751014 - Conversation - Johannesburg

Conversations by Date, 1975

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Listen to a 'Nectar Drop' created from this Conversation

751014R1-JOHANNESBURG - October 14, 1975 - 19:47 Minutes

Prabhupāda: Nothing happens accidentally. According to Vedic literature, there is no such word as "accident." The word is adṛṣṭa: there is cause; I cannot see it. Adṛṣṭa. It is not in my vision, but there is cause. There is no question of accident.

Harikeśa: What about when somebody is born with three arms or eight toes?

Prabhupāda: There is karma, cause, but I cannot ascertain. To me the cause is invisible. Therefore we take adṛṣṭa. But there is cause.

Harikeśa: They always reason that because sometimes somebody is born like that, that sometimes somebody could be born from an ape, like a man.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Harikeśa: Over a very long period of time . . . let's say in one ape somebody was born without hair, and then after a long period of time, in the same line from that person who was born without hair . . .

Prabhupāda: But why the ape does not give birth now?

Harikeśa: But we have not seen all the apes.

Prabhupāda: But how do you suggest?

Harikeśa: It's just a theory.

Prabhupāda: Then you'll . . . then what you have not seen, how you can suggest? What is not in your experience, how you can suggest? Then anyone will suggest any nonsense, and we will have to accept?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So that is the rascaldom.

Prabhupāda: That is rascaldom. How you can suggest?

Harikeśa: Even he says it was just a theory.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But now, Prabhupāda, they say that they have been to the moon, and we're saying that the moon is so far away. And they have their pictures also to prove it.

Prabhupāda: Picture you can manufacture here.

Harikeśa: And they have earth dust as if it came from the moon.

Prabhupāda: And the other scientist says this kind dust can be had here. So what is the proof they went there? It can be collected here.

Harikeśa: And their dust does not reflect. They say the moon is reflective, but the dust and the pictures, it was all dark gray. No reflection.

Prabhupāda: So therefore if I say that they did not go to the moon, how they can support?

Harikeśa: They cannot prove. They are so clever and sophisticated with their nonsense, they can even make the astronauts believe . . .

Prabhupāda: Therefore I asked you to ask them, "Why Sunday first and Monday next?"

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's very conceivable that they could have tricked everyone. They simply have a video. They go up in a space ship around. They simply show a film from the space ship back to the earth, how they were practicing in the Arizona desert, and they collected some rocks and took it with them. It's very easy.

Harikeśa: Śaṅkara dāsa, you know, in Bombay? He was in the CIA. And they . . . when he was in Vietnam, they knocked him out one day and they brought him to a dentist, and they took out three of his teeth and they put in these little transistors. And these little transistors were connected to his brain. And they would talk to him and make him do things by speaking into these transistors into his brain. And if he ever said anything wrong . . . like he was not supposed to reveal secrets. And if he ever revealed a secret, they would try to kill him by making a signal go to his brain, and they can explode his brain. So conceivably they can trick the astronauts completely like that by putting things and making them think like they went to the moon.

Prabhupāda: Śaṅkara dāsa?

Harikeśa: Yes. He was saying . . . and when he got out of the Army he had so much pain in his teeth he went to a dentist, and he took out all of his teeth. That's why he has no teeth, because all of his teeth had these little things inside them. And one . . .

Prabhupāda: He is in Bombay now?

Harikeśa: Yes, he's the gardener, you know, the one who gives you the flower every morning.

Prabhupāda: So he was troubled.

Harikeśa: Oh, yes. He had very much trouble because of it.

Prabhupāda: So he has got artificial teeth? No.

Harikeśa: No. Now he has no teeth. He's getting some teeth. They're making some. The dentist is working free in Bombay.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The CIA, they're going to build a television set in his mouth. (laughing)

Harikeśa: They do that with all their men, he said. They put things in the mouth so that they can control the people. And they listen to what they say, because they can also hear anything he says. So somebody is listening all the time to all their special agents under the ground. They never come out of the ground. They stay under the ground all the time, and they listen to all the secret agents and all the conversations. And they control them. They speak things to them, tell them what to eat.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Demoniac.

Harikeśa: He says they even control the president that way. They can even make the president go crazy or kill him if he ever says . . . does . . . becomes a traitor or something like that.

Prabhupāda: Dangerous, huh? That is CIA?

Harikeśa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: The CIA is maintained by government?

Harikeśa: Oh, yes. That's why everybody is very afraid.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Sometimes they think that the government is maintained by the CIA. (laughing)

Harikeśa: The CIA even has laser beam guns where they can shoot somebody with this laser beam gun and they disintegrate completely, like they never existed. They shoot light out of a gun and it just goes tssh—completely finished. (laughs) They're so crazy. (break)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Photo?

Prabhupāda: Gram.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Photogram. Photogram.

Harikeśa: That's out here?

Prabhupāda: We saw one advertisement. So we are remaining these three, four only?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: There's three of us. We're flying, and then Rūpa and Gokulendra will drive the gray car back to Johannesburg. One devotee will drive to the airport, Vapu.

Harikeśa: I'm almost finished.

Prabhupāda: They are making so many wonderful things, but they cannot stop death.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They just make it quicker.

Prabhupāda: After all, they are going to die. In Bengal it is said the topmost ill-naming . . . what is that? Ill-naming?

Harikeśa: Defamy?

Prabhupāda: Defamy. Gāli. Just like I say, "You rascal fool, you . . ." so many things. I rebuke. What is that?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Defamy.

Prabhupāda: Defamy. So the last defamy is that you die. I say: "You are rascal. You are fool. You are this and that." This is all not so dangerous. But if I say that "You die," that is the last defamy. So in spite of all their clever invention, they are going to die. Then what is the value? That you cannot check. "I have done wonderful things"—that's all right, invention, so many things. That's all right. "But what about my death?" Have you done anything that you can save yourself? You, Mr. Darwin, you have so experience. Millions of millions of years you have got. Why don't you stop your death? You cannot live more than a hundred years, and you are talking of millions of years. What is this nonsense? You stop your death, live for millions of years and see things. So where is that power? Then what is your value? You live for fifty years, sixty years, or utmost hundred years, and you talk of millions of years?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Actually, our theory, even taken as a theory, that the soul is there and enters the body, and when the soul leaves, the body is finished, it's very palatable, very palatable. Very few people argue with it. It's simply that they've been miseducated. Therefore they are cheated. They accept.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the difficulty, that wholesale people have been miseducated. That is our protest. And this miseducated is ruling the whole world, all rascals. (break)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: . . . cheated in some business transaction, they become very mad, angry, so much so sometimes they want to kill the opposing party. But when they are cheated in this way they don't mind so much, because their sense gratification, either way, is there. So only people who are serious about understanding the truth will accept these things.

Prabhupāda: We therefore submit our statement as it is stated in Bhagavad-gītā. You cannot say that we are cheating, because we are presenting something authorized, which is accepted, that's all. So we are not cheater. You may accept or not accept; that is your business. But we are presenting something standard. That's all.

Harikeśa: And it works.

Prabhupāda: Works or not works . . . suppose it does not work, but still, it is standard. You cannot deny it. Bhagavad-gītā is read all over the world.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Even the scientists are not in agreement over Darwin's theory.

Harikeśa: Actually, that's why they say we are dogmatic, because it never changes. It doesn't develop.

Prabhupāda: How can it change? If it is correct, how it can be changed?

Harikeśa: They have no experience of anything . . .

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They have no experience of any truth which lasts.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that's it.

Harikeśa: So they say we are dogmatic.

Prabhupāda: It is not dogmatic.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That's true. They say that because our philosophy . . .

Prabhupāda: When I say: "Next February will be very nice season," it is not dogmatic. It is by experience. Last February or many other Februaries I have experienced. Therefore I say: "Next February will be like this." That is not cheating, neither dogmatic. That is experience. That example I gave many times, that a child asks from the father, "Father, what is this?" The father says: "My dear son, it is microphone. If you speak, it will be recorded." So I take it from my father this is microphone. So I may be child, but when I say: "It is microphone," that is correct, because I have taken from the authorities. If a child is asked, "What is this? Do you know?" if I say: "Yes, it is microphone," that is correct. And if he, the man, says: "How do you know it is microphone?" "My father said." Then he is correct. I may be disqualified as a child, but because I have taken the words from my qualified father, it is correct. That is our process. I don't claim that I am very big man, but we repeat only what we have heard from Kṛṣṇa. That's all. You may accept it, not accept. That is your business. Therefore I named it "Kṛṣṇa consciousness." We are speaking simply what Kṛṣṇa has said, and we are presenting Bhagavad-gītā as it is. This is our business. Now, in the market so many things are being sold, not that everything has got all customers. Our Kṛṣṇa consciousness may not be accepted by all. That is the case in everything. But what we are presenting, that is standard. We are not cheating.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Na danam na janam na sundarim (CC Antya 20.29, Śikṣāṣṭaka 4). We are not simply looking for followers.

Prabhupāda: Neither we are after false followers. If you agree, then you come. If you agree—"No illicit sex, no . . . yes . . ." Why? There is no "Why?" You have to accept it— then you come to me. That's all. If you like, you come; if you don't like, go away. I don't care for you. This is our policy. There is no "Why?" You may say "dogmatic," but it is not dogmatic, but it is standard from Bhagavad-gītā, from Vedic literature. Striya-suna-pana-dyuta yatra papas catur-vidhāh (SB 1.17.38): "Wherever there are these four kinds of sinful activities, oh, that is very dangerous place." So we have taken it. (break) Now everyone, when there are so many cars . . . I saw one advertisement, Ford car—that "Bring all '79's and compare. Ours is the best." You cannot condemn him. It is advertisement. "Bring all '79 cars, others, and compare with our car." You can have your consent. That is not cheating. So we say like that, that "Bring all knowledge and compare with Bhagavad-gita's knowledge." Now it is up to you if you accept this or don't accept it. That is not cheating. But these rascals, they are simply placing some bogus theory without any authorized statement: "All of a sudden monkey once gave birth." And where is that authority?

Harikeśa: Monkey . . .?

Prabhupāda: "Monkey gave birth to man, all of a sudden, millions of years . . ." Now, what is the support of your statement? Then anyone can say anything and it becomes science. You have no support. You are the first man you are saying like this, nonsense. Where is your support? You are support of your statement? Then everyone will say: "I have got some statement, and I support. I am the support."

Harikeśa: That's what they do.

Prabhupāda: Eh? That's it.

Harikeśa: That's how you become a big scientist. (end)