760712 - Morning Walk - New York
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
(in room)
Prabhupāda: This is their position, and they are proud of their knowledge.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not at all scientific.
Bali-mardana: But they make up many very big words.
Prabhupāda: That any rascal will do. Bambharambhe laghu kriya. (speaks gibberish) Aparkulasvenavargolajagundakuligondoliojalīlāvale . . . (laughter) You can talk like that, but what is the meaning of it? That intelligence they have got, to manufacture . . . I know, I was in the medical business. So any petty medicine, and you inquire medical man, and he'll present it in such a scientific way that people will think that it is very important thing. I know it well. In Bose's laboratory we used to do that. (gibberish: ) Aparkulavenavargolajdgunda . . . this is . . . simply soda bicarb and little this and that. So the modern world means how to befool persons, that's all. Not to enlighten them, but to keep them in ignorance and befool them more and more. And they like it. Under the influence of māyā they like to be cheated. (sounds of fire engines) Now just see, the whole night there is blazing fire, and they are thinking they are happy. And if we sing saṁsāra-dāvānala-līḍha-loka, "the material world is blazing fire," that is sentiment. And this is not practical. Whole day and night, simply fire, disturbing. Such a big, important city, and they are disturbing always twenty-four hours, gon-gon-gon-gon-gon-gon-gon. They are so expert that this ordinary fire they can control. Another side is that nobody wants this fire, and why it is coming? Yathā duḥkha . . . Prahlāda Mahārāja, long, long years ago: yathā duḥkham ayatnataḥ (SB 7.6.3). As this fire business is coming without my endeavor, similarly, the other part—distress. This is distress—other part, happiness, also will come. Why shall I endeavor for it?
So my energies should be utilized only for Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This is civilization. And whole life, day and night, they are trying for material happiness, and that is not happening. The problems are increasing. No intelligence. Mūḍha. Mūḍho nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam (BG 7.13). They admit, the scientists, they admit that they are in ignorance. Simply bluff. Again one bluff, that Mars-going expedition. The business is going on in the Arizona, that's all. And after few years they will present some stone, "Now we went to Mars. There is no possibility of living there. Take this stone and sand and be satisfied for your millions of dollars that you have spent . . ." And they will say: "Oh, we have made scientific progress. I have got this stone from Mars." Yo ko thako bhayargolihiya uska tek lilaya. There is a song in Bengal that formerly anything European, sāheb, that is good. So one person is selling meat, flesh of dog. Flesh of dog nobody takes, at least in India. So he said that, "This is not ordinary dog. This is the dog which was killed by Viceroy, that dog. And because Viceroy killed it, therefore it has become nice dog. You can eat it." So anything these so-called scientists said, that is to be accepted. Without any common sense. This is your intelligence. But I am fool Indian, I don't believe it. (laughter) I immediately capture the point, why this rascal is talking of Arizona? That means the whole business is going on in Arizona.
Rāmeśvara: Deliberately cheating. You said that in Los Angeles.
Hari-śauri: Prabhupāda's saying gāyatrī.
Prabhupāda: Brought newspaper, and as soon as they say . . . who said? Arizona?
Hari-śauri: That was in Washington. They showed a picture of Mars . . .
Prabhupāda: Stop. Don't read. It is now understood what is the . . . Mars, it is all in Arizona.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You were very perceptive to find it.
Rāmeśvara: No one is thinking like that. You are the only one who caught that, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Because I am the only one at the present moment intelligent.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We are still as dull (Prabhupāda laughs) as the karmīs. We would never have thought like that, Prabhupāda, about Arizona.
Devotee: What is that?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They mentioned that the pictures of Mars appear just like some of the picture of national parks in Arizona.
Prabhupāda: In other places they could not find, throughout the whole world. Arizona. That means the whole business is going on in Arizona.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They say that if this terrain were on the earth, we would immediately make it a national park, it looks just like one of the national parks.
Bali-mardana: In Arizona there is much government land. I passed through there recently. So there is good facility for them to make secretly.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The moon business was done there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This means it's definitely a very calculated plot to cheat the public.
Prabhupāda: That's all.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And the whole, all of the nations . . .
Prabhupāda: Just to convince people that our this rascal civilization is advanced.
Rāmeśvara: International conspiracy.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That means all the nations are cooperating in this project.
Rāmeśvara: Russia and America.
Prabhupāda: All the so-called scientists.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Do they know that they are? Are they talking with each other, or are they just . . .
Prabhupāda: No, they are knowing. They talk. Chore chore māstuto-bhāi.
Rāmeśvara: It's a conspiracy.
Prabhupāda: All thieves, they are cousin-brothers, "Don't expose me and I'll not expose you. Let us keep peace." Two thieves, he knows he is a thief, but if he wants to reveal a thief, then his business will be suffer.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They are the greatest cheaters.
Prabhupāda: Chore chore māstuto-bhāi. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Except for you, no one is blowing the whistle on these people. You are like a transcendental detective.
Bali-mardana: . . . (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: (indistinct) . . . He is very intelligent. That is the test. Kṛṣṇa says, na māṁ prapadyante mūḍhāḥ (BG 7.15). Anyone who is not Kṛṣṇa conscious, he's a mūḍha.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: . . . (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: It's a fact.
Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in Los Angeles I asked you about this one verse in the Bhāgavatam where it says that in a previous Kali-yuga the materialists were able to travel to other planets. And then it said Lord Buddha appeared to stop them, that they were creating havoc. But you said that was possible in this age also that they may be able to do that.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (devotees offer obeisances as Prabhupāda leaves room) (break)
(in car)
Rāmeśvara: . . . can't ever go to these other planets.
Prabhupāda: Yes, they can go.
Rāmeśvara: They will be able to land there?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Why not?
Rāmeśvara: Because their body is meant . . .
Prabhupāda: Even Arjuna even went to the higher planetary systems. But different way. In Bhagavad-gītā it is, yānti deva-vratā devān (BG 9.25). And formerly when big, big sacrifices were done, they used to come and attend sacrifices.
Rāmeśvara: The demigods.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: But in this earth body they can go to another planets?
Prabhupāda: Yes. But he must be competent. The yogīs can go. Perpetually, they can go. Just like Durvāsā Muni did. He went.
Hari-śauri: But they want to go and come back.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Hari-śauri: But they want to go and come back.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is going.
Devotee (1): They are actually confounded by the element of time. They think that if they go in a spaceship they can then generate another human being by putting a man and a woman in the spaceship, and then they can continue on for some time like that.
Prabhupāda: That is theory. It is theory.
Devotee (1): That's their idea, to reach very distant places.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Today I was seeing in our kīrtana hall that there must be now about a hundred and . . . at least a hundred and seventy devotees here, a hundred and seventy-five devotees. But still the kīrtana hall was not even half full, I think. It can hold at least four hundred people, that hall.
Prabhupāda: Yes, it is big hall.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There was a lot of empty space.
Rāmeśvara: How many guests came yesterday? Did you tell Prabhupāda?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, there were about five hundred, over five hundred guests. (ambulance blast) (laughter)
Rāmeśvara: Some ambulance.
Prabhupāda: Hmm.
Rāmeśvara: Some ambulance. Somebody is sick. Right now in New York City there is a big strike. The people who work in the hospitals, they refuse to work. They want more salary.
Prabhupāda: What can be done? Price raising, they want all comforts.
Rāmeśvara: So if someone is sick they will not take him to the hospital because there is no one to take care of him there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This school is called Amsterdam School, Prabhupāda, because this is Amsterdam Avenue.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's very funny that Ninth Avenue turns into Amsterdam Avenue at this point. That Ninth Avenue becomes Amsterdam Avenue on about Sixtieth Street.
Rāmeśvara: Yesterday there was a big parade in New York City. All people who are against abortion, they were marching. The U.S. is having a presidential election, so the Democratic party, they are having their convention in New York City to decide who will be their candidate for president. So all these people were marching to try to convince him to be against abortion. But he has already said he will not take any issue, he will not take a stand, because it is too controversial.
Prabhupāda: Who?
Rāmeśvara: The presidential candidate. He will not give his opinion.
Devotee: Who is that? Reagan?
Rāmeśvara: No, Carter. They are unwilling to give their opinion because then someone may not vote for them.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, that's too controversial. Most people are for abortion.
Prabhupāda: Why they are for abortion?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Because it gives them unlimited room for sense gratification. The whole business is . . .
Prabhupāda: So why not become brahmacārī?
Devotee (1): They want to dance without paying the piper. (laughter)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I tell them, "Birth control by self control." That is our program.
Prabhupāda: Besides that, why birth control?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say because the world is overpopulated.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) So much vacant land in your country.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, everywhere in the world . . . when we fly in the airplane, every country, mostly it's vacant land. It's only these big demonic cities.
Rāmeśvara: Their philosophy is first we'll conquer nature, then we'll talk about self-control. That is one philosophy.
Prabhupāda: Which is impossible. They'll never be able. You can control nature only by self-control. Otherwise, it is not possible. Ajitendriyāṇām. Ajitendriya means those who cannot control the sense, sense or sense organs.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Famous address because you were there, Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Hmm. Number one hundred.
Hari-śauri: Seventy-second Street.
Prabhupāda: One hundred, Seventy-second Street.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Maybe we can go by it. On the way back if we go by, you could show us the building there.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And we will be able to see it.
Hari-śauri: Is that the flat that you were staying in, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that was broken into? Is that the place that was broken into?
Prabhupāda: It is not residential.
Hari-śauri: Oh.
Prabhupāda: But I was residing there.
Rāmeśvara: That was where the typewriter was stolen?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Tape recorder, typewriter.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, from up here.
Prabhupāda: It was stolen by that caretaker, black man. He expected some monthly remuneration.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The same thing happened at our temple here. They were employing one man for cleaning the floor. So after a while I told them, "Now fire this man." So anyway, they fired him. As soon as they fired him he stole a big air conditioner, worth five hundred dollars. Anyway, he came back later and we got the air conditioner. I caught him and I said, "Now bring it back," and I sent a devotee with him and he brought the air conditioner back.
(pause)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Hall of Minerals and Gems."
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They are having a big exhibit of minerals and gems, Museum of Natural History. One thing about this museum, it can give Baradrāj many ideas for doll exhibits.
Rāmeśvara: Yes, I'm going to go there with him when he comes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This particular museum, we used to go when we were children, and fantastic exhibits, really realistic.
Rāmeśvara: Yes, dolls, dioramas . . .
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes, all dioramas.
Rāmeśvara: . . . of dinosaurs.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, the whole thing is dioramas, the whole museum practically. I'll go with you also.
Rāmeśvara: They are convinced that dinosaurs, these gigantic animals, were living on this planet millions of years ago. They found some bones, and they have created the form of the animal body.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is it true that there were big dinosaur bodies?
Prabhupāda: If they were, it is still now.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, wow.
Prabhupāda: We don't say it is extinct.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But you've explained that even if not here then it must be on another planet.
Prabhupāda: Yes, another. This planet, what you have seen?
Rāmeśvara: That's the point. What we have seen about this planet?
Devotee (1): Could still be here. They found one in, where is that? In Ireland?
Prabhupāda: Cannot be extinct. That is not possible.
Devotee (1): In that lake?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But do you think they were on this planet?
Prabhupāda: No, no, may be on this planet, but it doesn't matter that it is extinct. You have not seen.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, that's a fact.
Rāmeśvara: Their idea is that at that time man was living in the form of half monkey, half man in a cave, and gradually he evolved to become more civilized.
Prabhupāda: That is still there. Kinnaras. Kinnaras. Kinnaras means it is doubtful whether he is man or monkey.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Wow.
Prabhupāda: There is a Kinnara-loka. Kimpuruṣa. Kinnara. They are still existing. It is not that they are finished.
Hari-śauri: I was reading a magazine when we were on the plane, and it was describing this type of monkey man, that they are being called . . . they existed in snow wastes.
Prabhupāda: Or what is called? The big . . .?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Orang-utan, gorilla.
Prabhupāda: Gorilla, they are like men.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, they are. Very much like men. We see them in the zoo.
Prabhupāda: They have got their senses like men.
Hari-śauri: There's another species they call the Yeti. They say it exists in the Himalayan regions. But they've not been able to capture one because, uh . . . but there's been many citings and reportings of it. It's like a monkey that walks.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: These scientists, they find one little bone and from that bone they make a hundred-foot body out of their mind. They say: "Well if this bone was like this, then the whole thing must have looked like this."
Rāmeśvara: That is the Museum of Natural History. They spend millions of dollars on these museums, making these displays. (break)
(walking)
Prabhupāda: . . . for dog, means she's going to become dog. She does not know how she is spoiling the life.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Unless she gets one of our books.
Prabhupāda: No, that is another plan. At least she does not know how things are going on.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, unless someone gets one of your books, there's no way they can come out of the darkness of this material world. There's no other source of knowledge being given them.
Prabhupāda: That is a fact. Śrīmad-bhāgavate mahā-muni-kṛte kiṁ vā śāstraiḥ (SB 1.1.2). When there is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, composed, compiled by Vyāsadeva, where is the use of other literature? Śrīmad-bhāgavate mahā-muni-kṛte.
(pause)
Prabhupāda: Dusty here, eh? No one is taking care.
Bali-mardana: They cannot afford to pay the garbage men to clean up the mess.
Prabhupāda: Why he's going there?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's another lake over there. So we are checking for tomorrow's walk, if it is also a good path. That's a natural . . . not natural, a little more natural lake.
Prabhupāda: Well, this is good lake. People are becoming dishonest. They'll take money and do nothing.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I'm seeing down at Dalhousie Square area that the government employees, they are constantly taking tea break. They come late to work . . .
Prabhupāda: I have seen in New Delhi, I was going to sell my Back to Godhead, so they were all sitting and gossiping, and files are piled up. If you want some file it will take six months. Doing nothing. Sixty percent of the employees are simply wasting time.
Hari-śauri: City workers are very famous for not doing anything, taking tea breaks.
Prabhupāda: Why they will do, when they get money without doing?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If we could just introduce to them the chanting, they could be great yogīs, sitting chanting, and have so much free time. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Just see, why this wood is dried up? Why?
Hari-śauri: There is no spirit soul in it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It has been severed from the tree.
Hari-śauri: Cut off.
Prabhupāda: Yes, from the . . . it is out of touch from the original bark. Similarly, any civilization which is out of touch of God consciousness, that will dry up in due course of time.
Devotee (1): Yesterday, Svarūpa Dāmodara—we were speaking about the scientists—he said that they don't accept our proof that God exists as being any more conclusive than their proof that He doesn't exist.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Devotee (1): In other words, they don't accept that we have any proof that God exists. They say God doesn't exist.
Prabhupāda: God exists, we have given so many proofs. If the rascal cannot understand, what can be done? There is mother, there is children; where is the father? This is our argument. Mother, the earth is mother, and everything, these trees, we are all coming out of mother, mother nature. And who is the father? What is the answer? Now, what the atheist will say that there is no God? How they will say?
Rāmeśvara: They say the earth is the mother and the father.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Rāmeśvara: They say the earth is the mother and the father.
Prabhupāda: No. That is another nonsense. Because you cannot see, practically, the mother and father is the same person. That is not . . . father is different.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Why doesn't life come from the concrete then?
Prabhupāda: No, apart from that, mother and father cannot be one; they must be two, from our practical experience. So how can I accept a rascal like you that father and mother the same?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But we see that Lord Brahmā is born from the same father and mother.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Lord Brahmā, he has no mother.
Prabhupāda: But he has a father, and the mother is that lotus flower.
Rāmeśvara: Material energy.
Devotees: Oh.
Rādhā-vallabha: There's a whole classification of animals called autotroph. An autotroph is . . .
Prabhupāda: First of all, you study you animal, whether your father and mother is the same. Then go to other animals. First of all you animal, you study first.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They can say, though, that the material nature is mother and father in this way: that both the mother and father are products of the material energy.
Rāmeśvara: They want this impersonalism. They don't like the philosophy of personalism.
Prabhupāda: Whole thing is personalism. You are talking because you are a person. You are talking all nonsense because you are person. Neither the air is talking, neither sky is talking. Because you are a person you are talking so many nonsense things.
Devotee (1): But then they'll say that after death that person doesn't exist any longer. That personality ceases to . . .
Prabhupāda: Talk of the present, when you are existing.
Devotee (1): Yes. Their mentality forces them to believe only what they see.
Prabhupāda: You see there is father and mother. Why don't you believe that there must be a father and mother for the whole cosmic? You see everywhere there is father and mother.
Devotee (1): But they don't accept that as God's arrangement.
Prabhupāda: That means a crazy fellow. They manufacture their own idea. There is no reason.
Rāmeśvara: They say within the father and mother is the cosmic energy of life.
Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, we find the father and mother for begetting children. So as there are so many children . . . and that is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā, sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya (BG 14.4). They are all children, but their mother is the earth. There must be father.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, they say father and mother is material . . . this is father and mother. They may agree, we have a human father and mother.
Prabhupāda: The principle. The principle. You have to see the principle. That is philosophy.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They don't agree that God is the seed-giving father, though. They will say: "How can you jump to the conclusion that God is the seed-giving father of everything?"
Prabhupāda: God says. Not only says, we don't see any production without seed-giving father.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But we don't see God. We see the tree is giving seeds.
Prabhupāda: But you don't see your father, does that mean there was no father? Suppose before your birth your father died, does it mean you have no father?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: My mother has seen him.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's all right. You ask your mother, and she will inform you. The mother is Vedic knowledge.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, we accept that everything has a father and mother, but the creation was always there. That has no father and mother.
Prabhupāda: That is your nonsense, without father and mother. Aham ādir hi devānām (BG 10.2). Before creation, the child was created, the father was there.
Rāmeśvara: They say that matter can neither be destroyed nor created. It exists eternally. But there is no need for a creator.
Prabhupāda: Why your body does not exist?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It does exist, but in a different form, that's all.
Prabhupāda: No, at least this body does not exist. This body was not in existence, it was created, and at the present you see, and in the past this body will not remain there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But the energy will be there.
Prabhupāda: That is another thing.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That energy is eternal.
Prabhupāda: That is there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And there's nothing else besides this energy.
Prabhupāda: Yes, but whose energy?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Why does it have to be any "whose"? It just is there.
Hari-śauri: Just energy by itself needs direction.
Prabhupāda: Don't waste time. You stop this. If you imitate a madman, then you become mad. (laughter) Don't try to talk on behalf of these madmen.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The principle is there, though, that there must be a father and a mother.
Prabhupāda: That's it.
Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda, in New York City, many of these big buildings have courtyards, and in the courtyards they have purchased sculpture. So all the sculpture is abstract. They are against form, they are all impersonalists. And they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to have these gigantic structures. All over New York City you see them. They have no form. They are simply . . .
Prabhupāda: That is a form. The structure itself has a form.
Rāmeśvara: But it's abstract. It's to give the idea . . .
Prabhupāda: No, it is not ab . . . it is form.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not personal, that's what he means.
Prabhupāda: Yes, it is a form of their imagination, that's all. Not standard form, but it is a form. They want to make everything formless with form. That means they cannot avoid form.
Devotees: Oh, jaya. (break)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: . . . political satires. Critic of the government put the criticism in the form of a children's story, but indirectly was criticizing the government. (break)
Prabhupāda: . . . reason they cannot keep this park neat and clean? In other cities they keep.
Ādi-keśava: They cannot pay the workers.
Prabhupāda: How is that? In America, city, New York, they cannot pay?
Hari-śauri: New York almost went bankrupt.
Devotee (1): They have mismanaged the whole thing.
Hari-śauri: They had big strikes last year or early this year. They wouldn't clear the garbage away, and the whole city was piled up with garbage everywhere.
Devotee (2): Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says in this Kali-yuga they are all lazy, misguided.
Prabhupāda: So much drinking, they must be lazy.
Devotee (1): Yes.
Prabhupāda: So much drinking excessively. Drinking means laziness.
Rāmeśvara: Also the banks, they loan the city money, but at a very high interest rate. So then the city cannot afford it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This way, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Hari-śauri: People nowadays are so filled with intoxications they're not fit to do anything.
Rāmeśvara: They loan the city money at a very high interest rate, so in order to pay it back they have to borrow more money. (break)
Prabhupāda: . . . dried up on account of being detached from the original bark. Similarly, as soon as any civilization detached from God consciousness, they'll dry up.
Devotee (1): Simply buildings and cement, that is their culture.
Bali-mardana: Except for India, no civilization has lasted very long.
Prabhupāda: No, it cannot last.
Hari-śauri: And as soon as they started to give up their culture in India, they're also dried up.
Prabhupāda: They'll dry. That is the nature's way. Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇāḥ (SB 5.18.12). Anyone detached from God consciousness, he has no qualification. Manorathena. Their only qualification is mental concoction. That's all. Just see, how this . . . in America, such a wretched man. Willfully. Willfully.
Devotee (1): They've become useless.
Prabhupāda: This is due to excessive meat-eating, intoxication, sex. This is the result.
Devotee (1): They've wasted their brains.
Hari-śauri: Also these bums that hang around the cities, they're all alcoholics.
Prabhupāda: That is the reason.
Devotee (3): That's one reason crime is so high is because of intoxication.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee (3): Always increasing crime.
Rāmeśvara: In America, millions of people have guns in their houses. Very common. They are all preparing for fighting.
Hari-śauri: You said once in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that the one principle that gives the most trouble is the fearing in the material world.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break)
(in car)
Rāmeśvara: . . . by America. That is a common . . . so whenever the Congress tries to pass a law to control the purchasing of guns, it is always defeated. They want the people to be able to have guns. They make a lot of money, also, selling guns.
Prabhupāda: The best thing is that they should be educated to become gentlemen. Keep guns, but they may not improperly use them.
Rāmeśvara: When New York City had to start borrowing money from the banks, the banks became very powerful. They were able to control the city government and get many favors.
Prabhupāda: What is that favor?
Rāmeśvara: They get special contracts, concession rates, and they are able to get their men appointed to important government positions. Also, in the national government, the government of the United States has to always borrow money from banks. There is something called National Debt. Hundreds of billions of dollars they owe to banks, the United States government, to support all their different programs.
Prabhupāda: National Debt.
Rāmeśvara: National Debt. So then the banks are able to use their power to get favors. "Oh, you want to borrow money? Then you must give me some favor." It's common knowledge.
Hari-śauri: Everyone's trying to blackmail everyone else.
Rāmeśvara: Some people say that there is a worldwide conspiracy of bankers, that they can control any government. They can cause a depression. They say that the bankers caused the depression in the 1920s, 1930s, just to increase their power.
Prabhupāda: Yes. As soon as you become dependent on me, I pay money, you can create some trouble for me. That is conspiracy.
(pause)
Prabhupāda: What is this? Memory?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Looks like World War I.
Devotee (1): Yes, World War I.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Veterans. What does it say?
Hari-śauri: One hundred and seventh United States Infantry.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: New York Infantry. (break)
Rāmeśvara: . . . came here, Baradrāj and myself went to Salt Lake City to visit the church of the Mormons. The Mormon religion is a branch of Christianity, and they own the whole city of Salt Lake City. It's the capital of Utaḥ, one of the United States states. So they control the whole city, and it is planned with the temple in the center of the city. Like our Māyāpur plan. And all around the streets are named after the temple. It is well planned. And in the temple square they have a big visitor center, and it costs hundreds of millions of dollars, with dioramas and movies. They even have a little planetarium. It's all for recruiting people to join their religion. So we went there to study how they did it. Actually, it's all based on a crazy philosophy.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What is that philosophy
Rāmeśvara: They say that after Jesus Christ was crucified in Israel, he rose, and then the next stop he came to America.
Prabhupāda: Hmm? Next . . .?
Rāmeśvara: Next he came to America. Because Jesus, they say, is the savior of the whole world, so why just Israel?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So when did he come to America?
Rāmeśvara: Immediately afterwards.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What did he do here?
Rāmeśvara: He gave another Bible teaching. Again he converted people to follow, to accept him as God. So this whole religion is based on his teachings when he came to America.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Except for them, who accepts such a thing? No one accepts that except the Mormons.
Rāmeśvara: They say that God orders every man to get married.
Hari-śauri: They are very strong on the principle of family life.
Prabhupāda: That is a good idea.
Devotee (1): They also have a policy that anyone who is born in their family has to go on a missionary work for two years, then he's fulfilled his obligation. So the young men go overseas for two years.
Prabhupāda: That is also good.
Devotee (1): Yes.
Hari-śauri: Like those two young men that you met in Melbourne? Two American boys? They were Mormons.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Are they vegetarian?
Rāmeśvara: No, they abstain from . . . in Salt Lake City you are not allowed to smoke cigarettes. They have passed a law, "No cigarettes."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In the whole city?
Rāmeśvara: In the whole city.
Devotee (1): Wow, that's pretty heavy.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Wow, that's a big city. It's one of the capitals of the States.
Rāmeśvara: But they have meat-eating. Originally they are not supposed to, but they are already deviating.
Devotee (1): Do they still have many wives?
Rāmeśvara: No, that's against the law. Originally they believed in polygamy . . .
Prabhupāda: But now they are changing.
Rāmeśvara: Yes, now they are changing.
Prabhupāda: That means no fixed-up idea.
Devotee (1): No sound philosophy.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But we also believe, but do we allow?
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We also believe in polygamy, but we don't allow it in our Society.
Hari-śauri: Not for the time being, anyway.
Prabhupāda: We don't encourage sex life on the whole.
Rāmeśvara: They say that when you are married in their Church, it means that when you then quit your body and you go to the spiritual world . . .
Prabhupāda: No, we condone marriage. Marriage is Vedic principle.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This is Seventy-second Street, Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Yes, I know.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You were going to show us that building.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just on the corner of Amsterdam and Seventy-second.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That means next street.
Rāmeśvara: They say that when you go to the spiritual kingdom, you keep your same wife and your same children. That is their idea of marriage.
Prabhupāda: This is Amsterdam?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, Columbus Avenue. Next is Amsterdam.
Devotee (1): You walked here, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Rāmeśvara: Right here is number one hundred.
Prabhupāda: Here is.
Devotee (1): There is one hundred.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's the building, Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That's it.
Devotee (1): It says "Watergate." Watergate Hotel.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Which floor did you live on?
Prabhupāda: And I was trying to purchase one house here.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Which floor did you live on, Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: I think third floor. And there was electrician, he was my friend, one Jewish gentleman.
Devotee (1): You would walk on this street?
Prabhupāda: Yes. There is one building with temperature, a gauge? Here it is. This is Broadway. I was taking bath here in a station. Sometimes I was taking the station . . . I think this building is new. I was going to Dr. Mishra's apartment for cooking.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What street did he live on?
Prabhupāda: He . . . seventy-eighth. The Riverside corner. Yes, I was purchasing my goods from this store.
Devotee (1): Westend Superette.
Prabhupāda: They were charging, a little chili powder, twenty-five cents. In India it may be one anna.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You were purchasing here.
Prabhupāda: Yes, because I was going to cook my food there, so whatever I needed, I used to . . .
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How come you didn't cook your food where you were living?
Prabhupāda: Huh? There was no place.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What was it like there?
Prabhupāda: It was an office room. That building is meant for office, not for residency.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You rented a room there?
Prabhupāda: Yes, I was paying seventy-two dollars a month.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And where did you sleep? Was there a bed?
Prabhupāda: No, there was bed where I was sleeping. There is toilet and water, but no bath and no cooking.
Devotee (1): Did you have to go there to bathe also?
Prabhupāda: Yes, I was taking bathing there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Where did you . . . did you sleep on the floor?
Prabhupāda: Yes, I had little platform. So on that platform.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You are the most bold person in the whole world, Prabhupāda.
Devotee (1): We will never be able to do what you have done.
Prabhupāda: Alone I was doing that. And then gradually one or two boys began to come.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Did any of them come up here who are still with you now?
Prabhupāda: No.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Only when you went downtown did the permanent men come. No one was visiting you up here? Hayagrīva?
Prabhupāda: No, they came there, Second Avenue.
Hari-śauri: Mukunda?
Prabhupāda: All of them.
Rūpānuga: That's amazing. How long were you there, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Here? About six months. Then when my things were stolen, when one boy was coming, his name was Paul Murray, he invited me that, "You come to my loft." He took me to Bowery Street.
Devotee (1): I met that boy in Amherst.
Prabhupāda: Paul Murray?
Devotee (1): Yes. He has a boutique; he sells clothing.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You must have felt very bad when your things were stolen.
Prabhupāda: Yes, I felt little disappointed. But some friends, they offered me, "Never mind, you take my typewriter," somebody, "You take my tape recorder."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh. Things were very easy here.
Hari-śauri: Not easy.
Rūpānuga: Kṛṣṇa always provides facilities.
Prabhupāda: So there was no difficulty. I got from other friends.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So when you moved down to the loft . . .
Prabhupāda: That boy, I gave him, Haridāsa, who was in San Francisco?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So this Paul Murray . . . Haridāsa left New York, he went to San Francisco. His name was something else. What is this?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's a steel factory. This is near the Ratha-yātrā carts.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Steel factory, but very good house?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Hari-śauri: That Paul Murray, he was the boy that went crazy?
Prabhupāda: Yes, he was LSD man.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: LSD man. He tried to attack you.
Prabhupāda: Not attack, but he showed some ferocious mood. I thought . . .
Devotee (1): Very dangerous.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So you thought to leave right away.
Prabhupāda: Yes, immediately.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You took all your things and went away.
Prabhupāda: Yes, I kept with Mukunda.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And that boy was keeping meat in his refrigerator?
Prabhupāda: No, that is another boy, Yeargens.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: John Yeargens?
Prabhupāda: He's black.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You were staying with him?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Wow. Your Godbrothers could never believe this. (laughter)
Devotee (1): So at that time you did not think that anyone would accept your philosophy.
Prabhupāda: That I was certain. At the beginning I was . . .
Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda was certain that they would accept.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think, Prabhupāda, that your exploits here are no less great than Lord Caitanya going into the Jhārikhaṇḍa forest and making the animals dance.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You are the modern-day representative of Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
Prabhupāda: This is building construction?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Appears so. Telephone company.
Prabhupāda: The Bell?
Devotee (1): New York Telephone Company.
Prabhupāda: In Pittsburgh . . . I was living in Butler, and a girl took me to Pittsburgh. So I saw at that time that she had to pay two dollars for parking.
Hari-śauri: (referring to police station) This is why we get so much noise. Every time there's a call, when they come from here, and we're only just on the next block.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But it's good for us also. If there's any trouble in the temple, they come right away, and they are friendly.
Prabhupāda: Give them prasādam?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, Jayānanda brings them prasādam.
Prabhupāda: Prasādam will conquer everyone.
Rāmeśvara: That is how we get all our men to join.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: By the prasādam.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I joined because I had nowhere to eat.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: At first I had nowhere to eat, so the devotees in San Francisco, they gave me. Then I heard you lecture and I became convinced. These banners are very common. You can see this one flying in the air. Most shops and things keep banners nowadays, but they're not as nice as ours.
Prabhupāda: What is this street?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Eighth Avenue. There's a restaurant called Asia Restaurant. And another one over there . . .
Prabhupāda: Asia?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's behind you. It's hard for you to see. And there's another one, an Indian restaurant two blocks up, but they all serve meat.
Devotee (1): And liquor.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Meat, meat samosās, like that.
Devotee (1): Like the Muslims. (end)
- 1976 - Morning Walks
- 1976 - Lectures and Conversations
- 1976 - Lectures, Conversations and Letters
- 1976-07 - Lectures, Conversations and Letters
- Morning Walks - USA
- Morning Walks - USA, New York
- Lectures, Conversations and Letters - USA
- Lectures, Conversations and Letters - USA, New York
- 1976 - New Audio - Released in November 2013
- Audio Files 60.01 to 90.00 Minutes