(Click to enlarge photo of Srila Prabhupada preaching on the roof of the Manhattan temple, 1976)
Prabhupāda: Karmī is also working and bhakta is also working. Then what is the difference?
Devotee: One is working for his own sense satisfaction and the other is working for the sense satisfaction of Kṛṣṇa.
Devotee (2): Mentality?
Devotee (3): The devotee is peaceful. The karmīs are never peaceful.
Prabhupāda: Karmī... just like I began this Kṛṣṇa consciousness business with forty rupees, eh, in New York. Now, say within eight or ten years, we have got forty crores. What is the karmī who started his business with forty rupees and within ten years, eight years, has got forty crores?
Devotee (2): Therefore the difference is the karmī's not successful.
Prabhupāda: A bhakta is never unsuccessful.
Devotee (3): His results are temporary. Our results are eternal.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Karmī... just like this house you have got. For a karmī to invest so much money, it will takes fifty years. We got this all donation. (laughter)
Devotee: Nobody's going to come up to a karmī and give him six hundred thousand.
Prabhupāda: To acquire $600,000, for a karmī it will require six hundred years. (laughter) For a bhakta, somebody comes, "Take it," immediately. (laughter)
Devotee (4): Just like we all have so many watches. They notice everyone in our Society has watches.
Prabhupāda: They haven't got, karmīs?
Devotee (4): Some of them do.
Prabhupāda: So? What is the idea? You are asking question? Without have watches? We can live without watches? What is the idea?
Devotee (4): Well they're... usually they'll say we're... if we are supposed to be spiritualists, then why do we have so many cars, why do we have so many watches, why do we have so many different things that they can see there within the temple?
Prabhupāda: Yes. We acquire them without any effort. We are not after these things. But Kṛṣṇa sends, we take—so many cars, so many watches, so many houses for propaganding Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Why shall I refuse it?
Devotee (2): Simply we are preaching and everything comes.
Prabhupāda: Everything necessary. Whatever is necessary will come. Kṛṣṇa has supplied. For us there is no such distinction as "material" and "spiritual." Because this material, so-called material, that is God's creation. When it is used for God, that is spiritual. Who has created this tree? You have created? Man has created this tree? Who has created?
Devotee: Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So when it is used for Kṛṣṇa... just like these rascals, they do not know. They wanted to use it for themselves. It is ugly, no fruit. Give us... we see near Bombay, they have got so many coconuts. How beautiful it is with fruits and leaves. Because we use it for Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...abhaya. They have got fear, the coconut will fall down on your head. (laughter) And they make it ugly. They kill children (abortion), but we, we're training children how they're offering obeisances. We do not kill. We beg them, Kṛṣṇa conscious. So our activities all spiritual. (break) ...afraid of population. We say: "Create any number of population, but make them Kṛṣṇa conscious." That is our restriction, that if you cannot make your children Kṛṣṇa conscious, then don't beget. And if you can do that, then hundred children can be got. Na sasya. Na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyum (SB 5.5.18). This is our... we say that if you cannot beget Kṛṣṇa conscious child, don't become father and mother. And if you can produce Kṛṣṇa conscious children, you become father and mother hundreds of children.
Devotee: The karmīs are always in anxiety about something or other.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Devotee:The karmīs, they're always fearing something.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee (4): They think that if the population increases at the rate that it's going now...
Prabhupāda: Well, whatever they think, we say increase any number of population, but make them Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is our program. We are not afraid of population. They are rascals. They're thinking that they'll feed people. We don't think that. We know Kṛṣṇa is feeding. But if he's a rascal, we don't want. We don't want to feed the rascals, we want to feed the devotees.
Devotee (4): If the population increases at the rate it is now...
Prabhupāda: Let them increase. We don't care for it. We can maintain any number of population. Let them come and become Kṛṣṇa conscious. We're not afraid.
Devotee: It appears from the Kṛṣṇa Book that there were many billions of people more on this planet when Kṛṣṇa was here than there is now. And they had no problems then.
Prabhupāda: Not only that, we have got from history, they were begetting hundreds of children. There was no scarcity of food. And who is begetting now one hundred children? Huh? One or two or at utmost... utmost eight, ten. Wrong theory, population increasing. Rascal's theory.
Devotee: It's just that they don't know how to manage nicely.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Devotee: They don't know how to manage nicely.
Prabhupāda: Yes. There's so many... so much land vacant all over the world—Australia, Africa, America.
Devotee (2): Why would someone who is not Kṛṣṇa conscious have a hundred children?
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Devotee (2): Why would someone who is not Kṛṣṇa conscious have one hundred children? For example, why would someone like Dhṛtarāṣṭra, who is not particularly Kṛṣṇa conscious...?
Prabhupāda: Oh, he was Kṛṣṇa conscious. In those days everyone was Kṛṣṇa conscious.
Devotee (4): There's only a certain amount of grain. There's only a certain amount of water. So...
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Devotee (4): There's some theories where they think that there's only a certain amount of grains...
Prabhupāda: Their theories we don't accept. There's so much water.
Devotee (4): But, therefore, if they don't... if you don't work to conserve it, then everyone will starve.
Prabhupāda: First of all you produce it, then conserve. These rascals, do they produce water?
Devotee (4): No.
Prabhupāda: Why he's anxious to conserve it? It is not his production. That is rascaldom. Huh? He has taken from some other sources, and he wants to conserve it. He does not think that "I did not produce it. It has come to me."
Devotee: Well, they don't know how it's produced. So what's there they're gonna have to save, because they're not certain that there'll be any more supply.
Prabhupāda: No. The sense is that if I'm not produced, then even if I conserve, the proper... the supply may be stopped. Because it is... there is no control over, of me. Suppose you have got some water. How long it will be conserved? Huh? The water supply is stopped. Now suppose it's the ocean. There's enough water, but if Kṛṣṇa desires, it will be dried up. Then, where you will get water? So what is the meaning of their conserving?
Devotee (3): Right.
Prabhupāda: Enormous. Why should we bother about conserving? We should be Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is our business. The child is born; immediately there is milk in the breasts of the mother. And one minute before, there is no milk. There is no milk. Just the child is born—immediately milk. Who supplies the milk? He does not see that eko bahūnāṁ yo vidadhāti kāmān (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13), that one Supreme is supplying all the necessities of the others. So our duty is only to become Kṛṣṇa conscious. Other things will be supplied by Kṛṣṇa.
Devotee (4): The example that if God is supplying, then why doesn't He supply the underprivileged countries? Just like in some places like India people are starving. So why doesn't He supply places like that?
Prabhupāda: Who says India is starving? You are saying. I'm Indian, I don't starve. You are false propaganda, "India's starving."
Devotee (4): Bangladesh they...
Devotee (2): I was in Bangladesh also; they're not starving.
Prabhupāda: Nobody is starving. This is all propaganda. This propaganda... you know in your country there are so many foundations. There is so many false organizations. They, under the name of India, they draw the money and take it. I've seen it. They have got arrangement with the trustees of the fund, and with some propaganda they draw money, and then they divide, the trustees and the organization. That's all. I've seen.
Devotee (4): Places like Africa, such as Biafra, where they have...
Prabhupāda: There are countries, there is, they are not opulent or affluent as you are. But that doesn't mean they're starving.
Devotee: Well, they show so many cases of children with malnutrition, and they say that so many thousands of people are dying every week in certain areas...
Prabhupāda: You have got your... so many hippies are malnutrition. They have got enough food; why they are malnutrition? What is this? Another...
Devotee: That's not actually a very good argument of theirs anyway, because here in America they were found to be dumping excess grains in the ocean, excess milk they give to the pig farms, like that.
Prabhupāda: Mismanagement. This... of course nature's way, sometimes something is produced in large quantity, sometimes less quantity. Therefore the arrangement should be where there is less quantity, the large country with production should be distributed. But they'll throw into the ocean. Still, they will not supply to the country where there is less production.
Devotee (2): It would seem that if money was not the means of exchange, this would not go on. Because then they would trade even excess food for other things that they required.
Devotee (3): They simply limit the supply so they can sell things for higher prices.
Prabhupāda: No, here the American policy, the Western policy, that if the people get easily food, they'll not come to work in the industry. That is their policy. If they get cheap food, then they won't work. That is human nature.
Devotee (2): That is very interesting.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Devotee (2): That's very interesting.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So they want to keep them starving or in want, so they'll come and produce and make the capitalists rich. This is the system. (break) ...idea, but...
Devotee (2): It's conspiracy.
Prabhupāda: I think in here, in Hawaii, they set fire to the huts, cottages. They are living in cottages; the government set fire so that they may be without home and come to work. Do you know that? Yes? You know that?
Devotee (2): No.
Prabhupāda: In Hawaii.
Devotee (3): They simply let people live in these buildings, boxes. They don't want to let people live on the land.
Devotee (4): When the government comes, they may have so many health rules and regulations that if someone has a little hut, they will not let them stay there.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They set fire. They set fire. "Let them become without home, then they will work for my shop."
Devotee (4): There were so many mangoes here that were dropping to the ground, and they've gotten rid of some of the mango trees because they said that the people were stopping on the side of the road picking up the mangoes, it was causing a traffic hazard.
Prabhupāda: Causing what is that?
Devotee (4): They were causing traffic disturbance. So therefore they took away all the mango trees. There were much more mango trees in Hawaii than there are now. Anyone could go and take mangoes off the ground.
Prabhupāda: They don't want natural living.
Devotee (3): ...(indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Hmm. Try to introduce plain living, high thinking. The modern leaders, they don't want it.
Devotee: We're a threat to the society.
Prabhupāda: Their policy is "High living and poor thinking." (laughs) They live in skyscraper, but don't care for where they are going to next life, as a cat and dog. "Never mind. Now live in skyscraper." Poor thinking. High living, poor thinking. (laughter) No that, "Now I am living in the skyscraper building on the twenty-fifth story, and next life I'm going to be cockroaches here." (laughter) He doesn't know that. He doesn't inquire, "Wherefrom the cockroaches coming?" (laughter) He has got attachment for this twenty-fourth story, so, but he's working so that he'll become a cockroach. So Kṛṣṇa has given chance, "All right. You live in the twenty-fourth story as cockroach." And then he will be again killed by some... what is called?
Devotee (2): Tenants. Exterminator?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That he does not know. Therefore poor thinking. He's thinking that, "I shall perpetually live here." And when the death will come, "Get out!" (laughter) "Become a cockroach." What he'll do? What he'll do? What power you have got? Nature is the same, that he'll come. Mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham (BG 10.34). "Now everything finished. Get out and become a cockroach." How the scientists can stop it?
Devotee: You said that tree that stands in the back garden of the house we used to live in, in Melbourne, and that was the former owner of the house.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break)
Devotee (2): ...are so dull that if you give them the proposition...
Prabhupāda: Therefore I say poor thinking. High living, poor thinking. He doesn't know what he's got. They think this motorcar and twenty-fifth-story living will continue.
Devotee (2): It's not even a peaceful condition to live by.
Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be. Supposing it is good. But he does not think, "How I shall live in this way? And next time I may be cats and dogs and cockroaches. What I'm doing for them?" Therefore they will evade, "No, no. There is no next life." Because it is horrible for them.
Devotee (3): Most of the karmīs think that if you believe in the law of karma, it applies to you, but if you do not believe...
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Devotee (3): Most of them think that if you believe in the law of karma, it applies to you.
Prabhupāda: When it is law, you believe or not believe, rascal, it will be effective, if it is a law. You believe, I don't believe, if I commit theft I shall not be punished. So what is your belief? As soon as you commit theft, you'll be punished. You believe or not believe. That is law. What is the value of your belief? Rascal may believe that, "I'm not going to be old man. I shall remain young man." Believe or not believe, he must become old man. What is the value of your belief? "Trust no future." You believe or not believe, there is future. What is value of your belief? Where do you... you have complete control? Here the law is "Keep to the right." You don't believe. Now, "Why shall I keep to the right? I shall go to the left," immediately you'll be punished. You have to believe. "I'll do wrong way"—see the result. Immediately there is ticket. So what is the value of your belief? The law is law. Ignorance is no excuse for law. You have committed something wrong, and in the court you're going to be punished. If you say in the court, "Sir, I did not know that by committing this act how I shall be... I will have to be punished," that is not excuse. Does not matter. Your ignorance they do not believe, it doesn't matter; you must go to jail. That is the law. It is called foolishness. "They believe," "I think," "It may be." This is science. This is their proposition: "It may be," "I think," "I believe." What is the value of this? And everywhere you'll find all these philosophers, scientists, and they'll talk like this, nonsense: "I believe," "It may be." Believe in the words of Kṛṣṇa. But he believes himself. You see? Kṛṣṇa says this is this. That he doesn't believe. But he has become more than Kṛṣṇa; he'll believe something is correct. This is his foolishness. Mūḍha. (in car) You believe in the words of Kṛṣṇa, who is worshiped by everyone. Hmm? But you won't. You believe in your conviction, "I believe." So what you are? First consider in comparison to Kṛṣṇa.
Devotee (5): Nothing.
Prabhupāda: Still he believes his own conviction. He won't believe Kṛṣṇa.
Devotee (5): Everyone feels he's the center of everything.
Prabhupāda: But he's not. That is his another foolishness. Even in this state, I am not center. I cannot do whatever I like. I have to believe the law. There is law. That is sanity. And if he says: "I am the center. I am the monarch of all I survey," (laughter) that is foolishness. He believes in his foolishness, that's all. If I claim, "I am the monarch of Hawaii," is that belief correct? "I am the center of everything. I am moving this." And this rascal's meditation is like this, "I am moving the sun. I am moving the moon." The meditation.
Devotee: I once had a boy tell me on the street, he said, he said: "Yes, I am the... I am the center of the universe." He said we're the center...
Prabhupāda: This belief, not nonsense belief? Madman's belief?
Devotee (5): People say: "Well, it's my life. This is my life, my..."
Prabhupāda: People in general, they're all rascals. Don't bring lot of people are one. Mūḍhas.
Devotee: When someone moves to another country, then it's very natural that they go and find out from the authorities what the laws of the country are. Yet when they're here, they don't bother to find out what the natural laws are and how to act as a human being. They just disregard it.
Prabhupāda: ...think he must know how things are going on. That is knowledge. "I have created heaven. I am the center. Whatever I believe, that's all right." There's so many rascal philosophers. Everyone is thinking "I am the..." And their different views.
Devotee: If they're mentally satisfied, they think that's the ultimate. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...there's no such thing. "I believe." Immediately... what Kṛṣṇa says, that's true. That is our movement, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. What I believe? I'm a nonsense, yet I am... I have got four defects in my life: illusion, mistake, cheating, insufficiency. What is the meaning of my belief? A cheater saying: "I believe," I have to accept, if I know that he's a cheat? (break) ...the public, by misleading them they have gone to moon.
Devotee: People.
Prabhupāda: (indistinct) ...sell tickets for going to moon. So what they are doing with the tickets? You know that Pan American sold tickets for going to moon? You do not know? (laughs) They sold tickets, because in your country, you have got a lot of money. Any kind of cheating can draw money. (laughs)
Devotee (5): They're selling tickets to go to the moon?
Prabhupāda: Not now. They sold in the beginning. They were so hopeful now that "We shall go to moon." Some public, why they will not believe, "Oh, scientific advancement. Yes, they go to the moon. So I have got money. Why not purchase a ticket so I can go to the moon?" There are many persons in your country who will pay very easily $50,000 for purchasing a ticket to go to the moon planet. It is not difficult.
Devotee: It's like Rāvaṇa's promise of being able to go to the heavenly planets by climbing up the staircase.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...believed in the words of śāstra. Even I am not scientist, still I say it is all childish. And it has proved childish. I do not say that I am better than the scientists. No. But on the words of śāstra, I say this is childish. They'll never be able to go to the moon.
(Srila Prabhupada Morning Walk, Honolulu, May 26, 1976)
.
