Morning Walk Conversation
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
August 6, 1975, Detroit

Prabhupada: What is his mentality? [break] There is tiger. [break] …interior village in Bengal, there are tigers. Orissa also.

Brahmananda: In Los Angeles city they have coyotes, like a wolf, and they go around eating the pet cats and dogs.

Prabhupada: Oh.

Brahmananda: People are very upset.

Prabhupada: In the city?

Brahmananda: Yes. In the residential areas especially. [break]

Prabhupada: …hiding?

Brahmananda: Yes. But they are becoming even more and more bold. Even during the day now they are coming, and they’ll go in someone’s… On the lawn there will be a dog playing or a cat, and… (laughter)

Prabhupada: Those animals sometimes kill children also, small children. [break] …padam yad vipadam: “Every step there is danger.” This is place. [break]

Adi-kesava: Here in this city they are not so much worried about the wild animals.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Adi-kesava: They are not so much worried in this city about the wild animals, but more about their neighbors, because here more people are killed every day than anywhere else in the country.

Prabhupada: By the neighbors.

Adi-kesava: Yes. [break]

Brahmananda: …heard one report that the mayor of this city, he prevented a race riot. He personally prevented there being a race riot. Recently one white man killed a black man. So the blacks then were attacking his shop, and the mayor personally came and subdued the crowd. He was able to prevent the riot.

Prabhupada: Recently?

Brahmananda: Yes. [break]

Adi-kesava: …see that in those deer up there, that the one with antlers, the horn coming out of his head, he is the male. He thinks he is in charge of all of the females. He will fight anyone who comes after them, any other deer who comes after them. And he thinks, “I am so strong. I am so brave.” He tries to protect them all and chase them away. That one in the center there.

Devotee (1): It looks like they’ve all assembled to see you.

Prabhupada: There’s a big. [break]

Brahmananda: We used to go hunting these, with big guns, that innocent animal.

Prabhupada: Hero. Big hero. (laughter) [break] …was telling that here also people come and…

Brahmananda: With bow and arrow, he was saying.

Prabhupada: Yes. That is allowed?

Ambarisa: No. It is against the law.

Adi-kesava: When we were coming over here, we were discussing how in this whole park, there is this big huge park, and only two or three men maintain the whole park because they don’t have enough money to pay them. Yet if you go to the street not so far down from the temple, there are so many men just sitting in the street doing nothing all day long. And yet they say there is a shortage of men to work in this place to make it nice.

Prabhupada: It is defective training, bad civilization. They cannot employ everyone. [break] …religion stresses that everyone should be engaged. No one should remain idle. That is the government’s duty. Bad government.

Adi-kesava: But the government says it is every man’s freedom to work or not to work.

Prabhupada: Yes. That is his irresponsible government: “It is man’s freedom—he may eat or may not eat.” It is saying like that.

Ambarisa: They would rather not work if they don’t have to.

Prabhupada: Why we are working? Eh? Why we are not for that freedom, that “We shall not work”? Why we have engaged ourself for working?

Adi-kesava: For Krsna.

Prabhupada: So therefore must be the real center. Nobody is paying us any salary, superficially. But why we are working? [break] Therefore the slavery was there—“You must work.” Those who are sudras will not work. Therefore the slavery was there. [break]

Adi-kesava: In this country, when they had the slavery, the masters were not qualified either.

Prabhupada: Yes. That is the defect. That is the defect. Either the master is defective or the servant is defective or the system is defective. That is material world. Dosa-catuhsthani, four faults: mistake, illusion, cheating, and imperfectness. [break] …the struggle for existence—one mistake after one mistake, one illusion after one, one imperfectness after another. Like that, it is going on. [break]

Madhavananda: It’s our duty in society to show everyone how to work for Krsna and become happy in life.

Prabhupada: That is yajna. To work for Krsna means yajna. Yajnarthe karma: “For yajna, performing yajna, one has to work.” To work for Krsna means yajna. That is performance of yajna. [break] …Communistic idea is borrowing this idea from… But because they are imperfect, they have made center, state. And because it is imperfect, it is not successful. They have made center the state. [break] Tamo-guna means laziness and sleep. The sudras, they are in laziness and sleep. So if they have got something to eat, they will not work. Laziness. Or eat more and sleep. This is tamo-guna. And rajo-guna means they are working for sense gratification. That is also useless. Tamo-guna is laziness and sleeping, and rajo-guna means working foolishly or for sense gratification. And sattva-guna means they know how to work. And therefore above this sattva-guna they become devotee, work for Krsna. So without working for Krsna, everyone is under the spell of these modes of material nature. And there is no training how to work for Krsna. That is the defect of modern civilization.

Adi-kesava: Sometimes people criticize us, saying we are teaching everyone how to do nothing, that we are teaching them about God, but how are we going to teach anyone to practically survive in the world? Sometimes they say like that, that we don’t have any practical instruction as well.

Prabhupada: Practical? What is not practical? We are not eating? We are not sleeping?

Adi-kesava: Yes, they are saying, “Oh, when will you learn to do a trade? When will you learn to perform business, or when will you learn to become a doctor, if you are always studying…”

Prabhupada: But you are doctor already. Why shall I become doctor? You serve me. We serve you by giving you Krsna consciousness; you serve me as a doctor. What is the wrong there? Parasparartham. I am for you; you are for me. Division of labor, that is accepted universally. So ask them, “Do you think that everyone should become doctor? Then where is the patient?” Eh? Everything is required. Similarly, you require our help also. It is cooperation. You know medical science; we know spiritual science. So let us exchange and be happy. Why you are envious of us? Why there is division in the body—head, arms, legs, belly? Why not everything head or everything leg? Why there is divided? That is nature. It is required. Why this road is neglected?

Madhavananda: It’s mismanagement.

Adi-kesava: Even they are saying that, that we don’t know how to, we’re not teaching anything practical.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Adi-kesava: Even sometimes they are saying we’re not teaching anything practical.

Prabhupada: What does he mean by practical?

Adi-kesava: Practical? They’re thinking we don’t know how to operate in the material world.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Adi-kesava: They’re thinking we don’t know how to manage things.

Prabhupada: We are not managing things? Hm? Brahmananda? You are not managing?

Brahmananda: We manage all day long. (laughing)

Adi-kesava: Even my father is a big businessman. He said to me, “Who is this person that taught you to manage like this?” He said, “I wish I could get him to teach all my men.”

Prabhupada: So why don’t you ask your father to join for management? Eh?

Brahmananda: So you are managing one of the buses, isn’t it?

Adi-kesava: Yes.

Brahmananda: He is managing one of the Radha-Damodara…, that big bus.

Prabhupada: Oh. He is with us?

Brahmananda: No. Adi-kesa. Your name is Adi-kesa?

Harikesa: His father is a big scholar.

Prabhupada: Oh.

Adi-kesava: He’s a big rascal. (laughter)

Prabhupada: In what subject he is scholar?

Adi-kesava: Well, he’s a businessman, but also he is a big philosopher. He thinks that by working very hard that God will give you the result—karma-mimamsa philosophy.

Prabhupada: Hm. Karma-mimamsa.

Adi-kesava: He thinks simply by doing your work in the world, then God will become satisfied, and you do not need to offer any sacrifice.

Prabhupada: The ass is working also. So why God is not satisfied with him? He is working very hard. Why he is meant for carrying load for the washerman? Why do they think that we are not working? Eh?

Harikesa: They only see us chanting and dancing and eating prasadam.

Ambarisa: They wonder how we can buy such a big house when we are not working.

Prabhupada: That… They do not see Krsna’s mercy. Just like yesterday we purchased one house, and according to Indian exchange, twenty-four lakhs. So I had no money, but I have purchased. That is… They do not understand what is Krsna’s mercy.

Adi-kesava: In Boston when we bought the big temple there, they said… They asked us, “We saw you dancing and chanting in the street right in front of there the other day, and now we see you going into a house on the richest block in the whole city.”

Prabhupada: So why don’t you say, “We have pleased Krsna, He has sent money”? That is our business. Why should we work like an ass and dog? We simply please Krsna, and He sends money. That’s all. You see practically. Yesterday I went to see the house. I had no money, but I purchased. Twenty-four lakhs. Wherefrom the money comes? That is intelligence, that you please one person and you get everything. And you rascal, you please so many others; still, you are not happy. That is intelligence. You are going to water the trees and leaves and the twigs and…, but we put water in the root. It reaches everywhere. Yatha taror mula-nisecanena trpyanti tat-skandha-bhujopasakhah. If I pour water on the root, all the branches will be pleased and they will give me fruits, flowers, everything. They do not know this science.

Harikesa: They can’t even see the root.

Prabhupada: Yes. That is their blindness. Andha.

Brahmananda: ’Cause they can’t see it, they think it’s not there.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Brahmananda: Because they can’t see the root, they think it’s not there.

Prabhupada: Yes. [break] …house for the last four years. And I went for half an hour; I purchased—without any money. Still, they are so blind, they cannot see the mercy of God. One should imagine that “Yes, there is mercy of God. Otherwise how it is possible?” If they have no eyes to see, they should imagine at least.

Harikesa: That’s why the government thinks that we are being supported. In India they think we are being supported by the…

Prabhupada: CIA.

Harikesa: Yes. Because we have so many nice things. Where else could we…

Brahmananda: They think it is the mercy of the CIA.

Prabhupada: My Godbrother says—Tirtha Maharaja—that American government has given me two crores of rupees. They are supposed to be spiritually advanced, and they are so rascal. And he is the head of Caitanya Matha. Krsna said, yoga-ksemam vahamy aham: [Bg. 9.22] “I take the responsibility of his expenditure.” Krsna says, and they are preaching Krsna consciousness, and they are thinking, “American government is doing, not Krsna.” Such fools and rascals, they are head of…, a spiritual head. Karmis, jnanis—everyone is envious of our… And they are trying to speculate how to admit: “Where he gets money? Where he gets money?”

Harikesa: That man in San Francisco? The photographer? He was always trying to take pictures of your rings and always trying to take pictures of all the rich things on the altar. He was trying to make a story like that. They try to show that you are enjoying.

Prabhupada: Hm?

Harikesa: They are trying to show that you are enjoying.

Brahmananda: Even in Chicago the one, the woman who wrote the article, the 34-ounce? She said how “You looked at your gold watch.” That was in the article, such an important thing.

Prabhupada: Nityananda Prabhu used to decorate Himself with very costly ornaments. Your teeth does not look very clean. Why?

Harikesa: They never get white. They are yellow all the time.

Prabhupada: You washed daily?

Harikesa: Every day.

Ambarisa: Did you try baking soda?

Harikesa: Yes.

Satsvarupa: The karmis are also envious that we are very happy, that we are looking forward to a next life. They… Because they don’t have that faith…

Prabhupada: They have no hope.

Satsvarupa: They are envious.

Prabhupada: Actually they have no hope because they are going to degenerate to become dog, cats, trees, then lost.

Satsvarupa: So they try to tell us, “Oh, that is just mythology, what you are following,” because they are envious.

Brahmananda: In Dr. Judah’s book he gives interviews with the devotees, and they tell so many instances of how our devotees were so depressed and hopeless, and then they became Krsna conscious, and oh, their whole lives have been transformed, and how happy and… Why don’t they see that? They somehow discount it as being not very substantial, being fanatical or something religious. But it’s a fact. He took a survey of “What was the thing that attracted you to the Hare Krsna movement?” So the majority, about 53%, they said it was the sound of the mantra, Hare Krsna. And another, about 48%, they said it was the friendliness of the devotees.

Prabhupada: And that one, what is called? Draft? Draft man came to inquire that “What is the allurement here in this society that they try to avoid that…” What do you call? Draft? “…draftboard and come to this society? What is the facility?” So when he studied he said that “There is no facility; still harder. They have to give up so many things.” He remarked like that, “Still harder.”

Brahmananda: Than the army.

Prabhupada: Yes. And actually that is so. Wherever you go, nobody will ask you that “You give up this, give up this, give up this, give up this.” And we ask that “If you want to join, then you have to give up these things.” So they have sacrificed everything; still, they are happy. Therefore they have been described as mudha, no knowledge. Mudha nabhijanati mam ebhyah param avyayam. (end)