Morning Walk Conversation
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
November 13, 1975, Bombay

Prabhupada: …not whimsically. That will not… That is a bad example.

Dr. Patel: Oh, yes. Otherwise it will become a hotel.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Dr. Patel: Otherwise it will become a hotel.

Prabhupada: Yes. Hotel we are preparing also, transcendental hotel. But they must pay for it.

Dr. Patel: That’s right. I think it is perfectly right.

Prabhupada: Otherwise what will be the impression of the sadhus, that one treatment to one and one treatment to another? Hare Krsna. [break] …require, everything is there by God’s arrangement. [break] …heavy load, there is elephant, truck. Elephant is truck, horse is carriage. Everything is there by nature’s… And for small load, the bulls, the asses. Hare Krsna. [break] Where he is? He has gone back? In the kitchen they are preparing tea? They are preparing tea in the kitchen?

Brahmananda: Tea. Was he making tea in his kitchen?

Gopala Krsna: I didn’t know that. [break]

Prabhupada: So Nanda Kumara, you see me. I shall talk with you at half past eleven. [break] …from this side. [break] …flies. So do the modern botanists, er, biologists know all these things? In our sastra it is, jalaja nava-laksani sthavara laksa-vimsati, krmayo rudra-sankhyakah. [break]

Yasomatinandana: They cannot understand one species of life. How can they understand 8,400,000?

Prabhupada: And sastra has described so many things. It has no value. And whatever nonsense they’ll talk, that is right.

Harikesa: That’s because the sastra is not very practical.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Harikesa: It’s not very practical.

Prabhupada: Why not practical?

Harikesa: Because you can’t do anything with it. You just read it and…

Prabhupada: He can press your throat and kill you immediately. (laughter) He can do this. Do you admit or not?

Harikesa: Yes.

Prabhupada: Yes. Then? That is the practical thing for the demons. Mrtyuh sarva-haras caham. When Hiranyakasipu met with Nrsimhadeva, “Yes, sir, yes. You are here.”

Harikesa: But that’s all mythology. That kind of thing never really happens.

Prabhupada: When it happens, you will see. Wait for few years. Do you think death will not happen to you? You are so fool to think like that?

Harikesa: It’s still going to happen to me even if I read these books.

Prabhupada: The books are there, what is happening actually, that’s all. Books… Therefore it is practical because what is written in the sastra, that is happening. Therefore it is practical. [break] Throughout this age, the symptoms of Kali-yuga, they are happening practically.

Yasomatinandana: [break] …all the Mayavadis, transcendentalists, they also don’t believe in sastras.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Yasomatinandana: This one man, he is a great devotee of one so- called swami, and he was quoting Bhagavad-gita inside and out. And then…

Prabhupada: He doesn’t believe in.

Yasomatinandana: No. He doesn’t believe in Krsna. He comes to the words that “You surrender everything to Krsna.” Then he says, “Well, actually this Bhagavad-gita is written by some man, unknown man.” So I said, “What is the value of it then? Why are you quoting Bhagavad-gita? Why are you learning it?” “It is knowledge, very nice knowledge.” “So any knowledge imparted by any mundane man, what value does it have?”

Prabhupada: Why don’t you accept it? What is the use of quoting?

Yasomatinandana: Yes. That they will not do because they know they can make money by quoting Bhagavad-gita. People will not accept anybody if they openly say that they don’t believe in Bhagavad-gita.

Prabhupada: That was going on. It is the first time. We are pressing: “You must take it seriously.” It is the first time. Otherwise this was going on, at least for the last two hundred years.

Yasomatinandana: And then when we say that a devotee goes to Vaikuntha, this and that, “Oh, Vaikuntha and all those things are just myth, just baloney.”

Prabhupada: You are authority, you rascal. You are authority. Everything is myth, you are simply truth. Hare Krsna. Jaya.

Harikesa: Reality and…

Prabhupada: Where everything is myth, then why you are truth? You are also myth. Everything is myth, so you are also myth. What is the use of talking nonsense?

Yasomatinandana: They believe in whatever is existing now. Whatever is existing now, or whatever they…

Prabhupada: And what is not existing which is mentioned in the Bhagavad-gita. Catur-varnyam maya srstam [Bg. 4.13] Still people say, “I am brahmana,“ “I am ksatriya,” “I am this,” “I am that.” It is existing.

Yasomatinandana: They would even believe the mundane historians more than the sastras. The historians have very funny stories. The Aryans came from the northeast Asia or something.

Indian man (1): Central Asia.

Yasomatinandana: Central Asia and inhabited in India. Then the Indian civilization sprang. Everybody thinks that India was not originally inhabited. It was all inhabited by the Dravidians, and then the Dravidians were pushed into the South and then Aryans dominated them. Whatever they learn in the schools. And because they have this theory, therefore they have to date all the sastras, after, either after Christ or just a few centuries before Christ. [break] …bharata, they say, it must have been a small family feud and some poet’s imagination made it a big war.

Prabhupada: “May be. May not be.” (laughter) We say, “may not be.”

Brahmananda: They say the Mahabharata was written 1400 B.C., and that date correlates with dates of the Egyptian and Greek Empire.

Prabhupada: No, no, so many dates have been quoted there. Which is correct? That is our question. So many dates they have discussed. And which one is correct? Either everyone is correct or everyone is incorrect. This is the… There cannot be many dates; that is not possible. Date must be one. So which one is correct? Who will answer this?

Brahmananda: Everyone has a different opinion.

Prabhupada: That’s it.

Devotee (2): Recently they had a big questioning in the… (too faint) …newspapers what the outcome would be.

Prabhupada: Hm?

Devotee (2): And your Godbrother Swami Bon?

Prabhupada: Yes, I know that. He is also one of them.

Devotee (2): He established… (too faint)

Prabhupada: Others, they do not accept. So…

Yasomatinandana: Funny thing is that some of the historians, they say, “There was no war like Mahabharata. It’s all fictitious. There’s nothing like Kuruksetra.” Some historians say that there is Kuruksetra and there is evidences of war of Mahabharata. But none of them completely agree with the scriptures. They all have their own fantastic theories, even those who say that…

Prabhupada: So why shall I accept them?

Yasomatinandana: How can we prove the…

Prabhupada: They cannot prove. Our proof is already there. They cannot prove. Why don’t you take that point, that these rascals, they are contradictory to one another, so they cannot prove. Our proof is already there.

Yasomatinandana: That is what we should aim at. We should aim at “You cannot prove your…”

Prabhupada: You cannot prove. You are contradictory. So why shall I accept you or he? We accept our own proof. That’s all. First of all you agree amongst yourselves; then question us. You cannot agree. Why shall I believe you? One says that “He is wrong” and the other says “He is wrong.” Now we say “You are both wrong. We reject you.” Hare Krsna.

Yasomatinandana: But how can we impress the masses that we are right, the innocent people?

Prabhupada: They are not historians, rascals. They will believe Mahabharata. They are not so-called historians, scientists. They still believe in the Vedic standard.

Yasomatinandana: People in general.

Prabhupada: Oh, yes. They’re actually doing that. They may believe or not believe; our belief is going on all over the world. Is it not?

Yasomatinandana: Yes.

Prabhupada: That’s all. Phalena pariciyate. Hare Krsna. We don’t make any compromise. What we believe, we are preaching that. People are accepting. So you believe or not believe; it doesn’t matter for us.

Yasomatinandana: [break] …just institutions, they also say “Indian mythology.”

Prabhupada: They have been taught like that.

Yasomatinandana: And they put out books on Mahabharata or Ramacandra, “Indian mythology.”

Prabhupada: But who cares for them?

Yasomatinandana: Ninety-nine per cent of the people are completely misled.

Prabhupada: No, no, not ninety-nine per cent. Maybe nine percent. [break]

Dr. Patel: As a matter of fact, science is not revealing itself now. Science is also realizing that it is not the way to realize God. Science is, when you were a student at college was much different than what it is today, sir, to tell the truth. The scientists have realized that they are nothing before, before all that they observe and the director of all that action, themselves and everything.

Prabhupada: Hare Krsna. Jaya.

Passerby: Jaya Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: [break] Svarupa Damodara is real scientist. He is admitting. That is stated in the Srimad-Bhagavatam. What is that? Yad-uttama-sloka-gunanuvarnanam [SB 1.5.22]

idam hi pumsas tapasah srutasya va svistasya suktasya ca buddhi-dattayoh avicyuto ’rthah kavibhir nirupito yad uttamasloka-gunanuvarnanam [SB 1.5.22]

Pumsa, “of the human society,” svistasya, “education…” Idam hi pumsas tapasah srutasya, svistasya, ca buddhi-dattayoh. Whatever big, big activities are there—education, charity, tapasya… Why these things are required? What is the meaning of becoming advanced in such things? Avicyuto ’rthah: “Without any doubt, the artha, the conclusion, is that they should describe the wonderful activities of the Supreme Person.” Then it is perfect education. And these rascals, they are saying, “Now we don’t require God.”

Dr. Patel: No, sir, but these great scientists like Huxley were all…

Prabhupada: No….

Dr. Patel: They have realized the working of God in every atom, to tell the truth. It was so some fifty years back that the scientists did not believe in the existence and working of God, but they have much changed now.

Prabhupada: That means they were foolish; now they are coming to be wise.

Dr. Patel: But they have died out, the previous generation. Now the new generation.

Prabhupada: No, still there are, so many rascals.

Dr. Patel: There cannot be uniformity of…

Prabhupada: So many rascals. One scientist came to talk with me in California. And he: “God? What is God? We have now solved everything.” And you are rascal, demon.

Dr. Patel: He should be asked to “Make a single living cell yourself. We’ll give you all the ingredients, all the chemicals, and make us a living cell. If you can make it?” That should be the answer to that.

Prabhupada: They are so foolish. I very strongly talk with them. Still, stubborn, doggish. That scientist, I told him in his…, that “You are a demon.” I told him, “You are a demon.” So he tolerated. (laughs)

Dr. Patel: They are serving the Mammon and not God.

Prabhupada: So, so many psychologists, psychiatrists, scientists, they come there in Los Angeles.

Dr. Patel: I mean, the psychologists are the real science which can lead a man to the higher understanding of life, psychologists. The abstract sciences of biology and psychics, chemistry, are little lower sciences. The psychology is much higher.

Prabhupada: No science is perfect. Asato dhavato bahih.

Dr. Patel: In imperfection also there can be gradations.

Prabhupada: Gradations, that I give the example: stool, this side and that side, the dry side and the moist side. Somebody says, “Oh, this side is very good. It is dry stool.” (laughter)

Dr. Patel: You have to examine in a different way.

Prabhupada: Yes, this is very good example. Stool is stool, but they are thinking, “This side is very good because it is dried up.

Dr. Patel: We see a thing from any angle, sir.

Prabhupada: Now, this is also one of the angle.

Dr. Patel: Scientists have got different angle.

Prabhupada: No, no, there is no different angle. It is foolishness. Stool is stool, this side or… If you say, “This angle is very…” The same thing.

Dr. Patel: The human stool is a stool for the human being. Does it not become a food for a stray dog?

Prabhupada: That is human stool.

Dr. Patel: That you see. Does it not become the food for a stray dog, sir? That you see.

Prabhupada: Yes, therefore we say…

Dr. Patel: When I was a small boy I was very much wondering how this filth that is cast away from human body can nourish the dog’s body. But that is the bountifulness of God, sir.

Yasomatinandana: Just like that…

Dr. Patel: Now don’t talk. (laughter) I was a professor in the college, so I am very sorry. This particular habit is lurking me as yet.

Yasomatinandana: maya is killing the scientists.

Dr. Patel: (Gujarati) But that is what it is, sir. Really, it set me thinking when I was a small baby boy, how this could maintain the body of a dog if there was no something in it. It is a very important thing to understand. Think about it.

Prabhupada: …good substance, very good substance. Stool is full of hypophosphates.

Dr. Patel: Whatever it is, but there it is…

Prabhupada: That was analyzed by a big doctor. You know that Dr. Ghosh who came? Dr. Ghosh from Allahabad? So one day I went to his house, and I saw in a plate something yellow is kept. And “What is this, doctor?” “Oh, that is stool to be examined.”

Dr. Patel: The stool, so long it is in your body, it is you, a part of you, because we are all, majority of us are body conscious. There are very few people like you, who are so conscious.

Prabhupada: That is Mayavada philosophy.

Dr. Patel: We are in the process of making soul-consciousness.

Prabhupada: No, no, that is Mayavada philosophy.

Dr. Patel: But still every moment we are body conscious.

Prabhupada: Yes, that’s it. But that is Mayavada philosophy, “Everything one. Everything one.”

Dr. Patel: Mayavada or no vada, this is a fact, that we are body conscious. We look to the facts, sir, we scientists.

Brahmananda: Ramakrishna ate stool because he said, “Stool and prasadam are one.”

Prabhupada: Hm? He ate stool?

Brahmananda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: Where does he say so?

Brahmananda: His disciple… One of his disciples told us.

Dr. Patel: Disciple has said, but…

Brahmananda: As an experiment to show that it was all one, he said that he ate stool.

Prabhupada: No, of course, I do not know about stool, but he wanted to eat beef.

Dr. Patel: Meat.

Prabhupada: Beef.

Dr. Patel: Because he tried to worship God in the form of Muslims.

Prabhupada: Yes. So he wanted permission from the proprietor of the temple. “Now I am going to experiment Mohammedan religion, so I want to eat beef.” So he said frankly that “Now you have to go away, sir. I cannot allow this.” Then he stopped.

Dr. Patel: But he did not eat beef. He did not eat beef. He saw it and that’s all.

Prabhupada: No, when the permission was not given by the proprietor he had no other way to stop.

Dr. Patel: Rasamani.

Prabhupada: Rasamani. Rasamani’s husband.

Dr. Patel: She was a widow.

Prabhupada: Oh, husband, no. Yes. His son-in-law.

Dr. Patel: The son-in-law, Mathura.

Prabhupada: Yes. Ah, yes.

Dr. Patel: So he experimented as a Christian, as a Muslim, and all, and he said he came to the same truth.

Prabhupada: That is rascaldom. That is rascaldom. He experimented means he was a fool. And a fool makes experiment, one who is fool. One who knows, why he should make experiment?

Dr. Patel: Scientists do make experiments.

Prabhupada: Therefore they are fools. (laughter)

Dr. Patel: You say so.

Prabhupada: Yes. We don’t make any experiment. We don’t make any. We say, “Krsna is God.” That’s all. No experiment.

Dr. Patel: If, sir, Edison had not made experiment…

Prabhupada: Edison, Fedison, all, these are rascals. All these… Edison…

Dr. Patel: You would not have electricity today in the streets.

Prabhupada: We don’t make any experiments.

Dr. Patel: This is a matter of worshiping. He experimented with the method of worshiping.

Prabhupada: No, experiment means one who is making experiment, he is a fool.

Dr. Patel: I mean the experiment of making…, method of worshiping, sir. You worship this way, other…

Prabhupada: There is no method. Only method—bhaktya mam abhijanati [Bg. 18.55] That is method. All rascals. All rascals. Yes, all rascals.

Dr. Patel: No, sir. The Christians, they go to the temple to worship God in the same way.

Prabhupada: No, I don’t say Christian and Hindus, Muslims. Anyone who is not a bhakta, he is a rascal. That’s all. That is our conclusion. Therefore we say all rascals. Mudha. Krsna says, bhaktya mam abhijanati [Bg. 18.55]. Why should we experiment other than that?

Dr. Patel: But that is the way of bhakti, sir. My contention is this, with all my…

Prabhupada: You cannot make.

Dr. Patel: I submit myself meekly, that…

Prabhupada: Truth is truth. There is no experiment. Truth is truth. You cannot make experiment. “All right, let us see. The sun may rise this side.” Can you do that?

Dr. Patel: I think I am not explicit to you, sir. What I mean to say is way of worshiping…

Prabhupada: There is no other way of worshiping except bhakti.

Dr. Patel: No, but that is also a bhakti, sir.

Prabhupada: Yes, but… Only way. Bhaktya mam abhijanati [Bg. 18.55]. God is one, and to understand God is one. That is it. Now…

Dr. Patel: He has saints in the same God by all the ways. If I…

Prabhupada: There is no other way. That is foolishness. That is explained. Ye ’py anya-devata bhakta yajante sraddhayanvitah, mam eva te ’pi bhajanty avidhi-purvakam. That is avidhi. That is not vidhi.

Dr. Patel: They are bhajanti. Still they are bhajanti, sir. They are not non-bhajanti like so-called mudha scientists and like Hoffer.(?)

Prabhupada: Bhajanti… It is, think, yajanti, not bhajanti. Yajanty avidhi-purvakam. That is not the way.

Dr. Patel: Bhajanty avidhi-purvakam? Bhajanty aviddhi-purvakam.

Prabhupada: Yajanti.

Dr. Patel: Bhajanti, sir.

Prabhupada: Yajanti.

Dr. Patel: I think I am not wrong. Bhajanty avidhi-purvakam. They are…

Prabhupada: No, ye ’py anya-devatah… That is another. sraddhayan… Te’pi mam eva…

Dr. Patel: I have still, I mean…

Prabhupada: I think yajanti.

Dr. Patel: Bhajanti. Parasmaipada, not atmanepada.

Prabhupada: Yes, it is avidhi-purvakam.

Dr. Patel: Avidhi-purvakam.

Prabhupada: That is not vidhi.

Dr. Patel: “Those who worship devas, they go to devas, and those who worship Me, they come to Me.”

Prabhupada: Hm?

Dr. Patel: Devani yanti deva-yaja bhutani yanti bhutejya.

Prabhupada: But these Ramakrishna men say…

Dr. Patel: Mam eva…

Prabhupada: Ramakrishna men say, “You worship any demigod, you go to God.” Krsna does not say. They say, “There are as many ways.” And Krsna says, mam ekam. They’re all against sastra. All against sastra. Hare Krsna. Jaya.

Dr. Patel: Did you know this bhutesu tisthantam paramesvaram? Na hinasty atmana atmanam tathapy atma… How shall you explain that, sir? Samam sarvesu bhutesu tisthantam paramesvaram.

Prabhupada: Sarvam sarvesu bhutesu, that I have explained so many times. If you see materially either dog or a big brahmana, the body is the same material. Body, when you dissect the body you find the same blood, same muscle, same bone. That’s all. That is material. And spiritually they are atman. Therefore sama- darsinah. From that point of view, from basic point of view. Not that he is seeing a brahmana and dog equal. No. Not that. He is seeing the outward and inward. Inward is spirit. That is one. And outward, matter, that is one.

Dr. Patel: Another is suni caiva sva-pake ca panditah sama-darsinah [Bg. 5.18].

Prabhupada: Yes, that is the same thing, because he does not see the form; he sees the ingredients. Just like there are so many earthen pots, dolls. So any sane man knows that these are all made of earth. That’s all. That vision is wanted, but these rascals, they are thinking, “I am American,” “I am Indian,” “I am brahmana,” “I am ksatriya,” “I am fat,” “I am this,” “I am that.” Therefore they are imperfect.

Dr. Patel: Oh, we are prepared to think we are Americans, but they don’t take us, unfortunately. (laughs)

Prabhupada: Eh?

Dr. Patel: You see? I may little digressing from this point. Before the India became freed we had an extremely high opinion about American race, American people.

Prabhupada: Still I have got.

Dr. Patel: Because… No, not people like us.

Prabhupada: Yes. That is correct. Still I have got.

Dr. Patel: I have got also. Because then it was American president who supported the freedom movement of India. But unfortunately Dulles spoiled the speech.

Prabhupada: No, I am not speaking from that point of view. I see that the Americans, they have helped me in Krsna consciousness.

Dr. Patel: You, but the whole India, they helped. It is only you.

Prabhupada: Therefore I feel obliged to them. Nobody helped me. These boys helped me.

Dr. Patel: It was your President Roosevelt, by whose action, I mean, Mr. Churchill began to lose his grip on India.

Prabhupada: And this American government even, they never put any hindrance in my movement. They have, rather, appreciated. And many American old gentlemen came to congratulate me.

Dr. Patel: Because you are helping them, salvaging the boys from the…

Prabhupada: Whatever it may be, but they have helped me.

Dr. Patel: They are not smoking that.

Indian man (3): Srila Prabhupada, in 1962 in Geneva(?) only they helped, America.

Dr. Patel: Because that is a democracy. India…

Prabhupada: And another thing, from material point of view… I am touring all over the world so many times. Materially nobody is as opulent as America, nobody. (sic:) Not even America.

Dr. Patel: Because the best brains of the world are drained there. That is the real cause.

Prabhupada: Whatever it may be…

Dr. Patel: Best brains of the world, they are attracted to America.

Prabhupada: Money, everyone is trying to get money in Bombay. But why there are (unclear)? It is… Unless one is destined to get money, he cannot get. It is not that, so cheap thing, that I want money; money will come. It is janmaisvarya-sruta-sri. Unless one is pious he cannot get money, he cannot get education.

Dr. Patel: Yatra yogesvarah krsno yatra partho dhanur-dharah.

Prabhupada: Yes. So in that sense of materially, janmaisvarya-sruta-sri, these four thing…

Dr. Patel: (Hindi)

Prabhupada: So… [break] …taken to Krsna consciousness, the greatest fortune. Thousands of young men joining, but here in India nobody is coming.

Dr. Patel: Because they have already joined.

Prabhupada: All unfortunate, now they are. They have been so much trained badly. They say frankly, “Oh, this Hare Krsna we have seen.” In America when they chant… The Americans are chanting on the street, and the Indian students, “Oh, this we have done much. We have nothing to…” Here also they are thinking like that: “What is this Hare Krsna movement? Eh? A beggars’ movement.” sastra says, harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam [Adi 17.21], and these rascals are thinking, “Oh, Hare Krsna we have seen.” You see? They have become so greatly intelligent, these rascals. They do not believe in sastra, in sadhu, in God. All these “incarnations” and big, big men, they say, “Oh, what is the use of sastra?” Even this Anandamaya says that “In higher advancement there is no need of sastra.” He is above sastra. He, she says like that. And Krsna said, yah sastra-vidhim utsrjya vartate kama-karatah, na sa siddhim avapnoti, immediately condemned: “If you don’t believe in sastra, you are rascal.” Krsna said. And they say, “Oh, there is no need of…” And he’s an incarnation of Krsna. This Bal-yogi rascal is doing that: “There is no need of sastra.” This is going on. Now he’s finished, of course. His activity is finished. [break]…strength of sastra we are challenging that “You have never gone to the moon planet.” Who can do so? The whole world is accepting they have gone to moon planet, and we are challenging, “You have never gone to moon.” Hare Krsna. Thank you very much. (end)