720914 - Morning Walk - Los Angeles

Morning Walks by Date, 1972

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

720914MW-LOS ANGELES - September 14, 1972 - 12:16 Minutes

Devotee: . . . childbirth and there are more telephones and refrigerators and then . . .

Prabhupāda: More telephone means (laughs) more expenditure.

Devotee: They have to work less hours. Less hours working. More time for pleasure . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: That means your tendency is not to work much and enjoy. Then why you have created factories? The rascals. (laughter)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Now that is what the student was answering yesterday.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: He's, his aim is to do the best that he can do for his fellow human beings.

Prabhupāda: You don’t know what is the best, you are a rascal. You don’t know what is the best you take the worst as best, that is your knowledge.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So I asked how are you going to do it? It's a nice idea but how are you going to do it? Unless one centres in the God consciousness then it is impossible to do anything good because we have to understand that we are all controlled by the supreme person.

Prabhupāda: God is good. Generally they know God is good but they do not know, what is the use of your so-called goodness?

Devotee: Generally people pursue eating, sleeping, mating and defending.

Prabhupāda: But that also you cannot do because the hippies they have no facilities even for these things.

Devotee: (laughs) yeah . . . and they are better at it than.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: They’re better at it . . . (indistinct) . . . even though they have no such facility.

Prabhupāda: Why in America the bums are lying on the street? And they rent one room, what's it called, a "lyons"?

Devotee: A Flophouse.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: Flophouse, bums in a room.

Prabhupāda: One night one dollar.

Devotee: Flophouse.

Prabhupāda: Flop?

Devotee: Flop.

Prabhupāda: Flophouse.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: What is this? (laughs)

Devotee: Flophouse?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Devotee: . . . (indistinct)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Ah.

Prabhupāda: There are so many hotels, means people have no home. Eating, sleeping facilities. It means they have no sufficient sleeping accommodation that they cannot provide. Where is your happiness? Most of them they have no wife, most of the people they do not have a fixed wife, they have to hire a wife, hire a room, go to a hotel, hire a this, so where is the facility of eating, sleeping?

Devotee: Everything is rented.

Prabhupāda: Eh? Everything is rented (laughs)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: (laughs) Yesterday I stopped by to a gas station (laughter). And the man in the gas station he asked me, I was taking some petrol, and he asked me, "Hare Kṛṣṇa people how they get children?" He told me that he saw the girls are having children, "So do you allow sex?"

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) . . . us.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Then he asked me, "Do you have free sex?" Like that. I said: "Never, that is never allowed, in fact, sex is allowed but within the marriage system not outside." Then he said that he doesn't want to get married and then I asked, "What do you want, sex?" "Yes," he said, he always wants to have like that but he doesn't want to get married. I said: "That is the greatest sinful activity."

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) . . . animals. Animals do not marry but they have sex life, so that means you are animal. You're not human being. The answer should be like that. Because marriage, this ceremony is not for fun. Amongst the animals but they have got sex, so you are like animals, so you are animal, you don’t claim to be human being. This is the answer. By your so-called scientific improvement you have become an animal, is it not? The animals they have sex life anywhere but they are not married, therefore you are animal. Is it not?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: By your scientific improvement you are creating animals amongst human beings.

Karāndhara: You pointed out once in one of the purports that.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Karāndhara: You pointed out in one of the purports once that in every civilisation there has always been some kind of marriage for human beings.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Karāndhara: For every civilisation, it is only now that they are breaking that.

Prabhupāda: Otherwise why there is marriage . . . (indistinct)

Devotee: Even the aborigines.

Prabhupāda: Without marriage means animal life, that is animals, that is not human.

Devotee: Even the most primitive, native tribes.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: Even the most primitive native tribes have marriage.

Prabhupāda: Ah . . . then why you discriminate mother and sister? Why not have sex life with mother and sister and daughter because you are not married you have no daughter. So you can have your sex life with your mother and sister, why you discriminate? Mother and sister.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Human beings have discrimination.

Prabhupāda: Yes . . . (indistinct) . . . Hare Krishna.

Karāndhara: Increasing number of automobile accidents, increasing number of heart attacks.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Increasing number of deaths, increasing number of work.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Everything is increasing.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: When they produce, more . . .

Prabhupāda: Increasing number of diseases.

Devotee: Pollution. (laughs) Insanity.

Prabhupāda: Insanity.

Devotee: Suicides.

Prabhupāda: Debauchees, rogues.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Crime.

Devotee: Oh the crime rate has gone way up.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: The other day on the television a man was talking, they have formed some association.

Devotee: Yeah, a reformatory.

Prabhupāda: Yes, why he formed the association?

Devotee: They have a . . . (indistinct) . . . reformatory they have a 50% return rate. 50% of the people who graduate from the reformatory come back.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: 50% of the people who do their term.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Devotee: In the reformatory and they are released.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Devotee: 50% of those people come back. They go back and commit another crime and then.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee: And they are supposed to be cured.

(break)

Prabhupāda: Reformatory method has been described by Parīkṣit Mahārāja as hasti-snāna, the bathing of the elephants.

Devotee: (laughs) bathing of the elephants.

Prabhupāda: Yes. You know . . . (indistinct) . . . they take bath and again come back and throw dirt . . . (indistinct)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's urgent.

Prabhupāda: You have seen that?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, yes.

Prabhupāda: These are nature's . . . (indistinct) . . . such a big animal but he has no sense that I have taken bath why I am again throwing dirt? So these big animals they have no sense, that I was sent to the reformatory for reforming myself and again I am . . . (indistinct) . . . why I am taking? This is the advancement of your science but they have no sense even.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No.

Prabhupāda: And the priests are going to hospitals for drinking habit . . .

Devotee: They still hope against hope they can stop all these things.

Prabhupāda: No. That is their foolishness, punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30), chewing the chewed. They have failed in so many ways and still are trying in the same way.

Devotee: Every day they initiate a new program or a new plan.

Prabhupāda: That means imperfect knowledge as soon as you change your program that means your knowledge is imperfect. Why do you change?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: The theories change, the philosophical thesis change, program change that means you are all imperfect.

Devotee: They admit they are imperfect but they say with research, with science to . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Research, means your knowledge is imperfect, that means your imperfect.

Devotee: Yeah, we admit that yes but with research and science eventually we will solve all the problems.

Prabhupāda: That is hoping against hope.

Devotee: Also they will say . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: No, that is another foolishness we have got standard knowledge, we haven’t got to do. We take some knowledge and engage ourselves fully in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We do not change. We have taken these four principles we follow these four principles eternally and we advance.

We advance, actually you see, all our students are advancing, simply by accepting these four principles. You compare with anyone our students, they are advanced in every respect. (break) (end)