With Devotee's Mother And Priest

July, 1973

download  Players

 

Take a test

---

Prabhupada: The whole civilization is a plan of cheating others. That's all. And they're all sinful. According to our Vedic understanding, there are four things sinful, pillars of sinful life: illicit sex, unnecessary killing of animals, intoxication and gambling.Mother: But you can lead a very happy life still, eating...
Prabhupada: No. Our students are trained in that way.
Mother: There are a lot of very good people in the world.
Prabhupada: Just see. You can see from your son. They can sit down anywhere. They can lie down. There is no artificial living. They are satisfied with nice foodstuff made from vegetable and milk. And chanting Hare Krsna, holy name of God.
Mother: I see he's happy. But, you know, he came from a very happy home. So he should be happy, shouldn't he?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: Very happy home. Brothers and sisters. And we've all been very happy. And I hope he will remain happy.
Prabhupada: He's still happier.
Mother: Yes, I can see.
Prabhupada: He was happy; now he's happier. That is the difference.
Mother: Yes. Oh, I don't think he's happier. (laughter) You are? I didn't think it was possible.
Prabhupada: You are not happier.
Mother: I didn't think it was possible.
Prabhupada: Because your son has come here, you may not be happier. But he happier.
Mother: Oh, you're saying this. I'm not saying this. I'm very disappointed that he is not continuing with education. I'm not sorry that... I'm happy for his happiness, wherever he is.
Prabhupada: But what is the... What is the purpose of education?
Mother: You are a cultured man. You're educated.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: Did you not learn...? Who gave you the talent to translate your Vedic scriptures?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: Who gave you the talent, father?
Prabhupada: No, I'm asking that what is the best part of education? So far my school, college education is concerned, that is not being used here.
Mother: Oh, but you're cultured. You in your old age are getting tremendous comfort from being able to read and understand what the world is doing, the goodness of your books, and you have..., you're able to understand the spiritual way of life.
Prabhupada: Yes. That...
Mother: If you couldn't, if you hadn't been educated, father, well, how would you be able to have...?
Prabhupada: No, education is required.
Mother: Now, I, I, I don't... I am so happy that my son is happy, truthfully. But I am very distressed... And little boys, don't laugh because this is serious. Um. I am very distressed that none of these boys continue their education. What is going to happen to them when they are like you, when they're older, they have no talents?
Prabhupada: But your educational system, in the western countries, the, you have got big, big universities. Why the university students becoming hippies?
Mother: Oh, well, there're always a certain amount becoming hippies, in America, anywhere. But we must...
Prabhupada: No...
Mother: But we must develop...
Prabhupada: I think the college students university students, they're all hippies.
Mother: Yes, but we must develop the good ones that have talent. We must develop them. You have the power to give these boys...
Prabhupada: I mean to say that if the chance of education is there... In India there is no such big, big universities, facilities, but in your western countries you have got nice universities, nice teaching system. Why the result is hippie?
Mother: Oh, but you... We're talking of you. You have got the power. But people follow you because they believe in you. So you have the power to educate them. And you're not hippies, are you?
Prabhupada: My point is that this simple, this education for eating, sleeping, mating and defending, this sort of education will not satisfy.
Mother: Well, you're educated, you see.
Prabhupada: No, I am educated.
Mother: Yes, but how many of these are?
Prabhupada: But I am not educated only on this platform, eating, sleeping and sex life and defense. I am educated in a different platform.
Mother: But you, aren't you translating your books still?
Prabhupada: Yes, that's all right.
Mother: Isn't that a great joy, a great joy to you?
Prabhupada: That's... For translating of books it does not require... Of course, it requires when the purport of the translation is given. Otherwise,... Real thing is culture. That education is culture. Simply money-making education for maintaining this body, that education will not satisfy any more. Just like I told you, that despite all arrangements of education, why the young men are turning to be hippies? That is my question.
Mother: Oh, but not your followers. Your followers are not being hippies, people who follow you. Therefore you've got the people who you could help to become cultured like you.
Prabhupada: So my father educated me in a different way. Therefore I have come to this stage. My father never allowed me even to drink tea.
Mother: Well, I'm disappointed in you. I came to see you because I felt that, being so cultured, you would want all your boys to have this culture and to have this, to have the best...
Revatinandana: We've got, we've got this culture.
Mother: Oh, but you haven't, you see. You're all, you're all young boys...
Revatinandana: No, your culture, your culture we don't have.
Mother: ...but you're not mature yet.
Revatinandana: But the culture that he has, he's giving to us.
Mother: Yes, but you're not mature. It takes years to become mature. Hurt, pain, happiness, everything together... You find God? Yes, I've found God. We all... I feel very close to God, and I feel very happy. But I would also still wish to be educated. And fortunately, I was given the chance to have an education.
Prabhupada: Education means to know God.
Mother: And I don't misuse it.
Prabhupada: That is education. Our Vedic culture, the high class man is called brahmana.
Mother: Yes.
Prabhupada: Brahmana, you know that.
Mother: Brahmana, yes.
Prabhupada: So who is a brahmana? Who knows God, he is called brahmana. Therefore culmination of education is to understand God. That is education. Otherwise, to get education how to nicely eat, how nicely sleep, how nicely have sex life, and how to defend, this education is there even in the animals. The animals also, they know how to eat, how to sleep, how to have sex life and how to defend.
Mother: Yes. It seems to worry you, this sex life. I mean, we, we don't take...
Prabhupada: No, no, no. I'm not worried.
Mother: ...any notice if... It fits into its place.
Prabhupada: This is also necessary. This is also necessary.
Mother: It fits into the place in my life or our life.
Prabhupada: No, no. This is also necessary.
Mother: Yes. It doesn't worry us at all.
Prabhupada: But these four type of branches of education is not sufficient for human being. A human being, above all this education, must have the knowledge how to love God. And that is perfection of life.
Mother: Yeah, well, Michael was taught that when he was very small. The Jesuits saw to that.
Prabhupada: That is perfection.
Mother: The Jesuits certainly did.
Prabhupada: So to understand God or how to love God, there is religious system. In every civilized human society, it doesn't matter whether it is Christianity or Hinduism or Mohammedanism or Buddhism, the aim, religious system is there in human society besides the education of eating, sleeping, mating and defending. That is there in the animal society. So a human being is distinct from the animal when he has education how to understand God and how to love Him. That is perfection.
Mother: Well, you've got a good tape there now, haven't you?
Prabhupada: Hmm.
Mother: You've got a good tape there now. Yes.
Prabhupada: So that is now wanting. Our Krsna consciousness movement is not depriving people of their education. You get education how to eat, how to sleep, and that's all right. But side by side, you take education how to know God and how to love Him. That is our proposition.
Mother: Yes. I agree with you.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: Yes, I agree with you every time.
Prabhupada: We don't say that you stop all this education. No.
Mother: No, I don't agree with you there. No, father, no, no. No, no.
Prabhupada: We don't say.
Mother: No, I think they must...
Prabhupada: You can go on with your industries. You can go on with your university. But side by side, you become competent to know what is God and how to love Him. Then your life is perfect.
Mother: I could mention a lot of names that (are) still very close to God and brilliant men in science... Where would we be without our scientists, without our doctors, medicine? They all have to go to university and get a degree before they...
Prabhupada: That I say. You get.
Mother: Yes, but we need them.
Prabhupada: You get.
Mother: Yes, well, the some of your boys could be doctors.
Prabhupada: But simply to becoming doctor at a medical science will not save me. Unfortunately, they do not believe in the next life.
Mother: Oh, yes they do. I go to... I had a doctor who came to church -- and Michael knows him -- every Sunday, a very good man.
Prabhupada: Mostly. I have spoken with many educated persons. In Moscow I was talking with Professor Kotofsky. He said, "Swamiji, after finishing this body, everything is finished." But he's a big professor. Generally, even they do believe next life, they do not believe it very seriously. If we actually believe there is next life, then we must be prepared: "What kind of next life I am going to have?"
Mother: Yes, well, father...
Prabhupada: Because there are eight million, four hundred thousand forms of life. The trees are also life, the cats and dogs, they are also life. And there are higher, intelligent persons in the higher planetary systems. They are also life. The worm in the stool, that is also life. So, calculating all of them, there are 8,400,000 species of life. So if I am going to have next life... Tatha dehantara-praptih [Bg. 2.13]. We have to change this body to another body. So our concern should be "What kind of body I am going to get next?"
Mother: I agree for some people to, you especially, to think of this because you are a leader of your Vedic religion. But for everybody to do that, where would we be? We couldn't all sit down and think all the time.
Prabhupada: But where is that education?
Mother: But we... You can also work and think.
Prabhupada: No, I mean to say, where is that education in the university to prepare the student for the next life?
Mother: Oh, but he must fit it in.
Jesuit Priest: All the Catholic Universities all over the world are doing it. That's our main purpose, is to teach the young man and the young girl the success in this world, but above all,...
Prabhupada: Then the next question...
Jesuit Priest: ...is the success in the next, which means union with God for eternity. That's top priority. And following Christ's words, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God," then all the other things are of very minor importance. It's closeness to God and return to be one with the Beatific Vision in heaven. That's the top priority, that's our aim in education, and that's what Michael was taught when he was at Sunnyhurst. And that he does well and gets a degree, yes, very good thing. He could be a doctor or an architect or a leader in commerce, what have you, of which all of which are essential for the well-being of the world. This time last year I was dead. I was picked up as unconscious in the corridor, and the doctors said that I had experienced... I was as near death as makes no difference. Well, if it hadn't been for the skill of the man that...
Prabhupada: So...
Jesuit Priest: ...looked after me, I wouldn't be here this afternoon.
Prabhupada: So next life, how it will be ascertained? What kind of body I am going to next life?
Jesuit Priest: I don't think it matters very much. I couldn't care less what's happening after I'm dead. All I know, there's not annihilation. I'm going to be joined with almighty God.
Prabhupada: No, it cannot be blind.
Mother: We're going to almighty God. That's all.
Jesuit Priest: Not that I want another life.
Prabhupada: Eh?
Mother: We're going to almighty God when we die. We don't have to worry.
Jesuit Priest: That's in his hands.
Prabhupada: So what is the qualification?
Mother: We know. We...
Prabhupada: Everybody is going to God?
Mother: Yes. Everybody who believes in God. Yes. And leads a good life, does their best in this world, and that is truth for me.
Prabhupada: Then the question comes: What is the good life?
Jesuit Priest: Obeying the commandments of God.
Prabhupada: Yes. So if the commandment is "Thou shalt not kill," if somebody kills, so that is good life?
Jesuit Priest: No, no, no. Father, you're being a bit unfair. It isn't... Interpretation, "Thou shalt not kill," thou shalt not unjustly take away life. If a man walks in this afternoon through those bushes with a revolver, I have every right... I'm not saying I'm going to do it, but I have every right to defend myself against that unjust aggressor. And if I kill him...
Prabhupada: Yes, you can, you can protect yourself...
Jesuit Priest: ...that is justified.
Mother: Yes.
Prabhupada: ...from the aggressor, but when you kill innocent animal, what is the reason?
Jesuit Priest: Oh, well then... Yes. Well, again, that's got to be interpreted. We wouldn't be able to... What foo... How would we live on food? How do we live if we don't eat?
Prabhupada: How we are living?
Jesuit Priest: Pardon?
Prabhupada: How we are living?
Jesuit Priest: Well, I don't know...
Prabhupada: We don't kill animals.
Jesuit Priest: I don't know what your food is, but...
Mother: No, but you have a vegetarian diet...
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: ...which is...
Jesuit Priest: Well, all right.
Mother: A lot of people have that.
Prabhupada: But that is not killing.
Jesuit Priest: No, but... By, fa..., er, look at it this way. You've just said a few minutes ago there are eight million different kinds of life. Would you agree that the potato, the cabbage...
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: ...and what have you also has a life?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: Because there's vegetative life, there's sensitive life, there's rational life...
Prabhupada: That's all right.
Jesuit Priest: :...there's supernatural life, and there's a life of God.
Prabhupada: Yes
Jesuit Priest: All right. And therefore -- I'm not being facetious -- when you boil those potatoes, you are taking away the life of that potato.
Prabhupada: So what is your philosophy? That you can take any life?
Jesuit Priest: But you said, "Thou shall not kill."
Prabhupada: No, no. Yes. "Thou shall not kill." That's all right.
Jesuit Priest: But you kill the potato.
Prabhupada: Now, suppose there is potato and there is your child. So would you like to kill your child in preference of potato?
Mother: No, no.
Jesuit Priest: You've not answered my question.
Prabhupada: Why this discrimination?
Jesuit Priest: Why you've not answered my question?
Prabhupada: Yes, I am answering you, that you are to kill, but you have to discriminate what kind of killing you shall do.
Jesuit Priest: Well, I've just said that. I gave the example of the chap who comes to you with a revolver. I can maybe protect myself. You said... You're implying...
Prabhupada: No, no. When somebody comes with a revolver, you defend. That is another thing. But if somebody's innocent, why you should kill?
Jesuit Priest: And I say I shouldn't. God said, "Thou shalt not kill."
Prabhupada: Then why you are killing animals?
Jesuit Priest: Well, you're doing it when you eat your potatoes.
Prabhupada: No, the potato is not animal.
Jesuit Priest: It's a vegetable, life.
Prabhupada: No.
Jesuit Priest: It starts with a little tiny seed. That's life.
Prabhupada: No, no, no.
Jesuit Priest: It grows.
Prabhupada: Potato is not animal. It is fruit.
Jesuit Priest: Is that tree alive?
Prabhupada: It is a fruit.
Jesuit Priest: Is that tree alive?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: Has it got life?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: Are you doing anything wrong when you cut it down...?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: ...to provide...?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: ...to provide...?
Prabhupada: Yes. Yes, yes.
Jesuit Priest: You are doing something wrong?
Prabhupada: We don't cut down trees unnecessarily. Unnecessarily.
Jesuit Priest: No, but, but, uh, but, uh, but, uh... I don't kill...
Prabhupada: No. But the... I have asked this question to so many people, that "Why you are killing although it is prohibited, 'Thou shall not kill.'?" They cannot give me any satisfactory answer.
Jesuit Priest: Well, I think I've given you one. I'm just thinking in a way...
Prabhupada: Innocent animal killing and taking a potato from the tree, you are making equalized. It is not very...
Jesuit Priest: Oh, no, I'm not (indistinct) and saying. All I'm saying is if you're logical and accept different...
Prabhupada: This is logical. Now...
Jesuit Priest: ...kinds of life.
Prabhupada: I have to live. We agree that we have to live by eating another living entity. Jivo jivasya jivanam. But if I eat this grass, taken some grass, and if I eat some animal, do you think they are equal?
Jesuit Priest: Yes.
Prabhupada: Equal? Then why don't you kill your child, own child?
Jesuit Priest: Because there's a, I mean, a... That's, that's... Logical. I just tried to show you the difference between...
Prabhupada: Now, we don't agree that...
Jesuit Priest: ...vegetative life, sensitive life and rational life.
Prabhupada: ... that innocent... That... That's all right.
Revatinandana: Rational? Animals have got rationality.
Jesuit Priest: No they haven't. Omnia animalia intelectu carent.(?) (Latin)
Revatinandana: Even your...
Jesuit Priest: This is bringing out exactly...
Revatinandana: Even your own psychologists will display to you rational life in the monkeys.
Jesuit Priest: No, no.
Revatinandana: And so many other animals. Rats.
Jesuit Priest: No.
Revatinandana: They make rational decisions.
Jesuit Priest: No they don't.
Revatinandana: Oh?
Jesuit Priest: Well, I mean it's been accepted. ...
Revatinandana: Your own psychologists will display that to you.
Jesuit Priest: Well, all I can say is it's been accepted in the teaching of not many western philosophers...
Revatinandana: Not eastern philosophers.
Jesuit Priest: But all eastern philosophers... Omnia animalia intellectu carent.(?) (Latin) And now, as Mrs. Christie just said, if you've done a bit of study...
Prabhupada: So because, because some animal is not intelligent, you are right to kill?
Jesuit Priest: No, no, no. We're not talking about killing. He, his theme now, that there's no difference between us and the dog.
Prabhupada: No, no. Yes.
Revatinandana: You're more intelligent than a dog -- to some degree.
Prabhupada: No, if...
Jesuit Priest: So in other words, if we are, all of us here...
Prabhupada: Even the animal is not intelligent, you cannot kill. Because your child is also not intelligent, so that does not mean you can kill your child.
Jesuit Priest: Oh, but nobody, I'd, nobody'd, nobody'd, master, nobody'd for one second would think about killing a child.
Prabhupada: No, no. That is not a very good reasoning, that because the animal is not intelligent, they may be killed. That is not very good reason.
Jesuit Priest: Oh, no, that isn't the reason. That isn't the reason why we kill it. We kill the animal because we need it for a means of living.
Prabhupada: No...
Jesuit Priest: As food.
Prabhupada: You need it... Just like if you can get nice fruits, grains, milk, why do you need animal? You have to eat. You have to eat and live. Not to kill. Similarly, that if you can get nice foodstuff from food grains, from fruits, from flowers, from vegetables, from milk, why you should kill the animals?
Mother: Well, a lot of people now are going over to health foods.
Prabhupada: Eh?
Mother: This is thought of by a lot of people.
Prabhupada: Well, lot of people may do anything.
Mother: I agree with you. Yes...
Prabhupada: But a reasonable man, a religious man, he should have discrimination, that "If I get my foodstuff from here, why shall I kill a big animal?"
Mother: Well, it's not... I always think it's not for me to condemn people, whatever they do. All I ask for in life is... I'm not condemning you, but uh...
Prabhupada: No, we are thinking in that way. It is all right that we have to eat some living entity, but a difference... If we can get... Besides that, when you get the grains, it is not actually killing. When you get the fruits, I am getting these fruits from the tree. It is not killing. The fruits are there. I take it. It falls down. I take it. The grains also. It is not killing.
Mother: Well, I think... No, well, I don't think we're really worried about whether we kill or you...
Prabhupada: So similarly, if I take milk from the cows, that is also cow's blood, but I don't kill it. So if I can live in such nice way, without killing, I get the fruits and flowers and the milk and the grains, why should I kill the animals?
Mother: There're a tremendous number of people being vegetarians today.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: You're not the only people. I mean, a lot of people just have, yes, they do...
Prabhupada: That is nice. That is nice, very nice. They should be vegetarian.
Mother: ...but we don't condemn people who do.
Prabhupada: That will make them less sinful. And that will qualify them to go back to home, back to Godhead. If they remain sinful, they cannot go.
Jesuit Priest: Would you say that because we -- and I talk about myself -- because I have meat and bacon and so on, I am a, does that make me sinful? If I didn't eat those, I would be less sinful?
Prabhupada: Yes. Yes. That is our philosophy.
Jesuit Priest: So if I give up eating meat and bacon and sausages and things, I'll suddenly become a different person.
Prabhupada: Then you become pure. You become pure.
Revatinandana: Yes. Yes.
Jesuit Priest: That's very interesting.
Revatinandana: I just met a gentleman who told me exactly that. Just a few min... He's a businessman here in London. He's about forty years old. And three months ago, he decided, because he learned, heard this from us, he decided to become a vegetarian. And a few weeks later, I talked to him. He said, "You know, it's amazing the difference in my consciousness." He says, "I have become a completely different man." Yeah, he told me that.
Prabhupada: Well, yes...
Revatinandana: And he's a very intelligent man. He's in the Mensa Society.
Prabhupada: In the Vedic literature it is said the animal killers cannot understand God.
Mother: Well, this is very good, sir, that you find this, and I say, this is not my argument... Yes. Hmmm.
Prabhupada: No, no. Not practical also. I have seen the animal killers. They do not understand what is God. That is a fact. Neither they have got brain to understand it.
Mother: But you don't need brain if you're not going to study or to do anything further. If you just sit and sleep like...
Prabhupada: No, we are studying. Because we are preaching, we are studying that. The animal eaters, they cannot have any conception of God. The brain is so dull.
Mother: What about your children? Where do they? Do they go to school?
Prabhupada: Why not.
Mother: Are they edu...? Do they go to schools, your children?
Prabhupada: They have now grown up. My grandsons are going to school.
Mother: Well, I didn't mean yours in particular. I'm talking now of all of you. I'm not talking of you particularly. I'm talking of all of you. All your children, the married devotees...?
Prabhupada: Yes, our children, we have got our own school. All these boys, they have got their children. They are grhasthas, householders. So we have got our nice school at Dallas, very big school.
Mother: But you have got a school, a Krsna school?
Prabhupada: Yes, oh, yes.
Mother: And now, how...? Do they go through college?
Prabhupada: They are now little children. But we don't wish to send them to college. We have got sufficient books.
Mother: So you'll cut off their education like that?
Prabhupada: What is this nonsense education?
Revatinandana: No, no.
Mother: Now, do you think that's not cruel to them?
Prabhupada: We don't care for this...
Revatinandana: We cut off your education, and we take education from the Vedas and from our spiritual master. We learn how to read, how to write, how to handle numbers sufficiently, and whatever we need practically for our work. And we learn the science of God from our spiritual master. And we find that sufficient for us. We haven't got to spend extra time and many extra years irrelevant subjects that are never going to relate to our practical life or to our God conscious life.
Jesuit Priest: But you're depending on other people, then, to do the other side of your life for you.
Prabhupada: We are not depending on anyone.
Jesuit Priest: Well, what happens when suddenly one of you gets, very ill tomorrow morning?
Prabhupada: Eh? What is that?
Jesuit Priest: What happens if somebody gets very ill tomorrow morning?
Prabhupada: So we give them medicine.
Mother: You call the doctor.
Jesuit Priest: No, you call the doctor, don't you?
Prabhupada: So we pay for that.
Jesuit Priest: I know, but you call him, don't you? You want him to be, you want the doctor in existence.
Prabhupada: So does it mean to say that because we require necessary, we have to take education of medical man?
Mother: But you don't train people to be medical men.
Prabhupada: No, first of all, if we can get it easily...
Mother: Yes.
Prabhupada: Our training is... First of all, try to understand. We... Just like you have got four divisions in the body for maintaining the body. So the head division, the arm division, the belly division, and the leg division. The leg is doing its own work, walking. The hand is doing its own work. And the belly's doing its own work. And the brain is doing own work. It does not mean that when the brain is work, it does not require the help of the leg. But a brain does not require to learn the business of the leg. This is the idea. The brain requires the help of the leg. But does not mean that brain has to learn how to walk also.
Mother: Well, I'm a nurse, and so that is why I would like...
Prabhupada: So there must be division of work. So you take from... When there is necessity of brain work, you take help from him. And when there is need of the walking, take leg, help from the leg. It is a cooperation. Not that everyone has to learn everything.
Mother: Yes. Well, as I say...
Prabhupada: It does not...
Mother: I myself did a training. I became a nurse.
Prabhupada: You are asking us "Why you are not taking medical education?" Why we shall take?
Mother: Because if everybody...
Prabhupada: No, there is no necessity. If the... If I can pay, I can get the help of a medical man, why should I waste my time in that way? Let me...
Mother: You think? Ah, but you should be self-supporting. You should be...
Prabhupada: Let me engage my time for understanding God.
Mother: You should be self-supporting in that way.
Prabhupada: Self-supporting. We are self-supporting. Just like... I have given the example. The body, the social body... You can take of this body. There are four divisions: the head division, the arm division, the belly division, and the leg division. So belly is doing the work of the belly, stomach. The leg is walking. The hand is doing, defending, and the head and the brain is giving instruction to everyone. This is cooperation. So that is Vedic system of civilization. Brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya, sudra. There must be divisions of work. Not that everyone has to learn everything.
Mother: No, I don't mean that. You're misunderstanding me.
Prabhupada: That's all right. Then your question is replied. When I need the help of a medical man, I go to the medical man.
Mother: Yes.
Prabhupada: So what is the wrong there?
Mother: Well, what I'm saying to you is that...
Prabhupada: No, what is the wrong? You find.
Mother: ...you can love God and be near God and train to be a medical man. Why don't you let some of your boys be trained to be medical men? Why do you say no?
Prabhupada: But again you are putting the same question. We are training them for the brain, and you are asking me that "Why don't you train them for the leg?" That is your question.
Mother: But they can still love God. They can still work for God at the same time.
Prabhupada: No, no. Why you are asking this brain to learn how to walk? Why you are asking this odd question?
Mother: Well, my brain works and I also, if there was a war tomorrow, I could go and be a nurse and look after the sick...
Prabhupada: That's all right. That's all right.
Mother: ...and still be with God.
Prabhupada: That I have already explained. There are four divisions. So one division can take help of the other division. That is another thing. But you are asking that, "You are simply interested in brain. Why not for the leg?" But we are interested. But not in that way. When we can see that I can pay for the medical man and I can get the help, why shall I waste my time to become a medical man.
Mother: I think it's so sad to see a lot of very good...
Prabhupada: No, no. Just, just try to understand this point.
Mother: ...young men becoming cabbages.
Prabhupada: They're misunderstanding. Yes. When I can get... Just like here is father. He's trained up how to preach. He's not a medical man. But he doesn't require to learn the medical science.
Mother: No, but I didn't ask you to be a doctor. I said some of your boys.
Prabhupada: Why... Why you are asking? My boys are the same.
Revatinandana: Which ones? Which ones of us should become doctors here?
Mother: Well, all, all, all...
Revatinandana: Supposing they all want to be preachers. Do you go to your seminaries and take one boy from each class to become a doctor?
Mother: Yes, well, if you had an epidemic of smallpox...
Revatinandana: No. No, no.
Mother: ...or typhoid, you... You know what smallpox is like in India.
Prabhupada: Presupposing. There must be division.
Revatinandana: Do you go to your seminary and take one boy from each class to become a doctor?
Mother: It'd be no good at all being priest if you had smallpox, would it?
Revatinandana: So therefore you do that. You go to your seminary and take one boy from each class to be a doctor. By force. "Now, you come..."
Prabhupada: We are treating them.
Revatinandana: "...and be a doctor." They all want to be preachers.
Mother: You've got to have balance, balance otherwise. Yes.
Prabhupada: Balance, this is balance. Let us... You, you take some students and train them as medical man. But I am training to become preachers. Why you interfere with my business? You do your own business.
Mother: Well, my son is my business.
Prabhupada: Yes. So your son, your son is not dependent on you. He's independent.
Mother: Yes, but he was...
Prabhupada: You want independence. He's already independent of you.
Mother: He was snatched out of the university by your people going round the universities. He was in university.
Prabhupada: But... That's all right. If some of our student goes to the university... There are many students...
Revatinandana: Now wait a minute. We didn't snatch Michael.
Prabhupada: We don't object to that.
Revatinandana: Michael came to the temple in London, sat down, and didn't want to go away.
Mother: He'd been taking LSD, and he was very sick. And somebody took him in.
Prabhupada: So,... So when he was taking LSD, what did you do for him?
Revatinandana: Why was he taking LSD? He had wonderful education, happy home, so many things.
Mother: Well, he was experimenting. Now this is it...
Revatinandana: So LSD is acknowledged a dangerous thing to experiment with.
Prabhupada: You like that? You like that?
Mother: Well, he had a false... This was not...
Prabhupada: When he was taking LSD, did you like that?
Mother: I didn't know, did I?
Prabhupada: Then?
Mother: Until afterwards, and we found him.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: And this is it.
Prabhupada: So there must be division for upkeep of the soc... That is missing. At the present moment, there is no division.
Mother: But he had a false religious experience, due to the LSD.
Prabhupada: No, I am talking generally, not of him, that everything must be, there must be division. Just like naturally we have got division. The whole object is to keep the body fit, but there is division: the head division, the arm division, the stomach division, and the leg division. So similarly, there must be four classes of men in the society: the intelligent class of men, the administrator class of men, the productive class of men, and the laborer class of men. Everything is required. But not that the intelligent class of man has to learn the business of the laborer class of men. That is not required. Just try to understand. The laborer class of men, they are required. But one who is intelligent class, he, he cannot be trained up as laborer, ordinary laborer in the factory. That is mistake. He must work according to his capacity. If he's intelligent, he must be preacher, he must be God conscious. He would educate people that "This eating, sleeping is not all. There is God. You should understand. You have got a relationship with Him. If you want to have better life next, then you must become God conscious, you must be sinless." These things are required in the society. (loud noise of jet going over). What is the use of talking?
Mother: Father, I understand that you have translated ten books.
Prabhupada: Now again. Again the same question.
Mother: Is it not...?
Prabhupada: I say that there must be divisions. We are working on certain division.
Mother: Well, tell me about the books you have translated. Are there some more to translate?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: Well, one day you will die. Now who will translate them then? Continue the translating?
Prabhupada: There are many. There are many. They are being trained up. There are many.
Mother: Ah, yes. So people are being trained. Ah. This is what I'm asking you.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Revatinandana: Well, I explained that to you earlier, that we have our classes.
Prabhupada: We are training every day.
Mother: But then, this is languages. You've got to, you've got to study languages. You can't just be taught...
Revatinandana: Yes. So a few of us, so the few of us who have an aptitude for Sanskrit language are studying Sanskrit language.
Prabhupada: We are teaching Sanskrit, we are teaching English. Especially. Especially we are giving training to our boys to learn simply English and Sanskrit. Then they will be help. By learning Sanskrit, they will be able to read...
Mother: Latin? And...? What...?
Prabhupada: There is no need of... One language sufficient. English language, practical...
Mother: Ah, but then that is one-sided then, isn't it?
Revatinandana: Most of us don't even study Sanskrit very much.
Prabhupada: No. Just like English book. We are translating in German, translating in France, in Spanish...
Mother: But there's a lot of Latin that needs translating too. I mean, you must, you must, you must have a full understanding of everything if you're going to translate.
Prabhupada: Yes. It will be better. If you also join, then we'll have full understanding. (mother laughs)
Mother: You have a sense of humor.
Jesuit Priest: What language, master, was your books originally written in?
Prabhupada: Sanskrit.
Jesuit Priest: Sanskrit.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: Don't you find it extremely difficult to get the literal meaning from the Sanskrit to the English?
Prabhupada: No. You may, it may be difficult for you, but...
Jesuit Priest: No, no. I'm just thinking...
Prabhupada: ...for one who knows Sanskrit, it is not difficult for him.
Jesuit Priest: When I did my studies, we had to do Greek and Hebrew and Latin and, naturally, reading the scriptures in English. But it helped enormously with a background of a little bit of Hebrew. Not very much. But certainly Greek and Latin. You get a much more comprehensive notion of what's in the scriptures.
Prabhupada: Therefore we are teaching Sanskrit.
Jesuit Priest: Pardon?
Prabhupada: We are teaching Sanskrit to our students.
Jesuit Priest: Yes, but all I was saying was, isn't it difficult to get across at times what you can see the meaning in the Sanskrit, but you can't put it into acceptable English? You know what I mean. The idiom isn't the same.
Prabhupada: We are giving every word, meaning. The book... Have you got any book? Bring it. You can see. Each and every word of Sanskrit we are giving meaning. Our mode of presentation is first of all we put the original Sanskrit language in devanagari character. Then we give English, Roman transliteration, pronouncing the same word by diacritic mark. Then each word is translated into English. Then we give translation, the whole. And then we give the purport. This is our way. So we are giving meaning of each and every word means we have got considerable knowledge of that word. Otherwise how we can give? Yes.
Jesuit Priest: I was just thinking how difficult it is. I read Latin pretty well. And Greek. And I can see the meaning in the original, in the Greek when it was translated from the Aramaic. Now in your translating you can get a phrase, and if you know the language, you know exactly what it conveys.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: Put it into English and somehow, some of the meaning has come...
Prabhupada: Then that exact...
Jesuit Priest: It's like the French. How do you say in..., how do you translate "au revoir"?
Prabhupada: Otto?
Revatinandana: He's asking you how to translate a French word, "au revoir."
Jesuit Priest: How do you translate into English?
Prabhupada: No, no. I'm not translating. The person who knows French language, he translates from our English.
Jesuit Priest: Yes. No, well, I'm only trying to... A very simple question. It's not a question of trying to try anybody. I happened to say or give an example of what I mean. How'd you say in English, "au revoir."
Prabhupada: Just... Just the... You have seen the... Just show him how it is done. Yes, you can do it.
Revatinandana: That's all right. Mahadeva, you do it.
Prabhupada: You see the original Sanskrit.
Mahadeva: Here's the text, here's the original Sanskrit. And we have a Roman transliteration, and then individually, the word meanings.
Jesuit Priest: Oh, I see. I've got it, yes.
Mahadeva: And then a full translation.
Jesuit Priest: Translation. Yes. They're marvelous. Yes. Yes.
Revatinandana: Actually, most of the Sanskrit, much of that work is done by one of Prabhupada's disciples now. He handles much of the Sanskrit.
Prabhupada: Yes, they are being trained.
Revatinandana: It's a mechanical process, after all. But the translation, that requires not only knowledge of the language, it requires spiritual realization.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Revatinandana: And the spiritual translation is done by Prabhupada. Not just from knowledge of Sanskrit, but from spiritually realized knowledge. That is the qualification to put the meaning into any language. You have to have realized the message.
Jesuit Priest: Oh, I agree. Certainly our, the great, in the western church, all the translations of the Gospels and the Old and New Testament is done by, for the most part, by men who were saints, and, in other words, it wasn't merely their knowledge of the language, but their incredible closeness to God, in everyone of them, Garems(?) and Augustine and all the great men...
Revatinandana: The most recent translation accepted by the Church of England, in England, was done by Oxford scholars. Saintly men? I know some of them. I don't think they're actually saintly men.
Jesuit Priest: Well, I wouldn't know anything about that.
Revatinandana: Well, it's the modern... It's accepted by the Church of England and most other Protestant churches in England. It's the new English Bible.
Jesuit Priest: Yes.
Revatinandana: And it's recommended by all these churches for their followers to read. And it's translated by scholars, Oxford scholars.
Jesuit Priest: Yes. I see. I take your point, that you can have a translation which is purely academic and a translation which is not merely academic, but has a, sort of a spiritual experience behind it.
Revatinandana: Um-huh.
Jesuit Priest: In fact, I can say, by... I'm a Catholic priest, and by and large, I think our men, who are to, doing the translations are pretty, like, good chaps anyhow.
Revatinandana: Hmh. So if, if the translators and the knowledge are adequate, then why is it, as Mrs. Christie just pointed out that so many young people are interested instead in false religious experience of LSD?
Jesuit Priest: Well, I wouldn't know. Because, I would say, because there's some kind of inadequacy in their lives. There's something missing, and that, the thing which is missing, is what we in the Catholic Church call the life of grace, the supernatural. Somehow, something's gone wrong somewhere. And so, they, lots of the young people today...
Prabhupada: That, that I was trying to explain, that nobody can understand God and God's conception, being sinful.
Jesuit Priest: There's a vacuum created, and so they'd rather take it up in...
Mother: It's very extraordinary, though, that every boy that I have spoken to here...
Prabhupada: Yes. So that is stated in the Bhagavad-gita: yesam tv anta-gatam papam... [Bg. 7.28].
Mother: ...have all taken LSD or drugs of some kind.
Prabhupada: ...jananam punya-karmanam.
Revatinandana: That was one who hasn't.
Mother: Even your president...
Devotee: I haven't.
Mother: I said...
Revatinandana: This one, this one...
Mother: The ones I have spoken to. I said the ones I have spoken to. Even your president...
Revatinandana: And Father Bernard? Father Bernard spent twenty-three years in a Cistercian monastery. He left and came to us right afterwards, and he's never taken LSD.
Jesuit Priest: Who was in a Cistercian monastery?
Revatinandana: Father Bernard there.
Jesuit Priest: Are you a priest?
Mother: But I say quite a lot of your young people have come to you since they took drugs. I've spoken to... Even your president admitted that he'd taken drugs.
Prabhupada: There is no restriction for anyone. God is open for everyone.
Mother: But you said... Michael, I said, "Most of the people that I have spoken to." I didn't say "most of the people here." I said, "most of the people..." One person I'd spoken to hadn't, but I can truthfully say that only one hadn't, out of the ones I've spoken to. They have come here... You are... You seem to be able to help the people that have taken drugs so that...
Prabhupada: That is my duty.
Mother: You've helped them tremendously, and I can see this, but I am so sad that you can't help them to further their education. That's all my, my problem is...
Mahadeva: Prabhupada was making the point that the purpose of education is to know God.
Mother: Yes, I know. I know. Yes, he has, and I've seen that point.
Prabhupada: Don't you think this is education?
Mother: Well...
Prabhupada: This translator work?
Mother: Yes.
Prabhupada: If we are teaching our boys...
Mother: But you know what I me...
Prabhupada: ...Sanskrit and English to translate the original Vedic lit..., is it not education?
Mother: Yes, I agree with you. That is education. But I mean a fuller education.
Prabhupada: You are trying to induce our students to become technologists, medical men. You want that.
Mother: Yes, because the world must have them.
Prabhupada: That's all right. But our point is that if we can get the help of technologist by paying little money...
Mother: Well, you'd laugh if you were ill and there was no doctor, wouldn't you?
Prabhupada: ...why should we waste our time?
Mother: If you had acute appendicitis, what would you do?
Devotee: Chant Hare Krsna.
Mother: Well, you wouldn't. You'd die. I mean... You laugh when I say that. Somebody's got to be a doctor. You're being very childish. Father agrees. There must be doctors.
Revatinandana: Well, it's good that... In the society we observe there are many, many people becoming doctors. But there are not very many people becoming brahmanas, people who live a sinless life and who learn the science of God and distribute it to the people. There're not very many people...
Jesuit Priest: I think that... I think that... (?)
Revatinandana: Not very many, not very many people are doing that.
Jesuit Priest: I don't know. I think that that's a gratuitous statement for which you can have no proof.
Revatinandana: I'm just saying not many people are doing it. How many pe... How many people, compared to the number of medical students in England, how many people are students in religious seminaries?
Jesuit Priest: Well, do you know?
Revatinandana: No, I'm asking you.
Jesuit Priest: Well, I do. I do. I do know it.
Revatinandana: So give us a comparison.
Jesuit Priest: Yes. Well, I... We've no problem at all...
Prabhupada: Now, another thing is...
Jesuit Priest: ...in finding plenty of young men to go along with the principles...
Revatinandana: Neither have we. And you're teaching them to preach God consciousness.
Jesuit Priest: Yes.
Revatinandana: And Prabhupada is teaching us to preach God consciousness.
Jesuit Priest: Yes. Well, I know... I've never questioned that...
Revatinandana: So there's no necessity, there's no necessity of canvassing amongst the seminaries or here for medical doctors.
Mother: No, no. You've missed the whole point. Mrs. Christie's original statement was, if the young men here went on, not mer..., keep the knowledge and the search for the knowledge and love of God, by all means, but let them go on to develop their knowledge in the world of science, in the world of learning, and thus become leaders in that particular branch with a spiritual motif behind it, and instead of enclosing yourselves inside a circle like this, being able to spread the love of God amongst the tens of thousands of young people in the world. That's all...
Revatinandana: No. I, I suspect...
Mother: We need it. We need it.
Revatinandana: I suspect that for the hundred, hundred or hundred and twenty of us in England, I think, for the number of us, I'll bet we're doing more work per man to spread it among the young people than your mission is.
Jesuit Priest: I wouldn't know. You're making this statement. I haven't proof.
Revatinandana: Well, I know that in almost all of our centers they suddenly happen to be developing a temple like this. We spend every day, from ten o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at night engaged in preaching work.
Jesuit Priest: I think most of us do, too.
Prabhupada: Now, in each of our centers we have got minimum fifty heads, maximum two hundred, 250. In Los Angeles, you see... Just we have got recent photograph. Bring the photograph from my room. You can bring. So we are giving them place, we are giving them food, we are giving them education.
Jesuit Priest: Yes.
Prabhupada: In this way. So we invite anyone, everyone, without any distinction, without any discrimination. He may be Christian, he may be Hindu, he may be Mohammedan. "Come on. Live with us, and learn how to love." That is our mission. We say, according to our Vedic description,
sa vai pumsam paro dharmo
yato bhaktir adhoksaje
ahaituky apratihata
yayatma suprasidati
 [SB 1.2.6]
If you actually want peace of your mind, then you must try, you must learn how to love God. So our preaching is... It doesn't matter, whatever religion you are following, it doesn't matter. If you have achieved this aim, how to love God, then your system is first-class. That's all. That is our question. Sa vai pumsam paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhoksaje [SB 1.2.6]. Bhakti, means love of God. How much you have learned to love God, that much we want to know. We don't say that "You are Christian, you become followers of Hindu rituals or Mohammedan rituals." No. You remain in your position, but just try to love God to the best of your capacity.
Mother: Well, I think we do that.
Jesuit Priest: We're all doing that.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: Most people.
Prabhupada: Yes. So that is our mission. Now, if you find it difficulty, you can come and join with us. That's all. Practically, in Europe and America, they are all coming from Christian group, Jewish group. So... Yes. This is a recent photograph of our Los Angeles center. They are regularly living in the temple, as they are living in the temple.
Mother: Hm.
Prabhupada: And you'll also be surprised to know that this, this was a church, that building. It was a big church. So we have purchased it.
Jesuit Priest: Very nice.
Mother: In other words, your temple... Do you call it your temple or a church?
Prabhupada: We call temple.
Mother: A temple. And are these married and...?
Prabhupada: Yes, there are married, there are sannyasis, there are brahmacari, all kinds of people. It is not restricted. You see. So many children. They're having children. We are taking care of them. Everything.
Mother: Now, do you have these temples in India?
Prabhupada: Oh yes.
Mother: Because I myself haven't been to India, but my parents were there. And the Indian contingent from Dunkirk was billeted in my home in 1940, just before my marriage.
Prabhupada: Oh. There you see. Oh.
Mother: And we had all the Indians there after Dunkirk waiting for more Indians to come and join them. And we had the Hindus and the Mohammedans and the sweepers, and they all had their own houses. And they recovered from all the war damage, and they went off within about twelve months. They went off in '41, back to...
Prabhupada: There was some bombing in Calcutta, nothing more.
Mother: Hm. Ah, but these Indians were fighting in France.
Prabhupada: Oh, that is another thing.
Mother: Dunkirk.
Prabhupada: Dunkirk.
Mother: And then they came, when Dunkirk was evacuated, they came back in all these little boats that they escaped in, and they got together and they billeted them... And I was living with my godmother in Sholden (?) in Devonshire. And we had eight acres. And the Army put up huts for them. And they lived there for about eight months until more Indians were sent to make them back to strength again, the regiments, big enough. And then they went overseas again. Some went to Burma, some to Italy. I don't know where they went, of course, but they were very good...
Prabhupada: They went to die, after all.
Mother: They were very good soldiers. No, they didn't all die. Of course, some did, I expect.
Prabhupada: Some, (laughs) yes.
Mother: But they were, they were very fine men.
Jesuit Priest: Well, anyhow, thank you very much, father, for letting us talk and for letting us listen to you.
Prabhupada: Thank you very much for your coming here.
Jesuit Priest: Very nice to come here, and congratulations for...
Prabhupada: No, our only proposal is that you try to love God. That's all. God is one. God is neither Hindu, nor Muslim, nor Christian. God is God. So let us love God. That's all. That is perfection of life.
Mother: Well, you can rest assured, we do that.
Prabhupada: Yes, do that.
Mother: Yes, we do that.
Prabhupada: That is our...
Jesuit Priest: I wouldn't have given up my life to Him fifty-two years ago to be a Jesuit priest unless I loved God, would I?
Prabhupada: No. Unless you love God, how you have become priest?
Jesuit Priest: And I'm not only one, but there happen to be thirty-three thousand of us in the world.
Prabhupada: Because you have become a priest, that means you love God.
Jesuit Priest: Yes. Fifty-two years ago I made up my mind.
Prabhupada: Yes, that is understood.
Mother: Yes.
Prabhupada: You are brahmana because...
Mother: How do you know I'm a grandmother?
Revatinandana: No, he said brahmana.
Mother: Oh! I thought you said grandmother! I am a grandmother.
Prabhupada: Now, that's it.
Jesuit Priest: Well, I think we'd better be...
Prabhupada: So give them prasadam.
Mother: Well, thank you very much. And...
Devotee: Give it in the house.
Prabhupada: Yes. Take little prasadam there.
Mother: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Prabhupada: Yes, Hare Krsna. Jaya.
Mother: Well, I think we understand each other a little better.
Prabhupada: Thank you. Thank you. Yes.
Mother: Yes.
Prabhupada: But you are fortunate that you have got so nice son like that.
Mother: Thank you.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: Yes. Thank you very much.
Prabhupada: Hare Krsna.
Jesuit Priest: Good-bye.
Mother: Good-bye.
Jesuit Priest: Good-bye, thanks, good-bye.
Mother: Good-bye, all of you. Bye. [Break]
Revatinandana: ...question that she said, he came to us because he was taking LSD and he had a false religious experience. And the question is now, if they have access to a true religious experience, why was he looking for a false religious experience? Why was Michael looking for a false religious experience from LSD if he had already got true religion? They didn't understand. Their best children are taking LSD because they can't get any satisfaction from their parents' religion.
Srutakirti: He answered that by saying he didn't have that supernatural grace.
Revatinandana: Yeah, why not? That's pretty clear, actually. "Well, we love God. Yes, we love God." A steak and a glass of wine and God.
Srutakirti: I think a storm is coming.
Prabhupada: Eh?
Srutakirti: A rainstorm is...
Prabhupada: Rainstorm? No.
Revatinandana: Little, little... It might rain. It's not for a while. But when it gets misty, it sometimes rains.
Prabhupada: You can understand from the cloud. When it's blackish, then there is rain. [Break] (end)

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Garden Conversation with Mahadeva's Mother and Jesuit Priest -- July 25, 1973, London

HOME

© 2001 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International.

Wildcats And Special Rascals

April 27, 1976

download  Players

 

Take a test

---

Guru-krpa: Srila Prabhupada, for the abhiseka, do we require cow urine and cow dung and tail of cow? Is it...Prabhupada: If available, not?
Devotee (1): Yes, we can get it.
Guru-krpa: It's available.
Pusta Krsna: They're feeling threatened by our kirtana parties.
Prabhupada: Who?
Pusta Krsna: He said that some of the town councils are trying to pass laws against our chanting in the streets.
Devotee (2): The Christians are behind it in Whangarei.
Prabhupada: So, can they pass such law?
Devotee (2): I don't think so. We're having.... Some of our men are going to meet with the council the day after tomorrow at the meeting. They're open to our side. The reason is that the businessmen have complained, some of the businessmen have complained.
Prabhupada: Not all of them. You take some signature from other businessmen.
Devotee (2): Yes, all right.
Prabhupada: You present that.
Devotee (2): Yes. The men who are going to speak are businessmen, devotees. One is an architect.
Prabhupada: Then he can organize so many signatures.
Devotee (2): One is a restaurant owner, and one has a hairdressing salon. And they're going to speak...
Prabhupada: Everyone likes; that's a fact.
Guru-krpa: We gave the argument before that they say it is a disturbance, but there are so many cars and airplanes which are making disturbance. They should also be stopped.
Devotee (2): Last week we wrote letters to the newspaper, and they published them, showing our view. And in Whangarei.... It's another city, a hundred miles from here. It's near the farm up north, and the devotees chant there. And the businessmen complained. And the devotees wrote a letter criticizing the materialistic businessmen, and that they didn't care for the people, only they wanted money. And they printed it this big in the newspaper, completely criticizing, and the people liked it. They put it in everything, word for word what the devotees said. So it was good.
Prabhupada: So there is agitation against chanting. That is also good. Yes, "Hare Krsna is bad." (laughs)
Pusta Krsna: They don't want to be bothered with Hare Krsna.
Prabhupada: Huh?
Pusta Krsna: They don't want to be bothered with Hare Krsna. Go on with their hellish life.
Prabhupada: So we want that. Let them chant Hare Krsna somehow or other. (devotees laugh) "We don't want to be bothered by Hare Krsna." That means chanting Hare Krsna.
Devotee (2): Because our kirtana party now, we have, we go on kirtana, eighty men. We go two nights a week with eighty men. Huge kirtana with five mrdangas and guitars, and we get huge crowd from the whole street.
Prabhupada: That will make you triumphant. Go on kirtana. That is very nice. Kirtana, and book distribution. This is also kirtana.
Guru-krpa: This is brhad mrdanga.
Prabhupada: Yes. So do it enthusiastically. Keep yourself pure. Nobody will be able to do any harm to you. Krsna will give you protection. So? [break]
Devotee (2): Eight crores.
Hari-sauri: Didn't he say eighty crores?
Prabhupada: One crore means ten million.
Hari-sauri: Rupees.
Prabhupada: Such eight.
Devotee (2): Eighty million rupees.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Devotee (2): That's a million dollars.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Pusta Krsna: Eight million dollars.
Prabhupada: Now it will be tested how much money we have got. (Pusta Krsna laughs)
Guru-krpa: Ghee is cheaper in New Zealand than in Australia.
Prabhupada: Anyway, first of all arrange for selling.
Guru-krpa: I've already sent off the letter.
Prabhupada: And you can disvertise(?) it from New Zealand or from Australia. There can be very peaceful condition of the whole world. Simply mismanaged by the rascal leaders. Otherwise, people can live very peacefully, eat sumptuously, save time, and there is no necessity of stopping the bare necessities of life. There is arrangement for eating, sleeping, sex life also. But not like fools and rascals. Like sane man. But this modern civilization, it is insane, crazy civilization. There is a little pleasure in sex life -- simply sex life, increase sex life, spoiling everything. That is crazy. Eating-eat anything, any nonsense thing, and become a hog. Sleeping-oh, there is no limit, twenty-four hours sleeping if it is possible. Go on, this is going on. Eating, sleeping, mating. And defense -- and discover atomic weapon, this weapon, that weapon, and kill innocent persons, unnecessarily, defense. This is going on. But everything can be used properly for peaceful condition, and when you become peaceful, no disturbance, then you can very happily chant Hare Krsna and your life becomes successful. This is our program. We don't want to stop anything. How it can be stopped? Whatever is the bare neces.... Just like we have taken sannyasa. What is that? "Oh, we have no sex life only. Otherwise, we are also eating, we are also sleeping." So that is also stopped in good old age. In old age, if a person like me, at the age of eighty years, if I would have shopped for sex life, does it look very good? Young men, they are allowed. That's all right. But a young..., old man is going to the club and spending for sex life so much money. Therefore younger generation, they're allowed grhastha life from twenty-five years to fifty years. That's all. After that, stop sex life. Actually, they want to stop population. Then why it, sex, then? No, they'll have sex life, at the same time, no population, kill the children. What is that? Simply sinful life. They will suffer, continue to suffer. So we want to stop that suffering. These rascals, they do not understand. They think, "Hare Krsna movement is disturbing." A rascal civilization. So let us try our best. What can be done? You also helping in this movement. So don't spoil the movement by manufacturing ideas. Don't do that. Go on in the standard way, keep yourself pure; then movement is sure to be successful. But if you want to spoil it by whimsical, then what can be done? It will be spoiled. If you manufacture whims and disagree and fight amongst yourself, then it will be another edition of these so-called movements. It will lose the spiritual strength. Always remember it. You cannot.... Now, actually, people are surprised: "What this Hare Krsna mantra has got power that it is changing so quickly?" And on the other hand, it is to be admitted, unless it has got power, how it is changing? So we have to keep that power. Don't make it an ordinary musical vibration. It is a different thing, spiritual. Although it seems like musical vibration, but it is spiritual, completely. Mantrausadhi-vasa. Even, by mantra, the snakes can be charmed. So mantra is not ordinary sound vibration. So we have to keep the mantra in potency, potent, by offenseless chanting, by remaining pure. If you pollute the mantra, then it will lose its effect. (devotees discuss some money matters in background)
Devotee (2): So concerning the temple, Srila Prabhupada, I talked to some boys, and the one boy, Dhumra(?), he used to be in Australia, he made a fifteen-foot-high Lord Caitanya. Do you remember at the Ratha-yatra?
Prabhupada: Hmm. Hmm.
Devotee (2): And we're going to build a temple with nice domes, Indian style, and with sculpture like the elephant heads...
Prabhupada: Make in Vrndavana style.
Devotee (2): Yes. I'll get pictures of the different...
Prabhupada: There is that big dome and.... You have seen Vrndavana?
Devotee (2): I have seen it just before it was finished, not since it was completed.
Prabhupada: Oh.
Devotee (2): But I've seen pictures.
Prabhupada: I think we have got pictures.
Devotee (2): And the place where we're going to put it, you'll be able to see it for miles. It'll be a landmark.
Prabhupada: That's nice.
Devotee (2): You can see it for many miles.
Prabhupada: Not only one, you hundreds of temples construct. Village to village, town to.... At the same time, man. And it will revolutionize the whole rascal situation. At the present moment, it is rascal situation. They're simply satisfied by driving the motor.... putputputputputputputputput! (Prabhupada makes the sound of a roaring motor). They are thinking, "Oh, how highly I am situated." All crazy. But this has been taught to them that "This is civilization. If you have got a motorcycle and you can come like the wild cat, (all laugh) then you are civilized." They are thinking how great civilized they are; we are thinking how wild cat he is. And what is the difference between wild cat and running dog and this motorcycle? Put-put? What is the difference?
Devotee (2): Nothing.
Prabhupada: And they're taking it, highly civilized way of life. Where you are going? You cannot go beyond this earth. You attempted so much to go to the moon planet, you failed. And where you can go, put-put-put-put? You'll have to stay here. But that rascal does not understand. He thinks, "I am going very fast." Where you are going? You are destined to stay here. That he does not understand. Not only this put-put motorcycle, the put-put airplane also. They're also trying to go to this planet around, round. That sputnik, first sputnik, eighteen thousand miles, and they simply rounded over the world in one hour and twenty-five minutes. And where did you go? And when he's tired, then come down again. They cannot understand, these so-called scientists, that we cannot go in this way. There is higher authority. Why it will allow us to go anywhere? Just like the horse running fast, but within the race course. That's all. It cannot go beyond the race course. And similarly, however heroic expedition we may show, you are, what is called, baddha-jiva, conditioned. You cannot cross the condition, that is not possible. Ahankara-vimudhatma kartaham iti manyate [Bg. 3.27]. A rascal, on account of his false prestige, he is thinking, "Oh, I am independent. I can do whatever I like." Vimudhatma, foolish, rascal. Mudha, not. Vimudhatma, "especially the rascal, a special rascal." Ordinary rascal is better than the special rascal. (laughs) So all these scientists, philosophers, and political leaders, they're all special rascal, they are.
Devotee (2): Vimudha.
Prabhupada: Ordinary man, they're simply rascal, and these rascals are special rascals.
Guru-krpa: Vimudha nanupasyanti pasyanti jnana-caksusah.
Prabhupada: Hmm. Hmm. So don't be vimudhas. Better remain mudha. Not special rascal. (end)

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Room Conversation -- April 27, 1976, Auckland, New Zealand

HOME

© 2001 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International.

Why no More Men from Apes?

October 14, 1975

download  Players

 

Take a test

---

Prabhupada: Therefore his civilization -- so much, that's all. His standard of civilization, this much. (break) ... no tree, even a small tree is considered big tree. (break) Man came from ape, so why man is not coming now from ape? Hm?Harikesa: It only happened once, and that was enough to start the whole thing.
Prabhupada: Only once.
Pusta Krsna: It had to happen at least twice.
Prabhupada: That is another rascaldom. We see the flowers and fruits are coming every season. Why once? This dogmatic, we have to accept? Our experience is that by nature's way we find the same flower is coming again in the same season.
Pusta Krsna: Well, actually Darwin said that there's a missing link.
Prabhupada: You rascal, you say that. What is that missing link? Simply bluffing, and it is going on in the name of science. Just see the fun. Simply misleading, and people are so rascal, this civilized man, so-called, he is accepting as great theory.
Pusta Krsna: Accepting?
Prabhupada: This Darwin's theory as very big invention or discovery. Simply childish rascaldom. There is no reason; there is no sense. Man came from monkey -- why not coming now? Stop once. So what kind of men came first?
Pusta Krsna: First there was very primitive man.
Prabhupada: No, primitive...
Pusta Krsna: They think that he resembles a monkey very much.
Prabhupada: So there are in Africa these men. They resemble that, what is called? That animal?
Pusta Krsna: Gorilla.
Prabhupada: Gorilla. So these men are still existing. But why from gorilla they do not come?
Pusta Krsna: They don't come from the gorilla.
Prabhupada: Africans, I have seen, they look like gorilla. So why now from gorilla the Africans or any black man is not coming? Then the question is the black man... We have got experience. The black man come. And wherefrom the white man came? Is there any white gorilla?
Pusta Krsna: No.
Prabhupada: No. Then white man, how did he come?
Harikesa: Well, sometimes there is a freak of nature, and the pigments that are in the skin...
Prabhupada: Simply it is for Darwin, "sometime." To support his rascaldom, nature has to serve him "sometimes. "Just see. We have to believe. Nature's law is the same, symmetrical. Nature is not obliged to serve Mr. Darwin, the rascal. Sometimes. He says, "sometimes." He did, and he knew it only and nobody knew. We have to believe that. Sometimes it was done, and it was revealed to Darwin. How he came to know? Nobody could understand. Only Darwin could understand? There was no other?
Pusta Krsna: They use the same argument against us, though, that... They use the same argument against us that so few people can understand God...
Prabhupada: No. We don't say like that. We say that God first spoke to sun-god, and sun-god spoke to his son, Manu, and Manu spoke to Iksvaku, Iksvaku spoke to his son. In this way are there. We don't say, "The God spoke to me." Evam parampara praptam, that is  quite reasonable. God said to Brahma, and the Brahma said to Narada, Narada said to Vyasadeva, Vyasadeva said to others. In this way we should know. If my father said to my forefather... My forefather said to my father or my grandfather, and the same news is coming in family way, then where is the wrong? We don't say, "Darwin simply knew it." No, we don't say that. Evam parampara praptam. He was a rascal number one, all these scientists, the so-called scientists.
Pusta Krsna: But how can we prove Krsna scientifically?
Prabhupada: First of all let them prove their theory. Then we shall prove ours. We are proving. We have got our own way. But why they are speaking all this nonsense? First of all let him prove that he is genuine. Then our turn will be next. Ours is very easy. Krsna said to sun-god, and sun-god said to his son, his son, his son. It is coming like that. Where is the difficulty? Again Krsna says, "Now it is mismanaged. It is lost, so I am saying again to you Arjuna." So what Arjuna has understood, we are understanding the same way. How Arjuna understood it, that is written in the Bhagavad-gita. Where is the... We have no difficulty. But you jump over: "There is link," that "Once only from monkey came." What is this nonsense? We have to believe this? Has it any sense? And because Mr. Darwin is speaking we have to accept it? We cannot...
Harikesa: Well, certain changes take place. Just like when it is very hot, if you are in a hot climate all the time your blood thins.
Prabhupada: That's all right. No, no. This is not...
Harikesa: Well, if you take that further, all of these changes that mount up to some big physical change.
Prabhupada: No change is taken. The nature is working symmetrically always. The sun is rising in the morning. That is going on for million, million, million, millions of years.
Harikesa: Gradually the change has taken place in a very scientific way, step by step.
Prabhupada: What change has taken place?
Harikesa: First the hairs fell off...
Prabhupada: Morning... In the morning the sun rises on the eastern side. That is going on. What change has taken place? This flower, seasonal flower is... Now seasonal changes -- winter, summer, spring -- everything is going on symmetrically. There is no change. Because it is going on symmetrically, therefore we can say that February, next February will be very nice season here. Why? Because we have got experience last February, so we are certain the same thing will happen in the next February. Therefore we can say. There is no such change. Nature's way. Prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani. It is very symmetrical. Everything is going on nicely, nature's way.
Pusta Krsna: One of the strong points of Darwin's theory...
Prabhupada: I don't find. Simply foolishness I accept. And rascal, foolish like you, will believe. (laughter)
Pusta Krsna: They argue that five thousand years ago they have no history, so they think that before that time...
Prabhupada: "They think." That is their rascaldom.
Pusta Krsna: Formerly there was no civilization. Therefore like monkey.
Prabhupada: "They think." That is their... We don't "think." We have got millions of years' history. Why we shall think with them, with these rascals? They may think, the rascal. A child may think like something, but a elderly man will not think like that. Because they are thinking like that, we have to think with them?
Pusta Krsna: No.
Prabhupada: Then? Because the rascals are thinking in some way, we have to believe that? First of all let them prove that they are sane men. They are all insane rascals. Why shall I take their words? We are taking words from Krsna, who is accepted the Supreme by all the acaryas, all the great sages. Why shall I go to this rascal Darwin? We are not so fools. We cannot accept.
Harikesa: Well, the Bible is just some story. I mean, the Bible is just some story. Why should we believe that all of a sudden there was...
Prabhupada: No, Bible is not authorized because it was compiled after Jesus Christ finished.
Harikesa: No, the Bible was there... Old Testament has been there for thousands of years.
Prabhupada: Old Testament, but what is going on, Bible...
Harikesa: That Genesis, where it says the creation...
Prabhupada: That is another thing.
Harikesa: That's just some story. Why should we believe it? There's nothing else to believe. Why not believe this Darwin?
Prabhupada: No, but you are not believing Bible. Bible, they say that the earth is square. So nobody is believing. So one point is sufficient, that it is not perfect. One point is sufficient.
Harikesa: (laughing) It says the earth is square?
Prabhupada: Yes, they... They say it. Formerly they believed that.
Pusta Krsna: Probably does.
Harikesa: Oh, you mean flat.
Prabhupada: You'll fall down. If you go very far, you'll fall down. Just like a child thinks. Bible, so many have been proved not authorized. Therefore Bible is not authorized.
Harikesa: So we had this religion, and everybody was saying that this was the correct way, the official policy. So everybody knew this was nonsense. So Darwin is very scientific, so we accept the science.
Prabhupada: What is that science? He said, "By chance, once, nature came." Is that ... ? That is not science. We don't find, nature's way, by chance it comes. No. As soon as you talk something nonsense, your whole statement will be accepted as nonsense because you are nonsense. What is the value of your statement? This is our test. Once you say something nonsense, you are wholesale nonsense. That is our test. You cannot say, "I am sorry. It was incorrect," no. That is not allowed. Then your whole statement is incorrect. This is our... Harikesa: Scientists are always doing that. They're always saying that.
Prabhupada: Therefore they're all nonsense.
Harikesa: "Last year we made a mistake. Now it's all right."
Prabhupada: "Now we advance." And what is the guarantee that it is all right? You will advance again. That means you are always incorrect.
Harikesa: But people always think that it's always getting better.
Prabhupada: Therefore they are rascals. This is called maya. They remain rascal; still, they think that they are advancing.
Harikesa: Nobody thinks about that point, nobody.
Prabhupada: If everyone is rascal, how he will think? We say mudha, all rascals.
Pusta Krsna: But when the early scientists, they were analyzing the body, they tried to find the soul. They would look for the soul in different parts of the body. They couldn't find it with their microscopes.
Prabhupada: That's all right. That is his rascaldom. He's a rascal. But soul is there. Then find out what is the missing point of a dead man. If there is no soul, something is missing.
Harikesa: Well, actually they've pinned it down to a little bit of a molecule that breaks down.
Prabhupada: That's all right. Bring that molecule.
Harikesa: They're working on it.
Prabhupada: Huh? Again, "working on it." You see. This is bluff. This is bluff.
Harikesa: Now they are inventing these different DNA and RNA molecules to change people by injecting them with these different things before they are born, making new people.
Prabhupada: That is not very difficult thing. If you make some vegetable, if you add more sugar it becomes sweet. If you add more salt it becomes salty. That you can do. That is not very difficult. Our question is wherefrom the life comes? That is our... So they do not give any answer to this. That is their foolishness. What is that life? They say life developed from chemical. Now do it. By chemical combination make in one egg and give it to the fomenting machine. What is that? Fomenting machine? They have got heating machine?
Harikesa: Incubator.
Prabhupada: Incubator. Put it there. Then we shall accept your science. Why don't you do that? Then your all theories are useless. This is practical.
Harikesa: It seems much more practical to make a computer than to make an egg. I mean, a computer...
Prabhupada: Whatever it may be, do it. And from that egg, you get chicken. Then I shall accept that you are scientist. Otherwise you are rascal, talking all madman's proposal. Do it. Ask them. Write in the paper that "Prabhupada was speaking like that, a challenge to the scientist: ‘Is there any scientist who can make an egg which is put in the incubator and gradually it comes to become ...'"
Harikesa: They will think we are completely crazy.
Prabhupada: Huh? Well, then kick on their face, on their nose, rascal. We are crazy or you are crazy?
Harikesa: But who wants to make eggs?
Prabhupada: Huh? No, no, it is an experiment. You say life comes from chemical. So by chemical combination make an egg and do it. Begin from this. Then we shall see others. This is very easy. If you have already analyzed the yellow portion of the egg, the white portion of the egg and that outer plastering can be done. Nowadays there is... What is called?
Harikesa: Plastic.
Prabhupada: Plastic. It can be done. Do it.
Pusta Krsna: Make a chicken.
Prabhupada: Yes. Make a chicken or so many birds. If not chicken, make a sparrow. Do something. Do something. Why you should be misled by them, these rascals? Challenge him. Challenge them publicly that "These rascals are misleading. Don't accept them. They're simply misleading."
Harikesa: Well, they're the best we have. They're the best we have. We have nobody. Who else is going to take care of us?
Prabhupada: No, at least... We ... just like we challenge, they cannot give answer. This should be proved. Then they will be proved that they are rascals.
Harikesa: The whole scientific craze seems to be settling down anyway. It seems to be dying down.
Prabhupada: It must die. The scientists, they admit now, "What we shall do? We have bluffed in so many ways. Now what is the next bluffing?" Their bluff, last bluffing, was going to the moon planet, and everything is failed. Then what is next bluffing? That is their problem, how to keep their big, big post?
Harikesa: There's nothing left to do.
Prabhupada: Yes. They have finished all their theories. Still, they could not do anything. This is their position. (break) Margarine is also another bluff. It is oil; it is taken as ghee, er, butter.
Harikesa: They say it's very healthy for you.
Prabhupada: They will say.
Harikesa: It doesn't have all those cholesterols.
Prabhupada: Otherwise how they will sell? They will say. They will present anything nonsense in flowery language, and people will be cheated. That's all.
Harikesa: Americans can't stand this butter and ghee. When we cook in these pure things like ghee, they become very upset.
Prabhupada: Because meat-eaters.
Harikesa: If it's not impure they don't like it.
Prabhupada: Meat-eaters cannot digest ghee. Therefore in America, all of a sudden change of diet in our..., their stomach become upset. Just like animal, dogs, they cannot eat this ghee preparation.
Pusta Krsna: They can't take it.
Prabhupada: They can't take it. So these meat-eaters, like dogs, they cannot digest. (break)
Pusta Krsna: In our philosophy, how did man come about? They'll ask us what is our philosophy how man came about.
Prabhupada: Man came from man. The first man is Brahma. From him came. And Brahma came from Narayana, Visnu. So this is easy. Brahma appeared from Visnu.
Pusta Krsna: So the first created being was a man.
Prabhupada: Yes, Brahma, a first-class man.
Pusta Krsna: Even before the plants. Even before the plants.
Prabhupada: Yes, because man can create everything.
Pusta Krsna: That means Genesis in the Bible is wrong, because they say that first there were plants and then trees and then after man came.
Harikesa: No, first they say that there was a man did that.
Prabhupada: They say Adam and Eve.
Pusta Krsna: But they say first that the plants and the fish and the trees and the birds...
Prabhupada: Then Adam, Eve.
Pusta Krsna: Then, afterwards, that after creating so many things, the plants and the trees, God was still lonely.
Prabhupada: Brahma ... Brahma, when he was created, he was in darkness. He could not see anything. "What to do? What ... ? Why I am?" Then he tapasya, meditation. Then he was given intelligence. Then, gradually, everything...
Harikesa: It seems that the Christians' idea of God is our idea of Brahma. Their God is like Brahma. He's just a creator.
Prabhupada: What is their idea? I do not know.
Pusta Krsna: Their idea is that in the beginning there was darkness until God created the light. Then he created the different heavenly planets and the oceans and the inanimate things. Then He created...
Prabhupada: Then it is like Brahma.
Harikesa: It is like Brahma. And their heaven and hell is like the upper and lower planetary systems. It's all little bit of knowledge.
Prabhupada: Little difference, maybe, but the basic...
Pusta Krsna: They say that Adam was created...
Prabhupada: Then their God created. God created. So that is all right. We also say God created Brahma.
Pusta Krsna: Then they say that woman was created from a rib of Adam.
Prabhupada: That is also correct. That is also possible. Created from God, so that is accepted. The description may be little different. That doesn't matter. But God is the origin of all creation. If that is accepted, this is nice.
Harikesa: They also have this Noah and his ark thing, where all the earth became covered with water.
Prabhupada: Devastation.
Harikesa: It's like a Matsya avatara.
Prabhupada: So that is acceptable. Description may be little different. That doesn't matter. But God is the origin. Vedanta-sutra also says, janmady asya yatah, that "Absolute Truth is that from where everything comes." And the Bible, it is said, "God created this earth." So that is acceptable. Then Darwin says that all of a sudden a man was created. Wherefrom it came out? What is the first creation according to Darwin?
Harikesa: Very small microbes. And then they developed to many-celled animals and amoebas and...
Prabhupada: So how this microbe was created?
Harikesa: Spontaneous generation.
Prabhupada: Spontaneous? And it is known to you only, Mr. Darwin? You are the only intelligent man. You could understand. And you are talking so foolish, and still, we have to accept it. (end)

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk  --  Durban, October 13, 1975 (New-2003)

HOME

© 2001 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International.

Why is there Anything?

February 13, 1975

download  Players

 

Take a test

---

Guest (1) (German Man): I would like to ask you a question. Once Leibnitz, who is one of the fathers of the Western tradition, formulated the question which was the beginning of metaphysics in a way, Western metaphysics. The question is "Why there is anything?" What is your stand about this classic point?Prabhupada: Why?
Guest (1): Why there is anything?
Hrdayananda: Why anything exists? What is the reason for the existence of...?
Prabhupada: (chuckles) "Why anything exists?" (laughter) What do you mean by anything?
Guest (1): Well, that's precisely the point. What is the purpose? What is the sense, if there is any, or does the very question make sense?
Prabhupada: No, no, unless understand what is that "anything..." First of all, you have to understand what is that "anything." Anything... Just like this book, this table, this bell, the electric they are so many things. So you can take any one of them; that is anything. What is your idea of anything?
Guest (1): Oh, reality. Material, external, reality to our ego, our internal reality as well.
Prabhupada: Internal reality and external reality?
Guest (1): Both. For me, the word "anything" covers both.
Prabhupada: Yes. So that also we understand, "anything." There are so many varieties of things, and you can take any one of them. That is "anything." But your question should be, "Wherefrom these things coming?" That should be the proper question.
Professor: What is the reason of this (indistinct) "anything"?
Prabhupada: Yes. There are so many things, and you can take any one of them. That is "anything." But the real question should be "Wherefrom all these things are coming?" That is real question, "What is the origin of all these things?"
Guest (1): Well, origin, that is more on the theoretical side. It's a question, "Why?" But I am, rather, after the purpose.
Prabhupada: Yes. That is a nice question. But there is the real source of everything. That is the Vedanta-sutra... Perhaps you have read. Vedanta-sutra, first question is: "Wherefrom all these things come?" So the answer is that janmady asya yatah: [SB 1.1.1] "Brahman. The original thing is Brahman, or the Absolute Truth, and from Him, everything is emanating." Just like physical... The sun is there, and whole material world is product of the sunshine. What your physical science says? Eh? Eh? Do they not say? It is a fact that sunshine... Due to the sunshine all these material things are there.
Guest (1): Well, it's more involved than just saying that. Sun is just a big complex of hydrogen and helium, a big pile of rubbish really, but it develops this marvelous reactions which causes it to work as a big nuclear reactor, an entirely different story, what the vision of science, of the present science, about the meaning of celestial bodies and the meaning of, in particular, of sun and moon and so on. We are extremely realistic about this world. We can't see, assuming all the glory of that what happens on the earth due to the existence of those bodies, we do not try to look inside of the structure of these things, as something meant for us. Just universe as it is... And this question, like Nietzchean question which I am repeating -- that's not my point -- this big question is... Western philosophy presently does not answer, does not ask this question. I think that this scientist who did ask it had quite a point. This question expresses the quest of the human race for some meaning for some sense, for some sense. That's what religion is now offering us, or philosophy, or... Rarely, directly, we hear the direct answer to that.
Prabhupada: What is your direct answer?
Guest (1): Oh, I don't have any. If I would have, I wouldn't ask you.
Prabhupada: That means your knowledge is insufficient.
Guest (1): Precisely. Precisely. That is the beginning of...
Prabhupada: Therefore, if you have no answer. That's all right. That "We don't know" means our knowledge is insufficient. But knowledge means must be progressive. We should not remain in insufficient knowledge. We must make further progress to get sufficient knowledge. Inquiry.
Guest (1): But you referred to some other, more direct ways of acquiring knowledge than just the standard...
Prabhupada: No, because we have got insufficient knowledge, we cannot approach directly. It is not possible. We have to take knowledge -- who has got sufficient knowledge, from him. Because you have got insufficient knowledge, so you cannot make progress. Just like beyond this wall, you cannot say what is there. That is insufficient knowledge. But that does not mean there is nothing. Because you cannot say what is beyond this wall, that does not mean that there is nothing beyond this wall. Your knowledge is insufficient. Is it not?
Professor: But this was more or less my question...
Prabhupada: Just try to hear. Then...
Professor: If Indian philosophy...
Prabhupada: No, no, it is no Indian or American. It is the philosophy. It is philosophy. The philosophy is not Indian or American. Truth is truth, not Indian truth or American truth. That is not truth. That is relative truth. The Absolute Truth is absolute. That is neither Indian nor American nor...
Guest (1): But in what sense you use the concept "truth" here? Is it in the ontological sense, or is it in somehow in a more pragmatical human sense, refers to human beings or...?
Prabhupada: Yes, it is pragmatic, that you cannot see beyond this wall. That is your insufficient knowledge or your senses are insufficient. You cannot go beyond this wall. But that does not mean there is nothing beyond this wall. So if you want to know what is beyond this wall, you have to know from a person who knows it. Yes. Because you cannot see, you cannot know, that is not the end. There must be something.
Guest (1): What?
Prabhupada: Eh? It is actual fact. That is pragmatic. It is actual fact. There is... So many things there are, but you do not know because your senses are imperfect. Your eyes are imperfect, your touch, imperfect, the gathering senses... The senses which gathers knowledge... Just like eyes... We can see and gather knowledge. We can hear; we gather knowledge. We can taste; we gather knowledge. So, because your senses are imperfect, therefore your knowledge gathered, that is imperfect.
Professor: But in the case of a mystical man that has been able to see...
Prabhupada: There is no question of mystic. First of all we have to admit that on account of our senses being imperfect, whatever knowledge we gather, that is imperfect. That is imperfect. Therefore, if you want to possess real knowledge you have to approach somebody who is perfect. You cannot... Huh?
Guest (1): How can we know that somebody is perfect?
Prabhupada: That is another thing. But first of all, the basic principle is we have to understand that our senses are imperfect, and whatever knowledge we gather by these imperfect senses, they are imperfect. So if we want perfect knowledge, then we have to approach somebody whose senses are perfect, whose knowledge is perfect. That is the principle. That is the Vedic principle. Therefore the Vedic principle says, tad-vijnanartham sa gurum evabhigacchet [MU 1.2.12]. You know Sanskrit, yes. "In order to know that perfect knowledge, one should approach guru." So who is guru? Then the next question will be... Your question is that, "How I can?"
Guest (1): How can I know that...?
Prabhupada: That I am coming. That I am coming. Guru... That is next line. It is said, srotriyam brahma-nistham. Guru means who has properly heard the Vedas, sruti. Srotriyam. And as a result of his hearing he is firmly convinced in the existence of the Absolute Truth, God.
Professor: Well, this is... We've only come to one of the mentioned(?) theories of knowledge, I think, sabda.
Prabhupada: Sata? Sabda, yes, sabda-brahman. Yes.
Professor: Then if you are able to communicate to heart with knowledge through sabda, no?
Prabhupada: Yes. Sabda-brahman. Just like many thousands of miles away we are getting some radio message and we learn that "Something is happening there. Something is there." Therefore sabda. This is... Sabda means sound, sound, sound vibration. So that is the real source of knowledge. That is the real source of... Sabda-brahman.
Professor: One of the sources of knowledge or the only one?
Prabhupada: No, that is the only one. There are others; they are subordinate. But the sabda, knowledge received, sabda, through sabda, sabda-brahman, that is perfect knowledge. Just like the same example: beyond this wall I cannot see, but if somebody there says, "This is the position here" -- the sound comes -- that is perfect. You cannot see what is going on, but if somebody says, sends radio message or any message, sound, then you know. Therefore sabda-pramana, sabda, knowledge received through sabda, that is perfect knowledge.
Professor: That means through sabda, and through other means you can have a direct intuition but you can't intact... Direct intuition of things.
Prabhupada: Intuition is different. Direct perception. Sabda, you can (have) direct perception. It is not intuition. It is perception. Therefore the word is used, srotriyam brahma-nistham [MU 1.2.12]. So our process is to receive knowledge through sabda-brahman, Vedic. Just like eko narayana asit. Eko narayana asit: "Before creation there was only Narayana." Na brahma na isah: "There was no Brahma; there was no Siva." So this is sabda-pramana, sabda-pramana, that "In the beginning there was God, nothing else." So in this way our Vedic principle is: when your knowledge is corroborated by the Vedic version then it is perfect.
Professor: But according to Sankara it is not only way that you can approach truth. You can also approach through deduction.
Prabhupada: There are many ways. Just like hypothesis. Hypothesis. Yes. History, history. Hypothesis, history. Then direct perception. There are many. But of all these, sabda-pramana is taken as best. Sabda-pramana, evidence through the sound. That is the best.
Professor: No, but (indistinct). According to (indistinct). If one comes to value, existential value of a thing, through deduction... Is it possible or not only through intuition, through direct intuition of the reality of the whole?(?)
Prabhupada: Value by intuition?
Professor: Direct knowledge of the existence of a thing, of anything.
Prabhupada: Yes. The knowledge of existence, that nityah-sasvato 'yam, nityah sasvatah, that is knowledge of existence. So you have to learn which is nitya and which is not nitya from the authority. "This is nitya, and this is anitya." So nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam (Katha Upanisad 2.2.13). These are the Vedic version: "There is one chief nitya amongst the many nityas." Just like we, we living entities, we are nityas, eternal. First of all try to understand eternity. You were a child or I was a child. Now that body, child body, is no longer existing. But I understand, I know, that I had a body, child. Therefore I am nitya. I am existing. The body has gone, but I am existing. Therefore I am eternal, nitya. Is it clear?
Professor: Well, I remember one other explanation, that when you are sleeping and you have a dream...
Prabhupada: No, when I am sleeping I am working.
Professor: ...and you have a dream, and then, when you are coming back from sleep...
Prabhupada: Yes.
Professor: ...you can remember your dream.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Professor: That means that you are conscious of your existence even on the suppression of consciousness.
Prabhupada: I am not only conscious, but the consciousness depends on me. Because I am there, therefore consciousness... So I am nitya. This is the proof of nitya, that many changes have taken place, but the changes, the phenomenal changes, they have gone out. They are no more existing. Therefore they are not nitya. Just like dream. At night I saw one dream, but the dream is no more existing, but I remember that last night I saw the dream. Therefore I am nitya. And the dream is anitya. The dream is anitya. Similarly, this phenomenal world, when I am not sleeping, but I am so-called awakened, so I am seeing. I am seeing you, I am seeing the table, this book, you see, but... (aside:) Don't... But when I am asleep I forget all these things. I forget. I am in a different world. I am seeing different things. So this is also dream, and the dream at night, that is also dream. But I, the seer of this dream and that dream, I am the eternal.
Professor: The thing is not to make dependent on the conscious of any individual the existence of thing.
Prabhupada: Existence of thing... I say that at night, when I am dreaming, I do not see existence of these things. And at this time, in daytime, when I am seeing these things, I do not see the existence of the dream. So the conclusion should be both these things I see in daytime and I see at night, they have no existence. They are phenomenal. But I am the seer; I am eternal. I am existing. This is the proof. Because at night I am seeing and daytime I am seeing, so therefore I am eternal. But the phenomenal manifestation, they are temporary. We don't say it is false. Temporary. The Mayavadi philo... Sankara said it is false. Brahma satyam jagan mithya. Mithya means false. We don't say false. We don't say that this book is false. It has got reality, but temporary. This book has come into form at a certain date, and it will exist for certain days, and when it will be worn out or old, there will be no existence. Therefore the formation of this book is temporary. But I am the reader of the book; I am eternal. So two things are there, temporary and eternal. The temporary existence, somebody says, "False," but we say, "It is not false; it is temporary." But there is an eternal existence. Just like I am eternal. That is... We have to learn from sabda, vibration. Na hanyate hanyamane sarire [Bg. 2.20]. You understand Sanskrit. Na hanyate hanyamane sarire [Bg. 2.20]. That eternal thing is existing, it will continue to exist. Even after the destruction of this temporary body, it will continue to exist.
Professor: But coming again to the question that Professor (indistinct) put to you, but it is possible to understand all those things (indistinct)
Prabhupada: You have to understand... I have already said that we have got our imperfect senses. We cannot understand. But we have to understand from a person who has got perfect knowledge.
Professor: But why existence of all these things?
Prabhupada: So? Why? Then the answer will be: "Why there shall not be existence?" First of all you answer this. If you question like that -- "Why there is existence?" -- then I shall inquire, "Why there shall not be existence?" Therefore the decision should be taken from the Absolute. Your question, my answer, will not solve. If you say, "Why there is existence?" I can ask you, "Why there shall not be existence?" And who will decide this?
Guest (1): If I may something, this basic question, I suppose, may be asked only on the level of all religion, all philosophy, which does not put a line of division between practice in life...
Prabhupada: Yes.
Guest (1): ...and abstract investigations. Now, in normal Western thinking we do deny the very purpose of that question. As a matter of fact, we never ask it. Since time when Leibnitz did ask this question we all forgot it, or deliberately we suppress it. We simply say, "All right, let's be concerned only with those things which we can deal with effectively in material world. And the question of purpose let's leave aside." Now, I suppose that within this system of thought which you have...
Prabhupada: I may tell you two things. The purpose is... That is experienced by every one of us, what is the purpose of life, what is the purpose, anything. That, everyone, we can understand very easily. The purpose is ananda. Pleasure. That is the purpose. There is no difficulty to understand what is the purpose. The purpose is pleasure-seeking. Or purpose is pleasure. One who hasn't got the pleasure, he's seeking after it. That is the purpose. Purpose is ananda. Anandamayo 'bhyasat (Vedanta-sutra 1.1.12). That is the Vedanta-sutra. Everyone of us, seeking ananda. The scientific knowledge, philosophy, or even driving the car or whatever you are doing -- the purpose is ananda. That is a common factor. Purpose is... Why I am eating palatable dishes? I can eat anything, but I am seeking that "This sort of foodstuff will please me." That is ananda.
Guest (1): That is driving force and motivation of most human activities. But the question, purpose, which Leibnitz was asking for, he was asking on higher plane, in abstraction.
Prabhupada: Higher plane means you are seeking after pleasure, but that is being obstructed. That is your position. You are seeking pleasure, but it is not unobstructed. Therefore you are seeking higher, where there is no obstruction. Pleasure is the purpose, but when you speak of higher plane, that means you are experiencing obstruction in getting pleasure. So you are seeking a platform where there is no obstruction. But the purpose is the same.
Guest (1): Must it necessarily be so? That would be so, supposing that we human beings are at the center of existence, and our criteria should be applied, measuring everything which exists. Now, the question, "Why there is anything?" is asked on the more higher level, in the sense, trying to forget about this answer for anthropocentric thinking.
Prabhupada: No, thinking...
Guest (1): This question relates to everything what may exist, other beings, other intelligences.
Prabhupada: This is a fact, that intelligent or not intelligent, that doesn't matter. Everyone is seeking pleasure, ananda. The Sanskrit word is ananda. So ananda... Suppose I am constructing a big house to live there, but before the construction is finished I am, by nature, I am taken away. I die. Just like Napoleon. That, in France, that Arc in Paris?
Devotee: Arc de Triumph.
Prabhupada: He could not finish. You see? There are so many things. We are thinking, "By finishing this, we shall be happy," but that is sometimes hampered. So ananda is checked. So this is the position. So higher means where ananda is not checked. That is higher position. The purpose is ananda, but in this material world we are experiencing ananda being checked. Just like nobody wants to die. That's a fact. Why you shall die? I already discussed that I know that I was a child, I was a boy, I was a young man, and now I have got this body, old man's body. It is now going to finish. So I am little anxious. Now, whatever ananda I was drawing in my living condition, now it is going to be finished. But if we think properly that "I am eternal, so although the body will be finished, I'll not be finished..." This is very natural, that "I was not finished. Because my childhood body was finished, so I was not finished. My boyhood body was not finished; I was not finished. My youthhood was finished, but I was not finished." Similarly, the conclusion should be: "Even though this body will be finished, I'll not be finished." That is stated in the Bhagavad-gita, tatha dehantara praptir dhiras tatra na muhyati [Bg. 2.13]. Dhira, one who is intelligent, he is not disturbed. Dhiras tatra na muhyati. So dhira, one who is dhira, sober, philosopher, he knows that "I am not going to be finished. I shall have to accept another body." Now, whether that body will be ananda? That is the consideration. I'll get another body, just like I have got this body, after changing so many bodies. Moment after moment, we are changing body. That is the medical science, changing of blood corpuscles. So this body will be changed again. Then I will have to enter the mother's womb and packed up for at least ten months in suffocated condition. This is scientific, all. Then again I'll come out when the body is prepared nicely to come out and exist. So that period of formation of body is not ananda. To remain compact in this way for ten months, it is not ananda. It is not ananda, just opposite ananda. Then when we die... Die, death, means the miserable condition is so great that we cannot live. We have to go out. There is no ananda. Then, when we have got this body, changing, there is no ananda because we are sometimes diseased, and to become old man, that is also not ananda. Therefore I am eternal. I am seeking after something which is eternal ananda. Therefore next consideration should be that "Whether this condition of repetition of birth, death, old age and disease can be changed?" That is next question. And if there is possibility, then we shall try for it. But there is possibility here. The conclusion is: so long we get this material body... Because matter is not eternal. Anything you take, material -- earth, water, fire, air, sky, mind, intelligence and false ego -- these are all material things. So these material things, they are not eternal, none of them. This table is created; it is not eternal. It will be finished at a certain date, anything you take. But I am eternal. So if I transfer myself in another nature which is eternal, then my ananda will be eternal. That is the purpose of life.
Professor: No, but the point is the identity between atman and...
Prabhupada: Yes, I am atma. You are atma. Atma.
Professor: ...the atman of the world, let's say, absolute...
Prabhupada: Yes. The atma and Paramatma, Paramatma. As I was speaking, nityo nityanam. We are all nityas, eternal, but there is one chief nitya. Just like leader. Everywhere we go, we have got a leader. Now, this, your Mexico state, there is a president. You cannot avoid it. In your college there is principal. There must be a leader. Similarly, the whole thing taken together, there must be one leader. You have to speak from experience that in your physical department or in your religious department there is a chief, leader, professor. Or you may be. But that is the way. Therefore Vedic information is that we are eternal, but there is another eternal who is chief eternal. That is God. He is eternal; we are also eternal. Then what is difference? The difference is that eko yo bahunam vidadhati kaman: "That one eternal, chief eternal, He is maintaining all the subordinate eternals." So both eternals are eternal and... The purpose is pleasure. Just like a small example, a family man. The father is the chief man in the family. The mother is there, the children are there, all together. But the father is the chief man in the family. He is maintaining the family, and there is ananda, pleasure. Similarly, ananda is the aim of both, all the eternals, the chief eternal or the subordinate eternal. But the supplier is the chief eternal. So when we come together, the chief eternal and the subordinate eternals, and enjoy together, that is the purpose of life.
Professor: According to existential philosophy or Indian philosophy, like for instance the Ramakrishna and Vivekananda and all that...
Prabhupada: They are not philosopher. They have no philosophy.
Professor: Eh?
Prabhupada: They have no philosophy.
Professor: I think you are also supporting the possibility to acquire knowledge through contact.
Prabhupada: Our position is -- I have already explained -- that we are all imperfect. Therefore we have to take knowledge from the perfect. So God is perfect, or Krsna is perfect, so we have to receive knowledge from Him. Then our knowledge is perfect. And so long we shall speculate, that is not perfect because you are speculating with imperfect instruments, what is the use? If I want to cut this table, I must have proper instrument. If I want to cut this table with this book, "Let me cut this," how it will be possible? You must know that for cutting this table it requires this instrument.
Professor: Yes, they say that the only way to acquire knowledge is through sabda.
Prabhupada: Yes. Sabda-pramana.
Professor: And I think other pramanas will be also possible according to those...
Prabhupada: Just like I am trying something, and some experienced man says, "Do like this." This is sabda-pramana. The sabda-pramana, one who knows, he says, "Do like this." The "Do like this," means sabda, sound, and it enters your ear, and you do adjustment. Therefore sabda-pramana. Just like you are sleeping, and one is, another man is coming to kill you. And another friend says, "Get up, get up, get up! There is enemy. He is coming to kill you." Then you wake up. Therefore the sound is the pramana, there was enemy. These are crude examples. When you are asleep, you cannot understand. You have got eyes, you have got hands, you have legs but no experience, but the ear gives you warning even if you are sleeping. There is enemy, your eyes cannot see, your hand cannot touch, but the ear can give you evidence, "Yes." As soon as you are awakened you say, "Yes, here is enemy. He is coming to kill me." Therefore the aural reception, sound reception, is the evidence. Knowledge received through authentic sound vibration, that is perfect.
Guest (1): Let's just say I would like to ask a question in this way. We don't doubt what you said, the assumption that individual ego is eternal and also subordinate to that which is eternal, hierarchically higher, nevertheless is the part of that which is the eternal reality. And that is (indistinct) that which you later developed. Question, sir: Is this statement what you made, a statement of fact based on direct perception, or it is something what follows traditional belief and is just the axiomatic basis of your philosophy or similar other philosophies of axiomatic basis.
Prabhupada: No, this is axiomatic basis because you have to accept that your senses are imperfect. So you, by speculation, cannot have perfect knowledge. This is axiomatic truth.
Guest (1): With that epistemological truth, all right we may go along, and, as a matter of fact, doubt about the truths of direct sensual perception is the basis, one of models of scientific activity.
Prabhupada: Direct perception...
Guest (1): My question is, rather, this statement, this basic statement about eternal ego and so on, is a statement which you somehow give to us as revealed message, something what is...,
Prabhupada: Yes, revealed.
Guest (1): ...or is...? Yes. Yes.
Prabhupada: Revealed. It is revealed. Hm? Just like in the Bhagavad-gita the vibration is coming from Krsna. Now, you practically realize it: "Yes, what is said is correct." That is direct perception. First of all, you receive the message, and then apply your logic and see that it is fact. Therefore it is perfect. When you receive the knowledge and when you directly apply it to your perception, when you see it is correct, that is the proof that the message which you received, that is correct.
Professor: Very difficult to have proofs of that, where the eternality of your own atman for instance, things of that...
Prabhupada: That is called realization. Yes. First of all you receive the sound, then apply your instruments, and when you find it, it is correct -- that is the realization. So our process is to receive knowledge from the perfect. That's all. We are not perfect. But the knowledge we are getting, that is perfect. So according to that perfect direction, if we mold our life, then we are successful. Otherwise you go on experimenting, speculating. Ciram vicinvan. Ciram, you understand, "perpetually," vicinvan, "thinking." Ciram vicinvan.
athapi te deva padambuja-dvaya-
prasada-lesanugrhita eva hi
janati tattvam (bhagavan mahimno)
na canya eko 'pi ciram vicinvan
 [SB 10.14.29]
What is the use of speculating with imperfect senses? Useless waste of time.
Professor: (indistinct)
Prabhupada: But that is the tendency of modern... They do not accept that their senses are imperfect. They want to see something, distant place, with microscope... What is called? Telescope. Telescope. But the telescope is manufactured by you. It is imperfect.
Professor: But I would say that even in India, where ancient tradition... They would propose how to arrange our telescopes to be able to see more correctly.
Prabhupada: You have to see... That... Vedic injunction says, sastra-caksusa. Sastra-caksusa: "Your eyes should be the sastra." There is another crude example. Just like who is your father? How do you understand? Through the vibration of the mother. The mother says, "He is your father." You accept it. Otherwise there is no experiment. So things which are beyond your perception, beyond your defective senses, that should not be speculated. Na tams tarkena yojayet. Acintya khalv ye bhava na tams tarkena yojayet. These are the injunction. What is beyond your perception, beyond your speculation, don't waste your time so-called argument and logic. What is argument? Mother says, "He is your father." Where is the argument? You cannot apply any argument.
Professor: No, I said old tradition in India has been going on into argument itself.
Prabhupada: No, argument you can go on, but if you want to know the truth it will not be attained by argument because argument is also within your thinking power: thinking, feeling, willing. So if your thinking, feeling, willing is imperfect, what is the use of your argument? What is the use of your so-called advancement of knowledge? Basically, if the senses, knowledge acquiring senses, are imperfect, then how you can get perfect knowledge?
Professor: Well, then what do we with all techniques, all systems, that have been developed? I am thinking only India, I am not thinking other places, and all the old tradition, since Sankara onwards, of different ways to think, to study, to go deeply to all these relations between...
Prabhupada: Sankara has interpreted. Sankara has interpreted by his limited knowledge. So that is not perfect knowledge. Therefore we don't accept Sankara's philosophy.
Professor: But I said if he belongs to the same tradition, and you belong to the other...
Prabhupada: That tradition is nothing. Tradition is just temporary. You make your tradition; he makes your tradition. That is another thing. But the, fact is fact. That is not dependent on tradition. Tradition we can make, tradition. "We believe." Just like somebody says, "We believe." What is the use of such saying, "We believe"? You may believe something which is not fact.
Professor: Yes, but we could say that since the Upanisads and later, all things have been sustaining the thing which you have just said a moment ago, that there exists an identity between atman and Brahman.
Prabhupada: Identity is there. That, therefore, I have already said, nityo nityanam cetanas cetananm. Both of them are identical so far nitya is concerned or cetana is concerned, but one is dependent, and other is maintainer. That is difference. Both of them are truth. Both of them truth. You are truth; I am truth. You are living; I am living, existing. This is truth. This is truth, but you are professor and I am something else. That is temporary. But so far you are, as living being, and I am, as living being, that is truth. But your dress and my dress, that is temporary. So we have to understand like that. In this material world we are mixed up with temporary and eternal. The living entity is eternal, but his body is temporary. This is the position. So the problem is: why the eternal has got temporary things? That is hampering his ananda. Just like I am sitting here. Now, if somebody says, "Now you'll have to die and accept another body," this is not very pleasing to me. Or even I am sitting in this apartment, and somebody..., "No, you change your apartment. Come. Come here." Again I change another apartment. So I'll seek after: "Why I am changing this apartment? Is it not possible to get an eternal apartment?" That should be the brahma-jijnasa. That is... Vedanta-sutra first says, athato brahma jijnasa. "Why I am subjected to this change?" That is intelligence. "Why not eternal apartment if I am eternal?" That is intelligence.
Professor: Did you say that for the atman, are part of the eternal? For the atman, it is... A need for the being is for the purpose, ananda.
Prabhupada: Ananda, yes.
Professor: That means he is inquiring...
Prabhupada: Nature, nature ananda.
Professor: This other thing, they have it because of lila, pleasure, playing.
Prabhupada: That is also ananda. Just like somebody goes within the water. Nowadays it has become a fashion. What is that? Go within the water?
Devotee: Diving.
Prabhupada: But he does not belong to the water, but he takes some pleasure.
Professor: He needs the pleasure.
Prabhupada: Therefore he's seeking pleasure. That is the real aim. Therefore he's going into the water. He has no business to go to the water, but because he is seeking pleasure -- "Let me see if there is some pleasure. Experiment." That's all. But he does not get... Just like they are going to the moon planet, moon planet: "Let us see." Because there is no ananda, he is seeking another type of ananda. And now they have failed. Now they're going to Venus or what?
Devotees: Mars.
Prabhupada: Mars. This is going on. Bhutva bhutva praliyate [Bg. 8.19]. He's not seeking after where is eternal happiness. He's... Temporarily, he's seeking here, there. Bhutva bhutva praliyate. In this way his life is finished, seeking ananda, and he gets another body, another term. So his intelligence is not coming to the point that "What is this ananda? I am eternal. I am seeking eternal ananda. Why this ananda? Sometimes this body, sometimes this position, sometimes that position -- what is this?" That is intelligence.
Professor: I understand it very well from the point of view of particular individual and atman...
Prabhupada: Individual, we are part and parcel. The same thing: the supreme eternal, and we, means subordinate eternal. We are of the same quality. Quality is the same but quantity different. Therefore our knowledge quantity and his knowledge quantity different. Therefore we should take knowledge from Him, who has large quantity of knowledge. We have got tiny quantity of... This is the difference. He is also cognizant, I am also cognizant, but his knowledge is vast, unlimited; my knowledge is tiny. Therefore, if I want to know more, we should know from Him. That is perfect knowledge. Tad-vijnanartham sa gurum evabhigacchet srotriyam brahma-nistham [MU 1.2.12]. This is the process.
Professor: May I ask a personal question?
Prabhupada: Hm?
Professor: I heard that you were a chemist before.
Prabhupada: I was not chemist, but I was manager in a big chemical factory. Therefore, automatically, I learned something of chemist. And later on I started my own chemical factory.
Professor: You were belonging to Bengal?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Professor: And you were having also a guru there?
Prabhupada: Oh, yes, certainly. Without guru how can you...
Professor: Yes, naturally.
Prabhupada: He is my guru. Show the photo.
Devotee: It's just above you, Srila Prabhupada.
Prabhupada: Oh, yes. He is my guru.
Professor: But you are of the same line of Purusottama Sarasvati, the great philosopher, no?
Prabhupada: Purusottama Sarasvati? No, my Guru Maharaja was Sarasvati, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati.
Professor: Oh, Bhakti... So that's the same line, no?
Prabhupada: Oh, yes. That receiving the perfect knowledge... There is parampara. Just like I have got perfect knowledge. I tell you. Then you get the perfect knowledge. You tell him. This is called parampara.
Professor: I read something like that.
Prabhupada: Yes. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gita. Evam parampara-praptam imam rajarsayo viduh [Bg. 4.2]. Without that parampara the knowledge is not perfect. Give them prasada. Hm?
Hrdayananda: We're going to bring you some prasadam? Spiritual food.
Professor: You are traveling all Latin America now?
Prabhupada: Yes. I have traveled all over the world in eight years. Eight years? From 1967, eight years. So eight years I have traveled around fourteen times or more than that. No, twice in a year, almost.
Professor: (laughs)
Prabhupada: No, this time, I started from India. Then I went to Hong Kong, from Hong Kong to Tokyo, from Tokyo to Honolulu, from Honolulu to Los Angeles, and from Los Angeles here, Mexico. And then where?
Hrdayananda: Caracas.
Prabhupada: Caracas.
Hrdayananda: And then Puerto Rico. Then Miami, Atlanta, New York, London.
Prabhupada: And then, from London, I may go directly to Bombay, or I may visit some other European cities where we have got temple. In Paris, in Geneva, in Rome, in Amsterdam, we have got some temple, like this.
Professor: What you're going to do about...?
Prabhupada: You have seen all our books? These are our books.
Professor: I saw them.(?) I think I had a talk somewhere with...
Prabhupada: We have got our small and big book. Fifty books we have got. All about Krsna.
Professor: I understand that music plays an important role also in the preparation of...
Hrdayananda: If music is important to us?
Prabhupada: No, first of all, our basic principle is pleasure. So whatever gives pleasure, we accept. That is natural. But in the material world, they take material pleasure, but we are for spiritual pleasure. So as soon as we speak of pleasure, there must be varieties. Without... Variety is the mother of enjoyment. So the only thing is that the material pleasure, that is temporary. It is finished after certain period, and spiritual means eternal. So our endeavor is to transfer ourself from this material pleasure to the spiritual pleasure. But the pleasure is the aim, either in this material world or in the spiritual world. This is... Anandamayo 'bhyasat (Vedanta-sutra 1.1.12). This is the Vedic... Our position is anandamaya, to remain in pleasure. But here in this material world, the body is temporary, and everything is temporary. Therefore pleasure is temporary.
Professor: You could also, I think, offer a yoga system for...
Prabhupada: Yes this is bhakti-yoga. Yes, bhakti-yoga. Bhakti-yogena manasi. Bhakti-yogena manasi [SB 1.7.4]. There is a verse in Bhagavata. Real yoga means bhakti-yoga.
yoginam api sarvesam
mad-gatenantaratmana
sraddhavan bhajate yo mam
sa me yuktatamo matah
 [Bg. 6.47]
Of all the yogis... There are different kinds of yogis. We receive this authorized version, that yoginam api sarvesam. Of all the yogis, the first-class yogi is he who is thinking of Krsna always within the heart. Mad-gata antaratmana, antaratmana sraddhavan bhajate. That is our process. We are chanting Hare Krsna, so we're thinking of Krsna. This is the first-class yoga system. Dhyanavasthita-tad-gatena manasa pasyanti yam yoginah [SB 12.13.1]. In the Vedic... Yes. Dhyana, meditation, means thinking of the Supreme. And that is real yoga, not this gymnastic. That is physical.
dhyanavasthita-tad-gatena
manasa pasyanti yam yogino
yasyantam na viduh surasara-
gana devaya tasmai namah
[break] ...learned scholars, professors. Try to understand this movement, and let us cooperate. It is very important, scientific movement. It is not a mental concoction. Based on Vedic principle.
Guest (1): The question is, well, Vedic idea that knowledge, human knowledge, is imperfect, does that not then go along... Of course, we are limited by, all time by biological limitation and so on. But this statement, that there is perfect knowledge, that it can be acquired, and that there are some people who did acquire it, that's very strong statement indeed, and my question is of the practical nature. How one can know that given source of supposed spiritual truth is an actual truth? Is there any technique how one can get to it?
Prabhupada: That I have already said, that you take the vibration from the Vedic knowledge and you experiment it. Observation and experiment, that is scientific. So first of all observation and then experiment. And when you are satisfied by experiment, then it is perfect knowledge.
Guest (1): If I am satisfied? Can I rely that much on myself?
Prabhupada: Anyone can do, provided he knows the art how to do it. It is a technique also. You cannot make experiment as a crude man. You must be expert. But it is... In our Caitanya-caritamrta you'll find that there is a statement, caitanyera dayara katha karaha vicara: "Just try to make an experiment on the mercy of Lord Caitanya." Vicara karile citte pabe camatkara: "When you make an experiment, then you'll be awe-full 'Oh, it is so nice.' " So it is not to be accepted blindly.
Professor: Can one perceive by their own senses what is that...?
Prabhupada: No, you have to see through the eyes of the sastra, but God has given you the instrument by which you can make an experiment. Yes. The same thing, as it is stated... Find out that verse from Bhagavad-gita, dehino 'smin yatha dehe [Bg. 2.13]. [break] This is the statement. Now you make experiment. You have got physical laboratory. (laughter)
Guest (1): It would be rather difficult, I'm afraid.
Prabhupada: That you must know the, how it can be experiment. It is given. The example is given that... What is that? "As the child is passing"?
Hrdayananda: "As the embodied soul continually passes in this body from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death."
Prabhupada: That's it. Now, this is a fact. Everyone knows that body is changing. Now, how the last body's changed? That you make experiment, how it is passing. Yes. To make experiment means you have to know the science how to make experiment. That is knowledge. You take the basic principle of knowledge, and then you make your experiment and you will know this is perfect.
Guest (1): Is there any direct line of division between that which you would call knowledge and that what you call religion?
Prabhupada: Religion, as it is passing on at the present moment, "a kind of faith," this is not religion. This is not religion. According to... Religion means dharma, the characteristic. Just like you are eating something salty, something sweet. So the sugar, the characteristic, it is sweet. That is religion. And the salt is salty. The chili is pungent. So these characteristic is religion. So you'll have to find out religion, what is your real characteristic. That is religion. Now, religion is going, "I believe in this way." That is another thing, sentiment. Religion without philosophy is sentiment, and philosophy without religion, mental speculation. Those two things must be combined, philosophy and sentiment. Then it is religion. (end)

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Room Conversation with Woman Sanskrit Professor -- February 13, 1975, Mexico

HOME

© 2001 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International.