BY: ROCANA DASA
Oct 18, CANADA (SUN) — Studying Srila Prabhupada's conversations with ISKCON leaders. [Revised]
Today's Talks is inspired by Srila Prabhupada's Morning Walk of February 26, 1976 in Mayapur.
You can listen to the audio or read the transcript for this conversation here. The devotees attending this morning walk who are primarily speaking with Srila Prabhupada include Jayapataka, Hridayananda, Dayananda, Gopal Krishna, Hari Sauri, and Jagat Guru.
I was in Mayapur at the time this morning walk took place, but was unable to attend. I remember hearing about the contents of the discussion after the walk. Srila Prabhupada was making it abundantly clear that he's not happy with the situation of sannyasis falling down in ISKCON. He immediately brings up the subject and states that if any sannyasi has any attraction to the material world, then he has essentially fallen down and shouldn't have taken sannyasa in the first place. If he admires a car or a beautiful woman, it's like poison. Srila Prabhupada then describes that taking such poison is on the same level as committing suicide. “He’ll be punished to become a ghost, those who commit suicide.”
Srila Prabhupada goes on to describe that in India, it's a common practice that people take sannyasa just to fill-up their belly, and the people are so naïve that they'll give donations to those pretending to be sannyasi. But Srila Prabhupada always comes back to the audience he's speaking to, who are by and large ISKCON sannyasis. He says, “Then why you should be eager to take sannyasa and cheat yourself?”
He goes on to say that his disciples seem to be so anxious to take sannyasa. “So I do not know why our disciples are so anxious to take sannyasa, at least those who are outside. Everyone comes: “Give me sannyasa.” What is the idea?" Jayapataka Swami, who had been a sannyasis for going on six years at the time of this morning walk, says the main motivations is freedom from authority, meaning they don't want to take any orders from the other sannyasis. Gopal Krishna then says "they all want to become leaders." History shows that the other leaders gave Gopal Krishna a very difficult time prior to his taking sannyasa. Afterwards, he was able to advance in the institution. Srila Prabhupada says, “So what kind of leader? If you cannot lead others, what kind of leader?”
Jayapataka Swami has a particular program he introduced and pushed through the GBC at the time, where you had to wait a year to take sannyasa, and during that time you had to show you've done some exceptional preaching, which you're judged on. Srila Prabhupada doesn't come back and approve of this program, though it appears Jayapataka Swami is hoping he would. Srila Prabhupada doesn't even mention it. He sticks to the main principle that you must be completely fed up with material life, and not interested in eating, sleeping, mating or defending. He compares theses things to different animals: eating like an elephant, sex life like a monkey, etc. Becoming free from these things, that's real spiritual life. The common theme throughout the whole walk is this subject of taking sannyasa, and that you're cheating yourself if you take it prematurely or for the wrong motivation.
One of the big questions in the minds of some devotees is why Srila Prabhupada approved of a lot of these sannyasis? Of course, if Srila Prabhupada didn't know the individual personally, he'd ask someone else about them. So if you happened to have a friend who was a sannyasi, and Srila Prabhupada knew them personally, then on the basis of their recommendation he would often times accept the candidate. So in those days, becoming a sannyasi really depended on what kind of circle of friends you had, who you were associating with. Therefore it turned out that a lot of people who took sannyasa had previously been serving some sannyasi personally, as that was a way to get approval to be a sannyasi yourself. In America, very few people in the temples asked to take sannyasa, and even many of the leaders were not sannyasis. In India, of course, there was a particular advantage for taking sannyasa, as depicted by Srila Prabhupada himself as well as by Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. In India, it's culturally engrained that people automatically, without question, give sannyasis a great deal of attention, especially when it comes to preaching. But Srila Prabhupada says in this lecture, what's the use in the west when nobody cares if you're sannyasi or not when it comes to the general public. Of course, it made a big difference in the temples, and you were treated far differently in the institution if you held that title. When a sannyasi showed up at the temple, they were given the royal treatment, whereas if you showed up as a brahmacari or grihasta, you were shown where to put your sleeping bag down.
Srila Prabhupada was also trying to prove some very important philosophical points throughout his ISKCON lila period. For example, it was commonly the opinion, even amongst his own Godbrothers let alone the public in general, that Westerners were absolutely hopeless to preach to. They couldn't become brahmans or sannyasis, or understand and take to Krsna Consciousness. That idea, however, was against our philosophy, which says it's the opposite -- anyone can take up Krsna Consciousness and it should be spread around the world. So by having westerners being initiated, taking brahman initiation then some of them taking sannyasa, if they lived up to the standard Srila Prabhupada expected and hoped for, then these devotees were proving an important philosophical message Srila Prabhupada wanted to project> He often brought this up in his lectures, especially to Indians. So in this way, we were Srila Prabhupada's example. He wanted to show by the results. At the same time, he didn't want us to show that we were westerners and couldn't maintain these standards. So that in itself is a dilemma. While the phenomenon of sannyasis falling down escalated after Srila Prabhupada left, it was also a problem when he was here, although not to the same degree. Many of his senior people who took sannyasa later gave it up. In fact, one of them was on this morning walk - Hari-Sauri. At the time of this conversation, Hari-Sauri hadn't yet taken sannyasa, but he became one later on, then gave it up. Today he's considered a big authority on what Srila Prabhupada said and did, according to the memories written down in his Transcendental Diary.
Dayananda brings up an interesting point, saying that your senses seem to be stronger when you're young rather than when you're old. Srila Prabhupada shoots this idea down and says the whole reason that older people don't participate in sense gratification as much is because their 'instrument' is not working. But still you see old men going to nightclubs and spending all sorts of money. Srila Prabhupada says, “Seventy-five, eighty years old, they are going to the nightclub.” Hridayananda says they're so frustrated, and Srila Prabhupada replies that everyone's frustrated, not just these old men." It's so wonderful to listen to Srila Prabhupada's witty comments. He goes on quite a bit about this, saying after the nightclubs, then they have to go the diabetes club.
After discussing this for a while, Srila Prabhupada goes on to explain that the Krsna Consciousness movement is to make western people civilized, and we should take this work very seriously and responsibly. Now we see that there's very little preaching going on in North America, and far more going on in India. The enthusiasm we had back in those days for preaching to Americans, especially, has died way down. You can hardly even get a sannyasis to come to your temple, let alone go out preaching in the west. Jayapataka Swami again brings up the subject of sannyasa, this time saying, “So it is necessary to be fixed up to take sannyasa, or one should take sannyasa to become fixed up?”
If you listen to the tape, Srila Prabhupada seems to be unfamiliar with the term "fixed up", whereas this was common jargon amongst his disciples. He replies that, “To become fixed, becomes sannyasi, the other three processes are there, to become a brahmacari, to become grhasta, to become vanaprastha, stage by stage.” Once you reach sannyasa stage you should be very confident. Yes, you'll get some ability to make progress, but you shouldn't take it unless you're already very confident.
I remember that at the point in time when this morning walk occurred, Srila Prabhupada was upset that the fields we had purchased around the Mayapur temple weren't being used to grow food. Srila Prabhupada points this out, saying, “…food must be there. If you don’t eat sufficiently, how you’ll be able to work? Yuktahara-viharasya. We are not after dry speculation. Practical. Eat sufficiently. Work sufficiently. Don’t be lazy.” He says we shouldn't take more than needed, like if you have an abundance of salt, you don't just pour too much salt on your food. You have to have just enough salt. So in the same way, you should go about the process of eating.
Jayapataka Swami is obviously the main contributor to the conversation here, and brings up the point that every person has not got the same mentality. He gets that part of it out, but Srila Prabhupada cuts him off and makes the essential point, "That will depend on the preaching of the sannyasis." In other words, you've got to preach in such a way that if someone has the wrong mentality, then you have to change them. This is the job of the sannyasi. Jayapataka Swami was trying to explain how difficult it is to preach because people have so many different types of mentalities, but Srila Prabhupada wouldn't accept that.
Anyone who knows the history of Mayapur knows that at that time, the authorities had installed some kind of cloth weaving enterprise, which was along the building against the wall that ran beside to the road. You can hear the workers in the background of the audio, as the weaver's machines are going. Srila Prabhupada said these workers are not renounced, it's just sense gratification. As soon as you want to create something, that's a form of sense gratification. Never sentimental, he points out that they don't think they're renouncing; they're doing it because they enjoy getting paid for it.
Srila Prabhupada then says the thief, whether he steals a diamond or a cucumber, still has a thief's mentality. Meaning if you're a weaver or a big banker, it doesn't make any difference. Both are into sense gratification. The word "diamond" and "cucumber" are very similar in Bengali: 'hira' and 'ksira'.
Then Hari-Sauri says, “By artificial renouncing everything, they’re actually simply another form of sense gratification." Srila Prabhupada's answer is quite profound. He says, "Not artificial. It is a process. We have to give up this sense gratification. Go through a process to trained up." In other words, you have to practice giving up sense gratification.
The topic of artificial renunciation comes up again. One fellow, Sharma, had been agitating the leader's minds by engaging in what they considered artificial renunciation. He wouldn't participate and they wanted Srila Prabhupada to make some comment on this. Surprisingly, Srila Prabhupada told them not to throw him out, that he's actually trying and if they throw him out he'll just go somewhere else. So as long as he's not doing anything bad, let him keep on.
Then another devotee brings up someone who is reading, and he won't do any work because he says he has to become realized by reading. He apparently wanted Srila Prabhupada to say he can't do that, but Srila Prabhupada says, “No, no, he’s reading. That is working.” So the senior men wanted to get rid of these two people - and believe me, they got rid of a lot of people like this - but Srila Prabhupada said as long as he's not sleeping when he's reading it's OK, because if you're actually reading about Krsna, then you won't sleep. Same thing if you're working. If you work but want to sleep, then you're also not working. So mainly just think of Krsna and you won't fall asleep.
Srila Prabhupada was really against laziness, which is the equivalent of sleeping too much. And eating too much makes you lazy and wanting to go to sleep. I had first-hand experience of Srila Prabhupada's feelings on this subject. The first time we all went to India, which was 1972, there was only one building on the Mayapur property, partially completed. All the western devotees were housed in this building. Being so unfamiliar with India, they had all gotten very sick with dysentery. I had arrived a number of days prior to most of the devotees, and had also gotten sick, but by the time they arrived I was recovered. I walked with Srila Prabhupada up and down the rows of sick people. I recall that Srila Prabhupada had absolutely no sympathy for their condition, and attributed it all to the fact we were eating too much and not working hard enough. I recorded the complete story of this event on a Prabhu-Podcast in August of last year (Podcast 5A-B).
Jayapataka Swami then made the point that reading and service are non-different in Krsna Consciousness. Of course, the leaders would always emphasize the service aspect, and it was actually difficult to find time to read. Srila Prabhupada says, “Just like Rupa Goswami. He was reading. Nana-sastra-vicaranaika-nipunau. But he must be expertly reading, not as a book worm, expert.
Srila Prabhupada winds up the morning walk with one of his profound statements: “Everything depends on advancement in Krsna consciousness. If Krsna is there, either you read or work as a coolie, the same thing.” [ ] “The real disease is there is no Krsna.”
