Morning Walk Conversation
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
December 10, 1975, Vrndavana

Prabhupada: The rascals should not do that. Bhaktivinoda Thakura says, namasraya kari thakaha apana karye. You do your work but take shelter of harinama. That is wanted.

Devotee (1): So simple.

Prabhupada: So simple, yes. (Bengali) Namasraya kari, thakaha apana karye. “Go on with your duty, prescribed duty, and chant Hare Krsna.” [break]

Aksayananda: I was recently told by one devotee that the acarya does not have to be a pure devotee.

Prabhupada: What?

Aksayananda: That the acarya does not have to be a pure devotee.

Prabhupada: Who is that rascal?

Aksayananda: Well, he said it. Who said it?

Prabhupada: Who said? Who is that rascal? The acarya does not require to be a pure devotee?

Aksayananda: He said it. Nitai said it. He said it in this context. He said that Lord Brahm is the acarya in the Brahma-sampradaya, but yet he is sometimes afflicted by passion. So therefore he is saying that it appears that the acarya does not have to be a pure devotee. So it does not seem right.

Prabhupada: So who is that rascal? I want to know who has said.

Aksayananda: Nitai. Nitai dasa.

Harikesa: Nitai said that?

Prabhupada: Who is Nitai dasa?

Harikesa: Our Nitai.

Aksayananda: Nitai.

Prabhupada: Oh, our Nitai? Oh.

Aksayananda: He said he couldn’t understand it, but he thought, he said that he thought…

Prabhupada: He manufactured his idea. Therefore he’s a rascal. Therefore he’s a rascal. Nitai has become an authority?

Aksayananda: No, actually he said that he thought…

Prabhupada: He thought something rascaldom, and he is expressing that. Therefore he is more rascal. These things are going on. As soon as he reads some books, he becomes an acarya, whatever rascal he may be.

Aksayananda: So there’s no doubt that Lord Brahm is a pure devotee?

Prabhupada: Whatever he may be, he is acarya. So you… Then Krsna is also passionate. Krsna is also passionate. Krsna danced with so many gopis; therefore He is passionate. They… These things are to be seen in this way, that “Such exalted person, he sometimes become passionate, so how much we shall be careful.” This is the instruction. Then we petty things, petty persons, how much we shall be careful. It is not that “Acarya has become passionate, therefore I shall become passionate. I am strict followers of acarya.” These rascals say.

Harisauri: So Lord Brahma’s being attracted to his daughter, that is just as an example…

Prabhupada: So why you discuss this? Therefore you shall be attracted with your daughter, mother? Do you think so, like that?

Aksayananda: No.

Indian man: In this world this is our disease. This is our disease.

Prabhupada: Yes. That disease… Brahma… Lord Siva also, he was attracted to the Mohini. So they are isvara. They are controllers. So the instruction is that even such personalities may be sexually attracted, so how much we shall remain careful. This is the instruction. [break] …like the other rascal. Who was saying that “Krsna was killed by a hunter; therefore hunter is greater than Krsna”?

Indian man: Raja Gopalacarya, he has written in Mahabharata that Krsna was killed by a hunter.

Prabhupada: Therefore the hunter is…

Indian man: “Krsna Passes Away,” the heading of his chapter.

Harikesa: You said about a couple of years ago that “What ordinary man would be killed if he was shot in the arrow by a heel,” I mean, “shot in the heel by an arrow?” No ordinary man dies that way.

Prabhupada: So who reads Raja Gopalacarya’s Mahabharata? (laughter) They are rotting at Bharatiya Vidyabhavan.

Aksayananda: They’re rotting in the bookshelves and the insects are eating.

Indian man: But in Somanath… I went last year there when I was in Gujarat. The people, they don’t believe, the people of Somanath, that he was killed by… like that. So these philosophers, simply for their name, they put some kind of theories so that people can, “Oh!” They can understand all this nonsense. [break]

Prabhupada: These pastimes of Krsna is to make the fools more fool. One who is thinking of Krsna as ordinary man, Krsna is playing this part to show them, “Yes, see. I am dying, this. You see.”

Indian man: What He said? Avajananti ma mudhah.

Prabhupada: Mudha janmani janmani [Bg. 16.20]. He’ll remain mudha janmani janmani [Bg. 16.20]. This is this pastime. Life after life, he shall remain a fool, rascal. So this Raja Gopalacarya and company, they’ll remain in darkness life after life. For them this pastime is there. Avajananti ma mudh manusim tanum asritah: “The rascals, they think of Me as ordinary human being.” To such rascals, He is playing like: “Yes, you see I am ordinary human being. Just see. I am dying.” This is… To keep them life after life in darkness. If it is so easy to understand Krsna, that He is dying—Accha. “I have read it. I have seen. He has died.” Then what is the use of saying, manusyana sahasresu kascid yatati siddhaye yatatam api siddhanam [Bg. 7.3]? Out of many millions of persons one can understand Krsna. Then what is the use of saying this? If it is so easy to understand Krsna, what He is doing, what for He is doing, then everyone could understand Krsna. Then what is the use of saying, manusyana sahasresu? This requires intelligence.

Indian man: Bahuna janmanam.

Prabhupada: Therefore Krsna says, tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasnena sevaya: [Bg. 4.34] “One who knows, go and understand from them, from the guru.” Don’t make your interpretation, rascal. You shall remain always a rascal. Then what is the use of all these verses? If it is so easy to understand Krsna then why Krsna says, tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasnena sevaya: “Then you will understand. Go to the right person who has seen.”

Indian man: But the rascal philosophers, they have put in their book that you don’t need to go to a spiritual master. Like one lady, she is staying in our temple now. She is a life member from, I think from Kanpur. So I was discussing with her yesterday. She said that “Your devotees, they are forcing me,” that she should accept Srila Prabhupada as spiritual master. She said, “No. I know Krsna. I am reading Srimad-Bhagavatam.” And she told me that she has read in the book that one not need to go to spiritual master.

Prabhupada: But what she is? Why she is staying here? Huh? You have asked them to go? No?

Aksayananda: This is the first I have heard of it.

Indian man: I am going to tell her to go if she will not… She told me…

Aksayananda: I never heard this before.

Prabhupada: No, no. No. Is she is staying there as a paying guest or what?

Indian man: No, she want… She paid us eleven hundred rupees in Kanpur and, I don’t know… The devotees, they promised her she can come and she can stay in our temple but they never told her the four regulative principles and to accept the guru.

Prabhupada: No, no.

Aksayananda: No, that is not true.

Indian man: So she wants the money back.

Prabhupada: So give. Give her back.

Aksayananda: She can have it back. That’s no problem.

Indian man: So she should go.

Prabhupada: Give her back. So why don’t you give and immediately?

Aksayananda: Yes, I will give her. She never asked me. I didn’t know this.

Indian man: She asked Gopala Krsna, I think. So we will arrange. She should go, you know. She made a great confusion yesterday.

Aksayananda: That’s all right. Let her have.

Prabhupada: Let her return the receipt or give a receipt and let her go away. Nobody can stay more than three days.

Indian man: Yes. We will do that.

Aksayananda: That we are doing.

Prabhupada: She can come, but not more than three days in a month. [break]

Harikesa: …rascals will use any excuse to reject all of Krsna consciousness.

Prabhupada: That is atheism or demonism. [break]

Harikesa: Chinmayananda, when he lectures, he only lectures on the verses that are important. He says all the other ones, they’re not really important. He picks out the ones that count.

Prabhupada: So why don’t you cut his head and say that “It is not important. You are talking nonsense. Cut your head.”

Indian man: He don’t give any commentary on verses, even important commentary, he speak all nonsense.

Prabhupada: No, therefore you say, “This head is not required. You are talking nonsense,” and cut his head.

Aksayananda: No one knows what he’s talking about anyway.

Harikesa: Especially him.

Aksayananda: Yes. No one can say.

Prabhupada: [break] …become a problem for all these rascals, that we are presenting Bhagavad-gita As It Is. That they are feeling that “If this movement goes on, then we are all finished.”

Devotee (2): Out of work.

Aksayananda: Their profession is at stake.

Prabhupada: Yes, everyone. Yes.

Devotee (2): One Mayavad sannyasi, he wrote a book, “Be Your Own Guru,” and he said you can…

Prabhupada: So why do you write book?

Devotee (2): Yes, he is being guru. He is teaching them to do without a guru.

Prabhupada: Let everyone become his guru. Why you write books?

Indian man: …one book that one should not write a book without the permission of a spiritual master.

Prabhupada: Yes. You’ll find in today’s tape that Prahlada Maharaja recommending, that “Spiritual life begins by guru-susrusah, by serving guru.” [break] …Gosvami said, adau gurvasrayam: “The first beginning is to take shelter of the bona fide spiritual master.” Sad-dharma-pracchat: “Then inquire from him about the spiritual path.” Sadhu-marganugamanam: “Follow the previous acaryas.” These are the steps. Bhagavad-gita, Arjuna said, sisyas te ’ha sadhi mam: “Now I become Your disciple. Teach me.” And these rascals are more than Arjuna—”There is no need of guru.” Huh? He says, sisyas te ’ham. Why? He was already friend. Why he should submit himself as disciple? That is the beginning of spiritual life.

Indian man: Somebody put a question to Bhagavan Rajneesh that “you claim that you are God. Can you show us your universal form?” He said, “Well, I can show you. First you come like an Arjuna. First you become Arjuna. Then I can show you a universal form.”

Prabhupada: So he admits that much.

Aksayananda: That he cannot.

Indian man: No, he admits that he can, but he has put…

Prabhupada: “So that’s all right. Have you shown anyone your universal form amongst so many, your disciples? Have you shown?” The next question should be like that.

Indian man: He never asked. I was hearing tape in one life member’s house.

Prabhupada: No, no, no, if… You learn that, “Have you shown ever your universal form to any one of your disciples?”

Indian man: There was not such intelligent person to ask this.

Prabhupada: That is the… Say.

Indian man: So we have to ask that. (laughter)

Prabhupada: If he says, “No, none of my students are efficient,” “Then why you are preaching? If you cannot make any one of your students as efficient, then why you are preaching, wasting your time?” No, no, these rascal, they, their face should not be seen even. They are so fallen.

Indian man: But now they all afraid from your stick.

Prabhupada: Stick?

Indian man: Prabhupada, they all thought many times that “Prabhupada he criticize us.” You know, they say. We said, “Yes, you are made to be criticized.”

Devotee (3): Your stick is Bhagavad-gita As It Is.

Prabhupada: They say? They say?

Indian man: Oh, yes. In Mauritius there are many cults. So they invited us, I went to two, three. So they asked me that “We are coming many temple. You people, why not you come?” I said, “Well, whenever you invite us, we are ready to come, but you accept our philosophy.” So they said, “How we can accept your philosophy? Prabhupada, he, wherever, he say that all the other are Mayavadi. All other are rascal.” (laughter) “Well, Krsna has said that. Prabhupada is not doing that. Krsna said who don’t accept Him, he is mudha; he is rascal. So Prabhupada is giving as it is, whatever Krsna has said.” Oh, they were…

Prabhupada: No… [break] Krsna said, “The rascals do not surrender to Me.” So as soon as we see somebody not Krsna conscious, we call him rascal. So what is the wrong there?

Indian man: It is not wrong.

Prabhupada: Krsna says, na ma duskrtino mudha prapadyante naradhamah. So we find out rascals, if he is not Krsna conscious. So what is our fault? Krsna says this is the test to find out who is a rascal. And who is rascal? Who is not Krsna conscious, he is a rascal. So if you are not Krsna conscious, you are a rascal. We have to see through the sastra characteristic of a rascal, that he is not Krsna conscious. That’s all. We may be fool, but we take lesson from Bhagavad-gita. That’s all. And from the lesson we understand you are rascal number one.” That’s all.

Indian man: Tilaka’s(?) wife, she told me… She was very upset you know. One day she, when she came to see you and that one rascal yogi was there and he said that in the Vedas everything is mentioned that we can drink and woman and the man have equal right. Then you answered her, and she was also saying the same thing and you answered her, “Okay, if woman and the man have equal right, then why not your husband begot the children… Why not you begot the children in the womb of your husband?” And she was very upset, you know. She said, “Prabhupada sometimes say the things like that which are unreasonable, you know.”

Prabhupada: It may require… No, I said that “If you are equal rights, then make some arrangement: sometimes you become pregnant; sometimes he becomes pregnant. Why there is not right, equal right?”

Indian man: She was telling me when… She… I said that “Prabhupada sometimes says these things that we feel all ashamed, you know, because…”

Devotee (2): The medicine is not always palatable for these people.

Prabhupada: But in speaking spiritual understanding we cannot make any compromise. What to speak of in Mauritius, in Chicago I told. There was great agitation in papers.

Harikesa: In the TV, on television.

Indian man: Same thing?

Devotee (2): In France also.

Prabhupada: They were very upset. And when I was coming, I think, in Chicago, in the airplane, one of the host girl, she was seeing… (laughter) I asked her to supply one 7-up. And, “I have no key.” She was so angry. But all the captains and others, they gathered around me. (laughter)

Harikesa: I think that was the same stewardess who came in the back and asked us, “Why the Swamiji doesn’t like women?”

Prabhupada: No, no, I don’t say that I don’t like women, but I cannot say that equal rights. How can I say? First of all show that you equal rights—your husband becomes sometimes pregnant and then you become pregnant, alternately.

Aksayananda: That doesn’t mean you don’t like them.

Prabhupada: No, it is truth. I am speaking the truth, that “If you have equal right, then let your husband become pregnant. Make some arrangement.”

Harikesa: Visakha was preaching to her. She said that “Actually we are less intelligent.” (laughter) That started a big scandal…

Prabhupada: Yes. And that is Krsna consciousness. [break] They are in equal right, then… Nowadays, of course, they are thinking like that, that man should remain independent, and they’ll have homosex, and the woman also independent and they will make some… This is most immoral things.

Indian man: If only people think that they have equal right…

Prabhupada: Where is equal right? Even in Russia there is no equal rights. They have created some of them are managers, and some of them are workers. Why? If equal rights, then everyone should be manager.

Harikesa: Well, in America they have women senators now.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Harikesa: Women senators, women are in charge of companies sometimes.

Indian man: No, in India there are two women. They are high commissioners of India to the foreign countries.

Prabhupada: No, that is possible. That it requires education. That is another… By nature the woman’s body is different from man’s.

Indian man: Women are subordinate.

Prabhupada: Not subordinate actually. The occupations are different. It does not mean… That is another mistake. Just like the leg is walking, and the head is directing, so although the occupation is different, both of them are important. We require the head and leg also. If simply head is there, if there is no leg, then who’ll walk? This is the understanding, not equal. Everyone must have his separate duties to serve the whole. That is the arrangement. This is real understanding. The most important part of the body is head, but that does not mean the leg is not important. Leg is important in its work, and head is important in its work. So we require both, head and tail both, not that simply leg or simply head. But when we make comparative study, we can understand that head is more important than the leg. If you cut your leg, you can live, but if you cut your head, you’ll die. Therefore the conclusion is: head is more important than the leg. Comparative study. Otherwise head is also required and leg is also required. You collect some flowers, nice flowers, and, add with it some green foliage, it becomes more beautiful. Simply flower is not so beautiful. When it is arrayed with some green foliage, then it becomes more beautiful. So we have to take in that sense. But comparatively, the flower is more important than the foliage. But the both of them are required.

Harikesa: The foliage also becomes beautiful because of the flower.

Prabhupada: Yes. That is God’s creation. Just like these trees. They are condemned, but still, with trees we can make a beautiful garden and that is very enjoyable. That is God’s arrangement. Even insignificant… Ksudrad api pradhanasya jayate paramam hitam. One is very insignificant and other is very important, but both of them combined together becomes beneficial. [break]

Visala: I remember over five years ago you telling me about, “If you read the first nine cantos of Srimad-Bhagavatam, you become fully Krsna conscious.” Would you kindly tell me what does it mean to be fully Krsna conscious?

Prabhupada: What do you understand, fully Krsna conscious?

Visala: What does it mean to be fully Krsna conscious?

Prabhupada: No, what you mean, first of all let me know.

Harikesa: What do you think fully Krsna concious means? You tell Prabhupada.

Visala: It’s to see Krsna face to face?

Prabhupada: That means Krsna conscious? Everyone is seeing Krsna face to face. When you go to the temple Krsna is there, and you are seeing. Does it mean everyone is Krsna conscious?

Visala: No.

Prabhupada: Then what is the meaning of Krsna conscious?

Indian man: Brahma-bhutah prasannatma na socati na kanksati [Bg. 18.54]

Prabhupada: Hm, that is part of Krsna consciousness, brahma bhutah. Real Krsna consciousness is: “Krsna is master, I am servant.” This is Krsna consciousness.

Visala: To understand that you’re the servant and Krsna is the master. I see.

Prabhupada: When you fully understand, that is your Krsna… That is Krsna conscious. [break] So long you think that “I can also become like Krsna,” then you are not Krsna conscious.

Visala: In other words, if you still have material desires you can’t be fully Krsna conscious.

Prabhupada: Yes. That is the beginning of Krsna consciousness, anyabhilasita-sunyam [BRS 1.1.11]. Make all your material desires zero.

Visala: Thank you very much.

Prabhupada: That is Krsna conscious. You should only desire to serve Krsna. [break] …clear or not?

Visala: Very clear. Thank you very much.

Harikesa: What if a person doesn’t desire material enjoyment, but still, there is so much dirt?

Prabhupada: Hm? Who is that person who has no material desires?

Harikesa: A person really wants to be Krsna conscious, but somehow or another, so much dirts gets in the way.

Prabhupada: Yes. Dirt means it is not yet zero. I said that all material desires should be made zero. Anyabhilasita-sunyam [BRS 1.1.11].

Harikesa: As soon as the desires completely change, then everything else is purified.

Prabhupada: Yes. As Arjuna said, karisye vacana tava, nasto mohah: “Now my illusion is over. I agree to act as you say.” This is Krsna conscious. Nasto moha smrtir labdh tvat prasadan madhusudana. [break] The moha is there. Moha means these desires are illusion, like dreaming. In dream we see so many things. They are all false. In dreaming I am seeing that somebody is coming to kill me but there is nobody, but still, I am dreaming. This is called moha. So when one is free from moha, then he’s Krsna conscious. The whole material world is going on under such illusion. Therefore it is called maya. Hare Krsna. Thank you. (end)