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Chapter Two

Washington, D. C.

July 2nd, 1976

A two-hour flight brought us into Washington, D. C. at 10:00 p.m. The GBC representative Rūpānuga dāsa, Bṛṣākapi dāsa, the temple president, and Vipina-purandara dāsa, the vice president, enthusiastically greeted Śrīla Prabhupāda with garlands and obeisances at the boarding gate. About eighty devotees were waiting with kīrtana and flowers once we got beyond security controls and they leapt and shouted with delight to see Prabhupāda.  

Even at this hour of the night our book distributors were at work. A fresh-faced young soldier stood midst the devotees clutching a book he had just bought from Praghoṣa dāsa, a top RDTSKP bookseller. Realizing Śrīla Prabhupāda was in the airport, Praghoṣa had invited the boy to come and see him. As Prabhupāda went past, the soldier held up the book. Prabhupāda stopped momentarily, smiled at him and said, “Jaya. Thank you.” Praghoṣa told me afterward that the boy was so pleased by his momentary association with Śrīla Prabhupāda that he gave him another twenty dollars. 

A forty minute drive took Prabhupāda to the temple in the hills of Potomac, Maryland. He was enlivened and talked almost all the way to the temple. Being at the seat of government, with its many statues and memorials to the former political mentors and great thinkers of America, obviously inspired him. But of course, in a different way than it does most Americans. He said that Americans keep a splendid Washington memorial in honor of Abraham Lincoln, but who knows where that person formerly known as Abraham Lincoln is now? “They say, ‘Napoleon is France.’ France is there, but where is Napoleon?” he asked. Khrushchev, the former Soviet leader was another example. Now nobody hears of him. Prabhupāda said it was a case of the blind leading the blind. People are satisfied to offer some worship to a famous person’s memory, but they do not consider where he has gone and what he has now become. 

Vipina suggested that people actually want to worship Kṛṣṇa, but they don’t know how. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda didn’t think so. “They don’t want to worship anyone; they want to worship their senses. That’s all. Sense gratification. What is dictated by the senses, they agree to worship. Servant of the senses. In the material world nobody worships nobody; everyone serves his own senses. ‘I like it.’ That’s all. There is a Bengali song, ‘If it satisfies my eyes, why shall I not see? I shall see.’ This is the sum-substance. If the senses want ‘do this,’ he will do it. And our Movement is that we shall not hear the dictation of the senses; we shall do what Kṛṣṇa says. That is just opposite. So long I am carrying out the orders of the senses, then I am involved in this material birth, death, transmigration.” 

 Vipina told Śrīla Prabhupāda of a man the book distributors met recently in the airport, the author of a book called The Fourth Kingdom. The man purchased some of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books and was impressed enough that he visited the temple. The devotees have made an arrangement for him come for darśana. Prabhupāda was agreeable.  

“He’s very nice,” Vipina said, “but he has some mixed-up ideas.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda chuckled. “Everyone has mixed-up ideas because nobody is properly trained up. Some ideas they have got, some inquiries they have got, but unless one comes to the right person, he cannot be enlightened. Therefore one must approach the proper guru.” 

Rūpānuga said the problem was that everyone has accepted the wrong authority. 

“Yes,” Prabhupāda said. “Because he’s misled by sense gratification, so even he approaches a guru, if the guru cannot satisfy his senses, he doesn’t like. Because he’s under the subjugation of senses, he expects that guru also will satisfy his senses, then he is guru. If guru says something against his sense gratification, ‘Ah, he is not guru.’ Guru also must be a person who can satisfy your senses.” 

Vipina said, “After he took those books home and he read them, he wrote us a letter, and he said that he thought you were a very intelligent man and would like to speak to you. So we’ll see; maybe he can hear.” 

Prabhupāda laughed. “Yes. We are speaking something not of this world, but we are pointing out the defects of this world. ‘This world’ means the world of sense gratification.” 

Bṛṣākapi said the karmīs ask, “What is the matter with sense gratification? I like sense gratification; it’s very good.” 

“Very good,” Śrīla Prabhupāda said sardonically. “But if you can continue it? But you rascal, you cannot continue it. ‘Very good, I am now president.’ But why you are kicked out? Huh? Now, what about the Nixon? Very good, he was president, now he’s kicked out, what is his position? He doesn’t think that, that ‘I may be kicked out from my position at any moment; so what is the value of my sense gratification?’ He was gratifying his senses. As he liked, he was doing. Take the living example. Who wants to be kicked out from the presidency? But now he’s kicked out. That Khrushchev, he’s not in that position. Why does he not think that ‘Any moment I’ll be kicked out.’?”  

Vipina said that people don’t deliberately do the wrong thing. They actually want to do the right thing. 

“They want the right thing,” Prabhupāda replied, “but they have no idea of right thing, and if you say the right thing, they will not accept it. This is their disease.” 

Prabhupāda said it was simply māyā, why they won’t accept good instruction; people foolishly want only to fulfill their bodily necessities. “Nicely, according to the standard of the body. Here in America, to have a conveyance nicely like a car like this; but in Indian village, a bullock cart is nicely. So this nicely and that nicely, according to the body. You have got this American body, this is nicely. He has got Indian body, that is nicely. The pig is eating very nicely stool because he has got a body like that, a human being will not take that. But the pleasure of eating, either stool or rasagullā, the same.” 

Vipina told Prabhupāda an example he had heard which seemed to exemplify life in the material world and the suffering it produces. “The male and female black widow spiders have sex life. After the sex life the female spider consumes the male spider, eats him alive.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda laughed. “So we are also killing by and by, and she kills immediately—that is the difference. Tulāsi dāsa has said that: din kā dakinī rāt kā bāghinī, pālak pālak ahu cuse, duniyā sab barā hoke ghare ghare bāghinī sei. That there is an animal who is at daytime a witch and at nighttime she’s tigress. So her only business is to suck the blood. But people are so mad that everyone is keeping that tigress; every home, there is a tigress like that.” 

“That’s their wife,” I said. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda continued laughing. “At daytime, witch, and nighttime, tigress. This is her picture. But people know it, and still, they keep one tigress at home. So that lady spider and lord spider, that is everywhere. But here gradually, and they are immediately; that is the difference, the process is the same.”  

He described the self-defeat of sex indulgence. “People want to enjoy by sex, by seminal discharge, but what is this? His blood. By forty drops of blood one drop of semina is created. So one ounce of semina discharged means forty ounces of blood sucked. This is a fact. So he is enjoying his own blood, and he’s thinking, ‘I am enjoying.’ Therefore he’s compared with the camel. Camel eats the thorny twigs, and the thorns prick the tongue and blood comes out. So after twig is mixed with blood, it becomes tasteful, and he thinks thorn is very nice. So thorn is not nice; nice is his blood, own blood. But he, because he’s animal, he’s thinking it is very nice.” 

In speaking about the entrapment of sex life Prabhupāda wasn’t just referring to the living beings on this planet. He briefly mentioned a story from the Eighth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. “In the heavenly planets the woman is described that during summer the body is very cool of the woman, and during winter the body is very warm. That is the nature of the woman in the heavenly planets. And their breast is very, very tight and strongly built, and their youthfulness never diminishes. These are the description of the heavenly woman. Bhāgavata, everything is there. Mohinī-mūrti began to play with the ball, and the description of the breast is there and armpit. So she was playing ball one hand and one hand a bunch of hair would become [loose], immediately she was taking care. So with this beauty Lord Śiva become mad. As soon as one man sees the breast and this armpit of young woman, then he is finished.” 

“So what happens to us?” Vipina asked. 

“It is every man that this is the position, this is the position. And so long we will be charmed with these things, he has to take birth again and again.” 

ISKCON, 10310 Oaklyn Road, 

Potomac, Maryland 

The car pulled into our property and stopped outside a white bungalow that will be Śrīla Prabhupāda’s residence while he is here. We climbed out and the devotees led Śrīla Prabhupāda into the moderately spacious, but well appointed residence. Off left of the entrance hallway is a bedroom with an attached bath, and to the right two steps take one down into the sitting room. Behind this there is a small kitchen and a wide, enclosed veranda. Off the veranda and around the back are several other rooms where Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, Pradyumna and Rakṣana prabhus are staying.  

Prabhupāda’s sitting room has an air of country elegance. Three walls are polished wood paneling and the other has exposed brick with a large fireplace. The large window made of multiple panes is framed with elegant drapes, light fittings are brass, and the doors are thick, solid wood. The devotees have provided a large marble desk, a comfortable āsana, a rocking chair for His Divine Grace’s use, and a suite of cozy armchairs for visitors.  

Prabhupāda sat contentedly at his desk and surveyed his surroundings as the devotees explained that ISKCON has only been in possession of this place for four months. The building had been quite run-down when they first moved in, so everything had to be refitted, including doors, fixtures and floor coverings. Bṛṣākapi later told me that they have spent forty thousand dollars to fix up the building. 

Prabhupāda appreciated that a considerable sum has been spent, and inquired about the purchase arrangements.  

Rūpānuga said the total price was six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It is being leased with an option to buy, and whatever rent they pay goes toward the purchase price.  

Vipina gave a run-down of the cost. “Right now, it’s about twenty-five hundred, and it will average that for ten years. At the end of ten years, it will drop to like twenty-two, twenty-one, which is very good. It will be worth much more in ten years. And the owner is responsible for any major malfunctions in any equipment on the property. We just had your water pump replaced for six hundred dollars, and he had to pay because of our contract.” 

Rūpānuga prabhu said he felt it was an exceptional arrangement, especially since there is no interest to pay.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda appreciated the terms and told them they should purchase the place. He asked if they had taken a BBT loan, and when Rūpānuga said they didn’t need one, Prabhupāda was happy. He said the BBT money was needed for India. “Depend on Kṛṣṇa; Kṛṣṇa will supply.” 

Vipina eagerly said Kṛṣṇa was already doing that. “That happened just about less than a month ago. Some gentleman who was a Seventh Day Adventist, he became interested and started to call and come by and listened to the philosophy and even listened to your tapes. And then shortly after that he gave a donation of five thousand dollars. We bought with it some chandeliers for Kṛṣṇa’s temple for you to see tomorrow.” 

Prabhupāda raised his eyebrows slightly. “Five thousand dollars? Don’t misspend.”  

Not anxious to earn Prabhupāda’s displeasure,Vipina hastened to add they had not spent it all on chandeliers, only a part, and Prabhupāda didn’t mention it again.  

With Prabhupāda comfortably ensconced, Narottamānanda dāsa, who was also cooking in Detroit when we were there, brought in a large tray of fresh cut fruit and some hot milk. Prabhupāda began to eat and at the same time distribute mahā-prasādam to everyone in the room. The devotees gathered round, all eager to serve and please their spiritual master, as he basked in the warmth of their affection, grateful for all their service. “I take America as my fatherland. India is motherland, and here is fatherland.” His face softened with a gentle smile and he spoke with fondness. “So many fathers. My father was very affectionate to me. He would do everything for me. I lost one father, I have got so many fathers. Everyone appreciated that in India, that the American fathers are keeping him. Just like keeping him in cotton. They admit that.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mood was very touching. A father is taken as the provider. In fact His Divine Grace is the one who is providing everything for us. Without him we would have no life to speak of at all, and yet he is so gratified by even the smallest service. His humility and kindness simply expand his greatness and bind us all completely with love. 

As does his humor. As he passed out some of the delicious rasagullās, Narottama asked, “Is there one for you, Śrīla Prabhupāda?” 

Prabhupāda laughed brightly. “Yes, I am not so fool that I shall give everything!” 

  

July 3rd, 1976

Prabhupāda took his walk this morning along the road and then toured the property. Bṛṣākapi prabhu, whose tendency to talk verges on the garrulous, enthusiastically glorified the area and its residents. He pointed out various large mansions where prominent politicians live, as well as some vacant lots nearby. 

We have some thirteen acres which at one time was used as both a horse training school and a children’s summer camp. Located in a very prestigious neighborhood, a number of U.S. congressmen and senators live nearby. A small stream runs across the open grassy midsection and the back half is forested. There are few buildings: some old stables now converted to devotional uses, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s house, a large swimming pool, and an ex-gymnasium, which now serves as the temple. This has a well-equipped kitchen and offices in the back, and a spacious hall which can easily hold several hundred people. As with the house, the devotees have refurbished the interior and transformed it into a very acceptable temple room. 

Bṛṣākapi floated the idea that we might buy more land but Śrīla Prabhupāda’s cool response was sufficient indication to him that they should concentrate their efforts on paying for what we have already.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda went in to greet Their Lordships Śrī Śrī Gaura-Nitāi and Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Madana-mohana. There is a third altar ready for the Deities of Śrī Śrī Sītā-Rāma which Bṛṣākapi has already ordered, and Deities of Śrīla Prabhupāda and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura will also be installed. 

After taking caraṇāmṛta, Prabhupāda walked to the back of the temple to mount what must be one of ISKCON’s most elegant vyāsāsanas. The base is low, in plain marble adorned with yellow satin cushions. The carved marble back, gracefully curved and engraved with a lotus flower insignia, is set against a pale blue wall. With Śrīla Prabhupāda seated on it one has the impression of Vaikuṇṭha.   

The guru-pūjā ceremony was ecstatic, with a hundred exuberant devotees leaping and chanting while Śrīla Prabhupāda, in what has become a daily ritual in every center he visits, picked up handfuls of the red rose petal offerings lying at his feet and threw them high in the air over the heads of his ebullient disciples. 

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam class, from 7.6.20–23, offered a somewhat technical description of the Absolute Truth: “The Supreme Personality of Godhead, the supreme controller, who is infallible and indefatigable, is present in different forms of life, from the inert living beings (sthāvara), such as the plants, to Brahmā, the foremost created living being. He is also present in the total material energy and the modes of material nature (sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa and tamo-guṇa), as well as the unmanifested material nature and the false ego. Although He is one, He is present everywhere, and He is also the transcendental Supersoul, the cause of all causes, who is present as the observer in the cores of the hearts of all living entities. He is indicated as that which is pervaded and as the all-pervading Supersoul, but actually He cannot be indicated. He is changeless and undivided. He is simply perceived as the supreme sac-cid-ānanda (eternity, knowledge and bliss). Being covered by the curtain of the external energy, to the atheist He appears nonexistent.” 

Prabhupāda requested Svarūpa Dāmodara prabhu, who is here with other members of the newly formed Bhaktivedanta Institute—Sadāpūta and Mādhava prabhus—to speak a few words about the scientific view of the Absolute before he himself lectured. 

A short, round-faced brahmacārī from Manipur, India, with a doctorate in biology, Svarūpa Dāmodara told his attentive audience that science accepts certain axioms [propositions assumed without proof for the sake of studying their consequences] in physics, chemistry and mathematics. From these, scientists produce their theories. Similarly, he explained that our Kṛṣṇa conscious scientists say the basic prerequisite to understand the difference between life and matter is to have some understanding of the Absolute Truth. By accepting the axiom of the Absolute Truth as the source of everything, the basic meaning of God and the difference between life and matter can be realized. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda was satisfied with his statement, and in his own short speech he stressed that the Absolute Truth cannot be understood by mental speculation. Quoting the Brahma-saṁhitā, he told us that even if we travel at the speed of the mind for millions of years, we still will not be able to understand the Absolute Truth. The specific nature of the Absolute Truth is that it can only be understood by the grace of the Absolute Truth itself which is revealed to us in the Vedas and by the ācāryas. “The expansion of the Absolute Truth how it is working, Kṛṣṇa summarized before Arjuna. This material world, we see only one universe to our vision. Similarly, there are millions of universes and in each universe there are millions of planets, and each planet is different from here. That is God’s creation. So all this together, ekāṁśena sthito jagat, this material world is one-fourth part exhibition of God’s creation. And three-fourths’ part is in the Vaikuṇṭhaloka, spiritual world. So by speculation, by our research, it is impossible, but we can get a glimpse of knowledge of the Absolute Truth when we receive it through the Absolute Truth, Kṛṣṇa. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Thank you very much.” 

* * * 

At about ten o’clock in the morning Bṛṣākapi prabhu came to see Śrīla Prabhupāda. For about half an hour they discussed the problem of single women in our society and the need to get them married. Bṛṣākapi seemed to have special interest in polygamy and he advanced the idea several times, using reasoning and arguments that Prabhupāda himself had given over the years in support of it.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda however, would not sanction the idea and patiently held to the principle of monogamy, at least for his disciples and in our western culture. Apart from its illegality, he also felt that if a person was serious about his Kṛṣṇa consciousness it would not be a good sign if he wanted two wives. Finally, he said that men in the West cannot even responsibly look after one wife, what to speak of two. Ultimately, he said that if there was a problem, it could only be resolved satisfactorily if everyone sincerely took to the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa and absorbed themselves in devotional service.  

Although Bṛṣākapi accepted Prabhupāda’s judgment, he seemed, at least to me, to have come for some covert purpose and was disappointed at not having gained it. 

* * * 

After a quiet day, the members of the Bhaktivedanta Institute gathered in the early evening in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s room to present a slide show. It was the first official meeting of the Institute with His Divine Grace. They will use these slides to illustrate their upcoming book, Life Comes from Life. Svarūpa Dāmodara and Sadāpūta prabhus also intend to use it in their college preaching. 

Svarūpa Dāmodara requested Śrīla Prabhupāda to make specific comments on the content so they could know if their presentation was suitable. The premise of the presentation, as Svarūpa Dāmodara had stated in the morning class, was the axiomatic acceptance of an Absolute Truth. “So this is Sāṅkhya philosophy. As Śrīla Prabhupāda comments in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in the Third Canto, the Sāṅkhyaphilosophy is especially meant for persons who are conditioned by this material world, and by understanding the science of devotional service and Sāṅkhya philosophy, one can become free from the modes of material nature. So we want to propose that in order to understand the distinction between life and matter, one must at least have a glimpse of the Absolute Truth, at least some idea of the Absolute Truth. Otherwise, it is completely impossible to understand the difference between what is life and what is matter. That is why scientists nowadays are so much confused about the concept of life and matter.” 

Even before seeing the slides, Śrīla Prabhupāda had significant comments to make. “That Absolute Truth is explained in the Vedānta-sūtra, janmādy asya yataḥ. Absolute Truth is that from whom everything comes into existence, everything emanates. Now that has been discussed in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam because Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the natural commentary by the same author. So he begins janmādy asya yato ’nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ. This word is used. He’s not dead body, dead matter—abhijñaḥ, like that. Just like a mother gives birth to a child. She knows everything, how the child was born in the womb, how it developed, how it is coming. At least, on the whole, she knows everything. Similarly, the original source of everything it is immediately informed in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that abhijñaḥ, experienced, knows everything. Anvayād itarataś ca, directly and indirectly, everything it knows. So the origin of everything cannot be a dead man. That is the beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.” 

Sadāpūta prabhu, a Ph.D. in mathematics, in response to a question from Prabhupāda, confirmed that mathematical calculations begin with an imaginary starting point, the square root of minus one.  

Prabhupāda said, “Yes, if mathematics begins with imaginary something, why not Absolute Truth? That Absolute Truth must be life. As Bhāgavata explains, He must be aware of everything. That means life. Now the question is, How He became experienced? Svarāṭ, independent. Just like we require experience, knowledge, from somebody else. Experienced knowledge is not gained automatically; but the Absolute means that He is full of knowledge. How He got knowledge? Svarāṭ, independently. That is the description. You have to imagine at least like that. It is Vedic injunction, it is the fact, that Absolute Truth is independently cognizant of everything. That is Absolute Truth.” 

When Svarūpa Dāmodara listed some of the attributes of the Absolute Truth from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and pointed out that there it says the Absolute cannot be understood except by devotional service, Śrīla Prabhupāda interjected. “Yes. We raise the question, we challenge these rascals because we are following the path of devotion. We are not scientists. And we could not challenge unless we were convinced. How it is possible? Suppose I am layman, how I am challenging these big, big scientists? Because we have known it through devotional service. So this is science. That is the difference. In Bhagavad-gītā it is said bhaktyā mām abhijānāti: ‘One can understand Me through bhakti.’ And the Vedic injunction is that yasmin vijñāte sarvam evaṁ vijñātaṁ bhavati: ‘If somehow or other one knows the Absolute Truth, then he knows everything.’ That is the benefit of knowing the Absolute Truth.  

“So a devotee knows everything. How it is possible? One may challenge, ‘How a person can know everything?’ So Kṛṣṇa immediately replies that ‘I help him specifically.’ Teṣām evānukampārtham: ‘Just to show My personal, especial favor upon him, I light up the torch of knowledge, and he knows everything.’ So if Kṛṣṇa helps one to know everything, who can check it? That is not possible. This science must be there. We are not all-powerful. Kṛṣṇa is all-powerful, means He can do everything.” 

With the groundwork laid for their discussion, the scientists began their show. One of the opening slides, detailing the structure of theory, stated there are two types of axioms: logical and theoretical. Svarūpa Dāmodara explained that especially in mathematics all theories are developed from these axioms, yet these are starting points for which there are no proofs. Svarūpa Dāmodara said the axiomatic acceptance of an Absolute Truth is therefore entirely within the realm of science. 

He showed a slide comparing the characteristics of matter and life. This was based on the statements of śāstra because, as he pointed out, material science has no information of life and cannot make such a comparison. One of the points on this slide stated that life is complex and matter, per se, is simple. He said this meant that if there is no life present, a combination of matter which may be quite complex, such as the body of a living being, immediately breaks down into much simpler structures.  

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa wondered how they could state with certainty that the soul is complex by nature. 

“Well, we get information that the spiritual world is full of variegatedness,” Svarūpa Dāmodara explained. “It is not just one variety, it is full of varieties. So we take that as proof of the complex nature of life.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda seemed to agree. “We see that so long the life is there in the material body, he has got varieties of thoughts. That is the proof that life is full of varieties. As soon as the life is not there, no more varieties, only one variety, dead body, that’s all, finished. And as long as the life is there, he has got so many ideas, so many arts, so many philosophies, so many. . . . That is the proof that life is full of varieties. As soon as the life is off, there is no variety. So what do you want more proof that life is full of variety?” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda pointed out that the Vedānta-sūtra is entirely axiomatic. “There it is stated that the soul is by nature ānanda-maya [blissful]. And variety is the mother of enjoyment. Just like these bunch of flowers. When there are varieties of flowers, it becomes a very enjoyable bunch. If you simply bring rose, although it is very valuable, it is not so enjoyable. But when there are small, insignificant leaf also, which is not as valuable as the rose, but rose becomes beautiful. That is life. And who appreciates it? When a man is living. A dead man cannot appreciate this beauty. There is beauty. Combination of varieties is beauty, or blissfulness.” 

Another slide showed a diamond crystal, the simple molecular structure of which is an example of the nature of lifeless matter. “In this connection,” Svarūpa Dāmodara said, “one quality that is quite visible is that matter in association with life, there is a constant flow of matter that biologists describe as metabolism. Means we eat some food, and then prasādam is digested in specific ways by so many chemical reactions in the body. . . . So that differentiates also the simple matter without life. For example, sometimes it has been asked whether a crystal is alive or not. This is confusing to the scientists. Sometimes they say that a crystal is behaving just like a living body, it grows and this and that, they say. But actually there is no flow of matter. That tells us that crystal is not life. There’s a fundamental difference.” 

Bṛṣākapi questioned this assumption. “It’s been said sometimes, Prabhupāda, that you have said that some rocks have life. Some rocks, some stones—are actually souls in them?” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda confirmed this. “Yes. Just like in the tree there is spirit soul. Everywhere there is spirit soul, but development of consciousness makes difference. The difference between the tree and man is that man is developed consciousness.” 

Rūpānuga asked about the crystal. “The crystal grows, but we don’t say that the crystal has life in the usual sense of the term. Is the crystal also . . . ” 

“Anywhere, wherever there is growth, there is life,” Prabhupāda told him. 

“So there the consciousness is simply not manifest, in crystal form. Like the stone does not show consciousness.” 

“Yes,” Śrīla Prabhupāda told him. “There are two kinds of life. Sthāvara-jaṅgama. Sthāvara means stationary. The stone is also stationary. It never moves. Big mountain, even though it has got life, it is stationary. And a small ant, it is not stationary, it is moving. So there are two kinds of life, stationed and moving.”  

This was a bit of a revelation to Svarūpa Dāmodara. “But Śrīla Prabhupāda, in order to present this to scientists in general, we are saying specifically that there is no life in stone.” 

Prabhupāda was concessional. “No, that one stone may be dead. Just like a tree is standing. But when it is dead, the symptoms are different, there is no more green leaf.” 

Yes, but there is a basic difference,” suggested Svarūpa Dāmodara. 

Without specifically saying he was wrong, Prabhupāda simply gave him a practical example. “So similarly we may not understand that life, so long life is there, there is development. There is a stone in Benares, Śilā-bandheśvara. Everyone knows that stone is increasing. Still, it is there. So people go to see it. One who has seen that stone ten years ago, you will see it is developed now. So life, symptom of life is growth.” If there is no growth, he said it means it is dead. 

Svarūpa Dāmodara still wasn’t clear because the point they wanted to make in their presentation was that when life is present this would be visible by the complexity of molecular structure. But since this is not visible in a rock, it was a quandary. “Even if the stone is growing, there is no metabolism,” he said. 

But it was not a problem for Śrīla Prabhupāda. “That is different thing. We have said that the body is the machine. Then all mechanical arrangement may not be the same in many machines, but it is a machine.” 

With the next slide Svarūpa Dāmodara gave the basis of the “primordial chemical soup” theory. “Now these chemicals are supposed to be formed from simple, reduced substances like water and ammonia and carbon and hydrogen compounds. They are called hydrocarbons. Now these somehow, under the action of ultraviolet radiation or cosmic force, combine together and form these amino acids. Now these amino acids, in due course of time, form the polymers called proteins. And similarly, several polymeric compounds develop and, given a long period of time, then it’s going to give life. That is the fundamental background of the scientific study of origin of life. This is what they have proposed. These molecules, somehow they combine, according to the molecules-to-man theory, and developed over billions of years from inanimate chemicals into living forms.” 

Prabhupāda laughed, deriding the scientists as rascals for speaking such things. “This is the defect. Who will see after billions of years? He is finished within hundred years. These are theories only. We see practically. Egg appears like chemical combination, but if you give fermentation, life comes within few days. Why should we wait for billions of years? This is nonsense. What kind of scientist you are?” Everyone laughed at his cutting exposê. “Proposing to wait for millions. You nonsense. Who’s going to accept your foolish theory? We see practically that within a week, and you say billions of years. Nonsense, stop that. Tell them, ‘You are nonsense, stop. Don’t expose yourself any more.’ Just see their foolishness. And this is accepted as scientific.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara agreed and told Śrīla Prabhupāda that it was their goal to stop this. “The most remarkable thing is these so-called scientists believe in the most unscientific statement. Like this long time period is the most unscientific. So how can they claim as scientists?” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda chuckled. “Yes. That I have already said. We see practically within five days, within seven days, the life is manifest, and these rascals say millions of years, which he’ll never see, neither I’ll see. And we have to accept such theory. Before seeing that life system, his life will be finished and the student also will be finished, and who is going to see?” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara said therefore they want to completely wipe out their theory. “Actually, if we think of it not in terms of science, but just in terms of our day-to-day experience, in social, moral, ethical, all levels of consciousness, if one analyzes this a little carefully, the root cause of our complete ethical background at this time is mainly due to this theory that ‘You are from molecules, and when you finish your body you’ll also go back to molecules. So don’t worry about all these high-sounding philosophical words. You just enjoy whatever you want and do whatever you like to do.’ So this type of completely materialistic [life] is meaninglessness; it has no purpose because of this very concept.” 

Before handing over the commentary to Sadāpūta, he showed another slide about the famous biologist Louis Pasteur. A picture of a glass bottle with a long spout appeared on the screen. “He believed strongly in God,” Svarūpa Dāmodara said. “He got a prize for doing this experiment from a French academy. This flask contains sugar solution and with some yeast to ferment at the beginning. But now the experiment was to completely kill any germs inside the flask by heating, sterilization, and then cool it down automatically and to keep for some time, about two or three days. And then see whether there is any life developed within that broth.  

“Pasteur found that there was no micro-organisms fermenting in the solution inside the flask. But after some time he cut the neck of the flask, then as soon as the neck is cut, then microorganisms from the surrounding atmosphere entered into the flask, and then the solution is fermented. So that was actually the proof that without presence of the microorganisms from outside, from the atmosphere, then life cannot grow into that matter.” 

The slide also included a quote by Pasteur. “Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of the modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the works of the creator.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda liked the example. “Yes. That is Vedic theory. That is explained in the Bhāgavatam.” He described how by the combination of male and female secretions a situation is created by which life, the soul, can enter and take shelter. It is not the man and woman’s sex life that makes life; life comes from outside when there is a suitable condition. Kṛṣṇa directs the soul to a particular womb to take birth.  

He added some pertinence to Svarūpa Dāmodara’s statement about adverse social effects arising from the molecules-to-life theory. He said that if by contraception or abortion the soul is prevented from entering or is kicked out, that is a criminal act. “But they do not know the laws of nature, how it is working. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ. The law of nature is working very silently, subtle. Ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham iti manyate. Rascal is so fool that he thinks that ‘I can do everything, whatever I like.’ Similarly, killing of animal. ‘Life is eternal,’ one can argue, ‘then what is wrong? Even I kill, the soul is alive.’ No, this soul was to live in a particular type of body under the laws of nature, and you have checked, and he has to take again a similar body to fulfill the duration. Therefore, you have done criminality. I have got lease for living in this room for certain period. If prior to the expiry of the lease, if the landlord drives me away, that is illegal. He will be punished.” 

He had the verse beginning karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa from the Third Canto read out: “The Personality of Godhead said: Under the supervision of the Supreme Lord and according to the result of his work, the living entity, the soul, is made to enter into the womb of a woman through the particle of male semina to assume a particular type of body.”  

Then he described how the soul qualifies itself for a particular type of body by its association with the modes of nature. If it comes to the human form it then has the chance, by association with goodness, to become a brāhmaṇa, and then a Vaiṣṇava. “When you become Vaiṣṇava, tad viṣṇoḥ paramaṁ padaṁ sadā paśyanti, you are hankering after Viṣṇu. Then your life is success. And to keep them dull-brained, that is the greatest disservice. They have got the capacity to become a brāhmaṇa, and they are keeping him just like a dull-brained mountain and tree. That we want to stop this. It is suicidal, suicidal to the human society.  

“The modern civilization, most harmful civilization. Denying the facility. One has got the capacity to become a brāhmaṇa, and they are denying the facility, to keep him to remain like hogs and dogs. Vedic civilization forbids: nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke/ kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye. If you have created a civilization like the hogs who are working day and night hard to find out some stool, and as soon as he eats some stool, his sex power is agitated, and he doesn’t care whether mother, sister or daughter. That is hog’s life, hog civilization, work day and night, and have sex. And next life become a dull-headed tree, a dull-headed stone, mountain, or dull-headed elephant. Who knows the laws of creation? How one becomes elephant? How one becomes hog? How one becomes a demigod? Do the scientists know it? Then? Where is the knowledge? The knowledge is, ‘Wait for million years, then you’ll see life.’ Just see.”  

One of the devotees wondered where the aborted soul goes to. 

 Śrīla Prabhupāda answered that it goes to another body. “Just like if you drive me from this apartment, I must go somewhere. I must find out another apartment. It is not that I am finished. You force me to go out of this apartment, so I go to a friend’s house or anywhere. I must go.” 

The boy asked if it was due to that soul’s karma that he had to be aborted and move on to another womb.  

Prabhupāda said not necessarily, the person doing the abortion is responsible for it.  

“So it’s not necessarily that he’s receiving some sinful reaction from past work that he’s not allowed to enter?” I asked. 

“That may be,” Prabhupāda replied. “But you are responsible for that. Because you are driving me from this apartment by force. Actually, in a higher sense, that is accepted, that he was to be driven away. But because you are driving, you are responsible for that.” 

The next few slides showed the great complexity of protein synthesis, how each component must do its job with minute perfection. From this Svarūpa Dāmodara prabhu made the assertion that even the most basic combinations of matter are so complicated that outside direction must be there for it to work correctly.  

Then Sadāpūta prabhu presented a series of slides to show how by mathematical calculations and by physical states, it is impossible for life to come by chance. He began by describing two factors—the laws of nature as defined by the scientists, and the element of chance. “These laws describe very simple forces, pushes and pulls between atoms and things like that. And so intuitively it is very hard to imagine why such simple forces should cause anything complex to organize itself together. Now the scientists customarily make the assertion that laws like this are universal, but one thing we can notice is they have no proof of that. These laws which they say are universal are only studied in certain limited experimental situations with inanimate matter, and then they extrapolate and they say that they apply to everything. But actually the equations are so hard to solve even for reasonably simple molecules that they can’t actually test out their assertion. So it’s actually just a bluffing statement. So in this slide we want to point out how limited their concept of the laws of nature is. 

“The next slide, according to the scientist’s idea, there are two things going on—these laws and also chance. So this is a calculation showing what happens if you just have chance acting to form one of these proteins that Svarūpa Dāmodara was talking about. Here you calculate, suppose you threw a protein together at chance—and here we even allow a ten percent error, you’re allowing to get it wrong among ten percent of the proteins—but still, chance comes out to ten minus two hundred and forty-fourth power. Now the scientists are always saying if you wait for a long enough time, even something very unlikely can happen; but here we have a calculation of how long you’d have to wait according to mathematics and the probability theory. And even if you assume an unrealistically high rate of forming proteins at random, still you’d have to wait, according to this, ten to the hundred and sixty-seventh power billion years—and that’s a little bit too long,” he added dryly.  

Prabhupāda laughed along with all of us at the sheer enormity of the figures. “Hare Kṛṣṇa. That is mathematics!” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara added that it was longer than Lord Brahmā’s life. 

Sadāpūta drew his conclusion on this point. “Mathematics shows that chance alone could never begin to produce the things that go into life, because this, say, is just for one protein, but it’s estimated in the simplest cell that they experiment with that there are some three thousand proteins. This is what they estimate. And in a single cell of the human body, they estimate three hundred thousand, or even three million. It’s just an estimate. But it shows that chance is completely unrealistic.” 

Sadāpūta went on to show by information theory again how any complex system could not arise by its own volition. Rather the conclusion must be drawn that for anything complex to manifest, the information for it to do so must be contained within the laws from which it springs.  

Then he went beyond the theoretical discussion to demonstrate the sophistication found in manifest physical states. He gave the example of a simple bacterium, which has a reversible motor built into it, which spins a spiral flagellum, and by so doing, propels itself through the water, just like a submarine. “Actually, the scientific explanation [for this] is completely impossible, because they would say that either by chance it came about all at once—and the chances are way too small, so that would never happen—or else it would have to come by small stages somehow. But what would be a small stage in the formation of a workable motor? One can’t even think of how that would work. So it doesn’t make much sense.  

“So what we wanted to argue was that these living structures are very highly complex, they have a very great amount of information needed to specify them, and mathematically it follows that this evolution process can’t happen, because the probability is way down, it’s something impossible.” 

In the next few slides he brought quantum mechanics into the picture. His intention is to describe consciousness as being something nonphysical and nonchemical. He explained that modern physics realizes that you can’t account for or describe physical processes without accounting for the observer. He then described a means whereby the observer can be understood to be nonphysical.  

His final section was fascinating, dealing with inspiration. Sadāpūta looked into the lives of several famous men and found, according to their own statements, that their abilities to excel in their particular fields came to them from an outside source and not from themselves. “Śrīla Prabhupāda has said that intelligence is the form direction of Supersoul. So it’s interesting, it’s really striking to observe how various people create things in mathematics and science and art. We made two examples here. This one is a mathematician named Gauss. He lived in the nineteenth century, and his concern was to solve mathematical problems. The interesting thing is that in a very difficult mathematical problem, the person never solves it by figuring it out consciously, step by step. But what happens is that he tries very hard to figure it out for a long time, and nothing happens, and then all of a sudden the answer comes to him.”  

He quoted Gauss. “I’ve succeeded not on account of my painful effort, but by the grace of God. Like a sudden flash of lightning, the riddle happened to be solved. I myself cannot say what was the conducting thread which connected what I previously knew with what made my success possible.” 

Śrīla Prabhupādasmiled. “So the chance theory is the grace of God.” 

A little surprised, Svarūpa Dāmodara asked, “That is the grace of God?” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda was chuckling. “Because if God sees that the rascal is trying for so many years, ‘All right, give him a chance.’ ”  

Prabhupāda’s wit had everyone laughing heartily. “That is His mercifulness. So what they call chance theory, that is grace of God. All the possibilities taken together he is given by God. That he does not know. He takes it as chance. But there is no question of chance; it is the gift of God.” 

Sadāpūta presented Mozart as his final example, who admitted that entire symphonic compositions would just blossom into his mind. “Whence do they come I do not know, and I have nothing to do with it.”  

Sadāpūta’s next slides demonstrated the principle that laws of a simple makeup cannot give rise to structures of a higher complexity; only higher-ordered laws can cause complex forms. 

Prabhupāda appreciated this reasoning and quoted Bhagavad-gītā [9.10]. “That higher-order laws is explained: mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram/ hetunānena kaunteya jagat viparivartate. Things are going down on account of the superior direction.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s quote was exactly appropriate, for when Sadāpūta flashed the next slide up on the screen, it was a picture of Lord Viṣṇu as the source of the higher-order laws. And Śrīla Prabhupāda smiled. “There.” He immediately quoted several more verses including 7.19. “Here is vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti. Find out this verse. This is Vāsudeva. From Him, everything is coming. That is real knowledge.” 

I began to read out the verse, which says that after many births, a person who is in actual knowledge, a great soul or mahātmā, surrenders to Kṛṣṇa, knowing Him to be the source of everything. Such a person is very rare. But before I finished the first line, Prabhupāda interrupted. “It is conclusion, vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti. So you are mahātmā, su-durlabhaḥ, not ordinary rascal mathematician. But you are real mathematician, that vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ.” 

It was a long presentation and discussion, nearly three hours, and finally, although there were more slides to see, Śrīla Prabhupāda called a halt. Although tired, he was visibly enlivened by the serious efforts his men were making to present Kṛṣṇa consciousness from a scientific standpoint. He encouraged them to continue.“So Kṛṣṇa will bless you. So push this scientific movement, go to every university, every college. How they are receiving in the college circles?” 

Sadāpūta told him they had lectured in the university in Gainesville, Florida and had even given some TV interviews there. Prabhupāda asked what had been the reaction.  

“Well, in the class, at first the professor said, ‘That’s completely fallacious,’ ” Sādāpūta said, and then added with a smile, “But he quieted down.” 

Śrīla Prabhupādagrinned. “Yes, they will say like that, ‘fallacious,’ but you have to make them down.”  

As they packed up to go, Śrīla Prabhupāda instructed me to give everyone prasādam. He turned to Rakṣaṇa, who had stood at his side throughout the entire session unobtrusively, and apparently unnoticed, fanning him with a peacock fan. “Give him twice, he has worked very hard. Double, you should give double.”  

It was a typically personal gesture from His Divine Grace. Although absorbed in discussing the highest philosophical and technically scientific subjects with some of his most qualified men, he did not neglect the humble and simple service of another disciple. 

Rakṣaṇa beamed with pleasure at having gained his spiritual master’s recognition. For him the prasādam was simply an added bonus.  

* * * 

Afterward Prabhupāda left his rooms and went out into the warm summer evening. I accompanied him, carrying his cādar and silver loṭa. He entered the gate of the swimming pool enclosure and sat quietly in a chair beside the still water chanting japa, while I sat discreetly behind him on the ground. He remained there for about three quarters of an hour, not speaking save to recite the holy names. It was a relief and a pleasure to see him free of disturbance, for the tour has been hectic since Hawaii. Prabhupāda has been constantly lecturing and meeting devotees, reporters and visitors. His health is still not good and these moments when he can relax privately are rare and valuable. 

 

July 4th, 1976

The devotees took Śrīla Prabhupāda to the Chesapeake and Ohio canal in Great Falls Park for his morning walk. Although it is mid-summer, there was still a slight chill and he was well wrapped up in pullover, cādar and woolen hat. His respiratory system is quite blocked with mucus, making his voice sometimes thick and husky.  

His scientists came along and took advantage of the opportunity to ask further questions. As he strolled steadily down the foliage-fringed track running down the side of the canal, Svarūpa Dāmodara asked him if the soul, even though it is nonphysical, can be measured. Since śāstra states the soul to be one ten-thousandth the tip of a hair in size, Sadāpūta has estimated its size at two angstroms. He arrived at this by calculating the size of the tip of a hair as it would be measured by an electron microscope. An angstrom is the smallest unit of measure known to science; it is even smaller than a hydrogen atom. Svarūpa Dāmodara wanted to know if this estimation was reasonable. 

 Prabhupāda thought so. He said that it can be measured because the statement is there in the Purāṇas. Svarūpa Dāmodara, Sadāpūta and Mādhava prabhus all hold doctorates, but they all submit to Prabhupāda’s judgment; Śrīla Prabhupāda’s knowledge begins where theirs leaves off. No one can defeat his arguments, nor match his logic and common sense observations. 

As we walked past a small waterfall and along the leafy lane, Svarūpa Dāmodara questioned Śrīla Prabhupāda as to how educated Bengalis could be attracted to our Movement. He said he has a friend with whom he studied in Calcutta who decried Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s movement as being for less educated people. His friend preferred the Vedanta Society run by the Ramakrishna Mission. Yet the Vedanta Society’s discussions offer no clear understanding of the Bhagavad-gītā. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda told him they do not join us because they know they will have to give up eating meat and fish. They like Vivekananda’s idea that whatever you like you can do and still be spiritual. Prabhupāda said they were too sinful to understand the  teachings of the Gītā. Meat-eaters have no access. 

* * *  

In class Śrīla Prabhupāda read from Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā, 20.98–99. It describes Sanātana Gosvāmī’s mood of humility and surrender when he escaped the Nawab Hussain Shah and met Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in Benares. Prabhupāda preached that this is the correct mood with which to approach a guru. Even though Sanātana was a very learned man, and the chief minister in the Nawab’s government, still he considered himself most fallen because he did not know his spiritual identity. Śrīla Prabhupāda advised us that we should follow in his footsteps because in this age, he said, even big scientists and philosophers are ignorantly thinking they are their body. 

* * *  

There was a near-disaster right after Śrīla Prabhupāda’s massage today. I had just escorted him to the bathroom to bathe. As I walked back through the bedroom I heard a tremendous “Crash!”  

Not knowing what to expect I rushed to the bathroom door and looked inside. Śrīla Prabhupāda was standing in the bath at the opposite end of the room, looking very concerned and surprised. I looked down. In the gap between us, the entire floor was covered with a thousand shards of shattered glass. Shocked, I realized I was looking at him through the now-empty shower screen frame. The bath and shower were combined, the shower door a sliding glass panel fitted along the top edge of the bathtub. Śrīla Prabhupāda had slid it shut and the entire sheet of glass had simply fallen out. By Kṛṣṇa’s mercy it had toppled outward and not in on top of him. He was highly displeased and strongly criticized the shoddy workmanship. I fetched Bṛṣākapi to get things cleaned up and Śrīla Prabhupāda ordered him to have it fixed properly.  

* * * 

Rūpānuga prabhu came by in the afternoon and chatted with Śrīla Prabhupāda for a while in his sitting room.  

Prabhupāda was talking about how crazy things are becoming. The organization run by Mrs. Kochar in Delhi condemns our Movement and yet at the same time is spending one hundred sixty-nine lakhs of rupees per year inviting people from around the world to speak on culture. Śrīla Prabhupāda sarcastically questioned what kind of culture it could be. “They can speak, ‘Milk is dangerous and meat is very nutritious. Kill all the cows. Oh, yes, it’s very scientific.’ This is their culture. ‘Milk is dangerous.’ Is it not?” 

We agreed. Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja told him that he had read a newspaper article this morning which said that if women did not breast feed their babies they would have to increase the size of the herds of cows, with connotation that this would be a bad thing.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda responded that their solution would be to kill the children. He gave Rūpānuga two examples he heard from his disciples of the callous nature of today’s motherhood. “Kārtikeya told me. After many years he went to see his mother, and mother was going to ball dance. And mother said, ‘Wait, I am coming back.’ And he was surprised. He told me. Son has come home after many years, and she could not talk with him; she was going to ball dance. This is the mother.” 

Rūpānuga reflected that there is not even mother-love any more. 

“Mother killing,” Śrīla Prabhupāda told him. Looking in my direction he told him, “He was about to be killed. He admits. His grandmother advised the mother. Yes. Kṛṣṇa saved him. Because he is devotee, some way or other, he was saved.” He asked me if my grandmother was still living. 

“Just.” 

Prabhupāda gave a little laugh. “Why don’t you say, ‘You wanted to kill me, just see, I’m chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.’” 

I told him, “I don’t think it would be received very well.” 

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa quipped, “She might say, ‘See, I was right.’” 

Prabhupāda shook his head in sadness and disgust. “Mother advising young daughter to kill her child.” 

* * * 

Today was America’s bicentennial Independence Day celebration, and hundreds of thousands of visitors poured into the capital. The devotees had asked Śrīla Prabhupāda if he would like to see the festivities. He consented, and at 6:00 p.m. a small convoy of ten vehicles departed from our temple grounds, with Prabhupāda in the second car. As our transcendental caravan gradually wound its way down the hillsides we passed thousands of people parked at the roadside, all hoping to catch glimpses of the promised massive fireworks display without having to enter the city.  

Thinking of the report we received previously from Ādi-keśava Swami describing the positive reception of their kīrtana party which travels around New York on the back of a flatbed truck, I observed that a similar arrangement here would be a big success in the slow moving traffic. This prompted an immediate request from Prabhupāda for the devotees to do kīrtana. The message was passed to the lead vehicle, a large van packed with devotees. They had instruments, and as the devotees burst into song, everyone on the roadside turned to look, many of them waving, chanting and dancing.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda enjoyed the favorable response. He said that people actually want to chant and dance, but are artificially suppressing it or are being artificially suppressed. “So far I have observed, people here and in the communist countries are not different. The general people are very nice, but they are not allowed.” 

Once we arrived in the city precincts even policemen began dancing at the sound of mṛdaṅgas and karatālas, smiling and waving as we passed them on the street corners. Everyone was in a jubilant mood and seemed to take special delight in seeing the Hare Kṛṣṇas participate in the celebration. One somewhat intoxicated group we passed exuberantly chanted the mahā-mantra while carrying six-packs of beer. Prabhupāda laughed to see them, enjoying the tour very much. 

We drove around the White House. Our plan was to have a group photo taken with Śrīla Prabhupāda outside the front to use in BTG, but we were not allowed to stop. We went next to the large park in front of Capitol Hill. There, an estimated one and a half to two million people were assembled for the grand fireworks display scheduled for 9:00 p.m.  

Parking was impossible in the main precincts of the Mall but at the far end, furthest away from Capitol Hill, we saw an open spot at the side of the Lincoln Memorial. We stopped and sat with Prabhupāda on the grass for a while, with people all around in an expectant and cheerful mood. The entire Mall lay before us, seemingly jammed with spectators. We had a light kīrtana, using only the karatālas, and waited expectantly for the explosive display. Śrīla Prabhupāda said that in Vedic times also there were fireworks on big celebration days.  

At the due time the fireworks began. We saw some flashes of light at the far end of the Mall but nothing as spectacular as had been advertised. After a short time Prabhupāda decided to leave before the main aerial display, because a good view was impossible. It was also getting late, and the devotees did not want Prabhupāda to get caught in the heavy exit traffic. It was a wise decision. Even with our early departure, it was almost eleven o’clock when we got back, and Śrīla Prabhupāda was visibly very tired. 

July 5th, 1976

Śrīla Prabhupāda went to Great Falls Park again for his walk. He was in a lively mood, and in the car he asked what the use had been of yesterday’s celebrations. He said the whole concept of being independent was foolish; there could never be any question of independence. 

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa asked that if there’s no independence, where is the question of anyone taking initiative in the material world.  

“Initiative? What is that question?” Śrīla Prabhupāda asked him. “Initiative I understand, but do you think that by taking initiative of independence you become independent? Like this, by dancing and fireworks, you become independent? This is initiative, dancing like dogs.” He sang a little ditty, making us all crack up with laughter, “ ‘We are in-de-pen-dent, we are in-de-pen-dent.’ Does it have any meaning?” he said grinning. “Dancing like a dog, that’s all.” 

Yadubara prabhu raised a question about free will. “But they have choice within māyā, isn’t that a fact? Choice what to do in the material world, many different fields. They will say that they can do this or that.” 

“What they can do?” Prabhupāda challenged. “They cannot do anything. At any moment, you can be kicked out, ‘Get out.’ Therefore it is called conditioned life. There is no question of independence. That is foolishness. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā that they are not independent; they are completely under the control of the laws of material nature, and still they are thinking independent.” 

Rūpānuga compared their situation to that of a prisoner in jail who is still thinking he has some freedom. 

Prabhupāda expanded upon that example. “That freedom is daṇḍya-jane rājā yena nadīte cubāya. Drowning the man in the water and, ‘Now you have independence, so breathe.’  

“So he breathes in, ‘Ah! Ah!’  

“ ‘All right, you are now a little relieved, all right, again become drown.’  

“ ‘Oh! Save me, save me, save me, save me.’  

“ ‘All right, take out. Now breathe, independently.’  

“This is independence. The rascal does not know, ‘I am breathing independent, but at any moment I can be drowned again.’ Very correct example. No independence. Independence is only there when you fully surrender to Kṛṣṇa. You surrender your all independence to Kṛṣṇa. Then there is. ‘Kṛṣṇa, I have foolishly acted as independent, so many lives. Now I surrender all my independence at Your lotus feet. If You like You can kill me; if You like, You can . . . ’ that is independence. Otherwise, there is no independence. All foolishness. By false egotism, he’s thinking that ‘I am independent.’” 

He told us they were misusing their energy, and he gave a calculation on the cost of the whole production. “Yesterday, some two and half million the government has spent, and we [the general public] also, combined together, we have spent ten million by power, gas, going there and coming. So all these thirteen million dollars spent for nothing. Dancing like dogs, independence, māyā.” 

A small crowd of expectant devotees met Prabhupāda at the park. Beginning his walk down the canal path he informed Svarūpa Dāmodara of our conversation, offering another graphic and amusing comparison of modern life. “So many people, there are so many earthworms also, ants also, gathered together. Does it mean they are independent? You know the earthworms? They heap up earth and disappear. So you are, if you take it in that way, that big, big buildings, just like earthworms gathering up earth and then disappears. Like the worms, we gather together and become a nation and apply all our energy, heaps of buildings, then finished. We go somewhere, you go somewhere. And who knows what he’s going to be in the next life? Everything is going like that, family, community, national. Washington, he gave you independence, but where he is? What he is doing? Where is that person who gave you independence?” 

Perhaps as a sign of the state of their civilization, the newspaper this morning mentioned a rather amusing story about a massive “birthday cake for America” baked especially for the celebrations. Five stories high, it had been brought to the Mall on trucks. People queued for hours to get a piece, but then the health department condemned it because it had gone stale. 

There was a constant flow of dialogue as we walked, some of it philosophical, some of it about the physical phenomena that surrounded us. Naturally, with the members of the Bhaktivedanta Institute present, science, and its flaws, was a recurrent theme. Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami asked, “Has there ever been debates on the authenticity of modern science, or is this the first time modern science has been challenged in the world?” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda spoke from the Vedic perspective. “India, Vedic civilization never cared for anything which is searched out by imperfect human beings. They never cared for it. Because he knows the man who is searching after, he’s imperfect, whatever he’ll do, that is imperfect. Therefore neglect it. That is Vedic civilization. Śruti-pramāṇa: whether it is evident from the śrutis, from the Vedas. Otherwise, they reject it.” 

I brought up an obvious point. “Those people in India who are aware of the actual science, though, if they had come out and spoken against material scientists . . . ” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda interrupted me, “I am speaking.” 

“You’re the only one though, Prabhupāda,” Bṛṣākapi observed.  

Sadāpūta started to talk about some of the problems faced when making presentations of Kṛṣṇa consciousness to students, so Śrīla Prabhupāda clarified what our approach should be. “No, no. We don’t condemn the scientists. We say that ‘Take credit as much as you can. But why do you defy the existence of God?’ That is our protest.” 

Sadāpūta said it was because they want to be God. 

“That is their foolishness,” Śrīla Prabhupāda said. “Have we not published that ‘You have created 747. All right, take credit. But you cannot make a mosquito with pilot. Can you?’ ‘No.’ ‘So how can you defy the supreme creator?’ We are taking it, there is supreme creator.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara said, “That basic point they find it hard to understand.” 

“Because they are blind,” Prabhupāda said. “It is common sense, that you have created the 747. So somebody must have created this, a small insect. This is common sense. You cannot see Him, that is your bad fortune; but somebody has done it.” 

Bṛṣākapi said, “To be able to be so fooled, that is the greatest wonder. How it’s so obvious that there’s a creator, but yet one can say there is no creator.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda agreed. “That is foolishness. That we are protesting, that ‘You rascal, you stop this nonsense talking.’ There is son and there is mother; there must be father. This is conclusion. And, ‘I do not see father. I do not see that.’ But without father, how there can be son? This is intelligence.” 

One of the devoteesfound Prabhupāda’s earlier response to Sadāpūta’s question ambiguous. “On the one hand you say the scientists are rascals, and on the other you say not to condemn them.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s answer was pellucid; there was no contradiction. “No, rascal means when they say there is no God, then they are rascals. Here is a scientist—he does not say that there is no God. Anyone who says there is no God, he’s a rascal, he may be scientist, philosopher or anyone.” 

A constant theme of Prabhupāda’s preaching is the logic of recognizing that if there is a mother and offspring, then there must also be a father. Yet today Sadāpūta prabhu presented a question about living entities that apparently do not have mothers and fathers in the material sense. “Do we accept the way bacteria reproduce,” he asked, “by fission, splitting in half? I know Kapiladeva instructs that there are four different methods—the egg, the lump of flesh, etc. The scientists are saying that bacteria split in half and produce two daughter cells.” 

Prabhupāda explained, “Bacteria is produced from fermentation: sveda-ja. Just like nasty bedding, from your perspiration, if you don’t clean, bugs will come.In India, the Europeans they eat meat, automatically bugs and germs come within their coat and shirt due to bad perspiration.” 

I was confused. “When you say that they’re born from perspiration, like cockroaches, does that mean that the eggs are laid by the female and then the atmosphere of perspiration enables the eggs to be hatched? Like that?” 

“No,” Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “from the perspiration automatically it comes.” 

It still left me puzzled, so in the car on the way back I asked Prabhupāda for clarification. “These entities that are born from perspiration, it seems that there’s no father and mother, yet we were just using the argument that there must be a father and mother.” 

“No, there is father and mother,” Prabhupāda said. “The supreme father is Kṛṣṇa, and mother is nature, ultimately. So perspiration is also another form of nature. Yes. There’s always father and mother.” 

“There’s no material father, though? In that case?” Yadubara asked. 

“Material father is not material. Real father is Kṛṣṇa. He may come in so many ways.” 

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa joined in. “The thing is that the scientists may isolate some cockroaches in a box, and they will watch the cockroaches secrete eggs and this or that or whatever—I don’t know exactly how the cockroaches . . . ” 

“No, give up cockroach,” Śrīla Prabhupāda said. “There are many other living entities, they come from perspiration. Bugs, they come from perspiration. Many, many come by fermentation.” 

I was still in a fog. “Yes, but it seems that form of the bug must come from the form of another bug. So it’s very difficult to understand how it comes from perspiration.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda was patient and clear. “The form is coming directly. Why from another? The birth is coming directly. And those who are coming, they will take that form, buglike form, and drink blood. That is all destined. Spirit soul, according to his desires, he’s gotten that body. But that body is coming from perspiration. That is the way.” 

I finally started to grasp his meaning. “So like in our case, the spirit soul takes shelter in the semen.” 

“Yes, according to his desire he’s given shelter to such and such place, and he comes out with body.” 

“And in that case he takes shelter in the perspiration,” I asked. 

“Yes,” Prabhupāda said. “Daiva-netreṇa. That is by superior administration, he has to take shelter and take out the body, come and act. It requires little brain. The dull meat-eaters and drunkards cannot understand.” 

As we plied along the smooth highway Rūpānuga prabhu observed, “I’ve seen that these cattle that are raised for eating, they are not like dairy cows. Dairy cows are much cleaner. Beef cattle are very dirty animals. They have no clean habits. They are almost like pigs.” 

“Still, they should be protected, though,” Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa said. “They should be used for plowing.” 

A little surprisingly Śrīla Prabhupāda contradicted him. “No, if they are not cows, there is no need of protection. When it gives milk, that is cow.” 

Rūpānuga started to say that these animals were created by man, but Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa pointed out that the males would have been bulls. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda then added that the bull is also required, because cows alone cannot give milk unless they unite with a bull. “Everywhere, in India, they require bulls and . . . Generally, they are not inclined to kill. So they are engaged in [work]. . . . ” 

“But otherwise,” Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa ventured, “when Kṛṣṇa says go-rakṣya, He means the female, the cow, giving milk.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda again clarified. “Go means species, means both bull and cow, but generally go means cow.” 

* * * 

During class, which continued with Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Śrīla Prabhupāda spoke on the true role of the soul as a servant, emphasizing the impossibility of independence. He repeated to the general body of devotees what he had told the few of us on his walk about yesterday’s celebration of independence. “My real problem is janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi—birth, death, old age and disease. So when we get free from these four problems, that is real independence. Otherwise, there is no independence. I may dance with independence, but any moment I shall have to leave my country, my society, my friends, my family. Any moment, ‘Get out immediately. No, no independence.’ That is my position. So that is intelligence.” 

He said the real position was exemplified by Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī, who humbly submitted himself before Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. We should also seek out a proper guru, surrender to him, and then carry out the mission of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu to become gurus and spread the message to others. 

Although Prabhupāda doesn’t normally ask for questions at the end of class, because there were a few Indian visitors, he did today. A devotee inquired, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, sometimes when we go preaching people do not want to take Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Sometimes they actually . . . ” 

Prabhupāda stopped him. “So if they want to take, then where is the question of preaching? Because they do not want to take, you have to preach. Otherwise, where is the necessity of preaching? You have to prepare yourself in such a way that nobody is dying for your Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but you have to convince him that your life is spoiled without Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is your capacity. They are under the clutches of māyā.” 

One of the women said that people who are convinced that they already have a revelation or experience that is assuring them of eternal life, are not very open to hear. 

Again, Śrīla Prabhupāda was practical. “If they are not open to hear about Kṛṣṇa, then don’t waste your time. When in the lower stage of devotional service, he cannot become preacher. When he’s in a little upper, second stage, he can become preacher. So preacher has to see four things. First of all God, īśvara, and tad-adhīna, and those who are devotees. God, His devotees and bāliśa, innocent. He does not know anything. So three, God, devotee and the innocent. And dviṣat, envious, atheist class. He has to see four things, and he has to deal with four persons differently. With God, īśvare prema, how to advance my love for God, these dealings. Prema maitrī, and to the devotees, we have to make friendship with them. And to the innocent, we have to preach, kṛpā. ‘Oh, here is an innocent person, he does not know, he’s eager to learn.’ There teaching is required. Teaching, you cannot teach God or you cannot teach God’s devotees. But you can teach the innocent. And those who are dviṣat, atheist, upekṣā, don’t go there, save yourself. These are the four things.  

“So when one is not open to hear, then don’t bother yourself. That requires very strong preacher to convince the atheist class, provided he is reasonable also. If he’s stubborn, obstinate, then it is also very difficult. But preaching is meant, innocent, that one who is actually sincere but he does not know what is God, what is my relationship with God, there is necessity of preaching. Not to the envious, or those who are already advanced, or to God.” 

One of the Indian guests had a question. “Prabhupāda, you are giving a very simple process. Why there are no Indians coming? They are exposed to Kṛṣṇa from their birth, still they are not interested. Nobody wants to listen.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda answered as he had in Toronto. “Because they have become baḍa-sahib. Especially in the foreign countries, they become baḍa-sahib. So that is the misfortune of India. They are giving up their culture and being misguided. So if they actually feel that they must maintain their own culture, then it is not difficult. It is the duty of every Indian, as Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that. If that mentality is developed, that, ‘In India we were born, we have got the greatest culture, recognized by all the world. So I must make my life successful by taking this culture and distribute it to the whole world.’ That is real Indian culture.”  

He told his guest that they are thinking themselves poverty stricken, but it is only because they have given up their own culture. “Otherwise, there is no question of poverty stricken. So anyway this is Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s message, that every Indian should take advantage of the great culture, Vedic culture, and make his life successful. And after acquiring mature knowledge he should distribute the knowledge throughout the whole world.”  

In reply to the man’s inquiry as to how to get them interested, Śrīla Prabhupāda repeated, “By preaching. If you preach, then you’ll meet with so many obstacles, and you have to prepare yourself how to meet the obstacles. Then you become strong preacher. Resistance. There is no difficulty, but if there is difficulty, atheist class of men, and it is very difficult, so take innocent, those who are actually eager to know. Everyone should be inquisitive to know about the Absolute Truth, Brahman, but education is different nowadays. People are interested with hammer, how to play on hammer, that’s all, technology. There is no question of Brahman. Let Brahman go to hell, now take out the hammer. That Russian emblem, hammer and scythe? That’s all.” 

After the program each morning all the devotees flood out of the temple eager to accompany Śrīla Prabhupāda along the upwardly-sloping path to the house. They chant and dance the whole way until he disappears through the door. Pradyumna’s son, Aniruddha, now part of our traveling party, enjoys the excitement. Rather than being kept back out of the way with the other children he has the privilege of being able to run just in front or along side of His Divine Grace and Prabhupāda never seems to mind. 

* * * 

In mid-morning Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja brought Śrīla Prabhupāda a few pieces of mail for his response. One was from Akṣayānanda Swami in Vṛndāvana. He confirmed that he sent the altar measurements and photos to Fiji. He also said that all the women and children were being moved out of the Guesthouse to Taparia House and that Dhanañjaya prabhu was making proper security arrangements. Now at least four rooms were being rented daily and good quality prasādam was being served in the restaurant. This has resulted in at least one member contributing the entire cost of the Sunday Feast in appreciation. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda was pleased with the news. After so many letters and requests he is finally getting the desired action. He replied encouraging Akṣayānanda Mahārāja to continue improving the standards. “Everything must be neat and clean and silent, then people will come.” As far as Taparia House was concerned, he gave his instruction that it should not be vacant at any time, and that this will deter any thieves. He advised building a high brick wall around the perimeter. 

A letter from Raṇadhīra dāsa at the BBT requested confirmation that Prabhupāda wanted regular copies of Back To Godhead sent to his Godbrother, Śrīdhara Swami in Navadvīpa. Śrīla Prabhupāda was pleased that he had sought approval before sending it out. “This is to certify that you should send the Back-to-Godhead magazine regularly to Sridhar Swami in Nabadvipa as already requested. I am glad to see that you are now conscientiously executing your duty. Always check with me first before sending out any literature to persons who have not been specifically approved by me.” 

* * * 

I was in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s room on some small matter, and Prabhupāda began to talk about the psychology of how men and women become entangled together. He has been working recently on the story of Mohinī-mūrti and a section of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam which gives descriptions of the heavenly maidens and life on the higher planets. Śrīla Prabhupāda was walking back over to his seat when he suddenly raised his left arm above his head, exposing the side of his body to me. Patting the side of his chest with his right hand, he laughed. “This portion of a woman’s body is very attractive to the man. By seeing this even Śiva was captured.” 

* * * 

Although Śrīla Prabhupāda usually never sees anyone during his massage, he is so keen to see our scientists develop a credible and powerful challenge to modern scientific atheism that he is giving them as much of his time and attention as they need. Consequently, the members of the Institute gathered in the back veranda of the house today as Prabhupāda relaxed in his gamchā in the sunshine to receive his daily workout.  

They questioned him mainly about varieties in the different species, since explaining the development of variegated life forms is one of the main goals of the evolutionists. Svarūpa Dāmodara said that the concept of molecular evolution does a poor job of explaining the variations within species. He wanted to know if it would be feasible to use practical examples of variety within the categories of living beings to demonstrate the causal actions of the three modes of nature. As examples within the birds, a swan could be understood to be showing a predominance of goodness, an eagle passion and a crow ignorance.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda, however, didn’t think it could be done effectively. He pointed out that these subtle mixes were very fine and decided by higher authority. It would be nearly impossible to say exactly what percentage of mixing of goodness, passion and ignorance affects any particular life form. He said it was better to stick to the general divisions. Thus the demigods are in goodness, human beings in passion and the animals and lower species in ignorance. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda told them the real point was to show that there is no evolution of bodily forms, but that there is evolution of consciousness and that the goal of life is to transcend all the bodily forms to regain our natural spiritual identities. However, if they wanted to use some examples, he said they should simply stick with whatever is described in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. 

They had other questions regarding the fossil record and extinction of species. In particular, they were investigating whether there were any parallels between the geological ages of the earth, as identified by the material scientists, and the periods of universal devastation described in the Vedas. They thought it might be possible to show that the extinction of certain species coincided with a particular devastation.  

“Do we know that in detail, Śrīla Prabhupāda?” Svarūpa Dāmodara asked. “What type of species are extinct? Not all the species extinct. As it is during Brahmā’s day, that partial annihilation, devastation, now some species are extinct?” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda was against the very concept that some species were no longer in existence. “No species extinct. What you are reading is garbage.” 

“No, this is the physical forms,” Svarūpa Dāmodara said. 

“No, nothing is extinct,” Śrīla Prabhupāda repeated. “Everything is going on.” 

“At that point, they are going to come up with the point that, ‘How about dinosaurs?’ They are going to ask like that.” 

Prabhupāda told him definitely, “That is imagination. Where is dinosaur, finosaur?” 

“They say they have all the bones.” 

“No, they are describing maybe another animal,” Prabhupāda said. “That is existing. That is timiṅgila, they can swallow up big, big whale fishes. That big bones, they are living still. Nothing is extinct. They are already there.” 

Rūpānuga asked the question that was on all our lips. “Did these dinosaurs exist, or is it just their imagination?” 

“The big animal exists,” Śrīla Prabhupāda conceded. “Call it dinosaur or finosaur, that is your choice. Big animals are existing. I said the name, timiṅgila, still exist. They are always existing. Water elephants, there are elephants in water, everything.” 

“So there is no such thing as extinction?” Rūpānuga asked. 

“No extinction, there is no question of extinction,” Prabhupāda confirmed. 

Rūpānuga pursued his line of thought. “If these animals were on this planet some millions of years ago, they are still here. Is that correct?” 

“Yes. What do you know what are there within the water? You take information from the śāstras. It is not possible for you to see and go into the water, how big, big animals are there.” 

This question has come up before and I presented an explanation that I had heard from other devotees for Śrīla Prabhupāda’s reaction. “But it’s possible that an animal may disappear from one planet, but still be on another planet, though, like that.” 

“No.” 

“Because they claim that even within recorded history . . . ” I continued. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda cut me off. “They claim everything. There is no question [of it].” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara asked him about the fossil record. Getting to the crux of the matter, Prabhupāda asked what does it mean even if one finds dead animals? “First thing is they are all imperfect speculators. So what is the value of their sport? We don’t take any value of it. Simply like child, they are speculating. If he’s imperfect, then what is the value of his speculation? There is no value.” 

Sadāpūta prabhu outlined the Institute’s preaching strategy. “We were trying to see how we could explain these fossils that geologists speak of, and it seems like one way of looking at them.” 

Prabhupāda spoke to the real issue. “But their calculating mind, in whatever you explain you have to give reference to the śāstra, and they will say it is mythology. They’ll refuse immediately that thing. But you have no other source to explain. Now you try to argue, but they will take everything we propose as mythology, and we will take, ‘Because you are rascal, whatever you say, it is all rascaldom.’ That’s all. This is the position. Then how you’ll meet? This is the difference.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara proposed presenting arguments based on sound logic while exposing the mistakes in the materialist ideas. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda accepted that they should make their explanations, but he wanted to stress the guiding principle. “That you do, but the position is like this. Our conclusion is that whatever they are saying, that is imperfect; that is not possible. And that is a fact. Therefore they change, after fifty years, they change. Because it’s speculation.”  

Svarūpa Dāmodara mentioned how the Christian creationists are able to show the defects in modern science, but that their own defect is that they say nothing existed at all before five thousand years ago. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda scoffed at their premise. “The Christian theory used to say that the world is flat. So what is the value of their words? There is no value.” 

He warned our men not to compromise with anyone. “You present your own as it is in Bhāgavatam. Try to explain them to your best capacity scientifically. If you bring this, bring that, all of them are imperfect. So what is the use of wasting time with something which is imperfect?” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara assured him they would not compromise, but rather they wanted to demonstrate that other’s points are imperfect. 

“That you can do,” Śrīla Prabhupāda accepted. “But you must know they are all imperfect. Five thousand years! We can give history of millions and millions of years. Therefore we say totally they are wrong, and they will take totally, ‘from mythology,’ like that, this is going on. My point is that the Christian theory is also imperfect, and the scientists also imperfect.” 

Calling the five thousand years theory “ludicrous” Prabhupāda introduced another topic of scientific speculation. “I was telling my colleague that stratum, the layers [of the earth] so perfect that everywhere, say five inches, just like it appears somebody has laid down. Is it not? Yes, one after another, the same height, same color, the same ingredient. How it comes to happen? And they give history of millions of years? And these people say five thousand.” 

Sadāpūta had already looked into that very subject and he had some questions. “We were wondering about those strata. We were wondering if maybe those could be masses of sediment deposited . . . ” 

“Whatever it may be,” Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “the side height of the strata is the same for miles together. As if somebody very intelligently laid down.” 

“So how do we explain that?” Svarūpa Dāmodara asked. 

Prabhupāda laughed.“That I want! How they can say five thousand years? Things are going on for millions and millions of years.” 

Sadāpūta informed him that the scientists say it happened over a period of six hundred million years. 

“That is also imperfect. If we study Brahmā’s day, one day equal to forty-three hundred thousands of years multiplied by thousand, that is Brahmā’s one day. So thirty days, one month; and twelve months equal to year; such hundred years. Your mathematics will fail to figure out. Is it not?” Prabhupāda laughed. 

They showed Śrīla Prabhupāda a chart comparing the life spans of various Manus with the geological ages given by the scientists. Again he posed the question that whatever we say, they will also have something to say, so how will anyone decide who is correct? 

 Svarūpa Dāmodara was positive. “We will say that they are wrong, and we want to find out the reason for that.” 

“Then it is all right,” Śrīla Prabhupāda said, satisfied. He told them not to imagine anything or speculate but to simply rely on the Vedic axioms. 

It was an enlivening session, and Śrīla Prabhupāda was clearly pleased with their efforts to present the truths of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam through the medium of modern science. 

* * * 

Yadubara brought a young couple, Kim and Christopher Murray, to meet with Śrīla Prabhupāda after his afternoon rest. Young and fresh-faced, they are life members who have been visiting our Washington temple since it first opened in the late sixties.  

They are working on a highly colorful and decorative presentation of selected verses from the Bhagavad-gītā. In previous centuries it was popular among wealthy, aristocratic Westerners to have both the text and pages of their prayer books elaborately decorated as “illuminated manuscripts.” Kim and Chris were inspired by Śrīla Prabhupāda’s translation of the Gītā and decided to give it a similar treatment.  

They saw Śrīla Prabhupāda in New Vrindaban several years ago and showed him some initial samples of their work. At that time he approved their efforts and told them positively, “You are introducing a new art form to this country. You will get great rewards for this. Do it.” So they have been working steadily on the project and have titled it Illuminations From The Bhagavad-Gītā. They hope to persuade one of the big publishing houses to take it. Random House is already showing some interest. 

This afternoon they showed Prabhupāda their portfolio of about twenty pieces of art work. They sat before him and held the two by three boards up between them for his inspection. Some had illustrated text and some depicted Lord Kṛṣṇa, Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva and other personalities. Done in pen and ink they were beautifully colored with pastels, water paints and a little acrylic.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda was grave; he passed no comments, giving only his silent consent. After carefully looking over all the pieces, he tipped his head. “All right.” And the darśana came to a close. 

* * * 

This evening Śrīla Prabhupāda’s sitting room was filled to capacity with a mixture of visitors and devotees. Dr. Shaligram Shukla was present with his family. He is a professor of linguistics teaching Sanskrit at Georgetown University, and has given an extremely favorable review to Prabhupāda’s Bhagavad-gītā, in which he wrote: “It is a deeply felt, powerfully conceived and beautifully explained work. I don’t know whether to praise more this translation of the Bhagavad-gītā, its daring method of explanation, or the endless fertility of its ideas. I have never seen any other work on the Gītā with such an important voice and style. . . . It will occupy a significant place in the intellectual and ethical life of modern man for a long time to come.” Dr. Shukla has decided to use Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Bhagavad-gītā As It Is as one of his standard classroom texts. 

He likes Prabhupāda and was friendly and respectful. A Vaiṣṇava himself, he was sympathetic to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s personalist exegesis and the genuine devotion he conveys. He spoke of his disgust with other so-called religious swamis, especially Vivekananda, who he said simply confused, rather than educated, people. He said Vivekananda had asked who Lord Kṛṣṇa is. “He does not know. He said that Gītā is karma-yoga, and writes volumes and volumes of books.” 

Prabhupāda was happy to find at least one learned man who had seen through the fraudulent, impersonal presentation of the Māyāvādis. He joined the doctor’s condemnation. “That is his foolishness. Bhagavad-gītā is completely bhakti-yoga. Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ  vraja. Everything is finished. And what is karma-yoga?”  

Dr. Shukla began to reply, “According to these Māyāvādīs . . . ” Śrīla Prabhupāda however, asked him not for their version, but that of the Gītā itself. Dr. Shukla obliged. “According to Bhagavad-gītā all the karma should be done for Kṛṣṇa consciousness.” 

“For Kṛṣṇa, yes,” Prabhupāda agreed. “That is bhakti. Karma-yoga means bhakti. That is the difficulty, that these Māyāvādīs, they have killed India’s Vedic civilization. Now India is atheist. Very tragic position.” 

Dr. Shukla asked about Prabhupāda’s plans for India.  

“We are pushing this Kṛṣṇa consciousness,” Prabhupāda told him. “That is being appreciated. It will take some time. Because so much mischievous activities have been done by the Māyāvādīs, to counteract, it will take some time. They are simply mischievous. Caitanya Mahāprabhu has rejected them. Māyāvādi-bhāṣya śunile haya sarva-nāśa. If one takes the Māyāvādī version of the śāstras, then his spiritual life is finished. He becomes atheist. Now you talked about Vivekananda, what is his contribution?” 

“Nothing,” Dr. Shukla asserted. 

“Nothing,” Śrīla Prabhupāda echoed with conviction. “Simply he has taught the sannyāsīs to eat meat. That is his contribution. He says there is no harm eating meat. This is going on. Nārāyaṇa has become daridrā [poor]. These are Vivekananda’s contribution. And spoiled India’s spiritual tradition. He has created one illiterate priest as God. That is his contribution, if we become honest to understand. So it will take some time to counteract all these mischievous activity. Simply mischievous.”  

Dr. Shukla told an amusing story of how, as a young man at his home in Benares, his father had purchased some of Vivekananda’s books. “He is emotionally against Vivekananda, so he brought those books so that I can read them. I was curious. And he said, ‘When you are through, give it to your cook.’ That’s the only functional use of those books.” 

“For burning it in the fire?” Prabhupāda smiled.  

“Yes,” the doctor laughed. “He said so that we can make our capātīs, to have some use of those things. And Kṛṣṇa, of course, there’s hardly a village in India where, whether knowingly or unknowingly, people are not aware what is Kṛṣṇa.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda gave his sideways nod and reiterated just what he had told a challenger in his Madras lectures at the beginning of the year. “In India they know, everyone. They observe Janmāṣṭamī.” 

An Indian guest then revealed having been inspired to seek out a guru by reading a book about Ramakrishna, Vivekananda’s guru. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda dealt with her respectfully. While not immediately condemning her source of inspiration and thus disturbing her sentiments, he drew her into a position where he could expose the faults of her idol with an unsentimental analysis of his activity. “Which portion appealed to you in Ramakrishna’s life? Which portion?” 

“When he used to be married he wrote some songs, he used to practice to sing, he used to chant and he used to cry,” she replied. “I thought Ramakrishna . . . Many times I get devotees who say to me, ‘Oh, he’s a rascal.’ I say, ‘I don’t know, I can’t say rascal.’ I don’t read him, but he inspired me so much. And I don’t know that’s wrong. Am I wrong or . . . ?” 

Without directly answering her Prabhupāda continued, “Now what is the philosophy of Ramakrishna?” 

“He does not say that Kṛṣṇa is God. I was very young at that time.” 

Treading a little delicately, Prabhupāda said with a gentle laugh, “If you want to discuss, there are points of discussion.” And then without waiting for her, he went right on. “Yes. He worshiped Kālī, is it not? Everyone knows it. Do you know that? And by worshiping he became God. Do you agree to that?” 

Dr. Shukla replied. “He said, ‘I’m Rāma and Kṛṣṇa both.’”  

“But he realized by worshiping Kālī,” Prabhupāda quipped. 

A devotee added that he also dressed up as Rādhārāṇī. 

“So do you agree to that?” Śrīla Prabhupāda asked the woman. “Then how you appreciate it?” 

She acquiesced. “No, I don’t appreciate it.” 

“It is a common sense. He, later on, he became God, by worshiping Kālī, is it not? And he was meat-eater also, Mā Kālī’s prasādam, that unless one eats that prasādam he cannot become a devotee. So this was his position. His picture is there, Mother Kālī’s embracing. And he also preached yato mat tato path: ‘Whatever path you take, accept, that is all right.’ Is it not? So do you think it is all right? You agree to this? He became Rāma-Kṛṣṇa, identifying himself with Kṛṣṇa. Just see. When he’s actual Kṛṣṇa, he says mām ekam, and when he became imitation Kṛṣṇa, he says yato mat tato path. Kṛṣṇa has changed his views.” Amidst everyone’s laughter he continued. “Just see, this foolishness is going on.” 

Dr. Shukla said it was documented that Ramakrishna had a deranged mind, and Prabhupāda agreed with that. As evidence Dr. Shukla started to narrate an incident in which Ramakrishna claimed having had a vision of goddess Kālī in his youth.  

Dr. Shukla began to give the opinion of an English scholar about the incident but Śrīla Prabhupāda interrupted him, wanting only evidence firmly based on scripture, and not speculation. “These are miracles, that’s all. lt has no value. People are after miracles. So in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said kāmais tais tair hṛta-jñānāḥ prapadyante ’nya-devatāḥ. Those who are worshipers of other demigods, they are hṛta-jñānāḥ. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura gives his comment, hṛta-jñānā naṣṭa-buddhayaḥ, one who has lost his intelligence. So by worshiping the demigod Kālī he is to be considered as one who has lost his intelligence—and he becomes God. Is it possible? One with lost intelligence.” 

Quoting Bhagavad-gītā,[16.23] he concluded, “If you have no knowledge of the śāstra, then you’ll never be successful in your spiritual life, what to speak of happiness and liberation. It is not possible. I’m talking of this Ramakrishna particularly. There is no śāstra-siddha. Whimsical, sentiment, that’s all. So far his yato mat tato path is concerned, at last he proposed, ‘Now I shall worship according to the Muhammadan process, so I have to eat cow’s flesh.’ So he was living in that temple in Calcutta, Dakṣiṇeśvarī. So the temple was owned by one big zamindar. Of course, in that temple Kālī was there. So they are taking fish and flesh. That was not objectionable. But he, when he wanted to take cow’s flesh, so he wanted permission from proprietor, ‘Sir, I shall now practice according to Muhammadan system. So I take cow’s flesh. So I want your permission.’ So he said, ‘Sir, I’ve given you so much licenses, but if you ask this, then I’ll ask you to go out. I cannot give you this permission.’ Then he stopped Muhammadan way of worship. This is whimsical.” 

Dr. Shukla was strong in describing those who he considers cheats. “We have another mentally retarded person in India, Sai Baba.” 

“Yes, magic,” Śrīla Prabhupāda responded, swinging the conversation back to a positive note. “We are not after all this magic. We are laymen. We do not want this magic, neither we want to show magic. We simply, as canvasser of Kṛṣṇa, we are preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness, ‘Sir, Kṛṣṇa says like this, you do like that,’ that’s all. If you like, you can do; otherwise, let us do our own business. We don’t show any magic, neither we speak anything which is not in the Bhagavad-gītā. If there is little success, it is due to this secret, that’s all. Kṛṣṇa says that He is Supreme, so we are preaching, ‘Yes, Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme,’ that’s all.” 

Dr. Shukla was very appreciative of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s devotional mood. “Therefore you are doing so with tremendous success.” 

“Yes,” Prabhupāda humbly acknowledged. “People say that ‘Swamijī, you have done wonder, you have . . . ’ so on, so on, so on. But I do not know how to play wonders; that I do not know. But I am certain that I have not adulterated what Kṛṣṇa has said, that much I know. And I study everything by the crucial test of Kṛṣṇa’s teaching. That’s all.”  

Quoting Lord Kṛṣṇa’s own words from Bhagavad-gītā [7.15] he delivered his verdict on all the Māyāvādīs. “As soon as we see that somebody is not Kṛṣṇa conscious or Kṛṣṇa’s devotee, I take immediately he’s a duṣkṛtī, he’s a mūḍha, he’s a narādhama. ‘Oh, he’s educated!’—māyayāpahṛta-jñānāḥ. Finish, our study finish. Āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ. Because he denies to accept Kṛṣṇa he must be within this group. So people will be sorry or happy; we take them like that, that ‘Here is a duṣkṛtī,’ that’s all.” 

One of the devotees praised Śrīla Prabhupāda, comparing him to an alchemist for turning leaden souls into golden Vaiṣṇavas. 

Prabhupāda however, gave the credit, as he always does, to his transcendental Lord. “So Kṛṣṇa is giving us facilities to preach this cult. Everywhere we have got very, very palatial buildings to accommodate devotees. Now we have got here a very nice place. In Bombay we are getting the best temple in India. We are spending crores of rupees, Kṛṣṇa is giving us money. So I started the business with forty rupees, that was also not American currency. They allowed me to bring forty rupees. So when I was getting off the ship I asked the captain, ‘I have brought these forty rupees, which will not be accepted here, so you take.’ At that time three books I had, the first, second and third volume. So I asked him that, ‘You purchase. Give me some dollars.’  

“So he asked, ‘What is the price?’  

“ ‘Sixteen dollars.’ So he gave me twenty dollars, and I delivered them. With that twenty dollars I got out down on the land of America, and that forty rupees. So I did not know where to go, where to stay.  

“So Kṛṣṇa is giving us all facilities, and these American boys are helping. I think those who are Indians, they should join this Movement sincerely and preach more vigorously. People will be benefited—this is real substance. Otherwise people are being misguided, so many things going on. Actually, speaking for the last at least two hundred years, many swamis, people came here, but not a single person was converted to become a devotee of Kṛṣṇa. That is history. What do you think, Shukla? You have studied. So many swamis, yogis, scholars came, and they spoke on Bhagavad-gītā and other, but not a single person became a devotee of Kṛṣṇa.” 

Dr. Shukla said he thought it was because they were all trying to be impersonal. 

“Whatever it may be,” Prabhupāda said. “They are supposed to be great personalities, but not a single person was converted. So here is an opportunity to preach real India’s traditional culture. So those who are Indians present here, they should cooperate. They should not mislead further.” 

Dr. Shukla was happy to speak up as an Indian involved with educating others. “We have started teaching your Gītā at Georgetown University, where I teach. Before we had, we have two years course of Sanskrit, and we had some excerpts from Mahābhārata and some Pañca-tantra and so on, but there was no Gītā. So I decided and we were using the entire Gītā for the second year. Your contributions can’t be duplicated.” 

He had as deep an admiration for Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also. “We all know what a great book that is. And what I really appreciate about the whole thing is, number one, that there are no misprints in the book. So that’s a great delight. Especially, for people who do not know Sanskrit, for them, there’s no difference between the wheat and the germ that comes with it. The translations are very accurate. So it’s real scholarship there. And people who were not aware of this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they know that if the intellect is so powerful, the spirit must be powerful too.” He added that their library and bookstore had all of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda had Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja bring out the lists of standing orders so that Dr. Shukla could see how well the books are being accepted in other universities and libraries around the world. The doctor’s statements and his adoption of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books in his courses were a firsthand affirmation of the wisdom of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s style of presentation of the śāstra, as well as his constant pushing to have them placed where learned people in the world can take advantage of them. One convinced scholar like Dr. Shukla can influence thousands of students in the correct understanding of Lord Caitanya’s message. 

Finally the long darśana came to an end and Śrīla Prabhupāda ensured that everyone received prasādam before they left. The discussion provided a stimulus to the devotees in their preaching work and Śrīla Prabhupāda was invigorated by the opportunity to preach to his learned and receptive audience. 

July 6th, 1976

Today is the tenth anniversary of the founding of ISKCON. Śrīla Prabhupāda took his walk as usual and continued with his regular daily program. 

In class he discussed love. Love, he said, is the basis for activity; if we love someone then naturally we want to do something for them.  He said that in material life, we also perform all our work on the basis of love of family, friends and others, but we are always disappointed in that love. In love for Kṛṣṇa though, we are never let down. Either way, the symptom of love is activity. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda offered two examples to illustrate this principle. The first was that of Sanātana Gosvāmī. “He said kṛpā kari’ yadi more kariyācha uddhāra. ‘I know that it is due to Your mercy that I have been able to give up such position, māyā’s position, as Your man. So now order me what is my duty.’ This is devotee. Not that ‘Now I am free from family life, I have no responsibility, now I shall take prasādam and sleep.’ No. That is not. You must be hundred times more active than in your family life. That is devotional.” 

The second was his own. “Of course it is not pride, but take from example of my life. I was retired in Vṛndāvana and at seventy years old I thought that it was to be done, nobody did it, let me try. So I came to America. Today is the tenth anniversary.” All the devotees cheered at this. “So at least from material calculation, if I had not taken that risk . . . When I was coming, my friends and others said, ‘This man is going to die.’  

“ ‘Never mind,’ I thought, ‘death will come, let me try.’ So this activity must be there. That is the begging of Sanātana Gosvāmī, that he said, āpana kṛpāte kaha ’kartavya’ āmāra. ‘What shall I do?’ Doesn’t matter what is your age, young man or old man. You must execute the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Caitanya Mahāprabhu and your guru. That is real life of devotional service, to take some responsibility for working and execute it to your best capacity. In this connection, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura has explained in connection with the verse, vyavasāyātmikā buddhir ekeha kuru-nandana/ bahu-śākhā hy anantāś ca buddhayo ’vyavasāyinām, that ‘my only duty is to execute the order of my spiritual master. I do not mind whether I am going to hell or going back to Godhead, no. My only life and soul is to execute the order of my spiritual master.’ So devotional service is great responsibility, to execute the order of the superior. Then our life is successful. Thank you very much.” 

* * * 

The members of the Bhaktivedanta Institute once again met with Śrīla Prabhupāda during his massage. As he sat on a thin mat dressed in his gamchā, I gave him a brisk and thorough rubdown with sandalwood and mustard oil, while he discussed the origins of life and the development of matter by the influence of the soul. 

Svarūpa Dāmodara prabhu began by asking about the beginning state of matter called pradhāna. One chapter of their book will deal with the creation of the material manifestation, so they wanted to get a clear understanding of the different stages of development and the force behind it. He said that from the descriptions in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam they had understood that pradhāna is the sum total of the unmanifested material elements, and that from pradhāna the mahat-tattva is manifested. The two states are different in that the twenty-five ingredients, including time, are manifested in the mahat-tattva. It is at this stage also that the living beings are impregnated into matter by the glance of Lord Viṣṇu. But some details of the relationship between these different states and the action of Lord Viṣṇu were not clear to them. 

 Prabhupāda gave a clear comparison. “We can prove it that, how by the sunshine everything is growing. How it is? Actually, from the sunshine the trees are growing, leaves are coming. As soon as there is no sunshine, immediately they fall down, the leaves, and the tree becomes without any leaves. How this happens? Similarly, by the glance of the Supreme, the material nature becomes agitated and the three guṇas become manifest. In this way these are described there. The same process. How from the sunshine the leaves are coming out, what are the molecular changes, if you can study the same process. . . . ” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara raised the point that when the living entities are impregnated into the mahat-tattva they are in pure goodness.  

So Śrīla Prabhupāda explained how the soul can be in touch with matter but still be uncontaminated. “The living entities are always in pure goodness. This material covering is separated. The living entities can be freed from material covering at any moment. Just like water and oil, it is always separated, it does not mix. The Vedic mantra also says asaṅgo hy ayaṁ puruṣaḥ. Actually, it is not mixed, but it is covered. That covering can be taken away at any moment simply by Kṛṣṇa consciousness.” 

He said that because this subject matter was complicated they should very carefully study the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Caitanya-caritāmṛta to get a detailed understanding. Then he had Svarūpa Dāmodara read out a passage from the summary description of nityānanda-tattva in the Ādi-līlā Chapter Five. 

“So you try to understand this,” Prabhupāda told him. “Everything will be clear. Material energy has no power to create. It is this glance that makes material energy energetic. Chemical combination, that alkaline and acid, they create some agitation, effervescence, but it is done by the chemist. He mixes the two liquids and there is effervescence. It is like that. So you read that chapter carefully. You’ll solve your problem.” 

He gave another analogy to describe the subordinate nature of matter. “Matter itself cannot do anything. Aja-ala-stana, the nipples on the goat’s neck. There are some nipples, useless, that is not milk-giving nipples. So nature is creating. Generally, they say ‘by nature,’ but nature has no power, it is matter. When there is glance of Saṅkarṣaṇa or Viṣṇu, that will do.” 

Another point Sadāpūta prabhu wanted to clarify was how the bodies of living beings actually grow. According to  the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam each denser element is manifest from a more subtle one, beginning with sound. So he asked if that process was still going on now, i.e., is the earth element in living bodies still being manifested from sound. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda said that it wasn’t. The chemicals that are used to make the body grow are already manifest externally. “The chemical is there in the earth. According to the seed it is extracted. Just like a chemist will analyze or they separate the ingredient, so much this percentage, so much that percentage, so much that. Everything is there. Similarly within the earth, everything is there. The seed is the instrument and the living entity is the extractor.”  

He went on to say that all the living conditions are there in matter, and when the soul is present they become active. “Just like a dead body, it is not that the living condition is finished, no. That particular soul has left that body. But the dead body is also full of ingredients of living condition. So many germs are coming out when the body is decomposed. You say decomposition, but even in that decomposed condition there is living condition.”  

Matter in any form, he said, has all the necessary conditions for supporting life. “So how these rascals say there is no life in the moon planet? That is not possible. This is the example: a decomposed body, the living being has left, now it is dead matter, but still, the living beings are coming out. How it is? That means matter has always the potency to give shelter to the living entity. So it is impossible that there is no living being in the moon planet. It is bogus. We cannot accept it. Any condition there is provision for the living beings. We see actually, in the earth, in the air, in the water, in the fire, these five elements. Whatever you take, these five elements in different proportions. Just like from perspiration living entities come out. It is impossible there is no living entities. That is bogus complete. You can challenge like that.” 

The massage came to an end and our scientists left, once more edified and educated by His Divine Grace. 

Although Prabhupāda readily admits that he does not have any technical scientific training nor the use of the terminology, still, by dint of his expert knowledge of śāstra and his own deep realizations, he is able to aptly deal with any technical question, penetrate its essence and offer illuminating examples by which it can be understood. There may be millions of doctorates in the world, but not one has the cogent, comprehensive grasp of life and matter that Śrīla Prabhupāda has.   

* * * 

Śrīla Prabhupāda met with Yadubara dāsa and his wife, Viśākhā dāsī, along with Svarūpa Dāmodara, Rūpānuga and Bṛṣākapi prabhus at about four thirty. Yadubara and Viśākhā are expert photographers and Prabhupāda gave them a special assignment. “I wanted both of you to take various detailed photographs of that Capitol.” 

“The Capitol Building.” Yadubara nodded. “For what purpose, Śrīla Prabhupāda?” 

“We shall have a planetarium in Māyāpur,” Prabhupāda told him. “To show spiritual world, material world, and so on succession of the planetary systems, everything. A building like that. We are acquiring three hundred and fifty acres of land for constructing a small township to attract people from all the world to see the planetarium. . . . You take all details, inside, outside. That will be nice.” 

He relaxed back in his āsana for a moment, beads clicking invisibly between the fingers of his cloth-covered hand, the mahā-mantra on his lips, “Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa . . . ”  

He turned to Svarūpa Dāmodara. “And you prove that sun planet is first. It is stated in the Bhāgavatam.” He has repeatedly brought this subject up for discussion during his travels. And whenever he does so, he invariably says that Svarūpa Dāmodara prabhu has not answered him on it. Now he was able to address to him personally on the issue.  

Svarūpa Dāmodara gave a little laugh. “I was going to inquire about that. The order, Sunday, Monday, whether it has to do anything with the distance.” 

“Distance, whatever it may be. But the sun is first, then moon, then Mars, then Jupiter, like that. One after another. Otherwise, why Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, like that?” 

Yadubara asked if the planets were ordered according to their distance from the earth.  

“Yes,” Prabhupāda said, and he gave his calculations. “According to Bhāgavatam the moon is situated 1,600,000 miles away, up, to the sun, upper. According to their calculation, 93,000,000 miles, sun is situated from the earth. And if the moon is plus 1,600,000 then it becomes 95,000,000. It takes at least seven months at the speed they are going, 18,000 miles per hour. So how they have gone in four days?” 

He put forth another of his arguments. “They have brought some sand. Such a brilliant planet which is illuminating the whole universe, and they brought sand. All bluff.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara said he and the other members of the Institute would have to study it very carefully.  

“All bluff,” Śrīla Prabhupāda repeated. 

Slightly puzzled, Yadubara wondered whether the earth-to-the-sun distance Śrīla Prabhupāda was using, 93,000,000 miles, was from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, since it is the distance given by modern astronomers. 

“It is about,” Śrīla Prabhupāda told him. “The whole diameter [of the universe] is four billions. And sun is situated almost in the middle.” 

He paused for a few seconds and then stated deliberately, “It is my firm conviction that they did not go to the moon. Neither they’ll be able to go to the Mars as they have planned it.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara began, “But their scientists would be mad . . . ” 

“They are mad already,” Śrīla Prabhupāda declared easily. “They’re talking all nonsense. Already they’re mad.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara mentioned that the scientists were studying the rocks from the moon.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda reminded us that they are admitted to be exactly the same as those found on earth. He pointed out that the moon illuminates the universe with its brilliant shine, so if the rocks and sand are the same as on earth, why doesn’t the Sahara desert illumine just as brightly? 

Svarūpa Dāmodara told him that the subject had already become a controversial matter in their college preaching. Some people had read about it in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and our devotees also were telling college students. Thus, they had already been challenged whether they believed that the moon was further away from earth than the sun. 

“So what did you answer?” Prabhupāda asked him. 

“We said yes, but our explanation was not solid in the sense that we said you have to study this more carefully. We had one explanation saying that now, the way we perceive knowledge, though we understand things, there is also a conditioning behind it. Actually this is a fact, but in mathematics, if we change the axiom, then we have a whole new understanding, it’s almost completely upside down, but still we can interpret the result. Niels Bohr studied the structure of the atom. He had a mathematical equation to fit the phenomena of this atom, and actually you can perfectly describe this phenomena by this equation, but, now, at modern times, this quantum mechanics, it turns out whatever he did was completely wrong, but it can be described completely, perfectly well as his model, as is our present understanding. His theories, he could explain things on his own, but still it’s completely wrong. So we are discussing about our limitations of our so-called knowledge-finding technique. So we said, ‘One has to be a little open-minded and discuss these things.’” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara pointed out, “Actually especially astronomy is one of the most unscientific branches of study, knowledge. It’s very, very little known. The techniques that they use, are very difficult to rely on.” 

We talked a little about how the sun orbits the universe and is not fixed in one position, with Prabhupāda quoting the Brahma-saṁhitā. 

Yadubara wondered if the scientists would dismiss our claims as simply myth. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda was dismissive of them. “Your claim also is myth. Who believes you? If you don’t believe me, I don’t believe you. Finished.” 

“So we should present our side,” Yadubara said. 

“Yes. That is our business,” Prabhupāda said. “If you don’t believe me I don’t believe you. Finished business. You have got your authority, I’ve got my authority. What is your age? You are all scientists within two hundred years. And our Bhāgavata is written five thousand years ago. Why shall I accept yours? You have become all scientists, and everything within two hundred years. What is the age of your European, Western civilization? It cannot go more than three thousand years? Our Bhāgavata is written five thousand years ago. And before that, Śukadeva Gosvāmī says, ‘I have heard like this.’ That’s all. Millions and millions of years ago.” 

Bṛṣākapi reiterated Prabhupāda’s statement that whatever they say we take it as wrong, and Śrīla Prabhupāda agreed. He said the conditioned souls are all imperfect and everything they present is simply speculation; therefore whatever they observe with their imperfect senses is also imperfect. Thus one person puts forward a theory, and even though it is known that his knowledge is imperfect, still he wants to speak on it. Therefore, Prabhupāda said it means he simply wants to cheat. Then a few years later someone else will give another explanation showing the first one to be wrong; then his idea in turn is replaced by another. Since all of them are wrong, he said they all belong to a “paramparā of cheaters.” 

Bṛṣākapi tried to grasp the implications of this statement. “But they cheated when they said they went to the moon.” 

“Yes,” Prabhupāda continued. “They’re cheaters, those who have got imperfect senses, they’re all cheaters. If they say something, ‘Definitely this is like this,’ that is cheating.” 

“But how can so many cheat?” Bṛṣākapi wasn’t disagreeing with Śrīla Prabhupāda, but was simply trying to understand it. “Together they all cheat, they all say they went to the moon. One thousand scientists, all together in one room? They all say, ‘We agree, this, they went to the moon, here’s the . . . ” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda wasn’t put off by the enormous implications of his statement. Rather he was very positive about it. “Therefore I say that if we can prove that the moon is beyond sun, then all these cheaters will be finished, by one stroke.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara said that all the speculation goes on in the name of intellectual exercise.  

Prabhupāda told a little tale to demonstrate how they take shelter in each other’s folly. “A fool is accepted by another fool. They’re getting Nobel Prize and so on, fool’s paradise. All of them are fools and they have created their own paradise. Do you know that story? One was drinking, so his friend said, ‘Oh, you are drinking, you’ll go to hell.’  

“ ‘No, why? My father drinks.’  

“ ‘Well, he’ll also go to hell.’  

“ ‘Oh, my brother drinks.’  

“ ‘So he’ll also go to hell.’  

“ ‘My mother . . . ’ In this way, the whole list was passed. Then he said, ‘Everyone will go to hell then where is hell? It is paradise! If father is going, then mother is going, then I am going, then brother is going, then where is hell?’  

“It is like that. There’s no question of fool. If everyone, all of us are fool, then where is the question of intelligent? ‘Hey, we are intelligent.’ This is their conclusion. We can give credit to something, just like I can see up to this wall. But if I say, ‘Now I am seeing beyond this wall everything, the forest and everything, I know everything.’ That is going on. Cheating.”  

Svarūpa Dāmodara informed Śrīla Prabhupāda of two main problems for the scientists. “One is this astronomical problem and the second is the origin of life. So my feeling is that in about fifty years something is going to be settled.” 

Prabhupāda laughed. “It’s already settled. They should accept that they are defeated. It’s already settled. But these rascals must admit. That’s all.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara said, “It’s settled in the sense that even the scientist will come around that, ‘Oh, yes, what we taught was wrong.’” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda liked his optimism. “Yes. That we want. They have become unnecessary authorities and misleading people. That we want to expose.” 

Prabhupāda chatted for a while, especially about the need for devotees to take charge and manage the affairs of the world. He said this was Kṛṣṇa’s desire, just as when He had personally arranged to have the Pāṇḍavas take charge.  

Bṛṣākapi prabhu, not a man for subtleties, asked, “Will this Movement take over the world, Prabhupāda?” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda was measured in his response. “At least you keep one idea; there is possibility.” 

“I think it will be very big,” Bṛṣākapi said very positively. 

“That is possible,” Prabhupāda agreed. “If we become serious and sincere, then it will go on, undoubtedly.” 

Bṛṣākapi had visions of an expansive future. “See how big it grew just in ten years. Today is our ten-year anniversary. So in ten years we have gotten so big, by geometric progression in twenty years how big will we be? Thousands and thousands of people, chanting and dancing.” 

“And there is chance,” Prabhupāda assured us. “Simply by chanting you can attract so many people.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara informed Prabhupāda that the chairman of religion at Emery University had told him that in about thirty or forty years ISKCON will have a great impact on the world’s social life. 

In his usual modest way Śrīla Prabhupāda did not attribute his success to his own genius and brilliance. “We are giving all round enlightenment. Bhagavad-gītā is full of information from all standpoint. Yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati. We are now in such a downtrodden position, the whole human society. He must accept. There is [need]. The civilization is doomed.” 

There was more talk about the origin of species, and Svarūpa Dāmodara prabhu told Śrīla Prabhupāda that in his own preaching he intended to use Prabhupāda’s example of how the chicken can produce life in a few days, but the scientists tell us to wait for millions of years, so therefore the chicken is better than the scientist. 

Yadubara said that the scientist will object that he can also produce life within a short period by having sex.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda had the answer. “But that is not your laboratory children. That is God’s children. That is another thing. You want to produce children in laboratory? Then do that. That is our challenge.” 

Yadubara asked permission to collaborate with Svarūpa Dāmodara to make a movie showing that life comes from life. This could be shown in universities and colleges. Śrīla Prabhupāda liked the idea and encouraged him to do it. 

Although Svarūpa Dāmodara fully accepts whatever Śrīla Prabhupāda says, he was still a bit reserved about all the criticism Śrīla Prabhupāda was heaping on the heads of his fellow scientists. When another negative comparison was made he politely asked if things weren’t being over done. “Aren’t we going a little too far? The scientist says, personally I also feel that they are not all that bad . . . ” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda of course, was not attacking them per se nor did he want the sensibilities of his disciple to be offended. He immediately gave his reassurance. “No, no. They’re badly trained up. Not all [bad].” 

“There are many good things that they have done,” Svarūpa Dāmodara vouched for the scientists. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda still stuck nicely to his point. “That we already admitted. That I can see ten feet, let me credit for that. But why shall I say, ‘I can see the whole universe.’ What is this nonsense? Speak the truth. ‘Now we have manufactured machine, and this, I have calculation that . . . ’ All talking nonsense. I say it is not possible for you to see beyond ten feet. Why you are claiming that you can see the whole sky? That is our protest. You can see ten feet, take that credit, that much. If somebody manufactures the electric lamp, all right. But if he says, ‘I can manufacture the sun.’ Then he is to be beaten with shoes. Talking nonsense. That is their claim, defying God. Because we are explaining God consciousness, therefore we have protest. Otherwise let them. But we cannot tolerate when they challenge God. We must act on it.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara seemed satisfied, but he could not resist the temptation to comment when Śrīla Prabhupāda inquired from me what time it was. “That is made by science, Prabhupāda. This watch is a product of science.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda smiled. He wasn’t going to give them credit beyond their due. “Science means craftsman, that’s all.” Everyone laughed. “We say mistrī. You know, in our Indian language? Any craftsman, we say mistrī. So mistrī has no position. In our Vedic civilization a learned brāhmaṇa is honored, not a mistrī. Is it not?” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara conceded it was so, and Śrīla Prabhupāda went on. “A learned brāhmaṇa is not expected to manufacture a watch, but he’s more honored than one who is. This modern age is: if he manufactures watch he is honored. Not the learned brāhmaṇa. That is Kali-yuga. They do not know whom to honor. You kill so many souls, and if you have a great big skyscraper building, then you are successful. And those who constructed the skyscraper, they are going to become dog; never mind, the skyscraper building is there. That’s all, that is success. This is modern civilization. After they constructed the skyscraper building all the mistrīs are going to hell. That doesn’t matter, the building is there. Is it not? This is civilization. 

“Long ago, in 1917 perhaps, in our college, Scottish Churches College, we saw one magazine, Scientific American. So there the picture was that one skyscraper building is constructed and so many men are working, carrying the beams and so on. So there was, I remember still, that all for some material construction, so many living entities they are being sacrificed.  

“Actually that is a fact. This human being would have been released from this materialistic way of life, back to home, back to Godhead. No, instead of giving them the chance, they are engaged in constructing huge skyscraper building. They’re spoiled. So it is little difficult to understand our philosophy. And Prahlāda Mahārāja said, this kind of activity should stop; it is simply wasting valuable life. But they do not know how they’re wasting. They’re in such an ignorance. They are thinking that these people, crazy people, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, are wasting time, they’re thinking like that. They do not know what is the value of life.” 

* * * 

 At seven o’clock it was time for a special anniversary celebration of our own. It is ten years to the day since His Divine Grace drew up the aims of the Society and registered the name, International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Then on July 13th, 1966 everything was officially signed.  

Devotees and guests crowded the temple room, filling the night air with ecstatic vibrations of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. Śrīla Prabhupāda mounted his vyāsāsana and led a short kīrtana. Then he sat back to listen as Rūpānuga prabhu gave an introductory speech in which he read out the seven original aims of the Society one by one and explained how Prabhupāda has fulfilled each one. Then Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja gave a short talk, glorifying the efforts of Śrīla Prabhupāda to save us fallen conditioned souls.  

When they finished, Bṛṣākapi, with several others, walked in carrying a huge circular cake, about three feet in diameter and eight inches thick. Several devotees had stayed up all night to make it after reading about the cake made for the bicentennial. To the cheers and chanting of the assembly, they set it before Śrīla Prabhupāda and presented him with a large silver knife with which to make the first cut. It was a beautiful product of devotion, colorfully decorated with icing to look like the face of a coin. In the center the design resembled a lotus flower, and around the outer edge it read “1966 ISKCON 1976.”  

Śrīla Prabhupāda smiled and looked it over. He took the knife in his hand and hesitated a moment, apparently not quite sure what he was expected to do. He glanced at Rūpānuga who indicated that he should cut the cake. With that, he deftly sliced into the mango and fruit-filled transcendental gateaux, carving out a square from the outer edge. He placed it on his silver thālī and let it sit, untasted, by his side. 

Ceremony completed, Prabhupāda himself then spoke, first reminding us that the Movement is much older than ten years, for it was Kṛṣṇa Himself Who started the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement by speaking the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna five thousand years ago. He explained that Kṛṣṇa had spoken about this bhakti-yoga movement millions of years ago to the sun-god.  

He said that yoga means to connect and now we are almost disconnected from the Supreme. “It is very difficult to execute yoga system or yajña system, sacrifice, it is very costly affair. Or even arcanā, temple worship, it is also very difficult because people are not very much interested even, worshiping the Deity in the temple. In India there are thousands and thousands of temples. Temple or mosque or church, at the same time, for offering prayers, obeisances to the Lord. People are losing interest in that, arcanā-mārga. There are many temples I have seen, there is no caretaker. They are open, a dog is living within the temple and passing stool. I have seen it. So people are gradually losing interest in temple worship even, what to speak of yoga or offering sacrifices. Everything is now finished. Therefore kalau tad dhari-kīrtanāt. This is prescribed in the śāstra. That system was introduced by Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Because other system will not be successful in this age. May be successful in one or two cases, but not for the general mass of people.” 

He declared the universality of the Movement through the understanding that Kṛṣṇa is the supreme father. And that by accepting Kṛṣṇa as the father of all living beings, all problems of divisiveness would be solved. “You have to see through the śāstra, and if you learn śāstra, then you’ll find kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means to present to the human society the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We started this Movement in 1966, registering it. Our Rūpānuga prabhu has already explained. So take this Movement very seriously. The same, Kṛṣṇa started within the historical, five thousand years ago. And He started this movement with Arjuna as His disciple. Then Caitanya Mahāprabhu, five hundred years ago, He revived again the same movement. He is Kṛṣṇa Himself. And that is going on. Don’t think that this is a manufactured movement, no. It is the authorized movement and confirmed by the authorities. So be fixed up in the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement and try to understand Kṛṣṇa. We have got so many authorized literatures. And make your life success. Thank you very much.”  

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja led the devotees in an especially buoyant kīrtana and Śrīla Prabhupāda returned back to his rooms. He invited many of the senior men to join him, and as they sat eager and respectful around his low marble desk, Pālikā brought in some large pieces of the cake. Making sure that everyone had some, Śrīla Prabhupāda happily consumed a good-sized portion himself and declared with a smile, “Hmm. Very nice, ānanda-mayo ’bhyāsāt. This is the movement of ānanda, pleasure only. Kṛṣṇa is ānanda-maya, and if you remain with Kṛṣṇa you’ll become ānanda-maya. A rich man, he’s enjoying, and if you remain in association with the rich man, you also enjoy. Where is the difficulty? A very rich man, and his associates, they are also rich men. Is it not? And if you remain with poor man, you are also poor.” 

Rūpānuga said, “You’ve explained that the servant in the house of the king, he is almost as good as the king.” 

Prabhupāda grinned. “No, he is better than king. King, he eats whatever is offered to him, but they can eat whatever they like. Is it not? Who is restricting them?” 

I had a question about the ceremony in the temple. Śrīla Prabhupāda’s slight hesitancy before slicing into the cake brought it to mind. “Is that cutting the cake, did they used to do that in Vedic times, or is that a Western invention? We were just wondering about it.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda thought for a second and replied. “Prasādam distribution. Either you cut or take with hand, the same thing. It doesn’t make any difference.”  

As we feasted on the delicious cake, Prabhupāda educated us on another practical aspect of Vedic culture. He inquired who had made the cake and was told it was Lalitā-sakhī dāsī. He was pleased and said that was the Vedic system, that the women become very expert in cooking and household affairs. He said their duty was to learn how to please the husband and look after the children. Even if husband and wife did not always agree, there was no question of divorce. “You must accept whatever God has given you as husband or wife, you must. They had no thinking even, idea of divorce. One may not agree with the husband. That is natural. Sometimes we do not agree. But there is no question of divorce.” 

He asked when divorce was introduced and Pradyumna informed him it started with Henry the Eighth of England.  

“Oh, he is the rascal,” Prabhupāda said.  

I told him a brief history how Henry had beheaded two of his wives. This was because the Catholic Church did not allow divorce, nor marriage to more than one wife. 

As a contrast, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “Therefore in Vedic civilization they keep, they have more than one wife. So what is the use of killing? Why one should kill? We find from the history, Dhruva Mahārāja’s mother and stepmother, there were some critical words, and Dhruva Mahārāja became very, very angry. So that may be, but why one should cut off the head? When Dhruva Mahārāja began to cry before the mother, mother said, ‘My dear child, what can I do? How can I help you? Your father does not care for me, even as maidservant, what to speak of I, the senior queen. So this gentleman does not care of me even as maidservant. How can I help you? If God helps you, then.’ That was her statement. So that does not mean because the king did not like, she should be beheaded. What is this nonsense? He is king. He may not like first wife. Actually, there was no scarcity of comfort, but liking may not be, but that does not mean that she shouldn’t be accepted as wife. Kings were allowed to marry more than one wife. Why to accept another wife means another wife should be killed? What is this? Everything nonsense. King can marry more than one wife. And at the time of marriage they were given so many woman. Because the woman population is greater than the man, always. So when the king is married, along with the queen, many other friends of the queen they would go with the king. They live in the same palace. Sometimes they had children, dāsī-putra. Just like Vidura. Vidura was not queen’s son. One of these women friends. So that was allowed.” 

He told us that within recent history, two hundred years perhaps, one Muslim Indian king had one hundred and sixty wives and each one had a palace, which may still be seen in Lucknow. And what to speak of Kṛṣṇa. “Our Kṛṣṇa, not hundred-sixty but another zero, another. Hundred-sixty plus two zeros. They were not neglected. But He is God, He expanded Himself also, sixteen thousand forms, so that no wife would feel separation. So if one husband can maintain properly more than one wife, he’s allowed. But the wife must be taken care of properly. Not that because I have got more than one wife, one is neglected. No. She must be taken care of.” 

Bṛṣākapi recalled Prabhupāda’s words from the previous morning’s conversation where he had refuted the idea that polygamy should be allowed in ISKCON.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda reiterated one of his arguments. “In the Kali-yuga one cannot maintain even one wife, what to speak of more than one. They are afraid to marry one wife. I first heard this, one elderly lady in New York. At that time, I was newcomer. I asked her, ‘Why don’t you get your son married?’  

“ ‘Yes, he can be married, provided he can maintain wife,’ she said. So these things were unknown to us. In India, whether he’ll be able to maintain . . . Just like I was married when I was third-year student. Where is the income? There is no income, but still I was married.” 

He said that nowadays it has become the custom, even in India, to let a girl have many male friends, but unless they find a suitable man they don’t let them marry. He said this was a symptom of a degraded society. “Actually the Indian system is that when the girl is utmost twelve years, not more than that, ten to twelve years, she must be married. And the father would see, not necessarily in every case, the boy is rich man or educated. If he’s healthy and if he can work, he’ll take charge. Then fortune, faith.” 

Bṛṣākapi wondered what we should do with the young girls within ISKCON. Prabhupāda was thoughtful. “Of course, we are not very much concerned with the social affairs, but still, if we can organize society, that will be very good, that will be peaceful. The system is the boys and girls should be married earlier, and they should work, and there should be no divorce. But whether your country law will allow, that is another difficulty. You may introduce something, but the state law may not approve of it.” 

Rūpānuga said it was legal for a girl of only fifteen to marry if the parents gave their consent.  

But that wasn’t Śrīla Prabhupāda’s only reservation. “Another difficulty is the boy and the girl, they also do not stick. That is another difficulty.” 

I reminded him that he had said that the only real solution to these problems was to chant. 

Prabhupāda agreed. “That is the only solution.” And then he added what he considered the best solution for both men and women. “If one can remain without marriage, that is first-class. Women also. What is the use of this material husband? Make Kṛṣṇa husband. Kṛṣṇa’s prepared to become everything. Love Him as husband, love Him as son, love Him, friend. Kṛṣṇa is prepared.” 

July 7th, 1976

At 6:00 a.m. Prabhupāda drove to Baltimore, about forty miles north. Śrutadeva dāsa, the temple president there, had shown him a photo of the Deities, Śrī Śrī Gaura-Nitāi. Prabhupāda found Them so attractive that he decided to visit. He didn’t speak much on the way, preferring to chant quietly on his beads. Several other cars of devotees also accompanied our vehicle along the highway.  

The temple is a large two-story suburban house with some land at the side and back. The main room on the ground floor has been converted into a temple. The altar was profusely decorated with a dozen vases of colorful flowers and everything was clean and bright. Śrīla Prabhupāda stood for several minutes in front of the gorgeously dressed forms of Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda, visually drinking in the beauty of Their visages. The Deities bore the most beautiful of smiles, appearing effulgent and well cared for. 

Then Prabhupāda mounted his vyāsāsana to receive guru-pūjā and speak on the Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā, 20.102.  

Pradyumna prabhu led the devotees in responsive chanting of the verse. When we finished, Śrīla Prabhupāda smiled. It is of course, a Bengali text, and Śrīla Prabhupāda is from Bengal. He chuckled, telling us that technically our chanting was all right, but we should learn to chant it as the Bengalis do. 

The verse concerned Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī’s questioning of the Lord as to why he had to suffer the three-fold miseries of life. In his half-hour discourse, Prabhupāda explained that suffering was alleviated when one regained his original spiritual position. He also expressed his satisfaction with the devotees’ service. “So this benediction is offered by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Who has very kindly come here, Nitāi-Gaura. So you take advantage of His mercy. You are very fortunate that Nitāi-Gaura is here. If you simply chant Nitāi-Gaura and dance, then you’ll be happy. There is no difficulty. You are chanting ‘Jaya Śacīnāndana.’ This simple chanting, ‘Jaya Śacīnāndana, Hare Kṛṣṇa, I am not manufacturing. It is the injunction of śāstra. In this age simply by chanting and dancing you get complete spiritual service. So I am very glad you are taking care of Nitāi-Gaura so nicely. They are so nicely dressed. So continue these activities, and even if you cannot do anything, simply chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and ‘Jaya Śacīnāndana,’ and dance. That will make your life perfect.” 

* * * 

Prabhupāda took his breakfast in a sparsely furnished portable cabin at the back of the temple land. Right after eating he met with our scientists, now joined by the other founding member of their Institute, Ravīndra-svarūpa dāsa, who is studying for his Ph.D. in religion. The Institute devotees are starting up a quarterly magazine which Ravīndra-svarūpa will edit. They asked for a suitable name for it.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda has already been carefully advising them on a logo for the Institute, and he knew exactly what he wanted for the title. “Sa-vijñānam,” he quoted from Bhagavad-gītā [7.2], which he translated to mean “scientific knowledge.” Everyone was happy with it. It seemed like a perfect name. Prabhupāda also agreed that the BBT could publish it. He was concerned about whether they would be able to do it regularly, because he said, it must be scientific. They assured him they would be able to bring it out as a quarterly, and he was satisfied with that. 

Ravīndra-svarūpa prabhu told him it would cover a range of topics of interest for the academic community—science, philosophy, economics and sociology. He already mentioned yesterday that they should show how the Kṛṣṇa consciousness lifestyle can work economically, and he liked the idea of including sociology. He said they should show how varṇāśrama is a scientific system, and he focused especially on the brāhmaṇa community. “Just like here is Dr. Svarūpa Dāmodara, or you are here. So you are not scientists from the very birth. You have been trained up how to become a scientist. Similarly, the birth is there. Whatever you may be, it doesn’t matter. But you have to be trained up how to become first-class brain. That is brāhmaṇa. You have to become truthful, you have to become controller of the senses, you have to become fully aware of things, of God, everything, full knowledge, then you become brain. These people give scientists so much importance because there is brain. In the society, there must be brain. So without brain how the society can go on? If you simply produce motor mechanics, then?” 

He gave the example from his morning discourse. “Sanātana Gosvāmī is asking, ke āmi, kene āmāya jāre tāpa-traya. This is brain. ‘I don’t want some uncomfortable situation, but why it is enforced?’ So when you make research into that, that is brain. And if we remain like animal, ‘All right, they are dragging me to the slaughterhouse, that’s all right, let me go,’ that is not brain. Brain means that I am seeking after perfect happiness, why I am not allowed to have this perfect happiness?” 

He said that trying to solve one’s problems as modern scientists purport to do is the right use for the brain, but they are not successful. “Because they are poor scientists, they do not know how to make a solution of the ultimate problem. They are making tiny problems, that’s all. There is power shortage, all right, let us invent some substitute of petroleum. Brain is being taxed. Again it is finished, again another. But they are so dull brain, they do not raise the question that we are making solution of one problem, another problem is ready. That brain they have not. So how long we shall go on solving the problems, another problem, another problem? He does not know that nature will not allow me to live peacefully. So we bring problems after problems. That is material life.” 

He said they were simply getting more and more entangled, their solutions to one problem creating even more. “If you don’t live natural life, then you will create problem. Just like the other than creatures, other than human beings, they have no problems, because they are living naturally. So our human beings should also live natural life. Then his only problem is birth, death, old age and disease. That he will be able to solve. That is the difference. The birds and beasts, they are living natural life, but they have no capacity to solve the problems. But the human being has the capacity to solve the problems. Real problem is birth, death, old age and disease. But they [scientists] do not touch the real problem. They avoid because they cannot solve it.” 

And once again he protested the bluffing of the scientists, and their postdated promises to cure our ills. This time he illustrated his point with a Bengali anecdote I had not heard before. “They are shameless. Not ordinary, because an ordinary human being will become shameful to speak something nonsense. In Bengali, duhkhaṁ kāta. One man, one ear was cut off. So in order to hide his cut-off ear he was keeping this side to the river side and this side to the habitation side. So then again his two ears were cut out. Then there is no question of hiding. So these people are duhkhaṁ kāta. When both the ears cut out, there is no shame. They will go on talking all nonsense. Because they are accepted. So many millions of years have passed in the history, nobody could do that, and they are giving hope that life will come after millions of years. Why million? Here is a chicken, he can give life within five days. What credit you’ll get after millions of years? But they are so shameless they can speak such nonsense and still pass on as scientists.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara asked if there was anything else Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted the Institute to do. 

Prabhupāda’s goals were very clear. “Institute, you have got sufficient subject matter as I was describing, this original source of life and the planetary system, as you are going to make planetarium. Who can say about so many planets in the sky? Who has got sufficient knowledge? They think that moon is the nearest planet, but we do not think like that. But still they are unable to give sufficient knowledge about the moon. It is not vacant, it cannot be vacant. We do not find any part of the world vacant. There is living entities. This earth planet is part of the universe, and the moon is also part of the universe. If it [earth] is not vacant, how that can be vacant? You have got dust there, we have got dust here; you have got rocks there, here we have got rocks. And why it is vacant? We find in the dust also there is life. When we walk on the beach, it is simply sand, there are so many crabs. They are immediately running, ‘Here is a man coming. Enter into the hole.’ So even the dust, in the sand, there is life. In the water there is life, in the air there is life, everywhere there is life. Why it should be vacant? What is the opinion of the scientists? We are talking as layman, but why there should not be life? And in the śāstra we get there is life. Not only moon, every planet is full of living entities. How it can be vacant, God’s creation?” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara said the scientists were unable to see, and they are therefore unable to prove it by experiment or their own experience.  

Ravīndra-svarūpa added, “They want to go and see for themselves, so they say they have gone to the moon planet, and they say we have not found life.” 

“We say you have not gone,” Prabhupāda replied. “I have not seen you, that you have gone there; you say only. How can I believe?” 

Vipina said they had shown the pictures on the TV.  

Prabhupāda had the same answer for that argument. “That is also, you have made picture. I have not gone and seen that. How can I believe you? The same argument. You say that you have gone to moon planet, but I have not seen that you have gone there. How can I believe you?” 

Perhaps reflecting the mentality among some devotees that, despite their acceptance of what Śrīla Prabhupāda says, the evidence presented by the scientists in support of their claims is seemingly insurmountable, Vipina asked, “Is there some other way we can argue with them, Prabhupāda?” 

But Prabhupāda was unshakable. “No, no. Now just answer this question that you say you have not seen [what śāstra says]. I say, yes that’s all right, because you did not see, therefore you don’t believe. But I did not see you also that you have gone to moon planet. How can I believe you?” 

Ravīndra-svarūpa’s analytical brain was ticking over the implications. As Bṛṣākapi had asked the other day, he also enquired, “How is it possible to deceive so many people?” 

Whether it was or was not possible to cheat large numbers of people was another issue and Prabhupāda didn’t deal with it. He kept his focus on the issue of acceptance. He said that since we have no direct experience of what they say, and they have no experience of what the Bhāgavatam says, ultimately it comes down to whose authority one accepts—the śāstra or the faulty scientists. It was the inductive process of knowledge acquirement versus the deductive. “Suppose if I say, ‘You have not seen Vyāsadeva, he’s immortal. You have not seen Aśvatthāmā, he’s immortal.’ So how this scientific research can be perfect, inductive? It is never perfect. Because you may be missing somebody who is immortal. Then your conclusion is wrong. There is no scope of studying all the living beings. You have limited scope. So your seeing power is limited. How you can decide from the limited seeing power?” 

Rūpānuga prabhu, on behalf of the scientists, declared that because they have done so many good things, they should be accepted as authorities.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda initially rebutted his argument. “You have done nothing good, I say. You have simply wasted time and taken public money, that’s all.” Then he allowed the same concession he expressed to Svarūpa Dāmodara previously, saying that they can take credit for building a 747 jumbo jet, but since they cannot make even a mosquito, which comes complete with pilot, they should not try to replace God or declare He does not exist. 

Svarūpa Dāmodara explained what his approach would be. “That’s why we want to bring up this point that ‘Scientists, we are not claiming that you are all nonsense, but you are all good men, but you should know your limits.’” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda expressed an unequivocal balance. “You should not be so proud falsely. That is our point. And mislead others that there is no God. Because you are accepted as authority, scientist, if you say that there is no God, they will accept it. Then our back to Godhead movement is stopped. Then we must stop your also nonsense. It is a fight. Because you say there is no God, and we say you are all nonsense. We must say it. You are challenging, we must challenge. But you accept God, then we have nothing . . . I think Sir Isaac Newton said like that: ‘The vast knowledge, we have simply gathered a few grains of sand on the beach of knowledge,’ something like that. That is good.” 

Ravīndra-svarūpa raised another argument. “Then they say, ‘Yes, we may be limited and our inductive process may be imperfect. You may criticize, but you have to show us something better.’” 

“I may not show,” Śrīla Prabhupāda answered, “but as I give you example, that you have manufactured 747 and God has manufactured mosquito. You do that. I am layman, but I see there is another, better manufacturer than you. I can see that you cannot do it. If you say you can do it, then you are rascal. I must say that you are rascal. First of all do, then speak. You take your credit, as much as you have done. But if you want to take the place of God, then we must slap you right and left!” Prabhupāda’s graphic language made everyone laugh.  

“We cannot give better credit than God to anyone. That is our business. Asamordhva. There is nobody equal to God, nobody is greater than God. This is our preaching. No question of becoming greater than God. You cannot become even equal to God. You are always under. You admit it, then we have no quarrel with you. You admit that ‘Yes, we are under God,’ then we are friends.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s stance was very explicit and his men were heartened. “Jaya.” 

He addeda bit more emphasis to make sure our position was clearly understood. “And as soon as you say that you are equal or greater, then you are rascal. We must expose you, that you are a rascal. This is our business. Because we are servants of God. We cannot see anything blasphemy against God. That is not our business. We must chastise immediately.” 

He said that if one is a real scientist, he should use his knowledge to prove that there is God and that such a scientist is welcome. But if they keep on with their theories of life coming after millions of years, there was a clear duty for the devotees to enact. “We shall allow such fools to flourish? That is not possible. Warn that ‘Here are thieves, be careful of your pocket. They’ll say all bluff and take money from your pocket.’” 

“We will call a spade a spade,” Rūpānuga said. 

“Yes,” Prabhupāda endorsed. Then, turning to Svarūpa Dāmodara, “What do you think, is that right process?” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara agreed. “Yes.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda gets strength and gives strength when he is talking about preaching. He will not be deterred in fighting for the natural rights of every living being, especially those in the human form, to have access to Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s compassion. This is especially so when it comes to science. “So make a magazine to expose this. Idaṁ hi puṁsas tapasaḥ śrutasya vā sviṣṭasya sūktasya ca. ‘You, by your knowledge, you describe the glories of the Lord, then you are my guru.’ This is our . . . If they say, ‘Why do you bother about God?’—that is the business of human being. A human being, he is given the chance to understand God, and you people are stopping, putting stumbling block in his understanding of God. You’re the greatest miscreant. I have got a chance to get one million dollars, and if you check it, I cannot get it. How much mischievous you are for me. Is it not?”  

 A final point concerned the content of the journal and whether controversial subjects could be included and opposing responses printed along with our rebuttals.  

 Prabhupāda smiled, “Yes, that is nice. We invite, ‘All right, come on.’” 

“Criticize, and we will defeat you,” a devotee rejoined. 

“Yes, it is fighting,” Prabhupāda said, with a gleam in his eye.  

He encouraged them to recruit as many scholars as possible, especially in India where there are many Ph.D.s who are also Vaiṣṇavas. He wants them to use the magazine to challenge and defeat materialists and atheists. Prabhupāda told them to try their best, and Kṛṣṇa will give them intelligence. He said he started the fight alone, but now Kṛṣṇa has sent them to help. 

* * * 

Śrīla Prabhupāda had his noon massage as soon as we arrived back in Potomac. Yadubara prabhu came along to report that he and his wife had taken about twenty-five photos of the Capitol. Prabhupāda was pleased they had responded so quickly to his request. He asked for three sets to be developed: one for himself; one to be sent to the Māyāpur GBC, Gargamuni Swami; and one for our architect, Saurabha prabhu. 

The Institute members gathered for another session and Svarūpa Dāmodara opened the questions with an enquiry about the content of matter. Since science lists ninety-two elements like gold, silver and copper, they want to make a chart showing which of the five primary elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether contain them. Prabhupāda laughed. “Tin, copper, and mercury, proportionately mixed it will become gold. Now you can do that experiment, then our poverty will be finished. It is fact. There are many yogis, they prepare gold by drinking mercury. They drink mercury, overnight. Next morning they pass urine and dip copper coins in it. And then after some time the copper coins put into the fire, it becomes gold.” 

“That’s alchemist,” Svarūpa Dāmodara observed. 

“Whatever it may be, they do that. This example is given by Sanātana Gosvāmī. Kaṁsa is mixture of copper and tin—bell metal. When it is properly treated with mercury, it becomes gold. Similarly, a human being properly treated by initiation, he becomes a brāhmaṇa.”  

As they conversed, a devotee came in with the morning newspaper. The front page had a picture purportedly sent by satellite all the way from the planet Mars. Prabhupāda has been following the progress of the so-called Mars landing, via our reports, ever since he arrived in America. The photo showed a very large crater and a massive gorge, which the report said was a dried river bed ten times the size of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. 

  Prabhupāda wasn’t at all impressed. He didn’t believe their real business was on Mars at all.  

Smiling, Rūpānuga concurred. “I think it was all like a movie set.” 

“That’s all,” Prabhupāda said. “They are not going. Why they are taking Arizona? That means they are in Arizona. Just like one man was stealing from the room, and there were some sounds, and the master of the house said, ‘Who is there? What is that sound?’ The man said, ‘No, no, I am not stealing.’ It is like that.” 

The veranda filled with laughter at his witty psychoanalysis. Rūpānuga said that throughout the article they were making comparisons with the earth. “Śrīla Prabhupāda, you catch them red-handed.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda grinned. “Oh, yes, that I can do. Who asked them to speak of Arizona? Who asked that you are stealing? He asked for the sound, but he disclosed, ‘No, no, I am not stealing.’ It is like that. Why they are bringing Arizona? They could have mentioned other places.” 

They then discussed at length Svarūpa Dāmodara’s idea from the slide show, that life is complex and matter is simple; their supposition is that therefore only when life is present does matter develop into complex structures. Without life, matter exists in simple states.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda, however, did not agree that life is complex. He said it is the machinery of material nature that is complex, but without life it is useless. He gave the example of a dictaphone—the machine is complex, but the electricity that activates it is simple.  

We all had some trouble understanding his point and I asked, “But isn’t the complexity of the body due to trying to accommodate the desires of the spirit soul? Such a complicated body is there because the spirit soul desires to do something. So the complexity is a product of the desire.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda said no. “If you want to work for a certain purpose, you require such and such machine. So different purposes, different machines. But the power is the same. It is a simple thing. Why don’t you understand? You push the electric power for this heater, and same electric power for this cooler. It is a question of difference of the machine. Electricity is the same. The matter is complicated; spirit is not complicated.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara raised a further point. “One thing also, in the spiritual world, it is full of variegatedness. Doesn’t that mean that it is complex, Śrīla Prabhupāda?” 

“No, there is no complexity,” Prabhupāda replied. 

Svarūpa Dāmodara wanted things as clear as possible. “Matter as it is, it has not even a specific form or pattern as compared with matter associated with life. When matter is associated with life it has specific groups of forms meant for a definite purpose and function. Now this is lacking when matter is left as it is.” 

“Yes, matter is utilized for the purpose of spirit soul,” Prabhupāda explained. “Otherwise matter has no independent existence. The whole thing is matter, but it is formed according to the desire of the spirit.” 

“So if matter is inferior to the spirit soul, then isn’t it correct to say that the spirit soul is more complex or sophisticated than matter?” I asked him.  

“Spirit soul is living. Naturally he has got desires. That is not complexity; that is a symptom of life,” Prabhupāda told us. 

“So matter seems, we say, more complex,” Svarūpa Dāmodara asked, “but still is inferior.” 

“It is made complex to serve some purpose,” Prabhupāda said. 

I was still puzzled. “So the living entity’s desire has become very complex due to his association with material nature?” 

Prabhupāda said, “He desires, and the matter helps. In the material world.” 

“That desire is simple?” Svarūpa Dāmodara asked. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda assented. “Desire is simple. Without desire, how he is living? You make minus desire, then how it is living? That is only symptom of his living.” 

“You have said on your original [musical] record that the living entity is trying to enjoy material nature, but is becoming more and more entangled in her complexities,” Rūpānuga recalled. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda explained it a little further. “Becoming entangled in the machine. Because he has forgotten his spiritual identity. He thinks, ‘With this machine I can help myself.’ That is going on.” 

 * * * 

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja spoke with me today about his service, asking me if I thought he should change his engagement. He has already talked with Tamal Krishna Mahārāja and admitted experiencing trouble in chanting his rounds and in keeping regulated. He told me he is finding it increasingly difficult to travel with Śrīla Prabhupāda because he feels that he needs to speak the philosophy himself in order to keep enlivened. It is a fact that being with His Divine Grace means hearing rather than speaking most of the time, and Puṣṭa feels that by keeping himself in the background his consciousness is becoming stagnant. I said I thought it would be good for him to preach. 

* * * 

Svarūpa Dāmodara presented Śrīla Prabhupāda a xerox copy of the very first Back to Godhead, published in 1944. It was discovered in the Library of Congress. A group of four or five devotees went there to search out a copy of the Sūrya-siddhānta and other astronomical literature. Although they didn’t find that book, most of Prabhupāda’s books were there. Pradyumna was looking through the index and discovered the BTG.  

Prabhupāda was surprised to see it, and said that it may have been sent to the Library by his Calcutta distributor, the biggest in Bengal. He told us it had been printed on first-class paper by the best printer in Calcutta, Sarasvati Press. It was released on the Vyāsa-pūjā day of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī. 

* * * 

Evening darśanas have been long and lively. Śrīla Prabhupāda has received more guests here than at any other stop so far, and he is preaching continuously. Apart from the frequent meetings to formalize the Bhaktivedanta Institute and its field of operation, he has also been meeting with the many interesting guests Bṛṣākapi has invited.  

This evening there was quite a variety. They included Professor Flemings, who is a retired teacher of poetry and theater from the University of Maryland; Carl Wentz, a physicist from Catholic University;  Dr. Dinesh Sharma, a professor in Berkeley now at the Royal Institute of Chemistry in London; Mr. Venkateswar, the Minister of Political Affairs at the Indian Embassy, and the former Senator Davis, who has a daughter in ISKCON. Eugene Thoreau also came. He is an attorney from Washington who has helped to legalize saṅkīrtana sites in the capital and at the airport. He originally received a flower at the airport, was attracted to the devotees and became our lawyer shortly after. 

Mr. Bill Sauer, the author Vipina mentioned the day we arrived was also there. He was a respectful, but intense man, and especially enthusiastic in discussion. Whereas most of the other guests sat on the couch or on seats, Mr. Sauer preferred a place on the carpet directly in front of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s desk, in the center of the action so to speak. He explained that his book, The Fourth Kingdom, was about technological development, which, unless utilized for space travel and the establishment of human beings on other planets, will simply be a detriment to our lives. His idea is that “light is life,” the sun being the great generator of life in this part of the universe. He believes that when our sun dies, all human life will go with it. Therefore, he felt that mobility was the key to survival and mankind must travel throughout the universe to perpetuate itself, or otherwise perish.  

He told Prabhupāda that he has found a great affinity between his ideas and Kṛṣṇa consciousness because we also speak of life on other planets. He thought our communal way of living would also adapt well to the lifestyle required for sailing through space in arks for hundreds of years searching for habitable planets. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda told him that it was indeed possible to travel to other planets, but by the process of transmigration of the soul, where one attains a particular body and station according to his previous activities. He stressed however, that the real goal is to go to the spiritual world because only there can one remain forever. To go anywhere else in the material creation only means more death and destruction since every planet will be destroyed.  

Mr. Sauer had some trouble comprehending that the entire universe could actually be destroyed. He began to hog the conversation, reading out sections of his book.  

Dr. Sharma, also not a slouch when it came to talking, stepped in, introducing himself as a “hard-core scientist,” and presented his own speculations. The meeting devolved to the two of them engaging in their own little debate, each one trying to convince the other. Śrīla Prabhupāda sat quietly back and the other guests were neglected. 

Bṛṣākapi butted in, suddenly bringing them back to present circumstance and reality. “Excuse me, one thing is, you should address your questions to the authority. This discussion you are having will get you nowhere. Unless you apply your questions to the authority, then you will never understand anything. So the authority is the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta is teaching on that authority. So if you have come here then you should try to address your questions to His Divine Grace rather than argue among yourselves, because you will not find any satisfaction in your argument. If you want information you must go to the authority.” 

Everyone looked at Śrīla Prabhupāda, not sure how he would react to Bṛṣākapi’s abrupt interruption. One of the visitors began to reply, “Still, the argument was an aspect of the occasion.”  

Prabhupāda gratefully and gracefully took his cue and full control of the discussion. “Things which are inconceivable, do not try to understand by argument. Our process, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, is to take knowledge from the authority. Unless we take knowledge from the authority, however we may go on arguing, we cannot come to the conclusion.” He told them the authority was the Bhagavad-gītā or Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa has been accepted by all ācāryas, and if we take our conclusions from His authority then we will benefit. Otherwise, with limited knowledge and argument alone we cannot understand.  

The focus of the night’s discussion thus returned to Śrīla Prabhupāda, who thoroughly explained the nature of the soul, transmigration, and the soul’s involvement with matter. Each of the guests had interesting questions to ask and Prabhupāda was able to more than adequately answer them. As always, everyone departed feeling fully satisfied. 

July 8th, 1976

Ekādaśī. The devotees took Śrīla Prabhupāda out to a natural waterfall along the river for his walk. Appreciating the tranquil atmosphere created by the sound of water flowing and falling, he said that this was the kind of secluded, natural spot required for doing yoga. One cannot practice yoga in the midst of a big city as is common nowadays. 

* * * 

Śrīla Prabhupāda initiated several new devotees this morning and the verse from his class on Caitanya-caritāmṛta was just appropriate: “Actually I do not know how to inquire about the goal of life and the process for obtaining it. Being merciful upon me, please explain all these truths.” 

Prabhupāda explained the process of accepting a guru and outlined the disciple’s proper mentality in order for the relationship to be fruitful. “Sanātana Gosvāmī is submitting very humbly. So tad viddhi praṇipātena paripraśnena. First of all praṇipāta, then paripraśna, questioning. Don’t waste your time by questioning some spiritual master or somebody unless you have praṇipāta. You must be ready to accept the answer which he gives, then make inquiry. If you think that, ‘I have to test his answer, because I am more learned or more advanced than him,’ then don’t go there, don’t propose or inquire anything. Sanātana Gosvāmī, he is completely surrendering. He said that ‘I am blank, I do not know actually how to inquire You. So kindly You speak everything, what is the subject matter of inquiry and what is the answer of such inquiry. I am completely blank slate, I am simply submitting to You.’ Sādhya, the goal of life, and sādhana, the process by which one can approach. In this way, we can make advancement in our spiritual education, and we must carry out the order of the spiritual master. 

“First of all, select who will be your spiritual master. You must know the preliminary law. Just like if you want to purchase gold, at least you must know where gold is available. If you are so foolish that you go to a butcher shop and ask him to supply diamond or gold, then you’ll be cheated. You must know at least where to go and purchase gold or diamond, these are valuable things. So that requires little intelligence and sincerity. If one is actually serious about understanding the goal of life, spiritual knowledge, then Kṛṣṇa is situated in everyone’s heart. He understands how this person is sincerely seeking. Then He’ll give direction that ‘You do this.’ He is giving direction in every respect. We want to do so many things. So Kṛṣṇa is giving us facility. But when one becomes actually very much eager to understand Kṛṣṇa, God, He is very glad to give instruction, that ‘You go to such and such person and you submissively inquire. By the mercy of guru, by the mercy of Kṛṣṇa, one can make advancement in spiritual understanding. So one must be sincere. Then every direction is there.”  

* * * 

Prabhupāda gave a short interview to a TV crew from channel four and a freelance television reporter, Janice Johnson. The channel four interviewer asked what Śrīla Prabhupāda’s view was on the current state of affairs in the world and the role of his Movement in it.  

Śrīla Prabhupāda responded by telling him that people have no knowledge of the fact that they are the soul and not the body. “So at the present moment the human civilization is a very risky civilization. So in order to save them from this state of ignorance, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is essential. It is not a sectarian religious movement, faith or sentiment. It is actually scientific movement. Here are many scientists present. They are also taking very seriously about this movement. So we invite all important men to contact us and try to understand the basic principle of this movement, how to elevate the human society to the proper standard of life and become peaceful in this life as well as in the next life.” 

“Do you think mankind is making some improvement?” the interviewer asked. 

“No,” Prabhupāda replied. “Materially they may be doing some improvement, but that is not spiritually important. Just like I give sometimes this example: a dog, animal, is jumping with four legs on the street, and we are going fast with four wheels, so that does not make any difference. The difference is the dog cannot understand about his spiritual identity; a man can understand if he’s properly trained up. If the man is denied that facility, then he remains in the ignorance of an animal like cats and dogs.” 

Janice Johnson joined in. Unfortunately the questions that followed soon degraded to the simplistic, and Ms. Johnson did a great deal to reinforce Śrīla Prabhupāda’s already low opinion of women reporters. She asked, “Is this your first visit to Washington? Where have you stayed while in America? Why are you living in such lavish surroundings if materialism is not so important?”  

Prabhupāda’s reply to the latter was good-humored and quickly reversed the implied criticism. “It is for you. Because you cannot sit cross-legged, we have arranged this couch for you.”   

The devotees laughed, but she doggedly persisted in reporter fashion. “Why is it necessary to live in such comfort as this for the spiritual?”  

Prabhupāda restated his answer more pointedly this time. “We can live on the street, but you cannot come and see on the street. For you we have arranged. We can live under a tree, but that does not make any difference. Our point is that you may live materially comfortably—there is no harm—but if you forget your spiritual identity then you remain like an animal. Just like sometimes a cat or a dog is allowed to sit on the couch, but that does not mean he has become a human being. He remains a cat or dog because the consciousness is lacking of a human being.”  

The other reporter seemed appreciative of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s answers, and kept his focus on Prabhupāda’s broader intentions. “What is your opinion of what this movement should be doing in terms of world activities and world affairs that it isn’t doing now? Are there some new areas that you may try to influence?” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda liked his questions and was happy to answer. “No, we are pushing on this movement all over the world. It is not that this particular place is important, but our interest is that Western people they are so intelligent. They are very systematically making improvement in material condition of life. They should know also that spiritual life is more important than material life.”  

But Ms. Johnson seemed to be looking for fault. She was pointed and a bit aggressive. “Why is it that the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement has in the last couple of years attempted to make itself a little bit more respectable in the public’s eyes by having members wear street clothes and wigs and so forth while they are soliciting?” 

“The clothes are not important,” Prabhupāda replied coolly. “We prefer our own dress, but you do not like, and since we have to do business with you therefore we change. What can be done?”  

Prabhupāda was unruffled despite her pushiness and after taking another couple of short questions the interview came to a halt and the reporters departed.  

* * * 

The members of the Institute were present for the interview and they tarried for a few minutes afterward to finalize a few things. Svarūpa Dāmodara indicated that they would like to start out their preaching by producing their book and journal. “That will be our initial phase, and our feeling is now, this Institute, at the beginning, it is some sort of research institute that we are doing right now, writing something, collecting some information from other sources. Looks to me like it is research oriented.” 

“No,” Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “one thing is, research means again that mental speculation.” 

“But our research is different though,” Svarūpa Dāmodara said. 

“People will understand that it is another type of mental speculation,” Prabhupāda told him. “But ours is not that. We take it as Absolute Truth. So how to convince them?” 

Rūpānuga assured him that they did not intend to advertize themselves as a research institute.  

“Research,” Prabhupāda said, “means that it is not known; you are trying to find out. But our, Kṛṣṇa’s position is not. It is already known.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda is well aware of the power of words. His concern for conveying the proper understanding, even with a simple phrase, showed when they asked about the title for the journal. Rūpānuga had traveled back from Baltimore with Śrīla Prabhupāda and Prabhupāda had translated Sa-vijñānam as “In Scientific Knowledge.”  

But Svarūpa Dāmodara wondered about the word in

Rūpānuga asked Śrīla Prabhupāda, “I was wondering if this, sa, means ‘in’?” 

“No,” Prabhupāda said, “sa means with.” 

It sounded not quite right to Rūpānuga. “ ‘With scientific.’ Would it be improper to say Vijñāna only? I was thinking in terms of making the title as short as possible.” 

But Prabhupāda liked the full title. “Sa-vijñānam is more important. Vijñānam means theoretical. And Sa-vijñānam means practical.” 

“So in parenthesis we write, ‘In Scientific Knowledge’?” Svarūpa Dāmodara asked. 

“That you say. Or you can write, ‘Spiritual Science’,” Prabhupāda suggested, and then immediately corrected himself. “No. That will not ring for them. They will not understand ‘Spiritual Science’.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara made a couple of suggestions. “How about ‘Perfect Science’? ‘Complete Science’?” 

Prabhupāda left it to them to decide the exact phrase. 

Sadāpūta prabhu had a question about experiments. “There was one thing I was wondering a little bit. Is it possible to make some experiments which would tend to indicate that life is not material? And this might be appealing to some of the people with scientific education, because they are used to such things, experiments.” 

Rūpānuga added that they had a meeting with other scientists, and they were challenging, saying, “Show us one experiment. Show us one experiment!”  

Sadāpūta wanted to know if the work of people like Jagadisha Chandra Bose, who did some experiments that indicated plants had consciousness, would be of any use. 

Prabhupāda thought it was. “So in the Calcutta there is Bose Institute, you can go and see. They have got all machine, how the plants are feeling. Everything is there.” 

* * * 

A few pieces of mail have come in the last day or two. Balavanta prabhu sent his GBC report for the southeast zone. He thoroughly detailed each temple by size, activity and finances and enclosed beautiful photos of the Gaura-Nitāi Deities at the Mississippi farm and some news reports on the Tennessee farm. His assessment of almost every place was optimistic and filled with superlatives, especially when he described the farm projects. 

In Tennessee he said the twenty-three devotees are “rapidly progressing toward self-sufficiency.” They have produced six thousand pounds of wheat. Corn and vegetables are growing, and rice will be planted soon. He said the cows give milk abundantly, and he predicted that within one or two years only animal-drawn machinery will be used. “Their program is to develop the first completely self-sufficient Vedic village in the Western world.” He also said that the devotees were “hankering for a transcendental name for the community.” 

In New Orleans and the nearby Mississippi farm, another twenty-five devotees are regularly executing devotional service. He gave an enthusiastic description of the New Orleans yātrā. “The brahmacary ashram is very strong here. They are like a transcendental army of 15 dedicated men. They do everything together; they eat together, sleep together, rise and attend the morning program together, chant japa together, and go distribute your books daily together. They are regulated, disciplined, humble, and, thus, very happy. I think this should be the standard of brahmacary life in every temple.” His only concern was that there were only three brāhmaṇas to worship the seven Deities.  

At the farm Śrī Śrī Gaura-Nitāi get a full six āratis despite there being only five brāhmaṇas there. The photos showed that his description of Them as “gorgeous” was accurate. As on the other farms, the devotees have a cow protection program, producing so much milk that he said they had trouble knowing what to do with the excess. He also said that he has studied a little about cows. “I have seen one article that explains that cow killing did not become prominent even in the U.S.A. until about 1880 when there was developed large scale industrialization, which made it feasible. Before that the cows mostly died naturally and were used for milk and leather.” 

Our Miami center is not exactly rural, neither is it a farm, but his description made it sound like a natural paradise. “The facility here is most wonderful. I have not seen anything outside of perhaps the Bombay project to compare to it. . . . Already mango trees abound and the luscious fruit is regularly collected and offered to the deities. The cows are grazing peacefully, yielding an abundance of milk, which is turned into wonderful sweets and offered to Gaura-Nitai. Peacocks roam freely, reminding one of the transcendental land of Vrndavana. Large fields of marigolds are being cultivated to be offered on the altar, and later distributed on sankirtan; and recently planted jasmine bushes promise to fill the entire property with a sweet fragrance, just like Mayapur. Coconut trees are being planted and a large ghat filled by underground streams has been dug, and the devotees bathe there regularly.” 

He said that great sums of money had gone into developing the project, and Kṛṣṇa was supplying whatever was needed. The devotees in charge, Narahari dāsa and Rāghava dāsa, were conscious of keeping the overheads down so that book distribution could increase. Even with all the development, each month thirty thousand BTGs are being sold and $36,000.00 per month collected. Balavanta recommended that Śrīla Prabhupāda visit Miami the next time he tours the States. 

Other sections of his report covered Atlanta; Charlotte, which he recommended should be moved to a location nearer the city; Houston where many enthusiastic Indian families are coming regularly to our programs and are seriously adopting our principles and chanting; and Gainesville, where he reported a good reception to the visit by Svarūpa Dāmodara and Sadāpūta prabhus at the university. Balavanta had formerly headed up the short-lived “In God We Trust” political party, and he compared this experience with the newly-developing scientific arena. “There is definitely a great preaching opportunity for them. It is even better than politics because the forum is not so dirty and they are very respected because of their PHDs. If they go on in this way and write their book, they will very soon have a genuine influence on the intelligent class of men in the West.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda was satisfied to hear of the progress of his temples and farms. He gave advice on the type of relationships that should exist between the different spiritual orders. “On the farms we should have mainly grihasthas. Farms are especially meant for the grihasthas. Brahmins and sannyasis are meant for begging food grains from the grihasthas. They depend on the grihasthas and the grihasthas treat them as their children. As the child is not a burden for the parents, so brahmins and sannyasis are not burden for the grihasthas.” 

He named the Tennessee community “Murāri-sevaka,” the place where devotional service to Murāri, is performed. 

 He greatly appreciated the photos of the Deities on the Mississippi farm, which he described as “super excellent.” “The Deity must be very nicely worshipped, dressed, and fed,” he told him, giving a practical suggestion how their excess milk could be utilized. “In so doing you will always be peaceful and enlivened. From the extra ghee, you can contact Boston restaurant. They can perhaps purchase it. Sell ghee and you’ll have good income. If possible in the city of New Orleans, open one restaurant. Someone can go to Boston and see how they are organizing things.”  

He found Balavanta’s comments on cows interesting. “You can study the history of how cow-slaughter became prominent in the West and then use for preaching.” 

He was attracted to the description of the Miami project, especially because when we arrived here in Washington the devotees in Florida sent up a good supply of young coconuts. Prabhupāda has been enjoying their juice every afternoon after his nap, just as if he were in India. He had some very practical suggestions on how they could take further advantage of the natural gifts Kṛṣṇa has supplied. “In Miami there are so many mangos and coconuts. I am enjoying the dobs from Florida. The orange ones especially are very nice. I am taking one each day. From the green mangos you can make pickles. Cut them into pieces with skin intact, and sprinkle with salt and tumeric. Dry them well in the sunshine and put into mustard oil. They will keep for years, and you can enjoy with eating. They are nice and soft and good for digestion. If no vegetable is available, you can eat them with puris, similarly with pickled chilis. When mango pickles and chili pickles are combined, it is very tasteful. The Miami temple sounds to be very nice with bathing place and peacocks, just like Vrindaban. Krishna will supply you everything, don’t worry. Just work sincerely.” 

He said the proposal to move the Charlotte preaching center was all right, “but our principle is that people may come or not come, it doesn’t matter. We can discuss and chant amongst ourselves.”   

Nandarāṇī dāsī sent a report from Iran, where Śrīla Prabhupāda will be visiting in few weeks time. She and her husband Dayānanda now have jobs in Tehran and are preaching with Atreya Ṛṣi prabhu. They have been cultivating the Indian population and some local Iranians are also becoming interested. She is working on getting some of Prabhupāda’s books translated. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda encouraged her. “Try to publish Persian books as many as possible. That will be a big success. Iranians have very much respect especially for the Americans and your dealings with them will be very much appreciated.” 

Nitāi dāsa sent a lengthy letter in reply to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s inquiry of May 26, about his current engagement. He explained that he had stopped work on editing because he felt that now the BBT publishing has caught up with Śrīla Prabhupāda’s writing there was no need for three editors, since Pradyumna is back in action and Jagannātha dāsa is also available. Therefore he has taken up service as the head pūjārī and as a Sanskrit and Hindi teacher at the gurukula. He sounded busy and satisfied with his life in Vṛndāvana. “I like to rise very early here and relish the wonderful atmosphere of Vrndavana. I get up at twelve every night and perform kirtan in the temple from 12 until 1 in the morning and then bathe and chant all my rounds before mangala arati. I also get some time for reading then. After Arati I go and bathe the deities and perform puja until seven. In the mornings I see to the matters of the Deity worship. In the afternoons I teach the classes. In this way by your mercy I am fully engaged.” 

He asked permission to continue, making one request. “The only thing is that I miss the nectar of the editing engagement. I remember how you once told me in Mayapur that the book work is the center of our activities. Everything else revolves around the producing of books. Therefore I would like to ask your permission to begin translations of some of the Goswami books that deal with siddhanta such as Sanatana Goswami’s Brhad-Bhagatamrtam and Rupa Goswami’s Laghu-bhagavatamrtam and others. If I find any difficulty I can consult with Sastriji Ananta dev das or Nrsinghavallabha Goswami. In these ways I would like to render some small service to your lotus feet here in Vrndavana.” 

He concluded by saying that the atmosphere in our temple was harmonious and that more and more people were coming to stay at the Guesthouse. He also said he was working on improving the standards in the pūjārī department to eliminate waste and prevent loss through theft and breakage. “The deities here are so beautiful that I would like to see Them get the best of everything. I pray at your lotus feet for the strength and determination to execute these different occupations to the best of my ability.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda was glad to hear from him, given the concerns that have arisen recently in Los Angeles. He wrote back giving him full encouragement. “Continue with your program in the temple. It is a good program and it sounds that you are doing very nice! You may begin translations of Brhad-Bhagavatamrtam, and Laghu-Bhagavatamrtam as requested. So you stick to Vrindaban somehow or another. Use the security rooms below the Deities and look after it nicely and I will give you silver plates for the Deities on hearing from you assurance that they will be properly cared for. Previously I haven’t introduced because of insecurity. Yes, be attached to the Deity and your life will be successful.” 

* * *  

Our scientists came at noon for a final meeting with Śrīla Prabhupāda as he took his massage. Svarūpa Dāmodara informed him of their plan to go to a science conference in Tokyo later this year. It is held every four years by the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life.  

When Rūpānuga asked what the conference topics would be, Svarūpa Dāmodara replied, “Oh, some will, you know, ‘I have done this experiment, and this looks very possible that about four billion years ago there was some chemical that, ah, get life.’” 

Rūpānuga laughed. “So if we go there, there will be a big fight.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara chuckled. “It will be very interesting if we can throw some mathematics.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda sat listening, cross-legged on the straw mat while I slicked his body with oil. “No,” he told them seriously, “you can challenge them with this, that ‘Why don’t you prepare a chemical egg and give it to the incubator and let life come? If you cannot do that, then don’t talk nonsense.’ This is simple thing. Take a sparrow’s egg, small, analyze what chemicals there are, and combine in the same way. Why they do not do that?” 

“It’s too hard,” Sadāpūta said. 

“Then why do they talk nonsense? You stress on this point. If they say, ‘Yes, we shall do after millions of years,’ then he should be challenged that ‘You give up your title “Doctor,” let the sparrow take it, he’s doing. You give up, nonsense, your title. Don’t talk nonsense. The sparrow, without taking any doctorate title, he’s doing that. So what is the value of your doctorate title?’ Challenge him. Seriously challenge. This point you present, they cannot do it, it is certain. It is not possible to be done like that. Spirit soul is different, complete, from the matter. They have to acknowledge it. Just like this house, a combination of matter. But I am within this room, that does not mean I am this matter. Similarly, I am within this body, but that does not mean I am this body. This chemical composition is suitable arrangement, like this house is made with bricks, with lime, with stone, with wood. But as a living being, I am not identified with all those. Similarly, the body, it may be combination of chemicals, but the life is different.” 

Sadāpūta said, “So even if they could put the chemicals together, a spirit soul would still have to enter in order for it to become animated.” 

Prabhupādaagreed, and Svarūpa Dāmodara said, “My feelings is that even if they make these chemicals, the spirit is never going to come in that medium.” 

Prabhupāda confirmed his thinking. “No, because it comes by superior order, not by your order. Daiva-netreṇa.” 

Svarūpa Dāmodara said he thought that by the turn of the century the scientists hope they will able to understand the meaning of life from the chemical concept. “But when they see that that’s not possible,” he said, “then they have to come around that what they thought was completely illusion. In that case, our case will be strong. Then everybody will accept.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda liked his optimism. “You can challenge that ‘You cannot do it.’” 

Sadāpūta made an interesting comment about the current state of affairs in education. “These theories of theirs are taught in high schools and colleges as fact, practically. Like a student in Gainesville was telling us that he was taking zoology, and they were teaching evolution, and they were saying that it wasn’t a theory any more, but it was a proven fact, and that he was quite dissatisfied with that.” 

“Proven fact?” Prabhupāda asked. 

“Yes,” Sadāpūta continued. “That’s how they are teaching it. They don’t even teach evolution as a theory any more, but they say it’s been proven as a fact.” 

“So how it is fact?” Prabhupāda said. “You cannot do. So what is the fact?” 

“They are cheating,” Svarūpa Dāmodara said. “There is also a big man in Bombay who is working on this line. He’s a member of this International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life. In fact, they use a Sanskrit word for this life coming from chemicals, they call it jīvana particles of life. So they are also catching this idea that life is nothing but molecules.” 

Going off the topic of science for a moment, Rūpānuga and Svarūpa Dāmodara sought clarification on some matters pertaining to our spiritual practices. When the pūjārī blows the conch to announce the beginning of ārati, should it be done behind the closed curtain, or in front, they wanted to know. As it is now, the pūjārī comes out of the Deity room in front of the curtains and unhooks the chain that separates the Deity and temple rooms. “But this disturbs something to the whole scene,” Svarūpa Dāmodara said, “because he has to remove the chain and cross it and then.” 

“No, no,” Prabhupāda said. “Why? There is no need of crossing the chain.” 

“But it can be done inside then?” Svarūpa Dāmodara asked. 

“Why not?” Prabhupāda said. “It can be done.” 

Rūpānuga’s concern was about the way the devotees dance in the temple. He felt it was not proper. “Especially during maṅgala-āratī. Is it not that the devotees should not turn their back while dancing to the Deity?” 

Prabhupāda agreed with him. “No, no.” 

“And that they should not bump each other or dance with each other personally, distracting the attention from the Deity? Shouldn’t all the dancing be focused toward the Deity?” 

“Sometimes dancing is done here in peculiar method,” Prabhupāda said wryly. He was smiling, but his point was serious. “That is not desirable. The dancing, Caitanya Mahāprabhu is showing.” 

“You have shown us the changing of the feet with arms upraised, not with the back to the Deity,” Rūpānuga said. 

“They do it out of sentiment,” Prabhupāda said, “but that is not very good.” 

“Also they bump one another with the drum or with each other’s bodies. That is not bona fide is it?” Rūpānuga asked. “It is very popular in our movement now.” 

“They are inventing,” Prabhupāda said resignedly. “What can I do? If you invent your own way. . . . ” 

* * * 

This evening’s darśana was the longest yet. Prabhupāda talked for three hours, again to a wide variety of guests. There were two philosophy professors: Mr. Kruzowsky, a teacher at the University of Maryland who has hosted the devotees as guest speakers in his class, and Mr. Emmet Holman who teaches at George Mason University.  

Mr. and Mrs. Furman, who sold this property to ISKCON were also present. They had seen Śrīla Prabhupāda on channel four in the morning and said it was a good presentation.  

Dr. Sharma came again, along with several other Indian guests, and the remaining space was filled to capacity with devotees. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda covered many topics: varṇāśrama, yoga practice, duty, and of course, science. 

Mr. Boyd introduced himself as having just come back from Vṛndāvana. His daughter Barbara became a devotee in Germany over two years ago. She caught malaria in India and Mr. Boyd went there to bring her back so that she could regain her health. Then he sent her back to Germany. He brought a small packet of photos of his trip to show Śrīla Prabhupāda. He was very positive about his experience and about the devotees in general. Mr. Boyd was especially inquisitive, particularly about organizational matters, both of human society and of our ISKCON movement. To him, ISKCON seemed fragmented; he couldn’t grasp whether there was any integration between centers or not. “Your Grace, in regards to the organization of the movement, as such, I somehow am led to believe that there’s no coordination between, should I say, your office, and the different temples. Does each temple operate by itself, or each division operate by itself?” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda was happy to explain how things work. “No. There is separate arrangement for management, but the idea and philosophy is the same. Ultimately, I am managing. I have my twenty secretaries, they are called GBC, they are assisting me to manage. Every GBC has got a certain number of temples to supervise, and ultimately, I supervise everything. Therefore I come occasionally, stay for few days to see how things are going on.” He started to laugh. “I have got hundred temples, big, big temples, very nice. They have organized palatial buildings, but I cannot stay anywhere. As soon as I say, ‘Ah, it is very nice place,’ the time is over, they say, ‘You please get out.’” Although it was tongue in cheek, his statement brought simultaneous laughter and groans from the devotees. 

Mr. Boyd also had a question about the position of women in our movement. “Am I to understand that women cannot go back to Godhead without being reincarnated to the male?” 

“No, not necessarily. Who says that?” Prabhupāda said. 

“Well, for two and a half years I’ve been getting this from my daughter, that women cannot be reincarnated [sic], and it didn’t make sense to me. But I’ve asked questions and looked through the books as much as I could, and I haven’t been able to find anything that said that.” 

“Kṛṣṇa says that even women can go back to home, back to Godhead,” Prabhupāda confirmed. “Striyo vaiśyās tathā śūdrās/ te ’pi yānti parāṁ gatim. There is no such thing. Anyone who is devotee of Kṛṣṇa, he or she will go back to home, back to Godhead. There is no such discrimination. Ordinarily it is supposed that woman is less intelligent than the man. That’s a fact. But that is in bodily understanding. But in the spiritual platform, either woman or man or cat or dog or brāhmaṇa or . . . Everyone is spirit soul. Paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ. One who is learned, he sees everyone on the same level of spiritual platform.” 

One of the devotees sought clarity on a topic that is much debated among devotees. “Śrīla Prabhupāda, you say in your books so many times that somehow or other we have fallen into this material world due to our enviousness or our independence.” 

“Many, there are many reasons,” Prabhupāda told him. 

“I can’t seem to get a grasp on this at all,” the boy confessed. “If we in our original constitutional position as part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, and in that original position of full knowledge and full bliss and being in our eternal nature . . . Now I have some experience of how strong this material energy is and how māyā works somewhat, but if I had known this and had this full knowledge, then I would have had this knowledge of how māyā works and how I might fall.” He wanted to know why he would desire to fall into the realm of māyā with all its suffering, if he was originally in full knowledge of existence in the spiritual world. 

“You read the life of Jaya, Vijaya, Hiraṇyakaśipu, Hiraṇyākṣa?” Prabhupāda asked him. “They were Kṛṣṇa’s doorkeepers. How they fell down? Did you read it?” 

“Yes, Prabhupāda.” 

“So how they did fall? They are from Vaikuṇṭha. They are Kṛṣṇa’s personal associates, the doorkeepers. How did they fell down? Anyway, there is chance of falling down at any moment. Because we are living entities, we are not as powerful as Kṛṣṇa, therefore we may fall down from Vaikuṇṭha at any moment.”  

He quoted Bhagavad-gītā [7.27], asking Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja to read out the translation and purport. “So even in the Vaikuṇṭha, if I desire that ‘Why shall I serve Kṛṣṇa? Why not become Kṛṣṇa?’ I immediately fall down. That is natural. A servant is serving the master. Sometimes he may think that ‘If I could become the master.’ They are thinking like that, they are trying to become God. That is delusion. You cannot become God. That is not possible. But he’s wrongly thinking.” 

Vipina asked why Kṛṣṇa doesn’t protect us from that desire. 

“He is protecting,” Prabhupāda said. “He says, ‘You rascal, don’t desire, surrender unto Me. But you are rascal, you do not do this.” 

“Why doesn’t He save me from thinking like that?” Vipina asked. 

“That means you lose your independence,” Śrīla Prabhupāda said. 

Vipina nodded in understanding. “And no love.” 

Śrīla Prabhupāda went on, giving another Bengali saying to illuminate his point. “That is force; it is not prema. In Bengali it is said, ‘If you catch one girl or boy,’ ”—he assumed an aggressive countenance—“ ‘You love me, you love me, you love me.’ Is it love? ‘You love me, otherwise I will kill you.’ ” Everyone was laughing at his graphic depiction of so-called love. “Is that love? So Kṛṣṇa does not want to become a lover like that, on the point of revolver, ‘You love me, otherwise I shall kill you.’ That is not love, that is threatening. Love is reciprocal, voluntary, good exchange of feeling, then there is love, not by force. That is rape.” 

It was after nine o’clock when Prabhupāda called a halt to his final darśana here in Washington, D. C. After three hours of direct exposure to Kṛṣṇa’s pure devotional potency, everyone left with prasādam in their hands and gratitude in their hearts. There is nothing so satisfying as an evening with Śrīla Prabhupāda. Even those who are not devotees are deeply touched by his sincerity, knowledge and concern. His unbiased analysis of love, life and the universe, delivered with gentle gravity and humor, is always well received because there is an absence of malice in his heart which any reasonable person can detect. He is, truly, our “ever well-wisher.” 

* * * 

 After the darśana Śrīla Prabhupāda went out on the back porch for a while to take a little prasādam and milk and to relax in the cool night air. Dr. Dinesh Sharma spent a few minutes with him. He has been attending morning Bhāgavatam class and is very enthusiastic to help with the B.I. He is highly educated, holding four doctorates in chemistry, biochemistry, clinical endocrinology and one as a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry in London. He also has a law degree and is involved with computer information and control engineering.  

He told Prabhupāda how he had been a “hard-core Vedāntist” and a follower of various Māyāvādī institutions. Then once, while in an āśrama in Calcutta, he had cried out to God, “Please find me the path again!” Almost immediately afterward he met the ISKCON devotees, and his heart has since been changed by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. He said that once he was meditating on Hardwar, his birthplace. “All the time your face was appearing behind Ganges, and it was very strange phenomena.” He was amazed that two days ago he had been meditating on five verses of the Bhagavad-gītā and had come to the temple to ask Śrīla Prabhupāda to explain them. But during the course of the evening’s discussion, without any prompting, Prabhupāda spoke on four of them.  

Prabhupāda was very pleased to obtain the services of such a highly qualified person. He called Svarūpa Dāmodara prabhu in and advised him to engage Dr. Sharma as fully as possible in writing for the new journal and helping with other Bhaktivedanta Institute projects. 

* * * 

Śrīla Prabhupāda took a break for a while by the swimming pool, sitting quietly, enjoying his well-earned peace and privacy. He chanted a little and then got up to go back in for his evening rest. As he emerged from the pool enclosure to return to the house, a couple of devotees stepped out of the darkness. I recognized them as RDTSKP men, one of them Praghoṣa dāsa and the other, Subuddhi Rāya dāsa, a New York devotee.  

They both immediately hit the ground in full prostrate obeisances.  

Jaya!” Śrīla Prabhupāda said, stopping to stand quietly before them as they got up. I introduced them to Śrīla Prabhupāda as airport book distributors who were just returning from selling his books.  

His interest aroused, Śrīla Prabhupāda smiled softly and benevolently. “Coming back so late?” he said. And, before they could answer, “So, how was the book distribution today?” 

Grinning, Praghoṣa spoke up, both excited and sobered by the close proximity of his spiritual master. “Well Śrīla Prabhupāda, today, Vaiśeṣika and I, between us, we sold one hundred and thirty books.”  

Prabhupāda looked over to me with a big smile and tipped his head side to side. “Ah, victory!” Then he set off for the house once more, keeping the two of them in tow.  

Praghoṣa told him some experiences he had selling books during the day. “I met one soldier that bought four books from me, Śrīla Prabhupāda.”  

“Four books?” Prabhupāda said, pleasantly surprised.  

“Yes Prabhupāda. And he gave eighty dollars.”  

Prabhupāda stopped, looked at me, and raised his eyebrows. “Four books, eighty dollars. That is a handsome profit!” 

“Prabhupāda,” Praghoṣa said, “this boy was particularly nice, and he asked me if it was possible for him to remain a solider and still be Kṛṣṇa conscious.”  

Acchā,” Prabhupāda said, stopping for a moment. “So what did you answer?”  

“Well, Prabhupāda, I told him that the Bhagavad-gītā was spoken to a soldier. And it was actually meant for the warrior class, and that yes, he definitely could be a soldier, Arjuna was a soldier.” 

Prabhupāda nodded and in a relaxed fashion began to walk on. “You have answered right. That is our philosophy. Yes, this is a fact. Arjuna was a soldier, he was a military man.”  

Prabhupāda arrived back at the house and climbed the few steps to enter the door. The two men hung back, unsure whether to follow or to remain. I thought Śrīla Prabhupāda would end it there. A senior man might have automatically gone in with him, but regular devotees would not assume that right. To my surprise and their extreme delight, he half-turned and innocently inquired if they would like to come in. He was obviously enjoying their association and he wanted to hear more about book distribution, direct from the mouths of his men in the field. 

They eagerly followed him inside, and as Prabhupāda made himself comfortable on the couch, they sat on the carpet at his feet. Prabhupāda crossed his legs, leaned back and stretched his arms along the back of the couch. “So, how is the book-selling?”  

Just to make sure Śrīla Prabhupāda knew who he was, I interjected and told him, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, this is Praghoṣa. He has been distributing your books for many years in the airports and recently he has been trying to develop a program for selling the books in encyclopedia sales.”  

Prabhupāda had been informed of the attempt by Tamal Krishna Mahārāja in Los Angeles, so he asked, “So how did that go?” 

“Well Śrīla Prabhupāda, Tamal Krishna Mahārāja and I worked at it for some time, but we determined that it was going to take more back-up and more arrangement than the BBT had together. And so he decided that for the time being I should just go back on just selling books individually in the airports.” 

Prabhupāda said, “That is all right.” Then he questioned him how his book-selling was going. 

It was highly apparent that Praghoṣa was bathing in the nectar of this most unexpected association. Śrīla Prabhupāda was sharing the friendly, relaxed ambience of his room, giving him a personal darśana, and inquiring interestedly about his service. Praghoṣa took full advantage, narrating a few experiences garnered in the course of his book-selling. He mentioned a group of boys who meet regularly to read Prabhupāda’s Bhagavad-gītā. 

“Our Gītā?” Prabhupāda asked guilelessly. When Praghoṣa confirmed it was his translation, Prabhupāda raised his eyebrows and looked over to me. “Just see,” he said as if it was a most unexpected and wonderful thing. “So you are staying here in Washington now?” he asked. Praghoṣa explained that he was staying in New York and Prabhupāda smiled. “Oh, I was in New York, I began in New York.” He said it so unassumedly, as if Praghoṣa might not have known. Then he asked if the devotees there were selling prasādam. When Praghoṣa confirmed they were, he asked him what they were selling. 

“Well, they are selling vegetables, some rice . . . ”  

Prabhupāda stopped him. “Kacaurī? They are selling kacaurī?”  

“I don’t know, Śrīla Prabhupāda.”  

Prabhupāda tipped his face upward. “They must!” he said. He told Praghoṣa that if people got the opportunity to eat kachaurīs cooked in ghee they would lose all taste for meat. “Bali-mardana, he is in New York?” he asked.  

Praghoṣa said he was. 

 “Ah,” Prabhupāda smiled. “Then Bali-mardana, he must cook the kacaurīs and they must sell kacaurīs every day. He makes the best kacaurīs in our ISKCON.”  

Śrīla Prabhupāda turned to Subuddhi Rāya who sat quietly listening, and asked his name and where he was from. Subuddhi identified himself, saying he was also from New York but that he had previously been in India. The mention of India sparked Prabhupāda’s interest. “Oh, where were you in India?”  

“I was with Gargamuni Swami on the Library Party.” Subuddhi started to explain why he had left. He was a bit captious, faulting Gargamuni Mahārāja personally for not giving his men enough time to execute their sādhana.  

Prabhupāda didn’t want to hear criticisms of other devotees, so he cut him off. “Why did you leave?” he said, and then added, “Anyway, they are working hard.” 

He looked back to Praghoṣa and asked him if he would be in New York for the Ratha-yātrā.  

Praghoṣa said that he wouldn’t miss it for the world. 

Prabhupāda gave a big smile. “Yes, it is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. This will be a wonderful Ratha-yātrā.” 

Prabhupāda moved his arm from the seat back and pulled around the watch on his wrist to see the time. It was late. “You had prasādam? Take prasādam. Pālikā is here?” 

I went to find her. When she popped her head in the door, he asked what was available. She disappeared into the kitchen and a minute later was back. “Śrīla Prabhupāda, we don’t have any prasādam left. There’s just mango ice cream.” 

The ice cream had been sent from New Vrindaban and was still fresh. “Would you like some mango ice cream?” Prabhupāda asked them.  

“Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda,” Praghoṣa said, a grin spreading across his face. He didn’t care what it was; it was prasādam directly from his guru. 

Pālikā soon handed out several ceramic bowls filled with the solid, creamy nectar. “So I will see you in New York?” Prabhupāda asked. “So, all right. Thank you.” He got up and left for his bedroom. The two men offered their obeisances and exited, the grateful and unexpected beneficiaries of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s special mercy. 

July 9th, 1976

Śrīla Prabhupāda went on his walk while Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa and I prepared for our departure to New York. Returning early he took prasādam at 7:00 a.m. 

  Before leaving he agreed to pose for a group photo at the front entrance to the property. Prabhupāda sat on a canework couch and the members of the Bhaktivedanta Institute gathered in front at his feet, on either side. All the rest of the devotees crowded all around. Prabhupāda laughed when Pradyumna’s son Aniruddha eagerly pushed to the front to be in on the action. He let him sit just in front of his feet, along side the scientists. This official record of Prabhupāda’s visit completed, we departed for the airport to take the short flight to New York. 

While Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja checked in, Prabhupāda took a seat near the departure gate. The devotees gathered on the carpet just in front. It was clear that our book distributors were active in the airport precincts as a pleasant, well-dressed man in his early thirties suddenly approached, holding a Caitanya-caritāmṛta,Madhya-līlā, Volume Eight. Jayo dāsa had sold him the book and invited him to meet the author. The man, a chemist from Toronto, was obviously honored, and Śrīla Prabhupāda was pleased to meet him. He offered him a seat next to his own, and for a few minutes they shared a happy exchange. It seemed to perfectly cap off a highly successful visit to America’s capital city. 

At 9:20 a.m. we set off on the next, and final leg, of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s American tour.