Discussions with Devotees
and Conversation with Dr. Ghosh
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
June 1, 1977, Vrndavana

Prabhupada: So our temple is also.

Yasodanandana: Yes, that is very good.

Svarupa Damodara: In future I think that we can invite scholars even from the West, just like from the United States. Sometimes they have these departments called…

Prabhupada: You have brain. You are not afraid of anything…

Atreya Rsi: Jaya.

Prabhupada: …that we are preaching something which not is acceptable by scientists or philosophers. He must have to accept.

Bhavananda: Srila Prabhupada, Bhakti-prema Maharaja is not here now. He’s gone out.

Yasodanandana: There was a discussion today that in some time, after this preaching to the scientists starts, if we get exposed, it will be a very, very big world news item, especially with jagat theory of the universe, to explain how all the planets are exactly together, how life comes from life. It will be a very shocking news to the whole scientific world. They have so many misconceptions which are simply due to ignorance.

Prabhupada: They are simply making false propaganda to keep their prestige. Useless. Now here is a scientist. He’ll confirm it. What do you think?

Svarupa Damodara: Er… I think it’s going to be very interesting. We are prepared for it, and it will be a great challenging, challenging field, if all the scientists and all over…

Prabhupada: We have got some background. They have no background.

Svarupa Damodara: Yes, we have Bhagavad-gita and Prabhupada, Krsna. We are very prominent.

Prabhupada: But they have no background. They are simply speculating. In the first place they have no background. Child. Doesn’t know what… Do you think they are knowing?

Svarupa Damodara: I saw just little hint. I met an Indian physicist in Emory University. He’s quite well known physicist, and he actually liked the idea that we wrote on. He said it’s very genuine and very scientific. We have developed this the laws of consciousness from trying atma and Paramatma. The Paramatma, we say, is the source of all these laws of nature.

Prabhupada: That is stated in the Bhagavad-gita. Mattah smrtir jnanam apohanam ca [Bg. 15.15]. Jaya. (Bengali) Or if you like, you can travel with him, but your translation must be main work. If you like, you can go to the foreign countries along with him. (Bengali) So that program you planned, he can come.

Svarupa Damodara: Yes. I suggested to Dr. Sharma that first of all we hold that conference in Vrndavana and come here. So we can announce some nice topics, so he can also speak. And we can invite some scholars. They can also speak. We can have open discussion, exchange of ideas and philosophy, so that we expose Krsna consciousness on this scale. So Prabhupada wants that Bhaktivedanta Institute is also here in Vrndavana along with the Bhaktivedanta Gurukula, an institute for higher studies, and there be one office in the gurukula building so that…

Prabhupada: No, I request you all that you keep this building always busy with some conference, with some meeting, with some… It shouldn’t remain vacant. And for expenditure, I shall arrange. There is no want.

Svarupa Damodara: And we’ll try to attract more Ph.D.s.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Svarupa Damodara: As soon as we go out and preach, I think we can get…

Prabhupada: (Bengali) You are all qualified. I can give you ideas. Now I am doing. So I wanted to see that you are all busy. That I want because now I am becoming invalid. I cannot move very swiftly here and there. But if you move, I take pleasure. There is a Bengali proverb, na pajimane na jamai datta(?). A old lady, so she has lost her husband. She cannot joke. Husband, wife, they exchange some joking word. So with whom she will joke? Then the grandson-in-law, grandson… So in our society, Bengal, the grandson-in-law… I have got experience also. When I was newly married grandson-in-law, so my grandmother-in-law was joking with me like anything, more than husband. (laughter) And granddaughter-in-law. So we sit down and she talks very openly everything. We remember that. Because she was enjoying. By talking like that, free, with granddaughter and grandson-in-law, she was enjoying. And we were also enjoying. So my position is like that. I cannot move now very swiftly here and there, becoming invalid. So if I see that you are doing these things, that will give me pleasure. Yes. Granddaughter-in-law.

Svarupa Damodara: I also found that in Boston, the Indian communities, they are very interested.

Prabhupada: Must be. Everyone should be. This is the genuine program. So (Bengali), talk and make program. (Bengali)

Dr. Sharma: That is disease. It has become now plague.

Prabhupada: Yes. So both of you are very intelligent boys. I want to see that you are always busy in these affairs. (Bengali) Bhaktivedanta Institute and Gurukula for Higher Studies. (Bengali) I want to see that you are always busy. Busy-ness. That will give me pleasure. Laziness I don’t want. Personally I was never lazy. I did not like laziness.

Dr. Sharma: (indistinct) We create in our mind problems.

Prabhupada: Because sometimes I become morose that I became lazy, so therefore, if I see you busy, this moroseness will reduce. When I see that you are working and the whole thing is busy, oh, that gives me pleasure. Yes

Svarupa Damodara: I’m also thinking of writing some books for children, for Gurukula.

Prabhupada: Write.

Svarupa Damodara: For the Bhaktivedanta Institute.

Prabhupada: Write. That’s a very good idea. (Bengali) This is real life. You are all qualified to do this. Idam hi pumsas tapasah srutasya va [SB 1.5.22] (Bengali)

Yasodanandana: Srila Prabhupada, this morning, as soon as the children heard that this name was going to be changed and it was going to be that, many of them became eager: “How I can be trained also to know these things?” The children are very eager to understand all these…

Prabhupada: Oh, yes.

Yasodanandana: …the scientific approach.

Prabhupada: Oh, yes. (Bengali)

Dr. Sharma: Plus it should be nice.

Prabhupada: It is already.

Svarupa Damodara: I’m going to have to look tomorrow and…

Prabhupada: Hm. You can see, both, and select which room for which quarter. Big, big room… (Bengali)

Dr. Sharma: (indistinct)

Prabhupada: He is very intelligent.

Dr. Sharma: (indistinct)

Prabhupada: He’s organizing this, that Poland, communist country. He has accepted hard knot. And knocking. (Bengali)

Bhavananda: Srila Prabhupada, would you like to go up to the roof now?

Prabhupada: I have no objection. (Bengali) You are all able.

Svarupa Damodara: (aside:) Yeah, tomorrow I’ll go and see everything.

Prabhupada: (Bengali) So? No, I shall go. Utsahad dhairyat tat-tat-karma-pravartanat, sato vrtteh sadhu…, sadbhir bhaktih prasidhyati. [break]

Adi-kesava: In your Bhagavad-gita you explain that to the materialist… He is subject to fear, anger and attachment.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Adi-kesava: So when someone becomes angry, that anger is frustration due to the fact that he experiences so many frustrations in the material world, and therefore he calls it void. He says, “Rather than experience the difficulty inherent in the temporality of the material world,” instead he calls it void and says that it does not exist. Because it is causing so much distress because he cannot become satisfied in material existence, then he says…

Prabhupada: Whether it has got any value? Whether such statement has any value?

Harikesa: Whether such statement has any value?

Adi-kesava: To say that it has no existence, that it is all void.

Prabhupada: One, you… Talk on this point. Just like a small animal, rabbit. When he’s attacked, he closes the eyes. He thinks, “There is nothing.” Now he is devoured. So it is like that. He cannot adjust things, and “That is zero, bas.” But that’s not the fact. Hm? Simply by closing your eyes you want to avoid danger? Discuss on this.

Bhakti-prema: When we generalize our senses inwards, it becomes inert. When we go beyond body and senses it becomes inert. But we have to penetrate deep into that state of consciousness, and it can be possible only through Krsna consciousness.

Prabhupada: Svarupa Damodara? You also.

Svarupa Damodara: When the goal and the meaning of life is not understood, then people take it as void. So that means life is full of meaning and full of purpose, and it is also a goal, but when that meaning is not understood… That is actually the scientific philosophy, that it is all void because there is no meaning and there is no purpose. That is what the… Especially in the Western scientists, that is the current thought, that, the complete material philosophy. But when one changes that concept by developing proper consciousness it just becomes the opposite. That means…

Prabhupada: (aside:) Give me… What fruit you have?

Kirtanananda: Orange. Orange.

Svarupa Damodara: When this philosophy is reversed, then life becomes full of meaning and full of purpose. Actually that is a fact. We give value to life. That’s why we go to the… We send our children for higher studies and we develop so many political and social and ethical and moral problems. That means there is purpose in life. So life is not void. But somehow, when one misses that point, he just comes to that point. But that’s not a fact. So it has to be understood that there is… Life is full of meaning and full of purpose, and there is a goal behind it. That purpose is to develop spiritual consciousness, to develop the science of atma called atma-jnana, the science of the self, and becomes… Life becomes meaningful.

Prabhupada: That is the statement in Bhagavata, apasyatam atma-tattvam grhesu grha-medhinam [SB 2.1.2]. Grhesu grha-medhinam, they dismiss the case because apasyatam atma-tattvam [SB 2.1.2] Just like thieves: “Eh! What is government? What is government? Let us enjoy.” That’s not the fact. So we have to put all these questions before learned scholars and ask them to make a solution. (Bengali) Why zero?

Harikesa: In other words, no matter what they come up with, what ideas they come up with, what knowledge they have, it’s of no value because it doesn’t…

Prabhupada: Their knowledge has no value. That is our first charge.

Harikesa: It has no value because it doesn’t do anything…

Prabhupada: There is no conclusion. Zero. Zero? For zero why there are so many varieties? Wherefrom the varieties came?

Svarupa Damodara: We can show that their thinking is wrong completely.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is the fact.

Harikesa: And that all their speculations simply end up in their own death. And at that point they have no idea what will happen next. But they have to take another body. Although they may try to say…

Prabhupada: They are taking. That example is already there. He finishes his childhood; he accepts boyhood. Why he has left childhood? Finish childhood. Finish. That’s all. Why again bother?

Harikesa: Force of time.

Prabhupada: That means he is under the control of something higher, but he refutes, tries to avoid. That cannot be avoided. A child must become a boy. Tatha dehantara-praptih.

Harikesa: But the worst thing is that not only are they causing themselves trouble, but they cause it upon everyone else.

Prabhupada: That is natural. Causing everyone else means the same group. Andha yathandhaih. One who is blind, he can be cheated by another blind man. But one who is not blind, if the blind man wants to cheat him, that “I can help you crossing the room,” he will laugh, that “This rascal is blind, and he has offered me to help me. We take this, that if a person is… We know that he is defective. His knowledge is imperfect. What knowledge he will give? Immediately reject him.

Harikesa: He can give good knowledge on how to accelerate death.

Prabhupada: That is natural. There is no question of his accelerating. It is already going on in this world. (pause) So many things we have to discuss. Is it not? People are in darkness in so many ways. Therefore we have to take the standard knowledge.

Svarupa Damodara: Always comes to the…

Prabhupada: (aside:) Little cold water. And our mission is to deliver them by giving knowledge. Amara ajnaya guru hana tara’ ei desa [Cc. Madhya 7.128] Our mission is not to keep men in darkness. Otherwise “Let them go to hell, sunyavadi. We don’t…” No. They should not remain in that way. They should come to the real light. This is our policy. (pause)

Bhakti-caru: Srila Prabhupada? Narayana Maharaja (Bengali).

Harikesa: When we finish this description, our understanding of this description of the universe, and present it to the scientists and to the world, people will become astounded.

Prabhupada: Yes. [break] (loud fan noise) What is that jiva-bhuta? They are living entities. Jiva-bhutam maha-ba… Yayedam dharyate jagat. Without that these jiva-bhuta, these material elements are developed? Where is that? Find out this verse.

Gopala Krsna: In Gita?

Prabhupada: Read it.

Jagadisa:

apareyam itas tv anyam prakrtim viddhi me param jiva-bhutam maha-baho yayedam dharyate jagat

“Besides this inferior energy, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is a superior energy of Mine, which are all living entities, who are struggling with material nature and are sustaining the universe.” Purport?

Prabhupada: Hm.

Jagadisa: Here it is clearly mentioned that living entities belong to the superior nature (or energy) of the Supreme Lord. The inferior energy is matter manifested in different elements, namely earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego. Both forms of material nature, namely gross (earth, etc.) and subtle (mind, etc.), are products of the inferior energy. The living entities, who are exploiting these inferior energies for different purposes, are the superior energy of the Supreme Lord, and it is due to this energy that the entire material world functions. The cosmic manifestation has no power to act unless it is moved by the superior energy, the living entity. Energies are always controlled by the energetic, and therefore living entities are always controlled by the Lord—they have no independant existence. They are never equally powerful, as unintelligent men think. The distinction between the living entities and the Lord is described in Srimad-Bhagavatam as follows (10.87.30):

aparimita dhruvas tanubhrto yadi sarva-gatas tarhim na sasyateti niyamo dhruva netaratha ajani ca yanmayam tad avimucya niyantr bhavet samam anujanatam yad-amatam mata-dustataya

“O Supreme Eternal! If the embodied living entities were eternal and all-pervading like You, then they would not be under Your control. But if the living entities are accepted as minute energies of Your Lordship, then they are at once subject to Your supreme control. Therefore real liberation entails surrender by the living entities to Your control, and that surrender will make them happy. In that constitutional position only can they be controllers. Therefore, men with limited knowledge who advocate the monistic theory that God and the living entities are equal in all respects are actually misleading themselves and others.”

The Supreme Lord Krsna is the only controller, and all living entities are controlled by Him. These living entities are His superior energy because the quality of their existence is one and the same with the Supreme, but they are never equal to the Lord in quantity of power. While exploiting the gross and subtle inferior energy (matter), the superior energy (the living entity) forgets his real spiritual mind and intelligence. This forgetfulness is due to the influence of matter upon the living entity. But when the living entity becomes free from the influence of the illusory material energy, he attains the stage called mukti, or liberation. The false ego, under the influence of material illusion, thinks, “I am matter, and material acquisitions are mine.” His actual position is realized when he is liberated from all material ideas, including the conception of his becoming one in all respects with God. Therefore one may conclude that the Gita confirms the living entity to be only one of the multi-energies of Krsna; and when this energy is freed from material contamination, it becomes fully Krsna conscious, or liberated. [break]

Dr. Ghosh: (Bengali)

Prabhupada: (Bengali) Begin. (Bengali conversation) [break] What is that?

Bhavananda: Fruit juice and sabji, so much…

Dr. Ghosh: But you’ll get your pomegranates? I’ll get it.

Bhakti-caru: (Bengali) (Bengali conversation)

Dr. Ghosh: How you’ll take care of him?

Upendra: Massage. He’s cooking.

Prabhupada: (Bengali) (Bengali conversation) We have got black cows.

Tamala Krsna: We have black cows.

Dr. Ghosh: (Bengali) (Bengali conversation)

Prabhupada: He said there is no fear. Everything is all right.

Dr. Ghosh: Tomorrow morning… (end)