701104 - Conversation - Bombay

Conversations by Date, 1970

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

701104R1-BOMBAY - November 04, 1970 - 13:20 Minutes

Prabhupāda: One of our relatives, long, long ago, he happened to be, as my grandmother . . . my cousin's, oh, grandfather. He went to England in those old days, and he became a . . . (indistinct) . . . doctor, very . . . when he came home, the brahmins prescribed that, "You went to England, so you have to make this prāyaścitta and this and so many prescription, and unless you follow the prāyaścitta (atonement) you cannot live at home. Then your family will be extricated." So when these things were presented to him he said, "Then I am going out of home." His mother and father, everyone requested, "Beta, tumko ye karna padhega." "To wo bolta hai jo hum fir ghar se jata hai." Wo ghar se nikal gaya aur Christian hogaya . . . ye jitna Christian, Muhammedan hua hai isliye . . . (indistinct) . . . ye itna Christian, Muhammedan kya bahar se aya hai? ("Son, you will have to do this." Then he says, "So I am leaving home." Then he left and became a Christian and . . . all these Christians and Mohammedans are because of this . . . (indistinct) . . . so many Christians and Mohammedans, you think they have come from outside?)

(break) Go on.

Haṁsadūta: ". . . (indistinct) . . . Chicago had observed that he was a construction worker doing a śūdra's work. It would not become necessary to allot the three lower castes to the foreign converts according to their professions. This will not be an easy task. Talking of profession reminds me of a still graver problem—that of the occupation or profession of the white sādhus. If I am not mistaken, the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement would turn out legions of new white sādhus in the West whose only aim in life would be to propitate (sic) their Lord Kṛṣṇa. They would be steeped in the bhakti-rasa and would not soil their hands with doing any work for such a mundane thing as earning a living."

Prabhupāda: They are not doing anything. Actually they are not doing anything. They are preaching only.

Guest (1) (Indian man): No, but he says that legions of such sādhus, such white men, persons from West, become sādhus, then who will do this job of earning a living?

Prabhupāda: Why he is crying? If he is hungry, let him come here. We shall provide him. Why he is crying for that? What business he has got to cry, "What will they do?" What they will, that they know. Why he is crying? What is his business for crying for this future? If he is hungry, let him come and we shall provide him. This is not . . . that is a childish conception. "If everybody becomes sādhu, then what will be the nature of the society?" That is . . . never becomes. That never becomes.

To become sādhu and to become a Vaiṣṇava is not so easy thing. These idle questions, why they publish? I do not know. This is idle question. It never becomes. Lord Kṛṣṇa personally says that, "You simply surrender unto Me." How many have surrendered till now? Lord Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā that "You give up everything and surrender unto Me." (BG 18.66) So how many have done that?

So this is a rascal question, "If everyone surrenders, then what will happen to the world?" But that will never happen. It is very difficult to surrender. That he does not know . . . Samajh me aya? Bhai jab Bhagavan ka baat nahi sunta hai to humara baat kaun sunega? (Have you understood? Well, when they don't listen to God then who is going to listen to us?) It is not expected that everyone become sādhu. To become sādhu is not so easy thing, especially this nature of sādhu, pure. How many are there? We have given the prescription that, "Give up this, give up this." How many have given up this? So that is not possible, but still, these nonsense questions are raised.

Haṁsadūta: I go on?

Prabhupāda: Hmm.

Haṁsadūta: "As in India, so in the West . . . "

Prabhupāda: This class of question is answered . . . now, criticized . . . (indistinct) . . . there was a big market, because in the village there is haṭṭa every weekly. So in the village one old woman, she saw, "Oh, how I shall provide all these men at night? Where they will sleep? So many guests has come. What can I do?" She began to cry. So her son said: "Mother, you don't bother. They will go away." "No, no. How can I provide?" So in the evening he brought the mother: "Now see." So when she saw that nobody is there . . . theoretically, she began to cry, "Where shall I provide all, so many guests?" And this class of question is like that. Simply on theoretical they are asking.

Haṁsadūta: It goes on.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Haṁsadūta: "As in India, so in the West the sādhus will have to live on alms given by others and will have to forego many of . . ."

Prabhupāda: He does not know what is sādhu. He is not sādhu. He is gṛhastha. I have got many professors, engineers. So they are kṛṣṇa-bhaktas. Are they not sādhus? The rascal does not know; that sādhu means beggar, he knows. Arjuna became a sādhu. He was beggar? So he does not know what is sādhu. Sadhu's description is given, bhajate mām ananya . . . (BG 9.30)

Guest (1): This particular letter is written by a woman. It is unnecessarily putting the . . .

Prabhupāda: So it should be replied properly, that "You do not know what is sādhu. You do not know what is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Why do you bother yourself?" Just like one this Jain paper has published that "Swami Bhaktivedantaji says that 'Kṛṣṇa is everything; Hinduism is nothing.' " So anyone who says Kṛṣṇa is everything, he is not Hindu. Just see. (laughter) Such foolishness. Go on.

Haṁsadūta: So . . . "The sādhus will have to live on alms given by others and will have to forego many of their luxurious personal needs. The coming years are therefore going to create for Uncle Sam a national problem of magnitude . . ."

Prabhupāda: You, already problem.

Haṁsadūta: ". . . the like of which he has not seen before."

Prabhupāda: What . . .? What they are doing for the hippies?

Guest (1): Pardon me?

Prabhupāda: In USA they have thousands of hippies. They are doing nothing. That problem is already there. Go on.

Haṁsadūta: "It will create a national problem of a magnitude the like of which he has not seen before. In fact, Western society is in for a great jolt. A. Karim Saikh." Karim Saikh. Then two more letters.

Prabhupāda: But the old woman's crying.

Haṁsadūta: Now you want to hear the next letter? This is the second letter. "I do not see why you devoted two full pages to the article on 'Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa,' November 8th. Wearing a plain white sari, applying sandal paste on the forehead and wearing nose-rings do not transform one. Churning milk gopī fashion is no way to attain spiritual bliss. The statements made by the devotees of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement reflect an attitude of escapism."

Prabhupāda: Hmm. Anyway, we are getting publicity.

Haṁsadūta: (laughs) They're angry. "How can the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa purify the mind? It only closes it to everything else. Purity of the mind lies in knowing all evil and yet abstaining from it. The escapist attitude of the devotees of the movement is reflected in the reply of Adhikārī when he bypasses the question of India's poverty by giving irrelevant answers. The poverty of our country is known to all of us. I am not an atheist, but I find it difficult to digest the sentimentalism in the article."

Prabhupāda: What is that sentimentalism?

Haṁsadūta: I didn't read the article. That was in the . . . which paper? I think this was in a Bombay paper. What paper is this?

Guest (1): This is Times of India.

Prabhupāda: Bombay.

Guest (1): It is published from Bombay and Delhi both.

Haṁsadūta: Yes. I think in Bombay there was a large article.

Prabhupāda: What about? Favorable or unfavorable?

Haṁsadūta: It was an interview with the devotees, if I remember, with Gurudāsa.

Guest (1): That article, original article, was quite favorable. It was all praiseworthy and all that. That is why these two letters say that author of that article is unnecessarily being sentimental and this and that.

Revatīnandana: That was the Sunday edition of Times of India.

Haṁsadūta: November 8th.

Revatīnandana: The magazine section. Two-page article with nice pictures. You liked it very much.

Prabhupāda: Oh, oh. Yes, yes. I remember. She is envious, that "Why two-page advertisement publicity has been . . ." That's all.

Haṁsadūta: There's another letter. It says: "Your leading article on the Kṛṣṇa cult makes interesting reading. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, the Indian founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, ISKCON, and his American disciples repeatedly told K.R. Sundarajan, the author of the article in the Times Weekly, November 8th, 1970, during their brief stay in Bombay that theirs was not strictly a Hindu movement.

They explained to him that Kṛṣṇa was above all religions, the universal teacher, the supreme man, the purification of the Absolute Truth. If it is so, then why can't they go to Pakistan and China for chanting of Kṛṣṇa's name and ask them to vacate aggression? The soil of this land where the great master was born . . ."

Prabhupāda: Now, now, we have to serve the political, politicians. Eh? Because they cannot do, so they are asking us.

Haṁsadūta: To do.

Prabhupāda: Such a nonsense. So we have to help these rascal politicians. You write that, that "Do you mean to say that Kṛṣṇa consciousness means business is to serve the rascal politicians? We are going every country and when we find time we shall go to Pakistan."

Guest (1): Not for vacating the aggression, but for . . . to deliver for the spiritual deliverance

Prabhupāda: "Not for helping the politicians who are very much eager to join Pakistan. Our joining is different. Even in India we have got so many enemies like this who are criticizing Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. So there are rascals everywhere, either in Pakistan or India. So we are not satisfy the rascals. We are meant for intelligent persons." Write that, like that.

Guest (1): Wo to . . . (indistinct) . . . me hai. (That is there in . . . (indistinct) . . . is in.)

Prabhupāda: Then anything more?

'Haṁsadūta: I think that's it. Oh . . . (break) (end)