740213 - Conversation B - Vrndavana
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Dr. Kapoor: (Hindi) As I understand (indistinct—moving of mic). The export minister C. D. Gupta. C. D. Gupta, the old chief minister, you see. He is coming, and I take it they have arranged a program in his honor. I don't know how they will make this program fit in. I don't think...
Indian man: (Hindi)
Dr. Kapoor: At the same time. (break)
Prabhupāda: In the road they are announcing that "Śrī Bhaktivedanta Swami American śiṣyas..."
Dr. Kapoor: I heard the announcement, but that was on the (indistinct) hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana mandāl, I think. You have your (indistinct)?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Kapoor: The other program is on behalf of...
Prabhupāda: (indistinct).
Dr. Kapoor: Hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana mandāl.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā.
Dr. Kapoor: That is exclusively for you.
Prabhupāda: Hmm.
Dr. Kapoor: But I don't know how they have arranged with this other program, but I was told that this C. D. Gupta, the ex–chief minister, is coming.
Guest (Indian man): At Śrījī Mandir?
Dr. Kapoor: Śrījī Mandir. (indistinct conversation in background with Indian guest) You not from here?
Guest (Indian man): No, no I have just arrived. I'm not from here.
Dr. Kapoor: I was told by responsible person that C. D. Gupta is coming to see the temple at four o'clock. I don't know. At any rate, I may be wrong. It's (indistinct), you see. They shouldn't make the two programs coincide. (pause) Prabhupada is working wonders through you?
Prabhupāda: (laughing) It is by your blessings.
Dr. Kapoor: Wonders (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: I do not know how Kṛṣṇa is making plans. I am sometimes myself puzzled. (laughter)
Dr. Kapoor: Yes, Sir because you are just an instrument. (laughter).
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Kapoor: You are just an instrument, you see.
Prabhupāda: Just like Kavirāja Gosvāmī also writes that "I do not know how things are coming, but with my hand is getting written." It is something like that.
Dr. Kapoor: Yes, yes. It cannot be, cannot but be (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so nice. Even by His consciousness it acts faultlessly.
Dr. Kapoor: It acts immediately.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Kapoor: Yes (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: Ahaituki.
Dr. Kapoor: Huh?
Prabhupāda:
- vāsudeve bhagavati
- bhakti-yogaḥ prayojitaḥ
- janayaty āśu vairāgyam
- jñānaṁ ca yad ahaituki
- (SB 1.2.7)
Dr. Kapoor: Ahaituki. Hmm.
Prabhupāda: Jñāna-vairāgya, janayaty āśu, ahaituki. Nobody knows how we do.
Dr. Kapoor: That's true.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Kapoor: That's true. But the wonder is that it didn't act so far, you see. It didn't act when Bon Mahārāja went out. It didn't act when a proper program, and a number of other people, you see. It has started acting only now. (laughter)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Hmm.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Do you know what the address of Indore is?
Prabhupāda: What?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Address, Indore? (break)
Dr. Kapoor: (Bengali) Just that I was saying that we require, you see, in this age.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Kapoor: Just that I was saying.
Prabhupāda: Simply they were binding, or something else.
Dr. Kapoor: No, not only the outside (laughter), the outside. And the people, particularly in the West, you see, will not be impressed simply with the outside.
Prabhupāda: It is selling like anything. Our Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, you have seen it?
Dr. Kapoor: Huh?
Prabhupāda: I am presenting Bhagavad-gītā As It Is.
Dr. Kapoor: Huh.
Prabhupāda: So that Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, published by Macmillan Company.
Dr. Kapoor: Huh. No, I haven't read it through, but I saw the publication.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So they are having every year one edition.
Dr. Kapoor: Hmm. I see. Wonderful.
Prabhupāda: Yes, for the last..., it has begun from 1968, it is still going on. Every year, they publish and they send me royalty, $2,000.
Dr. Kapoor: Good.
Gurudāsa: Dr. (indistinct) has read Nectar of Devotion.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Devotee: (indistinct) has read Nectar of Devotion.
Dr. Kapoor: Nectar of Devotion I have read. That's wonderfully done.
Prabhupāda: You like it? Oh, yes.
Dr. Kapoor: It's nectar, really.
Prabhupāda: Dr. Kapoor, what is your age now? I think you are a little younger than me.
Dr. Kapoor: I think I am pretty younger than you.
Prabhupāda: Ah, what is your age now?
Dr. Kapoor: I am sixty-two, now; sixty-three, sixty-three.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Ten years. Not ten years; nine years.
Dr. Kapoor: Nine years.
Prabhupāda: Yes, because when you were a student, at that time we are family man.
Dr. Kapoor: Yes, when I had just finished my university career, I think...
Prabhupāda: In Allahabad, when you were living at that...
Dr. Kapoor: Gauḍīya Maṭha.
Prabhupāda: Gauḍīya Maṭha, I think you were student then.
Dr. Kapoor: I had just, I think, I was a research student then. I had just taken my M.A. and I was working as a research scholar. I met Giri Mahārāja in 1931 when he did some (indistinct) at Nainital.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Dr. Kapoor: He first introduced me to Mahāprabhu, you see, or introduced Mahāprabhu to me. You see, before that I was a (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: But your teeth are very strong.
Dr. Kapoor: Teeth are...?
Prabhupāda: You're having strong teeth.
Dr. Kapoor: Well, they are, so long as you don't know that it is not real ones. (laughter)
Devotee: That is māyā. (more laughing by Dr. Kapoor)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Dr. Kapoor: She was here only a couple of days ago. My youngest son was married on the 20th (indistinct)...
Prabhupāda: Ah, yes, I heard.
Dr. Kapoor: So they came in that connection.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Dr. Kapoor: I have two sons and two daughters. The eldest one is the one you know.
Prabhupāda: Oh, in Kanpur.
Dr. Kapoor: In Kanpur.
Prabhupāda: Dhawan.
Dr. Kapoor: Dhawan, Dhawan. Yes, she also knows you very well.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, I was Dhawan's guest sometimes.
Dr. Kapoor: You were his guest, yes, yes. My son-in-law was telling me.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Kapoor: He was telling me.
Prabhupāda: I think that gentleman is no longer alive.
Dr. Kapoor: His father is no more.
Prabhupāda: No... Yes, I am speaking of the old Dhawan.
Dr. Kapoor: Ah, I see.
Prabhupāda: Even though he was a young man.
Dr. Kapoor: Ah, he was a young man. When did you go to Kanpur?
Prabhupāda: I think I went to Kanpur sometimes in the year 1956.
Dr. Kapoor: Fifty-six?
Prabhupāda: Yes, '55. (Bengali—greets visitor)
Guest: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Śrījī
Dr. Kapoor: Śrījī, Śrījī (Hindi).
Guest: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) (break) ...kalau nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyathā (CC Adi 17.21). (Hindi conversations) "Let me try." On this principle I went, with determination. (Hindi) Yasya prasādad bhagavat prasādo **. (break) (Bengali) ...seventy dollars per month. Seventy dollars means seven hundred rupees. So expenditure was over 2,000 rupees according to our Indian calculation.
Dr. Kapoor: And, uh...
Prabhupāda: The income was nil.
Dr. Kapoor: Nil. How much money did you carry with you?
Prabhupāda: Forty rupees.
Dr. Kapoor: Forty rupees?
Prabhupāda: Yes. But I could not spend, because there was no exchange for Indian currency. No (laughter). So it was kept as it is. When I came back in 1967, that was spent as my taxi fare (laughter). At that time it was spent. From Palam airport to Delhi, that Chippiwada, so they charged me thirty-five rupees or forty rupees. So at that time it was spent, and 1967 there was heart attack.
Dr. Kapoor: Oh.
Prabhupāda: Yes. I was hospitalized, but I did not like the hospital. So I thought that "Now I shall die, let me go back to Vṛndāvana." (Hindi)
Dr. Kapoor: Yes, it was 1967, wasn't it?
Prabhupāda: 1967, yes.
Dr. Kapoor: So it was after the heart attack that you came here?
Prabhupāda: Yes. At that time. Then there was repeated letters, "Come back, come back." So I returned in 1968. So, in spite of heart weakness, I worked. I suffered that weakness continually for one year.
Dr. Kapoor: Naturally, naturally.
Prabhupāda: Then I was taking kavirāja's medicine. I took it from here, that Yogendranātha. That gave me good strength, and massage the body, not taking bath in cold water. In this way, somehow or other, still going on.
Dr. Kapoor: Now I think you would be more useful if you took more rest, spend as little as what Hare Kṛṣṇa...
Prabhupāda: What? Rest (Hindi).
Dr. Kapoor: No, even then, (Hindi).
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Dr. Kapoor: Even if you go by plane.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Kapoor: That means straight. So if you stay at one place, that's a different kind of life, you see. It's not so strenuous. You move around from place to place...
Prabhupāda: But I have got sixty-six branches, so if I do not go some time at least, they also become little depressed.
Dr. Kapoor: That is true, but you'll have to find some way out. You have to...
Prabhupāda: I have constituted one Governing Body as Prabhupāda desired, Governing Body, but still they are not so experienced. (loud kirtan) (Hindi)
Dr. Kapoor: You would more than happy... devote yourself to reading and writing (indistinct) than going about.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Dr. Kapoor: Have a small center here in Vṛndāvana, and you should make this your permanent place for this. Once or twice you may go here and there.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Dr. Kapoor: Would Vṛndāvana not be more suitable?
Prabhupāda: Vṛndāvana is very suitable, but... (Hindi to other guests)
Guest (Indian man): I am going to inform something. I am pañca-śāstri(?).
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Guest: I am Vedānti gold medallist. I am gold medallist in Vaiṣṇava śāstra. (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Guest: If you let me, I wish to give life.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Guest: Sixty, about sixty. I want to give my life for this religion.
Prabhupāda: Oh, that's good.
Guest: Prabhupāda, let's meet.
Prabhupāda: Oh, you remain with us.
Guest: Practically I am very weak.
Prabhupāda: Mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate (CC Madhya 17.80).
Guest: Now my hope is successful. I have seen you.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Guest: Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Guest: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi with guest)
Guest: (Hindi) I am very encouraged to read your book which is written by Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: You have seen some of my books?
Guest: Mmm.
Prabhupāda: So you can read.
Guest: I am willing to read and the see it and...
Prabhupāda: (aside) So, first of all give him our Bhagavad-gītā As It Is to read. (Hindi conversation) (break) (Hindi) Copper plates.
Dr. Kapoor: Well, I think it will be about five hundred pages. (Hindi conversation)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi, talking about the different centers and Indians) ...especially Punjabis.
Dr. Kapoor: They are all over.
Prabhupāda: Ah, Punjabis, Gujaratis.
Dr. Kapoor: Gujaratis also. Hmm.
Prabhupāda: And Sindhis. Gujaratis are more.
Dr. Kapoor: Huh! I see.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. In San Francisco there are many Gujaratis, Patels.
Dr. Kapoor: Patels. Hare Kṛṣṇa. So how did you manage immediately after landing in USA?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Manage... When I got only two hundred dollars in hand, at that time immediately I rented a storefront.
Dr. Kapoor: A?
Prabhupāda: Storefront.
Dr. Kapoor: Huh.
Prabhupāda: A shop.
Dr. Kapoor: Oh.
Prabhupāda: It was hundred and twenty-five dollars. And I got opportunity, also, the same building, one small apartment, seventy-two dollars, or seventy dollars..., no, seventy-five, seventy-five. In this way, two hundred dollars per month. So I had only two hundred dollars, I immediately advanced and took the risk of two hundred dollars.
Gurudāsa: That was a year after you went.
Prabhupāda: Yes. In 1966. I went there in 1965. So, then...
Dr. Kapoor: No, but from '65 to '66 how did you manage? You didn't have any money with you.
Prabhupāda: Managed by selling my books.
Dr. Kapoor: Oh.
Prabhupāda: Bhāgavatam.
Dr. Kapoor: I see.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Kapoor: I see. You carried your books with you?
Prabhupāda: Yes, I took two hundred sets of books.
Dr. Kapoor: I see.
Prabhupāda: So I was taking the stock to the booksellers there or some institution or some friend. In this way, sixteen dollars, the full set sixteen dollars. In this way collecting. (break) ...that gentleman who carried me in his car, he is Mr. Kashinath Servan. (break) ...Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, a large edition, this size, eleven hundred pages.
Dr. Kapoor: I see.
Gurudāsa: We should let Dr. Karan Singh patronize...
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Gurudāsa: ...an Indian edition of it. We should let Dr. Karan Singh patronize an Indian edition of it, without..., with one photo. As he was suggesting, let him patronize it, the Indian printing.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Gurudāsa: Because there is so much demand. He wants to see it. He wants to see it.
Prabhupāda: So why don't you get the manuscript and let us have an Indian edition. I told Rūpānuga that the difficulty is that the enlarged edition, when we are attempting to publish, Macmillan says that "We are publishing your book. Why not we, we publish?" If we publish, then we save our investment to publish. That has not been decided, so therefore I advised my secretary in New York that Macmillan's permission or no permission, you should immediately print. If they print it is all right; otherwise print ourself.
Dr. Kapoor: Haven't you given the copyright to them?
Prabhupāda: No, copyright is mine.
Dr. Kapoor: Oh.
Guest (5): Can you get..., get it published in India?
Prabhupāda: In India, yes. No, by publisher, especially publisher like Macmillan, you save so much time and investment also. We are not for profit. We want to see the publication is in the market, so in that sense we save so much trouble. But they always look after their business profit.
Dr. Kapoor: Naturally.
Prabhupāda: In the beginning also I requested them to publish the whole, but they said, "No, it will be very big; it will be costly. You reduce it to 400 pages." So that 1100 pages were reduced to 400 pages. Now when people are demanding this Bhagavad-gītā As It Is... People are coming. When our saṅkīrtana party goes in the street, many gentlemen comes and demands, "Have you got Bhaktivedanta's Bhagavad-gītā As It Is?"
Dr. Kapoor: Hmm, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes, they demand it. In every center it is going on very nicely. Then we have many customer requested the enlarged edition. So... So everything is ready. Now this controversy, that Macmillan will publish or we shall publish.
Dr. Kapoor: There is no doubt that you will be saving a lot of trouble (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: And they have got good organization.
Dr. Kapoor: Good organization they have got.
Prabhupāda: All over the world.
Dr. Kapoor: They'll sell more. They'll sell more.
Prabhupāda: Actually, because it was published by Macmillan Company, it has become widely circulated; people are demanding.
Dr. Kapoor: I think you should let them publish.
Prabhupāda: That I am trying, but it has not been decided. But anyway, it will be published very soon.
Gurudāsa: Even if they do publish it, they will not distribute it in India.
Prabhupāda: Yes, in that sense we may publish in India.
Dr. Kapoor: You may have an agreement with them, that you have a cheaper Indian edition, which you will sell only in India. You can give them the right to sell it all over the world.
Prabhupāda: I have asked that Shishu Kumar. Shishu Kumar you know?
Gurudāsa: No.
Prabhupāda: The Atmarama & Son's proprietor.
Gurudāsa: Oh, yes, yes.
Prabhupāda: He came to see me.
Gurudāsa: Yes, I know.
Prabhupāda: So I asked him the quotation of that small edition of Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. He told me that he will inform me. Anyway (Hindi). (break)
Guest (2): (Hindi).
Prabhupāda: Whenever I take ticket, round trip. (Hindi conversation) (break) Ye 'nye ca pāpā, śudhyanti, prabhaviṣṇave namaḥ (SB 2.4.18). Bhāgavata says.
Guest (2): (chants Sanskrit mantra) Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa-bhakti development (Hindi). (break) ...creation. (Hindi)
Guest (2): Before creation, the kṛṣṇa-bhakti was in Vaikuṇṭha, seva-loka.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guest (2): After creation it came from...
Prabhupāda: Tene brahma hṛdā, ādi-kavaye. Tene brahma. Brahma means before the creation. Aham evasam agre. Before creation Kṛṣṇa was there, and it was..., the kṛṣṇa-bhakti was injected within the heart of Brahmā. (Hindi) (break) ...three to four hours at night, and one hour or one and half hour, altogether five hours. Gosvāmīs (Hindi conversation) ...brahma-bhūtaḥ. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate (BG 14.26).
Guest (2): (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: Bhagavaty uttama-śloke bhaktir bhavati naiṣṭhikī (SB 1.2.18). Uttama-śloke. Uttama (Hindi conversation).
Guest (2): Minor accident with the bus (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: Oh. Padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadām. (laughter) Tat padma vipad. Padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ na teṣām (SB 10.14.58).
Guest (2): (Hindi) ...accident.
Prabhupāda: Tell me.
Dr. Kapoor: Once, you see, I was going from Janpur to Benares, with (indistinct) in the same car, and when I went on a crossing a badly loaded truck, you see...
Prabhupāda: Oh, so...
Dr. Kapoor: ...struck against our car, you see, and the car bounced, it jumped. It's about four or five feet from the ground, and it fell upside down, and there was not a scratch, I tell you. Not one of us was hurt. Not one of us. And a car out on the roadside, so he and one passenger, they were both killed.
Prabhupāda: Killed?
Dr. Kapoor: Killed.
Guest (2): I think that happened to us. At that time you remembered Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa, at that time. He remembers Śrī Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān.
Dr. Kapoor: Baba, I did not (indistinct). (laughter)
Prabhupāda: He remembers Kṛṣṇa always.
Dr. Kapoor: But Kṛṣṇa remembered me (laughter), and you see, this is my experience, you see, on such occasions, if you are dedicated to Kṛṣṇa, even if you don't remember Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa remembers you always. Kṛṣṇa remembers always.
Prabhupāda: That is the special...
Dr. Kapoor: It is as much Kṛṣṇa's responsibility to remember us in times of adversity as it is ours to remember Him. But we are mortals, and we are likely to forget Him.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi conversation)
- śraddhā-śābde viśvāsa sudṛḍha niścaya
- kṛṣṇe bhakti kaile sarva-karma kṛta haya
- (CC Madhya 22.62)
Śraddhā. Our Vaiṣṇava philosophy (Hindi) śraddhā-śābde viśvāsa, full faith, viśvāsa, or sudṛḍha niścaya. (Hindi) Kṛṣṇe bhakti kaile sarva-karma kṛta haya. If one becomes dovetailed in the service of the Lord, Kṛṣṇa, then everything is done nicely. Śraddhā-śābde viśvāsa sudṛḍha niścaya.
Dr. Kapoor: And people are really astounded to see śraddhā, especially śraddhā and guru in your disciples. That is the one thing that is clear to everybody.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Kapoor: It is not (indistinct).
Gurudāsa: What is that śraddhā?
Prabhupāda: Śraddha means faith in spiritual master. They are praising your faith in...
Dr. Kapoor: People are impressed very much by your guru-bhakti. (laughter) (Hindi)
Gurudāsa: If they associated with Śrīla Prabhupāda they would not... (break) (end)
- 1974 - Conversations
- 1974 - Lectures and Conversations
- 1974 - Lectures, Conversations and Letters
- 1974-02 - Lectures, Conversations and Letters
- Conversations - India
- Conversations - India, Vrndavana
- Lectures, Conversations and Letters - India
- Lectures, Conversations and Letters - India, Vrndavana
- Lectures and Conversations - Hindi
- 1974 - New Transcriptions - Released in October 2014