751025 - Morning Walk - Mauritius

Morning Walks by Date, 1975

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

 Listen to a 'Nectar Drop' created from this lecture

751025MW-MAURITIUS - October 25, 1975 - 40:48 Minutes

Harikeśa: By chemically changing the genes in the living being we can, before conception, make a superior . . .

Prabhupāda: You can . . . first of all you be beaten with shoes. That's all. Then you can.

Harikeśa: No, we've actually done it. We've changed some genes and made some people better. By experimentation we can make people . . .

Prabhupāda: And your big, big cities are full with hippies. You cannot induce them to give up their LSD, and you are making better men. Better men is going to become worse. Just see how cheating.

Harikeśa: Oh, you mean once we make the better men they'll just degrade again.

Prabhupāda: Simply bogus propaganda. (break)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: . . . that their educational system has failed. Therefore they . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes. They should close the universities and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So by birth they want to make better men. They can't make them by culture.

Prabhupāda: No, culture . . . they adopt real culture. What do they know about culture? They're killing their own children in the womb, and they're cultured? Worse than the animals. The animals do not do that. These rascals, they are cultured? So wretched and fallen, and they are claiming to be cultured.

Harikeśa: So you can't culture a superior man unless you are one yourself.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Harikeśa: It's not possible to culture a superior man unless you are one yourself.

Prabhupāda: Yes. First of all be yourself a cultured man, a gentleman. You are worse than animals. What animals cannot do, you are doing that. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) . . . man is defined by Cāṇakya Paṇḍit.

mātṛvat para-dāreṣu

para-dravyeṣu loṣṭravat

ātmavat sarva-bhūteṣu

yaḥ paśyati sa paṇḍitaḥ

Here is culture. First thing is, any woman except one's own wife.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: What is that, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Any woman should be looked upon as mother. This is culture. Except his married wife, all women should be treated as mother. The brahmacārīs were taught like that, "Mother." This is culture. Simply they are trying to elope other's wife, other's woman, exploit them. And they're cultured. There is no culture at the present moment. Mātṛvat para-dāreṣu para-dravyeṣu loṣṭravat: "And others' money should be treated just like pebbles in the street." Nobody cares for it. So they are simply making plans how to grab others' money. And ātmavat sarva bhūteṣu: "And if you feel pains and pleasure, you should consider for others also." If your throat is cut, then do you feel very happy? Why you are cutting the throats of the poor animals? Where is culture? There is no culture. Simply rogues and thieves and rascals and fools. Where is culture? They do not know what is the meaning of culture. Here is culture, three words:

mātṛvat para-dāreṣu

para-dravyeṣu loṣṭravat

ātmavat sarva-bhūteṣu

yaḥ paśyati sa paṇḍitaḥ

(Cāṇakya Paṇḍit)

He is cultured.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Otherwise just animal.

Prabhupāda: Simply animal.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It is very logical.

Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda, should we call all the women "mother"?

Prabhupāda: Yes. And treat with like mother. Not only call, but treat with like mother.

Harikeśa: Actually, we have not even any idea how to treat mother.

Prabhupāda: Learn it. At least mother should not be proposed for sex. This much you can learn. Mātṛvat para-dāreṣu para-dravyeṣu loṣṭravat, ātmavat sarva-bhūteṣu. (break) . . . two questions: that they have not gone to moon planet, and they cannot make even a chicken egg, you make great propaganda.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: The rascals will be proved that they're really rascals.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They're saying to make human being. First let them make an ant or an egg.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just see. Then? Hele dhorte pare na, keute! (They can't even catch non-poisonous snakes, then how will they catch a cobra?) You cannot catch even non-poisonous snake and you are telling that, "I shall now catch cobra."

Harikeśa: Isn't that "shooting the rhinoceros"?

Prabhupāda: Shooting?

Harikeśa: The rhinoceros or hippopotamus or some . . . you're trying to shoot some big animal, and if you can't do it everybody will say, "Oh, he could never do it anyway." And if he does it, they all praise?

Prabhupāda: No, no, to kill animal is not very heroic. Nonsense. (laughs) Innocent animal wandering and you kill. "Oh, very great hero." Again he deserves to be kicked on the face. All action, they are simply rewarded with kicking on the face. Why should you kill animal? Ātmavat sarva-bhūteṣu. If you are killed, you feel pain. Why should you kill others unnecessarily?

(break) . . . here?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Not here, I don't think. A golf course, not a private place.

Prabhupāda: So we shall return? No.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: If you like. Would you like your gloves, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: No. (break)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Ice was coming down, hail. Hail. Before we went to the program there was hail, ice coming down. It's gone.

Prabhupāda: Yes. In the window there was "cut, cut." (break) . . . African government policy to keep these Africans', er, service, yes, for working, get money. They will remain happy in that way. They have no brain. They cannot govern. It is not possible. So this policy is nice.

Harikeśa: (wind blowing strongly) Someone was telling me that the weather here was supposed to be like Miami.

Prabhupāda: Miami? (break) . . . places were reserved for the sinful man in Kali-yuga. Formerly the Āryans never touched these places.

Harikeśa: Africa.

Prabhupāda: Africa or similar, other places. They were living in best places, like India. Now the number of sinful persons are increasing. Therefore they have been transferred here.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: America?

Prabhupāda: Anywhere.

Harikeśa: So in the warmer climates it seems like a better place for spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Prabhupāda: In warmer climate you can live inexpensively and freely. In winter climate, there is no freedom, neither it is inexpensive. Very expensive. (break) . . . some phoonsie. Phoonsie.

Harikeśa: Oh, those potato balls.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. With banana.

Harikeśa: With banana. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . the government accept you as guide, then everything will be all right. Brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra. Tell them that "We are not going to take any salary. You simply take our advice and govern." The modern legislative assembly, they should be composed of first-class brāhmaṇas—no salary. Then the government will be first class. All of them are after money; therefore they are trying to capture the power. They have no idea, no desire for the well-being of the citizens. (break) . . . this tree? Dates?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Called palmetto tree. Palmetto tree. It's not fruit-bearing. Not fruit-bearing. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . beyond the sun.

Indian man: Beyond the sun. How would you explain about eclipse which we get? . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: That you ask some astronomer. I am not astronomer. But I understand from Vedic scripture that moon is beyond the sun.

Indian man: Because we have seen that the moon comes between . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes, eclipse, it is Rāhu. It is Rāhu between the sun and . . . between sun and moon. Yes.

Indian man: Between the earth and the sun.

Prabhupāda: No earth. No, Rāhu. Earth is . . .

Cyavana: What they see is Rāhu, not moon. No.

Indian man: It's not moon. At night the planets which give light to this universe . . .

Prabhupāda: That is moon.

Indian man: That is moon.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They say that every planet gives light. That is not fact.

Indian man: It's a reflection, I think, of the sun . . .

Prabhupāda: No, there is fire.

Indian man: In the moon too there is fire? But it is cool, as the . . . our sages say.

Prabhupāda: It is surrounded by cooling atmosphere.

Indian man: It rotates?

Prabhupāda: In a different way, not as they explain.

Indian man: They rotate.

Prabhupāda: Just like my hands is moving. Like that.

Indian man: And it does not go all around other planets?

Prabhupāda: No.

Cyavana: They all move together?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Cyavana: They move together?

Prabhupāda: Yes. The pivot is the polestar. Fixing the polestar, they are moving like this. And there is sun's movement.

Cyavana: Oh.

Prabhupāda: So we shall go once again?

Cyavana: Yes. We can go back.

Indian man: (break) . . . friend, and I told him that you said these things. So he asked me the question about the eclipse. So I would like to know to explain to him about it.

Prabhupāda: The eclipse is . . . when the Rāhu comes in between sun and moon, there is eclipse.

Indian man: It does not eclipse, the moon. But why people say that it's the moon that covers the sun? Because they don't know it's . . .

Prabhupāda: They are misinformed.

Indian man: They suppose?

Prabhupāda: It is not the fact.

Indian man: Astronomers too say that.

Prabhupāda: It is up to the man to believe or not believe. But we have got authorities different; they have got authorities different. So if we follow our authorities, then we have to accept according to that.

Indian man: We get in a dilemma, we people who do not know more than they explain about.

Prabhupāda: There is no dilemma, because our literature is there from millions and millions of years, and they have their knowledge within two, three hundred years. Now it is up to us whom to believe.

Indian man: You want to say that the astronomers are the mistaken. The astronomers have been mistaken to say all these things?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone commits mistake. Anyone who is conditioned, he must commit mistake. This is our position, that anyone who is not liberated, he must commit mistake. We take knowledge from liberated soul, not from the speculators. That is the difference.

Cyavana: They prove their inadequacy by changing their theories every twenty years.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Cyavana: They've proved that their brains are weak.

Prabhupāda: No, they have no brain. If it is going to change, then what is their brain? (break) . . . India, still, there are so many big, big Vedic astronomers. They never change.

Brahmānanda: The astronomers.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They follow the old principles.

Cyavana: Your Guru Mahārāja, he was an astronomer?

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break)

Cyavana: . . . some astronomers who have the correct understanding?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Many.

Cyavana: There are some still. They understand correct.

Prabhupāda: The Indian astronomer, they correctly say, "This time, this moment, there will be eclipse." How do they say?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: On the basis of Rāhu.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Cyavana: No, he said they correctly know.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Now recently some European astronomers, they said comet is coming, but he did not come. Just see. But no Indian astronomer said that comet is coming. No Indian astronomer. So he became a fool. So much arrangement was made: "Comet is coming." Nobody came. And in our childhood we saw one comet, and Indian astrologers, they very particularly said: "It will begin from this corner. It will rise like this, in this . . ." Exactly it was done. The comet came, and as it is stated, "From this corner it will come," it happened so, everything correct.

(break) . . . comet did not come, what people said to this astronomer? Nothing?

Harikeśa: Nobody knows if it came or not.

Prabhupāda: No, it was advertised.

Brahmānanda: Just like they were selling land on the moon.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just see. (laughter) He was telling me. Selling ticket. And if I say: "They are cheater, bluffer," they become angry. Just see. Actually they cheated and bluffed so many men. Now they say it is inhabitable. Why they sold ticket for going there? So many living entities there are, living within the sand, and they say there is no living entity. How they are eating? How they are sleeping? A small . . .

Cyavana: Millions of them. (break)

Indian man: . . . airless, Swāmījī. Therefore we can't have the life there. They have proved that it is airless, waterless and so on.

Prabhupāda: How do you say there is no life? You see in the sand there are so many lives. So there, if it is desert, there are so many lives.

Indian man: In the Sahara desert we can have life there, Swāmījī?

Prabhupāda: They say, but we see practically there are lives. Why shall I believe them? Here I see so many lives are there within the sand. So why shall I believe you when you say that nobody can live there because it is sand or dust? I see practically.

Indian man: Here we have air and water.

Prabhupāda: There also there is everything. Therefore I say they did not go there.

Indian man: In the moon it may be. But where they went, there. There could have not been there. They say there no life there. It may be in Rāhuloka, as you have said that.

Prabhupāda: No, there is life in Rāhu.

Cyavana: In the ocean they have air? In the ocean is there air? What is the chemical combination of water?

Prabhupāda: You cannot live within the water. Why do you think that others cannot live?

Indian man: No, no, I don't mean . . . Please, Swāmījī . . . I want to say that they have said there is no air and water there.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Where is water within the water? Where the air?

Indian man: Not as you call me to live there . . .

Cyavana: How do they live, then?

Indian man: Live where?

Cyavana: How do they live, then? The same example.

Prabhupāda: How they live? So this is all misconception.

Indian man: Oh. There should be life there.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Cyavana: They have a different way of getting the air than we do.

Prabhupāda: Or they may not require air. It is God's creation.

Indian man: And because they have not seen, therefore they say that.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Here people take in consideration of his position. That is rascaldom. One should not think. There are varieties of life. And how they're life in the sun? There is life. So you cannot conceive that there is life in the sun, but there is life. Otherwise how Kṛṣṇa went there and talked with the president of the sun? The president means he's alone there? President means there is kingdom. They have got body made of fire. Can you imagine there can be body made of fire?

Indian man: If Kṛṣṇa says, then there must be.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. That is our business. But you cannot interpret. They cannot accommodate within their teeny brain what is going on in the creation. They think in their own way. That's all. Now, they say that the water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. And who supplied so much hydrogen, oxygen?

Indian man: God.

Prabhupāda: So therefore it is, everything, in God's hand. Their difficulty is that they'll not accept God. That is the . . . Therefore we are very much angry with them. We want to kick on their face. The atheist number one, all these so-called scientist.

Brahmānanda: As soon as they were able to create some oxygen and hydrogen in the laboratory, then they had, "Oh, then there's no God."

Prabhupāda: "There is no God." So you bring hydrogen, oxygen; create another ocean. Simply talking nonsense. Now, our challenge is, "You just create one egg." Can they? Ask any scientist. Can he make one seed which will bring such a big tree? And where is that science? They're all nonsense.

Indian man: They were trying to . . .

Prabhupāda: "Trying." That's it. And therefore they should be kicked on their face. They are trying like foolish man, and it will never be successful; therefore they should be kicked. This is our proposition. "Trying," "in future," this is their bluff. We don't accept this. (break) . . . one check, million dollars, postdated. Then, if you ask me, "Why you have postdated?" "No, I have no money now. In future it will be deposited." Will you accept that check? This is their bluff.

Harikeśa: Well, why not accept it? It might turn out. It might turn out in the future.

Prabhupāda: So a rascal like you will accept. (laughter) We are not so . . . (break) . . . transaction, even today's date check, they will not accept. "Bring cash."

Brahmānanda: 'Cause the cheating tendency is there.

Prabhupāda: That's all. It is cheating. Post-dated check means he cheats. What is the guarantee that there will be deposit of money? Will the bank guarantee?

Harikeśa: They've done so many good things in the past, you can understand that . . .

Prabhupāda: No good things. All bluffs. What good things they have done which has benefited the human society or saved the human society from birth, death, old age and disease? What they have done? Our main problem is this. And when there is no food, what the scientists can do? If there is no rice, no wheat? That will come. The scientists will be taught very nicely. Time is coming when there will be no food. Let them produce. Therefore they are trying chemical food, one . . . one tablet. This is another cheating. Why tablet? Why not actually produce rice by chemical composition? Why tablet? This is their bluff. The Western people, they take dozens of tablets every day. Still, they are the same condition.

Cyavana: They are becoming more crazy.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) . . . ceptive tablet, sleeping tablet, or . . .

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Waking tablets.

Prabhupāda: Waking tablets and so on. Tranquilization tablet.

Brahmānanda: They had one tablet for pregnant mothers, and that tablet was used very much in Europe, and that tablet proved to be very harmful to the children that were born. They created terrible deformities amongst many, many children. So there was a tremendous lawsuit against the company. I think it was a German company.

Prabhupāda: What for the tablet was used?

Brahmānanda: Something . . . some vitamin for the pregnant mothers.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Thalidomide, yes?

Brahmānanda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The babies, they came out with no arms. Just hands like this coming from their shoulder. Flippers.

Prabhupāda: Just see. This is their cheating. (break) . . . everything had been experimented, and they were defeated; still, "science." This is their foolishness. (break) . . . telling me that fifty thousand people died by motor accident?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I was telling you that. In America they used to have . . .

Prabhupāda: Just see. One city is finished.

Harikeśa: Fifty thousand?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Each year.

Brahmānanda: It used to be ten thousand.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Oh, fifty thousand. That was years ago even.

Prabhupāda: So this is the advancement. Every year one city is finished. This is the advancement.

Brahmānanda: They were making one joke that on the Independence Day of America everyone goes out in their car and celebrates. They were making a joke that more people will die by the celebration than died in the original battle of getting the independence. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Just see their intelligence. Andha yathāndhair upaniyamanas te 'pisa-tantryam uru-damni baddhaḥ (SB 7.5.31). By nature's law they are bound up hands and legs, and still, they are trying to do something independently. That is their fault.

Indian man: Don't you think that the scientists have done good things but people have . . .

Prabhupāda: What is that good thing, first of all say.

Indian man: For example, they have invented medicines like the . . .

Prabhupāda: But have they stopped disease?

Indian man: But . . .

Prabhupāda: Now, no "but." First of all, they have got medicine for making money, but have they stopped disease?

Indian man: To some extent.

Prabhupāda: "To some extent," that is another bluff. That is another bluff. "To future," "some extent." Why some extent? Stop it.

Indian man: There were many people dying in Africa.

Prabhupāda: Everyone is dying. How you will live?

Indian man: Malaria . . .

Prabhupāda: No, no. Will you live forever?

Indian man: No, sir.

Prabhupāda: Then why do you speak that many are living? You cannot live. That is nature's law. You must die—today or tomorrow, it doesn't matter.

Indian man: They died before time comes. People die before time if there is no . . .

Prabhupāda: At the present moment they are not dying?

Indian man: Not . . . they should . . . there have been more deaths than . . .

Prabhupāda: So more or less, they are dying. Can you stop it? This is all bluffing, and fools are bewildered by these, all these propositions. You have to die today or tomorrow. Can you stop your death?

Indian man: No.

Prabhupāda: Then where is the benefit of this? And pay the scientists money for bluffing? You'll die, today or tomorrow. It doesn't matter. Why you are anxious? After all, we have to die. Just like we are in a friend's place. We have to vacate it. And if two days' advance, "All right, you can remain two days," that means I have got the proprietorship of the house? It is all nonsense. You have to die. Stop this death; then there is credit. If I become proprietor of the house, that is credit. And if I am living for four days, if they give concession, "All right, you can live two days more," is that very great benefit? I'll have to leave it. Similarly, you will have to die, today or tomorrow. It doesn't matter.

Indian man: But only . . . (indistinct) . . . can stop this death . . .

Prabhupāda: Nobody is . . . Rascals and fools will that: "I'll not die today. Tomorrow I shall die." (laughter) This is rascal. This is rascal. These things will be done by the rascals. "I'll not die today. I'll die tomorrow." This is rascaldom.

Indian man: About religion, Swāmījī. Religion is capable to stop death?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Here the . . . Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti (BG 4.9). That is our proposal, to go back to home, back to Godhead. No more death.

Indian man: After death, no death?

Prabhupāda: No death.

Indian man: Okay then, Swāmījī, we should . . .

Prabhupāda: "After death" means we have got this body; we'll have to leave it. That is certain. But after leaving this body, you are not going to get another body which will die. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. If they can manufacture some medicine that "You have suffered from diseases. Now you take this medicine—no more disease," then there is credit. No more disease. But there is no guarantee.

Indian man: One kind of disease.

Prabhupāda: One kind or another kind, disease is disease. Disease is disease. It is foolish for the person to think, "If I would have gotten that disease, it was better for me." This is foolish, another foolishness. Disease is disease. Disease means suffering. You have to suffer, that's all, this disease or that disease.

Brahmānanda: The man who owns this house, his wife died recently from cancer. He sent her to London for special treatment, very costly, and they could not do anything.

Prabhupāda: Ah. Just see. Where is . . . this is their science: take money and do nothing.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: At least in the past when there was disease people would depend on God more. Now they depend on the doctors.

Prabhupāda: No, still they have to depend on God. Otherwise this man spent so much money. God denied, "No, your wife will not stay," and she had to die. (break)

Brahmānanda: . . . when she went to London for treatment she became worse.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like vitamin pill—no hand.

Cyavana: Yes. No arms.

Prabhupāda: Simply they are cheating. There was one gentleman, English gentleman, Sir William Temple. He used to say, "I wish to die without a doctor. Don't bring doctor."

Cyavana: Without a doctor.

Prabhupāda: Yes. "Let me die peacefully. Don't bring doctor." I say also. Don't bring doctor here when I am diseased. What is this? (break)

Brahmānanda: There's a chair if you would like to sit out here in the sun.

Prabhupāda: No, no. It is not so cold.

Devotee: All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Jaya. (end)