760615 - Morning Walk - Detroit

Morning Walks by Date, 1976

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

760615MW-DETROIT - June 15, 1976 -18:19 Minutes

(in car)

Prabhupāda: So you can go there.

Hari-śauri: You want to go, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: We can go tomorrow. Now, just we are going forty-five . . . (indistinct)

Satsvarūpa: We left in the morning. It looked like this.

Prabhupāda: It was little earlier.

Satsvarūpa: Yes. (break) About twelve.

Prabhupāda: People are coming?

Satsvarūpa: Yes. And their main program is every day they go on the lawn at the university and they set up a paṇḍāla tent and chant for about two hours. And they are building a truck for distributing prasādam in the wintertime on campus . . .

Prabhupāda: You make arrangement.

Satsvarūpa: Yes. Very nice, clean house, but not much bigger than a house like that. But very nice and clean.

Prabhupāda: Forty-eight cents?

Satsvarūpa: I don't know. Ambarīṣa? How much are cigarettes?

Ambarīṣa: I think they're seventy-five cents. They are very highly taxed.

Prabhupāda: Who cares for it? (laughter) Wine is highly taxed in India. When I was manager in Dr. Bose's laboratory, he was manufacturing . . . (indistinct) . . . alcohol for medicinal purpose. The cost was one rupee eight annas per gallon. But the government was levying duty, for medicinal purpose, five rupees per gallon, whereas purchasing liquor, fifty-eight. The cost was seventy-eight rupees. The government would take profit out of it, fifty-eight rupees.

Satsvarūpa: (indistinct) . . . Fifth Canto . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Today, there was one description, there is description, the fight was so severe that the blood sprinkled up to the sun planet. So why not moon planet? Why they say sun planet? The sun is the nearest planet from the earth. So this calculation . . . they say the sun planet is 93,000,000 miles away from earth. And if you add further 1,600,000 miles, it comes to about . . . (indistinct) . . . million miles . . . (indistinct) . . . million miles, they have calculated, go there by the sputnik at the rate of 13,000 miles per hour. They said like that . . . (indistinct) . . . they went by Sputnik.

Ambarīṣa: They said they went fifteen million?

Hari-śauri: No, according to our calculation . . . we agree with the figure 93,000,000, as approximate to the sun, but then our figure is 1,600,000 beyond it to the moon.

Ambarīṣa: So how they can reach it in few days?

Prabhupāda: What does . . . (indistinct) . . .? Ambarīṣa does not agree. (laughs)

Ambarīṣa: No, I agree. I wonder where they went? I think they went somewhere. Maybe not.

Hari-śauri: Prabhupāda said in Los Angeles it's very easy to simulate these moon landing pictures in a movie so that they're . . . just like there are so many films now where they show this.

Satsvarūpa: People in the classes, when the students say that that they do not see God, there is no proof for God, I give that argument you give. I say: "Well, I am a common layman, I have no proof that we've actually gone to the moon. At least, I haven't gone to the moon. Show me right away that you can prove it to me." They say: "Well, we have rocks, they brought back rocks." "I don't believe that they are from the moon." They are astonished that I . . . we could actually doubt. (laughter)

Ambarīṣa: There is another planet that is close to the earth that they could have gone to, isn't there?

Prabhupāda: Maybe . . . (indistinct) . . . some petrol station in the sky? Eh?

Ambarīṣa: I never heard that.

Prabhupāda: Satsvarūpa?

Satsvarūpa: I never heard of that.

Hari-śauri: They've been planning all kinds of space laboratories and things like that.

Prabhupāda: No, there was some plan that there would be . . .

Satsvarūpa: Another planet?

Prabhupāda: No, intermediate station for supplying petrol.

Hari-śauri: For airplanes, or . . .?

Prabhupāda: Yes. There was some suggestion. (break) . . . why Sunday first and Monday second, all over the world?

Satsvarūpa: Sun, moon.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) (on walk) Sun planet, moon planet, Mars, Jupiter, like this; last, Saturn. So if this is systematic, then this calculation also means sun planet first. Why Sunday first?

Hari-śauri: You've defeated everyone, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Any one of these boys can answer? Why Sunday first? Ambarīṣa Mahārāja?

Ambarīṣa: Why Sunday first? Because the sun is closer to the earth. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: That is my version.

Ambarīṣa: Yes, I agree with that.

Prabhupāda: But why do they say the moon planet first?

Ambarīṣa: Because their senses are imperfect.

Prabhupāda: Svarūpa Dāmodara also, he also not replied satisfactory. (break) . . . do not count talking about sun, moon excursion. Why they are now stop, not talking anything?

Devotee (1): All they could get was some dust.

Prabhupāda: That is already known. Further?

Makhanlāl: They want to go to Mars and Saturn now.

Prabhupāda: Why? Moon finished?

Makhanlāl: Moon is finished now.

Prabhupāda: Simply by taking dust?

Makhanlāl: Must be.

Prabhupāda: And still the government is going to pay for Mars and Venus?

Devotee (1): They all do favors for each other.

Prabhupāda: Favors?

Devotee (1): Yes. The government contracts big construction companies to build military bases for them. And then in turn they all have engagement, they all feed each other, like that. We met one boy in Houston, his grandfather was a disciple of Bhaktisiddhānta.

Prabhupāda: Indian?

Devotee (1): Yes. No, he is not Indian, he's American. He was in Germany. He's German.

Prabhupāda: German. Yes.

Devotee (1): His grandfather was German, he was raised in Germany.

Prabhupāda: Yes, we had two German Godbrothers. One is that Sadānanda. Another was Von something.

Hari-śauri: He was initiated?

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break)

Devotee (1): . . . family, they live in Houston, they're a big construction company, and they do all kinds of construction work for the government.

Prabhupāda: I think his grandfather was also architect. Yes. That gentleman was Jew.

Devotee (1): I don't remember. I think he was. He used to work with George Harrison . . . Harrison was their . . . (indistinct) . . . he was very rich. Their family does construction work for big government officials in Iran, and they are building one big naval base in Iran.

Prabhupāda: Why not take to our work in Māyāpur? (break)

Devotee (1): . . . letter, Śrīla Prabhupāda. He never returned it. (break)

Satsvarūpa: . . . half of what he says isn't true. I would doubt that all these claims are even true. He says things, and then they turn out not to be true.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: He came on my bus for a week.

Satsvarūpa: He's nice, but I don't think he has all that aristocratic background that he claims.

Devotee (1): . . . by the results what a man can do.

Devotee (2): Śrīla Prabhupāda, I was noticing as we walk that there are so many trash cans, but no one throws their trash in the can. There are so many trash cans, but none of the karmīs are throwing their trash in the can. They just don't care. They throw it along the road.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Śrīla Prabhupāda was pointing out that at seven o'clock in the morning you'll see everyone in the liquor stores, but they don't organize them to come and clean. You were mentioning that everyone is lining up to buy liquor in the morning with their money from the government. They don't work. But instead, the government should have them working cleaning the parks. But they are not expert managers. (break) . . . in the early hours the people are sweeping the streets, cleaning.

Devotee (1): People in America, they don't care. They don't care to even walk five steps to drop a paper in a can.

Makhanlāl: In the Upadeśāmṛta, in the eleventh verse, it says that if one takes his bath even once in the Rādhākuṇḍa he immediately awakens his love for Kṛṣṇa. I was wondering, some of those who have had the opportunity to take bath in Rādhākuṇḍa, it seems though it may take some time. I was wondering, is that because we don't see time in the proper perspective?

Prabhupāda: Why do you go to Rādhākuṇḍa, unless there is some awakening of Kṛṣṇa consciousness? (break)

Devotee (1): (talking about Ambarīṣa) He's a rich man's son, but he's walking without shoes just like a sādhu. (break)

Satsvarūpa: . . . was the president of Ann Arbor temple. I told him what you were thinking. You think you really want to go to Ann Arbor? Not necessary?

(in car)

Prabhupāda: (indistinct conversation) (break) What does that mean?

Satsvarūpa: God, Christ. They believe that Christ is God, some Christians.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Many different understandings.

Satsvarūpa: Some say he's a perfect man. Some say a son of God, or that he's actually God. (break) . . . a spirit within.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Holy Ghost is like Brahman and Paramātmā. All-pervading God and God within the heart speaking to the individual.

Satsvarūpa: And Jesus Christ is the only son of the Lord, and he's the Lord also at the same time.

Hari-śauri: And they say he has a material body, and he is God incarnated into flesh.

Prabhupāda: We also say. Sākṣād-dharitvena samasta-śāstraiḥ.

Satsvarūpa: The guru is as good as God. And only by the guru . . .

Prabhupāda: But he's servant.

Satsvarūpa: Yes. And we also say only by the mercy of the guru. But they say only through Jesus. (break) . . . so many similarities. Sometimes a Christian asks: "What is unique about your religion? Why should I . . .? It seems to be the same as what we have."

Hari-śauri: The unique thing is that we're actually able to follow the teachings, whereas they are not.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: I lived in one Christian monastery, Śrīla Prabhupāda, before, with monks. There is no bliss. They don't have kīrtana and prasādam.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Devotees: Jaya Prabhupāda!

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (end)