Morning Walk
New York
12 Jul

Prabhupada: This is their position, and they are proud of their knowledge.

Tamala Krsna: Not at all scientific.

Bali-mardana: But they make up many very big words.

Prabhupada: That any rascal will do. Bambharambhe laghu kriya. Aparkulasvenavargolajagundakuligondoliojalilavale... (gibberish) (laughter) You can talk like that—what is the meaning? 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. Aparkulavenavargolajdgunda... This is... (gibberish) Simply soda bicarb and little this and that. So the modern world means how to befool persons, that's all. Not to enlighten, but to keep them in ignorance and befool them more and more, and they like it. Under the influence of maya 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 samsara-davanala-liá¸ha-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, gongongongongongongon. They are so expert that this ordinary fire they can control. Another side is that nobody wants this fire, and why it is coming? Yatha duḥ;kha... Prahlada Maharaja, long, long years ago: yatha duḥ;kham ayatnataḥ;. 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 Krsna 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, muá¸ha. Muá¸ho nabhijanati mam ebhyaḥ; param avyayam. 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." Yo ko thako bhayargolihiya us ka tek lilaya(?). There is a song in Bengal that formerly anything European, saheb, 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.

Ramesvara: Deliberately cheating. You said that in Los Angeles.

Hari-sauri: Prabhupada's saying gayatri.

Prabhupada: Brought newspaper, and as soon as they say... Who said?

Hari-sauri: That was in Washington. They showed a picture of Mars...

Prabhupada: Stop, don't read, it is now understood what is.... Mars, it is all in Arizona.

Tamala Krsna: You were very perceptive to find it.

Ramesvara: No one is thinking like that. You are the only one who caught that, Srila Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: Because I am the only one at the present moment intelligent.

Tamala Krsna: We are still as dull (Prabhupada laughs) as the karmis. We would never have thought like that, Prabhupada, about Arizona.

Pusá¹­a Krsna: They mentioned that the pictures of Mars appear just like some of the picture of national parks in Arizona.

Prabhupada: In other places they could not find, throughout the whole world, Arizona. That means the whole business is going on in Arizona.

Pusá¹­a Krsna: 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.

Prabhupada: Yes. The moon business was done there.

Tamala Krsna: This means it's definitely a very calculated plot to cheat the public.

Prabhupada: That's all.

Tamala Krsna: And the whole, all of the nations...

Prabhupada: Just to convince people that our, this rascal civilization is advanced.

Ramesvara: International conspiracy.

Tamala Krsna: That means all the nations are cooperating in this project.

Ramesvara: Russia and America.

Prabhupada: All the so-called scientists.

Tamala Krsna: Do they know that they are, are they talking with each other, or are they just...

Prabhupada: No, they are knowing. They talk. Chauri chauri matrka-bhai.(?)

Ramesvara: It's a conspiracy.

Prabhupada: 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.

Tamala Krsna: They are the greatest cheaters.

Prabhupada: Chauri chauri matrka-bhai.(?) Hare Krsna.

Tamala Krsna: Except for you, no one is blowing the whistle on these people. You are like a transcendental detective.

Prabhupada: (microphone rattling) That is the test. Krsna says na mam prapadyante muá¸haḥ; [Bg. 7.15]. Anyone who is not Krsna conscious, he's a muá¸ha. (microphone rattling more) It's a fact.

Ramesvara: Srila Prabhupada, in Los Angeles I asked you about this one verse in the Bhagavatam 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.

Prabhupada: Yes. (devotees offer obeisances) [break] (in car)

Ramesvara: ...can't ever go to these other planets.

Prabhupada: Yes, they can go.

Ramesvara: They will be able to land there?

Prabhupada: Oh, yes, why not?

Ramesvara: Because their body is meant...

Prabhupada: Even Arjuna even went higher planetary systems. But different way. In Bhagavad-gita it is yanti deva-vrata devan [Bg. 9.25]. And formerly when big, big sacrifices were done, they used to come and attend sacrifice.

Ramesvara: The demigods. But in this earth body they can go to another planets?

Prabhupada: Yes. But he must be competent. The yogis can go. Perpetually, they can go. Just like Durvasa Muni did. He went.

Hari-sauri: But they want to go and come back.

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Hari-sauri: But they want to go and come back.

Prabhupada: 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 they can continue on for some time like that.

Prabhupada: That is theory. It is theory.

Devotee (1): That's their idea to reach very distant places.

Tamala Krsna: Today I was seeing in our kirtana 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 kirtana hall was not even half full, I think. It can hold at least four hundred people, that hall.

Prabhupada: Yes, it is big hall.

Tamala Krsna: There was a lot of empty space.

Ramesvara: How many guests came yesterday? Did you tell Prabhupada?

Tamala Krsna: Yes, there were about five hundred, over five hundred guests. (loud short ambulance blast, laughter)

Ramesvara: Some ambulance.

Prabhupada: Hmm.

Ramesvara: 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.

Prabhupada: What can be done? Price raising, they want all comforts.

Ramesvara: So if someone is sick they will not take him to the hospital because there is no one to take care of him there.

Tamala Krsna: This school is called Amsterdam School, Prabhupada, because this is Amsterdam Avenue.

Prabhupada: Oh.

Tamala Krsna: It's very funny that Ninth Avenue turns into Amsterdam Avenue at this point. Ninth Avenue becomes Amsterdam Avenue on about Sixtieth Street.

Ramesvara: 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.

Prabhupada: Who?

Ramesvara: The Presidential candidate. He will not give his opinion.

Devotee: Who is that, Reagan?

Ramesvara: No, Carter. They are unwilling to give their opinion because then someone may not vote for them.

Tamala Krsna: Oh, that's too controversial. Most people are for abortion.

Prabhupada: Why they are for abortion?

Tamala Krsna: Because it gives them unlimited room for sense gratification. The whole business is...

Prabhupada: So why not become brahmacari?

Devotee (1): They want to dance without paying the piper. (laughter)

Tamala Krsna: I tell them "Birth control by self control." That is our program.

Prabhupada: Besides that, why birth control?

Tamala Krsna: They say because the world is overpopulated.

Prabhupada: So much vacant land in your country.

Tamala Krsna: Actually, everywhere in the world. When we fly in the airplane, every country, mostly it's vacant land. It's only these big demoniac cities.

Ramesvara: Their philosophy is first we'll conquer nature, then we'll talk about self-control. That is one philosophy.

Prabhupada: Which is impossible. They'll never be able. You can control nature only by self-control. Otherwise, it is not possible. Ajitendriyanam. Ajitendriya means those who cannot control the sense, sense organs.

Tamala Krsna: Famous address because you were there, Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: (laughs) Hmm. Number one hundred.

Hari-sauri: Seventy-second Street.

Prabhupada: One hundred, Seventy-second Street.

Tamala Krsna: Maybe we can go by it. On the way back if we go by, you could show us the building there.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: And we will be able to see it.

Hari-sauri: Is that the flat that you were staying in that was broken into? Is that the place that was broken into?

Prabhupada: It is not residential.

Hari-sauri: Oh.

Prabhupada: But I was residing there.

Ramesvara: That was where the typewriter was stolen?

Prabhupada: Yes. Tape recorder, typewriter.

Tamala Krsna: Oh, from up here.

Prabhupada: It was stolen by that caretaker, a black man. He expected some monthly remuneration.

Tamala Krsna: 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) "Hall of Minerals and Gems."

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Tamala Krsna: They are having a big exhibit of minerals and gems, Museum of Natural History. One thing about this museum, it can give Bharadvaja many ideas for doll exhibits.

Ramesvara: Yes, I'm going to go there with him when he comes.

Tamala Krsna: This particular museum, we used to go when we were children, and fantastic exhibits, really realistic.

Ramesvara: Yes, dolls, dioramas...

Tamala Krsna: Oh, yes, all dioramas.

Ramesvara: ...of dinosaurs.

Tamala Krsna: Oh, the whole thing is dioramas, the whole museum practically. I'll go with you also.

Ramesvara: 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.

Tamala Krsna: Is it true that there were big dinosaur bodies?

Prabhupada: If they were, it is still now.

Tamala Krsna: Oh, wow.

Prabhupada: We don't say it is extinct.

Tamala Krsna: But you've explained that even if not here then it must be on another planet.

Prabhupada: Yes, another. This planet, what you have seen?

Ramesvara: 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?

Prabhupada: Cannot be extinct, that is not possible.

Devotee (1): In that lake?

Tamala Krsna: But do you think they were on this planet?

Prabhupada: No, no, may be on this planet, but it doesn't matter that it is extinct. You have not seen.

Tamala Krsna: No, that's a fact.

Ramesvara: 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.

Prabhupada: That is still there. Kinnaras. Kinnaras means it is doubtful whether he is man or monkey.

Tamala Krsna: Wow.

Prabhupada: There is a Kinnara-loka. Kimpurusa. Kinnara. They are still existing. It is not that they are finished.

Hari-sauri: 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.

Prabhupada: Or what is called? The big...?

Tamala Krsna: Orangutan, gorilla.

Prabhupada: Gorilla, they are like men.

Tamala Krsna: Yes, they are. Very much like men. We see them in the zoo.

Prabhupada: They have got their senses like men.

Hari-sauri: 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.

Tamala Krsna: These scientists, they find one little bone and 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."

Ramesvara: That is the Museum of Natural History. They spend millions of dollars on these museums, making these displays. [break] (walking)

Prabhupada: ...for dog, means she's going to become dog. She does not know how she is spoiling the life.

Tamala Krsna: Unless she gets one of our books.

Prabhupada: No, that is another plan. At least she does not know how things are going on.

Tamala Krsna: 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 for the people nowadays.

Prabhupada: That is a fact. Srimad-bhagavate maha-muni-krte kim va anyaḥ; sastraiḥ;. When there is Srimad-Bhagavatam, composed, compiled by Vyasadeva, where is the use of other literature? Srimad-bhagavate maha-muni-krte. (pause) Dusty, eh? No one is taking care.

Bali-mardana: They cannot afford to pay the garbage men to clean up the mess.

Prabhupada: Why he's going there?

Tamala Krsna: 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.

Prabhupada: Well, this is good lake. People are becoming dishonest. They'll take money and do nothing.

Tamala Krsna: I'm seeing down at Dalhousie Square area that the government employees, they are constantly taking tea break. They come late to work...

Prabhupada: 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-sauri: City workers are very famous for not doing anything, taking tea breaks.

Prabhupada: Why they will do? When they get money without doing?

Tamala Krsna: If we could just introduce to them the chanting, they could be great yogis, sitting chanting, and have so much free time. (laughter)

Prabhupada: Just see, why this wood is dried up? Why?

Hari-sauri: There is no spirit soul in it.

Tamala Krsna: It has been severed from the tree.

Prabhupada: 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, Svarupa Damodara—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.

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Devotee (1): In other words, they don't accept that we have any proof that God exists. They say God doesn't exist.

Prabhupada: 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?

Ramesvara: They say the earth is the mother and the father.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Ramesvara: They say the earth is the mother and the father.

Prabhupada: No. That is another nonsense. Because you cannot see, practically, the mother and father is the same person. That is not..., father is different.

Pusá¹­a Krsna: Why doesn't life come from the concrete then?

Prabhupada: No, apart from that, mother and father cannot be one, they must be two. Our practical experience. So how can I accept a rascal like you that father and mother the same?

Tamala Krsna: But we see that Lord Brahma is born from the same father and mother.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Tamala Krsna: Lord Brahma, he has no mother.

Prabhupada: But he has a father, and the mother is that lotus flower.

Ramesvara: Material energy.

Devotees: Oh.

Radhavallabha: There's a classification of animals called autotroph(?). An autotroph is...

Prabhupada: First of all, you study your animal, whether your father and mother is the same. Then go to other animals. First of all your animal, you study first.

Pusá¹­a Krsna: 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.

Ramesvara: They want this impersonalism. They don't like the philosophy of personalism.

Prabhupada: 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...

Prabhupada: Talk of the present, when you are existing.

Devotee (1): Yes. Their mentality forces them to believe only what they see.

Prabhupada: 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.

Prabhupada: That means a crazy fellow. They manufacture their own idea. There is no reason.

Ramesvara: They say within the father and mother is the cosmic energy of life.

Prabhupada: 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-gita, sarva-yonisu kaunteya [Bg. 14.4]. They are all children, but their mother is the earth. There must be father.

Tamala Krsna: They say father and mother is material. This is father and mother. They may agree, we have a human father, mother.

Prabhupada: The principle. The principle. You have to see the principle. That is philosophy.

Tamala Krsna: 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?"

Prabhupada: God says. Not only says, we don't see any production without seed-giving father.

Tamala Krsna: But we don't see God. We see the tree is giving seeds.

Prabhupada: 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?

Tamala Krsna: My mother has seen him.

Prabhupada: Yes, that's all right. You ask the mother, and she will inform you. The mother is Vedic knowledge.

Tamala Krsna: Well, we accept that everything has a father and mother, but the creation was always there. That has no father and mother.

Prabhupada: That is your nonsense, without father and mother, aham adir hi devanam [Bg 10.2]. Before creation, the child was created, the father was there.

Ramesvara: They say that matter can neither be destroyed nor created. It exists eternally. But there is no need for a creator.

Prabhupada: Why your body does not exist?

Tamala Krsna: It does exist, but in a different form.

Prabhupada: 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.

Tamala Krsna: But the energy will be there.

Prabhupada: That is another thing.

Tamala Krsna: That energy is eternal.

Prabhupada: That is there.

Tamala Krsna: And there's nothing else besides this energy.

Prabhupada: Yes, but whose energy?

Tamala Krsna: Why does it have to be any whose? It just is there.

Hari-sauri: Just energy by itself needs direction.

Prabhupada: 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.

Pusá¹­a Krsna: The principle is there, though, that there must be a father and a mother.

Prabhupada: That's it.

Ramesvara: Prabhupada, 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.

Prabhupada: That is a form. The structure itself has a form.

Ramesvara: But it's abstract.

Prabhupada: No, it is not ab..., it is form.

Tamala Krsna: It's not personal, that's what he means.

Prabhupada: 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.

Tamala Krsna: [break] ...political satires. Critic of the government put the criticism in the form of a children's story, but indirectly was criticizing the government.

Prabhupada: [break] ...reason they cannot keep this park neat and clean? In other cities they keep.

Adi-kesava: They cannot pay the workers.

Prabhupada: How is that? In America, city, New York, they cannot pay?

Hari-sauri: New York almost went bankrupt.

Devotee (1): They have mismanaged the whole thing.

Hari-sauri: 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): Srimad-Bhagavatam says in this Kali-yuga they are all lazy, misguided.

Prabhupada: So much drinking, they must be lazy.

Devotee (1): Yes.

Prabhupada: So much drinking excessively. Drinking means laziness.

Ramesvara: Also the banks, they loan the city money, but at a very high interest rate. So then the city cannot afford it.

Hari-sauri: People nowadays are so filled with intoxications they are not fit to do anything.

Ramesvara: They loan the city money at a very high interest rate, so in order to pay it back they have to borrow more money.

Prabhupada: 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.

Prabhupada: No, cannot last.

Hari-sauri: And as soon as they started to give up their culture in India, they're also dried up.

Prabhupada: They'll dry. That is the nature's way. Harav abhaktasya kuto mahad-gunaḥ;. 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.

Prabhupada: This is due to excessive meat-eating, intoxication, sex. This is the result.

Devotee (1): They've wasted their brains.

Hari-sauri: Also these bums that hang around the cities, they're all alcoholics.

Prabhupada: That is the reason.

Devotee (3): That's one reason crime is so high is because of intoxication.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Devotee (3): Always increasing crime.

Ramesvara: In America, millions of people have guns in their houses. Very common. They are all preparing for fighting.

Hari-sauri: You said once in the Srimad-Bhagavatam that the one principle that gives the most trouble is the fearing in the material world.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: [break] (in car) 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.

Prabhupada: The best thing is they should be educated to become gentlemen. Keep guns, but they may not improperly use them.

Ramesvara: 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.

Prabhupada: What is that favor?

Ramesvara: 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 the banks, the United States government, to support all their different programs.

Prabhupada: National Debt.

Ramesvara: 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-sauri: Everyone's trying to blackmail everyone else.

Ramesvara: 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.

Prabhupada: Yes. As soon as you become dependent on me, I pay money, you can create some trouble for me. That is conspiracy(?). (pause) What is this, memory?

Tamala Krsna: Looks like World War I.

Devotee (1): Yes, World War I.

Tamala Krsna: Veterans. What does it say?

Hari-sauri: One hundred and seventh United States Infantry.

Ramesvara: [break] ...came here, Bharadvaja 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 Mayapura plan. And all around the streets are named after the temple. It is well planned. And in the temple square they have a 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. They say that after Jesus Christ was crucified in Israel, he rose, and then the next stop he came to America.

Prabhupada: Next...?

Ramesvara: Next he came to America. Because Jesus, they say, is the savior of the whole world, so why just Israel?

Tamala Krsna: So when did he come to America?

Ramesvara: Immediately afterwards.

Tamala Krsna: What did he do here?

Ramesvara: 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.

Tamala Krsna: Except for them, who accepts such a thing? No one accepts that except the Mormons.

Ramesvara: They say that God orders every man to get married.

Hari-sauri: They are very strong on the principle of family life.

Prabhupada: 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.

Prabhupada: That is also good.

Devotee (1): Yes.

Hari-sauri: Like those two young men that you met in Melbourne? Those American boys? They were Mormons.

Tamala Krsna: Are they vegetarian?

Ramesvara: No, they abstain from... In Salt Lake City you are not allowed to smoke cigarettes. They have passed a law, "No cigarettes."

Tamala Krsna: In the whole city?

Ramesvara: In the whole city.

Tamala Krsna: Wow, that's a big city. It's one of the capitals of the States.

Ramesvara: But they have meat-eating. Originally they are not supposed to, but they are already deviating.

Devotee (1): Do they still have many wives?

Ramesvara: No, that's against the law. Originally they believed in polygamy...

Prabhupada: But now they are changing.

Ramesvara: Yes, now they are changing.

Prabhupada: That means no fixed-up idea.

Devotee (1): No sound philosophy.

Tamala Krsna: But we also believe, but do we allow? We also believe in polygamy, but we don't allow it in our society.

Hari-sauri: Not for the time being, anyway.

Prabhupada: We don't encourage sex life on the whole.

Ramesvara: 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...

Prabhupada: No, we condone marriage. Marriage is Vedic principle.

Tamala Krsna: This is Seventy-second Street, Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: Yes, I know.

Tamala Krsna: You were going to show us that building.

Prabhupada: Yes. Just on the corner of Amsterdam and Seventy-second.

Tamala Krsna: That means next street.

Ramesvara: They say when you go to the spiritual kingdom, you keep your same wife and your same children. That is their idea of marriage.

Prabhupada: This is Amsterdam?

Tamala Krsna: No, Columbus Avenue. Next is Amsterdam.

Devotee (1): You walked here, Srila Prabhupada?

Ramesvara: Right here is number one hundred.

Prabhupada: Here is.

Devotee (1): There is one hundred.

Tamala Krsna: That's the building, Prabhupada?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Devotee (1): It says "Watergate." Watergate Hotel.

Tamala Krsna: Which floor did you live on?

Prabhupada: And I was trying to purchase one house here.

Tamala Krsna: Which floor did you live on, Prabhupada?

Prabhupada: I think third floor. And there was an electrician, he was my friend, one Jewish gentleman.

Devotee (1): You would walk on this street?

Prabhupada: 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.

Tamala Krsna: What street did he live on?

Prabhupada: He... Seventy-eighth. The Riverside corner. Yes, I was purchasing my goods from this store.

Devotee (1): Westend Superette.

Prabhupada: They were charging, a little chili powder, twenty-five cents. In India it may be one anna.

Tamala Krsna: You were purchasing here.

Prabhupada: Yes, because I was going to cook my food there, so whatever I needed, I used to...

Tamala Krsna: How come you didn't cook your food where you were living?

Prabhupada: Huh? There was no place.

Tamala Krsna: What was it like there?

Prabhupada: It was an office room. That building is meant for office, not for residences.

Tamala Krsna: You rented a room there?

Prabhupada: Yes, I was paying seventy-two dollars a month.

Tamala Krsna: And where did you sleep? Was there a bed?

Prabhupada: No, there was bed. There is toilet and water, but no bath and no cooking.

Devotee (1): Did you have to go there to bathe also?

Prabhupada: Yes, I was taking bathing there.

Tamala Krsna: Where did you... Did you sleep on the floor?

Prabhupada: Yes, I had little platform. So on that platform...

Tamala Krsna: You are the most bold person in the whole world, Prabhupada.

Devotee (1): We will never be able to do what you have done.

Prabhupada: Alone I was doing that. And then gradually one or two boys began to come.

Tamala Krsna: Did any of them come up here who are still with you now?

Prabhupada: No.

Tamala Krsna: Only when you went downtown did the permanent men come. No one was visiting you up here? Hayagriva?

Prabhupada: No, they came there, Second Avenue.

Hari-sauri: Mukunda?

Prabhupada: All of them.

Rupanuga: That's amazing. How long were you there, Srila Prabhupada?

Prabhupada: Here? About six months. Then when my things were stolen, then 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. He has a boutique; he sells clothing.

Tamala Krsna: You must have felt very bad when your things were stolen.

Prabhupada: Yes, I felt little disappointed. But some friends, they offered me, "Never mind, you take my typewriter," somebody, "You take my tape recorder."

Tamala Krsna: Oh. Things were very easy here.

Hari-sauri: Not easy.

Radhavallabha: Krsna always provides facilities.

Prabhupada: So there was no difficulty. I got from other friends.

Tamala Krsna: So when you moved down to the loft...

Prabhupada: That boy, I gave him, Haridasa, who was in San Francisco?

Tamala Krsna: Yes.

Prabhupada: So this Paul Murray... Haridasa left New York, he went to San Francisco. His name was something else. What is this?

Tamala Krsna: It's a steel factory. This is near the Ratha-yatra carts.

Prabhupada: Oh. Steel factory, but very good house?

Tamala Krsna: Yes.

Hari-sauri: Paul Murray, he was the boy that went crazy?

Prabhupada: Yes, he was LSD man.

Tamala Krsna: LSD man. He tried to attack you.

Prabhupada: Not attack, but he showed some ferocious mood. I thought...

Devotee (1): Very dangerous.

Tamala Krsna: So you thought to leave right away.

Prabhupada: Yes, immediately.

Tamala Krsna: You took all your things and went away.

Prabhupada: Yes, I kept with Mukunda.

Tamala Krsna: And that boy was keeping meat in his refrigerator?

Prabhupada: No, that is another boy, Yeargen.

Tamala Krsna: John Yeargens?

Prabhupada: He's black.

Tamala Krsna: You were staying with him?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: Wow. Your Godbrothers could never believe this. (laughter)

Devotee (1): So at that time you did not think that anyone would accept your philosophy.

Prabhupada: That I was certain. At the beginning I was...

Ramesvara: Prabhupada was certain that they would accept.

Tamala Krsna: I think, Prabhupada, that your exploits here are no less great than Lord Caitanya going into the Jharikhaná¸a forest and making the animals dance.

Prabhupada: (laughs) Yes.

Tamala Krsna: You are the modern-day representative of Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

Prabhupada: This is building construction?

Devotee (1): Appears so. Telephone company.

Prabhupada: The Bell?

Devotee (1): New York Telephone Company.

Prabhupada: 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-sauri: 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.

Tamala Krsna: But it's good for us also. If there's any trouble in the temple, they come right away, and they are friendly.

Prabhupada: Give them prasadam?

Tamala Krsna: Yes, Jayananda brings them.

Prabhupada: Prasadam will conquer everyone.

Ramesvara: That is how we get all our men to join.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: By the prasadam.

Tamala Krsna: I joined because I had nowhere to eat.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Tamala Krsna: 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 aren't as nice as ours.

Prabhupada: What is this street?

Tamala Krsna: Eighth Avenue. There's a restaurant called Asia Restaurant.

Prabhupada: Asia? It's behind you. It's hard for you to see.

Tamala Krsna: And there's another one, an Indian restaurant two blocks up, but they all serve meat.

Devotee (1): And liquor.

Tamala Krsna: Meat samosas, like that.

Devotee (1): Like the Muslims. (end)