720924 - Morning Walk - Los Angeles

Morning Walks by Date, 1972

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

720924MW-LOS ANGELES - September 24, 1972 - 62:25 Minutes

(in car)

Prabhupāda: That is our theory, we believe God exists. But if you want to see, "Show me that He exists," that is nonsense.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Hm.

Prabhupāda: Because you cannot see. But you have to admit that God exists . . . and He is a person, by reason. So far our reason goes, that is stated in the Vedānta-sūtra, what is the Absolute Truth? The Absolute Truth is the original source of everything. That's all.

Now the next question will be, the original source of everything—whether He is a dead matter or a living entity? That is explained in the Bhāgavata, He is living entity, the supreme living entity, satyam param.

Devotee: How is it that science . . . the scientists, they will not accept the faith that is required in Kṛṣṇa consciousness?

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: Because they have faith, blind faith in their theories, but why they will not have faith in scripture?

Prabhupāda: No, they have to accept.

Devotee: Why do they? Can they not accept with faith?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Because it is said there in the Bhagavad-gītā alongside is all the living entities under the influence of the three modes of material nature are bewildered.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Māyayāpahṛta-jñānā (BG 7.15). (japa) (break)

Devotee: It was actually. It rained prematurely, because they put salt in the clouds.

Prabhupāda: Another bogus.

prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni

guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ

ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā

kartāham iti manyate

(BG 3.27)

This verse you can consult in the Bhagavad-gītā: prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni. Everything is being done by the laws of nature. What these rascals can do? Ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā. Simply being puffed up by false egoism, they are thinking, "We are doing." Nature is so strong that what you can do against nature?

Devotee: Acha.

Prabhupāda: Every time they are being kicked out by the laws of nature. Still they are thinking, "We are master." That is foolishness. They are trying to become immortal, like Hiraṇyakaśipu, by scientific. (japa) They can manufacture motorcars, and as soon as the petroleum is finished, your motorcar driving. For 50 years, 50 years before I think there was no motorcar. Eh?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No.

Karāndhara: Maybe they have been about 50 or 60 years.

Prabhupāda: That's all.

Karāndhara: 1908 was the first one that produced in a factory.

Prabhupāda: In the city 19. 1960. Mr. Diemler (Daimler) he discovered motor car, Diemler?

Karāndhara: Diemler?

Prabhupāda: Yes, D i a m

Karāndhara: Diamler? Well, I remember different people working on it in different places.

Prabhupāda: Oh. the horseless carriage . . . (japa)

(break) So material science is an expansion of illusory energy, Bhaktivinode Ṭhākura says, jaḍa-vidyā sa māyāra vaibhavam. tomāra bhajane bādhā. They are all impediments in the advancement of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, anitya saṁsāre moha janamiyā, they become disillusioned in some temporary things and that becomes more and more entangled.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, it is easier to forget Kṛṣṇa when one is engaged in suspect activities all the time.

Prabhupāda: Yes. These are the snares for the spreading of the network of māyā. It is illusion to forget Kṛṣṇa. (japa)

(break) . . . do they accuse us that we are escaping?

Karāndhara: Yes, sometimes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So you just say: "Yes, we are escaping, and you are being entrapped." That is the difference.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Escaping from material bondage.

Prabhupāda: He is escaping, that's all right. But you are being entrapped.

Devotee: They like the prison.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: They like the prison.

Prabhupāda: And we are . . . we try to . . . we like escaping.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: (laughs)

Prabhupāda: You like something, I like something else. (japa)

Karāndhara: Generally they say that out of jealousy.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Karāndhara: Or envy. They are thinking as "If we have to work so hard and suffer, then everyone should. Why someone should be able to chant and dance?"

Prabhupāda: They are envious.

Karāndhara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: They can see this, that is our success. They say frankly (laughs) envious?

Karāndhara: They won't say it, no. But when they say that we are escaping . . .

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Devotee: . . . and we are no-accounts, that is generally the reason why, because they are jealous.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Devotee: They work so hard day and night.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And we sit down in our garden and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, (laughs) without any anxiety, bahu-śākhā hy anantāś ca buddhayo 'vyavasāyinām.

vyavasāyātmikā buddhir

ekeha kuru-nandana

bahu-śākhā hy anantāś ca

buddhayo 'vyavasāyinām

(BG 2.41)

Everything is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. You have to read carefully, and you will get reference in all subject matters. Bahu-śākhā hy anantāś ca. Not nice. I’ve got this toothache. I do not know.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Two teeth?

Prabhupāda: Toothache!

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh!

Prabhupāda: All teeth, they have given notice that they are now falling. Take care. (japa)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: (indistinct) . . . for exercise?

Śrutakīrti: Yes, practising pitching.

Devotee: Can I ask some more?

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in the newspapers there was a very big scandal.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Devotee: Well, scandal means. How can I describe it? Very distasteful subject, you know. It's, for example, when a scientist commits a great failure and it's, ah, you know he could have prevented it, he could have prevented it had he used intelligence.

Śrutakīrti: In other words, what happened to Nanda-kumāra.

Prabhupāda: That means mistake.

Devotee: Yes, yes. And . . .

Prabhupāda: That is, that is every conditioned soul, he is subjected to commit mistakes. That we repeatedly say.

Devotee: The particular circumstance was that in the southern states of America they made a test on syphilis, persons who had syphilis, 250 persons. And they gathered them together—and they knew that they had syphilis—to see what the . . . how the disease developed.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Devotee: And they would not cure them. They let them. They have a cure for syphilis—penicillin—but they would not cure them, to see how they would develop. And something like, 175 died. So this is science's way of making advancement.

Prabhupāda: They make experiments. Doctors make experiment.

Devotee: Yeah, but the experiments . . .

Prabhupāda: If there is a poor patient, they will make experiment.

Devotee: At the expense of his life.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee: Then how can we trust science if they are killing 175 . . .

Prabhupāda: Trusting. how can you trust rogues and rascals? Unless one is fully God conscious, you cannot trust anyone.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: One thing in this point, Śrīla Prabhupāda, so-called medical field, medical science. There is students, when they start learning about the arts of medical science, they kill lot of animals, because most of the experiments are based on small animals to start with . . .

Prabhupāda: Biology.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. So do they suffer for . . . because they think that they are going to do something good, better, for their fellow beings? By . . . they are learning something from the small animals which they kill in order to gain their knowledge. So do they suffer from . . .

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. They are responsible for killing the animals. Because they are fools, they cannot learn. Simply childish. They cannot get any perfect knowledge in this way.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So it is like, ah, killing in the slaughterhouse. If some people kill and some people eat, but ordinarily they all get . . .

Prabhupāda: Eight people are responsible. One who kills, one who orders, one who purchases, one who cooks, one who. So many. There are eight. Manu-saṁhitā.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Ah.

Prabhupāda: Eight men are responsible for killing the animals.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So from that reasoning, learning this medical art, those persons who are cured, they are cured by the doctors . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes, they are all cured.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: . . . as it is, they will all suffer.

Prabhupāda: Yes . . . therefore karma-kāṇḍīya. This action and reaction is proved. Is simply implication. Karma-kāṇḍīya, jñāna-kāṇḍīya, sakali viṣera bandha. Now those who are too much attached to killing, they are going to have next life killing. Just see.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: When I started my school life, I had interviewed for a doctor, thinking that I want to do good service to my fellow beings. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: You are thinking like that, "I am doing some service." But he is becoming implicated.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Ah.

Prabhupāda: Give service to Kṛṣṇa, then every day is perfect. Best service to the humanity—to awaken their God consciousness. We are reminding like this. A rich man's son, he has come out of his home and he is suffering—just like there are so many hippies. But we are trying to remind the rich man's son that, "Why you are suffering? Why don't you go to your father to become comfortably situated?"

This is our business. "You are not to suffer. You are very rich man's son. Your father has got so much money that you haven't got to suffer. Why don't you go back to home?" That is our home. Who can be richer than God? And everyone is son of God, then why not return Him too, and then all sufferings finished? That is our Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Why you are trying to become happy in this non-permanent situation of material life? Go home and enjoy permanent life, blissful life. Dance with Kṛṣṇa. No. Even by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, a little restraining, they will go back to home back to Godhead, and all problems solved—they will not accept. They will make a scientific research to find out petroleum in the midst of the ocean. Therefore they are called rascals, fools, trying to be happy eh?

Durāśayāḥ it has been explained, durāśayāḥ by hope which will never be fulfilled, durāśayā ye bahir-artha-māninaḥ (SB 7.5.31). They are trying to be happy under this external energy, bahir-artha, exactly the same way by making the body comfortable one shall be happy. It will never be possible who has become happy by simply soaping the body and show some shirt?

Durāśayā na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ, progress should be towards God, svārtha-gatim self-interest everyone has got his self-interest. Self-interest should be to make progress to reach God. They do not know, they are making progress in this material world which will never be fulfilled and becoming in . . . I mean to say, entangled one after another different species of life, that's all.

Devotee: (indistinct) . . . scientists have expectations for the future they expect to have cities under water, cities on the moon.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. They will. As crazy fellows they will expect so many things. And they will be baffled and they will be killed. And because they wanted to make a city in on the water, they will be transformed into fish and live very pleasantly. Nature will give them facility, "All right, you wanted to live on the water? All right, come with us and live very nicely, pleasantly."

So they will become fish, that's all. So big fish. there are many big fish. So according to their desires they will be fulfilled. Anything you desire, nature is ready to give you facility. Why scientific? You simply think of it and you will get the things. Similarly, if you think of Kṛṣṇa, you get Kṛṣṇa. This is the process.

Devotee: . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: They have all these plans and hopes, but in their own cities there is so much violence and hatred, and they cannot even stop their own problems at all.

Prabhupāda: Why there should not be violence? You are thinking one way, I am thinking another way, so there must be clash. That is the point. They are not thinking in the same way everywhere. Everyone has got different plans. Just like you make a circle like this, then I make a circle like this, it will clash. But if the center is there—you make a circle, I make a circle, another makes a circle—it will never clash. If you make plans keeping Kṛṣṇa in the center, there will be no clash. There may be bigger circles, smaller circles, but there will be no clash. But if you make different centers, there will be clash.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, that is very nice.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone is planning, eh? Hitler is planning, Mussolini is planning, Churchill is planning, Nixon is planning, Lenin is planning. There should be fight, that's all. There are so many planning commissions—the result is fight. Those who are planning to make a city, they will become a bird, like that . . .

Devotee (2): Pelican?

Prabhupāda: Pelican. So we are saying: "Do not make any more plans. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Do that. Forget your nonsense plans." We are the greatest messenger of peace and prosperity. Eight million four hundred thousand species of life, they are simply planned, that's all. Because they did differently plan, therefore there are . . . (indistinct) . . . otherwise why not one kind of species of life?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Planning is also a form of consciousness?

Prabhupāda: Hm? Yes. Without consciousness, how there can be planning? Planning is a hope.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Hm.

Prabhupāda: Bhāgavata says this hope will never be fulfilled.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually, all the living entities are planning.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Karmis . . .

Svarūpa Dāmodara: . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Karmis means they are simply planning, differently—planning of sense gratification. Formerly they were planning on having dress up to this knee, and now they are planning to become naked. This is their business. Sometimes this way and sometimes this way, then this way.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Strange.

Prabhupāda: Bhoga and tyāga. Sometimes working day and night to have the skyscraper buildings, and sometimes pressing nose meditation, that's all. And after meditation, just like Vivekananda, "Oh, my countrymen are so poor; the Europeans and Americans, they are rich. Why don't you do like that? Why don't you eat meat? Why don't you be strong?" Then that pressing of nose stuff . . .

You have seen Vivekananda's system? Pressing your nose and then come back, and you become strong, you become laborious, you make industry, you become happy then. Pressing your nose foolishness. This is going on. Always.

Devotee: A few weeks ago Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, this. his movement the government is paying them to teach the students. The government is teaching the Maharishi to open classes in all the universities and colleges. One of the . . . they are teaching now and the government is paying them to open in schools, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Transcendental Meditation.

Devotee: Yes. You see they will not. they will not accept, you know our classes. They will not let us chant but they let Maharishi Mahesh Yogi chant.

Karāndhara: Probably, they think this type of meditation is good psychotherapy, I don’t think they talk anything about God realisation . . .

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Not perfect.

Karāndhara: Just that it is good psychotherapy, good for the nerves.

Prabhupāda: So that they become more sexually inclined as meditation. What is the result of this psychotherapy?

Karāndhara: Well, they say someone becomes more peaceful, less anxiety. It is very interesting because the way it developed is that an army general, so he was having some anxieties, so he went to their school so that he could become pacified. So here is an army general his occupation is war and he is trying to attain peace by meditation and he is engaged in warfare.

Prabhupāda: What is that meditation?

Karāndhara: They sit with their eyes closed, chanting secret mantras.

Prabhupāda: So it will never be successful. Real meditation means to think of God. That is real meditation. So where is their idea of God? They have no idea of God. It is artificial meditation only.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They think only for the physical body. They think the body will be . . .

Prabhupāda: Our meditation is perfect we are thinking of Kṛṣṇa. (break)

Śrutakīrti: (indistinct) . . . they don't eat the fish that they catch, they throw them back.

Prabhupāda: It is not a question of eating, it is a question of killing. If you don't eat, that doesn’t matter. If you are killing. The question is killing, "Thou shall not kill."

Śrutakīrti: Yes.

Devotee: Many of Jesus Christ's disciples were fishermen. So he would go along and he would say to them, "You should leave that, and I will make you a fisher of men."

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Devotee: Fisher of men.

Prabhupāda: It is from?

Devotee: "I will make you serve. I will make you a fisher of men." You know, he would, namely, that he would teach them how to save souls instead of saving fish.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Is this, er, Śrīla Prabhupāda, these small living entities, like fish and these small insects, they are killed by some larger animals. Is it some special favor to these living entities, smaller ones? Because they . . .

Prabhupāda: Everyone has got the facility, because the nature's law is that one has to eat another living entity. But there should be discrimination. The human being also eating; sometimes they eat vegetables. Actually the vegetables are not killed. If I take a fruit from a tree, it is not killed. The human being is supposed to take yajña-śiṣṭa. After offering it to Viṣṇu, then he can take. The human being, it is not a question of killing; it is taking prasādam.

yajña-śiṣṭāśinaḥ santo

mucyante sarva-kilbiṣaiḥ

(BG 3.13)

So this food should be offered according to the scriptural injunction, as in the Bhagavad-gītā: patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ (BG 9.26). That is the duty of human being. Therefore those who are meat-eaters, they are also given the facility of offering to goddess Kali. Not without.

The meat-eater class there must be, always. So the meat-eater class, drunkard class, they are given chance by offering to goddess Kali, goddess Kalitaḥ. That is for the lower class of men. Those who are in the dark, gradually they will come to the quality of passion, and then quality of goodness, then transcendental qualities, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Gradually promotion.

So meat-eater class, drunkard class, woman-hunter class, there are always. but they are not considered as higher class. They are considered as lower class, but they are also given chance to gradually elevate. Better then to serve the higher class, to make everyone the topmost of the society, brāhmin and Vaiṣṇava.

(break) We have got many enemies with our broad thinking. That I am . . . (indistinct) . . . and the advantages . . . (indistinct) . . . mlecchas. According to Vyāsa . . . (indistinct) . . . nobody can become brāhmin without being born of a brāhmin father.

Devotee: Sikhism came from Vaiṣṇavism? Guru Nanak?

Prabhupāda: Not authorized.

Devotee: (indistinct) . . . are they not kṣatriyas?

Prabhupāda: They are mixed up.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They are . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: They are Hindus or Muslims.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I understand that there are some followers of Sikhism in this country also. In San Diego, in that hall when Prabhupāda lectured, there were a lot of Americans boys and girls who put on turbans.

Prabhupāda: Ah. In Portland also. (break) . . . means simply worshiping the Supreme Lord. That is Vedic.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: In Bhagavad-gītā the Lord says: "The Vedic principle means to know Me." Śabda all kinds of Vedas, Sāma, Ṛg, Yajur, Atharva. Any religions system that does not aim at understanding the Supreme Lord and our relationship with Him. There is. Generally religion is going on under some faith, who believes in this.

(break) . . . take religion very serious.

Devotee: Does religion mean having some kind of faith?

Prabhupāda: No religion means "I believe in this way, you believe in that way." In the modern age that is the . . . (indistinct) . . . so if we are also . . . (indistinct) . . . this is a compromise. Just like the Ramakrishna mission so. Yato mat tato pat: "Whichever faith you follow, it is all right."

Devotee: Potpourri.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: Potpourri.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: Potpourri. That's like, you know they make a stew of everything.

Devotee (2): A hodgepodge.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: You mean kitri?

Devotee (3): Yes, well. like the Ramakrishna's teaching of religion, everything . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: It is not the . . . it is more or less little social work. Social. political social work. That's all. So recently they have written one article . . . (indistinct) . . . they have quoted so many speeches from Vivekananda. So from those speeches it appears that still they have no religion. They have no conception of God.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Is this a social lifestyle?

Prabhupāda: No. Vivekananda, after coming here, he thought that, "Our country is primitive in such a way. But the system of civilization going on in this Western country, that is better."

Devotee: Industry. Industrialized.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: Yes. He was encouraging the industrialization of India.

Prabhupāda: Just to imitate the Western. And he also imitated. Just like the Christian missionaries, they have got some philanthropical, opening hospitals, helping the poor. Like that, he did. The Ramakrishna Mission means an imitation of the Western culture. Social politics.

Devotee: (indistinct) . . . in the Bhagavad-gītā is there not instructions that one should help his fellow men? . . . (indistinct) . . . for example, in Bangladesh . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: We don't think there's anything special.

Devotee: Śrīla Bhaktivinoda or . . . (indistinct) . . . one's devotion in practical assistance to one's fellow men, or something to that extent.

Prabhupāda: Yes, we are doing the best service to humanity giving Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But not in that way. Their philanthropical work means bodily concept of life.

Devotee: Alone. Yes.

Prabhupāda: That's all. So that is . . . (indistinct) . . . Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. We say we take care of the spirit soul—automatically takes care of your body. But they have no information of the spirit soul. Their welfare activities means opening the coat, that's all.

Suppose you go into the ocean, you are drowned, and I jump over it and bring back your coat. And if I say that, "Now I have saved Kṛṣṇa dāsa," that is foolish. By saving your coat, it is not saving you. Our philosophy is like that. Man goes to help but has saved his coat, that's all.

Devotee (3): If you save the man, he doesn't care even if he's lost his coat.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee (3): If one saves the man, he doesn't care even if he has to lose his coat.

Prabhupāda: No. If I can actually save Kṛṣṇa dāsa . . . (indistinct) . . . but if I simply save the coat, then Kṛṣṇa dāsa is lost.

Devotee (3): Yes.

Prabhupāda: That he does not know. That is our welfare activity.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They are under the spell of illusion.

Prabhupāda: Illusion. Just see their foolishness, mūḍhā; na māṁ prapadyante mūḍhāḥ, duṣkṛtino narādhamāḥ (BG 7.15) They are described like this, miscreants, rascal, lowest of the mankind and lost all knowledge. They are duṣkṛtinaḥ, those who are on the bodily concept . . . (indistinct)

Devotee: Remember . . . (indistinct) . . . we do have to compromise.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: We do have to compromise in the material world.

Prabhupāda: We are compromise.

Devotee: I mean, we have to maintain the body.

Prabhupāda: We. we maintain the body nicely. We can maintain the body nicely. We don't allow them to drink, at least. Taking care of the body. The drunkards, they are always . . . (indistinct) . . . so we take more care. From hygienic point of view, from health point of view, we take all care. But they do not care.

They allow that, "You can drink and you can do all nonsense, and when you become diseased, come to the hospital. We have increased the hospitals." That is their business, "You can increase your diseases like anything, because we have got hospitals, big hospitals, scientific hospitals." That is their business.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Just like, certainly in this country, the medical business here, they hide, Śrīla Prabhupāda, and then these doctors are taking advantage because they are the best, highly-paid professionals.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: And so they are very proud also. So this, it looks like subversion to them.

Prabhupāda: Let them theorize that, "This becoming, that becoming."

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yeah.

Prabhupāda: "This way, that way." But we don’t keep meat for 300 years in the refrigerator. These are rascals. This is a rascal civilization. That is my contribution—I don't know whether you like it—this is simply a rascal civilization, without any knowledge. I have seen in foreign countries they are importing so many muttons, meat, ham.

Devotee: Fish.

Prabhupāda: Fish. And our khol, it should be immersed into the ashes, because it is skin. So rascals they are. That's why so many khols in.

Devotee: So many what?

Prabhupāda: Khols or mṛdaṅga.

Devotee: Ah.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Khol.

Prabhupāda: Because it is skin, they won't allow. Custom will not allow.

Devotee: Ah, ah.

Prabhupāda: It has to be immersed into some solution and immediately spoilt.

Devotee: With the rice on the end, yes.

Prabhupāda: And tons of rotten meats are allowed and they are eaten and we are playing only. Such a rascal they are.

Devotee (3): These karmīs are all . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: They don't allow. So just see their intelligence.

Devotee: In Sweden . . .

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: When I was in Sweden, I was walking on a street.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Devotee: . . . with these karmīs. And there was a family, they had fish.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Devotee: And they leave it in water for like two months, until is very, very rotten and it stinks. It's like a dead fish.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Devotee: And I said: "Why don't you throw it away?" And she said it was one of the best foods in Sweden. People liked that. It was so rotten, you would have to walk on the other side of the street.

Prabhupāda: Similarly in Burma they have got a preparation, naphi.

Devotee: What?

Prabhupāda: Naphi. Naphi means they keep a big jar on the outside their hut. And any animal dead, they put there. Cats, dogs, (laughter) rats—everything put. So it is kept for years, and it becomes, I mean to say, decomposed, and it becomes water. When it is becomes, then they take it and strain it and keep in bottles. When they have some festival they give little, little. (laughs)

Devotee: They eat the stool and everything? Stool-eaters.

Prabhupāda: Stool-eaters, hogs, they also eat grain.

Devotee: Hm.

Prabhupāda: They are less than stool-eaters. bhuñje narakādi-duḥkha. Those who do not take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness they wander in different species of life and they eat most abominable things.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Nānā yoni brahman kare, kadarya bhakṣaṇa (Prema-bhakti-candrikā).

Devotee: (indistinct) . . . Śrīla Prabhupāda, when . . .

Prabhupāda: We are trying to save humanity from this wandering in different species of life. We are trying to get them back to home, back to Godhead, real life. So this is the testing for them. The rascals do not know. They compare, "This is also. Our also religion. This is also as good as yours." Is it not? The first defect is that he defines, religion means the law given by God. They do not know God . . . (indistinct) . . . Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

That is the defect. They do not know what is God, and they do not know how to know who is God. Ask any religionist, "Just give me a perfect description of God." Any religious priest—they have no answer. Simply dogma, that's all.

Devotee (2): Once I had a debate with an Episcopalian minister, in front of some people. His theory was that whatever you think is God, that is God.

Prabhupāda: Just see. And he is a priest.

Devotee (2): Yes.

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Devotee: Isn't Ramakrishna also saying the same?

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Devotee: The Maharishi also.

Prabhupāda: Everyone. Therefore I say these rascals, they do not know anything. They simply exploit the people.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, one of the common questions that normally people ask when we go out, when ordinary people see Hare Kṛṣṇa people, first they ask, "What is the name of your religion?" So is Bhāgavata-dharma. Bhāgavata-dharma . . .

Prabhupāda: Bhāgavata-dharma. To understand Bhāgavata-dharma means to understand God and His service, that's all.

Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda, that man?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee: See that thing he has?

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Devotee: He is looking for metal. It's like a . . .

Svarūpa Dāmodara: A magnet?

Devotee: Well, not a magnet, it's like a . . .

Śrutakīrti: It's for finding coins in the sand. (laughs)

Devotee: Metal. Then it gives off a sound, then it takes you to find metal.

Prabhupāda: Hah.

Devotee: It won't find Kṛṣṇa, though . . . (indistinct)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So they say in future it will be again more difficult, because the future generation will be coming, and so-called students of science studying, taking up science courses . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: . . . they will have more difficult time than the present generation. So? (laughs)

Devotee: What? Why is that?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Because they say . . .

Prabhupāda: They have nothing to do.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Everything is finished. Nothing new; no research.

Devotee: Ah.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Because all the research has been done, that's what they . . .

Devotee: Materially.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That means their limit has been . . .

Devotee: Yes, reached.

Prabhupāda: . . . reached. So still they are fools. (laughter)

Śrutakīrti: They think there is nothing beyond that.

Prabhupāda: "We have reached our limit, but still we are fools." That is the argument. (small dog barks; Prabhupāda laughs)

Devotee: But in Germany, in most . . .

Prabhupāda: Ciraṁ-vicinvan. That is stated in Bhāgavatam (SB 10.14.29) ciraṁ vicinvan. In the Brahma-saṁhitā (Bs 5.34) panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. Śata means hundreds . . .

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Hm.

Prabhupāda: . . . and koṭi means ten million. Ten million, hundred times, and still upon that, upon that. Panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara. It will go on, on your plane. And what is the plane? What is the speed of that plane? Vāyor athāpi manaso: by the speed of air, or by the speed of mind.

The mind's speed, anyone can experiment—immediately he can go 10,000 miles within a second, mind. With that speed I am going for many millions of years—you cannot find out what is the limitation. So they have got teeny brain, so they finish their living; now they are hopeless.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So they should all take Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the way of understanding. We are taking knowledge from Kṛṣṇa. He has unlimited knowledge.

Devotee: Remember Professor Bernhard?

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Devotee: He was telling me that on more or less the same subject, that people are more interested about the universe or more about the antimatter . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee: And therefore in many progressive universities they have opened up a new course, er, department. I don't know the exact words, but it's the study of supernatural, the study of the soul—is it, I think metaphysics . . .?

Prabhupāda: That is a little advancement they are trying to understand.

Devotee: But the soul is very difficult to study because they cannot use microscopes. But nevertheless, they know that there is . . .

Prabhupāda: Therefore Vedas says acintyāḥ khalu ye bhāvā na tāṁs tarkeṇa yojayet (CC Adi 17.308): things which are beyond your conception of your senses, don't try to understand by your so-called arguments.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Hm.

Prabhupāda: Our process is, therefore, we accept whatever is stated in the Vedas. We accept. That's all.

Devotee: Descending.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: Descending.

Prabhupāda: Descending process, yes. Just like when there is BOOM! in Calcutta, we can understand that there is . . .

Devotee: Lightning, thunder.

Prabhupāda: Thunder that's all. You don't require to go there, make experiment. That sound vibration is sufficient to know. So we know everything by the sound vibration. Just like if I say: "India is like that," by that sound vibration you understand what is India.

Devotee: It is faith.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: It is faith.

Prabhupāda: Well, faith must be otherwise what is the use of hearing my sound vibration? If you think that, "Here is a fool," then what is the use of my sound vibration? Faith must be there. It must be authoritative. Then sound vibration is all right.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The example is a number called imaginary number, it is equal to the square root of -1. If I take the square root of -1, that is called an imaginary number, and that is represented by i. And this i is the . . . it cannot be proved by experiments, by any experimental science. But the so-called analytical geometry, a lot of complex theories of mathematics develop on this, only on this imaginary fellow i.

And this applies to all the quantum mechanics, all these advanced theories of uncertainties of Heisenberg, all these things. So they say that even though we cannot prove by experiments, that does not mean that it does not exist. It exists, but we cannot prove it . . . (indistinct) . . . (break) (end)