751108 - Morning Walk - Bombay

Morning Walks by Date, 1975

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

 Listen to a 'Nectar Drop' created from this lecture

751108MW-BOMBAY - November 08, 1975 - 27:46 Minutes

Prabhupāda:. . . in politics, how to treat with enemies, how to treat with friends, how to make. . . in politics there are so many things, diplomacy. So he said: "What is this nonsense? Everyone should be Kṛṣṇa conscious. They are all equal." His father became angry. What is that?

Indian man: . . . (indistinct Hindi)

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Bhāgavata: He said it is all nonsense.

Prabhupāda: Yes. For a devotee, these politics, diplomacy, these are nonsense. But sometimes they have to do. Sate sarthaṁ samācaret. (aside) Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Bhāgavata: "One should never trust a politician or a woman." (break)

Devotee in distance: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Jaya.

Devotee (1): Are the animals complacent with their hellish condition of life?

Prabhupāda: Animal?

Devotee (1): Yes. Like the dog. Is he happy to be a dog?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone is happy.

Dr. Patel: There is one story in regard to this, sir, that. . . (break)

Prabhupāda: The answer? You have got the answer?

Devotee (1): Excuse me?

Dr. Patel: No. He was not. He was not attentive. I answered on his behalf with that story.

Bhāgavata: Once that happened to Indra, isn't it, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Anyone, in any condition of life, he thinks that he is happy. That is māyā.

Dr. Patel: If all the five holes of indriyas are made to look outside, get our pleasure from out. If they have turned within and get pleasure from yourself, then you are happy. That is in Kaṭhopaniṣad.

Prabhupāda: You can see practically. People are living in, what is called, that zone, where everything is ice?

Devotees: The North Pole.

Prabhupāda: They are thinking happy. They do not come out.

Bhāgavata: Eskimos.

Prabhupāda: I have got practical experience. In my childhood I used to go with my father for some purchasing some bhauma flour in the interior districts. So there was one servant engaged. One day he did not come. So my father asked me, "He is living in there, in that cottage. You can go and ask him." So I went to his cottage. Practically there was no roof, and rain was dropping. So I saw him in a very bad condition. Then I asked him, "Why don't you come to Calcutta with us?" So he replied, "No, sir, we cannot go, leaving home. (laughter) This is home." I have got practical experience. "Home sweet home." Janani janma-bhumiś ca svargād api gariyasi, everyone is thinking that his birthplace and his mother is better than the heaven. That is the psychology. So everyone, however abominable. . . everyone is living in abominable condition. That's a fact. But everyone is thinking that, "Who is happier than me?" Everyone. This is called māyā. Unless he thinks, he cannot live.

Devotee (1): What is the throwing potency of māyā?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Devotee (1): It is described that there are two potencies of māyā.

Dr. Patel: Mam eva prapadyante māyām etan taranti te (BG 7.14).

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Devotee (1): What is an example of the throwing potency of māyā?

Prabhupāda: Throwing potency means somebody comes to take Kṛṣṇa consciousness and māyā will dictate, "Why you have come here? Go and enjoy life outside." And he goes away. That is throwing.

Dr. Patel: Crying?

Prabhupāda: Throwing, that gets him out. This is throwing. And this is called. . . what is called? The Sanskrit? Prakṣepatmika.

Dr. Patel: Prakṣeka?

Prabhupāda: Prakṣepatmika.

Dr. Patel: Oh, prakṣepatmika.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And another is avaranatmika.

Dr. Patel: Avarana.

Prabhupāda: Avarana. He is in the most abominable condition, and he is thinking he is very happy. This is avaranatmika, covering him to see in the real position. Otherwise we are asking everyone that, "You come here. I am giving you room. Take prasādam. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Read these books." "No. Why shall I come?" What is the difficulty here? But nobody will come. He will rot in the home—anxiety—how to maintain, how to. . . this is going on. This is called prakṣepatmika, avaranātmika. He will prefer rotting as hog and dog, but he will never prefer to live as Kṛṣṇa conscious. This is māyā. So many people are there on the beach. You invite them, "Please come to our place. Live nicely. We shall give you nice room, nice prasādam. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa." Nobody will come.

Dr. Patel: It is good that they are not coming. Otherwise you won't have this place. . .

Prabhupāda: No, no. We have enough place. We are not depending on Dr. Patel, but Kṛṣṇa. (laughter)

Devotees: Haribol! Haribol!

Dr. Patel: You rate me very badly.

Prabhupāda: No, because you are saying like that. You do not know that I started this business without nothing, you see, with practical nothing. I offered Mr. Nair that, "I will give you two lakhs, and the balance I'll give you in three years." So who will believe? "He is a beggar, and he promises to give me fifteen lakhs of rupees within three years." Who will believe that? He knew that, "He will not be able to pay. So whatever two lakhs, three lakhs he gives, that will be mine. That's all. Bās." And I was thinking, "He is such a nice gentleman that he will take money, little, little, and I will collect and pay. He is a nice gentleman," I was thinking. And he was thinking, "He's a great fool, (laughter) that he is offering me two lakhs, three lakhs, and he will never be able to pay me balance." So this was the transaction beginning.

Dr. Patel: He had made such transaction before also, I think, two, three fellows.

Prabhupāda: Yes. He knew that. I thought, "He is a very nice man. He'll take money one after another, so let me take it." This was the beginning.

Dr. Patel: I think he died before you completed the transaction. He died, no?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: So both Jagamanta, Hapebo, all of them I will one day drive and then you'll. . .

Prabhupāda: But as soon as they will not get tea, they will go away. You may bring all the Bombay residents, and when they will see there is no tea, they will go away. (laughter)

Nayanābhirāma: Śrīla Prabhupāda, that happened in Vṛndāvana once.

Prabhupāda: I know that. That is the trouble.

Bhāgavata: They would not stay in the guesthouse because they could not make their tea.

Nayanābhirāma: He said: "Without tea I cannot live." So he went away.

Dr. Patel: Where? Here, this Vṛndāvana?

Prabhupāda: No, that I have allowed, that they can make their own tea.

Dr. Patel: You don't allow the tea here in the. . .?

Prabhupāda: No.

Brahmānanda: They can make their own tea. There's a special area for that.

Dr. Patel: Many of these boys must have taking tea in past. How they could stop it?

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Dr. Patel: Many of them must be taking. . .

Prabhupāda: No, no, no.

Dr. Patel: Not now, before.

Prabhupāda: Oh, before they are taking anything. (laughter)

Dr. Patel: How could they stop it? By virtue of the strength of the mind. That man, if he has got no strength of mind, he should not. . .

Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa conscious. The government spent millions of dollars to stop LSD habit. But when they come to me, I say: "You cannot do it"; they immediately stop. Therefore U.S. government is sympathetic to this movement. They are surprised how these drug-addicted men are becoming servant of Kṛṣṇa. One Dr. Judah, he has written a book about us, that the "wonderful. . ."

Dr. Patel: LSD begets a condition of the mind just like. . .

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be. . .

Dr. Patel:. . . nirakalpa-samādhi. One man told me that's a very good. . . (laughing) I say we. . .

Prabhupāda: That is another nonsense. Nonsense. Fools.

Dr. Patel: Nirakalpa-samādhi. But they must be getting some sort of condition of the mind, though temporary. That is why they must have turned to that, no?

Prabhupāda: There is no consciousness.

Dr. Patel: (to devotee) Were you having the experience?

Prabhupāda: First of all you must give it up. Our philosophy is first of all you must give it up, all these bad habits.

Dr. Patel: That is the first condition among Vaiṣṇavas, that they should not have any of these, neither . . .

Prabhupāda: Illicit sex, then meat-eating. (aside) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. Jaya. Jaya. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break)

Bhāgavata:. . . leaving the four sinful activities. Then one can develop Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Prabhupāda: No, this is practicing. This is practicing. Unless one is. . . yeṣam tu anta-gataṁ pāpam (BG 7.28). Unless one is free from sinful activities, one cannot understand God. It is not possible. God is not so cheap.

Dr. Patel: Practice and vairāgya both are necessary, not only vairāgya. No?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Dr. Patel: Practice and vairāgya both are necessary.

Prabhupāda: Vairāgya means when you are not addicted to sinful life. That is vairāgya. People have got attachment for sinful activities. (break). . . deve bhagavati bhakti-yoga-prayojitaḥ, janayaty aśu vairāgyam (SB 1.2.7). That is the vairāgya way. You cannot practice vairāgya without Vāsudeva's shelter.

Dr. Patel: Vairāgya generates by extreme bhakti or by extreme knowledge. Not otherwise. Knowledge is generated by bhakti, no doubt, but then you must have complete knowledge of what is this and what is that.

Prabhupāda: Without bhakti, knowledge is artificial, because knowledge means to accept the Supreme Lord as Supreme. That is knowledge.

Dr. Patel: That is knowledge. And then this is all falsehood. From that knowledge, when you know that this is all false, then it sort of, in a sense, generated in you, to be. . .

Prabhupāda: That knowledge is described in the Bhagavad-gītā, māyayāpahṛta-jñānā (BG 7.15). The so-called knowledge is useless. It has no value. Māyāyapahṛta-jñāna. What is the test? Na māṁ prapadyante, "If he had knowledge, he would have surrendered to Me," but he does not do so.

Dr. Patel: Jñānavan māṁ prapadyante. That is the knowledge. Jñāna means knowledge. That knowledge is the Supreme.

Prabhupāda: But that knowledge means actually jñānavān. Otherwise it is false knowledge. Māyāyapahṛta-jñāna. If you do not know what is God, then what is the meaning of your knowledge?

Bhāgavata: You explain in the Gītā that:

bahunam janmanam ante

jñānavān mam prapadyante

vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti

sa mahātmā sudurlabhaḥ

(BG 7.19)

Prabhupāda: (aside) Hare Kṛṣṇa. That is knowledge. Therefore so many mahātmās, sādhus, yogīs, they are all useless, all useless, because they have no bhakti. Simply artificially cheating people. (break) This is a society of cheaters and cheated. If you want to be cheated, there are many cheaters who will come and cheat you. That's all.

Bhāgavata: Just like the Guru Maharaj-ji. Now the mother is denouncing. She is saying he is no more qualified to be Bhagavān. Now his brother, he is Bhagavān.

Prabhupāda: That's all, anyway, a third class.

Dr. Patel: It is all humbug. I think we should not talk about this. Talk something about Bhagavad-gītā and Bhāgavat. Then, sir?

Prabhupāda: Yes. These people are third-class men. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Dr. Patel: Māyām etan taranti te.

Prabhupāda: (aside) Jaya. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break). . . explained in Bhagavad-gītā. Unfortunately the rascals will not take it. That is the difficulty.

Dr. Patel: In my time, when, your time, I mean our time, in the school there was a compulsion of learning the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa. Now these modern principals, they don't know anything about it. Absolutely there is no knowledge. My daughter said: "What is Rāmāyaṇa?" I had to look at a English edition of Rāmāyaṇa and give her Mahābhārata. That is what they are teaching now in the schools. So this race is going bankrupt. What about knowing about Bhagavad-gītā and Bhāgavata? They don't know simple Mahābhārata.

Prabhupāda: (break). . . city one house with twenty rooms on the riverside.

Dr. Patel: I was told that Lasteri's house, you know, sir, Charpak Lasteri.

Prabhupāda: What do you think will be the price?

Dr. Patel: I don't know about price, sir. But their prices are as high as in Bombay. Whose is this house? Who is the owner? (break)

Prabhupāda:. . . jīvanti. The trees, they live many, many hundreds of thousands of years more than men.

Indian man (1): Yes.

Prabhupāda: Does it mean he is sinless? (laughter)

Indian (1): He's a good man. They are doing good. They are doing good.

Prabhupāda: He is. . . it is most condemned life, the trees. They cannot move one inch. They have to suffer all these natural disturbances. One who is too much sinful, he is condemned to stand up here for five thousand years.

Indian (1): (Gujrati conversation)

Dr. Patel: Dvaraka, sir. They had a plan to go to Dvaraka.

Prabhupāda: Le chaliye, aap jab boliye hum jayenge. (Take me, whenever you say we will go.) Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Dr. Patel: You have to take me. You told me you will take me. I am waiting for it.

Bhāgavata: When I was in Dvaraka I stayed at the Birla guesthouse, and they said that any time you come you can stay there in Mr. Birla's room, right on the ocean front, very nice room.

Prabhupāda: This time is good, Dvaraka?

Dr. Patel: We can go by train to Jamna. Jamna we have to take a car.

Bhāgavata: We have to take a long trip in the car from Jamnagar to Dvaraka.

(indistinct talking amongst devotees) (break)

Prabhupāda:. . . like this place. And I have seen London, New York. (laughter)

Dr. Patel: I have not seen Haridwar myself.

Bhāgavata: Haridwar, there is also very new āśrama that was built up there only a few years ago called Africa āśrama, in Haridwar. And the sannyāsī there is very well known to me, and he also said any time you come you can stay there at his place. Very nice āśrama.

Dr. Patel: Haridwar there are many places to stay.

Bhāgavata: Yes. Many, many.

Indian man (2): Even this, our. . . (indistinct). . . āśrama people have got a very big area there. Nearly a hundred rooms are there.

Dr. Patel: Others, also. You can. . . (break)

Prabhupāda: Patel, he has got.

Dr. Patel: It is not Patel. This Das and Company. (break) There must be a temple committee. Do you know?

Prabhupāda: Eh? Yes.

Dr. Patel: All Bengalis must be the member. Is it a fact that this temple, Jagannātha Purī, was originally a temple for Buddhists, and then it was converted into. . . no?

Prabhupāda: This is all these speculators, rascals.

Dr. Patel: Who are the chief men in the temple committee of Jagannātha temple?

Prabhupāda: Government.

Dr. Patel: No, no.

Prabhupāda: Yes, government.

Dr. Patel: How can they be? Government, no. Temples are never controlled by government.

Prabhupāda: Although the king is there. . .

Indian man (3): The government of the king was controlling. Now the government is.

Dr. Patel: Which king?

Prabhupāda: The magistrate is the president of the maṭha.

Dr. Patel: Dvaraka temple was under control of Mahārāja of Baroda, but he appointed a committee of Vaiṣṇavas to control it. It was completely free.

(break) (laughing) You have been very unkind to people.

Prabhupāda: He is a first-class Cārvāka, he is.

Devotee: The dog is also trying to defend himself against the Lord.

Prabhupāda: No. That is not the question. Question is anyone who does not know what is God, he is a Cārvāka, that's all. Mūḍha nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param ayayam (BG 7.13). He's a Cārvāka. That's all. The same bodily concept: "Russian," "American," "Chinese." Then? Yasyātmā-buddhiḥ kunape tri-dhātuke, sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13).

Indian man (3): They are innocent. They are not. . .

Dr. Patel: Innocent?

Prabhupāda: No, they are not innocent; they are stupid. (laughter) They are not innocent. They will never agree. . .

Indian man (3): There are so many Indians, they are also not. . .

Dr. Patel: No, they are also like that.

Prabhupāda: Huh? The simple thing explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. . . simple thing explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, asmin dehe dehinām (BG 2.13): "Within this body there is the proprietor." So they do not understand it. Huh?

Indian man (3): That comes after, after. . .

Indian man (4): Guru you should go? Then only perfect knowledge he will get.

Yaśomatīnandana: Guru is there. Why don't they come?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Guru is there, but they won't come. They won't come.

Dr. Patel: That jagat guru is, you are, sir.

Prabhupāda: It is injunction of the śāstra, tad-vijñānārtham sa gurum evābhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). But who is coming to guru? Guru is canvassing whole world, "Please come to me."

Dr. Patel: Sammit sammit nahi milta hai bazaar mei sammit leke ana padega na. (Sammit (dry wood), we don't get sammit in the market—we have to bring sammit.) (break)

Prabhupāda: Kaliyug hai na, pehle aadmi guru ko doondta tha kahan guru milega, ab guru ko doondna padta hai kahan shishya milega, yeh kaliyug hai.It is kaliyug. (It is Kaliyug, In the earlier days, man used to search for a guru, "Where will I find a guru?" Now the guru is searching where will I get a disciple, this is Kali-yuga.) I am in Bombay, but how many Gujaratis are my chela? There is only one Gujarati.

Dr. Patel: One is sufficient. He represents the whole Gujaratis.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. (laughter)

Brahmānanda: And Prabhupāda had to rescue him from America. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: That is the difficulty. I will have to preach, bringing men from America and Europe. Nobody is coming here. Everyone is talking big, big.

Indian man (3): Sometimes what happens it has to rain or the gardener has to garden before only. . .

Prabhupāda: Eh? No, no. This is the difficulty, that whatever I am doing. . . therefore I am very much in anxiety when the government says: "Now you go away. Your visa is finished."

Dr. Patel: From here?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: Your visa from here?

Prabhupāda: Mine, no. My disciples'. Dragging.

Dr. Patel: Well, government. . . I have heard like this, but government think that in this group there may be some those CIA people. I don't know whether they are right. . .

Prabhupāda: Let government supplies some men who does not belong to the CIA. And where is that? That is all.

Dr. Patel: That is what they say.

Prabhupāda: They may say anything nonsense.

Dr. Patel: That all these, all may not be sādhus. There may be CIA, one of them. They'll find out what these fellows are, and then they will do all that.

Bhāgavata: Well, first one of their CID will have to live like we live, and then we can see.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Actually, Indians are not interested. That is the fact. They, "What is this Hare Kṛṣṇa? We have chanted the Hare Kṛṣṇa for hundreds of years. What is the effect?" That is the. . .

Indian man (5): This is the main problem. (break)

Dr. Patel: That they are doing this and that. I have to explain them that, "You are all humbug because they don't know you well, you don't know them well."

Prabhupāda: They will create nuisance because there is no sense. It is better nuisance. Who is coming to make sense, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa? Nobody is coming. Then nuisance is better than no sense. Naya mameche khana mama baba: "To possess no mama, it is better to have a blind mama." So they are blind mama. That's all right. Where is the real mama? All mamas are. . .

Dr. Patel: Prabhupad nikal gaye. (Prabhupāda has gone ahead.) (Gujrati conversation) (break)

Prabhupāda: Mama means mother's brother.

Dr. Patel: No, but here in Gujarat. . . (Gujarati) Mama means he is a fool. (break)

Devotee (2): Now it is not nice. The fruit is not nice.

Dr. Patel:. . . (indistinct Hindi)

Indian man (6): You speak in Italian. I don't understand it.

Devotee (2): I speak little English only.

Indian man (6): Speak in Italian.

Devotee (2): It's not possible for me.

Dr. Patel: Don't worry. (break)

Prabhupāda: If he comes to your house you must receive him properly. Gṛhaṁ satrum api praptam viśvas tam akuto-bhayam. (Even one is enemy, when he comes to my house, he is my honorable guest.) (end)