760427 - Conversation - Auckland

Conversations by Date, 1976

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

760427R1-AUCKLAND - April 27, 1976 - 17:27 Minutes

Devotee (1): Yeah, he's floating around somewhere doing nonsense. Now he's eating meat. (Prabhupāda chuckles) And this one boy in Fiji wrote me a letter. His friend worked at the hotel, Guru Maharaj-ji came and stayed there, and he was a waiter. For dinner, Guru Maharaj-ji had shrimp curry and then beer. Drinking, eating meat and having illicit sex.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's his līlā.

Devotee (1): Complete nonsense.

Devotee (2): How does he keep followers?

Prabhupāda: So followers are like that?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Like guru, like celā.

Devotee (2): It's a very cheap thing. Very much they're moving on the group spirit.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Devotee (2): It's just a personality cult, with no philosophy.

Devotee (1): Social club.

Gurukṛpa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, for the abhiṣeka, do we require cow urine and cow dung and tail of cow? Is it . . .

Prabhupāda: If available. Not?

Devotee (1): Yes, we can get it.

Gurukṛpa: It's available.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They're feeling threatened by our kīrtana parties.

Prabhupāda: Who?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He said that some of the town councils are trying to pass laws against our chanting in the streets.

Devotee (2): The Christians are behind it in Whangarei.

Prabhupāda: So, can they pass such law?

Devotee (2): I don't think so. We're having . . . some of our men are going to meet with the council the day after tomorrow at the meeting. They're open to our side. The reason is that the businessmen have complained. Some of the businessmen have complained.

Prabhupāda: Not all of them. You take some signature from other businessmen.

Devotee (2): Yes, all right.

Prabhupāda: You present that.

Devotee (2): Yes. The men who are going to speak are businessmen, devotees. One is an architect.

Prabhupāda: Then he can organize so many signatures.

Devotee (2): One is a restaurant owner, and one has a hairdressing salon. And they're going to speak . . .

Prabhupāda: Everyone likes; that's a fact.

Gurukṛpa: We gave the argument before that they say it is a disturbance, but there are so many cars and airplanes which are making disturbance. They should also be stopped.

Devotee (2): Last week we wrote letters to the newspaper, and they published them, showing our view. And in Whangarei . . . it's another city, a hundred miles from here. It's near the farm, up north, and the devotees chant there. And the businessmen complained. And the devotees wrote a letter criticizing the materialistic businessmen, and that they didn't care for the people, only they wanted money. And they printed it this big in the newspaper, completely criticizing, and the people liked it. They put it in, everything, word for word what the devotees said. So it was good.

Prabhupāda: So there is agitation against chanting, that is also good.

Devotee (2): It means it's effective.

Prabhupāda: Yes, "Hare Kṛṣṇa is bad." (laughs)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They don't want to be bothered with Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They don't want to be bothered with Hare Kṛṣṇa. Go on with their hellish life.

Prabhupāda: So we want that. Let them chant Hare Kṛṣṇa somehow or other. (devotees laugh) "We don't want to be bothered by Hare Kṛṣṇa," that means chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Devotee (2): Because our kīrtana party now, we have . . . we go on kīrtana, eighty men. We go two nights a week with eighty men. Huge kīrtana with five mṛdaṅgas and guitars, and we get huge crowd from the whole street.

Prabhupāda: That will make you triumphant. Go on kīrtana. That is very nice. Kīrtana and book distribution. This is also kīrtana.

Gurukṛpā: This is bṛhad mṛdaṅga.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So do it enthusiastically. Keep yourself pure. Nobody will be able to do any harm to you. Kṛṣṇa will give you protection. So? (break)

Devotee (2): Eight crores.

Hari-śauri: Didn't he say eighty crores?

Prabhupāda: One crore means ten million.

Hari-śauri: Rupees.

Prabhupāda: Such eight.

Devotee (2): Eighty million rupees.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee (2): That's a million dollars.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Eight million dollars.

Prabhupāda: Now it will be tested how much money we have got. (Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa laughs)

Gurukṛpā: Ghee is cheaper in New Zealand than in Australia.

Prabhupāda: Anyway, first of all arrange for selling.

Gurukṛpā: I've already sent off the letter.

Prabhupāda: And you can disvertise it from New Zealand or from Australia. There can be very peaceful condition of the whole world. Simply mismanaged by the rascal leaders. Otherwise, people can live very peacefully, eat sumptuously, save time, and there is no necessity of stopping the, I mean to say, bare necessities of life. There is arrangement for eating, sleeping, sex life also. But not like fools and rascals. Like sane man. But this modern civilization, it is insane, crazy civilization. There is a little pleasure in sex life—simply sex life, increase sex life, spoiling everything. That is crazy. Eating—eat anything, any nonsense thing, and become a hog. Sleeping—oḥ, there is no limit, twenty-four-hours sleeping if it is possible. Go on, this is going on. Eating, sleeping, mating. And defense—and discover atomic weapon, this weapon, that weapon, and kill innocent persons, unnecessarily, defense. This is going on.

But everything can be used properly for peaceful condition, and when you become peaceful, no disturbance, then you can very happily chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and your life becomes successful. This is our program. We don't want to stop anything. How it can be stopped? Whatever is the bare neces . . . just like we have taken sannyāsa. What is that? "Oh, we have no sex life only. Otherwise, we are also eating, we are also sleeping." So that is also stopped in good old age. In old age, if a person like me, at the age of eighty years, if I would have shopped for sex life, does it look very good? Young men, they are allowed. That's all right. But a young . . . old man is going to the club and spending for sex life so much money. Therefore younger generation, they're allowed gṛhastha life from twenty-five years to fifty years. That's all. After that, stop sex life. Actually, they want to stop population. Then why it, sex, then? No, they'll have sex life, at the same time, no population, kill the children. What is that? Simply sinful life. They will suffer, continue to suffer. So we want to stop that suffering. These rascals, they do not understand. They think, "Hare Kṛṣṇa movement is disturbing." A rascal civilization.

So let us try our best. What can be done? You are also helping in this movement. So don't spoil the movement by manufacturing ideas. Don't do that. Go on in the standard way, keep yourself pure; then movement is sure to be successful. But if you want to spoil it by whimsical, then what can be done? It will be spoiled. If you manufacture whims and disagree and fight amongst yourself, then it will be another edition of these so-called movements. It will lose the spiritual strength. Always remember it. You cannot . . . now, actually, people are surprised: "What this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra has got power that it is changing so quickly?" And on the other hand, it is to be admitted, unless it has got power, how it is changing? So we have to keep that power. Don't make it an ordinary musical vibration. It is a different thing—spiritual. Although it seems like musical vibration, but it is spiritual, completely. mantrauśadhi-vaśa. Even, by mantra, the snakes can be charmed. So mantra is not ordinary sound vibration. So we have to keep the mantra in potency, potent, by offenseless chanting, by remaining pure. If you pollute the mantra, then it will lose its effect. Hmm.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (to other devotees) Today you'll be giving that lakṣmī in the morning? Because we can take our passports and go to the bank.

Devotee (2): And you can change some more at the airport when you leave.

Hari-śauri: You have to have your passport.

Devotee (2): At the airport, yes.

Devotee (1): At the bank.

Devotee (2): You have to bring the airplane ticket, too. (indistinct discussion of money matters) So concerning the temple, Śrīla Prabhupāda, I talked to some boys, and the one boy, Dhūmiya, he used to be in Australia, he made a fifteen-foot-high Lord Caitanya. Do you remember at the Ratha-yātrā?

Prabhupāda: Hmm. Hmm.

Devotee (2): And we're going to build a temple with nice domes, Indian style, and with sculpture like the elephant heads . . .

Prabhupāda: Make in Vṛndāvana style.

Devotee (2): Yes. I'll get pictures of the different . . .

Prabhupāda: There is that big dome and . . . you have seen Vṛndāvana?

Devotee (2): I have seen it just before it was finished, not since it was completed.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Devotee (2): But I've seen pictures.

Prabhupāda: I think we have got pictures.

Devotee (2): And the place where we're going to put it, you'll be able to see it for miles. It'll be a landmark.

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Devotee (2): You can see it for many miles.

Prabhupāda: Not only one; you hundreds of temples construct. Village to village, town to . . . at the same time, men. And it will revolutionize the whole rascal situation. At the present moment, it is rascal situation. They're simply satisfied by driving the motor . . . put-put-put-put-put-put-put-put-put! (Prabhupāda makes the sound of a fast motor) They are thinking, "Oh, how highly I am situated." All crazy. But this has been taught to them that, "This is civilization. If you have got a motorcycle and you can come like the wild cat, (all laugh) then you are civilized." They are thinking how great civilized they are; we are thinking how wild cat he is. And what is the difference between wild cat and running dog and this motorcycle, put-put? What is the difference?

Devotee (2): Nothing.

Prabhupāda: And they're taking it highly civilized way of life. Where you are going? You cannot go beyond this earth. You attempted so much to go to the moon planet, you failed. And where you can go, put-put-put-put? You'll have to stay here. But that rascal does not understand. He thinks, "I am going very fast." Where you are going? You are destined to stay here. That he does not understand. Not only this put-put motorcycle, the put-put airplane also. They're also trying to go to this planet around, round. That sputnik, first sputnik, eighteen thousand miles, and they simply rounded over the world in one hour and twenty-five minutes. And where did you go? And when he's tired, then come down again. They cannot understand, these so-called scientists, that we cannot go in this way. There is higher authority. Why it will allow us to go anywhere? Just like the horse running fast, but within the racecourse. That's all. It cannot go beyond the racecourse. And similarly, however heroic expedition we may show, you are, what is called, baddha-jīva, conditioned. You cannot cross the condition. That is not possible. Ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham iti manyate (BG 3.27). A rascal, on account of his false prestige, he is thinking, "Oh, I am independent. I can do whatever I like." Vimūḍhātmā, foolish, rascal. Mūḍha, not—vimūḍhātmā, "especially the rascal, a special rascal." Ordinary rascal is better than the special rascal. (laughs) So all these scientists, philosophers and political leaders, they're all special rascal, they are.

Devotee (2): Vimūḍha.

Prabhupāda: Ordinary man, they're simply rascal, and these rascals are special rascals.

Gurukṛpā: Vimūḍhā nānupaśyanti paśyanti jñāna-cakṣuṣaḥ (BG 15.10).

Prabhupāda: Hmm. Hmm. So don't be vimūḍhas. Better remain mūḍha, not special rascal. (end)