Page 88 - GOTIL (ENG) Sample

310 Glimpses of Traditional Indian Life

bath at home. They will all go to the river. And it is very
refreshing. (Lecture, 24 April 1975)

He told us that in India the utensils used for cooking must
be very, very clean. If a black portion remains, a brāhmaṇa
cook will not touch them. “Even on the bottom, on the
outside?” Puṣṭa asked. “Yes. They’ll not touch: ‘Oh, it is
still dirty.’ But in our temples it is going on. What can be
done?” Prabhupāda told us our mentality considers it
sufficient to rub dirty things with a little soap. But that is
not cleanliness, he said. (Transcendental Diary, vol. 2 pp.
23–4)

Seeing the inability of some of his disciples’ to imbibe
even simple principles of cleanliness understood by
village children in India, Śrīla Prabhupāda commented
that, “For a Westerner to be clean is somehow a very
artificial condition.” (Transcendental Diary, vol. 1, p. 331)

[Prabhupāda said that] Western people have no sense of
cleanliness. We do not bathe regularly, whereas in India
brāhmaṇas bathe not once, but three times daily, changing
their clothes each time. (Transcendental Diary, vol. 2, pp
23–4)

In India, even in the poorest man’s house in the village,
you’ll find everything neat and clean; at least the kitchen
and eating place is very neat. The climatic condition is also
nice. Almost all the year there is sunshine. (Conversation,
13 July 1976)