"Bodily Spirituality Exposed"

Mayapura, January 2, 1976


Prabhupada: [break] ...fire, explain.

Harikesa: Oh, because people can't see life in fire, they think there's no life in it, so therefore there's no life in the sun. But it's just like the Tata factory. When you see it from a distance there's many planes and fires, but inside there's many people who are working. Therefore just because you can't see life in fire doesn't mean it's not there. We see life in the earth, we see life in the water, we see life in the air, so why not in the fire? Is that all right?

Prabhupada: Now question, answer.

Tamala Krsna: Well, one question is that the people in the Tata factory are not actually in the fire.

Prabhupada: So they are also not in the fire. I say even if it is in the fire, there is no harm because the living soul is not burned to fire. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gita. Adahyo 'yam. Dahya. Dahya means burned. It is not burned. These are wrong conception. Because they have no conception of the soul, they think bhasmi bhutasya dehasya: "When the body is burned, then the soul is also burned." If the soul is burned, then where is the question of tatha dehantara-praptih [Bg. 2.13]? How? In the Hindu system they burn the body. So if the soul is also burned, then where is punar janma? You?

Tamala Krsna: We can accept that the soul is not burned, but what about the body?

Prabhupada: Body is burned.

Tamala Krsna: So how can any body live in the sun?

Prabhupada: So they are.... No, if.... They have got fiery body. As your body is made of earth, the fish body is made of water, and the so many others, different elements, so similarly, there the body is made of earth..., er, fire, fiery body. The so-called scientist, educationist, they.... Everything they conclude according to his own position. Therefore avajananti mam mudhah [Bg. 9.11]. They think Krsna also "like me."

Acyutananda: The fish is in the water, but the fish is not water.

Prabhupada: No, fish is not water, but he has got a body suitable for the water.

Acyutananda: So the people on the sun have earthly bodies...

Prabhupada: Yes.

Acyutananda: ...who can tolerate heat.

Prabhupada: Yes. There is no heat. They live.... Just like.... They are not suffocated. They don't feel any inconvenience. They enjoy. Against the waves they enjoy. You cannot go against the waves. They can go, even small fish. You'll find within this there are so many animals, so many. How they are living?

Acyutananda: Also science cannot explain how it is burning. Where is the fuel supply?

Prabhupada: (laughs) Yes.

Acyutananda: And there is no smoke, no waste.

Prabhupada: Nothing. They are all.... Therefore we say simply "rascals." We have given this title to them everlastingly. All rascals, mudha. Mudho nabhijanati mam ebhyah param avyayam. How Krsna is working, they do not know. This is Bay of Bengal. Other side is Burma. [break] ...are so strong, it will never be drowned. Eh? (Hindi) The scientist says there is no life. Just disagree with them.

Acyutananda: No life?

Prabhupada: Scientists, yes, they say there is no life in the sun.

Acyutananda: In the sun.

Prabhupada: No, they say in every planet there is no life.

Tamala Krsna: Yes, only the earth planet.

Acyutananda: Well, they have to qualify. They say, "life as we know it."

Prabhupada: Hm?

Acyutananda: They say, "There is no life as we know it," but there's some forms of life that they don't know.

Prabhupada: So, but no, no. "As we know," but what do you know? You are rascal.

Devotee: They are trying by radio waves to reach people.

Prabhupada: (Hindi) Sarva-ga, this word is. Sarva-ga. Jivatma (Hindi)...

Devotee: [break] ...sending radio signals to faraway galaxies.

Prabhupada: What is the meaning of their radios? Do you think that their radios are perfect? Do you think so? What, Acyutananda Maharaja? Radio perfect? It is not perfect.

Acyutananda: And I think the demigods and higher beings, they can disturb all their radio attempts.

Prabhupada: No, apart from that...

Acyutananda: Because they don't want trespassers.

Prabhupada: ...how you can accept their radio machine are perfect? Because it is made by imperfect person, so how it can be perfect? If the manufacturer is imperfect, how he can make perfect machine? Nothing is perfect.

Acyutananda: Actually the United States government has a whole agency for unidentified flying objects that people have seen that they keep secret so as not to frighten the whole America thinking that visitors from other planets will come. But there are many incidents of pilots who fly around in airplanes, who see other strange-looking objects coming at them, flying at them, or people from the ground have seen many.

Devotee: One guy testified that he was picked up and taken away for four days.

Acyutananda: Well, that was...

Prabhupada: What they are? They are police? No. Mounted police?

Acyutananda: Yes, mounted police.

Prabhupada: A mounted police here?

Acyutananda: Saber. Sword.

Devotee: Oh, it's a stick.

Acyutananda: Oh, yes, lathi, made like a stick. Yes.

Prabhupada: [break] Why they are guarding here?

Acyutananda: I think for the horses.

Tamala Krsna: They're exercising the horse.

Acyutananda: [break] ...house in Bengali. Is this where Swami Vivekananda...

Prabhupada: Yes. After coming back from foreign countries, he made his position here in Madras.

Tamala Krsna: Beautiful building.

Acyutananda: In Calcutta we have a life member, Veni Sankara Sharma? You stayed at his house?

Prabhupada: Hm, yes.

Acyutananda: So he wrote a book called An Unknown Chapter of the Life of Swami Vivekananda. And in there he openly says that he smoked a hookah and ate meat.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is known to everyone.

Tamala Krsna: Was he praising that?

Acyutananda: It was.... You know...

Yasodanandana: In Hyderabad there is a cook who used to cook for the Ramakrishna Mission, and he said they used to cook any kind of meat.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Acyutananda: I said, "Did you ever cook human meat?" He said, "If they told me, I would have done that also." There was nothing beyond their diet. "Anything they told me to cook..."

Prabhupada: This building belongs to Vivekananda's society, no? Vivekananda house.

Tamala Krsna: What is that?

Acyutananda: That's Bengali. "The house of Vivekananda."

Prabhupada: (Bengali)

Acyutananda: They say Swami Vivekananda walked barefoot all over India at some stage of his...

Prabhupada: Hm?

Acyutananda: That.... This statue here is his life as a wandering sadhu.

Prabhupada: Who is a sadhu? Then question is, who is a sadhu? Who is a sadhu? You cannot say?

Acyutananda: One who is Krsna conscious.

Prabhupada: Api cet sudaracaro bhajate mam ananya-bhak, sadhur eva sa mantavyah [Bg. 9.30]. Unless one is cent percent Krsna conscious, he is not a sadhu. Sadhu-bhusana.

titiksavah karunikah

suhrdah sarva-bhutanam

ajata-satravah santah

sadhavah sadhu-bhusanah

[SB 3.25.21]

This is sadhu.

Yasodanandana: This is the vehicle in which we travel.

Prabhupada: Hm?

Yasodanandana: This vehicle is the vehicle in which we travel to all the different cities for making the life members and arranging all the programs in South India, this vehicle.

Prabhupada: This is your own?

Yasodanandana: We are renting.

Prabhupada: When I was in South Africa...

Indian man (1): South Africa.

Prabhupada: Yes, Johannesburg. This beach reminds me of that beach. You were with me?

Harikesa: Yes.

Prabhupada: All statues are crying here.

Acyutananda: This is Annie Besant.

Prabhupada: [break] ...avatara here, and she also came from Ireland to become avatara here.

Acyutananda: I heard how she became interested in the Gita. She was Christian, and her infant died. So she asked priests, "Where will this soul go, to heaven or hell? And why? Because he hasn't done anything." So she was never satisfied with their answers. So then she heard that there is transmigration of the soul. Then she became interested in the Gita, India.

Prabhupada: So did she understand?

Acyutananda: Well, only up to transmigration of the soul.

Prabhupada: She admits.

Acyutananda: Yes. [break]

Prabhupada: It was open? If there are any doubt. [break]

Indian man (2): ...all practical things...

Prabhupada: Yes.

Indian man (2): ...political things. Two and two will always be four. But we people don't agree so far.

Prabhupada: Yes. You want five.

Indian man (2): (laughter) We want five, correct. Four to make it five.

Prabhupada: There is a story that a grocer's son was doing business, and when he was given a five-rupees' note, so he was giving four rupees. So the customer said, "Why you are giving me four rupees?" "No, I do not know what is the exchange." "No, it is six rupees." So "No, father will be angry." (laughter) Means he knows perfectly well what is five rupees, but he is innocent when he was giving four rupees. And when the customer wanted six rupees, he, "No, my father will be angry." [break] ...created a havoc by misinterpreting Bhagavad-gita, all people. According to their wish, "Five-rupees note means four rupees," by imagination. They have created havoc all over the world. Otherwise everything is there. Avajananti mam mudhah [Bg. 9.11]. If we take Krsna's instruction, then whole world becomes immediately happy. But they will not take it. They will manufacture their own, two plus two equal to five or three, not exactly the four.

Indian man (3): So all anxiety and duhkha have been created by the man himself.

Prabhupada: Yes. They have created.

Indian man (3): Nobody else is doing for him, but he created himself.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Indian man (3): And then he said, "I am in misery. I am in trouble." Trouble is created by you. Nobody has created.

Prabhupada: So that is explained in the Bhagavad-gita, that mind is the enemy and mind is the friend. So we created our mind, enemy or friend, and we suffer for that.

Indian man (3): Mind is very, very powerful. How to make use of that? Actually mind is using the man; man is not using his mind.

Prabhupada: In the Bhagavata it is said, yasyasti bhaktir bhagavaty akincana sarvair gunais tatra samasate surah. In another line...

Harikesa: Harav abhakta?

Prabhupada: Eh? Harav abhaktasya kuto mahad-guna mano-rathenasato dhavato bahih [SB 5.18.12]. One who is Krsna conscious, he has got all the good qualities. Yasyasti bhaktir bhagavaty akincana sarvair gunaih: "All good qualities can be manifest." And harav abhaktasya kuto mahad-gunah: "And one who is not devotee, he has no good qualities." "Why? He is so educated." No, mano-rathena: "He is hovering over the mind." Asato dhavato bahih: "He will stick to this asat." But the Vedic injunction is asato ma sad gamaya. He cannot go to the real platform of life. Asato bahih. They do not understand that this godless civilization is the root cause of all calamities in the world. (Hindi) Kirtaniyah sada harih. The Caitanya Mahaprabhu said that kirtaniyah sada harih. Twenty-four hours you have to do that. But where is twenty-four hours? You will not twenty-four minutes. (Hindi)

trnad api sunicena

taror api sahisnuna

amanina manadena

kirtaniyah sada harih

[Cc. Adi 17.31]

(Hindi) ...Nectar of Instruction. I have recently published. (Hindi) There were no book for sale?

Indian man (4): Book was not in sale yesterday.

Mahamsa: That book is not available in India, Prabhupada.

Acyutananda: It's a brand new book.

Prabhupada: No, no, other books, they are not...

Mahamsa: Other books were there. They were on the book table. There was a book table.

Indian man (4): Where it is?

Mahamsa: Many people were purchasing books. (Hindi)

Prabhupada: Prominent place. (Hindi) Keep in prominent place so that others can see. And any book which is not in stock, you can note down his order so that you can send him later on.

Indian man (5): He will come every day.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Indian man (5): Mostly he approaching every member.

Prabhupada: No, recently we have published very important book, Nectar of Instruction. For common man it is very nice. [break] Yesterday's lecture you liked?

Indian men: Yes. (Hindi) [break]

Dhrstadyumna: ...sleep on the streets. They've arranged this housing, it is very minimal. So what many of these slumdwellers do when people are living on the streets is they come here, and they go back and live on the streets, but they rent out the apartment that the government has given them and they keep the money. They go back and live on the streets.

Indian man (1): This houses? This is all rented by the government and given free of charge to the poor to clear the slums.

Prabhupada: Therefore Bhagavata says,

tasyaiva hetoh prayateta kovido

na labhyate yad bhramatam upary adhah

tal labhyate duhkhavad anyatah sukham

kalena sarvatra gabhira ramhasa

[SB 1.5.18]

(Hindi) So three classes of men are there: upper class, middle class. You cannot change it. It is laws of nature.

Indian man (1): (Hindi)

Prabhupada: (Hindi) Just like Vivekananda philosophy, daridra-narayana. (Hindi) How you can change this? (Hindi) First duty is, first of all enlighten them with knowledge. That is required, not by external bodily comforts. (end)

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- January 2, 1976, Madras

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