Guest (2): Can I ask about your rate... about growth? How, can ask how the movement is growing? Can you give me any figures at all? I was speaking to one of your colleagues earlier who mentioned 150, but seventy-five approximately which were in London. Are the figures growing week by week?
Prabhupāda: Yes. I started this movement alone, and now there are eight thousand.
Guest (2): I'm talking about in Britain.
Revatīnandana: Same thing. Yes, every few days somebody joins.
Guest (2): Can you tell me how many of those actually stay?
Haṁsadūta: Oh, 99% stay.
Guest (2): And what is the figure likely to be? Five a week, ten a week?
Prabhupāda: We don't keep any statistics, but actually the fact is that I started alone; now we are eight thousand.
Guest (2): I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that...
Haṁsadūta: Five years ago, Prabhupāda, he came to New York with these kartāls, and he began alone by sitting in a park underneath a tree chanting this very same Hare Kṛṣṇa, which you see the boys on Oxford St. chanting. And now there are eight thousand students all over the world, and approximately a hundred centers. At that time, Śrīla Prabhupāda didn't even have a place for himself. But now he has a place in every major city.
Guest (2): You used the word "student" here. You're referring to this as...
Haṁsadūta: Yes, because it's an education. This is a spiritual education.
Guest (2): This doesn't tie up with the figure that I've been given, though, 150. There must be more than that.
Haṁsadūta: No, we're talking about around the world.
Guest (2): But you would accept there's 150?
Haṁsadūta: Yes, in England.
Guest (2): No, five years ago.
Prabhupāda: In 1966.
Haṁsadūta: In 1966.
Prabhupāda: No, England we started in 1968.
Devotee: That 150 is those who have fully dedicated their life, but there are thousands who are followers and admirers who have not joined here.
Prabhupāda: They are admirers.
Devotee: They are admirers and they are... there are thousands of...
Sister Mary: Encouraging people to chant the name of God in their own religion.
Revatīnandana: Yes.
Sister Mary: You don't have to change your religion. Like we are Christians. In the orthodox church, they say that (indistinct)
Guest (2): To be a member you don't have to change your religion? Is this a fact?
Sister Mary: To be a member, here a member here, you do, don't you? Or do you?
Revatīnandana: To live in this temple you have to take up fully our principles and take up our activities of preaching work and like that. But to practice these things outside, even in one's own religion, without changing the basis of his belief, he can simply devote himself to God in these ways. And if one is young and not so attached, he can take it up fully. He can take it up in part, or he can take it up... And religious system, there are names of God. You simply chant it.