Govardhana: You are so kind that your books are attracting so many. They have the same potency as yourself. Your canvassing is so effective, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Caitanya Mahāprabhu taught us... Even Nityānanda Prabhu, Haridāsa Ṭhākura, they were sent: "Go and preach. Go door-to-door. Teach them Hare Kṛṣṇa." And Caitanya Mahāprabhu Personally did it. So our mission is like that. People are so rascal that they'll never come to guru and surrender. Manda. Mandāḥ sumanda-matayo manda-bhāgyā hy upadrutāḥ (SB 1.1.10). They are so much embarrassed with these material calamities. Upadrutāḥ. Upadrava means disturbances. And manda: by nature very rascal. And sumanda. If there is, there is little intention, they goes to this, what is called, this boy?
Devotees: Guru Maharaji?
Prabhupāda: Guru Maharaja, Dr. Mishra, and this and that, they'll go. They'll not go to the real person. The real person is strict. Suppose somebody comes here, if he comes to me. I shall immediately order, "You have to do this." But these rascals, they do not say that. They (say), "You pay me, and you become perfect." That is their proposal. So your money is very cheap. They pay and flock together. That is going on. That is called sumanda-mataya, misled. Manda, by nature they are rascals, and if they take some path, that is sumanda-mataya, again rascaldom. Why? Manda-bhāgyā, unfortunate, disturbed. They cannot find out. Therefore real guru has to canvass. This is the position. Shortage, alpāyus, they are not going to live for many years, and most of them are unfortunate rascals, and if they are eager to accept a guru, they accept a false guru, and they are materially disturbed. This is the position of the people of this age. So against so many disturbances and counter-facts, we have to preach.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Is it, is it also not the mercy of Kṛṣṇa that He has descended to incarnate(?) and...
Prabhupāda: Yes, therefore guru is called the, Kṛṣṇa's mercy-incarnation. Kṛṣṇa's mercy-incarnation is guru. Guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja (CC Madhya 19.151). Kṛṣṇa is so merciful, He's trying to educate from within, and outside He sends His representative to teach. So He's trying to bring all these living entities back to home, back to Godhead. Two ways, from inside, and outside. His propaganda is going on. His propaganda is going on.
Govardhana: You are just like the reservoir of mercy, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: No mercy reservoir is Kṛṣṇa, but we are servant of Kṛṣṇa. We have to abide by his orders. That's all. Real mercy is Kṛṣṇa's. (break)
Prajāpati: ...in the Bible, there's a story of how some cities named Sodom and Gomorraḥ became so sinful that the Lord wanted to destroy those cities and everyone in them. Will this be happening again sometime, cities become so sinful, they will be just destroyed?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Destruction means sinful. If you become sinful, your body will be destroyed. You'll die out of some disease. Sinful means destruction.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Self-destruction.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Self-destruction.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate... (BG 8.19) (break) ...if somebody dies out of Kṛṣṇa's anger, he also goes to Vaikuṇṭha.
Hṛdayānanda: Lord Nṛsiṁha-deva.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So this Hiraṇyakaśipu's mother, when she understood that his son should be so rogue and then, when she was informed that "After all, your sons will be killed by God," she was very satisfied. "Oh, then it is all right. Never mind." Because she knew, killing by God means he's going to Vaikuṇṭha. Just like cursed by Nārada Muni, Yamala-Arjuna, they saw Kṛṣṇa. By cursing of Nārada, although for some time they had to remain as tree, but still they got the opportunity of seeing Kṛṣṇa.
Hṛdayānanda: Dāmodara.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Dāmodara.
Devotee: Everybody is concerned with peace. Do people like Guruji, because they're such rascals...
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Devotee: Like Guruji, this young boy, do they constitute a threat to peacefulness in society?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Disturbance.
Devotee: Disturbance?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Because they do not believe in the śāstras, they are rascals, creating disturbances. The Guruji's group, they say, "There is no need of books." Do they not say like that?
Devotees: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Therefore simply set of rascals.
Hṛdayānanda: Actually, Prabhupāda, in the beginning, in the beginning, they used Bhagavad-gītā, but when we kept defeating them, they said, "All right, no more books."
Prabhupāda: Oh. Just see.
Hṛdayānanda: But in the beginning, they accepted. Then they changed.
Prabhupāda: They will change so many times, because they're rascals. They have no standard program. Therefore Rūpa Gosvāmī has given his verdict in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu,
- śruti-smṛti-purāṇādi-
- pañcarātra-vidhiṁ vinā
- aikāntikī harer bhaktir
- utpātāyaiva kalpate
- (Brs. 1.2.101)
Any kind of spiritual advancement without reference to the Vedas, Purāṇas, and śāstra, it means simply disturbance. Utpātāyaiva kalpate.
Hṛdayānanda: You quoted that to Professor Stahl.
Prabhupāda: Eh? Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, what do you think about the so-called primordial flux?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: The primordial flux, they call it. That nature has supplied such nice samples, elements, like potassium, argon, and this...
Prabhupāda: Everything is natural...
Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...they call radio-active elements.
Prabhupāda: Everything is natural. What you have produced? Everything is natural production.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, based on these elements, they calculate, they can calculate, they say very exactly the, how old the earth is. How old is the...
Prabhupāda: That's all right. We know how old the earth is.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: How old it is?
Prabhupāda: Just like earth is at the beginning of Brahmā's life. Now Brahmā's life, you cannot calculate even one twelve hours. So how you'll calculate? He has to live for a hundred years. So now, at the present moment, if his one day's calculation is mid-day now, at the present moment...
Yaśomatīnandana: This is, is this the later half of his life?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Yaśomatīnandana: Is this the later half of Brahmā's life?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone is advancing means he's going to die later on. Not only Brahmā, everyone one of us.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But they calculate that it's only 4.5 billion year old, the earth.
Prabhupāda: Let them calculate, but who cares for that? They cannot calculate even one day of Brahmā.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So we do not accept this?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: We do not accept this.
Prabhupāda: How can I accept it? Because in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, sahasra-yuga-paryantam ahar yad brahmaṇo viduḥ: (BG 8.17) "The Brahmā's one day is equal to one thousand combination of yugas." The combination of yuga means forty-three-hundred thousands of years. So such thousand times makes Brahmā's one day of twelve hours. Similar period, his night. Then day and night, it becomes full twenty-four hours. Then such thirty twenty-four hours makes one month. Such twelve months makes one year, and such hundred years he will live. So how you can calculate? It is beyond your arithmetical calculation. We have to go through the śāstras. So this is in one universe. And there are millions of universes and millions of Brahmās. And all of them live, taking the advantage of one exhaling of Mahā-Viṣṇu. Yasyaika-niśvasita-kālam athāvalambya jīvanti loma-vilajā jagad-aṇḍa-nāthāḥ (Bs. 5.48). All these Brahmās. So just see. How you can calculate? That is inconceivable. That is inconceivable.