Prabhupāda: Yes, you came here before.
Revatīnandana: Yes, that's right.
Prabhupāda: How are you?
Mr. Papworth: My invariable reply, sir, is that I am dying slowly. I trust you are well, sir.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Old man, (laughs) struggling. Spiritual consciousness is not dependent on material impediments.
Mr. Papworth: I'm not hearing these beautiful words.
(pause)
Revatīnandana: He remarked that the spiritual consciousness is not impeded by material impediments—like the body.
Mr. Papworth: I discovered that when I was a cook. I used to have to peel a huge bathful of potatoes every day, hours and hours, and it became that I could peel the potatoes without being aware that I was handling them. And my mind was roaming, disembodied almost from any encumbrance. But this is not the same as meditation, I'm sure, as you see it.
Prabhupāda: What is your idea of meditation?
(someone enters) Come on. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Revatīnandana: Sit over here.
Vicitravīrya: This is Dr. Schumacher.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Thank you very much for your coming. I have read some of your ideas. So from your writing it appears you are nice, thoughtful man. Muni. The Sanskrit word is muni. Just like Nārada Muni. They are very thoughtful. So I have read one description of "Crisis of Increasing Motorcars" in this paper. Actually, we are creating crisis. This advancement of modern civilization is simply creating crisis.
One Vaiṣṇava poet, he has sung, sat-saṅga chāḍi kainu asatye vilāsa (Gaurā Pahu). Sat-saṅga means spiritual association. So we have given up spiritual association, and asatye vilāsa, we have taken to material enjoyment. So sat-saṅga chāḍi kainu . . . there are two things: material and spiritual. So sat-saṅga chāḍi kainu asatye . . . "I have given up spiritual association, and I have taken to material association.
Therefore I have become entangled." Sei karaṇe lāgilā mora karma-bandha-phāṅsā. We are becoming more and more entangled in material activities. We are trying to solve one problem, and creating another big problem. Just like I was reading the "Motorcar Crisis." We thought that with a horseless carriage it will be very convenient to travel. But against that convenience, so-called convenience, we have created so many inconveniences. It is very nicely described in that paper I was reading.
Revatīnandana: Was it this one?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Revatīnandana: (to guest) It's a reprint, "Economics of Permanence," your essay.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Revatīnandana: It's called "The Economics of Permanence."
Prabhupāda: Yes. "The Motorcar Crisis"?
Revatīnandana: Is it mentioned in that essay? I think it must be a different location.
Vicitravīrya: I think it was in one of the Resurgence magazines, perhaps.
Prabhupāda: Heh?
Vicitravīrya: It was in one of the magazines I think.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, yes. Here.
Mr. Papworth: The one on Buddhist economics.
Dr. Schumacher: No, it was the other one. This is "The Economics of Permanence."
Mr. Papworth: Oh.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. (looking through magazine) "Cars, Profits and Pollution." I was just reading this article, "Cars, Profits and Pollution." So this one side, we make profit; another side, we make pollution.