Prabhupāda: So long he does not come back, I will give you protection. You come to my āśrama." So he took the woman to his āśrama, and as it is the duty of saintly persons to instruct about God and His activities, so he was daily explaining about God and His activities, and the child was hearing from the womb of his mother. The mother was anxious to give protection to the child, but the child was fortunate that he was hearing directly from the Nārada. And as a result of this, when the child came out of the womb of his mother he became a great devotee... (break) So will it go on, still more?
Womb (Conversations)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
Room Conversation -- October 20, 1968, Seattle:
Prabhupāda: Yes. So this material world is perverted reflection of the original energy. So this "Hare" means we are directly approaching the original energy of the Supreme Lord. "Please accept me, under You. Now I am under reflection. I am trying to get substance from the reflection." Suppose a tree is reflected by the bank of a river, the exact. So if somebody dives into the river and tries to take fruit from that tree, it will not be possible because that is reflection. One has to go to the real tree. So we are hankering after life, we are hankering after pleasure, but we are seeking pleasure in the reflection, māyā. Therefore we are frustrated, confused. Therefore this prayer is to the original energy. Without energy, without energy the Lord is not without energy. Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa, Sītā-Rāma. So God is always with energy. Without energy, he is incomplete. Sun without sunshine is incomplete. Is it possible? Can one think of sun without sunshine? Similarly, the Māyāvāda theory that the absolute is without energy, there is no energy, absolute is... They have misunderstood. The energy is not different from the energetic. Just like sunshine is not different from the sun, neither the sunshine has got any existence without the sun, nor the sun can exist without sunshine. They are so intimately related. Similarly, the Lord and the energies are so intimately related, they cannot be separated, but they are not one. This is the whole philosophy. So we are praying to the original energy, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Because energy and the energetic, Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, They are not separate, but it is pleasure. When They are separated, Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, that is energetic, that is giving impetus. Just like the man and the woman, they come from the same source, but one body is energetic to the other. Man is energy to the woman. Woman is the energy to the man. Why the creation is not one kind of? Why there is fair sex? They're coming from the same womb of the mother.
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Conversation Including Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.1-34 Recitation & Explanation -- April 1, 1969, San Francisco:
Prabhupāda: Yes. "I offer my respectful obeisances to Swami Bhaktivedanta, who is very dear to Kṛṣṇa, and has come before us to deliver." This is the meaning. So his qualification is described. Similarly, here also Sūta Gosvāmī is offering respect to his spiritual master, Śukadeva Gosvāmī. And he is repeating the history of Śukadeva Gosvāmī. Śukadeva Gosvāmī, just after taking birth from the mother's womb, immediately he started, without staying for a moment. Just see the brahmacārī. The... Father, they are naturally affectionate. So father saw that "This man, child, immediately after birth is going away? How is that? My dear boy, where you are going? Where you are going?" (laughter) So that is being ex... Yaṁ pravrajantam anupetam apeta-kṛtyaṁ (SB 1.2.2). The Śukadeva Gosvāmī, who was going without any ceremonial function... Because after birth there is ceremony, there is nāma-karaṇa, so many things to be done. But he didn't care for anything, any rituals. He immediately started. So it is specifically mentioned that he began to start without observing any formality any rituals. Immediately started.
Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 11, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:
Prabhupāda: You don't remember your childhood that does not mean you had no childhood. Do you remember when you were so small boy, what did you did?
Allen Ginsberg: Certain things. Not very small, but there.
Prabhupāda: Or when you were in your womb of your mother. Do you remember?
Allen Ginsberg: No.
Prabhupāda: Then, does it mean that you are not.
Allen Ginsberg: No, it doesn't mean that I am not.
Prabhupāda: Yes. You do not remember, that is not reason. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā.
Allen Ginsberg: Yeah.
Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 11, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:
Prabhupāda:
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptir
- dhīras tatra na muhyati
- (BG 2.13)
Because I do not remember what I did in my mother's womb, that does not mean that I had no a little body. The body is change, I am there. Therefore, I change this body I will remain. This is common sense business. I am changing my body daily every moment. Your childhood body and this body is not the same. You have changed your body, but that does not mean you have, you are different person.
Allen Ginsberg: Yes, but I have really never seen or heard any, anything but what I see in here now. What I see in here is what I can remember is what I can remember. I don't, I've never heard any reasonable or, or even drawing description of previous incarnations, or previous births.
Prabhupāda: You have never heard?
Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 11, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:
Prabhupāda: Why not?
Allen Ginsberg: Sensible, touchable.
Prabhupāda: Now, suppose, not suppose, it's a fact: your body in the mother's womb in the first day.
Allen Ginsberg: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: Of the father, mother sex life, it comes just like the pea many diverse. So from the pea you have come to this point. So body is changing. So what is the astonishment if you change this body, again become, take another pea form. What is the difficulty to understand?
Allen Ginsberg: Well, the difficulty to understand would be any permanent being; to understand that there is any permanent being or any continuity of any form of consciousness from one body to another.
Room Conversation with Allen Ginsberg -- May 12, 1969, Columbus, Ohio:
Prabhupāda: "The whole material existence is simply a partial manifestation of My energy." Ekāṁśena. Viṣṭabhyāham. Aham. "I have entered into this whole material creation and that is My partial manifestation of energy." Just like what is your, this body? The body is the, a manifestation of your energy. The seed, living entity, is put into the mother's womb and he expands. This body is expanding. But because you are limited, so much. That's all. Three feet or six feet. That's all. No more. You cannot expand more than that. This is crude example. But He's unlimited. He's expanding. Bṛhatvad bṛṁhaṇatvad iti brahma. Brahman means nothing is greater than Him and nothing can expand like Him. Bṛhatvad bṛṁhaṇatvad iti brahma. So everything is there scientific. Simply we have to administer. We have got authoritative scripture, description, answers, everything is there. It is not blind following. It is not religious fanaticism. It is actually solid ground. Simply one has to understand nicely. That's all. And there is no difficulty. So simple. Now, this... Our recommendation is simply, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. So far the Sanskrit word is, that is not a problem. Everyone is chanting. So what is the difficulty? Bring any religious principle. You cannot find so easy. We don't recommend the ritualistic.
Room Conversation -- September 24, 1969, London:
Prabhupāda: Just like... What to speak of ordinary man. President Kennedy. Oh, how much labor he had to undergo to occupy that post, how much money he spent to become president. But he had to quit his family, his wife, his state, his post. So this is going on. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). For sometimes we are engaged in this way; then again we are annihilated. Again begin another life, enter into another mother's womb, construct another body, then come out, then again begin work, again the same thing, digging and piling, digging and piling, again going away. Is that very good business? This is the karmīs. Karmīs means worker, fruitive worker. They want some result for their work. They are called karmīs. So the karmīs are engaged in this way. (Doorbell rings) In Bhagavad-gītā these karmīs have been described as rascals, mūḍha. Mūḍha.
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Room Conversation Including Discussion on SB 4.13.48 to SB 4.14.11 -- January 18, 1972, Jaipur:
Prabhupāda: Nirūpitaḥ prajā-pālaḥ sa jighāṁsati vai prajāḥ. So Vena, here it is mentioned, sunīthā-garbha-sambhavaḥ. His mother's name was Sunīthā. She was also daughter of a very bad king, and she inherited the father's quality. And the son also inherited the mother's quality. This is also true. The son inherits mother's quality, and the daughter inherits father's quality. So because the grandfather of Vena Maharaja was a bad man, his daughter means Sunīthā, the mother of Vena, she became bad. And naturally her son, Vena, she (he) became bad. The father was very nice, good king. But because the mother was not good, the son became bad. Here is the evidence. Sunīthā-garbha-sambhavaḥ. Sunīthā, his mother's name was Sunīthā. Because he was born in the womb of Sunīthā, a bad woman, therefore, he... Nirūpitaḥ prajā-pālaḥ sa jighāṁsati vai prajāḥ. He has been elected as the king to protect the citizens. Instead of protecting, he is disturbing.
Conversation with Dai Nippon -- April 22, 1972, Tokyo:
Prabhupāda: Oh, that's nice. So Veda, Veda means knowledge. So every human being should be interested for advancement of knowledge. So our movement is not a religious movement. It is a movement for advancement of knowledge. And this knowledge, God consciousness, or Kṛṣṇa consciousness, is especially meant for this human body. Because knowledge cannot be given to animals. I cannot speak to the other animals about knowledge because they are imperfect. Their body is imperfect. They are not suitable for receiving knowledge. Only elementary knowledge for maintaining this body, they have got: where to secure food, where to sleep, how to have sexual intercourse, and how to defend. These knowledges are there in animals also. So human being requires further knowledge. That is special prerogative, gift by God, by nature. Whatever you say. So we should utilize this human body for furtherance of knowledge. And the first important knowledge is that we should know that there is life after death. That is the basic principle of knowledge. Unfortunately at the present moment, in no university there is any department of knowledge where this education is given where there is life after death. I am traveling all over the world. There is no such department. They have completely evaded or set aside because they cannot make any solution whether there is... I talked with one Mr. Kotovsky, a Russian professor in Moscow. I was in Moscow. He said, "Swamiji, there is no life after death." Just see. He's a big professor and his knowledge is so imperfect that he says that there is no life after death. So that is the position everywhere. Those who are teachers, they are with imperfect knowledge. The teachers in the universities, they are with imperfect knowledge. Now, life after death, in the Bhagavad-gītā it is very easily explained that just like a child has next life, boyhood. The boy has next life as youthhood. The youthhood has next life, the old age. So why not the old age next life? If we are passing through so many stages of life from birth or from the womb of the mother, then what is the reason that one does not believe there is no life after death?
Room Conversation -- July 4, 1972, New York:
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Viṣṇujana: They're not getting young priests. Only this movement is getting young priests.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Very young. Just from the womb of the mother. (laughter) Yes?
Devotee: (indistinct) go Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Yes, I'm ready. (break—conversation in car) That building is Empire Building?
Devotee: Yes. Empire State Building.
Devotee (2): These are now world's biggest, these buildings here, those big square ones. (World Trade Center buildings).
Room Conversation -- July 4, 1972, New York:
Prabhupāda: That's all right. How He took birth?
Devotee child (1): Did He take birth? A four-armed form. He took birth as four-armed form. He came out from Devaki's womb.
Prabhupāda: You have seen any child with four arms? Have you seen?
Devotee child: (1) Hmmh.
Prabhupāda: Where?
Devotee child (1): In pictures.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Devotee child (1): In the picture. Here.
Prabhupāda: Picture. In life have you seen four arms? No?
Devotee child (1): What?
Prabhupāda: One child with four arms, have you seen?
Morning Walk Conversation -- September 28, 1972, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: The bubble. It is expanded and popped. It is like that. Kṛṣṇa says (Sanskrit) aśāśvatam, and we are seeing, experiencing every day. So why should we spoil our life by making adjustment in this popped universe? It will be popped, and all arrangement phat. Everyone knows it. Such a nice city of Los Angeles, there is no guarantee. Within a second, it can be inundated, go within the womb of this ocean.
Jayatīrtha: You can get any kind of insurance on a building here in Los Angeles but the only kind, it's so expensive, no one can afford, is earthquake insurance. Hardly anyone will write earthquake insurance because they have such a fear that the earthquake will come at any time, and no one wants to gamble their money on someone else's building, that it will not fall apart in an earthquake. The threefold miseries are always a factor. No one can avoid them. (indistinct) asked one question. Someone sent some dust from the...
Introduction Speech By Dr. Kapoor and Conversation -- October 15, 1972, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: So distribute. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Everyone: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) (some conversation in Hindi) tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9). Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti. (Hindi) Mām eti. Immediately. I have given them this idea that senses, finer than the senses is the mind, and finer than the mind is intelligence, and finer than the intelligence is the soul. So the speed of soul one can imagine by comparing the speed of the mind. The speed of the mind... You are sitting here. You can go immediately by the speed of mind, immediately twenty thousand miles or fifty thousand miles. But the soul is still finer. So how speedily we can go. That's a fact. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti. Because according to śāstra, we can understand that when it is settled up where the spirit soul is going to take birth... It is very shortly settled up, and then immediately he is transferred to the semina of the father. Karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa jantur dehopapattaye (SB 3.31.1). This is in the Bhāgavata. According to his karma and by the consideration of superior authority, the spirit soul is immediately transferred in the semina of the male, father. And he injects in the womb of the woman.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Morning Walk -- April 19, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Then where is the test tube? It is taken from the living entities.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Then where is the test tube? Test tube is a place for combination. As it is combined in the womb. So that is not advancement.
Karandhara: The womb's already doing it very nicely.
Prabhupāda: Nicely. What is your credit?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They want to, they want to be very proud that they'll be able to do it outside the womb.
Prabhupāda: But that's all right. At least you are not able to do it now. But where is the credit because it is already being done.
Morning Walk -- April 21, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: But that means that is not... Originally, it is from life. Seed is from the life. So where is your proof that matter produces life? Then you have to accept: life produces life. According to our śāstra, within the semina of the father, the living body, living entity, takes shelter. And it is injected to the mother's womb and the two matters mixes and the body forms. This is our śāstric explanation. Not that the semina discharged by the father, that is life. No. Within that semina, the living entity takes shelter. And it is put into favorable condition. Then it develops the body. This is... We, we find in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. That putting of the living entity in a particular type of semina depends on higher authorities. The higher authorities will judge what kind of body this living entity, after leaving this body, will get. So by higher authority it will be directed to enter into the semina of such father, and it will be injected into the womb of the mother.
Morning Walk -- May 12, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Yes. These chemical elements will already help him, by nature's way. Just like you put a seed on the earth. So other things necessary for fructifying that seed, that is already there. They will come to help it. That is already there. Just like the living entity in seed form is impregnated within the womb of the mother. The mother has got within the womb all ingredients. Body will develop. On account of the presence of the living entity, by the laws of nature, everything is there. A dog is forming dog's body, man is forming man's body. Why? Because everything is there. A cat is forming cat's body in the womb of the... Yathā yonir yathā bījam. You haven't got to search out. It is already there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So they may ask, "How do I know that the living entities..."
Prabhupāda: What you know? You do not know first of all. Therefore you have to take information from the śāstra. Karmaṇā daiva netreṇa jantur dehopapattaye (SB 3.31.1). This is there. The jīva is doing something, and higher authorities are giving him the result: "Now you have done this. Now you live in this way, in condition."
Morning Walk -- May 14, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Yes. After awaken, when one becomes tired he comes to sleep. Or the life, when it is somehow or other disturbed, sleepless comes. When at night we sleep and get up in the morning, it is not that from sleeping condition this life condition has come. I slept some reason or I was in life condition, but I slept, again I am coming to life. That is their philosophy. Just like a child, baby comes from the womb of the mother. From the day he comes out of the womb, if he thinks, "Now, from this day my life has begun." That is not the fact. He's eternal, but he was constructing his body within the womb of the mother, therefore he was unconscious. Now, as soon as the body is finished, he comes out and again comes to consciousness.
Room Conversation with Lord Brockway -- July 23, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: And ignorance. If we give service in ignorance, without knowing what is what, that kind of service may lead us to become punished. So we must know what kind of service we shall give. So real suffering of the society, human society, or any society you take, real suffering is, because the living entity has forgotten God, so he is being punished in different way by the material nature. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). So many ways. But everyone is being punished. At least, the three kinds... Why three kinds? That is stated in Bhagavad-gītā, that this is also punishment, repetition of birth and death. This is also punishment. Because we are eternal. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). We are spirit soul, we are eternal. So our, this constant change of body, birth and death, that is also punishment. Because nobody wants to die. Because he is eternal. How he'll like to die? He wants to keep his eternal position, but he, because he's criminal... Just like one man is condemned to die, murderer. So he has to die. But he wants to protect himself, placing himself in the court, "How to save? How to save?" So that is our natural tendency, that we do not want to die. Why? Because we are eternal. We have got the prerogative. So if... Anyone does not want to die. Anyone does not want to take birth even. Now we have forgotten. Otherwise, in the womb of the mother, everyone knows that we are kept in such a way, in a packed, compact water bag, without any facility to move, not only for one day, two day, but ten months. Medical science knows, everyone knows. And at that time there are worms in the womb of the mother. They're taking the advantage, delicate skin. They also bite. And he cannot make any protest. He moves sometimes. The child moves. These are the sufferings. But we do not take care. If I have to take birth again, then I have to go, again enter into the womb of the mother, and, to develop my body and in such precarious condition, the body will develop.
Room Conversation with Mister Popworth and E. F. Schumacher -- July 26, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: Now, their theory is that when the child comes out of the womb, then he gets the soul. Is it not?
Revatīnandana: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Not within the womb.
Haṁsadūta: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: What kind of theory it is? For killing the child within the womb, they have discovered this theory.
Schumacher: I think if there is any difficulty... Well, I happen to be a vegetarian.
Revatīnandana: Yes.
Room Conversation with Graham Hill Former World Champion Race Car Driver -- London, August 26, 1973:
Prabhupāda: That is ultimate goal. So long we do not go back to home, back to Godhead, we have to, in our material existence, we have to change from one body to another. That is going on. And there are 8,400,000 forms of bodies. The cats and dogs, they are also living entities, but they have got a different type of body. Every one of us, different type body. Even they are children, their body is different from your body. Even the (indistinct). Although their body is obtained, there are some similarities. But if you analyze very scrutinizingly there will be some difference from your body, from your daughter's body, from your boy's body. So every body, every living entity is getting a certain type of body according to his desire. According to his desire. So that desire means material enjoyment. Just like you have got certain desire to become champion in racing. Another body has got desire to become something else. Another body has got desire for something else. So we have got this freedom by the grace of God or Kṛṣṇa. Because we are children. He has given freedom. "All right, if you want this, take it." In this way our life is going on. This is called birth and death. One chapter you are finishing in one life, next chapter begins another life. Next chapter begins another life. So the problem is birth and death. But nobody wants birth and death. Nobody wants. But it is there on account of our material life. So in material life there are four problems: birth, death, old age, and disease. So long one has to accept a material body, he has to accept these miseries also. Birth is also misery. When the child remains within the womb, in a compact bag...
Room Conversation with Graham Hill Former World Champion Race Car Driver -- London, August 26, 1973:
Prabhupāda: Yes, in the past. You forgot, but in the past you had life. Just like in the past I was young man. That's a fact. Similarly, but that young body is no more existing. Similarly, I had a past life but I have forgotten. That is the... Forgetfulness is our nature. Death means forgetting what was your first, past life. That is by nature you become forgetful because if you remember our past life and compare with this life... Suppose one was very rich man and if he becomes a poor, a cat and dog, then if he remembers, then it is very unbearable for him. Therefore nature helps him to forget. Forget. Otherwise he cannot do it. But the real problem is that we are eternal soul, we are changing our body one after another, birth and death. Apart from worldly happiness and distress, this birth and death, that is not very good process. At death time we have to suffer so much that we give up this body. And then again we enter into the womb of a mother. That is not very good situation. Then when come out there are so many tribulations, disease, then again old age. So people do not understand that he is passing... Especially when we are in other than human life. There are 8,400,000 species of life. Aquatics, then birds, trees, plants, insects, then beasts. In this way we come to human form of life. This is evolution. So in this human form of life there is chance of understanding the problems of life. In other forms of life it is not possible.
Morning Walk -- August 30, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: This is their rascal's philosophy. They have no idea that by training one can forget sex life. So if you forget sex life, where is the question of abortion? Where is the question of abortion? But they cannot do that. Therefore, it is said adānta-gobhir viśatāṁ tamisram (SB 7.5.30). By nonrestricted sense enjoyment they are gradually going to the animal, lower grade of life. They cannot explain why there are so many varieties of life. They cannot explain. So this killer of baby within the womb, so the result will be that this man who is, I mean to say, indulging in abortion, he'll be put into the womb, and somebody will kill him. And as many wombs or babies he has killed, he'll have to take so many lives and being killed. So much so that it will be rather impossible for him for hundreds of years not to see the light. He'll remain in the womb and being killed. Does not know the nature's law. One cannot violate the nature's law. You can violate the state law. Suppose you kill somebody, you can escape by trick. But you cannot escape nature's law. As many times you have killed, so many times you have to be killed within the womb. This is nature's law.
Morning Walk -- August 30, 1973, London:
David Lawrence: I was very interested to talk to a nurse in one of the main London hospitals only last week in fact, and she was saying that they're having an almost impossible time trying to man these abortion wards now because all the nurses and doctors just don't want to do the work. In some cases, she was saying, that they take a baby from its mother's womb and it's sort of put onto a tray and thrown into a litter bin and you can see it moving!
Prabhupāda: Yes.
David Lawrence: And they've had one or two cases at their hospital where they've gone out afterwards and they've seen babies moving! Terrible.
Prabhupāda: It has been seen in Calcutta also, in dust bin found out some child, dust bin.
David Lawrence: Terrible. Some are in such an advanced state of pregnancy that clearly life is a strong possibility.
Morning Walk -- August 30, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: Yes.
David Lawrence: "O, well you know, hair's got to be washed, we wash hair. Womb's got to be cleaned out, we clean the womb out." Just like that.
Prabhupāda: And where is movement in the shampoo? That means that human beings are simply being put into ignorance, animal kingdom. This is modern civilization.
David Lawrence: Yes, yes.
Prabhupāda: To keep people in ignorance, in darkness, is ajānat. Ajānat. The Sanskrit word is ajānat. Lokasya ajānat. Ajānat means to keep in darkness. They do not know anything about the importance of life. Ajānat. Yayā sammohito jīva ātmānaṁ tri-guṇātmakam (SB 1.7.5). By this ajānat principle a man considers that this, "I am this matter." They are all doing all these things because they have no spiritual understanding.
Room Conversation -- September 1, 1973, London:
Prabhupāda: Purport?
Śrutakīrti: It is clearly stated here that the Supreme Lord, although aloof from all the activities of the material world, remains the supreme director. The Supreme Lord is the supreme will and the background of this material manifestation, but the management is being conducted by material nature. Kṛṣṇa also states in Bhagavad-gītā that of all the living entities in different forms and species, "I am the Father." The father gives seeds to the womb of the mother for the child, and similarly the Supreme Lord by His mere glance injects all the living entities into the womb of material nature, and they come out in their different forms and species, according to their last desires and activities. All these living entities, although born under the glance of the Supreme Lord, still take their different bodies according to their past deeds and desires.
Morning Walk -- December 18, 1973, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Because his eyes have no value without hearing from the authority. These are the general psychology. He has got eyes. Let him be educated at home. Why he is sent to school? Let him see everything. How these rascals say like that, I am surprised. "I cannot see in my eyes." You cannot see in your eyes what was the length and breadth of your body in the mother's womb. But does it mean that you did not exist in the mother's womb? You cannot see who is your father. How do you believe that this is my father? Is that depending on your eyes? Then what is the value of your eyes? Why these rascals say that "I do not see." These things prove that they are rascals.
Girirāja: Most of the things in their theories they also have not seen.
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Morning Walk -- January 22, 1974, Hawaii:
Prabhupāda: Well, that doesn't mean... Every man looks like another man; that does not mean he has come from him. He has got a different father.
Nitāi: One experiment that they've come up with is that they study the embryo within the womb.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Nitāi: They study the embryo within the womb.
Prabhupāda: No, that is your experience, but I have not seen. Why shall I believe you? I have not seen. Why will I believe you? What is the answer? You say so many rascaldom, but I have not seen. Why shall I believe you?
Satsvarūpa: Well, like Professor Kotovsky said to you, "We accept it because a scientific body has presented it. We can't experiment."
Morning Walk -- March 23, 1974, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: You cannot say that!
Dr. Patel: Shall I talk it now?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: When this body was being manufactured in the embryo, in the womb.
Prabhupāda: No, I know that you don't require this! I know that.
Dr. Patel: Yes.
Prabhupāda: It is matter. But it becomes varieties.
Dr. Patel: It was not matter to anyone.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: That was also inside.
Morning Walk -- March 29, 1974, Bombay:
Indian man (4): No, no, no. (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: In the Bhāgavata it is recommended. In the Bhāgavata it is recommended, that when Kṛṣṇa is asking for Devī to go take birth in the womb of Yaśodā, Kṛṣṇa is inducing that He'll get so many sacrifices. Yes. So that is the (Sanskrit), animal sacrifice.
Indian man (4): Therefore (Sanskrit) ah? Vairāgyam neyem aprti śrī kṛṣṇa...(?) He is recommending the fools, the fools who have got no...
Prabhupāda: (indistinct) advised to the fools, why the Vedas cannot?
Indian man (4): Vedas they have advised to the fools to (indistinct). But he has advised another fools not to eat it.
Morning Walk -- April 2, 1974, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: And again there is kalpa. Again they come out. In this way they do not become liberated. Just like the child, those who are being, what is called, contraceptive method, abortion. These are very sinful. Because they have done killing, so they enter into the mother's womb and they are again killed, and again enter into the mother's womb, and again killed. He does not see the light. Similarly, those who are sinful, they are given chance in material manifestation, "Now work for Kṛṣṇa consciousness." But they do not do that. Again enters, again come out. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). This is going on. How much they are wasting their time, not taking to Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Morning Walk -- April 3, 1974, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: Now here is one important thing: śaśi-sūrya-netram. The śaśi, the moon, and the sun are the two eyes of God. Now in Brahma-saṁhitā it is also confirmed yac-cakṣur eṣa savitā sakala-grahāṇām. So in the Upaniṣads it is said, "When God sees, then you can see." So this... When the sunrise is there, that means when God sees, you can see. In the darkness you cannot see. And still, you are proud of your eyes. Yes. Without God seeing, you cannot see. And still, these rascals are proud of their eyes. "I can... Can you show me?" How you can see? First of all you have to see through the Supreme. And another significance is that you cannot hide yourself from the seeing of the Supreme. You cannot make anything hiding. Because even in the womb there is sunshine, sunlight. So He is seeing there. Apart from being the Paramātmā, from materially also, His eyes are always there. So you cannot do anything hiding. That is not possible.
Morning Walk -- April 7, 1974, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: This example is given. Suppose we are walking. This step, when I assure that "This is all right, it is not, it will not go down," then I take up this. Then again this. This example is given. Similarly, change of body like that. As soon as it is settled up what kind of body he is going to accept or which is being offered to him, daiva-netreṇa, by higher authority, then this man leaves this body and again enters in the womb of the body which he is destined to get. This is the process of death.
Yadubara: Is that immediate, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Immediate. Just like immediate I am walking. When it is fixed up, then I take up. Then when it is fixed up, then I take up, like this. Immediately.
Yaśomatīnandana: What about hell? How does the jīva soul go to hell?
Morning Walk -- April 7, 1974, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: There is statement like that, that one is put into the hellish condition for practicing little, and then he is put into the womb of such mother.
Yaśomatīnandana: Is that a long duration of practice or just..., very short?
Prabhupāda: No, very short. Short mean their short. It may take little more time.
Girirāja: Now they have machines that when the person is in coma, the machines artificially keep the heart beating and the other processes...
Prabhupāda: Then heart beating will go on, either you apply machine or no machine. Heart beating. But when the heart stops, no machine can revive it. So what is the use of machine? But by nature's way when the heart beating will stop, no machine can help. That is not possible.
Morning Walk -- April 8, 1974, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: He could beget a child like Vyāsadeva. (break)
Girirāja: (reading from Kṛṣṇa Book) "Chapter Two. Prayers by the Demigods for Lord Kṛṣṇa in the Womb. King Kaṁsa not only occupied the kingdoms of the Yadu, Bhoja and Andhaka dynasties and the kingdom of Śūrasena..." (break)
Prabhupāda: So the only expense... (break) ...intention of Kṛṣṇa.
Girirāja: Kṛṣṇa and yog...
Prabhupāda: (break) ...he says, this mantra, nāyam ātmā bala-hīnā na labhya, he says, "Unless you very, become very stout and strong, there is no question of advancement in spiritual life. Therefore we should first of all eat meat and become very strong, and then we'll be spiritual realized."
Morning Walk -- June 2, 1974, Geneva:
Prabhupāda: Yes. Wrong civilization, rascal civilization. And this is due to this rascaldom, nationalism, "This is my land." And at any moment he will be kicked out. Still, he claims, "It is my land." Ahaṁ mameti, janasya moho 'yam ahaṁ mameti (SB 5.5.8). This is the illusion. Nothing belongs to him; still he is fighting, "This is mine. This is mine." "I" and "mine." Identifying himself with this body, "I", and wrongly conceiving that "This is mine." This is the basic principle of wrong civilization. Both things are... Nothing belongs to him. Suppose I have come here in Switzerland. If I remain here for one month and I claim, "Oh, this is mine," what is this? So similarly, I come as guest. Everyone comes as guest in the womb of his mother and lives here for fifty years. He is claiming, "It is mine." When, when, when it became yours? The land was long, long time before your birth.
Room Conversation with Robert Gouiran, Nuclear Physicist from European Center for Nuclear Research -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:
Prabhupāda: So we understand the matter generates from spirit. Just like I am a small fragment of spirit. You are also a small fragment of spirit. So when I am in the womb of my mother, so my big body grows. On account of my spirit, small particle of spirit, coming in the womb, in the womb of my mother, the body grows. So it is evident that this body has grown because the spirit soul is there. Suppose a dead child comes out. The matter will not grow. The material body will stop growing. Therefore the conclusion is matter grows on account of the spirit fragment. Do you agree or not?
Robert Gouiran: I... Do you mean that matter grows starting from a spiritual seed, something like that?
Room Conversation with Robert Gouiran, Nuclear Physicist from European Center for Nuclear Research -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:
Prabhupāda: No, now, first of all, let us understand what is matter and what is spirit. Spirit is also energy, and matter is also energy. The matter, when it comes in contact with the spiritual energy, then it grows. Otherwise, it does not grow. Therefore the growing process depends on the spirit. Take this example, my body, your body. The spirit soul when it is in the womb of the mother, then it grows. The abdomen of the mother grows out. But if the spirit soul is not there, then it will not grow. There are many sex intercourse, but if the spirit soul is not there, the sex intercourse will not turn into pregnancy. Do you realize this?
Robert Gouiran: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Then how the material body grows? Because the spirit soul is there. Is there any denial?
Robert Gouiran: We call in a way, but...
Morning Walk -- June 6, 1974, Geneva:
Satsvarūpa: On a morning walk in Los Angeles, Svarūpa Dāmodara said they are now going to produce babies in a test tube, and you said "But that's already being done in the womb. That's a very nice test tube." He said, "But he'll get a Nobel Prize." So that's the example. Nature's already doing it nicely. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...produce even a green grass like this in the laboratory, what to speak of other things.
Yogeśvara: If producing life was worthy of a Nobel Prize, then they should give every mother in the world a Nobel Prize.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. (pause)
Yogeśvara: Actually, I think they should give you the Nobel Prize.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Yogeśvara: You've been creating devotees.
Prabhupāda: Oh, I, I am natural dog, and they'll not give me prize. (laughs) They'll give prize to the artificial dog.
Morning Walk -- June 13, 1974, Paris:
Prabhupāda: You don't know Kṛṣṇa, but it belongs to somebody. He may be named as Kṛṣṇa or something else. That doesn't matter. But it is, it does not belong to you. How you can deny it? You have come here... Suppose I have come here, in Paris. I stay here for one week, two. Does it mean Paris is mine? Similarly, you come from the womb of your mother and stay here, say, fifty years. That is mean yours? The same example. Does it mean that the world belongs to you? Why you are claiming, "This is France," "This is Europe," "This is America," "This is mine," "This is mine..."? Before your birth it was there, and when you go, it will remain there. So how you claim that it is yours? So you don't... You must know as it remained, it was there before my birth, and it will remain after my departure. Then how it belongs to you? What is the answer?
Morning Walk -- June 14, 1974, Paris:
Bhagavān: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in the Bhagavad-gītā, you state that sometimes they begin to take on these demonic qualities within the womb. These demonic qualities are inherited from the past life. So if we begin Kṛṣṇa conscious education very young, it's possible to stop these demonic qualities from developing?
Prabhupāda: No. His demonic qualities will be purified. Otherwise, what is the use of preaching? If the qualities cannot be changed, then what is the meaning of preaching?
Bhagavān: No, I said if we begin education early, they can be...
Prabhupāda: Yes, as early as possible. From the very womb, you begin education. Let the mother hear about Kṛṣṇa. He'll be purified from the womb. Just like Prahlāda Mahārāja became. He was born by a demon father. But his quality changed when his mother was instructed by Nārada Muni, everything was changed. If the demons cannot be changed, then what is the meaning of preaching?
Room Conversation with devotees about Twelfth Canto Kali-yuga, and Conversation with Guest -- June 15, 1974, Paris:
Prabhupāda: No. No, no. "Died" means that is similar death. Janma karma me divyam (BG 4.9). Just like Christ take birth from the womb of Mary. It appears like that, but actually that is not. (French)
French Woman: No, it is very important that the death of Christ is a real death. For us, it is the center of our faith.
Yogeśvara: They say that the central point of their philosophy is that Lord Jesus actually died. (French)
Prabhupāda: No, according to Vedic conception, even ordinary living being, he does not die. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). You understand Sanskrit?
French Woman: No, I don't understand it by hearing it. You have to read it.
Prabhupāda: Na hanyate, does not die, hanyamāne śarīre, apparently, the body being dead, the soul is never dead. (French)
Morning Walk -- June 19, 1974, Germany:
Prabhupāda: So how do you say there is no perception? So this transmigration of soul takes place that... Just like in daytime we are in this body, nighttime we leave this body and work with the subtle body, so transmigration soul takes place—with that subtle body he enters the womb of suitable mother, and this body is left. And there he grows again this gross body and then comes out. Is it difficult to understand? That is not illusion. That's fact. And death means that you left this gross body and the period you do not come out in another gross body, that period is called death. That period is called death.
Satsvarūpa: So you are dead for about seven months.
Morning Walk -- June 19, 1974, Germany:
Prabhupāda: Yes, that may be, according to the body you are getting. There are 8,400,000 species of body. So according to your work you will be allowed to enter into the womb of mother. How can you check it? Where is your scientist? That is nature's law, automatically. Just like if you are infected, you get this disease. That's all. There is no need of mother nature will take personal... No, the rules are so fine that you will get automatically. Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate svā-bhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). The Kṛṣṇa's energies are so powerful and subtle that it takes everything takes automatically. One set up, then after that, after that, after that, after that—everything is there. Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi (BG 3.27). Everything is described in the Bhagavad-gītā. You have no control. You are simply under the grip of material nature. Everything, whatever you are doing, immediately it is being recorded automatically. Just like automatic printing press. You simply push the paper, and magazine comes. If you can manufacture some machine, you rascal, then how subtle machine can work on under the supervision of the Supreme?
Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany:
Prabhupāda: Yes. And they have problem. They are killing only. The human society, they should be advanced so much that even the birds, they have nothing to kill for their eating. They have got sufficient food. And we are advanced human being. We are killing for eating instead of God giving us so much food, enough food. And they are still puffed up with advanced civilization. They have not even human feeling. These poor cows, they are giving us milk, the most nutritious food, and we can prepare so many nice nutritious foodstuff. So let them live. And if I want to eat at all, let it die. Then we shall eat. Why kill it? So they have no common sense. And they are leading the sinful life; still, they are very much proud of their civilization. And they are suffering periodical wars, war number one, war number two, war number three. This number will increase. Not only... Without war, thousands of children are being killed within the womb. This is going on. If you kill, then you be killed. This is nature's reaction. You will be killed within the womb. You will never see the sunlight. Again you die, again enter another womb, and again be killed. This has increased in modern society. Even the father, mother does not want to see the child living: "Kill him." And a few days, few years after, we shall kill each other. So they are not afraid of any sinful life. You see? The nature will not tolerate.
Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany:
Prabhupāda: That's it. So this we can experience, that as soon as the spirit is entered into the womb of the mother, they develops skin and the child develops body. So this is very practical, that first of all, not that simply by sexual intercourse a child is born. Then every the time sexual intercourse would have caused pregnancy. No. Unless the spirit soul is there, there is no question of developing body. Therefore it is natural that the spirit soul creates this flesh and bone and other things and develops into body. There is no difficulty to understand.
Dr. P. J. Saher: Yes, but I think the professor was asking how in our time in the case of a word, as far as spirit becoming flesh, not in the face of an ordinary child. I think I have understood your point?
Morning Walk -- June 20, 1974, Germany:
Prabhupāda: Anybody can understand. I am coming, going, but when it is a question of vacating, I go out of the apartment, but I never come back again. I will enter another apartment. "The soul enters another body" means enters the womb of another mother. And there the suitable body is created and again mother delivers the child. Again new chapter of life begins. Where is the difficulty to understand? But they are so rascal and dull-headed, the simple thing they cannot understand. And still, they are big, big scientists, philosophers, and cheating others. They are unable to understand, themselves, and the same rascal knowledge they are distributing to others and taking Nobel Prize. This is the mūḍhas, the society of the cheaters and the cheated. Where is the difficulty to understand the simple thing, how the soul is transmigrating? They sometimes say that "We do not see how it is going." No, how...? Can you see the mind? But can you deny, "There is no mind?"
Morning Walk -- June 22, 1974, Germany:
Prabhupāda: The animals, they are living in their own atmosphere, and these people, they come to kill them. Killing business has become very prominent at the present moment, and therefore they are being killed in the womb of the mother, abortion and killing child. That they do not know. Nature will not excuse you. You are killing; you'll be killed within your mothers' womb. You'll never see the light of the sun. You go on being killed, one after another, as many animals you have killed. They do not know. And time will come in this age when there will be no food and man will kill man and eat. That time is coming. Yes. They are now killing animal, but animal lives on this grass and grains. When there will be no grass, no grains, where they will get animal? They'll kill their own son and eat. That time is coming. Nature's law is that you grow your own food. But they are not interested in growing food. They are interested in manufacturing bolts and nuts.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Room Conversation with Woman Sanskrit Professor -- February 13, 1975, Mexico:
Prabhupāda: He could not finish. You see? There are so many things. We are thinking, "By finishing this, we shall be happy," but that is sometimes hampered. So ānanda is checked. So this is the position. So higher means where ānanda is not checked. That is higher position. The purpose is ānanda, but in this material world we are experiencing ānanda being checked. Just like nobody wants to die. That's a fact. Why you shall die? I already discussed that I know that I was a child, I was a boy, I was a young man, and now I have got this body, old man's body. It is now going to finish. So I am little anxious. Now, whatever ānanda I was drawing in my living condition, now it is going to be finished. But if we think properly that "I am eternal, so although the body will be finished, I'll not be finished..." This is very natural, that "I was not finished. Because my childhood body was finished, so I was not finished. My boyhood body was not finished; I was not finished. My youthhood was finished, but I was not finished." Similarly, the conclusion should be: "Even though this body will be finished, I'll not be finished." That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, tathā dehāntara prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13). Dhīra, one who is intelligent, he is not disturbed. Dhīras tatra na muhyati. So dhīra, one who is dhīra, sober, philosopher, he knows that "I am not going to be finished. I shall have to accept another body." Now, whether that body will be ānanda? That is the consideration. I'll get another body, just like I have got this body, after changing so many bodies. Moment after moment, we are changing body. That is the medical science, changing of blood corpuscles. So this body will be changed again. Then I will have to enter the mother's womb and packed up for at least ten months in suffocated condition.
Room Conversation -- February 15, 1975, Mexico:
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like the baby is, the soul is, transmigrated from baby's body to child's body, child's body to boy's body, boy's body to youthful body, so the body vanishes, and because the soul remains, he gets another body. Now I am old man. I remember I had a child's body, I was lying down. I quite remember it. But that body is not existing. So this is the example. Everyone has experience. This is transmigration of the soul from one body to another. And at the time of death, the psychological condition of the mind will carry me to a suitable body, and I shall enter into the womb of my mother through the semina of the father, and the mother will give that a particular type of body, and when it is completely manufactured, then I come out and begin my again. Therefore we find varieties of forms, but in each and every form there is the soul. Now, in the human form of life, we should utilize our intelligence that "This constant change of body, how it can be stopped?" And we should remain in our eternal body because I am eternal, but psychologically I am simply changing different forms of body, and at the time of change of body I have to undergo so many sufferings. To remain within the womb of the mother for ten months in packed up condition, it is a very terrible punishment. But for each new birth, we have to undertake this terrible suffering.
Room Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- February 28, 1975, Atlanta:
Prabhupāda: If sexual intercourse is the beginning of life, then why it is not always successful? We say that when the life, living entity, is there in the semina and it is put into the woman's womb, then body develops. Therefore, the beginning is the life. This is practical. And this life is the part and parcel of the supreme life. Therefore the beginning is God. Janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). Athāto brahma jijñāsā. So we have to establish this theory in this misguided world that... And besides that, why they cannot produce life from matter? What is the value of their statement? That they have not been able to do. Where is the proof that from matter life comes? You do it.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Proof is under investigation. (laughter)
Room Conversation -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:
Guest (1): No, Swamiji, it's a matter of opinion when the mentally fetus becomes an individual. If you think that as soon as it is conceived, it is an individual—of course it is because it's going to grow into one—then of course it's killing.
Prabhupāda: You believe that the child in the womb is not individual?
Guest (1): No, I don't have any personal thoughts about it though. But I think if a woman thinks that she is not suited as a mother...
Prabhupāda: Then why she has sex?
Guest (1): Well, in this present world I think, you know, sex is not for procreation, it is more for fun. I think ninety-nine percent of the couples who indulge in sex do not think of children at that time.
Prabhupāda: But that is sinful.
Room Conversation -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:
Guest (1): Just to give one example, these days the science experiments have conclusively done that a particular egg can be in the body of the womb, can be manipulated into either a male or a female.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. We say the soul is within the body so you can make it male or female, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. We are not concerned with male and female, we are concerned with the soul.
Guest (1): Science does manipulate life.
Prabhupāda: Maybe, even if you manipulate, then what you have done? You cannot create the soul, that is not possible. If you manipulate life then give the dead body again energy to rise up. Then we shall (admit) that you can manipulate. Otherwise it is false. If you are so expert in manipulation, then give the dead body life again. That is my request. If depend on others and you manipulating, this false knowledge will not help.
Room Conversation -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:
Prabhupāda: Come... You can offer your obeisances. Hm, so that is the father's duty to see the child is grown completely spiritual, so that he may not have to come again in the mother's womb. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti (BG 4.9). So...
Devotees: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Thank you very much. (Indian guests leave and devotees offer obeisances.) I talk with the professor of religion sometimes, "What is the meaning of religion?"
Devotee: (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. What is that college you are employed?
Professor Fenton: Emory University. Its about three miles from here.
Prabhupāda: So, what definition you give to religion?
Morning Walk -- March 4, 1975, Dallas:
Jayatīrtha: Previously they said the cow has no soul, so therefore we can eat the cow. But now they say that man has no soul.
Prabhupāda: Yes, therefore kill in the womb. That is killing, the abortion, killing. That means advance of... advancement of ignorance is accepted as advancement of civilization. Why? The beginning is that there is no spiritual knowledge. Therefore the so-called advancement of ignorance is accepted as advancement of civilization. That is due to want of that basic principle of spiritual knowledge. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (devotees chant japa) (break)
Bhakta-rūpa: Perhaps that man thinks he has retired from working hard.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Morning Walk -- April 2, 1975, Mayapur:
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Seed.
Prabhupāda: There, that the, this grass is coming out of the earth. Wherefrom it is coming? Who has put the chemicals? And the eggs of the birds, they are produced in the womb of the birds, and from there the life is coming, the bird is coming. Where is the chemical?
Pañcadraviḍa: Well, that's just a complex chemical reaction. We can't explain it yet...
Prabhupāda: But "Can't explain"—that means you are fool. You remain fool. Don't try to expose yourself, nonsense. You are a rascal number one; you remain rascal number one. When the neck is caught up, he says, "Yes, it is complex. We shall see in the future." Why "future?" What about now?
Morning Walk -- April 3, 1975, Mayapur:
Prabhupāda: Yes, in... Not svarāṭ. We never find a gas is svarāṭ, matter is svarāṭ. They... Just this body. Has this body come out itself? Because the soul is there, the body has developed. Therefore the cause of this body is the soul. The body is not independent. And the soul goes away. Then body's no more independent. It cannot move. It becomes just like dust. "Dust thou art; dust thou be-est." (break) ...like this body is moving now, but it is not independent. It is dependent on the soul. The soul goes away; it does not move. So how it is independent? And everyone knows that because the soul takes shelter within the womb of the mother, the body develops. If the child comes out dead, it does not develop. Therefore matter is dependent on the soul, living being.
Rāmeśvara: Their argument is that matter is always in motion, that it is always moving.
Prabhupāda: Where is moving? This is moving?
Morning Walk -- April 23, 1975, Vrndavana:
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: In Vietnam, Śrīla Prabhupāda, I heard that the North Vietnamese and Vietcong were killing...
Prabhupāda: No, no. Now they are killing child in the womb. That killed child is taken in the hotel.
Brahmānanda: There was a report that that was going on in New York.
Prabhupāda: Yes?
Brahmānanda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: It is going on in London, in all civilized countries, advanced civilization.
Guest: And they say that there was report in Bombay also.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā?
Room Conversation with Ganesa dasa's Mother and Sister -- May 14, 1975, Perth:
Prabhupāda: No, he has taken that particular body in terms of his past activities. One is born as a human child; one is born as a dog, cat; one is born as something else. So according, the body is offered by material nature according to his work. That we were discussing, prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi (BG 3.27). Material nature, by the order... God is within you. God is sitting there. He knows what you want. So God orders material nature, "Give him such and such body. He wants to enjoy like this." So material nature... Just he gives up this body, he is under the control of the material nature. The material nature sends him to such a father and the father gives the semina in the mother's womb, and mother gives him the body.
Mother: I believe that there's God in everybody, but why are some people so evil?
Prabhupāda: Because he does not care for the words of God.
Mother: But as I say, God is within all of us.
Room Conversation with Ganesa dasa's Mother and Sister -- May 14, 1975, Perth:
Prabhupāda: Then he will suffer. He will constantly change his body one after another, sometimes good body, sometimes bad body, and he will suffer. So as soon as you accept a material body, you will suffer. It may be good body or bad body. It doesn't matter. Suffering is there. When a dog is taking birth, he has to take the suffering within the womb of his mother, and when a human man, human body is coming out, he has also to take the... It is not joke to remain ten months within the packed-up abdomen of the mother. Is it very pleasant, do you think? If you are kept in that way now, you will die within three seconds. In that condition you have to live ten months. So how much suffering it was!
Mother: Suffering for whom?
Room Conversation with Ganesa dasa's Mother and Sister -- May 14, 1975, Perth:
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is said here, that if you understand Kṛṣṇa, then after giving up this body—this is material body, you have to give up—so you are not coming again in the womb of another material mother. You are transferred to the spiritual world by nature's law. They do not know the subtle laws which is going on underneath. They are simply concerned superficially. Because they have no knowledge of the spirit soul—they think the body is everything—so therefore knowledge is imperfect. Body is only the covering. Real person is the spirit soul. So the modern education has no knowledge of this.
Mother: But most people are materialistically minded, aren't they? There's very few that aren't.
Gaṇeśa: Most people are materialistically minded. Not many people are spiritually inclined.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the defect of the modern civilization.
Room Conversation with Alcohol and Drug Hospital People -- May 16, 1975, Perth:
Prabhupāda: The prakṛti, material nature. That is said here. Just like for begetting a child, both the father and mother requires. So the material nature is the mother, and God is the father. So so many forms of life are coming from the womb of material nature. This body is made of matter. This body is earth, water, air, fire, like that. This is made of... But I am the soul. That is from God. I am part and parcel of God, as soul. Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ. Find out.
Paramahaṁsa:
- mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke
- jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ
- manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi
- prakṛti-sthāni karṣati
- (BG 15.7)
"Translation. The living entities in this conditional world are My eternal, fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind."
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guest (2): Is there an animal soul, Swami?
Morning Walk -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:
Prabhupāda: What you have seen? You have seen your father and mother, that's all. What you have seen? You are still in the womb of your mother. What you you have seen? You can simply falsely speculate, that's all. What you have seen? Are you seeing the stars now? Why you are not seeing? The stars are there, why you are not seeing?
Madhudviṣa: My eyes are not good enough.
Prabhupāda: Therefore if you have got imperfect eyes, what you can see? First of all you admit that you have got imperfect eyes. Then what you can see with your imperfect eyes? If you are a blind man, what is the use of telling, "I do not see." You are blind man, what you can see? First of all you admit that you are blind man, then talk of seeing. Therefore Vedic literature... Śāstra-cakṣus. You should see through śāstra, not your these blind eyes. Śāstra says there is Kṛṣṇa, He is doing like that. Cintāmaṇi-prakara-sadmasu kalpa-vṛk... You should see like that. What you see with your eyes? Why you are so proud of your eyes? Blind eyes. That is submission. Do you see who is your father? Why do you accept by the recommendation of the mother that "Here is your father."
Morning Walk -- May 20, 1975, Melbourne:
Prabhupāda: Eh, yes. Do you think that solving the problem of birth, death and old age and disease is very easy task? (chuckles) You have to very, very strongly... Those who do not care, that is another thing. They are under these laws, going on. Life after life, they are changing body, again birth, again death, again in the womb of mother. They do not take it seriously, how risky life is that. They do not take it. "Oh, what is that?" Now, in Kali-yuga, the mother is killing the child. Even within the womb of mother is not safe. This is going on. So they do not take that how this way of life is risky and uncomfortable. They do not take it seriously. To enter again into the womb of mother, how difficult job and troublesome it is, they do not understand it. For want of education.
Morning Walk -- May 23, 1975, Melbourne:
Prabhupāda: Yes, they will be punished. (pause) (break) ...so many motor accidents. And there will be war. Then wholesale punishment. Then killing, being killed within the womb of the mother. They are being punished. Nowadays these things have been introduced. Now this child which is being killed by the mother, they are all these sinful men. They cannot come out even, out of the womb of the mother. There they are killed. Nature's law is very strict.
Australian devotee 3: In the western society, Śrīla Prabhupāda, people who are displaying a very bad sinful reaction in their birth are put away in institutions so they cannot be seen by the general mass of people.
Prabhupāda: Hmm? What is that?
Morning Walk -- May 27, 1975, Honolulu:
Prabhupāda: Life enters into the matter. Then it comes out with a particular type of body. The soul enters in the womb of the mother and the mother gives the body. The soul comes through the semina of the father, and then the mother's ovum and father's semina mix together, creates a situation for developing a body. This is the science. Without that living entity there is no question of pregnant. Simply a mixture of matter. No, that is not possible. (Boys heckling in background.)
Boys: Rascals! Cheater!
Guru kṛpā: The all-American family. If the moon is illuminating the earth at night, then how come you have brought back dull pieces of rock. They should have also been shining.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is a common sense.
Morning Walk -- June 21, 1975, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Yes. Now, existing, but why you are in change? That is the question. "I am existing," that we say, but we are trying to solve the problem of changing. But this changing is not very happy, to die and again accept another body and remain to, in the womb of the mother to develop that body in an airtight condition. So why these foolish persons do not take it as very miserable? And with the risk of being killed by the mother. Nowadays their abortion and killing. So is it very nice life, that you die and you enter into the mother's womb to develop another body? And that also not secure. Is that very nice life? (break) Write many articles on this subject matter and prove them that "You are all fools." (break) ...major problem, they have left aside.
Bahulāśva: The main problem.
Room Conversation with Dr. John Mize -- June 23, 1975, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: No, egg is... The living entity is already there. Just like a woman is pregnant means the living entity is already there. So as soon as there is egg, the living entity is already there. It is taking time to come out. Just in the womb of the mother, the child is taking time to grow and become fit to come out.
John Mize: True, but the egg in the mother has been fertilized by the male sperm, whereas the egg laid by a chicken was not fertilized...
Prabhupāda: Not necessarily. They have got that potency. There are four kinds of birth: from the egg, from the vegetable, from fermentation, and from embryo. So from any of these four kinds of sources the living entity come out. Aṇḍa-ja, udbij-ja, jaraya-ja, and sveda-ja, the Sanskrit name. Sveda-ja, simply by perspiration. Just like unclean bed they produce bugs. The man gets perspiration, bad perspiration, and in contact with air, with this perspiration, the living entity comes. That is bug. This is called sveda-ja, "out of perspiration." Your coat, shirt, if you don't cleanse, or your body is unclean, you will find so many moths within the shirt. How it is coming? From the perspiration, bad perspiration, bad smell. Not that every time the male female combination required. There are other sources also.
Room Conversation with Mr. & Mrs. Wax, Writer and Editing Manager of Playboy Magazine -- July 5, 1975, Chicago:
Prabhupāda: Yes, therefore we say there is no first-class men to guide. They are killing child within the womb. They are not given chance to come out and see the light. And we are putting children at five, so we are criminal. They are denying the right of birth. So these things are happening because there is no first-class brain. Yes?
Mr. Wax: In your many visits around the world do you see a desire among many men to try to improve, to become first-class men?
Prabhupāda: Yes, in your country there are so many.
Mr. Wax: Is there a great desire around the world? We here are a small group.
Prabhupāda: Everywhere, everywhere. In Africa also.
Mr. Wax: There's hope for our world today?
Room Conversation with Mr. & Mrs. Wax, Writer and Editing Manager of Playboy Magazine -- July 5, 1975, Chicago:
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. It is a wholesale reaction. All these crises are taking place. They are killing their own child. Own child means that child is criminal; therefore it is being killed within the womb. Nature will take action. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). You are not independent. So if you work independently, then you will have to suffer. The law of nature is there. You cannot avoid it. If you infect some disease, you must suffer from the disease. You cannot avoid it. This is the law of nature. Law of nature is working in such a way that as you are infecting... Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgaḥ asya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu. Find out this verse. Why there are varieties of life. One is tree, one is cat, one is dog, one is human being, one is blind, one is lame, one is educated, one is foolish—why? Why the difference, varieties? And that is answered in the Bhagavad-gītā, kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya: "As you are infecting the modes of material nature, you are getting your birth." Otherwise, how you can explain by nature there are so many varieties of life, 8,400,000 species of life?
Room Conversation with Mr. & Mrs. Wax, Writer and Editing Manager of Playboy Magazine -- July 5, 1975, Chicago:
Jayatīrtha: You mentioned several times that those persons who are guilty of abortion, then they also enter a womb, but they never leave it alive. They're also killed within the womb.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That means... That child is killed means it must take another birth. Again in the womb it will be killed. Again another womb. This is going on. Mūḍha janmani janmani (BG 16.20). It is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, "Birth after birth they will be put into the darkness of life."
Nitāi:
- puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho hi
- bhunkte prakṛti-jān guṇān
- kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo'sya
- sad-asad-yoni-janmasu
- (BG 13.22)
"The living entity in material nature thus follows the ways of life, enjoying the three modes of nature. This is due to his association with that material nature. Thus he meets with good and evil amongst various species."
Television Interview -- July 9, 1975, Chicago:
Prabhupāda: Well, that is also another unnatural thing. Sometimes they use contraceptives. They kill children, abortion. That is also not very good. These are all sinful activities. These are sinful activities, to kill child in the womb. And take shelter of abortion. These are all sinful activities. One has to suffer for that.
Woman reporter: Is the social unrest in this country caused because...
Prabhupāda: Because of these things. They do not know that.
Woman reporter: And if women were subordinate to men, it would solve all of our problems?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Man wants that woman should be subordinate, faithful to him. Then he is ready to take charge. The man's mentality, woman's mentality different. So if the woman agrees to remain faithful and subordinate to man, then the family life will be peaceful.
Morning Walk -- September 3, 1975, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: This is the position. Even it is forbidden... In the Christian religion it is forbidden: "Thou shall not kill." And they are killing. That means envious of the animal, and he is envious of himself also. They are now being killed in the womb of the mother. Why the child is now being killed within the womb of the mother? Hm?
Akṣayānanda: Because they are envious. They are envious.
Prabhupāda: So Upendra has not come?
Brahmānanda: No.
Prabhupāda: Why?
Morning Walk -- October 2, 1975, Mauritius:
Prabhupāda: Satyānanda-cid-ātmani. Yogis, bhakti-yogis, they also want ānanda, but not this false ānanda, satyānanda-cid-ātmāni, iti... Therefore they call Rāma. Rāma means ramaṇa, enjoyment. Iti rāma-padenāsau paraṁ brahmābhidhiyate (CC Madhya 9.29). They do not know what is satyānanda. They do not understand, as soon as we accept this material body, it is misery, simply misery. The body is constructed within the womb of the mother in a miserable condition. These rascals, they do not understand. In a packed-up way, head down, leg up. And it is enjoyment. The body is created in this troublesome, from miserable condition; still, they say, "enjoyment." This is foolishness. This is called illusion.
Brahmānanda: Sigmund Freud, his philosophy is that that position in the womb was one of great security, and we all want to go back to that position.
Morning Walk -- October 18, 1975, Johannesburg:
Prabhupāda: So where is no suffering? Either legal or illicit, you have to suffer. Bahu-duḥkha bhajaḥ. Tṛpyanti neha kṛpana bahu-duḥkha bhajaḥ. These rascals, once they have done, "That's all right. You have got one child. Just take of." "No, again, again." Once you have committed sinful activities, killing the child in the womb, "All right, stop it now." "No, again." Tṛpyanti neha kṛpana. He's never satisfied. He knows that there is suffering behind this. Still, he'll not stop it. Therefore a sober man... A man should be educated to become sober, that "Let me tolerate this itching, that's all. I save so much trouble." This is knowledge. To become rascal and more rascal and more rascal and suffer, is that civilization? Simply to make the people rascal and suffer and commit suicide? Just tell them that he has created this civilization that suffer and become rascal. That's all. Unless you become rascal, how you will suffer? So keep them rascal and suffer. This is nature's arrangement, that "You living entity, you have forgotten Kṛṣṇa. All right, come under my control. Be rascal, remain rascal and suffer." Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā (BG 7.14).
Morning Walk -- October 21, 1975, Johannesburg:
Prabhupāda: And to kill, that is very human. Rascal. Kick them upon their face. You rascal, you are talking of morality, rascal, you go to hell. Your place is hell. "Devil citing scripture." You are not... You are so shameless that you do not be ashamed to speak like that. You are so shameless. Your civilization is so shameless. You are killing child in the womb, and you are talking "inhumanity." Just see. We have to deal with such fools and rascals.
Harikeśa: But they say the child in the womb is not living. They say it's not life yet. Only after it takes birth.
Prabhupāda: That is said by you. You, the tenth-class rascal, you say like that. No sane man says like that. Because you are a tenth-class rascal—you have no knowledge—you say like that. They are... The so-called scientists, they are tenth-class rascals.
Morning Walk -- October 21, 1975, Johannesburg:
Prabhupāda: Yes, think over. Write article. If there was no life who is at a certain stage in the womb, wherefrom the movement comes, if there was no life?
Harikeśa: They say it develops to the point...
Prabhupāda: But why it does not develop in a dead child, rascal? The same child, if it comes out dead, why the movement does not develop?
Harikeśa: Well, that one already developed properly and then died. That child already developed properly.
Prabhupāda: No, the process is the same. It was not moving. At a cetain stage it is moving. Similarly, if it is not moving, then wait for a certain stage; it will move. Why it is decomposed?
Harikeśa: But that dead child was moving and then died.
Morning Walk -- October 21, 1975, Johannesburg:
Harikeśa: Even the big, big philosophers simply say that life doesn't start until it comes out of the womb. They are just convinced of it. They are just convinced of it. No matter what argument you give, they are just simply convinced.
Prabhupāda: How they are convinced? Hm?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda's argument is that if life is not there in the womb, then how it develops?
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.
Morning Walk -- October 21, 1975, Johannesburg:
Prabhupāda: Yes. Mutual praising society. That's all. "I praise you and you praise me. I say you are very big; you say I am very big." That's all. And compromise. "I don't criticize you; you don't criticize me." That's all. (break) In the womb the child got life and when the... Sometimes some child comes, stunt. By process again he cries. So why the dead child is not brought into life by that? What do you call dead?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Stillborn. Still. When it's born dead.
Prabhupāda: So... No, no. How the life came? How it became dead? This is eucalyptus, very hard. Eucalyptus?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It has smell.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Very hard. No need. (break) ...question, ask them that in the egg there is no life, and the life is coming by what is called? Fermenta... No?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Fertilization?
Prabhupāda: Fertilization or... No, giving the heat?
Morning Walk -- October 25, 1975, Mauritius:
Prabhupāda: No, culture... They adopt real culture. What do they know about culture? They're killing their own children in the womb, and they're cultured? Worse than the animals. The animals do not do that. These rascals, they are cultured? So wretched and fallen, and they are claiming to be cultured.
Harikeśa: So you can't culture a superior man unless you are one yourself.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Harikeśa: It's not possible to culture a superior man unless you are one yourself.
Prabhupāda: Yes. First of all be yourself a cultured man, a gentleman. You are worse than animals. What animals cannot do, you are doing. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...man is defined by Cāṇakya Paṇḍit.
Morning Walk -- November 7, 1975, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: Models. Yes, exactly the word, model. You can display... Everything is there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, this anatomic, physiologic, how the child is growing within the womb of his mother.
Bhāgavata: Different...
Prabhupāda: Yes. One day, fifth day, and like that. In seven months how it is developed. Everything is there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata. Then you can display the hell, different hells.
Girirāja: Different hells.
Bhāgavata: Hells, oh, Fifth Canto.
Morning Walk -- November 20, 1975, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: He was born when his mother was widow, and she became pregnant by the priest. So she was going to kill herself. Then her father restrained her, that "Don't do it. Your... In the womb there is a big personality." So the brāhmaṇa community did not like her.
Yaśomatīnandana: Oh, I see.
Prabhupāda: Therefore he is called Śaṅkarācārya.
Indian man (2): Varṇa-saṅkara.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: (Hindi) Śaṅkara is the name of Śaṅkara. I don't agree you have said correctly.
Prabhupāda: Śaṅkara... Śaṅkara is Bhagavān. But because he is Śaṅkara, therefore he is not accepted as Bhagavān. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Morning Walk -- December 10, 1975, Vrndavana:
Indian man: Tilaka's(?) wife, she told me... She was very upset you know. One day she, when she came to see you and that one rascal yogi was there and he said that in the Vedas everything is mentioned that we can drink and woman and the man have equal right. Then you answered her, and she was also saying the same thing and you answered her, "Okay, if woman and the man have equal right, then why not your husband begot the children... Why not you begot the children in the womb of your husband?" And she was very upset, you know. She said, "Prabhupāda sometimes say the things like that which are unreasonable, you know."
Prabhupāda: It may require... No, I said that "If you are equal rights, then make some arrangement: sometimes you become pregnant; sometimes he becomes pregnant. Why there is not right, equal right?"
Morning Walk -- December 11, 1975, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: No. Because there is birth therefore you are killing. So birth problem is not solved.
Harikeśa: No, no, no. We're killing before birth.
Prabhupāda: What is this before birth. The child is already there... mother's womb.
Prabhupāda: Ah. That is you rascal you can say. Unless he has (sic) no life, how it is growing? Such a rascal...
Harikeśa: It's a lump.
Prabhupāda: ...they cannot understand. Does a dead child grow? Simply speaking nonsense!
Harikeśa: That's their whole argument for abortion.
Prabhupāda: That's alright but...
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Room Conversation -- January 3, 1976, Nellore:
Prabhupāda: You'll be put into further sufferings as soon as you violate the rules and regulation of the jail. You'll be put to a further term of suffering. Just like they are independently trying to avoid pregnancy, and the same man who has killed his own child, or same mother, he is being killed within the womb. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni (BG 3.27). Nature will not tolerate this. In India still these things are not happening because they are not so advanced to use all these contraceptive method. But in Europe, America, it has become a common affair to kill the child within the womb.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It is starting here also.
Prabhupāda: Yes, gradually. As soon as you kill, then you must be killed. This law is there: life for life. So where is your independence? Independence means you are inviting more sufferings, that's all. You go on, declare your independence. We are the only sane man. We have accepted that "We have no independence." Here Kṛṣṇa is asking. "Let me surrender unto..." That's all. So we have to convince the people, "Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is very scientific. You are foolishly rascal. You are trying to be independent. That is not possible. Kṛṣṇa is asking to surrender. You do that." That will make him happy.
Room Conversation -- January 16, 1976, Mayapur:
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...is in ignorance. Combination of matter and soul, moving animals. Some of them are standing as trees and plant, and some of them are moving. Where is the science to study? What is your value of knowledge? Hm? If they do not know the fundamental things, then what is the value of their knowledge? Simply observation, superficial, externally. There is good scope. They are receiving these books. We should take chance of preaching this Bhāgavatam, and the classes should be held especially.... No, the religious classes are already there. Let them study Bhāgavatam, Bhagavad-gītā. And they will accept it. They are not fools. Simply we have to introduce it. The Western people, they are not fools, but misguided. So you take the charge of guiding them; then Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement will be successful. They will appreciate, they will take it up and reform, and their life will be successful. And if they utilize their intelligence how to reduce population and kill child within the womb and "There is no soul in the womb. When they come out then the soul becomes"—what is this nonsense? Unless there is soul, how it becomes manifest?
Room Conversation -- January 16, 1976, Mayapur:
Hariśauri: It's obvious. If the body is growing within the womb, there must be life there.
Prabhupāda: The same process is going on from the very beginning. A body is formed and it develops. The child is born.... The same process is going on. How do you say there is no soul? If there is no soul, how it has developed within the womb? Such rascals, they are passing on as big scientists. What is the reason they don't believe that there is no soul?
Harikeśa: They have really no argument.
Prabhupāda: Just see. All dogmatic. All dogmatic foolishness they are propagating, and it is going on in the name of vijñāna, science.
Morning Walk -- March 25, 1976, Delhi:
Prabhupāda: Children will be born.... If you are.... If the child is sinful, then it will go to the womb of a mother who will kill him. That's all. By the will. By the.... That he should be punished. One who has used contraceptive and abortion method, by the will of God he will enter another mother, and the mother will kill him.
Cyavana: But the Bible, it indicates...
Prabhupāda: Now, now, you see, try, understand. You are very good Bible quoter, but try to understand each and everything. Simply you go on quoting, but understand what is that quotation. It is by the will of God. You have committed sinful life by contraceptive method. Now you enter in the womb of another mother and be killed. That is Bible.
Cyavana: So what is described there was not actually God consciousness or...
Prabhupāda: No, it is God consciousness if you understand it, that "I am now being punished by the will of God. I have done sinful activities." That is God conscious.
Guru dāsa: God gives what everyone wants.
Meeting with Bankers -- April 6, 1976, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: Anyway, so he was the father of the Yakṣas, this Kuvera. So Dhruva Mahārāja was a great devotee. You have heard the name of Dhruva Mahārāja. He was insulted by his stepmother. When he was young, very young child, so his father had two wives. So the junior wife was very pet to the husband, and the senior wife was not so much pet. But both of them had two sons. So the junior wife's son was sitting on the lap, a small child. So Dhruva Mahārāja was the son of the senior wife. As a child, he was also trying to sit down on the lap of the father. The other brother, he does not know stepbrother is brother. But the junior wife, she said, "My dear son, you cannot sit down on the lap of your father because you are not born in my womb. And that boy, the other boy, he is sitting on the lap of your father because he is born in my womb." So it was sarcastic remark, but Dhruva Mahārāja, although he was a child, four or five years old, he took it very seriously.
Morning Walk -- April 10, 1976, Vrndavana:
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, you made the statement the other morning that if someone kills a young child, it is condemned. So if someone is killing the young child within the womb, that also should be condemned.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Simply that they have no clear idea what consciousness is and what life is. Therefore all these things are going on.
Prabhupāda: All rascals. How they are risking their own life, karma-bandhana. Just like a thief. He is thinking "I am doing very nice business. Without any..., I am getting so much money." That is risky.
Hari-śauri: :Perhaps we cut across this way? This is a dead end here.
Prabhupāda: No, we shall come back.
Room Conversation -- April 20, 1976, Melbourne:
Prabhupāda: Yes. Immediately manufactured as soon as the living enters. Their chemical composition is that, that even you cut a living entity, he can enter. The living entity enters through the semina of the father in the womb of the mother, the same process. Unless the living entity enters, the body does not form. It is matter only. When the living entity enters, then the formation takes place according to his mind. What do they know about it? Hm? Yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante kalevaram (BG 8.6). The matter simply is set up according to the desire. Just like we have constructed this big house according to my desire. The matter has not taken shape like this big house automatically. I am the proprietor. I desire: "Let the rooms be like this." Similarly, the material elements, the semina of the father and the ova of the mother, mix. It creates a suitable, what is called, cement, and now, according to the desire of the living being, he'll settle. Not that the cement automatically becomes a room or pipe or this or that. Cement is cement, the same thing, earth, water, air, fire. By mixture it becomes so convenient that it takes a shape and becomes a different body, a different body for the man, a different body for the animal.... (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. Thank you.
Room Conversation -- April 22, 1976, Melbourne:
Prabhupāda: Before the childhood body and..., you were existing. Before your body was formed in the womb of your mother you were existing.
Brian Singer: Existing for millions of years.
Prabhupāda: Then you entered a matter, material body created by your father and mother. Then you grew. Then, when you were sufficiently grown, then you have come out. Then again grew, again grow, again grow. Again it becomes old. You give up this body, in the same way again enter another mother's body, again develop another body. This science has to be understood, how it is going on. And that is Bhagavad-gītā.
Brian Singer: And in the beginning of time of the soul?
Prabhupāda: Why...? There is no beginning. Beginning of the body.
Room Conversation with Reporter -- June 3, 1976, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: So, we are coming from material nature. That means we are..., material nature is our mother. From the womb of mother, the child comes from. So, from the material nature everything is coming. Therefore according to Vedic knowledge, this earth is also mother. We have got seven mothers according to Vedic civilization:
- ātma-mātā guroḥ patnī
- brāhmaṇī rāja-patnikā
- dhenur dhātrī tathā pṛthvī
- saptaitā mātaraḥ smṛtāḥ
Ātma-mātā means original mother, real mother. And guroḥ patnī, the wife of teacher. The wife of a brāhmaṇa. Brāhmaṇa means the most intellectual class of men in the human society, brāhmaṇa. It is not a caste. It is a section in every human society. Always, there is a class of men very intelli..., intelligent. They are called brāhmaṇa. So, ātma-mātā, guroḥ patnī, brāhmaṇī, rāja-patnikā, and the queen—formerly there were kings—she is also considered mother. And dhenu means cow is mother because we drink her milk.
Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: ...from the ground. So the tree is the son, and the earth is the mother. So what is the wrong argument there? We have got experience that a child is coming from the womb of the mother. So why we should suggest a nonsense creation, that there was a chunk and there was a creation? What is this? Talk on this point. Where is your experience that all of a sudden a chunk dropped and there was creation? We have got experience that creation is there. Mother is there, and a child is coming. This is the creation. So wherefrom this idea comes, that without father and mother, creation is possible? What is his argument? He is great scientist. Let him...
Hṛdayānanda: Chief rascal.
Rādhāvallabha: They say that nature takes care of it all.
Prabhupāda: What? Then why nature did not take care of you? (laughter) Therefore you are rascal.
Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: There is no father. That I understand. But the tree is coming from the earth. So that is in anywhere. Just like the father gives the seed in the womb of the mother, and she produces the body and it comes out. The seed is coming from the father. And that is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā: bījo'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām (Bg 7.10). The seed comes from the father, that you cannot deny. Mother, without seed, cannot be pregnant and cannot give child. That is our experience. Nature is mother, and the seed is given by the father.
Rāmeśvara: In science, the biologists teach that there are small animals, very small, called amoebas. And when they reproduce, they simply divide themselves into two; there is no sex, there is no father.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. So two or three or four or five coming from the life. The amoeba is a life. Not that from any stone it is coming. The life is coming from life. But in a different way.
Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: Confusing must be. How you can understand the subtle laws of God? You have dull brain, with cow dung. (laughs) You cannot understand.
Arcita: So according to the Christians, Śrīla Prabhupāda, Jesus Christ was born without contact of any material father. He was divinely placed in the womb of Mary.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. Divinely placed by the Father is God. That's all. You cannot deny the fact. And he claims: "I am son of God." Then, what is the argument?
Arcita: Is there any such experience in the Vedic literatures, Śrīla Prabhupāda? An example we can cite also?
Garden Conversation -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: The guests, you may read aloud to them. (long pause; Śrīla Prabhupāda exchanges a few Hindi sentences with a woman)
Nalinīkaṇṭha: "The whole purpose of Vedic civilization and of reading the Vedas is to attain the perfect stage of devotional service in the human form of life. According to the Vedic system, therefore, from the very beginning of life the brahmacārya system is introduced so that from one's very childhood—from the age of five years—one can practice modifying one's human activities so as to engage perfectly in devotional service. As confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā, Chapter Two, verse 40, svalpam apy asya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt: 'Even a little advancement on this path can protect one from the most dangerous type of fear.' Modern civilization, not referring to the verdicts of Vedic literature, is so cruel to the members of human society that instead of teaching children to become brahmacārīs, it teaches mothers to kill their children even in the womb, on the plea of curbing the increase of population. And if by chance a child is saved, he is educated only for sense gratification.
Room Conversation -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:
Prabhupāda: (aside:) Just bring little salt.
Hṛdayānanda: "...or kūṭa-stha. The body is subject to six kinds of transformations. It takes its birth in the womb of the mother's body, remains for some time, grows, produces some effects, gradually dwindles, and at last vanishes into oblivion. The soul, however, does not go through such changes. The soul is not born, but, because he takes on a material body, the body takes its birth. The soul does not take birth there, and the soul does not die. Anything which has birth also has death. And because the soul has no birth, he therefore has no past, present or future. He is eternal, ever-existing and primeval—that is, there is no trace in history of his coming into being. Under the impression of the body, we seek the history of birth, etc., of the soul. The soul does not at any time become old, as the body does.
Room Conversation with Mother and Sons -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:
Prabhupāda: One or two words, that is enough. Godless civilization. Everything, there is proof, there is father, the supreme father. And still they do not believe in God. He says ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā, "I am the seed-giving father." We have got experience that father gives the seed in the womb of the mother and then the child takes body from the mother and comes out. Everyone knows.
Hari-śauri:
- sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya
- mūrtayaḥ sambhavanti yāḥ
- tāsāṁ brahma mahad yonir
- ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā
- (BG 14.4)
"It should be understood that all species of life, O son of Kuntī, are made possible by birth in this material nature, and that I am the seed giving father."
Prabhupāda: Purport.
Conversation with Clergymen -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:
Prabhupāda: Because, I have got this life, you have got this life, so we shall give up this body, we have to accept another body. We have to enter again in the womb of the mother, and packed up for so many months. And nowadays there's a risk of losing life also. The mother is killing child.
Scheverman: There's an area hopefully where we might be able to cooperate, this area of slaughter, senseless slaughter.
Prabhupāda: So many things. It is going on. So unless there is first-class man, who will guide them?
Kern: I think you ought to eliminate the second-class man who are soldiers. If you're training a man to be a soldier, he wants to fight.
Prabhupāda: That's all right; fighting is also required. When there is enemy, we are not discarding fighting. Fighting there will be. So long we are in the material world, there will be disagreement and there will be fight. You cannot stop it; that is not possible. So a class of men, they should be trained up fighting. A class of men, they should be trained up for teaching. A class of men for producing food. Kṛṣi-go-rakṣya-vāṇijyaṁ vaiśya-karma svabhāva-jam (BG 18.44).
Interview with Professors O'Connell, Motilal and Shivaram -- June 18, 1976, Toronto:
Prabhupāda: That is natural. And children's duty is to remain obedient to the father. That's all. That is bhakti. Then the family is all right. Family means father, mother and children. They're missing.... The children they are seeing, the mother they are seeing, and they are saying there is no father. This is modern civilization. How is that? The children are there, the mother is there. How is that there is no father? What is this conclusion? A sane man's conclusion is if the children are there, the mother is there, there must be father. Without father, how mother can beget children? Is there any experience that without father, mother has given birth to children? The modern civilization is: mother is material nature and we are all sons, born in the womb of the material nature. So who is the father? That inquiry is lacking. But there is father, undoubtedly. And the answer is given in the Bhagavad-gītā: sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya (BG 14.4). Find out this verse. Sambhavanti mūrtayaḥ tāsāṁ mahad yonir brahma, ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā. Bījo 'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām (Bg 7.10).
Room Conversation -- June 24, 1976, New Vrindaban:
Prabhupāda: These questions that "I believe," "I don't believe," you are rascal, what is the meaning of your believe or not believing? You are, after all, a rascal. Just like a child will say something, "I don't believe." The mother will say "You are rascal, you must go to your room." So rascals believe or not believe, what is the meaning? Mūḍha. It is the law of nature. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). The example is given that this boy will change his body. Dehāntara-prāptir. He'll become a young boy, young man. This body will not remain. What is the difficulty to understand? Yes, this body will not remain. While he came out of the womb of the mother, that was another body. But these rascals, they do not understand it. It is very difficult to deal with the rascals, that's a fact, but... Whatever they are doing is all rascaldom, that's all. And forgetting their real business. So your son, does he believe that he's going to be a young man? You believe? (laughs) Huh? What is your...
Garden Conversation -- June 28, 1976, New Vrindaban:
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "Tān—those; aham—I; dviṣataḥ—envious; krūrān—mischievous; saṁsāreṣu—into the ocean of material existence; narādhamān—the lowest of mankind; kṣipāmi—put; ajasram—innumerable; aśubhān—inauspicious; āsurīṣu—demoniac; eva—certainly; yoniṣu—in the wombs."
Prabhupāda: There are so many varieties of life, so we have to accept one of them by Kṛṣṇa's desire, Kṛṣṇa's arrangement. Kṛṣṇa says, īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati (BG 18.61). He is situated in everyone's heart. He's observing everything. So He orders that "Give him a body like this." Who can check it? Bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61). This body is a machine. The machine is given by material nature. Today you may be a very big man, and by your activities, asuric activities, you are so condemned that you have to accept a lower-grade life, a fox, sly fox. "You are very sly to spend others' money in moon excursion. Now you become a fox." So who can check it? Here it is stated, tān ahaṁ dviṣataḥ krūrān (BG 16.19). So you cannot check it. You are not so great scientist. Then how do you say, "There is no God"? You cannot check God's law, so how you can say that there is no God? You can say at your home, "I don't care for government." And when government arrests you and puts you in difficulty, how can you check it? Is it possible?
'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:
Prabhupāda: One minute. That Absolute Truth is explained in the Vedānta-sūtra, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). Absolute Truth is that from whom everything comes into existence, everything emanates. Now that has been discussed in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, because Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the natural commentary by the same author. So he begins janmādy asya yato 'nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ (SB 1.1.1). This word is used. He's not dead body, dead matter-abhijñaḥ, like that. In the beginning. That source of everything... Janmādy asya yato 'nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ (SB 1.1.1). Just like a mother gives birth to a child. She knows everything, how the child was born in the womb, how it developed, how it is coming. At least, on the whole, she knows everything. Similarly, the original source of everything is immediately informed in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that abhijñaḥ, experienced, knows everything. Anvayād itarataś ca, directly and indirectly, everything it knows. So the origin of everything cannot be a dead man. That is the beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:
Rūpānuga: Śrīla Prabhupāda, it is described in the Vedas that life begins as a pea size. In the body, the womb of the mother, the human life is only pea size, emulsification, and then in nine months it develops into this very small series of chemicals and everything, into a full body.
Prabhupāda: No, no. In the Bhāgavata it is stated that life symptoms begins after five days.
Rūpānuga: And consciousness in seven months.
Prabhupāda: Not in consciousness, but development.
Rūpānuga: But anyway, in nine months, it is done, not millions of years.
Prabhupāda: Not nine months, seven months. Seven months the consciousness returns back and the child wants to come out. Therefore it moves, it feels inconvenient. And if he's pious, he then prays to God, "Kindly save me from this condition. Now taking birth, I shall take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness and make myself free from this bondage."
'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa:
- śrī-bhagavān uvāca
- karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa
- jantur dehopapattaye
- striyāḥ praviṣṭa udaraṁ
- puṁso retaḥ-kaṇāśrayaḥ
- (SB 3.31.1)
"The Personality of Godhead said: Under the supervision of the Supreme Lord and according to the result of his work, the living entity, the soul, is made to enter into the womb of a woman through the particle of male semina to assume a particular type of body."
Prabhupāda: The life comes from the man. The living entity takes shelter of the semina, and the semina is discharged in the womb of the woman, and if the situation is favorable, then the living entity remains there and that body develops. This is pregnancy. And that yoni, that mother, is situated, selected by daiva-netreṇa, by superior management: "This man has worked..., this living entity has worked in such a way, he should go to such and such womb." Then if he goes to a queen's womb he becomes a prince; if he goes to the dog's womb he becomes a dog. The mother gives the body. And the superior's order is there, "Now you must go to the dog's womb. He must go to the queen's womb." Otherwise, how it is from the birth one is prince, another is dog, if there is no superior? Who likes to become a dog? No. But according to his karma, by superior arrangement, he has to take. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu (BG 13.22).
'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:
Prabhupāda: No, no. That is species. Form is there already. They are existing. So you require to get another form, but the same class. First-class compartment is there. If it is, one bogey is already, first-class filled up, then railroad company brings another bogey and gives place to the passengers. That's all, there is no difficulty. What is the difficulty? Put him into this particular mother's womb and he gets a form, that's all. Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). Don't compare Kṛṣṇa's power with your power. He can do anything, anyone, immediately.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So called Acintya. (pause) What is the biological concept of species?
Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:
Prabhupāda: Yes. The process is that the spirit soul is invisible in our material eyes, very small. So after the destruction of this gross body, there is another body, subtle body—mind, intelligence and ego. So at the time of death, when finishing this body, mind works. So, according to that process, the mind carries the small spirit soul to another body. Just like the air carries the flavor. Nobody can see wherefrom this rose flavor is coming, but it is being carried by the air, very subtle. You cannot see, but it is being done. Similarly, the soul is very subtle. It is being carried by the mind. According to the mind, he enters into the womb of another mother through the semina of the father, and then he develops a particular type of body given by the mother. It may be human being, it may be cat, dog or anything.
Mike Robinson: So we will come back in another body.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Then, that's when the body is developed, he comes out and his work begins.
Room Conversation -- July 31, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):
Prabhupāda: Everything. Bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānām (BG 7.10). The pitā is there. Properly put it into the womb of mother earth. That is the process. Bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānām. Ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā. Harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21). (film projector comes on)
Bhagavān: Last year's European tour.
Devotee: This is the City Hall in Geneva, Switzerland.
Devotee: After you spoke with the mayor in Geneva, Śrīla Prabhupāda, he was worried about the economy of the country, when you explained if we cultivated grains there will be no problem.
Yogeśvara: "If people become devotees of Kṛṣṇa, then who will work?"
Prabhupāda: What was answer?
Room Conversation -- July 31, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):
Prabhupāda: Yes. Ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā.
- sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya
- mūrtayaḥ sambhavanti yāḥ
- tāsāṁ brahma mahad yonir
- ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā
- (BG 14.4)
That's all. That study will be nice. Ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ. Just like father gives the seed, similarly, Kṛṣṇa gives the seed. The seed, when pushed into the womb of the mother and properly nourished, a rose plant comes out. This plant comes out. The seed is there. It is very easy. The father injects the seed within the womb of the mother, and the childs come out. Similarly, whatever is coming out from the earth, the seed-giving father is Kṛṣṇa, and when the seed is pushed within the womb of the mother, then the plant is coming, and everything. This nature's law is going on. Where is the necessity of understanding more than this? We understand the mother is pregnant. Now how she has been, how the child is growing, that is not under your control. It is going on. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi (BG 3.27), immediately it is in hand of the nature. Even if you study, you cannot understand how things are arranged—the intestine is joined to the navel of the child and the food is supplied, how it is mechanical: do you know everything? Can anyone do? Can anyone understand? But things are there.
Evening Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:
Prabhupāda: Yes, the body's destructible, but the spirit soul is not destructible. When you understand this point, then we understand what is spirit, and then spiritual culture begins. Without being convinced of this spirit soul, there is no question of spiritual culture. So the spirit soul is described as eternal. And the proof is given, eternity. Just like there are so many children. They'll grow up from childhood to boyhood, from boyhood to youthhood. The body is changing. This is very practical. But the spirit soul is there, the same spirit soul which was within the womb of the mother in a small body. Then coming out of the mother's womb, the same spirit soul is there, but the body is different. In this way, the body is being situated in different status, but we know that the proprietor of the body is the same. Is there any difficulty to understand? Anyone? The body is changing, that's a fact. You are young man. You'll have to become an old man like me. That means body will change. But so far you are concerned, you are the same.
Evening Darsan -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:
Prabhupāda: Similarly, when you by nature's law when it is fixed up, you have to accept this body, then you give up this body, and immediately enter into the womb of the mother to prepare another similar body like the mother.
Ali: During this transformation, are we still ignorant? During this transformation from body to body.
Prabhupāda: No, he's not ignorant. This body, next body is achieved according to the consciousness. At the time of, if you are thinking of something to which you are very much attached, then you get that similar body. If you are thinking of your pet dog, then you get the dog's body. And if you are thinking of Kṛṣṇa, God, then you'll get the body like Kṛṣṇa. That will be decided at the time of your death. Because at the time of death you'll be absorbed with thinking which you have done throughout the whole life. Sadā tad-bhāva-bhāvitaḥ (BG 8.6). Just like the whole day you are working with some business, at night also dreaming that, subtle body. So you have to train up yourself within this life how to think of Kṛṣṇa.
Evening Darsan -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:
Prabhupāda: Well, starting, just like when there is a seed sown, the starting is there. Now it grows a tree and there is fruit, there is flowers. The fruit is green now. When it is yellow mango and ripe, you can take. The beginning is when you sow the seed. Just like child. The father puts the seed within the womb of the mother. The body begins from that moment, grows and grows. When it is fully grown up it comes out and acts and then walks. So beginning is there. You can begin at any moment. But it is spiritual, it does not take so much time. You should remember spiritual. Just like speed, there are different kinds of speed. Mental speed and physical speed. Physical speed, you have got a very good nice airplane. Still, you have to take ten hours to reach London. And mental speed, you can immediately, within a second, go to London. And spiritual speed, still more. Kṛṣṇa says tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma mām eti (BG 4.9), as soon as you give up the body you immediately go to Kṛṣṇa.
Room Conversation -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: Yes. This is only business, to become Kṛṣṇa conscious and avoid this botheration of repeating body, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). Dehāntara-prāptiḥ is there. If you want to stop dehāntara-prāptiḥ, then you have to become Kṛṣṇa conscious. There is no other way. But if you think that it is very pleasure to enter within the womb of mother and accept one body, and again come out and again work, and again die, and again enter. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). If you want this business, that is your choice. You can do it. But if you want to stop it, then this is the only way. Therefore śāstra says na sādhu manye. It is not good. Nūnam, read that verse.
Morning Walk -- August 23, 1976, Hyderabad:
Prabhupāda: You are less than animal. You are greatest animal. You want to kill your children.
Vāsu Ghoṣa: But they have no life. There is only you know an amoeba in the womb.
Prabhupāda: Don't talk nonsense, waste time. All rascals proposal. Don't indulge in this rascal theory.
Indian devotee: Now there is a society for prevention to the cruelty to animals. At the same time they are killing the animals also.
Mahāṁsa: They think they can adjust and control.
Prabhupāda: Mūḍha.
Morning Walk -- August 23, 1976, Hyderabad:
Prabhupāda: That is the way. Other way all sinful.
Indian man: Sinful, but sinful things are being committed...
Prabhupāda: They'll suffer. They'll suffer. Those who are killing the children, they will be killed. They will enter into the mother's womb and they will be killed. They'll be punished. Tit for tat. That they do not know. This way or that way?
Indian man: This way. This way.
Prabhupāda: These rascals, they have no education about this law of nature. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). They're acting very independently. But ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham iti manyate (BG 3.27). Rascals, ahaṅkāra, vimūḍhātmā. They are rascals. They'll be punished. Just like a thief defies the laws of government, but they are punished.
Room Conversation with Dr. Theodore Kneupper -- November 6, 1976, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: So this is difficulty. If I say, "Here is a person who knows mathematics," why there should be... Any person who is interested in mathematics will welcome him. So similarly, here is Vedic knowledge. Vedic knowledge means real knowledge. Here is Bhagavad-gītā, the knowledge of God, but they misunderstand. They think, "Oh, we have got another God." How God can be another? So people should be sober, that we are giving books. They should understand. And it is accepted by the educated class, big, big professors, big, big philosophers. It is not blind faith. Just like this version of Bhagavad-gītā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ: (BG 2.13) "As we are changing body even in this duration of life, similarly, when this body is finished, then another body," so where is the difficulty to understand? But they will say, "It is Hindu idea." Fact we are presenting, that "You are changing your body. When you came out of the womb of your mother, the body was so small. And then little bigger body, little bigger body, little bigger body. Now you are full grown young man." So the body is changing, everyone can understand, but I can understand also that "I had so big..., small body and this body." Then body is changing; I am existing. Then where is the difficulty of the transmigration of the soul?
Room Conversation -- November 24, 1976, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: Wherefrom this Christo came. The Greek word. And the Greek got from India, Kṛṣṇa. This is the history. Christian means Krishnian, godly. And Christo, so far I know, the Greek meaning is "decorated," "love." That indicates to Kṛṣṇa. If there is some scholar he can find out that Christian means Krishnian originally. (reads:) "How the soul transmigrates? The process is very subtle. The spirit soul is invisible to our material eye. It is atomic in size. After the destruction of the gross body, which is made up of the senses, blood, bone, fat, and so forth, the subtle body of mind, intelligence, and ego goes on working. So at the time of death this subtle body carries the small spirit soul to another gross body. The process is just like air carrying a fragrance. Nobody can see where this rose fragrance is coming from, but we know that it is being carried by the air. You cannot see how, but it is being done. Similarly, the process of transmigration of the soul is very subtle. According to the conditions of the mind at the time of death the minute spirit soul enters in the womb of particular mother through the semina of the father. And when the soul develops a particular type of body given by the mother it may be a human being, it may be cat, a dog, or anything." So it is brainwash? Hm?
Evening Darsana -- December 3, 1976, Hyderabad:
Prabhupāda: That is dog's obstinacy. The dog, however you ask the dog to stop barking, it will go on barking. Dog's obstinacy. Hm. What is that? I have taken.
Devotee (2): "But in the management... But the management is being conducted by material nature. Kṛṣṇa also states in Bhagavad-gītā that of all the living entities in different forms and species, 'I am the Father.' The father gives seeds to the womb of the mother for the child, and similarly the Supreme Lord by His mere glance injects all the living entities into the womb of material nature, and they come out in their different forms and species, according to their last desires and activities. All these living entities, although born under the glance of the Supreme Lord, still take their different bodies according to their past deeds and desires. So the Lord is not directly attached to this material creation. He simply glances over material nature; material nature is thus activated, and everything is created immediately.
Room Conversation with Indian Man -- December 22, 1976, Poona:
Prabhupāda: That the any person, any living entity, he is not this body. That is the answer. So then two things. Suppose you are, I am, that I am thinking of this body, and at the same time I am thinking that this finger, I say, "My finger." Nobody says, "I finger." "My finger." Even a child he will say. So "My finger, my head, my legs." So what is that "my"? That is the question. The answer is negatively that that "I" or "my" is not this body. That is different from the body. Now what is the nature of that "I"? That is explained one after another, one after another, one, one. Because he has no idea. Every one of us... I am speaking, you are speaking. Theoretically we take, accept it that I am not this body. But practically I say, "I am this body." That is wrong. That has to be explained. And that is being explained. The question is one and the answer is one. There cannot be many questions or many answers. Answer is one. That answer is, Kṛṣṇa begins, that "As the body is changing, within our experience..." dehino'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). Very nice example. We are changing bodies. When you were born, there was no beard. Clean shaved or no hair. So that body has changed. It is not the same body. In which body you came out of the womb of your mother, that was a small body. That was a different body.
Room Conversation with Indian Man -- December 22, 1976, Poona:
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like you beget a child, you give seed. The seed of the child in the womb of your wife in a method, you know that. Therefore you are thinking, "How it is possible?" You do not know that God is almighty. He can beget children in His own way, but you are thinking in your own way, that "I give birth to a child in this way. How is that He is seed-giving father and earth is producing?" Because you are thinking in your own way.
Indian man: I have to think in my own way.
Prabhupāda: Yes, but that is not God. God is almighty.
Indian man: And now you are explaining that.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Room Conversation -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: Playing, joining. Get, be alive, be alive. Like that.
Hari-śauri: Is that Jarāsandha?
Pradyumna: Then translation, "In the womb of two other wives, two parts were begotten from Bṛhadratha. The mothers, seeing such parts, rejected them. Later on, one she-demon by the name Jara joined the parts." Then sounded like "engaged"?
Prabhupāda: Playfully.
Pradyumna: Playfully, "joined the parts playfully"?
Prabhupāda: Joining playfully.
Pradyumna: Then she said, jīva jīva?
Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:
Prabhupāda: The child has father's..., the life from father's property, and the mother is only giving you shelter. She is not the proprietor. Even in other's, womb of other's wife, a child is born... I give birth to a child in other's wife, that is my child. Mother is considered the field, kṣetra. But when I till the kṣetra, field, the production is mine. This idea. The land may be yours, but if I plow on it and produce food grains, that is mine. That is not yours. This is the... Even in other's wife, if somebody begets child, the child belongs to the father. There are many instances. (break) Mat-prāṇa-nāthas: "Still, you are My Lord." That is love. "My love is conditional. If you do to my liking, then I love you"—that is not love. That is not love; that is business. That business is going on under the name of love.
Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:
Prabhupāda: Now, this, this is fact, that when this body is no more working, the subtle body carries the soul to another gross body. That they cannot see, but it acts. This science they do not know. Seeing is always not competent, material eye. Just like the example is given that flavor is carried by the air. It is being carried, but I cannot see. But it is being carried. That is transmigration of the soul. The soul is carried by the subtle body to another particular body, and according to his karma under superior examination, the soul, a very small particle, one ten-thousandth part of the hair, he is put into the semina of the particular father, and he injects. So the soul takes place in the womb of the mother. She supplies the material to develop the next body. This is the process, transmigration. Then, when the body is complete to come out, then another body works. Another chapter begins: tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). So this is development.
Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:
Rāmeśvara: Unfortunately he has not come across the Vedas. I have already written a letter to some devotees in Los Angeles to meet this man and give him your Third Canto, Volume Four, which describes the movements of the living entity, development in the womb... I think he'll be shocked to read these things.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Gargamuni: He's also read this book called the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Prabhupāda: No, why not this also, Bhāgavata also, Bhagavad-gītā?
Rāmeśvara: Apparently he's not familiar with the Vedic writings. So...
Prabhupāda: So inform him.
Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:
Prabhupāda: No. No, no. There is no need of so-called material science—how to kill children in the womb. These things will be kicked out. Nonsense.
Rāmeśvara: Do you think that they will adopt Indian medicine over Western medicine, things like that? Because there has to be some varṇāśrama.
Prabhupāda: No, medicine, if it is actually medicine, it will be accepted. It doesn't matter whether it is Indian or Western. If it is medicine it will be accepted.
Rāmeśvara: So that kind of research is in the mode of goodness.
Prabhupāda: That is already there. We have to make little research. It, already there. There are books, Āyurvedic books. They are very nice. Everything can be done. Dhanvantari. It is given by Dhanvantari avatāra, incarnation of Kṛṣṇa.
Rāmeśvara: You have written in the First Canto that we welcome scientists, doctors...
Prabhupāda: Yes, if it is beneficial.
Evening Conversation -- January 25, 1977, Puri:
Prabhupāda: Therefore ekādaśī. One day or two days in the month he should practice fasting, and then he'll be able to conquer over these things. These are all practical. So we should practice ourself and teach others. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. And if he thinks that he's quite all right in this material atmosphere, then he's doomed. Mūḍhaḥ nābhijānāti. That means aprāpya mām—without achieving Kṛṣṇa—nivartante—again he goes back-mṛtyu-saṁsāra-vartmani (BG 9.3)—the cycle of birth and death. Take one birth, suffer, again take another body, again take another body, another body. There are 400..., eight million four hundred... That's all. Sometimes so-called happiness, he is born as demigod, sometimes as dog, sometimes as insect, sometimes as tree. What is this business? "I am eternal. Why shall I suffer this?" This is sense. They are simply trying how to become a hog, how to become a dog, or how to become a god. God you cannot become. You may have some partial happiness just like the demigods. They have got power. They have got high standard of living. But that does not mean the solution of the problem. Solution of problem means no more birth, no more death. That is solution. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). That is solution. And if he remains in the birth-and-death cycle, that is not solution of material problem. Who can understand this science? They have accepted birth and death. But birth they do not believe. They think accidentally it grows within the womb, a lump of matter, and at a certain stage there is life. This is their... Do they not think like that?
Morning Walk -- February 1, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is our argument. Just like this plant is coming out of the womb of mother. Everything comes from the mother. So there must be father. Anything you see, it is coming from earth. Earth is the mother. Dhenu-dhātrī. So where is the father? "I cannot see." You cannot see? That does not mean there is no father. There must be father. And the father says, "Yes!" Ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā (BG 14.4). Bījo 'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām (Bg 7.10). The answer is there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's a very subtle subject. We try to present this bhakti-yoga among scientists...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...and these physicists and biologists. We are thinking how to do it.
Conversation on Roof -- February 14, 1977, Mayapura:
Prabhupāda: ... Son begotten by Lord Śiva in the womb of Pārvatī, he'll be able to conquer over the demons. Kārttikeya. You have heard the name of Kārttikeya? So the, wife of Lord Śiva, Dākṣāyaṇī, committed suicide in the Dakṣa-yajña. She heard blaspheming (of) her husband so immediately she gave up her body: "My father, you have given this body; therefore you are claiming so much from me. I give up this body." So he (she) gave up his (her) body, and the next birth she was born as the daughter of Himalaya king, Pārvatī. And after her death as the daughter of Dakṣa Mahārāja, Lord Śiva was engaged in meditation, very deep meditation. Now the problem was how to wake up Lord Śiva from meditation and engage him again with Pārvatī. Nobody dared. So the Pārvatī was engaged to worship the genital of Lord Śiva. He was in meditation, and he could not be awakened. Kālīdāsa Kavi is giving remark that "Here is dhīra. Here is dhīra, a young girl touching the genital of Lord Śiva and he is not agitated." Adhīra. Dhīra means there is cause of agitation, but one is not agitated.
Conversation on Roof -- February 14, 1977, Mayapura:
Prabhupāda: What is the use of same business again and again. You are not disgusted?" To repeat the birth is very good business? To enter into the womb of some mother and remain there for some time in so packed up condition and suffering, to forget. But acts in such a way that he'll have to take birth again. Na sādhu manye. Ṛṣabhadeva (says), "This is not good business." "Then what is wrong?" Just like some student in Hawaii University, "What is wrong if I become a dog?" This is education, university. They do not understand what is the wrong in this business of repetition of birth and death. So what is education? They cannot understand even that what is the suffering in birth and death. And repetition again and again and again, the same business, for āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithunam, eating, sleeping, sex, and protection. He cannot understand. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carva... Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ durāśayā ye bahir-artha-māninaḥ (SB 7.5.31). Through external energy they are trying to be happy. What is that happiness? Durāśaya. That's not happiness. That is misconception of happiness. So long you have to die and enter into the womb of a mother and again come out and again begin another chapter of life, what is this happiness? Hm? Mūḍho nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam.
Room Conversation -- February 18, 1977, Mayapura:
Prabhupāda: "My dear son, please come back. Why you are desiring so many nonsense things?" But the child will not hear. He wants. Kṛṣṇa-bahirmukha hañā bhoga vāñchā kare. He wants sense gratification this way, that way, that way, that way. So He gives him facility: "All right." And all facility. He wants to become a tiger, "All fixed." Nails, jaws, fangs—"Become a tiger." Yantra. The body is yantra, perfect yantra. That is supplied by māyā. Māyā. Daiva-netreṇa. He wants this, to give up this body. This machine is dead. Now you simply think of a tiger, and you are carried to the womb of the tiger. And the mother gives the body of a tiger. He comes out, enjoys. This is transmigration. The art is so fine. (hammering sound) What is this sound?
Jayapatākā: The electric cable from the generator, they're putting clamps on the building.
Room Conversation -- February 18, 1977, Mayapura:
Prabhupāda: Caitanya-caritāmṛta. So we're desiring one after, one after, one after, one after... The last desire... Because if you become addicted to certain type of desire, that is prominent at the time of death. Yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante kalevaram (BG 8.6), sadā tad-bhāva-bhāvitaḥ. So māyā's machine is immediately prepared. That mind—manaḥ buddhiḥ ahaṅkāra. Subtle. You cannot see. You see the body is burned, finished. Rascal, that is not finished. Na hanyate hanyamāne (BG 2.20). It is not finished. There is subtle body. The subtle body carries. The example is just like flavor of rose garden carries, similarly, the desire is carried, and he requires a machine to ride on, particular. So there are eighty-four million machines, and he's, karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa (SB 3.31.1), by the supervision of māyā, carried to this mother's womb. The soul is injected through the semina of the father, and he enters the womb of the mother, and mother gives the ingredients, develops his body, and as soon as it is complete, comes out. Where is the difficulty to understand this transmigration of the soul? These rascals have no brain. That verse I have explained this morning.
Room Conversation with Adi-kesava Swami -- February 19, 1977, Mayapura:
Prabhupāda: That is the difference. "Your brain is so filled with stool that you do not know how much sinful activities you are..., and how much you are becoming entangled in this material body. You are killing the child. You have to become his child again, or you have to become again a child and you will be killed. And then you will enter another mother's body; you'll be again killed. As many child you have killed, you'll have to be killed so many times. You'll never see the light. In the womb, womb, womb, you'll be killed. So your brain is so filled up with stool, you cannot understand. This is your education. This is you education. We are trying to save you, that 'You'll suffer so much. You've made the situation so complicated. Better remain a brahmacārī.' If there is little trouble without sex enjoyment, take it just like itching. Itching trouble, if you don't itch, it will not increase. And if you itch, more and more it will increase.' That is advised.
Room Conversation With Artists and About BTG -- February 25, 1977, Mayapura:
Prabhupāda: No. Right hand is all right.
Rāmeśvara: It's all right either way. Now, this painting shows... At the time of Vyāsadeva living in this cottage on the Sarasvatī River, there's a description that Śukadeva, he was in the womb, and he would not come out and Vyāsadeva went to get Kṛṣṇa. Personally Kṛṣṇa came and ordered Śukadeva to take his birth.
Prabhupāda: That's all right.
Rāmeśvara: And they have got the womb area a little effulgent to indicate the presence of Śukadeva being a pure...
Prabhupāda: Overgrown.
Rāmeśvara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: That's all right.
Morning Conversation -- April 11, 1977, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: No, objectionable... The rākṣasas... Just like Kṛṣṇa was there within the womb of Devakī. Kaṁsa imprisoned. So the brilliance of the body of Devakī could not be seen by others, because imprisoned. So if Kṛṣṇa comes from the womb of Devakī, and He will come, similarly if by your endeavor Kṛṣṇa comes in this movement, then these Kaṁsas will be destroyed. He will kill. That day will come when we shall take all the political posts. That is Kṛṣṇa's mission. That is battle of Kurukṣetra. "Take it from Duryodhana. Give it to Yudhiṣṭhira, Arjuna." If you go on steadily, that will be... And all these demons, Kaṁsa, Bakāsura, Aghāsura, sakala incarnations, swamis, yogis... They are Aghāsura and Bakāsura. Just like Kṛṣṇa had to kill so many asuras, disturbing element. You become under some Aghāsura.
Room Conversation with Ratan Singh Rajda M.P. 'Nationalism and Cheating' -- April 15, 1977, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: Imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ. It is meant for the rulers, rājarṣi, not for the loafers. Imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ. (Hindi) Our, this monarchy was there, but they were rājarṣis, monarch, at the same time, great saintly person. Therefore they were worshiped, Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, Mahārāja Parīkṣit, Mahārāja Ambarīṣa. They are not autocrat. Imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ. They understood the science of Bhagavad-gītā from saintly person, exalted brāhmaṇas. They ruled. You'll find in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam this Mahārāja Parīkṣit, grandson of Arjuna. His father died when he was in the womb of his mother. So all, everyone died. Only these five brother remained. And Parīkṣit Mahārāja, the grandson of Arjuna, he was in the womb of his mother Uttarā. So he was also attempted to be killed by Aśvatthāmā by brahmāstra. Kṛṣṇa saved him. So anyway, the grandfathers took care of this child, baby in the womb. And when he was born... This is a ceremony, jāta-karma. Just after birth there is a ceremony.
Room Conversation with Vrindavan De -- July 6, 1977, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: No. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma (BG 4.9). If you don't attain Kṛṣṇa in this life, then again you go back to the process of birth and death. That's all. And in that process of birth-death, sometimes you become Indra and sometimes you become that small bug, that's all, according to your karma. So our struggle should be how to stop this birth and death, punar-janma-jayāya, to conquer over rebirth. That is real life. Again dying, again entering in the mother's womb, lie down packed up for ten months and then again come out, again another chapter begins—is that life? These rascals, they do not understand.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Imprisonment.
Room Conversation with Vrindavan De -- July 6, 1977, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: He cannot express what is his inconvenience, and he's feeling one inconvenience, and the mother is trying to make him happy in other way. He's crying more, more, more, more. Where is happiness? Within the womb there was unhappiness, packed-up. When he comes down there is unhappiness. Then go to school, take education, appear for examination—that is unhappiness. Then grow up, then engage in some earning money—that is unhappiness. Then maintain your children, and that is unhappiness. Where is happiness, rascals? Rascal. Both are suffering.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Without Kṛṣṇa, there is no question of happiness.
Room Conversations Bangladesh Preaching/Prabhavisnu Articles by Hamsaduta -- August 11, 1977, Vrndavana:
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He says here that "These great Nobel Prize-winners have made protoplasm from inert substances simulating the conditions that prevailed in the primitive atmosphere of the earth. Do they know that human egg and sperm cells can be fertilized in test tubes and the fetus developed in an artificial womb or in the womb of a hired woman? Among animals that evolved on this planet..."
Prabhupāda: So what is the benefit? There are millions of wombs. Why you should hire? If there is scarcity of womb, then we can hire. You rascal, you hire. You do not know. We see, without hiring there are millions of wombs, and they are producing.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He says that they can do it.
Gurukṛpa: They haven't done it yet.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Among animals that evolved on this planet, man is the only animal that has progressed in all his activities. This he achieved through his knowledge in science. While all organisms continue to live even today as their forebears did millions of years ago, man alone has progressed..."
Room Conversation -- November 6, 1977, Vrndavana:
Bhagatji: Man, animal...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Womb.
Bhagatji: Womb is everyone. That comes...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sweat?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's one. And womb. Egg. And...
Bhagatji: And aṇḍa-ja.
Prabhupāda: Aṇḍa-ja, from eggs.
Brahmānanda: Udbhid-ja.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Eggs, sweat, womb...
Prabhupāda: And vegetable.
Room Conversation -- November 6, 1977, Vrndavana:
Prabhupāda: And vegetable.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Seed.
Prabhupāda: Udbhid-ja. They take account of the jarāyu-ja, not other three.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's womb.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Embryo.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, embryo.
Prabhupāda: So science means to know everything, not only theoretically. They say "automatically."
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Their knowledge is so unscientific, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
| Page Title: | Womb (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 29 of Sep, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=144, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 144 |