No, no, I don't say decry. But you don't want to take advantage of medicine,
Deciding that a walk along the beach this morning would be too strenuous, Srila Prabhupada went instead onto the roof of his apartment. Acyutananda and Harikesa Swamis accompanied him, as did Gopala Krishna, Yasomatinandana, Vasughosha, and Kartikeya Mahadevia prabhus. Saurabha prabhu joined us a few minutes later. Prabhupada walked steadily back and forth, enjoying the pleasantly fresh breeze, and the dawn chorus of hundreds of birds.
The roof is a good vantage point. Numerous palm trees dotted among the other apartment buildings poke their fronds just above the roof line and beyond them the construction on the twin towers of the temple complex guest house is clearly visible. Prabhupada stopped and counted off the six floors and asked if there were to be more.
Gopala Krishna explained that a new ordinance introduced under the auspices of Indira Gandhi now limits the height of any building in Bombay to only five floors. In order to complete the sixth floor on the towers, they had to work at night.
As he walked Gopala Krishna told Prabhupada that Sri Laksna Pandit, the sister-in-law of one of our western devotees and a famous actress and singer, was scheduled to sing bhajanas at our pandala tomorrow. He wondered if that was all right.
"Yes," Prabhupada told him. "Before Deity one can do. Before Deity one can show devotional activities, but not otherwise. Otherwise it will be sense enjoyment."
Just to make doubly sure, Gopala said, "In Vrindavana once you told me not to have the rasa-lila by these professionals also."
"No, before Deity everything," Prabhupada told him.
Acyutananda Maharaja also had a question about a program involving outsiders. "We're invited to do kirtana to inagurate a Bhagavat-saptaha and the Dvaraka Sankaracarya will be present." He said that since Sumati Morarji is the patron of the event, he assumed it would be a Vallabhacarya sect function.
Prabhupada was agreeable. "No, no, we have no objection with Vallabha."
Then he mentioned the letter he had recently sent to Sumati Morarji from France. "About that Vallabhacarya, she wrote me letter, I've replied it."
"Yes, Giriraja told me," Acyutananda said. "I never mention those ..."
"No, don't mention it," Prabhupada said.
Acyutananda explained, "Their history is that Vallabhacarya had the dream and discovered at Govardhana the Sri Nathaji, Gopala Deity, and there was no Madhavendra Puri."
Srila Prabhupada gave a little look of surprise. "Accha? But in the court it has been established. One lawyer in Delhi, he told me that this Deity belongs to the Gaudiya-sampradaya."
"How did it come to them?" Acyutananda asked.
"Somebody delivered to Vallabhacarya. Madhavendra Puri is not possible, somebody else." Then Srila Prabhupada asked, "Dvaraka Sankaracarya, he's a Mayavadi, and he'll give Bhagavata?"
"No," Acyutananda told him. "He's just going to give blessings to the ... He's presiding, I guess."
Apparently satisfied, Srila Prabhupada walked for a few minutes. But then he brought the matter up for discussion again. "Bhagavat-saptaha, it is not authorized," he said.
"No," Acyutananda Maharaja acknowledged. "But in some editions of Bhagavatam they have a Bhagavata-mahatmyam. And there's a story about bhakti and jnana and vairagya and Narada Muni."
Prabhupada shook his head disapprovingly. "That no acarya has mentioned."
"That's Gita Press again," Harikesa Swami said.
Acyutananda added, "They say how this is the instructions for how Bhagavata should be read in seven days up to this canto."
Prabhupada dismissed it. "Gita Press was Mayavadi."
Always attentive to everything, as Srila Prabhupada walked, he noticed a light on and had it switched off. Then he asked about an old water cooler standing to the side of the roof entrance and asked whether it was still functioning. He also noted that, despite the recent monsoons, which the devotees had said were quite heavy, the tops of the trees were still not green.
Saurabha told him that because we are so near the sea, the salty air adversely affects their growth.
After about twenty-five or thirty minutes Prabhupada decided to sit for a while.
Acyutananda Swami is also very sharp. He noticed that Prabhupada had new japa beads and commented on it.
Prabhupada smiled. "Yes. From tulasi. It was made in Honolulu. In Honolulu tulasi plants are very luxurious."
Dr. Patel arrived, having curtailed his usual walk on the beach early when he didn't see Srila Prabhupada by the sea. He quickly inquired from Srila Prabhupada about his health and whether he was taking any medicine.
Prabhupada accepted his concern, but in his usual self-effacing manner, shook his head and quoted Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.1.4, saying that the real medicine is the chanting of the holy name. "Nivritta-tarshair upagiyamanad. This chanting is properly done by a person who has fully satisfied his material desires, satiated, no more. Bhavaushadhi, and it is the medicine for this bhava-roga. Bhava, punar bhava. Once take your birth, then die, then punar bhava. So this is bhava-roga. So except pasughna [animal killer] nobody can be aloof from this chanting of Hare Krishna mantra. It is bhavaushadhi."
Dr. Patel laughed. "Shall we call that Pandit Ayur-Vedacarya of India for you? If you don't believe in our medicine?"
Srila Prabhupada also laughed. "No, no."
"What I mean to say,"
Dr. Patel continued, "is that kshetra [body] and kshetrajna [its owner] are dependent on each other; if there is no kshetra, there will be no kshetrajna to stay. So you have got to look after that kshetra, or what the kshetrajna will be happy there to live there? I think I am not wrong."
Prabhupada chuckled. "No, you are right. Kshetra is changeable, kshetrajna is permanent."
Although Dr. Patel knew very well His Divine Grace's opinion on taking medicine, he still tried some friendly persuasion and this led into a short discussion about Indian medicines. Dr. Patel said that there is a research plant in Calcutta that is extracting penicillin from cow dung.
Prabhupada knew about it, adding that Dr. Monmohan Ghosh, a pathologist of Dr. Jagadisha Candra Bose, conducted the original research proving the antiseptic properties of gobar.
Dr. Patel said there were many medicinal properties in cow urine also. "Go mutra, sir, there are so many hormones coming, and a big sample of hormones which can be resynthesized as human hormones."
Prabhupada agreed, saying that if drunk, it was a good medicine for liver disease.
Dr. Patel expressed his concern again for Srila Prabhupada's own health. Taking permission to raise his question he asked, "Now then, Arjuna was so advised that he should fight out. So in that case, I mean we all consider he was right to follow Krishna's advice? Then if a man is overtaken by disease and if he fights out that ..."
Prabhupada smiled at his persistence. "No, no, I don't say that he should not fight. It is my personal choice. Not that one should not take care of the body or one should not eat medicine, that is not ... I like this, 'Let me do without medicine.' That is my personal ..."
"What is medicine?" Dr. Patel asked. "Any herb is a medicine. Even food is a medicine."
"Whatever it may be," Prabhupada said. "I don't decry medicine. That is not my business."
"No, no, I don't say decry. But you don't want to take advantage of medicine," Dr. Patel insisted.
"Medicine," Prabhupada said objectively. "Just like a type of vairagya, sometimes they do not eat. That does not mean eating is forbidden. It is not. It is my personal, I am trying to avoid, that's all.
"You have heard the name W. C. Bannerji, He was a big barrister. He was one of the three inaugurators of Congress in the beginning. So he had his friend, contemporary, he was a brahmana. He was taking daily his bath in the Ganges, and if he was diseased, was drinking Ganges water. So he became seriously sick. So this W. C. Bannerji, he was a big man. So he asked his permission to bring some doctor. 'You'll die in this way.' So he persisted, 'No, I shall simply drink this Ganges water.' So it is not that medical science is in defeated position."
After a few more minutes of discussion Prabhupada went down to the temple for the morning darsana of Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha-Rasabihari. He also accepted guru-puja but there was no class.
Reference: Transcendental Diary Volume 4 by Hari Sauri Dasa
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