Rāmeśvara: ...from our public relations firm. She's assisting us in arranging for these interviews. We were just meeting with Wanda and telling her a little bit about how you began the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement here in America.
Interviewer: Well, perhaps you could continue where they left off. Could you tell me why you came to the United States in 1965. Did you feel that this was a mission that you had to fulfill?
Prabhupāda: Yes, not only United States, but everywhere people do not know what is spiritual life. They have no knowledge how to develop spiritual life, although it is... The only business of human form of life is to understand spiritual life.
Interviewer: Are you retiring now?
Prabhupāda: I'm always retired. I began this movement in my retirement.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda said he was always retired, and he began... After retiring, he began this movement.
Prabhupāda: What do you mean by retired life?
Interviewer: I mean are you giving up your position as spiritual leader?
Rāmeśvara: She means now you are going back to India. Does that mean you are retiring from traveling all over the world preaching?
Prabhupāda: No, she said that spiritual life... "What do you mean by spiri...?"
Hari-śauri: Spiritual leader of the movement.
Rāmeśvara: Managing and everything.
Prabhupāda: So why you are asking this question.
Interviewer: Well, I'm curious.
Prabhupāda: No, why you are curious about this? Whether I am retiring or not, that is...
Interviewer: What's the reason I'm curious? Ah, because we're trying to, at Newsweek, develop and try to understand what the trends are in religion, all types of religion, whether it be Christianity, Catholicism, Evangelicism...
Prabhupāda: Spiritual life is never retired. It is eternal. There is no question of retire.
Interviewer: I was wondering whether perhaps you would personally take a less active role.
Prabhupāda: No, I am not taking any very great active part. They are doing. I am simply reading.
Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda is saying that the disciples are working so hard.
Interviewer: Oh, I see.
Rāmeśvara: But I was explaining to her that you are traveling all over the world, visiting your centers, and at the same time writing so many books.
Prabhupāda: That may be lessened. That may be lessened, but that does not mean retirement.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He may not travel as much, but that doesn't mean retiring from spiritual life, because spiritual life goes on continuously at all times...
Interviewer: I didn't mean that he was retiring from spiritual life.
Hari-śauri: From management.
Bali-mardana: His main work is his books, so he'll continue that.
Interviewer: I was wondering if he had a successor to do... Do you have a successor to take your place when you die?
Prabhupāda: Not yet settled up. Not yet settled up.
Interviewer: So what process would the Hare Kṛṣṇas...?
Prabhupāda: We have got secretaries. They are managing.
Rāmeśvara: He has appointed from all the disciples a group of secretaries. Each one is in charge of a different sector of the world.
Interviewer: How many secretaries?
Rāmeśvara: Presently there is eighteen.
Interviewer: And so that group of eighteen secretaries will choose another leader?
Prabhupāda: I am training each one of them as leader so that they can spread extensively. That is my idea.
Interviewer: So, in other words, you started this whole movement here in the United States ten years ago. Would you say that the United States had the most active, financially, group of followers.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Rāmeśvara: She wants to know, seeing you chose the United States to begin this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement ten years ago, now do you find that in the United States there is the most active membership financially speaking. In terms of contributing to this movement, supporting the movement, is the best field America?
Prabhupāda: No, without finance we can go on.
Rāmeśvara: Without finance we can go on.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Interviewer: Oh, we can go on?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Interviewer: How?
Prabhupāda: Caitanya Mahāprabhu did not have any financial help, but His movement is going on. It does not depend on a..., on financial. It is independent. Spiritual movement is independent of any material help. That is spiritual movement.
Interviewer: But how would you be able to carry out your educational or book publishing program if you did not have a financial backing?
Prabhupāda: How I am managing now?
Interviewer: But now you are doing well financially.
Prabhupāda: You are stressing on financial help but my reply is that this movement does not depend on financial help. That is the reply.
Bali-mardana: In the beginning...
Prabhupāda: Any time, it does not depend on financial help.
Interviewer: Why would you say you were doing so well?
Rāmeśvara: We don't tithe our members. In other words, our congregations do not pay dues. We are depending on Kṛṣṇa. We're simply trying to print books, and we show them to people, and then Kṛṣṇa inspires them to purchase or give a contribution. It's not that we have people making large contributions or a congregation that pays dues.
Interviewer: So where does most of your money come from?
Rāmeśvara: She wants to know where most of our money comes from.
Prabhupāda: Money comes from Kṛṣṇa.
Interviewer: From where?
Rāmeśvara: Kṛṣṇa.
Interviewer: Ah, Rāmeśvara, maybe if Prabhupāda just told how, in the first year how the books were sold, before there was this publishing. There was a time in which there was just a storefront. How were these books sold in the very beginning?
Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda personally went to the printer in Japan. He personally made the arrangement with the printer, the first printing.
Interviewer: But how did he sell his first book in America?
Hari-śauri: On the boat to the ship's captain.
Interviewer: There was a process...
Prabhupāda: I mean to say, "What is our financial arrangement?" Why these questions are being raised? This is not interview about the movement. They are very much interested about our financial help.
Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda's observing that they are very interested in our financial backing.
Interviewer: What do you think about some of the other gurus, if you will, since you are yourself considered a guru? Do you study anybody else?
Prabhupāda: These answers you can give.
Bali-mardana: :She said what do you think about the other gurus.
Prabhupāda: Why shall I think of other gurus?
Bali-mardana: He does not study them.
Prabhupāda: Why shall I think of other gurus? "Oil your own machine." (laughter)