Prabhupāda: Well, we have got many faults we can find out, but generally if I behave nicely others will follow. That is the principle. I may have some faults, you may some. We are not liberated paramahaṁsas; we are all trying. So generally we should behave very nicely according to rules and regulations: chanting sixteen rounds, rising early in the morning. Particularly maybe there is some discrepancies here and there. So... Generally it is our general rules and (indistinct). First of all rising early in the morning, if he cleans, and if they read for a (indistinct)... If these things are followed, chant sixteen rounds, then everything is there.
Devotee : In your lectures you emphasize two aspects that must be there: jñāna and renunciation. So some knowledge is there, but the part of the difficulty is that with most of the devotees in every temple in India is that they have not renounced these dirty things completely. They still are attached to sense gratification even on gross levels. So whether a sannyāsī or anybody interferes with their sense gratification, they tend to not oblige, because they are attached to doing things the way they want, and they think because they are in a foreign country, here a long way from America, where the standards are very rigid, that they can do any manner of nonsense and nobody would check them. And if you try to correct them, then they will only do it behind your back. We have seen this with the sweet shops, with rising early, anything that interferes with them doing exactly as they please. They don't want to oblige. And this is in Calcutta, this is in Bombay, and it is happening here in Vṛndāvana. It is not something that is isolated here to the Palace, but the devotees all over, they are just behaving on a level of sense gratification, and that is why there is so much rajas-guṇa in the temples. So much rajas-guṇa.
Prabhupāda: This is a fact. But how to correct it if you do not correct yourself? How it can happen?
Devotee : Well we…, many of us have tried to correct our self, and as a result we have been accused of being separatists simply because we don't want to go along with the nonsense that everybody else is doing, but we want to maintain some standard for our self, of reading and chanting, because we don't want to sit down and talk nonsense or do nonsense. And if you try to stop them, they will not stop. So why should we fall down to that level? So we behave as separatists. We go into our room and we will read, or we will go into our room and chant, or we will try to keep ourselves clean or try and do these things, and that is separatism because it is not falling into the level of māyā that is going on everywhere else in the temple—engaging in party politics and all these other things. That is…, that is what I feel about it. Most of the devotees, they seem out of place...
Prabhupāda: Now what is done is done. Now you try to correct others by behaving yourselves. Otherwise there is no need of keeping so many men. We have attempted this in Vṛndāvana. A few men may remain here, that's all. Otherwise it would be not very nice to attract. People are attracted by seeing your behavior. They are seeing that all Europeans and Americans, they have adopted such nice Vaiṣṇava culture. There are attracted from that point. But if we are not to the standard point, they immediately appeal, "Oh they are useless". So that should be corrected.