View source for Brain-washed they call it, you know, by getting up and having the two hours or three of chanting in the morning and prayer beads constantly and the group life, that they're sort of controlled, and denied their freedom. What do you say about that?

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[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1976]]
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<div id="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="section" sec_index="5" parent="compilation" text="Conversations and Morning Walks"><h2>Conversations and Morning Walks</h2>
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<div id="1976_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="sub_section" sec_index="9" parent="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" text="1976 Conversations and Morning Walks"><h3>1976 Conversations and Morning Walks</h3>
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<div id="InterviewwithReligiousEditorOftheAssociatedPressJuly161976NewYork_0" class="quote" parent="1976_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="214" link="Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York" link_text="Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York">
<div class="heading">It is due to misunderstanding. They do not understand what kind of preaching, what kind of education we are giving. We are giving education how to become free from the hammering business in the jail. They think hammering business and keep oneself within the jail is the real life because they have been accustomed to that. And when we speak that "Hammering or to keep within the jail is not your real business: your real business is freedom," naturally they find contradiction, and they think that we are doing something against their business. That is the difficulty.
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York|Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Interviewer: You've, I'm sure you've heard or read about these claims by these parent groups that claim that the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement members are, ah, sort of controlled by intensive indoctrination? Brain-washed they call it, you know, by getting up and having the two hours or three of chanting in the morning and prayer beads constantly and the group life, that they're sort of controlled, and denied their freedom. What do you say about that?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: It is due to misunderstanding. They do not understand what kind of preaching, what kind of education we are giving. We are giving education how to become free from the hammering business in the jail. They think hammering business and keep oneself within the jail is the real life because they have been accustomed to that. And when we speak that "Hammering or to keep within the jail is not your real business: your real business is freedom," naturally they find contradiction, and they think that we are doing something against their business. That is the difficulty.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Like doing something against their what?</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: Against their business.</p>
<p>Interviewer: But in other words you think that there, is there not something to this idea of brain, of being spiritually controlled or spiritually directed?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: It is not controlled, it is not controlled.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Well, what would you call it?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Controlling one from coming to the jail life. If you give good instruction to a man, that "Don't become criminal, don't come to the jail, don't be engaged in the hammering business," it appears negative, but that is positive life.</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: If you tell someone not to do something that's bad for him, it's positive for him.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is his positive life. When the physician says to a patient that "Don't eat like this, then you will increase your diabetes. Don't eat this, don't eat starch, don't eat sugar." So people may think he's simply giving negative, but that is his positive life. They misunderstand.</p>
<p>Interviewer: I guess when you started out down here in Greenwich Village in 1965 you didn't have any idea that your movement was going to become the rather large movement it is. Did you?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, because my movement is real movement, positive. Any intelligent man will understand and take it. (break)</p>
<p>Interviewer: ...planning a trip to India soon.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: I'm planning to India, and from India to Europe, that is my business.</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: Travels.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: I travel.</p>
<p>Interviewer: I mean you aren't leaving this country for good. You're a permanent resident, right?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Who said?</p>
<p>Interviewer: I don't know, I just heard that somewhere.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: From where?</p>
<p>Interviewer: I don't know, somebody said it.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: How can I answer this? Somebody madman must have said it. (laughter)</p>
<p>Interviewer: I'm just checking it out, but there's nothing to it, huh?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: I am touring always.</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: He's always traveling.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Where is your main home?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: My home is back to home, back to Godhead.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Is where?</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Back to Godhead.</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: With God.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is my real home. That means every temple is my home.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Did you work out the spiritual disciplines for the group yourself? I mean about the morning chanting and the recital of the two thousand Hare Kṛṣṇas a day and... Did you work those out yourself?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Still I am working.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Still working, on those disciplines.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, you see, I have got, these men, they have got.</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: He's saying did you think of these things yourself, to chant on the beads and follow the program in the morning, have you made these up yourself?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, this is the disciplic process.</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: Disciplic process.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Yes, who originated those steps?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: It is since time immemorial.</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: Time immemorial.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā you'll find, satataṁ kīrtayanto māṁ yatantaś ca dṛḍha-vratāḥ ([[Vanisource:BG 9.14|BG 9.14]]). Find out this.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Well I understand you do a lot of work translating and that you only sleep two hours a day. Is that right?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Not two hours, I sleep about four hours.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Four hours? Four hours.</p>
<p>Rādhāvallabha: ...verse Śrīla Prabhupāda?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Satataṁ kīrtayanto mām.</p>
<p>Hari-śauri:</p>
:satataṁ kīrtayanto māṁ
:yatantaś ca dṛḍha-vratāḥ
:namasyantaś ca māṁ bhaktyā
:nitya-yuktā upāsate
:([[Vanisource:BG 9.14|BG 9.14]])
<p>"Always chanting My glories, endeavoring with great determination, bowing down before Me, these great souls perpetually worship Me with devotion."</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So this was spoken five thousand years ago and we are doing the same thing.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Now what's your, what's your...?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Now your answer is there, it is not that I invented something.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Yes, you didn't invent it, I get the point, that it derives from the Vedic scriptures.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Whatever we are doing, it is authorized. That is the principle for spiritual understanding.</p>
<p>Interviewer: What I was trying to ask you a while ago, do you think that these particular Vedic disciplines and spiritual principles, concentration on the spirit instead of the body, has a particular usefulness in Western society nowadays?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: It is useful for every human being. If the Western society thinks that they are not human being, that is another thing. (laughter)</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: In other words, this is the business of human life.</p>
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