751224a - Morning Walk - Bombay
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Dr. Patel: But we are sitting here Voh hamara bhanja idhar baithe te to bola idhar aake baitho, udhar nahi? (We were sitting here. My nephew came and told me to sit here, why sit there?)
Prabhupāda: . . . wale ke saath kya baithna. Aap se ek baat poochna tha. (. . . why to sit with them. I had a question to ask you.) The experiment with truth. What is the experiment with truth?
Dr. Patel: You have taken that tablet for passing more urine?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: Daily or . . . yes or no.
Prabhupāda: I am passing. (laughs)
Dr. Patel: Yes, sir, but you have got the edema on the leg, and I mean, when . . .
Prabhupāda: It is cured. That one tablet, two tablets, has cured. So explain what is the experiment with truth.
Dr. Patel: Now we must make . . . I have booked a visit at 7:15.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Dr. Patel: At 7:15 I have booked a visit.
Prabhupāda: So . . .
Dr. Patel: Hah, tell me what is your . . .
Prabhupāda: No, what is this experiment with truth?
Dr. Patel: About what?
Prabhupāda: Anything. The world.
Dr. Patel: There are two types of experiments, sir, according to me. I may be wrong, and I am open to correction. One experimentation with the crude world—another experiment with your own mind. Which type of experiment we want?
Prabhupāda: No, mind we reject immediately.
Dr. Patel: How?
Prabhupāda: Because it is not truth. It is accepting, it is rejecting.
Dr. Patel: Man sa eva, mantavyam.
Prabhupāda: Mind's business is to accept and reject. Therefore it is not truth.
Dr. Patel: Only by mind and concentration of the mind you get the truth.
Prabhupāda: Concentration is different thing.
Dr. Patel: But that is also of what? Of the mind.
Prabhupāda: The mind, when you concentrate the mind to the truth, then it is all right.
Dr. Patel: That is what I say. By concentration of the mind you get the truth. That is the right.
Prabhupāda: Mind is not truth.
Dr. Patel: Mind is not truth, but by mind we gather the truth.
Prabhupāda: Yes. We can direct our mind towards truth.
Dr. Patel: I did not mean mind is truth. All that is made up of māyā. All that is made up of, I mean, mahā-tattva and down below, are all falsehood.
Prabhupāda: Therefore, experiment with truth is not experiment with the mind. So what is that truth, and what is that experiment?
Dr. Patel: What is . . . first of all, let us know what is mind by experiment.
Prabhupāda: Experiment means to examine whether it is truth or not.
Dr. Patel: That examines . . . who examines and what? Who examines the mind, man's mind? After all, no? And examination of anything depends upon the state of the mind, sir, according to the psychology. The more concentrated the mind, better it will be nearer the truth.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's all right . . .
Dr. Patel: That is what I say.
Prabhupāda: . . . but, my point is . . .
Dr. Patel: See, experiment depends upon all that.
Prabhupāda: . . . if there is truth, where is the scope of experiment?
Dr. Patel: I mean, that you want to . . . you want to hit at that point, then you are absolutely right; there is no experiment.
Prabhupāda: Yes. It is contradiction. If you say "truth," there is no question of experiment. That I . . . try to understand. It is contradiction.
Dr. Patel: By all these jñāni-yogīs . . . I mean you are a bhakti-yogī, but I talk of jñāna-yogīs.
Prabhupāda: Jñāna-yoga is also truth if you follow. Just like dhyānāvasthita-tad-gatena manasā (SB 12.13.1). So that is truth. But when there is question of experiment, that is not truth. That is my point.
Dr. Patel: When they are making experiment in an area which is not already known.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that means that that is not truth. So experiment with truth cannot be, this is contradiction.
Dr. Patel: No, you are right that way.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: But your how . . . ask the question in a puzzling way to me. So I . . .
Prabhupāda: No, I ask you that how this experiment with truth can be possible?
Dr. Patel: The experiment with sciences, we are making experiment with biological sciences and abstract, I mean sciences of physics and chemistry, and that those who are truths already, we are trying to honor. We cannot make truths. Truths are there already settled by God. God . . . we try to find out what is exactly, and how it is being done. But we are not trying to find out who is doing. That is your point. I understand.
Prabhupāda: No. If the truth is there, there is no question of experiment.
Dr. Patel: We are experimenting to find out the truth. Truth is there, no doubt. My house is there, sir, but you may go this way or that way, that way. We are making experiment to go to my house.
Prabhupāda: So that means you do not know what is the truth.
Dr. Patel: Truth is there, but we do not know the truth. That's a fact.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's a fact.
Dr. Patel: We are making experiment to . . . experiment by which way we will approach the truth.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: The experiment means repeat, with regard to the matter of finding out the truth. Not with the truth itself.
Prabhupāda: Yes. But the word means . . . "Experiment with truth," that is contradiction. There cannot be any experiment with truth. Truth is truth.
Dr. Patel: Truth cannot be experimented upon.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is . . .
Dr. Patel: That I quite agree with you, and I become your chela in that respect. But so far as the method of finding out truth, that I have experimentation.
Prabhupāda: That can be done. That is another thing.
Dr. Patel: All our physical sciences . . .
Prabhupāda: Another thing . . .
Dr. Patel: I mean, ah, I mean, ah . . .
Prabhupāda: (to passerby) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. Sab thik hai? (Are you alright?)
Dr. Patel: All these abstract sciences, mathematics, chemistry, physics, they have really been advanced by experimentation only. Because we did not know what truth is behind all these natural phenomena, and we tried to find out the real . . . how the natural phenomena are, I mean, happening, and that is what the experimentation of the human race was searching out the truth . . .
Prabhupāda: That is explained in Bhagavad-gītā, tattva-jñānārtha-darśanam (BG 13.12). Tattva-jñānārtham darśanam.
Dr. Patel: But these truths, sir, are approached, I mean actually realized, by various ways. The, I mean the jñāna-yogīs or yogīs, what you call, they realize it, I mean, because the jñānis, they become, by concentration of their mind on the truth, they, that which is highest truth, or God. They are after all trying . . .
Prabhupāda: The yogīs, they have already found the truth. Dhyānāvasthita-tad-gatena manasā paśyanti yaṁ yoginam (SB 12.13.1). So they have already found out the truth, and they are concentrating. That is not experiment. They have already known.
Dr. Patel: But I don't say they have experimented on the truth, sir. I think I am not making myself more clear to you. What I meant to say is they have experimented by concentration of the mind to find out the truth, and they realize the truth that way.
Prabhupāda: No. Realize, that's a fact. Now they are acting, by . . . tad-gatena manasā, mind is fixed up in Supersoul, Paramātmā. That is yoga.
Dr. Patel: Yes. You mean to say, hmm, that . . .
Prabhupāda: They already know, "Here is truth."
Dr. Patel: Yes. Brahma-vid brahma eva bhavati, he is just like . . . with all the knowledge of God, he has imbibed it . . . (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Yes, he is concentrated. Just like our bhakti. Bhakti means we know, "Here is God: kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam (SB 1.3.28)." So there is no question of experimenting. Now we have known, we are concentrating how to satisfy Him. There is no question of experimentation.
Dr. Patel: But the physical sciences, mathematics, chemistry, biology, is, I mean, this physics, they have, I mean we have to experiment in their . . . they are nothing but the finding out the truth behind the phenomenon, the material phenomenon. That is what I mean.
Prabhupāda: Phenomenon is changeable, always changing. Just like this samudra—sometimes here, sometimes there.
Dr. Patel: Yes, right, sir. But why the samudra changes? We go into there, into deep depth of that . . .
Prabhupāda: That is truth. That is truth. By the yasyājñayā bhramati sambhṛta-kāla-cakro (Bs 5.52), that is truth. Govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi. That is truth. The phenomena, that is changing. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19).
Dr. Patel: . . . (indistinct Hindi)
Prabhupāda: All right. Thank you very much. Jaya. Kal to phir chala jayega. (We are going tomorrow.)
Dr. Patel: Are you going tomorrow?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: Tomorrow at what time?
Prabhupāda: I do not know. What time?
Saurabha: What time, Harikeśa?
Harikeśa: Actually, nobody knows.
Dr. Patel: Tomorrow is Christmas day. You are going on twenty-seventh.
Prabhupāda: No, twenty-fifth.
Kīrtanānanda: Somebody said you were going at noon.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Kīrtanānanda: Someone told me you were going at noon.
Harikeśa: I don't think anyone knows yet.
Kīrtanānanda: Why is that?
Harikeśa: Haven't bought the tickets yet.
Kīrtanānanda: No reservations yet?
Prabhupāda: (hums) (pause) All right just to understand? If truth is there, there is no question of experiment. And if the experiment is there, that is not truth.
Kīrtanānanda: Perfectly logical.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Kīrtanānanda: That is correct.
Prabhupāda: It is contradictory.
Lokanātha: Their experiment is just, only speculation.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Lokanātha: Their experiment means speculation.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Kīrtanānanda: One wants to experiment, it means they don't know what is truth.
Prabhupāda: Yes. As soon as there is experiment, there is no truth. And if there is truth, there is no experiment.
Kīrtanānanda: One simply accepts the truth.
Prabhupāda: Truth, we accept or not accept: truth is truth. Huh? There is a father. That is a truth. You may not know who is your father, that is another thing. But this is a fact, there is father.
Lokanātha: You have said many times that when mother says: "This is your father," you just accept it.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is truth.
Lokanātha: We do not go for experimenting, neither it is possible to find out.
Prabhupāda: Yes. There is no question of experimenting whether he is my father. You take the truth from the mother, and that's final. (break) . . . being more and more convinced, why Kṛṣṇa said, na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhā prapadyante narādhamāḥ (BG 7.15)? Huh? Anyone who is not Kṛṣṇa conscious, he is within these groups, duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ. That is being more and more confirmed.
Kīrtanānanda: They may appear like learned men or they may appear like . . .
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Kīrtanānanda: They may appear like moral men or learned men, but still they are . . .
Prabhupāda: Not . . .
Kīrtanānanda: . . . rascals.
Prabhupāda: Rascal, yes. Therefore it begins in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi (SB 1.1.1). The beginning is truth. Satyam paraṁ dhīmahi. There is no question of experiment. It is not this book, Bhāgavata, is an experiment to find out truth. It is beginning from the truth. Satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi.
Lokanātha: What is sādhana-bhakti if it is not experimental?
Prabhupāda: Sādhana-bhakti is practicing. Truth is there, but how to be intimately connected with truth, that is sādhana.
Lokanātha: So sometime we say to karmīs that "Why don't you make an experiment, just try to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, make an experiment, and you will realize it."
Prabhupāda: Because he does not know; therefore we suggest experiment. He does not know.
Lokanātha: So we ask him to perform the . . .
Prabhupāda: Ah, that means, my proposition is that one who does not know, for him experiment. One who knows, there is no experiment.
Lokanātha: But there is . . .
Prabhupāda: You are asking, requesting him to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, but this is not experiment for me, it is experiment for him. He does not know; therefore you are suggesting, "You do like this, and you will understand."
Jagat-puruṣa: They are conditioned to make experiments.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Jagat-puruṣa: So they can dovetail that conditioning.
Prabhupāda: There is no question of experimenting, but he does not know; he is giving chance, "All right, try like this." But truth is there. (aside) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. Oh, the water has gone this way.
Dr Patel: Apni jaga hamesha badli karta rehta hai, yeh jaga badli karta rehta hai. Kabhi yahan se aata hai. Yahan se ganda pani aata hai. Phir bhi koi baarish padne se rasta me badli karta hai Ek mahina pehle vahan tha. (It keeps on changing it's place. This keeps on changing its place—sometimes it flows from here. Dirty water flows from here. Even then if it rains then it changes its course. Just a month ago it was there.)
Śrīdhara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, people can understand that the truth is already there, but they can't understand how by meditating on one particular person or thing, all other truths automatically become realized. They want to experiment to find out what is the unlimited truth.
Prabhupāda: Let them experiment, because he does not know the truth perfectly well.
Śrīdhara: So just by meditating upon the person Kṛṣṇa, all other truth becomes known?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Kīrtanānanda: Prabhupāda doesn't say that no one can experiment.
Prabhupāda: There are some animals, they do not actually touch the egg—birds. Or the, I think, what is called, tortoise. They simply concentrate, and the egg comes into being.
Lokanātha: But actually if you hear the truth, there is no need to make an experiment at all. Isn't it?
Prabhupāda: Hmm. That is perfect experiment.
Lokanātha: That is . . . that happens with full śraddhā. When there is unflinching faith, he will not go for making the experiment. (break)
Kīrtanānanda: (referring to people exercising on the beach) . . . come and dance at āratik?
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Kīrtanānanda: If they want to swing their arms, why not come to ārati and dance? In 1966, Prabhupāda, we went up to Dr. Mishra's āśrama upstate. And there was some yogī from the New York Institute there, and he said that "Automatically, just see these devotees, automatically they are doing everything that we are teaching, just by this one process of chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa."
Prabhupāda: That is the statement by Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Ihā haite sarva-siddhi haibe tomāra (CB Madhya 23.78). By practicing this chanting, you'll get all perfection.
Kīrtanānanda: One morning we were out walking in a sunrise, and Hayagrīva pointed, "Oh, there's a very beautiful sunrise," and you said, "Oh, the sunrise is not very wonderful, but He who has made it is wonderful."
Prabhupāda: The point is, they glorify the scientists, another scientist, but they are so fool they do not glorify who has made that brain. You cannot make that brain. (break)
Indian man: . . . then I told him it might be that purva janmas, this janma they have not done any, always thinking of Kṛṣṇa, go to Kṛṣṇa temple, coming back, nine thirty, ten o'clock. Then take all this train . . .
Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa's favor. Yes. Kṛṣṇa is favoring to finish this job.
Indian man: Now we know that janma is . . . I told him they may not be having many other janma, that may be why they are suffering like this now.
Prabhupāda: No. There is no suffering. Their material existence is being reduced on account of serving Kṛṣṇa.
Indian man: One lady is there now in Bombay, whole family, old lady, young children die.
Prabhupāda: Yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ (SB 10.88.8). This is special favor of Kṛṣṇa, because they, by this pious activity, they wanted this material enjoyment, which you are complaining, that they are reducing material enjoyment. But that is Kṛṣṇa's favor. He doesn't want reduction of material enjoyment; at the same time, they want to worship Kṛṣṇa. So Kṛṣṇa is seeing that these fools, they want Me, and at the same time material enjoyment. So "Finish their material enjoyment; they will simply think of Me."
- bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānāṁ
- tayāpahṛta-cetasāṁ
- vyavasāyātmikā buddhiḥ
- samādhau na vidhīyate
- (BG 2.44)
So long one will be too much absorbed in this material enjoyment, he cannot be perfectly devotee. Therefore sometimes Kṛṣṇa, when He sees, "Someone is serious to get Me," and at the same time she wants material enjoyment, so indirectly or directly He finishes the material enjoyment. That is a special favor.
Kīrtanānanda: (referring to passerby) The dogs are taking the lady for a walk.
Lokanātha: The man's body is made up of kapha, pitta, vāyu, and woman's body also has the same ingredients.
Prabhupāda: Everybody.
Lokanātha: So then what is basic difference between human body, I mean man's body and woman's body, which attracts each other? What is that attraction due to?
Prabhupāda: Because if you want to be attracted, God has made in such a way that both of them are attractive to one another. That's all. You want to be attracted; therefore woman is made attractive. And the woman wants to be attracted; the man is attractive. This is nature's arrangement so that you may be bound up by this attraction. Tayor miṭha hṛdaya-granthiḥ mām (SB 5.5.8). You are already bound up, and by this attraction you will be more tightly bound up. Puṁsāṁ striyā mithuni-bhāvam etad. The whole material attraction means a man's attraction for woman and a woman's attraction for man. But when they are seeking, "Where is woman? Where is woman? Where is woman?" and the woman is seeking, they come here to make this business. Huh? And when they are actually attracted or united, then this bondage, material bondage, will become more tight. Therefore the Vedic civilization is how to slacken it, and ultimately, by force, separation, sannyāsa. That is required. Because unless they are separated, there cannot be any spiritual advancement. That is the whole process. The unity is bondage. I have written a letter that man is good, woman is good, and when they are united, they are bad. (laughs) Both of them are bad. And the material world is taking, "This is the best thing." But actually that is not the thing. Man is good, because he is part and parcel of God; woman is good, part and parcel of God; but when they unite, they become bad. Tayor miṭhādi hṛdayanti-māho.
Lokanātha: For detachment you suggest they remain separate.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Unless they are separated, it is very difficult to advance in spiritual consciousness. That is the whole Vedic system. Gradual. First of all, brahmacārī, he is educated very nicely that this is not good to marry and enter into a family life. And in spite of education, if he is still inclined, then he is allowed to marry. This is a concession. And that is for few days . . . few years. Then compulsory separation from the family life, vanaprāstha. At that time, wife is allowed to stay with the husband, but finally they are separated, sannyāsa. Wife should go home, remain with their children. That's all.
Lokanātha: So when they are gṛhastha, they make advancement?
Prabhupāda: Hmm? That advancement is not very solid. But there is advancement; that is not very solid.
Śrīdhara: Without sex pleasure a man and a woman would not be attracted to one another.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Attraction means that sex. There is no other thing. Yan maithunādi gṛhamedī sukhaṁ hi tuccham. Why they are working so hard day and night? Only for that sex pleasure. That is the psychology. There is no other happiness. Yan maithunādi gṛhamedhī sukhaṁ hi tuccham (SB 7.9.45). Their happiness is based on the center of sex pleasure.
Śrīdhara: So the body of a woman only reminds of the sex pleasure.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Body of man or woman. The same thing. This is the only pleasure. In this material world, so-called pleasure means sex pleasure. Why they are working so hard day and night? Only for that sex pleasure. That is the center.
Lokanātha: They say: "We want to come together to serve the Lord." Is that excuse or is that . . .
Prabhupāda: Together they go to hell. (laughs)
Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in your Society, if sometimes householder devotee, they do very big, big job, I mean they are advanced then?
Prabhupāda: Who has done that big job? Hmm? You have done?
Devotee: Well, we see all the big—these GBC, and they are doing very nicely, like Saurabha dāsa and Mūrti dāsa.
Prabhupāda: They are sannyāsī. Saurabha is sannyāsī. His wife, does she live with him?
Kīrtanānanda: The same principle is there for everyone, in so far as one becomes detached, then he's sannyasī.
Prabhupāda: Yes, sannyāsa. Detachment required.
Kīrtanānanda: It is not a matter of cloth.
Prabhupāda: No. Sa sannyāsī. Anāsaktasya viṣayān (BRS 2.225). He has no attachment for this eating, sleeping, mating. He is attached to Kṛṣṇa. And that is sannyāsī. Sannyāsī does not means dress. Detached. Sat sannyāsī. Sat, oṁ tat sat, the supreme, and for Him everything, risk all. That is sannyāsī. Anāsaktya . . . what is that? In the Bhagavad-gītā there is?
Indian man: Anāśritaḥ karma-phalaṁ kāryaṁ karma . . .
Prabhupāda: Ah, anāśritaḥ karma-phalaṁ, kāryaṁ karma karoti yaḥ sa sannyāsī . . . (BG 6.1). One who does not take the reward of his labor, he is sannyāsī. Anāśritaḥ karam-phalaṁ. Everyone works for some profit, and one who does not take the profit, works for Kṛṣṇa, he is sannyāsī. Anāśritaḥ karma-phalaṁ, kāryam. Kāryam means it is my duty to work for Kṛṣṇa. In this way one works, he is sannyāsī. Anāśritaḥ karma-phalaṁ kāryaṁ karma karoti yaḥ, sa sannyāsī ca yogī ca. He is yogī also. (aside) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Just like Arjuna. He is fighting not for himself; for himself he declined to fight. But when he understood that Kṛṣṇa wants, "All right, kariṣye vacanaṁ tava (BG 18.73). I shall fight. I shall kill my grandfather and everyone." This is sannyāsī.
Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta it is said that if a devotee is sincerely serving the Lord, and Kṛṣṇa takes away his all his material opulence, and still if he's sincerely serving the Lord, the Lord becomes his intimate servant, He says.
Prabhupāda: Intimate servant?
Devotee: Yes. In one purport in Caitanya-caritāmṛta.
Prabhupāda: Is there "servant," this word is used?
Devotee: Becomes his friend.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. (break) . . . stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Fifth Canto, that there are gṛhasthas, they are not attached to gṛhastha. They actually, they are attached for Kṛṣṇa, but maybe for convenience sake he remains a gṛhastha. Gṛhastha, there are two words: gṛhastha and gṛhamedhī. One who is gṛhamedhī, he is hopeless. One who is gṛhastha, that is all right. (end)
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