Morning Walk Conversation
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
July 25, 1975, Los Angeles

Radha-vallabha: I read it last night.

Prabhupada: What is the subject matter?

Radha-vallabha: Well, it seems that they’re complaining that people are depending on faith for their knowledge. So their claim is that “We do not depend on this faith. We simply take a group of facts, and from these facts, this strong body of facts, we develop a theory which will explain them.”

Prabhupada: Theory is not faith? Theory is not faith?

Jayadvaita: They say that the theory, it’s simply an idea of how it could happen.

Prabhupada: That is faith.

Jayadvaita: But they don’t believe the theory until they think they have sufficient facts.

Prabhupada: That is faith, I dare say, blind faith.

Radha-vallabha: These facts, these theories, are tested. By presenting more and more facts in the light of this theory, either the theory collapses under the new facts or it becomes strengthened. So by this method…

Prabhupada: What are the facts?

Radha-vallabha: Well, for example, you may see that living beings are reproducing geometrically. One couple produces two children, those children each produce two children, so in that way it appears that the animal population should be increasing geometrically. And we can see that…

Prabhupada: Who made that geometric?

Radha-vallabha: This is all just going on.

Prabhupada: Ah, accident. (laughter) That’s all.

Radha-vallabha: So their observation is that even though this geometric progression of species is going on, still, the same amount of living beings in each species is remaining. So the theory to support this is that within each species there must be variations. And within these variations, certain ones are more favorable than others for survival. So in due course of time the unfavorable variations die out.

Prabhupada: That is already there. You are living more than the ants. That is already there.

Radha-vallabha: Their claim is that within a particular species the variations from birth to birth…

Prabhupada: Can they increase the life period of an ant?

Radha-vallabha: Well, their claim is that this can happen.

Prabhupada: “Can happen,” that post-dated check again. This is the only shelter, post-dated check.

Hrdayananda: So it again comes down to faith on their part.

Prabhupada: All rascals. Don’t waste time. But see their rascaldom.

Satsvarupa: One claim the scientists make is that they’re more humble in their knowledge than we are. They don’t say that this is the absolute…

Prabhupada: Why we should be humble? We are not foolish men, that we shall be humble. We must be proud of our knowledge. You are foolish; you become humble. (laughter) The dog is humble; man is not humble. The dog may bark, and man—“Shut up!” Immediately… So you are like dogs. (laughter)

Radha-vallabha: Their claim is that species are not constant like our claim. They say that species constantly change till the original species is gone and a new species is created.

Prabhupada: What is that original species?

Radha-vallabha: Well, they say originally chemicals. Originally very complex chemicals, acids…

Prabhupada: Very complex again. So they cannot understand. So complex that they cannot understand. So what is the use of such theory?

Radha-vallabha: Well, they say these complex chemicals came from the simplest chemicals.

Prabhupada: Wherefrom?

Radha-vallabha: Well, they say in space there are many, many particles.

Prabhupada: How the space came?

Ramesvara: That’s eternal. They say it’s eternal. They say the space and the dust…

Prabhupada: Then why do you bother? Stop speculating. Everything is eternal. Why do you bother yourself to find out something new?

Ramesvara: To control. To gain control.

Prabhupada: No, you cannot control because you are controlled. That is eternally you are controlled. You are controlled.

Yadubara: Also, Srila Prabhupada, they don’t recognize that there are so many species of life. Just like the white man and the black man they will say is one species. And also the aborigine.

Prabhupada: We… Let us accept forms, not species but forms. It doesn’t matter. There is only change of words. There are so many forms.

Radha-vallabha: They say that the amount of forms is not constant because by breeding different forms together they can create completely new forms that never existed before.

Prabhupada: What is the use of creating new forms? Already there are eight million.

Radha-vallabha: But their claim is that by breeding different forms together they will get superior forms. They give the example…

Prabhupada: You cannot maintain your own child form. You are killing, and what is the use of increasing?

Radha-vallabha: Well, for example they used to have wild boars. They could not eat them. But they have bred now very fat pigs to eat. So they consider this to be a great advantage.

Yadubara: Also with fruits and vegetables they are combining and creating new types.

Prabhupada: Factually, (indistinct) so many varieties.

Brahmananda: Like the nectarine is a combination of a peach and a plum.

Jayadvaita: We have the real nectarine, though. [break]

Tamala Krsna: …created a new species, Prabhupada?

Prabhupada: What they created? The nectarine you may have created, but the peach and the plum was there.

Tamala Krsna: But they have created a new thing.

Prabhupada: What new creation? Unless there was plum and peach, how could you create?

Tamala Krsna: So the peach and plum create .

Prabhupada: Yes.

Yadubara: So they’re dependent on the material world. (?)

Radha-vallabha: [break] …scientist named Fox who has. They have conjectured that these original very complex nucleic acids have created life. So he has taken these acids in a big test tube…

Prabhupada: I say (?) “Fox, go to the forest. (laughter) And cry there.” Yes, we treat them as foxes and jackals, that’s all, not even human beings. Why they waste time in this way and people are enamored by them? That is… Just like you were talking about space meeting. What they have gained out of it? And people are enamored to talk about them, write in the newspaper or make a subject matter. And then all of a sudden death comes, “Get out,” finished. You see? How foolish they are. So, Hayagriva prabhu, how you are feeling?

Tamala Krsna: Hayagriva.

Prabhupada: How you are feeling?

Hayagriva: Oh, fine, Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: That’s nice. Hare Krsna. [break] Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s order is yare dekha, tare kaha ‘krsna’-upadesa [Cc. Madhya 7.128]. Don’t talk nonsense. Whomever you meet, if you want to become a leader and talk something, talk Krsna-katha, yare dekha, tare kaha ‘krsna’…, what Krsna has said. Then satisfy your ambition to become a talker. Otherwise, you rascal, remain a talker only. You talk only; you get nothing. If you want to utilize your talking power, then talk what Krsna has instructed. Then your life will be successful. And if you talk foolishly, then you will be revealed as a rascal. Tavac ca sobhate murkho yavat kincin na bhasate: “A rascal fool is so long beautiful as long he does not speak. As soon as he speaks, then he is revealed that he is a rascal.” So don’t talk this. Tavac ca sobhate murkha. You can dress yourself, very nice gentleman. People will res…But as soon as you talk nonsense—“Oh, here is a rascal,” that’s all. That is going on. They are… In the name of scientist, philosopher, they are talking nonsense and exposing themselves that they are all rascals. [break]

Tamala Krsna: …someone like Meher Baba who never spoke?

Prabhupada: That is another art of not being exposed. (laughter) Because as soon as he speaks he becomes rascal. So maunebaba… There is no enemy. There is in Bengali, bhovara satru nai: “If you are dumb, then nobody is your enemy.” So they become bhovara means dumb; I don’t speak. That means I don’t create many enemies, Bhova that’s all.

Tamala Krsna: Nothing positive, though.

Prabhupada: Yes. “You are O.K., I am O.K.” That’s all. (laughter)

Yadubara: Like that Yogi Bhajan. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then when he spoke he started speaking about his court cases.

Prabhupada: Court cases?

Yadubara: Yes.

Prabhupada: He is very expert, expert in dealing with legal cases. So what they will speak? What they have got? Better not to talk.

Tamala Krsna: Yes. During that meeting, that Muni, he was interested in spiritual conversation. But Yogi Bhajan, he did not take part at all in that part.

Prabhupada: No, no, he is after woman. That’s all.

Yadubara: Afterwards he said his ego was very large. He said he had a big ego.

Prabhupada: Eagle? Eagle bird.

Tamala Krsna: No, ego, ego.

Prabhupada: Ego, oh.

Tamala Krsna: He admitted he had a very big ego.

Prabhupada: But who cares for you?

Yadubara: He said he was trying to do away with it.

Prabhupada: But your beard is growing more and more. [break] He said that “I say to my disciples that if you have to take instruction, that is Bhaktivedanta Prabhu.” He said that.

Tamala Krsna: Then why doesn’t he go to Bhaktivedanta?

Prabhupada: No he comes.

Tamala Krsna: Oh. Yeah, you are not going to him. [break]

Prabhupada: …first came to me that “We are trying to establish universal brotherhood.” You were not present. Who was present? I said, “It is all bogus. You will never be able to do it.” Immediately I told him.” It is all bogus. You will never be able to.”

Tamala Krsna: I noticed, Srila Prabhupada, in your conversation with him that there was some mention that the Vedas were the universal doctrine. So he mentioned, I think, that his… What is that book they have? The Guru-grantha could also be accepted as universal. And I think you said something that it was only a branch.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: He was feeling that it wasn’t a branch. It was as good. [break]

Prabhupada: …light?

Hrdayananda: What is that light?

Kirtiraja: It’s on the boat.

Hrdayananda: On the boat? [break]

Prabhupada: …interested, just like you give somebody two kinds of vegetables and spices, ghee, and he makes a nice preparation. So people, these so-called scientists, they are like that. But we are after wherefrom the vegetable came. That is the difference.

Brahmananda: Who supplied.

Prabhupada: Who supplied. That is the difference. He is trying to take credit by mixing these vegetable and spices and salt and ghee, and he is expert in preparing a very nice, palatable… But we say that “Where you got the vegetables? Where you got the spices? Where you got the ghee?” And they are not concerned about that.

Jayadvaita: They don’t want to tell.

Prabhupada: They do not know.

Tamala Krsna: Less intelligent.

Prabhupada: Our philosophy is yato va imani bhutani jayante: The original source of all these things.

Ramesvara: They think if they can make very palatable dishes, what is the need for God?

Prabhupada: But without God where you get the ingredients?

Ramesvara: He is automatically supplying them.

Prabhupada: Oh, therefore there is no need of God. I supply you everything and you say, “There is no need of you.” It is very good intelligence. Ungrateful. The intelligence is ungrateful. So such men should not be given any credit, ungrateful.

Radha-vallabha: They also say that “At least our method proves out with facts, whereas your method, there is no facts. Simply you have some faith. So better that at least we know the facts and not know the source.”

Prabhupada: We know (?) fact. We accept this earth, water, air, fire, everything. Bhumir apo…

Radha-vallabha: So we can see this is here.

Prabhupada: So where…? Our position is: “Wherefrom it came?”

Radha-vallabha: Well, we have to test this out scientifically. We can’t just accept.

Prabhupada: No. You say that the water is composition of hydrogen and oxygen. Wherefrom you got this so much hydrogen, oxygen, the Pacific Ocean? There is so much water needed in so many places. Why don’t you take chemical and pour water? Why you talk nonsense?

Brahmananda: They can make a little water in a test tube.

Prabhupada: (laughs) That’s all. (laughter) That we can produce while I pass urine. (laughter) So you can create little urine, but that we do automatically. At least I do. Every hour I pass urine. So your credit is urine-maker. (laughter)

Radha-vallabha: We have developed a method of seeding clouds. We send airplanes into the clouds and spread chemicals, and then rain comes. So what need is there for…

Brahmananda: Sometimes, not all the time.

Prabhupada: What is that?

Brahmananda: Sometimes they’re able to…

Ramesvara: Agitate the cloud to produce rain.

Hrdayananda: And but now they find out it’s causing worse effects, so they have to stop that also.

Prabhupada: So why don’t you create…

Tamala Krsna: The clouds.

Prabhupada: Clouds and sufficient rain in the desert where there is…, so much water is needed. Why don’t you do that? If you say, “Yes, I have passed urine in the desert.” (laughs) what is the…? “I have passed urine on the desert.” That desert is fulfilled?

Yadubara: Sometimes in times of great need, in the desert they will hire these Indian rainmakers, and they will do some dance to try to create rain. [break]

Prabhupada: …no need of creating water. You have no such intelligence. Just like the Arabian desert is there; Arabian Sea is there. Why don’t you utilize this water? Instead of bluffing others that “We can create water,” why don’t you use this water and make the desert fertile? [break] …create a little water in the test tube, so you take that credit. Why you want to take the credit of creating a Pacific Ocean? That is our protest. You are able to create one ounce of water in the test tube. That’s all right, miracle done. But we say that one who has created the Pacific Ocean, how much credit he will be given. That is our proposal. You take test tube credit, but you must give Pacific credit to God. That is wanted. But creating test tube water, you want to take the Pacific credit. Is that very nice proposal? [break] …spoken by one scientist in our Delhi meeting. Who were present in the Delhi meeting?

Tamala Krsna: I was.

Prabhupada: That scientist’s name?

Tamala Krsna: Dr. Atmaram.

Prabhupada: Dr. Atmaram, that “We have simply learned how to bark like dog, but we don’t care so many dogs are already barking.” He admitted that if a man learns how to bark, people will purchase ticket and see him, and so many thousands of dogs, dog, are barking—nobody cares. This is scientist. You learn how to bark, imitate the dog, and you become important man. You have create one third fruit by mixing peach and plum, and one who is creating millions and trillions of fruits that is lying on the floor—nobody cares for that—he has no credit. These rascals wants credit for this most insignificant…

Satsvarupa: They say their barking is an improvement on the original dog.

Prabhupada: To another dog appreciates like that. (laughter)

Ramesvara: [break] …philosophy is that originally God’s creation is not perfect. It is… Nature is very wild, and man can make it perfect.

Prabhupada: You have not come to that perfection, so you are not important. [break] …Muslim country there is a word, khodaka upar kimvar dhari. (?) Khoda (?) means God. These rascals want to go above God. [break]

Jayadvaita: …tees have remarked that since you have come to Los Angeles, the Deity has increased in beauty many times, Krsna. [break]

Prabhupada: …my anxiety, that in my absence you may neglect Deity worship. Then the whole thing will be spoiled. That is my anxiety. [break]

Radha-vallabha: …are very worried. They say the earth has a certain tilt, and every few million years the tilt is changing little, little, and by this changing eventually the ice on the North and South Poles will melt, they say. So they are very afraid because then their estimate is that the entire earth will be covered with water.

Prabhupada: Why he is…? Why he is afraid?

Radha-vallabha: Well, they are afraid for future humanity. They will all be killed.

Prabhupada: He is not careful about himself. He is thinking… He cannot take care of himself, he is thinking of others.

Radha-vallabha: They this is a humanitarian attitude, to worry about the future.

Prabhupada: So to protect yourself is not humanitarian? You are “dogtarian”? You cannot protect yourself and thinking about humanity. You are also human being. Why don’t you take care of you first of all?

Radha-vallabha: Maybe it is a higher duty to worry about people in the future.

Prabhupada: No, no, duty… That I know. But why don’t you take care of you?

Radha-vallabha: I’ve got a job.

Brahmananda: Well, they think they’re O.K. They think, “We’re all right.”

Ramesvara: But this is broadminded.

Prabhupada: No, he is not O.K. because he is full of anxiety. He’s not O.K. How he can say he is O.K.? A rascal, full of anxiety, and he is thinking “O.K.,” just see.

Yadubara: I think they are thinking they will live for millions of years.

Prabhupada: That is post-dated check again. So many rascals spoke like that, but they are washed away by the waves of nature. You see? That is rascaldom.

Radha-vallabha: That is their first anxiety, that the ice will melt and cover the earth with water. Their next anxiety is that it will be covered with ice.

Prabhupada: That’s all right. Ice melt or not melt, you are not going to live; you will die. So others will die. So you cannot protect yourself and others also. So why you are unnecessarily full of anxiety? You cannot. Pasyann api na pasyati. Pramattah tesam nidhanam pasyann api na pasyati. These things are already discussed in Srimad-Bhagavatam. You don’t read? These rascals.

Radha-vallabha: I have no time. My science books…

Prabhupada: You have time to talk all this nonsense. (laughter) And you have no time to read Bhagavata, that’s all. This is our misfortune. [break]

Jayadvaita: …at the airport they cannot save themselves from our book distributors.

Prabhupada: Rather, they purchase also.

Jayadvaita: Yes. The scientists become conquered. [break]

Prabhupada: …scientists do not manufacture brain and give it to a stone, and he becomes a scientist. Why do they not do that? Manufacture. You have got so nice brain. Now manufacture another brain and put it on the stone, and he becomes that, what is called, Frankenstein? (laughter) Why they are not able to create another brain? What is the answer?

Jayatirtha: They haven’t been able to get sufficient research grants from the government.

Ramesvara: They need more money from the government to…

Tamala Krsna: They say they will do it.

Prabhupada: And then what is his position? Who has created his brain?

Radha-vallabha: This just came in the course of evolution.

Prabhupada: So then why you are talking so much? It will come, everything. Why you are wasting time. Let it come everything by evolution.

Jagannatha-suta: They say, “Where everything has come from, that is not so much important, but let us take the forces that we have now, the forces of nature, and use them for the betterment of mankind. Where it comes from…”

Prabhupada: What is the betterment?

Jagannatha-suta: “Yes, because years ago people would have to go out in the cold and chop a tree to get wood for fire. Now they simply turn the stove, and the fire is there.”

Prabhupada: That you say, that the wood was there and people were taking. You do not know. You are so foolish. The woods were there already and people were there. They were taking advantage.

Jagannatha-suta: “Yeah, we’ve arranged it in such a way. Now it’s easier for us to carry on our daily lives by adjusting things like this. Where it comes from. It’s already there. We admit it’s there. Where it comes from, it’s not so important.”

Prabhupada: They used to create fire by mantra. Can you do that?

Brahmananda: They need natural gas, and the natural gas is running out.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Radha-vallabha: We don’t believe in these mantras because there’s no fossils.

Prabhupada: I don’t believe you also. Who believes, you? Some rascals may believe.

Radha-vallabha: There’s so much evidence, though. We have fossils.

Prabhupada: No, no, we have also evidence. If you don’t believe me, who is going to believe you? [break]

Radha-vallabha: …Srila Prabhupada, where Darwin actually admitted that there was a creator.

Kirtiraja: He admitted?

Radha-vallabha: Yes. He said, “So we can see that the creator originally breathed the air of life into living objects, and from there on evolution took place.”

Prabhupada: That is good. [break]

Yadubara: …that theory is correct, isn’t it, in a sense, that the bodies are always changing? The bodies are always changing, so from the outward appearance it seems that the evolutionary theory is correct.

Prabhupada: No, that is… We, accepting evolution. But their evolution is that there is no soul who is the proprietor of the body. That they do not know.

Yadubara: So there is no meaning to their theory then.

Prabhupada: Because in beginning is mistaken. [break] …your education from wrong platform, then whole thing is wrong. [break]…study means that “I am this dress,” then do you study me properly? So that is their intelligence. They are studying, Darwin studying, this body and no knowledge of the proprietor of the body. [break]

Radha-vallabha: They argue that this Vedic philosophy is coming from India, and in India there is so much disease and so many problems, but here, where we have our science, there is no disease.

Prabhupada: Because they are now fond of you. The Indians have become infected by you; therefore they are diseased. You are all diseased, and now you infected them, they have also become diseased.

Brahmananda: But why is there no disease here? Why is there no symptoms?

Prabhupada: There is no disease? Why you are anxious about the cancer, the big disease? India may be suffering from small disease, and because you are suffering from big disease, therefore you are big. “We… I am suffering from big disease.” First of all become diseaseless, then talk of that India is suffering and you are not suffering. You are big, and you are suffering from big disease, that’s all. [break]

Brahmananda: The wife of the president Ford, she has gotten cancer, and she had to have operation, very painful.

Prabhupada: Big man, big disease, big pain.

Brahmananda: Yes. The president could not protect his own wife.

Jayadvaita: The vice-president’s also.

Prabhupada: Vice-president?

Jayadvaita: His wife also.

Jagannatha-suta: Rockefeller.

Prabhupada: Question is that India is small, he is suffering from malaria, and you are big; you are suffering from cancer. So a big man, big disease; a small man, small disease. But we wants the diseaseless. But you become proud: “Oh, we have got big disease. For treatment we pay the physician thousands of dollar. You pay eight annas. Therefore I am better. I am able to pay the physician millions of dollars. You cannot pay. Therefore I am big.” [break]

Brahmananda: The hospitals here have better facilities than in countries in India.

Prabhupada: Yes, that’s all right. It is simply proportion, five upon ten and five millions upon ten million. The proportion is the same. Because the figure is five million over ten million, that does not mean that the proportion is not the same. Put five upon ten or five million for ten mill…, the result is the same. [break]

Radha-vallabha: …also create food grains like this with their chemicals. They could do it too.

Prabhupada: So why don’t you produce more and give to India?

Radha-vallabha: Well, it belongs to us.

Prabhupada: Why other parts, they will suffer for gain. That’s nice. You have made scientific improvement. You produce more and distribute to the poor country. [break] we become advanced in Krsna consciousness and become advance in science and cooperate. That is our proposition. Andha-kanja-nyaya. One is blind; one is lame. So let the lame man be taken by the blind man. He can walk and they… Both their work will be nicely done. That I put this argument always. Andha-kanja-nyaya. You are blind by material advancement, and India has got spiritual advancement, but for want of money they cannot Move. So you take this lame man, you blind, on your shoulder, and cooperation will be good for the whole world. (end)