Room Conversation
with Madhudvisa and others
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
August 17, 1977, Vrndavana

Prabhupada: It doesn’t matter. Live like grhastha, but don’t leave. So where you are staying now?

Madhudvisa: I just came from Hawaii.

Prabhupada: Where is your wife?

Madhudvisa: She’s there. I just had a baby boy.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Madhudvisa: I just had a son.

Prabhupada: That’s nice.

Madhudvisa: I called him Abhay. I hope that’s all right.

Prabhupada: So remain as grhastha and render your service. There is no harm. If one could not proceed, it doesn’t matter. Failure is the pillar of success. Then try. Again you shall try. Where is Srutakirti? How are you?

Srutakirti: Very well, thank you.

Prabhupada: Srutakirti is also grhastha. So jointly you can work and improve this movement. That is our ambition. Grhe ba banete thake, ha gauranga bole dake, narottama mage tara sanga. “Either he remains at home or as a sannyasi, if he is devotee of Lord Gauranga, I want his association.” That is Narottama Thakura’s… Grhe ba banete thake, ha gauranga bole dake, narottama mage tara sanga. So follow the principles, and whichever position is suitable. Don’t be carried away by the waves of maya. Capture Caitanya Mahaprabhu and you’ll be saved. Is that all right? Don’t leave us. You are quite… At least you made advance. You are one of the important devotees. So don’t lose that position now. Manage in the position you want to remain. Now Gaurasundara has also come. So I’m glad to see that you are… Your bunch of hair is long. Yes. Cut it. So give them place to stay nicely.

Tamala Krsna: Prasadam.

Prabhupada: Prasadam. And remain here for some time. Of course, according to my horoscope, these days are my last days. But if Krsna saves, that is a different thing. They have calculated eighty-two years and two days?

Tamala Krsna: Eighty-one years, five months, and twenty-eight days.

Prabhupada: That is the…, according to calculation of my horoscope. Eighty-one years will be completed, and eighty-second year will begin. It doesn’t matter I leave this body. Even in death I’ll live. One year before or one year after… Now as far as possible, I have trained you. Try to follow the principles. And go ahead. Don’t be set back by maya’s tricks. Go ahead, forward, at any cost. Bhaktivinoda Thakura said… So many obstacles are coming. Maya is strong. And still, we are going forward. That’s all right.

Devotees: Jaya Srila Prabhupada. [break]

Srutakirti: …started on the beach walk at Pico Blvd. and went down to Venice Beach. That’s where you used to walk, on Venice Beach.

Prabhupada: Oh, it started from the beach.

Srutakirti: Yes. All along the beach for two miles.

Tamala Krsna: A lot of people?

Srutakirti: Oh, thousands, tens of thousands of people. They served prasadam. I don’t know how many. Several thousand. It was much bigger than San Francisco.

Tamala Krsna: Bigger?

Srutakirti: Yes. I was at both. It was very big. It was… I think it was the best that I have seen. The carts were very beautifully decorated with nice carnations all over.

Tamala Krsna: People pulled it?

Srutakirti: Yes. They had no problem with the people pulling. There was nice kirtana and a very nice feast. And Sudama Maharaja was there with his players. They put on a play. That was the…

Tamala Krsna: They liked that?

Srutakirti: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: What preparations did they serve at the feast?

Srutakirti: For free they had an orange lassi and halava and a sweet and a nice potato vegetable with sour cream. And they had a sweet booth, and I think they made about four or five thousand dollars selling sweets right at the beach walk. They had watermelon and samosas they were selling. It was a very big day.

Tamala Krsna: Good weather.

Srutakirti: Excellent weather. It was hot.

Tamala Krsna: Los Angeles has good weather.

Prabhupada: Hm. Very good weather.

Srutakirti: Hawaii’s weather is (laughs)…, it’s better.

Prabhupada: So I wanted to return again.

Srutakirti: If not for the traveling, it would certainly be the best place to be for your health. I remember last time when you were sick, you recovered very well in Hawaii.

Prabhupada: Let us see. Tamala Krsna wants me, wants to go back to…

Tamala Krsna: I was encouraging Prabhupada to… I said that if he goes to the Western temples, that the welcome from his disciples would be so much that he would live for hundreds of years.

Prabhupada: You can… Go a little… (Bengali)

Srutakirti: Tamala? Srila Prabhupada wanted to see the candles.

Prabhupada: Hm.

Srutakirti: These are what we’ve just started.

Prabhupada: Oh.

Srutakirti: Starting Monday, they’ll be selling these in Waikiki.

Tamala Krsna: You want a light on, Srila Prabhupada? They’re really nice.

Srutakirti: These are small ones. They come to twice as big. These here we would sell for twelve dollars.

Prabhupada: (laughs) Hare Krsna.

Srutakirti: And the bigger ones, they will sell for twenty-five dollars.

Tamala Krsna: People buy them?

Srutakirti: Yes. This works. And these cost about two dollars to make and about twenty minutes to carve.

Prabhupada: Beautiful.

Srutakirti: There’s a little science. They dip in all different color wax.

Tamala Krsna: It actually costs two dollars to make, though.

Srutakirti: The wax. The wax is about two dollars’ worth of wax. So it’s very profitable. Especially in Hawaii and Waikiki it will be very lucrative business.

Tamala Krsna: How much you can make in one day, profit?

Srutakirti: Last year in Toronto they made seventy thousand dollars in two months, profit, during the Christmas season.

Prabhupada: (laughs) Hare Krsna. Where is the scarcity of money? (laughter)

Srutakirti: Also it is a very excellent business for householders in our movement.

Prabhupada: You American boys, you know how to earn money. Now you have learned how to spend it for Krsna. It is wonderful.

Srutakirti: It is very nice, because when you burn the candle it only burns on the inside, so you can burn the candle and still keep this attractive…

Prabhupada: Oh. Outer cover.

Srutakirti: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: So you keep that permanently.

Prabhupada: Oh, this is made of…, the outer portion is made of candle? No.

Srutakirti: Yes, all wax. Most of it is all just plain white wax, and then you have different color waxes, tanks of different colors so you’ll dip it in one tank. You have to do that several times. And then they just get a knife and slit on different angles and twist it.

Prabhupada: Something artistic, wonderful.

Tamala Krsna: It’s really attractive. Gurukrpa Maharaja was telling me that the people, not just young people, but people of all ages are attracted to buying such a nice-looking thing. Even an old grandmother would be proud to have such a candle, not just young people. All ages, all types.

Prabhupada: Get a new life all around. No depression, no hopelessness. Is it not? American boys and girls, they became so much depressed out of hopelessness. Now here is a life, future. Your latest Back to Godhead is very nice. (indistinct)

Tamala Krsna: Prabhupada liked that “Prabhupada Speaks Out.”

Prabhupada: And now our Hamsaduta is speaking.

Satsvarupa: Yes, we’re printing that, “Prabhupada’s Disciple Speaks Out.” (laughter)

Prabhupada: Yes, that title I gave you. He has cornered one Dr. Kovoor. You have read that?

Satsvarupa: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: Did you get any response?

Satsvarupa: No. We just have this letter.

Tamala Krsna: Dr. Kovoor has responded, and now Hamsaduta has booked a hall and challenged him in all the newspapers to produce a mosquito. Free admission. They’re serving halava prasadam.

Prabhupada: Actually, in mosquito you’ll find the same arrangement like a big airplane, that wings, the body… But see the wonderful thing that not only there is mechanism but there is a pilot also. But your, this 747, it is big, there is mechanism, but pilot you have to bring outside. This is our challenge. And millions of such planes are born without your scientific knowledge. You produce one, then come to combat with God. This is our challenge. Simply jugglery of words, “We have manufactured this element, that element. Now, in future, we are going to…,” this nonsense we shall not allow. Do it now. Hm? What do you think?

Srutakirti: Also, flying over here, that 747 I was flying on was three hours late because of some mechanical difficulty. So even they make it, they don’t make it very nicely.

Prabhupada: Imperfect.

Satsvarupa: The scientists are spending more and more time now on death with these weapons. There’s more and more new bombs that they’re making. So this is all they can do, is how to accelerate death.

Prabhupada: Die.

Balavanta: Now one British physician has said that anyone over a certain age should be killed. Big, big physician. That is public, all over. He said “The old people will not like it, but the young people will accept my proposal.”

Tamala Krsna: And he’s older man.

Balavanta: He’s young.

Tamala Krsna: He’s young. If he were old, we could suggest that he should be the first.

Prabhupada: What? What is? What is that?

Balavanta: Big British physician, he has proposed…

Prabhupada: British?

Tamala Krsna: English. One British physician has proposed that now all old people should be killed to make room for enough young people.

Balavanta: He says they are useless in society. Actually they haven’t taken sannyasa, they’re not preaching, so these old people are simply useless.

Prabhupada: Actually they are useless. (laughter) So our challenge to this science society is all right? Hm? What do you think?

Satsvarupa: Challenge them to produce even a small living being? What can he do? He can only say, “In the future.”

Prabhupada: That is useless. Then kill them. No future. Immediately. Why future?

Tamala Krsna: Practically the scientific community is going to realize that you’re their most…, biggest opposition. They’re going to come to appreciate that because you’re the only one, Srila Prabhupada, who has dared to challenge all of these scientists. And as your representatives, when they see what we’re…

Prabhupada: Because they… Nowadays people say “We don’t want any sentiment, religious. We want science.” Rascal, where is your science?

Balavanta: They have only blind faith. “Big bang,” all these things. There’s no evidence, no proof, simply blind faith. And but for you, no one is challenging. They would simply go unchallenged.

Tamala Krsna: It said in the article that in Ceylon, this man Kovoor has been challenging and being victorious for decades, challenging everyone, “There is no God. There is no soul.” But now it said for the first time someone has turned the tables on him and challenged him for the first time. He never expected such a thing.

Prabhupada: And public applauded.

Tamala Krsna: What about the doll project? That nice museum?

Satsvarupa: Yes. Some big photographers, they are very much attracted, so they made a new, a second set of the changing bodies for the (faulty recording) …on a mountain, some mountain, or a large hill in California, and all day this national publicity photographer took pictures of it for the press. He said he wants to make this the best-known picture of the year. I don’t know where it’s going to be released, but he wants to have it put in a big magazine. There’s two of them. They both wanted the rights to take pictures of it. So they let the more famous one of the two… (indistinct)

Srutakirti: They set that exhibit up at the Ratha-yatra festival. They had one large tent of the “Changing of the Bodies” exhibit, and myself and another devotee went to go see it, but there were so many people in line that we changed our mind. Several hundred people were standing waiting to see that exhibit. It’s going to be very famous, “Changing of the Bodies.”

Prabhupada: It is a new thing. Many people come to see in our exhibition… [break]

Satsvarupa: …sell whatever they produce, whatever they print. There hasn’t been increase much.

Tamala Krsna: It’s staying at about the same pace. The reason is… They could increase, but the reason it’s not is that more emphasis is going into increasing the big books. The magazine’s keeping pretty much at a steady rate of nearly half a million a month, and they are pushing to increase the big book distribution. Otherwise it would be very easy to increase. In other words, wherever we want to place the emphasis.

Prabhupada: So books are selling nice? (end)