Morning Walk

Indian man: Pravin.

Prabhupāda: Pravin. You were born here?

Pravin: Yeah.

Prabhupāda: Oh, where is your shoes?

Pravin: Oh, I got it here.

Prabhupāda: You are Gujarati? So you have been in India? [break]

Pravin: No, I haven't been...

[indistinct; audio breaking up throughout]

...my dad stopped... [break] ...Nairobi...

[break] You know how parents, Indian parents, are. They try to grab hold of you before you can go away. He thought that I won't come back or something.

Prabhupāda: So he was right, your father.

Pravin: He was right. Yes. Well, you see, I didn't want to come back and get married and all that, you see? And then he forced me to get married.

Prabhupāda: Where you married? Here?

Pravin: Here, Durban.

Prabhupāda: You have got children?

Pravin: Yes. Two boys.

Prabhupāda: I was talking just now that the Indians here are better situated than in India.

Pravin: Than in India. Correct.

Prabhupāda: Gandhi started his movement here. He was failure. But in India it is supposed to be successful. But at the present moment, after independence, Indians are very horribly situated.

Pravin: Very horribly situated.

Prabhupāda: They have no food even.

Pravin: Yeah. Is it because of the people?

Prabhupāda: May be. What is the cause, I do not wish to discuss. But you are better off here. I see.

Pravin: I was going to India for some knowledge, you see? You know, to the āśramas there. And I couldn't go, you see.

Prabhupāda: How did you know that you'll get some knowledge there?

Pravin: Well, I read a few books of the Divine Life Society, you know. And I wanted to go to Hrishikesh, you know.

Prabhupāda: So what is that Divine Life Society? I want to know from you. What is that divine..., divinity? Whether it is nonsense or divinity?

Pravin: Well, at that time I didn't know of anything else. This was in 1966.

Prabhupāda: Then how you decided that it is divine life?

Pravin: Well, you see, I read a few books by Swami Shivananda, you see.

Prabhupāda: So what is that book? Let me know. What does he say?

Pravin: Well, he teaches you the basics, you know.

Prabhupāda: What is that basics? Why don't you explain?

Pravin: Well, actually, well, he's got a Gītā too, translated.

Prabhupāda: So he has got everything. Why don't you explain what you have learned from it.

Pravin: Well, he's given us...

Prabhupāda: That means you have no idea what is divine life, and still, you are going to Divine Life Society.

Pravin: Well, he should teach... Well, the basics were no meat-eating, no intoxicants, and also no gambling and no...

Prabhupāda: They say? They have? They say so? They have restriction?

Pravin: Well, no cheating, no gambling and no cheating. He's got a restrictions of...

Prabhupāda: Do you follow these restrictions?

Pravin: Well, up to a certain extent I do.

Prabhupāda: What is that extent?

Pravin: Well, I don't eat meat, I don't gamble, I don't take any kind of intoxicants, but I drink tea, you know.

Prabhupāda: So that divine life is generally for all the Hindus. That is custom. They may learn here something else, but generally, Hindus, they do not take meat. So, anything else? No. Simply this restriction.

Pravin: Well, it's very similar to our movement, you know, the Hare Kṛṣṅa movement.

Prabhupāda: But Hare Kṛṣṅa movement is different in this sense, that we have got Kṛṣṅa. Do they have Kṛṣṅa?

Pravin: Well, only thing I could tell you, they teach us to pray to Kālī, Durgā, Sarasvatī.

Prabhupāda: Then? Then it is finished. Divine life is finished.

Pravin: But, you see, at that time there was nothing else for us, Swāmījī.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Pravin: We had to follow something, and I didn't hear of you that time. This was in 1966, you know. It was quite a long time, and, well, I only came to...

Prabhupāda: They are teaching like that.

Pravin: There was only the Divine Life Society as far as I heard that time, you know. There was nobody else to follow, and our surrender was..., surrendered ourselves to him, you see?

Prabhupāda: In the Bhagavad-gītā... You read Bhagavad-gītā?

Pravin: Yes, I have read our...

Prabhupāda: Do you know what Kṛṣṅa has said?

Pravin: Well, surrender to Him alone.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And this Kālī, Durgā and other demigods' worshipers, they have been described as lost of intelligence. That means fools.

Pravin: Fools. Those who worship them. Yes. But he also told us we must worship Kṛṣṅa too, you see.

Prabhupāda: But Kṛṣṅa is to be worshiped—He is the Supreme Lord.

Pravin: Supreme Lord, yes.

Prabhupāda: [aside:] They are fishing?

Devotee: Fishing.

Pravin: Those people are surfing, you know? Surfboards. [break]

Prabhupāda: ...center of Divine Life here?

Pravin: Yes. It's in Reservoir Hills. Well, it's not far from Westville, where we are living, Reservoir Hills. They've got a big āśrama there. They've got a resident svāmī there, Swami Sahajananda, and they've got a printing press and quarters, their living quarters and all, and they've got a few devotees living there.

Prabhupāda: How many?

Pravin: Well, they've got about four permanently living, and then you get others coming during the day and helping the...

Devotee (1): Śrīla Prabhupāda, they have a very big printing press there.

Prabhupāda: Printing press. Big... More than ours?

Harikeśa: [laughter] Nobody has a press more than yours.

Prabhupāda: You have seen our books?

Pravin: Yes, I have seen the books.

Prabhupāda: Have they books like that?

Pravin: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Huh? So many books?

Pravin: Well, he hasn't got a Bhāgavatam, but he's got a few books on Kṛṣṅa and the Rāmāyaṅa, a short Rāmāyaṅa actually. It's briefed, you know. It's briefed. [break] I think very good sport, swimming?

Prabhupāda: Why it is good?

Pravin: Isn't it refreshing and...?

Prabhupāda: The fishes are swimming always. Twenty-four hours they are swimming. So they must be well situated than yourself, because...

Pravin: ...they are swimming.

Prabhupāda: Man cannot swim twenty-four hours, but they are swimming twenty-four hours.

Pravin: Yes. [break]

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: ...national holiday.

Prabhupāda: Therefore...?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Big beach day. Bhoga-tyāga.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṅa. Jaya.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: [laughs at something]

Prabhupāda: Any woman surfing?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Very, very few. Not so many.

Prabhupāda: Not at all. I don't see any women.

Harikeśa: They're not strong enough. Not strong enough.

Prabhupāda: And still they want equal right? [break] ...for jumping.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Not today, Śrīla Prabhupāda. [break]

Prabhupāda: ...cannot move. "Big sea"? What is this?

Pravin: Have to go the pier, I think, over the water.

Prabhupāda: No, that's all right. Hare Kṛṣṅa. Jaya.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: This boy, Prabhupāda, he bought one of your books in a store, Bhagavad-gītā. While he was in the army he bought a book in a store, Bhagavad-gītā, and he read the book, and he came to the temple in Johannesburg and he practically joined immediately.

Prabhupāda: What was...

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: He very much likes to read.

Prabhupāda: Yesterday there was sale, some books? How many?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: How many books were sold last night?

Devotee (2): Not too many. Ten, fifteen big books.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: I think because in Mobeni Heights, where we had the program, we've been there so many times practically everyone has all of your books. One night about two years ago we had a program there, and we sold six hundred dollars' worth of books in one evening.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Yes. They've taken your books in the past. [break] ...preaching, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we don't know whether to be diplomatic towards these other so-called religious movements or whether to simply expose the philosophy which they are putting forward.

Prabhupāda: No. You should be diplomatic. You should give positive information of our philosophy. Where need be, absolutely necessary, you can criticize others. [break] ...preaching is successful.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Only because you've sent us here. Otherwise we would have never come to this place in a million years. I think in America the devotees think that Africa is simply a bunch of jungles. No one wants to come here to preach. [break]

Prabhupāda: ...very broad. [break] ...ask him about swimming, why they cannot swim all through, like the fish. They are defeated.

Pravin: They can't swim like the fish.

Prabhupāda: Therefore they are defeated.

Pravin: They have to put the skins on, I mean the rubber.

Prabhupāda: That I am pointing out, that they are less efficient than the fish.

Pravin: Correct.

Prabhupāda: Even a small fish, you will find, he is enjoying, but he cannot. So why they are proud of becoming more intelligent than the fishes? Where is that intelligence?

Pravin: Uh-huh. Well, I thought it was a good sport, you know, to swim.

Prabhupāda: No, no. It may be good sport, but you cannot enjoy it. After some time you have to give it up. The fish does not. Therefore fish is more intelligent than this man.

Pravin: On a rainy day is it possible to go swimming? On a rainy day... Some people say you mustn't go near water on a rainy day.

Prabhupāda: No, no, I am not speaking in detail. But by practical experience we can see that these men are not as efficient as the small fish. That is my point. They have advanced in civilization, so many scientists' brain, but they are not enough intelligent more than the fish. That is my point. Am I right or wrong?

Devotee (3): Right. Jaya.

Prabhupāda: If swimming is enjoyable, then let them swim always. Why they cannot?

Pravin: Actually, I go swimming...

Prabhupāda: And the fishes are swimming always. So who is more intelligent, the fish or the man?

Pravin: Well, summertime I go swimming always, you know.

Prabhupāda: Don't speak about yourself. I am speaking generally. You may be very expert, but how long you will swim? How long you can swim?

Pravin: Five minutes. Ten minutes.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Finished your business. But the fishes are swimming twenty-four hours. If we ask all these young men that "Who is expert? The fish or you are expert?" what will be the answer?

Pravin: If we...?

Prabhupāda: If we ask these young men that "Who is expert? The fish or you are expert?"

Pravin: In swimming.

Prabhupāda: What will be the answer?

Devotee (2): They'll say he is.

Pravin: The fish.

Devotee: He will say he is.

Pravin: The fish is. The swimmer will say the fishes are expert.

Prabhupāda: If he says that he is expert more than the fish, then he's a madman. So? Why he cannot become more expert than the fish?

Pravin: Because he's not meant to swim all the...

Prabhupāda: Then in which way he should be expert? He must show his expertness in a different way which the fish cannot.

Pravin: I suppose, in the mind.

Prabhupāda: Mind is working of the fish. He knows where is his enemy, where to go. They have got better mind. They can understand from two miles that some enemy is coming. They take care.

Devotee (3): Fish.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The mind is so strong. Every fish in the water, although they are expert, they're in always in danger. They are always afraid of being eaten by bigger fish. Nūnaṁ mahatāṁ tatra. The world is that the stronger is exploiting the weaker. Nūnaṁ mahatāṁ tatra. Jīvo jīvasya jīvanam [SB 1.13.47].

[Those who are devoid of hands are prey for those who have hands; those devoid of legs are prey for the four-legged. The weak are the subsistence of the strong, and the general rule holds that one living being is food for another.]

Still, they are expert. [pause]

Pravin: Swāmījī, is it possible to visit other planets?

Prabhupāda: You have to be expert. Not by this machine.

Pravin: No. Astral traveling.

Prabhupāda: You have to prepare yourself.

Pravin: Prepare yourself.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like we had to prepare, to come to your country, visa and other things, not that all of a sudden I can come. Similarly, you have to prepare yourself to go to other planets. And because they are going whimsically, they are not successful. They have to come back: "Get down. Go back."

Pravin: Well, Swāmījī, if you want, you can answer this or not. Have you been to other planets?

Prabhupāda: I am on all planets. When I come to other country I see the same tree, the same road and the same sand. So what is the difference? I don't find any difference between India and this South Africa, because the same trees are there, same grass is there, the same road is there, the same... So similarly, in every planet, without going we can understand, if we are sane men.

We come here not to see how is South Africa. We have come here to preach Kṛṣṅa consciousness. That is our business. We don't come as a tourist to see how South Africa is. What South Africa? The same building, same road, same—everything same. What to see here? Especially, they are also eating, sleeping and struggling. That's all.

Pravin: That's a stink bug there.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Is there any difference between Los Angeles, America or San Francisco and this city? Is there any difference?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: No.

Prabhupāda: The same thing. Is there any place where people do not die? Then?

Pravin: Besides maybe Kṛṣṅaloka also.

Prabhupāda: That is another thing. Within this material.

Pravin: On earth, everywhere, everybody.

Prabhupāda: Our real problem is to go there, where there is no death. That is real intelligence. And what is the use of going here and there where death is inevitable?

Pravin: Now, in Brahmaloka there is also.

Prabhupāda: Everywhere. Brahmā also dies.

Pravin: Brahmā also dies. [break]

Prabhupāda: ...plants are within the sea?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Down?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Yes. Some plants live underneath the water.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And why these rascals say there is no life? We see underneath the water there is life, and in the moon planet there is no life? We have to believe this?

Pravin: So there is life on the moon, Swāmījī?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Pravin: But can you see them? Do they have bodies?

Prabhupāda: First of all you go there. Then see. I don't admit that they have gone to the moon planet.

Pravin: You don't believe.

Prabhupāda: It is 1,600,000 above the sun, the moon.

Pravin: One million six hundred...

Prabhupāda: Thousand miles above the sun.

Pravin: Actually... Well, they say...

Prabhupāda: They say. They're all fools.

Pravin: Quarter million miles.

Prabhupāda: We don't accept them.

Pravin: 1,600,000.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Above the sun.

Pravin: Above the sun.

Prabhupāda: And how they will go?

Pravin: And the sun is 96,000,000 miles away.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That they cannot go there.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: 93,000,000.

Pravin: Ninety-three, sorry.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Jaya Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Jaya. [break]

[in car:] ...ments are there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam since the last five thousand years, and these people have become civilized for the last three hundred years, and we have to accept their statement or the statement which is made five thousand years at least? At least they discussed or they had some knowledge. You cannot deny that. They're giving description of all the planets, where it is situated. At least they had discussion. So they were uncivilized?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: The moon that we see in the sky...

Prabhupāda: The same moon.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: That same moon.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And there is fire, blazing fire, just like the sun. But it is surrounded by cool atmosphere. Therefore it is pleasing. Heat coming through cool atmosphere, it is pleasing. This is the statement. What do they know? They cannot explain why it is so brilliant. We explain, "There is firelike flames; therefore it is brilliant." They say that every planet looks like that. That's not a fact. Then all the planets together, why they cannot illuminate this earth at night? Only the moon is required.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Well, they give the excuse that all the other stars are so far away that the light doesn't shine bright enough.

Prabhupāda: There are no other, nearer planets?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Yes. There are other planets, like Venus and Mars, but they say these planets are much closer than the sun.

Prabhupāda: That means... So why they do not look so bright?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Their philosophy is that the earth, Venus and Mars, these different planets, they don't give off any light.

Prabhupāda: Then why do they say the all the planets look like moon? They say like that.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: They think the moon is just reflecting light from the sun.

Prahupada: So why it is not reflecting to other planets, only to the moon? Why special advantage of the moon? They have no reason. All rascals' philosophy. Why particularly to the moon? Why not others? Simply theories and mental speculation. They have no scientific. And the śāstra definitely gives the distance of the moon from the sun planet—1,600,000 miles.

Then similarly [sic:] 1,600 million up, the Mars, then Venus, then..., everything. And moon is specifically mentioned that "It is so brilliant because there is fire, blazing fire. And the fire, blazing fire, is so illuminating that even at night it looks white, bright." This is reasonable, because... Not that it is being reflected by the sun. The sun can reflect other planets, but it is there, fire. Just like sun there is fire, similarly, moon there is fire.

The sun is not covered by cool atmosphere, but the moon is covered by cool atmosphere. Therefore it is pleasing. When there is sunshine and breeze, it is very pleasing. And no sunshine, simply breezing—it is not pleasing. And only sunshine, there is no cool atmo..., that is also painful. But sunshine and breezing is very pleasing. So there is, like sunshine, blazing fire and surrounded by cool atmosphere. Therefore the moon is so pleasing.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: That's a very reasonable argument, but how do we understand that the moon is 1,600,000 miles...

Prabhupāda: It is stated in the Bhāgavata.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Does that mean that it's farther away from the earth than the... Does that mean that the earth is farther from the moon than from the sun?

Prabhupāda: Yes, certainly. Sun is in the center of the universe, and other planets there are above the sun and lower the sun. Sun is in the middle of the universe.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: So then the moon...

Prabhupāda: Everything is there. The whole, what is called, radius, no, diameter, from one point to another of the universe is given there. Pañcāśat-koṭi-yojana [Cc Madhya 21.84]. Pañcāśat means fifty, and koṭi means ten million. So fifty into ten million. Huh?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Five hundred million

Prabhupāda: Five hundred million. Pañcāśat-koṭi. And eight.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Four billion.

Prabhupāda: Four billion miles, the area, this way and that way. So if the distance is so vast, then one planet situated some millions of miles away, it is not extraordinary. The whole area is four billion.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Yes. But it appears, at least for... It appears that the moon is so close.

Prabhupāda: "It appears"—that is another thing. As soon as you say "appears," that means you have no knowledge.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: But we say on the authenticity of the description in the Vedic literature. Therefore it is authentic. This proves that they did not go to the moon planet. If it is above, 1,600,000 above, then it is impossible. So this is bogus propaganda, they have gone to the moon.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: It's a very reasonable proposition, because going to the moon, they simply come back with some rocks. Rocks they can get on the earth also.

Prabhupāda: They are all nonsense. Some sand and some rocks, and we have to believe they have gone to. The fools may believe, but we cannot believe. We have got other information. Why shall I believe?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: So all of the politicians are taking the money and they're saying that...

Prabhupāda: That's all. That's all. Exploiting, that's all. This is their business. Just like Pakistan politicians, as soon as they cannot supply food, they declare war with India, that's all. The attention is diverted. Here also we have seen in the last war. When no man was joining, so in India they created artificial famine. So for want of food they joined military.

The government created a situation, purchased all the food grains and stocked. And when the price is very high the government opened controlled shop at high price. The people had no money; therefore they were obliged to join military. These polit..., demons, they are so dangerous, simply to keep their position they are doing all nefarious activities. Simply there is... Because they don't believe in the next birth, they are not afraid of sinful activities. They can do anything: "Whatever I like. There is no... This life is finished."

That is the whole philosophy of the modern educated man: "There is no life." Big, big professors, they say like that, "There is no life after death." Therefore the Ārya-samājī rascal was: "That is Hindu belief." Why Hindu belief? Does the Muhammadan do not grow old? That answer he could not give. He is such a rascal. And at last he said that "I am God."

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: They are dogmatic.

Prabhupāda: Dogmatic, no. Why we should waste our time talking with such foolish men? "I don't believe." No, what... You believe or not believe; fact is fact. You are going to be old man. If you say, "I don't believe," then is that a very good proposition? It does not depend on your believing or not believing. The nature's course will take place. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṅāni guṅaiḥ karmāṅi sarvaśaḥ [Bg 3.27].

[The bewildered spirit soul, under the influence of the three modes of material nature, thinks himself to be the doer of activities, which are in actuality carried out by nature.]

That will go on.

What is there in your believing and not believing? If you keep yourself in such darkness that "If you believe, then it is fact," then you are a fool, rascal. If you depend only on your belief, then you are a fool. What is the meaning of your belief? "I believe if I touch fire it will not burn." Will this belief protect me? You touch fire, it will burn, you believe or not believe. What is this argument, "We don't believe"? This is going on. If nature's law is that you must die, then if you believe, "No, I'll not die," will that belief protect you? You have to submit to the nature's law.

Why don't you understand this? You are talking of "believe" and "not believe." Whole world is going on in this way: "We think," "I suppose," "Perhaps," "I believe," like this. Where is science? Science does not depend on your "belief," "not belief," "supposing," "perhaps." This is not science. But they are going on like that. Whole Darwin's theory is based on this—"Maybe millions of years past..."

We want perfect knowledge, not such, what is called, saṁśayam. Therefore Kṛṣṅa says asaṁśayaṁ, "without any doubt." That is knowledge. And samagram, "complete." So if we have got the chance of knowing complete, without any doubt, so why shall I go to you, rascal? Your knowledge is based on "perhaps," "maybe." So why shall I go to such knowledge?

I will have to go somewhere to take knowledge, so why not go to Kṛṣṅa, where the knowledge is complete and without any doubt? Why shall I go to you, you rascal? You simply say "maybe," "perhaps," "I think." What is the use of this knowledge? We don't accept. You cannot say that "You are right; I am wrong," because you are also going to somebody to get knowledge, I am also going to somebody to get knowledge. So here it assured that "Complete knowledge, without any doubt." But you have no such confidence. Am I right or not?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: Yes. The difficulty arises in... We say, well, you have to grow old. And then we say the moon is so high above the sun. So...

Prabhupāda: So how can you deny it? First of all tell me. You have not gone there.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: I haven't gone, but the argument...

Prabhupāda: No, no. The scientist. I challenge that he has not gone there.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṅa: [to another devotee?] Pay your obeisances.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṅa. Jaya. I have not gone, you have not gone, but I have got this authentic literature; you have nothing. So my position is better than yours. You are fool. You are befooled because you are simply contemplating. But I have got a definite literature, information. So my position is better than yours. [coming near temple] Whose car is it? Oh, some of them are chanting? Jaya. [kīrtana] [end]