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Interv FIJ 1975-05-25 Radio--You Can Make Whole World India
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ANNOUNCER: The following is a radio interview,
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with His Divine Grace
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda,
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recorded on May 25th, 1975, in Fiji.
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INTERVIEWER: Why did you choose to go to America
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and propagate the teachings of
Lord Kṛṣṇa in a western country?
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PRABHUPĀDA: Because Indian people,
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being subjugated for at least one thousand
years, they have lost their original culture.
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And, being poverty-stricken, they are
simply after money, by hook and crook.
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So in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that
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Bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānāṁ tayā
apahṛta-cetasām [Bg. 2.44].
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Persons who have lost their consciousness
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on account of being too much
attached to material enjoyment,
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they cannot understand Kṛṣṇa.
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So I thought that America, they have
enjoyed enough of this material happiness,
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money and women, and they
are now becoming disappointed.
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So they are at least on the platform of renunciation.
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They don’t want any more like
their fathers and grandfathers.
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Of course, they are not guided.
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Therefore I preferred to go there to guide them.
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So almost fifty percent of my devotees are,
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they are collected from these
disappointed persons, young men.
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They are going astray.
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So they appreciate that I have saved them.
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Therefore they are after me, this younger generation,
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and they are helping me in
broadcasting this Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
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So I think my attempt was successful.
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This Oriental philosophy generally and
in particular the Kṛṣṇa consciousness
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has found a lot of devotees in the Western civilization.
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What is the main reason for this?
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You are thinking this is
Oriental civilization, but that is not the fact.
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The fact is this is human civilization.
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There is no question of east and west.
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Every living being, not only human being,
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even other beings… There are 8,400,000s forms of life,
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and Kṛṣṇa claims that
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Sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya mūrtayaḥ sambhavanti yāḥ
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tāsāṁ brahma mahad yonir
haṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā [Bg. 14.4].
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So Kṛṣṇa is for the aquatics, the animals in the water.
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The vast sea, there are so many animals.
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Then, from the water, the trees are coming out.
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Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi sthāvarā
lakṣa-viṁśati [Padma Purāṇa].
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In this way evolutionary process is going on.
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But all of them, living entities,
and part and parcel of God, Kṛṣṇa.
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So by the evolutionary process they
come to the human form of life.
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Now there is developed consciousness.
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Now, the human being has to
decide which way he has to go,
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again to the lower species of life or higher forms of life.
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The higher forms of life are there
in the upper planetary system.
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Their duration of life, material standard
of living, very, very comfortable,
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thousand times better than here.
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So Kṛṣṇa says that if you like to go to the
higher planetary system, you can go there.
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That it is said, Yānti deva-vratā devān [Bg. 9.25].
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If you cultivate yourself for going
to the higher planetary system…
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But first of all we have to understand that
we are eternal, part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa.
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We are simply changing body.
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This is material condition.
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Either lower grade of bodies or higher
grade of bodies, but we have to change.
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Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ [Bg. 2.13].
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Just like we are changing our bodies
from childhood to babyhood,
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babyhood to boyhood, boyhood
to youthhood… Then old age.
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Similarly, when this body will be finished,
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no more usable, then we’ll have to accept another body.
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But we… The present civilization
is so foolish they do not know—
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even big, big professor; I have
talked—that there is life after death.
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They do not know, although it is very evident.
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That they have no such
knowledge, even common sense.
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And they are big, big educationist.
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Anyway, there is no such department
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which deals with the transmigration of the soul.
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That is the defect of the modern civilization.
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So there is transmigration of the soul.
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By evolution, by transmigration of the soul,
we have come to this human form of life.
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Now here we have to decide again.
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Because we are part and parcel of God,
a small particle of the same quality…
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So God is fully independent.
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We have got also a little independence.
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So God does not interfere with our independence.
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Now here we have to decide
which way again we shall go.
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We have come by the evolution, by nature’s way.
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Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi [Bg. 3.27].
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Nature has brought us and given us a chance,
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whether we shall go to our original spiritual
life or we shall remain in this material world
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by changing body one after another.
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That is to be decided.
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Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is educating people
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“Stop your so-called material advancement.
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You come again, back to home, back to Godhead.”
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Therefore our paper’s name is Back to Godhead.
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Don’t make any false advancement.
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You will never be happy.
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This is our propaganda.
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It is called nivṛtti-mārga.
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Nivṛtti-mārga means stop material way of life.
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Begin spiritual way of life and come to Godhead, Kṛṣṇa,
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back to home, back to Godhead.
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Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti [Bg. 4.9].
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If you cultivate spiritual life, then, after
giving up this body… We have to give up.
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This is material body.
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And after giving up this body, we can accept…
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We can continue our spiritual body
or we can accept again material body.
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That will require our sense how to cultivate.
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So if we cultivate spiritual life, some percentage,
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not that everyone will be able, at least the higher class,
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higher section of the society, if they
cultivate spiritual life and remain ideal,
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so others may follow.
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This is our propaganda.
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Coming back to this
question of the Western type of civilization,
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do you feel that the success of the
movement in the Western society
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is an indication of the need
being felt by the western man
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that has been lacking in spiritual ideologies?
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Yes, yes.
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But the thing is that they are very intelligent.
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There is no doubt about it.
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Materially, they are always advanced.
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Materially, when they are
manufacturing machine of the airship,
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in India we are manufacturing sewing machine or cycle.
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I have seen in the World Fair
the Indians were very proud
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of manufacturing cycle and sewing machine,
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whereas the Americans and Europeans,
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they were showing the how subtle
machine of this jet plane are there.
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So materially, they are advanced.
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There is no doubt about it.
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Hundred years.
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But spiritually they are not.
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Therefore, I am an Indian, poor
Indian—they are coming to me.
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Because they understand that spiritually… Not only me,
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any swami who go, they crowd to
him, “If there is something spiritual?”
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Unfortunately, the other swamis, they
go to exploit them, to cheat them.
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They do not… Neither they do know what is spiritual life;
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neither they could give them.
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For example, for the last two hundred years
or more than that the swamis are going,
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not a single person was a Kṛṣṇa devotee
in the history in the western countries.
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But now we are putting Bhagavad-gītā As It Is.
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Hundreds and thousands are coming.
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Swamiji, it’s been said sometimes
that India has too much philosophy
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and the west has too much materialism.
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Yes.
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Where is the right
balance in this modern world?
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Balance is that you
should be reciprocal exchange.
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What you haven’t got, you give
me; what I haven’t got, I give you.
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This should be the process of exchange.
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Then the world will be united.
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When there is exchange of gifts.
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But our India followed the principle for begging.
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“Give me men.
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Give me money.
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Give me wheat.
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Give me rice.
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Give me war materials.”
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Simply begging.
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So we must give something.
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This is the first time we are giving something.
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Otherwise, India was a beggar
simply to the western countries.
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For their technical education they
are going to the western countries,
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and when there is war, they are asking
America, “Please give us war materials.”
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And when they give war materials
to Pakistan we become envious.
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But you are also taking rice, ḍāl for this.
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So why should you remain beggar?
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Finally Swamiji,
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what is the relevance of Kṛṣṇa
consciousness in our modern society?
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Hmm?
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What would be the
relevance of Kṛṣṇa’s teaching in…
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Relevance mean you are spirit soul.
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You are not this body.
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This thing first you have to understand.
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Ahaṁ brahmāsmi.
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That is India’s philosophy, that “I am spirit soul.”
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And if you realize brahmāsmi…
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Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na… [Bg. 18.54].
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As soon as you realize that you are not
this material body; you are spirit soul,
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then immediately you become jolly.
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Prasannātmā.
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Prasannātmā means Na śocati na kāṅkṣati [Bg. 18.54].
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He has no more any hankering for
things which he does not possess.
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No more any lamenting which he has lost.
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Take, for example,
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that we have lost our portion of
country as Pakistan and fighting since…
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This was a plan by the British government
that divide them in such a way.
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They will perpetually fight.
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They will never be happy.
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This was their plan. That has been successful.
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But we are lamenting.
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Both… Pakistan is lamenting or not, I do
not know, but Hindustan is lamenting.
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Gandhi was against this partition.
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But Jawaharlal Nehru, just to become
prime minister, immediately divided.
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So these things are going on.
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So lamenting, we have lost our…
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But if you take this Kṛṣṇa consciousness
movement very seriously,
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you can make the whole world Hindustan.
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