761231 - Interview - Bombay

Conversations by Date, 1976

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

761231IV-BOMBAY - December 31, 1976 - 34.34 Minutes

Prabhupāda: Caitanya Mahāprabhu is the mercy incarnation for all people. How we can question upon this idea?

Indian reporter: So you are elaborating on this thing.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Ignorance. Stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, mūḍhaḥ nābhijānāti. You take Bhagavad-gītā as it is. Mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam. Tribhir guṇamayair bhāvaiḥ (BG 7.13). (aside) Oh, that is given to that doctor. Asal me knowledge to India me hai aur kahin knowledge nahi hai. (Actually knowledge is only in India and knowledge is not anywhere else.) There is no knowledge. But that knowledge is being neglected by Indians, and the whole world is in ignorance. The knowledge has to be given by India because knowledge is in India. But the Indians, they have become rascals. They are imitating the rascals. This is reply. India should have given knowledge to the whole world. Instead of, these rascals are imitating their ways of life, and knowledge remains in the darkness throughout the whole world.

Indian reporter: What do you find, you know, that when you impart this knowledge to Western disciples and when you talk to someone who are in India, what difference do you find?

Prabhupāda: Indian men refuse this culture. India's leader, beginning from Gandhi and all, they do not know what is India's culture. They have forgotten.

Indian reporter: Would you like to include Gandhi also in that?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Otherwise, how it can be? Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ (SB 7.5.31).

Indian reporter: But he was the one who also preached Gītā and . . .

Prabhupāda: But he did not know Gītā, actually. Recently I have been in his āśrama. They are maintaining the chattai and the lantern in memory. What is that? If Mahatma Gandhi understood Gītā, he should have introduced that āśrama in Gītā. Where is that? The chattai, food arrangement is there.

Indian reporter: So that is done by his disciples and not by him. He never . . .

Prabhupāda: That means he could not make his disciple correctly.

Indian reporter: That is true. That is true.

Prabhupāda: Therefore he did not know. Now see how my disciples are working all over the world within ten years. I am sitting here, still going on, my business. So you have to train in such a way. The Deity worship going on. (aside) Bring that recent Denver pictures. They are now opening different branches, establishing Deity exactly in the way I have trained. It is a question of training.

Indian reporter: How your preaching differs from various ācāryas? Say, Śaṅkara or Vallabha or Rāmānuja?

Prabhupāda: Just in the line of the ācāryas.

Indian reporter: But you are just in the line, or you . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes. All the ācāryas established hundreds and thousands of temples. So I am establishing all over the world. What did in India, I am doing all over the world. Now just see how they are . . .

Indian reporter: Each ācārya differed in interpretation of religion and approach to it. You diff . . . Śaṅkara and Vallabha say . . .

Prabhupāda: There are two sections, the impersonalist and the personalist. The personalists are the Vaiṣṇavas, and impersonalists are the Māyāvādīs. So far the spiritual life is concerned, there is no difference. There is no difference. Just like Śaṅkara. Śaṅkarācārya said that brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā. The spiritual life is reality, and this is nonreality. But we say that this is duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15). Kṛṣṇa said. We are follower of Kṛṣṇa. "This is a place of suffering. And if you come to Me, then your suffering ends." So this world is condemned either by Śaṅkarācārya or others, everyone. But the modern rascals, they have taken this world as everything. Therefore they are in ignorance. Do you follow? They have taken this world, this life of fifty years or sixty years, at most hundred years, as reality. These rascals have no knowledge that we have life after annihilation of this body. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), who knows it? Bring big, big men, big, big politician.

Indian reporter: What about so many saints who are preaching yoga and religion all over the world?

Prabhupāda: Anyone who does not know the science, they are not saint; they are cheaters. If they do not know the science, what is spiritual life, what is material life, so their speaking is simply cheating. Therefore we should state the standard, Bhagavad-gītā, the ācāryas. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said ācāryopāsanam. Take the ācāryas—Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya, even Śaṅkarācārya. So there must be standard. It is . . . some of them are manufacturing some spiritual life. Just like Vivekananda did, daridra-nārāyaṇa-sevā. Is there any such word in our Vedic śāstras, daridra-nārāyaṇa? Nārāyaṇa has become daridra? One has to worship daridra-nārāyaṇa.

Indian reporter: You don't agree with what has been preached . . .

Prabhupāda: Why shall I agree? Because there is no such thing in the śāstra. Is there word, any word, in the whole Bhagavad-gītā, daridra-nārāyaṇa-sevā?

Indian reporter: No, but what Ramakrishna Paramahaṁsa . . .

Prabhupāda: Ramakrishna, how he become paramahaṁsa if he does not know the śāstra? That is the difficulty. Everyone becoming self-made guru, self-made avatāra, self-made saint. That is the difficulty. Without any reference to the authoritative śāstra.

Indian reporter: So it's a very revealing thing, you deny Ramakrishna Paramahaṁsa . . .

Prabhupāda: I don't deny. You accept, you accept. My point is unless it is authoritatively mentioned in the śāstra, we reject.

Indian reporter: But śāstras were written say thousands of years ago. Life might have changed.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. In the śāstras it is not said that after passing of many years the śāstra becomes obsolete. This is another ignorance. Śāstra is not like that—you write some mental speculation, and after some years it changes. That is not śāstra. Śāstra is this. Just like the Bhāgavatam was . . . five thousand years ago it was written, and the symptoms of Kali, Kali-yuga, is written there in the Twelfth Canto.

Indian reporter: The complete purport was written five thousand years back.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Indian reporter: But most of the scholars, they say . . .

Prabhupāda: He is not a scholar. He's a rascal. We have to follow the ācāryas. The ācāryas never said. There are so many ācāryas. They never say. So we have to follow, ācāryopāsanam, not the rascals. We cannot worship the rascals. Worship ācāryas. They are guides. So śāstra says . . . (aside) Find out, sa evāyaṁ mayā te 'dya yogaḥ proktaḥ purātanaḥ. Purātanaḥ. Kṛṣṇa says that imaṁ vivasvate yogaṁ proktavān aham avyayam (BG 4.1): "I spoke this science to Vivasvān, the sun-god." So if you calculate sun, this sun, Vivasvān is the father of Manu, Vaivasvata Manu. And if you take, calculate, it becomes forty millions of years.

So this Bhagavad-gītā is spoken, according to Bhagavad-gītā, according to the version of Kṛṣṇa, forty millions of years ago. Now He says that that science was known to the people by paramparā. And that paramparā is lost somehow or other. Therefore as . . . (break) Suppose you are born in Bombay, but you do not know how the state is being managed, then what is my jñāna? If you do not know how the state is being managed, then what is your jñāna? That jñāna is . . . dogs and cats, they have also jñāna: how to eat, how to sleep, how to use sex life, how to defend. This is not jñāna. Everyone knows it. If you know God, who is conducting the whole, that is jñāna. So if you do not know who is the supreme controller . . .

Indian reporter: Knowing God through śāstras is one thing, but can a realization come in life as Arjuna had?

Prabhupāda: No.

Indian reporter: As Arjuna had the viśvarūpa-darśana.

Prabhupāda: No, that is not . . . Arjuna said, śiṣyas te 'haṁ śādhi māṁ prapannam (BG 2.7). For that jñāna you have to become śiṣya to the ācārya, or it is useless.

Indian reporter: But then you can get the realization, what Arjuna got, viśvarūpa-darśana.

Prabhupāda: Yes, everything. If you go, tad vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). Tad viddhi praṇipātena paripraśnena sevayā upadekṣyanti tad jñānam (BG 4.34). This is this process.

Indian reporter: If it is not too much a personal question, have you had a sākṣātkār?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Otherwise, why I am talking?

Indian reporter: But what was your experience of that sākṣātkār?

Prabhupāda: Now how you will understand unless you come to the science? (break) Gandhi manufactured. The Bhagavad-gītā is spoken in the battlefield, and he wanted to draw the conclusion of nonviolence. What is this? Kṛṣṇa says, kutas tvā kaśmalam idaṁ viṣame . . . (BG 2.2): "In this battlefield you are talking of nonsense, that 'I'll not fight.' " He says so, and Gandhi wanted to make it nonviolent. Just see how from the very beginning he distorted. And people accept it. Yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhaḥ (BG 3.21). He was a śreṣṭha, leader. So whatever he will say, people will accept. The whole India became spoiled.

Indian reporter: But the way to sākṣātkār is only . . .

Prabhupāda: Sākṣātkār is . . . Kṛṣṇa is speaking, "Here I am." Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ (BG 10.8). Now why not sākṣātkār? You can have. Unless you believe . . . you do not believe it.

Indian reporter: It is a . . .? It is a belief, or is it . . .?

Prabhupāda: Rather, if somebody says, "I am your father." So if you don't believe, then how it can be believed?

Indian reporter: But there is somebody, some concrete person, telling me that, "I am your father," but . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Yes. Nobody knows who is his father.

Indian reporter: I want to understand, Gurujī, that the sākṣātkār, is it a sort of emotional belief or it is a concrete . . .

Prabhupāda: No emotional. It is fact. Concrete.

Indian reporter: Concrete reality.

Prabhupāda: Yes. If your mother says: "Here is your father," that's all right. You don't require any other. And that is paramparā. Mother knows how you were created by your father. So she is the ultimate evidence. That's all. You cannot speculate. If you disbelieve your mother, then there is no question of understanding your father.

Indian reporter: We all have at certain moments of devotion some sort of feelings when we feel we are very much near the God. But that concrete reality, to attain that, the only way is jñāna, upāsanā?

Prabhupāda: Yes, this is jñāna. But the jñāna must be received through the right source. Jñāna is not speculation. The modern rascals, they create jñāna by speculation. That is not jñāna. That is ajñāna. The same example—if you don't receive jñāna from your mother, there is no jñāna of father. If you millions of years go on speculating who is your father, he'll never be revealed. That is not jñāna. That is ajñāna. So these rascals, they are creating jñāna. That is not jñāna. 'Jñāna means you should receive jñāna through the right source.

Indian reporter: And what is the upāsanā you will be prescribing for those people who want to achieve jñāna?

Prabhupāda: Yes, upāsanā . . . it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, amānitvam adambhitvam ahiṁsā kṣāntir ārjavam ācāryopāsanam (BG 13.8). Vinigrahaḥ, indriya-vinigrahaḥ. (aside) Find out this, Thirteenth Chapter. These are the process. First of all amānitvam. You have to surrender yourself, that "I am insignificant." But in beginning you are puffed up, "I am so academic. Now I have got Ph.D." Rascals. First, beginning, is amānitvam. And as soon as we become puffed-up, a little knowledge—a little knowledge is dangerous—then finished. So they are doing like that. A little knowledge, I think, "I have become more than my Guru Mahārāja." Finished. That is the defect. Find out. Read the . . .

Pradyumna:

amānitvam adambhitvam

ahiṁsā kṣāntir ārjavam

ācāryopāsanaṁ śaucaṁ

sthairyam ātma-vinigrahaḥ

(BG 13.8)

indriyārtheṣu vairāgyam

anahaṅkāra eva ca

janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi . . .

(BG 13.9)

Prabhupāda: Everyone is after sense gratification. No vairāgya. And he's in knowledge. His qualification is like dog, and he has become a man of knowledge. (break)

Indian reporter: . . . to go to Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Finish this.

Pradyumna: Asaktir anabhiṣvaṅgaḥ putra-dāra-gṛhādiṣu.

Prabhupāda: Ah. Asaktir anabhiṣvaṅgaḥ putra-dāra-gṛha. Everyone is attached. And this is ignorance. This is illusion, that developed society, community, nationality. But what is that? That attachment. But that attachment has to be taken away. That is knowledge. But we are teaching people how to become more and more attached in the name of Communism, socialism, this ism, that ism, nationalism. These things are not given. The truth in all this means increasing putra-dāra-gṛhādiṣu. Not asakti but āsakti: increasing ignorance. Then?

Pradyumna: Nityaṁ ca sama-cittatvam iṣṭāniṣṭopapattiṣu.

Prabhupāda: Nityaṁ ca sama-cittatvam. We should not be disturbed by this worldly disturbance. Tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata (BG 2.14). Real business is how to stop this birth, death, old age and disease. But they are not concerned with these things. They are simply disturbed with little temporary discomfort. Then?

Pradyumna: Mayi cānanya-yogena . . .

Prabhupāda: Mayi cānanya-yogena bhaktir . . .

Pradyumna: Avyabhicāriṇī.

Prabhupāda: Ah. And then central point is to become devotee of Kṛṣṇa. Then?

Pradyumna: Vivikta-deśa-sevitvam aratir jana-saṁsadi (BG 13.11).

Prabhupāda: Ah. Not to mix with this rascal class of men, aratir jana-saṁsadi. Not that I hold a meeting and some rascals give me clapping, (claps hands) I become . . . don't be after this. Try to understand the reality. But we, we become political leader, and if one thousand or one lakh of people give me a few claps I think I become perfect. What you are perfect? The next moment by the laws of nature you'll be slapped and taken away. Who could save Gandhi when he was fired by the laws by the nature? That clapping would not save me. Mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham (BG 10.34). When Kṛṣṇa will come and put you death, what you will do, with you clapping and your bank balance? You'll be taken away. Then?

Pradyumna: Adhyātma-jñāna-nityatvaṁ tattva-jñānārtha-darśanam (BG 13.12).

Prabhupāda: Tattva-jñānārtha-darśanam. Tattva-jñāna. What is tattva? These things are absent completely from the whole world. But everything is there. Therefore we are presenting Bhagavad-gītā as it is. If people take it they'll be benefited. This simple mission. We are following Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission. Caitanya Mahāprabhu has said that you become guru. Everyone become guru. So how shall I become guru? Very simple thing.

āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra' ei deśa

yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa

(CC Madhya 7.128)

Bās. Simply if we repeat what is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, then we become guru. And if you can convince a person, one person, then you get your . . . but no. They are creating their own manufactured knowledge, manufactured process, and exploiting Bhagavad-gītā. What is said in the Bhagavad-gītā, they'll never say. They'll take a Bhagavad-gītā and pose himself that, "I am a great scholar of Bhagavad-gītā. I have got my own interpretation that I go to hell and you go to hell." That's all.

Indian reporter: What does, as you were telling about Gandhi and Aurobindo or Tilak or Gyaneshwar . . . what . . .

Prabhupāda: No, no. Why you are asking? You study then whether they have spoken something else or Bhagavad-gītā. It is your business. Why you are asking me? But we say anyone who says against Bhagavad-gītā, he's a rascal.

Indian reporter: No, but they have said something in favor of Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: But I don't see that they have made one single kṛṣṇa-bhakta, neither they were kṛṣṇa-bhakta. What kind of Bhagavad-gītā they have read I do not know. I see by the result. Last word of Bhagavad-gītā is man-manā bhava mad-bhakto . . . (BG 18.65). Mām eva . . . sarva-dharmān. That is study of Bhagavad-gītā. They do not speak of Kṛṣṇa anywhere that, "Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Person, you become a devotee." Now how he has read Bhagavad-gītā? I shall take it? Simply by jugglery of words? We have to see the result. They have neither made one kṛṣṇa-bhakta, neither they were kṛṣṇa-bhakta. How he has read Bhagavad-gītā? Tell me. This is the test. They . . . whole country is after Gandhi or Aurobindo or big, big . . . but who is kṛṣṇa-bhakta under their direction? Now we are simply following Caitanya Mahāprabhu, yāre dekha tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Just see. Thousands are become kṛṣṇa-bhakta. See by practical.

Indian reporter: Simply by chanting "Kṛṣṇa."

Prabhupāda: Whatever Kṛṣṇa has said we are speaking. That's all. We have no botheration. We haven't got to manufacture ideas. And that is being effective. See practically. Similarly, if you do that, the whole world will be student of Bhagavad-gītā. And if you manufacture your nonsense idea it is useless. Sa kāleneha yogo naṣṭaḥ parantapa (BG 4.2). Bās. Naṣhṭ. Jo cheez naṣhṭ, hogaya. (That's all, it is destroyed—that which is destroyed.) If it is lost, if it is decomposed, then what will be the benefit? Suppose if I supply you some nice foodstuff but it is rotten, naṣṭa, then what benefit you'll get? If I give you some fresh prepared nice foodstuff, you'll get some benefit out of it. But if I give you rotten thing in the name of foodstuff, then what benefit you'll get? So Kṛṣṇa says as soon as you break this paramparā system it is rotten. So by jugglery of our words, if you present rotten things, what benefit they will get?

Indian reporter: What is your message for Indian people?

Prabhupāda: That people take Bhagavad-gītā as it is. You'll be benefited, the whole world will be benefited. Our thing is simple. It is stated there, yāre dekha tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa' . . . (CC Madhya 7.128). You learn first of all Bhagavad-gītā as it is, and you preach. They are hankering after.

Indian reporter: What do you think of miracle saints? The saints who perform miracles?

Prabhupāda: Miracles? Why do you want miracles? What miracle? Can you save a man from death? Can you show this miracle? This miracle means cheating. The real problem is janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi (BG 13.9).

Indian reporter: No, but can a saint . . .

Prabhupāda: Why you are after miracles?

Indian reporter: No, but one thing. Is it possible for a saint at certain stage of sādhana to perform miracles?

Prabhupāda: That is cheating. Here, in the Bhagavad-gītā, you don't find anywhere that you show miracles. He says, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). He never says: "You show miracles." These are all rascals. You become His bhakta. That is the greatest miracle. And He guarantees, mām evaiṣyasi asaṁśayaṁ. That is miracle. What is this miracle, cheating other people by showing some magic or jugglery of words? These are miracles? That is cheating.

Indian reporter: But to a layman what would you preach?

Prabhupāda: Layman, if he does not go to the right man he'll suffer. What can be done?

Indian reporter: But where should it begin?

Prabhupāda: Begin when one who is kṛṣṇa-bhakta. Begin there.

tad viddhi praṇipātena

paripraśnena sevayā

upadekṣyanti te jñānaṁ

jñāninas tattva . . .

(BG 4.34)

Who has seen actually Kṛṣṇa, go to him. But you are going to somebody who can manufacture gold. Because you are not concerned with Kṛṣṇa, you are concerned with gold. That is your motive. So you must be cheated. You want to be cheated. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum (SB 7.5.31). They do not know. Life's mission is how to achieve the platform where I can talk with Kṛṣṇa, I can talk with Lord. Where is that? Nobody knows that. They do not believe there is Kṛṣṇa, there is Lord, there is God and you can see Him, you can talk with Him. They do not believe. Mostly impersonalists. And impersonalists, they're all mostly atheists. So what they'll do by jugglery and this magic? This magic will be finished within twenty or thirty years. That will be finished. Show this magic that, "No! No more death." That is real magic. What is this magic? In a moment you'll be slapped and go. Then tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). You do not know where you are going. Kṛṣṇa says, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ. But you do not know what kind of body you are going to get. So what this magic will do? So these are for less intelligent persons. They are not for sane persons.

Indian reporter: For spreading this movement in India, are you hopeful it will be?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Those who are sincere. Those who are after jugglery, magic . . .

Indian reporter: They will not come.

Prabhupāda: They will be cheated.

Indian doctor: Śrīla Prabhupāda, the medical we are preparing . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: So now it is late. So you stay, take prasāda.

Indian doctor: No, I'm . . . I am here only for three, four times a year, and get everything done. I'll give instruction in writing, they will write it down, and I'll be there till evening or five tomorrow and go out for the preparation. These are to be taken with the bath.

Prabhupāda: All right. Do it.

Indian doctor: It is prepared.

Prabhupāda: For the time being, what I took yesterday, my lunch, I'll take. And these things we can begin from tomorrow, because it is already arranged.

Indian doctor: No, pills can be taken. (break)

Indian reporter: It is there in śāstras.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And if you don't care for the śāstras, if you manufacture your own way, then, as it is stated, na siddhiṁ sāvāpnoti (BG 16.23). You'll never be successful. Na sukhaṁ na parāṁ gatim. Neither happiness nor better life will be next or the supreme goal. These things finished. Yaḥ śāstra-vidhim utsṛjya vartate kāma-kārataḥ (BG 16.23). If you do not take the guidance of the śāstra then all your hope is finished. You can hope, but you'll never be. This is our . . . therefore we follow the śāstras and we teach others to follow śāstras. If you like, you can do. Otherwise, do whatever you like. But you don't manufacture and spoil my life and others. You don't do.

Indian reporter: There was some trouble with your movement in America recently.

Prabhupāda: We don't care for this trouble. If you are sincere, it is all right. We are facing so many difficulties. We don't care for it. We never compromise. All my students, they will never compromise. Why shall I compromise? If I am confident that I am speaking the truth, why shall I make compromise? Those who are not confident of his position, they will make compromise. One who does not know where he stands, he will make compromise. And if I know where I am standing, why shall I make compromise? Let others do whatever he likes. This is our position.

Indian reporter: Do not strain guru too much, because . . .

Devotees: Thank you very much. (offer obeisances) (break)

Prabhupāda: Most important movement. Aap bhi samjhiye. (You also understand.) You are in a good position. Try to convince others. Life should be for para-upakāra, not exploiting. This is India's mission. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu says:

bhārata-bhūmite manuṣya-janma haila yāra

janma sārthaka kari' kara para-upakāra

(CC Adi 9.41)

This is India's . . . anyone who has taken birth in India, first of all make his life perfect by understanding the śāstra. The gist of śāstra is Bhagavad-gītā. And then distribute the knowledge, para-upakāra. This should be India's mission. India hasn't got to learn from anywhere else. Everything is there. Let him understand the whole philosophy of life perfectly and distribute this. This is India's mission. So I have tried alone on this point. So I have got little success. And before me so many svāmīs, yogīs went there. They came and go—no effect. Now I have created a community which will continue. They're now saying: "American Hindus." Therefore there is opposition. They understand, "Now it will stand." It is not that Vivekananda's daridra-nārāyaṇa-sevā . . . (indistinct)

Indian reporter: Something permanent.

Prabhupāda: Heh?

Indian reporter: Something permanent here.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Jaya. (end)