabhupāda: According to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, religion means the law given by God. Just like law means the act given by the state. You cannot manufacture law, I cannot manufacture law. From that purport (?) give me. So Mr. Raymond has gone?

Devotee: Yes, yes.

Prabhupāda: He has taken some prasāda?

Morning Walk -- May 28, 1975, Honolulu:

Devotee (4): They cannot even appreciate something like that.

Prabhupāda: No, no. They say, "Don't talk of God." That is their philosophy. (Gets into car) Post-dated check, they want all credit, and one who is paying cash, he has no credit.

Gurukṛpa: "Well, we can't see Him, so we can't believe it. We can't see who has done it."

Prabhupāda: No, you cannot see that the tree, wherefrom this tree has come. From the seed: you cannot see it? You are so blind? Why don't you see? Wherefrom this big tree has come? And such millions of big trees are on the floor. You cannot see it? Then you are blind.

Paramahaṁsa: It comes from that little seed.

Prabhupāda: Yes, everyone knows that.

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1975, Honolulu:

Harikeśa: ...one place in Caitanya-caritāmṛta where Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja says that "You mental speculators, put your speculation to Caitanya Mahāprabhu." He says something like that. If you were to speculate, speculate about Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the greatness of Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

Prabhupāda: I don't think there is anything.

Harikeśa: Maybe I'm misquoting.

Siddha-svarūpa: Not mental specu..., analyze.

Harikeśa: Analyze?

Prabhupāda: Caitanyer dayār kathā kara vicāra: "Just analyze the merciful contribution of Caitanya Mahāprabhu with others." That you have already experienced, that they experimented in so many ways, but as soon as they come to Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mercy, saṅkīrtana, they become immediately, "Oh, this is the nicest thing." So that is vicāra, judgement. Caitanyer dayār kathā. There are many contribution of the world, many scientists, many physiologists, many... But Kavirāja Gosvāmī says, "Compare with the contribution of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Then you will be surprised." Oh! Just like they became surprised, immediately, "Oh, this is the nicest."

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...up? No?

Siddha-svarūpa: I'm not sure.

Devotee: I think up to now they have sold 200,000,000 hamburgers or something like that.

Prabhupāda: You also keep account?

Devotee: No, they put that ad in every day.

Siddha-svarūpa: They put in a newspaper.

Ambarīṣa: You can't avoid seeing it.

Siddha-svarūpa: No, they are always telling you.

Devotee: In front of their shop it's always there.

Morning Walk -- June 16, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: ...they will get their food?

Siddha-svarūpa: They have it so that they have something like a year's supply. (break)

Prabhupāda: They are struggling for living. Still, they will not be allowed to live. (break) ...Communists.

Siddha-svarūpa: Yes, well they have some basic differences, though, in philosophy.

Prabhupāda: What is their philosophy?

Siddha-svarūpa: The Chinese say that the Russians are revisionists, that is that they're actually capitalists, and the Russians say that the Chinese are religionists, that they're not, that there's some stuff they're following alongside with there. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...spiritualists?

Morning Walk -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You're abnormal.

Indian guest: That's right. They think you are abnormal. That's right. Over there something like divorce and the crisis, one woman marrying ten husband or going around..., those kind of... I don't anybody in India who has been divorced. I don't know personally. So it's different level.

Prabhupāda: No, amongst the mass of people in India, still there is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It is not vanished. Because by culture, by taking birth in India that is inherent. India is so great.

Indian guest: The one problem over there: it's very hard to find a pure devotee or real...

Morning Walk -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:

Brahmānanda: They go on strike. They go there and they won't go out.

Prabhupāda: That is called Gandhi's policy.

Brahmānanda: Yes, gherao, or something like that.

Prabhupāda: It is called satyagraha.

Jayatīrtha: They are trying to get the Catholic church to support their demands.

Prabhupāda: That means Catholic church is supposed to support these prostitutes?

Jayatīrtha: Yes.

Brahmānanda: Well, actually, in France there is another now, a leading church official, a bishop. He was found. He died in the...

Prabhupāda: Prostitute's house.

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

Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda, that is called spontaneous generation and scientists have so-called proven that that cannot occur. It's called a folk myth or something like this, folklore, that birth can take place without the male and female union.

Prabhupāda: No. How it is coming from the bed, unclean bed. How it is coming the grass? They are also living entity. The seeds are already there. They are like egg. And as soon as there is watering then it is fructified and it comes. Similarly, the egg..., fermentation, what is called, fermentation?

John Mize: Fertilization.

Prabhupāda: Fertilization. Not fertilize. The birds sit on the egg.

John Mize: Incubation.

Prabhupāda: Incubation, yes. They are artificially incubating, and the chickens are coming from the egg.

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

Jayatīrtha: Now they're changing the names. Anything that implies sexism they want to change the name. Just like "seamstress," now they have to call, "sewing machine operator." Because "seamstress" implies that it's a woman's job. So they say, "sewing machine operator." Or "firemen," they have to say, "fire prevention operator" or something like that.

Kirtiraja: Mailman?

Jayatīrtha: Mailperson.

Kirtirāja: Mailperson. But then they can't even do that because it's male.

Revatīnandana: (indistinct)

Bahulāśva: They're going crazy now in this country, Prabhupāda. Men are having operations to become like women.

Prabhupāda: Yes, there is a student here? (laughter)

Morning Walk -- June 30, 1975, Denver:

Prabhupāda: ...result of that meeting?

Satsvarūpa: No result.

Prabhupāda: Simply talking? (break) ...come to take some students to his institution.

Satsvarūpa: Something like that.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Satsvarūpa: After he speaks, he speaks about his institution.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because the institution is now closed. So he thought that he would bring some student from America. (break) He is also one of the, what is called, trustees of the... So he has said to Bon Mahārāja "You better hand it over to Bhaktivedanta Swami. You cannot do it." (break)

Bhāvānanda: ...is intelligent.

Morning Walk -- June 30, 1975, Denver:

Prabhupāda: "Somehow or other." This is science. "Somehow or other," "maybe," "perhaps." This is their science. (break) ...speculation. The whole Western countries, their all knowledge simply speculation. Nothing definite. (break) ...Professor Dimmock has "Definitive..." What is that translation, or something like?

Harikeśa: Definitive.

Prabhupāda: Definitive, then translation of Bhagavad-gītā, like that. (break)

Devotee (4): Dogs, they are becoming attached to the human being. Are they becoming human beings in their next life?

Prabhupāda: Maybe. (break)

Yadubara: ...becoming attached to the dog. So they are becoming dogs in their...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Dog is never attached.

Room Conversation with the Mayor of Evanston -- July 4, 1975, Chicago:

Viṣṇujana: According to national statistics, as far as curing drug problems and crime problems, it's seen that social organizations that are supported by the town councils, etc. are usually about 3% effective in cases cured of either drug addiction or crime. But as far as religious organizations are concerned, some of them are 70, 80% effective in cases that have been attempted cure. So it's, as far as percentage cured, the process of introducing God consciousness is much more effective than some social reform or rehabilitation work or something like that.

Prabhupāda: No, social reform will automatically come. The first-class reform, the brāhmaṇas, if their advice is taken, then the other classes the kṣatriya, vaiśyas, and śūdras, they become automatically.

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

Prabhupāda: Nowadays may be different, but I am speaking of the Vedic ideas, that woman in all circumstances, unless the husband is crazy or something like that, mad, or..., in every case the instance is that wife is faithful and subservient to the husband. That is the Vedic culture. Even the husband goes out of home, vānaprastha, the wife also goes with him. When he takes sannyāsa, at that time there is no accompaniment of wife. Otherwise in gṛhastha life and even vānaprastha life, the wife is constant companion and subservient. That is the history of Vedic culture. History, Gāndhārī, because her husband was blind, so when the marriage settlement was done, she was not blind, but she voluntarily became blind by wrapping cloth.

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: ...logic also it is admitted that inductive logic is imperfect; deductive logic is perfect. (break) ...logic means śrota-panthā, paramparā, śruti, Vedic language, śruti. Śruti pramāṇa. Pramāṇa means evidence, and śruti means Veda. Pratyakṣa, anumāna, śruti. Pratyakṣa means direct, direct evidence, and anumāna, hypothesis. That is Darwin's theory, something like that. And śruti, Vedic. So out of these three kinds of evidences, śruti-pramāṇa is accepted as supreme, neither anumāna nor pratyakṣa. Pratyakṣa, you are seeing the sky, but you cannot say the length and breadth. You cannot say. You are seeing daily. If you say, "I have got this telescope," so that is an imperfect. and how you can see with your eyes directly, direct sense perception? Hypothesis, anumāna, guessing, that is also not perfect. And śruti, we take śruti from the perfect person, Kṛṣṇa. He says, aham evāsam agre: "Before the creation I was there." We take simply.

Press Conference -- July 16, 1975, San Francisco:

Prabhupāda: Yes, the small children are trained up. It is something like that.

Bhaktadāsa: I think you've answered this question, but he wants to know how will Kṛṣṇa consciousness affect all the religions and politics of the world at this time.

Prabhupāda: The thing is that any system you take, without God consciousness it is zero. Just like hundreds and thousands of zeros, if you put together, the value is zero. But if you put one, the value increases immediately. That one is God. So either in politics or in sociology or philosophy, religion, everywhere, if there is no God sense, it is all zero. That is going on. Therefore, despite all advancement of education, economic development, people are in chaotic condition, they are not satisfied, and everything is being tried to make it very nice. The United Nation is there, working for the last thirty years, but there is no solution because it is all zero without God. Bring God and everything will be nice. Take any question, just like economic question. There is now very acute, especially in our country. Now, the God says that "Your economic problem will be solved like this." What is that? Annād bhavanti bhūtāni: (BG 3.14)

Room Conversation with Devotees -- August 1, 1975, New Orleans:

Prabhupāda: Whatever, yes. "Give me twenty-five percent. You can utilize the land." So that is resource of the land.

Devotee (1): How does the kṣatriya build a palace for himself or something like that?

Prabhupāda: That will be done. To keep a prestigious position, they'll have building, servant, soldiers. Otherwise how they will fear? How they'll have respect?

Devotee (1): So the kṣatriya is the predominator of the land.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṣatriya is the owner of the land.

Devotee (1): And he can take the stones and men and build a big, nice...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- August 12, 1975, Paris:

Prabhupāda: That is their ignorance. They do not know what is respons...

Mādhavānanda: They would say that so many may have taken God realization as responsibility, following some Christ... church or something like that, but they are also frustrated.

Prabhupāda: We are not frustrated. Eh? We are not frustrated. Are we frustrated? Then? How the rascal says, "frustrated"? If you take false thing, then you will be frustrated. If you take real path of God realization, there is no question of frustration. It is ānandāmbudhi-vardhanam, increasing pleasure, no frustration.

Mādhavānanda: Then they say that no one has real information of God.

Prabhupāda: You have no, rascal, because you are rascal. I have got. You just wash my feet, and I will inform you.

Morning Walk -- August 25, 1975, Vrndavana:

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

Jayapatāka: They make oil from this now.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Castor seed?

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

Prabhupāda: ...this is?

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

Prabhupāda: ...just straight or return back?

Brahmānanda: Where is that path, Harikeśa?

Gurṇārṇava: The path is just ahead.

Prabhupāda: (Here?) We are Bon Mahārāja's land? No.

Morning Walk -- August 27, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, they deny. Therefore we call them atheist. But these Māyāvādī, they take the shelter of Vedas and they preach the same philosophy. "Yes, brahman-nirakara." (Hindi) ...don't believe in God... (Hindi) For the time being, Śaṅkarācārya might have said something like that to turn the Buddhists again to Vedas, but that is temporary. But they have taken it all true. (Hindi) ...eighty-five years they are working. They have no position. (Hindi) What is that? TM?

Brahmānanda: TM, Transcendental Meditation.

Prabhupāda: And what is the items they say?

Brahmānanda: No philosophy, no belief, no restrictions.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Just see. He advertises. Mahesh Yogi.

Morning Walk -- September 18, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: "Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma temple," not "āśrama."

Dhanañjaya: "Temple." All right. "And become..." Something like, "and become enlightened with transcendental knowledge," something like that. He's explaining briefly.

Prabhupāda: He... What does he know? He'll explain? He is explaining. What does he know. He'll explain?

Dhanañjaya: Tejas has written.

Prabhupāda: No, no. That Rājasabhā.

Dhanañjaya: Oh, Rājasabhā.

Morning Walk -- October 3, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. But the whole thing was planned for their own sense gratification.

Brahmānanda: Exploitation.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: If we ever had any kind of power like that and tried to do something like that, they would accuse that this is like the Crusades.

Prabhupāda: Now, Crusades, even... If they could expand the ideas of Christian, love of Godhead, that was nice. But that was not the purpose. It is exploitation.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Even by force?

Prabhupāda: Yes. By force if you give some good medicine, that is good for him. In my childhood I would not take medicine. Exactly like this, now also. (laughter) So I was given medicine by force in the spoon. Two men will catch me and my mother take me on the lap and then force and I shall take. I never agreed to take any medicine.

Room Conversation -- October 14, 1975, Johannesburg:

Harikeśa: He says they even control the president that way. They can even make the president go crazy or kill him if he ever becomes a traitor or something like that.

Prabhupāda: Dangerous, huh? That is CIA? The CIA is maintained by government?

Harikeśa: Oh, yes. That's why everybody is very afraid.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Sometimes they think that the government is maintained by the CIA. (laughing)

Harikeśa: The CIA even has laser beam guns where they can shoot somebody with this laser beam gun and they disintegrate completely, like they never existed. They shoot light out of a gun and it just goes-tssh-completely finished. (break)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Photo?

Prabhupāda: Gram.

Room Conversation -- October 15, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone is destined to live for a certain period. You cannot prolong it, neither reduce it.

Harikeśa: What about all the sufferings of the body? Let's say one has a toothache or something like that.

Prabhupāda: No. That I have already said, that as soon as you accept this material body, you must suffer. That is the way.

Harikeśa: So if you fix one thing, another thing will just go bad?

Prabhupāda: Yes. You cannot fix anything. You can simply think that "I am now fixed up." That is not possible. Even if you fix up one type of suffering, another type of suffering will come. So suffering must be there. The body means suffering. One should understand this, that asann api kleṣada asa dehaḥ (SB 5.5.4).

Room Conversation -- October 15, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: That is māyā. He is serving a dog, and still, he is thinking he is master. That is māyā. Instead of serving a nice person or the nice Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, he is serving a dog. But he is thinking that "I am master." This is māyā. māyā means which is not fact. He is serving, but he is thinking that he is not serving, he is controlling, or something like that. That is māyā.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So the desire to be worshiped is unnatural.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (to someone entering:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Come on. Jaya. This is the beginning of devotion, to be submissive. Tad viddhi praṇipātena (BG 4.34). This is the beginning, praṇipāta. This is praṇipāta, fall down, full surrender. That you have... Therefore you are making progress. Tad viddhi praṇipātena. Question? Praṇipātena paripraśnena. Praṇipāta is done. Now you can question.

Morning Walk -- October 17, 1975, Johannesburg:

Devotee: When we were at school we accept a teacher and he teaches us mathematics or something like this, but when it comes to spiritual life and we accept a guru, people criticize by saying, "Oh, you're not thinking for yourself anymore."

Prabhupāda: Yes, you have surrendered. You say, "Yes, we have surrendered. That is the way." Tad viddhi praṇipātena (BG 4.34). The first term is "surrender," praṇipāta. Otherwise it is not possible. If one does not surrender, there is no question of reformation. He must voluntarily surrender: "Yes. Whatever you say, I shall do." Then things can be advanced. Otherwise not possible. (end)

Morning Walk -- October 19, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: Yes, there is something like that. But I am talking of, if you depend on God, then why do you keep elections? You are opportunist. Sometimes you take shelter of God and sometimes of your election power. If you are so firm believer in God, then why election? Let God elect. Why you take part in election? Huh? Let God elect the prime minister. Why you are busy in giving vote? (break) God elected Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. Hm? His plan was that Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira should be king, not Duryodhana. So He killed all the Duryodhana's party and selected Yudhiṣṭhira: "Sit down here." That is God's election. So why you elect? Depend on God.

Indian man (1): And that comes through lack of spiritual knowledge, Swamiji?

Morning Walk -- October 21, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the point. Just like the eggs. If there is no life, how the chicken comes? Why don't you manufacture an egg and bring life from it? That was... The other day I was talking. So because you are tenth-class rascal you cannot understand how the life is there. A seed. Take a seed. Unless there is life, how a big tree comes out of it? You manufacture something like that, imitating, and bring life. Life is there. Because you are tenth-class rascal you do not know.

Harikeśa: They also bring up the insane argument that life...

Prabhupāda: "Insane argument." How we have...? We have no time to hear such insane argument.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But these demons, Prabhupāda, they pose themselves as being very religious. They pose themselves as being very religious.

Prabhupāda: How they are religious?

Morning Walk -- November 14, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: He knows them. He is such a rascal that he knows only and nobody knows. That is the verdict of this Rāmakrishna Mission.

Yaśomatīnandana: They say that they would... These ṛṣis would kill one elephant or something like that, and they would live on him for whole year.

Prabhupāda: Where is that information? Where he got this information? You did not challenge?

Yaśomatīnandana: Well, I said that that muni must be just like the ṛṣis and munis you are talking about now.

Prabhupāda: We don't find any such thing. In this way they have ruined Indian culture by misquoting, by misleading.

Morning Walk -- November 19, 1975, Bombay:

Yaśomatī-nandana: That they cannot answer. Only insincere people, foolish people, they are misled by them. Otherwise I don't think anybody even knows their philosophy. Everyone knows your philosophy because they see your disciples, and no one goes to read their books. Mostly I see in their books, "First edition, copies, two thousand," "three thousand," something like that. And you never see a second edition.

Prabhupāda: (break) Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu for the last twelve years he was lying idle, and this time he went, and people appreciated so much he was giving delete.(?) He is advertising like that. (end)

Morning Walk -- November 20, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: By trance.

Dr. Patel: When he... On the cross they say he uttered, "Father, don't forsake me." That is the time he went into trance most probably. Eh? He must have gone in trance when he uttered the last words, "Father, don't forsake me." And then when he was brought down in the lap of his mother and they took him in the cave, no? Under the guard of those Italian soldiers. Then there was a big hurricane or something like that and they all ran away. And after that he was smuggled away from that place. Christ has rebuilt his father's temple in true sense, the way he spread the Christianity. The churches have degenerated in his teaching, unfortunately. It is the church. That happens with every, in every, I mean, these things, teachings. Race, this race is very bold, indeed, that God choicest race, these Jews, somehow or other.

Prabhupāda: Jews?

Page Title:Something like... (Conversations 1968 - 1975)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, RupaManjari
Created:31 of Oct, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=117, Let=0
No. of Quotes:117