690412rc.ny
Room Conversation

April 12, 1969, New York
Brahmananda: It's the capital.
Gargamuni: Tallahassee.
Prabhupada: Miami is the capital.
Brahmananda: No. Miami is a big tourist city.
Prabhupada: Oh.
Janardana: It's all tourist, the whole place.
Gargamuni: There's an Indian fellow in the San Francisco temple. He comes very often. He's a student, and his name is Vinode.
Prabhupada: Vinode.
Gargamuni: Yes. And he helps us cook prasadam. And he cooks in the kitchen and oh, he says, "Krsna is my only life." He says he was so happy to find a temple here.
Prabhupada: Very good.
Gargamuni: He mentioned to me that he's married and that he has a child in India. And he asked, "Oh, were you married?" And I said, "No. My wife was taken away." And he came over and he hugged me. "Oh," he said, "you are so lucky." (laughter) He hugged me. He said, "Oh, you are so lucky."
Prabhupada: (chuckling) There is a Tulasi das poetry, din ka dakini rat ka bhagini gargara bhagini cuse. Bhagini. Tulasi das had very good, beautiful wife, and he was very much attached to her. So the system is that after the girl is staying with her husband... Because young girls, very minor age, they were married, say, ten years, nine years, twelve years. But they're allowed to live with husband, say, after thirteen years or fourteen years, when she has attained puberty. So the system is six months father house and six months husband. In this way, going and coming. But when she is elderly she can remain continually with her ...but in the beginning... Because after all, she is girl, so she cannot tolerate the separation from father and mother. So six months here, six months... So Tulasi das, as soon as the, his father-in-law will come to take his daughter, he won't allow. He won't allow.
Brahmananda: Oh, he's so attached.
Prabhupada: Yes. "She'll go later on. She'll go." So he went back. The father used to..., went back. In this way, several times. Then it was agreed that the girl would go there, father's house, and the father took the girl in the morning, and in the evening Tulasi dasa went there. (laughs) His wife chastised, "You are so rascal fool that I have come this morning and you have, evening you are here? You have so much attachment for the skin?" Just like husband and wife talking. That struck him very badly, and he immediately left that place and went to... Left home for good. Yes. And that was the initiation that he took up writing about Rama. That is Tulasi dasa's life. Just being, I mean to say, hurt by the words of wife, that "I love her,"... Later on he understood, "Yes, she is right. So why should I be so much attached?" She uttered this (indistinct), "If you have got so much attachment for this skin and bone; if you had so much attachment for Rama then your life would have been different." So he took it seriously. "Why not attachment for Rama?" So he became a great devotee of Rama, Tulasi das. His book, Rama-carita-manasa. "Thinking always of Rama," that is his book. It is very famous book, and that is the only important literature in the Hindi language, Rama-carita-manasa. It is very popular in India. Village to village. Practically Gita Press has flourished simply by selling the Rama-carita-manasa and Gita. Gita and Rama-carita-manasa. Two books. Millions of books they print and sell, this Rama-carita-manasa and Bhagavad-gita. So he has written that din ka dakini. In the daytime she is just like what is called, witches. Witch? Witch?
Brahmananda: Witch, yes.
Prabhupada: Dakini. And rat ka bhagini. At night she is tigress.
Devotee: She's what?
Brahmananda: Tigress.
Prabhupada: Tigress. At daytime she is witches. Witch or witches?
Brahmananda: Witch.
Prabhupada: Witch. And at night she is tigress. So that is the nature of woman. But the world is so made that everyone is keeping such tigress. (laughs heartily) Din ka dakini rat ka bhagini. (Hindi) Every moment she is sucking blood. She is such a dangerous tigress. Every moment sucking blood. But (Hindi) the people, the world, people of the world has gone so crazy that each one is keeping one tigress. (laughs)
Brahmananda: Right in the home.
Prabhupada: Yes. That is Tulasi dasa's remark. So in many passages of his poetry he has not done very justice to woman. And another poetry, he writes, dhol gunar sudra nari. Dhol gunar sudra nari ihe sab sasan ke adhikari.(?) Dhol gunar pasu sudra nari, ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. Dhol, dhol means drum, mrdanga. Gunar, gunar means... What is called English? A fool, fool. Illiterate fool, what is one word?
Brahmananda: Buffoon?
Prabhupada: Maybe buffoon. Buffoon is sometimes troublesome. But gunar means he doesn't understand very nicely.
Brahmananda: Dullard.
Prabhupada: Dull, dull. Dhol gunar, dhol means drum and gunar means dull. Sudra, and the laborer class. Three. Dhol, gunar, sudra, and pasu, household animals, just like cows, dogs.
Prabhupada: Pet, like that. Dhol gunar sudra pasu and nari. Nari means woman. (laughs) Just see. He has classified the nari amongst these class, dhol, gunar, sudra, pasu, nari. Ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. Sasan ke adhikari means all these are subjected for punishment. And what about the guest?
Govinda dasi: Oh, the guest? It's coming.
Prabhupada: So sasan ke adhikari means they should be punished. (laughs) Punished means, just like dhol, when the, I mean to say, sound is not very hard, dag-dag, if you beat it on the border, then it comes to be nice tune. Similarly, pasu, animals, if you request, "My dear dog, please do not go there." Hut! (laughter) "No, my dear dog." Hut! This is the way.(?) Similarly, woman. If you become lenient, then she will be troublesome. So in India still, in villages, whenever there is some quarrel between husband wife, the husband beats and she is tamed. (laughs) In civilized society, "Oh, you have done this?" Immediately some criminal case. But in uncivilized society they don't care for court or civilized way of... Kichari. (prasadam being served)
Rayarama: Swamiji, Janardana told me that from Vedic sources, you drew some conclusion that there are different universes visible? The stars are different universes? What is that?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Rayarama: So each star is a different universe.
Prabhupada: Begin, begin. (eating) Yes. Gargamuni, you distribute this puri.
Gargamuni: Made some curry. (everyone eating for a long time)
Prabhupada: Everything hot.
Prabhupada: Before Krsna consciousness, was there any puri manufactured here? No. (laughs)
Gargamuni: No. None of this.
Brahmananda: When I first came to Krsna consciousness, I'd only been coming I think maybe two days to Krsna consciousness, and then Mukunda had his wedding. Oh, that hooked me. Nice wedding and nice feasting. I was hooked.
Rayarama: That was the day after our initiations. They initiated the night before. We had two days feasting.
Devotee: I came into San Francisco looking for a spiritual teacher and I came to prasadam and I never left.
Gargamuni: I think that's what hooked all of us. (laughter)
Prabhupada: Prasade sarva-duhkhanam hanir asyopajayate. (pause) Thank you. Govinda dasi has become very good housewife. Yes. (pause) Rayarama, come. Krsna baro doyamoy koribare jihva jay sva-prasad-anna dilo bhai. No more. (end)

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