730709 - Conversation B - London

Conversations by Date, 1973

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

730709R2-LONDON - July 09, 1973 - 21:44 Minutes

(Movie camera noise)

Prabhupāda: Give him chance, alright . . . (indistinct) . . . just like there are many men they're taking care of the body in order to become like elephant. You either become elephant or tiger or anything, you'll have to die. And if you so desire, alright next life, you become elephant or tiger. That's all. Nature will give you the chance. You haven't got to try for all these things. You have to try only for Krsna. Tasyaiva hetoḥ prayateta kovido (SB 1.5.18)

That is intelligence. Simply for Kṛṣṇa. There is simply to understand Kṛṣṇa. Anything else—waste of time. But in Kṛṣṇa's connection there are varieties. Now just like this. What is called this?

Bhagavān: Movie camera.

Prabhupāda: Movie camera. So, utilizing for Kṛṣṇa's purpose. So automatically you learn what is movie camera. Everything we are using. It is not that, we are using everything for sense gratification—for Kṛṣṇa. If this performance is being used for Kṛṣṇa, the movie camera we are living in very comfortable room. Everything is being utilized. Why you should give it up. If by living in a comfortable room taking advantage of this modern invention I can serve better Kṛṣṇa. Why should I not take it. Does it mean although the Dictaphone is there, still I shall write in my hand? Kṛṣṇa consciousness cannot touch this. We don't follow this nonsense philosophy, unnecessary vairāgya. Śuṣka-vairāgya, dry knowledge.

Devotee (1): Śuṣka-vairāgya.

Prabhupāda: Śuṣka. Śuṣka means dry. "Oh, it is material, I shall not touch. I shall not touch." Just like that rascal Ramakrishna, if anyone wanted to give him some money (gestures). (laughter) How . . . he does not touch money. These rascals, why shall I not touch? "Come on, you have got money, George Harrison. Spend. Yes, come on, I shall take it, for Kṛṣṇa." We haven't come to this house for living very comfortably and enjoying. No. We have come here for Kṛṣṇa's service.

Haṁsadūta: This point is revolutionary in spiritual circles.

Prabhupāda: Yes because it is Kṛṣṇa's property. It is not my property, neither George's property. This is mistake. Everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa, so it must be utilized for Kṛṣṇa.

Revatīnandana: Simply they don't know Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Revatīnandana: They don't know Bhagavad-gītā, therefore they don't understand us.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Therefore I say, all, immediately, how you are all rascals. We have got a test, test tube. As soon as one is not Kṛṣṇa conscious, he is rascal, he is miscreant, he is lowest of the mankind, he has no knowledge. These, these are groups they belong to. Na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ. He may think he is very big man, Nixon, but we know that he is a rascal number one. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You can understand immediately what is what by this test:

na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ

prapadyante narādhamāḥ

māyayāpahṛta-jñānā

āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ

(BG 7.15)

(break)

Prabhupāda: You have to say like that.

Revatīnandana: Yes. He asked why? I was interested, he said if he's coming from God, then what difference does it make?

Prabhupāda: Difference is you are a fool, God is not fool. That is the difference. What God will speak, He'll not speak foolish. Because He is above all this foolishness, but you are within the foolishness. That is the difference. Try to answer them like that. You are within the status of foolishness, māyā, and God is above māyā. If God is also within the māyā, as the rascal Māyāvādīs say, then what is the use of God? We are everything.

Yogeśvara: They just accumulate knowledge just for knowledge. They just accumulate knowledge just for knowledge sake. All these big . . .

Prabhupāda: Not just for knowledge, because they do not get any knowledge. They have no knowledge. What is the knowledge? They talk all nonsense. What is the knowledge?

Revatīnandana: His argument was, "Well, there's no point in talking about this matter. All of us accept this." He's saying: all big authorities, they accept this point of view, that this was recently written literature.

Prabhupāda: No, they don't know who are authorities.

Revatīnandana: That's right.

Prabhupāda: You manufacture your own authorities. You do not know. That is your misfortune. You do not know who is authority.

Bhagavān: They all smoke cigarettes and they think they're authorities. They're nonsense.

Revatīnandana: I met another old authority on Sanskrit, and he is sitting behind his desk and his whole body is shaking, "No, I'm not interested in the spiritual side of these Vedas. I'm just interested in the Sanskrit." He's dying, you know, and still he's like that. That's their authority. You can't save them, but . . .

Prabhupāda: Adhyaki, adhyaki. They're called adhyaki.

Revatīnandana: What's that?

Prabhupāda: External. Adhyaki. Just like the . . . one is interested with the body not with the soul. So he is a fool. This, this sculptor, he is simply interested in the outward body. He has no knowledge of the soul. And he wants to become a very famous man, remaining in the category of asses. Because one who is in the bodily concept of life, he is an ass. Go-khara. Khara means ass. Sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke.

Anyone who is in the bodily concept of life, he is no better than animal. The cats and dogs, they are also in the bodily concept of life. Sa eva go-kharaḥ. So he has not advanced beyond these cats and dogs because he is in the same conception that, "I am this body." A dog cannot understand that you are not this body. So similarly, if the human being cannot understand that he is not this body, what is the difference between him and the dog? So śāstra says, sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13): he's no better than the cows and the asses. That's all.

And actually it is a fact. The first instruction of Bhagavad-gītā, they cannot take it, and they're scholars. That is the most regrettable situation, that these fools and rascals under the bodily concept of life, they are become authorities. Actually they are asses. Yes.

Revatīnandana: I used to observe when I was going to the university that all my professors, their intellectual business was just a profession, like digging ditches.

Prabhupāda: That's all. For earning money.

Revatīnandana: For their pleasure they're going home to drink beer and eat steak. That's all they're really interested in. They're just working to make money. I could see it, and I didn't want to follow their footsteps.

Prabhupāda: Just like a śūdra, he cleans in the road for money. They are going as professor, but the category is the same. You don't make any distinction between that sweeper and this professor. Or a hog and cat and dog. The hog is also working hard whole day and night for stool, eating. So this man is also working like that. Beyond that, he has no other knowledge.

Revatīnandana: The scientists, they have a term. Psychologists, they call it the idiot savant. The idiot savant means he's an idiot, but he has one particular talent, and because of that talent he can get along. Just like sometimes you find an idiot, he can look at a column of figures and he can compute the sum in his head very easily, but he can't even understand how to tie his shoes. And many of these scholars are like that. They're actually idiots, but they have one talent for Sanskrit or for history, and because of that they can get along. They can support their body, but otherwise they have no qualifications.

Prabhupāda: Śūdra. Unless he gets that post, he'll starve. He has got some talent in some particular subject, but he must get some service. By serving others, he'll be able to utilize his talent and get some money, then he'll eat. This is śūdra's business, dog's business. Just like a dog, unless he has got a nice master, his position is very precarious. A street dog. Nobody will care, neither if it is shot down.

Yogeśvara: You point out in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that they go to school and learn to become Ph.D., then they have to knock on the door for a job, and no one will open the door.

Prabhupāda: "No vacancy, sir." So just like dog.

Revatīnandana: But they have a way to force them to work. The politicians force the scholars.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Revatīnandana: If they don't print books, if they don't write a book every now and then and print it, get it published, they lose their tenure, their position as a professor. They must produce one book, then another book, then another book. If they don't—finished. In this way they are working all the time.

Prabhupāda: The Marwaris in India, they don't educate their son. Just like Birla. They say: "We can purchase these rascals. Why we should waste our time? (laughter) So-called technicians, so-called expert computer, these are . . . we can purchase. Why we shall waste our time?"

Haṁsadūta: It's the same thing I learned in Germany. First I wanted to get my own press, and I studied the situation very carefully, and I saw it was ridiculous for us to do that; it's so much hard work. It's much easier to collect the money in the street by giving the magazine and then paying someone. They work very hard and do it. Everything is like that. They have so many people that can do everything. The one thing that people can't do is distribute Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and for that Kṛṣṇa's giving so much money.

Prabhupāda: Yes, therefore tasyaiva hetoḥ prayateta kovidaḥ (SB 1.5.18), that verse. Only for this purpose one should endeavor.

Haṁsadūta: Yes. Kṛṣṇa . . . (indistinct) . . . is paying us for that.

Prabhupāda: You cannot purchase Kṛṣṇa consciousness—you can have money—that you have to cultivate.

Revatīnandana: Yeah, when Mr. Birla is getting old, then he has to come to us, if he has any sense.

Prabhupāda: No, they say, they simply give primary education, a,b,c,d they can read, that's all. And Sanskrit. They don't send, because everyone knows that sending boys to the school means spoil them. That's all. I have seen intelligent boys, they go to school and he is spoiled. Bas, spoiled. He learns how to smoke, how to use sex, how to talk nonsense, how to use knife, how to fight, these things. At least at the present moment. Yes. Simply slaughterhouse. This so-called school is called, collages yes, slaughterhouse. Yes, slaughterhouse.

Revatīnandana: It was when I went to school—I was a nice little boy—in school I fell down, only . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Yes, you must have been intelligent. That so . . . time was wasted. Our this gurukula should be taken care of very nicely, so nice preachers may come out. Brāhmaṇa, nice brāhmaṇa.

tasyaiva hetoḥ prayateta kovido

na labhyate yad bhramatām upary adhaḥ

tal labhyate duḥkhavad anyataḥ sukhaṁ

kālena sarvatra gabhīra-raṁhasā

(SB 1.5.18)

(pause)

Revatīnandana: I'm still thinking about the other morning, we were talking about how everything is actually spirit. Everything is composed of spiritual atoms actually, souls. We were talking about the . . .

Prabhupāda: That is Vedic version: sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 3.14.1), everything is Brahman.

Revatīnandana: When we speak about the transmigration of the soul, we speak about 8,400,000 species. Does that include the inanimate objects as well, within those 8,400,000?

Prabhupāda: Sthāvara, sthāvara. They are called sthāvara, immovable. He means hills, mountains, stones. They are called sthāvara. Sthāvara, one "Which cannot move."

Revatīnandana: So actually, we don't really . . .

Prabhupāda: Sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati (Padma Purāṇa). Two million types of sthāvara.

Revatīnandana: So we don't actually discriminate between the tree and, say, the atom, as a living entity.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Revatīnandana: Haribol. Little by little it's coming clear.

Prabhupāda: Sthāvara, sthāvara means one cannot move; standing. Sthāvara-jaṅgama. There are two kinds of living entities: one moving, one not moving.

Yogeśvara: But the atom is always in motion. The atoms and molecules are always constantly moving.

Prabhupāda: That movement is different. That is not independent moving.

Yogeśvara: Is that to say that a stone has a living entity in it?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Revatīnandana: Actually, what we discussed is that every . . . even the elements, the atoms, everything is made of nothing but spirit souls in fallen conditions. Because everything comes from brahma-jyotir, which is nothing but spirit souls, and brahma-jyotir . . . therefore soul never changes. So this manifestation is from brahma-jyotir. Therefore, it is made of souls. It is nothing else but spirit souls. Yesterday, a few days ago, we discussed that.

Prabhupāda: It is simply covered by another energy, which is called material energy. And that is māyā. Māyā means that is not actual, not factual. The example is given, just like the sun is covered by the cloud. The cloud is nothing but another creation of sun. But when the cloud comes, sun is invisible. Similarly this condition, forgetfulness, is my creation, and when I am covered by this forgetfulness I become stones and atoms, alike.

Haṁsadūta: In Bhagavad-gītā it says that the soul is immovable. In the Second Chapter there is a verse that says the soul is immovable.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Haṁsadūta: What does that mean exactly? Are we not moving? In that verse it says immovable and . . .

Prabhupāda: Sthāṇu, means fixed up.

Haṁsadūta: You mean its nature is . . .?

Prabhupāda: Unchangeable.

Haṁsadūta: Unchangeable. Not that we are not moving. We are moving.

Prabhupāda: Might be that word was not properly used. Sthāṇu. The word is sthāṇu. If you have got Sanskrit, you know what is the meaning of sthāṇu. And acalo 'yam, acalo 'yam, yes.

Revatīnandana: The point of all those . . .

Prabhupāda: That means acalo 'yam also, so acalo 'yam. Acalo 'yam means that does not move. Sthāṇur acalo 'yam (BG 2.24), in the Bhagavad-gītā it is given. You can see. Now there is no time.

Revatīnandana: It's time for class.

Prabhupāda: So can go.

Revatīnandana: Glories to Prabhupāda. (pays obeisances). Thank you very much Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hare Krsna. The lights off, get the lights off, off . . . (end)