Room Conversation – November 5, 1973, Delhi

731105R1-DELHI [09:16 Minutes]

Something I can give him to eat?

Prabhupada: Visvaso naiva kartavyaḥ strisu raja-kulesu ca. She's both. [laughter] Canakya Panḍita, "Never trust woman and politician," and she's both. [laughs]

Gurudasa: But she's actually better at telling a lie than the other people. She's very clever.

Prabhupada: They will have to come to this point gradually. They're disappointed. Life is not very pleasing. Politics life is not… Even Gandhi, such an exalted man, on the day he was killed, he was the same.

[break] …he said. He actually prayed to God, "My death may come," because he was so much disappointed. Thousands of complaints, thousands of demands, thousands of varieties. The politician [indistinct], and everyone has to be satisfied. And if he's not satisfied, he'll plan something else.

Nowadays political position is very… The same example: ustra, ustra, a camel. Camel is eating his own blood, and still he is thinking, "I am very happy." So this… Everyone in this material world, especially the politician, they're eating their own blood, but for the position they're thinking, "Oh, I am so happy."

Gurudasa: Yesterday she rode to work in a horse cart.

Prabhupada: Ah?

Gurudasa: Yesterday, the prime minister rode to work in a horse cart to demonstrate that she would not utilize petrol due to the high price of gas.

Prabhupada: So where to get the horses?

Gurudasa: [laughs] Someone said that, that "How you will feed the horses, 'cause you can't get wheat?"

Prabhupada: All their plans have failed. You see? This is the … Nanda was one of the planning commission. This rascal is now rejected. Now he is observed by the C.I.D man. When government has ordered the [indistinct]. So one friend in Benares, he was anarchist-at least his brother was-and his brother was hanged. So naturally his family was observed by police department. I was guest in his house.

At Benares, when walking I saw that man is coming: "Oh, what is this man who is coming here?" "Oh, he's my bodyguard," he said. And "What is this bodyguard?" He said the whole story, foolish [indistinct]. So when I went to the station, the policeman. And the policeman, when I got in train, police were advised another policeman. I thought, "He is coming with me also?" [laughs] Then when I came to Allahabad station I did not see anybody else. They didn't…

[break] What other, what he has written?

Gurudasa: Memo to all presidents… [break]

Guest: Like I was saying, though, he never… I wouldn't… I couldn't put a name on the philosophy, but he would give his teachings, you know? It wasn't so strict, you know. It wasn't as organized a program as here. He would say… He would more often give…

Prabhupada: What…, was he worshiping any deity?

Guest: Hanuman. He said that, you know, you should, erm, you should serve the humanity.

Prabhupada: Uh?

Guest: Serve humanity, feed…

Prabhupada: That is the general proposition everywhere.

Guest: Right. It was nothing special. I couldn't… I wouldn't know what to tell you. He was not a philosophic…, he was not philosophically-oriented, you know. He was more, he was… Well, as we know now, it was just towards the end of his life, you know. He was…

Prabhupada: Approved line?

Guest: He never talked about his guru, about his line of succession. He never told us who his guru was. Or he wouldn't talk about his early life either. The reason I stayed with him so long was because he gave me more love, you know, than I'd ever experienced before. He was just nicer to me than anyone else had ever been. He was…

Prabhupada: No, he was a good man, there is no doubt.

Guest: Yes, he was a very good man. I wouldn't really know what to say, you know-he's a saint or a guru or…

Prabhupada: Now what is the situation of the asrama?

Guest: Well, I found out the asrama is run by..., there's trustees. There's one man in Lucknow who I've never met, who's the head of the trustees. Then there are businessmen…

Prabhupada: What is the activities?

Guest: The activity is minimal, you know. They, erm… Now that he's gone away, the presence of the Westerners even is discouraged in the temple.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Guest: We go in for darsana of the samadhi, and his takht is there on which he used to sit. But the people in the asrama now, you know, they want you to leave as soon as possible. They don't feed us anymore there.

Prabhupada: Ah.

Guest: We don't get food or chai anymore now that Bala's gone.

Prabhupada: They want you to go away?

Guest: They don't allow any Westerners now to stay in that asrama. And there's so many rooms, thirty or forty beautiful rooms, like some of the nicest in Vrndavana.

Gurudasa: That Goenka dharmasala?

Guest: That we can stay in, but I mean in the asrama itself, which is in the back of the Hanuman temple. I was… In fact I was the only one allowed to even stay in the Goenka dharmasala, because I happened to know Mr. Goenka, you know. That was just a chance thing, though, you know.

Prabhupada: Where is Goenka?

Gurudasa: You know Mr. Goenka from Pak…

[break]

Guest: It's got the original Sanskrit, word-for-word meaning, literal translation, but the purport isn't anything like… No-one else's… [indistinct background voices] Thank you. Hare Krsna.

Prabhupada: What is that letter?

Gurudasa: A letter to Mukunda inviting him to stay in London temple.

Prabhupada: Oh, you are going to London?

Guest: Tonight.

Prabhupada: Oh. [break]

[Prabhupada is being massaged]

Gurudasa: …Svarūpa Damodara

Prabhupada: Svarūpa Damodara? He is not chanting?

Gurudasa: He is chanting nothing. [laughing]

Devotee (2): He's watching… [laughing]

Prabhupada: Something I can give him to eat? [indistinct] So that boy, I used to say, "Can I put something in your belly?" [laughs] Immediate [indistinct].

Srutakirti: In Los Angeles it was nice-we were giving the cookies out after lectures.

Prabhupada: Yes. [end]