We are looking forward to that time when the stalwart disciples of that illustrious crest jewel of all Vaiṣṇavas, His Divine Grace Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda, having received the blessings of their spiritual master, will come together again for the benediction of the whole world and, without wasting any more time, preach the message of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī and Śrīla Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī. Śrīla Gaurakiśora dāsa Bābājī always tried to dissuade his disciple, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, from going to Calcutta, which he considered a bastion of Kali-yuga. Yet though some might think Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura disobeyed his guru's order, he preached not only in Calcutta but in other capitals of Kali-yuga, such as London, Berlin, Bombay, Madras, and Delhi. He vehemently opposed the idea of constructing a temple in some quiet spot and leading a passive and uneventful life in the monastery. He represented perfectly the ideal of utilizing 100 percent of one's energy in God's service for the spiritual upliftment of humanity. A certain Gujarati friend offered to build him a temple in Ville Parle, a quiet and remote section of Bombay. He immediately refused. We had the greatest good fortune of seeing him act and preach in this way. And now it is our ill fate that after the passing away of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, the exemplar of patita-pāvana, we have returned to our lowly, fallen ways. Is there a glimmer of hope for our deliverance?
Gujarati
Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Renunciation Through Wisdom
Lectures
Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures
So in the modern education there is no department for inquiring about ātma-tattvam. And they are proud of advancement of learning. But Bhāgavata says, parābhava: "These are all defeat." They do not know what is ātmā, what is ātma-tattva. They are identifying, "I am this body." "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am Gujarati," "I am Bengali," "I am this," "I am that." Yasyātmā-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke, sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). Anyone who identifies himself with this body, he is nothing but ass and cow. And that is going on. We are fighting, nations and nations, community and community, religious party and religious party—because due to the misidentification of body. Therefore Kṛṣṇa consciousness begins when one is above this bodily concept of life. Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktam (CC Madhya 19.170). These are upādhis, designations. So these Kṛṣṇa conscious boys and girls, they are no longer thinking that "I am American," "I am Canadian," "I am French," "I am German." No. "I am Indian." No. They know certainly that "I am part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. I am eternally servant of Kṛṣṇa." And that is our real identity. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. They are no more interested to be identified as American or European. And this is knowledge. And this is mukti. If one is under the misconception that "I am American," "I am Indian," then how there is mukti? There is no mukti. Mukti means svarupena avasthiti, to stay in his own constitutional position. That is called mukti.
So this movement is very important movement. Everyone should seriously study and execute this. Don't be carried away by the illusory ideas of material existence. Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktam (CC Madhya 19.170). It is very easy. If you simply chant this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam (CC Antya 20.12)—immediately all the misconception within your heart will be cleansed. This is misconception: "I am this body." "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am brāhmaṇa," "I am Gujarati," "I am Bengali." These are all misconceptions. You are part and parcel of God, Kṛṣṇa. That is your identity. So that can be realized. The easiest process is this chanting Hare... Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpanam. And next stage is that the blazing fire of this material existence will be extinguished immediately. Here in our disciples you'll find Americans, Europeans, Japanese, Africans. They are all absorbed in Kṛṣṇa thoughts, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. They have lost all these misgivings, upādhi, designations, nonsense designations.
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Lectures
They would have done better if they would have introduced Sanskrit language as it was previously. So the Sanskrit language was one, and the culture was Vedic. Therefore there was no disunion. Every part of the country in India, the same system. He may be a Bengali, he may be a Maharastrian, he may be a Gujarati, or he may be Oriya—there were so many provinces—but the culture was the same. Another unity was that sacred places were distributed all over India. Just like Gayā, a sacred place, it is situated in Bihar. And sacred place, Benares, it is situated in Uttar Pradesh. Vṛndāvana is situated on the border of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. Similarly, Kashmir, and Punjab also; in South India, Rāmeśvaram; in Himalayan province, Haridwar. In this way all these provinces were distributed, and still it is going on. The provincialism is amongst the educated circle. So far the mass of people are concerned, they don't know what is province. They travel from one province to another. They don't require any visa. They don't require any passport. So that was very nice.
Cornerstone Ceremonies
This material civilization means the sex desire. Woman is hunting after man; man if hunting after woman. Puṁsaḥ striyā mithunī-bhavam etaṁ tayor mithaḥ. And as soon as they are united, they require gṛha, apartment; gṛha-kṣetra, land; gṛha-kṣetra-suta, children, friends, money; and the moho, the illusion, ahaṁ mameti (SB 5.5.8), "It is I, it is mine." This is material civilization. But the human life is not meant for that. Nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye (SB 5.5.1). So you study. We have got now enough book. There is no difficulty to study our books. We have given in English translation. Everyone, any gentleman, knows English. And we are going to give in Hindi, in Gujarati, in all other languages. Our friends, they have already begun translating. So there will be no scarcity of knowledge. Please come here, sit down at least once in a week, study all these books, try to understand the philosophy of life, and spread all over the world. That is the mission of Bhāratavarṣa.
Philosophy Discussions
Prabhupāda: Because it is culture. When one comes to the spiritual platform, there is no question. Even animal you can accept. Just like we worship Vajrāṅgajī, Hanumān. He's animal, but because he is devotee of Lord Rāmacandra, we worship him. But that doesn't mean we are worshiping animals.
Śyāmasundara: You mean like Bengalis are a different species than Gujaratis? Something like that?
Prabhupāda: No, no. Why do you mix, we have already explained? Our jāti means of the same culture. He may be Gujarati, he may be Bengali, he may be American.
Śyāmasundara: So, for instance, carpenters are different than field workers-like that, different interests?
Prabhupāda: Why different interest? The interest is to earn money. So you may earn money in some way, I may earn money in some way, he may earn money in some way.
Karandhara: So is the primary factor of the variation is how much advanced they are in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and how least advanced they are in Kṛṣṇa consciousness?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.
Conversations and Morning Walks
1970 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Oh, he's a great nonsense.
Guest (6): Oh, no.
Prabhupāda: I know.
Guest (6): He has constructed that from Gujarat. He's a Gujārati.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guest (6): He constructed a temple there.
Prabhupāda: I have seen in Ahmedabad his temple. He established one deity, a woman shape, and there is no Kṛṣṇa. "Gītā." "Gītā" means a woman. So I don't think he has full understanding of Gītā. He has money; he has spent. That's all. But he does not understand Gītā. Gītā means unless one takes Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead he does not understand anything of Gītā. That is the test. He may advertise himself as scholar or this or that, but our only test is whether he accepts Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). That is the test. Is that person accepting Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead? He himself accepts that "I am God." Is it not? Therefore he's a foolish. He is squandering money, public money. That's all. That is his business. He might have some qualification to collect money, but he does not know what is Kṛṣṇa.
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: They're guru.
Sumati Morarjee: Vallabhācārya is our guru.
Prabhupāda: So, they, they're originally all Vaiṣṇava family. All Vaiṣṇava family, Bāla-Kṛṣṇa. They are worship of Bāla-Kṛṣṇa. Yes.
Devotee: I have that Gujarati Back to Godhead.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Now we're printing the Gujarati Back to Godhead.
Sumati Morarjee: What? Let me, what is it?
Prabhupāda: We have got some, giving, give her that.
Sumati Morarjee: This is from (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: Yes, we get from Hong Kong.
Sumati Morarjee: Hong Kong. Why, is it good?
Prabhupāda: No, it is not good. It is wrong. That we sent it...
Sumati Morarjee: How?
Prabhupāda: ...different, in different way.
Prabhupāda: I got return ticket.
Sumati Morarjee: "Yes, so you send him back, if he wants to come, but see that a good captain is on the ship." Then, uh, then (indistinct) came to Bombay, then Swami doesn't come. I said, "Now he won't come" (Śrīla Prabhupāda laughs) And also give me Swamiji, that Gujarati...
Prabhupāda: Huh? Yes, yes.
Devotee: Remember you were asking me just a few days ago about Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam?
Sumati Morarjee: Yes, I (indistinct). I heard Swamiji, you know, came to my house to read. Rāsa-pañca-adhyāya.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Sumati Morarjee: That is supposed to be the...
Prabhupāda: Now, when I shall go to Juhu, I shall regularly begin all Bhāgavata.
Sumati Morarjee: I want to hear, Swami.
Prabhupāda: Yes, all Bhāgavata.
Prabhupāda: They're very uncultured.
Sumati Morarjee: Very, very uncultured. And he came to see the Prime Minister, he brought all his sons, all his daughters, whole family he brought, to Bhutto. Because Bhutto, he is from Junagar, I know him.
Prabhupāda: Ah, he is Gujarati?
Sumati Morarjee: Yes, yes, he is Gujarati Muhammedan. He is from Junagar. His father...
Prabhupāda: (indistinct) was also.
Sumati Morarjee: Yes, yes, (indistinct) was from Junagar, Bombay, but this Bhutto 'till he went away, he was in Junagar. His father, son was Bhutto, was the (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Just see.
Sumati Morarjee: (indistinct) brought up in United, he was in Bombay all these, he's educated in Bombay.
Devotee: Juna, Juhu?
Sumati Morarjee: No, no. Junagar.
Prabhupāda: No, no, Junagar is a city.
Prabhupāda: That's nice. That's a thousand dollar contribution.
Devotee: Yeah. And as it grows, it will increase.
Prabhupāda: And send them a Gujarati paper, our magazine, distribution amongst their workers. That will satisfy (indistinct) sense.
Devotee: Hm. Tell that to Girirāja?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee: Hundred, two hundred magazines.
Prabhupāda: Not hundred. Say fifty, for distribution amongst his officers.
Devotee: Oh.
Prabhupāda: So that everyone will be satisfied.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Oh. Here is no Kṛṣṇa book?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The Trilogy we don't have, but the big volume of Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: What is your name? Your name?
Lady: Bhanu.
Prabhupāda: Bhanu? Gujarati?
Lady: Parsee.
Prabhupāda: Parsee. I see. Parsees are Gujarati also.
Lady: We speak Gujarati and Parsee.
Prabhupāda: Formerly the Parsees were prominent community in Bombay. They are big businessmen, important men.
Banker: Mr. Tata...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Tata, Sarpiosa Mehta. (?) Now from the Parsee community no such big men are coming. What you think? Last big man was Nariman. You do not know? Nariman. He was of our age. I saw him. That Nariman Point. He was a political leader. Come on. So Nariman was a Parsee. I know that.
Prabhupāda: And that is good. If a foolish man does not talk, it is good for him and good for others. Because he'll talk foolish. Better not to talk. That is good. That... Infectious diseased man... what is called? Quarantine.
Karandhara: Quarantine.
Prabhupāda: He's put separately so that he may not poison others. He may not poison others. So that is the position of the self-sufficient authority.
Yaśomatīnandana: In Gujarati we call it: bhanji moti laksmim.(?) When the palm is closed it is worth lakh rupees, but when it is open, it doesn't mean anything. A foolish person, when he talks, he reveals everything.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Foolish person means busy rascal. There are four kinds of division: lazy intelligent and busy intelligent and lazy rascal and busy rascal. The first-class man is lazy intelligent, and second class, busy intelligent, and third class, lazy rascal, and fourth class, busy rascal. A rascal, if he's busy, then what he will do? He'll simply do harm. That's all.
Karandhara: Create havoc.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes. So this yajña means to satisfy the Lord. Yajñārthe karma. So when you miss this yajña, then everything becomes disturbed. When you become godless then the whole thing will be disturbed. And practically also, if you pay income tax, then government arrangement is everything, nicely going on. And as soon as stop income tax, then whole thing... There is no finance, there is deficit, this, that, so many things. So yajña is yajñārthe karmaṇo 'nyatra. Everything should be done for the Yajña, for Viṣṇu. Then everything is in order. In Kali-yuga, other, costly yajñas are not possible. Therefore yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyaiḥ. Saṅkīrtana. But these rascals will not take. If you say that "This simple yajña, you take it. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. All problems will be solved," they will not believe. They will not take it. They are so misfortunate. Śāstra says, yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyair yajanti hi su-medhasaḥ (SB 11.5.32). Su-medhasaḥ. Those who have got good brain, they take up this yajña process. Su-medhasaḥ. And another word is alpa-medhasaḥ, less brain substance. Tad bhavaty alpa-medhasām. Antavat tu phalaṁ teṣāṁ tad bhavaty alpa-medhasām (BG 7.23). They are doing all other things, but not yajña. Therefore alpa-medhasām: their brain substance is small. And here is su-medhasaḥ. Yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyair yajanti hi su-medhasaḥ (SB 11.5.32). That is the sign of merit: You do something which will produce good result. And if you, cats and dogs, if you simply jump over, what you will do result? That Lilavati Munshi of Bombay, she is the wife of a big man, K. Munshi. So she was asking, "Swamiji, how you made like this?" Everyone is surprised because nobody has done like this. I said that "Because I have taken the proper method, therefore it is done so nicely." The method must be right. It may be simple, but it must be right method.
Yaśomatīnandana: She is Gujarati, Lilavati Munshi?
Prabhupāda: Ah yes.
Prabhupāda: So, first of all giving our Bhagavad-gītā As It Is to read.... (Hindi) (break) (Hindi)
Dr. Kapoor: Well I think it will be about five hundred pages. (Hindi conversation)
Prabhupāda: ... especially Punjabis.
Dr. Kapoor: They are all over.
Prabhupāda: Ah, Punjabis, Gujaratis.
Dr. Kapoor: Gujaratis also, Hm.
Prabhupāda: And Sindhis. Gujaratis are more.
Dr. Kapoor: Huh!
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. In San Francisco there are many Gujaratis, Patels.
Dr. Kapoor: Patels. Hare Kṛṣṇa. So how did you manage immediately after landing in USA?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Manage, when I got only two-hundred dollars in hand, at that time immediately I rented a storefront.
Prabhupāda: In Delhi there is a lawyer. He told me. Harer nāma harer nāma harer nāma eva kevalam (CC Adi 17.21).
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It would be really wonderful if Sumatiben would decide to support our temple because the entire Gujarati community of Bombay follows her direction. They really do, especially in these matters. And she is known to be the chairman of... (break)
Prabhupāda: (to Patel) You are śānta-bhakta.
Dr. Patel: Am I?
Prabhupāda: Śānta, dāsya, sākhya, vātsalya, and mādhurya.
Dr. Patel: Mādhurya-bhakta is the best. Like gopīs. But that is very difficult to be.
Prabhupāda: No, best, it is just one's conception, you see? Otherwise, all are best. All are best. But śānta-bhaktas do not take Kṛṣṇa very intimately.
Prabhupāda: So in our Gauḍīya-vaiṣṇava-sampradāya there are so many learned scholars. Just like my Guru Mahārāja.
Dr. Patel: But a Sanskrit... I tell you, the Bengalis are the great scholars all round, in all respects.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: And we are your followers, Gujaratis. In fact, in India, next to Bengal comes Gujarati in scholarship. And Maharashtra first.
Prabhupāda: No, your Gokule said, "What Bengal thinks today, others will think tomorrow."
Dr. Patel: That's right. Even in Mara-mari (?) also, you think only... (laughs)
Prabhupāda: Yes. Actually, this independence movement was started from Bengal. Partition of Bengal and the movement started, Surendranath Bannerjee. Gandhi admitted, "Father of nation is Surendranath Bannerjee." Yes. And later on, actually, if you don't take other, the independence came through a Bengali, Subash Chandra Bose.
Dr. Patel: Yes.
Mr. Sar: Right.
Dr. Patel: Not even... Philosophy also. Gaurapāda,(?) the grandson of Śaṅkarapāda. Gaurapāda, Gaurapāda was, he's Govindapāda and Govindapāda is Śaṅkarācārya. So that also you will see that some Śaṅkara's greatest sire was a Bengali gentleman.
Prabhupāda: Now taking too much, too much taking in political part. Aurobindo, Aurobindo, he was a politician.
Prabhupāda: There is no difference.
Dr. Patel: O rasa. Rasa nei hai
Prabhupāda: No, no, rasa... (Hindi)
Dr. Patel: Real rasa comes in Sanskrit. I read it twice in Gujarati, but I, I was not able to get that pleasure when I read it in Sanskrit.
Prabhupāda: Hm. Viprād dvi-ṣaḍ-guṇa-yutād aravinda-nābha-pādāravinda-vimukhāt śvapacaṁ variṣṭham. (S.B. 7.9.10)
Dr. Patel: Those two books of Kṛṣṇa, you have written, it's from this only.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: The Tenth skandha, no?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Viprād dvi-ṣaḍ-guṇa...
Dr. Patel: I thought Bhāgavata was a book of stories, so I was not reading. I am so truthful to you. That is, I read all, I myself, more than half a dozen times all the, mean, twelve Upaniṣads. But I said, "Bhāgavata why?"
Prabhupāda: No, Bhāgavata is...
Dr. Patel: But I read it in Gujarati...
Prabhupāda: Bhāgavata, in the beginning it is said, nigama-kalpa-taror galitaṁ phalam (SB 1.1.3).
Dr. Patel: That first śloka you explained to me. First śloka.
Prabhupāda: Which one?
Dr. Patel: First.
Prabhupāda: Janmādy asya ya... (SB 1.1.1).
Dr. Patel: Ah! Janmādy asya. It becomes very difficult for me to understand.
Prabhupāda: It is not difficult. No. Because the question... It is the explanation of Brahma-sūtra. So the Brahma-sūtra, the beginning is athāto brahma jijñāsā. "What about Brahman, the Supreme Absolute Truth?" The next verse is, immediately, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1), "The Supreme Absolute Truth is that..."
Devotee: Yes I read it. The qualities of a brāhmaṇa is given, along with the qualities of all the other varṇas.
Prabhupāda: We have..., taking sacred thread has qualities less than śūdra. Camaras, cobblers. Camara means expert in skin. I am white, I am black, I am this, I am that. That is camara. Expert in skin. (break) People are very receptive?
Devotee: Yes, especially Gujarati and Marwari communities.
Prabhupāda: Ah.
Devotee: The south Indians, they are not so receptive. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...men, so everyone should be very alert in their behavior. Rising early in the morning, taking bath, be prepared for maṅgala āratik immediately. Then class. Everything in regulated way. (break) ...and still everyone comes to the point, "I know everything." This point.
Devotee: Yes.
Prabhupāda: On the basis of Bhagavad-gītā, then nobody can supercede. (break) ...he turns back all our money invested, (indistinct) people. (break) ...if he's prepared to pay double the price, so why not pay the full price, fourteen lakhs? We have paid two lakhs, let him pay twelve lakhs and he'll immediately transfer, and we'll take double price from him, so that... (break) ...if he's so eager. These, these are practical. If he's prepared to pay double, why not pay us? (break—switches to room conversation) Sun is the same. The power observation, this is a morning sun, this is noon sun. The sun is the same. We sometimes say that because this noon sun, it is so strong. So sun is always powerful. It is our appreciation, relative appreciation, that we consider in the morning it is less scorching and in the noon it is very scorching. Kṛṣṇa is always Kṛṣṇa. ...tābhir ya eva nija-rūpatayā kalābhiḥ. Nija-rūpa kalā taya.
Dr. Patel: Māyāvāda! Māyāvāda, no?
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is Māyāvāda. (chuckles.) Acintya-bheda... This is right philosophy. Acintya-bhedābheda. At the present moment we cannot think of how one thing is simultaneously one and different. Therefore it is acintya.
Dr. Patel: (Gujarati) (break)
Prabhupāda: ...to eleven. Why not give me.
Dr. Patel: No, I have given all contribution. And we start with you when you are here.
Prabhupāda: Then Bhāgavata is compared to the body of Kṛṣṇa. And Kṛṣṇa worships begins from the feet.
Dr. Patel: I started and come up to His mouth.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is avidhi-pūrvakam.
Dr. Patel: Avidhi... Then let me do it for avidhi-pūrvak, then I'll do it, vidhi-pūrvakam.
Prabhupāda: Then you'll never understand. Yes, you'll never understand.
Prabhupāda: You are yourself poor. How you can serve? (laughter)
Dr. Patel: (Gujarati)
Guest (5): No. Yes, I want to ask.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. That's all right. We should... First of all, we should know that "I am the poorest of the poor."
Dr. Patel: That's right.
Prabhupāda: So first of all let me become rich. Then I shall serve. (pause) (break) Hare Kṛṣṇa beat. (sound of kīrtana in background) People will come and hear Hare Kṛṣṇa. This slogan has spread, "If I serve the poor..." And what you have got, you will serve the poor? You have to work like an ass to earn your livelihood, and you are going to serve the poor.
Dr. Patel: (Gujarati) What is meant by service?
Prabhupāda: No, and the poor cannot be served. Service, service to be rendered to the higher authority.
Prabhupāda: Yes. This soft sand. But not walking, all sand. This Juhu Beach is specially nice.
Dr. Patel: Made for us. (laughs) (break)
Prabhupāda: ...kingdom, the Maharastrian brāhmaṇas, they were more staunch.
Dr. Patel: They did not serve Muslims, like brāhmaṇas who are from Bengal and Gujarat. Gujarati brāhmaṇas and Bengali brāhmaṇas served the Muslims...
Prabhupāda: Brahminical culture. Sanātana Gosvāmī, he was also brāhmaṇa, but because he served the Mohammedans, he was rejected from the brāhmaṇa society. Then Kṛṣṇa, as Caitanya Mahāprabhu, raised them to the position of gosvāmīs. Their name was also changed. Dabir Khas.
Dr. Patel: Muslim name.
Prabhupāda: Yes, Muslim name.
Dr. Patel: But here in Gujarat we have got so many brāhmaṇas and... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...magistrates.
Guest (1): But he has surrendered and he feels that "God gives me what we require."
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: (Gujarati) But now the, now the sun is rising earlier and earlier. That is why. (break)
Prabhupāda: Bhakti, pure bhakti: anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam (Brs. 1.1.11). No desire from the part of the devotee. Jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam, ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanam (CC Madhya 19.167). What Kṛṣṇa likes, that we should do. Kṛṣṇa likes that you surrender. We should surrender. That's all. That is the beginning of bhakti. If you don't surrender, you keep your individuality, that is not bhakti.
Guest (1): There is no bhakti without...
Prabhupāda: That is not... Bhakti may be there, but it is not pure cent percent bhakti.
Guest (1): It is not pure bhakti.
Prabhupāda: Surrendering means you commit the suicide of your ego before Him.
Guest (1): No suicide in this.
Prabhupāda: No, surrender means surrender. Now you can interpret in a different way.
Prabhupāda: ...have place to stay.
Dr. Patel: Never a place. But in school means... I mean, these boys, you miss...
Prabhupāda: Now we are introducing Hindi, Gujarati and Maharati, speaking. Where is Manasvī? He has gone?
Devotee: Yes.
Dr. Patel: No, but they must talk with people in their own language. They, even sometimes they don't understand me talking English. Of course, I... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...one has to study grammar for twelve years.
Dr. Patel: How much?
Prabhupāda: Twelve years.
Dr. Patel: Twelve years.
Prabhupāda: And as soon as one has his mastership on the grammar, he can study all other books.
Dr. Patel: No, he can be a poet then. The Sanskrit language is poetic in a way.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes, yes.
Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
Dr. Patel: (Hindi) Nothing to do and no, no... (break) ...prāṇa, dharma...
Prabhupāda: He's no longer existing.
Dr. Patel: Government is not existing even by (indistinct). No, not by... (break) There is no...
Prabhupāda: They chant very (indistinct) Yes. Father, mother is sophisticated. (sound of children talking in Gujarati) Hare Kṛṣṇa!
Children: Hare Kṛṣṇa! Haribol!
Prabhupāda: Thank you very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Everywhere (indistinct) but their father will not say. Harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21). (break) We shall wait. (end)
Prabhupāda: United States. Yes. Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Rāma... (break)
Dr. Patel: ...over-clever or whatever you may call, but the American would be outwitted by a Gujarati baniya if he has got the same money, same, I mean, freedom of business and same facility to work. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...the plan is to drive away the Gujaratis from Africa. (laughter) Yes. The Britishers are afraid. The Britishers are afraid that if the Indians, they are allowed to remain here, they will not be able to exploit the Africans.
Dr. Patel: All Indians and all Gujarati baniyas who settled in Africa, one and all are multi-millionaires.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...also.
Dr. Patel: But they have migrated to London now. They are very well... People from England, I mean, Africa, especially East Africa, Kenya and Uganda... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...their own house in London. Every Indian. (break) Englishmen, they haven't got their own house.
Prabhupāda: ...former purchaser, they sell to the higher bidders.
Dr. Patel: Yes. Very cunning. Very cunning people.
Bhava-bhūti: I think there is some complaint also here in Maharastra, some plan not to give any more Gujaratis job. Just simply... (break)
Prabhupāda: That is good.
Dr. Patel: (Heavy wind noise) And then so many, they... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...clean. Although there is no machine.
Dr. Patel: Because the sea comes here, right. Here is the water line, high water line, high tide.
Prabhupāda: And washes everything. That is God's grace. Without machine, they keep it clean.
Guest (1): Without taking any charge.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) ...same thing is happening here in a different edition. That's all.
Prabhupāda: That, that samata, he knows that Paramātmā is everywhere. Aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara-sthaṁ (Bs. 5.35). But that does not mean paramāṇu has become Paramātmā. Daridra has become Nārāyaṇa. This is rascaldom. This is rascaldom. Daridra is daridra. But you know, within the daridra, there is Nārāyaṇa. That is another thing. But that does not mean Nārāyaṇa has become daridra. This is rascaldom.
Dr. Patel: (Gujarati)
Guest 3 (Indian man): You can say it is no good. Nārāyaṇa...
Prabhupāda: This rascaldom is going on. Daridra-nārāyaṇa. What is this nonsense? Nārāyaṇa has become daridra?
Dr. Patel: No, but my one point is there. You may call me a fool even. I don't mind. But everything is covered by God. Even so in daridra, that is covered by God.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is rascaldom. Everything is covered by God. But that does not mean everything is God.
Dr. Patel: I did not say everything is God. I said everything is...
Prabhupāda: That everyone knows. Sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma. That is not a very new thing.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Here is the... Śarīra-stho 'pi. Because it is said Paramātmā and jīvātmā, they are, both of them are in this body, that does not mean the Paramātmā has become like jīvātmā. Or jīvātmā has become Paramātmā. This is nonsense. Although śarīra-stha, he doesn't, he's not affected by the pains and pleasures of this body. That, that is, that is the defect of this daridra-nārāyaṇa philosophy, that although He has entered the body of a daridra, it does not mean He's affected by the quality of the daridra. But they are thinking, "Oh, Nārāyaṇa has come as daridra. Let me give something." This is their philosophy. That means Nārāyaṇa is now affected with this daridrata. (break)
Dr. Patel: Annakūṭa (Gujarati) (break)
Prabhupāda: ...we do not feed anybody.
Dr. Patel: You may be feeding, but others are throwing it away. That is why they have said daridra-nārāyaṇa.
Prabhupāda: That is... Others are throwing, others are doing this, this... That is not considered.
Dr. Patel: But they have not seen you doing it, you see...
Prabhupāda: Dari... Why not first of all offer to real Nārāyaṇa and then distribute to the daridras? (break) First of all try to understand that... Just like we have got prasāda distribution program. So... But that does not mean that we shall say, "We are feeding daridra-nārāyaṇa." We are offering to Nārāyaṇa and then feeding to the...
Prabhupāda: No, He...
Guest (5): Contradicting yourself.
Prabhupāda: Then because...
Dr. Patel: (Gujarati)
Guest (5): Sorry about that.
Prabhupāda: Let me explain it. Let me explain it. Suppose you are ordered by the judge that you should be hanged. So it is certainly his creation, your hanging. But is the judge enemy of you that he has ordered you to be hanged? You have created such thing that you should be hanged. This is the answer. (break) ...situation that you must be hanged. But the order must come from the judge. So externally the judge is hanging you. But actually he's not hanging you. You are hanging yourself. This is the way. (break) ...hanged, there is no choice. Is it not? But still, you created the position of being hanged. That is the position. When the judge has ordered that "He should be hanged," there is no more choice. But who has created this situation?
Prabhupāda: Spiritual. Yes. (break) ...is, that is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. Yoginām api sarveṣāṁ mad-gata-āntar-ātmanā (BG 6.47). That is the supreme samādhi, always thinking of Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...little by little.
Mr. Sar: Little by little.
Dr. Patel: And we, because we are dull students... (Gujarati) (break)
Prabhupāda: Why? Why do they go to the college and university? They could do it independently. (break) Therefore tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). Inquisitive, jijñāsu, they should go to the proper person who knows it.
Dr. Patel: He is, that... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...eighth time. No? Thirteenth time?
Dr. Patel: Thirteenth time. Now you must time, describe the fourteenth time because thirteen is a bad number. (Prabhupāda chuckles)
Prabhupāda: Yes, I have got the translation. All my secretaries, they have got. (break) (kīrtana, Acyutānanda singing) (end)
Prabhupāda: Svabhāvam.
Dr. Patel: Sva means "own."
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Dr. Patel: Bhāva means...? Bhāva (Gujarati)? Essence, essence.
Prabhupāda: Sva-bhāvaḥ means nature.
Dr. Patel: Nature. Sva-bhāvaḥ...
Chandobhai: Adhyātmam.
Dr. Patel: Adhi-ātma. That is the...
Chandobhai: That is real bhāva.
Prabhupāda: Adhyātma. Adhyātma means bodily and mentally.
Chandobhai: Ah, bodily and mentally, yes.
Dr. Patel: Adhyātma? Bodily and mentally?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Eh? Forty-three lakhs, as...
Dr. Patel: Car ardha...
Prabhupāda: Forty-three, eight zeroes.
Dr. Patel: Car... (Gujarati)
Prabhupāda: This is Brahmā's twelve days, uh, twelve hours.
Dr. Patel: Rātri, (Gujarati)
Chandobhai: Why not... There's a little question to ask: What are the Pitṛloka, Martyaloka and this...?
Prabhupāda: They are planets.
Chandobhai: And the Brahmaloka and all the...?
Prabhupāda: Yes. They are different... Just like Candraloka, Sūryaloka, Vāyuloka.
Chandobhai: What is that Pitṛloka actually?
Prabhupāda: Pitṛloka means the... There is a, called a Pitṛloka.
Prabhupāda: Pitṛloka means the... There is a, called a Pitṛloka.
Chandobhai: But then in the Pitrloka is it may be that, there may be remembrances of the charity, activities, and all these things or...
Prabhupāda: No, these are all material.
Dr. Patel: Pitṛloka (Gujarati) They are all your past pitṛs.
Chandobhai: No, let us hear from him.
Prabhupāda: Pitṟn yānti... Devān yānti... What is that? Deva... Pitṟn yānti pitṛ-vrataḥ. So those who are just like fond of performing śraddhās, karma-kāṇḍa, they go to the Pitṛloka.
Dr. Patel: These are all, I mean, ordained to perform śraddhā, all Vaiṣṇavas.
Prabhupāda: Yes. No, Vaiṣṇavas do not do so.
Dr. Patel: We are... We, all are, all of us, are we not doing...
Prabhupāda: No.
Dr. Patel: Śraddhā ceremony...
Prabhupāda: The Vaiṣṇava, Vaiṣṇava has no duty except serving Kṛṣṇa. That's all.
Prabhupāda: Then he assures, assures Arjuna that "You are assured. Your coming to Me is assured."
Dr. Patel: (Gujarati)
- dhumo rātris tathā kṛṣṇaḥ
- ṣaṇ-māsā dakṣiṇāyanam
- tatra cāndramasaṁ jyotir
- yogī prāpya nivartate
Prabhupāda: This is material calculation.
Dr. Patel:
- śukla-kṛṣṇe gatī hy ete
- jagataḥ śāśvate mate
- ekayā yāty anāvṛttim
- anyayāvartate punaḥ
- naite sṛtī pārtha jānan
- yogī muhyati kaścana
- That is... Now you come.
- naite sṛtī pārtha jānan
- yogī muhyati kaścana
- tasmāt sarveṣu kāleṣu
- yoga-yukto bhavārjuna
- (BG 8.7)
Prabhupāda: Yes. This is the position. Sarveṣu kāleṣu. Not that sometimes here and sometimes there. That will take long time, but unless one comes to sarveṣu kāleṣu, always thinking of Kṛṣṇa...
Dr. Patel: Vedeṣu yajñeṣu tapaḥsu caiva dāneṣu yat-puṇya-phalaṁ pradiṣṭam...
Prabhupāda: Satataṁ kīrtayanto māṁ yatantaś ca dṛḍha-vratāḥ (BG 9.14). That is required.
Prabhupāda: Others... Others means... That is also a humbug. You cannot do anything for others. You do everything for yourself. That is a false propaganda. You see? That is humbugism. So either you can do for yourself or for Kṛṣṇa. That's all.
Guest (1): I see. (Gujarati)
Prabhupāda: (break) ...become a slogan nowadays. Nobody does for others. "For others," "For the poor," these are all humbug.
Guest (1): You think people are doing something hospitals, that is for others?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is also puṇya-karma.
Guest (1): (Hindi) Helping these temples, hospitals...?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Temple construction is different from hospital construction. That is for Kṛṣṇa.
Guest (1): But suppose somebody's doing hospitals. Is it not for others?
Prabhupāda: Yes. But how many you can give shelter? A few. There are so many suffering people. You cannot provide hospitals for all of them. The hospitals are increasing, and the disease also increasing.
Guests: It is mixed up.
Dr. Patel: It is what I give to that man. Mix up, then it is far better.
Prabhupāda: So they are all paramahaṁsas.
Dr. Patel: Then let them miss. We don't mind. But they don't miss that door(?).
Guest (2): (Gujarati)
Dr. Patel: (Gujarati conversation) (break)
Devotee: Till the sun goes down.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Dr. Patel: Not the sun. Whole day (indistinct) morning. That is how you are passing? If the sun goes down in the night..., day time? (break)
Prabhupāda: ...but if one can continue, that's all right. (end)
Prabhupāda: English medium, Sanskrit.
Dr. Patel: English medium, the intelligence gets baffled because it is not a mother language.
Prabhupāda: Aurobindo Ghosh studied English from the very beginning.
Dr. Patel: But he was extremely clever. He studied then Gujarati, not even Bengali. After he came from England...
Prabhupāda: He came to Gujarati. No. He came to Baroda.
Dr. Patel: Then he studied Gujarati, but he did not know Bengali at all. And then he came... (break) What is that? (break)
Prabhupāda: (Sanskrit) From our childhood, if there was a rice grain on the floor, my father, er, my mother would ask me, "Take it and touch it on your head."
Prabhupāda: Oh, then you are Indian. (laughter)
Priest: Half of my time, yes, I was in India, half my life.
Prabhupāda: Twenty-five years in a place means you domicile. Yes, naturally.
Priest: Did you come to Poona?
Prabhupāda: Once I went. One friend took me there. I stayed in that Gujarati hotel, near the station I think.
Priest: Yes, not far.
Prabhupāda: Poona is nice place. Climate is nice.
Priest: For studies it's a beautiful place, and particularly for Sanskrit.
Prabhupāda: Yes, there are many good scholars.
Priest: Many scholars, many institutions, and also the society is rich.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Maharastrian, they are educated, advanced.
Priest: How do you find your disciples here in Europe?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Japanese also. And Hindi.
Devotee: Italian, French. Hindi also we have. Bengali, Gujarati.
Prof. Pater Porsch: But I also noticed on the faces of the devotees downstairs that many or several faces were, we would say in the West, sublimated, that the facial features showed that a certain form of sublimation had taken place. (German)
Prabhupāda: Even children are learning how to dance, how to offer obeisances, how to chant, how to clap. They are also learning, small children.
Prof. Pater Porsch: And I think that it comes at the right time so that people may not be misled into juvenile delinquency, all of those "easy riders" and motorcycles and adolescent criminality. They find creative outlets for their energies also as a by-product.
Prabhupāda: No. We are teaching... Of course, we do not defy this modern advance of material civil... We don't say that. But this is our main business, that is, jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā, to inquire about the Absolute Truth.
Prabhupāda: (indistinct) if I try to develop my consciousness with designation, it will not be (indistinct) It will not be effective at least in the matter of advancing spiritual consciousness. That you have to see (indistinct). Now in our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement we have got men from all parts of the world, but they are not thinking in terms of their original national designation. They do not think that they are American or Indian or so on, or Hindu, Gujarati(?), kṣatriya.
Guest: Of course there can be ambition that is essentially ego attached to an idea of achieving consciousness (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: That consciousness will not help you...
Guest: It won't.
Prabhupāda: ...that will rather check you.
Guest: Yes, exactly.
Prabhupāda: Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran loke tyajaty ante kalevaram (BG 8.6). At the time of death if I die with designation, then I will have to accept again the body. The mind if it contains contamination, he gets different types of bodies on account of mind being contaminated.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: If we go village to village. The village people are still pure, at least not so polluted as the town people, or especially the so-called educated. (break) ...hari-kīrtana koro... (Bengali) We held this hari-kīrtana in Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay. Oh, at least fifteen to thirty thousand people were daily... Even from the office with coats and pants, they are dancing. And they asked me, "Swamiji, continue it." (break)
Indian Man (2): I traveled all over India so many years, place to place, but I found the Gujarati is one of the best where the people have there some natural-born Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That's fact. Everywhere—Gujaratis, Marwaris, Punjabis—more or less, Kṛṣṇa consciousness is there. (break)
Indian Man (2): I ask you one question. What is the future of India regarding the Kṛṣṇa consciousness? The people are so much demonic. It every time bothers me, day and night, that what will happen? The people don't have respect for the olders. They just harass. I was with my wife too, and I found the... We talk about the Kṛṣṇa, and they just laugh. They say, "There is nothing like that." They made so much fun, the young generation, that "You are a modern boy, and you are believing in that?" Just I found. I can't understand that how we can change over to the Indian future about Kṛṣṇa consciousness?
Prabhupāda: If we preach, it will be all right. That is going on perpetually, darkness and light. If you bring light, darkness will go out, will be driven away.
Prabhupāda: Oh, where is your shoes?
Indian man: Oh, I got it here.
Prabhupāda: You are Gujarati? So you have been in India? (break)
Indian man: ...my dad stopped... (break) ...Nairobi... (break) Indian parents are, they try to grab hold of you before you can go away. He thought that I won't come back or something.
Prabhupāda: So he was right, your father.
Indian man: He was right. Yes. Well, you see, I didn't want to come back and get married and all that, you see? And then he forced me to get married.
Prabhupāda: Where you married? Here?
Indian man: Here, Durban.
Prabhupāda: You have got children?
Indian man: Yes. Two boys.
Prabhupāda: I was talking just now that the Indians here are better situated than in India.
Prabhupāda: Vallabhācārya, he was a Vaiṣṇava. He worships Kṛṣṇa, Bal Kṛṣṇa. That's all right.
Indian lady: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: Ah, yes.
Indian man: (Indian man asks Prabhupāda if he speaks Gujarati in Gujarati or Hindi)
Prabhupāda: Na Gujarati, ne. Hindi I can. (break) ...the four sampradāyas: Rāmānuja, Madhvācārya, then Viṣṇu Svāmī. Vallabhācārya belongs to the Viṣṇu Svāmī group, and we belong to Madhvācārya, so there is no difference.
Indian man (3): She's a very staunch believer in Vallabhācārya and Puti Mahārāja(?).
Prabhupāda: Yes. Mostly Gujaratis are Vallabhācārya follower. I know that. That is good. So you are worshiping Bal Kṛṣṇa?
Indian man (3): Bal Kṛṣṇa, yes.
Prabhupāda: That's nice. (Hindi) ...there one opinion of the Vallabhācārya sampradāya... (end)
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Nehru.
Prabhupāda: Nehru?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes. I know one Gujarati school, they have a book. And in the book it is taught that Gandhi, Nehru…
Prabhupāda: That is propaganda.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: That is propaganda.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (break) … in the last fifty years or so that especially that the Indian culture has been squashed and perverted by the British.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Is that because of mass communication, Prabhupada? Is that because of mass communication?
Prabhupāda: Mass communication or no…
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Radio, and things like this.
Prabhupāda: Yes, if you want to make mass communication, you can do anything. (break) Due to industrialization, all intelligent men, they came in the city. In the village it was deserted. So there was no improvement in the village, and people preferred to come to the city, means industry, business. So India's basic principle was village life. Now that is lost. The intelligent class men, brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, they left villages for earning more money in the cities, and only the śūdras, less intelligent class of men, less than śūdras, they remained. So what they will do? So village became deserted. Still you’ll go and see in Indian villages, especially in Bengal, so many big, big palatial buildings, they are lying vacant.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They are seeing, experiencing. History never says that any man has become immortal, even Hiranyakasipu, and what to speak of these small demons. A great demon like Hiranyakasipu, he could not, and what to speak of these tiny demons? One kick is sufficient to kill them.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They never say that.
Prabhupāda: The European lady will never take a burden on head like this, but Indians, they do. Even respectable family woman, they also carry on the head. You will find many Gujarati. Simple living is natural.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: How is it that the Europeans especially, they have become the vanguard of rascal culture?
Prabhupāda: Because they are rākṣasas. They are eating meat and drinking wine and illicit sex. Rākṣasa civilization. Hiraṇyakaśipu means... Hiraṇya means gold, and kaśipu means soft bed. To learn, this is rākṣasa civilization. They are searching after soft bed and gold mine, hiraṇya.
Devotee (2): We have some guests.
Prabhupāda: Oh, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Aiye. How do you know we have come here?
Indian (3): Well, Kṛṣṇa's grace showed me you were here.
Prabhupāda: Thank you very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa. That... Jaya. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (Hindi) If any question, we are discussing so many things.
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Dr. Patel: South Africa is just like, just like, as cold as Europe.
Prabhupāda: Not very cold, but it is cold. Durban. Durban.
Dr. Patel: Durban, there is a huge population of Indians, and all Gujaratis.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: Somehow or other, Bengalis and Gujaratis are akin. Why they have one living in West and other in East? What must be the cause of oneness even in thought and action, in every way.
Prabhupāda: Oneness means Kṛṣṇa. (Hindi) (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya.
Dr. Patel: In temperament also. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: That is also external. Real unity is on Kṛṣṇa consciousness. (Hindi) The Vedānta begins, athāto brahma jijñāsā: "Just inquire about the soul." And where is that education? This human life, they are opening so many colleges, schools, institutions. Where is the instruction about the soul? So go-kharaḥ. (Hindi) In spite of so much improvement, they are behaving just like cats and dogs. In South Africa the Indians are given the far away from the city.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Bhāgavata: And then we can put underneath explanations in Bengali and English.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.
Dr. Patel: In Sanskrit and English because Sanskrit contains Bengali and Gujarati and all.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That's a good idea, good idea.
Dr. Patel: I go, sir.
Prabhupāda: Hm? Time is up? Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...many things to be displayed by these models, and we can utilize that.
Bhāgavata: Like the pictures we have in the Bhāgavatam and the Gītā, then we can make them into doll displays, some of those pictures.
Prabhupāda: But the idea was that in our big temple I wanted to display.
Prabhupāda: It is injunction of the śāstra. Tad-vijñānārtham sa gurum evābhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). But who is coming to guru? Guru is canvassing whole world, "Please come to me."
Dr. Patel: (Hindi) (break)
Prabhupāda: ...I am in Bombay, but how many Gujaratis are my chela? There is only one Gujarati.
Dr. Patel: One is sufficient. He represents the whole Gujaratis.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. (laughter)
Brahmānanda: And Prabhupāda had to rescue him from America. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: That is the difficulty. I will have to preach, bringing men from America and Europe. Nobody is coming here. Everyone is talking big, big.
Indian man (3): God has to go to burden this one also?
Prabhupāda: Eh? No, no. This is the difficulty, that whatever I am doing... Therefore I am very much in anxiety when the government says, "Now you go away. Your visa is finished."
Prabhupāda: Mama means mother's brother.
Dr. Patel: No, but here in Gujarat... (Gujarati) Mama means he is a fool. (break)
Devotee (2): Now is not nice. The fruit is not nice.
Dr. Patel: (Hindi)
Devotee (2): You speak in Italian.
Indian man (6): I speak little only.
Devotee (2): Speak in Italian.
Dr. Patel: Don't worry. (break)
Prabhupāda: If he comes to your house you must receive him properly. Gṛhaṁ satrum api praptam viśvas tam akuto-bhayam. (end)
Yaśomatīnandana: māyā is killing the scientists.
Dr. Patel: (Gujarati) But that is what it is, sir. Really, it set me thinking when I was a small baby boy, how this could maintain the body of a dog if there was no something in it. It is a very important thing to understand. Think about it.
Prabhupāda: ...good substance, very good substance. Stool is full of hypophosphates.
Dr. Patel: Whatever it is, but there it is...
Prabhupāda: That was analyzed by a big doctor. You know that Dr. Ghosh who came? Dr. Ghosh from Allahabad? So one day I went to his house, and I saw in a plate something yellow is kept. And "What is this, doctor?" "Oh, that is stool to be examined."
Dr. Patel: The stool, so long it is in your body, it is you, a part of you, because we are all, majority of us are body conscious. There are very few people like you, who are so conscious.
Prabhupāda: That is Māyāvāda philosophy.
Dr. Patel: ...have something else in Gujarati. Indriya nila... (Gujarati) "The work that you do for satisfaction of the indriyas, (Gujarati)..." That is the bhakti, when you do same action for (Gujarati) God.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the difference between kāma and prema. Kāma means worldly attachment, and prema means attachment for God. That's all. In Caitanya-caritāmṛta it is said, atmendriya-tṛpti-vañcha tara nāma kāma: "When one desires his own sense gratification, that is called kāma." And kṛṣṇendriya-tṛpti-vañcha dhare prema nāma.
Dr. Patel: That is prema.
Prabhupāda: That is prema. "When one wants to satisfy Kṛṣṇa's senses, that is prema."
Dr. Patel: That is called lust and love.
Prabhupāda: This is the difference between lust and love. Just like gopīs. It looks like kāma but it is prema.
Dr. Patel: They say, sir, that gopīs really, they are kāma-toṣa, and when they touched the sacred feet of Kṛṣṇa their whole thing was turned into the sacred prema.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: There are many buildings?
Brahmānanda: Oh, there's about nine buildings. There's a main administration building and classroom building. There is two new buildings. One is a dining hall that seats two hundred.
Prabhupāda: (to passerby) Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...the Gujaratis would never keep dogs but now...
Prabhupāda: Now they are becoming civilized. (laughter) Advanced. (break) Therefore I made this trust: fifty percent, fifty percent.
Brahmānanda: So there will always be money for purchasing.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And because we are doing that, Kṛṣṇa is giving us facility. (break) ...ning how much difficulty we had. We could not purchase that house, number sixty street?
Brahmānanda: Yes. That was a hundred thousand dollars, that house.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Not hundred. Sixty. Sixty thousand dollars. Sixty thousand dollars, and still, we could not. Another attempt was made to purchase that bank building. So we had no money, only five thousand, and that was also taken away.
Prabhupāda: ...recommended to study Bhāgavata from bhāgavata, not by grammar.
Dr. Patel: No, no. But unless, I mean, I like Sanskrit myself, so I try to learn Sanskrit; I can read other, more Sanskrit books. So it is a sort of a study with me, as well as a knowledge of Bhāgavata. So I am trying to be more critical about it. But that way I have read Bhāgavata in Gujarati, even in Hindi (indistinct) Gorhakpur.
Prabhupāda: ...Viṣṇu Purāṇa.
Dr. Patel: Viṣṇu Purāṇa is (indistinct) from Mahābhārata. It is very easy. Extremely easy.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa! (to passerby)
Dr. Patel: Some of the, some people try to poke at us also.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Dr. Patel: They are fools.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Dr. Patel: Well, because we, we chant God's name, out of fun they also say. But we...
Prabhupāda: That is also good.
Prabhupāda: We are opening gurukula, but who will give? A gentleman will not give. Hare Kṛṣṇa! (man stops and Patel introduces him)
Dr. Patel: He's a great scholar and poet of Gujarati literature, and he comes from the same place where the... Bet, he's from Bet, Dvaraka-bet, where all those temples are.
Prabhupāda: He's a great devotee of Kṛṣṇa.
Dr. Patel: Yes, he's a brāhmaṇa devotee of Kṛṣṇa. And a great teacher, he was at university, a professor of Gujarati literature and a great, well-renowned poet...
Prabhupāda: So you do not come to our temple?
Man: Don't believe what he says! (laughter) I am just a humble servant.
Prabhupāda: That is wanted. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Gopī bhartuḥ pada-kamalayor dāsa-dāsanudāsa...
Dr. Patel: He only writes poems on God, Mr. Bethai. His name is Bethai, because he comes from the Bet.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Then why you are, you are bluffing and taking money from us? You do not know. (break) I'll have to go to you, and both of them, I'll have to... The Marwari this... Gujaratis, they use too much oil. Similarly Bengalis, too much oil. Imli, imli water?
Indian devotee (1): Yes, and chili.
Prabhupāda: And chili. That's all.
Indian devotee (1): Actually, Prabhupāda, in Jaipuriya, when they invited us, when we were in Kanpur, all the devotees, for three days we were eating very simple food, but the devotees liked so much. They were eating lots.
Prabhupāda: Oh, Jaipuriya invite them?
Indian devotee (1): Yeah, Jaipuriya, yeah, when we were in Kanpur.
Prabhupāda: Oh, Jaipuriya is that whole name? (land?)
Indian devotee (1): Mantura.
Prabhupāda: Mantura. He came to our temple.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Since he has come here the prasādam in the restaurant has at least doubled in the quality.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā. (laughs)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Completely different prasādam. He's learned the Gujarati style. Kacuris, samosā, every kind of special prep. When we stayed in Kailasa Shiksarya's house when we were first in Bombay, the things that those cooks were cooking, he knows how to cook. Very high class Marwari and Gujarati cooking.
Prabhupāda: He's very intelligent.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And Maṇibandha, he's another one, he's cooking with Ṛṣi Kumāra.
Prabhupāda: He's also very intelligent boy, but sometimes spoiled.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We have a lot of them here.
Prabhupāda: Anyway, we have to take care of so many souls. (Karmī yells) What does he say?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He said you have a nice car. That's good they like the car.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Ask why him don't you come here? (laughter) Why you are driving taxi? Come here.
Prabhupāda: Still, he drinks.
Kṣīrodakaśāyī: Still he drinks. That is the fact. He doesn't eat meat, of course, but he says... He has got good business, plenty of money. I am poor materially, but my father, spiritual father, is so rich that I am getting money every day. Materially, I am poor, but I am so richer, you are giving so treasure... You see in our library there each and every of your book downstairs, and more we read, we say, well plenty money is... (break) ...from the temple. Life member comes there, sell the Gujarati magazine. I bought all magazines from Gujarati. Now second issue has not come. The same problem.
Prabhupāda: This is, have printed.
Kṣīrodakaśāyī: But whatever I brought, it went within two, three weeks.
Prabhupāda: So Yaśomatīnandana?
Kṣīrodakaśāyī: (Hindi) ...that "The next issue is in the press, and I'll soon send." And Gopāla dāsa I also written. Because there are many Gujaratis here, and they are becoming life members... They are helping very much. Anybody comes here, we send out to the Manor. I say, "Here Kṛṣṇa is... Here we are. Here we have got everything by Kṛṣṇa's grace, and all the help should go to this center."
Prabhupāda: You are preparing something of bitter melon?
Kṣīrodakaśāyī: Bitter? You mean the...
Prabhupāda: Karelās, yes.
Prabhupāda: Mauritius is not developed. Fiji is good. Mauritius a poor country. Fiji well-to-do, more business, many Gujaratis. Mostly Gujaratis.
Kartikeya Mahadevia: I've got somebody in New Zealand also. They are...
Prabhupāda: Fiji and New Zealand...
Kartikeya Mahadevia: Are very prosperous.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They have got good dealings, purchase and sell.
Kartikeya Mahadevia: Did you meet Mr. Patel met you in Tehran? Bokumi(?) Patel? One Indian is settled there, Patel.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Kartikeya Mahadevia: They are very good friends of mine. So I am going to him only. Maitreya Muni is also there, he is also there.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. She came to see me twice, Mrs. Patel. She is very nice...
Kartikeya Mahadevia: Very devoted. Her father is my father's friend, Mr. Pota. He was chairman of the Gold Control Board in India. Handlooms are working very nicely. That side of textile, which are made by hand, they are prospering like anything because...
Prabhupāda: They have to remain naked.
Prabhupāda: Sixty seventy lakhs? And he squandered it?
Yaśomatīnandana: No. He has got land and he has got some buildings, but now he has no funds to go further. And there also no local people give. All he collected in London and Africa from the Gujaratis. (break) ...in becoming trustees and managing the things, but they will not give any money.
Prabhupāda: So bring some sitting place.
Vāsughoṣa: Every brāhmaṇa got 116 rupees, and they brought him a cādara and they paid for prasāda. Lakhs of people came from all over central India, Andhra Pradesh, thousands and thousands. They paid for prasādam. Whole pandal, huge pandal, they went to this exhibition ground. They gave, the rest of the money went to the Rāmānuja Swami.
Acyutānanda: Oh, that was the yajña.
Vāsughoṣa: Jeer Swami. Shriman Narayana Jeer.
Acyutānanda: That's not a Bhāgavata-saptāha.
Vāsughoṣa: Yes, Sahasra-Bhāgavata. They had one thousand...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Is that Donghari Maharaja?
Yaśomatīnandana: That Donghari is very famous in Gujarat, so now he has mostly become famous all over India.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But they are booking thirty rooms in our guesthouse for ten days for the program.
Acyutānanda: You've got new japa beads, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Yes. From tulasī. It was made in Honolulu. In Honolulu tulasī plants are very luxurious. Hyderabad local people, they are not sympathetic with our temple? Huh? Not sympathetic?
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.
Jayapatākā: People are begging us for books in Bengali written by Your Divine Grace. We tell them that... There's no time.
Prabhupāda: That Subhaga translated. But his translations are not so...
Gargamuni: No. There's always trouble with translation in local languages, Hindi or Gujarati.
Prabhupāda: They do not know the philosophy.
Gargamuni: No. And they do the wrong words.
Jayapatākā: Now they have a... I put a two-man team. A two- or three-man team. Subhaga, there's one boy Kiśora, and Tatpur. Between the three of them they check and recheck.
Prabhupāda: Tatpur is educated?
Jayapatākā: He's got a B.A. or something.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Krishna Modi: No, you don't give the article. You give only that and this thing. Then we will give. In Hindi also and in English and Gujarati.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We will do that.
Krishna Modi: (Hindi) They don't want anything. They say that religious is a opium. So that what you are doing (indistinct). They are not (indistinct). If they are in power then they can do like that.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They did it in Russia.
Krishna Modi: Because their theory is this: That this God and all these religious matters, this is a opium and this is a kind of, you may say it that in the umbrella. Religious in the name of...
Prabhupāda: And what they have done, the Communists?
Krishna Modi: They have not done anything. They should not do anything. It is not their duty.
Prabhupāda: No, I mean to say, countries like Russia and China, what actual progress they have made?
Krishna Modi: That is... They say like that, that we are giving very good food to everybody, very good house, and living, and all their (indistinct), education, medical free. We are giving the to common men...
Prabhupāda: Medical (indistinct) is free. Free medical service, education... (break)
Guest (1): Their promotion in local language would be very helpful.
Prabhupāda: No, in India will purchase English magazine, he knows English.
Guest (1): Yes he knows, but the popularity will be much more in the Hindi and Gujarati and Marathi speaking people, Bengali speaking.
Prabhupāda: That is not possible. That is for you, Indians. But you have no time. You are busy with your daughter's marriage, and you simply advise.
Guest (1): I am busy?
Prabhupāda: Yes, everyone. Every Indian is busy with his own affair, he'll come and advise. That's all. Advise gratis. But he will not do himself.
Guest (1): No, but...
Prabhupāda: No, this is going... I have got full experience, that Indians, they will come and give some advice, and go away for daughter's marriage. That's all.
Prabhupāda: Hm, very good.
Indian man: They cannot speak in English. That's the whole difficulty, they are speaking Hindi and Gujarati. They are very, feeling very shy. And he's very great expert in growing this wheat grass which has become very popular. Everybody likes very much. Your devotees are also liking. He's an expert in this. He's a very good music teacher, he has a very good tape recordist. Puppeteer, also he's making these puppet for last twenty years. He's expert in making puppets. We can make kṛṣṇa-kathā puppets also for our theater. And he can train our young boys for the same thing. Video tape and everything, he knows about this audio-visual communication...
Prabhupāda: Everyone has got some talent. So svakarmaṇā tam abhyarcya. That is wanted. Whatever talent you have got you can utilize for Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: That's what they're eating, that lamb's flesh.
Indian man: Now Prabhupāda, even Jains eat meat.
Prabhupāda: Who cares for them? In Gujarat they are eating fish?
Indian man: No. Eggs. They have started eating two lakhs of eggs in Ahmedabad.
Indian man: Ahmedabad is a very big meat-eating center.
Prabhupāda: In Surat I was guest of that Jariwala. So on the morning walk I went to the riverside. So I saw so many fisherwoman carrying the big basket. So I asked the driver, he was Mohammedan, "Why these fisherwomen here?" He said, "Nowadays, all Gujaratis, they're eating fish."
Indian man: I tell you Prabhupāda... Very, very, old... Before 1937, in Bhavnagar, Saurastra, we had our office in '37, '35 we had. I was in Karachi. We sent one manager from Peshawar, twenty-year man. So he used to eat meat and fish and everything and a young man he was...
Prabhupāda: Punjabi.
Prabhupāda: They have learned it.
Indian man: No, no. Fashion. Now one thing is they can hold off the rich people in India. That is not now, but about, put it back to 1944-45, during the war time. British time. That hold has become stronger. If we do not eat West, particularly America, then we are called "uncivilized." So to prove that I am civilized, there are three things. I must speak English, my children must go to missionary or convent schools, we must adopt Western customs and etiquette, and we must adopt their eating habits. Now if I'm not accepted in the American society... Even the British is now called uncivilized comparatively. If I'm not accepted by the Americans, that, "Yes, I know the standards and I live like them or even better than them," then I am supposed to be common. This is the conception of civilization amongst the Marwaris and the Gujaratis of the richer class. Previously it used to be, as they say of ancient India, that if one did not speak Sanskrit he was supposed to be uncivilized. So now that has come out...
Prabhupāda: In our childhood, my father's generation, in Calcutta, if a gentleman does not keep a prostitute extra, he is not a respectable man.
Indian man: That was in Delhi? That was during the Mogul time in Delhi? Even after the Mogul time? Not only keeping. In Delhi one of my very, my father's very close friend, Lala Sriram from Delhi...
Prabhupāda: Oh, Sriram is a famous man.
Prabhupāda: Oh, you are tiger? How are you, Mr. Tiger?
Indian man: This is Mr. Ganesh's elder son.
Prabhupāda: Now, a Tiger? Your grandson?
Indian man: Tiger. (Gujarati)
Prabhupāda: No, he is... He is tiger? Ācchā. Thank you. Hm.
Guest (2): In India? Indian languages.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Oriya, Bengali, Gujarati. Every major Indian language.
Guest (1): Can you tell us the different subjects covered by the...?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It's Vedic subjects, the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Prabhupāda: We are stressing especially on Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Guest (3) (Indian man): Do you have special on each chapter of Gītā?
Prabhupāda: Oh yes. Each word. You can show Bhagavad-gītā.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: A very authoritative presentation. For example, here's the original Sanskrit śloka, word for word...
Guest (3): For example, sāṅkhya-yoga. You have a separate book? Then sthita-prajñā. You have a separate...?
Prabhupāda: No separately. It is there in the Bhagavad-gītā.
Guest (3): But that way, your volumes are dealing with each chapter of Gītā?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: That may be. He was a scholar. They were big scholars. He was professor in Baroda University.
Dr. Patel: Professor of French and Philosophy.
Prabhupāda: There is one hall, Aurobindo Hall, in Baroda.
Dr. Patel: All followers of Aurobindo are Bengalis and Gujaratis.
Prabhupāda: Hm. No, there are others in foreign countries. He was scholar.
Dr. Patel: In the āśramas Bengalis, and Gujaratis will go fifty-fifty. There are some South Indians also there. You are from India? He had a very big following of Gujaratis.
Prabhupāda: Because he was first in Gujarat.
Dr. Patel: Baroda Maharaj, when he, when he did not appear in horse riding test, (indistinct) but he did not want to start the qualification (indistinct) So he came. So Baroda (indistinct) Maharaj knew he has came. Baroda Maharaj was in England then. He called him (indistinct). The same thing as the Britishers did at Baroda. That is, Baroda Maharaj was appreciated.
Prabhupāda: No, he was a person to be appreciated. There is no doubt. He had so many qualifications. But he was also doing yoga practice. When he was put into... No, after getting released from jail, twelve years. He was to be hanged.
Prabhupāda: Preaching must go on vigorously.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Especially book distribution is getting very strong with Indians.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Preaching means book distribution. Now utilize here this flag ceremony.
Girirāja: Yes.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Flag ceremony. Oh that Gujarati? They have a... When is that?
Girirāja: On the tenth. Procession is on the tenth.
Prabhupāda: Do in such a way that that Sharma will feel something.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Only thing is most of our devotees may be in Allahabad. January 10th? All the devotees will be in Allahabad for that Kumbhamela and I don't think we have enough to...
Prabhupāda: No, no. They can go after the tenth.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: After tenth. Okay.
Prabhupāda: By fourteenth or by thirteenth. It takes only one night from here to Allahabad.
Prabhupāda: Now he has opened his mind.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: What's his name?
Girirāja: Shah.
Prabhupāda: Gujarati.
Girirāja: His father is associated with Bhogilal. He's a sharebroker but he's also a director in some of Bhogilal's company.
Prabhupāda: That Jain?
Girirāja: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Shah's are mostly Jain. Jains are useless.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Bengali is not at all very difficult.
Mr. Gupta: No, not at all. Once upon a time I could read and write. But it's just out of touch.
Prabhupāda: The Calcutta Marwaris, they speak very fluently. Yes.
Mr. Gupta: Fluently. Being in railways I've had about eight cross-country transfers. Rajkot, Ajmer, Bombay, Ahmedabad, Lohar(?). So I know as much of Gujarati and Marwari too.
Prabhupāda: Rajastani?
Mr. Gupta: Rajastani. Hindi is the mother tongue for Rajastani.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Hindi is understood everywhere. (break) ...Bhagavad-gītā, what you have learned?
Mr. Gupta: The only thing that I have been able to learn is we... I was told so, quite.(?) By keeping our mind and heart strict, we should do our work as belonging to best āśrama as best as possible. But the human beings tend to twist "as best as possible" in their own way. And that... When the realization comes... (break)
Prabhupāda: Do you realize that the modern civilization is misguided? (break) ...is the quintessence of Bhagavad-gītā. Yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati (BG 4.7). Glāniḥ. The people are misguided. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. He's Dr. Patel. He's Mr. Gupta, a railway officer. He arranged for our tickets.
Dr. Patel: That is the hotel where Lokamane(?) Tilak died. He was staying there.
Prabhupāda: Yes. It is modern standard, very nice hotel, still good hotel.
Dr. Patel: Maharastrian brāhmaṇas keep very good hotel, still good hotel. They are not as greedy as the Gujaratis. That is a fact.
Prabhupāda: No, they are following principle. Now the Gujarati are also... And Maharastra, as good. This material civilization, meat-eating, has spread like anything. Here we see, signboard: "Beef shop." We have seen.
Dr. Patel: Was it?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: There, there. Not here. They're on that side. Now they are not going to have any more beef now, from first of January. Cows are prohibited. Practically the whole India there will be no cow slaughter. That is why Vinoda Bhave was putting on a fast unto death. Still, he did not...
Jagadīśa: I thought he killed bulls.(?)
Dr. Patel: Bulls I included in cows. In place they will kill the buffaloes. The buffaloes are tamed. I don't know how in the world, sir, nowhere these buffaloes are tamed as it is in India. That means what height of these things Indian people must have reached to tame the wild animals.
Prabhupāda: No, buffaloes are killed.
rabhupāda: More work; more use your intelligence. Prāṇair arthair dhiyā vācā: with life, with money, with intelligence, with words to serve Kṛṣṇa. Etāvaj janma-sa-phala tvam. This is the perfection of life. How? Etāvaj janma-sal..., janma-sa-phala tvam dehinām iha dehiṣu. Iha dehi... This, in human body... Those who have got body as dog, cats, they have got body. But iha dehiṣu, this human form for perfection... And how that perfection is achieved? Prāṇair arthair dhiyā vācā śreya ācaraṇaṁ sadā: "With your life, with your money, with your intelligence, with your words, serve." That is perfect life.
Trivikrama: Today we have an engagement at the Gujarati... What was that?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Nathdvar?
Prabhupāda: Here?
Trivikrama: In Bombay. In the city we have a...
Prabhupāda: So books are selling?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Which ones selling?
Trivikrama: Well, they want mostly in Gujarati. They didn't read Hindi. There is magazines and Īśopaniṣad.
Prabhupāda: This magazine you have got?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. We have stock of Gujarati books also.
Prabhupāda: No, this magazine.
Prabhupāda: You make expert, on quality expert.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We are doing all the Gujarati covers in Bombay now, and I wrote to Jayapataka. We can even do the Bengali printing here.
Prabhupāda: In India, Bombay is best. There are many offset printing houses.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Like in the Bengali Back to Godhead they did in Calcutta, they spent eight paisa more per copy printing than Bombay, and quality was much inferior. So now I said, "You compose over there..."
Prabhupāda: Typeset is Delhi good, but offset-Bombay.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: So what I've told them, Śrīla Prabhupāda, is they can get the composing done in Bengal, Calcutta, then send it to me, like I get the Hindi composing done in Vṛndāvana and mail it to Bombay for printing. So it is cheaper and good quality, plus we have the whole department set up. One boy, Pippalai, he just takes care of technical aspects. And we have a shipping department all set up now. Two boys work just on the shipping.
Prabhupāda: So supply department keep in one place.
Prabhupāda: The dog also knows that he's in the cage.
Bhāgavata: This is an Indian lion, from India. They have captured in India. And they also have African lions in here.
Gurukṛpa: Gujarati. It's a Gujarati.
Bhāgavata: From the forest of Katiwan.(?) (break)
Prabhupāda: ...monkey and cow. Rajo-guṇa, tamo-guṇa, sattva-guṇa. Lion in the rajo-guṇa, monkey in the tamo-guṇa and cow in the sattva-guṇa.
Hari-śauri: What about the cows that they slaughter? Do they have to continue in a cow birth?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Bhāgavata: These are African lions.
Prabhupāda: Oh. They are bigger?
Bhāgavata: Little different species. Different color. (lion growls)
Satsvarūpa: Don't tease him.
Prabhupāda: No, don't tease him. After all, they are lion. Hm, they are bigger, very big. Here there is cubs?
Bhāgavata: Inside there are cubs.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Gandhi was born in...?
Prabhupāda: Gandhi is a Gujarati.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But he went to South Africa.
Prabhupāda: Yes. South Af... He had no practice here. One attorney, he told me in Bombay that "Your Gandhi was waiting for cases here, sitting in this chair." He was not even successful lawyer. Then he got a case in Africa. He thought it wise, "Let me go there." And there, instead of becoming a lawyer, he became a political agitator. So to take equal status for the Indians he fought there. And that was failure. Still it is going on. They are very determined not to give any advantage to anyone except these whites.
Hari-śauri: They know as soon as they give little leeway, then their whole government will be finished.
Prabhupāda: Very strict. Still, they purchase my books.
Prabhupāda: Trinidad, there are many Indians. They know Hindi.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. They were waiting for Hindi books.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Give them. Print huge quantity. This is very important item, our book distribution. Whole Bombay, whole building should be stocked. Hindi, Gujarati, Telegu, so that one house for one stock. And try to, mean, vacate even by giving them. Simply our business, nothing else. And those who are devotees, they'll follow you, and they can come and live. That's all. And engage whatever help they can give.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You had a plan to make another building on the Bombay land.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is already in the...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Contemplated.
Prabhupāda: Municipality judge will not sanction. They're harassing our...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Still.
Prabhupāda: That man is there.
Prabhupāda: This kitchen management is a great art. That attracts men. Tā'ra madhye jihwā ati, lobhamoy sudurmati, tā'ke jetā kaṭhina saṁsāre, kṛṣṇa baṛo doyāmoy, koribāre jihwā jay, swa-prasād. Give varieties of prasāda. That is required. That is the art.
Hari-śauri: We're going to need some very expert cooks for our Bombay center.
Prabhupāda: You change it. You change it. The Gujarati, they know it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, Gujarati cooks.
Prabhupāda: I asked Bhogilal. He sent, but they cancelled.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The same thing. I once arranged for Shantilal's brother, and they cancelled. The thing is there's an art of dealing with these servants. You have to know how to handle them. Otherwise... They have to be treated like the children in the family.
Prabhupāda: No, not... Treat them as master-servant tactfully.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rādhā-vallabha: Sixth is Portuguese, 835,000. Seventh, Dutch, 593,000. Eighth, Italian, 448,000. Ninth, Hindi, 315,000. Tenth, Bengali, 305,000. Eleventh is Telegu, 115,000. Twelfth is Swahili... This is also another estimate, 110,000. Fourteenth is Chinese... Thirteenth is Gujarati, 90,000. Fourteenth is Chinese, 55,000. Fifteenth is Marathi, 25,000. Korean, 20,000. Yugoslavian, 20,000. Oriya, 20,000. Polish 10,000. Hungarian, 10,000. Czechoslovakian, 10,000. Tamil, 10,000. Russian 5,000. And the total is 55,314,000.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Russian is last. Yes.
Rāmeśvara: It's the most difficult.
Prabhupāda: But something is better than nothing. Kānā māmā. ("Blind Uncle")
Gargamuni: When we were in Rangoon and Bangkok, they were most interested in those Russian reviews, and we got very good response there. In Rangoon they're doing reviews, and they loved the books. They treated them as gold. They said, "This printing and Sanskrit and word-for-word... We have never seen such a translation!"
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: That is composing mistake.
Yaśomatī-nandana: Otherwise it's nice.
Hari-śauri: It's a big breakthrough for our book distribution. Once the Hindi Bhagavad-gītā comes out then there'll be no stopping.
Prabhupāda: And you are having Gujarati?
Yaśomatī-nandana: Gujarati, yes. We are... We have started printing the Bhagavad-gītā in Gujarati. It is long due, but it is coming now. In two months it'll be ready.
Hari-śauri: Once your Bhagavad-gītā gets on the Indian market, everybody else will be finished.
Yaśomatī-nandana: Yes. So many beautiful pictures and...
Hari-śauri: But once they read the philosophy they'll immediately understand what nonsense they've been reading for so many years.
Yaśomatī-nandana: Yes. Anyone who reads it, he is finished. All his nonsense is finished. That's a fact. He must become a devotee.
Hari-śauri: Everybody's telling them that "Whatever you believe, that's all right. It's all the same." You're telling them that "You either accept Kṛṣṇa or you're a demon."
Yaśomatī-nandana: Just now the political situation in India is so...
Prabhupāda: Tense.
Prabhupāda: Facility will be given. He has everything. Our father is not impotent. He is potent. The overpopulation theory, it is wrong. If the father has given birth to so many children, He knows how to provide them.
Hari-śauri: It is just an excuse to cover up their mismanagement.
Prabhupāda: That's it. Our philosophy is clear.
Indian man: (Gujarati)
Prabhupāda: Here is switch for the fan and light.
Indian man: Fan, light, balcony and plug. (discussion by men working on some electrical things)
Prabhupāda: It is settled up now.
Indian man: Yes, sir. He has joined the cabinet.
Prabhupāda: He should be given some position.
Prabhupāda: Both of them.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Have you met his friend yet? That Sarvabhāvana? He is very nice, also. Sarvabhāvana brought Gopīnātha to the movement. They were friends in Germany.
Prabhupāda: They both of them know English very nicely. Now some Bengali literature should come out. Hindi, Bengali, English, any, sufficient for the time being. Gujarati.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But no one from the Bengali side is as expert and hard-working in this matter as Gopāla Kṛṣṇa is here. That's one point. Pañcaratna is a good man, but I mean he himself doesn't speak the language. So I feel that Gopāla will get more done in Hindi than they can get done in Bengali because...
Prabhupāda: No, Bengali he's useless.(?) After finishing (indistinct) we will simply print. That's all. When the task is finished printing, Gopāla can print.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's my thought. He should do the printing of all the books.
Prabhupāda: And he will do that. He'll do that.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's in English only. Then it also is published in Spanish and Portuguese, German, French, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Hindi, Bengali...
Prabhupāda: Gujarati.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Gujarati, Telegu. Recently we came out with Hungarian publication. (pause)
Indian (1): Swamiji, your idea is to have some international institution.
Prabhupāda: Yes, this is international.
Indian (1): No, we must made to speak your needs of the mankind...
Prabhupāda: Yes, they are following. They are following. I want to make it more speedy, but I have no help. Now, for the time being... Now these boys are helping me, and government is driving them away: "Get out! Get out!" Can you not help me in this?
Mr. Rajda: Correct. Actually ...
Prabhupāda: No Indians are coming. I am bringing men and money from there, and government is driving them: "Get out!" This is my position. And if one boy goes back and again comes—ten thousand rupees. In this way I am losing five to six lakhs of rupees per year—for nothing. This is the co-operation of the government.
Prabhupāda: Yes, everyone. And there are so many spices.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The spice merchants are usually pious men who become members, I have found. In any city...
Prabhupāda: They have got money.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. Very often the Marwaris, they are in that...
Prabhupāda: Gujarati.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The Gujarati, yeah, Gujarat. In Bombay there is a big Bombay Tri(?). Pañcadraviḍa Swami, that was his special area. He would go down there, huge spice area.
Prabhupāda: There is a special name of that place. Everyone, every poor man or rich man, must use quantity of spice.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I was surprised. In Bombay this one life member, very wealthy man... I thought, "Oh, this man must have many businesses." And I found that he only had one business. He simply exports cardamom. And he's a very wealthy man, and he simply exports little cardamom seeds, but such quantities, and it fetches a very good price abroad.
Prabhupāda: Yes, there are many merchants. They deal in quantity and stock huge. Nobody can compete with him.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's a fact.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "I am constantly filling this into the minds of the members of the Library Party. We are now emphasizing your books as a library of Encyclopedia of Vedic Knowledge, and I am herewith enclosing reviews from the biggest Marathi, Gujarati, and Sindhi scholars."
Prabhupāda: Yes, it is very nice. He has done quite efficiently.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, there's another thing. This whole thing, these are new reviews I'm going to read to you.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "I also have other good news." He says, "The Andhra Pradesh government has sent a newsletter to all libraries in the state, requesting them to order our books, as they are approved by the state." Wow!
Prabhupāda: So you can do it from other provinces also.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Also, the Endowments Commission has also written to all the temples in Andhra Pradesh requesting them to purchase our books." Very important.
Prabhupāda: Vṛndāvana, minister is very favorable to us.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "In addition, the Gujarati government has requested all libraries in the state to purchase our books by way of newsletter."
Prabhupāda: Oh. Wonderful.
Prabhupāda: There is no "if." Print.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay.
Yaśomatīnandana: We don't have money now.
Prabhupāda: Similarly, you also, Gujarati.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We are working together, but we don't have that much capital.
Prabhupāda: Why not? Use it... You can...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But that we are using for the export order.
Prabhupāda: If they take money, that, and use it. Then...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, as we get money. Like the first shipment has just gone and we... Till it comes back, we are... But one point is clear. There's no book that we're printing in India that is out of stock. There's no book out of stock. Sometimes devotees misinform you for selfish reasons that we are out of stock, but there's no book out of stock that we are printing in India.
Prabhupāda: This paper is nice.
Prabhupāda: No, the manuscript you take. I want to see at least manuscript is not left idle. That is...
Yaśomatīnandana: Now, with your blessings, we'll go very fast.
Prabhupāda: Now we have got some position, Hindi books.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Gujarati books also should be same standard.
Prabhupāda: Yes, same standard. Very nice, Hindi books. All right.
Devotees: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Thank you very much. Be enthusiastic to print books. And these items are very, very nice, greeting.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Greeting cards. This will overtake India, take everyone by storm. Plus, we are coming up with calendars next year.
Prabhupāda: Yes, make money and spend it for printing.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. And plus, the temples make money also. It's a new source of income for the temples. And if we don't do it, the karmīs are doing it in any case.
Prabhupāda: No, no, we shall do exactly like karmīs, but not for us. For Kṛṣṇa. That is the difference. Same thing we are doing. Therefore these Māyāvādī cannot understand. "Again form?" The example is just like a man like me, he's diseased, he's suffering. And when they say, "Mother Yaśodās' crying," "So again crying?" He does not know what is this crying. He thinks this crying and that crying the same. Therefore Māyāvādī. They want to make it zero—no crying. But we take it a great blessing, crying for Kṛṣṇa. But they cannot understand. They say, "Again crying? Then what is the benefit?" And this is māyā. You understand? This is the simple understanding of Māyāvāda. As soon as there is crying, they say, "Oh, it is māyā. No crying." Nirviśeṣa-vādī. Crying is a great transcendental pleasure. That they cannot understand, the poor fund of knowledge. Caitanya Mahāprabhu was simply crying. That is love. So that they do not understand, how crying can be pleasure. That is Māyāvāda. All right.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Very nice. So you are being recognized. You are doing good, so he's doing good.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: He's doing good.
Yaśomatīnandana: I have got four or five books in Gujarati ready.
Prabhupāda: Why not print them?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We're printing them. I was in Ahmedabad last week, and we finalized plans to print those books.
Prabhupāda: Print.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We are purposely using government paper on this to keep the prices low.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Oh, yes. Use government paper.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Because in India...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What's the price of this book?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We are going to sell it for sixteen rupees or twenty rupees. Actually our life members love these books.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: All right. Whatever manuscript you have ready, print.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Because it blocks up too much money otherwise, because we don't have much money, and we're going to print five books in Gujarati now, so we just invest the minimum.
Prabhupāda: I want to see, whatever manuscript is ready, they should be printed.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Also, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we've come out with Diwali cards this year. These are going to be very, very big. Inside is a message. We are selling hundreds of these. On this BBT will make a very big profit plus the temples will make a profit. We are selling these exclusively to our life members. And on the back is the mahā-mantra. I brought you a package with me. This is another sample.
Yaśomatīnandana: This is going to be very profitable business.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: In the shop it sells for four rupees, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Yaśomatīnandana: We'll sell it for two rupees to our men.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: One-fifty. I've sent you a newsletter to all the temples.
Yaśomatīnandana: We'll sell for two rupees.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We want bulk orders.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How much do they cost?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: The BBT cost I'll tell you later.
Prabhupāda: Thank you very much.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Translator? Anyway, it is the teachings.
Yaśomatīnandana: (reads Sanskrit verse, Hindi translation)
Prabhupāda: Very nice.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Plus, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we're getting ready to print the Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil Gītās. We're going to do the color plates together.
Prabhupāda: Next you make Gujarati.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, we're doing the Gujarati Gītā. We have five books ready, and London has already ordered five thousand copies.
Prabhupāda: So why not print?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We are.
Yaśomatīnandana: Just we have to... The titles are being printed in Bombay.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. (indistinct) And Bombay is not far away.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. (indistinct) And Bombay is not far away.
Yaśomatīnandana: We have Teachings of Lord Caitanya ready, Nectar of Devotion is being ready. Perfection of Yoga is ready.
Prabhupāda: Gujarati books will sell very nice all over the world. Gujarati people are all over the world.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. I told England to take five thousand.
Prabhupāda: Everywhere they have made colonies. So I am getting very good news, book distribution, from Europe and America.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Rāmeśvara Swami told me the book distribution has doubled in America.
Prabhupāda: And Communist country wonderfully.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I'll show you that letter that I got from Russia inviting us to come to the...
Prabhupāda: Caitanya-caritāmṛta. They have sold at least thirty to forty lakhs' worth Caitanya-caritāmṛta.
Yaśomatīnandana: Pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi grāma (CB Antya-khaṇḍa 4.126) .
Prabhupāda: Bengali's price.(?) Still, they are purchasing. This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mercy.
Prabhupāda: Other things you can do, but you... This your only main business. Now do it very pleasingly so that you can... So whatever you have done, it is very pleasing.
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.
Prabhupāda: You consult among you. So I want to see simply distribution of books in any language. That I want.
Yaśomatīnandana: I'm still printing Bhāgavata Darśana every month.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We just sent fifteen hundred of the last three issues to England—Gujarati.
Prabhupāda: Gujarati. Gujarati you can send anywhere. It will be... Any outside, in outside, outside India, any country, Gujaratis are there—Africa, Europe, America. Africa is Gujarati country. England. England also. All the guests we receive from pandals.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Patels.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: San Francisco too.
Prabhupāda: Eighty percent, they're from Gujarat.
Prabhupāda: You can make an ideal place. Very good.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Very good temple. And actually the farm is worth five or six lakhs' rupees. All surroundings all good. And another good thing I found was in Hyderabad the neighboring villagers were against us when we went there, but here they're all favorable. They all say "Hare Kṛṣṇa." When you walk, they greet you enthusiastically.
Prabhupāda: Gujarati people are Vaiṣṇava by nature.
Yaśomatīnandana: One boy that is there, they invite him for prasāda, and then they fan him.
Prabhupāda: Do it nicely. All facilities will come.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They can make small cottages for the gṛhasthas.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: And then they'll be happy there.
Prabhupāda: Weekly visitors. Two-rooms cottage.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This will attract a lot of people.
Prabhupāda: And it will cost not more than fifteen thousand, two-room cottage.
Prabhupāda: That is... As quickly as possible. No manuscript should be left vacant. That I want. Here and there I have more money invested. Now you don't...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No. We're not leaving anything.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: There are four Gujarati books now also coming out.
Prabhupāda: Print.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, we have already finalized.
Prabhupāda: Print.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Those Diwali cards, Śrīla Prabhupāda, which I showed you? They're selling very well.
Prabhupāda: That is business, earn money. That's all.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. That's why I... Every day we are getting orders of more than thousand cards just in Delhi.
Prabhupāda: Just see.
Prabhupāda: So maintain the branch by local devotee.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He says, "Shree Lanka is definitely a first-class field for preaching, and we are being accepted by Sindhis, Gujaratis, Tamils, and Singhalese, Christians and Buddhists alike. All kinds of people are becoming attracted to the movement. It is very encouraging. Only the government policies are a nuisance. We now have twenty-five life members." Why can't he just go out and get a visa and go back in there? Just like we go out and come right back, why can't he come to..., get a visa and then go right back in?
Gargamuni: He can do it in two days.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If he can do that, is that best?
Prabhupāda: That would be very nice. Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. Because if he leaves now, whatever he's done will be lost. Those new men are not ready yet to do on their own.
Prabhupāda: He can come and go.
Prabhupāda: And print Hindi books, Gujarati books also.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. The Gujarati Gītā will be ready in one month. I have already finished printing the color pictures for Hindi Gītā, Gujarati Gītā and Telegu Gītā. It's already completed. That Telegu Gītā is being printed in Hyderabad, and the Gujarati Gītā is also at the printers. And the Hindi Gītā is being composed. Plus we are doing a Kannada Gītā in Kanarese language.
Prabhupāda: Is it necessary?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. We have a temple in Bangalore, and they need it for distribution in Bangalore. But this will be just your verses and translation, like they have done in Telegu two years ago, a small book which they can sell for one rupee or two rupees.
Prabhupāda: Don't keep money unnecessarily. Invest.
Prabhupāda: So why...? Turn them into books.
Girirāja: (whispering) "I think that in the BBT there's five, six lakhs. So why not transform it into books?"
Prabhupāda: Hindi books can be distributed all over the world.
Girirāja: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Similarly Gujarati, and English to Australia. Why money should be kept in the bank?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't think it will be any more, now that we have your direction. You actually gave us directions about a week ago, and I think they're going to carry through on it.
Prabhupāda: Don't depend on one printer.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. Actually Jayapatākā is very enthusiastic for printing also. It's pretty easy to print at two different places, because once you have the plates, they can simply be... You know, the photos, offset machines. Once you have the negatives, you can simply send them, and they can be printed anywhere.
Hṛdayānanda: Anywhere in the world.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. And especially you can send them from Bombay to Calcutta. There's no hindrance. (Girirāja whispering)
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Girirāja: Well, I wrote a prayer to Lord Kṛṣṇa for your health. So I was... It's in the next room. I was thinking of bringing it and reading it.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: And the Hindi Gītā is being composed. It will be ready by middle December, the latest. And also the Hindi Kṛṣṇa book is being composed, plus we have eight books in Gujarati which are in various stages of production. And the Tamil Gītā is being composed and printed, and we're doing a Gītā in Kanarese language, and also a Back to Godhead in Kanarese.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is that enough stock? Ten thousand? Doesn't seem like a very big printing. Jayapatākā came there. His men came there, and they couldn't get any books.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, they were out of stock... They didn't have that much when they leave.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It may happen again.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, but now we have reprinted many new titles. In total we have fifty thousand books.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's not much. You have so much distribution. (they discuss softly)
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Plus we are starting to construct a BBT godown. Surabhī Swami is working on that because now we are printing so many books, and also we have a big shipment of books from America that we definitely need a very huge godown in Bombay. Last time you had approved giving a loan of four lakhs for the godown.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. Three lakhs. One lakh for printing, three lakhs for the godown.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: (softly) No.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. You said that the godown would only cost three lakhs.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Three to four is the estimate. (to Prabhupāda:) So we are going to start work on the godown in November.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, that's nice. Now, as soon as our six Gujarati books are ready, we are starting this mail order campaign even for Gujarati books and for Hindi books. Actually by this mail order technique we will sell more books than we sell on the streets or in colleges. Just in two months I sold more Gītās...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How many?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Over a thousand ...than we did in two years of library party. And I'm expanding this to...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. They sell more. They have more than that, standing orders.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: What I'm saying it's very good. A thousand Gītās in two months is very good. Now I'm expanding this to the Bhāgavatam.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Unless you have good godown, it will be stolen and sold in the market at cheap price.
Prabhupāda: Very good news. Now can see. This material body may remain or not remain. This movement will push on.(?) That is wanted. Where is such thing throughout the whole world? Hm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There aren't, except in our temples. He says, "By Kṛṣṇa's grace the most wonderful Janmāṣṭamī celebration was held at the big farm āśrama in South Africa. The celebration included the opening of a new temple and prasādam facility, two new life membership cottages and three overnight guest rooms, initiation of four new devotees and two brāhmaṇa initiations, a play, a massive prasādam distribution, go-pūjā, a transcendental treasure hunt for the children, ecstatic chanting by all, and distribution of books, records, posters and tapes. We enclose pictures of the various events, as well as newspaper articles. The newspapers were all one-hundred-percent favorable, and one even had a four-page article on ISKCON. The Gujarati ladies from Durban and Pietermaritzburg all came early to help cook puris and halavā. They cooked about one quarter ton of halavā (Prabhupāda chuckles) and over eight thousand puris, all of which were distributed. At least fifteen thousand people attended the two-day festival, and all of the most important big Indian businessmen and millionaires attended. Two days before the event, a large marquee, able to hold twenty-five hundred people, was erected, and the initiations and the play were held inside. The play especially was most successful, as the top Indian stage and lighting men in South Africa were giving us technical assistance. It was so nice that even some of the ladies were in tears during the performance. The go-pūjā was also a massively popular event, as none of the local people had ever seen such a thing before. In fact, many people came up to the devotees and were saying things like, 'We left India thirty years ago, and I never saw anything like this before.' So far, the Indian community..." (break)
Bhavānanda: And the other one is that Ādi-keśava Mahārāja, he has a friend in Delhi named Chandi Das. He's a big yogi, I think?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, he's from America.
Bhavānanda: He has quite a bit of money. And so Ādi-keśava called him up, and he had a kavirāja in the Rāmānuja-sampradāya. And Chandi Das went to see his kavirāja, and his kavirāja had just gotten finished mixing makara-dhvaja medicine. He'd been preparing it for the past ten days. And Śatadhanya Mahārāja and Ādi-keśava were just now going over to see this kavirāja. That Chandi Das has purchased seven tolās of the medicine for Your Divine Grace as a gift. They are going over to pick it up.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Just see. Kṛṣṇa arranges. Just see.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He was very impressed. He is naturally a devotee, Gujarati. He's naturally a Kṛṣṇa devotee. He can appreciate the importance of ārati and Deities.
Brahmānanda: That man from that āśrama...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Aurobindo.
Brahmānanda: Auroville. He was poisonous, very poisonous. Mr. Bajaj wanted to conduct the proceedings in English just so that I would be able to understand, because I was sitting as your representative, but that man refused.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What did he say?
Brahmānanda: Well, he just spoke in Hindi, and he said something in Hindi to Mr. Bajaj that "I want to speak in Hindi," and he continued speaking in Hindi.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: All artificial platform, surface. "Hindu, Indian, Hindi."
Brahmānanda: He was very envious, that Auroville, of what is going on.
Jayādvaita: They're nothing.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They are nothing. No one ever heard of them outside of India.
Prabhupāda: Aurobindo never preached in Hindi.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But whether Prabhupāda will eat some? Prabhupāda, you will try to eat the Gujarati ruṭi and ḍāl?
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Kavirāja: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Bhakti-caru: (Hindi about different foods with Prabhupāda and kavirāja)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You want to try some mālapuyās later on tonight?
Bhakti-caru: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Bhakti-caru: Prabhupāda will let us know. (Bengali) One too hot. Just like the way it was today. (Bengali)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Shrikand. That's very good for you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, shrikand.
Prabhupāda: Oh, shrikand.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's a good preparation for you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, very nutritious.
Bhakti-caru: (Bengali with Prabhupāda)
Prabhupāda: So, where is Bharadvāja?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Bharadvāja is here, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: So you can sing.
Correspondence
1968 Correspondence
I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated July 2nd, 1968. The language was Hindi, and the script was Gujarati. I am not accustomed to read Gujarati script, but I can understand a little Hindi. Anyway, I have grasped the substance of your letter that you are a devotee of Lord Krishna Rancorji, of Dakore. You also desire to become my disciple. You have passed your M.Com. degree; and you want to stay with my other disciples in San Francisco. These are all nice proposals. And I think there is nothing objectionable. Gargamuni came here day before yesterday, and he has gone back yesterday after noon. He spoke to me about you, that you are coming in the temple and taking some active part in the affairs of our temple. I understand also that you have come to USA on students' visa.
Perhaps you will appreciate that this Radha Krishna temple is the one only in San Francisco. And I know there are many Gujarati gentlemen in San Francisco to whom you can approach for improvement of the temple. If we get our own temple we can organize so many things, which will be appreciated both by the Indians and the Americans. So far business is concerned, Gargamuni is getting goods from some importer on credit, and he is selling the goods and then paying him the amount. So, he has not got to invest his capital in the business, but he is a good salesman. And if you can import some goods, according to his choice, and on your account, I think he will have no objection to purchase from you on the same system as he is doing with others. He did not talk with me about your business proposal. Under the circumstances, if you want to do something, you can talk with Gargamuni personally, and if he consults me I shall give my opinion. I know your community Patels in Gujarati are business community.
So, I shall not try to implicate you in business if you are not ready to award the profit for Krishna's benefit. The best thing will be that if you can come here for some days, say, at least for a fortnight, you can remain here with us in the temple here, and talk with me in details before you become my disciple. Actually, I shall be very glad to accept an educated and intelligent disciple like you, but first of all we must meet and you should know whether you can accept me as your Spiritual Master, or I can accept you as my disciple. This is preliminary necessity. I am therefore requesting you to come here at least for a fortnight, and let us understand one another. I think it is better if you reply me this letter in English, because I find it difficult in reading Gujarati, script, though I can understand Hindi fairly well.
I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 17th July, 1968, delivered to me just yesterday, after a month, on account of the mail strike. Anyway, I am very glad to learn that you are approaching the Gujarati people in San Francisco, and asking them for their support in the temple, that is a great satisfaction for me. Next time when I go to San Francisco, I wish to visit personally all the Gujarati residents of San Francisco, through your exigency and I shall be glad to speak to them about my mission. My mission is to establish that Krishna Stu Bhagavan Swayam. The International Society for Krishna Consciousness wants to establish that one God, one scripture, one mantra, and one service. One God is Krishna, one scripture is Bhagavad-gita, one mantra is Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, and one service means everything for the Lord. So it is pleasing to me that the Gujarati ladies and gentlemen who are in San Francisco, they should take keen interest in this movement because superficially or from the historical point of view, Krishna was a Gujarati. His father was a Gujarati, but His maternal uncle's house was in Mathura. And His foster father's house was at Vrindaban. So of course, these are superficial, so even we take Krishna as a historical Person, the Gujaratis must take more interest than others.
If you strictly follow the rules and regulations and become American priests, of the temple, so the Indian hindus will be surprised and certainly they will be attracted. Just like the hindus in San Francisco are being gradually attracted due to our nice temple arrangement here. They will hold a meeting here with me tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. to consider how to improve the temple. One of the Gujarati devotees has contributed a silver Vigraha of Krishna, and has donated $51.00. I came here to San Francisco last Sunday, the 8th, and there was a nice function of installing the Deity in the temple throne, and initiation of several newcomers devotees. I thought that Cidananda could go to Australia, but that idea has not been successful because the man in charge is an atheist, and as he scented that Cidananda is going to establish a center of Hare Krishna, he has withdrawn his cooperation and proved that his country is very unfortunate. So I am asking Gaurasundara to go to Hawaii or Florida. Gargamuni has already started one center at Seattle and Ananda Brahmacari from Montreal has gone to Vancouver. And New Vrindaban is being taken care of by several devotees.
Gargamuni has already opened a grand center in Seattle. Similarly, Annapurna and Ananda are going to open a center in Vancouver, and you know also that Hayagriva and Kirtanananda, with the help of several other devotees are developing New Vrindaban in 138 acres of land in West Va. Also, Dinesh and Krishna devi are going to Florida. In Florida we have 10 acres of land arranged by Dayananda and Nandarani. So all my disciples here are doing marvelously in spreading Krishna Consciousness. In San Francisco, Jayananda arranged a grand meeting yesterday amongst the Gujarati community here and most probably we shall very soon have our own gorgeous temple in San Francisco. So everyone is doing very nicely and I hope that you two also do something wonderful in India. And Bombay is the right place. As you don't like to reside in Vrindaban, but you prefer a city like Delhi, then the best city in India is Bombay. There, you don't require to speak Hindi or Bengali, all gentlemen and residents there speak in English. So you will have better facility to work there and probably to establish a center there. I do not know why you are hesitating.
So after returning to India, if you can organize some opinion, at least the Vaisnava sect, in your Gujarat, there are so many Vaisnavas. All over there are so many Vaisnavas. So they should come forward to cooperate with me, then it will be a very nice organization. We want to establish that one God, Krishna; one scripture, Bhagavad-gita; one mantra Hare Krishna; and one work, service to the Supreme Lord. And people are responding. So please try to cooperate with me. So far government is concerned, they will not copperate. They have become secular. But even the people do not cooperate, how it will be successful? Please, therefore, try to organize Indian opinion to cooperate with me, that will be a great help. And so long you are here in America, just try to induce our Gujarati friends to cooperate, and have our own temple, at least in San Francisco.
1969 Correspondence
Of course, during the Hindu government in India, the kings were mostly Vaisnavas like Maharaja Pariksit, and he at once caught the Black man Kali who was attempting to kill a cow. But those days are no more. Neither there is a king like Maharaja Pariksit, nor the present government of India is inclined to give protection to the cows. But the mercantile community, specially the Gujaratis and the Marwaris are undoubtedly rich in India, and I do not know why such mercantile communities do not open large-scale dairy farms. That will certainly give actual protection to the cows. From Bhagavad-gita we understand that the Vaisya community is specially responsible for giving protection to the cows as much as the ksatriya kings are responsible for giving protection to the citizens of the state. As such, if you can organize-and I believe you can do so, because by Grace of Krishna, you are in good position amongst the mercantile community—big dairy farms with large pasturing grounds, then the problem of milk supply and cow protection will automatically be done. I do not know how much you will appreciate my this suggestion, but if you can do such organization, it will be a great service to the country and to the animals, and to this cause of Krishna Consciousness. If you be serious on this point then I can help you with all of my possible energies.
Another news is that Mother Syama dasi came to L.A. with some of her Gujarati devotees. She appeared to be nice Vaisnavi. And she wants to work in cooperation with me. I have told her that I have no objection but how we shall cooperate, that is to be formulated when we meet next. In the meantime, she has said that she has collected some money from the Indian community in London, perhaps 10,000 pounds, and she is anxious to start a temple there. So you can think over this matter, how we can cooperate with her. You just sit down together all of you. Of course, it is a remote program, but if she purchases a temple, and if we jointly conduct the affairs of the temple, that is not objectionable, but we must strictly follow our principles. Anyway, when she actually purchases a house for the temple and if she invites me I shall go to London and do the needful all together.
In the meantime I am just sending you information. She offered her respect unto me just like her Spiritual Master, several times she touched my feet, and her devotees contributed $20. And she contributed $5. She has got Sri Sri Radha Krishna Murti with her always, and she chants Hare Krishna, so if there is any possibility of cooperating then we shall welcome it. She and her Gujarati devotees have invited me to go to Africa so I told her that if I go to London then I may go to Africa from there.
When Mataji Syamadevi came to see me in Los Angeles she was very respectful to me, every time she was touching my feet and offering obeisances. She was also very serious of having my cooperation in spreading the Krishna Consciousness Movement. I understand also that she has got some influence amongst the African Hindus, generally Gujaratis. I understand that she has already purchased a place in Leicester, although it is 125 miles away from London. If I go there in London it may be possible for me to take the management of the temple because she is very much eager to have my cooperation. So I am asking your opinion after consulting amongst yourselves whether I shall go as invited by her. Suppose if I can induce her to give you all a place to remain together, and if you go from there to London, and then back again, will this be too inconvenient for you? Is there any suitable travelling facilities from Leicester to London? On the whole, Mataji Syamadevi is ready to cooperate with me, and she has asked me to go to London. So if you think it wise, I can go on receipt of your reply of this letter. Wherever I go Devananda and Purusottama go also as my personal assistants. I do not know if you are prepared to send fare for three, but if my presence will be nice there, send the money for at least two, either send it yourself or through Mataji, and I shall immediately start.
I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated September 30th, 1969. Our temple is situated at 7, Bury Place, London, but I am staying at the garden house belonging to Mr. John Lennon, a world-wide famous man in music and one of the richest men in England. The news which you have read in the Gujarati newspaper that some young English boys are chanting Hare Krishna Mantra in a garden house near London is this place. Here also we have got a nice temple given to us by Mr. Lennon, and sufficient land is here also so we are collecting young, enthusiastic devotees to come and live here and make another colony of Vaisnavas like our New Vrindaban in West Virginia. So there was a nice reception here when I arrived, and I am enclosing herewith one of the newspaper clippings and my London lecture list also. Last Monday I lectured on "Teachings of the Vedas", and it was very much appreciated by the audience. I spoke for about one hour and after that they continued clapping, which confirms their appreciation. Our temple at 7, Bury Place is being nicely decorated, and as soon as my apartment is fixed up nicely I shall move there.
1970 Correspondence
In London there are many Indians, especially Gujaratis and Punjabis. All of them were astonished to see how American boys and girls were preaching Hare Krishna Mantra. They were invited to many centers both by the Indians and Europeans, but it was very difficult to find out a suitable house there in the midst of the city. My Guru Maharaja liked to start centers in the busiest part of a city. So, forty years ago, my Guru Maharaja attempted to start a Temple there, but someway or other it was not possible. Still, I cherished a strong desire to start a Temple in the heart of the city, and by Lord Krishna's grace these boys and girls rented a five storied house in the busiest quarter of central London, at 7 Bury Place, which is near to the British Museum, London University, Great Russell Street, and Bloomsbury Square. The British Museum is just a few stones on the left side of our Temple. Our activities are going on regularly in London. There are about 35 English and American boys and girls.
1971 Correspondence
Another thing is that we are in correspondence with Dai Nippon; they are trying to mingle the BTG account with my "Bhaktivedanta Book Fund Deposit" (BBFD) account, making them one. So unless you hear from me, you do not send more than $3,986.56 to the BBFD with Dai Nippon, which is the balance due at this time. You can send the BTG payments to them as usual but not any money for my Book Fund. They thought that because I have given $20,000 on behalf of BTG, I should pay off the entire debt of BTG from my Book Fund. So don't send them money for Book Fund until I inform you otherwise. Also, the Gujarati Indian devotees in San Francisco wanted to pay $20,000 for the printing of Bhagavad-gita As It Is. I do not know what is their position now; please let me know about this.
1972 Correspondence
I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated May 13, 1972 and I have noted the contents carefully. I am very pleased to learn from you your system of filing of all life members to insure that they receive all our literatures. Our life members in India must be kept alive. This literature will keep them alive, plus kirtana. So far the Gujarati translating work done by Srimati Sharda M. Vyasa, for the time being, let us produce magazines in English and Hindi languages and perhaps at some later time we may be able to print in local languages our BTG also. But for that there must be many, many subscribers. So for the time being, you may compile Srimati Vyasa's translation work into a small book and print locally. Gujarati is important language, so I do not think there is lack of market. Your idea for distributing our literatures in outside cities by sending altogether in one parcel to one person is very much appreciated. In this way all our members in one place may be advised to take delivery from him. Just like in Surat.
I am glad to hear that you will be going to Gujarat state for about one month and that you are preparing one Gujarati BTG for distributing there. Tamala Krishna is doing very nicely by this traveling program in Bihar and Bengal. But one thing, why still insisting on this truck? Rather I have already explained, that in the interior preaching will not be suitable for you. Our business is in the big towns of India with the persons who speak in English language, so go town to town, and for that there is already the ___ arrangement of train, bus, like that. But I have given you the ___ in my previous letter to organize your party for traveling __ out the suburbs of Bombay city for collecting. Bombay mean __ So if you are anxious to collect large fund for our Vrindaban __ Bombay construction work and distribute many literatures ___ think is to stick to Bombay city and outlying districts ___ Poona, Thana, and others.
You say that the Clairidge Press owned by Susheel Somani has offered to print our Gujarati magazine free of charge, and then you say that the cost will be not more than Rupees 3,000/-. How it is costing so much when the work is being done without any charge?
I am in due receipt of your letter dated July 1, 1972, and I have noted the contents carefully. Dai Nippon has upped their price for Hindi BTG considerably, so it is better to print in Bombay just as you have done with Gujarati BTG. When you return to Bombay, you can try for this. Meanwhile, the manuscript is lying with Dai Nippon for next Hindi BTG, so they have quoted nearly 20 cents per copy or more than 2 rupees, so I think that it will be better to send the manuscript to Bombay. I shall await your advice before deciding the matter.
Regarding the plan by the Life Member to build one temple in Kashmir, yes, we are interested to help by managing it, and immediately we can send 25 members there. So you can submit our plan and he can build it accordingly.
Regarding Gujarati BTG, you can do as you see fit, either reprint the same issue, or print a new issue utilizing the Bengali blocks.
The Board of Trustees is approved by me. Regarding the Rs. 4,000 for paper for the Gujarati issue of Back to Godhead,, I have sent you already Rs. 70,000 and Rs. 29,000, whether that has been replaced? Then I will forward further sums. I have requested Satsvarupa to reimburse you immediately the Rs. 7,000 paid out for the Dallas and Detroit deities.
I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated September 30, 1972 and I have noted the contents carefully. Concerning your request for money for Hindi and Gujarati BTG's where is the money collected from the first editions. For any magazine published money should be collected and then republished. Accounts should be kept—money invested money collected. What is this that every time money is invested, then for a reprinting, more money has to be invested?
1973 Correspondence
Recently Mr. Brijmohan Mohata, along with his wife, niece and other family members, came to see me at Mayapur. He is very much pleased with our movement. He has given me one idea to educate our men in Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati for preaching work in the interior part of Bombay. I think it a good suggestion. If you are really serious in this matter you can immediately engage some of our men to learn these different languages. He has already given us a place to stay and for this proposal he will continue his patronage. So try to execute this part of our propaganda immediately.
The thing is Brahmananda Maharaj is having difficulty translating literature into the Gujarat language in Nairobi. There is a large Gujarati population there and he has had some of our literature translated by a non-devotee translator. You know well the havoc which can result if a nondevotee tries to give his interpretation of Krsna. Although Krsna understanding is very easy for those who are simple and submissive devotees, for the duratma, Krsna is very difficult. So if at all possible we want all our foreign language books to be translated by devotees. I think you are already working on Gujarati translations of our works, so please immediately correspond with Brahmananda Maharaj at our Nairobi center and offer your services as translator. Take this as a great responsibility and it will please me very much. I will be glad to hear your progress in this important matter.
1974 Correspondence
Now Krsna is sending you new devotees to help in India. Yasomatinandana is a good boy, now utilize him properly. We are planning that he can open a center in Surat and he will attract many Gujaratis. He is sincere, learned, enthusiastic and qualified. Keep him nicely engaged. He has left $7,000 with me for starting a center in Surat. This money I have deposited in the Mayapur-Vrindaban Fund and when I shall start a center in Surat I will draw from that fund. For our arriving devotees they should all be coming on student visas for learning Sanskrit and Hindi languages and thus they can stay for 3 years. I have arranged this with the Consulate General in New York for the student visas for our men.
If you are collecting money from Mr. Bajoria or any life members take it and send it to the construction fund at New Delhi, in the Punjab National Bank. As far as Mr. Somani, let him come here and I will be very glad to receive him. If he can supply us paper we can start a Back to Godhead magazine in Hindi and Gujarati.
Regarding your report on the marble, let us apply the best one, as indicated by you, even if it costs Rs 8 per square foot including labor. So make contract, take delivery of the stone and engage this man who is the same one doing the Birla Mandir. I have sent a check for Rs 23,000 to Tejyas in Delhi so there is no scarcity of money. This temple must be finished by the deadline. Work very swiftly keeping in view everything expertly and solidly.
Regarding Yasomatinandana's college programs, you should give him full facility for this preaching work. This should be very much encouraged. He is a good preacher in Gujarati and Hindi. Regarding engaging the men, it is required that nobody should sit idle.
It is very good that you are making life members daily locally instead of going to the city. Better to get sympathy in the neighborhood. As soon as they will see our activities, they will be very much pleased. You must keep in touch with them, that is their real complaint. It is a very big scheme. Hundreds of thousands will give for this scheme. Let them come in the evening, see kirtana, take prasada, and liberally contribute. They will feel releaved to contribute to such a good cause. Try to publish in Hindi and Gujarati our literature.
I have understood from Hamsaduta Prabhu that you are giving lectures in the temple. I have seen the column from the Gujarati newspaper and I am very pleased. Somebody must speak, and you have taken the task. I offer you my thanks. You are an elder disciple and you have heard what I am speaking, so you should just speak what you have heard and it will have potent effect. This is the power of the parampara, disciplic succession. So you must be prepared to meet all opposition because practically everyone is mayavadi. They do not have faith in Krishna's words in Bhagavad-gita. Therefore we have a great responsibility to present Krishna's words without any change. Please do the needful. Your speaking should be continued.
1975 Correspondence
I am writing this letter to inform you that I am now sending Bhagavata dasa brahmacari there to Fiji to be co-manager with your good self. This man is very experienced in the Gujarati communities. He has preached in Africa to the Gujaratis there in Kenya, Tansania, Zambia, etc. for over 3 years, as well as London and Gujarat. He is I think capable of working with you very nicely there. If you would be so kind as to send him a ticket from Bombay to Fiji, he can leave Bombay immediately upon arrival of the ticket. He is very eager to make Fiji an established Krishna Conscious center and to work with you co-operatively. Please send the ticket to his Christian name, Joseph M. Selvester, passport number Z1964356. He is waiting here in Bombay at our Hare Krishna Land. I think you can send the ticket by wire through one of the airlines there that has their branch office in Bombay.
I have asked them to invite all different categories of saintly persons and devotees to take part in the ceremony. I am very much thankful to your Holiness for your good wishes in the matter of my preaching work. Factually, it is all being done by the grace of Prabhupada and Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, otherwise it was not possible. Srila Prabhupada was very much fond of publishing books and he especially advised me to preach in English language. So, by his blessings, we have now about 30 big books of 400 pages and more than 20 small booklets in English and all of these books and booklets are being translated into French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Swahili, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Italian, etc.
I am in due receipt of your letter dated 27-4-75. The enclosure of the Gujarati paper clipping was received but I could not read the Gujarati language. I could although understand the purport of it. I have already decided to make a trust board for Hare Krishna Land in which there will be twelve trustees. Out of them seven will be Indians and five will be foreigners. Foreigners means, not only Americans, but members of the Commonwealth like England, New Zealand, Australia, etc. I have selected you also one of the trustees out of the Indians. I am reaching Bombay on the morning of the 5th instant, so kindly see me so that before leaving for Australia on the 6th I want to immediately make a document of trustees and get it signed by all concerned.
Since a long time, I did not hear from you. Hope you are all doing well with your business and family affairs. Recently, we have purchased one building at Berkeley and the Deities, I have understood are being removed by the 1st of July. I understood also that the Gujarati Vaisnavas there are not happy on account of the temple being moved to Berkeley. The San Francisco temple, not being situated in a nice quarter, they are trying to remove to somewhere else. Now they have got a Berkeley temple. It is not my policy to close any temple, but if there is inconvenience, we change the place. If we can get another nice house in San Francisco in good quarters, we can immediately re-open another temple in San Francisco. Sriman Citsukhananda das Adhikari is also enthusiastic in this connection, therefore, if your good self along with other Hindu Vaisnavas help us in this connection, it will be my pleasure to get another temple in San Francisco as soon as possible.
Regarding your idea for a Gujarati newspaper, no it is better to sell our Gujarati books. We shall print and sell our own books. Yes, you can open a restaurant in Edinburgh. Regarding Bharadraja, I have no objection to him coming. What is he doing in L.A.? Only on Sunday can you keep the Deity curtains open throughout the afternoon.
He is very pleased that you are distributing so many books. The American program for distributing books is very successful in this connection. So you collected $20,000 in one week. Now you are a rich man. We are also constructing the Bombay temple and the work has begun and if you so desire, you can send some contribution. Also we now have got Hindi and Gujarati publications. Do you require any for the Indians there? Now you are going to print the small Bhagavad-gita. One thing is if the people will get the small Bhagavad-gita at the cheap price, then will they want to purchase the bigger one? Will that be good? How will you distribute the bigger ones at the more expensive price when there is the cheaper one also available?
1976 Correspondence
Yes, I approve your distribution ideas, namely subscriber agents, news agents. The subscription drive is a solid program. And if you regularly publish and get registered, you can get a one or two paise charges (postal concession). All right, you may take advertisements. Go ahead and educate the public regarding our philosophy and ISKCON activities. Also in the future there are many cities such as Bombay, Surat, and Calcutta with large numbers of Gujaratis, you may arrange for getting subscriptions there. Gradually as you work there, you will get local men to join you.
I have been informed by Upendra das in Fiji Island that he wrote one letter similar to the enclosed letter herein and that one month has passed without any reply. What kind of management is this? So these things should be rectified immediately. There is good scope for distributing Gujarati and Hindi books in Fiji, but if there is mismanagement then what can be done. Please reply this letter to Upendra das and other such inquiries at once upon receipt.
Concerning the new bhakta program, unless one is educated, we should not admit anyone and everyone without discrimination. One who has got culture and education, he can be accepted. Yasomatinandana would be better to go to Bombay and do the Gujarati publications and from time to time he can organize programs in Ahmedabad. That will be better.
I am in due receipt of your new Gujarati magazine with enclosed letter dated June 28, 1976, and I thank you very much.
Your program in Ahmedabad is very encouraging. Do it. Why not take the government land immediately. If you can publish these magazines you will get many supporters and sympathizers. If the order department in Bombay is not despatching the orders on literature to the foreign temples then you can sometimes go to Bombay and organize things. You are one of the trustees. You can organize it or have some professional shipping agent do it. Ahmedabad is such a big city. Aren't there any shipping agents there? Why from Bombay, why not from Ahmedabad?
I am in receipt of your letter dated 19th inst. and copy of Gujarati magazine. It appears to be nice. So you have got a new house very suitable for our purpose; it is very nice. So try to purchase some land as soon as possible.
Regarding against propoganda, it is going on practically everywhere, especially Bengal. So we have to work very sincerely and Krishna will give us protection. The only hope, we can understand that demons are disturbed. That is quite natural.
Whatever Ramesvara and yourself will do, that is alright. Now you order huge quantity of Hindi and Gujarati books from our BBT office in Bombay. Distribute as much literature as possible, English, Hindi, and Gujarati. That is real preaching. Thank you very much.
I am very encouraged by your book distribution report as also your enthusiasm to publish my books in Gujarati. One thing, what is the reason no local men are joining? This is wanted. Then the center there will become strong.
| Page Title: | Gujarati |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, Mayapur |
| Created: | 19 of Dec, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=1, Lec=5, Con=99, Let=40 |
| No. of Quotes: | 145 |