730722 - Conversation with George Harrison - London
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Prabhupāda: . . . in your house?
George Harrison: Yes.
Prabhupāda: The first time you are seeing? (laughs)
George: Yes. I've just seen the photographs before. We saw many places which didn't turn out to be the one.
Prabhupāda: This village is also nice. I am walking daily, morning.
George: It's perfect.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. One priest came.
Śyāmasundara: Today? A priest? Ah. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: Yes. With a girlfriend. (laughs)
Śyāmasundara: Local priest or . . .?
Prabhupāda: I do not know. They told me that he is a priest.
Śyāmasundara: He had black, dressed in black?
Prabhupāda: No, no. He is ordinary dress. But they told me that he is priest. In Bombay we are going under some tribulation. You have seen this booklet?
George: No.
Śyāmasundara: They ruined our temple. The city, municipal authorities, knocked our temple down.
George: Who did?
Śyāmasundara: In Bombay, the city police. So we made a publicity from it. I understand, though, they have rebuilt?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Śyāmasundara: They have rebuilt it?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
George: Why? Why did they do that?
Prabhupāda: Oh, that's a long story.
Śyāmasundara: Long story, about the land. There was some dispute. We purchased it, and the other owners had tried to dispute it. So they were powerful with the police . . .
George: But they said you . . . they didn't want you to have the land or they said you didn't own the land?
Śyāmasundara: They said we really didn't, even though we paid for it. So they were powerful friends with the police, and they got the police to come and demolish the temple.
George: Really? With the Deities in there?
Śyāmasundara: They didn't destroy the Deities.
Prabhupāda: No, they were going to . . . not destroy; they dismantled the Deity room also. In the meantime another message came, "Don't go on further," so they stopped.
George: You'd expect it somewhere like in America, in the West. In India you wouldn't expect that.
Prabhupāda: No, this is an extraordinary incidence. So public is in our side. So you have got that marble you told me that . . .
George: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: He has said we can get it and use it for a temporary altar.
George: If we speak tomorrow to the people, you can have it the day after probably.
Śyāmasundara: Oh, that's really good. And we can install the Deities.
George: You keep it anyway, you know. Well, I know once you get the proper Deities you will have something else, but, I mean, then use that somewhere else.
Prabhupāda: I think you can fix up that platform permanently. And when your throne comes, you can place on that platform, altar.
(pause)
Sometimes you are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa?
George: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
George: I seem to keep going in cycles.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
George: I go around in circles. Maybe it's something to do with me being, you know, the Pisces. They show one fish going this way and one fish going that way.
Prabhupāda: Ah.
George: And periods when I just can't stop chanting, and then other periods where, you know, I turn into a demon again and then forget to . . .
Prabhupāda: (laughs) You are not demon. You are demigod. (laughs) Someway or other you have got attached to Kṛṣṇa. That will help you.
George: I mean, even at my worst . . . at my worst, I can always . . .
Prabhupāda: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam you are reading?
George: Pardon?
Prabhupada: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, you are reading ?
George: I'm reading the Gīta.
Prabhupāda: Bhagavad-gītā As It Is.
George: Yeah.
Prabhupada: Yes, that is . . . all answers are there.
George: And it goes . . . just read it over and over. You know, just one piece over and over.
Prabhupāda: Yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas tad tad evetaro janaḥ.
(aside) Just take . . . yes. Find out this verse.
Śyāmasundara: Jaya jagadish?
Prabhupāda: Yad. Y-a-d. Yad. Yad.
- yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas
- tad tad evetaro janaḥ
- sa yat pramāṇaṁ kurute
- lokas tad anuvartate
- (BG 3.21)
In this column you will find. In this column. Right.
Śyāmasundara: Right?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Up. Yad yad ācarati.
Śyāmasundara: . . . ācarati śreṣṭhas.
Prabhupāda: Ah, that's it.
Śyāmasundara:
- yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas
- tad tad evetaro janaḥ
- sa yat pramāṇaṁ kurute
- lokas tad anuvartate
- (BG 3.21)
Prabhupāda: You can read the diacritic marks?
George: Read what?
Prabhupāda: English transliteration?
George: Yes. I try to read this in the roman. But sometimes . . .
Śyāmasundara: This mark means long i, and short a and long a.
Prabhupāda: Ah. How to read, the instruction is there in the back side, how to read.
Śyāmasundara: Here, Prabhupāda . . .
George: Sometimes, like when you have the dots beneath the letters . . .
Prabhupāda: No, it is not difficult. If you practice little, the instruction is there.
George: Because when you see Kṛṣṇa spelled with the dots beneath, I mean that's the only way you can say it.
Prabhupāda: That is . . . the direction is here. You see, direction is here. I think at the back of Bhagavad-gītā also the direction is there.
Śyāmasundara: There is something, how to pronounce the words.
George: Yes. Although the problem is that if you're trying to read . . . if you're trying to understand . . .
Prabhupāda: No, you can understand my translation.
Śyāmasundara: But better to listen . . . for you, probably, to listen to a tape of Prabhupāda pronouncing Sanskrit, because you have musical ear.
George: Yes, I can learn anything by ear.
Śyāmasundara: By hearing it.
Prabhupāda: Ah, yes. Your hearing is very sharp. (laughs)
Śyāmasundara: Anyway, the translation is, "Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues."
Prabhupāda: So this is your duty now. (laughs) By the grace of Kṛṣṇa you are one of the great men. Although you are young man, but Kṛṣṇa has placed you in such a high position that there are many young men who follows you. So that is the instruction.
George: There is some . . . you know, Śyāmasundara and I were talking just on the way here, and it's like, when you commit yourself to something, in a way it's like putting your head on the chopping block. Because people, you know, somebody can turn around and chop it off, or it may be you're lucky and, you know, it doesn't get chopped off.
Prabhupāda: No, it is not chopping off.
George: I find that this, um . . . I find that the more commitment that you make, or that I make, even though it's such a little commitment, I mean, relatively speaking it's such a little one, now I'm getting in the area where I find that people are . . . it provokes, um . . .
Prabhupāda: Thoughts.
George: Well, sometimes it provokes bad reaction.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā?
Śyāmasundara: Sometimes people become agitated by his words.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Mūrkhāya upadeśo hi prakopāya na śāntaye (Hitopadeśa). There is a verse that if one is foolish, if you give him good instruction he becomes angry. Just like the example is given, payaḥ-pānaṁ bhujaṅgānāṁ kevalaṁ viṣa-vardhanaṁ: If you keep a snake and if you give him milk, the result will be that his poison will increase. Payaḥ-pānaṁ bhujaṅgānāṁ kevalaṁ viṣa-vardhanaṁ. So sometimes it happens that, ah, if one is foolish, if you give him good advice he becomes angry. Mūrkhāya upadeśo hi prokopāya śāntāya. But . . . has it happened like that? No, I don't think so.
George: I, you know, you can feel, I can feel a little animosity comes from people who, I don't know for what reason, but people . . .
Śyāmasundara: Envious maybe.
Prabhupāda: Envious.
George: I don't know which is . . . in some ways the more committed you are to the thing and the stronger that you are in what you do, then the stronger the animosity becomes.
Prabhupāda: Yes, the other side.
George: And I'm not sure if . . . you know, sometimes I get the feeling that maybe there's one person who it means something real to and ten people who it doesn't mean anything to. And I'm not sure how it . . . if it all balances out in the end whether . . .
Śyāmasundara: Well, that one person, though, if you reach one person he is worth all of them.
George: But say you don't reach any people, and then you have a choice of reaching people and you only reach one, but in . . . by reaching that one you have twenty people who are annoyed. You know, how do you . . .?
Prabhupāda: Yes, sometimes it happens.
Śyāmasundara: His question is that if you preach and you see many men, you meet many men, you may make . . . if you meet ten men you may make nine of them enemies, and only one will become helped by your preaching. So how is that . . .
George: But if you don't say anything, then maybe all the ten of them are quite friendly.
Śyāmasundara: Is that . . . how is that beneficial?
Prabhupāda: Yes. The preaching is different, you see. When one preaches he must tell the truth. Just like Lord Jesus Christ. The people did not like his preaching, but he did not stop his preaching. That is another point. You see? So in the preaching propaganda there is possibility of creating animosity. Yes. There is possible. Just see that unnecessarily my Godbrothers are troubling.
Śyāmasundara: This temple demolishing?
Prabhupāda: Yes, you see. Innocent we are. We are simply worshiping. We have given money. Everything is alright. But they are creating some animosity . . . especially in God consciousness such things are possible, you see? We have to pay sometimes. Even Prahlāda Mahārāja, he was a five-years-old boy, and his only fault was that he is Kṛṣṇa conscious. His father became enemy, what to speak of others. Because his father did not like God consciousness, so he became enemy of his child although the child was only five years old. So there is possibility of such things. Yes.
Śyāmasundara: I was suggesting that those who take the biggest risk for Kṛṣṇa, that even though they may stand the risk of losing everything, Kṛṣṇa always comes to help and protect.
Prabhupāda: That is the history of everyone. Just like the Pāṇḍavas: They were bereft of their kingdom, bereft of their wife, they were insulted. So many things. Still, at last they come out victorious, Arjuna and Yudhiṣṭhira and the other party. That is the Kurukṣetra war. That is a fact. Kṛṣṇa protects His devotee. That verse is there: kaunteya pratijānīhi na me bhaktaḥ praṇaśyati (BG 9.31). So your this record album, I Am in the Material World?
George: Living in the Material World.
Prabhupāda: I heard that has been appreciated by so many people. Even the one teacher was telling me.
Śyāmasundara: Hmm. One teacher came to visit Prabhupāda. He said he played your record in his classroom. He teaches religious education. And they were astounded that the children, one of them began to pray. He found one boy in a room alone playing the record and praying on the floor. It has had great effect.
George: There's one song in particular which is directly the result of the conversation we had, when you came to Henley.
Prabhupāda: Yes, in your house. Yes.
George: About fame and fortune and . . .
Prabhupāda: So how the record is now received there?
George: Yes. It's . . .
Prabhupāda: People are seeking after something about spiritual enlighten. That's a fact. Especially in the Western world. That is a fact. We have to administer very cautiously and carefully. Then it will be taken. So one thing is that when you speak of the strictures, four principles . . .
Śyāmasundara: Restrictions.
Prabhupāda: Restriction. That . . . at that point they become angry.
Śyāmasundara: They become angry.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Because everyone is addicted to these things. I told you the story, Lord Zetland. Lord Zetland, the Marquis of Zetland. His was Lord Ronaldshay. Do you know him?
George: I don't know him.
Prabhupāda: Oh, he is Scottish man. He was governor of Bengal when we were children. Not children; young men. He was . . . because I was student in the Scottish Churches College, so our principal, Mr. Watt, he invited him to visit. So he was a big philosopher. He liked Indian culture and philosophy. So I was at that time second year class. So when he came to our class he first of all, "How many of you, you have taken philosophy?"
So our principal, Mr. Watt, informed that this is second year class, so philosophy begins from the third year. So the preliminary philosophy, logic, they might have taken some of them. So, "All right, how many have taken logic?" So I was also one of them. So he was very nice gentleman. So one of my Godbrother came here in 1935. What is your birth date?
George: Mine? '43.
Prabhupāda: Forty-three. You were not born at that time, 1935. So he met Lord, that Lord Ronaldshay. Is there any place in Scotland, Ronaldshay?
George: How is that spelled?
Prabhupāda: R-o-n-a-l-d-s-a-y. Ronaldshay. He was Lord Ronaldshay, Marquis of Zetland. Is Zetland is any place?
Śyāmasundara: Zetland?
Prabhupāda: Yes?
Śyāmasundara: I think so.
Prabhupāda: Anyway, so he asked my that Godbrother, his name was Bannerjee, "Mr. Bannerjee, can you make me a brāhmana?" So he inquired, this Lord Zetland. So he replied: "Yes, why not? You have to give up these four restricted principle." So when he heard, he said: "Oh, it is impossible. It is impossible. This is our life."
So when we speak to these principles sometimes people become angry. Yes. The same thing, mūrkhāya upadeśo hi prakopāya na śāntaye. That risk is there. But actually that is the fact. God consciousness can be awakened proportionately, as proportionately one is pure. Pure. Purified. Because Kṛṣṇa is the purest.
- paraṁ brahma paraṁ dhāma
- pavitraṁ paramaṁ bhavān.
- (BG 10.12)
That is stated in . . . "You are the paraṁ brahma, the purest, uncontaminated." So unless one becomes uncontaminated of this material modes, it is difficult to understand what is God. Therefore in our institution we begin with these four restriction—no illicit sex, no intoxication, no meat-eating, no gambling. So those who are not serious about, they take it, "Oh, what is this?" Just like Rayarāma, he remarked that I am restricting . . .
Śyāmasundara: "Natural instincts."
Prabhupāda: "Natural (laughs) instincts," yes. Especially in the Western countries. I was thinking in the beginning that as soon as I shall propose these things, these people will say, "Please go home. Don't preach." (laughs) But by Kṛṣṇa's grace . . . I do not know how these young boys and girls, they agreed to my proposal. I am also astonished, because even Zetland says: "It is impossible." I was not very much hopeful when I first came in your country. It was in Boston, the Commonwealth Dock. So I was thinking on the boat . . . I came on boat.
George: What year was that?
Prabhupāda: It was 1965, September. So I was thinking—I think it is published in our magazine, yes—that as soon as I propose this thing, people will refuse to hear me. But Kṛṣṇa's grace, these selected boys, they agreed. So their cooperation has helped me.
Śyāmasundara: We agreed because we saw someone who was perfect in teaching and in setting example in every way. So just by seeing you we gave up. We thought, "Well, if we do this, then we can learn something from this man. Otherwise we cannot learn." So we gave up.
Prabhupāda: So that is the only point, people become sometimes angry. Otherwise we have nothing to make enemy. We are simply teaching "Love God."
George: If you think since '65, just less than eight years. And you came with five dollars or ten dollars, and now it's so big, the organization.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
George: Think of another five years, the potential. Then that is what people will have to, you know . . . just the growth and the success is . . . you don't need any other reason for people to, you know, have the jealousy or . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes, people receiving it nicely. Even Africa. And especially Europe and America, the younger generation, they are liking.
Śyāmasundara: Just by your words. Just the words that you gave us, those words have created all this institution.
Prabhupāda: That is not my word; that is Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu's word.
(aside) So you can open this windows. Shall I open?
George: No, no, I . . . I'm not too hot.
Prabhupāda: I see.
Śyāmasundara: Shall I read this verse?
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
Śyāmasundara: "He quickly becomes righteous and attains lasting peace. O son of Kunti, declare it boldly that my devotee never perishes."
Prabhupāda: Ah, "declare boldly." Yes, Kṛṣṇa says. "Declare boldly to the world that My devotees will never perish." Yes.
Śyāmasundara: He is protecting us.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Teṣām ahaṁ samuddhartā mṛtyu-saṁsāra-sāgarāt (BG 12.7). This is Kṛṣṇa's special mercy. So we are teaching exactly to save the human society, you see. Because the human life is specially meant for, by nature's gift, that in this life you realize God. In other life, cats and dog, it is not possible. Now you have got nice human body, developed consciousness. And there are literatures, instruction. You just take advantage of them and make your life successful. Successful means that you save yourself from the repeated birth and death. This is success.
So long we will be materialistic or attached to material enjoyment, we have to accept a body, material body. Not necessarily human body. It may be, according to karma, higher grade life, demigod's life in higher planet, or in lower grade. Only it is mentioned in the Bhagavad-gītā, dehāntara-prāpti (BG 2.13). In this . . . you have to change this body, as you have changed already from childhood to babyhood, babyhood to boyhood, boyhood to youthhood. So, now it is old age body.
So when this body will be finished I will have to accept another body. That is a fact. But unfortunately there is no education on this point. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). After destruction of this body the spirit soul is not destroyed. Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni (BG 2.22). Just like you left your coat. That means you are not dead. Your coat is set aside. Similarly, this body may be destroyed. It will be destroyed, because it is material. And that is Christian religion also accepted, resurrection.
Śyāmasundara: Resurrection.
Prabhupāda: So the soul transmigrates to another body. Now this transmigration can be done in so many ways, either in this material world or in the spiritual world. In the material world also there are high-grade life. Just like here in this planet also there are so many different grades of life, similarly different planets. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. You can find out:
- yānti deva-vratā devān
- pitṟn yānti pitṛ-vratāḥ
- (BG 9.25)
George: The birds in the sky and the fish in the water and the worms in the soil, and man on the earth . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes, where is Paṇḍita Mahāśaya? Yānti deva-vratā devān. Y-ā-n-t-i.
Śyāmasundara: Oh, y-a.
Prabhupāda: Yānti. Actually the pronunciation is yānti, yānti. Antastha . . .
Śyāmasundara: Yānti deva.
Prabhupāda: Ah. Someway or other this Bhagavad-gītā should be preached all over for this education of the human society.
Śyāmasundara: Verse?
Prabhupāda: Ah? Yes.
Śyāmasundara: "Those who worship the demigods will take birth among the demigods. Those who worship ghosts and spirits will take birth among such beings. Those who worship ancestors go to the ancestors, and those who worship Me will live with Me."
Prabhupāda: "Live with Me." So I'll have to transmigrate. So I can transmigrate to the higher planetary system. I can transmigrate amongst the ghost and evil spirit. Or I can transmigrate ordinary life. Or I can transmigrate to the kingdom of God. Everything is open.
George: It's a good deal. It's a good, fair deal.
Prabhupāda: Ah. So why I shall not transmigrate to . . . back to home, back to Godhead? Why shall I go to the . . . this is the policy. If I have to endeavor in this life for my next life, why not endeavor for next life go back to Kṛṣṇa and live with Him eternally, blissfully? Eh? If I have to work for some next life, then why not work . . . and it is so easy in this age. Kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṁvrajet (SB 12.3.51). Simply by chanting this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra he becomes liberated from all contamination and goes back to home, back to Godhead. Simply by . . . this is a special advantage of this age. Because people are generally fallen. So Kṛṣṇa has given a special concession.
Caitanya Mahāprabhu introduced that you simply chant the holy name of Kṛṣṇa, you will be liberated. Simply . . . Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. There is no expenditure. Suppose you are going on your car and if you chant, "Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa," what is your loss? But if there is gain, why not take it? (laughs) This is our proposal.
George: There is one sort of problem in a way, that I found when chanting all the time, and that was that I start being able to relate less and less to all the people I know. I mean then it's . . . there's only times when I see people like Śyāmasundara or just a few people, then, that's okay, but most of the other people . . .
You know, I suddenly found myself on such a different level that it's hard to relate, and then it's like it feels as though it's a point where I have a decision of either slowing down and pulling back towards those people in order to try and pull them with me, or maybe if, because I'm not ready to go, or just cutting the thing off and just going completely. You know what I mean? Just in day-to-day things. The more and more, the build-up . . .
Prabhupāda: Material management.
George: But the build-up of the mantra and the effect is so subtle in a way that there's that point where I just can't relate any more to anybody. Maybe you don't have that experience.
Śyāmasundara: He says that when he chants he becomes spiritualized, so that it's difficult to relate with his business associates, colleagues.
George: But not even that; to my friends, even to my wife. I mean to anybody. You know, it's . . .
Śyāmasundara: And it's sometimes difficult to see . . .
Prabhupāda: But your wife is very favorable. She is nice girl.
George: Yes, she's an angel. You know, in a way she's okay.
Prabhupāda: If wife is favorable, then that is a great advantage.
George: But you see what happens is, this is also what Terry was saying yesterday, is that . . . you know, like if I'm not into it too deeply, then I'll come down to begin a day and I'll be quite, say: "Do this," "Okay," and off we go to do . . . but the days, the periods when I'm so deeply into that, chanting all the time, then when I finish chanting, I come down, I'm like Rāvaṇa. (Prabhupāda laughs)
You know, I come down and I'm not smiling, and I'm not particularly happy because I'm saying, "Do that! Get that! Why is this!" You know? It's . . . there's like there is more urgency involved. The realization that everybody is wasting their time and everybody is doing mundane things which are . . . and you know, just having a little bit of mundane fun.
Śyāmasundara: But when you were chanting you wrote the song, and it's proven by people's purchasing all those songs that they want to hear that.
George: Hmm. But the problem is this: where to find a balance. Because obviously I know where I benefit by doing that. But I'm benefiting so much that suddenly I find I'm out on a limb and it's hard to be able to pull those people with you. You know, there's a point where suddenly I'm not going to be . . . I'm not going to know them any more.
Śyāmasundara: (laughs) Is it that . . . it's difficult; when he becomes spiritualized by chanting he feels it's a dangerous position in a way, because then he will be cut off from his audience, from people who will . . . the ordinary people. He's afraid they will not understand him; he will not be able to take them with him to that point. So he has to find a balance.
Prabhupāda: Yes, you keep balance. You keep balance. Don't spoil your position. Keep your position, but . . . just like external-internal. Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī, yes, when he was Raghunātha dāsa at home, he became attracted with Caitanya Mahāprabhu. So immediately he wanted to leave home and go with Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Caitanya Mahāprabhu advised, "No, no, don't do it hastily. It is not required. You externally, you remain as you are. You are a rich man's son, you have got management, zamindary." And he was good manager. "Kṛṣṇa will help you."
So bahye loko byabahar. Antar nistha, bahye loko byabhar. Within you just keep yourself always Kṛṣṇa conscious. Outside you just deal just like ordinary man. This is the tactics. Because your talent is not ordinary talent. So you are getting money. So why should you refuse to get it? No. Money can be utilized for Kṛṣṇa. Our policy is not that, that you don't touch money. Why not? For Kṛṣṇa's sake you have to do so many things. So money is called lakṣmī. When I heard that this village is Letchmore . . . Lakṣmī-more. (laughs) More lakṣmī. So Lakṣmī is, according to Vedic idea, Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa. You understand Nārāyaṇa?
George: Lakṣmī?
Prabhupāda: Lakṣmī. Lakṣmī means fortune, goddess of fortune. And Nārāyaṇa means the Supreme Lord. So we worship Nārāyaṇa.
George: Nārāyaṇa.
Prabhupāda: Nārāyaṇa. Kṛṣṇa's another feature, Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu. Kṛṣṇa is the original Supreme Lord, and He has expansion, many expansions. We are also expansions, living entities. Eko bahu-syāma. He has expanded. Just like father expands by many sons, similarly, God has expanded in many parts and parcels. Viṣṇu form is the original form. Svāṁśa. It is called svāṁśa, personal expansion. Viṣṇu. And we living entities, we are vibhināṁśa. Exactly our position is not on the God's platform; on the servants', God's servants' platform.
George: Did you say Viṣṇu is the first?
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa.
George: The first expansion?
Prabhupāda: No, first expansion is Balarāma, Baladeva. From Baladeva there are four expansions. There is Vāsudeva, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, Aniruddha. Then from Saṅkarṣaṇa, next expansion is Nārāyaṇa, four-handed. That is Viṣṇu form.
George: We've just been making some music in California, and one of the songs which, ah, it's Ravi Shankar's music. But one of the songs is with Vedic, based on the Vedic thing is Jaya Jagadīśa Hare, which is the ten avatāras of Viṣṇu.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Keśava dhṛta mina śarīra jaya jagadīśa hare.
George: Beautiful song. But I was wondering during that song, finding out the ten incarnations as the turtle and the midget and all the different . . .
Prabhupāda: That is Jayadeva's.
George: I was trying to figure why there was no . . . never anything spoken about Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Ah. Kṛṣṇa is not incarnation.
George: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is not incarnation. Kṛṣṇa is the origin of all incarnations. He is called . . . incarnations are called avatāra.
George: Avatāra.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And Kṛṣṇa is avatāri. Avatāri means . . .
George: Is it with an "i"? Is that what . . .
Prabhupāda: "From whom all avatāras come."
George: Avatāra with an "i" on the end. Is that avatāri or with an "e"?
Prabhupāda: Avatāry, yes, "y". Avatāry.
George: So does it have a "y" on the end?
Prabhupāda: Yes, avatāry.
George: Because there's so many times where they say in books . . .
Prabhupāda: Avatāra of, and He is avatāry. This is the difference. Therefore in that song he remarked, keśava dhṛta mina śarīra jaya jagadīśa hare (Pralaya Payodhi Jale verse 1, from Gītā-govinda). It is praying to Kṛṣṇa. Keśava is the name of Kṛṣṇa. "Keśava, You have appeared, You have incarnated as the mina-śarīra," this varāha-śarīra, nṛsiṁha-śarīra. Keśava dhṛta-narahari-rūpa jaya jagadīśa hare. Keśava dhṛta rama-śarīra jaya jagadīśa. Keśava dhṛta raghu-vira rūpa jaya jagadīśa. Like that.
George: Which . . . whereabouts would the words appear? Because . . .
Prabhupāda: It is composed by one Vaiṣṇava poet
George: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: Jayadeva Gosvāmī.
George: Yeah. But is there any place where those words have been printed? Where I could see what the words . . .
Prabhupāda: Oh, we can give you.
George: Do you have it in any of . . .
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. You can . . . can you . . . where is Satsvarūpa? Call him. I can give you immediately. Ask him give it immediate. That is not difficult. Keśava . . . pralaya-payodhi-jale dhṛtavān asi vedaṁ.
George: Next time I come I'll bring these songs for you to hear.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
George: Really nice. We did . . .
Prabhupāda: Who has sung? Ravi Shankar?
George: No, on this one it was actually made a few years ago, and we just took . . . the tape was never released.
Prabhupāda: Sung by whom?
George: It's sung by . . . he's the son of the priest from the temple in . . . oh, what's the place, just south of Bombay, on the beach? Goa. Goa.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
George: Some priest in the temple, that's his son. And the other song is sung by Lakshmi Shankar.
Prabhupāda: Lakshmi Shankar?
George: Lakshmi Shankar. I think she . . . you met once?
Prabhupāda: Lakshmi Shankar?
George: She is . . . remember when you met Ravi Shankar?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
George: Lakshmi is Ravi's elder brother . . . he's got another elder brother, Rajendra Shankar; it's his wife. And she sings the songs.
Prabhupāda: Oh. (to Pradyumna) Can you give in typewriting with diacritic marks this avatāras, dāsa avatāra?
Pradyumna: We have already . . .
Prabhupāda: Pralaya pay . . . you have got it?
Pradyumna: I've got it here. I'll write it out.
Prabhupāda: It is printed?
Pradyumna: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: What is that?
Prabhupāda: No, no, that is Bengali.
Pradyumna: Yes, but I can transliterate it and write it out.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Then, so . . .
George: Could you . . . do you remember the record you had on in India that was Kṛṣṇa. Did Prabhupāda hear that?
Śyāmasundara: I don't think so.
George: Because that was Lakshmi singing.
Śyāmasundara: Oh. Is it a sister-in-law of Ravi Shankar?
George: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Sister-in-law?
George: She sings really nice. But there's . . . on the record we've just been making . . .
Prabhupāda: The Akash-Ganga, just below our apartment, she was Ravi Shankar's wife.
George: No, no, no.
Śyāmasundara: Former wife.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.
George: She is not . . . she is a very strange person, the one who lived . . . but the songs is . . . there's Jaya Jagadīśa Hare, then three more songs all about Kṛṣṇa. One is called, "I am Missing You, Kṛṣṇa. Where Are You?" which Ravi wrote . . . the first time he's written a song for the English language.
Prabhupāda: If Ravi Shankar is interested, we can give so many nice songs about Kṛṣṇa.
George: Well, he, you know . . . yes, I'm sure. But he's . . . all the time . . . he has songs, two written in Bengali, this Supani Me and Kahe Kaliwa.
Prabhupāda: Oh, that is Hindi song.
George: Hindi.
Prabhupāda: There is one song by Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura,
- hari hari biphale janama goṅāinu.
- mānuṣya-janama pāiyā rādhā-kṛṣṇa nā bhajiyā
- (Prārthanā)
I think we have . . . I sung. Have you got that record?
Śyāmasundara: Maybe I can find it.
Prabhupāda: So if he is interested in singing about Kṛṣṇa, oh, he can do it.
George: There's this one song . . .
Prabhupāda: And then join together, you and he . . .
George: We've been doing that.
Śyāmasundara: They've been doing that . . .
Prabhupāda: I can help you.
George: . . . for some time now. But there's one, this one song which is so simple, and the melody and the words are so simple, but it's beautiful.
Prabhupāda: This keśava dhṛta jagadīśa?
George: No, this other one. It's in English. "I am Missing You." It only has three lines: "I am Missing You, Kṛṣṇa, Where Are You?"
Prabhupāda: That is your song?
George: No, it's Ravi Shankar. "I am missing You, Kṛṣṇa. Where are You? I am missing You, Kṛṣṇa. Where are You? Though I can't see You, I hear Your flute all the while." Repeats. "Please, come wipe my tears and make me smile." But it's so sweet, I'm sure it's going to be very, very popular song.
Prabhupāda: It is nice song.
Śyāmasundara: They are releasing it as a popular recording. George produced it and Ravi wrote it and his sister-in-law sings it.
Prabhupāda: Oh, that woman came, that is his sister-in-law?
Śyāmasundara: Lakshmi Shankar.
Prabhupāda: His elder brother is Uday Shankar. He is very good dancer.
George: He's a great dancer, yes.
Prabhupāda: He, I think he is of our age. He is old man.
George: Yes. He's had . . . you know, he had a lot of strokes and brain hemorrhage and things all at the same time. But he's so strong that he just keeps going.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Still.
Śrutikīrti: I can't find that. I did find Jaya Jagadīśa Hare.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Yes, yes.
Śyāmasundara: It's Prabhupāda singing Jaya Jagadīśa Hare. I don't know how it sounds.
Pradyumna: It's pretty good. (break)
Prabhupāda: This song is very famous song, Jaya Jagadīśa. Yes.
Śyāmasundara: Here's that verse in Bhagavad-gītā where Kṛṣṇa says that, "Neither the hosts of demigods nor the great sages know My origin. For in every respect I am the source of the demigods."
Prabhupāda: Yes.
George: That's great.
(tape of Śrīla Prabhupāda singing Jaya Jagadīśa Hare)
Prabhupāda: This is nice speaker.
Mukunda: Would you prefer it on top? (tape turned off)
George: Yes, we have a different sort of tune. So, I just got a hint of that thing, that the temple in L.A . . .
Prabhupāda: What is that? Purī?
Mālatī: I think we are giving you . . . we are spoiling you little tonight.
George: Can I take this one? I've never seen . . . we buy the Indian version.
Prabhupāda: Yes, take it. Now take prasādam. Prasādam is ready.
George: There'll be more temples . . . in the end, there'll be more temples than hotels.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (laughs) Jaya. First when I entered this room, I said: "All glories to George Harrison." (laughs) Yes. You have given us this shelter, and Kṛṣṇa will give you shelter at His lotus feet. We shall pray always like that. Yes.
George: Well, maybe in the future this will . . .
Prabhupāda: Why future? In this life.
George: No, I mean in the future in this life, the future. Or maybe . . .
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. No, you will be . . . Kṛṣṇa is favoring you. You are sincere, and Kṛṣṇa has already favored you. So just intelligently utilize your favorable condition. Then everything will go on right.
George: Well, everything feels so exciting at the moment, what's happening. The future is just going to be overwhelming.
Prabhupāda: Now, take first of all prasādam.
Revatīnandana: This is sour cream. I hear you like with your samosā some sour cream.
Śyāmasundara: Revatīnandana fixed you a feast.
Prabhupāda: You take. You take.
Śyāmasundara: They are bringing for us.
Revatīnandana: They're bringing more.
Prabhupāda: They are bringing.
Śyāmasundara: They're bringing some more.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. Nice. (taking prasādam)
Revatīnandana: Is it all right? Really? He just taught me yesterday how to perfect these, and I tried to do it.
George: Samosā? (taking prasādam) Mukunda, when the next person comes, do you think he'd send some tissues . . .
Prabhupāda: We have prepared a cookbook, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Have you seen it?
George: I just got one. It's the . . . is that the same thing? It's like a photostat.
Śyāmasundara: Oh, no. This is a . . . there's two cookbooks.
Revatīnandana: I just wrote one also. (laughs) He's got one of those.
Śyāmasundara: He's got one of those. Printed up in New York.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is enjoying with His friends.
George: Yeah? So it's full instructions on how I can . . .
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
George: Great. Fantastic.
Śrutikīrti: And it tells you where to buy it, I mean, the whole works. Pictures. How to offer it. Everything's there.
(taking prasādam)
Prabhupāda: Take one more samosā. Eh? You have got?
George: Yes, there's so much here. Next year you'll be able to have the food from . . . grown in the garden. You won't even have to go to . . .
Prabhupāda: Where?
Śrutikīrti: From our garden here, he says we'll be able to grow.
Śyāmasundara: Next year we will have.
Prabhupāda: You have spoken about these doll stalls?
Śyāmasundara: Also we're going to make up displays like this of, you know, of dolls, china dolls of Kṛṣṇa and His friends and all their pastimes, put them in display cases around on the grounds, so people, when they walk around, they won't just see trees; they'll see Kṛṣṇa doing something.
George: Another way of doing that, it's fantastic.
Prabhupāda: Vegetable is very nice. Vegetable.
Revatīnandana: You made it like this in Los Angeles once about four years ago, and I remembered a little bit how to make it.
George: You know, the idea in Europe in the Catholic countries, if you go in Spain and Portugal, you drive along and they have like a little wooden frame like this and then with tiles, and all it is is tiles, but the tiles show like saints and different things. Did you see those tiles I had made with Kṛṣṇa, with the mantra?
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
George: So, things like that. And here you can get very simple, you know, and just have them glazed and put the tiles together.
Śyāmasundara: Hmm. Yes. That's also a good idea. George suggested also that we print up these pictures like this in the postcards.
George: And birthday cards, Christmas cards, all sort of cards.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Very good idea.
Śyāmasundara: Because people are tired of seeing these old postcards of . . .
George: Now there's lots of new postcards, but this . . . you know, it's much better now, but there's still no Kṛṣṇa postcards.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Mālatī: Pāpadams?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Mālatī: Poppers?
Prabhupāda: Oh, popper. That's nice.
Mālatī: Unfortunately we have no coal, so they are cooked in the ghee.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Mālatī: We did it in ghee because there was no coal.
George: This is great. Khicuṛi? Khicuṛi?
Prabhupāda: What is that khicuṛi? No, not khicuṛi. This is very good.
George: It's like potatoes and ḍāl?
Prabhupāda: No, cauliflower.
Revatīnandana: Potatoes and cauliflower.
Prabhupāda: Cauliflower, yes.
George: Cauliflower. It's very nice.
Prabhupāda: Yes, it's very nice. He is good cook.
Revatīnandana: That's because I like to eat too much. I am so attached to eating prasādam.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness so nice. Eat nicely, sing nicely, dance nicely, and go to Kṛṣṇa. I was thinking, before starting this movement, that people they are starting so many dry movement. And my movement is so nice—chanting, dancing and eating. Why it will not be accepted?
Śyāmasundara: It seems that nowadays, especially young people, they are looking in music to listen, to find some instruction in the music they hear on the radio. They get some instruction from the music.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Revatīnandana: Usually from the music they get the instruction to go to hell.
George: Yeah. Well, I think that's only the thing, you know, Nada, Nada Brahma, the sound. Just the idea of a thing. Musically, there's just the sound in music. Well, it's transcendental. It bypasses your intellect, and you can feel, even if you don't understand.
Śyāmasundara: That's good.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Śyāmasundara: We were just talking about sound vibration, how it bypasses the intellect and is actually appreciated by the spirit.
Prabhupāda: So Mukunda, why you are sitting without eating? You come here.
Mukunda: No, I have already eaten.
Prabhupāda: Oh. You can come.
Mālatī: How can you . . . (indistinct)
Śyāmasundara: Once you said that the origin of everything is sound vibration.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
Śyāmasundara: How is that . . .
Prabhupāda: Sky. Sky is first creation. So the symptom of sky is sound. Just like (hits something), this is beating the sky and the sound is produced.
Śyāmasundara: Oh, because the sound travels through sky?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Sound is . . . there is sky. The proof is the sound.
Śyāmasundara: But the sound was before the sky?
Prabhupāda: No. After the sky.
Śyāmasundara: After the sky.
Prabhupāda: And from sound, air is produced. And from air, electricity, fire.
Śyāmasundara: Fire.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. And from fire, water. And from water, earth. This is this creation of five elements. In physics they teach sound and light. Is it not?
Revatīnandana: Also gravitation, they teach about that.
Prabhupāda: Mālatī, if you give more siṅgāra to George.
Mālatī: What?
Prabhupāda: Siṅgāra.
Mālatī: Revatīnandana Mahārāja has prepared.
Śyāmasundara: No, bring more.
Mālatī: Oh, bring more.
George: Really, I've got such a lot. Thank you.
Prabhupāda: You are young man. You can eat.
George: This is great, this dish. Did you make this one?
Revatīnandana: Can you take a little more of it?
George: Ah, no, let me . . . I'd rather finish it all first. But what do you call that?
Revatīnandana: You might not see it. Taste that purple preparation and see if you like that, the cherry chutney.
Prabhupāda: Yes, you will get appetite. Chutney is meant . . .
George: Actually, I was saving that for pudding later. I eat all the savory things, and then finish off with the sweet.
Śyāmasundara: It increases the appetite. This is not sweet. It's a chutney.
Revatīnandana: It's a pretty sweet chutney. It's not too hot chutney. It's cherries.
George: It tastes like good plum jam. But is this just your own creation? This . . .
Revatīnandana: No, Prabhupāda himself cooked that once in Los Angeles, and I learned at that time. That was four years ago.
George: Does it have a name? What would you call this one?
Prabhupāda: Which one?
Śyāmasundara: Potatoes and cauliflower?
George: Potatoes and cauliflower.
Revatīnandana: It's in the cookbook that I wrote.
Prabhupāda: This is called, in Bengal it is called koliya.
George: Koliya.
Revatīnandana: Just like the same name as the serpent?
Prabhupāda: No, it is Muhammadan name. Actually, this preparation the Muhammadans make with meat. What is that? No, not meat. (laughter) It has come out very nice, tasteful.
George: Did you give David Wynne some prasādam?
Śyāmasundara: Yeah.
George: Did he like it?
Śyāmasundara: Oh, yeah.
George: That's . . . I mean, in the end that's what will catch everybody. Even if that's all that gets them is the food. It's going to get them.
Śyāmasundara: In Portobello Road we have a stall, you know one of those street stalls . . .
Prabhupāda: Bring one day your wife also.
Śyāmasundara: We distribute prasādam all day long, free.
Prabhupāda: One day bring your wife. She is very nice girl.
George: Okay, next time I come.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
George: Also, Donovan wants to come.
Śyāmasundara: Oh, that's nice.
Prabhupāda: Who is it?
George: But I wanted to come once, you know, first on my own.
Śyāmasundara: A friend of George's.
Revatīnandana: He's another singer from . . . quite popular.
Śyāmasundara: He's reading Bhagavad-gītā, isn't he?
George: I gave it him for Christmas.
Śyāmasundara: Oh, yeah? He was asking questions about impersonalism and personalism.
Prabhupāda: Who was that?
Śyāmasundara: This friend of George's.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
George: He's a good person.
Prabhupada: Impersonalism and personalism, it is very simple thing. Just like the sun and the sunshine, that's all. Sunshine is impersonal and the sun is personal. Similarly, impersonal is Kṛṣṇa's energy, manifestation of Kṛṣṇa's energy. Origin of impersonal expansion is Kṛṣṇa. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi, in the Brahma-saṁhitā.
- yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-
- koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam
- tad brahma niṣkalam anantam aśeṣa-bhūtaṁ
- govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
- (Bs. 5.40)
It is statement. So why you are sitting? Go on.
Revatīnandana: Because you are talking.
Prabhupāda: Everything is first-class made.
Śyāmasundara: Hmm. The best feast we've had.
Prabhupāda: So what more you want? Why don't you take . . . give him that koliya, koliya.
George: If I finish all of this, then maybe.
Revatīnandana: A wet vegetable.
George: I've still . . . otherwise I'll never get around to the . . .
Śyāmasundara: We can pack some up for Terry. He likes prasādam.
George: Kumar wants to come as well.
Śyāmasundara: Who?
George: Kumar. He's my Indian . . .
Śyāmasundara: He's Ravi's brother, is he?
George: Hmm. He went to the one in Watseka, and he just loved it. As soon as he went and sat in the temple and saw the Deities . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: It's very nice. It's the only real place outside of India, these temples of Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Oh, who has made this raita? Is it raita?
Revatīnandana: Oh, Mālatī. Mālatī.
Prabhupāda: It is very nice. You have tasted that? Yes.
George: With the cucumber?
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
George: Yogurt?
Prabhupāda: Hmm.
Śyāmasundara: (to George) I think she learned that from your wife, though, didn't she?
Prabhupāda: No, it is Indian preparation.
George: Yeah, but we learned it from someone and then told Mālatī.
Śyāmasundara: George's wife instructed Mālatī how to make it.
Prabhupāda: She can also cook?
Śyāmasundara: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Very nice.
Mālatī: You'll take more?
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Why not? Give him.
George: Little.
Revatīnandana: Do you want to take a little more, Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: No, no, I have got.
Mālatī: Take a little cauliflower.
Prabhupāda: Give him little juice.
Śyāmasundara: In fact, after David . . . Prabhupāda told us how to wash our hands after prasādam, last time David was here. He instructed us to all go wash our hands and our plates in the bathroom. David was back here washing his plate, and he said: "Do I have to go now, or can I stay a little while longer?" It was about ten o'clock. I said: "Stay a little while longer." "Oh, boy." He loved it. He stayed for hours. At midnight he finally left. He's going to do a portrait of Prabhupāda, a sculpture.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Śyāmasundara: I was telling George about David . . .
George: Well that will be fantastic, because the time he will require to do the head . . .
Prabhupāda: Oh, that David is very good boy.
George: Yes. But the time he'll require to do that, by the end of it he will have learned so much that he will be right there.
Śyāmasundara: He just did the Queen and the others, and if he does Prabhupāda, that would be . . . he said that you had a remarkable head.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Śyāmasundara: David, the sculptor.
Prabhupāda: He said like that? (laughs)
Śyāmasundara: Yes, he said your head was very remarkable. (laughs) He was studying your head while he was talking.
Prabhupāda: My maternal uncle, my mother's cousin's brother . . . (indistinct) . . . he was a very rich man. So when I used to go, he used to say to my father, "Oh, this boy will be very . . ." (laughs) Simply by . . .
Śyāmasundara: By the shape of your head?
Prabhupāda: Yes. He was saying to my father, "Oh, your this boy will be very big man."
Revatīnandana: They have science in the West they call craniology. It's the science of measuring psychology by the shape of the skull. Craniology. They think it's . . .
Prabhupāda: Psychology?
Revatīnandana: Craniology.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
(pause)
The chutney is very, very nice.
Revatīnandana: I found some very nice cherries in the store. Nice black cherries, very nice cherries. It makes nice chutney.
Prabhupāda: So Paṇḍita Mahāśaya, you take something? You take? No? You take at least one siṅgāra. Take it. Yes.
Śyāmasundara: He's fasting.
Revatīnandana: He's having some stomach trouble from India.
Prabhupāda: With vegetable? You can take it.
Revatīnandana: It's not too spicy. It will go down easily. If Prabhupāda says, you should take.
Prabhupāda: In Vṛndāvana there are pāṇḍās, they eat too much. So one pāṇḍā, old man, after eating, he was practically dying. (laughs) So he still was instructing his son, "My dear son, don't be sorry. I am not dying out of starvation; I am dying by eating." (laughs) To die of starvation is inglorious. Better eat and die. (laughs)
George: As long as you're not thinking about indigestion as you go.
Revatīnandana: Prasādam never gives anybody indigestion. Have you ever seen? If it's nice prasādam, it is perfect.
Śyāmasundara: That's for drinking water. That one's for washing.
Prabhupāda: Oh, there is khīr also, sweet rice.
Revatīnandana: Is it all right, the khīr?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Everything is all right. Very nice.
Revatīnandana: Jaya.
Śyāmasundara: I saw Peter. Also Peter is coming on Friday.
Prabhupāda: All right.
Śyāmasundara: He'll make another . . .
Mukunda: Maybe tomorrow. He phoned me . . .
Prabhupāda: All right.
Śyāmasundara: George's house is not far away from here, across country.
Prabhupāda: Oh. How many miles?
George: Well, it is, actually. It will take longer to get from here home than it would from the West End and back.
Śyāmasundara: Oh, yes.
George: Because you have to cut across.
Śyāmasundara: Oh. At first I was thinking you were . . .
George: It's probably only forty miles.
Prabhupāda: Forty miles means . . .
Revatīnandana: You live south of London?
George: No, west. Just past the airport. We go along the M4.
Śyāmasundara: It only takes an hour, though.
Revatīnandana: It doesn't take so long. If you come through Watford you bypass London altogether. There's a way to come off the . . .
George: Well I was thinking, the way I used to go when I passed this way off the M1 was to go through Harrow some ways, and then go through Harrow towards Slough.
Mukunda: Yes, that's the quickest route. You get there in forty-five minutes. That's how we came.
George: Is it okay if I drink it out of this?
Revatīnandana: Also you have some water there.
George: Mm. Maybe it's just the yellow I'm attracted to. Because I love ḍāl, and this one is really nice.
Revatīnandana: That soup is very nice, from your vegetables. It's very easy to make also. (indistinct comments)
Prabhupāda: I remember long ago one Englishman went to our Māyāpur. So he liked this sweet rice: "Give me more. Give me more."
Śyāmasundara: Sweet rice.
Prabhupāda: Hmm.
Mukunda: The Englishmen are said to have the worst teeth because they have such a taste for sweets. Their teeth are more deteriorated than anyone. They love sweets.
George: Well, I think the Americans just about take up the . . .
Revatīnandana: I have the worst teeth. I like sweets . . . (indistinct)
George: I see those American kids . . . (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Everything is very nice.
Śyāmasundara: That's good, though. Prabhupāda said that those in the modes of goodness eat sweets a lot.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is taste of brāhmaṇa.
Śyāmasundara: Brāhmaṇas.
Revatīnandana: Brahminical quality.
Prabhupāda: And kṣatriya eats pungent, and śūdra eats stale. Śūdras, stale.
Śyāmasundara: Śūdras. Lower class men, workers.
Prabhupāda: Fourth-class men.
George: So brāhmaṇas eat sweets?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
George: What was the second one?
Prabhupāda: Second, pungent.
Revatīnandana: Kṣatriyas, that's the warriors, administrators.
Śyāmasundara: Pungent, spicy, pungent, passionate. Would you like a towel?
Prabhupāda: Now I shall wash. No, I shall wash. No, I'll wash now. Finish. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Oh, that's nice.
(leaves room)
Pradyumna: Yes.
George: How old is he now? Eighty?
Revatīnandana: He'll be seventy-eight in a month, yes. He'll be seventy-eight in one month.
George: Seventy-eight. He's fantastic.
(indistinct conversation between Śyāmasundara and George)
Śyāmasundara: He rises early in the morning, about two o'clock. About two, and translates till when? Five? For about three hours in the morning.
George: Mango. Is this mango?
Śyāmasundara: Yes. When we were at Yamuna's in Anglesey . . . (indistinct) . . . Dennis ate more mangoes than two of us together.
George: Mukunda said something about on the street, by the small temple there, he took a temple at . . .
Śyāmasundara: Portabello road. You know those stalls where they sell everything down the street? We have a stall, too. We . . . it's a free prasādam stall. We just give out prasādam all day. Everybody that goes shopping . . .
George: Samosās and . . .
Śyāmasundara: Yes, all kinds of things. And it's free. It's the only free stall on the street.
Revatīnandana: Prasādam is always . . . people don't always like us for our philosophy, but they love our food. Everybody likes our food. I've experienced that.
Śyāmasundara: There's a lot of hippies down in that area have joined us just from the prasādam.
Revatīnandana: We did programs all up and down England last year, schools and things like that. And everywhere we go, people say, "Got any of that Hare Kṛṣṇa food?"
George: What happened to the guy, the devotee who was in Bury Place? He was like . . . he looked like a big lorry driver guy, red hair and tattoos . . .
Śyāmasundara: You know what he's doing now? He's the, what do you call it, maitre d' . . . compere. He's the compere at that big club in Soho, the biggest discotheque . . .
George: He's not a devotee anymore?
Śyāmasundara: Yeah. But he was working as a maitre d' in a big hotel.
Prabhupāda: Jaya. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Śyāmasundara: As a . . . now he switched his job to that big discotheque in Soho. What is it called?
George: And he's still wearing his dhotī?
Śyāmasundara: No, he goes in a suit at night. He works only at night. He goes in a suit. That's his job. He's a devotee. When famous people come in the discotheque he sits down and hands them a Gīta or something and talks to them about Kṛṣṇa. But he's the manager of the whole thing. It's a good job for him, because he can preach. He can preach while he's there working.
Devotee: You want to wash in the bathroom?
Śyāmasundara: Come see the statue, George . . . (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Oh, you have not seen my room? (laughs) Your house, my room.
George: Kṛṣṇa's house.
(break)
Prabhupāda: And dahī also.
Revatīnandana: Yes. Everything from the cow.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Revatīnandana: The cow, providing everything nice.
Prabhupāda: Cow is so important. These vegetable, grains and cow. Bās, finished. You can make hundreds and thousands of preparation. Why the poor animals should be killed? Take as much possible. And those who are flesh eaters, let the animal die—eat. Why lifetime should be killed? In India that is the process. Those who are flesh-eaters, when the cow dies, they are called, "You can take." Cobbler. So they get the skin, the hoof, the horn, they eat the flesh. So that's all right. Finished. And they keep the bones also for manure. Yes. After death. That is the system in India. Whenever a man's cow dies, this class of men, cobbler, they are called, "You take it." They will take it.
Pradyumna: I do not think many children like to eat meat.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Pradyumna: Many children do not like to eat meat. They are trained to eat meat.
Prabhupāda: This is unnatural.
Pradyumna: I did not . . . when I was . . . I did not like to eat it, but they trained.
Prabhupāda: Unnatural.
Revatīnandana: Even from the economic side, they waste so much land for keeping a few animals for slaughter. They could grow large quantities of grains, fruits, everything. Instead, all the land now is devoted to slaughter, and they have to import grains, fruits, other things in England. The whole countryside is beautiful country, all like this. The whole country. And everywhere is nothing but slaughter business. And they could grow everything, everything that they need. In fact, that can be . . . we can . . . eventually we can, we can do that. And this country would become self-sufficient. Now it has to import so many things.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Vacant land.
Revatīnandana: It takes many acres of land to keep one animal. On the same acreage you can produce enough food for several men for a whole year.
Prabhupāda: Both for the animal, both for the man. Just educate them, these rascals.
Revatīnandana: There are some professors who may be coming to see you. They are involved in that kind of thing. They are understanding that a little bit now, and they can be worked with. I talked to one today. I think he will come late next week perhaps. Not certain . . . (indistinct) . . . he's a nice Cambridge professor. Very nice man. And they're very interested to make the society balanced and sane, and so they . . . this is the solution.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Aim should be back to home, back to Godhead. But they do not know what is the aim of life. Give me that powder and water.
(George Harrison and Śyāmasundara talking in the background)
Revatīnandana: He's talking about the bathroom. George is interested in your bathroom. He's saying all these things. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: There is no hot water supply.
Revatīnandana: That can be arranged. They misused it. They put the wrong kind of coal, and it caught fire over there some months back, a small fire. Because they were . . . when we moved in they used the wrong kind of coal in it, and it became fiery and lit a small fire, so they stopped it. (break) But it can be . . .
Prabhupāda: Revived.
Revatīnandana: Revived nicely. We should do that.
Prabhupāda: Of course, I get little, one bucket is sufficient. But when it will be winter there is need of hot water supply. So you have seen my room?
George: Yes, it's very nice.
Prabhupāda: (referring to song transcription) So you can read it, or shall I type it?
George: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: Those are the words.
Prabhupāda: Pralaya-payodhi jale dhṛtavān asi vedam.
Revatīnandana: I have it typed.
Prabhupāda: Hmm? You have got typed copy?
Revatīnandana: Yes, I have one here.
Prabhupāda: Keśava dhṛta-mīna-śarīra jaya jagad-īśa hare.
Revatīnandana: Were you playing it when I came in?
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
Śyāmasundara: Once you told me that there is . . . that we should try to describe in English some songs about description of the spiritual sky, how it is there.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is cintāmaṇi. This is spiritual sky.
- cintāmaṇi-prakara-sadmasu kalpa-vṛkṣa-
- lakṣāvṛteṣu surabhīr abhipālayantam.
- (Bs. 5.29)
Śyāmasundara: We sang that one, didn't we?
Prabhupāda: You have got record?
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
Prabhupāda:
- lakṣmī-sahasra-śata-sambhrama-sevyamānaṁ
- govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
- (Bs. 5.29)
This is description of the spiritual kingdom. In the Bhāgavata there is Vaikuṇṭha description.
George: Oh, there's eleven.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
George: There's eleven stanzas. I thought there was only ten.
Prabhupāda: Yes. No, that is summary.
George: Summary.
Prabhupāda: Summary of the ten.
George: But there's only of the ten.
Prabhupāda: Of the ten.
Revatīnandana: What is the eleventh śloka, where it says daśya vidhā rūpa?
Prabhupāda: Keśava dhṛta daśya vidhā rūpa jaya jagadīśa hare.
Revatīnandana: Who is he offering obeisances?
Prabhupāda: Jayadeva, Jayadeva. Let me see the eleventh verse, yes.
- śrī-jayedeva-kaver idam uditam udāraṁ
- śṛṇu sukha-dam śubha-daṁ bhava-sāram
- keśava dhṛta daśya-vidha-rūpa jaya jagadīśa hare
- (Śrī Daśāvatāra-stotra text 11)
The meaning is srī jayadeva-kaver idam uditam udaraṁ—he very magnanimously has written this poetry, Jayadeva, kavi; śṛṇu—just hear; sukha-dam—very pleasing; śubha-daṁ—all-auspicious; bhava-sāram—and the essence of life in this material world. Keśava dhṛta daśya vidhā rūpa—Keśava appeared in ten kinds of incarnation. Jaya jagadīśa hare—all glories to Jagadīśa, the Lord of the universe.
Revatīnandana: Daśa means ten.
Prabhupāda: Eh? Daśa means ten, yes.
Revatīnandana: I see.
Prabhupāda: Keśava dhṛta daśa-vidha-rūpa jaya jagadīśa.
George: Is this pronounced like dhṛta?
Revatīnandana: Dhṛta.
Prabhupāda: D-h-ṛ- . . .
Revatīnandana: And the a is without a line over it. It's daśya. Daśya.
Prabhupāda: R on a dot, dhṛi.
George: Underneath the dot.
Prabhupāda: Just like k and ṛ under dot, kṛ, Kṛṣṇa.
George: So it's this way. The "s" has this little line.
Revatīnandana: Shh . . . shhh.
Prabhupāda: Śṛṇu (shrinu).
George: Is that ś-ṛ-ṇ-u. Or ś-i-ṇ.
Revatīnandana: Śṛṇu.
Śyāmasundara: In the back of Bhagavad-gītā, on this page, it gives the whole . . .
George: Except when you're trying to read . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes, if you read once or twice . . .
George: . . . and you're trying to go back and . . .
Prabhupāda: No, you can once read that direction once or twice, you will understand.
Śyāmasundara: Little practice.
Revatīnandana: And here there is also . . .
George: It's hard to memorize.
Śyāmasundara: It's hard for English-speaking people to . . .
George: I can't even speak English.
Prabhupāda: You speak all languages.
Revatīnandana: These have all got a meter, a nice meter. I have it on a tape, and also if you want I can go over it with you. I can sing it.
George: Well, we just included this song in an album, you know. It's not out yet. But it's got a different melody to the one we just heard now. It's really nice.
Śyāmasundara: How does your melody go?
George: Da-da . . .
Revatīnandana: Is it a kind of a jolly melody?
George: No, it's (sings) dah da-da-dah da-da-dah da-da . . . (hums more) jaya jagadīśa hare. Then next verse (hums more), jaya jagadīśa hare.
Revatīnandana: Who are you doing it with?
George: Well, Ravi recorded it a few years back when he had all these musicians over, Festival of India, and I believe the singer is the son of the priest from the temple in Goa. He's got very strange pronunciation, you know. The sound of his voice is very different. I'll bring it over next time.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. George has got a plan to bring all the good Indian musicians to . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, yes.
Śyāmasundara: . . . to Britain and live and record music here.
George: And not just Britain; to everywhere.
Śyāmasundara: Traveling tour.
George: No, I've heard so much fantastic music and it's such a shame that nobody gets to hear it, but it's so expensive. But now with the Material World Foundation I'm going to try and get . . .
Prabhupāda: No, if you come to India you can meet so many.
George: Yes, well I already know so many. What I want to do is get them all grouped together as like an orchestra, then register them with the charity so that they're a charitable orchestra. Then my charity can pay to bring them all, and we do concerts and . . . because even if you only did one concert, it's so hard to pay for thirty or forty people to come over and just to feed them for a week and send them all the way back to India. It costs a lot. But once you overcome that problem, then we could tour them, and . . . and they're all such fantastic musicians.
Śyāmasundara: You can set your . . . that's part of your . . . you can set your message in a palatable sound. You can make everything sound very nicely, all the words.
Prabhupāda: Now India, the classical songs, they are diminishing. Classical songs.
Revatīnandana: It's all cinema music now.
Prabhupāda: They are all cinema music.
George: But the classical will stay there, like the Gītā. It's just that people are . . .
Prabhupāda: Why not sing Bhagavad-gītā?
George: Yeah. Lata Mangeshkar, she did one. Lata Sings the Gītā. But in the West it's very hard to hear some classical Indian music, because they're always playing the popular music. But the people in the West would presume that to go to India, you turn the radio on, you're going to hear the classical Indian music. But you don't hear it there either. I mean, they don't play it very often. They play Bismillah Khan or Ravi Shankar.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. In South India more.
George: I've got Bismillah Khan on a jukebox, Shiv Kumar Sharma.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
George: I've got a music box at home. It's the type they used to put money in to play a record. But it has all the shenai, Bismillah and Shiv Kumar. There's that flute player, he's the most fantastic flute player.
Mukunda: Which one? Panlal Ghosh?
George: No, Panlal Ghosh is dead now. This guy is called Hariprasad Chaurasia. We saw him in concert. He's fantastic. He plays from these little flutes like this down to one four foot long and this wide. And the whole, the way he plays. He just blew one note and . . .
Śyāmasundara: Imagine what Kṛṣṇa's flute sounds like.
George: I've been making recordings with him. I just did one, like twenty minutes. Which I'll play to you. What's this? Daśāvatāra . . .
Revatīnandana: Daśāvatāra-stotram. Daśāvatāra-stotram. Ten avatāras, a song about them, a hymn.
George: So it isn't . . . I see. That's the title. Yes, because we were just calling it Jaya Jagadisa Hare. I mean, that would be okay just to say . . . I suppose. Oh, this is the one who Prabhupāda dedicated the book to? The Gītā?
Śyāmasundara: No, that's Baladeva . . .
Revatīnandana: Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa.
Pradyumna: Govinda-bhāṣya
Śyāmasundara: Show him that book. Here's the book that comes from him.
Pradyumna: No, this is just a kind of anthology. Mahājana-gīti—Songs of Great Souls. This is one of the songs. They're songs by all the past spiritual masters. Jayadeva.
Śyāmasundara: Incredible songs.
George: How long did you take to read Sanskrit? . . . (indistinct)
Śyāmasundara: He reads it like English. And he understands the words. You should hear him recite the mantras . . . (indistinct) . . . Śrīla Prabhupāda is passing on everything—Sanskrit, everything. Cooking, singing, philosophy. That's how it's kept alive.
Prabhupāda: You can bring one paper to cover.
George: You've really got to be prepared for the future, you know. I don't know what made me think of that the other day. I was just thinking that the difference from now from the last few years. I mean in a relatively short time it's got such a huge organization. And in another five years . . .
Prabhupāda: This prasādam for your wife. You take it.
George: Okay. Jaya.
Revatīnandana: In another five years what?
George: Well in another five . . . it's like a snowball, the effect, you know. It's getting bigger all the time. And in the next five years I'm sure it's going to double. Just more. I mean it's going to have done more in five years than it has in the last, probably, two hundred years.
Prabhupāda: One Japanese gentleman has predicted.
Revatīnandana: You mean the growth of spiritual . . .
George: The growth in every way, you know. And at that point there's going to be . . .
Revatīnandana: It's a very . . . it's almost like a crucial time. Because at the same time the spiritual side is ready to grow, beginning to grow, the material side is becoming so degraded at the same time. It is crucial time, you see. If we don't know what to do and do it purely now, everything will fall down. If we do it right, everything will change and increase. Because you go down to Picadilly or you go down to the Sunset Strip, you'll see it's going to hell. Hellish.
Prabhupāda: The modern science is based on matter. They are of opinion that life has come from matter. It is a wrong theory. Matter has come from life. This is right theory. So they are just taking the opposite and going wrong way.
George: But what I was saying was not really related to, like, externally in the world, like Sunset Strip and all that. I mean just the, you know, ISKCON, the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is getting so big, it's very big, and there's going to be a point where, you know, it's going to need such fantastic management. It's going to be like high-level business management in a way.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So that it may not deteriorate.
George: So that it's just going to keep . . . even if you can hold on to what it is you've got now, you know, rather . . .
Revatīnandana: It takes that, and it takes purity. The spiritual practice that makes ISKCON a real spiritual movement has got to go on nicely. And as it goes on, then the devotees . . . everybody is developing to take the practical responsibilities.
George: But at the moment, you see, you have Prabhupāda there, who everybody, you know, he's like the figurehead and the spearhead and the one who everybody can draw their energy from. I mean, you know, sooner or later everybody's going to have to be out there on their own, doing, you know, carrying out what everybody's learned. And at that time . . .
Śyāmasundara: We'll always rely on our spiritual master, even if he's not here with us. We'll still take the strength from him.
George: Hmm. I realize.
Revatīnandana: Prabhupāda writes once in his Bhāgavatam, he says: "One has to fly the airplane in the outer space. And once he is there, nobody can fly it for him." He says: "While he is on the ground he can take instruction from an able teacher, but ultimately he has to fly the plane himself." So Prabhupāda is teaching us how to fly. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: No, I have selected twelve heads all over the world. I am telling them. So by Kṛṣṇa's grace, if they remain strictly to the spiritual principles, they'll get strength. Yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādo yasyāprasādān na gatiḥ kuto 'pi (Śrī Śrī Gurv Aṣṭakam 8). Hmm? Can you explain this?
Revatīnandana: "By the mercy of the spiritual master one is benedicted, blessed, by the mercy of Kṛṣṇa. And without the grace of the spiritual master, nobody can make any advancement."
Prabhupāda: Yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādo.
- yasya deve parā bhaktir
- yathā deve tathā gurau
- tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ
- prakāśante mahātmanaḥ
- (ŚU 6.23)
This is the Vedic injunction, that one should have full faith in Kṛṣṇa and the spiritual master. Then everything will be revealed. It is revelation. Nobody can understand spiritual life simply by academic study. The more we become sincere and stick to the spiritual principle, it will be revealed. Prakāśante. Just like sun. Now it is darkness. By your scientific method you cannot get the sunrise now. The sun will rise automatically in due course. Similarly, spiritual method is we have to work for the mercy of Kṛṣṇa.
Therefore this service. Kṛṣṇa is pleased by service. Nobody can compete with Kṛṣṇa. He is not in want of money or anything. He is complete, pūrṇaṁ. But He becomes very much pleased by one's service. That is bhakti. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ.
(aside) Find out this. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ (BG 18.55). It is very important verse.
George: How many temples are there now, Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa temples?
Śyāmasundara: Over a hundred. More than a hundred.
George: So there's only a couple to go. How many can you handle? How many temples can you handle?
Śyāmasundara: Each one is individual. We don't have any worldwide organization, centralized. So that it makes . . . we can have any number, because they are their own . . . management is self-contained. But the philosophy unites us all.
George: You don't have to keep, like, shift money or funds or things from one place to another.
Prabhupāda: No, no. They collect locally and spend. Buy our books.
Śyāmasundara: Philosophy and the principles. So actually you go from here to any other temple, they are all the same. People are amazed. They say, "Wow, what a centralized organization you must have." But the only center is Kṛṣṇa. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: Read that verse. Bhaktyā mām abhi . . . it is Eighteenth Chapter, I think.
Śyāmasundara: I just found it.
Prabhupāda: Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ, tato māṁ tattvato jñātvā
Pradyumna: Here it is.
- bhaktyā mām abhijānāti
- yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ
- tato māṁ tattvato jñātvā
- viśate tad-anantaram
- (BG 18.55)
Translation: "One can understand the Supreme Personality as He is only by devotional service. And when one is in full consciousness of the Supreme Lord by such devotion, he can enter into the kingdom of God."
Prabhupāda: Hmm. Purport?
Pradyumna: "The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, and His plenary portions cannot be understood by mental speculation nor by the nondevotees. If anyone wants to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he has to take to pure devotional service under the guidance of a pure devotee. Otherwise, the truth of the Supreme Personality of Godhead will always be hidden."
"It is already stated, nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ, that He is not revealed to everyone. Everyone cannot understand God simply by erudite scholarship or mental speculation. Only one who is actually engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and devotional service can understand what Kṛṣṇa is. University degrees are not helpful."
"One who is fully conversant with the Kṛṣṇa science becomes eligible to enter into the spiritual kingdom, the abode of Kṛṣṇa. Becoming Brahman does not mean that one loses his identity. Devotional service is there. And as long as devotional service exists, there must be God, the devotee and the process of devotional service. Such knowledge is never vanquished, even after liberation. Liberation involves getting free from the concept of material life. In spiritual life the same distinction is there, the same individuality is there, but in pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness."
"One should not misunderstand that the word viśate, 'enters into Me,' supports the monist theory that one becomes homogeneous with the impersonal Brahman. No. Viśate means that one can enter into the abode of the Supreme Lord in his individuality to engage in His association and render service unto Him. For instance, a green bird enters a green tree not to become one with the tree but to enjoy the fruits of the tree. Impersonalists generally give the example of a river flowing into the ocean and merging. This may be a source of happiness for the impersonalist, but the personalist keeps his personal individuality, like an aquatic in the ocean. We find so many living entities within the ocean if we go deep. Surface acquaintance with the ocean is not sufficient. One must have complete knowledge of the aquatics living in the ocean depths."
"Because of his pure devotional service, a devotee can understand the transcendental qualities and the opulences of the Supreme Lord in truth. As it is stated in the Eleventh Chapter, only by devotional service can one understand. The same is confirmed here. One can understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead by devotional service and enter into His kingdom. After attainment of the brahma-bhūta stage of freedom from material conceptions, devotional service begins by one's hearing about the Lord."
"When one hears about the Supreme Lord, automatically the brahma-bhūta stage develops, and the material contamination, greediness and lust for sense enjoyment, disappears. As lust and desires disappear from the heart of the devotee he becomes more attached to the service of the Lord, and by such attachment he becomes free from material contamination. In that stage of life he can understand the Supreme Lord. This is the statement of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also."
"So after liberation the process of bhakti, or transcendental service, continues. The Vedānta-sūtra confirms this: āprāyaṇāt tatrāpi hi dṛṣṭam. This means that after liberation the process of devotional service continues. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam real devotional service is defined as the reinstatement of the living entity in his own identity, his own . . ."
Prabhupāda: Svarūpeṇa vyavasthitiḥ. The word is svarūpeṇa vyavasthitiḥ. Is there?
Pradyumna: Ah, not . . . (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Svarūpeṇa. Muktir hitvā anyathā rūpam svarūpeṇa vyavasthitiḥ (SB 2.10.6). Mukti, liberation, means being freed from other engagement when he is situated in his own constitutional position. That is mukti. That is mukti. That is the definition given in the Bhāgavata. Muktir hitvā anyathā. In the material world they are working differently from their constitutional position. So when they stop this work differently and is again reinstated in his original consciousness, that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness and that is mukti, that is liberation. Then? Finish it.
Pradyumna: "The constitutional position is already explained. Every living entity is the part and parcel fragmental portion of the Supreme Lord. Therefore his constitutional position is to serve. After liberation this service is never stopped. Actual liberation is getting free from misconceptions of life."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Now, at the present moment, generally people in bodily concept: "I am this body." "I am American," "I am Englishman," "I am brāhmaṇa," "I am kṣatriya," "I am this," "I am that." So this is called bondage. When he will understand that "I am neither Englishman nor American nor Indian; I am eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa," that is mukti. That is mukti. This very consciousness is mukti. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate. Find out this verse:
- māṁ ca 'vyabhicāreṇa
- bhakti-yogena sevate
- sa guṇān samatītyaitān
- brahma-bhūyāya kalpate
- (BG 14.26)
Read it.
Pradyumna: "One who engages in full devotional service, who does not fall down in any circumstance, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Immediately he becomes brahma-bhūta. One who is simply engaged in Kṛṣṇa's service, he is liberated. That is liberation. So a devotee hasn't got to hanker after liberation. Because without liberation nobody can become devotee. Just like a man is on the bench of the high court. It means that he has already passed the law examination. Otherwise, how he is situated on the bench? So similarly, a devotee means he is already liberated. He is not living in the material world. He is living in the spiritual world. Therefore there is one verse, a sādhu, a devotee, jīva vā māra vā: either you live or die, you have no loss. Living also you are serving Kṛṣṇa, and after death you will serve Kṛṣṇa. Jīva vā māra vā.
So this bhakti, bhakti-yoga means it is for liberated person. That is confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā: sa guṇān samatītyaitān (BG 14.26). Liberation means to transcend the effects of the three material qualities: sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa, tamo-guṇa. So it is clearly stated, sa guṇān samatītya etān. Etān is plural number. All these guṇas, qualities, he transcends. Therefore he is liberated. Those who are not liberated, they are conducted by these three qualities. The three qualities: in sattva-guṇa, brahmana; in rajo-guṇa, kṣatriya; in mixed, vaiśya; in tamo-guṇa, śūdra. So . . . but a devotee is not grouped. He is transcendental to all these brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra. A devotee does not depend on this material division of society. He is above that.
Śyāmasundara: So when a devotee is even working in the ordinary world, he is still . . . that is still the spiritual world for him?
Prabhupāda: Yes, because he is working for Kṛṣṇa. That's all. He's in spiritual world. He's with Kṛṣṇa, associating with Kṛṣṇa. He is always remembering Kṛṣṇa. That means he is Kṛṣṇa conscious man.
Mukunda: There's a saying in the Christian literature, "One should be in the world but not of it." That a person should live in the world, but is not of the world, if he is advanced spiritually.
Prabhupāda: He is not out of it.
Mukunda: He is living in the world, but he is not of it. He is not part of it.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. He is not of it. Yes, that's it. Just like we are living in Vaikuṇṭha, here in this house. (laughter)
Revatīnandana: It's a fact. It doesn't matter what you are doing—you're cooking, you're washing the floor—everything you are doing . . .
Prabhupāda: The house is . . . whoever will come in this house, he will immediately remember Kṛṣṇa. Therefore it is Vaikuṇṭha. That Sikṣāmṛta, Upadeśam . . . vaikuṇṭhāj janito varā madhu-purī (Upadeśāmṛta 9). Vaikuṇṭhāj janito varā madhu-purī.
So it is a very nice philosophy. First-class philosophy. Let people try to understand. Give them chance. Let us give them service. Kṛṣṇa will be pleased, because Kṛṣṇa comes, incarnates, to teach this philosophy. So anyone does for Kṛṣṇa, he is very favorite. That is also stated:
- na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu
- kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ
- (BG 18.69)
- ya idaṁ paramaṁ guhyaṁ
- mad-bhakteṣv abhidhāsyati
- (BG 18.68)
Yes. Just read.
Pradyumna: Na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu?
Prabhupāda: Kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ.
Pradyumna:
- bhavitā na ca me tasmād
- anyaḥ priyataro bhuvi
- (BG 18.69)
"There is no servant in this world more dear to Me than he, nor will there ever be one more dear."
Prabhupāda: Who is preaching this cult. That is . . . Kṛṣṇa says: "Oh, no, no one is dearer than he." Just explain it. Purport is there? Purport?
Pradyumna: No, but then the verse before that, ya idaṁ paramaṁ guhyaṁ?
Prabhupāda: Ah, mad-bhakteṣv abhidhāsyati. (break)
Pradyumna:
- bhaktiṁ mayi parāṁ kṛtvā
- mām evaiṣyaty asaṁśayaḥ
- (BG 18.68)
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Pradyumna: "For one who explains the supreme secret to the devotees, devotional service is guaranteed, and at the end he will come back to Me."
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Revatīnandana: Once Prabhupāda said anybody who will listen is a devotee. If you listen and you just tell them, you are preaching to the devotees, and you are most dear servant of Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: We have to make little arrangement that people will be attracted to come and hear us. That's all. He hasn't got to do anything. Let him please come, sit down here and take prasādam and go home. He will become devotee. It is so nice. Sravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ. Tan manyavitam tamam, Prahlāda Mahārāja said.
And Caitanya Mahāprabhu also, when Rāmānanda Rāya was speaking, you will find this. You have got that Teachings of Lord Caitanya? Yes, you will find when He was talking with Rāmānanda Rāya. So he gave so many programs for people's benefit. Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, īhā haya bhaja. It is not possible, no. You speak something better. You speak something." So when he spoke:
- sthāne sthitāḥśruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhir
- ye prāyaśo 'jita jito 'py asi tais tri-lokyām.
- (CC Madhya 8.67)
This is verse from . . . when this verse was recited, immediately Caitanya Mahāprabhu said iha, "Yes, this is nice." So what is that? That let them stay in their position. It doesn't matter. Simply give them chance that they may hear from realized person. Sthāne sthitāḥ, let him keep his position. There is no use of changing his position. Sthāne sthitāḥ means in his position. Śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhir, without personally endeavoring, let him hear from the realized soul.
As soon as this statement was given by Rāmānanda Rāya, immediately Caitanya Maha . . . "Yes, yes, this is nice. This is nice." He accepted. "This is nice." So people should be, in this age, simply they should be given little chance to come in our place and sit down and hear and give him prasādam. Then gradually become liberated. He hasn't got to do anything. Simply he has to lend his ear. That's all. And tongue also.
Revatīnandana: There's . . . in London there's a middle-aged Jewish man. He used to walk by the temple every night on his way home. As he was going home, every night he'd walk by the temple and there would be āratik going on. He began to like the sound of the bells. So he came in and for three, four years now he's been coming at least two or three nights, if not every night. And he sits, he chants a little and he listens to the lecture. He likes the lectures. I talked to him one night. He said, "You know," he said: "I never cared much for religion," he says: "but I'm addicted to this place. I have to come here now. If I don't come, I don't feel good any more. I come here every night." (laughs) He's just a man, but . . .
Prabhupāda: I like, I like. That's . . . yes.
Śyāmasundara: If the world becomes populated by a certain number of liberated persons then everything will change. Everything will change.
Prabhupāda: Ekaś candras tamo hanti na ca taraḥ sahasrasaḥ. If there is one moon, that is sufficient. There is no need of millions of stars. Ekaś candras tamo hanti na ca taraḥ sahasrasaḥ. One person enlightened is sufficient to give light. There is no need of glowworms. (laughs) Glowworms can be important only in darkness. But when there is sunshine it has no value. So George has to go, or let him stay this night?
George: No, I must go.
Prabhupāda: Must go?
George: But I'll be back very quickly.
Prabhupāda: All right. (laughs) So you have to go forty miles?
George: Pardon?
Prabhupāda: Forty miles from here?
George: It's about thirty-five, forty. It's about forty or fifty minutes' drive.
Prabhupāda: That's all right.
Śyāmasundara: Part of it is motorway.
Revatīnandana: It's not so bad this time of night. There's no traffic.
Prabhupāda: Yes, it is not congested. So you are going alone, or somebody is going with you?
George: I go alone. Well . . . (laughs) A little bit of you will be with me.
Revatīnandana: Kṛṣṇa is sitting in your heart.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. (devotees offer obeisances)
George: Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: My blessings to your wife. Give this to her. Thank you very much for your coming. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
George: Thank you. I'll see you very soon.
Prabhupāda: Thank you. Jaya.
Revatīnandana: All glories to Prabhupāda. (end)
- 1973 - Conversations
- 1973 - Lectures and Conversations
- 1973 - Lectures, Conversations and Letters
- 1973-07 - Lectures, Conversations and Letters
- Conversations - Europe
- Conversations - Europe, England - London
- Lectures, Conversations and Letters - Europe
- Lectures, Conversations and Letters - Europe, England - London
- Conversations with Artists, Musicians, Poets, Writers
- 1973 - New Audio - Released in May 2015
- 1973 - New Transcriptions - Released in May 2015
- Audio Files 90.01 Minutes or More