"The Crow Tal-fruit Controversy"

Vrndavana, April 10, 1976



Yasodanandana: Prabhupada, there has been discussion amongst many of the members of the press and the Sanskrit editors regarding the actual place of Nrsimha's pastimes. So I told them that on the occasion of our travel to South India we visited this place Ahobilam, and the panditas, they have scriptural reference from the Brahmanda Purana and the Nrsimha Purana that the place is actually mentioned there, and it has been recognized by Ramanujacarya and many of the great Alwar saints. And yourself have already told me twice personally that this was the actual place where it happened. And on top of the mountain there, there is the pillar, iron pillar, which is the symbol of the spot where Lord Nrsimha killed Hiranyakasipu. So for the benefit of all of these devotees, they were just requesting your actual confirmation.

Prabhupada: Confirmation or no confirmation, Nrsimhadeva is our worshipable Deity, that's all. Why you are bothering where He killed Hiranyakasipu? You worship Him, that's all.

Yasodanandana: They just wanted...

Jayadvaita: The question came up because they have some pictures, photographs from these places, and we wanted to know if they were suitable for publishing or not.

Prabhupada: So why you are bothering with that? Let it be accepted or not accepted. Worship Him.

Aksayananda: Not that important.

Prabhupada: That is the important thing. [break] A man is diseased. He has gone to the physician. So whether is the first duty to investigate wherefrom the disease came or to cure him? Which is important?

Yasodanandana: To cure.

Prabhupada: Similarly, Nrsimhadeva might have done this or here or there, but He is our worshipable Deity, that's all. Why bother with unnecessary things? We know Nrsimha is everywhere. Andantara stha paramanu cayan... That is the conclusion.

Jayadvaita: We were just afraid that if we published a picture that was not correct, then you might become like Nrsimhadeva.

Prabhupada: Hm?

Jayadvaita: We were afraid that if we were to publish a picture that is not correct...

Prabhupada: So when it is disputed, why should you publish that picture? It is controversial. You should not print.

Yasodanandana: The controversy is only amongst the...

Prabhupada: Whatever it may be. As soon as there is little controversy.... I explained yesterday.

Pusta Krsna: For dhatun?(?)

Prabhupada: No, the crow, the crow and the tala fruit. Somebody said this; somebody said this. Then what is that important thing? Crow and a tala. You know the kaka-taliya-nyaya?

Yasodanandana: I never heard that story.

Prabhupada: There was a tree, tala tree, and.... tala tree. So one crow was there, and the tala fruit fell down. Two panditas, they began, "Whether the tala fruit fell down.... Because the crow sat down on it, therefore fell down." The other said, "No, the tala fruit was falling down, and the crow could not sit on it." And they began to fight: "No, this." He said, "No this, no this," go on.

Aksayananda: Or maybe the crow tried to eat it.

Yasodanandana: I think in this case it was just a question that they never knew actually what was the actual position. But if Your Divine Grace does not wish anything to be published regarding that place, then we will not do.

Prabhupada: As soon as there is some controversy, avoid it. That's all. Tala fruit and crow. You worship Nrsimhadeva. Ito nrsimhah parato, yato yato yami tato nrsimhah. Nrsimhadeva is everywhere.

Pusta Krsna: Bahir nrsimho hrdaye...

Prabhupada: Why Nrsimha should be confined: "He was here"? He is everywhere. And as He is everywhere, He is here also. That's all. Finish the business. And you are without...? (shoes?)

Yasodanandana: I missed it. I could not get my cappalas (sandals) off in time. They were lost. But that is okay.

Prabhupada: No, no, it is not okay. It is not at all okay. Then you go and sit down. Don't.... That is very risky. Then let us go to the road. [break] Maybe.

Jayadvaita: [break] ...that just as a capitalist sees money everywhere and a lusty person sees sex life everywhere, devotee sees Krsna everywhere, even in a pillar.

Nalini-kanta: I've been reading a lot in the different books about envy. You say that people kill cows only out of envy. I was wondering if you could give a definition of what envy is. I don't understand why they would kill animals out of envy.

Prabhupada: Envy means the cow has got right to live. He does not allow the cow to live. That is envy. You cannot understand this? Suppose you are walking. You have got right to walk, I have got, and if I kill you, you cannot walk. That is envious. Everyone has got right to live. Just like the camel. God has given their food. They are accustomed to eat these thorny twigs. So Krsna has given that. Let them eat and live. Why should you interfere with his living condition? [break] Do not interfere with others' right. Why should you? [break] ...think we shall take the car in Bombay?

Pusta Krsna: Yes. I think it's a good idea because there is no suitable place to store it here.

Prabhupada: No, we can make a suitable place. What is that?

Pusta Krsna: It may take some time. I don't.... Actually I haven't been to Bombay myself. I haven't seen the land at Juhu. Is there a suitable place for...?

Prabhupada: There is many suitable place.

Pusta Krsna: The reason was that because whenever you come back to India, you always come back to Bombay first of all, so as soon as you come back to India, you'll have facility to use your car. Otherwise we should make arrangements for another car for Bombay also?

Prabhupada: No. Another Mercedes?

Pusta Krsna: (laughter) Yes.

Hari-sauri: A Rolls Royce next time.

Prabhupada: (laughing) No. [break] ...land you can utilize. Where is.... They say overpopulation. Where is man? Overpopulation in the city. Eko yo bahunam vidadhati kaman. Krsna has His own plan. Even overpopulation Krsna provides. Why you are worried, "overpopulation"? You chant Hare Krsna. Why you are worried about overpopulation?

Yasodanandana: "We are less worried now with the family planning program."

Prabhupada: Hm?

Yasodanandana: "With the family planning program the worry is decreasing."

Prabhupada: Decreasing?

Yasodanandana: They will argue like that.

Prabhupada: Oh. Family planning, why family planning? Family planning is already there that don't marry. Why don't you accept this? Don't have sex. This is real family planning.

Jayadvaita: "That is horrible."

Prabhupada: Eh?

Jayadvaita: "It is horrible."

Pusta Krsna: "Might as well kill ourselves."

Prabhupada: Not horrible. It is horrible for a particular person. Otherwise.... [break] Karma-bandhana. What is this?

Lokanatha: They are flowers. These are the flowers.

Pusta Krsna: In little pots.

Prabhupada: Fruits also?

Devotee (1): They're just some kind of little string bean.

Aksayananda: Like a bean.

Devotee (1): Birds and camels eat the bean.

Jayadvaita: Our ISKCON population rate is less.

Yasodanandana: However, in some of our centers it tends to increase quite a bit.

Pusta Krsna: Srila Prabhupada, 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.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Pusta Krsna: Simply that they have no clear idea what consciousness is and what life is. Therefore all these things are going on.

Prabhupada: 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-sauri: :Perhaps we cut across this way? This is a dead end here.

Prabhupada: No, we shall come back.

Jayadvaita: You gave that other example in Srimad-Bhagavatam that Nrsimhadeva let Hiranyakasipu slip from His hands for a little while just to play with him.

Nalini-kanta: The Vedic civilization is centered around villages, not cities?

Prabhupada: Hm?

Nalini-kanta: If we want to make the world Krsna conscious...

Prabhupada: Vedic civilization is in the forest. Go to the forest.

Hari-sauri: Renounce.

Prabhupada: :Neither in the city nor in the village. Go to the forest.

Lokanatha: But there were cities like Dvaraka.

Prabhupada: That is another thing, but the ideal is vanam gato yad dharim asrayeta [SB 7.5.5]. Go to the forest and depend on Krsna and live there. And that is perfection. Vanam gato yad dharim asrayeta [SB 7.5.5]. Go to the forest and remain, depending on Krsna. That's all.

Lokanatha: There are no forests left.

Hari-sauri: The whole material world's a forest.

Prabhupada: There are so many forests in America, full of forests still. Africa, so many forests, big, big forests.

Aksayananda: [break] ...Kali-yuga we cannot do that due to our conditioning.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Hari sauri: :Fifth Canto describes the whole material world is a forest.

Pusta Krsna: Of enjoyment.

Lokanatha: Forest of enjoyment. [break]

Prabhupada: They go in the village for begging little food, that's all. Just like you can live in this forest. And what you will eat? Two capati. So you can go and beg. That's all. Whole day's business finished. Chant Hare Krsna.

Lokanatha: It's too simple to understand.

Prabhupada: Hm?

Lokanatha: It's so simple, we cannot realize how simple it is.

Aksayananda: But if we tried to do that, wouldn't it be sort of artificial?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Aksayananda: Yes. (end)

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- April 10, 1976, Vrndavana

"How To Use This Body"

Bombay, April 17, 1976


Prabhupada: ...is real scientist. Those who change every year theory, I don't like that scientist. Do you like that scientist?

Dr. Patel: No.

Prabhupada: Then who? Nobody, no gentleman likes that.

Dr. Patel: He's not a scientist, who changes himself.

Prabhupada: Yes. You cannot change your position. That is science. Krsna has said that mattah parataram nanyat [Bg. 7.7]. So nobody has become greater than Krsna up till now. That is science. Can anyone challenge Krsna? No. And He has said, mattah parataram nanyat [Bg. 7.7]. So that is scientist.

Dr. Patel: No, but the scientists try to unearth the secrets of Krsna.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Dr. Patel: Scientists, the modern science, is trying to unearth the secrets of Krsna only.

Prabhupada: Trying to?

Dr. Patel: Unearth the secret of Krsna. Krsna's maya.

Prabhupada: Krsna's maya.

Dr. Patel: Maya, we are trying to unearth the secret of Krsna's maya. Those two scientists must come forward, eh? Now he is going to throw a bombshell.

Prabhupada: Jaya. Hare Krsna.

Dr. Patel: The difference of each comes in practically two, three Upanisads, the one which you have also commented. There is. That happens, the Mundakopanisad, the beginning. (Sanskrit) So we are the scientists of the apara-vidya; you are the scientist of the para-vidya. So we must not have any quarrel. We have divided our sphere of activity.

Prabhupada: No, there is no quarrel, but we say that these are for the rascals. Yes. Apara-vidya is for the rascals.

Dr. Patel: No, no, even the greatest of the saints, namely, the guru of.... I mean, Suka(?) Maharaja, also he had the first apara-vidya. Then para-vidya.... Apara-vidya is the first step.

Prabhupada: And so long you are in apara-vidya, you remain a rascal.

Dr. Patel: No, but we always have to put up our step on the apara-vidya. Then you put up your step on the para-vidya. You can't jump over it.

Prabhupada: No, no, no. No. There is no question of jumping, but things should be realized as it is. Apara... This is apara. This is para. So this is inferior; this is superior. That you have to admit.

Dr. Patel: This was the question of Narada Muni himself in the beginning.

Prabhupada: Yes. Yes. And it is explained about apara-vidya, antavat tu phalam tesam tad bhavaty alpa-medhasam [Bg. 7.23]. Therefore rascal, alpa-medhasa. Alpa means no brain, no brain.

Dr. Patel: They have got those questions of bhakti other than of Krsna.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Dr. Patel: Alpa, alpa...

Prabhupada: This apara-vidya.... Para-vidya means Krsna. Para-vidya means Krsna. So one who.... Unless one comes to the point of Krsna, he is in the apara-vidya. And apara-vidya is meant for the less intelligent class of men. Tad bhavaty alpa-medhasam.

Dr. Patel: Then the whole question was, sir, here in Upanisad that...

Prabhupada: Upanisad is para-vidya.

Dr. Patel: But when, when Muni went...

Prabhupada: Upanisad is the beginning of para-vidya.

Dr. Patel: That's right, sir. He said that "What you have learned? Let me know what you have learned. Then I will teach you further on."

Prabhupada: Yes.

Dr. Patel: And they said that...

Prabhupada: To know what is your position, whether still you are foolish or you have become intelligent. That is...

Dr. Patel: If he had not become intelligent, he would not have gone there.

Prabhupada: That has to be.... Then...

Dr. Patel: That means he had become intelligent.

Prabhupada: That is all right. That is all right. He has gone to the.... That is pious. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gita, catur-vidha bhajante mam sukrtinah. Anyone who goes to Krsna or guru for asking, he is pious. He is not miscreant. Duskrtina. He is not duskrtina. He is pious. Maybe he is in the lower position, but he is pious. That is described. And one who does not go either to Krsna or His representative, he is duskrtina, naradhama. This is the difference. One man is suffering from some disease. If he has gone to the physician, he is intelligent. And one who says, "Ha, what is this? I don't care for that," he's a rascal. That's all.

Dr. Patel: He must come to me. (laughs)

Prabhupada: Yes. Anyone who accepts that "I must be treated," he is intelligent.

Dr. Patel: Yes, sir, but para-vidya is meant for the body, apara-vidya, I mean to say. Para-vidya is meant for the soul.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Dr. Patel: So soul and body has got to live together. So there is a necessity of apara-vidya also to keep your body going.

Prabhupada: No, no. Para-vidya does not mean to reject the body.

Dr. Patel: Sir, there is a necessity of apara-vidya.

Prabhupada: No, no. No. That is to make the best use of a bad bargain, how to use the body best to perfect para-vidya. That is intelligence. Just like you have a car. A car is not neglected. We don't kick out car. But it must be used for spreading Krsna consciousness.

Dr. Patel: That is what I say, sir, that you must have the knowledge of car, and that knowledge of car is apara-vidya.

Prabhupada: No. No. No. There is no need of. You have the car, you can go from this place to that place very quickly, so utilize it for Krsna conscious.

Dr. Patel: They must know how to drive it. That is knowledge. Why do you say no?

Prabhupada: That automatically comes.

Dr. Patel: How can automatically? Nothing can come automatically.

Prabhupada: You'll see many drivers. They do not know about mechanics, but very first class driver.

Dr. Patel: Well, learning driving is a knowledge of driving.

Prabhupada: Yes, driving, that is...

Dr. Patel: Svarupa(?), why don't you say something?

Prabhupada: Yes. Many.... Many first-class owner.... You know. You are a physician. You are not a motor mechanics, but you know how to drive. That is not very difficult thing.

Guru dasa: Isn't it when you drive for Krsna, doesn't it become para-vidya then?

Prabhupada: Hm?

Guru dasa: When you drive for Krsna, doesn't it becomes para-vidya?

Prabhupada: Yes, everything is done for Krsna, that is para-vidya.

Dr. Patel: Anything spoken for Krsna, Krsna is para-vani, and this is para-vidya.

Prabhupada: Vasudeva-para... There is a verse, vasudeva-parah karma vasudeva-para... Like that.

Dr. Patel: Vasudeva-para makhah vasudeva-para.

Prabhupada: Yes, yes. So everything should be for Vasudeva. And he is first-class wise man who knows vasudevah sarvam iti sa mahatma... [Bg. 7.19].

Dr. Patel: Sudurlabhah.

Prabhupada: Yes. But such kind of intelligent person is very rare.

Dr. Patel: Vasudevah sarvam iti [Bg. 7.19], sir, you get actually when you become the real Vaisnava, because then you see the presence of God in every inanimate and animate object.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is...

Dr. Patel: That is real Vaisnava. Otherwise you are not.

Prabhupada: That is a fact. Without Vasudeva, without Krsna's order.... Mayadhyaksena [Bg. 9.10]. Everything is being done under His superintendence. Mayadhyaksena. Even in the prakrti, apara and para... There are two prakrtis. So even in apara-prakrti there is superintendence of Krsna.

Dr. Patel: I am interrupting you, sir. Mayadhyaksena suyate prakrtih sa-caracaram [Bg. 9.10].

Prabhupada: Yes.

Dr. Patel: Now then, mayadhyaksena, we want to learn how He adhyaksa, and that is our vidya, and that is our apara-vidya.

Prabhupada: That is para-vidya.

Dr. Patel: That is real scientist.

Prabhupada: That is para-vidya. And don't now, please, say we are...

Prabhupada: No, no, then don't refer to para-vidya (?).

Dr. Patel: We are trying to learn it.

Prabhupada: No, but you defy Krsna.

Dr. Patel: Do you defy by trying to learn His mayadhyaksena suyate prakrtih sa-caracaram [Bg. 9.10]?

Prabhupada: No, now scientists say that "Now we are advanced. We don't require God." There is a book. Yes. "We don't require God. Now we shall adjust. We shall create.... We shall create human being according to our necessity."

Dr. Patel: You are also scientist. You are on one side.

Prabhupada: You know that?

Dr. Patel: Yes, yes, sir.

Prabhupada: They say that "We shall create human being according to our necessity."

Dr. Patel: It is not possible to.... Can they create a leaf? Then let them create a human.

Prabhupada: But that.... Therefore we say rascals.

Dr. Patel: But then you don't take it, all of us, together. We are four or five of us here. We are next to you. We are none of those.

Prabhupada: Then the same theory that "This side of stool is dry. It is good." (laughter) Yes.

Dr. Patel: Because it going to be manure, manure the food.

Prabhupada: "And the other side is moist; therefore it is bad."

Dr. Patel: Yes, sir. That type of stool which goes and manures the crop, that is good, evidently.

Prabhupada: No, no, after all, stool, this side or that side.... The whole conclusion is that unless one is surrendered to Krsna, he remains in darkness.

Dr. Patel: That's right.

Prabhupada: That is the point. Therefore we are trying to enlighten people to Krsna consciousness.

Dr. Patel: And a scientist trying to unearth the secret of nature means Krsna. He is doing work for Krsna, and he cannot be...

Prabhupada: No, no, everyone has to work for Krsna. Just like a prisoner in the prison house. He is also working for government, but he is forced to do it. Then nobody can escape Krsna. That is not possible.

Dr. Patel: Right, sir. But the scientist is not forced to do it. He freely does it.

Prabhupada: No, anyone. Why scientist? Even cats and dogs, they are also doing for Krsna. You cannot.... Nobody can say...

Dr. Patel: But scientist willingly does it to unearth the secret. Don't call him a rascal. The scientist does it.

Prabhupada: No, I don't say. Krsna says.

Dr. Patel: Krsna says those people are rascal who does not believe in Him.

Prabhupada: So anyway, that is the test. If you don't believe in Krsna, you are rascal. That's all. We are simple child, and Krsna has said that anyone who does not surrendered, he's a rascal. So we say, "Are you surrendered to Krsna?" "No." "You are a rascal." (laughter) No. Our test is very simple.

Dr. Patel: And what do you mean by surrendering, sir?

Prabhupada: He does not know anything but Krsna. He knows everything...

Dr. Patel: Surrendering means by mental process if I do through my mind. This is my definition. My mental process in the...

Prabhupada: No, no.

Dr. Patel: Everything happening is.... By Krsna's grace he's surrendering to...

Prabhupada: Not mental. No mental concoction. Factual. Factual.

Dr. Patel: That is factual. That everything is...

Prabhupada: No, mental concoction is not factual.

Dr. Patel: Sir, but I am.... You don't let me speak. I say that everything which is happening, a phenomena, is nothing but by the grace of God or by Krsna's own order, and if that...

Prabhupada: And you have no responsibility.

Dr. Patel: And that mental process, if you are working, is it a wrong mental process?

Prabhupada: So here is a greatest wrong. No, no. If your patient comes, that "It is by Krsna's wish I have become diseased," then where is your department? You don't...

Dr. Patel: But by Krsna's grace I have become a doctor. Both the ways. Why see on one side?

Prabhupada: Then say that. Why do you say one side?

Dr. Patel: Of course, everything is by Krsna. The man is diseased by Krsna, I am produced by Krsna, I'll care by Krsna this, that man, and that man dies, he will die by Krsna's grace.

Prabhupada: That's all right.

Dr. Patel: Then that is Krsna's grace.

Prabhupada: Then that is all right.

Dr. Patel: That is what I have been saying.

Prabhupada: Yes, that's all right. That is Krsna conscious. Hare Krsna.

Dr. Patel: I think I am not wrong. (laughter)

Prabhupada: No, when in everything you see Krsna, that is the highest stage. That is the highest stage.

sthavara-jangama dekhe, na dekhe tara murti

sarvatra haya nija ista-deva-sphurti

[Cc. Madhya 8.274]

When one sees, he sees this beach, but he does not see beach, he sees Krsna. That is the highest stage.

Dr. Patel: I was meaning that, but unfortunately my expression was very poor.

Prabhupada: Yes, that may be.

Dr. Patel: I am not student of literature like you.

Prabhupada: Nothing can exist.... maya tatam idam sarvam. So everything is Krsna. Krsna says, maya tatam idam sarvam. Where is not Krsna? But the Mayavadi says, "Everything is Krsna; therefore let me worship the sand." That is rascaldom. "What is the use of going to the temple? Let me worship the sand." That is rascaldom. Krsna says clearly, therefore,

maya tatam idam sarvam

jagad avyakta-murtina

mat-sthani sarva-bhutani

na caham tesv avasthitah

[Bg. 9.4]

Dr. Patel: Na caham tesv avasthitah means no more important.(?)

Prabhupada: Yes.

Dr. Patel: So I look a fool and they'll become wise, all of them, eh?

Prabhupada: Oh, yes. You are wise.

Dr. Patel: They want that I should say something, and then you call me a rascal, and they take pleasure in it.

Guru dasa: No, no. Para-duhkhi.

Dr. Patel: No, no, no. I say all right...

Guru dasa: Vaisnava is not happy in someone else's misery.

Prabhupada: Hare Krsna. [break] ...possible if you remain with the devotees. (Hindi) ...nondevotees' association. Satam prasangan mama virya-samvido, bhavanti hrt-karna-rasayanah kathah [SB 3.25.25]. Satam prasangat. Amongst devotees if you remain, then Krsna-katha will be so pleasing, rasayanah katha, rasayana. Therefore Narottama dasa Thakura said,

tadera carana-sebi-bhakta-sane bas

janame janame hoy ei abhilas

Dr. Patel: The sat-sanga.

Prabhupada: Yes, sat-sanga.

Dr. Patel: Is satam sanga? It is sat-sanga.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Dr. Patel: Even good literature sanga is also sat-sanga, is it not?

Prabhupada: Yes. Yes.

Dr. Patel: So I am.... In the morning I do your sat-sanga, and afterwards I do the sat-sanga of Bhagavata and Bhagavad-gita. So it is a continuous sat-sanga. So don't say I am not doing it. (laughs)

Prabhupada: No, no, you are not.... I don't say that you are rascal.

Dr. Patel: No, about sat-sanga.

Prabhupada: Rather, I think myself rascal because.... (laughter)

Dr. Patel: I say about sat-sanga. Let us turn the issue.

Prabhupada: I could not draw you in my temple.

Dr. Patel: You have drawn me lot, but still, you are dragging me by leg nowadays.

Pusta Krsna: Into our hospital.

Indian: (Hindi)

Dr. Patel: I think I am not fit to be with you, so far I consider myself.

Prabhupada: Everyone is.

Dr. Patel: I must correct myself and all my defects. Otherwise I would pollute you. [break] (laughter) I will become after sixty-five.

Prabhupada: You are fifteen years late already. (laughter)

Dr. Patel: I must follow you. How much late you were? I will come after you. [break] ...you think sir, that is more important than...

Prabhupada: No, no.

Dr. Patel: You must have the clothing in the internal side.

Prabhupada: No, clothing is.... Anasritah karma-phalam karyam karma karoti yah ...sa sannyasi [Bg. 6.1]. It is not the clothing. Clothing is not.... Sa ...yogi ca na niragnir na cakriyah. (Hindi) And continually doing that maha-papa. [break] ...naradhama.

Dr. Patel: Because they are mayayapahrta-jnana.

Prabhupada: Yes. It means they have no knowledge.

Dr. Patel: Maya has taken away their vision, their sense of understanding, sense of.... What do you call, sense of understanding or sense of...?

Prabhupada: Sense of reality.

Dr. Patel: Reality. I was trying to say that word, reality. Asuram bhavam asritah [Bg. 7.15]. But today the whole world is practically asura.

Prabhupada: Yes. [break] ...is a word declared to the asuras. You see? Therefore everyone is our enemy. Nobody likes us, because a declaration of war against the asura... And we are fighting with some tiny soldiers, that's all. And they are very strong. (aside:) Hare Krsna. Jaya. Thank you. Jaya. [break] ...we don't want who says that "Why you are searching after God? The gods are loitering in the street." Of course, it is in higher sense, but you cannot say respectively(?), "Everyone is God." Maybe.... (Hindi)

Dr. Patel: Now we must not.... (Hindi)

Prabhupada: That very word suggests that he is not to that stage where he can see Narayana everywhere.

Dr. Patel: That is the highest statement of a Vaisnava.

Prabhupada: [break] ...therefore there is character. Just like there are some terpinoids(?) or some, so many. If little change is there, immediately the color changes, the flavor change. And who adjusted?

Dr. Patel: There they find Krsna, sir.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Dr. Patel: That has been.... I was already telling you, that three colors...

Prabhupada: No, no. They say that "Now we are scientists. We do not require God." Yes.

Dr. Patel: They are putting, I mean.... The putting of a small leaf in a hydrocarbon.... You can't put it from that. To that step we have come in biochemistry or chemistry.

Prabhupada: Therefore they should admit who has adjusted it. Then who has adjusted like this, so that the color, the flavor, everything is maintained standard? That is real scientist.

Dr. Patel: Svabhava hatu pravar.(?)

Prabhupada: Yes. Svabhava means prakrti. So mayadhyaksena prakrti [Bg. 9.10].

Dr. Patel: So under His guidance.

Prabhupada: Yes. So matter cannot work. Yasyajnaya... There is a verse in the Brahma-samhita. Srsti-sthiti.... Svabhava is Durga. Srsti-sthiti-pralaya-sadhana-saktir eka chayeva yasya bhuvanani vibharti durga, icchanurupam api yasya ca cestate sa [Bs. 5.44]. By His desire.

Dr. Patel: No, sir, He desired and said, "Let Me be many," and He became many. So by desire the whole cosmos has come into existence. So by desire the colors change.

Prabhupada: Even there.... Coconut trees, there are varieties. One tree is standing like this; one is standing like this. Varieties.

Dr. Patel: But then one thing, eko bahu... Everything that is..., the Vaisnava fulfillment.

Prabhupada: No, Vaisnava accepts the varieties.

Dr. Patel: He accept the variety but he sees in Him everywhere.

Prabhupada: No. Variety is everywhere. (aside:) Hare Krsna. (end)

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- April 17, 1976, Bombay

"Christians Don't Accept Christ"

Honolulu, May 15, 1976



Prabhupada: God created the soul and the matter also. Has he discussed anything?

Hayagriva: No.

Prabhupada: God created everything. God created soul and the matter.

Hayagriva: The individual soul.

Prabhupada: Ah.

Hayagriva: Well, then, how is the individual soul eternal if it has a beginning?

Prabhupada: No, we say there is no beginning. As God has no beginning, soul has no beginning.

Hayagriva: No beginning, yes.

Prabhupada: Na jayate na mriyate va. That is the distinction between matter and soul.

Pusta Krsna: They counter that if God is all-powerful, He can do anything. So why not He can create a soul and that soul can then be eternal from that point?

Prabhupada: Hm?

Pusta Krsna: The Christian may argue that God is all-powerful, so God has created the soul, and from that point the soul is eternal.

Prabhupada: Soul is eternal, we admit.

Pusta Krsna: But only from that point, not in the past.

Prabhupada: Not in the past?

Pusta Krsna: Yes, because according to Biblical philosophy you only have one lifetime in this world.

Prabhupada: Then who goes to heaven?

Pusta Krsna: Persons who adopt the principles.

Prabhupada: And if one life, then who goes to heaven and who goes to hell?

Pusta Krsna: Very few go to heaven.

Prabhupada: Anyone, if he goes to hell or heaven, then why do you say "one life"? Then another life. Otherwise what is the meaning of going to heaven or hell?

Hari-sauri: No. They get one chance to good or bad, and then finish.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Hari-sauri: They get one chance. Do good or bad. Then you either go to heaven or to hell. But you don't get another chance.

Prabhupada: But if he goes heaven means there is another life. How do you say "one life"? This is defective philosophy.

Pusta Krsna: But this is what God has said in the Bible; therefore we must accept.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Pusta Krsna: This is what God has said in the Bible; therefore we must accept.

Prabhupada: God, if He says something unreasonable, how it can be accepted? You say, "one life." Then who goes to the next life? That is defective. Why do you not talk back?

Pusta Krsna: [break] ...cannot explain why some people are born in a more pious setting and some people are born in a more impious setting.

Prabhupada: Because they do not know the karma. Karmana daiva netrena [SB 3.31.1]. According to one's activities, pious or impious, he gets the next birth. That is quite reasonable. But they do not believe in karma. When I was student in Scottish Churches College, so we had to attend class, half an hour, Bible. So the Dr. Urquhart, he did.... The argument was: "So if karma is there and I am suffering for my karma, who is the witness?" But because they do not know that the witness is God.

Pusta Krsna: He asked that question?

Prabhupada: Yes, he asked that question. [break] Paramatma.... They say "Holy Ghost." What is that Holy Ghost?

Pusta Krsna: The Holy Ghost is supposed to give knowledge to persons who have embraced the teaching.

Prabhupada: Therefore He is seeing what you are doing. So according to your action, the Holy Ghost gives you another birth. [break] ...sarva-bhutanam hrd-dese arjuna tisthati. [break]...dictating everyone's heart, and He is observing. Bhramayan sarva-bhutani yantrarudhani mayaya [Bg. 18.61].

Pusta Krsna: [break] ...contends that if a person does not become fully aware in this lifetime of God, then they don't have another chance, and they are condemned to hell for eternity.

Prabhupada: The hell or heaven doesn't matter. The next life is there. How you say "one life"? That is defective theory. Therefore this philosophy cannot be accepted. Anything which is defective is not to be accepted.

Pusta Krsna: Simply dogma.

Prabhupada: Yes. [break] ...rejected. That is Vedic process.

Hari-sauri: Actually, there's so many different understandings that the Christians have of the same thing. They all have different type of philosophy.

Hayagriva: No, Christ never said that. Christ never said you only have one life.

Prabhupada: So that is real philosophy. That is real philosophy.

Hayagriva: This is the.... All of this evolved from the church fathers.

Prabhupada: That is all defective, unscrupulous.

Radhavallabha: [break] ...come up to us on sankirtana, and they are smoking a cigarette, and they say, "Do you accept Jesus Christ?"

Prabhupada: Hm?

Radhavallabha: They say, "You cannot be successful unless you accept Jesus Christ like us." But they were smoking.

Prabhupada: We accept. Rather, you do not accept. Jesus Christ said "Thou shall not kill." We strictly observe that, but you kill. You are not a Christian.

Hari-sauri: "But that's just an ideal, the Ten Commandments. You're not expected to follow."

Prabhupada: No, that is your explanation. That is your concoction. [break] ...take it. As soon as you disobey Ten Commandments, you are not a Christian. You are heathen. [break] And the thing is that religious faith should not be discussed on philosophy because everyone has got some, his own concocted faith. That is not philosophy. Faith is different. "I believe," "You believe," "I do not believe" -- that is not philosophy. [break] ...philosophy in Bhagavad-gita that asmin dehe.... Dehino 'smin yatha dehe [Bg. 2.13], there is soul. This is philosophy. Religion without philosophy is sentiment, and philosophy without religion is mental concoction. So both of them should be combined. Then it is perfect.

Pusta Krsna: [break] ...can be given, though, that man's logic is so tiny, pea brain, and God's logic is so great, so how can actually man discuss the logic of God?

Prabhupada: Hm?

Pusta Krsna: The argument is given that God is infinitely great.

Prabhupada: Then don't discuss. Sleep. If you cannot understand God's logic and God's philosophy, then don't discuss. Stop discuss.

Radhavallabha: Jewish people say that you can't chant the name of God because it is too sacred.

Prabhupada: Yes, too sacred, that's.... Actually that's a fact. And those who are too sinful, they cannot chant. [break] ...these ten kinds of offenses.

Radhavallabha: [break] ...that God has put the world here for us to enjoy, so we will please Him by enjoying it. [break]

Prabhupada: You go at four o'clock to your working place and come at night, ten. Is that enjoyment?

Radhavallabha: But on the weekend we can go to the beach. And we can eat whatever we want.

Prabhupada: No, no, you can go to hell also. Different thing.... [break] ...jara-vyadhi-duhkha-dosanu. That is there. If you are suffering from disease, where is enjoyment? Mental discomfort, bodily discomfort. You are taking thrice pills for tranquillity. Is that enjoyment?

Radhavallabha: They say you have to take the good with the bad.

Prabhupada: This nonsense enjoyment. Fool's paradise. For keeping the mind in tranquillity he is taking four times pills. For sleeping, he is taking pill. Does he enjoy that?

Radhavallabha: By suffering you can get a deeper appreciation...

Prabhupada: Then what is enjoyment? Suffer. Then why is called enjoyment? By suffering you can.... (too much static-end)

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- May 15, 1976, Honolulu

HOME
© 2001 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International. Used with permission.

"Analyze The Body-Where Is Life"

Honolulu, May 12, 1976


Pusta Krsna: They don't grow. [break] ...say, though, that "We don't want to enter into a religious, philosophical discussion. Simply we are trying to improve the standard of life."

Prabhupada: What improvement you have done? What improvement you have done? I do not wish to die. Can you help me? Then what improvement?

Pusta Krsna: No.

Prabhupada: What improvement?

Pusta Krsna: But we can make it more comfortable.

Prabhupada: My father died, his father died, his father died, so I'll die, my son will die. What improvement you have done?

Pusta Krsna: We can make it more comfortable to die.

Prabhupada: Oh. Peaceful death. This will be accepted by rascals. That's all. If I am going to die, where is comfort? Death is comfortable?

Radhavallabha: My mother is a nurse, and she told me that she's seen many people die, and she said, "It is very nice. It is very peaceful..."

Prabhupada: Your mother is also peaceful?

Radhavallabha: She's dead. (laughter) I went to see her when she was dying, and I told her that "Now you should chant Hare Krsna because you're going to die." She said, "No, I am not ready. I'm going to fight it." But she lost the fight.

Hari-sauri: (to passerby) Hare Krsna.

Radhavallabha: Another girl went to see her mother when her mother was dying, and she told her mother, "Chant Hare Krsna," and her mother said, "Shut up," and then died.

Pusta Krsna: [break] Because we don't accept their scientific achievements as being worthy, for example, in medicine, and things like this, they will say that our argument is one-sided. Just like that Dr. Wolfe. He was thinking like that.

Prabhupada: What is one-sided?

Pusta Krsna: Well, we simply say that the scientists have done nothing good to further human cause.

Prabhupada: No, we don't say that. We say that you take credit as far as you have been successful. Why do you say there is no God? We protest against that.

Pusta Krsna: [break] ...there's a God, then they won't be making so many materialistic arrangements.

Prabhupada: You don't require it. [break] ...so many materialistic improvements, we require open field like this. We require trees. That is nature's gift. Although we have got this car, we come here to take advantage of nature's gift. Why you have come here? The city was there. I don't like. So actually you enjoy nature's gift. Important persons, they work whole week in the city, and as soon as there is weekend they go to the village. Why? The enjoyment is in the village. They do not like to stay in the factory. It is disgusting. [break]

Devotee (1): Just like sleep. And just like when we're sleeping it's very comfortable, then why should we be afraid of dying? It's very comfortable. Death is just like sleep. When we're sleeping we feel.... So why, then, we should be afraid of death?

Prabhupada: But you are actually afraid. Why? You say.... You are a great philosopher: "Why should we be afraid?" But if I kill you, immediately you cry. Why? Don't cry. Let peacefully die. I kill you? Why do you protest, "This man is killing me, killing me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Police! Police! Police!" Why? Die peacefully. I am helping you to die peaceful. Why you make me criminal? [break] ...says, "Thou shall not kill." If killing is peaceful, dying is peaceful, why He has prohibited?

Devotee (1): Even though you may kill me, we still don't mind that.

Prabhupada: No, I am not so fool I am going to kill you. That is an..., the business. But you die peacefully. Let him throw in the sea. Die peacefully.

Pusta Krsna: In other words, they are theorizing that "Death is a very peaceful state of sleeping. Why are we protesting so much"?

Prabhupada: But that is not sleeping. After sleeping you have to awake, and you have to bark like dog, "Give me food. Gow! Gow! Gow!" You are not going to sleep after death. You are awakening like a dog, and bark and disturb others. That is your mistake, that you are sleeping forever. No sleeping. You have to wake up again.

Radhavallabha: [break] ...told me that he was.... He said that spirit and matter are the same. So I grabbed him and threatened to punch him in the nose. He said, "No, no, that is different."

Devotee (1): [break] So if we have to wake again, then there's no really.... Why should we have to stop birth and death?

Prabhupada: So you have no experience? Do you sleep perpetually, whole day and night? Why do you wake up? Is it not your experience that you sleep at night and wake up at daytime?

Devotee (1): Yes. But if I'm going to wake again, then why should I want to stop it? I go to sleep; I wake up.

Prabhupada: No, but your waking.... You are going to wake up like a dog. That is the privilege. You sleep perpetually..., not perpetually, for seven months, and then you wake up as a dog. The body is changed. And go on barking. That you do not know. That is ignorance.

Pusta Krsna: That's amazing. You go to sleep in a human body, and you wake up in a dog body.

Prabhupada: Ah, that's it. What is this conglomeration?

Devotee (1): [break] ...wakes up the next morning. I am not afraid to go to sleep because I know that I will wake up. So if I'm going to die and I know...

Prabhupada: Die means you sleep as a man and wake up as a dog. That is dying.

Devotee (1): But it is okay to be a dog. It is okay to be a dog.

Prabhupada: Yes. But if you are so foolish that it is okay to be dog, then it is very nice.

Hari-sauri: But if we live forever, then where's the harm in changing bodies a few times? We can enjoy in all different kinds of bodies and have a good time whilst we're here. And if we're eternal, then what is the big rush to get out?

Prabhupada: That is going on. For the foolish person, it is going on. [break] ...land there is?

Pusta Krsna: [break] ...farms all over the world, even in India, they have to irrigate the land.

Prabhupada: Hm?

Pusta Krsna: They have to irrigate the land artificially like this. Either they dig a ditch and they pour water into the ditch by some method, or sprinkling like this. So in a society where everyone is God conscious, Krsna says how He supplies the rain. Was there any need even for such irrigation?

Prabhupada: Irrigation?

Pusta Krsna: Irrigation means digging a hole beside where the vegetables or grains are growing. Or will the rain just fall from the sky naturally?

Prabhupada: You have to work. Otherwise.... This is material world. Without working, you cannot get anything. [break] ...between material world and spiritual world. In the material world you have to work to get your necessities. In the spiritual world there is no need of working.

Radhavallabha: [break] ...talking about the spiritual world is pie in the sky. They say that we should just talk about how to take care of things here.

Prabhupada: You cannot take care. There are so many problems. You cannot take. You are simply crying, "The problems are there. Problems are there."

Radhavallabha: Then they will say, "Well, how will talking about the spiritual world help solve the problems here in the material world?"

Prabhupada: [break] ...concerned with the material world, you remain.

Radhavallabha: [break] ...put out by the karmis, and it is a book on how to become peaceful and happy, and it shows pictures of dogs and cats sleeping, and it says, "This is how you do it. You should lie down like this and everything will be all right."

Prabhupada: The dog is lying peacefully because he has got sense that "I have got a good master." Therefore he is sleeping. They do not sleep peacefully without master.

Pusta Krsna: [break] ...Srila Prabhupada, is that the scientists have been proven guilty. Now we have to decide what their punishment should be.

Prabhupada: Nature will punish them. [break]

Devotee (1): ...kind of programs should we develop to defeat the scientists? Just like we distribute books in the street. A lot of times the scientists may not get some of these books.

Prabhupada: Defeat is that "You are scientist. I don't want death. Please stop it." Ask him. "I don't want disease. Please stop it. Then you are scientist. Otherwise I kick on your face."

Devotee (1): Should we go to the colleges and universities and make program?

Prabhupada: Yes. [break] ...these rascals are being controlled at every step; still, they are thinking independent. That is the difficulty. They are being kicked in every moment, and still they are thinking, "I am free."

Pusta Krsna: Everyone is following the scientists, too.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Pusta Krsna: Everyone is following the scientists.

Prabhupada: Not everyone. We don't follow. You may follow.

Pusta Krsna: No, Srila Prabhupada.

Radhavallabha: One professor was telling me that he didn't think you should write about all these things about the universe in your books, because none of the scientists will believe it. So I told him that all the scientists were hogs, dogs, camels and asses, and he became enraged, and he left.

Pusta Krsna: But it's not so unbelievable.

Prabhupada: And what is, the scientists will not believe? We say, tatha dehantara-praptih: [Bg. 2.13] "As the child is becoming boy, boy is becoming, similarly you have to change body." What scientist has to challenge this? But they are obstinate dog. Dehantara-praptih you have to accept. Can the scientist say, "No, no, no, the child is not going to be a young man or boy"? Can he say like that? Then why they challenge unnecessarily? They are changing the body. Can the scientists stop it? But if they are unreasonable dogs, then what can be done? What argument will reach them? A dog cannot understand.

Radhavallabha: Just stick.

Prabhupada: Yes. No, they will not understand even with stick. You see? They are less than dog. Bhagavad-gita days, dehino 'smin yatha dehe kaumaram yauvanam jara [Bg. 2.13], very simple argument, that "As the child is becoming boy, boy is becoming young man, young man is becoming middle-aged man, and middle-aged is becoming old man, similarly, you are changing body." So where is the difficulty to understand? But they are so obstinate rascal, they will not believe. As soon as the child is dead, does he become boy?

Pusta Krsna: No.

Prabhupada: So what is that? What is the scientists' reply?

Radhavallabha: They say he's dead.

Prabhupada: So why dead?

Radhavallabha: They say the brain and the heart stopped working.

Prabhupada: So you replace it, rascal.

Radhavallabha: We're working on it.

Prabhupada: There are such.... Obstinate dogs. [break]...difficulty. Mudha. They are mudhas, and they will continue to remain mudha. Then how you can make him enlightened? They cannot answer properly. Why a dead child born does not grow, does not change body? The body is a lump of matter. Analyze the body. Where is life? These are all very reasonable. But they will not. Dog's obstinacy. How you can convince them? Simply waste of time, talk with them. Therefore they should be neglected.

Radhavallabha: They did one experiment where they took a...

Prabhupada: Eh?

Radhavallabha: They did an experiment where they took an embryo of a child, and they put it in a test tube, large bottle, and they were growing it by feeding it, and it just turned into a shapeless blob.

Prabhupada: So why did you take embryo from the child? You make embryo. You cannot make even an egg which can be..., give a chicken. So to waste time with these rascals is very difficult.

Devotee (1): Such programs are minimized in the temple. Should there be a college program in each temple? Or should everyone just work along with the BBT Library Party? Should there be a college program?

Prabhupada: No, it is useless to talk with them. If you can peacefully sell some books, that's all. Don't enter into very long arguments, because they are all rascals. They cannot understand. Better peacefully, as far as possible, sell some books. Dante nidhaya trnakam padayor nipatya kaku-satam krtva ca... This is the process. They cannot understand that because there is soul within the child, therefore child is becoming boy. As soon as there is no soul, the child does not become a boy. This simple philosophy they cannot understand, so what is their position? Now, this car is standing because there is no driver. Anyone can understand. Stand still. It will remain there for thousands of years unless a driver comes. Simple reason. But they are so rascal, they will not understand. So what is the use of talking with them? Simply waste of time.

Devotee (1): These people cannot be converted.

Prabhupada: That is a fact. The dog cannot be converted. But we have to do it with stick. [break] ...that a dead child can be brought scientifically into life and he will grow, and still, they'll argue. So what is the use of argument with these rascals? When they are caught up, that "Do this," "Yes, we shall do in the future," and "What about the present?" there is no answer.

Hari-sauri: Everywhere we see millions and millions of different types of bodies are all growing, there's living force there, but still, they haven't been able to find it, and it's there all the..., everywhere, surrounding them, so what kind of scientists?

Prabhupada: [break] ...provement. Have you improved this, that a dead body can be brought into life by scientific arrangement? And still, they'll say "improvement." What improvement? Simply dry talks, that is science? [break] First subject matter for scientific advancement, that there is soul within the body. On account of the presence of the soul, the body is changing. So the soul is different from the body. So this is the first education of scientist. And they have avoided this major.... They simply bluffing people, "We have discovered this..." What you have discovered? Discover this: What is the principle within the body? Real discovery, they are not interested. They are bluffing. They are fools, making others fools and going on as scientific advancement. First of all answer this.

Pusta Krsna: Radhavallabha Prabhu...

Prabhupada: Can you challenge? "Do this first. What is your science? This is rascal science. You give up the major problem; you are making research how many atoms are working. What you will do by understanding atoms are going?"

Pusta Krsna: Because it's very difficult to...

Prabhupada: Difficult? Then you are not scientist. You cannot touch the difficult problem. Childish thing, you are bluffing children, that's all. You have no power to tackle the difficulties. You cannot give life to the dead body.

Hari-sauri: [break] But if we don't make the research, then how will we ever solve these problems?

Prabhupada: Then you are.... As soon as you say "making research," then you are not perfect. Don't say that you are scientist. You are student. Don't say that you are scientist. And you are declaring, "There is no authority, nothing." Why do you speak all this nonsense? Because you are not scientist. You are making research. That's all right. When you complete your research -- you come to the conclusion -- then call yourself as scientist. Why, as a student, neophyte, you are claiming as "scientist"? Why misleading people? You do not know anything, how things are going on, and you are claiming you are scientist. Our point is, "Don't do this, misleading propaganda. You are not scientist. We protest against this false propaganda. Why you are making.... You do not know anything. You cannot solve any problem, major problem, so why you are claiming scientist? Stop this as a gentleman." [break] And there is the soul within the body, and when the soul is gone, transferred to another body, it is dead. Dhiras tatra na muhyati [Bg. 2.13]. One who is actually scientist, he is not surprised. He knows the soul has transferred to another body. That's all. That is scientist. [break] ...real scientist, not a rascal like you. We don't give.... [break] You cannot act. We accept Krsna as scientist because He explains. You cannot explain. How we can accept you as scientist? You are rascal. Up till now, nobody was able to explain -- simply vague. How we can accept these vague explanation as scientist? And daily changing, every year new theories. And I have to accept you scientist? Krsna said tatha dehantara-praptih [Bg. 2.13] five thousand years ago. It was known very well, and it is going on. That is science. You cannot give any solution, you are changing your ideas and theories every year, and we have to accept you as scientist? [break] ...speaking something, and I have to accept him as scientist? Madman, crazy fellow, saying something today, saying something other next day.

Hari-sauri: In Mayapura you gave that Bengali proverb, "A madman, what he cannot say? A goat, what he cannot eat?"

Prabhupada: Yes. (chuckles) [break] They are afraid. Stop disease, stop old age, stop birth, stop death. [break] ...the major problems, and you call yourself.... [break]

Devotee (1): ...the most important thing. Why should we...

Prabhupada: Ah. That proves that you are a rascal number one. These are not important things. Why do you keep memory of so many dead men in statues? It is not important thing. He has died, died. That's all.

Devotee (1): They say that being able to work on all of our practical problems in the material world...

Prabhupada: And this is practical. You make something that nobody will die.

Devotee (1): But a lot of them already admit that there's nothing we can do about death.

Prabhupada: Then don't call yourself scientist. The problems are there. You cannot solve them. [break] ...intelligent way of defeating so-called scientists. [break]

Pusta Krsna: You are asking us to make solution...

Prabhupada: That is my problem. If anyone can solve this problem, I will call him scientist. That is everyone's problem. The artists, they are trying to remain young, especially the ladies. And still, the scientist cannot stop this, that "No more becoming old, old." Then where is your improvement? You have invented some cosmetic. You apply it, and your, what is called, hollow cheek will be swollen up.

Pusta Krsna: Prabhupada, in London recently, just like they have plastic grass, they have plastic trees, they have a plastic woman.

Prabhupada: That is all right, but the plastic woman will not satisfy me.

Radhavallabha: They have operations.

Prabhupada: Simply rascals, that's all. Better not to talk with, that "You are rascal number one. I don't want to waste my time. When you make solution of these problems, then we shall talk. Now go on researching and befool your followers that in future you'll get." That's all.

Radhavallabha: [break] ...cut incisions on their face and take out fat and tighten the skin and sew it up again. And they say this makes them beautiful.

Prabhupada: That is so long he is living. Can you do it in the dead body? Then where is the solution? [break] ...condition you can do that. That is not in your hand. Living condition is not in your hand. You'll depend on some superior arrangement. Why do you take credit? You do this in a dead body. Then...

Radhavallabha: When they bury the dead bodies they put make-up on the face and make a nice smile, so people can see the dead body is happy.

Prabhupada: Let the scientists be happy by seeing dead people. (end)

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- May 12, 1976, Honolulu

"Evolutionary Suffering"

Los Angeles, June 8, 1976


Prabhupada: 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...

Hrdayananda: Chief rascal.

Radhavallabha: They say that nature takes care of it all.

Prabhupada: What? Then why nature did not take care of you? (laughter) Therefore you are rascal.

Ramesvara: Srila Prabhupada? The trees, they produce seeds, and the seed drops on the ground, and than another tree comes.

Prabhupada: That's all right,

Ramesvara: There's no father. Simply...

Prabhupada: 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-gita: bijo'ham sarva-bhutanam [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.

Ramesvara: 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.

Prabhupada: 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.

Radhavallabha: Previously the scientists used to say that they would put dirty laundry and rotten garbage in a box. Then a few weeks later they would find rats. So they said that rats are made from garbage. So then everyone -- this was presented as a very laughable theory. And then the next theory that was presented as the actual one was that life came from chemicals.

Prabhupada: First of all, life comes from rats (laughs). Every year, they are changing their theories.

Pusta Krsna: Actually, their philosophy came from rats.

Prabhupada: Hmm? What is that philosophy? Rat philosophy? This is called vrscika-tandula-nyaya in Sanskrit. The scorpion is coming from the stock of rice. Actually, the scorpions they lay egg within the stock of rice, and by fermentation the eggs become scorpion and come out. Not that the rice is producing scorpion.

Radhavallabha: The scientists know about that, and they say yes, that is very laughable, primitive. But their new theory is simply that life comes from chemicals. So it is actually the same thing.

Hrdayananda: Yes, because life is also chemicals.

Pusta Krsna: But the fact is that they cannot even manufacture a tiny seed which will fructify.

Prabhupada: Yes, let them manufacture a seed. From that seed a big tree will come.

Ramesvara: They cannot do that.

Prabhupada: Then?

Candanacarya: Some devotees are saying that cockroaches are coming from the vapors of impure things.

Prabhupada: Yes, they come. That is called sveda-ja. Just like from perspiration, bugs are coming out. Sveda-ja.

Radhavallabha: So isn't that life coming from matter?

Prabhupada: Not matter. From matter is not coming, but they are taking birth.

Hari-sauri: That's the atmosphere that they get born into.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Radhavallabha: So are they coming from eggs, or how are they coming? Just the soul enters the dirt?

Prabhupada: No. Just like it is a suitable circumstance from which the living entity makes his body.

Radhavallabha: But how has the cockroach been formed?

Prabhupada: Just like embryo. The living entity comes of the two secretions of father and mother emulsified. It creates a situation so that he can stay there and develop a body.

Radhavallabha: But it requires some emanation from a cockroach body in order to create another cockroach body. So how can a cockroach body be created from vapors without contact of another cockroach?

Prabhupada: No, no. Vapor does not create. The individual soul comes there according to his karma and, in that condition, he develops his body. Karmana daiva-netrena jantur dehopapattaye [SB 3.31.1].

Ramesvara: So the seed of.... The soul is within the vapor?

Prabhupada: The seed, when it is put into the earth, a situation is created so the soul can develop into a tree.

Radhavallabha: But how would the soul develop a particular body...?

Prabhupada: That is Yamaraja is.... We are reading the Yamaraja incident(?). That's all.

Pusta Krsna: Just like how can a living entity take birth in the fire?

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Pusta Krsna: The argument is that how can an entity take birth in perspiration? His question. So how can a living entity take birth in the fire? Mostly our experience is that entities are taking birth from the earth, but according to the understanding...

Prabhupada: So how the fishes are born in the water? How the other living entities, they remain in the air? Or without air? There are five elements: earth, water, fire, air.... Anywhere, the living entities can take birth. Sarva-ga. Sthanur sarva-gatah acalo 'yam. You read all these words of Bhagavad-gita. Sarva-ga. From anywhere, he can take birth.

Devotee: Do the living entities who are born from perspiration require a mother and father?

Prabhupada: No. No. There is mother. That perspiration is mother.

Radhavallabha: So the reason why they get a particular body...

Prabhupada: And the father is God.

Radhavallabha: So they are just getting a particular body just due to Yamaraja.

Prabhupada: Yes, according to the decision of the Yamaraja, he has to get a particular type of body.

Radhavallabha: The scientists don't know this.

Hari-sauri: It's very confusing, Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: 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, Srila Prabhupada, Jesus Christ was born without contact of any material father. He was divinely placed in the womb of Mary.

Prabhupada: 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, Srila Prabhupada? An example we can cite also?

Prabhupada: No, no, Vedic literature, apart from. Your argument, that without father, how it is without father? Without father, there is no question of birth; without mother, there is no question of birth. Our point is that without father there is no creation.

Ramesvara: Prabhupada, when a living entity is in an animal body, and when he quits his body, there's no karma, he's just automatically promoted to a higher body?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: So then...

Prabhupada: Animal life means there is no sin. It is promotion. Because they are animal, their consciousness is not developed. Just like a child -- a child, if he steals, that is not sin. He will not be criminally charged. He is child. A dog goes left to the right or right to the.... He is not criminal. But if you do, you are criminal.

Ramesvara: So Yamaraja does not direct the movements of the living entities as they are going automatically from animal body to higher body.

Prabhupada: An animal is not jurisdiction of Yamaraja. The man is in the jurisdiction of.... Just like law is meant for man, not for the cats and dogs.

Ramesvara: So what determines the different varieties of dogs and cats if they are just automatically being...?

Prabhupada: Not automatically. You are man. If you develop a dog's mentality, the Yamaraja puts you in the dog's body. And then you again develop, come to the man's body. That means your term of imprisonment finished. You become again man. Now again decide. And again if you become a dog's mentality, again go. This is going on.

Radhavallabha: The different varieties of suffering within the animal species are due to the different varieties of sinful activities in the human life?

Prabhupada: Yes. And they, then they automatically come. Just as your term of imprisonment, by day's gone, it is finished, again you are free. Similarly, by natural development from dogs or cockroaches or from this or that, there is a process of development. You come to the human form of body. Then again you decide whether you go down or you go back to home, back to Godhead. That is your choice. If you want to go down, go again. Otherwise, tyaktva deham punar janma naiti mam eti [Bg. 4.9], come here. So make your choice.

Ramesvara: So the living entity who is in the lower body like insects or plants...

Prabhupada: Yes. They will come automatically to the human form of body, by promotion.

Ramesvara: And he passes through all the species?

Prabhupada: Oh, yes.

Ramesvara: So he has no desire to fly, but still he passes through bird species.

Prabhupada: No, just like child is taken care of. Child does not know what he is doing, but the father, mother, taking care of.

Hari-sauri: He's taken through stages.

Prabhupada: So mother nature takes care to bring him again to the grown-up youthful life. Now you make your decision. So, if you don't make your decision, the knowledge is there, the books are there, if you don't make your decision, still you want to remain as cats and dogs, again begin.

Devotee: Do most humans go down to the animal species again after human life?

Pusta Krsna: Do most human beings fall down into the animal species?

Prabhupada: Not necessarily. He can become a stool worm. (laughter)

Ramesvara: Srila Prabhupada, what is the value for the living entity to automatically pass through all these different species? Does he get any knowledge?

Prabhupada: To, to finish his life of imprisonment.

Ramesvara: How is it benefiting him?

Prabhupada: He's corrected. Benefit is he's corrected. After undergoing so many species of life, he is corrected and again he is brought to the human form of life, civilized form of life. Let him make his choice. If he again makes his choice, go down to become a stool worm. Go! That is nature's.... Prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani-guna, according to qualities he has taken. Prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvasah ahankara-vimudhatma: [Bg. 3.27] the rascal, being proud, "Now I have got this life, civilized life. I can do whatever I like to. Ah, there is no God." Then God comes as death and puts you again to become a worm in stool. That's all.

Duryodhana-guru: Srila Prabhupada, in the Seventh Canto you mention that there are certain species of human life for whom certain sinful activities they don't receive any reaction.

Prabhupada: Yes, uncivilized, they are like animals.

Duryodhana-guru: So they can perform, like, let's say for example, intoxication or meat-eating, and they won't receive any sinful reaction?

Prabhupada: Yes, oh, yes. No. Because they are uncivilized. And you claim to be civilized and you are killing animals? Must be responsible.

Arcita: Srila Prabhupada, those who come up from the animal species, do they automatically get a chance to contact Krsna consciousness, or do they, might be born in low family, or...

Prabhupada: No, they get.... Just like we are opening centers, we are giving chance to everyone. If he takes opportunity, he can become realized.(indistinct) Kirata-hunandhra-pulinda-pulkasa [SB 2.4.18]. That is the duty of devotees, to raise everyone to the sense of Krsna consciousness. But if one is unfortunate, he does not take the advantage.

Hari-sauri: It's a question of fortune then, in the human form, to get that.

Prabhupada: Yes. Obstinacy. If you take the worm from the stool, aside, it will go again to the stool. You see? Again it will.

Bharadvaja: Srila Prabhupada, there's still, within all the different species, there are still different varieties. What accounts for all these varieties?

Prabhupada: Varieties of the body, according to the mentality.

Bharadvaja: According to karma?

Prabhupada: Yes, according to karma at the time of death, mind is saturated in that way, and he gets a body, that's all.

Mahendra: And then, after, say if a human being falls down into the animal species, after that, does he go through each and every one of these species successively? Even there are different types of dogs, he becomes each different type of dog?

Prabhupada: Oh, yes, oh, yes. That is Darwin's gradual evolution.

Mahendra: Except this is evolution of consciousness, growing bigger.

Prabhupada: Darwin has captured that portion, how the body is changing one after another.

Duryodhana-guru: Srila Prabhupada, in Bhagavad-gita it is said sucinam srimatam gehe yoga-bhrasto 'bhijayate [Bg. 6.41]. So, for somebody who is now a disciple of the Krsna consciousness movement, are we to understand if he is not born in a family of devotees and if he is not born in an aristocratic family, that he was not a yogi in his past life?

Prabhupada: Eh? Past life, they had some good deeds. Therefore they have come to Krsna consciousness movement. It is called ajnata-sukrti. Besides that, whatever he may be in the past life, the movement is there, it is open for everyone. Everyone can come and take advantage, despite whatever he did in his past life. It doesn't matter. If he comes and if he is fortunate, if he chants, then he becomes advanced.

Duryodhana-guru: This is Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu's special mercy.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: Srila Prabhupada, you were explaining to the reporter yesterday that the difference between the animal and the human is that the animal cannot think of God; he has no religion. So, when the living entity is passing through these different species, he doesn't have sufficient knowledge of...

Prabhupada: No knowledge. That is animal. That is animal.

Ramesvara: Then how is he benefited? You explained it, as he is being promoted he is being corrected.

Prabhupada: Corrected, yes.

Ramesvara: But if he cannot understand God...

Prabhupada: No, there is no need of.... Different stages of body.... Just like you are going up one step, another step, another step. There is no need of going, "What is this?" But you are going up, step by step.

Mahendra: In the Bhagavad-gita, you explain that one takes a specific birth due to a specific degree of lust.

Prabhupada: Yes, mental situation.

Candanacarya: Srila Prabhupada, you once said that if someone is not attracted to chanting Hare Krsna, that he is being punished by Yamaraja.

Prabhupada: Yes. Apana karama bhunjaye samana kahaye locana dasa.

Danavir: Srila Prabhupada, sometimes when we're preaching to people that we don't eat meat, fish or egg, they say,"Why not eggs? They're not actually living. It's just a, it hasn't been fertilized."

Prabhupada: Then that's a rascal. You explain it, explain to him that why they cannot make an egg by chemical composition and give for fermentation and a chicken may come. Why do they not do that? Why they are taking eggs from hens? Why do they not chemically manufacture egg?

Bharadvaja: Must have life.

Prabhupada: That is rascaldom. If that is a fact, that there is no life, then you prepare egg. What is there? Some white chemicals. A little yellow. You can do it.

Ramesvara: Just like abortion. They have a process to take the egg from the hen, and they make sure that the egg will not grow into a chicken. It is like an abortion.

Prabhupada: That's all right. The life is there. You make some arrangement that it will not take part. That is another thing. If it is a fact that the egg is not life, then why you rascal do not manufacture a chemical egg and get a chicken? Why you rascal talking nonsense? That is our challenge. We say "rascals" not without consideration, because actually they talk like nonsense. Rascals. They cannot do, and still they'll insist they will do. That is rascal. Is it all right? (laughs) South, South America, er, South Africa, there are so many factories of begetting chicken.

Pusta Krsna: The Rainbow Chicken Factory.

Prabhupada: Yes, the chicken factory, but they're taking the eggs from chicken. Why not manufacture small egg and give to the fermentation and come? There is no question of killing animals. Why they are taking?

Radhavallabha: They say God has provided it for us for food.

Prabhupada: That's all right. Then you become a dog. God has provided you a dog's body. Take advantage of it and bark. (laughter) Protest. "Why You have made me? Why You are doing?" (laughter)

Radhavallabha: When I was in the hospital, right next to me there was one yogi, and a girl yogi came to instruct him every day.

Prabhupada: Girl?

Radhavallabha: Yes. (laughter) One of her instructions was, the first instruction was that you can do anything you want. You just cannot be attached to it.

Prabhupada: Then suffer. Why you have come to hospital? If you have become attached to the suffering...

Passerby: Good morning!

Prabhupada: Good morning. Thank you, Hare Krsna.

Devotees: Hare Krsna.

Passerby: Oh, isn't that nice.

Radhavallabha: So the whole time he was in the hospital, all he talked about was how much he was suffering.

Prabhupada: Don't be attached. (laughs) Rascal. Don't be attached. (devotees laugh)

Ramesvara: But the.... Certain psychologists are very, very interested in trying to put a person under hypnosis, and then he can talk about experiences he has had in his past lives. They are very eager to have a person under a certain condition where he will remember experiences from his past life.

Prabhupada: So why the psychiatrist does not remember? Why he does not remember?

Ramesvara: They say that only certain people have the ability to remember.

Prabhupada: Certain rascals.

Candanacarya: They hypnotize them, and they say, "Remember your last life."

Prabhupada: And whatever nonsense he says, it is all right.

Candanacarya: Yes.

Ramesvara: Is that possible, that the living entity can remember?

Prabhupada: He can remember, but not these rascals' mechanical process.

Hari-sauri: They say they take him into the subconscious and they extract thoughts from the subconscious.

Prabhupada: But they say certain people can be done. That means it is nonsense. If it is a fact, if it is a process, then everyone can remember. Why certain? That is their jugglery of words. Cheating.

Mahendra: They also say, Srila Prabhupada, that since little children, little infants...

Prabhupada: Stop them, all rascals.

Ramesvara: [break].... ability that they have studied, they call it ESP, or extrasensory perception, and by this the ability to see through the eyes is greatly increased, and you can, like sometimes they have a playing card and they turn it face down, and the man can guess what is the actual card, and they have all these games, and, in this way they say certain people have special powers.

Prabhupada: As soon as they say "certain people," that is not fact.

Candanacarya: Actually, they say that potentially everyone has these powers, but some are more developed than others. Also the powers to understand each other's thoughts. (someone passes with a portable radio hearing a news broadcast)

Prabhupada: Hare Krsna.

Ramesvara: The only hope is to read your books, Srila Prabhupada.

Devotees: Jaya.

Prabhupada: Not my books, Krsna's books.

Hrdayananda: It's time to go back.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Duryodhana-guru: In Bhagavad-gita it is stated, nityah sarva-gatah sthanuh. So sarva-gatah, meaning the living entity is all-pervading, this is nominative singular.

Prabhupada: Not all-pervading, everyone can go, gatah, one who can go anywhere.

Duryodhana-guru: Oh, so that's the understanding, because the impersonalists' understanding, they could say that the living entity is actually God by saying that he is all-pervading, sarva-gatah. They could interpret it in this way.

Prabhupada: But you ask him, you are sarva-gatah? If you are intelligent you should have asked him, are you sarva-gatah? What he'll answer?

Duryodhana-guru: Well, he'll have to say, "No, not in this stage of life. Once I become liberated, then I will be." (devotees laugh)

Prabhupada: (laughs) Just see the jugglery of words. Now why you forgot yourself? You are sarva-gatah; now why you are conditioned? Why?

Duryodhana-guru: Well, couldn't answer, I guess.

Prabhupada: That is nonsense. (devotees laugh)

Radhavallabha: Sarva-gatah tomorrow.

Nalinikantha: When I'm liberated, I'll be able to answer you.

Prabhupada: If you are not liberated, why you are talking nonsense? Then you are a nonsense. You are not liberated, you cannot talk correct things. Don't talk. If you are not liberated, whatever you are talking, you are nonsense. So why you are misleading people? First of all, be liberated, then talk.

Bharadvaja: What is the position of Dhruva Maharaja, Srila Prabhupada?

Prabhupada: Hmm? He was a devotee, that's all. He never said that "I am God."

Ramesvara: Sometimes devotees argue that "Dhruva Maharaja, he had a material desire, and still he became perfect. So I can keep my material desires."

Prabhupada: No, when he gave up material desires, svamin krtartho 'smi varan na yace, "I don't want anything," then he became liberated. So long he had material desires, he was not liberated. When he refused to possess anything material, svamin krtartho 'smi varan na yace, then he became liberated.

Hari-sauri: But say, like Daksa, he saw Lord Visnu and he had a desire for sex.

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Hari-sauri: Daksa. So he was still having sex desire, but he saw Lord Visnu.

Prabhupada: What is that?

Hari-sauri: So then someone could argue, use that as an argument for returning.

Prabhupada: Seeing Visnu is not liberation. Just like when Krsna was present, so many people saw Him. Does it mean that everyone became liberated?

Hari-sauri: It's a question of understanding His position.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: Just like now many people are seeing you, Srila Prabhupada, but only a few are getting the benefit. Everyone is getting benefited in some way, but only a few are understanding.

Prabhupada: Apart from me, even one sees Krsna.... There were so many. But it is said that in the battlefield, everyone who died seeing Krsna, he got liberation.

Candanacarya: You once said if someone sees sankirtana and wonders "Who are those people?" then they are ten times more advanced than the greatest scientist.

Prabhupada: Yes. What is our test? Just explain. In the morning...

Hari-sauri: Oh. Prabhupada was explaining to the reporters yesterday, one man was asking what Prabhupada's opinion was about these other yogis. So he said, he quoted a verse in the Bhagavad-gita that if someone does not know Krsna, then he's either a fool, or he's a rascal or he's the lowest of mankind, or his knowledge is...

Prabhupada: Most sinful.

Hari-sauri: Most sinful, or his knowledge is stolen by illusion. [break]

Bharadvaja: I understand, Srila Prabhupada, that the pure devotee can be as pervasive as Supersoul?

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Bharadvaja: By the mercy of Supersoul, he can be present in many places at once?

Prabhupada: Yes. By the grace of Krsna, a devotee can become anything.

Duryodhana-guru: So in other words that means the pure devotees can be omniscient?

Prabhupada: Everything. God is omniscient, so a pure devotee can become omniscient by the grace of God.

Radhavallabha: Srila Prabhupada explains that Varuna is omniscient.

Duryodhana-guru: Varuna?

Radhavallabha: It's in Fourth Canto.

Madhusudana: Srila Prabhupada, how come that in the sastra sometimes there are verses that are slightly doubtful about...

Prabhupada: Whenever there is doubtful, go to your...

Madhusudana: Just like it will have something that has perhaps two meanings, you can't...

Prabhupada: Huh? There cannot be two meanings. Tad-vijnanartham sa gurum evabhigacchet [MU 1.2.12]. In order to understand, go to your guru.

Madhusudana: In other words, sometimes it says Krsna comes Himself, and actually the meaning is that He comes as His incarnation like Lord Buddha, but the verse seems to say that it's the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, and without your purport it's not possible..., it's almost left so that you can be fooled, as if it's a covering, a special covering so that nondevotees cannot understand it.

Prabhupada: The Supreme Personality cannot come? It is said there?

Madhusudana: No, it says He comes in the form of Lord Buddha, but I remember it was a great misunderstanding that Buddha was...

Prabhupada: He can come in any form He likes, not particularly as Lord Buddha. He's coming as fish, He's coming as tortoise, He's coming as boar, so why as Lord Buddha?

Madhusudana: But you explain that Lord Buddha is not visnu-tattva, but that He is sakty-avesa-avatara.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Madhusudana: But the verse says the Supreme Lord will come Himself, so one tends to think, well, Lord Buddha is the Supreme Lord Himself, but actually without your purport we wouldn't understand that He's sakty-avesa.

Prabhupada: So the sakti is Krsna. Sakti-saktimator abhedah. The sakti, energy, and the energetic, they're identical.

Duryodhana-guru: But sometimes also the Supreme Lord comes Himself as sakty-avesa-avatara.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Duryodhana-guru: Saksat variety.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Arcita: Srila Prabhupada, just like in this material body there are so many millions of living entities, but there's one living entity, myself, who's thinking that "I am this body." Is it the same way in the spiritual body -- there are many living entities in one body but there's one living entity who's thinking that "I am this body"?

Prabhupada: Explain.

Pusta Krsna: There's many living entities within the body. Just like there's tiny germs, worms, all kinds of living beings. Because of our attachment, our particular modes of material nature, karanam guna-sango 'sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu [Bg. 13.22], we are identifying with this material body.

Arcita: Is it the same in the spiritual body? Is it the same in the spiritual body? Is the spiritual body actually composed of many living entities, but there's one living entity...

Pusta Krsna: The spiritual body is identical with the soul. Here in the material world there is duality, inferior and superior. In the spiritual world everything is of a superior nature. There is no duality. There's no material.

Prabhupada: Petrol smelling everywhere.

Pusta Krsna: It's from these automobiles, the exhaust. They say that in some cities like New York, just living in the city itself, it is like smoking two packs of cigarettes every day because of so much pollution in the air, so contaminated. [break]...in the Srimad-Bhagavatam that the cure for madness is open space and fresh air. That's Ayurvedic method. So in the cities there's all kinds of confined spaces, the air is not all clean. There's so much madness. [break]

Prabhupada: (in car) Scientists are changing their theories, how we can accept? Reasonably? You are changing your theories, how we can accept you are scientist? You are not sure of your position. Philosophers also, they say "I believe." What is the meaning of this philosophy?

Hari-sauri: They simply give their own opinion about something and present that as being fact, and everyone else has their own.

Prabhupada: I have got my own opinion. Or anyone can have his own opinion. Why your opinion should be accepted? I have got.... [break] ...is that one does not understand that he is imperfect. Or he knows that he is imperfect, still, he wants to push forward his opinion. That is the difficulty. He knows he's imperfect. But he does not think that "I am imperfect. What is the value of my opinion?"

Ramesvara: If I have a bigger brain than someone else, and if I give my...

Prabhupada: Comparatively, you are less crazy. That is another thing.

Hari-sauri: "My idea may not be perfect, but it's better than yours," that's their idea.

Prabhupada: That's all right. That is not your secure position. One child is older than the, another child. That does not mean he is a grown-up.

Ramesvara: [break] ...means to know who your father is.

Prabhupada: Yes, certainly.

Ramesvara: Srila Prabhupada, I was once told by some devotees that you had said in some previous age of Kali, the dinosaurs, gigantic animals, were on the earth.

Prabhupada: I said?

Ramesvara: They say that you said. (laughs)

Prabhupada: (laughs) I never said. I never bother with these nonsense things.

Ramesvara: They have got so many bones in the museums showing these gigantic animals.

Prabhupada: Not gigantic. There are bones. But that animal is still there, whalefish.

Ramesvara: Whalefish.

Prabhupada: Oh, yes. Very big body.

Ramesvara: Some have become extinct.

Prabhupada: Why they should be extinct?

Hrdayananda: No longer on the earth.

Ramesvara: No longer on this planet.

Prabhupada: (too much noise) Not necessarily. They are within the ocean.

Hari-sauri: No, other animals.

Prabhupada: What other animals?

Ramesvara: Those gigantic, they called them...

Hrdayananda: Brontasaurus.

Ramesvara: Tyrannasaurus. Gigantic animals, they say are meat-eaters.

Hrdayananda: Dinosaurus.

Hari-sauri: Tetrasaurus.

Prabhupada: Another imagination. These are actual facts.(?)

Hari-sauri: They just made up different compositions of bones and then drew some outlines on them.

Prabhupada: Yes. They are imagination.

Hari-sauri: But you said in Hawaii though that there are some animals that are as big as skyscrapers?

Prabhupada: Yes, these are birds. It is far from this earth though. They travel from one planet to another.

Ramesvara: So these bones that they have found of these gigantic animals, they were all living underneath the water.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: Not on the land.

Prabhupada: Maybe. But the list is there: jalaja nava-laksani. There are 900,000 different forms, and how many we have seen? There is information in the sastra. Pasavas trimsal-laksani. Three million different types of animals.

Hari-sauri: We've seen a few hundred at most.

Prabhupada: That's all. (laughs) That is also doubtful.

Ramesvara: Krsna incarnates into every species of life. He can appear in any form.

Prabhupada: Yes. Otherwise, why the form came? Janmady asya yatah [SB 1.1.1]. If we have to accept this sutra, that everything emanates from Him, so unless Krsna has got such similar form...?

Hari-sauri: That's one argument that always defeats the impersonalists. They can't explain how forms have come from something without form.

Prabhupada: Impersonalists are neophytes. My Guru Maharaja used to say, "With poor fund of knowledge." Their knowledge is imperfect.

Ramesvara: Yesterday you were telling a reporter that it is not possible for modern man to travel to the moon, but in your Second Canto you describe that in a previous age of Kali the men had created mechanical means for going to other planets, and they were creating havoc all over the universe, and Lord Buddha appeared to stop their nonsense.

Prabhupada: Lord Buddha?

Ramesvara: I remember.... [break]

Prabhupada: ...they are all mythology. Do they not say?

Ramesvara: Yes.

Prabhupada: Therefore, I'm stressing on this point, that it is not mythology. It is fact. It is history. [break]

Ramesvara: ...they are sending their sputniks to..., with televisions.

Prabhupada: They can never stay there. They're coming back.

Ramesvara: No.

Prabhupada: They cannot go there.

Ramesvara: But they have TV camera on the sputnik, and the sputnik is flying over the planet, and they are filming it, and they don't see any life. That is their argument.

Prabhupada: No, we have got our own argument, that the other planet is as good as this planet. If this planet is full of life, why the other not? Analogy. Analogy is also another science.

Ramesvara: Sometimes, you write in the Krsna book that the demigods can come to this planet invisible.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: So, if ordinary man went to some other planet through his sputnik, would he be able to see the demigods?

Prabhupada: No, why not? Some men arguing that.... Because he did not see, it does not mean there is no life. That they cannot say. Just like in the water we don't see. Superficially.

Hrdayananda: Yeah, if they take a sputnik...

Prabhupada: Eh?

Hrdayananda: If they take a camera over the water, they won't see any life.

Ramesvara: Or over the fire, they will not see any life on the sun...

Prabhupada: No.

Ramesvara: ...with their camera.

Hrdayananda: Even over the earth, you can't see any life. They took pictures of the earth.

Prabhupada: That, that is their defect, that their eyes are defective. They cannot go there. That they will not accept. The camera which they manufactured, that is also defective. Because you have manufactured it. You are defective. Your senses are defective. Therefore, in the Vedic literature: "Don't try to see with your eyes, but try to see by ear, sruti. " Sastra-caksusa. You should accept as your eyes the sastras. Not your so-called eyes. (end)

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles

"Why Not Become A Wise Man"

Nellore, January 6, 1976



Acyutananda: It's shallow. [break] ...that the Vaisnavas say that the gold ring is smaller in quantity than the gold mine, but the only way in this material world.... That is only a material example, because something can be separated from the general mass because there are many different elements. You can tell the difference between a gold ring and a gold mine because there is air and space. But there is ekam brahma dvitiyam nasti, there is only Brahman, so you cannot say that there is a big Brahman and a part-and-parcel Brahman. The words "part and parcel" you have only written into the srutis for your own...

Prabhupada: So that is not your rascal's imagination. It is spoken by the Lord Himself. Mamaivamsah. He is not rascal like you, that He will say something which is mistaken.

Acyutananda: No, that is only during His avatara He says that.

Prabhupada: That's all right. He says like that; we have to accept it. Bhagavad-gita as it is.

Acyutananda: In the lower stage.

Prabhupada: Lower stage not.... That is.... You are in the lower stage. You cannot understand. But what He says, that is right. Mamaivamsah, sanatana, "eternally amara." It is not that made amsa at the present time. Sanatana. From.... From the very beginning.

Acyutananda: Then it is contradictory.

Prabhupada: No contradictory. It is not contradictory. He says, mamaivamso jiva-bhutah [Bg. 15.7], that "These jivas, they are eternally My amsa." It is not that because now in the material world it has become fragmented.

Acyutananda: How can there be any truth outside the Lord?

Prabhupada: Huh?

Acyutananda: How can there be any truth separate from the Lord, like a gold ring separate from the mine?

Prabhupada: Yes, but whatever the Lord says, that is truth. Not your statement is truth.

Acyutananda: No, just like if I say...

Prabhupada: You cannot say.

Acyutananda: ...you should dress warmly. You should dress warmly now.

Prabhupada: No, no. You cannot say.

Acyutananda: And then I come in the summer, and you still are dressing warmly-it's for time and circumstance, only immediately.

Prabhupada: No. That is spiritual fragment, eternally existing. Nityo nityanam cetana... There are always plural number and singular number.

Acyutananda: How can there be any truth separate from the Lord? Eka brahma.

Prabhupada: No, it is not separate. You are thinking separate.

Acyutananda: No, a gold ring is separate from the gold mine. That is your...

Prabhupada: No, no, that is your material conception. But everything is...

Acyutananda: Yes, that is a material example. The example came from you Vaisnavas. We do not make...

Prabhupada: No.

Acyutananda: We go directly from the sruti, ekam brahma dvitiyam nasti.

Prabhupada: Then you don't accept Bhagavad-gita.

Acyutananda: There cannot be anything in between.

Prabhupada: Then you don't accept Bhagavad-gita.

Acyutananda: We also accept. During avatara these things may go on, but actually...

Yasodanandana: Ultimately everything will become one. The jivatma will become one with the Paramatma. The Advaitavadi...

Prabhupada: It is already one. That is Visistadvaitavada.

Acyutananda: Yes, but it appears differently.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Acyutananda: But actually there is no difference.

Prabhupada: No.

Acyutananda: So we are one with God.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Acyutananda: So we are one.

Prabhupada: Why one? You are one and different, bhedabheda, acintya-bhedabheda-tattva, simultaneously one and different. Just like this. This is one and different. The children have come from the body -- that is one -- but still, they are different. Even in the hogs and pigs the acintya-bhedabheda-tattva is there. [break] The word should be nabheda sanatana.

Acyutananda: [break] It is different only during the manifestation of prakrti, but actually it is not...

Prabhupada: Just like in Vrndavana. They are one, but still, there are trees, there are flowers, there are water, there are calves, there are cows, there are gopis, but they are all one. Ananda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhavitabhih [Bs. 5.37]. All of them are ananda-cinmaya-rasa. Nirvisesavadis..., it is not nirvisesavada. Sa-visesa. What is this? [break] Just see, it is already "Hare Krsna," known.

Gopala Krsna: Foundation was laid in December '74, but no work has been done since then.

Prabhupada: So why not let us have this land? We can develop.

Tamala Krsna: Very nice land, Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: Right by the lake.

Acyutananda: It already has our name. If the Bhagavad-gita is in the Mahabharata -- that's itihasa -- how did it get the name Upanisad, Gitopanisad?

Prabhupada: Because it is spoken by Krsna. Itihasa also Vedic literature. Pancama-veda, Mahabharata, for understanding of the common man. Stri-sudra-dvija-bandhunam trayi na sruti-gocarah [SB 1.4.25]. Woman, sudra, and dvija-bandhu, they cannot understand directly the Vedas.

Acyutananda: But even Bhisma, when he was on the battlefield, he said, "I have given up my bheda-jna," so he became one.

Prabhupada: One you are already. Because you are foolish, you cannot understand. That is abheda. I am not different. Just like my finger is not different from me. If the finger thinks, "I am different from the body," that is ignorance.

Yasodanandana: Just as we say that ignorance consists of not understanding the difference between the jiva and the Paramatma, the Mayavadis say that ignorance means to understand the difference between jiva and Paramatma.

Prabhupada: So then they difference. They admit that there is difference, if they say like that, that "There is difference."

Yasodanandana: But they say that oneness, that is the real knowledge.

Prabhupada: No, no. That's all right. But why they say "different"?

Yasodanandana: They say to see that our vision of difference, that our vision of difference, that is ignorance. When we understand the jivatma to be different from God, from Bhagavan, that is ignorance.

Prabhupada: No. No.

Yasodanandana: That your vision of seeing God...

Prabhupada: Yes. So we admit that, that when we see that "I am separate from..." Then the same example: If the finger thinks that it is separate from the body, that is ignorance, because the finger is required by the body to serve the body. So if he thinks, "No, I'll not serve you because I am different," that is ignorance. That is ignorance. That is going on. These Mayavadis, they refuse to serve God. That is ignorance. If they are part and parcel of God or one with God, how you can refuse to serve? That is ignorant. Here the finger is my part and parcel of the body. It cannot refuse to serve. I say; immediately it comes. So if the finger thinks that "I am one. Why shall I serve the whole body?" that is ignorance. Cetana. Cetana means activity. So if I am one with God, then my activities should be simultaneously with God. That is oneness. I don't disagree. God says, "You do it." I disagree. God says, "You surrender unto Me," but I refuse. That is ignorance. If I am actually one with God, just I am asking, "You do this" -- you do immediately. But if you do not do it, that is ignorance. Gurur avajna. Then he becomes aparadhi. Similarly, oneness means no disagreement. That is oneness, cetana. Cetana means I can disagree or agree. Two things are there. That is cetana. So cetana, cetanas cetananam. So when God says that "You do it," you must do it. That is agreement. That is oneness. If you refuse, that is ignorance. How can you refuse? Suppose you.... Take the whole family, and the head of the families asks somebody to do something. If he refuses, then that is rebellious condition. In the state the citizen must agree with the government. Cetana. Cetana means he has got both the things. If he likes, he can agree; if he likes, he does not agree.

Vasughosa: So their big word is that you merge and you become that. So how...

Prabhupada: That is merging. They do not know what is merging. Merging means "I, so long I was disagreeing; now I agree to abide by Your..." That is merging. Just like several states they merge into one. So they agree to work unitedly. That is merging. Merging does not mean that you have got your discretion and that is finished. That is not merging. Then your cetana is lost. How it can be lost?

Mahamsa: What about the analogy that many rivers flow into the same sea and lose their individuality?

Prabhupada: Hm?

Mahamsa: Their example is that many rivers, they flow into one sea, and then they lose their individuality.

Prabhupada: Because they are short-sighted, blind, that there are many individual living entities within the river. But they are blind. They cannot see them. Because it is covered by water they see only the water is there. Because they are blind rascals, they cannot see. But if they go deep into the water they will see there are so many individuals, millions, and they are living in the same river.

Harikesa: But there's no difference between the individual living entity and the total...

Prabhupada: Yes, there is no difference. Still, that is.... That is acintya-bheda... That is individuality and no individuality. So long they are living there within the river, there is no individuality.

Acyutananda: That example is also a jugglery of words because the.... Let's say the Mississippi River is the quantity of water that's on the land. When it goes into the ocean you don't say that "Now the Mississippi River is in the ocean." Mississippi River is still individual, and the ocean is another thing.

Prabhupada: The Mississippi is not finished.

Mahamsa: And the water molecules...

Prabhupada: And not only that, the water is again taken away and it is thrown into the Mississippi. So these rascals who think that "We have now merged. We are now liberated," that is rascaldom. They will be taken away and thrown again. Aruhya krcchrena... No, this is fact. Aruhya krcchrena param padam tatah patanty adhah [SB 10.2.32]. They cannot stay. They will be taken away by the nature's law, converted into cloud and thrown away, again come, again come. They are thrown away. They cannot stay. And again they become water and come through. That is going on, coming and going. So their merging is not fact.

Yasodanandana: Vimukta-maninah.

Prabhupada: Yes, vimukta-maninah, yes.

Mahamsa: [break] ...om tad visnoh paramam padam. That claims Visnu as the Supreme, but where does it say that Visnu..., I mean Krsna, is the source of Visnu from the srutis?

Prabhupada: Sruti... Brahma said, isvarah paramah krsnah [Bs. 5.1].

Acyutananda: Brahma-samhita is sruti.

Prabhupada: Yes. Brahma spoke sruti, Vedas, so whatever he speaks is sruti. It is therefore called samhita. Samhita means Vedas, sruti. As soon as it is called samhita, that is Vedas.

Acyutananda: [break] ...comprises the examination for bhaktivedanta and bhakti-sastri?

Prabhupada: Hm?

Acyutananda: There was talk that they would be given examinations.

Prabhupada: Yes. Yes.

Acyutananda: What is the syllabus for...?

Prabhupada: Whatever books we have got, it should be studied. Bhakti-sastri means Nectar of Devotion, Bhagavad-gita, Nectar of Instruction, Beyond Death -- in this way we select some ten books. That is bhakti-sastri.

Acyutananda: So when will that...

Prabhupada: Then we come to Bhagavata, then we come to Caitanya-caritamrta, in this way. So from next year, unless one passes bhakti-sastri, he cannot be second initiated. First initiation is open for everyone. "Come on. Chant Hare Krsna." That will purify him. Then let him understand what is bhakti.

Yasodanandana: This is very good, because then those that will become second..., those that will have second initiation will have to know the scriptures, will have to know your books.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is.... Now there is...

Mahamsa: And unless they know your books, they will never be fixed-up devotees.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Acyutananda: Many times people give second initiation because they need a pujari in the temple.

Prabhupada: No.

Acyutananda: So they give.

Mahamsa: [break] ...different Puranas have different Gitas, Prabhupada? So some person said that there is a Ganesa-gita. Similarly, there are different demigods. They speak their gita. And they also say...

Acyutananda: Universal form.

Mahamsa: They show the universal form or they say that they are param brahma param dhama [Bg. 10.12]. They say the same things in their gitas.

Prabhupada: That's all right. Let them do that. We take Bhagavad-gita. That's all. Sankaracarya also -- bhagavad-gita kincid adhita. If Bhagavad-gita is understood a little only, he becomes liberated.

Acyutananda: Then why should it be called the Bhagavad-gita and not the Krsna-gita. Krsna is referred to as Bhagavan.

Prabhupada: Huh? Bhagavad-gita, not Bhagavata-gita.

Acyutananda: No, Bhagavata, because He is.... The others are not Bhagavata.

Prabhupada: Yes. Krsnas tu bhagavan svayam [SB 1.3.28]. Krsnas tu bhagavan svayam. Bhagavan, that I explained so many times. Bhagavan everyone, little possessing opulence.

Acyutananda: But these other Gitas are named after the demigod.

Prabhupada: That's all right. He can be called bhagavan. He is not ordinary man. He can be called. But the real Bhaga.... Krsnas tu bhagavan svayam. That is the.... The real Bhagavan is here, but these demigods, they have got little opulences, not equal to Krsna. Therefore they are sometimes called Bhagavan.

Acyutananda: But their Gitas are not called Bhagavad-gita; they are called by their...

Mahamsa: But do they have the potency to show the universal form?

Prabhupada: Who?

Mahamsa: These demigods?

Prabhupada: Yes. What is that universal form? It is nothing. Any powerful living being can do that.

Yasodanandana: In the other Vaisnava-sampradayas, such as the Madhva-sampradaya and the Ramanuja-sampradaya, they do not understand that Krsna has His own planet, Goloka Vrndavana. They think that there is only Vaikuntha and nothing else.

Prabhupada: Their knowledge is imperfect. In the Brahma-samhita it is said, goloka-namni nija-dhamni tale ca tasya [Bs. 5.43].

Yasodanandana: That is why when Caitanya Mahaprabhu came back to Puri, He said, "I have met many Ramanujas, many Madhvas, many Buddhists, but I like Ramananda Raya very much because he has this knowledge of Radha-Krsna."

Acyutananda: In South India there are very few Radha-Krsna devotees. And what they have is from some Puranas, the marriage of Radha and Krsna. They perform Radha-Krsna kalyana, marriage.

Tamala Krsna: Is that bona fide, Prabhupada?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Acyutananda: In the Brahma-vaivarta... So a court case appeared. One man had some property in the name of Radha-Krsna Deities. So the court said, "You only have the quota for one family." So he argued that Radha-Krsna are not married; They are two separate families, so They should have double quota of land. So he won the case on that. But if somebody came from the south, he said, "No, They can be married also," he would have lost.

Tamala Krsna: I think, Prabhupada, there is..., you wrote...

Acyutananda: Brahma-vaivarta Purana.

Tamala Krsna: ...there's a ceremony where Radha and Krsna are, I think, married.

Acyutananda: Brahma-vaivarta Purana I heard, that They were married by Brahma in secret.

Prabhupada: [break] ...lands are being distributed.

Acyutananda: To the bhangis.

Tamala Krsna: Distributed?

Prabhupada: These lands are being distributed?

Indian man: Distributed to the poor people. All these lands.

Tamala Krsna: Legally they are being distributed?

Indian man: Yes, legally, by government.

Prabhupada: [break] ...there any question last night? No.

Acyutananda: No, nobody put last night. [break] ...majority is English-speaking audience, then questions and answers flow smoothly.

Tamala Krsna: [break] ...a latrine arranged yesterday, but...

Acyutananda: [break] ...continuing for very long. What is the problem there?

Indian man: [break] ...is there are social act which this Hare Krsna movement has taken?

Prabhupada: What is the best social activity? Our is the best...

Indian man: Serving the poor and the natives...

Prabhupada: Everyone is poor. Who is rich? First of all find out. Who is rich?

Indian man: Rich in the sense, luxurious living...

Prabhupada: He is not living very luxuriously, that he has no disease, he does not become old. Does not become?

Indian man: No.

Prabhupada: Then? Then where is richness?

Indian man: Somebody questioned me yesterday.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Indian man: "There are so many things. Doing any social activities?"

Prabhupada: These things are being done by so many other people, and we are doing something which is ultimate. The hospital gives some medicine when there is some disease, but that does not mean there will be no disease. Can they guarantee that "I give you this medicine -- no more disease." We are giving that medicine, that no more disease. That is the best social work. Tyaktva deham punar janma naiti [Bg. 4.9]. We are giving this medicine, that after leaving this body.... So far this body is concerned, somehow or other you pass on. And as soon as you give up this body -- tyaktva deham punar janma naiti [Bg. 4.9] -- you'll have no more birth. And if you have no more birth, there will be no more death. And if you have no more birth, then there will be no more disease. This is our prescription. Tyaktva deham punar janma naiti mam eti [Bg. 4.9]. Not that he is finished. He goes back to home, back to Godhead. This is our program. So your question is answered or not? Huh? Your question is answered or not? Your question is answered or not?

Indian man: Not fully.

Acyutananda: Do you understand?

Indian man: Yes, I understand.

Prabhupada: Why it is not fully?

Indian man: It is, after all, question put by a layman.

Prabhupada: Why you should "layman"? Why should not "wise man"? Why you should insist to remain a layman? Why you are persisting to remain a layman? Why?

Indian man: Because they want...

Prabhupada: "They" not. What I am talking with you. They are all foolish. We call them mudhas, duskrtino mudhas. So their demand is not legitimate. If a mudha... If your small child says, "Father, give me a bidi, cigarette," would you give him? Because he is mudha. So the father is intelligent -- "No." So similarly, the mudhas may demand that "Open this hospital." But we are not going to do that. We know.... Of course, hospital required so far the body is concerned, but there are so many hospitals. The real hospital which is not existing, we are starting. That is our mission, which is not possible for the so-called leaders and politicians. Try to clear this.

Yasodanandana: Once you mentioned the story that when you were young you saw a mother running across the street in Calcutta beating her child because his brother had typhoid fever and he fed him the paratha.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Acyutananda: Even socially, though, without religious, scientific, practical God consciousness, how can there be a civilization? How can anyone know that there's a difference between right and wrong or morality unless there is God consciousness, to know that someone is watching everything I do? If you avoid that.... Just like we say, they want Rama-rajya without Rama. But they want the rajya.

Prabhupada: Now, the laws and legislative assembly there are, and there is punishment, there is court -- everything there is. That we were discussing last night, that where is the honest men? Why? In spite of laws, legislative assembly, court and everything, the wholesale rogues and dishonest. Then what is the use of this? What is your answer? Why you are checked on the airport just like a culprit, criminal? They cannot trust even a gentleman, although he is educated, may be holding very good office, but still, he is not to be trusted. So this is the result of your so-called function, that there is no honest man throughout the whole world. Then, what is the use of such education? And what is the use of their living? Let them die. No hospital for them.

Acyutananda: A man in Calcutta, he was a devotee, rich also. He had some kidney thing. He wanted to go to the Calcutta hospital. They said, "All the beds are full of Naxalites with bomb wounds and stab wounds and fighting wounds."

Prabhupada: Just see.

Acyutananda: He could not get a bed in the hospital because it was full of gundas. Hospitals were all full of gundas.

Yasodanandana: In America they have the highest quality of hospitals and schools and everything, but yet the young people are turning to be hippies. You have mentioned that in the introduction to your Nectar of Devotion.

Prabhupada: Yes. Yes. What is the use of such education?

Indian man: So your education which you gave may be something like..., not like that.

Prabhupada: Education means to do the right thing, not the wrong thing. That is education. Education means enlightenment, to know what is right, what is wrong. That is education.

Harikesa: It's 7:15 Srila Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Harikesa: It's 7:15.

Prabhupada: On the street there is sign board, "Keep to the left," or "Keep to the right." This is education. This is education. One must know how to run the car which side. Education means enlightenment. If you foolishly do something, immediately you become criminal. So education means to enlighten them to know what is right, what is wrong. That is education. But people do not know that. What is the meaning of education? [break]

Mahamsa: Actually, in all the schools the young people are learning all the bad habits from the schools. Instead of getting to learn how to do right things, they are learning to do all wrong things because of association with people from low families.

Vasughosa: And they even have sex education in school. They are teaching people how to be rogues.

Prabhupada: Our education is first of all to become brahmacari, and the modern education is how to become vyabhicari, this rascal education. And for this purpose there are big, big universities, vice chancellor, and so on, so on.

Tamala Krsna: Now everything is so degraded that in American universities they have coeducational toilets.

Prabhupada: Gradually they are becoming animals, or they are already animals.

Mahamsa: The principal of my school, he used to be a priest, and he used to give us these classes whereby he would tell the students that one must experience sex life before marriage. He was propagating illicit sex life in school, and being a principal and from a priestly class of person, so degraded. [break]

Yasodanandana: ...called Ahobilam. Caitanya Mahaprabhu also went there. And the panditas there, they have reference from the Brahmanda Purana.... [break] ...was killed by Lord Nrsimha. There is the room, the palace and everything.

Tamala Krsna: [break] Chipped rice?

Mahamsa: No, that was sugar.

Prabhupada: Sugar? Salt.

Harikesa: That's the way their salt is here.

Acyutananda: In blocks?

Tamala Krsna: Rock salt.

Prabhupada: Not rock salt. Sea salt.

Tamala Krsna: They get it from here?

Prabhupada: Yes. Sea. Not here, where there is sea.

Yasodanandana: The sea is just fourteen miles away.

Prabhupada: Shallow water, when it is dried by the sunshine they get salt. Evaporation is done by sunshine, and they get the salt. Practically they get the salt without any cost, and whatever they get, money, they are satisfied.

Acyutananda: Why is the sea salty? [break] Science can't.... They have no answer.

Mahamsa: Sweet water is falling, and it is becoming salty.

Prabhupada: Salt means earth. Earth. So in the water there is earth. Bhumir apah. So within the water there is earth. And within the fire there is water. And within the air there is fire. Suksmam to sthula. From sky to land. These are the different transformation stages. [break] Nehru? Nehru. [break] Eat rice only?

Indian man: Yes, rice only. No capatis.

Yasodanandana: Yes, in South India they only eat rice. In Mysore we had a meal. The gentleman served us nine different kinds of rice.

Acyutananda: Nava-dhanya.

Yasodanandana: Nava-dhanya. Rice with yogurt, rice with chilies, rice with dahl, rice with everything.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is system in South India, with rice, everything. Just like in North India we make puri, kachori, balusai, srngara. There is ghee, wheat, and sugar and salt, varieties, hundreds of variety.

Tamala Krsna: Maybe it has something to do with the weather. The colder weather?

Prabhupada: Whatever it may be, in northern India, when there is some festival they will purchase, I mean to say, grains, means wheat and channa, and ghee and sugar. Then they will make hundreds of preparation out of it.

Indian man: Here we call it as pongal. Make it as pongal, we call it. It's channa, ghee, and sugar. We prepare it in...

Prabhupada: Laddu, you prepare laddu? They prepare so many things. The main ingredient is this: besan, atta, ghee, sugar. That's all. [break] ...also they eat rice more.

Mahamsa: [break] ...left in Mysore.

Tamala Krsna: But Bengal tiger.

Acyutananda: That's.... They've all been shot.

Prabhupada: [break] First of all understand what is meditation. Do you understand what is meditation? Do you understand?

Indian man: (indistinct)

Prabhupada: What is meditation?

Indian man (2): Giving all thoughts.... Coming to pure silence of the mind.

Prabhupada: So how you can be silent? Is it possible?

Indian man (2): No, just by some sadhana.

Prabhupada: Silent is also.... (dog barking) The stones are silent. Does it mean meditation?

Indian man (2): But mind cannot be silent. The mind must be made to (indistinct).

Harikesa: Hut!

Prabhupada: So then how you can make silent?

Indian man (2): By seeing God in everything.

Prabhupada: Meditation is not silence. That is wrong idea. Meditation means to think of God. That is meditation.

Indian man (2): Brahma-bhavana.

Prabhupada: Brahma-bhavana is also not practical. Parabrahma-bhavana, krsna-bhavana. That is Krsna conscious.

Indian man (2): Supreme Lord.

Prabhupada: That is real meditation. Meditation does not mean to make the mind vacant. No, a wrong. People are thinking like that. It cannot be. One girl -- that is written -- "Sir, meditation to make the mind out of all thoughts." So she said, she thought that "How can I be without thoughts? This 'without thought,' I'll think -- that is a thought. Therefore it is bogus." He (she) threw away this meditation book.

Indian man (2): No, thinking about the God's thought, in course of time it will be empty. Mind will be empty.

Prabhupada: So unless you come.... According to your idea, unless you come to that emptiness, you are not perfect. But that will never come.

Indian man (2): Then only it will be empty.

Prabhupada: That will never come. Therefore it is bogus. You cannot...

Indian man (2): In the beginning it is bogus, but the result is...

Prabhupada: No, no. In the beginning bogus and it is always bogus, because mind cannot be without thought. So why do you propose "without thought"? That is not possible. Therefore it is bogus.

Tamala Krsna: What is the beauty of having emptiness?

Prabhupada: That is another.... Emptiness mean he is troubled by so many anxieties; therefore he wants to make it empty.

Tamala Krsna: That's simply negative.

Prabhupada: Negative idea. That is material idea. That is not spiritual.

Mahamsa: Nowadays people are going in silence, but they write questions and answers by paper. They say, "I am observing silence..."

Prabhupada: As if there is no sound.

Tamala Krsna: In Allahabad we met a man like that. He was moving around so much that he was more active than if he had talked.

Prabhupada: No, that "ooohh." That is the...

Gopala Krsna: Even Basarilal Nanda, I have heard, one day a week, on Sunday, it's his silence day. He doesn't speak to anyone on Sunday.

Acyutananda: Yes, Mahatma Gandhi.

Tamala Krsna: That's a good day to ask him for a donation.

Prabhupada: [break] What is the use of becoming silent? What is the utility?

Tamala Krsna: For people who are rascals it is a very good idea. Then they won't talk nonsense.

Prabhupada: Yes. For them it is all right.

Mahamsa: It is good for them.

Prabhupada: Because they cannot speak anything good, better remain silent. [break] ...chanting Hare Krsna, yan-nama sruti-matrena puman bhavati nirmalah. Simply by hearing he'll become purified. So why we shall become silent? Let them hear.

Tamala Krsna: Right. Satatam kirtayanto mam [Bg. 9.14].

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: Constantly chanting.

Prabhupada: Krsna says, satatam kirtayanto mam. Why.... Never said that "You become silent." Where is? Can you show me any verse in the Bhagavad-gita? Huh? Can you show me any verse where Krsna has advised that you become silent? Or the mind is vacant? Where these things...

Tamala Krsna: Man-mana bhava mad-bhakto.

Prabhupada: Huh. Man-mana bhava mad-bhakto: "The mind should be absorbed in My thought," man-mana. That is recommended. Where does He say that "Make your mind vacant and think of nonsense"? He never says. And where does He say that you become silent? He never says.

ya idam paramam guhyam

mad-bhaktesv abhidasyati

na ca tasman manusyesu

kascid me priya-krttamah

[Bg 18.68]

"Anyone who speaks about this Bhagavad-gita, he is My dearmost friend," He said. So why one should be silent? Our ultimate aim is how to become dearmost to Krsna. And He never says that "You become silent." Why shall I become silent? Satatam kirtayanto mam [Bg. 9.14]. Rather, He recommends that "You always be engaged in glorifying Me." Where is the "silent"? These are all manufactured by these rascals. So many, meditation, silence -- these are not recommended in the Bhagavad-gita. (end)

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- January 6, 1976, Nellore


© 2001 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International.