Room Conversation – August 9, 1976, Tehran

That is another bogus

Prabhupada: If you find out sand and rocks, you must also then conclude there was water. And from water, vegetation comes. From vegetation, other life comes. What we speak, we don't speak unscientifically. It is scientific. How this rascal says all of a sudden in the sky there is rock? Wherefrom the rock came?

Hari-sauri: Well, they say originally from gas.

Prabhupada: Gas?

Hari-sauri: Gas.

Prabhupada: So gas... Without water, there cannot be gas.

Hari-sauri: Gas, and then it liquifies and then it solidifies.

Prabhupada: Liquid means water. So as soon as there is water, there is vegetation. You'll find everywhere. Water dries up, vegetable comes.

Parivrajakacarya: Today they are exploring Mars, and they are saying that they're finding water on Mars.

Prabhupada: Water must be there. Everything must be there. Panca-bhūta, maha-bhūta. Ether, then fire, then water, then land. Everything is described in the Bhagavatam. They cannot speak nonsense. They can speak nonsense through the other literatures, but we cannot speak. Without water, how there is possibility of sand? Sand means it is salt.

Parivrajakacarya: If you go out here, there is a big desert.

Prabhupada: That means there was water.

Parivrajakacarya: Yes, and under the desert always. I took a trip a few weeks ago, all over Iran, through the deserts, to villages, and always just forty feet, forty meters under the desert, lots of water. They would bring the water up and then there would be green, they would grow vegetables. So even here there's water.

Prabhupada: The water, sea, as it becomes solidified, the outer surface, by sunshine they become, it is called sodium silicate. Salt is sodium chloride. So from sodium chloride, the sodium silicate. So cover of the sea they can solidify by the sodium silicate. But underneath there is water. Just like our this skin, bone, coming from where? We are eating liquid and..., or some vegetables or some whatever, they are becoming liquidified. And first transformation is blood. Blood is liquid, and from blood everything is coming. The muscle is coming, the bone is coming. The more the liquid portion becomes solidified by air, gas, then these things coming. The formation of this body beginning the liquid semina, liquid ovum, mix together. From liquid. Then they form pealike solid thing, from that liquid. And then the body forms. Wherefrom the solid body forms? The man injects liquid. He does not inject anything solid. So wherefrom the solid body comes? By chemical composition the body forms, from liquid to solid. So as soon as you see some solid thing, you must know that it has come from liquid.

Parivrajakacarya: It got its form from liquid. The form, it had to come from liquid somehow.

Prabhupada: Whatever it may be. Yes, liquid. The discharge of semina is liquid. It is not solid. So how this body comes? You cannot bluff that a solid has come all of a sudden. There was liquid, or there is liquid.

Hari-sauri: Well, they'll accept that there was liquid.

Prabhupada: Yes, then there must have been vegetable. As soon as there is liquid there is vegetation.

Hari-sauri: Their argument is that because there's no atmosphere, then there's no vegetation.

Prabhupada: Oh, that is... That is another bogus. The atmosphere is the same everywhere. Little more. Just like in...

[break] ...say in the sun planet there is living entity, that is fire. So what do you mean by atmosphere, if even in fire there is life? Dahati pavakaḥ. Bhagavad-gita. Nainam dahati pavakaḥ [Bg 2.23]. Pavakaḥ means fire. Does not burn the soul. So where there is fire only, he develops fiery body. Not that by the fire it is finished. Nainam dahati pavakaḥ. Where there is gas, air, nainam... Find out this verse. Acchedyo' yam adahyo' yam.

Hari-sauri: Gita?

Prabhupada: Bhagavad-gita, yes. You do not read even. You should have reference immediately. [devotees search for verse]

Parivrajakacarya: Even here on the earth, even ice in the South Pole of the earth, they find much life inside the ice.

Prabhupada: Just see. Here inside the ice there are life.

Parivrajakacarya: They are very surprised. They said, "How is this happening?"

Prabhupada: Yes. Life is everywhere. This bogus theory there is no life, the atmosphere is different, it is bogus, simply bogus. Because spirit soul is never affected by any material atmosphere. That is the distinction between matter and spirit. It has nothing to do with material atmosphere. They don't have knowledge, they are baffled. And those who have no knowledge, they are accepting.

"The soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can he be burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind."

Prabhupada: So where is question of atmosphere influence? Suppose there is rock and sand and always hot weather. That does not mean there cannot be any life. The life is never affected by all these things. Make propaganda about this knowledge. People will understand that Krsna consciousness movement is not joking; it is something serious. That boy was saying that these scientist, they know me. What is this boy's name, this boy said about the so-called astronomer, scientist? Who was this boy?

Pradyumna: Who came last night?

Hari-sauri: One of our boys, American boy, that tall boy.

Parivrajakacarya: Jnanagamya.

Pradyumna: Here in this temple?

Hari-sauri: Yes. Jnanagamya. He used to work with some science research as well. [indistinct comments about Jnanagamya]

Parivrajakacarya: The scientists are like all materialists. They think if we have not seen it...

Prabhupada: [coughing heavily] You have to see from the book. Seeing from the book is real seeing. What you can see with these blunt eyes? I have seen in these navigators. They see in the different plans and books, and they direct their ship or airplane accordingly. How can he see where we are going?

Hari-sauri: Just like they land an aeroplane.

Prabhupada: Yes. They have got all plans and direction, and altitude, latitude and everything, which direction is going on in front of the pilot. So everything is there. In what position the plane is there, how high it is and how low it will be, where it is-everything. On that direction they can fly. Otherwise, what they can see with the eyes? Utmost ten miles, and it is running at six hundred miles? What ten miles will do them? So sastra-caksusa. Authoritative literature should be the eyes, not these blunt eyes. What is the value of these eyes? Now here is authority: nainam dahati pavakaḥ. You should go to the school, colleges, and from Bhagavad-gita give them real knowledge. The whole world is in darkness, and these rascals are guiding them.

[pause]

Prabhupada: You have tasted the baḍa? Nim baḍa?

Pradyumna: This morning.

Prabhupada: Huh? Did you like it?

Parivrajakacarya: It tasted very healthy.

Prabhupada: Healthy?

Parivrajakacarya: Healthy.

Prabhupada: Healthy? What is that?

Parivrajakacarya: It tasted like it was good for me.

Hari-sauri: That means it didn't taste very nice, but we accepted it was good.

Parivrajakacarya: I know by my intelligence that it is good to keep eating, even though my tongue was saying "Stop."

Prabhupada: No, this nim is good. They say that if you eat at least two leaves of nim daily, you'll never lose your appetite. Appetite will be continuing.

Hari-sauri: Who can eat two leaves of nim? [laughing]

Prabhupada: No, if you practice, it is not impossible.

Pradyumna: I ate them one time. Remember in Bombay, I thought I had worms? You told me to eat nim?

Prabhupada: Effective? What happened?

Pradyumna: Well, I didn't notice anything happened, but it was very, very bitter, so bitter.

Prabhupada: So that worms cured or not?

Pradyumna: I don't know. Sometimes I think I have worms.

Prabhupada: You should not eat sweet.

Parivrajakacarya: You cannot get nim in Iran. I have never seen a nim tree in Iran.

Prabhupada: No tree, simply desert. Where is tree? All desert. All this Middle East, desert. So they can be allowed to eat meat. Otherwise, how for they'll eat? Everyone must eat something. So if there is no vegetation, if there is no sufficient, they can be allowed.

Parivrajakacarya: I visited some of these small villages in the south of Iran, and the tents of nomads who kept sheep, that was their life. They had a tent and they had hundreds of sheep, and they would move the tent every month. They would take the tent, for one month they would live here, and next month they would move.

Prabhupada: Why they're changing?

Parivrajakacarya: Because they're desert people. The sheep eat all the little green, and then they have to move on.

Pradyumna: Same thing as the Bible. When the sheep eat up all the green in that place, then they have to go to another place with their sheep. In the Bible the same thing. All that Abraham, Joseph...

Prabhupada: Bible was produced here, in this desert land. Jerusalem is not far away. Mecca, Medina, Israel, Arabia.

Parivrajakacarya: All they had to eat was the milk of sheep and goats, and sometimes when they would camp near a farm they would have vegetables. Sometimes. And then the meat of the sheep.

Prabhupada: And these dates. In the desert the date tree grows. Sometimes they eat camel also. Is it not?

Parivrajakacarya: Yes. But I don't think if they...

Prabhupada: They cannot be strictly vegetarian; it is not possible.

Parivrajakacarya: It is difficult.

Prabhupada: But even they eat meat, they can chant Hare Krsna. There is no harm.

Parivrajakacarya: But now they are farming in the desert. The Iranian government has started farms. They are irrigating the land with water, and when they put water on the desert they get all kinds of vegetables and grains very easily. So if they do that then they can become vege... They have no excuse. The excuse of the people is that "We have to eat meat."

Prabhupada: They can have rains from the sky by chanting. The rain will fall from the sky. Who can check it? [coughs heavily] Krsna gives the water from the sky. Yajnad bhavati parjanyaḥ [Bg 3.14].

Parivrajakacarya: They say in their books that this area used to be all forest with many, many trees about two to three thousand years ago. It was a very thick forest. But since then it has become desert; the rain has stopped since then.

Prabhupada: Because the yajna stopped.

Pradyumna: That Sahara Desert used to be all trees, very fertile. Sahara Desert in Africa, it is the biggest desert in the world. Nothing...

Prabhupada: Sahara, Sahara.

Pradyumna: Sahara Desert. It used to be very rich thousands of years ago, but then became desert.

Hari-sauri: It's supposed to increase its size by ten miles every year.

Pradyumna: Desert growth. Formerly, that city Carthage used to be there. Carthage was fighting Rome. Carthage was very rich, all farms.

Prabhupada: Cartharian civilization was very big civilization. The thing is that the more people become sinful, they'll be disturbed by this natural atmosphere. Therefore I'm surprised that moon planet is inhabited by pious inhabitants, how there can be desert?

Pradyumna: But does moon planet have something to do with pitrs? Does the Pitr..., Pitrloka is different?

Prabhupada: Pitr?

Pradyumna: Pita, Pitr?

Prabhupada: No, Pitrloka is different. That is downwards.

Hari-sauri: Does that pitr, does that refer to the original progenitors?

Pradyumna: No, forefathers.

Prabhupada: Latest development they are finding water in Mars?

Parivrajakacarya: They find... It is very difficult for them, because they are using their eyes and other instruments. They have found places where there were rivers, and they are finding ice and other things. So I don't know the latest developments. It is obvious to them there is life, different kinds of life.

Hari-sauri: The way of testing for life...

Prabhupada: Why you are spoiling your nails? It may come to a boil, and then you'll understand. It is very dangerous habit. If there is little oil, then it will become a boil.

Pradyumna: Jnanagamya said that on Mars they found something like a crater with a house. Looked like a... Or a bombed-out thing. This Jnanagamya was working with a..., he works with some information service, U.S. Information Service. So he was in charge of designing something here for Fourth of July, some program. So he got this information from this U.S. Information Service which generally..., sometimes it isn't made public. It's just in their U.S. service. They'd seen some kind of a crater with...

Parivrajakacarya: Roads in it as well.

Pradyumna: Yes, something with roads in it or something, they'd seen

Hari-sauri: The way they test for life is they take some soil and they mix certain things with it, and then they wait and see if there is some life development from that.

Prabhupada: That is nonsense.

Hari-sauri: Yes. They mix ammonia and...

Prabhupada: Same chemical theory. Why do they not in the egg mix something and see if life is coming? They are all rascals, speaking one after another.

Hari-sauri: That's their whole thing, that if...

Prabhupada: If by mixing something they can bring life, why not in the egg?

Hari-sauri: Yes, they can't even do it here, where there's so much life.

Prabhupada: Simply contradictory things. But you rascals, you cannot understand how they are speaking rascaldom.

Hari-sauri: No, I can see now. I've been with you so long I can understand now.

Parivrajakacarya: They have sent this one ship to Mars at a cost of one billion dollars. They are making these tests.

Hari-sauri: Now they've got a second one going around as well. That's Viking 1 that's on there now, and they have another one, Viking 2, that's designed to orbit.

Pradyumna: Vikings were names of pirates. Viking means pirates. Pirate's a thief. Vikings, they used to be thieves. They've named their spaceship Viking. [laughs] [break]

Prabhupada: ...main idea going to the other planets? Colonization, or what?

Pradyumna: One thing, they say, is security, that America and Russia are fighting. So it was a race to get to the moon because they think that from other planets that they can control conditions on the earth. From another planet they can control weather or they can control different things.

Prabhupada: Just see how bogus.

Pradyumna: That is one thing they say, they must get to the moon first, for security.

Prabhupada: That is now failure. Now they'll do it from Mars.

Hari-sauri: Not so much from there for security. It's just...

Parivrajakacarya: Their pride. One country, just like children playing, one can say, "I can fly higher than you," and so "We can go to the moon before you can." For no reason than just to show they can do it.

Hari-sauri: It's an excuse to spend money. It's for fun.

Prabhupada: They cannot settle up their misunderstanding here. By going to the moon planet, they'll do it.

Hari-sauri: That's one thing that they said they were going to do, actually. They had some Russian astronauts and some American astronauts, and they had them meet in space, and then they joined their spaceships together, and then they had a meal together and did some experiments, and then they left again. So that was very much acclaimed as bringing the two nations closer together.

Prabhupada: We are afraid of these two classes of rascals. "Afraid of" means we don't want their association. It is very dangerous.

Pradyumna: You said in the Bhagavatam, just now, that we are afraid of the materialistic men.

Prabhupada: Yes. Personally I feel; I have several times told. For a devotee to live with nondevotees is so obnoxious and troublesome, it is sometimes mentioned, better to remain within a cage surrounded by fire, and still, don't remain with nondevotees. You prefer to live within a cage surrounded by fire. That living is preferable than to live with this nondevotee class.

Hari-sauri: A lot of the devotees had that experience living with their parents before they joined the movement. It was so hellish they had to get out. Then they, some way or other, met...

Bhakta-sane basa, that is the essential part of progressing.

[pause]

Prabhupada: Dayananda's daughter came, in my lavatory.

Hari-sauri: When you were in?

Prabhupada: Yes, I was going...

Hari-sauri: In?

Prabhupada: Yes. [break] Generally, this baḍa are made with patola leaves, patola leaves mashed and mixed with this dal.

Hari-sauri: Is that just as healthy as nim leaves? Patola leaves? Just the same.

Prabhupada: It is better.

[break] ...the influence of the moon planet, the vegetation grows. Do they accept, the modern botanists, influence of moon planet?

Parivrajakacarya: All the farmers, they...

Prabhupada: They do believe?

Parivrajakacarya: They believe that. They plant certain seeds according to the moon.

Prabhupada: Just see.

Pradyumna: Even in the West they only plant certain things on the waxing moon, not on the waning moon. On sukla-paksa.

Prabhupada: And moon is desert. By the influence of moon, other vegetation growing, and it cannot grow itself.

Hari-sauri: They admit that the moon rays have some kind of potency. They know that.

Prabhupada: No, it is stated in the Bhagavatam.

Pradyumna: In the Jyotisa it has..., it controls liquids. And I think even in hospitals here, near Pūrnima, where some of the times they don't like to do the operations because there will be more..., the blood will run more. Something, they have some..., someone had told me. The tides are also going according to the moon. The rivers are running according to the moon. In the Ganges, one time we went, swimming in Calcutta...

Prabhupada: The ebb tide, flow tide, according to the moon.

Pradyumna: Something like that. One day the Ganges was very peaceful, and then we went again and it was rushing. If you went in you would just be carried away. You could only... [break]

Prabhupada: You can do it here. [referring to massage]

Hari-sauri: You don't want to go outside today?

Prabhupada: Sunshine is bright. [end]