Morning Walk Conversation Prabhupada: …change your views victimized by these rascals. The rascals are very strong. [break] In the Sixteenth Chapter of Bhagavad-gita it is said, pravrttim ca nivrttim jana na vidur asurah. Asura. Asura, demons, demonic civilization, demonic people, they do not know what is pravrtti and what is nivrtti. Pravrtti means material civilization, and nivrtti means spiritual civilization. The modern man does not know. They are neither educated about this pravrtti and nivrtti. And we are speaking on nivrtti, and all of them are in the pravrtti. So they cannot understand. It is foreign to them. They have no idea what is spiritual life, spiritual civilization. Five thousand years ago Krsna spoke of all these things very clearly. Later on, the things, from the beginning of Kali-yuga, the things are deteriorating, and therefore different types of religion has sprung up. The Buddhism, Christianism, Mohammedanism. They are not perfect understanding of religious principle. And gradually the number of so-called religious section are increasing. Our Mr. Nanda is presenting another religion, manava-dharma. Everyone is manufacturing. And Vivekananda is supporting, “Yes, every type of religious system is as good.” This is nonsense. Actually, they do not know what is religion. (pause) Ganesa: Srila Prabhupada, in the Sri Isopanisad it is said that one must learn the process of nescience alongside with the process of self-realization. Prabhupada: Hmm? Ganesa: In the Isopanisad, pravrtti with nivrtti. How is that? Prabhupada: What is that pravrtti and nivrtti? Amogha: He says that in the Isopanisad it says that you should learn the process of self-realization side by side with the process of nescience. Prabhupada: Nescience, yes. That is pravrtti and nivrtti. Pravrtti means sense enjoyment. And nivrtti means self-negation. So when we say that “You shall not have illicit sex,” and their inclination is illicit sex, so therefore it is revolutionary. They are materialistic persons. They want sex enjoyment to the best capacity—homosex, this sex, that sex, naked dance, all sexually inclined, pravrtti. And we say, “Stop this,” nivrtti. They do not like it because asura. Pravrtti jagat. They do not know this is essential. They do not know it. This is essential. Tapasa brahmacaryena [SB 6.1.13]. Tapasya means brahmacarya. The so-called swamis, they are coming for this so- called yoga practice and…, but they are themself victim of sex. This is going on. Actually, it is a bluff—they have become swami and teaching some yoga system—because they do not know that one has to stop this first of all. Brahmacaryena. So this bluffing is going on all over the world, and we are speaking just against them. Murkhayopadeso hi prakopaya na santaye. If you give instruction to the rascals, he will simply be angry. He will not take advantage of it. This is our position. All the so-called professors, philosophers, they are all in the pravrtti-marga. Therefore they are bringing somebody, “Our interpretation is like this.” Pravrtti-marga. Because if they can find out some support from the sastra, then they think, “We are secure.” This is going on. Pravrttim ca nivrttim jana na vidur asurah. The whole world is full of asuras, descendant of Hiranyakasipu, and it is very difficult. But if we give them chance to chant Hare Krsna mantra, gradually they will understand. (pause) Our difficulty: the so-called swamis, priests, popes, they are also in the pravrtti-marga. All these, priests, and they have illicit sex. Pravrtti-marga. So they are passing, “Yes, you can have homosex with man.” They are getting man-to-man marriage. You know? They are performing the marriage ceremony between man to man in the open church. What class of men they are? And they are priest. Just see. Such degraded persons, drinking… They have got hospital for curing their drinking disease. Five thousand patients in a hospital in America, all drunkards, and they are priest. Just see. Simply by dressing long, what is called, overcoat? Srutakirti: Cloak. Amogha: Habit? Prabhupada: Cloak and cross, they have become. In India also, simply having a thread, a brahmana. Two-paisa thread. That’s all. Paramahamsa: Even the coolies at the train station. Prabhupada: And by simply one danda, one is sannyasi. This is all over the world. Mussulman, having a long beard, he is Mussulman. Mussuleh iman.(?) Musseleh means complete, and iman means honest. That is the meaning of Mussulman. Completely honest, completely devoted. Mussuleh iman. (long pause) We are not saying just “No sex.” We don’t say that. We simply say, “No illicit sex,” and they do not like it. We don’t say “No sex,” but simply by saying, “No illicit sex,” they don’t like. Why? There is a Bengali song, “cakse yadi lage bhala kena dadimali” (?) “If I want to see something beautiful, why shall I not see?” That is pravrtti. “I want to do it. I like to do it. Why should you say, ‘No’?” This is the position. “I like to do it. I must do it.” This is called pravrtti (long pause) “I like to interpret Bhagavad-gita in this way. Why should you say no?” This is going on. [break] The school students, college students, “I like to copy. Why shall I repress(?) ?” This is education. Here also they copy? Amogha: You mean cheating? Prabhupada: No, no, copying in examination? Amogha: Oh, yes. Well, what they do is someone sneaks the exam answers out before, and they sell the answers to the questions before the test. Prabhupada: Just see. Here it is more advanced. Amogha: Yes. Very scientific. Sometimes they get caught, it’s in the newspapers. Prabhupada: Huh? Amogha: Sometimes they are caught by the authorities and it comes in the newspapers, and there’s a big scandal because all the students are buying the answers to the questions. Prabhupada: Just see. The main point is how to get some money. So the teachers are also dishonest. Paramahamsa: There’s a saying that everyone and everything has its price. Prabhupada: What is that? Paramahamsa: It means that if you pay enough money, you can get anything, or you can get somebody to do anything. Prabhupada: Yes. The justice, they are taking bribe, giving judgment. Paramahamsa: Yes, yes. Policemen. Also the politicians in America, sometimes they win their elections by giving bribes. Prabhupada: To the voters. Paramahamsa: Yes. Prabhupada: Yes, certainly. Amogha: Everyone is cheating, but when they find out that the leaders are cheating, everyone becomes upset. Prabhupada: Yes. Jayadharma: Srila Prabhupada, you have said that it’s impossible to become rich unless one is a cheater. And yet we have our business, our Spiritual Sky business. So how is it possible to carry on business and not become a cheater? Prabhupada: You can cheat. (laughter) You can cheat. For Krsna’s sake we can cheat also. But don’t be caught. Then it will be scandalous. Ganesa: Thank you. Krsna is the biggest cheat. Prabhupada: Yes, He is big in everything, but you should not imitate, because you are not as big as Krsna. Tejiyasam na dosaya. He is very powerful. Before His power, everything becomes vanished. He remains powerful. But you cannot do that. “Krsna is biggest cheater; therefore I shall become a cheater.” That is not good policy. Then you will be finished. Just like the example is given that Lord Siva drank the ocean of poison, and if you drink a drop, you will die. You cannot imitate the most powerful. That is not possible. Jayadharma: You told Madhudvisa Swami once in Sydney a few years ago that actually you’re the biggest cheater because you’re stealing away all our maya. Prabhupada: What is that? I am… Paramahamsa: He says that once you told Madhudvisa Swami that you are the best cheater because you are taking away all our maya and making us devotees. Prabhupada: (laughs) Yes. That kind of cheating is very good. (pause) Christ also spoke about nivrtti-marga. “Thou shall not kill.” Because they were practiced to kill, and still they are practiced to killing. The first nivrtti, “Thou shall not kill.” The same thing, “Thou shall not covet.” Amogha: Srila Prabhupada, is the Bible…, we accept that as scripture, but is it all correct, or has it been mistranslated or…? Prabhupada: It is being misinterpreted still now. That means it was violated from the very beginning. And they are violating. “Thou shall not kill”; he is killing. That’s all. That is the position. Paramahamsa: They also have that “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Prabhupada: Yes. And they are very expert in doing that. That is advanced civilization. Now they are marrying man to man and accepting homosex, so what is the value now of this priestly class? Paramahamsa: They have another thing now where they, a man goes to the doctor and has an operation to change his sex from man to woman. Prabhupada: Sex. Yes. Paramahamsa: Or from woman to man. That’s called transvestites. Prabhupada: That is going on? Paramahamsa: Yes. Prabhupada: Successful? Paramahamsa: Yes, sometimes. Sometimes they have some difficulties, but they have had many successful operations. [break] She can’t have… It can’t have a baby. (laughs) Prabhupada: They are doing? Paramahamsa: Well, they’re changing, but they can’t become pregnant. That’s the only thing. They take these special hormones, and then they can grow breasts and everything just like a woman. But they can’t become pregnant. Amogha: In the newspaper there was an article about two weeks ago about a Christian church in America where they have a naked dancer come. Prabhupada: Hmm? Amogha: They had a lady who dances, taking off her clothes, so the people will come to church. (laughter) Prabhupada: Accha? Amogha: Yes. I was very surprised, but they showed a picture. And they said this is a Methodist… I think it was Methodist. Some church… I am not sure which. But anyhow, it was a church… Amogha: That’s the only way to get people to come to church. Ganesa: That’s why they are called Methodists because they use different methods. Amogha: We saw one church, the church that they got in Montreal for the temple. They, right before the devotees took over the church, they were having rock musicians playing music every night. And in this way they were trying to get people to come to church. And they would sing songs sometimes about religion, using all electrical instruments and everything. Ganesa: This man who is coming to see you today, he also has done this in Perth. Amogha: Dean Hazelwood. Prabhupada: What he has done? Amogha: He… Sometimes he has electric guitar music for the church prayer ceremony. It’s called a rock mass. Ganesa: Rock mass, to attract the young people. Prabhupada: Will the young men came? Ganesa: Oh, yes. But halfway through, they all go out on the grass and they smoke. (laughter) They simply come to hear the music and that is all… Prabhupada: That’s all right. Amogha: Another thing they do in the churches is they have those bingo games. You were saying in one lecture we shouldn’t play bingo. That’s very popular. Practically all of the Catholic… Is that Catholic churches? Ganesa: All Christian. Jesus himself, he kicked the moneylenders out of the temple. Amogha: I was talking to one Buddhist monk, and I asked him, “What is your actual practice? What is your daily schedule?” And he said, “Well, we get up around sunrise and go out with our begging bowls and fill it up and then come back at about 11:00 to the temple. And then we sit down and eat everything in the begging bowl. And then we take rest.” I said, “What about the rest of the day?” And he said, “Well, that’s all free, open time.” Amogha: Srila Prabhupada, we are distributing Srimad-Bhagavatam and in Srimad-Bhagavatam you explain that it’s best to start from the beginning and go gradually. So… Prabhupada: No, anywhere you can see. Amogha: So we can distribute any canto. Paramahamsa: Usually what happens is a person who gets, say, the Second or Third or Fourth Canto, if he reads that, then he will want to start from the beginning, and he’ll buy the First Canto. Prabhupada: Yes. No, even if he does not read the First Canto, wherever he will read, he will get benefit. Sugar candy you taste from anywhere it is sweet. (long silence) Paramahamsa: Srila Prabhupada, I remember once I heard a tape where you told us that we should not try to read the books of previous acaryas. Prabhupada: Hmm? Amogha: That we should not try to read Bhaktivinoda’s books or earlier books of other, all acaryas. So I was just wondering… Prabhupada: I never said that. Amogha: You didn’t say that? Oh. Prabhupada: How is that? Amogha: I thought you said that we should not read the previous acaryas’ books. Prabhupada: No, you should read. Amogha: We should. Prabhupada: It is misunderstanding. Paramahamsa: I think maybe he was thinking that there was some things about some of the Gaudiya Matha books. Prabhupada: Maybe. Paramahamsa: And sometimes you said that better not to…, better to read your books. Amogha: When the devotees went to India this year, they said that Acyutananda Swami very…, chastised them that “You should never… If I catch any of you buying Bhaktisiddhanta’s books from Gaudiya Matha then I will take it away,” something like this. Paramahamsa: Yeah, that was, the reason was because of, he didn’t want the devotees going to Gaudiya Matha. But there’s nothing wrong with the idea of studying the previous acaryas’ books. Prabhupada: No. Who said? That is wrong. We are following previous acaryas. I never said that. Paramahamsa: All of your commentaries are coming from the previous acaryas. Prabhupada: Yes. Jayadharma: But that wouldn’t mean that we should keep all the previous acaryas’ books and only read them. Prabhupada: That is already there. You first of all assimilate what you have got. You simply pile up books and do not read—what is the use? Jayadharma: First of all we must read all your books. Prabhupada: Yes. Paramahamsa: Practically speaking, Srila Prabhupada, you are giving us the essence of all the previous acaryas’ books in your books. Prabhupada: Yes. Yes. [break] “No, no, Jesus Christ is son of God. He was… [break] If you don’t worship him, you will go to hell.” So they enquired, “What is that hell?” He began to… “It is very dark and moist and so on, so on…” They did not reply because they are working in the mine. So this is the position. This is the position. People are kept in so much darkness, they do not know what is hell, what is heaven, what is God, what is misery. They do not mind. They are accustomed to all these things. There is another story like that, a Bengali story. One man said, “Oh, you are drinking, you will go to hell.” So he explained what is hell: “It is a miserable life.” “My father also drinks.” “Oh, he will also go to hell.” “And my mother also drinks.” “Oh, she will also go.” In this way whole, the family. “Then where it is hell? It is heaven. Because the father is there, mother is there, brother is there. Everyone, we are going… So where is hell?” This is the… “Even in hell, if we are all there, then where it is hell? It is heaven.” Paramahamsa: People don’t mind so much suffering if they can suffer with their friends. Prabhupada: No, no, they are suffering. They are accustomed to so many sufferings. They say they do not mind what is suffering. Paramahamsa: Especially if they can bring their friends along. Then they’re very happy. Prabhupada: Yes. Therefore it is heaven. Although there is suffering, it is heaven. Paramahamsa: They think that suffering together with your friends is enjoying. Prabhupada: No, they… Just like the ass. He does not know what is happening. Therefore he is agreeing, “All right, load with me any number of heavy weight. I shall carry.” He does not know it is suffering. He has accepted the service of the man, bearing so much load, and he is giving little grass. The grass he can take from here, but he thinks that “He is maintaining me.” Just see. This is ignorance. Therefore mudha, this word is used. Suffering, suffering, suffering. Material nature is awarding sufferings after suffering. Still, they are not wake up. Who cares for suffering? [break] …stand this philosophy that acceptance of this material body is suffering. They will say, “Oh, I have got this American body. I have got so much opulence. What is suffering?” He’ll not believe. But real philosophy is that acceptance of this material body, whatever it may be, the demigod or dog, it is suffering. Who will understand? Even the demigods, they do not understand. Devotee (1): They say that “It’s natural to die. So everybody has to die. So we just have to accept it.” Prabhupada: No, the philosophy is very simple. You don’t want suffering, but where is a person who has got this material body is not suffering? Paramahamsa: But then they will say, “Where is a person who has not got this material body?” Prabhupada: There, that is unknown to them. There is another world where there is no material body. Everyone is in spiritual body. That they do not know. That is ignorance. Paramahamsa: They don’t feel so bad because they think everyone is suffering, so… Prabhupada: So nobody feels bad, even the cats and dogs. That does not mean there is no suffering. Cats and dogs… Just like in this car, the gentleman, his wife, and the dog. The dog is feeling more happy. Paramahamsa: He has less anxieties. Prabhupada: Yes. The dog is feeling, “Who can be happier than me?” Paramahamsa: Actually, in the West the dogs have a very good program. If they have a good master, then… Prabhupada: But after all, he is dog. (laughs) That he does not know. He may be, according to his estimation, very well situated. But after all, what he is? He is a dog. That he does not know. That he forgets. [break] Very calm and quiet. [break] …glass. Is it not? Srutakirti: Yes. Prabhupada: Now this glass-making is also becoming obsolete. The plastic is replacing. Paramahamsa: Oh, yeah. Prabhupada: The glass industry is finished. (end)
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
May 13, 1975, Perth