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Conversations and Morning Walks

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Radio Interview -- March 12, 1968, San Francisco:

Interviewer: Shipping company carried him free.

Caller: The shipping company carried you free. Who buys your food for you?

Prabhupāda: When I came, I came with some introduction letter. So my guests, they provided me.

Caller: Your guests provide you. In other words, you're a free-loader.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation Before Lecture -- April 29, 1969, Brandeis University, Boston:

Prabhupāda: Purchase.

Devotee: Purchase. Buy.

Miss Rose: Oh. Am I gonna dig gold?

Prabhupāda: Oh, you have no money?

Miss Rose: To buy a house? I wish I did. I'd take all of the disciples and put 'em all in one house.

Prabhupāda: Yes. You just make one down payment, and they will pay monthly.

Room Conversation -- September 9, 1969, Hamburg:

Prabhupāda: You suggest that "Here is another solution. Why we should take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness?" No. There is no other. You have got any suggestion, any other method? No. Then why don't you take to it and preach? What is the difficulty? You don't like? (break) ...especially Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Yes. That is the instruction of Rūpa Gosvāmī. Kṛṣṇa-bhakti-rasa-bhāvitā-matiḥ krīyatāṁ yadi kuto 'pi labhyate tatra laulyam ekalaṁ mūlyam na janma-koṭi sukṛtair labhyate. Very nice verse. He instructs that "If you can purchase Kṛṣṇa consciousness from any market, any store, please immediately buy it." Then next question is "Then what is the price? What shall I have to pay for it?" And Rūpa Gosvāmī says, "Oh, the price is simply eagerness." Tatra laulyam... "Yes, I must have Kṛṣṇa consciousness." That is the price. Laulyam, that eagerness is not achieved even after many, many births. That is the price. Therefore it requires a little intelligence. "Oh, such a valuable thing? I can purchase only by eagerness? Why not become eager immediately?" That is intelligence. You are German or Australian or... (end)

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- July 20, 1971, New York:

Prabhupāda: You can learn that?

Devotee (4): I already know computer programming, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Devotee (4): I learned it in high school, and I was working as a programmer.

Prabhupāda: Then why not take a computer?

Pratyatoṣa: Sure. And we can get a terminal. You can buy a computer terminal for about $600.

Room Conversation -- London, August 10, 1971:

Prabhupāda: The bank will not be prepared to advance in such property?

Mr. Arnold: Well, they may well do, but it would only be... One couldn't guarantee that they would be expected to. But the bank manager, where the account of this temple is kept, they may be tempted to loan a half or three quarters of it, if they think that the thing is a good... I mean, this site at Kings Street, Hammersmith, for instance, if we don't buy it, then the suggestion is that within the very foreseeable future the place will be pulled down to build a large hotel, which means to say that the site is very valuable. On this score, the bank may well be tempted to loan you some money, just on the site alone, (indistinct) the premises. They would be interested.

Prabhupāda: Then means that a church turned out a new building. So that is a big stake.

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- February 12, 1972, Madras:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Guest: But I think any religious movement like yours, people think they can buy up the grace of God by giving some money. Right? So you won't find any difficulty in getting money, because there is air of sin in the world, and the sinful people think they can compromise by giving money. Let them give.

Prabhupāda: That is also good.

Room Conversation with Gaurachand Gosvami At the Radha-Damodara Temple (Mostly Bengali) -- March 11, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So you want the check immediately?

Kṣīrodakaśāyī: We have to buy the stamp, Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: No, the check will not buy stamp; you have to take money.

Kṣīrodakaśāyī: Yes, I will give the check to the man and then he will give me cash to..., before we go to Mathurā.

(Prabhupāda converses in Bengali with guests) (break)

(in car, horn honking:)

Devotee: Actually he planned them very nicely.

Śyāmasundara: Is he willing to give us the rooms?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Conversation with Author -- April 1, 1972, Sydney:

Author: Can I appeal to (devotee name) just for a second. What I am trying to say here is that, well, for most of the people who read this book, what they are going to be reading about is something which is completely alien, and therefore one can't start by offering them a highly sophisticated discussion of the philosophy because they won't even begin to understand it. Just as when you people sell Back to Godhead on the footpaths, the people who buy it, I can assure you, understand very little of it. And I think you are aware that they understand very little of it. But they understand some of it. And probably enough to make it worthwhile. You think so, and I think so too. But this book can't start off at the end. I can't start off with the philosophy.

Prabhupāda: (aside) Your business is finished at sundown.

Room Conversation -- April 1, 1972, Sydney:

Sudāmā: Everyone is competing. Now the girls, they want handsome man, so man is trying to get his face fixed and buy new clothes.

Prabhupāda: Trying to keep himself young.

Room Conversation -- April 2, 1972, Sydney:

Prabhupāda: Another thing happened in Los Angeles. I wanted some quotation from a place of this Teachings of Lord Caitanya. So the man came, he said, "Swamiji, first of all I must buy this book. Either you accept or not accept our quotation, what price I shall pay?" I said, "Give me six dollars." Immediately he took this book. "Such a nice book I have never read. So either it is printed or not printed in our press, I must take this book." Actually, these ideas what we have explained in our books, they're unknown to the modern world. Unknown.

Śyāmasundara: They're not described anywhere else. No other source.

Prabhupāda: Nobody knows that God can be person, there can be dealings like this, there are dealings actually, and they are described. That is wonderful.

Room Conversation -- August 1, 1972, London:

Prabhupāda: But I heard that rascal always played my record and hear Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Devotee (1): At least he's benefiting somehow. I saw him in Bombay also one day in the market of Madhubal, Madhubhag(?) temple? He was buying beads for his store in New York.

Prabhupāda: He's selling beads, records, on our account. (laughter)

Interview with the New York Times -- September 2, 1972, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: If one gets a diamond, he possesses something valuable. But in this civilization you are simply making plastic plates and plastic cups. Indeed, in Japan I have seen pasteboard homes. And everyone is thinking that he is advanced. Formerly people used to have golden and silver utensils, but now they have plastic ones, and still they are very proud to be so materially advanced. What is your position? You have a bunch of paper and think, "I am a millionaire." What is the value of that paper? Is that not cheating? However, if we possess gold or diamonds worth a million dollars, that is actual wealth. But we are educated in such a way that we think we are millionaires by paper only. As soon as there is some catastrophe, millions of such dollars could not buy bread. This actually happened in Germany; millions of marks could not purchase one piece of bread. All this is going on in the name of advancement of civilization, and the real purpose of life, God consciousness, is missing. So every thoughtful man should come forward to understand this movement and take it seriously. Why are the people being misled? We just have to try to understand this philosophy, the basic principles of God consciousness.

Conversation with Bajaj and Bhusan -- September 11, 1972, Arlington, Texas, At Their Home:

Prabhupāda: Ah. They think, "Oh, what we have to learn from them about Kṛṣṇa? We are all-knowing." (Hindi) And you were speaking, some of your Madras colleagues. They come here and immediately they learn how to eat meat. (Hindi)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Before they came they were not eating meat, but when they come here they normally, they buy it, they cook it, and they not only just... They buy, themselves, and they do everything.

Prabhupāda: London... (Hindi) Practically cent percent Indians, they eat meat.

Guest (4): Swamiji, what is the role of meat-eating in...

Prabhupāda: Meat-eater means sinners. He cannot understand Kṛṣṇa.

Morning Walks -- October 1-3, 1972, Los Angeles:

Jayatīrtha: Like automobiles, automobiles are built to break down in four or five years at the most so that you'll have to go and buy a new one. That's the way they build them. They could make them stronger, stronger parts, stronger engines, but they don't, so that in four or five years they'll break down and you'll have to come back and buy a new one.

Prabhupāda: (Sanskrit) Even in ordinary dealings, people will cheat you. That is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. (Sanskrit) Everyone is cheating. Even in ordinary talking, they will tell so many lies. (break) They live nicely in fresh air, in open air, trees, and talking about their business and they are happy. They have no problems for eating, sleeping, mating, nothing. Everything is there. And we are claiming civilized. We are dealing with science to improve conditions, the rascals they are becoming more and more degraded. They have no science, they have no laboratory, they have no university.

Room Conversation -- October 25, 1972, Vrndavana:

Devotee (3): Also in Los Angeles they are buying press?

Prabhupāda: That is small press. That is not for printing books, some small pamphlets.

Indian man: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Gurudāsa: George is going to make any more records, recordings?

Prabhupāda: He has already made one record about our Hare Kṛṣṇa movement.

Room Conversation -- October 25, 1972, Vrndavana:

Pañca-draviḍa: Not just supply, quality. When you buy an orange and you have a glass of orange juice, it's orange, it's not yellow. (laughter)

Devotee (3): But by their lack of demand, we are reaping a harvest.

Prabhupāda: Yes, especially in California, oranges, if you compare orange here available... Dates, first-class dates, first-class orange. There is watermelon. All season you get watermelon, karmuj(?). First-class watermelon. And karmuj. And what is that special karmuj produced in Keśi-ghāṭa? That greenish?

Gurudāsa: Honeydew?

Indian man: There is no special name for it.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is special in Vṛndāvana. That greenish.

Room Conversation -- October 25, 1972, Vrndavana:

Pañca-draviḍa: Rava or something, a particular notation on the calendar, it corresponds to March or April, r—a something. I don't know the exact period of time, but by March, the government says they will completely..., they want to completely take over the control of wheat by this time. They have already taken over the control of atta and flour and now suji. They want to take over the control of wheat and the control of sugar completely. So all these things we are seeing is what they are doing, they are taking over control, they are rationing the items, but in the ration shop you can get 800 grams of the product and then you have to go out onto the market and buy at outrageous prices, because nobody can feed a family on 800 grams of sugar a month. It's very little for five people. The price of sugar has gone up over a rupee and a half since the government took over.

Prabhupāda: Ration means black market.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Indonesian Scholar -- February 27, 1973, Jakarta:

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the duty of everyone.

Guest: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: And get these books.

Guest: Yes, I will buy these books. Thank you.

Room Conversations with Sannyasis -- March 15, 1974, Vrndavana:

Acyutānanda: Now I wanted to ask somebody to leave, but how does he leave? We have to buy him his ticket or something. There was a boy, one...

Prabhupāda: Leave means he can go to other center.

Acyutānanda: I wanted to ask him to leave but where would he go? Who will pay for his way out?

Prabhupāda: Then one thing is, that this ultimate, we are canvassing, we are preaching to bring men. To get them out is not our business. That is not our business that, but if he is incorrigible, he is not, then he must leave. That is... We are making so much preaching work to bring men, not to ask them to go. If for some paltry reason we ask, that is not...

Devotee: (softly) This was not a paltry reason.

Prabhupāda: When he is incorrigible. First of all you have to try to correct him and... That is preaching. Our preaching means that people are useless, we have to train them in such a way they may take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is our management.

Morning Walk -- April 30, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Do the scientists say like that?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I'm not very sure. But they produce imitation milk, the milk produced from soya bean. That's available in the market. Many, in fact I find, many people do not buy the natural milk. They buy the imitation milk, milk produced from the bean, soya bean. They say that milk contains too much fat. So that makes them very fat. So they want to control their weight by taking the imitation milk which contains less protein and...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Milk will disappear. Harer nāma... (CC Adi 17.21). (pause)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Prabhupāda, buffalo, buffalo milk is as good as cow's milk?

Prabhupāda: No. It contains more fat. Milk means cow's milk. If you want to derive milk profit, then it is cow's milk. Otherwise every animal has got milk. And next to cow's milk is goat's milk. Goat. Buffalo milk is not so nice.

Morning Walk -- May 14, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Aha, cuffles.

Devotee: Oh, jaya. Do you like I buy from you?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee: I give you my soul for the cuff links?

Prabhupāda: No, you take it and sell it. (pause) (break) The last four days this students are not clear.

Devotee: Man's best friend.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. Because he has no knowledge who is the best friend. According to the quality, friend is selected.

Karandhara: And one is known by the company he keeps.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Kāranaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). The best friend will lead him to take birth in that family. He'll help him next birth because he'll always think of dog, so next birth, dog. Yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvam (BG 8.6). At the time of death, if you are attached to something then you'll think of it, and next birth is that.

Morning Walk At Cheviot Hills Golf Course -- May 15, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: For giving them opportunity to kill? And where is the opportunity? The Lord said, "Thou shalt not kill." Where do they get the opportunity of killing? That is another blaspheme. Where do they get this opportunity? They manufacture.

Śukadeva: In Seattle not only do they eat cows, but they run out of cows and they start eating horses. It is very famous now to buy horsemeat. They have horse steaks instead of cow steaks. It has become so degraded now that they are eating horses.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Paramahaṁsa: They ran out of cows. Cows cost too much.

Śukadeva: So now they are killing horses.

Prabhupāda: So now they will eat their old father. Yes. No price. Home made. (laughter) Home made concession.

Room Conversation with Indian Guests -- July 11, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: So you have got your own house there, Dehra Dun?

Guest (3): No, I tried to buy house, and I made deposit and everything. I wanted to buy the house. Then I came to England to raise the money. I raised the money and went back to India. And by the time I went back, there were four litigations going on on the house.

Prabhupāda: Oh... (laughter)

Room Conversation with Indian Guests -- July 11, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: No, beads, they also purchase from the market. There is no harm. Either you take it from here or from the market.

Haṁsadūta: We buy our beads at the market also. The thing is that if someone wants to be initiated, then he has to be prepared to follow some principles, four principles. Prabhupāda just mentioned them. He must be prepared to give up all intoxicants, all illicit sex life, meat-eating, meat, fish, eggs, and no gambling. And chant the prescribed number of rounds, sixteen rounds. And anyone can be initiated, but he must be prepared to follow these restrictions. Otherwise, the effect of the chanting will not be as...

Indian: As effective as it would be.

Haṁsadūta: Exactly.

Guest (4): So what you're saying is that there's no harm by his...

Prabhupāda: No, you can... That will help you in future to give up these habits. Chanting you can begin at any condition. But when we initiate officially, we take this promise. Then we initiate. This is our condition. Yatra pāpaś catur-vidhā. According to śāstra, these are four kinds of sinful activities: illicit sex, meat-eating, intoxication and gambling. But these are modern civilization. It is very difficult.

Room Conversation with Two Buddhist Monks -- July 12, 1973, London:

here, I think.

Śrutakīrti: Yes. Brahmānanda Mahārāja was saying many fruits also get to England. He said in Africa they have many nice fruits, but you can't buy them in Africa. They ship them off to England. Although they're all grown there, you can't get nice fruit in Africa.

Prabhupāda: Neither the Africans like to eat.

Śrutakīrti: No.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they don't. Yes. God has created different foodstuff for different living entities.

Room Conversation With David Lawrence -- July 12, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: ...revolution in the spiritual ideas.

David Lawrence: We hope to produce it so cheaply that schools will buy it readily. You know. Almost be, well, you know, not free, but handed out...

Prabhupāda: No, we can give you paperback, cheap edition.

David Lawrence: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We can... If you... We can... A very cheap edition. Or we'll print here, cheap.

David Lawrence: The Kṛṣṇa Books? Kṛṣṇa Books?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation with French Journalist and UNESCO Worker -- August 10, 1973, Paris:

Yogeśvara: You can translate that story? (French) (to Prabhupāda:) She went there to buy her foodstuffs?

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Yogeśvara: (French)

Prabhupāda: So you are thinking in that way. "How I shall provide this population?" That is the old woman's crying. Without sufficient knowledge. We do not believe in this, all rascaldom. We believe in God. If God can create... just like animals. They do not cry. They're increasing. The hogs and dogs, even lower animals... This is demonic economy. A man is holding thousands of acres of land and he's thinking of overpopulation. Why not he distributes the thousands of acres of land to the people? They would produce their own food. That is the, that is the defect of so-called socialism. But here we give a right type of socialism.

Room Conversation -- November 4, 1973, Delhi:

Guest: Such a vicious circle. Higher the prices, higher the wages, higher the wages, higher the prices with less production. If there are five loaves and people have 10 rupees they'll buy five loaves. And if they have 20 rupees also they'll buy five loaves because there are not 10 loaves.

Prabhupāda: No, no this high price is due to (indistinct). They are holding stock.

Guest: That is not sufficient for all these people, population.

Prabhupāda: No, if you pay them sufficient.

Room Conversation -- November 4, 1973, Delhi:

Guest: You see what happens.... Suppose you see in a house there are four liters of milk, you see, and each one is given 100 rupees, you see, then they will buy each one, let's say one liter. And if they are given 200 rupees the one who has got 200 rupees, they get one for also 200 rupees, you see? So what is happening is people who have got black money, they want the things for themselves, there is a price there.

Prabhupāda: How they get black market?

Guest: No, because stock being limited. Suppose a medicine is being wanted, a man is willing to give anything for that medicine.

Prabhupāda: So far I have got experience the stock is available if you pay for it.

Morning Walk -- December 19, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: (laughing) So just imagine where is light. In our side or their side? They are deprecating, "Bhagavad-gītā is now old. We require new knowledge." Still, we sold thousand copies.

Hṛdayānanda: Finally the Guru Maharaji said over the microphone, "Don't buy more of these Bhagavad-gītās." (laughter) He said it's not bona fide. I told Prabhupāda that when the devotees had a big kīrtana, all the people...

Prabhupāda: So what was the result, stopped?

Hṛdayānanda: Yeah, after that it was more difficult.

Morning Walk -- December 21, 1973, Los Angeles:

Jagajjīvana: Well, it's about that we weren't allowed into the Dominican Republic and they were stopping us from coming in, and that one million people buy our books and that millions of people buy our books and many people...

Prabhupāda: Spanish book?

Jagajjīvana: All types of books. Had some nice pictures. In the article there is a picture of us giving books to the governor of Puerto Rico. (break)

Prabhupāda: So we have got books in Spanish now? Which book?

Jagajjīvana: We have the...

Prabhupāda: Īśopaniṣad.

Morning Walk -- December 30, 1973, Los Angeles:

Nara-nārāyaṇa: Actually they are simply selling their theories. Whoever will buy it, they are selling it to.

Prabhupāda: Another rascal is buying. We are not buying. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam amalaṁ purāṇam, spotless knowledge, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Amalam. Amalam means without any spot. (break) ...of God is given in the dictionary, "Supreme Being." That is very nice. Everywhere we see that on the top there is a supreme being, just like in your state, the president. So why not this big government, a Supreme Being? Where is the difficulty? Without something supreme, controller, things cannot go nicely. Otherwise why you select a president? Why you select a supreme being and give him all power that "Your order will be final"? Why you do that? Because you want the government must go on nicely. Otherwise there is no need of electing a president. So supreme being must be there, in every management. So this big huge management, there must be Supreme Being. And that is God. Clear, simple understanding. How can you deny? The difficulty is that with our poor fund of knowledge, we cannot understand that how a Supreme Being, person, can create the sky, this huge water, the sun, moon. Because I am thinking, "God must be like me." A Dr. Frog. He is thinking, "Atlantic Ocean must be like this well." That is our defect.

Morning Walk -- December 31, 1973, Los Angeles:

Karandhara: Yes. There's a... They buy now. They buy the goods before they are even grown, from the commodity market.

Prabhupāda: Yes, because they can pay in this paper, the bank will advance. So as soon as you... You have to introduce this metal coins, value. The whole cheating scheme will fail.

Jagajjīvana: In the past there was a lot of gold on the planet. What has happened to it? There used to be a lot of gold on the planet?

Prabhupāda: Yes. They used as utensil, as household pots. Just like now you are advanced, using plastic, because you have become very advanced. So you are using plastic. They were using gold.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 10, 1974, Los Angeles:

Candanācārya: They buy ten thousand dollar necklace for their dog.

Prabhupāda: Just see how much attracted.

Candanācārya: Yes, when they die, they leave all their money to the dog.

Prabhupāda: So why they refuse to become a dog? Why they refuse to become a dog?

Karandhara: Some of them would like to become.

Umāpati: Some of them think dogs and cats are more intelligent than people.

Prabhupāda: Intelligent, ant is also intelligent than any human being. So they live within the hole of wall, and there is no scarcity. Can you become like that? You live within your apartment and there is no scarcity. Wherefrom he gets food? They are more intelligent than human being. Everyone has got some specific talent, either human being or cats and dogs or ants, everyone. Just like the vultures, they go four miles, five miles above and they can find out where is a corpse, where is a dead body. But you cannot do that. You see? Immediately pounce on it. Hundreds of vulture will come. Did you not see it? So they are intelligent more than human being.

Morning Walk -- January 15, 1974, Hawaii:

Prabhupāda: Oh, that's nice. Bitter melon, eggplant, maybe this mankachu (?). They prepare. They will be very nice combination, yes. Buy one vegetable, you can eat whole thing. Yes.

Sudāmā: We will try and get some squash leaves, too.

Prabhupāda: Oh, that's nice.

Sudāmā: I remember when we were here four years ago you had them.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Morning Walk -- February 17, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: We must collect some funds and buy some ready-made clothes, keep them ready and present them.

Prabhupāda: So from śānta-rasa we can begin this dāsya-rasa. Yes. Instead of taking care of them, you please kindly take up these poor children.

Dr. Patel: Yes, you see, my wife used to take care of more than hundred children in the schools, giving them fees, giving them notes, pencils and clothing and...

Prabhupāda: A little more, little more.

Morning Walk -- April 14, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: Conjugal love is mādhurya-rāsa.

Prabhupāda: Mādhurya-rāsa, yes... (break) eat along with my father. Unless I come, father will not...

Dr. Patel: But you were brought up in a big city, but I was brought up in a small village. Actually... (break)

Prabhupāda: The same. It doesn't matter whether it is in the village or town.

Dr. Patel: In the village we eat more. We used to buy... (end)

Morning Walk -- April 29, 1974, Hyderabad:

Tejiyas: Still, at the same, time everybody buys Gita Press books, even though the quality is bad.

Prabhupāda: The quality is third-class.

Tejiyas: Everyone is buying all over India Gita Press.

Prabhupāda: Because the supply is cheap.

Gargamuni: Well, it's in Hindi also. We have to print in Hindi.

Prabhupāda: Well, first of all supply the English then, we... (break) ...tried to sell her place for fifty lakhs of rupees. She thinks that I am so rich man.

Morning Walk Excerpts -- May 1, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: These Christians, during the Christmas, they buy a turkey one month before...

Prabhupāda: But that is not the injunction of Christ. They have made it.

Dr. Patel: No, no. That cannot be injunction of a saint like that.

Prabhupāda: No. He says, "Thou shall not kill," general order.

Dr. Patel: Christ was a great bhāgavata-bhakta.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Dr. Patel: He was a bhakta.

Prabhupāda: Yes. I said in many lectures that Christianism means Vaiṣṇavism. Where is the Christian?

Dr. Patel: Vaiṣṇavism. Totally Vaiṣṇavism.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.

Morning Walk at Villa Borghese -- May 25, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: So we shall walk? (break) ...containing three passengers, wasting petrol. Similarly, hundreds and thousands and millions of cars and buses are running all over the world, simply wasting petrol.

Bhagavān: When there was the oil crisis in the United States, they were giving reports how some person would go in his car, go ten miles in a big car to buy one pack of cigarettes.

Prabhupāda: Stick to your own place and grow your food. There is no question of transport. Little transport is required, that bullock cart. Kṛṣṇa was being carried on bullock cart. There is no use of petrol. Use simply the bull. They are already there. Utilize them. No. The bull should be sent to the slaughterhouse. Petrol should be used.

Morning Walk -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Yogeśvara: People buy his book because he is the former president of India. They think he's authority.

Prabhupāda: That's all. He does not know that he is a fool number one, fully under the con... Now his position. I saw him in Madras.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Paralyzed, paralyzed.

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, you cannot recognize. And he gives his opinion. Just see. Nobody thinks that "If I am not controlled, I do not wish to die, why there is death? I do not wish to become old. Why there is old age?" A common sense. "I do not wish to be diseased. Why there is disease? And still, I am thinking that I am not controlled." That means no brain even, common sense. Piśācī pāile yena mati-cchanna haya. Just like ghostly haunted, madman. He stands on the st..., "I am the king." He stands on the street. It is like that. He does not know, "At any moment I will be knocked by any car and I shall die." But he thinks like, "I am the king." Madman. They are all madmen.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with the GBC -- March 27, 1975, Mayapur:

Atreya Ṛṣi: Yes. But if they are buying BBT books, if... On the books it may seem debt, but in fact he should know that he's going to pay for it in the very near fu... That you do not consider need approval, do you, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Jayatīrtha: The books are sold on consignment.

Prabhupāda: No, and that is all right. That is all right.

Morning Walk -- (World War III) -- April 4, 1975, Mayapur:

Paramahaṁsa: Also, Prabhupāda, Atreya Ṛṣi said that the Arabs are preparing for the war. They're buying billions and billions of dollars worth of missiles and jets and tanks from America.

Prabhupāda: Yes, so they are being prepared. War will soon start.

Viṣṇujana: The Arab men all go to America to be trained in the armed forces there.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Viṣṇujana: In all the armed forces centers in America, they train the Arab nations to fight.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Viṣṇujana: They let the young men come into the U.S.A. to learn how to use the missiles and everything.

Pañcadraviḍa: Recently, this Bhutto of Pakistan, he was very happy because they were talking about lifting a ten-year holding on arms from the United States, and now, they say, Pakistan will soon get arms from America.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they are getting. They are already getting. The Pakistan will start the war with India.

Morning Walk -- April 7, 1975, Mayapur:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Money is nothing but paper, but with the paper I can buy food, so then why is it that we say that money is nothing but paper?

Prabhupāda: You belong to the cheaters' association. You are cheated, and you cheat others. So the whole world is the association of cheaters and cheated. Because you are cheated, you want to cheat others.

Conversation with Devotees -- April 14, 1975, Hyderabad:

Devotee: But then they will also buy the record and listen at home.

Prabhupāda: That's all right, but our song, we are chanting always, where is that song you have got? You have got (indistinct) ...he has to give new record. Nobody cares for the old record. (indistinct) ...then his business will stop. If you say that "I have given one song, that's all." (everybody laughs) Who'll care for it? That is our credit.

Morning Walk -- April 23, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: All right, parasite or not, but we are not working and getting our food.

Tripurāri: They say because we're begging from them. They are buying for us.

Prabhupāda: So why don't you stop? You are forced to give us. You stop. If we are begging from you, you stop it. But you cannot stop. You have to give us. We are showing that we are beggar, but we are taxing, exacting tax from you. You can think whatever you like.

Morning Walk -- May 9, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: One man who joined us about Rathayātrā time last year was a solicitor. He used to buy our books but he never read them. But he would keep them on his bookshelf. And he used to always think, "Those are such beautiful books." He used to think like that.

Prabhupāda: This is appreciation.

Amogha: He never got time to read it.

Prabhupāda: It doesn't matter. If he keeps the books with appreciation, that makes his life sure, insured. He immediately becomes in touch with God. Who keeps the book with reverence and love, immediately he becomes in touch with God. Because these books are representative of God.

Morning Walk -- May 13, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: Sometimes they are caught by the authorities and it comes in the newspapers, and there's a big scandal because all the students are buying the answers to the questions.

Prabhupāda: Just see. The main point is how to get some money. So the teachers are also dishonest.

Paramahaṁsa: There's a saying that everyone and everything has its price.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Paramahaṁsa: It means that if you pay enough money, you can get anything, or you can get somebody to do anything.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The justice, they are taking bribe, giving judgment.

Morning Walk -- May 13, 1975, Perth:

Paramahaṁsa: Usually what happens is a person who gets, say, the Second or Third or Fourth Canto, if he reads that, then he will want to start from the beginning, and he'll buy the First Canto.

Prabhupāda: Yes. No, even if he does not read the First Canto, wherever he will read, he will get benefit. Sugar candy you taste from anywhere it is sweet. (long silence)

Paramahaṁsa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, I remember once I heard a tape where you told us that we should not try to read the books of previous ācāryas.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Amogha: That we should not try to read Bhaktivinoda's books or earlier books of other, all ācāryas. So I was just wondering...

Prabhupāda: I never said that.

Morning Walk -- May 13, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: When the devotees went to India this year, they said that Acyutānanda Swami very..., chastised them that "You should never... If I catch any of you buying Bhaktisiddhānta's books from Gauḍīya Maṭha then I will take it away," something like this.

Paramahaṁsa: Yeah, that was, the reason was because of, he didn't want the devotees going to Gauḍīya Maṭha. But there's nothing wrong with the idea of studying the previous ācāryas' books.

Prabhupāda: No. Who said? That is wrong. We are following previous ācāryas. I never said that.

Room Conversation with Dr. Copeland, Professor of Modern Indian History -- May 20, 1975, Melbourne:

Dr. Copeland: Ah, okay. I'll buy that. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: But you cannot say that "Kṛṣṇa says something else." Kṛṣṇa says, "Always think of Me." So we have to present that "Kṛṣṇa says, you always think of Kṛṣṇa." That is honesty. And if I say, "No, no, you don't think of Kṛṣṇa," that is dishonesty. That is dishonesty. We are fighting against that. Why should you poke your nose in the statement of Kṛṣṇa? If you have got different views, you put your own book.

Morning Walk -- May 22, 1975, Melbourne:

Madhudviṣa: Yeah, the Englishmen were coming and because Queen Victoria was there..., the king had died, so the order was passed that no one could buy any, I think, jewelry for their wives.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Madhudviṣa: It was something. The English frowned upon buying jewelry and ornaments for the women. So the men were using their money to build big houses.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Madhudviṣa: So therefore during the Victorian area, era you have many elaborate houses that were built by the Britishers. And he...

Prabhupāda: Victoria died in 1903.

Morning Walk -- June 7, 1975, Honolulu:

Paramahaṁsa: Oh, yes, that is a big delicacy. One lobster, if you buy it in the restaurant, they sell it for at least five dollars.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā?

Paramahaṁsa: Usually closer to ten dollars, for one lobster. Very costly. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...import lobster from India. I have seen it. Lobster from Cochin.

Bali-mardana: South India.

Prabhupāda: Ah, South India. Lobster and this, what is called? Labhanga...? Cloves. And these cashew. Cashew is produced in India. (break) ...big, big European companies for doing this business in Cochin.

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1975, Honolulu:

Ambarīṣa: The one that they have or the one that they're trying to buy? (break)

Prabhupāda: They are trying to buy. Did he send them letter by lawyer?

Ambarīṣa: No, I haven't... No, my lawyer called... (break)

Siddha-svarūpa: Well, the surf is no good today.

Prabhupāda: Oh. (break) ...another duplicate Pacific?

Siddha-svarūpa: I don't think so.

Prabhupāda: Is it not possible?

Siddha-svarūpa: No, but they're trying to ruin the one that already exists.

Prabhupāda: (chuckles) That also not possible. (break) ...let them drop this atom bomb and ruin it.

Morning Walk -- June 30, 1975, Denver:

Prabhupāda: Picking up food. (break)

Satsvarūpa: ...got another report from that national library convention. They have a big sign that the artist has made and it says, "The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, the World's Largest Publisher and Distributor of Books in the Philosophy, Religion, and Culture of India." Has that on their booth. And many professors and librarians come. They have given out four hundred catalogues. Mostly they don't buy on the spot. They take this catalogue back to their library. And they're from all over the country. From every part of the country they go there.

Prabhupāda: So catalogues being distributed.

Satsvarūpa: Yes. They're taking them. Then they take them back and check them off. And the librarians are saying, as soon as they see our booth, they say, "Any books on India and yoga and meditation, there's a great demand for them. Many young people want to read about."

Prabhupāda: But we have got the largest number of books.

Morning Walk -- July 1, 1975, Denver:

Yadubara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in Los Angeles they are charging money for the prasādam, and we find that it's cheaper to buy our own prasādam and offer it ourself.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Yadubara: They are charging money in Los Angeles for the prasādam each meal, so we find it is cheaper to...

Prabhupāda: Prepare your own?

Yadubara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So you do that.

Morning Walk -- July 1, 1975, Denver:

Prabhupāda: What you are doing with the money?

Devotee (1): I'm giving it to the temple president so that we can buy a farm for you.

Prabhupāda: No, if you are engaging the money for Kṛṣṇa, then it is all right.

Brahmānanda: He's asking about is there any benefit to the karmīs that he deals with because he engages in business activity with them? Do the karmīs get benefit?

Prabhupāda: Yes. To some extent they are helping Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

Morning Walk -- July 1, 1975, Denver:

Devotee (1): ...in our preaching work we will be able to maintain our temples, and with our business activities, we will be able to expand and buy all these farms, do so many things.

Prabhupāda: Yes. If it is favorable, do it, business.(?) Therefore we have made program: 50% must come to Kṛṣṇa, at least. Jaya. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) (In car:)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...because that many people are involved.

Prabhupāda: Dieting, the best thing is to take prasādam.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Definitely. It's clear cut. My only feeling about...

Prabhupāda: And if our... Pushed on our men... The thing is they supply more spices, and especially that mustard. This is not good. This is prohibited.

Morning Walk -- July 5, 1975, Chicago:

Ghanaśyāma: Yeah. He says, "Oh, yes, I know the Bhaktivedanta books. I have just got this book from one of my colleagues." And he says, I showed him the books. He wanted the standing order. He teaches Sanskrit and Indian religions and Indian philosophy. And he said, "Well, there's one book I was just reading. Bhaktivedanta, he mentions the Nectar of Devotion." He says that "You didn't show me that. Do you have that one?" (Prabhupāda laughs) So I brought the books back to him that same day. And when I brought them, his students, they were in class and they came out of the class and they started looking at the books themselves. And they really wanted to be showed they could have a chance to read them in their course. They were really happy that he was buying them. They said, "Oh, these are the Kṛṣṇa consciousness books. We've read some of these before. These are really nice." (break)

Prabhupāda: ...Kṛṣṇa, his all sinful reactions stopped. Kṛṣṇeti varṇa-dvayam. Rūpa Gosvāmī says, "What nectar is there in these two alphabets, kṛṣ-ṇa!" Kṛṣṇeti varṇa-dvayam. (break) ...greater enthusiasm you go on with book distribution. They will be benefited, and distributors also will be benefited. Kṛṣṇa says, ya idaṁ paramaṁ guhyaṁ mad-bhakteṣv abhidhāsyati (Bg 18.68). Na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ (BG 18.69). If you want to become quickly recognized by Kṛṣṇa, then make propaganda, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. And once recognized by Kṛṣṇa, then your going back to home, back to Godhead, guaranteed. (break) ...took from London to here come?

Ghanaśyāma: How many hours?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- July 31, 1975, New Orleans:

Prabhupāda: Not easy, difficult.

Brahmānanda: Well as far as doing one's life's activities, they make it easy for you, buying in the supermarket, canned food, it's already cooked, you put it in the oven, five minutes it's ready. They have laundry machines.

Prabhupāda: That is not very healthy.

Brahmānanda: Oh, no. But they have made it so that there's less...

Prabhupāda: They are impetus to catch their disease.

Brahmānanda: So these are the reactions.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The disease is already there, but we have made such a disease that it will be incurable.

Walk Around Farm -- August 1, 1975, New Orleans:

Prabhupāda: This is one sugarcane each? No. Two, three?

Nityānanda: Yes, at least three. People here in the country, they have lots of land, and they can grow the sugarcane very easily, but they will rather go to the store to buy the sugar.

Prabhupāda: Because they want to live in the city. That is the... Here if they grow, then they will be engaged here. They cannot go to the city.

Brahmānanda: They grow cash crops, make money, and then go spend it in the city.

Nityānanda: The principal livelihood of our neighbors is to grow cows for slaughter.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is all over Western countries.

Room Conversation with Devotees -- August 1, 1975, New Orleans:

Prabhupāda: Because the government is paying for that, and they are now thinking that "What to do about crime?" This is rascaldom. You act in such a way, then repent later on.

Brahmānanda: There was one boy from Sweden, he was our devotee. And then he fell into māyā. He returned to Sweden. Now he's getting from the government fifty dollars a week. So he's using that money to buy drugs. So now he's completely trapped.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Brahmānanda: He gets money regularly, and he can never get out of the habit.

Prabhupāda: In your country also. One keeps a girlfriend, the girl's getting welfare, and he is purchasing drugs, and then their husband goes. I have seen. Some of our students have been. I have seen them.

Morning Walk -- August 6, 1975, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: The ass is working also. So why God is not satisfied with him? He is working very hard. Why he is meant for carrying load for the washerman? Why do they think that we are not working? Eh?

Harikeśa: They only see us chanting and dancing and eating prasādam.

Ambarīṣa: They wonder how we can buy such a big house when we are not working.

Prabhupāda: That... They do not see Kṛṣṇa's mercy. Just like yesterday we purchased one house, and according to Indian exchange, twenty-four lakhs. So I had no money, but I have purchased. That is... They do not understand what is Kṛṣṇa's mercy.

Morning Walk -- August 29, 1975, Vrndavana:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes. Nirnayika just wanted to use their scale, and they would try and cheat him. They would ask him for money just to let us use their scale to weigh the vegetables we buy. So I intervened one day, and then he got so angry that he abused Kṛṣṇa also. These are such big demons, these people. They live in Vṛndāvana but...

Prabhupāda: So give them prasāda; they will be all right. Yes. Give them prasāda.

Harikeśa: The perfect solution.

Brahmānanda: We were also demons before we took prasāda. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Jaya. Our preaching means to turn demons into devotees. That is our preaching. If you keep them demon, then your preaching is lacking. Give them prasādam today and tell them, "Whenever you come, take prasāda." (end)

Morning Walk -- October 2, 1975, Mauritius:

Brahmānanda: But we have to work very hard; otherwise we won't get money for buying food.

Prabhupāda: No. You work a very slight three months in a year and get all food. Food is there; milk is there; land is there. You have to work.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is it possible to take the mass of crowlike people and give them the higher taste?

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is it possible to take a mass of crowlike people and elevate them?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Human beings, after all, they are. They can be educated. That is the opportunity of human life, that he can be educated. The cats and dogs cannot.

Morning Walk -- October 16, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: "one hundred dollars." That's all. This is your society, cheating and cheater. That's all.

Harikeśa: People have a hard time understanding that point, because with a hundred dollar note you can buy things.

Prabhupāda: Therefore I say you are all rascals. You do not know. If I say, the government may arrest me that I am infusing people in a different way. But that is the fact.

Harikeśa: So a government's duty would be to abolish this false standard of money, and then automatically...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Government's only duty is that government gives me land and I pay tax: "Whatever I produce, take one fourth." Finish. All taxes. If I don't produce, there is no tax. That's all. That is the business between the government and the public. That's all.

Morning Walk -- November 2, 1975, Nairobi:

Devotee (7): May we go to the shop to buy something?

Prabhupāda: That is another thing. That is for temple's benefit or business. That is another thing. Somebody goes to sell books, somebody goes to make some life members. That is another thing. Otherwise one is not allowed at all. Not whimsically "I am going out." Why you are spoiling your men?

Devotee (9): Prabhupāda, sometimes I've seen devotees say that they did not like to chant in the temple room with the opposite...

Prabhupāda: Then that is a rascal. He is not a devotee. He is a rascal, when a devotee says... How you become devoted? If he does not like the temple and he thinks to be happy outside, what is he? What kind of devotee he is? He is not a devotee.

Morning Walk -- November 18, 1975, Bombay:

Jayapataka: In Los Angeles they went in some movies. They got two, three thousand dollars. (break) ...buy kilos when they're that big. So many of them.

Prabhupāda: That's nice. That will keep the water clean.

Jayapataka: Yes.

Prabhupāda: But be careful that these rascals may not come and throw out(?), the Mohammedans.

Jayapataka: (break) ... is growing on the water. And in the hot days they go in there.

Prabhupāda: No. That should be cleaned away.

Jayapataka: Taken off.

Prabhupāda: Yes. You can eat it, kalmisan(?). It is very nice.

Morning Walk -- November 20, 1975, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: And the lowest was in 1930. Then it rose. Then in 1935 it was thirty rupees and in 1940 it was thirty-eight, and 1950 it was fifty rupees. And 1956 we bought at the rate of fifty-six rupees. I still remember that because we have been buying gold every year.

Indian man (2): 1959 or '60 the price was ninety-six rupees.

Dr. Patel: Then suddenly it rose. Now, because Americans are buying gold, the gold standard has been left out. They have taken, cornered the gold of the whole world. But I have heard that the Russians have got some gold mountains on the surface. They can take out gold very easily from there. Here you have to dig up deep down.

Prabhupāda: No, in South Africa there is gold. In the city there are so many gold mines in South Africa.

Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: In Bangalore?

Mahāṁsa: Yes. And the most popular book there now is that Scientific Basis of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. Everyone, everyone is buying. (Prabhupāda laughs)

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They wanted us to print lakhs of copies of that book.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We can get it printed in India now.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And in that book we have mentioned that Darwin's theory is completely bogus. In Europe and America also we are getting good response, very.

Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay:

Mahāṁsa: The structure is over, Prabhupāda. Now the ornamental work is started since last fifteen days. They said they could finish it by March, but I don't know if we'll be able to push it before that. Since last one month the collections have also increased. So if the collections go on in the same speed as we are going now, it may be finished by March. But otherwise definitely by August it will be complete. (break) ...fifteenth of this month Indira Gandhi was in Hyderabad. I got a letter from Praghoṣa that there were lakhs of people there to see her, and we have printed up coupons which we go shop to shop and tell everyone that "You buy one brick for the temple. So eleven rupees is the cost of one brick. So in your name one brick must be put." So we have these coupons, and they distributed six thousand rupees' worth of coupons in that program. Six hundred coupons they distributed in that meeting.

Prabhupāda: "Sell well." You know he is "sell well" man. (laughter)

Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay:

Mahāṁsa: Sell a brick for the temple. Well, one person got the book, and he came the next day and he wanted to become a member. He was convinced. And Acyutānanda says that this is for the atheistic people who cannot understand God, so here we are proving scientifically that God exists and how Kṛṣṇa is the supreme scientist. So materialists, there are so many materialistic people, they always like these kind of books, so they are buying.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: The next book will also be a big hit, I think, that these scientists are preparing.

Mahāṁsa: Daily there are at least 2,000 to 2,2500 people coming to the program. There would be more if there was more space, but it's an enclosed hall, so we can't fit in more people. It's packed up.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It's a lot bigger than it was three months ago?

Mahāṁsa: Oh, yes. We have very big publicity. And we get letters from different parts of Karnataka inviting us for programs in their villages.

Prabhupāda: Yes, you do that. (break) Some big man came to see me for cooperating with others like Chinmayananda and Vinoda Bhave.

Morning Walk -- November 29, 1975, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: So why don't you become in power? You are strong. And what they have done, those who are already in the power? There is no food. One has to give line for two hours to get foodstuff. I have seen in Moscow.

Ambarīṣa: They don't have any food. They have to buy from the United States.

Kṛṣṇa-caitanya: Importing from India.

Prabhupāda: Yes, importing India, America.

Kṛṣṇa-caitanya: They don't have any bananas, mangoes, nothing.

Prabhupāda: So this rascaldom is going on.

Morning Walk -- November 29, 1975, Delhi:

Haṁsadūta: In Moscow too, Anand Shanti, he was telling. When we were there we wanted to buy milk, and they had milk in bottles, but he told me, he said, "This is not milk." He said "First they dehydrate it, make it to powder. Then they again add water and put it in the bottle, because in this way they can keep it a long time." So we couldn't find any real milk even in Moscow, the biggest city in the country.

Prabhupāda: I think Moscow they have milk and butter.

Haṁsadūta: At least when I was there we couldn't find any.

Prabhupāda: Oh, then finished. All cows finished, cutting throat.

Haṁsadūta: Butter they have, but it's not very good quality.

Prabhupāda: Hm. Adulterate. I thought at least they have got little milk and butter, but that is also finished.

Morning Walk -- November 30, 1975, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: But what they will do with the money?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Just buy a little more vodka.

Ambarīṣa: Go on vacation.

Prabhupāda: Then where is equality?

Ambarīṣa: That's why the Chinese and the Russians don't get along. The Chinese say that the Russians have diverted from Marxism.

Prabhupāda: They will have to divert because both, either Chinese or Russian, these are all rascaldom. It is not perfect system.

Morning Walk -- November 30, 1975, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Yes. The cheating begins from the government. They are giving some paper and asking people, "Here is ten thousand dollars." This is cheating. "I promise to pay." But when the government is failure, where is the promise? Who pays? This is cheating.

Harikeśa: During the Depression that happened. People lined up for miles. During the Depression in America people lined up for miles outside of the bank, and the bank couldn't give them any money. And even if they had money, it wouldn't buy anything.

Prabhupāda: That's it.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Previously the governments all over the world would guarantee that for behind every currency there was certain amount of gold.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: So if you went and gave that...

Prabhupāda: Forty percent.

Morning Walk -- November 30, 1975, Delhi:

Ambarīṣa: Now in the United States you can buy gold. They made it legal.

Harikeśa: But limited quantity.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No.

Prabhupāda: They do not believe in the transmigration of the soul and they are "Awake." Just see these rascals. They have no preliminary knowledge even, and they are writing books, Awake.

Morning Walk -- November 30, 1975, Delhi:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Also, I know, in Delhi, what the people do is... A lot of people, they don't buy the ticket. They give the conductor half the money, and so he lets them go free.

Prabhupāda: Just see. Then where the income? There is no income and there is loss.

Morning Walk -- December 26, 1975, Sanand:

Devotee (1): It is prohibited to buy gold at that temple.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Devotee: You cannot buy gold. Government has prohibited.

Prabhupāda: Because you are rascal, your government is rascal-democracy. What is the government? Government means your replica. So why do you blame the government? You are fools, rascals; you send other fools and rascals and suffer consequence. (break) ...tea, growing tobacco, growing jute, and no grains. And grain for the animal, so that animal, as soon as it becomes fatty, send it to the slaughterhouse, and then finish business. Smoke, eat meat, drink, and be happy. So much land, but it is producing tobacco, which we are prohibiting, "No smoking." (break) Vegetable is utilized. (Hindi) These crops.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 17, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Seventeen hundred? That's all right.

Jayapatāka: We're buying those. So why they put the water here? To sabotage. There was no water when we came. Now they put more water here. Gosvāmī Mahārāja is taking water.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Jayapatāka: They flooded.

Sudāmā: You cross here, Prabhupāda. (end)

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Bhavānanda: Subhaga. Oh, they love Subhaga. He preaches in the temple at the book table during the busy hours. So many people buy books, and all interested. He's very...

Prabhupāda: Subhaga. Subhaga make the chief of the reception. And Nitāicānda his assistant, and another, a foreigner.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Nitāicānda is in charge of the building.

Bhavānanda: He has so much to do, anyway, Nitāicānda. Subhaga is best.

Prabhupāda: Subhaga and two foreigners.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: As assistants. Hm.

Prabhupāda: Make that arrangement. He is very good boy.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Bhavānanda: They will buy in some leaf cup and go next door and have a place to sit down and take it, and then water to wash their... Actually there's a pump. Everything is right there.

Prabhupāda: You will find such confectioner's shop, sitting place and eating.

Bhavānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Like that.

Morning Walk -- February 3, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: In return.

Jayapatākā: But now the government is trying to teach the people that they should buy tractors and kill the calves.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Jayapatākā: They want to have..., make tractors popular and then...

Prabhupāda: Kill the bulls. They were criticizing us because in our gośālā we maintain the male calves.

Prabhupāda: No, when our Harikeśa was struck by a bull and he was taken in the hospital, the doctor was criticizing, "If you have killed the bulls, then this condition would not have come to you."

Morning Walk -- February 25, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: That is decision, that from this Western world, they haven't got to take anything. If they have got to take anything, it is from India. That they have decided. And that's a fact.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Once they buy, then the other Eastern European countries will also buy, may buy.

Prabhupāda: No, other countries, they are purchasing.

Indian man (1): Other...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: East European countries like Poland, and these are all in the Communist block.

Prabhupāda: Anyway, if Moscow buys, purchases, that is...

Jayapatākā: If we translate into Russian then they'll probably take.

Prabhupāda: Yes, we shall consult. First of all, let them take. Then we shall propose them.

Morning Walk -- March 12, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Where I went?

Rāmeśvara: Yes, I can see it. Gribblehurst Road. Same house. This is the old temple in Houston. They're buying a new one.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Boston, oh, it is very nice.

Rāmeśvara: This is one of the best neighborhoods in all of Boston.

Prabhupāda: They are framework or brick?

Satsvarūpa: It's called brownstone.

Prabhupāda: Oh, brown... Stone it is. That is nice. (break) ...new temple? No.

Rādhāvallabha: That's Ottawa, Canada.

Prabhupāda: Canada.

Rāmeśvara: That is the capital city of Canada.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Johannesburg. That is wonderful. (break) Stockholm, yes.

Morning Walk -- March 13, 1976, Mayapur:

Bhāgavata: He learned that the policeman was selling the stolen goods because one morning in New York they passed by the temple, and they said, "We have many cartons of paper towel. You want to buy?"

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Bhāgavata: They came by our temple. They said, "We have many cartons of paper towel."

Prabhupāda: Paper towel?

Bhāgavata: Paper towels, yes. And they asked if we wanted to buy. "Very cheap," they said, "cheaper than in the supermarket." So then we could understand where they had gotten...

Prabhupāda: (break) ...deal with such men. This material world is so corrupt. (break) ...we are not going to get that land, eh? That land? I don't think we are going.

Morning Walk -- March 15, 1976, Mayapura:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Here's Tripurāri giving a class. Here's a priest buying a Bhagavad-gītā. Gurudāsa Mahārāja preaching on campus. Dhṛṣṭadyumna leading a kīrtana. Here's a television show. That was that television show.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And this is Kavicandra Prabhu. He's the leader of another bus. These are his Deities, and that is his bus and his men.

Revatīnandana: (break) ...is that they are very interested in health, exercise, dancing, like that. They have huge, mass swoopings of...

Prabhupāda: So introduce this dancing as health exercise dancing.

Morning Walk -- April 5, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes. (Hindi)

Lokanātha: We should buy some for you, Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: No, we can buy the whole thing. (Hindi) I'll talk with him. (Hindi—Prabhupāda bargaining with chili seller in long exchange) You have got money?

Jayatīrtha(?): Yes.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) So give him two rupees, eight annas. (Hindi)

Guru dāsa: Bargain.

Prabhupāda: My father used to do that. He'd go to a vegetable vendor. He has got a big basket, and he'll say, "What do you want for all, the whole basket." So he is ready because he'll sit down so long, so at very cheap rate he'll give it. And it was not required in the family so much. My mother became very angry, that "You are bringing so many, so much vegetable, it is being spoiled." But he would purchase like that. If you give him in those days fifty rupees to go to the market, he will spend all the money and bring at home. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (Hindi) We are prepared to spend. (break) ...from saintly person.

Morning Walk -- April 8, 1976, Mayapur:

Madhudviṣa: Housewives think like that already. They take some pills, and they become very slim and they don't have to eat so much. They just smoke cigarettes and drink coffee and take pills. And they're saving money, they think. They don't have to buy so much food, and they're able to remain slim and trim. So in Kali-yuga, as the food supply runs out, so people won't notice.

Lokanātha: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says they will be starving.

Prabhupāda: Mm?

Lokanātha: As Kali-yuga advances, they're mentioning one time, there will be durbhikṣā, means not even bhikṣā will be given to sādhus.

Prabhupāda: Yes, not even bhikṣā will be available. I don't think bhikṣā is available in Western countries, eh?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No.

Pañcadraviḍa: Bhikṣā? Meaning begging for food? No, they will arrest you. (Prabhupāda chuckles)

Prabhupāda: Arrest.

Morning Walk -- April 9, 1976, Vrndavana:

Jayādvaita: I'm thinking, "Now I have five dollars. I can purchase something. What shall I buy?"

Prabhupāda: Why? If you don't require anything, why should you purchase? Don't create artificial demand. If you require to purchase something, then purchase. That is material civilization. "I don't require it; still I want it." Atyāhāra.

atyāhāraḥ prayāsaś ca
prajalpo niyamāgrahaḥ
jana-saṅgaś ca laulyaṁ ca
ṣaḍbhir bhaktir vinaśyati
(NOI 2)

Finish. We should not possess anything which is not absolutely necessary. We are keeping these cars for preaching facility, not for sense gratification. We are keeping this dictaphone for preaching facility. Otherwise why it should be required?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It is the whole mentality, then.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The whole mentality is changed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like the Kurukṣetra fight. Kṛṣṇa wanted; therefore he fought. Personally he did not want. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (end)

Room Conversation -- April 23, 1976, Melbourne:

Guest (2): We were going to get one more book, buy it, and have you sign another one. Would that be all right?

Hari-śauri: They're just bringing one more copy. They want one each. No, they want one copy each of Īśopaniṣad. So he's just waiting. He would like you to sign that one also, if you could.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Why don't you read one of these? I think you'd be interested in some of the finer points in the philosophy.

Guest (2): How much would that be? We can't afford too...

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It only costs four dollars.

Guest (2): We can't afford that. Something small.... Does it have a picture of him in there?

Hari-śauri: There's a picture of Prabhupāda in the back of that one, in the back. On the inside also there's just a few notes about him.

Prabhupāda: Paper is ripped. Another copy. (end)

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We also researched a little bit about Russia. After we saw how it looked here—it was impossible—we were looking towards Russia. So we did some research on Russia also. There it's a little bit more open, but it's also, in terms of any kind of broad program, it is practically impossible. For example, distribution of books in Russia, there's only one company that buys the books. There's only one import...

Prabhupāda: No, let him. One?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. (end)

Room Conversation -- May 5, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Others who were transgressing the moral principle, they were selling more books. And those who are big moralists, they could not.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They're also distributing one pamphlet printed by Siddha-svarūpānanda. Then if they like they can buy one of Prabhupāda's books. Prabhupāda's book comes second.

Prabhupāda: Sometimes I've heard so many things.

Bhūrijana: But they give those away for free. I mean just in the sense that someone maybe doesn't want to purchase anything. So they give him something for free about Kṛṣṇa.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: First they do that.

Bhūrijana: Only because it's free. Not that a... As far as I know.

Prabhupāda: They get knowledge free, then why they should purchase? If you give them the opportunity that we take material, knowledge free then why they will purchase?

Bhūrijana: If we can become Kṛṣṇa conscious without following the rules and regulations, why follow the rules and regulations? That's what I was thinking a while ago.

Prabhupāda: They should follow what their spiritual master says. Book selling, there is no question of moral and immoral. They must sell. Just like in fighting. Where there is fight, the soldiers, to gain victory, there is no question of moral and immoral. He must.

Room Conversation -- May 7, 1976, Honolulu:

Guru-kṛpā: I've heard that in Russia the people are so eager to read imported literature that any literature appears they immediately buy it.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's a black market going on in Russia, particularly black market on books. Books are smuggled into the country and sold and they're very dearly read. People are very anxious.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They must be because they are keeping in darkness.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: These nasty countries, in the name of giving them material facility, they'll kill them, even they're independent. Such a horrible country. How people can tolerate loss of independence? It is very horrible. I am sitting here 24 hours, this is another thing, but if I understand that I cannot go out, I have to sit down here, oh it is horrible. It is a horrible condition. Simply this impression that I have to keep myself within this room, although I am keeping myself, I am not going, only for walk maybe. But if the impression is that I cannot go out from this room, then my life is lost. This is psychology. So, they are keeping their young men. They are not allowed to go out of the country, in Russia. Similarly in China.

Morning Walk -- May 27, 1976, Honolulu:

Hari-śauri: Just like when we were in Fiji, all they grow is sugarcane so they have to sell the sugarcane to get money to buy crops that they could have grown there in the first place.

Prabhupāda: Yes, business. Why so much sugarcane? The islands of Hawaii, they grow more sugarcane. We have seen all the islands. Huge (indistinct). The sugarcane is required for manufacturing wine. (break) ...drink tea. He's much (indistinct) of sugar, and from molasses, they manufacture wine. Unnecessary things. Misadjustment and they're (indistinct).

Hari-śauri: Even when they try to grow the grains, they can't guarantee it.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Hari-śauri: Like in Russia, they projected they would grow so much grains...

Prabhupāda: Nature will punish them. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). Nature is Lord's (indistinct) maintainer, he's observing, factually.

Room Conversation with Reporter -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: So we are simply giving a practical set(?) of the instruction of Gītā. This is our business. We don't manufacture any imaginative thing.

Rāmeśvara: His idea.... His question, Prabhupāda, is also, suppose someone wants to buy a farm or wants to do some new project. Do they ask your permission first?

Prabhupāda: Yes. The whole society is going on under my direction. Whatever they do, they take my permission and they put into (indistinct). Nothing is allowed without my permission.

Morning Walk -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Rāmeśvara: So they can actually create, by their control, a depression.

Prabhupāda: Yes, money can buy. The real thing is money. That is stated in the Bhāgavata. Money is the criterion in the Kali-yuga. If you have got money, then you don't require anything; you can purchase anything.

Rāmeśvara: Purchase justice.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, anything. That is stated in the Bhāgavata. So therefore people are trying to get money somehow or other. Then he knows, "I get all power." The present struggle is everyone is trying to get more, more, more, more money. Because everyone knows if I get money then I.... (static) Just like the Beatles and others. Actually what they have got qualification? They have got money. (static) That's all. What qualification? Singer. Singer, according to Vedic culture, third-class, fourth-class man.

Morning Walk -- June 5, 1976, Los Angeles:

Rāmeśvara: So we have got our lawyer to start a lawsuit against him, because in that book they are blaspheming us like anything. And this very big publisher, who published the book, has spent lots of money in advertising. And the advertising always uses our name, because it's controversial. They always try to get people to buy the book, saying "Now you can read about the dangerous Hare Kṛṣṇa people."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (laughs) It's a good propaganda, I think.

Rāmeśvara: But we're trying to stop that.

Prabhupāda: America is feeling the strength of Hare Kṛṣṇa movement.

Morning Walk -- June 7, 1976, Los Angeles:

Rādhāvallabha: In Russia now they have declared one..., that it is a big crisis. Because their grains did not grow properly, they are not able to produce as much meat, so now one day a week everyone is forced to eat fish. So they are lamenting. They were describing how..., about the good old days were when you could go and buy an entire carcass.

Candanācārya: (break) ...country, build cities and then spend billions of dollars to make the city look like the country.

Prabhupāda: Carvita-carvaṇānām. Chewing the chewed, again and again. This is their position. (japa) (break)

Rāmeśvara: On the calendar it says it is Bhīma-ekādaśī.

Prabhupāda: Bhīma-ekādaśī, yes.

Rāmeśvara: So I've been told that if one fasts on Bhīma-ekādaśī, that it is like fasting on all the ekādaśīs. Is that true?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Ekādaśī is meant for fasting, either Bhīma or Arjuna. But we cannot fast, therefore we have to take little fruits and.... Otherwise, ekādaśī means fasting.

Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: What is that false theory?

Hṛdayānanda: They want to take money, so they say "We need so many things, you have to give us money from the government to buy new weapons," this, that, so they make up false things for money.

Prabhupāda: Befool.

Rāmeśvara: Child is born dead means defective body.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Rāmeśvara: It just means it is defective.

Prabhupāda: That is, rascal, that his soul is not there, therefore defective. The body is already defective, your body, my body, but it is effective only so long the soul is there.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Mādhavānanda: Ah, this man Harris, he wanted to get all the people off of this land that he owned. So he let the hippies and Hell's Angels move into this Garwood Mansion, and they destroyed it. And they raised commotion and disturbance all along. He was trying to get them all to leave. He's a very strange person. Now he's trying to sell everything. They are thinking to make some housing complex. It's a very big business venture. That is why we want to buy this land in front, to protect this side of the house in case anyone else wants to build there.

Prabhupāda: They drink this water? No.

Morning Walk -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: No one is purchasing. Why? Suggested Bhagavān that "Why don't you purchase this land?" I see the same signboard is still going on (indistinct).

Ambarīṣa: Nobody wants to buy property on this street. It's very dangerous and rundown.

Prabhupāda: Similarly, in that quarter where we have got our temple, the same position. Therefore we got cheap. (laughs) Otherwise, it is very costly building.

Satsvarūpa: We did not even want to take you down there last year to see it. We thought it is out of the question. And you said, "There's nothing to be afraid of. Just hold kīrtana there."

Prabhupāda: Yes. People are coming. Yesterday many gentlemen. Gradually you purchase that side land.

Room Conversation with Ambarisa and Catholic Priest -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: No, he should not be admitted.

Ambarīṣa: Also in Boston there's a lady who may be donating a million-dollar farm to the Boston Temple. This is just a project that's a little bit..., that's just started, and she wants to donate her farm. So that is also going on, and also the temple is purchasing the building next door. I gave them some money for a down payment on it so they could buy the building next door to use it to house the people that are living in the restaurant and also for the Bhaktivedanta Institute, because I think the Bhaktivedanta Institute is going to be in Boston. Mādhava is there.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Boston is nice place for the Institute.

Morning Walk -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Śrīla Prabhupāda was pointing out that at seven o'clock in the morning you'll see everyone in the liquor stores, but they don't organize them to come and clean. You were mentioning that everyone is lining up to buy liquor in the morning with their money from the government. They don't work. But instead the government should have them working cleaning the parks, but they are not expert managers. (break) ...in the early hours the people are sweeping the streets, cleaning.

Devotee (1): People in America, they don't care, they don't care to even walk five steps to drop a paper in a can.

Makhanlāl: In the Upadeśāmṛta, in the eleventh verse, it says that if one takes his bath even once in the Rādhākuṇḍa he immediately awakens his love for Kṛṣṇa. I was wondering, some of those who have had the opportunity to take bath in Rādhākuṇḍa, it seems though it may take some time. I was wondering, is that because we don't see time in the proper perspective?

Prabhupāda: Why do you go to Rādhākuṇḍa? Unless there is some awakening of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Conversation in Airport and Car -- June 21, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes. Anyone who is not taking urad ḍāl, he must be taking fish silently, secretly. (break)

Kīrtanānanda: Not on this side, other side. I want to buy that farm there.

Prabhupāda: This barn, Vṛndāvana. What is this building?

Kīrtanānanda: They are constructing a... I have a big carpenter shop, a construction shop, a printing shop. And upstairs there will be a big hall for Janmāṣṭamī that holds seven, eight hundred people. There is another, that's our guesthouse building we're building there. You can see the top two floors, with the arches.

Prabhupāda: What is this? Another barn?

Kīrtanānanda: This is an oxbarn here.

Prabhupāda: No, this.

Garden Discussion on Bhagavad-gita Sixteenth Chapter -- June 26, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Hari-śauri: This description is perfect, actually, because most of his fortunes they calculate he amassed by many illegal methods, like paying off police and fixing so many things up. With his money, he was always able to buy government officials and like this and get so many contracts to further the development of his aircraft companies and this and that.

Prabhupāda: He has manufactured airplanes?

Hari-śauri: Yes, he had something to do with airplanes.

Arrival Room Conversation -- July 2, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: This is your own house? What you have paid for it?

Rūpānuga: Well, now we are leasing with option to buy. We have ten-year lease, we can purchase anytime before ten years.

Prabhupāda: Price is fixed?

Rūpānuga: Six hundred fifty thousand. But all money paid for rent goes toward purchase.

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Room Conversation -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Vṛṣākapi: It's cheaper to make the payments than to try and buy.

Prabhupāda: But Rāmeśvara has not agreed to pay?

Rūpānuga: No, we do not have to get money from BBT this way. This way we do not have to take loan. It is good, because BBT does not have that much money.

Prabhupāda: No, we need, we supply money to India. Depend on Kṛṣṇa; Kṛṣṇa will supply.

Room Conversation -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Devotee (2): You cannot buy a devotee.

Prabhupāda: That is not possible.

Devotee (2): You can buy someone to sweep the floor, but you cannot buy a preacher.

Prabhupāda: No, that is not possible. So so long we remain devotees, our movement will go, without any check.

Devotee (2): Devotees should take over the world.

Prabhupāda: Yeah, that is... That is good for the world.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Rāmeśvara: Already people are coming and offering minimum one thousand dollars to buy a painting. In Los Angeles, I have sold some paintings for a thousand dollars each. Originals and some copies (laughter) also.

Prabhupāda: Copy, how do you make copy?

Rāmeśvara: We have some artists practicing. So he makes a copy of the original, and I sell it for five hundred dollars. Half the price of the original.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Good business.

Rāmeśvara: But that will increase. You can get ten thousand, twenty thousand dollars for one painting in the future, because they are paying that much now for inferior work.

Prabhupāda: Who is painting nice? Muralī?

Rāmeśvara: Muralīdhara, Jadurāṇī, Parīkṣit.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Parīkṣit is wonderful.

Prabhupāda: Parīkṣit, yes.

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1976, New York:

Bali-mardana: Some of the rich men, they buy a cabinet that their body is put into, and they hope that they will wake up in a thousand years.

Prabhupāda: Yes, hope there must be, otherwise how they are foolish? This is called..., what is called? Bakāṇḍo nyāya. Baka, the duck, and aṇḍa, the testicle. So the bull, he has a testicle hanging, and the baka is thinking it is a fish. (laughter) So he's going, he's... (laughter). This is called bakāṇḍo nyāya.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I have seen it.

Prabhupāda: Everyone knows, this is a common thing in India. You'll see, the baka is going on. He's hoping, "This fish will drop and..." (laughter) Therefore they are baka. Bokā means rascal, bokā means rascal. In India we say any fool, bokā or baka.

Morning Walk -- July 11, 1976, New York:

Rāmeśvara: In other words, instead of filling up that building and then just buying a new one, you just buy a second temple. And keep it that way.

Prabhupāda: That's a good building.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We shouldn't give it up. Very good facility. Especially once we make all improvements on it, why we should give it up? Better to simply open another one.

Prabhupāda: And that is advertised means nobody's purchasing at this quarter, it is not very safe.

Morning Walk -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Rāmeśvara: He showed us the fruit store where he would buy fruit.

Prabhupāda: Harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21).

Kīrtanānanda: Those early days. My best memories are those early days. Especially the morning classes, when you'd be sitting behind the desk...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Rāmeśvara: They put an age limit on it. They say you can only buy liquor when you have reached a certain age.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They want the children to be good, but the parents are bad.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They want the children to be good, but the parents are all bad.

Rāmeśvara: I think you have to be eighteen years old.

Prabhupāda: Then you become bad.

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But how do they get it into the cup? Buy the whole bottle.

Prabhupāda: Bottle or... Bottle or can.

Bali-mardana: This store has it... They have the machine.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What about Ninth Avenue? There's all those shops. (whispering in background about 7-UP)

Bali-mardana: He already went to get it?

Prabhupāda: If the government is going against our movement, then I'll have to stay. There is no alternative.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In India.

Prabhupāda: Because in that case I'll be hampered in India.

Morning Walk -- July 19, 1976, New York:

Hari-śauri: They had big queues for buying watermelon. Bali-mardana had bought lots of watermelon, and they were selling slices for fifty cents each.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Lassi also, and lemonade, very tasty.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They were also selling lassi and lemonade. It was very big.

Bali-mardana: Burfi and lugloos, sweets, everything.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Bali-mardana's wife, Taittirīya devī, she was in charge of the sweet table. So she had about four or five sweets, they were all the same, but she made them somehow look different. So everyone was saying, "Oh, which one is which?" And she would say "Each one is different. You have to take one of every one." But they were all the same. So people had to buy two and three kinds. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: She is good saleswoman.

Car Ride -- July 20, 1976, New York:

Ghanaśyāma: We were talking about the pictures, the paintings in the books. We were mentioning how professors liked the paintings and how sometimes they actually buy the books because of the nice paintings. Sometimes when we go back to see a professor or librarian a year later, we'll notice that they'll have a catalogue up on the bulletin board. Sometimes they'll take the cover of the jacket of the book and they'll put it on display. And now we're getting recognized when we go to some of the colleges. They say, "Oh, you're the man with the nice colorful books. We've seen your catalogue, we got one in the mail, we've seen your books, and they're very attractive books." And our men are getting known now that because we've been to most of the schools in America once, and they say "You're the men who don't leave until your books are in the library." Even if the school is closed, our men, now, they'll go to the professor's home and they'll get him out of bed to come to see the librarian or to write a notice or to call the librarian. So even if the school is closed, the books are still being placed, and when the students come the books are in the library. (break) (in car)

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Satsvarūpa: Is that what you want?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Gurudāsa Mahārāja can speak very nice.

Room Conversation -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: "That also distribute for me. More share for me." (laughs) Now there is drought; there is no rain. What the capitalists or communists can do in this connection? If they are able to present any program how to counteract? Then where is your progress? When there is some calamity, you both of you simply (indistinct). That's all. You cannot do anything. Then where is your progress?

Hari-śauri: The reason why the Russians were buying wheat from America...

Prabhupāda: Yes?

Hari-śauri: ...was because they had no rain. All their crops failed.

Jayatīrtha: Not only that, people aren't inclined to work very hard. The farmers are not very enthusiastic to work very hard, because they work very hard, but they have to give all the fruit away. So because they are karmīs, they want the fruit. The state is taking the fruit; therefore they don't want to work.

Prabhupāda: Why they shall work?

Jayatīrtha: They have no incentive.

Prabhupāda: "I'll work and you'll enjoy." Why shall they work? That is natural tendency. This can be possible only for Kṛṣṇa. "I'll work; Kṛṣṇa will enjoy." That's all. That is only possible in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Room Conversation -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Bhagavān: To buy some trucks for traveling.

Prabhupāda: He's good preacher. He's now distributing books very nicely. You are also good distributor books. Huh? In the beginning she was distributing nicely. So preaching is our life. The more we preach, the more we are successful. Yāre dekha tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa. This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's preaching.

āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra' ei deśa

yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa'

(CC Madhya 7.128)

This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Every one of you become guru and deliver the residents of your neighborhood. Ei deśa. Wherever you are living, just deliver them. Become their guru. How to become guru? It is not difficult. Yāre dekha tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). What Kṛṣṇa has said instruct them. You simply repeat it, that's all. You become guru. So this should be preached all over the world. You learn from Bhagavad-gītā and repeat. You simply say, "Kṛṣṇa said four things: man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). 'Just always think of Me.' Kṛṣṇa said. 'And just become My devotee. Just worship Me and offer obeisances.' Kindly do these things."

Room Conversation -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Hari-śauri: Oh, yes. We're buying these big properties now, we don't have so many devotees, but we know just even in five years they're going to be packed.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Hari-śauri: Maybe now we don't have so many devotees for all these big places we're buying, but even just in five years or ten years they'll be full. We'll have to expand more and more. Your idea for fifty percent for books, fifty percent for buildings is very wonderful. I remember in Caitanya-caritāmṛta you said that the book distribution and the establishment of temples should go parallel lines, side by side.

Prabhupāda: Going on. Up to date, to my satisfaction, it is going on.

Room Conversation -- August 8, 1976, Tehran:

Ātreya Ṛṣi: The rent now it is twelve hundred dollars. But of course everything is now much more expensive. So I was negotiating in New York for better arrangements, because in Iran price is going up and up and up. And I told my company that they should buy one house. And they have agreed. So there is going to be that house, we will buy something like this for Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: This is very nice.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: And also we have saved some money, we'll buy a temple also in addition to that.

Prabhupāda: No, this is very nice. Dayānanda, do you like it?

Dayānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: It is very nice place, private, everything is so nice. In winter, what is the temperature?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Very cold.

Prabhupāda: Very cold.

Evening Darsana -- August 9, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Later on. Later on. No, we can member anyone, because we are proposing very pure thing, "You chant the holy name of God." Who will object?

Atreya Ṛṣi: You should let Dayānanda Prabhu and I live a thousand years. We will buy the whole city.

Prabhupāda: I shall go there. I am going. (devotees offer obeisances) So thank you very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Give this one garland to this boy and another to Atreya Ṛṣi.

Room Conversation -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Guest: (general discussion about land purchasing) But now, you know, people are taking advantage. The one who is selling now, he is going to America. He says, "Let me pack this two lakhs of dollars and go and buy in America." Why should (indistinct)?

Prabhupāda: So American immigration?

Guest: Yes, he must have taken immigration. Then he is going to America. His son or daughter must be there. All Iranians have daughters and sons in America or Europe. So...

Prabhupāda: What is the reason?

Guest: Reason is because from the last fifty years the education was a big problem here, and the government needed people to get educated. So they gave a lot of facilities that people should send their children out to get educated.

Prabhupāda: Foreign education.

Room Conversation -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Actually, logically, I cannot see how there is any chance, not a single. When I was a child I used to give an argument to my friend, and he used to say, "A chance. Everything is chance. It is like a lottery ticket." I said to him, "If you don't buy the lottery ticket and win $50,000, then that is chance. But if you buy the lottery ticket..."

Prabhupāda: How it is chance?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: There is no chance, because you bought the lottery ticket, so...

Prabhupāda: Your destiny. Then your destiny.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: They miss the order and the controller and the organizer...

Prabhupāda: That is whole purpose—how to defy God. That is their whole plan.

Room Conversation -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Jñānagamya: There is a story about a man who made some perfect cloth that would never get dirty, never get torn. So he made a suit out of it and he was trying to market it. So he went to the capitalists and said, "Now I have made some perfect cloth." And they did not like it because they could not sell more cloth after they sold this. No one would want anything else. And the workers, they did not like it either because they would lose their jobs. No one would buy.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Jñānagamya: They tried to kill him.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Devotee: He's telling a story.

Prabhupāda: A story.

Evening Darsana -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Give me one piece. For any intelligent man, Bhagavad-gītā is perfect knowledge. There is no doubt about it. But unfortunately most men are rascals. That is the difficulty. Otherwise, there is perfect instruction. There is no doubt about it. How can I deny? God is speaking personally.

Jñānagamya: I met a man on the plane coming here just recently Prabhupāda, and he had translated Bhagavad-gītā into Parsi, the Persian language, and I invited him to come here, but he is not coming. He is afraid to meet you, I'm sure. And I told him... He was smoking cigarettes and was buying, purchasing liquor on the plane, and I said, "Why are you doing this?"

Prabhupāda: Your duty you have done, that's all.

Evening Darsana -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Mr. Sahani: Now, you know, people are taking the advantage. One who is selling now, he's going to America. He said "Let me collect this two lakhs of dollars, go and buy in America."

Prabhupāda: They, in America, they immigration?

Mr. Sahani: He must have taken immigration. His family is going to America. His son and daughter must be there. All Iranians have sons or daughters in America or Europe. So...

Prabhupāda: What is the reason?

Mr. Sahani: Reason is because from the last fifty years the education was a big problem here. And the government needed people to get educated. So they gave lot of facilities that people should send their children out to get educated.

Prabhupāda: Foreign education.

Morning Walk, House Visit, Evening Darsana -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Oh, this is only for restaurant.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Which the company is buying. There is...

Prabhupāda: Oh, then it is all right.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: And the restaurant will be just downstairs.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Brahmacārī will be upstairs. Householders live in the other place, and the Deity will be there.

Prabhupāda: Then it is all right. Very good explanation(?). But people in this land, they will come for a restaurant, customer?

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Yes, this is very good neighborhood.

Prabhupāda: As soon as they understand, they will come.

Arrival Conversation -- August 13, 1976, Bombay:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Spiritual Sky in Los Angeles. He has come on a business trip. They were trying to negotiate buying incense sticks from Mysore, sandalwood, and Bangalore. So they are... Did you get those color proofs I sent you of Bhāgavata? Did you like? It's coming out quite nicely.

Prabhupāda: Not as good, not as good as foreign.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not as good as foreign? That is... But we are going to be printing the softbound book for seven rupees.

Prabhupāda: All right, we shall talk later on. Now let me...

Hari-śauri: Maybe somebody could take those flowers and put them in vases.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: All the pictures have a garland. Distribute it?

Prabhupāda: So you have come, it is good.

Morning Walk -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is very easy.

Indian: Where can I buy it?

Dr. Patel: You can buy it from the market, serabasagra.(?) Syrup, it is in the form of paste. Leaves are also paste make a decoction out of it. Asaka(?) is recognized by the Western medicine also. Americans are importing it.

Prabhupāda: It was introduced by Dr. Bose.

Dr. Patel: Bose, yes.

Prabhupāda: He introduced so many Indian drugs in the...

Dr. Patel: They have in Bengal this Standard Pharmaceuticals of Bengal, been able to isolate penicillin from cow dung, and they have a big plant in Calcutta producing penicillin from cow dung. It's stated, you know, how cow dung was considered sacred. Perhaps we did not know that, but by experience.

Prabhupāda: Before this, one Monmohan Gosh, Dr. Monmohan Gosh, he was pathologist in medical college. He proved the antiseptic properties of gobara. He was Dr. Gosh's friend. So he was working in his laboratory also. I know. Long ago.

Room Conversation -- August 17, 1976, Hyderabad:

Guest: I have only two. Can I, is there any set available? I would like to buy the rest.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mahāṁśa:

puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho hi
bhuṅkte prakṛti-jān guṇān
kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya
sad-asad-yoni-janmasu
(BG 13.22)

Prabhupāda: Puruṣa, the living entity, he is now within the material energy. Prakṛti-sthaḥ. Puruṣaḥ prakṛti...

Mahāṁśa: Puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho hi.

Prabhupāda: Stho hi.

Mahāṁśa: Bhuṅkte prakṛti-jān guṇān.

Prabhupāda: On account of his being in touch with the material energy, he has to suffer or enjoy the modes of material nature. Modes of material nature. And because, just like in your medical science one is suffering from a certain type of disease on account of his being infected by the similar verus or..., what is called?

Mahāṁśa: Virus.

Prabhupāda: Virus.

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: You send immediately to America. They will pay.

Gargamuni: we sent a newsletter to get people to buy cloth the cloth because we have a huge stock of it.

Prabhupāda: Now, you ask Bhagavān. He is very clever. He's expert.

Jayapatākā: We are worried that now we're getting good men to join, they're doing good work, then how...

Prabhupāda: I think if you prepare according to the order of our foreign centers, then you won't be... They will all give. You can make fine cloth?

Jayapatākā: We can make up to eighty count. Eighty count we can make now.

Prabhupāda: They are purchasing cloth, shirt, and everything.

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: So whatever... Now you can make Indian style. You keep great stock?

Jayapatākā: Well, we are hearing that they are buying the cloth elsewhere.

Gargamuni: All right. Come on.

Prabhupāda: Eh? They are buying elsewhere?

Gargamuni: Yes. They are buying sometimes from other. (to JP) All right. Let's go and chant, come back tomorrow.

Jayapatākā: Other thing we can discuss tomorrow. (break)

Gargamuni: ...Birla

Prabhupāda: It is difficult to go there. It is difficult to go there.

Room Conversation -- August 21, 1976, Hyderabad:

Jayapatākā: I went to Writer's Building, I had four or five copies with me. I didn't go for selling. I went to see ministers. But all the peons, they were buying the Gītār Gāns from me. I sold out. People were coming up with rupees saying, "Gītār Gān." I didn't have any more.

Prabhupāda: Out of their own accord they...

Gargamuni: No, they've heard of it. It's becoming famous.

Jayapatākā: That's our inspiration, that if we can make Gītār Gān and Your Divine Grace famous all over Bengal, then we will feel that our mission...

Prabhupāda: Yes, I could not write any... I wrote some Bengali book, that is now... It can be collected from Devānanda Gauḍīya Maṭha. I continually wrote one book, Bhagavāner Kathā.

Room Conversation -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:

Maṇihāra: Even my father, he has one big house with some land, one or two acres of land. I put this to him, I told him, "Why you cannot just live simply? You have enough room for one cow, which is enough milk for you and for four people that live there." Two sisters. Like that. One cow. "You can grow vegetables, you can have an apple tree, a pear tree. Like this you can have everything. You don't need to buy anything."

Prabhupāda: What does he say?

Maṇihāra: He says, "I'm a doctor."

Prabhupāda: "We shall purchase meat and eat."

Maṇihāra: "We need meat." He said, "We need meat." He's a doctor. He's saying he needs meat. I've not been eating meat for four years. There's nothing wrong with me.

Prabhupāda: And when there will be no vegetables, where you'll get meat? After all, you must have sufficient vegetables for eating by the cows. But if there is no vegetable, then where you'll get meat? Actually, in Europe it is being done, that there is drought. There is no rain. There is no grass. Brown.

Meeting With Member of Parliament, Mr. Krishna Modi -- August 31, 1976, Delhi:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, in some respects I found them even lower than India. You'll be amazed... I visited all the leading libraries of Russia and Leningrad. Moscow University Library, all the big libraries. These libraries don't have any foreign exchange for ordering these books. They all want to order... They were begging me for free books. They said, "Why don't you give us a donation or exchange." They have a book exchange that if they give their books then we give our books. Each library gets such little foreign exchange allowance to buy books from abroad.

Prabhupāda: A taxi driver, he was asking some bhakshish.

Krishna Modi: In Russia.

Prabhupāda: And I was talking with Professor Katovsky. I asked him please call for a taxi. So he said, "Swamiji, it is Moscow." That means taxis are not available. Then he came down with me and from the gate he showed me, "You take this shortcut when you go to your hotel." He could not call a taxi. Taxis are not available. He said, "Oh, it is Moscow."

Morning Walk -- August 31, 1976, Delhi:

Indian man (3): I personally feel that when you buy anything in the market, for example you buy a dress. Sometimes it wears for ten years, sometimes you are cheated and it wears only for two years. So this is also same way, you know. Sometimes early death means...

Prabhupāda: That is for the dress. What about the man who's using the dress? You are identifying the dress with the man. That is foolishness. As soon as you say "dress," you should have to find out the man who has got the dress. Then it is perfect understanding. But if you understand the dress and the man the same, then you are foolish. Dress is not the man.

Morning Walk -- August 31, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: I have seen, I have seen. In our family, I know. That's all. But from my childhood it is my nature, if somebody is preparing, I see it.

Devotee: It seems to me that most people in India can cook something. Even if there's just cāpāṭis they can do this. But people in the West, they now are so helpless. They buy everything it seems in packets and you would not know how to prepare any food as much as just to cut the packet and pour it out and even then they don't even know how to put water into the pan.

Prabhupāda: They do not know how to eat on the whole. India knows how to eat. (Pause) I have traveled all over the world, and this is my experience. Nobody knows how to eat.

Room Conversation -- September 5, 1976, Vrndavana:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, Girirāja gave him that money to buy books for our library of our new temple, for the library...

Prabhupāda: So why should he take, why should he take the responsibility for purchasing if he's interested in Rādhā-kuṇḍa?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, that's not right. He had his own money also. He just got a lot of money from his wife. Three, four hundred dollars he told me.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Money is not the strength for understanding Rādhārāṇī. If you have got some money, by the strength of money you'll understand Rādhārāṇī. That is another bogus thing.

Room Conversation -- September 5, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: You should be very much encouraged.

Haṁsadūta: No, the money that I put aside to start that farm, to buy some irrigation equipment and so forth-initial investment—I gave it to Mahāṁsa on your order one lakh of rupees. I gave him one lakh.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This is for construction, and he's going to take it back.

Prabhupāda: No, that is for construction. That is not for the farm.

Harikeśa: No, no, that money, I intended to use for the farm. But it took so long to get that farm. So when we gave it to...

Prabhupāda: No, that can be... That I guaranteed. That I guaranteed one lakh, that if he does not pay, I shall do it. That guarantee still.

Room Conversation -- September 16, 1976, Vrndavana:

Haṁsadūta: We had this experience when we were traveling with our bus from Calcutta to Vṛndāvana. We would want to buy watermelon from people who were growing right on the bank of the river, and he would have huge piles. And he would say, "No, I'm not selling. I'm transporting these to Delhi, where one cannot get watermelon." He's getting five times the price he would get in his local...

Prabhupāda: And from Vṛndāvana, we have seen, they are exporting that drumbeats? Vṛndāvana?

Hari-śauri: Drumsticks.

Prabhupāda: Huh? Drumstick. So the transport is a dangerous thing.

Haṁsadūta: Yes, this is a scheme.

Prabhupāda: A local man cannot get. He's starving. And the man in big cities, he's doing nothing, he simply has got paper to sign and paper money he's attracting. All production. And they are starving. This is modern civilization. Everything, milk, vegetables, fish, everything, this chānā. Otherwise, within the village you can get everything. Village economy. Everything very cheap. And as soon as they got these transport facilities, the local men, they could not eat, and these lazy rascals, they are getting everything. Big, big cities like Calcutta, Bombay, they (have) millions of population. They are not producing anything. The producer is different man. They are simply artificially cheating them by paper money and they take. This is modern civilization.

Press Interview -- October 16, 1976, Chandigarh:

Interviewer: One American professor who is a teacher of Hinduism there, in some of the universities you mentioned, she said, I asked him a question about ISKCON, and she said, "Well this thing is creating a bad impression in the sense that people are accosted everywhere, in the streets, on the airport, at the bus stand. They accost you and force you to buy their literature, to buy their books. And this is creating a revulsion.

Prabhupāda: So why you are forced? Suppose as preaching work... In our childhood we saw the Christian preachers were also standing on the road. So if we stand on the road and preach and sell our books what is the fault?

Interviewer: I put that. He said you are doing what the Christian... (break)

Prabhupāda: No. The government allowed them, the Christian people. The government is allowing us also. Then where is the fault?

Interviewer: The fault is...

Prabhupāda: That is your imagination, fault.

Room Conversation -- November 15, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: There is no need of rezoning because we are Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa community. So wherever we live we worship Kṛṣṇa. It is not a public show, it is our own private worshiping Deity. I can keep Deity in my home. Just like Christian Deity, Mary, Jesus Christ, in the room. There is no objection.

Devotee: I don't think there's any objection to that but according to Guṇagrahi (indistinct-mic noise) ...problem, San Diego, like the government there doesn't approve too much of them and each time they try to buy a nice piece of land, you know, somehow...

Prabhupāda: That's why I say, "Don't call it temple."

Devotee: Don't call it temple.

Prabhupāda: No, community project.

Devotee: Community project.

Prabhupāda: Project. That's all.

Room Conversation -- December 12, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: So our men should be, those who are here, they must be very enthusiastic. And the pandal, what is this play pandal? This pandal? It is very small. Make a big pandal.

Mahāṁśa: But if you want every day we should buy one.

Prabhupāda: Buy one.

Mahāṁśa: Good one.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mahāṁśa: Make it over there, permanent place. With permanent speakers, permanent lights and...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Yes.

Press Conference -- December 16, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: It is allegation. And they are so fools that the Americans, they have come here to become Vaiṣṇava and starvation and they have become religious. They have no food there, and they have come to me and they have no dress, they have... And this boy is English boy. He is giving me massage as if he's a poor man's son. This is... Is he poor man's son? Why he is giving massage? We are Indian, poor Indian. He is not in need of money. He even buys his own cloth. The other day I was chastising him, "Why you are purchasing? You take." "No, I have got money." Just see. This is their position.

Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: ...books, but they are not selling with... Where is my spectacle?

Hari-śauri: No, there's hundreds and millions of books in India, all, so many, and no one buys them. (long pause) The man's not very intelligent. He's showing a diagram here showing how the languages evolved through the ages. So he's put that the original language was spoken in Stonehenge, and he shows a man wearing a bearskin (laughs). (break)

Prabhupāda: ...some central point of unity. But the disunity is increasing.

Hari-śauri: Yes.

Prabhupāda: And the real platform of unity is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Our members, although they speak different languages from different countries, but still they are united.

Room Conversation -- December 27, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: So see how you have done.

Hari-śauri: If we don't have our own shop there which sells everything, then they'll just go down Loi Bazaar and buy it.

Prabhupāda: No, we have our own shop and...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, we are having our own shop now in the gurukula. We are having it before the festival. We are having that before the festival.

Hari-śauri: It should be open for this course.

Prabhupāda: Another thing, that... I don't think they are very serious, that... They have paid that 250 rupees rate? This bank? They wrote they are going to pay.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Yogi Amrit Desai of Kripalu Ashram (PA USA) -- January 2, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Closed? Maybe. What...?

Trivikrama: Because we are thinking of shifting to Hong Kong because our program mainly is in offices, you know. We go in office, and we dress with a suit and tie. So they're thinking that we're businessmen coming to buy something from them. So they treat us very nicely, "Oh, sit down. How do you do, Mr. Brown?" offer some tea or something. Then we immediately open up briefcase and present one of your Bhagavad-gītās. Then we preach a little bit. We tell them that "We've come here. This is the first time in Chinese language, a very wonderful book. So many men have recommended." And then they appreciate a little bit. Then we say, "If you could help some little donation," and they give us. But these are mostly high-class men in offices, you know. So now we're kind of depleted, because ordinary men don't speak English. So we're going to Hong Kong, but there's no temple there. We'll have to live in hotels.

Prabhupāda: And where is that boy gone that was in Hong Kong?

Trivikrama: He went to New York.

Prabhupāda: He is a Chinese man.

Conversation with Yogi Amrit Desai of Kripalu Ashram (PA USA) -- January 2, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, if it can be sold at two rupees, you spend little more. Yes.

Indian: That's what I said.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I selected the most popular pictures for covers because people buy in India on the basis of covers.

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is very nicely selected. Both pictures are very nice.

Conversation with Yogi Amrit Desai of Kripalu Ashram (PA USA) -- January 2, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: What will be price for one lakh?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Of this? I think it will go around a velo(?), because the real book cost seventy-eight paisa; paper is about forty paisa. So paper, whether you buy one or one lakh, it's the same. Printing is about thirty-eight paisa. And out of thirty-eight paisa, plate-making and all will come to about ten paisa.

Prabhupāda: Plate is already made.

Room Conversation -- January 3, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: So if we can get that land, then we can divert our sewer in the land and utilize it for nice agricultural purposes. So instead of spending lakh of rupees for municipality, why not acquire that land?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Acquire or buy? Acquire.

Prabhupāda: Acquire means you have to pay, but government...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, but acquire usually takes a long time.

Prabhupāda: Not long time. They'll give us, because it is lying vacant.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: On the sewage problem in Vṛndāvana, we'll have to make, do something quickly because even the Gurukula will not be able to open till we can...

Prabhupāda: So you can do it immediately. But go on, purchase. It is lying vacant.

Letter to Russian -- January 5, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: As soon as he reads the book, he will find, according to them...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, what I told the Russians was that ISKCON buys all the books from Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.

Prabhupāda: Just keep that position. What is...?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. I mean we have to keep it...

Prabhupāda: But we have got pictures of God, and with every page there is Kṛṣṇa, and how you can hide it? That is another foolishness. Every page, there is Kṛṣṇa, and there is nothing but Kṛṣṇa.

Room Conversation -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No... Your woman you can live together.

Guest (2): They're living together. Both ladies are living together. She wants to buy some land at Vṛndāvana.

Prabhupāda: When you have come?

Bhavabhūtī: Just today, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Morning Discussion about Kumbhamela -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Sudurlabham. Sudurlabha: it is not very easily obtainable. Labdhvā manuṣyam. Kaumāra ācaret prājño dharmān bhāgavatān... (SB 7.6.1), durlabhaṁ manuṣya... Prahlāda Mahārāja says. Somewhere sudurlabham, somewhere durlabham. Durlabhaṁ manuṣyam. There is no education about the importance of manuṣya janma. They have taken it that we shall die once. Who says that once born, once we get the..., this and then finished? "Once life got." Some...?

Hari-śauri: Sometimes there's an advertisement in the papers, "You only live once, so buy this." They were selling... It was a land advertisement.

Prabhupāda: These rascals, they invent their theories. Kṛṣṇa says, tathā dehāntara prāptir, and these rascals says "Once." Just see.

Room Conversation -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: So you keep account in such a way that whatever income it is, it is spent for books. Print some... You also do there. Whatever income you get, you spend for promotion. This principle should be followed. All businessmen are doing that. Whatever income is there, it is spent for maintenance establishment. That's all.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Like if we buy a bus also, it's going to increase our expenses.

Prabhupāda: And gṛhastha devotees who are actually engaged, you can give them some expenditure.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I think what you said, fifty rupees a week, is okay.

Prabhupāda: That is sufficient.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: With one child, fifty rupees a week.

Prabhupāda: For child only?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No. Those who don't have children, their expenses are low so they should get less.

Prabhupāda: They have no expenditure. What expenditure? They are getting free boarding and lodging. Maybe little. But that our ISKCON can supply. Of course, one who has got children, they require little. So manage like that, that there is no profit. That's all.

Room Conversation -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Rāmeśvara: We're coming to these shopping centers to sell our books and they say, "We have not invited you. Please go away." It is called the right of the property owner to allow on his property whoever he wants. So these gigantic shopping centers invite the public to buy only from them, not from us. So they restrict us.

Prabhupāda: They are not inviting us.

Rāmeśvara: No.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It's all private property.

Rāmeśvara: Our book-selling is going on on the public property, like the airports. But the stores and the shopping centers are privately owned, so it's illegal. Sometimes our men will do it anyway, take a chance in disguise.

Prabhupāda: So they are taking risk for Kṛṣṇa. That is great service. Kṛṣṇārthe 'khila ceṣṭaḥ. That is one of the valuable service—for Kṛṣṇa's sake, all kinds of dangerous position. Somebody's knocking.

Room Conversation -- January 10, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Don't make duplicity pricing.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Exactly. That is why I'm discussing with you right now, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Our pricing will be consistent. So I think forty-five rupees is reasonable. Above that, in India people will hesitate on buying. I'd like to get everyone to think it is available at...

Prabhupāda: Why forty-five? We can reduce more even, do you think.(?)

Jagadīśa: (indistinct)

Rāmeśvara: He's already charging the libraries forty-five rupees.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: So we can't go below that...

Prabhupāda: No.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: ...because then they...

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Room Conversation -- January 10, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: So you can supply the paper.

Rāmeśvara: And now, whenever we print books in America, we supply paper. It's much cheaper if we buy it.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We do the printing. I buy all the...

Rāmeśvara: The printer will mark it up if he has to spend his money for paper.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. In India also we buy the paper ourselves. We buy the paper and give it...

Prabhupāda: That is good. Supply paper.

Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:

Rāmeśvara: We are going out to sell our books, and even if the person does not want to buy, we are insisting that they buy.

Prabhupāda: This is our duty. That is our duty.

Rāmeśvara: He thinks it is too aggressive.

Prabhupāda: Eh? No, that is your temperament, because everything has got degree according to the man. So we should not worry. This is very nice, that we are imploring.

Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:

Rāmeśvara: On every point he was defeated. Then this Reverend from the Lutheran Church, he said that we have invented this Kṛṣṇa religion. He said that Kṛṣṇa is an ordinary man who is a sex symbol, having so many women, gopīs, wives, and that we are saying that He is God. And this is heresy, he told us, a concoction. So he was defeated in different ways also. And at the end he had to admit that "The only way to find out is if you buy their books, so everyone go buy their books and see for yourself."

Prabhupāda: No, even taking it that Kṛṣṇa is after sex, then if sex is bad, then why you are after sex? The whole world is going on after sex. How you can deny it?

Rāmeśvara: He says that sex is not for God.

Prabhupāda: Why? If sex if not there in God, then how it comes? If God created everything, so God did not create sex?

Rāmeśvara: They think it means we are saying God has a material body, because they associate sex with material body.

Prabhupāda: Material body has no sex. A dead man does not enjoy sex. Do you think that a dead man enjoys sex? Suppose a beautiful girl-dead. Will you accept for sex? Then why do you take that sex is for the body? (train noises) "Sex if for the material body" is not the fact.

Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:

Prabhupāda: That may be for a certain class.

Rāmeśvara: It can become very popular, but if they find out it is Hare Kṛṣṇa, they will think it is religion and they will not buy it. But if we do not mention that it is Hare Kṛṣṇa right at the beginning...

Prabhupāda: Either you mention or not mention, unless they realize that it is good...

Rāmeśvara: Well, that they'll realize when they hear it. Just like our book distributors. They're not dressing as Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees; therefore they are successful. As soon as the people see that they are Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees, they do not want religion.

Prabhupāda: No... Suppose a military dress... Then there are different dresses. When it is understood properly, dress is immaterial. The military dress... Everyone knows that their business is to kill. That does not mean they are hated. Similarly, people see, and when they understand, that is the process.

Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:

Rāmeśvara: In America it requires being very clever to get them to read your books. Even if they buy millions of books, there's no guarantee that they're reading it. So we have to make other kinds of propaganda.

Prabhupāda: No, at least it is expected they will read: "What is this book I have purchased? Let me see." Reading, of course, meant for intelligent class.

Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:

Rāmeśvara: I've been studying the record business in America. People spend more money on records than they do on books. In general people are buying more records than books.

Prabhupāda: (aside:) Give them some seat. Is there any carpet? Bring something.

Hari-śauri: What time do you want to take prasādam, Śrīla Prabhupāda? It's 8:25 now.

Prabhupāda: Whenever... You take?

Hari-śauri: Well, we'll all take in that other carriage, and you can eat undisturbed. I'll remain here or whatever you want.

Prabhupāda: I may take little later.

Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:

Rāmeśvara: In America, say a music group becomes popular, very popular. Then automatically, every time they make their record album, one million people will buy it in the stores without any salesmen. Automatically one million. It's considered very popular.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So make records "Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa."

Rāmeśvara: And for each record our profit is $2.50. So $2.50 times one million records becomes millions of dollars.

Prabhupāda: Spend it for prasāda distribution. Don't squander it. Every cent should be utilized for Kṛṣṇa, not for sense gratification.

Conversation on Train to Allahabad -- January 11, 1977, India:

Hari-śauri: For the colleges, they actually accept the superior quality, but for the general class of men, it is not a book that they would ordinarily buy.

Prabhupāda: Canvassing. Canvassing.

Rāmeśvara: Yes, because we're canvassing. (break) "While we are living, let it be comfortable."

Prabhupāda: So, why don't you make a solution that you'll not die? Then it is perfect.

Rāmeśvara: For the colleges, they actually accept the superior quality, but for the general class of men, it is not a book that they would ordinarily buy.

Prabhupāda: Canvassing. Canvassing.

Rāmeśvara: Yes, because we're canvassing. (break) "While we are living, let it be comfortable."

Prabhupāda: So, why don't you make a solution that you'll not die? Then it is perfect.

Conversation and Instruction On New Movie -- January 13, 1977, Allahabad:

Rāmeśvara: "...to sell liquor and sell cigarettes." If you watch the TV, you see that they have commercials, and Santa Claus is encouraging people, "Buy liquor," "Buy cigarettes." But we are using Santa Claus, encouraging people to...

Prabhupāda: Read book.

Rāmeśvara: ...read book. Anyway, there was some controversy, and they had this one cartoon, I sent it, outside the place where Lord Jesus was born, and the father of Jesus is seeing outside. There are three Hare Kṛṣṇas playing mṛdaṅga.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Conversation and Instruction On New Movie -- January 13, 1977, Allahabad:

Prabhupāda: And purchase grains. (indistinct) purchase books.

Rāmeśvara: I've studied but more Americans buy records than books. They spend more money buying records than buying books.

Prabhupāda: Mm. That is natural.

Rāmeśvara: But commercially there's some good potential.

Prabhupāda: But do not neglect book sales.

Rāmeśvara: No.

Prabhupāda: That will not do. This is our first business.

Room Conversation -- January 15, 1977, Allahabad:

Rāmeśvara: What about buying books? There are so many books with nonsense ideas. That will have to be controlled also.

Prabhupāda: Yes. If the government is Kṛṣṇa conscious, they can control everything.

Rāmeśvara: That means the government will have direct controls over all different fields of business.

Prabhupāda: It has already. It has already.

Rāmeśvara: But in America the government cannot tell the publishing house, "You can only have Kṛṣṇa conscious books." They are tolerating books about sex, books about crime...

Prabhupāda: No, if you educate public that these are nasty things, in the school, colleges, where government has control, then automatically sale will be stopped.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Karachi.

Gargamuni: Yes. Very hot. We used to get our fruit... There was no place where we could eat, so we used to buy fruit and nuts at the Empress Market, very big market.

Prabhupāda: Dacca.

Gargamuni: No, in Karachi. A very huge market. They have, very good, these grapefruits. They're very sweet there.

Prabhupāda: Grape.

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Whatever they do, when you receive money in the paper it has no value. Bad money. It is bad money. It is not good money.

Rāmeśvara: Actually most purchasing in America is done on credit now. Even a step beyond paper money is credit, no money, buying on no money, loans.

Prabhupāda: That is in India also.

Rāmeśvara: We don't find these things in Vedic culture too much.

Prabhupāda: There was never paper money.

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Yes. They're charging.

Gargamuni: But they'll buy them.

Prabhupāda: What is the use of philosophizing? Even that Professor O'Connell? He came to me, that "Why don't you give some students?" Means he's going to be dismissed very soon. But he has no students.

Hari-śauri: He came and asked Prabhupāda why don't we send our men to the university for Ph.D's.

Prabhupāda: I could understand his position. Now he's going to be dismissed.

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Hari-śauri: Yes. If they do get money, they just buy it.

Prabhupāda: Money they get. But they can live. But there is no culture. They want liquor. So these rascals do not know how we are making human civilization. They do not see it, that without any fixed income we are maintaining such a huge establishment all over the world, without any fixed income. How we are doing? We are not thieves, we are not rogues. We are all gentlemen.

Room Conversation -- January 22, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Then develop. We are getting good place without any monetary difficulty.

Brahmānanda: Then Mombassa, the leader of the community there, he has pledged to collect all the money for buying this big house, and the house is very nicely situated right in the Asian area. And he's a big contractor. Also they will do all the alterations. So this is another good opportunity.

Prabhupāda: If I go, they will have objection?

Brahmānanda: No, I don't think so. You mean the immigration? I don't know.

Prabhupāda: No, no, last time... Not last time. Before that.

Brahmānanda: Before that there was. Nava-yogendra Mahārāja, he got a work permit. He got for one year.

Prabhupāda: Oh. He's intelligent. Doing nice?

Brahmānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Room Conversation -- January 22, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Satsvarūpa: The owners are in Calcutta. It finally traced out.

Rāmeśvara: Well, we found out that the government has now taken an interest in buying this property, all the properties on the beach. The government is looking for different excuses. Maybe someone violates his lease or he doesn't keep the property according to the lease. Somehow or other, the government wants to develop the land for hotel. So our idea is that there's two properties which are good for us. One of them the government is already committed to buying, and the other one the government is interested in buying but has not yet purchased. So for the first one we can approach the government officials directly.

Prabhupāda: No, then this Kartanai(?) can help.

Room Conversation -- January 27, 1977, Puri:

Gurukṛpā: We're just saying the same thing. He says more than buy a book.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Gurukṛpā: He says, "Surrender everything."

Prabhupāda: Everything. Written in the book, and we're doing that. Take this stand. More and more agitation there will be; our books will be advertised. The people will be curious to know. "What is in the book? Let us purchase?"

Gargamuni: Yes. We should utilize this case as a means of advertising your books.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- January 29, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: So it depends on me. God's existence depends on me.

Hari-śauri: Yeah. So I thought, "Well, if he's leaving it up to me to decide..." I was buying the book to try and find some information. So what was the...? So I couldn't see the value in the thing. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...all the clubs, they...

Satsvarūpa: Social.

Pṛthu-putra: Lions and Rotary. Very often we have engagements in these clubs, and they always drink and do their nonsense. (break)

Prabhupāda: They have "mation." What is that? "Cremation"?

Room Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- January 30, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Gargamuni: They bring their own Santa Claus, and they give away small gifts just to encourage the people to buy big gifts. It's a big racket they have inside the department stores.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: In fact, Rūpānuga Prabhu abandoned completely the idea of this Santa Claus in Washington while we were having our meeting. Stayed about a few days. And then he had this telephone call from distance, from outside saying that "Tomorrow I'll shoot you. I'll kill you," things like that. They get this telephone call in the temple from outsiders, "If you come like that, in Santa Claus, we'll give you a bullet," like that. So Rūpānuga completely abandoned this idea. So he said, "Tell what we are, be honest, and do as we have been doing." And in fact, devotees are doing, and they got more the next morning, got more books sold just going as Hare Kṛṣṇa, in Hare Kṛṣṇa dress, instead of going as Santa Claus. So I think...

Prabhupāda: So now it is stopped.

Room Conversation -- February 2, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Satsvarūpa: So the men would not buy their lunch from the meat-eaters.

Prabhupāda: No, that is not our scheme. Our scheme is that pathya, auṣadha. Auṣadha means medicine, and pathya means diet. So in order to cure him from these material desires we shall give him medicine, hari-nāma, and diet, prasāda. We have no such program, to make him vegetarian. That is not our program.

Room Conversation -- February 2, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Yugadharma: Building is going on very well also. They say the front of the Gurukula will be finished by the time the devotees come, at least partial. Dhanañjaya will have one store opened so the devotees can buy, purchase paraphernalia so they won't go into town and make an array, a display of lakṣmī like that. They are setting it up very nicely.

Prabhupāda: The mūrtis are made nice?

Yugadharma: Oh, yes. Very nice. This Spanish artist is very, very first-class, very first-class.

Prabhupāda: It is locally molded?

Yugadharma: Yes.

Prabhupāda: And he is giving the finishing touch, polishing.

Car Conversation -- February 5, 1977, Calcutta:

Jayapatākā: ...and you do little work and get more money. You can buy radio and tape recorder. And working in the field, that is not noble.

Prabhupāda: Just see how foolish leaders. In the field there is food. They will not work for the food. (break)

Jayapatākā: ...get a big staff after publishing our monthly magazine for some time. And I'm thinking we can... If there's... Like that editor of the Basumati, if they join us and help, we can bring a daily paper, and then these can be some of our...

Prabhupāda: If somebody came to see me, some editor...?

Jayapatākā: Yes. He wanted to... (break) ...the train station to catch the trains.

Prabhupāda: Going to Calcutta?

Jayapatākā: Most likely Calcutta and then different factories and workers.

Room Conversation -- February 12, 1977, Mayapura:

Jayapatākā: No, it... Not so well. In our city project we are thinking that those laborers who would be devotees, mostly the labor class, they won't like to live separate from their families. So we were thinking that they could be paid something, and then they would give half of that, as you suggested, back. In this way they would be devotees, And they would eat prasāda with everyone and attend all the programs, but they'd buy their own cloth and things with the other half. But they would have to have separate quarters somewhere.

Prabhupāda: Where? Within our campus or outside?

Jayapatākā: That would be a separate area.

Conversation on Roof -- February 14, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Hm. He has got good engagement. (break) ...his magazine.

Hari-śauri: Everybody that comes buys a magazine and a Bhagavānera Kathā.

Prabhupāda: Bhagavānera Kathā.

Hari-śauri: I was watching from the roof on Sunday. There were hundreds of visitors coming all through the day. And practically every group that went out, they were all... They had a magazine and a Bhagavānera Kathā and Gītārgāna.

Prabhupāda: Gītārgāna. Good field. And similarly, our Hindi. You have seen our Hindi?

Brahmānanda: Yes. What is that, Bhagavāne...?

Bhavānanda: Bhagavānera Kathā.

Prabhupāda: These are my old articles.

Evening Darsana -- February 15, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Similarly, we can develop farm here also. Farm development is Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. Kṛṣṇa is tending cows, and Balarāma is plowing. Therefore the plow and flute, flute for tending cows and plow for agriculture-Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma. In Africa also you have got good opportunity for these farm projects.

Brahmānanda: Yes. Actually one of our members in Mombassa, he wanted to buy us a farm. Unfortunately Cyavana rejected it. Anyway, he went and bought the farm for eighty thousand, and now he's developed it, and it's a wonderful farm. We went there for a program. It's very productive. He has one manager, an Indian manager, and the Africans do all the work. He has cows and mangoes, growing vegetables. He's very thankful to us because we helped...

Prabhupāda: Gave the idea.

Morning Room Conversation -- February 16, 1977, Mayapura:

Hari-śauri: The book advertisement? Did you see that? Prabhupāda wrote out an advertisement, "Read Hare Kṛṣṇa books, worldwide Hare Kṛṣṇa books, and be happy." Then he listed all the books and where to buy them from.

Prabhupāda: And I gave him 22,000 rupees.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Gopāla Kṛṣṇa?

Hari-śauri: Yes. He was supposed to put it in all the newspapers.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He didn't mention anything to me. I was there only for one day, but he did not mention it. I can write him if you want. He'll be coming here...

Hari-śauri: The 25th or 26th.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Ten days. I'm sure he must have done it, if you have told him to.

Prabhupāda: We cannot understand what is the position of this land acquisition. They'll remain silent?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's some political thing behind it. That's sure.

Prabhupāda: The political was Ramakrishna Mission and Tīrtha Mahārāja.

Room Conversation -- February 18, 1977, Mayapura:

Satsvarūpa: But you can't buy it nice and fresh. They buy it in a bag, like you say, three hundred years old. (Prabhupāda chuckles) Puffed rice is...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not like here.

Satsvarūpa: Stale.

Hari-śauri: They've never seen it like this, in this form, anyway.

Prabhupāda: You can learn how to make puffed rice. It's not difficult.

Hari-śauri: All our farms should learn.

Prabhupāda: The paddy has to be cooked, once boiled and fried, er, mean dried, again cooked, again dried. Then you take out the skin and mix with little salt and half baked, and then put into the hot sand. Oh, it will do... Little laboring.

Room Conversation -- February 18, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. I have seen London. So many hundreds of churches are closed.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, we're buying all the churches.

Prabhupāda: All churches are closed.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Just see. They call a meeting of five hundred rabbis, all of the leading rabbis, and the Jewish leaders in the whole USA, just to deal with this question of "The cults taking our children."

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Us? Au...?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. We're the main cult.

Prabhupāda: Then? This is a verse. They do not know what is the aim of life.

Room Conversations -- February 20, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So you purchase some copies.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Hm. This is yesterday's Times of India from Bombay. When we get to Bombay we'll go to their office. We can buy back issues, I think. I don't know... I'll find out who... Abhirāma gave me this. "Published from Bombay, Delhi, and Ahmedabad."

Prabhupāda: Now we have got a sound position.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Maybe it's in some other... I have the Sunday Statesman.

Prabhupāda: In the first page they have given, eh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. First page of Times of India.

Prabhupāda: And big heading?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. "Hare Kṛṣṇa Movement is Bona Fide Religion." You couldn't pay for an advertisement this good.

Prabhupāda: So my mission is now successful.

Room Conversations -- February 20, 1977, Mayapura:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They want us to buy so many nonsense books.

Prabhupāda: And nobody reads.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But there's no doubt it would be a big help if we could give Ph.D.s.

Prabhupāda: Not...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Wouldn't it establish? Give some prestige?

Prabhupāda: Do you think it will be a...

Svarūpa Dāmodara: We are also talking about some sort of exchange program, students coming from...

Prabhupāda: Bon Mahārāja is giving Ph.D. Nobody cares for it. And nobody comes to take the Ph.D. These are all superficial.

Evening Darsana -- February 25, 1977, Mayapura:

Bhāgavata: Twenty rupees per kg. If you tried to buy some ghee in India now, butter ghee, you'd have to pay about twenty-five rupees.

Bali-mardana: But this... The export... The Australian ghee in Australia is cheaper. This is export quality, is much higher quality. Higher...

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Bali-mardana: ...price.

Prabhupāda: Higher.

Bali-mardana: But now they are going to cut down the amount of ghee they make, because not many countries are buying ghee.

Prabhupāda: India is not buying?

Bali-mardana: Not so much.

Prabhupāda: They have learned to eat meat. Meat-eaters, they don't like ghee. Meat-eaters, they say (Hindi). (laughter) "A dog cannot digest ghee." Because they are meat-eaters.

Evening Darsana -- February 25, 1977, Mayapura:

Ghanaśyāma: (laughter) (break) They want to buy the book themself. (break) ...and sell them to individuals.

Prabhupāda: That I was proposing

Satsvarūpa: This man, Ghanaśyāma...

Prabhupāda: I proposed to you?

Satsvarūpa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Next program.

Satsvarūpa: He is very expert at doing it. He thinks he can do it. But is it all right... There's still more universities to be done. The question is whether one man should be spared to try out this new field...

Prabhupāda: Yes. That I proposed.

Room Conversation With Artists and About BTG -- February 25, 1977, Mayapura:

Rāmeśvara: If you want to sell some product, you may make so many claims, and then the public will buy. So sometimes we quote these psychologists who have done studies that "If you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, there are some good effects."

Prabhupāda: Good there is undoubtedly. If you eat something, there will be some effect of eating. But if it is properly eaten, properly made, it will be, have better effect. That is the idea.

Rāmeśvara: We were thinking that something is better than nothing.

Prabhupāda: No.

Room Conversation -- February 27, 1977, Mayapura:

Harikeśa: I was thinking also that Gopāla Kṛṣṇa could buy the milk powder from Bali-mardana by printing books for him. He could print the books in India for Australia...

Prabhupāda: I have suggested already, already suggested that "Take milk powder and ghee from Australia, and every center distribute prasādam like anything." And in India at least, if you give them nice puri and chānā preparation and sweet preparation from milk, oh, they'll be so glad, both poor man and rich man. Yesterday I was eating kacuris. What is this kacuri? Made of ghee. Samosā, made of ghee; rasagullā, made of... Cow is so important. She can deliver so many nice preparations, sweet and salty. The whole world does not know how to eat. Like rākṣasas they are killing the poor animals. So we have to teach. This is an introduction of new type of civilization for making life successful.

Room Conversation -- February 27, 1977, Mayapura:

Harikeśa: In German language, yes. To bookstores. Bookstores are buying like anything, and people are buying the books in the bookstores. Because we can't sell in the streets, so they're buying in the bookstores. And he's also training up Austrians to sell books, and gradually it's expanding. One day last week—he called me just before I left—he sold 1,200 marks worth of books in six hours. It's simply fantastic.

Prabhupāda: It is all Kṛṣṇa's grace. Let us try our best sincerely, and Kṛṣṇa will give us. Teṣāṁ satata-yuktānāṁ bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakam (BG 10.10). Otherwise how it is happening? In foreign countries, a system of philosophy which is foreign to them, how they are purchasing? In India, if they purchase one Bhāgavatam, it has got meaning. But in Germany, purchasing Bhāgavatam, it is only Kṛṣṇa's grace. How it is possible? And India, nobody is interested to purchase Bible. So if they purchase Bhāgavatam, that is not surprising, but in Europe and America in Christmas festivities they are purchasing. So it is all Kṛṣṇa's arrangement. We sold more books in Christmas festivals.

Room Conversation -- March 22, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: There is no question of becoming impatient. You have got diamond. No buyer of diamond—that does not mean you have to throw it away.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And sell something less.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Diamond is diamond. It must be purchased by the suitable customer. Because there is no customer I shall throw it away? So we have got diamond. It is not possible that everyone will purchase it, but there must be diamonds. People must know that "Here is diamond. If I want it, I must pay the proper price." That I want to establish. Why India's culture should be lost in this way, in the wilderness?I am not cheap patriot like Gandhi and... I want to give Indian culture to the whole world. I'm not going to cheat people, taking Bhagavad-gītā and speaking all nonsense. I want to present Bhagavad-gītā as it is. That is my mission.

Room Conversation -- March 24, 1977, Bombay:

Devotee: We went to this Gītā-bhakti's mini-Kumbhamelā in Ahmedabad, and they were distributing her life, book about her life. And we were distributing Back to Godhead. So we distributed three thousand magazines in three, four days, and all of her men were all upset that they weren't taking their books and they were buying all our books. So they said, "You stay there. You do not come here. This is Mataji's quarter."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not Kṛṣṇa's.

Lokanātha: There only Mataji should be... Mataji's books should be sold.

Karttikeya Mahadevia: In one week sixty-four lakhs of people came all over Gujarat to Ahmedabad.

Prabhupāda: Kumbha...

Guest (1): People are so much religious.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Guest (1): That she is wrong, that is a different matter. If they can organize this way, we'll get more than one crore.

Prabhupāda: What is the position of Jagajīvana now?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They are going to have two Deputy Prime Ministers.

Room Conversation -- March 31, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. If they actually want to see me, I am going there. They can see me. For half an hour, more than half an hour. And for talking... There is no need of talking "How are you? How you are feeling?" This is not talking.

Gargamuni: Instead, they can buy some of your books downstairs.

Prabhupāda: This is a waste of time. At least, I want to stop this, to answer all these things, "How you are...?"

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That will conserve a great deal of energy if you don't have to meet with people.

Prabhupāda: And balanced time saved, I can do the work.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's good. Practically everyone has Sunday as a holiday. So if they want to hear you speak, they are all free to come Sunday.

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is general program. And if there is some special, that we shall I am all right so long I am able to write. But I do not stop writing book unless I am not all right. So generally arrange like that, and specifically, we shall meet once daily, half an hour to one hour. There is no difficulty. But not continually people coming. That is bad.

Room Conversation with Ratan Singh Rajda M.P. 'Nationalism and Cheating' -- April 15, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Land value has increased.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, they say that land, buying land, is better investment than putting your money in the bank, so much increasing.

Prabhupāda: And they'll not allow. Rather, I cannot purchase land instead of keeping in the bank. They will not allow.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, they won't.

Prabhupāda: You can purchase, at most, sixty bighās. That's all.

Morning Talk -- April 25, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Why hope?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well I'm going to buy his ticket, but he's going to pay me back. I mean, he charges whenever... Just like I sent a typewriter for cleaning...

Prabhupāda: No, no. He is a gṛhastha. He must pay.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, I mean... No, I mean, he must pay. No, we're not paying for him. I mean, I'm going to lay the money out for him. No, I guarantee I'll get the money.

Prabhupāda: Another thing you say privately. He has got a bad habit. When I am speaking, in the middle he speaks.

Conversations -- May 31, 1977, Vrndavana:

Rāmeśvara: If we did it in America, it would not be less expensive. It might be even more expensive, because you have to order a special font for the Hindi alphabet. I've gone over this with Gopāla, and he says that so far, he is able to keep up with the translators. He is just now in Bombay, giving some more books in Hindi to the printer. Bhāgavatam 1.3 and Bhagavad-gītā in Hindi are going to the printer. And the translator is just still working on the first volume of Second Canto. As far as printing, this printer in Bombay called Usha is giving us very good service at a very low price. So it's a good place to print the books, the Hindi books. (pause) There's no question of buying equipment in India because it's too expensive for us to buy our own equipment.

Prabhupāda: No, that is...

Rāmeśvara: Plus it will not be repaired when it breaks.

Prabhupāda: That is very risky.

Rāmeśvara: We can tell these composers that "We are offering so many books for many, many years to come. We will give you so much business if you work faster." (pause)

Prabhupāda: Bring little bhaskar lavan.

Discussions -- June 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Rāmeśvara: And then, as the time goes by and we buy new properties, we will have to add them to the will.

Prabhupāda: As far as possible, give protection.

Discussions -- June 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Rāmeśvara: And buy another building.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Or so many buildings.

Girirāja: But then there's risk.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That you consider.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's risk right now. There's a risk right now.

Rāmeśvara: The only time they should ever be sold is in some emergency? Why should...?

Prabhupāda: With the consent of all the GBC.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, the point is "with the consent of the GBC committee members."

Prabhupāda: Better not to be sold.

Discussions -- June 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Benāmadāra.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. 'Cause actually, whenever you told us to buy properties, we always wrote your name and then "Founder-Ācārya of the International Society for..."

Prabhupāda: That's all right. So do it. Manage nicely.

Jayapatākā: We had a... Regarding the letter I had written, that ISKCON Food Relief has got some liability at Māyāpur.

Prabhupāda: No, that you discuss. Don't bother my head.

Discussions -- June 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: That you consult.

Rāmeśvara: We considered it carefully, and Jayapatākā says that if you have more books available at one time, the people will simply buy four, five, six different books. So it will increase the selling and then collection. Therefore he is requesting a loan.

Prabhupāda: Loan, that's all right. Whatever loan you have, let us see how you are paying.

Room Conversation -- June 18, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So you have to arrange for that.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, I see. We could buy... Actually there was some land being offered to us. It went right from the road all the way to the river. There was a strip of land belonging to that Gaura Mahārāja. Remember Gaura Mahārāja?

Prabhupāda: Ha, ha, ha.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So there was one piece of land he had. There's a little temple there. And it goes all the way from the road right up to the Gaṅgā. So we could have a little ghāṭa there, and the boat would dock. Yeah, that's a very good idea because if it goes from where the other boats go, then the boat wallas will cause trouble. But now they... They could not protest if we make our own place.

Prabhupāda: Arrange like that. You have understood?

Śatadhanya: Yes, Prabhupāda.

Talk with Svarupa Damodara -- June 20, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So Ambarīṣa is buying...

Prabhupāda: He is prepared to pay us about two hundred...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Thousand(?).

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Jaya. That's wonderful. In Washington it will be very nice, the center of the world.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So we'll all save our Bhaktivedanta...

Prabhupāda: Three? Three hundred million?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He said... He has thirty million dollars.

Conversation with Svarupa Damodara -- June 21, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Book selling... We sell at least, say, I would say, something like about four hundred dollars worth of books every Sunday at the temple. Most of the people who came, they came because they bought your book, and we gave them an invitation to the feast. Everyone who has joined has bought your book first. That is their introduction to Kṛṣṇa consciousness—a book. Very few people come first to a temple. First thing they take and read your book. Then they become interested. The book goes into their home. (break) They can put these. Oh, yeah... Because they're libraries. I mean, they can buy the books. They can buy the books. The theology, arts... Nothing wrong with their buying, but probably they... From what I know, the general system is that you don't send salesmen into these communist countries. You send a brochure, and they buy through their agents. And this is unheard of, that someone sneaks into a country with all these books and preaches. He said sometimes his life is threatened.

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He has to run out of the universities because finally, after a while, the officials get notified. They figure out who he is, and then they start chasing him. Then he had to run out.

Prabhupāda: Dangerous affair.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But after all, it is literary. They know we're not... It's not like a political spy.

Prabhupāda: All open secret.

Conversation with Surendra Kumar and O.B.L. Kapoor -- June 26, 1977, Vrndavana:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This is Prabhupāda's Īśopaniṣad in Arabic. The Middle East countries are buying it.

Surendra Kumar: These people from Tehran... And my friend is a Muslim. He is very... He is just like my sister and my wife's very intimate friend.

Prabhupāda: We have no such question, Hindu, Muslim...

Talk About Varnasrama, S.B. 2.1.1-5 -- June 28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh. Whenever they buy something, it must have value.

Prabhupāda: Must have value. That is Indian investment.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's the opposite of the Western.

Prabhupāda: And whatever you manufacture, you can show back. Suppose this tape recorder. If it is working, it has value. What is the use of it? Who cares for you? If it is in working order, it has value. Otherwise, (taps microphone) who cares for it? But if you have got gold, silver, metal... There was a small banker's. You require... I am poor man. I require only two rupees, but I have no money. You take one utensil and go to a small banker. He will keep this pot. "Give me two rupees." The pot is only five rupees' worth, so he'll keep it. He'll give you two rupees. So your immediate necessity is... This way, Indian economics.

Conversation with Bhakti-caitanya Swami-New GBC -- June 30, 1977, Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Yes, there are many merchants. They deal in quantity and stock huge. Nobody can compete with him.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, they buy everybody out.

Prabhupāda: He can give so cheap one lakh. Somebody gives you a black, what is called...? Berries, berries.

Upendra: Black pepper?

Prabhupāda: Black pepper.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So you'll take the milk of magnesia.

Prabhupāda: Yes, and little (indistinct).

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. (indistinct) Maybe you'll get immediately, I mean, if you take it before going...

Prabhupāda: No, before going, take out.

Letter from Yugoslavia--'Books!' -- June 30, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But the thing is, you know... I feel like some people, they... Oh, yeah. They sell and they give. Selling is in a nice cup. You can buy mahā-prasādam. And beyond that, they also give to anyone who wants.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I guess it's going on. They do that at one time in the evening. See, they don't do it...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. That is all right. Little prasāda from our side should be given.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But it's not done throughout the day. It's only...

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. That is not possible.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, it's not possible?

Prabhupāda: No. Give something in the evening.

Conversation -- July 1, 1977, Vrndavana:

Mr. Myer: Yeah, but that's very old. Some of the copies are very old.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But they don't know that when they buy it.

Mr. Myer: And secondly, that doesn't cover much of the activity in India.

Prabhupāda: There is no "old." By date it does not become old.

Room Conversation during lunchtime -- July 8, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, that was a big one, two-hundredth anniversary of the independence. The karmīs are very happy about these holidays like this July Fourth, but they are not as happy as devotees. We are even happier, because we know that all the karmīs will buy even more books on these days.

Prabhupāda: (Bengali)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Everything he's preparing is very nectarine. I think this year, Christmastime, if we again put on our Santa Claus suits, eventually people will only give to our Santa Clauses. At first there was a reaction, last year. And this year there may be again a reaction, but after a few years no one will want to give to the other Santa Clauses. We will completely take over the Santa Claus costume. I don't think we should give it up.

Prabhupāda: Why? It is our choice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Right.

Prabhupāda: If I dress myself in a particular way, who can check it? They cannot check. I like this dress. That's all. That is not violation of law.

Room Conversation -- July 10, 1977, Vrndavana:

Mr. Myer: Whole thing is, in the last four, five years. Once they tried to buy my chairman's car, they want to buy. It is big Chevrolet car he has got.

Prabhupāda: I have heard that he's a big drunkard.

Mr. Myer: No, he wanted buy a car from my chairman.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What did you say, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: That man is a big drunkard.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Who?

Prabhupāda: This Sai Baba.

Room Conversation -- July 19, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I was on my way with Bhavānanda to go to Africa for Brahmānanda Mahārāja. So we stopped for half a day in London, so they showed us the property. At that time they had not yet bought it, so the karmīs owned it. So I had to go in as if I was a customer there at the pub. I didn't buy anything, but I looked around. So then on the next floor... Basically it's a building, say, three rooms like this and then up.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah.

Prabhupāda: Quite big.

Room Conversation -- July 27-28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: I think the Diwali greeting card dealers also will accept.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, but we are keeping it... Śrīla Prabhupāda, I studied the whole market. It is to our advantage to restrict the sale, because when we deal with dealers or distributors we have to sell them at half the price and allow them to keep their profit. But we want to make this exclusive for life members. Otherwise, if anyone can buy it in a market, it's not such a great prestige.

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. You keep...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: So this we are showing, as if we are doing the life members a favor. These are just some advanced samples that are printed just to get orders. And plus, anyone who orders more than hundred cards, we will print their name and message inside. And plus, there's a mahā-mantra on the back of every... Hundred cards is the minimum order.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: A hundred's nothing. They'll all do that.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So both consulting, you can see.

Room Conversation -- July 27-28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Also we are now going to have big distributors who are ready to take on our books, and we're going to have them distribute our Hindi, Gujarati books all over India. Plus, you know, those railway stands? We're going to come out with a plastic, small bag type, with six pockets in it, and it's going to say, "Bhaktivedanta Yoga Library." We're going to have Beyond Birth and Death, Perfection of Yoga, in Hindi, and in Gujarati areas, Gujarati books. We'll have a complete selection of yoga books. I've been speaking to many distributors, and yoga books are very popular in India. I was also thinking, I have this book all ready, The Scientific Basis of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. I wanted to change the name to The Scientific Basis of Bhakti-yoga in Hindi. Just by replacing "Kṛṣṇa Consciousness" with "Bhakti-yoga," the appeal will broaden because people are buying books just...

Prabhupāda: You can.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Can I do it?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I have it all ready. So all I have to do is just change the front page, The Scientific Basis of Bhakti...

Prabhupāda: You consult among you. So I want to see simply distribution of books in any language. That I want.

Room Conversation -- July 27-28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: It is not at all. It is within city. Eight miles is within. If you go to see some friend, you have to go eight miles.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: And I told them they could buy scooters.

Prabhupāda: This farm...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: You like the idea also...

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Having a temple and a farm?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi grāma. (CB Antya-khaṇḍa 4.126) There is no distinction that you have to make in the city. Nagarādi grāma. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's...

Yaśomatīnandana: And it is our experience that in the city hardly fifteen, twenty people come. But in the village, hundred fifty, two hundred come, even though the temple is...

Prabhupāda: You can make an ideal place. Very good.

Room Conversation With Madhudvisa and others -- August 17, 1977, Vrndavana:

Śrutakīrti: Tamāla? Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted to see the candles.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Śrutakīrti: These are what we've just started.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Śrutakīrti: Starting Monday, they'll be selling these in Waikiki.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You want a light on, Śrīla Prabhupāda? They're really nice.

Śrutakīrti: These are small ones. They come to twice as big. These here we would sell for twelve dollars.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Śrutakīrti: And the bigger ones, they will sell for twenty-five dollars.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: People buy them?

Śrutakīrti: Yes. This works. And these cost about two dollars to make and about twenty minutes to carve.

Prabhupāda: Beautiful.

Śrutakīrti: There's a little science. They dip in all different color wax.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It actually costs two dollars to make, though.

Śrutakīrti: The wax. The wax is about two dollars' worth of wax. So it's very profitable. Especially in Hawaii and Waikiki it will be very lucrative business.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How much you can make in one day, profit?

Śrutakīrti: Last year in Toronto they made seventy thousand dollars in two months, profit, during the Christmas season.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Where is the scarcity of money? (laughter)

Śrutakīrti: Also it is a very excellent business for householders in our movement.

Prabhupāda: You American boys, you know how to earn money. Now you have learned how to spend it for Kṛṣṇa. It is wonderful.

Śrutakīrti: It is very nice, because when you burn the candle it only burns on the inside, so you can burn the candle and still keep this attractive...

Prabhupāda: Oh. Outer cover.

Śrutakīrti: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So you keep that permanently.

Prabhupāda: Oh, this is made of..., the outer portion is made of candle? No.

Śrutakīrti: Yes, all wax. Most of it is all just plain white wax, and then you have different color waxes, tanks of different colors so you'll dip it in one tank. You have to do that several times. And then they just get a knife and slit on different angles and twist it.

Prabhupāda: Something artistic, wonderful.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's really attractive. Gurukṛpā Mahārāja was telling me that the people, not just young people, but people of all ages are attracted to buying such a nice-looking thing. Even an old grandmother would be proud to have such a candle, not just young people. All ages, all types.

Prabhupāda: Get a new life all around. No depression, no hopelessness. Is it not? American boys and girls, they became so much depressed out of hopelessness. Now here is a life, future. Your latest Back to Godhead is very nice. (indistinct)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda liked that "Prabhupāda Speaks Out."

Prabhupāda: And now our Haṁsadūta is speaking.

Satsvarūpa: Yes, we're printing that, "Prabhupāda's Disciple Speaks Out." (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Yes, that title I gave you. He has cornered one Dr. Kovoor. You have read that?

Satsvarūpa: Yes.

Room Conversation -- October 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Husband does not do.

Hari-śauri: This is the modern disease. Everyone is so lazy. You have always pointed out that there is so much land unused. Now no one wants to work. It is much simpler for them to go and work for eight hours a day in some office and get some bits of paper money and then buy from the grocery store.

Brahmānanda: Or even if they're farmers, all they do is just graze cows. And they don't do any work. They just have the cows eat, and then they sell them.

Prabhupāda: And maintain slaughterhouse, eh?

Brahmānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So you have kīrtana now?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, Prabhupāda. I'll bring the little... (break) ...that the bells are being rung on time, on the hour and half hour.

Prabhupāda: It is going on?

Akṣayānanda: Oh, yes. Everything's going on nicely, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: So the bank has dispatched them, no?

Room Conversation -- October 3, 1977, Vrndavana:

Haṁsadūta: I once heard that when some devotees wanted to buy a church in America you suggested that they should keep the altar and next put Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and give simultaneous lecture from Bible and from Bhagavad-gītā. I was thinking that in Shree Lanka, if it would be all right to have a deity of Lord Buddha and speak simultaneously on the Dharmapatha(?) and also Bhagavad-gītā, showing how Bhagavad-gītā is beyond the stage of nirvāṇa. Is that a good idea, Prabhupāda, or not?

Prabhupāda: Good idea, provided you can present properly.

Haṁsadūta: Because Buddhists come and they ask, "If Lord Buddha was an incarnation of Viṣṇu, then why he did not teach about God? Why did he not teach about the soul?" So I always explain to them it's like teachings ABC's and teaching advanced literature. He was teaching ABC. That was required. He did not go into higher subject matter.

Prabhupāda: First of all the Buddha wanted to make them sinless, "Don't kill." And you are not following that even. His business was to stop sinful life. In sinful life one cannot understand God as He is.

Room Conversation -- October 9, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Not so hard. (laughs)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Too hard.

Rāmeśvara: Actually the princess is very eager to come to India to meet you. She's been planning to do this with her husband. Her husband is the most powerful prince in the country. He's involved with the oil exporting and buying weapons and so many matters. And they're both very eager to have your darśana.

Prabhupāda: They have got money. Now if they follow little our instruction, it will be an ideal country.

Room Conversation -- October 10, 1977, Vrndavana:

Rāmeśvara: Nandarāṇī and some other brāhmaṇas, some men who are there at the temple. She is especially a good cook. And in the evenings they play Hare Kṛṣṇa kīrtana tapes, mostly Your Divine Grace. People very much like the atmosphere because of the music. In Islam there is a tradition of chanting God's name and other mantras or prayers, so they appreciate the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa very much. When you enter the restaurant there is a big book table, so the first thing that one sees are japa beads and your books, and people buy the books from the table.

Prabhupāda: English.

Rāmeśvara: For now they are selling Bhagavad-gītā, Back to Godhead, and Satsvarūpa Mahārāja's book. That is also being sold. They are just now printing the first Persian Back to Godhead, and in three months' time the Bhagavad-gītā in Persian will be... Translation will be completed.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Who is doing the translation?

Rāmeśvara: One local man that joined us, very intelligent man.

Prabhupāda: So they are looking after a bigger place?

Brahmānanda: They're looking after a bigger place?

Rāmeśvara: Yes.

Visit From Allopathic Doctor -- October 10, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: By seeing the picture they sell.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: People will buy just from seeing. (Prabhupāda laughs)

Harikeśa: In Germany pictures like on the back, they're very popular.

Prabhupāda: What price you are selling?

Harikeśa: We sell these for about eight or nine marks or ten marks. That's somewhere between $3.50 and $4.00. Sometimes a little more.

Prabhupāda: They pay that.

Room Conversation -- October 12, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: He wants to sell it. What does he want?

Jayapatākā: Right now he's asking... Actually right now he's more eager than ever to sell his land. The sādhu next to us, Praphulla Brahmacari, both of us, we met together, and we made a verbal agreement that we wouldn't give him any hope for purchasing his land at a high price. And as the result, now because of this incident... Before he had some hope that some outside person would come and buy land. But now the outside people, they don't want to purchase land at Māyāpur. So now he has no other hope than to sell either to us or to that brahmacārī. So now he's still asking four thousand. He's come from six to four. But it's even appearing that within a short time he may come down to three thousand.

Prabhupāda: So if he comes three thousand... How much land there is?

Jayapatākā: There's four bighās.

Prabhupāda: So purchase it. Do you follow?

Jayapatākā: Yes.

Room Conversation -- October 18, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Enroll the intelligent men.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: In the meantime I'm thinking of a small office here in Vṛndāvana, because Vṛndāvana I'll come back now and then, often, and I'd like to have a small place also to do some writing here. It's a nice atmosphere, quiet, and also they have all the facilities here to do some writing. So I just went to buy a..., got this almirah for the office in Mathurā, Dr. Sharma. In about a month we'll go to Bombay temple and try to furnish the Institute offices and also try to make some contact with the scholars. I'm thinking of holding a short conference in Bombay. It will be like here in Vṛndāvana. Bombay's already many scholars, and right in the middle of the city, so it will be a lot easier in Bombay also. Big cities like Delhi, I think can get many scholars. In Vṛndāvana not so many came, but those few came, they were quite nice, and we learned something from this conference.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I was speaking with Śrīla Prabhupāda the other day that it doesn't seem that Vṛndāvana would be a good place to construct an entire building for Bhaktivedanta Institute.

Prabhupāda: Why? There is already a building.

Room Conversation -- October 27, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: No, in Calcutta we have got many Chinese. They speak fluently.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This Chinese was from Peking, not Indian-born. And also I was thinking we can say that Bhaktivedanta Book Trust is one of the biggest printers in the world, and we are seriously thinking of buying Chinese paper for printing. And we can buy Chinese paper if it's good, because I found out that Chinese paper is as good as Japanese paper and it is cheaper.

Prabhupāda: No, we can print there also in China.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That will be great, (laughing) if we print our books in China.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they have got paper.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: So it's okay to try for a visa. (break)

Prabhupāda: Sleeping means weakness.

Room Conversation -- November 2, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Money?

Akṣayānanda: Yes. We were using his land for a sewer, water waste. So we had given him two thousand rupees' security. We were going to buy that land. You remember once Your Divine Grace came to see it. We were going to put all that waste water and make a garden and all this. So now we have connected with the municipal sewer line, so there's no need for that land, and that problem is solved. So we took the money back that we had given as a security. I have been there for the last two or three hours, so I was unable to come.

Prabhupāda: They have returned the money.

Room Conversation -- November 6, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: English?

Jayapatākā: Well, this Vairāgya Vidyā, that will be printed in two weeks, so then we will distribute that. In English there's good scope also, because in my zone, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, they are English-predominated state because the Christian missionary have converted everyone. But they found great reception there, although the Christians are... Even the Christians are buying. There seems to be a lot of land for sale right now. About 60 to 80 bighās of land is for sale, and the people are asking the market rates. So it's... We don't have to depend on acquisition. We can just go and buy.

Prabhupāda: Can you... If you are able to... (mic moving) Subscribe within our jurisdiction so much land. Otherwise they will sublet(?) it. Why you have purchased agricultural land?

Jayapatākā: We will purchase in the... We'll get a permit from the government to hold more land.

Room Conversation -- November 6, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Should we buy this land, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Why not? You have got money?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. There is enough money.

Jayapatākā: We do not want to rest until every home in Bengal has a copy of Gītār Gān and Bhāgavatam.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- November 6, 1977, Vrndavana:

Jayapatākā: He doesn't know if he has the money to buy the land, but he has got some interest to get the land.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Why?

Jayapatākā: Because he only has one bighā right now, and that land is just next to his.

Bhavānanda: Planting?

Jayapatākā: Now planting is going on. Already many flowers and vegetables have been planted, and now the wheat fields are being plowed for planting. (break) ...if the big temple was thirty or thirty-five stories high, there would be any harm?

Prabhupāda: No harm. It is too much.

Page Title:Buy (Conversations)
Compiler:SunitaS, Mayapur, MadhuGopaldas
Created:04 of Aug, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=230, Let=0
No. of Quotes:230