731105 - Conversation A - Delhi

Conversations by Date, 1973

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

731105R1-DELHI - November 05, 1973 - 09:14 Minutes

Prabhupāda: Viśvāso naiva kartavyaḥ strīṣu rāja-kuleṣu ca. She's both. (laughter) Cāṇakya Paṇḍita, "Never trust woman and politician," and she's both. (laughs)

Gurudāsa: But she's actually better at telling a lie than the other people. She's very clever.

Prabhupāda: They will have to come to this point gradually. They're disappointed. Life is not very pleasing. Politics life is not . . . even Gandhi, such an exalted man, on the day he was killed, he was the same.

(break) . . . he said. He actually prayed to God, "My death may come," because he was so much disappointed. Thousands of complaints, thousands of demands, thousands of varieties. The politician . . . (indistinct) . . . and everyone has to be satisfied. And if he's not satisfied, he'll plan something else.

Nowadays political position is very . . . the same example: uṣṭra, uṣṭra, a camel. Camel is eating his own blood, and still he is thinking, "I am very happy." So this . . . everyone in this material world, especially the politician, they're eating their own blood, but for the position they're thinking, "Oh, I am so happy."

Gurudāsa: Yesterday she rode to work in a horse cart.

Prabhupāda: Ah?

Gurudāsa: Yesterday, the prime minister rode to work in a horse cart to demonstrate that she would not utilize petrol due to the high price of gas.

Prabhupāda: So where to get the horses?

Gurudāsa: (laughs) Someone said that, that "How you will feed the horses, 'cause you can't get wheat?"

Prabhupāda: All their plans have failed. You see? This is the . . . Nanda was one of the planning commission. This rascal is now rejected. Now he is observed by the C.I.D man. When government has ordered the . . . (indistinct) . . . so one friend in Benares, he was anarchist—at least his brother was—and his brother was hanged. So naturally his family was observed by police department. I was guest in his house.

At Benares, when walking I saw that man is coming, "Oh, what is this man who is coming here?" "Oh, he's my bodyguard," he said. And "What is this bodyguard?" He said the whole story, foolish . . . (indistinct) . . . so when I went to the station, the policeman. And the policeman, when I got in train, police were advised another policeman. I thought, "He is coming with me also?" (laughs) Then when I came to Allahabad station I did not see anybody else. They didn't . . . (break) What other, what he has written?

Gurudāsa: Memo to all presidents . . . (break)

Guest: Like I was saying, though, he never . . . I wouldn't . . . I couldn't put a name on the philosophy, but he would give his teachings, you know? It wasn't so strict, you know. It wasn't as organized a program as here. He would say . . . he would more often give . . .

Prabhupāda: What . . . was he worshiping any deity?

Guest: Hanumān. He said that, you know, you should, erm, you should serve the humanity.

Prabhupāda: Uh?

Guest: Serve humanity, feed . . .

Prabhupāda: That is the general proposition everywhere.

Guest: Right. It was nothing special. I couldn't . . . I wouldn't know what to tell you. He was not a philosophic . . . he was not philosophically-oriented, you know. He was more, he was . . . . well, as we know now, it was just towards the end of his life, you know. He was . . .

Prabhupāda: Approved line?

Guest: He never talked about his guru, about his line of succession. He never told us who his guru was. Or he wouldn't talk about his early life either. The reason I stayed with him so long was because he gave me more love, you know, than I'd ever experienced before. He was just nicer to me than anyone else had ever been. He was . . .

Prabhupāda: No, he was a good man, there is no doubt.

Guest: Yes, he was a very good man. I wouldn't really know what to say, you know—he's a saint or a guru or . . .

Prabhupāda: Now what is the situation of the āśrama?

Guest: Well, I found out the āśrama is run by . . . there's trustees. There's one man in Lucknow who I've never met, who's the head of the trustees. Then there are businessmen . . .

Prabhupāda: What is the activities?

Guest: The activity is minimal, you know. They, erm . . . now that he's gone away, the presence of the Westerners even is discouraged in the temple.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Guest: We go in for darśana of the samādhi, and his takht is there on which he used to sit. But the people in the āśrama now, you know, they want you to leave as soon as possible. They don't feed us anymore there.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Guest: We don't get food or chai anymore now that Bala's gone.

Prabhupāda: They want you to go away?

Guest: They don't allow any Westerners now to stay in that āśrama. And there's so many rooms, thirty or forty beautiful rooms, like some of the nicest in Vṛndāvana.

Gurudāsa: That Goenka dharmaśālā?

Guest: That we can stay in, but I mean in the āśrama itself, which is in the back of the Hanumān temple. I was . . . in fact I was the only one allowed to even stay in the Goenka dharmaśālā, because I happened to know Mr. Goenka, you know. That was just a chance thing, though, you know.

Prabhupāda: Where is Goenka?

Gurudāsa: You know Mr. Goenka from Pak . . .

(break)

Guest: It's got the original Sanskrit, word-for-word meaning, literal translation, but the purport isn't anything like . . . no-one else's . . . (indistinct background voices) Thank you. Hare Krsna.

Prabhupāda: What is that letter?

Gurudāsa: A letter to Mukunda inviting him to stay in London temple.

Prabhupāda: Oh, you are going to London?

Guest: Tonight.

Prabhupāda: Oh. (break)

(Prabhupāda is being massaged)

Gurudāsa: . . . Svarūpa Dāmodara

Prabhupāda: Svarūpa Dāmodara? He is not chanting?

Gurudāsa: He is chanting nothing. (laughing)

Devotee (2): He's watching . . . (laughing)

Prabhupāda: Something I can give him to eat? . . . (indistinct) . . . so that boy, I used to say, "Can I put something in your belly?" (laughs) Immediately . . . (indistinct)

Śrutakīrti: In Los Angeles it was nice—we were giving the cookies out after lectures.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (end)