770224 - Conversation B - Mayapur
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Prabhupāda: No light?
Hari-śauri: No, the power's gone off again. They're not running the generator for some reason.
Prabhupāda: No, in daytime there is no need.
Rādhā-vallabha: This is 1.1.
Prabhupāda: Oh! Thank you very much. First Canto.
Hari-śauri: First part.
Rāmeśvara: This completes the new style for the First Canto.
Prabhupāda: What is that new style?
Rāmeśvara: Well, the cover art has changed a little so you can read the titles, and it fits in the series. And also the captions are on one side, the pictures are on the other side.
Prabhupāda: Part One. That is this . . .
Rādhā-vallabha: This is Naimiṣāraṇya.
Hari-śauri: This is the same one.
Prabhupāda: Same.
Rādhā-vallabha: Naimiṣāraṇya.
Prabhupāda: So new pictures added.
Rādhā-vallabha: Paintings, no.
Rāmeśvara: Only in 1.2 and 1.3 we added some new pictures. But in 1.1 there were so many pictures, it wasn't necessary.
Rādhā-vallabha: Just photographs, no paintings.
Rāmeśvara: And now each book also has its own index in the back. That was also a reason for reprinting the First Canto.
Prabhupāda: This is?
Rādhā-vallabha: Kurukṣetra.
Prabhupāda: Kurukṣetra.
Rādhā-vallabha: 2.2.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Rāmeśvara: This is the new artwork for 2.2 on the cover. Same idea. Each book now has captions on one side, pictures on the other; the standard new typeface.
Prabhupāda: Second Canto, Part Two.
Hari-śauri: The same color as the Sixth Canto?
Rādhā-vallabha: No.
Prabhupāda: This is San Francisco?
Rādhā-vallabha: This is Rukmiṇī-Dvārakādhīśa in Los Angeles. Los Angeles.
Prabhupāda: Los Angeles. Hmm.
Rāmeśvara: We printed fifty thousand copies of the 1.1 and twenty thousand copies of the 2.2.
Prabhupāda: This is selling more?
Rāmeśvara: First Canto we want to sell more, because it . . .
Prabhupāda: It introduces.
Rāmeśvara: Yes.
Rādhā-vallabha: This is 9.1.
Rāmeśvara: That's the new book.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Hari-śauri: Ninth Canto.
Rāmeśvara: That painting was painted by Muralīdhara, of Ambarīṣa at the abhiṣeka ceremony.
Prabhupāda: How many copies?
Rāmeśvara: Twenty thousand.
Prabhupāda: Twenty, minimum.
Rādhā-vallabha: 9.2 will be printed this way for the first time as well.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Rādhā-vallabha: Same thing.
Hari-śauri: This is the same one, 9.1.
Rāmeśvara: The back cover is painted by Parīkṣit.
Rādhā-vallabha: This is the verse that you always quote, on the first page.
Prabhupāda:
- sa vai manaḥ kṛṣṇa-padāravindayor
- vacāṁsi vaikuṇṭha-guṇānuvarṇane
- karau harer mandira-mārjanādiṣu
- śrutiṁ cakārācyuta-sat-kathodaye
- (SB 9.4.18)
Very good. So everything is there. So let me take prasādam, then we can talk some more.
Rāmeśvara: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Thank you very much.
Jayatīrtha: One more thing. This is the first British BTG.
Prabhupāda: Oh, very nice. I did not see this picture.
Rāmeśvara: It is a new painting for Bhāgavatam 1.2. First Canto, Part Two. Parīkṣit painted it.
Prabhupāda: It is an American printing?
Jayatīrtha: This is British.
Prabhupāda: This is British.
Rāmeśvara: They printed it in England. How many copies?
Jayatīrtha: Hundred thousand copies.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Competition. (laughter)
Rāmeśvara: He's trying.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes. This transcendental competition must go on. Thank you.
Rādhā-vallabha: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda. (break)
Prabhupāda: Let us try to give a substantial platform of civilization. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Hari-śauri: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (breaks)
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Yajñād bhavati parjanyaḥ (BG 3.14). (sound of thunder and heavy rain) This time rainfall is very beneficial for crops. This is the way of living. You perform yajña, there will be rain. And as soon as the ground is moist, you can produce anything, whatever you want. Sarva-kāma-dughā mahī (SB 1.10.4). From the field, you can get all your necessities of life. The first necessity is the food grain. So food grain you can eat, and the rejected grass portion, you give to the cows. So both the animal and the man get sufficient food. And the cows will give you nice milk, and from milk you can get butter, ghee, yogurt, so many nice sweetmeat. And there is ghee, and here is food grain, then you make kacaurī, purī, samosā. Then sufficient foodstuff, nice, palatable, nutritious. First necessity is āhāra. You get sufficient āhāra, then make little cottage for shelter. Just like there is rainfall; now you require little . . . (thunder sounds) Āhāra, nidrā, bhaya and sex. So marry. Then the whole problem is solved. And then, rest time you save and advance in Kṛṣṇa conscious . . . this is civilization. Why you create unnecessary necessities of life and become complicated and forget Kṛṣṇa? What is this civilization? Rascal civilization. Instead of giving protection to the cows, you are cutting the throat. Is that civilization? So this is a civilization of duṣkṛtina, means mischief-monger. Therefore they must suffer, and suffering. And asuras are being created. And Kṛṣṇa's business is to kill the asuras. Paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām (BG 4.8). This is going on. This is material nature. Asuras are being created, and the whole plan is to kill them. So struggle for existence. The asuras, they want to live. Mahiṣāsura, he's struggling with the weapons of Māyā, Durgā. He'll be failure, but still—ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham (BG 3.27)—by false egotism he's thinking, "I shall conquer over the material . . ." That is scientist, so-called scientist. Asuras, they are planning that "We shall do without nature's control." That is mūḍha. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā dura . . . (BG 7.14). They cannot conquer it. That is not possible. But you are struggling. You do not want the control of nature. And nature is so strong . . . now it is raining. Within one hour they can vanquish the whole world. Doesn't take time. If there is one cyclone and heavy rain, then you are put into danger. So long it is mild, it is all right. And as soon as becomes ferocious, then finish you. What you'll control the nature? When there is no rain, you cannot bring in rain; and when there is heavy rain, you cannot stop it. Then where is your control? You rascal, you think like that, "We shall control over nature." This is your rascaldom. You cannot control over. So everything has its use, and how to use it properly, that is all described in the Bhagavad-gītā. And if you take instruction of Kṛṣṇa and ultimately surrender to Him, that is success of life. Otherwise, struggle for existence, survival of the fittest . . . nature is fittest. You'll die; nature will be . . . you are not fit to fight with the nature. That is asura temperament. And that will never be successful. So many asuras came. Formerly there was Hiraṇyakaśipu, Rāvaṇa, Kaṁsa and others. In the recent years there was Hitler, there was Churchill, there was Lenin and Gandhi and so on, so on. For few days, then gone, "Get out. Bās. Finished." Big, big scientists, big, big asuras, big, big leaders, what they could do? Tribhir guṇamayair bhāvaiḥ. Where is Bhagavad-gītā? Read from the . . . tribhir guṇamayaiḥ. Seventh Chapter.
Tripurāri:
- tribhir guṇamayair bhāvair
- ebhiḥ sarvam idaṁ jagat
- mohitaṁ nābhijānāti
- mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam
- (BG 7.13)
"Deluded by the three modes (goodness, passion and ignorance), the whole world does not know Me, who am above the modes and inexhaustible."
Prabhupāda: Hmm. What is the purport?
Tripurāri: Purport: "The whole world is enchanted by three modes of material nature. Those who are bewildered by these three modes cannot understand that transcendental to this material nature is the Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa. In this material world everyone is under the influence of these three guṇas and is thus bewildered.
"By nature living entities have particular types of body and particular types of psychic and biological activities accordingly. There are four classes of men functioning in the three modes of material nature. Those who are purely in the mode of goodness are called brāhmins. Those who are purely in the mode of passion are called kṣatriyas. Those who are in the modes of both passion and ignorance are called vaiśyas, and those who are completely in ignorance are called śūdras. And those who are less than that are animals or animal life. However, these designations are not permanent. I may either be a brāhmin, kṣatriya, vaiśya or whatever—in any case, this life is temporary. But although life is temporary and we do not know what we are going to be in the next life, still, by the spell of this illusory energy, we consider ourselves in the light of this bodily conception of life, and we thus think that we are American, Indian, Russian or brāhmin, Hindu, Muslim, etc. And if we become entangled with the modes of material nature, then we forget the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is behind all these modes. So Lord Kṛṣṇa says that men, deluded by these three modes of nature, do not understand that behind the material background is the Supreme Godhead."
"There are many different kinds of living entities—human beings, demigods, animals, etc.—and each and every one of them is under the influence of material nature, and all of them have forgotten the transcendent Personality of Godhead. Those who are in the modes of passion and ignorance, and even those who are in the mode of goodness, cannot go beyond the impersonal Brahman conception of the Absolute Truth. They are bewildered before the Supreme Lord in His personal feature, which possesses all beauty, opulence, knowledge, strength, fame and renunciation. When even those who are in goodness cannot understand, what hope is there for those in passion and ignorance? Kṛṣṇa consciousness is transcendental to all these three modes of material nature, and those who are truly established in Kṛṣṇa consciousness are actually liberated."
Prabhupāda: How many copies they are printing?
Brahmānanda: One hundred thousand.
Prabhupāda: One hundred thousand. This is the first?
Brahmānanda: I think so.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Volume One. Was there any difficulty for getting our present edition here?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think one of the points that Jayatīrtha Prabhu was making is that some of the . . . he found that some of the editions were especially orientated to American reading public. For example, there was an edition about bicentennial celebration. So that celebrates the American . . .
Prabhupāda: Independence.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: . . . independence from Great Britain. So that is not a very popular matter. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So that's actually a fact. There are a number of articles occasionally which are more American orientated. He felt that that was a strong point.
Hṛdayānanda: Also it's cheaper.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's cheaper.
Hṛdayānanda: He's printing twenty-four pages only. So Britain has . . .
Prabhupāda: No, it is very nicely done, very nice.
Hṛdayānanda: He's gotten a very low price.
Brahmānanda: He doesn't have the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam included.
Prabhupāda: That he should. That is not American or English. (laughter) Next issue, they can add. Where is Jayatīrtha Prabhu? So your South America, there is some trouble?
Pañcadraviḍa: No. No trouble. Just in Argentina. The trouble is finished now. We're out. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: Trouble is finished?
Pañcadraviḍa: And we're out. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: That is called mora mera gale. To call a man by ill names, the last word is "You die."
Pañcadraviḍa: But it is not just us. The government threw out the Pentacostals, the Jehovah's Witnesses, these Children of God, Guru Maharaj-ji's group, us. It's a very fascist government and very pro-Catholic. So between the Catholic . . . now also we have heard that they have passed one law that nobody in the country is allowed to keep a beard. And the Jews, they all keep beards there because they're very orthodox Jews. Part of their religion, they don't cut the hair. So now no keeping beards, that's also even against the Jews. There are several million Jews. The government is very difficult to work with. When we went to the Ministry to ask them about this, they said they could not do nothing. The Ministry already, some people there were talking, "No, this government is very destructive. The next government will be more constructive. You try when the next government comes." So this is the way they talk down there. They change governments very often.
Brahmānanda: There's also a lot of German influence there. When the Nazis left Nazi Germany, they all went to Argentina.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Hṛdayānanda: So now every day they are killing so many people. It's become a very dangerous place. In the streets every day they are shooting so many people.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Here's Jayatīrtha.
Pañcadraviḍa: Actually, though, we are learning something. We have to work with these kind of people more and more in different countries.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (to Jayatīrtha) So this is very fine, but there is no Bhāgavata?
Jayatīrtha: Śrīla Prabhupāda, it's only being published quarterly . . .
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Jayatīrtha: . . . and we thought to publish one section every three months, people would lose the track of the thing. That's why we . . . the British economy is so bad that we had to give fairly inexpensive literature. So it's either a question of printing sixteen pages color and eight page Bhāgavata, or twenty-four pages color. We couldn't do twenty-four pages color and eight pages Bhāgavata. We thought that as it was quarterly . . .
Prabhupāda: That's all right. So you have printed one . . .
Jayatīrtha: One hundred thousand.
Prabhupāda: It is going on? Hmm?
Jayatīrtha: Nicely.
Prabhupāda: So one hundred thousand you'll have to sell within three months.
Jayatīrtha: That's correct, yes. We're also selling many medium books.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Jayatīrtha: We're selling many Īśopaniṣads, and now we're printing also Nectar of Instruction and Perfection of Yoga for distribution.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. You have already ordered for printing?
Jayatīrtha: We've already printed Īśopaniṣads, and just now they're preparing Nectar of Instruction and Perfection of Yoga for printing.
Prabhupāda: In London there are very big, big press.
Jayatīrtha: Yes. Quite good prices too, better than American prices. We're having our Swedish Bhagavad-gītā also printed in England. It's going to the press while we're here in Māyāpur.
Prabhupāda: How is that vegetable market? There is wholesale vegetable market.
Jayatīrtha: Not a very big one.
Prabhupāda: Near I saw there is very big press.
Jayatīrtha: London's a fantastic city for spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā?
Jayatīrtha: Very good.
Prabhupāda: On the whole, they like it?
Jayatīrtha: Yes, especially our kīrtana parties on Oxford Street and Picadilly Circus. They like that very much. Sometimes we get a thousand people standing around our kīrtana party, Picadilly Circus and Leicester Square, places like that.
Prabhupāda: So what about that house?
Jayatīrtha: That house? We've purchased now, and we're fixing it up.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Jayatīrtha: We're fixing it up just now for using. We should be using it within about two months.
Prabhupāda: What is the name of that place?
Jayatīrtha: Soho Square.
Prabhupāda: The same house which you showed me?
Jayatīrtha: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So you have taken money from my account? No.
Jayatīrtha: No, Śrīla Prabhupāda. We didn't need to.
Prabhupāda: So there we shall have restaurant?
Jayatīrtha: Yes. It should be very successful. Restaurants . . . some of the restaurants in that area sell . . . vegetarian restaurants, there's one that sells about ten thousand pounds (sterling) a week of food. So ours may not be quite that big.
Prabhupāda: So we have already started restaurant? No.
Jayatīrtha: Not yet. It takes some time. We just got permission finally, the planning permission from the city. That was a technicality. But we just got that. There was no problem. Now we're starting to do the refurbishing. We have to do a lot of painting and . . .
Prabhupāda: So we shall move from Bury Place there? No.
Jayatīrtha: No. We want to build a very nice temple and cultural center in London. The Indian community is very anxious for that actually. Because they're spread out, the Indians, in Wembley and Southall and different areas. And they have a few very lousy local temples. But they know that we're the only ones who can build a very nice place, so they're interested in helping us build a very big place as close to the center of London as possible.
Prabhupāda: So you have got any place? No.
Jayatīrtha: Right now we're looking for land, and I brought this Raṇcora . . . where's Raṇcora? Anyway, Raṇcora, he's architect and artist. He's going to work, hopefully, with Saurabha. Saurabha is anxious also for helping do some preliminary drawings.
Prabhupāda: Now unless you get land, how you can do?
Jayatīrtha: Well, we thought some things, we'd have some drawings showing . . .
Prabhupāda: But so far I know, it is very difficult to get vacant land.
Jayatīrtha: Yes. Depends on how close to the center you are. We'll probably have to get a piece of property that has an old warehouse or something on it and demolish it. There's no . . . nothing is vacant, but a lot of the buildings are so old that no one wants to use them.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That you can get. There are many old houses—I do not remember what is that neighborhood—that is forlorn practically.
Jayatīrtha: Hmm. There are many places like that. So we hope to find a place like that, about three quarters of an acre, half an acre to three quarters of an acre, and build a building, taller building, with the temple and auditorium and museum and hotel rooms.
Prabhupāda: Like New York. Like New York?
Jayatīrtha: Not quite as big as New York. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: That house is very good, our New York temple.
Jayatīrtha: We need about half that size, but bigger, nicer temple and meeting hall. We can rent out the . . . for weddings. People are paying five hundred pounds a day for renting just one room, a big room, and they can't get sufficient rooms in London. So they told us that they could book for two years in advance at five hundred pounds a day every weekend, Saturday, Sunday, for a wedding hall. If we can arrange to do the wedding for them, then they'll pay us an additional couple hundred pounds. There's a lot of . . . so many Indians there.
Prabhupāda: Yes, there are Indians there.
Jayatīrtha: Lot of scope. They're coming to like our movement very much there now also, respecting. There's no more complaint. Before, there were some complaints.
Pañcadraviḍa: This last Sunday in New York for Śiva-rātri there were so many Indians there. There were thousands of Indians in that temple. It was very exciting just to see so many people come in.
Prabhupāda: This is good chance of United Nation—Indian, Americans, Englishmen, German, all mixed together.
Jayatīrtha: In our Amsterdam temple, out of the, er . . . there's about sixty devotees, and they're from seventeen different countries. Seventeen different nationalities are represented in the temple. I think there's nowhere else where so many different nationalities are living together.
Prabhupāda: No. This is the nucleus of United Nation, real. Īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam (ISO 1), to understand everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa. That is the basic principle of United Nation. Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā, samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu (BG 18.54). In that stage there can be equality. Otherwise not.
Pañcadraviḍa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, the text on the back of this magazine here, the back advertisement for the Gītā . . .
Prabhupāda: Here?
Pañcadraviḍa: . . . is very nice wording. It's referring to India.
Prabhupāda: This. Oh, yes. This is the fact.
Brahmānanda: Headline. "This book is sacred to 650,000,000."
Prabhupāda: "650,000,000" means?
Brahmānanda: Indians.
Jayatīrtha: That's about the number of . . . according to the books, that's the number of Hindus in the world. I wrote that text. That impresses people.
Pañcadraviḍa: Because they are saying this is not religion, and we're saying, "How you can say it's not religion when already 650,000,000 people are following it?"
Prabhupāda: The practical example is there. In everywhere they are coming to the temple. So in England there is opposition?
Jayatīrtha: Not really. There's none of this deprogramming or any trouble like that. People are pretty peaceful. We have a pretty good reputation. The government doesn't oppose us.
Prabhupāda: They oppose our Ratha-yātrā.
Jayatīrtha: Our Ratha-yātrā, yes. I don't think they'll ever stop opposing. This year when I went to the Ratha-yātrā, when we had the Ratha-yātrā, I saw that their feeling is so strong about it I don't think they'll ever let us have a good cart on that route. I wish they would, but I don't think they will. They told us that the only way they'll let us have a big cart is if we change the route. So actually that's one thing I wanted to discuss with you while I was here, about whether . . . if we had the Ratha-yātrā in the Indian district, like Wembley . . .
Prabhupāda: No.
Jayatīrtha: . . . then we could have a big cart.
Prabhupāda: No.
Jayatīrtha: Otherwise not.
Prabhupāda: That is not . . .
Jayatīrtha: The problem is, with a small cart, people are not very attracted to the Ratha-yātrā.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Jayatīrtha: With a small cart there's nothing so exciting about the Ratha-yātrā that people will come for miles, at least English people. They won't come just to see this small cart. In San Francisco these three huge carts makes it so exciting and colorful that people come just to see the carts.
Prabhupāda: They will not allow.
Jayatīrtha: No. I don't think so. They're very . . . because it's a safety thing, they say. The street is such . . . and they won't stop the traffic, so the traffic is still going on.
Brahmānanda: Has there been any accident on the previous ones?
Jayatīrtha: Well, that argument won't work on the British bureaucracy. There hasn't been any accident in the past, nor in the future there will be any accident. They . . . simply they don't want a big cart.
Prabhupāda: But Wembley quarter is not good.
Jayatīrtha: No, that quarter is not so good. There may be other quarters where they'd do it, but . . .
Hṛdayānanda: New Dvārakā comes down to San Francisco.
Prabhupāda: We can make another Ratha-yātrā from Bhaktivedanta Manor to Wembley and other places.
Jayatīrtha: Hmm. Actually we were thinking to have . . . if we kept a small cart and had Ratha-yātrās, one in London, one in around Birmingham area—there's a lot of Hindus in that area will come—one in the north around . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Jayatīrtha: . . . Liverpool-Manchester area.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That will be nice.
Jayatīrtha: Take the Ratha-yātrā along—we have this bus program—do publicity with the bus program, and then, at the end of the month, have a Ratha-yātrā somewhere in the city. I think if we keep the small cart, do at least three Ratha-yātrās this summer . . .
Prabhupāda: Our big car is there?
Jayatīrtha: It's still standing.
Prabhupāda: So that we can move? No, that will not be possible.
Jayatīrtha: No.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Could you do big ones in other places?
Jayatīrtha: It may be. We have to investigate.
Hṛdayānanda: There's no place in London where you can do big carts?
Jayatīrtha: It depends. In the Hindu quarters I don't think they could stop us. But in other quarters they would.
Prabhupāda: The Watford area there are many Hindus.
Jayatīrtha: Few in Watford. Mostly down by Wembley, which is not very far from Watford. It's only three stops on the tube. I think they may let us do a big cart there. And in other cities they may also. We just came to this idea recently to do them in other cities, because especially in the Mid . . . it's called the Midlands. There is Leicester and Coventry and many cities with many Hindus there. And those people in those cities are sometimes . . . they're more pious than the London Hindus. They're very . . . one of our life membership makers in the north made twenty-four members in two weeks.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Jayatīrtha: In the north they're very active there, and they're very anxious for some interest by us for them. Anyway, at least we could have three smaller Ratha-yātrās this year in different places.
Prabhupāda: Simply by Ratha-yātrā, you can attract many people. So still we are going to that Trafalgar Square?
Jayatīrtha: Yes. It's hard, though.
Prabhupāda: The crowd is the same? No. Diminished.
Jayatīrtha: Well, the crowd that's in Trafalgar Square is mostly there already. That's the thing, because there's always people in Trafalgar Square. So when the Ratha-yātrā comes they stay, and they make benefit by ajñāta-sukṛti. But the number of people that are out in the parade is not very great. I've been thinking how it can be increased, but because they keep us in one small lane about as wide as this room along this road, and then we had to have this small cart, and then the people are spread out for so long. A lot of Hindus come, but sometimes they are so far away from the cart it's hard to keep the kīrtana very nice, so they can't see the Deities. And after being in San Francisco for so many years at the Ratha-yātrā, I found I didn't feel so enthusiastic. That San Francisco festival is so elevated, so wonderful. Therefore I was thinking that if we could move it . . .
Hṛdayānanda: . . . (indistinct)
Jayatīrtha: Not in the same way.
Pañcadraviḍa: Do we use like a marching band in the Ratha-yātrā? If we used a marching band, a lot of people come. You know, like a parade, like they use in the parades, with trumpets and drums and all these things.
Prabhupāda: I think you can introduce in Africa also. (laughter)
Brahmānanda: We want to introduce in Mombassa. We've already been discussing it.
Prabhupāda: (looking at magazine) This warfield painting is done very nicely.
Jayatīrtha: I think so.
Prabhupāda: Who has done?
Jayatīrtha: Parīkṣit.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Actual.
Jayatīrtha: People I've shown it to like it much better than this picture. It's more realistic. Has a very classical look.
Prabhupāda: This is a protest against Gandhi's nonviolence, (laughter) bogus nonviolence. So it is a protest against that idea.
Jayatīrtha: Yes. This is not a nonviolent picture.
Prabhupāda: I do not know how he wanted to draw nonviolence from this idea. (chuckles) This is going on, distorting the real fact. Politics without violence is impossible. There is a Bengali proverb, naste base gun tata: This girl has come to the stage for dancing, and (s)he is pulling her veil. (laughs) She has to dance freely, and what is the use of . . .? Nasta base gun tata. In politics, nonviolence, there is no history. The Britishers took it an opportunity to continue their ruling.
Lokanātha: He wasn't even political man.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Lokanātha: Gandhi wasn't even political man, because politics means there has to be violence. He did not . . .
Prabhupāda: No, impartially studying, he endeavored for upliftment of the South African Indians, South Africans, Johannesburg.
Brahmānanda: In Durban he started.
Prabhupāda: Ah, in Durban. That was failure. The Indians haven't got any position still.
Jayatīrtha: None.
Prabhupāda: None. So that twenty years' failure, and here also he started that nonviolence—thirty years. In 1917 he came here from Africa, and the nonviolent, noncooperation . . . actually, this Hitler's war in 1947 helped India to become independent, the Hitler's cooperation with Subhas Bose, INA. When he organized the soldiers, then Britishers thought, "No more chance." Then they left India. Not for the nonviolence. These are artificial things, in politics nonviolence.
Lokanātha: You two were working together?
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Lokanātha: Yourself and Gandhi worked together for some time?
Prabhupāda: In the beginning I was, 1920. No, everyone, every young man joined. (someone yelling in background) What is that? So ārati you can join, yes.
Devotees: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda. (end)
- 1977 - Conversations
- 1977 - Lectures and Conversations
- 1977 - Lectures, Conversations and Letters
- 1977-02 - Lectures, Conversations and Letters
- Conversations - India
- Conversations - India, Mayapur
- Lectures, Conversations and Letters - India
- Lectures, Conversations and Letters - India, Mayapur
- Audio Files 30.01 to 45.00 Minutes
- 1977 - New Audio - Released in July 2012