Morning Walk Conversation
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
August 7, 1975, Toronto

Jagadisa: Yesterday I saw a statistic saying that in the United States, 21% of the population is in poverty.

Prabhupada: Hm. So?

Brahmananda: But that poverty means that they earn five thousand dollars or less. Less than five thousand is the line.

Prabhupada: Well, it is all proportionate, that… You are paying rent for this room where I am staying, $175 per month?

Uttamasloka: It has just been changed to 175 from 150.

Prabhupada: So out of five hundred dollars if you have to pay 175, rent, then why it is not poverty? Almost one third money is finished by paying rent. [break] …seen in India the Narmada Falls? Huh? Jabalpur? Ah, it is wonderful.

Indian man (1): The location of that church is very nice because there are so many thousands of cars pass every morning and in the evening.

Prabhupada: Where?

Indian man (1): Avenue Road. It is very busy street. There are so many cars coming in the morning, I think, twenty thousand a day.

Prabhupada: Yes. And they will see the signboard. [break]

Indian man (2): …that India, I traveled after several years. I last went in 1966. It was not so demonic. But this time I found the younger generation of India is very, very demonic and they don’t believe God at all.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Indian Man (2): What is the reason of that?

Prabhupada: They have been taught by your rascal leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru and company. These rascals taught them.

Indian Man (2): Jawaharlal Nehru was representing the India for so many years.

Prabhupada: Yes. And therefore he has ruined.

Indian Man (2): He is ruining since our, before born, in 1930.

Prabhupada: Well, that was the beginning, but he completed the finishing touch. Sometimes he came to Vrndavana—I was there, retired—to open a Ramakrishna Mission hospital, and he stayed there the whole day. He came in the morning and went back to New Delhi in the evening, but not a single temple he visited. Where thousands of men are coming to see the temple, but he, the prime minister, he did not visit not a single temple.

Indian Man (2): He accepted as spiritual master, some sort of… His teacher is Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi. So he was teaching him the same thing what he has learned. From here he learned all this knowledge which has spoiled our Indian culture?

Prabhupada: No, Gandhi had no spiritual knowledge. He was little moralist. That’s all. That was also good. But these men are not even moralist.

Indian Man (2): How can we fast move in India to spread our Krsna consciousness?

Prabhupada: Hm?

Indian Man (2): How can we spread the Krsna consciousness?

Prabhupada: If we go village to village. The village people are still pure, at least not so polluted as the town people, or especially the so-called educated. [break] …hari-kirtana koro… (Bengali) We held this hari-kirtana in Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay. Oh, at least fifteen to thirty thousand people were daily… Even from the office with coats and pants, they are dancing. And they asked me, “Swamiji, continue it.” [break]

Indian Man (2): I traveled all over India so many years, place to place, but I found the Gujarati is one of the best where the people have there some natural-born Krsna consciousness.

Prabhupada: Yes. That’s fact. Everywhere—Gujaratis, Marwaris, Punjabis—more or less, Krsna consciousness is there. [break]

Indian Man (2): I ask you one question. What is the future of India regarding the Krsna consciousness? The people are so much demonic. It every time bothers me, day and night, that what will happen? The people don’t have respect for the olders. They just harass. I was with my wife too, and I found the… We talk about the Krsna, and they just laugh. They say, “There is nothing like that.” They made so much fun, the young generation, that “You are a modern boy, and you are believing in that?” Just I found. I can’t understand that how we can change over to the Indian future about Krsna consciousness?

Prabhupada: If we preach, it will be all right. That is going on perpetually, darkness and light. If you bring light, darkness will go out, will be driven away.

krsna surya sama maya andhakara yahan krsna tahan nahi mayara adhikara

Just like now there is sunshine. Although it is not very bright, but still the darkness of night has gone away. So bring in Krsna consciousness; it will go away.

Indian Man (2): In Hardwar I have been recently, and I met one of my uncle’s wife. My uncle’s father was a very big mahanta. He was having quite in a big numbers, maybe in lakhs or you can say million, half million to million disciples. And what he was using in whole life, the disciple’s money, for his own pleasure or his wife and children’s. And at the end of it he took his sannyasa. Only just few years after that, he died. And I found there in a lot of mahantas, they have a temples, they are using there lot of jewels, gold, and money, and they have a business, like that. And thousand of educated people visit, and they believe that this is all they are doing, show off, and there is no God. This is bewildering everybody’s mind. Is there any… we have some system that we can conquer those people by means to… Those young generation of their children, they really looking for the truth. I met one mahanta, his son. He is very educated boy. He met impersonalist leader, and he misguided, and they are leading their life just like a, you can say, I don’t want to use bad word, like pigs. They are eating and sleeping and mating, same as there are other people doing.

Prabhupada: Well, this is want of knowledge, jnanam.

vasudeve bhagavati bhakti-yogah prayojitah janayaty asu vairagyam jnanam ca yad ahaitukam [SB 1.2.7]

If one is engaged in the devotional service of Vasudeva, then he immediately becomes vairagi—no attachment for material things— and knowledge. But most of these rascals, they are nondevotees. The so-called mahanta, he is not mahanta—mohandha: “great blind.” So that is the difficulty. Krsna consciousness movement is to bring everyone to the stage of devotional service to Vasudeva. Then it will be all right. Other platform will never be successful. Simply show. It is not fact. [break] …also take it very easily that “I haven’t got to do anything. My Guru Maharaja is there. He will do everything. I can do whatever I like.” The Christians are doing like that, that “Jesus Christ will suffer. We indulge in sinful activities. That’s all.” This is their policy. It is perhaps in our movement only that each and every individual is being trained up. Others they do not do that. “I have made a guru; then my business is finished. Now I can do whatever I like.” (To dogs barking:) Hut!

Passerby: Max! Max! Come here. Come on, buddy.

Prabhupada: Good friends. (laughter)

Harikesa: Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut! [break]

Prabhupada: …ing friendship with dog, then what he will be? He’ll become dog. That’s all. He will not hear anything. Sada tad bhava bhavitah [Bg. 8.6]

Indian Man (2): Prabhupada, these people, dogs, mostly are atheist? Atheist, they take the birth as the dog?

Prabhupada: Yes. Unless one is atheist, how he takes to dog? Theist takes to God, and they takes to dog. That’s it. Not only animal dog, but they associate with a human dog, two-legged dogs. There are four-legged, and there are two-legged dogs—human being, but dog. He is also like dog, although he has got two legs and they have got four legs. In the parks it is by law prohibited to take dog, but he is dog. He violate the dog’s law. Therefore he is no better than dog. [break] …defect of modern civilization—they are keeping people as dog, and they want to make them human beings by law. They are thinking, “If we impose this law, things will be all right.” But how things will be all right? If you keep them dog, how the things will be all right? So we are training from dog to humanity. That is our special activities. We do not keep them as dog. We bring them to become godly. Then things will be all right. Other so-called gurus, they keep the disciple to remain as dog. Please pay him, and he… Asikbada—he will be all right. This is going on. [break] …our class begin?

Brahmananda: What time do the Deities open?

Visvakarma: Usually the Deities open at seven.

Prabhupada: So we shall go back?

Visvakarma: Yes. [break]

Indian man (2): …very important, one question which everybody asks, in India, everybody. They want to see “Where is the God?” They want to see: “Show us how we can see it. We ready to do everything, and we want to see the God. And show us some miracle or something that we can believe it.” Everybody is like that. And the people lot of having mystic power, they make the fool of the peoples.

Prabhupada: What is that mystic power?

Indian Man (2): I don’t know what they show it, some sort of…

Prabhupada: You do not know?

Indian Man (2): Some ji(?), they make it like that and this and that. They make the fool people. How can we convince that something, that knowledge is there. But they want immediate to know it to believe it.

Prabhupada: That is their rascaldom. One wants to be learned without going to the school. Is it possible? So they are rascals. What can be done? They don’t want to go to school and take the training, and they want to pass M.A. examination. This is their proposal. So these rascals should be kicked out. That’s all.

[break] …is: tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasnena [Bg. 4.34] First of all you surrender; then you ask question. The rascals first of all will question. And when he is satisfied, they will surrender. This is not the process. The process is first of all surrender; then question. Otherwise you have no right to question, waste time. [break] …is the sinful part of water. This is sinful part. There is sinful water and pious water also. So this water is sinful. Drinking of this water is prohibited.

Harikesa: In America they use maple syrup a lot, maple syrup. Is that also part of the sinful reaction for the trees? Yes.

Prabhupada: [break] …eh?

Visvakarma: No, Srila Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: Hm. Only fuel. They are called fuel. They are meant for using as fuel. [break]

Visvakarma: …Ontario, Srila Prabhupada, this is known as the fruit belt, in this area. But now they are ripping up all the orchards and putting in factories.

Prabhupada: Whatever they do, they do it for factories so that people may be exploited very easily. [break]

Indian Man (2): …like your company very much in Toronto and we feel like talk you so much, but we don’t have so much time to talk with you. You have so much mercy, so we have not… know so much about Krsna from you.

Prabhupada: So in my absence you read the books. What I talk, I have written in the books. That’s all.

Indian Man (2): Personally, we think more greater.

Prabhupada: That’s all right. But still, you can associate with me by reading my books.

Indian Man (2): I am reading books Prabhupada. That books are your very, very good and most blessful to us. It is the biggest good will upon whole of universe at present, I think. By that knowledge, from dog to, I have become… I feel like I have something in my property of your books in my home. That’s the only property I feel that I have, this one. I was misled, misguided in this country.

Prabhupada: Therefore in the beginning of Bhagavatam it is said, dharmah projjhita-kaitavo atra: “All cheating type of instruction is kicked out from Srimad-Bhagavatam. Only substance.” Vastavam-vastu vedyam atra. One who is really anxious to know reality, for them, it is Bhagavatam. And those who want to be misled, not for them. One who is sincere to get the light, for him Bhagavata is the only remedy. [break] …the question that “Why Bhagavata is so important than other books?” The reply is there: maha-muni krte kim va paraih. “What is the use of other books?” It is written by Maha-muni Vyasadeva, the Vedanta-acarya. (end)