Room Conversation

Satsvarūpa:
Some of the children are 10 years old but we have been being very strict because they are loose in their behavior. They cannot be initiated until they are chanting 16 rounds, trying to be very strict with that but they see that others are being initiated quickly. They saw the initiation today some of the 10-year-old boys. We want the parents to initiate, “why, why can I can I be initiated?”

Prabhupāda:
Then they can be initiated.

Satsvarūpa:
[indistinct]

Prabhupāda:
10 years, 10 years they can be initiated… Why not 10 years?

Satsvarūpa:
As long as. Unless they be chanting 16 rounds?

Prabhupāda:
Must.

Satsvarūpa:
Then they can be and in the morning.

Prabhupāda:
Then how they are being initiated? If they cannot.

Satsvarūpa:
I mean, our children are at gurukula.

Prabhupāda:
10 years old boy cannot chant 16 rounds?

Satsvarūpa:
That has, that has been our past mistakes [indistinct].

Now it has been disciplinary should be [indistinct]

Prabhupāda:
Hm. It requires some rituals, just like in the morning if you sit down and chant they should also sit down and chant. 16 rounds must be finished.

Indian Mātājī:
[indistinct] initiation swamiji you give some mantras [indistinct] what [indistinct].

Prabhupāda:
This Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, in the beginning then another mantra after six months or after one year. When I see that the student is following all the rules and regulations.

Indian Mātājī:
[indistinct]

Prabhupāda:
Yes.

Indian Mātājī:
[indistinct] yesterday [indistinct] we try to avoid the issue, sometimes once in a while.

Prabhupāda:
No, no.

Indian Mātājī:
One year [indistinct].

Prabhupāda:
No, we cannot…

Indian Mātājī:
So what is the tendency [indistinct].

Prabhupāda:
Illicit sex, meat eating, intoxication, and gambling.

Young Indian boy:
What you mean by 16 rounds are 16 times around is one round?

[Prabhupāda moves some beads across his desk]

Prabhupāda:
16 rounds is this you begin here, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. This is one bead, so then go to the second, go to the third in this way you come here. That is one round, again begin from here down here, that is the second-round. In this way 16 rounds.

Indian Mātājī:
From here we have been initiated by Śrī Rāma [indistinct]

Prabhupāda:
Eh?

Indian Mātājī:
Ramakrishna Mission both of us and he has given us mantra and initiation.

Prabhupāda:
That mant… that is your consideration we don’t approve this mission. That you are initiated and eating meat.

Indian Mātājī:
No that [indistinct]

Prabhupāda:
These nonsense things we don’t agree.

Indian Mātājī:
That’s what I’m asking you.

Prabhupāda:
No, no this is not allowed. That is not. That is bogus. Initiation does not mean that, you must be purified.

Young Indian boy:
How many beads are there in this?

Indian Mātājī:
108

Prabhupāda:
Eh?

Indian Mātājī:
Or 100 and 8…

Prabhupāda:
Yes 108. It must be according to the śāstra, the Ramakrishna Mission they don’t care for śāstra they do away with it, they have no śāstra… yaḥ śāstra. Find out. yaḥ śāstra-vidhim utsṛjya.. Find out this verse.

yaḥ śāstra-vidhim utsṛjya
vartate kāma-kārataḥ
na sa siddhim avāpnoti..
[Bg. 16.23]

[Śrīla Prabhupāda continues the conversation in Hindi. na sukhaṁ na paraḥ]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. One who rejects scriptural injunctions and works whimsically, he never attains perfection or anything. na sukhaṁ na parām gatim.]

Young Indian boy:
[Transl. But in India the Hindus eat meat etc.]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Let them go to hell. We have nothing to do with them. Śāstra does not approve.]

Young Indian boy:
[Transl. How has it begun then?]

Prabhupāda:
Eh?

Young Indian boy:
[Transl. How did they start eating?]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Demons. The demons have taught them. If you mix with demons you will become demon. And if you mix with demigods you will become demigod.] … Śāstra means Vedic revealed scriptures just like Bhagavad-gītā.

Young Indian boy:
Gītā.

Prabhupāda:
Vedas, Upaniṣads.

Indian Mātājī:
Śāstra…

Prabhupāda:
Eh?

Pradyumna:
Is this the one?

Prabhupāda:
Eh? yaḥ śāstra-vidhim utsṛjya? Find out this verse, yaḥ śāstra-vidhim utsṛjya.

Pradyumna:
Yac… yac śāstra?

Prabhupāda:
Yaḥ śāstra.

Young Indian boy:
[Talking in background] [indistinct]

Prabhupāda:
There is no Yah?

Pradyumna:
Yaḥ śāstra.

Prabhupāda:
Hm.

Young Indian boy:
[Talking in background] [indistinct]

Prabhupāda:
You don’t find?

Indian Mātājī:
There should be some time also for chanting on beads?

Pradyumna:
Oh, yaḥ śāstra-vidhim utsṛjya

Prabhupāda:
Ha [Transl. Time. There is no fix time as such for chanting. You finish 16 rounds throughout the day and night. Some time 1 round, some time 2 rounds, some time 4 rounds. But you must complete 16 rounds during 24 hours. Within 24 hours…Maximum it takes 2 hours to complte 16 rounds. So can’t you give 2 hours to God out of 24 hours? I would demand 24 hours, just like these boys are giving. They are engaged 24 hours in the Lord’s service. They eat for God, they sleep for God, they work for God.] … So what is that? You have got?

Pradyumna:
Yes:

yaḥ śāstra-vidhim utsṛjya
vartate kāma-kārataḥ
na sa siddhim avāpnoti
na sukhaṁ na parāṁ gatim
[Bg. 16.23]

“But he who discards scriptural injunctions and acts according….

Prabhupāda:
He who discards scriptural injunctions. Then?

Pradyumna:
…and acts according to his own whims

Prabhupāda:
Ha, acts according to his own whims. Then?

Pradyumna:
Attains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the supreme destination.

Prabhupāda:
That’s it. Simply waste of time. [Transl. These are the words from the supreme Lord’s lotus mouth. And Ramakrishna Mission preaches, ‘Do whatever you like.’ There is no harm. Eat whatever you like, do whatever you want. Is this any injunction? God Himself is declaring this.]

Young Indian boy:
[Transl. What if one has to eat for Medical reasons?]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Medicine is different thing. Āture niyamo nāsti. When one is afflicted there is no hard and fast rule for him. That time…People eat these things on the plea of medicine. Some say by not eating fish my vision will diminish. Therefore eat as much you want.]

Indian Mātājī:
[Transl. In our family my sister-in-law had T.B. The doctor asked her to eat egg. And she started feeling well.]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Ah?]

Indian Mātājī:
[Transl. Just by eating one egg she got strength. Such circumstances come in life…]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Why did you do that? Just by eating egg a person is guaranteed not to die?]

Indian Mātājī:
[Transl. No.]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Then why do you…Today or tomorrow you will have to die.]

Indian Mātājī:
[Transl. T.B is dangerous.]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. What I mean is today or tomorrow one has to die. Who is going to live here forever?]

Indian Mātājī:
[Transl. People try in all respects to…]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. You try, but why try in such a way which is sinful? Why like that?]

Indian Mātājī:
[Transl. While remaining in the materialistic way of life ordinary people…]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Forget ordinary people. Nothing like that. This is the reason India is ruined.]

Indian Mātājī:
[Transl. No, many Hindus still don’t eat all this. We also eat very rarely.]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Due to being misguided religious principles are lost in India. It has gone to hell. That is why I am very sad that we have abandoned our own culture. Did their fathers and forefathers ever eat egg? They all died. Finished. This is not good. There are so many palatable foodstuffs. Just like yesterday we prepared rasagulla. Eat those, they are full of protein. What’s there in egg? Eat rasagulla, it has got everything. What you call it? Panir: curd. Panir has got so much protein. Urad dāl: leguminous seeds of pulse has got protein. Chickpea has protein.]

Indian Mātājī:
[Transl. That’s true. The doctor had given her a special diet.]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. No, that is an…]

Indian Mātājī:
[Transl. We prefer to eat Indian foods. Dāl, subjī…]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Dāl* and chapāti contain a lot of protein.]

Indian Mātājī:
[Transl. It becomes difficult especially when you travel.]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. These things started when English medicines were introduced. Before that there was no such thing. In my entire lifetime I have never even looked at eggs and fishes, what to speak of eating! Now I am 77 years old. Did I die for not eating those? I am still working.]

Indian Mātājī:
You are blessed.

Prabhupāda:
Eh?

Indian Mātājī:
You are blessed.

Prabhupāda:
Everyone can be blessed, why I am?

Devotees:
[Laughter]

Prabhupāda:
[Laughter] if I can be blessed then you can be blessed also, I am also like you. How these boys are becoming blessed? [Transl. From the very beginning of their life these boys are taught to eat egg and beef by their parents. How they have given up? We don’t want to give up. We just talk and give excuses.]

Indian Mātājī:
[Transl. We don’t always eat. Just in special cases. Children also like that.]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. No.]

Devotee:
One question?

Prabhupāda:
Yes.

Devotee:
One question Śrīla Prabhupāda is, [indistinct] hasn’t guided me what to do when the children grow older, when they approached the age of marriage.

Prabhupāda:
Hm?

Devotee:
How should it be done?

Prabhupāda:
Oh, let them grow old, now they are all minors, four years, five years, six years that consideration we shall see when they are 16 years old.

Devotee:
16.

Prabhupāda:
Yes.

Devotee:
For both men and women?

Prabhupāda:
Man 24 years. According to Vedic system, girls 16 years and boys 25, they should be married. There must be difference of age 8 to 10 years. That is nice. And before that none of them should have sex life. Then it will be good, healthy and they should simply engage themselves in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then spiritually, mentally, bodily they become grown up. That should be our…

In brahmacārī life there is no sex life, in vānaprastha there is no sex life, in sannyāsa there is no sex life. Out of the four stages in three stages there is no sex life. Only in the married, young married couples, they are allowed sex life, no other. Neither the students, nor the retired, nor the sannyāsīs.

Devotee:
The next question that [indistinct].

Prabhupāda:
Tapasā brahmacaryeṇa tyāgena yamena [SB. 6.1.13]. tapasā brahmacaryeṇa, tapasā the human life is meant for tapasya, not to become like cats and dogs. Then what is the difference between cats and dogs? That is Vedic civilisation, tapasya.

nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛ-loke
kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhajāṁ ye
tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyed sattva
yasmād brahma-saukhyaṁ tv anantam
[SB. 5.5.1]

This is the instruction of Ṛṣabhadeva, here he is instructing his children, 100 sons. “My dear boys, this human form of life is not meant for working very very hard like hogs and dogs to satisfy the senses.” The modern civilisation is they are being taught to work very very hard day and night only for sense gratification. They have no other way, even if one is working so hard what is their aim? Sex life that is all. I was seeing one signboard, what was that? “Topless girls,” I enquired what is that topless girls, “they are naked,” that’s all… Does that mean topless girls?

Devotee:
Yes Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda:
Just see. What is this nonsense? They are working day and night hard like cats and dogs and at the night and it is said, “open up to 4pm, you come here and have sex life,” that is all. This is the modern civilisation, the hog’s civilisation. The hog there is loitering in the street [Transl. You must have seen hogs. Here we don’t find. In our India we have got. Day and night…]

Whole day and night, “where is stool, where is stool, where is stool, where is stool.” And as soon as he gets stool he gets a little strength immediately no discrimination mother, sister, daughter—sex. This is hog. These are nature’s instruction and here is your representative if you don’t discriminate of sex life and eat anything no discrimination of eating and sex then you are this hog. Don’t claim that you are human being, that is nature’s instruction, “here is your representative, you see?”

He has no discrimination of eating, he is anything up to stool. And getting fat because stool has, contains all the hydrophosphites chemical. Have you analysed stool? Yes, this is medical opinion, stool has got all the hydrophosphites, if one can eat stool he gets very quickly fatty and Germany devised a plan.

[Aside:] Aiye aiye. …devised a plan to take out fat from stool and they were taking. They did not waste stool, do you know any of you? Yes. Just like markarine or is it. marga…

Svarūpa Dāmodara:
Margarine?

Prabhupāda:
Margarine?

Svarūpa Dāmodara:
Yes.

Prabhupāda:
It is made from oil.

Svarūpa Dāmodara:
It is imitation butter.

Prabhupāda:
So they were making butter from stool, generally…Yes, synthetic. This is science, science means you eat stool, butter from stool… [Transl. Human life is meant for undergoing tapasya.] Just to, for this reason in India we find tapasya, renunciation tapasya. All big big kings, the Pāṇḍavas so powerful just as soon as because all their sons were lost in the fight so they are waiting for somebody. As soon as Parīkṣit Mahārāja their grandson became grown up immediately handed over charge of everything.

This is Vedic civilisation not that up to the end of life, so long as one is not fired. Just like our Mahatma Gandhi until he was fired he would not give up the post. I’ve seen this politicians they are so much attracted with this power of politics. Even they are old enough, according to Vedic civilisation, pañcāśordhvaṁ vanaṁ vrajet as soon as one attains 50 years he must give up family life.

He will go away from home simply accompanied by his wife and in that period there is no sex simply husband-and-wife go from pilgrimage to pilgrimage and again come home, live there for two months again go away. In this way when the man is completely unattached he sends back the wife home that you live under you grown up children and he takes sannyāsa. That is Vedic civilisation, it is not that unless death forces him to leave family life he is not prepared. That is not Vedic civilisation. Everyone has to voluntarily give up family life, pañcāśordhvaṁ vanaṁ vrajet….

Indian man:
[indistinct]

Prabhupāda:
Oh no. Oh no.

Indian man:
How can we leave at the age of 50 in the home.

Prabhupāda:
Eh?

Indian man:
How can we leave at the age of 50 in the house? When we have not even educated our children and we live in a small community.

Prabhupāda:
Well you can educate your children. Suppose you marry at the age of 25 years with a grown-up girl, you get a child with one year and when you are 50 years old the child is 25 years old. So you can entrust your family affairs to the grown-up child and retire.

Indian man:
Yeah if one marries at the age of 25.

Prabhupāda:
So why does he not? Marriage must be finished for boys 25 years for girls 16 years. That is Vedic civilisation. We have created all problems and in this country there is no marriage, there is no marriage. All the girls are without husbands and government is supplying their welfare, donation. Encouraging them and what they can do? They are unprotected. This social system is very bad system.

Polygamy is not allowed even by calculation if there are 300 girls and 100 boys then how each girl can get a husband?

Therefore Hindus, according to Vedic civilisation the kṣatriyas especially they were marrying more than one wife, just like Kṛṣṇa married 16,000 wives. Of course he was God that is a different thing. But do you think that Kṛṣṇa set a bad example by marrying more, wives? No. That was allowed, now they have made new Hindu code law but according to Manu-saṁhitā the higher castes especially the brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas and the vaiśyas they can marry more than one wife.

It means that generally the female population is greater than the man and if we want at the, if the father has the responsibility then the girl as soon as she attains puberty before attaining puberty the father must find out a husband and give her in charge of the husband. So long she is, I mean to say, very young she is under the care of father and as soon as she attains youth, when sex appetite is very strong she must be given in charge of her husband and when she is old she must be taken care of by the grown-up children. For women three stages but they are always dependent, na striyaṁ svatantratām arhati, that is the injunction of the Manu-saṁhitā [Chapter 9.3]. Women should not have independence they should be protected.

And still we see in India women under the protection either by the father or by the husband or by sons they remain very happily. Even Kuntī she was dependent on her five sons the Pāṇḍavas, mother of Arjuna. She was not ordinary woman, she had so many qualifications but still she was dependent on the sons. They lost their kingdom, they were banished the five Pāṇḍavas. Kuntī was not banished but because she was dependent on sons she also went with the sons.

Sītāji, Sītāji, Rāmacandra was ordered by his father to go to the forest but she was not ordered, Sītā, she was kings daughter and kings wife so why she accepted all the tribulation of the husband? She also went with Rāmacandra and because she went with Rāmacandra so many mishaps, there was fight with Rāvaṇa if she would not have gone, [laughs] then Rāvaṇa would have been saved.

But it is the duty of the wife, husband is going to the forest the wife must go. Although Rāmacandra denied that, “you remain, I am going, I am all right”, she said, “no I cannot do it”. This is Vedic culture, ardhangani, wife must remain with the husband always. Half body, wife is half body. And the husband also, I mean to say, leaves wife under the care of the sons when they are grown-up, this is Vedic civilisation. [pause]

So I want to talk with Mr Bajaj, you can… [break] [end]