The tongue is the greatest enemy

On his last morning walk in the Botanic Gardens, Srila Prabhupada was accompanied by his Australian book distributors. The air was particularly chilly. When Srila Prabhupada stopped walking, the young men, breathing frosty plumes that soon merged with the bracing morning mist, clustered around their beloved spiritual master to listen to his occasional comments.

At one such break in the brisk walk, Prabhupada explained that the gardens, although nice, could have been greatly enhanced with more fruit and flower trees. He had heard, he said, that the government had a policy of not planting fruit trees. Amogha confirmed that this was a fact. Government decisions, he said, were very much centred around economic policy.

Prabhupada shook his head. "Just see. Bad policy."

Srutakirti gave another example. The government, he said, sometimes even paid farmers not to grow crops just to keep the price high.

Prabhupada made a sour face. "Just see the policy. Instead of growing natural food, they will kill animals. Purposely sinful life."

"But they still have to grow food for the animals," explained Srutakirti. "They're growing the food, they give it to the animals, but then they kill the animals."

Prabhupada shook his head. "Just see. They can grow food both for the animals and for human beings. Instead, they grow food for the animals and kill them. Ta'ra madhye jihwa ati, lobhamoy sudurmati. You sing this before taking prasadam. The tongue is the greatest enemy and greedy. For the satisfaction of the tongue they are risking their own life and committing sinful life to suffer later on. They do not know the policy of ‘live and let live', but rather ‘live and kill others'.

Cittahari suggested that people felt justified to kill animals since nature's arrangement was that one animal was food for another.

"But you are not an animal," Prabhupada countered. "You are a man. You should have this discrimination, that ‘If I can live otherwise very nicely, why shall I kill animals?' That is humanity."

"But isn't eating vegetables killing a living entity also?" asked Cittahari.

"No, it is not killing. If you take fruit, where is the killing question? And food grains?" Srutakirti added that wheat was harvested after it died, not before. Prabhupada nodded in agreement.

Gopikanta raised a rather tenuous argument. "Srila Prabhupada, you were saying the other day that if they wanted to eat meat they could wait till the cows died naturally. They might say ‘Why don't you let the vegetables die naturally before you eat them?' "

Prabhupada shook his head dismissively. "Vegetable? We are not talking of vegetable; we're talking of animals. Why don't you kill your father? Old father, useless, kill him and eat."

Hari-sauri gave the example of "old-age homes" as evidence of a move in that direction. Prabhupada stopped, planting his cane firmly on the ground. Devotees clustered closer.

"Yes. Time will come when they will kill their father. Now they are killing their children. Next they will kill their father. As soon as the whole world will become communistic they will kill the old man, just as the Africans do. Yes, they do it. Africans kill their grandfather; it is a festival. Yes. They throw the grandfather on the roof of the cottage, and he, rolling down, falls. Twice, thrice, he dies. That becomes a great festival of the grandsons. They are eating grandfather. Glorious grandsons."

Ugrasrava added, "Then they eat the grandfather's brain."

Prabhupada smiled mischievously. "And, you do not know? They like to eat white men. [Laughter] Yes. They kidnap or capture, some way or other, one white man, and they eat him very nicely."

Hari-sauri brought up the topic of abortion as yet another example of the degraded acts of contemporary society.

"They are so sinful," Srila Prabhupada said. "There are two envious living entities. One is the serpent and the other is the envious man. The envious man is more dangerous than the serpent. Why? The serpent can be charmed by drugs and mantra, but the envious man cannot. So he is more dangerous."

Hari-sauri wondered how such persons would ever be advised. Prabhupada was frank. "You can advise only: ‘Chant Hare Krsna, then everything will be all right. This is the one medicine.' You can simply make a plan how they will chant and take prasadam. This simple method. Bring them: ‘Please come here, chant, dance, and take prasadam.' They will be all good men. This is the process. Otherwise if you give them good advice, they will not be able to carry it out. They are so sinful. The only treatment is this Krsna consciousness movement. Somehow or other, bring them together. Let them chant, let them dance and take prasadam. They will be all right. Kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha. There is no other means to rectify them. We are opening centres in different parts of the world just to give them a chance. ‘Please come here, take prasadam, chant, dance, enjoy.' That transcendental enjoyment will make them correct. We are the best friends of the human society. Otherwise there is no means to rectify these rascals."

On the return drive to the temple, Prabhupada explained that Krsna had actually recommended in the eighteenth chapter of Bhagavad Gita that persons devoid of penance and austerity should be avoided; yet the devotees were so kind that they "taxed their brain" to somehow help them. "But so far that argument, logic and philosophy is concerned," Prabhupada concluded, "they cannot understand". He reiterated the practical plan for rectification that he had stressed on his walk, and asked that it be pursued vigorously in Melbourne. "People should be induced, somehow or other, to come to the temple, chant, dance, and take prasadam with us."

From Biographies and Glorifications of Srila Prabhupada-‘The Great Transcendental Adventure-‘Such a Nice Temple’ -Melbourne, 1975–Kurma das