Suhotra Swami Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 07

Suhotra Swami: After the Radha-Damodar Party I went to the BBT Library Party, and we had the good fortune to have a darshan with Srila Prabhupada in Chicago. Mostly, of course, Satsvarupa Maharaj, Mahabuddhi, Ganashyam, they had many points that they were taking up with Srila Prabhupada, and I was sitting on the edge of things. But I had one question in my mind, and I waited for my chance. Then when there was a little lull, I raised my hand and Prabhupada called on me. My concern was often the professors wanted to know if these books will tell us about the ancient technology of Vedic India because at that time a book had come out by Erich von Daniken called Chariots of the Gods and there was reference in there to the Mahabharata and Puranas, that there were vimanas or airplanes or flying saucers, whatever they were, described in these ancient Sanskrit texts. So I wanted to hear Prabhupada, what he would say about this. I said, “Srila Prabhupada, many times the professors I meet, they ask me about Vedic technology,” and Prabhupada hardly let those words get out of my mouth before he rapped the table with his knuckles and he just said very shortly, “Vedic technology means Sri Guru Parampara,” and that’s all he said. But it was such a profound statement for me. It was an immediate instruction because, of course, I was asking the question impelled by all kinds of speculations going on in my mind. I had actually read that book Chariots of the Gods just to find out more what these professors were talking about. So my mind had been drifting in orbit, and Prabhupada just brought me right down to earth. “Vedic technology means Sri Guru Parampara,” and I meditated on that. That’s been a very important sutra in my life since that time. One thing is that you think about technology in the modern sense and it’s the motive force behind this Western civilization and the culture that is associated with that, which has really covered the earth. So technology is the dynamic force of civilization. We know that the Vedic civilization once covered the earth. India was once in the position that America is in now as being the leading country that all other countries emulated, and how it got to that position was because of following Sri Guru Parampara. And that is the key to how again Vedic culture can spread all over the world and become synonymous with civilization. Now when people think of civilization they look to America or they look to Western Europe, they think that’s where civilization is. But actually real civilization is Vedic civilization, and the key to that is Sri Guru Parampara as Prabhupada said.