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750223 - Morning Walk - Caracas

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada




750223MW-CARACAS - February 23, 1975 - 07:15 Minutes



Prabhupāda: . . . lower animals. Nobody is starving. Have you seen any bird die of starvation? There are so many hundreds, thousands of birds in this garden.

Devotee: Even in all these countries, Śrīla Prabhupāda, they are always complaining about there are so many starving people. But nobody has ever seen anybody die.

Prabhupāda: (chuckles) In India also. They, "Poverty, poverty, poverty." Have you seen anyone dying?

Śrutakīrti: No.

Prabhupāda: They are purchasing eight-rupees-kilo rice.

Śrutakīrti: Even the poorest person seems to be maintaining somehow. Even the poorest people seem to be maintained. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . of knowledge, not starvation of food.

Vīrabāhu: They even. The modern scientists, they even admit that the body, a human body, is the most perfect machine. They admit this in college. But, like, the same teacher, I heard him saying this, though he says this, he says, "There is no God. This is an invention of the necessity of man."

Prabhupāda: Then why do you die? Why do you die?

Hṛdayānanda: It's a perfect machine.

Vīrabāhu: No, he says is the most perfect. No one can make something better.

Prabhupāda: Where is perfection? Why do you die? You don't like to die. Where is perfection? Nobody wants to die, but it is sure that he will die. Where is perfection?

Vīrabāhu: He says because of the fear of dying, one invents God. He saying because one is . . .

Prabhupāda: Stop it, this. Then we shall not think of God. You are scientist, rascal. You stop it. Then we shall not think of God. Why you ask to stop thinking of God before making arrangement that we shall not die? First of all make this arrangement. The cause of fear: death. "Death is the cause of fear; therefore we are thinking of God." So you stop this cause, we shall not think of God. You were present when this rascal was talking?

Vīrabāhu: Yes, yes. That was long time ago.

Prabhupāda: Oh, long time ago. You could not answer?

Vīrabāhu: Oh, yes, I was new in the movement. I had two months . . . (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Ask this rascal that you stop the cause of fear and we have no . . . (to devotee who is walking too close) Don't come so far. You may . . . we admit that we are afraid of death. You are also afraid of death. Are you bold enough, if I kill you, immediately you shall stand? Ask the scientist, "Are you bold enough to die immediately I shall kill you?" At that time he will be afraid: "Call police! Call police!" "Why you are afraid of death? You are great scientist. What is your answer?" The scientists are not afraid of death? They are not afraid of death?

Vīrabāhu: I really don't know what they will answer. They should be. Sure they are, inside, but they are puffed up.

Hṛdayānanda: They are very much afraid.

Prabhupāda: Very much afraid, yes.

Hṛdayānanda: There is one great scientist when I was a student, and he was trying to prove how there was no God, and he was so nervous, sometimes he could hardly speak he was shaking so much. (laughter)

Vīrabāhu: Oh, yes, that is what happens. When one starts speaking of God, they just . . .

Prabhupāda: So long you have not solved the four prominent miserable condition of life—birth, death, old age and disease—you cannot say there is no God. There is controller who is forcing you to accept these conditions. Therefore there is authority. How you can avoid this?

Vīrabāhu: They say: "Some day. Some day we will do."

Prabhupāda: Some day, rascal, somebody will come and kick your face with shoes. (laughter)

Hṛdayānanda: Prabhupāda, if we go back this way, we'll get back around the right time.

Prabhupāda: Why so soon?

Hṛdayānanda: Jaya. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . accept that they are controlled?

Vīrabāhu: They have many contradiction, because I learned also that . . .

Prabhupāda: No, where is contradiction? Everyone is being controlled. Where is contradiction?

Vīrabāhu: One day they say one thing; one day they say something else.

Prabhupāda: That means rascal. That means rascal. One day something, one day . . . that means the rascals. Just like yesterday or day before yesterday, "maybe," "perhaps." And "You cannot talk, because you have no knowledge. You say 'perhaps,' 'maybe.' What is the value of your knowledge? Don't talk."

Vīrabāhu: There was this great scientist. His name is Nernst. He said that this, that everything was infinite, that the universe, everything, was eternal, that this universe was eternal. So he got very mad, very vexed, because another scientist was telling him, was a . . . (indistinct) . . . a young scientist was proving that the universe has a time, a specific time, and it will finish.

Prabhupāda: No, no, that does not require a great scientist. Anything in this material world which has got a beginning, it has got end. We can experience from our body. The body has got a beginning; therefore it must have an end. Anything which has beginning, there must be end. This is our experience. You take anything material. This tree, it has got a beginning; it has got end.

Vīrabāhu: But because it didn't suit to his theories, he said that . . .

Prabhupāda: No, no, that means they are rascals. That means they are rascals. They are simply mental speculators. They have no value of their knowledge. We should take them like that, that "These are all rascals." They may be very big man in the estimation of other rascals, but we are not such rascals. We are not going to take their version.

Devotee: Prabhupāda? (break) (end)