Room conversation

Room Conversation

Prabhupāda: So they were not crying very loudly, but the grandfather inquired, "So why there is..., it appears there is some great suffering?" So my father's eldest brother, he inquired, "Is your mother dead?" I consider like that. No, no [indistinct]. "So I am also dead." He died later on.

Dr. Patel: Next day.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. He simply inquired, "I think your mother is dead." They said, "No, no." "No, I am also going to," and he died.

Dr. Patel: [indistinct]

Prabhupāda: These things are not very wonderful. From spiritual point of view this has no meaning. This is worldly affection. It is worldly affection. That is not very good asset for spiritual life. Āsakti. One has to give up āsakti. That is the process, renouncement. Voluntarily.

Dr. Patel: Anāsakta-manaḥ.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Our Vedic process is that at a certain age you must retire from family life. Voluntary, forceful, giving up association.

Dr. Patel: Even there is worship [indistinct].

Prabhupāda: Yes. So these are āsaktis. This husband and wife dying together, it is [indistinct] because āsakti is there. That āsakti will help him, that the wife will become a husband next life, and the husband will become wife next. And in that way they'll have to take birth again.

Dr. Patel: Soul has got no tax.[?]

Prabhupāda: Karma-bandha.

Dr. Patel: Karma-bandha and jīva.

Prabhupāda: Find out this verse, Fifth Canto, Fifth Chapter.

Harikeśa: Karmātmakaṁ yena?

Prabhupāda: Ah, śarīra-bandha. Parābhavas tāvad abodha-jāto yāvan na jijñāsata ātma-tattvam, yāvat mano vai karma...?

Harikeśa:

parābhavas tāvad abodha-jāto yāvan na jijñāsata ātma-tattvam yāvat kriyās tāvad idaṁ mano vai karmātmakaṁ yena śarīra-bandhaḥ [SB 5.5.5]

Prabhupāda: Bandha.

Harikeśa: "As long as one does not inquire about the spiritual values of life, one is defeated and subjected to miseries arising from ignorance. Be it sinful or pious, karma has its resultant actions. If a person is engaged in any kind of karma, his mind is called karmātmaka: colored with fruitive activity. As long as the mind is impure, consciousness is unclear. And as long as one is absorbed in fruitive activity, he has to accept a material body."

Prabhupāda: That's all. By labha-yoga[?] the woman will become man and the man will become woman.

Dr. Patel: So long you are taking birth...

Prabhupāda: What action you have got? Before that the verse is,

nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma yad indriya-prītaya āpṛṅoti na sādhu manye yata ātmano 'yam asann api kleśada āsa dehaḥ [SB 5.5.4]

So this body is temporary, but it is very miserable. That they do not understand.

Dr. Patel: Kuṅape tri-dhātuke.

Prabhupāda: That they do not understand. That as soon as you accept a material body, either a very rich man's body or poor man's body or any body, either brāhmaṅa's body or śūdra's body, to accept material body means undergo miseries.

Dr. Patel: But you have no choice to accept. By the will of God...

Prabhupāda: No, you have got... You can become free. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya [Bg 4.9].

[One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.]

Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti...

Dr. Patel: Bhakti-avyabhicāriṅī. I have got that tendency, bhakti, avyabhicāriṅī-bhakti.

Prabhupāda: No, no, simply to know Kṛṣṅa. Māṁ ca 'vyabhicāreṅa bhakti-yogena ya... So you cannot understand Kṛṣṅa without bhakti. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti [Bg 18.55].

[One can understand the Supreme Personality as He is only by devotional service. And when one is in full consciousness of the Supreme Lord by such devotion, he can enter into the kingdom of God.]

So without bhakti there is no possibility to understand Kṛṣṅa. But if you understand Kṛṣṅa, then you'll become free from this process of accepting material body.

Dr. Patel: Ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi [Bg 18.66].

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is the only business, to become Kṛṣṅa conscious and avoid this botheration of repeating body, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ [Bg 2.13].

[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. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.]

Dehāntara-prāptiḥ is there. If you want to stop dehāntara-prāptiḥ, then you have to become Kṛṣṅa conscious. There is no other way. But if you think that it is very pleasure to enter within the womb of mother and accept one body, and again come out and again work, and again die and again enter, bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate [Bg 8.19]... If you want this business, that is your choice. You can do it. But if you want to stop it, then this is the only way. Therefore śāstra says na sādhu manye. It is not good. Nūnam. Read that verse.

Harikeśa:

nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma yad indriya-prītaya āpṛṅoti na sādhu manye yata ātmano 'yam asann api kleśada āsa dehaḥ [SB 5.5.4]

Prabhupāda: Kleśada āsa dehaḥ. Kleśada, as soon as you get a body, kleśada. May have good doctor friend, but I'll have to suffer. [Dr. Patel laughs] We can get some relief, but suffering is there. Therefore na sādhu manye. It is not good. So people are being trained up to become mad, pramattaḥ. And do anything, bring money. This is the modern civilization. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma. Things which are forbidden, they are doing that. Why? Indriya-prītaya āpṛṅoti, only for sense gratification. They have no other ambition. Bring money and gratify senses. This is modern civilization. This is the exact explanation—nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma [SB 5.5.4]. Black money, white money, this money, that... Never mind, bring money.

Dr. Patel: [laughter] By any way.

Prabhupāda: Yes, this is modern civilization. Big man, big rich man, means bring money some way or other. This is big man. This is Kali-yuga. Because if you have got money, you have got respect, you have got honor, you have got..., you are recognized. So therefore they are after money. Bring money, that's all right. When I shall get money, I may have done black money, force money, this money, nobody will remember it. Bās. This is modern civilization. Bring money and enjoy sense. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma [SB 5.5.4]. What for it is, struggle so much working hard? Yad indriya-prītaya: only for the satisfaction of the senses. They have no other ambition. Because most of them, they do not believe there is next life. Most of them, 99.9 percent, they do not believe. Big, big professor... I have talked with so many big, big men in Europe. They have no faith... Our leaders also. The Munshi, he did not believe in the next life.

Dr. Patel: There is research in parapsychology in certain municipality[?] of India, they have proved that [indistinct].

Prabhupāda: That they may do, a very great service, but we know it without going to through psychological process. We believe Kṛṣṅa. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ [Bg 2.13],

bās, finished. What is the use of going to the psychology and...?

Dr. Patel: But those...

Prabhupāda: No, no, those who are fools, they may waste their time in that way. [laughter] But we are not so fool.

Dr. Patel: They are fools to not to think that they'll become...

Prabhupāda: They are rascal fools because they do not take Kṛṣṅa's word. Kṛṣṅa says, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ [Bg 2.13]. Why should we bother? Our mission is simply to propagate Kṛṣṅa's instructions. This is Kṛṣṅa consciousness movement. We don't manufacture anything. So-called yoga, so-called meditation, so-called this and... We don't care for all this nonsense. Our only business is how to implement the instruction of Kṛṣṅa, the rascals may understand and be happy. That is our mission. We haven't got to manufacture anything. This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission. Yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṅa-upadeśa [Cc Madhya 7.128].

[Instruct everyone to follow the orders of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṅa as they are given in the Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. In this way become a spiritual master and try to liberate everyone in this land.]

Bās. You simply carry the message of Kṛṣṅa and try to deliver it to anyone you meet. This is our... We haven't got to manufacture anything. Therefore we are presenting Bhagavad-gītā as it is. Take it. No interpretation. Don't spoil the whole thing. Interpretation means spoiling. Whole thing spoiled.

Dr. Patel: Each man understands according to his own level of understanding.

Prabhupāda: No. Suppose, just like you are medical man, you are giving somebody medicine, you are giving the direction. If he wants to be cured, he must take your direction. Not that somebody comes, "No, no, you can take it this way, you can do this." That is nonsense. That is nonsense. This nonsense we want to stop. Kṛṣṅa is giving the instruction, paraṁ brahma paraṁ dhāma pavitraṁ paramaṁ bhavān [Bg 10.12],

[Arjuna said: You are the Supreme Brahman, the ultimate, the supreme abode and purifier, the Absolute Truth and the eternal divine person. You are the primal God, transcendental and original, and You are the unborn and all-pervading beauty. All the great sages such as Nārada, Asita, Devala, and Vyāsa proclaim this of You, and now You Yourself are declaring it to me.]

the Supreme Personality of Godhead. What business you have got to poke your nose and give interpretation? Are you bigger than Kṛṣṅa, Kṛṣṅa left it for you? This nonsense going on. Big, big svāmīs, big, big yogīs, big, big politicians, simply misinterpreting, he's spoiling his own life and he's spoiling others. Bās. This is going on. Very serious condition.

Dr. Patel: You are not going to go down now?

Prabhupāda: No.

Gopāla Kṛṣṅa: Would you like to go on the terrace, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: If I like, I can... [conversation in Hindi with Dr. Patel] Why I have taken so much trouble?

Dr. Patel: They are already traced out. So we come here.

Prabhupāda: No, you come and preach. The country is going to hell, the human society is going to hell for misguidance. These rascal leaders, they're going to hell themselves and they're leading others. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānās te 'pīśa-tantryām uru-dāmni baddhāḥ [SB 7.5.31].

[Persons who are strongly entrapped by the consciousness of enjoying material life, and who have therefore accepted as their leader or guru a similar blind man attached to external sense objects, cannot understand that the goal of life is to return home, back to Godhead, and engage in the service of Lord Viṣṅu. As blind men guided by another blind man miss the right path and fall into a ditch, materially attached men led by another materially attached man are bound by the ropes of fruitive labor, which are made of very strong cords, and they continue again and again in materialistic life, suffering the threefold miseries.]

These fools and rascals are leading, they are going to hell, and they are taking the followers to the hell. This is going on. Stop this. At least in India. Save. That is real para-upakāra. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission.

bhārata-bhūmite haila manuṣya-janma yāra janma sārthaka kari' kara para-upakāra [Cc Ādi 9.41]

[One who has taken his birth as a human being in the land of India [Bhārata-varṣa] should make his life successful and work for the benefit of all other people.]

Para-upakāra. Our India is not meant for exploiting others. Doing good to others, that is India's mission. Our teachers, our ācāryas, do not teach us, "Go and exploit others and bring money"—British Empire. This is not India.

Dr. Patel: Even Jesus never taught that. These are the wrong followers.

Prabhupāda: That is different thing than that. I mean to say generally, generally the people, they want to exploit others.

Dr. Patel: It is the greed of the human being.

Prabhupāda: Yes, but the mission should be, human being should be meant for doing good to others. Para-upakāra. That para-upakāra spirit is gone on account of losing our own culture. Otherwise, India's culture is para-upakāra. India was open, "Come everyone, learn." Lord Jesus Christ also came here. All the Chinese, learned scholars, they used to come. The history is there. And India was open. Gṛhe śatrum api prāptaṁ viśvastam akutobhayam. This is Indian culture. Even the enemy comes, "Yes, please come, you stay." But later on, they took advantage: "Oh, they are very liberal. Enter there." And still we are liberal: "Please come here, stay here and take prasādam free, and chant Hare Kṛṣṅa." Open to everyone. I shall manage anyway. I shall travel; still I shall lay down my life and bring money. "Come here, stay." Still we are liberal. This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission, janma sārthaka kari' kara para-upakāra [Cc Ādi 9.41].

[One who has taken his birth as a human being in the land of India [Bhārata-varṣa] should make his life successful and work for the benefit of all other people.]

First of all, make your life successful by Kṛṣṅa consciousness. Then do good to others.

Yesterday, I think, in Tehran, one boy came. He proposed that is it not good to help others? I immediately challenged, "What you have got you can help? What is your asset?" You cannot help. It is simply bogus proposition. If you can help, you can simply help by spreading Kṛṣṅa consciousness, as Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṅa-upadeśa [Cc Madhya 7.128].

"Sir, I have come to you." "Why?" "To request you that you become Kṛṣṅa conscious." "How?" Man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ, "Always think of Me, just become My devotee, offer little obeisances." Anyone can do. A child can do. You cannot do? What is the difficulty to become Kṛṣṅa conscious? Is there any difficulty? You haven't got to practice any yoga process, pressing your nose or keeping your head or this or that. No. Nothing. Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru mām evaiṣyasi asaṁśayaḥ [Bg 18.68]: "Without any doubt you are coming back to Me." And that is the highest perfection, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti [Bg 4.9].

[One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.]

There is no difficulty in preaching this Kṛṣṅa consciousness. There is no difficulty to accept it. And the result is the supreme.

Dr. Patel: These are the people who have no faith.

Prabhupāda: Therefore you have to canvass. They have no faith, I know that. Then why there is necessity of preaching all over the world? They have no faith, it is a fact. And you have to create faith. That is preaching. Padayor nipatya. That Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī,

kṛtvā ca kāku-śatam etad ahaṁ bravīmi he sādhavaḥ sakalam eva vihāya dūrād caitanya-candra-caraṅe kurutānurāgam [Caitanya-candrāmṛta 90]

[Taking a straw between my teeth and falling at your feet a hundred times, I humbly submit, "O great personality, please give up all mundane knowledge that you have learned and just submit yourself at the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu."]

This is preaching. Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī, what is that? Kāku-śataṁ padayor nipatya, kāku-śatam kṛtvā, śatam, "I fall down on your feet, and I am flattering you with folded hands." "Why? Why? What do you want to say?" "Yes, I have to say something." "What is that? Say it! Why you are becoming so humble?" "Yes, I have to say." "What? Say it!" He sādhavaḥ, "You are a very nice sādhu. But you forget all nonsense."

Dr. Patel: That's kāku-[indistinct]

Prabhupāda: He sādhavaḥ sakalam eva vihāya, "Whatever nonsense you have learned, forget." Then what to do? Kāku-śataṁ bravīmi sakalam eva vihāya dūrād caitanya-candra-caraṅe kurutānurāgam. "You just become devotee of Lord Caitanya. I am flattering you, I am falling down on your feet"—this is preaching. And what is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's...? Yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṅa-upadeśa [Cc Madhya 7.128].

And if you do that, then what is the result? Na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ [Bg 18.69]. If one is doing like that, Kṛṣṅa immediately recognizes, "Oh, you are the best friend of Mine." So if you are recognized by Kṛṣṅa, then what you want more? You are undergoing so much austerities and... To be recognized by God. And God says that "Immediately I recognize you." Whom? One who is doing this. Ya idaṁ paramaṁ guhyaṁ mad-bhakteṣv abhidhāsyati [Bg 18.68]. Na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ [Bg 18.69]. Immediately. You may be a fool, you may be rascal, you may be illiterate. But if you do this, immediately Kṛṣṅa recognizes. Kṛṣṅa never said that unless one is a big grammarian, big scientist, big politician, big engineer, big doctor, then I recognize. No. Simply one who does this. Ya idaṁ paramaṁ guhyam. What is that paramaṁ guhyam? Sarva-dharmān parityajya [Bg 18.66]: "Give up all nonsense. Surrender to Me." This is paramaṁ guhyam. And they are simply manufacturing nonsense.

So the time is very bad, but nature's law is very strict. We may defy it, "There is no God, there is no next birth, there is no nothing." We may say like that, but when death will come, you cannot say anything. Mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham [Bg 10.34].

[I am all-devouring death, and I am the generator of all things yet to be. Among women I am fame, fortune, speech, memory, intelligence, faithfulness and patience.]

Bās, all your talkings, all your intelligence taken away. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ [Bg 2.13].

Immediately transferred to another body. Daiva-netreṅa. Karmaṅā daiva-netreṅa jantur dehopapattaye [SB 3.31.1].

[The Personality of Godhead said: Under the supervision of the Supreme Lord and according to the result of his work, the living entity, the soul, is made to enter into the womb of a woman through the particle of male semen to assume a particular type of body.]

Kāraṅaṁ guṅa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu [Bg 13.22]. "No, no, I am Prime Minister!" "No, you must become a dog." [laughter] Immediately. How can you protest? You cannot protest. You have acted like dog; just become a dog. Kāraṅaṁ guṅa-saṅgo 'sya. Just like your medical science: you have infected the disease, you must suffer it. Kāraṅaṁ guṅa-saṅgaḥ. Guṅa-saṅgaḥ. There's infection.

Dr. Patel: Only in nirguṅa, a man can become nirguṅa by...

Prabhupāda: Eh, don't talk of nirguṅa. First of all [laughter] become a dog.

Dr. Patel: Because the only thing that can bring nirguṅa, then you may stop from getting a dog, if you do the bhakti. That is what I mean.

Prabhupāda: Nirguṅa means bhakti. Nirguṅa means bhakti. Sa guṅān samatītyaitān [Bg 14.26]. That is nirguṅa. When you are untouched by the three guṅas, then you are nirguṅa. That is not very easy job.

Dr. Patel: Very difficult.

Prabhupāda: That is not easy.

māṁ ca yo 'vyabhicāreṅa bhakti-yogena yah sevate sa guṅān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate [Bg 14.26]

[One who engages in full devotional service, who does not fall down in any circumstance, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman.]

Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati [Bg 18.54].

[And of all yogīs, he who always abides in Me with great faith, worshiping Me in transcendental loving service, is most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all.]

Nirguṅa is not so easy thing. This is nirguṅa. Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṅaṁ [Bg 18.66]. This is nirguṅa. Otherwise, everything sa guṅān, everything sa guṅān. Only fully surrendered to Kṛṣṅa, nirguṅa. This is... So [Hindi]. They are talking, "Yes, you take Bhagavad-gītā without Kṛṣṅa." They say it. And they are doing that.

Dr. Patel: Who?

Prabhupāda: Anyone. Take Mahatma Gandhi. He was so great student of Bhagavad-gītā. Did he preach kṛṣṅa-bhakti? Bhagavad-gītā minus Kṛṣṅa, this is going on. Yes. Kaṁsa. Kill Kṛṣṅa. This is going on. What is the meaning of Bhagavad-gītā without Kṛṣṅa? And everyone is preaching like that. Very worse condition of the world, godlessness, and they'll suffer, there is no doubt. Prakṛti is very strong. You can do whatever you like, but kāraṅaṁ guṅa-saṅgo 'sya, that will act. You may be very proud of your so-called prestigious position, but the kāraṅaṁ guṅa-saṅgo 'sya... Puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho hi... [Bg 13.22]. Find out.

Guest: Bhuṅkte prakṛti-jān guṅān.

Prabhupāda: Bhuṅkte prakṛti-jān guṅān. He has to. He has to. Bhuṅkte prakṛti-jān guṅān. So we are now put into the material prakṛti, and prakṛti-jān guṅān, we have to accept another body.

prakṛteḥ kriyamāṅāni guṅaiḥ karmāṅi sarvaśaḥ ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham iti manyate [Bg 3.27]

[The bewildered spirit soul, under the influence of the three modes of material nature, thinks himself to be the doer of activities, which are in actuality carried out by nature.]

This is the rascaldom. Hare Kṛṣṅa. Jaya. Prasādam, you have got? [devotees offer obeisances] What is the report?

Yaśomatīnandana: We are publishing monthly magazine every month now. One is coming out in a few days for Janmāṣṭamī. And we have changed new house, very good house. [indistinct]

Prabhupāda: What is the rent?

Yaśomatīnandana: Land also...

Prabhupāda: No, no, rent.

Yaśomatīnandana: Rent is thousand rupees. One thousand rupees, plus tax for government.

Prabhupāda: Plus twelve hundred?

Yaśomatīnandana: No, plus two hundred tax. They are Life Members from Ahmedabad. They came to see Your Divine Grace.

Prabhupāda: Oh, thank you. So give them place to stay. So, [indistinct] [end]