750801 - Morning Walk - New Orleans

Morning Walks by Date, 1975

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

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

750801MF-NEW ORLEANS - August 01, 1975 - 35:26 Minutes

(Walk Around Farm)

(kīrtana in background)

Nityānanda: Our sugarcane field is down there. (break)

Devotee (1): . . . to the right?

Harikeśa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Oh, I have never seen that.

Devotee (1): This is Kīrtana.

Prabhupāda: Kīrtana? (laughter)

Devotee (1): Kīrtana dāsa. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Have kīrtana.

Nityānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That is ours?

Nityānanda: Yes.

Brahmānanda: Where the trees are?

Nityānanda: Way over the hill and back down there is all ours. Here we have the calves.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Nityānanda: And in this field here we have the big cows.

Prabhupāda: It is not now utilized?

Nityānanda: Not . . . No. We are just growing hay. Grass for hay. We can sell the hay in the winter for a good price.

Prabhupāda: It is not possible to walk. (break) . . .it is born?

Nityānanda: This one? Last week. His name is . . . Her name is Lakṣmī. There is more over here. (break) Bull calves. We are getting more bulls than females.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Nityānanda: I don't know.

Prabhupāda: Then how utilize the bulls?

Nityānanda: To plow?

Prabhupāda: Plow, transport. You have to engage more men for plowing. Two bulls will be required for each plow.

Nityānanda: We can go this way maybe? See the sugarcane?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Jagadīśa: This is not taking this yet?

Nityānanda: No.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Nityānanda: We just cut it two days ago, and then it rained. We have to wait for it to dry before you can . . .

Prabhupāda: They will not be spoiled.

Nityānanda: Yes, if it stays here too long, it will spoil.

Prabhupāda: And it rains.

Devotee (2): We will take it to the garden.

Prabhupāda: Then it will be soil? It will be a fertilizer soil? Or no. When it is decomposed? (break) Drinking water?

Nityānanda: Milk.

Prabhupāda: Milk. (laughter) That is meant for calfs, those milk?

Nityānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: What is this?

Nityānanda: The barn.

Prabhupāda: No, this part.

Nityānanda: Oh, that's the door. It fell off. These are orange trees here.

Prabhupāda: Oh. How long it will take to grow?

Nityānanda: Well, some down here already have a few oranges, but it will take a few years before they give a lot. They are very sweet kind. (break)

Prabhupāda: So small still. They are growing. (break)

Nityānanda: . . .sugarcane here. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . .grow very high. (break) . . . trees?

Nityānanda: Pine trees.

Brahmānanda: You can use those for making the cabins, cottages? (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . natural arrangement. Jungles—you cut the tree, make your home, and balance you make fuel. And the ground, plow and grow your food. That's all. Natural.

Jagadīśa: Everything.

Prabhupāda: In India still, in the villages they do not know, other than this wood fuel, anything else. They are misusing these trees by cutting, manufacturing paper, heaps of paper, in each house throwing daily. They do not read, but they are supplied heaps of paper and cutting these trees. Simply waste. Now wood and paper shortage all over the world. It takes so much time to grow, and one day they cut hundreds of trees like this and put into the paper mill. And heaps of paper is given every house, and he throws away. Then you bring garbage tank. In this way, waste.

Nityānanda: There are some beehives down here behind this building. I have twelve, and every year we can get hundreds of pounds of honey. Honey is very nice because it does not spoil, just like ghee. It can keep for many, many months, or a long time. We can go up here to see the cows if you like. Right now they are milking them.

Prabhupāda: So if we go, it will be disturbed?

Nityānanda: Oh, no.

Prabhupāda: This is one sugarcane each? No. Two, three?

Brahmānanda: Four.

Nityānanda: Yes, at least three. People here in the country, they have lots of land, and they can grow the sugarcane very easily, but they will rather go to the store to buy the sugar.

Prabhupāda: Because they want to live in the city. That is the . . . Here if they grow, then they will be engaged here. They cannot go to the city.

Brahmānanda: They grow cash crops, make money, and then go spend it in the city.

Nityānanda: The principal livelihood of our neighbors is to grow cows for slaughter.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is all over Western countries.

Nityānanda: They don't have to work. They simply put some cows in their field, and when the price is high, they sell them. In this way they live.

Brahmānanda: What is the attitude of the neighbors to us here? They like us?

Nityānanda: Pretty friendly.

Brahmānanda: There's a papaya.

Prabhupāda: They grow nicely here?

Nityānanda: Er, we're trying. I don't know yet.

Devotee (3): Would you like to be fanned, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Devotee (3): Would you like to be fanned?

Harikeśa: Just keep the flies away.

Devotee (3): No need?

Prabhupāda: He is very friendly to the small calfs, this child?

Nityānanda: Yes. That's my boy.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Nityānanda: His name is Vimala.

Jagadīśa: He chases them all over.

Prabhupāda: Just see. That is the difference between animal and man. A child can control so many calfs. Kṛṣṇa was doing that. One stick in the hand of a child, he can control fifty cows. The child is controller of many cows; a man is controller of many children. In this way controller, controller, controller, over, over, over . . . When there is final controller, that is Kṛṣṇa. Īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ (Bs. 5.1). This is the definition of Kṛṣṇa: "the final controller."

Nityānanda: Here is the cows here. We can see them from here.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Nityānanda: Inside the barn they are milking two at a time. And upstairs we keep all the hay.

Brahmānanda: You keep figures on how much each milk per cow every day?

Nityānanda: You hear it?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Then how the milk will be utilized?

Nityānanda: We make sweet rice and burfī. We take the cream to make butter and ghee, and all extra milk is made into curd. So it is all used. Thirty gallons a day.

Prabhupāda: One gallon means six pounds?

Nityānanda: Eight and a half.

Prabhupāda: Eight and a half pounds. In Vrindaban they get 1,000 pounds daily - New Vrindaban. What is that cottage?

Nityānanda: That what?

Devotees: Cottage there.

Nityānanda: That's a little house for the pump, water pump.

Prabhupāda: This fencing was done before?

Nityānanda: Before. This farm was once owned by a person who grew race horses for racing and gambling.

Prabhupāda: Racing is also gambling.

Brahmānanda: How much did you pay for it?

Nityānanda: The farm?

Brahmānanda: Yes.

Nityānanda: 170,000. This field here is millet. It's a grass for the cows to eat. They give lots of milk because they eat this grass. Very nutritious.

Prabhupāda: You are not producing for man?

Nityānanda: Pardon?

Prabhupāda: Any grains for man?

Nityānanda: No, we're not growing any grains for man right now. We have fruit trees in the yard: pears, peaches, plums, figs.

Prabhupāda: Some growing?

Nityānanda: Not very much. They are very young. We just planted them. In a few years we will get lots of fruit.

Prabhupāda: Here the land is mixed with some stones? No.

Nityānanda: I think they put this here, this gravel.

Prabhupāda: There is no mango tree here? No.

Nityānanda: No what?

Brāhmananda: Mango trees.

Nityānanda: We have some growing at the house.

Prabhupāda: Vegetables you are growing?

Nityānanda: Yes. We have a garden across the street. All these big trees are pecan trees. We have twenty. All this land across the road here that is cleared is ours, all the way up to the trees.

Prabhupāda: (reading sign) "Cow protection and God consciousness. Visitors welcome." That's nice. So, which way we shall go now? Cow protection, they are surprised: "What is this nonsense, cow protection?" Huh? Do they say? "Cow is for eating, and you are protecting?" There are falls?(?)

Nityānanda: Falls? No. This is our small garden.

Prabhupāda: Fruits and flowers. No, only fruits. What you are doing, flowers?

Nityānanda: This is okra.

Prabhupāda: Oh, okra.

Nityānanda: And sweet potatoes. And we have eggplants, tomatoes and peppers here.

Prabhupāda: They give daily some fruits?

Nityānanda: Yes. And then we grow potatoes too.

Prabhupāda: Oh, where? Which side?

Nityānanda: Well, the spring crop was already harvested. We have to plant the fall potatoes in a few weeks. We'll put them over there by the fence.

Prabhupāda: So it is nice farm. This is squash?

Nityānanda: That's a cantaloupe plant.

Prabhupāda: Oh, cantaloupe. You can grow cantaloupe here?

Nityānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: And also watermelon?

Nityānanda: Yes.

Jagadīśa: There is one watermelon on, big watermelon on the vine up there. Perhaps it's ready to eat.

Prabhupāda: We are getting similar land, 600 acres, in Hyderabad.

Nityānanda: We can go this way, here. This is all our machinery here.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. So already some machine idle. You had to spend so much, but they are lying idle. That is not good. That is the defect of machine. If you cannot ply it, then it is dead loss.

Brahmānanda: If you cannot what?

Prabhupāda: It is dead loss if you cannot work with the machine.

Brahmānanda: Yes, yes.

Prabhupāda: But when you go to purchase, you have to pay lots of money. Now they will be rusty with water and gradually useless. How much money you have invested?

Nityānanda: Thousands.

Prabhupāda: Just see. This is the defect of machine. If you cannot utilize it, then it is dead loss.

Brahmānanda: Where are the tractors kept?

Nityānanda: One's at the house and one's in the field.

Prabhupāda: So they have to be utilized or rejected, these machines?

Nityānanda: Yes, they all have a purpose. We use them from time to time.

Prabhupāda: But now they are kept open in the . . .

Nityānanda: Well, we are building a shed to keep them out of the rain.

Prabhupāda: In the meantime it will be finished. By the time you finish your shed, it is finished. Śāstre śāstre dal phariyaga (?): "Some women were dressing to go to a fair, and when they were dressed, the fair was finished." (laughter) Utilize them. Otherwise, while they are in working order, sell them. Don't keep in that way, neglected way. Either utilize it or sell it at any cost. Otherwise they are useless.

Devotee (4): Śrīla Prabhupāda? A materialist or someone who wouldn't know, he may say that when the bull is not plowing, all he is doing is eating. You have to pay money to feed him grain or to grow grain to feed the bull.

Prabhupāda: They will grow, and they will eat. Rather, they will help you for your eating. The father also eats, but he maintains the family. Therefore the bull is considered as father and the cow as mother. Mother gives milk, and the bull grows food grains for man. Therefore Caitanya Mahāprabhu first challenged that Kazi that "What is your religion, that you eat your father and mother?" Both the bulls and the cows are important, because the bull will produce food grain and the cow will give supply milk. They should be utilized properly. That is human intelligence. This is filling up with paddy or . . .? No?

Nityānanda: With food for the cows. This one has forage, or fodder, and that one has grain.

Prabhupāda: So everything is for the animals? Nothing for the man?

Nityānanda: The cows give us milk.

Prabhupāda: That's all? And you are not growing any food grains? Why?

Nityānanda: Er . . . We've been trying to establish self-sufficient cow protection program first, to grow our own food for the cows.

Brahmānanda: There is no land available for growing rice or wheat?

Nityānanda: Yes, but the number of devotees we have to do it . . .

Brahmānanda: But you have so many machines. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: All these machines require oiling and keeping nicely. Otherwise it will spoil.

Devotees in distance: All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda!

Prabhupāda: Jaya. Hare Kṛṣṇa. They are starting?

Brahmānanda: They are starting back.

Nityānanda: Down the road we have fifteen acres of sorghum, grain for the cows.

Prabhupāda: And everything for the cows, but what for the man? They will give everything for cows because they will eat cows, other farmers. But you utilize the animals for growing your food.

Brahmānanda: The idea is we should maintain the animals, but then the animals should provide foodstuffs for the men.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Brahmānanda: And that way there is cooperation.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The animals, bulls, should have helped in spite of that . . . instead of that machine. Then it is properly utilized. And others, they cannot utilize the animals. Therefore, what they will do? Naturally they will send to slaughterhouse. But we are not going to send to the slaughterhouse. Then what we will do? They must be utilized. Otherwise simply for growing food that the cows and bulls we engage ourself? You are already feeling burden because there are so many bull calfs. You were asking me, "What we shall do with so many bulls?"

Nityānanda: Well, when they grow up we will train them as oxen.

Prabhupāda: No, now what the oxen will do?

Nityānanda: Plow the fields.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is wanted. Transport, plowing fields. That is wanted. And unless our men are trained up Kṛṣṇa conscious, they will think, "What is the use of taking care of the plows (cows). Better go to the city, earn money and eat them." Which one? Huh? That? (indistinct comments by devotees) We shall get on?

Brahmānanda: Yes. (end)