720929 - Morning Walk - Los Angeles

Morning Walks by Date, 1972

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

720929MW-LOS ANGELES - September 29, 1972 - 12:22 Minutes

(in car)

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) . . . here is your transport. We are trying to send back to home, back to Godhead. This is real transport.

Jayatīrtha: If you're going to travel, you should go to a worthwhile place. There's no reason to waste time.

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) . . . the outer space, but they do not know where to go.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: These scientists, they are trying to travel in the outer space, but they do not know where to go.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, that's a fact. Because . . . they are just wandering in the wild.

Prabhupāda: That's all . . . (indistinct) . . . beyond the sky there is another sky . . . (indistinct) . . . and we are trying to go there according to the perfect knowledge . . . (indistinct) . . . (break) . . . of knowledge is misunderstanding, so how they can get perfect knowledge? If you begin from mistake, misconception, then where is your perfect knowledge?

The beginning is this body. Beyond this body, they have no knowledge. Their rascal knowledge . . . this rascal knowledge, how they can help you? Anything, suppose any mathematical calculation, if the beginning is wrong, then how you come to the right conclusion? What do you think?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, when the . . .

Jayatīrtha: In logic, if the hypothesis is wrong then the conclusion is wrong.

Prabhupāda: The hypothesis is always wrong.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: If the starting point is wrong, then there is nothing . . .

Prabhupāda: Then there cannot be any perfect knowledge. So the modern so-called scientists, philosophers, their starting point is wrong. Just like a great scientist . . . Darwin is a scientist?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: He's not a scientist. He's called a naturalist.

Prabhupāda: Naturalist. Anyway, you can call him philosopher. So the basic point is wrong. Starting is wrong. Starting point is mistake and illusion. Therefore the next point is cheating. If you start from wrong conception of life, then if you distribute knowledge, that means cheating.

You do not know; still you are distributing knowledge. But this rascal Darwin, he has no clear idea. He is simply theorizing, speculating, and misleading people. Therefore he is cheating.

So if I cheat you and you cheat me, then how you can expect perfection of life? It is a society of cheating. And that is actually going on. Everyone is thinking, "How I have gorgeous way cheated you." That is politics, diplomacy. If you can cheat your friend very cleverly, then you are supposed to be very big man. Big lawyer means the law is there, but if he can cheat the law, then he is big lawyer.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So this is the symptom of Kali-yuga.

Prabhupāda: Not Kali-yuga. This is the symptom of conditioned soul. It is very prominent now in this age. Conditioned soul means these four defects—to commit mistake, to become illusioned, to cheat others and imperfectness of the senses.

The scientists say that, "We do not know." That means imperfectness of sense. I am trying to see, but the cloud is checking me, and I am considering beyond this cloud there is nothing. That is imperfectness of my seeing. Not . . . it is not a fact that beyond the cloud there is nothing.

So these things are going on—cheating, illusion, mistake and imperfect. And they are trying to come to a right conclusion. Just like somebody was telling that there is going to be a big conference of the Catholics to consider what wrong they have done.

They can see that the people are rejecting the so-called Christian religion. So now they are thinking . . . (indistinct) . . . but it is also another cheating. They are deliberately violating the principles of Christian religion, and still they say: "What we have done?"

Devotee (2): The theme was "Where did we go wrong?"

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Devotee (2): The theme was "Where did we go wrong?"

Prabhupāda: Christ says that, "Thou shall not kill." They are killing every moment, and still they say: "What we have done?" How nonsense they are, and they are heads of the Christian religion. They are violating in every step . . .

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The leaders.

Prabhupāda: . . . the injunction of the scripture, and still they say: "We do not know." So many drunkards priest, they are going to hospital for treatment, and they are eating, and they are getting married man to man, and still they say: "We do not know what we have done." Just see how cheaters they are.

Jayatīrtha: In the last six years . . .

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Jayatīrtha: In the last six years in the Catholic church, 25,000 priests have left and taken up . . .

Prabhupāda: 75,000?

Jayatīrtha: 25,000 in six years.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Jayatīrtha: Have left the Catholic church, priests.

Prabhupāda: Left.

Jayatīrtha: Ordained priests. They have left and gone off to marry or whatever. Especially they are concerned that they can't marry. Catholic priests are not allowed to marry.

Prabhupāda: Marry? They are marrying man to man, what to speak of marrying. Sodomy.

Jayatīrtha: So that's the alternative. Either they're leaving or they're marrying man to man.

Prabhupāda: Homosex. They are supporting homosex. So degraded, and still they say: "What you have done?" They do not know what is degradation, and they are priest. They are teaching others. They do not know what is the meaning of degradation.

Jayatīrtha: They themselves are doing it.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So if the leader is degraded, how can the followers . . .

Prabhupāda: Similarly, scientists, they do not know what is imperfection, and they are scientist.

Devotee (2): The thing about the blind leading the blind.

Prabhupāda: This is going on.

Jayatīrtha: Also, they aren't able to attract any new priests. In their seminaries, the enrollment has gone down to ten to fifteen percent of what it was previously.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Jayatīrtha: They can't get anyone to come and join their seminaries, because they aren't teaching anything, just . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: What they will teach? What do they know? First of all you must know, then you will teach. You are rascal, what you will teach? That is another cheating. He does not know anything, he is a teacher. People want it. Just like these rascals are advertising, these gurus, they say: "You haven't got to chant. You simply come to Guru Mahārāja."

That means these people, because we have got so many restrictions, he has to chant, he has to follow, they think it is botheration. So that means immediately they want to be cheated. Therefore another cheater is welcomed. They want to be cheated, so when a cheater comes, he is welcomed, "Oh, you are very nice. You are so simple, and this Swāmījī is so strict." So they want to be cheated. Therefore God sends a cheater, "Go and cheat them."

Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is why the individual is lacking intelligence. He doesn't know whether he's cheated on.

Prabhupāda: No, he has got intelligence, but he wants to be cheated, wants cheap things. Just like our . . . who has left? Saṅkarṣaṇa? Is that his name?

Jayatīrtha: Kapiladeva.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Kapiladeva.

Prabhupāda: Kapiladeva. He has gone to that camp. He saw, "It is very difficult to follow the rules and regulation. Better go there." He wants to be cheated.

Jayatīrtha: If something is valuable, the price will be high.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Is it like that, Śrīla Prabhupāda, the English . . . (break) (end)