Morning Walk Conversation Woman Devotee: I’m trying to collect for making vases. Prabhupada: Hm? What is that? Devotee: She’s making vases, flower arrangements. Aksayananda Swami: …only had one sweeper so I wasn’t able to engage him, but I got some soda to do it with. Hopefully today this morning he will start. Prabhupada: Bicycle was available, forty-five rupees. Aksayananda Swami: Accha. Now they’re 250 almost three hundred rupees. Prabhupada: And very first class bicycle like Triumph BA. BA? What is that, BS? Aksayananda Swami: BSA. Prabhupada: Ha, BSA. Eighty rupees, eighty-five. Harikesa: Visvambhara’s cost 500. Prabhupada: Now that must be. Everything has risen. Smarahari: ….material is not so good also, the material. Prabhupada: Ha? Smarahari: The steel is not so good. Prabhupada: Now? Devotee: (indistinct) Now, (degraded?)… Aksayananda Swami: Price has risen and quality has lessened. (pause) Prabhupada, you know the ISKCON centres you have started they are just like actually Vaikuntha, they are so nice. Even the Gaudiya Matha centres were not so nice. Just like an installation of Vaikuntha. They’re so clean and nice. (indistinct) …help becoming devotees by visiting your centers. Becomes almost automatic. Prabhupada: Follow the regulative principles, it will remain, always Vaikuntha. Otherwise again material world. Aksayananda Swami: Yes. Prabhupada: Free hotel. (laughs) That’s all. And free hotel will not endure. Aksayananda Swami: No. Prabhupada: Svayam eva sphuraty adah. By service spirit beginning with tongue Hare Krsna. Then everything is revealed, Vaikuntha atmosphere… Sethji has not come out. Aksayananda Swami: Of course we accept, ah, when you tell us to chant sixteen rounds, we accept that figure as being, in perfect faith, that you’re the acarya, but ah, what if others we wanted to convince, is there any, any ah, sastr… Is there any Vedic verse we can refer to to corroborate that at least they must chant sixteen rounds. Or that many number of names? Prabhupada: No. In the sastra it is not said like that… Aksayananda Swami: I see. Prabhupada: It is said, sankhy-purvakah… Aksayananda Swami: Sankhy-purvakah. Prabhupada: You must fix up. Aksayananda Swami: Counting. Prabhupada: You must fix up in numerical strength. Aksayananda Swami: I see. Prabhupada: Whatever you can. Aksayananda Swami: Yes. Prabhupada: But I have fixed up sixteen rounds, because you cannot do. Aksayananda Swami: That’s all we can do. Prabhupada: (smiling, touch of irony) Yes. That also is difficult. Aksayananda Swami: Yes. (laughing) Prabhupada: Otherwise, Haridasa Thakura was chanting 300,000. So, That is not possible. You should not imitate, but whatever you fix up you must do. Aksayananda Swami: Yes. Yes. Prabhupada: That is wanted. Aksayananda Swami: Yes. I was told in the beginning you asked the first disciples to chant 64 rounds? Prabhupada: Yes. l asked them to chant 32? Prabhupada: (grinning) Hm. Aksayananda Swami: Is that correct? Prabhupada: Sankhy-purvaka nama-gana-natibhih. Sankhya purva, or numerical strength must be there. And you should follow rigidly. Aksayananda Swami: So if, if we are serious and sincere, it means that that sixteen will increase to, ah, to continuously chanting. Prabhupada: You can do also now. It’s not that because I’ve finished sixteen rounds… Aksayananda Swami: No. Prabhupada: You can increase. But that sixteen must be finished. Aksayananda Swami: Yes. (pause) What I mean is, that’s to bring us to the platform of chanting constantly. That at least we do that numerical number, finally we may be able to do, if we’re fortunate to chant constantly day and night. Prabhupada: Yes. Aksayananda Swami: Some of the members of the Gaudiya Matha who say they chant 64 rounds, they are unable to ah, ahh, refrain from sleeping too much, from eating too much. Prabhupada: How do you know that he’s eating too much? Aksayananda Swami: I was staying at one about a year ago. When I was travelling I stayed a few days at some of the places. At night they would have a whole meal… Prabhupada: Hm. Aksayananda Swami: …big, big meal. They would be sitting eating for one hour. Then in the morning they were all tired and very dull. Prabhupada: Huh huh. (laughing) Aksayananda Swami: Then again at lunch time and after that again sleep. They couldn’t do anything else, there was no time for preaching or for distributing books or… But yet they were supposed to be doing 64 rounds. That was in Vishakapatnam. Prabhupada: Oh. Aksayananda Swami: They were all very fat. Prabhupada: What is time now? Devotee: Five to seven. …here now. I’ve never been there but I heard there are a lot… reports Cit-sukhananda prabhu is there now. Prabhupada: Haa. Aksayananda Swami: …(Gaudiya Matha) devotees, your godbrothers and the older devotees are all looking to be pretty alright, but the younger ones, our age, they are unable to continue… Prabhupada: Hare Krsna (to a bypasser). Aksayananda Swami: …keep the standard. And many of them they have tried to come and join us. Prabhupada: Ha? Aksayananda Swami: Many of them, they ask to join us even though they are initiated by others. So should we allow them to come or…? Prabhupada: No. Aksayananda Swami: No. That’s what I thought. I wasn’t sure about that. Prabhupada: Why they want to join? Aksayananda Swami: Because in their centers there’s no, there doesn’t seem to be so much transcendental activity like you have given us. They don’t get that. And if they come and see us they see the devotees are dancing and happy and engaged. The conditions are clean and so on… Prabhupada: So, you can try one or two. If you find that they’re alright… Aksayananda Swami: Yes. Doesn’t matter. Prabhupada: Yes. (pause) We can purchase some of those fields but where is the man? We can grow our own food. (slight pause) They have now learned from the Western countries to run! (jogger goes past) (laughs) And without caring for the field. Hm? Field working is very troublesome and this running is very easy. Hari-sauri: Running out of breath. (pause) Meets some one on the road. Prabhupada: Ha? Man: (mumbling) …Only Mayapur, eh, Caitanya Chandrodaya Mandir temple is ahh, undoubtedly, eh, ahh Hari… ahh, eheh, ahh, (mumbles something more) Prabhupada: Scientists say, is there any living entity in the sun globe? Aksayananda Swami: No. They don’t, they say there’s nothing. Prabhupada: Simply everything here? Aksayananda Swami: Yes. That’s what they say. Prabhupada: And especially in Europe and America! (everyone laughs) Hare Krsna! They say there is nothing. They have gone there? They have seen? Aksayananda Swami: Not very intelligent. Prabhupada: Ha? Aksayananda Swami: Not very intelligent… [break] Jnana: …nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen… Prabhupada: So who, who put all this energy there? Where from nitrogen came? Jnana: That they don’t know. Prabhupada: Therefore they are rascals. Therefore they are rascals. They do not know, something, and they are speaking on the subject matter. Is it not nonsense? Harikesa: We know there’s no life on the sun because we can look at a fire here and we see there’s no life. Prabhupada: But you are blind. You have no eyes to see. Harikesa: Well we have our instruments and we look through… Prabhupada: So what is the use of it? Anything made by rascal, is that perfect? Harikesa: Well it’s better than some mythological book! Prabhupada: No, book also, you write book and you want to believe, others your book. That is also book. Why do you write scientific book? Harikesa: Well they’re proven, those other books… Prabhupada: What is proven? You cannot say what is the chemical there, wherefrom came. Is that proof? “We cannot say.” Is that proof? Harikesa: Well we know how they interact. We may not know how they got here but we know what they do once they are here. Prabhupada: No… Knowledge means to find out the source. That is knowledge. Where from it comes. There is a good example we studied in our childhood. A child was very intelligent so he was beating on a drum, so he was very much inquisitive, “Where from the sound is coming?” Then he cut the surface… (laughing) That is intelligence. Inquisitive… where from the sound is coming? Although it was childish but that is innate intelligence. Hari-sauri: Scientists are trying to do that. They are taking… Prabhupada: And that is alright. In future! (laughter) Smarahari: The scientists say that the sun is made of certain elements and all the stars they are made of the same… Prabhupada: Then why don’t you make an imitation sun here? At night so that you may save so many expenses. So much expenses for electric. The rascal. If you know the chemicals then you make it. Ha? What do they say? Smarahari: They say there are many suns… but… Prabhupada: That’s alright. Make you one sun, if you know! Many suns but you have not made anyone of them. You just try to make one, then I shall see your intelligence. Huh? What do you say? Anybody? Aksayananda Swami: They cannot do. Devotee (1) (woman): They don’t have enough power. Prabhupada: Huh? Then why do you say nonsense! If you have not enough power there must be somebody powerful than you—you have to admit that—who has made all these things. But you are rascal you have not… You are simply, ahh, what is called? Speculating. That in future we shall be powerful. But the powerful is already there. What is your credit? More powerful-) you cannot conceive even how powerful He a scientist. Huh? Is that alright? What is your value? The already powerful is there, who has manufactured these things. And you are expecting in future you’ll be powerful; therefore you are more powerful. Just see their folly. If you are powerful then make it, another imitation sun. Harikesa: (half joking) I’m seriously speaking, if we made another one the whole place would become too hot. Prabhupada: Hah. So you are scientist, you protect yourself. (laughter) Devotee (2): Scientists aren’t very intelligent because today he big thing in the country politically is that whole world thinks they are running out of energy on one hand, and on the other hand the whole world believes that the scientists can solve all the problems and get to know the absolute truth but if they… Prabhupada: They are creating problems. Devotee (2): Yes, they’re creating problems. Prabhupada: (sounds of lots of birds in background) (stops) Birds and beasts, they’re living without any scientists—they’re more happy. Harikesa: But they’re freezing in the cold and they’re… Prabhupada: No, no one is freezing. That is you are speaking but they are not freezing. Even int the coldest part of the country, Greenland, the animals are living quite nicely. The birds and many animals. Hari-sauri: But if we preach like that to them, then they’ll say ‘then what’s wrong with becoming an animal then’? Prabhupada: Huh? But you are less than an animal. Talking nonsense. Put forward the problems, summarise janma-mrtyu-jar-vyadhi solve these problems. Harikesa: Well we can solve the problem of birth by just killing all the children. Prabhupada: (laughing) That is not solving, the birth is already there, therefore you are killing. (everyone laughing) Aksayananda Swami: Birth is still there. Prabhupada: No. Because there is birth therefore you are killing. So birth problem is not solved. Harikesa: No, no, no. We’re killing before birth. Prabhupada: What is this before birth. The child is already there… mother’s womb. Prabhupada: Ah. That is you rascal you can say. Unless he has (sic) no life, how it is growing? Such a rascal… Harikesa: It’s a lump. Prabhupada: …they cannot understand. Does a dead child grow? Simply speaking nonsense! Harikesa: That’s their whole argument for abortion. Prabhupada: That’s alright but… Harikesa: You just finished it! (laughing) Prabhupada: …but our point is, the birth problem is not solved. If there are unwanted population, you kill them that does not mean the population problem is solved. Hari-sauri: They’re not actually seeing the actual causes of the problems. Prabhupada: Hm? Hari-sauri: They’re not actually seeing the causes of the problems so they’re trying to adjust to them. Prabhupada: What is that? Hari-sauri: They’re simply trying to make so many adjustments to the problems but they are not solving the cause. Prabhupada: Yes. That adjustment is not solution. Aksayananda Swami: You said once, putting the weight from your head to your shoulder. Prabhupada: Ha? Aksayananda Swami: You are carrying a heavy weight I remember you said once. You’re carrying heavy weight here, to take the pain you put it here. Then again back here. But still the weight is there. Prabhupada: Yes. Harikesa: The scientists came up with another one for enjoyment. That they cut this little cord that makes the sperm come into the semen and in this way they can have sex life like anything and they’re actually not killing. (Man shouts greeting in background) Prabhupada: Hare Krsna. Jai! Jaya. Semen, what is that? Harikesa: Well they say anyway, that… into the semen so they cut this little cord, that tube or something, that has the semen go into the sperm, so the sperm never gets into the semen. So therefore they can have sex life but they’ll be no reproduction. Prabhupada: So one may check, two may check, what about millions? Supposing they can check in that way, it may be possible for one or two, or a dozen, but what about millions and millions? Nature’s way. Harikesa: That’s if they, they’re doing this in… Prabhupada: In future. That will solve in future. Harikesa: They were giving prizes to people who are doing this. Prabhupada: Yes. Harikesa: Like TV sets. Prabhupada: Mutual ‘present’ society. (everyone laughing) (front bell of temple ringing as Prabhupada enters grounds) Hiranyakasipu civilization, and we are presenting Prahlada civilization. So this is a struggle, but ultimately Prahlada will come out triumphant. Hare Krsna (to bystander) and Hiranyakasipu will be killed. Jaya! (Walks into temple) (end).
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
December 11, 1975, Vrndavana