"Income Tax Department--Cheating"

New Delhi, Novewmber 30, 1975



Indian man (3): Prabhupada: ...can dance, and as soon as you say, "Chant Hare Krsna and dance," immediately they reject.

Gopala Krsna: Stop. They spend hours and hours practicing how to learn to dance. They go through so much tapasya.

Indian man (1): In Mauritius on Diwali there was a very big festival the government arranged. There were more than forty thousand people, and they got one singer, Mukesh, from India, especially for that program. So when he was singing everybody was making noise. As soon as the Hare Krsna people went on the stage everybody become quiet. Everybody was clapping, they were telling.

Prabhupada: [break] Kalakendra. Here is kalakendra, there is kalakendra.

Gopala Krsna: This area is full of kalakendras.

Prabhupada: This corner is something American?

Tejas: This used to be the U.S.I.S. but now this is closed. This is another...

Gopala Krsna: This has become another kalakendra.

Tejas: This is also part of the Bharatiya kalakendra now. The U.S.I.S. used to be here, American information... [break]

Gopala Krsna: New Delhi is a very social city. There are a lot of kalakendras so there's a lot of active...

Prabhupada: No, because the government servant, they haven't got to earn money. It is father's property. They are getting money and balance time, kalakendra. And government servant means (Hindi)

Gopala Krsna: No work.

Prabhupada: No work. Especially in this country. Sixty percent of the government servants, they sleep. They do not do anything. I have seen it.

Gopala Krsna: They're reading papers or gossiping.

Prabhupada: Gossiping, that's all. And keeping the files thrown away. If you want some reference, it will take three months.

Tejas: That one devotee who was given brahmana initiation, he was working in the government. So previously he would just go in the morning, and sometimes he wouldn't even go. His section officer would go... One of them would go and punch in and the rest of the day... They have no work even. And then in the evening one has to cover the punch out. That's the only thing.

Harikesa: In the communistic system everybody works very hard.

Gopala Krsna: That's what they claim, but everything belongs to the state. Why should they work hard?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ambarisa: They work very hard because they have a gun pointed at their head.

Prabhupada: Accha?

Gopala Krsna: Now the Russians are gradually trying to change to the American system in the sense that if a worker produces more, he is given some bonus. They are trying to give incentives to the workers so that they are tempted to work hard.

Prabhupada: But what they will do with the money?

Gopala Krsna: Just buy a little more vodka.

Ambarisa: Go on vacation.

Prabhupada: Then where is equality?

Ambarisa: That's why the Chinese and the Russians don't get along. The Chinese say that the Russians have diverted from Marxism.

Prabhupada: They will have to divert because both, either Chinese or Russian, these are all rascaldom. It is not perfect system.

Gopala Krsna: But the chairman of the Russian Communist Party, Mr. Brezhnev, he has about fifteen foreign cars. Each time a foreign dignitary goes, he gives him a special car. So everyone is supposed to be equal, but he is not equal. He has fifteen cars for himself. [break]

Prabhupada: ...clean city. [break] It is not the same New Delhi as five or ten years before. Huh?

Tejas: Yes.

Prabhupada: How long you are here?

Tejas: Five years, four and a half years.

Prabhupada: So what do you think?

Tejas: Everything is deteriorating.

Harikesa: Vrndavana is much cleaner than this, and they are supposed to be very poor.

Prabhupada: Because in Vrndavana there are less rascals and here it is full of rascals. That is the difference. Harav abhaktasya kuto mahad-gunah. Rascal means the nondevotees. They have no good qualification. Kuto: "Where is good qualification?" And "No, they are so civilized. They are educated." But the answer is, mano-rathena: "Whatever they may be, they are on the mental platform." Mano-rathenasati dhavato bahih: "Because they are on the mental platform, certainly they will hover over the external energy. Therefore they have no good qualification." Bahir-artha-maninah. Simply speculating on the external feature.

Ambarisa: Mental platform means speculation, mental platform.

Prabhupada: That's it. Mental platform means speculation.

Harikesa: Na sukham na param gatim.

Prabhupada: Param gatim. They do not take instruction from the sastra; therefore everything is failure.

Harikesa: Nobody seems very happy in Delhi.

Prabhupada: Neither in U.S.A. (laughter)

Gopala Krsna: No one is happy in the material world.

Ambarisa: In America there is much more violence than there is here.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Gopala Krsna: I read in the papers yesterday that the crime rate has gone up in United States.

Prabhupada: Yes. That must. If everyone is a criminal, so how the crime rate can decrease?

Harikesa: Everybody cheats as much as possible, on income tax and everything.

Gopala Krsna: Even President Nixon had cheated on his income tax return, but they caught him later on.

Prabhupada: No, it is not cheating. It is... The income tax department is a cheating department, so everyone tries to avoid this cheating department. That's it.

Ambarisa: Yes. People hire lawyers, very expensive lawyers, just to find loopholes in their tax statements.

Prabhupada: Yes. The cheating begins from the government. They are giving some paper and asking people, "Here is ten thousand dollars." This is cheating. "I promise to pay." But when the government is failure, where is the promise? Who pays? This is cheating.

Harikesa: During the Depression that happened. People lined up for miles. During the Depression in America people lined up for miles outside of the bank, and the bank couldn't give them any money. And even if they had money, it wouldn't buy anything.

Prabhupada: That's it.

Gopala Krsna: Previously the governments all over the world would guarantee that for behind every currency there was certain amount of gold.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Gopala Krsna: So if you went and gave that...

Prabhupada: Forty percent.

Gopala Krsna: But now it's no more. Now if you go with that currency the government won't give you gold. They've reduced the gold backing behind the currency now. Every day they're reducing because when they want money they just print more notes.

Prabhupada: And you cannot hold gold also. That is illegal. Somehow or other, even if you secure gold, you cannot keep it.

Gopala Krsna: There's that restriction in India, I think.

Ambarisa: Now in the United States you can buy gold. They made it legal.

Harikesa: But limited quantity.

Gopala Krsna: No.

Prabhupada: They do not believe in the transmigration of the soul and they are "Awake." Just see these rascals. They have no preliminary knowledge even, and they are writing books, Awake.

Gopala Krsna: They have a very big press in New York, Jehovah Witness, Brooklyn Bridge.

Harikesa: They say the world is going to end next year.

Prabhupada: Accha?

Harikesa: Then they also say if it doesn't end next year, that it's Biblically correct to say that it may end in three years after that.

Prabhupada: And then again seven years. Then again ten years. They are so awakened. So rascals.

Gopala Krsna: We can ask them to sell their press to us because the world is going to end.

Prabhupada: No, give us free.

Gopala Krsna: They have a huge press.

Hamsaduta: We can make a wager with them. If it doesn't end, then they have to surrender their press.

Prabhupada: How much they are in darkness, and they are making propaganda, "Awake." This is going on. Andha yathandhair upaniya... One blind man is awakening other blind men. [break] ...kalakendra.

Gopala Krsna: All of the kendras are supported by businessmen. They would much rather support a kalakendra rather than the temple because they think...

Prabhupada: Temple is useless now. You see, Nanda has spent so much money in that Kuruksetra, and not a single temple. You see?

Indian man (1): There is no temple in Kuruksetra where they are worshiping Krsna like we are worshiping. There is no temple.

Harikesa: The Gaudiya Math?

Indian man (1): Even they can't worship as we are worshiping.

Prabhupada: How they can worship? The worship is done by devotee. Unless you create devotee, where is the question of worshiping? Without devotee it is idol worship. There is no life. And without life, how can you pull on artificially? Apranasya hi dehasya mandanam loka-ranjanam. Which way I shall go?

Gopala Krsna: Go to the left or... Left. [break]

Harikesa: In the back of that Awake magazine there was one little article that said that this one teacher in one college was doing yoga. He locked himself up in his room and went into a yogic trance, and they finally broke into his room two days later and found him in the same position but dead. So then they say that because he was in yogic trance that his heart was going too slow to give sufficient blood to the body, so he died.

Prabhupada: So by yoga practice he died.

Harikesa: Yes, that's what they're saying.

Prabhupada: The result is he's died.

Ambarisa: My father, he read that article, and that's what he says to me. He says, "You do yoga and you'll end up like this man."

Prabhupada: These are government buildings. They are not properly maintained. The roads are not properly maintained. So New Delhi light is diminishing. And the shabby motor buses.

Gopala Krsna: These buses are also so old.

Prabhupada: Old and creating sound so much.

Tejas: They are losing several crores of rupees every year. One man told me that he rents buses to them, one of the men who came two, three days ago. So, he was telling before, he rents buses to the D.T.C., to the Delhi Transportation Corporation. He rents it to them for a rupee a kilometer and he makes about forty paisa. And even though they are getting it for a rupee a kilometer, they are still losing money on it. He is making profit and they are losing it. Because they sell the spare parts. They're so corrupt.

Prabhupada: Take away the...

Tejas: Yes, the workers there... There's about sixty percent of their buses only, running. Forty percent are disabled because they are always losing the parts somehow.

Prabhupada: Just see.

Gopala Krsna: Also, I know, in Delhi, what the people do is... A lot of people, they don't buy the ticket. They give the conductor half the money, and so he lets them go free.

Prabhupada: Just see. Then where the income? There is no income and there is loss.

Gopala Krsna: Not everyone does it, but students and a lot of young people do that.

Tejas: Students coerce them. They stop the buses. If the bus driver doesn't stop, they'll break the windows and then they all get on and they ride free. They were burning many buses.

Gopala Krsna: But this year, because of the emergency, everyone is behaving all right. They're scared to do anything.

Prabhupada: How by emergency you can make people honest?

Gopala Krsna: Yes.

Prabhupada: This house belongs to the (name withheld).

Tejas: This belongs to (name withheld)?

Prabhupada: Yes. He has got three, four houses like that, separate, I saw, and whole day-two hours here, two hours there, two hours there.

Tejas: He had seven wives.

Prabhupada: Seven?

Tejas: Seven.

Prabhupada: Just see.

Tejas: A house for each wife, I think.

Prabhupada: Another madman.

Tejas: All his children are avowed atheists.

Prabhupada: Means children are born by others. He feeds them. That's all. This is going on. [break] It is easily calculated that government will collapse very soon. They have made changes because they cannot manage.

Gopala Krsna: Also they try to change their image. They'll always...

Prabhupada: Eh?

Tejas: Every six months they've been changing the ministers.

Prabhupada: That means mismanagement. [break]

Gopala Krsna: They do this all over the world. They change... Like in America, President Ford just dropped the Defense Secretary just like that. So that created such a big controversy.

Hamsaduta: I read a very interesting article, and the theme was that once a month, every month at least, one government is now collapsing or being overthrown. That was the theme of the article.

Indian man (1): In U.P. they change the government after every two, three months. Yesterday also they make authorization to rule in U.P. from yesterday. They change the government like that after every few months.

Gopala Krsna: Now Dr. Channa Reddy must have become busy because when the presidents rule then the governor has to do some work. Otherwise in India the governors, they do no work.

Indian man (1): He takes instruction from president.

Hamsaduta: In America in the upcoming elections in 1976, one of the biggest candidates is a movie actor, Ronald Reagan. Yes.

Prabhupada: For presidentship?

Hamsaduta: For presidentship. And he stands a very good chance of winning.

Gopala Krsna: He's governor of California. [break] The movie stars are entering into politics now. [break]

Prabhupada: ...the government will be incompetent, the more the citizens will be exploited. Ultimately the citizens will suffer. Because they will want money and plunder the citizens, they will be disgusted. Achinna-dara-dravin gacchanti giri-kananam. [break]

Tejas: ...tax division, the clerks will come to the various businessmen after they make their first application, and they will tell them... First they will come to them. And immediately a businessman knows, so he gives him 500,000 rupees. And he will say, "Oh, thank you very much. I just came to see you. I wanted to tell you that if you say like this, you will save ten thousand, twenty thousand rupees. But don't say when you are there that I told you." (end)

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- November 30, 1975, Delhi