760607 - Morning Walk - Los Angeles

Morning Walks by Date, 1976

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

760607MW-LOS ANGELES - June 07, 1976 - 50:37 Minutes

(in car)

Rāmeśvara: The religions editor for one very big newspaper is coming, and he has asked if it is possible he can interview you for his newspaper.

Prabhupāda: Hmm? Yes.

Rāmeśvara: So that's all right. He's coming at ten o'clock, and then I'll show him around, so maybe by ten-thirty.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Before the massage.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That's right time.

Hari-śauri: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: . . . widespread, Śrīla Prabhupāda, very widespread. Now I'm afraid about it being in New York, because one of the leaders has been . . . I just found out that he's one of the leaders. He's been in New York for about three weeks on his way to London, and he's a pūj . . . he has his own Deities, which he has on the altar, which means he's talking to our pūjārīs. I am . . . I have to get back there as soon as possible to see. They have, like, a newsletter they send out all over the world.

Rāmeśvara: They mail it out?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, well, it's a bunch of notes they mail out on a regular basis. It's really poisonous. Pradyumna has been investigating. He got a bunch of their notes photocopied. The one thing I've noticed about the people that are involved with this . . . two features I particularly have noticed. One of them is that they don't go out on saṅkīrtana. Everyone I've seen . . .

Prabhupāda: Then everything will be finished. Preaching will be finished. In this sahajiyā party, then preaching will be finished. Siddha-praṇālī.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What does that mean, Śrīla Prabhupāda, siddha-praṇālī?

Prabhupāda: Siddha-praṇālī is nonsense. They have manufactured a siddha-praṇālī. (break)

Rāmeśvara: . . . the initiation that you are given your siddhas, your eternal position.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There are some very strange notes. You should see those notes.

Rāmeśvara: Yes, I've read them all already.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You did?

Prabhupāda: They have learned it from these Rādhā-kuṇḍa bābājīs.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: From Rādhā-kuṇḍa bābājīs?

Prabhupāda: Bābājīs, yes. After all, they're fool, rascals, so whatever they say.

Rāmeśvara: The dangerous thing is that they are using your book for authority.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Authority, where? What is that? That I've already explained. Why these rascals do not take the lessons of Caitanya Mahāprabhu that we are all rascals, fools? No. That they will not take. They'll take the Rādhārāṇī's bhāva. What Caitanya Mahāprabhu is teaching by His practical life, that we have to take.

Rāmeśvara: There is one statement, Śrīla Prabhupāda, regarding devotional service in a reverential mood. So they have found some quote, they are quoting, that this reverential devotional service is an impediment towards developing pure love.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Another place they quote that regulative principles are a hindrance on the path. Because there's a statement that I think Yāmunācārya says.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's a statement somewhere in one of your books that when one attains the highest platform . . .

Prabhupāda: Then where is that highest platform?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, there's no question of it.

Rāmeśvara: One must go through stages.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: You gave the example of trying to get an M.A. degree.

Prabhupāda: Yes. One has to come to that highest stage. It is not forbidden. That may be ideal, but not for the neophytes. You must . . . one who does not know A-B-C-D, what he will know about M.A. degrees? That they do not know. They think that they have already passed M.A. degree. That is their fault.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's another statement, I saw them, where it says . . . it's a quote, that you can treat Kṛṣṇa as your lover and Kṛṣṇa will reciprocate.

Hari-śauri: And they underlined the two words "you can" treat Kṛṣṇa as your lover. Like that. In this way they're taking your quotes out of context.

Rāmeśvara: This is one of their main . . . the main ideas in their philosophy is that the living entity can desire to have any relationship he wants with Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: That's all right, he can desire. I already explained: first deserve, then desire.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa and Rāmeśvara: Deserve then desire, oh.

Prabhupāda: You are rascal, how you can desire? You have no qualification, you desire to high-court judge. What is this nonsense?

Rāmeśvara: But then they have an answer.

Prabhupāda: What is that answer?

Rāmeśvara: That "Let me just try it anyway, to keep my mind thinking . . ."

Prabhupāda: How you can try it? First of all, be qualified, a big lawyer. Then you become high-court judge. Where is that qualification? You are after illicit sex and bīḍī and you want to be associated with the gopīs.

Rāmeśvara: They say that, "In ISKCON, we do not . . ."

Prabhupāda: Let them say all nonsense. They are disqualified. Sahajiyā bābājīs, that's all.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's about forty of them in this temple. Fifty. There's fifty of them in this temple, Prabhupāda.

Rāmeśvara: Oh, really?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes.

Hari-śauri: A women's group and a men's group.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's a women's group with about twenty-five or thirty.

Hari-śauri: The thing is that they're going around and they're soliciting for people to come and join their group, and then immediately they come, they immediately take them into all the details of the gopīs with Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: No, then let them . . . unless they follow the regulative principles, there is no place for that in the temple. Let them go out.

Rāmeśvara: They are following.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The leader . . . what is that leader? What's her name?

Rāmeśvara: Some girl from London. Pūrṇacandra. She's an excellent typist. She is working on your books, typing.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: She had, er, an abortion in Europe.

Rāmeśvara: As a devotee?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. They found out.

Prabhupāda: That is their fault. They want to utilize the love affairs of Kṛṣṇa and gopīs for their debauchery. That is a support for their debauchery. That is sahajiyā.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's the meaning of sahajiyā.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So that's on their minds.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're frustrated.

Prabhupāda: We are restricting, "No illicit sex." They will put that, "Here is illicit sex between the gopīs and Kṛṣṇa."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "So we can also do it."

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is their . . .

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Breaking the principles.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hari-śauri: Because sādhana-bhakti is a gradual process, they immediately want the highest perfection quickly.

Prabhupāda: That is the danger. But if they at once go to rāsa-līlā, because they are not trained up neither they are liberated, they'll think this rāsa-līlā is just like our young boys, young girls mix together, have sex like that. So "It is supported, our . . . why should we restrict to no illicit sex, no this, no rules and regulations? We shall do all nonsense." That's all. "And become a gopī." It is very good to aspire to become high-court judge, but how you can become high-court judge without qualification? That they are not thinking. They have no qualification, they have illicit sex, pregnant, going to abortion, and they're high-court judge.

Rāmeśvara: They say Ajāmila had no qualification, and he just chanted.

Prabhupāda: Ajāmila had no qualification. Therefore they should have no qualification.

Rāmeśvara: They say . . .

Prabhupāda: They say. Now you accept them as authority, "They say." What is they? What they are?

Rāmeśvara: Ajāmila's qualification was he thought of Kṛṣṇa at the time of death.

Prabhupāda: Yes. But you cannot think.

Rāmeśvara: They want to think of the gopīs at the time of death.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Then practice.

Prabhupāda: What they will think at the death, why you are conjecturing now? Their habits are rascal, they're making pregnant, illicit sex. What they will think? Anyway, if we give indulgence to these people, then this preaching work will be hampered.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, we're not going to do that.

Prabhupāda: Or they should be separated. Otherwise, it will be bad example and all restrictions will be broken.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If they don't change their mentality, then they should live separately, do their own Society.

Prabhupāda: And they'll do that. (japa) That sahajiyā tendency is very easy to take up.

Hari-śauri: It seems like it's an inherent thing in . . .

Prabhupāda: Thinking of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa līlā, that is in liberated stage, not in the conditioned stage.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I could never understand, Śrīla Prabhupāda, why . . . I was always wondering why, in all of your books, you're always blasting so much time on the sahajiyās, and I was not . . . now I see why, because the tendency is so easy. I could never . . . I'd always think, "Why is Prabhupāda saying so much? Because they're only in India."

Rāmeśvara: You're thinking that this is a small group.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, in India. But now I see it's an easy mentality for anyone's mind that can be adopted. That's why Prabhupāda was stressing.

Rāmeśvara: And as our movement gets more and more members, there will be more and more people who will be exhibiting this sahajiyā tendency.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's why it's in every book Prabhupāda speaks about it, without fail.

Prabhupāda: Anyway, keep your movement very pure. You don't mind if somebody goes away. Don't mind. But we must keep our principles pure.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I always remember that you said that in the battle sometimes some men may be lost.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is natural.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Natural. Of course we don't want to lose men, but it's natural.

Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, when the devotee is in the original relationship with Kṛṣṇa, his siddha-deha, why is it that he sometimes changes his original rasa with Kṛṣṇa?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Rāmeśvara: Each one of us has an original relationship with Kṛṣṇa—some as plant, some as tree, some as cow, some as cowherd boy. So if that is re-established, why should the devotee desire to change it?

Prabhupāda: Well, that is spiritual kingdom. You can change if you like.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It is not static, Prabhupāda once explained. Love is not static.

Prabhupāda: Generally, it is not changed. Just like Mother Yaśodā, she's mother all the time, eternally.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This question came in Bombay two or three years ago. Prabhupāda said that it is not static. You can have . . . (indistinct)

Hari-śauri: I always understood before that the rasa was fixed, but that within that rasa one may take different . . . one may take a different line.

Prabhupāda: That will be revealed when you are liberated. Why you are bothering now?

Rāmeśvara: That's the point.

Prabhupāda: A patient is thinking, "How shall I dance when I become healthy?" First of all, rascal, become healthy, then talk of all this. The rascals are thinking like that.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's a good example.

Prabhupāda: You are patient; first of all cure your disease, material disease. Then talk of all this. Utopian. "When I will get rich, how I shall treat . . . I shall . . . then my wife is disobedient and I shall kick her like this," (laughter) and as soon as he kicked on the earthen pots, all broken. Then he, "Oh, then my . . . all prospects have gone." You know this story?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What was in the pot?

Prabhupāda: That . . . a potter, potter boy, he had got some earthen pots, selling. So he was dreaming that, "By selling this earthen pot, I'll make so much profit. Then I shall purchase another batch, I shall make profit. In this way, I shall be millionaire. Then I shall marry, and my wife must be very obedient. Otherwise I shall kick." So in this way, he kicked over the pots (laughs) and all of them broken.

Rāmeśvara: And in the end, nothing.

Prabhupāda: That's all.

Hari-śauri: So by his dreaming he, he . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes, first of all be rich man, then do all things, how you shall kick your wife. This is going on. Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that "My Guru Mahārāja found Me rascal number one—therefore he ordered, 'You cannot study Vedānta. You chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.' " They will not read this portion. That Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He posed Himself as a rascal.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But they prefer to read about all of the ecstatic symptoms on Caitanya Mahāprabhu's body

Prabhupāda: That's all right. That . . . be first of all bona fide. That is good ambition. But how this good ambition can fulfill when you are a potter, poor man? Actually be rich, and then kick your wife. And without being rich, if you think all this nonsense, you're spoiling time. (japa)

Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, some devotees, sometimes they feel that in ISKCON we're talking so much about the business of how to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but we're not talking enough about Kṛṣṇa's pastimes, kṛṣṇa-kathā, they say. So that's another reason why they want to read all these pastimes.

Prabhupāda: Then let them read. But why they are making pregnant and abortion? What kind of kṛṣṇa-kathā? The kṛṣṇa-kathā test is as soon as he'll get the taste, he'll lose this taste. That is the . . . what is this nonsense?

Rāmeśvara: Won't it purify them? That's what they say: "It will purify me."

Prabhupāda: What you are purified? You have become a, what is called, putrefied, not purified.

Devotees: Jaya, Prabhupāda.

Rāmeśvara: You can become purified, and sometimes you can increase your . . .

Prabhupāda: No, no. You can read. Be purified. You can read. But where is your purification?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Putrefaction.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: We have to go around this water, Śrīla Prabhupāda. (sprinklers are on)

Prabhupāda: The books are there for reading. By reading, you become purified. (break) In 1935, our Guru Mahārāja, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, he went to Rādhā-kuṇḍa for Kārttika-vrata. So at that time he was reading Upaniṣads. So first of all, these bābājīs, they were coming. Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī had come at Rādhā-kuṇḍa. He's giving some class. So they used to come. But as soon as they saw that he was reading Upaniṣads, they stopped coming. They saw, "They are jñānīs, they are not bhaktas."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What did they want to hear? Daśama-skandha?

Prabhupāda: Like that. So Prabhupāda condemned them that, "They are not living in Rādhā-kuṇḍa. They're living in Naraka-kuṇḍa." I heard it. "They're living in Naraka-kuṇḍa."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So our men who go to Rādhā-kuṇḍa and live there . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hari-śauri: They're risking living in Naraka-kuṇḍa.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I remember one boy was living there for about three months, and you got very angry and told him that there were already enough monkeys in Rādhā-kuṇḍa. Do not try to jump over like a monkey. (break)

Rādhā-vallabha: The scientists have found some more brass pottery. So now they say that man first started using brass around thirty-five hundred years ago. They've announced this to the world.

Prabhupāda: Now they're not using?

Rāmeśvara: That's the origin.

Rādhā-vallabha: No, they say that thirty-five hundred years ago is when man first started using brass. They've announced this to the world.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They invented brass.

Prabhupāda: What we have to take lesson from this, huh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're still using it now. So that mean man is still . . .

Rāmeśvara: They are convinced that man used to live in caves, and just recently he has been civilized.

Prabhupāda: So what is the effect of civilization? When they used to live in cave, they were hunting animals and eating. So you are doing the same thing. What civilization?

Hari-śauri: Except they're doing it on a bigger scale now.

Prabhupāda: That's all.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: More organized. You mentioned that it would not be possible for them to find the remains of the bodies of the Āryans because they would burn their bodies.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hṛdayānanda: So they only find the bodies of the lower class.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Similarly, they only find the remains of the cave dwellers.

Mahendra: Also you've said that now they're headed back to caves. By the end of Kali-yuga many will live in caves to hide.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Even now there are people living in caves.

Hari-śauri: They were living in caves then, and now they are living in pigeon holes.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rādhā-vallabha: There was another article in the magazine that was talking about rats in India. This article was talking about rats in India.

Prabhupāda: Rats?

Rādhā-vallabha: Yes, they said how there's a big problem. There's too many rats. And it says that . . . and at the end of the article they made a sly comment about how many people considered the rats sacred. So this is a big problem. Whenever they make some report about India, they always make some joke about how the people will think the animals are sacred and how this is actually the real problem.

Prabhupāda: So why do they not go and eat the rats? Then why these people do not go there and eat the sacred rats? Huh? Please go there and eat the sacred rats. (laughter) Because you are expert in eating animal, so go and eat the sacred rats—India is a good field—and clear their problems. You write one article and send them. It is a good opportunity for the animal eaters to go to India and eat the rats, sacred rats, and solve their problems. (laughter)

Mahendra: It won't even cost anything.

Prabhupāda: Yes, free. They can take them free.

Ṛṣabhadeva: They said one of the main reasons is because they are killing the snakes for the skin, the snakes that feed on the rats. They kill so many snakes to get the skin, therefore there's no way to control the rat population.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. It is saved for you. Go and take it.

Mahendra: They wear the snakes and eat the rats.

Prabhupāda: Snake will die of starvation. It is better. You go and eat.

Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in Egypt, they have been able to dig underneath the ground and find the remains of ancient cities. So this is proof of the ancient civilization of Egypt. But they have not found ancient ruins of the cities of Dvārakā or Hastināpura. They do not have such . . .

Rādhā-vallabha: There are ruins in Dvārakā.

Rāmeśvara: So they do not accept that the ancient civilization of India is old, very old.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I read one anthropology book, and it said that about 3,500 years ago in India people were only living in all the caves, and they were simply using stones and things like that, very primitive tools. No knowledge at all.

Mahendra: But they cannot explain how it was that these people evolved, these cavemen evolved such a language as Sanskrit, which not even the greatest scholars today can even begin to comprehend. It is a very great language.

Prabhupāda: That is their grudge. When they see such exalted literature, they are envious.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (aside) Why don't we cut over?

Hṛdayānanda: Prabhupāda, can we walk over this way? There's no water.

Prabhupāda: It was all manufactured by the Britishers. To keep their faith with other nations, they were protesting that, "Why you are keeping India dependent?" So they were pleading that "We are making India civilized." That was their propaganda.

Rāmeśvara: "The white man's burden," they called it.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

(pause)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (referring to the sprinklers) Prabhupāda, wherever you walk, the water turns off.

Candanācārya: The entire Golden Gate park was cultivated by men.

Rādhā-vallabha: Instead of planting grass by the roads, they are now putting green rocks. They figure it looks the same, and it saves money.

Kīrtirāja: They put plastic grass. They are also planting plastic grass in the middle of the road.

Hṛdayānanda: No opulence.

Rādhā-vallabha: In Russia now they have declared one . . . that it is a big crisis. Because their grains did not grow properly, they are not able to produce as much meat, so now one day a week everyone is forced to eat fish. So they are lamenting. They were describing how . . . about the good old days were when you could go and buy an entire carcass. (break)

Candanācārya: . . . country, build cities and then spend billions of dollars to make the city look like the country.

Prabhupāda: Carvita-carvaṇānām. Chewing the chewed, again and again. This is their position. (japa) (break)

Rāmeśvara: On the calendar it says it is Bhīma-ekādaśī.

Prabhupāda: Bhīma-ekādaśī, yes.

Rāmeśvara: So I've been told that if one fasts on Bhīma-ekādaśī, that it is like fasting on all the ekādaśīs. Is that true?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Ekādaśī is meant for fasting, either Bhīma or Arjuna. (chuckles) But we cannot fast, therefore we have to take little fruits and . . . otherwise, ekādaśī means fasting.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If it is possible, should we go without eating at all?

Prabhupāda: Yes. But don't lie down and sleep.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: As long as it doesn't affect one's service, one can fast all day.

Mahendra: Eating mahā-prasādam is also fasting.

Prabhupāda: Who says?

Mahendra: You said that to Paramahaṁsa Swami once.

Prabhupāda: And you heard from Paramahaṁsa.

Mahendra: No, I was in the room. It was when he was trying to observe Caturmāsya.

Prabhupāda: I never said that.

Mahendra: Oh, okay. I must have heard wrong.

Prabhupāda: If there is service and, on my fasting, service will be stopped, then I can take. First consideration—service. Now if somebody feels weak, he can take mahā-prasāda, render service.

Rāmeśvara: That priest that has now become your disciple, he's joining Satsvarūpa Mahārāja's party. He's very interested, and Satsvarūpa Mahārāja has said he would like him to come to travel together and study.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Nalinīkaṇṭha: In the West, people are generally unfamiliar, I think, with the philosophy of Śaṅkara, yet in your books you devote so much argument to defeating Māyāvāda philosophy. I was wondering if it is within every conditioned soul's heart to be an impersonalist. Is it . . . does every conditioned soul have the propensity for impersonalism?

Prabhupāda: No, they cannot understand God; therefore it is impersonalism. It is due to their poor fund of knowledge. So most people are in poor fund of knowledge.

Hari-śauri: As soon as one forgets Kṛṣṇa, he's impersonal.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mahendra: Just like many of us, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we were thinking, that . . .

Prabhupāda: They cannot think that a person, how he can produce a sky? That is beyond their conception. This is their illusion. They say God is all-powerful, but He cannot produce a sky. This is their defect of knowledge. If God is all-powerful, why He cannot produce a sky? That they cannot think. Yes, He's all-powerful; cannot produce a sky. Their intellect. Poor intellect.

Mahendra: Many of us were also thinking God to be impersonal before we met you, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mahendra: We were not attached to that conception. When you explained the personal nature of God and the many arguments in favor, gradually we were convinced. But then there are those also who are attached to that conception, like in the Bhagavad-gītā it says those who are attached to that conception . . .

Prabhupāda: No, we can see every day the impersonal feature of the sun—the sunlight, the sunshine. But which is important: the sunshine is important or the sun is important? Daily we see. The sunshine is spread all over the universe, very big. But what is the use of this big if there is no sun globe?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Look at these boxes here. These are from different churches and religious institutions. They put their pamphlets for people to take. (break)

Rāmeśvara: (in car) . . . that in Kṛṣṇa consciousness fasting and feasting is the same.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: Could you explain that?

Prabhupāda: Fasting and feasting is the same?

Rāmeśvara: That what I . . . they told me.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, for Kṛṣṇa. For Kṛṣṇa, you fast or feast, the same thing. Better fast. (laughter) (break)

Rāmeśvara: . . . by the devotees is that in the spiritual world every day is feasting.

Prabhupāda: And there is no fasting. Fasting is recommended when a man is diseased. When he's in health, there is feasting. So spiritual world means health. Why there should be fasting?

Hari-śauri: And our disease is uncontrolled senses.

Prabhupāda: There is no sense agitation.

Hari-śauri: No, for us though, conditioned.

Prabhupāda: Yes, conditioned. Śūnyāyitaṁ jagat sarvam (Śikṣāṣṭaka 7). (break)

Rāmeśvara: In Caitanya-caritāmṛta you wrote that the kalpa-vṛkṣa trees, they move; they are not stationary.

Prabhupāda: They are spiritual.

Rāmeśvara: Is this true for the plants and flowers?

Prabhupāda: Everything. Everything. They are spiritual, absolute. There is no condition. Because it is tree, it cannot move, that is condition.

Rāmeśvara: No condition. In the spiritual world, can the trees and plants communicate? Here they have no means of communication, no talking.

Prabhupāda: Everything is possible.

Rāmeśvara: The animals can also understand and communicate.

Prabhupāda: You can milk the cows as many times as you like, and as much as you like.

Rāmeśvara: And talk with them.

Prabhupāda: Yes. There is no limit. That is spiritual world.

Hari-śauri: One thing that has always confused a lot of devotees is how is it possible to eat something in the spiritual world when that . . . the thing that you're eating is also spiritual?

Prabhupāda: There is no need of eating, but if they like, they can eat, enjoy.

Rāmeśvara: The taste, the flavor.

Hari-śauri: But what happens to the thing that they're eating?

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Then you will see when you go there.

Devotees: Jaya Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: This is our disease. When we're talking of spiritual world, we are bringing material thoughts. To bring coal in Sheffield. What is called? Sheffield? There are many coal mines?

Hari-śauri: To bring coals to Newcastle.

Prabhupāda: Yes, like that. Why should you bring your material ideas to the spiritual world? There is no relativity. Everything absolute.

Rāmeśvara: There is no day or night. Everything is self-illuminating.

Prabhupāda: There is, but there is no need.

(pause)

Prabhupāda: What is this penguin? No? Penguin?

Hari-śauri: It's a coffee shop.

Prabhupāda: Literature?

Rāmeśvara: It's a bird found in the South Pole, penguin. Lives in the south, bottom of the earth.

Prabhupāda: Bottom of the . . .?

Rāmeśvara: It's called Antarctica. Are there seasonal changes, Śrīla Prabhupāda? Rain and different seasonal . . .?

Prabhupāda: Everything is there, but there is no necessity. (hums)

(pause) (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . to the USA, many sahajiyās, they requested me, "Sir, why you are going? You are in Vṛndāvana. Continue your bhajana. What is the use of preaching?"

Rāmeśvara: What is the use of preaching?

Prabhupāda: Preaching. They advised me like that.

Rāmeśvara: They don't believe in Lord Caitanya, these sahajiyās in Vṛndāvana?

Prabhupāda: Mostly. They have no knowledge. Material. Prākṛta-sahajiyā. Their real name is prākṛta. Their thoughts are on this material platform. Just as they are preferring this conjugal love, because here the sex is prominent. They are thinking that is the highest stage. What is the lowest stage here, they're taking that as the highest stage. In the . . . of course, in the spiritual world there is such thing, but as Kṛṣṇa has many other līlās, so why they are not attracted to other līlās?

Rāmeśvara: They don't want to be limited. They think that Kṛṣṇa is the kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam (SB 1.3.28). So why . . .

Prabhupāda: That is good. That is always true, but Kṛṣṇa says:

manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu

kaścid yatati siddhaye

yatatām api siddhānāṁ

kaścin vetti māṁ tattvataḥ

(BG 7.3)

How you have understood Kṛṣṇa? Kṛṣṇa says: "Out of many millions of people, one becomes siddha, and out of many millions of siddhas, hardly one can understand Me." So how you have understood Kṛṣṇa so easily, within two years? What you have understood Kṛṣṇa, that is materially understood. You do not know what is Kṛṣṇa. That is prākṛta-sahajiyā, "Oh, we have understood. Kṛṣṇa was a playboy, dancing with His girls. Bās, we have understood. Now we shall . . ."

Rāmeśvara: "If I follow the regulative principles and go on hearing about rāsa-līlā, then I'll be purified."

Prabhupāda: You say that. In the śāstra does not say. Śāstra says that after you have studied all the nine cantos of Bhāgavatam, then enter into the tenth. Sahajiyā means they take very easily: "I am . . . everything is all right. Now I am perfect." That is sahajiyā. Kṛṣṇa says: "To understand Me, it will take millions of years." And they understand Kṛṣṇa immediately. That is their . . . that is called prākṛta-sahajiyā.

Rāmeśvara: Kṛṣṇa's incarnation is to attract the living entities to Kṛṣṇa. So let me read about rāsa-līlā, because I'm feeling some attraction.

Prabhupāda: Then why not kurukṣetra-līlā? What . . .? Kurukṣetra-līlā . . . Kṛṣṇa's līlā is the same, absolute. You are attracted to rāsa-līlā means you have got sex desire. That's all. And actually . . . what you said, that one girl?

Rāmeśvara: He said one girl, she was . . . killed her baby.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Abortion. In Europe.

Prabhupāda: This is their business.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And now she's the leader here. Now she's the leader of the women's group of these sahajiyā parties.

Rāmeśvara: "I may still have sex desire, but this will purify me."

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. This will purify. You are not purified.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Putrefied.

Prabhupāda: That is . . . the . . . this rāsa-līlā is for the person who is completely purified. What . . .? When one is impure, he should not think of. That is stated in the Bhāgavatam.

Rāmeśvara: In this they have misunderstood your Kṛṣṇa Book.

Prabhupāda: They must have misunderstood. They are all rascals.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They have not even read carefully the First Canto Bhāgavatam and Second. Prabhupāda says in Second Canto, "Look at the lotus feet of the Lord."

Hari-śauri: I was thinking yesterday that must be one of the problems, that these people have not read your earlier books, the earlier cantos of the Bhāgavatam. Because it says . . . you express quite clearly to avoid the . . .

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We were lucky, because when we joined all that we had were your Bhāgavatams from India, those original Bhāgavatams. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . otherwise . . .

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Otherwise, what shall we do?

Prabhupāda: Otherwise, they are finished.

Rāmeśvara: We should try to save them.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. There are so many devotees involved—over a hundred.

Rāmeśvara: I can't understand who they are.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Fifty of them in Los Angeles.

Rāmeśvara: Do you know? Who knows the names?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Pradyumna. Pradyumna is carrying out a single-handed investigation.

Rāmeśvara: Oh, good.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Pradyumna has become an investigator. He goes around everywhere (laughs) investigating the sahajiyās. I hope he doesn't become won over.

Prabhupāda: He was.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, I know, that's why he's doing it. He was once like that.

Prabhupāda: He was smārta.

Rāmeśvara: Smārta. Paṇḍita. You used to call him paṇḍita.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sometimes Prabhupāda would tell him he was a smārta.

Rāmeśvara: He's always carrying an armful of books.

Prabhupāda: Smārta is also counted amongst the sahajiyās.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He was really . . . that's another problem, Prabhupāda. All of these boys that take part in this Sanskrit-Bengali translation department, they all become like this, because they read these other books. As soon as they learn Bengali and Sanskrit, they start reading so many books.

Prabhupāda: Āula, bāula, kartābhajā, neḍā, daraveśa, sāṅi sahajiyā, sakhībhekī, smārta, jāta-gosāñi. They are all counted in one group.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: One thing I've noticed, Śrīla Prabhupāda, and I see it as a direct link, that most of these people who get involved like this, they're not engaged in active preaching work, and because of it, their mind has time to create these fantasies and get attracted. Someone who's engaged in forcefully preaching . . .

Rāmeśvara: He has to be more practical.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Practical and purified by the activity. Have you noticed that? That these people who are engaged, they're all in the Press, or all day writing, or something like this.

Rāmeśvara: Sometimes sitting and painting.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sitting and painting. The boy who's going out every day, trying to think of how to get the books out, he won't be . . . (conversation in background) You have come to the hellish planets, Śrīla Prabhupāda, to deliver us. That's all there is. It's amazing enough you have made such a gigantic movement, but the fact that you have made it with such mlecchas as us is what is most astounding. It's like building a skyscraper with swabs and straw. Building a big skyscraper with straw and mud.

Rāmeśvara: In the Fifth Canto you've quoted from Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura that the most sacred place in the whole universe is Śrī Māyāpur-dhāma.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: In all the universe.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In each universe there is a Vṛndāvana and a Māyāpur. That means in each universe there's a planet earth like this planet?

Prabhupāda: Yes. There are so many planets. Each universe full of planets. Koṭiṣu vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam (BS 5.40). There are millions of planets, and each planet there are millions of planets, er, millions of universes, each planet. Koṭiṣu vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam. (end)