Room Conversation
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
February 17, 1977, Mayapura

Prabhupada: …brainwash or brain-giving, that “This movement is not brainwash; we are brain-giving. Where is your brain? First of all you must have brain; then it is a question of washing. But you have no brain; you do not know what is this life. So we are giving, brain- giving movement, not brainwashing movement.” On this point. “Where is your brain? You do not… You cannot explain what is the difference between a dead man and a living man. You have got so many big, big scientists, philosophers. You do not know. So where is your brain? First of all put your brain; then it is a question of washing or… So it is not brainwashing; it is brain-giving movement. Unfortunately you have no brain; therefore you misunderstand.” On this point the Bhagavad-gita will explain. What do you think? “Brainwash or brain-giving?” This should be the heading.

Adi-kesava: Yes, this is good.

Prabhupada: So we have to prove that “You have no brain at all. Your brain is like cats and dogs. That is not brain. Even if you are scientist, philosopher, the position of your brain is the same. You do not know what is that thing missing that a living being is dead. You do not know. For centuries in the history you could not answer this. So where is your brain?” On this point discuss you amongst yourselves. Write one article and send, signing your name. Is it not a fact, that “brain-giving” movement? There is no brain. Dhiras tatra na muhyati. “If you had brain, then you could understand. But you have no brain. Where is the question of washing? It is brain-giving movement.” Am I right or wrong?

Pradyumna: Yes.

Adi-kesava: That’s right.

Prabhupada: “It is not brain-washing, but you have no brain. There is no question of washing. We have to give you brain.”

Pradyumna: The brain…

Prabhupada: Brain means proper intelligence. That is brain. Dhira, sober, that is brain. Anyone who has got brain, he will understand the simple logic, that how the body is changing. There is something; therefore body’s changing from childhood to boyhood. And as soon as that important thing is missing—no more change of body. It is a dead matter. So where is your brain to understand this simple truth? Hm?

Pradyumna: Because it’s dulled from sense gratification, they can’t under…

Prabhupada: “So whatever the cause, but you have no brain. Cause may be so many things. But you have no brain to understand the simple truth. Where is your brain? So this movement is not brainwashing. Brain-giving. You have no brain.” Therefore sastra says, sa eva go-kharah [SB 10.84.13]. Animal has no brain. They say animal has no soul, but that’s not the fact. Animal has no brain. Otherwise, all anatomical, physical, physiological conditions are there. Ahara-nidra-bhaya-maithuna. But they have no brain. They cannot understand what is the difference between dead man and living man. That is the distinction between man and animal. But if you cannot understand, then where is your brain? On this point. Actually he has no brain. Sa eva go-kharah [SB 10.84.13]. That was the point Arjuna was chastised, that “You rascal, you have no brain. You are lamenting on this body and talking like very learned man.” Asocyan anvasocas tvam prajna-vadams ca… [Bg. 2.11]. The whole world is going on like that. They’re talking like very big scientist, big philosopher, very big, big, big, but real thing they do not know. “So where is your brain?” Challenge them like that. “You cannot answer. You are big, big scientist, putting forward, ‘by combination of chemical…’ So why don’t you combine the chemical and give the dead man to become alive? Where is your brain? You simply say ‘combination of chemical,’ but you take the chemicals and combine, then we can understand you have got brain. That you cannot do, falsely taking prestigious position that you have got brain. Actually you have no brain. Cheating people.” Write articles on this. They have no brain at all. (Bengali) In India there is a prejudice that you should not lie down putting your head towards northern side. Whatever truth may be, one man was asked that “Don’t keep your head toward northern side.” So he answered, “Where is my head? The head is already cut off.” So these people are like that. They are making propaganda of “brainwash,” but where is your brain? Challenge them, “Where is your brain?” Cannot answer this simple thing. “Where is your brain?” Write a strong letter on this point and try to publish it. “If there is brain, there is question of washing or doing something else. But where is your brain? You have no brain.” (aside:) What is that?

Child: Hanuman.

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Pradyumna: Hanuman.

Prabhupada: Oh. If we challenge them that “You have no brain. You cannot answer this,” then what will be their answer?

Adi-kesava: They will say to us, “Well, we have brain, and it is functioning. Otherwise how could I be speaking to you now? How could I even answer you?”

Prabhupada: But that, speaking and barking, is the same thing. The dog is also barking. Where is the difference? He is speaking in a different language, that’s all. So does it mean the dog has got brain? The dog is barking, and you are speaking. What is the difference?

Adi-kesava: They say, “We have art. We have science.”

Prabhupada: Whatever you may have, but you cannot answer the ultimate question. They have got also science, art. A dog can understand that a foreigner is coming, and he begins to bark, “Yow! Yow! Yow!” and the master understands that somebody unknown is coming. You have got that science, that from mile or some, some distant place you can understand that some unknown person is coming. But dog can understand. He has got this art. He is better intelligent than you. Everyone has got some particular. That does not mean there is brain. Brain means to understand the problem of life. That is brain.

Pradyumna: But ultimately our intelligence comes from scripture and Krsna.

Prabhupada: No, that… Apart from scripture, logic, argument come. Scripture we take. That is our business. But you answer on common ground. Where is the difference why there is dead man and alive? What is your answer? Set aside scripture.

Adi-kesava: That, they say, is beyond our intelligence.

Prabhupada: That means you are not intelligent. That is the proof. “Beyond your intelligence”—that means your intelligence is not yet perfect. You’re lacking in brain. (aside:) I see so many workers simply loitering. They are doing nothing. What can be done? So many. Simply they are taking money. Doing nothing. I see. There is nobody to see. They take advantage. Seventy-five percent of the workers, they are doing nothing. But the Gita explains that within this body there is something. Not body itself is moving, but dehinah asmin dehe. Within this body there is the real power, dehi, who has got this body. That is there. And because he is there, the body is changing. They cannot understand. No brain, exactly like the dogs and cats. The dog cannot understand that “Within my body, I am.” They cannot. Therefore you are no better than dogs. And actual fact is you are not this body. You are within this body. It is a dress. In so many ways Bhagavad-gita teaches, but you have no brain. Then where is brainwashing? You have no brain to understand your real position.

Pradyumna: Ah. They say… When they say brainwashing, they think they’re losing their intelligence by our movement. But actually they have no intelligence to begin with.

Prabhupada: No begin…

Pradyumna: If we prove that…

Prabhupada: Yes.

Pradyumna: They have no intelligence, again. Where is the question…?

Prabhupada: So you have to prove.

Adi-kesava: They complain of loss of identity, but actually that loss of identity, they don’t know who they are.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Adi-kesava: So what can they lose?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Adi-kesava: So we’ll challenge them like that, “What is this loss of identity? You don’t have anything to lose.”

Prabhupada: “Who are you? What is your identification? That you do not know. Rather, we are teaching that identifying yourself with this body, you have lost your identity. That is brain. (pause) If you say ‘beyond our intelligence,’ that means you have no brain. And we can explain. Therefore we have got brain. (pause) You have so many technical insti…” That I challenged in the M.T. (M.I.T.), that “Where is your…, that technology that when a dead man is stopped, you can replace life by technology? Where is that department?” They could not answer. Technology means the car has stopped. Go to the expert. He will repair it and do the needful. Again you will run on. That is technology. And where is that technology? As soon you say “beyond our intelligence,” then don’t talk nonsense. Your intelligence is not perfect. So where is your brain? This very point will solve. “You have no brain.”

Hari-sauri: (aside:) Put this thing on “pause.” [break]

Adi-kesava: We could have our scientists make some study also.

Prabhupada: They have already studied. They can explain.

Adi-kesava: And perhaps we can include something that they are saying. Right now they are making one article to show that this description they have of brainwashing has nothing to do with chanting Hare Krsna, that it is not even the same process. We saw one book that the psychiatrist sometimes quotes from, and in the book they had pictures of people at a Christian prayer meeting, and they were falling over and holding snakes, poisonous snakes. And they think that we are doing the same thing. So we’re also trying to establish that this has nothing to do with our Krsna consciousness or chanting Hare Krsna.

Prabhupada: Are we… Why this analogy? Are we taking the snake?

Adi-kesava: They say it is the same thing.

Prabhupada: Why you do say?

Adi-kesava: Because they don’t know.

Prabhupada: Ah, then “Why do you say that, which is not the fact? Are we taking snake? So why do you falsely say?”

Adi-kesava: They say, “Well, you chant and dance.”

Prabhupada: So that does not mean they are taking snake. You are so rascal that you are falsely charging. Everything based on false charges.

Adi-kesava: Oh, yes.

Prabhupada: You have to prove that, that “Where we are taking snake?” Analogy must be given when there is similarity. Where is? Are we taking the snake and dancing?

Adi-kesava: No. We’re not doing this.

Prabhupada: Then why this analogy? This is defective analogy.

Adi-kesava: It is their ignorance.

Prabhupada: Yes. But you are rascal. You are bringing something which is not the fact. First of all find out the similarity; then you can say, “It is like that.” Where is the similarity? This is false logic. Analogy means the points of similarity. Then you can make analogy. The moon is beautiful, and if one’s face is very beautiful, you can say, “This face is as beautiful as the moon.” But if it is ugly, black, then how you can make that “This face is as beautiful as the moon”? Where is the analogy?

Adi-kesava: No analogy.

Prabhupada: Analogy means points of similarity.

Adi-kesava: Most of their charges are like that. They are based on misconceptions about our movement. They say that, for instance, that we do not eat enough or sleep enough, yet we have studies from their own scientists that say that our diet is good.

Prabhupada: How we are living if our diet is not good? Ten years we are not eating sufficiently? Then how we are living? You do not know what is good food. But the result you have to know. If we are not eating sufficiently, how we are living? A cow eats so much grass, and a human being eats a small plate. So if the cow says, “You are not eating sufficient like me,” is that logic?

Adi-kesava: No, it is not logic.

Prabhupada: So you are just like cows and asses. (laughter) You eat voraciously. Does it mean I have to eat voraciously?

Adi-kesava: No.

Prabhupada: In your calculation it may be that we are eating very small particle. But that is not the fact. We are eating sufficiently. That means you have no brain. Because you are eating raw meat, flesh, and you see that we are eating fruits, you say, “This is not sufficient.” It is your calculation. Actually the fruits are meant for high-class, intelligent men. It is not meant for cats and dogs or elephant. Elephant may be very good eater. Does it mean he is human being? So you are just like elephant. You are calculating your other friends like you. (pause)

Adi-kesava: Sometimes, when they are making their statements, we wonder how they can be so unintelligent, how they can be so mistaken as to what is the goal of this movement.

Prabhupada: So you explain. Then Krsna can do.

Adi-kesava: They’re always accusing us that we are the cheaters. But every time, when we answer them, they are exposed as the cheaters. They are shown to be the ones that really don’t know, yet they’re all saying that they know.

Prabhupada: It is a good chance for explaining our mission. You should very carefully do it. Finish. Lay it… [break] (someone enter and offers obeisances) I was talking with Adi-kesava that “There is no question of brainwash, but you have no brain.” You have to prove. “How I have no brain?” “Because you do not know what is the difference between a dead man and living man. For centuries in the history, you people, you had no brain that whether the body is important or the active principle which is working within the body, that is important. You have no brain.” Challenge them. Which one is important? The body’s important or the active principle which is moving the body, that is important? What is important? Hm?

Tripurari: Active principle, the soul.

Prabhupada: So what information you have got about the active principle?

Tripurari: They have no information.

Tamala Krsna: No information.

Prabhupada: Then there is no brain. Where is the question of brainwash? You have no brain at all.

Tamala Krsna: They’ll say that they have so much science and culture.

Prabhupada: Whatever it may be, but you do not know what is important. Science… I understand science is very important. And the Professor Einstein, a great scientist, as soon as the active principle is gone, you kick on the face and he is not seeing. So which is important, the face of Mr. Einstein or the active principle within that? Have you got any information? Then where is your brain?

Tamala Krsna: The different scriptures like the Bible say that there is a soul.

Prabhupada: Don’t bring now scripture. We are talking in common language, common sense, that within… You cannot understand it. Therefore where is your brain? The dog also cannot understand. He’s simply identifying with this body, and you also doing that. So where is your brain? Man is rational animal. Where is your rationality? If (you) avoid rationality, you are as good as dog. Where is your brain? Argue on this point. Dog… If one big dog thinking, “I am greyhound ” or “this big body I am…” The lion also thinking, “I am so powerful. I am this body.” So I am also thinking like that: “I am American, very rich.” But both of them—no understanding that how you are powerful, why you are powerful, what is that active principle. Then where is your brain? Why man is important than the animal? It is common sense. So it is not brainwashing, but it is giving brain, this movement. They have no brain at all. So argue on this point. Our challenge is that “You have no brain. Where is the question of brainwash? You cannot understand the simple thing, which is important.”

Tamala Krsna: “We say that there is nothing after this lifetime. When the body’s dead, that’s it.”

Prabhupada: Apart from that, first of all you have to distinguish that what is important. The active principle within the body that is working, that is important? Or the superficial body structure is important?

Tamala Krsna: They say that there is no difference.

Prabhupada: There is difference, and therefore you have no brain.

Tamala Krsna: The body itself is active, not that there is something in the body making it active. The blood, the brains—this is part of the body.

Prabhupada: Then what is the position of this body? Active… Just like this table is not active.

Tamala Krsna: No. It has no brain. No mind.

Prabhupada: So then we have to accept that the body has got mind in the body. So that is material or something else?

Tamala Krsna: Material.

Prabhupada: Material. Then why don’t you replace it? Replace it. Material things can be replaced. Just like motor stops, so you go to the gas house and repair. You cannot do it?

Tamala Krsna: We are duplicating. We’re duplicating the situation.

Prabhupada: What is that duplication?

Tamala Krsna: In the test tube. We are beginning to make life.

Prabhupada: That is nonsense. Therefore you have no brain. “In test tube…” Kick aside your test tube. This man is now not working; it is stopped. So bring your test tube and waste test tube. Get him alive, exactly like the motorcar. When there is no petrol, you replace petrol; it starts. So where is that material? Therefore you are comparing something which is not analogous. Therefore you have no brain.

Tamala Krsna: Just because we cannot make the mind doesn’t mean that the mind is not material. I may not make it, but still we say it’s…

Prabhupada: No, you say material; we say… We have full knowledge. We say material, but subtle material. But you have no knowledge; therefore you have no brain.

Tamala Krsna: “What proof is there?” they may argue.

Prabhupada: This is the proof. Now, if the real active principle has left, the brain has left, the mind has left—it is only a lump. You cannot understand. If you understand it, then replace it. If you cannot, then you have no brain. You have to prove that, that “You have no brain at all. Where is the question of brainwashing?”

Hari-sauri: But if we operate on a person’s brain, actual brain substance, it affects his personality. So therefore the personality in the brain is the same.

Prabhupada: Whatever you know, you give this man brain, mind, and again let him get up and work. I want this.

Adi-kesava: Again they’ll say that’s still beyond their knowledge.

Prabhupada: “Then you have no brain,” say. My point is that you have no brain. As soon as you say “beyond my…,” then that means you have no brain.

Tamala Krsna: But that means just that our brain is not as good as it could be. It doesn’t mean we have no…

Prabhupada: That means you have no brain.

Tamala Krsna: Just like a child has a brain but is not very intelligent, so we have brains…

Prabhupada: Brain means intelligent. Brain does not mean dull- headed. This man has brain, then he’s intelligent. Proof is he has got intelligence.

Tamala Krsna: By brain, you mean intelligence.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Adi-kesava: Otherwise you could say the dog has intelligence.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Adi-kesava: The dog has a brain.

Prabhupada: The dog has also brain: “Where there is food? Where there is sex?” He has got brain. Not that brain. That brain, everyone has got. Even a small fly, it has got. So think over like that and place very intelligently in the court. The… Prove that “You have no brain at all. This movement is giving, brain-giving. Not brainwashing.” You have to prove. Not brainwashing but brain-giving.

Tamala Krsna: We can say it from our own realization.

Prabhupada: Yes. Dhiras tatra na muhyati. Then one who has got brain, he immediately understands. But you have no brain. We have to make you understand in so many ways, still you do not understand. So where is your brain? Anyone has brain, he will understand that when I say that “This man is dead,” something has gone out of his body. Anyone can understand.

Tamala Krsna: But you have not seen that something.

Prabhupada: See or not, I can see. Why this man is dead? Something is missing.

Tamala Krsna: Well, it’s just like a machine.

Prabhupada: Machine you can replace. Why you bring this…? Therefore you have no brain! It is completely different thing. If it is machine… Machine it is.

Tamala Krsna: Machine breaks down.

Prabhupada: Breaks down, you can repair.

Hari-sauri: Well, if it’s a different thing, why don’t you pro… You say it’s a different thing.

Prabhupada: “Different thing” means you do not know what is that difference.

Hari-sauri: Well, you say you do know, so why don’t you produce it and put it back in the body and make it work?

Prabhupada: Huh?

Hari-sauri: You say you do know what that thing is, so why don’t you produce it…

Prabhupada: Yes, I know, but I say it cannot be replaced. I know it. And you are rascal. You say, “It can be replaced. We are trying, after millions of years…” Therefore you have no brain. We say it cannot be produced. It is gone. It has accepted another body. We say like that. We don’t say that it can be brought again and then replaced. We don’t say that. Therefore we have got a brain. You have no brain. Just like motorcar stops. The driver has gone to another. And if a rascal finds out how it can be run without that driver, then he has no brain. And one who has brain—“Here the driver has gone. Now it cannot be run”—that is brain. You falsely trying. Driver has gone out, and you are trying to run on the car by putting petrol, by putting grease, by utilizing… That means you have no brain. Uselessly you are trying. That means you have no brain. I have got brain. Tatha dehantara-praptir dhiras tatra na muhyati [Bg. 2.13].

Tamala Krsna: How will your movement give anybody brains?

Prabhupada: As other things are giving brain. Just like a dull, a dull child is educated and he passes M.A. examination. He becomes very intelligent person by education. This is their education. Even if you have no brain, I can give you brain. So it is not brainwashing; it is brain-giving. But because you are rascal, you’ll not accept.

Tamala Krsna: This will not be very popular with the common people, to be told…

Prabhupada: Huh?

Tamala Krsna: People will not very much appreciate being told they have no brains.

Prabhupada: Actually it is that. “No intelligence” you can say.

Tamala Krsna: No intelligence. That’ll be…

Adi-kesava: But we can say that… Their accusation is that one loses identity. They say we are brainwashing, lose our identity.

Prabhupada: Then you do not know what is your identity.

Adi-kesava: So they don’t know that identity.

Prabhupada: You are falsely identifying with this body. You do not know. Therefore you have no brain or intelligence.

Tamala Krsna: What would you have us identify with? How would you have us identify?

Prabhupada: Identify that the thing which has gone out of this body, that is your identity.

Tamala Krsna: What is that?

Prabhupada: That is that soul.

Tamala Krsna: Nobody can see the soul.

Prabhupada: That does not mean there is no thing. At night, suppose if you, at night you don’t find any light, you can understand that there is no light. Otherwise at night this is darkness. If there is somebody, there would have been light.

Hari-sauri: Symptoms of life.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Adi-kesava: So those people who may not want to hear that they are not…

Prabhupada: That is another thing, rascal. A dog will not hear, that does not mean he has brain or he has intelligence.

Tamala Krsna: That’s the proof he’s a dog. (laughs)

Prabhupada: That he’s a dog. We are not going to give any credit to the dogs and cats. So you have to fight like this. Think over. There are different brain. Just like in Chicago I said…

Tamala Krsna: Woman’s brain.

Prabhupada: Woman’s brain and man’s brain.

Tamala Krsna: Half the size.

Prabhupada: That is the… That difference is intelligence.

Tamala Krsna: They were very upset.

Prabhupada: Upset… That’s a fact.

Tamala Krsna: Imagine how upset they’ll be when you tell them, “You have no intelligence. No brains.” They were upset over half the size brain.

Prabhupada: No. Anyone can understand there are different kinds of intelligence.

Tamala Krsna: But they say, “You are the most unintelligent because you do no practical work. Simply sit and chanting Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna…”

Tripurari: We do all practical work. Come and see. They can’t say that we don’t do practical work in society.

Prabhupada: That is rascal, caparasi, in the court. He’ll think that “High court judge is simply sitting. He’s getting four thousand, and I am getting twelve rupees, although I am working hard day and night.” That is caparasi made. It is not high court judges. Caparasi will think like that, that “He’s sitting simply from ten to two o’clock and doing nothing, simply sitting idly, and sometimes speaking something, and he’s getting four thousand. And actually I am working hard day and night and getting twelve rupees?”

Tripurari: Envious. Just envious. [break]

Prabhupada: Why he said dhira, sober, cool-headed? These rascals are cats and dogs. They are not civilized, even big, big professors, they say, “Swami, after finishing this body, every-thing is finished.” Has he got brain? And they’re Communist leader. Identifying with this body. This is the actual platform of that body, dehatma-buddhih. And they’re described in the sastra as no better than the asses. So next point will be that where you think beyond your capacity, we begin our education from there, seeing the… Our education begins from that. First of all try to understand what is spirit. Then it will… And our whole process is how to transfer one person from the material platform to the spiritual. Therefore they are thinking “brainwash.” The fools, they cannot understand where our education begins. Where they have failed, we begin from there. Where they are disappointed, that “This cannot be answered,” so on, we begin from there. So who is intelligent? We are intelligent or they are? We are trying to bring man from this gross misunderstanding, misidentification platform, to come to the spiritual platform. Then he understands what is the spiritual kingdom, the spiritual life that is eternal, blissful. Then he will understand. And that is all new to these dull-headed rascals. And they are thinking… It is the same, different subject matter.

Hari-sauri: Actually, it’s a complete development of consciousness.

Prabhupada: Yes. Different platform, different field.

Adi-kesava: We can say that, to the common people, “These persons who are saying that you’re being brainwashed, ‘You are losing your identity,’ they are cheating you, because actually you don’t know what your identity is. You have no identity, and they’re telling you that you already know.”

Prabhupada: And therefore I say “You have no brain. Where is the question of brainwash?”

Hari-sauri: Yes. They say, “Think for yourself,” but they don’t know what themselves are. They don’t know “Who am I,” so how can they think for themselves?

Prabhupada: That you have to prove, that “You have no brain, no intelligence. Therefore you are finding out completely different. On which platform we are speaking, you do not know. So that platform, first of all you have to distinguish—it is matter or spirit? Then spiritual. You have no idea what is spirit, and where is spiritual platform. Therefore Krsna begins from this point, that the spirit is within, not this body. That is your identity.”

Tamala Krsna: That has to be stressed.

Prabhupada: That has to be understood, and therefore He’s explaining in so many ways. Nityah sasvato ’yam na hanyate hanyamane sarire [Bg. 2.20]. This one word, na hanyate hanyamane sarire. He cannot understand it. “The body’s finished, everything’s finished.” These rascal professors. And Krsna says, na hanyate hanyamane [Bg. 2.20], “Don’t think it is finished. It is there.” Who will understand it? It requires a special brain. These rascals say, “Now everything’s finished. The body’s finished.” But Krsna says, “No, no, no. Not finished.” Who will understand this, unless he has got a very good brain? And our education begins from that point. These rascals, when they are disappointed—“Bas, finished”—we begin from there. Na hanyate hanyamane [Bg. 2.20]. It is not finished. It is there. Where it is? Dehantara-praptih: he has taken another body. A man is sleeping; he has taken another body. He’s jumping on the tree. How we can see? It’s a fact. He has forgotten that “I am on a nice bed,” and he’s somewhere else. How it is? You see that he is sleeping, that he’s not working. But he is working. Where is that brain? And it is a fact. I see the man is sleeping, but he has gone somewhere else. That is our daily experience. You cannot see it, where he has gone. He has gone to the jungle. He’s seeing there is a tiger and he’s crying, “Tiger! Tiger!” You cannot see. So why he’s crying? So how can you see his activities? You have no such eyes. You cannot see even how the subtle body is working, and what to speak of the soul. He’s dreaming means his subtle body, mind, is working, and therefore, within the mind, he is seeing some tiger and he’s crying, “Oh, here is tiger! Save me! Save me! Save me!” And the man in the gross, he cannot see: “Where is tiger?” You cannot see; it does not mean that he does not see. And that is another brainless proposal. “You cannot see.” What you can see?

Hari-sauri: But then they could argue that actually the dream is just imagination. When the man wakes up, then he’s back in reality.

Prabhupada: Whatever it may be, it is acting on him. You cannot see how it is acting. That is not possible. You cannot see how it is acting, but it is acting.

Adi-kesava: So that proves there must be something beyond the gross plane.

Prabhupada: Yes. But your conclusion—“I cannot see”—that is brainless. That is brainless proposal. You depend on your seeing, but you cannot see. So many things are happening. That, your proposal, is brainless. That means you have no sufficient brain to see things as they are. Take this point and consider. Place in the court. It will be very interesting. Case will prolong, and we can disclose our all philosophy. Is it not?

Tripurari: Yes.

Prabhupada: Do that. Think deeply, over and over again, and fight. What is your seeing? Useless. What you can see? You cannot see beyond this wall. Does it mean there is nothing? Why you depend on your seeing, rascal? That means brainless. So I take it, it is good opportunity for describing our whole philosophy.

Tamala Krsna: Krsna’s arrangement.

Prabhupada: You don’t take it otherwise. Rather, prove yourself efficient in this subject matter. This is a trial examination for this knowledge.

Tamala Krsna: Jaya. (devotees offer obeisances—break)

Prabhupada: Ask question. I shall give answer. [break]

Brahmananda: They say that we have no personal choice. Once we become…, join this movement, we have no longer any personal choice.

Prabhupada: So we are all fools, we have joined?

Satsvarupa: We’re taken advantage of. They say that young boys, they don’t know, and they’re just taken advantage of.

Prabhupada: That is…

Adi-kesava: (indistinct)

Prabhupada: Yes.

Brahmananda: They have formed a group, the deprogrammers, called “Return to Personal Choice.”

Prabhupada: By force. (laughter) This is personal choice?

Adi-kesava: This is a picture of them returning someone to their personal choice. This is a manual.

Prabhupada: “I force you. You accept this”—your personal choice.

Adi-kesava: That is them returning someone to personal choice. You see them dragging them off.

Brahmananda: That’s the mother.

Tamala Krsna: This is the mother, the father and the kidnappers.

Prabhupada: This is personal choice.

Adi-kesava: They’re saying, “You do not know what is your personal choice. You have forgotten. Now it is brainwashed away. Otherwise you would remember. So we are doing this for your own good.” They call it “rescuing.” They say that “We are rescuing him from this Hare Krsna.”

Prabhupada: So everyone can say by force to do something is good.

Adi-kesava: They say that “You don’t know your own choice. You have lost your memory of what is real choice.”

Prabhupada: So the people will accept this is choice? By force?

Brahmananda: Well, they feel that this is what the parents want, so the parents are justified in doing this to their children. The parent has the right to dictate what should be the choice of the child.

Prabhupada: How long?

Tamala Krsna: Unlimitedly. No age limit. They ask, “Supposing your child is fifty years old.” The mother said, “It doesn’t matter how old. Even fifty years old. If they have lost their brains from this brainwashing, then…”

Prabhupada: But is that the law of the country?

Tripurari: There is a law to protect senile people. Sometimes when a man gets old and becomes senile, he may have a lot of money and not know how to use it. So they have given a law that the parent can take charge of such a person, so that he doesn’t misspend his money.

Tamala Krsna: Also they have this conservatorship law.

Adi-kesava: That is the law. Now they are applying this law to us, because the law says… Most of the laws that are written, it says that anyone who is of unsound mind, of unsound body, who is addicted to drugs or who may be fooled by artful and designing persons, that this person can be put under conservatorship. That means that someone else takes control of your affairs and tells you, “You must do this.” So they put you in a mental hospital, and then they can do this, so-called deprogramming. Now they are making new laws. Just before we came here there was a law in one state, they proposed, where anyone, not just the parents or the family, but anyone who wanted to could get this kind of control over any other person, and the law said, “For any reason whatsoever.” This is a… This book is a manual that was prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union. They had a big conference in our support in New York. This is accounts of deprogramming, newspaper articles, reports from authorities, personal accounts of people who have been through this “return to personal choice,” describing how they were dragged and beaten and locked up and tortured and starved in order to make them real, whole materialists again—free. They even have in there one manual. They have a do-it-yourself deprogramming book. It teaches how to take someone and make them into an atheist.

Tripurari: Exactly what they accuse us of doing, they are doing.

Satsvarupa: Then also they have testimonies of people who went through this and said, “I am very glad that I was rescued by force, because now I am free.” So this is more like damaging…

Brahmananda: In fact many who were deprogrammed have then joined the deprogrammers. Even there are some of our devotees of Hare Krsna. They are now going around and deprogramming. They’re working for the deprogrammers.

Adi-kesava: They have their own guru. This Ted Patrick has become their guru, and then they have a whole organization built around him. They are now getting donations, they’re a nonprofit corporation, they have established a $100,000…

Prabhupada: If he’s in jail…?

Adi-kesava: Yes. Their guru is in jail. Ted Patrick was just… He got out of jail, but he so much wanted to do this deprogramming that he went, and they caught him, and they put him back in jail again. And now he’s in for one year, back in the jail. But they are going on with this activity without him. He has trained so many other people up.

Tripurari: The deprogrammers have been disbanned in Canada. Canada will not allow.

Adi-kesava: We got big newspaper coverage in Canada where one devotee from our temple in Boston, who was… Her sister and mother have become witnesses in my trial, in my case. So they were threatening her. They wanted to take her and put her in the mental hospital. So she went to Canada and said, “I am seeking political asylum here in Canada so that I can be safeguarded.” So the Americans went to Canada, and they said, “Oh, you Canadians, how can you be doing this? How are you doing this? You are such fools.” The Canadians don’t like the Americans at all, they told the Americans, “Get out,” and they kept our devotees protected on this. And by an act of their Parliament they excluded the deprogrammers from Canada. They said, “You cannot come to our country.” So now they are protecting our devotees, saying, “We are giving protection because America will not give them protection.”

Tripurari: Political asylum.

Adi-kesava: And they’re getting great satisfaction (indistinct).

Tripurari: The devotee’s mother in this particular case said, “I would rather see my daughter dead than be a devotee of Krsna.”

Tamala Krsna: She said that. That was the papers.

Brahmananda: That was headline in the newspaper. “My daughter should better be dead than to be Hare Krsna.”

Hari-sauri: That’s for her own good.

Prabhupada: (Bengali) [break]

Tripurari: People involved in this deprogramming have read most of the books. They have read and studied, and when they try to deprogram someone they quote from the books different things. So is it that they can’t understand this philosophy even though they’re reading it, or they just don’t want to understand it? Just like this man Ted Patrick. He has read so many of the books.

Prabhupada: How…? What does he say about our books?

Satsvarupa: One time I heard he challenged a devotee, “Where is your Lord Nrsimhadeva now to save you?” And also, “We have heard that if the Lord is blasphemed, you’re supposed to either give up your life or leave the place, so why don’t you do? Or cut out the…, cut out your tongue. So why don’t you do that now?”

Adi-kesava: They used that as one legal argument. They said that one of our devotees should be put in the mental hospital for his own protection, because otherwise he would go and kill himself. And the court said, “Why is that?” They said, “Well, because in their books it says that if a devotee hears someone blaspheming the spiritual master or Krsna, then they have to commit suicide.”

Prabhupada: No, they will argue on so many things.

Adi-kesava: “Or cut their tongue out.” They said, “Either they will cut my tongue out or they will kill themself. So either way, they should be put in a mental hospital.”

Prabhupada: No, or you go away from that place.

Adi-kesava: In one case they were reading Fifth Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam about the hellish planets. And they were reading to her, and they read how one who is too much attached to women, how they would have to embrace the form of a hot molten metal form of a woman. And so they were saying, “So do you think this is going to happen to us?” They were challenging like that, and she was saying, “Yes, actually you should be afraid.” They were saying, “Actually…” They were going through each section of the Bhagavatam and reading it and saying, “What about this? Do you really believe this? Do you really believe that the moon is farther away than the sun? (laughter) Do you really believe that they didn’t go to the moon?”

Tamala Krsna: Or the moon is made of jewels.

Adi-kesava: Oh, they ask all these questions.

Tamala Krsna: That one was a headline.

Tripurari: “Hare Krsnas think the moon is made of jewels.”

Tamala Krsna: They asked that to Balavanta on national television, to explain how it is possible.

Prabhupada: So how to rectify it? They have not gone to the moon.

Tamala Krsna: That’s what Balavanta told them. He said, “You have your ideas, and we have ours. We’re not stopping you from having yours, so why do you stop us from having ours? As far as we’re concerned, we have as much evidence as you. Your authorities say you went, and our authorities say you didn’t go. And anybody can make a movie to show that you went to Jupiter or Saturn or any other planet. Movies…, they can make King Kong. So we don’t accept it, but we don’t stop you from having your beliefs. But don’t force us to say, ‘Yes, you went to the moon.’ ” He answered nicely.

Prabhupada: No, actually when there is some news about the moon planet, I personally did not go with him. So how shall I believe him? Come to practical point of view. I did not go. You publish something, news. Why I accept it? If you say that “I did not go,” er, “I did not see,” that is everything. We believe some paper, that’s all. So why shall we not believe the Vedic literature?

Tamala Krsna: Look at the difference of the writers. The writer of the newspaper is a fool.

Prabhupada: Vedic literature is so authoritative. It has been accepted by the acaryas.

Tripurari: So they are reading our books, but they do not believe that they’re not the body, so many foolish people. They read, but they don’t believe that they’re not the body. They think it’s just fantasy.

Prabhupada: What do they believe?

Tripurari: They believe that they’re just a body, and to enjoy the body till death, and then nothing. You present such nice philosophy, but they would rather think that they were just a bag of bones.

Tamala Krsna: This Ted Patrick says that celibacy is a sign of insanity. He kidnaps nuns, priests… Anybody who takes celibate vow, he says he is not in his right mind.

Brahmananda: He took one of our devotees and brought him to the naked dance shows and even hired prostitutes to go with him.

Adi-kesava: I asked him once, I said, “If you had a chance…”

Prabhupada: You saw him?

Tamala Krsna: On television. Adi-kesava was on television with him.

Adi-kesava: I said to him, “If you had a chance to deprogram the Pope, would you do it?” He said, “Oh, definitely. I’d love to.”

Tamala Krsna: If the Pope was celibate.

Prabhupada: (looking at photo) Who is this boy?

Adi-kesava: A karmi. He’s from another group. That boy in the front, he is taking the person. They’re holding some girl. He is from another group, I think, some Christian group. There was an article in the New York Times where they went and watched one whole deprogramming experiment, and at the end of the experiment they wrote this article showing pictures of them taking the person, dragging him out of the building, throwing him in cars. And then later they held one public deprogramming in Detroit. But our devotees went to that public deprogramming and began to ask them all kinds of questions, and they had to abandon the program because we caused so much trouble for them. All the… A lot of the Indian community went there and began to ask them, “What are you doing to this person?” They were giving a demonstration of their technique, and they had to stop. So this is one picture they took while they were actually abducting the person. Just like in the case of New York, this one girl, Murtivandya, she was taken. They pulled up in a van, in a car, and dragged her off the street, threw her in the van and drove away. And then, when we filed charges for kidnapping, they turned around and filed the charges against me for kidnapping, saying that we were the kidnappers. Even though they had made a statement confessing to the fact that they had abducted her bodily off the street and she said, “I have been kidnapped,” they said, “No, you don’t know what you really want. You don’t really want to be Hare Krsna. So you are really being kidnapped by Hare Krsna.”

Tripurari: They say the Hare Krsnas are the hardest to deprogram out of all the groups. They say Hare Krsnas give the hardest time.

Brahmananda: They also say that once you’ve been a Hare Krsna for four years, then your brains are finished and you cannot be deprogrammed.

Tamala Krsna: You’re a hopeless then. (laughter)

Adi-kesava: On the TV show they were speaking with Ted Patrick, and they said, “Well, could you deprogram someone?” And he turned to Vasu-gopala and said, “I could deprogram him very easily. But…” He looked at me and he said, “This one, he is already ruined. I could not break him.”

Tamala Krsna: He has no more brains.

Adi-kesava: We have a list in there, in that book, of the devotees who have been deprogrammed. And in our movement, unlike most of the others, about two-thirds of the devotees taken have come back. More have come back from our movement than any of the others. They take other groups ten to one over us, because our devotees generally return. Only the new, the very most neophyte devotees, do they actually leave. They have never had some experience of taking a devotee who’s been for two years or three years or four years in our movement. They have never left and stayed away. They always come back.

Tamala Krsna: Usually the way they come back is after being deprogrammed, someone is living out in the material world and then they meet a devotee on book distribution. So by getting a book, they see the picture of Krsna, and immediately they start to remember, and they tell the devotee, “Please take me back to the temple.” This Vasu-gopala, who’s case Adi-kesava is connected with now in New York, he had been deprogrammed, and he was going through the Washington, D.C., Dulles Airport, and suddenly someone met him on book distribution and gave him a book, sell him a book. He took a look at the Krsna book and said, “Take me immediately to the temple.”

Adi-kesava: He said, “I should be selling the books, not buying the book, so take me to the temple.” And immediately he came to the temple.

Tamala Krsna: They dealt very horribly with him. In this book… Ted Patrick has written a book which is a popular seller now, about… It is called…

Brahmananda: Let Our Children Go.

Tamala Krsna: Let Our Children Go. He has written a book, this Ted Patrick, called Let Our Children Go. And there’s a chapter about Hare Krsna movement, especially about this boy Vasu-gopala. And it’s just terrible how he describes the whole process of deprogramming, how much abuse he had to use on this boy. He even admits to using abuse. And right now the government is giving protection to a great extent to these abusers, saying that it is for the person’s well-being that this abuse is being done.

Adi-kesava: They say that it a family matter. They say, “We don’t want to interfere in a family matter. It’s a family argument. Just like a husband and wife quarreling, we wouldn’t interfere, or the father and son fighting, we wouldn’t interfere. So this is a family matter.”

Tamala Krsna: One recent case in Texas, I think I may have told Your Divine Grace, how the father killed his son while his son was sleeping, and the court said, “It is all right, because the father has so many feelings this boy was going bad, we should not interfere,” even to the point of murdering the son. The court let him go. So this tendency is there now in the legal system. It’s very lenient towards the parents, not towards the children.

Brahmananda: Generally when the child is kidnapped, the parent is always present. And when they have the deprogramming torture session, the parent is also present.

Tamala Krsna: And in fact, the persons who do a lot of the torturing are relatives.

Adi-kesava: Just like in the case of Vasu-gopala. When he was held in his house, he managed to get to the phone and call me. So we went out to his house with some of the brahmacaris from the temple and starting breaking all the windows in the house and smacking down the doors. And as he was running around the house, his brothers and friends were grabbing him and throwing him down against the walls and locked him in a room to try to get him away from us, and they were fighting. Finally, they say in Ted Patrick’s book, they thought there were twenty-five of us. There were only four of us or five of us. So finally, in the end, they were so terrified that all of them began to fight. Even this Ted Patrick came at me with a straight razor. In those cases, generally, they use the family members for the fighting.

Tamala Krsna: This clouds the issue in the courtroom, because everyone naturally feels very sympathetic towards the fathers and mothers. So always… These deprogrammers are very intelligent. They personally try to avoid the physical part, so they get the parents to do it.

Adi-kesava: And then, if the person strikes out at the parent, they say, “Just see how crazy he’s become!” Just like with Vasu-gopala, he took a stick and hit his mother across the head and ran out shouting the name of Nrsimhadeva as they were holding him captive, so he could run away. And so they said, “Just see how crazy he’s become that he hit his own mother.” Of course, the fact is they didn’t mention they locked him in the bathroom for thirty hours just before. They kept him in a little bathroom. They locked the door, put him in there for thirty hours. All they mentioned is that he come out and hit her on the head with some stick. So then they say, “Just see! He’s acting against his parents.” So then the judge says, “Oh, what can I do? Naturally the father loves the son.”

Prabhupada: So why don’t you quote from our sastra that “He is not father.” Pita na sa syaj janani na sa syat. Find out this verse.

Pradyumna:

gurur na sa syat sva-jano na sa syat pita na sa syaj janani na sa syat daivam na tat syan na patis ca sa syan na mocayed yah samupeta-mrtyum

“One who cannot deliver his dependents from the path of repeated birth and death should never become a spiritual master, a father, a husband, a mother or a worshipable demigod.”

Prabhupada: So how he’s father? What is the purport?

Tamala Krsna: Read the purport.

Pradyumna: “There are many spiritual masters, but Rsabhadeva…” [break]

Prabhupada: And who is father according to that definition? This is our formula.

Adi-kesava: They argue sometimes. They say, “You are saying that you guru…”

Prabhupada: You are argue your point, but our argument is here. You are arguing from your point of view, and we shall argue from our point of view. Unless the father releases the son from the cycle of birth and death, he’s not father. This is our formula.

Tamala Krsna: In order to accept this, they will have to rewrite the laws.

Prabhupada: This is the actual… Now, apart from the scriptural injunction, if one comes to the argument, then such kind of father is there in the animal society also. Cats and dogs, they also beget children, but they cannot relieve the child from the cycle of birth and death. And Bhagavad-gita says, janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi-duhkha-dosanudarsanam. First of all you have to see what is the actual distress in this material life.(?) Janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi. Tatha dehantara-praptih. So in this life you are my father, and next time I become a cat or dog, so who cares for this father? I get another father. So who knows this law? Prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvasah ahankara-vimudhatma [Bg. 3.27] The laws of nature is going on, and everything is happening. Karmana daiva-netrena jantur dehopapattaye [SB 3.31.1]. We are getting a type of body according to karma.

isvarah sarva-bhutanam hrd-dese ’rjuna tisthati bhramayan sarva-bhutani yantrarudhani mayaya [Bg. 18.61]

This is a yantra. This yantra is, this machine, body, is offered by the material energy under the direction of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So actually they do not know the laws of nature, laws of God. Ignorant. So we are trying to deliver people from this gross ignorance. And they do not know the laws. Naturally they’ll think “brainwashed.”

Tamala Krsna: We have to educate them.

Prabhupada: Yes. Vidvams cakre satvata-samhitam. Anarthopasamam saksad bhakti-yogam adhoksaje, lokasya ajanatah. The rascal people, they do not know how life is going on, and they are creating anarthas. Therefore vidvan, Vyasadeva, vidvams cakre satvata-samhitam. So this is the position. Murkhanam upadeso hi prakopaya na santaye. “If you try to advise rascal, he’ll be angry.”

upadeso hi murkhanam prakopaya na santaye payah-panam bhujanganam kevalam visa-vardhanam

So this is the position. Still, we have to do our business. What can be done? Difficult task. Therefore, if you want to please Krsna very quickly, you should struggle for preaching.

ya idam paramam guhyam mad-bhaktesv abhidhasyati na ca tasman manusyesu kascin me priya-krttamah [Bg 18.68]

So we have got our business, to please Krsna. That is our mission. So despite there are so many inconveniences, we have to do this business. Mudhah nabhijanati mam ebhyah paramam avyayam. They are all mudhas. So we have been engaged to teach them some lesson. Caitanya Mahaprabhu did also. He sacrificed all personal comforts, home life. He was learned scholar, very honored in Navadvipa. He had no grievances with family: His wife, Visnupriya; affectionate mother, Sacidevi. But still, He gave up everything for the benefit of the whole world.

tyaktva su-dustyaja-surepsita-rajya-laksmim dharmistha arya-vacasa yad agad aranyam maya-mrgam dayitayepsitam anvadhavad vande maha-purusa te caranaravindam [SB 11.5.34]

Caitanya Mahaprabhu wanted to deliver the foolish rascal persons. He became guru. Amara ajnaya guru hana tara’ ei desa, yare dekha tare kaha ‘krsna’-upadesa [Cc. Madhya 7.128] So our mission is to carry out the order of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Then Krsna will be pleased. (aside:) Come on. You can come this side.

Tamala Krsna: Srila Prabhupada? Sometimes we find a dilemma in preaching, in the sense that if we preach very vigorously we invoke the attention of the authorities. That is to say, if we were to preach a little less vigorously, there might be less objection, but then again there would be the less benefit because we would not be preaching as vigorously. It’s very hard to know sometimes just how forcefully to preach.

Prabhupada: No, we are not to satisfy the authorities. We have to satisfy Krsna. Just like Arjuna. He wanted to satisfy his family members, but Krsna did not like that. Then He preached him Bhagavad-gita, and then Arjuna agreed, “Yes.” Karisye vacanam tava [Bg. 18.73] So it is the duty of the devotee to satisfy Krsna, not the public.

Brahmananda: In our Back to Godhead magazine now the tendency is that they’re not mentioning Krsna’s name so much. They’re not putting the picture of Krsna. They’re not putting the pictures of the devotees. They’re stressing on like simple, natural life in order to please the public.

Prabhupada: No. Why this is going on?

Satsvarupa: Probably because of this reasoning, that… They use this phrase, that “We have to make Krsna consciousness more conventional, and with the shaved heads and pictures of Krsna, people won’t like it.” So they’ve taken to this description of simple life, vague talk of spiritual life, reincarnation, meditation.

Tripurari: Seems like a compromise.

Tamala Krsna: People are speaking about our movement now. Many people say to us that “You are selling out, compromising your position.” And they…

Prabhupada: This should be stopped, immediately. Why they are doing that without…, concocting?

Tamala Krsna: There’s a great deal of not approval among many of the senior devotees.

Prabhupada: So, immediately stop it.

Tamala Krsna: We were looking through a recent issue of the magazine, the most recent issue, and we were…

Prabhupada: Bhagavata is coming out.

Brahmananda: That is there. (laughter)

Tamala Krsna: That is there. It is fortunate you are… We were all noting that point. They cannot touch that.

Prabhupada: Bhagavata is in the middle. (end)