Summary

INTERVIEW BEGINS: David Susskind What is your movement about? Are you Americans? Rupa Anuga Yes I was born here in United States David Susskind and you had another religion once Rupa Anuga not all of us were born in United States, but most of us were David Susskind you were Catholic or Protestant And what made you disillusioned about that religion? And what made you come to Krishna? Rupa Anuga Because Krishna gives us a taste that satisfies us It makes us happy chanting Hare Krishna David Susskind But what does it do in productive terms? I mean, you sing and dance in the streets, To what purpose Rupa Anuga to inform people to remind people about the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, in this age, everyone is forgetful of God, it's a godless age And people come into the material world in the first place to forget God David Susskind but can you serve God by functioning by growing crops, but doing doing something purposeful you to sing Kalindi We are doing something the root of all problem The lack of foodstuff, the war and strife and the hypocrisy that exists in the world today is a lack of God consciousness So simply, if you cure the disease in Biafra, then you have a Pakistan After You have a Pakistan you have something else So therefore, there's no cure, no material cure to the problem The cure is spiritual? David Susskind What do you stand for? I know you don't You don't eat meat, fish, eggs You don't gamble You don't believe in sex, except on a very limited basis You don't believe in intoxicants You don't take tea, or drugs or coffee What does that add up to? What? What? purposeful? But what thing do you do Bhadra Raj Das It purifies us David Susskind But now you're purified For what purpose? Bhadra Raj Das To Love God Love Krishna Because Krishna is the supreme pure David Susskind Would you love God as a Catholic or Protestant? but why didn't you do it in those terms? Bhadra Raj Das I don't know But Krishna has come And it's the message of Krishna has come and it's movement It's come so pure That it is changing the faces of all the youth all over the world David Susskind Well how did Krishna's message come to you You bought a book Bhadra Raj Das a spiritual master David Susskind What were you doing when Krishna came to you? Bhadra Raj Das I was playing harmonica in a blue band David Susskind And one night you were playing and where did Krishna appear? Bhadra Raj Das I was playing in an opening of a temple, because I wanted to do some good we were doing everything for nothing And so by chance that happened to play for an opening of the temple in Montreal David Susskind the Jewish temple? Bhadra Raj Das no, Radha Krishna universal temple come from Love of God They needed some money in order to help David Susskind at that time they were Protestant Bhadra Raj Das No David Susskind What were you, athiest? Bhadra Raj Das Yeah they were playing and they were chanting They said, Let's chant David Susskind What were they chanting? something about the chant inlisted you? Bhadra Raj Das I didn't know at the time But it stayed with me For two years David Susskind Why I watched it, and it seemed like another form of revivalism or something Bhadra Raj Das We are revital Jia Adoyta Das yes, that's, that's a correct description But it doesn't it's not limited in its definition When we chant Hare Krishna, this is not any kind of an artificial imposition on anyone By nature, we are all spiritual living beings But because we come in contact with material nature, therefore this original consciousness is covered And as a result, we're constantly engaged in waging a hard struggle for existence against this material nature But that original dormant Krishna or God consciousness can be revived by this chanting Hare Krishna, this is the recommended means Yoga Maya Dasi This chanting spiritual sound And because we're spiritual beings, it's attractive to our soul as well as to our ear When we hear mundane sound vibrations, our ears pick it up, and it sounds pleasant or unpleasant David Susskind Do you feel euphoria? Yoga Maya Dasi oh, yes, it's called transcendental bliss So transcendental ecstasy, David Susskind Were you in bliss, I was watching you, Yoga Maya Dasi this is a much higher, much higher ecstasy than any material pleasure that you can experience because it's ever increasing It gets nicer all the time, as you chant Hare Krishna, the more you chant, the more you want to chant It's, David Susskind why is that ecstasy producing, Yoga Maya Dasi because you're being put in direct association with God God is actually present in his name He God incarnates in many, many different forms millions of different forms And this is the sound, incarnation of God God invests all of his energies in his name He's not different from his name If we have names, you're David If I call you, David, you're different Your body is different from David, the person, you're different from your name But God is not different from his name And he's not in person We don't call him just God We call him by his name, just as we don't call you, man We call you David Susskind, or Mr Susskind And so we call God Krishna, because that's his name That's one of His Names David Susskind Yet people have called him Jesus People call him Buddha, people call him Mohamad Yoga Maya Dasi These are incarnations Jia Adoyta Das We're saying that people should call him millions of names David Susskind But why couldn't you call him through the religions of your birth Jia Adoyta Das You can, David Susskind but you didn't, Jia Adoyta Das right? Because no one's teaching us to do that David Susskind Didn't your father mother teach you? not your priest? Jia Adoyta Das No what we're teaching that we say David Susskind well, how did you come to it? So we can Jia Adoyta Das I can explain it to you Right, everyone, right That's why when we speak, we always offer respects to our spiritual master Because originally, we're in the darkness of ignorance And he comes with the torch light of knowledge and opens our eyes We're thinking, our spiritual master, a spiritual master means the person who's a representative of Krishna, who comes and preaches the message of Krishna David Susskind Where did you meet him Jia Adoyta Das in New York City, David Susskind where? Jia Adoyta Das Well at the temple there, I came to the temple first I bought, we have many records, and I heard a recordof our spiritual master And I was just chatting I was working for my father in a store, and I push boxes around and chant Hare Krishna, David Susskind and he must have been very upset Jia Adoyta Das No, because I was working nicely David Susskind Did he know what you were doing? Jia Adoyta Das Oh, no, because even I didn't know what I was doing David Susskind Did he say, what are you doing son? You're singing strange Jia Adoyta Das No I just chatted softly to myself David Susskind Did you cut your hair? Jia Adoyta Das No David Susskind Did you paint your Jia Adoyta Das that was later Because by chanting Of course, later, I gave up working and so many things happen David Susskind How do you eat? Jia Adoyta Das Excuse me now? Well, we eat our temple We offer all our food to Krishna And then we take the remnants we collect donations from people David Susskind Any of you work Jia Adoyta Das some of us, yes, we have people who are accountants We have people who are electrical engineers David Susskind You go to work with this costume on Jia Adoyta Das No no Most of us are not, we don't go to work We go out chanting, and we got preaching to people Please don't forget God Remember your relationship with God Chant the name of God Bhagavad Das That's an important part The social body just like you have a Body there's also a social body The head of that body is considered the priestly class of people who instruct the others about offering everything back to God It's the basic principle of one who is spiritual, you understand nothing as his As soon as you claim something is yours, whether it's your watch, or your shoes, or your wife, your wife is your child It is Krishna I am Krishna and you are Krishna David Susskind is your wife, your wife? Bhagavad Das My wife is Krishna David Susskind is your child Bhagavad Das Your everything belongs to God, you can't substantiate your claim David Susskind Well, then what is your relationship to your wife and child? Bhagavad Das We're all serving Krishna David Susskind What does that mean Yoga Suara Das it's one of love But that love is not ill founded Krishna is at the center, therefore that love endures I think if you look at the statistics, we'll find that today most relationships terminate rather quickly And even if they are prolonged, at most, they can last till the end of one lifetime Rukmini Actually love is based on the spirit So when someone's lying dead, his mother is crying over him John is gone John is gone My boy is gone So that means she's loving the spirit Yoga Suara Das Body is still there But John is gone David Susskind You Marry? you do marry? So you, you two are married Rukmini we are married David Susskind Right So you did take one to the other? You did have a Rukmini But in Krishna consciousness David Susskind What does that mean? Rukmini That means that we married in order to better facilitate our serving Krishna Bhagavad Das That is in everyone's interest David Susskind Did you date before we married? No, we Rukmini No, we met in the temple David Susskind Well, does one Go on a date You know, date Did you go to the movies Rukmini We have movies made by our devotees about our spiritual master? David Susskind Did you hold hands? Rukmini No, it wasn't necessary The idea is Bhadra Raj Das We desire to we know what our responsibilities are You see, David Susskind How did you know you should marry? Bhadra Raj Das This marriage is not bad It's not bad David Susskind Did somebody ordain the marriage Bhadra Raj Das Yes our spiritual master David Susskind who's your spiritual master? Bhadra Raj Das is divine grace A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of this movement, David Susskind this chap and this holiness, ordained your marriage He called you and said, I want you to marry this woman Rukmini He said it would be a perfect marriage David Susskind How did he know? Had you ever met? Rukmini Yes Bhadra Raj Das We met just a little while before David Susskind Do you go through any Bhadra Raj Das courtship? David Susskind courtship Yes, thank you Bhadra Raj Das No, no, David Susskind no He said, Marry So you married? Bhadra Raj Das Well, more or less? No one is forced to marry David Susskind Could You have said no Bhadra Raj Das we could have said no But we had some desire to Yoga Suara Das I think what we're trying to get at is this, that the marriages that take place in Krishna Consciousness aren't based on one's attraction for the other in terms of common interest or sex life or something like that Releasing books? Well, if you want it to be a short relationship, that's fine But in Krishna consciousness Rupa Anuga If that's the case it will be temporary, but actually, David Susskind Why will it be eternal? Rupa Anuga we all eternal as it is We all are eternal living beings spirit souls is simply temporary bodies So we don't marry for some temporary bodily relationship We married to help each other become more Krishna conscious more consciousness, have more consciousness of God And then when the body drops, that's just the beginning, actually, because we can change these bodies and another material body, we can take a spiritual body, it's not difficult David Susskind You will have a child when he bids you to Rukmini Yoga Suara made a very nice point Just know that if you really love someone, then you'll help them become really happy and find out who they are Just like you asked the beginning What what do your parents think of this? Well, my parents said they love me So because they see that I'm becoming very happy, then they're pleased, because they know that previously I wasn't David Susskind But could this be another phase that you're in Rukmini It could be just like, Hupa Nuga Pravou has been chanting Hari Krishna for over four years, I've been chanting for three and a half years, so many devotees here for such a long time And we're feeling rather than a decrease rather than some stagnation We're feeling ever increasing transcendental bliss, ever increasing bliss? Sats Varupa Das If you take it out of the Sect, this is a this applies to everyone these things we're talking about that we're going, David Susskind what do you paint this thing for? Sats Varupa Das Because it's marks us as devotees of Krishna The whole thing is to remind our brothers and sisters, this is your brother, brotherly love is based on the fact that God is our Father We want to remind everyone the relationship to the One God, we're preachers is this dress This marking is all to remind you, oh, there goes a Krishna person And then he has to think of his own relationship to Krishna or God David Susskind What is the tuft of hair? Each of you has? This is Sats Varupa Das This is called a sikha This has done for the pleasure of our spiritual master it's the same thing spiritual markings to make one Make one understand that here is a devotee and I can ask him about my relationship to God because when one dresses like this it means that 24 hours he's serving Krishna and trying to spread this very nice David Susskind Aren't you over dressing to explain your selves to God I mean, with the little thing of hair and the paint on the front Sats Varupa Das God know he knows very well but David Susskind But doesn't the average civilian walking down the street reading the Daily News? Sats Varupa Das He doesn't know about Krishna What does he say in the Chicago Tribune? Birth, death disease, old age, then he looks up and he sees a devotee and there's Krishna David Susskind it's quite a sight We'll be back in a minute