750719 - Morning Walk - San Francisco

Morning Walks by Date, 1975

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

 Listen to a 'Nectar Drop' created from this lecture

750719MW-SAN FRANCISCO - July 19, 1975 - 18:11 Minutes

Prabhupāda: Why you went to Vrindaban, New Vrindaban?

Gurudāsa: I associated with Kirtanānanda Mahārāja.

Prabhupāda: And? What was the result?

Gurudāsa: Well, I'm a little bit stronger in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Associating with devotees is a wonderful thing. They are really doing a lot of productive service there. They just put in a new road. The palace, they're putting the arches up today. Everyone's enthusiastic there. (break)

Prabhupāda: You informed him that you are taking sannyāsa?

Gurudāsa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: What did he say?

Gurudāsa: He smiled, said "Very nice." (break) . . . Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī that, as you requested, I'd like to join his bus party.

Prabhupāda: Is that all right?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda. (break)

Jayatīrtha: What is the position of a soul that's in a sacred tree like a fig tree?

Prabhupāda: There are also sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa, tamo-guṇa. Sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa, tamo-guṇa is working throughout the universe. (break) . . .was attempt to manufacture gold by combination of metals. They are not doing that?

Jayatīrtha: No, I don't think they're doing that.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Jayatīrtha: They think that that's foolishness. They think that it's a legendary thing.

Sudāmā: Alchemy is not looked upon as very intelligent.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Scientific.

Sudāmā: They've replaced it now with science, higher truth of science.

Prabhupāda: No, it is not legend. If you can mix copper, tin and mercury—this is stated in the śāstra—you can make gold. It is not legend. The particular metals to be combined, that is stated: copper, tin and mercury. You mix, and there will be gold.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Why aren't they doing it?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Why don't they do it?

Prabhupāda: Because they do not know the process.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, but some Vedic people, some men who know the Vedas. In India they know.

Prabhupāda: No. They make gold, some of the yogīs.

Brahmānanda: Yogīs. You once said they swallow some mercury and then they . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes. They swallow mercury overnight, and they pass urine on the copper, and then the copper is put into the fire, it becomes gold. There is same combination, mercury, copper.

Kṛṣṇadāsa: The only difficulty is that mercury is certain death if you eat it.

Prabhupāda: So therefore you must know how to eat. (laughter)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But why don't they . . . I'm sure the scientists could figure out an easier way than having to swallow it.

Prabhupāda: But in kāvirājī, they make some medicine which is gold added by this process, makaradhvaja. Makaradhvaja, the medicine which is combination of tin and mercury, and it looks like gold.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So we could become rich if we do this, our movement.

Prabhupāda: Yes, everyone will do, and there will be no rich men.

Kṛṣṇadāsa: Is it tin and copper?

Brahmānanda: Tin, copper and mercury.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So you can try. You are . . .

Kṛṣṇadāsa: That's brass. That's the constituents of brass.

Prabhupāda: Tin and copper?

Kṛṣṇadāsa: Like bell metal.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And add mercury.

Kṛṣṇadāsa: Is the first the metals mixed together?

Prabhupāda: I do not know that. (laughter)

Kṛṣṇadāsa: I'll give you all the profits.

Prabhupāda: I can give you suggestion. This example is given by Sanātana Gosvāmī.

yathā kāñcanatāṁ yāti

kaṁsyaṁ rāsa-vidhānataḥ

tathā dīkṣā-vidhānena

dvijatvaṁ jāyate nṛnāṁ

(Hari-bhakti-vilāsa 2.12)

This is the definition, that "As kaṁsya, the bell metal, by manipulating with mercury it becomes gold, similarly, a person by the process of dīkṣā, initiation, he becomes a brāhmaṇa. This is the example he has given. Yathā kāñcanataṁ yāti. Kāñcanatam means gold. Rāsa-vidhānataḥ, by process of mercury manipulation. Why he has not taken other metal? This is in the śāstra. And the scientists—I do not know—they say that some, what is called, molecules? Some molecules added with mercury, it can be turned into gold.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't know why they don't do it.

Kṛṣṇadāsa: They are experimenting.

Prabhupāda: They have not come to success. So why not make experiment in the laboratory?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. We should do it.

Jayatīrtha: Perhaps Svarūpa Dāmodara can do it. Svarūpa Dāmodara is a chemist.

Kṛṣṇadāsa: I have a lot of tin and brass.

Prabhupāda: Brass you have got?

Kṛṣṇadāsa: Would you like?

Prabhupāda: No, you add mercury, then give. The kāvirājī medicine, they mix mercury and sulphur, and then tin, and some other medicine, that make makaradhvaja, and it looks like gold. Svarṇa-sindhura. The name is svarṇa-sindhura, "vermillion of gold." That is a medicine. It looks like gold. The some medicine, they mix mercury and sulphuric acid first of all, and then with some other thing. Mercury cannot be directly heated. It must be mixed with sulphuric acid.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What happens when it is directly heated?

Prabhupāda: It will immediately blow.

Kṛṣṇadāsa: Sulphuric acid is also poisonous.

Prabhupāda: Cancer?

Brahmānanda: Poisonous.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sulphuric acid.

Brahmānanda: So it blows up as soon as it's heated.

Kṛṣṇadāsa: Well, it's not a medicine then. You don't . . .

Prabhupāda: No, they use as medicine, mercury mixed with sulphur.

Brahmānanda: There was an advertisement that a ten-cent piece, a dime, that was minted ten years ago, it was made with silver. So that ten-cent piece today is actually worth twenty-five cents. And the twenty-five cents piece that they make today, because it's made with copper, it's only worth ten cents. So it's better to have a ten-cent piece that was made ten years ago than a twenty-five cent piece that was made today. (indistinct background conversation about the worth of coins)

Kṛṣṇadāsa: In the British historical museum in London I have seen there's a plate about this large, and half of it is pure gold, and the other half is lead. And they found this. They can't explain. It's just a straight line where they separate, and they can't explain how it was produced. So they're experimenting now to try to change lead, because there's only, what is it, one proton or electron in the atom? Different. There's only like one proton difference between lead and gold. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . .the sky there are many big, big planets where the millions of miles made of gold. Just like desert, there is gold desert.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. We saw coming here a salt desert. There's a whole desert of salt.

Prabhupāda: Where?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In Utaḥ. It's called salt flats. There's a great salt lake. And the lake is gradually drying up. And for miles and miles and miles, simply salt.

Prabhupāda: Even in this planet.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Sudāmā: And the water in that lake is far more salty than the ocean water.

Prabhupāda: Hmm, must be.

Brahmānanda: You cannot sink in it, I think.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, it's not possible to drown. If you go into the water there, immediately you come up to the surface.

Sudāmā: So much salt.

Prabhupāda: Oh. (break) . . .the ocean of milk, ocean of milk. Ocean of liquor, ocean of oil, ocean of yogurt. (break)

Nalinī-kaṇṭa: . . .living in the ocean of nectar. The devotees are living in the ocean also, of nectar.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is stated by Caitanya Mahāprabhu, ānandāmbudhi-vardhanam (CC Antya 20.12). The ordinary ocean does not increase, but this ocean increases. Ānandāmbudhi-vardhanam. Vardhanam means increasing. (dog barks) So they keep also dog? I was thinking there was no dog.

Kṛṣṇadāsa: They're strays.

Dhīra-kṛṣṇa: Many dogs live around this campus, an unusual number, a very large number.

Kṛṣṇadāsa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in what śāstra is that recipe given for gold?

Prabhupāda: In the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa. Not recipe. The comparison is there in Hari-bhakti-vilāsa. Perhaps purposefully the recipe is not given so that you can take and misuse this. (laughter) And forget chanting. Because as soon as you get gold, then you are no more interested in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is the infection of gold.

Kṛṣṇadāsa: But I have gold.

Prabhupāda: No, you have gold. (laughs)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not great quantities.

Kṛṣṇadāsa: Originally when I came to the movement I asked you this, remember? And you gave lectures on the subject, and I asked you about it. And you asked me for what purpose I wanted it.

Prabhupāda: No, no, I don't wonder you. But the gold has got such infection that if one . . . That is the whole world, that as soon as one has gold, he is no more interested with God. That is the infection. "Ah!" he will say. "This is meant for the poor class of men who has no gold. I have gold. I am God." You know that Kali-yuga. He was punished, that "You get out." Then he said that "Where shall I go? Everywhere is your kingdom." Then Parīkṣit Mahārāja said that "You go here, in the brothel, in the . . . these four things." Striya-sūnā-pāna-dyūta yatra pāpaś catur-vidhāḥ: (SB 1.17.38) "Illicit sex, and slaughterhouse, and liquor shop and gambling." Then he requested that "Instead of going so many places, you give me some place where one place will be sufficient." Then he said, "You go where there is gold. Then you get everything." Striya-sūnā-pāna-dyūta yatra pāpaś catur-vidhāḥ. Formerly, especially in Bengal, the gold merchants are taken as—that is artificial, of course—the low class because they are rich, and they indulge in these four kinds of prohibition.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Devotees: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya, Śrīla Prabhupāda. (end)