721025 - Conversation C - Vrndavana

Conversations by Date, 1972

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

721025R3-VRNDAVAN - October 25, 1972 - 36:10 Minutes

Devotee: Also in Los Angeles they are buying press?

Prabhupāda: That is small press. That is not for printing books; some small pamphlets.

Dr. Kapoor: But this is also being done well. This should be . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Gurudāsa: George is going to make any more records, recordings?

Prabhupāda: He has already made one record about our Hare Kṛṣṇa movement.

Gurudāsa: Really?

Prabhupāda: Yes, recent.

Gurudāsa: With talking on it, vocal?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Gurudāsa: With some talking on it?

Prabhupāda: That I do not know. Śyāmasundara is coming tomorrow. Where is that telegram?

Devotee (1): It's just here. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . India, I'll have to go South Africa. Johannesburg?

Dr. Kapoor: Johannesburg.

Gurudāsa: Johannesburg.

Prabhupāda: Johannesburg, yes. There also we are meeting with great success. And from Johannesburg, then I shall go to London. In Moscow also we have got a small center. Yes. I went to Moscow.

Dr. Kapoor: Russians running it?

Prabhupāda: Yes, Russians. Russian young boys are as good as Americans. By artificial means they have been checked. The Russian government is not good at all. Suppression. Simply suppression.

Dr. Kapoor: But they permit this kind of thing?

Prabhupāda: They do not permit, but they are holding class.

Dr. Kapoor: Holding class.

Prabhupāda: Yes, reading Bhagavad-gītā. And I am getting that boy married with my one French girl disciple. Then he will be strong. (laughs) We are also playing politics. You know that . . .

Gurudāsa: Mandākinī.

Prabhupāda: Mandākinī, yes.

Devotee (1): Very nice devotee.

Prabhupāda: Very nice. You have seen her?

Devotee (1): Very nice pujārī.

Prabhupāda: Very intelligent, educated, beautiful, everything. And I have asked her that, "You go to Russia and marry that boy." Yes. She has accepted.

Dr. Kapoor: She accepted.

Prabhupāda: Great risk.

Dr. Kapoor: Great risk.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Kapoor: Very great risk.

Prabhupāda: These rascals at any time can arrest anyone and keep in him the concentrate . Oh, it is a dangerous government. And they will take you anywhere, nobody will know. Just like even a great person, Krushchev, nobody knows his whereabouts.

It is a very dangerous government. But as they are advertising, people are not happy. Moscow city is nice, but it is old constructed. The same communistic government has not done anything. There are very big, big building, nice roads, everything, but they are all old, not new.

Devotee (1): What they are doing with their wealth?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Devotee (1): What they are doing with their wealth?

Prabhupāda: Wealth?

Devotee (1): What are they doing with their wealth if they are not investing it in economic . . .

Prabhupāda: They're simply spending for military, that's all.

Pañca-draviḍa: Bombs, missiles.

Prabhupāda: That is their business. They are keeping a strong military strength, that's all.

Gurudāsa: The sign of piety there is vegetarian.

Prabhupāda: Who says?

Gurudāsa: Dr. Chandra. He just came back.

Prabhupāda: From Russia?

Gurudāsa: From Russia again.

Prabhupāda: Nonsense. There is nothing but meat.

Gurudāsa: He said that some people who are religious, they are vegetarian.

Prabhupāda: I don't think there is any vegetarian, because in the store you will get only meat. There is no vegetable, no fruit. Śyāmasundara had to spend two hours for collecting food. There is no rice . . . (indistinct) . . . nothing. For vegetarians it is very, very difficult to live in Moscow.

Devotee (2): Just recently the Russians went to the United States and bought huge quantities of grains for Russia.

Prabhupāda: There are no grain.

Devotee (2): They bought some wheat.

Prabhupāda: It is a barren land only, icy land, that's all. Huge land icy.

Devotee (1): They are being punished.

Prabhupāda: And I was in month of June; still in the morning the wind was so cold. And there is double glass in every window. Double glass. Just like aeroplane, double. And at half past eleven in the month of June, when in your country it is half past eleven o'clock, that is evening.

And at half past three o'clock, morning. And still the little night, that is just like dusk—it is not completely dark. Yes. And laborer class . . .

Asun bhetare. Bhetare aste chaile asun. (Please come inside. If you wish to come inside, you may come.)

Keep it open. (break) . . . (indistinct)

Every corner of the street, Lenin's picture. All books are sold, they are Lenin. No other literature. You cannot get taxi. Poor men, they cannot pay for taxi. Very little number. When I was talking with Professor Kotovsky, so I asked him, "Now we shall go. Get me taxi." So he, "Yes Sir, it is Moscow." (laughter)

So he got down, he personally showed me, "Instead of taking taxi waiting, please go in this way when you go to your hotel." He showed me shortcut. People are walking, and they are running for the bus. It is not at all a rich country. A poor country. And if you see the shops, you will find old, shabby, just like antique shop. Because you cannot purchase generally; everything you have to purchase from government store, and in queue. It is botheration. And actually in India it is going to happen like this. Everything you have to purchase in queue. Here?

Dr. Kapoor: Oh, yes.

Prabhupāda: So you have to waste so much time.

Gurudāsa: Milk you have to purchase in queue.

Prabhupāda: Everything.

Pañca-draviḍa: I have experienced that directly in India, Prabhupāda, because I'm working with these merchants all the time, and the government is nationalizing and taking over one industry after another. They took over the control of flour, they took over the control of sugar, they've already got rice, then they took over the exportation of textiles. And I say: "Don't you have anything in your Constitution to prevent this?" They said: "No. We have voted in the government for six years; they can do as they like. The only way is to wait six years and vote them out again. But there is no provision . . ."

Prabhupāda: The future is not very nice. And government management means no one's servant.

Pañca-draviḍa: No what?

Prabhupāda: No one's servant. Everyone's servant means no one's servant. They are no one's servant.

Pañca-draviḍa: They will never give you anything.

Prabhupāda: Comparatively, life in foreign countries nice. Because I am seeing, from materialistic point of view. In America, you can get anything without any control. Any amount, anything.

Gurudāsa: There is more supply than demand.

Dr. Kapoor: Than demand, yes. That is the problem there: what to do with the stuff that you have got and that you are producing. That's an economic problem.

Pañca-draviḍa: Not just supply, quality. When you buy an orange and you have a glass of orange juice, it's orange, it's not yellow. (laughter)

Devotee (1): But by their lack of demand, we are reaping a harvest.

Prabhupāda: Yes, especially in California, oranges, if you compare orange here available . . . dates, first-class dates, first-class orange. There is watermelon. All season you get watermelon, karmuj. First-class watermelon. And karmuj. And what is that special karmuj produced in Keśi-ghāṭa? That greenish?

Gurudāsa: Honeydew?

Dr. Kapoor: There is no special name for it.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is special in Vṛndāvana. That greenish.

Dr. Kapoor: Special quality.

Prabhupāda: Yes, in your country it is called honeycomb. Honey . . .

Devotees: Honeydew.

Prabhupāda: Honeydew, yes. So I immediately remember your Keśi-ghāṭa karmuj, first class. So sweet, little greenish. But you can get all the year round. Actually America is favored. Therefore, I repeatedly say that you Americans, you are graced by God. You simply take this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you will become first-class nation. And actual, they are taking more than other countries. (break)

Devotee (1): India will become Communist also?

Prabhupāda: It has already begun. India will become Communist. (to guest) What do you think?

Dr. Kapoor: It's difficult to predict. I don't think so soon.

Gurudāsa: One Life Member very dramatically the other day said it is not around the corner . . .

Prabhupāda: Especially in Bengal they have become Communist.

Gurudāsa: She says we are amidst it.

Prabhupāda: Madras they have become Communist.

Gurudāsa: She says we are amidst Communism.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Gurudāsa: She said it is not around the corner, we are amidst it now.

Pañca-draviḍa: So it's very obvious.

Dr. Kapoor: We are in the midst of it.

Gurudāsa: That is what she said.

Pañca-draviḍa: Even the optimistic merchants and people you talk to, I say: "It is Communist government?" They say: "Well, it is Communist-minded government." The government has printed in the paper one headline recently that says by next March . . . what is that called, Rana, Rana or Rava, next March, calendar.

Prabhupāda: Ravan?

Pañca-draviḍa: Rava or something, a particular notation on the calendar, it corresponds to March or April, r-a something. I don't know the exact period of time. But by March, the government says they will completely . . . they want to completely take over the control of wheat by this time. They have already taken over the control of atta and flour and now suji. They want to take over the control of wheat and the control of sugar completely.

So all these things we are seeing is what they are doing, they are taking over control, they are rationing the items, but in the ration shop you can get 800 grams of the product and then you have to go out onto the market and buy at outrageous prices, because nobody can feed a family on 800 grams of sugar a month. It's very little for five people. The price of sugar has gone up over a rupee and a half since the government took over.

Prabhupāda: Ration means black market. (break)

Devotee (1): . . . especially in Bengal. (break) You come to Calcutta, we will keep you forever.

Pañca-draviḍa: But in Bombay we'll make better arrangements.

Prabhupāda: We have published one brochure. (break)

Pañca-draviḍa: . . . nicely in the Kṛṣṇa Book about the sacrifices of Vasudeva. Where Lord Kṛṣṇa speaks and says to the assembled sages and ascetics that, "Seeing you is the perfection of these eyes and perfection of life," and that, "Those persons who go to the holy places only to take bath there or to see the Deities in the temple, they are no better than animals like the ass."

I've been thinking that how you have presented this ISKCON movement as an assembly of devotees all over the world, so they don't even have to go to the holy places. Simply by walking into one of your temples is like walking down Vṛndāvana and having the association of these great ascetics and sages, because your teachings are there in your books . . . (indistinct)

Dr. Kapoor: . . . (indistinct)

Gurudāsa: Because I don't feel like spending money for . . . (indistinct) . . . (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . picture?

Dr. Kapoor: . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Similar Deity we'll have in this London Berkshire Palace.

Dr. Kapoor: They don't look like the Deities, They look like boy and girl.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Kiśora-Kiśorī. (break)

Dr. Kapoor: (indistinct) . . . get a closer look at it.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is very nice. People come to see the Deities in Bombay.

Dr. Kapoor: You brought Them from Jaipur?

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is very nice. And especially at New Vrindavan, also. Oh, Kṛṣṇa is so attractive.

Dr. Kapoor: But They're all from Jaipur. Jaipur is the place.

Devotee (3): We are just packing for sending one set of Jaipur . . . (break)

Prabhupāda: Vṛndāvana also you can get.

Indian man: Bombay will be very expensive. I think . . .

Prabhupāda: No, we don't pay anything. We work ourself.

Dr. Kapoor: Oh, I see. Then why not here in Vṛndāvana?

Prabhupāda: Yes, we can also have.

Dr. Kapoor: For publications there should be a central place.

Prabhupāda: In our ISKCON Press in New York, our men are working there.

Dr. Kapoor: That's fine.

Prabhupāda: We don't pay anything outside. We do everything ourself.

Dr. Kapoor: Good. Very good.

Prabhupāda: Even ordinary repairing, we do ourself. We cannot pay outsider, it is so expensive.

Dr. Kapoor: You should have that press here in Vṛndāvana. All this kind of work, reading, writing, printing, composing, it should be done here in Vṛndāvana. Because this is the proper place . . .

Prabhupāda: We . . . (indistinct) . . . botheration.

Dr. Kapoor: You don't pay . . . (indistinct) . . . in Bombay?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Dr. Kapoor: Bombay?

Prabhupāda: No.

Dr. Kapoor: No . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: No. There the people have a sufficient income. Here the Municipality has no income, the stress and after this all botheration. You cannot stock. Suppose if you want to stock fifty-thousand-worth paper, unnecessarily you have to pay five percent.

Gurudāsa: Five to ten percent.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Gurudāsa: Five to ten percent.

Prabhupāda: Five to ten percent. Now fifty thousand at five to ten percent, how much? Unnecessarily you have to octroi, and to take back that octroi, I have got experience when I was in Allahabad doing business, you know, to take back the octroi, it is hanging. I could not develop my wholesale business due to the octroi.

Then I arranged, because I was agent of Dr. Bose's factory. I was disbursing goods direct from Calcutta and sending bill from Allahabad. No, octroi botheration I have got experience. You cannot do any large-scale business, the rascal government do not follow it. Due to this octroi botheration, nobody can do any large-scale business. Either you have to keep your go-down beyond the octroi limit.

Dr. Kapoor: You can do that.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Dr. Kapoor: You can do that here in . . . because the octroi limit is very close to your building . . . (indistinct) . . . it's just . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Why the government is still keeping this octroi botheration, I do not know. It is old system. Practically in UP and Punjab, this octroi system. In Bihar there is no octroi, in Bengal there is no octroi. I think in Bombay also, Bombay, I mean Maharashtra province, there is no octroi. Only in UP and Punjab. There is so much botheration.

Gurudāsa: In Harayana also.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Gurudāsa: Harayana also.

Prabhupāda: Harayana also. (break)

Gurudāsa: . . . Guru-Gaurāṅga altar. When he saw that picture, he said: "Why is the door closed in the Guru-Gaurāṅga altar?"

Prabhupāda: No. There is no closed. There is no closed. No, these three doors are open. That is not Guru-Gaurāṅga, that is extra.

Gurudāsa: Oh, oh, I see.

Devotee (1): There is two extra. (break)

Dr. Kapoor: You have met?

Prabhupāda: Not regularly.

Dr. Kapoor: Not regularly.

Prabhupāda: I simply came to see what they are doing.

Dr. Kapoor: Which place did you come?

Prabhupāda: Kosi. You were present there.

Dr. Kapoor: I was there. My mother also was there. I took my initiation at Rādhā-kuṇḍa.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Dr. Kapoor: I was initiated at Rādhā-kuṇḍa.

Prabhupāda: In that parikrama?

Dr. Kapoor: In that parikrama.

Prabhupāda: And I was initiated in Allahabad after return from parikrama.

Dr. Kapoor: (indistinct) . . . parikrama. That way I am senior by you. (laughs)

Devotee (1): From Indian people in America, we have learned about that.

Dr. Kapoor: Huh?

Devotee (1): In America, we have learned from Indian people about that. (break)

Prabhupāda: Why not? You are qualified.

Dr. Kapoor: I do not like to leave, not that I don't like to visit foreign places. Just now, as a matter of fact, I don't have time to think of anything else except that work which . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Dr. Kapoor: Until I complete that work . . .

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, you have done nice. No, one thing is that if you come to foreign countries, because you have got qualification, you can speak in educational institution. They will welcome you.

Dr. Kapoor: was once offered an exchange of Doctorship by the United States government.

Prabhupāda: When?

Dr. Kapoor: That was in 1940 . . . 1950. I . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: When you were in service? (break) They come to see me. The, similarly, one psychologist and psychiatrist came to see me in Los Angeles. And many scientists come. Some of them are my disciples.

Gurudāsa: Did you ever . . .

Prabhupāda: Dr. Rao you know?

Dr. Kapoor: I know Dr. Rao.

Prabhupāda: He is a . . .

Dr. Kapoor: . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Yes, he is a scientist.

Dr. Kapoor: He is a scientist or something. What's he doing now about that machine?

Gurudāsa: Have you ever continued the correspondence with that heart surgeon?

Prabhupāda: No.

Gurudāsa: He was not serious?

Prabhupāda: No, he admitted. He admitted that, "You know better than us."

Gurudāsa: So then why he didn't scientifically try to find out more?

Prabhupāda: No, our process of presentation is different. Their process is different. But they can appreciate that we know better than them. The same example: just like we accept cow dung is pure. Why pure? Because Vedas says. Their scientific way is not like that. Is not that?

Dr. Kapoor: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They must prove by analysis, by chemical analysis. There is difference between the modern scientist and our process of understanding.

Gurudāsa: Dr. Kapoor has written an article about that, this question. The one that will be published.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Gurudāsa: The one that we will publish.

Prabhupāda: You have sent?

Gurudāsa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Our process is Kṛṣṇa says that He is the Supreme; we accept. Not blindly—because other ācāryas, they also accept. Now some rascal is taking advantage of that statement, "If Kṛṣṇa can say: 'I am the Supreme, I am God,' so I can also say." Māyāvādī philosophy. (break) . . . svāmīs could not do anything. He was turned . . . (indistinct) . . . there are so many. Vivekananda went in 1893, three years before my birth, and what he has done?

Dr. Kapoor: He returned converted.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Dr. Kapoor: He returned converted. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Yes. Instead of converting, he became converted. (break)

Devotee (1): . . . was kicked out.

Prabhupāda: Who is that?

Devotee (1): Swami Sacidananda.

Prabhupāda: He was kicked out?

Devotee (1): He was kicked out.

Prabhupāda: By?

Devotee (1): By the upper echelon of his . . . he was . . . they found he was having sex with his secretary. So she . . .

Prabhupāda: They are all, all like that.

Devotee (1): She told her husband, and they told him either he would have to leave or he would have to renounce the title of svāmī or he would have to lessen the restrictions on brahmacārī. So he refused to do all three, then he joined together . . . (indistinct) . . . this was told to me by a friend of Bhakti-jana's named Avery, who was one of . . . (break)

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) . . . Vivekananda also.

Dr. Kapoor:Huh?

Prabhupāda: Oder system . . . (Their system . . .) (indistinct) (break) Yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tucchaṁ (SB 7.9.45). (break)

Dr. Kapoor: (indistinct) . . . side.

Prabhupāda: Very nice.

Dr. Kapoor: Is it all right . . . (indistinct) . . . side?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Dr. Kapoor: How many rooms?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Dr. Kapoor: How many rooms?

Gurudāsa: Thirty.

Dr. Kapoor: Thirty rooms.

Gurudāsa: Small, behind the altar.

Prabhupāda: But the temple is very nice. Well kept.

Dr. Kapoor: Well kept.

Prabhupāda: It is colored nicely.

Devotee (1): If he gives to you, what will we make there?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Devotee (1): If the king gives to you, what will we make there?

Prabhupāda: We shall make a guesthouse for visitors. You are visitor now.

Devotee (1): Then you will have two temples in Vṛndāvana?

Prabhupāda: Yes. We can take all the temples. (laughter)

(break) . . . completely stop.

(break) . . . speak of God, "Here is a nonsense." This is the tendency in India also.

Dr. Kapoor: Fortunately, it's not so with the great majority of people.

Prabhupāda: Not people. I am speaking of the leaders.

Dr. Kapoor: Leaders. The new generation that is now coming up, they are mostly atheists.

Prabhupāda: These teachers came with that same . . . (indistinct) . . . although they have been . . . (indistinct) . . . (break)

Dr. Kapoor: Top-ranking scientists have begun to realize that they simply don't know anything.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Dr. Kapoor: Modern science, these top-ranking scientists—not the middle ones; the topmost scientists—they all say that, "We really do not know anything."

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is real . . . (indistinct)

Pañca-draviḍa: I was being trained up in this. For one-and-a-half years I was going to MIT in Boston and planning to go into this chemical, chemistry or chemical engineering or metallurgy, something like that. But I could see that actually the people around me, my student body, all the people in the school, they were so maladjusted and miserable that I decided,

"If this is the result of their scientific training, that they are so miserable, I'm going to leave here immediately," and I did so. I got out as quickly as I could. (break) . . . see that their training is just simply bringing them misery in life and, therefore, there is no purpose in acquiring such knowledge. And Prabhupāda describes it as being like the jewel on the hood of a snake—more dangerous.

Prabhupāda: Once I was invited to speak in that institution, MIT. So I questioned, "Where is your department of technology to understand the difference between dead body and living body?" So I spoke on this. So the students appreciated. After my lecture, they gathered around me. How do you explain?

What is that technology, why the man is dead? (break) Science is simply based on this bodily concept. Bodily, everyone. Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke (SB 10.84.13).

Dr. Kapoor: But about body also they don't know anything.

Prabhupāda: That also they have no perfect knowledge.

Dr. Kapoor: About matter they say . . . (indistinct) . . . has written a book in which . . . (break) (end)