760106 - Morning Walk - Nellore

Morning Walks by Date, 1976

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Listen to a 'Nectar Drop' created from this Morning Walk

760106MW-NELLORE - January 06, 1976 - 45:19 Minutes

Acyutānanda: It is called Mahāprabhu sādhana. It is on record that that is the house where Caitanya Mahaprabhu spent catur-masya. (break) Yes, he arranged fabulous programs for us. There were almost ten thousand people there.

Prabhupāda: There is good potency in South India.

Acyutānanda: Oh, yes, it is very promising.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya.

Mahāmṣa: He is secretary of our committee over here, and president of the Rotary Club in Nellore.

Prabhupāda: So your arrangement was very nice. Thank you. Hmm. Where is that wrapper? These cottages are very nice. (break)

Mahāmṣa: His father is donating for Kṛṣṇa's Deity.

Prabhupāda: Oh. And who is donating for the temple?

Mahāmṣa: They will . . . We will find out. I will find out.

Harikeśa: Is there a path that goes down there?

Acyutānanda: It's shallow. (break) . . .that the Vaiṣṇavas say that the gold ring is smaller in quantity than the gold mine, but the only way in this material world . . . That is only a material example, because something can be separated from the general mass, because there are many different elements. You can tell the difference between a gold ring and a gold mine because there is air and space. But there is ekaṁ brahma dvitīyaṁ nāsti, there is only Brahman, so you cannot say that there is a big Brahman and a part-and-parcel Brahman. The words "part and parcel" you have only written into the śrutis for your own . . .

Prabhupāda: So that is not your rascal's imagination. It is spoken by the Lord Himself. Mamaivāṁśaḥ. He is not rascal like you, that He will say something which is mistake.

Acyutānanda: No, that is only during His avatāra He says that.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. He says like that; we have to accept it. Bhagavad-gītā as it is.

Acyutānanda: In the lower stage.

Prabhupāda: Lower stage not . . . That is . . . You are in the lower stage. You cannot understand. But what He says, that is right. Mamaivāṁśaḥ, sanātana, "eternally amara." It is not that made aṁśa at the present time. Sanātana. From . . . From the very beginning.

Acyutānanda: Then it is contradictory.

Prabhupāda: No contradictory. It is not contradictory. He says, mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ (BG 15.7), that "These jīvas, they are eternally My aṁśa." It is not that because now in the material world it has become fragmented.

Acyutānanda: How can there be any truth outside the Lord?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Acyutānanda: How can there be any truth separate from the Lord, like a gold ring separate from the mine?

Prabhupāda: Yes, but whatever the Lord says, that is truth. Not your statement is truth.

Acyutānanda: No, just like if I say . . .

Prabhupāda: You cannot say.

Acyutānanda: . . .you should dress warmly. You should dress warmly now.

Prabhupāda: No, no. You cannot say.

Acyutānanda: And then I come in the summer, and you still are dressing warmly—it's for time and circumstance, only immediately.

Prabhupāda: No. That is spiritual fragment, eternally existing. Nityo nityānāṁ cetana . . . There are always plural number and singular number.

Acyutānanda: How can there be any truth separate from the Lord? Eka brahma.

Prabhupāda: No, it is not separate. You are thinking separate.

Acyutānanda: No, a gold ring is separate from the gold mine. That is your . . .

Prabhupāda: No, no, that is your material conception. But everything is . . .

Acyutānanda: Yes, that is a material example. The example came from you Vaiṣṇavas. We do not make . . .

Prabhupāda: No.

Acyutānanda: We go directly from the śruti, ekaṁ brahma dvitīyaṁ nāsti.

Prabhupāda: Then you don't accept Bhagavad-gītā.

Acyutānanda: There cannot be anything in between.

Prabhupāda: Then you don't accept Bhagavad-gītā.

Acyutānanda: We also accept. During avatāra these things may go on, but actually . . .

Yaśodānandana: Ultimately everything will become one. The jīvātmā will become one with the Paramātmā. The Advaitavādī . . .

Prabhupāda: It is already one. That is Viśiṣṭādvaitavāda.

Acyutānanda: Yes, but it appears differently.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Acyutānanda: But actually there is no difference.

Prabhupāda: No.

Acyutānanda: So we are one with God.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Acyutānanda: So we are one.

Prabhupāda: Why one? You are one and different, bhedābheda, acintya-bhedābheda-tattva, simultaneously one and different. Just like this. This is one and different. The children have come from the body—that is one—but still, they are different. Even in the hogs and pigs the acintya-bhedābheda-tattva is there. (break) The word should be nābheda sanātana. (break)

Acyutānanda: It is different only during the manifestation of prakṛti, but actually it is not . . .

Prabhupāda: Just like in Vṛndāvana. They are one, but still, there are trees, there are flowers, there are water, there are calves, there are cows, there are gopīs—but they are all one. Ānanda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhiḥ (BS 5.37). All of them are ānanda-cinmaya-rasa. Nirviśeṣavādīs . . . It is not nirviśeṣavāda. Sa-viśeṣa. What is this? (Hindi comment by man) Just see, it is already "Hare Kṛṣṇa land." (laughter)

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Foundation was laid in December '74, but no work has been done since then.

Prabhupāda: So why not let us have this land? We can develop.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very nice land, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Right by the lake.

Acyutānanda: It already has our name. If the Bhagavad-gītā is in the Mahābhārata as itihāsa, how did it get the name Upaniṣad, Gītopaniṣad?

Prabhupāda: Because it is spoken by Kṛṣṇa. Itihāsa also Vedic literature. Pañcama-veda, Mahābhārata, for understanding of the common man. Strī-śūdra-dvija-bandhūnāṁ trayi na śruti-gocarāḥ (SB 1.4.25). Woman, śūdra and dvija-bandhu, they cannot understand directly the Vedas.

Acyutānanda: But even Bhisma, when he was on the battlefield, he said, "I have given up my bheda-jña," so he became one.

Prabhupāda: One you are already. Because you are foolish, you cannot understand. That is abheda. I am not different. Just like my finger is not different from me. If the finger thinks, "I am different from the body," that is ignorance.

Yaśodānandana: Just as we say that ignorance consists of not understanding the difference between the jīva and the Paramātmā, the Māyāvādī says that ignorance means to understand the difference between jīva and Paramātmā.

Prabhupāda: So then they difference. They admit that there is difference, if they say like that, that "There is difference."

Yaśodānandana: But they say that oneness, that is the real knowledge.

Prabhupāda: No, no. That's all right. But why they say "different"?

Yaśodānandana: They say to see that our vision of difference, that our vision of difference, that is ignorance. When we understand the jīvātmā to be different from God, from Bhagavān, that is ignorance.

Prabhupāda: No. No.

Yaśodānandana: That your vision of seeing God . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes. So we admit that, that when we see that "I am separate from . . ." Then the same example: If the finger thinks that it is separate from the body, that is ignorance, because the finger is required by the body to serve the body. So if he thinks, "No, I'll not serve you because I am different," that is ignorance. That is ignorance. That is going on. These Māyāvādīs, they refuse to serve God. That is ignorance. If they are part and parcel of God or one with God, how you can refuse to serve? That is ignorance. Here the finger is my part and parcel of the body. It cannot refuse to serve. I say; immediately it comes. So if the finger thinks that "I am one. Why shall I serve the whole body?" that is ignorance. Cetana. Cetana means activity. So if I am one with God, then my activities should be simultaneously with God. That is oneness. I don't disagree. God says, "You do it"; I disagree. God says, "You surrender unto Me," but I refuse. So that is ignorance. If I am actually one with God, just I am asking, "You do this"—you do immediately. But if you do not do it, that is ignorance. Gurur avajñā. Then he becomes aparādhī. Similarly, oneness means no disagreement. That is oneness, cetana. Cetana means I can disagree or agree. Two things are there. That is cetana. So cetana, cetanaś cetanānaṁ. So when God says that "You do it," you must do it. That is agreement. That is oneness. If you refuse, that is ignorance. How can you refuse? Suppose you . . . Take the whole family, and the head of the families asks somebody to do something. If he refuses, then that is rebellious condition. In the state the citizen must agree with the government. Cetana. Cetana means he has got both the things. If he likes, he can agree; if he likes, he does not agree.

Vasughoṣa: So their big word is that you merge and you become that. So how . . .

Prabhupāda: That is merging. They do not know what is merging. Merging means "I, so long I was disagreeing; now I agree to abide by Your . . ." That is merging. Just like several states they merge into one. So they agree to work unitedly. That is merging. Merging does not mean that you have got your discretion and that is finished. That is not merging. Then your cetana is lost. How it can be lost?

Mahāmṣa: What about the analogy that many rivers flow into the same sea and lose their individuality?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Mahāmṣa: Their example is that many rivers, they flow into one sea, and then they lose their individuality.

Prabhupāda: Because they are short-sighted, blind, that there are many individual living entities within the river. But they are blind. They cannot see them. Because it is covered by water they see only the water is there. Because they are blind, rascals, they cannot see. But if they go deep into the water they will see there are so many individuals, millions, and they are living in the same river.

Harikeśa: But there's no difference between the individual living entity and the total . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes, there is no difference. Still, that is . . . That is acintya-bheda . . . That is individuality and no individuality. So long they are living there within the river, there is no individuality.

Acyutānanda: That example is also a jugglery of words, because the . . . Let's say the Mississippi River is the quantity of water that's on the land. When it goes into the ocean you don't say that "Now the Mississippi River is in the ocean." Mississippi River is still individual, and the ocean is another thing.

Prabhupāda: The Mississippi is not finished.

Mahāmṣa: And the water molecules . . .

Prabhupāda: And not only that, the water is again taken away, and it is thrown into the Mississippi. So these rascals who think that "We have now merged. We are now liberated," that is rascaldom. They will be taken away and thrown again. Āruhya kṛcchreṇa . . . No, this is fact. Āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adhaḥ (SB 10.2.32). They cannot stay. They will be taken away by the nature's law, converted into cloud and thrown away, again come, again come. They are thrown away. They cannot stay. And again they become water and come through. That is going on, coming and going. So their merging is not fact.

Yaśodānandana: Vimukta-māninaḥ.

Prabhupāda: Yes, vimukta-māninaḥ. Yes. (break)

Mahāmṣa: . . .oṁ tad viṣṇoḥ paramaṁ padam. That claims Viṣṇu as the Supreme, but where does it say that Viṣṇu . . . I mean Kṛṣṇa, is the source of Viṣṇu from the śrutis?

Prabhupāda: Śruti . . . Brahmā said, īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ (BS 5.1).

Acyutānanda: Brahma-saṁhitā is śruti.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Brahmā spoke śruti, Vedas, so whatever he speaks is śruti. It is therefore called saṁhitā. Saṁhitā means Vedas, śruti. As soon as it is called saṁhitā, that is Vedas. (break)

Acyutānanda: . . .comprises the examination for bhaktivedanta and bhakti-śāstrī?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Acyutānanda: There was talk that they would be given examinations.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.

Acyutānanda: What is the syllabus for . . .?

Prabhupāda: Whatever books we have got, it should be studied. Bhakti-śāstrī means Nectar of Devotion, Bhagavad-gītā, Nectar of Instruction, Beyond Death—in this way we select some ten books. That is bhakti-śāstrī.

Acyutānanda: So when will that . . .

Prabhupāda: Then we come to Bhāgavata, then we come to Caitanya-caritāmṛta, in this way.

Acyutānanda: That'll be wonderful.

Prabhupāda: So from next year, unless one passes bhakti-śāstrī, he cannot be second-initiated. First initiation is open for everyone: "Come on. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa." That will purify him. Then let him understand what is bhakti.

Yaśodānandana: This is very good, because then those that will become second . . . those that will have second initiation will have to know the scriptures, will have to know your books.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is . . . Now there is . . .

Mahāmṣa: And unless they know your books, they will never be fixed-up devotees.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Acyutānanda: Many times people give second initiation because they need a pūjārī in the temple.

Prabhupāda: No.

Acyutānanda: So they give. (break)

Mahāmṣa: . . .different Purāṇas have different Gītās, Prabhupāda? So some person said that there is a Gaṇeśa-gītā. Similarly, there are different demigods, they speak their Gītā. And they also say . . .

Acyutānanda: Universal form.

Mahāmṣa: They show the universal form, or they say that they are paraṁ brahma paraṁ dhāma (BG 10.12). They say the same things in their Gītās.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Let them do that. We take Bhagavad-gītā. That's all. Śaṅkarācārya also—Bhagavad-gītā kiñcid adhītā. If Bhagavad-gītā is understood a little only, he becomes liberated.

Acyutānanda: Then why should it be called the Bhagavad-gītā and not the Kṛṣṇa-gītā? Kṛṣṇa is referred to as Bhagavān.

Prabhupāda: Huh? Bhagavad-gītā, not Bhāgavata-gita.

Acyutānanda: No, Bhagavata, because He is . . . The others are not Bhagavata.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam (SB 1.3.28). Kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam. Bhagavān, that I explained so many times. Bhagavān everyone, little possessing opulence.

Acyutānanda: But these other Gītās are named after the demigod.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. He can be called bhagavān. He is not ordinary man. He can be called. But the real Bhaga . . . Kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam. That is the . . . The real Bhagavān is here, but these demigods, they have got little opulences, not equal to Kṛṣṇa. Therefore they are sometimes called Bhagavān.

Acyutānanda: But their Gītās are not called Bhagavad-gītā; they are called by their . . .

Mahāmṣa: But do they have the potency to show the universal form?

Prabhupāda: Who?

Mahāmṣa: These demigods?

Prabhupāda: Yes. What is that universal form? It is nothing. Any powerful living being can do that.

Yaśodānandana: In the other Vaiṣṇava-sampradāyas, such as the Madhva-sampradāya and the Rāmānuja-sampradāya, they do not understand that Kṛṣṇa has His own planet, Goloka Vṛndāvana. They think that there is only Vaikuṇṭha and nothing else.

Prabhupāda: Their knowledge is imperfect. In the Brahma-saṁhitā it is said, goloka-nāmni nija-dhāmni tale ca tasya (BS 5.43).

Yaśodānandana: That is why when Caitanya Mahāprabhu came back to Purī, He said, "I have met many Rāmānujas, many Mādhvas, many Buddhists, but I like Rāmānanda Rāya very much because he has this knowledge of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa."

Acyutānanda: In South India there are very few Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa devotees. And what they have is from some Purāṇas, the marriage of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. They perform Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa kalyana, marriage.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is that bona fide, Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Acyutānanda: In the Brahma-vaivarta . . . So a court case appeared. One man had some property in the name of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities. So the court said, "You only have the quota for one family." So he argued that Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa are not married; They are two separate families, so They should have double quota of land. So he won the case on that. But if somebody came from the South, he said, "No, They can be married also," he would have lost.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think, Prabhupāda, there is . . . you wrote . . .

Acyutānanda: Brahma-vaivarta Purāṇa.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: . . .there's a ceremony where Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are, I think, married.

Yaśodānandana: Brahma-vaivarta Purāṇa I heard, that They were married by Brahmā in secret. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . .lands are being distributed.

Acyutānanda: To the bhaṅgīs.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Distributed?

Prabhupāda: These lands are being distributed?

Indian man: Distributed to the poor people. All these lands. . . . (indistinct) . . .

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Legally they are being distributed?

Indian man: Yes, legally, by government.

Prabhupāda: Is there any question last night? No.

Acyutānanda: No, nobody put last night. The majority is English-speaking audience, then questions and answers flow smoothly. (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: . . .a latrine arranged yesterday, but . . . (break)

Acyutānanda: . . .water continuing for very long. What is the problem there?

Yaśodānandana: Is that a cancer hospital? (break)

Indian man: No. Is there any social activity which this Hare Kṛṣṇa movement has taken?

Prabhupāda: So what is the best social activity? Our is the best social . . .

Indian man: Serving the poor and the needy . . .

Prabhupāda: Everyone is poor. Who is rich? First of all find out: who is rich?

Indian man: Rich in the sense, luxurious living . . .

Prabhupāda: He is not living very luxuriously, that he has no disease, he does not become old. Does not become?

Indian man: No.

Prabhupāda: Then? Then where is richness?

Indian man: Somebody questioned me yesterday.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Indian man: "There are so many things. Doing any social activities?"

Prabhupāda: No, these things are being done by so many others, people; we are doing something which is ultimate. There the hospital gives some medicine when there is some disease, but that does not mean there will be no disease. Can they guarantee that "I give you this medicine—no more disease"? We are giving that medicine, that no more disease. That is the best social work. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). We are giving this medicine, that after leaving this body . . . So far this body is concerned, somehow or other you pass on. And as soon as you give up this body—tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti—you'll have no more birth. And if you have no more birth, there will be no more death. And if you have no more birth, then there will be no more disease. This is our prescription. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti (BG 4.9). Not that he is finished. He goes back to home, back to Godhead. This is our program. So your question is answered or not? Huh? Your question is answered or not? Your question is answered or not?

Indian man: Not fully.

Acyutānanda: Do you understand?

Indian man: Yes, I understand.

Prabhupāda: Why it is not fully?

Indian man: It is, after all, question put by a layman.

Prabhupāda: Why you should "layman"? Why you should not "wise man"? Why you should insist to remain a layman? Why you are persisting to remain a layman? Why?

Indian man: Because they want . . .

Prabhupāda: "They" not. What I am talking with you. They are all foolish. We call them mūḍhas, duṣkṛtino mūḍhas. So their demand is not legitimate. If a mūḍha . . . If your small child says, "Father, give me a bidi, cigarette," would you give him? Because he is mūḍha. So the father is intelligent—"No." So similarly, the mūḍhas may demand that "Open this hospital." But we are not going to do that. We know . . . Of course, hospital required so far the body is concerned, but there are so many hospitals. The real hospital which is not existing, we are starting with. That is our mission, which is not possible for the so-called leaders and politicians. Try to clear this.

Yaśodānandana: Once you mentioned the story that when you were young you saw a mother running across the street in Calcutta beating her child because his brother had typhoid fever and he fed him the paratha.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Acyutānanda: Even socially, though, without religious, scientific, practical God consciousness, how can there be a civilization? How can anyone know that there's a difference between right and wrong or morality unless there is God consciousness, to know that someone is watching everything I do? If you avoid that . . . Just like we say, they want Rāma-rājya without Rāma. But they want the rājya.

Prabhupāda: Now, the laws and legislative assembly there are, and there is punishment, there is court—everything there is. That we were discussing last night, that where is the honest men? Why? In spite of laws, legislative assembly, court and everything, the wholesale rogues and dishonest. Then what is the use of this? What is your answer? Why you are checked on the airport just like a culprit, criminal? They cannot trust even a gentleman. Although he is educated, may be holding very good office, but still, he is not to be trusted. So this is the result of your so-called function, that there is no honest man throughout the whole world. Then what is the use of such education? And what is the use of their living? Let them die. No hospital for them.

Acyutānanda: A man in Calcutta, he was a devotee, rich also. He had some kidney thing. He wanted to go to the Calcutta hospital. They said, "All the beds are full of Naxalites with bomb wounds and stab wounds and fighting wounds."

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Acyutānanda: He could not get a bed in the hospital because it was full of guṇḍās. Hospitals were all full of guṇḍās.

Yaśodānandana: In America they have the highest quality of hospitals and schools and everything, but yet the young people are turning to be hippies. You have mentioned that in the introduction to your Nectar of Devotion.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. What is the use of such education?

Indian man: So your education which you gave may be something like . . . not like that. . . . (indistinct) . . .

Prabhupāda: Education means to do the right thing, not the wrong thing. That is education. Education means enlightenment, to know what is right, what is wrong. That is education.

Harikeśa: It's 7:15, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Harikeśa: It's 7:15.

Prabhupāda: On the street there is signboard, "Keep to the left" or "Keep to the right." This is education. This is education. One must know how to run the car which side. Education means enlightenment. If you foolishly do something, immediately you become criminal. So education means to enlighten them to know what is right, what is wrong. That is education. But people do not know that. What is the meaning of education? (break)

Mahāmṣa: Actually, in all the schools the young people are learning all the bad habits from the schools. Instead of getting to learn how to do right things, they are learning to do all wrong things because of association with people from low families.

Vāsughoṣa: And they even have sex education in school. They are teaching people how to be rogues.

Prabhupāda: Our education is first of all to become brahmacārī, and the modern education is how to become vyabhicārī, this rascal education. And for this purpose there are big, big universities, vice chancellor, and so on, so on.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Now everything is so degraded that in American universities they have coeducational toilets.

Prabhupāda: Gradually they are becoming animals, or they are already animals.

Mahāmṣa: The principal of my school, he used to be a priest, and he used to give us these classes whereby he would tell the students that one must experience sex life before marriage. He was propagating illicit sex life in school, and being a principal and from a priestly class of person. So degraded. (break)

Yaśodānandana: . . .called Ahobilam. Caitanya Mahāprabhu also went there. And the paṇḍitas there, they have reference from the Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa . . . (break) . . .was killed by Lord Nṛsiṁha. There is the room, the palace and everything. (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Chipped rice?

Mahāmṣa: No, that was sugar.

Prabhupāda: Sugar? Salt.

Harikeśa: That's the way their salt is here.

Acyutānanda: In blocks?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Rock salt.

Prabhupāda: Not rock salt. Sea salt.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They get it from here?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Sea. Not here; where there is sea.

Yaśodānandana: The sea is just fourteen miles away.

Prabhupāda: Shallow water, when it is dried by the sunshine they get salt. Evaporation is done by sunshine, and they get the salt. Practically they get the salt without any cost, and whatever they get, money, they are satisfied.

Acyutānanda: Why is the sea salty? Science can't . . . They have no answer.

Mahāmṣa: Sweet water is falling, and it is becoming salty.

Prabhupāda: Salt means earth. Earth. So in the water there is earth. Bhumir āpaḥ. So within the water there is earth. And within the fire there is water. And within the air there is fire. Sukṣmaṁ to sthūla. From sky to land. These are the different transformation stages. (break) Nehru? Nehru. (break) Eat rice only?

Indian man: Yes, rice only. No capātis.

Yaśodānandana: Yes, in South India they only eat rice. In Mysore we had a meal, the gentleman served us nine different kinds of rice.

Acyutānanda: Nava-dhānya.

Yaśodānandana: Nava-dhānya. Rice with yogurt, rice with chilies, rice with dāl, rice with everything.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is system in South India—with rice, everything. Just like in North India we make purī, kachorī, balusai, sṛṅgāra. There is ghee, wheat, and sugar and salt, varieties, hundreds of variety.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Maybe it has something to do with the weather.

Prabhupāda: huh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The colder weather?

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, that in northern India, when there is some festival they will purchase, I mean to say, grains, means wheat and chānnā, and ghee and sugar. Then they will make hundreds of preparation out of it.

Indian man: Here we call it as poṅgal. Make it as poṅgal, we call it. It's chānnā, ghee and sugar. We prepare it in . . .

Prabhupāda: Lugḍu? You prepare lugdu? They prepare so many things. The main ingredient is this: besan, āttā, ghee, sugar. That's all. (break) . . .also they eat rice more. (break)

Mahāmṣa: . . .left in Mysore. In Gujarat also.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But Bengal tiger . . .

Acyutānanda: That's . . . They've all been shot. (break)

Prabhupāda: First of all understand what is meditation. Do you understand what is meditation? Do you understand?

Indian man: . . . (indistinct) . . .

Prabhupāda: What is meditation?

Indian man (2): Giving all thoughts . . . Coming to pure silence of the mind.

Prabhupāda: So how you can be silent? Is it possible?

Indian man (2): No, just by some sādhana.

Prabhupāda: Silent is also . . . (dog barking) The stones are silent. Does it mean meditation?

Indian man (2): But mind cannot be silent. The mind must be made to . . . (indistinct) . . ..

Harikeśa: Hut!

Prabhupāda: So then how you can make silent?

Indian man (2): By seeing God in everything.

Prabhupāda: Meditation is not silence. That is wrong idea. Meditation means to think of God. That is meditation.

Indian man (2): Brahma-bhāvana. Prabhupāda: Brahma-bhāvana is also not practical. Parabrahma-bhāvana, kṛṣṇa-bhāvana. That is Kṛṣṇa conscious.

Indian man (2): Supreme Lord.

Prabhupāda: That is real meditation. Meditation does not mean to make the mind vacant. No, a wrong. People are thinking like that. It cannot be. One girl—that is written—"Sir, meditation to make the mind out of all thoughts." So she said . . . she thought that "How can I be without thoughts? This 'without thought,' I'll think—that is a thought. Therefore it is bogus." He threw away this meditation book.

Indian man (2): No, thinking about the God's thought, in course of time it will be empty. Mind will be empty.

Prabhupāda: So unless you come . . .. According to your idea, unless you come to that emptiness, you are not perfect. But that will never come.

Indian man (2): Then only it will be empty.

Prabhupāda: That will never come. Therefore it is bogus. You cannot . . .

Indian man (2): In the beginning it is bogus, but the result is . . .

Prabhupāda: No, no. In the beginning bogus and it is always bogus, because mind cannot be without thought. So why do you propose "without thought"? That is not possible. Therefore it is bogus.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What is the beauty of having emptiness?

Prabhupāda: That is another . . . Emptiness means he is troubled by so many anxieties; therefore he wants to make it empty.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's simply negative.

Prabhupāda: Negative idea. That is material idea. That is not spiritual.

Mahāmṣa: Nowadays people are going in silence, but they write questions and answers by paper. They say, "I am observing silence . . ."

Prabhupāda: As if there is no sound.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In Allahabad we met a man like that. He was moving around so much that he was more active than if he had talked.

Prabhupāda: No, that "ooohh." That is the . . .

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Even Gulzarilal Nanda, I have heard, one day a week, on Sunday, it's his silence day. He doesn't speak to anyone on Sunday.

Acyutānanda: Yes, Mahatma Gandhi.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's a good day to ask him for a donation. (break)

Prabhupāda: What is the use of becoming silent? What is the utility?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: For people who are rascals it is a very good idea. Then they won't talk nonsense.

Prabhupāda: Yes. For them it is all right.

Mahāmṣa: It is good for them.

Prabhupāda: Because they cannot speak anything good, better remain silent. (break) . . .chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, yan-nāma śruti-mātrena pumān bhavati nirmalaḥ (SB 9.5.16). Simply by hearing he'll become purified. So why we shall become silent? Let them hear.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Right. Satataṁ kīrtayanto mām (BG 9.14).

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Constantly chanting.

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa says, satataṁ kīrtayanto mām. Why . . . Never said that "You become silent." Where is? Can you show me any verse in the Bhagavad-gītā? Huh? Can you show me any verse where Kṛṣṇa has advised that you become silent? Or the mind is vacant? Where these things . . .

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto (BG 18.65).

Prabhupāda: Huh. Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto: "The mind should be absorbed in My thought," man-manā. That is recommended. Where does He say that "Make your mind vacant and think of nonsense"? He never says. And where does He say that you become silent? He never says.

ya idaṁ paramaṁ guhyaṁ

mad-bhakteṣv abhidāsyati

na ca tasmān manusyeṣu

kaścid me priya-kṛttamaḥ

(BG 18.68)

"Anyone who speaks about this Bhagavad-gītā, he is My dearmost friend," He said. So why one should be silent? Our ultimate aim is how to become dearmost to Kṛṣṇa. And He never says that "You become silent." Why shall I become silent? Satataṁ kīrtayanto mām (BG 9.14). Rather, He recommends that "You always be engaged in glorifying Me." Where is the "silent"? These are all manufactured by these rascals. So many: meditation, silence—these are not recommended in the Bhagavad-gītā. (end)