751219 - Morning Walk - Bombay

Morning Walks by Date, 1975

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

 Listen to a 'Nectar Drop' created from this lecture

751219MW-BOMBAY - December 19, 1975 - 31:15 Minutes

Prabhupāda: What is platform?

Saurabha: Casting of slabs and footings. (break) . . . from the back side, you cannot see.

Prabhupāda: (aside) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) . . . every day I don't think.

Dr. Patel: They eat anything but, sir.

Prabhupāda: That is another thing.

Dr. Patel: So they get their food all right. They may not get our food every day, but their food they get.

Prabhupāda: No . . . they eat meat, they don't get . . .

Dr. Patel: They eat even stool, just like hogs.

Prabhupāda: That also a human being does. You know in the concentrated camp in during war they had to eat their stool.

Dr. Patel: But the British army had a regulation that they can drink urine but not stool. They cannot eat.

Prabhupāda: You may make regulation, but necessity has no regulation.

Dr. Patel: I . . . because I happen to be . . . I, I was holding the honorary position of a colonel in the army.

Prabhupāda: Just see, "I am making law: you can drink urine." Just see what is the position. (laughter)

Dr. Patel: In difficulty if there is no water, you can drink your own urine, but you cannot eat your stool. It is very difficult.

Prabhupāda: If I drink urine, still I will have to be punished, by the law. I'm drinking urine, and because I have violated law, I will have to be punished. This is God.

Dr. Patel: There is, sir, one matter in Āyurvedas, svayāmbu cikitsā, wherein people are drinking their own urine, because urine is not only water and waste products, but there are certain broken, I mean, what you call important articles of body maintenance, those hormones and . . .

Prabhupāda: So those . . . you are advising your patients to go and drink . . .?

Dr. Patel: No, I don't say. But that is not so bad, because it contains those hormones. (Prabhupāda laughs) It does contain the hormones. I mean it has been analyzed like that, scientifically. It is not to be joked about.

Prabhupāda: No. It is analyzed. And stool is full of hydrophosphites. Yes, that is analyzed already. Stool is full of hydrophosphites.

Dr. Patel: Yahan bhi sab desi davai karta hai. (Here also they are preparing traditional medicine.) They are bringing . . . there is a matter in cikitsā in Āyurveda. Svayāmbu. What is that called? So, Mr. . . . our, er, Mr. Desai. Morarji . . .

Prabhupāda: He is drinking?

Dr. Patel: . . . who lost his premiership of India, he is drinking his own urine.

Indian man: I heard also.

Dr. Patel: Yes. He is drinking.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā. Why?

Dr. Patel: And look at him. He's so, I mean, so absolutely healthy. I mean it is, we should not laugh about it, but there is something right in it.

Prabhupāda: No, no. I don't laugh; I am surprised. (devotees laugh)

Dr. Patel: No, we are surprised. I also, I also got surprised first, but then it is not so. Mane yeh sahi hai. (Means this is okay.)

Prabhupāda: No, no . . . (aside) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Thank you very much. Who is your devotee daughter?

Dr. Patel: Janice. Jani! (calling to passing man) His mother was so much great devotee, she died only at the age of ninety-eight years. When she was . . .

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Dr. Patel: His mother. She was dying, and she said, "I don't want to see anybody; bring only Kṛṣṇa's photo before me." Iski maa. (His mother.) No, no. His mother—Mr. Jani's. And then looking at the photograph of Kṛṣṇa, she breathed her last. Very great devotee she was.

Prabhupāda: I saw in Delhi one old man, just a few minutes before his death he asked his son to bring Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa picture, and it was put before him and he died.

Dr. Patel: And my father died saying oṁ tat sat śrī-kṛṣṇāya namaḥ, and then he stopped it, breathing, in the morning at six o'clock.

Indian man: Morning death is very good.

Dr. Patel: Yes, six o'clock. And my wife was daily saying: "Bhaja govindam, bhaja govindam"" before she died.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. (to devotees) Just see: "Govindam".

Dr. Patel: Hmm. That bhaja govindam she was very fond of. Śaṅkarācārya's bhaja govindaṁ, bhaja govindaṁ, bhaja govindaṁ mūḍha-mate. When I used to talk about the Sanskrit literature, she said, "Why do I want to know grammar? Bhaja govindam is all right for me," she said. Hmm? (pause) My mother used to get oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevaya I don't know how many thousands of times, for the whole day.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. Kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ (CC Adi 17.31).

Indian man: Jo aadmi ka bhakti hai voh bhi takdir se hi milta hai, har ek ko nahi milta hai. (The devotion of a person also, he gets by fortune—everyone does not get that.)

Dr. Patel: My father never did any work in all his life. Never. He had some estate, and then he lost it also. We are big zamindars, and he lost all the land and property in various forms of business. And after that he only was sitting in the temple all the day and saying hari-nāma. All his life, from the age of forty years till he died at the age of eighty, he did that. My mother died when he was thirty-two years.

Prabhupāda: Oh?

Dr. Patel: Very early. And he never married again, and I was the only son, and no other daughter or son. Many people requested him to marry, but he said no, he would not marry, because one son is sufficient.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Putradi kriyate bhāgya. Putra, when there is putra, what is the use of marriage?

Dr. Patel: I was five years old when my mother died. In that big pandemic of influenza in 1918, that . . . that . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes, war influenza. After war.

Dr. Patel: After war. The whole world was . . . (indistinct) . . . (break) What you do for the . . .

Prabhupāda: He did not remember God, he remembered his son. But God is so kind, because he uttered God's name, He took it seriously.

Dr. Patel: That Mr. Shah had gone to the States, that Mr. Shah, engineer, and came back from there, some three months back, and he praised the Americans, that no man on Sunday is in the street. All of them are in the churches, and you hear on the radio only those hymns. Is it a fact?

Prabhupāda: He is American. (indicates Harikeśa)

Harikeśa: Yes, but nobody listens to the radio.

Dr. Patel: He says that at least government does it. Here government is giving all the cinema. And there the churches are overflowing.

Prabhupāda: In London I have seen almost all the churches are vacant.

Dr. Patel: On Sundays? I don't know now. When I was a student I used to see them full, overflowing practically. Because they were beaten down by war very recently, they did not forget God then, perhaps.

Harikeśa: On Sundays they're pretty full in America.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Harikeśa: On Sundays, for a couple of hours they're pretty full.

Dr. Patel: In the morning.

Harikeśa: Then in the afternoon they're vacant. That's when they get their big collection.

Dr. Patel: They stop it. Oh . . .

Harikeśa: Big collection, on Sunday.

Dr. Patel: Sir, everywhere it is the Church which has actually distorted the message.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Dr. Patel: It is the Church which has distorted the message. You see the Christ's message is distorted by the Church—our Kṛṣṇa's message is distorted by our temples, sort of a thing.

Prabhupāda: Why temples? Even your big, big political leaders, they distort. Why do you blame the temples?

Dr. Patel: But the Christianity is distorted by the . . .

Prabhupāda: Everyone. That is going on.

Dr. Patel: . . . those popes. However, Christ taught bhāgavata-dharma, absolute bhāgavata-dharma. It is this creation of the Church, really, to my mind, that the Christ is forgotten by the Western countries.

Prabhupāda: And who is remembering your Kṛṣṇa in this country?

Dr. Patel: There are a few people. I . . . we are not that . . .

Prabhupāda: In Bombay there are so many roads, "Vivekananda Road." But there is no Kṛṣṇa Road. Huh? Who is remembering Kṛṣṇa?

Dr. Patel: There is Krishnaraj Galli, in market. Krishnaraj Galli. (laughing) Woh kisi ke naam par rakha hua hai. Krishna ke naam pe nahi. bhagvan ke naam per bahut log naam rakhta hai. krishnalal is bhagavan name. tumahra baap se bhi krishna ka naam to bolte ho na. (That is kept in someone else's name, not in God's name. Many people keep names of God. Kṛṣṇa is God's name. You tell your father the name of Kṛṣṇa.) Ajāmila spoke "Nārāyaṇa." You may speak in the name of your father, that is God's name. Heh?

Prabhupāda: That is a chance, that is not a . . .

Indian man: Now the Air India's plane, they have Kṛṣṇa's līlā pictures.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Indian man: In Air India plane.

Prabhupāda: That is sensual. Only Rādhārāṇī and Kṛṣṇa. And when Kṛṣṇa is killing Kaṁsa, that picture is. . .

Indian man: Killing . . .?

Prabhupāda: Killing Kaṁsa, that picture you won't find. Kṛṣṇa is embracing gopīs, "Ah, that is very nice." (laughter) Because "We are doing the same thing; we are following Kṛṣṇa." That is their purpose. They are very much fond of Kṛṣṇa's mixing with the gopīs because they get a support, that "What we are doing . . ."

Dr. Patel: "We are following Kṛṣṇa."

Prabhupāda: Yes. These rascals, they have taken . . .

Indian man: But this, sir . . .

Prabhupāda: They will never paint any picture that Kṛṣṇa is killing Pūtāna, Aghāsura, Bakāsura, Kaṁsa—so many killing process from the very childhood. That picture you won't find. Because he knows he is Aghāsura. He'll be killed. (laughing)

Dr. Patel: We see pictures of Giridhāra, like that. Now we see even Giridhāra picture. Sir, it is the education. They disturbed the education of this country after Nekhole. That is the cause of it.

Prabhupāda: Nei, Nekhole has gone long, long ago. What you are doing now?

Dr. Patel: Nekhole made it, sir.

Prabhupāda: You can change it. That Nekhole has conquered you.

Dr. Patel: That's right. They did conquer us. These fools are not changing it, the system of education.

Śravaṇānanda: At the Ramakrishna Mission school in Madras near a football field, there is one slogan on the arch that says: "The playing of football will bring one closer to heaven than the study of the Gītā."

Prabhupāda: Just see. Has Nekhole carved this?

Śravaṇānanda: He said: "Tear up all the big tulasīs . . ."

Dr. Patel: Is it a fact? We don't know.

Prabhupāda: It is a fact if he says.

Śravaṇānanda: Yes. It is written right there, it's written right there. They say the playing of football will bring one closer to heaven than the study of the Gītā.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Vivekananda taught this.

Śravaṇānanda: He said: "Pull out the tulasī and plant brinjal."

Prabhupāda: Yes, he advised, "Better water . . ." what is called, "eggplant tree than tulasī tree. It will bring some fruit. What is the use of watering tulasī tree?"

Dr. Patel: Tulasī has got great medicinal properties.

Prabhupāda: That he is not even prepared to . . .

Dr. Patel: He must not be knowing, those rascals.

Prabhupāda: And "Why you are searching out God here and there? There are so many Gods loitering in the street." This is the Vivekananda's statement. And therefore everyone is God. Everyone is thinking, "I am God." This is going on.

Śravaṇānanda: When we went to try to arrange a lecture at their football field for a pāṇḍal program, they said all the people coming would ruin the turf for cricket season. So they didn't have time for spiritual training, they said, only for the physical training. It caused too much damage on the field.

Dr. Patel: In my school, sir, where I was educated, in the entrance there is a statue of Sarasvatī, and above it there is a photograph of Kṛṣṇa. I don't know how it came there then.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Dr. Patel: All are not like that. In my school where I was educated, secondary school, in the entrance there was a statue of Sarasvatī, and above that there was Kṛṣṇa's photo. (break) (someone shouts "Hare Kṛṣṇa")

Prabhupāda: In good health.

Dr. Patel: He always runs like this. All the time. He is so much frightened of his wife in the house that he cannot speak a word. Still he is in the house. That is why he makes good of all things when he comes out. (laughs) He behaves so naughtily like that . . . (indistinct Hindi) . . . sir, we go this way, if you don't mind? The best way.

Prabhupāda: That Mr. Punja is staying? From Fiji? He has not come?

Devotee: Oh, no, he hasn't come back yet. He had two days' business, he said. He said he would come after that. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . doing there, these slums?

Dr. Patel: This was . . . they wanted to have a office here, of customs. The public, I mean, objected to it, because they are encroaching upon the, the way of the public walking. So they stopped it, but they are not taking away all these walls. Otherwise where the poor fellows will make the hutments? That is what they are doing. Yahan complete jhopaddpatti ho jayegi idhar. Jhopadapatti wala kuch bhi kare municipality ko koi manahi nahi hai. Agar hum kuch bhi kare hamare makan mein to tod dalenge. (It will become a complete hunt. Whatever the hut dwellers do, the Municipality has no objection. If we do anything in our house, they will break it.) When he says that he does not want to give away these poor people in the hands of the . . .

Prabhupāda: Then why they are in the hands of the empire lost? Why they lost their empire?

Dr. Patel: Because they were short-sighted.

Prabhupāda: But how they knew?

Dr. Patel: But they knew how to govern.

Prabhupāda: No, this is not government, if you lose after all. What is this government? You must govern in such a way that you will never lose it.

Dr. Patel: Well, sir, we also had an empire, India, and we have lost it, haven't we? And we, all the eastern country, Malaya, Java, Sumatra, and all those things. Why we lost it? Kālena.

Prabhupāda: Kālena it is, of course. So when you lose your culture, then you lose everything.

Dr. Patel: That's right. Because they did not see with the same eye all . . . (indistinct) . . . a very good race. After all, they are Āryans.

Prabhupāda: Āryans means who follow Vedic instruction.

Dr. Patel: They have forgotten.

Prabhupāda: That is Āryans.

Dr. Patel: So they lost it.

Prabhupāda: So they are now the same thing. A person born in a brāhmaṇa family, he is claiming "I am brāhmaṇa." Similarly, even though born in Āryan family, without any culture they are claiming "I am Āryan." Kṛṣṇa observed it in Arjuna, and therefore He chastised him, "This kind of proposal is anārya-juṣṭam. Under the non-Āryans, you're forgetting your duty." That is the beginning of loss of culture. A small beginning, it creates havoc. Kṛṣṇa warned this, anārya-juṣṭam. Kṣatriya's description is given in the Bhāgavata: yuddhe cāpy apalāyanam (BG 18.43), not to go behind. They must fight. That is Āryan culture.

Dr. Patel: They are doing strategical fight. Strategically fight. They should not repeat, but our army is doing strategical fight.

Prabhupāda: There is a Bengali saying, palabanata boineki: "Am I afraid of you, that I shall not go away?"

Dr. Patel: (laughing) I understand.

Prabhupāda: "I must go away. That is my independence."

Dr. Patel: Bahaduri se peeche hato, hamari fauzey bahaduri se peeche hatin. (Retreat with courage, our forces retreated with courage.)

Prabhupāda: And Kṛṣṇa says specifically, kṣatriya, yuddhe cāpy apalāyanam: "You must fight, face."

Dr. Patel: That yuddhe must be also religious. Not . . .

Prabhupāda: Yuddha . . . everything must be religious. Why yuddha? Your ordinary living must be also religious. Otherwise animal. Animal also lives. But if you don't live religiously, that is animal. Dharmena hina paśubhiḥ sa. If you live like animal, then you are animal. If you live like human being, that human being means dharma. We cannot expect any dharma in the animal society. It is meant for the human society.

(someone gives Prabhupāda a flower) Hmm, thank you.

Dr. Patel: There is no smell in it.

Prabhupāda: Cāṇakya Paṇḍita has said that a flower without smell and a man without education—the same thing. A flower without smell, similarly, a man without education.

Dr. Patel: Sir, what is the distinction between a culture and an education?

Prabhupāda: Culture means human being.

Dr. Patel: Human . . .?

Prabhupāda: Human being. Culture. Just like Cāṇakya Paṇḍita says, mātṛvat para-dāreṣu. This is culture, to see every woman as mother. This is not education. Education, the modern meaning of education is rubbish—to learn A-B-C-D. This is not education. Without culture, what is the meaning of education?

Dr. Patel: So culture is the background for all these things.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Education is required to help culture. Not that to take degrees from the university and remain a dog. That is not education. Here is education, as Cāṇakya Paṇḍita outlined:

mātṛvat para-dāreṣu

para-dravyeṣu loṣṭravat

ātmāvat sarva-bhūteṣu

yaḥ paśyati sa paṇḍitaḥ

Here is a description of paṇḍita: first of all learn how to see other woman as your mother. There the culture begins. And they are, from the very beginning of the school college life, they are learning how to entice one girl. This is education.

Dr. Patel: They are following the so-called advanced countries.

Prabhupāda: Advanced means Freud's philosophy.

Dr. Patel: So-called advancement.

Prabhupāda: Sex philosophy. This is their education. So how can you expect gentlemen? It is not possible. From the very beginning there is no culture, animal culture. Just like dog—as soon as he finds another female dog, he wants to have sex. This is education.

Dr. Patel: One friend of mine told me that this culture is vultures' culture. They eat anything and everything.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Not vultures, it is called hog civilization. The hog, they eat anything and they have sex with anyone.

Dr. Patel: Yes, yes. These animals don't distinguish between their own, I mean, bodily relatives.

Prabhupāda: Nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭan kāmān arhate yad viḍ-bhujāṁ ye (SB 5.5.1). This is the instruction. Where is culture? Culture is lost. So therefore there is no value of education. And besides that, education means spiritual education, brahma-vidyā. This education how to make aeroplane or a nice bridge or a machine, this is called kalā-vidyā. This is not vidyā.

Dr. Patel: Parā and aparā vidyā.

Prabhupāda: No, kalā. Kalā means artistic. Suppose a carpenter, he knows how to make a very nice, good furniture, does it mean that he is educated? He knows the art, some artistic way—that's all, but he is not educated. But nowadays it is going on if you know some art, technology, then you are educated. This is not education. Education means culture.

Dr. Patel: Yes. And culture means man with morality and . . .

Prabhupāda: Culture means human life. Culture means human life. Otherwise dog's life. There is . . . there are so many things. There are amānitvam adambhitvam ahiṁsā kṣāntir ārjavam (BG 13.8). Everything is described. Amānitvam, first of all you have to learn how to become humble. And here, all the people, they are educated how to become proud. What is education?

Dr. Patel: Christ says, sir, "The meek and humble shall inherit this earth." They, unfortunately, the followers of Christ are not meek and humble.

Prabhupāda: And this culture cannot be maintained unless one is God conscious. Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā (SB 5.18.12). There cannot be any culture for a godless person. That is not possible. And, yasyāsti-bhaktir bhagavaty-akiñcanā (SB 5.18.12). Just like this European, American boy is offering obeisances to the guru, this is culture. Why he has learned this culture? Because he has become Kṛṣṇa conscious. Therefore, yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā, sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate . . . (SB 5.18.12). If you make one devotee of Kṛṣṇa, then all culture will automatically come. One thing. (aside) Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Dr. Patel: So all devotees are cultured?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Theirs is really culture. That, Prahlāda Mahārāja says, tam manye' dhitam uttamam. Śravanaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇu-smaraṇam pāda-sevanam arcanam (SB 7.5.23). Tam manye' dhityam uttamam, he is first-class educated. This is recommendation by Prahlāda Mahārāja. And Kṛṣṇa says: "If one is not God conscious: duṣkṛtino, mūḍhā, narādhamā, māyayāpahṛta-jñānā (BG 7.15)." Where is their qualification? Duṣkṛtina, mūḍha. Where is culture? Suppose you steal by tricks, by, I mean to say, by legal tricks, does it mean it is culture? But that is going on.

Dr. Patel: That means, sir, īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvaṁ yat kiñcid jagatyāṁ jagat, tena tyaktena bhuñjīthā (ISO 1). That should be the background of all the governments.

Prabhupāda: That is bhagavad-dharm . . . (end)