740606 - Morning Walk - Geneva

Morning Walks by Date, 1974

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

740606MW-GENEVA - June 06, 1974 - 36:53 Minutes

Prabhupāda: . . . only barrier. The meat-eaters cannot understand.

Satsvarūpa: He said: "Let us go on to higher topics. We've just been talking so long about meat-eating."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Satsvarūpa: You said: "Well, if you're sinful, there's no question of going on to a higher topic."

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is specially mentioned in the Bhāgavata: vinā paśughnāt.

nivṛtta-tarṣair upagīyamānād

bhavauṣadhāc chrotra-mano-'bhirāmāt

ka uttamaśloka-guṇānuvādāt

pumān virajyeta vinā paśughnāt

(SB 10.1.4)

Everyone can understand the truth except the rascals who are meat-eaters. Vinā paśughnāt. Paśughnāt. Paśu means animals, and ghna means killer. Christ therefore first says: "You shall not kill." These rascals are killers from the very beginning, and they're continuing. Vinā paśughnāt. Those who are paśughna, they cannot understand. They're thinking, "We are doing very good work, philanthropic work, opening hospital and public road, and every ten years we are fighting and killing all the men population." They're happy. They are taking credit for these big, big buildings, but this is duṣkṛtina, because simply these buildings are meant for committing sinful activities. That's all. "Wine, women, meat-eating, gambling. We are civilized." (break) . . . this Geneva many many churches?

Guru-gaurāṅga: Many churches in Geneva? No.

Prabhupāda: No.

Guru-gaurāṅga: Don't have many.

Prabhupāda: That means godless. Eh?

Guru-gaurāṅga: Yes.

Prabhupāda: When I first went to America, Butler, in Pennsylvania, that is small county, but at least one dozen churches I found. I very much appreciated, that these people are not . . . and they're going regularly, churches. I was invited in many churches. I was . . .

Yogeśvara: To lecture?

Prabhupāda: Yes. The, the girl, that my friend's son's wife . . . he's Indian. He has married an English girl. So I was guest at his house. So that girl, Sally . . . Selly or Sally?

Yogeśvara: Sally.

Prabhupāda: She was arranging so many meetings. She was very intelligent girl. So churches, many churches, many . . . some of the churches purchased my books.

Yogeśvara: Recently, one of our saṅkīrtana parties went to Butler, Pennsylvania, and one of the devotees met a priest on the street. He said: "Oh, yes, I remember your spiritual master. He was here."

Prabhupāda: So I was giving lectures. They have churches. That means God conscious persons there. I never criticized church, mosque. Never. Because whatever it may be, at least there is God consciousness. So they're good. In details . . . but when they disobey . . . I criticize only these rascals disobey the commandments. Otherwise, we have no . . . we don't criticize.

Yogeśvara: We're not sectarian.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Yogeśvara: We're not sectarian.

Prabhupāda: Why? God is one. Why we shall be sectarian? According to his circumstances, he is doing. And that prayer is also bhakti, offering prayer. Śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanaṁ vandanam (SB 7.5.23). This vandana is prayer. So that is bhakti, one of the items of bhakti.

Yogeśvara: Everyone needs to be encouraged.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Yogeśvara: Everyone needs to be encouraged in their God consciousness.

Prabhupāda: Smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam arcanaṁ vandanaṁ dāsyaṁ sakhyam ātma-nivedanam. Bhaktiś cet nava-lakṣaṇā (SB 7.5.24). Bhakti is demonstrated in nine different symptoms. So vandanam, offering prayers, that is bhakti.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is it required for them to have a spiritual master to guide them?

Prabhupāda: Certainly. These rascals, the priest, they do not guide them. They are also fallen. Otherwise, Christian religion is very nice, if they follow. So many times they asked me. "Yes, if you follow your Christian religion, you'll be perfect." Caitanya Mahāprabhu proved devotional service from Koran. Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The Khān Vaiṣṇavas.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So it requires the devotee who can explain from any godly literature about God. How rascal they are. "Jesus Christ ate fish. Therefore we shall maintain big, big slaughterhouse." Just see the argument. Then, in the Bengali, mosa marte kaman. There was a mosquito, and one is asking, "Bring a cannon. Bring a cannon." Mosa marte kaman. Jesus Christ ate somewhere. There was no food available to eat—might have. Accepting he ate, but that, does it mean that you have to maintain slaughterhouse? Just see. And besides that, he might have done anything. He's powerful. He can eat. Therefore the other day I said: "He can eat the whole world." But you cannot imitate. You have to follow his instruction. That is Christianity.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Many of the young people now, they look to the Bible for instruction, but they don't like to go to church at all. They feel that the church is hypocritical.

Prabhupāda: Hypocritical, simply hypocritical. All these priests and cardinals and popes, they're all hypocritical. Getting high, highly salaried, high salaries, and drinking wine. And in America there is a hospital, five thousand drunkard priests are admitted there to cure their drinking habit. That was published in a paper. And they're sanctioning man-to-man marriage. That was published in that . . . what is that? Watch?

Satsvarūpa: Watchtower?

Prabhupāda: Watchtower. Yes.

Guru-gaurāṅga: They did a survey among the Catholic priests . . .

Prabhupāda: (referring to memorial) What is this? They do not fight. Why there is soldier? (laughter) What nonsense. Why there are soldiers? The neutral? 1939. This is Second World War. And First World War, 19 . . .

Yogeśvara: (reading) "Dedicated to the soldiers of Geneva who died in the service of their country."

Prabhupāda: So that means it was attacked?

Guru-gaurāṅga: Probably defending banks or things like that. Civil.

Prabhupāda: Two wars, 1914 to 1918.

Swiss devotee: They have big military poems. Yes.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Swiss devotee: Many, many.

Guru-gaurāṅga: We read in the papers, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that they did a survey among the Capuchin priests, and fifty percent felt that their spiritual life was hampered by the fact they could not have intimate relations with women. And forty percent felt that they were not allowed enough freedom, and that obedience was not good.

Prabhupāda: Not allowed in . . .?

Guru-gaurāṅga: Enough freedom.

Prabhupāda: What is that freedom?

Yogeśvara: Illicit principles. Sinful principles.

Prabhupāda: Oh. (japa) (break) . . . fig, there are thousands of seeds. And each seed contains a tree like that. And there are thousands of fruits, figs. Where is that chemist who can prepare such fruits? Once, in Delhi, when our festival was going on, we invited a big chemist. He admitted that, "Our chemical advance, scientific advancement, is like this." He explained very nicely. You were present?

Yogeśvara: Where?

Prabhupāda: In Delhi? He said that a man who has learned the art to, what is called, barking like dog, and people will go to see, purchasing ticket, ten rupees, twenty rupees, how the man is barking like a dog. And there are so many dogs barking; they won't see. This is our advancement. If a man has artificially learned how to bark, they'll go to see by paying fees. And the natural barking, they don't care. So these rascals are like that. They're trying to manufacture life. And so many life is coming by nature's process, millions and millions, that is no credit. And he's trying, utopian, he'll create life by chemical combination, he's given all credit, Nobel Prize, "Oh, here is a man . . ." This is rascaldom. So what credit you'll get. Suppose if you can manufacture a man or an animal in the laboratory, where is your credit? There are many millions and millions are coming automatically. We are trying to give credit to Kṛṣṇa, who is making all this creation.

Yogeśvara: There is one Englishman named Aldous Huxley . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Yogeśvara: . . . who wrote a book called Brave New Worlds, and in that book he predicted something that's coming true now, that there would be a process of biologically screening babies so that men could be breeded like animals, like they breed animals. So they would take one strain of chromosomes and breed a class of men who would make perfect administrators, and then they would breed another class of men that would be perfect śūdras, and they would breed another class of men who would be perfect scientists.

Prabhupāda: And that is already there. Guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (BG 4.13). The, the, in Vedic astrology, jāta-karma, they will say that, "This child is a śūdra, this child is a brāhmaṇa, this child is a kṣatriya." By the birth, by the constellation of the stars, it will be done. It is already being done. And in the medical laboratory, the blood has been tested, brāhmaṇa, śūdra, vaiśya, there is different blood. Yes. The blood infusion. So if the, a different blood is infused, it does not act. So one doctor in India, he was permanently keeping different bloods for different persons. So there is some meaning in the caste system. But that is not . . . in a brāhmaṇa family, a śūdra may also take birth, śūdra blood. So to keep the blood brahminical, therefore the reformatory system is there, garbhādhāna-saṁskāra and all the saṁskāras. Before birth they keep . . . to keep the blood brahminical, there is ceremony.

Satsvarūpa: Yesterday you said when one becomes initiated by a bona fide spiritual master, his body changes.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Satsvarūpa: Even if he was mleccha, he can become brāhmaṇa.

Yogeśvara: Actually, the chemists also say that there are four types of blood: A, AB, O, and something like that. They give it four names.

Prabhupāda: And according to Hindu system, the marriage was taking place finding . . . examining the girl's constitution and the boy's constitution, so that there may not be disruption. Everything was there.

Yogeśvara: The Vedic system is so scientific.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. That is human civilization. That is Āryan civilization. Vedic civilization means Āryan.

Yogeśvara: Hitler also wanted to produce a pure breed of Āryans, but artificially. He just said anyone who is German-born, they are the true Āryans.

Prabhupāda: But so much freedom in sex, how the blood can be pure? (japa) (break)

Yogeśvara: . . . but kṛṣṇa-prasādam?

Prabhupāda: Then he's neutral always. He's not affected by all these qualities.

Yogeśvara: I guess the blood becomes purified like that. (break)

Prabhupāda: I said that, "You scientists, you are simply wasting time." Did I not say that, last night?

Yogeśvara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Childish. Just imitating barking of the dog. That's all. And he wants to take credit by imitating barking the dog. And the real dog is barking—no attention. Actually, that is the position.

Guru-gaurāṅga: They say that if a dog bites a man, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that's nothing special, but if a man bites a dog, that's news.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (laughs) Yes. Just like the men ate some human flesh, that became news.

Yogeśvara: That airplane crash.

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is their business. (break) . . . is when the dog barks, that is not science. When a man barks like a dog, that is science. Is that not? The man, how scientifically he has learned how to bark like a dog. This is their aim, how to imitate dog-barking. This is scientific.

Satsvarūpa: On a morning walk in Los Angeles, Svarūpa Dāmodara said they are now going to produce babies in a test tube, and you said: "But that's already being done, in the womb. That's a very nice test tube." He said: "But he'll get a Nobel Prize." So that's the example. Nature's already doing it nicely. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . produce even a green grass like this in the laboratory, what to speak of other things.

Yogeśvara: If producing life was worthy of a Nobel Prize, then they should give every mother in the world a Nobel Prize.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. (japa) (pause)

Yogeśvara: Actually, I think they should give you the Nobel Prize.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Yogeśvara: You've been creating devotees.

Prabhupāda: Oh, I, I am natural dog, and they'll not give me prize. (laughs) They'll give prize to the artificial dog.

Yogeśvara: Bad imitation.

Satsvarūpa: (referring to statues) There is that Pan god again, imitating Kṛṣṇa with a flute and standing like that.

Prabhupāda: And what is this?

Yogeśvara: He's naked, though.

Satsvarūpa: That's some goddess of music with a harp. (pause) (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . brain, they have created something, but it will be used for sinful activities: drinking wine, meat-eating and sex. Not for chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Duṣkṛtina. They use their brain, but for sinful activities. This is duṣkṛtina.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: There's the verse in the Second Chapter of Bhagavad-gītā that what is night for the materialistic man is the time of awakening for the introspective sage.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guru-gaurāṅga: These scientists, Śrīla Prabhupāda, they say that their research is neutral, and it is not their fault that the use of their discoveries is detrimental. Like that man yesterday, he said, "It is not my bomb."

Prabhupāda: Oh, then whose bomb?

Yogeśvara: Well, their point is, like, for example, Albert Einstein. His idea wasn't to create the atomic bomb, but with his theories, the government agencies had men produce the bomb. So they're saying: "Why should you blame us for all the chaos and havoc? All we're doing is simply researching nature."

Prabhupāda: (referring to statue) This is child?

Satsvarūpa: He has got animal hoofs, though.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Satsvarūpa: From the waist down, he's an animal. He has hoofs instead of feet.

Yogeśvara: What are they called?

Satsvarūpa: Centaur?

Yogeśvara: Centaur, centaur.

Satsvarūpa: That's in the Greek . . . (break)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: . . . if they give up the four sinful activities, then they might be able to understand the Vedic philosophy. So does this imply . . .?

Prabhupāda: Not Vedic philosophy. They will understand God.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So does this mean that by their activities that they're engaging in now, their incentive is that they want to enjoy these four sinful activities . . .? And that really they're not looking for truth? That's . . .

Prabhupāda: They have no inquiry for truth. Animal life. As soon as there will be inquiry for the truth, that is human life.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They will naturally perform some tapasya?

Prabhupāda: Yes, then other things will follow. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. They do not inquire. That means animal life. As soon as there is inquiry, jijñāsu, jñānī jijñāsu . . . they're not jijñāsu even, neither jñānī. (pause) The path must be very old. The trees are very aged. (pause) (break)

Satsvarūpa: . . . yesterday said, when you said that one must be pure before he approaches God, they said: "That's spiritual pride," they said: "That is not good to say first we have to be pure. Like egoism," they said.

Prabhupāda: They'll tolerate material egoism, "We are doing this humanitarian service." That they . . . and spiritual egoism he'll not. That I replied, that this is real egoism, ahaṁ brahmāsmi. And I'm "Ahaṁ dog-asmi." (laughter) That is not very good pride. (break) Why not make one world? That I said to that man. Why do they not do that? Everything belongs to God.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In the Vedic times also, just a few thousand years ago, there was one monarch also, one king.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And they were subordinate to him.

Guru-gaurāṅga: But now, countries like Switzerland, they're afraid that if there is one kingdom, they will lose their standard of living.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Guru-gaurāṅga: Their nice standard of living will be lost.

Prabhupāda: No, why? The standard of living should be one: plain living and God consciousness. That is the disease. Everyone wants to enjoy this material world to his best capacity. Therefore we divide. They don't want to live in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Material consciousness. Enjoyment of the senses. And that is the cause of their suffering. Only on account of this sense gratification they're creating different mentality, and, after death, they're getting different body. That they do not know. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgaḥ asya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu (BG 13.22). One is trying to associate with the goodness, brahmiṇ, brahmiṇ qualification, he'll be promoted, and one who is trying to imitate, "I shall be as powerful as the tiger," he'll be degraded. It is nature's law.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, one person asked the other day that, "You say that we have a choice, that either we can surrender to Kṛṣṇa or we can remain under the control of the external energy."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: And his question was that are those in the mode of passion and ignorance, do they have any choice?

Prabhupāda: Everyone has choice. Everyone has choice. Choice, but under the control. Exactly like that. By your choice, you go to the prison house. By your choice, you go to the university. There is supreme control, government, but it is your choice whether you want to live in the prison or in the university. That is your choice. Government does not say that, "Oh, this man will come to the university, and this man will go to the prison house." No. You make your choice, you work according to that, and government sends you either to prison or to the university. You cannot say . . . one man is condemned to be killed for murdering, another man is rewarded some prize, you cannot say government is partial. You have made your choice, and government is giving you the result. (pause) Once you make your choice to steal, then you are under prison house, immediately.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Choice to . . .?

Prabhupāda: To steal.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Steal.

Prabhupāda: Then immediately you are under prison. It will take some time only. Just like if you infect some disease, it will take some time to manifest, but it will be manifest. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgaḥu (BG 13.22). So in the, in the . . . ordinarily, you can steal and hide yourself, but in the eyes of God, you cannot steal and hide yourself. That is not possible. You have stolen; you must suffer. (end)