Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated June 2, 1969, and I have noted the contents. I understand that you are feeling some inconvenience due to police interruption, but we have to make the best of a bad bargain. There is a Sanskrit proverb, sati shatyam samacharit, and this means if somebody is cunning, we must also become cunning. To a cunning person we must not be a simpleton. Krishna Conscious devotees are expected to be very intelligent, so we have to work very intelligently to prove our advancement in Krishna Consciousness. I think you should keep a table by the Sankirtana Party, a table with a charity box and our books and literatures for sale. You go on with your work as usual and when the police come you say you are not canvassing. You have simply kept a table and whoever wishes to purchase may do so. This is called sati shatyam samacharit.
Regarding the Beatle hero, certainly you will find him nonsense. Actually they are nonsense, but in the Western part of the world it is a folly to be wise, and ignorance is bliss. This whole material civilization is gross ignorance, and therefore you cannot expect very intelligent persons in this part of the world. Even though one is a great philosopher, writer, or something like that, it does not qualify him to be one of the selected intelligent persons who take to Krishna Consciousness. There is another proverb in Bengali that in the forest a jackal is considered to be a great nobility because he is very cunning. Similarly, in the materialistic way of life everyone is blind, and in spite of thousands of big blind leaders, the followers who are also blind cannot get any tangible benefit. So you have done your duty to give him some impression about Krishna Consciousness. That is all right. We should not waste much of our time with these so-called leaders because they are jackals in the forest. They are not actually leaders. The only leader is Krishna and one who is Krishna Conscious. Others are simply misleaders.