Room Conversation
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
June 28, 1976, New Vrindaban

Prabhupada: Hare Krsna. Jaya. (devotees offer obeisances) Thank you very much.

Rsi Kumara: Thank you, Srila Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: Very good.

Rsi Kumara: There’s no enjoyment out there. It’s all illusion. I think I tried everything.

Prabhupada: I was surprised that “How Rsi Kumara can fall down like this?” I had so confidence of this boy from the very beginning. He was so nice, so pure. And maya is so strong. But could not do very well, maya, very long. Thank Krsna and… So stay with us. Kaunteya pratijanihi na me bhaktah pranasyati. This is Krsna’s mercy, special mercy. So always be calm and chant and pray to Krsna. Don’t spoil this life. It is so valuable. Visayah khalu sarvatah syat. The sense gratification can be available in every life, cats and dogs also. Why should we sacrifice the greatest boon of human life? Hare Krsna. So how are you?

Radhavallabha: Very good, Srila Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: What news?

Radhavallabha: Seven-three was sent to the printer.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Radhavallabha: Seventh Canto, Volume Three, has been sent to the printer.

Prabhupada: Seven-three? Oh. So our Rsi Kumara has come back.

Rsi Kumara: I couldn’t stay away any longer, because I was so bored with everything I was doing. All I could do was chant, and then I had to come back. There’s nothing that satisfies except Krsna.

Prabhupada: Best thing is to preach for some time. Go with the sankirtana party. He’s a good mrdanga player also. His photograph is there.

Devotee: From the very beginning.

Prabhupada: Fifth Avenue.

Radhavallabha: Brahmananda?

Prabhupada: Yes. He was Brahmananda’s assistant always. Mam eva ye prapadyante mayam etam taranti te. Simply capture Krsna’s lotus feet. Maya will not be able to… When you have come here?

Rsi Kumara: We just got here his afternoon.

Prabhupada: “We” means along with…?

Rsi Kumara: I came with Radhavallabha prabhu.

Prabhupada: Radhavallabha, just see, young boy, how he’s working hard. You were doing also. You were doing so many things at a time. In Bombay you were doing herculean task, everywhere. He knows how to cook, how to give massage, how to… Yes. How to keep accounts, yes. Qualified. How to cook. Everything. So, may Krsna save you. What can I say more?

Pusta Krsna: This evening, Srila Prabhupada, we are arranging that you can see the film a little bit later in your room. Perhaps you would like to sit outside in the garden?

Prabhupada: Very nice. New York, how is everything going?

Radhavallabha: Very nice.

Prabhupada: So we have to go outside?

Pusta Krsna: (aside:) The chair is there? There are some people who have come, if you’d like to…

Prabhupada: Yes, I’ll go. So you have given them some prasadam?

Pusta Krsna: We arranged for that.

Prabhupada: Give them. They have come from distant place. Hare Krsna. Jaya. Jaya Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Jaya. Lord Siva became victimized by woman, what to speak of others? I am thinking of that boy also, Paramahamsa. He was a nice boy.

Hari-sauri: Very much so.

Prabhupada: Do you know where is Paramahamsa now?

Radhavallabha: He’s in Denver, Colorado. He’s not doing so good.

Prabhupada: Is it not possible to see him?

Radhavallabha: Trivikrama Maharaja went to see him, but he was too much in illusion.

Prabhupada: No, that’s all right. Still, I want to see.

Radhavallabha: You?

Prabhupada: He was very good boy.

Radhavallabha: You want us to get the message to him that he should try to come to New York to see you?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Radhavallabha: I’ll try and get that message to him, to come to New York Ratha-yatra.

Prabhupada: He was very nice boy.

Radhavallabha: Leads nice kirtana.

Prabhupada: Maya is so strong. Lord Siva is not excused, what to speak of others.

Radhavallabha: I have three sketches from the artists. Would you like to see them? This is for Eighth Canto, Volume One.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is the only life, to think of publication and distribution.

Radhavallabha: This keeps me alive. If I didn’t have this service, I think I would just die.

Prabhupada: Even in this weak… I am very weak nowadays. Still, I am working.

Pusta Krsna: Nicely.

Prabhupada: I think I shall not be able to go for walks. This morning my heart was beating too much.

Hari-sauri: It’s very strenuous.

Pusta Krsna: Best would be, then, to rest, perhaps up until at least until Washington and see, because in Washington there may be a very suitable situation. It’s hard to walk on these roads also. They are very rough, and the altitude is high.

Prabhupada: Yes. That we will do. Yes.

Radhavallabha: This is the story of King Indradyumna, when Agastya Muni cursed him to take birth as an elephant.

Prabhupada: Hm?

Radhavallabha: When King Indradyumna was meditating and Agastya Muni came, and so he cursed him to take birth as an elephant.

Prabhupada: He became an elephant.

Radhavallabha: Yes, Gajendra. So the artists want to know if it is okay to show him outside in front of a cottage like that.

Prabhupada: Yes. Very good.

Radhavallabha: This is a very rough sketch. This is when the demigods and demons were churning the ocean of milk with Vasuki. So they want to make sure… So Lord Siva will be standing outside the milk ocean. He won’t be in the ocean. He’ll be on the shore of the ocean, drinking the poison.

Prabhupada: Why?

Radhavallabha: Sorry, it’s not a very good picture. Here is the ocean. So Lord Siva is on the shore, he’s not in the ocean. He is on the shore, drinking the poison. They want to know if that’s okay.

Prabhupada: Welcome.

Radhavallabha: Okay. So then they want to know if it’s okay to have Lord Siva’s bull with Lord Siva.

Prabhupada: Yes. Where Lord Siva can go, his bull can go.

Radhavallabha: So then they want to know, is it all right to show the demons and the demigods standing right on the ocean?

Prabhupada: They were churning. That’s all.

Radhavallabha: So then they can actually stand right on the water.

Prabhupada: Churning was done in the water. Milk. Milk ocean.

Radhavallabha: But they are not standing on the bottom. They are standing actually on the surface.

Prabhupada: Well, yes, half water.

Radhavallabha: Then a thousand-armed Visnu on top of Mandara Hill? They want to know if they should show Him on top of the mountain like that.

Prabhupada: Yes. That’s all…

Radhavallabha: When we did Lord Nrsimhadeva, there were some arms that you wanted transparent. You just wanted the four main arms looking regular. So all the other arms should be transparent except for four?

Prabhupada: No, it is mentioned. It is mentioned. No.

Radhavallabha: It just says “a thousand arms.” So just paint like that?

Prabhupada: Hmm.

Radhavallabha: And then they just want to know… One more question on this, that remnants of the poison from Lord Siva went to the scorpions and snakes.

Prabhupada: Yes, you give this.

Radhavallabha: So should they be in the ocean, or should they be on the shore with Lord Siva?

Prabhupada: Yes, round about. Yes. Why he’s there? It is all right. Give them here.

Radhavallabha: Okay. So they are on the land. And then there is one more picture. When the goddess of fortune took birth from the milk ocean, they installed her on the throne, and the personified rivers came and personified clouds. So this would be Lord Brahma, this would be the personified rivers and different personalities. So the ocean actually is not visible, just the actual installation area.

Prabhupada: That’s nice. So?

Radhavallabha: That’s all that they want to know. Thank you, Srila Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: Hare Krsna. When everything do with devotion, it will come out correct.

Radhavallabha: Jaya.

Prabhupada: We have got our testing tubes in Bhagavad-gita. Who was speaking that “If God is talking, what is use of spiritual master,” yesterday?

Pusta Krsna: Yes, that was a…

Prabhupada: “God will talk with anyone.”

Pusta Krsna: He said, “God is talking with them from within.”

Prabhupada: To any rascal. Does any rascal know that God is within? And He’s witnessing all criminalities. Does he accept that? Then the yogis should not have illicit connection with their disciples. Do they believe God is…? It is simply business for earning money and getting woman. They have no other… Valueless. Therefore the government has said, “Fake.” What is that? Actually that is a fact. So many rascals are coming, especially in America. Government, they are seeing, “What is this?” “Transcendental meditation and do whatever nonsense you like.” Guru Maharajaji: “No use of books.” Practically we are saving the whole world. What can be done? There are so many rascals. Let us do it sincerely. And if we also become victimized, then it will be stopped. Apani acari’ jive sikhaila bhakti. Anyone who says God is speaking with, immediately take him as rascal. God is so cheap that He will talk with rascals. He wants to talk, but he cannot hear. Lord Jesus advised him, “Don’t steal.” Why does he steal? If God is not advising from within, then why he’s going at night when everyone’s asleep. God is not dictating that “Don’t steal”? But he will not care for God’s instruction. Then it is whose fault? If I say that “You don’t do it” and still you do it, then?

Hari-sauri: Rascal.

Prabhupada: God is always prepared to talk with us in talking, but we don’t… He talks through devotee, He talks through scripture— who is caring for that? Sadhu-sastra. God is talking through sadhu. [break] Sometimes it is sweet; sometimes it is sour. Why?

Hari-sauri: Just the oranges. They have such a big variety.

Prabhupada: Next, the third part, how many pages?

Pusta Krsna: The third part of Seventh Canto?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Pusta Krsna: What is the last chapter in the… I’m not sure, Srila Prabhupada. I have to inquire from him. The fifteenth chapter, though, is very long.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Pusta Krsna: It should be long. So many long purports in the fifteenth chapter of the Seventh Canto.

Hari-sauri: What’s it about?

Pusta Krsna: Narada Muni…

Prabhupada: About the foretelling of Bhagavatam. The other day I recited so many verses. One of them, long hairs. Now see how practical. And now this is confirmation of the foretelling. Who knew five thousand years that people will keep long hairs and think of themselves as very beautiful? It is mentioned in Bhagavata. How it is possible unless they can see actually what is going to happen? That is foretelling. And other description, they are also fact. Everything is there. And all this is five thousand, two thousand years’ foretelling. The millions and millions of years’ foretelling they are. What will the eighth Manu, and how they will…, ninth Manu, tenth Manu, up to fourteenth Manu. All the Manus together, forty-three lakhs, thousand times. This is all the Manus’ time. And the whole history is concluded that “Now I have mentioned past, present and future.” It is not difficult. Just like tomorrow for my daily routine, what I shall do tomorrow from morning to evening, I can say. Is it very difficult for me? So it is a question of Brahma’s one day. So it can be said by them, not by us. These rascals think only in their standard of thinking: “I cannot live in such such, such condition; therefore there is no living entity.” This is their idea. “I cannot live within the water; therefore there is no living entity. I cannot live within the fire; therefore there is no living entity.” Kupa-mandukya-nyaya, the same. “Whatever is in my experience, three feet water… How there can be unlimited?”

Hari-sauri: I was reading a very good example like that. These men, they have this what’s called divining, that they find water by means of a stick. They lay a stick on their hands like this, and they turn around in different directions, and the stick suddenly dips and points to the ground wherever there’s water underground. And it’s proven that it works. It’s a very effective way of finding water. But no one knows how it works. So they put a suggestion during the Vietnam War to the Marines that they should use this method for finding out the underground tunnels of the Vietcong so that they could find them very easily. So they showed them by experiment that it’s practical and it works, so they gave the rods to the physicists, and they checked them all out, and they couldn’t figure out how they worked, so they said that because the physicists could not understand how it worked, therefore it was rejected. So they rejected the whole thing. So then the Marines in Vietnam, they heard about it, so they started to use the rods themselves, and in that way they were able to destroy many enemy hideouts. But officially the Marines had to reject it, because the scientists couldn’t understand how it worked, so therefore they said that it was not good, it wasn’t viable.

Prabhupada: The scientists’ first proposal is, what they cannot understand, don’t bring. That is not scientific. Whatever you say, that is not scientific. Whatever they say, that is scientific.

Dhrstadyumna: The word science comes from the Latin word which means “to know.” But they simply have theories. They don’t know. But we have actual knowledge.

Hari-sauri: Their science means “don’t know.” (end)