760609 - Conversation B - Los Angeles

Conversations by Date, 1976

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Listen to a 'Nectar Drop' created from this Conversation

760609R2-LOS ANGELES - June 09, 1976 - 29:37 Minutes

Prabhupāda: . . . could not eat one cāpāṭi. (laughter) Later on: "Bring more!"

Kīrtanānanda: Prabhupāda was feeding us all from his own plate.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Sit down. (break) Some spoon?

Hari-śauri: Yes, it's a new spoon. I think Jagannātha-sūta bought it, and a few others.

Prabhupāda: That article is very nice, Jagannātha's . . .

Hari-śauri: Er, Jagajīvana.

Prabhupāda: Jagajīvana. Jagajīvana.

Hari-śauri: There's one article that he wrote for the BTG and a reply that . . . (indistinct) . . . made. Prabhupāda just read the article.

Kīrtanānanda: I brought some pictures.

Prabhupāda: Ah, very nice, the Deities. (tape interference) . . . Kiśora-Kiśorī.

Kīrtanānanda: Oh, it's beautiful.

Prabhupāda: Yes . . . (break) . . . different colors?

Kīrtanānanda: They have many different outfits.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Kīrtanānanda: All of the mukuṭas and the jewelry, everything is made there at New Vrindavan. We have very expert, ah, makers. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . can have so many engagement. Simply by making dress, we remain Kṛṣṇa conscious. Simply by cooking, we remain Kṛṣṇa conscious. Simply by cleansing the floor, we remain Kṛṣṇa conscious. Easiest method. Everyone can remain Kṛṣṇa conscious in any circumstance. Ahaituky apratihatā (SB 1.2.6). It is not condition that "You have to become like this; then you'll become Kṛṣṇa conscious." No. In whatever position you are, you become Kṛṣṇa conscious. No extra intelligence required.

Śrī-vigrahārādhana-nitya-nānā-śṛṅgāra-tan-mandira-mārjanādau. Either you dress the Deity or you cleanse the floor of the temple, the same thing. You get the result the same. Tan-mandira-mārjanādesu. Anything you do. Somebody is cleansing, somebody is chanting, somebody is cooking, somebody is printing, somebody is selling books—everything is Kṛṣṇa conscious. And that is the best yoga. Sa me yuktatamo mataḥ. Yoginām api sarveṣām (BG 6.47): "Of all the yogīs, who is thinking of Me, always in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, is the topmost yogī." "By meditation I am trying to become God." "By meditation one can become God." This is their foolish theory. Kṛṣṇa, when He exhibited His godly power at the age of three months, where was meditation? (laughs) God is always God. You cannot become by meditation God. You can become godly; that is possible.

Hari-śauri: People become very enamored by this mystic display. You were speaking about mystic power, and peo . . .

Prabhupāda: Four annas. (laughter) For four annas I'll have to try for four hundred years. Why mystic power? To show some jugglery—"How I can fly in the sky, I can walk on the water"—by this mystic power, they create amazement and become imitation God.

Hari-śauri: And then get some money.

Prabhupāda: Imitation God you can become, but you cannot become real God. That is not possible. That is warned. Mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat (BG 7.7). That's all. Asamordhva: "Nobody equal to Me; nobody better than Me." So why should you waste your time to become God? You cannot become actually. So why should you waste your time? Remain servant. Then you're actually . . . (aside) Get this light. No, not that. Inside. You can give me little pineapple juice. Is it possible?

Hari-śauri: Right now?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hari-śauri: Yes.

Prabhupāda: You can sit down here. Then also for mahārājas. So when you started from New Vrindavan?

Kīrtanānanda: This morning.

Prabhupāda: And you are coming directly here?

Kīrtanānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: By plane?

Kīrtanānanda: Yes. I left New Vrindavan about nine o'clock. The plane left Pittsburgh at 11:30.

Prabhupāda: To Los Angeles.

Kīrtanānanda: Arrived here at 3:15.

Prabhupāda: Pittsburgh.

Kīrtanānanda: We stopped in Chicago for one hour.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Kīrtanānanda: You go to Detroit from here?

Prabhupāda: Hmm. That is the program.

Rāmeśvara: Satsvarūpa Mahārāja and Jayādvaita will be in Detroit also.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Rāmeśvara: Anxiously waiting.

Prabhupāda: You have seen our Detroit, new?

Kīrtanānanda: No.

Prabhupāda: Oh, it is a great palace.

Kīrtanānanda: I have heard it is very nice.

Prabhupāda: It was constructed by spending six million dollars. (laughs)

Kīrtanānanda: Many years ago.

Prabhupāda: Yes, and it is nice palace, and we got it for 300,000.

Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda personally made the arrangement.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes. That man was asking 350,000, so, just like ordinary arrangement, ten percent downpayment, so I made a bargain, "All right, I'll give you 300,000 cash. Accept it." So he immediately accepted. (laughs) There was no money. Then one girl contributed 150,000, and . . .

Kīrtanānanda: Is that the Reuther girl?

Rāmeśvara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: And our Ford, Ambarīṣa Mahārāja, he's also given

Hari-śauri: They have some fresh pineapples and a juicing machine just across the road, so someone has gone for some now. It'll be five minutes.

Prabhupāda: You have seen the new publication?

Kīrtanānanda: Which?

Prabhupāda: Of Bhāgavatam.

Kīrtanānanda: I was just looking at it. He was saying that you had two copies, and I said: "Ask for one."

Prabhupāda: Yes, you may take.

Kīrtanānanda: They are getting better and better.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And our Rāmeśvara Mahārāja is guiding them.

Kīrtanānanda: Yes, he's very expert.

Prabhupāda: Where is the other copy? Other copy?

Rāmeśvara: Other copy.

Hari-śauri: You want to see?

Devotee: It's in here.

Prabhupāda: That gentleman who came, sitting in chair.

Hari-śauri: That Indian man.

Prabhupāda: Ah, Indian.

Kīrtanānanda: The print is larger in this volume?

Rāmeśvara: It's the new standard since the Fifth Canto.

Prabhupāda: You have seen?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No, I just . . . I typed a little.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I read a little.

Hari-śauri: The juice should be two minutes. Śrīla Prabhupāda, the pictures in this new Bhāgavatam are the best yet. (background talking)

Hṛdayānanda: These books will satisfy everyone, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Hṛdayānanda: These books will satisfy everyone's desires.

Hari-śauri: If they want blood and thunder, it's this. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: So you can give one shirt to him and one shirt to . . .

Hari-śauri: He's getting one now.

Prabhupāda: Oh, he has got.

Hari-śauri: He's got one. He's getting one for Hṛdayānanda Mahārāja.

Devotee: Prabhupāda is giving him one of his personal shirts.

Jagadīśa: A lawyer, he's come to see your darśana in the garden for the last two nights. He's been giving us a lot of assistance in our legal needs. He seems to be very inquisitive about Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He's downstairs now. I wonder if he could come up.

Prabhupāda: He has some inquiries?

Jagadīśa: Well, he seems to be eating up the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, very eager to hear.

Prabhupāda: Hmm.

Jagadīśa: He's downstairs right now.

Rāmeśvara: He's charging us lower rates, doing . . . working as hard as he can for us at practically no profit to himself.

Prabhupāda: Yes, something must be given.

Jagadīśa: Can I ask him to come up now?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hṛdayānanda: This is the greatest gift, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Rāmeśvara: The greatest contribution, Prabhupāda said.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda has asked that all the sannyāsīs take one shirt. (break) (guest enters)

Prabhupāda: He wants chair? No.

Rāmeśvara: He likes sitting Indian style. (Prabhupāda laughs)

Jay Warner: No, this is fine, thank you.

Rāmeśvara: His name is Jay Warner.

Prabhupāda: Yes, I . . . Ācarati śreṣṭhas tat tad evetaro janaḥ (BG 3.21): "Anything which is accepted by leading men, that is accepted by others." So you are one of the leading men in the society, lawyer. If you understand our philosophy, then many others will follow. So kindly try to understand our philosophy thoroughly, and then others will follow, "He's a big lawyer. He's a Kṛṣṇa conscious man." If you have any doubt, you can ask. We will try to explain. Asaṁśayaṁ samagraṁ māṁ yathā jñāsyasi tac chṛṇu (BG 7.1). Find out this verse. (break) It must be distinct from other paintings.

Kīrtanānanda: Who did that painting?

Prabhupāda: I think that one was done . . . everyone has done one picture.

Hari-śauri: That picture of Lord Nṛsiṁha-deva killing all the demon armies, it's a most amazing picture. He has about twenty arms.

Jay Warner: I do have one question. How can one establish faith in the principle of reincarnation? How can one come to believe in it?

Prabhupāda: Incarnation of God?

Devotees: Reincarnation, transmigration.

Prabhupāda: That is very simple thing. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. Now, you were a child. That's a fact. Were you not a child?

Hṛdayānanda: You were a child before.

Jay Warner: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Where is that body?

Jay Warner: Where is the body of the child?

Prabhupāda: Yes. You were a child. Where is that body?

Jay Warner: It has grown into a man.

Prabhupāda: Grown, or it is changed? The same thing. But that child, that body, is no more existing. Is it not?

Jay Warner: Yes, it is gone.

Prabhupāda: The body may vanquished, but you are going through. That is incarnation. The child body is vanquished, it is no more existing. Either you say grow or I may say it has changed, that body is finished. Is it not?

Jay Warner: Yes.

Prabhupāda: But you are still existing.

Jay Warner: I still feel that I am myself.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That means you were in the child's body and you are in this young man's body. So you are existing, but the body has changed. What is the difficulty to understand?

Jay Warner: Where is it difficult to answer?

Devotees: (all at once) What is the difficulty to understand?

Prabhupāda: You are . . . when the child's body, that body, is no more existing, you are in a different body.

Jay Warner: The difficulty for me reaches from the moment, retroactively, before the moment of birth, or past the moment of death. How can one come to have faith that there is life after one leaves his body?

Prabhupāda: This is the proof. A child may not understand that there is, after his childhood body, there is another body, boyhood body or youthhood body. He may not understand. But that is the fact. If the child says: "There is no more body. This is the final body," that is not the fact. He is going to get another body, which is boy's body, young man's body, old man's body. Similarly, you may believe or not believe, you are going to get another body. The proof is that you have no more the child's body, you have got a different body. The common sense reasoning.

Jay Warner: That is true. But the difficulty for me is that although my spirit wants to believe in transmigration, the scientific upbringing that was inculcated in me from a child has a hard time . . .

Prabhupāda: What is that scientific?

Jay Warner: Through empirical evidence, through evidence . . .

Prabhupāda: This is the evidence. I ask you, "Show me your childhood body." Where it is? Can you show? That is finished. So if the childhood body finished, you get another body, boyhood body. Similarly, the conclusion should be that after this body—I am old man, it will be finished—then I'll get another body.

Jay Warner: That makes sense.

Prabhupāda: Very common sense. But we are so dull-headed we cannot understand.

Jay Warner: I am so what?

Prabhupāda: We are so dull-headed.

Devotees: We, dull-headed . . . (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Just like in the, what is called, movie spool . . .

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Film strip.

Prabhupāda: Film, yes. There are hundreds of bodies in the film, and when they are played, it seems that it's the same—one man is moving—but actually, in the film there are hundreds of bodies, but it is changing so swiftly it appears one.

Jay Warner: A man's eye cannot see it changing.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Jay Warner: A man's eye cannot see it change.

Prabhupāda: Yes. By nature's law it is changing every second in such swift way that we cannot understand it.

Jay Warner: How does one give up the fear of dying?

Prabhupāda: There is no death. You change body. Because the body is lost, you are no more, you do not possess the childhood body, youthhood body, that does not mean you are dead. You are living; the body has changed. But because we do not know the science, we think, "The body is finished; therefore he's dead." Therefore you have to learn Bhagavad-gītā—na jāyate na mriyate vā kadācit (BG 2.20). Find out the verse.

Hṛdayānanda: "For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain."

Prabhupāda: That's it. So as a lawyer, when there is some dispute, you refer to the lawbook. Similarly, when there is dispute how the soul is immortal, the body is changing, you refer to Bhagavad-gītā. You find it clear, na jāyate na mriyate, clearly said. Explain?

Hṛdayānanda: Purport? "Qualitatively, the small atomic fragmental part of the Supreme Spirit is one with the Supreme. He undergoes no changes like the body. Sometimes the soul is called the steady . . ."

Prabhupāda: (aside) Just bring little salt.

Hṛdayānanda: ". . . or kūṭa-stha. The body is subject to six kinds of transformations. It takes its birth in the womb of the mother's body, remains for some time, grows, produces some effects, gradually dwindles, and at last vanishes into oblivion. The soul, however, does not go through such changes. The soul is not born, but, because he takes on a material body, the body takes its birth. The soul does not take birth there, and the soul does not die. Anything which has birth also has death. And because the soul has no birth, he therefore has no past, present or future. He is eternal, ever-existing and primeval—that is, there is no trace in history of his coming into being. Under the impression of the body, we seek the history of birth, etc., of the soul. The soul does not at any time become old, as the body does. The so-called old man therefore feels himself to be in the same spirit as in his childhood or youth. The changes of the body do not affect the soul. The soul does not deteriorate like a tree, nor anything material. The soul has no by-product either. The by-products of the body, namely children, are also different individual souls, and, owing to the body, they appear as children of a particular man. The body develops because of the soul's presence, but the soul has neither offshoots nor change. Therefore, the soul is free from the six changes of the body.

"In the Kaṭha Upaniṣad also we find a similar passage, which reads:

na jāyate mriyate vā vipaścin

nāyaṁ kutaścin na babhūva kaścit

ajo nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ purāṇo

na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre

(Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.18)

The meaning and purport of this verse is the same as in the Bhagavad-gītā, but here in this verse there is one special word, vipaścit, which means 'learned' or 'with knowledge.'

"The soul is full of knowledge, or full always with consciousness. Therefore, consciousness is the symptom of the soul. Even if one does not find the soul within the heart, where he is situated, one can still understand the presence of the soul simply by the presence of consciousness. Sometimes we do not find the sun in the sky owing to clouds, or for some other reason, but the light of the sun is always there, and we are convinced that it is therefore daytime. As soon as there is a little light in the sky early in the morning, we can understand that the sun is in the sky. Similarly, since there is some consciousness in all bodies—whether man or animal—we can understand the presence of the soul. This consciousness of the soul is, however, different from the consciousness of the Supreme, because the supreme consciousness is all-knowledge—past, present and future. The consciousness of the individual soul is prone to be forgetful. When he is forgetful of his real nature, he obtains education and enlightenment from the superior lessons of Kṛṣṇa. But Kṛṣṇa is not like the forgetful soul. If so, Kṛṣṇa's teachings of Bhagavad-gītā would be useless.

"There are two kinds of souls—namely the minute particle soul, aṇu-ātmā, and the Supersoul, the vibhu-ātmā. This is also confirmed in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad in this way:

aṇor aṇīyān mahato mahīyān

ātmāsya jantor nihito guhāyām

tam akratuḥ paśyati vīta-śoko

dhātuḥ prasādān mahimānam ātmanaḥ

(Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.20)

" 'Both the Supersoul, paramātmā, and the atomic soul, jīvātmā, are situated on the same tree of the body within the same heart of the living being, and only one who has become free from all material desires as well as lamentations can, by the grace of the Supreme, understand the glories of the soul.' Kṛṣṇa is the fountainhead of the Supersoul also, as it will be disclosed in the following chapters, and Arjuna is the atomic soul, forgetful of his real nature; therefore he requires to be enlightened by Kṛṣṇa, or by His bona fide representative, the spiritual master."

Prabhupāda: If you have got any question upon this statement? The statement given in the Bhagavad-gītā, in the purport we have explained, if you have got any question over it?

Jay Warner: Excuse me, I didn't . . .

Hṛdayānanda: Do you have any question about what Prabhupāda has written here, about the purport, any question?

Jay Warner: I think I understood it.

Kīrtanānanda: That's a beautiful purport.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Kīrtanānanda: That's a nice purport.

Prabhupāda: Hmm.

Hṛdayānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, I think we're supposed to go for the movie.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Hṛdayānanda: I think we're supposed to go for the movie.

Prabhupāda: Oh, when?

Rāmeśvara: It is ready. It is . . . everything is prepared. (end)