[[Category:Lectures, Conversations and Letters - Australasia]]
[[Category:Lectures, Conversations and Letters - Australasia, Melbourne]]
[[Category:1976 - New Audio - Released in November 2013]]
[[Category:Audio Files 00.01 to 05.00 Minutes]]
<div style="float:left">[[File:Go-previous.png|link=Category:Conversations - by Date]]'''[[:Category:Conversations - by Date|Conversations by Date]], [[:Category:1976 - Conversations|1976]]'''</div>
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Prabhupāda: But they do not know how to keep clean. So in India there is no question how to keep clean. They do not know. They'll not take bath for days together. And he likes stop bathing(?), so many germs carrying. And he's a first-class person, sāheb, on account of the wealth (?). Last maybe. First-class.(?) Don't take bath, neither wash their mouth or hand. And that is...
Hari-śauri: That habit is spreading. I've seen in India. Even the Indian businessmen that come to see you...
<div class="code">760422R1-MELBOURNE - April 22, 1976 - 03.19 Minutes</div>
Prabhupāda: But you see. I take little medicine and wash hand. But you don't learn it. You remain the same. You have to.... (microphone moving) I show example, but you don't do it. What can I do?
Hari-śauri: We're learning.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Prabhupāda: I do not know how long you'll learn.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The machine, I forgot to turn it . . . one knob down. I wanted to tape what you were saying, because . . . (break) We find actually it's true that when we try to speak philosophy sometimes to unwilling persons, they take that we are trying to convert them.
Hari-śauri: (laughs) It's like you said in Māyāpura. It's a little artificial for us. It's very.... It's not...
Prabhupāda: Cleanliness unknown to the Western people.
Hari-śauri: That's a fact.
Prabhupāda: Śaucam. Satya-śaucābhyām. Śaucam means cleanliness. The Western people, they do not know what is cleanliness. And therefore brāhmaṇa 's another name is śuci, always clean. Three times' bathing, three times' changing cloth. It doesn't matter, loin cloth, but cloth must be changed.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Outer cloth?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Dhoti, like that?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: And therefore they feel threatened. They react in an adverse way, put up so many barriers.
Prabhupāda: No, you take bath. You have to change your cloth. It becomes wet. This is cleanliness. Satya-śaucābhyām. Śamena damena ca brahmacarya, tapasā brahmacaryeṇa [[SB 6.1.13]] . Tapasya, the first beginning of tapasya, is brahmacārī. Yamena niyamena vā tyāgena satya-śaucābhyāṁ yamena niyamena vā. This is human life, tapasā, brahmacaryeṇa, śamena, damena vā [[SB 6.1.13]] , then truthfulness, cleanliness, controlling the senses. So these things are required. Otherwise what is the difference between dog's life?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: People don't see what the gain will be. If one.... People don't see, in Western countries, or appreciate what the gain will be by exerting much effort in these ways.
Prabhupāda: That they do not know, what is the real gain. They think this body is the gain only. And beyond this body there is another gain. That is not known. They do not know even. That is the defect of their civilization. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre [[BG 2.20]] . They are taking care of the body, but beyond the body there is something else which is eternal. Even after the annihilation of the body, it does not become destroyed. That they do not know. There is no education. There is no research. There is no college. There is no science to understand. And that kind of taking care of the body, a dogs know. Sometimes the dogs, they rub their body on the ground like that. That.... That makes them rejuvenated. Horse also do that. So how to take care of the body, they know in their different method. But that is known to them. If before the horse you give them some meat, they'll not take. And give them peas; they'll take immediately.
Prabhupāda: Chanting they will take part. That's it.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Give them milk?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Before you went to America, in India, before 1965, were people coming at all, Indian people, to learn anything? Were they interested in any way?
Prabhupāda: No, meat.
Prabhupāda: No.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Meat. He will not take.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Now they're coming, so many.
Prabhupāda: And the dog, you give fruit; he'll dislike. Give him rotten meat, he can take. So there is difference between dog's life, horse life, even in animals.
Prabhupāda: They were coming, but I was engaged in writing. I was not visiting many . . . (break)
Hari-śauri: They know how to look after their bodies.
Hari-śauri: . . . when they begin to write, then they finish up their activities and retire and simply write. But you wrote first and then came out and distributed it.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I personally, I don't think that even Americans or Westerners would have accepted even your teachings, as clear as they are, without having your personal association and seeing your example. I think people would have thought that it's totally impossible to do such a thing.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So then the argument that animals have no intelligence...
Hari-śauri: It would have remained theoretical. But because you came and showed practical example, then everything has become very easy.
Prabhupāda: And what is your intelligence? You are using the intelligence for the same purpose. And what is the use of your intelligence?
Prabhupāda: Yes. ''Āpani ācārī prabhu jīvera śikṣāya''. That is the way of teaching. Caitanya Mahāprabhu used to do.
Hari-śauri: It's just waste.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I've read some of your old ''Back to Godhead'' magazines, and actually you've been saying the same thing all along, with the same force also. Some of your critiques of Dr. Radhakrishnan's ''Bhagavad-gītā'' and modern science . . .
Prabhupāda: No, no. If animal has no intelligence, you have no intelligence. What you are doing more than the animals? That we are protesting, that "Why you should remain in the animal intelligence?" That is our propaganda.
Prabhupāda: You have read?
Hari-śauri: If you can't prove yourself capable of taking use of better facility, then again you get less facility.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: You explained very nicely how these boys and girls, they will sit on the floor. What is the need to manufacture chair? So a civilization which is geared to unnecessarily increasing the necessities is simply glorified...
Prabhupāda: Wasting time.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: That is not the real business of human life.
Prabhupāda: But they are thinking, "This is advancement. To sit on the floor is primitive, but to sit on the chair is civilized."
Hari-śauri: Well, when we were on the plane in the first-class, we were eating with our hand, and I could see, these men, they were eating with knife and fork, and they were looking like this. And they were.... I could see what they were thinking. They were disgusted: "Here are these men, sitting in first-class, eating with their hands, very primitive and crude." And they're eating with knife and fork, and I was thinking, "What are they eating? Some beef or some meat preparation, like this." But they're thinking they're civilized.
Prabhupāda: Then why? Why?
Hari-śauri: Yes. "Because I have knife and fork, now I'm civilized."
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I remember when I first went to Vṛndāvana and I saw in the villages how they were using dirt and charcoal to clean their pots and pans...
Prabhupāda: Yes, they use it.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I thought the.... It was my condition.... I have never seen before. I thought, "What is this? They are making their pots and pans dirty?" Because, you know, we're so accustomed to detergents and soaps, and you have to have so many things to clean.
Prabhupāda: That is not also properly clean.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No.
Prabhupāda: The down side of the pan remains black. But if you take some dirt and rub it nicely, it become glisten.
Hari-śauri: Dirt is very first-class for cleaning.
Prabhupāda: Utensils for cooking purpose must be very, very clean. The.... If the black portion remains, in India they will not touch.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Even on the bottom?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: On the outside?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: They'll not touch: "Oh, it is still dirty." But our going on. What can be done? Where there is no cleanliness, little rubbed with soap, that is sufficient. What can be done? But that is not cleanliness. If there is a black spot on the..., it has to.... It will immediately be cleaned. My mother used to see every utensil, whether there is any spot. The maidservant had to surrender. Examine. Then it is no spot. Then it is finished. Otherwise she has to do again. Everything should be neat and clean. The kitchen should be very neat and clean, washed twice daily, opened nicely and smeared with water and gobar. And if you see the kitchen, immediately you'll feel comfortable. It is very cleanly prepared, then offered to the Deity. Then you take. Automatically your mind becomes cleansed. [break]
Prabhupāda: "Scholars Deluded."
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So that was a very wonderful meeting Prabhupāda had in his room in Melbourne, the evening of April 22nd, 1976. There were three young men who came to visit Prabhupāda, and their names were Brian Singer, Doug Warvick, and Michael Gordon. The person who was first speaking, and he spoke at the very beginning was.... Who was it?
Hari-śauri: Sometimes the devotees say that, "Now Prabhupāda is preaching much more strongly than ever before." But then, when we read the old ''Back to Godheads'', it's exactly the same.
Hari-śauri: The one who was speaking for a little while. That was...
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Even if we read the First Canto of ''Bhāgavatam'' . . .
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Mike Gordon, he spoke first, and I think he only asked one question. Then it was all.... Then Brian Singer was asking all the rest of the questions. And the first boy was Michael Gordon. And then Brian Singer asked the majority of questions all throughout the whole thing. Haribol. Good article for BTG, especially the first part of this discourse, fantastic. [break] Incidentally, there's not enough room to tape anything else on the rest of this tape, so I'm going to zip it off now. Haribol. Signing off, Hare Kṛṣṇa. (end)
Hari-śauri: It's very powerful.
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Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: You translated that in India before you came. (end)
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
760422R1-MELBOURNE - April 22, 1976 - 03.19 Minutes
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The machine, I forgot to turn it . . . one knob down. I wanted to tape what you were saying, because . . . (break) We find actually it's true that when we try to speak philosophy sometimes to unwilling persons, they take that we are trying to convert them.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: And therefore they feel threatened. They react in an adverse way, put up so many barriers.
Prabhupāda: Chanting they will take part. That's it.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Before you went to America, in India, before 1965, were people coming at all, Indian people, to learn anything? Were they interested in any way?
Prabhupāda: No.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Now they're coming, so many.
Prabhupāda: They were coming, but I was engaged in writing. I was not visiting many . . . (break)
Hari-śauri: . . . when they begin to write, then they finish up their activities and retire and simply write. But you wrote first and then came out and distributed it.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I personally, I don't think that even Americans or Westerners would have accepted even your teachings, as clear as they are, without having your personal association and seeing your example. I think people would have thought that it's totally impossible to do such a thing.
Hari-śauri: It would have remained theoretical. But because you came and showed practical example, then everything has become very easy.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Āpani ācārī prabhu jīvera śikṣāya. That is the way of teaching. Caitanya Mahāprabhu used to do.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I've read some of your old Back to Godhead magazines, and actually you've been saying the same thing all along, with the same force also. Some of your critiques of Dr. Radhakrishnan's Bhagavad-gītā and modern science . . .
Prabhupāda: You have read?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: "Scholars Deluded."
Hari-śauri: Sometimes the devotees say that, "Now Prabhupāda is preaching much more strongly than ever before." But then, when we read the old Back to Godheads, it's exactly the same.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Even if we read the First Canto of Bhāgavatam . . .
Hari-śauri: It's very powerful.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: You translated that in India before you came. (end)
