Discussions with Devotees and Conversation with Dr. Ghosh , Vṛndāvana , 1977-06-01

Prabhupāda: So our temple is also.

Yaśodānandana: Yes, that is very good.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: In future I think that we can invite scholars even from the West, just like from the United States. Sometimes they have these departments called...

Prabhupāda: We have brain. We are not afraid of anything...

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Jaya.

Prabhupāda: ...that we are preaching something which not is acceptable by scientists or philosophers. He must have to accept.

Bhavānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, Bhakti-prema Mahārāja is not here now. He's gone out.

Yaśodānandana: There was a discussion today that in some time, after this preaching to the scientists starts, if we get exposed, it will be a very, very big world news item, especially with jagat theory of the universe, to explain how all the planets are exactly together, how life comes from life. It will be a very shocking news to the whole scientific world. They have so many misconceptions which are simply due to ignorance.

Prabhupāda: They are simply making false propaganda to keep their prestige. Useless. Now here is a scientist. He'll confirm it. What do you think?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Er... I think it's going to be very interesting. We are very prepared for it, and it will be a very challenging, challenging field, if all the scientists and all over...

Prabhupāda: We have got some background. They have no background.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, we have Bhagavad-gītā and Prabhupāda, Kṛṣṇa. So we are very prominent.

Prabhupāda: But they have no background. They are simply speculating. In the first place they have no background. Child. Doesn't know what... Do you think they are knowing?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I saw just little hint. I met an Indian physicist in Emory University. He's quite well known physicist, and he actually liked the idea that we wrote on. He said it's very genuine and very scientific. We have developed this the laws of consciousness from tying ātmā and Paramātmā. The Paramātmā, we say, is the source of all these laws of nature.

Prabhupāda: That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. Mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca [Bg. 15.15]. Jaya. [Bengali] Or if you like, you can travel with him, but your translation must be main work. If you like, you can go to the foreign countries along with him. [Bengali] So that program you planned, he can come.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. I suggested to Dr. Sharma that first of all we hold that conference in Vṛndāvana and come here. So we can announce some nice topics, so he can also speak. And we can invite some scholars. They can also speak. We can have open discussion, exchange of ideas and philosophy, so that we expose Kṛṣṇa consciousness on this scale. So Prabhupāda wants that Bhaktivedanta Institute is also here in Vṛndāvana along with the Bhaktivedanta Gurukula, an institute for higher studies, and there be one office in the new gurukula building so that...

Prabhupāda: No, I request you all that you keep this building always busy with some conference, with some meeting, with some... It shouldn't remain vacant. And for expenditure, I shall arrange. There is no want.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: And we'll try to attract more Ph.D.s.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: As soon as we go out and preach, I think we can get...

Prabhupāda: [Bengali] You are all qualified. I can give you ideas. Now I am doing. So I wanted to see that you are all busy. That I want. Because now I am becoming invalid. I cannot move very swiftly here and there. But if you move, I take pleasure. There is a Bengali proverb, na pajimane na jamai datta[?]. A old lady, so she has lost her husband. She cannot joke. [chuckles] Husband, wife, they exchange some joking word. So with whom she will joke? Then the grandson-in-law, grandson... So in our society, Bengal, the grandson-in-law... I have got experience also. When I was newly married grandson-in-law, so my grandmother-in-law was joking with me like anything, more than husband. [laughter] And granddaughter-in-law. So we sit down and she talks very openly everything. We remember that. Because she was enjoying. By talking like that, free, with granddaughter and grandson-in-law, she was enjoying. And we were also enjoying. So my position is like that. I cannot move now very swiftly here and there, becoming invalid. So if I see that you are doing these things, that will give me pleasure. Yes. Granddaughter-in-law.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I also found that in Boston, the Indian communities, they are very interested in this program.

Prabhupāda: Must be. Everyone should be. This is the genuine program. So [Bengali], talk and make program. [Bengali]

Dr. Sharma: That is disease. It has become now plague. [indistinct] on the street.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So both of you are very intelligent boys. I want to see that you are always busy in these affairs. [Bengali] Bhaktivedanta Gurukula and Institute for Higher Studies. [Bengali] I want to see that you are always busy. Busy-ness. That will give me pleasure. Laziness I don't want. Personally I was never lazy. I did not like laziness.

Dr. Sharma: [Bengali] We create in our mind problems.

Prabhupāda: Because sometimes I become morose that I became lazy, so therefore, if I see you busy, this moroseness will reduce. When I see that you are working and the whole thing is busy, oh, that gives me pleasure. Yes

Svarūpa Dāmodara: We're also thinking of writing some books for children, for gurukula.

Prabhupāda: Write.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: For the Bhaktivedanta Institute.

Prabhupāda: Write. That's a very good idea. [Bengali] This is real life. You are all qualified to do this. Idaṁ hi puṁsas tapasaḥ śrutasya vā [SB 1.5.22]. [Bengali]

Yaśodānandana: Śrīla Prabhupāda, this morning, as soon as the children heard that this name was going to be changed and it was going to be that, many of them became eager = "How I can be trained also to know these things?" The children are already very eager to understand all these...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Yaśodānandana: ...the scientific approach.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. [Bengali]

Dr. Sharma: Plus it should be nice.

Prabhupāda: It is already.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I'm going to have to look tomorrow and...

Prabhupāda: Hmm. You can see, both, and select which room for which quarter. Big, big room... [Bengali]

Dr. Sharma: That [indistinct], he's very nice. [indistinct]

Prabhupāda: He is very intelligent.

Dr. Sharma: [indistinct]

Prabhupāda: He's organizing this, that Poland, communist country. He has accepted hard knock. And knocking. [Bengali]

Bhavānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, would you like to go upstairs now? Would you like to go up to the roof now?

Prabhupāda: I have no objection. [Bengali] You are all able.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: [aside:] Yeah, tomorrow I'll go and see everything.

Prabhupāda: [Bengali conversation] So? No, I shall go. Utsāhād dhairyāt tat-tat-karma-pravartanāt, sato vṛtteḥ sādhu..., ṣaḍbhir bhaktiḥ prasidhyati. [break]

Ādi-keśava: In your Bhagavad-gītā you explain that to the materialist, he is subject to fear, anger and attachment.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Ādi-keśava: So when someone becomes angry, that anger is frustration due to the fact that he experiences so many frustrations in the material world, and therefore he calls it void. He says, "Rather than experience the difficulties inherent in the temporality of the material world, instead he calls it void and says that it does not exist." Because it is causing so much distress because he cannot become satisfied in material existence, then he says...

Prabhupāda: Whether it has got any value? Whether such statement has any value?

Harikeśa: Whether such statement has any value?

Ādi-keśava: To say that it has no existence, that it is all void?

Prabhupāda: One, you... Talk on this point. Just like a small animal, rabbit. When he's attacked, he closes the eyes. He thinks, "There is nothing." Now he is devoured. So it is like that. He cannot adjust things, and "That is zero, bās." But that's not the fact. Hmm? Simply by closing your eyes you want to avoid danger? Discuss on this.

Bhakti-prema: When we generalize our senses inwards, it becomes inert. When we go beyond body and senses it becomes inert. But we have to penetrate deep into that state of consciousness, and it can be possible only through Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Prabhupāda: Svarūpa Dāmodara? You also.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: When the goal and the meaning of life is not understood, then people take it as void. So that means life is full of meaning and full of purpose, and it is also a goal, but when that meaning is not understood... That is actually the scientific philosophy, that it is all void because there is no meaning and there is no purpose. That is what the... Especially in the Western scientists, that is the current thought, that, the complete material philosophy. But when one changes that concept by developing proper consciousness, it just becomes the opposite. That means life is full of...

Prabhupāda: [aside:] Give me... What fruit you have?

Kīrtanānanda: Orange. Orange.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: When this philosophy is reversed, then life becomes full of meaning and full of purpose. Actually that is a fact. We give value to life. That's why we go to the..., we send our children for higher studies and we develop so many political and social and ethical and moral problems. That means there is purpose in life. So life is not void. But somehow, when one misses that point, he just comes to that point. But that's not a fact. So it has to be understood that there is..., life is full of meaning and full of purpose, and there is a goal behind it. That purpose is to develop spiritual consciousness, to develop the science of ātmā called ātma-jñāna, the science of the self, and becomes... Life becomes meaningful.

Prabhupāda: That is the statement in Bhāgavata = apaśyatām ātma-tattvaṁ gṛheṣu gṛha-medhinām [SB 2.1.2]. Gṛheṣu gṛha-medhinām, they dismiss the case because apaśyatām ātma-tattvam. Just like thieves = "Eh! What is government? What is government? Let us enjoy." That's not the fact. So we have to put all these questions before learned scholars and ask them to make a solution. [Bengali] Why zero?

Harikeśa: In other words, no matter what they come up with, what ideas they come up with, what knowledge they have, it's of no value because it doesn't...

Prabhupāda: Their knowledge has no value. That is our first charge.

Harikeśa: It has no value because it doesn't do anything of any value...

Prabhupāda: There is no conclusion. Zero. Zero? For zero why there are so many varieties? Wherefrom the varieties came?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: We can show that their thinking is wrong completely.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the fact.

Harikeśa: And that all their speculations simply end up in their own death. And at that point they have no idea what will happen next. But they have to take another body. Although they may try to say...

Prabhupāda: They are taking. That example is already there. He finishes his childhood; he accepts boyhood. Why he has left childhood? Finish childhood. Finish. That's all. Why again bother?

Harikeśa: Force of time.

Prabhupāda: That means he is under the control of something higher, but he refutes, tries to avoid it. That cannot be avoided. A child must become a boy. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ [Bg. 2.13].

Harikeśa: But the worst thing is that not only are they causing themselves trouble, but they cause it upon everyone else.

Prabhupāda: That is natural. Causing everyone else means the same group. Andhā yathāndhaiḥ. One who is blind, he can be cheated by another blind man. But one who is not blind, if the blind man wants to cheat him, that "I can help you crossing the room," he will laugh, that "This rascal is blind, and he has offered me to help me." We take this, that if a person is... We know that he is defective, his knowledge is imperfect, what knowledge he will give? Immediately reject him.

Harikeśa: He can give us knowledge on how to accelerate death.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Harikeśa: He can give good knowledge on how to accelerate death.

Prabhupāda: That is natural. There is no question of his accelerating. It is already going on in this world. [pause] So many things we have to discuss. Is it not? People are in darkness in so many ways. Therefore we have to take the standard knowledge.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Always comes to the...

Prabhupāda: [aside:] Little cold water. And our mission is to deliver them by giving knowledge. Āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra' ei deśa [Cc. Madhya 7.128]. Our mission is not to keep men in darkness. Otherwise, "Let them go to hell, śūnyavādi. We don't..." No. They should not remain in that way. They should come to the real light. This is our policy. [pause]

Bhakti-caru: Śrīla Prabhupāda? Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja [Bengali]. [offers obeisances and leaves]

Harikeśa: When we finish this description, our understanding of this description of the universe, and present it to the scientists and to the world, people will become astounded. [aside = huh?]

Prabhupāda: Yes. [break] [loud fan noise---indistinct] What is that jīva-bhūta? They are living entities. What is that jīva-bhūta? Jīva-bhūtāṁ mahā-bā... Yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat. Without that these jīva-bhūta, these material elements are developed? Where is that? Find out this verse.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: In Gītā?

Prabhupāda: Read it.

Jagadīśa:

"Besides this inferior energy, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is a superior energy of Mine, which are all living entities, who are struggling with material nature and are sustaining the universe." Purport?

Prabhupāda: Hmm.

Jagadīśa: "Here it is clearly mentioned that living entities belong to the superior nature [or energy] of the Supreme Lord. The inferior energy is matter manifested in different elements, namely earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego. Both forms of material nature, namely gross [earth, etc.] and subtle [mind, etc.], are products of the inferior energy. The living entities, who are exploiting these inferior energies for different purposes, are the superior energy of the Supreme Lord, and it is due to this energy that the entire material world functions. The cosmic manifestation has no power to act unless it is moved by the superior energy, the living entity. Energies are always controlled by the energetic, and therefore living entities are always controlled by the Lord---they have no independent existence. They are never equally powerful, as unintelligent men think. The distinction between the living entities and the Lord is described in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam as follows [10.87.30]:

Dr. Ghosh: [Bengali]

Prabhupāda: [Bengali] Begin. [Bengali conversation] [break] [indistinct] What is that?

Bhavānanda: Fruit juice and sabjī, so much of...

Dr. Ghosh: But you'll get your pomegranates? I'll get it.

Bhakti-caru: [Bengali] [Bengali conversation]

Dr. Ghosh: How you'll take care of him?

Upendra: Massage. He's cooking.

Prabhupāda: [Bengali] [Bengali conversation] We have got black cows.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We have black cows.

Dr. Ghosh: [Bengali] [Bengali conversation] I have got my own honey. [Bengali conversation] I'm sorry, he won't [indistinct].

Bhavānanda: Little bit.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very little.

Dr. Ghosh: [Bengali]

Prabhupāda: He said there is no fear. Everything is [indistinct].

Dr. Ghosh: Tomorrow morning [indistinct] I want, to get him into [indistinct] doctor... [break] [end]