760701 - Conversation A - New Vrindaban, USA

Conversations by Date, 1976

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

 Listen to a 'Nectar Drop' created from this lecture

760701R1-NEW VRINDAVAN - July 01, 1976 - 07.10 Minutes

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: His last questions are like this. He's asking about proselytizing in the Western countries, preaching. Is there any hope for preaching? He says Hindu dharma, like this. I think everything is arising because of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement and Your Divine Grace's preaching work. Otherwise, they were all sleeping.

Hari-śauri: Ten years ago, if they'd have asked these questions before you came to the West, they wouldn't even have thought about going to the West. They are only asking that now because they can see in the last ten years we've been so much successful.

Prabhupāda: They do not know what is bhakti, what is Vedānta. They do not know. Simply aspiring, all after women and money, that's all. First-class rogues. I know all of them, all first-class rogues, after money and women, beginning from Vivekananda. But they are so popular, if you say openly . . .

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That's a fact.

Prabhupāda: Satyaṁ brūyāt priyaṁ brūyāt mā brūyāt satyam apriyam (Sanskrit Proverb). "You can speak truth, but don't speak which is unpalatable." But we speak in a different way. And directly we don't speak. People will be angry. They're already fools and rascals.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: All of the others are trying to make some compromise.

Prabhupāda: That is also bad. How we can make compromise? Here is gold, here is iron. How you can compromise? Can we accept iron as gold? "All right, let us accept." (laughs) Where is the possibility?

Hari-śauri: They don't see that clearly. They are looking at their iron and thinking it's gold.

Prabhupāda: They are seeing . . . they're tested. I don't make any compromise. All my speaking is also no compromise. Here is guru, here is Kṛṣṇa, here is God, here is Vedānta. Real version they neglect, and they stick to the rascal's version, Śaṅkara's version, Śārīraka-bhāṣya. All over India, they are reading Śārīraka-bhāṣya.

Hari-śauri: Rāmānujācārya is very well known in India, so why don't they read his commentary?

Prabhupāda: They hate Rāmānujācārya, because he's Vaiṣṇava.

Hari-śauri: Because he doesn't allow them to speculate.

Prabhupāda: He is very strict. He is a stubborn enemy of Śaṅkarācārya. All the Vaiṣṇava ācāryas. Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, declare it: māyāvādi-bhāṣya śunile haya sarva-nāśa (CC Madhya 6.169). "If you hear the interpretation of Māyāvādīs, then you are doomed. You have no hope for spiritual advancement." This is the statement. Māyāvādi-bhāṣya śunile haya sarva-nāśa. Finished. Your spiritual life is finished. You can write this also, that Caitanya Mahāprabhu's instruction is strictly to avoid the so-called Vedāntists.

(indistinct background discussion as devotees look for pen)

Hari-śauri: All these impersonalists, they always represent themselves as being big Vedāntists. They don't know anything. That, erm . . .

Prabhupāda: And people, leaders of India, they are thinking, "Where is this Vedāntist?" In foreign countries, what is their position?

Hari-śauri: Somehow or another, they seem to think that the Vedānta is something better than any of the other śāstra. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam doesn't seem to be so popular in India as Vedānta or something like that.

Prabhupāda: It is very popular amongst the Māyāvāda people. You speak also . . . now the so-called Vedāntists, they are speaking on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, distorting. Akhoyananda . . . Akandananda, Karpatri, the rascals. Because they have no subject matter to speak, they are distorting the meaning of Bhāgavata.

(pause)

Prabhupāda: This boy (referring to Mike Darby) appears to be nice, this fat boy.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Kīrtanānanda said he's the only local boy that has taken interest. He's from hereabouts.

Prabhupāda: He said that "I've wanted to see you since a long time." So, keep friendship with. Giving them prasādam?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, he took. They distributed . . . Kīrtanānanda Swami cut up some watermelon, and we distributed it to the guests.

(pause)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, shall I lock this up?

Prabhupāda: Hmm. (end)